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The Giants of Philosophy
Baruch Spinoza: The Netherlands
In The Giants of Philosophy collection, you'll survey 13 of the world's greatest philosophers (plus others who worked with or against them). You'll see how each philosopher created a complete and coherent system of thought, including their views on ethics, metaphysics, politics, and esthetics. You'll learn about their epistemology -- how we know what we know. And you'll learn how each thinker related to his times and to the work of other philosophers over the centuries.The sophisticated, complex, and subtle ideas of great philosophers are now available in a dramatized format that entertains and informs. Yet like all Knowledge Products productions, the full substance and content of these ideas are presented in clear and understandable language. Each presentation invites the intelligent listener to ponder the great ideas without struggling through an academic or simplified writing style.
Each presentation in The Giants of Philosophy is sensitively and intelligently narrated by Charlton Heston, one of America's most respected actors. Known for his rich voice and dramatic acting skills, Mr. Heston makes your journey through the history of philosophy both compelling and provocative.
Each presentation in The Giants of Philosophy is sensitively and intelligently narrated by Charlton Heston, one of America's most respected actors. Known for his rich voice and dramatic acting skills, Mr. Heston makes your journey through the history of philosophy both compelling and provocative.
3 pages, Audio Cassette
First published January 1, 1994
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 31 reviews
August 25, 2022
The views of this god-intoxicated philosopher, Baruch Spinoza, are invaluable. His contribution to Western philosophy is very systematic. He believed that possessions or attachments to people or things might vitiate the understanding of the truth. He gave preference to asceticism and austere life. He is deliberately poor.
April 29, 2019
Reflecting on the known science of his day, Spinoza developed a sophisticated philosophical worldview. With a few tweaks, it is contemporary.
The world consists of one substance, which he calls “God” (in what seems like a deistic sense, but today might be called the Tao or energy). It’s the infinity of substance. Infinity means it is not limited by something else. It is timeless and causeless. “God’s” presence is not external and independent; it is everywhere and manifested in all things. It operates deterministically according to its own laws that “just are.” There is no overarching purpose in general, or in particular as applied to human life.
As expressions of this “God-in-all-things” reality, humans do not have free will. They too operate deterministically. We may think that mind is separate from the body and provides its own source of causation, but Spinoza has us as a single body-mind substance. We think we are free but that’s only because we are unaware of the deeper reasons for making the choices we do. “We are conscious of our choices,” he says, but we are “ignorant of what moves us.” Ultimately, we are biological beings who are focused on our own survival (our “physical integrity,” “the persistence of our being”). We seek that which brings us pleasure and avoid that which gives us pain. Good and bad have no external, objective standing. Rather, they reflect the subjective standard of what is good and bad for the self.
For most humans, emotions are those “inner promptings” that move us to engage in the world the way we do. In this taped lecture series, Spinoza doesn’t overcomplicate. We are seekers, prompted by desire in its various forms. When we are successful, we derive pleasure, which is joy in its various forms. When we are not successful, we have pain, which is sadness in its various forms. All other emotions are iterations of these. Love is what we like, which is joy; hate is what we don’t like, which is sadness.
Mind is the way we go about our business of seeking pleasure and avoiding pain. We “see” the world through our senses that expresse our disposition, which is the inclination to seek and defend in our own particular ways. But, in general, humankind is focused on the here and now pleasures in our social, political and business life, seeking riches, fame, honor, food, sex. These provide momentary pleasure that must be recharged, “fed,” regularly, but these often come at the expense of our longer-term and broader interests.
For the less disciplined, the mind serves the passions as Hume later observed and that mind and is a product of imagination. Since passions get us into trouble, we employ reason and understanding to control these them. A person we formerly hated we might see is not bad after all. So we love instead. We love our enemies to bring about harmony. We don’t hate because of the disharmony that would ensue. Like geometric laws, we can deductively figure out what’s good and bad overall and make our bodily passions conform. When we lose a good that is beyond our control, we do not suffer sadness because it could not have been otherwise.
The highest form of knowledge is intuition. Here we can lift ourselves up to see “God” as the unified whole and our part in it. This is that Tao-like consciousness where we can see disharmony when we depart from the laws of nature and the harmony that comes from conforming to them. This is where we achieve pure freedom because we no longer go against the grain of the way things are. By being in sync with God, and being free as God is free, we are in a state of blessedness. It’s an intellectual love. We are in a “thoughtful union with God.”
Spinoza’s philosophical worldview could be easily modernized. “God” has too much baggage today. There’s too much of the “agent” in that notion as opposed to say, the Tao or Schopenhauer’s Will. Geometric deduction is no longer the scientific standard, versus say, Einstein’s curved space and the Einstein-spawned world of the quanta. Spinoza's treatment of emotions is a relief to see, given the out-of-control theories seen today. Spinoza reduces primary emotional phenomena to three (desire, joy and sadness). If one adds fear to this mix, I think the theory is complete. There are two active states – seeking-desire and fear-avoiding -- and two inactive states – pleasure when there’s success and pain when there’s not.
The tape refers to Spinoza as the philosopher of psychoanalysis. That strikes me as an overstatement. Spinoza is first and foremost a rational man who believes he knows what is right and directs the body to follow. But like the Stoics, Spinoza denies emotions by a mental act that reconciles itself to situations that are out of the self’s control. Thus, with the loss of a loved one due to no fault of our own, we deny grief because death is “in the nature of things.” This is problematic. Loss is real, and sadness is a repository of negative energy that needs to be expressed, not repressed. Similarly, Spinoza sees an overarching good (“blessed harmony”) and expects the mind can direct the body to follow. It depends on the underlying character that’s involved. Spinoza ignores motive which comes from inner character. If we are motivated to serve our immediate bodily passions, what would motivate us to deny them and sacrifice ourselves to something other? Spinoza correctly states that only another emotion can control our emotions, but if we want to serve ourselves, where’s the higher motivation to not do so? Then self-control is useless from the perspective of something higher, and this means that external oversight and regulation on behalf of the whole is necessary.
Spinoza, the rational man, leans heavily against emotion. They are the unruly passions and, unfortunately, this view is reflected today throughout Western culture. Some emotions are unruly, many are not. Spinoza misses out on those positive social emotions that induce us to act on behalf of the harmony he sees. This is what makes us sympathetic, loving, cooperative, self-sacrificing, respectful, loyal beings. Spinoza is focused on the hot-blooded emotions that create disharmony or have bad outcomes for ourselves. But emotions are prompted by values, and include those various motive forces that make us other-regarding, immediately, broadly and over the long-term.
This tape does an excellent job of laying out Spinoza’s theory of emotions, unlike Spinoza’s own writings on the subject that I found hard to understand. Though I don’t think about Charlton Heston, the tape’s narrator, as a philosopher, his voice and mode of presentation was perfect.
The world consists of one substance, which he calls “God” (in what seems like a deistic sense, but today might be called the Tao or energy). It’s the infinity of substance. Infinity means it is not limited by something else. It is timeless and causeless. “God’s” presence is not external and independent; it is everywhere and manifested in all things. It operates deterministically according to its own laws that “just are.” There is no overarching purpose in general, or in particular as applied to human life.
As expressions of this “God-in-all-things” reality, humans do not have free will. They too operate deterministically. We may think that mind is separate from the body and provides its own source of causation, but Spinoza has us as a single body-mind substance. We think we are free but that’s only because we are unaware of the deeper reasons for making the choices we do. “We are conscious of our choices,” he says, but we are “ignorant of what moves us.” Ultimately, we are biological beings who are focused on our own survival (our “physical integrity,” “the persistence of our being”). We seek that which brings us pleasure and avoid that which gives us pain. Good and bad have no external, objective standing. Rather, they reflect the subjective standard of what is good and bad for the self.
For most humans, emotions are those “inner promptings” that move us to engage in the world the way we do. In this taped lecture series, Spinoza doesn’t overcomplicate. We are seekers, prompted by desire in its various forms. When we are successful, we derive pleasure, which is joy in its various forms. When we are not successful, we have pain, which is sadness in its various forms. All other emotions are iterations of these. Love is what we like, which is joy; hate is what we don’t like, which is sadness.
Mind is the way we go about our business of seeking pleasure and avoiding pain. We “see” the world through our senses that expresse our disposition, which is the inclination to seek and defend in our own particular ways. But, in general, humankind is focused on the here and now pleasures in our social, political and business life, seeking riches, fame, honor, food, sex. These provide momentary pleasure that must be recharged, “fed,” regularly, but these often come at the expense of our longer-term and broader interests.
For the less disciplined, the mind serves the passions as Hume later observed and that mind and is a product of imagination. Since passions get us into trouble, we employ reason and understanding to control these them. A person we formerly hated we might see is not bad after all. So we love instead. We love our enemies to bring about harmony. We don’t hate because of the disharmony that would ensue. Like geometric laws, we can deductively figure out what’s good and bad overall and make our bodily passions conform. When we lose a good that is beyond our control, we do not suffer sadness because it could not have been otherwise.
The highest form of knowledge is intuition. Here we can lift ourselves up to see “God” as the unified whole and our part in it. This is that Tao-like consciousness where we can see disharmony when we depart from the laws of nature and the harmony that comes from conforming to them. This is where we achieve pure freedom because we no longer go against the grain of the way things are. By being in sync with God, and being free as God is free, we are in a state of blessedness. It’s an intellectual love. We are in a “thoughtful union with God.”
Spinoza’s philosophical worldview could be easily modernized. “God” has too much baggage today. There’s too much of the “agent” in that notion as opposed to say, the Tao or Schopenhauer’s Will. Geometric deduction is no longer the scientific standard, versus say, Einstein’s curved space and the Einstein-spawned world of the quanta. Spinoza's treatment of emotions is a relief to see, given the out-of-control theories seen today. Spinoza reduces primary emotional phenomena to three (desire, joy and sadness). If one adds fear to this mix, I think the theory is complete. There are two active states – seeking-desire and fear-avoiding -- and two inactive states – pleasure when there’s success and pain when there’s not.
The tape refers to Spinoza as the philosopher of psychoanalysis. That strikes me as an overstatement. Spinoza is first and foremost a rational man who believes he knows what is right and directs the body to follow. But like the Stoics, Spinoza denies emotions by a mental act that reconciles itself to situations that are out of the self’s control. Thus, with the loss of a loved one due to no fault of our own, we deny grief because death is “in the nature of things.” This is problematic. Loss is real, and sadness is a repository of negative energy that needs to be expressed, not repressed. Similarly, Spinoza sees an overarching good (“blessed harmony”) and expects the mind can direct the body to follow. It depends on the underlying character that’s involved. Spinoza ignores motive which comes from inner character. If we are motivated to serve our immediate bodily passions, what would motivate us to deny them and sacrifice ourselves to something other? Spinoza correctly states that only another emotion can control our emotions, but if we want to serve ourselves, where’s the higher motivation to not do so? Then self-control is useless from the perspective of something higher, and this means that external oversight and regulation on behalf of the whole is necessary.
Spinoza, the rational man, leans heavily against emotion. They are the unruly passions and, unfortunately, this view is reflected today throughout Western culture. Some emotions are unruly, many are not. Spinoza misses out on those positive social emotions that induce us to act on behalf of the harmony he sees. This is what makes us sympathetic, loving, cooperative, self-sacrificing, respectful, loyal beings. Spinoza is focused on the hot-blooded emotions that create disharmony or have bad outcomes for ourselves. But emotions are prompted by values, and include those various motive forces that make us other-regarding, immediately, broadly and over the long-term.
This tape does an excellent job of laying out Spinoza’s theory of emotions, unlike Spinoza’s own writings on the subject that I found hard to understand. Though I don’t think about Charlton Heston, the tape’s narrator, as a philosopher, his voice and mode of presentation was perfect.
July 17, 2021
This audio book by Thomas Cook, narrated by Charlton Heston, was my first introduction to the pioneering philosopher Baruch Spinoza. The narration was exquisite, and the story was compelling and informational.
For more of my thoughts on this book, see Getting to Know Baruch Spinoza.
For more of my thoughts on this book, see Getting to Know Baruch Spinoza.
September 6, 2021
Very basic discussion of Spinoza’s thoughts. How many read and think; Monk?
Environment is God, God is Nature and man is part of Nature.
Environment is God, God is Nature and man is part of Nature.
October 4, 2020
It’s fascinating how much Spinoza’s Philosophy shares with the Philosophies of the Stoics, the Spiritual Teachings of Eastern Religions and the Physical Theories of Today’s Science. Maybe Knowledge is One after all.
We have much to learn from this 17th Century Genius. Four Stars!
Rereading in 2023:
Every once in a while it’s good to spend some time with a Great Philosopher getting his head around the Great Ideas, trying to answer The Big Questions: the Nature of God, Good, Evil, Happiness, etc.
It’s amazing how those questions still go unanswered and for most of our daily thoughts, still go unasked. Centuries have passed since Spinoza wrestled with them and we continue to fight over his answers.
Getting back to The Basics ain’t a bad use of a couple of hours. Four Stars. ****
We have much to learn from this 17th Century Genius. Four Stars!
Rereading in 2023:
Every once in a while it’s good to spend some time with a Great Philosopher getting his head around the Great Ideas, trying to answer The Big Questions: the Nature of God, Good, Evil, Happiness, etc.
It’s amazing how those questions still go unanswered and for most of our daily thoughts, still go unasked. Centuries have passed since Spinoza wrestled with them and we continue to fight over his answers.
Getting back to The Basics ain’t a bad use of a couple of hours. Four Stars. ****
January 20, 2022
My rating is a fresh, first-blush reaction, not to the ideas themselves but rather the presentation of the ideas. It was my introduction to Spinoza, and surely I would have been far more perplexed in grasping his philosophies without a bit of handholding. Still, I urge to take a stab at his direct work. A glutton for punishment I am! Surely head-on these ideas will cross my eyes. There was already a lot of that in this summation. Oh, boy! My major take away is the notion that God and nature are one and that man has crafted a narrative of a personified God based more on man’s desires than man’s — and nature’s — realities.
January 28, 2022
fantastic intro, overview, context and analysis
October 14, 2025
The narration of Baruch Spinoza narrated by Charlton Heston is a curious experience. Charlton Heston has that classic, powerful voice that commands your attention. The audiobook tries to mimic the tone and style of a historical lecture. At first, this feels fresh and engaging, like Spinoza himself is giving a TED Talk from the 1600s. But after a while, the performance starts to feel a little theatrical.
The Excommunication
His community in Amsterdam officially cast him out. The decree was vicious, cursing him by day and cursing him by night. It was not just a spiritual dismissal. It was a social and economic death sentence, cutting him off from his family, his friends, and his entire community. He was only twenty three. To stand by an idea with that much conviction, at that age, and to pay such a high price for it, is just staggering.
I have listened to Spinoza's ideas before, but they always seem to fade over time, like mist after sunrise. Even though he argued for freedom of thought and criticized religious authority, I often find him using religious language especially the word "God". It feels as if he is trying to sneak radical ideas past the censors by dressing them in theological robes. Still, there is something quietly rebellious about him, like a philosopher whispering truth through stained glass.
The Big Idea
Spinoza's main theme is that everything is part of one substance God, nature, the universe, all rolled into one. Basically, you are not separate from the cosmos, you are a tiny ripple in its eternal wave. And it is not a personal god who listens to prayers, but more like the ultimate, logical substance of reality itself.
He was not surrendering to religion. He was doing something far more radical. He was redefining God so completely that it made the organized religion of his day irrelevant. He was saying you do not need a church or a priest, you just need reason and to understand the natural world. That is God.
I know I will need to listen to this audiobook several more times to really grasp Spinoza's ideas. They are dense, layered, and sometimes slippery. But they are worth the effort.
The Excommunication
His community in Amsterdam officially cast him out. The decree was vicious, cursing him by day and cursing him by night. It was not just a spiritual dismissal. It was a social and economic death sentence, cutting him off from his family, his friends, and his entire community. He was only twenty three. To stand by an idea with that much conviction, at that age, and to pay such a high price for it, is just staggering.
I have listened to Spinoza's ideas before, but they always seem to fade over time, like mist after sunrise. Even though he argued for freedom of thought and criticized religious authority, I often find him using religious language especially the word "God". It feels as if he is trying to sneak radical ideas past the censors by dressing them in theological robes. Still, there is something quietly rebellious about him, like a philosopher whispering truth through stained glass.
The Big Idea
Spinoza's main theme is that everything is part of one substance God, nature, the universe, all rolled into one. Basically, you are not separate from the cosmos, you are a tiny ripple in its eternal wave. And it is not a personal god who listens to prayers, but more like the ultimate, logical substance of reality itself.
He was not surrendering to religion. He was doing something far more radical. He was redefining God so completely that it made the organized religion of his day irrelevant. He was saying you do not need a church or a priest, you just need reason and to understand the natural world. That is God.
I know I will need to listen to this audiobook several more times to really grasp Spinoza's ideas. They are dense, layered, and sometimes slippery. But they are worth the effort.
August 19, 2021
While some of Spinoza's ideas are derivative,(for example the concept of the 'infinite and self causal substance' is a rehash of Aristotle's unmoved mover) I can see the appeal of his perspective. If God exists, not in the abrahamic sense but as a personification of natural order, then people are a part of God just as a tree or celestial bodies are. In this perspective, determinism is real and therefore choice is an illusion. It makes sense that this perspective would lend itself to avoiding negative emotions towards the actions of others or the circumstances of existence in general.
By saying God does not have emotions and is incapable of reciprocating human love, I can see how he alienated theologists and was labeled dangerous and atheistic.
Personally I don't believe in determinism or the mind. I believe only in the physical structure of the brain that generates a narrative of self. The rest is chaos
By saying God does not have emotions and is incapable of reciprocating human love, I can see how he alienated theologists and was labeled dangerous and atheistic.
Personally I don't believe in determinism or the mind. I believe only in the physical structure of the brain that generates a narrative of self. The rest is chaos
February 24, 2022
Well... I read Spinoza many years ago and found it terribly boring. I found this summary very much better. They explain why it is so difficult to understand Spinoza, but once one understands a proper baseline of definitions and the structure of the arguments then it makes it easier to understand. So I am convinced to return to Spinoza to see if I can understand more.
I will probably read/listen to this audiobook again.
I will probably read/listen to this audiobook again.
November 7, 2017
Spinoza approached philosophy in a very mathematical way, forming all of his ethics in a Euclidian geometrical proof-like method with postulates, axioms, and the proofs that follow therein. He didn’t take anything for granted and derived all of his ideals. Very interesting approach to philosophy.
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December 16, 2022This was very enjoyable, perhaps because Spinoza's impact is easily felt in the modern age or perhaps because a fair portion of his ideas are less esoteric than other philosophers. As with other entries in this series, the presentation of the ideas was fine and it seems a solid starting point.
January 18, 2023
Spinoza's philosophy has a low error rate. With analyses amongst metaphysics, aesthetics, epistemology and ethics; which balance out rather well with few, if any contradictions. With one mishap: basing his substrate of nature - God.... A new terminology would have sufficed immaculately.
November 28, 2023
This is an introduction to the thought of Baruch Spinoza. I found his philosophy to be good food for thought though I do not agree with his idea that God cannot love us. Too much of my traditional Christian faith is based on the love of God for us.
August 10, 2019
Love a good weirdo who does what he likes no matter what other people think. 6/10 would bang if i was 10 schooners deep
November 15, 2019
A surprisingly good introduction to spinoza's life and work
January 16, 2020
Helpful intro into Spinoza's thinking. (Remarkable to consider his rationalist theories in light of current philosophical advances.)
January 17, 2021
Extremely narrow focus since it is so short. But as a simple overview of Spinoza’s philosophy of religion, this is well done
January 23, 2021
Short, but a good intro to Spinoza with an overview of both his life and thinking. Now onto something deeper.....
September 22, 2021
Great overview to Spinoza's life and thoughts.
October 28, 2022
An great concise commentary on Spinoza.
February 9, 2023
This does an excellent job of weaving the biographical information with the philosophical discussion.
October 24, 2024
Long Wikipedia article with silly voices.
October 18, 2025
A brief introduction.
March 20, 2026
Okay to Decent, but the very over done fake accents detracted from the audiobook.
August 18, 2019
Good summary.
June 23, 2011
I find Baruch Spinoza to be one of the most fascinating of philosophers, although I have come to know about him almost by accident. His story first was summarized for me in outline in Rembrandt's Jews, a book I admit I sought out more out of curiosity about Rembrandt than about Spinoza, and more entranced with the author's name than with Spinoza's, but I willingly return to the philosopher's tale again here. It's unusual for me to be so drawn to the life story of a philosopher, but the more I learn of Spinoza, whose ideas were considered so radical that he was excommunicated from the Portuguese Jewish community of Amsterdam, the more I want to know.
March 10, 2013
Gives a brief overview of Spinoza's up bringing and formative years and then delves into the philosophy he espoused in his writings. Poets loved him and religious leaders despised him. Atheist, pantheists, and deeply religious believers have all tried to claim him as their own. Though he speaks of God he seems to be talking more of the God of Einstein and Hawking. He Attacked scripture and made the argument that they were just morals to live by only and not divine. The book then covers his theories of modes of thought including Imagination, reason, and intuition. A significant amount of incite on Spinoza in such a small volume.
August 7, 2014
used audiobook
March 3, 2021
An interesting perspectives on the essence of peace. Touching on scientific, philosophical, and spiritual view points.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 31 reviews