The Spinoza Problem

by Irvin D. Yalom

“And? Go further, Bento—what function does explanation serve?” “Explanation soothes. It relieves the anguish of uncertainty. Ancient man wanted to persist, was fearful of death, helpless against much in his environment, and explanation provided the sense, or at least the illusion, of control. He concluded that if all that occurs is...

that the pursuit of reason is my raison d’être.”

“Once you told me that reason is no match for passion and that our only way of freeing ourselves from passion is to turn reason into a passion.”

“Aha, I think I know what you may be implying—that I have so transformed reason that it is at times indistinguishable from unreason.” “Exactly. I’ve noticed that your anger and ill-tempered accusations emerge only when reason is threatened.”

“Reason and freedom both,” a...

let me say yet once again that it is not my intent to change Judaism. It is my hope that a vital dedication to reason should eradicate all religions, including Judaism.”

Spinoza was buried under the flagstones inside the Nieuwe Kerk, causing many to assume that he had undergone a late conversion to Christianity. Yet, given Spinoza’s sentiment that “the notion

Many times the court described him as the leading ideologue of the Nazi Party, the man who drew the blueprint of European destruction, and Rosenberg never once denied these charges.

The executions were set for early morning on October 16, 1946. After the sentencing, a military guard stood outside each cell observing the prisoner around the clock through a small opening in the cell door. On the day before the executions the defendants could hear the sounds of hammering as three gallows were constructed in the prison courtyard.

After all, as André Gide said, “History is fiction that did happen. Fiction is history that might have happened.”

I am especially indebted to philosophers Rebecca Goldstein and Steven Nadler for their generous mentorship. My conversations with Rebecca and her remarkable work, Betraying Spinoza, were extraordinarily helpful in my understanding of Spinoza. Steven’s biographical and other works on Spinoza were also indispensable.