Think Least of Death: Spinoza on How to Live and How to Die

by Steven Nadler

Overview

From Pulitzer Prize-finalist Steven Nadler, an engaging guide to what Spinoza can teach us about life’s big questions

In 1656, after being excommunicated from Amsterdam’s Portuguese-Jewish community for “abominable heresies” and “monstrous deeds,” the young Baruch Spinoza abandoned his family’s import business to dedicate his life to philosophy. He quickly became notorious across Europe for his views on God, the Bible, and miracles, as well as for his uncompromising defense of free thought. Yet the radicalism of Spinoza’s views has long obscured that his primary reason for turning to philosophy was to answer one of humanity’s most urgent questions: How can we lead a good life and enjoy happiness in a world without a providential God? In Think Least of Death, Pulitzer Prize–finalist Steven Nadler connects Spinoza’s ideas with his life and times to offer a compelling account of how the philosopher can provide a guide to living one’s best life.

In the Ethics, Spinoza presents his vision of the ideal human being, the “free person” who, motivated by reason, lives a life of joy devoted to what is most important—improving oneself and others. Untroubled by passions such as hate, greed, and envy, free people treat others with benevolence, justice, and charity. Focusing on the rewards of goodness, they enjoy the pleasures of this world, but in moderation. “The free person thinks least of all of death,” Spinoza writes, “and his wisdom is a meditation not on death but on life."

An unmatched introduction to Spinoza’s moral philosophy, Think Least of Death shows how his ideas still provide valuable insights about how to live today.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780691233956
Publisher:	Princeton University Press
Publication date:	05/10/2022
Pages:	248
Sales rank:	204,969
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Steven Nadler is Vilas Research Professor and the William H. Hay II Professor of Philosophy at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. His many books include Rembrandt’s Jews, which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, Spinoza: A Life, and (with Lawrence Shapiro) When Bad Thinking Happens to Good People: How Philosophy Can Save Us from Ourselves (Princeton).

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments vii

Abbreviations ix

1 "A New Way of Life" 1

2 A Model of Human Nature 13

3 The Free Person 33

4 Virtue and Happiness 60

5 From Pride to Self-Esteem 75

6 Fortitude 96

7 Honesty 117

8 Benevolence and Friendship 131

9 Suicide 157

10 Death 172

11 The Right Way of Living 186

Notes 203

Bibliography 227

Index 233

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“Spinoza always has more to teach us, and Steven Nadler is among the best in laying out the riches of Spinoza’s thought in ways both accessible and inspiring.”—Rebecca Newberger Goldstein, author of Plato at the Googleplex: Why Philosophy Won’t Go Away

“Think Least of Death is a lively, engaging, and enjoyable introduction to Spinoza’s moral philosophy. Steven Nadler, a gifted writer, has produced a stimulating account of Spinoza’s answer to the question of what makes a good human life.”—Clare Carlisle, author of Philosopher of the Heart: The Restless Life of Søren Kierkegaard

“Steven Nadler sheds new light on Spinoza by taking him seriously as a moral philosopher. Particularly impressive is the way Nadler highlights Spinoza’s surprising and often overlooked contributions to traditional ethical subjects, such as death and suicide.”—Matthew J. Kisner, author of Spinoza on Human Freedom

Editorial Reviews

"As an accessible introduction to the complex thought of Spinoza, it is a success."—-Jeffrey Collins, Wall Street Journal

"If you want to become a better person, you ought to study the philosophy of Baruch Spinoza. That at least is the message of Steven Nadler’s delightful new book."—-Jonathan Rée, Literary Review

From the Publisher

"Aiming to extract life lessons from the philosophy of Spinoza, this vibrant study focusses on the concept of ‘homo liber,’ or the free person, a supremely rational figure continually striving for power and virtue. . . . Spinoza’s work serves as a hopeful, timely statement of what the truth-seeking individual can accomplish."

New Yorker

2020-06-03
A guide to the good life, courtesy of Baruch Spinoza via modern philosopher Nadler.

Spinoza, a Sephardic Jew who lived in Holland in the 17th century, had no use for the deity as an imaginary being, less so as one who takes an interest in the daily affairs of human beings. “Such a divinity is a superstitious fiction, he claims, grounded in the irrational passions of human beings who daily suffer the vicissitudes of nature,” writes Nadler, whose 1999 biography of Spinoza won the Koret Jewish Book Award. Furthermore, teleology is out: There is no purpose to nature, no end to which it directs human beings. So why bother? Spinoza proposes a different view of human well-being, in which nature is perfect and humans should strive for perfection, exercising “adequate,” fully developed ideas in order to attain a certain kind of power. “A tree is striving to be a maximally powerful tree,” writes Nadler, “and a giraffe is striving to be a maximally powerful giraffe.” Humans should do the same. This idea has led some to consider Spinoza an “egoist,” but it really insists that a wholly realized human being is free only to the extent that that human exercises reason and “want[s] nothing for themselves that they do not desire for other men.” This implies a responsibility, Nadler adds, for the rational person to “strive to improve” the people around them, leading them to the realization that what is good contributes to “the power and perfection of the intellect.” By Nadler’s lights, this does make Spinoza a “psychological egoist.” It doesn’t rule out the possibility of altruism, but it is also a drive for self-interested knowledge, which includes the realization that life ends in death, a fact that is important to acknowledge.

A helpful explication of the early modern philosopher’s ideas about ethics, the afterlife, and human nature.

Kirkus Reviews