Benedict de Spinoza (1632-77) and
"Pantheistic Monism." Spinoza is the Dutch philosopher who is the founder of the Spinozistic or Naturalistic School of philosophy. He is, as Bertrand Russell described him, "the noblest and most lovable of the great philosophers." Spinoza was born in Holland of Jewish parents. He was to receive from his parents a "fine education," with a thorough grounding in such subjects as Latin and physics; further, he studied the philosophies of Descartes and Bruno . As a young man, Spinoza renounced his allegiance to his Jewish ancestry. Spinoza supported himself by grinding and polishing lenses, an occupation which eventually led to his early demise (glass dust in his lungs). As a pantheistic monist, Spinoza was of the belief that there is no dualism Spinoza's most important work was entitled Ethics , published about a year after his death. To Spinoza, the guiding goal of man is self-preservation, it is an instinct which we feel in the emotion of desire. To satisfy desire is conducive to self-preservation, it brings joy or pleasure; anything to the contrary brings sorrow or pain. All of this, however, is overlaid with reason which we might use to override our passions, it is what distinguishes us from the "lower" brutes. (Virtue may, thus, be defined as acting according to reason.) The mental capacity to reason is naturally available to all. Reason is a powerful instrument by which one is able to guide one's life. Each of us has a capacity to reason, and, so, therefore, Spinoza was of the belief that each of us might, on our own, conclude that life in a governed community, - the state - might be helpful to curb anti-social passions: Spinoza picked up on Hobbes' contract theory, though he was not as sure as
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