Level:
Master's Course Status:
Elective CEU credits:
2 Academic year:
2010/2011 Semester:
Fall Start and end dates:
23 Aug 2010 Stream/Track/Specialization/Core Area:
Culture, Religion and Intellectual History in a Comparative Perspective CEU Instructor(s):
Matthias Riedl CEU Instructor(s):
Carsten L. Wilke Additional information:
The goals of the course are
• to study the complete work
• develop hermeneutic skills through close reading
• identify the religious and political key questions
• explore the work's intellectual and historical background
• compare it to medieval and contemporary political and religious thought
• discuss its most influential modern interpretations
• discuss its ongoing relevance.
Learning Outcomes:
Students will acquire knowledge about
• the religious and political situation in Europe after the Thirty Years' War
• the exceptional development of the 17th century Dutch republic and its Jewish community
• the emergence of Biblical criticism
• the continuity of the medieval philosophical arguments concerning the relation of religion and politics
• Spinoza’s impact on later philosophical thought, especially Enlightenment, Idealism, Materialism, and the historical study of religion
Assessment :
Attendance at all lectures is mandatory and will be kept record of. Students taking the class for grade must not miss more than two sessions. Students taking the class for audit must not miss more than three sessions.
The grade consist of
• 20% class participation
• 30% two page summaries of the readings to be prepared for every session
• 50% final take-home exam
Full description:
General Bibliography
a) Primary text
As this seminar focuses on one book only, there will be no printed reader. The Cambridge edition by Jonathan Israel will serve as basic text for the seminar. Students who wish to consult the original Latin text may refer to the other editions listed below.
- Spinoza, Benedict de, Theological-Political Treatise, trans. M. Silverthorne and J. Israel, ed. J. Israel, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007. (English) [
pdf] - Spinoza, Benedictus de, “Tractatus theologico-politicus,” in Opera, ed. J. Van Vloten et J.P.N. Land, The Hague: M. Nijhoff, 1895, vol. 2, pp. 1-192. (Latin – electronic resource)
- Spinoza, Benedict de, “Theological-Political Treatise,” in The political works, ed. and trans. A. G. Werham, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1958. (Latin and English text)
b) Other source readings
Bossuet, Jacques Bénigne, Politics Drawn from the Very Words of Holy Scripture [1679], trl. Patrick Riley, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990 [321.6 BOS].
Costa, Uriel da, "Uriel da Costa's Own Account of His Life (Exemplar Humanae Vitae), Englished by John Whiston (London 1740)", in: Uriel da Costa, Examination of Pharisaic Traditions, ed. Herman Prins Salomon and I. S. D. Sassoon, Leiden: Brill, 1993, pp. 556-566. [pdf]
Hobbes, Thomas, Leviathan, ed. M. Oakeshott, New York: Touchstone, 1997; ch. 11-20 [pdf], 31-36.
Meyer, Lodewijk, Philosophy as the Interpreter of Holy Scripture (1666), trl. Samuel Shirley, ed. Lee C. Rice and Francis Pastijn, Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 2005.
Moses Maimonides, The Guide of the Perplexed, trl. Shlomo Pines, with an introductory essay by Leo Strauss, 3 vols. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1963; reprinted 2003.
Pascal, Blaise, Pensées: Notes on Religion and Other Subjects, trl. J. Warrington, ed. L. Lafuma, London : J. M. Dent, 1973 [239 PAS].
Spinoza, Benedict de, “Ethics,” in: The collected works of Spinoza, trans. E. Curley, Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1985, vol. 1, pp. 408ff.
Spinoza, Benedict de, “Political Treatise,” in idem, The political works, ed. and trans. A. G. Werham, Oxford : Clarendon Press, 1958.
"The writ of excommunication against Baruch Spinoza (July 27, 1656)", in: Paul Mendes-Flohr and Jehuda Reinharz (eds.), The Jew in the Modern World: a Documentary History, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995, p. 57. [pdf]
c) Dutch Background
Blom, J. C. H., et al. (eds.), The History of the Jews in the Netherlands, Oxford: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2007.
Frijhoff, Willem, and Marijke Spies, Dutch Culture in a European Perspective: 1650, Hard-Won Unity, Assen: Van Gorcum, 2004.
Israel, Jonathan I., The Dutch Republic: Its Rise, Greatness, and Fall, 1477-1806, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995 [949.2 ISR]
Israel, Jonathan I., Radical Enlightenment: Philosophy and the Making of Modernity, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002 [940.2/5 ISR].
Prak, Maarten, The Dutch Republic in the Seventeenth Century: The Golden Age, trl. Diane Webb, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.
Rowen, Herbert H., John de Witt - Statesman of the "True Freedom", Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002.
Schama, Simon, The Embarrassment of Riches: an Interpretation of Dutch Culture in the Golden Age, London: Fontana, 1991, [949.2/04 SCH]
Sutcliffe, Adam, "Sephardic Amsterdam and the myths of Jewish modernity", Jewish Quarterly Review 97,3 (2007), pp. 417-437.
d) Spinoza's Life and Work
Allison, Henry E., Benedict de Spinoza: an introduction, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987. [199.4/92 SPI/ALL]
Jaspers, Karl, Spinoza, trl. Ralph Manheim, ed. Hannah Arendt, New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1974. [199.4/92 SPI/JAS]
Nadler, Steven, Spinoza: a Life, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. [199.4/92 SPI/NAD]
Nadler, Steven, “The Excommunication of Spinoza: Trouble and Toleration in the ‘Dutch Jerusalem’”, Shofar 19,4 (2001), pp. 40-52.
Nadler, Steven, “Spinoza, Baruch”, in: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, electronic resource, Stanford CA: The Metaphysics Research Lab, 2008. [http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/spinoza/]
Rosen, Stanley, “Benedict Spinoza”, in Leo Strauss and Joseph Cropsey (eds.), History of Political Philosophy, 3rd ed., Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1987, pp. 456-475.
Steinberg, Justin, "Spinoza's Political Philosophy", in: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, electronic resource, Stanford CA: The Metaphysics Research Lab, 2008. [http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/spinoza-political/]
Voegelin, Eric, “Spinoza”, in: idem, History of Political Ideas vol. VII: The New Order and Last Orientation (The Collected Works of Eric Voegelin, vol. 25), Columbia and London: University of Missouri Press, 1999, pp. 126-136.
e) Introduction to the Tractatus and its Main Themes
Bagley, Paul J. (ed.), Piety, Peace, and the Freedom to Philosophize (The New Synthese Historical Library, 47), Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1999 [199.4/92 SPI/BAG].
De Deugt, Cornelis (ed.), Spinoza's Political and Theological Thought, Amsterdam: North Holland Publishing Company 1984.
Donagan, Alan, "Spinoza's Theology", in: Don Garrett (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Spinoza, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996, pp. 343-382 [199.4/92 SPI/GAR]
Malcolm, Noel, “Hobbes and Spinoza,” in: James H. Burns (ed.), The Cambridge History of Political Thought 1450 – 1700, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991, pp. 530-557 [320./09 BUR] [pdf].
Popkin, Richard H., “Spinoza’s Scepticism and Anti-Scepticism,” in Popkin, The History of Scepticism from Erasmus to Spinoza, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979, pp. 229-248.
Smith, Steven B., Spinoza, Liberalism, and the Question of Jewish Identity, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997.
f) Hermeneutics
Levene, Nancy K., "Ethics and Interpretation, or How to Study Spinoza's Tractatus Theologico-Politicus without Strauss", Journal of Jewish Thought & Philosophy 10,1 (2000), pp. 57-110. [pdf]
Luz, Ehud, "How to read the Bible according to Leo Strauss", Modern Judaism 25,3 (2005), pp. 264-284.
Smith, Steven B., "Spinoza's Audience and Manner of Writing", chapter 2 in Smith, Spinoza, op. cit., pp. 27-54.[pdf][pdf]
Strauss, Leo, “How to Study Spinoza’s Theologico-Political Treatise,” in: Strauss, Persecution and the Art of Writing, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988, pp. 142-201. [pdf]
Schedule and Readings
Week 1 (9/22): The Theological-Political Problem
- TTP, preface, pp. 1-12.
- Hobbes, Leviathan, ch. 12.
- Smith, "The Return of the Theologico-Political Problem", chapter 1 in: Smith, Spinoza, pp. 1-26.[pdf][pdf]
Further readings:
James, Susan, "Spinoza on Superstition: Coming to Terms with Fear", Mededelingen vanwege het Spinozahuis 88 (2006), pp. 1-20.
Meier, Heinrich, Leo Strauss and the Theological-Political Problem, trl. M. Brainard, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005 [320.5/09/43 MEI].
Week 2 (9/29): Critique of the Medieval Philosophical Concept of Prophecy
- TTP, ch. 1&2, pp. 13-42.
- Maimonides, Guide of the Perplexed, book II, ch. 36. [1] [2]
- Hobbes, Leviathan, ch. 36. [External link]
Further readings:
Dobbs-Weinstein, Idit, "The ambiguity of the imagination and the ambivalence of language in Maimonides and Spinoza", in: Dobbs-Weinstein, ed., Maimonides and His Heritage, Albany: SUNY Press, 2009, pp. 95-111. [pdf]
Pines, Shlomo, "Spinoza's 'Tractatus Theologico-Politicus' and the Jewish philosophical tradition", in: Isadore Twersky and Bernard Septimus (eds.), Jewish Thought in the Seventeenth Century, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1987, pp. 499-521.
Week 3 (10/6): The Vocation of the Jewish People
- TTP, ch. 3, pp. 43-56.
- Hobbes, Leviathan, ch. 35.
Further readings:
Geller, Jay, "Spinoza's election of the Jews: the problem of Jewish persistence", Jewish Social Studies 12,1 (2005), pp. 39-63. [external]
Nadler, Steven M., "Spinoza and the origins of Jewish secularism", in: Zvi Gitelman (ed.), Religion or Ethnicity? Jewish Identities in Evolution, New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers UP, 2009, pp. 59-66.
Week 4 (10/13): The Function of Religion
- TTP, ch. 4-6, pp. 57-96.
- Hobbes, Leviathan, ch. 32.
- Maimonides, Guide of the Perplexed, book III, ch. 27.
Further readings:
Kreisel, Howard, "Intellectual Perfection, Knowledge of God, and the Role of the Law", chapter 6 in Kreisel, Maimonides' Political Thought: Studies in Ethics, Law, and the Human Ideal, Albany: State Univ. of New York Press, 1999, pp. 189-223. [pdf]
Lemmens, Willem, "Spinoza on ceremonial observances and the moral function of religion", Bijdragen: International Journal in Philosophy and Theology 71,1 (2010), pp. 51-64.
Week 5 (10/20): Historical Critique of the Hebrew Bible
- TTP, ch. 7-10, pp. 97-154.
- Hobbes, Leviathan, ch. 33.
- Smith, Steven B., "The Critique of Scripture", chapter 3 in Smith, Spinoza, op. cit., pp. 55-83. [pdf] [pdf]
Further readings:
Freedman, David, "The father of modern biblical scholarship", Journal of the Ancient Near Eastern Society 19 (1989), pp. 31-38. [online version]
Nadler, Steven M., "The Bible hermeneutics of Baruch de Spinoza", in: Magne Saebø (ed.), Hebrew Bible/Old Testament: the History of Its Interpretation, vol. II: From the Renaissance to the Enlightenment, Göttingen: Vandenhock & Ruprecht, 2008, pp. 827-836. [pdf]
pdf]
Week 6 (10/27): From the Moral Teachings of Scripture to Minimum Dogma
- TTP, ch. 11-14, pp. 155-177.
- Smith, Steven B., "From Sacred to Secular History", chapter 4 in Smith, Spinoza, op. cit., pp. 84-118. [pdf][pdf]
Further readings:
Hunter, Graeme, Radical Protestantism in Spinoza's Thought, Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005, pp. 51-68, 111-140.
Lagrée, Jacqueline, "Grotius: Natural Law and Natural Religion", in: Robert Crocker (ed.), Religion, Reason and Nature in Early Modern Europe, Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2001, pp. 17-39. [pdf]
Week 7 (11/3): Relations of Reason and Theology
- TTP, ch. 15, pp. 186-194.
Further readings:
Lagrée, Jacqueline, "Irrationality with or without reason: an analysis of chapter XV of the 'Tractatus Theologico-politicus'", in: James E. Force and Richard H. Popkin (eds.), The Books of Nature and Scripture: Recent Essays on Natural Philosophy, Theology, and Biblical Criticism in the Netherlands of Spinoza’s Time and the British Isles of Newton’s Time, Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1994, pp. 25-38.
Schwartz, Dov, "Changing fronts in the controversies over philosophy in medieval Spain and Provence", Journal of Jewish Thought & Philosophy 7,1 (1997), pp. 61-82.
Week 8 (11/10): God, Nature, and the Foundations of the State
- TTP, ch. 16, pp. 195-207.
- Hobbes, Leviathan, ch. 13-14.
- Smith, "A Democratic Turn", chapter 5 in Smith, Spinoza, op. cit., pp. 119-144. [pdf][pdf]
Further readings:
Diamond, Eli, "The Common Structure of Religion, Philosophy and Politics in Spinoza's Tractatus Theologico-Politicus", Animus: The Canadian Journal of Philosophy and Humanities 12 (2008), pp. 39-57 [http://www2.swgc.mun.ca/animus/Articles/Volume%2012/Diamond12.pdf]
Hunter, Ian, and David Saunders, Natural Law and Civil Sovereignty: Moral Right and State Authority in Early Modern Political Thought, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002 [320.1/5 HUN]
Week 9 (11/17): Limits of Sovereignty and the Democratic Principles of Biblical Theocracy
- TTP, ch. 17&18, pp. 195-229.
Further readings:
Nelson, Eric, The Hebrew Republic: Jewish Sources and the Transformation of European Political Thought, Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 2010, pp. 1-37.
Trigano, Shmuel, "The Return of the Theological-Political in Democracy and the Rediscovery of Biblical Politics", Hebraic Political Studies 4,3 (2009), pp. 304-318.
Week 10 (11/24): Religion and the Souvereign
- TTP, ch. 19, pp. 230-249.
- Hobbes, Leviathan, ch. 18.
Further readings:
Balibar, Etienne, Spinoza and Politics, trl. Peter Snowdon, London: Verso, 1998. [320.1 BAL]
Prokhovnik, Raia, Spinoza and Republicanism, Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004. [199.4/92 SPI/PRO]
Week 11 (12/1): Toleration and Intellectual Liberty in a Free State
- TTP, ch. 20, pp. 250-259.
- Smith, "From Jerusalem to Amsterdam", chapter 6 in Smith, Spinoza, op. cit., pp. 145-165. [pdf][pdf]
Further readings:
James, Susan, "Democracy and the good life in Spinoza's philosophy", in: Charlie Huenemann (ed.), Interpreting Spinoza: Critical essays, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010, pp. 128-146. [199.4/92 SPI/HUE] [pdf]
Vassányi, Miklós, "The Philosophical Foundation of Religious Toleration in Spinoza (Tractatus Theologico-Politicus), Bayle (Commentaire philosophique) and Locke (Epistola de tolerantia)", Bijdragen: International Journal in Philosophy and Theology 70,4 (2009), pp. 408-422.
Week 12 (12/8): Concluding Discussion: Impact and Relevance of the TTP
- Smith, "The Legacy of the Treatise", chapter 7 in Smith, Spinoza, op. cit., pp. 166-196. [pdf][pdf]
Further readings:
Feuer, Lewis S., "Spinoza’s Political Philosophy: the Lessons and Problems of a Conservative Democrat", in: Richard Kennington (ed.), The Philosophy of Baruch Spinoza, Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1980, pp. 133-154.
Sorrell, Tom, "Spinoza's unstable politics of freedom", in: Charlie Huenemann (ed.), Interpreting Spinoza: critical essays, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010, pp. 147-165. [199.4/92 SPI/HUE] [pdf]
