The Courtier and the Heretic: Leibniz, Spinoza, and the Fate of God in the Modern World
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.44 (989 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 0393058980 |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 320 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2015-10-01 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
Both men put their faith in the guidance of reason, but one spent his life defending a God he may not have believed in, while the other believed in a God who did not need his defense. Yet the wildly ambitious genius Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, who denounced Spinoza in public, became privately obsessed with Spinoza's ideas, wrote him clandestine letters, and ultimately met him in secret. "In refreshingly lucid terms" (Booklist) Matthew Stewart "rescues both men from a dusty academic shelf, bringing them to life as enlightened humans" (Library Journal) central to the religious, political, and personal battles that gave birth to the modern age. “A colorful reinterpretation. Ultimately, the two thinkers represent radically different approaches to the challenges of the modern era. Stewart’s wit and profluent prose make this book a fascinating read.”Publishers Weekly, starred review Philosophy in the late seventeenth century was a dangerous business. No careerist could afford to know the reclusive, controversial philosopher Baruch de Spinoza. They stand for a choice that we all must make.
A Fascinating Book Amazon Customer This book fascinated me by telling a story of an intellectual connection between two of the greatest thinkers of our time in a way that makes it apparent that the connection and the debate between the two men is really the personification of the debate . gunzun said Great introduction to both Spinoza and Leibnitz. The author strikes a balance between biography and philosophy of these great men. The storytelling is also very entertaining.Maybe Somewhat repetitive, but complicated ideas worth elaborating more than once.Recommended for those who found Ethics too tou. Esoteric but intelligent and well written To be honest, this sort of subject is something I find esoteric and overly intellectual. However, the book is well done and intelligent as far as I can tell. There are quite a few very articulate reviews here already and I won't try to add to those. If
All rights reserved. In November 1676, the foppish courtier Leibniz, "the ultimate insider an orthodox Lutheran from conservative Germany," journeyed to The Hague to visit the self-sufficient, freethinking Spinoza, "a double exile an apostate Jew from licentious Holland." A prodigious polymath, Leibniz understood Spinoza's insight that "science was in the process of rendering the God of revelation obsolete; that it had already undermined the special place of the human individual in nature." Spinoza embraced this new world. He elaborated a metaphysics that was, at bottom, a reaction to Spinoza and collapses into Spinozism, as Stewart deftly shows. (Jan. . Leibniz, on the other hand, spent the rest of his life championing God and theocracy like a defense lawyer defending a client he knows is guilty. Stewart affirms this maxim in his colorful reinterpretation of the lives and