Was Spinoza een materialist? Een discussie voor en tegen van rabbijnen

In aansluiting op het vorige blog, breng ik, zoals aangekondigd, een in mijn ogen aardige tekst over een debatje tussen ‘modern’ orthodoxe rabbijnen over Spinoza. Daarover is veel te vinden in dit al vermelde boek

Dov Schwartz, Faith at the Crossroads: A Theological Profile of Religious Zionism. BRILL, 2002 – books.google].

In Chapter Three:, “The Dialectic View of Spinoza,”[p. 90 – 130] staat de volgende boeiende paragraaf, § 5. Tug of War: Was Spinoza a Materialist?, die ik hierbij overneem.

Daarin worden de namen genoemd van enige rabbijnen, die ik in het vorigen blog al noemde,



Samuel Alexandrov (1865 - 1941)

zoals Rav Kook. Maar vooral gaat het over rabbijn Samuel Alexandrov (1865 - 1941) een verlichte joodse orhodoxe rabbijn en essayist in het Hebreeuws – een individualist en anarchist volgens wiki [foto van commons.wiki] en rabbbijn Reuven Egushewitz, over wie verder niets te vinden is.

 

5. Tug of War: Was Spinoza a Materialist?

Samuel Alexandrov dealt extensively with the value of materialism and its historical standing in the context of modern heresy. Research shows that Alexandrov pointed to a sharp contrast between materialism and the foundations of Judaism. Nevertheless, he assigned modern materialism a built-in dialectic role in the hands of divine providence, in the shape of the absolute heresy that precedes the return to true faith.

How does Spinoza's doctrine fit in the map of heresies? Alexandrov lists Spinoza among materialist philosophers. In a letter to Joseph Gutman, he suggests three approaches concerning the relationship between God and the world, anchoring them in the saying "pervades all worlds, surrounds all worlds." According to Alexandrov, the correct doctrine understands this phrase literally: God is everywhere, yet at the same time is transcendent (namely, panentheism). The two other perceptions are mistaken. One sees God as transcendent and never intervening in the world; God only "surrounds all worlds." The other is "the view of Spinoza and the pantheists," who "only admit that He `pervades all worlds' and deny that He 'surrounds all worlds,' and this is the notion claiming that God and the universe are one."

In developing this idea, ascribed to Spinoza, Alexandrov categorically stated that pantheism and materialism sprout from the same root, that is, from the "pervades all worlds" approach: "And furthermore, the source of materialism is also in the `pervades all worlds' view, as we know." He then turns to Gutman in blunt and forceful terms: "No wonder, then, that you do not cling at all to this 'necessary' God."

Like Gefen and Kook, Alexandrov saw a clear linkage between Spinoza and materialism. Note that, despite the dialectic role that he assigned to materialism, Alexandrov still saw its Marxist manifestations as a serious threat to Judaism in the present. Spinoza's doctrine is thus presented in materialistic and as such, negative terms. Nevertheless, some thinkers disagreed with Alexandrov's view and even questioned it; the most thorough and systematic was Reuven Egushewitz.

Egushewitz was well aware that Spinoza's name was associated with materialism, and strove to refute this association. He devoted his treatise Faith and Heresy to a critique of materialism. In the introduction to his work, Egushewithz lists his motives for writing the book. He sees current events, particularly the establishment of the State of Israel, as the fulfillment of a "vision of final redemption" and as miraculous divine providence. Some, however, deny the reality of miracles and base their outlook on materialism, and Egushewitz attacks them in this book. Egushewitz, then, is not afraid to draw a connection between his attitude to philosophy and his religious-Zionist outlook.

Egushewitz rejects the claim that Spinoza's doctrine could be viewed as part of modern materialism. When analyzing the fundamentals of materialism, Egushewitz distinguished between ancient and modern materialistic views. In his view, ancient materialism contended that matter is the sole reality. Nature is merely the total of material processes unfolding within it. Hence, there is no spiritual realm, nor any systematic need for one. Modern materialism, on the other hand, could not accept such a thesis because it faced the Newtonian discovery of force. These forces act upon matter even without any direct "material" contact. Material existence, therefore, is not epitomized in the stream of matter, but rather in the addition of a "supra-material" entity, which is force. In response to the discovery of force, modern materialism was compelled to argue that material substance is homogeneous. The distinction between force and matter is only nominal; in fact, there is no difference between matter and force. Modern materialists, said Egushewitz, rely on Spinoza for the claim that "force and matter are perceived as two manifestations of the same 'thing,' so that force is in essence matter, and matter is essentially force." He therefore devoted the chapter of his book entitled "Spinoza's Metaphysics" to a discussion of whether Spinoza's doctrine is indeed materialistic, and whether modern materialists were correct in adhering to it so closely.

Egushewitz argued that we must reconsider the concept of attribute. An attribute is an expression of the substance on a certain plane. The infinite attributes of the substance have infinite planes, and every one of these planes has infinite modes. Yet the attributes are expressions of one unified, simple substance, for if the substance were complex, its parts would be either infinite or finite. The former option is void because infinity does not allow for differentiation and distinction, and if the part were infinite, there would not be room for any others; the latter option is also void, since there could be no infinite substance composed of finite parts. The substance, then, is homogeneous; and if the substance is unified, its attributes, which are manifestations of the substance, are also unified. The attribute of extension, then, lacks any materialistic connotation, for it is infinite and devoid of any differentiation.

Egushewitz concludes that Spinoza is not a realist. On the other hand, it is inconceivable that Spinoza was a radical idealist, a philosopher who views space as merely an idea. Egushewitz's explanation is rather vague:

The issue is that both of them [extension and thought] express different "languages," through which the substance "makes known" to our mind that it exists. It expresses this through thought, and also through representation, for we grasp reality through both these "languages."  

Apparently, Egushewitz found no fitting answer to his query. If space is only a mental conception, Spinoza still remains a radical idealist. Furthermore, these remarks should not be interpreted in Kantian terms, whereby space is a form of sensibility, for the subject here is a divine attribute rather than transcendental space. In any event, Egushewitz argued that the attribute of extension is not material, since it applies to a pure conceptual space and is indivisible. In his view, this analysis of the attribute of extension is sufficient to exclude Spinoza from the materialist category:

Spinoza's premise that space and thought are manifestations of the same essence is due to his non-realistic outlook that space is not the same divisible space we construe but rather something we cannot imagine, because in all our images we grasp divisible space. Are materialists prepared to accept this non-realistic outlook concerning force and matter? Are they willing to admit that matter is something we cannot imagine?

Egushewitz, like Hirschensohn, acquits Spinoza by developing and substantiating the notion that the attribute of extension does not apply to the material world and its particulars and, therefore, does not lead to anthropomorphism. As noted, Hirschensohn's attitude toward Spinoza was ambivalent: he did not blur the problematic areas of Spinoza's philosophy and emphasized its errors as he saw them. Whereas Hirschensohn attempted to leave out Spinoza from the list of heretics and anthropomorphists, Egushewitz discarded even the claim that he was mistaken. Egushewitz argued at the beginning of his book that materialism is a stumbling block to the Zionist and national endeavor, but Spinoza is not an obstacle at all. Although Egushewitz's attitude toward Spinoza differs from that of his predecessors, and Alexandrov in particular, he did not relate to Spinoza's theological-political doctrine and confined himself to the metaphysical realm.