Richard H. Popkin (1923 – 2005) deed als een detective onderzoek naar #Spinoza

In vier blogs had ik aandacht voor Richard Popkin’s Spinozastudie: op 12 juli 2009 het blog: “Richard H. Popkin (1923 - 2005) - zijn Spinoza-boekje”; en in het blog van 31 okt 2011: “Spinoza scepticus?” O.a. over het boek van Richard H. Popkin, The History of Scepticism from Erasmus to Spinoza. Op 23 januari 2019 tenslotte meldde ik dat Richard Popkin’s The History of Scepticism met Chapter 15 “Spinoza’s Scepticism and Antiscepticism” op internet staat.

1960                                                                          1979                                                                                  2003

Twee blogs had ik [nl. op 6 en 9 febr. 2012] met de vraag “Waarom ontving Richard Popkin niet de Nobelprijs voor Spinoza Studies?” Dit n.a.v. zijn “Serendipity at the Clark: Spinoza and the Prince of Condé,” [Clark Newsletter 10 (1986), pp. 4–7.], dat ik in dat tweede blog overnam.

“Popkin’s Spinoza”
Sarah Hutton schreef een gedegen en informatief overzichtsartikel over hem, “Popkin’s Spinoza”: het derde hoofdstuk in Jeremy D. Popkin (ed.), The Legacies of Richard Popkin (2008).¹) Dat hoofdstuk was – mét kleursignaleringen van een uploader – als PDF hier te vinden [toevoeging 5-9-2019: daar het stuk daar alweer is verdwenen, heb ik het naar hier geüpload]. Ze benadrukt dat zijn bredere historische studie "enabled him to contribute immensely to the reconstruction of Spinoza’s intellectual milieu, peopling it with figures previously ignored, or unknown, such as Menasseh ben Israel, Orobio da Castro, Uriel da Costa, Isaac La Peyrère, Jacques Basnage, Henry Oldenburg, Margaret Fell, Samuel Fisher, Adam Boreel and Henry Morelli."
Het is vanwege de notitie van Sarah Hutton, “Popkin follows this [Bayle's] detective model of investigation” [p. 36], dat ik de kop van dit blog formuleerde. Op meer plaatsen trouwens verwees ze naar hem en zijn aanpak als naar [die van] een detective. Die indruk wordt duidelijk bevestigd door hoe hij zelf over zijn onderzoek naar Spinoza schreef - een tekst die ik hierna overneem.

Eerst neem ik hier de obutuary over die Sarah Hutton over Richard Popkin schreef in  The Guardian (7th May, 2005 – tekst hier te vinden.)

In the field of the history of philosophy, Richard Popkin, who has died aged 81, was best known for his work on scepticism, and especially for his classic study The History Of Scepticism From Erasmus To Descartes (1960).

A professor at the University of California, San Diego, (1963-73) and Washington University, St Louis, Missouri (1973-86), he was among the founders of the Journal Of The History Of Philosophy, and, with Paul Dibon, started the International Archives In The History Of Ideas; he also wrote about the 1963 assassination of the US president, John Kennedy.

The History Of Scepticism revolutionised the received picture of both the history of philosophy and the history of science, by demonstrating the influence, in the century before Descartes, of ancient Greek sceptical arguments about the impossibility of knowing God and the world.

In making his case for this central contribution to the development of modern science and philosophy, Popkin gave attention to the intellectual context of the time, especially the role of religious disputes in the take-up of philosophical scepticism deriving from the discipline's Greek founder, Pyhrro. Instead of treating the history of science and philosophy as a series of breakthroughs by canonical figures, Popkin sought to view the thought of the past from within its own framework...

Popkin also achieved fame with The Second Oswald (1966), the book in which he disputed the findings of the Warren commission that Kennedy was killed by a lone assassin. He foresaw the rise of religious fundamentalism in the United States and the Middle East, contributing an analysis of its American dimension in Messianic Revolution (1998, co-authored with David Katz). He also wrote for a general philosophical readership, with such books as Philosophy Made Simple (co-authored with Avrum Stroll, 1969).

Popkin was an inspirational teacher who gave great encouragement to younger scholars, such as myself. When I first met him, I was struck by his wry sense of humour, and the touch of scepticism that ensured he never took himself or others over-seriously. All who knew him remember his generosity; and he was always good company and an entertaining raconteur.

Hierin werd zijn Spinoza-studie nog niet genoemd maar dat ‘maakte ze dus ruimschoots goed’ met haar “Popkin’s Spinoza.”

Popkin publiceerde twee autobiografische teksten, nl. in:

• Richard H. Popkin, "Intellectual autobiography: warts and all," in: R. A. Watson 7 J.E. Force (eds.), The Sceptical Mode in Modern Philosophy: Essays in Honor of Richard H. Popkin. Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1988 / Springer Science & Business Media, 2012, p. 103-149 – books.google

• James Force and David S. Katz (eds.), Everything Connects: In Conference with Richard H. Popkin. Essays in His Honor. Brill, 1999 met daarin
Richard H. Popkin, Introduction: Warts and All, Part 2, pp. XI-LXXVI – books.google

Uit het eerstgenoemde boek citeer ik hetgeen hij daarin over zijn Spinoza-research schrijft.

[On the first, I found one way of countering or contending with the morbidity of the suicidal soliloquies, and depressive retreats into bed, was to do the essential hack-work, intellectual tasks — encyclopedia articles, introductory summaries of views, and such items.] However, in 1977, the three hundredth anniversary of Spinoza's death, I was asked to write some pieces on him, and to take part in symposia at the Jewish Theological Seminary and the Hebrew Union College. I wrote on Spinoza and La Peyrere, which eventually became two additional chapters of my History of Scepticism. For the Jewish Theological Seminary affair, I worked on a "new" idea — namely why didn't Spinoza attack contemporary prophets, or even refer to them? In particular, why, if he was trying to show how ridiculous prophecy was, didn't he attack the followers of Sabbatai Zevi? There is a letter of Henry Oldenburg of the Royal Society of England asking Spinoza if it is true that the king of the Jews has arrived, as news of Sabbatai Zevi reached England. Oldenburg said, if this were true, it would be of momentous significance to everyone. Then, we are told that there is no evidence that Spinoza ever answered the letter.

So, I posed the question — why did Spinoza not discuss the matter, and show that the contemporary Jews in Amsterdam, almost all of whom accepted Sabbatai Zevi as the Messiah, were fools? Why did Spinoza never mention Menasseh ben Israel, and his view of 1654-55 that the coming of the Messiah was imminent? When I gave the paper, the commentator was Fritz Rothchild who said it was a Sherlock Holmes story — why didn't the dog bark? I had no answer, only a question. In Oldenburg's correspondence, published only in the mid-1960s, I found that one Peter Serrarius answered Oldenburg's query, with a resounding "yes", and flooded Oldenburg and Robert Boyle with news about Sabbatai Zevi. Serrarius was misidentified in the notes as Spinoza's secretary or agent.

From another side, I ran across the quotation of a letter of the Quaker William Ames that he met a Jew in Amsterdam who had been cast out by the Jews. Quaker historians thought, or hoped, that this was Spinoza. The date would put the meeting a few months after the excommunication of Spinoza, and the views advanced by the Jew were Spinozistic views, and, as I was soon arguing, Spinoza was the only expellee who met the condition of the facts. Statements by other Quakers in Amsterdam at the time indicated that the ex-Jew was set to work translating a Quaker pamphlet by Margaret Fell, designed to convert the Jews.

So I gave a paper on Spinoza and the Quakers suggesting links, but still lacking real data. I started ferreting out data about Serrarius. He was a friend of Menasseh ben Israel. He was a chiliast, much older than Spinoza. He was linked with the Scottish Millenarian, John Dury, with Oldenburg, with Comenius, and he was Spinoza's contact with the English world. Although he is only once mentioned in Spinoza's remaining correspondence, he appears often in Oldenburg's as the one who sent and received Spinoza's mail. He was involved with Adam Boreel, the leader of the Dutch Collegiants, who took Spinoza in after his excommunication. Serrarius was the one who introduced Spinoza to William Ames. (Ames was living in Serrarius' house at the time.) Serrarius was the leader of the Christian supporters or followers of Sabbatai Zevi and he sent reports to England and France about the movement, and published pamphlets describing its progress. He explained to Oldenburg how one could still accept Sabbatai Zevi after the latter had become a Moslem. God works in mysterious ways.

So, a new world opened to be explored — the rationalist, naturalist Spinoza, excommunicated by the Synagogue, fell into the arms of the Millenarian Quakers trying to convert the Jews. And Spinoza was known to Serrarius right after the excommunication, and was clearly involved in Spinoza's affairs for the next decade. I now saw Spinoza in the midst of the Millenarians. One leading Spinoza scholar had said that Spinoza could not have been a friend of Serrarius, because Serrarius was beyond the pathological limits of rationality. He was just a crazy Millenarian. But he was apparently Spinoza's friend and patron, and was close to Spinoza's Quaker friends and to Boreel, the leader of the group Spinoza lived with in Amsterdam and Rijnsburg. The Quakers, Boreel, and Serrarius were all Millenarians. The latter two were involved with Menasseh, and were friends of Spinoza's English friends, Boyle and Oldenburg, who were also Millenarians.

So, I started following these leads. I met Ernestine van der Wall, who is finishing a dissertation on Serrarius at Leiden, and her mentor, Jan van den Berg, and have been exploring the ambiance with them of Spinoza amongst the Millenarians. The interchange with them, with David Katz, who knows the English scene so well, and with Yosef Kaplan, who knows what was going on in the Jewish community, filled me with leads like a magic thread. I found in rapid succession the sale catalogue of Serrarius' books and manuscripts, an account of Serrarius' meeting with a rabbi from Jerusalem, a pamphlet of John Dury describing the visit of Rabbi Nathan Shapira of Jerusalem, the teacher of Nathan of Gaza, the Elijah of the Sabbatai Zevi movement, to Amsterdam in 1657 and his discussions with Serrarius. Rabbi Shapira's view of Christianity closely parallels Spinoza's. Then I found two copies of the Hebrew translation of the Quaker leader, Margaret Fell's pamphlet, published in 1658, plus lots of correspondence about it and its translator. A series of papers I wrote placed Spinoza squarely in the midst of the conversionist Millenarians.

Finally I found Boreel's huge manuscript, that Serrarius had had copied for Robert Boyle, which gives Boreel's answer to the theory of Les Trois Imposteurs, that Moses, Jesus, and Mohammed invented religions for political purposes. Spinoza was obviously dealing with the same theme in the Tracatus.

Now from a question, I was advancing to a new interpretation of Spinoza. By chance I came across an item in the Clark Library that led me to realize that Spinoza did meet the Prince of Condé and became closely involved with some of the libertines in his entourage. He also became close to a Dr. Henri Morelli, an Egyptian Jew, who ended up as the doctor to the unbelieving Charles Saint-Evremond, to the courtesan Ninon de l'Enclos, and to the Countess of Sandwich, the daughter of the atheist Earl of Rochester.

A series of such finds has now led to seeing Spinoza as journeying from student rebel in the Synagogue to immersion in the creedless world of the Millenarian Collegiants and Quakers, to a theorist of the rationalized version of their spiritualized Christianity, and perhaps of Rabbi Shapira's Jewish Christianity, to the unbelieving world of the followers of the Prince of Condé. One has to have some ideas where clues may be, and one has to be able to recognize them. As Paul Schrecker used to say, "You have to know what is possible in order to tell what is actual."

* * *

Verder noem ik nog van hem:

• Richard H. Popkin, ‘Hume and Spinoza.” In: Hume Studies, Vol. 5, 1979 [PDF

• Richard H. Popkin, “SPINOZA'S RELATIONS WITH THE QUAKERS IN AMSTERDAM.” In: Quaker History, Vol. 73, January, 1984 [cf. PDF hier]

• Richard H. Popkin, “Could Spinoza have known Bodin's coloquium Heptaplomares?” In: Philosophia, Vol. 16, December, 1986 [cf. PDF hier]

• Richard H. Popkin, “The first published discussion of a central theme in Spinoza's tractatus.” In: Philosophia, Vol. 17, March, 1987 [cf. PDF hier]

• Richard H. Popkin, “Was spinoza a Marrano of reason?” In Philosophia, 20 (3):243-246 (1990), December, 1990 [cf. Springer – ’t PDF heeft gestaan op PhilPapers, maar is daar niet meer te vinden; zie overigens het PDF hier].

• Richard H. Popkin, "Can one be a True Christian and a Faithful Follower of the Law of Moses? The Answer of John Dury.” In: Martin Mulsow & Richard Henry Popkin (eds.), Secret conversions to Judaism in early modern Europe. BRILL, 2004 - 237 pagina's, p. 33 – 50 - in z'n geheel te lezen bij books.google.

• J.E. Force & R.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. Springer Science & Business Media, 2013 - 230 pagina's
Introduction is van de hand van Richard H. Popkin, pp. I - XVIII en in z'n geheel te lezen.
Chapter 1, Richard H. Popkin, "Spinoza and Bible Scholarship" (is deels te lezen) – books.google.

Dick Popkin and James Force have attended a number of recent conferences where it was apparent that much new and important research was being done in the fields of interpreting Newton's and Spinoza's contributions as biblical scholars and of the relationship between their biblical scholarship and other aspects of their particular philosophies.

This collection represents the best current research in this area. It stands alone as the only work to bring together the best current work on these topics. Its primary audience is specialised scholars of the thought of Newton and Spinoza as well as historians of the philosophical ideas of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries.

• Richard H. Popkin schreef het lemma over "Benedict de Spinoza, Dutch-Jewish Philosopher" in de Encyclopaedia Britannica dat op 20 juli 1998 door de redactie op internet werd geplaatst. Ik overweeg dit lemma, dat door Sarah Hutton niet wordt genoemd, in een volgend blog over te nemen.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Popkin

https://spartacus-educational.com/JFKpopkin.htm

¹) Jeremy D. Popkin (ed.), The Legacies of Richard Popkin. [International Archives of the History of Ideas Archives internationales d'histoire des idées, Volume 198]. Springer Science & Business Media, 2008 - 301 pagina's – books.google.

Richard H. Popkin (1923-2005) transformed the study of the history of philosophy in the second half of the twentieth century. His History of Scepticism and his many other publications demonstrated the centrality of the problem of skepticism in the development of modern thought, the intimate connections between philosophy and religion, and the importance of contacts between Jewish and Christian thinkers. In this volume, scholars from around the world assess Popkin’s contributions to the many fields in which he was interested. The Legacies of Richard Popkin provides a broad overview of Popkin’s work and demonstrates the connections between the many topics he wrote about. A concluding article, by Popkin’s son Jeremy Popkin, draws on private letters to provide a picture of Popkin’s life and career in his own words, revealing the richness of the documents now accessible to scholars in the Richard Popkin papers at the William Andrews Clark Library in Los Angeles.