Reading & the Good Life
Join the conversation! Every Friday at Noon EST (Register here), Perennial Meditations readers are welcome to gather for Reading & the Good Life (a space for connection, contemplation, and conversations on the art of living).
This Friday, we conclude our exploration; we’re calling How to Live — Like Spinoza (Part I), Spinoza on Free Will & Living Well (Part II), and Living the Right Way (Part III) through selected passages of Spinoza: A Very Short Introduction.
Next month we’re reading Awareness by Anthony de Mello. Check out the bookshelf below for upcoming (and previous) reading!
Think Least of Death — Like Spinoza
Although the Stoics significantly influenced Spinoza’s philosophy, he parts ways with their views on memento mori and suggests we should think least of death. In my conversation with Steven Nadler (author of Think Least of Death), I inquired about thinking least of death and how it differs from other philosophical schools.
Nadler responded,
Some of the Stoics said that you could do nothing better than meditating upon your own mortality. In Epictetus and Seneca, you find that contemplating your death and remembering you are a mortal creature. At one point, Epictetus says that you’re like putty in the hands of the gods; you’re not in control of your fate. Spinoza goes in the opposite direction. He says that the truly free and rational person is focused on the joy and the power of living. They appreciate what they are and the power that constitutes what is to be a living individual. And the joy that comes from increases in that power as we become more rational and virtuous. And a person who is so focused on this joy, the joy of living, will not focus on death.
In his Ethics, Spinoza put it this way, “A free person, i.e., one who lives according to the dictate of reason alone, is not led by fear, but desires the good directly, i.e., acts, lives and preserves his being from the foundation of seeking his own advantage. And so he thinks of death least of all. Instead, his wisdom is a meditation on life.”
Selected Passages
Only things that suit our nature bring us joy. It is because these things have something in common with us that we can deal with them, associate ourselves with them and thus create a new unity, greater, more complete, and therefore stronger. … In short, without the joy it holds, no sadness could take hold of us. Thus, when we seek to know our passions, we must always strive to identify joy, even in sadness. Indeed, it is this joy – even though it is disguised and stunned by our sad passion – that leads us to who we really are. We can go further. We saw that our joy comes from what things have in common with us, which allows us to deal with them in harmony. But it is only these common points that we can have a clear and adequate knowledge. It must therefore be concluded that we can only have true knowledge of things that make us happy. […]
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The free person, by contrast, pursues only the good and does so directly, not because he is avoiding the bad. He is pursuing joy, not dodging sadness. Spinoza illustrates this with a culinary example. “The sick man, from timidity regarding death, eats what he is repelled by, whereas the healthy man enjoys his food, and in this way enjoys enjoys life better than if he feared death and directly desired to avoid it.” […]
— Think Least of Death, Steven Nadler
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The remedy, Spinoza reminds us, is not to retreat into the pre-scientific world-view, but to go further along the path of disenchantment; losing both the old superstitions and the new, we discover at last a meaning in truth itself. By the very thinking that disenchants the world we come to a new enchantment, recognizing God in everything, and loving his works in the very act of knowing them. […]
— Spinoza: A Very Short Introduction
If you are available on a Friday (at Noon EST), feel free to drop into one of our Reading & the Good Life meetups (Register here). It’s a highly casual space for connection and conversations on the art of living.
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Thank you for reading; I hope you found something useful.
Until next time, be wise and be well,
P.S. As always, feel free to comment, ask questions, or suggest future reads!
Think Least of Death - Like Spinoza
Do you by any chance read the Wall Street Journal? Yesterday in the Lifestyles section, there was an article about Simon of Simon and Garfunkel fame. It was about his latest album, which at age 82, he is questioning life and death and all the big questions. I am 80 years old and I’m going through the same process. I’ll be happy to send you the article. I guess my point is that when you reach a certain age, and you find death looming before you, it really is the ultimate question! It is the big question! And maybe it’s only when we die that we get the answer. There is something else besides this existence of ours here on earth or there isn’t! At any rate, I respectfully have to disagree with Spinoza, because it is such a big question, a momentous question. Always enjoy your essays, thank you.