Spinoza and the Netherlanders: An Inquiry into the Early Reception of His Philosophy of Religion (review)

Abstract

308 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 29:2 APRIL 1991 in Locke. Lastly, despite the gloomy title, Spellman's treatment is not without occasional humor, especially in the later chapters dealing with Locke's critics. GERARD REEDy, S.J. Fordham University H.J. Siebrand. Spinoza and the Netherlanders: An Inquiry into the Early Reception of His Philosophy of Religion. Assen/Maastricht: Van Gorcum, 1988. Pp. x + 239. DFL 69.50. This is an ambitious book. In many ways, it is a strange book, owing to Siebrand's goal of appealing to a mixed audience of philosophers, historians of philosophy, and church historians. Such an interdisciplinary enterprise can be fruitful, but it also has many difficulties and dangers. Because of his previous studies in the field, H.J. Siebrand is well-known among modern-day Spinoza scholars. In this book, he focuses primarily upon the reception of Spinoza's views among those Dutch ("Netherlanders" sounds just a bit odd) who became interested in his thought in the later decades of the seventeenth century. The primary study of Dutch Spinozism is the older work by K. O. Meinsma, Spinoza en zijn kring (t896), which was translated into French as Spinoza et son cerclein 1985, with an introduction by Richard H. Popkin. Meinsma's work is entirely historical in its approach and does not pay much attention to the philosophical details of the reception of Spinoza's thought. Siebrand wishes to treat simultaneously contextual, historical issues and systematically philosophical issues in Dutch Spinozism. The book is accordingly divided into two parts. In Part t, by far the larger (3-173), Siebrand examines Spinoza's work within the historical context of his seventeenth-century readers. In Part 2, Siebrand systematically examines the theoretical and philosophical aspects of such "reception." The main problem with this structure is that Siebrand does not adhere to it, which makes it difficult for the reader to follow either the historical exposition or the philosophical inquiry. Thus, although in Part 1 Siebrand does in fact trace the historical context of Spinoza's Dutch readers, who they were, why they were interested, what precisely interested them about Spinoza's philosophy, etc., the thread of this narrative is often broken by expositions of a purely systematic nature. However interesting these excursions may sometimes be, they make it difficult to follow the development of the historical context. In Part 2, on the other hand, where Siebrand intends specifically to examine in a systematic fashion the theoretical aspects of "reception," the reader is immediately confronted with a long historical discussion of Dutch Cartesianism and Spinozism. Siebrand here repeats rather elaborately several parts of the historical treatment of Part l, while what he presents as the dominant systematic theme of Part 2 is given rather short shrift (x92-~ 1o). Besides the unclearness of Siebrand's structuring of the book,-the reader is often annoyed by the didactic tone which Siebrand adopts--as if he were lecturing to young pupils. In spite of these caveats, Siebrand raises many interesting and important issues. BOOK REVIEWS 309 This is especially true in Part i where, for the first time, a valuable survey is given of the views of both pro- and anti-Spinozists within the historical context in which they read Spinoza. Those who became interested in Spinoza's thought took from their master what they liked and left out what they disagreed with. It therefore becomes clear why it is so difficult to label any particular Dutch thinker as a "Spinozist," a point clearly made in Siebrand's analysis of the thought of Adriaan Koerbagh, usually classified as a "Spinozist" but who differs from Spinoza on some fundamental issues. There are other cases of "Spinozists" about whom one wonders whether the differences are not greater than the similarities. Probably there were many more "Spinozists" than the better-known figures such as Pieter Bailing, Jarig Jelles, and Abraham Cuffeler, but, because they had to conceal their views for fear of being labelled atheists, we will never know about them. Indeed "Spinozism," regarded as a religionless system, soon came to to be identified with atheism and, within a short time, anything that smacked of heterodoxy was labelled "Spinozism...