Steven Nadler

On his book A Book Forged in Hell: Spinoza’s Scandalous Treatise and the Birth of the Modern Age

Cover Interview of October 20, 2011

Lastly

I believe Spinoza’s Treatise remains one of the most relevant and important works in the history of philosophy. To the extent that we are committed to a secular, tolerant society, one which is characterized by a devotion both to freedom and to treating our fellow human beings with justice and charity, we are Spinoza’s ideological heirs. I very much hope that this book inspires people to go back and read Spinoza’s treatise for themselves, and perhaps that it even invigorates the fight for toleration, justice, social welfare, and a recognition that a modern society needs to be both liberal and secular and focused on the well-being of its citizens.

philosophy / polemics / religion / europe / christianity / modernity / netherlands / spinoza baruch /

[T]he Holocaust transformed our whole way of thinking about war and heroism. War is no longer a proving ground for heroism in the same way it used to be. Instead, war now is something that we must avoid at all costs—because genocides often take place under the cover of war. We are no longer all potential soldiers (though we are that too), but we are all potential victims of the traumas war creates. This, at least, is one important development in the way Western populations envision war, even if it does not always predominate in the thinking of our political leaders.

Carolyn J. Dean,
Interview of February 01, 2011

The dominant premise in evolution and economics is that a person is being loyal to natural law if he or she attends to self’s interest and welfare before being concerned with the needs and demands of family or community. The public does not realize that this statement is not an established scientific principle but an ethical preference. Nonetheless, this belief has created a moral confusion among North Americans and Europeans because the evolution of our species was accompanied by the disposition to worry about kin and the collectives to which one belongs.

Jerome Kagan,
Interview of September 17, 2009