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I have striven not to laugh at human actions, not to weep at them, nor to hate them, but to understand them.

Baruch Spinoza, Political Treatise (1677)

Philosophy

The story behind the card

Spinoza wrote this near the start of his Political Treatise, which was unfinished when he died in 1677 and appeared that year among his posthumous works. The Dutch philosopher, from a Portuguese-Jewish family in Amsterdam, had been expelled from the city's Jewish community in 1656 for his views, and earned his living grinding lenses. His Ethics is set out like geometry, with definitions and proofs, and here he promises to treat human passions the same way: not as vices to mock, but as natural facts to understand.

Türkçe oku
İnsanların yaptıklarına gülmemeye, ağlamamaya, onlardan nefret etmemeye, onları anlamaya çalıştım.
Baruch Spinoza, Tractatus Politicus (1677)

Spinoza bu cümleyi Tractatus Politicus'un (Siyaset Üzerine İnceleme) başlarında yazdı. Kitap 1677'de ölümüyle yarım kaldı ve aynı yıl, ölümünden sonra yayımlanan eserlerinin arasında çıktı. Amsterdam'da Portekiz kökenli Yahudi bir aileden gelen Hollandalı filozof, görüşleri yüzünden 1656'da kentin Yahudi cemaatinden çıkarılmış, geçimini mercek yontarak sağlamıştı. Etika'sını bir geometri kitabı gibi, tanımlar ve kanıtlarla kurmuştu. Burada da insan tutkularını aynı biçimde ele almaya söz verir: alay edilecek kusurlar olarak değil, anlaşılması gereken doğal olgular olarak.

Sources and further reading

Background reading: Baruch Spinoza
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