You and I are modes of being, or, more simply human beings. There are not, properly speaking, entities. In the language BdS provided, it is a unity of modes of being. Instead of seeing our world as made up of discrete things existing independently of each other, we see unity. With some understanding of unity our view of what is changes drastically. In doing so I shall be continuing with the reflections commenced in the Preface.ġ. It will both assist with understanding him and accomplish the second purpose in writing this book (see the Preface) if I develop some of the implications of the thinking of BdS for our times. It may also, and perhaps more importantly, have vital significance for our own times. Occasionally, however, a study such as the present one, because of its subject, bears not only in these ways. Some studies of historical figures are significant mainly for the history of philosophy and for persons who want to know about philosophers. The Postscript to Paul Wienpahl’s “The Radical Spinoza” (New York University Press, 1979) Click here for more information about this service. Thirdly, the ideas, aspirations and hopes expressed in the Postscript significantly inform the Sunday Morning Service of Mindful Meditation which, since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic and its associated lockdowns, has now become the main service of the Cambridge Unitarian Church where I am minister. Secondly, and related to the foregoing paragraph, being able to see what Wienpahl thinks we get from a careful reading of Spinoza, his Postscript may encourage some readers to tackle Spinoza directly - although I would earnestly encourage readers to do this only after having read Wienpahl’s book first of all because traditional translations and readings of Spinoza, to my mind, seriously (very seriously) misinterpret Spinoza’s basic intention. You may also find some encouragement by reading the excellent and perspicacious review of the book by Don Lusthaus found at this link. Ideally, the whole book should be transcribed (or, even better, republished) but since that seems unlikely at the moment it strikes me as important to give you Wienpahl’s summary of what he thinks a careful reading of Spinoza gifts us so as to encourage you to make every effort to track down the book yourself.
The Postscript is the last piece of work published by Wienpahl before his untimely death in 1980 and I reproduce it here for a number of reasons.įirstly, because The Radical Spinoza is now long out of print and so most people reading this post are unlikely to be able to access a copy with any ease. Since then I have been exploring deeply the implications of a philosophy of movement and new materialism and I have found that Wienpahl’s reading of Spinoza overlaps significantly with both of these trains of thought. I’ve just been re-reading it alongside Wienpahl’s 1955 Unorthodox Lecture which I first read in December 2007 and which introduced me to Wienpahl’s work. What follows my introduction here is a transcription of the Postscript to Paul Wienpahl’s remarkable interpretation of Spinoza’s thought published in 1979 in The Radical Spinoza (New York University Press). Stained-glass window in the former Unitarian
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