Who was Spinoza? This audacious figure of the 17th century, this brilliant philosopher whose work influenced global thought, and who at the age of twenty-three became an outcast for the entire Jewish community of Amsterdam, as well as for his own family?
What was his inner life like? What was the reason, exactly two centuries later, for the attraction that Spinoza exercised on the "philosopher" of the Nazis? Why did they plunder his library but not burn his books? What was the "Spinoza problem" to which they referred?
These questions have occupied psychiatrist and novelist Irvin D. Yalom for many years. In his exciting new novel, "The Spinoza Problem," he not only humanizes the philosopher but also reveals the origin and meaning of this powerful yet enigmatic obsession.
He focuses his gaze on Alfred Rosenberg, the Nazi ideologue primarily responsible for the intellectual program of his party. Rosenberg is haunted by the intellectual legacy of his hero, Goethe, from the moment he discovers that the poet admired Spinoza: a Jewish outcast whom his community labeled as heretical, and for whom Rosenberg feels both respect and repulsion.
Through the parallel lives of Spinoza and Rosenberg, Yalom provides an incisive look at the dangers lurking in the quest for wisdom and the calamities that follow anyone brave enough—or foolish enough—to attempt to live like a philosopher.
