Pim Levelt, chairman, addressing the audience:

Good morning. My name is Pim Levelt and it is my privilege today to chair this wonderful day dedicated to Spinoza in the Westerkerk. On behalf of the organisers of this event, the Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica and the Vereniging Het Spinozahuis, I would like to welcome you all, in particular the mayor of this city, mr. Cohen.

Our theme today is ‘Libertas philosophandi. Spinoza as guide to a free world’. This day thus connects the main theme of UESCO’s Amsterdam World Book Capital to the work of Benedictus de Spinoza, in particular to the exhibition on this great native Amsterdammer which can be seen in the Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica on Bloemstraat as of today. I thought it might be useful to devote a few words to these two aspects to introduce the day.

For millennia the book has served as the most important tool of the human mind. The celebration of Amsterdam World Book Capital, therefore, is first and foremost a celebration of Amsterdam as a historical haven for the human mind. It is a unique role, one which Amsterdam has managed to assume in the world of the book since the late sixteenth century. For almost a century the city became the world’s major refuge for a great variety of thinkers. Freedom of expression, explicitly formulated in the Union of Utrecht as the ‘freedom of conscience’ for the first time in history, in the course of the years progressed from an almost abstract principle to an often hard-won functional reality. Publishing houses mushroomed in the Republic and explored the limits of that freedom of the press. This is particularly true for the bold mennonite publishing house of father and son Rieuwertsz, who almost immediately after Spinoza’s death published his posthumous works in Latin and in Dutch. Authors who found it impossible to publish their works in their native countries almost always found a publisher in the Republic able to have their work printed, often resorting to ingenious tricks to dupe the authorities.

Equally important was the fact that this historical cultural innovation, freedom of expression, attracted many truly great thinkers, who settled in the Republic for longer or shorter periods to philosophize, write and publish in relative freedom. René Descartes spent virtually most of his professional life here. Half a century later, his renowned compatriot, the Huguenot Pierre Bayle, followed him. Both of these men feature in the exhibition. A Jewish scholar and rabbi like Joseph Attias, who fled from Cordoba, also found refuge here. For shorter periods Amsterdam provided a haven for thinkers like Comenius, who for many years lived as a guest of arms dealer and book collector De Geer in the Huis met de Hoofden. Then there is John Locke, Spinoza’s contemporary, who spent six years in the Republic under the name of Dr. van der Linden because he had to fear for his life back home in Oxford, and many, many others. Tolerance, especially religious tolerance, was naturally a major and recurrent theme in the work of these spiritual and intellectual refugees. It is a phenomenom which has not lost any of its relevance today, on the contrary, we might say. Unfortunately history has taught us that tolerance is a vulnerable cultural asset. It needs to be cherished, defended and fought for. Intolerance is the original human sin.

But more is at stake when freedom of expression is concerned. To tolerate another man’s spoken or written words is one thing, to actually hear them out is quite another thing. That freethinkers and dissidents, in the Republic and abroad, had such an invigorating and innovative influence on the intellectual climate in the Low Countries, and subsequently on the European Enlightenment, is surely also due to their willingness to give serious consideration to another man’s thought and to engage in (occasionally heated) debates. Only in this way can variety become a potent source of social renewal. It needs no arguing that this combination of tolerance, debate and open-mindedness is today as topical in this country and in our globalizing world as it was in Spinoza’s days.

This brings me back to the theme of ‘Libertas philosophandi’. The initiative to present a large retrospective exhibition in the Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica on Spinoza’s work and its reception history led to this special day devoted to Spinoza as guide to a free world, a day, which, as I have said earlier, was organized jointly with the Vereniging Het Spinozahuis. The Spinozahuis has also provided loans for the exhibition, in addition to Ets Haim, the Jewish Historical Museum, the city archive of Amsterdam, the Royal Library and the Museum Meermanno in The Hague, the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Bibliothek in Hanover, the university libraries of Amsterdam and Utrecht, as well as a number of private lenders.

On the occasion of the exhibition the Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica also prepared the publication of a volume on Spinoza, his work and his place in our intellectual landscape, with contributions from a great national and international experts. (I will talk about this volume a little more later.) While the volume was in preparation, the thought arose to present at least a few of the authors not only as writers, but also as speakers, a challenge which was successfully met, to the great pleasure of the director of the library. All of the speakers today have also contributed to the volume. Their diversity not only reflects the scope of the themes presented in the book, but also the incredible scope and depth of Spinoza’s thought and influence.

Today we will hear Spinoza praise the city of Amsterdam as a ‘city of the highest renown, in which men of every race and sect live in complete harmony’. That is the praise of tolerance. But we will also hear him as a sharp critic, as a dissident, assessing his own Jewish background, proclaiming that the Bible should not be studied as a source of divine revelation, but like any other natural and historical text. We will hear him say: ‘There is no chosen people’. – ‘The Jews have no claims above any other nation of the world’. We may perhaps hear about his irritation when people fall to their prayers. More in general, we will see him rid our thoughts and our beliefs of all that surplus ballast, to free us for what really matters. What really matters, according to Spinoza, is a life led out of the desire to do good under the guidance of reason, or, as he puts it in Proposition 46 of the Ethica: ‘He who lives under the guidance of reason will endeavour to repay hatred with love, that is, with kindness.’ It is a maxim which has not lost any of its force today.


Mayor Job Cohen addressing the audience

Ladies and Gentlemen,

First of all I would like to thank Pim Levelt for his wonderful introduction, in which he outlined the key themes which will be discussed later today. As he pointed out, in our country freedom of conscience was laid down for the first time at the Union of Utrecht, which made the Dutch Republic the haven it was. Let me quote from the twentieth chapter of Spinoza’s Tractatus Theologico Politicus:

Take the city of Amsterdam, which enjoys the fruits of this freedom, to its own considerable prosperity and the admiration of the world. In this city of the highest renown, men of every race and sect live in complete harmony; and before entrusting their property to some person they will want to know no more than this, whether he is rich or poor and whether he has been honest or dishonest in his dealings. As for religion or sect, that is of no account, because such considerations are regarded as irrelevant in a court of law.

Spinoza was not the only one to praise Amsterdam. A eulogy on Amsterdam by René Descartes, one of Spinoza’s great inspirators, is carved in stone at Westermarkt no. 6. It is an epistolary fragment,  containing the significant words:

"Quel autre pays où l'on puisse jouir d'une liberté si entière?"
In which other country can one enjoy liberty so fully?

Also at Westermarkt no. 6, in 1634 , Descartes wrote his Traité des passions de l’âme, which was a direct influence on Spinoza’s Ethica.

I would like to say something about John Locke, the founding father of liberalism, to illustrate the climate of tolerance. When the works of Milton and Hobbes were sacrificed to the flames in England, Locke, by way of precaution, took refuge in the Republic in the years 1683 to 1689 for ideas which were far more controversial. His Essay concerning Human Understanding was largely written in Amsterdam. When he left he wrote, and I quote:

“It feels as if I am leaving my native land behind, because here I have found love, friendship and everything which binds men together in abundance.”

In short, not only was Amsterdam a city brimming with publishers and printers, where even the works of our enemies were printed (as long as profit could be made by them). It was also a city where a great many epoch-making books could be conceived and written in all freedom. At the time, Amsterdam was one of the greatest hubs in the world – and so it remains to the present day. The city was a place of great intellectual ferment.

I came across various examples of this exciting activity in Libertas philosophandi. Together with one of the excellent civil servants our city boasts, I was given a digital taste of the volume.

Freedom of conscience meant that everyone was allowed to express his or her opinions. Inevitably almost, the air was charged with argument, with scores of religious factions and sects challenging each other. This multi-hued society is aptly described in the introductory article called “Stad van verdraagzaamheid? Amsterdam als vrijhaven voor andersdenkenden” (City of tolerance? Amsterdam as a haven for dissidents). But a question mark has been placed behind the word ‘tolerance’. Freedom, apparently, had its price. We might even say: you can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs. And so it could happen that The Hague demanded the head of the Amsterdammer Vondel, while Spinoza for his part eventually found refuge in The Hague, via Voorburg and Rijnsburg.  Spinoza was born in Amsterdam, in the area where the city hall now stands. All things considered, I might say I am now working on Spinoza’s native soil. Already at a fairly young age Spinoza, who received his first schooling in Amsterdam – the subject of Abraham Rosenberg’s article in the volume – was placed under a ban. Steven Nadler investigates that ban in greater detail. Spinoza might have left Amsterdam, but his influence in his native town did not disappear with him, as we can read in the article by Frank Mertens.

I would incidentally like to say that the readability of all articles is one of the strong points of the volume. Not just their readability, but also the control over the length of the articles. Each contribution perfectly fits within the reader’s attention curve. And then there is the variety: there are contributions with background information, while others focus on Spinoza’s philosophy.

The different roles played by the imagination in Spinoza’s two chief works, the Ethica and the Tractatus theologico politicus, are outlined with great lucidity. The imagination in the Ethica, which concentrates on the veracity of the images of God and man, and the imagination in the Tractatus theologico politicus, which focusses on the role of the imagination as a source of inspiration and provides – most practical and usable –  a model for morality. For Spinoza, the imagination reinforced the human affects, leading to an analysis whereby he shows that intolerance is not the exclusive domain of religion, but can just as well be the result of haughtiness, hatred and jealousy. An  analysis – so I have read – which Spinoza and John Locke shared.

Also relevant and worthy of notice are the remarks offered in the volume on Spinoza’s views about justice and democracy and the relationship between the state and freedom of religion.
Spinoza – as I have read in Mirjam van Reijen’s contribution relating to Spinoza’s views on democracy and tolerance – pleaded for total freedom of thought, speech, judgement and interpretation. However, the state determines the extent of freedom in the case of ecclesiastical practices. Freedom to practise one’s religion may be limited to protect people from religious indoctrination. Complete tolerance of speech, therefore, but limited tolerance of action.

For a long time Spinoza was regarded as an atheist because he did not consider religious writings as sent from heaven to man by God, as documents, therefore,  containing the absolute truth. In themselves, the quotation from the first Epistle of John on the title-page of the Tractatus theologico politicus and the “Amor Intellectualis Dei” with which the Ethica ends, are sufficient not to regard him as an atheist. Nowadays he is no longer regarded as an atheist, but as a still highly readable precursor of modern biblical criticism and religious sciences.

The volume also contains some fine articles placing Spinoza in the philosophical landscape. They discuss the notable points of agreement between him and Giordano Bruno, the relationship between Böhme and Spinoza and the Spinoza reception in Germany in the nineteenth century. I’m finding that my speech is turning into a book review, which, of course, is not what I’m here for. Time to wind up my talk.

Spinoza. He remains an enigmatic thinker: he appeals to mysticism, he was a favourite of Hegel, but he also exerts a strong attraction on rationalists. There are numerous physicists who, when asked whether they believe in God, will answer: yes, in the God of Spinoza.

Spinoza. He remains an inspiring thinker, certainly in our own time, now that Church and State and the separation between the two are once more the topic of debate. Not so much the separation itself, but rather what we understand by that word. As it happens the municipal executive of Amsterdam today issued a memorandum dealing with the separation between Church and State, freedom of religion and freedom of conviction, the principle of equality and the neutrality of government. We decided to do so because the subjects keeps recurring in our discussions.

It would be interesting to look at these issues through the lens of Spinoza. I can’t do that, but then I’m not a philosopher or a lense-grinder, if I may be allowed this allusion. Instead, I leave you all to look through the lens of Spinoza.

In short, it is an honour and a pleasure to be here today and to receive the first copy of Libertas Philosophandi – Spinoza als gids voor een vrije wereld.  A book which is a feast for Amsterdam, for every book lover, philosopher and fan of Spinoza.
You can tell that I have great appreciation for the authors, for the Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica and of course also for the Vereniging Het Spinozahuis, Amsterdam World Book Capital and the other institutions and libraries which have contributed to this wonderful volume which was edited by Cis van Heertum, a curator of the Ritman Library and the compiler of this exhibition. It is a feast to be here today in the Westerkerk. You may be remain all day, I myself, unfortunately, only for a brief moment.


Esther Oosterwijk addressing the mayor and the audience

Dear mayor Cohen, dear ladies and gentlemen,

We are very glad to welcome you all at the start of this day devoted to Spinoza, which will be taking place here in the Westerkerk under the theme of ‘Libertas philosophandi. Spinoza as guide for a free world’. We are also very honoured that you, mayor Cohen, agreed to accept the first copy of the volume of the same title. Once Spinoza found a good friend in the Amsterdam mayor Johannes Hudde, a lawyer and a mathematician – it is good to know that the present mayor of Amsterdam continues this tradition!

The philosopher Spinoza is not a stranger in the Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica, which has organized this day and exhibition in cooperation with the Vereniging Het Spinozahuis. Perhaps this is something of a surprise to you, because the library founded by my father Joost Ritman in 1957 has so far been known mostly as an institute preserving Hermetic-alchemical thought. Whenever Spinoza was called a ‘rather hermetic philosopher’ in the past, it was not to associate him with Hermes Trismegistus, the name giver of the library.

And yet Spinoza’s rightful place in the Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica is quite an obvious one. The library also collects the works of freethinkers, and we may certainly classify Spinoza as one of them. Writers who defended the principle of toleration, and nurtured the conviction that it must be possible for people of all creeds to live together peacefully.

We find a similar train of thought in Spinoza’s famous eulogy on Amsterdam, which will no doubt be spoken about more often today. Appropriately, too, because this day and the exhibition came about in the context of Amsterdam World Book Capital. The theme of Amsterdam World Book Capital is freedom of expression and thought: ‘Open Book, Open Mind’, whereby the organizers refer to the reputation this city has enjoyed ever since the Golden Age of Amsterdam as a haven of the ‘open book’. In the seventeenth century, works could be published here which were prohibited elsewhere. The work of the German mystic Jacob Böhme, for instance, the subject of our previous exhibition, was printed in Amsterdam and exported to Germany.

Freedom of expression and freedom to philosophize was also of major importance to the Amsterdam philosopher Spinoza. When he left Amsterdam, he first settled in Rijnsburg, not far from the University of Leiden, whose motto ‘praesidium libertatis’, bastion of liberty, must have appealed to him strongly.

The Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica, which is moving to the Huis met Hoofden on Keizersgracht in a few years’ time, likewise wishes to become known as a ‘bastion of liberty’ with her collection of books and research institute. We intend to set up a Foundation of Friends of the Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica, consisting of well-wishers of the library and her activities. But before that date, all activities organized by the library will take place at the old address in Bloemstraat, where you will be able to visit the Spinoza exhibition today, and by way of exception also this weekend, on Saturday and Sunday. From 30 June the exhibition can be visited every work day until 26 September.

‘By studying the ideas of Spinoza and the Enlightenment ideals he expressed, we may achieve renewed inspiration and an enhanced awareness to appreciate and defend our political culture’, you, mayor Cohen, said when conferring the Spinoza lens in 2004.

We hope that this day and the exhibition will contribute to the inspiration which we may derive from Amsterdam’s greatest philosopher, Spinoza.

I am now happy to present you with the first copy of the volume.