Spinoza

1663 · 1005 — <p>First Edition of Spinoza's First Book – Explicating Descartes</p><p>SPINOZA Benedict. Renati Des Cartes Principiorum Philosophiæ Pars I & II More Geometrico demonstratæ per Benedictum de Spinoza per Amstelodamensem . Accesserunt Eiusdem Cogitata Metaphysica Rene Descartes' Principles of Philosophy Parts I & II Demonstrated According to the Geometric Method by Benedict de Spinoza of Amsterdam. the same followed by Metaphysical Thoughts Johannem Riewerts Amstelodami Amsterdam 1663. 1 blank leaf TP i-vii = Præfatio viii = Ad Librum ix-xiv = Index 1-90 91 = half-title 93-140 blank leaf; Small Quarto. First Edition in original paper wrappers Kingma-Offenberg 1.</p><p>This Spinoza's first work is the only one published during his lifetime that identified him as the author and had the correct information on the printer-publisher. Spinoza's next two works Tractatus Theologico-Politicus & Opera posthuma were very much his own radical thought rather than a reworking of Descartes ideas as here and so were necessarily published anonymously listing false information about the printer-publisher on the title page. The radical nature of Spinoza's thought and the dangers of publishing such materials in this time and place are brilliantly explained in Jonathan Israel's Radical Enlightenment Oxford 2001. Here Spinoza presents an exposition of Cartesian philosophy but he has recast it using his own geometrical method of reasoning and presentation. The origins of this work are interesting and clearly explained by the author himself in a letter to his friend Oldenburg written shortly after the book's publication: "Some of my friends asked me to make them a copy of a treatise containing a precise account of the Second Part of Descartes' Principia Philosophiæ 1644 demonstrated in the geometric style and of the main points treated in metaphysics. Previously I had dictated this to a certain young man to whom I did not want to teach my own opinions openly. They asked me to prepare the First Part also by the same method as soon as I could. Not to disappoint my friends I immediately undertook to do this and finished it in two weeks. I delivered it to my friends who in the end asked me to let them publish the whole work. They easily won my agreement on the condition that one of them Lodewijk Meyer in my presence would provide it with a more elegant Latin style and add a short preface warning readers that I did not acknowledge all the opinions contained in this treatise as my own since I had written many things in it which were the opposite of what I held and illustrating this by one or two examples. One of my friends to whose care the publishing of this little book has been entrusted has promised to do all this and that is why I stayed for a while in Amsterdam" Nadler Spinoza A Life 205. This rather straightforward – though completely reformatted – exposition of Descartes is followed by the Cogita Metaphysica 91-140 – with its own half-title page which is written from the Cartesian perspective defending for instance the freedom of the will but with some serious foreshadowing of Spinoza's later doctrines.</p><p>CONDITION: Very good in original brown paper wrappers most of backstrip lacking with wear to extremities. Woodcut illustr. to title-page and several woodcut mathematical and physical illustrations throughout. Annotations to both free end-paper. Some minor brownspotting and even light browning to leaves. A very nice and attractive copy of Spinoza's first book housed in a custom cloth archival box.</p> Johannem Riewerts paperback