4 - Spinoza's natural science and methodology

Summary

The question of Spinoza's involvement with science depends initially on the kinds of scientific pursuit in which he is thought to have been involved. To judge by the prestigious Dictionary of Scientific Biography, Spinoza was not importantly involved in any kind of science, since he does not merit an entry in its ostensibly comprehensive sixteen volumes (Gillispie 1970-80). This judgment is shared by the authors of most histories of science that cover the seventeenth century, where Spinoza's name appears, if at all, only in passing as part of the historical furnishing. A minority of historians of science takes a more constructive view. In Wolf's History of Science, Technology and Philosophy in the 16th and 17th Centuries, where one enjoys the wider vision of an older historiography of science, Spinoza joins Hobbes, Descartes, Locke, and Leibniz in the chapter on psychology, and he is accorded a chapter or section in most histories of psychology, including collections of source material. Furthermore, many articles and book-length studies deal in one way or another with Spinoza's psychology (however understood); biology, medicine and psychoanalysis also figure topically in Spinoza bibliographies.