Spinoza was famously heretical in his views. No surprise then that he defended free expression. Here Steven Nadler discusses Spinoza's views on this topic with Nigel Warburton.
This is philosophy bites with me, Nigel.
Warburton, and me, David Edmonds.
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It'S perhaps not surprising that the 17th century dutch philosopher Berruchtus Spinoza would argue in support of free speech of portuguese jewish origin.
His controversial ideas on God and ethics got him kicked out of his community.
But quite how radical was his position on free speech?
Here's one of the leading scholars on Spinoza, Stephen Nadler.
Stephen Nadler, welcome to Frosty Bites.
Oh, it's good to be back.
Thanks for having me.
Again, we're going to be talking about Spinoza and freedom of speech and freedom of expression.
Spinoza was quite remarkable philosopher.
What did he have to say about free speech?
Well, he was way ahead of his time, and the theological political treatise, which was published in 1670 to great alarm, caused a great scandal for its various views on miracles, the Bible, and religion.
But he also devoted several chapters to mostly political matters.
And chapter 20 of the treatise has this remarkable statement where he says that in a free commonwealth, every man may think as he pleases and say what he thinks, which, on the face of it, it looks like he believes in an absolute freedom of speech, an absolute freedom of expression, which would include freedom of the press, freedom of literature, and so on.
Everyone should be free to think as he pleases and say what he thinks, whether in voice or in writing.
So it looks like for Spinoza, at least on the face of it, there to be no restrictions on what people can say and write and print.