History and Philosophy of Science - University of Pittsburgh Press

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2012 • 312 pp.
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Peeling Potatoes or
Grinding Lenses
Spinoza and Young Wittgenstein
Converse on Immanence and Its Logic
ArIStIDeS bAltAS
“In Aristides Baltas’s widely learned and bracingly
surprising interpretation, God for Spinoza and Logic
for Wittgenstein emerge as specific expressions of
the human need for an absolute authority from
whose point of view the whole of reality or language
can be understood and evaluated at once. Spinoza
and Wittgenstein emerge, in turn, as implacable enemies
of any such authority and make common
cause against its claims to legislate what can be
thought, valued, and done. Controversial and fascinating,
the book is bound to provoke intense discussion
and—more important—serious thought.”
—Alexander Nehamas, Princeton University
“It is fascinating to watch Baltas carefully, precisely,
and in loving detail erect his argument from the historical
texts and then defend it in his inimitable elegant
fashion. This is a book to dwell in with
enormous rewards. I recommend it wholeheartedly.”
—George Gale, University of Missouri-Kansas City
“I can work best now while peeling potatoes. . . .
It is for me what lens-grinding was for Spinoza.”—L. Wittgenstein
More than 250 years separate the publication of baruch Spinoza’s Ethics and ludwig
Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. both are considered monumental
philosophical treatises, produced during markedly different times in human
history, and notoriously challenging to interpret. In Peeling Potatoes or Grinding Lenses, Aristides
baltas contends that these works bear a striking similarity based on the idea of “radical
immanence.” each purports to understand the world, thought, and language from the inside
and in a way leading to the dissolution of all philosophy. In that guise, both offer a powerful
argument against fundamentalism of all sorts and kinds.
to Spinoza, God is just nature. God is not above or separate from the world, humanity,
or mere objects for, as nature, He inheres in everything. to Wittgenstein, logic is not above
or separate from language, thought, and the world. the hardness of the logical “must” inheres
in states of affairs, facts, thoughts, and linguistic acts. outside there are no truths or sense—
only nonsense.
through close readings of the texts based on lessons drawn from radical paradigm change
in science, baltas finds in both works a single-minded purpose, implacable reasoning, and an
austerity of style that are rare in the history of philosophy. He analyzes the structure and content
of each treatise, the authors’ intentions, the limitations and possibilities afforded by scientific
discovery in their respective eras, their radical opposition to prevailing philosophical
views, and draws out the particulars, as well as the implications, of the arresting match between
the two.
UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH PRESS • History and Philosophy of Science 11