Wednesday, 28 May 2008

BARUCH SPINOZA


Baruch or Benedict de Spinoza (Hebrew: ברוך שפינוזה‎, Portuguese: Bento de Espinosa, Latin: Benedictus de Spinoza) (November 24, 1632February 21, 1677) was a Dutch philosopher of Portuguese Jewish origin. Revealing considerable scientific aptitude, the breadth and importance of Spinoza's work was not fully realized until years after his death. Today, he is considered one of the great rationalists of 17th-century philosophy, laying the groundwork for the 18th-century Enlightenment and modern biblical criticism. By virtue of his magnum opus, the posthumous Ethics, Spinoza is also considered one of Western philosophy's definitive ethicists.

Spinoza lived quietly as a lens grinder, turning down rewards and honors throughout his life, including prestigious teaching positions, and gave his family inheritance to his sister. Spinoza's moral character and philosophical accomplishments prompted 20th-century philosopher Gilles Deleuze to name him "the absolute philosopher."[1] Spinoza died in February 1677 of a lung illness, perhaps tuberculosis or silicosis caused by fine glass dust inhaled while tending to his trade.


Biography

Family origins

Spinoza's ancestors were of Sephardic Jewish descent, and were a part of the community of Portuguese Jews that grew in the city after the Alhambra Decree in Spain (1492) and the Portuguese Inquisition (1536) had led to forced conversions and expulsions from the Iberian peninsula. [2] Some historians argue the Spinoza family had its remote origins in Spain; others claim they were Portuguese Jews who had moved to Spain and then returned to their home country in 1492, only to be forcibly converted to Catholicism in 1498[citation needed]. Spinoza's father was born roughly a century after this forced conversion in the small Portuguese city of Vidigueira, near Beja in Alentejo[citation needed]. When Spinoza's father was still a child, Spinoza's grandfather, Isaac de Spinoza (who was from Lisbon), took his family to Nantes in France. They were expelled in 1615 and moved to Rotterdam, where Isaac died in 1627. Spinoza's father, Miguel, and his uncle, Manuel, then moved to Amsterdam where they assumed their Judaism.[citation needed] Manuel changed his name to Abraão de Spinoza, though his "commercial" name was still the same.

Early life and career

Baruch Spinoza was born in Amsterdam, in the Netherlands. His mother Ana Débora, Miguel's second wife, died when Baruch was only six years old. Miguel was a successful importer/merchant and Baruch had a traditional Jewish upbringing; however, his critical, curious nature would soon come into conflict with the Jewish community. After wars with England and France took the life of his father and decimated his family's fortune, he was eventually able to relinquish responsibility for the business and its debts to his brother, Gabriel, and devote himself to philosophy and optics.

Controversial ideas and Jewish reaction

Spinoza became known in the Jewish community for positions contrary to normative Jewish belief, with critical positions towards the Talmud and other religious texts. In the summer of 1656, he was issued the writ of cherem (Hebrew: חרם, a kind of excommunication) from the Jewish community, perhaps for the apostasy of how he conceived God, although the reason is not stated in the cherem. The terms of his cherem were severe.[3] He was, in Bertrand Russell's words, "cursed with all the curses in Deuteronomy and with the curse that Elisha pronounced on the children who, in consequence, were torn to pieces by the she-bears."[4] It was never revoked. Following his excommunication, he adopted the first name Benedictus, the Latin equivalent of his given name, Baruch; they both mean "blessed". In his native Amsterdam he was also known as Bento (Portuguese for Benedict or blessed) de Spinoza, which was the informal form of his name.

After his cherem, it is reported that Spinoza lived and worked in the school of Franciscus van den Enden, who taught him Latin in his youth and may have introduced him to modern philosophy, although Spinoza never mentions Van den Enden anywhere in his books or letters. Van den Enden was a Cartesian and atheist who was forbidden by the city government to propagate his doctrines publicly. Spinoza, having dedicated himself completely to philosophy after 1656, fervently desired to change the world through establishing a clandestine philosophical sect. Because of public censure this was only eventually realized after his death through the dedicated intercession of his friends.

During this period Spinoza also became acquainted with several Collegiants, members of an eclectic sect with tendencies towards rationalism. Spinoza also corresponded with Peter Serrarius, a radical Protestant and millennarian merchant. Serrarius is believed to have been a patron of Spinoza at some point.[citation needed] By the beginning of the 1660s, Spinoza's name became more widely known, and eventually Gottfried Leibniz and Henry Oldenburg paid him visits, as stated in Matthew Stewart's "The Courtier and the Heretic.".[citation needed] He corresponded with Oldenburg for the rest of his short life. Spinoza's first publication was his Tractatus de intellectus emendatione. From December 1664 to June 1665, Spinoza engaged in correspondence with Blyenbergh, an amateur Calvinist theologian, who questioned Spinoza on the definition of evil. Later in 1665, he notified Oldenburg that he had started to work on a new book, the Theologico-Political Treatise, published in 1670. Leibniz disagreed harshly with Spinoza in Leibniz's own published Refutation of Spinoza, but is also known to have met with Spinoza on at least one occasion[citation needed], and whose own work bears certain striking resemblances to certain key parts of Spinoza's philosophy (see: Monadology).

When the public reactions to the anonymously published Theologico-Political Treatise were extremely unfavourable to his brand of Cartesianism, Spinoza was compelled to abstain from publishing more of his works. Wary and independent, he wore a signet ring engraved with his initials, a rose and the word "caute" (Latin for "cautiously"). The Ethics and all other works, apart from the Principles of Cartesian Philosophy and the Theologico-Political Treatise, were published after his death in the Opera Posthuma edited by his friends in secrecy to avoid confiscation and destruction of manuscripts.

Later life and career

Spinoza's house in Rijnsburg from 1661-3, now a museum

Spinoza relocated from Amsterdam to Rijnsburg (near Leiden) around 1661 and later lived in Voorburg and The Hague respectively. He earned a comfortable living from lens-grinding. While the lens-grinding aspect of Spinoza's work is uncontested, the type of lenses he made is in question. Many have said he produced excellent magnifying glasses, and some historians credit him with being an optician (in the sense of making lenses for eyeglasses). He was also supported by small, but regular, donations from close friends. He died in 1677 while still working on a political thesis. His premature death was due to lung illness, possibly the result of breathing in glass dust from the lenses he ground. Only a year earlier, Spinoza had met with Leibniz at The Hague for a discussion of his principal philosophical work, Ethics, which had been completed in 1676. This meeting was described in Matthew Stewart's The Courtier and the Heretic. [5] Spinoza never married, nor did he father any children. When he died, he was considered a heathen anti-religionist by the general population, and when Boerhaave wrote his dissertation in 1688 he attacked the doctrines of Spinoza. He claimed later that defense of Spinoza's lifestyle cost him his reputation in Leiden and a post as minister.

Dutch Port cities as sites of free thought

Amsterdam and Rotterdam were important cosmopolitan centers where merchant ships from many parts of the world brought people of various customs and beliefs. It is this hustle and bustle which ensured, as in the Mediterranean region during the Renaissance, some possibility of free thought and shelter from the crushing hand of ecclesiastical authority. Thus Spinoza no doubt had access to a circle of friends who were basically heretics in the eyes of tradition. One of the people he must have known was Niels Stensen, a brilliant Danish student in Leiden; others were Coenraad van Beuningen and his cousin Albert Burgh, with whom Spinoza is known to have corresponded.

Philosophy

The opening page of Spinoza's magnum opus, Ethics


Substance, Attribute and Mode

"These are the fundamental concepts with which Spinoza sets forth a vision of Being, illuminated by his awareness of God. They may seem strange at first sight. To the question "What is?" he replies: "Substance, its attributes and modes". Spinoza, Carl Jaspers p.9

Spinoza's system imparted order and unity to the tradition of radical thought, offering powerful weapons for prevailing against "received authority." As a youth he first subscribed to Descartes's dualistic belief that body and mind are two separate substances, but later changed his view and asserted that they were not separate, being a single identity. He contended that everything that exists in Nature/Universe is one Reality (substance) and there is only one set of rules governing the whole of the reality which surrounds us and of which we are part. Spinoza viewed God and Nature as two names for the same reality, namely the single substance (meaning "to stand beneath" rather than "matter") that is the basis of the universe and of which all lesser "entities" are actually modes or modifications, that all things are determined by Nature to exist and cause effects, and that the complex chain of cause and effect is only understood in part. That humans presume themselves to have free will, he argues, is a result of their awareness of appetites while being unable to understand the reasons why they want and act as they do. The argument for the single substance runs as follows:

1 Substance exists and cannot be dependent on anything else for its existence

2 No two substances can share the same nature or attribute.

Proof: Two distinct substances can be differentiated either by some difference in their natures or by some difference in one of their alterable states of being. If they have different natures, then the original proposition is granted and the proof is complete. If, however, they are distinguished only by their states of being, then, considering the substances in themselves, there is no difference between the substances and they are identical. "That is, there cannot be several such substances but only one."[6]

3A substance can only be caused by something similar to itself (something that shares its attribute).

4 Substance cannot be caused.

Proof: Something can only be caused by something which is similar to itself, in other words something that shares its attribute. But according to premise 2, no two substances can share an attribute. Therefore substance cannot be caused.

5 Subtance is infinite.

Proof: If substance were not infinite, it would be finite and limited by something. But to be limited by something is to be dependent on it. However, substance cannot be dependent on anything else (premise 1), therefore substance is infinite.

Conclusion: There can only be one substance.

Proof: If there were two infinite substances, they would limit each other. But this would act as a restraint, and they would be dependent on each other. But they cannot be dependent on each other (premise 1), therefore there cannot be two substances.

Spinoza contended that "Deus sive Natura" ("God or Nature") was a being of infinitely many attributes, of which extension and thought were two. His account of the nature of reality, then, seems to treat the physical and mental worlds as one and the same. The universal substance consists of both body and mind, there being no difference between these aspects. This formulation is a historically significant solution to the mind-body problem known as neutral monism. The consequences of Spinoza's system also envisage a God that does not rule over the universe by providence, but a God which itself is the deterministic system of which everything in nature is a part. Thus, God is the natural world and He has no personality.

In addition to substance, the other two fundamental concepts Spinoza presents, and develops in the Ethics are

Attribute:

By attribute, I mean that which the intellect perceives as constituting the essence of substance.
and Mode:

By mode, I mean the modifications of substance, or that which exists in, and is conceived through, something other than itself.

Spinoza was a thoroughgoing determinist who held that absolutely everything that happens occurs through the operation of necessity. For him, even human behaviour is fully determined, with freedom being our capacity to know we are determined and to understand why we act as we do. So freedom is not the possibility to say "no" to what happens to us but the possibility to say "yes" and fully understand why things should necessarily happen that way. By forming more "adequate" ideas about what we do and our emotions or affections, we become the adequate cause of our effects (internal or external), which entails an increase in activity (versus passivity). This means that we become both more free and more like God, as Spinoza argues in the Scholium to Prop. 49, Part II. However, Spinoza also held that everything must necessarily happen the way that it does. Therefore, there is no free will.

Spinoza's philosophy has much in common with Stoicism in as much as both philosophies sought to fulfill a therapeutic role by instructing people how to attain happiness (or eudaimonia, for the Stoics). However, Spinoza differed sharply from the Stoics in one important respect: he utterly rejected their contention that reason could defeat emotion. On the contrary, he contended, an emotion can only be displaced or overcome by a stronger emotion. For him, the crucial distinction was between active and passive emotions, the former being those that are rationally understood and the latter those that are not. He also held that knowledge of true causes of passive emotion can transform it to an active emotion, thus anticipating one of the key ideas of Sigmund Freud's psychoanalysis.

Spinoza's philosophy seems to have also some traits in common with that of Advaita Vedanta, a sampradhya or school of thought in Hinduism, especially as expounded by Adi Shankara. These Indian philosophers from the 8th and 11th centuries respectively emphasize the notion of one reality (substance here), Brahman and the notion of attributes (which could be construed as an interpretation that is similar to that of Spinoza). Although Schopoenhaur was the first European to have access to Hindu scripture, the question arises as to whether Spinoza may have had access to Indian philosophical texts.

Some of Spinoza's philosophical positions are:

The natural world is infinite.

Good and evil are related to human pleasure and pain.

Everything done by humans and other animals is excellent and divine.

All rights are derived from the State.

Animals can be used in any way by people for the benefit of the human race, according to a rational consideration of the benefit as well as the animal's status in nature.[7]


Ethical philosophy

Encapsulated at the start in his Treatise on the Improvement of the Understanding (Tractatus de intellectus emendatione) is the core of Spinoza's ethical philosophy, what he held to be the true and final good. Spinoza held a relativist's position, that nothing is intrinsically good or bad, except to the extent that it is subjectively perceived to be by the individual. Things are only good or evil in respect that humanity sees it desirable to apply these conceptions to matters. Instead, Spinoza believes in his deterministic universe that, "All things in nature proceed from certain necessity and with the utmost perfection." Therefore, nothing happens by chance in Spinoza's world, and reason does not work in terms of contingency.

In the universe anything that happens comes from the essential nature of objects, or of God/Nature. According to Spinoza, reality is perfection. If circumstances are seen as unfortunate it is only because of our inadequate conception of reality. While elements of the chain of cause and effect are not beyond the understanding of human reason, our grasp of the infinitely complex whole is limited because of the limits of science to empirically take account of the whole sequence. Spinoza also asserted that sense perception, though practical and useful for rhetoric, is inadequate for discovering universal truth; Spinoza's mathematical and logical approach to metaphysics, and therefore ethics, concluded that emotion is formed from inadequate understanding. His concept of "conatus" states that human beings' natural inclination is to strive toward preserving an essential being and an assertion that virtue/human power is defined by success in this preservation of being by the guidance of reason as one's central ethical doctrine. According to Spinoza, the highest virtue is the intellectual love or knowledge of God/Nature/Universe.

In the final part of the "Ethics" his concern with the meaning of "true blessedness" and his unique approach to and explanation of how emotions must be detached from external cause in order to master them presages 20th-century psychological techniques. His concept of three types of knowledge - opinion, reason, intuition - and assertion that intuitive knowledge provides the greatest satisfaction of mind, leads to his proposition that the more we are conscious of ourselves and Nature/Universe, the more perfect and blessed we are (in reality) and that only intuitive knowledge is eternal. His unique contribution to understanding the workings of mind is extraordinary, even during this time of radical philosophical developments, in that his views provide a bridge between religions' mystical past and psychology of the present day.

Given Spinoza's insistence on a completely ordered world where "necessity" reigns, Good and Evil have no absolute meaning. Human catastrophes, social injustices, etc. are merely apparent. The world as it exists looks imperfect only because of our limited perception.


Pantheism controversy

Main article: Pantheism controversy

In 1785, Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi published a condemnation of Spinoza's pantheism, after Lessing was thought to have confessed on his deathbed to being a "Spinozist", which was the equivalent in his time of being called an atheist. Jacobi claimed that Spinoza's doctrine was pure materialism, because all Nature and God are said to be nothing but extended substance. This, for Jacobi, was the result of Enlightenment rationalism and it would finally end in absolute atheism. Moses Mendelssohn disagreed with Jacobi, saying that there is no actual difference between theism and pantheism. The entire issue became a major intellectual and religious concern for European civilization at the time, which Immanuel Kant rejected, as he thought that attempts to conceive of transcendent reality would lead to antinomies (statements that could be proven both right and wrong) in thought.

The attraction of Spinoza's philosophy to late eighteenth-century Europeans was that it provided an alternative to materialism, atheism, and deism. Three of Spinoza's ideas strongly appealed to them:

the unity of all that exists;

the regularity of all that happens; and

the identity of spirit and nature.

Spinoza's "God or Nature" provided a living, natural God, in contrast to the Newtonian mechanical "First Cause" or the dead mechanism of the French "Man Machine."


Modern relevance

Tractus Theologico-Politicus, a name Wittgenstein later paid homage to in his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus

Late 20th-century Europe demonstrated a greater philosophical interest in Spinoza, often from a left-wing or Marxist perspective. Notable philosophers Gilles Deleuze, Antonio Negri, Étienne Balibar and the Brazilian philosopher Marilena Chauí have each written books on Spinoza. Deleuze's doctoral thesis, published in 1968, refers to him as "the prince of philosophers."[8] Other philosophers heavily influenced by Spinoza include Constantin Brunner and John David Garcia. Stuart Hampshire wrote a major English language study of Spinoza, though H. H. Joachim's work is equally valuable. Unlike most philosophers, Spinoza and his work were highly regarded by Nietzsche.

Philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein evoked Spinoza with the title (suggested to him by G. E. Moore) of the English translation of his first definitive philosophical work, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, an allusion to Spinoza's Tractatus Theologico-Politicus. Elsewhere, Wittgenstein deliberately borrowed the expression sub specie aeternitatis from Spinoza (Notebooks, 1914-16, p. 83). The structure of his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus does have certain structural affinities with Spinoza's Ethics (though, admittedly, not with the latter's own Tractatus) in erecting complex philosophical arguments upon basic logical assertions and principles. Furthermore, in propositions 6.4311 and 6.45 he alludes to a Spinozian understanding of eternity and interpretation of the religious concept of eternal life, stating that "If by eternity is understood not eternal temporal duration, but timelessness, then he lives eternally who lives in the present." (6.4311) "The contemplation of the world sub specie aeterni is its contemplation as a limited whole." (6.45) Furthermore, Wittgenstein's interpretation of religious language, in both his early and later career, may be said to bear a family resemblance to Spinoza's pantheism.

Spinoza has had influence beyond the confines of philosophy. The nineteenth century novelist, George Eliot, produced her own translation of the Ethics, the first known English translation thereof. The twentieth century novelist, W. Somerset Maugham, alluded to one of Spinoza's central concepts with the title of his novel, Of Human Bondage. Albert Einstein named Spinoza as the philosopher who exerted the most influence on his world view (Weltanschauung). Spinoza equated God (infinite substance) with Nature, consistent with Einstein's belief in an impersonal deity. In 1929, Einstein was asked in a telegram by Rabbi Herbert S. Goldstein whether he believed in God. Einstein responded by telegram: "I believe in Spinoza's God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with the fates and actions of human beings."[1] Spinoza's pantheism has also influenced environmental theory. Arne Næss, the father of the deep ecology movement, acknowledged Spinoza as an important inspiration. Moreover, the Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges was greatly influenced by Spinoza's world view. In many of his poems and short stories, Borges makes constant allusions to the philosopher's work, though not necessarily as a partisan of his doctrines, but merely in order to use these for aesthetic purposes--a common tactic in Borges's work.

Spinoza is an important historical figure in the Netherlands, where his portrait was featured prominently on the Dutch 1000-guilder banknote, legal tender until the euro was introduced in 2002. The highest and most prestigious scientific award of the Netherlands is named the Spinoza prijs (Spinoza prize). Spinoza's work is also mentioned as the favourite reading material for Bertie Wooster's valet Jeeves in the P. G. Wodehouse novels.

See also

Notes

1-^ Deleuze, 1990.
2-^ Magnusson, M (ed.), Spinoza, Baruch, Chambers Biographical Dictionary, Chambers 1990, ISBN 0550160418
3-^ Tel Aviv University: "Why Was Baruch De Spinoza Excommunicated?", by Asa Kasher and Shlomo Biderman
4-^ Bertrand Russell, A History of Western Philosophy Allen & Unwin (1946) New Ed.1961 p.552
5-^ Lucas, 1960.
6-^ Ethics, Pt. I, Prop. V, Proof.
7-^ Ethics, Pt. IV, Prop. XXXVII, Note I.: "Still I do not deny that beasts feel: what I deny is, that we may not consult our own advantage and use them as we please, treating them in a way which best suits us; for their nature is not like ours...." (Emphasis added to quotation.)
8-^ Deleuze, 1968.

References

Deleuze, G. (1968) Expressionism in Philosophy: Spinoza trans. Martin Joughin (New York: Zone Books)

Deleuze, G. (1990) Negotiations trans. Martin Joughin (New York: Columbia University Press)

Lucas, P. G. (1960) "Some Speculative and Critical Philosophers", in I. Levine (ed.), Philosophy (London: Odhams)

Popkin, R. H. (2004) Spinoza (Oxford: One World Publications)

Morgan, Michael L. (ed.), "Spinoza: Complete Works", (Indianapolis/Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company, 2002). ISBN 0-87220-620-3

Bibliography

By Spinoza

ca. 1660. Korte Verhandeling van God, de mensch en deszelvs welstand (Short Treatise on God, Man and His Well-Being). [2].

1662. Tractatus de intellectus emendatione (On the Improvement of the Understanding). Project Gutenberg

1663. Principia philosophiae cartesianae (Principles of Cartesian Philosophy, translated by Samuel Shirley, with an Introduction and Notes by Steven Barbone and Lee Rice, Indianapolis, 1998). Gallica.

1670. Tractatus Theologico-Politicus (A Theologico-Political Treatise). [3]

1675/76 Tractatus Politicus (Unfinished)

1677. Ethica Ordine Geometrico Demonstrata (The Ethics) Project Gutenberg. Another translation, by Jonathan Bennett.

1677. Hebrew Grammar.

About Spinoza

Gabriel Albiac, 1987. La sinagoga vacía: un estudio de las fuentes marranas del espinosismo. Madrid: Hiperión D.L. ISBN 84-7517-214-8

Etienne Balibar, 1985. Spinoza et la politique ("Spinoza and politics") Paris: PUF.

Boucher, Wayne I., 1999. Spinoza in English: A Bibliography from the Seventeenth Century to the Present. 2nd edn. Thoemmes Press.

Boucher, Wayne I., ed., 1999. Spinoza: Eighteenth and Nineteenth-Century Discussions. 6 vols. Thoemmes Press.

Damásio, António 2003. Looking for Spinoza: Joy, Sorrow, and the Feeling Brain, Harvest Books,ISBN-13: 978-0156028714

Gilles Deleuze, 1968. Spinoza et le problème de l'expression. Trans. "Expressionism in Philosophy: Spinoza".

———, 1970. Spinoza - Philosophie pratique. Transl. "Spinoza: Practical Philosophy".

Della Rocca, Michael. 1996. Representation and the Mind-Body Problem in Spinoza. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-509562-6

Garrett, Don, ed., 1995. The Cambridge Companion to Spinoza. Cambridge Uni. Press.

Gatens, Moira, and Lloyd, Genevieve, 1999. Collective imaginings : Spinoza, past and present. Routledge. ISBN 0-415-16570-9, ISBN 0-415-16571-7

Gullan-Whur, Margaret, 1998. Within Reason: A Life of Spinoza. Jonathan Cape. ISBN 0-224-05046-X

Hampshire, Stuart 1951. Spinoza and Spinozism , OUP, 2005 ISBN-13: 978-0199279548

Jonathan Israel, The Radical Enlightenment, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001.

———, Enlightenment Contested: Philosophy, Modernity, and the Emancipation of Man 1670-1752, 2006 (ISBN 0-19-927922-5 hardback)

Lloyd, Genevieve, 1996. Spinoza and the Ethics. Routledge. ISBN 0-415-10781-4, ISBN 0-415-10782-2

Kasher, Asa, and Shlomo Biderman. "Why Was Baruch de Spinoza Excommunicated?"

Kayser, Rudolf with an introduction by Albert Einstein. Spinoza: Portrait of a Spiritual Hero. New York: The Philosophical Library, 1946.

Arthur O. Lovejoy, 1936. "Plenitude and Sufficient Reason in Leibniz and Spinoza" in his The Great Chain of Being. Harvard University Press: 144-82 (ISBN 0-674-36153-9). Reprinted in Frankfurt, H. G., ed., 1972. Leibniz: A Collection of Critical Essays. Anchor Books.

Pierre Macherey, 1977. Hegel ou Spinoza, Maspéro (2nd ed. La Découverte, 2004).

———, 1994-98. Introduction à l'Ethique de Spinoza. Paris: PUF.

Matheron, Alexandre, 1969. Individu et communauté chez Spinoza, Paris: Minuit.

Nadler, Steven, 1999. Spinoza: A Life. Cambridge Uni. Press. ISBN 0-521-55210-9

Antonio Negri, 1991. The Savage Anomaly: The Power of Spinoza's Metaphysics and Politics.

———, 2004. Subversive Spinoza: (Un)Contemporary Variations).

Michael Hardt, trans., University of Minnesota Press. Preface, in French, by Gilles Deleuze, available here.

Pierre-Francois Moreau, 2003, Spinoza et le spinozisme, PUF (Presses Universitaires de France)

Stoltze, Ted and Warren Montag (eds.), The New Spinoza (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997.

Smilevski, Goce. Conversation with SPINOZA. Chicago: Northwestern University Press, 2006.

Yovel, Yirmiyahu, "Spinoza and Other Heretics", Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1989.

External links

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Spinoza
Spinoza's Psychological Theory
Immortality in Spinoza
BBC Radio 4 In Our Time programme on Spinoza
Spinoza: Mind of the Modern - audio from Radio Opensource
Infography about Baruch Spinoza
Spinoza Museum in Rijnsburg (Dutch)
Works:
Works by Baruch Spinoza at Project Gutenberg
Refutation of Spinoza by Leibniz In full at Google Books
More easily readable versions of Ethics Demonstrated in Geometrical Order and Treatise on Theology and Politics
A Theologico-Political Treatise - English Translation
Political Treatise - English Translation
A letter from Spinoza to Albert Burgh

Tuesday, 27 May 2008

ABRAHAM ZACUTO

Abraham Zacuto (Hebrew: אברהם זכות, Portuguese: Abraão ben Samuel Zacuto) (c. 1450 – c. 1510) was a Sephardi Jew astronomer, astrologer, mathematician and historian who served as Royal Astronomer in the 15th Century to King John II of Portugal. The Zagut crater on the moon is named after him.
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Life

Zacuto was born in Salamanca, Spain circa 1450. He studied astronomy at the University of Salamanca and taught there as well. He later was for a time teacher of astronomy at the universities of Zaragoza and then Cartagena. He was versed in Jewish Law, and was rabbi of his community.

With the general expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492, Zacuto took refuge in Lisbon, Portugal. Already famous in academic circles, he was invited to court and nominated Royal Astronomer and Historian by King João II, a position which he held until the early reign of Manuel I. He was consulted by the King on the possibility of a sea route to India, a project which he supported and encouraged. Zacuto would be one of the few who managed to flee Portugal during the forced conversions and prohibitions of departure that Manuel I enacted, in order to keep the Jews in Portugal as nominal Christians for foreign policy reasons (see History of the Jews in Portugal).

He died in the Ottoman Empire, to where he had escaped, ca. 1510.

Work

Zacuto perfected the astrolabe, which only then became an instrument of precision, and he was the author of the highly accurate Almanach Perpetuum that were used by ship captains to determine the position of their Portuguese caravels in high seas, through calculations on data acquired with an astrolabe. His contributions were undoubtedly valuable in saving the lives of Portuguese seamen, and allowing them to reach Brazil and India.

While in Spain he wrote an exceptional treatise on astronomy/astrology in Hebrew, with the title Ha-jibbur Ha-gadol. He published in the printing press of Leiria in 1496, property of Abraão de Ortas the book Biur Luhoth, or in Latin Almanach Perpetuum, which was soon translated into Latin and Spanish. In this book were the astronomical tables (ephemerides) for the years 1497 to 1500, which were instrumental, together with the new astrolabe made of metal and not wood as before, to Vasco da Gama and Pedro Álvares Cabral in their voyages to India and Brazil respectively.

In 1504, while in Tunisia, he wrote a history of the Jewish people, Sefer Hayuhasin, since the Creation of the World until 1500, and several other astronomical/astrological treatises. The History was greatly respected and was reprinted in Cracow in 1581, at Amsterdam in 1717, and at Königsberg in 1857, while a complete edition was published by Filipowski in London in 1857.
External links

ANTÓNIO JOSÉ DA SILVA

António José da Silva (8 May 170518 October 1739), was a Portuguese-Brazilian dramatist, known as "the Jew" (O Judeu). The Brazilian spelling of his first name is Antônio.

Life

He was born in Rio de Janeiro, but came to Portugal at the age of eight.

His parents, João Mendes da Silva and Lourença Coutinho, were descended from Portuguese Jews (few of which still exist) who had emigrated to Colonial Brazil to escape the Inquisition, but in 1702 that tribunal began to persecute the Marranos in Rio, and in October 1712 Lourença Coutinho became a victim. Her husband and children accompanied her to Portugal, where she figured among the "reconciled" in the auto-da-fé of July 9, 1713, after undergoing the torment only.

Her husband, having then acquired a fixed domicile in Lisbon, settled down to advocacy with success, and he was able to send António to the University of Coimbra, where he matriculated in the faculty of law. In 1726 António was suddenly imprisoned along with his mother on August 8; on the 16th he suffered the first interrogation, and on September 23 he was put to the torment, with the result that three weeks later he could not sign his name. He confessed to having followed the practices of the Mosaic law, and this saved his life.

He went through the great auto-da-fé held on October 23 in the presence of King John V and his court, abjured his errors, and was set at liberty. His mother was only released from prison in October 1729, after she had undergone torture and figured as a penitent in another auto-da-fé.
Meanwhile António had gone back to Coimbra, and finishing his course in 1728–1729 he returned to Lisbon and became associated with his father as an advocate. He found an ignorant and corrupt society ruled by an immoral yet fanatical monarch, who wasted millions on unprofitable buildings though the country was almost without roads and the people had become the most backward in Europe. As his plays show, the spectacle struck António's observation, but he had to criticize with caution.

He produced his first play or opera in 1733, and the next year he married his cousin, D. Leonor Maria de Carvalho, whose parents had been burnt by the Inquisition, while she herself had gone through an auto-da-fé in Spain and been exiled on account of her religion. They had their first daughter in 1734, but the years of their happiness and of Silva's dramatic career were few, for on October 5, 1737 husband and wife were both imprisoned on the charge of "judaizing." A slave of theirs had denounced them to the Holy Office, and though the details of the accusation against them were trivial and even contradictory, António was condemned to death. On October 18 he was beheaded and his body burnt in an auto-da-fé; that same day one of his popular operettas was given at a Lisbon theatre.

Works

His dramatic works, which were produced at the Bairro Alto theatre between 1733 and 1738, include the following comedies, all played by marionettes:

Vida do Grande Dom Quixote de la Mancha e do Gordo Sancho Pança (1733)

Esopaida (1734)

Os Encantos de Medea (1735)

Amphitriio (May 1736)

Labyrintho de Creta (November 1736)

Guerras do Alecrim e Mangerona (carnival of 1737)

As Variedades de Proteo (May 1737)

Precipicio de Faetonte (1738)

Slight as these sketches are, they show considerable dramatic talent and an Aristophanic wit. The characters are well drawn and the dialogue full of comic strength, the scenes knit together and the plot skilfully worked out. Moreover Silva possessed a knowledge of stagecraft, and, if he had lived, he might have emancipated the drama in Portugal from its dependence on foreign writers; but the triple licence of the Palace, the Ordinary and the Inquisition, which a play required, crippled spontaneity and freedom. Even so, he showed some boldness in exposing types of the prevailing charlatanism and follies, though his liberty of speech is far less than that of Gil Vicente. His comedies give a truthful and interesting picture of 18th century society, especially his best comedy, the Alecrim e Mangerona, in which he treats of the fidalgo pobre, a type fixed by Vicente and Francisco Manuel de Mello.

His works bear the title "operas" because, though written mainly in prose, they contain songs which Silva introduced in imitation of the true operas which then held the fancy of the public. He was also a lyric poet of real merit, combining correctness of form with a pretty inspiration and real feeling. His plays were published in the first two volumes of a collection entitled Theatro comico portuguez, which went through at least five editions in the 18th century, while the Alecrim e Mangerona appeared separately in some seven editions. This comedy and the Don Quixote have been reprinted in a critical edition with a life of Silva by Dr Mendes dos Remedios (Coimbra, 1905).

Ferdinand Denis, in his Chefs-d'œuvre du théâtre portugais (pp. 365–496, Paris, 1823), prints liberal extracts, with a French translation, from the Vida de Dom Quixote, and F. Wolf likewise gives selections from Silva's various compositions. Silva is the subject also of several laudatory poems and dramas, one or two of which were composed by Brazilian compatriots.

References

Teófilo Braga, História do teatro português, a baixa comedia e a opera (Oporto, 1871)
F Wolf, Dom António José da Silva (Vienna, 1860)

Ernest David, Les Operas du juif António José da Silva, 1705–1739 (Paris, 1880)

Oliveira Lima, Aspectos de litteratura colonial Brazileira (Leipzig, 1896)

Jewish Encyclopedia, vol. xi. p. 341.

GA Kohnt, "Bibliography of Works relating to António José da Silva and Bibliography of Don António's Compositions" in the Publ. Am. Jew. Hist. Soc. No. 4, p. 181.

idem, "Martyrs of the Inquisition in South America," ib. p. 135.

M Grunwald, "José da Silva" in Monatsschrift (1880), xxix. p. 241.

This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.

PEDRO NUNES

Pedro Nunes (pron. IPA: ['pedɾu 'nunɨʃ]; Latin, Petrus Nonius), (1502, Alcácer do SalAugust 11, 1578, Coimbra) was a Portuguese mathematician, cosmographer, and professor, born from a New Christian (of Jewish origin) family[1].
Pedro Nunes, considered to be one of the greatest mathematicians of his time, is best known for his contributions in the technical field of navigation, which was crucial to the Portuguese period of discoveries. He was the first to propose the idea of a loxodrome and was also the inventor of several measuring devices, including the nonius, named after his Latin surname.

Life

Little is known about Nunes' early education. He studied at the University of Salamanca, maybe from 1521 until 1522, and at the University of Lisbon (this University later become the University of Coimbra) where he obtained a degree in medicine in 1525. In the 16th century medicine used astrology, so he also learned astronomy and mathematics. He continued his medical studies but held various teaching posts within the University of Lisbon, including Moral, Philosophy, Logic and Metaphysics. When, in 1537, the Portuguese University located in Lisbon returned to Coimbra, he moved to the re-founded University of Coimbra to teach mathematics, a post he held until 1562. This was a new post in the University of Coimbra and it was set up to provide instruction in the technical requirements for navigation, clearly a topic of great importance in Portugal at this period when control of sea trade was the chief source of Portuguese wealth. Mathematics became an independent post in 1544.

In addition to teaching he was appointed Royal Cosmographer in 1529 and Chief Royal Cosmographer in 1547 up to his death.

In 1531, King John III of Portugal charged Nunes with the education of his younger brothers Luís and Henry. Years later Nunes was also charged with the education of the king's grandson, and future king, Sebastian.

It's possible that while at the University of Coimbra, Christopher Clavius attended Pedro Nunes' classes, and was influenced by his works.

Work

Pedro Nunes lived in a transition period where science was changing from valuing theoretical knowledge (and thus where the main role of a scientist/mathematician was commenting on previous authors), to providing experimental data, both as a source of information and as a method of confirming theories. Nunes was above all one of the last great commentators, as his shown by his first published work, but he also acknowledged the value of experimentation.

In his Tratado da sphera he argued for a common and universal diffusion of knowledge.[2] Accordingly he not only published works in Latin, by then science's lingua franca, aiming for an audience of European scholars, but also in Portuguese, and Spanish (Livro de Algebra).

Much of Nunes' work related to navigation. He was the first to understand why a ship maintaining a steady course would not travel along a great circle, the shortest path between two points on Earth, but would instead follow a spiral course, called a loxodrome. The later invention of logarithms allowed Leibniz to establish algebraic equations for the loxodrome.

In his Treaty defending the sea chart Nunes argued that a nautical chart should have its parallels and meridians shown as straight lines. Yet he was unsure how to solve all the problems this caused, a situation that lasted until Mercator developed Mercator projection, the system which is still used.

Nunes worked on several practical nautical problems concerning course correction as well as attempting to develop more accurate devices to determine a ship's position. He created the nonius to improve the astrolabe's accuracy. It consisted of tracing a certain number of concentric circles on an instrument and dividing each successive one with one fewer divisions than the adjacent outer circle. Thus the outermost quadrant would have 90° in 90 equal divisions, the next inner would have 89 divisions, the next 88 and so on. When an angle was measured, the circle and the division on which the alidade fell was noted. A table was then consulted to provide the exact measure. The nonius was used for a while by Tycho Brahe who, considered it too complex. The method inspired improved systems by Christopher Clavius and Jacob Curtius.[3] These were eventually superseded by verniers.

Pedro Nunes also worked on some mechanics problems, from a mathematical point of view.
He was probably the last major mathematician to make relevant improvements to the ptolemaic system (a geocentric model), however this lost importance because Copernicus heliocentric system replaced it by then. Nunes knew Copernicus' work but he only made a short reference to it in his published works with the objective of correcting some mathematical errors.

He also solved the problem of finding the day with the shortest twilight duration, for any given position, and its duration. This problem per se is not greatly important, yet it shows the geometric genius of Nunes as it was, independently, tackled by Johann and Jakob Bernoulli more than a century later with less success. They could find a solution to the problem of the shortest day but failed to determine its duration, possibly because they got lost on details of differential calculus, still a recently developed tool (at that point in time). It also shows Nunes as a pioneer in solving maxima and minima problems, which only became common in the next century using differential calculus.

Most of Nunes' achievements were possible because of his profound understanding of spherical trigonometry and his ability to transpose Ptolemy's adaptations of Euclidean geometry to it.

Bibliography

Pedro Nunes translated, commented and expanded some of the major works in his field, and he also published original research.

Commented and expanded translations:

Tratado da sphera com a Theorica do Sol e da Lua (Treaty about the Sphere with Theory of the Sun and the Moon), (1537). From Tractatus de Sphaera by Johannes de Sacrobosco, Theoricae novae planetarum by Georg Purbach and the Geography by Claudius Ptolemaeus.

Original work:

Tratado em defensão da carta de marear (Treatise Defending the Sea Chart), (1537).

Tratado sobre certas dúvidas da navegação (Treatise about some Navigational Doubts), (1537)

De crepusculis (About the Twilight), (1542).

De erratis Orontii Finei (About the Errors of Orontii Finei), (1546).

Petri Nonii Salaciensis Opera, (1566). Expanded, corrected and reedited as De arte adque ratione navigandi in 1573.

Livro de algebra en arithmetica y geometria (Book of Algebra in Arithmetics and Geometry), (1567).

Some modern reprints:

Obras (6 vol.), Academia das Ciências de Lisboa, Lisboa, 1940-1960 (No ISBN at the books' record at the Portuguese National Library)

Obras (3 vol.), Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisboa, 2002-?, ISBN 972-31-0985-9 and ISBN 972-31-1084-9 (more volumes are likely to be published)

Honours

The Instituto Pedro Nunes in Coimbra, a business incubator and a center of innovation and technology transfer founded by the University of Coimbra, is named after Pedro Nunes.

References

Mourão, Ronaldo Rogério de Freitas, Dicionário das Descobertas, Pergaminho, Lisboa, 2001, ISBN 972-711-402-4

Dias, J. S. da Silva, Os descobrimentos e a problemática cultural do século XVI (3rd ed.), Presença, Lisboa, 1988

Footnotes

1-^ Martins, Jorge, Portugal e os Judeus (3 vol.), Nova Vega, Lisboa, 2006, ISBN 972-699-847-6
2-^ «o bem, quanto mais comum e universal, tanto é mais excelente» quoted by Calafate, Pedro (see above)
3-^ Daumas Maurice, Scientific Instruments of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries and Their Makers, Portman Books, London 1989 ISBN 978-0713407273

Put On Your Yarmulke (Wear My Shoes)

Put On Your Yarmulke (Wear My Shoes)

PEARLS OF WISDOM (1)

When I was young I admired clever people.
Now that I am old, I admire kind people.

- Abraham Joshua Heschel


The whole world is a very narrow bridge.
And the most important thing is to not be afraid.

-Rebbe Nachman of Breslov


"The greatest thing in the world is to do somebody else a favor."

- Aish Kodesh


"As you want G*d to give you a chance,
give everyone else a chance to also begin again."

- Shlomo Carlebach

(taken from Sefer Chabbi Deepest Torah-http://seferchabibi.blogspot.com/)

Monday, 26 May 2008

DANNY KAYE

Danny Kaye (January 18, 1913March 3, 1987)[1] was an American award-winning actor, singer and comedian.


Biography

Early life

Born David Daniel Kaminsky to Jewish Ukrainian immigrants in Brooklyn, Kaye became one of the world's best-known comedians. He spent his early youth attending Public School 149 in East New York, Brooklyn, before moving to Thomas Jefferson High School, but he never graduated. He learned his trade in his teen years in the Catskills as a tummler in the Borscht Belt.

Career

Danny Kaye made his film debut in a 1935 comedy short entitled Moon Over Manhattan. In 1937 he signed with New York-based Educational Pictures for a series of two-reel comedies. Kaye usually played a manic, dark-haired, fast-talking Russian in these low-budget shorts, opposite young hopefuls June Allyson or Imogene Coca. The Kaye series ended abruptly when the studio shut down permanently in 1938.

Kaye scored a personal triumph in 1941, in the hit Broadway comedy Lady in the Dark. His show-stopping number was "Tchaikovsky", by Kurt Weill and Ira Gershwin, in which he sang the names of a whole string of Russian composers at breakneck speed, seemingly without taking a breath.

His feature film debut was in producer Samuel Goldwyn's Technicolor 1944 comedy Up in Arms, a remake of Goldwyn's Eddie Cantor comedy Whoopee! (1930). Goldwyn agonized over Kaye's ethnic, Borscht-belt looks and ordered him to undergo a nose job. Kaye refused, and Goldwyn found another way to brighten Kaye's dark features by lightening his hair, giving him his trademark redheaded locks. Kaye's rubber face and fast patter were an instant hit, and rival producer Robert M. Savini cashed in almost immediately by compiling three of Kaye's old Educational Pictures shorts into a makeshift feature, The Birth of a Star (1945).

Kaye starred in several movies with actress Virginia Mayo in the 1940s, and is well known for his roles in films such as The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (1947), The Inspector General (1949), On the Riviera (1951) co-starring Gene Tierney, White Christmas (1954, in a role originally intended for Fred Astaire, then Donald O'Connor), Knock on Wood (1954), The Court Jester (1956), and Merry Andrew (1958). Kaye starred in two pictures based on biographies, Hans Christian Andersen (1952) about the Danish story-teller, and The Five Pennies (1959) about jazz pioneer Red Nichols. His wife, writer/lyricist Sylvia Fine, wrote many of the witty, tongue-twisting songs Danny Kaye became famous for. Some of Kaye's films included the theme of doubles, two people who look identical (both played by Danny Kaye) being mistaken for each other, to comic effect. The Kaye-Fine marriage, as was the case with many spouses who worked together in the high-pressure world of film-making, was sometimes stormy.

During World War II, the Federal Bureau of Investigation investigated rumors that Kaye dodged the draft by manufacturing a medical condition to gain 4-F status and exemption from military service. FBI files show he was also under investigation for supposed links with Communist groups. None of the allegations was ever substantiated, and he was never charged with any associated crime.[2]

Other projects

Kaye starred in a radio program of his own, The Danny Kaye Show, on CBS in 1945-1946. Despite its clever writing (by radio legend Goodman Ace, Sylvia Fine, and respected playwright-director Abe Burrows) and performing cast (including Eve Arden, Lionel Stander, and Big Band leader Harry James), the show lasted only a year.

Kaye was sufficiently popular that he inspired imitations:

The 1946 Warner Bros. cartoon Book Revue had a lengthy sequence with Daffy Duck impersonating Kaye singing "Carolina in the Morning" with the Russian accent that Kaye would affect from time to time.

Satirical songwriter Tom Lehrer's 1953 song "Lobachevsky" was based on a number that Kaye had done, about the Russian director Konstantin Stanislavski, again with the affected Russian accent. Lehrer mentioned Kaye in the opening monologue, citing him as an "idol since childbirth".
When he appeared at the London Palladium music hall in 1948, he "roused the Royal family to shrieks of laughter and was the first of many performers who have turned English variety into an American preserve." Life magazine described his reception as "worshipful hysteria" and noted that the royal family, for the first time in history, left the royal box to see the show from the front row of the orchestra.

He hosted the 24th Academy Awards in 1952. The program was broadcast only on radio. Telecasts of the Oscar ceremony would come later.

He hosted his own variety hour on CBS television, The Danny Kaye Show, from 1963 to 1967. During this period, beginning in 1964, he acted as television host to the annual CBS telecasts of MGM's The Wizard of Oz. Kaye also did a stint as one of the What's My Line? Mystery Guests on the popular Sunday night CBS-TV quiz program. Kaye later served as a guest panelist on that show.

He guest-stared much later in his career in episodes of The Muppet Show, The Cosby Show and in the 1980s remake of The Twilight Zone.

Kaye was the original owner of baseball's Seattle Mariners along with his partner Lester Smith from1977 to 1981. Prior to that, the lifelong fan of the Brooklyn/Los Angeles Dodgers recorded a song called "The D-O-D-G-E-R-S Song (Oh really? No, O'Malley!)", describing a fictitious encounter with the San Francisco Giants, which was a hit during those clubs' real-life pennant chase of 1962. That song is included on one of the Baseball's Greatest Hits compact disc's.

During the 1950s, Kaye also acted in a pantomime production of Cinderella, in Sydney, Australia, where he played the role of "Buttons", Cinderella's stepfather's servant, and also Cinderella's friend. In the 1970s Kaye injured his leg during the run of the Richard Rodgers musical Two by Two, but went on with the show, cavorting on stage from a wheelchair.

In many of his movies, as well as on stage, Kaye proved to be an able actor, singer, dancer and comedian. He showed quite a different and serious side as Ambassador for UNICEF and in his dramatic role in the memorable TV movie Skokie, in which he played a Holocaust survivor. Before his death in 1987, Kaye demonstrated his ability to conduct an orchestra during a comical, but technically sound, series of concerts organized for UNICEF fundraising. Kaye received two Academy Awards -- an honorary award in 1955 and the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award in 1982.

In 1980, Kaye hosted and sang in the 25th Anniversary of Disneyland celebration, and hosted the opening celebration for Epcot in 1982 (EPCOT Center at the time), both of which were aired on prime-time American television.

In his later years he took to entertaining at home as chef — he had a special stove installed in his patio — and specialized in Chinese cooking. The library at the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York is named for him.

He also had a longstanding interest in medicine and was permitted to observe surgery on several occasions.[3]

The bench at Danny Kaye's grave in Kensico Cemetery

Kaye died in 1987 from a heart attack, following a bout of hepatitis. He left a widow, Sylvia Fine, and a daughter, Dena. He is interred in the Kensico Cemetery in Valhalla, New York. His grave is adorned with a bench that contains friezes of a baseball and bat, an aircraft, a piano, a flower pot, musical notes, and a glove.

Throughout his life, Kaye donated to various charities.

Working alongside UNICEF's Halloween fundraiser founder, Ward Simon Kimball Jr., the actor educated the public on impoverished children in deplorable living conditions overseas and assisted in the distribution of donated goods and funds.

Kaye was enamored by music. While he often claimed an inability to read music, he was quite the conductor. Kaye was often invited to conduct symphonies as charity fundraisers. Over the course of his career he raised over US$5,000,000 in support of musicians pension funds.[4]

Personal life

Some sources claim that Kaye and Laurence Olivier had a 10-year affair in the 1950s, while Olivier was still married to Vivien Leigh.[5] A biography of Leigh states that their affair caused her to have a breakdown.[6] The affair has been denied by Olivier's official biographer, Terry Coleman. He also had a long-term affair with Eve Arden in the 1940s.[7]

Honors and awards

Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award (1981)
Asteroid 6546 Kaye

Filmography

Film

Moon Over Manhattan (1935)
Dime a Dance (1937)
Getting an Eyeful (1938)
Cupid Takes a Holiday (1938)
Money on Your Life (1938)
Up in Arms (1944)
The Birth of a Star (compilation of 1937-38 short subjects) (1945)
Wonder Man (1945)
The Kid from Brooklyn (1946)
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (1947)
Screen Snapshots: Out of This World Series (1947)
A Song Is Born (1948)
It's a Great Feeling (1949)
The Inspector General (1949)
On the Riviera (1951)
Hans Christian Andersen (1952)
Assignment Children (1954)
Knock on Wood (1954)
Screen Snapshots: Hula from Hollywood (1954)
White Christmas (1954)
Screen Snapshots: Hollywood Beauty (1955)
The Court Jester (1956)
Screen Snapshots: Playtime in Hollywood (1956)
Merry Andrew (1958)
Me and the Colonel (1958)
The Five Pennies (1959)
The Millionairess (1960)
On the Double (1961)
The Man from the Diner's Club (1963)
The Madwoman of Chaillot (1969)
Skokie (1981)

Television

Autumn Laughter (1938)
The Danny Kaye Show with Lucille Ball (1962)
The Danny Kaye Show (1963-967)
Here Comes Peter Cottontail (1971) (voice)
An Evening with John Denver (1975)
Pinocchio (1976)
Peter Pan (1976)
The Muppet Show (1978)
An Evening with Danny Kaye (1981)
Skokie (1981)
The New Twilight Zone: "Paladin of the Lost Hour" (1985)
The Cosby Show: "The Dentist" (1986)

References

1-^ Tony Woolway. "Danny Kaye Dies, Aged 74", icWales, 4 Mar 1987. Retrieved on 2008-05-14.
2-^ Freedom of Information/Privacy Act Section. Subject: Danny Kaye. Federal Bureau of Investigation. Retrieved on 2008-05-14.
3-^ Gottfried, Martin (1994). Nobody's Fool: The Lives of Danny Kaye. New York; London: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0671864947.
4-^ Biography of Danny Kaye. The Kennedy Center. Retrieved on 2008-05-14.
5-^ Spoto, Donald (1992). Laurence Olivier: A Biography. New York: HarperCollins. ISBN 0060183152.
6-^ Capua, Michelangelo (2003). Vivien Leigh: A Biography. McFarland & Company. ISBN 0786414979.
7-^ Gottfried, Martin (1994). Nobody's Fool: The Lives of Danny Kaye. Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0671864947.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:
Danny Kaye
Danny Kaye at the Internet Movie Database
Danny Kaye Tribute and fan website
Tribute to Danny Kaye in The Court Jester
Royal Engineers Museum Danny Kaye in Korea 1952
"Parnell of the Palladium," Willi Frischauer, Oct. 24, 1948, p. X3. The London Palladium and Kaye's reception.

Sunday, 25 May 2008

Oleh Musings: Musings on Rembrance

Oleh Musings: Musings on Rembrance

Roadside Rambles: HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MY LOVE

Roadside Rambles: HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MY LOVE

Chuck Berry - Johnny Be Good (con John Lennon en TV 72)

JOHNNY BE GOOD

Deep down Louisiana close to New Orleans
Way back up in the woods among the evergreens
There stood a log cabin made of earth and wood
Where lived a country boy named Johnny B. Goode
Who never ever learned to read or write so well
But he could play the guitar just like a ringing a bell

Go go
Go Johnny go
Go
Go Johnny go
Go
Go Johnny go
Go
Go Johnny go
Go
Johnny B. Goode

He used to carry his guitar in a gunny sack
Go sit beneath the tree by the railroad track
Oh, the engineerswould see him sitting in the shade
Strumming with the rhythm that the drivers made
People passing by they would stop and say
Oh my that little country boy could play

Go go
Go Johnny go
Go
Go Johnny go
Go
Go Johnny go
Go
Go Johnny go
Go
Johnny B. Goode

His mother told him "Someday you will be a man,
And you will be the leader of a big old band.
Many people coming from miles around
To hear you play your music when the sun go down
Maybe someday your name will be in lights
Saying Johnny B. Goode tonight."

Go go
Go Johnny go
Go go go Johnny go
Go go go Johnny go
Go go go Johnny go
Go
Johnny B. Goode

UK #1 Hit 1960 ROY ORBISON - ONLY THE LONELY

Only the lonely
(r.orbison/melson)

Dum-dum-dum-dumdy-doo-wah
Ooh-yay-yay-yay-yeah
Oh-oh-oh-oh-wah
Only the lonely

Only the lonely (dum-dum-dum-dumdy-doo-wah)
Know the way I feel tonight (ooh-yay-yay-yay-yeah)
Only the lonely (dum-dum-dum-dumdy-doo-wah)
Know this feelin aint right (dum-dum-dum-dumdy-doo-wah)

There goes my baby
There goes my heart
Theyre gone forever
So far apart

But only the lonely
Know why
I cry
Only the lonely

Dum-dum-dum-dumdy-doo-wah
Ooh-yay-yay-yay-yeah
Oh-oh-oh-oh-wah
Only the lonely

Only the lonely
Know the heartaches Ive been through
Only the lonely
Know I cried and cried for you

Maybe tomorrow
A new romance
No more sorrow
But thats the chance - you gotta take
If your lonely heart breaks
Only the lonely

Dum-dum-dum-dumdy-doo-wah

UK #1 Hit 1960 RICKY VALANCE - TELL LAURA I LOVE HER

TELL LAURA I LOVE HER

Tommy and Laura were lovers he wanted to give here everything
Flowers presents and most of all a wedding ring
He saw a sign for a stockcar race a thousand dollar prize it read
He couldn't get Laura on the phone so to her mother Tommy said
Tell Laura I love her tell Laura I need her
Tell Laura I may be late I've something to do that cannot wait
He drove his car to the racing ground he was the youngest driver there
The crowd roared as they started to race
Around the truck they drove at a deadly pace
No one knows what happened that day how his car overturned in flames
But as they pulled him from the twisted wreck
With his dying breath they heard him say
Tell Laura I love her tell Laura I need her
Tell Laura not to cry my love for her will never die

Now in the chapel Laura prays for her Tommy who passed away
It was just for Laura that he lived and died alone in the chapel she can hear him cry
Tell Laura I love her...
My love for her will never die

Gary Moore - Still Got The Blues (Live)

STILL GOT THE BLUES

Use to be so easy
To give my heart away
But I found that the haeartache
was the price you have to pay
I found that that love is no friend of mine
I should have know'n time after time

So long
it was so long ago
But I've still got the blues for you

Use to be so easy
Fall in love again
But I found that the heartache
It's a roll that leeds to pain
I found that love is more than just a game
Play and to win
but you loose just the same

So long
it was so long ago
But I've still got the blues for you

So many years since I seal you face
You will my heart
there's an emty space
Used to be

(SOLO)

So long
it was so long ago
But I've still got the blues for you

Golden days come and go
There is one thing I know
I've still got the blues for you

The Moody Blues - Nights in White satin´67

NIGHTS IN WHITE SATIN

Nights in white satin,
Never reaching the end,
Letters Ive written,
Never meaning to send.

Beauty Id always missed
With these eyes before,
Just what the truth is
I cant say anymore.

cause I love you,
Yes, I love you,
Oh, how, I love you.

Gazing at people,
Some hand in hand,
Just what Im going thru
They can understand.

Some try to tell me
Thoughts they cannot defend,
Just what you want to be
You will be in the end,

And I love you,
Yes, I love you,
Oh, how, I love you.
Oh, how, I love you.

Nights in white satin,
Never reaching the end,
Letters Ive written,
Never meaning to send.

Beauty Id always missed
With these eyes before,
Just what the truth is
I cant say anymore.

cause I love you,
Yes, I love you,
Oh, how, I love you.
Oh, how, I love you.

cause I love you,
Yes, I love you,
Oh, how, I love you.
Oh, how, I love you.

Nazareth - Love Hurts


LOVE HURTS
Love hurts
love scars
love wounds and mares any heart
Not tough or strong enough to take a lot of pain
Take a lot of pain
love is like a cloud
holds a lot of rain.
Love hurts
love hurts
I'm young I know but even so
I know a thing or two I've learned from you
I've really learned a lot
really learned a lot.
Love is like a flame
It burns you when it's hot.
Love hurts
love hurts
some fools rave of happiness

Blissfulness
togetherness
some fools fool themselves
I guess

But they're not fooling me I know it isn't true

I know it isn't true
Love is just a lie made to make you blue
Love hurts
love hurts.

Love hurts
love scares
love wounds and mares any heart

Simon and Garfunkel - Sounds of SIlence

SOUNDS OF SILENCE

Hello darkness, my old friend
I've come to talk with you again
Because a vision softly creeping
Left its seeds while I was sleeping
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sound of silence

In restless dreams I walked alone
Narrow streets of cobblestone
'Neath the halo of a street lamp
I turned my collar to the cold and damp
When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light
That split the night
And touched the sound of silence

And in the naked light I saw
Ten thousand people, maybe more
People talking without speaking
People hearing without listening
People writing songs that voices never share
And no one dared
Disturb the sound of silence

"Fools", said I, "You do not know
Silence like a cancer grows
Hear my words that I might teach you
Take my arms that I might reach you"
But my words, like silent raindrops fell
And echoed
In the wells of silence

And the people bowed and prayed
To the neon god they made
And the sign flashed out its warning
In the words that it was forming
And the sign said, "The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls
And tenement halls"
And whispered in the sounds of silence

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