BdSpinoza

Inutilis scientia Spinozana [6]

Als archivaris van elke snipper over Spinoza die ik op mijn pad over het internet tegenkom, kan ik er uiteraard niet omheen gezien te hebben dat Wim Klever vandaag twitterde:

"Behalve van een super-ijverige verzameling van informatie getuigt het Spinoza-boek van Henri Krop van een sub-normaal intelligentieniveau." [cf.]

Je moet het lef maar hebben om je zo over je voormalige collega te uiten. Ik ga hier verder niet op in en uit mijn misprijzen slechts door de titel die ik dit blog meegeef.

Die tweet was kennelijk de som of uitkomst van wat - let wel - de Spinoza scholar op zijn Facebook-pagina schreef. Je zou verwachten dat iemand die meer dan 30 jaar met Spinoza bezig is geweest, héél veel van hem en z'n Ethica geleerd heeft over hoe je verstandig en beheerst reageert op datgene wat er van uit de omgeving op je afkomt.  

Op zijn Facebook-pagina [die ik niet zelf las, maar waarvan ik de tekst van iemand doorkreeg] schreef Klever eerst - en ik geef hem daarmee de primeur van een eerste "recensie" op dit blog...:

HENRI KROP: SPINOZA. EEN PARADOXALE ICOON VAN NEDERLAND. 821 pp.
This week saw the publication of a thick volume that might impress any academic visitor of a bookshop, namely a 'scientific' history of Dutch Spinozism from the beginning to its end today. It was announced already many years ago. And as a former colleauge of the writer at the Erasmus University Rotterdam I remember that Krop had alre...ady started writing it when I left the faculty on my 65th in 1995! So reckoned in labour hours the work has to be deemed expensive.
I only just unpacked it and could not yet get more than a hasty survey on the contents, in which I discovered to my surprise a special and rather extensive section, subdivided in two paragraphs, dedicated to my own work as a Spinozistic philosopher and historian. I feel flattered to be treated already during my life as a historical figure of some importance. Knowing the author's bias, style and modertate philosophical 'merits' I have apriori no high excitement about what he will have written on me and other figures in the three centuries of Dutch history, but I will learn it soon. Perhaps it will exceed my expectation... or disappoint me. 

En vervolgens:

Wim Klever Have now read 'my chapter', which testifies above all of expertise in collecting anecdotic data and output-information, but even more so of a subnormal level of intelligence concerning the main things of my Spinoza interpretation and the internationally acknowledged relevance of my discoveries (as the explosive material of Borch and Van den Enden) and critical text emendation proposals. On every one of the 15 pages spent on my work one feels to one's regret that the author is not really an insider and has no advanced stance in the battle field, but only superficially broaches the material. It is clear that he mostly hangs his ears to secondary and unreliable sources and that he, although an academic, not really followed the progress in the research of the past years. In many subjects which had a primary value for me, he let me defend the opposite of what I actually maintained. He appears not to have the slightest idea of the discussion about Spinoza's critique of the inertia principle, his subscribing to epistemological autonomy, of his localisation of christianity in political activity as the exclusive way to realize charity and justice, and so on. Actually his work is no desillusion for me: I knew him already for two decades as a friendly colleague at coffee time, but no more.

Ik houd het bij: inutilis scientia Spinozana [6]

Aanvulling 20 maart 2014

Wim Klever stuurde mij nog dit commentaar bij deze cartoon waarbij hij aantekende duidelijk te willen maken wat hij onder intelligentie verstaat.

spinoza | 19-03-2014 | 18:40 | Link | Reacties (5)