been reading the courtier and the heretic: leibniz, spinoza, and the fate of god in the modern world, by matthew stewart. now actually i think popularized or kind of novelistic presentations of intellectual history are in order: i might try my hand at such a thing, if i haven't already. also leibniz and spinoza are extremely interesting as characters as well as thinkers, and it's a good yarn. stewart has his moments as a writer, as in the very first sentence: "It is our good fortune to live in an age when philosophy is thought to be a harmless affair."
on the other hand, the conventions of this genre and stewart's application of them are quite ridiculous and irritating. to jack up the significance or motivate people to read, he just gushes. "It is clear that the two greatest philosophers of the seventeenth century remain unsurpassed, and should perhaps be considered the twin founders of modern thought." wait. really? let's start with bacon, descartes, hobbes, locke, newton. leibniz and spinoza are important, also extremely idiosyncratic or in certain respects downright bizarre, and i think any of the thinkers i just mentioned has a much better claim on the titles stewart gives l and s. the latter were influential, also in important senses dead ends. they don't, in order to be worth writing about, have to turn out to be the two greatest thinkers ever. and what can it mean to say that they remain unsurpassed? that leibniz is more important or influential than hume or kant, or that he wasn't drilled a new one by voltaire? or that frege wasn't the better logician?
or how about this: "Not since the days when Socrates stalked the agora in order to alert his fellows that the unexamined life is not worth living...had the world seen a philosopher so dedicated to his quest as Spinoza." bitch please.