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SPINOZA THE HINDU: 
Advaita Interpretations of The Ethics

NOAH FORSLUND

Dutch philosopher Baruch Spinoza holds a distinctive, if enigmatic, place in 
the Western philosophical canon. Although usually considered as a Cartesian 

rationalist, Spinoza’s metaphysical and epistemological views continue to be 
considered somewhat anomalous within the Occidental tradition.1 Arguably, in fact, 
much of his influential Ethics espouses a substantively non-“Western” philosophical 
doctrine beneath orthodox rationalist terminology and organization. I contend 
that, although it employs decidedly Western-rationalist methods of inquiry, The 
Ethics actually proposes a system strikingly similar to the ontological-philosophical 
worldview found in Advaita Vedanta Hinduism. Core similarities between the schools 
include their (1) non-dualist, monistic metaphysical systems, (2) a strong relationship 
between humans and the divine, and (3) a potential for living liberation. This paper 
will consist of comparative analyses of metaphysical and epistemological facets of 
both the Advaita and Spinozistic philosophical traditions, including overviews of 
both schools, and concluding with a suggestion that these similarities might prompt 
a reexamination and critique of the oft-cited East-West dichotomy.  

It may first be relevant to define briefly the binary system alluded to previously.
The East-West dichotomy comprises a doctrine that divides socio-cultural, religious, 

1 Russell, Bertrand. A History of Western Philosophy. (London: Allen & Unwin, 1946), 458-461.



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Spinoza the Hindu

and philosophical, traditions into two distinct camps, which are understood to 
inhabit fundamentally different realms. Customarily specified hallmarks of Western 
philosophy include a propensity towards rational intellectualization, the promotion 
of individualism, a rejection of mysticism, and often metaphysically, some conception 
of a personal God. Common stereotypes of Eastern philosophies include a skepticism 
toward pure rationalism and the intellect, mystical doctrines, and non-personal 
deities. Spinoza has perennially been placed firmly within the former canon2; an 
examination of the substance of his works, however, might complicate this placement.

Although some antecedent scholarship has compared Spinozism to Eastern 
philosophical traditions, most analyses have been restricted to broad comparative 
surveys of Buddhism and Spinozism. In the past, researchers have provided several 
examinations that attempt to link the two philosophical schools. S.M. Melamed 
associates Spinoza’s advocacy of a seemingly impersonal, or even non-existent, God 
to the Buddhist metaphysical picture of an “empty” universe.3 Both B. Ziporyn and 
Soraj Hongladarom cite Spinoza’s union of mind and corporeal body as correlative 
to the Buddhist doctrine of non-self.4 5 Although some limited scholarship exists 
in this particular area of comparative analysis, few publications—if any—have 
considered comparisons between Spinozism and Advaita Vedanta Hinduism. The 
lack of literature regarding this similarity is surprising. In the next few paragraphs, I 
will broadly outline the two traditions individually, in order to procure, eventually, 
an examination of their similarities and differences.

We will begin with an overview of Advaita Vedanta philosophy. First espoused by 
Sankara in the 9th century CE, the tradition is rooted in interpretations of the 
Brahma Sutra, the Bhagavad Gita, and the Upanishads, three core Hindu religio-
philosophical texts. Advaita is characterized by the fundamental belief that ultimate 
reality is solely brahman: that existence cannot be reduced to various distinct entities 
(like an individual soul, or an external world). Advaita Vedanta thus promotes a 
non-dualist, monist6 model of reality, in which all the world is a manifestation of the 
singularity of brahman (the word advaita literally means “non-dual” 7). Additionally, 
brahman is infinite, and transcends the existence of the world. Although the world is 

2 Russell, Western Philosophy, 459.
3 Melamed, S.M. Spinoza and Buddha: Visions of a Dead God. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1933), 

153-275.
4 Ziporyn, B. (2012). Spinoza and the Self-Overcoming of Solipsism. Comparative and Continental Philosophy, 

4(1), 125.
5 Hongladarom, Soraj. “Spinoza & Buddhism on the Self.” The Oxford Philosopher, July 29, 2015.
6 It must be acknowledged, however, that the characterization of Advaita as a strictly “monist” philosophy has been 

cited as problematic by many adherents, scholars, and philosophers; Anantanand Rambachan writes, “Numerical 
categories, such as the number one, gain meaning from the existence of other numbers. When reality is nondual, 
we are constrained to use such categories with caution.” (Rambachan, Advaita Worldview, 67) Haphazardly 
ascribing a numerical category to brahman might be seen as an attempt to limit the illimitable. Although we 
must be careful with complications that arise from such terminology, semantics aside, the ontological picture 
proposed in Advaita remains a non-dual, unified reality in brahman.

7 Brannigan, Michael C. The Pulse Of Wisdom: The Philosophies of India, China, and Japan. (Stamford: Wadsworth/
Thomson Learning, 2000), 61.



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Dianoia: The Undergraduate Philosophy Journal of Boston College

“non-different (ananya) from brahman [...] brahman is not identical with the world.” 
8 In other words, although the world derives its existence and reality from brahman, 
the inverse is not true, because “the reality of brahman is independent and original.” 9

Advaita scholars and philosophers consistently assert that brahman’s limitlessness 
(ananta) renders any attempt at descriptive language ineffective. For this reason, 
brahman’s true being is portrayed in Advaita as nirguna, or without characteristics.  
This contrasts with a portrayal of brahman as saguna, which signifies that explicit 
attributes are assigned. The concept of nirguna brahman requires that ultimate reality 
only be described negatively, as neti, neti (“Not this, not this”).10 Because brahman is 
infinite, linguistically assigning any qualities to it would only serve to limit its nature. 
Thus, brahman must remain ineffable.

Because all the world is essentially non-different from brahman, humans too are 
only manifestations of the divine. The cardinal assertion in the Advaita tradition 
is tat tvam asi: that the human self (atman) is non-different from brahman. This is 
further exemplative of non-dualism in Advaita. Individual selfhood is illusory, based 
upon a flawed understanding of ultimate reality. As long as the world (including 
the self ) is perceived ordinarily (as distinct from brahman), a human remains in a 
state of ignorance (avidya). Avidya obstructs us from the highest quest for humanity: 
knowledge of our true selves and reality as identical to brahman.11

Ultimate liberation, called moksha, is achieved when a person realizes that atman is 
non-different from brahman. One prominent Advaita scholar neatly summarizes the 
concept of liberation, writing that “the unliberated person attributes a separate reality 
to the world, while the liberated sees the world as owing its existence and being to 
brahman.” 12 Moksha affords humanity the valid means of knowledge of ultimate 
reality, superior to human perception or reason (Sankara rejects these alternate sources 
of knowledge, because they rely on an observed object’s finity). Nirguna brahman is 
without attributes (“form, sound, taste, scent, and sensation”), so the senses cannot 
hope to provide any understanding of ultimate reality. Similarly, although Sankara 
does not discount the importance of human reason (guided by the holy texts, such as 
the Upanishads), he does assert that brahman surpasses any human rational capacities: 
“although reasoning may be noticed to have finality in some, still in the present 
context it cannot possibly get immunity from the charge of being inconclusive.” 13 
Because brahman is both the means of knowledge and knowledge itself (insofar as 
brahman is ultimate reality), brahman must be known intuitively: “intuitive knowing 
is immediate as distinct from the discursive and mediate knowledge [...] It is the 

8 Rambachan, Anantanand. The Advaita Worldview: God, World, and Humanity.  (Albany, NY: State University of 
New York Press, 2006), 75.

9 Rambachan, Advaita Worldview, 77.
10 Brannigan, Pulse of Wisdom, 63.
11 Brannigan, Pulse of Wisdom, 64-65.
12 Rambachan, Advaita Worldview, 113.
13 Rambachan, Advaita Worldview, 49.



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perfect knowledge, while all other knowledge is indirect and imperfect insofar as it 
does not bring about an identification between subject and object.” 14 When a person 
has achieved moksha, he is liberated from ignorance through knowledge of all reality 
as brahman, which results in freedom from “sorrow, hate, grief, greed, and fear […
and] the attainment of peace and abiding happiness.”15

This, very broadly, summarizes the main tenets of the Advaita Vedanta tradition. 
Allow us now to compare this summary to the normative Eastern philosophical 
model outlined earlier in this paper. To recapitulate, oft-proposed hallmarks of 
Eastern philosophy include: (1) skepticism toward pure rationalism and the intellect, 
(2) the promotion of mysticism and the possibility of unity with the divine, and (3) 
a metaphysically non-personal God. Although the nuances of Advaita philosophy 
present some variance in practice and belief, we can generally understand the school 
to include these characteristics. Firstly, we have seen Sankara’s rejection of human 
sensory experience and pure reason as sources of valid knowledge: that is, true 
knowledge of brahman can only be attained through intuitive understanding, guided 
by Hindu holy texts. Secondly, human union with brahman through the realization 
of tat tvam asi is the ultimate goal in Advaita philosophy. Thus, Advaita does promote 
a sort of mysticism, in which the self may be unified with, and liberated through, 
the divine. Thirdly, brahman is decidedly non-personal. The actions of brahman are 
unconcerned with human interests or desires. Instead, the world merely behaves 
according to brahman’s essential nature—its grounding of reality. As Sankara 
writes, “God [brahman] can have activities of the nature of mere pastime out of 
His spontaneity without any extraneous motive [….] Any motive imputed to God 
can have neither the support of reason nor of the Vedas.”16 Effectually, we see that 
the Advaita Vedanta school includes these three normative “hallmarks” of Eastern 
philosophy. 

Now that we have summarized the Advaita philosophical tradition, we will 
continue with an overview of the Spinozistic philosophical system found in The 
Ethics. A foundational element of Spinoza’s method lies in his argument that God 
must be the only substance that exists. The core of this Spinozistic concept lies in 
propositions that stem from Spinoza’s definition of substance, which he defines as 
“that which is in itself and is conceived through itself; that is, that the conception 
of which does not require the conception of another thing from which it has to be 
formed.”17 A substance is a thing that enjoys autonomous, self-contained existence, 
the understanding of which is not dependent upon the conception or existence of 
auxiliary things. Although an individual substance can have various affectations or 
modes within its being, these affectations are necessarily subsidiary to the substance 
14 S. Radhakrishnan, trans., The Principal Upanishads. (London: Allen & Unwin, Ltd., 1953), 96.
15 Rambachan, Advaita Worldview, 55.
16 Rambachan, Advaita Worldview, 91.
17 Spinoza, Baruch. The Ethics, Treatise on The Emendation of the Intellect, and Selected Letters. Translated by 

Samuel Shirley. Edited by Seymour Feldman. 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Hackett Pub. Co., 1992), 31.



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itself. As Spinoza writes, “substance is by nature prior to its affectations.” 18 Finally, 
extrapolating on the logic of these propositions, Spinoza argues that a substance, by 
nature, must be infinite (or hold infinite attributes), because the substance must exist 
independent of the existence of other bodies. Nothing can ever constrain a substance 
(and substances can never constrain each other). 

It is from this foundational understanding of substance that Spinoza derives the 
claim that “there can be, or be conceived, no other substance but God,” and, that, 
consequently, “whatever is, is in God, and nothing can be or be conceived without 
God.”19 Because God is a perfect entity, he20 is the only thing that must necessarily 
exist by definition. Therefore, all other things exist subordinately to the existence 
of God, because he is constrained by nothing. God is the only thing that can be 
independently self-contained and self-caused, and, thus, fulfills the two defining 
characteristics of a substance.21 So, all of existence is God. Things we perceive to be 
individual entities actually comprise only finite modes within the substance of God, 
which is internally infinitely diverse and complex.  It is here that Spinoza begins to 
use the terminology “God”, or, “Nature”, because God, as all of existence, is equated 
with the universe and Nature itself.  Thus, Spinoza is generally understood to espouse 
a pantheistic, or a panentheistic-monistic philosophy, in which all existent things are 
unified in the oneness of God’s eternal, infinite being.22

Due to God’s perfection, morality in Spinozism is limited to the non-metaphysical, 
and God is decidedly non-personal.  If the universe and God are one and the same, 
we cannot explain occurrences within Nature through human definitions of “good” 
or “bad.” Ultimately, if God is the only substance, and therefore is the only causal 
power in existence, then all things in him “proceed from an eternal necessity and 
with supreme perfection.” 23  If all things are divine, then all events are perfect and 
necessary, insofar as they emanate directly from God. Thus, Spinoza presents us 
with an amoral universe, void of any differentiation between metaphysical “good” 
or “bad.” This ontological schema advances a conception of a non-personal God, 
unconcerned with human activity or interests. As Spinoza writes, “Nature has no 
fixed goal (and) all final causes are but figments of the human imagination [...] God 
has acted in all things for the sake of himself, and not for the sake of the things to 
be created.” 24

But where do humans fall in this metaphysical picture? If we are understood to be 
only finite modes of a non-personal divine entity, what becomes of our relationship 

18 Spinoza, Ethics, 32.
19 Spinoza, Ethics, 39-40.
20 The masculine pronoun is only used here to conform to Spinoza’s own word choice.
21 Hartshorne, Charles and William L. Reese.  Philosophers Speak of God.  (Amherst, NY: Humanity Books, 2000), 

194.
22 Hartshorne, Philosophers Speak of God, 189-192.
23  Spinoza, Ethics, 59.
24  Spinoza, Ethics, 59.



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Spinoza the Hindu

to the God? It is clear that the human self must be conceived as a part of God.  
Spinoza writes that the self (“man”) consists of the unification of human mind 
and body, arguing that the mind is the self comprehended under the attribute of 
Thought, while the body is the self comprehended under the attribute of Extension.  
Because God is all things, God must therefore have the attributes of Thought and 
Extension. The human mind and body are both expressions of God under these 
different attributes. 25 Yet, both objects, unified in the self, remain finite, individual 
parts of the singular substance that exists beyond them: “we are a part of Nature 
which cannot be conceived of independently of other parts.”26

It is here that Spinoza begins his discussion of the three types of human knowledge.  
The first type is derived from sensory experience, which only offers falsities, due to 
the subjectivity of the senses. The second is derived from common understandings 
of the world and its properties, unencumbered by subjectivity: that is, reason.  The 
third and final kind of knowledge, Spinoza calls “intuitive,” of which he writes, 
“proceeds from an adequate idea of the formal essence of certain attributes of God 
to an adequate knowledge of the essence of things.”27 That is, essentially, intuitive 
knowledge is derived from an understanding that God is all of existence, and, 
thus, that the essences of all things are defined by his being.  When a person has an 
adequate conception of God through an understanding of the true nature of reality 
(that is, Spinoza’s pantheistic monism), he simultaneously has a true understanding 
of all things in existence, because they are one and the same.  Therefore, intuitive 
knowledge is “necessarily true”, emanating directly from the necessity of God’s 
being.28

Spinoza believes that humans can ultimately achieve freedom through this intuitive 
knowledge. Through this adequate understanding of God, we may be liberated from 
the bondage of uncontrollable emotions (or “agitations of the mind”) produced in 
us by “thoughts of external [non-divine] causes.”29 Essentially, Spinoza argues, when 
we understand the ontological necessity of all things resulting directly from God’s 
being, we can rationalize our way out of undesirable emotional responses. If the 
actions of an external body produce in us a sensation of fear—or anger, or sadness—
intuitive knowledge allows us to realize the divine necessity of those actions, and to 
rationalize the emotion, negating it through thoughtful reflection. 30 We move from 
being passive participants in our emotional state to being active participants in that 
state, through this intellectual process, as we simultaneously achieve salvation from 
ignorance. Therefore, as Spinoza writes, the highest blessedness that a human can 
achieve is found in this intuitive knowledge, which leads to an “intellectual love of 

25  Spinoza, Ethics, 64-72.
26  Spinoza, Ethics, 156.
27  Spinoza, Ethics, 90.
28  Spinoza, Ethics, 91.
29  Spinoza, Ethics, 204
30  Spinoza, Ethics, 205-206.



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God”, and, consequently, of all existence.31 Spinoza summarizes his liberative system, 
writing that “the wise man...suffers scarcely any disturbance of spirit, but being 
conscious, by virtue of a certain eternal necessity, of himself, of God and all things...
always possesses true spiritual contentment.” 32

Allow us first to compare the Spinozistic system to the normative Western philosophical 
model elucidated earlier. The Ethics certainly utilizes a Western rationalist lexicon and 
basic conceptual framework. Spinozistic terms like substance and attributes had been 
employed by precursory Western philosophers like Descartes and Malebranche, even 
if their definitions were slightly different. Similarly, the geometrical-method proofs 
found in the Ethics were certainly evident of a penchant for ordered intellectual 
inquiry. Thus, Spinoza clearly fulfills that first indication of the Western philosophical 
canon: he proposes his system in Western terms, employing a decidedly Occidental 
model.

Yet, Spinoza fails such a litmus test on all other indications. Firstly, with his promotion 
of pantheistic monism, Spinoza rejects individualism. Because God encompasses all 
of existence, and because a particular human solely comprises a modal manifestation 
of the divine, the supposed “individual” must in fact be unified with all other beings 
in the ultimate ontological picture. In his comparison of Spinozistic and Buddhist 
philosophy, Soraj Hongladarom neatly summarizes this retreat from individualism, 
writing that “the task of the human being is to achieve what [Spinoza] calls ‘the 
intellectual love of God’ [….] Here the uniqueness of this situation does not play 
a role; instead the idea is to forgo these traits of individuality by merging with 
the One, so to speak, through losing one’s unique individual traits.” 33 Secondly, 
Spinoza espouses a version of philosophical mysticism wholly distinct from the 
Western canon. In The Ethics, human endeavors toward an intellectual love of God 
end with liberation through a realization of ultimate ontological union with God.  
This, in effect, sounds somewhat like Eastern mysticism, and further isolates Spinoza 
from traditional Western philosophy. Third, as explained earlier, Spinoza’s God is 
decidedly non-personal, unconcerned with human interests; any attribution, of a 
human-serving “fixed goal,” to Nature can only be “but a figment of the human 
imagination.” 34

While The Ethics finds Spinoza rejecting many of the hallmarks of Western canonical 
models, the text strikingly parallels Advaita philosophy. What will follow will be an 
analysis of these likenesses.

Firstly, both Spinozism and Advaita Vedanta Hinduism present non-dualist, essentially 
monistic metaphysical systems. In Spinozism, God is the only independent substance 

31  Spinoza, Ethics, 217-221.
32  Spinoza, Ethics, 223.
33 Hongladarom, “Spinoza & Buddhism”, no page numbers.
34 Spinoza, Ethics, 59.



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Spinoza the Hindu

in existence—God alone is infinite, immutable, and eternal. All individual things 
comprise finite modes of God’s substance, and are identical to God (insofar as they 
are themselves divine). Yet, God, with infinite attributes, transcends all possibilities 
of human perception; we only have access to God through the attributes of extension 
and thought, though God contains infinitely more attributes. Thus, God is infinitely 
greater than the observable universe, because God is constrained by nothing, including 
human faculties. This is strikingly similar to the unified ultimate reality proposed by 
Advaita Vedanta. Brahman alone comprises all existence as an infinite, eternal being. 
The world and individual humans are finite expressions of brahman’s nature, and are 
non-different from brahman. However, the infinite nature of brahman indicates that 
ultimate reality is not encompassed by the world alone, as brahman can neither be 
constrained nor defined by any external body. Both Spinozism and Advaita propose 
monistic, transcendent divine beings, which encompass all of reality and existence, 
and which exist independently of any subordinate entity.

A further metaphysical parallel between Spinoza’s God and Advaita’s brahman is 
that both provide the ontological grounding for ultimate reality, but both are non-
personal. We have seen how Spinoza’s God is unconcerned with human interest 
and desire, merely acting “in all things for the sake of himself,” 35 according to the 
necessity of God’s nature. Similarly, in Advaita philosophy, extraneous motives 
cannot be attributed to brahman; instead, actions like creation are “in the very 
nature of brahman.”36 Both God and brahman are the grounding forces of reality and 
existence, non-different from both, and defining reality and existence according to 
the necessities of their own beings.

A second similarity can be found in the relationship of humanity to God. In both 
traditions, humans are manifestations of the divine, non-different from their 
respective gods. Spinoza argues that humans, along with all things in existence, 
comprise modes of God’s substance. The human self (as it is composed of mind and 
body) is one with God. Advaita philosophy promotes a similar human union with 
God, since atman is non-different from brahman. Thus, both systems present us with 
a vision of humanity as expressions of God, ultimately inseparable from the divine.  
The ontological non-dualism of each tradition thus extends to the human self, which 
is non-distinct from God or brahman.

A third and final similarity between the traditions can be found in their promotion of 
living liberation through knowledge of ultimate reality. In Spinozism, an intellectual 
love of God (intuitive, true knowledge of ultimate reality) is the highest blessedness a 
human can achieve. In doing so, a person is liberated from an incomplete knowledge 
of reality and possesses “spiritual contentment” through a recognition of the necessity 
of God’s nature. A person who has achieved moksha in Advaita Vedanta is freed from 

35 Spinoza, Ethics, 59.
36 Rambachan, Advaita Worldview, 91.



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ignorance (avidya), anxiety, and anger, and knows “peace and abiding happiness.” 
The acknowledgement that atman is non-different from brahman is the only source 
of valid, necessarily true knowledge about existence. In both traditions, humans can 
be liberated through a realization of the ontological truth of a singularly unified 
ultimate reality.

Despite these striking connections between substantive facets of each tradition, some 
nuanced differences remain. Perhaps the principal divergence is seen in the fact that 
Advaita Vedanta comprises a religious tradition accepted by a community of believers 
throughout a significant portion of human history, while Spinozism (as presented in 
The Ethics) is decidedly philosophical, devoid of any explicit community of believers, 
and without any “religious” history.  

We may observe a product of this difference in Advaita philosophy’s emphasis 
on the importance of Hindu religious texts as conduits for human knowledge. 
Spinoza, conversely, proposes no equivalent textual guide for intuitive knowledge 
of God. Instead, humans achieve an intellectual love of God that is guided by 
reason. Spinoza believes that the route to blessedness and true knowledge, although 
ultimately intuitive, must involve reason and the intellect. Thus, rationality serves 
as a preliminary guide to liberation. In Advaita philosophy, this role is filled by the 
Upanishads, which, likewise, guide humans to an intuitive knowledge of brahman.  
Though the end result (knowledge of ultimate reality and human freedom) is the 
same, the methods for achieving such knowledge differ.

Because Advaita Vedanta philosophy is an offshoot of a major religious tradition, it 
is not surprising that historically-important religious texts serve as the bedrock of 
ontological understanding and knowledge. Similarly, it is unsurprising that Spinoza, 
as an Enlightenment thinker, rejects any sort of scriptural authority in favor of 
human intellect and reason. It cannot be doubted that this fact plays a significant 
role in his characterization as a Western thinker (recall that an oft-cited hallmark 
of the Western tradition is rational, intellectual inquiry). Although this disparity 
between the traditions does exist, the actual substantive claims proposed by each 
remain strikingly comparable: that an understanding of reality is ultimately intuitive, 
and that it, alone, is the source of valid knowledge.

Another apparent difference is an ontological one. Nirguna brahman, the true being 
of brahman, must be ineffable and without attributes. Spinoza’s God, on the other 
hand, is described as having infinite attributes, including Thought and Extension. 
Are these incompatible understandings of the divine, if one god is without attributes, 
and the other is with infinite attributes? I would argue, in fact, that these differing 
characterizations of god still provide the same substantive claim—that God and 
brahman both transcend human understanding, and both cannot be defined or 
constrained.  



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Spinoza the Hindu

The Advaita adherent’s concern with attributing characteristics to nirguna brahman 
stems from the belief that any linguistic claim placed upon brahman would serve to 
limit its unlimited nature. Brahman is ultimately inexpressible, because any attempt 
at expressing brahman is inadequate. Spinoza’s God is, actually, quite similar to 
brahman in this way. Spinoza does believe that God must have the attributes of 
Thought and Extension, because these are definable human attributes, and because 
God (as an infinite being) must encompass all attributes. Yet, humans only have 
access to these two attributes: just as nirguna brahman encompasses and transcends 
both atman and the corporeal world, God encompasses and transcends the world and 
the human self as understood through Thought or Extension. Although we can speak 
of God as having these attributes (just as we can attribute certain characteristics to 
saguna brahman [brahman with attributes]), the totality of Spinoza’s God remains, 
because of this transcendence, similarly ineffable to the totality of nirguna brahman. 

Nonetheless, if the situation is as described, then we have a Western rationalist 
philosopher espousing an Eastern religio-philosophical doctrine. It is here that we 
must examine the broader implications of this comparative analysis.

In the postcolonial era, the East-West dichotomy has come under increasing attack 
from a variety of scholastic circles. Edward Said, an outspoken critic of such an 
“Orient-Occident” binary, has argued that the division is entirely mythical: that the 
imagined region of the Orient is, in fact, “an idea that has a history and a tradition of 
thought, imagery and vocabulary that has given it reality and presence for the West.”37 
Said argues that, in its purported difference from the West, the very notion of the East 
(as espoused and understood by Westerners) is imbued with “doctrines of European 
superiority, various kinds of racism, imperialism and the like”, and necessarily creates 
a power-dynamic that produces and justifies Western domination.38 Obviously, the 
dichotomy has proven itself tremendously controversial in recent years.

It is my hope that this comparison between Advaita Vedanta Hinduism and The Ethics 
might spur further critique of that problematic ideology. Through an examination of 
substantive similarities between Eastern and Western philosophical schools, a rigid 
East-West dichotomy might be unmasked as hopelessly reductionist. The argument 
that Spiozism so closely mirrors the ontological and epistemological claims of Advaita 
Vedanta Hinduism complicates the image of any fundamental ideological differences 
between Eastern and Western philosophy. The potential for a reexamination, and a 
critique of, that binary system is an intended consequence of my project.

Additionally, it is my firm belief that the type of comparative analysis exemplified in 
this paper provides us with a deeper understanding of seemingly disparate entities: 
an understanding that might have otherwise been unattainable, or entirely ignored.  

37 Said, Edward W. Orientalism. (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1978), 5
38 Said, Orientalism, 8.



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When we discuss Eastern and Western philosophies in a comparative lens, fascinating 
results ensue. When we separate them based upon a purported incommensurability, 
we lose the potential for broader understandings of humanity at large, with its varied 
traditions and beliefs, regardless of geographic zone. I hope that further scholarly 
examinations of the subject matter of Spinozistic-Advaita comparative analysis might 
follow, so that we might see commonalities in both systems, across any imagined 
delineations. F

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Brannigan, Michael C. The Pulse Of Wisdom: The Philosophies of India, China, and 
Japan.  Stamford, CT: Wadsworth/Thomson Learning, 2000.

Hartshorne, Charles and William L. Reese.  Philosophers Speak of God.  Amherst, NY: 
Humanity Books, 2000.

Hongladarom, Soraj. “Spinoza & Buddhism on the Self.” The Oxford Philosopher, July 
29, 2015. No page numbers.

Melamed, S.M. Spinoza and Buddha: Visions of a Dead God. Chicago: University of 
Chicago Press, 1933.

S. Radhakrishnan, trans.,  The Principal Upanishads.  London: Allen & Unwin, Ltd., 
1953.

Rambachan, Anantanand.  The Advaita Worldview: God, World, and Humanity Albany, 
NY: State University of New York Press, 2006.

Russell, Bertrand. A History of Western Philosophy. London: Allen & Unwin, 1946.

Said, Edward W. Orientalism. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1978.

Spinoza, Baruch. The Ethics, Treatise on The Emendation of the Intellect, and Selected 
Letters. Translated by Samuel Shirley. Edited by Seymour Feldman. 2nd ed. 
Cambridge: Hackett Pub. Co., 1992.

Ziporyn, B. (2012). Spinoza and the Self-Overcoming of Solipsism. Comparative and 
Continental Philosophy, 4(1), 125.


