Spinoza's Book of Life : Freedom and Redemption in the Ethics

by Steven B. Smith

• ISBN13: 9780300100198
• ISBN10: 0300100191
• Format: Trade Book
• Copyright: 2003-11-10
• Publisher: Yale University Press

Summary

Most readers of Spinoza treat him as a pure metaphysician, a grim determinist, or a stoic moralist, but none of these descriptions captures the author of the Ethics, argues Steven B. Smith in this intriguing book. Offering a new reading of Spinoza's masterpiece, Smith asserts that the Ethics is a celebration of human freedom and its attendant joys and responsibilities and should be placed among the great founding documents of the Enlightenment. Two aspects of Smith's book distinguish it from other studies. It treats the famous "geometrical method" of the Ethics as a form of moral rhetoric, a model for the construction of individuality. And it presents the Ethics as a companion to Spinoza's major work of political philosophy, the Theologico-Political Treatise, each work helping to explore the problem of freedom. Affirming Spinoza's centrality for both critics and defenders of modernity, the book will be of value to students of political theory, philosophy, and intellectual history.

Author Biography

Steven B. Smith is Alfred Cowles Professor of Political Science at Yale University.

Table of Contents

Preface	xi
A Note on the Texts	xvii
Introduction	xix
CHAPTER 1. Thinking about the Ethics	1	(30)
What Kind of Book Is the Ethics?	4	(4)
In More Geometrico	8	(6)
How Many Spinozas?	14	(5)
The Style Is the Man	19	(5)
An Ethic of Responsibility	24	(7)
CHAPTER 2. Thinking about God	31	(31)
Deus sive Nature	32	(5)
Pantheism or Atheism?	37	(6)
Morale par Provision	43	(5)
The Constitution of the Imagination	48	(5)
On Teleology	53	(9)
CHAPTER 3. Thinking about Thinking	62	(32)
Parallelism	63	(6)
The Identity of Mind and Body	69	(3)
Freedom and Determinism	72	(6)
Rationality and Human Agency	78	(8)
The Odyssey of the Mind	86	(8)
CHAPTER 4. Thinking about Desire	94	(29)
The Conatus as Power	96	(4)
The Conatus as Rationality	100	(4)
An Ethic of Joy	104	(9)
The Heroic Ideal	113	(10)
CHAPTER 5. Thinking about Politics	123	(31)
Spinoza's "Eccentric" Hobbesianism	123	(7)
Spinoza's Machiavellian Moment	130	(4)
"An Idea of Man"	134	(3)
Rational Nature	137	(7)
"There is Nothing More Useful than Man"	144	(6)
Spinoza, Tocqueville, and Lincoln	150	(4)
CHAPTER 6. Thinking about Love	154	(29)
Metaphysical Masochism?	155	(3)
The One True Plan of Life	158	(3)
The Ladder of Love	161	(14)
The Satisfactions of Mind	175	(8)
CHAPTER 7. The Authority of Reason	183	(20)
Jacobi's Affirmation of Faith	185	(5)
Strauss 's "Theologico-Political Predicament"	190	(9)
Philosophy as a Way of Life	199	(4)
Notes	203	(14)
Index of Passages Cited from Spinoza's Ethics	217	(2)
General Index	219