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Spinoza's Book of Life: Freedom
and Redemption in the Ethics Steven B. Smith |
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Most interpreters 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 that it should be placed among the
great founding documents of the Enlightenment. Two aspects of
Smith's book distinguish it from other studies. First, it treats the famous
"geometrical method" of the Ethics as a form of moral
rhetoric, a model for a construction of individuality, of the modern self.
Second, it presents the Ethics as a companion to Spinoza's major work
of political philosophy, the Theologico-Political
Treatise, each work helping to fill out and explore the problem of
freedom. The Ethics in particular, says Smith, is one of the most
insightful studies of the moral and psychological dimensions of liberty, of
the awesome possibilities of free human agency. The book
situates Spinoza's life and work within the context of early modern and
Jewish thought. It also examines the role of his ideas in shaping a set of
complex reactions against the Enlightenment that began in the late eighteenth
century with F.H. Jacobi and was given powerful
expression in the twentieth century with Leo Strauss's critique of Spinoza.
Affirming the centrality of Spinoza for both critics and defenders of
modernity, the book will be of value to students of political theory,
philosophy and intellectual history. Steven B. Smith is Alfred Cowels
Professor of Political Science at |
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