Publisher's Synopsis
This is a reference book to The Ethics, the major work of the seventeenth century philosopher Baruch Spinoza. It is different from other books on Spinoza's Ethics in so far that it can be used without any prior knowledge of philosophy or Spinoza. Neither does it presume any prior knowledge of Descartes' theory of substance or an understanding of "extension" or "naturalism".
This book is designed however to be referred to, for clarification, when reading or studying The Ethics. Most importantly it is a guide to reading The Ethics. It is not a guide to the critical literature, scholarly disagreements or objections of other philosophers. There are plenty of other books that provide this kind of information. The idea behind this book is by reading The Ethics and help you to understand it's major concepts, it will provide you with the tools for critical analyses and discussions on its topics. The book offers no references to critics or commentators and my interpretation of Spinoza is primarily influenced by Misrahi, Curley, Deleuze and Nadler. The book focuses on The Ethics itself and considers the questions and problems, that the reader is likely to come up with and generally go unanswered in philosophy books. In short, this book tries to offer an explication of Spinoza's Ethics. Furthermore it tries to offer as far as possible an original interpretation of Spinoza based on reading the text itself. It is an aid for reading and understanding The Ethics, but also a prompt for raising philosophical questions about the text and about the world.
