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By Aaron V. Garrett

Readers of Spinoza's philosophy have usually been discouraged, in addition to involved, by means of the geometrical approach which he employs in his masterpiece Ethics. Aaron Garrett examines this system and means that Spinoza meant not just to make claims and propositions but additionally to remodel readers through allowing them to view themselves and the realm otherwise. This unique and debatable ebook might be of curiosity to historians of philosophy.

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But this line of argument would not apply to God, as I do not think we have degrees of will in the same sense. ), Spinoza: Issues and Directions (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1990), 221–38. 38 Meaning in Spinoza’s Method are grouped into an even more fundamental distinction between natura naturata (natured nature) and natura naturans (naturing nature). Right at the limit of the division between natura naturata and natura naturans are the infinite modes. They have some of the content we associate with attributes: they are eternal.

A worm, for example, is a mode or a collection of modes. Ideas are also modes. Thus the idea of a worm, as well as any and all ideas worms might have, are modes. Thought as opposed to a thought or a group of thoughts, is an attribute. God is the only substance. These entities – substance, attributes, and modes – are referred to over and over again in the Ethics. Spinoza considers them to be exhaustive of what there is – anything and everything belongs to one of these three categories. A central question the Ethics investigates is: what are the consequences of holding these three entities as basic for one’s understanding of self and world?

My interpretation of Spinoza’s method will be closer to Gueroult’s and Matheron’s interpretations than Wolfson’s, although it will also be substantially different from their interpretations. I will claim that the most important function of the mos geometricus is tied up with what Spinoza calls “emendation” in the TIE, ridding oneself of inadequate ideas so that those adequate ideas that already make up our minds can better be expressed. 27 Harry Wolfson, The Philosophy of Spinoza: Unfolding the Latent Processes of His Reasoning (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1934), i:55.

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