Abstract

According to the majority of interpreters of Spinozist philosophy, his doctrine is independent of the modern notion of subjectivity. This study, however, shows that the theory of human knowledge presented in the Ethics can not be rightly understood without adding a certain concept of self-consciousness, and so must contain a theory of subjectivity. Moreover, this theory is reconstructed from Spinozist concepts: self-awareness is, for man, the manifestation of his conatus as a finite thinking unity existing in duration . This reconstruction reveals that the doctrine of Spinoza provides a rather original modern notion of subjectivity, which is a modern alternative to the Cartesian one.