Abstract

This book is the author's second book-length exposition of Spinoza's thought. Like the earlier commentary, Salvation from Despair: A Reappraisal of Spinoza's Philosophy, it presents Spinoza's philosophy sympathetically and compellingly, for Harris has been much influenced by the master. But unlike Salvation from Despair, which was aimed at specialists, this book is geared to readers unfamiliar with Spinoza's work. Basing his analyses on the full range of Spinoza's writing, Harris devotes seven chapters to discussion of topics in Spinoza's metaphysics, philosophy of mind, and epistemology; six chapters to explanation of issues in Spinoza's psychology, ethics, political theory, and critique of religion; and one chapter, the first, to description of Spinoza's current appeal. The appeal, Harris claims, derives from Spinoza's conception of the moral agent both as self-determined and as expressing and realizing divine causation through universal and objective law. According to Harris, contemporary philosophy misses this profound truth because of its relativist presuppositions.