Spinoza's Book of Life

Freedom and Redemption in the Ethics

Bibliographic Data

ID6322772
AuthorsGregory Bruce Smith (corresponding author)
Year2004
Volume2
Issue3
Pages583-584
Publication date2004-09-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenuePerspectives on Politics (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1537-5927 • E-ISSN: 1541-0986
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s1537592704380370
OpenAlexW2106704780
LanguageEN
Citations received10

Spinoza's Book of Life: Freedom and Redemption in the Ethics. By Steven B. Smith. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003. 256p. $35.00. Steven Smith's book is not only an approachable and engaging interpretation of one of the most difficult philosophical works—Spinoza's Ethics—but an exemplary manifestation of philosophical exegesis. It gracefully positions Spinoza within the ongoing discussion that still constitutes the modernity that forms and informs us. Smith wants to position him within the tradition of modern political philosophy as one of the first to think through the prerequisites for modern, secular, democratic life and what is required morally and psychologically of a modern democratic individual. I would suggest, however, that in the end it is possible that the author comes just as close to positioning Spinoza as a proto-postmodern in the mode of Nietzsche or Heidegger

Democracy · Epistemology · Interpretation (philosophy · Modernity · Political science · Politics · Postmodernism · Law · Philosophy · Seventeenth-Century Political and Philosophical Thought

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