Abstract

After the thinking of his time has passed, what can Spinoza still tell us today? In this essay, I will take Spinoza’s ethics out of the metaphysics in which his thinking was formed, deconstructing his notions of substance, human body, God, and intellectual love, in order to redeem their use and promise for everyday life. This essay is therefore an attempt to rethink in fundamental ways how Spinoza’s ethics could be detached and freed from his problematic ontology, so as to continue addressing us living today in a world that increasingly functions without reference to God. What might make his ethics, thus unbound, still relevant?