Abstract

What passes as Spinozism in most circles can be found in the first two parts of the Ethics, and even Spinoza scholars can be guilty of making only opportunistic use of weirder works such as the Short Treatise and Cogitata Metaphysica. The goal of The Young Spinoza, Melamed explains in the introduction, is to stimulate research on Spinoza’s early works, both because of what serious consideration of those works can tell us about the Ethics and because they contain plenty of interesting philosophy.The volume opens with a story about what would have been among Spinoza’s earliest works, if it indeed existed, and closes with a nod to the future—Spinoza’s composition of the Ethics. Edwin Curley’s sparkling..