Abstract

The following paper addresses the problem of dualism in Spinoza’sontology. It aims to briefly reconstruct the story of the discussion around this problem in orderto analyze howthe philosophical traditionhas interpreted the dualities of essence-existence, eternity-duration,infinite-finite, substance-modes. The goal is to shed light on the inaccuraciesthat arise from understanding these as ontological distinctionsas well as from ignoring them entirely. Our proposal is to expose aninterpretation that allows us to claim Spinoza’s duality, in a way thatpresents it as a gnoseological duality instead of an ontological one, thatis, to show how the duplicity refers to perspectives or ways in whichhumans conceive reality. We believe that, in this way, duality does notonly become compatible with the univocity of being but also provides adeeper comprehension of the authentic Spinozistic spirit.