Spinoza’s Free Man

Spinoza’s Free Man is a rigorous philosophical study of will, knowledge, necessity and political action across the works of Baruch Spinoza.

Rather than accepting the conventional opposition between a free and an unfree will, Dr Ioannis S. Christodoulou reconstructs the place of volition within Spinoza’s impersonal order of God–Nature. The book examines how individual acts arise from the succession of natural causes while exploring the concrete powers through which human beings understand, act and develop.

Particular attention is given to Spinoza’s divergence from Descartes and his rejection of Cartesian dualism. The study also analyses the three kinds of knowledge presented in the Ethics, the relationship between will and understanding, and the way intellectual development can strengthen human agency.

The final part investigates the role of will in Spinoza’s political thought: the coordination of distinct individuals into a viable social whole, the pursuit of what is right, and the guidance offered by reason.

Written in carefully edited British English, this scholarly yet accessible work will appeal to readers of Spinoza, ethics, metaphysics, political philosophy, determinism and the philosophy of human freedom.

Author: Dr Ioannis S. Christodoulou
Format: EPUB eBook
Language: English — British English
Publisher: EPHILO International Publishing & Dialogue