Philosophers

What is the best way to approach Spinoza's ethics?

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Spinoza's Ethics is an extraordinarily difficult work. I find that it is one of the two most difficult texts written by an early modern philosopher: the other is Hume's Treatise of Human Nature. One reason for the difficulty of Spinoza's text is its style: Spinoza's geometrical method is designed to preclude the reader from attending to anything but the particular propositions of the work, and their proofs, and consequently, it is most difficult for the reader to find her bearings in the work.

But Spinoza was not writing in a vacuum. He had been steeped in Descartes' writings, and even wrote a geometrical presentation of Descartes' Principles of Philosophy, the Principles of Cartesian Philosophy. Many of the claims of the Ethics implicitly engage Descartes. Consequently, I have found that it is helpful to read Descartes' Meditations, Part I of his Principles of Philosophy, and the Passions of the Soul, in order to have a point of reference for Spinoza's claims about metaphysics, mind, and the passions. Spinoza's ethics has important affinities to that of Hobbes, so it helps at least to have read the first two parts of Leviathan before working through Parts III-IV of the Ethics.

In Behind the Geometrical Method: A Reading of Spinoza's Ethics, Edwin Curley recommends just this approach before presenting his own, excellent introductory reading of the Ethics. I would recommend that the student interested in Spinoza's Ethics read through the works of Descartes and Hobbes listed in the preceding paragraph, and then work through the Ethics, referring back to those texts, perhaps in the company of Curley's book.

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