Spinoza's Book of Life: Freedom and Redemption in the Ethics

by Steven B. Smith

Most readers of Spinoza treat him as a pure metaphysician, a grim determinist, or a stoic moralist, but none of these descriptions captures the author of the Ethics, argues Steven B. Smith in this intriguing book. Offering a new reading of Spinoza’s masterpiece, Smith asserts that the Ethics is a celebration of human freedom and its attendant joys and responsibilities and should be placed among the great founding documents of the Enlightenment. Two aspects of Smith’s book distinguish it from other studies. It treats the famous “geometrical method” of the Ethics as a form of moral rhetoric, a model for the construction of individuality. And it presents the Ethics as a companion to Spinoza’s major work of political philosophy, the Theologico-Political Treatise, each work helping to explore the problem of freedom. Affirming Spinoza’s centrality for both critics and defenders of modernity, the book will be of value to students of political theory, philosophy, and intellectual history.

Genres: Philosophy

257 pages, Hardcover

First published November 10, 2003

About the author

Steven B. Smith is the Alfred Cowles Professor of Political Science and Master of Branford College at Yale. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 1981. At Yale he has served as the Director of Graduate Studies in Political Science, Director of the Undergraduate Program in Humanities, and Acting Chair of Judaic Studies. His research has been focused on the history of political philosophy and the role of statecraft in constitutional government. His recent publications include Spinoza, Liberalism, and Jewish Identity, Spinoza's Book of Life, and Reading Leo Strauss.

Reviews

[Matt McCormick · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm not sure what to think after finishing this analysis of Spinoza's Ethics. He has always been my favorite philosopher; kind, brilliant, courageous. I admit a vicarious pleasure as he debunks the mystical and destroys priest craft that assumes authority over laws. I have found him prescient; assuming universal laws that govern, well, everything. Steven Smith made me rethink and question Spinoza in his entirety. I may well be the kind of person Smith describes as admiring parts of Spinoza's philosophy while failing to understand or disregard the rest.

Smith brought me to question whether Spinoza actually believed and advocated a more strict determinism than I imagined. And he introduced (but never really explained) the fifth part of the Ethics which many argue was a retreat to more traditional religiosity and the presence of "mind" (soul?) after death.

This is not an easy read and if one isn't somewhat familiar with the blessed Spinoza and 17th century philosophy it will be easy to get lost. As a follow-up to Nadler, however, its very engaging.

[Alan Johnson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have discussed this book and Spinoza’s Ethics in posts 25-27 of the Spinoza topic in the Political Philosophy and Ethics Goodreads discussion group. Although I am not certain whether I agree with all of Professor Smith’s interpretations and conclusions, his book is an excellent study of Spinoza’s treatise.

8/26/2019 NOTE: Although I began reading this book in the hardcover edition, I had to switch to the Kindle edition after I broke my arm in a fall. However, the endnotes are not hyperlinked in the Kindle edition. Fortunately, there are only a few pages of endnotes, and I copied those pages from the hardcover to consult while reading the Kindle book. I notified Amazon of this defect, and they said they would forward this information to the publisher. Hopefully, the publisher will rectify this problem, which sometimes happens with books that were converted to Kindle in the early years of the Kindle platform. I should add that the hardcover edition has rather smallish print, and it is easier to read the Kindle edition except for the hyperlink issue and the additional problem that the Kindle version does not contain real page numbers.

[Kenny · Rating 1 out of 5]

I really wanted to like this book. There are only about 5 major Spinoza scholars today who have published arguments that he was an atheist, and Smith is one of them. He even addresses those arguments in this book, albeit extremely briefly. I am disappointed that this position has such a weak defender in Smith. Spinoza’s Book of Life is simply not worth reading; it’s barely worth the paper it’s printed on. That this thing passed peer-review is astonishing. It doesn’t even get the basics of Spinoza’s metaphysics right - the stuff that undergraduates are taught in the first hour of any class introducing them to his ideas. Modes aren’t attributes; passions aren’t actions, and you could only make mistakes this obvious if you had not actually read the Ethics. There are some brief moments of insight, but you have to wade through a lot of sewage to find them.