Benedict (Baruch) de Spinoza is seen as one of the most inspiring and influential philosophers of the modern era, yet also one of the most difficult and most frequently misunderstood. Spinoza sought to unify mind and body, science and religion, and to derive an ethics of reason, virtue and freedom in geometrical order from a monistic metaphysics. Of all the philosophical systems of the 17th century it is his that speaks most deeply to the 20th century. The essays in this volume provide an exegesis of Spinoza's thought informed by the most recent scholarship. They cover his metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of science, psychology, ethics, political theory, theology and scriptural interpretation, as well as his life and influence on later thinkers.
