Ethics
by Baruch Spinoza · Ethica Ordine Geometrico Demonstrata
Assigned by 3 of the 9 reading lists, catalogue entry only
- Written
- 1677
- Form
- Treatise
- Language
- Latin
- Length
- Medium · 280 pp120 to 300 pages
- Difficulty
- Formidable5 of 5 for a first-year reader
We recommendEthics, translated by Edwin CurleyPenguin Classics, 1996The clearest modern English, taken from Curley's Collected Works, with the cross-references a first reader needs.
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Published after Spinoza's death and set out like Euclid, in definitions, axioms, propositions and demonstrations. Part I argues that there is only one substance, God or Nature, of which everything else is a mode, and that nothing in it is contingent or purposive. Part II treats the human mind as an idea of the body and distinguishes three kinds of knowledge. Parts III and IV analyse the emotions as effects of the one striving Spinoza calls conatus, and argue that we are in bondage as long as we are driven by passions we do not understand. Part V describes the freedom that comes from understanding, and the intellectual love of God.
No reading guide yet
The catalogue entry above is complete: the dates, the form, the themes and every program that assigns Ethics are verified against each program's published list.
What is missing is the part that takes real work: the summary, the key passages, and a recommended translation. The edition named below is the one most programs assign, so the buy links are useful already.
