This first extensive study of Spinoza's philosophy of mind concentrates on two problems crucial to the philosopher's thoughts on the matter: the requirements for having a thought about a particular object, and the problem of the mind's relation to the body. Della Rocca contends that Spinoza's positions are systematically connected with each other and with a principle at the heart of his metaphysical system: his denial of causal or explanatory relations between the mental and the physical. In this way, Della Rocca's exploration of these two problems provides a new and illuminating perspective...

Until recently, Baruch Spinoza's standing in Anglophone studies of philosophy has only seemed to confirm Heinrich Jacobi's assessment of him as <"a dead dog.>" However, an exuberant outburst of scholarship on Spinoza has of late come to dominate work on early modern philosophy. While the 26 essays in this volume - by many of the world's leading Spinoza specialists - grapple directly with Spinoza's most important arguments, these essays also seek to identifyand explain Spinoza's debts to previous philosophy, his influence on later philosophers, and his significance for contemporary...