While Spinoza is often interpreted as an early secular or liberal thinker, this book argues that such interpretations neglect the senses of order and authority that are at the heart of Spinoza s idea of God. For Spinoza, God is an organized and directed totality of all that exists. God is entirely immanent to this totality, to such an extent that all things are fundamentally of God. Appreciating the full extent to which God permeates and orders every aspect of reality, allows the full sense of Spinoza s theories of tolerance and the social contract to come into view. Rather than assuming that...
While Spinoza is often interpreted as an early secular or liberal thinker, this book argues that such interpretations neglect the senses of order and ...