About this latest of Prof. Michael Della Rocca's (Yale) works on Spinoza:
Beginning with an overview of Spinoza's life, Della Rocca carefully unpacks and explains Spinoza's philosophy: his metaphysics of substance and argument at the center of his whole system that God is the sole independent substance; Spinoza's account of the human mind and its relation to the body; his theory that human beings tend towards self-preservation and the role of the emotions; his most famous work, the Ethics, including the problem of free will; and his writings on the state, religion and scripture. Della Rocca concludes with a chapter on Spinoza's legacy and how modern philosophers, Hume, Hegel, and Nietzsche, responded to Spinoza's challenge.
Although this book is only a generalized approach to Spinoza, I have to say that anything that Michael Della Rocca writes is something that I look forward to. Though I cannot agree with all of his interpretations, I have to say that he is most certainly my favorite living interpreter of Spinoza. No one is as clear and quietly argued as Michael Della Rocca.
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Posted by: Kevin | September 05, 2008 at 09:44 PM
a new novel on Baruch Spinoza.
http://www.amazon.com/Conversation-Spinoza-Cobweb-Writings-Unbound/dp/0810123762
Posted by: Jan | September 28, 2008 at 08:51 PM