Ex nihilo nihil fit. Philosophy, especially great philosophy, does
not appear out of the blue. In the current volume, a team of top
scholars-both up-and-coming and established-attempts to trace the
philosophical development of one of the greatest philosophers of
all time. Featuring twenty new essays and an introduction, it is
the first attempt of its kind in English and its appearance
coincides with the recent surge of interest in Spinoza in
Anglo-American philosophy. Spinoza's fame-or notoriety-is due
primarily to his posthumously published magnum opus, the Ethics,
and, to a lesser extent, to the 1670 Theological-Political
Treatise. Few readers take the time to study his early works
carefully. If they do, they are likely to encounter some surprising
claims, which often diverge from, or even utterly contradict, the
doctrines of the Ethics. Consider just a few of these assertions:
that God acts from absolute freedom of will, that God is a whole,
that there are no modes in God, that extension is divisible and
hence cannot be an attribute of God, and that the intellectual and
corporeal substances are modes in relation to God. Yet, though
these claims reveal some tension between the early works and the
Ethics, there is also a clear continuity between them. Spinoza
wrote the Ethics over a long period of time, which spanned most of
his philosophical career. The dates of the early drafts of the
Ethics seem to overlap with the assumed dates of the composition of
the Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect and the Short
Treatise on God, Man, and His Well Being and precede the
publication of Spinoza's 1663 book on Descartes' Principles of
Philosophy. For this reason, a study of Spinoza's early works (and
correspondence) can illuminate the nature of the problems Spinoza
addresses in the Ethics, insofar as the views expressed in the
early works help us reconstruct the development and genealogy of
the Ethics. Indeed, if we keep in mind the common dictum "nothing
comes from nothing "-which Spinoza frequently cites and appeals
to-it is clear that great works like the Ethics do not appear ex
nihilo. In light of the preeminence and majesty of the Ethics, it
is difficult to study the early works without having the Ethics in
sight. Still, we would venture to say that the value of Spinoza's
early works is not at all limited to their being stations on the
road leading to the Ethics. A teleological attitude of such a sort
would celebrate the works of the "mature Spinoza " at the expense
of the early works. However, we have no reason to assume that on
all issues the views of the Ethics are better argued, developed,
and motivated than those of the early works. In other words, we
should keep our minds open to the possibility that on some issues
the early works might contain better analysis and argumentation
than the Ethics.
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