Table Of ContentFreedom, Action, and Motivation
in Spinoza’s Ethics
The present volume posits the themes of freedom, action, and motivation
as the central principles that drive Spinoza’s Ethics from its first part to
its last. It assembles essays by internationally leading scholars, who pro-
vide different, sometimes opposing interpretations of these fundamental
themes as they operate across the five parts of the Ethics and within its
manifold domains. The diversity of issues, approaches, and perspectives
within this volume, along with the chapters’ common focus, open up
new ways of understanding not only some of the key concepts and main
objectives in the Ethics but also the threads unifying the entire work.
The sequence of essays in the book broadly follows the order of the
Ethics, providing up-to-date perspectives of Spinoza’s views on freedom,
action, and motivation in their ontological, cognitive, physical, affective,
and ethical facets. This enables readers to engage with a variety of new
interpretations of these key themes of the Ethics and to reconsider their
consequences both for other related issues in the Ethics and for the rel-
evance of this work to contemporary trends in philosophy of action and
motivation. The essays will contribute to the growing interest in Spino-
za’s Ethics and spark further discussion and debate within and outside
the vast body of scholarship on this important work.
Freedom, Action, and Motivation in Spinoza’s Ethics will be of in-
terest to scholars and advanced students working on Spinoza and early
modern philosophy.
Noa Naaman-Zauderer is Tenured Senior Lecturer in the Department
of Philosophy at Tel Aviv University. She is the author of Descartes:
The Loneliness of a Philosopher (Tel Aviv, 2007); of Descartes’
Deontological Turn: Reason, Will, and Virtue in the Later Writings
(Cambridge, 2010; paperback 2013); and of articles and book chapters
on Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz.
Routledge Studies in Seventeenth-Century Philosophy
15 Locke’s Science of Knowledge
Matthew Priselac
16 The Idea of Principles in Early Modern Thought
Interdisciplinary Perspectives
Edited by Peter R. Anstey
17 Physics and Metaphysics in Descartes and in his Reception
Edited by Delphine Antoine-Mahut and Sophie Roux
18 Experiment, Speculation and Religion in Early Modern Philosophy
Edited by Alberto Vanzo and Peter R. Anstey
19 Mind, Body, and Morality
New Perspectives on Descartes and Spinoza
Edited by Martina Reuter and Frans Svensson
20 Locke’s Ideas of Mind and Body
Han-Kyul Kim
21 Causation and Cognition in Early Modern Philosophy
Edited by Dominik Perler and Sebastian Bender
22 Leibniz’s Legacy and Impact
Edited by Julia Weckend and Lloyd Strickland
23 Freedom, Action, and Motivation in Spinoza’s Ethics
Edited by Noa Naaman-Zauderer
For more information about this series, please visit: https://www.routledge.
com/Routledge-Studies-in-Seventeenth-Century-Philosophy/book-series/
SE0420
Freedom, Action, and
Motivation in Spinoza’s
Ethics
Edited by
Noa Naaman-Zauderer
First published 2020
by Routledge
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and by Routledge
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© 2020 Taylor & Francis
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Naaman Zauderer, Noa, editor.
Title: Freedom, action, and motivation in Spinoza’s Ethics /
edited by Noa Naaman-Zauderer.
Description: New York : Routledge, 2019. |
Series: Routledge studies in seventeenth-century philosophy; 23 |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019032018 (print) |
LCCN 2019032019 (ebook) | ISBN 9780367362249 (hbk) |
ISBN 9780429350962 (ebk)
Subjects: LCSH: Spinoza, Benedictus de, 1632-1677. Ethica. |
Ethics. | Liberty. | Act (Philosophy) | Motivation (Psychology)
Classification: LCC B3974 .F74 2019 (print) |
LCC B3974 (ebook) | DDC 199/.492—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019032018
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019032019
ISBN: 978-0-367-36224-9 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-429-35096-2 (ebk)
Typeset in Sabon
by codeMantra
Contents
Acknowledgments vii
List of Abbreviations ix
1 Introduction 1
NOA NAAMAN-ZAUDERER
2 Steps toward Eleaticism in Spinoza’s Philosophy of Action 15
MICHAEL DELLA ROCCA
3 Spinoza’s Activities: Freedom without Independence 37
MATTHEW J. KISNER
4 Descartes and Spinoza on the Primitive Passions:
Why so Different? 62
LISA SHAPIRO
5 Spinoza on the Primary Affects 82
JOHN CARRIERO
6 Affectivity and Cognitive Perfection 108
LILLI ALANEN
7 Deciding What to Do: The Relation of Affect and
Reason in Spinoza’s Ethics 133
DONALD RUTHERFORD
8 Materializing Spinoza’s Account of Human Freedom 152
JULIE R. KLEIN
9 Spinoza’s Values: Joy, Desire, and Good in the Ethics 174
STEVEN NADLER
vi Contents
10 Spinoza on Human Freedoms and the
Eternity of the Mind 198
NOA NAAMAN-ZAUDERER
11 The Enigma of Spinoza’s Amor Dei Intellectualis 222
YITZHAK Y. MELAMED
Notes on Contributors 239
Index of References to the Ethics 241
General Index 245
Acknowledgments
This volume has been several years in the making. First and foremost, I
would like to thank the contributors for their remarkable collaboration,
patience, and their steadfast support all along. It has been a great plea-
sure working with them on this project, and I am honored to have them
all included here. Thomas Vinci was a full partner in the process of initi-
ating and promoting this project in its early stages. I am deeply grateful
to him for his invaluable input, his wisdom, and his generosity of spirit.
I am especially indebted to Michael Della Rocca for his stimulating in-
sights and his unfailing support throughout. My thanks also go to Brian
Bowles, John Carriero, Amihud Gilead, Matt Kisner, Vered Lev Kenaan,
Yitzhak Melamed, and Steven Nadler for their helpful comments, sug-
gestions, and encouragement.
I am very grateful to Andrew Weckenmann, editor at Routledge, for
his outstanding expertise and support, as well as to Allie Simmons,
Nazrine Azeez, and the team at Routledge for guiding me through the
production process. They were all exceptionally helpful and cordial at
every stage of this project. I am also indebted to two anonymous review-
ers for providing valuable feedback. I owe thanks to Roy Polad for his
outstanding research assistance at various stages of this project. Alon
David Pilosoph has helped me enormously with the final preparation of
the collection. I am deeply grateful to him for his tireless devotion and
philosophical acumen. I also wish to thank Daphna Mark and Ronny
Kedem, whose valuable assistance went far beyond their original for-
matting tasks. Last, the Israel Science Foundation (ISF) (grant no. 248/1)
provided financial assistance at different stages during the work on this
volume. I am grateful for their support.
Abbreviations
Descartes’s Works
AT Oeuvres de Descartes, ed. Charles Adam and Paul Tannery,
12 vols. Paris: Vrin, 1964-1976.
CSM The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, ed. and trans.
John Cottingham, Robert Stoothoff, and Dugald Murdoch,
2 vols. Cambridge University Press, 1985.
CSMK The Philosophical Writings of Descartes: The Correspon-
dence, ed. and trans. John Cottingham, Robert Stoothoff,
Dugald Murdoch, and Anthony Kenny. Cambridge Univer-
sity Press, 1991.
Passions Les Passions de l’Ame (Passions of the Soul)
Principles Principia Philosophiae (Principles of Philosophy)
AT, CSM, and CSMK are cited by volume and page number. Princi-
ples is cited by part and article number, and Passions is cited by article
number.
Spinoza’s Works
C The Collected Works of Spinoza, ed. and trans. Edwin
Curley, 2 vols. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985,
2016.
CGH Compendium Grammatices Linguae Hebraeae (Compen-
dium of Hebrew Grammar)
CM Cogitata Metaphysica (Metaphysical Thoughts), Spinoza’s
appendix to his Principles of Cartesian Philosophy (Renati
Des Cartes Principiorum Philosophiae, Pars I et II, More
Geometrico demonstratae)
DPP Renati Descartes Principiorum Philosophiae (Descartes’s
Principles of Philosophy)
Ep. Epistolae (Spinoza’s Letters)
G Spinoza Opera, 4 vols., ed. Carl Gebhardt. Heidelberg: Carl
Winter, 1925.
