ABSTRACT
Spinoza is often thought to conceive freedom and human perfection as purely intellectual affairs. Yet he links the power of the mind and the power of the body, and he emphasizes the affective and socio-political dimensions of human cultivation. Hence, we need a richer account of Spinozan freedom and perfection. Section 1 examines Spinoza’s break with Christian metaphysical psychology, exemplified by Cartesian free will, in favor of conatus, which reflects medieval Jewish sources. Section 2 investigates the process of liberation by examining the transition from passivity to activity in thinking, bodies, and affects. Key issues are the complexity of imagination, bodies, and affects; Spinoza’s rejection of teleology; and Spinoza’s rejection of substance dualism. Section 3 addresses an apparent obstacle to my view: Spinoza’s shift to considering the mind “without relation to the body” (E5p20s), which inaugurates discussion of amor dei intellectualis (E5p33) and salus, sive beatitudo, sive libertas (E5p36s). I argue that (a) E5p20 leaves the body out of consideration but does not require real disembodiment, and (b) Spinozan salus extends beyond theological residues to encompass the classical senses of health, security, and safety. Thus, the paramount experience of intellectual activity is concurrent with embodied, socio-political life.
