ABSTRACT
Baruch Spinoza, born in Amsterdam of Jewish parents of Portuguese origin, expounded his definitive metaphysical views in his monumental Ethics: Demonstrated in Geometric Order. One of the guiding lines throughout Spinoza’s metaphysics is his correlation of – and constant distinction between – ontological and conceptual independence and dependence. This is clear in Spinoza’s sharp division of reality between two sorts of particulars, substance and modes. As to thought and extension, they are attributes of a substance. Spinoza takes it to follow from God’s existence that no other substance is possible. For Spinoza, God’s power is nothing more nor less than God’s essence considered as productive. God’s eternity is duration less being. God’s infinity is the “absolute affirmation of the existence of some nature”. Just as God’s essence, or power, involves his eternal existence, a finite mode’s actual essence involves a power of indefinite duration of existence.
