Spinoza’s Ethics is one of the most fascinating and systematic works of European philosophy—but also among the most challenging. Due to both the metaphysical complexities and the unusual structuring of the Ethics, many readers struggle to access and thereby appreciate the significance of Spinoza’s thought. This unique edition offers not only a clear and modernized translation but also extensive explanatory commentary from the book’s editors, interspersed throughout the text. This commentary is designed neither to distract from Spinoza’s writing nor to argue for a contested interpretation. Rather, it provides explanation, elaboration, and context to assist readers in understanding the arguments and concepts at play. This edition offers a broad point of access into one of the most important but frequently misunderstood figures of early modern philosophy.
Comments
“This is a splendid new edition of Spinoza’s Ethics. Translator Domingo Aviles has given us an eminently readable and philosophically sensitive update of Elwes’s 1891 translation that also helpfully includes some of the original Latin in brackets (for example, when one English word might be used for multiple Latin terms). And editors Jason Waller and Rebecca Lloyd Waller have done an enormous service to readers, especially novice ones, by providing a lucid introduction and illuminating commentary notes, which deftly delineate the main lines of Spinoza’s arguments and identify major topics of scholarly concern. I urge both newcomers and specialists to add this volume to their libraries.” — Kristin Primus, University of California, Berkeley
“This new edition will be excellent for students of philosophy seeking to draw out and defend their own philosophical reading and critique of Spinoza’s radical Ethics. Domingo Aviles’s updated and revised version of Elwes’s historically influential translation is a wonderful contribution to contemporary understandings of the Ethics. Jason Waller and Rebecca Lloyd Waller’s introduction helps ease readers into the history and intellectual climate of Spinoza’s day, and their account of Spinoza’s personal life and intellectual reception dramatically illustrates the radical nature of his philosophical method and views. I particularly enjoy the frequent grey-box notes the editors add throughout the translation. These provide readers who are new to philosophy or to Spinoza with important and always helpful background information, context, and interpretive questions and cues.” — Christopher Martin, University of Toledo
