Spinoza on Learning to Live Together

Susan James is Professor Emerita at Birkbeck College London and Visiting Professor of Philosophy at King's College London. She has written on a range of themes in early modern philosophy, including political philosophy, philosophical psychology and the philosophy of art. Among her publications are Passion and Action: The Emotions in Early Modern Philosophy (Oxford, 1997) and Spinoza on Philosophy Religion and Politics: The Theologico-Political Treatise (Oxford 2012).

• Introduction: Philosophy as the Art of Living TogetherPart I. Learning to Live TogetherCreating Rational Understanding: Spinoza as a Social EpistemologistWhen Does Truth Matter? The Relation Between Theology and PhilosophySpinoza on Superstition: Coming to Terms with FearNarrative as a Means to Freedom: Spinoza on the Uses of ImaginationResponding Emotionally to Fiction: A Spinozist ApproachPart II. The Politics of Living TogetherLaw and Sovereignty in Spinoza's PoliticsNatural Rights as Powers to ActDemocracy and the Good Life in Spinoza's PhilosophyFreedom, Slavery and the PassionsFreedom of Conscience and Civic Peace: Spinoza on PietyPart III. Philosophical CommunitiesFreedom and Nature: A Spinozist InvitationThe Affective Cost of Philosophical Self-TransformationFortitude: Living in the Light of our Knowledge

[O]ne looking for an account of Spinoza's views on the ethics of ordinary life could hardly ask for a better guide than Susan James. Spinoza on Learning to Live Together makes the case for regarding Spinoza, for all of his rarefied intellectualism, as a theorist who is deeply attuned to the challenges to, and importance of, living cooperatively with others.