Spinoza's Ethics

A philosophical work by Baruch Spinoza that uses definitions, axioms, propositions, and proofs to explain God, nature, human emotions, and freedom.

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Substance: That which exists in itself and is conceived through itself, rather than through another thing. Spinoza makes substance the foundation for his account of reality.
Deus sive Natura: Spinoza's expression meaning “God or Nature,” identifying God with the one infinite reality. This identity anchors the work's account of everything that exists.
Baruch Spinoza: A Dutch philosopher of Portuguese-Jewish ancestry who developed a naturalistic and rigorously deterministic metaphysics. He composed the work and supplied its philosophical system.
Cartesian mind–body dualism: The theory that mind and body are distinct substances, each with its own fundamental nature. Spinoza instead treats mind and body as one thing expressed under different attributes.
Spinozism: Philosophical positions drawing on Spinoza's monism, naturalism, or identification of God and Nature. The work's distinctive doctrines became a target and a resource for later thinkers.
Attribute (philosophy): A fundamental way an intellect perceives the essence of a substance. Thought and extension are the two attributes humans can know in the work.
Conatus: The striving by which each thing endeavors to persist in its own being. Spinoza uses this striving to explain desire, self-preservation, and human action.
René Descartes: A French philosopher and mathematician whose dualism and method shaped early modern philosophy. Spinoza recasts Cartesian ideas about thought, extension, and the human mind.
Libertarian free will: The view that free choice requires genuine alternative possibilities and is not fully determined by prior causes. The Ethics denies that human choices escape nature's necessity.
Pantheism controversy: An eighteenth-century German dispute over whether Spinoza's philosophy amounted to atheism or pantheism. The Ethics became central to the controversy through its account of God and Nature.