China Social Science Review

No.1, 2024

Reassessing the Research on Spinoza’s Metaphysics: From Necessity to Free Will

(Abstract)

Li Ming

The Ethics, a masterpiece of Spinoza’s late intellectual maturity, constructs a metaphysical system with substance, modes and attributes as basic categories. Analyzing the four different existing interpretative progressions of conceptual, causal, immanent and expressionist interpretations and their shortcomings, and an understanding of the non-transitive relationship between God and modes are the key to understanding Spinoza’s metaphysics. Reflecting further on the misreadings represented by scholars such as Pierre Bayle, Spinoza’s ethical thought should be understood within metaphysics, leading to a reassessment of his idea of necessity. Finally, we should re-understand Spinoza’s views on important issues such as freedom and emotion in the light of contemporary AI research. By reinterpreting necessity and freedom, a new way of thinking is offered to answer the relationship between metaphysics and ethics.