Spinoza on Becoming Eternal

Abstract

In this essay, I use Spinoza's neglected theory of pedagogy to offer fresh interpretations of his metaphysics of modes and passions. Chapter 1 reinterprets his metaphysics of modes as an ethical vision reached at the end of spiritual training. Spinoza's account of the metamorphosis of the passions faces an objection parried in Chapter 2. Chapter 3 finds the roots of Spinozistic pedagogy in the medieval theory of "anagogy". Throughout, I keep in focus Spinoza's challenging idea that he and his students are "beginning to understand things sub specie aeternitatis" (5p31s), which entails that they and he are becoming eternal.