num_pages: 176
description: Few other thinkers have felt so strongly 'the desire to have a unitary view of the world and of man's place within it' — a desire that led Spinoza to make crucial contributions to every major philosophical the nature of knowledge and freedom, the existence of God, ethics and politics, mind and matter, pleasure and perception. In this masterly introduction to a supreme thinker Stuart Hampshire, himself one of today's leading philosophers, describes and assesses Spinoza's ideas on all these subjects and show how they make up a body of thought far greater than the sum of its parts. Only Kant and Hume have been systems-builders on an equally grand scale, and both were deeply sceptical thinkers. Spinoza, by contrast, pushed human reason to its limits 'in puruit of complete and final explanation'; the result, as Professor Hampshire demonstrates, is both exhilarating and extraordinarily impressive.'This book is a model of its kind . . . it is full, clear — or as clear as the subject allows — agreeably written, wastes no words and shirks no difficulties.'— The Times Literary Supplement
language: English
title: Spinoza: An Introduction to His Philosophical Thought
titlecomplete: Spinoza: An Introduction to His Philosophical Thought
genres: Philosophy
ratings_count: 9
publisher: Penguin Books