Spinoza on the Wise and the Free
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.21827/jss.2.2.41136Keywords:
Spinoza, free person, wise person, reason, passions, third kind of knowledge, acquiescentia animiAbstract
This paper is a response to Sanem Soyarslan’s objections to my reading of Spinoza’s free person (homo liber). She argues that on my interpretation the free person, unlike the wise person (vir sapiens), while subject to passive affects, does not experience bondage to the passions; and so only the latter, but not the former, can serve as a viable “model of human nature.” I argue that, in fact, the free person and the wise person are, for Spinoza, one and the same indiviual, and thus constitute a single ideal model that we can more or less closely approximate.
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Copyright (c) 2023 Steven Nadler
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