Spinoza on Learning to Live Together, by Susan James

Abstract

Spinoza on Learning to Live Together is a collection of nine of Susan James’ previously published papers alongside four more essays published for the first time in this volume. The oldest of the papers appeared in 2006 so the volume contains nearly fifteen years of thought. The resultant thirteen chapters are divided into three sections: (1) Learning to Live Together (Chapters 1-5); (2) The Politics of Living Together (Chapters 6–10); and (3) Philosophical Communities (Chapters 11–13). Despite the different origins of the chapters, the coherence of James’ thought and the consistency of her concerns make for a thematically unified book. An overarching theme uniting many of the chapters is the role of the imagination in Spinoza’s philosophy of social life. James has been the central figure in moving Anglo-American scholars towards a more nuanced understanding of the role of imagination and the emotions in early modern philosophy in general and...