Journal of Spinoza Studies (Dec 2023)

Spinoza on the Wise and the Free

  • Steven Nadler

DOI
https://doi.org/10.21827/jss.2.2.41136
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 2, no. 2

Abstract

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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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