Becoming One: Theology and Philosophy, Will and Intellect, Mode and Substance in Spinoza

Abstract This chapter aims to shed light on Spinoza’s meftaphysics and philosophy of mind by closely examining a central feature of Spinoza’s political philosophy: the relation between philosophy itself and theology, two domains which may seem radically distinct but are, for Spinoza, ultimately somehow united. The difficult task lies in explaining what “ultimately” means here, in articulating the “how” in this “somehow”, and in spelling out the distinction-undermining nature of this union between theology and philosophy. The chapter then employs this kind of union in order to develop a robust account of the union between will and intellect and between finite and infinite in Spinoza. The chapter closes with some implications of these kinds of unions in Spinoza for his view on the eternity of the mind.