Workshop: Spinoza’s Anti-Sceptical System and Its Aftermath

14 January 2020

Photo: Wikimedia Commons

We would like to invite you to MCAS's next workshop on January 14–15, 2020.

Abstract
Spinoza is famous for his rigorous metaphysical system, according to which there is only one substance that gives rise to infinitely many modes that can be conceived under infinitely many attributes and that provides the ultimate cause and explanation for all kinds of phenomena, such as the nature of God, freedom, and the nature of laws. What is less appreciated, however, is that Spinoza’s metaphysical system comes with an elaborate optimistic epistemology, which justifies our ability to know this system and its implications in the first place, at least in principle. As an explanatory powerful and inherently anti-sceptical system, Spinoza’s metaphysics influenced many philosophers after him. This workshop will bring together a range of scholars who work on different facets of Spinoza’s wide-ranging anti-sceptical metaphysics and on different receptions of his thought. All contributions discussed at the workshop will be published in the forthcoming Blackwell Companion to Spinoza.

Link: Further information and programme