Abstract

Arguably, to understand the role of God in Spinoza's metaphysics is to understand the whole of Spinoza's metaphysics. Despite its title, however, Deveaux's book is dedicated to the less ambitious task of addressing three questions about Spinoza's system: what is the relation between God and the attributes? What is the essence of God? What is the true conception of God? Since, strictly speaking, the answer to is simply knowledge of the answer to , it is the first two questions that are crucial. To answer these, Deveaux examines three interpretations of Spinoza's account: that God is essentially connected to a system of trans-attributive modes ; that God is a collection of infinite attributes ; and that God is a unity of attributes, taken somehow without distinction . After judging each interpretation unsatisfactory, Deveaux then offers her own theory of Spinoza's God, one which, she claims, both answers her three initial questions and avoids the weaknesses of the other three readings