Abstract

The study highlights the existential dimension of Spinoza's Ethics. The purpose was to situate Spinoza's Ethics within the context of one's own person. The road to truth and freedom leads through self knowledge and self acceptance. The latter allows one to know the truth and to experience beauty. ;Spinoza's three levels of knowledge are applied to the self with the aid of examples. Questions of one's "real self", of one's character, inner freedom, the control of the passions, human purpose and essence, are examined in this study. The study deals also with love and friendship and the striving for creative self expression. ;The main findings are: Spinoza's ethics is an ethics of being, not an ethics of conduct. Spinoza deconstructs the traditional view of morality and its underlying notions of good and bad or good and evil. The commonly held view of the non-teleological nature of Spinoza's philosophy needs to be qualified. While there is no assigned purpose to a mode, conatus implies inner purpose. It is the thing's striving for completion. Modes in nature are not conscious of their "telos", but man can and must find his true purpose within himself. Freedom and self direction are necessarily linked together. Spinoza's philosophy is anchored in existence. He may therefore be considered as the first existentialist. Man strives to actualize his existential essence in his desire for creative self expression. When man acts on the basis of self knowledge, , he acts in freedom. Such acts reflect man's responsibility to himself and to others . The question of responsibility arises only when man acts in ignorance of himself. To understand Spinoza is to know life. This is why an existential approach to Spinoza is so rewarding.