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1. Although the term "philosophy of mind' has no rigid definition, one may take it to include philosophical discussions of the problem of mind-matter relations, and of the nature of thinking, perception, emotion and will. It also includes investigations into the nature of the self, and in particular the unity of the self; again, its concern with the nature of the will covers the question of whether human beings may be said to have free will. The philosophy of Spinoza contains some distinctive answers to such questions, but because of the compression and obscurity of his writings, there has been considerable disagreement as to the exact nature of these answers. In consequence, most Spinoza scholarship has been expository in character. This remains true of the period 1968–78, which has seen much activity in the field of Spinoza studies, partly connected with the commemoration in 1977 of the tercentenary of Spinoza's death. Nevertheless, by no means all of the scholars who have written on Spinoza during this period have seen their task as merely one of historical scholarship; on the contrary, many of them see Spinoza's philosophy as containing insights that are relevant to the present day.

DOI: 10.1007/978-94-009-6932-2_5

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