Etica barocca. Spinoza e la caduta della ragione

“Desire is the very essence of man” Spinoza says, inverting a most deeply held conviction: that in our “very essence” we are “mind, reason and judgment”. The ethical implications are difficult: only “through fear society can be established […] not by reason […] but by threats”. Yet Spinoza explores these implications mercilessly, reversing the roles of reason and passions: instead of subjecting the unruly passions to reason’s knowledge of true and good, Spinoza entrusts the passions, as causal conduits of natural order, with controlling the selfish and idiosyncratic reason. The paper follows Spinoza’s motivations and resources for this reversal.