‘Perhaps it is not too much to hope that by 1977, the tercentenary of his death, Spinoza studies will once again flourish in the English-speaking world.’ Maurice Mandelbaum’s prophecy (in the foreword to Spinoza: Essays in Interpretation, 1975) has indeed been fulfilled in this new collection of essays on Baruch de Spinoza, one of the greatest thinkers of all time. Brought together by Siegfried Hessing, who has himself contributed two essays and is a lifelong student of the work of Spinoza, and a keen advocate of the perennial validity of his teaching, these essays are written by distinguished philosophers from many countries (including eleven from the United States) and are published as a homage to Spinoza in the year which marks the three-hundredth anniversary of his death.
A special feature of the book is that it includes a recently discovered letter by Spinoza, reproduced for the first time in English and in facsimile, with a commentary. The controversial influence of Spinoza on Freud is discussed, and illustrated by facsimile reproductions of original letters, hitherto unknown to Freudians and Spinozists alike. These letters direct revealing light on some of Freud’s attitudes. Important parallels between East and West will also attract the student of Spinoza. The essays in this volume are complemented by a magnificent pictorial tribute by Perle Hessing, a well-known naive painter.
The success with which the book achieves its purpose is well recognised by Professor Huston Smith in his Foreword: T feel as if its authors — and especially its editor, Siegfried Hessing—have performed a service for us all, the entire philosophical community and in a larger sense its surrounding intellectual community.’ The royalties from the book will go to the Vereniging Het Spinozahuis to enable it to continue its important task of disseminating the teaching of Spinoza.