Steven Smith's book is not only an approachable and engaging interpretation of one of the most difficult philosophical works—Spinoza's Ethics—but an exemplary manifestation of philosophical exegesis. It gracefully positions Spinoza within the ongoing discussion that still constitutes the modernity that forms and informs us. Smith wants to position him within the tradition of modern political philosophy as one of the first to think through the prerequisites for modern, secular, democratic life and what is required morally and psychologically of a modern democratic individual. I would suggest, however, that in the end it is possible that the author comes just as close to positioning Spinoza as a proto-postmodern in the mode of Nietzsche or Heidegger.

Smith's Spinoza primarily reflected upon how to respond to a godless, soulless whole devoid of any natural or divine purpose or meaning, a whole into which man is integrated as just one part among many—not as a “kingdom within a kingdom.” But the problem for Smith, and his Spinoza, is how the human in us, which requires some sense of agency, can be saved given these circumstances. He presents a Spinoza who is trying to respond to the twin issues of determinism and freedom simultaneously. In the process, Spinoza becomes more than just incidentally a precursor to Kant. Somewhat paradoxically, by reflecting upon the place of freedom in a largely deterministic whole, Spinoza was primarily trying to emancipate man from a moral and political whole determined by orthodoxy and nondemocratic regimes.

The author confronts competing interpretations that alternately see Spinoza as a soulless materialist or a mystical pantheist, a democratic individualist or a communitarian, a determinist or a philosopher of freedom and self-determination, and he concludes that Spinoza was all of these things, and more. In attempting to show how Spinoza squared what appear to be several circles in his thought, Smith ultimately transforms him not into a contradictory thinker but into a poet who was attempting to inform an indifferent whole with the will of a humanizing spirit. And hence, Smith suggests that the geometrical form that the Ethics takes on the surface is primarily just the poetic veneer that Spinoza chose for his project. Thus, the rigid rationalistic form of the book is far from the paean to rationalism it might appear at first sight. In the process, the author provides us with a richer and more nuanced Spinoza than the usual reductionist and monistic readings. This reading may not convince all of his interpreters but it is a challenging addition to the literature.

Smith presents Spinoza as primarily a moralist and not a metaphysician. He was the quintessential teacher of modern democracy, especially of its psychological and moral needs. He wanted a “manly” humanity that was intellectually and morally tough and resolute, with an inner fortitude and self-reliance that would make it possible for man to affirm himself, including the life of the passions, and seek joy and the “enhancement of life.” In many ways, Smith's Spinoza approaches the life-affirming teaching of Nietzsche. The discussion of “life enhancement” is more than a little reminiscent of Nietzsche's doctrine of the “will to power.” Indeed, Smith explicitly points to this similarity, and others as well.

In the end, however, one cannot help but wonder if one really needs any of Spinoza's theoretical teaching to get to his moral, psychological, and political sentiments. If the theoretical veneer is a form of poetry, then the moral, psychological, and political sentiments rest on the will, and it is not clear that Spinoza is the best or most consistent theorist of the will to whom we might turn. The stance of fearless, clear-eyed, resolute fortitude that seeks joy and all the high things in life as an extension of egoistic drives may be better served on the basis of Nietzsche's teaching. The fiercely independent resolute action of a mind freed of all superstition and consolation may be better served by the teaching of Heidegger, who is never mentioned. Heidegger would appear to be the author sine qua non of the need for resoluteness, based on an act of the will exercised in full consciousness of the meaninglessness of the whole and the groundlessness of the choice.

Smith calls our attention to these issues in the final chapter in which he raises the issue of just how compelling Spinoza's critique of orthodoxy really is, given that reason itself ultimately rests on an act of faith, which is to say, on a groundless choice. The thinking that most straightforwardly confronts precisely how one must respond to groundless choosing is to be found in the Heidegger of Being and Time. Like Smith's Spinoza, Heidegger, too, in his own fashion, welds together a fearless, radical individualism and a form of communitarianism. Yet Heidegger clearly comes down more on the communitarian and nondemocratic side of the equation does than Smith or his Spinoza.

Smith seems to find more compelling the side of the argument that sees fortitude as the virtue par excellence of a free democratic individual. He sees the self-esteem that follows from a remorseless confrontation with an indifferent whole as essential to democratic life. Democratic man needs to be clear-eyed yet active, joyful, energetic, and “powerful,” understood as striving to enhance life by reaching out to a union with others in a community founded on consent. One can at least reflect upon the question of whether Smith's Spinoza or Heidegger has more clearly understood the ramifications of resoluteness and groundless choosing in the face of meaninglessness. Heidegger did not think that what followed was democratic politics. For that matter, Nietzsche's politics of joy and the will to power are anything but democratic. Has Smith's Spinoza really opened the door to the psychology of modern democratic individualism, and of the needs to the modern democratic soul, or does his teaching point more consistently toward something at the opposite end of the political and moral spectrum. And if reason rests on an act of faith, as Smith seems to affirm in the last chapter, then the orthodoxy Spinoza tried to rout remains standing, and with it the possibility of the return of superstition and obscurantism.

But of these complications Smith is well aware. He raises them himself. In the end, Smith's loving and creative interpretation is no more dogmatic than the Spinoza he presents for us. The great virtue of Spinoza's Book of Life is to raise fundamental questions, showing the alternatives and leaving the reader to resolutely engage them. That engagement itself may be what is most necessary for the democratic soul.