Yitzhak Y. Melamed

The few studies that address the economic dimensions of Spinoza’s political philosophy tend to emphasize his view of the ancient Hebrew polity at the time of the Bible as essentially egalitarian. We do not deny this important feature of Spinoza’s reconstruction of the ancient Hebrew state. However, in the current study, we would like to shed light on a key economic argument of Spinoza’s Theological Political Treatise that has been hardly discussed so far: Spinoza’s contention that international economic collaboration cannot be pursued in a closed and xenophobic society, such as the ancient Hebrew state, under Spinoza’s reconstruction. In the first part of this study, we provide a general characterization of Spinoza’s reconstruction of the ancient Hebrew state and its unique virtues. In the second part, we discuss and evaluate Spinoza’s portrayal of the ancient Hebrew state as essentially xenophobic. In the third and final part, we suggest that Spinoza used his portrayal of the ancient Hebrew state as essentially xenophobic in order to motivate his Dutch contemporaries to abandon their fantasies of imitating this legendary polity. Spinoza’s argument was quite simple: in spite of the exceeding virtues of this state – and Spinoza does not hesitate to call it the ‘Kingdom of God’ – the ancient Hebrew state cannot, and should not, be imitated by a modern society that is keen on achieving wealth through international trade. To put things bluntly, Spinoza presents his compatriots with a stark choice: either you can re-establish the ancient Kingdom of God or you can enjoy the benefits of your unprecedented wealth achieved through international trade.

Spinoza is probably the greatest anti-humanist of modern philosophy, and this underlying feature of his philosophy motivates many of his most outrageous claims, from his rejection of (human) free will to his critique of common, anthropomorphic, religion. This essay investigates whether in spite of his deep critique of humanism, we can rescue from Spinoza’s thought any notion of human value, rank, or even dignity. The two most promising venues which _could_ lead Spinoza to ascribe substantial value to human beings are human friendship and human (partial) rationality. The essay explores both of these venues as well as Spinoza’s attitude toward dignity, and specifically, _human_ dignity.

This chapter aims to clarify Spinoza’s views the nature of God’s attributes, the nature of existence and eternity, and the relation between essence and existence in God. The chapter argues that for Spinoza God is _nothing but existence_, and that the divine attributes are just fundamental kinds of existence. In Part 1 the chapter provides some background by studying Maimonides’ claims in the _Guide of the Perplexed_ that God’s true essence is necessary existence, and that this essence is denoted by the Tetragrammaton (YHVH). In Part, 2 it points out similar claims Spinoza presents in the TTP, and shows how they echo Maimonides’ discussion in the _Guide_. In Part 3, it examines Spinoza’s apparently conflicting claims in the _Ethics_ about the relationship between God’s essence and existence. In this part it also solves the problem of the sense in which the infinite modes can be called ‘eternal.’ In Part 4, it turns to the relation between the divine attributes and God’s existence and argues that, for Spinoza, the attributes are self-sufficient and adequate conceptions of existence. Finally, the chapter explains what brought Spinoza to _deify_ existence.

In the first part of this chapter, I provide a very brief overview of Schelling’s lifelong engagement with Spinoza’s philosophy, which will prepare us for my study of the 1801 _Presentation_. In the second part, I consider the formal structure and rhetoric of the _Presentation_ against the background of Spinoza’s _Ethics_, and show how Schelling regularly imitates Spinoza’s tiniest rhetorical gestures. In the third and final part, I turn to the opening of the _Presentation_, and argue that Schelling attempts there to distance himself from Fichte by developing a conception of reason as the absolute, or the identity of the subject and object, just as the thinking substance and the extended substance are identified in Spinoza’s God.

This essay discusses the method of so-called "charitable" interpretations in the history of philosophy. The first part discusses the general logic of charitable interpretations in the history of philosophy, mostly concentrating on discussions in metaphysics and epistemology. The second part focuses on the somewhat less noticed use of charitable interpretations in the study of political philosophy, and points out the quintessential role ideology plays in these discussions. Both parts discuss mainly various interpretations of Spinoza’s thought. The final part outlines an alternative methodology, which suggests that past philosophers can be most relevant to our current philosophical discussion, to the extent that they provide us with well-motivated challenges to our common-sense beliefs. Such challenges have the invaluable virtue of being able to undermine our most fundamental and secure beliefs, and force us to engage with the most fundamental questions. What more can we expect from good philosophy?

In this paper, I will study Spinoza’s and Hume’s criticism of a mainstream of modern thought, which I will call ‘humanism.’ By ‘humanism’ I understand a view which (1) assigns a unique value or rank to human beings among all other things in nature; (2) stresses the primacy – or even the constitutive role – of the human perspective in understanding the true nature of things; and (3) attempts to point out an essential quality of humanity which justifies its elevated and unique status. By ascribing a unique value to human beings, humanism assumes a certain gulf between humanity and nature which does not allow us to treat human beings like other things in nature. Modern humanists did not always agree about the precise quality of humanity by virtue of which it is elevated above the rest of nature. For some, it was human freedom which distinguished humans from other animals, for others, it was the ability to act morally, for further others, it was human self-consciousness. Some suggested that it is language which separates humans from all other animals, while others referred to certain combinations of the above qualities which ground the superiority and unique value of human beings. Perhaps more than any other quality, it was reason that was taken as the unique prerogative and vocation of humanity. In this paper, I will study the views of two modern philosophers – Benedict de Spinoza and David Hume – who, despite their deepest interests in both human nature and reason, refused to take part in the cult of human reason and denied the existence of any gulf between human and non-human rationality.

En dépit de sa forme systématique, la pensée de Spinoza est riche de difficultés et d’ambiguïtés. La tâche du commentateur consiste alors à ne pas de les omettre mais à s’y attarder, à les déplier pour proposer une compréhension claire et accessible de l’Éthique, le grand œuvre du philosophe. L’approche originale développée dans cet ouvrage insiste sur la primauté de la pensée sur les autres attributs, dans la mesure où c’est le seul attribut qui soit aussi élaboré, aussi complexe et, en un certain sens, aussi puissant que Dieu. Cette primauté de la pensée impose une nouvelle compréhension des idées et une relecture radicalement neuve du spinozisme.

In this paper, I study one aspect of the philosophical encounter between Spinoza and Hegel: the question of the reality of time. The precise reconstruction of the debate will require a close examination of Spinoza’s concept of tempus (time) and duratio (duration), and Hegel’s understanding of these notions. Following a presentation of Hegel’s perception of Spinoza as a modern Eleatic, who denies the reality of time, change and plurality, I turn, in the second part, to look closely at Spinoza’s text and show that Hegel was wrong in reading Spinoza as denying the reality of duration and change. Ironically, Hegel’s misreading of Spinoza as denying the reality of duration and change has been compensated for by a reading of Hegel as denying the reality of time by one of Hegel’s most prominent followers, John Ellis McTaggart. I discuss McTaggart’s reading of Hegel’s Logic in the final part of the paper.

A celebrated metaphysician, epistemologist, political philosopher, and a seminal figure of the Enlightenment, Benedict de Spinoza remains one of the most radical thinkers of the early modern period. Controversial in his time for his critiques of scripture, Spinoza is widely considered to be one of the great rationalists of the 17th century, and his thought has had a lasting influence on a range of fields including metaphysics, ethics, political theory, religion, and Judaism. _A Companion to Spinoza_ presents a panoramic view of contemporary Spinoza studies in Europe and across the Anglo-American world. Designed to stimulate productive dialogue between the analytic and continental traditions, this extraordinary volume brings together 53 original essays from an international team of established and emerging scholars which together explore Spinoza’s philosophy, legacy, and influence and advance new ideas to direct future research. Divided into six thematically organized sections, chapters examine Spinoza’s life and background, his contributions to metaphysics and natural philosophy, his epistemology, politics, ethics, and aesthetics, and his reception in the work of interlocutors such as Kant, Schelling, Schopenhauer, and Hegel. Thoughtfully composed and expertly curated, _A Companion to Spinoza_ is an unparalleled reference resource for researchers and scholars in Spinoza studies, students of modern philosophy, intellectual history, and the history of metaphysics, and general readers interested in the life and legacy of one of history’s most remarkable thinkers.

The few studies that address the economic dimensions of Spinoza’s political philosophy tend to emphasize his view of the ancient Hebrew polity at the time of the Bible as essentially egalitarian. We do not deny this important feature of Spinoza’s reconstruction of the ancient Hebrew state. However, in the current study, we would like to shed light on a key economic argument of Spinoza’s Theological Political Treatise that has been hardly discussed so far: Spinoza’s contention that international economic collaboration cannot be pursued in a closed and xenophobic society, such as the ancient Hebrew state, under Spinoza’s reconstruction. In the first part of this study, we provide a general characterization of Spinoza’s reconstruction of the ancient Hebrew state and its unique virtues. In the second part, we discuss and evaluate Spinoza’s portrayal of the ancient Hebrew state as essentially xenophobic. In the third and final part, we suggest that Spinoza used his portrayal of the ancient Hebrew state as essentially xenophobic in order to motivate his Dutch contemporaries to abandon their fantasies of imitating this legendary polity. Spinoza’s argument was quite simple: in spite of the exceeding virtues of this state – and Spinoza does not hesitate to call it the ‘Kingdom of God’ – the ancient Hebrew state cannot, and should not, be imitated by a modern society that is keen on achieving wealth through international trade. To put things bluntly, Spinoza presents his compatriots with a stark choice: either you can re-establish the ancient Kingdom of God or you can enjoy the benefits of your unprecedented wealth achieved through international trade.

Harry Wolfson’s celebrated two-volume study of Spinoza – The Philosophy of Spinoza: Unfolding the Latent Process of His Reasoning – appeared in 1934 with Harvard University Press. The book originated in a series of five studies Wolfson published in the Chronicon Spinozanum between 1921 and 1926. In the Chronicon, Wolfson announced that the studies published in the journal are instalments from a planned larger work, to be titled: “Spinoza, the Last of the Mediaevals: A Study of the Ethica Ordine Geometrico Demonstrata in the light of a hypothetically constructed Ethica More Scholastico Rabbinicoque Demonstrata.” In the preface to the 1934 book, Wolfson notes that the original title “had to be abandoned, as it did not seem advisable to have the title begin with the word ‘Spinoza’”. Thus, whatever stylistic reasons motivated Wolfson to amend the title, he was clearly not withdrawing from his view of Spinoza’s Ethics as being “More Scholastico Rabbinicoque Demonstrata.”

Though Spinoza's definition of God at the beginning of the Ethics unequivocally asserts that God has infinitely many attributes, the reader of the Ethics will find only two of these attributes discussed in any detail in Parts Two through Five of the book. Addressing this intriguing gap between the infinity of attributes asserted in E1d6 and the discussion merely of the two attributes of Extension and Thought in the rest of the book, Jonathan Bennett writes: Spinoza seems to imply that there are other [attributes] – he says indeed that God or Nature has “infinite attributes.” Surprising as it may seem, there are reasons to think that by this Spinoza did not mean anything entailing that there are more than two attributes. In this paper I will argue that Bennett’s claim is fundamentally wrong and deeply misleading. I do think, however, that addressing Bennett’s challenge will help us better understand Spinoza’s notion of infinity. I will begin by summarizing Bennett’s arguments. I will then turn to examine briefly the textual evidence for and against his reading. Then I will respond to each of Bennett’s arguments, and conclude by pointing out theoretical considerations which, I believe, simply refute his reading.

This volume brings established scholars together with new voices to engage with the complex system of philosophy proposed by Spinoza in his masterpiece. Topics including identity, thought, free will, metaphysics, and reason are all addressed, as individual chapters investigate the key themes of the Ethics and combine to offer readers a fresh and thought-provoking view of the work as a whole. Written in a clear and accessible style, the volume sets out cutting-edge research that reflects, challenges, and promotes the most recent scholarly advances in the field of Spinoza studies, tackling old issues and bringing to light new subjects for debate.

In this book, Yitzhak Y. Melamed offers a new and systematic interpretation of the core of Spinoza’s metaphysics. In the first part of the book, he proposes a new reading of the metaphysics of substance in Spinoza. Against Curley's influential reading, he argues that for Spinoza modes both inhere in and are predicated of God. Using extensive textual evidence, he shows that Spinoza considered modes to be God's propria. Against the claim that it is a category mistake to consider things as properties, he argues that the distinction between things and properties has been thoroughly undermined both in the early modern period and in contemporary metaphysics (in bundle theories, and some versions of trope theory). He goes on to clarify Spinoza’s understanding of infinity, mereological relations, infinite modes, and the flow of finite things from God’s essence. In the second part of the book, Melamed relies on this interpretation of the substance-mode relation and the nature of infinite modes and puts forward two interrelated theses about the structure of the attribute of Thought and its overarching role in Spinoza's metaphysics. First, he shows that Spinoza had not one, but two independent doctrines of parallelism. The Ideas-Things Parallelism stipulates an isomorphism between the order of ideas in the attribute of Thought and the order of things in nature. The Inter-Attributes Parallelism establishes an isomorphism among the order of modes in each of the infinitely many attributes. He shows that these two doctrines are independent of each other and that each has different implications. Relying on this clarification of the doctrines of parallelism, Melamed develops his final main thesis. Here he argues that, for Spinoza, ideas have a multifaceted (in fact, infinitely faceted) structure that allows one and the same idea to represent the infinitely many modes which are parallel to it in the infinitely many attributes. Thought turns out to be coextensive with the whole of nature. Spinoza cannot embrace an idealist reduction of Extension to Thought because of his commitment to the conceptual separation of the attributes. Yet, within Spinoza's metaphysics, Thought clearly has primacy over the other attributes insofar as it is the only attribute which is as elaborate, as complex, and, in some senses, as powerful as God.

Modality: A History provides readers a sweeping study of the history of philosophical work on modal concepts. Everyday discourse is saturated with appeals to what might be the case or to what must be true or to what cannot happen. Possibility, necessity, and impossibility are modal terms, and philosophers have long wondered how to best understand them. This volume traces the history of some of the most prominent and important contributions to our understanding of possibility and necessity over the past two and half millennia of western philosophy, from ancient Greek philosophers through current debates in the 21st century. Over the course of nine chapters from prominent scholars, this volume traces a history of modal theorizing that begins with extended discussions of Aristotle and the Stoics. Several chapters discuss insights and disagreements among Latin, Arabic, and Jewish medieval scholastics, such as Al-Ghazâlî, Scotus, and Crescas. Three chapters center on early modern philosophers, whose modal views were deeply shaped by this conceptual inheritance but also departed from it in significant ways: Descartes, Malebranche, Locke, Spinoza, Leibniz, and Hume. Kant and Hegel's modal contributions are presented in their own chapter, and another chapter traces the legacy of Kant's account on early-to-mid 20th century modal views, including Husserl, Heidegger, Russell, and Quine. The revival of modal metaphysics in the more recent work of Kripke, Marcus, and Lewis has led to a new flourishing of modal theories, including in recent debates among neo-Aristotelians, as the final chapter illustrates. Although modal concepts are interesting and important on their own, theories of modality often intersect with other significant philosophical topics, such as time, freedom, and God. Modal concepts also extend beyond metaphysics. To illustrate the role of modality in other domains, several small-scale studies, or Reflections, are dispersed among these main chapters on modality in cosmology, religion, music, literature, and logic. Readers will learn how a seemingly timeless and changeless cluster of modal concepts have undergone significant revisions and enjoy a rich developmental history.

In the current paper I rely on two outstanding studies. The one, by Warren Zev Harvey, draws a portrait of Spinoza as Maimonidean, stressing the continuity between Maimonides and Spinoza on the issue of morality and the highest good. The other is the magisterial study by Steven Shmuel Harvey of the reception of the Nicomachean Ethics in medieval Jewish philosophy, from its being subject to almost complete indifference in the period before Maimonides until it became “the best known and most cited work of Aristotle” in sixteenth-century Jewish philosophy. In the first part of this paper I will discuss some main junctions in the medieval Jewish reception of the notion of the highest good. This discussion will be cursory and will mostly focus on matters that will help us approach Spinoza’s views on the issue, views which will be examined closely in the second part of the paper.

An unparalleled collection of original essays on Benedict de Spinoza's contributions to philosophy and his enduring legacy A Companion to Spinoza presents a panoramic view of contemporary Spinoza studies in Europe and across the Anglo-American world. Designed to stimulate fresh dialogue between the analytic and continental traditions in philosophy, this extraordinary volume brings together 53 original essays that explore Spinoza's contributions to Western philosophy and intellectual history. A diverse team of established and emerging international scholars discuss new themes and classic topics to provide a uniquely comprehensive picture of one of the most influential metaphysicians of all time. Rather than simply summarizing the body of existing scholarship, the Companion develops new ideas, examines cutting-edge scholarship, and suggests directions for future research. The text is structured around six thematically-organized sections, exploring Spinoza's life and background, his contributions to metaphysics and natural philosophy, his epistemology, politics, ethics, and aesthetics, the reception of Spinoza in the work of philosophers such as Kant, Schelling, Schopenhauer, and Hegel, and more. This unparalleled research collection combines a timely overview of the current state of research with deep coverage of Spinoza's philosophy, legacy, and influence. Part of the celebrated Blackwell Companions to Philosophy series, A Companion to Spinoza is an ideal text for advanced courses in modern philosophy, intellectual history, and the history of metaphysics, and an indispensable reference for researchers and scholars in Spinoza studies.

For many of Spinoza's contemporaries and predecessors the very notion of causa sui was utterly absurd, akin to a Baron Munchausen attempting to lift himself above a river by pulling his hair up. This chapter examines Descartes’ engagement with the notion of causa sui, and shows that Spinoza understood the causation of causa sui as efficient, and not formal, causation. Proving the existence of God was the stated aim of Descartes’ Third Meditation. Descartes’ response to Caterus is pretty simple: he denies that efficient causation must be spread in time. Descartes’ surprising response to Caterus drew the attention of Antoine Arnauld, the author of the Fourth Set of Objections, and, at the time, a doctoral student of theology at the Sorbonne. The young Spinoza must have watched Descartes’ struggle with the notion of causa sui with great interest.

The first section of the chapter will address the philosophy of modality among Spinoza’s medieval Jewish predecessors, and, primarily, in Hasdai Crescas (1340-1410/11), a bold and original, anti-Aristotelian philosopher. This section should both complement the discussion of modality in medieval Christian and Islamic philosophy in the previous chapters of this volume and provide some lesser-known historical background to Spinoza’s own engagement with modal philosophy. Following a section on Spinoza’s definitions of his main modal concepts and his understanding of contingency, I will turn, in the third section, to discuss the extent of Spinoza’s commitment to necessitarianism. The recent debate about whether Spinoza was a strict necessitarian has resulted in quite a few insights about Spinoza’s modal philosophy, but it has also detracted attention from some basic questions about Spinoza’s modal philosophy, and in the fourth and last section of the chapter, I will attempt to chart the foundational questions that still have been barely explored. The primary aim of this chapter it to provide a survey and outline of the chief elements of Spinoza’s modal philosophy. Still, beyond the mere overview of Spinoza’s arguments (and some major scholarly debates), I will also advance two original theses. First, I will show that Spinoza makes a distinction between two notions of contingency, and that once this important distinction is observed, Spinoza’s various assertions about contingency turn out to be consistent. Secondly, I will discuss the text (E2a1) which is commonly taken to be the strongest and most stubborn proof against the reading of Spinoza as strict necessitarianism; I will show that the basic meaning of this text has been widely misunderstood, and that E2a1 is perfectly compatible with strict necessitarianism.

his paper is an excerpt from a larger project that aims to open a new pathway into Spinoza's Ethics by formally reconstructing an initial fragment of this text. The semantic backbone of the project is a custom-made Spinozian model theory that lays out some of the formal prerequisites for more ne-grained investigations into Spinoza's fundamental ontology and modal metaphysics. We implement Spinoza's theory of attributes using many-sorted models with a rich system of identity that allows us to clarify the puzzling status of such logical principles as the Substitution of Identicals and Transitivity of Identity in Spinoza's thought. The intensional structure of our Spinozian models also captures his proposal that states of a airs can be necessitated or excluded by the essences of particular things, an essence-relative modality that should be of interest to philosophers who have sought to rehabilitate the concept of essence in contemporary analytic metaphysics.

The distinction between essence (essentia) and existence (existentia) plays a major role in Spinoza’s metaphysics. Although the distinction did not originate with Avicenna, it is primarily through Avicenna’s influence that it became widespread, if not ubiquitous, in both Jewish and Christian medieval philosophy (e.g., Ogden 2021). Spinoza was clearly familiar with this important distinction through his study of Maimonides, Crescas, and Descartes, and it is particularly useful to examine Spinoza’s employment of the distinction in contrast to Descartes’. In the Meditations, Descartes relies on the distinction in a proof of God’s existence, and in his exploration of the essence of material things (both in Meditation Five).

Responding to Henry Oldenburg’s request to clarify his views about the relation between God and Nature (Ep. 71), Spinoza writes: “I favor an opinion concerning God and Nature far different from the one Modern Christians usually defend. For I maintain that God is, as they say, the immanent, but not the transitive, cause of all things” (Ep. 73 (IV/307)). In the Ethics, Spinoza does not define the notion of causa immanens, but we can easily retrieve the precise meaning of the term by scrutinizing E1p18d in which Spinoza proves that “God is the immanent, not the transitive, cause of all things [Deus est omnium rerum causa immanens; non vero transiens].” The proof relies on two claims Spinoza established earlier in the Ethics: that all things are “in” God (E1p15), and that God is the “efficient cause” of all things (E1p16c1). Thus, an immanent cause is an efficient cause whose effect is in the cause, while a causa transiens is an efficient cause whose effect is not in the cause. (In the secondary literature, the relation of being-in is commonly referred to as ‘inherence’; notably, Spinoza himself uses the terminology of ‘inherence’ only once (Ep. 12 (IV/61)).)

A proper and comprehensive study of the relationship between Hassidism and philosophy would require a volume of its own. In the limited space of this chapter, I shall focus on two crucial issues within the broader topic of Hassidism and philosophy. In the first part, I will study the Hassidic reception of Maimonides’ Guide of the Perplexed, widely perceived as the greatest work of Jewish philosophy, a work that was equally admired and derided as heretical from its very early dissemination in the late twelfth century. Against the common prejudice among scholars, I will show that throughout its history, numerous Hassidic leaders engaged in the study of the Guide, admired the book, and quoted it approvingly as an authoritative rabbinic source. In the second part of this chapter, I will move from the Hassidic reception of Maimonides’ philosophy to what I would argue is perhaps the most significant Jewish contribution to modern Western philosophy: the notion of acosmism, according to which only God truly and fully exists. I will show that through the mediation of Salomon Maimon (1753-1800) this bold notion was adopted from the school of the Maggid of Mezhrich and introduced into the systems of German Idealism. In my brief conclusion, I will attempt to provide a preliminary answer to the question of what allowed Hassidic masters to develop rather bold philosophical and theological views in spite of the conservative appearance of the movement.

Schopenhauer’s philosophical engagement with Spinoza spreads over many fronts, and an adequate – not to say, complete – treatment of the topic, should cover at least the following issues: Schopenhauer’s critique (and misunderstanding) of Spinoza’s pivotal concept of causa sui; Schopenhauer’s claim that Spinoza confused reason [ratio] and cause [causa]; the relationship between Schopenhauer’s and Spinoza’s monisms; the eminent role that both philosophers assign to causality; and finally, Schopenhauer’s view of the world as a macroanthropos, as opposed to Spinoza’s attack on anthropomorphic thinking. An attempt to reconstruct a genuine philosophical dialogue between Schopenhauer and Spinoza should begin by setting the record straight and clarifying the former’s mis-readings of the latter (and there are quite a few of this kind ). We could also benefit from comparing Schopenhauer’s reception of Spinoza’s with that of Schopenhauer’s German contemporaries. Regrettably our space here is limited and so if we wish to treat any of the issues in any depth, we must restrict the scope of the current chapter. For this reason, I have decided to concentrate on two central issues: animal rights (Part I) and evil (Part II). These issues are, clearly, at least as important as the others listed above.

The early modern period was the natural historical habitat of the Principle of Sufficient Reason, i.e., the demand that everything must have a cause, or reason. It is in this period that the principle was explicitly articulated and named, and throughout the period we find numerous formulations and variants of the PSR and its closely related ‘ex nihilo nihil fit’ principle, which the early moderns inherited from medieval philosophy. Contemporary discussions of these principles were not restricted to philosophy. “Nothing will come of nothing; speak again” old King Lear tells his daughter Cordelia at the beginning of Shakespeare’s celebrated tragedy, and in early modern science, conservation principles were the order of the day. Within philosophy, Malebranche stipulates that there cannot be an effect without a cause, and Berkeley motivates his idealism by an appeal to ‘ex nihilo nihil fit.’ Were we to try to provide an exhaustive survey the various formulations of the PSR in this period – including the weaker ones – we would be writing an encyclopedia. In fact, one wonders whether any early modern thinker was willing to accept a wholesale rejection of the PSR, i.e., a view which states that no fact requires an explanation. Moreover, the view that many – perhaps most – facts require an explanation seems to be tacitly assumed even by us today, in both our theoretical and colloquial discourse. For these reasons, this chapter will focus on two early modern philosophers who advocated very strong (i.e., virtually exceptionless) versions of the PSR: Benedict de Spinoza and G.W. Leibniz. Following a brief overview of Descartes’s restricted endorsement of the PSR, I will turn to discuss the central features of the PSR in the writings of Spinoza (§2) and those of Leibniz (§3). In the cases of each of these philosophers, we will examine carefully: (i) their main statements of the PSR, (ii) the scope they assign to the principle (i.e., what requires an explanation and what counts as an explanation), (iii) the modal strength they assign to the principle, (iv) the main implications they draw from the principle, (v) exceptions to the principle, and, finally, (vi) the justification of the principle. In §4, we will study a principle, complementing the PSR, namely, the assertion that everything and every fact must have an effect (or as Leibniz would put it: “nothing is sterile”).