Abstract

This introduction provides the context for the succeeding papers in this volume. After raising the question as to why Spinoza's philosophy attracts such extreme-and extremely diverse-attention and interpretation, I suggest that there is a "repressed" element to his thought which becomes manifest when one perceives the diversity of Spinoza-interpretations in a relational manner. I refer to this repressed element of Spinoza's thought as "the materiality of nature." I claim that the articles in this volume, all of which contain important insights in their own right, attest to this repressed element when taken together and viewed relationally.