The course provides an opportunity to explore the work of one of the great philosophers in depth. Baruch Spinoza’s Ethics remains a classic of philosophical writing, encompassing penetrating discussions of key issues in metaphysics, a remarkable approach to the status of God and Nature and a genuine attempt to relate these questions to our ethical concerns of freedom, joy and sadness in our day to day lives. We will also examine Spinoza’s political writings and put these into the context of what Jonathan Israel has described as the ‘radical Enlightenment’.