Peter Guy Winch (1926–1997) was one of the most important philosophers of the second half of the twentieth century. He is best known for his early work on the philosophy of the social sciences, in particular his monograph The Idea of a Social Science and its Relation to Philosophy (1958), which generated controversy within both philosophical and social scientific circles.

This volume unites Peter Winch’s previously unpublished work on Baruch de Spinoza. The primary source for the text is a series of seminars on Spinoza that Winch gave, first at the University of Swansea in 1982 and then at King’s College London in 1989. Audio recordings of the majority of the Swansea seminars have survived. The editors have transcribed these, edited them for coherence, style and clarity, and supplemented them with material drawn from Winch’s typescripts and preparatory notebooks. What emerges is an original interpretation of Spinoza’s work that demonstrates his continued relevance to contemporary issues in metaphysics, epistemology and ethics, and establishes connections to other philosophers - not only Spinoza’s predecessors such as Descartes, but also to the philosophical views of Ludwig Wittgenstein and Simone Weil.

There is currently a resurgence of interest in Spinoza’s philosophy, and this volume will contribute to burgeoning debates within that field. Winch’s account of Spinoza is uncommon insofar as it takes as central to Spinoza’s project his conceptions of meaning, understanding and language, and directly connecting these to his ethical concerns. At the same time, Winch makes useful links to modern debates in ways that throw helpful light on Spinoza. As well as issues which are central to the philosophy of language, these include debates on the nature of the mind, naturalism and the place of the human being within the natural world.