Affectionem Humanae Essentiae or the Cause of Eternal Consciousness in Spinoza’s Ethics

Abstract

Abstract: This paper argues that Spinoza allows for an eternal form of consciousness, which is contrary to the common view that consciousness in his philosophy is only a temporal phenomenon of a subject existing in time. Interpreters have traditionally explained the origin of consciousness in Spinoza’s Ethics as emerging from the interaction between the external world and our body and, therefore, from the temporal changes we undergo owing to that interaction. However, I argue that Spinoza’s notion of the intellectual love of God ( amor Dei intellectualis ) reveals a distinct kind of consciousness that is not grounded in our temporality but in the eternity of our essence. Drawing on the distinction between temporal and eternal essence, I argue that the amor Dei intellectualis can produce a form of consciousness independent of durational change.