Through a close, accessible reading of Spinoza's Ethics, this book explores solutions to the problem of dethroning the human subject.

This reading of Spinoza's work is informed by current debates in continental thought, especially its shift in the last two decades to various forms of realisms and materialisms through the works of, among others, Quentin Meillassoux, Ray Brassier, Graham Harman, Levi Bryant, Catherine Malabou, and Maurizio Ferrari. Rafael Winkler argues that the key to dethroning the human subject-a standing problem in contemporary continental thought-lies in Spinoza's conception of substance as being causally and explanatorily self-sufficient, his necessitarianism and actualism, and in the immanence of substance to its finite modes. By conducting this close reading of Spinoza's Ethics (together with his Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect and Theological-Political Treatise), the author also clarifies some of the key concepts and arguments in Spinoza's work for experienced and junior scholars of philosophy, as well as a wider audience interested in Spinoza's psychology, ethics, and politics.