Una difficile libertà. Virtù, conatus, conoscenza in Descartes e Spinoza

In this contribution, I will concentrate on Descartes and Spinoza’s respective notions of ‘vir-tue’, using them as a testing ground to understand two opposing conceptions of man and the sphere of the passions. Descartes’ reflection on virtue, understood as a magnanimity of the soul that ensues from a rational love of oneself, falls into the framework of the unity between mind and body elaborated in the Sixth Meditation and further discussed in his correspondence dating to the ’40s with Elisabeth and Pierre Chanut, as well as in the Passions de l’âme. Spinoza’s virtue, instead, is subordinated to a force (conatus) that coincides with the «essence» of man. This essence, as is explained in the third part of the Ethica, depends on the power of the infinite substance, causa sui in each existing mode. Descartes’ re-flection on virtue extends the res cogitans into the realm of the affects (res sentiens), that he places within an integrated conception of man. Now, how can a law of nature, that by Spinoza’s own admission comes before (E4P22) all modal determinations – whether active or passive – be the ‘essence’ that explains or the ‘cause’ that produces the passage from human bondage to freedom? If considered against the back-drop of the natural effort to conserve oneself, these terms will reveal an insoluble conflict.