Spinoza's Mind in Modern Affective Neuroscience

The increasing popularity of affective neuroscience lends itself to more authors utilising Spinoza’s dual aspect monism as their philosophical backbone. However, it is important that if Spinoza’s work is to be incorporated in this manner, a thorough understanding of his philosophy is maintained, particularly the way that Spinoza relates mind, brain and his understanding of God (universal substance). This perspective piece gives a brief overview of Spinoza’s work, mainly from Ethics, and discusses how his complex theories may be easily misinterpreted by modern authors.