Leges Sive Natura

The way of laws is as much a defining feature of the modern period as the way of ideas. In one of its forms, it stands as an alternative to the moribund Aristotelian ontology. But the way of laws is hardly without its forks. Both before and after Descartes, there are philosophers using the concept of laws to carve out a very different position from his, one that is entirely disconnected from God or God’s will. This concept of law features in the work of Francis Bacon and comes to fruition in the work of Spinoza. Grasping it reshapes how we read the rest of their metaphysics and opens up a way of thinking about laws that is resolutely bottom-up.