My discussion of Hegel focuses direcrly upon the process of interiority at the centre of his thought. This process captures certain fundamental classical philosophical and religious themes in its gamut: knowledge, love, the Incarnation, and the Trinity. The central anti-reductionistic principle around which my examination of interioriry is developed is Hegel’s contention that the low or imperfect must be seen in the light of the high or perfect. I discriminate between the different ontological forms of this principle in the philosophies of Aristotle, Aquinas, and Hegel.

In Hume’s Of Miracles the person movecl by faith is put in a dilemma between faith and reason . Can one resolve this dilemma as a compleat Humean? The answer is yes. Within the Humean context different approaches can be developed ta overcome Hume’s dilemma. One uses Hume’s theory of utility to defend the belief in the afterlife. The other requires Hume to place faith on a par with beauty and therefore among the passions to which reason must be a slave. Historically there was at least one compleat Humean who was also moved by faith --- Johann Georg Hamann [1730- 1788].

I argue that we can arrive at a better understanding of the Ethics and why Spinoza wrote it by viewing it through certain ideas expressed in his Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect. These ideas are: 1) personal remarks, 2) the method and most perfect method, 3) true ideas, 4) false ideas, 5) definitions.

I outline Spinoza’s development of the concept of conatus in the Ethics, and attempt to define its role in his metaphysics. In light of this, I critique the theory based on the identification by modern physics of certain radioactive substances, e.g., curium. These substances, I argue, are by definition unstable individuals whose essences include finite durations (half-lives). As such, they are in direct contradiction to Spinoza’s metaphysics. I then advance and critique several defenses Spinoza might make for his theory of conatus.