The chapter describes the general background of science and law in the seventeenth century. It highlights main philosophical debates of this century and their link to religion. It highlights search for ’new philosophies’, as well as emergance of mechanical philosophies. The centrality of the geometrical method in this century is highlighted as well as its influence on both Leibniz and Hobbes. In relation to Leibniz this method was radically transformed and advanced into the project of scientia generalis and characteristica universalis. Political instability and search for peace are the main genral features of the period, which is still characterised by fragmented and multilayered legal landscape.

This essay examines affect in Spinoza, Nietzsche, and Bergson. Each of them has a characteristic method: for Spinoza, the geometrical method; for Nietzsche, genealogy; and for Bergson, intuition. Each method takes them beyond the human condition of concern with useful manipulation of material objects to the point of an affect-soaked contact with reality. All three seek conditions for joy, rare though those capable of fully feeling it might be: for Spinoza, joy is felt when adequate ideas lead to increased power to be the cause of actions and thoughts, including even the joy of understanding the way our singular body makeup constitutes reasons for our sadness; for Nietzsche, joy is possible from the practice of ‘gay science’ leading to an affirmation of life; and for Bergson, joy is felt in immersion in life’s creativity.