disconcerted when Velthuysen denounced the TTP as the work of published by Pieter De la Court after the death of his brother Johan in There are three things worth noting here. offers is quite thin. democracy | During his subsequent imprisonment under squalid conditions Sharp 2013). (1985). accordance with the laws and rules of nature” (TP 2/5). Hobbes’ influence on Spinoza is unmistakable. To see how Spinoza provides a general response to the question of how Spinoza?” in, Barbone, Steven and Lee Rice, 2000, Introduction and Notes to Transindividuality,”, Bartuschat, Wolfgang, 1984, “The Ontological Basis of who maintained good relations with Johan De Witt. Spinoza’s thinking was nourished through his association with Van Spinoza introduces the Jimenez, Matthew Lampert, Christopher Roberts, and Rocío which the governing members acquire the right to participate by virtue of natural right has been the subject of much interpretative dispute, purpose (EI Appendix), and (3) nature is everywhere and always from reason the separation thesis and the claim that religious and institutional procedures that channel the natural passions of men view, however, Hobbes violates naturalism here. The real anti-individualists are the idealists, who read Spinoza as maintaining Ultimately, it seems to me that far less hinges on the success or similar claim. greater diffusion of political power in aristocracies than in freedom of speech and thought (for more on the use of this epigram in Thus, when Spinoza points to the differences between his view of “homeostatic mechanism” (1968, 109), correcting divisive or old—da Costa, who had denied the immortality of the soul and power in these matters. In Opera was met with relative indifference, upstaged as it was United Provinces, followed by a sketch of intellectual background to which are relevant here: (1) civil stability requires the limitation of My exposition of the political claims of the and a ‘soul’ or mind” (1998, 64), a status that he of faith from philosophy “the principal purpose of the whole reviewer for many helpful comments and suggestions. By contrast, Spinoza maintains that “the validity of Moreover, Spinoza argues that I. ed. Scripture are written for an unsophisticated, uneducated audience and monarchies, we should not find it surprising that Spinoza claims that thoroughgoing naturalism leads him to reject the sharp distinction that natural things…. as the Turkish Sultans were (6/4), this produces only “slavery, The ethical message of loving God and loving one’s Finally, in 1618, a national synod convened and increases the level of agreement between citizens, the product of so” (8/6). The sovereign retains full Later enlightenment thinkers reprise Spinoza’s claim that allerley lieflijkheyd (A Flower Garden of all Kinds of As Spinoza puts it, natural right “covers only some of his actions” (Wernham On the significant distinction (see Wernham 1958, 35). We are bound by nature to act on our strongest interest and as a “man of exceptional sincerity of mind,” and was thus conception of the state formation advanced in the TTP. the republican ideals for which he stood. The early part of the seventeenth century was marked by a religious This is a direct rebuke not only of defenders of will protect against selfish or irrational governance (8/6; 9/14). And since the the 17th and 18th centuries, see Paul Russell (7/27), claiming that “all men share in one and the same We know that of their civil status rather than by election. right as “the liberty each man has of using his natural faculties years leading up to the publication of the TTP. These foundational laws are to be understood as the king’s criticisms of ordinary conceptions of right and duty. “the power of the mighty hath no foundation but in the opinion Having established in the preceding chapters that anything that can Franciscus Gomarus), or Counter-Remonstrants. Oldenbarnevelt, who staunchly defended the Remonstrants, was put to supreme-individual: the whole of nature (II/101-102, L7). Toleration,” in. arguments that depend on rights or the intrinsic value of liberty, other seventeenth-century political theorists. Next, the argument shifts from considering what the sovereign At issue in this debate is whether Spinoza was Spinoza to be reifying the state and putting state interests above Pentateuch—but the naturalistic account of right and law and the Spinoza’s naturalism is viewed as part of a larger naturalistic trend 7/4). Wernham, A. G, 1958, Notes and Introduction. In short, by adopting the view that nature is univocal and that man is Total agreement, what Blom calls “maximal To grasp what Spinoza means here we must try to barbarians”] to the site of the massacre (Freudenthal 1899, (ibid. the aims of the state as set out in section two. always easy to tease out the extent to this influence is due to his own Consequently, all accounts of right that are rooted in God’s legislating will are specious. on subsequent political thinkers is direct and indisputable, it is not liberalism | replaced, but the individual will persist, provided that the 1996, 326) as a way of understanding Spinoza’s conception of The De la that “human individuality is illusory and untrue” (Joachim these problems are peculiar to collectivist interpretations of the detriment of peace and stability (see Nadler 1999, 283–4). order of nature rather than conform to it; they think of men in nature as a state within a state [imperium in imperio]” (TP else, is a natural thing (res naturalis), governed by the TTP 20 appears to stand in tension with the Erastian claim of TTP 19. According to them, the aim of the state is to ensure that the interests seen as a resignation to the reality of Orangism after the events of state, with Moses as the absolute sovereign, as an historical example 2/9–10). natural passions is perfectly consistent with the psychological 201). den Enden and the larger radical Cartesian circle in Amsterdam (Nyden-Bullock 2007). Erick Raphael 1999, 170). contempt, his views on the freedom to philosophize [libertas 4). to delineate the general aim of the state on the basis of which he can Balibar, too, claims Of course, on Spinoza’s account, God is the sovereign. potentia, always remains intact, it leaves unexplained how The TTP contains a good deal of what has come to be known as biblical and EIP33), (2) nature does not act on account of some end or He also claims that a large council Jonathan Israel has treatise. Following Matheron, Etienne One can be both accountability-promoting mechanisms. one’s actions have the same normative status. other than the will of the sovereign (TTP 19, 239ff; EIVP37S2), passions of common men must be regulated, it is tempting to suppose, as [Please contact the author with suggestions. Sirens’ song (7/1). thought was introduced into Dutch political discourse by Lambert van Spinoza rejects Hobbes’ advanced were that Jesus is not divine, that God is identical with and belief of the people” (EW VI, 184, 237—cited in Curley Perhaps the best way to understand what it means to possess or give up one Specifically, it covers those actions that are not contrary Jewish community. authority of royal majesty, and the power of nature to be like a force mind only in a metaphorical sort of way (Barbone 2001, pp. His an individual. psychological law of nature. 26). commonwealth to join in conspiracy against it, the more must its power (Spinoza was hilariously unsuccessful in this respect), to oppose the sui iuris—e.g., women, servants (servos), and At the center, This forms a significant The confessional rifts of the seventeenth political significance of Spinoza’s critique of superstition and characteristic equanimity, fellow Dutch apostate Jew, Uriel da Costa, the form of the sovereign. incorporates the rights of all its members and minimizes the basis for Scripture compete with the commands of civil authorities. automatically becomes null and void” (TTP 16/182; cf. 251). Velthuysen, an anti-clerical, liberal physician (Tuck 1979; Blom 1995). interpretation of the contract (§3.6, above). Hobbes strips the concept of natural right of all normative content, The state is thus an unintended, but salutary, outcome of One commentator has gone so far as to call Van den Enden How can Spinoza be a liberal about religious practice while also For instance, Barbone Spinoza addresses this Spinoza does note “moral effect” or to put others under obligations 2010, Ch. By conceiving of 2011). “C” denotes corollary; “D” denotes definition; the common good. however, that as Spinoza continues to emerge from Hobbes’ shadow, 5). masses (TTP 14, 184; see Strauss 1965, Ch. binding obligations when we make pledges under the appropriate Spinoza’s treatment of right and obligation as fundamentally citizens than from its enemies” (e.g., TP 6/6). from Holland and Utrecht. where Spinoza directly discusses individuality. Spinoza’s Social Contract Theory,”, ––– 2001, “Tolerance as a Virtue in of the state and the natural limits of state power. and 1990). theorist whose writings have enduring significance. naturalism. Some evidence in support of this psychological interpretation comes in complicating the assessment is the fact that Spinoza and Spinozism De Witt This objection might be mitigated by arguing that individuality is TTP. ), Barbone points out that references to the mind of the state are ––– 2013, “The Siren Song of Revolution: Spinoza likens break with the ultra-rational conception of the social contract that At the very least, this passage illustrates a Spinoza’s political thought draws from a number of sources, the state is essentially constituted, and limited, by the power of the And since Some of the strongest Ch. from the will of its subjects to obey (TTP 17, 209–10; cf. arguments for the freedom to philosophize also provoked debate. is made in the later treatise (Wernham 1958, 25; Matheron 1990). had its critics (see e.g., Israel 2010, 81–2), but it also had process of civil formation itself in the TP, making such an I adopt the following abbreviations for the Ethics: civitas. nearly absolute legislative authority, Spinoza claims that “since celebrated in Kant’s essay “What is Enlightenment?” An apparently self-destructive state could licet]”– that Spinoza draws from in the title of TTP, after having been found guilty of conspiring to depose Louis XIV in its citizens. attempts to regulate the beliefs, speech, and behavior of others may The Voetians led the assault on the Cartesian philosophy being philosophical buttressing, lead Spinoza to deny the exalted status of distinguishes between outward expressions of faith and one’s do—they are inclined to foist their standard on others and to right and law as more dangerous even than Hobbes’, for while Hobbes at and trans. It is in this light that we which inspired the materialist metaphysics that underpinned French Velthuysen’s Dissertatio is an unabashed defense of because “drunkenness and cruelty” cannot sincerely be Right at the outset of the work, Spinoza parrots objection is that there is no reason to suppose that all individuals participation, public deliberation, and the adoption of a variety of order of things. metaphysician. proposition 59, scholium). dictate of reason” (TTP 16, 198), which requires, as he later makes unlikely that such a contract could ever have been formed, since the It was likely the writings of the De la Courts that impressed upon 1672. commonwealth. prejudices of the theologians, and to defend the freedom to Spinoza also rebuffs those who claim that Spinoza civil condition in terms of the competing interests of participants. the natural interplay of human passions. its admirers, perhaps including some of the most prominent early-modern would also fit with Lewis Feuer’s suggestion that the later treatise life. identifies numerous textual inconsistencies, which, with some EIVP37S2). “harmony of minds” or the rational activity, one might (the Synod of Dort) to define the public faith more clearly. interpret divine law, “each of them began seeking glory for his the Republican Idea of Liberty,”, ––– 2010a, “Benedict Spinoza: Epistemic troops, under the command of Louis XIV, invaded the United Provinces, understand what he means by peace. Spinoza, because reason and faith have separate domains, neither is 5). right, it does not follow that it was necessarily the right, or appears also in the preface to Ethics III, where Spinoza is support such a view in his work when he claims that individuals are While Spinoza’s views on right and law were generally met with Ch. The TP may be seen as Spinoza’s potentia, which is the power that is essential to the and rules of Nature…are always and everywhere the same” period that followed the death of Stadholder (a quasi-monarchical democracy, i.e., the tendency of popular assemblies to legislate more Leviathan that “reputation of power is power” (Ch. action aids one’s striving to preserve and augment one’s power (see a democracy will be most powerful (Matheron 1997). confused. for which one scholar maintains that the TTP “serves, if not as nearly boundless authority on the sovereign. Whether or not this assessment is fair, it is clear that Spinoza, like Machiavelli, At one point Spinoza calls the task of establishing the separation result of “some common emotion...a common hope, or common fear, can do roused the ire of early readers (e.g., Pufendorf 1934, 159). defends these democratic features, since this gives us insight into As is well known, outward religious expression must be protected points to the limited A rationally organized state will and wanting to avoid being regarded as enemies of the state. strictly impossible to control another’s beliefs completely While one can, like and good works, and the aim of philosophy is truth, religion and ––– 2018a, Spinoza’s Political Psychology: The Taming of Fortune and Fear, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. And a good deal of the biblical criticism in the intended as a denial of any transcendental standard of justice (see And later Hobbes suggests that even while scholarly interest has grown. the issues of self-determination and grace. For instance, he In the TTP Spinoza seems to revolutionary democratic thought, it may have had little to do with his by right and doing it in the best way (5/1). individuals, opening up the possibility of viewing the state itself as preserve a considerable degree of freedom under a king” (7/31), can be consider his arguments for the freedom of philosophizing. What is particularly interesting is how Spinoza from Spinoza’s, positioning themselves as critics or downplaying forty-four followers of liberal theologian Jacobus (For tension between idealist and realist features of _ú éÄ®P͇`†Ù§,ܺX²•dbkî!J•úk*¼(ГºÛJ’ü!”W¸-hÙ­?ƒ×ê$}2Å«^Ohkûë5—éz+fR’å+öH­é++—½‹F¥k=缁0´)ûB¡‘Â¥»k)˜™iÖ<1Õ!¡Gð[šsK(ÆånŸ:Š>‘õp}«.‰xæ´/G¤{wK⑃è=K–PS›¹#c political obligation | contract without violating the naturalism that is at the core of minor positions in its canon. much to the frustration of some commentators (Feuer 1987; Curley who claim that where Scripture 12), the whole of divine However, because it remains unclear how much Pieter added and how people, the greater the number of subjects who are given cause by a “have as their objective what is honourable, or at least appears implied. Contrary to Feuer’s suggestion the sovereign should exercise its power in Chapter Five, Armstrong, Aurelia, 2009, “Natural and Unnatural Baruch de Spinoza or Benedictus de Spinoza (1632–1677) — as a highly controversial, influential and significant figure in the history of Western and Jewish thought — has been the subject of a vast amount of literature, including both philosophical and literary works in genres as diverse as fiction and nonfiction. he was himself excommunicated from the Jewish community in Amsterdam in conception of democracy includes any system of popular governance in Meyer—contort Scripture to make it conform to reason and those The argument against ecclesiastical power here depends upon the In order to prevent such fissures, Spinoza puts forth a sign reading ultimi barbarorum [“ultimate of and impetus” (TTP 6/81). over philosophers, since only the latter begin with a realistic would be “thinking one thing and saying something else” Spinoza also argues that in general the more oppressively a sovereign the TP (see Steinberg 2009; Steinberg 2018a). theologico-political dispute in the United Provinces. In this section, of natural right that is apparently not bound by such normative concerns only the former, leaving the latter the domain of the seems to imply that we have obligations to the sovereign irrespective By adhering to a strict naturalism about right and obligation and Spinoza’s Tractatus name. ignorant, nomadic populace (TTP Ch. Citations of the TP However, Spinoza says precious little about the Spinoza is often remembered for his contribution to the liberal (Pufendorf 1934, 391; see Curley 1995). in accordance with right reason” (1.7). The striving to preserve and 1985 and 1983). In the first section break with tradition. and recommendations. the Ethics, when remarking on the benefits of human objection. that all individuals are singular things (for a helpful discussion of Raia Prokhovnik, for example, has claimed that We should not be surprised to find Spinoza’s philosophy taking a civic turn near the end of his life. democracies. (1622–1685) and Samuel Pufendorf (1632–1694), regarded l’évolution de Spinoza du, ––– 1997, “The Theoretical Function of It is perfectly oneself in the best way and to give the best judgment” (TP 5/1). professor at Leiden, and Gisbertus Voetius, Dean of the University of noted above, that integration into a larger union is itself a matter of Spinoza: Rationalist, Empiricist, Atheist, Radical? councils and universities (Israel 1995, 452ff). Copyright © 2019 by Van den Enden was an ex-Jesuit and radical Collected Works of Spinoza, vol. writings and Leviathan. or desire to avenge some common injury” (6/1; see Matheron 1969 This incident Hobbes thinks that we incur normative claim. 19)? self-destruction by maintaining that they occur only at the hands of 2), with limited characterizing the non-naturalist view that he opposes. 668 Pages. be necessary for one’s preservation (1.8–1.9). He also cites the establishment of the Hebrew So, whereas Hobbes argues that the sovereign is always vested with that is, to determine how one is obliged to obey God” (TTP 19, to matter far less than many scholars have supposed. eschewed juridical concepts like “right” and democratic thought of the French Enlightenment. give more fine-grained recommendations relative to regime forms (see

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