Spinoza insists in the Theological Political Treatise that philosophy and theology are two separate kingdoms. I argue here that there is a basis in the psychology of the Ethics for one of the major components of the doctrine of the two kingdoms. Under the kingdom of theology, religion's principal function is to overcome the influence of harmful passion that prevents people from living life according to a fixed plan: people can live according to a fixed plan because they can obey. (...) Through a series of arguments I show that Spinoza takes obedience to arise through devotion; devotion to associate with ideas of miracles and imaginative monotheism; and these ideas to be imaginative ideas of singular objects. On the psychology of the Ethics, ideas of this sort, although highly irrational, nevertheless give minds a power to resist harmful passion similar to that of ideas of reason. Although problems remain for the interpretation of the doctrine of the two kingdoms, this argument shows that Spinoza's psychology gr.. (shrink)

La filosofía política de Spinoza se basa en los conceptos de potencia y multitud, pues, para él, el poder se define por la potencia de la multitud. La cohesión de la multitud es capital para que tenga potencia política. Pero esta cohesión no deriva de la homogeneidad de los individuos, sino que la fuerza de la multitud depende de la riqueza y la diversidad de sus individuos, juntamente con la unión que proporciona la búsqueda del bien común. De esa manera (...) la pluralidad y riqueza de individuos diversos, autónomos y críticos, no debilita la comunidad política, sino que la potencia, ni la individualidad se pierde en la multitud, sino que se fortalece. (shrink)

What I plan to do in this paper is to provide a survey of the ways in which Spinoza’s philosophy has been deployed in relation to early modern thought, in the history of ideas and in a number of different domains of contemporary philosophy, and to offer an account of how some of this research has developed. The past decade of research in Spinoza studies has been characterized by a number of tendencies; however, it is possible to identify four main (...) domains that characterize these different lines of research: studies of Spinoza’s individual works, of its problematic concepts, from the point of view of the history of ideas, and comparative studies of Spinoza’s ideas. (shrink)

Assunto pouco estudado na obra de Espinosa, o trabalho ocupa centralidade em seu pensamento acerca do direito comum. Através do exame das ocorrências do trabalho nos dois tratados políticos, bem como da observância da correta tradução de _ opera mutua _, procura-se jogar nova luz sobre a história em Espinosa, em particular sobre a gênese do direito comum e sobre as ideias de justiça e injustiça nesse autor.

Object of intense discussion among Spinoza’s interpreters, the unfinished chapter XI of the Political Treatise presents what seems to be the reasons of the exclusion of women in democracy. Opposed to this interpretation, we aim to show the presence of the “counterdiscourse” in the concerned passage. At the end, we stress that this problem allows todiscerne how the notions of myth and history are linked in Spinoza.

Resenha do livro "O mais natural dos regimes. Espinosa e a Democracia", de Diogo Pires Aurélio.

In this paper we will explain, first, the biopolitical conceptions of three contemporary thinkers ―Hannah Arendt, Michel Foucault and Giorgio Agamben― with the purpose of defining the biopolitical notion of “life”. Then we will try to regain ―following Deleuze― a concept of “life” that allows us a relation to politics opposite of that of the biopolitics. This alternative conception of “life”, crossed by the idea of immanence, will find its fullest expression in the work of Spinoza. Finally, we will try (...) to determine what kind of politics is possible from such a conception. Such a politics should not be limited to bare life management, but it should consist in a composition of the multitude powers that we could call, following Spinoza, “democracy”. (shrink)