It is common to assimilate Marx’s and Spinoza’s conceptions of democracy. In this chapter, I assess the relation between Marx’s early idea of “true democracy” and Spinozist democracy, both the historical influence and the theoretical affinity. Drawing on Marx’s student notebooks on Spinoza’s Theological-Political Treatise, I show there was a historical influence. However, at the theoretical level, I argue that a sharp distinction must be drawn. Philosophically, Spinoza’s commitment to understanding politics through real concrete powers does not support with Marx’s (...) anti-institutional conception of true democracy. And as a matter of social theory, the gap between civil society and the state which so troubles Marx is a development of modernity that has not entered Spinoza's premodern field of view. Marx’s true democracy was also influenced by his study of Rousseau, and theoretically, it is just as close if not closer to Rousseau as to Spinoza. (shrink)

This chapter investigates Spinoza's conception of reason, focusing on (i) the difference between reason and the imagination, and (ii) the difference between reason and intuitive knowledge. The central interpretive debate this chapter considers is about the scope of rational cognition. Some commentators have argued that it is only possible to have rational cognition of properties that are universally shared, whereas intuitive knowledge may grasp the essences of particular individuals. Another prominent interpretation is that reason differs from intuition only in virtue (...) of its form or manner of apprehension, and not in virtue of the content or ideas it apprehends. However, authors on both sides of the debate have held that reason is incapable of grasping singular things. After summarizing the debate, this chapter presents an argument that Spinozan reason is not blind to particulars: it is (at least sometimes) capable of grasping the causal structure that characterizes an individual. (shrink)

En este texto se busca elaborar una idea de formación en el pensamiento de Baruch de Spinoza, como alternativa a las ideas educativas que, de manera esencialista, mediante el proceso educativo pretenden hacer corresponder al educando a ciertos modelos preestablecidos. Para ello se construye una idea de auto-realización en Spinoza en la que resultan deseables diferentes caminos de auto-realización para diferentes individuos. Se propone que esta auto-realización consiste en ser capaz de obrar y ser afectado de muchas maneras, y se (...) propone que el conocimiento en Spinoza implica una cierta pasividad activa que se nutre de la diferencia y de lo otro. (shrink)

In this paper, a particular case of deceptive use of images – namely, misattributions – will be taken in consideration. An explicitly wrong attribution (“This is a picture of the event X”, this not being the case) is obviously a lie or a mistaken description. But there are less straightforward and more insidious cases in which a false attribution is held to be acceptable, in particular when pictures are also used in their exemplary, general meaning, opposed to their indexical function (...) in referring to a specific event. In fact, the boundary between referential use and symbolic-exemplificative use is not always clear-cut, and it often becomes the subject of ideological dispute. The main point that this paper would like to do is that in some circumstances there is a deep-seated belief that images that are clearly misattributed could still be legitimately used to refer to the fact, even if this is not the case. This twisted epistemological stance, that I will summarize under the oxymoronic concept of “emblematic evidence”, is both the product of political and tribal polarization in the ideological debate, and the result of a shift in our understanding of what photographic images should do. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Genevieve Lloyd argues that when we follow Spinoza in understanding reason as a part of nature, we gain new insights into the human condition. Specifically, we gain a new political insight: we should respond to cultural difference with a pluralist ethos. This is because there is no pure universal reason; human minds find their reason shaped differently by their various embodied social contexts. Furthermore, we can use the resources of the imagination to bring this ethos about. In my response, (...) I offer a friendly challenge to Lloyd’s characterisation of the lessons of Spinoza’s philosophy. I argue that Lloyd’s Spinoza remains excessively unpolitical, even in the moment that he is brought to bear on contemporary politics. An unpluralistic attitude may well be rationally inferior, but is it really explained by insufficient or inappropriate imagination? To the contrary, a properly Spinozist account of reason must include an account of the concrete determinants of reason’s imperfect realisation in the world. In Spinoza’s own oeuvre, this is carried out through an ever-increasing—and ever more sociological—interest in the political structures within which individual reason flourishes or withers. (shrink)

Dentro de la obra madura de Spinoza, la _Ética_ y el _Tratado Teológico-Político _ se han analizado ampliamente. Sin embargo, el _Tratado Político_ ha sido menormente estudiado por ser una obra inconclusa y con problemas estructurales. Nosotros afirmamos que la teoría política más acabada de Spinoza se encuentra en el TP. En esta obra se sacan todas las consecuencias de guiarse por una noción estrictamente inmanente de la política. En ese sentido, el TP sigue de manera más coherente el programa (...) trazado por la doctrina fundamental de Spinoza expuesta en la _Ética_, y no el TTP. Esto nos lleva a la consideración de la política como tendencia en dos direcciones opuestas: ampliación de poder y concentración de poder. (shrink)

In this paper, I join the so-called voluntarism debate on Descartes’s theory of will and judgment, arguing for an indirect doxastic voluntarism reading of Descartes, as opposed to a classic, or direct doxastic voluntarism. More specifically, I examine the question whether Descartes thinks the will can have a direct and full control over one’s suspension of judgment. Descartes was a doxastic voluntarist, maintaining that the will has some kind of control over one’s doxastic states, such as belief and doubt. According (...) to a long-held reading, the control that the will has over doxastic states in Descartes’s theory is direct; the doxastic states are affected by the mere act of will. This reading is called direct doxastic voluntarism (DDV), or direct voluntarism (DV) for short, and it states that we are capable of assenting, rejecting and suspending a judgment based only on our will to do so. Thus, these actions would be utterly and merely volitional. DV can be divided into two further positions, direct positive voluntarism (+DV) and direct negative voluntarism (-DV). Direct positive voluntarism deals with the act of forming judgments, maintaining that one can accept or deny a proposition wilfully and either merely believe or not believe something voluntarily. Direct negative voluntarism deals with the suspension of judgment, maintaining that it can likewise be accomplished by a simple act of will. However, I support an alternate account of Descartes’s voluntarism, which is called indirect doxastic voluntarism (IDV), or indirect voluntarism (IV) for short. By this account, the will is capable of affecting a doxastic state indirectly by making one concentrate on essential tasks for forming that state, such as gathering up and paying attention to strong reasons and evidence. IV is also possible to divide into indirect positive voluntarism (+IV) and indirect negative voluntarism (-IV). Per indirect positive voluntarism the will needs to pay attention to reasons for accepting or denying some proposition. Likewise, by indirect negative voluntarism, in order to suspend judgment the will needs to direct this attention to the reasons for doubt. By attending to these reasons, the will also comes face-to-face with its own freedom. This feeling of freedom can be described as affectivity of the reasons for belief (assent) and doubt (suspension). (shrink)

Spinoza developed a highly interesting metaphysical theory of nature and individuality. In this paper, I endeavor to bring forward some ideas on how Spinozistic views on extended substance, physical world, and individuality can be approached using the concept of power as the basis of interpretation. Jonathan Bennett's ‘field metaphysical’ interpretation of Spinoza's doctrine of one extended substance has generated much discussion, and forms the other starting point of my paper. I believe that the field metaphysical interpretation enables one to deal (...) with the central questions concerning physical individuation — individuality and the persistence of individual being — in a rather novel way. My main question is this: what follows if physical individuals are seen as parts of a unified field of extended power? (shrink)

The argumentative structure of this article can be summarized as follows: 1) Spinoza was repeatedly accused of eleaticism; 2) there is a rupture with the eleaticism when one admits the ‘multivocity’ of the logical operators “is” and “is not”; as can be seen, for example, 2.1) in the discussion introducing the Great Genera in Plato’s Sophist, and 2.2) in a certain use made by Aristotle of the category’s doctrine in order to soften the Parmenidean version of the Principle of Non-Contradiction. (...) 3) Spinoza admits the ‘multivocity’ of “is” and “is not”. Hence, Spinoza should not be placed among the Eleatics but inside the brotherhood of the suspects of the so-called parricide against Parmenides. This reasoning, which almost sounds as a truism, will, however, suggest two interesting further considerations: one on how an important tradition of interpretation of Spinoza has misplaced the problem of the relationship of Spinoza’s ontology with the logical principles; and another on the type of logic that is implied by the theory of modes of perception or kinds of knowledge. (shrink)

While both intuitive knowledge and reason are adequate ways of knowing for Spinoza, they are not equal. Intuitive knowledge, which Spinoza describes as the ‘greatest virtue of mind’, is superior to reason. The nature of this superiority has been the subject of some controversy due to Spinoza's notoriously parsimonious treatment of the distinction between reason and intuitive knowledge in the Ethics. In this paper, I argue that intuitive knowledge differs from reason not only in terms of its method of cognition—but (...) also in terms of its content. More specifically, I maintain that there is something that is known by intuition, namely the unique essences of things, that is not known by reason. My argument is supported by an examination of Spinoza's account of essences in the Ethics, which reveals that he is committed to both unique and shared essences. Based on this dual commitment, I argue that whereas for Spinoza both reason and intuition can be said to reach adequate knowledge of the shared essence of a thing, the unique essence of a singular thing, which is nothing but its actual essence, can only be known through intuitive knowledge. (shrink)

Spinoza is often taken to claim that suicide is never a rational act, that a ‘free’ person acting by the guidance of reason will never terminate his/her own existence. Spinoza also defends the prima facie counterintuitive claim that the rational person will never act dishonestly. This second claim can, in fact, be justified when Spinoza's moral psychology and account of motivation are properly understood. Moreover, making sense of the free man's exception-less honesty in this way also helps to clarify how (...) Spinoza should, and indeed does, recognize the possibility of rational suicide. (shrink)

The relation between structure and conjuncture has been one of the biggest challenges facing social theory and Louis Althusser’s writings provide some of the most important interventions on this subject. Contrary to an image of Althusser first embracing and then abandoning structuralism, Althusser tried from the beginning to articulate the theory of structural causality with an insistence on the singularity of historical conjunctures. Althusser’s theoretical trajectory, despite his shortcomings, still offers a necessary starting point for a materialist conception of the (...) relation between structural and conjunctural determinations that stresses the complex, uneven and overdetermined character of social reality without resorting either to a ‘surface phenomena/deep structures’ dualism or to the empiricism of simply registering singular practices. (shrink)

Nossa meta é caracterizar alguns aspectos da metodologia científica utilizada por Aristóteles em algumas passagens dos dois primeiros livros do Sobre o Céu e averiguar quais são os principais recursos a que Aristóteles recorre para descobrir os princípios de sua astronomia e para coletar os dados iniciais astronômicos relevantes. Procuraremos mostrar que, para Aristóteles, embora escassos e imprecisos, os dados observacionais ainda têm preferência em relação aos endoxa astronômicos, o que não impede, porém, o emprego de alguns testes dialéticos para (...) o estabelecimento do conhecimento preliminar relevante para a astronomia. (shrink)

This article presents a decades-long conflict in the upper echelons of postwar French academic philosophy between the self-identifying “Cartesian” Ferdinand Alquié, professor at the Sorbonne, and the “Spinozist” Martial Gueroult of the Collège de France. Tracking the development of this rivalry serves to illuminate the historical drama that occurred in France as phenomenology was integrated into the Cartesian tradition and resisted by a commitment to rationalism grounded in a specifically French understanding of Spinozism. Over the course of Alquié and Gueroult's (...) polemic, however, we nevertheless witness a shared concern to preserve philosophy from the reductive tendencies of historicism and its possible assimilation to theology. What is more, the ultimate impasse of this conflict continues to inform the most innovative projects in French thought in the wake of structuralism and the “theological turn” of French phenomenology. (shrink)

This paper argues that Spinoza's main political writings are concerned, in part, with knowledge of essences as detailed in the Ethics. It is further argued that knowledge of the essences of states, and essential properties that belong to states, may be an example of the elusive scientia intuitiva or third kind of knowledge. The paper concludes by considering Spinoza's goals in his political writings and the importance of metaphysics and the theory of knowledge more broadly for early modern political philosophers.

In this paper, I suggest an outline of a new interpretation of core issues in Spinoza’s metaphysics and philosophy of mind. I argue for three major theses. (1) In the first part of the paper I show that the celebrated Spinozistic doctrine commonly termed “the doctrine of parallelism” is in fact a confusion of two separate and independent doctrines of parallelism. Hence, I argue that our current understanding of Spinoza’s metaphysics and philosophy of mind is fundamentally flawed. (2) The clarification (...) and setting apart of the two doctrines will also put us in a position to present my second major thesis and address one of the more interesting and enduring problems in Spinoza’s metaphysics: how can the attribute of thought be, on the one hand, isomorphic with any other attribute, and yet, on the other hand, be isomorphic with God himself, who has infinitely many attributes? In the second part of the paper, I present Spinoza’s solution to this problem. I argue that the number and order of modes is the same in all attributes. Yet, modes of Thought, unlike modes of any other attribute, have an infinitely-faceted internal structure so that one and the same idea represents infinitely many modes by having infinitely many facets (or aspects). (3) This new understanding of the inner structure of ideas in Spinoza will lead us to my third thesis in which I explain and solve another old riddle in Spinoza’s metaphysics: his insistence on the impossibility of the human mind knowing any of God’s infinite attributes other than Thought and Extension. In the third part, I show some of the major ramifications of my new interpretation and respond to some important objections. In my conclusion I discuss the philosophical importance of my interpretation. I explain why Spinoza could not embrace reductive idealism in spite of the preeminence he grants to the attribute of Thought. I argue that Spinoza is a dualist -- not a mind-body dualist, as he is commonly conceived to be, but rather a dualist of Thought and Being. Finally, I suggest that Spinoza’s position on the mind-body issue breaks with the traditional categories and ways of addressing the subject by suggesting a view which grants clear primacy to Thought without accepting any idealist reduction of bodies to thought. (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)

En esta conferencia se sostiene que el intento de retrotraer la política en Spinoza a sucesos describibles físicamente, que se puede leer en el texto homónimo de A. Matheron, es falso. La presentación tratará la ontología de Spinoza: se quiere mostrar que ella no se puede interpretar físicamente. La interpretación se dirige igualmente contra la hipótesis de J. Bennett en su libro A Study of Spinoza’s Ethics, para quien la filosofía de Spinoza es interpretada bajo la prioridad del atributo extensión (...) y, con ello, según un modelo físico. (shrink)

The spinozian critical fortune records that, starting withproposition 27 of Ethics Part iii, something completely original appearsin the examination of affective life: the imitation of affections. Spinoza’snovelty, in comparison with his contemporaries, is to describe theproduction of affections no longer from an external object, but from theconduct of “something”, or “someone”, on an object - considering thatthis production is rooted in the fact that we imagine that this “someone”or that “something” is similar to us. The proposition links a longdeductive sequence (...) that runs through the rest of Part iii, supports thecrucial Part iv propositions on politics and law and reaches the PoliticalTreaty [i, v]. Our intention is to evaluate the meanings of this propositionin Spinoza’s political thought, based on a review of this problemin critical fortune - taking into account some passages in the works ofPrimo Levi. In particular the “Chemistry Test”, chapter ofthis book If This Is a Man? [Se questo è un uomo?]. (shrink)

If it is true that Spinoza belongs to the history of Jewish Philosophy, his concept of God also cannot cease to being “Jewish”. Our aim here is to call into question if Spinoza’s concept of God, as exposed in Ethics’ definitions, has something of Jewish, particularly when faced with conceptions yielded by some of the main philosophers from Jewish and Arabic traditions: Saadya, Avicenna, Ibn Gabirol, Halevi, Maimonides and Crescas. Our answer, at the end, is negative.

The article aims to reconstruct the seventeenth-century debate of the scientific nature of mathematics and the possibility of conceiving an idea of a positive infinite to address the philosophical implications of mathematics in Spinoza’s work, emphasizing the geometric ordering in his Ethics. We will approach the mathematical thinking of that philosopher from three perspectives: the pedagogical, the epistemological and the ontological. In the pedagogical sense, his synthetic geometry aims to inhabit the evidence as rhetorical and pedagogical expression of a perfect (...) and self-evident concatenation that leads the progress of the reader through philosophical propositions. In the epistemological sense, we have the aim of inhabiting the thing defined by a genetic definition that provides the very acting essence of a thing. That epistemological sense provides us the difference between a definition of a thing by its predicates or through its inner essence. And finally, in the ontological sense of inhabiting the infinite itself, because geometry can bring us the proper way to conceive the positive idea of the absolutely infinite in which we necessarily are and take part. (shrink)

Para determinar la relación entre saber y poder en el Tratado político de Spinoza, debe observarse que a medida que la potestas del imperio se comparte, es decir, a medida que las instancias de discusión racional aumentan , la instancia de un saber independiente de la posesión del poder va desapareciendo. Mientras que la instancia del saber racional es indispensable reconocerla en la monarquía, como opuesta a la potestas de uno solo , parece que se diluye y comparte a medida (...) que la potestas vuelve a la multitud, pasando por el gobierno aristocrático. La inconclusión del TP no puede mostrarnos la lógica de esta disolución de la autoridad de la razón en el régimen democrático, la potestas absoluta. (shrink)

Se analizan los más tradicionales aspectos vinculados a la teoría política spinozista, la teoría del contrato y la crítica de la religión, en estrecha relación con la Ética y con el tratamiento de las relaciones entre afectos e imaginación, que se considera como el núcleo de su pensamiento político. Se interpreta así la idea de conatus desde una doble dimensión, política y ontológica, cuya articulación con las otras categorías recogidas en la Ética, especialmente con relación a los afectos, ofrece una (...) alternativa al pensamiento de la omnipotencia, dominante en la mayor parte de las filosofías de la modernidad. The article analyzes the most traditional aspects of Spinoza's political theory, the theory of the contract and the critique of religion, in close relation with the Ethics and the handling of the relations between affects and the imagination, considered to be the core of his political thought. Thus, the idea of conatus is interpreted from the dual perspective of politics and ontology, whose articulation with other categories included in the Ethics, particularly that of affects, offers an alternative to the idea of omnipotence that prevails in most modern philosophies. Neste artigo, analisam-se os mais tradicionais aspectos vinculados à teoria política spinozista, a teoria do contrato e da crítica da religião, na estreita relação com a Ética e com o tratamento das relações entre afetos e imaginação, que se considera como o núcleo de seu pensamento político. Interpreta-se assim a ideia de conatus a partir de uma dupla dimensão, política e ontológica, cuja articulação com as outras categorias reunidas na Ética, especialmente a respeito dos afetos, oferece uma alternativa ao pensamento da onipotência, dominante na maior parte das filosofias da modernidade. (shrink)

Is the education of citizens a private matter or is it primarily a concern for the state? Throughout the history of political and educational philosophy, this question has remained central. Different philosophers have answered the question in different ways and different periods have witnessed different ways of organizing public education in response to it. At the root of this question is another question. This question concerns how we understand the state and how we construe the relation between the state and (...) the well-being of its citizens. How we understand the state, in turn, depends on if we consider it the natural extension of the will and striving of its individual citizens or if we consider its main purpose to be to protect its citizens from each other and from external threats. (shrink)

El presente artículo busca determinar un modelo propiamente spinociano para pensar la generación del Estado descrita en el Tratado Político. Para ello se intenta desvincular el modelo utilizado por Spinoza del modelo contractualista, bajo el cual ha sido habitualmente pensado. Comenzaremos por identificar el “campo de presencia” sobre el cual tanto Hobbes como Spinoza se sitúan. Este será caracterizado bajo el rótulo general de “aristotelismo político”, intentando mostrar su ambigüedad fundamental, constitutiva del problema que tanto Hobbes como Spinoza buscan resolver. (...) Luego, haremos un examen detallado del modelo por el cual Spinoza responde a dicho problema. (shrink)

In letter 37 to Johannes Bouwmeester, Spinoza identifies a historiola mentis à la Bacon as an important tool for distinguishing more easily between adequate and inadequate ideas. This paper contends that Spinoza's advice is to take into account Baconian-style ‘Civil History’ as providing instructive material for contemplating the variety, complexity, and persistency of human passionate behaviour. Specifically, it argues that Baconian civil history forms an integral part of Spinoza's reflections on provisional morality. Although for Spinoza, philosophical beatitude ultimately demands understanding (...) affects through their first causes – the intuitive perception of things sub specie aeternitatis – in the realm of everyday Spinoza allows for a different, more pragmatic approach to morality. This paper argues at this stage that a philosophical understanding of the mind and its affections is not needed. Spinoza, following Bacon, holds that conduct of practical affairs is particularly improved when those so engage.. (shrink)

Deleuze has suggested that Spinoza and Foucault share common concerns, particularly the notion of immanence and their mutual hostility to theories of subjective intentionality and contract-based theories of state power. This article explores these shared concerns. On the one hand Foucault's view of governmentality and its re-theorization of power, sovereignty and resistance provide insights into how humans are constituted as individualized subjects and how populations are formed as subject to specific regimes or mentalities of government. On the other, Spinoza was (...) concerned with how humans organized themselves into communities capable of self-government. In particular, his idea of immanent causality was crucial because central to his ideas of freedom and power. We argue that Spinoza's approach to power and causality prefigures ideas developed by Foucault in his theory of governmentality, especially with respect to his biopolitical rethinking of power and resistance. (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.

We suggest in this paper that the practice of philosophy with children can be fruitfully understood as an example of a transindividual system. The adoption of the term ‘transindividuality’ serves two main purposes: it allows us to focus on individuation as a process and at the same time to problematise some of the classical antinomies of Western philosophy that continue to inform our understanding of the relation between individuality and community. We argue that the practice of philosophical inquiry with children, (...) when interpreted in terms of Spinoza’s conceptions of relational individuality and affective reason, offers a compelling example of how shared thinking operates as an individuating process in that knowledge and affect, interiority and exteriority, individuality and collectivity can be experienced in action and thought as complementary aspects of the same process. (shrink)

In Spinoza’s philosophy affects illustrate the way human beings interact with each other and the world, where the necessary meetings with other particular things define their being and its expressions. Most human beings don’t know themselves, are not conscious of their affects and, even less, do they know what the affects of others are. Although, they are by their definition as particular things obliged to exist in society and create a minimum of consensus. According to Spinoza, this consensus is built (...) upon the biological substrate defined by human body’s physiology, through the mechanism of imitation and is supported by empathy. Leading researchers in affective neuroscience argue for a theory of embodied cognition and recent research in neurosciences attributes human capacity for empathy to mirror neurons, recognising in Spinoza’s texts the philosophical roots of current scientific thinking on body, mind and feeling. Keeping in mind the debate concerning how different levels of explanation can be related to each other or how different disciplines can form the context for interpreting neuroscience’s data, we attempt to promote an implicit dialogue between Spinoza’s psychological theory and the neuroscientific findings, supporting that is legitimate and necessary to examine these questions from the point of view of philosophy and formulate new research questions that can promote further theoretical and empirical study of the complex phenomena concerning human nature and society. (shrink)

Pierre Macherey’sHegel or Spinoza?suggests that Hegel was driven to his now legendary misinterpretations of Spinoza because he could not accept Spinozism without compromising his own philosophy. Macherey shows us a Spinoza that pre-emptively resists and challenges Hegel’s understanding of Spirit as Subject realising itself through self-negation and contradiction. This review draws out the central arguments in the book, and those arguments most salient for contemporary theories of capitalism and revolution, and points towards possible implications for Marxist theory.

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

In this paper I suggest that Spinoza’s understanding of virtue and collective flourishing, rooted in his psychological and ethical egoism, offers a fresh perspective on the question of egoism in education. To this end, I suggest an understanding of the teacher as egoist, where the self-seeking of the teacher is conditioned by – and runs parallel to – the flourishing of his or her students. The understanding of the egoistic teacher is offered as a productive counter-image to the altruistic ideal (...) in education as well as to the commonplace conception of the teacher as primarily a provider of services and the student as a consumer on an educational market. (shrink)

This paper adopts Deleuze’s reading of Spinoza’s expressionism and pure semiotics to argue that Spinoza’s Ethics offers an alternative notion of freedom of speech that is based on the potentia of the individual. Its aim is to show how freedom of thought is connected to the problem of individuation that connects our mode of being with our power to speak and think. Rather than treating freedom of speech as an enlightened idea that is in opposition to, for example, religious authority, (...) or the suppression of human rights, this paper argues that freedom of speech should be understood by what Spinoza calls ‘an adequate idea’: an idea that explains the cause of its own production. What is to be considered is: who wants this freedom, in what situation, why, what is at stake? No freedom in itself is ever given. This paper argues for speech as an assembled body that is always in connection with other bodies. It is argued that to understand the power and value of the freedom of speech, we should study the praxis of the utterance as an assembled body, its causal dimensions, and its affective immanent relations with other bodies, and other modes of speaking. (shrink)

En este trabajo centrado en la Ética se resaltará la dimensión de alteridad de la esencia del ser humano y, por lo tanto, en el caso de Spinoza, de la noción de deseo. A partir de esta alteridad constitutiva, el modo dicotómico de pensar lo social y lo individual es reconsiderado mediante un deseo que, sin dejar de ser singular, es y persevera en relación con los demás. Con el fin de no reducir la noción de deseo a una de (...) sus expresiones, se distinguirá entre las diversas formas del deseo, en particular el anhelo, y el deseo-cupiditas. Asimismo se perfilará la noción de un deseo de razón en contraste con las figuras de la impotencia. Las vías abiertas conducen a la valoración de un pensador que nos legó una noción de deseo que implica simultáneamente afirmación y codependencia, insertándolo en debates éticos, políticos y psicológicos actuales. (shrink)

En una carta del 20 de julio de 1664 Spinoza le relata a su amigo Peter Balling un sueño con “cierto brasileño, negro y sarnoso”. Tal vez sea esa la única mención en la obra spinozista que refiere al Nuevo Mundo, donde Holanda poseía colonias. A partir de ese sueño, el presente trabajo inquiere sobre la coexistencia de las filosofías modernas de la libertad con la esclavitud real de miles de seres humanos en América, y en particular sobre el silencio (...) de Spinoza en relación con la trata de esclavos africanos en tierras americanas. (shrink)

Entre les années 1745 et 1835 s'est produite au sein de la poétique et de la théorie du langage, en trois temps successifs, une mutation théorique qui est venue renforcer la révolution ontologique et épistémologique des années 1660-1715. Tout d'abord en France dans les années 1745-1775 avec Diderot, puis en Allemagne dans les années 1785-1805 avec Moritz, Goethe, Schiller, Schlegel, Hölderlin, enfin encore en Allemagne mais aussi en France dans les années 1795-1835, avec Humboldt, le langage a été - Philosophie (...) – Nouvel article. (shrink)