This paper explores the common ground in the views on natural law, justice and sociopolitical development in Hume and Spinoza. Spinoza develops a radically revisionary position in the natural law debate, building upon the bold equation of right and power. Hume is best interpreted as offering a skeptical–empirical reworking of traditional natural law theories, which maintains much of the practical purport of these theories, while providing it with a new, metaphysically less firm, but also less problematic, foundation. What the two (...) philosophers have in common is that they formulate realist revisions of the natural law tradition in the light of their more general naturalistic, secular philosophical commitments. Both philosophers, moreover, point to the slow development of man’s insight in the laws of nature, arising through a gradual accumulation of experiential insights. These insights are never wholly ‘liberated’ from the historical and imaginative perspective in which they arise. Accordingly, although rational progress brings the systems of justice and politics of different groups of people closer to each other, they necessarily retain, sometimes fundamentally incompatible, divergences. In the tradition of Machiavellian political realism, therefore, both Spinoza and Hume plead for judging political orders according to their own merits: do they, in their own specific ways, bring about a sufficient degree of order and liberty? (shrink)

While Spinoza’s political philosophy is often described as liberal, it is not always clear what this label means or whether it is warranted. Calling Spinoza ‘liberal’ implies that he belongs to a historical tradition of political philosophers, who formulated and defended claims, which later became identified as central to political liberalism. Consequently, clarifying how Spinoza is a liberal requires specifying precisely which liberal views he articulated and defended. This paper, first, examines the various ways that commentators have interpreted Spinoza as (...) defending liberal commitments. This examination shows that most commentators describe Spinoza as liberal on the grounds that his politics defends the value of individual political freedom, specifically of speech and thought. The paper, second, considers whether he upholds a claim that is important to contemporary liberalism, what is sometimes called the fundamental liberal principle. The paper concludes that Spinoza does not, which suggests that he does not sit as easily in the liberal tradition as some scholars have suggested. (shrink)

A recent spate of books on the life and legacy of the political philosopher Leo Strauss, notably Steven B. Smith's Reading Leo Strauss: Politics, Philosophy, and Judaism , suggests a desperate effort to salvage Strauss and the Straussian school of political philosophy from the wreckage of American neoconservatism. Although a number of these works are quite thoughtful and helpfully counter many of the more extreme (and uglier) charges made concerning the meaning of Straussianism and its political influence, their general drift (...) in fact confirms what the more responsible critics of this school have long maintained about its tendency to oppose positions that would help advance meaningful social change and social justice. Key Words: Leo Strauss • Straussianism • Platonism • esoteric writing • zeteti-cism • Socratic • skepticism • relativism • fideism. (shrink)

This paper examines Spinoza's remarks on women in the Political Treatise in the context of his views in the Ethics about human community and similitude. Although these remarks appear to exclude women from democratic participation on the basis of essential incapacities, I aim to show that Spinoza intended these remarks not as true statements, but as prompts for critical consideration of the place of women in the progressive democratic polity. In common with other scholars, I argue that women, in Spinoza's (...) system, are deprived of freedom and political participation not by their essential natures, but by their social and historical circumstances. I differ from other scholars, however, in basing this conclusion on the different critical functions of the Political Treatise and the Ethics. Following that critical comparison, I consider Spinoza's views on the `natural right' of women and their equal capacity for political participation in terms of his arguments for the compositional similarity of men and women. Finally, I argue that Spinoza offers an explanation for women's actual disempowerment through his account of economic dependence within marriage. (shrink)