Spinoza is most often seen as a stern advocate of mechanistic efficient causation, but examining his philosophy in relation to the Aristotelian tradition reveals this view to be misleading: some key passages of the Ethics resemble so much what Suárez writes about emanation that it is most natural to situate Spinoza's theory of causation not in the context of the mechanical sciences but in that of a late scholastic doctrine of the emanative causality of the formal cause; as taking a (...) look at the seventeenth-century philosophy of mathematics reveals, this is in consonance also with Spinoza's geometrical cast of mind. Against this background, I examine Spinoza's essentialist model of causation according to which each thing has a formal character determined by the thing's essence and what follows from that essence. In the case of real things this essential causal architecture results in efficacy, i.e. in bringing about real effects, the key idea being that without the essential, formally structured causal thrust there would be no efficacy in the first place. I also explain how this model accounts for efficient causation taking place between finite things. (shrink)

The ethics of immigration is currently marked by a division between realists and idealists. The idealists generally focus on formulating morally ideal immigration policies. The realists, however, tend to dismiss these ideals as far-fetched and infeasible. In contrast to the idealists, the realists seek to resolve pressing practical issues relating to immigration, principally by advancing what they consider to be actionable policy recommendations. In this article, I take issue with this conception of realism. I begin by surveying the way in (...) which it exemplifies what certain political theorists have recently called ‘problem-solving’ realism – a species of realism which they reject as incoherent. These theorists demonstrate that what counts as a ‘feasible’ solution is far harder to establish than most problem-solving realists would have us believe. Applying this general critique to the specific domain of immigration ethics turns out to radically undermine the notion of realism that prevails in this sphere of applied ethics. I conclude that we should therefore revise our conception of what constitutes a genuinely realist approach to the problem of immigration. (shrink)

To what extent should teachers promote the view from nowhere as an ideal to strive for in education? To address this question, I will use Mark Twain’s The Mysterious Stranger as an example, illustrating the stakes involved when the view from nowhere is taken to be an attainable educational ideal. I will begin this essay by offering a description of Thomas Nagel’s view from nowhere. Having done this, I will return to Twain’s story, providing some further examples of how access (...) to the view from nowhere comes to influence the educational process in different ways. I will then connect the educational question raised by Twain’s story to two radically different versions of the exemplar found in the works of Benedict de Spinoza: the philosopher and the prophet. These figures will help illustrate how the striving for philosophical truth can sometimes be educationally inapt, as education always needs to account for humans being human, all too human. (shrink)

I intend to discuss the relation of Marcuse's theory of technology to its grounding in the possibilities he believed lay inherent, but as yet untapped in nature. Marcuse was an early critic of what he considered to be the exploitative, predatory approach to nature brought about through the direction of technology, industry and science under consumer capitalism, however his alternative; a "new science" and "new technology" which would treat nature as an "ally" in the general struggle for liberation and emancipation (...) was not without its problems. (shrink)

Spanish translation of Field, S. L. (2012). 'Democracy and the multitude: Spinoza against Negri'. Theoria: A Journal of Social and Political Theory, 59(131), 21-40. Translated by María Cecilia Padilla and Gonzalo Ricci Cernadas. Negri celebra una concepción de la democracia en la que los poderes concretos de los individuos humanos no se alienan sino que se agregan: una democracia de la multitud. Pero ¿cómo puede actuar la multitud sin alienar el poder de nadie? Para contestar esta dificultad, Negri explícitamente apela (...) a Spinoza. Sin embargo, en este trabajo, sostengo que la filosofía de Spinoza no respalda el proyecto de Negri. Por el contrario, argumento que la multitud spinozista evita la jerarquía interna por medio de la mediación de las instituciones políticas y no a pesar de ellas; de la misma manera, estas instituciones tampoco simplemente emanan de la multitud tal cual es, sino que estructuran, contienen y canalizan sus pasiones. En particular, las instituciones requeridas no son las de la democracia simple y directa. Puede ser que existan otros argumentos no spinozistas en los cuales Negri pueda basar su teoría, pero no puede defender legítimamente su concepción de la multitud democrática apelando a Spinoza. (shrink)

In the form of a case study and based upon novel material about the reception of Spinoza’s Theological–Political Treatise in Iran, this paper studies issues with the interactions among political, theological and philosophical ideas in the reception of Spinoza’s TTP. The paper starts with the first Iranian encounters with Spinoza’s philosophy in the Qajar era in the nineteenth century and then focuses on the reception of the TTP in the period after the 1979 Islamic Revolution. The first translation of the (...) TTP was prepared in the 1990s by Muḥsin Jahāngīrī, but he withheld the manuscript from being published. I discuss the arguments that led him to withhold the publication of his translation; in this context, it will be important to consider the tumultuous religious and political debates, and broader questions as to the legitimacy of political power will also prove relevant. The first doctoral dissertation in Persian about the TTP will be described, followed by a description of a digital translation of the twentieth chapter of the TTP, which was published after the 2009 election protests. The article ends with discussing translator Ali Ferdowsi’s motivation to produce the first complete Persian translation of the TTP, published in Tehran in 2017. In conclusion, it will be discussed to which extent the theocratic political context in the country caused interest in the TTP. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to add to the debate on the normative status and legitimacy of indoctrination in education by drawing on the political philosophy of Benedict Spinoza (1632–1677). More specifically, I will argue that Spinoza’s relational approach to knowledge formation and autonomy, in light of his understanding of the natural limitations of human cognition, provides us with valuable hints for staking out a more productive path ahead for the debate on indoctrination. This article combines an investigation into (...) the early modern history of political ideas with a philosophical inquiry into a persistent conceptual problem residing at the heart of education. As such, the aim of the article is ultimately to offer an account of indoctrination less fraught with the dangers of epistemological and political idealism that often haunt rival conceptions. (shrink)

The article considers what arbitrary law-making is and what may count as arbitrary law-making in the field of migration policy. It contributes to the discussion of arbitrary law-making in relation to migration policy in two ways. First, it offers an analysis of arbitrariness, pointing out that rhetorical definitions abound – perhaps not surprisingly, given that migration is a highly-contested policy area – and argues for why transposing a conception developed in ethical theory to the law has high theoretical costs. An (...) alternative conception is described and found to be better equipped to deal with arbitrary law-making in migration policy. It is argued that if we want to understand how arbitrariness plays out in the field of migration law – which is necessary to find ways to hinder its spread by the adoption of specific law-making practices – we first need to distinguish arbitrariness from legitimate choices of legislators. Secondly, a typology of forms of arbitrariness is fleshed out in relation to contemporary migration policy. The policy area is here broadly construed to include not only naturalisation processes, but also migration, asylum and refugee policies and more generally border control. The examples are taken from a broad selection of countries. They have been chosen for illustrative purposes only. Keywords: arbitrariness, discretion, arbitrary power, forms of arbitrary power, borders, migration policy, citizenship policy. (shrink)

In his Political Treatise, Spinoza repeatedly compares states to human beings. In this interpretation of the comparisons, I present a progressively more restrictive account of Spinoza’s views about the nature of human beings in the Ethics and show at each step how those views inform the account of states in the Political Treatise. Because, like human beings, states are individuals, they strive to persevere in existence. Because, like human beings, states are composed of parts that are individuals, states' parts also (...) strive to persevere in being. Finally, because in states, as in human beings, a change to the power of striving of a part can be at the same time a change to the whole that differs in kind, strong states can be bad for their citizens and states that serve their citizens well may nevertheless be weak. Spinoza’s principal project in the Political Treatise is to design states that are stable and good for their citizens. This account of the comparisons shows why that project is so difficult: one cannot design a good state simply by designing a stable state. (shrink)

This article turns to the neglected pedagogical concept of ingenium in order to address some shortcomings of the admiration–emulation model of Linda Zabzebski’s influential exemplarist moral theory. I will start by introducing the problem of the admiration-emulation model by way of a fictional example. I will then briefly outline the concept of ingenium such as it appears in a Renaissance context, looking particularly at the pedagogical writings of Juan Luis Vives. This will set the stage for the next part, looking (...) at how early modern philosopher Benedict Spinoza adopts a Vivesian notion of ingenium, adjusting it so as to fit into the setting of his political theory. Next, I will turn to Spinoza’s use of the concept of ingenium in relation to his portrayal of exemplary persons, offering a pedagogical model of moral exemplarism that can counter some of the perceived problems of the admiration–emulation model as it highlights the necessary fallibility of efficient exemplars as well as acknowledges the socio-political dimension of emotions. Finally, I will lay out some preliminary consequences for educational theory, hoping to offer a way of reconciling moral exemplarism with a more realistic pedagogical and psychological framework. (shrink)

In this review, I propose that the core contribution of Skeaff's book is to supplement existing discourses of non-domination and agonistic politics with the distinctly Spinozist concept of immanent normativity. However, I question whether this immanent normativity is so clearly and efficaciously democratic as Skeaff presumes.

According to a recent interpretive orthodoxy, Spinoza is a profoundly democratic theorist of state authority. I reject this orthodoxy. To be sure, for Spinoza, a political order succeeds in proportion as it harnesses the power of the people within it. However, Spinoza shows that political inclusion is only one possible strategy to this end; equally if not more useful is political exclusion, so long as it maintains what I call the depoliticised acquiescence of those excluded.

It is a matter of philosophical debate whether Jonathan Israel’s assessment of Spinoza’s notion of ‘state religion’ can be interpreted as an atheistic and Marxist reading of Spinoza. Contrary to the widely accepted view, Spinoza has a peculiar understanding of religion; and thus, his views cannot, simply, be equated with atheism. By relying on this fact, in this article, I am going to shed light on the issue and try to show to what extent Israel’s interpretation goes beyond what Spinoza (...) himself claims and whether or not Spinoza’s views can make him an atheist. Another concern of the text will be elucidating Marx’s critique of Bruno Bauer’s argument for the abolition of religion and laying bare if there is any continuity between Marx and Spinoza on the problem of religion. After Israel’s interpretation is restated, both Spinozistic view of religion, as he puts forward in the Theological-Political Treatise [Tractatus Theologico- Politicus, 1670] and Political Treatise [Tractatus Politicus, 1676] and Marx’s arguments on the same issue in “On the Jewish Question” [in Deutsch-Franzosische Jahrbucher, 1844] will be examined in detail. Depending on these investigations, it will be argued that what Israel defends in his text Radical Enlightenment [2001] does not make Spinoza an atheist; on the contrary, although Spinoza is not an advocate of the commonsensical view of religion, he defends his own understanding of religion—which causes him to be regarded, prejudicedly, as an atheist. Furthermore, it will be pointed out that Israel’s interpretation cannot be a Marxist interpretation either because Marx’s critique of religion is generally misunderstood and mistaken with that of Bruno Bauer. Neither Spinoza’s views on religion nor that of Marx are completely compatible with what Israel defends in Radical Enlightenment; nevertheless, this does not mean that Israel tries to make an atheist or Marxist out of Spinoza through his appropriation of the philosopher. (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)

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)

Simondon’s concept of the transindividual has become a central point of reference for contemporary critical philosophy and social philosophy. Despite its importance in the work of such writers as Étienne Balibar, Gilles Deleuze, Bernard Stiegler and Paolo Virno, Simondon’s works have not been translated into English, and thus no comprehensive study has appeared so far. Muriel Combes’s book presents not only a study of Simondon’s thought, but an examination of what it makes possible in terms of rethinking social relations.

Hobbes’s science of politics rests on a dual analysis of human beings: humans as complex material bodies in a network of mechanical forces, prone to passions and irrationality; and humans as subjects of right and obligation, morally exhortable by appeal to the standards of reason. The science of politics proposes an absolutist model of politics. If this proposal is not to be idle utopianism, the enduring functioning of the model needs to be compatible with the materialist analysis of human behaviour. (...) In this paper, I argue that Hobbes's attempts to render his science of politics compatible with his materialism are only partly successful; a fuller compatibility is achieved in the political writings of Spinoza. -/- Published with reply: Luke O'Sullivan, 'Sovereigns and citizens: a response to Field', ibid., 221-224. Reprinted as: Sandra Field (2015), 'Hobbes and human irrationality', in T. Nardin (ed.) Rationality in Politics and its Limits, Abingdon: Routledge, 31-44. With reply: Luke O'Sullivan, 'Sovereigns and citizens: a response to Field', ibid., 45-48. (shrink)

This essay examines Elizabeth Grosz's provocative claim that feminist and anti-racist theorists should reject a politics of recognition in favor of "a politics of imperceptibility." She criticizes any humanist politics centered upon a dialectic between self and other. I turn to Spinoza to develop and explore her alternative proposal. I claim that Spinoza offers resources for her promising politics of corporeality, proximity, power, and connection that includes all of nature, which feminists should explore.

Most comparisons of Thomas Hobbes and Baruch Spinoza focus on the difference in understanding of natural right. We argue that Hobbes also places more weight on a rudimentary and exclusive education of the public by the state. We show that the difference is related to deeper disagreements over the prospect of Enlightenment. Hobbes is more sanguine than Spinoza about using the state to make people rational. Spinoza considers misguided an overemphasis on publicly educating everyone out of superstition—public education is important, (...) but modes of superstition may remain and must be offset by institutions and a civil religion. The differences are confirmed by Spinoza’s interest in the philosopher who stands apart and whose flourishing may be protected, but not simply brought about, by rudimentary public education. Spinoza’s openness to a wisdom-loving elite in a democracy also sets up an interesting parallel with Thomas Jefferson’s own commitment to the natural aristocracy needed to sustain republicanism. In demonstrating the 17th century philosopher’s skepticism toward using the state exclusively to promote rationality, even as he recognizes the importance of a sovereign pedagogical role and the protection of philosophy, we move to suggest that Spinoza is relevant to contemporary debates about public education and may reinvigorate moral and political discourse in a liberal democracy. (shrink)

Collection of papers presented at the First Budapest Seminar in Early Modern Philosophy.

ABSTRACTWhile Spinoza stipulates an ideal moral person in the propositions on the ‘free man’ in Ethics IV, this account does not seem to be intended to function as a pedagogical tool of political relevance. Hence, it does not seem to correspond to the purpose of moral exemplarism. If we look for that kind of practical guidance, Spinoza’s political works seem more relevant. Interestingly, when we approach Spinoza’s political theory with moral exemplarism in mind, we find that instead of constructing his (...) exemplar on the idea of a supremely moral person, he emphasizes the concept of ingenium to chisel out an imperfect model of human behavior. We argue that the purpose of this is to avoid a utopian and inefficient political theory and to work out a moral practice that is capable of assisting people and communities in ethical self-transformation. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:This article addresses the fundamental question of what is ethical leadership by rearticulating relations between leaders and followers in terms of “affective leadership.” The article develops a Spinozian conception of ethics which is underpinned by a deep suspicion of ethical systems that hold obedience as a primary virtue. We argue that the existing research into ethical leadership tends to underplay the ethical capacities of followers by presuming that they are in need of direction or care by morally superior leaders. In (...) contrast, affective leadership advocates a profoundly political version of ethics, which involves people in the pursuit of joyful encounters that augment our capacity to affect and be affected by others. Instead of being led by people in leadership positions, we are led by active affections that enhance our capacity for moral action. (shrink)

This article rereads Benedict de Spinoza and recent interpretations of him as an epistemic democrat through the prism of contemporary debate on the conditions for deliberation in a democracy. Through a reconstruction of Spinoza's arguments and theories of deliberation and its preconditions, we argue that, for deliberation to produce the benefits Spinoza recognizes, the process must be inclusive, and those deliberating must be both intellectually humble and autonomous. This interpretation is new and diverges from those recently advanced by Justin Steinberg (...) and Sandra Leonie Field. In particular, on our reading, Spinoza's critique of humility does not extend to intellectual humility as it is understood today in political theory. Both autonomy and humility, as epistemologically conceived by political theorists today, can therefore be considered Spinozian civic virtues. (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)

In this article I explore the usefulness of Spinoza’s ethics for feminism by considering ways in which it allows feminists to rethink privacy. I draw upon some of Spinoza’s central ideas to address the following question: when should information be classed as private and when should it be communicated? This is a question that is considered by the common law courts. Attempts to find a moral underpinning for such a tortious action against invasions of privacy have tended to draw upon (...) Kant’s categorical imperative. In contrast, I want to consider how Spinoza provides an immanent ethics that reconfigures how privacy is understood. (shrink)

The principal argument advanced here is that the principle of immanence, common to Deleuze and Spinoza, will — if we follow its political radicalism — lead to a revalorization of existing Western democracy, to the degree that it allows for an internal and permanent self-reflexivity . The principle of the discontinuity of spheres of rationality, the emotive basis of all political power, and the principle of multiple and incomplete association distinguishes this idea from the Habermasian public sphere. Confrontation with the (...) void of the political, as much as the absence of a substantive People and knowledge of justice, is the key aspect of a democratic politics of multiplicity and heterogeneity. (shrink)

Spinoza, Dutch philosopher of the seventeenth century, and Kant, the hero of enlightenment, have dealt with women and their differences with men in their works. In a few places, Spinoza pointed out the matter of women and the sexual difference between people. Among Spinoza's works, there is no work that talks about just this matter. However, in the case of Kant, there are some works on this matter. Dealing with the matter of women and their social states according to these (...) European philosophers of modern time, this essay tried to find out the similarities and differences of their attitudes. Thus, it has resulted that although their similar attitudes on the case of women, Spinoza's philosophy has some features which have made it the source and supporter of feminist philosophers and saved it from severe criticism of feminists have been proposed against Kant. (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)

Karl Popper discovered the link between the open society and scientific dis- covery with the help of his analysis of growth of scientific theories (Popper, 1945, 1959). Only in an open society can hypotheses or models be falsified. His principle of falsification applies not only to scientific argument but also to social science beliefs and political propaganda. Thus, democracy nourishes an open society seeking the truth. Actually, democracy is the sole political re- gime that promotes the truth in an open (...) society. The rationale for democracy is to be found in game theory, in particular the principal agent framework in the economics of information. (shrink)

In the Tractatus Politicus Spinoza argues that politically unequal societies can be extremely stable. This feature of his work is at odds with a view, common in the literature, that Spinoza is a democratically-minded author who defends inclusive political systems, and in this paper I consider how he thinks inequality can be sustained. I focus on his discussion of the ways in which envy can be offset or redirected; and I apply my conclusions to his notorious claim that women are (...) not fit to rule. (shrink)