Spinoza's Political Theory: Naturalism, Determinism And
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Spinoza on the Body Politic
_full_journalsubtitle: A Journal for the Study of Science, Technology and Medicine in the Pre-modern Period _full_abbrevjournaltitle: ESM _full_ppubnumber: ISSN 1383-7427 (print version) _full_epubnumber: ISSN 1573-3823 (online version) _full_issue: 1 _full_issuetitle: The Body Politic from Medieval Lombardy to the Dutch Republic _full_alt_author_running_head (neem stramien J2 voor dit article en vul alleen 0 in hierna): 0 _full_alt_articletitle_running_head (rechter kopregel - mag alles zijn): From the King’s Two Bodies to the People’s Two Bodies _full_is_advance_article: 0 _full_article_language: en indien anders: engelse articletitle: 0 46 Early Science and Medicine 25 (2020) 46-72 Terpstra www.brill.com/esm From the King’s Two Bodies to the People’s Two Bodies: Spinoza on the Body Politic Marin Terpstra Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands [email protected] Abstract In this article, using Spinoza’s treatment of the image of the political body, I aim to show what happens to the concept of a healthy commonwealth linked to a monarchist model of political order when transformed into a new context: the emergence of a democratic political order. The traditional representation of the body politic becomes problematic when people, understood as individual natural bodies, are taken as the starting point in political theory. Spinoza’s understanding of the composite body, and the assumption that each body is composed, raises the question of the stability or instability of this composition. This has implications for the way one looks -
The Curious Case of Baruch Spinoza in Walter BenJaMin’S “Toward the Critique of Violence”
The Curious Case of Baruch Spinoza in Walter Ben ja min’s “Toward the Critique of Violence” MASSIMO PALMA abstract Although Baruch Spinoza was im por tant for think ers of his gen er a tion, Walter Ben ja min seems to have com pletely ig nored the phi los o pher. Spinoza’s name ap pears just a few times in Ben ja min’s works, and Spinoza’s thought never seems to have been rel e vant to him. The only place where Ben ja min quotes a text of Spinoza’s, al beit be tween the lines, is in “Toward the Critique of Violence” (1921). Still, in this essay Ben ja min is far from enthu si as tic about the au thor of the Ethics. He names Spinoza as a pro po nent of nat u ral law the o ry, which Ben ja min dismisses in his search for a cri te rion with which to judge Gewalt. This ar ti cle seeks to in ves ti gate Ben ja min’s ap par ent hos til ity to Spinoza and to reexamine the re la tion ship be tween the two, from both a the o ret i cal and a po lit i cal per spec tive. keywords Walter Ben ja min, Baruch Spinoza, le gal vi o lence, nat u ral law, mi gra tion The names of Walter Ben ja min and Baruch Spinoza rarely ap pear along side one an other in the lit er a ture on Ben ja min. -
Naturalizing Ethics
2 Naturalizing Ethics OWEN FLANAGAN, HAGOP SARKISSIAN, AND DAVID WONG Introduction In this chapter we provide (1) an argument for why ethics should be naturalized, (2) an analysis of why it is not yet naturalized, (3) a defense of ethical naturalism against two fallacies – Hume and Moore’s – that it allegedly commits, and (4) a proposal that normative ethics is best conceived as part of human ecology committed to pluralistic relativism (Flanagan 1995; 2002; Wong 1984; 1996; 2006b). The latter substantive view, supported by a neocompatibilist view of human agency, constitutes the essence of Duke naturalism. It provides a credible substantive alternative to bald or eliminativist Australian ethical natu- ralism, especially one that supports moral skepticism (Mackie), and to the more reticent Pittsburgh naturalism.1 Naturalism in the Broad Sense Ethical naturalism is a variety of a broader philosophical naturalism, so it will be good to say what naturalism in the broad sense is. According to the OED, the original philosophical meaning of the term “naturalism” dates back to the 17th century and meant “a view of the world, and of man’s relation to it, in which only the operation of natural (as opposed to supernatural or spiritual) laws and forces is admitted or assumed.” 1 McDowell coined the term “bald naturalism” (McDowell 1996) and sometimes characterizes it in a way that engenders or is akin to moral skepticism. In principle, a naturalist might be a moral skeptic, believing that there are no moral properties as ordinarily conceived and thus that moral propositions are literally false (or meaning- less). -
Enacting Knowledge: Spinoza's Dynamic of Politics
ORBIT-OnlineRepository ofBirkbeckInstitutionalTheses Enabling Open Access to Birkbeck’s Research Degree output Enacting knowledge: Spinoza’s dynamic of politics https://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/id/eprint/40421/ Version: Full Version Citation: Marston, Stephanie (2019) Enacting knowledge: Spinoza’s dy- namic of politics. [Thesis] (Unpublished) c 2020 The Author(s) All material available through ORBIT is protected by intellectual property law, including copy- right law. Any use made of the contents should comply with the relevant law. Deposit Guide Contact: email Enacting Knowledge: Spinoza’s Dynamic of Politics Stephanie Marston Submitted for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Birkbeck College, University of London 2019 1 Abstract The central claims of my thesis are that Spinoza’s philosophy of mind and affect entails that human knowledge is distinctively creative; and that understanding this makes it possible to understand Spinoza’s political philosophy as grounded in the interplay between knowing and the effects of knowledge. I develop the arguments underpinning these claims to show that the tensions commonly perceived in Spinoza’s political philosophy are a manifestation of its dynamism and creativity. The first part of my thesis proposes that, within Spinoza’s metaphysics, individual modes should be understood as distinguished by their effects on other modes, rather than by essence. I proceed from this interpretive premise to an explication of Spinoza’s theory of knowledge: situating it within the philosophy of mind adumbrated in Part 2 of the Ethics, I develop a reading of Spinoza’s epistemology as a theory of ‘affective knowing’. I argue that his account of knowledge formation implies a necessary interdependence among the three kinds of knowledge discussed in E2p40s2, with all knowledge shaped by both the knower’s encounters with other modes and her own acting. -
A Further Reinterpretation of the Moral Philosophy of John Stuart Mill
A FURTHER REINTERPRETATION OF THE MORAL PHILOSOPHY OF JOHN STUART MILL. by Derek Jo Banks M.A.9 University of Glasgow, 1970 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS in the Department of Philosophy 0 DEREK JOHN BANKS 1972 SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY January 1972 Name : Derek J. Banks !iiitlc of '.thesis : li ir'urther deinterpretation of the Floral I'hilosophy of John ,Stuart Mill Examining Cornrni-ttee : Chairman: Kay Jennings """ Lionel Kenner Senior Supervisor P "-" Donald G. Brown Lxt ernal Axaminer &of essor of 'hilosophy University of British Columbia I ABSTRACT Those of Mill's critics who focus their attention on Utilitarianism assume that Mill must have held that certain ethical sentences, including one expressing the principle of utility, are properly describable as true. In this thesis I set out to demonstrate the spuriousness of this assumption. I begin by showing that in several important works - works which he thought much more highly of than he did Utilitarianism - Mill denied that the truth (or falsity) of any ethical sentences can ever be established. Next I produce evidence that his reason for this denial lies in his commitment to the view that ethical sentences are really disguised imperative sentences, and hence have no truth-value. Pinally, it is argued that there is nothing in Utilitarianism that is inconsistent with the meta-ethical position which we have found him to adopt in his other works related to ethics. In a short coneluding chapter I devote as much space as I deem permissible in a thesis of this type to show that reinterpretation of Mill's ethical theory on an imperative model renders it more plausible than it is generally taken to be, since all theories which allow truth-values to ethical sentences are open to knock-down objections. -
From Nature As Source to Nature As Ethos the Making of Natural Man In
From Nature as Source to Nature as Ethos The Making of Natural Man in Rousseau’s Dialogues Marco di Palma (University College, London) Thesis submitted for the degree of Ph.D. (October 1999) ProQuest Number: 10608884 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a com plete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. uest ProQuest 10608884 Published by ProQuest LLC(2017). Copyright of the Dissertation is held by the Author. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States C ode Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. ProQuest LLC. 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106- 1346 fo r Miriam Abstract Challenging Jean Starobinski’s critique of Rousseau juge de Jean-Jacques, Dialogues, this thesis locates arguments for the Rousseauian synthesis and its ideal of Natural Man in the philosophies of nature, habit and the will. Rousseau’s concept of nature represents both a given, timeless inheritance or moral source, but also a unity which individuals actualise through reason and acts of the ethical will. The philosophy of habit suggested in Emile eliminates the concepts of demturation and second nature invoked by commentators to clarify the relation between nature and habit. Authentic, permanent habits disclose nature; nature transcends itself through habit. A philosophy of the will, meanwhile, specifies the enlightened initiatives that fulfil the human telos, sponsoring the Form nature assumes through habit The modalities of nature, habit and will thereby establish a continuity between the natural and ethical selves. -
Being and Worth Reviewed by Adrian Haddock
Haddock/Collier Being and Worth Andrew Collier London: Routledge, 1999 Reviewed by Adrian Haddock The blurb on the back cover of Being and Worth reads as follows: Do things have value only because we value them? Is reason purely self-centred? In Being and Worth Andrew Collier argues that beings in both the natural and human worlds have worth in themselves, whether we recognise it or not. He builds on recent work in critical realism to provide a re- assessment of Spinoza's philosophy of mind and ethics. What conceivable relevance could such a book have for Marxists? Observant readers will have noticed the reference to 'critical realism', the 'movement in philosophy and the human sciences' associated with academics of Marxist and Marx-ish bent. But this is a book which aims to establish the intrinsic worth of all being, human and non-human, by reference to such figures as Saint Thomas Aquinas, Saint Augustine, The Reverend John Macmurray and Baruch Spinoza. What relevance could such abstract meta-ethical issues have for the readers of this journal; a journal whose avowed intention is to revitalise and extend 'classical Marxism as a political project and theoretical tradition?' There are two answers to this question. The first, and most obvious, is that Andrew Collier is one of the most interesting and unusual Marxist philosophers of recent years. Originally an Althusserian, Collier spent much of his early writing developing a particularly Marxist perspective on the philosophy of psychology. However, his encounter with the work of Roy Bhaskar in the mid- 1970s led him towards an outspoken defence of scientific realism in general and its relevance to Marxism in particular. -
The Social Contract in Spinoza's Tractatus Theologico-Politicus
Title The Social Contract in Spinoza's Tractatus Theologico-Politicus Author(s) Ueno, Osamu Citation Philosophia Osaka. 4 P.55-P.67 Issue Date 2009-03 Text Version publisher URL https://doi.org/10.18910/6476 DOI 10.18910/6476 rights Note Osaka University Knowledge Archive : OUKA https://ir.library.osaka-u.ac.jp/ Osaka University Philosophia OSAKA No.4, 2009 55 Osamu UENO (Osaka University) The Social Contract in Spinoza's Tractatus Theologico-Politicus 1 Recent studies on Spinoza have focused on the remarkable fact that the Tractatus Theologico-Politicus (TTP), published anonymously in 1670, includes the notion of a social contract, but that the later Tractatus Politicus (TP), another political work, left unfinished by the death of the author, contains no mention of this construct. Many authors have argued that the latter work presents an original idea that stands apart from contractarian thought. However, this position accounts for only half of the issue in question. If it is true that Spinoza’s genuine political philosophy involves non-contractarian thought, why does the earlier TTP draw on social contract theory? Did this earlier reference reflect a mere manner of talking or did it represent a theory that Spinoza originally embraced but later abandoned as obsolete? If neither of these, what does it mean? This is the problem I address in this paper. I will first examine earlier studies and discuss their inadequacies and will then reconstruct the argument presented by Spinoza in the TTP. In the conclusion, I will show that Spinoza’s social contract is part of a “grammar of piety” which, in my opinion, is the theoretical object constantly present throughout the TTP. -
Spinoza: a Guide for the Perplexed
SPINOZA: A GUIDE FOR THE PERPLEXED Continuum Guides for the Perplexed Adorno: A Guide for the Perplexed – Alex Thomson Deleuze: A Guide for the Perplexed – Claire Colebrook Existentialism: A Guide for the Perplexed – Stephen Earnshaw Gadamer: A Guide for the Perplexed – Chris Lawn Hobbes: A Guide for the Perplexed – Stephen J. Finn Husserl: A Guide for the Perplexed – Matheson Russell Kierkegaard: A Guide for the Perplexed – Clare Carlisle Levinas: A Guide for the Perplexed – B. C. Hutchens Merleau-Ponty: A Guide for the Perplexed – Eric Matthews Quine: A Guide for the Perplexed – Gary Kemp Rousseau: A Guide for the Perplexed – Matthew Simpson Sartre: A Guide for the Perplexed – Gary Cox Wittgenstein: A Guide for the Perplexed – Mark Addis SPINOZA: A GUIDE FOR THE PERPLEXED CHARLES E. JARRETT Continuum International Publishing Group The Tower Building 80 Maiden Lane 11 York Road Suite 704 London SE1 7NX New York, NY 10038 www.continuumbooks.com © Charles Jarrett 2007 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or trans- mitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including pho- tocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. Thanks are due to the following publishers for permission to reprint portions of Samuel Shirley’s translations of Spinoza’s works. Spinoza. Complete Works; translated by Samuel Shirley and others; edited, with introduction and notes, by Michael L. Morgan. Copyright © 2002 by Hackett Publishing Company, Inc. Reprinted by permission of Hackett Publishing Company, Inc. All rights reserved. Baruch Spinoza. Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, translated by Samuel Shirley. -
On the Position of Spinoza's Political Thought
Title The Possessor of Free Will and Sovereignty : On the position of Spinoza's political thought Author(s) Kashiwaba, Takehide Citation 北海道大学文学研究科紀要, 115, 1-20 Issue Date 2005-02-28 Doc URL http://hdl.handle.net/2115/34084 Type bulletin (article) この論文に対し、訂正版が発表されています。このページの下部の「HUSCAP内関連資料」のリンクから、 Note 訂正版をご覧ください。 File Information 115_PL1-20.pdf Instructions for use Hokkaido University Collection of Scholarly and Academic Papers : HUSCAP The Possessor of Free Will and Sovereignty: On the position of Spinoza's political thought Takehide Kashiwaba Introduction Spinoza's position in the history of political philosophy has been primarily that of a forerunner to Liberalism!. It is certain that in Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, Spinoza defends freedom of speech and thought, and although in what was to become his last work, Tractatus Politicus, he argues even in favor of the monarchy and aristocracy as political systems, he nevertheless places importance on the free people of the state. For example, regardless of how absolute the sovereignty of a commonwealth may be, Spinoza asserts that "no one is able to transfer to another his natural right or faculty to reason freely and to form his own judgment on any matters whatsoever, nor can he be compelled to do so" (TTP 20/242, d. TP3/8/287). Rather than the freedom of speech of the individual being in opposition to the sovereignty and peace of the state, on the contrary, it is a prerequisite for the maintenance of the state (TTP20/ 246-7). It is upon the state to facilitate the growth of the minds and bodies of humankind, and to ensure that each individual can live freely and harmoniously exercising reason. -
Neo-Aristotelian Naturalism and the Evolutionary Objection: Rethinking the Relevance of Empirical Science
Neo-Aristotelian Naturalism and the Evolutionary Objection: Rethinking the Relevance of Empirical Science Parisa Moosavi ABSTRACT. Neo-Aristotelian ethical naturalism is a modern attempt to place morality in the natural world using ideas from Aristotle’s teleological metaphysics. Proponents of this view argue that moral virtue in human beings is an instance of natural goodness, a kind of goodness supposedly also found in the realm of non-human living things. Many critics question whether neo-Aristotelian naturalism is tenable in light of modern evolutionary biology. Two influential lines of objection have appealed to an evolutionary understanding of human nature and natural teleology to argue against this view. In this paper, I offer a reconstruction of these two seemingly different lines of objection as raising instances of the same dilemma, giving neo-Aristotelians a choice between contradicting our considered moral judgment and abandoning metaethical naturalism. I argue that resolving the dilemma requires showing a particular kind of continuity between the norms of moral virtue and norms that are necessary for understanding non-human living things. I also argue that in order to show such a continuity, neo-Aristotelians need to revise the relationship they adopt with empirical science and acknowledge that the latter is relevant to assessing their central commitments regarding living things. Finally, I argue that to move this debate forward, both neo-Aristotelians and their critics should pay attention to recent work on the concept of organism in evolutionary and developmental biology. 1 Introduction As a modern attempt to give a naturalist account of ethics using ideas from Aristotle’s teleological metaphysics, neo-Aristotelian naturalism has received a lot of critical attention. -
The Influence of Benedict De Spinoza on John Locke's Political
A New Lens on Liberal Modernization: The Influence of Benedict de Spinoza on John Locke's Political Philosophy © David Manopoli HIST 4000 Professor Cash 4/25/2013 2 This essay will argue that there is an intellectual link between the philosophies of Benedict de Spinoza and John Locke. When one examines their major works and Spinoza’s letters with Henry Oldenburg, there is strong evidence that Spinoza influenced Locke. While the essay will address their epistemologies, primary emphasis will be on their political philosophies in order to address the thesis of Jonathan Israel that Spinoza’s political works had a direct influence on modern democratic institutions. By influencing Locke, and Locke in turn influencing the American Revolution, Spinoza has left a mark on American democracy, providing a new perspective on the development of political theory. A great deal of progress in Western society can be traced to the Age of Enlightenment, which has been strongly argued by many historians. Peter Gay’s work, The Enlightenment: An Interpretation, goes to great lengths to show the advances in humanities, sciences, social perspectives, and politics that were made in 18th century Europe, leading to major revolutions in North America and France. Jonathan Israel’s work on the Enlightenment is vast and defends Gay’s modernization thesis, beginning with Radical Enlightenment: Philosophy and the Making of Modernity in 2001 and followed by two more works in 2006 and 2011 which trace the origins of modern democracy to the radical strain of philosophers in the 17th and 18th centuries. However, the impact of these philosophers on political conditions both in their time and on ours has been hotly debated among Enlightenment scholars.