armstrong_spinoza beyond hobbes_natural and unnatural communities

8/2/2019 Armstrong_Spinoza Beyond Hobbes_natural and Unnatural Communities

1/28

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

This article was downloaded by: [Instituto de Investig Filosoficas]

On: 5 February 2010

Access details: Access Details: [subscription number 909150592]

Publisher Routledge

Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-

41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK

British Journal for the History of PhilosophyPublication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information:http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~content=t713694220

Natural and Unnatural Communities: Spinoza Beyond HobbesAurelia Armstrong aa University of Queensland,

To cite this Article Armstrong, Aurelia(2009) 'Natural and Unnatural Communities: Spinoza Beyond Hobbes', BritishJournal for the History of Philosophy, 17: 2, 279 305

To link to this Article: DOI: 10.1080/09608780902761687URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09608780902761687

Full terms and conditions of use: http://www.informaworld.com/terms-and-conditions-of-access.pdf

This article may be used for research, teaching and private study purposes. Any substantial orsystematic reproduction, re-distribution, re-selling, loan or sub-licensing, systematic supply ordistribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden.

The publisher does not give any warranty express or implied or make any representation that the contentswill be complete or accurate or up to date. The accuracy of any instructions, formulae and drug dosesshould be independently verified with primary sources. The publisher shall not be liable for any loss,actions, claims, proceedings, demand or costs or damages whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directlyor indirectly in connection with or arising out of the use of this material.
http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~content=t713694220http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09608780902761687http://www.informaworld.com/terms-and-conditions-of-access.pdfhttp://www.informaworld.com/terms-and-conditions-of-access.pdfhttp://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09608780902761687http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~content=t713694220


2/28

ARTICLE

NATURAL AND UNNATURAL COMMUNITIES:SPINOZA BEYOND HOBBES

Aurelia Armstrong

. . . as long as human natural right is determined by the power of each single

individual and is possessed by each alone, it is of no account and is notional

rather than factual, since there is no assurance that it can be made good.1

ORIENTATION

In Spinoza, the passage from the state of nature to civil society is not

represented in terms of a rupture or discontinuity. Socialization does not

occur, as it does in Hobbes, by virtue of the intervention of a juridical order

opposed to Nature and transcendent to the passional, conflicted field of pre-

social interests which it organizes. Thinking against the grain ofseventeenth-century rationalism Spinoza avoids presenting mans passional

nature as a difficulty to be overcome, regarding it instead as the very field of

investigation upon which ethical and political theory must by founded. This

naturalism is reflected in Spinozas deviation from Hobbesian contractar-

ianism: there is, for Spinoza, no mediation of a contract required to socialize

anti-social individuals, no total transfer of natural rights creating an

obligation imposing itself as an external norm, no obligating force of

command at the origin of social relations, and no rational break with the

passional order of Nature: in short, there is in Spinoza very little evidence ofHobbes antagonistic solution to the problem of human sociability.

This paper situates Spinozas account of the transition to civil society

within the framework of his conception of human nature and the role the

affects and imagination play in shaping individuals and social relations. For

Spinoza, this transition is a process continuous with the exercise and

collective development of natural rights or powers, including the natural

power of reason. Conceiving of civil society in this manner, Spinoza

*I wish to thank Deborah Brown for helpful comments in formulating this paper. I am alsograteful to Thomas Gibson and an anonymous reader for generous constructive criticisms.1Benedict Spinoza, Political Treatise in Spinoza: Complete Works, translated by S. Shirley

(Indianapolis/Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company, 2002) 687. Henceforth TP.

British Journal for the History of Philosophy 17(2) 2009: 279305

British Journal for the History of Philosophy

ISSN 0960-8788 print/ISSN 1469-3526 online 2009 BSHP

http://www.informaworld.com DOI: 10.1080/09608780902761687

Downl

oad

ed

By:[

Insti

tutod

e

Investi

gF

il

osofi

cas]

At:03

:225

Feb

ruary2010


3/28

by-passes the abstract question presupposed by Hobbesian contractarian-

ism, the question of how harmonious social relations are possible, leaving

instead the practical problem of how, and to what extent, the passivity,

impotence and antagonisms characteristic of life in a state of nature can be

transformed into activity, consonant with the life of reason. I argue,

however, that the utopian strand in Spinozas thought is in direct tension

with the very naturalism that sets his view apart from the contractarianism

of Hobbes, and suggest the price the view pays is that a society of rational

beings not in need of a state is, on Spinozas view, essentially unrealizable.

Hobbes and Spinoza: Power, Sociability and the

Constitution of Political Society

Hobbes and Spinoza confront the same problem in their political theory, theproblem of how to conceive of the nature and foundations of political

society. In Hobbes account the passage from the state of nature to the

social state requires the voluntary transfer of every individuals natural right

to the profit of a third party, the sovereign, which institutes the conditions of

possibility for harmonious relations between individuals or citizens. Indeed,

Hobbes argues that during the time men live without a common Power to

keep them all in awe, they are in that condition which is called Warre . . .,

and again, that men have no pleasure (but on the contrary a great deale of

griefe) in keeping company, where there is no power able to over-awe themall.2 Hobbes characterization of the nature and operation of the power

wielded by the sovereign state derives from his conception of the power of

individuals in the natural state.

In Leviathan Hobbes defines the power of a man as his present means to

obtain some future apparent good.3 By itself, however, this definition does

not suffice to explain Hobbes view of the irreducibly antagonistic character

of human relations in the state of nature, nor, therefore, the need for a

synthesis of private powers by a mediating Power. In order to arrive at his

conclusion that the pursuit by individuals of their own interests always leadsthem into conflict with others, Hobbes must add a further postulate that

because the power of one man resisteth and hindereth the effects of the power

of another: power is simply no more, but the excess of the power of one above

that of the other. For equal powers opposed, destroy one another.4

2Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, edited by C. B. Macpherson (Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1968)

185.

3Hobbes, Leviathan, 150.4Thomas Hobbes, De Cive: Philosophical Rudiments Concerning Government and Society, edited

by Bernard Gert (Indianapolis and Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company, 1928, 1991) Pt I,

ch. 8.

280 AURELIA ARMSTRONG

Downl

oad

ed

By:[

Insti

tutod

e

Investi

gF

il

osofi

cas]

At:03

:225

Feb

ruary2010


4/28

Only by gaining a margin of power over the power of others can individuals

in the state of nature guarantee their continued preservation and success and

satisfy their desires the struggle for power and for resources being the two

overriding aims of human life. In other words, the power of an individual to

obtain what he wants is effectively equivalent to his ability to master the

persons of other men.5 For this reason human life appears to Hobbes as a

perpetuall and restless desire of Power after power which gives rise at the

inter-individual level to a ceaseless competitive struggle for more power or

dominion over one another.

A number of commentators have suggested that Hobbes pessimistic

assessment of human relations in the natural state should be attributed to

the quantitative and cumulative model of power which his arguments

presuppose. Paul Patton notes, for example, that

Hobbes appears to assume a quantitative essence common to all the means by

which agents seek to attain their objectives. It is this one-dimensional conception

of power which allows him to assume that an individuals power is increased

simply by accumulating or incorporating the existing powers of others.6

That may be so, but the question remains as to why Hobbes privileges the

quantitative model over other models that do not reduce all the means of

enhancement of power to the capture and instrumental use of the power of

others. One reason for this may lie with Hobbes atomic conception of the

individual as a pre-constituted, independent and isolated individual,threatened from without by others whom it must, therefore, master if it is

not to be mastered by them. It is precisely by rejecting this conception of

human beings in the state of nature that Spinoza is able to envisage an

alternative to authoritarian models of government.

SPINOZAS REJECTION OF CONTRACTARIANISM

In Chapter sixteen of the Theological-Political Treatise, Spinoza takes upHobbes theory of the social contract in his discussion of the foundations of

5See Hobbes, Leviathan, 1845:

And from this diffidence of one another, there is no way for any man to secure himselfe,

so reasonable, as Anticipation; that is, by force, or wiles, to master the persons of all

men he can, so long, till he see no other power great enough to endanger him: And this

is no more than his own conservation requireth . . . such augmentation of dominion

over men, being necessary to a mans conservation, it ought to be allowed him.6Paul Patton, Politics and the concept of Power in Hobbes and Nietzsche, in Nietzsche,

Feminism and Political Theory, edited by Paul Patton (London and New York: Routledge,

1993) 149. See also Barry Hindess, Discourses of Power: From Hobbes to Foucault, (Oxford, UKand Cambridge, MA: Blackwell, 1996), esp. chs 1 and 2; see also C. B. Macpherson, The

Political Theory of Possessive Individualism: Hobbes to Locke (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1962),

ch. 2.

SPINOZA BEYOND HOBBES 281

Downl

oad

ed

By:[

Insti

tutod

e

Investi

gF

il

osofi

cas]

At:03

:225

Feb

ruary2010


5/28

the state. Although Spinoza describes the constitution of a sovereign power

here with reference to the contractual mechanism, as a function of a transfer of

right, he redefines the notion of right in such a way that it can no longer play

the role attributed to it by Hobbes. According to Spinoza, right must be

defined in relation to power, my natural right is determined by power alone.7

To say that I have the right to act in a certain way means that I have the desire

to act, the physical and intellectual capacities to do so, and that there are no

internal or external impediments preventing me from acting. From this

assumption of the strict identity of right and power, Spinoza concludes that a

totaltransfer of rights is quite impossible, for power (and therefore right) is not

an additional attribute or property of an individual, but is characteristic of his

or her essence or nature: natural right is primary power (potentia) and,

consequently, inalienable. It follows that [n]obody can so completely transfer

to another all his right, and consequently his power, as to cease to be a human

being, nor will there ever be a sovereign power that can do all it pleases.8

The significance of this definition of right in the context of Spinozas

challenge to Hobbes is evident from the implications of the second part of

this statement: if there can be no complete transfer of right/power, nor can

there be any such thing as absolute sovereignty, if by absolute we

understand an unlimited power in which all the power and right is on the

side of the sovereign. Human beings, Spinoza contends,

have never transferred their right and surrendered their power to another so

completely that they were not feared by those very persons who received theirright and power, and that the government has not been in greater danger from

its citizens, though deprived of their right, than from its external enemies.9

The very possibility of civil disobedience presupposes the impossibility of a

total transfer of power. What, then, could Spinoza mean by a (partial)

transfer of right or power?

Spinozas response to this question can be extracted from his discussion of

the ways in which an individual may be under the authority or power of

another. According to Spinoza, this may occur either as the result of force(One man has another in his power if he holds him in bonds, or has

deprived him of the arms and means of self-defence or escape) or through

fear and favour (or has terrorized him, or so attached the other to himself

by benefit conferred that the man would rather please his benefactor than

himself and live as the other would wish rather than at his own choosing). 10

These two modes of being under anothers authority correspond to the

7Benedict Spinoza, Theologico-Political Treatise in Spinoza: Complete Works, translated by S.

Shirley (Indianapolis/Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company, 2002) 529. Henceforth TTP.8TTP, 536.9TTP, 536.10TP, 686.


Downl

oad

ed

By:[

Insti

tutod

e

Investi

gF

il

osofi

cas]

At:03

:225

Feb

ruary2010


6/28

difference between the slave and the subject. The slave is one who has to

obey his masters commands which look only to the interests of him who

commands whereas a subject is one who, by command of the sovereign

power, acts for the common good, and therefore for his own good also.11 A

transfer of right is enacted, then, when an individual or group, either

through fear of retribution or hope of further benefits, desires to act in the

interests of another and thus puts their power at the disposal of the other.

What such a transfer signifies, however, cannot be conceived on the model of

Hobbes quantitative and possessive model of power since it involves no

alienation of power. On the contrary, Spinoza claims that an individual must,

in fact, physically retain power in order to be able to act in the interests of

another whose utilization of this power necessarily depends on the maintenance

of the desire and, thus, on the active participation of its actual possessor. Even

more importantly, because this transfer of power is motivated by fear or hope,

it cannot be irreversible: as soon as the fear and hope cease, so too does thetransfer itself When one or the other is removed, the man remains in control

of his own right.12 When Spinoza speaks of a transfer of right, then, this

cannot be understood in a juridical sense for it does not imply that transcendent

transfer which results in an irreversible obligation on the part of the transferee.

It is, rather, a process by means of which a new (and only relatively irreversible

or stable) relation of forces is established.13 It is this essentially affective and

corporeal process that Spinoza draws on in his articulation of the foundations,

constitution and effective power of the sovereign or state.

Sovereignty and the Power of the Multitude

The term contract appears only once in the Political Treatise coinciding

with Spinozas specification of the transfer of right which constitutes the

right/power of the (non-democratic) sovereign.14 According to Spinoza, the

contract results in a monarchical system of government based on a law

whereby a people (multitudo) transfers its right to one council or one

man.15

With the introduction of the concept of the multitudo in this context

11TTP, 531.12TP, 686.13See Alexandre Matheron, La Fonction The orique de la Democratie chez Spinoza et Hobbes,

Studia Spinozana 1 (1985) 25973 for a comprehensive discussion of the difference between

Hobbes and Spinoza on the notion of a transfer of right.14For discussions of these issues, see, for example, Alexandre Matheron Le proble` me de

le volution de Spinoza du Traite The ologico-Politique au Traite Politique in Spinoza: New Issues

and Directions, edited by Edwin Curley and Pierre Moreau (New York and Leiden: E. J. Brill,

1990) 25870; and Individu et Communaute chez Spinoza, (Paris: Minuit, 1988) 30730; see also,

Douglas Den Uyl Power, State and Freedom (Assen: Van Gorcum, 1983) chs 2 and 3; see alsoAntonio Negri, The Savage Anomaly: The Power of Spinozas Metaphysics and Politics, translated

by Michael Hardt, (Minneapolis and Oxford: University of Minnesota Press, 1991) 10819.15TP, 698.


Downl

oad

ed

By:[

Insti

tutod

e

Investi

gF

il

osofi

cas]

At:03

:225

Feb

ruary2010


7/28

the conceptual terrain that we have been exploring thus far is significantly

transformed. If there is a right of the multitude which it transfers, then, by

definition, there must also be a power of the multitude, its power. The

multitude must thus be regarded as denoting a complex (social) body or

unified collective entity, not merely an aggregate of distinct individual

powers. Balibar makes this point, arguing that in Spinozas work

[n]atural right is now, for the first time, thought explicitly as the power of the

mass (potentia multitudinis), hence as the right of number (since

juspotentia), not, of course, in the sense of an arithmetic sum but in the

sense of a combination, or rather, an interaction of forces.16

It should be clear that Spinozas social contract is not the Hobbesian one for

there is already a kind of sovereign power determined by the power of the

people that is guided as though by a single mind.17 An important implicationof this is that the power that defines the right of government cannot be

considered, in a straightforward sense, its own power (potestas) which could,

as such, be located outside of any particular empirical configurations and

relations of force. Rather, this power must actually be conceived as an

element of the power of the people as a whole, of the multitude that is guided

as though by a single mind; the power of the government is a function of the

power of the multitude itself. Thus, for Spinoza, the political problem does

not reduce, as it does in Hobbes, to two terms individuals and the state

and the relations between them. Rather, Spinoza considers individuals andthe state as abstractions, which can only be adequately apprehended when

related through the multitude which includes them both.

Spinozas challenge to Hobbes juridical view is thus posed through the

development of two interrelated demonstrative chains, one detailing the

passage from individuality to community (the production of sociability),

and the other concerned with the genesis of sovereignty and the state. Both

proceed from the same general concern; namely, from his desire to derive

from Nature itself, and from the general nature or position of mankind, the

conditions for the growth of reason and of freedom, the conditions, in otherwords, for the development of the powers of individuals.18 In order to

explore the contours of this development in Spinozas thought, we need,

16Etienne Balibar, Spinoza, the Anti-Orwell: The Fear of the Masses, in Masses, Classes,

Ideas: Studies on Politics and Philosophy Before and After Marx, translated by James Swenson

(New York and London: Routledge, 1985) 15.17TP, 692. See also TP, 687: This right, which is defined by the power of a people [potentia

multitudinis], is usually called sovereignty [imperium].18As Spinoza explains in the TP, 682:

since all men everywhere, whether barbarian or civilized, enter into relationships withone another and set up some kind of civil order, one should not look for the causes

and natural foundations of the state in the teachings of reason, but deduce them from

the nature and conditions of men in general.


Downl

oad

ed

By:[

Insti

tutod

e

Investi

gF

il

osofi

cas]

At:03

:225

Feb

ruary2010


8/28

first, to reconsider his claim that the construction of sociability does not

require a voluntaristic break with nature. How is this unified collective

power the multitude actually produced? How is the transition from the

state of nature to the civil state possible without the intervention of a

transcendent organizing power?

Unsociable Sociability: The Constitution of the Multitude

Spinozas first answer to these last questions is found in the following

remark:

Since men, as we have said, are led more by passion than by reason, it

naturally follows that a people will unite and consent to be guided as if by one

mind not at reasons prompting but through some common emotion, such

as . . . a common hope, or common fear, or desire to avenge some common

injury. Now since fear of isolation is innate in all men inasmuch as in isolation

no one has the strength to defend himself and acquire the necessities of life, it

follows that men by nature strive for a civil order, and it is impossible that men

should ever utterly dissolve this order.19

The first point to note here is that the type of sociability that defines the

multitude does not have its sources in reason, but predominantly in the

passions. What binds individuals together in the multitude is a commonhope, or common fear, or desire to avenge some common injury, in other

words, some common passion. In an extremely condensed formulation,

Spinoza links the universality of the fear of solitude to the claim that men

by nature strive for a civil order and can never utterly dissolve this order.

In making this move from the experience of a common fear to the

irreducibility of the civil state Spinoza seems to be indicating contra

Hobbes the possibility of providing a positive argument for the

redundancy of a contract or artificial convention in order to take

individuals from the state of nature into the civil state. Passions arepresented here as having a directly socializing function. In fact, they are

cited as the primary cause of the constitution of the multitude. To

understand how the passions can play this unifying role in forming the

network of individual powers that defines the multitude, it is necessary to

turn to the third part of the Ethics where the passions are treated, not only

as sources of unsociability and antagonism, but at the same time of

community and sociability. Once again, a preliminary contrast with Hobbes

serves as an instructive point of departure.

Through the concept of a state of nature, Hobbes illuminates his

vision of life lived without those normative constraints and institutional

19TP, 7001.


Downl

oad

ed

By:[

Insti

tutod

e

Investi

gF

il

osofi

cas]

At:03

:225

Feb

ruary2010


9/28

frameworks that, in the social state, counteract the essentially divisive

passions of men. For Hobbes, the idea of a common passion understood as

a form of social bond, as something that unites individuals, is hardly

imaginable. Thus, although fear afflicts everyone in Hobbes state of nature,

it cannot really be regarded as a shared or common passion. Rather, fear is

the motive that prompts each individual, separately, to enter into a covenant

to relinquish their right to act as private persons.

Spinoza, on the other hand, eschews the atomistic individualism that

informs Hobbes views and, thus, escapes his pessimistic conclusions about

inter-individual relations. His ability to do so can be seen to derive, in part,

from his elaboration of a mechanism of passional life which he calls

affective imitation (affectuum imitatio). The theme of affective imitation is

introduced in EIII to account for the way in which resemblances that

individuals perceive between themselves and others form the basis of

imaginary identifications. These identifications provide the basis for variouskinds of common collective affection. In EIIIP27, Spinoza claims that:

P27: If we imagine a thing like us, toward which we have had no affect, to be

affected with some affect, we are thereby affected with a like affect.

Dem: the images of things are affections of the human body whose ideas

represent external bodies as present to us (by IIP17S), that is (by IIP16), whose

ideas involve the nature of our body and at the same time the present nature of

the external body. So if the nature of the external body is like the nature of ourbody, then the idea of the external body we imagine will involve an affection of

our body like the affection of the external body. Consequently, if we imagine

someone like us to be affected with some affect, this imagination will express

an affection of our body like this affect. And so, from the fact that we imagine

a thing like us to be affected with an affect, we are affected with a like affect.

But if we hate a thing like us, then (by P23) we shall be affected with an affect

contrary to its affect, not like it, q.e.d.

Schol.: This imitation of the affects, when it is related to sadness is called pity

(on which, see P22S); but related to desire it is called emulation, which,therefore, is nothing but the desire for a thing which is generated in us from the

fact that we imagine others like us to have the same desire.20

Affective imitation is an inevitable consequence of Spinozas metaphysics in

which there is just one substance and the human mind is the idea of the

body. Since bodily affections are physical changes wrought by the impact of

20Benedict Spinoza, Ethics in The Collected Works of Spinoza, translated by E. Curley

(Princeton NJ.: Princeton University Press, 1985) Pt III, Proposition 27. When referring to theEthics I will use the standard abbreviations in the main text: a Roman numeral to refer to the

part, D for Definition, A for Axiom, P plus an Arabic numeral for a proposition, Cor

for Corollary, Dem for Demonstration, S for Scholium.


Downl

oad

ed

By:[

Insti

tutod

e

Investi

gF

il

osofi

cas]

At:03

:225

Feb

ruary2010


10/28

other bodies, the minds initial ideas of its bodys states include awareness of

these affecting bodies (by EIIP16). For Spinoza, then, the minds initial

ideas or imaginings are not a reflection ofthe bodys affections, but are these

affections under the attribute of thought and, consequently, it is our whole

psychophysical state which is modified as we interact with external bodies.

Thus, we cannot but affectively imitate others because to be affected by the

affects of others with whom we identify just is to express a certain state of

our body and mind like that of the affecting individual.

All affects, moreover, bear some relationship to power, both individual

and communal. To experience an affect is to experience either an increase or

diminution of ones power.21 Because sadness is a restraint and diminution

of my power of acting, it gives birth to hatred towards its imagined causes

and to a desire to destroy these causes. If, on the other hand, the other with

whom I identify is affected with joy, I will be similarly affected, with joy and

love for the sources of this joy and an increase in my power of acting.Common collective affections are born from the production and reinforce-

ment of affects and desires through the imitation of those of others. Because

I am directly affected by what affects the other, the others interests and

desires cannot be strictly separated from my own. The dynamic of affective

imitation gives rise in me to a desire to do that which I imagine pleases

others and to refrain from doing that which I imagine is displeasing to them.

In this way I enhance my own joy or power of action and at the same time

that of the other. Commenting on the connection between self-affirmation

and affirmation of the other22

and the interest that individuals have inpromoting agreements with others with reference to the workings of self-

esteem Spinoza explains that if someone has done something which he

imagines affects others with joy, he will be affected with joy accompanied by

the idea of himself as cause, or he will regard himself with joy (EIIIP30).23

To rejoice in the joy which I believe I have procured for others, then,

amounts to the same thing as loving myself through the mediation of the

love they bear me. In other words, what I seek in the striving to bring joy to

others is approbation, or the joy of having merited their praises. In short,

my effort to please others is determined by my desire to reproduce my ownself-love which is glory.

21Spinoza acknowledges only three primary affects: desire, joy and sadness, which are defined at

EIIIP9S and EPIIIP11S.22Here we can see Spinoza effectively unsettling the distinction between egoism and altruism as

fixed alternatives. For a discussion of this aspect of Spinozas thought see Genevieve Lloyd,

Spinoza and the Ethics (London and New York: Routledge, 1996) 747. Also relevant here is

Michael Colliers claim that if Spinozas individual is understood as inclusive of its relations, it

ceases to be possible to maintain a clear distinction between self-interest and the interests of

others (Michael Collier, The Materiality of Morals: Mind body and interests in SpinozasEthics, Studia Spinozana, 7 (1991) 285308).23See also EIIIP34: The greater the affect with which we imagine a thing we love to be affected

toward us, the more we shall exult at being esteemed . . ..


Downl

oad

ed

By:[

Insti

tutod

e

Investi

gF

il

osofi

cas]

At:03

:225

Feb

ruary2010


11/28

According to Spinoza, this striving for glory is really ambition and it is

the foundation of both sociability and unsociability. Spinoza defines

ambition as the effort to bring it about that everyone should approve his

love and hate (EIIIP31S).24 Because our loves and our hates (our values of

good and bad) are to a large extent constituted through a process of

affective imitation being reinforced, modified or counteracted by the

opinion (the loves and the hates) of others it is possible to envisage a

gradual convergence of individual appetites, desires, opinions and values,

and the construction of common goods, starting from a range of individual

appetites and strivings.25 In the course of his analysis of the socialization of

the passions, however, Spinoza draws attention to certain causes of discord

that permanently menace the production and the stability of such passional

agreements. These causes of hatred are fundamentally differences in the way

in which individuals imagine the objects they all desire. The particular

example Spinoza offers in this context is that of jealousy where we imaginethat someone enjoys some thing that only one can possess (EIIIP32).

Drawing once again on the logic of affective imitation, Spinoza describes

how the others enjoyment of something leads us to love that thing and to

desire to enjoy it, but that when we imagine his enjoyment of this thing as

an obstacle to our own joy [we] strive to bring it about that he does not

possess it. This conflict of desires which arises when the loved object is

imagined to admit of possession by only one person transforms ambition for

glory into ambition for domination, and gives rise to a paralysing vacillation

of mind for each individual: I want the other to live after my owntemperament, to approve what I approve, to love what I love, but at the

same time I envy her her joy in the loved thing in so far as I imagine it to

exclude my own, and so wish to deprive her of it. I do not, however, want to

deprive her of the joy that the mutually desired object procures for her, for

her joy encourages my own. It is this ambivalence in my relation to the other

which is the source of my vacillation of mind.26

How might this conflict of desires be resolved and my vacillation of mind

counteracted? Perhaps it could be resolved if I were to succeed in making the

other submit to my own value system, that is, if I were to succeed inredefining her relation to the goods we both desire in such a manner that the

(new) relation would no longer pose a threat to my continued enjoyment of

these goods. This might involve, for instance, directing attention to general

24See also EIIIP29S where Spinoza defines ambition as the striving to do something (and also

to omit from doing something) solely to please men.25As Spinoza argues we judge something to be good because we strive for it, will it, want it, and

desire it (EIIIP9S) See Lloyd, Spinoza and the Ethics, 74.26See also EIVP37S1:

He who strives, only because of an affect, that others should love what he loves, andlive according to his temperament, acts only from impulse and is hateful especially to

those to whom other things are pleasing, and who also, therefore, strive eagerly, from

the same impulse, to have other men live according to their own temperament.


Downl

oad

ed

By:[

Insti

tutod

e

Investi

gF

il

osofi

cas]

At:03

:225

Feb

ruary2010


12/28

(or common) properties of the loved thing, to those properties which could

be appreciated by others without challenging my own possession of the

object. To imagine such a course is illuminating because it demonstrates

something important about Spinozas analysis of the different forms of

ambition. Although the attempt to redefine the others relation to a common

object of desire involves a (tyrannical) imposition of my loves and hates, it

nevertheless proceeds from a desire to please and to be approved of by

others, a desire which, under these conditions, can only be expressed in the

effort to constrain the other to adopt my system of values.27 Thus, it appears

that the same mechanism of affective imitation which assures sociability

simultaneously engenders unsociability. These two groups of inter-individual

passions, pity and ambition for glory, and envy and ambition to dominate,

must, therefore, be regarded as forming a single network.28

This interweaving of sociable and unsociable passions in the state of

nature results in a general state of fear and uncertainty: When all alike wantthis (others to live according to their own temperament), they are alike an

obstacle to one another, and when all wish to be praised, or loved, by all,

they hate one another (EIIIP31S). It is this fear that Spinoza points to as

the source of the transition to civil society. By utilizing the principle of

affective imitation which shows how fear can become a common collective

affection, Spinoza is able to develop an analysis of this transition as a purely

natural process whose constitutive force derives, not simply from individual

calculations of self-interest, but from the immanent and dynamic interplay

of sociable and unsociable passions in the state of nature.As Matheron has argued, Spinoza generally invokes the idea of

indignation when explaining the causes of the dissolution of the state. In

Chapter IV of the Political Treatise, for example, Spinoza argues that the

commonwealths power to preserve itself depends on its maintenance of the

causes of fear and reverence in the multitude: failing to foster these causes by

proceeding to to slaughter subjects, to despoil them, to ravish maidens and

the like turns fear into indignation, and consequently the civil order into a

condition of war.29 Matheron argues that in this explication of the causes of

revolution, Spinoza relies crucially on the notion of indignation or hatetowards someone who has done evil to another (EIIIDAffXX and

EIIIP27C1). If each individual, in isolation, feared the tyrant without

thinking of the harm done to others, there would be no danger of

revolution; but since, on Spinozas view, individuals are immediately

affected by the affects of others, the harm done to particular individuals by

the tyrant will tend to provoke indignation in others who identify with them,

27See EIIIP32S: We see, then, that from the same property of human nature from which it

follows that men are compassionate, it also follows that the same men are envious and

ambitious.28This is one of Matherons principal theses in Individu et Communaute chez Spinoza. See, for

example, 172.29TP, 697.


Downl

oad

ed

By:[

Insti

tutod

e

Investi

gF

il

osofi

cas]

At:03

:225

Feb

ruary2010


13/28

thus engendering a collective hatred, and potential revolution against the

perpetrators of violence.30

Matheron claims that precisely the same logic can be used to explain the

causes of the production of the state indignation engenders the state in

exactly the same way that it causes revolutions.31 What we need to do in

order to comprehend this, he suggests, is

to replace the initial solitude of each in the face of the tyrant by the solitude of

the state of nature, the tyrant by the ensemble of individuals as aggressors, and

the subjects by the ensemble of all individuals considered as victims.32

Thus, in the natural state, acts of aggression towards individuals engender

indignation in others who identify with them, prompting them to come to

their aid against the aggressors, and thereby bringing them into conflict with

these aggressors. Others, who identify with the (now aggrieved) aggressors,come to their aid, and this process is repeated numerous times resulting,

eventually, in the production of a consensual and collective imagination and

determination of a common good (and bad) expressed in the form of

shared customs, attitudes, beliefs and values which acts to promote

sociable behaviour and discourage unsociable behaviour; that is,

individuals, whether from fear of eliciting the disapprobation of the

multitude (from ambition for glory) or from the motive of utility (from

reason) or, rather, from a mixture of the two would be disinclined to

behave in a way that might risk provoking the counter-action of the (morepowerful) majority. On this account, sociability appears as the combined

effect of the rational rule of reciprocal utility and of the unstable passional

bonds arising from our imaginary relations to others.

To the extent that the behaviour of individuals is effectively regulated by

these common norms norms which are sustained by the collective power of

the multitude or the combined powers of all individuals the multitude

exists as a (democratic) imperium, and holds sovereignty, albeit in an

informal way.33 We can understand, then, Spinozas claim that what

distinguishes the civil from the natural state is not, as in Hobbes, thecessation of natural rights in the former, for in a state of Nature and in a

30See Etienne Balibar, Spinoza et la politique (Paris: PUF, 1985) 102 on hate as a (contradictory)

social bond.31Matheron, Le proble` me de le volution de Spinoza du Traite The ologico-Politique au Traite

Politique, 264. My translation.32Matheron, ibid, 264. My translation.33See TP, 687: This right, which is defined by the power of a people, is usually called

sovereignty. Shirley renders multitudo as people on the grounds that, in English, the term

multitude has somewhat pejorative connotations. This seems to me questionable. In any case, Irender multitudo as multitude in line with the practice adopted by a number of recent

European commentators. As I see it, the advantage of the term multitude is that it carries less

conceptual baggage than terms such as the people or the masses.


Downl

oad

ed

By:[

Insti

tutod

e

Investi

gF

il

osofi

cas]

At:03

:225

Feb

ruary2010


14/28

civil order alike man acts from the laws of his own nature and has regard for

his own advantage. Rather, the main difference between the two conditions

is this, that in the civil order all men fear the same things, and all have the

same ground of security, the same way of life.34

The Imaginary Foundations of the State

In his hypothetical recreation of the foundations of the Hebrew theocracy,

Spinoza outlines the relation between society and the state. In this account

of the genesis of the states legislative power and juridical functions he again

emphasizes the foundational role played by the affects and imagination.

In the Theological-Political Treatise Spinoza describes how the Jews, after

their liberation from bondage under the Egyptians, find themselves bound

by no laws and by the right of no other nation. However, although they arewithout laws and state, the Jews are nevertheless connected to one another

through their common collective hatred (for their oppressors) and love

toward their imagined liberator whom they, in their ignorance of natural

causes, call God. Imagining their liberation to be the result of Gods

providential intervention on their behalf, the Hebrews agree to make a

covenant with him and [w]ithout much hesitation they all promised, equally

and with one voice, to obey God absolutely in all his commands.35 Spinoza

suggests that this theocratic covenant amounts to the institution of a

democratic form of political organization since, in fact, the Hebrews retainsovereignty: all had an equal right to consult God, to receive and interpret

his laws; in short, they all shared equally in the government of the state. 36

As a people grown accustomed to slavery, however, the Jews do not at this

stage have the capacities necessary to enable them to frame a wise code of

laws and to keep the sovereign power vested in their own hands. Their fear

of approaching God directly prompts them to make a second covenant

with Moses, abrogating the first one by transferring their right to interpret

Gods decrees to Moses. With the assumption of sovereignty by Moses the

form of government becomes effectively monarchical.For our purposes, the importance of this account of the foundations of

the Hebrew theocracy lies in Spinozas analysis of the interdependence of

the two founding covenants. The first covenant with God can be understood

as the imaginary institution of democracy through the imaginary displace-

ment of the Hebrews collective sovereignty; but precisely because of its

imaginary quality because what is instituted in this way is still only the

formal idea of the law rather than a system of binding rules for conduct

this original political organization is entirely unsustainable: it can only be

34TP, 690.35TTP, 539.36TTP, 540.


Downl

oad

ed

By:[

Insti

tutod

e

Investi

gF

il

osofi

cas]

At:03

:225

Feb

ruary2010


15/28

made viable and stable through the effective legislation of Moses. By the

same token, however, the establishment of a quasi-monarchy under Moses

rule is only possible on the basis of the prior covenant with God. In the

imagination of the Hebrews, Moses reoccupies the place of God that was

created through the initial displacement or projection of their collective

power. In other words, Moses authority over the Hebrew nation derives

from his (perceived) position as the sole rightful interpreter and

promulgator of the divine law from the fact that he is thought to be the

mediator of Gods commands to the people. Here Spinoza presents

sovereignty and the state as products of the collective, religious imagination

of the Jewish multitude; that is, as engendered from within the imaginary

processes operating in the state of nature itself.

What is particularly significant in Spinozas account of this process of

production is his view of the double foundation of the law and the state.

Although the genesis of state and law is explicable as an entirely naturalprocess whose constitutive force derives from the desire of the multitude to

preserve itself, Spinoza shows how the power of the state to elicit obedience

to laws can also be ascribed to the manner in which the imagination tends to

produce fictions like the fiction of a God-King as the ruler of nature in

order to explain natural events in the absence of an adequate understanding

of their true causes. On the issue of the efficacy of the imagination in

founding the rule of law, Balibar makes the following suggestion. He

explains that Spinoza

refers the institution of the [sovereign as a third party] to the effect of

transcendence implied in religious representations, or to the form of subjection

that these representations introduce into history, without making history the

contrary of nature, since the religious imagination is a totally natural power.37

Thus, it is not divine right that is the actual source of Moses authority; state

and law do not actually have a transcendent or supernatural origin. Rather,

on Spinozas account, it is the power of the imagination of the Hebrew

multitude that institutes the authority of the state and its effective power byrepresenting the law as the decree of a transcendent power. In other words,

political authority is an effect produced and maintained within the religious

imagination of the multitude. What actually organizes collective power is

the constitutive power of the collective imagination. What founds the

authority of the civil law is the illusion of the laws transcendence. With this

analysis of the natural causes of the institution and functioning of the state,

Spinoza completely demystifies the relation between society and state. In an

inversion of Hobbes position, he presents the state as a stabilizing and

structuring power produced from within the play of power relations

37Etienne Balibar, (1985) Jus Pactum Lex: Sur la constitution du sujet dans le Traite

Theologico-politique, in Studia Spinozana 1 (1985) 129. My translation.


Downl

oad

ed

By:[

Insti

tutod

e

Investi

gF

il

osofi

cas]

At:03

:225

Feb

ruary2010


16/28

operative in society. This has important implications, particularly as regards

Spinozas view of the extent and limits of state power.

THE LIMITS OF THE STATE: FREEDOM

OF THOUGHT AND SPEECH

When characterized in this way state power appears to have an inbuilt limit.

Because Spinoza does not define the state in terms of its legitimacy so that

obedience to the law is not construed as a function of obligation, as a duty

to obey the only possible test of the validity of a law must reside in its

being actually regulative of behaviour. Since, for Spinoza, individuals retain

their natural rights within the state and therefore continue to act in

accordance with that which they perceive to be useful to them, they cannot

be made to obey a law that they do not perceive to agree with or to furthertheir interests. It would, Spinoza argues,

be vain to command a subject to hate one to whom he is in indebted for some

service, to love one who has done him harm, to refrain from taking offence at

insults, from wanting to be free from fear, or from numerous similar things

that necessarily follow from the laws of human nature.38

To put this point slightly differently, because Spinoza conceives of the state

as a power to govern (potestas) that operates within the immanent horizonof (power) relations which it regulates, it must itself be regarded as

dependent for both its existence and its continued efficacy on the

preservation of the (combined) power (potentia) of individuals. A state

which tyrannizes Spinoza mentions particularly the outlawing of freedom

of thought and speech, intolerance of religious diversity, and the attempt to

control everything by laws menaces that minimum of individual power

which is the active, constitutive element of its own power and thereby

threatens its own existence.39 The danger courted by a state which

suppresses individual liberty is only conceivable, however, on the basis ofSpinozas presentation of the multitude as an interaction of the powers of

state and individuals, governors and governed alike. Since the state is not a

power that transcends civil society, the violence exercised against individuals

must necessarily return against the state itself, for such violence inflames the

38TTP, 536.39See, for example, TTP, 56970 (emphasis added):

Granted that human nature is thus constituted, it follows that laws enacted against

mens beliefs are directed not against villains but against men of good character, and

their purpose is to provoke honourable men rather than to restrain the wicked. Norcan they be enforced without great danger to the state . Furthermore, such laws are quite

ineffective; for those who are convinced of the validity of beliefs that are condemned

by law will not be able to obey the law . . . .


Downl

oad

ed

By:[

Insti

tutod

e

Investi

gF

il

osofi

cas]

At:03

:225

Feb

ruary2010


17/28

hostile, antagonistic passions of the social body and thus turns the multitude

into a potent revolutionary and ungovernable force. There are, Spinoza

declares,

certain conditions that, if operative, entail that subjects will respect and feartheir commonwealth, while the absence of these conditions entails the

annulment of that fear and respect and together with this, the destruction of

the commonwealth.40

Spinoza cannot, therefore, be regarded as an advocate of a right of the

strongest or might right theory of state power. On the contrary, as Gail

Belaief notes, while in Hobbes view there is no distinction between force

and power with respect to the sovereign; in Spinozas view force must be

guided by reason if it is to become power.41 For Spinoza, a state which

relies on mere force acts contrarily to reason, but only in the sense thatreason dictates the avoidance of actions that lead to the weakening or

destruction of a bodys power.42 Clearly, on Spinozas account, the

tyrannical exercise of state power does in fact threaten the state since it

risks provoking the counter violence of the multitude.43 Against a

Hobbesian conception of state power which makes it inseparable from

domination albeit legitimate domination Spinoza argues that although

power may historically have taken the form of domination, this is not at all

essential and, furthermore, that societies based on a power of this kind are

destabilized by their own principle.I suggested above that Spinozas arguments against tyranny relied on

showing the contradiction involved in the attempt to reduce the powers of

individuals to that point at which they would cease to be a potential source

of resistance to state power. As a positive counterpart to the claim that the

state cannot completely absorb the individuality of its members, Spinoza

asserts that the power of individuals as it is exercised in free thought and free

expression of opinion not only . . . can be granted without detriment to

public peace, to piety, and to the right of the sovereign, but also that it must

be granted if these are to be preserved.44

Here we see the consistentapplication and development of the principle that underpinned Spinozas

criticisms of tyrannical governments. If the combined power or potentia of

40TP, 697.41Gail Belaief, Spinozas Philosophy of Law (The Hague: Mouton, 1971) 52.42See, for example, TP, 697:

a commonwealth does wrong when it does, or suffers to be done, things that can cause

its own downfall; and we then say that it does wrong in the sense in which

philosophers or doctors say that Nature does wrong, and it is in this sense we can say

that a commonwealth does wrong when it does something contrary to the dictates ofreason.

43TTP, 536.44TTP, 572.


Downl

oad

ed

By:[

Insti

tutod

e

Investi

gF

il

osofi

cas]

At:03

:225

Feb

ruary2010


18/28

individuals is the real constitutive force of the sovereigns right that is, of

the sovereigns power to govern it cannot be threatened without at the

same time giving rise to revolutionary sentiments which threaten to dissolve

the state itself. By the same token, Spinoza argues that in order to conserve

itself the state must not only preserve the powers of those subject to it, but

must also permit the free expression and development of these powers.

The implications of this claim are, I believe, poorly grasped when

interpreted simply in terms of what it is physically impossible for the state to

constrain beyond a certain point. What Spinoza proposes here is a related

but stronger claim; namely, that the concession to individuals of a maximal

liberty of thought and opinion is a necessary condition for both the

continued authority of the state and for the stability of the commonwealth

as a whole. Spinoza develops the connection between this liberty and the

conservation and power of the state in the following terms:

Therefore, if honesty is to be prized rather than obsequiousness, and if

sovereigns are to retain full control and not be forced to surrender to agitators,

it is imperative to grant freedom of judgment and to govern men in such a way

that the different and conflicting views they openly proclaim do not debar

them from living together in peace. This system of government is undoubtedly

the best and its disadvantages are fewer because it is in closest accord with

human nature. For we have shown that in a democracy (which comes closest

to the natural state) all the citizens undertake to act, but not to reason and

judge, by decision made in common. That is to say, since all men cannot thinkalike, they agree that a proposal supported by a majority of votes shall have

the force of a decree, meanwhile retaining the authority to repeal the same

when they see a better alternative. Thus the less freedom of judgment is

conceded to men, the further their distance from the most natural state, and

consequently the more oppressive the regime.45

In this passage Spinoza makes an implicit distinction between the authority

of government and the capacity of a government to retain a firm hold on

authority, between the right/power to govern and the best form ofgovernment. It is one thing, Spinoza writes in the Political Treatise, to

rule and take charge of public affairs by right, another thing to rule in the

best way and to direct public affairs in the best way.46 This distinction is

linked here to the different modalities of desire that dispose individuals to

obedience. While the right of the state is simply its actual power to preserve

itself in particular its capacity to maintain obedience to the laws of the

commonwealth Spinoza suggests that the most powerful or absolute state

is one that is supported not merely by formal assent but by the conviction

45TTP, 5701.46TP, 699.


Downl

oad

ed

By:[

Insti

tutod

e

Investi

gF

il

osofi

cas]

At:03

:225

Feb

ruary2010


19/28

of those under its authority, for he who wholeheartedly resolves to obey

another in all his commands is fully under anothers dominion.47

The importance accorded by Spinoza to the motives for obedience to the law

is linked to his observation that a state is always in greater danger from its own

citizens than from external enemies.48 In Spinozas view a state comes closest to

being absolute when it is most fully in possession of its right. Thus, the most

absolute state is the least internally divided one, the state least vulnerable to

contestation of its authority and to the conflicts and seditions that threaten the

unity and, therefore, the very form of existence of the social body. The more

cause a state has to fear the multitude, the less absolute it is.49 In other words, a

state comes closest to being absolute when it is most fully sustained by the active

participation or conviction of the individuals whose combined powers

constitute its own power. Spinoza posits a direct connection between the

encouragement of a mode of obedience that has the character of conviction and

the granting by governments of the freedom of thought and speech. He insists,furthermore, that it is only when this freedom is granted that harmonious living

is possible; that is, that the peace and unity necessary to the preservation and

stability of the commonwealth can be assured. Certainly, Spinoza thinks that if

this freedom is curtailed, then the power of the state is reduced; tyrannical

governments, he says quoting Seneca, can never last long.50

To make the connection somewhat clearer between freedom of thought

and speech and the sovereignty of the state, it might be useful to recall that,

for Spinoza, sovereignty is a collective production, a dynamic constitutive

process entailing the continuous transfer of individual powers to the publicpower. The motor force in both the formation and preservation of state

power and authority is, therefore, the (combined) powers of individuals in

so far as this power is determined as desire for this authority.51

Consequently, the relations of force that characterize the existence of any

particular political association can only be relatively stable since they subsist

only so long as the desires that sustain them are also maintained. From the

observation that the desires of individuals are the actual source of the

continued authority of the state, Spinoza draws a further consequence;

namely, that the different modalities of desire from which states draw theirforce make a difference to the quality of the power of the states themselves.

A state that elicits the obedience of citizens by relying predominantly on

desires born of passions fear of punishment for infringing the law and

hope of rewards for obeying it cannot be said to be actively, but only to be

passively sustained by the citizens. To act at the bidding of an external

authority in this way is to be more passive than active. Indeed, it is not to act

47TTP, 537.48TP, 702.

49See TP, 725.50TTP, 530.51Spinoza defines desire as the very essence of man, insofar as it is determined, from any given

affection of it, to do something (EIIIDAff.III).


Downl

oad

ed

By:[

Insti

tutod

e

Investi

gF

il

osofi

cas]

At:03

:225

Feb

ruary2010


20/28

so much as to be acted upon.52 A commonwealth in which subjects are

constrained by mere force and which thus relies mainly on the passivity of

these subjects differs but little from a state of nature.53 Under such

conditions, the relations between rulers and ruled are governed by reciprocal

fear and, thus, marked by a fundamental instability. Spinoza contends that

For as long as men act only from fear, they are doing what they are most

opposed to doing, taking no account of the usefulness and the necessity of the

action to be done, concerned only not to incur capital or other punishment.

Indeed, they inevitably rejoice at misfortune or injury to their ruler even when

this involves their own considerable misfortune, and they wish every ill on him,

and bring this about when they can.54

For Spinoza, political associations of this kind are little more than

gatherings of slaves. What they especially lack is that quality of peacewhich is the real content of a commonwealths security and the true aim of

the state. In Spinozas words:

A commonwealth whose subjects are deterred from taking up arms only

through fear should be said to be not at war rather than to be enjoying peace.

For peace is not just the absence of war, but a virtue which comes from

strength of mind; for obedience (Section 19, Chapter 2) is the steadfast will to

carry out orders enjoined by the general decree of the commonwealth.

Anyway, a commonwealth whose peace depends on the sluggish spirit of itssubjects who are led like sheep to learn simply to be slaves can more properly

be called a desert than a commonwealth.55

Genuine peace, Spinoza adds further on in the Political Treatise, consists in

the union or harmony of minds.56 While the attainment of such peace is

impossible without the elimination of violence, it is not merely freedom from

fear and violence; rather, peace of this kind is founded on the virtue, power

and reason of citizens.57 It is established only when citizens actively obey the

common laws by virtue of a steadfast will to carry out orders enjoined bythe general decree of the commonwealth. This practice of obedience is a

52On this issue, see Moira Gatens, Imaginary Bodies: Ethics, Power and Corporeality, (London

and New York: Routledge, 1996) 116.53TP, 699.54TTP, 438.55TP, 699.56TP, 701.57See EIVD8:

By virtue and power I understand the same thing, that is (byIIIP7), virtue, insofar as itis related to man, is the very essence or nature, of man, insofar as he has the power of

bringing about certain things, which can be understood through the laws of his nature

alone.


Downl

oad

ed

By:[

Insti

tutod

e

Investi

gF

il

osofi

cas]

At:03

:225

Feb

ruary2010


21/28

mode of life and type of sociability characterized by a union or harmony of

minds. The connection between the enhancement of the powers of citizens

and the degree of unity and harmony of the social body which together

determine the quality of peace enjoyed by a commonwealth is clarified in

the detail of Spinozas defence of freedom of thought and speech.

Spinoza argues that the state must allow free expression of the diversity of

individual opinions and the free communication of these opinions while at the

same time restricting actions which abrogate the laws which sustain the

common life. In this context, the prohibition against certain actions appears as

a positive rule for the preservation of the powers of citizens since it is the means

by which encounters are organized so that individuals are less at risk of being

acted on purely fortuitously and, therefore, have greater scope for increasing

their own powers. The permissive attitude towards the freedom of thought and

opinion is an extension of this organization of collective power in the sense that

it opens up a space in which individuals are able actively to develop their ownpowers of thinking and understanding through the spread and debate of ideas.

The principal benefit to the state of the free expression and communica-

tion of opinions is that it facilitates the growth of reason which would

enable individuals to understand how the laws, as conditions of communal

life, relate to their own striving for self-preservation. A political association

which promoted such understanding would thereby increase the chances of

rational decision-making processes within the commonwealth. Obedience to

the law which flows from an understanding of the necessity of the laws

and the state would be action in the strong sense, since an individual whoacts on the basis of such understanding (of necessity) is determined more by

his or her own power than by the power of external causes. When

individuals act in this way their behaviour is said to accord with the dictate

of reason, that is, action which follows from the foundation of seeking their

own advantage.58 As Spinoza explains in the Ethics:

a man who is guided by reason is not led to obey by fear, but insofar as he

strives to preserve his being from the dictate of reason, that is, insofar as he

strives to live freely, desires to maintain the principle of common life and

common advantage.

Consequently, he desires to live according to the common decision of the state.

Therefore, a man who is guided by reason desires, in order to live more freely,

to keep the common laws of the state.

(EIVP73Dem.)59

58See EIVP24Dem:

Acting absolutely from virtue is nothing but acting from the laws of our own nature (by

D8). But we act only insofar as we understand (by IIIP3). Therefore, acting from virtue isnothing else in us but acting, living, and preserving ones being by the guidance of reason,

and doing this (by P22C) from the foundation of seeking ones own advantage.59See also TTP, 428.


Downl

oad

ed

By:[

Insti

tutod

e

Investi

gF

il

osofi

cas]

At:03

:225

Feb

ruary2010


22/28

It is clear from the preceding discussion that Spinoza does not oppose the

strengthening of individual power and the increase of the power of the state.

To be subject to the authority of the state does not in itself make a free

individual into a slave since, on Spinozas view, being dependent on the

power of the state can be a means to increase ones own capacity to act, that

is, ones freedom. Spinoza is very careful not to confuse the independence

enjoyed by the free or rational individual with the independence attached to

the state of solitude. An individual, Spinoza claims, who is guided by reason

is more free in a state, where he lives according to a common decision, than in

solitude, where he obeys only himself (EIVP73). By the same token, the right

of the supreme authority can be seen to increase in direct proportion to the

development of the power and reason of individuals, since when individuals

live under the guidance of reason they more freely and constantly keep the

laws of the state because they understand these laws as conditions for the

maintenance of a common life and, therefore, as conditions for the pursuit oftheir own advantage. In short, Spinoza presents the increase of state power

and the increase of individual powers as fundamentally interrelated and

mutually interdependent processes.

It is not surprising that, when confronted with this affirmation of the

interdependence of the authority (and absoluteness) of the state and the

autonomy of individuals, a great many, especially liberal, commentators

have accused Spinoza of serious confusion and inconsistency. Lewis Feuer,

for one, concludes that Spinozas political thinking must be regarded as

divided against itself in respect of this problem.60

Etienne Balibardiagnoses the problem here as an inability to grasp an alternative that

practically escapes the basic antinomies of metaphysics and ethics which

arise from ontological dualism.61 According to Balibar, Spinoza argues

(against individualism) that the autonomy or power of the individual is not

reduced, but enlarged, by the constitution of a State or Civil Society, and

(against holism) that the sovereignty or power of the State is not reduced, but

enlarged by the growing autonomy of the citizens (especially by their freedom

of thought and expression).62

Balibar and Antonio Negri see Spinozas circumvention of this abstract

opposition in the realm of his political analyses as made possible by his

willingness to think in terms of the multitude rather than in terms of

individuals and the state. I have suggested that, for Spinoza, the multitude is a

concept that includes both state and citizens. In other words, the (combined)

power of individuals and the power of the state are different modalities of the

60Lewis Feuer, Spinoza and the Rise of Liberalism (Boston: Beacon Press, 1958) 103.61Etienne Balibar, From Individuality to Transindividuality, Mededelingen vanwege het

Spinozahuis (Delft: Eburon, 1997) 8.62Balibar, From Individuality to Transindividuality, 8.


Downl

oad

ed

By:[

Insti

tutod

e

Investi

gF

il

osofi

cas]

At:03

:225

Feb

ruary2010


23/28

same collective power of the multitude. To take the multitude as the primary

object of Spinozas political thought is to depart from the standard account of

social transition in Spinoza as a passage from atomic, asocial individualism to

universal harmony. The reading defended here suggests that this transition is

better conceived as a passage from imaginatively grounded associations in

which peaceful co-existence and conformity to prescribed laws are established

by appealing to passive emotions, to more rational forms of community in

which harmonious social relations and law-abiding behaviour are the result of

an increasingly adequate understanding of the link between the individuals

own good and the common good.

FREEDOM AND UTOPIA

According to the arguments sketched above, politics may act as a bridge tothe active. Although the power and stability of the state are a function of its

ability to maintain obedience to the laws of the commonwealth, its power is

maximized when obedience follows from the rational rather than passionate

desires of citizens. It is, therefore, in the interests of the state to foster the

conditions for the development of reason and freedom. Spinozas

characterization of the ultimate purpose of the state in the Theological-

Political Treatise seems strongly to support this conclusion:

[The states] ultimate purpose is not exercise dominion nor to restrain men byfear and deprive them of independence, but on the contrary to free every man

from fear so that he may live in security as far as is possible, that is so that he

may best preserve his own natural right to exist and to act, without harm to

himself and to others. It is not, I repeat, the purpose of the state to transform

men from rational beings into beasts or puppets, but rather to enable them to

develop their mental and physical faculties in safety, to use their reason

without restraint . . . Thus the purpose of the state is, in reality, freedom.63

Commenting on this passage, Moira Gatens observes that the contrastbetween obedience and knowledge is certainly one way in which we could

distinguish between an association of human beings founded on fear and a

community of rational beings.64 In stressing the distinction between

obedience and knowledge in this context, Gatens is echoing Spinozas

claim that since human freedom is the greater as a man is more able to be

guided by reason and control his appetites, it would be incorrect to call the

life of reason obedience.65 Exactly why this should be so is prima facie

puzzling. Is not obedience to just laws a rational act? To answer this

63TTP, 567.64Gatens, Imaginary Bodies, 116.65TP, 688.


Downl

oad

ed

By:[

Insti

tutod

e

Investi

gF

il

osofi

cas]

At:03

:225

Feb

ruary2010


24/28

question, let us turn to the typology of law outlined in the Theological-

Political Treatise, where in characterizing an ideal democracy66 Spinoza

explains the incompatibility of freedom and obedience:

[s]ince obedience consists in carrying out orders simply by reason of theauthority of a ruler, it follows that this has no place in a community where

sovereignty is vested in all the citizens, and laws are sanctioned by common

consent. In such a community the people would remain equally free whether

laws were multiplied or diminished, since it would act not from anothers

bidding but from its own consent.67

Democracy, as defined here, is a success term. It does not represent the

rational reformation of motives for obedience to the law or the growth of

activity and joy in the direction of freedom and reason, but the realization of

a definitive end. This definition of a fully fledged democracy evokes an idealof a community in which the relations of command and obedience have been

definitively overcome the state as law giver, as dispenser of rewards for

obedience and punishments for disobedience, has withered away in the

fulfilment of its end. The exteriority of the law as command has given way to

a citizenry capable of ruling itself directly and entirely under the guidance of

reason. An association constituted in this manner would be a community

of rational beings. The figure of democracy would thus refer to the existence

of a substantially unanimous and free multitude, a multitude that had

successfully mastered its own passions through greater understanding of theorigins of divisive and competitive passions. Individual members of a free

multitude would be restrained only by a love of liberty and bound together,

not by the externality of the law and command, but by the common

enterprise of knowledge.

This vision of a democratic utopia suggests just the kind of rational break

with the passional and imaginary order of nature that Spinoza explicitly

repudiates. It thus poses a serious problem for Spinoza in his own terms.

This problem can be brought into focus by situating the contrast between

obedience and freedom in the context of the relation between the passions,imagination and reason. In terms of the definition of democracy as the

rationalization of the social body, the disappearance of obedience could be

read as the complete elimination of ignorance, imagination and the

passions. Certainly, if obedience is taken to entail subjection to the idea

of the law as an imperative issued by a superior, external power, it is clearly

caught up in the economy of imaginary life.68 Thus, the distinction between

66See TTP, 531.

67TTP, 439.68On this point, see TTP, 515:

Moses aim was not to convince the Israelites by reasoned argument, but to bind them

by a covenant, by oaths and by benefits received; he induced the people to obey the


Downl

oad

ed

By:[

Insti

tutod

e

Investi

gF

il

osofi

cas]

At:03

:225

Feb

ruary2010


25/28

obedience and freedom here could be mapped onto the distinction between

the life of imagination and that of reason. To make this equation, however,

is to interpret the achievement of freedom and rationality as the eradication

or transcendence of passional and imaginary life. But if it were possible for

the multitude to free itself entirely from passivity if the community of

rational beings were a realizable goal then surely it would reconstitute the

human order as an imperium in imperio, thereby contradicting Spinozas

insistence on our status as a part of nature.

In more general terms, the difficulty posed by the concept of democracy as

the realization of reasons goal the constitution of a community of rational

beings is that it introduces a rupture between nature and human

institutions, between what is and what ought to be. The utopian ideal of

democracy would thus stand in a relation of transcendence to what is,

serving both as the telos of history and the normative principle by which we

might pass judgment on the real. To think of democracy as a final order asthe pure realization of reasons ideal is to think in utopian terms that run

counter to the spirit of the Spinozist project, which explicitly rejects such

normative language. It would put Spinoza on the side of those philosophers

who shower extravagant praise on a human nature that nowhere exists and

conceive men not as they are, but as they would like them to be.69

To read the figure of democracy in this way, as the promise of a future

liberation, would make Spinoza a philosopher of a revolutionary

emancipation.70 This manner of reading Spinoza certainly contradicts the

approach adopted here. I have suggested that Spinozas political thoughtprovides us with a means of thinking human freedom and flourishing as

continuous with the practical political project of organizing the conditions

of collective life so that individuals are affected in ways that enable them to

increase their powers. To be consistent with Spinozas naturalism, the

process of rationally reforming the imaginary foundations of community

must be conceived as building on and transforming, rather than transcend-

ing or breaking with, primitive imaginative forms of sociality. Can we

interpret the idea of a community of rational beings in a way that is

consistent with this conception of immanent transformation?The notion of a community of rational beings or democracy evokes an

ideal form of sociality in which peace and harmony follow from the rational

recognition of a shared human nature, rather than resulting from the

regulation of behaviour by laws that restrict behaviour as a means to make

individuals agree. In the former case, peace and harmony directly express

the rational activity of individuals, while in the latter peaceful co-existence is

Law under threat of punishment, while exhorting them thereto by promise of rewards.

These are all means to promote obedience, not to impart knowledge.

69TP, Introduction, 680.70See on this point Manfred Walthers review of Negris The Savage Anomaly: Negri on

Spinozas Political and Legal Philosophy, in Spinoza: Issues and Directions, edited by Edwin

Curley and Pierre Moreau (Leiden and New York: E. J. Brill, 1990) 2912.


Downl

oad

ed

By:[

Insti

tutod

e

Investi

gF

il

osofi

cas]

At:03

:225

Feb

ruary2010


26/28

achieved passively by forcing individuals to agree and be compatible.

Although cooperation and harmony in this latter case do not follow from an

adequate understanding of ones true advantage and can, therefore, only be

said to accord with rather than to express reason, this organization of

collective life nevertheless enhances the powers of individuals. Adequate

political and social institutions ensure that the relations between individuals

are more likely to be cooperative and mutually beneficial and, thus, that

individuals are more likely to experience joyful passions and to act on the

basis of desires born of joy. In an important passage in the Ethics, Spinoza

explains the link between joyful passive affections and reason. Joy, he says,

agrees with reason, (for it consists in this, that a mans power of acting is

increased or aided), and is not a passion except insofar as the mans power of

acting is not increased to the point where he conceived himself and his actions

adequately. So if a man affected with Joy were led to such a great perfection

that he conceived himself and his actions adequately, he would be capable

indeed more capable of the same actions to which he is now determined from

affects which are passions.

(EIVP59D)

Here, Spinoza indicates that there is only a small gap separating joyful

passions from adequate activity. The importance of this claim is that it

suggests that favourable external circumstances and influences, in relation to

which we are passive, may nevertheless increase our powers of thinking andacting, bringing us to the brink of adequate understanding and action. The

idea of a passive increase of the power of acting that is evoked here has

already been established by Spinoza in his account of how we come to form

the adequate ideas that comprise reason. At EIIP39, Spinoza observes that:

P39: If something is common to, and peculiar to, the human body and certain

external bodies by which the human body is usually affected, and is equally in

the part and in the whole, its idea will also be adequate in the mind.

Cor: From this it follows that the mind is the more capable of perceiving many

things adequately as its body has many things in common with other bodies.

Spinoza here acknowledges the role played by external, material circum-

stances in the development of our powers of thinking and acting. Our

capacities for adequate thought and action are enhanced when our

interactions with others are so organized that joyful passions dominate over

sad passions.71 That is, to participate in a common way of life and enjoy

71See Gilles Deleuze Expressionism in Philosophy: Spinoza, translated by Martin Joughin New

York: Zone Books, 1990) 276, where he argues that Spinoza distinguishes between more and

less universal common notions. The less universal represent a similarity of composition


Downl

oad

ed

By:[

Insti

tutod

e

Investi

gF

il

osofi

cas]

At:03

:225

Feb

ruary2010


27/28

harmonious relations with others who agree with our nature (EIVAppVII)

is to be affected in ways that increase our capacities to think and act

adequately. In other words, the degree of activity and independence we enjoy

depends on more or less supportive interactions and favourable external

influences. Therefore, while the state relies on passive means on the exter-

nality of the law and constraint to enforce peace and agreement, it is wrong

to construe such an organization of collective life as simply a hindrance to or

a mere limitation of the natural powers of individuals. On the contrary,

p

armstrong_spinoza beyond hobbes_natural and unnatural communities

Documents