Spinoza and the biopolitical roots of modernity

Angelaki 18 (3):91-102 (2013)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

Much has been written about biopolitical sovereignty in the wake of Agamben's work, which relies, at least in the first volume of Homo Sacer, on Carl Schmitt's transcendental account of sovereignty. This article argues, however, that Foucault and Arendt rightly identify what Derrida once called the “changing shape and place of sovereignty” in modernity, which for them is horizontal and disseminated within a presupposed nation. For this reason, we will look to the source of modern philosophical immanentism, Spinoza, to show that he is not extrinsic to this modern biopolitics, and demonstrates how the sovereign exception and its nationalized version work hand-in-glove in the era of which he was a part – and thus is part of all thinking that would take this to form a new communitas. In this way, we argue that it is Spinoza's political theology, not Schmitt's, that is the better pass-key to what Foucault and Arendt identify as biopolitical. By doing so, we put in tension two trends in recent Continental philosophy: philosophical vitalism and the critique of biopolitics at the heart at any contemporary thinking of community.

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 91,881

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Spinoza's methodology.Hubertus Gezinus Hubbeling - 1964 - Assen,: Van Gorcum & Comp..
Subversive Spinoza: (un)contemporary variations.Antonio Negri - 2004 - New York: Distributed exclusively in the USA by Palgrave. Edited by Timothy S. Murphy.
The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity and the Modernity Context of Philosophy.Xiangping Shen - 2008 - Proceedings of the Xxii World Congress of Philosophy 16:241-247.
Michael Mack, Spinoza and the Specters of Modernity: The Hidden Enlightenment of Diversity From Spinoza to Freud. [REVIEW]Hasana Sharp - 2011 - Symposium: Canadian Journal of Continental Philosophy/Revue canadienne de philosophie continentale 15 (2):231-233.
Kitsch Against Modernity.C. E. Emmer - 1998 - Art Criticism 13 (1):53-80.

Analytics

Added to PP
2013-11-09

Downloads
37 (#431,226)

6 months
6 (#520,934)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Peter Gratton
Memorial University of Newfoundland

References found in this work

Immanence: A Life..Gilles Deleuze - 1997 - Theory, Culture and Society 14 (2):3-7.

Add more references