This book offers a detailed study of the political philosophies of Thomas Hobbes and Benedict de Spinoza, focussing on their concept of power as potentia, concrete power, rather than power as potestas, authorised power. The focus on power as potentia generates a new conception of popular power. Radical democrats–whether drawing on Hobbes's 'sleeping sovereign' or on Spinoza's 'multitude'–understand popular power as something that transcends ordinary institutional politics, as for instance popular plebsites or mass movements. However, the book argues (...) that these understandings reflect a residual scholasticism which Hobbes and Spinoza ultimately repudiate. Instead, on the book's revisionist conception, a political phenomenon should be said to express popular power when it is both popular (it eliminates oligarchy and encompasses the whole polity), and also powerful (it robustly determines political and social outcomes). Two possible institutional forms that this popular power might take are distinguished: Hobbesian repressive egalitarianism, or Spinozist civic strengthening. But despite divergent institutional proposals, the book argues that both Hobbes and Spinoza share the conviction that there is nothing spontaneously egalitarian or good about human collective existence. From this point of view, the book accuses radical democrats of pernicious romanticism; the slow, meticulous work of organizational design and maintenance is the true centre of popular power. Three minute video summary available via HPBin3. Extended discussion on The Political Theory Review podcast. First chapter open access available via Oxford Scholarship Online. Videos of book talks at National University of Singapore (Centre for Legal Theory) and Universidad de Buenos Aires (Instituto de Investigaciones Gino Germani) available via YouTube. (See links below.). (shrink)

In the Leviathan, power can be understood in two different senses, which are carefully discriminated in its Latin version by the use of the terms potentia and potestas to translate, depending on the context and the type of power concerned, the English power. Potentia and potestas, although types of power of a different nature – one, the physical power that bodies have to take effect on each other; the other, the juridical power, out of which legal effects as (...) justice itself come about –, are mutually implicated in the intertwining of juridical representations. This article aims to explore the consequences that follow from this ambivalent concept of power to think about justice and natural right. (shrink)

The present article discusses the relationship between might ( potentia ) and power ( potestas ) as it has unfolded throughout the modern age, from Thomas Hobbes to Carl Schmitt. Hobbes indicates the way forward for a progressive linguistic and conceptual coincidence of potentia and potestas : the goal of Hobbesian political philosophy (the search for peace and security) necessitates the reduction of potentia to potestas through the elimination of the content of actus . Schmitt accepts this (...) reduction, by assigning priority to potestas : the image of modern technology as a privileged dimension of potentia—potestas comes together as the modern state. Instead of taking the route of potentia understood as an opening-up to new possibilities and as human self-affirmation, the language of potentia—potestas has triggered a process, which is that of a naturalization of power relations, that is based on and justified by the social inequality arising from the differing extent of ownership of the instruments of technological production. (shrink)

El trabajo aborda el aparente conflicto que cabe entre la omnipotencia divina y la libertad humana. La tesis que subyace en la posición de Duns Escoto es que ni la omnipotencia divina ni la gracia que infunde suprime la determinación interior de la voluntad humana. Por el contrario, la omnipotencia divina se revela como amor y libertad, y es así que el hombre viene al ser desde el amor y la libertad divina que lo sostiene y configura. Es decir, la (...) libertad es el fundamento de todo lo creado, y desde esa misma lógica, el ser humano es esencialmente libre. (shrink)

Hobbes redefines his conception of liberty in the Leviathan as the absence of external impediments to motion. Power, on the other hand, refers to the body’s intrinsic dimension, that is, to the faculties possessed by each individual. There thus appears to be a clear distinction between liberty and power in Hobbes’ political philosophy. Taking into consideration Hobbes’ Latin works, however, in which he uses two different terms to refer to power: at times potestas and others potentia, such a distinction (...) may need to be revisited. As we will argue, there is a marked relation between liberty and power when considering human sociability. In this way, the aim of the article is to discuss Hobbes’ conception of power, through the pages of the Leviathan and De Homine, trying to clarify its complex, even ambiguous relation with his conception of liberty. (shrink)

Potentia of Poverty opposes to the surplus-value of capital a surplus-concept of life - of the worker, of the non-worker, of the poor, of the rich: an excess of being with the power to undo capital by using its own mechanism. Antonio Negri writes in the preface that 'The poor is the powerful, Pascucci tells us. She interprets Marx as a reader of Spinoza; however, maybe there is something more here than there is in Spinoza and Marx themselves. A (...) further passage is necessary to grasp this "more": namely, to tie the experience of poverty to an ontology of "cupiditas" [desire], that is, of "amor" [love]'. (shrink)

Resumen Juan Duns Escoto configura su pensamiento filosófico desde una perspectiva cristiana, en la que la acción divina omnipotente crea y conserva las criaturas. Toda obra del creador ad extra es contingente, de manera que la realidad física recibe ese añadido en el nivel ontológico y operativo. Los objetivos de este trabajo son dos: determinar el alcance y la modalidad en que la potentia Dei actúa sobre el mundo natural según el Doctor Sutil y resolver una posible inconsistencia cuando (...) este pensador analiza la capacidad del homo viator para alcanzar certeza en el conocimiento experiencial.John Duns Scotus molds his philosophical thought from a Christian perspective, in which an omnipotent divine action creates and preserves creatures. All what the creator produces ad extra is contingent, so whatever is added to physical reality belongs to an ontological and operational level. This paper aims to determine the extent and manner in which, according to the Doctor Subtilis, the potentia Dei operates on the natural world and to resolve a possible inconsistency when Scotus analyzes the ability of the homo viator to achieve certainty in the experiential knowledge. (shrink)

This article aims to interpret Leibniz’s dynamics project through a theory of the causation of corporeal motion. It presents an interpretation of the dynamics that characterizes physical causation as the structural organization of phenomena. The measure of living force by mv2 must then be understood as an organizational property of motion conceptually distinct from the geometrical or otherwise quantitative magnitudes exchanged in mechanical phenomena. To defend this view, we examine one of the most important theoretical discrepancies of Leibniz’s dynamics with (...) classical mechanics, the measure of vis viva as mv2 rather than ½ mv2. This “error”, resulting from the limits of Leibniz’s methodology, reveals the systematic role of this quantity mv2 in the dynamics. In examining the evolution of the quantity mv2 in the refinement of the force concept from potentia to actio, I argue that Leibniz’s systematic limitations help clarify dynamical causality as neither strictly metaphysical nor mechanical but a distinct level of reality to which Leibniz dedicates the “dynamica” as “nova scientia”. (shrink)

A disponibilidade de três versões dos comentários de João Duns Escoto para o livro das Sentenças de Pedro Lombardo, a saber, a Lectura, a Ordinatio e a Reportatio I-A, torna possível a reavaliação de interpretações contemporâneas sobre a teoria da distinção entre uma potência absoluta e outra ordenada apresentada por Escoto. Tomando como fio condutor o texto da Ordinatio e utilizando as outras versões na medida em que elas se esclarecem mutuamente, revisitaremos alguns tópicos defendidos por algumas daquelas interpretações: a (...) associação entre as duas potências e aquilo que é feito por direito e de fato, a compreensão que toma a potência absoluta e ordenada como a distinção um modelo operatório que envolve dois modos de ação e, finalmente, sua relação com a teoria das “possibilidades sincrônicas”: interpretações talvez não suficientemente precisas, como pretendemos mostrar. Também mostraremos que o texto da Reportatio I-B, atualmente sem uma edição contemporânea, pode ser útil na exemplificação de alguns argumentos da discussão em pauta. (shrink)

Field, Sandra Leonie Potentia: Hobbes and Spinoza on Power and Popular PoliticsNueva York: Oxford University Press, 320 p.ISBN 9780197528242.

The driving question behind Sandra Leonie Field's exciting new book, Potentia, is: what, exactly, constitutes popular power? Field turns to two seventeenth-century political theorists, Thomas Hobbes and Benedict de Spinoza, to try to extract an account that might avoid Joseph Schumpeter's dismal conclusion that we should abandon all pretenses to popular power. In the process, she exposes problems with recent populist interpretations of Hobbes and Spinoza, showing that both of these figures appreciated the problems with identifying plebiscites with popular (...) power better than their "radical" interpreters. The result is a rich and stimulating work on a topic—namely, power—that remains somewhat undertheorized, at least... (shrink)

Quels sont les rapports entre la nature et la grâce chez Rahner et Henri de Lubac? A première vue, les positions fondamentales des deux hommes sont en profonde contradiction. Pourtant, l'A. montre qu'il existe un accord de fond sur des principes essentiels comme cette relation nature-grâce, la potentia oboedientialis de Thomas d'Aquin ainsi que sur le désir naturel. H. de Lubac affirmait que le désir de Dieu est le plus absolu de tous les désirs. En dépit de son esprit (...) irréniste, Henri de Lubac n'acceptait pas de suivre Rahner sur le terrain de la distinction entre nature fermée ici-bas et la finalité absolue de la nature dans le surnaturel. (shrink)

It is argued that quantum theory is best understood as requiring an ontological duality of res extensa and res potentia, where the latter is understood per Heisenberg’s original proposal, and the former is roughly equivalent to Descartes’ ‘extended substance.’ However, this is not a dualism of mutually exclusive substances in the classical Cartesian sense, and therefore does not inherit the infamous ‘mind-body’ problem. Rather, res potentia and res extensa are proposed as mutually implicative ontological extants that serve to (...) explain the key conceptual challenges of quantum theory; in particular, nonlocality, entanglement, null measurements, and wave function collapse. It is shown that a natural account of these quantum perplexities emerges, along with a need to reassess our usual ontological commitments involving the nature of space and time. (shrink)

In line with his theory of secularization according to which all significant concepts of the modern theory of the state are secularized theological concepts, Carl Schmitt argues in Constitutional Theory that people’s (Volk) constitution-making power in modern democracy is analogical to God’s potestas constituens in medieval theology. It is also undoubtedly possible to find a resemblance between Schmitt’s constitution-making power and God’s power as it is described in medieval theology. In the same sense as the constitution-making power is absolutely free (...) from all normative ties, God’s potestas constituens, or rather, God’s potentia absoluta is free from such ties. Yet, unlike the Schmittian constitution-making power, God’s potentia absoluta was not, in medieval theology, originally intended as a description of some form of divine action: the absolute power of God referred to the total possibilities initially open to God. However, when the canonists started to employ the term potentia absoluta in their speculations concerning the papal plenitude of power (plenitude potestatis) by the end of the thirteenth century, they used it in a different sense than the theologians previously. According to certain canonists, the pope, by his potentia absoluta, could grant de facto dispensations from divine and ecclesiastical laws. Later on, this notion became a theological notion as well, but given its origin in juridical discourse, the constitution-making power, rather than being a secularized theological notion, is a theologized juristic notion. (shrink)

Jan Duns Szkot był myślicielem oryginalnym i wyrafinowanym, żył i tworzył na przełomie XIII i XIV wieku. Jego dociekania dotyczące woli i ludzkiej wolności zrywają z pojmowaniem tych kategorii przez filozofów greckich, przekraczają idee jego scholastycznych poprzedników i stanowią przełom w europejskiej myśli woluntarystycznej. W artykule wyeksponowano trzy oryginalne tezy woluntarystyczne Szkota: że, po pierwsze, wola jest dynamiką, która osiąga swój cel i spełnienie sama w sobie, a nie w przedmiotach zewnętrznych, po drugie, że wolność ma źródło w przygodności ludzkiego (...) istnienia, stanowiąc zarazem istotną własność ludzkiego bytu, oraz po trzecie, że w dziejach filozofii żaden myśliciel bardziej radykalnie niż Szkot nie obstawał za tezą o bezwarunkowej autonomii woli i ludzkiej wolności. To filozoficzne ujęcie zagadnienia ludzkiej wolności zostaje wskazane jako istotny i trwały wkład Dunsa Szkota w nasze pojmowanie człowieka, określając podstawy ludzkiej autonomii i przysługujących człowiekowi niezbywalnych praw. (shrink)

Emmanuel Tourpe | Résumé : La voie traditionnelle de l’analogie de l’être s’accomplit en contexte post-heideggérien dans une analogie de la fécondité. Mais cette analogie de la fécondité a pour fondement une ontologie de la fécondité, qui suppose une reprise du questionnement thomiste sur la puissance de Dieu à la lumière des développements de Boehme et de l’idéalisme allemand. C’est en découvrant la positivité essentielle de la puissance féconde de Dieu que la métaphysique contemporaine peut se renouveler de manière décisive. (...) |: The traditional way of the analogy of being is fulfilled, in a post-heideggerian context, by an analogy of fecundity. But this analogy of fecundity is based on an ontology of fecundity, which implies a resumption of the thomistic quest concerning God’s power in the light of the developments owed to Boehme and German Idealism. It is by discovering the essential positivity of God’s fertile power that contemporary Metaphysics can renew itself in a decisive manner. (shrink)

In this paper we attempt to provide a physical representation of quantum superpositions. For this purpose we discuss the constraints of the quantum formalism to the notion of possibility and the necessity to consider a potential realm independent of actuality. Taking these insights into account and from the basic principles of quantum mechanics itself we advance towards the definition of the notions of power and potentia. Assuming these notions as a standpoint we analyze the meaning of ‘observation’ and ‘interaction’. (...) As a conclusion we provide a set of axioms which comprise our interpretation of quantum mechanics and argue in favor of a redefinition of the orthodox problems discussed in the literature. (shrink)

The European Hobbes Society Online Colloquium featured my book, Potentia: Hobbes and Spinoza on Power and Popular Politics. This is a précis of the book.

Ockham foi o medieval que mais sevaleu da noção de potentia Dei absoluta. Cabeexaminar o significado deste conceito no desenvolvimentoda 9nosiologia do autor, para quem,em Deus, deve-se recusar toda espécie de necessitarismo.Sob o aspecto gnosiológico o argumentoserve tanto para fundamentar e justificar aproposição negativa como para a própria essênciado conhecimento.

Within the realm of nano-, bio-, info- and cogno- (or NBIC) technosciences, the ‘power to change the world’ is often invoked. One could dismiss such formulations as ‘purely rhetorical’, interpret them as rhetorical and self-fulfilling or view them as an adequate depiction of one of the fundamental characteristics of technoscience. In the latter case, a very specific nexus between science and technology, or, the epistemic and the constructionist realm is envisioned. The following paper focuses on this nexus drawing on theoretical (...) conceptions as well as empirical material. It presents an overview of different technoscientific ways to ‘change the world’—via contemplation and representation, intervention and control, engineering, construction and creation. It further argues that the hybrid character of technoscience makes it difficult (if not impossible) to separate knowledge production from real world interventions and challenges current science and technology policy approaches in fundamental ways. (shrink)

Oma algses mitmetähenduslikkuses on see F. Baconi aforism kõige tihendatum tõdemus, mis tõmbab olemusliku eraldusjoone ühelt poolt antiikse ja keskaegse ning teisalt uusaegse arusaama vahele teadusest ja teadusteadmisest. Artiklis püüab autor anda võimaluste piires tervikpildi uusaja teaduse industriaalselt (tehnoloogiliselt) orienteeritud teadmistüübi tekkimisest. Uusaja teaduse kujunemiseks vajaliku pöörde maailmavaateliste eeldustena tuleb käsitleda: (1) põhimõtteliselt uut subjekti ja objekti käsitust; (2) täiesti uut väärtusruumi, uut teaduse ideoloogiat (ilmalikkus, kriitiline vaim, tõesus ja praktiline kasulikkus); (3) tunnetuslaadi muutust — kontemplatsioonilt interventsioonile, kvaliteedi kirjeldamiselt kvantiteedi (...) uurimisele; (4) looduse käsitlemist Kosmose asemel seaduspäraselt korrastatud objektide “väljana”. Uue tunnetusstiili — empiirilise ja teoreetilise tunnetuse kokkuviimine, hüpoteetilis-deduktiivse metodoloogia kujundamine Galilei poolt, abstraktse ja sünteetilis-tekstilise loomuga spekulatsiooni asendumine uurimisobjekti ehituse, korrapära ja põhjuslikkuse objektiivse analüüsiga, universaalsete loodusseaduste doktriini kujunemine jms—kujunemine konstitueeris uut tüüpi teadmise. Teadmise kui nähtava maailma piltkoopia asemele luuakse teadmine kui loodusobjektide seaduspära analüütiline rekonstruktsioon. See on vormiltmatemaatiline, päritolult eksperimentaalne ning loodusobjektide kontrollimisele ja ümbertegemisele suunatud nn valdamisteadmine. This F. Bacon's aphorism in its original ambiguity is the most condensed belief that draws a distinctive essential line between ancient and medieval understanding of science and scientific knowledge on one hand and modern understanding on the other. The author aims at providing, as far as possible, an integral overview of emerging of the industrially (technologically) orientated type of knowledge of modern times. Ideological/philosophical preconditions of the change necessary for emerging of modern science are: (1) a fundamentally new approach to the subject and object; (2) a completely new system of values, a new ideology of science (secularity, critical spirit, trueness and utilitarianism); (3) a change in manner of cognizance - from contemplation to intervention, from describing quality to studying quantity; (4) treating nature as a naturally organised "field" of objects instead of the Cosmos. Emerging of a new style of cognizance - bringing together of empirical and theoretical cognition, the devise of the hypothetical-deductive method by Galilei, replacement of speculations abstract and synthetic-textual in nature with objective study of the structure, regularity and causality of the object of study, establishment of the doctrine of universal natural laws etc - constituted a new type of knowledge. Knowledge as a copy of the visible world is replaced by knowledge as an analytical reconstruction of the regularity of natural objects. It is so-called dispositive knowledge, morphologically mathematical, originally experimental and aimed at control and alteration of natural objects. (shrink)

Objetivamos investigar a relação entre o pensamento de Espinosa e o de Preciado a partir do uso que o segundo faz, ao longo de sua obra, da filosofia do primeiro. O objetivo geral ramifica-se na investigação dos conceitos colocados em operação no processo de ativação conceitual empreendido por Preciado. Potência de agir ou força de existir, multidão, servidão e liberdade são os conceitos espinosanos nominalmente invocados por Preciado para pensar Potentia gaudendi ou Força orgásmica, a multidão dos anormais, a (...) servidão e a liberdade na era farmacopornográfica. Desejamos fazer um mapa analítico destes conceitos para entendermos o modo como o pensamento de Espinosa ganha nova luz numa perspectiva queer, que é a de Preciado. (shrink)

O tema de fundo do artigo é o dos regimes políticos em Espinosa. O objetivo é o de analisar, no interior deste tema mais amplo, o da distribuição da potência entre os membros do corpo político como critério comum aos regimes. A questão dos regimes, em Espinosa, não passa apenas pela definição do número dos que governam. Um rol de conceitos - homem como potência, afetos, multidão, imperium, entre outros - deve ser levado em conta para tratar da clássica questão.

The author examines Spinoza's view of (1) the relationship between modes of substance and divine power, particularly in the context of the limitations of each individual mode, (2) the process of realizing divine power within a specific mode. The text proves that the representation of all things as modes of substance, or divine modes, allows Spinoza to endow them with divine power. For a thing that exists in time and has duration, the preservation of existence means creation. Thus, maintaining the (...) existence of a thing is identical to its creation. The power of a substance, expressed in its potency, is manifested in the duration of a thing. The specified duration is a manifestation of the substance's power, that is, its ability to create, preserve, and destroy things in their existence. (shrink)

In this paper, I seek to clarify, criticize, and expand upon the ambiguous-yet-influential concept of divine violence introduced by Walter Benjamin’s “Zur Kritik der Gewalt”. I proceed in three parts: in the first, I outline Benjamin’s argument about the cycle of mythical violence and divine violence’s special role as an interruption of that cycle. Next, I explicate Spinoza’s key concepts of potentia and potestas, which can be used to more clearly define what ought to instead be translated as “divine (...) force”. In the third part, through Benjamin’s brief discussion of Sorel’s theory of the anarchist general strike, I equate potentia as a determinate power of aggregative individuals to divine force, both as a collective action and as an idea itself. I use this renewed and more sophisticated concept of divine force to oppose several interpretations of Benjamin’s concept, including Benjamin’s own quietist stance toward divine force. (shrink)