It is often noted that Spinoza’s conception of striving (conatus) reflects the influence of Hobbes. While this is undoubtedly true, in this chapter I explore how an important difference in how Hobbes and Spinoza understand “striving” drives a wedge between them, resulting in remarkably different views of goodness, happiness, liberty, and the function of the state.

In recent years, a number of commentators have expressed dissatisfaction with Spinoza’s account of practical reason. In this paper, I defend his account against the most prominent objections, showing that the dictates of reason play an important role in guiding thought and action. However, against the standard interpretation, I propose that we view these rules not as exceptionless, instrumental prescriptions—hypothetical imperatives with necessary antecedents, as Curley memorable put it—but rather as adaptable guideposts that aid us in the complex, dynamic process (...) of acquiring a habit of virtue. The dictates of reason are best understood as defeasible policies that help to orient one in the ars vivendi. (shrink)

In this paper I seek to shed light on Spinoza’s understanding of the relationship between the citizen and the state by briefly examining two interpretative questions: (1) Is the state an individual? (2) What grounds Spinoza’s claim that the human individual ought always to comply with civil laws? Several scholars, whom I refer to as Restrictive Individualists, have worried that answering (1) in the affirmative would entail an intolerable understanding of (2), according to which the human individual would be engulfed (...) in the functioning of the state. I argue that (1) should be answered affirmatively and that the worries of the Restrictive Individualists are unfounded. I then propose a way of answering (2) that is consistent with the normative priority of the human individual. (shrink)

Benedict de Spinoza is one of the most controversial and enigmatic thinkers in the history of philosophy. His greatest work, Ethics (1677), developed a comprehensive philosophical system and argued that God and Nature are identical. His scandalous Theological-Political Treatise (1670) provoked outrage during his lifetime due to its biblical criticism, anticlericalism, and defense of the freedom to philosophize. Together, these works earned Spinoza a reputation as a singularly radical thinker. -/- In this book, Steinberg and Viljanen offer a concise (...) and up-to-date account of Spinoza’s thought and its philosophical legacy. They explore the full range of Spinoza’s ideas, from politics and theology to ontology and epistemology. Drawing broadly on Spinoza’s impressive oeuvre, they have crafted a lucid introduction for readers unfamiliar with this important philosopher, as well as a nuanced and enlightening study for more experienced readers. (shrink)

Spinoza's Political Psychology advances a novel, comprehensive interpretation of Spinoza's political writings, exploring how his analysis of psychology informs his arguments for democracy and toleration. Justin Steinberg shows how Spinoza's political method resembles the Renaissance civic humanism in its view of governance as an adaptive craft that requires psychological attunement. He examines the ways that Spinoza deploys this realist method in the service of empowerment, suggesting that the state can affectively reorient and thereby liberate its citizens, but only (...) if it attends to their actual motivational and epistemic capacities. His book will interest a range of readers in Spinoza studies and the history of political thought, as well as readers working in contemporary political theory. (shrink)

Spinoza's account of belief entails that if A has two ideas, p and q, with incompatible content, A believes that p if the idea of p is stronger than the idea of q. This seems to leave little space for dominant non-beliefs, or cases in which there is discord between one's beliefs and one's affective-behavioral responses. And yet Spinoza does allow for two classes of dominant non-beliefs: efficacious fictions [fictiones] and ideas that conduce to akrasia. I show how Spinoza can (...) account for dominant non-beliefs within his model of cognition by distinguishing between the doxastic and the affective powers of ideas and by suggesting that doxastic power is best understood diachronically. While other scholars have stressed the elegance of Spinoza's account of ideas, this paper highlights the sophistication and flexibility of his account. (shrink)

Much recent work on empathy assumes that one cannot give non-question-begging reasons for empathizing with others. In this article I argue that there are epistemic reasons for cultivating empathy. After sketching a brief general account of empathy, I proceed to argue that empathic information is user-friendly, fostering the achievement of widely held cognitive goals. It can also contribute to social knowledge and the satisfaction of democratic ideals. The upshot of my analysis is that there are strong, but defeasible, epistemic reasons (...) for empathizing with others. (shrink)

In IVP50S, Spinoza claims that “one who is moved to aid others neither by reason nor by pity is rightly called inhuman. For (by IIIP27) he seems to be unlike a man” (IVP50S). At first blush, the claim seems implausible, as it relies on the dubious assumption that beings will necessarily imitate the affects of conspecifics. In the first two sections of this paper, I explain why Spinoza accepts this thesis and show how this claim can be made compatible with (...) his account of representation. In the third and final section I offer an auxiliary defense of the thesis, showing that, according to Spinoza, to be human is to sociable, and sociability depends on the imitation of the affects. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that Spinoza’s political theory gives us a model for how he might have approached a treatise on moral education. Indeed, his account of the method and aims of politics resembles Renaissance humanist rhetorical approaches to pedagogy – particularly, the work of sixteenth century Spanish humanist Juan Luis Vives – so strongly that it is hardly an exaggeration conclude that, for him, politics is education writ large. For Spinoza and for Vives, the governor-or-instructor must study the (...) prevailing character, or ingenium, of the subject and adopt means that promote the cognitive and emotional development of the subject, which can be accomplished only to the extent that subjects willingly participate in their own governance-or-instruction. Spinoza joins this rhetorical procedure to a Hobbesian scientific approach to studying ingenia, resulting in a political method that is part science, part art. (shrink)

In this essay I consider what grounds Spinoza’s defense of the freedom to philosophize, considering why Spinoza doesn’t think that we should attempt to snuff out irrationality and dissolution with the law’s iron fist. In the first section I show that Spinoza eschews skeptical, pluralistic, and rights-based arguments for toleration. I then delineate the prudential, anticlerical roots of Spinoza’s defense, before turning in the final section to consider just how far and when toleration contributes to the guiding norms of governance: (...) peace and empowerment. Once we see how the defense of toleration is anchored in these norms, we form a clearer picture of Spinoza as a liberal perfectionist for whom the bounds of political toleration depends on pragmatic and circumstance-specific assessments of what conduces to the flourishing of the state. This will help to illuminate what is distinctive—and, perhaps, distinctively commendable—about Spinoza’s form of liberalism. (shrink)

Spinoza's use of the phrase “sui iuris” in the Tractatus Politicus gives rise to the following paradox. On the one hand, one is said to be sui iuris to the extent that one is rational; and to the extent that one is rational, one will steadfastly obey the laws of the state. However, Spinoza also states that to the extent that one adheres to the laws of the state, one is not sui iuris, but rather stands under the power [sub (...) potestate] of the state (TP 3/5). It seems, then, that to the extent that one is sui iuris, one will not, in fact, be sui iuris. In this paper, I offer an interpretation of Spinoza's notion of being sui iuris that enables us to overcome this paradox and sheds light on Spinoza's relationship to the republican tradition. I work towards this goal by distinguishing between two ways in which Spinoza uses the locution, which correspond to two different conceptions of power: potentia and potestas. This distinction not only allows us to save Spinoza from internal inconsistency, it also enables us to see one important way in which Spinoza stands outside of the republican tradition, since he conceives of liberty not as constituted by independence, or citizenship in a res publica, but as being sui iuris in the first sense described above: being powerful. (shrink)

Two priority problems frustrate our understanding of Spinoza on desire [cupiditas]. The first problem concerns the relationship between desire and the other two primary affects, joy [laetitia] and sadness [tristitia]. Desire seems to be the oddball of this troika, not only because, contrary to the very definition of an affect, desires do not themselves consist in changes in one's power of acting, but also because desire seems at once more and less basic than joy and sadness. The second problem concerns (...) the priority of desires and evaluative judgements. While 3p9s and 3p39s suggest that evaluative judgements are posterior to desires, Andrew Youpa has recently argued that passages in Ethics 4 indicate that rational evaluative judgements can give rise to, rather than arise out of, desires. I aim to offer solutions to these problems that reveal the elegance and coherence of Spinoza's account of motivation. Ultimately, I argue that whereas emotions and d.. (shrink)

In this paper, I maintain—contrary to those commentators who regard him as a principled republican—that at the core of Spinoza’s political theory is an instrumental, rather than an intrinsic, defense of democratic procedures. Specifically, Spinoza embraces democratic decision procedures primarily because they tend to result in better decisions, defined relative to a procedure-independent standard of correctness or goodness. In contemporary terms, Spinoza embraces an epistemic defense of democracy. I examine Spinoza’s defense of collective governance, showing not only how it differs (...) from other accounts of his time but also how it might contribute to current debates about the epistemic standing of popular governing bodies. In the opening section I defend the thesis that has been contested in recent years that Spinoza was, in fact, a consistent democrat. The second section focuses on procedural (i.e., intrinsic) defenses of democracy, paying particular attention to the republican version of proceduralism that was prominent in Spinoza’s time. And in the final section I present my case for reading Spinoza as an epistemic democrat, comparing his epistemic defense with contemporary versions. What we find are not only striking anticipations of contemporary arguments, but also largely neglected lines of argumentation that reveal both the potential epistemic advantages and disadvantages of democracy. (shrink)

In the final chapter of the Tractactus Theologico-Politicus , Spinoza declares that “the purpose of the state is, in reality, freedom.” While this remark obviously purports to tell us something important about Spinoza’s conception of the civitas , it is not clear exactly what is revealed. Recently, a number of scholars have interpreted this passage in a way that supports the view that Spinoza was a liberal for whom civic norms are rather more modest than the freedom of the Ethics (...) . Against this view, I provide an interpretation of Spinoza’s account of civil liberation that enables us to view the political writings as an extension of his larger ethical enterprise. Specifically, I show that, according to Spinoza, the state can promote robust liberty in a variety of ways, not least by influencing the behavioral patterns and affective dispositions of its citizens. (shrink)

Despite Spinoza’s reputation as a thoroughgoing critic of teleology, in recent years a number of scholars have argued convincingly that Spinoza does not wish to eliminate teleological explanations altogether. Recent interpretative debates have focused on a more recalcitrant problem: whether Spinoza has the resources to allow for the causal efficacy of representational content. In this paper I present the problem of mental causation for Spinoza and consider two recent attempts to respond to the problem on Spinoza’s behalf. While these interpretations (...) certainly shed some light on Spinoza’s account of cognitive economy, I argue that both fail to point the way out of the problem because they fail to differentiate between two forms of representation, one of which is causally efficacious, one of which is not. I close by suggesting that there is some reason to believe that Spinoza’s account of mind avoids some of the problems typically associated with mental causation. (shrink)

In the Ethics, Spinoza advances two apparently irreconcilable construals of will [voluntas]. Initially, he presents will as a shorthand way of referring to the volitions that all ideas involve, namely affirmations and negations. But just a few propositions later, he defines it as striving when it is “related only to the mind” (3p9s). It is difficult to see how these two construals can be reconciled, since to affirm or assent to some content is to adopt an attitude with a cognitive (...) (mind-to-world) direction of fit, while to strive to persevere in one’s being would seem to be to adopt an attitude with a conative (world-to-mind) direction of fit. Attempting to achieve consistency by taking striving under the attribute of thought to consist in affirming only pushes the equivocation problem onto the concept of affirmation (Lin 2019). It would seem, then, that Spinoza equivocates on the concepts of will, affirmation, or perhaps both. I defend the univocity of Spinoza’s accounts of will and affirmation, showing that it comports with established accounts of affirmation in early modern philosophy and yields a clear, uniform account of what it means to strive under the attribute of thought, preserving the systematicity of Spinoza’s account of mind in ways that other interpretations do not. (shrink)

Spinoza’s treatment of absolute sovereignty raises a number of interpretative questions. He seems to embrace a form of absolutism that is incompatible with his defense of mixed government and constitutional limits on sovereign power. And he seems to use the concept of “absolute sovereignty” in inconsistent ways. I offer an interpretation of Spinoza’s conception of absolutism that aims to resolve these problems. I argue that Spinoza is able to show that, when tied to a proper understanding of authority, absolute sovereignty (...) is not only compatible with, but actually necessitates, power-sharing and constitutionalism. (shrink)

In this paper I maintain that Spinoza systematizes independently credible accounts of belief-formation, affect, and desire into an intriguing general theory of how the mind works. His account also explains disparate downstream psychological phenomena, including: (1) emotional responses to fiction; (2) belief perseverance; (3) the reduction of cognitive dissonance; (4) epistemic conservativism that opens us up to confirmation bias, identity protection, and intolerance. Given the promise of Spinoza’s program, I conclude with a plea for further philosophical engagement.

This chapter considers the challenges to, and the resources for, cultivating a personal capacity for tolerance, given a Spinozist account of belief-formation. After articulating two main components of personal tolerance, I examine the features of Spinoza’s theory of cognition that make the cultivation of tolerance so difficult. This is followed by an analysis of Spinoza’s account of overcoming intolerant tendencies. Ultimately, I argue that the capacity of individuals to be tolerant depends crucially on the establishment of conditions of trust, conditions (...) that are conspicuously lacking in many modern democracies. (shrink)

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)

This chapter argues that Spinoza's commitment to an essentialist reading of striving helps to explain his profound, and somewhat underappreciated, break with Thomas Hobbes not only in terms of his views of right and obligation, but also in terms of his conceptions of happiness and the good. It examines the similarities between Thomas Hobbes's and Spinoza's views on motivation. This is followed by an analysis of the distinct ways in which they understand striving, and in turn agency and artifice, showing (...) how these differences are reflected in their conceptions of civil life. Spinoza adopts a fundamentally different conception of action and agency, one that is rooted, unsurprisingly, in his conception of essence. The chapter considers how the differences yield fundamentally different views of goodness, happiness, liberty, and the function of the state. Spinoza's account of happiness and the agreement of essences profoundly shapes his view of the function of the state. (shrink)

Despite Spinoza’s reputation as a thoroughgoing critic of teleology, in recent years a number of scholars have argued convincingly that Spinoza does not wish to eliminate teleological explanations altogether. Recent interpretative debates have focused on a more recalcitrant problem: whether Spinoza has the resources to allow for the causal efficacy of representational content. In this paper I present the problem of mental causation for Spinoza and consider two recent attempts to respond to the problem on Spinoza’s behalf. While these interpretations (...) certainly shed some light on Spinoza’s account of cognitive economy, I argue that both fail to point the way out of the problem because they fail to differentiate between two forms of representation, one of which is causally efficacious, one of which is not. I close by suggesting that there is some reason to believe that Spinoza’s account of mind avoids some of the problems typically associated with mental causation. Spinoza gilt zwar als kompromissloser Kritiker der Teleologie, aber in den letzten Jahren haben mehrere Philosophiehistoriker überzeugend dafür argumentiert, dass er keineswegs alle teleologischen Erklärungen verabschieden möchte. Neuere Interpretationsdebatten haben sich auf ein hartnäckigeres Problem konzentriert: Verfügt Spinoza über die Ressourcen, um die kausale Wirksamkeit des repräsentationalen Inhalts zuzulassen? In diesem Aufsatz stelle ich das Problem der geistigen Verursachung bei Spinoza dar und betrachte zwei neuere Versuche, im Sinne Spinozas auf dieses Problem einzugehen. Diese Interpretationen werfen sicherlich Licht auf Spinozas Auffassung von kognitiver Sparsamkeit, aber ich argumentiere, dass beide darin scheitern, einen Ausweg aus diesem Problem aufzuzeigen, da es beide versäumen, zwischen zwei Formen von Repräsentationen zu unterscheiden: einer kausal wirksamen und einer, die nicht wirksam ist. Es gibt Grund zur Überzeugung, so lege ich abschließend nahe, dass Spinozas Auffassung des Geistes einige der Probleme vermeidet, die typischerweise mit geistiger Verursachung verbunden sind. (shrink)

Etye Steinberg has recently raised a problem for Joseph Heath’s Market Failures Approach. In this paper we consider a response by Heath. We argue that Heath’s response not only leaves the original problem intact, but also raises a second one, analogous to stakeholder theory’s so-called “identification problem.”.

In this ambitious and important book, Justin Steinberg attempts to explain the significance of the project for both contemporary political philosophy and the history of political thought. He argues that Spinoza offers a much-needed antidote against "ideal theory" in political philosophy. He also wants to expand our horizons concerning the context of Spinoza's political thought, primarily by noting the influence of Renaissance Civic Humanism. He argues for two main theses: the political works are continuous with the Ethics; and (...) the role of the state is to help perfect the individual.The first chapter, "Metaphysical Psychology and Ingenia Formation," argues that there is a human essence, which is nonetheless... (shrink)

I articulate the challenge disagreement poses for epistemic contextualism, and then discuss several possible replies on behalf of the contextualist.

Epistemicists claim that vague predicates have precise but unknow- able cutoffs. I argue against against the standard, Williamsonian, answer, that appeals to metalinguistic safety: we can know that p even if our true belief that p is metalinguistically lucky. I then propose that epistemicists should be diagonalized epistemicists and show how this alternative formulation of the view avoids the chal- lenge. However, in an M. Night Shyamalan-style twist, I then argue we should not be diagonalized epistemicists either.

Margaret MacDonald (1907–56) was a central figure in the history of early analytic philosophy in Britain due to both her editorial work as well as her own writings. While her later work on aesthetics and political philosophy has recently received attention, her early writings in the 1930s present a coherent and, for its time, strikingly original blend of common-sense and scientific philosophy. In these papers, MacDonald tackles the central problems of philosophy of her day: verification, the problem of induction, and (...) the relationship between philosophical and scientific method. MacDonald’s philosophy of science starts from the principle that we should carefully analyse the elements of scientific practice (particularly its temporal features) and the ways that scientists describe that practice. That is, she applies the techniques of ordinary language philosophy to actual scientific language. MacDonald shows how ‘scientific common-sense’ is inconsistent with both of the dominant schools of philosophy of her day. Bringing MacDonald back into the story of analytic philosophy corrects the impression that in early analytic philosophy, there are fundamental dichotomies between the style of Moore and Wittgenstein, on the one hand, and the Vienna Circle on the other. (shrink)

Perhaps the most fundamental disagreement concerning Nietzsche's view of metaphysics is that some commentators believe Nietzsche has a positive, systematic metaphysical project, and others deny this. Those who deny it hold that Nietzsche believes metaphysics has a special problem, that is, a distinctively problematic feature that distinguishes metaphysics from other areas of philosophy. In this paper, I investigate important features of Nietzsche's metametaphysics in order to argue that Nietzsche does not, in fact, think metaphysics has a special problem. The result (...) is that, against a long-standing view held in the literature, we should be reading Nietzsche as a metaphysician. (shrink)

It is widely agreed that the intelligibility of modal metaphysics has been vindicated. Quine's arguments to the contrary supposedly confused analyticity with metaphysical necessity, and rigid with non-rigid designators.2 But even if modal metaphysics is intelligible, it could be misconceived. It could be that metaphysical necessity is not absolute necessity – the strictest real notion of necessity – and that no proposition of traditional metaphysical interest is necessary in every real sense. If there were nothing otherwise “uniquely metaphysically significant” about (...) metaphysical necessity, then paradigmatic metaphysical necessities would be necessary in one sense of “necessary”, not necessary in another, and that would be it. The question of whether they were necessary simpliciter would be like the question of whether the Parallel Postulate is true simpliciter – understood as a pure mathematical conjecture, rather than as a hypothesis about physical spacetime. In a sense, the latter question has no objective answer. In this article, I argue that paradigmatic questions of modal metaphysics are like the Parallel Postulate question. I then discuss the deflationary ramifications of this argument. I conclude with an alternative conception of the space of possibility. According to this conception, there is no objective boundary between possibility and impossibility. Along the way, I sketch an analogy between modal metaphysics and set theory. (shrink)

Daniel and Frances Howard-Snyder suggest that it is possible for an omnipotent being, Jove, to create randomly a world from a continuum of ever more perfect possible worlds. They then go on to argue that Jove could be characterized as morally unsurpassable despite creating a surpassable world. I raise a number of problems for the view that Jove could be characterized as morally unsurpassable when he creates (randomly or not) a surpassable world.

The overall moral status of an option—whether it is required, permissible, forbidden, or something we really should do—is explained by competition between the contributory reasons bearing on that option and the alternatives. A familiar challenge for accounts of this competition is to explain the existence of latitude: there are usually multiple permissible options, rather than a single required option. One strategy is to appeal to distinctions between reasons that compete in different ways. Philosophers have introduced various kinds of non-requiring reasons (...) that do not generate requirements, even if they win the competition. This paper rejects two familiar versions of this strategy, one appealing to merely justifying reasons and one appealing to merely commendatory reasons. It offers a new account of how reasons compete that instead appeals to a sharp distinction between the reasons against an option and the reasons for the alternatives to that option. (shrink)

Both in everyday life and in moral philosophy, many think that our own past wrongdoing can undermine our standing to indignantly blame others for similar wrongdoing. In recent literature on the ethics of blame, we find two different kinds of explanation for this. Relative moral status accounts hold that to have standing to blame, you must be better than the person you are blaming, in terms of compliance with the norm. Fault-based accounts hold that those who blame others for things (...) of which they are also guilty exhibit familiar moral faults, such as making an exception of oneself, and that these faults explain why they lack standing. I argue in support of relative moral status accounts, showing that they both better trace our practice of dismissing blame on the basis of lack of standing, and that they have more explanatory resources than has been appreciated. (shrink)

Recent work in cognitive science of religion (CSR) is beginning to converge on a very interesting thesis—that, given the ordinary features of human minds operating in typical human environments, we are naturally disposed to believe in the existence of gods, among other religious ideas (e.g., seeAtran [2002], Barrett [2004; 2012], Bering [2011], Boyer [2001], Guthrie [1993], McCauley [2011], Pyysiäinen [2004; 2009]). In this paper, we explore whether such a discovery ultimately helps or hurts the atheist position—whether, for example, it lends (...) credence to atheism by explaining away religious belief or whether it actually strengthens some already powerful arguments against atheism in the relevant philosophical literature.We argue that the recent discoveries of CSR hurt, not help, the atheist position—that CSR, if anything, should not give atheists epistemic assurance. (shrink)

Criticism plays an essential role in the growth of scientific knowledge. In some cases, however, criticism can have detrimental effects; for example, it can be used to ‘manufacture doubt’ for the purpose of impeding public policy making on issues such as tobacco consumption and greenhouse gas emissions (e.g., Oreskes & Conway 2010). In this paper, we build on previous work by Biddle and Leuschner (2015) who argue that criticism that meets certain conditions can be epistemically detrimental. We extend and refine (...) their account by arguing that such criticism can be epistemically corrupting—it can create social conditions that are conducive to the development of epistemic vice by agents operating within them. (shrink)