Family Quarrels and Mental Harmony: Spinoza's Oikos-Polis Analogy

In Spinoza's Political Treatise: A Critical Guide. pp. 93-110 (2018)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

This paper develops the implications of Spinoza’s invocation in chapter 6 of the traditional analogy between the oikos and the polis. Careful attention to this analogy reveals a number of interesting features of Spinoza’s political theory. Spinoza challenges the perception that absolute monarchy offers greater respite from the intolerable anxiety of the state of nature than does democracy. He acknowledges that people associate monarchical rule with peace and stability, but asserts that it can too easily deform its subjects. Unchallenged monarchy may be credited with a certain order, “but if slavery, barbarism, and desolation are to be called peace, there can be nothing more wretched for mankind than peace.” This is all familiar to friends of Spinoza, but what kind of democracy is the alternative to those monarchies that tend toward despotism? It is a form of association that, he suggests, resembles a bitterly quarrelsome but nevertheless virtuous family. Thus, he admits that democratic, or popular, rule is typically turbulent and disorderly, but urges his reader to view contentions and disputes as a kind of salutary discord that preserves rather than threatens virtue.

Links

PhilArchive

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

The Concept of Equality in Spinoza’s Theological-Political Treatise.Beth Lord - 2016 - Epoché: A Journal for the History of Philosophy 20 (2):367-386.
“Eve’s Perfection: Spinoza on Sexual (In)Equality.”.Hasana Sharp - 2011 - Journal of the History of Philosophy 50.4 (2012) 50 (4):559-580.
Spinoza’s Curious Defense of Toleration.Justin Steinberg - 2010 - In Yitzhak Melamed Michael Rosenthal (ed.), Spinoza’s ‘Theological-Political Treatise’: A Critical Guide. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 210 – 230..
Harmony in Spinoza and His Critics.Timothy Yenter - 2018 - In Beth Lord (ed.), Spinoza’s Philosophy of Ratio. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. pp. 46-60.
Spinoza and the Irrelevance of Biblical Authority.J. Samuel Preus - 2001 - New York: Cambridge University Press.
The State: Spinoza's Institutional Turn.Sandra Field - 2015 - In Andre Santos Campos (ed.), Spinoza: Basic Concepts. Imprint Academic. pp. 142-154.

Analytics

Added to PP
2020-01-22

Downloads
159 (#111,281)

6 months
53 (#70,456)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Hasana Sharp
McGill University

References found in this work

No references found.

Add more references