INTRODUCTION BRAD S. GREGORY Until now those interested in Spinoza have lacked an adequate English translation of the Tractatus Theologico-Politicus. ...

This new and complete translation of Spinoza's famous 17th-century work fills an important gap, not only for all scholars of Spinoza, but also for everyone interested in the relationship between Western philosophy and religion, and the history of biblical exegesis.

On many interpretations of Spinoza’s political philosophy, democracy emerges as his ideal type of government. But a type of government can be ideal and yet it can be unwise to implement it if certain background conditions obtain. For example, a dominion’s people can be too ‘wretched by the conditions of slavery’ to rule themselves. This begs the following question. Do Spinoza’s arguments for democracy entail that all political bodies should be democracies at all times (the received view), or do they (...) merely entail that we should only have a democracy when the right sort of background conditions are in place (the challenging view)? This paper argues that a new interpretation of one of the four versions of the rationality argument for democracy as it features in the Tractatus entails that the received view is correct. The paper also explains away part of the appeal of the challenging view by arguing that none of the other versions of the rationality argument supports the received view. It closes by arguing that a slightly modernised version of the rationality argument can be important for contemporary political philosophy. (shrink)

The book includes an Index of Subjects and a detailed Index of Biblical References as well as an Introduction by Brad Gregory, which sets Spinoza squarely in ...

This new and complete translation of Spinoza's famous 17th-century work fills an important gap, not only for all scholars of Spinoza, but also for everyone interested in the relationship between Western philosophy and religion, and the history of biblical exegesis.

O presente texto tem como objetivo apontar algumas das razões pelas quais Spinoza foi considerado um herege. Acreditamos que as três principais razões que colaboraram para essa interpretação do seu pensamento estão contidas mais explicitamente no _Tratado Teológico Político_ do que em sua principal obra filosófica, a _Ética_. Ademais, o _Tratado Teológico Político_ teve maior alcance entre o vulgo, pois era o objetivo de Spinoza que a obra tivesse a maior repercussão possível e influenciasse no conflituoso cenário político e religioso (...) de sua época, ao mesmo tempo em que a _Ética_ permanecia confinada entre as mãos dos seus amigos e leitores mais próximos. (shrink)

The first complete English translation of Spinoza's Tractatus theologico-politicus was published anonymously in London in 1689 under the title A treatise partly theological and partly political, though prior to it Charles Blount had incorporated a liberal translation of chapter 6 of the Tractatus in his Miracles no violations of the laws of nature. The language employed in the 1689 translation suggested a decidedly political intention for the work and thus certain liberties were taken with the text. (...) Since that time there have been translations of passages or chapters from the Tractatus into English. Most recently, A. G. Wernham has translated and edited selections from the Tractatus theologico-politicus and Tractatus politicus in The Political Works of Spinoza. Still, the standard source for English language readers of Spinoza has been R. H. M. Elwes's two-volume translation of The Works of Spinoza, published originally in 1883 and reprinted without emendations in 1951. His translation, however useful, is far from adequate and the appearance of Samuel Shirley's translation of Spinoza's Tractatus is most welcome. (shrink)

The contention in this paper is that the theological-political disputes Spinoza was concerned with 350 years ago are similar to the conspiratorial disputes we experience today. The world in Spinoza’s Tractatus theologico-politicus, a political intervention in his time, serves as a “mirror image”, that is to say, it deals with the same problem we face today albeit in a different mode. Understanding our contemporary condition under the auspices of a Spinozist perspective, problems in countermeasures to the conspiratorial (...) disputes come to light. Scholarly work and practice focus on the epistemological dimension of conspiracy theories, tying in the extent to which they are problematic to the degree in which they deal in untruth. However, the lesson from Spinoza’s analysis of the theological-political disputes is that such theories do not deal in truth, but, in affect, they do not spring from a lack of education but a lack of certainty. The work of Spinoza opens up a different approach, and if our aim is like that of the TTP, to defend political life against the threat of civil war, such a different approach is in order. (shrink)

Examining the philosophical, theological, and political teachings of the Tractatus theologico-politicus, this book proposes that Benedict Spinoza fashions a ...

This volume analyzes in detail Spinoza's reasoning in Tractatus theologico-politicus, identifies allies and enemies in its historical context, and explores its more or less obvious connection with the Ethica.

In his Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, Spinoza seeks to separate religion from philosophy and from politics. Yet the true metaphysical understanding of God remains relevant to a proper grasp of the state for Spinoza. Through identifying a common logical structure underlying Spinoza’s conception of God and the two subjects of the TTP - the relation of faith and reason, and the origin of the state and its relation to individual citizens – the paper attempts to demonstrate that Spinoza’s argument (...) for the autonomy of secular reason and the secular state in the TTP is inseparable from his metaphysical theology. (shrink)

In his Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, Spinoza seeks to separate religion from philosophy and from politics. Yet the true metaphysical understanding of God remains relevant to a proper grasp of the state for Spinoza. Through identifying a common logical structure underlying Spinoza’s conception of God and the two subjects of the TTP - the relation of faith and reason, and the origin of the state and its relation to individual citizens – the paper attempts to demonstrate that Spinoza’s argument (...) for the autonomy of secular reason and the secular state in the TTP is inseparable from his metaphysical theology. (shrink)

Dans cet ouvrage, nous nous proposons de parcourir le Tractatus Theologico-Politicus de Spinoza afin de donner au lecteur philosophe tous les éléments susceptibles de l'aider à saisir la place des citations bibliques dans cette œuvre, ainsi que ses conséquences sur la pensée philosophique de l'auteur. D'autre part nous voulons montrer au lecteur hébraïsant l'utilisation que Spinoza a faite des sources bibliques au sens large, mais traditionnel. Nous utiliserons également la grammaire de l'Hébreu que Spinoza a laissé inachevée (...) : Compendium Grammatices Linguoe Hebroeoe, Abrégé de Grammaire Hébraïque, publié dans les Opera Posthuma, 1671. Nous tenterons une approche de son œuvre en dehors des luttes et des passions que son seul nom inspire, lui qui sa vie durant s'écartera par tous les moyens des combats de son époque afin de pouvoir accéder à la connaissance vraie qui seule apporte le bonheur. (shrink)

In this contribution, I discuss some less well-known premodern and early modern antecedents of Spinoza’s concepts and claims in the _Tractatus Theologico-Politicus_. On the one hand, I will argue, Spinoza’s notion of prophecy owes more to Moses Maimonides than to any Christian author; and through Maimonides, Spinoza may be linked to the discussion of prophecy in _The Virtuous City_ by the tenth-century Islamic philosopher al-Farabî. Spinoza’s concern with prophecy as a popular formulation of the Divine Law may be fruitfully (...) seen in the light of these two authors. On the other hand, Spinoza’s notion of _pietas_ has arguably been shaped by a number of early modern authors from the Low Countries, including Thomas a Kempis and Erasmus: it does not consist in merely obeying the law, but also has a clear devotional and theist dimension of love for God and for one’s neighbors. As such, it may be associated with recent ideas on philosophy and spiritual exercises. These findings have a number of non-trivial implications for Spinoza’s place in the rise of modern, academic Western philosophy. I will discuss these implications in the context of Pierre Hadot’s influential views on philosophy as a way of life and Michel Foucault’s notion of spirituality. (shrink)

This study analyses Spinoza’s Tractatus theologico politicus from the point of view of the confrontation between revealed Scripture and philosophy, and links it with the history of this confrontation in Maimonides and the Arab philosophers, highlighting similarities and differences. The three key points of the analysis are the following: Salvation through philosophy; Salvation through religion; and the guarantor of Salvation: political power.

ONE OF THE MOST VEXING AND PERSISTENT ISSUES among students of Spinoza’s Tractatus Theologico-Politicus is the question of the work’s intended audience. Determining the audience of the TTP is critical not only for judging the work’s tone but also for assessing its purpose and scope. Despite the importance of this issue, Spinoza offers little help in resolving the question of his intended audience. Indeed, after outlining the argument of the work in the preface, he playfully dodges the (...) question of audience. (shrink)

Historia, as both a type of critical inquiry and a source of information about nature and the human world, is a key category in Spinoza’s Tractatus theologico-politicus. In this work, the Latin word cannot be simply and invariably translated as “history,” not even if we add the proviso that its meaning wavers inevitably between “history” and “story,” for its semantic range is too broad and complex. At the two ends of the semantic spectrum we have the impartial (...) report, on the one hand, and the creations of sheer fantasy, on the other. Historia may therefore denote the detached observation of nature and the philological analysis of a text, but it can also refer to the free exercise of the imagination in a variety of narrative contexts. While Spinoza denies that the inquiry resulting from historia and its products may have true cognitive value, he acknowledges that historia plays a fundamental role in society and politics. The reason is that historia and the imagination are bound up together by a special relationship. This is apparent at all levels of the historical engagement with reality, but is particularly true in the case of religion, moral norms and belief systems, for in this variegated domain the link between imagination and historia functions as the connective tissue that keeps societies united and functioning. This specific nexus of imagination and historia is Spinoza’s original contribution to the early modern notion of “moral certainty.” More importantly, it is only at this level that Spinoza grants a modicum of intelligibility to the ‘historical’ productions of the imagination, be they signa, revelationes, or even nugae. The fact remains, though, that to a certain extent humans keep having a distorted grasp of reality, indeed hallucinate, even when their ‘historical’ accounts of reality are socially and politically productive. Here the key element is the notion of fictional continuity based on a socially constructed trust in narrative accounts of reality: the imagination turns reality into stories, but in so doing it keeps the otherwise constitutively hallucinatory nature of humans at bay and under control. Perceptibilitas, that is, the ability to provide acceptable cognitive solutions between intelligible knowledge and moral certainty, is ultimately what defines the contribution of the imagination to the human work of knowledge. (shrink)

This paper treats a recalcitrant problem in Spinoza scholarship, namely, how to reconcile the conception of 'power' in his political writings with that found in his Ethics. Some have doubted the capacity of Spinoza's political philosophy to yield an adequate normative theory. If he is unable to provide a normative ground for political philosophy then perhaps this exposes a problem in Spinoza's philosophy taken as a whole. I argue that the considerable normative resources of his ethical and political philosophy, as (...) well their continuing relevance today, are best appreciated through attending to his notion of the exemplar. (shrink)

‘배교자’에서 시작하여 ‘최초의 근대적 유대인’, 심지어 ‘시오니즘의 선구자’에 이르기까지, 유대인 스피노자는 역사 속에서 다양한 형상 아래 평가되어 왔다. 이 다양한 평가들의 바탕에는 신학정치론의 대부분을 차지하는 유대교 분석이 있다. 이 글에서 나는 스피노자의 유대교 분석의 목표가 무엇인지를 분명히하는 가운데 유대교에 대한 그의 입장을 밝히고자 한다. 스피노자는 우선 당대나 후대의 ‘반유대주의’의 모든 논거를 제시했다고 평가될 만큼, 예언, 선민사상, 의례 등 유대교의 특수성을 이루는 요소들에 대해 실로 가차없는 비판을 가하고 있다. 이 비판은 유대교를 폄하하고 기독교를 편드는 것으로, 혹은 종교 일반을 철학(이성)이나 자유주의 정치에 (...) 복속시키려는 우회적 수단으로 평가되어 왔다. 우리는 이런 평가들을 일면적이라고 보고, 보다 온전한 평가를 위해 스피노자가 신앙의 본질로 간주한 복종의 의미를 고찰한다. 이로부터 우리는 스피노자가 이성의 관점에서 인정하는 종교 고유의 적극적 역할과 더불어 유대교의 장점을 도출한다. 마지막으로 결론에서는 유대교에 대한 스피노자 진술에 나타나는 비일관성이 이 측면을 통해 볼 때 어떻게 해소되는지 보여준다. (shrink)

This paper argues that Spinoza's main political writings are concerned, in part, with knowledge of essences as detailed in the Ethics. It is further argued that knowledge of the essences of states, and essential properties that belong to states, may be an example of the elusive scientia intuitiva or third kind of knowledge. The paper concludes by considering Spinoza's goals in his political writings and the importance of metaphysics and the theory of knowledge more broadly for early modern political philosophers.

Chapters 17 and 18 of the TTP constitute a textual unit in which Spinoza submits the case of the ancient Hebrew state to close examination. This is not the work of a historian, at least not in any sense that we, twenty-first century readers, would recognize as such. Many of Spinoza’s claims in these chapters are highly speculative, and seem to be poorly backed by historical evidence. Other claims are broad-brush, ahistorical generalizations: for example, in a marginal note, Spinoza refers (...) to his Jewish contemporaries as if they were identical with the ancient Hebrews. Projections from Spinoza’s own experience of his Jewish and Dutch contemporaries are quite common, and the Erastian lesson that Spinoza attempts to draw from his “history” of the ancient Hebrew state is all too conspicuous. Even Spinoza’s philosophical arguments in these two chapters are not uniformly convincing, as I will attempt to show. Yet in spite of all these faults, the two chapters are a masterpiece of their own kind: a case study of the psychological foundations of politics and religion. The work that comes closest in my mind is Freud’s 1939 Der Mann Moses und die monotheistische Religion. The two works are similar not only in terms of their chronological subject matter – the Hebrews of Moses’s time – but also in their attempt to reconstruct the communal psyche of the Hebrews in order to demonstrate their respective social theories about the foundation of civilization. Needless to say, there are numerous differences between the two works, not the least of which are their distinct aims and the very different political contexts in which they were produced. We will return to this comparison with Freud’s Moses and Monotheism toward the end of the essay, but let me first stage the background for our discussion. Chapter 16 of the TTP begins a new section of the book which primarily deals with the relation between religion and the state. In this chapter Spinoza presents an outline of his political theory and his understanding of key notions such as right, power, the state of nature, the social contract, sovereignty, democracy, and justice. The title of chapter 17 announces its aim and focus: “showing that no one can transfer everything to the Supreme Power, and that this is not necessary; on the Hebrew Republic, as it was during the life of Moses, and after his death, before they elected Kings, and on its excellence; and finally, on the causes why the divine Republic [Respublica divina] could perish, and could hardly survive without rebellions” (III/201). The far less ambitious title of eighteenth chapter states that in it “certain Political doctrines are inferred from the Republic and history of the Hebrews” (III/221). Essentially, the two chapters present a surprising, ironic, and penetrating reading of the story of the divine Hebrew Republic, a reading which highlights both how much and how little was achieved by the use of the fantastic political device of attributing divine sanctification to the state and its sovereign. (shrink)

Vertaling (verkorte versie) van en commentaar op de wijsgerige verhandeling van de Nederlandse filosoof (1632-1677) over de betekenis van het christendom.

스피노자가 자신의 정치적 관점과 분석을 기술한 『신학정치론』과 『정치론』은 상당한 분량을 여러 형태의 국가형태(군주정, 민주정, 신정, 과두정 등) 간의 비교 및 각 국가형태의 헌정제도에 대한 분석에 할애하고 있지만, 정치제도학자로서 스피노자의 모습은 그간 활발히 논의되지 못하였다. 본 논문은 『신학정치론』에서 스피노자가 수행한 고대 히브리 국가의 신정 제도에 대한 분석을 재구성하면서, 그가 히브리 국가의 제도와 역사에서 민주공화정의 제도에 대한 어떤 교훈을 도출했는지를 탐구한다. 스피노자는 종교와 정치의 분리가 불가능하다고 보며, 종교적 제도들이 오히려 대중의 정치적 역량과 단합을 증진시킬 수 있다고 주장한다. 그러나 이를 위해서는 종교 엘리트의 (...) 권력을 제한하고, 다양한 종교 사이의 조화를 유지하는 정책이 필수적임을 강조한다. 논문은 신정 체제의 안정성이 정치적, 사회경제적 평등과 권력의 분배를 제도화하는데 성공했다는 점에 기인한다고 결론지으며, 스피노자의 히브리 신정 분석이 근대 민주주의에 주는 시사점을 모색한다. (shrink)