Sonja Lavaert

In his lectures from November 1980 to March 1981, Deleuze describes the immanent and compositional nature of Spinoza’s philosophy expressed in the content, the method, and the form of his writings. Spinoza himself uses in the Ethics and the TP the images of the climatologist studying the weather and the geometric drawing of lines and surfaces for his technical, artisanal, and neutral approach to the affects and political life. His ontology is characterized by the absence of hierarchical order and by nature as the principle and source of diversity. This approach is reminiscent of art, which also orders the chaos of human existence and makes it productive in a free and immeasurable way. Deleuze conceives of Spinoza’s ontology as a practical philosophy, leading him to the examples and the analysis of paintings (and, vice versa, from the art of painting to Spinoza’s philosophy), to which he dedicates his subsequent lectures from March to June 1981. In this article I reflect on the link between Deleuze’s lectures on Spinoza and on painting, and therefore also between Spinoza’s compositional thought itself and painting.

Die Aufklärung erfuhr ihre wohl radikalste Infragestellung in Max Horkheimers und Theodor W. Adornos Dialektik der Aufklärung. Ihre These, dass die Aufklärung, statt Emanzipation und Humanität zu befördern, verhängnisvolle Folgen zeitigte, stützt sich einerseits auf eine grundsätzliche Rationalitätskritik, andererseits auf eine Analyse der Philosophien von Autoren, die sie als Protagonisten der Aufklärung einstufen: Bacon, Spinoza, Kant und de Sade. Zwar ist ‚Aufklärung‘ im Sinne Horkheimers und Adornos ein von Anbeginn mit der okzidentalen Kultur verbundenes Phänomen. Doch trat aus ihrer Sicht erst in den Philosophien des 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts ihre ambivalente, ja fatale Natur vollends zutage. Während sich die Diskussionen über die Dialektik der Aufklärung zumeist auf die grundsätzliche Rationalitätskritik Horkheimers und Adornos konzentrierten, haben Philosophiehistoriker nur selten die Frage aufgeworfen, ob die dort herangezogenen Philosophen tatsächlich geeignete Kronzeugen ihrer Aufklärungskritik sind. Ziel des vorliegenden Bandes ist es daher, das von Horkheimer und Adorno gezeichnete Gesamtbild der Aufklärung und ihre Interpretationen Bacons, Spinozas, Kants und de Sades auf den Prüfstand zu stellen.

In his new biography of Spinoza, Jonathan Israel shows his inimitable ability to bring together historical events, life details, texts, and ideas in a comprehensive narrative structured by the rhythms of time and place and the historiographical-philosophical perspective that also provided the framework for his Enlightenment tetralogy. This monumental biography is the result of a lifelong study of Spinoza's work in various editions and translations, contemporary tracts and pamphlets, and scholarly commentary. It is a patient quest for knowledge about a philosopher, an era, a cultural context, and a political idea (democracy), with an eye to potential contingency as opposed to unchanging laws and structures.... Read More.

A genealogy of the concept of the multitude and Spinoza's democratic political philosophy Drawing on new and relatively unknown sources, Sonja Lavaert traces the genealogy of modern democratic thought from Machiavelli to Spinoza and his circle, and into the early eighteenth century. The chapters follow these authors, their writings, and the anonymous works chronologically. The notion of the multitude is central, which Spinoza and his circle investigated in two senses: as a specific political form - the republic of the multitude, or democracy; and as the factual, intrinsic diversity of the multitude - the political constitution and dynamics. Spinoza has long been recognised for the central role he played in the development of modern democratic ideals through his treatises on politics and the freedom to philosophise. Lavaert argues that he drew on Machiavelli for these ideas and in the process dispelled the Machiavellian counterimage created by the Italian scholar's political and Christian opponents. Sonja Lavaert is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium. Albert Gootjes is an intellectual historian specializing in early modern theology and philosophy.

In this article, the focus will first be on the distinction Spinoza makes in his Tractatus theologico-politicus on the different strivings of human beings and the two different conceptions of law—natural and ad arte—in relation to freedom. Proceeding from these distinctions and Spinoza’s objective with his philosophical enquiries, I will then consider whether a change occurs between the earlier TTP and the later unfinished Tractatus politicus. Both texts are marked by a naturalist turn, the indifference of religion, moral neutrality, the identification of right and power and the denial of natural hierarchy, but nonetheless one can also observe a change in the TP, where the naturalistic premise is more explicit, the human condition more on the forefront and the use of the concepts more precise; the ‘people’, for example, are replaced by the ‘multitude’. In search of sources and aspects for the naturalist turn and the specific conceptual evolution between the TTP and TP, we will consider the example of Machiavelli (and thereafter of Lucretius), De la Court’s notion of a free republic building on Machiavelli and the revolutionary ideas of Van den Enden aimed at improving on his predecessor. The different aspects linked to the use of the concept of multitude in the TP will then be analyzed in relation to the sources and aspects mentioned so as to return to the initial questions concerning law and freedom.

This article investigates the anthropology of Spinoza as a strategy for happiness, political, as well as individual. Inspired by the readings, comments, and perspectives of Matheron, Deleuze, and Balibar, I will analyze Spinoza’s theory of the affects as the basis for this strategic anthropology. These authors all share an ontological and political vision organized around the concepts of multitude and the transindividual which result directly from Spinoza’s analysis of the human affects in books III and IV of the Ethics, and his theory of political dynamics developed in the Political treatise. They consider Spinoza a contemporary and share with him the idea of a relational ontology and an inextricable and mutual interdependence of the individual and the community which is captured in the concept of the transindividual. With Matheron/Spinoza I will focus on the question of anthropology and the structure of thought, with Deleuze/Spinoza on the kinds of knowledge in relation to the human mind and body, and with Balibar/Spinoza on the transindividual, productive, active, and thus strategic nature of our thinking. These three analyses of human thought and affects all proceed from the hypothesis of conatus/desire as human essence and aim not just at theoretical knowledge but rather at the effective improvement of our well-being and lives, that is, at happiness.

This article investigates the contribution of Spinoza and authors of his circle (Antistius Constans, Van den Enden and Koerbagh) on the modern conception of tolerance. In his Tractatus theologico-politicus (1670), Spinoza launches the libertas philosophandi-question integrating two kinds of freedom between which there is a tension: freedom of thought and speech and freedom of religious conscience. As freedom means living and acting in society in light of one’s own interests, tolerance becomes a political issue that depends from political perspectives and priorities. This insight leads Spinoza to bringing together the control of political authority on religious affairs and a political regime of religious plurality and toleration. These ideas seem to be reminiscent of texts published in his immediate circle: the anonymus De jure ecclesiasticorum (1665); the political pamphlets Kort verhael (1662) and Vrye Politijke Stellingen (1665) of his teacher Van den Enden; the subversive dictionary Een Bloemhof (1668) and the systematic philosophical Een Ligt (1668) of Koerbagh. In these texts the question of religion and religious authority shifts to the question of the nature and origin of political authority. The authors all criticize the abuse of power in light of the idea that there is no freedom without equality and no equality without freedom. Together with Spinoza’s Tractatus politicus (1677), they thereby form an anomaly within the anomaly of the Calvinist Low Countries that regards specifically this radical democratic view. They are not so much talking about tolerance but about everyone’s active participation in political life which is necessary for the rescue of the republic.

Violence, domination, inégalité, tyrannie et insurrections : la réflexion de Spinoza sur le droit et la politique ne se limite pas au pacte social, ni à la liberté de philosopher. Il ne s'agit pas seulement de dresser la liste des droits respectifs du souverain et des sujets, dans le sillage des théories du droit naturel. Déjà Althusser avait rapproché Spinoza de Marx et Alexandre Matheron avait montré le rôle essentiel des passions dans la Cité et ses transformations. Toute une génération de chercheurs s'est interrogée ensuite sur les notions par lesquelles se pense ce devenir : foule, peuple, nation, mais aussi multitude. C'est ce dernier terme surtout qui concentre le mieux une pensée de l'initiative historique des citoyens et de leur puissance collective. Il restait à en tirer les conséquences sur les rapports entre individu et multitude, sur les relations de la pensée spinoziste avec Machiavel, Grotius et Hobbes, sur l'attitude de Spinoza envers révolution et conservation, résistance, assimilation et intégration, citoyenneté, désobéissance et révolte. Autant de thèmes qui sont développés ici, à travers la lecture renouvelée de L'Ethique, du Traité théologico-politique, et du Traité politique. Le volume s'achève par un entretien avec Toni Negri, qui fut le premier, dans son livre L'Anomalie sauvage, à mettre en lumière l'importance et le rôle de ce concept. Il y fait le bilan de son propre itinéraire et des discussions qu'il a suscitées."--Page 4 of cover.

This contribution focuses on the complex origin and publication history of the clandestine treatise Traité des trois imposteurs that put into motion the process of the radical Enlightenment. The treatise consists almost completely of a compilation of paraphrases and quotations of heterodox texts of the 17th century. A summary will be made of the most important source texts assembled in the collage. One of them is Vanini’s De Admirandis Naturae Reginae Deaeque Mortalium Arcanis from 1619 on which the analysis will focus. Two editions of the treatise are particularly important in this respect and will be looked at in detail: the first publication in print from 1719 under the title L’esprit de Spinosa and the re-edition as Traité des trois imposteurs from 1768 probably made by D’Holbach. The hypothesis developed of this contribution is that through the translation and the retranslation, step by step, a shift in meaning from Renaissance pantheism and the idea of natural religion to atheism and materialism took place. This hypothesis will be assessed by a precise comparative analysis of two excerpts of Dialogue 50 of De Admirandis, the French translation in L’Esprit de Spinosa and the French retranslation in the Traité des trois imposteurs. Finally, also the Italian translation of 1798 will be compared with the previous editions/translations.