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The writings of Baruch de Spinoza (1632–1677) have occupied a somewhat marginal position in the history of political thought. His political works have rarely been included in contemporary anthologies of the subject, although this has been less the case in the earlier part of the twentieth century. It is almost as if the name of Spinoza has been erased from the canon, or remains concealed between the twin figures of Machiavelli and Hobbes. Yet Spinoza was one of the key harbingers of political modernity. His Tractatus Theologico Politicus (TTP), the only work to be published during his own lifetime, and considered by many of his contemporaries to be a subversive political tract, presented the freedom and power of the individual as the most important political goal. In the view of many political philosophers, it is the first statement of liberal democracy. Studied closely by Marx in his early years and a significant influence upon Rousseau's Social Contract, the clandestinely published TTP was read far and wide throughout Europe (see Israel, 2001). The silence surrounding Spinoza's position and recognition in modern political thought is thus an uncomfortable one, given this history, but it is slowly finding a new voice. In recent years Spinoza scholars have begun to weave together the political writings with the much more widely read Ethics. They have come to see the essential inter-relation between the two and the resources and challenges held there for a radical political theory. Spinoza's rejection of a conception of the individual subject as a sovereign being imperium in imperio, his account of the affective ties that always influence the form of the social bond between subjects, and his emphasis upon the nurturing of joyful affects for a life of freedom and action, each contribute to his vision of politics.

DOI: 10.1057/9780230501676_2

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