Abstract
When Spinoza writes in Chapter 16 of the Tractatus:
For it is certain that Nature, taken in the absolute sense, has the sovereign right to do all that she can do; that is, Nature’s right is co-extensive with her power [potentia]...it follows that each individual thing [unumquodque individuum] has the sovereign right to do all that it can do; i.e., the right of the individual [uniuscujusque eo] is co-extensive with its determinate power [potentia] (G3:189/S 179).1
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References
References to Spinoza’s works other than the Tractatus will be internal using the following standard abbreviations throughout: “PPC” for Principiaphilosophiae cartesianae; “CM” for Cogitata metaphysica; “E” for Ethica; “TTP” for Tractatus theologico-politicus; “TP” for Tractatus politicus; and “Ep” for Epistolae. Other standard abbreviations are p(-roposition), cor(-ollary), dem(-onstration), schol(-ium), def(-inition), and pref(-ace). E2p13cor would thus refer to the corollary to proposition 13 in the second part of the Ethica.
See, for example, E. Curley, “Kissinger, Spinoza, and Genghis Khan,”The Cambridge Companion to Spinoza, ed. D. Garrett ( Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996 ) p. 318.
A. Matheron, “Le `droit du plus fort’: Hobbes contre Spinoza,” Revue philosophique 110 (1985):176 [my translation].
C. Huenemann, “Teaching Spinoza’s Political Philosophy to Undergraduates,” delivered at the December 1996 meeting of the North American Spinoza Society (unpublished manuscript). Also see Matheron’s “Le `driot du plus fort’: Hobbes contre Spinoza,” p. 168.
Curley, “Kissinger, Spinoza, and Genghis Khan,” p. 335. 8P-F. Moreau,Spinoza( Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1975 ) p. 89.
E. Fernandez-García,“PotentiaetPostestasdans les premiers écrits de B. Spinoza,”Studia Spinozana4 (1988):195 [my translation]. Cf. R. McShea, “Spinoza on Power,”Inquiry12 (1969): 133.
A distinction between potentia and potestas has not escaped all commentators, yet no one has yet to offer an exhaustive analysis of these terms in Spinoza. A possible exception is Marin Terpstra’s De wending naar de politiek: Een studie over de begrippen potestas b# Spinoza, a dissertation submitted at Nijmegen in 1990. Two later publications by Terpstra seem to draw on conclusions reached in that earlier work. See his “An Analysis of Power Relations and Class Reactions in Spinoza’s Tractatus politicus,” Studia Spinozana 9 (1993):79–104
“What Does Spinoza Mean by `potentia multitudinis’?” eds. E. Balibar, H. Seidel, and M. Walther, Freiheit und Notwendigkeit: Ethische und politische Aspekte bei Spinoza und in der Geschichte des (Anti-)Spinozismus (Wurzburg: Königshausen and Neumann, 1994). Fernández-Garcia’s “Potentia et Potestas dans les premiers écrits de B. Spinoza” presents a very general overview of Spinoza’s use of these two terms in his earlier works.
Cf. Chapter 2 of the TTP where Spinoza links summum jus to summa potentia (G3:39/S31). See also other passages at G3:38/S31; G3:193/S183; G3:201/S 191; G3:202/S192; and G3:206/S 195 for other examples of Spinoza’s joining right [jus] to power [potentia].
See A. Matheron, Individu et communauté chez Spinoza (Paris: Editions de Minuit, 1969) p. 22: “An individual [individu] is nothing other than the activity… in as much as this activity provides for it a determined structure”[my translation]. Cf. Matheron, “Spinoza et le problèmatique juridique de Grotius,” Philosophie 4 (1984):78.
Cf. E4def8; E5p9dem; Ep64. Also, power is linked to desire [cupiditas] at G3:11/S7; G3:190/S180, and see where desire [cupiditas] is linked to essence: E3p9schol; E4def8.
This reading accords nicely with J. Bennett’s field metaphysic analogy, seeA Study of Spinoza’sEthics (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company,1984) pp. 91–106; and his “Spinoza’s Metaphysics,” inThe Cambridge Companion to Spinoza, pp. 63ff. Also compare M. Gueroult’s reading of a Spinozistic individual as a quantum of power inSpinoza II: l’âme(Paris: Aubier-Montaigne, 1974) p. 351; and C. Ramond’sQualité et quantité dans le philosophie de Spinoza(Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1995 ) pp. 222–28, 248–52.
Again, this seems to fit in well with Bennett’s field metaphysic analogy. Cf. where Spinoza writes about the potentia rerum naturalium, not the potentiae rerum naturialium (G3:461537; G3:81/S72) and later where he describes the potentia omnium individuorum rather than the potentiae omnium individuorum (G3:189/ S179). Actually, there is one passage wherein Spinoza writes about powers (in the plural) [duas itaque potentias], but here he is referring to the common people’s [vulgus] mistaken belief that God’s power is distinct from nature’s power (G3:81/ S72).
Spinoza does claim that some states may be stronger (potentius) than others (G3:196/S 186), but this does not necessarily mean that any state actually possesses power. Remember that he also claims that Jehovah is more powerful than other gods (G3:169/S 159), but this does not mean that any gods actually exist or have any power. Spinoza uses the term “potentius” two times in the TTP; it could be that “stronger” would be a better way to render “potentius.”
One is determined, then, to do what he/she judges to be most conducive to his/her own welfare. On this point see G. Belaief,Spinoza’s Philosophy of Law( The Hague: Mouton, 1971 ) p. 45
E.E. Harris, “Spinoza’s Treatment of Natural Law,”Spinoza ‘s Political and Theological Thought, ed. C. de Deugd ( Amsterdam: North-Holland Publishing Company, 1984 ) pp. 65–67
L. Rice, “Emotions, Appetition, and Conatus in Spinoza,”Revue internationale de philosophie31 (1977): 110–114.
See, for example, R. McShea,The Political Philosophy of Spinoza( New York: Columbia University Press, 1968 ) pp. 156–176
L. Rice, “Spinoza and Highway Robbery,”Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie80 (1998): 95–102.
Indeed, see the heading for Chapter 17 (G3:201/S 191): “It is demonstrated that nobody can, or need, transfer all his rights to the sovereign power” [Ostenditur neminem omnia in Summam Potestatem transferre posse, nec esse necesse].
This reading of obligation has recently been called the “catch-me-ifyou-can” theory of obligation, see Rice, “Spinoza and Highway Robbery.” It has been argued that Spinoza himself exemplifies this in his preface and final chapter of the TTP wherein he says that if the civil authority finds anything objectionable in his book, he would change it (G3:12/S8; G3:247/S238). That a book already published makes this promise in effect says that if the authority could have stopped him, Spinoza would have not published it, but the authority did not stop him (and so de facto could not have stopped him), hence it really had no authority and so Spinoza was not held not to displease it.
So Spinoza writes to Willem van Blijenbergh that if one imagined that he would be better off hanging from a gallows than sitting at his own table, he would be a fool not to go hang himself [Ep23].
Again, see McShea’s The Political Philosophy ofSpinoza, pp. 156–176; and Rice’s “Spinoza and Highway Robbery.”
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Barbone, S. (1999). Power in the Tractatus theologico-politicus . In: Bagley, P.J. (eds) Piety, Peace, and the Freedom to Philosophize. The New Synthese Historical Library, vol 47. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-2672-6_5
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