Abstract

Is the radical character of Spinoza’s political philosophy only a historiographic matter or are his considerations on the politics and the political still radical today? Which elements of his political thought can be considered as radical in our present? I think that these questions need to be posed when one attempts at thinking of the actuality of Spinoza’s philosophy and in particular, of Spinoza’s Tractatus theologico-politicus (from now on TTP). In the following pages I tend to give an initial answer to this problem by analysing two controversial points in Spinoza’s TTP, namely, his thesis about the political necessity of a right of censorship exerted exclusively by the state (in terms of supreme power or legally institutionalised authority) and the explicitly anti-revolutionary tone of his political thought. I will examine these awkward issues both in the context of the TTP and in the light of the contemporary crisis of democracy. The main theses of the present paper are, firstly, that both controversial points, contrary to what the majority of the most influential contemporary Spinoza-scholars affirms, do not contradict the spirit of Spinoza’s political thought; secondly, that by showing those polemic views of Spinoza to be actually consistent with the whole of the TTP, a new kind of political philosophical radicality in Spinoza’s thought, which has been until now disregarded, comes to light. I will also show that this radical aspect of his thought can still be considered radical today, unlike other merely historiographically radical motifs of his philosophy such as his absolute materialist monism.