Politics, Ontology and Knowledge in Spinoza

Alexandre Matheron was formerly Professor of Philosophy at the Ecole normale supérieure de Fontenay-Saint-Cloud and the CNRS. His key works include The Individual and Community in Spinoza (Éditions de Minuit, 1968), Christ and the Salvation of the Ignorants in Spinoza (Éditions Aubier-Montaigne, 1971) and Anthropology and Politics in the 17th Century (Vrin, 1985). Filippo Del Lucchese is Associate Professor of Political Philosophy at the University of Bologna and a Senior Research Associate at the University of Johannesburg. His research interests are in the early modern period and the history of political thought and Marxism. He has been a Marie Curie fellow and holds degrees from the universities of Pisa and Paris IV (Sorbonne). He is the author of Conflict, Power and Multitude in Machiavelli and Spinoza (Continuum, 2009), The Political Philosophy of Niccolò Machiavelli (EUP, 2015), and Monstrosity and Philosophy: Radical Otherness in Greek and Latin Culture (EUP, 2019). He has published articles in journals such as History of Political Thought, European Journal of Political Theory, Dialogue, International Studies in Philosophy, and Differences. He has taught in France, Lebanon, the United States and in the UK. David Maruzzella is a writer, editor and translator based in Chicago. He earned his PhD in philosophy from DePaul University and holds an MA in philosophie contemporaine from the École normale supérieure. He translated Ethics and Politics in Spinoza and Sartre by Gaye Cankaya Eksen and with Gil Moréjon, Politics, Ontology and Knowledge in Spinoza by Alexandre Matheron. David Maruzzella is a writer, editor and translator based in Chicago. He earned his PhD in philosophy from DePaul University and holds an MA in philosophie contemporaine from the École normale supérieure. He translated Ethics and Politics in Spinoza and Sartre by Gaye Cankaya Eksen and with Gil Moréjon, Politics, Ontology and Knowledge in Spinoza by Alexandre Matheron. Gil Morejón teaches at Loyola University Chicago. His research focuses on early modern metaphysics and political theory. He is the author of The Unconscious of Thought in Leibniz, Spinoza and Hume (Edinburgh University Press, 2022) and co-edited and co-translated Alexandre Matheron's Politics, Ontology and Knowledge in Spinoza (Edinburgh University Press, 2020).

For three generations now, in France and abroad, Alexandre Matheron has been the absolute master of Spinozistic research and study. He knows every line, he has a solution for every problem, he opens avenues for philosophical imagination behind every proposition. In this comprehensive collection of his essays, the first to appear in English, readers will learn with joy how to combine structural interpretation, accurate contextualization, and relevance of "eternal" wisdom for the understanding of the present.

• A Revolutionary Beatitude: Alexandre Matheron’s SpinozismDavid Maruzzella and Gil MorejónPart 1: Spinoza on Ontology and Knowledge1. Idea, Idea of the Idea, and Certainty in the Tractatus de Emendatione Intellectus and the Ethics2. Essence, Existence, and Power in Part I of the Ethics: The Foundations of Proposition 163. Physics and Ontology in Spinoza: The Enigmatic Response to Tschirnhaus4: The Year 1663 and the Spinozist Identity of Being and Power: Hypothesis on a Development5. Eternal Life and the Body according to Spinoza6. Intellectual Love of God, Eternal Part of the amor erga DeumPart II: Spinoza on Politics and Ethics7. State and Morality according to Spinoza8. Ethics and Politics in Spinoza (Remarks on the Role of Ethics IV, 37 Scholium 2)9. Indignation and the Conatus of the Spinozist State10. Passions and Institutions according to Spinoza11. The Problem of Spinoza’s Development: From the Theologico-Political Treatise to the Political Treatise12. Is the State, according to Spinoza, an Individual in Spinoza’s Sense?13. The Ontological Status of Scripture and the Spinozist Doctrine of Individuality14. Spinoza and Power15. Spinoza and Property16. Spinoza and Sexuality17. Women and Servants in Spinozist Democracy18. The ‘Right of the Stronger’: Hobbes contra Spinoza19. The Theoretical Function of Democracy in Spinoza and Hobbes20. Spinoza and the Breakdown of Thomist Politics: Machiavellianism and UtopiaAppendix 1. Interview with Laurent Bove and Pierre-François MoreauAppendix 2. Chronology of Works by MatheronWorks CitedIndex