Spinoza in modernity

From the reign of quantity to the immanent refoundation of democracy

Abstract

In this article, the author overviews the French reception of Spinoza, so as to unveil the conservative dimension of Spinoza’s political philosophy, insofar as the determinism that generally reigns over the Spinozan metaphysical system lends itself to a compatibilism with its ideas of obedience and freedom. In this sense, skeptical obedience to democratic laws, namely, obedience to the law of counting (quantity), frees us and emancipates us in that it frees us from all transcendence. It seems thus that our contemporary democracies, so attracted by republican values and their transcendent dimension, still have a long way to go before arriving at the immanent and formal democracy that Spinoza called the absolute regime (imperium absolutum).