Spinoza’s Political Theory: Naturalism, Determinism and Institutionalism

Abstract

Spinoza has a formidable reputation as an abstract philosopher in the rationalist school of the 17th century. This standard image of him stems from his elegant Ethics, examining men and women with the Euclidean method of axioms, corollaries and implications. He launched a fascinating theory about moral naturalism and ethical determinism, much debated by other great philosophers. However, he also has two political texts, one on religion and another on political regime. They are much more reader friendly and the arguments are simple, following from the foundations in Ethics. At least, Spinoza so believed. This paper presents systematically the political theory in Tractatus Politicus, which has received too little attention.