Jack Stetter (Ph.D., Université de Paris VIII) works primarily on modern philosophy with a special focus on Spinoza. With Charles Ramond, he is co-editor of Spinoza in Twenty-First Century American and French Philosophy (Bloomsbury, 2019). With Stephen Howard, he is co-editor of The Edinburgh Critical Guide to Early Modern and Enlightenment Philosophy (forthcoming). For the academic year 2024-2025 he was awarded the Solmsen Fellowship by the IRH at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Ed. (With Charles Ramond), Spinoza in Twenty-First Century American and French Philosophy. Metaph... more Ed. (With Charles Ramond), Spinoza in Twenty-First Century American and French Philosophy. Metaphysics, Philosophy of Mind, Moral and Political Philosophy, London: Bloomsbury Academic 2019, 396 p.
Contributors: Steven Barbone, Laurent Bove, Edwin Curley, Valérie Debuiche, Michael Della Rocca, Simon B. Duffy, Daniel Garber, Pascale Gillot, Céline Hervet, Jonathan Israel, Chantal Jaquet, Mogens Lærke, Jacqueline Lagrée, Martin Lin, Yitzhak Y. Melamed, Pierre-François Moreau, Steven Nadler, Knox Peden, Alison Peterman, Charles Ramond, Michael A. Rosenthal, Pascal Sévérac, Hasana Sharp, Jack Stetter, Ariel Suhamy, Lorenzo Vinciguerra.
The paper argues that Spinoza may have deepened his conception of poetry as not only a resource f... more The paper argues that Spinoza may have deepened his conception of poetry as not only a resource for the understanding but as the highest peak of the understanding. I begin by reviewing selected literature on Spinoza’s views on language and show how Spinoza’s presentation of his philosophy builds on a conception of what language can do. I then make a succinct case for a reading of Ethics Part 5 Proposition 24, where we find an attempt at a poetic expression of thought, as Spinoza explores what he considers the highest form of knowledge: intuitive science.
In this paper, I inspect the grounds for the mature Spinozist argument for substance monism. The ... more In this paper, I inspect the grounds for the mature Spinozist argument for substance monism. The argument is succinctly stated at Ethics Part 1, Proposition 14. The argument appeals to two explicit premises: (1) that there must be a substance with all attributes; (2) that substances cannot share their attributes. In conjunction with a third implicit premise, that a substance cannot not have any attribute whatsoever, Spinoza infers that there can be no more than one substance. I begin the inspection with the analysis of the first premise, which is provided in the form of the four proofs of God’s existence in Ethics Part 1, Proposition 11. While demonstrating how Spinoza adopts a progressive approach, where the fourth proof of God’s existence is more successful and persuasive than the third, which is more successful than the second, etc., I also unpack concepts central to Spinoza’s thinking here, including the concepts of reason (ratio) and power (potesta or potentia). I then analyze the second premise of the Spinozist argument for substance monism, as established by Ethics Part 1, Proposition 4 in conjunction with Ethics Part 1, Proposition 5. I take up and respond to the objection attributed to Leibniz that a substance p can have the attributes x and y and a substance q can have the attributes y and z, and thus that substances can share some attributes while remaining distinct. Throughout the study, my attention is focused on the argumentative procedures Spinoza adopts. This yields a close, internalist reading of the text where Spinoza effectively embraces substance monism. In conclusion to this study, I underscore to the originality of Spinoza’s argument for seventeenth century theories of substance.
Keywords: Spinoza; substance monism; proofs of God’s existence; individuation.
Although Deleuze's work on Spinoza is widely known, it remains poorly understood. In particular, ... more Although Deleuze's work on Spinoza is widely known, it remains poorly understood. In particular, Deleuze's interpretation of Spinoza's immanentism has not been treated sufficient care; that is, with an eye to the context of its elaboration and the way in which it gradually takes on different characteristics. With this paper, I offer a synoptic analysis of Deleuze's views on immanence in Spinoza and examine how these change over the course of Deleuze's career. There are three ascending stages here: a first one, where Deleuze's attention is drawn to more recognizable issues in understanding Spinoza's views on the deep metaphysical structure of reality; a second, more experimental one, where Deleuze questions what it means to be a reader of Spinoza in light of Spinoza's theory of the body and affects; and a third, particularly iconoclastic stage, where Deleuze develops the theory of "the plane of immanence" as a way of articulating a meta-philosophical story about the place of non-philosophy at the heart of all philosophy. I trace each of these accounts, tie them together to tell a coherent and comprehensive narrative, and show what may be learned from this Spinoza that Deleuze portrays as drunk on immanence.
A study of selected popular literature on Spinoza for the Blackwell Companion to Spinoza, ed. Y. ... more A study of selected popular literature on Spinoza for the Blackwell Companion to Spinoza, ed. Y. Y. Melamed.
Springer Encyclopedia of Early Modern Philosophy and Science, 2021
"Spinoza", second edition. Encyclopedia entry for the Springer Encyclopedia of EM Phil and the Sc... more "Spinoza", second edition. Encyclopedia entry for the Springer Encyclopedia of EM Phil and the Sciences, ed. D. Jalobeanu and C. T. Wolfe.
Jean-Claude Milner’s Le sage trompeur (2013), a controversial recent piece of French Spinoza lite... more Jean-Claude Milner’s Le sage trompeur (2013), a controversial recent piece of French Spinoza literature, remains regrettably understudied in the English-speaking world. Adopting Leo Strauss’ esoteric reading method, Milner alleges that Spinoza dissimulates his genuine analysis of the causes of the persecution and survival of the Jewish people within a brief “manifesto” found at the end of the Tractatus Theologico-Politicus (TTP), Chapter 3. According to Milner, Spinoza holds that the Jewish people themselves are responsible for the hatred of the Jewish people, and that the engine of their longevity is the hatred they engender. Additionally, claims Milner, Spinoza covertly insinuates that the solution to this persistent state of hatred consists in the mass apostasy of the Jewish people under the leadership of a Sabbatai Zevi-like figure. This article presents the Milner–Spinoza controversy to the English-speaking public along with the larger context of French-language scholarship on Spinoza’s relation to Judaism. While refuting Milner’s reading of Spinoza, I simultaneously clarify relevant elements of Spinoza’s discussions of Judaism in the TTP, such as Spinoza’s examination of Jewish identity and the nature of divine election, Spinoza’s understanding of the causes of national hatred, and Spinoza’s appeals to Portuguese, Spanish, Chinese, and Turkish political history.
François Lamy, a Benedictine monk and Cartesian philosopher whose extensive relations with Arnaul... more François Lamy, a Benedictine monk and Cartesian philosopher whose extensive relations with Arnauld, Bossuet, Fénélon, and Malebranche put him into contact with the intellectual elite of late-seventeenth-century France, authored the very first detailed and explicit refutation of Spinoza’s Ethics in French, Le nouvel athéisme renversé. Regrettably overlooked in the secondary literature on Spinoza, Lamy is an interesting figure in his own right, and his anti-Spinozist work sheds important light on Cartesian assumptions that inform the earliest phase of Spinoza’s critical reception in the seventeenth-century. I begin by presenting Lamy’s life and the contentious state of Spinoza’s French reception in the 1680 and 1690s. I then discuss a central argument in Lamy’s refutation, namely the Cartesian objection that Spinoza’s account of the conceptual independence of attributes is incompatible with the theory of substance monism. Contrasting Lamy’s objection with questions put to Spinoza by de Vries and Tschirnhaus, I maintain that by exhibiting the direction Spinoza’s views on substance and attribute took in maturing we may accurately assess the strength of Spinoza’s position vis-à-vis his Cartesian objector, and I argue that, in fact, Spinoza’s mature account of God as an expressive ens realissimum is not vulnerable to Lamy’s criticism. In conclusion, I turn to Lamy’s objection that Spinoza’s philosophy is question-begging in view of Spinoza’s account of God, and I exhibit what this point of criticism tells us about the intentions of the first French Cartesian rebuttal of the Ethics.
“La modulation spinoziste. Pour se purifier de la pureté”. Timea Gimsea (Ed.), Modulation-Deleuze... more “La modulation spinoziste. Pour se purifier de la pureté”. Timea Gimsea (Ed.), Modulation-Deleuze, Szeged: Jate Press, 2017, 49-58.
Une analyse de l'interprétation de la philosophie spinoziste comme philosophie de l'immanence soutenue par G. Deleuze, notamment dans "Qu'est-ce que la philosophie?" (Paris: Éd. Minuit, 1991).
“L’État comme âme, le citoyen comme soumis et comme résistant”. Hugues Poltier (Ed.), Spinoza pol... more “L’État comme âme, le citoyen comme soumis et comme résistant”. Hugues Poltier (Ed.), Spinoza politique: Penser la puissance de la multitude, IN Revue de Théologie et de Philosophie 147, Lausanne, 2015. 185-205.
Nous cherchons ici à étudier la signification du fait qu’un État, chez Spinoza, peut se comprendre intégralement comme étant une « âme » singulière. Nous montrons en quoi cette compréhension de l’État comme « âme » permet d’expliciter les éléments centraux de la théorie de l’obéissance chez Spinoza, et en quoi le succès du projet politique spinoziste n’est envisageable que de cette perspective. Nous soulevons en conclusion un paradoxe : Spinoza écrit (TP 3/8) que nul ne cède de sa faculté de juger ; et à force de tirer sur ce fil, nous montrons que Spinoza y aborde de façon discrète et indirecte la possibilité de la disparition de l’État, dans la mesure même où il aura réussi à encourager l’obéissance et à faire en sorte que « l’âme » de tous devienne un bien commun.
The handout for my talk at the upcoming conference "French Phil. Today" (LSU, April 18-20)
For m... more The handout for my talk at the upcoming conference "French Phil. Today" (LSU, April 18-20)
For more conference information: https://sites.google.com/view/frenchphilconference/home
Spinoza's Political Treatise (1677), his posthumously published major work in political theory, b... more Spinoza's Political Treatise (1677), his posthumously published major work in political theory, bears witness to his highly systematic approach to philosophy. Through the prism of his metaphysics of natural right, where right is coextensive with power, Spinoza forms a state-centric conception of war as the practice of organized armed conflict, on which states have the rights for war to the extent that they have the power for war. I will begin by overviewing Spinoza's conception of natural right in connection with his views on war (texts 1-6) before looking at two issues: 1. How Spinoza's views on war fit with his concerns about model states and their ultimate aims (texts 7-12); and 2. Why Spinoza thinks that the state's power for war is an essential or natural power (texts 13-15).
The paper interrogates Spinoza’s distinction between philosophers and non-philosophers, according... more The paper interrogates Spinoza’s distinction between philosophers and non-philosophers, according to which there are the lucky few who are guided by reason and then the rest of us, the vulgus or plebs. For the purposes of this talk, I consider how we might think Spinoza could try to justify this distinction in light of his conception of the conditions under which the imagination effectively supports the work of reason. As I see it, the puzzle is to know how Spinoza can maintain that we form fewer ideas of bodily affections in the imagination that support the work of reason than we form ideas of bodily affections in the imagination that impede the work of reason. Turning to Ethics Part 4, I show that the answer comes in the form of Spinoza sorting between the (fewer) number of things he thinks we can conceive insofar as they are “useful” to us or “agree” with us (that is to say, the things we conceive insofar as they share properties in common with human nature) as compared with the (greater) number of things Spinoza thinks we conceive that “disagree” with us and to which we must “accommodate” ourselves. I conclude by speculating that Spinoza may have been ultimately dissatisfied with this arrangement. Thus, I suggest that Spinoza took to writing the Political Treatise as a way of developing a more robust account of how, by means of collective action, the number of things which we conceive insofar as they agree with us can be significantly increased, democracy being the ideal candidate for the development of a more extensive reason-supporting regime of imagination.
A paper presented for the Princeton Bucharest Virtual Seminar in Early Modern Philosophy and the Johns Hopkins Virtual Workshop in Modern Philosophy in 2021
Ed. (With Charles Ramond), Spinoza in Twenty-First Century American and French Philosophy. Metaph... more Ed. (With Charles Ramond), Spinoza in Twenty-First Century American and French Philosophy. Metaphysics, Philosophy of Mind, Moral and Political Philosophy, London: Bloomsbury Academic 2019, 396 p.
Contributors: Steven Barbone, Laurent Bove, Edwin Curley, Valérie Debuiche, Michael Della Rocca, Simon B. Duffy, Daniel Garber, Pascale Gillot, Céline Hervet, Jonathan Israel, Chantal Jaquet, Mogens Lærke, Jacqueline Lagrée, Martin Lin, Yitzhak Y. Melamed, Pierre-François Moreau, Steven Nadler, Knox Peden, Alison Peterman, Charles Ramond, Michael A. Rosenthal, Pascal Sévérac, Hasana Sharp, Jack Stetter, Ariel Suhamy, Lorenzo Vinciguerra.
The paper argues that Spinoza may have deepened his conception of poetry as not only a resource f... more The paper argues that Spinoza may have deepened his conception of poetry as not only a resource for the understanding but as the highest peak of the understanding. I begin by reviewing selected literature on Spinoza’s views on language and show how Spinoza’s presentation of his philosophy builds on a conception of what language can do. I then make a succinct case for a reading of Ethics Part 5 Proposition 24, where we find an attempt at a poetic expression of thought, as Spinoza explores what he considers the highest form of knowledge: intuitive science.
In this paper, I inspect the grounds for the mature Spinozist argument for substance monism. The ... more In this paper, I inspect the grounds for the mature Spinozist argument for substance monism. The argument is succinctly stated at Ethics Part 1, Proposition 14. The argument appeals to two explicit premises: (1) that there must be a substance with all attributes; (2) that substances cannot share their attributes. In conjunction with a third implicit premise, that a substance cannot not have any attribute whatsoever, Spinoza infers that there can be no more than one substance. I begin the inspection with the analysis of the first premise, which is provided in the form of the four proofs of God’s existence in Ethics Part 1, Proposition 11. While demonstrating how Spinoza adopts a progressive approach, where the fourth proof of God’s existence is more successful and persuasive than the third, which is more successful than the second, etc., I also unpack concepts central to Spinoza’s thinking here, including the concepts of reason (ratio) and power (potesta or potentia). I then analyze the second premise of the Spinozist argument for substance monism, as established by Ethics Part 1, Proposition 4 in conjunction with Ethics Part 1, Proposition 5. I take up and respond to the objection attributed to Leibniz that a substance p can have the attributes x and y and a substance q can have the attributes y and z, and thus that substances can share some attributes while remaining distinct. Throughout the study, my attention is focused on the argumentative procedures Spinoza adopts. This yields a close, internalist reading of the text where Spinoza effectively embraces substance monism. In conclusion to this study, I underscore to the originality of Spinoza’s argument for seventeenth century theories of substance.
Keywords: Spinoza; substance monism; proofs of God’s existence; individuation.
Although Deleuze's work on Spinoza is widely known, it remains poorly understood. In particular, ... more Although Deleuze's work on Spinoza is widely known, it remains poorly understood. In particular, Deleuze's interpretation of Spinoza's immanentism has not been treated sufficient care; that is, with an eye to the context of its elaboration and the way in which it gradually takes on different characteristics. With this paper, I offer a synoptic analysis of Deleuze's views on immanence in Spinoza and examine how these change over the course of Deleuze's career. There are three ascending stages here: a first one, where Deleuze's attention is drawn to more recognizable issues in understanding Spinoza's views on the deep metaphysical structure of reality; a second, more experimental one, where Deleuze questions what it means to be a reader of Spinoza in light of Spinoza's theory of the body and affects; and a third, particularly iconoclastic stage, where Deleuze develops the theory of "the plane of immanence" as a way of articulating a meta-philosophical story about the place of non-philosophy at the heart of all philosophy. I trace each of these accounts, tie them together to tell a coherent and comprehensive narrative, and show what may be learned from this Spinoza that Deleuze portrays as drunk on immanence.
A study of selected popular literature on Spinoza for the Blackwell Companion to Spinoza, ed. Y. ... more A study of selected popular literature on Spinoza for the Blackwell Companion to Spinoza, ed. Y. Y. Melamed.
Springer Encyclopedia of Early Modern Philosophy and Science, 2021
"Spinoza", second edition. Encyclopedia entry for the Springer Encyclopedia of EM Phil and the Sc... more "Spinoza", second edition. Encyclopedia entry for the Springer Encyclopedia of EM Phil and the Sciences, ed. D. Jalobeanu and C. T. Wolfe.
Jean-Claude Milner’s Le sage trompeur (2013), a controversial recent piece of French Spinoza lite... more Jean-Claude Milner’s Le sage trompeur (2013), a controversial recent piece of French Spinoza literature, remains regrettably understudied in the English-speaking world. Adopting Leo Strauss’ esoteric reading method, Milner alleges that Spinoza dissimulates his genuine analysis of the causes of the persecution and survival of the Jewish people within a brief “manifesto” found at the end of the Tractatus Theologico-Politicus (TTP), Chapter 3. According to Milner, Spinoza holds that the Jewish people themselves are responsible for the hatred of the Jewish people, and that the engine of their longevity is the hatred they engender. Additionally, claims Milner, Spinoza covertly insinuates that the solution to this persistent state of hatred consists in the mass apostasy of the Jewish people under the leadership of a Sabbatai Zevi-like figure. This article presents the Milner–Spinoza controversy to the English-speaking public along with the larger context of French-language scholarship on Spinoza’s relation to Judaism. While refuting Milner’s reading of Spinoza, I simultaneously clarify relevant elements of Spinoza’s discussions of Judaism in the TTP, such as Spinoza’s examination of Jewish identity and the nature of divine election, Spinoza’s understanding of the causes of national hatred, and Spinoza’s appeals to Portuguese, Spanish, Chinese, and Turkish political history.
François Lamy, a Benedictine monk and Cartesian philosopher whose extensive relations with Arnaul... more François Lamy, a Benedictine monk and Cartesian philosopher whose extensive relations with Arnauld, Bossuet, Fénélon, and Malebranche put him into contact with the intellectual elite of late-seventeenth-century France, authored the very first detailed and explicit refutation of Spinoza’s Ethics in French, Le nouvel athéisme renversé. Regrettably overlooked in the secondary literature on Spinoza, Lamy is an interesting figure in his own right, and his anti-Spinozist work sheds important light on Cartesian assumptions that inform the earliest phase of Spinoza’s critical reception in the seventeenth-century. I begin by presenting Lamy’s life and the contentious state of Spinoza’s French reception in the 1680 and 1690s. I then discuss a central argument in Lamy’s refutation, namely the Cartesian objection that Spinoza’s account of the conceptual independence of attributes is incompatible with the theory of substance monism. Contrasting Lamy’s objection with questions put to Spinoza by de Vries and Tschirnhaus, I maintain that by exhibiting the direction Spinoza’s views on substance and attribute took in maturing we may accurately assess the strength of Spinoza’s position vis-à-vis his Cartesian objector, and I argue that, in fact, Spinoza’s mature account of God as an expressive ens realissimum is not vulnerable to Lamy’s criticism. In conclusion, I turn to Lamy’s objection that Spinoza’s philosophy is question-begging in view of Spinoza’s account of God, and I exhibit what this point of criticism tells us about the intentions of the first French Cartesian rebuttal of the Ethics.
“La modulation spinoziste. Pour se purifier de la pureté”. Timea Gimsea (Ed.), Modulation-Deleuze... more “La modulation spinoziste. Pour se purifier de la pureté”. Timea Gimsea (Ed.), Modulation-Deleuze, Szeged: Jate Press, 2017, 49-58.
Une analyse de l'interprétation de la philosophie spinoziste comme philosophie de l'immanence soutenue par G. Deleuze, notamment dans "Qu'est-ce que la philosophie?" (Paris: Éd. Minuit, 1991).
“L’État comme âme, le citoyen comme soumis et comme résistant”. Hugues Poltier (Ed.), Spinoza pol... more “L’État comme âme, le citoyen comme soumis et comme résistant”. Hugues Poltier (Ed.), Spinoza politique: Penser la puissance de la multitude, IN Revue de Théologie et de Philosophie 147, Lausanne, 2015. 185-205.
Nous cherchons ici à étudier la signification du fait qu’un État, chez Spinoza, peut se comprendre intégralement comme étant une « âme » singulière. Nous montrons en quoi cette compréhension de l’État comme « âme » permet d’expliciter les éléments centraux de la théorie de l’obéissance chez Spinoza, et en quoi le succès du projet politique spinoziste n’est envisageable que de cette perspective. Nous soulevons en conclusion un paradoxe : Spinoza écrit (TP 3/8) que nul ne cède de sa faculté de juger ; et à force de tirer sur ce fil, nous montrons que Spinoza y aborde de façon discrète et indirecte la possibilité de la disparition de l’État, dans la mesure même où il aura réussi à encourager l’obéissance et à faire en sorte que « l’âme » de tous devienne un bien commun.
The handout for my talk at the upcoming conference "French Phil. Today" (LSU, April 18-20)
For m... more The handout for my talk at the upcoming conference "French Phil. Today" (LSU, April 18-20)
For more conference information: https://sites.google.com/view/frenchphilconference/home
Spinoza's Political Treatise (1677), his posthumously published major work in political theory, b... more Spinoza's Political Treatise (1677), his posthumously published major work in political theory, bears witness to his highly systematic approach to philosophy. Through the prism of his metaphysics of natural right, where right is coextensive with power, Spinoza forms a state-centric conception of war as the practice of organized armed conflict, on which states have the rights for war to the extent that they have the power for war. I will begin by overviewing Spinoza's conception of natural right in connection with his views on war (texts 1-6) before looking at two issues: 1. How Spinoza's views on war fit with his concerns about model states and their ultimate aims (texts 7-12); and 2. Why Spinoza thinks that the state's power for war is an essential or natural power (texts 13-15).
The paper interrogates Spinoza’s distinction between philosophers and non-philosophers, according... more The paper interrogates Spinoza’s distinction between philosophers and non-philosophers, according to which there are the lucky few who are guided by reason and then the rest of us, the vulgus or plebs. For the purposes of this talk, I consider how we might think Spinoza could try to justify this distinction in light of his conception of the conditions under which the imagination effectively supports the work of reason. As I see it, the puzzle is to know how Spinoza can maintain that we form fewer ideas of bodily affections in the imagination that support the work of reason than we form ideas of bodily affections in the imagination that impede the work of reason. Turning to Ethics Part 4, I show that the answer comes in the form of Spinoza sorting between the (fewer) number of things he thinks we can conceive insofar as they are “useful” to us or “agree” with us (that is to say, the things we conceive insofar as they share properties in common with human nature) as compared with the (greater) number of things Spinoza thinks we conceive that “disagree” with us and to which we must “accommodate” ourselves. I conclude by speculating that Spinoza may have been ultimately dissatisfied with this arrangement. Thus, I suggest that Spinoza took to writing the Political Treatise as a way of developing a more robust account of how, by means of collective action, the number of things which we conceive insofar as they agree with us can be significantly increased, democracy being the ideal candidate for the development of a more extensive reason-supporting regime of imagination.
A paper presented for the Princeton Bucharest Virtual Seminar in Early Modern Philosophy and the Johns Hopkins Virtual Workshop in Modern Philosophy in 2021
A dominant interpretation of Spinoza portrays him as astonishingly optimistic about the power of ... more A dominant interpretation of Spinoza portrays him as astonishingly optimistic about the power of reason to grasp explanations and thus yield states of intellectual excellence. Yet Spinoza explicitly maintains that very few individuals achieve states of intellectual excellence due to the extreme arduousness of intellectual pursuits, and on several occasions insinuates that ignorance is a default and nearly incorrigible epistemic condition. Indeed, little scholarly attention has been paid to the grounds for Spinoza's genuinely pessimistic assessment of human cognitive competence. In this paper, I address the scholarly lacuna by proffering a new line of interpretation into the justifications Spinoza provides for his belief that attaining intellectual excellence is worrisomely arduous and thus very rarely attained. To this end, I reconstruct and examine what I name the Persistent States of Ignorance (PSI) argument. The analysis progresses in two steps. First, I examine how, for Spinoza, ignorance consists in a certain sort of privation, namely the inability to adequately represent the causes of false ideas. I then further show why, on Spinoza's reckoning, this form of privation is endemic to humans, and why the nature of things can in principle require that the mind persist in these states indefinitely.
A handout for a talk given at the APA Central 2020 North American Spinoza Society
The body is but a mode. For this reason bodies transform one another. Yet the body automatically ... more The body is but a mode. For this reason bodies transform one another. Yet the body automatically functions as a tool of selection. Only certain bodies are allowed to "affect" the body proper and transform it. By limiting its "affections" the body is reducing its "power of acting": active bodies are in fact interactive bodies. How does Spinoza theorize the body's conversion from a state of relative isolation and passivity to one of increased interactivity and agency? And when the body goes from being capable of few relations to being capable of many relations, does that body cease to be the same body, such that we must speak of a second-degree transformation, a transformation of its transforming nature? Or does it remain the same body, and what does this say about the nature of bodily freedom and finitude?
Quand « ET » ne suffirait pas : À propos de l'usage d'un trait d'union dans le titre du Traité Th... more Quand « ET » ne suffirait pas : À propos de l'usage d'un trait d'union dans le titre du Traité Théologico-Politique de Spinoza.
A paper delivered at the Université Paris VIII in 2014
Le mémoire de Master 2. Soutenu en 2012 à Paris VIII sous la direction de Ch. Ramond.
A study of... more Le mémoire de Master 2. Soutenu en 2012 à Paris VIII sous la direction de Ch. Ramond.
A study of Spinoza's account of "singular things" in the Ethics along with the classic French literature on the subject.
TABLE DES MATIÈRES:
INTRODUCTION GENERALE (p. 3 – 4)
PREMIERE PARTIE : DE LA NATURE DE DIEU AUX CHOSES SINGULIERES (p. 5 – 97)
INTRODUCTION (p. 5 – 16) : DU RAPPORT DE L’INFINIMENT INFINI ET DU FINI. Pourquoi l’Éthique commence par l’infiniment infini (Dieu). De l’immanentisme spinoziste. Abrégé de la réalité des choses singulières. Que celles-ci sont « en autre chose » et que cet autre est Dieu. Rôle important de la « cause de soi » dans l’ontologie spinoziste. Description de la démarche à suivre.
PREMIER PAS (p. 17 – 39) : DE LA « CAUSE DE SOI ».
Sur la définition de la « cause de soi ». De la méthode géométrique, et de la raison pour laquelle l’Éthique commence avec cette définition d’un Ens causa sui. Comment la notion de la « cause de soi » fonde l’idée de Dieu. Du monisme intégral chez Spinoza. De « l’esprit » du spinozisme et du déterminisme absolu. Du dédoublement de Dieu.
INTERMEDE (p. 40– 60) : DE LA PROPOSITION 16 ET DES MODES INFINIS.
Derechef, du dédoublement de Dieu, et en particulier, du renversement de la situation théorique du qualitatif et du quantitatif dans le système. Rôle de la Proposition 16 dans le système. Comment celle-ci scelle le passage de l’Ens causa sui à l’Ens effectus sui. Pourquoi I 16 est controversé. Comment I 16 nous apprend que Dieu ne produit nécessairement tout qu’à condition de produire de l’intelligible. De l’intellect de Dieu. Des modes, et des modes infinis en particulier. À propos du souci néoplatonicien.
SECOND PAS (p. 61 – 91) : DE L’ESSENCE ET L’EXISTENCE DES CHOSES EN ÉI.
Les Propositions 24 et 25. Comment Dieu scinde les essences des existences. Que toute chose finie est par essence dans un rapport intime avec sa cause infinie et verticale. Le Scolie de la Proposition 25. Sur la démonstration de la définition des « choses particulières ». Sur la controverse de l’attribut. Les Proposition 26 et 28. Comment les choses existent. De la causalité horizontale et de l’indéfini. Analyse de la notion de l’infini. De l’impossibilité de comprendre totalement l’existence d’une chose. Ce qui veut dire « Deus quatenus ».
FIN DE LA PREMIERE PARTIE (p. 92 – 97) : DE LA NATURE NATURANTE ET LA NATURE NATUREE.
Analyse du Scolie de la Proposition 29. De l’asymétrie du dédoublement de la Nature. Du salut spinoziste.
DEUXIEME PARTIE : DE L’UNITE DES CHOSES SINGULIERES (p. 98 – 153)
INTRODUCTION (p. 98 – 102) : DU RAPPORT DE L’ESSENCE A L’EXISTENCE.
Ce qui se passe lorsqu’on quitte une Partie de l’Éthique. De ce qu’on a vu dans notre Première Partie. De la causalité verticale et de la causalité horizontale. Comment les essences peuvent-elles retrouver les existences, et vice versa. Description de la démarche à suivre.
PREMIER PAS (p. 103 – 127) : DE L’ESSENCE
Sur la définition d’une « essence ». De sa positivité. Que ce qu’un individu est par essence n’est que ce qu’il peut comprendre. De la Proposition 8, de son Corollaire et de son Scolie. Que l’existence de l’essence d’une chose ne se confond pas avec l’existence de la chose elle-même. Contre l’idée que les essences sont des choses « possibles ». Sur la notion des « grandeurs intensives » et sur la notion du « profondeur » chez Spinoza.
SECOND PAS (p. 128 – 149) : DU CONATUS A LA PHYSIQUE
Sur le concept du conatus. Du fait qu’il est l’essence actuelle d’une chose. Qu’on ne peut pas distinguer entre notre puissance ou effort pour persévérer dans l’être et l’être dans lequel nous nous persévérons. Du dynamisme introduit par le biais du conatus. Du rapport du quantitatif et du qualitatif, de l’idée des instants d’éternité, et du problème des essences qui sont instantanées. De la « petite physique » dans la Deuxième Partie de l’Éthique. Sur ses enjeux théoriques. Sur le matérialisme de Spinoza. De la définition de l’Individu comme rapport fixe de mouvement et de repos. Des corps simples, et que pour toute chose existante il n’est pas donné une essence. De la définition des choses singulières, et encore de la mutabilité ontologique de celles-ci.
FIN DE LA DEUXIEME PARTIE (p. 150 – 153) : DE LA FINITUDE
Sur l’Axiome de la Quatrième Partie de l’Éthique. Que certains rapports de mouvement et de repos en remplacent d’autres. Sur la raison pour laquelle tout rapport ne peut pas coexister. Que la destructibilité vient du biais de l’Étendue, et en particulier, du problème de l’espace. Que la chose singulière véhicule une tension entre la partie et le tout, et encore, du salut spinoziste.
CONCLUSION GENERALE (p. 154 – 157)
ENGLISH SUMMARY (p. 158 – 159)
BIBLIOGRAPHIE (p. 160 – 165)
TABLE DES MATIERES (p. 166 – 169)
APRIL 18-20, "French and Francophone Philosophy Today".
Conference information available on th... more APRIL 18-20, "French and Francophone Philosophy Today".
The 'Spinoza at Paris 8' seminar, which has been running for 10 years and is available entirely o... more The 'Spinoza at Paris 8' seminar, which has been running for 10 years and is available entirely online, contributes to contemporary research into Spinoza's philosophy. Its aim is to show that Spinoza's philosophy is a resource for contemporary thought.
Program for the international colloquium Spinoza France États-Unis ('SFEU') held in Paris, 3-4 Ju... more Program for the international colloquium Spinoza France États-Unis ('SFEU') held in Paris, 3-4 June 2016
Table of Contents : (-I- Metaphysics) Edwin CURLEY (« Spinoza’s Metaphysics Revisited »), Pierre-... more Table of Contents : (-I- Metaphysics) Edwin CURLEY (« Spinoza’s Metaphysics Revisited »), Pierre-François MOREAU (« A Response: On Spinoza, Possible Worlds, and Pantheism ») ; Michael DELLA ROCCA (« The Elusiveness of the One and the Many in Spinoza : Substance, Attribute, and Mode »), Pascal sévérac (« A Response: In What Way It Exists ») ; Yitzhak Y. MELAMED (« The Earliest Draft of Spinoza’s Ethics »), Mogens LAERKE (« A Response: Accidents and Modifications : an Additional Note on Axioms 1 and 2 in Appendix of the Short Treatise ») ; Martin LIN (« Metaphysical Rationalism »), Valérie DEBUICHE (« A Response: Leibniz’s Principle of (Sufficient) Reason and Principle of Identity of Indiscernibles ») ; Simon B. DUFFY (« The Transformation of Relations in Spinoza’s Metaphysics »), Céline HERVET (« A Response: Essence, Variations in Power, and ‘Becoming Other’ in Spinoza ») ; (-II- Philosophy of Mind) Alison PETERMAN (« Spinoza’s Two Claims about the Mind-Body Relation »), Jack STETTER (« A Response: A Puzzle in Spinoza’s Views on the Mind-Body Problem ») ; Knox PEDEN (« Spinoza’s True Ideas: Suggestive Convergences »), Pascale GILLOT (« A Response: Althusser, Spinoza and the Specter of the Cartesian Subject ») ; Michael A. ROSENTHAL (« Spinoza on Beings of Reason [Entia Rationis] and the Analogical Imagination »), Jacqueline LAGRÉE (« A Response: Analogia and Ens Rationis ») ; (-III- Moral philosophy) Steven NADLER (« Spinoza on Good and Bad »), Lorenzo VINCIGUERRA (« A Response: The Knowledge of Good and Bad ») ; Hasana SHARP (« Generosity as Freedom in Spinoza’s Ethics »), Ariel SUHAMY (« A Response: A Generous Reading ») ; (-IV- Political Philosophy) Daniel GARBER (« Obedience in Spinoza’s Tractatus Theologico-Politicus »), Chantal JAQUET (« A Response: Logic of the Superstitious, Logic of the Pious ») ; Steven BARBONE (« Individual and Community and its American Legacy »), Laurent BOVE (« A Response: Between Matheron and Spinoza, Something Happens… »), Jonathan ISRAEL (« Spinoza’s Formulation of the Radical Enlightenment’s Two Fundational Concepts: How Much Did He Owe to the Dutch Golden Age ? »), Charles RAMOND (« A Response: Spinoza’s Paradoxical Radicalism »).
Majors seminar on 19th-C. Phil. (Loyola, 2021):
In this class we will survey three central figur... more Majors seminar on 19th-C. Phil. (Loyola, 2021):
In this class we will survey three central figures of nineteenth-century European thought, along with the philosophical movements that constellate around them. Those thinkers are Hegel, Fourier, and Nietzsche. Each is at the center of one course Module (see Course Calendar, below, for details). The nineteenth-century is a period marked by the memory of the sudden successes of the revolutions (industrial, political, spiritual) that ruined the ancien régime once and for all. Our thinkers are writing in the ruins of Old Europe. With one eye set on the actuality of radical upheaval, they infer not merely its possibility, but its speculative necessity. Hegel’s Science of Absolute Knowledge, Fourier’s Socialist Utopianism, and Nietzsche’s Diagnoses of European Culture all stand for renewed attempts at finishing the job where the last great Aufklärer like Kant or Rousseau had left it: what was incompletely demolished must be totally razed, so that new dynamic structures of philosophy, society, culture be put in place. System building is a distinctive trait of nineteenth-century European thought, where deep metaphysical commitments are called on to motivate social and political constructions, the latter standing as speculative condemnations of the hypocrisy of the status quo. Heidegger once suggested that the nineteenth-century is the most mysterious century for the history of Western metaphysics. There is some truth to this. The century takes us from the victories of Napoleon over the Holy Roman Empire to the era of electricity, chemistry, and steel. The mystery is how thinkers could keep up with the ever-increasing pace of transformation, and how, in all philosophical rigor, they were able to out-stride those changes and provide conceptual resources for anticipating their consequent unfolding. Hegel, Fourier, Nietzsche are thus not merely thinkers of the nineteenth-century. They are thinkers of the present, inasmuch as we too live in the ruins of half-surmounted solipsism and romanticism, patriarchy and libidinal repression, passive nihilism and moral prejudice.
Cours de Master sur le TTP (Paris 8, 2015):
La problématique, la constellation, le noeud théolog... more Cours de Master sur le TTP (Paris 8, 2015):
La problématique, la constellation, le noeud théologico-politique : sans doute, peu de notions philosophiques de l'âge classique nous interpellent aujourd'hui avec autant de force ; et l'actualité quotidienne en témoigne, surabondamment, du besoin de venir au secours des vagues impressions et idées qui planent ici et là sur ce propos avec la rigueur du concept. Il se trouve que vers la fin du 17 ème siècle, un philosophe hollandais, d'extraction ibérique juive, a connu de très près la chose, et qu'il s'est estimé pouvoir la « dénouer ». S'ensuit le second chef d'oeuvre spinoziste. Publié de son vivant (1670), l'ouvrage a fait gagner à son auteur sa renommée, voire son infamie, notamment en France, où il a été lu d'abord à travers l'optique libertine, ensuite matérialiste, et enfin révolutionnaire.
Mais le TTP est beaucoup trop ambitieux pour être si commodément étiqueté et « compris ». Car, avant de parvenir à son but déclaré – prouver que « la liberté de philosopher » est pleinement compatible avec les intérêts des souverains –, il faudrait d’abord déterminer ce que c’est que « la révélation prophétique», de même que la nature de « l’Écriture sainte », avant d’en arriver à l’examen de la nature des cultes en général et l’analyse de la théorie du « droit naturel ». Chemin faisant, Spinoza établit la première science biblique critique de l’histoire et renverse les prémisses et prospects du droit naturel tel que ses contemporains l’ont compris. Et ce n’est qu’après la fin de tout cela, que Spinoza peut déterminer si effectivement il a des solutions à proposer, de même que, à notre tour, nous pouvons nous demander si on peut puiser des ressources dans le TTP pour mieux résoudre les crises du monde moderne.
Uploads
Books by Jack Stetter
Contributors: Steven Barbone, Laurent Bove, Edwin Curley, Valérie Debuiche, Michael Della Rocca, Simon B. Duffy, Daniel Garber, Pascale Gillot, Céline Hervet, Jonathan Israel, Chantal Jaquet, Mogens Lærke, Jacqueline Lagrée, Martin Lin, Yitzhak Y. Melamed, Pierre-François Moreau, Steven Nadler, Knox Peden, Alison Peterman, Charles Ramond, Michael A. Rosenthal, Pascal Sévérac, Hasana Sharp, Jack Stetter, Ariel Suhamy, Lorenzo Vinciguerra.
Papers by Jack Stetter
Keywords: Spinoza; substance monism; proofs of God’s existence; individuation.
https://revistas.ufrj.br/index.php/seiscentos/issue/view/1813
Une analyse de l'interprétation de la philosophie spinoziste comme philosophie de l'immanence soutenue par G. Deleuze, notamment dans "Qu'est-ce que la philosophie?" (Paris: Éd. Minuit, 1991).
Nous cherchons ici à étudier la signification du fait qu’un État, chez Spinoza, peut se comprendre intégralement comme étant une « âme » singulière. Nous montrons en quoi cette compréhension de l’État comme « âme » permet d’expliciter les éléments centraux de la théorie de l’obéissance chez Spinoza, et en quoi le succès du projet politique spinoziste n’est envisageable que de cette perspective. Nous soulevons en conclusion un paradoxe : Spinoza écrit (TP 3/8) que nul ne cède de sa faculté de juger ; et à force de tirer sur ce fil, nous montrons que Spinoza y aborde de façon discrète et indirecte la possibilité de la disparition de l’État, dans la mesure même où il aura réussi à encourager l’obéissance et à faire en sorte que « l’âme » de tous devienne un bien commun.
Drafts by Jack Stetter
For more conference information: https://sites.google.com/view/frenchphilconference/home
A paper presented for the Princeton Bucharest Virtual Seminar in Early Modern Philosophy and the Johns Hopkins Virtual Workshop in Modern Philosophy in 2021
Contributors: Steven Barbone, Laurent Bove, Edwin Curley, Valérie Debuiche, Michael Della Rocca, Simon B. Duffy, Daniel Garber, Pascale Gillot, Céline Hervet, Jonathan Israel, Chantal Jaquet, Mogens Lærke, Jacqueline Lagrée, Martin Lin, Yitzhak Y. Melamed, Pierre-François Moreau, Steven Nadler, Knox Peden, Alison Peterman, Charles Ramond, Michael A. Rosenthal, Pascal Sévérac, Hasana Sharp, Jack Stetter, Ariel Suhamy, Lorenzo Vinciguerra.
Keywords: Spinoza; substance monism; proofs of God’s existence; individuation.
https://revistas.ufrj.br/index.php/seiscentos/issue/view/1813
Une analyse de l'interprétation de la philosophie spinoziste comme philosophie de l'immanence soutenue par G. Deleuze, notamment dans "Qu'est-ce que la philosophie?" (Paris: Éd. Minuit, 1991).
Nous cherchons ici à étudier la signification du fait qu’un État, chez Spinoza, peut se comprendre intégralement comme étant une « âme » singulière. Nous montrons en quoi cette compréhension de l’État comme « âme » permet d’expliciter les éléments centraux de la théorie de l’obéissance chez Spinoza, et en quoi le succès du projet politique spinoziste n’est envisageable que de cette perspective. Nous soulevons en conclusion un paradoxe : Spinoza écrit (TP 3/8) que nul ne cède de sa faculté de juger ; et à force de tirer sur ce fil, nous montrons que Spinoza y aborde de façon discrète et indirecte la possibilité de la disparition de l’État, dans la mesure même où il aura réussi à encourager l’obéissance et à faire en sorte que « l’âme » de tous devienne un bien commun.
For more conference information: https://sites.google.com/view/frenchphilconference/home
A paper presented for the Princeton Bucharest Virtual Seminar in Early Modern Philosophy and the Johns Hopkins Virtual Workshop in Modern Philosophy in 2021
A handout for a talk given at the APA Central 2020 North American Spinoza Society
A paper delivered at Cornell University in 2017
A paper delivered at the Université Paris VIII in 2014
A study of Spinoza's account of "singular things" in the Ethics along with the classic French literature on the subject.
TABLE DES MATIÈRES:
INTRODUCTION GENERALE (p. 3 – 4)
PREMIERE PARTIE : DE LA NATURE DE DIEU AUX CHOSES SINGULIERES (p. 5 – 97)
INTRODUCTION (p. 5 – 16) : DU RAPPORT DE L’INFINIMENT INFINI ET DU FINI. Pourquoi l’Éthique commence par l’infiniment infini (Dieu). De l’immanentisme spinoziste. Abrégé de la réalité des choses singulières. Que celles-ci sont « en autre chose » et que cet autre est Dieu. Rôle important de la « cause de soi » dans l’ontologie spinoziste. Description de la démarche à suivre.
PREMIER PAS (p. 17 – 39) : DE LA « CAUSE DE SOI ».
Sur la définition de la « cause de soi ». De la méthode géométrique, et de la raison pour laquelle l’Éthique commence avec cette définition d’un Ens causa sui. Comment la notion de la « cause de soi » fonde l’idée de Dieu. Du monisme intégral chez Spinoza. De « l’esprit » du spinozisme et du déterminisme absolu. Du dédoublement de Dieu.
INTERMEDE (p. 40– 60) : DE LA PROPOSITION 16 ET DES MODES INFINIS.
Derechef, du dédoublement de Dieu, et en particulier, du renversement de la situation théorique du qualitatif et du quantitatif dans le système. Rôle de la Proposition 16 dans le système. Comment celle-ci scelle le passage de l’Ens causa sui à l’Ens effectus sui. Pourquoi I 16 est controversé. Comment I 16 nous apprend que Dieu ne produit nécessairement tout qu’à condition de produire de l’intelligible. De l’intellect de Dieu. Des modes, et des modes infinis en particulier. À propos du souci néoplatonicien.
SECOND PAS (p. 61 – 91) : DE L’ESSENCE ET L’EXISTENCE DES CHOSES EN ÉI.
Les Propositions 24 et 25. Comment Dieu scinde les essences des existences. Que toute chose finie est par essence dans un rapport intime avec sa cause infinie et verticale. Le Scolie de la Proposition 25. Sur la démonstration de la définition des « choses particulières ». Sur la controverse de l’attribut. Les Proposition 26 et 28. Comment les choses existent. De la causalité horizontale et de l’indéfini. Analyse de la notion de l’infini. De l’impossibilité de comprendre totalement l’existence d’une chose. Ce qui veut dire « Deus quatenus ».
FIN DE LA PREMIERE PARTIE (p. 92 – 97) : DE LA NATURE NATURANTE ET LA NATURE NATUREE.
Analyse du Scolie de la Proposition 29. De l’asymétrie du dédoublement de la Nature. Du salut spinoziste.
DEUXIEME PARTIE : DE L’UNITE DES CHOSES SINGULIERES (p. 98 – 153)
INTRODUCTION (p. 98 – 102) : DU RAPPORT DE L’ESSENCE A L’EXISTENCE.
Ce qui se passe lorsqu’on quitte une Partie de l’Éthique. De ce qu’on a vu dans notre Première Partie. De la causalité verticale et de la causalité horizontale. Comment les essences peuvent-elles retrouver les existences, et vice versa. Description de la démarche à suivre.
PREMIER PAS (p. 103 – 127) : DE L’ESSENCE
Sur la définition d’une « essence ». De sa positivité. Que ce qu’un individu est par essence n’est que ce qu’il peut comprendre. De la Proposition 8, de son Corollaire et de son Scolie. Que l’existence de l’essence d’une chose ne se confond pas avec l’existence de la chose elle-même. Contre l’idée que les essences sont des choses « possibles ». Sur la notion des « grandeurs intensives » et sur la notion du « profondeur » chez Spinoza.
SECOND PAS (p. 128 – 149) : DU CONATUS A LA PHYSIQUE
Sur le concept du conatus. Du fait qu’il est l’essence actuelle d’une chose. Qu’on ne peut pas distinguer entre notre puissance ou effort pour persévérer dans l’être et l’être dans lequel nous nous persévérons. Du dynamisme introduit par le biais du conatus. Du rapport du quantitatif et du qualitatif, de l’idée des instants d’éternité, et du problème des essences qui sont instantanées. De la « petite physique » dans la Deuxième Partie de l’Éthique. Sur ses enjeux théoriques. Sur le matérialisme de Spinoza. De la définition de l’Individu comme rapport fixe de mouvement et de repos. Des corps simples, et que pour toute chose existante il n’est pas donné une essence. De la définition des choses singulières, et encore de la mutabilité ontologique de celles-ci.
FIN DE LA DEUXIEME PARTIE (p. 150 – 153) : DE LA FINITUDE
Sur l’Axiome de la Quatrième Partie de l’Éthique. Que certains rapports de mouvement et de repos en remplacent d’autres. Sur la raison pour laquelle tout rapport ne peut pas coexister. Que la destructibilité vient du biais de l’Étendue, et en particulier, du problème de l’espace. Que la chose singulière véhicule une tension entre la partie et le tout, et encore, du salut spinoziste.
CONCLUSION GENERALE (p. 154 – 157)
ENGLISH SUMMARY (p. 158 – 159)
BIBLIOGRAPHIE (p. 160 – 165)
TABLE DES MATIERES (p. 166 – 169)
Conference information available on the website: https://sites.google.com/view/frenchphilconference/home
For more see: www.spinozaparis8.com
For more see: www.spinozaparis8.com
In this class we will survey three central figures of nineteenth-century European thought, along with the philosophical movements that constellate around them. Those thinkers are Hegel, Fourier, and Nietzsche. Each is at the center of one course Module (see Course Calendar, below, for details). The nineteenth-century is a period marked by the memory of the sudden successes of the revolutions (industrial, political, spiritual) that ruined the ancien régime once and for all. Our thinkers are writing in the ruins of Old Europe. With one eye set on the actuality of radical upheaval, they infer not merely its possibility, but its speculative necessity. Hegel’s Science of Absolute Knowledge, Fourier’s Socialist Utopianism, and Nietzsche’s Diagnoses of European Culture all stand for renewed attempts at finishing the job where the last great Aufklärer like Kant or Rousseau had left it: what was incompletely demolished must be totally razed, so that new dynamic structures of philosophy, society, culture be put in place. System building is a distinctive trait of nineteenth-century European thought, where deep metaphysical commitments are called on to motivate social and political constructions, the latter standing as speculative condemnations of the hypocrisy of the status quo. Heidegger once suggested that the nineteenth-century is the most mysterious century for the history of Western metaphysics. There is some truth to this. The century takes us from the victories of Napoleon over the Holy Roman Empire to the era of electricity, chemistry, and steel. The mystery is how thinkers could keep up with the ever-increasing pace of transformation, and how, in all philosophical rigor, they were able to out-stride those changes and provide conceptual resources for anticipating their consequent unfolding. Hegel, Fourier, Nietzsche are thus not merely thinkers of the nineteenth-century. They are thinkers of the present, inasmuch as we too live in the ruins of half-surmounted solipsism and romanticism, patriarchy and libidinal repression, passive nihilism and moral prejudice.
La problématique, la constellation, le noeud théologico-politique : sans doute, peu de notions philosophiques de l'âge classique nous interpellent aujourd'hui avec autant de force ; et l'actualité quotidienne en témoigne, surabondamment, du besoin de venir au secours des vagues impressions et idées qui planent ici et là sur ce propos avec la rigueur du concept. Il se trouve que vers la fin du 17 ème siècle, un philosophe hollandais, d'extraction ibérique juive, a connu de très près la chose, et qu'il s'est estimé pouvoir la « dénouer ». S'ensuit le second chef d'oeuvre spinoziste. Publié de son vivant (1670), l'ouvrage a fait gagner à son auteur sa renommée, voire son infamie, notamment en France, où il a été lu d'abord à travers l'optique libertine, ensuite matérialiste, et enfin révolutionnaire.
Mais le TTP est beaucoup trop ambitieux pour être si commodément étiqueté et « compris ». Car, avant de parvenir à son but déclaré – prouver que « la liberté de philosopher » est pleinement compatible avec les intérêts des souverains –, il faudrait d’abord déterminer ce que c’est que « la révélation prophétique», de même que la nature de « l’Écriture sainte », avant d’en arriver à l’examen de la nature des cultes en général et l’analyse de la théorie du « droit naturel ». Chemin faisant, Spinoza établit la première science biblique critique de l’histoire et renverse les prémisses et prospects du droit naturel tel que ses contemporains l’ont compris. Et ce n’est qu’après la fin de tout cela, que Spinoza peut déterminer si effectivement il a des solutions à proposer, de même que, à notre tour, nous pouvons nous demander si on peut puiser des ressources dans le TTP pour mieux résoudre les crises du monde moderne.