display all the ideas for this combination of philosophers
17 ideas
| 4855 | If people are obedient to reason, they will live in harmony [Spinoza] |
| Full Idea: Men insofar as they live in obedience to reason, necessarily live always in harmony with one another. | |
| From: Baruch de Spinoza (The Ethics [1675], IV Pr 35) | |
| A reaction: A beautiful slogan for a belief which has gripped me since I was a child. It embodies the frustration of philosophers from Plato onwards, and it may well be childishly idealistic. Politics is the art of the possible, said R.A.B. Butler. |
| 19935 | Peoples are created by individuals, not by nature, and only distinguished by language and law [Spinoza] |
| Full Idea: Nature certainly does not create peoples, individuals do, and individuals are only separated into nations by differences of language, law and morality. | |
| From: Baruch de Spinoza (Tractatus Theologico-Politicus [1670], 17.26) | |
| A reaction: Quite wrong, I think. How did languages evolve if there were not already distinct peoples? Do ants and bees only form into colonies by individual choice? All social contract theories seem to make Spinoza's assumption. |
| 21874 | The ideal for human preservation is unanimity among people [Spinoza] |
| Full Idea: Man can wish for nothing more helpful to the preservation of his being than that all should so agree in all things that the minds and bodies of all would compose, as it were, one mind and one body. | |
| From: Baruch de Spinoza (The Ethics [1675], IV Pr 18S) | |
| A reaction: There has never been a more glorious vision of a unified people than this, which epitomises Enlightenment optimism. It may be a little on the optimistic side. We might at least hope that rational education encourages the convergence. |
| 8020 | Only self-knowledge can liberate us [Spinoza, by MacIntyre] |
| Full Idea: In Spinoza, self-knowledge, and only self-knowledge, liberates. | |
| From: report of Baruch de Spinoza (The Ethics [1675]) by Alasdair MacIntyre - A Short History of Ethics Ch.10 | |
| A reaction: Spinoza was a determinist, as far as ultimate inner freedom is concerned. The massive continental philosophers' effort of phenomenology and deconstruction seems to be premissed on this idea. Freedom seems to be their highest value. |
| 19914 | In nature everything has an absolute right to do anything it is capable of doing [Spinoza] |
| Full Idea: Since the universal power of nature is only the power of all individual things together, it follows that each individual thing has the sovereign right to do everything it can do, or the right of each thing extends as far as its determined power extends. | |
| From: Baruch de Spinoza (Tractatus Theologico-Politicus [1670], 16.01) | |
| A reaction: A typically ruthless Spinoza idea, very different from the rather ill-founded claims of Locke and Rousseau about the state of nature. |
| 19915 | Natural rights are determined by desire and power, not by reason [Spinoza] |
| Full Idea: Each person's natural right is determined not by sound reason but by desire and power. For it is not the case that all men are naturally determined to behave according to the rules and laws of reason | |
| From: Baruch de Spinoza (Tractatus Theologico-Politicus [1670], 16.03) | |
| A reaction: Locke would have been horrified by this. It looks like hopeless unfounded optimism to claim a natural right to anything. Doomed prey can struggle all it likes, but its right to do so seems irrelevant. Yet we see self-evident injustice all the time. |
| 7412 | Spinoza extended Hobbes's natural rights to cover all possible desires and actions [Spinoza, by Tuck] |
| Full Idea: It was Spinoza who extended the idea of natural rights to cover all possible desires and actions, and he did so knowing that he was transforming Hobbes's theory. | |
| From: report of Baruch de Spinoza (The Ethics [1675]) by Richard Tuck - Hobbes Ch.2 | |
| A reaction: Hobbes had stuck to self-preservation. His problem was how to draw a line, saying that was a natural right, but there wasn't a natural right to a good bottle of claret. Spinoza's drastic solutions suggests that the whole approach is wrong. |
| 7487 | Society exists to extend human awareness [Spinoza, by Watson] |
| Full Idea: For Spinoza the purpose of society was the extension of human awareness. | |
| From: report of Baruch de Spinoza (Tractatus Theologico-Politicus [1670]) by Peter Watson - Ideas Ch.24 | |
| A reaction: I like that. Personally I think human understanding is the best aim our lives can have, but I am inclined to see this in rather individualistic terms (despairing of getting others interested in the project!). |
| 19943 | The state aims to allow personal development, so its main purpose is freedom [Spinoza] |
| Full Idea: It is the purpose of the state ...to allow people's minds and bodies to develop in their own way in security and enjoy the free use of reason ...Therefore the true purpose of the state is in fact freedom. | |
| From: Baruch de Spinoza (Tractatus Theologico-Politicus [1670], 20.06) | |
| A reaction: The core of Spinoza's political thinking. This strikes me as being as close to communitarianism as to liberalism. |
| 19930 | Sovereignty must include the power to make people submit to it [Spinoza] |
| Full Idea: Either there is no sovereignty nor any right over subjects, or else sovereignty must necessarily extend to everything that might be effective in inducing men to submit to it. | |
| From: Baruch de Spinoza (Tractatus Theologico-Politicus [1670], 17.02) | |
| A reaction: In the seventeenth century this usually includes the death penalty. Refusal to submit may be fairly passive and harmless, so the issue must concern duties, rather than rights. Taxes, jury duty, calls to arms. |
| 19936 | Kings tend to fight wars for glory, rather than for peace and liberty [Spinoza] |
| Full Idea: As soon as the kings took control [of the Hebrews] the reason for going to war was no longer peace and liberty but rather glory, | |
| From: Baruch de Spinoza (Tractatus Theologico-Politicus [1670], 18.05) | |
| A reaction: As Spinoza was writing, Louis XIV had just invaded Holland, solely in quest of military glory. As soon as a leader like Napoleon discovers they are good at war, I assume that the thrill of glory takes over for them too. |
| 19937 | Monarchs are always proud, and can't back down [Spinoza] |
| Full Idea: Monarchical minds are always proud, and cannot back down without feelings of humiliation. | |
| From: Baruch de Spinoza (Tractatus Theologico-Politicus [1670], 18.05) | |
| A reaction: This would seem to be a problem in all politicians. As I teacher I found that backing down was sometimes quite a smart move, but you can only do it occasionally. |
| 19940 | Deposing a monarch is dangerous, because the people are used to royal authority [Spinoza] |
| Full Idea: It is dangerous to depose a monarch, even if it is clear by every criterion that he is a tyrant. A people accustomed to royal authority and held in check only by it, will despise any lesser authority and hold it in contempt. | |
| From: Baruch de Spinoza (Tractatus Theologico-Politicus [1670], 18.07) | |
| A reaction: He is obviously thinking of Charles I and Cromwell. I suspect that the respect for Cromwell in the 1650s was only as a great soldier. If the people miss royal authority, the correct response is probably 'get over it!' |
| 19931 | Every state is more frightened of its own citizens than of external enemies [Spinoza] |
| Full Idea: People have never succeeded in devising a form of government that was not in greater danger from its own citizens than from foreign foes, and which was not more fearful of the former than of the latter. | |
| From: Baruch de Spinoza (Tractatus Theologico-Politicus [1670], 17.04) | |
| A reaction: The sort of lovely clear-headed and accurate observation for which we love Spinoza. Only very powerful despots can afford to ignore the threat from the people. Stalin was paranoid, but eventually murdered almost everyone who seemed a threat. |
| 19920 | Democracy is a legitimate gathering of people who do whatever they can do [Spinoza] |
| Full Idea: Democracy is properly defined as a united gathering of people which collectively has the sovereign right to do all that it has the power to do. | |
| From: Baruch de Spinoza (Tractatus Theologico-Politicus [1670], 16.08) | |
| A reaction: Representative democracy doesn't fit this definition. What 'unites' the people, and where do they get their sovereign right? If my neighbouring village votes to invade mine, I spurn their pathetic 'sovereign right'. |
| 19933 | If religion is law, then piety is justice, impiety is crime, and non-believers must leave [Spinoza] |
| Full Idea: [In the first Hebrew state] religious dogmas were not doctrines but rather laws and decrees, piety being regarded as justice and impiety as crime. Anyone who defected from this religion ceased to be a citizen. | |
| From: Baruch de Spinoza (Tractatus Theologico-Politicus [1670], 17.08) | |
| A reaction: Presumably speeding offences count as impiety, and failing to pray is a crime. A critical question will be how far religious doubts must extend before one actually has to leave. Mere doctrinal differences, or full atheism? |
| 19938 | Allowing religious ministers any control of the state is bad for both parties [Spinoza] |
| Full Idea: How pernicious it is both for religion and the state to allow ministers of things sacred to acquire the right to make decrees or handle the business of government. | |
| From: Baruch de Spinoza (Tractatus Theologico-Politicus [1670], 18.06 (1)) | |
| A reaction: Interesting that he holds it to be bad for the religion as well as the state. In Britain we have bishops in the House of Lords. |