Melissa Wright

Professor Hammill
Early Modern Liberalism
March 3, 2014

1


Annotated Bibliography

Armstrong, Aurelia. April 2009. Natural and Unnatural Communities: Spinoza Beyond Hobbes.
British Journal for the History of Philosophy Volume 17, No. 2: 27 pages. Retrieved
through Articles+ Search, University at Buffalo Libraries. Accessed on 25 March, 2014.

Unlike Hobbess passage from state of nature to civil society, Spinozas movement into civil
society should not, Armstrong argues, be understood as a constitutive break from mans
passional nature. On the contrary, it is precisely through and on the basis of this passional
nature that humans continuously shape and develop their natural rights and powers, including the
power of reason. Despite Spinozas firm rejection of the imperium in imperio, however,
Armstrong does concede that Spinozas conception of democracy might be read as a moment of
transcendence over and above the human passions and imagination, a state in which obedience
withers away in the face of human freedom in rationality and an autonomous self-rule of the
multitude. And while the argument seems plausible for Armstrong, she insists that such a break
from the passions would entail a reading of Spinoza that is both normative and transcendent, two
features she finds altogether incompatible with his larger project. Moreover, she argues that the
form of freedom rationality makes possible should not be confused with a kind of open-ended
autonomy; nor, should coercive law be viewed as a necessary restriction of freedom. This
seeming reversal of common usage is possible, Armstrong adds, because state laws can actually
allow a political subject to further hone and develop their faculties. In forming her argument and
Melissa Wright
Professor Hammill
Early Modern Liberalism
March 3, 2014

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explicating the differences between Hobbes and Spinoza, Armstrong chiefly relies on primary
sources, though she does in a few places draw on Balibar to stake out a few fundamental
distinctions. Of course, Armstrong also situates herself in a rich disservice milieu and references
dozens of critics and philosophers in helpful footnotes throughout.

Frankel, Steven. January 2011. Determined to Be Free: The Meaning of Freedom in Spinozas
Theologico-Political Treatise. Review of Politics Volume 73, No. 1: 22 pages. Retrieved
through Articles+ Search, University at Buffalo Libraries. Accessed on 29 March, 2014.

Frankels primary thesis is that political freedom for Spinoza is incompatible withif not
altogether antithetical tophilosophical freedom. Interestingly, political freedom in Spinoza
would prima faci appear to be consistent with political freedom in its conventional usage,
namely, some form of autonomy or free will. As Frankel argues, however, this conventional
understanding of freedom is the myth upon which the most stable societies rest. It is, in other
words, is a decisive illusion designed to maintain securitywhat, Frankel points out, is the
primary, if not sole, purpose of the state. Philosophic freedom, on the other hand, possible in any
state, is the power to understand and accept the determinate conditions of ones lifea concept
Spinoza works out separately in Ethics. Political freedom then has no truck with philosophic
freedom because most men are irrational and superstitious throughout their entire lives, and so,
political freedomthe illusion most consonant with the natural state of humankindis deployed
to maintain security. Frankel first draws from Ethics to depict Spinozas conception of
Melissa Wright
Professor Hammill
Early Modern Liberalism
March 3, 2014

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philosophical freedom, so that he may, in the second half of the essay, contrast it to political
freedom as it is taken up in Tractatus Theologico-Politicus and Tractatus Politicus.

James, Sandra. Fall 2005. Democracy and the Multitude. The South Atlantic Quarterly Volume
104, No. 4, 21 pages Fall 2005. Retrieved through Articles+ Search, University at
Buffalo Libraries. Accessed on 25 March, 2014.

Despite the wide attention Negris work has yielded, Field contends that his use of the Spinozist
multitude is unfit for his project and argues that political institutions are not, as Negri would
have it, the product of the raw power of the multitude on its singular path toward virtue; rather,
the multitude, Field argues, is constituted both by its power (potentia) and those powers which
can act upon it (pati). In this way, the mediation of political institutions serve to control and
harness the potentia of the multitude, sometimes toward more virtuous endsas with popular
institutionsor divide the multitude against itselfas with coercive institutions. Field
paraphrases and cites directly from a few of Negris texts to first explicate his argument and then
demonstrate how his use of Spinoza is more strategic than faithful. Often, she cites from
Spinozas Ethics, Tractatus Politicus, and Tractatus Theologico-Politicus alongside Negris
arguments to further validate the extent to which his approach to Spinoza is untenable.

James, Susan. "Democracy and the Good Life in Spinoza's Philosophy." Interpreting Spinoza:
Critical Essays. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge UP, 2008. 128-46. Print.

Melissa Wright
Professor Hammill
Early Modern Liberalism
March 3, 2014

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Jamess central claim is the necessity of imagination in the maintenance of a successful state.
Her argument hinges on an understanding of imagination and its simultaneously reactive and
productive forms: A sovereign, just as a prophet, must be able to not only successfully imagine a
political state that is satisfactory to the people, but also convince them of this fact. No prophet or
sovereign that fails this second task is successful in their role. The sovereign then is reactive to
the extent that they must, just like the free man, imagine the passions of their people; it is
productive to the extent that such an imaginative vision constructs or reasserts various
cooperative practices in the social life of the people. Though James analysis and argumentation
deal almost exclusively with primary sources from Spinoza, she does explicitly state that her
article is indebted to Ed Curley and sets out from the start to organize it with regard to his
scholarship on the similarities and distinctions between Hobbes and Spinoza, specifically their
differing conceptions of democracy.

Kahn, Victoria Ann. "Political Theology and Early Modern Texts." The Future of Illusion:
Political Theology and Early Modern Texts. Chicago and London: University of Chicago,
2014. 115-231. Print.

Kahn argues that Strauss is correct to return to Spinoza to understand a conception of civil
society as coincident with religion, but she diverges from Strauss with respect to the role of
religion in Spinozas political theology. Indeed, Kahn views Spinozas dismantling of Hebrew
theocracy not as a mere critique of orthodoxy, but an attempt to replace such a model with a
democratic state. Like Machiavelli, Kahn observes, Spinoza understands the political usefulness
Melissa Wright
Professor Hammill
Early Modern Liberalism
March 3, 2014

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of religion in securing order. And yet, as Kahn finally concludes, Spinoza sees in religion
something more than the first form of cultural heritage: Presaging contemporary conceptions of
literature, Spinozas analysis and hermeneutics of scripture seems to function as an early form of
ideology critique. For Kahn, this serves as evidence of Spinozas liberal conception of culture
and argues that a defense of democratic values is still important today. Early in the chapter, Kahn
traces the intersection of politics, religion, and culture throughout German philosophic thought
throughout the 1920s, centering her analysis and evidence around Strausss influences (e.g.,
Heidegger, Barth), his debate with Schmitt, and the change in his thinking that led him back to
Spinoza. Later in the chapter, Kahn turns to Arendt and her understanding of the role of culture
as a preparation for political life. This acts as a bridge to Althusser, who Kahn references to
make her final major point in the book concerning the political value of biblical hermeneutics, as
noted above.

--. February 2014. Hobbes, Romance, and the Contract of Mimesis. Political Theory Volume 29,
No. 1: 25 pages. Retrieved through Articles+ Search, University at Buffalo Libraries.
Accessed on 29 March, 2014.

Drawing on the historical figure of the Earl of Essex, Kahn reads this figure as a larger
problematic for Hobbess understanding of fear and the manner in which a self-protective and
rational fear (the good kind of mimetic desire) could give way to a dangerous and romantic form
of fear (the bad kind of mimetic desire). She specifically argues that already in the state of nature
for Hobbes, the passions, and most importantly fear, are intermingled with the imagination to the
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Professor Hammill
Early Modern Liberalism
March 3, 2014

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extent that men do not act solely out of fear in the face of danger, but are also driven by the
romantic urge for vain-glory and social recognition. In order to stabilize Hobbess contract from
this socially coded resistance to fear and natural reason, the contract, Kahn argues, must be read
as one that establishes the limits of mimetic desire. Kahn begins the essay with a helpful
biography of Essex and account of the importance of romance in early 17
th
century England.
From this historical foundation, she proceeds to analyze Hobbes in a series of close readings.

Thayer, V.T. October 1922. A Comparison of the Ethical Philosophies of Spinoza and Hobbes.
Hegeler Institute Volume 32, No. 4: 15 pages. Retrieved through Articles+ Search,
University at Buffalo Libraries. Accessed on 1 March 2014.

In what would appear to be a faithful reading of Hobbes and Spinoza, Thayer asserts that
Spinoza cannot be read as a mere disciple of Hobbes, at least in part because they maintain
different metaphysical orientations: Hobbes is a mechanic materialist and Spinoza a rationalist.
Hobbes, Thayer argues, bases the justification of the commonwealth on fear and seems to
structure the rationale for the state around the belief that might makes rightboth in nature and
in the sovereigns power to command law. For Spinoza, however, fear and the passions in
general, cannot ever bring about reason as they do for Hobbes; passions, on the contrary, arise
from inadequate ideas on the plane of Imaginative Knowledge, and it is only within the state
free from that fear which compels men to oppose self-interest to the good of othersthat an
individual can truly hone their faculty of reason. In drawing his comparison, Thayer works
directly and exclusively with a number of primary sources from both authors.
Melissa Wright
Professor Hammill
Early Modern Liberalism
March 3, 2014

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Vatter, Miguel E. Winter 2014. Strauss and Schmitt as Readers of Hobbes and Spinoza. The New
Centennial Review, Volume 4, No. 4: 54 pages. Retrieved through Articles+ Search,
University at Buffalo Libraries. Accessed on 24 March, 2014.

Vatters central claims surround the correspondence of Schmitt and Strauss and the fundamental
distinctions in their interpretations of Spinoza and Hobbes. Whereas Strauss views liberalism as
erected on the foundation of moral relativism and nihilism and reads Spinoza and Hobbes as the
authors thereof on the basis of their atheism, Schmitt maintains that all secularized political law
is inherently theological, and that this concept is best expressed in Hobbess Leviathan. As
Vatter carefully argues, Schmitts critique of Spinoza, in favor of Hobbes, mistakes Spinozas
freedom to philosophize (libertas philosophandi) as a public freedom to voice ones conscience,
a right Schmitt saw as absolutely inimical to sovereignty, because it contests the sacralization of
the human that is fundamental to the state of exception. Vatters most original contribution,
however, is tracing that mistake to a larger anti-Judaic (and possibly anti-Semitic) strand in
Schmitt, specifically arguing that because Schmitt couples politics and theology (and specifically
Christian theology), any attempt made by interest groups to separate church and state appears as
an attempt by the Jewish people to act in their own interests outside the absolutist power of the
sovereign. For Strauss, on the other hand, Spinozas freedom to philosophize undermines the
natural reason of science by presupposing faith in man, a problem that throws into question its
foundation of reason and sows the seed of destruction into the very justification for Spinozas
state of culture as well as his radical Enlightenment. Vatter, however, does not seem convinced
Melissa Wright
Professor Hammill
Early Modern Liberalism
March 3, 2014

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by Strausss misgivings and if we can say he has a central thesis it is as follows: The freedom to
philosophize, central to the radical Enlightenment of Spinoza, is the one right that outstrips and
is immune to political theology. Vatter presents evidence primarily through large-scale syntheses
of Schmitts and Strausss political philosophy, though he also engages in close readings of all
four writers and carefully traces the philosophical genealogy of various elements of their
thought.