Spinoza's 'Theological-Political Treatise': A Critical Guide PDF
Preview Spinoza's 'Theological-Political Treatise': A Critical Guide
This page intentionally left blank SPINOZA’S THEOLOGICAL-POLITICAL TREATISE Spinoza’sTheological-PoliticalTreatisewaspublishedanonymouslyin1670 and immediately provoked huge debate. Its main goal was to claim that the freedom of philosophizing can be allowed in a free republic and that itcannotbeabolishedwithoutalsodestroyingthepeaceandpietyofthat republic.Spinozacriticizesthetraditionalclaimsofrevelationandoffersa social contract theory in which he praises democracy as the most natural formofgovernment.ThisCriticalGuidetotheTreatisepresentsnewessays by well-known scholars in the field and covers a broad range of topics, including the political theory and the metaphysics of the work, religious toleration, the reception of the text by other early modern philosophers, and the relation of the text to Jewish thought. It offers valuable new perspectivesonthisimportantandinfluentialwork. yitzhak y. melamed isAssociateProfessorinthePhilosophyDepart- mentatJohnsHopkinsUniversity.HeistheauthorofSpinoza’sMetaphysics ofSubstanceandThought(forthcoming),aswellasseveralarticlesonearly modernphilosophy,GermanIdealismandmetaphysics. michael a. rosenthal is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the UniversityofWashington.HeistheauthorofnumerousarticlesonSpinoza and early modern philosophy, which have appeared in journals including Archiv fu¨r Geschichte der Philosophie, Journal of the History of Philosophy, andJournalofPoliticalPhilosophy. cambridge critical guides Titlespublishedinthisseries: Hegel’sPhenomenologyofSpirit edited by dean moyar and michael quante Mill’sOnLiberty edited by c. l. ten Kant’sIdeaforaUniversalHistorywithaCosmopolitanAim edited by ame´lie oksenberg rorty and james schmidt Kant’sGroundworkoftheMetaphysicsofMorals edited by jens timmermann Kant’sCritiqueofPracticalReason edited by andrews reath and jens timmermann Wittgenstein’sPhilosophicalInvestigations edited by arif ahmed Kierkegaard’sConcludingUnscientificPostscript edited by rick anthony furtak Plato’sRepublic edited by mark l. mcpherran Plato’sLaws edited by christopher bobonich Kant’sMetaphysicsofMorals edited by lara denis Spinoza’sTheological-PoliticalTreatise edited by yitzhak y. melamed and michael a. rosenthal SPINOZA’S Theological-Political Treatise A Critical Guide edited by yitzhak y. melamed JohnsHopkinsUniversity and michael a. rosenthal UniversityofWashington cambridge university press Cambridge,NewYork,Melbourne,Madrid,CapeTown,Singapore, Sa˜oPaulo,Delhi,Dubai,Tokyo,MexicoCity CambridgeUniversityPress TheEdinburghBuilding,Cambridgecb28ru,UK PublishedintheUnitedStatesofAmericabyCambridgeUniversityPress,NewYork www.cambridge.org Informationonthistitle:www.cambridge.org/9780521882293 (cid:2)c CambridgeUniversityPress2010 Thispublicationisincopyright.Subjecttostatutoryexception andtotheprovisionsofrelevantcollectivelicensingagreements, noreproductionofanypartmaytakeplacewithoutthewritten permissionofCambridgeUniversityPress. Firstpublished2010 PrintedintheUnitedKingdomattheUniversityPress,Cambridge AcataloguerecordforthispublicationisavailablefromtheBritishLibrary LibraryofCongressCataloguinginPublicationdata Spinoza’s‘theological-politicaltreatise’:acriticalguide/editedbyYitzhakY.Melamed, MichaelA.Rosenthal. p. cm.–(Cambridgecriticalguides) Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex. isbn978-0-521-88229-3(hardback) 1.Spinoza,Benedictusde,1632–1677.Tractatustheologico-politicus. 2.Philosophyand religion–History–17thcentury. 3.Freethought–History–17thcentury. i.Melamed, YitzhakY.,1968– ii.Rosenthal,MichaelA.,1962– b3985.z7s65 2010 199(cid:3).492–dc22 2010033073 isbn978-0-521-88229-3Hardback CambridgeUniversityPresshasnoresponsibilityforthepersistenceor accuracyofURLsforexternalorthird-partyinternetwebsitesreferredto inthispublication,anddoesnotguaranteethatanycontentonsuch websitesis,orwillremain,accurateorappropriate. ForEdCurley Contents Listofcontributors pageix Acknowledgments xii Listofabbreviations xiii Introduction 1 yitzhak y. melamed and michael a. rosenthal 1 Spinoza’sexchangewithAlbertBurgh 11 edwin curley 2 ThetextofSpinoza’sTractatusTheologico-Politicus 29 piet steenbakkers 3 SpinozaonIbnEzra’s“secretofthetwelve” 41 warren zev harvey 4 ReflectionsofthemedievalJewish–Christiandebateinthe Theological-PoliticalTreatiseandtheEpistles 56 daniel j. lasker 5 TheearlyDutchandGermanreactiontotheTractatus Theologico-Politicus:foreshadowingtheEnlightenment’s moregeneralSpinozareception? 72 jonathan israel 6 G.W.Leibniz’stworeadingsoftheTractatus Theologico-Politicus 101 mogens lærke 7 ThemetaphysicsoftheTheological-PoliticalTreatise 128 yitzhak y. melamed vii viii Contents 8 Spinoza’sconceptionoflaw:metaphysicsandethics 143 donald rutherford 9 Gettinghishandsdirty:Spinoza’scriticismoftherebel 168 michael della rocca 10 “Promising”ideas:HobbesandcontractinSpinoza’s politicalphilosophy 192 don garrett 11 Spinoza’scuriousdefenseoftoleration 210 justin steinberg 12 Miracles,wonder,andthestateinSpinoza’s Theological-PoliticalTreatise 231 michael a. rosenthal 13 NarrativeasthemeanstoFreedom:Spinozaontheusesof imagination 250 susan james Bibliography 268 Index 286
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