Spinoza and Power

Abstract

In this chapter, Matheron lays out in perhaps its most concise form the Spinozist theory of power in language that is particularly inflected with Marxist terminology. From the initial claim that God is absolute causal power, from which nothing is exempt, Matheron builds up Spinoza’s theory point by point from the perspective of an isolated individual faced with nature to our preliminary interactions with others. Matheron then shifts to the perspective of a multitude of human individuals, describing the chaotic and despotic relations of power that necessarily inhere in the ‘state of nature’ and which are subsequently transformed with the establishment of political society. The ideal political organization would be one the encourages the maximum amount of democracy. However, Spinoza is no theorist of bourgeois democracy precisely because he sees the State as the result of a relation of forces, and not the actual realisation of the ideals of ‘reason’ or ‘liberty’.