Is the State, According to Spinoza, an Individual in Spinoza’s Sense?

In this chapter, Matheron responds to debates in the Anglophone and Francophone literature concerning the nature of the State in Spinoza’s philosophy: ought it to be called an ‘individual’ in Spinoza’s sense of the term? By rigorously comparing Spinoza’s Ethics with numerous passages found in Spinoza’s political writings, Matheron presents what he calls a quasi-‘philological perspective’ that pays close attention to Spinoza’s Latin text and its subsequent translations into French and English. This leads Matheron to a discussion of whether or not a political society can be said to have a conatus in the Spinozist understanding of the term, which in turn leads to a discussion of natural and juridical laws. Matheron concludes with a problem: does the State have a ‘soul’ in the same way the human individual does, that is, as an idea of the body?