Spinoza, the Epicurean: Authority and Utility in Materialism

Edinburgh, UK: Edinburgh University Press (2020)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

Through a radical new reading of the Theological Political Treatise, Dimitris Vardoulakis argues that the major source of Spinoza’s materialism is the Epicurean tradition that re-emerges in modernity when manuscripts by Epicurus and Lucretius are rediscovered. This reconsideration of Spinoza’s political project, set within a historical context, lays the ground for an alternative genealogy of materialism. Central to this new reading of Spinoza are the theory of practical judgment (understood as the calculation of utility) and its implications for a theory of democracy that is resolutely positioned against authority.

Categories

Keywords

Reprint years

ISBN(s)

147447604X   1474476058   9781474476041

DOI

10.1515/9781474476072

Other Versions

No versions found

View all bargains

Buy this book

Find it on Amazon.com

Links

PhilArchive

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

My notes

Chapters

1. Why Does it Matter to Read Spinoza as an Epicurean?  (pages 1-3)
2. Authority and Utility: A Sketch.  (pages 3-7)
3. On Method.  (pages 7-9)
Introduction.  (pages 10-11)
1. ‘The authority of Plato, Aristotle and Socrates carries little weight with me’: Spinoza and Epicureanism.  (pages 11-23)
2. The Three Themes of Spinoza’s Epicureanism: Authority, Monism and Judgement.  (pages 23-38)
3. The Dialectic of Authority and Utility: Spinoza’s Promise.  (pages 38-47)
Introduction.  (pages 48-50)
1. ‘A free man thinks of nothing less than of death...’: Fear and Freedom in Epicurus.  (pages 50-59)
2. Ante-secularism: The Construction of Authority and Human Nature in Lucretius.  (pages 59-67)
3. ‘Fighting for their servitude as if for salvation’: Monarchy versus Democracy.  (pages 67-75)
Introduction.  (pages 76-77)
1. Moses: Prophecy as Communication.  (pages 77-90)
2. ‘God has no particular style of speech’: The Error about God’s Potentia.  (pages 90-97)
3. Encountering the People: Causality and Instrumentality.  (pages 97-108)
Introduction.  (pages 109-111)
1. Ratio Vivendi: Law and Living.  (pages 111-121)
2. ‘You cannot make a republic without killing people’: The Tragedy of Legitimacy without Authority in Hannah Arendt.  (pages 121-129)
3. On the Origins of Finitude: History as Tragedy or Comedy?  (pages 129-140)
Introduction.  (pages 141-143)
1. ‘Society is advantageous’: Utility and Social Formation.  (pages 143-151)
2. Natural and Agonistic Democracy.  (pages 152-157)
3. Political Monism: The Utility of Miracles.  (pages 157-171)
Introduction.  (pages 172-173)
1. Monism and Interpretation: No Meaning Outside the Text.  (pages 173-183)
2. Didactic Authority: The Universal as Communication.  (pages 184-188)
3. Universality without Transcendence: Levinas contra ‘Spinozism’.  (pages 188-202)
Introduction.  (pages 203-203)
1. ‘Finally’? The Politics of the Distinction between Faith and Reason.  (pages 204-212)
2. The Necessary Rebel: The Transversal of Faith and Reason.  (pages 212-223)
3. The Freedom to Philosophize: Freedom from Personal Authority and the Freedom to Transverse.  (pages 223-231)
Introduction.  (pages 232-235)
1. Epicurean Communities: Fear and Utility.  (pages 235-243)
2. The Robber in the Night: On the Promise.  (pages 243-251)
3. The Right to Resist or the Fallibility of Judgement? On the Limits of Authorization.  (pages 251-262)
Introduction.  (pages 263-264)
1. Josephus: The Anti-authoritarianism of Theocracy.  (pages 264-270)
2. Between Tyranny and Revolution: The Limits of the State of Authority.  (pages 270-283)
3. The Fragmentation of Authority: On the Reasons for the Destruction of the Hebrew State.  (pages 283-295)
Introduction.  (pages 296-297)
1. The Path of the Emotions: Neighbourly Love as a Political Principle.  (pages 297-306)
2. The Path of Reason: The Unendurable in Politics.  (pages 306-311)
3. The Right to Abrogate: The Internal Enemy and Democracy.  (pages 311-321)
Conclusion: The Limitation of Spinoza’s Epicureanism.  (pages 322-327)
Bibliography.  (pages 328-344)
Index.  (pages 345-348)

Similar books and articles

Spinoza on the Death of the Master.Dimitris Vardoulakis - 2021 - In Dominik Finkelde & Rebekka Klein, In Need of a Master: Politics, Theology, and Radical Democracy. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter. pp. 71-92.
Authority and the Law: The Primacy of Justification over Legitimacy in Spinoza.Dimitris Vardoulakis - 2018 - In Dimitris Vardoulakis & Kiarina Kordela, Spinoza’s Authority Volume II: Resistance and Power in the Political Treatises. Bloomsbury Academic. pp. 45-66.
Conflict as the Quasi-Transcendental: Or, Why Spinoza’s Theologcal Political Treatise Matters for Transindividuality.Dimitris Vardoulakis - 2018 - Australasian Philosophical Review 2 (1):107-112.
Review of Spinoza's Authority (2 Vols.), eds. A Kiarina Kordela and Dimitris Vardoulakis.Michael LeBuffe - 2018 - Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews.
Sovereignty and Its Other: Toward the Dejustification of Violence.Dimitris Vardoulakis - 2013 - New York: Fordham University Press.
Spinoza and the Irrelevance of Biblical Authority.J. Samuel Preus - 2001 - New York: Cambridge University Press.
The Sublimity of Althusser’s “Underground Current”.Michael James Bennett - 2026 - In The New Lucretians, Contemporary Materialism and Historical Method. Cham: Springer Nature Switzerland. pp. 31-46.
Spinoza on Philosophy, Religion, and Politics, by Susan James (review). [REVIEW]Eugene Marshall - 2013 - Journal of the History of Philosophy 51 (2):318-319.
Spinoza and Political Absolutism.Justin Steinberg - 2017 - In Yitzhak Y. Melamed & Hasana Sharp, Spinoza's Political Treatise: A Critical Guide. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. pp. 175 – 189.
Epicureanism at the origins of modernity.Catherine Wilson - 2008 - New York: Oxford University Press.

Analytics

Added to PP
2020-10-31

Downloads
3,836 (#4,319)

6 months
475 (#8,690)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Photo of Dimitris Vardoulakis
Dimitris Vardoulakis
University of Western Sydney, Hawkesbury

Citations of this work

Spinoza’s Strong Eudaimonism.Brandon Smith - 2023 - Journal of Modern Philosophy 5 (3):1-21.
Healthy and Happy Natural Being: Spinoza and Epicurus Contra the Stoics.Brandon Smith - 2024 - Ergo: An Open Access Journal of Philosophy 11 (16):412-441.
Spinoza’s Re-Evaluation of Humility.Josefine Klingspor - 2025 - Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 107 (1):79-109.
Reading Spinoza in the Anthropocene.Genevieve Lloyd - 2024 - Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

View all 19 citations / Add more citations

References found in this work

Theological-Political Treatise.Baruch Spinoza - 2001 - Hackett Publishing Company.
Neo-epicureanism.Dimitris Vardoulakis - 2019 - Philosophy Today 63 (4):1013-1024.
Introduction: The Particularities of Fascist Anti-Semitism.Franklin Hugh Adler - 2013 - Telos: Critical Theory of the Contemporary 2013 (164):3-10.

Add more references