new publications

New book: Spinoza and Hobbes on Power and Popular Politics

Potentia: Hobbes and Spinoza on Power and Popular Politics, by Sandra Leonie Field, was released by Oxford University Press (New York) in August 2020. Promotional flyer with discount code here:

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The  book draws on the political writings of Hobbes and Spinoza to establish a conceptual framework for understanding the genesis, risks, and promise of popular power. Radical democrats–whether drawing on Hobbes’ “sleeping sovereign” or on Spinoza’s “multitude”–understand popular power as moments transcending ordinary institutional politics (e.g. popular plebsites or mass movements). However, a focus on the concept of power as potentia generates a new approach to popular power, according to which its true center lies in the slow, meticulous work of organizational design and maintenance. The book makes an original contribution at the intersection of early modern philosophy and democratic theory.

Early reviews are available: Yitzhak Y. Melamed (Johns Hopkins) describes the book as ’splendid, deep, and timely’.

The author has written a blog post to explain one of the book’s themes in plain language:

Why big protests aren’t a good measure of popular power

New critical edition of Ethica

A new Latin and French critical edition of Ethica has been published and is now available.

Spinoza, Œuvres IV: Ethica/Éthique. Texte établi par Fokke Akkerman et Piet Steenbakkers, traduction par Pierre-François Moreau, introduction et notes par Pierre-François Moreau et Piet Steenbakkers, avec annexes par Fabrice Audié, André Charrak et Pierre-François Moreau. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2020. ISBN 978-2-13-081149-7, 696 pages, €32.

https://www.puf.com/content/%C5%92uvres_IV_-_%C3%89thique_0

The Latin text is based on Spinoza’s Opera posthuma of 1677, which has been collated systematically with the 1677 Dutch version in De nagelate schriften and with the Vatican manuscript (copied from Spinoza’s completed autograph between November 1674 and May 1675, but only discovered in 2010). It is accompanied by a scrupulous new translation. The introduction examines the textual history of the work from its genesis to recent editions and translations, and presents an account of the constitution of the Latin text and of the principles governing the French translation. Historical, lexical and conceptual clarifications are offered in the notes. Three appendices deal with the geometric examples, the excursion on the nature of bodies, and the structure of the theory of the affects. The book is completed by a glossary, a bibliography and an index of names.

An e-book version will be available before long.

Special issue on Spinoza and Art

A special issue of Intellectual History Review, edited by Moira Gatens and Anthony Uhlmann, on Spinoza and Art has just been published online.

The full special issue can be accessed here (institutional login required). The editors’ Preface is open access and can be accessed here.

Intellectual History Review, Vol. 30 Issue 3 (2020): Spinoza and Art

Moira Gatens and Anthony Uhlmann: Preface to the special issue

Joe Hughes: The greatest deception: fiction, falsity, and manifestation in Spinoza’s Metaphysical Thoughts

Jonathan Israel: Spinoza, Radical Enlightenment, and the general reform of the arts in the later Dutch Golden Age

Warren Montag: Spinoza’s counter-aesthetics

Anthony Uhlmann and Moira Gatens: Spinoza on art and the cultivation of a disposition toward joyful living

Sara Hornak: Intersections between philosophy and art: expressions of immanence in the seventeenth century: Spinoza and Vermeer

Amy Cimini: We don’t know that we don’t know what a body can do…, or Spinoza and some social lives of sonic material

Beth Lord: Spinoza and architectural thinking

Susan Ruddick: Against a fatal confusion: Spinoza, climate crisis, and the weave of the world

 

 

 

Special issue on Arendt and Spinoza

New special issue on the role of the exemplar in Arendt and Spinoza in Ethics and Education

https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/ceae20/15/2?nav=tocList

Title: “The Role of the Exemplar in Arendt and Spinoza: Insights for Moral Exemplarism and Moral Education”

Guest editors: Johan Dahlbeck and Morten Timmermann Korsgaard

Table of contents:

Introduction: the role of the exemplar in Arendt and Spinoza: insights for moral exemplarism and moral education – Johan Dahlbeck & Morten Timmermann Korsgaard

Paths to flourishing: ancient models of the exemplary life – Maria Silvia Vaccarezza

Politics as a model of pedagogy in Spinoza – Justin Steinberg

Arendt’s Krisis – Steven DeCaroli

Moral exemplars in education: a liberal account – Michel Croce

Singularity, similarity, and exemplarity in Spinoza’s philosophy – Moira Gatens

Between horror and boredom: fairy tales and moral education – David Lewin

Spinoza’s Ethics of ratio: discovering and applying a spinozan model of human nature – Heidi M. Ravven

Visiting exemplars: An Arendtian exploration of educational judgement – Morten Timmermann Korsgaard

The moral fallibility of Spinoza’s exemplars: exploring the educational value of imperfect models of human behavior – Johan Dahlbeck & Moa De Lucia Dahlbeck

 

New Spinoza Studies series from Edinburgh University Press

Spinoza Studies: a new book series from Edinburgh University Press.

Series editor: Filippo del Lucchese

This series will broaden the understanding of Spinoza in the Anglophone world by translating central works by Continental scholars into English for the first time. These philosophers explore Spinoza’s most important themes in detail, opening up new possibilities for reading and interpreting Spinoza.

Two books have been published in the series so far:

Vittorio Morfino, The Spinoza-Machiavelli Encounter (trans. Dave Mesing)

Chantal Jaquet, Affects, Actions, and Passions in Spinoza (trans. Tatiana Reznichenko)

For more information and to order, visit the EUP Spinoza Studies webpage.

New book on Spinoza, causal determinism and moral formation

Education and Free Will: Spinoza, Causal Determinism and Moral Formation

by Johan Dahlbeck

Education and Free Will critically assesses and makes use of Spinoza’s insights on human freedom to construe an account of education that is compatible with causal determinism without sacrificing the educational goal of increasing students’ autonomy and self-determination. Offering a thorough investigation into the philosophical position of causal determinism, Dahlbeck discusses Spinoza’s view of self-determination and presents his own suggestions for an education for autonomy from a causal determinist point of view. 

The book begins by outlining the free will problem in education, before expanding on a philosophical understanding of autonomy and how it is seen as an educational ideal. It considers Spinoza’s determinism and discusses his denial of moral responsibility. Later chapters consider the relationship between causal determinism and autonomy, the educational implications of understanding free will and how free will can be utilised as a valuable fiction in education.

 This book will be of great interest to academics and postgraduate students in the field of education, especially those with an interest in moral education and philosophy of education. It will also be of interest to those in the fields of philosophy and psychology and specifically those focusing on the free will problem, on Spinoza studies, and on the relation between moral psychology and external influence.

More information from:

https://www.routledge.com/Education-and-Free-Will-Spinoza-Causal-Determinism-and-Moral-Formation/Dahlbeck/p/book/9781138598652

 

Spinoza’s Philosophy of Ratio

Equalities of Wellbeing in Philosophy and Architecture

We are delighted to announce the publication of Spinoza’s Philosophy of Ratio, edited by Beth Lord and published by Edinburgh University Press. The book brings together essays on Spinoza, ratio, architecture, and wellbeing from the Equalities of Wellbeing project.

30% Discount on book purchases available until 31 Dec. 2018: Lord_Worldwide Flyer

Readers will learn from this book that a philosophy of ratio is not to be conflated with a rationalist philosophy. The authors draw on the three senses of ratio – reason, relation and proportion – to explore their interdependence and, crucially, the emergent and constructed conatus towards equality and wellbeing. This valuable book demonstrates that empiricism and rationalism need not be opposed. – Andrej Radman, Delft University of Technology

This volume represents an important collective re-thinking of Spinoza’s key concept of ratio. Along with new interpretations of his treatment of the relations between reason and emotion, it…

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Thinking with Spinoza about education

2018 Special Issue of the journal Educational Philosophy and Theory, 5(9)

This international collection of articles tracks some of the significant implications of Spinozist philosophy for current education policy and practice. Authors dig deep into Spinozan texts and ideas, covering a range of topics pertaining to the ethico-political project of pedagogy and learning. Edited by Elizabeth de Freitas, Sam Sellar and Lars Bang Jensen (Manchester Metropolitan University), this special issue promises to open up further discussion in Spinoza Studies. 

 https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/rept20/50/9?nav=tocList