Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Firmin DeBrabander
continuum
Spinoza and the Stoics
Firmin DeBrabander
Continuum International Publishing Group
The Tower Building 80 Maiden Lane
11 York Road Suite 704
London New York
SE1 7NX NY 10038
www.continuumbooks.com
The article ‘Stoic Realpolitik’ will appear in the September issue of IPQ 46.3, pp.
277–92.
Preface vii
Abbreviations ix
Introduction 1
1 The Foundation of Perfectionism 9
1.1 Pantheism and determinism 9
1.2 Vital endeavour and the ground of virtue 13
1.3 The diagnosis of the passions 17
1.4 A this-worldly salvation 22
2 Psychotherapy and Virtue 25
2.1 ‘What is in my power to do’ 25
2.2 Agreeing with nature 36
3 The Sociality of Virtue 47
3.1 Spinoza’s critique of perfectionism 47
3.2 ‘Nothing is more advantageous to man than man’ 56
3.3 Sociality and the diffusion of enlightenment 62
4 Stoic Political Reason 67
4.1 Cosmopolis and political duty 67
4.2 The predicament of politics 71
4.3 The apotheosis of the free man 79
5 Reason of State 85
5.1 State of nature, nature of state 85
5.2 Political right and the most natural state 91
5.3 The highest form of devotion 95
5.4 Spinoza’s liberalism 100
6 The Philosopher in the State 105
6.1 Christ, the Apostles and Solomon: models of public
philosophers? 105
6.2 Philosophical caution, political interest 116
Conclusion 127
Notes 133
Bibliography 143
Index 149
This page intentionally left blank
Preface
Spinoza has simultaneously earned the titles of atheist and mystic, and this
paradox, when I first encountered it, immediately stoked my interest in
him. In my years researching and teaching the history of philosophy, I
have yet to encounter a figure as complex, profound and timeless as
Spinoza. This work, I will admit from the beginning, is largely an exercise
in trying to understand Spinoza better. I have attempted to understand
him through an approach that is often recognized in the history of phi-
losophy and in Spinoza scholarship, but has never been explicitly under-
taken. One is hard pressed to discover a figure in the history of philosophy
as impressed and influenced by Stoicism as Spinoza, and they are a good
pairing indeed, as the Stoics, too, are famous for inciting similar perplexity
and controversy throughout the ages. I suppose the present work emerged
out of a recognition that Spinoza and the Stoics are kindred spirits of sorts,
and that understanding one can only help illuminate the other.
Two articles have been drawn from material in this book. One piece,
entitled ‘Psychotherapy and Moral Perfection: Spinoza and the Stoics on
the Prospect of Happiness’, appears in the volume Stoicism: Traditions and
Transformations, edited by Steven Strange and Jack Zupko, and published
by Cambridge University Press in 2003. The other piece, entitled ‘Stoic
Realpolitik’, appears in the Fall 2006 issue of International Philosophical
Quarterly.
I must thank Herman DeDijn at the Institute for Philosophy at Leuven,
who introduced me to Spinoza, and Steven Strange at Emory University,
my first docent in all matters Stoic and Hellenistic. Dennis DesChene
directed me in fashioning this particular project, and Ann Hartle provided
many of the challenging questions that shaped my approach to the topic.
Many thanks are owed to Paul Bagley at Loyola College of Maryland, too,
for his generous conversations, consultations and general help in ironing
out this project. I am also very grateful to Louis Dupré of Yale University
for his illuminating comments on this manuscript as it was in the works,
and for his professional guidance throughout the years. Wilfried ver Eecke
at Georgetown University has been especially helpful throughout this
project as well, in matters pertaining to psychotherapy in particular and to
the ‘business’ of philosophy in general.
viii Preface
Thanks must also go to another very wise philosopher who has helped
me throughout the years, with this particular topic and also with living in
general (as philosophers are wont to do); namely, my father. We have
spent countless car rides hashing out the finer points of metaphysics,
mysticism, atheism, fundamentalism, psychotherapy and democracy. I
discussed this project with my father through its many phases, and he
knows its evolution all too well – he helped guide much of it. He inspired
me to become a full-time philosopher (for better or for worse!) and I
thank him for that. I am very grateful to another great booster in my life,
my mother, who patiently read the dense and circuitous early incarnations
of this work, and equally offered suggestions for its direction. She proved
an invaluable resource on issues of style and syntax, in this project and
countless others before it, and thus I owe her for making me the writer
that I am.
A student of mine once remarked upon reading Nietzsche that his
wisdom and insight was deficient, since he never married and had chil-
dren. I mean absolutely no insult to Nietzsche – or to Spinoza, who was
also a bachelor – but I believe I concur. My wife and my children have
provided me with immense inspiration, support and caring throughout
this project. Spinoza wrote on love, hope, fear, desire, pleasure, pain, and
‘man’s advantage to man’, and I am grateful to my family for providing
insight into these topics such as Spinoza himself never knew. I am a better
philosopher thanks to my family – that I have no doubt about. I am
especially indebted to my wife, however, Yara Ann Cheikh. I could not
have written this without her help, support and encouragement. She asked
the tough questions, and wrenched me from the clouds of speculation to
consider the difficult practical consequences and implications of Spinoz-
ism and Stoicism, and philosophy in general. Thus, she is to be credited
with making this piece humane, perhaps the greatest feature any work of
philosophy could hope to attain.
Abbreviations
Spinoza:
E The Ethics
TEI Tractatus on the Emendation of the Intellect
TP Tractatus Politicus
TTP Tractatus Theologico-Politicus
The Stoics:
Other:
Lev Hobbes, Leviathan
distinguishes it from its Christian counterpart and stands out in the eyes of
its sixteenth- and seventeenth-century audience, is that it is largely an
individual endeavour. Christian ethics focuses on interpersonal behaviour
in that it prescribes how I should treat my neighbours, towards the end of
creating a charitable community pleasing to God and manifesting his
goodness and glory. Stoic ethics focuses, rather, on transforming the
contents of the individual’s mind, and as such it is a project that starts and
finishes with the individual. This much seems implicit in their very con-
cept of ethics as psychotherapy. The Stoics indeed call for a kind of charity
or social justice, but, they maintain, of greatest importance through such
work is the individual agent’s intention, that he select properly, i.e.
rationally. Precisely because it is a victory achieved within the individual,
and because consequences ultimately bear no moral import, Stoic hap-
piness is attainable no matter the status of one’s environment. The Stoics
attribute moral significance to the individual’s disposition alone, and
discount that of interpersonal relations, which are part of the domain of
things indifferent to virtue and happiness. The unfortunate result of this
formula is that the significance or urgency of politics is difficult to con-
ceive. The Stoic wise man is so radically different from the common run of
people; he is as ‘rare as the phoenix’, the Stoics were fond of saying, and
he only receives genuine favours from other wise men – gifts from anyone
else are morally worthless. Such an account of the sage suggests a rift
between philosophy and politics. Carrying on Socrates’ burden, the phi-
losopher is an anomaly in the polis.
The present work aims to examine the extent or possibility of such a rift
in Spinoza’s philosophy, in light of an apparent Stoic pedigree that would
suggest just that. This entails understanding Spinoza’s view of the nature
of virtue in order to determine whether politics has a place within it, and
what political concern Spinoza musters as a result. What does he consider
to be the relation of politics to the moral life? Specifically, how does his
political concern emerge from a path to happiness presented in terms of
psychotherapy? Since his psychotherapy, as well as his theology and
metaphysics underpinning that psychotherapy, bears the mark of Stoic
influence, I engage these questions in the form of a critical dialogue with
the Stoics. Concurrent to the first task, therefore, is that of gauging the
nature and extent of Spinoza’s Stoicism. What insights or inspirations does
Spinoza draw from the Stoics? What is the extent of his commitment to
Stoic doctrine? How much of a Stoic is Spinoza after all? In particular,
upon what point(s) does Spinoza diverge from the Stoics that would allow
him to accord greater significance to politics? These questions point,
finally, to the public status of the philosopher. Does the philosopher stand
to gain anything from public life, and what is his proper public role? Or
rather, what is proper public philosophical behaviour?
4 Spinoza and the Stoics
I have already mentioned that Spinoza and the Stoics disagree upon the
content of therapeutic disillusionment, and a difference regarding the
foundation of politics initially emerges here. The Stoic universe is deter-
mined, but providentially so. Psychotherapy succeeds in producing tran-
quillity thanks to the understanding that the universe is ultimately ordered
for the benefit of human beings. Spinoza’s universe is hardly so friendly to
the human spirit: it is determined in the manner of efficient causality, and
man5 is determined like any other body in nature. Spinoza’s frank and
uncompromising treatment of human nature means that persons are
engaged in the pursuit of power like any other bodies. Spinoza defines the
pursuit of power as the essence of all beings, and this proves to be a
fundamentally social pursuit. Inherent to modal existence such as that of
human beings is the constant threat of being overwhelmed by more
powerful forces – being swallowed up by a greater modification of infinite
substance, i.e. God or nature, to express it in Spinoza’s metaphysical
language. Bodies achieve sufficient force to persist in being and augment
their power only by combining forces with other bodies. ‘Agreement with
nature’, which the Stoics identify as the moral telos, consists in selecting as
nature or reason ordains. I ‘agree with nature’ in Spinoza’s sense, rather,
when I unite with other bodies to produce a more potent composite body,
so as to satisfy my natural endeavour for power more effectively. Reverence
for greater power and the pursuit of individual power are themes constant
throughout Spinoza’s philosophy. Many have wondered how Spinoza
expects to derive joy, much less tranquillity, from his stark vision of reality.
The answer lies, I believe, in his view that therapy involves the augmen-
tation and expression of individual power. In this respect, what domain
supports such an endeavour better than politics?
And yet the very disillusionment Spinoza endorses threatens to under-
mine the foundation of politics. Such is the politically troubling heritage
of Stoicism. Echoing the Stoic account, Spinoza’s philosopher displays
extraordinary courage among his peers, and is smitten with a vision of God
and the universe that is utterly alien – but also horrifying – to them. If his
metaphysical vision is so radically different from that of his neighbours,
surely his lifestyle requires unique sustenance and care. It would appear
that the philosopher can gain little from his neighbours’ company, but on
the contrary, lose much: if he should reveal his views, he risks incurring
the wrath of his neighbours, who aim to protect their own comforting
worldview. These concerns threaten the continuity between politics and
philosophy, which is essentially the subject of the long-standing debate
surrounding Spinoza’s Tractatus Theologico-Politicus.6 Remarkably, Spino-
za’s TTP lacks the Ethics’ famously scathing critique of religion, but rather,
invokes its social benefits and ability to deliver a form of salvation after all.
These conclusions have been accused of insincerity, and Leo Strauss
Introduction 5
declares them a prime example of esoteric writing. This view typically rests
on the premise that philosophical caution such as Spinoza displays in the
TTP represents a political concern that extends only so far as the estab-
lishment of a secure environment where the philosopher may privately
contemplate in peace. I aim to show that the philosopher’s political cau-
tion rests on an alternate premise, one that agrees with the estimation of
politics Spinoza offers in the Ethics, and allows the philosopher to remain a
thoroughly political animal.
For, Spinoza’s philosophy is social to its very roots, in which respect it
distinguishes itself most forcefully from the Cartesianism many consider
the principle philosophical target of the Ethics.7 Spinoza is certainly dis-
gusted with the Judaeo-Christian tradition, and he ultimately disapproves
of Stoicism, too. However, his philosophical ire, directed towards both of
these traditions, finds its primary and most consistent focus in Descartes.
Descartes embodies the worst of both traditions for Spinoza: he asserts
that the essence of the human being is distinct from physical nature, and
capable of self-control and comprehensive knowledge of the world.8
Descartes produces the grandest illusion of all, which can, in Spinoza’s
view, only exacerbate human unhappiness. Against Descartes, Spinoza
insists that an individual is intertwined with the modal existence of all
other beings in nature – it cannot be conceived apart from their company
– such that self-knowledge immediately brings with it the impression of
neighbouring and related entities, whose behaviour is wholly determined
and wholly determines me. Spinoza eschews the prospect of complete
knowledge of self and world, and with it, the prospect of utterly control-
ling the sources of our discontent, psychological and physical. This is the
seminal principle of Spinozistic therapy, I will argue, which decisively
distinguishes it from its Stoic counterpart. George Santayana, a great
admirer of Spinoza, incorrectly casts him as harbouring positivist suppos-
itions.9 Nothing can be further from the truth. Spinoza’s philosophy
remains a meditation upon human limitations – this is the true kernel of a
therapeutic wisdom.
It is peculiar, as Leibniz remarked, that Spinoza draws such a vastly
different conception of God, universe and man precisely from Cartesian
premises, most notably, its definition of substance. This begs the question,
to what extent are the seeds of Spinozism already present in Descartes’
framework? I do not plan to broach this question here – at least not
directly – but only to consider how remarkable it is that such a question
may arise in the first place. In spite of a philosophical project that he knew
would be viewed suspiciously by the establishment, Descartes considered
himself a sort of protector of the tradition. He certainly aims to transform
‘first philosophy’, but if you accept the sincerity of his letter of dedication
preceding the Meditations, he does so in order to ground and ultimately
6 Spinoza and the Stoics
defend his faith. How, then, does a figure so notoriously radical in the
history of philosophy as Spinoza emerge from Descartes? Indeed, Fre-
derick Beiser reports, in the century following Spinoza’s death, German
academia deemed him the ‘very incarnation of evil’, the princeps atheorum,
whose monism was the greatest threat to Christian theology, and bore the
seeds of pervasive immorality.10 Jonathan Israel hails Spinoza as the
‘supreme philosophical bogeyman of early enlightenment Europe’,11
whose system became the very backbone of its later radical developments.
Israel cites seventeenth-century Dutch preacher Willem Spandaw’s
declaration that Spinoza was the greatest expression of a tradition of
‘godless Philosophical impiety’, which includes Zeno and the ancient
Stoics.12 Though Spandaw rightly observed an affinity between Spinoza
and the Stoics, Spinoza’s reception as such a radical threat to the tradition
was slightly misguided. For, Spinoza harks back to pre-modern sensi-
bilities, and in fact offers a stirring critique of the direction modernity
would take. This is the ultimate insight provided by a critical study of
Spinoza’s relationship with the Stoics. Spinoza’s response to the Stoics is
illustrative of a larger response to the emergent forces of modernity he
detected in Cartesianism.
In Stoicism, I discern a prominent forebear of rational autonomy,
arguably the culminating mark of modernity. Against the Peripatetics, the
Stoics’ common opponents in ethical debate, who argued that virtue
involves much external fortune beyond our control and a mere degree of
success in taming rebellious parts of the soul, the Stoics characterize virtue
in terms of self-transparency and self-determination. The hallmark of
Stoicism, displayed in its very origin, appears to be the profound optimism
with which it views the human individual as such. So appealing to the
Reformation, after all, was the Stoic proposition that the individual is at
once responsible for his impassioned plight and also vested with the
possibility of his own salvation, as it were. To this extent, Spinoza’s
divergence from the Stoics reveals misgivings regarding emergent rational
autonomy. In the present work, I demonstrate the profundity of Spinoza’s
debt to the Stoics, insofar as they provide a significant portion of the pre-
modern themes he invokes. And yet in his dialogue with the Stoics, it
would appear that Spinoza ultimately sides with the Peripatetics in their
ancient ethical debate. Virtue consists in degrees, Spinoza concludes, and
rests upon precarious conditions.
Perhaps it would be better to say that Spinoza provides a unique con-
tribution to modernity, insofar as he pays homage to autonomy in his own
peculiar way. Spinoza indeed provides a form of ethical individualism that
draws upon Stoic moral theory, as I will point out, and resonates with the
later Enlightenment. Following Descartes’ monumental precedent, Spi-
noza eschews external authority in ethical matters. Furthermore, emptied
Introduction 7
of all symbolism and displacing the human from his privileged position,
Spinoza’s universe represents a further decisive break from the medieval
one. The oddity of Spinoza’s individualism, however, is that it achieves its
most complete and authentic expression in the apprehension of dis-
placement and dispersion: I am most fully myself when I understand that
my essence is part of some greater entity, that my striving is one mere
thread comprising some larger body. Thus, Spinoza’s ethical individualism
owes a conscious debt to community, too, and in this respect he counters
certain early modern misgivings regarding the nature of politics.
If Stoicism offers an incipient rational autonomy, inquiry into its polit-
ical heritage amounts to an inquiry into the roots of social contract theory,
the political counterpart of modern autonomy. Early modern political
theorists sought to protect the moral authority of the individual, and in
such a project, the question of the very rationale of political association
arose. As Spinoza observes, a rather practical rationale for such association
is readily available: human life simply cannot persist without mutual
cooperation. And yet, Spinoza determines, the practical rationale for
political allegiance does not suffice. This conclusion emerges from a
rather negative judgement of human intellectual capacity that was pre-
ponderant in the age, and, paradoxically, characteristic of neo-Stoic
thought. With Hobbes, Spinoza agrees that humans are slaves to their
passions, which proves a bondage that is terribly difficult to dissolve. For
Spinoza, the task of the philosopher is not to discover a way of living
among such impassioned beasts, as Strauss would have us believe, but
rather, he desires that their irrepressible passions be channelled so that
some kind of larger, broader salvation, which the philosopher requires for
his own unique form of salvation, may follow. For such a project, Spinoza
teaches, philosophy finds an unlikely ally in religion.
The biblical exegesis Spinoza practises in the TTP, Beiser and Israel
agree, which treats Scripture like any human written work, profoundly
inspired the later Enlightenment. The spirit of Spinoza’s scriptural ana-
lysis resonates with the aspirations of rational autonomy: the reception
and interpretation of revelation is available to any individual of acute
mind and open spirit. To be sure, this is the lesson received by those intent
on rediscovering the essential message of Scripture, including later Ger-
man theologians who sought to restore the original spirit of the Refor-
mation.13 External authority corrupts this message; internal authority
alone is to be trusted. Furthermore, even Scripture can be subjected to a
kind of scientific analysis. Thus, Spinoza’s exegetical approach affirms the
very intuitions of the Enlightenment. But this lesson gleaned from Spi-
noza’s project is only part of the picture. In his study of Scripture, Spinoza
meditates upon the political significance of the rise and fall of ancient
Israel, and concludes that religion plays a supremely important role in the
8 Spinoza and the Stoics
God equally bears the two attributes of thought and extension, conceived
in one respect exclusively under one attribute, in another respect under
the other. God is a thinking thing (E IIp1) just as much as he is an
extended thing (E IIp2), a notion appalling and abhorrent to Spinoza’s
contemporaries.
Despite some notable differences, Spinoza’s account of God and the
logic of nature is strikingly reminiscent of Stoicism, specifically insofar as
both identify the two. The Stoic God is the principle of intelligibility in the
universe, the immanent logic according to which natural events unfold.
God or the universe is intelligible, the Stoics also believe, because its
internal events are determined. That all events are determined to unfold
in a particular order, the Stoics call fate, which Chrysippus describes as ‘a
certain natural everlasting ordering of the whole: one set of things follows
on and succeeds another, and the interconnexion is inviolable’ (L&S
55K).5 Similarly, Spinoza maintains that any finite individual thing cannot
exist or be determined to act unless it is determined to exist or act by
another cause that is a finite individual thing, which, in turn, is likewise
determined by another cause that is a finite individual thing, and so on ad
infinitum (E Ip28). For Spinoza, too, the ‘interconnexion is inviolable’.6
Thanks to this inviolability, nature is wholly intelligible: any single event
can be understood in light of the logical order in which it is placed, and by
which all things progress. However, Spinoza and the Stoics disagree about
the character of this logic.
The Stoics maintain that all events and things are determined teleo-
logically, in the order of final causality. Every single event and every single
thing has a distinct purpose, and plays a specific role within the provi-
dential order of the cosmos. That is, the purposes of all things and the
purposiveness of the whole are ultimately familiar and sympathetic to
ordinary human needs and wishes. All things can be seen to satisfy human
desire if only the feebleness of our intellects did not prevent us from
discerning this. Chrysippus illustrates this view when he points out that
‘bed-bugs are useful for waking us, that mice encourage us not to be
untidy . . .’ (L&S 54O).7
In contrast, human beings occupy no such privileged position in Spi-
noza’s system. Like all other individual things populating the universe,
man is only a finite mode of the one substance, God or nature, conceived
under two attributes: the human body is just the one substance conceived
under the attribute of extension, and the human mind is the one sub-
stance conceived under the attribute of thought. Since Spinoza holds that
‘the order and connection of ideas is the same as the order and connec-
tion of things’ (E IIp7), such that ‘a mode of extension and the idea of
that mode are one and the same thing expressed in two ways’ (E IIp7s),
the ideas that occupy the mind are determined in just the same manner as
12 Spinoza and the Stoics
are events in the physical world. While Descartes emphasized how we are
special creatures in the universe, free and unique by virtue of our capacity
for thought, and largely non-natural as a result; Spinoza is intent, rather,
on reminding us that we are only part of nature. Further undermining the
Cartesian vision of human nature, Spinoza denies the notion of human
free will (E Ip32). This will cause Spinoza to reject the Stoic view of man’s
relationship to the universe as well. The propensity to see ourselves as
cosmically privileged creatures has led us to define things in terms of their
suitability to our needs and wishes, Spinoza explains (E Iapp). This is the
height of naiveté. Spinoza resolves, rather, to speak of reality and per-
fection as the same thing (E IIdef6). What is perfect is just what is real,
what nature already provides. And what nature provides may not neces-
sarily satisfy human aspirations, but is often difficult to accept.
While the Stoics are subject to Spinoza’s critique of cosmic teleology, H.
A. Wolfson argues ironically that this very critique betrays Stoic sensi-
bilities. He describes the kernel of Spinoza’s critique as follows: ‘ ‘‘Perfect’’
has wrongly come to mean action in conformity with some external code
of conduct drawn up either contrary to the nature of man, or for a human
nature supposed to be ideally conceived in the mind of God and to which
man must strive to attain by struggling against his real nature.’8 Spinoza’s
real target here is Christianity, which depicts the human telos as something
supranatural. The Stoics, meanwhile, conceive of a God working within
the natural world, pervading it with rationality, and infusing nature with
divine eminence. Thus, Stoicism provides Spinoza with an inspiring model
for his project – one still steeped in profound religious sensibility – of
simultaneously naturalizing God and sacralizing nature, as Yirmiyahu
Yovel puts it.9
Stoic theology and metaphysics represent a powerful resource for Spi-
noza to conjure a serious alternative to the Christian worldview, which, in
his opinion, is the cause of much impassioned turbulence among men,
and is a totally unsuitable foundation for morality as a result. In contrast,
the Stoics and Spinoza portray their cosmic vision as one that pacifies the
human mind. For the Stoics, understanding the nature of things and their
providential ordering imparts confidence regarding the ultimate outcome
of events, and enables us to endure tribulation calmly. Likewise, Spinoza
states with a remarkably Stoic tone that the doctrine of determinism
‘teaches us what attitude we should adopt regarding fortune, or the things
that are not in our power . . . namely, to expect and to endure with
patience both faces of fortune’ (E IIapp). The essential formula under-
lying both accounts is that happiness rests upon recognizing the sure and
rigid lawfulness of the universe.
The Foundation of Perfectionism 13
definition, a being strives to be, and thus, Spinoza maintains, the conatus of
a thing is nothing less than its very essence (E IIIp7).
What is first of all appropriate, or what properly belongs to every animal,
according to the Stoics, is its own life, which it is impelled to preserve.
However, the capacity for reason also belongs to man and is distinctive of
human nature (DL VII.86). Animals spontaneously seek to preserve their
being, but with man, this effort is subject to reflection and assent.
Therefore, the proper end of the human life, which is to live in agreement
with nature, necessarily involves rational striving for self-preservation. And
the more rational the better, for he who would most successfully decide in
accordance with his nature will understand himself and nature as a whole.
Therefore, Pascal Severac explains, nature ‘recommends’ us to wisdom,
but this recommendation involves an expansion and redefinition of the
human scope of agreement: ‘To be recommended to wisdom by nature is
to be recommended to this accord with oneself which is no longer the
immediate ‘‘conciliatio’’, but convenientia: the reflexive agreement with
oneself, the agreement with one’s proper nature, i.e. one’s proper reason,
which is at the same time Nature, or universal Reason.’12
Convenientia translates the Greek term homologia, which suggests that
individual human reason agrees with the cosmic logos. This is the ultimate
meaning of agreement with nature for the Stoics. I align my intellect with
the logos of the universe, i.e. the manner in which nature unfolds, by
apprehending it, and once understood, I come to accept it and even
rejoice in it. Only when I truly understand nature and the divine provi-
dence that directs it, can I come to accept all events, including apparently
unfortunate ones. Behind their façade, I learn what widespread ignorance
prevents most people from perceiving, namely, that all things occur for
the sake of our good. Furthermore, in discerning nature’s providential
plan, I also come to pursue reasonable ends, that is, ends appropriate to
my nature. In this manner, virtue conquers anxiety and disappointment.13
Spinoza agrees with the Stoics in grounding virtue in the conatus for self-
preservation. ‘By virtue and power, I mean the same thing,’ he writes, ‘that
is, virtue, insofar as it is related to man, is man’s very essence, or nature,
insofar as he has the power to bring about that which can be understood
solely through the laws of his own nature’ (E IVdef8). What is it that ‘can
be understood solely through the laws of one’s own nature’, which we may
have the power to bring about? Spinoza suggests that it is what is unique to
an individual being. Wouldn’t this then mean a being’s conatus to perse-
vere in existence, for indeed, Spinoza identifies the conatus as the essence
of any individual being? Or does he mean, rather, what is unique to man
as such, namely, rationality? In effect, it is both. ‘To act in absolute con-
formity with virtue is nothing else but to act according to the laws of one’s
own nature’, Spinoza states, but ‘we are active only insofar as we
The Foundation of Perfectionism 15
That Spinoza dedicates the greater part of the Ethics to a diagnosis of and
intellectual therapy for the passions is perhaps his most recognizable Stoic
element. Like the Stoics, Spinoza considers the passions the obstacle to
human happiness, and he essentially casts them as a matter of human
responsibility by diagnosing them in terms of inadequate cognition.
Specifically, Spinoza agrees with the Stoics in describing passions in terms
of irrational judgements about the values of things. The impassioned
person overestimates inappropriate things, which make him despondent
or angry just as easily as they make him happy. In short, the impassioned
person is of inconstant character, now happy, now sad, now angry, because
he is emotionally invested in the wrong things – fleeting things, the Stoics
would say, which come and go with the wild fluctuations of fortune. Finally,
Spinoza and the Stoics both characterize the inconstancy of the
impassioned person as a symptom of heteronomy: inconstancy is the
product of external determination, and its remedy lies in self-
determination.
The Stoics define passions (pathé) as excessive impulses (DL VII.110).
Impassioned people ‘overstep the proper and natural proportion of their
impulses’, Chrysippus explains, which he illustrates by pointing out that
when men walk in accordance with impulse they can stop or turn as they
please, but when they run, ‘the movement of their legs exceeds their
impulse so that they are carried away and unable to change obediently . . .’
(L&S 65J).20 Impulses are thus excessive when we cannot control them.
For the Stoics, the passions have a cognitive basis. According to their
psychology, a person must first assent to an impression, which gives rise to
any impulse. Such assent is possible because the Stoics believe that ‘the
impressions of rational beings . . . are propositional in character’, and
‘hence, assent to them amounts to assent to a proposition’.21 I may appear
to be overtaken by a passion, but the Stoics deny that this is beyond my
control. In effect, I invite a passion to take root in me through a purely
intelligible exchange. Impressions speak to rational beings, in this respect;
they state a proposition to which I freely assent. If I do not perceive that I
am free in such a process, this is only due to my ignorance.
That the passions originate through a purely intelligible exchange
points to the controversial Stoic doctrine that the soul has a single faculty
character, namely, it is wholly rational in nature.22 The Platonic and
Aristotelian soul harbours irrational elements that are at best subject to
training by the rational part of the soul. Such a view accounts for temp-
tation or moral incontinence in terms of a struggle between different parts
of the soul, but the Stoics find themselves in the peculiar position of
18 Spinoza and the Stoics
passions is their view that all passions are ultimately related or reducible to
four primary passions (DL VII.111). Accordingly, if you should eradicate
one of these fundamental passions, you eradicate its derivative passions as
well. The Stoics classify the passions according to false judgements about
the true nature of good and evil.25 Cicero reports that the primary pas-
sions are laetitia, the excessive delight regarding something perceived as
good; cupiditas, the excessive appetite for such things; metus, the excessive
fear regarding something perceived to be bad; and aegritudo, the excessive
distress regarding perceived present evil (TD IV.7.14). That the passions
can be neatly classified and comprehended in this fashion indicates all the
more so how potentially manageable they are.
Turning now to Spinoza’s account of the passions, it is first necessary to
uncover his theory of ideation, for, echoing the Stoics’ intellectualist
account, Spinoza includes a cognitive element in his definition of emo-
tion. Following from his substance monism and parallelism of the attri-
butes of thought and extension, Spinoza states that ‘the object of the idea
constituting the human mind is the body, i.e. a definite mode of extension
actually existing and nothing else’ (E IIp13). Since ‘the mind is the idea of
the body’, any mental apprehension involves a body, specifically an indi-
vidual’s own body, as it is modified by other bodies, the ideas of which are
included in the idea of one’s own body (E IIp16). Knowledge of this sort,
namely, the knowledge of self and other bodies through the modification
of my body by other bodies (i.e. sense perception) Spinoza calls ‘per-
ceiving after the common order of nature’, which amounts to inadequate
knowledge (E IIp29s). This, the first of three kinds of knowledge, is alone
responsible for the falsity involved in the passions (E IIp41s1). Perceiving
things after the common order of nature is ‘to be determined externally,
i.e. by fortuitous circumstances’ (E IIp29s). The heteronomy of this form
of knowledge – that it is gained by external determination alone – is
responsible for its lacking clear and distinct ideas. Adequate ideas involve,
then, a sort of self-determination on the part of the bearer of these ideas;
that is, they result from the native rational activity of the knower himself.
Spinoza states that we may be called active when ‘something takes place,
in us or externally, of which we are the adequate cause, i.e. when from our
nature there follows something which can be clearly and distinctly
understood through our nature alone’ (E IIIdef2), and passive ‘when
something takes place in us, or follows from our nature, of which we are
only the partial cause’ (E IIIdef2). As with his account of virtue (E IVdef8),
Spinoza speaks of what ‘can be clearly and distinctly understood through
our nature alone’. This suggests, I believe, that I may be counted active on
one hand insofar as I exercise reason, which accounts for ‘what takes place
in us’, but also insofar as ‘what takes place externally’ agrees with the logic
of my conatus, that is, promotes or aids it. Indeed, Spinoza proceeds to
20 Spinoza and the Stoics
avoided the said things, and that we are part of the whole of Nature whose
order we follow’ (E IVapp32). Matheron observes that Spinoza uses the
Stoic technical word officium in this passage, translated as ‘duty’, but which
is itself Cicero’s translation of the Greek kathekon, meaning proper action
or function.30 For the Stoics, actions become offices or duties when we
realize that the true good does not lie in things we seek, but in the seeking
itself, in the agreement of our intentions with the providential logic of
nature. As such, Spinoza effectively suggests in this passage that the
attainment of material things required by our natural advantage, namely,
our conatus, is not so important as the intention of such attainment.31 This
is what enables us to ‘patiently bear whatever happens to us’, because what
alone matters is the knowledge of our duty – which in turn implies
knowledge of the whole and our place within the whole. External goods
do not really matter, but only knowledge matters. Spinoza ultimately
cannot accept such a conclusion, as I will show, but he clearly follows the
Stoics here in invoking the imperviousness of knowledge with regard to
external misfortune.
In another strikingly Stoic passage towards the conclusion of the Ethics,
Spinoza says that ‘the wise man . . . suffers scarcely any disturbance of
spirit, but being conscious . . . of himself, of God and of things, never
ceases to be, but always possesses true spiritual contentment [vera animi
acquiescentia]’ (E Vp42s). This is a curious passage that certainly invokes
but falls just short of embracing the utter perfection the Stoics attribute to
happiness. Spinoza believes that the wise man will largely be free of dis-
turbance of spirit; this is a condition of his happiness. However, Spinoza
does not go so far as to say with the Stoics that happiness is beyond all
internal disturbance whatsoever. Nevertheless, he asserts that the wise man
enjoys perpetual contentment. Despite the peculiar details of this passage,
it expresses the essence of Stoic happiness: a state free of mental dis-
turbance, afforded by and consisting in perfection of knowledge, and
largely beyond interference or corruption.
The happiness Spinoza and the Stoics celebrate is a form of supreme
satisfaction that can be enjoyed in the here and now. Accordingly, it
constitutes a remarkable contrast to the Christian view that supreme
satisfaction only awaits us in the world beyond: this world is fallen; it is the
domain of perpetual desire and frustration, where the soul can never find
satisfaction. Glimmers of happiness only emerge in this life in the form of
hope and confidence regarding the peace that awaits after death. This
peace after death bears traits the Stoics ascribe to the telos: it is perpetual
joy, at last beyond all disturbance; it is complete satisfaction where the soul
finds its home in God, and desire reaches its end. The Christian tradition
calls such a state of supreme satisfaction beatitudo, or blessedness, indi-
cating that whoever reaches such a state has been sufficiently blessed by
24 Spinoza and the Stoics
God and aided by his grace to attain this end. Just the term beatitude,
therefore, suggests an element of transcendence. Remarkably, Spinoza
applies this very term to his own account of happiness, but naturally rules
out any element of transcendence or grace. We can enjoy the attributes of
the Christian state of blessedness, but in the present. Spinoza and the
Stoics agree once again in professing to deliver a ‘this-worldly salvation’.
2
Accordingly, the therapy for the passions calls for increased under-
standing – of nature, my place in nature, and what nature demands of me.
With this knowledge, I will be able to identify those impressions to which I
should assent and those from which I should withhold assent, with a view
to the impulses that such impressions invite me to express.
For the Stoics, the requisite skill for virtue is knowing your duties or
‘proper functions’,1 that is, behaviour that is reasonable given your place
in nature and society (DL VII.108–9). Curing the passions and righting
myself so that I agree with nature calls for a revaluation of values. Passions
are linked to improper evaluation, after all: I overly value things towards
which I am impelled; I wrongly consider them of extreme importance.
The Stoics controversially maintain that everything other than virtue is
only indifferent (DL VII.101–3), a claim I will critically examine in the
following section, and the category of ‘indifferents’ includes things con-
ducive to my health, my material prosperity, and the like. The only thing
of true value, the Stoics believe, is knowledge, specifically, knowledge of
things that agree with nature. ‘The sage will be inclined towards natural
things, not because he regards them as goods,’ Michael Frede explains,
‘but because he realizes that they are the rational things to pursue’, and if
he ‘doesn’t obtain what he is impelled towards, this will be a minor loss’.2
I ought to assent only to impressions revealing things rational to pursue.
So long as this alone is my aim, I will not suffer regret, sadness or
resentment at the failure to attain the objects of my pursuit. The sage is
detached from natural goods and has changed his value system so that he
esteems only knowledge and the exercise of reason. However, as the Stoics
would have it, he who is free of passions is not terribly different from the
impassioned man – at least initially. After all, the sage still pursues natural
things, according to his impulses. His impulses are simply replaced with
rationally regulated impulses.3 This suggests a change in the affective life
of the sage. Indeed, though the Stoics laud the eradication of passions,
this is not intended to be a state free of all emotion, as many of the Stoics’
detractors have commonly supposed. That the Stoic ideal involves the
absence of emotion is perhaps the greatest misconception regarding the
Stoics. To the contrary, the Stoics hold that the sage is one who has simply
replaced his passions with rational emotions, the eupatheiai, that is, the
rational counterparts to the basic passions that are also, presumably, the
bases for derivative rational emotions. The eupatheiai include joy or
rational elation, caution or rational avoidance, and wishing or rational
desire (DL VII.116).4
The Stoics distinguish passions and rational emotions in one respect by
essentially attributing different causes to them.5 In other words, he who
suffers passions is said to be at the mercy of external goods; he suffers and
rejoices according to their lot, which is in the hands of fortune. As long as
Psychotherapy and Virtue 27
he supposes that his happiness rests on these things, he can know only
perpetual disappointment because, for one thing, he is ignorant as to
where his true good lies, and secondly, because he rises and falls with the
continual fluctuations of nature. The virtuous person, on the other hand,
is wholly responsible for his happiness because it is derived from the
exercise of his own rational faculty. Otherwise put, the virtuous person is
the ‘complete cause’ of his actions, while the impassioned person is only
the ‘proximate cause’.6 The virtuous person is in control of his impulses,
which he rationally regulates, and to this extent, he may be considered
wholly the cause of his actions and emotional states. Martha Nussbaum
explains that ‘the Stoics view the business of teaching as one of waking up
the soul and causing it to take charge of its own activity’.7 Thus, autonomy
is inherent to Stoic therapy of the passions: psychotherapy is a process of
recovering what is my rightful possession, namely, my faculty of rational
assent. For this reason, Stoic therapy involves rigorous self-examination in
the aim of discerning my nature and righting my native constitution.
Stoic therapy is a process of collecting the self, and becoming most truly
what one is. In this spirit, Stoic convenientia is above all an agreement with
oneself8 – or within oneself, rather. As autonomous, the virtuous person is
rescued from dependence on and fluctuation amidst the sea of external
goods, and is delivered over to the purity and stability of self-transparent
reason. Moreover, his autonomy elevates him to a new level that is effect-
ively above nature. It is part of the wisdom of the virtuous person that he
knows what to do because he rightly understands his place in the whole
and what nature demands of him. This knowledge grants him special
powers in a sense, for the assaults of fortune do not touch his core as they
do other natural things.
The foundational question of Stoic psychotherapy is ‘what is in my
power to do?’ The Stoics determine that the passions, i.e. irrational judge-
ments, alone are in our power to manipulate, and consequently, they
conclude that therapy involves their manipulation. Spinoza indicates that
he is motivated by a similar question and insight. He says that ‘it is
necessary to know the power of our nature and its lack of power so we can
determine what reason can and cannot do in controlling the emotions’ (E
IVp17). Therapy begins with discerning what is in my power to do, which
presupposes no small knowledge. Accordingly, Spinoza begins his Ethics by
presenting a metaphysics, physics and anthropology, emulating the unity
of the Stoic system: I can adequately discern and evaluate my capabilities
only by knowing nature as a whole. Once I apprehend that all things in
nature are determined, I will recognize that the therapy of the passions is
in my power. Thus, Spinoza echoes the guiding sentiment of Stoic therapy,
and asserts with the Stoics that knowledge is the central feature of therapy.
Nevertheless, Spinoza makes it clear early on that his version of therapy
28 Spinoza and the Stoics
will differ in one significant respect from the Stoic account. Before sur-
veying the therapeutic powers and concrete remedies of reason, Spinoza
denounces the Stoic view that ‘emotions depend absolutely on our will
and that we can have absolute command over them’ (E Vpraef). Experi-
ence rebels against this view, Spinoza says, which he immediately attributes
to Descartes, too, whom he proceeds to make the focus of his ridicule.
Spinoza seems to credit the Stoics with the notion of a distinct faculty of
free will – that he identifies their position with Descartes underscores this.
To this extent, the Stoic view, so interpreted, is certainly repugnant to
Spinoza who enthusiastically rejects a faculty of free will (IIp43; IIp48).
However, a distinct faculty of free will is alien to orthodox Stoic doctrine,
too, which maintains that the soul is unitary in character and nature. Thus,
Spinoza’s critique is slightly misguided, perhaps guilty of reconstructing
the Stoic position through Descartes. While the Stoics insist only upon
freedom of judgement as opposed to freedom of the will, this principle of
their psychotherapy, which affords ‘absolute command over the emo-
tions’, is equally repugnant to Spinoza. For, Spinoza maintains that the
conatus, or natural desire, internally informs and motivates our judge-
ments – indeed, he holds that desire is already implicit in any cognition
(E IIp49). Contrary to what the Stoics believe, we are not free to manip-
ulate our judgement. As for the possibility of psychotherapy, Spinoza
announces that ‘the power of the mind is defined solely by the under-
standing, thus we shall determine solely by the knowledge of the mind the
remedies for the emotions’ (E Vpraef).
In and of itself, knowledge does not preclude the emergence of passion,
since ‘nothing positive contained in a false idea can be annulled by the
presence of what is true insofar as it is true’ (E IVp1). Spinoza illustrates
this claim by pointing out that although we may learn the true distance of
the sun from us, this knowledge does not dispel our impression that it is
only 200 feet away (E IVp1s). ‘Erroneous imaginings (imaginationes) do not
disappear at the presence of what is true insofar as it is true,’ he says, ‘but
only because other imaginings that are stronger supervene to exclude the
present existence of the thing we imagine’ (E IVp1s). This logic applies to
passions as well, since they amount to ideas, albeit confused ones. Thus,
‘an emotion cannot be checked or destroyed except by a contrary emotion
which is stronger than the emotion which is to be checked’ (E IVp7). An
emotion founded on something we imagine to be present, for example, is
stronger than an emotion founded on something absent (E IVp9), and an
emotion referring to something that is merely possible is eclipsed in power
by an emotion referring to something inevitable (E IVp11). Accordingly,
‘no emotion can be checked by the true knowledge of good and evil
insofar as it is true, but only insofar as it is considered an emotion’
(E IVp14). Knowledge can treat the passions, accordingly, only insofar as it
Psychotherapy and Virtue 29
exerts emotive force in its own right. Spinoza believes this is the case. He
states that an active mind, one conceiving adequate ideas, experiences
pleasure (E IIIp58). Conceived under the attribute of thought, to put it in
terms of Spinoza’s metaphysical vocabulary, an individual’s conatus aims at
understanding; this is the power inherent to the mind. When the mind
achieves knowledge, therefore, its power is augmented, which is the
definition of pleasure.
Reason has the force to check the passions because its operations are
joyful and produce active desire or striving that is rooted in human
power.9 In this respect, I am active so long as I understand because I
exercise a power unique to me, or, as Spinoza puts it, because I bring
about ‘something that can be understood through my nature alone’
(E IIIdef2). Spinoza emulates the Stoics once again in distinguishing
between passions and rational emotions, as well as the root components of
each. I wrest self-control from the passions, according to Spinoza, insofar
as the pleasure of understanding checks their power. Thus, the principle
of Spinozistic psychotherapy is the ability of reason to produce more
powerful emotions than the passions, to combat and countervail the latter.
Unlike the Stoic model, this principle of Spinozistic therapy precludes the
possibility of eradicating the passions, as is evident in the concrete
remedies Spinoza describes.
I will present his remedies in two categories, divided according to his
theory of the kinds of knowledge. Spinoza identifies the first kind of
knowledge, imagination, as that which is responsible for all falsity. Spinoza
attributes specific therapeutic techniques to the second kind of know-
ledge, which he calls reason and consists in ‘common notions and ade-
quate ideas of the properties of things’ (E IIp40s2). These techniques lead
to the remedy afforded by the third kind of knowledge, scientia intuitiva,
which Spinoza describes as knowledge proceeding from ‘an adequate idea
of the formal essence of certain attributes of God to an adequate knowl-
edge of the essence of things’ (E IIp40s2). I will deal first with the ther-
apeutic techniques to which the second kind of knowledge lends itself.
The currency of Spinoza’s second kind of knowledge, is ‘common
notions’, which he defines as ideas of the common properties of all things,
and ‘can be conceived only adequately’ (E IIp38). The production of
common notions is an exercise that produces rational emotions to combat
passive emotions. Regarding the therapeutic force of reason, the second
kind of knowledge, Spinoza says that the power of the mind consists in: (1)
the knowledge of emotions; (2) detaching emotions from the thought of
their external cause; (3) the matter of time of the object to which an
emotion is directed; (4) the number of causes to which an emotion is
directed; and (5) the order according to which the mind can arrange its
emotions (E Vp20s). Jonathan Bennett maintains that this list provides for
30 Spinoza and the Stoics
clearly and distinctly understand’ (E Vp12) – that is, ideas of ‘the common
properties of things or deductions made from them’ (E Vp12d) – and ‘the
greater the number of other images with which an image is associated, the
more often it springs to life’ (E Vp13). What is the point to all this? What is
the therapeutic significance of the ease with which images can be related
to one another, and the greater frequency with which emotions can be
aroused as a result?
Spinoza reveals his intent when he states that, since the mind can form a
clear and distinct idea of any affection of the body, it can then ‘bring it
about that [ideas] should all be related to the idea of God’ (E Vp14d). Any
affection of the body whatsoever – most notably, instances of pain or
physical frustration – can be brought under control by understanding the
cause of the said affection. I suppose, then, that the joy of this moment of
intellection is sustained insofar as it is associated with the idea of God, the
collection of all common properties that constitute the universe, which
thus makes the idea of God the ever-present adequate idea, the most
powerful resource sustaining rational, therapeutic activity. But what is
more, Spinoza informs us, knowledge of God amounts to love of God in its
own right, for ‘he who clearly and distinctly understands himself and his
emotions feels pleasure accompanied by the idea of God’ (E Vp15d),
which is, by definition (E III DefAff6), to love God. Furthermore, ‘this love
towards God is bound to hold chief place in the mind’ (E Vp16). So,
common notions lead to the idea of God, and the pleasure associated with
conceiving this idea produces the most powerful of emotions, the love of
God, which Wolfson dubs ‘the sovereign remedy for the ailments of the
soul’.17
At this point, the transition occurs from Spinoza’s second to third kind
of knowledge. The idea of God is the basis of the third kind of knowledge,
which, by definition (E IIp40s2) proceeds to knowledge of the essence of
particular things. As I see it, the second kind leads to the third kind of
knowledge, since the idea of God is attained by the progressive accumu-
lation of common notions. In any case, the rational and intuitive con-
ceptions of a thing are essentially equivalent, for ‘a thing’s particular
essence is ontologically equivalent to the process of its determination’, as
Yirmiyahu Yovel puts it.18 That is to say, a thing’s essence is equivalent to
the manner in which it is lawfully determined to be, which common
notions express. Rational and intuitive conception are just two ways of
seeing the same thing, although intuition necessarily includes the idea of
God, according to Spinoza’s definition, which is not the case with reason.
In other words, conceiving something in terms of the common notions
that determine it does not necessarily entail the idea of God – though it
may easily be associated with the latter, and conjure intellectual love of
God in turn – while the idea of something’s particular essence necessarily
34 Spinoza and the Stoics
love of God is blessedness (beatitudo), which is ‘not the reward of virtue but
virtue itself’ (E Vp42). Reward and endeavour coincide in blessedness, that
is, blessedness is its own reward. ‘We do not enjoy blessedness because we
keep our lusts in check’, Spinoza claims, but rather ‘it is because we enjoy
blessedness that we are able to keep our lusts in check’ (E Vp42). This is an
odd claim, as he has just detailed the intellectual remedies for the pas-
sions; however, it reminds us of the inherent benefit of knowledge, that it
is pleasant in itself. In any intellectual endeavour, the mind aims at
knowledge, but discovers in such endeavour the emotive force of this
exercise – the very reward of its activity.
The doctrine that reason bears emotive force is a conspicuous differ-
ence between Spinozistic and Stoic therapy. For the Stoics, understanding
brings with it the realization that things actually occur for my best interest.
Hence its soothing effect. For Spinoza, on the other hand, the content of
understanding brings no reassurance that nature has my personal interests
in view. Nature ensures that I seek to preserve myself, and understanding
nature provides me with insight regarding her laws so that I may better
preserve myself. Nevertheless, Spinoza’s nature is inhospitable to human
wishes. While Stoicism proves helpful in inspiring an alternative to dua-
listic metaphysics and transcendental morality, it ultimately commits the
error of anthropocentrism. The Stoic universe is directed towards human
benefit; it has human interests foremost in mind. To the extent that the
Stoic sage grasps this, he is effectively distinct from and unique within
nature: he does not suffer from her blows as do other of her occupants; his
essence remains intact. In contrast, the truth that the highest and most
potent form of knowledge beholds, according to Spinoza, is the recogni-
tion of our extreme dependence on God – and nature – that we are only a
temporary manifestation of the one substance, by which we will soon be
swallowed up again. In itself, this truth is hardly encouraging, though it
conceivably breeds at least a kind of resignation that extinguishes the
urgency of the passions. However, Spinoza maintains that grasping this
truth provides more than mere resignation but joy: the very act of
beholding the whole at once is an incomparable thrill, and moreover, as I
will show in the following section, this insight necessarily presupposes
flourishing of the whole person.
From Spinoza’s insistence upon our modal dependence, there follows a
deeper difference with respect to Stoic therapy: the passions are insus-
ceptible of complete control. That passions are merely irrational judge-
ments, and are therefore part of the rational soul to which we can assent
or not, is for the Stoics a fundamental premise revealing the passions’
susceptibility to control and even extirpation. For Spinoza, on the other
hand, the wisdom that cures the passions entails nothing less than the
acceptance that the passions are part of the human condition.
36 Spinoza and the Stoics
Spinoza and the Stoics concur that virtue consists in a kind of agreement
with nature, and that it involves the exercise of reason. However, they
differ regarding the precise ingredients of this formula, and this
difference, it seems to me, spells greater divergence with respect to
politics. Though Spinoza lauds the power of reason and indicates that it is
integral to his conception of virtue, it does not involve detachment from
goods of the external world. Rather, reason aims at bodily flourishing, and
attaining the goods necessary to this end. In contrast, the Stoics diminish
the role of external goods in the attainment of happiness. For them,
external goods are indifferent, and happiness consists in virtue alone,
understood in terms of bare knowledge, or rather, informed intention.
The Stoic doctrine of indifferents results from dissatisfaction with things
commonly conceived as good – external things. The problem with such
things, including health or wealth, is that they are not unconditionally
good. Diogenes Laertius explains the Stoics’ thinking here: ‘that which
can be used well and badly is not something good. But wealth and health
can be used well and badly. Therefore wealth and health are not some-
thing good’ (DL VII.103). Health and wealth are indifferents, though
controversially so. In itself, the doctrine of indifferents poses a problem
for Stoic theory. The Stoics define virtue as agreement with nature, and
claim that man’s natural instinct points to virtue, or contains the very seed
of virtue. It would seem, then, that certain external goods such as health
and wealth are not indifferent, but that their pursuit is quite important.
After all, my hormé impels me to pursue health and wealth, since they are
conducive to self-preservation. Thus, the Stoics admit, there is a class of
indifferents, which, because they agree with our nature, may be called
‘preferred’ (DL VII.103). Health is one of those preferred indifferents,
Psychotherapy and Virtue 37
since it accords with our nature, and is thus virtuous to pursue. But this
only refers to the pursuit of the object in question: the actual attainment of
the object remains utterly indifferent to virtue, according to the Stoics.
Stoic virtue amounts to rational selection of things that accord with our
nature. As Cicero explains, ‘the Chief Good [summum bonum] consists in
applying to the conduct of life a knowledge of the working of natural
causes, choosing what is in accordance with nature and rejecting what is
contrary to it’ (De Fin III.31). The actual procurement of the things pur-
sued rightly or wisely is irrelevant. True good lies not in the objects of our
pursuit, but in the pursuit itself. We must choose in accordance with
cosmic rationality. This is virtue, and it is sufficient for happiness, the
Stoics famously proclaim. Intention alone determines virtue, and happi-
ness may be attributed exclusively to moral disposition. The Stoics aim to
procure what is most fully in our power. External goods in the hands of
fortune elude our complete control.
Because virtue consists in rational selection, the virtuous person, con-
sidered empirically, is not necessarily very different from the vicious per-
son. Virtue depends on an intangible, after all, whose empirical
manifestations are of no essential import.21 The wise man may fail in
external deeds, just as the ignorant man, and they may be equally infirm as
a result. As a natural being, the wise man is subject to natural events, with
the difference that his wisdom enables him to remain internally unruffled
by their upheaval, and to continue selecting properly as reason decrees. In
other words, the wise man is of constant character. The ignorant person
seeks to preserve his nature in such a manner that he is attached to the
external things he pursues, and this attachment, as we have seen, renders
him of inconstant character. The virtuous person pursues the same things,
but only because he deems them rational to pursue, and he is attached
only to his ability to select rationally, which alone is fully in his power. To
this extent, Stoic virtue amounts to conformity – convenientia – with one-
self. Indeed, the Stoic seeks what is in his power exclusively, what is most
truly his own, and the path to virtue is a process of transforming himself
and making his rational soul transparent.22
As that which is most fully in my power, virtue entails invulnerability.
Hellenistic moralities strive to show how ‘even the sage on the rack can be
happy’. For the Stoics, this is because the sage effectively builds a fortress
around himself, and is only enticed and satisfied by what he discovers
within. All that I require for happiness is found within, and if I should look
outside myself, I am destined to find only disappointment, frustration and
pain.23 Again, this supports the extent to which the Stoic telos is ultimately
a matter of agreeing with oneself above all: the internal domain is the
locus of agreement, where the sage discovers what alone is truly satisfying.
Perhaps it is already evident that the Stoic concept of virtue is
38 Spinoza and the Stoics
Though he does not care to obtain the objects of his rational pursuit, the
wise man may find himself in the utter absence of such objects, therefore
leaving him with the one option of selecting what is irrational and thus
Psychotherapy and Virtue 39
better organize the world, in order to know better still.40 Virtue requires
beneficial empirical conditions, which in turn empowers a person to seek
out such benefits more consistently. ‘Reason enables us to command
fortune as far as we can’, (E IVp47s) Spinoza asserts. Granted, part of
wisdom is the understanding that this is scarcely possible, thanks to our
modal status and the necessity with which nature unfolds. Nevertheless,
such determinism does not preclude the possibility that I may strive to
position myself properly in order to profit from fortune if it should fall to
my advantage. Such practical prudence is in fact founded upon under-
standing the necessity of the laws of nature.
It is peculiar, and perhaps counterintuitive, how Spinoza expects that an
uncompromising anti-anthropocentric view of the universe will produce
joy and be the core ingredient of our ‘salvation’.41 Such a view, which will
seem initially gloomy to most, succeeds in achieving not only tranquillity
but joy because it presupposes the flourishing of the whole of the person.
Wisdom is only achieved by a certain thriving of the individual, and con-
duces to such thriving in turn. In short, wisdom and thriving go hand in
hand, for Spinoza. And by its very nature, physical thriving involves a
greater proportion of affects of pleasure, where I rejoice at ideas of
increased bodily power. Thus, physical flourishing provides bountiful
emotions of the strong and joyful sort to combat the passions. For Spinoza,
in any case, it does not follow that the sage on the rack can be happy,
insofar as his conatus is frustrated. Certainly, his ability to conjure common
notions may allow him to combat passive affects, but only to a modest
extent. While the sage may weather the storm better than most, Spinoza
simply cannot consider such a condition ‘happiness’. The happiness of the
Stoic sage will remain intact so long as he is on the rack because, the Stoics
aver, he rests secure and satisfied in the knowledge that he selects in
concert with divine rationality. Such a state is morally deficient in Spino-
za’s eyes because virtue entails vital success, and not merely proper
selection with nothing to show for it. In short, ‘success is a mark of virtue,
and not merely effort’, as Matheron asserts.42
Accordingly, Spinoza unleashes a vehement attack on the notion of
rational suicide. ‘Those who commit suicide are weak in spirit and are
completely overcome by external causes contrary to one’s nature’, he
declares (E IVp18s). The impulse for suicide must always come from
outside myself, and thus, is actually the result of external influences. My
conatus can never involve its own destruction. To do so would be an
inherent contradiction: ‘that a man, from the necessity of his own nature,
should endeavor to cease to exist . . . is as impossible as that something
should come from nothing’ (E IVp20). Suicide is not a rational option
because reason, by its very nature, is invested in vital effort, and its basic
purpose is to elucidate the latter. Reason’s dedication to and success at
Psychotherapy and Virtue 45
this primal effort is responsible for its own development and sophistica-
tion. Suicide cannot be, as for the Stoics, an expression of autonomy. To
the contrary, Spinoza sees it as the greatest expression of heteronomy.
Because the conatus that is our essence impels us to persevere in being,
suicide is quite simply a sign that one is lost to oneself.
When the Stoic sage commits suicide, it is an expression of stubborn
self-possession, the refusal to submit oneself to external will. While the
Stoics hold that suicide, when called for, alone keeps the soul’s virtue
intact, Spinoza depicts suicide as precisely the flight of virtue. For, the
conatus to persevere in being permeates and animates all activities: ‘No
one can desire to be happy, to do well, to live well, without also desiring to
be, to do, to live, i.e. to actually exist’, Spinoza asserts (E IVp21). The Stoic
will commit suicide in order to preserve his virtue, and thereby, his hap-
piness, but for Spinoza, happiness is inconceivable without vital striving. As
Matheron argues, Spinoza’s ideal human being is one who, in every case
and situation, acts precisely as his self-preservation requires.43
Spinoza insists upon a vitalistic account of virtue, which is arguably the
Stoics’ starting point, too; one that they ultimately fail to uphold. From
such vitalism, however, it follows that Spinozistic virtue is vulnerable, again
in contrast to Stoic virtue. Vulnerability is the price of this vitalism, which
depends upon the environment and the strength neighbouring bodies
have to offer, as Spinoza expresses in his version of convenientia. As I will
show in the next chapter, the vitalism of Spinozistic virtue and the vul-
nerability inherent to it ensure that social life is necessary for its attain-
ment, and this establishes the foundation of politics in Spinoza’s system.
This page intentionally left blank
3
that is, to achieve the status of clear and distinct idea in the very mind of
God. Insofar as I conceive adequately, I conceive things as God does, that
is, as they are beheld in the mind of God where all ideas are adequate.
Wisdom involves seeing the human mind’s place within the divine mind.
And yet Spinoza intends this vision of ultimate unity to humble us.
Intuitive knowledge involves the affirmation of anti-anthropocentric truth,
and the acceptance of myself as decentred, as the locus of activity that is
only one minute part of God. As my mind becomes progressively popu-
lated with a higher proportion of adequate ideas, and thereby unites with
the mind of God in a sense, I will see that I have been part of God all
along, and that God is the truth of my animation and motivation.
However, Spinoza complains, ‘most believe that man disturbs Nature
rather than follows nature’s order and has absolute power over his actions
and is self-determined . . . as if he were not a natural phenomenon, but a
phenomenon outside of existence’ (E IIIpraef). As a natural phenom-
enon, as a finite mode of infinite substance alongside other finite modes,
man is in fact always subject to forces greater than himself. Every indivi-
dual thing in nature is surpassed in strength and power by something else,
Spinoza asserts (E IVaxiom). No matter how hard I try, I cannot guarantee
that I will be active, that I will be the adequate cause of my states. ‘It is
impossible for a man not to be part of nature and not to undergo changes
other than those which can be understood solely through his own nature
and of which he is the adequate cause’, Spinoza explains, for if he could,
‘he cannot perish but would always necessarily exist’ (E IVp4). It is the very
condition of modal existence to be subject to external determination
beyond my control. Passive affection is a natural feature of the human
condition. I am always beset by forces that exceed my capacity to capture
them intellectually, forces that occasionally cause me unavoidable pain
and repel the therapeutic essays of the understanding.
According to Spinoza, I must accept that ‘man is necessarily always
subject to passive emotions, and that he follows the common order of
nature, and obeys it, and accommodates himself to it as far as the nature of
things demands’ (E IVp4cor). As long as man follows the common order
of nature, that is, as long as he remains a natural being, he will suffer
passive affects. I can only continue to follow the common order of nature
as long as I exist, that is, employ the first kind of knowledge, which is
necessarily beset by error. As long as I employ such knowledge, which is
basic to my modal status, I am bound to suffer passive affects. I cannot
avoid passions, but only mitigate the extent to which they determine me to
act. As part of nature, all men are occasionally (or typically) subject to
forces too large to capture intellectually, or too harmful to their organic
functioning, and therefore, impossible to conceive adequately – at least
immediately. Passive affection cannot be avoided, and yet the best we can
The Sociality of Virtue 51
of the Ethics, for Spinoza does not list any further specific ‘rules of life’, but
seems interested, rather, in the general idea behind them, how they work
and what they are supposed to achieve. As a general theme characterizing
such rules, Spinoza says that ‘in arranging our thoughts and images we
should always concentrate on that which is good in every single thing so
that in so doing we may be determined to act always from the emotion of
pleasure’ (E Vp10s). Oddly enough, Spinoza seems to call for us to impose
an illusion of sorts upon ourselves, where we conjure the emotion of
pleasure when the idea of bodily increase may not be available – and not in
the way that mere intellection in itself produces the emotion of pleasure.
Indeed, Spinoza suggests a means of conjuring pleasure when even such
intellection is not entirely possible. In this passage on the ‘right method of
living’, Spinoza appears to be concerned primarily with the motivation
behind therapy, and certainly motivation determines the success of such
therapy. The proper motivation behind therapy is that my life should
become identical with the right method of living, so that I am inspired to
defeat the passions not by anger, hatred, resentment or despair, but by joy
and love, because only joy and love can successfully challenge the passive
emotions. Spinoza says that ‘he who diligently follows these precepts and
practices them will surely within a short space of time be able to direct his
actions for the most part according to reason’s behest’ (E Vp10s). Why is
this the case, according to Spinoza? Why ought I to impose upon myself
such imaginary thinking, the illusion of pleasure? How does this help a
person ‘direct his actions according to reason’s behest’, and what does it
say about therapy and the power of reason?
It is indeed peculiar that ethics aims to procure pleasure, but pre-
supposes it at the same time in order to secure proper motivation,
according to Spinoza. On one hand, this makes some sense, for how can
therapy succeed if one is inundated by passive affects in the first place,
such as anger and hatred? On the other hand, pleasure is the proper
precondition of therapy because reason is not able to institute the ther-
apeutic project by itself. That is, reason is not able to advertise its therapy
by appealing to the pleasure it can induce. Because rational maturity and
readiness is predicated upon physical flourishing, reason continually
derives force for its exercise from elsewhere: it appeals to the imagination.
I must practise conjuring images of advantage and pleasure in all that I
conceive, so that my mind will be sufficiently encouraged and strength-
ened to undertake methods of rational therapy in even the most dire of
conditions – indeed, to undertake such methods at all! After all, how can
rational activity appeal to a person who has never experienced the joys of
intellection? I must be lured in and continually appeased by the attrac-
tions of the imagination. If I would ever hope to engage in rational
therapy as the Ethics details, the ‘right method of living’ must serve as my
The Sociality of Virtue 53
You want to be cured of unbelief and you ask for the remedy: learn from
those who were once bound like you who now wager all they have . . .
They behaved just as if they did believe, taking holy water, having masses
said, and so on. That will make you believe quite naturally, and will
make you more docile . . . [The] fact is that this diminishes the passions
which are your great obstacles.10
The passions generally express the anxious desire to assert one’s personal
will on the world. Religious rituals subdue the passions because they
provide the contrary expression, namely, the recognition that we are
ultimately impotent, and in the hands of a greater, inscrutable power. This
echoes the content of Spinoza’s therapeutic wisdom, and thus, it is no
mistake that Spinoza apologizes for religion by saying that those who are
subject to the religious passions of humility, repentance and reverence are
more liable to live according to the guidance of reason, and enjoy
beatitude (E IVp54s).
Since the passions cannot be completely controlled, since reason is
relatively feeble, perfect virtue simply is not possible. Virtue is a matter of
degrees. Spinoza admits this much when he states that ‘the mind is most
54 Spinoza and the Stoics
[No] injury can be done to the wise man . . . if no one can do him an
injury, no one can do him a service either. The wise man, on the one
hand, lacks nothing that he can receive as a gift; the evil man, on the
other, can bestow nothing good enough for the wise man to have. For a
man must have before he can give; the evil man, however, has nothing
that the wise man would be glad to have transferred to himself. It is
impossible, therefore, for any one either to injure or to benefit the wise
man, since that which is divine does not need to be helped and cannot
The Sociality of Virtue 57
be hurt; and the wise man is next-door neighbor to the gods and like a
god in all save his mortality. (De Con VIII.1–2)
unimpaired through cities that have been burned to ashes; for he is self-
sufficient’ (Ep IX.19). Like Stilbo, the Stoic avoids disappointment in the
face of distress, but he does so apparently at the cost of diminishing
interpersonal ties that bind the rest of humankind. Not only does the wise
man’s detachment, which the vast majority is incapable of attaining, cause
him to stand above society, but the degree of detachment – towards his
own family members even – is so extreme that one can easily imagine how
it might disturb his neighbours and cause them to eye him with suspicion,
even fear.
The Stoic account of the wise man’s self-sufficiency indicates that asso-
ciation is not necessary for the attainment of virtue. The wise man finds
within himself alone the resources that happiness requires, namely, the
exercise of his own faculty of rational selection. Precisely by convincing
himself of the worthlessness of everything outside himself, which he dis-
covers in the process of perfecting his intellect, the sage becomes resistant
to distress. Perhaps there is a way to allow the Stoics to maintain the
significance of association, not with respect to the attainment of virtue, but
with respect to the life of virtue, the continued exercise of rational
selection. In the following chapter I will consider the Stoic doctrine of
duty, which assigns socially and politically appropriate functions to the
wise man, to any man. At present, however, it is sufficiently clear that
association has a precarious relation to virtue for the Stoics.
Spinoza cannot admit the self-sufficiency of the Stoic wise man, for
which reason he attributes society such importance in the life of virtue.
Since the human body requires for its self-preservation the resources
offered by numerous other bodies (E IIpost4), Spinoza maintains that ‘we
can never bring it about that we should live a life quite unrelated to things
outside ourselves. Besides, if we consider the mind, surely our intellect
would be less perfect if the mind were in solitude and understood nothing
beyond itself’ (E IVp18s). This latter claim anticipates the doctrine that
the mind is more active as the body is engaged with a greater number of
things (E IVapp27). Indeed, the solitary life limits the number and variety
of things for such engagement, and consequently limits the mind’s activity
as well. Among those things outside ourselves necessary for self-preserva-
tion, Spinoza claims, the most excellent are those which ‘are in complete
harmony with our nature’, for, ‘if two individuals of completely the same
nature are combined, they compose an individual twice as powerful as
each one singly’ (E IVp18s). Things advantageous to our nature are those
with which we may combine in order to augment our power. Accordingly,
‘nothing is more advantageous to man than man’ (E IVp18s). Spinoza’s
account of convenientia is therefore the ground of sociality.
Spinoza explains that ‘men can wish for nothing more excellent for
preserving their own being than that they should be in harmony in all
The Sociality of Virtue 59
respects, that their minds and bodies should compose . . . one mind and
one body, and that all together should endeavor as best they can to pre-
serve their own being, and that all together should aim at the common
advantage of all’ (E IVp18s). Since virtue entails successful preservation of
one’s being, and since the collaboration of bodies is critical to this
endeavour, association is a necessary element of virtue. Just as bodies that
cohere are more likely in their union to persist in motion, so persons who
cohere are more likely to secure the trajectory of their communal conatus,
and in the process, the trajectories of their individual conātus. If a person is
sufficiently knowledgeable and understands the nature of bodies, and
understands that he, too, obeys the laws governing bodies in nature, he
will recognize the advantage in collaborating with other men. Accordingly,
it is the mark of rational men to collaborate, and due to their practical
insight, they are especially effective at collaborating.
Rational men are most harmonious thanks to their practical insight,
and yet Spinoza asserts that ‘whatever things cause men to live in har-
mony cause them also to live by the guidance of reason’ (E IVp40). This
suggests a curious predicament: association is what rational people do,
but it is also the very context in which rationality properly arises. The
latter would seem to follow from the principles of Spinoza’s epistemology.
He explains the genesis of common notions thus: ‘of that which is com-
mon . . . to the human body and some external bodies by which the
human body is affected . . . the idea also in the mind will be adequate’
(E IIp39),and ‘hence it follows that the mind is more capable of per-
ceiving more things adequately in proportion as its body has more things
in common with other bodies’ (E IIp39cor). Where better to encounter
bodies similar to my own than in the company of other people? It is
unclear whether human society is the only environment in which com-
mon notions, the essential components of rational knowledge, arise, but
it certainly appears that society is a most propitious environment for their
development. The mind is only active as its body is enabled in its own
activity, that is, aided in its self-preservation and flourishing by collabor-
ating with other bodies.
The life of reason, and as a consequence, the very possibility of therapy
and salvation itself – indeed, the entirety of philosophy – require social
collaboration. Reason is ‘imprisoned in a circle’, Matheron argues: ‘the
desire to know, in order [for it] to end up . . . at the acquisition of new
knowledge, ought to possess the force that alone, however, this acquisition
would be able to confer upon it’.18 The force Matheron has in mind is the
practical knowledge that enables an individual to organize his environ-
ment in a beneficial manner and provide a wealth of objects for mental
conception and reflection, that is, for the flourishing life of reason. The
problem facing reason, at least initially, is that the end at which it aims is
60 Spinoza and the Stoics
identical with the means of attaining that end! Reason emerges in the
effort of organizing one’s environment – it makes its first appearance in
the form of utilitarian insight – and achieves its highest expression
therein, for certainly, this is what virtue entails. And yet such organization
is precisely the sustenance reason requires to get off the ground in the first
place. As Matheron explains, to become rational, a person would already
have to be rational in some sense, because reason cannot elevate itself to
the level where it may combat the passions.19 Thus, ‘the individual cannot
save himself alone’.20 While therapy counteracts the extent to which an
individual is determined by ever-present passions, social cooperation
reduces this in the first place, which the very possibility of therapy
requires.
What disposes the human body to affect and be affected by external
bodies in ever more numerous ways is advantageous, Spinoza maintains
(E IVp38). Society disposes the body in this manner by nourishing its
strength and providing it with a wealth of bodies that are friendly but
diverse. A rich and balanced environment is conducive to the mind’s
activity insofar as it exercises the body in a varied manner. This suggests a
compelling link between social life and virtue, especially insofar as it
invokes Spinoza’s characterization of a peculiar form of pleasure he
praises, namely, hilaritas.21 Though hilaritas is clearly a ‘higher order joy’,
as Lloyd dubs it, its significance is often overlooked.22 Hilaritas is a form of
pleasure, Spinoza tells us, that cannot be excessive, but is always good
(E IVp42), where ‘all parts of the body are affected equally; that is, the
body’s power of activity is increased or assisted in such a way that all its
parts maintain the same proportion of motion and rest towards one
another’ (E IVp42d). Spinoza distinguishes hilaritas from titillatio, a form
of pleasure consisting ‘in one or more of the body’s parts being affected
more than the rest’ (E IVp43d). Titillatio poses the danger that its power
‘can be so great as to surpass the other activities of the body and to stay
firmly fixed therein, and thus hinder the body’s ability to be affected in
numerous other ways’ (E IVp43d). By fixating on the affection of one or
few parts of the body, titillatio prevents the human body from being equally
affected, and thus, from being ‘equally capable of all functions that follow
from its own nature’ (E IVp45s2). Hilaritas is the pleasure that arises when
the full complexity of the human body is engaged, and all parts success-
fully exercise their natural abilities. As such, hilaritas gives rise to increased
activity of the mind.
Social life conduces to the ‘higher order pleasure’ of hilaritas. Imme-
diately following his account of hilaritas, Spinoza explains that
This seems to be Spinoza’s counterpart to the Stoic wise man. His wise
man requires various types of pleasures, which are ultimately indifferent in
the Stoics’ eyes. As I will elucidate in the following chapter, the Stoic sage
will indulge in such activities should he deem them natural to his being,
and rational to pursue. However, he will by no means take part in such
activities on the basis that he needs the various types of pleasure they
provide. Spinoza’s wise man, on the contrary, pursues moderate pleasures
in order to satisfy the diverse needs of his complex being, and to exercise
all of its capacities.
Furthermore, this passage above indicates a direct link between hilaritas
and increased mental activity. As the complexity of the human body is
engaged, a wide variety of objects is entertained, thus providing more
material for the mind to reflect upon, more objects in which to discern
similarities and conceive laws of nature, moving ever upward to knowledge
of God. One is wise precisely because he entertains a wide range of objects,
the breadth of which is only fully provided within the context of the social
life, as is the sustained ability to navigate that breadth.
Hilaritas is a uniquely human form of pleasure because it engages
uniquely human mental activity, that is, the ability to retain experiences
beyond the present and reflect upon one’s life as a whole. It must be the
case that hilaritas involves transcending the present, since all parts of a
person cannot be equally stimulated at any given moment. This is why
Spinoza says that hilaritas is more readily conceived than observed
(E IVp44s). In this respect, hilaritas is further distinguished from titillatio,
which is enjoyed by any being in nature who is faced with the over-
whelming opposition of natural forces: such opposition ensures that
pleasures are necessarily partial and momentary. Thus, hilaritas is the
pleasure characteristic of a being that is physiologically complex but also
reflexive in nature and able to retain the full spectrum of its diverse sti-
mulation. The doctrine that pleasure is the human telos, that happiness
consists in pleasure, has been thoroughly derided through the ages by
those who argue that it fails to distinguish men from the animals. It is the
animalistic or lower parts of the soul that seek pleasure, and to assert this
as the telos is to debase the human species. For Spinoza, however, there is a
62 Spinoza and the Stoics
Each would find strength and time fail him if he alone had to plough,
sow, reap, grind, cook, weave, stitch, and perform all the other
numerous tasks to support life, not to mention the arts and sciences
which are also indispensable for the perfection of human nature and its
blessedness. We see that those who live in a barbarous way with no
civilizing influences lead a wretched and almost brutish existence . . .
(TTP V, 19)23
suggests much more when he states that ‘the good at which every man who
pursues virtue aims for himself, he will also desire for the rest of mankind,
and all the more as he acquires greater knowledge of God’ (E IVp37). This
seems to suggest that whoever discerns God and experiences, however
briefly, the joy in such perception, will desire that others enjoy this vision,
too. This would mean that the philosopher desires that others share in his
salvation, in effect, and he will work towards this end. According to Spi-
noza’s logic of imagination and similitude, we take joy in others’ joy
(E IIIp27, p29), and thus, the philosopher can do himself no greater
favour than to lead his neighbours to knowledge of God, which produces
the most thrilling joy of all.
This reveals a significant difference between the Stoic and Spinozistic
sage. Spinoza’s sage, who is not morally perfect, and who must live
alongside the common people, is never definitively protected against the
threat they pose. Thus, he is necessarily concerned for the salvation of his
neighbours, while the Stoic sage is not and needs not be so concerned.27
Spinoza’s sage must strive to promote his neighbours’ salvation, since his
own salvation depends upon it. The vulnerability of happiness cannot be
counted a motive for the Stoic sage to promote his neighbours’ salvation.
But what is the status of his neighbours’ salvation about which Spinoza’s
philosopher is supposedly so concerned? Spinoza reveals a further moti-
vation for the philosopher to educate his neighbours, and in the process,
suggests the nature of this general salvation at which the philosopher aims.
He writes that ‘Since among particular things we know of nothing more
excellent than a man who is guided by reason, nowhere can each indivi-
dual display the extent of his skill and genius any more than in so edu-
cating men that they come at last to live under the sway of their own
reason’ (E IVapp9). Such sentiment prompts Robert McShea to remark
that Spinoza ‘believes it would be better if [the mass of people] could be
governed through their own enlightened self-interest; his political goal is
the improvement of men so that they can be so ruled and so rule them-
selves’.28 Is this in fact the public aim of Spinoza’s philosopher? It appears
that the philosopher will indeed have political concern insofar as his own
salvation relies upon the status of his environment, which includes the
welfare of his neighbours. But what exactly is the status of his neighbours’
welfare that he pursues? Spinoza suggests initially that the rationality the
rational man aims to transmit amounts to utilitarian prudence: he strives
to ensure that his neighbours intelligently pursue vital interest. What kind
of intelligence must the people possess in order to secure social concord
such as the philosopher desires and requires? Wouldn’t it suffice for social
concord that people be something less than self-governing individuals, the
goal McShea claims the philosopher will aim to achieve?
This leads to the question, what is political reason, according to
The Sociality of Virtue 65
That politics is rational is rooted in the Stoic doctrine that human beings
are social by nature. In Cicero’s account, social attraction and affection
follow from the natural love of parent for child, such that members of
society ‘should feel akin to one another’ (De Fin III.63). Seneca holds that
humans are social animals because they are ‘born for mutual help’ (De Ira
I.5). In fact, in De Ira, where Seneca critiques the view that anger is
politically useful, he argues that anger contradicts human nature, because
it ruptures the natural bond among men. ‘Human life is founded on
kindness and concord,’ he writes, ‘and is bound into an alliance for
common help, not by terror, but by mutual love’ (De Ira I.5). Anger and
other such passions are cases of alienation, where a person is alienated
from his true identity, from that wherein true happiness is to be found,
and also from others with whom his passions drive him to violent
interaction.
Humans are drawn together because nature has disposed them to view
one another with affection. This is not, however, the only basis of human
union and mutual respect, according to the Stoics. Rather, the human
being is a sacra res homini, Seneca states (Ep XCV.33) – a thing sacred for
other men – insofar as he is rational. The basis of a mature bond between
people is their mutual respect for shared rationality. Even if people do not
demonstrate any sophisticated form of rationality such as that of the sage,
all have the potential for such rationality. Such conviction inspired Seneca
to encourage treating slaves as members of the family (Ep XLVII.11).
Rationality also unites humans with the divine, the rational logos that
directs the universe. Thus, we arrive at the Stoic doctrine of the cosmopolis,
the universe as city.
The Stoics look upon and express the cosmic order as a political
structure, the laws of which are the basis of moral and civil laws.1 The logos
of the universe, which directs its motions, is rational and law-like, and as a
result, bears upon all rational beings, making all men ‘citizens of the
universe’ (Disc II.10,3). Seneca explains that there are two communities,
‘one which is great and truly common, embracing gods and men, in
68 Spinoza and the Stoics
which we look neither to this corner nor to that, but measure the
boundaries of our state by the sun; the other, the one to which we have
been assigned by the accident of our birth’ (L&S 67K).2 We are, one and
all, citizens of the world first and foremost, and therefore share a common
government. Thus it is always possible to abstract from the social standing
of a person, be he slave or king, and view him just like yourself, a rational
citizen of the universe. As persons become more rational, they will discern
their common bond with other men that transcends the particular socio-
political context in which they find themselves. This radical egalitarianism
provides the basis for the Stoic notion of Natural Right, André Bridoux
explains.3
In order for the universe to comprise some sort of political entity, it
must have laws. The Stoics distinguish between natural and civil law, the
former pertaining to the cosmopolis, the latter to the temporal state. Nat-
ural law is the law of the logos of the universe, the collection of rationally
discernible rules by which nature is orchestrated, by which its constituent
beings are disposed and determined to behave. In the case of human
beings, who are naturally disposed to be affectionate and respectful
towards their fellow humans, natural law decrees that they be just to one
another (DL VII.128). If justice proceeds from natural law, any civil law
that seeks to uphold the true ideal of justice must accord with natural law.
Natural law is the basis of civil law, and is also the standard against which
the latter must be measured.4 As Cicero puts it, ‘true law is right reason in
agreement with nature, diffused over everyone, consistent, everlasting,
whose nature it is to advocate duty by prescription and deter wrongdoing
by prohibition’ (L&S 67S).5 Natural law issues forth in the prescription of
duties to those who would rationally discern them. Duties are at once
rational and natural, therefore, and they bear upon the details of political
behaviour.
Diogenes explains that the Stoic notion of duty refers to that for which
‘a reasonable defence can be adduced, e.g. harmony in the tenor of life’s
process, which indeed pervades the growth of plants and animals. For even
in plants and animals . . . you may discern fitness of behavior’ (DL VII.108).
Duty seems to occupy a peculiar position between impulse and virtue. It is
more than impulse, which all beings manifest, since duty is characteristic
of rational beings. Nevertheless it is prompted by natural disposition,
which allows Diogenes to liken it to ‘natural fitness of behavior’ exem-
plified by plants and animals. On the other hand, duty falls short of virtue
itself, though it appears to be characteristic of the virtuous person to
recognize and act upon duty. Pierre Hadot argues that the purpose of the
theory of duties is ‘to provide us with a practical code of conduct which
would . . . allow us to make distinctions between indifferent things, and to
accord a relative value to things which are, in principle, without any
Stoic Political Reason 69
The liberty and harmony which the ruler pledges himself to promote
can neither be understood nor attained except by a man who has
achieved the moral liberty and inner harmony which stem from Stoic
apatheia and autarchy. The statesman is fit to rule others because he has
brought his own being under the control of his hegemonikon. The ruler’s
relationship to the state parallels the control of the human logos over
man’s other faculties just as it parallels the function of the divine logos
ruling the natural universe.9
The sage’s self-control earns him the right to rule: his very self is a model
of ruling, where reason reigns. However, that this characteristic makes the
sage worthy of ruling suggests something about the nature of his ruling,
the nature of his political mission, to which I will now turn.
Colish implies that the sage strives to see his rational self-control
reflected on a political level. Does this mean that the sage will aim to
eradicate passions on a large scale, and bring about universal recognition
of natural law? Perhaps this is what Diogenes has in mind when he writes
that ‘the Stoic sage will partake in politics if nothing hinders him, since
thus he will restrain vice and promote virtue’ (DL VII.121). Does Diogenes
mean to say that the sage partakes in politics in order to restrain his own
vice and promote his own virtue, or restrain the vice and promote the
Stoic Political Reason 71
all, if the philosopher-king should accept the downfall of his realm as part
of divine providence, how committed will he be to counteracting this
development, as his duty demands? Practically speaking, how much effort
will he put into the task if he recognizes that it is ultimately futile –
especially if he already looks upon his family members, whose lives would
be threatened by such developments, as fleeting things and inessential to
happiness?
Indeed, the Stoics seem to slide towards the denigration of particular,
concrete politics. The only real politics, the only politics worthy of sincere
dedication, is that of the cosmopolis and the natural law. The sage recog-
nizes his political orientation in light of these things, not in light of the
particular policies and institutions that characterize the earthly city he
inhabits. Accordingly, the wise man suffers a conflicted calling between
the two political domains, and more often than not, the temporal one
loses out because it is characterized as a nuisance and obstacle to those
seeking virtue, and as essentially unimportant to those already virtuous. In
short, the consequence is that patriotism occupies a tenuous place in Stoic
thought, and is ultimately viewed critically.
The suspicious eye towards politics is borne out by the Stoic – and neo-
Stoic – praise for constancy. Though Stoic and neo-Stoic writers suggest that
constancy is a particular virtue, it is rather that which characterizes all
virtues, and indeed the very disposition and behaviour of the sage due to
his agreement with nature, Jacqueline Lagrée argues.16 The Stoics con-
sider this firmness especially useful in the public domain, and invoke it to
describe the proper character of the wise man regarding assaults of public
misfortune. Seneca describes it as the firmness of the sage in the face of
political offences, exemplified by the resolute and unflappable Cato who
‘stood alone against the vices of a degenerate state that was sinking to
destruction beneath its very weight . . .’ and suffered people’s abuses as a
result, but remained unharmed because ‘the wise man is safe and no
injury or insult can touch him’ (De Con II.2–3). The notion of constancy
was forcefully resurrected in the sixteenth century amidst the tumult of
the religious wars that spared hardly any part of Europe. Numerous
treatises on constancy emerged in this period, but perhaps the most
popular was that of Dutch moral philosopher Justus Lipsius, which
enjoyed 80 reprints.17 Lipsius’ writings on constancy, and the political
consequences of his views on the topic, are especially interesting to the
study at hand because Lipsius was extremely popular in Spinoza’s home-
land (he lived in Leiden for many years, and in Louvain for a long time
thereafter), and in Spinoza’s era (Lipsius preceded Spinoza by about two
generations). Thus, it is likely that Lipsius’ ideas were known to Spinoza,
or at least, had an indirect influence on his thought.
The full title of Lipsius’ treatise is ‘On constancy in two books which
74 Spinoza and the Stoics
contain an exhortation chiefly on public ills’ (De Constantia libri duo qui
alloquium praecipue continent in publicis malis).18 As the title suggests, De
Constantia amounts to ‘a prescription for the behavior of the individual in
the state, society and politics, that domain where man has too often felt
himself to be a victim rather than a denizen’, Gerhard Oestreich explains,
to which extent, Lipsius’ ‘ideas were primarily political in character’.19
Specifically, Lipsius prescribes a manner of protecting oneself psychologi-
cally against political turmoil. Constancy is the cure for one trapped in
such turmoil. It consists in ‘a right and immovable strength of the mind,
neither lifted up nor pressed down with external or causal accidents’
(Const I.4). A significant step in attaining such constancy, in Lipsius’ view,
is to diminish patriotic attachment to one’s homeland, and he draws on
Stoicism to help with precisely this. The ultimate aim is to fashion a soul
that is like ‘an enclosed garden, protected from the noises of the city:
enclosed, well sheltered against things from outside . . .’ (Const II.3).
People suffer emotionally at the hands of political turmoil because they
are overly anxious about the fate of their homeland, Lipsius believes. In
order to temper my patriotism, he advises that I recognize my love of
country as mere convention, the product of custom and not nature (Const
I.11). ‘Patriotism is but dissimulation’, Lipsius proclaims, because people
are not truly anxious about the fate of their homeland at all, but are only
worried about their own well-being, to the extent that it is bound to that of
the state (Const I.8). Self-love is essential, but love of country is not; love of
country is merely an extension of self-love. And the condition of my
homeland is by no means intrinsic to the promotion of my well-being.
‘Change your habitation’, Lipsius writes, ‘and every other part of the world
will do this much for you’ (Const I.11). Moreover, my true homeland is not
the place where I happen to be born. That is heaven alone (Const I.11).
This profoundly echoes the Stoic view that ‘the true city is the cosmic city’,
as Schofield puts it.20 Indeed, Epictetus asserts that a person is ‘a part of a
city, first, of that made up by gods and men; and next, of that to which you
immediately belong, which is a miniature of this universal city’ (Disc
II.5,26). My primary allegiance is to the rational order of the cosmos, and
only next to my homeland. So certainly, Lipsius would say, it is possible to
avoid sadness at the sight of my homeland’s demise once I recognize my
true homeland, which never suffers any such assaults.
Lipsius further invokes the Stoic doctrine of providence and necessity in
order to combat public anxiety. He admonishes that ‘it is important to
believe necessity to be naturally borne together with public ills. You may
fear public turmoil, but not prevent it! The recognition of necessity
overthrows sorrow’ (Const I.21). Providence has determined the fate of my
homeland, and no amount of anxiety, no urgent action can reverse it.
Accordingly, such anxiety and urgency are uncalled for, and are to be
Stoic Political Reason 75
they possess from the natural law, what the Stoics call right reason.
Schofield writes that ‘the point of [the Stoic] equation of law with right
reason is to identify an alternative source for its authority: not the state,
but reason. Its effect is to internalize law . . .’23 Since civil laws very often
owe their origin to chance and to human pettiness, the Stoic sage is ‘a
stranger to the positive law’, Bridoux remarks.24 It should come as no
surprise then that the Stoic sage poses a threat to temporal sovereigns. In
case of conflict between natural and civil law, he will side with what he
discerns to be the demands of natural law. Seneca expresses this much in
his admiration for Stilbo the Megarian and his confrontation with
Demetrius the Conqueror. Stilbo responded boldly to Demetrius, though
he was ‘being questioned by a king on his throne, ensconced amid the
arms of his victorious army’, but with his bold response, Seneca declares,
Stilbo ‘wrested the victory from the conqueror and bore witness that,
though his city had been captured, he himself was not only unconquered
but unharmed’ (De Con V.6–7). Anyone who would claim to ‘wrest victory’
from a sovereign or assert his immunity to any punitive measures naturally
represents a political threat. Stilbo announces his devotion to a realm that
transcends the political. In this respect, philosophy is clearly inimical to
politics. In the interests of practical ruling, Marcus concludes, its ideals
must ultimately be exempted from the political domain. Philosophy has
no place in the dirty world of politics. Its ideals often run contrary to
political goals, but furthermore, Marcus determines, it is impossible to
transmit and achieve such ideals politically, i.e. on a broad scale.
According to Hadot, Marcus held no illusions about bringing his sub-
jects to the life of virtue. He likely concluded this from his perch above
the madness of the Circus Maximus, which he hated to attend, and rather
spent his time there dictating letters or struggling to read.25 Perhaps it was
precisely this setting that inspired him to write that ‘there is no better
solace in the face of death than to think on the nature of the surround-
ings you are leaving and the characters you will no longer have to mix with
. . . that you are parting from men of far other principles than your own’
(Med IX, 3). Marcus recognizes a tremendous gulf between the philoso-
pher and the masses. This gulf will prevent the realization of ideals cou-
ched in the doctrines of natural law and the cosmopolis, such as that the
rational equality of all humans might become readily, clearly visible.
People remain rational only in potentiality: their rational capacity is
perpetually obscured; it is trampled underfoot by bestial drives, promi-
nently displayed in the Coliseum. The astute sovereign must realize this,
Marcus advises, and not hope to achieve ‘Plato’s ideal commonwealth . . .
for who can hope to alter men’s convictions?’ (Med IX, 29).26 In fact, not
only will such a vain endeavour lend nothing to the sovereign’s attaining
virtue, but on the contrary, it will expose him all the more to corrupt
Stoic Political Reason 77
of the masses will forever prevent the emergence of the ideal state – much
less a very peaceable, stable one – and that he must resign himself to
accept messy consequences.
That Stoicism leads to a rather stark political realism, is fully realized in
Lipsius’ Politica, where he focuses on training the character of the prince,
who must be steeled against the volatility and capriciousness of the masses.
The people are ‘inconstant, subject to passions, void of reason, envious’
(Polit IV.5), Lipsius declares, and it is precisely this general inconstancy
which requires the ruler to eschew eternal laws of political guidance, i.e. a
political science. The subject matter of which the prince must be expert is
‘a very diffused thing, confused and obscure’ (Polit IV.1), and ‘foreign to
all method’ as a result, Lagrée explains28 ‘Proper prudence, what the
prince requires, can hardly be tied to precepts’ (Polit IV.1). Referring to
the demand that the ruler occasionally deceive the masses, Lipsius appeals
to Seneca the Elder’s assertion that ‘Necessity overrules all law’ (Polit
IV.14).29 For Lipsius, philosophy is politically useful in arming the prince
and his soldiers with Stoic resiliency, towards the end of establishing a
strong and enduring state. Lagrée argues that for Lipsius, the ethic that
guides the prince – the political ethic – has a different aim from the moral
one: the former aims at achieving peace and order, and in the mind of the
prince, overshadows the aims of the latter, which include justice and
freedom.30 The enlightenment of the masses is far from the ruler’s proper
aim, and effectively amounts to an illusion the prince must reject. A cer-
tain Machiavellian tone starts to emerge in Lipsius’ political theory.
Indeed, Oestreich claims that Machiavelli’s harsh political realism ‘had a
counterpart in the neostoic view of man’.31
I have traced a peculiar development within Stoic political thought,
namely, that the predicament of politics within the Stoic system leads to
the doorstep of Machiavellianism. The Stoic doctrine that virtue is insus-
ceptible of degrees, and that the vast majority of humankind is ignorant as
a result, tends towards a rather negative view of the citizenry of the tem-
poral state. The virtues Stoicism professes to deliver are deemed propi-
tious for the character of the ruler, whose integrity involves refraining
from the vain effort to enlighten the masses. In this scheme, Stoicism
appears to play a largely ethical role, and lacks a properly political agenda.
In other words, as far as Lipsius is concerned, Stoicism proves a helpful
resource in transforming the individual: the citizen must be rendered
impervious to public misfortune, especially the fate of his homeland; the
prince must be made resilient to pain and suffering in the manner of a
Stoic sage, and he must be constant and resolute in his political decision-
making. But by no means does this account of Stoicism aim at producing a
ruler who is subservient to the natural law and dedicated to realizing the
rational fellowship of all people.
Stoic Political Reason 79
[Men], however ignorant, are still men, who in time of need can bring
human help, than which nothing is more valuable. So it often happens
that it is necessary to accept a favor from them, and consequently to
return it so as to give them satisfaction. Furthermore, we should exercise
Stoic Political Reason 81
Perhaps the common people can offer the free man nothing of
intellectual worth per se, but since his intellectual activity is predicated
upon and has as a counterpart physical flourishing, he certainly requires
their favours for the sake of the latter. If the philosopher indeed requires
the material help his neighbours provide, what then does Spinoza
consider to be their unsavoury favours? They likely include such things
as prayers, religious ceremonies or superstitious rituals, all things the
philosopher holds in low esteem. It is conceivable also that those
unsuitable favours should include material benefits that the ignorant
people value but the free man knows to be unnecessary or even harmful,
which exacerbate the impassioned life, such as alcohol and sexual licence.
If the free man would benefit from the physical aid his neighbours
provide, he must be truly ‘political’ in his dealings with them, and
occasionally accept or acknowledge their base favours so that he may
benefit from their more valuable ones. He must play the game of the
common people: he must put on a face of genuine gratitude, react as if
their offerings are welcome, and yet avoid as much as he can without
causing a disturbance. Clearly, Spinoza is very sensitive to the risk that the
philosopher may offend his neighbours.
Spinoza states further that ‘only free men are truly grateful to one
another’ (E IVp71), since only free men have something worthy to offer
one another (E IVp71d). This clearly echoes the Stoic claim that ‘friend-
ship exists only among the virtuous’ (DL VII.124), a problematic view for
Spinoza, again, as it would seem to belittle the vital aid the community of
common people provides, and thereby threaten the vitalism of his account
of virtue. In truth, the common people and the free man may not offer
radically different things after all in terms of what is of vital importance.
The wise man who enjoys a flourishing life of rich and varied resources
and is guided by a successful practical rationality provides superior vital aid
to his neighbours. It is in this sense that the man guided by reason is the
most advantageous thing in the universe (E IVp35). The promotion of his
conatus is clearest for him, and he is most devoted to it. And ‘when each is
most devoted to seeking his own advantage’, that is, when each demon-
strates practical rationality, ‘men are of most advantage to one another’
(E IVp35d) because they contribute to the vital flourishing of their
neighbours, whose flourishing they know their own success requires. The
free man only requires neighbours who have attained a degree of practical
rationality – he doesn’t necessarily need the company of philosophers, as
Spinoza has set it up so far.
82 Spinoza and the Stoics
But Spinoza again sows trouble when he declares that the free man
never lies (E IVp72). Anticipating Kant’s famous argument from the
Groundwork, Spinoza says that if the free man were to lie to save himself, ‘it
would be better for every man to act deceitfully, that is, it would be better
for men to agree in words only, but to be contrary to one another in
reality, which is absurd’ (E IVp72d). If the free man should engage in
deceit, it would somehow be appropriate for all men to lie, thus rendering
social cooperation impossible. Naturally, this proposition appears anom-
alous to Spinoza’s thinking. As a being for whom the promotion of his
conatus is most obvious and to which he is most devoted, surely the free
man would place that above everything else, including honesty.
In a sense, the prohibition against lying means that the free man stands
above the social bond that holds common people together. Due to their
impassioned state and their untrustworthiness, the common people must
be compelled by the threat of force to cooperate, Spinoza maintains, while
the free man requires no such coercion because he directly perceives the
value of social cooperation (E IVp37s). Politicians can be honest with him.
Since the free man requires no coercion to behave, he is a kind of model
citizen, towards which all citizens should develop in a successful society
where people become aware of their individual advantage and their benefit
to one another; that is, where they become more rational. In a society that
grows more rational in this way, the free man will not be called upon to
accept and repay falsely the favours of the ignorant. Spinoza means to say,
Allison suggests, that deceit is irrational in that it typically leads to social
disorder rather than harmony.34 Deceit is characteristic of the pre-social
state where anarchy reigns and stifles human self-preservation. And yet, even
a modicum of deceit should not risk throwing society into chaos, Allison
admits, which leads him to conclude that ‘there is no good Spinozistic
reason for the free person not to be prudent’ in certain circumstances.35
Any doubts regarding the importance of political life are erased with the
final proposition of this section (and Book IV), however, where Spinoza
asserts that the rational person is more free when he lives under civil law
than if he were to live alone ‘where he obeys only himself’ (E IVp73). In
light of Spinoza’s social physics, it is no surprise that solitary life is un-
favourable. But why should he dismiss solitary life if it amounts to obeying
oneself alone? This sounds a lot like autonomy, and isn’t some sort of
autonomy precisely what distinguishes the virtuous person, as Spinoza
would have it? The virtuous person is autonomous insofar as he selects
internally accessed knowledge over beliefs imposed from external forces –
e.g. from society, from the Church, from tradition – and thereby deter-
mines his own emotions. If autonomy is indeed characteristic of virtue, but
Spinoza is critical of the solitary life where one obeys only oneself, what
does he mean here?
Stoic Political Reason 83
Insofar as [the free man] endeavors to preserve his own being according
to the dictates of reason – that is, insofar as he endeavors to live freely –
he desires to take account of the life and the good of the community,
and consequently to live according to the laws of the state. Therefore,
the man who is guided by reason desires to adhere to the laws of the
state so that he may live more freely. (E IVp73d)
Reason of State
such as ambition or the desire for glory.2 Such institutions and laws are
merely a means of achieving what impassioned people establish as good
and worthy of pursuit. It follows from the doctrine of the imitation of
affects that Spinoza’s state of nature is not necessarily characterized by
competition, and differs from Hobbes’ state of nature in this respect, even
while Hobbes’ influence is prominently felt elsewhere in Spinoza’s poli-
tical philosophy.
Spinoza sounds distinctly Hobbesian, for example, when he remarks
that ‘because men are in the highest degree liable to these passions (i.e.
anger, envy, hatred), therefore men are naturally enemies’ (TP II, 14).
The passions typically attract people to one another, but do not necessarily
rule out competition in the process. Passions are especially incited to levels
of violence when they concern goods that cannot be shared or partaken of
by all (E IIIp32). Furthermore, the logic of inter-human affections can just
as well spell divisiveness. After all, since witnessing someone else’s pain will
hurt me, too, I may seek to destroy this object of sadness, hatred, i.e. pain.
Hence Spinoza’s agreement with the Stoics concerning the worthlessness
of pity: pity effectively means saddling myself with pain (E IVp50d).
In any case, the chief problem with the passions, why they necessitate
political society, is the ignorance of which they are symptomatic. Spinoza
writes that
Rational and ignorant men alike share the endeavour for self-preservation,
but the rational man strives intelligently, and therefore, with greater
success. Society would need no laws if all persons were rational because
individuals would immediately recognize the practical benefits of social
harmony and the sacrifices that social coexistence entails. It is a rule of
human nature, Spinoza states, that ‘every single man thinks he knows
everything and wants to fashion the world to his liking’ (TTP XVII, 15).
Ignorant as to how best to promote their egoistic interests, persons tend to
assert their will imprudently upon their neighbours. The fault of
impassioned human beings is that they are stupidly selfish, McShea
claims, and fail to attain the vital success they seek.3
Spinoza expresses the problem alternately in terms of ‘right’. ‘Since it is
the supreme law of Nature that each thing endeavours to persist in its
present being,’ he writes, ‘each individual has the sovereign right to do
Reason of State 87
this, i.e. to exist and to act as it is naturally determined’ (TTP XVI, 4).
Spinoza identifies right with power, specifically, the power to persevere in
existence, and natural right with the power ‘with which everything takes
place, i.e. the power of nature itself’ (TP II, 4). The sovereign right that
humans possess by nature faces numerous challenges, one being the
competition of other people exercising their own right. As a consequence,
persons are not exactly sovereign, but are overwhelmed by competing
forces. The higher the degree of fear and pain present in a person’s life,
the less right he may be said to have (TP II, 15). Some individuals will
exercise their right at the expense of others, and unwittingly undermine
their own right in the long run. In short, they do not assert their sover-
eignty prudently, and the power of humans, both individually and com-
munally, is diminished.
The solution for the weakness of individuals’ rights is social addition.
When two individuals combine their strength, they have more power and
thus more right, Spinoza tells us, and the larger the union, the greater the
right they possess (TP II, 13). Indeed, so necessary is this union to the
survival and preservation of individuals that natural right can only be
conceived, really, where people have so combined to protect and promote
themselves (TP II, 15). It is a great irony that individuals achieve greater
right within the social context by limiting their own individual right to
some degree. Thus, Spinoza maintains, reason decrees that ‘the unre-
stricted right naturally possessed by each individual should be put into
common ownership and that this right should no longer be determined by
the strength and appetite of the individual, but by the power and will of all
together’ (TTP XVI, 13). With this, we arrive at Spinoza’s version of the
social contract.
Individual right is guaranteed precisely in being transformed into
communal right. But how is this transformation instituted? Do individuals
exchange individual for communal right by their own free, reflective
decision? It would appear not since Spinoza maintains that ‘nobody makes
a contract, or is bound to abide by an agreement, except through hope of
some good or apprehension of some evil’ (TTP XVI, 44). Persons are not
guided by reason in such a case, but by passions of hope and fear. He who
is indeed guided by reason does not have to be cajoled into social co-
operation since he directly discerns its utility. Therefore, the social con-
tract does not pertain to rational persons, but ignorant ones. And yet,
Spinoza indicates, it agrees with the decrees of reason nonetheless.
In the state of nature a kind of lawlessness exists where each individual
pursues his own individual right, what he is naturally capable of doing,
with no regard to his neighbours’ pursuits. Spinoza agrees with Hobbes
that there is no justice – or charity or sin – in the state of nature (TTP XIX,
7–8). The standard of justice – i.e. law itself – is instituted only with the
88 Spinoza and the Stoics
contract and enters with the state, but an individual is obliged to obey the
law insofar as it is effectively an extension of his own will, his own decision-
making (TP III, 5). Although Spinoza believes that individuals are not
rationally induced to be social creatures, but only cajoled or coerced, he
speaks here as if they consciously agree to the laws, and thus remain
faithful to them as if they were their own decision. Perhaps it is important
to note that men would indeed make such a decision if they were indivi-
duals possessing mature reason.
Spinoza ascribes a mysterious rationality to the contract. He says on one
hand that in this contract people ‘would have failed had appetite been
their only guide (for by the laws of appetite all men are drawn in different
directions), and so they had to bind themselves by the most stringent
pledges to be guided in all matters by reason and to keep appetite in check
. . .’ (TTP XVI, 14). However, Spinoza then asserts that people only accept
the contract through ‘hope of a greater good or fear of greater loss’, and
that, accordingly, the stability of the contract is ensured insofar as it
provides people with the prospect of attaining a greater good or avoiding a
greater evil (TTP XVI, 15). Spinoza does not ascribe rational curtailment
of appetites to the individuals themselves. The vast majority of men are
impassioned and ignorant in a state of nature, and a contract, with its
measures of coercion and enticement, is necessitated precisely by the
absence of rationality.
What then is rational in the contract, according to Spinoza? It appears
that the contract itself may be counted rational. What emerges from the
social contract is rational, though the contracting members themselves are
not rational individuals. Indeed, Spinoza remarks in the Ethics that ‘by the
guidance of reason we pursue the greater of two goods and the lesser of
two evils’ (E IVp65). Spinoza mimics this very language in the quote above:
the contract, and the passions on which it plays, guides persons in a
manner that is analogous to reason, and towards ends that reason pursues.
The contract is, thus, proto-rational. Spinoza’s contracting individuals are
unwittingly rational, for in instituting a state, they achieve a rational feat.
Spinoza’s version of the contract appears more coherent and convin-
cing than Hobbes’, for it is unclear how Hobbesian individuals rationally
decide that contracting is the best course of action in spite of the fact that
they remain largely ignorant, and voraciously selfish. Why should they
consciously decide to hand their rights over to a sovereign who is beyond
the law, and who will exercise coercion over them? In their deliberation,
will Hobbesian individuals agree to submit to the fearful figure of the
sovereign? And why should they require such severe coercive measures,
according to Hobbes, if they can indeed rationalize to some degree?
Spinoza holds, on the contrary, that individuals make no such reflective
decision: if they possessed a budding rationality mixed with persistent
Reason of State 89
nature and put on another . . .’ (TP IV, 4). ‘The natural right of every man
does not cease in the civil state. For man, alike in the natural and in the
civil state, acts according to the laws of his own nature, and consults his
own interest’ (TP III, 3). Spinoza’s state succeeds in appealing to man the
impassioned egoist. It entices him to obey by representing a good to his
egoistical judgement.
Spinoza states elsewhere that ‘the difference between Hobbes and
myself . . . consists in this, that I always preserve the natural right in its
entirety, and I hold that the sovereign power in a state has right over a
subject only in proportion to the excess of its power over that of a subject.
This is always the case in a state of nature’ (Epistle 50). Spinoza is intent on
maintaining that citizens retain right, while Hobbesian citizens retain very
little right, and find that their right is largely replaced by that of the
sovereign. Spinoza likely believes he ‘always preserves natural right in its
entirety’ in light of his view that persons retain the right to freedom of
judgement, which I will discuss shortly. I take it that Spinoza also believes
he preserves natural right more faithfully since, by his account, citizens do
not obey so much by fear, but rather by the belief – ignorant and egoistical
though it is – that they are taking advantage of civil society to pursue their
particular advantage. In other words, for all they know – or care – Spi-
noza’s citizens are in a state of nature, because they are still just getting
their own, if you will. In this respect, there is no essential difference
between nature and civil society for Spinoza. Indeed, as Sylvain Zac
reminds us, we should expect that Spinoza maintain continuity between
the two, if he would remain faithful to his monism.5
Spinoza admits a difference between civil and natural law that is ulti-
mately minimal. In the TTP, he distinguishes between law that depends on
nature’s necessity, and law that depends on human will, ‘which could
more properly be termed a statute’, and ‘which men ordain for themselves
and for others with a view to making life more secure and more con-
venient’ (TTP IV, 1). Human laws, i.e. civil laws, pertain to human interest
specifically, while nature’s laws do not. Nevertheless, human laws are
themselves just an expression of natural law, because, in the construction
of civil law, human beings are following their natural impulse – the natural
law – to preserve themselves. Nature herself does not deliver civil law in all
its detail, but she certainly provides the impetus for it, and the human
being who conceives statutes is just as much a natural being heeding the
call of self-preservation as is the caveman who hunts for food. The main
difference between the natural and the civil state is that the latter orga-
nizes the impassioned egoism of its members so that people are subject to
the same influences and the same compulsion at the hands of the sover-
eign (TP III,3). As Matheron puts it, the genesis of the state is a ‘passage,
no longer from independence to dependence, but from the fluctuating
Reason of State 91
Perhaps it will be thought that we are turning subjects into slaves, the
slave being one who acts under orders and the free man one who does
as he pleases. But this is not completely true, for the real slave is one
who lives under pleasure’s sway and can neither see nor do what is for
his own good, and only he is free who lives whole-heartedly under the
guidance of reason. (TTP XVI, 32)
because they see themselves defending their own interests above all, as
opposed to the interests of the king. Human nature, after all, is ‘so con-
stituted that everyone seeks with the utmost passion [summo cum affectu]
his own advantage, and judges those laws to be most equitable, which he
thinks necessary to preserve and increase his own substance, and defends
another’s cause so far only as he thinks he is thereby establishing his own’
(TP VII,4). Monarchy is problematic then – at least superficially – because
it privileges the interest of one above all.
The democratic state is preferable because, quite simply, Spinoza
believes it is the most powerful state. It capitalizes upon the egoism of its
citizens better than any other form of constitution, making the welfare of
the state as a whole most intimately tied to each citizen’s self-interest.
Insofar as it mitigates internal strife and galvanizes the support of its
citizens, the democratic state has the best chance of enduring over time,
that is, sustaining its conatus to persist in being, to which extent the
democratic regime is rational. But shared sovereignty must be com-
plemented by freedom of judgement, Spinoza warns, since ‘men are so
constituted that their resentment is most aroused when beliefs which they
think to be true are treated as criminal, and when that which motivates
their pious conduct to God and man is accounted as wickedness’ (TTP
XX, 29). The regime that suppresses freedom of judgement risks inciting
retribution, rebellion (TTP XX, 44), and thereby undermines its own right
to preserve its being. In this respect, the oppressive regime may not be
counted rational.
In the preface to the TTP, Spinoza reveals that he aims to demonstrate
that ‘not only can this freedom [of judgement] be granted without
endangering piety and peace of the commonwealth, but also that the
peace of the commonwealth and piety depend on this freedom’ (TTP
Praef, 12). I don’t believe that Spinoza defends freedom of judgement for
its own sake, as if it were an abstract, universal right the state is morally
obliged to accord its citizens. Nor does he defend freedom of judgement
merely in order to secure the freedom to philosophize. Rather, Spinoza
defends freedom of judgement, and consequently the freedom to phil-
osophize, because they lend themselves to political stability and social
flourishing: they conduce to greater and more secure political right.
In considering the best regime, one must take into account the staunch
though misguided sense of individualism citizens harbour. If a state is to
preserve its being, it must appeal to the impassioned self-interest of its
citizens, and if it does not, it sows the seeds of its quick demise. Spinoza
agrees with Machiavelli that ‘a commonwealth is always in greater danger
from its citizens than from external enemies’ (TP VI,6). Indeed, internal
unity of citizens is a prerequisite for the state to fight off other predatory
regimes, for the state derives greater internal strength from the devotion
Reason of State 95
and enthusiasm of its citizens. Therefore, the liberal state has greater right
than do tyrannies, that is, greater power to preserve its being, and by virtue
of its internal makeup, it has the capacity to defeat and outlast any such
tyranny. If he demonstrates the superior right of the liberal state in the
TTP, why does Spinoza entertain other forms of constitution in his later
political work, where he refrains from asserting the primacy of democ-
racy?9 Perhaps Spinoza’s enthusiasm for democracy was diminished by
witnessing the horrific murder of the De Witts at the hands of an angry
mob in the Hague in 1672. After the Grand Pensionary of Holland and his
brother were literally ripped to pieces, Spinoza wished to erect at the scene
a placard denouncing the ‘ultimate barbarism’ of the masses who com-
mitted this deed, but luckily his landlord prevented him from doing so.10
Perhaps Spinoza came to suspect that it was too risky to rest political
stability on the people’s impassioned egoism. But already in the TTP, he
recognizes the capricious nature of the people, and looks again to the
Hebrew state for inspiration in moulding them.
recognizes the challenge that every citizen must be convinced that in every
case his own well-being is served precisely through serving the interests of
all other citizens. In other words, ‘to frame such a constitution that every
man . . . will set public right before private advantage, this is the task’ (TTP
XVII, 16). Without this measure, the state will, unknown to the citizens
perhaps, collapse.
We must make national devotion the highest form of devotion, in Spi-
noza’s view, ‘for if the state is destroyed nothing good can survive . . .’ (TTP
XIX, 22). The Stoics certainly fall short of making a comparable assertion.
The duty to country is secondary to that to the cosmopolis, according to the
Stoics, and is even subordinate to familial duty. Devotion to one’s country
is highest for Spinoza since every other form of well-being is predicated
upon political well-being. Political association is the only way of promoting
the effort of an individual’s conatus: reason decrees against independence,
solitude. And yet in speaking of devotion (pietas), Spinoza suggests an
especially profound form of attachment to country. In the language of
piety (which, incidentally, is also familiar to Stoic duty), Spinoza reveals
the secret ingredient at the core of patriotism: religion. In order to
guarantee willing obedience on the part of the citizens, to expand their
self-interest so that it encompasses whomever the political powers require
it to encompass – to transform them into citizens, as it were – the state must
be implicated in the people’s religion. Spinoza derives this insight, too,
from his careful study of biblical Israel.
How was such a small state able to endure over time in the face of
overwhelming odds, not least of which were the tremendous political
powers surrounding it? In the first place, how was this small band of
former slaves able to unite so forcefully that it could migrate as an entire
people from Egypt to their homeland? In addition to their democracy,
the early Hebrew state displayed another helpful feature: the Jews
‘resolved to transfer their right not to any mortal man, but to God alone’
(TTP XVII, 27). They recognized God as their sole sovereign, and as a
result, every deed bore political and religious significance at once. Bib-
lical Israel endured because it succeeded ‘in removing the causes of strife,
namely, that no man served his equal, but only God, that charity and love
towards one’s fellow citizens was regarded as a supreme religious duty’
(TTP XVII, 87). Spinoza recognizes Moses as the engineer of this
remarkable feat, which amounts to the institution of a state religion. With
this state religion, Moses made ‘people do their duty from devotion
rather than fear . . . He bound them by promising benefits from God in
the future’ (TTP V, 29). Moses solved the problem in which political
advantage is unapparent to the citizens. He united the public and private
domains of people. With God as the recognized sovereign, the prospect
of blessedness inhabited any public deed, and consequently, people were
Reason of State 97
eager to assist those deeds where immediate personal advantage was not
discernible.
Spinoza’s analysis of Scripture, moreover, reveals that its essential mes-
sage is itself politically propitious. According to Scripture, Spinoza main-
tains, the sole aim of faith is obedience to God (TTP XIV, 8). Since St
James says that ‘faith in itself without works is dead’ (TTP XIV, 14), obed-
ience consists in works, specifically, works of justice and charity. ‘Obed-
ience to God consists solely in loving one’s neighbor’, Spinoza explains,
which means that ‘Scripture commands no other kind of knowledge than
that which is necessary for all men before they can obey God according to
this commandment . . .’ (TTP XIII, 8). This latter statement invokes the
basis of Spinoza’s argument for the separation of philosophy and theol-
ogy. Scripture requires this most basic form of knowledge, accessible to
the vast majority of people, but ‘the intellectual or exact knowledge of
God is not a gift shared by all the faithful, as is obedience’ (TTP XIII, 9).
That faith consists in obedience to God, which in turn consists in works of
justice and charity, is the common message of both Testaments of the
Bible, in Spinoza’s view.
Indeed, Spinoza asserts, ‘the prophets [of the Old Testament] com-
mend above all else justice and charity . . .’ and thus, ‘their moral teaching
is in full agreement with reason, for it is no accident that the Word of God
proclaimed by the prophets agrees in all respects with the Word of God
that speaks in our hearts’ (TTP XV, 34). Such statements as this elicit the
objection that Spinoza violates his aim of distinguishing philosophy and
theology. If the prophets only know God in an unphilosophical manner –
as they necessarily do, since Spinoza describes them as persons of excep-
tionally active imagination who receive revelation by means of external
signs (TTP II), both of which are traits unbefitting a philosopher – how
can their message agree with reason? It is becoming clear, however, that
political stability, and religion’s role in contributing to this end, is the
overarching theme of the TTP. In this light, the prophets’ message may
very easily agree with that of reason insofar as it commends social har-
mony, and in turn, the advantage to individuals’ strivings that follows from
social harmony. To this extent, religion may be counted rational.
Biblical Israel illustrates a commendable convergence of politics and
religion, and yet Spinoza admits that its model is no longer possible. The
Jewish people’s covenant with God is irrelevant since God ‘has revealed
through his Apostles that his covenant is no longer written in ink or
engraved on tables of stone, but is inscribed by God’s spirit in men’s
hearts’ (TTP XVIII, 2). Christianity is God’s message revealed to a uni-
versal audience, as opposed to the Old Testament revealed to the Jews
only. Christianity must now provide the model for state religion, but
remain somehow based on the Jewish model. Christianity must play the
98 Spinoza and the Stoics
same role religion played in the Israelite state, and, precisely because it
purports to be universal, the Christian message provides the basis of a
universal faith that may be applicable to any political setting. ‘The dogmas
of the universal faith,’ Spinoza affirms, ‘must all be directed to this one
end: that there is a Supreme Being who loves justice and charity, whom all
must obey in order to be saved, and must worship by practicing justice and
charity to their neighbor’ (TTP XIV, 24). The essence of Spinoza’s uni-
versal faith, therefore – what ultimately characterizes and defines it – is
political utility: of practical political measures, it makes expressions of
religious devotion.
In fact, since religion and politics agree in commending justice and
charity, ‘it follows that God has no kingdom over men save through the
medium of those who hold sovereignty’ (TTP XIX, 6), and ‘no one can
rightly obey God unless his practice of piety . . . conforms with the public
good’ (TTP XIX, 26). In turn, since the sovereign is most expert in the
public good, he is the proper interpreter of faith. Again drawing lessons
from the Hebrew state, Spinoza observes that sectarian divisions arose in
its history when religious leaders sought after secular power (TTP XVIII,
21), and, furthermore, that the integrity of religion itself was threatened as
long as the prophets were independent of the secular authorities: ‘in
exercising their freedom to warn, to rebuke and to censure, [the pro-
phets] succeeded in annoying men rather than reforming them, whereas
men who were admonished or castigated by kings were more apt to turn
from their ways’ (TTP XVIII, 13). For the benefit of religion and politics
alike, the sovereign must control the external forms of religious devotion,
and in so doing, orchestrate the manner in which religion celebrates
national devotion. After all, the religious authorities cannot be counted on
to include patriotism in the people’s creed. Moreover, as interpreter of
religion, the sovereign will attain the proper aura of authority. ‘Everyone
knows how much importance the people attach to the right and authority
over religion,’ Spinoza remarks, ‘and how all revere every single word of
him who possesses that authority, so that . . . he to whom this authority
belongs has the most effective control over minds’ (TTP XIX, 40). So
powerful is the role of interpreter of religion, in fact, that to refuse it to
the sovereign amounts to dividing sovereignty and sowing the seeds of
internecine conflict (TTP XIX, 41).
A perpetual point of conflict among Spinoza scholars is the character of
this salvation Spinoza attributes to revealed religion in the TTP. Myster-
iously, simple obedience is a way to salvation (TTP XV, 44), Spinoza dis-
closes, alternately wondering how ‘men can achieve blessedness simply
through obedience without understanding . . .’ (TTP XV, 22). In the Ethics,
Spinoza refers to the third kind of knowledge, that highest form of
intellectual perception, as blessedness. Isn’t it an obvious contradiction to
Reason of State 99
But Spinoza’s political writings reveal even more so the affinity between
believer and philosopher, where Spinoza suggests that the lives of both
may be deemed rational. He who actively cooperates with his neighbours,
who practises charity towards them, who obeys the laws, and most
importantly, who enjoys the personal advantages of social life, behaves
rationally. His conatus is promoted no less than that of the philosopher
who derives practical prudence from his profound insight, that is, who is
self-consciously – or internally – rational.
The ignorant person knows what he wants, namely, self-preservation,
but typically does not discern the best means of attaining it; the philoso-
pher knows what he wants and how best to attain it. With political gui-
dance, the ignorant person receives this prudential insight, though it
comes from outside. Does this then mean that he is heteronomous and
that his salvation is somewhat less admirable? Perhaps, and yet if his life-
style affords him simple serenity, ample vigour and joy for living, his form
of salvation is certainly one the philosopher admires and partakes in
himself.
Spinoza opens his Tractatus Politicus with the Machiavellian assertion that
he will expound the best form of political constitution, not in light of
human nature as philosophers idealize it, but in light of human nature as
it truly is (TP I,1). This calls for looking upon the passions as properties of
human nature (TP I, 4). Politics treats men exclusively in terms of their
impassioned nature, accordingly, and does not ‘look to proofs of reason
for the causes and natural bases of dominion . . .’ (TP I,7). The passions
are the terms of politics; they alone are to be taken into consideration in
the political realm. Douglas Den Uyl suggests that Spinoza resolves to
focus exclusively upon persons’ impassioned nature because philosophers
are so few and far between that their significance is negligible within social
theory.12 And yet it would serve us well to remember that the philosopher
is also impassioned, only to a lesser extent. Accordingly, it is not
inappropriate to include him in political considerations; insofar as he
remains susceptible to passions, he is a subject of political right.
Passions are the terms of the political domain, which means that pol-
itical measures are themselves of an impassioned nature. ‘Men are more
led by blind desire than by reason’, Spinoza explains, and ‘therefore the
natural power or right of human beings should be limited, not by reason,
but by every appetite whereby they are determined to action, or seek their
own preservation’ (TP II, 5). Politics is the domain of the interplay of the
Reason of State 101
passions. Persons are manipulated in the polis by passions, such as the fear
of punishment or the hope of personal benefit – state religion, for
example, proposes personal benefit in the form of everlasting life. Albert
Hirschmann argues that the problem with the passions is that they are
inconstant and unpredictable, and consequently, the task is to replace
them with constant passions, i.e. predictable ones, a prime example of
which is mercantile ambition.13 The government that succeeds in pro-
moting economic prosperity enjoys a population of contentedly industri-
ous citizens focused on projects of personal wealth.14 Passions are
capricious by nature – at least from the vantage point of our limited
intellect and with regard to our native power – but the model state will
render them predictable, and therefore, manageable.
The sovereign achieves what he wants by manipulating citizens posi-
tively, not negatively – by enticing, not coercing them. The political end is
attained only indirectly in this way since people, in their preponderant
ignorance, do not directly grasp the value and utility of the state (TP X, 6):
they are focused on their own advantage, and will quickly abandon poli-
tical duty if the state no longer serves their personal interest. The state
manipulates people, therefore, by directing them towards ends other than
frankly political ones, but which in fact produce politically propitious
traits. This is why religion, for example, is such a powerful instrument in
the political domain: it teaches people to treat one another fairly, after all,
but at the prospect of eternal happiness or avoiding eternal damnation.
To manipulate people directly, Spinoza maintains, is to risk causing
trouble, for whoever ‘seeks to regulate everything by law will aggravate
vices rather than correct them’ (TTP XX, 24). This claim is exemplified by
his argument for freedom of judgement. He means to say, I take it, that
the sovereign must be cautious in directly influencing his citizens who
simply cannot be reasoned with concerning the inherent virtues and
consequent demands of political life. He must rather be a silent guide in
people’s lives, because acting otherwise will threaten their perceived
individualism – and nothing enrages people more than that, according to
Spinoza.
It becomes clear in what sense Spinoza’s political philosophy is liberal.
The governing party must observe people’s perceived individualism and
their focus on individual advantage. Politics grants freedom of judgement
as a requisite of political right, in light of human nature. The model
political regime is liberal insofar as it avoids directly moulding citizens and
interfering with their lives because such a programme will irritate its
independent-minded citizens. This means, as Den Uyl argues, that the
state is not in the business of moral education.15 Indeed, in the opening of
the Tractatus Politicus, Spinoza states the following as a veritable rule of
political theory:
102 Spinoza and the Stoics
To dream in this manner is a political liability. However, this does not rule
out the possibility that politics is indirectly involved in the project of moral
improvement, as it must be, since philosophy is certainly nourished by the
polis in the first place.
What does all this mean with regard to Stoic political theory? Or rather,
what does Stoic politics teach about Spinoza’s political convictions? The
Stoic advocacy of egalitarianism may well have supported Spinoza’s pre-
ference for democracy. For the Stoics, such egalitarianism provides for the
possibility of general enlightenment, but Spinoza’s interest in democracy
lies largely in the fact that it lends itself to solid and enduring political
power. Lagrée is also eager to point out that early modern philosophers
such as Spinoza draw inspiration from Stoicism in developing the idea of
universal religion. With its doctrine of the rational unity of humankind
and a God readily discernible to all rational beings, Stoicism provides the
model for a religion common to all men, which ceases to divide but
instead draws men together.16 To this extent, Stoic-inspired universal
religion is irénique, that is, conducive to peace, Lagrée argues, for it cul-
tivates a religious society of rational men who directly perceive the divine
command and the human virtue of peace. Once again, however, though
Stoic inspiration may be evident in Spinoza’s universal religion, he appeals
to this notion insofar as it serves political power by cultivating the obedi-
ence of citizens the political structure requires. Spinoza exhibits greater
affinity to those Stoics, rather, who recognize a gulf between wise and
ignorant men, and who hold that politics, which caters to the opinions of
the ignorant, is not the proper venue for enlightening men. Nevertheless,
this feature does not preclude politics from being integral to the life of
virtue, for Spinoza.
Marcus Aurelius, who expresses such pessimism about the role of poli-
tics with respect to a universal enlightenment, characterizes politics as an
annoying obligation. He recognizes that the political realm is not where
true virtue is to be found, and that he must take care in appearing to
approve those things people wrongly esteem. For Spinoza, on the con-
trary, politics is a necessary consideration for the life of virtue – and not
merely a necessary evil. After all, philosophy is predicated upon political
stability. But it appears that politics is integral to virtue in another sense.
Politics provides a kind of salvation, as it were – it constitutes saving force
Reason of State 103
to ignorant and wise alike. Granted, politics does not cultivate intellectual
salvation, but insofar as it seeks to supplant harmful passions with bene-
ficial ones, it effectively mimics the process of therapy. In other words,
politics is a domain where therapy takes place – as is religion, whose own
therapeutic power Spinoza reveals through the analysis of political power.
Politics and religion defeat harmful passions with passions that may be
called rational to the extent that they promote self-preservation. Perhaps
this is only a lesser salvation, as Thomas Cook would have it.17 But again,
since there is no clear or absolute distinction between wisdom and
ignorance, between active and passive states – since they are only matters
of degree – it is hard to distinguish higher and lesser salvation: the two
overlap, and are, furthermore, mutually sustaining. The wise man must
also derive real sustenance from politics and religion; when suffering from
overwhelming passive affects, he requires the remedies that serve all
people. And since the philosopher necessarily suffers bouts of ignorant
egoism that plague all fellow humans, he too must be susceptible to
political coercion and enticement, at least occasionally.
This page intentionally left blank
6
(TTP XIX, 54). The Apostles committed the error of fusing philosophy
and theology, the precise error the TTP targets, which has deleterious
political consequences. Because dogmas were mixed with philosophical
speculations, their interpretation ‘ruled out all but men of private station
with abundant leisure’ (TTP XIX, 54). In other words, the stewardship of
religious dogma eluded the secular authorities, and required unique
authority all its own, effectively creating a case of dual sovereignty, and in
turn, perpetual struggle between the secular and religious authorities. But
Spinoza detects something more pernicious in what the Apostles wrought
at the origin of the Church, something which explains those most bitter,
incessant conflicts: the religious wars. What accounts for the extraordinary
power of the churchmen, who ‘succeeded in doing by the pen alone’ what
‘no monarch could achieve by fire and sword’ (TTP XIX, 44), making
them such imposing foes – especially to one another?
In appealing to philosophy to adapt themselves to the beliefs of their
audience, the Apostles effectively conceal opinion and prejudice under
the guise of philosophy, and render their message no longer universal in
the manner of Christ. But furthermore, by dressing up particular beliefs as
universal claims, as components of rational argument, the Apostles ren-
dered those beliefs all the more intractable and incompatible with one
another. Such is the state of affairs that, Michael Rosenthal argues,
‘opened the way for sectarian turmoil and insurrection’.4 The extra-
ordinary and especially devastating power Spinoza attributes to the
churchmen is due to the fact that they pretend to speak for eternal truth:
monarchs, who have mere earthly interests, don’t stand a chance against
the churchmen. And when pitted against one another, the churchmen
make for a vicious fight. Hume illustrates the predicament thus: ‘Two men
traveling on the highway, the one east, the other west, can easily pass each
other, if the way be broad enough: But two men, reasoning upon opposite
principles of religion, cannot so easily pass, without shocking.’5 Each
insists that his is the only way of passage, thus dooming coexistence and
compromise.
In fact, Spinoza’s account of the Apostles invokes Hume’s critique of
what he calls political parties ‘from principle’, specifically, ‘abstract spec-
ulative principle’. Parties founded on frank admissions of interest, as
opposed to principle, easily cohabit and compromise, Hume claims. Par-
ties founded on principle, however, prove especially intractable, and ‘have
been the origin of all religious wars and divisions’.6 Though Hume says
that the phenomenon of ‘parties from principle’ is rather modern, he
traces its destructive tendencies to the advent of the Christian religion, a
diagnosis that echoes Spinoza’s critique of the Apostles. When the church
fathers got hold of philosophical principles and methods of argumenta-
tion, they employed it disingenuously to advance their personal interests
112 Spinoza and the Stoics
men are bound to keep faith even with a tyrant except from him to whom
God, by sure revelation, has promised his special aid against the tyrant’
and consequently, he stresses, ‘the authority which Christ gave the dis-
ciples was a unique occurrence . . . and not an example for others’ (TTP
XIX, 33). The Apostles’ mission is unique, Spinoza suggests, and a dan-
gerous precedent. It should not be permitted again, perhaps even in the
face of tyranny. It is preferable to suffer tyranny since independent
evangelizing threatens to give rise to sectarian disputes that are wholly
insufferable. At least the tyrant has a greater chance of delivering political
stability, and if he is at all prudent, he will restore the people’s freedom in
order to ensure his own power. In any case, it appears Spinoza seems to
believe that the people’s freedom is not to be secured by independent
religious crusades. Such freedom is only possible within a strong, secure
political regime. But how can a tyrant be expected to discern the political
value of the people’s freedom in the first place? This is an enduring
question facing Spinoza, but one which his account of Christ may address:
Christ’s is a politically non-threatening method of liberation, which, in
conducing to the people’s obedience, may convince the authorities of the
particular freedom that is in their interest to allow.
Solomon, as Spinoza depicts him, sounds to be a Spinozistic and Stoic
philosopher at once. According to his interpretation of Solomon’s Pro-
verbs, Spinoza attributes to Solomon the view that ‘misfortunes consist only
in folly’ (TTP IV, 41) and that the intellect alone ‘makes a man blessed
and happy and affords true peace of mind [animi tranquilitatem]’ (TTP IV,
42). Solomon also held that ‘only the wise live with tranquil and steadfast
mind [animo pacato et constante vivunt],’ according to Spinoza, ‘unlike the
wicked, whose minds are agitated by conflicting emotions, and so have
neither peace nor rest’ (TTP IV, 42). Furthermore, Spinoza credits Solo-
mon with the view that ‘the happiness and peace of the man who cultivates
his natural understanding depends not on the sway of fortune but on his
own internal virtue . . .’ (TTP IV, 46). Apparently, Solomon shares the
basic view of Stoic and Spinozistic therapy that unhappiness proceeds
from ignorance, and that wisdom entails tranquillity. But Spinoza also
attributes to Solomon notions that are distinctly Spinozistic, by virtue of
the language in which he describes them. According to Spinoza, Solomon
clearly believes that ‘our intellect and knowledge depend solely on the
idea or knowledge of God and spring from it and are perfected by it . . .’
(TTP IV, 44).
Spinoza’s language strongly suggests that Solomon is a philosopher, and
yet he laments that Solomon ‘also considered himself above the Law . . .
and paid little heed to all the laws regarding the king, consisting of three
main articles (see Deut. ch.17 v.16, 17). Indeed, he plainly violated these
laws (in which, however, he did wrong, and by indulgence in pleasures
114 Spinoza and the Stoics
The philosopher may be the sovereign’s greatest ally, in fact, since Spinoza
appears to hold that sedition is contrary to reason. In a footnote to the
TTP, he states that
A man can be free in any kind of state, for a man is free, of course, to the
extent that he is guided by reason. Now (though Hobbes thinks
otherwise) reason is entirely in favor of peace; but peace cannot be
secured unless the general laws of the state are kept inviolate. Therefore
the more a man is guided by reason, that is, the more free he is, the
more steadfastly he will observe the laws of the state and obey the
commands of the sovereign whose subject he is. (TTP XVI, 34, note)
therefore, the ruling party must learn its lesson regarding equality and
freedom sooner or later, and uphold them for the sake of its own pre-
servation. The people’s equality and freedom will be more secure anyway
as the authorities recognize these to be in their interest. To demand of the
state the defence of equality and freedom for any other reason or on any
other basis does not guarantee the security of these institutions. For, it
follows from Spinoza’s psychology that the sovereign can be expected to
defend tooth and nail what agrees with his perceived personal (which is, in
his case, political) interest.
I believe, therefore, that Spinoza’s philosopher would not approach the
political powers in order to convince them of the value of equality and
freedom of judgement, nor would he campaign for those ideals publicly.
On one hand, such action risks irritating the sovereign and bringing upon
oneself the threat of violent punishment, or it risks inciting the people to
rebellion and throwing the state into chaos. On the other hand, it is
unlikely that the philosopher would be able to convince the sovereign that
equality and freedom are in his personal interest, since such insight is
counterintuitive – or at least, not immediately apparent or desirable – to
those in power, and their value is learned through time and experience.
Political rulers are not philosophers, according to Spinoza, so they will not
directly perceive their advantage in social cooperation, though they are
likely better at grasping it than the vast majority of citizens. Indeed,
foresight is part of the politician’s craft, but by no means does it amount to
philosophical insight. Politics entails distinct talents and means, which are,
however, not terribly alien to the philosopher.
Spinoza distinguishes most vocally between philosopher and politician
in the opening of the Tractatus Politicus, where he states his intention to
deduce the best forms of constitution in light of impassioned human
nature. He complains in Machiavellian fashion that
Philosophers are too idealistic and, as a result, are not cut out for the
realism politics requires. Philosophers resist considering people as they
truly are, but politicians do not – indeed, politicians tend to regard people
in the lowest light. Spinoza states further that ‘statesmen have written
about politics far more happily than philosophers’, an especially odd
statement in light of its author (TP I, 2).
The Philosopher in the State 119
politician displays. He may be able for the political lifestyle, but he cannot
be expected to settle for such a lifestyle once smitten by love of God. In
accordance with Spinoza’s psychology, the philosopher will behave like all
other people and pursue what is most advantageous, what is most in his
interest – what most promotes his conatus to be and to understand, and is
thus most pleasant. Having found the greatest pleasure in the love of God,
the philosopher will pursue this endeavour wholeheartedly and cannot be
expected to compromise his concentration upon it willingly for the sake of
assuming political business, though he will never deny the significance of
the latter.
It is a popular view, voiced most prominently by Strauss among many
others, that for Spinoza the philosopher stands apart from politics and his
only political interest is to secure the freedom to philosophize. This claim
rests on the anterior view that ‘an unbridgeable gulf separates the multi-
tude from the wise’.12 Spinoza admits ominously that ‘the masses can be
no more freed from their superstition than from their fears’ (TTP Praef,
33). The impassioned masses are effectively impervious to the approaches
of philosophy. Politics accepts the masses as they are in their impassioned
state, while philosophy would seek to transform that impassioned state
into activity. But it also follows from Strauss’ view that, since the people’s
impassioned state is so intractable, the philosopher must merely find a way
to pursue his exalted project in their midst. The philosopher should not
entertain the political vision of enlightening the masses, since they simply
cannot be enlightened in the first place. To the contrary, in their impas-
sioned state, the masses pose a danger to philosophy. This position is
summed up nicely by Paul Bagley, who maintains that the TTP is primarily
concerned with solving the philosophical problem of ‘how rational men
can live peacefully and securely among a majority of men who are slaves to
their passions’.13 This is the proper extent of the philosopher’s political
considerations. The masses are hopeless and unable for the steep path of
philosophy. Therefore, they are better off excluded from the philoso-
phical project altogether, but a political solution must be found to keep
them peaceful so that the philosopher may engage in contemplation.
According to this view, Spinoza defends freedom of judgement in the TTP
primarily because he is interested in securing a place for philosophy.
Precisely such a gap between the wise and ignorant drives Spinoza to
conceive political theory in the first place, Strauss maintains:
Due to his difference from the masses, the philosopher can only deal with
them indirectly, through the mediation of theory. The philosopher strives
to organize the impassioned masses in a scientific manner, which is why he
resolves to treat passions like properties of nature. Perhaps in his
frustration at the obduracy of the people’s passions, the philosopher
believes this is all he can do, and objectifying the passions in this manner
amounts to an act of understanding that is pleasant anyway. But Strauss
suggests that such theorizing is a distinctly unpolitical act, relegating the
philosopher to the status of political spectator.
Due to his desire for contemplation, Strauss argues, Spinoza’s philoso-
pher ultimately does not concur with reason of state. Since ‘no man can
live wisely, in other words, live purely in accord with the dictates of reason,
when he is distracted by the claims of public business’, Strauss writes, ‘the
wise man, who is most profoundly interested in the state, and who
recognizes most clearly the advantages of the state, stands apart . . . from
the specific reason of the state’.15 Strauss admits that the philosopher has
considerable interest in the welfare of the state, but only as a necessary evil
that must be dealt with, not something that produces joy in its own right –
political concern is the lesser of two evils, in other words, the worse evil
being utter chaos. The philosopher contributes to reason of state neces-
sarily, but as if it were merely a chore. Social obligations are not the
philosopher’s primary focus, but he performs them so that he may later
enjoy the pleasures of intellection in the peace and quiet of his study.
In their passions, the people constitute at best a distraction to the
philosopher’s proper endeavour, and at worst, they pose a threat. As a
result, the philosopher must be very careful in his dealings with the
common folk, and in this respect, his disposition parallels that of the
politician, but is aimed at a different end of course. Like the politician, the
philosopher must employ deceit in order to protect himself and his
endeavour. In fact, Strauss claims, philosophers ‘are much more exposed
to the suspicions of the multitude than statesmen, and therefore in greater
need of caution than anyone else’.16 Why is this? Perhaps because the
philosopher’s work is especially angering to the superstitious multitude.
Strauss points out that Spinoza’s signet ring bore the inscription ‘Caute’,
and claims that ‘by this he didn’t primarily mean the caution required in
philosophic investigations but the caution that the philosopher needs in
his intercourse with non-philosophers’.17
The philosopher’s caution enables him to live under any form of pol-
itical constitution, according to Strauss. The philosopher will simply
refrain from uttering his true beliefs, and he will do so ‘not so much for
122 Spinoza and the Stoics
With the Stoics, Spinoza affirms the public reticence of the philosopher
regarding his expertise; however, Spinoza’s conclusion is founded on
different premises. I have argued that Spinoza’s aim to hold philosophy
and politics apart in this manner is in fact an expression of political – and
ultimately, philosophical – concern, while it is exclusively an expression of
philosophical concern for the Stoics. Spinoza’s philosopher is reticent for
the sake of his and his neighbours’ vital goals, which he knows are
intertwined. He understands that the masses’ ignorance will likely cause
them to receive his unique insight with suspicion and even violence. If he
should profess his insight publicly, it might easily fall into the wrong
hands and be used improperly, with devastating political implications, as
Spinoza’s account of the Apostles and the origin of the Church suggests.
Spinoza’s philosopher refrains from the diffusion of enlightenment
because it is not politically expedient, and would doom his and
his neighbours’ interests at once. He is concerned about the welfare of
his neighbours, and desires that they be saved in the manner of which
they are capable, because his own salvation depends upon it. The Stoic, on
the other hand, does not seek to enlighten the masses, since their salva-
tion is not a matter of urgency for him as it is for Spinoza’s philosopher.
Wisdom and happiness for the Stoic ultimately do not depend on the state
or the political climate. As Epictetus argues, getting involved with the
masses, i.e. getting involved in politics, risks sidetracking a person from
wisdom.
In fact, I believe it is Spinoza’s view that the reticence and caution of the
philosopher aids the diffusion of enlightenment better than any proactive
approach. The philosopher is driven to share his profound joy with those
around him, but following the model of Christ from the TTP, he will do so
indirectly, in a politically non-threatening manner, which entails that he
philosophize in private. Only when his neighbours have achieved the
lesser state of salvation are they ready – as individuals – to proceed along
the steep path of philosophy. But this lesser salvation that politics and
religion provide is no mean achievement in the philosopher’s eyes. After
all, his neighbours’ contentment is a source of joy for the philosopher,
and in itself it is equally a source of real pleasure. Politics and religion bear
therapeutic force, according to the principles of Spinoza’s psychotherapy.
Politics and religion instil less harmful passions, such as hope, fear and
humility, which combat more harmful ones. Without the introduction of
such less harmful passions, which, Deleuze would say, usher in ‘joyous
passions’, the delicate flower of reason would never unfurl in the first
place. And in his state of vulnerability, the philosopher certainly requires
the therapeutic aid politics and religion can provide when he must endure
unavoidable physical suffering, which is the destiny of any finite mode of
infinite substance.
Conclusion 129
Introduction
1
Regarding the Reformers’ affinity for Stoicism, see Léontine Zanta’s La
Renaissance du Stoı̈cisme au XVIe Siècle (Paris: H. Champion, 1914).
2
The New Science, I.335.
3
Indeed, some scholars detect in Spinoza’s naturalism influences of the Aver-
roistic Aristotelianism he would have encountered in the works of the Jewish
medieval masters.
4
By the term ‘psychotherapy’, I understand the Socratic therapy of the soul
characteristic of Hellenistic approaches to ethics, in distinction from Freudian
psychoanalysis. See Martha Nussbaum, The Therapy of Desire (Princeton, NJ: Prin-
ceton University Press, 1994).
5
Following Spinoza’s practice, and to avoid awkward inconsistencies, I fre-
quently use ‘man’, ‘men’ and male pronouns generally within this book. No sexist
bias is intended.
6
Henceforth, I will be referring to the Tractatus Theologico-Politicus as the TTP.
7
Edwin Curley, for example, holds that ‘the central themes of the Ethics can be
derived from a critical reflection on the Cartesian system’. Cf. Behind the Geometrical
Method (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1988), p. 3.
8
It is Spinoza’s view that Descartes held the passions of the soul to be suscep-
tible of complete control (cf. preface to Ethics V), which is arguably inaccurate.
9
Cf. George Santayana, ‘An Ultimate Religion’, in The Philosophy of Santayana,
ed. Irwin Edman (New York: Random House Modern Library, 1936), p. 582.
10
Frederick Beiser, The Fate of Reason (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,
1987), pp.48–9.
11
Jonathan Israel, The Radical Enlightenment (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2001), p. 159.
12
Israel, p. 307.
13
As the eighteenth century progressed in Germany, Beiser argues, Spinoza’s
pantheism was seen as an ally of Luther’s ideal of the individual’s immediate
relationship with God. Thus, Spinozism became a force in resurrecting the original
spirit of Lutheranism, and in combating the dogmatism that had emerged with the
political entrenchment of the latter. Cf. Beiser, pp. 51–52.
14
Israel, p.60.
134 Spinoza and the Stoics
Chapter 1
1
Jerome Schneewind, The Invention of Autonomy (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge
University Press, 1998), p. 12.
2
A. A. Long and David Sedley (eds), The Hellenistic Philosophers, Vol. 1 (Cam-
bridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1987), p. 160.
3
L&S (Long and Sedley’s The Hellenistic Philosophers) 54B = Cicero, De Natura
Deorum 1.39.
4
I abbreviate references from Spinoza’s Ethics in the following manner: book
number first, followed by proposition number (p26, e.g.) – unless it is a definition
(def) axiom (axiom), preface (praef), appendix (app), or a postulate (post) – and
then proof or demonstration (d), corollary (cor) or scholia (s).
5
L&S 55K = Aulus Gellius, Noctes Atticae 7.2.3.
6
Wilhelm Dilthey claims that ‘the idea of determinism holding the cosmos
together comes to Spinoza from the Stoics’. ‘This was a Stoic notion,’ he writes,
‘widespread in literature, imposed upon Spinoza.’ Cf. Dilthey, Œuvres 4: Conception
du Monde et Analyse de l’Homme depuis la Renaissance et la Réforme (Paris: Les Éditions
du Cerf, 1999), p. 426 (my translation).
7
L&S 54O = Plutarch, De Stoicorum repugnantiis 1044D.
8
Harry Austin Wolfson. The Philosophy of Spinoza: Unfolding the Latent Processes of
his Reasoning (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1934), p. 223.
9
Yirmiyahu Yovel, Spinoza and Other Heretics, Volume I: The Marrano of Reason
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1989), p. 148.
10
Long and Sedley, p. 351.
11
See Pascal Severac, ‘Convenir avec Soi, Convenir avec Autrui: Éthique Stoı̈-
cienne et Éthique Spinoziste’, Studia Spinozana 12 (1996): 107.
12
Severac, p. 115.
13
See Epictetus, Enchiridion VIII (hard translation). Also see Bernard Carnois,
‘Le Désir selon les Stoı̈ciens et selon Spinoza’, Dialogue 19 (1980): 260, 270.
14
Alexandre Matheron, ‘Le Moment Stoı̈cien de l’Éthique de Spinoza’, in Le
Stoı̈cisme aux XVIe et XVIIe Siècles, ed. Jacqueline Lagrée (Caen, France: Presses
Universitaires de Caen, 1994).
15
Carnois, 259. Carnois attributes this distinction between adpetitio and adpetitus
to no text in particular, but claims to derive it from Stoic terminology in general.
However, one place he invokes to support his claim is the opening sentence of
Epictetus’ Enchiridion I, where Epictetus speaks of impulse and desire (adpetitus and
adpetitio), apparently distinguishing the two.
16
Carnois, p. 259.
17
Matheron, ‘Le Moment Stoı̈cien’, p. 157.
18
Severac, p. 105.
19
As Carnois puts it, Spinoza and the Stoics ‘admit that desire, according to
whether it is well or poorly illuminated, can be the principle of the passions or the
principle of wisdom’ (Carnois, p. 263).
20
L&S 65J = Galen, De Placitis Hippocratis et Platonis IV.2.10–18.
21
Michael Frede, ‘The Stoic Doctrine of the Affections of the Soul’, in The Norms
Notes 135
Chapter 2
1
The latter term is Long and Sedley’s translation of the Greek kathekonta and
the Latin officia.
2
Frede, pp. 109–10.
3
Long and Sedley, p. 420.
4
Long and Sedley also translate these terms (the Greek, ‘charan’, ‘eulabeian’
and ‘boulesis’, respectively) as ‘well-reasoned swelling’ (elation), ‘well-reasoned
shrinking’ and ‘well-reasoned stretching’ (L&S 65F). Long and Sedley emphasize
how these emotions refer to movements of the soul. There is no rational coun-
terpart for aegritudo or distress.
5
James, p. 312.
6
James, p. 312.
7
Nussbaum, p. 345.
8
Severac, p. 115.
9
Lloyd, 1996, p. 86.
10
Bennett, 1984, pp. 333–42.
11
Lloyd, p. 105.
12
Lloyd, p. 106.
13
Henry Allison claims that, ‘the greater endurance of rational emotions com-
pensates for their lack of intensity’. Cf. Henry Allison, Benedict de Spinoza: An
Introduction (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987), p. 162.
14
Gilles Deleuze, Spinoza et le Problème de l’Expression (Paris: Les Éditions de
Minuit, 1968), p. 274.
15
Stuart Hampshire, Spinoza (London: Faber & Faber, 1956), p. 103.
16
Gilles Deleuze, Spinoza: Philosophie Pratique (Paris: Les Éditions de Minuit,
1981), 70–1.
136 Spinoza and the Stoics
17
Wolfson, p. 273.
18
Yovel, The Marrano of Reason, p. 162.
19
For a helpful discussion of the difference between these two types of
acquiescentia, see Donald Rutherford’s article, ‘Salvation as a State of Mind: The
Place of Acquiescentia in Spinoza’s Ethics’. British Journal of the History of Phi-
losophy 7 (1999): 447–73.
20
Lloyd, p. 113.
21
This is similar to the problem Kant faces in the Groundwork for the Metaphysics of
Morals. Moral goodness rests exclusively on a good will, for Kant, but how can you
tell empirically whether one has a good will and is universalizing maxims?
22
Severac, for example, argues that ‘Stoic convenientia . . . is a relation to oneself,
which is ontologically possible because the ego, due to passion, can be in discord
with itself . . .’ and thus ‘to agree, for the Stoic sage, is to reduce a distance: a
distance between oneself and oneself’ (Severac, p. 116).
23
Seneca expresses this point at Ep.9.15.
24
Long and Sedley, p. 408.
25
Long and Sedley, p. 407.
26
T. H. Irwin, ‘Stoic and Aristotelian Conceptions of Happiness’, in The Norms of
Nature, ed. M. Schofield and G. Striker (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University
Press, 1986), p. 232.
27
Irwin, p. 234.
28
Long and Sedley, p. 428.
29
Long and Sedley, p. 429.
30
Allison, p. 149.
31
Though the term ‘vitalism’ typically refers to a particular doctrine of biology, I
use it in a special sense, to express Spinoza’s insistence that virtue entails success in
the endeavour to persist in being, and moreover, flourishing in that being, in both
bodily and mental aspects.
32
Severac argues that Spinozistic agreement is not a matter of reducing a dis-
tance within myself, as is the case with Stoicism, but is rather a matter of aug-
menting my power (Severac, p. 116).
33
Lloyd, p. 87.
34
Indeed, Pierre Hadot calls it ‘La Citadelle Intérieur’, in his book of that same
title, trans. Michael Chase (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998).
35
Deleuze, Problème de l’Expression, p. 262.
36
Deleuze, Problème de l’Expression, p. 262.
37
Matheron, Individu et Communauté, p. 253.
38
Hampshire, p. 82.
39
Hampshire, p. 83.
40
Matheron, Individu et Communauté, p. 253.
41
Herman De Dijn, ‘Knowledge, Anthropocentrism and Salvation’. Studia Spi-
nozana 9 (1993): 253.
42
André Matheron, ‘Spinoza et le Pouvoir’, in Anthropologie et Politique au XVIIe
Siècle (Études sur Spinoza) (Paris: Vrin, 1986), p. 105.
43
Matheron, Individu et Communauté, p. 246.
Notes 137
Chapter 3
1
Long and Sedley, p. 383.
2
L&S 63M = Cicero, Tusculanae Disputationes, 5.81–2.
3
Long and Sedley, p. 383.
4
See Nussbaum, 1994, p. 389. As she puts it, ‘the passions are susceptible of
extirpation because they are beliefs, and not organic parts of our innate
constitution’.
5
L&S 61T = Plutarch, De Communibus Notitiis contra Stoicos 1063A–B.
6
Deleuze, Philosophie Pratique, p. 171.
7
Hampshire, p. 131.
8
Nussbaum, p. 395.
9
De Dijn, ‘Knowledge, Anthropocentrism and Salvation’, p. 253.
10
Blaise Pascal, Pensées, trans. A. J. Krailsheimer (London: Penguin Books,
1966), p. 125.
11
Lloyd, p. 104.
12
Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death (New York: The Free Press, 1973), p. 57.
13
Sigmund Freud, Selected Papers on Hysteria, in the Major Works of Sigmund Freud,
trans. A. A. Brill (Chicago: Encyclopedia Brittanica, 1952), p. 81.
14
Yirmiyahu Yovel, Spinoza and Other Heretics, Volume II: The Adventures of Imma-
nence (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1989), p. 155.
15
Hampshire, p. 53.
16
Lloyd, p. 136.
17
It should be noted, however, that Seneca generally aims to distinguish the
Stoic sage from the image of Stilbo in Epistle 9, apparently on the basis that Stilbo is
apathetic and has no desire for friends, both of which features do not apply to the
Stoic sage.
18
Matheron, Individu et Communauté, p. 280.
19
Matheron, Individu et Communauté, p. 280.
20
Matheron, Individu et Communauté, p. 282.
21
Shirley translates hilaritas as ‘cheerfulness’.
22
Lloyd, p. 90.
23
All quotations from the TTP are from the Samuel Shirley translation (Leiden,
The Netherlands: Brill Publishers, 1991), but I have referenced the TTP in the
standard manner, according to the section numbers of the edition of the work by
C. H. Bruder in Benedicti de Spinoza Opera omnia quae supersunt omnia, 3 vols
(Leipzig: B. Tauchnitz, 1843–46).
24
Deleuze, Problème de l’Expression, p. 241.
25
Matheron, Individu et Communauté, p. 270.
26
Matheron, Individu et Communauté, p. 271.
27
Jacqueline Lagrée argues this point in her essay ‘Spinoza et le Vocabulaire
Stoı̈cien dans le Tractatus Theologico-Politicus’, in Spinoza: Ricerche di Terminologia
Filosofica e Critica Testuale, ed. Pina Totaro (Florence: Olschki, 1997), p. 99.
28
Robert McShea, The Political Philosophy of Spinoza (New York: Columbia Uni-
versity Press, 1968), p. 174.
138 Spinoza and the Stoics
Chapter 4
1
Long and Sedley, p. 434.
2
L&S 67K = Seneca, De Otio 4.1.
3
André Bridoux, Le Stoı̈cisme et son Influence (Paris: Vrin, 1966), p. 125.
4
Marcia Colish, The Stoic Tradition from Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages (Leiden:
E. J. Brill, 1985), pp. 95–6.
5
L&S 67S = Cicero, De Republica 3.33.
6
Hadot, p. 189.
7
L&S 67W = Stobaeus, 2.109.
8
Malcolm Schofield, The Stoic Idea of the City (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge
University Press, 1991), p. 73.
9
Colish, p. 92.
10
In fact, Cicero points out that the Stoics distinguish between kathekonta (officia,
duties) and katorthomata. The sage only performs katorthomata (which Cicero
translates as recte facta), which denote perfected duties or actions that are wholly
performed from right reason. As Cicero puts it, recte facta ‘contain all the factors of
virtue’ (De Fin III.24), which, I take it, means that virtue permeates all aspects of
such actions. The wise man always acts in a morally appropriate manner; that is, he
always performs his duties from right reason. Katorthomata are not different from
kathekonta with regard to the content of the acts performed, but rather, with regard
to the manner in which they are performed, and perhaps the intention behind
them.
11
Colish, p. 39.
12
L&S 66B = Plutarch, De Stoicorum Repugnantiis 1034B.
13
‘It is what the Stoics call epigennematikon’, Cicero writes.
14
Bridoux, p. 136.
15
Nussbaum, pp. 415–16.
16
Jacqueline Lagrée, ‘Constance et Coherence’ (paper presented at the
Loemker Conference, ‘Stoicism: Traditions and Transformations’, Emory Uni-
versity, Atlanta, Georgia, 31 March – 2 April 2000).
17
Jacqueline Lagrée, ‘Constance et Coherence’.
18
Gerhard Oestreich, Neostoicism and the Early Modern State (Cambridge, UK:
Cambridge University Press, 1982), p. 13.
19
Oestreich, pp. 13–14.
20
Schofield, p. 93.
21
Hadot, p. 217.
22
Hadot, p. 292.
23
Schofield, p. 69.
24
Bridoux, p. 128.
25
Daniel Mannix, Those about to Die (New York: Ballantine Books, 1958), p. 39.
26
Cf. Hadot, p. 303. He explains there that it was customary to invoke Plato’s
Republic as an example of an ideal state ‘in which all the citizens would have
become philosophers’.
27
Hadot, p. 306.
28
Jacqueline Lagrée, Juste Lipse et la Restauration du Stoı̈cisme (Paris: Vrin, 1994), p. 92.
Notes 139
29
Seneca the Elder, Declamations, IX.4.5.
30
Lagrée, Lipse, p. 94.
31
Oestreich, p. 70.
32
Allison, p. 156.
33
Wolfson, II, pp. 258–9. He refers to De Beneficiis II.18,6.
34
Allison, p. 158.
35
Allison, p. 159.
36
Hampshire, pp. 122–3.
37
Deleuze, Problème de l’Expression, p. 247.
38
Deleuze, Problème de l’Expression, p. 245.
Chapter 5
1
I will refer to Spinoza’s Tractatus Politicus as the TP.
2
Matheron, Individu et Communauté, p. 283.
3
McShea, p. 167.
4
McShea, p. 85.
5
Sylvain Zac, ‘Société et Communauté’, in Philosophie, Théologie, Politique dans
l’Œuvre de Spinoza (Paris: Vrin, 1979), p. 102.
6
Matheron, Individu et Communauté, p. 327.
7
Hans Blom, ‘Politics, Virtue and Political Science: An Interpretation of Spi-
noza’s Political Philosophy’. Studia Spinozana 1 (1985): 218–19.
8
Etienne Balibar, Spinoza and Politics, trans. P. Snowden (London: Verso, 1998),
pp. 83–4.
9
Of course, Spinoza died just as he was about to broach the topic of democracy
in the TP.
10
Steven Nadler, Spinoza: A Life (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press,
1999), p. 307.
11
Herman De Dijn, ‘Spinoza and Revealed Religion’. Studia Spinozana 11 (1995):
49.
12
Douglas Den Uyl, ‘Passion, State and Progress: Spinoza and Mandeville on the
Nature of Human Association’. Journal of the History of Philosophy 25 (1987): 376.
13
A. O. Hirschmann, The Passions and the Interests (Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press, 1977), pp. 52–6.
14
Perhaps this sheds light on Vico’s curious remark that Spinoza’s common-
wealth is a ‘society of shopkeepers’ (The New Science I. p.335). Spinoza’s model
regime is one where the people’s passions are mollified by capitalistic industry.
15
Douglas Den Uyl, ‘Power, Politics and Religion in Spinoza’s Political
Thought’, in Piety, Peace and the Freedom to Philosophize, ed. Paul Bagley (Dordrecht:
Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1999), p. 138.
16
Jacqueline Lagrée, La Raison Ardente (Paris: Vrin, 1993), pp. 13–18.
17
Thomas Cook, ‘Did Spinoza Lie to his Landlady?’ Studia Spinozana 11 (1995):
32.
140 Spinoza and the Stoics
Chapter 6
1
Leo Strauss, Persecution and the Art of Writing (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1988), p. 171.
2
Alan Donagan, ‘Spinoza’s Theology’, in The Cambridge Companion to Spinoza, ed.
Don Garrett (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1996), p. 371.
3
Donagan, p. 373.
4
Michael Rosenthal, ‘Toleration and the Right to Resist in Spinoza’s TTP’, in
Piety, Peace and the Freedom to Philosophize, ed. Paul Bagley (Dordrecht: Kluwer
Academic Publishers, 1999), p. 131.
5
David Hume, ‘Of Parties in General’, in Essays: Moral, Political and Literary
(Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1985), p. 60.
6
Hume, p. 61.
7
Hume, p. 63.
8
McShea, p. 193.
9
Strauss, Spinoza’s Critique of Religion, p. 225.
10
McShea, p. 98.
11
Strauss, Spinoza’s Critique of Religion, p. 236.
12
Strauss, Spinoza’s Critique of Religion, p. 245.
13
Paul Bagley, ‘Religious Salvation and Civic Welfare: ‘Salus’ in Spinoza’s
Tractatus Theologico-Politicus’. Studia Spinozana 12 (1996): 181.
14
Strauss, Spinoza’s Critique of Religion, p. 229.
15
Strauss, Spinoza’s Critique of Religion, p. 240.
16
Strauss, Persecution, pp. 179–80.
17
Strauss, Persecution, p. 180.
18
Strauss, Persecution, p. 180.
19
Strauss, Persecution, pp. 179–80.
20
Strauss, Persecution, p. 190.
21
John Colerus, The Life of Benedict de Spinosa (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff,
1906), p. 41.
22
Cook, pp. 35–6.
23
Strauss, Persecution, p. 184.
24
Strauss, Persecution, p. 184.
25
Yovel writes that Spinoza ‘didn’t speak of God or salvation in order to deceive
his audience but to claim that he had finally found what God truly is and how
salvation can be attained’. Cf. Yovel, Spinoza and Other Heretics, p. 137. In fact, Yovel
proceeds to critique Strauss here, arguing that Strauss ignores the sincere religious
intent of Spinoza’s project: that Spinoza indeed aims at salvation, but in a new way.
Accordingly, Yovel explains, Spinoza’s use of religious terms ‘is not intended as an
atheist’s mask but also and primarily as a means for preserving essential elements
of religion within Spinoza’s new philosophy of reason, so as to make it a religion of
reason’. Yovel, Spinoza and Other Heretics, p. 152.
26
Strauss, Persecution, pp. 177–8.
27
Strauss, Critique of Religion, p. 229.
Notes 141
Conclusion
1
Nadler, p. 290.
2
For example, cf. Santayana’s essay entitled ‘An Ultimate Religion’, delivered at
The Hague to commemorate the tercentenary of Spinoza’s birth, in The Philosophy
of Santayana, ed. Irwin Edman (New York: Random House Modern Library, 1936).
This page intentionally left blank
Bibliography
I. Primary Sources
Spinoza
The Ethics, Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect and Selected Letters. Trans.
Samuel Shirley. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Company, 1992.
The Letters. Trans. Samuel Shirley. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing
Company, 1995.
Opera omnia quae supersunt omnia, 3 vols. Ed. C. H. Bruder. Leipzig: B.
Tauchnitz, 1843–46.
Opera quotquot reperta sunt. 2 vols. Ed. J. P. N. Land, J. Van Vloten. The
Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1914.
The Political Works. Trans. A. G. Wernham. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1958.
Tractatus Theologico-Politicus. Trans. S. Shirley. Leiden, The Netherlands:
Brill Publishers, 1991.
Works of Spinoza, volume 1: The Political Treatise and the Theologico-Political
Treatise. Trans. R. H. M. Elwes. New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1951.
The Stoics
Aurelius, Marcus. The Meditations. Trans. G. M. A. Grube. Indianapolis, IN:
Hackett Publishing Co., 1983.
Cicero, Marcus Tullius. De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum. Trans. H. Rackham.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1983.
——. De Officiis. Trans. W. Miller. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press, 1975.
Diogenes Laertius. Lives of Eminent Philosophers, Vol. II. Trans. R. D. Hicks.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1925.
Epictetus. The Discourses, the Handbook, Fragments. Trans. Robin Hard. Ed.
Christopher Gill. London: The Everyman Library, 1995.
Lipsius, Justus. Sixe Bookes of Politickes. Trans. William Jones. New York: Da
Capo Press, 1970.
——. Two Bookes of Constancie. Trans. John Stradling. New Brunswick, NJ:
Rutgers University Press, 1939.
144 Spinoza and the Stoics
Long, Anthony and David Sedley (trans. and eds). The Hellenistic Philoso-
phers, Volume 1. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1987.
Seneca, Lucius Annaeus. Ad Lucilium Epistulae Morales. Trans. R. M.
Gummere. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1920.
——. ‘De Constantia’, in Moral Essays, Vol. I. Trans. John W. Basore.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1928.
——. ‘De Ira’, in Moral Essays, Vol. I. Trans. John W. Basore. Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press, 1928.
Other
Descartes, René. Principles of Philosophy, in Philosophical Works of Descartes,
Volume I. Trans. E. S. Haldane and G. R. T. Ross. New York: Dover
Publications, 1955.
Freud, Sigmund. Selected Papers on Hysteria, in the Major Works of Sigmund
Freud, trans. A. A. Brill. Chicago: Encyclopedia Brittanica, 1952.
Hume, David. ‘Of Parties in General’, in Essays: Moral, Political and Literary.
Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1985.
Hobbes, Thomas. Leviathan. Ed. Richard Tuck. Cambridge, UK: Cam-
bridge University Press, 1996.
Pascal, Blaise. Pensées. Trans. A. J. Krailsheimer. London: Penguin Books,
1966.
Carnois, Bernard. ‘Le Désir selon les Stoı̈ciens et selon Spinoza’. Dialogue
19 (1980): 255–77.
Colerus, John. The Life of Benedict de Spinosa. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff:
1906.
Colish, Marcia. The Stoic Tradition from Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages.
Leiden, The Netherlands: E. J. Brill, 1985.
Cook, J. Thomas. ‘Did Spinoza Lie to his Landlady?’ Studia Spinozana 11
(1995): 15–38.
Curley, Edwin. Behind the Geometrical Method: A Reading of Spinoza’s Ethics.
Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1988.
De Dijn, Herman. ‘Knowledge, Anthropocentrism and Salvation’. Studia
Spinozana 9 (1993): 247–62.
——. ‘Spinoza and Revealed Religion’. Studia Spinozana 11 (1995): 39–52.
Deleuze, Gilles. Spinoza: Philosophie Pratique. Paris: Les Éditions de Minuit,
1981.
——. Spinoza et le Problème de l’Expression. Paris: Les Éditions de Minuit,
1968.
Den Uyl, Douglas. ‘Passion, State and Progress: Spinoza and Mandeville
on the Nature of Human Association’. Journal of the History of Philosophy
25 (1987): 369–95.
——. ‘Power, Politics and Religion in Spinoza’s Political Thought’, in Piety,
Peace and the Freedom to Philosophize, ed. Paul J. Bagley. Dordrecht, The
Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1999, pp. 133–57.
Donagan, Alan. ‘Spinoza’s Theology’, in The Cambridge Companion to Spi-
noza, ed. Don Garrett. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press,
1996, pp. 343–82.
Frede, Michael. ‘The Stoic Doctrine of the Affections of the Soul’, in The
Norms of Nature, ed M. Schofield and G. Striker. Cambridge, UK: Cam-
bridge University Press, 1984, pp. 93–110.
Freudenthal, Jacob. Die Lebengeschichte Spinozas: In Quellenschriften, Urkun-
den und nichtnamlichen Nachrichten. Leipzig: Veit and Company, 1899.
Hadot, Pierre. The Inner Citadel. Trans. Michael Chase. Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press, 1998.
Hampshire, Stuart. Spinoza. London: Faber & Faber, 1956.
Hirschman, Albert. The Passions and the Interests. Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press, 1977.
Irwin, T. H. ‘Stoic and Aristotelian Conceptions of Happiness’, in The
Norms of Nature, ed. M. Schofield and G. Striker. Cambridge, UK:
Cambridge University Press, 1986, pp. 205–44.
Israel, Jonathan. The Radical Enlightenment. Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2001.
James, Susan. ‘Spinoza the Stoic’, in The Rise of Modern Philosophy, ed. Tom
Sorrell. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993, pp. 289–316.
146 Spinoza and the Stoics