Logical Polis. The Philosophical Foundation of Democracy According to B. Spinoza

Abstract

Benedict Spinoza, the seventeenth-century rationalist philosopher, is, according to some authors, the first theorist to offer serious philosophical arguments justifying the idea of democracy as the best (and most natural) political system. Spinoza’s political philosophy is, therefore, one of the first to be examined in today’s political situation, which is often characterized by the phrase “crisis of (liberal) democracy”. This study attempts to capture the philosophical arguments used by Spinoza to support his pro-democratic conclusions, detects his initial assumptions, and illuminates what specifically should characterize a democratic regime in his imagination. Among the primary sources used for this purpose are both those writings of Spinoza that are traditionally understood as political-philosophical (Theologico-Political Treatise and Political Treatise) and Spinoza’s most famous work (Ethics, Demonstrated in Geometrical Order). Although the latter may appear distant from the issue at hand, some of the most strongly formulated relevant positions are found in it. The intention of the present study is twofold: first, to demonstrate on the example of Spinoza’s thought how inextricably the preference for a democratic regime is linked to certain philosophical premises, not only ethical and axiological but also gnoseological and ontological ones; and more importantly, second, to formulate a hypothetical answer that Spinoza would have given to the question of the crisis of democracy and the possibilities of its solution.