Spinoza, Equality, and Hierarchy

Beth Lord

Spinoza, Equality, and Hierarchy

Beth Lord^* (Corresponding Author)

^*Corresponding author for this work

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Abstract

A well-established liberal tradition of reading Spinoza casts him as a forerunner of Enlightenment doctrines of equality. Jonathan Israel, in his influential and important books, argues that modern political ideas of freedom and equality are rooted in the "radical" Spinozistic Enlightenment as much as they are in the "moderate" Enlightenment of Locke, Rousseau, and Kant. In a recent book, Israel (2010) claims that the Spinozistic radical Enlightenment is the democratic and egalitarian tradition of thought, whereas the moderate Enlightenment sought to maintain social, economic, and political hierarchies. Nick Nesbitt, while critical of Israel, upholds this claim, arguing that Spinoza believes in "the pursuit of undivided, universal equality by whatever means necessary" (2012, 166).

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	59-77
Number of pages	19
Journal	History of Philosophy Quarterly
Volume	31
Issue number	1
Early online date	31 Jan 2014
Publication status	Published - Jan 2014

Keywords

Spinoza
equality
egalitarianism
politics
proportion

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Spinoza, Equality, and Hierarchy (accepted version)
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Beth Lord
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Cite this

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Spinoza, Equality, and Hierarchy

Abstract

Keywords

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