Nature, Human And Politics: An Enquiry Concerning Spinoza's Political Philosophy

Benedict de Spinoza is an excellent Netherlands thinker in the 17th century. For a long time, Spinoza was known for his philosophical achievement. By comparison, Spinoza's political philosophy was ignored until the 20th century, when the Western academic circle of political science began to pay attention to Spinoza's political philosophy. However, Spinoza's position in the intellectual history of liberalism hasn't been appropriately admitted. Even somebody believed that Spinoza wasn't a liberalist. But in the academic circle of political science in our own country there is certain scholar who thought that Spinoza was nearer to liberalism than Hobbes. What is on earth the truth? Is Spinoza a liberalist? What is the relationship between Spinoza and liberalist tradition? What position did Spinoza occupy in the domain of liberalism? What are the contents and the theory trait of his political philosophy? The questions mentioned above are important to both Spinoza and liberalism. The author of this article will carry out the study and analysis around these questions.The article consists of introduction, text, epilogue and appendix. The text is divided into six parts.Part one reviews points of view on the nature and the natural law in the Western intellectual history, and then investigates Spinoza's thoughts on those which are the ontological base of his political philosophy. In the Western intellectual history before Spinoza, the nature theory had mainly gone through three stages——the ancient Greek era when the nature theory was philosophical, the middle ages when the nature theory was theological and the Renaissance until the 17th century when the nature theory was mechanistic; the natural law theory had mainly gone through three stages——the ancient Greek and the ancient Roman era when the natural law theory was pantheistic, the middle ages when the natural law theory was religious and the Renaissance until the 17th century when the natural law theory was rational. Following the grand old men, Spinoza creatively advanced his own nature theory and natural law theory. He insisted that the nature and the substantiality and the deity are identical and that the nature has the characters of attribute and mode. According to his natural law theory, the natural law is rational and humanistic, and becomes the source of political legality and the value of political order which are the important functions of the natural law. The article tries to explain his natural law theory in the view of the relationships of between the natural law and the political legality and of between the natural law and the political order, in order to overcome the exiting limitation in the research that his natural law theory is researched only in the view of the natural right and only by means of the right discourse.Part two reviews points of view on the humanity in the Western intellectual history, and then investigates Spinoza's thoughts on that which is the metaphysical base of his political philosophy. In the Western intellectual history prior to Spinoza, the humanity theory had mainly gone through three stages——the ancient Greek era when the humanity theory was moral and teleological, the middle ages when the humanity theory was theological and the Renaissance until the 17th century when the humanity theory was rational and realistic. Spinoza's humanity theory consisted of reason idea, interest idea and individualism. His reason idea was that the reason is divided into metaphysical reason and ethical reason and political reason. His interest idea explained the concept of interest according to the relations of between interest and ethics, of between interest and desire and of between interest and reason. His individualism talked about how somebody saves his own life according to epistemological individualism and ethical individualism and political individualism. The article tries to summarize Spinoza's humanity theory preliminarily.Part three investigates Spinoza's view on individual liberty and right. He understood the concept of liberty according to the relations of between human and nature, of between reason and sensibility and of between individual and the society. The liberty comes into being by means of rational liberty, of ethical liberty, of idealistic liberty and of political liberty. Concerning the view of political liberty, there's concordance between Spinoza and other liberalists, because they both pay attention to individual liberty instead of collective liberty which means that the obeying the nation individual should keep his own liberty, both aver that the way of realizing the political is that the nation should be ruled by the law and the individual should observe the law, and both emphasize passive liberty instead of positive liberty, which indicates individual can retain a private sphere prevented from state's interference. He thought that the political legality of individual right comes into being by the two steps. First, the holiness of the natural law legalizes the natural right. Secondly, by social contract the natural right is transformed into the social right which is protected by national law. He emphatically expatiated on the individual idealistic right and property.Part four investigates Spinoza's view on the social contract. He thought that before the social contract is concluded the human being has been the state of nature without politics. The state of nature is the state in which people ought to be equal but are inequitable virtually and there are conflicts and the individual acts freely and indulgently, so in fact the state of nature enslaves people. Because of ration and the natural law, people conclude the social contract so escape from the state of nature and constitute state, which legalizes the state. In his opinion, the social contract has the two characters of incompleteness and utility.Part five investigates Spinoza's view on the state. He insisted on a secular state view that politics should be separated from religion and should not only have priority to but also predominate religion. In his opinion, the legality of the state power is based on the natural law and ration and interest and liberty, which are the reasons why the individual should obey the state. The article tries to summarize Spinoza's state legality theory preliminarily, which can be considered as a lot of contribution towards the modern theory of state. In the same time, the state power is limited. First, the state power should be limited by liberty, peace and safety. Secondly, the state will err during exerting its own power because some natural right owned by individual should be prevented from state's infringement. He discussed the monarchy, the aristocracy and the democracy.Part six investigates the relationship between Spinoza and liberalism through specific connection of ideas. At first, the part gives a definition to"liberalism", and then investigates the connection of ideas between Spinoza and Hobbes, Lock and Hegel, aiming at recognizing the impact of Spinoza on liberalism by investigating the rise of liberalism in the modern West. The liberalism in this article refers to a political philosophy, which is based on the individualistic humanity theory, and chiefly protects the individual liberty and right so that when it concerns the relationship between individual and state, it not only insists on limiting state power to protect individual liberty and right but also is against anarchy. On the one hand, without liberalism, Spinoza's political philosophy couldn't come into being. On the other hand, Spinoza's political philosophy was a contribution towards liberalism. At last, the part investigates John Gray's and Anthony Ablaster's doubt on Spinoza's identity of liberalist, thinking that the much concept of Spinoza's political thought agrees with the meaning of liberalism so the doubt is dogmatic and worth discussing.