Etica & Politica / Ethics & Politics, 2004, 1

http://www.units.it/etica/2004_1/GUESTEDITOR.htm

The Individual and the Masses Multitude in Spinoza

Riccardo Caporali

Dipartimento di Filosofia

Università di Bologna

Introduction

In the variety of methods and topics, the essayssaggi? gathered here revolve around the problem of the relationship between unity and multiplicity, between individuality and collectivity in Spinozsa’s thinking. This is a central and crucial issue, both in its specific political dimension as well as in its inevitable intersections to which it opens (questo non mi piace molto, ma è brutto anche in Italiano!)with its more exquisitely moral and theoretical side in the philosophy of Spinoza. This issue is confrontedaddressed, in the first place, in relation to the notion of «time», in the perspective of a radically and infinitely mobile and modifiable immanence, continuously disassembled and reassembled in the multiplicity of single «durations», according to a conception that uis ideally connected to Lucrezio’s atomistic materialism and the Macchiavellian concept of «occasion», contrasting itself frontally with other visions, monistic and serial, theological and telelological(?), both ancient and modern (from Plato and the Stoics to Descartes, from Hobbes to Hegel). Still in close contact with Machiavelli and his reflection on political action in the contingency of actual reality, the unity-multiplicity relationship is revisited in light of the idea of the «multitude»e», which in Spinoza’s Political Treatise does not appear to simply oppose (as does occur, in contrast, in many fifteenth and sixteenth century European republican-Machiavellian readings) forced and violent political unification carried out by a «tyrant», but instead seems to come into play to replace it ?? giocarsi in sostitutuzione di esso?, to (connectively?) and relatively (qui non capisco cosa vuol direquindi lascia così e poi preciseremo che non ci è chiaro il significato) measure every process of aggregation and emancipation: even tyranny, in this way, becomes an expression not of the individual and his power but of the collective – both purelyalbeit/although (quale è meglio?), in a specific case, an expression of one of his weaknesses more than his strength. It is tThis is a perspective according to which the Machiavelli’s extremely «acute» understanding becomes the «science of the multitude», comprehension of the action and interaction of the whole of individuals comprising a State: the understanding, in other words, beforehand becomes political paradigmconjugation of the third Spinozian type of knowledge, the highest and most adequate, which intuitively proceeds from the universal towards the specific. In partial continuity with this approach, the third essay saggio excludesrules out the possibility that one of the traditional and most consolidated enunciations of «tolerance» may be attributed to Spinoza’s political philosophy one of the traditional and most consolidated scannings of «tolerance», since in this the classical roles of the tolerant (the one, the sovereign, able to coerce and command) and the tolerated (the many, the governed, in whom greater or lesser «patience» is placed, in the last instance, the formal codification, the consistency and essence of imperium) are reversed. Intended, Nnot by chance, to conclude the discussion, the fourth paper/essay actually in reality he completely reopens it the fourth contribution: a master of Spinozian studies - to whom all, – even the three authors who preceded him, – owe much, - through due to an unrelenting/pressing imminent analysis, which calls into question the effective significance of the idea of «multitudee», la cui valorizzazione egli whose valorizationexploitation? he does not consider (non già) as the legitimate and credible result of authentic Spinozian instances, but as the persistence of nineteenth century suggestions: the continuation of the fascination of of Nietzschian mysticism of immanence and the lingering tendency, typical of many Marxist traditions (but far from the real, true Marx), to mortify individuality.

Structured in this way, thee collectionsylloge (sylloge actually translates silloge which means a collection, an anthology; the dictionary says it is a rare word in English; silloge is a “learned” word in Italian too, what do you think it is better to use?) compendium can seem unusual. Nevertheless – and just because of this unusualness – it seems to be endowed with a certain positive emblematicism. First and foremost on the level of Spinoza’s extraordinary intellectual accomplishment, which even in these limited and minute circumstances emerges in its rich and unitary complexity, always steadfast in cataloguing, of which there has so often been the temptation to abbreviate and simplify, plunging it alternatively into antiquity or modernity, into idealism or materialism, into determinism or freedom, into rationalism or mysticism, into individualism or holism. But then – if one could say – also on a subjective and personal level of “experience”, on the level of friendships and esteem which sustains the impact of confrontation as well as that of dissension, in the common consciousness – this is indubitably and authentically Spinozian – that the illusory self-referencing of «solitude» is for humans among the greatest causes of fragility and danger. (R.C.)