Kocaeli University International Days of Philosophy:Spinoza 3rd Session
Beyond Liberalism: Spinoza on Democracy
Robin Çelikateş
University of Amsterdam
In my talk I will discuss the potential contribution of Spinoza’s political theory to a theory of democracy which goes beyond the liberal mainstream. I argue that only a genuinely political theoretical alternative to the moralism that characterizes liberalism and some of its critiques can succeed in bringing out the political dimension of democracy. Spinoza’s alternative approach is not communitarian, without being anti-communitarian, and it is not liberal, without being anti-liberal. In contrast to liberal theories of politics it is neither individualistic nor normativistic nor rationalistic. And against the harmonistic image of political community presupposed by many variants of communitarianism, Spinoza emphasizes conflict and power as constitutive dimensions of the political. This shift of focus does not, however, lead him to adopt a form of political realism that strips political action of its normative dimension. Keywords: Spinoza, Liberalism, Democracy, Communitarianism, Conflict, Power.
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