170. - Sovereignty

Summary

The concept of sovereignty (imperium, summa potestas) has come under attack since the mid-1970s when Foucault put it in one line with slavery or oppression (Foucault 2004, 37). With this in mind, Antonio Negri and Spinoza scholars in his vein criticized Hobbes for justifying sovereignty as absolute monarchy, while celebrating Spinoza as a democrat whose political theory aims for freedom (e.g., Negri 1991, 109–14, 140; Balibar 1998, 55–56). Spinoza, however, widely agreed with Hobbes’s political theory (Ep50; Prokhovnik 2004, 221–22). In particular, he agreed with the latter’s concept of sovereignty (in Spinoza’s Latin, summum imperium / summa potestas; in English translation, “sovereignty” or “supreme power,” TTP16.26; but see Prokhovnik 2004, 225) while, arguably, significantly improving it. He did so in two principal ways. First, Spinoza aimed to make the democratic generation of the commonwealth and the sovereign as suggested by Hobbes (L17.13) somehow permanent; and second, he extended Hobbes’s argument for freedom of thinking (L42.11; L46.37, 42) toward freedom of speech – though without undermining absolute sovereignty.