Chapter 11 - Spinoza and Political Absolutism

Summary

Spinoza’s treatment of absolute sovereignty raises a number of interpretative questions. Spinoza seems to embrace a form of absolutism that is incompatible with his defense of mixed government and constitutional limits on sovereign power. And he seems to use the concept of “absolute sovereignty” in inconsistent ways. This chapter offers an interpretation of Spinoza’s conception of absolutism that aims to resolve these concerns. It argues that Spinoza is able to show that, when tied to a proper understanding of authority, absolute sovereignty is not only compatible with, but actually necessitates, power-sharing and constitutionalism. His treatment of “absolute sovereignty” in the political works is akin to his treatment of “substance” and “God” in the Ethics: he draws out revisionist implications from a recognizable, even anodyne, conceptual gloss, transfiguring the concept from within a common framework. This interpretation renders intelligible and consistent the various claims that Spinoza makes about sovereign absolutism in the Political Treatise.