Philosophy as politics: Antonio Negri and Spinoza's Democracy

Dimitrios Athanasakis
University of Thessaly

First in The Savage Anomaly: The Power of Spinoza's Metaphysics and Politics, and later in Subversive Spinoza: (Un) Contemporary Variations, A. Negri proposes an original interpretation of Spinoza's philosophical and political thought, based on Spinoza's naturalistic or anti-contractual conception of the right of the state or of the sovereign. This interpretation, which focuses on the ontological and political implications of the power of a multitude, is strongly related to the historical development of a "subversive democracy", and therefore to Marxism itself. From Negri's point of view, Spinoza's Political Treatise is essential to revolutionary thought, in so far as it offers an adequate response to the crisis of Marxism.