Spinoza: Philosophy of Liberation

Abstract

Spinoza’s philosophy is a philosophy of liberation rather than a philosophy of freedom. Originally and naturally subjected to adversity and servitude, human beings conquer their freedom through political life and thought (there is in Spinoza a philosophical dimension of politics and a political dimension of philosophy). The emancipatory perspective that is put into play is based on an ontology that breaks with the classical opposition between freedom and necessity. Rather, the Spinozist construction of freedom (liberation) dispenses with the notion of “free will”, and subjects it to philosophical review. The freedom that results from the philosophy of immanence is public, a collective lifestyle that establishes the material, social and political conditions for the individual and common power in civil conversation. Spinoza calls democracy the collective existence thus organized, and contrasts it with the «state of solitude».