Spinoza for Our Time: Politics and Postmodernity
Antonio Negri
Abstract
This book offers a straightforward explanation of Baruch Spinoza's elaborate arguments and a persuasive case for his ongoing relevance. Responding to a resurgent interest in Spinoza's thought and its potential application to contemporary global issues, the book demonstrates the thinker's special value to politics, philosophy, and related disciplines. This book defends understanding of the philosopher as a proto-postmodernist, or a thinker who is just now, with the advent of the postmodern, becoming contemporary. The book connects Spinoza's theories to recent trends in political philosophy, par ... More
This book offers a straightforward explanation of Baruch Spinoza's elaborate arguments and a persuasive case for his ongoing relevance. Responding to a resurgent interest in Spinoza's thought and its potential application to contemporary global issues, the book demonstrates the thinker's special value to politics, philosophy, and related disciplines. This book defends understanding of the philosopher as a proto-postmodernist, or a thinker who is just now, with the advent of the postmodern, becoming contemporary. The book connects Spinoza's theories to recent trends in political philosophy, particularly the reengagement with Carl Schmitt's “political theology,” and the history of philosophy, including the argument that Spinoza belongs to a “radical enlightenment.” By positioning Spinoza as a contemporary revolutionary intellectual, the book addresses and effectively defeats twentieth-century critiques of the thinker waged by Jacques Derrida, Alain Badiou, and Giorgio Agamben.
Keywords:
Baruch Spinoza,
Spinozian thought,
proto-postmodernist,
political philosophy,
radical enlightenment
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2013 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780231160469 |
| Published to Columbia Scholarship Online: November 2015 |
DOI:10.7312/columbia/9780231160469.001.0001 |
