Spinoza’s Theological-Political Treatise (1670–2020). Commemorating A Long-Forgotten Masterpiece

Dear Colleagues,

Spinoza’s Theological-Political Treatise first appeared, anonymously, in 1670. After the publication of the Opera Posthuma (1677), few scholars took the trouble to take the work seriously. In his famous History of Philosophy, Hegel only devoted a few lines to the work, caustically describing it as a mere predecessor of contemporary Biblical criticism. In the early 20th century, Gebhardt deemed it a pamphlet written as an intervention in the political-ecclesiastical controversies of the Republican Era of Johan de Witt, which ended with violent death by the Hague mob. In the 21st century, Theo Verbeek outlined its inconsistencies in Exploring the Will of God (2003) and in a review of the Cambridge Guide to the work (2010), edited by Malamed and Rosenthal, named it ‘badly organized and—let us admit it—without a clear and recognizable focus’.

Notwithstanding this benign neglect during the last three centuries, the TTP finally seems to emerge from the shadow of the Ethics. In the wake of the growing interest in the political philosophy of Spinoza in France and Italy and the study of the historical significance of Radical Enlightenment by Jonathan Israel, recent studies of the TTP have focused on the context of the Dutch Republic. The field of the history of humanities has also led to a growing interest in Spinoza’s philological scholarship displayed in the TTP. In a stricter philosophical approach of Spinoza’s philosophy, scholars zoomed in on the passionate nature of humans and the first form of knowledge, the imagination, opening the way to reassessing positive religion, and attempts were made to link Ethics and the TTP.

This commemorative Special Issue will offer a style guide of the various recent approaches to the TTP and explore new directions, such as the reception of Spinoza in the modern Middle East and the relevance of Spinoza’s political philosophy to understanding the role of religion in contemporary European forms of nationalism and authoritarianism.

Prof. Dr. Henri Krop
Dr. Pooyan Tamimi Arab
Guest Editors

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• Spinoza
• politics
• religious studies
• early Enlightenment
• biblical philology
• freedom of expression
• democracy