Reciprocity and common utility in Spinoza's political philosophy
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Abstract
The paper analyses the relationship between power, utility and right in Spinoza’s political philosophy. It explains utility from the relational character of existence. And it maintains that, when empowered by what is useful, multiple relationality is the ontological basis of positive reciprocity, that is, of man as the most useful thing for man. It examines the mutual dependence between the subjects and the complex arrangement of imperium and multitudo as the cause of both concord and discord since it weaves as much the possibility as the impossibility of a common utility. And it highlights the way Spinoza passes from the relationship between a rational person and civitas to the notion of the multitude qua power that defines the political as a differentiated realm, although not unrelated to the ethical; and to a free multitude as the political figure of common utility that establishes the best imperium.
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