Spinoza for Our Time: Politics and Postmodernity

by Antonio Negri, William McCuaig (Translator), Jonathan "Rocco" Gangle (Foreword by)

Overview

Antonio Negri, one of the world's leading scholars on Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) and his contemporary legacy, offers a straightforward explanation of the philosopher'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, Negri demonstrates the thinker's special value to politics, philosophy, and related disciplines.

Negri's work is both a return to and an advancement of his initial affirmation of Spinozian thought in The Savage Anomaly. He further defends his understanding of the philosopher as a proto-postmodernist, or a thinker who is just now, with the advent of the postmodern, becoming contemporary. Negri also 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, Negri addresses and effectively defeats twentieth-century critiques of the thinker waged by Jacques Derrida, Alain Badiou, and Giorgio Agamben.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780231500661
Publisher:	Columbia University Press
Publication date:	09/24/2013
Series:	Insurrections: Critical Studies in Religion, Politics, and Culture
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	152
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Antonio Negri is an independent researcher and world-renowned theorist, who has taught political philosophy at the University of Padua, the University of Vincennes, and College Internationale de Philosophie. His books include Factory of Strategy: Thirty-three Lessons on Lenin; The Politics of Subversion: A Manifesto for the Twenty-First Century; and Negri on Negri: In Conversation with Anne Dufourmentelle. With Michael Hardt, he coauthored the best-selling trilogy, Empire, Multitude, and Commonwealth.



Rocco Gangle is associate professor of philosophy at Endicott College and the author of François Laruelle's Philosophies of Difference: A Critical Introduction and Guide.

Antonio Negri (1933–2023) was an Italian philosopher and political activist. He was a prominent figure in the left-wing operaismo movement in the 1960s and ’70s. He is best known for his writings on globalization—particularly the highly influential volume Empire (co-authored with Michael Hardt)—but he also wrote on subjects as various as Vladimir Lenin, Baruch Spinoza, and the Book of Job.

Table of Contents

Foreword, by Rocco Gangle
Translator's Note
Introduction: Spinoza and Us
1. Spinoza: A Heresy of Immanence and of Democracy
2. Potency and Ontology: Heidegger or Spinoza
3. Multitude and Singularity in the Development of the Spinoza's Political Thought
4. Spinoza: A Sociology of the Affects
Notes
Bibliography
Index

What People are Saying About This

Daniel Colucciello Barber

There are very few authors who are able to supply the degree and force of insight that Antonio Negri does on the subject of contemporary continental political philosophy. Even among those living thinkers who are as important as Negri, no oneis able to offer a substantive and creative account of the value of Spinoza for contemporary thought. It is precisely such an account that Negri here provides and in a way that makes original advances beyond even his more notable previous contributions.

Editorial Reviews

... Small, attractively produced... While the translation is lucid and elegant, Negri's analysis is subtle and couched in the philosophical grammar of contemporary Continental philosophy. The volume would be most appreciated by readers conversant in this idiom.

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