scholarly journals The Coherence of Spinoza’s Theological-Political Treatise

Philosophies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 20
Author(s):  
Yoram Stein
Keyword(s):  
Close Correlation ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
Philosophical Work ◽  
Absolute Power ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Theology And Philosophy

Spinoza’s Tractatus Theologico-Politicus has been critiqued as contradictory and inconsistent. This is why I believe that the question with regard to Spinoza’s ‘neglected masterpiece’ should be: How to read the Treatise as a coherent philosophical work? I suggest that the reason why the Treatise seems contradictory is because of the complex juxtaposition of its two main foci: the relationship between theology and philosophy, and that of theology and politics. In this paper, I will argue against the claim of contradiction and pursue to demonstrate a close correlation and mutual interdependence of both relations. While the domains of theology and philosophy may be separate, there is no contradiction between the salvation of the ignorant and the salvation of the wise. Similarly, there is no contradiction between the theological part of the Treatise—which focuses on ‘piety’ and the defense of the freedom of ‘internal religion’—and the political part—which focuses on ‘peace’, and claims that the state should have absolute power over ‘external religion’.

The relationship between religion and the state: the institution of ‘Commandment of the Faithful’ in Morocco†

2014 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 54-81
Author(s):  
Ahmed Al Khamlichi
Keyword(s):  
Political Authority ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
Individual Rights ◽  
Social Unrest ◽  
Absolute Power ◽  
State Institutions ◽  
The Past ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The Relationship

The term ‘Amir al-Mou'mineen’ (Commander of the Faithful) and ‘caliph’ were first bestowed on Omar Bin al-Khattab who became the successor of the Prophet (Peace be upon him) two-and-a-half years after he passed away. By virtue of the political and religious connotations of the term, the title conveyed overarching political authority – a kind of absolute power. The notion of Commander of the Faithful facilitated oppression of those who held different views, directly or indirectly, through employing fatawa, that is religious interpretations and edicts, in addition to mobilizing religious followers and devotees. This excess of political power is based on the definition of Imarat al-Mu'mineen (Commandment of the Faithful) or the Caliphate common in religious jurisprudence. This definition was coined by Ibn Khaldoun, and may be translated as: ‘making people abide by the view of Shar (the Law of God in Islam) regarding their temporal and afterlife interests’. Morocco has been no different from the rest of the Islamic world over the centuries, and now two distinct phenomena are apparent. First, the emergence of different groups, each with its own ideology and claims to be defending religion and pursuing its implementation. Such groups consider all other ways of thinking as apostasy that must be eliminated; while juxtaposed to them, there exist intellectual currents calling for the continued separation of religion and the state and its laws. During the past two decades this phenomenon has led to tragic situations in a considerable number of Islamic states, whose prospects now seem very gloomy. Second, a tight regulation of state institutions, together with constitutional guarantees of individual rights and freedoms, can prevent the manipulation of the state in the name of religion, and its use for tyranny and the oppression of individuals and minorities, be it in the name of Commandment of the Faithful or any other term. It seems that Morocco is aware of the power of these two phenomena, especially after it faced social unrest in 1992 and 2001, which almost destroyed its stability.

The Concept of the Political

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin A. Schupmann
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
Mass Movements ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Relationship

Chapter 2 reinterprets Schmitt’s concept of the political. Schmitt argued that Weimar developments, especially the rise of mass movements politically opposed to the state and constitution, demonstrated that the state did not have any sort of monopoly over the political, contradicting the arguments made by predominant Weimar state theorists, such as Jellinek and Meinecke. Not only was the political independent of the state, Schmitt argued, but it could even be turned against it. Schmitt believed that his contemporaries’ failure to recognize the nature of the political prevented them from adequately responding to the politicization of society, inadvertently risking civil war. This chapter reanalyzes Schmitt’s political from this perspective. Without ignoring enmity, it argues that Schmitt also defines the political in terms of friendship and, importantly, “status par excellence” (the status that relativizes other statuses). It also examines the relationship between the political and Schmitt’s concept of representation.

Trade Unions

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Whiting
Keyword(s):  
Trade Unions ◽  
Political System ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
British Politics ◽  
Modern Britain ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Critical Moments

In assessing the relationship between trade unions and British politics, this chapter has two focuses. First, it examines the role of trade unions as significant intermediate associations within the political system. They have been significant as the means for the development of citizenship and involvement in society, as well as a restraint upon the power of the state. Their power has also raised questions about the relationship between the role of associations and the freedom of the individual. Second, the chapter considers critical moments when the trade unions challenged the authority of governments, especially in the periods 1918–26 and 1979–85. Both of these lines of inquiry underline the importance of conservatism in the achievement of stability in modern Britain.

Introduction: Beyond Benefits Street – exploring experiences and narratives of welfare reform

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ruth Patrick
Keyword(s):  
Welfare Reform ◽  
Lived Experiences ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
Social Citizenship ◽  
Theoretical Context ◽  
Working Through ◽  
Longitudinal Approach ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter outlines the rationale behind conducting repeat interviews with out-of-work benefit claimants in an effort to better understand lived experiences of welfare reform. It introduces readers to the political and theoretical context, and highlights the value in employing social citizenship as a theoretical lens in order to tease out citizenship from above and below. The recent context of welfare reform in the UK is also introduced, highlighting the extent to which successive rounds of welfare reform have cumulatively reworked the relationship between the citizen and the state. The research on which this book is based is detailed, and the value in working through and across time by taking a qualitative longitudinal approach highlighted.

scholarly journals Analysis of Political Metaphors in Donald J. Trump’s State of the Union Address in 2020

2021 ◽  
pp. 69-73
Author(s):  
Tang Bingyu
Keyword(s):  
Conceptual Metaphor ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
Cognitive Analysis ◽  
Conceptual Metaphor Theory ◽  
State Of The Union ◽  
Metaphor Theory ◽  
George Lakoff ◽  
The Masses ◽  
The Relationship

On the basis of Conceptual Metaphor Theory proposed by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, this paper conducts a cognitive analysis of conceptual metaphors in Donald J. Trump’s State of the Union Address in 2020, aiming to explain the metaphors in the State of the Union Address, reveal the political intentions hidden behind the metaphors, and construe the relationship between politics and metaphor. It is found that the metaphors in this State of the Union Address are: CONFLICT metaphors, BUILDING metaphor, JOURNEY metaphors, ORIENTATIONAL metaphors, and PLANT metaphors. Through the analysis, this paper concludes that conceptual metaphor has the function of persuading the masses and shaping the image of politicians. At the same time, this paper also finds that politics restricts the choice and application of metaphor.

Concluding Remarks to Part 3

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Preminger
Keyword(s):  
Government Policy ◽  
The State ◽  
Political Community ◽  
Individual Responsibility ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Third ◽  
Third Sphere ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship

Chapter 15 summarizes the chapters which addressed the third sphere, the relationship of labor to the political community. It reiterates that since Israel was established, the labor market’s borders have become ever more porous, while the borders of the national (Jewish) political community have remained firm: the Jewish nationalism which guides government policy is as strong as ever. NGOs, drawing on a discourse of human rights, are able to assist some non-citizens but this discourse also resonates with the idea of individual responsibility: the State is no longer willing to support “non-productive” populations, who are now being shoehorned into a labor market which offers few opportunities for meaningful employment, and is saturated by cheaper labor intentionally imported by the State in response to powerful employer lobbies. These trends suggest a partial reorientation of organized labor’s “battlefront”, from a face-off with capital to an appeal to the public and state.

Business and Politics

2019 ◽  
pp. 234-259 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Harriss ◽  
Andrew Wyatt
Keyword(s):  
Tamil Nadu ◽  
The State ◽  
Political Elite ◽  
Financial Resources ◽  
The Political ◽  
Big Business ◽  
Social Democratic ◽  
Democratic State ◽  
Illegal Activities ◽  
The Relationship

The political economy of Tamil Nadu presents a puzzle: in spite of politics that are generally considered to be unhelpful to development, the state does relatively well in terms both of economic growth and of human development. The chapter argues that Tamil Nadu is neither a developmental nor a social democratic state, while having some of the features of both. It is, rather, characterized by Bonapartism. While the state has generally been supportive of big business, the relationship between the corporate sector and the political elite is distinctly “arm’s-length.” The power and influence of business groups has not “grown enormously,” as has been claimed elsewhere. Tamil politicians do not rely for financial resources on big business but have their own sources of finance, some of them in semilegal or illegal activities such as sand mining and granite quarrying.

American Political Development from Citizens' Perspective: Tracking Federal Government's Presence in Individual Lives over Time

2007 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 110-130 ◽  
Author(s):  
Suzanne Mettler ◽  
Andrew Milstein
Keyword(s):  
Political Development ◽  
American Political Development ◽  
State Building ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
Quarter Century ◽  
Political Roles ◽  
Analytical Tools ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Over Time

Although scholars of American political development (APD) have helped transform many aspects of the study of U.S. politics over the last quarter-century, they have barely begun to use the powerful analytical tools of this approach to elucidate the relationship between government and citizens. APD research has probed deeply into the processes of state-building and the creation and implementation of specific policies, yet has given little attention to how such development affects the lives of individuals and the ways in which they relate to government. Studies routinely illuminate how policies influence the political roles of elites and organized groups, but barely touch on how the state shapes the experiences and responses of ordinary individuals. As a result, we know little about how governance has influenced citizenship over time or how those changes have, in turn, affected politics.

Rothschilds’ “Delicate and Difficult Task”: Reputation, Political Instability, and the Brazilian Rescue Loans of the 1890s

2015 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 381-412 ◽  
Author(s):  
LEONARDO WELLER
Keyword(s):  
Economic Policy ◽  
Sovereign Debt ◽  
Debt Crisis ◽  
Political Instability ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Situation ◽  
Brazilian Government ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Relationship

The London House of Rothschild depended on Brazil to maintain its reputation. This became a problem in the 1890s, when the Brazilian government almost defaulted on its sovereign debt after a change of regime had made politics unstable and economic policy unorthodox. This article shows how the relationship between the bank and the state developed to the point that Rothschilds was forced to rescue its client. Exposure enabled Brazil to implement policies designed to defend the regime at the expense of payment capacity without defaulting. The debt crisis ended only after the political situation stabilized toward the close of the century, when the bank pressured the government to tighten economic policy.

Reading Hobbes’s Sovereign into a Burmese Narrative of Police Torture

2016 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 199-211
Author(s):  
Nick Cheesman
Keyword(s):  
The State ◽  
Political Community ◽  
The Political ◽  
Public Order ◽  
The Moment ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship

Throughout February 2012, a court sitting at Myanmar’s central prison recorded a defendant’s narrative of torture by policemen to have him confess to a bombing two years prior. How was this record made possible? What does the narrative reveal about the relationship of police torturers to the political community giving them authority to act? Working from Agamben’s intuition that in the moment of violence the policeman occupies an area symmetrical to the sovereign, inasmuch as his use of violence is justified in the name of public order, I suggest the account of police torture in this case can be explained in terms of Hobbes’s theory of attributed action. Like Hobbes’s sovereign, the Burmese policemen had the prerogative to decide when and how to use violence against the detained subject on behalf of the state. That the defendant could later recount to a judge the torture done to him was only because he lacked standing to lay claims against sovereign police, who he himself, as a member of the political community, had authorised. Ironically, the record of his narrative was possible precisely because his claims were without efficacy.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document