Affirmation and Resistance in Spinoza: The Strategy of the Conatus

Offers a powerful and influential interpretation of Spinoza's conatus - the essential striving that defines each of us - as fundamentally strategic.
Spinozism must be understood as a dynamic ontology that necessarily unfolds on practical terrain. Laurent Bove analyses Spinoza's theory of affects as rooted in Habit, generating the constituent power of human beings, commonwealths, nations and multitudes. By interpreting sovereignty as a power that emerges through the active resistance of the always singular body of the multitude, Bove discovers in Spinoza a radically new approach to the State, to citizenship and to history.

Author: Laurent Bove
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
Published: 09/14/2023
Pages: 296
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.28lbs
Size: 9.21h x 6.14w x 0.69d
ISBN: 9781474430579

About the Author

Laurent Bove is Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at Université de Picardie Jules-Verne. He is a member of l'Institut d'Histoire des Représentations et des Idées dans les Modernités à l'École Normale Supérieure de Lyon and President of l'association des ami.e.s de Spinoza. He is the author of La Strategie du conatus (Vrin, 1996; 2nd edition 2012) which was translated into Italian in 2002 and in Spanish in 2009. His other books include Albert Camus. De l'absurde à l'amour (1995), Albert Camus: de la transfiguration (2014), Vauvenargues ou le Séditieux (2015). He is the editor of a French translation of Spinoza's Political Treatise (2002). He is the general editor of The Complete Works of Vauvenargues.

Hasana Sharp is Associate Professor of Philosophy at McGill University. She is author of Spinoza and the Politics of Renaturalization, among other works.

Émilie Filion-Donato is a McGill Philosophy graduate, Translator, Programmer, and Spinoza enthusiast.

Émilie Filion-Donato is a McGill Philosophy graduate, Translator, Programmer, and Spinoza enthusiast.