Chapters in this book

1. Frontmatter i
2. Contents v
3. Reference Guide to Spinoza’s Work viii
4. Acknowledgements ix
5. Preamble
6. 1. Why Does it Matter to Read Spinoza as an Epicurean? 1
7. 2. Authority and Utility: A Sketch 3
8. 3. On Method 7
9. Introduction: Why is Spinoza an Epicurean?
10. Introduction 10
11. 1. ‘The authority of Plato, Aristotle and Socrates carries little weight with me’: Spinoza and Epicureanism 11
12. 2. The Three Themes of Spinoza’s Epicureanism: Authority, Monism and Judgement 23
13. 3. The Dialectic of Authority and Utility: Spinoza’s Promise 38
14. 1. Freedom as Overcoming the Fear of Death: The Dialectic of Authority and Utility in the Preface
15. Introduction 48
16. 1. ‘A free man thinks of nothing less than of death . . .’: Fear and Freedom in Epicurus 50
17. 2. Ante-secularism: The Construction of Authority and Human Nature in Lucretius 59
18. 3. ‘Fighting for their servitude as if for salvation’: Monarchy versus Democracy 67
19. 2. The Power of Error: Moses, the Prophets and the People (chapters 1, 2 and 3)
20. Introduction 76
21. 1. Moses: Prophecy as Communication 77
22. 2. ‘God has no particular style of speech’: The Error about God’s Potentia 90
23. 3. Encountering the People: Causality and Instrumentality 97
24. 3. Philonomianism: Law and the Origin of Finitude (chapter 4)
25. Introduction 109
26. 1. Ratio Vivendi: Law and Living 111
27. 2. ‘You cannot make a republic without killing people’: The Tragedy of Legitimacy without Authority in Hannah Arendt 121
28. 3. On the Origins of Finitude: History as Tragedy or Comedy? 129
29. 4. Political Monism: The Primacy of Utility over Authority (chapters 5 and 6)
30. Introduction 141
31. 1. ‘Society is advantageous’: Utility and Social Formation 143
32. 2. Natural and Agonistic Democracy 152
33. 3. Political Monism: The Utility of Miracles 157
34. 5. Love your Friend as Yourself: The Neighbour and the Politics of Biblical Hermeneutics (chapters 7 to 13)
35. Introduction 172
36. 1. Monism and Interpretation: No Meaning Outside the Text 173
37. 2. Didactic Authority: The Universal as Communication 184
38. 3. Universality without Transcendence: Levinas contra ‘Spinozism’ 188
39. 6. The Freedom to Philosophize: The Two Paths to Virtue (chapters 14 and 15)
40. Introduction 203
41. 1. ‘Finally’? The Politics of the Distinction between Faith and Reason 204
42. 2. The Necessary Rebel: The Transversal of Faith and Reason 212
43. 3. The Freedom to Philosophize: Freedom from Personal Authority and the Freedom to Transverse 223
44. 7. Fear and Power: Natural Right and Authorization in Spinoza and Hobbes (chapter 16)
45. Introduction 232
46. 1. Epicurean Communities: Fear and Utility 235
47. 2. The Robber in the Night: On the Promise 243
48. 3. The Right to Resist or the Fallibility of Judgement? On the Limits of Authorization 251
49. 8. Theocracy: On the State of Authority (chapters 17 and 18)
50. Introduction 263
51. 1. Josephus: The Anti-authoritarianism of Theocracy 264
52. 2. Between Tyranny and Revolution: The Limits of the State of Authority 270
53. 3. The Fragmentation of Authority: On the Reasons for the Destruction of the Hebrew State 283
54. 9. The Authority to Abrogate: The Two Paths to Virtue and the Internal Enemy (chapters 19 and 20)
55. Introduction 296
56. 1. The Path of the Emotions: Neighbourly Love as a Political Principle 297
57. 2. The Path of Reason: The Unendurable in Politics 306
58. 3. The Right to Abrogate: The Internal Enemy and Democracy 311
59. Conclusion: The Limitation of Spinoza’s Epicureanism 322
60. Bibliography 328
61. Index 345