Abstract

In his Political Treatise, Spinoza repeatedly compares states to human beings. In this interpretation of the comparisons, I present a progressively more restrictive account of Spinoza’s views about the nature of human beings in the Ethics and show at each step how those views inform the account of states in the Political Treatise. Because, like human beings, states are individuals, they strive to persevere in existence. Because, like human beings, states are composed of parts that are individuals, states' parts also strive to persevere in being. Finally, because in states, as in human beings, a change to the power of striving of a part can be at the same time a change to the whole that differs in kind, strong states can be bad for their citizens and states that serve their citizens well may nevertheless be weak. Spinoza’s principal project in the Political Treatise is to design states that are stable and good for their citizens. This account of the comparisons shows why that project is so difficult: one cannot design a good state simply by designing a stable state.

中文翻译：

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斯宾诺莎政治论文中的公民和国家

摘要

在他的政治论文中，斯宾诺莎反复将国家与人类进行比较。在对比较的这种解释中，我对斯宾诺莎在伦理学中关于人类本性的观点提出了越来越严格的说明，并在每一步展示了这些观点如何影响政治论文中的国家说明. 因为，像人类一样，国家也是个体，它们努力坚持存在。因为，就像人类一样，国家是由个体的部分组成的，国家的部分也努力坚持存在。最后，因为在国家中，就像在人类中一样，改变一部分的努力力量的同时也改变了整体的不同种类，所以强大的国家可能对其公民和为其服务的国家不利。公民可能仍然很弱。斯宾诺莎在政治论文中的主要项目是设计稳定且对其公民有益的国家。这个比较说明说明了为什么这个项目如此困难：一个人不能仅仅通过设计一个稳定的状态来设计一个好的状态。