Spinoza, the Epicurean by Dimitris Vardoulakis

£24.99
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Product Ref. (e.g. ISBN, SKU)
9781474476058
Published:
31 May 2022
Format:
Paperback
Number of pages:
368 pages
Dimensions:
234x156x20mm
Weight:
0.556kgs
By radically re-reading the 'Theological Political Treatise', Dimitris Vardoulakis argues that Spinoza's Epicurean influence has profound implications for his conception of politics and ontology. This reconsideration of Spinoza's political project, set within a historical context, lays the ground for an alternative genealogy of materialism.
Through a radical new reading of the 'Theological Political Treatise', Dimitris Vardoulakis argues that the major source of Spinoza's materialism is the Epicurean tradition that re-emerges in modernity when manuscripts by Epicurus and Lucretius are rediscovered. This reconsideration of Spinoza's political project, set within a historical context, lays the ground for an alternative genealogy of materialism. Central to this new reading of Spinoza are the theory of practical judgment (understood as the calculation of utility) and its implications for a theory of democracy that is resolutely positioned against authority.

About the Author: Dimitris Vardoulakis is Professor of Philosophy at Western Sydney University. He is the author of The Doppelgänger: Literature's Philosophy (2010), Sovereignty and its Other: Toward the Dejustification of Violence (2013), Freedom from the Free Will: On Kafka's Laughter (SUNY, 2016) and Stasis Before the State: Nine Theses on Agonistic Democracy (2018). He has edited or co-edited numerous books, including Spinoza Now (2011) and Spinoza's Authority (two volumes, 2018). He is co-series editor of Incitements and founding editor of the journal Philosophy, Politics and Critique, both at Edinburgh University Press.

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