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Spinoza’s Theological-Political Treatise is a major text of the Enlightenment and a classical text in the history of political philosophy and religious studies. The book critically describes the Bible as manmade, presents a philosophical religion, and defends democracy and the freedom to philosophize. In this course, we read the “TTP”, as Spinoza scholars call the notorious book, said by contemporaries to have been “forged in hell”, from cover to cover. Despite Spinoza’s popularity, the TTP remains understudied in comparison with the Ethics, which in the Netherlands often leads to anachronistic projections onto Spinoza’s political philosophy. In fact, already after the publication of the Opera Posthuma (1677), few scholars took the trouble to take the TTP seriously. In his famous History of Philosophy, Hegel only devoted a few lines to the work, caustically describing it as a mere predecessor of contemporary Biblical criticism. In the early twentieth century, Gebhardt deemed it a pamphlet written as an intervention in the political-ecclesiastical controversies of the Republican Era of Johan de Witt, which ended with the latter’s violent death by the Hague mob. In the twenty-first century, Theo Verbeek outlined its inconsistencies in Exploring the Will of God (2003) and in a review of the Cambridge Critical Guide to the work (2010), edited by Malamed and Rosenthal, named it ‘badly organized and—let us admit it—without a clear and recognizable focus’.

Notwithstanding this benign neglect during the last three centuries, the TTP finally seems to emerge from the shadow of the Ethics. In Also a History of Philosophy, Habermas writes that Spinoza’s egalitarian, universalist, and anti-authoritarian thinking, found in the TTP, justifies a retrospective qualification of the philosopher as the “first defender of secular democracy” (2023). Spinoza’s TTP has been studied in the twentieth century in countries as different as Brazil, France, and China, and today it is a popular book in the Islamic Republic of Iran. Taking the time to read the TTP in its entirety will allow ReMA students and PhD candidates to get acquainted, first, with Spinoza’s political philosophy, and, second, to better understand the book’s enduring impact.

The TTP will be discussed in six sessions. The seventh and final session will be a one-day expert meeting with several Spinoza scholars.

The aim of this series is to bring together philosophy and religious studies students and researchers to engage with a primary text in the history of philosophy and religious studies. By organizing also a trip to Rijnsburg and an expert meeting with Spinoza scholars, the course familiarizes participants with Spinoza studies.

The participant

• acquires knowledge and insight into Spinoza’s political philosophy, which is relevant for both philosophy and religious studies;
• improves their academic skills to critically examine a primary text in the history of philosophy and religious studies;
• is able to communicate conclusions, as well as the underlying knowledge, grounds and considerations, to an audience composed of specialists.