Affirmation and Resistance in Spinoza

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. Laurent Bove is Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at Université de Picardie Jules-Verne. Émilie Filion-Donato is a McGill University philosophy graduate, translator, programmer and Spinoza enthusiast. Hasana Sharp is Associate Professor of Philosophy at McGill University.