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Author: Dan Taylor

A conference to honour Baruch Spinoza's forgotten masterpiece: Tractatus Theologico-Politicus

Updated Tuesday, 20 July 2021
Watch video recordings of speaker presentations from a conference, which examined and celebrated the 350th anniversary of the publication of Baruch Spinoza's forgotten masterpiece: Tractatus Theologico-Politicus.

In March 2021, I co-organised a conference titled "Spinoza's TTP: Politics, Power, and the Imagination". My co-organiser was Marie Wuth from The University of Aberdeen. Our conference marked the passing of the 350th anniversary of Spinoza's Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, and it was supported by the British Society for the History of Philosophy. 

In 1670, Baruch Spinoza published the Tractatus Theologico-Politicus (TTP, or the Theological-Political Treatise) - anonymously, under a false imprint. The book set out to defend the freedom to philosophize in the Dutch Republic, but it did much more than that. Spinoza set out in a way never done before, to undertake a historical and philosophical analysis of the nature of religious belief and politics.

The rationale for our conference was to bring together leading and new scholars investigating the TTP. We were very fortunate to bring together researchers working from across Europe, North America, South America, Asia and Australia. This page is a collection of recordings from the conference presentations.

I hope you enjoy these recordings, as much as we enjoyed the conference.

Dan Taylor
Lecturer, Social and Political Thought, The Open University

 

 

An introduction by Dan Taylor
 

PDF document Transcript 76.1 KB

 

Antonio Salgado Borge: 

“God or natura naturata?"
 

PDF document Transcript 55.2 KB

 

Emanuele Costa: 

"Spinoza on prophecy and belief justification"
 

PDF document Transcript 57.0 KB

 

Jimena Solé: 

"Truth, obedience and freedom in Spinoza's TTP"
 

PDF document Transcript 80.9 KB

 

A roundtable discussion: 

Martin Saar and Mogens Laerke on democracy, public reasoning and the imagination
 

PDF document Transcript 156.3 KB

 

Yifan Song:

"The radicalization of action and social transformation: A Spinoza-Hess-Marx triangle"
 

PDF document Transcript 118.0 KB

 

Beth Lord:

"Hobbes and Spinoza on equality, equalization, and equilibrium"
 

PDF document Transcript 96.4 KB

 

Dimitris Vardoulakis:

"On the sources of Spinoza’s account of social formation"
 

PDF document Transcript 86.9 KB

 

Ahmad Bostani:

"Political philosophy and the imagination from Al-Farabi to Spinoza"
 

PDF document Transcript 77.7 KB

 

Matthieu Angevin:

"Spinoza against Hippocrates?"
 

PDF document Transcript 125.0 KB

 

Ki-myoung Kim:

"What would the institution of the universal faith in democracy look like?"
 

PDF document Transcript 79.1 KB

 

Gil Morejón:

"Imaginary authority and critical immanence: Spinoza’s critique of miracles"
 

PDF document Transcript 81.3 KB

 

Steph Marston:

"Recognition-rebellion-freedom: emergent identities in Spinoza’s political philosophy"
 

PDF document Transcript 118.5 KB

 

Nicolas Lema Habash:

"Spinoza’s political exception? The problem of sovereign interruption in the TTP"
 

PDF document Transcript 78.2 KB

 

Marie Wuth:

"Daily invectives: The state of bitter hate in Spinoza's TTP"
 

PDF document Transcript 126.8 KB

 

Hasana Sharp:

"'I dare not mutter a word': Truth, lies, and political violence in Spinoza"
 

Transcript (PDF document151.2 KB)
 

 

 

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