SPINOZA'S POLITICAL REALISM

iii In this dissertation, I argue that Benedict de Spinoza advocates a distinctive realist approach to political theory. Spinoza rejects the political theory of all previous philosophers as utopian fantasy that could never have practical application. (TP 1.1) However, it has been less clear what precisely he means by practicality, and correspondingly, what precisely his non-utopian alternative might be. I argue that Spinozist realism offers a normative vision of social life supported by an account of the conditions under which the desired sociable conduct can sustainably be brought about. It is thus a species of normative political philosophy, but one which imposes a restriction on permissible ideals: it admits only those ideals that are possible, in the sense that their enduring functioning is sociologically plausible, given what we know about the determinate causes of human behaviour. In practice, this means that political theory needs to be concerned with the concrete economic, political, and cultural incentives an