POLITICAL QUARTERLY

POLITICAL QUARTERLY

Spinoza and Encounter with Body's Political History

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors
Shoja Ahmadvand 1
Mostafa Ensafi 2
1 Professor, Political Science, Allameh Tabataba'i University, Tehran, Iran.
2 Ph.D., Political Thought, Allameh Tabataba’i University, Tehran, Iran.
10.22059/jpq.2025.385134.1008242
Abstract
Extended Abstract
Introduction
Since the birth of political thought in ancient Greece, the body has been seen as secondary, instrumental, inert, identity-less, inferior, and even an obstacle to salvation. The body was considered a lowly and despicable thing that must always be under the command of the mind and carry out its commands. This perspective has led us to constantly encounter authoritarian mind/body hierarchies in the history of political thought. The main question of this article is what consequences and problems does mind/body dualism have for political thought? And what is Spinoza’s answer to this problem? As an answer, the article’s hypothesis revolves around the fact that the hierarchical mind/body relationship has led to other superior/inferior relationships; culture/nature, master/slave, are among these hierarchies that feed on the logic of the authoritarian mind/body dualism.

Methodology
This article uses a descriptive-analytic method and draws on the conceptual framework (biopolitics) that is most widely described in the works of Giorgio Agamben and Michel Foucault.

Findings
The findings of this study are discussed under the following themes:
1. In the history of political thought, Plato and Aristotle were the first ones to speak of the mind/body duality.
In the history of philosophy, Plato is the first philosopher to propose the soul as an abstract essence and is the initiator of the rational and argumentative discussion regarding the duality of soul and body, survival and immortality. He considers the soul as the initiator of movement and the source of movement for the body and the ruler over it. Plato considers the soul as the source of movement and believes that the soul precedes the body, so it must rule over the body.
2. The theological-philosophical discourse of the era of the dominance of the church, which is called scholastic discourse, is a kind of Platonism with the flavor of Christian law.
Greek philosophy was the creator of the nature/nurture duality, which was based on body/mind (or soul) duality and the man/slave duality. When these dualities reached the Church Fathers, through those dualisms they established a kind of moral education that included a chain of rules and technologies of self-meditation through which to control human nature (his emotions and desires).
3. Spinoza challenged this tradition of thought that established a hierarchical relationship between mind and body.
Despite the significant and influential changes and developments it brought to the human condition, the discourse of modernity could not distance itself from the ancient mind/body dualism.
4. The political implications of Spinoza's vitalism place his political thought in contrast to Thanatopolitics or modern biopolitics.
In Spinoza's metaphysics, each part is dependent on the others and the parts have a chain structure with each other, in addition to the contextual complexity, the details of Spinoza's metaphysics, from his understanding of essence, God, nature to his understanding of the mind/body problem, have fundamentally increasing political implications. Accordingly, Spinoza offers an understanding of desire, joy, power, and the body, an understanding that finds its most prominent expression in the concept of conatus.

Analysis
Spinoza's approach to happiness has a strong connection and relationship with the body, life, and happiness because, contrary to the Aristotelian tradition, he does not consider life to have any transcendental meaning that man can give meaning to himself only by achieving it. Rather, the meaning of life for man is living itself, and living happily is living according to desires. For Spinoza, preserving the essence is the end of virtue, that is, it is the good itself. In his view, the good of another is not something independent of preserving the essence and preserving the essence is necessary to achieve it. Good is the preservation of one's own being.

Conclusion
Spinoza, by reinterpreting the concept of conatus, uses it as a platform for the connection between mind and body. Based on this idea, Spinoza inverts the relationship of superiority and inferiority between mind and body, because here it is not the body that is in the absolute possession of the mind, but the body that determines the limits and boundaries of the soul's power. This Spinozian understanding of the relationship between mind and body and the subversion of their ancient hierarchy has important consequences for political thought.
Keywords
Body
Mind
Thanatopolitics
Life
Spinoza
Subjects
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POLITICAL QUARTERLY
Volume 56, Issue 3
Summer 2026
Pages 641-619

  • Receive Date 09 November 2024
  • Revise Date 20 January 2025
  • Accept Date 18 May 2025