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This book draws on the political writings of Hobbes and Spinoza to establish a conceptual framework for understanding the genesis, risks, and promise of popular power. Radical democrats--whether drawing on Hobbes' "sleeping sovereign" or on Spinoza's "multitude"--understand popular power as moments transcending ordinary institutional politics (e.g. popular plebsites or mass movements). However, a focus on the concept of power as potentia generates a new approach to popular power, according to which its true center lies in the slow, meticulous work of organizational design and maintenance. The book makes an original contribution at the intersection of early modern philosophy and democratic theory.
List of contents
- Acknowledgements
- Note on sources
- 1. Introduction
- Part I: Hobbes
- 2. Relational power
- 3. Juridical politics
- 4. The political problem
- 5. Repressive Egalitarianism
- Part II: Spinoza
- 6. Ethics and efficacy
- 7. The Power of producing effects
- 8. Nature's indifference
- 9. Civic strengthening
- Bibliography
- Index
About the author
Sandra Leonie Field is Assistant Professor of Humanities (Philosophy) at Yale-NUS College, Singapore.
Summary
We live in an age of growing dissatisfaction with the standard operations of representative democracy. The solution, according to a long radical democratic tradition, is the unmediated power of the people. Mass plebiscites and mass protest movements are celebrated as the quintessential expression of popular power, and this power promises to transcend ordinary institutional politics. But the outcomes of mass political phenomena can be just as disappointing as the ordinary politics they sought to overcome, breeding skepticism about democratic politics in all its forms.
Potentia argues that the very meaning of popular power needs to be rethought. It offers a detailed study of the political philosophies of Thomas Hobbes and Benedict de Spinoza, focusing on their concept of power as potentia, concrete power, rather than power as potestas, authorized power. Specifically, the book's argument turns on a new interpretation of potentia as a capacity that is dynamically constituted in a web of actual human relations. This means that a group's potentia reflects any hostility or hierarchy present in the relations between its members. There is nothing spontaneously egalitarian or good about human collective existence; a group's power deserves to be called popular only if it avoids oligarchy and instead durably establishes its members' equality. Where radical democrats interpret Hobbes' "sleeping sovereign" or Spinoza's "multitude" as the classic formulations of unmediated popular power, Sandra Leonie Field argues that for both Hobbes and Spinoza, conscious institutional design is required in order for true popular power to be achieved. Between Hobbes' commitment to repressing private power and Spinoza's exploration of civic strengthening, Field draws on early modern understandings of popular power to provide a new lens for thinking about the risks and promise of democracy.
Additional text
This book represents a provocative and engaging approach to 17th century political philosophy. Field allies Hobbes and Spinoza against populist romanticism and democratic complacency in surprising ways. Potentia is sure to be the subject of vigorous discussion and debate, from which students and scholars will profit for years to come.
