Deleuze’s Appropriation of Spinoza: The case of Potentia and Potestas
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.53870/metanoia20251432Keywords:
Deleuze, Negri, Politics, Potentia, Potestas, SpinozaAbstract
This article critically examines the appropriation that authors such as Deleuze and Negri make of the Spinoza’s concepts of potentia and potestas. Through conceptual analysis, we will demonstrate that this interpretation privileges ontological aspects of the Ethics over the socio-political ideas of the Political Treatise and Theological-Political Treatise, establishing a rigid opposition between both concepts that is not found in Spinoza. While Deleuze distinguishes potentia and potestas to subsequently oppose them politically, Negri and Hardt rigidly oppose both concepts ontologically and politically. Against this reading, we maintain that in Spinoza both concepts form a dynamic continuum: the potentia of the multitudo necessarily actualizes itself as state potestas to secure the common welfare. This would allow for a better understanding of the relations between popular power (potentia) and institutional power (potestas) in Spinoza, as well as avoiding both state essentialism and absolute anti-institutionalism, offering conceptual tools to confront the contemporary crisis of political representativity.
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