Spinoza’s Theologico-Political Treatise : The Twilight of Servitude

Originally published in 1984, André Tosel’s ground-breaking first book on Spinoza represents a landmark in 20th-century French Spinoza scholarship.

Tosel, one of the first thinkers to pursue the systematic study of Spinoza’s relation to Marx, provides an innovative and accessible reading of Spinoza’s Theologico-Political Treatise as a way of entering into Spinoza’s notoriously difficult philosophical system. A manifesto for intellectual and political liberation, Tosel explores how Spinoza strategically intervened in the theologico-political debates of the late 17th century in order to galvanise the nascent philosophical powers of heterodox Christians living in the Dutch Republic. Complete with a substantial introduction written by the translators, this English translation introduces Anglophone readers to Tosel’s important scholarship – which arguably went the furthest in systematically investigating the connections between Spinoza, Marxism and materialism famously signalled by Tosel’s teacher Louis Althusser – through his first major publication.