Spinoza for Our Time

There are very few authors who are able to supply the degree and force of insight that Antonio Negri does on the subject of contemporary continental political philosophy. Even among those living thinkers who are as important as Negri, no oneis able to offer a substantive and creative account of the value of Spinoza for contemporary thought. It is precisely such an account that Negri here provides and in a way that makes original advances beyond even his more notable previous contributions. -- Daniel Colucciello Barber, ICI Berlin Institute for Cultural Inquiry

The renowned theorist clarifies and defends Spinoza's philosophy of the multitude, immanence, and political action.Antonio Negri, one of the world's leading scholars on Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677) and his contemporary legacy, offers a straightforward explanation of the philosopher's elaborate arguments and a persuasive case for his ongoing relevance. Responding to a resurgent interest in Spinoza's thought and its potential application to contemporary global issues, Negri demonstrates the thinker's special value to politics, philosophy, and related disciplines. Negri's work is both a return to and an advancement of his initial affirmation of Spinozian thought in The Savage Anomaly. He further defends his understanding of the philosopher as a proto-postmodernist, or a thinker who is just now, with the advent of the postmodern, becoming contemporary. Negri also connects Spinoza's theories to recent trends in political philosophy, particularly the reengagement with Carl Schmitt's "political theology," and the history of philosophy, including the argument that Spinoza belongs to a "radical enlightenment." By positioning Spinoza as a contemporary revolutionary intellectual, Negri addresses and effectively defeats twentieth-century critiques of the thinker waged by Jacques Derrida, Alain Badiou, and Giorgio Agamben.