Spinoza and the Theory of Active Tolerance

Bibliographic Data

ID6350323
AuthorsLars Tønder (0000-0003-3755-7462, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA, corresponding author)
Year2013
Volume41
Issue5
Pages687-709
Publication date2013-10-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenuePolitical Theory (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0090-5917 • E-ISSN: 1552-7476
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/0090591713491504
OpenAlexW2036719790
LanguageEN
Citations received3

This paper considers the politics of tolerance through the lens of Spinoza’s philosophy of immanence. The contention is that Spinoza’s philosophy of immanence provides us with a better conceptualization of the relationship between tolerance and power, and that it in so doing reinvigorates a theory of active tolerance that, for the most part, has been lost in contemporary democratic theory. Spinoza’s philosophy of immanence does so because it animates a sensorial orientation to politics, one that heightens our attention to the affective components of political life, enabling us to better theorize how all modes of existence, including the so-called passive ones, harbor a degree of power that can be mobilized for purposes that go beyond the “non-practice” highlighted by advocates and critics of tolerance in contemporary democratic theory. The paper develops this argument with ongoing reference to Marcuse’s critique of tolerance

Argument (complex analysis · Conceptualization · Critical theory · Democracy · Democratic Theory · Epistemology · Immanence · Political philosophy · Political science · Politics · Power (physics · Sociology · Critical Theory and Philosophy · Law · Philosophy · Political Theology and Sovereignty · Seventeenth-Century Political and Philosophical Thought

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