Through Google Ads conversion tracking, Google and we are able to track which ads users interact with and which pages they are redirected to after clicking on an ad. This distinction not only allows us to save Spinoza from internal inconsistency, it also enables us to see one important way in which Spinoza stands outside of the republican tradition, since he conceives of liberty not as constituted by independence, or citizenship in a res publica, but as being sui iuris in the first sense described above: being powerful.Our shop uses Google Ads. I work towards this goal by distinguishing between two ways in which Spinoza uses the locution, which correspond to two different conceptions of power: potentia and potestas. In this paper, I offer an interpretation of Spinoza's notion of being sui iuris that enables us to overcome this paradox and sheds light on Spinoza's relationship to the republican tradition. It seems, then, that to the extent that one is sui iuris, one will not, in fact, be sui iuris. However, Spinoza also states that to the extent that one adheres to the laws of the state, one is not sui iuris, but rather stands under the power of the state (TP 3/5). On the one hand, one is said to be sui iuris to the extent that one is rational and to the extent that one is rational, one will steadfastly obey the laws of the state. Spinoza's use of the phrase “sui iuris” in the Tractatus Politicus gives rise to the following paradox. This interpretation renders intelligible and consistent the various claims that Spinoza makes about sovereign absolutism in the Political Treatise.
His treatment of “absolute sovereignty” in the political works is akin to his treatment of “substance” and “God” in the Ethics: he draws out revisionist implications from a recognizable, even anodyne, conceptual gloss, transfiguring the concept from within a common framework. I argue that Spinoza is able to show that, when tied to a proper understanding of authority, absolute sovereignty is not only compatible with, but actually necessitates, power-sharing and constitutionalism.
I offer an interpretation of Spinoza’s conception of absolutism that aims to resolve these problems. And he seems to use the concept of “absolute sovereignty” in inconsistent ways. He seems to embrace a form of absolutism that is incompatible with his defense of mixed government and constitutional limits on sovereign power. Spinoza’s treatment of absolute sovereignty raises a number of interpretative questions.
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