The Authority of Humanity. Human Living and Intellectual Friendship in Spinoza

Abstract This chapter delves deeper into the communal structures which condition the flourishing of “a human life” according to Spinoza. It stresses the importance for Spinoza’s social and political project of a particular kind of authority, namely what, in Chapter XI of the Theological-Political Treatise, he calls the “authority to teach and advise”, a private authority that belongs to citizens as a matter of natural right. Contrary to other forms of authority in Spinoza, this kind of authority is inextricably tied to the notion of humanitas as an authority that human beings have in virtue of their humanity and an authority of which they cannot be deprived except by being deprived of their humanity. Moreover, I will argue, it is also the authority which governs Spinoza’s understanding of intellectual friendship.