The Multitude in Spinoza: From Physics to Politics

Abstract

With the rise of populist governments and corresponding popular protests, this book turns renewed focus on Baruch Spinoza´s idea of the political multitude. Acting at once as a body with a single mind and a state with its own political-institutional structure, the multitude mirrors some of the central actors in democratic movements across early 20th-century Europe – from Occupy Wall Street to Indignados and Nuit Debout.