Ulises atado al mástil (El monarca spinoziano)

Abstract

According to Spinoza every individual is composed up of others individuals (that is to say, is a multitudo), and, at the same time, is component of another metaindividual of upper level. This «holomeric» conception of the reality leads, in the political field, to conceiving the States as metaindividuals who unify in a same conatus a multitudo. The spinozian monarch is not but the expression of such a metaindividual: the State. The best political regime (already be monarchic, aristocratic or democratic) should be that whose conatus cannot be lessened by the conatus of his components. Therefore the best monarchy should be that one that turns innocuous the will of the monarch. Said otherwise: the monarch cannot be sovereign. He reigns because he does not govern. So the Spinozian monarch can be understood as the political translation of the Deus sive Natura of the Ethica.