Multitude (philosophy)

Canonic literature and philosophy

As a term in general and philosophical use, multitude appears in texts from antiquity, including ancient philosophy. For example, it appears in the Bible as well as in texts attributed to Thucydides, Plato (e.g., Euthyphro), Aristotle, Polybius, and Cicero. It also appears in medieval philosophy texts, for example, in the works of Averroes.

The term first entered into the lexicon of early modern philosophy when it was used by thinkers like Machiavelli, Hobbes (in De Cive), and Spinoza (especially in the Tractatus Politicus or TP). Machiavelli and Spinoza wrote about the multitude with vacillating admiration and contempt. Spinoza wrote about it in a historical context of war and civil instability, which informed and motivated his work.

Hobbes

For Hobbes, the multitude was a rabble that needed to enact a social contract with a monarch or sovereign, thus making them a people. Until then, such individuals retained the capacity for political self-determination.

Spinoza

In Spinoza's political philosophy, multitude ("multitudo" or "veelheid") is a key concept that is essential to his systematic œuvre in its historical context. Spinoza apparently derived the term from engaging with Hobbes, for whom it was also a technical term, but with whom he differed. It appears primarily in his mature political philosophy in the TP, though there are several connotatively negative instances in the Tractatus Theologico-Politicus (TTP).

In the TP, multitude more technically (and without the same degree of negative connotation) referred to a great aggregate of people, whether or not politically organized, who are often led more by affect than reason, too often by "common affect" but at best "as if by one mind" as in a "union of minds". For Curley, the main thesis of Spinoza's moral and political philosophy is that what is most useful to us is "living in a community with other people, and binding ourselves to our fellow citizens ... 'to make us one people'". But to do so rationally and virtuously is a supreme challenge. The individual's task in the Ethics—to overcome bondage to the passions—became the task of the entire community in Spinoza's political philosophy.

"Multitude" followed Spinoza's somewhat distinct but comparable use of "vulgus" or "crowd" in earlier works. In the TP, "vulgus" is largely replaced by multitude, "plebs" ("ordinary people" or "plebeians"), or populus ("people"). It has been translated with negative connotations as "the mob", "the rabble", or "the vulgar", but Curley advised against these translations with the exception of "the mob" in some political contexts. Curley wrote that Spinoza often applied the term not only to people whose capacity and views he considered unreliable, but also in contrast to philosophers. However, Spinoza also occasionally wrote of a "vulgus of philosophers". Curley generally translated vulgus as "the common people".

Spinoza's interpreters

Spinoza's concept of the multitude is distinct from its later, radically democratic or even revolutionary interpretation by Hardt and Negri, which forms a counterweight to Spinoza's more negative dispositions toward the "vulgus". Moreso on the Right, Leo Strauss emphasized Spinoza's fear of the masses in his more general understanding of political philosophy as a manual for the elite. Indeed, Spinoza asked unprepared commoners not to read his TTP, arguing that it would exceed their limitations and be misinterpreted (though he is arguably most positive about democracy in this work).

Strauss's orientation may be seen in some secondary literature on Spinoza, including that of Raia Prokhovnik, Alexandre Matheron, Steven B. Smith, and Étienne Balibar (to some extent). Matheron, Prokhovnik, and Smith argued that Spinoza ultimately rejected democracy in the TP. Matheron and Prokhovnik argued that he may have endorsed aristocracy as the best possibility, given the antinomy (or at least the unresolved tension) he identified between democracy and reason. Smith identified this aristocracy as a philosophical clerisy. Ericka Tucker cast doubt on this interpretation. Curley cautioned that "many" or "probably most" contemporary Spinoza scholars reject Strauss's views.

Balibar was more nuanced. He merely agreed that Spinoza expressed fear of the labile masses. But Balibar proposed that Spinoza's pro-democratic arguments, though marred, nonetheless stood.

Tucker acknowledged substantial evidence throughout Spinoza's work supporting broad consensus about his fears, but she cautioned that Spinoza's attitude toward the multitude was complex and vacillating, as well as deeply connected with his views on democracy. She proposed that Spinoza ultimately developed a theory of the multitude as something to be understood, not feared, in order to sustain institutions, peace, and prosperity within democratic states.

Spinoza's historical context

Spinoza's concerns were animated by civil instability in the Dutch Republic, specifically during the First Stadtholderless Period and in the aftermath of the Rampjaar. A bona fide, if strained, period of "new freedom" and tolerance was disrupted by riots and war, including the Anglo-Dutch Wars and Franco-Dutch War. This culminated in the lynching of the De Witt brothers of the Loevestein faction, against whom the Calvinists of the Dutch Reformed Church and Orangists were allied.

Spinoza was convinced that Calvinist ministers deliberately fomented moral panics among their congregations. He wrote to Henry Oldenburg in 1665 that he worked to counter the "prejudices of theologians", citing them as "the main obstacles to ... philosoph[izing]". Thus he sought to "expos[e] such prejudices and remov[e] them from the minds of sensible people". He aimed to "vindicate completely" the freedom to philosophize, "for here it is in every way suppressed by the excessive authority and egotism of the preachers".

Spinoza's works

Young Spinoza hoped for the improvement of common people in the Tractatus de Intellectus Emendatione (TIE), who he referred to as the "vulgus" before better theorizing the "multitude" in the TP. His attitudes changed over time, as may be seen in his work. These complex changes reflected both the logical refinement of his thought and the developing events of his historical context.

In mid-1660s Amsterdam, Spinoza became fearful amid civil instability, including riots, throughout the United Provinces. In attending to politics, his fear arguably settled into resignation as he began to consider the situation in terms of the role of the multitude. He sought to understand the affects (or the confused ideas) of the people. His aim was to help establish peaceful governance and to help the state develop more stable institutions.

Spinoza used "vulgus" in a distinctly slighting way in the Ethics and TTP, among other texts. He wrote in the Ethics that the "vulgus" is "terrifying if unafraid", showing a concern for crowd psychology. Balibar, Warren Montag, Justin Steinberg, and Tucker read Spinoza as deliberately ambiguous here, referring to the fear of the masses as that which they felt and inspired.

Tractatus de intellectus emendatione (TIE)

In the TIE, Spinoza expressed concern and hope for the vulgus. He sought to identify the path to the good life, or eudaimonia. He considered the immediate or ostentatious materialistic concerns of the vulgus and recommended the pursuit of knowledge and love of God, "the end for which I [myself] strive". He regarded the vulgus more with concern than disapproval, and he held out the hope that "many should acquire [this view] along with me". He argued that the improvement of education, medicine, and social order would be not only virtuous, but also instrumental in raising the vulgus to higher things and better capabilities.

Tractatus theologico-politicus (TTP)

Spinoza paused work on the Ethics to begin the TTP. In writing the TTP, Spinoza had become fearful of the vulgus amid riots and civil instability, as well as wars. These events were marked by political factionalism and culminated in the Rampjaar. Spinoza was specifically concerned about the excessive role of religion in politics and the threat to philosophy or freedom of thought.

Democracy was the "most natural" and "best" form of state in Spinoza's TTP. He argued that it was the kind of civitas most likely to result in freedom and peace, which he elevated as the chief aims of the state. Tucker noted that democracy requires "the people, the masses, the vulgus". Many thus observed as an apparent tension in Spinoza's political philosophy that the vulgus must give rise to the "best" state.

Tractatus politicus (TP)

Spinoza's mature political theory in the TP made reference to his theories of affects and power from the Ethics. "Multitude" became a properly technical term in the TP, and Spinoza sought to frame a path by which the multitude (like individuals in the Ethics) could be ruled less by fear.

Whereas in the TTP democracy was the "freest" or "most natural" government, in the TP it became the "most absolute" or "best" because it best preserved natural rights and had the most power of any civitas. However, the purpose of the state was no longer freedom, but rather prosperity and stability, requiring absolute power. Thus many twentieth-century commentators felt Spinoza effectively abandoned democracy.

Tucker and others instead saw Spinoza as developing his theories of affects, power, and the multitude. In Spinoza's typical, semantically revisionist sense, argued J. Steinberg, this "absolute" power was simply that of a sovereign as in principle greater than that of the church, as defined in relation to (and sometimes constrained by) that of the multitude, and as necessarily limited or finite in an immanent and naturalistic sense (i.e., in the same way as "Deus ..." is rendered "... sive Natura" in the Ethics, though Spinoza specifically clarified that "Kings are not Gods, but men").

For Spinoza, the multitude's power simply arose from that of individuals in their aggregation and organization. He argued that natural right was coextensive with power and drew relations between the individual and the sovereign, and between the multitude and the entire state.

In Spinoza's account, the multitude's power was determined not only by its individuals in number, but also by their mode of agreement. Passive affects like fear and less adequate ideas were disempowering. Active affects like joy united the multitude, and along with more adequate ideas were more empowering. To empower more of the multitude, Spinoza recommended democracy, however broadly conceived, as the best form of government. He proposed large, deliberative, popular councils for its institutions, postulating their epistemic advantage.