https://mla.hcommons.org/members/sfield/activity/ Activity feed for Sandra Leonie Field. Sat, 04 Apr 2026 09:21:12 -0400 https://buddypress.org/?v=10.6.0 en-US 30 hourly 2 c79b559e603ec9f9e2910dffbec46d76 https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1827246/ Wed, 21 Dec 2022 01:45:30 -0500 0 b46560bf52cdae881e356f5512bd1dcd https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1690019/ Fri, 05 Jun 2020 16:27:27 -0400 Genevieve Lloyd argues that when we follow Spinoza in understanding reason as a part of nature, we gain new insights into the human condition. Specifically, we gain a new political insight: we should respond to cultural difference with a pluralist ethos. This is because there is no pure universal reason; human minds find their reason shaped…[Read more]

]]> 0 f06036cf79d6845dc80141dad5e016d3 https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1690014/ Fri, 05 Jun 2020 16:27:05 -0400 Students often have difficulty connecting theoretical and text-based scholarship to the real world. When teaching in Asia, this disconnection is exacerbated by the European/American focus of many canonical texts, whereas students’ own experiences are primarily Asian. However, in my discipline of political philosophy, this problem receives little…[Read more]

]]> 0 db6fe1836f7e489cc277feba3ad7dd5e https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1689935/ Fri, 05 Jun 2020 04:31:41 -0400 Genevieve Lloyd argues that when we follow Spinoza in understanding reason as a part of nature, we gain new insights into the human condition. Specifically, we gain a new political insight: we should respond to cultural difference with a pluralist ethos. This is because there is no pure universal reason; human minds find their reason shaped…[Read more]

]]> 0 3cafaa76784f1cceacfeb72a8c79aaca https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1689931/ Fri, 05 Jun 2020 04:25:16 -0400 Students often have difficulty connecting theoretical and text-based scholarship to the real world. When teaching in Asia, this disconnection is exacerbated by the European/American focus of many canonical texts, whereas students’ own experiences are primarily Asian. However, in my discipline of political philosophy, this problem receives little…[Read more]

]]> 0 800e99c2f18a80c8523d1207f6c71bf6 https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1689865/ Thu, 04 Jun 2020 16:30:46 -0400 According to a recent interpretive orthodoxy, Spinoza is a profoundly democratic theorist of state authority. I reject this orthodoxy. To be sure, for Spinoza, a political order succeeds in proportion as it harnesses the power of the people within it. However, Spinoza shows that political inclusion is only one possible strategy to this end;…[Read more]

]]> 0 fbab5d403fd9aa04ee2825357464c954 https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1689864/ Thu, 04 Jun 2020 16:30:41 -0400 At the centre of Powers’ (2019) China and England is an extraordinary forgotten episode in the history of political ideas. There was a time when English radicals critiqued the corruption and injustice of the English political system by contrasting it with the superior example of China. There was a time when they advocated adopting a Chinese…[Read more]

]]> 0 27729ec626a8968c8c237f0e4819aece https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1689863/ Thu, 04 Jun 2020 16:30:36 -0400 The book draws on the political writings of Hobbes and Spinoza to establish a conceptual framework for understanding the genesis, risks, and promise of popular power.
It makes an original contribution at the intersection of early modern philosophy and democratic theory.

]]> 0 e8b114f47f4f5e016e544737bf371670 https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1689769/ Thu, 04 Jun 2020 08:32:05 -0400 According to a recent interpretive orthodoxy, Spinoza is a profoundly democratic theorist of state authority. I reject this orthodoxy. To be sure, for Spinoza, a political order succeeds in proportion as it harnesses the power of the people within it. However, Spinoza shows that political inclusion is only one possible strategy to this end;…[Read more]

]]> 0 3448c58d3694740b5000a9e32921d0b0 https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1689768/ Thu, 04 Jun 2020 08:27:39 -0400 At the centre of Powers’ (2019) China and England is an extraordinary forgotten episode in the history of political ideas. There was a time when English radicals critiqued the corruption and injustice of the English political system by contrasting it with the superior example of China. There was a time when they advocated adopting a Chinese…[Read more]

]]> 0 cc137c4f527acc2300ffbceb9dafe786 https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1689767/ Thu, 04 Jun 2020 08:15:13 -0400 The book draws on the political writings of Hobbes and Spinoza to establish a conceptual framework for understanding the genesis, risks, and promise of popular power.
It makes an original contribution at the intersection of early modern philosophy and democratic theory.

]]> 0 ca08eebf726af2a1303532c0b0a5d0ae https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1689766/ Thu, 04 Jun 2020 08:09:47 -0400 0 8d62dd8505a177830e5429c97ead4bcb https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1632006/ Thu, 14 Feb 2019 16:25:27 -0500 In this review of Abizadeh’s book, I question whether identifying a human ‘capacity for reason’ really resolves the problems with Hobbes’s philosophy’s distinctive combination of mechanistic materialism and moral normativity.

]]> 0 a20e453f0d21886474b3568addfca522 https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1632005/ Thu, 14 Feb 2019 16:25:24 -0500 In this review, I propose that the core contribution of Skeaff’s book is to supplement existing discourses of non-domination and agonistic politics with the distinctly Spinozist concept of immanent normativity. However, I question whether this immanent normativity is so clearly and efficaciously democratic as Skeaff presumes.

]]> 0 b2def1c8285c85525ef5dd2251af7404 https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1631987/ Thu, 14 Feb 2019 03:21:36 -0500 In this review of Abizadeh’s book, I question whether identifying a human ‘capacity for reason’ really resolves the problems with Hobbes’s philosophy’s distinctive combination of mechanistic materialism and moral normativity.

]]> 0 4e907d7a9339318f00334a74a783ad6b https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1631986/ Thu, 14 Feb 2019 03:17:17 -0500 In this review, I propose that the core contribution of Skeaff’s book is to supplement existing discourses of non-domination and agonistic politics with the distinctly Spinozist concept of immanent normativity. However, I question whether this immanent normativity is so clearly and efficaciously democratic as Skeaff presumes.

]]> 0 ed295c50ca7b86e463507cf0405d8f44 https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1631985/ Thu, 14 Feb 2019 03:13:02 -0500 0 68d37e62737404dcf89d65c5f2605401 https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1611267/ Wed, 20 Jun 2018 04:12:25 -0400 Integrity is often conceived as a heroic ideal: the person of integrity sticks to what they believe is right, regardless of the consequences. In this article, I defend a conception of ordinary integrity, for people who either do not desire or are unable to be moral martyrs. Drawing on the writings of seventeenth century thinker Huang Zongxi, I…[Read more]

]]> 0 3498296908d8a65982ba4e185f6fc4eb https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1611211/ Tue, 19 Jun 2018 07:23:47 -0400 Integrity is often conceived as a heroic ideal: the person of integrity sticks to what they believe is right, regardless of the consequences. In this article, I defend a conception of ordinary integrity, for people who either do not desire or are unable to be moral martyrs. Drawing on the writings of seventeenth century thinker Huang Zongxi, I…[Read more]

]]> 0 617fe2d95bd67dd8ebdb33e2fa6ae469 https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1611210/ Tue, 19 Jun 2018 07:18:34 -0400 0 bc5a016af0558be7438de978621db9c9 https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1583448/ Sun, 01 Oct 2017 16:37:53 -0400 0 cf2d367bbb8d81768794513e65818043 https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1583447/ Sun, 01 Oct 2017 16:37:02 -0400 0 00da44fb96f285a4b2c6a10a92a65e74 https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1570100/ Thu, 11 May 2017 01:05:48 -0400 Thomas Hobbes has been hailed as the philosopher of power par excellence; however, I demonstrate that Hobbes’s conceptualization of political power is not stable across his texts. Once the distinction is made between the authorized and the effective power of the sovereign, it is no longer sufficient simply to defend a doctrine of the authorized p…[Read more]

]]> 0 ca7f15fad43f9926e05103a41fcb15a7 https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1570087/ Thu, 11 May 2017 01:00:31 -0400 The concept of imperium is central to Spinoza’s political philosophy. Imperium denotes authority to rule, or sovereignty. By extension, it also denotes the political order structured by that sovereignty, or in other words, the state. Spinoza argues that reason recommends that we live in a state, and indeed, humans are hardly ever outside a state.…[Read more]

]]> 0 7039c9c40941e82ce7b5a6b199e587de https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1570086/ Thu, 11 May 2017 01:00:30 -0400 Hobbes’s science of politics rests on a dual analysis of human beings: humans as complex material bodies in a network of mechanical forces, prone to passions and irrationality; and humans as subjects of right and obligation, morally exhortable by appeal to the standards of reason. The science of politics proposes an absolutist model of politics. I…[Read more]

]]> 0 0c30c631c942c6f85e972b9336e93106 https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1570085/ Thu, 11 May 2017 01:00:29 -0400 Negri celebrates a conception of democracy in which the concrete powers of individual humans are not alienated away, but rather are added together: this is a democracy of the multitude. But how can the multitude act without alienating anyone’s power? To answer this difficulty, Negri explicitly appeals to Spinoza. Nonetheless, in this paper, I a…[Read more]

]]> 0 fcd92703838168b19ec8a719b2838db7 https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1569719/ Sun, 07 May 2017 14:57:58 -0400 The concept of imperium is central to Spinoza’s political philosophy. Imperium denotes authority to rule, or sovereignty. By extension, it also denotes the political order structured by that sovereignty, or in other words, the state. Spinoza argues that reason recommends that we live in a state, and indeed, humans are hardly ever outside a state.…[Read more]

]]> 0 30c829986cd8a67d2ca1ff70c1c93ed9 https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1569718/ Sun, 07 May 2017 14:50:04 -0400 Hobbes’s science of politics rests on a dual analysis of human beings: humans as complex material bodies in a network of mechanical forces, prone to passions and irrationality; and humans as subjects of right and obligation, morally exhortable by appeal to the standards of reason. The science of politics proposes an absolutist model of politics. I…[Read more]

]]> 0 e6da3c5002fed68e9b8c0ffc61eb1955 https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1569717/ Sun, 07 May 2017 14:43:03 -0400 Thomas Hobbes has been hailed as the philosopher of power par excellence; however, I demonstrate that Hobbes’s conceptualization of political power is not stable across his texts. Once the distinction is made between the authorized and the effective power of the sovereign, it is no longer sufficient simply to defend a doctrine of the authorized p…[Read more]

]]> 0 d93fdeddc03be06917268b36e3b67219 https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1569716/ Sun, 07 May 2017 14:37:50 -0400 Negri celebrates a conception of democracy in which the concrete powers of individual humans are not alienated away, but rather are added together: this is a democracy of the multitude. But how can the multitude act without alienating anyone’s power? To answer this difficulty, Negri explicitly appeals to Spinoza. Nonetheless, in this paper, I a…[Read more]

]]> 0 986115391387b4e8befce63866cc1ac4 https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1569025/ Wed, 03 May 2017 17:05:11 -0400 0 acd7ca2382e6761598cbf0378476f867 https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1559486/ Fri, 27 Jan 2017 01:23:14 -0500 0 f0330ea9b75aae1d72deea1539f9d58b https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1559485/ Fri, 27 Jan 2017 01:18:03 -0500 0 caf5ff839166b76eb555563056f41645 https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1559484/ Fri, 27 Jan 2017 01:09:35 -0500 0