Spinoza on Free Speech

• Authors: Seppo Sajama

Abstracts

EN

Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677) was arguably the fi rst modern liberalist. His Theologico-Political Treatise (henceforward, “TPT”, followed by chapter number), which contains among other things a principled defense of free speech, was published anonymously in 1677, twelve years before John Locke’s charter of liberalism, Two Treatises on Government (1689), but it has been unduly, although understandably, neglected. It is also true that Thomas Hobbes and René Descartes had a huge infl uence on Spinoza, but neither of them can be called a liberalist, let alone a defender of free speech. In this article, I will try to show that Spinoza’s argument for free speech is, despite its interpretative diffi  culties, an important milestone in the development of the doctrine of free speech.

• Publisher: Uniwersytet im. Adama Mickiewicza w Poznaniu
• Journal: Czasopismo Prawno-Historyczne
• Year: 2016
• Volume: 68
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 199-206

Dates

published

2016

Contributors

author

Seppo Sajama

• Joensuu, Finlandia

Identifiers

DOI

10.14746/cph.2016.69.2.12

Biblioteka Nauki

915638