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The relationship between politics and metaphysics in Spinoza's philosophy has been highlighted by Antonio Negri in The Savage Anomaly. But the determinism of God's power, implying the identity between freedom and necessity, has not been analysed in its political effects. This chapter will show by whom the imaginary reality of free will can be politically employed; that due to the identity between reality and perfection, a 'real' tyranny can be considered a 'perfect' regime; how a free multitude, living in a democratic regime, differentiates itself from an enslaved one, and how its freedom can be necessary. ; Stefano Visentin, 'Non Defuit Materia: Freedom and Necessity in Spinoza's Democratic Theory', in Materialism and Politics , ed. by Bernardo Bianchi, Emilie Filion-Donato, Marlon Miguel, and Ayşe Yuva, Cultural Inquiry, 20 (Berlin: ICI Berlin Press, 2021), pp. 39–54

The aim of this article is to discuss how Spinoza's Theological- Political Treatise and Political Treatise deal with the development of a free and pacific commonwealth, taking into account both a comparison with the irenic tradition of Erasmus and the original position of Spinoza's republicanism within the Dutch context of that period. To approach this issue, comparing Spinoza's idea of security with the Hobbesian one can also be useful in order to demonstrate that security and freedom are not antithetical in Spinoza (differently from Hobbes) but rather support each other. Consequently, the role of peace and concord within the Political Treatise shall be considered the result of a collective self-emendation process of social interactions and political institutions. In this perspective, Spinoza's concept of peace seems a very original attempt to build a free political community, where democratic institutions are both the cause and effect of pacific (i.e., rational and harmonious, although not necessarily irenic) relationships among citizens.

André Tosel's last book before his death, Nous citoyens, laïques et fraternels? (2015), takes into account the return of the "theological-political" in current times, developing a "spinozistic" criticism, which aims to unmask the false juxtaposition between the irrationality of new religious fundamentalisms and the supposed rationalism of neoliberal capitalism, which actually produces a perverse re-enchantment (a new kind of fetichism) of social relationships. By renewing Spinoza's critique of historical religions, Tosel considers the interaction between religion and laicity as an instrument to promote a common space of confrontation and to overcome the public-private dichotomy, while at the same time imagine new forms of democracy, beyond the frame of modern State sovereignty.

From the very first pages of the Theological-political Treatise, Spinoza deals with the issue of prophecy with a clear purpose, that is to expunge any possible relation between prophetical language and godly transcendence, in order to prevent that prophecy could become an instrument of domination in the hands of the theocratic power. Anyway, Spinoza also maintains that the prophetic message played a relevant ethical and political role among the ancient people, especially among the Hebrews, since it contributed to create a social bond, based upon the passions and the imaginations of the community. Such an ambivalent peculiarity of prophecy seems to have disappeared in Spinoza's times, insofar as «we have no prophets in our day» (TTP, chapter 1), but only preachers who make use of popular superstition to strengthen their authority. Actually, we can explain differently this TTP's statement, by considering a possible influence of the Collegiant movement in Spinoza's thought, and therefore maintaining that the free prophetic discussion represents the genesis of any process aimed both to liberate individuals from superstition and to resist to non-democratic rules.

The article focuses on par.7, chapter V, of the Political Treatise, one of the two paragraphs in which Machiavelli's name can be read. This is the starting point for a synthetic analysis of Machiavelli's presence in some topoi of the Dutch thought of the XVIIth century; finally, thus returning to Spinoza, the author tries to comprehend the meaning of this presence within the a. m. tradition, in order to evaluate the role played by the Florentine secretary in Spinoza's political reflection. Machiavelli's presence actually goes deeper than the famous two passages may lead to believe, and a careful analysis of the a. m. paragraph reveals a fundamental aspect of the strong link between the two philosophers: the centrality – both theoretical and practical – that both thinkers tribute to the political role of multitude, in contrast with any reductio ad unum of the processes of constitution and justification of power.