Power, Necessity and Freedom in Spinoza

Two key features mark out Emilia Giancotti’s approach as unique: with a Marxist background, she focused heavily on political themes – liberty, democracy, power, the state and the individual; she also developed a historiographical approach and engaged in philological work to establish solid and reliable texts as the very basis of her interpretation of Spinoza’s thought. Hers is the most authoritative Italian translation of the Ethics. Giancotti’s specific contribution to Spinoza studies was that of uniting the philological rigour of her approach to the texts to a lucid yet passionate reading of the Dutch philosopher’s thinking. For three decades Emilia Giancotti was the central figure in Spinoza Studies in Italy. She organised international conferences on Spinoza and participated in international debates, during a time in which Spinoza studies were often confined within national boundaries. This collection of her most influential essays brings the work of this preeminent scholar of Spinoza studies in Italy to a wider English-speaking audience for the first time.

Well-known at the international level as the author of the famous Lexicon Spinozanum (The Hague, 1970), Emilia Giancotti (Reggio Calabria 1930-Rome 1992) was a moving force in the rebirth of Spinoza studies in Italy through her efforts in the fields of translation and commentary of the Dutch philosopher, first with the revision of the Droetto translation of the Theologico-Political Treatise (Turin: 1972) and then with the translation and commentary of The Ethics (Rome: 1988). We are also indebted to her for the foundation, in 1987, along with Paolo Cristofolini and Filippo Mignini, of the “Italian Association of the Friends of Spinoza” (Associazione Italiana degli Amici di Spinoza), of which she was first president. She was a tireless organizer of colloquiums, conferences and seminars, amongst which the first international conference on Spinoza in Italy “Spinoza in the 350th anniversary of his birth” (Spinoza nel 350° anniversario della nascita) in Urbino from the 4th-8th October 1982, and the “Hobbes and Spinoza: Science and Politics” conference on the occasion of Hobbes’ 400-year anniversary (Hobbes è Spinoza: scienza e politica) held in Urbino from the 14th to the 17th October, 1988. From the first year of its foundation onwards, she was part of the scientific committee of the journal Studia Spinozana, for which she edited, along with Manfred Walther and Alexandre Matheron, the first volume of 1985: “Spinoza’s Philosophy of Society”. Daniela Bostrenghi is a researcher in Theoretical Philosophy at the Department of Humanities of the University of Urbino Carlo Bo, where she teaches "Theories of Morals and Politics". At the time a student and collaborator of Emilia Giancotti, her research areas concern in particular Spinoza, Hobbes, the theory of the imagination and its ethical-political implications in modern thought. She is a member of the Scientific Committee of the ‘Societas Spinozana’ (Rome). Oliver Feltham is Professor of Philosophy at the American University of Paris. His training in Sydney and Paris was in contemporary French philosophy, psychoanalysis, theatre and eco-design. During his career he has used this training to develop an innovative method and apply it to the question of the ontology of political action in early modern philosophy, aesthetics and metaphysics. His current research concerns the genealogy of the concept of political action in modernity, and the relation between action, time and the collective imagination.