ABSTRACT
Drawing on the analysis of prescriptive laws in the light of Spinoza's commitment to strict determinism and philosophical naturalism, this chapter argues that the idea of the state for Spinoza is premised on the same mechanisms that render necessary the false idea of the free will and the concept of law. A review of Spinoza's conception of the state shows that the question of how to organize civil society is secondary to the question of the idea's pragmatic function in relation to our human experience of the ethical striving towards wellbeing. The chapter reviews Spinoza's treatment of the notions of governance and sovereignty in order to demonstrate that it is possible to formulate a solution to this apparent paradox. The idea of the state understood as a human product seem to play a decisive role in Spinoza's philosophy, as it forms part of a phenomenological explanation of normativity which is necessary for a successful human striving towards virtue and wellbeing.
