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Multitude (philosophy)
Philosophical term for "the many" From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Multitude is a term in philosophy referring to a collective of people defined not by a shared identity, but by a common mode of existence. The concept has deep roots in historical texts. In ancient philosophy, thinkers explored the nature and role of "the many", typically in social and political contexts. Niccolò Machiavelli treated the multitude pragmatically, focusing on the passions and employing a form of realism near the dawn of early modern philosophy. The concept gained prominence in the 17th century through the work of Thomas Hobbes and Baruch Spinoza, who developed the term as part of their broader engagements with contemporary events and intellectual history, using increasingly technical language.
Focusing on mechanism in philosophy amid the Scientific Revolution, Hobbes sought to apply principles of classical mechanics to model human behavior and political organization. He conceptualized the multitude as an unstable pre-political mass. He argued that it benefited from cohesion and unification, which required the force of a social contract with a sovereign authority. At the time, there were debates over absolute monarchy, which culminated in English Civil War.
In the prosperous, tolerant, and unstable Dutch Republic, Spinoza recognized the multitude's immanent potential for rational self-organization and collective power, arguably seeing it as foundational to democratic agency. However, he held reservations about its volatility, grounded in his theory of the affects. He stressed that the multitude's inadequate understanding made it liable to control by superstition or charismatic authority.
In contemporary philosophy, thinkers revived the concept mostly from Spinoza, while also drawing on the work of Karl Marx. Together, Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri reinterpreted the multitude more globally as a plural, autonomous, and radically democratic, even revolutionary, subject. They saw it as capable of resisting imperialism and the exploitation of labor, and of transforming political systems and institutions more broadly.
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Ancient and medieval background
Whether as a term or concept, the multitude is mentioned in general, philosophical, and religious texts from antiquity, including ancient philosophy. For example, it is mentioned in the Bible as well as in texts attributed to Thucydides, Plato (e.g., Euthyphro), Aristotle, Polybius, and Cicero. It is also mentioned in medieval philosophy texts, for example, in the works of Averroes.
Early modern philosophy
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Perspective
The term entered into the lexicon of early modern philosophy when it was used by thinkers like Machiavelli, Hobbes (in De Cive), and Spinoza (especially in the Tractatus Politicus or TP). Machiavelli[citation needed] and Spinoza wrote about the multitude with vacillating admiration and contempt.[1] Spinoza wrote about it in a historical context of war and civil instability, which informed and motivated his work.[2]
Hobbes
During the Scientific Revolution and against the English Civil War's background of personal rule, Hobbes saw the multitude as though through the mechanics of Galileo Galilei, a disorganized mass requiring the force of sovereign authority to unify. Hobbes theorized the multitude as a rabble that needed to enact a social contract with a monarch, thus making them a people. Until then, such individuals retained the capacity for political self-determination.
Spinoza
In Spinoza's political philosophy, multitude ("multitudo" or "veelheid")[3] is a key concept that is essential to his systematic œuvre in its historical context.[4] Spinoza apparently derived the term from engaging with Hobbes, for whom it was also a technical term, but with whom he differed.[5] It appears primarily in his mature political philosophy in the TP, though there are several connotatively negative instances in the Tractatus Theologico-Politicus (TTP).[6][a]
In the TP, multitude more technically (and without the same degree of negative connotation) referred to a great aggregate of people, whether or not politically organized, who are often led more by affect than reason, too often by "common affect" but at best "as if by one mind" as in a "union of minds".[8] For Curley, the main thesis of Spinoza's moral and political philosophy is that what is most useful to us is "living in a community with other people, and binding ourselves to our fellow citizens ... 'to make us one people'".[9][b] But to do so rationally and virtuously is a supreme challenge.[10][c] The individual's task in the Ethics—to overcome bondage to the passions—became the task of the entire community in Spinoza's political philosophy.[10]
"Multitude" followed Spinoza's somewhat distinct but comparable use of "vulgus" or "crowd" in earlier works.[12][d] In the TP, "vulgus" is largely replaced by multitude, "plebs" ("ordinary people" or "plebeians"), or populus ("people").[13][e] It has been translated with negative connotations as "the mob", "the rabble", or "the vulgar", but Curley advised against these translations with the exception of "the mob" in some political contexts.[3] Curley wrote that Spinoza often applied the term not only to people whose capacity and views he considered unreliable, but also in contrast to philosophers.[3] However, Spinoza also occasionally wrote of a "vulgus of philosophers".[3] Curley generally translated vulgus as "the common people".[15]
Spinoza's interpreters
Spinoza's concept of the multitude is distinct from its later, radically democratic or even revolutionary interpretation by Hardt and Negri, which forms a counterweight to Spinoza's more negative dispositions toward the "vulgus".[16] On the Right, Leo Strauss emphasized Spinoza's fear of the masses in his more general understanding of political philosophy as a manual for the elite.[17] Indeed, Spinoza asked unprepared commoners not to read his TTP, arguing that it would exceed their limitations and be misinterpreted (though he is arguably most positive about democracy in this work).[18]
Strauss's orientation may be seen in some secondary literature on Spinoza, including that of Raia Prokhovnik, Alexandre Matheron, Steven B. Smith, and Étienne Balibar (to some extent).[17] Matheron, Prokhovnik, and Smith argued that Spinoza ultimately rejected democracy in the TP.[17] Matheron and Prokhovnik argued that he may have endorsed aristocracy as the best possibility, given the antinomy (or at least the unresolved tension) he identified between democracy and reason.[12] Smith identified this aristocracy as a philosophical clerisy.[12] Ericka Tucker cast doubt on this interpretation.[f] Curley cautioned that "many" or "probably most" contemporary Spinoza scholars reject Strauss's views.[28]
Balibar was more nuanced.[12] He merely agreed that Spinoza expressed fear of the labile masses.[12] But Balibar proposed that Spinoza's pro-democratic arguments, though marred, nonetheless stood.[12]
Tucker acknowledged substantial evidence throughout Spinoza's work supporting broad consensus about his fears, but she cautioned that Spinoza's attitude toward the multitude was complex and vacillating, as well as deeply connected with his views on democracy.[12] She proposed that Spinoza ultimately developed a theory of the multitude as something to be understood, not feared, to sustain institutions, peace, and prosperity within democratic states.[29]
Spinoza's historical context
Spinoza's concerns were animated by civil instability in the Dutch Republic, specifically during the First Stadtholderless Period and in the aftermath of the Rampjaar.[30] A bona fide, if strained, period of "new freedom" and tolerance was disrupted by riots and war, including the Anglo-Dutch Wars and Franco-Dutch War.[31] This culminated in the lynching of the De Witt brothers of the Loevestein faction, against whom the Calvinists of the Dutch Reformed Church and Orangists were allied.[30]
Spinoza was convinced that Calvinist ministers deliberately fomented moral panics among their congregations.[32] He wrote to Henry Oldenburg in 1665 that he worked to counter the "prejudices of theologians", citing them as "the main obstacles to ... philosoph[izing]".[33] Thus he sought to "expos[e] such prejudices and remov[e] them from the minds of sensible people".[34] He aimed to "vindicate completely" the freedom to philosophize, "for here it is in every way suppressed by the excessive authority and egotism of the preachers".[35][g]
Spinoza's works
Young Spinoza hoped for the improvement of common people in the Tractatus de Intellectus Emendatione (TIE), who he referred to as the "vulgus" before better theorizing the "multitude" in the TP.[45] His attitudes changed over time, as may be seen in his work.[46] These complex changes reflected both the logical refinement of his thought and the developing events of his historical context.[46]
In mid-1660s Amsterdam, Spinoza became fearful amid civil instability, including riots, throughout the United Provinces. In attending to politics, his fear arguably settled into resignation as he began to consider the situation in terms of the role of the multitude.[46] He sought to understand the affects (or the confused ideas) of the people.[46] His aim was to help establish peaceful governance and to help the state develop more stable institutions.[46]
Spinoza used "vulgus" in a distinctly slighting way in the Ethics and TTP,[47] among other texts. He wrote in the Ethics that the "vulgus" is "terrifying if unafraid", showing a concern for crowd psychology.[48][k] Balibar, Warren Montag, Justin Steinberg, and Tucker read Spinoza as deliberately ambiguous here, referring to the fear of the masses as that which they felt and inspired.[50]
Tractatus de intellectus emendatione (TIE)
In the TIE, Spinoza expressed concern and hope for the vulgus.[51] He sought to identify the path to the good life, or eudaimonia.[51] He considered the immediate or ostentatious materialistic concerns of the vulgus[52] and recommended the pursuit of knowledge and love of God, "the end for which I [myself] strive".[53] He regarded the vulgus more with concern than disapproval, and he held out the hope that "many should acquire [this view] along with me".[53] He argued that the improvement of education, medicine, and social order would be not only virtuous, but also instrumental in raising the vulgus to higher things and better capabilities.[53]
Tractatus theologico-politicus (TTP)
Spinoza paused work on the Ethics to begin the TTP.[54] In writing the TTP, Spinoza had become fearful of the vulgus amid riots and civil instability, as well as wars.[31] These events were marked by political factionalism and culminated in the Rampjaar.[31] Spinoza was specifically concerned about the excessive role of religion in politics and the threat to philosophy or freedom of thought.[55]
Democracy was the "most natural" and "best" form of state in Spinoza's TTP.[56] He argued that it was the kind of civitas most likely to result in freedom and peace, which he elevated as the chief aims of the state.[57] Tucker noted that democracy requires "the people, the masses, the vulgus".[46] Many thus observed as an apparent tension in Spinoza's political philosophy that the vulgus must give rise to the "best" state.[46]
Tractatus politicus (TP)
Spinoza's mature political theory in the TP made reference to his theories of affects and power from the Ethics.[46] "Multitude" became a properly technical term in the TP, and Spinoza sought to frame a path by which the multitude (like individuals in the Ethics) could be ruled less by fear.[46]
Whereas in the TTP democracy was the "freest" or "most natural" government, in the TP it became the "most absolute" or "best" because it best preserved natural rights and had the most power of any civitas.[58] However, the purpose of the state was no longer freedom, but rather prosperity and stability, requiring absolute power.[59] Thus many twentieth-century commentators felt Spinoza effectively abandoned democracy.[51]
Tucker and others instead saw Spinoza as developing his theories of affects, power, and the multitude.[51] In Spinoza's typical, semantically revisionist sense, argued J. Steinberg, this "absolute" power was simply that of a sovereign as in principle greater than that of the church, as defined in relation to (and sometimes constrained by) that of the multitude, and as necessarily limited or finite in an immanent and naturalistic sense (i.e., in the same way as "Deus ..." is rendered "... sive Natura" in the Ethics, though Spinoza specifically clarified that "Kings are not Gods, but men").[60]
For Spinoza, the multitude's power simply arose from that of individuals in their aggregation and organization.[61] He argued that natural right was coextensive with power and drew relations between the individual and the sovereign, and between the multitude and the entire state.[62]
In Spinoza's account, the multitude's power was determined not only by its individuals in number, but also by their mode of agreement.[63] Passive affects like fear and less adequate ideas were disempowering. Active affects like joy united the multitude, and along with more adequate ideas were more empowering.[63] To empower more of the multitude, Spinoza recommended democracy, however broadly conceived, as the best form of government.[63] He proposed large, deliberative, popular councils for its institutions, postulating their epistemic advantage.[63]
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Contemporary philosophy
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Since the 20th century, the concept has been revived within broadly Marxist philosophy to describe a new model of resistance against global systems of power. Hardt and Negri describe it as such in Empire (2000), expanding upon this description in Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire (2004). Other theorists to use the term include those associated with Autonomism, like Sylvère Lotringer and Paolo Virno. Still others are connected with the eponymous French journal Multitudes, including Laurent Bove and Pierre-François Moreau.
Hardt and Negri
Negri describes the multitude in his The Savage Anomaly as an unmediated, revolutionary, immanent, and positive collective social subject which can found a "nonmystified" form of democracy (p. 194). In his more recent writings with Michael Hardt, however, he does not so much offer a direct definition, but presents the concept through a series of mediations. In Empire it is mediated by the concept of Empire (the new global constitution that Negri and Hardt describe as a copy of Polybius's description of Roman government):
New figures of struggle and new subjectivities are produced in the conjecture of events, in the universal nomadism ... . They are not posed merely against the imperial system—they are not simply negative forces. They also express, nourish, and develop positively their own constituent projects. ... This constituent aspect of the movement of the multitude, in its myriad faces, is really the positive terrain of the historical construction of Empire, ... an antagonistic and creative positivity. The deterritorializing power of the multitude is the productive force that sustains Empire and at the same time the force that calls for and makes necessary its destruction.[64]
They were vague as to this "positive" or "constituent" aspect of the multitude:[65]
Certainly, there must be a moment when reappropriation [of wealth from capital] and self-organization [of the multitude] reach a threshold and configure a real event. This is when the political is really affirmed—when the genesis is complete and self-valorization, the cooperative convergence of subjects, and the proletarian management of production become a constituent power. ... We do not have any models to offer for this event. Only the multitude through its practical experimentation will offer the models and determine when and how the possible becomes real.[66]
In their sequel Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire they still refrain from a clear definition of the concept but approach the concept through mediation of a host of "contemporary" phenomena, most importantly the new type of postmodern war they postulate and the history of post-WWII resistance movements. It remains a rather vague concept which is assigned a revolutionary potential without much theoretical substantiation apart from a generic potential of love.
Criticism
In the Introduction to Virno's A Grammar of the Multitude, Lotringer criticized Hardt's and Negri's use of the concept for its ostensible return to dialectical dualism.
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