Comments on the freedom of teaching and the right to resist in Spinoza

Abstract

The following text addresses some problems relating to freedom of teaching and speech, a topic discussed in depth in the twentieth chapter of Spinoza’s Theological-Political Treatise, and specifically addressed in other passages of his work. I am interested in relating freedom of teaching and speech to the right of resistance (as we can understand it in Spinoza’s work) in three moments: a preamble, which presents the line of interpretation that is developed in the article and connect the problems; a second part, in which I deal with the problem of interpretation and the theological and political meanings of teaching; finally, a third part, in which the determinations of teaching are connected to the politically constitutive reality of the right to resistance. At the end, there is a small conclusion that points out directions for the research of which this article is part.