权力的游戏——马基雅维里与斯宾诺莎的政治哲学比较

The Play of Power:A Comparative Analysis of Machiavelli and Spinoza’s Political Philosophy

马基雅维里与斯宾诺莎这两位早期现代政治哲学家对于人性与权力的基本看法有着共识与内在分歧。马基雅维里批评和拒斥了传统道德哲学对于人性和政治的目的论式的理解,把人类的政治世界看成一场获取和维持权力的永恒游戏。斯宾诺莎则是将马基雅维里的这一思想推到极端,他认为:包括人类政治世界在内的整个自然世界都是一个永恒的权力的游戏,在其中人和万物都为自己的生存而尽可能地追求权力。但是,就像阿尔都塞所说的,马基雅维里之后的现代自然法哲学家,如霍布斯、洛克和普芬多夫等,又建构了一种新的道德秩序,以此来掩盖人类政治世界的权力的游戏这一事实。与之类似,斯宾诺莎也试图通过一种理性的沉思,也就是对于上帝的“理智之爱”,来超越人类政治世界的权力的游戏。

This paper aims to discuss the two early modern political philosophers Machiavelli and Spinoza’s basic views on human nature and power,and to give a comparative analysis of their consensus and differences.This paper argues that Machiavelli criticized and rejected the teleological view of human nature and politics in traditional moral philosophy,and regarded human political world as an eternal play of acquiring and maintaining power.Spinoza pushed Machiavelli’s thought to the extreme,believing that the whole natural world,including the human political world,is an eternal play of power,in which human beings and all other things strive for power for their own survival.However,as Althusser said,modern philosophers of natural law after Machiavelli,such as Hobbes,Locke and Pufendorf,have constructed a new moral order to cover up the fact that the human political world is an eternal play of power.Similarly,Spinoza also tried to transcend the play of power in the human political world through a rational contemplation,that is,the“intellectual love”of God.