My dissertation examines the question of the justification of political resistance in Spinoza's philosophy. More specifically, its purpose is to determine whether or not Spinoza regards political resistance as harmonizing with the dictates of reason, where the latter amount to prudential counsels for maximizing one's "power to exist". Having demonstrated the partial validity of the 'conservative' interpretation of Spinoza's ethico-rational politics – according to which reason commands strict obedience to political authorities – I go on to challenge its near-hegemonic status in the secondary literature by extracting from Spinoza's Ethics and political treatises a conditional, ethico-rational justification for political resistance. The ultimate criterion for the ethico-rational validation of an act of resistance is the empowerment of its agent(s). Since one's true empowerment is, in Spinoza's view, inextricably related to the empowerment of all those with whom one's life is intertwined, and the chief source of personal empowerment is the rational understanding of nature's causal order, it follows that any act of resistance ought to contribute to an increase in the cognitive powers of the greatest number (including, ideally, those against whom it is directed). On the basis of the fact that, by Spinoza's own reckoning, the philosophical critique of prejudices through the development of adequate ideas regarding their constitution can serve to undermine the disempowering forms of rule that depend upon them, I contend that the critique of prejudices is the ethico-rationally justified form of resistance par excellence. Thus, a State is only organized rationally if it secures institutional 'spaces' for the exercise of this form of resistance as part of its normal functioning. Finally, I maintain that active civil disobedience subverting a political regime that prohibits the continuous exercise of resistance-as-critique is not only justified but is akin to a duty if individuals are to live up to Spinoza's paradigm of rationality, the “wise” or “free” person. / Notre travail se penche sur la question de la justification de la résistance politique dans la pensée philosophique de Spinoza. Plus exactement, il a pour but de déterminer si, selon Spinoza, la résistance politique s'accorde avec les préceptes de la raison, ces derniers étant compris comme conseils prudentiels en vue de la maximisation de notre « pouvoir d'exister ». Après avoir démontré la validité partielle de l'interprétation conservatrice prédominante de la politique « éthico-rationnelle » de Spinoza – selon laquelle la raison recommande une obéissance absolue à toute autorité politique – je lui dispute son statut hégémonique dans la littérature secondaire en dégageant de l'Éthique et des traités politiques de Spinoza une justification éthique conditionnelle de la résistance politique. Le critère de légitimation ultime d'un acte de résistance est que ce dernier contribue à augmenter le pouvoir de son (ou ses) sujet(s). Puisque, d'abord, l'augmentation de notre pouvoir est, aux yeux de Spinoza, étroitement liée à l'augmentation du pouvoir de tous, et qu'ensuite, la source principale de cette augmentation réside dans la compréhension rationnelle de l'ordre causal de la nature, il s'ensuit que n'importe quel acte de résistance politique doit contribuer à l'augmentation du pouvoir cognitif du plus grand nombre possible (incluant, idéalement, ceux et celles contre lesquels l'acte est dirigé). Partant du fait que, selon l'avis de Spinoza lui-même, la critique philosophique des préjugés par moyen de la formation d'idées adéquates quant à leur genèse serait à même de saper le pouvoir des régimes qui en dépendent, nous suggérons que la critique des préjugés est la forme par excellence d'une résistance éthiquement justifiable. Par conséquent, un État n'est organisé de façon rationnelle que s'il se porte garant d'espaces institutionnels permettant le déploiement de cette forme de résistance au sein de son fonctionnement normal. Finalement, nous affirmons que la résistance politique active ayant pour objectif le renversement d'un régime politique qui pose obstacle à l'exercice continu de la résistance-cum-critique est non seulement justifiée, mais se veut un devoir moral – dans le sens que Spinoza prête à ce terme – pour quiconque souhaiterait incarner, dans la mesure du possible, le modèle spinoziste de l'homme libre, du Sage.

A puzzle about some of the basic commitments of Leibniz's metaphysics is that they fail to come anywhere near approaching the self-evidence one should expect of metaphysical principles. Notwithstanding that Leibniz's adherence to Christian theology has not generally been granted as having had a decisive impact on his metaphysics, the latter, in fact, was largely the result of a life-long project to give a comprehensive rational defense of Christianity. In particular, a close study of four theological commitments and six metaphysical commitments in the context of Leibniz's thought reveals that the former are in a sense more basic than, are motivationally prior to, the latter. Namely: that God the perfect being exists, that Real Presence is true, that the Lutheran, Catholic, and perhaps even Calvinist accounts of the Eucharist are compatible, and that Original Sin is true. Each had a resolute impact on the formation of Leibniz's metaphysical commitments: that the actual world is the best possible world, that teleological explanation is indispensible for scientific understanding, that the substance of body is not its extension but its active principle, that natures are complete concepts, that there are no material atoms, and that actual substances were created all at once. It is not surprising that Leibniz's best-possible-world theory and his commitment to the universal applicability of teleology have their roots in his commitment to the existence of God the perfect being. But it is also the case that his anti-materialist stance on substances was formed in defense of Real Presence and in response to a reconciliatory envisionment of the Eucharist that could resolve denominational disputes; that his commitment to natures as complete concepts and his anti-atomism derive largely from a commitment to God's omniscience; and that his commitment to the all-at-once creation of substances stems from his attempts to understand Original Sin. In short, Leibniz's metaphysics is Revelation-inspired. Yet although there are some good reasons in favor of calling it a "Christian metaphysics", as he had hoped, there are some serious drawbacks to its being considered such.

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