Diss. Uppsala : Uppsala universitet, 2008.

[pt] O trabalho ora apresentado propõe-se a oferecer esforços no sentido da compreensão daquilo que tão vagamente se denomina natureza humana. De um modo geral, o homem é definido pela filosofia moderna como sujeito capaz de produzir sentido para as coisas e, nessa medida, conhecer e organizar o mundo, ou seja, é definido a partir de sua faculdade intelectual (ou razão), o que o distinguiria dos demais seres da natureza. Nosso objeto é a concepção de tal natureza humana tal qual delineada pelo pensamento setecentista, estruturado sobre sua perspectiva antropocêntrica e racionalista. Contudo, confrontamos tal perspectiva àquela de Baruch de Spinoza, permitindo-nos lançar novas luzes sobre as condições da individuação, bem como - a partir da introdução da teoria dos afetos - retirar da razão o privilégio de conduzir e determinar a subjetivação. A aproximação com o pensamento de Spinoza dá-se sobretudo por meio da Ética, especialmente de suas partes I e III, em que o filósofo constrói respectivamente sua ontologia e sua teoria dos afetos. Deste modo, pretende-se confrontar concepções acerca do indivíduo que, em última análise, implicam também diferentes concepções de ordem ontológica. / [en] The present work is the result of a struggle towards the comprehension of what is so vaguely named human nature. For modern philosophy in general, Man is defined by its capacity of giving meaning to things and therefore acknowledging and organizing the world - or, in other words, by its intellectual faculty (reason) - which make this species differ from all others among nature. Our object is the conception of such human nature as shaped by the seventeenth century philosophy, built over an anthropocentric and rationalist perspective. We confront this conception to the one of Baruch Spinoza, which allows us to enlighten the conditions of individuation, shifting from reason to affects as the elements mainly responsible for such process. The use of Spinoza s philosophy is focused at the Ethics, especially Parts I and IV, in which Spinoza builds his ontology and his theory of affects. Thus, our intention is to compare these comprehensions of human nature which correspondingly imply different ontological theories.

The subject of this paper is an analysis of the fundamental principles of Spinoza's ontology, as presented primarily in the first book of Ethics. There is a parallel effort to outline a conceptual scheme, which could render this ontology in a well arranged manner. The heart of the text consists in a study of some of the important metaphysical categories, that define the space of Spinoza's substantial ontology. Namely the concepts of quantity and difference, existence and causality, immanence and finiteness. These categories represent somewhat generalised line of argumentation, in the course of which some of the traditional problems of the research in Spinoza's metaphysics will be covered. For example, the problem of shared attribute or the question of the substance-attribute relation. In the final part this will lead to an interpretation, based on the previous findings, of how nature follows from God and relates to him. 1

Submitted by Renata Lopes (renatasil82@gmail.com) on 2016-02-23T15:47:59Z No. of bitstreams: 1 luizalbertosilvestredonascimento.pdf: 1708915 bytes, checksum: 38c8daf4471ed6f76d5fa820f8d53c0f (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Adriana Oliveira (adriana.oliveira@ufjf.edu.br) on 2016-02-26T15:01:51Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 luizalbertosilvestredonascimento.pdf: 1708915 bytes, checksum: 38c8daf4471ed6f76d5fa820f8d53c0f (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-02-26T15:01:51Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 luizalbertosilvestredonascimento.pdf: 1708915 bytes, checksum: 38c8daf4471ed6f76d5fa820f8d53c0f (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014-03-24 / FAPEMIG - Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de Minas Gerais / Esta pesquisa parte do tema principal Corpo e Literatura – a Palavra em estado de arte, arte com a Palavra como experiência decisivamente humana. A Palavra, mesmo que impalpável, mas que tem a potência de compor mundos, de possibilitar compormo-nos com o outro e conosco mesmos. A Palavra aqui é a que não se limita apenas a nomear, mas é Palavra que confere existência, produz uma Ética de existência. E a palavra, assim, em sua potência nunca é pronta e nem pode estar pronta, mas está sempre a arranjar-se nos encontros. Assim também o Corpo – nunca se sabe o que pode um corpo, de que afetos ele é capaz. O Corpo constitui-se e aos seus afetos nos encontros, nas afecções, vai sendo afetado por todos os lados por uma infinidade de relações, a cada instante, a todo instante. O Corpo – uma zona aberta afetiva. O afeto – a avaliação, o efeito dos encontros de um Corpo. Assim, a Palavra de um Corpo diz de seu existir nos encontros, diz dos seus afetos. Tomar uma Escola como Corpo. Ouvir a Palavra que circula e se cria constantemente, diz dos encontros, dos afetos, da potência de agir de um Corpo-Escola. Ouvir de um Corpo-Escola a Palavra falada, escrita, dada a ler, a escrever, a pensar e, daí, poder entender melhor as relações de um Corpo-Escola consigo mesma, com o outro e com o mundo num processo ininterrupto com a Vida. Para essa experiência investigativa da e com a Palavra de um Corpo-Escola pensamos com a Filosofia, fundamentalmente com Spinoza, e com a Literatura. Desses encontros, então, o ensejo de um exercício de escrita Cartográfica da experiência de acontecimentos, da processualidade das afecções e dos afetos que atravessam a produção da pesquisa que implicam e complicam a Educação e um Corpo-Escola numa Ética imanente à Vida absolutamente infinita. / This research is the main theme Body and Literature - the Word in a state of art, with the Word as decisively human experience. The Word, even though impalpable, but it has the power to compose worlds, to enable us constitute with others and with ourselves. The Word here is not just limited to name, but it is the Word that confers existence, produces an Ethics of existence. And the word thus in his power is never ready and can’t be ready, but it's always to get us meetings, in relations. So the body - you never know what can a body, that affects it is capable. The Body is constituted and its affects in the encounters, affections, will be affected by all sides by a multitude of relationships, every moment. The Body - an affective open zone. Affection - assessing the effect of one body encounters. Thus, the Word says a body exists in its encounters, says of his affections. Taking a School as a Body. Hear the Word that creates and circulates constantly says the encounters, the affections, the power to act of a body – in this case a School. Listen from a Body-School - the spoken word, writing, given to reading, writing, thinking, and hence to better understand the relationships of a Body - school herself, with others and with the world in a continuous process with full of life. For this investigative experience with the word of a Body-School, we think with Philosophy, fundamentally with Spinoza, and with Literature. These encounters, then the opportunity write and exercise one Cartographic experience of events, the processuality of affections and emotions running through this investigation in one production wherein involve and complicate a Body-School and Education an Ethics in the Life immanent and absolutely infinite.

L'Éthique de Spinoza est traversée par une tension entre la centralité reconnue au corps sur le plan théorique et sa relative marginalisation sur le plan textuel. D'un côté, l'Éthique affirme explicitement l'impossibilité de séparer la connaissance que nous avons de l'esprit de celle que nous avons du corps. C'est pour cette raison que la deuxième partie de cette œuvre − dédiée à la nature et à l'origine de l'esprit − confère au corps le rôle de protagoniste dans la longue section textuelle que l’on a coutume d'appeler "Abrégé de physique". D'un autre côté, la volonté d'indiquer au lecteur la voie qui peut le conduire à la liberté et au bonheur « de l'esprit » impose à tout l'exposé spinozien une perspective tendanciellement mentale, dans laquelle la présence du corps se dissipe pour devenir plus disséminée et feutrée. Le but de ma thèse est d’aborder le défi interprétatif induit par ce jeu de présences et d’absences, de dits et de non-dits, et de restaurer la centralité du corps dans le système spinozien en reconstruisant les usages et les significations des références à la corporéité qui sont éparpillées tout le long du texte. À cette fin, mon enquête commence par l'éclaircissement de la tâche assignée à l'Abrégé de physique (Introduction). Elle se poursuit le long de trois itinéraires qui serpentent autour des notions de « individuum » (Section I), « motus spontaneus corporis » (Section II), « fabrica » et « constitutio » (Section III). Elle s’achève sur l'analyse de la fonction cachée du corps et de sa durée dans l'« amour intellectuel de Dieu ». / Scattered throughout the Ethics of Spinoza is the tension between the centrality afforded to the theoretical recognition of the body and its relative textual marginalization. On the one hand, the Ethics explicitly asserts the impossibility of separating our knowledge of the mind from that of the body. For that reason, the second part of theEthics – dedicated to the nature and the origin of the mind – confers on the body the role of a protagonist in the long textual section. On the other hand, the desire to lead readers toward freedom and happiness “of the mind” imposes on all Spinozian philosophy a tendential mental perspective in which the presence of the body becomes more dispersed and blurred. The purpose of my dissertation is to approach the interpretative challenge inferred by this duality of presences and absences, of the said and the unsaid, and to restore the centrality of the body in the Spinozian system by reconstructing the argumentative functions and the rethoric strategies through which the references to corporeity appear in the text.To this end, my inquiry begins with the clarification of the task assigned to the so-called 'Summary of Physics' (Introduction). It then takes up three independent but intertwining directions around the notions of “individuum” (Section I) “motus spontaneous corporis” (Section II), “fabrica” and “constitutio” (Section III) to terminate with an analysis of the hidden role of the body and its duration in the “intellectual love of God.” Each of these routes addresses certain hitherto little studied details that form part of the “minor lexicon” of Spinozian philosophy, to restore the conceptual network to which they belong and to enlighten their systematic meaning.

Galilée (1564-1642) a introduit dans son Il Saggiatore (1623) une nouvelle conception du corps. L’ontologie et la théorie de la connaissance des corps de Spinoza peuvent être conçues comme une réponse à Galilée. En effet, le philosophe hollandais répète de nombreuses fois que les qualités sensibles n’appartiennent pas aux corps en soi. En outre, il précise que les idées des affections sont des idées inadéquates qui représentent plutôt le corps affecté que les corps affectants. Néanmoins, Spinoza (1632-1677) donne une interprétation tout à fait particulière de cette conception galiléenne. Comme il le précise dans sa définition de l’Abrégé de physique, un corps en soi est un ensemble de parties qui sont unies par un rapport mutuel de mouvement et de repos. Ce ratio est à concevoir comme une nature, une proportion ou une loi physique d’un corps. Par sa nouvelle conception du corps, Galilée a dépassé la distinction ontologique entre les corps artificiels et les corps naturels, ouvrant la voie à l’application des modèles et des analogies. A première vue, Spinoza n’applique pas le modèle du pendule. Néanmoins, une étude plus détaillée dévoile l’importance de la physique de l’horloge pendulaire (inventée par Galilée et perfectionnée par Chr. Huygens) dans la conception spinoziste du corps. Dans sa définition du corps de l’E1, Spinoza conçoit le corps dans sa relation avec l’essence de Dieu. Néanmoins, dans sa CM, il a introduit le conatus ou l’essence d’une chose en donnant le paradigme d’un corps en mouvement. Comme Galilée l’avait démontré, le mouvement est essentiellement une force. Spinoza a généralisé cette idée de force, comme il l’a fait avec l’idée de loi de la nature. / In Il Saggiatore (1623), Galileo (1564-1642) introduced a novel conception of the body. Spinoza’s ontology and epistemology can be viewed as original responses to this. Indeed, the author of the Ethics writes repeatedly that sensible qualities do not belong to the body as such. Moreover, he clearly states that the ideas of affections are inadequate, representing much less the intrinsic properties of external bodies than the affected body itself. However, Spinoza (1632-1677) gives a very particular interpretation of the Galilean conception. As he makes clear in his Physical Interlude, a body consists in a group of parts united by a mutual relation of motion and rest. Furthermore, this relation is to conceived as a nature, proportion or physical law of the body. By means of his new conception, Galileo radically upended the ontological distinction between artificial and natural bodies, which opened the door to the application of models and analogies for the explanation of natural phenomena. At a first glance, Spinoza does not apply the model of the pendulum clock, which was a leading model of the 17th century. However, a closer look reveals the importance of the physics of the pendulum clock (invented by Galileo and perfected by Christian Huygens) for Spinoza’s conception of the body. In his definition in E1, Spinoza conceives of the body in its relation to the essence of God. In his CM, however, he had introduced the conatus, or the essence of a thing, in terms of the paradigm of the body in motion. As Galileo had shown, motion is essentially a force. Spinoza generalized this notion of force, just as he generalized the idea of the law of nature.

<p>This thesis deals with the concepts of individual and individuation as defined by Leibniz and Spinoza. I go through the use and definition of the concept of individual in four stages.</p><p>First I discuss the individual as conceived by Spinoza as a relation formed by a composition of parts and the individual as conceived by Leibniz as a complete notion consisting of all the events in the life of a subject.</p><p>Next is the roll of perception in Leibniz discussed, likewise individuation through different perception with varying distinctness, and the affinity of perception with affection.</p><p>The discussions concerning the individual concludes in a section about the essence of the individual as being the desire of the individual. In the last stage, I discuss the multitude as being an own individual.</p> / <p>Den här uppsatsen handlar om individ och individuation som det definieras hos Leibniz och Spinoza. Jag följer användandet och definitionen av individ i fyra etapper.</p><p>Först diskuterar jag Spinozas individ som relationen av en sammansättning av delar och Leibniz individ som en fullständig notion bestående av alla händelser i ett subjekts liv.</p><p>Därefter diskuteras perceptionens roll hos Leibniz, liksom individuation genom olika tydliga perceptioner, samt perceptionens affinitet med affektionen.</p><p>För individens del mynnar diskussionerna ut i en del om individens essens i form av dess begär. Den sista etappen diskuterar mångfalden såsom en egen individ.</p>

This thesis deals with the concepts of individual and individuation as defined by Leibniz and Spinoza. I go through the use and definition of the concept of individual in four stages. First I discuss the individual as conceived by Spinoza as a relation formed by a composition of parts and the individual as conceived by Leibniz as a complete notion consisting of all the events in the life of a subject. Next is the roll of perception in Leibniz discussed, likewise individuation through different perception with varying distinctness, and the affinity of perception with affection. The discussions concerning the individual concludes in a section about the essence of the individual as being the desire of the individual. In the last stage, I discuss the multitude as being an own individual. / Den här uppsatsen handlar om individ och individuation som det definieras hos Leibniz och Spinoza. Jag följer användandet och definitionen av individ i fyra etapper. Först diskuterar jag Spinozas individ som relationen av en sammansättning av delar och Leibniz individ som en fullständig notion bestående av alla händelser i ett subjekts liv. Därefter diskuteras perceptionens roll hos Leibniz, liksom individuation genom olika tydliga perceptioner, samt perceptionens affinitet med affektionen. För individens del mynnar diskussionerna ut i en del om individens essens i form av dess begär. Den sista etappen diskuterar mångfalden såsom en egen individ.

Rosa Ricci Summary of the PHD Dissertation: Religious Nonconformity and cultural Dynamics: The Case of the Dutch Collegiants There is ample reason to engage in research around the Collegiants, a minority religious movement in the Netherlands of the 17th century. An exploration of this topic can be interesting not only for a contribution to the history of Religion but also to understand the development of some central concept in the early modernity. Prominent, in this research, is the question that initially stirred my personal interest in the Collegiantism; i.e. to define and understand the religious and cultural background that represents the practical field of confrontation of Baruch Spinoza\'s philosophy. This historiographical question had the purpose of highlighting the relationship between Spinoza and the religious movements of his time in order to fully understand the public to whom he addressed his texts. Collegiants, however, constitute an interesting field of research not only for the study of Spinoza, but widely to understand the cultural and social dynamic of the Dutch Golden Age, a backdrop against which emerged a new idea of religion. This dissertation is not exploring a curiosity or an inconsistent exception in the history of the 17th century, but rather the centrality of a group that was influenced by and largely influenced its Dutch social, political and religious context. One of the major problems in capturing the significance of the Collegiants arises from the difficulty in defining this movement, which chose never to formulate a confession of faith and consciously refused to be classified within a specific Church, sect, or congregation. The name, Collegiants, was not the consequence of an active choice but a label that arose, together with that of Rijnsburgers, in the polemic pamphlets of the epoch. The difficulties to define such elusive religious group make, however, the Collegiants a fascinating field of research. In this dissertation the Collegaints are termed a “movement” in order to emphasize their explicit lacks of norms or model and to highlight the continual change and redefinition of their religious identity. This process can be properly defined using Deleuze\'s concept of becoming minorities: Les minorités et les majorités ne se distinguent pas par le nombre. Une minorité peut être plus nombreuse qu\'une majorité. Ce qui définit la majorité, c\'est un modèle auquel il faut être conforme [...] Tandis qu\'une minorité n\'a pas de modèle, c\'est un devenir, un processus [...] Quand une minorité se crée des modèles, c\'est parce qu\'elle veut devenir majoritaire, et c\'est sans doute inévitable pour sa survie ou son salut. This definition can help us to see both the positive and the productive side of the Collegiant movement, even thought it defined itself negatively in order to protest against the institutional Church and normative religion. The Collegiants were involved in this process of “devenir minoritaire” in a highly conscious way. They decided willfully to avoid strict affiliation to Churches or congregations and criticized explicitly the necessity of an identitarian definition. It can hardly be denied, indeed, that the religious reflection of the Collegiants was characterized by the conscientious refusal to construct a model or a norm to which they could refer. In this dissertation the term “minority” will therefore be used, always in reference to this concept, without drawing too much stress to the effective number of the Collegiants\' members. This question appear, indeed, misleading because it does not take into account the position that Collegiants\' member occupied in the economic, political and intellectual life of the United Provinces. It is the case of a group which, indeed, demonstrated in several occasions its deep influence in the Dutch religious life. Collegiants\' continuous efforts towards de-institutionalization and their aspiration to an egalitarian and democratic religious life have to be conceived as an invitation to their coeval confessions, to undertake the way of evolving minorities renouncing whichever exclusivity and authority. The articulation of the Collegiants\' proposal can be appreciated by studying the different lines of thought that emerged clearly from their texts. Most of Collegiants\' publications were polemical or written to answer specific accusations. Within the enormous number of sources that can be included in Collegiants\' works emerge a limited number of arguments. The question of religious organization, tolerance, freedom of speech and the epistemological approach in reading the Scriptures; these arguments can be taken as guidelines to understanding and defining the nature of the movement. These sources present arguments and concepts that we can take to be the Collegiants\' stance on religious life and belief. Some arguments, however, emerged with particularly force because of the sanction of the Church orthodoxy. Tolerance, free-prophecy and egalitarian and anti-authoritarian tendencies were sensitive points to which the Church or Congregations reacted with particularly vehemence, sensing a threat to their institutional power. The Chapter 5 of this dissertation are dedicated to the enumeration of these arguments. Each chapter presents a specific theoretical core and question. However the chapters are not self-conclusive because the various problematics encountered in the study of Collegiants overlap each other in continuous cross-reference and this gives rise to a kaleidoscopic effect. The concepts debated in this dissertation can be fully understood only in relation to each other, as they emerge to construct a semantic constellation useful to their contextualization. Each chapter, furthermore, comes to focus on one or more texts that are considered exemplary or representative of a particular tendency in the Collegiants´history. This methodology wants to underline how the constant redefinition of the Collegiants\' identity is always a matter of personal as well as collective choice, of internal debate and external polemic. An emphasis on the intentionality of Collegiants\' behaviour is particularly important in understanding which specific choice they made to contrast the authoritarian and exclusive vision of the religious life. These choices are well reflected in the use of a specific vocabulary and in the emergence of specific concepts that can be considered as key guideline to identifying some stable points in the shifting nature of the Collegiants. The first chapter of this dissertation delineates an initial general history of the movement together with the ground on which the Collegiants built their vision of belief: the question about Church organization. The chapter refers directly to the practical organization of the Collegiant movement, an egalitarian and anti-charismatic religious life which involved considerations of power and identity. This specific position, with its high level of nonexclusivity and anticharismatic consciousness, makes Collegiants movement an exception in the pluralist world of 17th century Holland and marked their difference to the constellation of Dutch reformation. Although some Collegiants\' demeanor mirrored the progressive individualization of cults and beliefs, they accorded central importance to the community, the context in which their religious ideal of confrontation and discussion was realized. The first attempt to write an exhaustive history of the rise and development of the Rijnsburgers was made by a Remonstrant preacher, Paschier de Fijne. He was the first opponent of the Collegiants; his book, Kort, waerachtigh, en getrouw Varhael van het eerste Begin en Opkomen van de Nieuwe Sekte der Propheten ofte Rynsburgers in het dorp Warmont anno 1619 en 1620 (Brief, truthful, and faithful history of the beginning and origin of the new sect of the Prophet of Rijnsburg in the village of Warmont), published anonymously in 1671 by his son, expresses his critical position vis à vis the Rijnsburgers. Besides representing the first opposition to the Collegiants, this work constitutes an important source because the author attended the first Collegiant\' assembly (the Rijnsburgers\' vergadering). In particular it describes the way in which this first meeting took place. For the first complete history of the Collegiant movement, however, we have to wait until 1775 when the Histoire der Rijnburgsche Vergadering (History of Rijnsburg\'s assembly), written by the Collegiant Elias van Nijmegen, appeared in Rotterdam. Both these sources are key instruments for reconstructing and understanding how Collegiants organized their assemblies, and how they achieved an acharismatic meeting, through debate and free-exegesis. These testimonies, which embrace a whole century, have, however, the demerit of representing the Collegiant\' vergadering (assembly) as an eccentric but defined ritual. What emerges, on the other hand, from Collegiants internal debate is that the conduct of the meeting supper, the organization of religious life, the definition of free-exegesis and the limitation of free speech were all subject to constant argument and discussion inside the movement. These concerns emerge in a fragmentary way in the manifold sources that discuss the nature of free-prophecy, tolerance and ecclesiology. In the polemic with Bredenburg, the Bredenburgse twisten, the debate about tolerance involved the discussion of women’s role in the vergadering and the reflections on free-prophecy indirectly interrogate the charismatic nature of the organization. Another important characteristic of the Collegiant\' movement, delineate in the first chapter, is the autonomous and independent development of the single collegia. City autonomy and the different religious and social contexts in which the Rijnsburger vergadering took root led to large-scale differentiation. The capacity of Collegiants to survive for more than a century with their refusal of normativity and authoritarian organization was substantially due to the penetration of the Collegiants\' arguments into the different confessions. This deep influence, in particular in the Mennonite and Remonstrant communities, defined the nature of the Collegiants, especially in some cities, as a stream inside institutionalized Churches. Because the collegia were open to all Christians, without limitation, even including Socinians and Catholics, most of the participants were also members of structured Churches, congregations or sects. In Amsterdam this phenomenon was particularly evident and the penetration of Collegiants\' argument in the Flemish community through Galenus Abrahamsz led to one of the most important schisms in the Mennonite history in the United Provinces. In other cities such as Leiden or Haarlem, the existence of cultural circles and other forms of nonreligious association constituted the basis for the spread of Collegiantism. It was only in Rijnsburg, the village in which the movement first emerged, that a common house was built, after 1640, to host the twice yearly Collegiant national vergadering. The practical organization of the Collegiants, as has been stated, represents the foundation on which noncharismatic ecclesiology and anticonfessional ideals were constructed. With the historical background of the first chapter it is then possible to discuss the main religious and political tendencies inside the movement. The second chapter of this dissertation, following the issue of religious organization discussed in the first chapter, deals with the principles of free-prophecy, Biblical exegesis, and Collegiants ecclesiology. The central concept examined in this chapter is nonconformity analysed in its historical development of England and the Netherlands. This chapter suggests that nonconformity as religious phenomenon was an elaboration and transformation of the anti-confessional and anti-clerical thought that emerged in the 16th century with the radical Reformation. The inception of nonconformity in the Netherlands is indicated by the transformation of the debate about Nicodemism, following Coornhert\'s defense of religious dissimulation and indifferentism. Nicodemism was indeed considered, in the early 16th century, as necessary behavior to avoid pointless martyrdom and persecution, utilized especially by the crypto-reformed in Catholic countries such as Italy and Spain. The diffusion of this conduct among Catholics in reformed countries but, principally, the diffusion and justification of Nicodemism in the United Provinces, where inquisitorial control and confessional repression presented a relative risk after the revolt against Spain, testify of the new meaning that this behaviour took on in the late 16th century. Nicodemism, as Coornhert\'s position shows, became the justification of anticonfessionalism as conscious behaviour, with the possibility of openly criticizing rituals and ceremonies as for achieving salvation. In this chapter particular attention is paid to the consciousness and the open dimension of this behavior. The neglect of dissimulation and the necessity of making public personal religious sentiments, is one of the basic elements in the change between Nicodemism and nonconformity. The nonconformists acquired the anticonfessional and anticlerical content of Nicodemism, but added a principal characteristic: the veridiction. The veridiction represents the necessity of telling the truth about personal belief and religious conscience, but also institutes the core of reality in the conformity between internal belief and external behavior. These elements were present in both English and Dutch nonconformity, which developed, however, into different and sometimes opposite ecclesiology. In the English case, external nonconformity to the dominant Church and the necessity of openly showing belief led to a demand for exclusivity and a process of individualization rooted in the juridical meaning of nonconformity. Despite the turning of the debate around the necessity of free-conscience, the understanding of nonconformity as a refusal of secular world and the attempt of Baxter to disconnect the debate around nonconformity to a juridical question, the English debate never developed into a criticism of the Church\'s organization or in the necessity of a democratization of the religious life, which was, on the contrary, dominant among the Collegiants. The central text in the history of Collegiantism and in the Dutch definition of nonconformity is Galenus Abrahamsz and David Spruyt\'s XIX Artikelen. This text was conceived, from the very beginning, as a collective discussion about the nature and the sense of a religious community in the absence of Holy Gifts. Collegiants give to the term nonconformity a specific meaning which designates the absence of conformity to the first apostolic Church and the end of the extraordinaries gifts of the Holy Spirit. This radical statement caused a reaction among the orthodox members of the Mennonites and Quakers, which see in the absence of Holy inspiration a complete secularization of the religious community. Nonconformity assumed therefore for the Collegiants a double meaning: on one side it was an elaboration of anticonfessional criticism through the statement of the absence of holy influence on the religious life, on another side it represented a deep criticism of priestly authority conceived as a secularized power acting as constraint of consciences. The absence of Holy Gifts was, for the Collegiants, the demonstration that no Church or Congregation could pretend to be the true or original one. The reaction of Dutch orthodoxy appears, indeed, completely justified, because Collegiants\' religious nonconformity presents itself not only as conscious antiauthoritarian criticism but also as a statement of the full secularization of the Church. Nonconformity was, for Abrahamsz and Spruyt, not only an unavoidable state, but also a necessary behavior to unmask the inauthentic religious life. This position represented the core of Collegiants\' practice, the reason for their continuous redefinition and, on the same level, for their refusal of any type of identification. The recognition of the secularized status of common religious life arose among the Collegiants accompanied by an ample debate about free-prophecy and Bible exegesis, stressing the possibility of an individual form of salvation. A central role, in this direction, was played by reflection on the veridiction as a form of conformity between the inward conscience and the external behavior. Although there emerged from the sources a controversial statement about how to approach and read the Scriptures, through the free-prophecy the Collegiants organized a form of collective exegesis that had its principal aim to avoid charismatic and authoritarian leadership but also to realize a form of community close to the first apostolic Church. The communitarian discussion also involved a debate on salvation, which had no more to be tied to the simple membership in a confession but developed as an articulated discussion on the significance of the ethical and religious life. A good Christian had to reinterpret and bring alive the first teaching of the Gospel, which can be summarized as love for others and in the propagation of tolerance as ethical and interpersonal behavior. Collegiants\' reflections on religious life, organization of communities, and their continuous effort to maintain equal relations in the absence of charismatic gifts in the Church institution, never turn to consideration of society or political forms. This absence was even more significant in a cultural and social context in which theological questions involved directly or indirectly political questions. In the same period, furthermore, Hobbes\' reflections on jusnaturalism challenge for the first time the divine legitimacy of political power, establishing the basis of a new vision of the political community. Collegiants understood religious community as deprived from any form of divine inspiration and conceived it as a human association, nevertheless they never outline a political parallelism to this situation. The most evident reason of this absence is probably the lack of a strong monarchy in the 17th century United Provinces. However the relationship between secular and religious ideology did not fail and was well summarized by the situation after the Synod of Dordrecht, which created a rupture in Dutch society with the consequent convergence of the religious position with the political one. The intervention of Grotius in favor of the Arminian party testified to a clear identification between theological opposition to predestination (which meant a challenge to Calvinist orthodoxy) and antimonarchical opinion. This fracture remained invisible in Collegiants sources that debated the secularization of Churches and consider religious congregations as human institutions, but never tried to define the legitimacy of political institutions. It is possible, however, to find in the history of the Collegiants one significant exception: Cornelius Plockhoy\'s attempt to promote a religious-social project in the Dutch colonies of Delaware . Plockhoy\'s work illuminates the relationship and the fruitful parallels that it is possible to make between the United Provinces and England, especially during the time of the Cromwellian Commonwealth. Plockhoy\'s most significant works were written, indeed, in England, some years before the fail of Cromwell, and testify to a particular social and political engagement in the construction and definition of a community with a religious basis. It is interesting to note that only after the English experience did Plockhoy returned to Holland, following the end of the Commonwealth, to propose a similar project to the city of Amsterdam. This chapter suggests an analysis of his English and Dutch sources, stressing the differences and the modifications to his proposal. The importance of this author lies in the possibility of deducing from his position a possible Collegiant\' thinking on politics and social organization. This contribution is certainly not descriptive of Collegiantism as a whole but represents the only explicit trace of the modification of Rijnsburger\'s religious reflections on the secular field. The description of Plockhoy\'s community in many respects echoes a certain irenicism sourced form the reading of Rosicrucian text; however it reflets and refers principally to his Collegiant experience . Although Plockhoy\'s account of the community project is never exclusively religious, the confessional element appears as prominently in both his Dutch and English projects. His religious and political project emerge clearly from his letters to Cromwell: it is essentially devoted to resolving the problem of religious conflict and the disturbance of social peace. It is, indeed, clear that Plockhoy\'s aim was not that of describing an ideal society or forming a separate community in order to conserve a purist religious ideal, but to propose a paradigmatic alternative to the religious turmoil and the social injustices of his time. The relation between political and religious arguments in Plockhoy\'s solution to religious turmoil highlights the interconnection between religious tolerance and colonial criticism, social injustice and authoritarianism. Plockhoy\'s meticulous pedagogic description of his project, his underlining of the necessity of economic independence for women and the possibility of them participating in collective work are expressions of an outlook that includes an aware judgment of his contemporary society. The last part of this chapter is dedicated to criticizes two approaches dominant in the literature about Plockhoy: one is the description of his project as a classical form of Utopia the other one is the reading of the Delaware religious community interpreted as a triumph of the work ethic. The third chapter of this dissertation deals with the tolerance, a fundamental and central concept to understand the nature of the Collegiants. It is our intention to show how during the 17th century there emerged in the Netherlands, in the religious context, a new concept of tolerance inspired by Castellio\'s works. The publication and translation, in the first half of the 17th century, of some of Castellio\'s work testify to the major interest that the French author had in the United Provinces, especially for the oppositors to the intolerant and orthodox Calvinist tradition. For the Collegiants, Castellio represented a predecessor in the struggle for religious peace. His work against the persecution of the heretics, supported by Biblical argumentation, represented a constant source of inspiration for the partisan of religious toleration. As suggested by Voogt , Castellio\'s deconstruction of the concept of heresy, as it was used by the Calvinist orthodoxy, in order to redefined it to signify a person who acts and believes differently from the mainstream, represented Collegiants\' basis to rethink the concepts of rationality and truth. The peculiarity of the Dutch concept of vedraagzaamheid (tolerance), in opposition to how tolerance was defined and discussed in the European mainstream debate, was certainly due to the elements of reciprocity and mutuality that this particular form of tolerance included. In the 17th century, tolerance (especially religious tolerance) was used to label negative behavior, to identify indifferentism or libertinism, intolerance was, on the contrary, a sign of unity, integrity, and orthodoxy. Furthermore, arguments for religious intolerance were justified by the biblical example of the Mosaic theocracy, while religious tolerance represented the interests of the emerging mercantile elite, which supported the Republican experiment and advocated cities\' autonomy. Tolerance became, in the 17th century, a concept contested because of its pejorative meaning; the progressive introduction of the pro-tolerance position, in order to contrast with this negative predominant vision, supported the idea that tolerance was not a menace to the integrity and peace of the Dutch Republic but the principal reason for its prosperity. The concept of tolerance became, afterwards, the battle-field on which the best juridical, economical and political form of the United Provinces was decided. The penetration of this debate about tolerance and intolerance in the Collegiants movement was adapted into an anticonfessional and irenic orientation focusing on religious and social peace. The defense of an unlimited and mutual tolerance represented, for the Collegiants, a proposal of pacification in the pluralistic dimension of the Dutch religious life, which was perceived, by their coeval, as a source of division and instability. The practice of nonexclusive tolerance and the extensive reception of different confessions inside the movement was a pragmatic attempt to find a solution to the problematic turbulence inside the Doopsgezinden and more generally to the religious disputations in the United Provinces. The central figure investigating the conduct and the limits of this debate inside the Collegiants was Jan Bredenburg. This chapter will, indeed, analyze the trouble arising from Bredenburg\'s position on tolerance and his extensive use of Spinozist concepts and language. This debate about the extension and the limits of tolerance involved, indirectly and directly, a discussion regarding religious organization, freedom of speech, and charismatic authority. In his works, Bredenburg, with his continuous redefinition of the discussion about tolerance, shows all the ambiguity and ambivalence of this term. Unlimited and mutual tolerance finds its limits in the continuous exigence of a normative delimitation of it, in the distinction of necessary and unnecessary dogma, but also, in a trivial way, in the impossibility of tolerating the intolerant. In the case of the Collegiants the adversaries of the unlimited and mutual tolerance undermined Collegiants\' nonexclusivism with their proposals to identify with a confession of faith. Pressures in the direction of identification and exclusivism were, however, only a part of the tolerance problem. With the “Bredenburgse Twisten” (Bredenburg controversy) the limits and the ambiguities of the concept of tolerance and the limits of the penetration of Spinoza\'s philosophy in Collegiant\' movement become clear. These limits concerned especially the necessity and priority of contrasting skeptical and atheist tendencies in the field of belief. The final chapter of this dissertation is dedicated to a question that underlines the problems of anticonfessionalism, tolerance, and secularization. The question asked in this conclusive part regards the possibility to trace the emergence of rational argument in Collegiants understanding of the divinity. To answer this question it was necessary to make some preliminary remarks about the diffusion and vernacularization of Descartes\' and Spinoza\'s philosophies in the 17th century Netherlands. Short descriptions of the two most influential systems of thought of the epoch are two methodological steps useful in understanding not only the degree of penetration of these philosophies into Collegiants but also the nature and meaning of the concept of rationality at that time. The definition of the relationship with the divinity, after the XIX Arikelen\'s statement of the unholy Church, is represented, in the history of the Collegiant movement, by a precise moment: the discussion and dispute between the Rijnsburgers and the Quaker missionaries in the United Provinces. The debate with the Quakers assumes a specific meaning not only because it shows the proximity and similarity between the two religious movements but also because it testifies to the emergence of a central concept: the light. Central text to determine the nature of this relationship and to define the meaning that for the Collegiants had the concept of light, is Balling´s Het licht op den Kandelaar (The Light on the Candlestick). Balling\'s answer to Quakers represents a penetration of Spinozist language into the definition of religion as knowledge of God but also a singular affinity and fascination for the Quakers\' concept of light. The question of contact with the divinity appears in the text as an individual experience, not mediated by any human instrument via language or the empirical experience. The approach to God is certainly described as an epistemological progression but the perfect comprehension of God is defined with the vocabulary of the affections rather than as full rational understanding. This text is certainly highly controversial and the continuous shift between philosophical and Quakers\' language make its interpretation problematic. Het licht op den Kandelaar reflects Collegiants\' position as a sum of philosophical argumentation, mysticism, and the irreconcilable reference to God as an infinite and unknowable creature. What emerges with force in the analysis of this source is the impossibility of understanding Balling\'s description of the relationship with God as purely rational. Balling, however, stresses the possibility of the constant perfectionism of human knowledge and self-emancipation and, furthermore, proposes new terms for religious thought. What he calls the “true religion” is described as ethical behavior constructed with the combination of tolerance, equal participation in the religious life, and the refusal to countenance formal conformism to Church institutions. Collegiants\' acceptance of a Church without God does not necessary involve a pure absence of divine work, on the contrary, the proximity to God is progressively researched in an interior sphere which involve a process of knowledge. The legitimacy of the “Truth” is, then, given no more by the transcendental gift of the divinity but in the accordance of personal conviction and ethical behavior, the religion is, indeed, redefined according to these terms. True religion is, for Balling, a continuous inquiry into the natural and internal principle that each individual possesses in order to achieve full comprehension of God\'s word. This statement testify not only of a new conception of the Religion but also reaffirm the minoritaire core of Collegiants´nature; religion, in their understanding, is not more matter of concord, unity, orthodoxy but source of knowledge, problematization and continuous questioning about its own identity. Nonconformity and cultural dynamics: some preliminary remarks Before starting the presentation of the Collegiants\' argument about tolerance, Church organization, and rationalism, to fully understand some choices and the approach of this dissertation, and to comprehend how Collegiants sources have been read, some methodological remarks are necessaries about the emergence and development of the historical phenomenon called nonconformity and how was it received and transformed in 17th century Holland. Nonconformity is, as will be shown, one of the central concepts developed by the Collegiants to justify their antiauthoritarianism and anticonfessionalism. The concept appears more interesting if we look at the number of meanings and social phenomena that it includes. It first developed in England in the juridical context and was named in the later 17th century as a defined religious movement that opposed the Act of Uniformity. In the English sources it is possible to retrace the history of this concept, demonstrating how the significance and arguments regarding nonconformity changed in one hundred years. Not far from England, in the United Provinces, the evolution of the concept of nonconformity follows another route, giving rise to radically differe

L’hypothèse centrale de cette thèse est que Deleuze propose une conception originale de l’éthique, tout au long de son œuvre, mais souvent de manière asystématique. L’objectif principal ici est celui de donner à voir l’éthique deleuzienne, à partir d’un rassemblement et d’une mise en rapport de plusieurs pistes laissées par Deleuze dans des ouvrages différents. La méthode adoptée est l’examen de l’œuvre de Deleuze dans son ensemble – y compris son travail avec Guattari ou d’autres, et les cours enregistrés –, à partir duquel on essaie de dégager une ligne de lecture de l’éthique deleuzienne qui, sans épuiser le sujet, parvienne à en donner une perspective nuancée et révélatrice du surgissement de la question dans la philosophie deleuzienne. C’est dans les années 1960 que Deleuze pose les bases de sa pensée éthique, et qu’il commence à développer les deux versants principaux de cette pensée : le versant de l’évaluation, dont l’inspiration est Nietzsche ; et le versant de l’expérimentation, dont l’inspiration est Spinoza. De ces deux versants, ressort la formule « un corps qui évalue et expérimente », qui sert à cerner l’éthique deleuzienne. On pense que les nouvelles composantes de l’éthique deleuzienne, présentées à partir des années 1970, peuvent facilement s’aligner soit avec l’un, soit avec l’autre de ces versants principaux, tout en enrichissant encore plus ce qui avait déjà été proposé auparavant et parfois opérant des déplacements. À partir des deux premières hypothèses articulées – à savoir l’hypothèse centrale sur l’existence d’une éthique deleuzienne originale, dont la formule est un corps qui évalue et expérimente, et l’hypothèse secondaire qui indique que ces deux versants de l’éthique deleuzienne, l’évaluation et l’expérimentation, sont issus respectivement des lectures deleuziennes de Nietzsche et de Spinoza –, on arrive à trois hypothèses dérivées : l’éthique deleuzienne se fonde sur l’ontologie ; l’éthique deleuzienne s’oppose à la morale ; l’éthique deleuzienne est inséparable d’une formation. L’analyse de ces hypothèses vise à mettre en évidence la singularité de l’éthique deleuzienne. / The central hypothesis of this dissertation is that Deleuze proposes an original concept of ethics throughout his work, but he does so, many times in an asystematic way. The main goal of the present work is to make the Deleuzian ethics visible through the gathering and connecting of countless clues left by Deleuze in different books. The adopted methodology is the perusal of Deleuze’s work as a whole, including his collaborations with Guattari and others, as well as his recorded lectures. By examining carefully his complete works, we try to find a thread for reading Deleuzian ethics which succeeds in presenting a nuanced and enlightening perspective regarding the emergence of the question of ethics in Deleuzian philosophy without exhausting the subject. It’s in the 1960s that Deleuze establishes the foundations of his ethical thought and starts to develop its two main branches: the evaluation branch, inspired by Nietzsche; and the experimentation branch, inspired by Spinoza. Out of those two branches of thought comes the formula “a body that evaluates and experiments”, which serves as a concise outline to Deleuzian ethics. We think the new elements of Deleuzian ethics presented from the 1970s on can be easily aligned with either of the two main branches, which only adds to what has been previously proposed and, at times, even causes some theoretical shifts. Starting from the two connected hypotheses – the main one about the existence of an original Deleuzian ethics, whose formula is “a body that evaluates and experiments”, plus the secondary one, which highlights that the two lines of Deleuzian ethics, namely evaluation and experimentation, come from, respectively, Deleuze’s readings of Nietzsche and Spinoza – we reach three derivative hypotheses: that Deleuzian ethics is based on an onthology; that Deleuzian ethics is opposed to moral; and that Deleuzian ethics is inseparable from an offbringing. The analysis of these hypotheses aims to bring to the forefront the ultimate singularity of Deleuzian ethics. / A hipótese central desta tese é que Deleuze propõe uma concepção original da ética ao longo de sua obra, mas muitas vezes de maneira assistemática. O objetivo principal deste trabalho é fazer ver a ética deleuziana, a partir da reunião e da colocação em relação de inúmeras pistas deixadas por Deleuze em diferentes livros. O método adotado é o exame da obra de Deleuze como um todo, inclusive o seu trabalho com Guattari ou outros, e seus cursos gravados. Busca-se, por meio desse exame do conjunto da obra, uma linha de leitura da ética deleuziana que, sem esgotar o assunto, consiga mostrar uma perspectiva nuançada e esclarecedora do surgimento da questão da ética na filosofia deleuziana. É nos anos 1960 que Deleuze estabelece as bases do seu pensamento ético, e que ele começa a desenvolver as duas vertentes principais deste pensamento: a vertente da avaliação, cuja inspiração é Nietzsche; e a vertente da experimentação, cuja inspiração é Spinoza. Destas duas vertentes, se extrai a fórmula “un corpo que avalia e experimenta”, que serve para delinear a ética deleuziana. Pensa-se que os novos elementos da ética deleuziana, apresentados a partir dos anos 1970, podem facilmente se alinhar seja com uma, seja com outra dessas duas vertentes principais, enriquecendo ainda mais o que já havia sido proposto anteriormente e, por vezes, operando deslocamentos. A partir dessas duas hipóteses articuladas – a hipótese central sobre a existência de uma ética deleuziana original, cuja fórmula é um corpo que avalia e experimenta, e a hipótese secundária, que indica que estas duas vertentes da ética deleuziana, a avaliação e a experimentação, são oriundas respectivamente das leituras deleuzianas de Nietzsche e de Spinoza –, chega-se a três hipóteses derivadas: a ética deleuziana se funda sobre uma ontologia; a ética deleuziana se opõe à moral; a ética deleuziana é inseparável de uma formação. A análise dessas hipóteses visa colocar em evidência a singularidade da ética deleuziana.