A INSTITUIÇÃO DO ESTADO OU AS DUAS FACES DA MULTIDÃO A PARTIR DE HOBBES E ESPINOSA

This article aims to present the way in which Hobbes and Spinoza understand the multitude, thus elucidating the role conferred to it in the institution of the State. We assume that for both thinkers the multitude plays a central role with regard to the institution of the civil state, so that, by different routes, such an institution can only be thought as emerging from it. As noted, the two philosophers have totally different ways of conceiving the multitude – while for one it must necessarily be unified by means of representation, for the other, the instituting political subject is precisely the multitude taken in its plurality – from what folllows that we end up facing two different conceptions of State.