Spinoza and Urbanism

Abstract

Against the backdrop of ethical-political dilemmas in urban planning, this research project investigates the philosophy of a historically radical yet increasingly canonical ethical-political thinker: Spinoza. The main research question of this project is: how can Spinoza’s ethical-political philosophy inform a theory of urban space and become operationalised for addressing ethical political issues in urban planning? The full extent of Spinoza’s ethical-political works has been mapped structurally, resulting in a cartography of Spinoza’s works. The philosophical concepts in this cartography have been assessed on their prospects for spatialisation, resulting in an estimation regarding the relevance of certain key concepts for urban planning. By examining these concepts through urban theories of agglomeration and the urban land nexus, it has been found that a Spinoza-informed urban theory might take the shape of a model of the city, aimed at mapping ethical-political situations in urban planning. Building on this, it has been found that this model can become instrumentalised as to form an urban planning approach. The action that an urban planner can take by virtue of the profession, through the Spinozist lens, has been determined. Similarly, the aim of urban planning (the planner’s “own agenda”), through the Spinozist lens, has been determined. The model can be used to reveal or ‘map’ ethical-political dilemmatic urban planning situations. Further areas of research could be testing this model further, and relating the findings on Spinoza’s philosophy and to urban planning to similar fields of research in architecture, ecology, economics, or political science.