Prelude voor een democratische revolutie. Het politiek-filosofische project van Frans van den Enden

In his TTP (1670) Spinoza links the freedom to philosophize to an ontology in which God and nature are interchangeable and the critique of religion, of metaphysics and of language abuse to their political meaning. Also with Frans van den Enden, the principles of naturalism are applied in such a way that they lead to a politically revolutionary theory of democracy: starting with his Kort Verhael van Nieuw-Nederlants Gelegentheit (1662), systematized in the Vrije Politijke Stellingen (1665) and applied for practical use in the manuscript Finis est in holandia erigere statum (1674). The greatest danger for a free republic based on equal freedom, according to Spinoza’s Latin teacher, is the deception that occurs when untruths and prejudices are spread by so-called religions, pseudo-scholars and mystifying language. Deception means oppression and thus lack of freedom that amounts to inequality. However, the victims of deception can break the deception by forming their own knowledge and taking the freedom to philosophise as a task.