Abstract
Much of the liberal tradition in political thought has shared Isaiah Berlin's fears about all positive concepts of liberty. Indeed these fears seem justified in relation to Marx and Hegel. However, the danger of a tyrannical paternalism derives not from the concept of positive freedom itself but from the reification of the self associated with rationalism. Spinoza's monism and his notion of individual conatus make any rationalist reification of the self implausible. Consequently his account of positive freedom enriches rather than undermines the commitment to negative liberty, whilst also helping to explain his ability to reconcile liberal toleration with the strikingly Hobbesian premisses of his political philosophy.
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