Multitude

Multitude is a term used in political philosophy. In the current discussion, it plays an important role, especially in Operaism.

The term became famous by the book Empire - the new world order by Antonio Negri and Michael Hardt (2000, dt: 2002). The importance of space Multitude - translated in the German translation of "Empire " as " amount" - may also include "multitude ", " diversity" (of persons, entities, " singularities "). For Hardt and Negri, the term goes back to the philosophy of Spinoza ( multitudo ).

Conceptual history

In the ancient Roman Republic Marcus Tullius Cicero uses the term in de re publica ( 54-51 BC ). This explains Cicero the 'multitude' as the origin of society, or of the Republic: So it is the Republic of the cause of the population, a population but not every kind together charte accumulation, but the accumulation of a quantity ( " multitudo ") that in the recognition of the right and the commonality of the benefit is pooled. But your first motivation to come together, is (...) a natural sociability of man, so to speak.

A resumption learns the concept of 'multitude' in early modern philosophy. For Spinoza establishes the sovereignty of a State "the power, no longer an individual, but as the guided by a spirit quantity ". He avoids it at that (contrary to the interpretation Negri ), the power of the quantity ( multitudinis potentia ) to which the individuals due ( cf. Spinoza: Political Treatise III, § 2).

In Thomas Hobbes in Scripture From the Civil states that the multitude alike against the aristocratic rule as against the people ( which means something like the unity of the people) lift. In Hobbes ' Leviathan the all-powerful sovereign of the title page of countless consenting to the company agreement appear, and thus forming a unit, formed individual. The multitude is considered as a threat to the Leviathan, as it is multiplicity.

And in William Shakespeare appeared " the monster of the multitude " in various dramas in the imagination of aristocrats like the citizens, most impressively formulated in The Tragedy of Coriolanus ( Act 2, Scene 3 ), where the presence of the crowd as " the many headed multitude, " the many-headed multitude, is described.

Current discussion

Probably the shortest definition of Hardt and Negri himself reads as follows: This is the definition of the multitude ( ...): singularities that act together. ( Is so far the social cooperation of the multitude exploited ) Negri describes their reality as immanence ( against the transcendence of "the people " ), as a class and as a potentiality. Paolo Virno speaks of the "many, many as " to characterize the multitude. The multitude is a network, an open network of relations, a field of singularities, which is not homogeneous or identical with it. It is to be distinguished from the "people" and the working class, each of which a single will is assumed, and of the formless, malleable mass. You should decidedly not be a "new revolutionary subject ", which contradicts the rule of the Empire. Following Marx, the multitude is still a political class that thereby a collective whole, is that it fights together. The aim of the struggle is, roughly speaking, the complete democratization of world society. Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri argue that each epoch is characterized by a shape: Unlike the disciplinary paradigm Foucault we find today everywhere on the form of the network - this identifies linguistic set, military units, patterns of migration, social movements, companies, physiological structures and even personal relationships.