The question posed here is very precise. It is not: ‘Is the State in reality an individual in the real sense of the word?’ Nor is it: ‘Is the State in reality an individual in Spinoza's sense?’ Nor even: ‘Is the State, according to Spinoza, an individual in the real sense of the word?’ In the past I have answered this question in the affirmative, but without actually posing the question as such. Lee C. Rice, in a very interesting article, addressed to me, from his own strictly individualistic point of view, objections from which I learned a lot, but which, to my mind, did not entirely respond to the question as I posed it. Pierre-François Moreau then came to my defence, this time truly posing the question, by developing what I had only sketched out, and by expanding on it in an entirely original way. Then Steven Barbone, in a chapter of his excellent doctoral dissertation, returned to and developed Rice's thesis against us by laying out, with rare mastery, all the arguments that could logically be raised against us from their point of view – but which, again, and for the same reason, have not absolutely convinced me. Finally, Étienne Balibar, from his own ‘transindividualist’ perspective, dedicated an important piece to the question (not exactly the one I posed, strictly speaking) in which, having read my work against Rice's – apparently believing that this was what Moreau had done – he delivered captivating analyses with which I often agreed, but from which I do not think one could conclude that the State, according to Spinoza, is not an individual in Spinoza's sense.

Here I would like to return to the question from a quasi-‘philological’ perspective (as one says in Italy, in a generally pejorative sense) by staying at the level of the texts, and I will treat it in five points. In points I, II and III, I will analyse three passages from the Ethics that, to my mind, should be enough to decide it; in IV, I will refer to some passages from the Theologico-Political Treatise and the Political Treatise, in which I believe complementary confirmations and clarifications can be found; and I will conclude in V with a problem.