  In recent years a lively discussion has emerged in the scholarly literature concerning whether or not Spinoza’s state is an individual with its own conatus. At issue in this debate is whether Spinoza was more of a collectivist or an individualist. The answer to this question is thought to carry implications for how we conceive of Spinoza’s relationship to the liberal tradition. Some of the strongest evidence in support of the conception of the state as an individual comes from the so-called physical digression between IIP13 and IIP14, where Spinoza directly discusses individuality. In this section, Spinoza tells us that an individual is a composite body whose parts “communicate their motion to each other in a certain fixed manner” (II/100, A2, def, A3). The parts of an individual may be replaced, but the individual will persist, provided that the “same ratio of motion and rest” is retained (ibid., L5, L4). Moreover, individuals who come together to act in a fixed way form larger individuals, terminating ultimately in the supreme-individual: the whole of nature (II/101-102, L7). Elsewhere in the Ethics, when remarking on the benefits of human associations, Spinoza claims that “if…two individuals of entirely the same nature are joined to one another, they compose an individual twice as powerful as each one” (IVP18S). Here, once again, Spinoza delineates a picture of composite, higher-order individuals, opening up the possibility of viewing the state itself as an individual.