Hasana, Sharp - Between Hegel and Spinoza. A Volume of Critical Essays 1

Bloomsbury Studies in Philosophy
Between Hegel and Spinoza
Bloomsbury Studies in Philosophy

Bloomsbury Studies in Philosophy is a major monograph series from Bloomsbury. The series
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work makes a major contribution to the field of philosophical research.
Aesthetic in Kant, James Kirwan
Analytic Philosophy: The History of an Illusion, Aaron Preston
Aquinas and the Ship of Theseus, Christopher Brown
Augustine and Roman Virtue, Brian Harding
The Challenge of Relativism, Patrick Phillips
Demands of Taste in Kants Aesthetics, Brent Kalar
Descartes and the Metaphysics of Human Nature, Justin Skirry
Descartes Theory of Ideas, David Clemenson
Dialectic of Romanticism, Peter Murphy and David Roberts
Duns Scotus and the Problem of Universals, Todd Bates
Hegels Philosophy of Language, Jim Vernon
Hegels Philosophy of Right, David James
Hegels Theory of Recognition, Sybol S. C. Anderson
The History of Intentionality, Ryan Hickerson
Kantian Deeds, Henrik Jker Bjerre
Kierkegaard, Metaphysics and Political Theory, Alison Assiter
Kierkegaards Analysis of Radical Evil, David A. Roberts
Leibniz Re-interpreted, Lloyd Strickland
Metaphysics and the End of Philosophy, HO Mounce
Nietzsche and the Greeks, Dale Wilkerson
Origins of Analytic Philosophy, Delbert Reed
Philosophy of Miracles, David Corner
Platonism, Music and the Listeners Share, Christopher Norris
Poppers Theory of Science, Carlos Garcia
Postanalytic and Metacontinental, edited by James Williams,
Jack Reynolds, James Chase and Ed Mares
Rationality and Feminist Philosophy, Deborah K. Heikes
Re-thinking the Cogito, Christopher Norris
Role of God in Spinozas Metaphysics, Sherry Deveaux
Rousseau and Radical Democracy, Kevin Inston
Rousseau and the Ethics of Virtue, James Delaney
Rousseaus Theory of Freedom, Matthew Simpson
Spinoza and the Stoics, Firmin DeBrabander
Spinozas Radical Cartesian Mind, Tammy Nyden-Bullock
St. Augustine and the Theory of Just War, John Mark Mattox
St. Augustine of Hippo, R. W. Dyson
Thomas Aquinas & John Duns Scotus, Alex Hall
Tolerance and the Ethical Life, Andrew Fiala

A Volume of Critical Essays
Edited by
Hasana Sharp and Jason E. Smith
LON DON N E W DE L H I N E W YOR K SY DN EY
Bloomsbury Academic
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First published 2012
Hasana Sharp, Jason E. Smith and Contributors, 2012
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British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN: HB: 978-1-4411-8404-7
e-ISBN: 978-1-4411-5052-3
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Between Hegel and Spinoza: a volume of critical essays/edited by
Hasana Sharp and Jason E. Smith.
p. cm. (Continuum studies in philosophy)
Includes bibliographical references (p.) and index.
ISBN 978-1-4411-8404-7 (hardcover: alk. paper) ISBN 978-1-4411-5052-3
(ebook pdf: alk. paper) ISBN 978-1-4411-6690-6 (ebook epub: alk. paper)
1. Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, 1770-1831. 2. Spinoza, Benedictus de,
1632-1677. I. Sharp, Hasana. II. Smith, Jason E.
B2948.B463 2012
193dc23
2012016909
Typeset by Deanta Global Publishing Services, Chennai, India
Contents
Notes on Contributors
List of Abbreviations
Introduction Hasana Sharp and Jason E. Smith

Part 1The Individual and Transindividuality between
Ontology and Politics
The Misunderstanding of the Mode. Spinoza in Hegels

Science of Logic (181216) Vittorio Morfino
Desire is Mans Very Essence: Spinoza and Hegel as Philosophers

of Transindividuality Jason Read
The Problem of the Beginning in Political Philosophy: Spinoza

after Hegel Andre Santos Campos
Part 2 Hegels Spinoza
Hegel, sive Spinoza: Hegel as His Own True Other Warren Montag
Hegels Treatment of Spinoza: Its Scope and its Limits

Vance Maxwell
Hegels Reconciliation with Spinoza John McCumber
Part 3 The Psychic Life of Negation
Affirmative Pathology: Spinoza and Hegel on Illness and

Self-Repair Christopher Lauer
Of Suicide and Falling Stones: Finitude, Contingency, and

Corporeal Vulnerability in (Judith Butlers) Spinoza Gordon Hull
Thinking the Space of the Subject between Hegel and

Spinoza Caroline Williams
vi
Contents
Part 4 Judaism beyond Hegel and Spinoza
10 The Paradox of a Perfect Democracy: From Spinozas

Theologico-Political Treatise to Marxs Critique of Ideology
Idit Dobbs-Weinstein
11 Spinoza, Hegel, and Adorno on Judaism and History
Jeffrey A. Bernstein
Bibliography
Index
Jeffrey A. Bernstein is an Associate Professor in the Department of Philosophy
at the College of the Holy Cross, Worcester, USA. He works in the areas of
Spinoza, German philosophy, and Jewish thought. He is currently at work on a
book-length study entitled Leo Strauss on the Borders of Judaism, Philosophy, and
History.
Andr Santos Campos is a Lecturer in Philosophy and Legal Theory at the
Lusiad University of Lisbon, Portugal, and Research Fellow in the New University
of Lisbon, specializing in legal philosophy, political theory, and early modern
philosophy. He is the author of Jus sive Potentia (Lisbon: CFUL, 2010) and of
Spinozas Revolutions in Natural Law (Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan, 2012).
Idit Dobbs-Weinstein is an Associate Professor of Philosophy with secondary
appointments in Jewish Studies and the Graduate Department of Religion at
Vanderbilt University. Her research and writing seeks to retrieve an other, occluded
materialist Aristotelian tradition from Arabic and Judaeo-Arabic medieval
philosophy to the Walter Benjamin and Theodor Adorno. Her publications include
Maimonides and St. Thomas on the Limits of Reason, Maimonides and Medieval
Jewish Philosophy, and Maimonides and His Heritage. She is currently finishing
a manuscript whose provisional title is Whose History, Which Politics? Spinozas
Critique of Religion and Its Heirs.
Gordon Hull is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of North
Carolina, Charlotte, USA. He works on the history of modern philosophy, as well
as issues in moral and political philosophy surrounding new technologies, where
his focus is on intellectual property and privacy. In the history of philosophy, he
has written primarily on Spinoza and Hobbes, including the book Hobbes and
the Making of Modern Political Thought (Continuum, 2009).
Christopher Lauer is an Assistant Professor in Philosophy at the University of
Hawaii at Hilo, USA. He works primarily in German Idealism and the ethics of
viii
recognition and is the author of The Suspension of Reason in Hegel and Schelling
(Continuum, 2010). He is currently at work on a book on intimacy.
Vance Maxwell has retired as a Professor of Philosophy from the Department at
Memorial University of Newfoundland-Labrador, Canada, after a long teaching
career. In various journals, he has published reviews, critical notices, and articles
on Spinoza, Spinoza-Hume, and Spinoza-Hegel. He is currently writing a book
which will offer a Spinozan philosophy of mathematics. He also intends to write
a work proposing a Spinozan aesthetic.
John McCumber received his PhD in philosophy and Greek from the University
of Toronto and has taught at the University of Michigan-Dearborn, USA, the
Graduate Faculty of the New School for Social Research, and Northwestern
University, Illinois, USA. He is currently Professor of Germanic Languages at
UCLA. He has written many books and article on the history of philosophy and its
implications, most recently Time and Philosophy: A History of Continental Thought
(Acumen 2011) and On Philosophy: Notes from a Crisis (Stanford, 2012).
Warren Montag is a Professor of English and Comparative Literature at
Occidental College, California, USA. His most recent book, Philosophys
Perpetual War: Althusser and his Contemporaries, will appear in2013.
Vittorio Morfino is a Senior Researcher in the History of Philosophy at the
Universit di Milano-Bicocca, Italy. He is the author of Substantia sive Organismus
(1997), Sulla violenza. Una lettura di Hegel (2000), Il tempo e loccasione.
Lincontro Spinoza Machiavelli (2002), Incursioni spinoziste (2002), and Il tempo
della moltitudine (2005). He has edited Spinoza contra Leibniz (1994), La Spinoza
Renaissance nella Germania di fine Settecento (2000), Labisso dellunica sostanza
(2009), as well as the Italian edition of the late writings of Louis Althusser (2000).
He is an editor of Quaderni materialisti and of Dcalages.
Jason Read is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Southern
Maine, USA. He is the author of The Micro-Politics of Capital: Marx and the
Prehistory of the Present (2003) as well as numerous articles on Althusser,
Negri, Spinoza, Foucault, Deleuze, and Guattari. He is currently completing a
manuscript titled Relations of Production: Transindividuality between Economics
and Politics for the Historical Materialism book series.
ix
Hasana Sharp is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at McGill University,

Quebec, Canada. She is author of Spinoza and the Politics of Renaturalization
(University of Chicago, 2011).
Jason E. Smith is an Assistant Professor in the Graduate Art Program at Art
Center College of Design, Pasadena, California, USA. He writes primarily about
contemporary art, political thought, and philosophy. He recently published, with
Philip Armstrong and Jean-Luc Nancy, Politique et au-dla (Galile, 2011).
Caroline Williams is a Lecturer in Politics at Queen Mary, University of
London. She is author of Contemporary French Philosophy: Modernity and the
Persistence of the Subject (2001) as well as articles on Spinoza, Althusser, Lacan,
Castoriadis, poststructuralism, and subjectivity. She is currently completing a
monograph entitled Spinoza and Political Critique: Thinking the Political in the
Wake of Althusser.
Spinozas works
E
Ethics Demonstrated in Geometric Order () (Ethica)

App
Appendix
Ax
Axiom
C
Corollary
D
Definition
Def. Affs.
Definition of the Affects
Dem
Demonstration
Lem
Lemma
P
Proposition
Pos
Postulate
Pref
Preface
S
Scholium
Ep
Correspondence (Epistola)
KV Short Treatise on God, Man, and His Well-Being (Korte
Verhandeling)
TIE Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect (Tractatus de
Intellectus Emendatione)
TP
Political Treatise (Tractatus Politicus)
TTP
Theological-Political Treatise (Tractatus Theologico-Politicus)
Hegels works
EL The Encyclopedia Logic (Part I of the Encyclopedia of Philosophical Sciences)
EPS
Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences
EPR Elements of the Philosophy of Right (also referred to as: The
Philosophy of Right)
ETW
Early Theological Writings
xii
IPH
Introduction, Lectures on the Philosophy of History
LHP
Lectures on the History of Philosophy
LPH Lectures on the Philosophy of History (Volume III, unless
otherwise noted)
LPR
Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion
LPS
Lectures on the Philosophy of Spirit
PhS
Phenomenology of Spirit
SL
Science of Logic
Introduction
Hasana Sharp and Jason E. Smith
If Kant is the widely acknowledged intellectual father of the Enlightenment,

Hegel has always had an important place by his side as a sympathetic but
exacting critic. Hegel, as is well known, objected to Kants formalism, to which
he opposed a more demanding view of freedom as an historically achieved
reconciliation of ones will with the moral law, civil society, and the State.1
Hegel thereby requires the political theorist, for example, to consider not only
the requirements for a legitimate form of rule but also the process by which
subjects come to desire, animate, and identify with laws and social codes. A
recent, influential reassessment of the Enlightenment champions Spinoza as
the progenitor of the radical Enlightenment, which differs from the received
tradition by virtue of a more profound commitment to its hallmark ideals:
reason, equality, and democracy.2 According to this interpretation, and as his
contemporaries feared, Spinoza inaugurates an atheist tradition of radical
materialism that dissolves God into nature, and, with the fall of metaphysical
hierarchy, the first truly democratic vision becomes possible. Spinoza and Hegel
thus point the way toward alternatives to the dominant wisdom that continues
to govern our age.
Just a word on the relationship of each philosopher to what we will loosely call
the received tradition of the Enlightenment: Hegel sees in Kants philosophy
the distillation of the conflict animating Enlightenment man: the irreconcilable
tension between autonomy and heteronomy.3 The ideal of perfect autonomy by
which each individual subordinates himself or herself only to a self-authorized
law (self-authorized because given by reason) appears in the Kantian picture to
be at odds with our dependency upon the forces of nature, including bodily needs
and the labor and care of other people. Yet, Hegel sees in modern society the
possibility of reconciling this tension and thereby revisiting the Enlightenment
ideal of freedom. Modern society has structured human life such that we can
finally experience the profound co-implications of dependency and freedom,
social obligations, and self-assertion. It is our bodily need, for example, that
generates the division of labor necessary to meet those needs, which engenders
a society in which we can come to exercise our reason reflectively.4 The form
that this Hegelian reconciliation of dependency and freedom might take has
historically been divided into right and left camps. Hegel is seen to satisfy
the individual yearning for freedom by way of total identification with the State
and God (for the right Hegelian) or by way of a community of free producers
(to allude only to the most famous left Hegelian, Karl Marx). We see in this
very brief account why Hegel is an immanent critic of Enlightenment ideals.
While freedom and rationality remain paramount, the self-determination of
individuals can only be realized by virtue of a system of relationships, a complex
network of dependencies, and a mutually supportive system for developing our
capacities and satisfying our aims. Freedom and reason, then, ought not be seen
in strict opposition to dependency and nature.
We might find in Spinozas philosophy a similarly valiant effort to resolve
the conflict between self-determination and natural-determination that came
to characterize Enlightenment thought. Spinozas solution may rightfully be
considered radical in that he utterly rejects the terms of the opposition by
denying that there is anything other than natural determination. From the point
of view of the received tradition, Spinozas solution is nothing but the total
victory of heteronomy or determination by external forces. Yet, Spinoza labors
to show that freedom as human reason is the effect of natural powers coming
together in a felicitous way so as to amplify one another.5 There are parallels,
albeit imperfect ones, between Hegels critique of Kants ideal of freedom and
Spinozas critique of Descartes freedom of the will. Just as Hegel resists the idea
of freedom as the form of human rationality itself, Spinoza denies Descartes
view that the faculty of the will is fundamentally unconstrained. Thus, they each
endeavor to paint a picture of freedom that is integrated with bodily life, natural
determination, and social dependency. Such revisions of ideals of freedom, in
our current age of free-market rational choice, are sorely needed.
Yet, for many philosophers, political and ethical theorists today, one must
choose between Hegel and Spinoza. Each is acknowledged as a valuable critic of
the received Enlightenment tradition and its corresponding politics; nevertheless,
it is hardly possible to adopt their alternatives together and neither can one
discover a position between them. Both Hegel and Spinoza might be seen, for
example, to challenge the abstract individualism of the Kantian moral subject,6
yet the insistence of each thinker on the relational dimensions of existence is
understood to be so different as to be incompatible. Hegels vision of human life
is stamped by the image of the master and slave, engaged in a violent struggle to
Introduction
the death.7 Even if this is but a moment of Hegels picture of human existence, it
so often remains the defining moment. Humans are death-bent and destructive
by nature, even as Spirit, expressed in human history, strives to resolve our
natural bellicosity. In contrast, rather than underscoring the fundamentally
antagonistic character of social relations, Spinozas interpreters often celebrate
his emphasis upon the human bond (man is a God to man) and the absolutely
affirmative character of human desire.8 If Hegel represents the thinker of violent
antagonism and its resolution, Spinoza is often seen as the herald of love and
unequivocal self-affirmation.
On a certain understanding, between Hegel and Spinoza, we find only an
abyss. As Deleuzes influential interpretation maintains, Hegel exemplifies and
promotes the cults of death, while Spinoza embodies an irrepressible appetite
for living.9 Hegel is the figure of negation, while Spinoza is the thinker of pure
affirmation.10 Perhaps paradoxically, Deleuze reflects Hegels own judgment of
the relationship between these two thinkers, even as he inverts his evaluation.
Whereas, for Deleuze, Spinoza has enough confidence in life to denounce all
the phantoms of the negative,11 for Hegel, Spinozas philosophy remains rigid
and motionless by virtue of its inability to incorporate the majestic labor of the
negative.12 For Hegel, the absence of negativity in Spinoza leads to the inability of
individuals to act as the motors of their own transformation. Without an internal
principle of opposition, change must arrive from the outside. If development
is external, humans do not enjoy any genuine autonomy or power of selfdetermination. For Deleuze, the lack of internal opposition reflects Spinozas
courageous refusal of the constitutive necessity of death and self-destruction.
With war surrounding him, Spinoza produced a heroic alternative to all the
ways of humiliating and breaking life.13
Deleuzes portrait of Spinoza as the doctor of life, who refuses avant la lettre
the lure of any capitulation to despair, has been highly influential in Continental
ethics and politics, such that it appears nearly impossible to harness the resources
of these two major alternatives to our inherited tradition. As provocative and
brilliant as Deleuzes interpretation of Spinoza often is, we might be wary of
how Deleuzes view of the chasm between Hegel and Spinoza mirrors Hegels.
Although, for Deleuze, the opposition between Hegel and Spinoza clearly
yields a favorable assessment of Spinoza, he adopts Hegels terms. On one side
of the chasm, we find affirmation, positivity, and life. On the other, there is
negation, negativity, and death.14 Yet, between Hegel and Spinoza, there is not
only opposition. This collection of essays seeks to find the suppressed kinship
between Hegel and Spinoza. If Spinoza was an important ally for Deleuze
and others against the Hegelianism of France in the 1960s and 1970s, it is not
clear that philosophy, ethics, or political theory continue to be served by their
opposition today. Moreover, while it is important not to suppress any important
differences between them, what they bequeathed to us is much more similar
than we tend to recognize. They both offer rigorous and profound alternatives to
the methodological individualism of classical liberalism. In addition, they sketch
portraits of reason that are much more context-responsive and emotionally
charged than typical Enlightenment portraits and which make better sense of
our embodied and historical existence. In a word, they are the most powerful
living alternatives to mainstream Enlightenment thought. The common ground
that lies between them should not remain obscured by the differences that hold
them apart.
The obfuscation of their kinship is surely owed in part to Hegels urgent, yet
conflicted disavowal of his own Spinozism.15 There is no better analysis of Hegels
systematic blindness with respect to this silently productive kinship than Pierre
Machereys Hegel or Spinoza, a book whose translation has finally appeared.16
Some context for this under appreciated work is in order. A decade and a half
after the publication of two important texts in postwar French Marxism, Reading
Capital and For a Theory of Literary Production, Macherey published Hegel or
Spinoza in1979. During those long 15years, much had happened in the fields of
politics and philosophy. During this same period, Macherey had published little,
almost nothing. We can imagine, nonetheless, that Hegel or Spinoza represents the
result of a silent, patient, and meticulous philosophical labor. It is a book that, in
many ways, had to be written: a book that stages a veritable Auseinandersetzung
between the actual, literal, or material practice of Spinozas text and Hegels
magisterial exposition of Spinozas philosophical system. A book that had to
be written, then, because much of the most important work accomplished by
Althusser and what came to be called his circle presupposes this philosophical
labor. Indeed, the circle opposed the Hegelianism and humanist Marxism
promoted by the most public intellectuals at the time, Jean-Paul Sartre and
Maurice Merleau-Ponty. Yet, nowhere in the work of Althusser, Macherey, or
Balibar, among others, do we find an explicit articulation of what Macherey will
call the essential divergence between these two images of thought and these
two competing figures of rationality. And yet it seems that the silent presence
of Spinozas antiteleological, antihumanist materialism was what supported
their efforts to purge Marxs materialist dialectic of its Hegelian residues. Why,
in the course of this operation, Spinoza could only be invoked obliquely is no
Introduction
doubt a matter of strategy, on the philosophical and political fronts, in a very

determinate situation.17 Suffice it to say that the conjuncture in 1979, on the
philosophical and political fronts, was much different. An operation that, in the
mid-1960s, assumed the form of a semiclandestine strategic hypothesis could
now take place, in its smallest details, out in the open.
Hegel or Spinoza appears to propose a bifurcation in the history of thought:
either/or, either Hegel or Spinoza. But this provocative title does little justice,
in fact, to the complex and overdetermined relations between these two
philosophical systems, relations that Macherey draws out. Indeed, at moments,
as the title to Montags contribution to this volume suggests, the or may just
as well be an inclusive or: Hegel or Spinoza; Hegel, which is to say, Spinoza.
Macherey is concerned primarily with how Hegel misses Spinoza, how
Hegels seemingly attentive examination of Spinozas thought is in fact a missed
encounter, a nonevent that nevertheless leaves symptomatic, legible traces in
Hegels own thought.18 Whether it is a question of Hegels critique of Spinozas
peculiar deployment of the geometric method, the misreading of the famous
formula, omnis determinatio est negatio, or the relation between substance and
attributes in the first two books of the Ethics, Hegel is shown to consistently
say exactly the opposite of [what Spinozas thought] establishes.19 This, we
can assume, reveals less about Spinozas own philosophical system than it does
the conditions of Hegels own discourse. It is as if these inversions are scars
internal to Hegels thought, a blindness to what is right before his eyes, a blind
spot that is the historical and material condition for the emergence of Hegels
thought. More enigmatically, Macherey underlines on several occasions that this
blindness is all the more blind in those moments when Spinozas thought seems
to anticipate Hegels avant la lettre. Speaking of Hegels false characterization of
Spinozas substance as dead and the relation between substance and attributes
as at once mechanical and external to one another, Macherey demonstrates that,
to the contrary, substance is in its immanent life...a movement toward self,
affirmation of self that is, a notion of substance as an absolute process in
which the attribute of thought is a point of immanent reflection or inflexion that
is perilously close to Hegels own.20 It is at these moments, Macherey emphasizes,
when an essential convergence between these two thoughts occurs, that
Hegels interpretation diverges most dramatically from the actual formulations
of Spinozas text. It is this play of proximity and distance, of divergence and
convergence, that constitutes the space of the missed encounter between Hegel
and Spinoza.
Machereys localization of these points of convergence should, however, give

us some pause. Much of the work done on Spinoza in Europe since the late 1960s,
whether that of the Althusserian circle, Deleuze, Matheron, or Negri, as we have
already observed, was undertaken in view of affirming the divergence between
Hegels and Spinozas thought: what interest is there, after all, in affirming that
Spinozas doctrine of substance is identical with Hegels, that he anticipates it by
a century and a half? What interest is there in affirming that Hegels thought, the
Hegel of absolute idealism, the Hegel for whom the absolute is both substance
and subject, is already found in what is supposed to be a thought committed
to a critique of finalism? What is at stake for Macherey is not only the actuality
of Spinozas text but the symptomatic nature of Hegels inability to characterize
that text accurately. What is implicit in this enterprise is another scansion of
the history of philosophy and the historicity of thought: a history in which
Hegel does not succeed Spinoza so much as merely repeat him in their points of
convergence, and even regress to a pre-Spinozan position at certain moments
where they diverge? Nonetheless, Machereys philosophical strategy leaves open,
and perhaps calls for, still another approach to Hegel, an approach that would
seek out those configurations in Hegels thought that diverge from Hegels own
understanding of his philosophical system. For three decades of Continental
thought, to invoke Spinoza was to take ones distance from Hegel, and this
distance was itself often a way of drawing a line of demarcation internal to Marxs
thought, cleaving it from its lingering Hegelianism, and from every religious,
that is teleological, conception of history. Much rarer are those occasions when
we witness the inverse operation: the operation that folds the materialism of
Spinoza back onto Hegels own text, using Spinoza as a weapon to draw a line
of demarcation internal to Hegels system, between Hegel the philosopher of
absolute idealism and Hegel the thinker of history as a process without subject
or end.21 Spinoza, would be, in this scenario, the necessary detour required to
accomplish the task that Lenin, in his notebooks on the Logic, set out for himself:
to read Hegel as a materialist. That is, as Spinozist.
The ambition of this collection of critical essays is to begin to explore
this possibility of reading Hegel and Spinoza again, after and in light of the
extraordinary philosophical labor performed on Spinozas thought in, among
other places, France and Italy over the past 30years. This work has needed a
fictional Hegel in order to assume the distance taken from him, a fictional Hegel
whose textual and philosophical practice is assumed to coincide with its own
declared consciousness of that practice. Such an undertaking, however, will
Introduction
have to reflect on its own conditions of possibility. Why is it possible to begin

the process of locating these moments of divergence or deviation internal to
Hegels thought today, at a certain moment in the history of thought? Why has
it been necessary, over the past three decades, to treat Hegels philosophy as a
homogenous bloc of thought, unmarked by internal distances and immanent
dcalages, unscathed by the war at the heart of every thought? And why, in turn,
does it fall to Spinoza, and Spinoza alonethis singular thoughtto make this
new Hegel come to light? If these questions are not answered in this collection,
they are clearly the inspiration for the essays.
Part I concerns Spinozas account of the individual. This account is a difficult
one, a difficulty often avoided in the history of philosophy by reducing the
individual to a mere dissipation of substance, its degradation or diminution,
or by assimilating Spinozas thoughtin particular his political thoughtto
the methodological individualism of Hobbes. In this part, Vittorio Morfino,
Jason Read, and Andr Santos Campos address, in various ways, the problem
of the individual in Hegel and Spinoza, and all do so through the concept of
transindividuality. This concept was first developed by Gilbert Simondon in
his posthumously published book Lindividuation psychique et collective,22 and
expanded by Etienne Balibar, first in relation to Spinozas ontology and later in
a wider ranging reflection that includes Hegel himself within the philosophical
tradition of thinking transindividuality.23 Spinozas thought of the individual,
according to Balibar, escapes the dilemma of individualism or holism, which is
also understood in another register as the dilemma of the exteriority of relations
characteristic of civil society (e.g. as described by Hegel) or the interiority of an
essential community. Balibar therefore speaks of a transindividuality, which
is meant to describe a process of individuation in greater specificity, including
the process of the production of the individual outlined by Spinoza as well as
the relations (of exchange, modification, destruction, or combination) between
individuals without which the individual could not exist. Beginning with the
schema of causality proposed in Book 1 of the Ethics, it is possible to understand
nature not as an undivided substance that subsequently breaks apart into an
infinity of attributes and modes but as nothing other, insists Balibar, than its
distribution into the infinite multiplicity of modes, the infinite process of their
production, and the infinity of causal relations among them. The immanent
causality of substance is, therefore, not to be conceived or represented as a
linear series of causes but to be conceived as an infinite network of singular
modulations,24 in which the individual is constantly transformed in its
encounters with others. Within this structure of causality, the individual is

identified not with the corpora simplicissima referred to in the short treatise
on physics in part 2 of the Ethics, but as a composite body made up of parts
(including the simple bodies), which never exist unto themselves, but which are
always integrated into and exchanged between individuals that are themselves
only fragile configurations striving, through these exchanges, to continue to exist.
The individual, then, is not best understood as a form, but rather as a perpetually
variable and adaptive encounter between bodies. The individual is a point of
equilibrium within a field of forces that must constantly maintain itselfaffirm
itselfin a process of decomposing and recomposing itself through exchanges
with other bodies. Conatus, the self-affirmation of the individual mode, is a
strategy (to use the term proposed by Laurent Bove25), a constant warding off of
encounters that would result in the total or fatal decomposition of a body in
conflictual exchanges with others, and a simultaneous entering into combinations
(convenientiae) or associations that allow an individual to protect itself against
just such dangers, increasing its power of existence and actionthat is, its
autonomythrough collective processes. This collective process is thus the very
condition of individuation, that is, of the augmentation of an individual modes
power to act and intensify its mode of existence: its autonomy is paradoxically
increased to the extent that it enters into combination with other forces.
Vittorio Morfinos essay in Part I takes up Balibars account of the relation
between substance and modes in Spinoza, arguing that Hegels misreading of
Spinozas famous example of the two circles compels him to misunderstand this
transindividual aspect of Spinozas thought. Analyzing the appearances of Spinoza
in Hegels Science of Logic, specifically the 1812 edition and subsequent revisions,
Morfino shows how Hegel appropriates certain aspects of Spinozas thought, in
particular his concept of substance as the concrete articulation of essence and
existence through the category of causa sui. He does this while concomitantly
emphasizing the weakness of Spinozas concept of the individual mode, which,
according to Hegel, is understood by Spinoza as an external limit to substance
rather than as a point of inflection by which substance reflexively returns into
itself as subject. As Morfino reads this passage, Hegel is in a certain sense correct
in his reading of the finite mode, but not in the way that he thinks he is. For, if
the mode is not a reflexive mediation of substancethat is, not a subjectit
is not because substance is limited from without by these modes, these mere
negations; it is because substance is, as Balibar underlined, nothing other than
the weave (connexio, concatenatio) of causal relations between individualmodes
Introduction
that constantly deform and transform themselves in affecting and being affected
by other modes. This conception of modal relations as what Balibar called a
weave of singular modulations isMorfino arguesmisunderstood and even
misrecognized by Hegel when, in his reading of the two circles, he omits Spinozas
characterization of the parts of the line as dynamic passages or differential parts,
rather than discrete parts and therefore external limits. Where Hegel sees a lack
of any return into itself of substance through the mediation of the individual
mode or part, Spinozas thought proposes instead a dynamic or differential mode
understood to be a continuous variation of matter.
Jason Reads essay argues that the concept of transindividuality is particularly
fruitful inallowing us to think the proximity of Hegels and Spinozas theories
of individuation on the basis of what Read calls transindividual conditions.
Paying specific attention to their political philosophies, Read argues that Hegels
and Spinozas theories of individuation can be seen neither to correct nor to
oppose one other but to enter into a relation of supplementation. Starting from
the nature of desire in Spinoza and Hegel, Read demonstrates that while Hegel
inscribes desire within a process of recognitionan intersubjective mediation
of desire that will assume sociohistorical specificity in the institutions of the
family, civil society, and the StateSpinoza thinks the question of desire as
founded on a fundamental misrecognition of the causes of desire, and identifies
the conditions for individuation (in the TTP) with a dialectic of superstition and
knowledge. Where Morfinos reading of Hegels Science of Logic identifies the
manner in which, through a misunderstanding or even misrecognition, Hegel
cannot account for the structure of transindividuality in Spinozas theory of finite
modes, Read shows how both Hegel and Spinoza develop layers of this structure,
starting out from the figure of desire in order to elaborate different aspects of the
transindividual as the condition for individuation.
Campos invokes the concept of transindividuality to consider the question
of the individual and individuation in relation to the question of beginnings
in each philosophers political philosophy. In Hegels thought, the beginning is
always without presupposition, a completely abstract, indeterminate immediacy
that, in reflecting itself, takes leave of itself and falls into its other. Turning, as
Read does, to Hegels political philosophy, the beginning in Hegel takes the
form of the individual will as absolutely without content, a purely immediate
will that only becomes itself by externalizing itself in the form of property and
becoming a juridical person. This movement of self-externalization should not,
Campos argues, lead us to believe, as many readings of Hegel do, that he posits a
10
priority of the institutionfamily, civil society, or the Stateover the individual.

What each of these moments in the articulation of Sittlichkeit represents is a
form of self-mediation of the individual; Hegels progressive method, in the
field of philosophy, traces the path from the abstract individual in its absolute
indeterminacy to what Campos calls a socially complete individual, the citizen
in its self-mediation through the figure of the State. In this way, Campos argues
that Hegels philosophy enters into a proximity with that of Spinoza, who also
places the individualor, rather, the process of individuation, on the basis of
preindividual and transindividual structuresat the heart of both his ontology
and his political philosophy. Like Morfino and Read, Campos takes care to
underline the relational and composite nature of the individual in Spinoza, a
point of inflexion between sub-individual parts and ambient individuals with
whom it exchanges parts in a continuous process of regeneration. Campos
argues that, even if the TP seems, through its introduction of the figure of the
multitude and its abandoning of the contractual origins of the political, to
no longer place the individual at the basis of Spinozas political thought, this
would be to misunderstand the function of the multitude, which plays a certain
mediating role between the individual in its isolation (which is not sufficient to
found a political constitution) and the State.
In Part II, Vance Maxwell, Warren Montag, and John McCumber address and
displace canonical understandings of Hegels characterization of Spinozas place
in the history of philosophy. Maxwells essay addresses Hegels repeated criticisms
of Spinozas thought, with a specific emphasis on two of those critiques. First,
the assertion that the geometric method deployed in the Ethics is an abstract
form applied from without to the matter of thought and therefore incapable of
seizing the immanent movement of the content. Second, the assertion that while
Spinoza discovers, correctly, that all determination is negation, he is unable to
conceive of this negation as a self-determination, that is, an immanent negation
that negates itself in the production of the content of thought. Maxwell brings
his own critiques of Hegels reading of Spinoza together by arguing that Hegel
has not entered into the details of Spinozas reflections on mathematics and
method, and, as a result, has mischaracterized Spinozas conception of method,
which is in fact a progressive methodrather than a simply deductive one
that anticipates, in its unfolding, the movement of self-negation Hegel himself
denies to Spinozas thought. This allows us to envision what Maxwell refers to as a
Spinozan teleology of deductive or mathematical method, on the one hand, and
a mathematical dialectic that anticipates the Hegelian dialectic, on the other.
Introduction
11
Where Maxwell challenges Hegels criticisms of Spinoza through a patient

reconstruction of Spinozas theories of method and negation, Montag examines
Hegels reading of Spinoza through the interventionist strategy developed by
Louis Althusser in the 1960s and 1970s. Althusser found it necessary to make
a detour through Spinoza in the mid-1960s to draw a line of demarcation
between Marxs and Hegels dialectical logics, only to later note that it would
be possible, again via a detour through Spinoza, to draw a line of demarcation
internal to Hegel himself. This would be accomplished, Althusser notes, by
stripping away the teleological commitments in Hegels Logic, resulting not in
a subjective process in which a self would develop its own internal potentialities
through the logical transformation of categories, but in a process without a
subject. Montag uses this initial forcing open of Hegels text on Althussers part
in order to arrive at Hegels own reading of Spinoza and particularly the problem
of origins (or beginnings, following Camposs essay) in Spinoza. Montag is
particularly sensitive to the manner in which Spinoza poses something like
a danger for Hegel, for the reasons similar to those articulated by Morfino:
namely, that Spinoza proposes a thought of causality without origin, a thought
of substance that does not return into itself through the mediation of the modes
in order to become subject. Hegels response to this danger, Montag argues, is
a misunderstanding or misrecognition of Spinozas theory of modes, such that
Hegel identifies the relation between substance and modes as a squandering
of the vital unity of substance, that is, with a Plotinian logic of diminution and
degradation. This misrecognition is, Montag suggests in following Althusser, part
of a self-misrecognition on the part of Hegel, whose Logic itself harbors, when
stripped of its teleological framing, a process without a subject that resembles,
a little too closely for Hegel, the structure of immanent causality he cannot not
deform in his criticisms of Spinozas thought.
McCumber also takes up the historical relation between Hegel and Spinoza,
no longer with reference to the themes of method and negation but rather to the
question of freedom. McCumbers essay measures the proximity and distance,
the between that separates and brings together Spinoza, by focusing specifically
on the question of freedom. Where Spinoza and Hegel remain closest, he argues,
is on the relation between freedom and necessity. If, for Hegel, freedom is not
opposed to necessity, but rather its very manifestationits appearing to
itselffor Spinoza, this reconciliation of freedom and necessity takes the form
of the adequate knowledge of the causes that determine our actions. What these
conceptions of freedom share, then, are a dissociation oftheconcept of freedom
12
from that of the will. For Spinoza, however, this takes the form of knowledge of our
own existence as specific expressions of the infinite, productive power of nature.
To the extent that we strive to persevere in our being, and to increase our own
power to act, our freedom takes the form of a diminution of conflictual relations
with other modes of divine power, and the construction of relations of agreement
that increase our powers to think, feel, and act. Hegel too, in The Phenomenology
of Spirit, McCumber argues, identifies freedom with a final reconciliation with
the immanent dynamism of this world, a conclusion that takes the form of the
announcement, at the end of the section on revealed religion, that God is dead.
And yet, where Spinoza arrives at this reconciliation with the dynamism of
nature through the knowledge of the causes of ones own action and through,
McCumber asserts, a certain control over the relation between knowledge and
the passions, Hegel describes a trajectory in which consciousness repeatedly, in
its arrival at this reconciliation, puts its own existence at stake and risks and even
desires its own negation. Freedom is won not through the mastery of conflict,
but through the following out of its consequences.
In Part III, the authors challenge the current understanding of Spinoza as
an exclusively affirmative philosopher. Contrary to current reception, they
uncover the figures of negativity operating in important ways in Spinozas
thought. A popular portrait of Spinoza takes his conatus doctrinehis view of
the essence of individual things as the striving to persevere in beingto imply
a commitment to a view of human desire as essentially affirmative, as, at base,
a nonconflicted effort to be what it is (cf. E IIIP6). This notion of our essence
is counterpoised both to Freuds death drive and to Hegels understanding of
self-consciousness motored by a concomitant urge to be and to annihilate.
Whereas, for Hegel, our radical freedom implies that we are the animals who
can will the annihilation of anything, including ourselves (EPR x), Spinoza is
taken to be the philosopher for whom human being is defined by unequivocal
self-affirmation. Although the importance of negativity in Hegels dialectic
cannot be overstated, Lauer claims that the dialectic operates in distinct ways in
different domains. Thus, there is no Hegelian dialectic simpliciter, but rather
different modalities of transformation and development depending upon the
object under investigation. In the domain of anthropology, in particular, Lauer
contends that Hegel does not always treat negation as the motor of development.
Similarly, Hull points to confusions in Spinoza scholarship around the analysis
of essence as opposed to existence. Whereas essences operate according
to a logic of necessity, it is unhelpful to analyze existence in such terms.
Introduction
13
By calling attention to the distinct types of analysis performed by each

philosopher in different domains of inquiry, the authors are able to show that,
despite their metaphysical differences, the distance between Spinoza and Hegel
is not so great when it comes to an account of human psychology.
In particular, the first two essays in this section trouble the basis of the
antagonism between Hegel and Spinoza by demonstrating the effective presence
of negation in Spinozas thought. As we discuss above, this distinction is one
that Hegel himself drew, and thus the authors call for a reassessment of Hegels
own line of demarcation that abandons Spinoza on the Oriental shore of nave
affirmation. If dialectical negation works differently in Hegels account of human
psychology than it does in his metaphysics, and if Spinoza has a meaningful
account of negation in human experience, then this metaphysical difference
might not be as consequential as either Hegel or Spinozists imagine. If the authors
convince us that Spinoza and Hegel each have a varied treatment of negation and
affirmation in psychic life, it may allow for a rapprochement on the question of
self-transformation, and thus for more shared terrain in ethics and politics. This
is not to reduce Spinoza to Hegel but to allow for both unsuspected alliances
and more nuanced distinctions within their ethical and political thought. In the
final essay in Part III, Williams forges just such an alliance between Spinoza and
contemporary readings of Hegel that figure the subject as necessarily incomplete
and in the process of becoming undone. Thus, each of these essays bridge the
gap, albeit incompletely, between Spinoza and Hegel by reimagining their
anthropologies and affirming and reinterpreting the role of the negative in both
thinkers.
Christopher Lauers major contribution in Affirmative Pathology is to
show that nobody knows what dialectics can do. Attention to the peculiar
character of individual striving and self-repair reveals a kind of dialectical
transformation that does not depend upon the ability to absorb negativity in
a triumphant movement toward total self-mastery. Lauer claims that, for both
Hegel and Spinoza, personal growth involves resisting and transforming certain
habitual modes of perceiving and relating to the world through exposure to
new ways of organizing experience. Each philosopher seeks to show how the
psyche can modify painful and stultifying connections of the imagination and
thereby open itself to more enabling patterns of thought and action. Spinozas
emphasis on joy and love notwithstanding, his Ethics frequently dwells on how
we are compromised, sometimes even fatally, by our mental fixations and the
intractability of our disabling habits (e.g. E IVP44S).
14
Without dismissing genuine differences between Hegel and Spinoza, Lauer

draws out the distinctive character of individual striving through an examination
of Hegels understudied remarks on the Dreaming Soul from Hegels Philosophy
of Spirit. The Dreaming Soul is characterized by a blockage, or an unhealthy
fixation that takes the psyche out of connection to place, time, and self. This
dreamlike condition that threatens ones ability to integrate herself with her
body and her environment is not, according to Lauer, a negative moment in
the classic dialectical sense whereby evolution depends upon resolving this
obstacle in order to attain a higher form of self-unity. Rather, the dementia of the
dreaming soul simply illustrates the positive character self-feeling that typically
operates in psychic life. In other words, the demented character of dreaming
consciousness is a persistent possibility that is never resolved, but, when one
does not suffer from mental illness, its periodic eruptions incite us to reaffirm our
connections to our bodies and worlds. According to Lauer, Spinoza and Hegel
both present quotidian human experience as this kind of tarrying with negativity.
The embodied mind must guard against certain debilitating fixations that sever it
from the conditions of its general welfare and awareness of them. Yet, the threat
of dementia that prompts individuals to self-repair is never overcome once and
for all. Thus, he urges Spinozists not to overlook Hegels anthropology, since it
provides a rich account of human development that supplements Spinozas bare
outlines in the Ethics.
Gordon Hulls essay, Of Suicide and Falling Stones, puts Judith Butlers
heretical alliance of Spinoza and Hegel to work toward what could lead to a
comprehensive reassessment of Spinoza. Hull establishes the lines of argument
that yield Spinoza as a thinker for whom finitude and corporeal vulnerability
are paramount. Rather than an ethics that follows from our striving to affirm
ourselves, first and foremost, as parts of nature so as to glory in the intellectual
love of God, Hull finds that the principles of Spinozas practical philosophy
are much more attentive to negativity than is often surmised (page). With
Butler, he emphasizes the fragility of the capacity of finite beings to persist
amidst infinitely many other finite causes. Yet, since finite beings cannot exist
except by virtue of the enabling powers of other beings, we are prone as much to
constituting a greater power as to being deconstituted by those forces without
which we cannot live. Hull highlights what another commentator, Gabriel
Albiac, has called the tragic Spinoza, the theorist of vigilance, anxiety, and
threat without which we could not understand the widespread tendency among
humanity that Spinoza so laments: the fact that we so often fight for our slavery
as if it were salvation (TTP pref).
Introduction
15
Hull argues that Butlers Spinozism supplements but does not displace her
Hegelianism. Spinozas critique of teleology and refusal of theodicy serves as a
bulwark against problematic aspects of Hegels idealism, but Hegels profound
suspicion of any and all natural necessity when it comes to human existence puts
healthy pressure on Spinozas naturalism. With Butler as inspiration, Hull uses
an important distinction between Spinozas analysis of essence and his account
of existence to show that his practical philosophy is not necessitarian in the
way that his metaphysics famously is. In fact, Hull interprets one of the great
naturalists as a committed denaturalist of universal categories. Thus, in a way
that allies Spinoza with Hegels social philosophy, Hull reads Spinoza as a critic of
the naturalization of socially imposed categories like gender and nation. Finally,
although Hulls reading does not seek to reinterpret Spinozas doctrine of conatus
to allow for negation as an intrinsic feature of human striving (as Butler does),
he shows that Spinozas practical philosophy absolutely demands attention to
those very features of human life that are often seen as anathema to Spinozism:
our universal mortality, vulnerability, and susceptibility to radical fear.
In Thinking the Space of the Subject between Hegel and Spinoza, Caroline
Williams seeks to bring out the affinities between late-twentieth century
Continental interpretations of Spinoza and contemporary psychoanalytic
readings of Hegel. She finds a productive figure of subjectivity without a
subject operating in this constellation of thought. If the subject is conventionally
understood as the condition of possibility for thought and moral action, in
contrast, the Hegelianism of Judith Butler and Slavoj iek, for example,
imagine a necessarily incomplete consciousness that is always unraveled by its
fantasies, desires, and needs. Contemporary interpretations of Hegel inflected by
psychoanalysis discover in his thought, rather than the figure of Spirit bounding
toward the satisfaction of total self-understanding, the indefinitely unhappy
consciousness, repeatedly unraveled by its lack of coincidence with itself. For
these thinkers, consideration of the permanence of self-division rather than the
aspiration toward subjective coherence opens greater possibilities for theorizing
the ambivalence of social life, the agonies of attachment and resistance to the
social order that typically characterize psychic life. Williams surmises that, when
one foregrounds the strand of restlessness and insatiable yearning in Hegels
thinking, it becomes less mysterious that Spinoza as a major thinker of affect
and striving continues to appear in psychoanalytic discussions despite aspects of
his thought that appear utterly alien to it.
Like the other two authors in Part III, Williams underlines the tragic
dimension of Spinozism in her account of his psychophysics. By emphasizing
16
the autonomy and impersonality of the affective field, she lays the groundwork
for a Spinozan psychology of unwitting self-subordination. Because subjectivity
is not anchored by a self-aware subject striving to affirm and enhance its being,
subjectivity is comprised of an indifferent and fractured field of relational forces.
Nevertheless, Williams resists seeing the tragic Spinoza as the end of the story.
Just as his Ethics concludes with a joyous immersion within the infinite power
of Nature, Williams points to the lens of eternity by which one can always find
power within subjection, even for subjectless subjectivities.
Part IV continues some of the themes of the earlier parts, but brings the
Spinoza-Hegel relationship to bear on the status of Judaism in Spinoza and
later Enlightenment thought. Dobbs-Weinstein treats Marxs Spinoza-inspired
critique of the young Hegelians as the natural starting place for thinking
through Hegel and Spinoza. What better way to pass between whatever impasse
may exist between Hegel and Spinoza than to follow Marx, the most radical of
the young Hegelians? Dobbs-Weinstein offers a novel interpretation of the role
of the Hebrew State for Spinoza and Marx, which potentially puts the Jewish
question in an entirely new light. Bernstein analyzes the figure of Judaism in
universal history through staging a dialog between Hegel, Spinoza, and Adorno.
Thus, the final section of the collection goes beyond Hegel and Spinoza toward
considerations of Marx and the critical theory of the Frankfurt school.
In The Paradox of a Perfect Democracy, Idit Dobbs-Weinstein maintains
that Marxs particular intervention into the Hegelianism of his day was motivated
by his study of Spinozas TTP. In an understudied notebook, Marx transcribed
various passages of Spinozas Theological-Political Treatise as well as some lines
from a selection of letters. His transcriptions rearrange and excerpt certain key
ideas that Dobbs-Weinstein finds in Marxs well-known critique of Hegel and
the Left Hegelians. The importance of Marxs study of the TTP is suggested by
the fact that many Left Hegelians took themselves to be Spinozists, and yet Marx
seems to find in Spinoza the basis for a criticism of their teachings.26 Attention to
these notebooks allows us to see how Spinozas critique of religious superstition
and Marxs famous effort to put Hegelian dialectics on its feet repudiates the
standard Enlightenment idea of human liberation as an emancipation from
religion, ignorance, and ideology. If both Spinoza and Marx seek something
like universal freedom within a perfect democracy, Dobbs-Weinstein makes the
provocative claim that the model for both thinkers is in fact the Hebrew State,
and not the rational secularism often associated with Spinozism and Marxism.
Dobbs-Weinstein lays the groundwork for this provocation with her discovery
that the critiques performed by both Spinoza and Marx operate according to
Introduction
17
the principle Spinoza identifies in a letter (a principle, which, unsurprisingly,

caught Hegels attention): omnis determinatio est negatio (Ep 50). This principle
requires critique to begin with the ruling ideas of the day, understood as the
forms of consciousness reflecting existing institutions and power structures
(a social version of Spinozas thesis that the mind is the idea of the body).
Spinoza and Marx, by virtue of their distinct historical circumstances, aim their
criticism at different ruling ideas and their institutional correlates, but they both
attack the basis for treating religion and ideology as features of embodied life
that can be transcended through the establishment of a perfectly rational social
order. According to the author, Marx excerpts every statement in which Spinoza
problematizes the distinction between nature and culture and thereby cultivates
an appreciation of how emancipation can never be, pace social contract theory,
liberation from our natural condition (the state of nature). Rather, the negation
of our natural determination occurs by virtue of a community with God or
nature that is represented in the first Hebrew State.
Spinoza, as many know, argues that the Hebrew State is no longer possible,
since it emerged in a particular place and time, among a people with a peculiar
disposition shaped by a long history of radical servitude. Yet, the first covenant
by which each recognized God simultaneously as the condition of their selfpreservation remains a model of radical equality in which each member is both
the author and the subject of law. Moreover, the perfection of the first democracy
was not owed to the rationality of the decision to transfer ones right to God, but
by virtue of the community of feeling by which allrational, foolish, and mad
were able to affirm what was in their genuine interest. Dobbs-Weinstein points
to Marxs transcription of Spinozas famous line the end of the state, therefore,
is truly freedom (TTP 20.6), and gives it a Marxist interpretation that lends
credence to the notion that Spinozas theological-politics may be an inspiration
for Marxs idea of a truly free community. As she notes, freedom as the end of
the State implies not only that a States goal is essentially freedom, but that the
actualization of such freedom is nothing other than the annihilation of the State.
Omnis determinatio est negatio.
Jeffrey Bernsteins Spinoza, Hegel, and Adorno on Judaism and History
foregrounds a different aspect of Spinozas analysis of the Hebrew State.
Although Dobbs-Weinsteins commentary is an important corrective to
analyses that overlook the positive features of the Hebrew State, Spinoza also
offers a rich analysis of its antagonistic relationship to other nations. Spinoza,
on Bernsteins interpretation, gives an alternative account of what Hegel will
portray as the stubborn particularity of Judaism. Bernstein demonstrates that
18
the juxtaposition of Spinoza and Hegel on the question of Judaism in history

reveals this particularity as a product of external reification rather than some
kind of idiosyncratic stubbornness proper to Jewish character. Thus, the lack of
reconciliation between universal history and the particular history of the Jewish
people comes to appear as a political phenomenon that follows from the tensions
between religious passions and the modern States universalizing form.
Adorno mobilizes the figure of Jewish particularity as the refusal to be synthesized into the universal totality as a basic principle of historical inquiry. Bernstein
argues that Adornos philosophy embodies a synthesis of the Spinozan emphasis
on concrete analysis of historical singularity and the Hegelian narrativization of
world-historical change. It is a synthesis because it both affirms the project of
speculative history and insists on memorializing natural particularity after its
eclipse by spirit (222). Judaism as what cannot be assimilated becomes a figure
of the suppression of nature by civilization, which it is the task of critical theory to
uncover. Nature, in its singularity, is the spectral presence of what cannot appear
by virtue of its lack of susceptibility to the form of universality (a form demanded
by language) and also that which the theorist must always hold in mind or risk
the occlusion and annihilation of all that exceed the representation.
Notes
1 Cf. F. Neuhouser, Foundations of Hegels Social Theory (Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press, 2000).
2 J. Israel, Radical Enlightenment (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001).
3 See G. di Giovanni, Hegels Phenomenology and the Critique of the
Enlightenment, Laval thologique et philosophique 51.2 (1995): 25170.
4 See the sections, the system of needs, in EPR, 18998.
5 See, for example, E IVP18.
6 Although antiindividualism is nearly synonymous with Hegelianism, whether
Spinoza should be seen as a critic of individualism is a matter of debate. On
this question, see Montag, Bodies, Masses, Power (London: Verso, 1999), and
Matheron, Individu et communaut chez Spinoza (Paris: Presses Universitaires
de France, 1968).
7 Hegel, PS, 17896.
8 See M. Mack, Spinoza and the Specters of Modernity (London: Continuum
Books, 2010), pp. 147.
Introduction
19
9 G. Deleuze, Spinoza: Practical Philosophy, trans. by R. Hurley (San Francisco,

CA: City Lights, 1988), pp. 1213. Hereafter SPP.
10 G. Deleuze, Expressionism in Philosophy (Cambridge, MA: Zone books, 1992),
p.60.
11 Deleuze, SPP, p. 13.
12 Hegel, Lectures on the History of Philosophy, trans by. E.S. Haldane (New York:
Humanities Press, 1996), p. 513.
13 Deleuze, SPP, p. 13.
14 One might find it misleading to put Hegel on the side of negativity since
he does not value negation for its own sake. While it is true that, for Hegel,
development only follows from the negation of the negation, he does insist that
internal opposition is what raises spiritual beings above the dumb inertia that
characterizes nature. It is the requirement of being self-opposed in essence, to
which Deleuze and others object.
15 See, especially, his Lectures on the History of Philosophy, pp. 477507.
16 A book whose translation into English should renew interest in the HegelSpinoza relationship. P. Macherey, Hegel or Spinoza, trans. by S. Ruddick
(Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2011).
17 See Althusser, On Spinoza, Essays in Self-Criticism, trans. by G. Locke
(London: New Left Books, 1976). It was not only in France, however, that
Marxist thinkers were working through Spinoza in the face of frustrated mass
movements and radical opposition to capitalism. Imprisoned the same year that
Hegel ou Spinoza was published, Antonio Negri spent his incarceration writing
The Savage Anomaly, trans. by M. Hardt (Minneapolis, MN: University of
Minnesota Press, 1991).
18 We can oppose this mode of missing Spinoza to Heideggers almost total lack
of engagement with Spinozas thought and to Spinozas status as a dead letter in
the sending or destiny of Being.
19 Pierre Macherey, The Problem of the Attributes, p. 93.
20 Pierre Macherey, The Problem of the Attributes, in The New Spinoza, ed.
Warren Montag and Ted Stolze (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota
Press, 1997), p. 77.
21 One exception, within the Althusserian milieu at least, is the work of Alain
Badiou from 1969 to 1982; but the production of this materialist Hegel has no
recourse to, and even manifests an aversion toward, Spinoza.
22 G. Simondon, Lindividuation psychique et collective (Grenoble: Editions Jrme
Millon, 2005).
20
23 E. Balibar, Individualit et transindividualit chez Spinoza, in Architectures de

la raison, ed. by P.-F. Moreau (Fontenay-aux-Roses: ENS Editions, 1996).
24 E. Balibar, Individualit et transindividualit chez Spinoza, p. 38.
25 Laurent Bove, La stratgie du conatus.
26 Dobbs-Weinstein implies that similar misappropriations of Spinoza endure
today, whereby Spinozas name is invoked to support precisely those doctrines
that he criticized so staunchly.
Part One
The Individual and

Transindividuality between
Ontology and Politics
The Misunderstanding of the Mode. Spinoza in

Hegels Science of Logic (181216)
Vittorio Morfino
Spinoza in late eighteenth century and early

nineteenth century Germany
In order to fully understand the meaning of the representation and function
of Spinozism in Hegels Science of Logic, it is necessary to trace the modalities
with which Spinozism became a part of German philosophical culture in the
last quarter of the eighteenth century. Such modalities constitute both the
meaningful context and the Kampfplatz for Hegels position.
In 1785, Jacobiin his On the Doctrine of Spinoza in Letters to Mr. Moses
Mendelssohnrefers to a sentence by Lessing, in a private dialog, according to
which there is no other philosophy than the philosophy of Spinoza. In the context
of the moderate German Enlightenment, this phrase rang out like a gunshot
and gave rise to a debate on Spinozism involving figures like Mendelssohn and
Herder, as well as Goethe and Kant. Whether Lessing really uttered such words
or not, Jacobis aim was to identify Western reason entirely with Spinozism.
Jacobis endeavor was to transpose onto the former the accusations of atheism,
materialism, and nihilism that were generally reserved for the latter and thus to
open the way for the deadly leap of faith.
In his Foundations of the Entire Science of Knowledge of 1794, Fichte traces
within philosophy itself an alternative between dogmatism (Spinozism) and
criticism, in an attempt to subtract philosophy from the mortal embrace of
Spinozism. However, precisely by means of the conceptual tools represented
by criticism, Spinoza initially becomes a lens through which it is possible to
interpret Fichtes subjectivism and, soon, to overcome it. In 1795, in his Of
the I as Principle of Philosophy, Schellingalbeit following Fichtes idea of
24
Spinozas theory as the system of fulfilled dogmatismexpresses the opinion

that Spinoza
as if against his own will,...he elevated the not-I to the I, and demeaned the I
to a not-I. For him, the world is no longer world, the absolute object no longer
object.1
From this point onward, a play of identifications begins which will involve,
albeit with different nuances, Schelling himself in his writings on the
philosophy of nature, Schellings school, Hlderlin and the friends of the
pantheistic circle in Frankfurt, Schleiermacher in his Discourses on Religion,
the entire romantic circle, and finally, Hegel during the years he spent in
Jena. This phase of identification reaches its climax in Schellings philosophy
of the absolute as identity between Naturphilosophie and Transzendentalphilosophie, between the objective and the subjective. In the preface to his
System of Transcendental Idealism of 1800, Schelling writes: the parallelism of
nature with intelligence...[can be represented] neither [by] transcendental
philosophy nor [by] the philosophy of nature...though on that very account
the two must forever be opposed to one another, and can never merge into
one.2
However, this phase ends in 1807 with Hegels famous attack on Schelling
and Spinoza in his Preface to the Phenomenology of Spirit, where Schellings
Absolute is defined as the night in which...all cows are black.3 Schelling
replied to Hegels identification of his own thought with that of Spinoza with his
famous anti-Spinozist position in the Philosophical Investigations into the Essence
of Human Freedom in1809:
And here then, once and for all, our definite opinion about Spinozism! This
system is not fatalism because it allows things to be contained in God.... The
error of his system lies by no means in [this] but in the fact that they are things
in the abstract concept of beings in the world, indeed of infinite substance itself,
which for him is exactly also a thing. Hence his arguments against freedom are
entirely deterministic, in no way pantheistic. He treats the will also as a thing
and then proves very naturally that it would have to be determined in all its
activity through another thing that is in turn determined by another, and so on
ad infinitum.4
This anti-Spinozist stance forms part of the construction of a pantheism in

which, contra Spinozas pantheism, it is possible to save not only God but also
reason and freedom as well.
The Misunderstanding of the Mode
25
With the Philosophical Investigations, we are close to the period when Hegel
begins to write the Science of Logic. Therefore, let us begin to discuss the presence
of Spinoza in the Logic. I should say at the outset that I will not take into
consideration the revised version of 1831 (which concerns only the Doctrine of
Being), because it belongs to another period of Hegels theoretical production.
The frequency of the name of Spinoza in the

Science of Logic. Spinoza in the Doctrine of Being of 1812
The first occurrence of the name of Spinoza in Hegels Science of Logic can be
found in the Einleitung, in a passage concerning method. Here, Spinoza is
mentioned in a passage that is fundamental from a strategic viewpoint. It is the
passage where Hegel proposes a complete renewal of logic and its method. Hegel
argues that the logic of his time has more or less the form of an experimental
science and that it should instead be elevated to pure science. Method is not
external to its content. Already in the Preface to the Phenomenology of Spirit,
Hegel refused the mathematical method in philosophy, when he affirmed that
the movement of mathematical proof does not belong to the object, but rather
is an activity external to the matter in hand.5 In the Introduction he repeats
this same argument, making explicit reference to Spinoza and Wolff: Spinoza,
Wolff and others have let themselves be misled in applying it also to philosophy
and in making the external course followed by Conceptless quantity, the course
of the Concept, a procedure which is absolutely contradictory.6 So philosophy
shouldnt borrow its method from mathematics, because the method is the
consciousness of the form of the inner self-movement of the content of logic.7
The second occurrence of Spinozas name can be found in the second chapter
(Determinate Being) of the first section (Quality) in the discussion on
Bestimmtheit (Determinateness), in a note on the paragraph on negation:
Determinateness is negation posited as affirmative and is the proposition of
Spinoza: omnis determinatio est negatio. This proposition is infinitely important;
only, negation as such is formless abstraction. However, speculative philosophy
must not be charged with making negation or nothing an ultimate: negation is as
little an ultimate for philosophy as reality is for it truth. Of this proposition that
determinateness is negation, the unity of Spinozas substance or that there
is only one substance is the necessary consequence. Thought and being or
extension, the two attributes, namely, which Spinoza had before him, he had
26

of necessity to posit as one in this unity; for as determinate realities they are
negations whose infinity is their unity. He grasped them therefore as attributes,
that is, as not having a separate existence, a self-subsistent being of their own,
but only as sublated, as moments; or rather, since substance in its own self
lacks any determination whatever, they are for him not even moments, and the
attributes like the modes are distinctions made by an external intellect. Similarly,
the substantiality of individuals cannot persist in the face of that proposition.
The individual is a relation-to-self through its setting limits to everything else;
but these limits are thereby also limits of itself, relations to an other, it does
not possess its determinate being within itself. True, the individual is more than
merely an entity bounded on all sides, but this more belongs to another sphere of
the [Concept]; in the metaphysics of being, the individual is simply a determinate
something, and in opposition to the independence and self-subsistence of such
something, to the finite as such, determinateness effectively brings into play its
essentially negative character, dragging what is finite into that same negative
movement of the understanding which makes everything vanish in the abstract
unity of substance.8
Hegel considers Spinozas proposition to be one of universal importance,

because it shows the way in which Determinateness is essentially the limit and
has the being for other as its foundation. Daseyn is what it is only by means
of the limit: therefore, reality necessarily passes through negation and in so
doing it openly shows its foundation and its essence. First, Hegel maintains that
it is from this position that the unity and singularity of Spinozas substance is
derived, since thought and being (Denken und Sein), as determined realities,
are negations. They are attributes which do not have a self-subsistent being of
their own, but exist only insofar as they are sublated (aufgehobene) as moments
(Momente). Second, from this position the nonsubstantiality of individuals
is derived in turn because individuals, inasmuch as they are limited (ein
Beschrnktes), do not have their own existence in themselves.
The third occurrence of Spinozas name can be found at the beginning of the
first chapter on Quantity (Die Quantitt), in the second section on Magnitude
(Grsse), in a note devoted to pure quantity. In this section, quantity is defined as
the unity of the moments of continuity and discreteness, but at first it is so in the
form of one of them, continuity (187). In this note, Hegel lingers over the point
that in representation without concept (Die begrifflose Vorstellung), continuity is
thought of as composition (Zusammensetzung), namely as a relation of unities
or units between each other that is extrinsic, while actual continuity is not an
extrinsic relation between unities, but essential. As an example of the latter,
Hegel quotes the scholium of the proposition 15 of Ethics I.9
27
In the second section of the second chapter (Quantum), Spinozas name

returns in a note in the section on The infinity of Quantum. As Hegel puts it:
It is primarily in this sense, in which it has been demonstrated that the so-called
sum or finite expression of an infinite series is rather to be regarded as the
infinite expression, that Spinoza opposes the concept of true infinity to that of
the spurious and illustrates it by examples. It will shed most light on his concept
if I follow up this exposition with what he says on the subject. He starts by
defining the infinite as the absolute affirmation of any kind of natural existence,
the finite on the contrary as a determinateness, as a negation. That is to say,
the absolute affirmation of an existence is to be taken as its relation to itself,
its not being dependent on an other; the finite, on the other hand, is negation,
a ceasing-to-be in the form of a relation to an other which begins outside it.
Now the absolute affirmation of an existence does not, it is true, exhaust the
notion of infinity; this implies that infinity is an affirmation, not as immediate,
but only as restored by the reflection of the other into itself, or as negation of
the negative. But with Spinoza, substance and its absolute unity has the form of
an inert unity, i.e. of a unity which is not self-mediated, of a fixity or rigidity in
which the Notion of the negative unity of the self, i.e. subjectivity, is still lacking.
The mathematical example with which he illustrates the true infinite is a space
between two unequal circles which are not concentric, one of which lies inside
the other without touching it. It seems that he thought highly of this figure and
of the concept which it was used to illustrate, making it the motto of his Ethics.
Mathematicians conclude, he says, that the inequalities possible in such a
space are infinite, not from the infinite amount of parts, for its size is fixed and
limited and I can assume larger and smaller such spaces, but because the nature
of the fact surpasses every determinateness. It is evident that Spinoza rejects that
conception of the infinite which represents it as an amount or as a series which
is not completed, and he points out that here, in the space of his example, the
infinite is not beyond, but actually present and complete; this space is bounded,
but it is infinite because the nature of the fact surpasses every determinateness,
because the determination of magnitude contained in it cannot at the same time
be represented as a quantum...Spinoza calls the infinite of a series the infinite
of the imagination; on the other hand, the infinite as self-relation he calls the
infinite of thought, or infinitum actu.10
Hegel refers here to Spinoza by means of the famous example of the two
nonconcentric circles. Spinozas example is referred to as evidence of the infinite in
actu, which is present and complete, as opposed to the infinity of the imagination,
the infinite of the series, namely bad infinity. We find Spinoza once again at the
beginning of section three on Measure. Measure is the unity of quality and
28
quantity; it is exteriority that does not possess determinateness in the other, like
quantity, but rather in itself. In opposition to this triadic movement in which
measure is the third that returns into itself, Hegel points out the insufficiency of
Spinozas concept of mode:
With Spinoza, the mode is likewise the third after substance and attribute; he
explains it to be the affections of substance, or that element which is in an other
through which it is comprehended. According to this concept, this third is
only externality as such; as has already been mentioned...the rigid nature of
substance lacks the return into itself.11
Hegel proposes to correct Spinozas concept of mode: According to the preceding,

mode acquires here its determinate meaning as measure. Measure is not yet the
absolute turning back of being into itself, but rather its turning back into itself
within its sphere.
The last occurrence of Spinozas name in the Doctrine of Being can be found
in the third chapter (The Becoming of Essence) of the third section, in a note
on the paragraph Indifference as an Inverse Ratio of its Factor:
With respect to absolute indifference, which is the fundamental concept of
the Spinozistic substance, it can further be noted that this concept is the final
determination of being before the latter comes to be essencethat it does not,
however, attains to essence. Absolute indifference entails the absolute unity of
specifically self-subsisting [moments] in their highest determination as thought
and being, and therein of all the other modifications of these attributes. However,
only the absolute as existing in itself is thereby thought, not as existing for
itself. Or it is external reflection that stops short at this: that the self-subsistent
[moments] are the same and one in themselves or in the absolute; that their
difference is only an indifferent one, not a difference in itself. Whats still missing
here is that the reflection not be the external reflection of the thinking subject
but that it be itself known to sublate, as indeed the self-subsistent [moments]s
own determination and movement, the latters difference and to be a one not
merely in itself but in its qualitative difference, whereby the concept of essence
then shows itself not to have the negative outside it but to have rather absolute
negativity within itself, to be indifference as against itself just as much as against
its other.12
Absolute indifference is the last determination of being before it becomes

essence. Thus, it is on the very threshold of essence, on the edge of the
supposition that behind being there is a bottom which constitutes its truth, that
Spinozas philosophy seems to arrest itself.
29
Spinoza in the Doctrine of Essence of 1813

In the Doctrine of Essence, however, Spinoza makes his return. Indeed, Hegel
devotes a large amount of space to Spinozas philosophy in the third section on
Actuality [Wirklichkeit], which is the unity of Essence and Existence; more
specifically, it can be found in the note that concludes the first chapter on the
absolute. Hegels analysis of Spinozas philosophy is developed as a comment
on the concepts of substance, attribute, and mode. First, Hegel provides an
analysis of the concept of substance, whose absoluteness, uniqueness, and
indivisibility is the consequence of the principle determinatio est negatio, namely
the fundamental principle of Spinozism. If this conception of substance has the
merit of dissolving any independence of the finite in the totality, however, it has
the limit of conceiving the thought of this totality as an extrinsic finiteness and
not as a circle in which origin and end meet:
Spinozism is a defective philosophy because in it reflection...is an external
thinking. The substance of this system is one substance, one indivisible totality;
there is no determinateness that is not contained and dissolved in this absolute;
and...in this necessary notion, everything which...appears...as something
self-subsistent, is completely reduced to a mere positedness. Determinateness is
negation is the absolute principle of Spinozas philosophy; this true and simple
insight establishes the absolute unity of substance. But Spinoza stops short
at negation as determinateness or quality; he does not advance to a cognition
of negation as absolute, that is, self-negating, negation; thus his substance does
not itself contain the absolute form, and cognition of it is not an immanent
cognition....Two consequences follow from this: one is that substance lacks
the principle of personalitya defect which has been the main cause of hostility
to Spinozas system; the other is that cognition is external reflection which does
not comprehend and derive from substance that which appears as finite, the
determinateness of the attribute and the mode, and generally itself as well, but is
active as an external understanding, taking up the determinations as given and
tracing them back to the absolute but not taking its beginnings from the latter.
The notions of substance given by Spinoza are the notions of cause of itself,
and that substance is that whose essence includes existencethat the notion
of the absolute does not require the notion of an other by which it must be
formed. These notions, profound and correct as they are, are definitions, which
are immediately assumed at the outset of the science. Mathematics and other
subordinate sciences must begin with something presupposed which constitutes
its element and positive foundation. But the absolute cannot be a first, an
immediate; on the contrary, the absolute is essentially its result.13
30
Second, Hegel analyses the concept of attribute. In this analysis, he underlines

the extent to which Spinozas definition of the determination of the absolute
which is the attributeis dependent on the intellect, namely on a mode,
something which is subsequent to the attribute. Furthermore, the passage from
the infiniteness of attributes to the oppositional duality of thought and extension
is not deduced from the absolute, but only assumed from the empirical realm:
Spinozas definition of the absolute is followed by his definition of the attribute,
and this is determined as the manner in which intellect comprehends the essence
of substance. Apart from the fact that intellect, in accordance with its nature, is
postulated as posterior to attribute for Spinoza defines it as mode attribute,
determination as determination of the absolute, is thus made dependent on an
other, namely, intellect, which appears as external and immediate over against
substance. Spinoza further determines attribute as infinite, and infinite, too,
in the sense of an infinite plurality. However in what follows only two appear,
thought and extension, and it is not shown by what necessity the infinite plurality
reduces itself to opposition, that, namely, of thought and extension. These two
attributes are therefore adopted empirically. Thought and being represent the
absolute in a determination; the absolute itself is their absolute unity and they
themselves are only unessential forms; the order of things is the same as that
of figurate conceptions or thoughts, and the one absolute is contemplated only
by external reflection, by a mode, under these two determinations, once as a
totality of conceptions, and again as a totality of things and their mutations,
just as it is this external reflection which makes that distinction, so too does it
lead the difference back into absolute identity and therein submerges it. But this
entire movement proceeds outside the absolute. True, the absolute is itself also
thought, and so far this movement is only in the absolute; but as remarked, it is
in the absolute only as unity with extension, and therefore not as this movement
which is essentially also the moment of opposition. Spinoza makes the sublime
demand of thought that it consider everything under the form of eternity, sub
specie aeterni, that is, as it is in the absolute. But in the said absolute, which is
only unmoved identity, the attribute, like the mode, is only as vanishing, not as
becoming, so that here, too, the vanishing takes its positive beginning only from
without.14
Finally on the concept of mode, Hegel points out once again the fact that in
Spinoza the mode is a pure departure from the substance and not the return of
the latter into itself:
The Third, the mode, is with Spinoza affection of substance, specific determinateness, and this is in an other and is apprehended through this other....
31
It is in the mode, therefore, that the determination of the attribute is first really
posited. Further, this mode remains mere mode; on the one hand, it is something
immediately given, and on the other, its nullity is not recognized as reflectioninto-self. Consequently, the Spinozistic exposition of the absolute is complete in
so far as it starts from the absolute, then follows with the attribute, and ends with
the mode; but these three are only enumerated one after the other, without any
inner sequence of development, and the third is not negation as negation, not
the negatively self-related negation which would be in its own self the return into
the first identity, so that this identity would then be veritable identity.15
To sum up, Spinoza has both the merit of thinking substance as the unity of
essence and existence, as causa sui, but also commits the fault of objectifying
it, of thinking of it from the outside, by starting from a mode and thus from
a finite intellect. In Spinoza, the subject loses itself in substance because the
latter is not ab origine logos and the attribute of thought within substance does
not have any primacy with regard to extension. The subject is not a return into
itself, but a vain dispersion. And substance without this movement of return
is mere identity. In other words, Spinozas nature does not become spirit and
does not become history as the final unveiled sense of the logical trace of the
substance.
Spinoza in the Doctrine of the Concept of 1816

We encounter Spinoza once again in the Doctrine of the Concept, in the
introduction which is entitled The concept in general, where Hegel explains
that the concept is to be regarded in the first instance simply as the third to
being and essence, to the immediate and to reflection.16 Being and essence are
contained in the concept, but not as being and essence, because they have
this determination only inasmuch as they are part of the unity of the concept.
As Hegel writes: Objective logic therefore, which treats of being and essence
constitutes properly the genetic exposition of the Concept (577). The concept
has substance as its immediate presupposition, namely substance is in itself
what the concept is as manifested and the dialectical movement of substance
through causality and reciprocity is the immediate genesis of the Concept, the
exposition of the process of its becoming.17
After a synthetic summary of the acquisitions of the last chapter of the third
section of The Doctrine of Essence, entitled The Absolute Relation, Hegel
32
deals with the question that is fundamental with regard to the philosophical
Kampfplatz of his time, namely the refutation of Spinozism:
I have already mentioned in the Second Book of the Objective Logic that the
philosophy which adopts the standpoint of substance and stops there is the
system of Spinoza. I also indicated there the defect of that system alike as to form
and to matter. But the refutation of the system is another matter. With respect to
the refutation of a philosophical system I have elsewhere also made the general
observation that one must get rid of the erroneous idea of regarding the system
as out and out false, as if the true system by contrast were only opposed to the
false. The context itself in which Spinozas system here finds mention provides
the true standpoint of the system and the question whether it is true or false. The
relation of substance resulted from the nature of essence; this relation and its
exposition as a developed totality in a system is, therefore, a necessary standpoint
assumed by the absolute. Such a standpoint, therefore, is not to be regarded as an
opinion, a subjective, arbitrary way of thinking of an individual, as an aberration
of speculation; on the contrary, speculative thinking in the course of its progress
finds itself necessarily occupying that standpoint and to that extent the system
is perfectly true; but it is not the highest standpoint. Yet this does not mean that
the system can be regarded as false, as requiring and being capable of refutation;
on the contrary, the only thing about it to be considered false is its claim to be
the highest standpoint. Consequently, the true system cannot have the relation
to it of being merely opposed to it; for if this were so, the system, as this opposite,
would itself be one-sided. On the contrary, the true system as the higher, must
contain the subordinate system within itself. Further, the refutation must not
come from outside, that is, it must not proceed from assumptions lying outside
the system in question and inconsistent with it. The system need only refuse
to recognize those assumptions; the defect is a defect only for him who starts
from the requirements and demands based on those assumptions. Thus it has
been said that for anyone who does not presuppose as an established fact the
freedom and self-subsistence of the self-conscious subject there cannot be any
refutation of Spinozism. Besides, a standpoint so lofty and so intrinsically rich
as the relation of substance, far from ignoring those assumptions even contains
them: one of the attributes of Spinozas substance is thinking. On the contrary,
Spinozism knows how to resolve and assimilate the determinations in which
these assumptions conflict with it, so that they appear in the system, but in the
modifications appropriate to it. The nerve, therefore, of the external refutation
consists solely in clinging stubbornly to the antitheses of these assumptions, for
example, to the absolute self-subsistence of the thinking individual as against
the form of thought posited in absolute substance as identical with extension.
The genuine refutation must penetrate the opponents stronghold and meet him
33
on his own ground; no advantage is gained by attacking him somewhere else and
defeating him where he is not.18
On this page, Hegel enters into a debate with those refutations of Spinozism
that oppose absolute substance with the independence and subsistence of the
individual. Any refutation of Spinoza, for Hegel, cannot occur through an
extrinsic contrast, but through the recognition of Spinozas position as a necessary
one for thought, namely his concept of the substantial unity. Nonetheless, for
Hegel, it should not be considered the highest one for thought. Here, Hegel states
the principle of immanent critique. It is a matter of thinking the category of
substance dialectically, in order to make freedom emerge from its womb, instead
of contrasting substance and freedom in an extrinsic way:
The only possible refutation of Spinozism must therefore consist, in the first
place, in recognizing its standpoint as essential and necessary and then going
on to raise that standpoint to the higher one through its own immanent
dialectic. The relationship of substance considered simply and solely in its
own intrinsic nature leads on to its opposite, to the [Concept]. The exposition
of substance (contained in the last book) which leads on to the [Concept] is,
therefore, the sole and genuine refutation of Spinozism. It is the unveiling of
substance, and this is the genesis of the [Concept], the chief moments of which
have been brought together above. The unity of substance is its relation of
necessity; but this unity is only an inner necessity; in positing itself through
the moment of absolute negativity it becomes a manifested or posited identity,
and thereby the freedom which is the identity of the [Concept]. The [Concept],
the totality resulting from the reciprocal relation, is the unity of the two
substances standing in that relation; but in this unity they are now free, for
they no longer possess their identity as something blind, that is to say, as
something merely inner; on the contrary, the substances now have essentially
the status of an illusory being, of being moments of reflection, whereby each is
no less immediately united with its other or its positedness and each contains
its positedness within itself, and consequently in its other is posited as simply
and solely identical with itself.
With the Concept, therefore, we have entered the realm of freedom. Freedom
belongs to the Concept because the identity which, as absolutely determined,
constitutes the necessity of substance is now also sublated or is a positedness as
self-related. The mutual opacity of substances standing in a causal relationship
with one another has vanished and becomes a self-transparent clarity, for the
originality of their self-subsistence has passed into a positedness. The original
substance is original in that it is only the cause of itself, and this is substance
34
raised to the freedom of the Concept.19 So, only by correcting Spinozas concept
of substance and by showing how from its womb freedom, subjectivity, and the
concept emerge is it possible to refute Spinozism.
Then, we encounter Spinoza in the first chapter (The Concept) of the first
section (Subjectivity) in the passage on the determinate concept. Here Hegel
writes:
When people talk of the determinate concept, what is usually meant is merely
such an abstract universal. Even by Concept as such, what is generally understood
is only this concept that is no Concept, and the understanding denotes the
faculty of such concepts. Demonstration appertains to this understanding in so
far as it progresses by concepts, that is to say, merely by determinations. Such a
progression by concepts, therefore, does not get beyond finitude and necessity;
for it, the highest is the negative infinite, the abstraction of the supreme being
[des hchsten Wesen], which is itself the determinateness of indeterminateness.
Absolute substance, too, though it is not this empty abstractionfrom the point
of view of its content it is rather the totalityis nevertheless abstract because it
lacks the absolute form; its inmost truth is not constituted by the Concept; true,
it is the identity of universality and particularity, or of thought and asunderness,
yet this identity is not the determinateness of the Concept; on the contrary,
outside substance there is an understandingand just because it is outside it,
a contingent understandingin which and for which substance is present in
various attributes and modes.20
Finally, the last time we read the name of Spinoza is in the second chapter (The
Idea of Cognition) of the third section (The Idea) called The Theorem. Hegel
repeats the judgment he expressed in the Introduction to the Phenomenology
concerning the usage of the mathematical method in philosophy, but he adds an
interesting detail:
Nevertheless, this misuse could not detract from the belief in the aptness
and essentiality of this method for attaining scientific rigor in philosophy;
Spinozas example in the exposition of his philosophy has long been accepted
as a model....Jacobi has attacked it chiefly on the side of its method of
demonstration, and has signaled most clearly and most profoundly the essential
point, namely, that method of demonstration such as this is fast bound within
the circle of the rigid necessity of the finite, and that freedom, that is the Concept,
and with it everything that is true, lies beyond it and is unattainable by it.21
Here, in the final passage of the Science of Logic that is devoted to Spinoza, the
circle closes. The two fundamental criticisms addressed to Spinoza, the criticism
of mathematical method and the criticisms of the petrification of substance
35
merge: it is indeed the mathematical method itself which prevents Spinoza from
entering into the sphere of freedom which opens with the notion.
Spinozisms faults
At this point, we should try to summarize the interpretation of Spinozism that
Hegel proposes. Let us begin with the criticisms he levels at Spinoza. These
criticisms conclude by underlining the insufficiencies of Spinozas philosophy in
comparison with his own philosophy:
1. Spinoza uses a mathematical method in philosophy, a method which comes
to be external with respect to the development of the notion, and therefore
is not able, like Hegels dialectical method, to grasp its living pulsation.
2. What is missing in Spinoza is subjectivity as negation of the negation,
namely as the return of substance into itself, which therefore, precisely
because of the absence of this return, ends up being rigid.
3. Furthermore, the mode is neither a subject nor a measure, or, like in Hegel,
a return into itself within its sphere. Instead, the mode is pure and simple
exteriority.
4. Spinozas reflection is extrinsic and accidental, although he poses the unity
of thought and extension within the substance.
5. For this reason he cannot conceive of thought as the immanent movement
which begins from itself and which goes back into itself. Precisely for this
reason, Spinoza lacks the deduction of the finite from the infinite: the
extrinsic intellect takes determinations as given and traces them back to the
absolute, in order to deduce from this their beginnings.
If we were to summarize Hegels position in a very concise way, we could say
that what is missing in Spinoza is the movement from substance to subject as a
transcendental structure of becoming. This lack produces supplementary effects:
on method, which is indeed not dialectical; on the conception of substance,
which is immobile and not a movement oriented by an immanent telos; on the
conception of the intellect, which is extrinsic, a mere understanding of being,
and not reason which constitutes the internal structure of being in order to
recognize itself in it; on the conception of the mode, which is pure exteriority
and not a return into itself of substance under the form of transparency and
freedom. Finally, this lack is reflected in the movement of substance toward the
mode, which in Spinozas thought is not a deduction but pure juxtaposition.
36
Spinozisms merits
Let us consider at this point what Hegel takes as Spinozisms acquisitions. They
are indeed so important as to lead him to utter the famous phrase: entweder
Spinozismus oder keine Philosophie. According to Hegel, then, the merits of
Spinozism can be summarized as follows:
1. The proposition determinatio est negatio. Spinozas proposition is of
universal importance because it shows that limits (Grenzen) are what
constitute any determinate being, any Daseyn, as what it is. Thus, it
demonstrates that the Other is the foundation of being. By affirming that
determination in its essence is negation, the substantiality of determinate
individuals is denied. These individuals cannot be thought in themselves but
only through the relations they establish with the other-being, in such a way
that any independent reality in Spinoza in reality is a being that is posited.
2. According to Hegel, this conception of the individual enables Spinoza to
escape the representation without concept of continuity as composition,
namely as an extrinsic relation of units or unities. The continuum Spinoza
speaks of is pure quantity. Such quantity is not finite, divisible, and
composed of parts as it is when represented in the imagination, but is
infinite, unique, and indivisible.
3. From this latter point, it derives a correct conception of true infinity as
counterpoised to bad infinity, though in Spinoza, as it has been said time
and time again, infinity is affirmation. Yet, it is not affirmation that is
reestablished through negation, and therefore as negation of that negation
that constitutes the finite, reflection of the other in itself, subjectivity.
By means of the mathematical example of the two nonconcentric
circles, Spinoza distances himself from a conception of the infinite as
a nonaccomplished series. According to Hegel, in Spinozas example a
present and complete infinite is outlined.
If one wishes to sum up, albeit in a schematic way, what Hegel considers to be
Spinozisms fundamental element, one could argue that it is precisely the concept
of infinite substance. The latter relegates any form of substantiality of the finite
to imaginative knowledge, while thought dissolves all independent reality into
posited being, in an infinite relationality, but without this relationality being
transparent to itself, discovering itself as the rational weaving together of the
real guided by a telos.
37
Substance and mode

In short, what is true in Spinoza is the category of substance, but on the condition
that this is thought in the direction of the notion, namely that it becomes spirit.
On the other hand, what is false in Spinoza is the category of the mode, because
it is exteriority and not a return.
If we look at the passages in the Science of Logic that are dedicated to Spinoza,
we discover that all the criticisms against Spinozism converge on Spinozas concept
of mode: Spinozas mode is characterized by a verschwinden (disappearance) and
not by an aufheben (sublation). It is an esse in alio (being in other) that does
not return to itself, a vain dispersion. Both in the sphere of being and in the
sphere of essence, Hegel corrects the concept of mode: in the sphere of being he
does so through the concept of measure, which is the return into itself of being
through its sphere; in the sphere of essence the mode is thought as the reflexive
movement of the absolute, because the content of the absolute is absolutes
sich fr sich selbst Manifestieren. Only through the immanent critique of the
mode does substance open to the concept, discover itself to be the concept, by
giving rise to the transcendental structure which will force nature to become the
spiritual force of presence.
At this point, I would like to go back briefly to Hegels reading of Spinozas
example of the two nonconcentric circles. According to Hegel, Spinoza by means
of this example opposes the infinity of accomplished and present thought and
the infinity of imagination, the bad infinity, namely an infinity of an incomplete
series. On this point there is an extremely important misunderstanding: the
example, which according to Hegel refers to an actual infinity has, in Spinozas
text, the simply function of exemplifying the existence of things that cannot be
equaled or expressed by any number, though the greatest and least magnitude
of the whole may be known.22 As Mariana Gainza puts it, the example has the
function to think the very reality of the finite.23
Hegel is blind on this point because, on the one hand, he transcribes Spinozas
text incorrectly and, on the other hand, he leaves out a fundamental aspect of it.
Heres what we read in a passage from Letter 29:
[Mathematicians] not only have they come across many things, which cannot be
expressed by number...but also they have found many things, which cannot
be equaled by any number, but surpass every possible number. But they infer
hence, that such things surpass enumeration, not because of the multitude
of their component parts, but because their nature cannot, without manifest
38

contradiction, be expressed in terms of number. As, for instance, in the case
of two circles, non-concentric, whereof one encloses the other, no number can
express the inequalities of distance which exist between the two circles, nor all
the variations which matter in motion in the intervening space may undergo.24
If we read again the passage from Hegel, it will become evident that what Hegel
proposes as a citation is in reality a rsum: Mathematicians conclude, he says,
that the inequalities possible in such a space are infinite, not from the infinite
amount of parts, for its size is fixed and limited and I can assume larger and smaller
spaces, but because the nature of the fact surpasses every determinateness.
To summarize, Hegel transcribes the Spinozian omnes inaequalitates
spatii...omnesque variationes, quas materia, in eo mota, pati debeant with die
Ungleichheiten, die in einem solchen Raume mglich sind. In this transcription, a
misunderstanding and a removal become evident. As for the misunderstanding,
Hegel transcribes the inequalities of distances in Spinozas example into unequal
distances that can be traced in space. This is not simply an oversight, but a
misunderstanding that entirely changes the meaning of Spinozas example,
whose precise function was to enable us to understand in an adequate way, as
Mariana Gainza correctly notes, the parts of the part, namely the fundamental
constituents of that finite and limited reality that is illustrated by making
reference to the space which is between two non-concentric circles.25 Hegels
Ungleichkeiten are the infinite segments that can be traced between the two
circles, while Spinozas inaequalitates spatii are the differences between these
infinite unequal segments: In the first case the parts that are identified with the
segments can be positively presented as discrete parts; in the second case, each
part is a difference between two segments, namely the difference between the
distance that each of these segments positively shows.26
Therefore, if we correctly read Spinozas example, namely, if we read the
parts of this finite space as differences between unequal distances, each part
must be conceived as a passage. What Hegel misunderstands is precisely the
necessarily dynamic nature of the combined existence of the infinite parts of
this circumscribed reality, and this misunderstanding brings about the complete
removal of Spinozas reference to the variation of the movement of the matter
which circulates in this space. Indeed the disparities of the space between the two
circles that constitute the uncountable composition of the differences between
its unequal distances give rise to the endless variation of the movement of the
matter under the form of an infinity of passages or transitions. Therefore, it is
precisely through this mistaken transcription of the example and the removal
39
of one of its fundamental aspectsthat is, the reference to the movement of the
matter and to its continuous variationsthat Hegel can affirm that it describes
an infinite which is not jenseits, sondern gegenwrtig und vollstndig [beyond,
but actually present and complete], an infinite in actu.
Mariana Gainza concludes:
What Hegel does not see, therefore, is the specificity of Spinozas example: he
does not understand that the non-concentricity of the circles requires us to
conceive what happens within this greatest and smallest magnitude in terms of
movement; he does not understand that for this reason, the parts which constitute
this determinate delimited interiority are not discrete parts, but differential
parts; and finally he does not understand that what is at stake here is another
notion of the limit, which is different from the one which was established by the
fixed circumscription of a space, insofar as the greatest and least magnitude are
themselves relations between unequal distances.27
The misunderstanding of the mode

Hegels misunderstanding of Spinozas passage constitutes an extraordinary
mise en abme of his whole interpretation. What Hegel cannot understand in
Spinozas thought is precisely the concept of mode, to such an extent that he
misunderstands the geometrical example which exhibits the way in which, in a
finite mode, existence coincides with its essence for an example that illustrates
the presence and completeness of the actual infinity of substance.
Spinozas example establishes a limit-concept that is much different from the
static one expressed by the famous proposition determinatio est negatio. It is
not a matter of a purely external limit with respect to an interiority, but a limit
constituted by the endless variation of an infinity of passages, or transitions
comprised within certain thresholds of the extension which define its nature (a
greatest and least magnitude).
However, it is possible to go even further. If it is true that the example
represents the way in which in modal reality essence and existence coincide, it
is still a representation sub specie geometrica, a representation which leads us to
isolate that modal reality by imagining it as totality. Therefore, the variation itself
between a given greatest and smallest magnitude can subsist only by isolating
a part of nature, therefore by reducing the complexity of the relations that
constitute it. If, together with Balibar, we call transindividual the complex weave
40
of relations both horizontal and vertical that constitutes modal existence, we

find ourselves in a position in which the variation between a greatest and least
magnitude cannot be given once and for all in an essence that would precede
existence. Rather, it will be the complexity itself of horizontal and vertical
relations that will constitute an interior and an exterior, a greatest and a smallest
magnitude, in an essence that is given only with existence itself, in its actuality.
This point is fundamental for Hegels interpretation. By making the proposition determinatio est negatio the theoretical heart of Spinozism, Hegel puts
himself in the position of reading substance as an indeterminate positive and
the mode as pure negativity in which the limit which determines substance
remains something external to it. In reality, the mode is not an exteriority that
can be opposed to something positive, but is instead the after-effect of a complex
weave of relations both horizontal and vertical. This transindividual weave
constitutes, always in a provisional way, an interior and an exterior, the power to
exist and to act among other powers. It is this misunderstanding of the concept
of mode that leads Hegel to misunderstand in turn the concept of substance
as presence. Spinozas substance is not present but rather absent, insofar as it
exists only through the weave of relations that determines the modes. In this
sense, Hegel is correct when he affirms that there is no return of the mode into
substance, but he is not correct for the reason that he believes is, in the sense that
in Spinoza negation is not negated so as to enrich an original identity. Rather,
Hegel is correct precisely because there is no original identity, and therefore, there
is no place to return to: beatitudo non est virtutis premium, sed ipsa virtus.28
Notes
1 F. W. J. Schelling, Of the I as Principle of Philosophy, in The Unconditional in
Human Knowledge. For Early Essays (17941796), tr. F. Marti (Lewisburg, PA:
Bucknell University Press, 1980), p. 78.
2 F. W. J. Schelling, System of Transcendental Idealism (1800), tr. Peter Heath
(Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1978).
3 G. W. F. Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit, tr. A. V. Miller (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2001), p. 9.
4 F. W. J. Schelling, Philosophical Investigations into the Essence of Human
Freedom, tr. Jeff Love and Johannes Schmidt (Albany, NY: State University of
New York Press, 2006), p. 20.
5 G. W. F. Hegel, PS, p. 24.

6 G. W. F. Hegel, Science of Logic (Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books, 1989), p. 53.
7 Ibid.
8 Ibid., pp. 11314.
9 Ibid., pp. 1889.
10 Ibid., pp. 24950.
11 Ibid., pp. 3278.
12 Warm thanks to George di Giovanni for translating passages from the 1812
version of Hegels Logic [editors].
13 Ibid., pp. 5367.
14 Ibid., pp. 5378.
15 Ibid., p. 538.
16 Ibid., p. 577.
17 Ibid.
18 Ibid., pp. 5801.
19 Ibid., pp. 5812.
20 Ibid., p. 609.
21 Ibid., p. 816.
22 B. Spinoza, On the Improvement of the Understanding/The Ethics/
Correspondence, vol. 2, (New York: Dover Publications, 1955), p. 321.
23 M. Gainza, El tiempo de las partes. Temporalidad y perspectiva en Spinoza,
in Temporalit e ontologia in Spinoza, ed. G. DAnna and V. Morfino, (Milan:
Mimesis, 2012).
24 B. Spinoza, Ibid.
25 M. Gainza, El tiempo de las partes. Temporalidad y perspectiva en Spinoza.
26 Ibid.
27 Ibid.
28 Blessedness...is not the reward of virtue, but virtue itself, EVP62.
41
Desire is Mans Very Essence: Spinoza and

Hegel as Philosophers of Transindividuality
Jason Read
It is perhaps one of the effects of philosophys long cold war that the fundamental
question of the relationship of individual to society is immediately split into
two hostile camps. The first considers the individual to be immediately given;
society, or the State, is then nothing other than the sum total of the effects of
individual wills, actions, and decisions. Opposed to this idea is the conception
of society, culture, or the State as an organic or functional totality, determining
and constituting the individuals and subjects it requires. It is with respect to this
division, but also against it, that tienne Balibar has proposed that there is a group
of thinkers (they cannot be called a tradition), namely, Spinoza, Hegel, Marx,
and Freud, which constitute a transindividual perspective in thinking both the
individual and social relations.1 Even before one arrives at an understanding of
what Balibar means by transindividuality, it is possible to understand something
of the stakes of his particular intervention. With the exception of Freud, all of
the thinkers in the transindividual list, Spinoza, Hegel, and Marx, have generally
been considered to be organic or holistic thinkers, thinkers of totality; the only
difference then is whether this totality is considered to be the all-encompassing
substance, spirit, or capital. All three have been accused at one time or another
of denying individuality, dissolving it into nature, history, or the economy.
The conceptual field that Balibar intervenes in is thus as asymmetrical as it is
dualistic: individualistic conceptions of society and social relations, from social
contract theory to neoliberalism, are not only dominant but also absolutely
hegemonic. Thus, even the holistic thinkers have been reborn as individualists.
Marxists have produced their own methodological individualism and Spinoza
has been interpreted to be a more metaphysical Hobbes and is even admired by
readers of Ayn Rand. Moreover, the condemnation of various forms of holism
Desire is Mans Very Essence
43
or organicism, generally grouped under the category of totality, functions as

the bte noire of various perspectives and disciplines: liberals, postmodernists,
and conservatives agree about little else than the fact that the individual is
preeminent and anyone who denies its hallowed place is a fascist or Stalinist.
This is what it means to refer to philosophys cold war, the presence of the last
centurys ideological debates beneath the various arguments and interpretations,
but our concerns here are less with the cause of these interpretations than with
its effects: what such interpretations eclipse, and what it might mean to evade
them. The outline of the effects can be seen in Balibars particular intervention,
his particular reorganization of the history of philosophy. Balibars intervention
cuts a line of demarcation within this opposition: this line is necessarily tilted to
one side, engaging with authors generally considered to be writers of the totality,
and excavating what an individualistic conception of society necessarily effaces.
Balibars intervention thus seeks to retrieve a thought of relation, of sociality,
recasting it not as something opposed to the individual or the social but as its
necessary condition.
The term transindividuality is associated with Gilbert Simondon, who
developed it in his posthumously published Individuation psychique et collective.
In Simondons work the concept of transindividuality is defined through a critique
of the centrality of the individual in the history of philosophy (as well as science).
Against the long-standing belief that has defined the process of individuation from
the already constituted individual, Simondon presents individuation as a process
in which the individual is a phase rather than an absolute starting point (atomism)
or ultimate end (hylomorphism). For Simondon, the individual is situated with
respect to a preindividual milieu, a series of relations that are in a metastable
state, not yet individuated but possible conditions for multiple individuations.
Individuation is always a realization and transformation of these relations.
Simondon examines different individuations, physical, biological, psychic, and
collective in succession, and it is possible to say that each is problematic, posing
problems that must be resolved through subsequent individuations; for example,
the biological individuation of humanity, the collection of instincts and habits,
makes necessary a psychic individuation, a character or habit that realizes these
different potentials. The last of these series and the one that seems to be reserved
for human life is collective individuation, transindividuality. Transindividuality
is not some collective which subsumes individuals, but a collectivity that exists
only in and through individuation and vice versa: one is individuated through
collectivities, through various associations and relations that bring out different
44
possibilities. Transindividuality is only possible through the always incomplete

process of individuation, the preindividual milieu that we carry with us. It is
because the conditions of our individuation, the affects, habits, and language,
never cohere, never fully constitute an individual, that we enter into collectivities.
Transindividuality entails a new thought of causality, a new ontology of relations,
and a new logic, a new way of understanding definitions, placing Simondons
system in close proximity to Spinozas immanent causality and Hegels dialectic.
However, my concern here is less with an understanding of Simondon, or even
Balibar, than with what Simondons thought proposes for an understanding of
Spinoza and Hegel.2 In this case, Simondons work along with Balibars suggestive
remarks function less as a philosophical text to be considered in its own right
and more as a provocation, as something that breaks Spinoza and Hegel from the
individualist and organicist readings that have subordinated them to the eternal
battle between liberalism and its others, communitarianism, communism, and
fascism. Thus, in what follows, I would like to examine three questions. First,
what might it mean to consider both Hegel and Spinoza as transindividual
thinkers? Second, what sort of distinctions might be made on this terrain of
transindividuality? And, finally what this might mean for thinking about social
relations and politics.
Desire: Between constitution and recognition

The unavoidable starting place for any consideration of transindividuality in
Hegel and Spinoza is desire. Spinoza writes, Desire is the very essence of man
in so far as his essence is conceived as determined to any action from any given
affection of itself (E IIID1). While this statement is provocative in its own right,
read along with the propositions and demonstrations that situate it, Spinozas
formulation is less a basis for a philosophical anthropology than it is a specific
modification of a general ontology. Desire is a particular situation of the general
striving, the conatus, that defines everything (E IIIP6). Everything is a singular
expression of striving, but as a finite thing, it is also always determined to act in a
certain manner. Everything is an individual, but individuality is not understood
as something radically separate from relations, but rather as something that is
constituted through relations.3 To rephrase Spinozas formula about God as nature:
individuality that is transindividuality. Transindividuality is an ontology prior to
being a thought of social relations. Ontologically we could say that everything
is an individual, but this is not an atomism, because individuality is defined as
45
a relation, specifically, a ratio of motion and rest and a capacity to affect and be
affected. These relations are themselves part of other individuals, collectivities,
and are composed of other individuals, its parts. The limit case of this is of course
nature, on the one hand, and the simplest bodies referred to in the Lemmas
of Part Two, on the other, but what is truly at stake for Spinoza is everything
that transpires in between, the constitution, transformation, and destruction of
individuals.4 The ontological assertion that everything is an individual, defined
by its particular striving, does not preclude an understanding of relations; in
fact, it makes a thought of them possible, everything is individuated by its own
particular history, by what has affected it, by relations. The human condition,
the situation of desire, is not qualitatively distinct from this general condition;
human bodies (and minds) are more complex than some bodies, due to the
number of parts, thus capable of entering into more relations, but less complex
than others for the same reason. Mankind is not a kingdom within a kingdom
but is subject to the same rules that define all of modal existence.
To understand the human condition, the situation of desire, it is necessary
to understand how this particular striving that makes up human existence is
determined by the affects, imagination, and reason. As Spinoza argues, what
we desire is always determined by our history, by a particular determination of
our affects and knowledge. Desire is a striving that defines all of humanity, but
it does so not in terms of some transcendent goal, some good that everything
aims at, but in terms of a multiplicity of aims and desires. As Gilles Deleuze
writes, fools and the weak, no less than reasonable men and the strong, strive
to persevere in their being.5 What defines this multiplicity is nothing other than
the affects and their history: joy and sadness, the primary affects of the increase
and decrease of our power to act and think, are extended onto the various things
we take to be their causes into love and hate. Once we apprehend, through habit
and repetition, a particular object or individual to be the cause of our joy or
sadness, adequately or inadequately, it becomes something that we desire, seek
out again, in our fundamental striving. Objects and individuals that we desire,
that we love, become the conditions of other loves and hatreds, as we love the
things that resemble them or are the causes of their joys and sorrows, in an
increasing spiral of conjunctions and connections. We individuate ourselves
and are individuated, forming particular tastes and desires, at the same time
that we individuate the objects of our desire, our perception or recognition of
an object, at least for the first kind of knowledge, cannot be separated from
how it has affected us. Individuation in this context is not limited to what we
putatively define as the individual, but includes the individuation of groups, the
46
perception of collective belonging. History and habit defines and differentiates

the particular desire, the particular striving, of any individual: individuation is
constituted through relations, not in spite of them. What we have in common
is not some generic essence, some transcendent faculty, but a particular striving
and a complex history. This communality does not unite us, but radically
individuates us into singular strivings: there are as many desires as objects, and
as many objects as histories (E IIIP56). Desire is an essence that is singular and
relational, rather than universal and foundational.
Striving, conatus, is at once a common condition of existence, even a common notion, and in the case of desire, it is also subject to the specific situation
of the human condition. This specificity includes, as we have seen, the complex
proportion of motion and rest that defines the human body, a complexity that
makes memory and habit possible, but it also includes the particular condition
of the intellect (man thinks) and with this the particular problem of adequate
and inadequate ideas of our desires. Human striving is situated between appetite
and desire. Spinoza defines desire as appetite together with consciousness of
the appetite (E IIIP9S). The order and connection of desire and appetite are
the same, desire is simply the same appetite rendered conscious. It is possible
to pose the question as to what kind of difference consciousness makes here:
what does it mean to be conscious of our appetites? More to the point, what
does it mean to suggest that we have appetites that we are not conscious of?
Such questions return us to the heart of Spinozas philosophy, to the difference
and identity of the order and connection of thought and things, it does not just
at the level of ontology but as a general problem of human existence. If we work
from the prior assertion regarding desire as always already constituted, organized by habits and past impressions, then it is possible to see subjectivity, for
lack of a better word, as framed not only by active and passive affects but also
between those appetites that exceed its consciousness, and those that are conscious, recognized as its desires. Spinozas central point is to reverse the order of
consciousness and desire, to argue that we do not desire something because it
is good, but call it good because we desire it. This is what Alexandre Matheron
refers to as Spinozas antifinalism, which is summed up as follows: we neither
strive for, nor will, neither want, nor desire anything because we judge it to be
good; on the contrary, we judge something to be good because we strive for it,
will it, want it, and desire it (E IIIP9S).6 The telos, the final cause of our desires,
has to be situated back into the network of efficient causes, the conditions which
make it so the baby desires milk, and ultimately back into the immanent cause,
to nature considered as the infinity of productive relations.7
47
Far from being an assertion of some isolated, atomistic, individual, Spinozas

assertion that desire is mans very essence is an affirmation of the always singular,
always relational, aspect of human existence: our desires, our essences, are thus
distinct, and always produced by and productive of the series of encounters
between different desires. However, the relation between these desires, in that
it passes through the passions and appetite, is not always recognized as such:
just as we freely think that we desire what we desire, we also think that we do so
in isolation and separation. We see ourselves as a kingdom within a kingdom,
not only separate, but autonomous. As Spinoza remarks in the Appendix to
PartI, we are ignorant of the causes of things, but conscious of our appetite, to
which we should add that one of the things that we are ignorant of, is the cause
of our own appetite, the practices, and relations that constitute its ground.8 In
Spinozas thought, there is a connection between the transindividual basis of
desire and the opacity of the self. It is because we do not adequately grasp the
transindividual conditions of our desire that we believe ourselves to be free, to
truly desire what we desire, and it is because we believe ourselves to be free that
we do not adequately grasp the transindividual conditions.9 It is here that we can
perhaps turn to Hegel, knowing that the conflict between the two philosophers
is not between the individual and the relational but between differences within
the transindividual.
For Hegel, as for Spinoza, there is a strong link between desire, consciousness,
and the human condition. Hegel begins the section of the Phenomenology of
Spirit on Self-Consciousness with the assertion that Self-consciousness is
desire in general. There is a shift from the previous section, which dealt with the
problem of consciousness, of the coming to know the world, figured alternately
as sense-certainty, the thing, and force, to the self. These dialectical progressions
each mark a process away from things taken in their immediacy and self-identity
toward the constitutive dimension of relationality.10 These different figures
of consciousness, as much as they reveal more of the world, moving beyond
the immediacy of empiricism to an understanding of forces and relations, do
not provide an awareness of self-consciousness, an understanding of self. The
progression from consciousness to self-consciousness is not just a shift of object,
it is a fundamental and progressive shift of orientation: with the movement from
consciousness to self-consciousness, we enter into the native realm of truth.11
The object and subject of knowledge becomes the same. This is fundamentally
different from Spinoza, for whom the problems of consciousness with respect
to desire, of adequately grasping our mind and body, are not fundamentally
different from the problem of the first kind of knowledge in general, of knowledge
48
from the disorder of experience. This is because human desire is not radically
different from the conatus, from the striving that defines everything: it is only
different insofar as the human body and mind are capable of more relations,
capable of memory and habit. It is this capacity which determines both the
opacity of desire and its eventual comprehension. However, even this difference
between Hegel and Spinoza, a difference which will have profound effects for
each philosophers understanding of the human, of philosophical anthropology,
is situated on a similar plane, that of the opacity of the immediate: in each case,
the starting point of everyday consciousness is as much a source of illusion as
knowledge.
As with Spinoza, Hegels discussion of desire begins with a fundamental
division that defines the relation between desire and consciousness. Only in
this case, the primary difference is not between appetite and desire but among
different kinds of desire. Desire for food and water, for those things that make
up our necessary survival, constitutes a kind of self-consciousness, an awareness
of living. This awareness is fleeting and tied up with an object that constantly
posits its independence: thirst and hunger reassert themselves to be conquered
again. Desire directed at such objects loses by wining: it negates the objects, but
in doing so it fails to learn anything of itself other than as something living; or,
as Hegel puts it, absolute immediacy is absolute mediation. With such objects,
self-consciousness is aware of itself as something that desires, as something
that lives, experiencing hunger and thirst, but these desires do not arrive at
what would be called self-consciousness in and of itself, they do not express
the indetermination and freedom that constitutes human existence. This leads
to Hegels well-known formulation that desire must be a desire for another
desire, for another self-consciousness. As Hegel writes, self-consciousness
achieves its satisfaction only in another self-consciousness.12 This leads to the
most well-known section of Hegels Phenomenology, the dialectic of mastery
and slavery, a passage so layered in commentary, that it becomes difficult to
read at all, let alone interpret anew. Nonetheless, it is from this passage that
Hegel introduces the fundamental idea of recognition, which constitutes Hegels
specific thought of transindividuality.
One way to approach this problem of recognition is to wrest it from Hegels text,
with its combination of necessary and contingent progressions, and to situate it
on the larger terrain of philosophical problems. Recognition is in part a response
to post-Kantian problem of self-knowledge: Kant decimated the assertion
of the transparency of the Cartesian subject through the paralogisms of pure
reason, which made it impossible to maintain a pure andrationaltransparency
49
of the self. Recognition provides another way to self-knowledge, one that is

immediately intertwined with a political problem: the trick is to square the circle,
to reconcile autonomy with the opacity of the self.13 (It is worth noting, following
the discussion of the opacity of desire in Spinoza above, how alien Spinozas
thought is to this problem: Spinoza already arrived at what Fischbach calls the
secondarity of the conscience of self without the need of the Kantian critique of
the paralogisms of pure reason.) At the root of Hegels reflection on recognition
is the idea that self-consciousness is radically different from consciousness of
objects, things in the world. As Kojve writes, Contemplation reveals the object,
not the subject.14 This is in part the task that Hegels essay on Mastery and
Slavery takes on, passing through a reflection on violence, work, death, and
struggle in a dense passage that provides the matrix for nearly every possible
philosophical anthropology.
Hegels passage considers the various possibilities of recognition, its constitutive
ambiguities, in which recognition always passes through misrecognition. Once
we pass the initial condition, where the struggle for recognition manifests
itself in mutual annihilation, these possibilities manifest themselves first as
their extremes, as master and slave: one being only recognized, the other
only recognizing. These positions do not just constitute two extremes on
the pole of recognition but are immediately situated in the specific dialectic of
the Phenomenology in which what appears to be true ultimately undoes itself.
The master, who is recognized without recognizing in turn, ultimately is a
slave: while the slave, who recognizes without being recognized, is ultimately a
master. The ideal here is mutual recognition, but we do not arrive at this ideal
without passing through the disruption of the fear of death and the formative
activity of work. The slave overcomes the limit of his or her position, recognizing
without being recognized. It is this tension between an idealist anthropology of
recognition and a materialist anthropology of work that has made this passage the
inspiration for both Fukuyama and Kojve, for an identity politics of recognition
and a revolutionary politics of transformation.15 Without engaging all of those
possible interpretations, it is possible to argue that the actual exposition of this
passage undermines its humanist beginnings: at the outset, Hegel argued that
there is a fundamental division between desire satisfied by objects and the desire
for recognition, a division which underscores the intersubjective rather than
transindividual conditions of subjectivity. However, in the dialectical reversal
of this passage, the point where the master is revealed to be a slave, and vice
versa, the reversal turns as much on the relation to the object as to the relation
to the other: the master is a slave, not just because he is recognized by one who
50
he cannot recognize but because his relation to the object is as a pure object of
desire, absolute mediation in its immediacy, while the slave works on the object.
As Hegel writes, Work, on the other hand, is desire held in check, fleetingness
staved off; in other words, work forms and shapes the thing.16 This work
coupled with the fear of death proves to be another direction for recognition,
at least in part: the slave is not recognized, but comes to recognize himself or
herself through a world that is the product of labor. Labor constitutes another
basis for recognition. What is more important to Hegel is less the sharp division
between the desire for recognition, what we might want to call intersubjectivity,
and the relation with things, than the fundamental negation of ones determinate
condition: to be recognized is to be seen as something more than this determinate
existence, a point that can be arrived at through the instability of fear and the
determination of work.17
What then is the difference between Hegel and Spinoza when it comes to the
question of desire and transindividuality? It is not that Spinoza posits desire as
a fundamental assertion of self, as a striving unaffected by others, and Hegel
situates that desire within a general struggle for recognition. Such a division,
which places Hegel and Spinoza on opposite sides of the holist/individualist
split, would seem to miss their fundamental overlap. For both Spinoza and
Hegel, subjectivity is always already relational, individuality cannot be separated
from transindividuality. We might say that the difference is still framed by
this term recognition, which is in some sense absent from Spinozas thought.
Spinozas understanding of desire, of a desire that is always determined and
situated, is in some sense predicated on a fundamental misrecognition. We
do not recognize the conditions of our desire, taking it as original and given.
This is not the same as the misrecognition that Hegel places as the basis of
his dialectic of master and slave: a misrecognition of the other that is always
capable of recognition and carries it as its imminent possibility. Thus, it would
be wrong to consider Spinoza to be the philosopher of misrecognition that
could be juxtaposed to the philosopher of recognition, even though Spinoza
gives the former a much more constitutive role in experience. (One could say
that the misrecognition is experience for Spinoza, if by experience we mean
the first kind of knowledge.) If only because Spinoza does not present us with
a telos from misrecognition to recognition, desire is radically indifferent from
the affects that determine it: the passage from inadequate to adequate ideas is
not a dialectic from the in itself to the for itself, but a much more conflictual
and uncertain process.
51
The question remains as how best to contrast Spinoza and Hegel with respect
to transindividuality. Returning to Balibars use of Simondons terminology, we
could say that the difference between Hegel and Spinoza is not just between
an immanent and dialectical conception of transindividuality but between a
conception of transindividuality in which the connection with the preindividual
is emphasized and a conception in which the transindividual is dominated by
intersubjectivity.18 In Spinozas conception of desire, desire is always relational,
always framed by the affects and history, but this relation is less a relation between
individuals, between individuals already constituted, than it is a relation between
the affects that constitute individuals. When one individual loves what another
loves, or hates something that appears to cause pain to an object of love, the
relation is less one of recognition between individual and individual, than it is
a relation between the transindividual conditions of individuation. The same is
true of reason, which is constituted by the common notions. To grasp something
adequately is to think in common, to have the same thoughts as others who
comprehend.19 Spinozas relations are less between constituted individuals, than
between the constitutive conditions of individuation, the affects and common
notions that pass between individuals, making possible their different relations.
For Hegel as much as recognition constitutes subjectivity, making possible the
different subjective positions, it does so through individuals who are already
constituted: it is an intersubjective relation between individuals who remain in
some sense individuated even if they are not recognized as fully human. However,
this is not unambiguously the case, as much as Hegels dialectic of recognition
and misrecognition passes through individuals, who may or may not recognize
each other, it is also framed by a series of relations, to objects, affects (primarily
desire and fear), and practices that exceed the purely intersubjective, most
notably work. Hegels dialectic is itself split between two versions of recognition,
the first passes entirely through individuals, through intersubjectivity, while the
second is framed by the relation between the subject and the material world.
Recognition has become the watchword of not so much an interpretation of
Hegel, but of an orientation in politics that takes Hegel as its starting point.20
However, the phrase politics of recognition eclipses as much as it clarifies, since
it is not clear that we are dealing with only one form of recognition. With respect
to the master/slave dialectic, it would already appear that one divides into
two, the dialectic of recognition is split between an intersubjective recognition
of subject by subject, master by slave, and the slaves recognition of self in the
externalization of labor.21 These two dialectics, one of recognition and the other of
52
externalization, continue through Hegels thought. Work remains a fundamentally

transindividual relation for Hegel, constituting both individual subjects, through
the labor of discipline, and social relations, through the interconnection of need.
It almost goes without saying that recognition remains the fundamental theme
of Hegels political philosophy. It is worth noting, however, that this is less and
less the recognition of self by the other, a relation between individuals, as it is
the recognition of the individual in the social institutions and structures that
realize its freedom, and are its intimate conditions. Recognition in Hegel is not
intersubjectivity, or at least it is not just intersubjectivity, it is also the recognition
of self through practices, the individual recognizes its transformative conditions,
and the recognition of individuality through and in its constitutive institutions.
Thus, to recast the opposition between Spinoza and Hegel, which will be
explored in the following section: for Spinoza, individuation is always framed
in the intersection of the preindividual and transindividual, while for Hegel it is
framed between the individual, or intersubjective and the transindividual.
The politics of transindividuality

Hegel and Spinozas understanding of the relational constitution of subjectivity
through desire situates them on the same terrain in terms of what could be
referred to as their political ontology. This terrain is defined negatively by their
distance from any individualist ontology that would reduce the political to a
rational choice of isolated subjects, as in social contract theory. The criticism
of social contract theory is quite explicit in Hegel, who not only critiques it as
incomplete knowledge but accounts for its genesis in the practices of civil society.
It is no less trenchant in Spinoza, who as much as he offers a contract in the
Tractatus Theologico-Politicus overdetermines it with the affective constitution
of social relations. More important than this shared negative terrain is a shared
positive terrain that can be defined as the following: for both Spinoza and Hegel
the constitution of the State, of politics, cannot be separated from the constitution
of subjectivity; a constitution that is, as we have trying to demonstrate here,
transindividual: determining both individuality and collectivity. The State
constitutes subjects, through its various institutions, but at the same time, these
subjects, collective and individual constitute, through desire, through striving
and struggle, these institutions. This constitution can just as easily take the
form of destruction, of contradiction and conflict, which destroys institutions.
53
The objective for both Spinoza and Hegel is to constitute a State, a political
structure, that will not restrict individual freedom but realize it to overcome
on the terrain of politics the antinomy of the individual and society. What I
would like to explore in this section is how this political project resituates and
reshuffles the different articulation of the transindividual in Hegel and Spinozas
understanding of desire.
The specific project of Spinoza and Hegels philosophy, which defines their
points of contact and differences, is how they understand the interrelation of
constitution of individualities, collective and individual, by the State and social
relations, and the constitution of the State, of collectivity, by individualities.
Which is to say the specific way in which they comprehend the politics of
transindividuality. The locus of this constitution, transformation, and destruction
are the various institutions that Hegel and Spinoza examine: Hegel in the wellknown breakdown of family, civil society, and the State in the Philosophy of
Right; and Spinoza in the less well known, but equally important, examination
of the institutions of the singular case of Hebrew theocracy in the Tractatus
Theologico-Politicus. These institutions, for lack of a better word, constitute the
transindividual relations, the site where desire is both constructed and undone,
where reason intersects with imagination, recognition with misrecognition.
What I have referred to above as the negative and affirmative dimensions,
the critique of individuality as a starting point, and the development of another
thought of social relations, intersect with respect to the autonomous self-willing
individual. In a fundamentally different way, Spinoza and Hegel not only eschew
the ontology of the individual, the spontaneous philosophy of social contract
theory and civil society, but also account for the genesis of such an idea as a
particular representation of social relations, a particular misrecognition of these
conditions, in Hegels terminology, or, in Spinozas, an inadequate idea. Thus,
Spinoza and Hegel could be considered critical transindividual thinkers. The
model of criticism I am referring to here is less Kants transcendental critique than
it is Marxs critique of German Idealism in The German Ideology. In that text, Marx
does not just denounce Idealism, declaring it to be false but demonstrates how,
through the material process of history, it comes to appear that consciousness
determines life.22 Thus, it is not enough to simply denounce the limitations of
an individualistic understanding of social relations, and propose an alternate
ontology of transindividuality, to resort to a sterile opposition of true to false,
it is necessary to explain how the latter paradoxically constitutes the former.
How, through transindividuality, people come to see themselves as a kingdom
54
within a kingdom, and posit society as nothing other than the sum total of selfinterested competitive relations. In their respective critical engagements with the
spontaneous philosophy of possessive individualism, with Hobbesian social
contract theory and classical economics, we can begin to see the differences of
their accounts of the politics of transindividuality.
In something of reversal of the chronological order, I would like to begin
with Hegels critique of the individualism of civil society. Hegels discussion
of civil society in the Philosophy of Right is oriented toward two fundamental
tasks: first, civil society is the negative moment, the moment of understanding,
which breaks up the immediate identity of the family; second, it is also Hegels
incorporation of the perspectives of political economy, which are seen as both
valid, in their attempt to understand the systematic nature of individual actions,
and limited, in constructing society from precisely those individual actions.23
The passage on civil society has the same starting point as the passage on SelfConsciousness in the Phenomenology, need, and it has the same ending point,
recognition, but it passes through the institutions of the market rather than the
narrative of struggle. As needs and their possibility of meeting them multiply
through the work of civil society they necessarily become more conscious,
intelligent, and free. The social moment accordingly contains the aspect of
liberation, because the strict natural necessity of need is concealed and mans
relation is to his own opinion, which is universal, and to a necessity imposed by
himself alone, instead of simply to an external necessity, to inner contingency,
and to arbitrariness.24 Civil society, the system of market-based relations, is
an education of desire, traversing the same terrain as the Phenomenology. The
movement is from immediacy and particularity to universality. Except now
recognition passes through the consumption of things. In choosing from the
variety of goods available on the market, rather than what is given, determined
by the contingency of place, one necessarily chooses according to social criteria,
the recognition of others. Labor follows the same fundamental logic, moving
from immediacy and particularity to mediation and universality through
socialization and technology: as I am forced to work with others, and with the
forces of machines, my work loses its one-sided and rough character to become
universal. Both consumption and work overcome the immediate particularity
of individuality, the isolated self-interest of civil society, but they do so in
opposed ways. They are both transindividual individuations, the one pushed
toward individuality, the other toward interchangeability: consumption is the
moment of individuation, of differentiation, the particular in the universal,
55
while labor is the moment of discipline, the universal in the particular. There is
still a contradiction between consumption and production, but it is not the stark
contradiction between the emptiness of the masters desire and the realization of
the slave through labor. It is no longer the difference of two different conceptual
personae, of master and slave, but two different transindividual individuations in
civil society.25 What remains the same, linking this passage with its predecessor
in the Phenomenology, is that misrecognition is given only to pass necessarily
into recognition. Here, misrecognition concerns individuality, the subject of
civil society sees himself or herself as autonomous and others merely as means.
The education of universality ultimately undoes this perspective. As much as
work and consumption educate particularity, as institutions the market and
labor remain all too subject to the contingencies of early capitalist existence.
These contingencies manifest themselves in the contamination of commodities,
the buyer beware attitude of the market, and in the uncertainty of the labor
situation itself, as the perfection of the division of labor makes every form of
work, every trade, unstable. The self-interested individual must ultimately
recognize itself in the structures and institutions of the State. It must consciously
will the universal, rather than simply see it as means to its particular end. Civil
society passes into the State.
Hegel presents civil society as both the genesis of the isolated individual,
and its overcoming through the education of desire and the discipline of labor.
Hegel recognizes the limited nature of this perspective of both social relations
and the individual and argues that social contract theory is nothing other than
an attempt to construct the State out of this limited perspective, presenting as a
purely instrumental relation, as nothing more than the effect of individual wills.
Despite this critical recognition, civil society remains merely a moment in the
transition from family to the State. As with the dialectic of master and slave,
misrecognition is only posited to be overcome: it exists only as the dim outline of
an eventual recognition. We can call this teleology, and repeat this well-known
criticism of Hegel, but following the investigation of transindividuality above,
we could argue that this relates to a limited conception of the transindividual,
dominated by intersubjectivity and the opposition between recognition and
misrecognition, a point that will stand out in contrast with Spinoza.
In contrast to Hegels engagement with individualism through the texts and
practices of political economy, Spinoza engagement begins with the terrain of
religion in the Appendix to Part I of the Ethics. The Appendix would appear
to describe a general, even universal, condition of the limits of mankinds
56
knowledge regarding the world, and the unavoidable fictions of the free subject
and anthropocentric God. However, commentators such as Matheron, Bove,
and Balibar have focused on the overlooked distinction that Spinoza makes
in that text between prejudice and superstition. Prejudice is the opacity of the
immediate, the awareness of our desires without their conditions, that leads us
to project the telos of desire unto the universe itself, to see some intentionality,
even a mysterious one, behind the random events of the world. Superstition is
an attempt to organize this spontaneous philosophy, assigning it a determinate
and shared set of symbols and meanings, through a set of practices.26 As we
have argued above, the history that constitutes desire is radically singular,
shaped by the encounters that make up ones life. Superstition is an attempt to
organize these singular encounters into a collective memory, a collective desire,
but restricting and regulating practices and symbols. It is an attempt to create
habit, a character, at the collective level.27 As Spinoza writes, ...nature creates
individuals, not nations, and it is only difference of language, of laws, and of
established customs that divides individuals into nations.28 Superstition is the
constitution of community on the grounds of the imagination. Thus, as much
as the Appendix describes something of the general human condition, it does
less so as a universal essence than a flexible schema, it provides the general
conditions that different forms of superstition, different religions, and we can
add ideologies, will realize; namely, the telos of individual striving, the search for
a meaning in the complexity of the world. As Spinoza writes, the multitude has
no ruler more potent than superstition.29
Tracing the distinction between prejudice and superstition, between the
originary opacity of existence, the tendency to see oneself as a kingdom with
a kingdom and the kingdoms that are constructed on such unstable grounds,
makes it possible to extract a politics from Spinozas ontology. Or, more to
the point, it connects the transindividual conception of individuality of the
Ethics with the examination of political institutions in the TTP. However, this
connection is framed through the rather singular case of the ancient Hebrew
State. The State is perhaps the most powerful example of the constitution of
national and individual identity through the practices and rituals of religion.
The quotidian dimensions of the ancient Hebraic law, dictating meals, harvest
times, and basic details of comportment, articulated together the nature and
character of the individual with that of the nation. As Spinoza writes, to men
so habituated to it obedience must have appeared no longer as bondage, but as
freedom.30 As powerful as this reduction of the individual to the collective is,
57
it remains a singular case, dependent on the sacred covenant between God and
Moses. Theocracy remains a limit case in the assessment of political constitutions,
not just because it is dependent upon a singular and unrepeatable event but
also because the absolute identity of self and State, freedom and obedience, is
difficult to maintain, given the singular nature of desire.31 An irreducible aspect of
theocracy remains, however, through the various themes of selection and symbolic
participation that define almost every nation as one nation under God.32
Hegel and Spinoza each offer a critical account of individualism, of the
isolated autonomous subject that much political thought, not to mention
contemporary common sense, takes to be a natural given. This account is
critical in that it exposes the transindividual conditions of this perspective. For
Hegel, it is rooted in the practices and relations of civil society, which isolate
individuals while relating them behind their backs. For Spinoza, these practices
are primarily religious, the rituals and practices that produce the imaginary of
an autonomous individual, anthropocentric God, and chosen community. This
difference is less one of philosophical and political position, a fundamental
argument about the centrality of economy or religion, base or superstructure,
than it is a difference of historical moment, the difference of over 150 years,
from the dominance of religion to that of civil society and capital, which does
not mean that there are not overlaps and points of contact. Matheron has
suggested that Spinozas general remark about the communication of affects,
the constitution of objects through desire, and the critique of finalism provides
a basis for an understanding of economic alienation.33 What is money but the
universal object of love, an object that imposes its finality over other particular
strivings. This somewhat anachronistic and underdeveloped critique is useful
in underscoring an important difference between Spinoza and Hegel. As critical
as Hegel is of civil society, or its atomistic perspective, it remains for him a
moment, a moment that will pass as individuality that recognizes the necessity
of the State. Misrecognition necessarily passes to recognition. For Spinoza,
however, there is no such progression. The imagination, whether it be of God
or money, the universal object of desire, is as much a part of human existence as
reason. There is no telos, no necessary progression from an inadequate conception of ones connections and relations to an adequate one. Instead, there is
a necessary ambivalence between the transindividual dimensions of desire
and rationality.34 For both Hegel and Spinoza, the opposition is not between
individual and community, with either one occupying the position of the true or
correct political position, as in versions of individualism or communitarianism,
58
but between two different regimes of the transindividual, one of which confronts
the individual as a hostile condition and the other which is grasped adequately,
or recognized, in Hegels terminology. Their difference lies in part in how they
understand this transformation.
Conclusions
Hegels transindividual critique provides an account of the structures and
institutions that produce the isolated and individual perspective: civil society,
which is to say capital, produces a world in which the individual sees himself
or herself as isolated, relating to others only through competition. This
production, like the slaves status is no sooner given as it is overcome, as the
conditions for its production, in this case the interconnected world of work
and desire, prove to be the conditions of its dialectical overcoming. In contrast
to this, Spinoza presents a critical perspective in which recognition and
misrecognition, or, in more properly Spinozist terms, reason and imagination,
are mutually constitutive, mutually intertwining. Despite Spinozas suggestive
remarks regarding theocracy as a particular practice, a particular constitution
of subjectivity, which could be extended to an understanding of the various
institutions which produce the perspective of a kingdom within a kingdom. In
general, however, Spinoza sees individuation as a natural given, a product of
the necessary fragmentary and partial nature of initial knowledge. It is possible
to say that each supplements the other; Hegel offers sociohistorical specificity,
arguing that family, civil society, and the State must be seen as transindividual
conditions, while Spinoza presents what could be called, following Macherey,
a nonteleological dialectic in which superstition and knowledge, imagination
and reason, are posited as mutually constitutive conditions of collectivity and
individuality. However, as I have suggested their differences with respect to
the basic problem of transindividuality, the emphasis on the preindividual
as constitutive of the individuation of desire versus a transindividual
constitution of self, more oriented around the central ideal of recognition,
would make this difficult. Rather, it is possible to see a definite problem and
a provocation emerge between their two perspectives of the transindividual:
if transindividuality includes as one of its modalities a fundamental opacity
of its very conditions, the perspective of the isolated individual, and if this
inadequacy is seen as constitutive rather than a premise that will be necessarily
59
overcome, as imagination, as something more than the vanishing presupposition

of reason, then it can only be overcome politically, by a transformation of the
transindividual conditions that constitute it.
Notes
1 tienne Balibar, Spinoza: From Individuality to Transindividuality (Delft:
Eburon, 1997), p. 9.
2 Simondon is rather dismissive of Spinozas understanding of the individual,
repeating the rather familiar accusation that Spinoza dissolves the individual
into a larger pantheistic whole (Lindividuation la lumire des notions de forme
et dinformation [Grenoble: Editions Jrme Millon, 2005], p. 283). Despite this
criticism, Balibar has argued that there is fundamental overlap between Spinoza
and Simondon, arguing that the latter offers a definition of individuality as
transindividuality, or better yet, as a process of transindividual individua(lisa)
tion. (Individualit et transindividualit chez Spinoza, in Architectures de la
raison. Mlanges offerts Alexandre Matheron, ed. P.-F. Moreau [Fontenay-auxRoses: ENS Editions, 1996], pp. 3546).
3 Alexandre Matheron, Individu et communaut chez Spinoza (Paris: Minuit,
1969), p. 19.
4 Balibar, Spinoza: From Individuality to Transindividuality, p. 17.
5 Gilles Deleuze, Expressionism in Philosophy: Spinoza (New York: Zone, 1990),
p.261.
6 Matheron, Individu et communaute chez Spinoza, p. 84.
7 Laurent Bove, La Stratgie du Conatus, p. 42.
8 Franck Fischbach, Les productions des hommes: Marx avec Spinoza (Paris:
Presses Universitaires de France, 2005), p. 64.
9 Fischbach, Les productions, p. 96.
10 Fredric Jameson, The Hegel Variations (London: Verso, 2010), p. 17.
11 G. W. F. Hegel, The Phenomenology of Spirit, tr. A.V. Miller (Oxford: Oxford
12 Hegel, The Phenomenology of Spirit, p. 110.
13 Robert Williams, Hegels Ethics of Recognition (Berkeley, CA: University of
California, 2000), p. 34.
14 Alexandre Kojve, Introduction to the Reading of Hegel (Ithaca, NY: Cornell
15 Jameson, The Hegel Variations, p. 89.
60
16 Hegel, The Phenomenology of Spirit, 195.

17 Williams, Hegels Ethic of Recognition, p. 66.
18 For Simondon, intersubjectivity fundamentally occludes transindividuality:
the relation between already constituted individuals conceals precisely what is
at stake in transindividuality, which is the intersection between that which is
prior to the individual, the preindividual relations, and that which exceeds it,
the transindividual. Between these two relations, the individual is only a phase.
(Lindividuation la lumire des notions de forme et dinformation, p. 317.)
19 Balibar, Spinoza: From Individuality to Transindividuality, p. 23
20 The central text on recognition is Alex Honneths The Struggle for Recognition, tr.
Joel Anderson (Cambridge: MIT, 1996).
22 Jason Read, The Micro-Politics of Capital: Marx and the Prehistory of the Present
(New York: SUNY, 2003), p. 64.
23 G. W. F. Hegel, Elements of the Philosophy of Right, ed. Allen W. Wood
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), p. 227.
24 Hegel, Philosophy of Right, p. 230.
26 Bove, La Stratgie du Conatus, p. 179.
27 tienne Balibar has focused on the word ingenium, translated as nature
or temperament, to argue for the link between individual and collective
memory. By ingenium, we should understand a memory whose form has
been determined by the individuals experience of life and by his or her various
encounters, and which, as a result of the unique way in which it has been
constituted, is inscribed both in the mind (or soul) and in the dispositions
of the body (Spinoza and Politics, tr. Peter Snowdon [London: Verso, 1998],
p.29). The task of politics, at least in theocracy, is to constitute an ingenium, a
memory, for the collective body.
28 Spinoza, Theological-Political Treatise, tr. Samuel Shirley (Indianapolis, IN:
Hackett Publishing Company, 2001), p. 200.
29 Ibid., p. 2.
30 Ibid., p. 199.
31 Ibid., p. 3.
32 tienne Balibar, Jus-Pactum-Lex: On the Constitution of the Subject in the
Theologico-Political Treatise, in The New Spinoza, ed. Warren Montag and Ted
Stolze (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1996), p. 200.
33 Matheron, Individu et communaut chez Spinoza, p. 122.
34 Balibar, Spinoza and Politics, p. 88.
The Problem of the Beginning in Political

Philosophy: Spinoza after Hegel
Andre Santos Campos
Spinoza scholarship frequently addresses methodological problems in Spinozas

philosophy, but only seldom with regard to his political philosophy. With
Hegels philosophy, for which methodology is an essential aspect not only of
philosophys formal presentation but also of its content, certain problems, like
the nature of beginning and the need for progression in philosophizing, can be
used to refocus Spinozas methodology. What is at issue here is whether Hegels
criticisms of Spinozas method are indeed valid from the perspective of these two
problems, and whether Hegels solution for them in his own political philosophy
is that much different from what Spinoza says in his own political philosophy.
Since Hegel qualified all philosophies as either philosophies of mediation or
philosophies of beginning, are Spinozas and Hegels political philosophies really
on opposite sides of this dual categorization? In order to clarify this, Hegels
method in political philosophy will have to be analyzed first; then, Spinozas
general method in his system and in his specific political philosophy will have to
be reread from the perspective of Hegels methodological criticisms. Only at the
end can a solution be found in a final comparison.
Hegels progressive political philosophy

Hegels political philosophy, from a systematic viewpoint, cannot be excluded
from his philosophy of spirit, of which it is a moment and from which it
inherits a doctrine of action and freedom; nor can it be excluded from his
science of logic, from which it receives a structural development, the forms
and the categories for exposition; nor, finally, can it be excluded from his
62
philosophy of history, which culminates his political considerations. Hegels

political philosophy, especially in his Philosophy of Right, is forced to reflect
all those methodological concerns present in his previous works precisely
because it is part of a complete system of philosophy. One of those main
concerns consists in the problem of the philosophical methods beginning
(Anfang).
For Hegel, the primary impulse to philosophize consists in dissatisfaction
with ones present life.1 But this impulse is merely the underlying reason
for engaging in philosophys process of thinking. This process requires a
beginninga first step out of dissatisfaction. The problem of the beginning
is hence one of philosophys primary problems, especially because Hegel
considers that it is not possible to adopt an expositive method in philosophy
distinguished by itself from the philosophical contents to be exposed.
Expositive philosophical progression depends upon the equivalence of form
and matter, structure and contentsthis connection represents a fundamental
characteristic of Hegels dialectical method. In other words, it is not possible
for Hegel to expose or interpret philosophy in such a way that disregards what
is actually being exposed or interpretedthere is an intrinsic identity between
the philosophical exposition and the philosophically exposed. The form is the
very first step of the content. The problem of the beginning in philosophys
method is not a mere formal discussion but rather the very first step of
philosophys contents.
Philosophy, in this sense, does not have the advantage proper to other
sciences of being able to presuppose its own object. If it did, there would be
no problem of the beginning at all. Instead, beginning involves not a search
for something already given at the outset but rather the search for the actual
object to be pursued throughout the philosophical processthe object is not
there to be found but is supposed to be produced through the actual process
of searching for its comprehension. Beginning has no presuppositions and is
no presuppositionit is a mere position. Thus, philosophys scientific method
involves what Hegel calls a presuppositionless [Voraussetzungslosigkeit]
beginning.2 And if this presuppositionless beginning is set in his philosophy of
spirit and in his science of logic, the systematic nature of Hegels philosophy
entails that political philosophy can only be understood as having also a
presuppositionless beginning.
The problem of the beginning has as its central elements the where and the
how, which are basically one and the same. According to Hegel,
The Problem of the Beginning in Political Philosophy
63
[T]he beginning must be an absolute, or what is synonymous here, an abstract

beginning; and so it may not presuppose anything, must not be mediated by
anything nor have a ground; rather it is to be itself the ground of the entire
science....The beginning therefore is pure being.3
The problem of the beginning consists precisely in finding the absolutely

determinable. Just as in Parmenides, the beginning lies always in being. This
obviously posits the problem of whether or not there can be a beginning before
the beginning in a reflective transition from nonbeing to being, much like Gods
fiat. However, Hegels system of philosophy is effected in the moment where
being is much like nonbeing. Hegels pure being, in this sense, is equivalent to
absence, empty determinacy, and determinative improbabilityit is immediacy
in its purest form, that is, entirely nonrelational. Its absoluteness is revealed in
its own abstract nature: this is the beginning of philosophizing. Nevertheless, a
beginning regarded as pure abstract being without content provides at the outset
a glimpse of the final goal in philosophys dialectical process: the Absolute Idea,
which absorbs into itself all those ideas present in the dialectical process for the
production of new concepts; the totally inclusive and integral category of spirit,
omnilateral in nature, that is the final result of a procedural effectiveness in the
description of reality. The discovery of the beginning as an empty supposition
of being (or as a mere unilateral moment of the spirit) is definable as such only
when facing the moment of arrival of this continuous process of effectiveness
the identification of the (abstract) beginning is inherently connected to the
discovery of the (totally effective) result.4 Philosophy is not merely a progressive
movement of thought but also a permanent reflection on its own beginning, or
rather the active task of questioning its own groundwork. But this task does not
constitute a self-annulment, as if each new step in the dialectical process were to
substitute or to completely revoke its prior stepinstead, each step constitutes a
sine qua non condition for a superior synthesis.
Political philosophy, insofar as it remains part of a complete system of
philosophy, follows the exact same progressive dialectics, as objective spirit. In
the Ideas objectivity, politics appears as an extension of the concept of right,
which in turn is the extension of a free wills objectivity. That is why Hegels
political philosophy is to be found mainly in his Philosophy of Right, and that
is why its main subject matter is freedomthe basic elements of the concept of
right emerge as determinations of a free will.5 The conception of a will that is
free in itself and for itself is activated primarily in a purely abstract realm that is
incapable of producing an unmediated thing: the concept in its immediacy has
64
no effectiveness of itself; the will is merely being for itself without opposition or
negation. In this abstract step of the spirits objective effectiveness (the moment
in which spirit becomes an object to itself), the will fails to produce mediations
and is hence pure being (formal being) or pure immediacy. This is the beginning
for Hegels philosophizing on politics because it represents the most immediate
moment in the progression of freedom, that is, the moment in which right is
exhibited in its greatest indeterminacy.
Right, in this context, is not synonymous with a legal system, but rather the
effective system of freedomit includes different aspects of ethical and social
life, and even their extension toward universal History. It represents the free
wills existence inside a progressive process of self-effectiveness. Freedom is,
then, Hegels major theme and purpose in his exposition of objective spirit. The
presentation of objective spirit equals the presentation of freedoms progression:
freedom only exists when it is objectified, which means that true freedom
cannot remain abstract, but must coincide with a progressive movement of selfactualization. In this sense, freedom is always progressively proceduralit is a
positive liberation or the making of freedom. The concept of right involves the
concept of liberation and is hence equivalent to the making of freedom. The
concept in itself is only conceivable insofar as it reflects freedoms effectiveness,
that is, a world built by the spirit for itself in order to recognize itself there as
spirit in itself.
Spirits liberty for itself is, however, in its immediacy, nothing but singular:
the wills indeterminacy, opposed to determinacy, is something also determined,
as abstract determination; the will, in such a determination, is singularized and
becomes a person. The person conceives herself as a simple reference to herself in
her own singularity: she understands her own personality as infinitely free and
formally universalit is this conception of herself that allows the consideration
of personality as the overcoming of mere singularity. The abstractly free person
understands herself through the negation performed by any given concrete
limitation of herself. She understands herself to be infinite within, despite her
finitude. Insofar as the person comprehends in herself any singular will in this
abstract form, she contains simultaneously certain qualities (like arbitrariness,
desire, impulse) that make her precisely something finite and determined, as
this person.6 Man, when regarded inside the categories of the persons abstract
universality and of his own singular existence, represents the compatibility
between apparently contradictory concepts. For Hegel, the wills freedom
is compatible with the determined beings finitude, insofar as it is capable of
overcoming the abstract by producing mediation.
65
The fact that Hegels beginning in this branch of his system appears as a
singular entity does not mean, however, that the person is an atomic unit from
which society can be understood and necessarily constructed. The beginning
lies in singularity simply because this represents the immediate moment in
the progression of freedom: it is unilateral and hence needs to be overcome.
Hegels dialectics operates the realization of truth through a systematic analysis
of falsityall unilateral moments and abstract principles given at the outset
must be denounced, since to begin philosophical progression through the
establishment of truths and axioms entails degrading the argument rather
than producing it. Hegels reading of Spinozas geometrical method implies the
opposite of philosophical progression: Spinoza, by beginning his arguments with
definitions and axioms, is presenting at the outset what he should achieve only
in the end, and hence starts with unfounded concepts and with empty contents.
If these empty contents are to be deconstructed throughout the argument, then
everything that follows is philosophically empty.7 Hence, the philosophical
tradition that considers the problem of the individual as a starting point for all
political systems is actually supporting the entire realm of objective spirit on the
shoulders of a mere unilateral abstract moment of freedom. Any singular will
enclosed in itself only has the possibility of determination from the moment that
it finds a place for itself inside a wider structure and a larger process.
This means that neither Hegels criticisms of modern individualisms in
the context of political thought imply the death of individuality as a subject
matter inside Hegels Philosophy or Right, nor he can be classified simply under
the general category of hylomorphism. In fact, individuality for Hegel does
not consist in a singularity enclosed in itself but rather in a process of selfactualization. In this sense, individuality appears on the center stage of Hegels
entire political philosophy. Historically, it seems almost ironic that the most
ferocious criticisms directed at Hegels political philosophy concern a supposed
undervaluation of the individual, when in fact his Philosophy of Right speaks
of nothing more than the individual. Throughout its triadic composition, the
individual is always the main character in the scene, although with different
clothing: either as a person (the abstract entity) in Abstract Right, as a subject in
Morality, or as a socius in Ethical Life.8 Just as liberty is synonymous with positive
liberation (or the making of freedom), the individual is synonymous with
individualization (or the making of the individual) as positive individuation.
Individuality unfolds always in a triadic progression following the sequence
singular-particular-universal. And that is exactly how it appears in the Philosophy
of Right. Consequently, the singular in itself has a double character: on the one
66
hand, it is exclusive individuality as mere immediate and unmediated beginning,

a negative unit enclosed in itself, whose identity only comes from difference; on
the other hand, insofar as it is equal to individuality, it is inclusive of totality,
the universals effectiveness and the synthesis between identity and difference.
Especially in political philosophy, the movement through which the singular
converts itself into the universal does not imply a self-suspension of the primary
singular, but rather its self-preservation. In other words, the abstract singular is
the beginning of a process of self-actualization within progressive individuation.
The movement going from abstract to concrete in Hegels political philosophy is
hence individuation and liberationand the latter is a condition for the former. If
Hegels Philosophy of Right intends to demonstrate something, it is the argument
that only freedom is capable of individualizingonly through the production
of effective freedom can the human individual overcome mere animal existence
in which the universal is undifferentiated power. Only through freedom can the
human individual become being for himself and conquer his own identity.
Presuppositionless beginning in politics represents the immediate abstract step
in the progressive production of both freedom and the individual. For Hegel, that
moment turns the singular individual into a person. And personality is acquired
only through property. The singular will, at its most immediate moment, transfers
itself into an external thingbut the will does not simply hold possession of the
external thing; it holds juridical possession, that is, ownership. This is not mere
singular possession, but rather a persons legitimate possession, which entails the
importance of relations in the objective conception of the spirit and of personal
recognition in the actualization of freedom. A right to an external thing (in a
relation personexternal thing) entails a general external duty to respect and
recognize that right, thus involving an implicit relation of recognition, which in
turn becomes a reciprocal recognition between different persons (in a relation
personexternal thingperson). The free will, therefore, begins to be a person
only when it becomes a juridical entity.9 However, this freedom of the will is
merely formal: property is indeed a necessary condition for the effectiveness of
freedom, but freedom requires moral and political institutions that can only be
understood beyond the legal notion of property rights. It is a necessary, albeit
insufficient, condition for the activation of freedomthat is why Hegel calls it
mere abstract right.
The second moment in the effectiveness of freedom is what Hegel calls
Morality (Moralitt). It contrasts with the immediacy of the abstract persons
will, since it is now able to produce a mediated thing in the free willfreedom
is no longer attributed to the wills determination in an external thing, but rather
67
in an internal thing, that is, in itself. The will becomes reflective of itselfa will
that is free to itself. The free individual that was first a person is now fully a
subjecta moral entity rather than just a juridical entity.10 Individuation evolves
from juridical personality to moral subjectivitythe dialectical itinerary tends
toward a more positive conscientious constitution of the subject. The will
determines itself as free will, and thus is no longer formally singular, but rather
a particular thing considered in itself. Morality, in this sense, is mediation,
which means that it cannot be a beginning. It remains unilateral, though, like
the persons abstract right, although less formal. The reason is that the search
for universal effectiveness of the wills freedom simply inside itself represents
nothing more than the wills self-determination only in itselfa constitution
of the will for itself rather than of itself to the world. Actions arising from this
particular determination of the will are still to be considered abstract because
they are still merely subjective. Freedoms effectiveness thus requires one further
progressive moment.
That moment is what Hegel calls Ethical Life (Sittlichkeit), that is, a substantially
free life. Ethical Life represents the unity between the will as it is reflected in the
outside world and the will as it is reflected in its own core. The wills substance
(or rather freedom as substance) acquires effective reality both as subjective will
and as necessity. Ethical Life thus describes the movement through which the
universal is particularized and through which the particular presents itself in the
universal: concrete freedom in effective reality constitutes the synthesis between
the unilateral negations of the subjective and objective spirits, that is, the final
moment in dialectics where abstractions are overcome. Subjective freedom
appears in the universal in itself and for itself while simultaneously substantiating
itself into a world that it creates for itself as a sort of self-extensionthat is how
freedom is presented as nature, as an institutional complex within which spirit
becomes truly objective. This substance actualized into a world produced by a
rational and free will gives rise to a new triad: the family; civil society; and the
State. The latter represents the culmination of the freedom that is necessary for
the spirits objective reality. Hegels State is freedoms trutheffective freedom
and realized reason. The State, insofar as it is an end in itself, equals the actual
world produced by the free will as an extension of its freedoma world that
gathers institutions through which spirit gains objectivity, and of which the State
is the supreme institution in freedoms effective reality. In fact, an institutions
ethical dimension is accomplished in two steps: on the one hand, an institution
must actually produce the rational wills effective reality; on the other hand,
an individual must be able to recognize in that institution the effectiveness
68
of his own freedom, rather than its mere abstract presentation. In this sense,
the individuals relationship with the institution fulfilling these criteria makes
him a social individuala socius. The State represents the moment in which
the singular overcomes mere abstract singularity and particularity in order to
become an effective member of freedoms social realityit is, then, the rational
and institutional culmination of an effective progressive liberation, while
simultaneously guaranteeing the spirits progression toward the absolute.
Overall, the movement animating Hegels political philosophy goes from the
abstract toward the concrete, and in this movement the individual begins as
abstract personality in order to end up as a social complete individual. Hegels
political philosophy as a whole is a doctrine of social relations, which are able to
organize themselves according to a gradual progression beginning with the mere
acknowledgment of individuals in mutual coexistence (this is the network of
Verhltnisse11 where individuals are isolated in their merely opposed singularity)
in order to culminate in the structural realm of concord (this is the network
of Beziehungen12 where individuality is no longer threatened with deprivation
and dispossession). This transition instituting political life as a process begins
with an undifferentiated identity (merely exterior, immediate, and abstract) and
progresses until achieving a differentiated union that integrates (rather than
dissolves) the differences that nature and history continuously produce among
individuals. This movement has as its main characteristic certain dimensions
of human reality, leading the singular toward full individuality as a concrete
universalin this sense, the individuals progressive socialization reflects
rationalitys progressive constitution.
The problem of the beginning only makes sense when it is integrated into
an expositive progressive movement of philosophy. It is not an isolated issue or
a mere discernible point in Hegels dialectical method, but the main problem
in the structuring of philosophical thoughtthe first step in the discovery of
philosophys content. Only when opposed to universal reality can the beginning
be a fully unmediated singular thing. The beginning as singular immediacy in
itself, represented in political thought as a singular will formally acknowledging
its own freedom through personality (or abstract individuality), can only be
understood at the end of the dialectical processin the moment in which
abstract right and morality are revealed merely as necessary conditions for
a superior synthesis embodied in ethical life, that is, the moment in which
freedom is made by the institutional State in world History. These moments do
not occur in a linear movement of subsequent substitutions, but form a common
69
plan according to which the reality of abstract right and of morality is achieved
in ethical and political concordthis is the meaning of the Aufhebung in Hegels
political philosophy. The beginning never really disappears. On the contrary, it
is continuously made effective in a process requiring a negation of itself in order
to achieve a negation of its own negation. Hegels political dialectics is then a
continuous reaffirmation of its own beginning.
Spinozas progressive political philosophy

According to Hegel, Spinoza represents the beginning of all good philosophy
insofar as his overwhelming naturalism mirrors pure being. Nonetheless, Spinoza
is accused of inverting the proper method for philosophizing since he is said to
have started out exposing definitions and Gods all-inclusive being in the Ethics,
which entails considering as beginning what is actually a superior synthesis. For
Hegel, any given reality positing itself as complete from the beginning, with no
acknowledgment whatsoever of absences or negations, can only degrade itself
from then onphilosophizing would then unfold merely in the subtraction of
elements from the absolute. The particular thing, which is for Hegel the basic
mark in the beginning of individuality, has no justification in the unfolding of
Spinozas God; it has no activity whatsoever returning to the general; it is merely
Gods deterioration into the realm of unities: a bad individuality.13
Hegels criticism is based on the assumption that Spinozas method begins
with finished definitions of some universal from which something can be
deduced. However, that is not necessarily so. It is true that Spinozas definitions
open the arguments in his main texts. But these definitions have a specific
function: they are simultaneously nominal and real, and it is precisely because
they are nominal that they cannot be regarded as being complete, since that
makes them functional with reference to subsequent arguments. There is reality
in the definitions; however, they do not exhaust the reality of the thing defined.
Instead, they are true basic instruments for the construction of truth. Hence,
even though Spinoza claims that all philosophizing begins with an innate true
idea,14 there is room in Spinozas philosophy for new knowledge insofar as it
solidifies the initial definitions truth by progressing rather than regressing. His
geometrical method is more than simply deductiveits beginning lies in a true
idea that is not a possibility of truth but the actual truth already unfolding. It is
precisely because there is progression in Spinozas method that definitions also
70
appear quite frequently during the demonstrative process and not just in the
beginning. This is what occurs, for instance, with the Ethics definition of the
individual.15
Spinoza defines the individual as a composite body, as communication
between different component parts. This contradicts the more traditional sense of
individuality, which is synonymous with simplicity and some sort of metaphysical
indivisibility. Leibnizs monads represent the modern apogee of individuality
as absolute indivisibility. Instead, Spinoza seems to claim that individuals are
ontological relations. That is exactly why Hegel calls this bad individuality,
since relations in his dialectical thinking are always a result rather than a unit
given at the outsetthey are complex, and the beginning should always be
simple. Spinoza certainly realized that his conception of simplicity was not taken
to its metaphysical extremebut his intention was not to develop simplicity as
beginning; it was rather to localize the individual in Gods productive totality,
not by exclusions or negations but by intensive inclusions in Gods continuous
productive causality. The best way he could find to reify something that remained
opened to the natural whole was precisely the attribution of ontological density
to relations. Spinozas individual is not decomposition from a general species
to a differentiated unit, but rather an ontological units participation in its own
production. This individual is more like a becoming-individualit has nothing
to do with a static singularity. On the contrary, the individual conquers its own
individual identity by participating in the natural process through which infinite
reality existsindividuation in Spinoza would thus involve a certain dynamics
inherent to the making of oneself.16
The way he treats individuals in his political works is quite revealing of such
a dynamic project. He generally introduces political productivity through his
definitions of natural law, which he presents as the rules determining the nature
of each individual thing. 17In other words, natural law, which basically connects
his necessitarian metaphysics to his political theory, is entirely set at the outset
in the realm of individuality. Nevertheless, he treats individuals differently
throughout his works.
In the TTP, there is still a very strong influence of Hobbes themes and language.
There are obviously important differences between them: the preservation of the
state of nature when a political society is already formed; the underestimation
of the role of reason in the formation of the political contract; the importance
attributed to the succession of affects in the production of the common; the
preference for democracy as opposed to an absolute monarchy, etc. Nevertheless,
the depiction of the beginning of the state of nature, the terminology, the texts
71
systematic structure, the contracts persistence, all of this remains quite similar
to Hobbes.
However, Spinozas itinerary from the TTP to the TP regarding the
constitutionof political societies seems like a history of the search for the exact
moment in which an individuals (causal) power is realized. In the TTP, each man
is conceived in a state of isolation with a minimum natural power (a minimum
potentia corresponding to that mans conatus) that is insufficient to guarantee
his survival, and that is why he projects a reinforcement of that natural power
through cooperation with others. Spinoza seems to mention three distinct
reasons for the genesis of political societies in the TTP: in chapter five, society
is justified by mans physical insufficiency to develop the resources for his own
survival; in chapter sixteen, society is justified by a need to guarantee security
from others; and in chapter twenty, due to the fact that men are always subject to
affects, society is justified as a constitutive assurance of the exercise of freedom
of thought and expression.18 All these different reasons justify cooperation
between human individuals. Cooperation occurs through what he calls a pact,
which is nothing like the instantaneous Hobbesian fiat unifying rationally what
was once a dispersion of multiplicities, but rather like a continuous renovation
of a wholly affective side of mans nature. This pact is a sort of affective cement
of unity or a pattern of multiplicities forming a unity. The TTP still depicts a
transition from the state of nature to the state of society, and the moment of
transition is the actual formation of the pact through cooperative actions. And
this occurs through a transference of individual powers.19 Spinoza does not
say much about this transference in the TTP, but chapters sixteen and seventeen
do state, first, that it occurs through images of usefulness, second, that it relies
wholly on an operation of affects, and third, that it seems to result from a mutual
interplay of fear and hope.20
The Ethics, on the other hand, does not really seem to develop the contractual
mechanism explicitly, but it does elaborate much further how affects can
eventually produce cooperation: through mimetic operations.21 Spinozas notion
of individuality is now set primarily as a ratio of motion and rest between
communicating components, appearing as the exact opposite of Leibnizs
enclosed and isolated monads. Spinozas individual is open communication
process and relation, acquiring ontological depth in the concept of conatus,
thus forming a sort of ontology of relation. The idea of one isolated human
individual in a primitive condition of a state of nature, from whose experience
political societies are to be formed, is something now inconceivable for Spinoza.
In fact, Spinoza begins by saying that man cannot preserve himself without
72
engaging in relations with external objects,22 which seems quite similar to what
he had stated in chapter five of the TTP, but with one relevant difference: Spinoza
now recalls a physical individuality by reminding postulate 4 of Part II, where
regeneration is mentioned as necessary for the conservation of a body. In turn,
that postulate is grounded in Lemma 4, according to which this individuals
open communication involves necessarily a simultaneous entry and exit of
components, which means that a man in act with a minimum natural power
must already be in a relation with individuals of a similar nature.
Man in the Ethics state of nature is different from man in the TTPs state
of nature, where he was an isolated man degrading himself in power without
the assistance of others. Now, he is inconceivable as a degenerated man, and
only conceivable as an already regenerative man. He is a sort of naked imitative
being, whose body is always in a sort of equilibrium: and that is exactly how
Spinoza defines childrens bodies23this man is then like an infant adult (infans
adultus). The experience of man in the Hobbesian state of nature is now an
empty theoryan opinion, not a fact, as he says later in the TP.24 Individual men
conceived as ontological open communications and as imitator-men can only
be adequately conceived within existing relations between men. Even though
the formation of society has the same justifications as in the TTP, a man in a
state of nature is no longer a composition preceding his own environmental
decomposition (also because if the conatus is mans actual essence, in order
for a man to be a composition, he must already be endeavoring to maintain
composition). Consequently, Spinoza no longer abhors that man can be called a
social animal:25 the resolutive-compositive method for analyzing the formation
of society, present in the TTP and admitting a notion of transition from the state
of nature to the state of society, is no longer present in the Ethics.
Nevertheless, Spinoza still describes the state of nature under the same
conditions as beforewithout sin, without property.26 The state of nature no
longer holds any references to pacts or to transferences of rights, but rather
to expressed agreements of conformity with reason, through an affective
common consensus. Since man in the state of nature is now something in a
sort of continuous equilibrium of simultaneous degeneration and regeneration
in a context of environmental hostility (by natural elements and other men),
his sociality arises from the interplay of his affects. The state of society no
longer emerges in a transition from a state of nature but is rather the affective
effectiveness of the actual state of nature.
However, there seems to remain in the Ethics a certain methodological tension
between Spinozas view on the correct method for philosophizing (beginning
73
always with a true idea) and some vestiges of the resolutive-compositive method
in politics, since Spinoza still explains the formation of society from the idea of
an individual per se. The fact is that this idea of a man in a sort of equilibrium
between degeneration and regeneration is not really a true idea in Spinozas
sense, and hence cannot fulfill the actual beginning for the origin of socialityit
is the conception of a man regarding others, but not of a man with others. It is
as if this man were like a simple body in Spinozas physics trying to compose a
complex bodybut since in Spinozas physics the simple seems to relate only
with the simple, and the complex with the complex, there appears to be a gap
between this mans simplicity in an initial state of nature and his complexity
in a state of society arising from social affects. It is probably because Spinoza
acknowledges this methodological tension in his Ethics that he takes over
Machiavellis influential notion of the multitude in order to overcome it.
In the TP, like before, the experience of men conceived in isolation is something
rather fictional and without natural effectiveness: this is why Spinoza also avoids
criticizing the Aristotelian notion of man as a social animal. Nevertheless, he
is also unable to accept simply the Aristotelian idea of man as a social animal,
according to which society precedes man and is something given in naturefor
Aristotle, man cannot be conceived before the society from which he arises, in
the same manner that a hand cannot be conceived before the body within which
it is integrated.27 This methodological precedence of society over man would
remove the productive power of the imitation of affects (introduced in the
Ethics, and implicitly accepted throughout the TP) from mans political life. In
other words, man cannot be conceived in precedence to or outside society, just
as society cannot be conceived in precedence to or outside mans productivity. In
the TPs political productivity, nothing can be explained in terms of antecedents
and consequents: the state of nature is the state of political society. In order to
achieve this, Spinoza requires a constitutive political concept that might bring
simultaneity to human cooperative imitations of affects and to political society
itself. It is probably due to this required simultaneity that the language of the
social contract (always understood in a process from a before-the-contract to
an after-the-contract) seems to fade away in the TP. Instead, Spinoza no longer
conceives of the formation of society from individual dispersion to political
unity, but rather introduces constitutive power to a concept in-between both
which had been quite disregarded in his previous worksthe concept of the
multitude.
The multitude is not a larger individual counterposed to lower-order human
individuals. The multitude cannot have the ontological status of Spinozas
74
individual. It is the concept in Spinozas philosophy performing the connection

between his conceptions of man and of natural individual power: this is why
it is mostly a constitutive element of mans actual existence. This way, it brings
spontaneity to the formation of society and to natural human rights while
simultaneously mediating the stabilization of power into an imagined unitary
whole (the State).
The multitude is unable to be a political subject simply by itself, because it is
inconceivable without human individuals and without a subsequent imaginary
structure of power. The multitude is the moment in which mens imitations of
affects introduce cooperation and commonality, but because the same sequence
of imitation of affects also brings about enmity and dissolution, the multitude
is permanently unstable and always casts the shadow of its own dissolution.
In order for it to be continuously reproduced in cooperative commonality, it
requires an imagery of unity that helps reproduce in mens minds the affective
circumstances of its coming aboutthus, its spontaneity is also compatible with
its mediation. The multitude by itself originates individual natural power much
like a flash of lightning: it shines intensely for brief moments, but because it is
sustained by the same psychological laws that also bring about its disappearance,
it is neither enduring nor self-sustaining. In order for its intense brightness of
commonality to subsist, it requires the imagery of unity.
It is not man who explains the making of the multitudes power, but rather
the multitude that explains the making of mans power. And the same can
ultimately be said of the State. This means that Spinozas political philosophy
in the TP is a story of progressive human individuationnot one beginning
with an empty individual toward a larger constituted political individual
called the multitude or the State, but rather one beginning with an idea of
a human individual simultaneous to a political society that needs to be further
understood throughout the argument. Spinozas political philosophy is a story of
individuation beginning with the human individual and ending with the human
individualin this sense, the final chapter of the TTP can be regarded as a sort
of adapted final chapter to be conceived in the TP.
Spinoza in Hegel
Hegel explicitly rejects that the beginning of philosophy may consist in a
definition, since definitions affirm knowledgeable essences, and the knowledge
to be achieved in philosophizing lies in the process result rather than in its
75
presupposition. The proper method for philosophizing is the one according

to which the concept to be known progresses immanentlyHegels dialectics
rejects methodological a priori determinations and allows for the concept
exposed to unfold by itself in its own gradual expositive process. In his reading
of Spinozas geometrical method, the beginning is represented by a definition,
that is, a complete and definite certainty from which formal deduction follows
there is no actual progression of the concept in itself, but rather degradation
from the very first presentation of the concept. Truth in philosophy, for Hegel,
must lie in a positing of the concept, which can only be obtained at the end of
any given process developing through progression (otherwise, there would be
no progression at all). If Spinoza is the beginning of all good philosophy, his
method is considered a complete subversion of dialecticsin this sense, Hegel
is quite sure that Spinoza has absolutely nothing to teach him about philosophys
methodological unfolding.
Nevertheless, Hegel fails to recognize that beginning with definitions does not
necessarily entail the absence of scientific progression. And Spinozas method is,
despite what Hegel thinks of it, a perfect example of this. Indeed, definitions
are also for Spinoza affirmations of knowledgeable essences, which means that
they are statements concerning a things essential truth (like Hegel, Spinoza
begins with being)however, he says clearly that definitions are simultaneously
also statements of a true idea functioning nominally throughout the remaining
argument.28 In other words, definitions are indeed affirmations of true things,
but they are not the intended knowledge to be achieved in the philosophical
argument. Like Hegel, Spinozas philosophizing aims at a true result, and the
initial definitions function as instrumental concepts for achieving that resulta
result not given at the outset but toward which philosophy progresses. The true
ideas initial definitions are merely a glimpse of the truth to be achieved as a
result of philosophizing. In this sense, Hegels and Spinozas methods come closer
at one point and they distance themselves at another point: on the one hand,
they are both progressive in nature, each subsequent step is always a clarification
of what was merely glimpsed at the prior step, but, on the other hand, their
progression operates differently, through successive negations overcoming
mere unilateral perspectives in Hegel, and through successive reaffirmations
solidifying an initial affirmation in Spinoza. Thus, for Spinoza, methodological
progression is fully a continuous accumulation of affirmations that consolidate
the very first affirmationnegations are merely accidental and secondary.
On the contrary, for Hegel, methodological progression is fully a continuous
succession of negations that differentiate the very first affirmationnegations
76
are therefore essential, they are the fuel for the dialectical motor. Still, they are
both progressive methods.
In their political philosophies, the adoption of a progressive method reveals
that they also share basic themesfreedom as positive liberation, and the
individuals reality as positive individuation. But their differences with regard
to their methods progressive nature also determine certain distances between
them. First, their beginning is very similar, but not quite the same. Spinoza starts
by accepting in his TTP an individualistic conception of human nature that is not
that different from the Hobbesian one and that is probably why his progressive
method is still quite similar to modern contractarianism. This means that what
distinguishes Hegels method from Spinozas method in the TTP is approximately
what distinguishes Hegels method from Hobbes methodological individualism.
However, by setting the individual as the beginning for political philosophy,
and by defining the individual as a real (meta)physical relation, Spinoza later
realizes in his Ethics and in his TP that an isolated individual cannot be a fully
real idea from which to begin in politics. The powerful individuals natural
right is indeed a true idea that supports political power, but when isolated it is
nothing more than a fictionit is an abstract individual lacking actuality, whose
truth can only be initially glimpsed. Hence, it is much closer to Hegels juridical
person than to Hobbes initial individual person. That is probably why Spinoza
is said to progressively abandon contractarianism closer to his TP, much like
Hegels rejections of the social contract theories.29 Nevertheless, the abstraction
of their beginnings differs. Hegel seeks the beginnings absolute immediacy
his singular person is universally enclosed in her own individuality. Prior to
recognition through property, this person is indeterminacy by itself, the closest
one can get to individual pure being, or rather to a completely empty singular
thing. On the other hand, Spinoza begins with an individual being abstractly
conceived, but not exactly enclosed in his own individuality, since it is already an
individual composed of relations. Hegels immediate person is supposed to be an
unmediated thingSpinozas immediate individual is supposed to be a relation
by itself at the outset. They are both abstract individual beginnings, but one is
actually more immediate than the other. While Hegel follows the progressive
path in the direction of singular to particular to universal, Spinoza seems
to follow the progressive path in the direction of singular being of relations
to individual being in relations to citizen. Hegels immediacy is supposed to
reflect the juridical personality of a sort of human monad in Leibnizs style. In
this sense, Hegels beginning in political philosophy starts further away from
SpinozasHegel does not abolish Spinozas beginning, but he does begin a few
77
steps back in a bigger abstraction. Hegels step back seems to be a reshaping of

the beginnings immediacy stated in Spinozaan attempt to improve Spinozas
beginning.
Second, also because their beginnings are not quite the same, the ends to
which those beginnings aim at are also not quite the same. Spinozas political
thought begins with the individual and ends with the individualthere is no
intention to make the individual progress toward the knowledge of totality
through politics. Political individuation, for Spinoza, does not culminate in a
one-sided conception of Natureindividuation in politics does not absorb selfconsciousness into a natural whole. Regardless of whether Spinozas conception
of the State can indeed be integrated fully or only metaphorically in his notion
of individuality, the State is never quite an end in itself inside Spinozas political
thought. In fact, even though effective citizenship guarantees the conditions
required to a personal development through philosophizing (i.e. ethical salvation
or liberation), neither does it entail necessarily a personal improvement of
self-consciousness nor does it intervene in any given progressive process of selfconsciousnessSpinozas ideal of the wise man (the freest of all man, the homo
liber), the one who understands things rationally or through intuitive science
(and not merely reasonably), puts him living above the law (supra legem),30
that is, without the actual help of the State to achieve his own personal liberation.
The end of Spinozas progressive political thought is not the most powerful State
entering world History, from where absolute spirit can be sought out, but rather
the most powerful man sui juris living in the most powerful democracy sui
juris. Hegel, however, not only seems to begin one step back when compared
to Spinoza but also seems to seek his end a step forward. The entire political
dialectics culminates in the individuation of the universal, that is, in the State
as an end in itself and extended into world History. World History, actually, is
never really a determinant element in Spinozas politics, but rather the realm of
exemplification. Hegel, on the contrary, insists upon Historys determinacy not
only in politics but also in philosophy itselfit is a necessary condition for the
absolute spirit.
Hegels dialects of political liberation is, then, when compared to Spinozas
progressive political thought, a journey beginning one step back in the bigger
abstraction of the unmediated singular and ending one step forward in the
complete consciousness of the socius acting in world History. This means that,
with regard to their methods in political philosophy, when Hegel says that
Spinoza is the beginning of all good philosophy, he is not saying that Spinozas
end is similar to Hegels beginning, since Spinozas end has nothing to do with
78
the abstract indeterminacy of Hegels beginning. On the contrary, the individuals

progressive dynamics of liberation seems to be shared by bothsimply that
Hegel begins further away and ends up further away, when compared to Spinoza.
Hegel assimilates (probably unconsciously) Spinozas political dialectics in order
to perfect it, by placing the spirit into an objective condition. With regard to
political philosophys method, Hegel seems to be much more indebted to Spinoza
than he is prepared to acknowledgeat least in progressive political thought,
Spinoza is indeed Hegels beginning.
Notes
1 See G. W. F. Hegel, Lectures on the History of Philosophy, 182526, vol. I, trans.
Robert F. Brown and J. M. Stewart (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1999), pp. 2478.
2 G. W. F. Hegel, Enzyklopdie der philosophischen Wissenschaften I, in The
Encyclopaedia Logic, trans. T. F. Geraets, W. A. Suchting, and H. S. Harris
(Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Company, 1991), 78, p. 124.
3 G. W. F. Hegel, The Science of Logic, trans. A. V. Miller (Amherst, NY: Humanity
Books, 1999), pp. 701.
4 See G. W. F. Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit, trans. A. V. Miller (Oxford:
Clarendon, 1977), p. 12.
5 G. W. F. Hegel, Enzyklopdie der philosophischen Wissenschaften III, in Hegels
Philosophy of Mind, trans. William Wallace and A. V. Miller (Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1971), 4867, pp. 2423.
6 G. W. F. Hegel, Elements of the Philosophy of Right, trans. H. B. Nisbet
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 345, pp. 679.
7 G. W. F. Hegel, Lectures on the History of Philosophy, 182526, vol. III, trans.
Robert F. Brown (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2009), pp. 1219.
8 Hegel, Enzyklopdie der philosophischen Wissenschaften III, in Hegels Philosophy
of Mind, 51416, pp. 2535.
9 Hegel, EPR, 416, pp. 512, 737, 813.
10 Hegel, EPR, 105, p. 135.
11 Hegel, EPR, 150, p. 193.
12 Hegel, EPR, 192, p. 229; 301, p. 341.
13 Hegel, LPH, pp. 11930.
14 TIE 39/11. All quotations from the Tractatus Theologico-Politicus are from taken
from Jonathan Israel and Michael Silverthornes translation (Cambridge, MA:
Cambridge University Press, 2007). All references to the Tractatus Politicus, the
79
Correspondence, and the Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect are taken
from Samuel Shirleys translation in Complete Works (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett
Publishing Company, 1998). Citations of the TTP refer to the chapter, followed
by page number (e.g. IV/426 refers to chapter four, p. 426), citations of the TP
refer to the chapters and sections (e.g. II/4 refers to chapter two, section 4),
citations of the Ep refer to the letters number, followed by page number
(e.g. 19/810 refers to letter 19, p. 810), and citations of the TIE refer to the
paragraphs/page numbers. All references to the Ethics are from The Collected
Works of Spinoza, vol. I, ed. and trans. E. M. Curley (Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press, 1985).
15 E IIP13Dem.
16 For further developments on Spinozas method and on his revolutionary
conception of individuality, see my Spinozas Revolutions in Natural Law
(Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), ch. 1.
17 TTP, Pref/11.
18 See TTP V/438; TTP XVI/52832; and TTP XX/56672. See also PierreFranois Moreau, Les deux genses de ltat dans le Trait thologico-politique,
in Travaux et Documents 8 (1999): 19199.
19 TTP, XVI/5289.
20 TTP, XVI/52832; XVII/536.
21 E IIIP27.
22 E IVP18S.
23 E IIIP32S.
24 TP II/15.
25 E IVP35S.
26 E IVP37SII.
27 Aristotle, Politics, I, 1253a929.
28 See Ep 9/7812.
29 See, for instance, A. Matheron, Le problme de lvolution de Spinoza du Trait
thologico-politique au Trait politique, in Spinoza. Issues and Directions, edited
by Edwin Curley and P.-F. Moreau (Leiden: Brill 1990), pp. 25870. With regard
to Hegels rejection of contractualism, see EPR, 75, pp. 1056.
30 Ep. 19/810.
Part Two
Hegels Spinoza
Hegel, sive Spinoza: Hegel as His Own

True Other
Warren Montag
If, as Althusser said, a philosophy only exists though the position that it occupies
and it occupies this position only by conquering it on the field of an already
occupied world,1 thus demarcating itself from its adversaries, we can say that a
significant number of the great texts produced in the extraordinary moment that
was French philosophy in the 1960s sought above all to take their place in the
world by demarcating themselves from Hegel. Deleuzes Nietzsche and Philosophy
(1962) for example insists on establishing the specific difference of Nietzsches
philosophy by opposing it to the Hegelian dialectic as he understands it:
Nietzsches yes is opposed to the dialectical no; affirmation to dialectical negation; difference to dialectical contradiction; joy, enjoyment, to dialectical labor;
lightness, dance to dialectical responsibilities.2 Even more damningly, Nietzsche
insists on the fundamentally Christian character of the dialectic and of German
philosophy,3 according to which history is a movement from worse to better
through a process of negation and reconciliation that leads inescapably toward
an end already posited in the origin. As if in continuation of Deleuzes argument,
Levinas maintains in The Trace of the Other (1963) that Hegels philosophy
represents the logical conclusion of philosophys fundamental allergy4 to
the other that remains other. From Levinas perspective, the Phenomenology
would be the perfect rewriting of Homers Odyssey in the idiom of philosophy:
a journey that always takes the form of a return, a movement of thought for
which a comprehension of the other can only take the form of its reduction to
the same. In a similar way, according to Derrida in Of Grammatology (1967),
Hegels Logic is a theology of the absolute concept as logos5 and his philosophy
in general is a rsum of the totality of the philosophy of the logos.6 In the
Phenomenology, the apparent absence of Spirit to itself at each of the stages of its
84
Bildung was nothing more than presence as eschatology or as parousia in which

presence is what was, what is, and what will be.
It is thus clear not only that these three philosophers, whose proximity in a
single paragraph is admittedly jarring, felt it necessary to demarcate themselves
from Hegel, as if, to follow Althussers metaphor, he occupied or dominated
the territory they sought to claim, but even more that Hegel was not just one
philosophical adversary among others, but the summary, to use Derridas
phrase, of all the philosophical forces that had to be opposed. We cannot fail
to recognize the paradox of this polemical reading of Hegel in which all the
conflicts internal to the history of metaphysics, or Western philosophy are
sublated in a positively Hegelian manner that overcomes and interiorizes what
might appear to be an irreducible difference. Further, we might say that this
very Hegelian denunciation of Hegel marked the perpetuation not of Hegel, but
of a certain reading of Hegel, as if Hegel were reducible to a few formulas like
the negation of the negation or the truth is the whole, allowing this reading
to persist and inevitably to be rediscovered, that is, salvaged intact from the
wreckage left behind by philosophys perpetual war.
I have of course omitted from this account perhaps the most notorious of
Hegels French critics: Althusser himself. What sets Althusser apart from his
contemporaries is neither the acuity of his critique nor the fact, as we only learned
definitively after his death, that he had produced at the beginning of his career
a very comprehensive and textually informed account of Hegels philosophy,
which not only supplied the context of his critique but also gave it a certain
authority or at least credibility. Rather, it was the fact that his understanding
of philosophy as a practice compelled him after the fact to reexamine both the
conditions and results of his critique of Hegel. Thus, in a certain sense, almost
immediately after appearing to reject Hegelianism in the texts of 1965, For
Marx and Reading Capital, Althusser was forced by the character of a theoretical
conjuncture that his own works had helped shape to return to Hegel and begin
the arduous task of his rehabilitation. Even more important were his reflections
on the necessary conditions of his critique of Hegel, or rather, his critique of
the Hegel internal to Marx, a Hegel internalized and transformed by the very
operation of internalization itself. Philosophy, as Althusser would write, always
makes a void, fait le vide, but it does not begin in or from a void in which it
would be free to state its propositions or theses unhampered. It intervenes in a
field of forces, an already existing conflict, by taking sides, by supporting or even
exploiting one against another. In the oral version of his Soutenance in 1975,
he makes this explicit I have turned the weapon of Spinoza against Hegel.7
Hegel, sive Spinoza: Hegel as His Own True Other
85
This phrase signals that history, or at least a long episode of that history, in
which Spinoza, once that to which Hegels philosophy provided the alternative
and even more insofar as it appeared to complete and correct rather than simply
reject Spinozas thought, now emerged as the alternative to the alternative, the
correction of what falsely announced itself as a correction: Spinoza after Hegel,
as Macherey put it, Spinoza the refutation of Hegel.
In1974, Althusser concluded chapter three (entitled simply Structuralism)
of the Elements of Self-Criticism, with the assertion that he and his colleagues
never were structuralists.8 Chapter four (On Spinoza) begins by repeating the
phrase in the form of a question to be answered: If we never were structuralists,
we can now explain (avouer) why, why we seemed to be even though we were
not.9 The answer, and I begin with this passage precisely because the we
invoked does not refer exclusively to Althusser and his colleagues, irrespective
of Althussers immediate objectives in this enormously complicated act of selfcriticism, but extends beyond the limits of the Althusserian circle, beyond a
Marxist world in which alone the very act or ritual of self-criticism would have a
meaning or function, to include other members of his philosophical generation:
we were Spinozists. A singular misunderstanding (ce singulier malentendu)
led readers to take for structuralism what was in fact Spinozism. And how could
it have been otherwise when to recognize Spinoza it is at least necessary to have
heard of him.10
But Althusser is not content to explain his passion for Spinoza on the basis
of Spinozas greatness, the greatness or grandeur of a lesson in heresy the
likes of which had been seldom seen in history. Instead, he admits that seeking
simply to be Marxists (dtre simplement marxistes), he and his colleagues had
made a detour through Spinoza, a detour that was also necessarily a deviation
and a retreat (recul), although, as he will soon argue, a necessary deviation and
retreat.11 He begins his justification by citing Marxs own detour through Hegel,
a theoretically necessary detour that nevertheless came at a certain theoretical
cost. Further, the work of philosophy in a general sense itself requires retreats
(reculs) and detours.12 But Althussers self-criticism is not devoted to an
exposition on the nature of philosophical practice in general but on philosophy
as he practiced it in the existing ideological and theoretical conjuncture. In
the conjuncture (he identifies it as the period between 1960 and 1965) this
detour was imposed as a necessity. Why was this the case? Because Marxs
materialism obliged us to think his necessary detour through Hegel, we had
to make a detour through Spinoza to see a bit more clearly in Marxs detour
through Hegel.13
86
Althussers critique of the Hegelian dialectic beginning with Contradiction

and Overdetermination (1962) in which he sought to differentiate the simple
contradiction of Hegel from the overdetermined and irreducibly complex
contradiction proper to Marxism is well known: it rests on the postulate of the
homogeneity and simplicity of Hegels conception of the dialectic, a simplicity
that can be demonstrated despite and against the appearance of an ever-increasing
and thus cumulative complexity that accompanies its movement toward the end
in which it is fulfilled and completed. Despite appearances its complexity is
not the complexity of an effective overdetermination, but the complexity of a
cumulative internalization which is only apparently an overdetermination.14
This apparent complexity is thus reducible to an essence, to an essential and thus
beautiful contradiction that its diversity expresses.
This essay, too short and very dense, aroused enormous opposition, especially
among self-declared Marxists, above all, members of the French Communist
Party, the most discerning of whom did not accuse him of structuralism, as
would later be the case, but of hyper-empiricism.15 Almost immediately,
Althusser wrote his response: On the Materialist Dialectic: On the Uneveness
of Origins, (1963) returning to the question of the Hegelian dialectic in order
even more clearly to demarcate it from the materialist dialectic. Here, Althusser
moves beyond the critique of the Hegelian contradiction as the principle of the
simplicity of its phenomena that are only ever this contradiction in externalized
form, to identify the concept of origin (which guarantees the arrival of the end and
is thus necessary condition of the Hegelian system). Hegel postulates an original
unity that constitutes the fragmented unity of the two contraries in which it is
alienated, becoming other by remaining itself: these two contraries are the same
entity but in duality, the same interiority, but in exteriority.16 The materialist
dialectic whose exposition Marx did not have time to write except in a practical
state emerges precisely in the gesture by which it refuses an original, simple
unity which would reduce historical development to the mere phenomena of an
essence originally present only to be deferred, delayed, and finally restored to
what it had always been even if the consciousness of it was lacking. A materialist
dialectic rejects at the outset the intelligibility that the notion of a progressive
and cumulative movement toward an end already present in the beginning
offers. It thus begins only to the extent that it can articulate a critique of the
concept of the beginning or of the arch that, as Negri has recently reminded
us, suggests both the beginning of a chronology and the command that insures
its unfolding according to the necessity proper to it.17 For Hegel, and Althusser
refers here to the opening of the Science of Logic, the beginning is immediately
87
identical with nothingness; the simplicity that, for Hegel once again, is the
starting pointand restarting point, indefinitelyfor every process, that which
restores it to its origin.18 If Hegels philosophy is a philosophy of origins, it is,
despite its philosophical finery, not fundamentally different in form from the
state of Nature as Hobbes uses it, an original condition that can function as a
beginning only to the extent that it is negated by the presence of a sovereign and
simultaneously preserved as that which makes the fact of sovereignty, necessarily
external to any founding covenant and hence to civil society, possible.
To the notion of an original essence, even one which begins in its own
negation, as the guarantee of a simple unity, Althusser counterposes le
toujoursdj-donne dune unit complexe stucture.19 Not only is there an
irreducible diversity, whose distinction from an original chaos is underscored
by Althussers description of this complexity as a structured unity, but this
diversity or complexity cannot function as a concept of origin at all. More than
simply a pluralization of origin into distinct origins, it is neither starting point
nor beginning. On the contrary: it is always already given, a concept that serves
to deflect a search for an origin, for any prior simplicity of which this unity of
the diverse or structure of the conjuncture would be the expression. With these
admittedly provisional observations, Althusser draws a line of demarcation
between the Hegelian and materialist dialectics. But where is Spinoza inall this
and his name appears only three times in the entirety of For Marx? Interestingly,
not only is Spinozas presence nearly undetectable in the critique of Hegel
sketched out in these essays, but it would appear that Spinoza is, if anything, the
detour that allows Althusser to separate Hegel less from Marx than from Hegel
himself: Hegel beyond Hegel.
Three years after the publication of For Marx and Reading Capital, Althusser
would return to these questions in his presentation to Jean Hyppolites seminar
Marxs Relation to Hegel.20 A significant part of this text was extracted from an
unfinished document written in1967 but patched together by Franois Matheron
and published only posthumously under the title The Humanist Controversy
(La querelle de lhumanisme), in which Althusser declares that many of his critics,
even those who claimed and sincerely believed themselves to be defending Hegel
and the Hegelian legacy within Marxism were in fact, following Marx himself,
closer to Feuerbach than to Hegel, even reading Hegels texts, especially the
most notorious characters in the Phenomenology of Spirit, the master, the slave,
and the unhappy consciousness, through Feuerbach. According to Althusser,
the Feuerbachian inversion of Hegel which meant granting primacy to matter
over spirit, the concrete over the abstract and the practical over the theoretical,
88
produced an enormous contraction and diminution of philosophy, sacrificing

what was essential in Hegel in favor of an assemblage of disparate eighteenthcentury theories, empiricism, mechanical materialism, etc. Feuerbachs theory
of history as the multiplicity of forms in which human essence is alienated was,
in an important sense, not a history at all. Of course, this was no more than what
both Engels and Lenin themselves recognized.
But Althusser will go further: he announces to Hyppolites seminar that he must
confront the contraction of Hegel that took place in his own writings: everything
we have published on Hegel in fact leaves out the positive heritage Marx, by his
own confession, owed to Hegel. Marx transformed the Hegelian dialectic, but he
owed Hegel a crucial gift: the idea of the dialectic. We have not discussed this.
I should like to say a little about it.21 This is a surprising statement to say the
least: Are not Contradiction and Overdetermination and On the Materialist
Dialectic devoted precisely to the concepts that would distinguish Hegels
dialectic from a materialist dialectic? Did not Althusser identify the very notions
that cannot be taken over from Hegel without doing damage to Marxism: origin/
end, negation of the negation, supersession, etc.? Indeed, he summarizes the
arguments first offered in For Marx: what irremediably disfigures the Hegelian
conception of history as a dialectical process is its teleological conception of the
dialectic, inscribed in the very structures of the Hegelian dialectic at an extremely
precise point: the Aufhebung (transcendence-preserving-the-transcended-asthe-internalized-transcended), directly expressed in the Hegelian category of
the negation of the negation (or negativity).22
It is at this very moment, the moment at which Althusser would appear to
offer nothing new not only on the topic of Marxs relation to Hegel but also,
more crucially, on the topic of Hegels relation to himself, a topic in which the
dialectical character of the, of any, notion of the dialectic is at stake, that is, the
rigorously Hegelian notion of the contradiction proper to Hegels philosophy
itself, the specification of which alone would make Hegel intelligible, that
Althusser makes philosophy, his philosophy, speak otherwise. It now appears
that a long detour had been necessary not only to speak of Marx but also to
speak of Hegel, to set Hegel against himself, against that part of his work to
which Althusser had reduced him at the cost of a sacrifice of the other Hegel
who is inescapable if we understand the movement of his philosophy, like every
philosophy, to be a process of Sichanderswerden and Verdopplung, or a process
by which it constantly becomes other than itself. It is a symptomatic moment
in Althussers sense: he returns to the very theme that in On the Materialist
Dialectic demonstrated Hegels allegiance to what Althusser will call in Marxs
89
Relation to Hegel the basic system of classical philosophical categories,23

a system founded in every sense on the concept of origin, the concept of the
beginning, without acknowledging his earlier discussion of the opening of
Hegels Science of Logic and more importantly the fact that he will reverse the
judgment he had earlier passed, and attribute to this passage in Hegel an entirely
different and opposed meaning. What had been four or five years earlier for
Althusser the foundation of Hegels idealist system has become that idealisms
other, a subversion of the very classical system of philosophy which it would
appear to uphold.
Althusser begins his discussion by taking the side of Hyppolite against Kojve:
Now, as M. Hyppolite has very well noted, nothing is more foreign to Hegels
thought than this anthropological conception of history. For Hegel, history
is a process of alienation, but this process does not have Man as its subject.24
In fact, Althusser will go further: to restore Hegel to what he says and does
in his philosophical work against the contraction or restriction imposed upon
him by modern philosophers is to recognize a concept necessary to Marxist
thought, the idea that history is a process of alienation without a subject. Here,
Althusser privileges the Science of Logic which he summarizes as the science
of the Idea, i.e., the exposition of its concept, the concept of the process of
alienation without a subject, in other words, the concept of the process of selfalienation which, considered in its totality, is nothing but the idea.25 But there
exists an extraordinary paradox in Hegel, according to Althusser. The process
itself does not have a subject because it is a subject insofar as it does not have a
subject. In its place, the place of a self-moving center of initiatives, there is the
teleology that is realized through the negation of the negation that progresses
toward an end of which the origin was merely the initially alienated form. Here,
Althusser repeats what he had already said in On the Materialist Dialectic:
the Idea begins with the negation of itself that it must overcome or negate in
order finally to realize itself. The suspension of the beginning is necessary to the
achievement of the End.
Thus far, Althussers discussion of Hegel confines or contracts him to the
teleology to which Althusser has reduced him. At this precise point, however,
Althusser announces that it is possible to take away the teleology from Hegel
in order to distill from his texts the concept of a process without either subject
or telos. This is Hegel beyond Hegel, the application to Hegel, as Pierre Macherey
suggested, of his own principle that a truth is undone by the very movement
by which it is made. Althusser returns to the theme of origin to say against his
earlier statements that there is in Hegel no Origin nor (which is never anything
90
but its phenomenon) any beginning26 and not only or even primarily because
the origin is merely a transitory moment of the end. Instead, Hegels Logic is the
Origin affirmed denied; the first form of a concept that Derrida had introduced
into philosophical reflection: erasure (rature).27 Althusser will immediately
qualify this assertion: but the Hegelian erasure constituted by the Logic from its
first words, is the negation of the negation, dialectical and hence teleological.28
Thus, Hegelian erasure would be the first form and thus an origin of a concept
that comes into being only through the negation of this origin, as if the concept
of erasure is originally erased in order to become that of which it can only be the
anticipation. While Althusser thus falls back into a teleological reading of Hegels
place in the history of philosophy, something has nevertheless broken free from
Hegel as a consequence of Althussers intervention, a concept of the beginning
that refuses to be confined to Hegels system as constructed by Althusser.
It is only in the Elements of Self-Criticism (and specifically in the context of
his discussion of Spinoza) that Althusser can acknowledge that both Spinoza
and Hegel rejected every thesis of Origin, of Transcendence, of Another World,
even disguised in the absolute interiority of essence.29 Although Hegel begins:
In the void (dans la vide), Spinoza begins with God and not with empty being
(tre vide), a fact which protects the latter from any notion of the End, even one
which makes its way in immanence.30 It would appear then that the proximity
of Spinoza brings the fractures within Hegels work ever more clearly into relief,
thereby making visible a Hegel systematically overlooked by critics and partisans
alike, a thinker of immanence to whom no one in the history of philosophy is
closer than Spinoza. And if their trajectories are finally asymptotic, the point at
which they appear nearly to converge even as they persist in their divergence is,
as Althussers texts allow us to see, the concept of the beginning.
Pierre Macherey has noted that Hegel is never so close to Spinoza as at the
moments when he distances himself from him, because this refusal has the
valueof a symptom and indicates the obstinate presence of a common object,
if not a common project, that links these philosophers inseparably without
conflating them.31 And there is no conceptual point from which Hegel sought
more frequently to distance himself from Spinoza than the question of the
beginning. In fact, one could say that his entire reading or misreading of Spinoza
is organized around this theme. Macherey finds astonishing the fact that while
Hegels Logic begins with the postulation of the impossibility of grounding
the infinite process of knowledge in a foundation that would function as its
beginning or origin, he is not only able but also compelled persistently to ignore
the fact that this is above all what distances Spinoza from Descartes.32 In no text
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of Hegels is the ignoring of Spinoza more obvious and striking than in the first
chapter of the Doctrine of Being, Part I of the Logic, Womit muss der Anfang
der Wissenschaft gemacht werden? or With What Must the Science begin, a
celebrated text in which there is not a single reference to Spinozism!33 While
I have so far followed Machereys analysis very closely and faithfully, I must here
depart from or at least complicate the letter of the Hegel ou Spinoza, if not the
spirit, by cautioning that Hegels reading of Spinoza, and to be more precise, of
Part I of the Ethics, is not reducible simply to a misreading, that is, a projection
of something foreign to Spinoza which would originate in and properly belong
to Hegel himself in order not to see the fundamental commonality that binds
together the two philosophies so intimately. On the contrary, what Hegel finds in
Ethics I is as important as what he overlooks: his reading releases Spinoza from
himself, identifying the tendency in Spinozas thought against which what brings
him closest to Hegel develops.
What is this tendency? Althusser captures it in his admittedly schematic way
with his phrase Spinoza begins with God, a phrase we could more accurately
render without changing Althussers meaning, as Spinoza begins with God,
or substance consisting of infinite attributes, a beginning that, according
to Althusser permits him to escape the nonbeginning that is a beginning in
nothingness, the negation of a beginning that must itself be negated, a negativity
that is the motor of the teleological development of Absolute Knowledge. This is
to adopt Hegels reading of Spinoza while reversing his judgment: Hegel correctly
read Spinoza as a thinker of beginning, and rejected beginning with God, at
least in the Spinozist, manner because such a beginning did not permit the long
return to itself of substance as origin and end, as if a primary unity suffers a
secondary dispersion from which there can be no recovery.
But does Spinoza begin with God, that is, with substance considered as
the immediate absolute, a beginning, as Hegel says, that does not presuppose
anything, must not be mediated by anything nor have a ground, but which is
to be itself the entire ground?34 Such an absolute is not the absolutely absolute,
the self-determining absolute whose every action is a making of itself in its own
reflection. Let us recall that Spinoza, as a Jew, is above the thinker of the sublime,
or at least of the Jewish sublime, that absolute monotheism, that rejects the
mediated unity of the conception of God as Three Persons in One in favor of
the primitive undifferentiated unity of an inert and immobile Absolute.35 That
which emanates from the Absolute is mere negation that cannot itself be negated,
substance squandering itself in a movement of diminution and degradation, a
loss of itself in the mutability and contingency of being.36 The linear movement
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from substance to attributes to modes is thus substances externalization of itself

as a progressively insubstantial other doomed to decomposition and dissolution.
There can be no return to substance of its expressions: in their absolute otherness,
they remain unworthy of their creator. For Hegel, those who regard Spinoza as
an atheist are completely mistaken: it is not God who disappears into Nature,
but rather Nature which disappears, not so much into God, as Hegel seems to
suggest, as into insubstantiality and unreality, leaving the absolute, subtracted
from the forms in which it loses itself, and therefore from any actuality, nothing
more than a void whose infinity and eternality guarantee the perpetual reign of
nothingness.
The violence of this reading which not only dismembers Spinoza in the
attempt to force him into an undifferentiated unity with the Oriental philosophy
of undifferentiated unity, but simultaneously attacks the dominant view of
Spinoza as atheist and materialist, insisting that he denies the world rather than
God. This should not obscure the fact that it is extraordinarily precise in its
excision of that mass of material, words, phrases, statements, and propositions,
a mass that significantly outweighs what Hegel has extracted from Spinoza, that
calls into question the notion of substance as beginning. The effect of Hegels
operation is paradoxically to make visible what he cannot see by separating it
from everything in the Ethics that could possibly authorize the notion of Spinoza
as thinker of the sublime. Macherey is undoubtedly right: Hegels violence to the
text increases the more closely his thought brings him into theoretical proximity
to Spinoza.
But this coming into proximity is not a linear or progressive rapprochement:
on the contrary, the movement toward Spinoza in the first chapter of the Logic
begins with a retreat from Spinoza, or at least from Spinoza as Hegel reads him.
To the thought of an absolute beginning, of the absolute as beginning from which
all further development can only be a degradation and loss of this absolute itself,
Hegel opposes an Absolute ground that serves simultaneously as beginning
and end, such that every movement from it must also be a movement toward it,
every progression (Vorwartsgehen) regression, or retrogression (Ruckgang). This
ground is that which loses itself in immediacy in order that it may be recovered
as the innermost truth of consciousness itself. At this point, Hegel tells us that
such a movement is comparable to and even more true of Absolute spirit,
which reveals itself as the concrete and highest final truth of all being (als die
Konkrete und lezte hochste Wahrheit alles Seins sich ergibt), which at the end of
the development is known as freely externalizing itself, abandoning (entlassend)
itself to the form (Gestalt) of an immediate being.37 Thus, Absolute Spirit
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appears or rather makes its first appearance by having already disappeared into
immediacy. Hegels verb here is entlassen, which Miller translates as abandon,
but which might also be translated as letting go, with its meanings both of
ceasing to hold on to something and also firing or dismissing someone. Hegel
runs the risk of appearing to be too close to Spinoza by arguing that absolute
ground develops by abandoning or letting go of itself and attempts to foreclose
that risk by emphasizing that substance has become spirit or subject: it acts and
remains both the subject and object of its action, in this case the action by which
it externalizes itself in order to return to itself as ground, but as a ground known
as such, no longer immediate but mediated. The nothing from which it proceeds
is not a pure nothing, but a nothing from which something is to proceed (Der
Anfang ist nicht das reine Nichts, sondern ein Nichts, von dem Etwas ausgehen
soll).38 The line of scientific development is thus a circle.
Hegel continues the analogy between the development of the Logic and
the movement by which Absolute Spirit lets go of itself to externalize itself as
immediacy, by relating it to the creation of a world, the world, and therefore to a
Genesis whose unfolding is a return to itself as result. The themes of Genesis and
creation, of course, serve to remind us here of Spinoza, the absent or immanent
cause, as Macherey suggests of the opening of the Logic, as if only the postulation
of substance as Spirit can save the absolute from an unclosing (Hegel uses the
verb entschliessen), unlocking, or opening up of itself that is also a squandering
and a loss, a movement from determinate self-production to a decline into
indeterminacy and transience. So far Spinoza appears in Hegel as both the
beginning of philosophy, as he says in the Lectures on the History of Philosophy
and as a, or the, philosophy of the beginning, of the Absolute as beginning, as
absolute beginning. Spinoza is not only the interlocutor and adversary in reaction
to which Hegels philosophy develops, confronting, interiorizing, and sublating
it at every turn. He also represents, beyond the direct and indirect references to
the Ethics, an absolute danger, the danger of the absolute whose development
cannot be understood according to the two poles Hegel explicitly acknowledges:
an origin whose development can only appear as loss and degradation, or an
absolute which avoids such a fate by deferring itself to an end which was already
contained in the beginning. But this danger does not appear as such on the
scene: the attribution to Spinoza of a theory of emanation is not merely an error
but has a strategic function. It serves to divert our attention from what threatens
Hegel not from the outside in the form of the inassimilable Oriental Spinoza,
but from within, the results of Hegels philosophical practice whose results are
never its proper ends and whose unruliness must constantly be corrected and
94
compensated by the prefaces and introductions that as often as not tell us what
Hegel wanted to say rather than what he did say. If then, as I have argued, it
is possible to read Hegels theory of the becoming itself of the Absolute as a
polemic not simply against the notion, which he claims to find in Part I of the
Ethics, of an immobile absolute whose development can only be a destruction
of itself, but against a notion or notions also found but not acknowledged in the
same text, what is this other disavowed notion and what is its relation to the
problem of beginnings?
Here again, Althusser has left us the phrase we have already noted and
little more. Isolated from what proceeds and follows it, invoking concepts
that it does not explain, it is little more than handwriting on the wall for us
to decipher, but which allows us against all the denials on Hegels part to see
that disavowed kinship that ties him inescapably to Spinoza, but precisely the
Spinoza from which Hegels work diverts our attention: Hegels Logic is the
Origin affirmed-denied: the first form of a concept that Derrida has introduced
into philosophical reflection: rature. In a certain sense, Althussers summary
corresponds to what we have seen in Hegel: at the origin Absolute spirit
abandons itself, lets itself go, expels itself into the Gestalt of immediate being.
However, this self-abandonment which as a form of self-determination is a
way of thinking what Spinoza formulates as the causa sui of substance must be
preserved from the very danger that Spinozas system illustrates according to
Hegel: Spirits abandonment of itself to loss and decay. In fact, it is not enough
that Spirit will recover itself as result, as end; the danger which inheres in the
system thus described, the danger that the end will elude itself, effacing itself
at the moment of its arrival, perpetually deferred, unmaking and incompleting
itself in its very movement, is less the danger of diminution and disappearance
than that of dissemination and divergence. In a word, the danger of becoming
other without return. Thus, Hegel in a defense against this possibility must
return in the very same sentence in which he postulates the beginning as
Spirits abandonment of itself to the notion of creation as Spirits opening itself,
unlocking (entschliessen), and releasing that which was therein contained.
Hegel explicitly identifies this danger when he makes the following curious
argument: first, in its progress, Spirit can never become other, that is, a true
other (ein wahrhaft Anderes) as opposed to a false or apparent other (although
its important to note that Hegel doesnt use these words and does not specify
what the contrary or other of the true other would be), but second, insofar
as this transition (the verb is bergehen to pass into, to merge into) into
real otherness does occur, it is to that extent sublated again.39 The danger
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here, marked by the qualifying phrase to the extent that this bergehen does
occuror even seems to occur (vorkommen) is precisely the danger of
Spirit becoming a true other without reduction or sublation, the danger that
Spirit would have no existence apart from the other into which it had always
already passed. To escape this danger, a danger in a sense perpetually realized
but, so far, successfully thwarted, that is, to render the thwarting of this danger
necessary and permanent rather than contingent and abandoned to fortune,
even if fortune has so far favored Spirit, Spirit cannot defer itself to the end
of the process by which it realizes itself without risking its disappearance into
the true other, but must be present and preserved throughout the subsequent
development, remaining completely immanent in its further determinations.40
Of course, this guarantee of Spirits presence only displaces the problem and
its risks: here Spirits presence threatens to become true, that is, absolute,
immanence.
It is at this precise point, a point at which both the stakes and the risks of the
Hegelian dialectic are as clear as they will ever be, that reading Hegel aprs et
daprs Spinoza, to use Machereys phrase, allows us to draw a line of demarcation
which will make visible the threshold at which Hegels Logic abandoned itself to
true otherness, from which there could be no return to the same. There is no need
to rehearse Machereys exhaustive refutation of Hegels reading of the Substanceattributes-modes relation in Spinoza as a hierarchical and chronological
relation.41 The attributes cannot be understood as exterior to substance but
rather as the elements by which it is constituted (or constitutes itself). In the
same way, Substance cannot exist before the attributes that are, according to
Machereys reading, the condition of its self-production.42 In returning to the
theme of Creation, of Genesis, Hegel is simultaneously returning to Spinoza and
to the reading of Genesis advanced in Part I of the Ethics. I refer to Ethics IP33S
where, abandoning the emanationist language of substance, attributes, and
modes even in its subversive form, Spinoza will say simply that God could not
have been prior to his decrees, nor could he have been without them (Deum ante
sua decreta non suisse, nec sine ipsis esse posse). Without origin there is no end
and no unity into which the diversity and multiplicity of decrees or utterances
could be resolved. In fact, to follow the Hebrew of Genesis as Spinoza did is
to see that God exists, creates, speaks, calls, sees, and blesses in one and the
same movement, a movement necessarily without beginning or end: and this
movement is one of differentiation and proliferation whose actualized power is
without limit or end; God or substance produces itself eternally as the infinitely
diverse.
96
This process without subject or ends, to return to Althussers phrase, this

dialectic, is at work in Hegels texts and is that which his formal categories of
negation, sublation, and mediation arise to contain. If Hegel is so profoundly
incapable of comprehending Spinoza, it is certainly because Spinozas philosophy
is already realized in Hegel as the true other which he has already become.
Notes
1 Louis Althusser, Is It Simple to Be a Marxist in Philosophy? in Essays in SelfCriticism, trans. Grahame Lock (London: New Left Books, 1976), p. 165.
2 Gilles Deleuze, Nietzsche and Philosophy (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France,
1962), p. 9.
3 Deleuze, Nietzsche, p. 11.
4 Emmanuel Levinas, The Trace of the Other, in Deconstruction in Context, ed.
Mark C. Taylor (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1986).
5 Jacques Derrida, Of Grammatology, trans. Gayatri Spivak (Baltimore, MD: Johns
Hopkins University Press, 1977), p. 71.
6 Derrida, Grammatology, translation modified.
7 Anonymous, Dr. Althusser, Radical Philosophy 1975, 12:44.
8 Althusser, Essays in Self-Criticism, p. 131.
9 Ibid., p. 132.
10 Ibid.
11 Ibid.
12 Ibid., p. 133.
13 Ibid., p. 137.
14 Louis Althusser, Contradiction and Overdetermination, For Marx, trans. Ben
Brewster (London: Verso, 1969), p. 101.
15 Gilbert Mury, Matrialisme et hyperempirisme, La Pense (April 1963).
16 Louis Althusser, On the Materialist Dialectic: of the Unevenness of Origins,
in For Marx, p. 197.
17 Cesare Casarino and Antonio Negri, In Praise of the Common: a Conversation
on Philosophy and Politics (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press,
2008).
18 Althusser, Materialist Dialectic, p. 190.
19 Althusser, Materialist Dialectic, p. 190.
20 Louis Althusser, Marxs Relation to Hegel, in Politics and History: Montesquieu,
Rousseau, Hegel and Marx (London: Verso, 1972).
97
21 Ibid., p. 174.
22 Ibid., p. 181.
23 Ibid.
24 Althusser, Marxs Relation to Hegel, p. 182.
25 Ibid., p. 182.
26 Ibid., p. 182.
27 Ibid., p. 184.
28 Ibid., p. 184.
29 Althusser, Essays in Self-Criticism, p. 135.
30 Ibid.
31 Pierre Macherey, Hegel ou Spinoza (Paris: Maspero, 1979), p. 17.
32 Ibid.
33 Ibid.
34 G. W. F. Hegel, The Science of Logic, trans. W. H. Johnston and L. G. Struthers
(London: George Allen and Unwin, 1929).
35 G. W. F. Hegel, Lectures on the History of Philosophy. 3 vols, trans. E. S. Haldane
and Frances S. Simpson (New Jersey: Humanities Press, 1974), vol. III, p. 288.
36 Hegel, Logic, p. 535.
37 Hegel, Logic, p. 71; Logik, pp. 556.
38 Hegel, Logic, p. 73; Logik, p. 58.
39 Hegel, Logic, p. 71; Logik, p. 56.
40 Hegel, Logic, pp. 71 and 56.
41 Macherey, The Problem of the Attributes, p. 92.
42 Ibid., p. 78.
Hegels Treatment of Spinoza: Its Scope

and its Limits
Vance Maxwell
Introduction
As is well known, Hegel brings three serious criticisms against the philosophy
of Spinoza. Hegel systematically presents these criticisms in the last portion of
his Spinoza section in the three-volume Lectures on the History of Philosophy1:
(i) Hegel charges Spinoza with atheism not as ordinarily thought, but in another
crucial way: Spinozas system is absolute pantheism and monotheism elevated
into thought. Spinozism is therefore very far removed from being atheism in
the ordinary sense; but in the sense that God is not conceived as Spirit, it is
atheism.2 That is, Spinoza is, for Hegel, not atheistic in the sense that he denies the
existence of God, while exalting particulars in nature as ultimately real. Indeed,
with him there is too much God.3 Rather, Spinoza is atheistic in that his divine
principle is Substance but not self-conscious Subject. (ii) Hegels second charge
concerns the method adopted by Spinoza for setting forth his philosophy; it is
the demonstrative method of geometry as employed by Euclid, in which we find
definitions, explanations, axioms, and theorems.4 All of these last are solely
and simply accepted and assumed, not deduced, nor proven to be necessary;
for Spinoza is not aware of how he arrives at these individual determinations.5
Accordingly, [t]he mathematical method is ill-adapted for speculative content,
and finds its proper place only in the finite sciences of the understanding.6
The crux of Hegels second charge lies, then, in the abstract externality whereby
Spinoza imposes an alien Euclidean method on philosophical content truly
conceived only by Hegels dialectical method. (iii) Hegels third criticism
involves the famous problem of negation: Because negation was conceived by
Spinoza in one-sided fashion merely, there is, in the third place, in his system, an
utter blotting out of the principle of subjectivity, individuality, personality, the
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moment of self-consciousness in Being. Thought has only the significance of the

universal, not of self-consciousness.7 By conceived in one-sided fashion merely,
Hegel means that Spinoza arrived at the great principle that all determination
is negation..., but did not advance to the truly dialectical speculative principle
that negation is itself absolutely negated in a process constituting at once an
absolute negation and absolute affirmation yielding, in human time and in
divine telos, Absolute Spirit.
In this chapter, I shall focus critically and speculatively on Hegels second and
third charges concerning the geometrical method and negation, respectively.
Thus, I argue, from the scope of Hegels treatment of Spinoza, there follow its
limits in two major ways: (i) In treating Spinozas geometrical method summarily
and severely as he does, Hegel relies exclusively on the Ethics, and mainly on Part
I concerning God. He ignores both Spinozas crucial treatise on method, the
Tractatus de Intellectualis Emendatione, his earliest work, and the intermediate
Short Treatise on God, Man and His Well-Being.8 These works he does not even
mention. In his historical treatment of Spinoza, then, Hegel shows himself very
selective. He restricts himself to the Ethics (and to Letter 12 on the infinite) as
the philosophical result of Spinozas thought, and follows his claim in the Science
of Logic that ...the absolute cannot be a first, an immediate; on the contrary
the absolute is essentially its result.9 Moreover, this claim methodologically or
dialectically grounds Hegels criticisms of the abstract immediacy of Spinozas
geometrical method. (ii) In restricting Spinoza on negation to his achieving the
principle that all determination is negation, but failing to achieve the dialectical
principle of the negation of negation in an absolute positive, Hegel relies mainly
on Spinozas claim in Letter 50 to Jelles, this latter applying determination as
negation to figure as negation only.10 Furthermore, Hegel generalizes Spinozas
principle metaphysically in his charge of Spinozan acosmism, namely that all
modes of substance simply vanish into it: As all differences and determinations
of things and of consciousness simply go back into the One substance, one
may say that in the system of Spinoza all things are merely cast down into this
abyss of annihilation.11 It is surely this restricted view of modes and hence of
man, that leads Hegel virtually to neglect Spinozas moral theory, and especially
Spinozas complex doctrine of the overcoming and reordering of the passions
within the eternally arising amor intellectualis Dei. Only one commentator of
those considered here notes this neglect. Kenneth Schmitz remarks that Hegel
places Spinozas ethics at the periphery of the latters thought, but Schmitz
does not explain himself or pursue this quintessential matter.12 Now, clearly,
if modes have no real existence in substance, Hegel claiming throughout that
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they do not, no moral theory or practice is possible, to say nothing of eternal

salvation. Accordingly, it is not open to Hegel to find in Spinoza something other
than determination as negation period, that is, to find a significant negation of
negation simpliciter or in the first instance.
In what follows, and having established the scope of Hegels treatment
of Spinoza, I shall argue its limits or deficiencies in terms of two critical and
speculative theses concerning Hegels second and third charges against Spinoza:
(i) Regarding Hegels charge that Spinoza externally applies an abstractly
immediate geometrical method to his philosophical content (in sum: substanceattribute-mode), I shall argue that Spinozas relation to mathematics is richer
and more philosophically promising than Hegel and the important scholars
noted here realize or grant. More specifically, I shall contend that resources
in the TIE especially prove that, in the final analysis, Spinozas philosophy
governs his use of the geometrical method and of various figures, ratios, and
proportions. They do not govern his philosophy. In particular, I shall argue
for a teleology of philosophico-mathematical method in Spinoza, and also, as
a logico-causal consequence, for the emendation of mathematics itself, this
proceeding as the adequation of quantity and of the epistemology and ontology
of mathematical entities. Here, in a chapter intended for a collection of such
on Hegel-Spinoza, strict limits must be set to this undertaking. Hence I shall
argue sufficiently to correct both Hegels peremptory dismissal of Spinozas
geometrical method as external, useless, and irrelevant to his philosophy, and
that dismissal as it reverberates through the works of scholars cited here. (ii)
Regarding Hegels charge that, although Spinoza establishes the principle that
all determination is negation, he does not arrive at the dialectical principle of
the absolute negation of negation in an ultimate affirmation of Absolute Spirit,
I shall argue this: Hegel is quite right to claim, as he repeatedly does, that Spinoza
establishes determination as negation only, if we add the qualifier explicitly.
Thus, as noted above, in Letter 50, Spinoza applies the principle to mathematical
figure as the mere negation of finite and determinate bodies.13 And in Ethics
IIIP3S, he applies it to human minds as passive within the whole of nature, and
hence as containing inadequate ideas: We therefore see that passive states are
related to the mind only insofar as the mind has something involving negation:
that is, insofar as the mind is considered as part of nature, which cannot be
clearly and distinctly perceived through itself independently of other parts.14
Herewith, Spinoza applies the principle to human passions, and hence to
the ethical domain, and hence to the conative transition from inadequate to
adequate ideas (VP1-P10) and (IIP7DSC, VP1) bodily modifications or images.
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Now, I contend, this transition implicitly constitutes a negation of determination

as passional negation, a movement from passivity to activity and from external
determination to internal self-determination in self-reflective activity of mind
and body. For several reasons, this movement or transition generating the amor
intellectualis Dei remains implicit in Spinoza, and Hegel misses it altogether,
along with Spinozas moral theory as a purification of the passions in detail. Nor
do the Hegel-Spinoza scholars invoked here pay any attention to this matter.
I shall argue sufficiently to make explicit this transition and double negation as
ethico-mathematical, with a focus both necessary and sufficient for my restricted
purposes here. No Spinoza scholar or Spinozist could agree with the arrogant
Hegel writing this: As regards the philosophy of Spinoza, it is very simple and
on the whole easy to comprehend.... But agreement variously arises as he
continues: the difficulty which it presents is due partly to the limitations of
the method in which Spinoza presents his thoughts, and partly to his narrow
range of ideas, which causes him in an unsatisfactory way to pass over important
points of view and cardinal questions.15 Here, then, I shall briefly offer a new
Spinoza and a new Hegel,16 a Spinoza closer, by anticipation, to Hegel than,
to my senses, is realized in scholarship, and a Hegel closer to Spinoza than the
scope and limits of his treatment allow him to see or to grant.
The scope of Hegels treatment

In this Section, we shall pay heed to the scope of Hegels treatment of Spinoza,
proceeding under two rubrics, Texts and Themes. My intention is not to be
exhaustive here, but to set up an adequate background against which to undertake
critical and speculative work.
Texts: Having begun with a short biographical sketch of Spinozas life, Hegel
notes the first of Spinozas works entitled An Exposition according to the
geometrical method of the Principles of the Cartesian philosophy. He then
notes that Spinoza later wrote his Tractatus Theologico-Politicus and by it gained
considerable reputation.17 To my knowledge, Hegel does not mention these
works again; and he certainly doesnt use them. Instead, he goes directly to the
Ethics. After commenting generally, Hegel turns to the definitions of EI, paying
special attention to ID5 (mode) and ID6 (the infinite). Curiously, instead of
treating ID7 (freedom-constraint), Hegel extends ID6 into the seventh place,
noting Spinozas defining God as a Being absolutely infinite, i.e. a substance
consisting of infinite attributes, each of which expresses an eternal and infinite
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essence.18 Again, curiously, Hegel neglects ID8 (eternity), thus excluding two
important definitions from his claim that The whole of Spinozas philosophy
is contained in these definitions. Hegel mentions the axioms and propositions
of the Ethics generally, citing several from E1, E2, E3, and E5 but shows an
ambivalence, verging on the cavalier, toward them and their proofs.19
Discussing the true infinite in Spinoza, he cites Letter 12.20 Likewise, in
The Encyclopedia of Logic, Hegel refers severally to Spinoza, but with no
documentation.21 In his Philosophy of Right, Hegel quotes Spinoza once, citing
1D1.22 We turn now to the three-volume Hodgson edition of Hegels Lectures
on the Philosophy of Religion.23 In Vol. I, Hegel makes a number of references to
Spinoza, but, again, with no documentation: the editor refers his quoting omnes
determination est negatio to Letter 50 to Jareg Jellis [sic],24 and Hodgson refers
Hegels the law is the love of God to 5P36 on the amor intellectualis Dei.25 In
Vol. II, Hegel again refers severally to Spinoza, but without documentation:
Hodgson, remarking on Hegels connecting the Oriental principle of unity with
Spinozan substance, refers to 1P15;26 he also refers Hegels Nature exists, is
intuited, represented, as God: Spinozism to 4Pref.27 In Vol. III, Hegel refers to
Spinoza on the ontological argument, with Hodgson citing 1D6 with 2P.s 1,228
and later 1P11 for him.29
It is now clear that Hegel is no Spinoza scholar, that he selectively cites
relatively few of Spinozas texts, and that he focuses mainly on Part I of the Ethics
as the definitive result of Spinozas thought. Let us then turn to the themes which
Hegel pursues in Spinoza, and to those which, for our own purposes, he does
not pursue.
Themes: It is evident that Hegels three major criticisms of Spinoza, those
involving atheism, method, and negation, recur throughout his works as cited
above. They constitute his main themes. But, on the positive side, Hegel reveals
a steady fascination with Spinozas conception of substance as causa sui. Indeed,
Hegel virtually identifies substance as causa sui in Spinoza with the true infinite
of thought as distinguished from the false infinite of imagination. He claims that
Spinozas earlier definitions have also the infinite already implied in them, for
instance in the case of the cause of itself, in as much as he defines it as that whose
essence involves existence....30 Hence, substance, causa sui as the true infinite,
constitutes the great positive theme in Hegels treatment of Spinoza.
Within its restrictions to the Ethics and a few of Spinozas letters, Hegels LHP
covers a variety of themes several of which we note here: Having dealt with the
definitions of EI, Hegel remarks that Spinoza descends from the universal of
substance through the particular, thought and extension, to the individual
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(LHP, 264), but also that the mode qua individual he does not recognize as
essential...for it disappears in existence, or it is not raised into the [Concept].31
There follows a discussion of substance-attribute (LHP, 2656) concerning
which proof and others like them not much is to be gained (LHP, 266).
Next, Hegel discusses freedom/necessity in God, remarking that God acts in
accordance with no final causes (sub ratione boni) (LHP, 267).32 Hegel follows
with a short discussion of the attributes Thought and Extension, their relation
and the parallelism of modes under them. He criticizes the immediacy of the
attributes and the externality of the understanding which posits them (LHP,
2689). Hegel next considers individual things in Spinoza, concluding that
Individuation, the one, is a mere synthesis;...since Spinoza has only universality,
thought, and not self-consciousness (LHP, 273).33 Hegels penultimate theme is
the mind-body relation which is such that the excellence of the soul can never
be anything else that the excellence of the body (LHP, 275). Finally, and before
bringing his three main charges, summed as a general criticism, Hegel briefly
invokes Spinozas system of morals and that is a matter of importance (LHP,
27580). Notwithstanding, Hegels discussion is slight and inconsistent, and
soon gives way to a treatment of Evil, as found mainly in Spinozas thirty-sixth
Letter (i.e. Letter 23 to Blyenbergh).
Hegels remaining works largely repeat his three main charges. In the SL (Remark:
The Philosophy of Spinoza and Leibniz), Hegel immediately focuses on Spinozas
omnis determinatio est negatio again denying that his great principle involves
self-negating negation (SL, 536). From this, Hegel draws the two conclusions
that: (i) substance lacks the principle of personality and (ii) that cognition is
external reflection (SL, 537). He then reviews Spinozas definitions of substance,
attribute, and mode (SL, 5378) before moving to Leibniz. In his EL, Hegel again
remarks that Spinozas God is determined only as substance, and not as subject
and Spirit (EL, 8). He then claims significantly (but also inconsistently with the
acosmism charge) that if we have only the substance in mind then there is...no
distinction between good and evil in it, but that [i]t is here in [finite] man, where
distinction exists...essentially as the distinction between good and evil too (EL,
910). Indeed, only by reading Parts III,IV, and V of the Ethics can we convince
ourselves beyond question regarding the high purity of this moral theory whose
principle is the unalloyed love of God, just as readily as we can convince ourselves
that the purity is the moral consequence of the system (EL, 10).
In his PR, Hegel shows fascination for the causa sui but again inconsistently with
his charge of acosmism. He refers to a finite mind taken as a person,...capable
of holding property and quotes Spinoza once: As causa sui, i.e., as free causality,
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mind is that cuius natura non potest concipi existens [ID1] (PR, 53). Importing
the divine causa sui into the human mind, Hegel adumbrates Spinozas doctrine
of adequation, but he never addresses it.
And, finally, we refer briefly to Spinozan themes in Hegels LPR. In Vol. I, and
characterizing the patience of philosophy, Hegel states that it is only satisfying
the internal impulse of its concept when it cognizes both itself and what is
opposed to it...truth is the touchstone of itself and of the false: Spinoza...
(LPR: Vol. I, 172, n. 59).34 Later, Hegel remarks that Reflection does not posit
the finitude, the determinacy of content, with which it starts, as negative, [and
thus] it necessarily extends finitude as such into the absolute: Spinozism (LPR:
Vol. I, 254).35 Still later, discussing good and evil in Spinoza, Hegel defends
Spinoza against the charge that he annuls the distinction between them: It is
said that in Spinozism the distinction of good and evil has no intrinsic validity,
that morality is annulled, and so it is a matter of indifference whether one is
good or evil. That is no less superficial a consequence [than If everything is
one...then...good is one with evil...]. In acosmically inconsistent defense,
Hegel writes: With regard to the distinction of God and humanity, the basic
determination in Spinozism is that human beings must have God alone as their
goal...But we can also deem our distinction null and void, and can posit our
essential being solely in God and in our orientation toward God. In so doing
we are good (LPR, Vol. I, 3789). Hegel returns to Spinozan acosmism at LPR,
Vol. I, 432, claiming that So strictly is there only God, that there is no world
at all;...the finite has no genuine actuality. And finally here, Hegel compares
Spinoza with Anselm on the ontological argument: Spinoza says that substance
is that which cannot be thought without existence...that is what Anselm said
and what is said in the faith of the present day (LPR, Vol. I, 440).
In the LPR, Vol. II, 104, Hegel asserts that nature exists, is intuited, represented as
God: Spinozism. This remark contradicts the accusation of acosmism, just above,
that So strictly is there only God, that there is no world at all;.... Next, Hegel calls
Spinozas nature a natural totality, which in its actual, intuited existence...is
just this infinite multiplicity of changing things... (LPR, Vol. II, 106).36 Later,
Hegel again invokes acosmism: with Spinoza determinate being, distinguished
from being, is only nonbeing and is in such a way that this nonbeing has
no being at all: (LPR, Vol. II, 261,n. 79).37 And finally, comparing Spinozan
substance with substance in Oriental thought, Hegel writes: The deficiency in
regard to substance in Eastern religions, as in regard to substance as viewed by
Spinoza, resides in the categories of coming to be and passing away. Substance
is not grasped as what is inwardly active, as subject and as purposeful activity, is
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not grasped as wisdom but solely as...reeling...empty power (LPR, Vol.II,

266, n.90).
Volume III of LPR contains Hegels treatment of Spinoza on the ontological
proof of Gods existence, a matter not raised or considered by any of our noted
scholars: Comparing Anselm with Descartes, Spinoza and Leibniz, Hegel
writes: In the thought of Anselm, the definition of perfection also has...the
sense that it is the unity of concept and reality. Later on, in Descartes and
in Spinoza too, God is the first reality; in God we find the absolute unity of
thought with space,...it is the same in Leibniz too (LPR, 183).38 Later,
Hegel avers that Spinoza defines the concept of God as that which cannot
be conceived without being. The finite [i.e. nature] is that whose existence
does not correspond to its concept (LPR, Vol. III, 353 with Hodgson citing for
Hegel 1P11 in n.9). Finally, Hegel conflates Descartes and Spinoza in criticism:
Descartes and Spinoza define God as self-caused, causa sui. His concept and
determinate being are identical...God cannot be grasped as concept apart
from being. What is unsatisfactory is that this is a presupposition, so that when
measured against it the concept must of necessity be something subjective
(LPR, Vol. III, 355).39
We now have a comprehensively articulated sense of the various Spinozan
themes treated by Hegel. It will stand as background over against what lies ahead
in Sections II and III of this chapter. For us, the two major themes not pursued
by Hegel in the array presented above concern: (i) the teleology of mathematical
method and (ii) the prospect of double negation in Spinoza. I shall pursue these,
critically and speculatively, on behalf of Spinoza and the Spinoza-Hegel relation in
Sections II and III, respectively. Hence, the limits of Hegels treatment of Spinoza
will manifest themselves so as to enlarge, I hope, the domain of scholarship
concerning this complex matter. Regarding Spinozas mathematical method,
Hegel clearly maintains that its problem lies in Spinozas externally applying
mathematics as geometry to philosophical content wholly unsuited for it and
intractably against it. Thus resulting is a God presented as rigid, unyielding
substance, and lacking subjectivity, personhood, and spirituality. For Hegel, that
putative fact of external formalism exhausts Spinozas methodological insight and
achievement, or lack thereof. Regarding double negation, Hegel peremptorily
concludes its total absence in Spinoza, who achieves only determination as
negation, due to his alleged acosmism. Speaking of acosmism, in concluding
this first section, I note that Hegels charge of Spinozan acosmism cuts two ways:
it both annuls Spinozas philosophy as a dynamic ethical system and undermines
Hegels appreciative validation (not to say exaltation) of that system.
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The limits of Hegels treatment (method)

We start this section with an overview of my argument showing the limits of
Hegels critical treatment of Spinozas geometrical method. The argument
will proceed through four stages. First, I shall specify Hegels criticisms of the
geometrical method, emphasizing those aspects bearing directly on my own
critical and speculative response to them. Second, we shall attend to the various
reverberations of these criticisms occurring in quite recent scholarship. Third
comes my twofold argument for (i) the teleology of philosophical method in
Spinoza and (ii) the adequation of mathematics in Spinoza, this adequation
showing that, despite a fundamentum in re to his criticisms, Hegel indeed errs
in thinking that they exhaust Spinozas philosophical relation to mathematics
generally, and to his geometrical method in particular.
(1) Our primary source for Hegels criticism of Spinozas geometrical
method is certainly the LHP (2634; 266; 274 and especially 2827), although
Hegel makes important but brief remarks on method in the SL (537). To my
knowledge, he does not raise method in the other works surveyed above. For
succinctness, I shall combine paraphrase with quotation here. Remarking that
Spinozas entire philosophy is contained in his definitions (E I) Hegel continues:
it is really a weak point in Spinoza that he begins thus with definitions. In
mathematics this method is permitted because at the outset we there make
assumptions such as...point and line; but in Philosophy the content should be
known as the absolutely true (LHP, 263). Hegel grants a certain correctness
to Spinozas name-definition[s] as a correspondence of name with conception.
But is the content true absolutely? Geometers dont ask this question but in
philosophical investigation it is the very thing to be first considered, and this
Spinoza has not done (LHP, 264). Accordingly, Spinoza explains or designates
words in definition but the content of the words is held to be established. Here,
held to be established equals is presupposed and Hegel is significantly right,
but not in the sense of sheer or stark presupposition, as I shall so argue.
In his major discussion of Spinozas method (LHP, 2827), having identified
it to be geometry as employed by Euclid, Hegel notes the attraction of the
mathematical method for both Spinoza and Descartes, claiming that it is
natural that independent knowledge in its re-awakening lighted first upon
this form, of which it saw so brilliant an example (LHP, 282), then concluding
that, as a finite science of the understanding it is ill-adapted for speculative
content. Since Hegel doesnt here explain independent knowledge, I shall
assume that he means absolute knowledge taken as the ultimately Spiritual
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causa sui within human reason thus raised above the understanding, and thus
attaining philosophical adequacy and truth. Next, paying tribute to Spinoza
as a testing point in modern philosophy such that one is a Spinozist or not
a philosopher, Hegel nonetheless radicalizes his criticism of the geometrical
method by judging it as not merely a defect in the external form but indeed
the fundamental defect of the whole position (LHP, 283). Specifically Hegel
means the formal nature of geometrical proof as it externalizes the relation of
mathematical thinking to its object: Mathematical knowledge exhibits its proof
on the existent object as such, not on the object as conceived; the Concept is
lacking throughout; the content of Philosophy, however, is simply the Concept
and that which is comprehended by the Concept Importantly, Hegel continues:
Therefore this Concept as the knowledge of the essence is simply one assumed,
which falls [externally] within the philosophical subject, and this is the method
peculiar to Spinozas philosophy (LHP, 283, italics added).40
Returning to the charge of mere presupposition, Hegel again focuses on the
definitions, which as geometrical, he finds simply accepted and assumed, not
deduced, nor proved to be necessary; for Spinoza is not aware of how he arrives
at these individual determinations.41 It is likewise for axioms. Regarding the
propositions, Hegel claims that, in each case the proof is brought in from outside
merely, as in mathematics from a preceding proposition, and...the proposition
is not therefore conceived through itself. And, crucially for us, Hegel leads us to
a question: The essential moments of the system are really already completely
contained in the presuppositions of the definitions, from which all further
proofs have merely to be deduced. But whence have we these categories which
here appear as definitions? (LHP, 285). Since none of these is developed from
infinite substance...of a truth there exists [only] the One into which everything
enters, in order to be absorbed therein, but out of which nothing comes,
acosmism is now invoked. In conclusion here, and before noting a final point,
I draw deliberate attention to Hegels greatly emphasizing the problems: (i) of the
definitions of EI as such and (ii) of the pre-suppositions of the definitions: of
EI, and by extension those of E IIV. Spinoza treats methodological definition
only in the TIE, which Hegel neither cites nor uses, and presumably didnt read.
Our final methodological point arises as Hegel moves from acosmism to
Spinozan determination as negation, through absolute determinateness or
negativity...[wherein] negation is the negation of negation, and therefore true
affirmation (LHP, 286) to this criticism: This negative self-conscious moment,
the movement of knowledge...is however certainly lacking to the content of
Spinozas philosophy, or at least it is only externally associated with it since it
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falls within [external] self-consciousness. Hegel specifies that Spinozas content

signifies thought, as pure abstract self-consciousness, but an unreasoning
knowledge, into which the individual does not enter; the content has not the
signification of I. Indeed, [t]here is a rigid necessity in the proof, to which the
moment of self-consciousness is lacking; the I disappears, gives itself altogether
up, merely withers away. Hence, to a metaphysical acosmism, Hegel adds a noetic
acosmism regarding Spinoza. But then Hegel claims, without explanation, that
Spinozas procedure is therefore [?] quite correct; yet the individual proposition
is false, seeing that it expresses only one side of the negation, that is, presumably
determination as simple and external negation alone, or un-negated negation.
Now the methodological issue here is really proof conceived as reflective or
deductive knowledge, and, again, Spinoza treats this knowledge as such only in
the TIE, unused by Hegel.42
Stage (i) of Section II is now complete, and we have at hand a sufficiently
specified account of Hegels essential criticisms of Spinozas geometrical method.
Let us then consider briefly the works of several scholars as Hegels criticisms
variously resound through them.
(2) We shall start here by noting the works of three scholars in whom Hegels
criticisms of Spinozas geometrical method resound strongly, but in different ways.
Errol Harris43 and Yirmiyahu Yovel44 tend to discount or diminish Spinozas use of
this method as such, Harris to defend Spinoza critically against Hegel, and Yovel
to bring Spinoza and Hegel closer together than Hegel allows. By contrast, Stanley
Rosen45 takes both Spinozas use of the geometrical method and Hegels criticisms
thereof seriously indeed, amplifying those criticisms in Part II of his paper.
Harris claims that Spinoza is seduced by the geometrical method into a
different form of presentation. But the method is...not really geometrical, nor
really essential to the development of Spinozas theory, in which all the traces of
dialectical structure are implicitly present: e.g. in the process of the improvement
of the intellect....46 Yovel externalizes the geometrical method after Hegel by
referring to Spinozas method as a deductive mantle.47 Rosen holds that the
[geometrical] defects of the Spinozist system are...immediately visible.48
The limits of Hegels treatment (negation)

In this final section, I shall oppose, in the mathematico-ethical context,
Hegels charge that Spinoza achieves determination as negation, but not
determination as the negation of negation. With that charge there comes the
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related charge that Spinoza consequently never arrives at the principle of

subjectivity or personhood in the divine substance. In the sense and to the
degree that I argue against Hegel on negation in Spinoza, I shall accordingly
argue implicitly against this related charge, and hence against the charge of
atheism arising with the related charge. The crux of my argument will focus
on an interpretation of Spinozas doctrine of human freedom as generated by
the transvaluing of the passions insofar (quatenus) as they are overcome and
reordered intellectually and corporeally. As deployed in 5P.s110, Spinozas
doctrine of the transvaluing of the passions is too abstract; I intend to
concretize it mathematically through the TIE and in ways resonating directly
with the teleological method of emending intellect (and, implicitly, body) set
forth in Section II above.
The argument will unfold in three stages following Hegels texts. In stage(1),
we shall follow and focus on Hegels treatment of negation in Spinoza as
deployed in the LHP, other works essentially repeating his critique. Stage (2)
will follow an expanding summation of Hegels treatment in the LHP. Stage(3),
following critically the LHP and SL texts, will present the main argument for
a mathematico- ethical negation of negation in Spinoza, that prospect not
appearing in any cited scholar. It will involve emendation of mathematical
passions into mathematical actions, with the adequation of mathematics itself.
Hence, this methodological emendation of mathematics constitutes the first and
crucial instance of Spinozas comprehensive doctrine of the overcoming and
causal reordering of the passions in EV.
Hegels critique of Spinoza on negation involves two main foci: (i) his
accusation of acosmism, that Spinoza achieves determination as negation but not
the negation of negation; (ii) his resulting charge that subjectivity, personhood,
or Spirituality is therefore not to be found in Spinoza. Hegel lays both charges
without qualification. I shall quote directly from Hegels LHP and SL, numbering
excerpts for consolidating, critical reference:
I. Simple determination or negation belongs only to form, but is quite another
thing from absolute determinateness or negativity, which is absolute form;
in this way of looking at it, [true] negation is the negation of negation, and
therefore true affirmation. This negative self-conscious moment, the movement
of knowledge...is, however, certainly lacking to the content of Spinozas
philosophy, or at least it is only externally associated with it, since it falls within
[external, mathematical]self-consciousness. That is to say, thoughts form the
content, but they are notself-conscious thoughts or Concepts: the content
signifies thought, as pure abstract self-consciousness, but an unreasoning
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knowledge into which the individual does not enter: the content has not the
significance of I. (LHP 286, italics added)
Hegel completes his critique in the LHP with this summation:

II. If, in conclusion, we sum up this criticism that we have offered, we should say
that on the one hand with Spinoza negation or privation is [modally] distinct
from substance; for he merely assumes individual determinations, and does not
deduce
them from substance; On the other hand the Negation is present only as
Nothing, for in the absolute there is no mode; the negative is not there, but only
its dissolution, its return: we do not find its movement, its Becoming and Being.
The negative is conceived altogether as a vanishing moment-not in itself, but
only as individual [external] self-consciousness;...Self-consciousness is born
from this [acosmic] ocean, dripping with the water thereof, i.e. never coming
to absolute Self-hood; the heart- the vital fire is wanting. This lack has to be
supplied, the moment of self-consciousness has to be added. (LHP 289)
From the SL, I shall take just one comprehensive excerpt:

III. Determinateness is negationis the absolute principle of Spinozas
philosophy; this true and simple insight establishes the absolute unity of
substance. But Spinoza stops short at negation as determinateness or quality;
he does not advance to a cognition of negation as absolute, that is selfnegating negation, thus his substance does not contain the absolute form and
cognition of it is not an immanent cognition. True, substance is the absolute
unity of thought and being or extension; therefore it contains thought itself,
but only in its unity with extension, that is not as separating itself from
extension, hence in general not as a determinative and formative activity, nor
as a movement which returns into and begins from itself. Two consequences
follow from this: one is that substance lacks the principle of personality...;
the other is that cognition is external reflection which does not comprehend
and derive from substance that which appears as finite, the determinateness
of the attribute and the mode, and generally itself as well, but is active as
external understanding, taking up the determinations as given and tracing
them back to the absolute but not taking its beginnings from the latter.
(SL 5367)
From these three texts denying both double negation and subjectivity in Spinoza,
it follows that, for Hegel, no dialectic whatsoever exists in Spinozas philosophy.
Harris denies an actual, but sees an implicit dialectic in Spinoza, whereas Yovel
with Hegel absolutely denies any dialectic in Spinoza. Presently, I shall indicate
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an actual dialectic in Spinoza, which, though not Hegelian, variously anticipates

the Hegelian dialectic.
(1) Against Hegel, here, who denies any negation of negation as a negative
self-conscious moment, we do have this double negation in adequation as such,
and in the adequation of mathematics, for example, of the geometrical circle
in TIE 956. The first negation as determination is, for example, the Euclidean
and inadequate definition of the circle through its property of equal radii. The
negation of this negation or inadequate definition occurs with ones adequating
the definition of the circle by conceiving the circle to arise through its proximate
cause, a rotating line/compass. As the agent, one sustains a negative selfconscious moment in this very adequation. Hence, one does have self-conscious
thoughts or Concepts as Hegel himself virtually (though inconsistently) grants,
when, presenting Spinoza on reason at LHP 277, he writes: The nature of reason
is...to think of all things under a certain form of eternity (sub quadam specie
aeternitatis); i.e., in absolutely adequate Concepts, i.e. in God. Hence, abstract
self-consciousness is concretized and internalized in the adequation as such.
And thus Hegel errs in characterizing reason here as an unreasoning knowledge
into which the [I or] individual does not enter.
(2). Accordingly, here, the Spinozan emendation or adequation of mathematics renders false the Hegels claim that ...as in mathematics...a proof is
certainly given, conviction must follow, but yet the matter fails to be understood.
Indeed, mind and body move, in adequation, from the proof or conviction
of the first negation (e.g. the inadequate Euclidean definition of the circle by
the property of equal radii) to the adequating second negation with its true
understanding of the circle now defined through its essence or proximate
cause. And the mathematical I reflectively articulates itself in mind and body
with its very action here. It does not disappear, give itself up or wither away.
Moreover, the merely correct procedure of Spinoza in proving individual
propositions, emends into concrete truth, expressing now not one, but both
side[s] of the negation, this taken as the internalizing of previously external
reflection. This precise sense of mathematical negationnegation-of-negation
involves a teleological advance toward our reflective knowledge of the highest
good (TIE, 13).
(3) Once more against Hegel, while in Spinoza the first negation or
privation is [modally] distinct from substance and Spinoza merely assumes
individual determinations as in passive experience, in the second adequating
negation Spinoza does deduce them from [within] substance in conceiving
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them definitionally to follow from their proximate causes in God. Again, the
first negation is not present only as Nothing or as its dissolution, but present
rather as emendable definiendum, as, for example, the Euclidean circle awaiting
adequate definition in a negation of that first inadequately defining negation.
Hence, now adequated self-consciousness, as achieving absolutely adequate
Concepts (LHP, 277), does come to absolute self-hood, its vital fire being
definitionally adequated conatus. Significantly, Spinoza himself thus adds the
moment of self-consciousness.
It follows that Hegel mistakenly claims, in his SL text, that Spinoza stops
short at negation as determinateness and does not advance to a cognition of
negation as absolute, that is self-negating negation. In adequation, mind and
body, each as causa sui in God, generate their respective adequate ideas and
images, as, for example, in emending the Euclidean definition of the circle, they
define it through its proximate cause. In this sense, though not in the Hegelian
Christian sense (which involves Hegels use of Boehmes Separator), substance
does contain the absolute form, and cognition of it is an immanent cognition.
Again, Hegel shows himself constructively inconsistent as he claims here that,
in Spinoza, thought is given only in its unity with extension, that is not as
separating itself from extension: contrariwise at LHP 257, and distinguishing
Spinoza from Plato, Hegel writes: The pure thought of Spinoza is therefore
not the simple universal of Plato, for it has likewise come to know the absolute
opposition of Concept [reflective thought] and Being [extension] (italics
added). This inconsistency is constructive in that Hegel finds both unity and
opposition in the relation of thought and extension, as attributes of substance,
which finding he does not explain. Continuing here, I note two final points:
(i) The argument in stage (1), following that in Section II, mitigates the two
consequences (namely the absence of divine personality, and the presence
of cognition as merely external reflection), which Hegel draws in this text.
The unity of Gods absolutely infinite self-love and the theory of adequation
(VP35 with IIIDefs12, P1, P3) ground this claim against Hegel. (ii) Spinoza
accordingly moves beyond taking up the determinations [modes] as given and
tracing them back to the absolute. In methodological adequation, he defines
them and traces them ahead teleologico-dialectically to the absolute, and then
cognition take[s] its beginnings from the latter in the Ethics. Our critical
consolidation now suffices.
Surprisingly, but without explanation, Hegel in a sense grants a dialectical
double negation in Spinoza. Seemingly mixing interpretation with criticism, and
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granting the true infinite to Spinoza, Hegel writes at LHP 262: Philosophical
infinity, that which is infinite actu Spinoza therefore calls the absolute affirmation
of itself. This is quite correct, only it might have been better expressed as: It is
the negation of negation.
I conclude by noting that this chapter is a greatly shortened version of a long
paper dealing also with Hegels inconsistent charge of Spinozan acosmism, his
slight and inconsistent treatment of Spinozas moral theory, and his mistaken
presentation of Spinozas version of the ontological argument. I hope to publish
that comprehensive paper in the future.
Notes
1 Hegel, G. W. F., LHP.
2 LHP, p. 282.
3 Ibid.
4 Ibid.
5 Ibid., p. 283.
6 Ibid., p. 282.
7 Ibid., p. 287.
8 In using Spinozas works (here, the ST, TIE, Ethics, and Letters), I shall rely
mainly on the translations, and especially Samuel Shirleys, assembled in
the recent Spinoza: Complete Works, ed. Michael L. Morgan (Indianapolis/
Cambridge: Hackett publishing Company, Inc., 2002; hereafter SCW).
9 Hegel, G. W. F., Hegels Science of Logic, trans. A. V. Miller (London: George
Allen & Unwin Ltd; New York: Humanities Press, 1976).
10 SCW, p. 892.
11 Hegel, LHP, p. 288.
12 Schmitz, Kenneth L., Hegels Assessment of Spinoza in The Philosophy of
Baruch Spinoza, ed. R. Kennington (Washington DC: The Catholic University of
America Press, 1989).
13 SCW, p. 892.
14 Ibid., p. 282.
16 These phrases reflect the title and interest of a book, The New Spinoza, eds
Warren Montag and Ted Stoltz (Minneapolis/London: University of Minnesota
Press, 1997).
114
18 Hegel, LHP, p. 263. I note here that Hegel mistakenly denies the absolute
infinitude of God as consisting in an infinite plurality of attributes (ID5):
Does substance, one might here ask, possess an infinite number of attributes?
But...with Spinoza there are only two attributes, thought and extension, with
which he invests God....
19 Accordingly, we compare these two claims: (i) These definitions are followed
by axioms and propositions in which Spinoza proves a great variety of
points (LHP, p. 264) and (ii) I might quote many other such particular
propositions from Spinoza, but they are very formal, and a continual
repetition of one and the same thing (LHP, p. 274). Hegel doesnt tell us
what same thing he means.
20 SL, p. 259.
21 G. W. F. Hegel: The Encyclopaedia Logic: Part 1 of the Encyclopaedia of
Philosophical Sciences with the Zusatze, trans. T. F. Gerates, W. A. Suchting,
H. S. Harris (Indianapolis/Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company Inc., 1991)
(afterwards, EL). See pp. 810, 2267.
22 Hegels Philosophy of Right, trans. with notes T. M. Knox (London, Oxford, New
York: Oxford University Press, 1967), p. 53.
23 Hegel: Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion, ed. Peter C. Hodgson (Berkeley,
Los Angeles, London: University of California press, 1995).
24 Hodgson, Vol. I: Introduction and The Concept of Religion, p. 377, n.25. Hodgson
misspells the correspondents name, Jarig Jelles.
25 Ibid., p. 378, n.33.
26 Hodgson, Vol. II: Determinate Religion, p. 95, n.8.
27 Ibid., p. 104, n.34.
28 Hodgson, Vol. III: The Consummate Religion, p. 183, n.61.
29 Ibid., p. 353, n.9.
30 Hegel, LHP p. 263. Importantly, Hegel invokes the Concept here: Concept and
existence are each the Beyond of the other; but cause of itself, as thus including
them, is really the carrying back of this beyond into unity. Or...substance
is that which is in itself and is conceived from itself; that is the same unity of
Concept and existence. The infinite is in the same way in itself and has also its
Concept in itself, its Concept is its being and its Being is its Concept; true infinity
is therefore to be found in Spinoza. Critically, Hegel continues: But he has no
consciousness of this; he has not recognized this Concept as absolute Concept,
and therefore has not expressed it as a moment of true existence; for with him the
Concept falls outside of [modal] existence, into the thought of [external modal]
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existence. In arguments lying ahead, I shall mitigate Hegels criticism, which

involves the charge that Spinozas geometrical method of reflection remains
external to his philosophical content.
31 Presently, in mitigation, I shall argue that Spinozas theory of adequation
promotes this Conceptual rise of the mode. Neither Hegel nor any scholar cited
here considers adequation at all.
32 In this remark, Hegel reads Spinoza as denying teleology, when in fact Spinoza
emends or adequates it in God and in the human amor dei (5P.s 33, 35, 36).
But Hegel arrives at Spinozas emendation of teleology with this later profound
claim: For God can have only Himself as aim and cause; and the end of the
subjective mind is to be directed on him (LHP, p. 278). Hence, concerning the
above remark, we must emend Hegel: no [external] final causes.
33 It is true that Spinoza has no self-consciousness in the sense of Boehmes
radically evil Ichts or self-hood, that is, II, the Being-for-self, the true
negativity (LHP, p. 206). But it is indeed false that Spinoza has no ethically
developed doctrine of self-consciousness such as Hegel himself inconsistently
implies. This matter arises later in the mathematico-ethical context.
34 Hegel refers here to 2P43Sch, where Spinoza remarks that Indeed, just as light
makes manifest both itself and darkness, so truth is the standard both if itself
and falsity (SCW, p. 269).
35 This remark seems ambivalent and even at odds with Hegels charge of
acosmism.
36 Now strictly totality as whole-part pertains only to the differentiating unity
of infinite and finite modes constituting natura naturata under the attributes
of substance. Hence, nature is an infinite individual for Spinoza (IP29S with
2Lem7S after P13). Accordingly, the attributes are not parts of substance or the
modes parts of their attributes. Hegel occasionally refers to nature in Spinoza
as finite, and in this is mistaken. He has in mind determination as negation,
but that proceeds to infinity (IP28Dem) among finite modes in mutual and
ordered causality.
37 Hegel essentially ignores Spinozas crucial doctrine of conatus applied to finite
modes which thereby essentially strive to preserve or to affirm their being in
God (3P.s 6,7). To my knowledge, Hegel refers to conatus only once, quoting
from 3P.s 68 by paraphrase (LPH, pp. 2756), but is not moved thereby to
moderate his charge of complete acosmism at all.
38 Inasmuch as Spinoza denies the existence of space in IP15S, Hodgson
properly uses other Hegelian texts to render space here as the sensible or
being,n.62.
116
39 In the longer version of this paper, I argue, against Hegel, that Spinoza clearly
anticipates Hegels own version of the ontological argument (ST). In both
versions, God proves his own existence in the adequated human mind.
40 I italicize here to get a useable definition and focus for the Concept, and to
discern its arguable anticipation in Spinozas doctrine of adequation as applied
to the conceived essences of mathematical entities and operations. Relevantly,
and on The Concept in General, Hegel writes: From this aspect the Concept
is to be regarded...simply as the third to being and essence, to the immediate
and to reflection. Being and essence are...the moments of its becoming; but it
is their foundation and truth as the identity in which they are submerged and
contained (SL, p. 577).
41 So important does Hegel judge his criticism of mere presupposition to be, that
it stands at the heart of his only reference to Spinozas method in the SL (537):
These notions [IDefs 1, 3], profound and correct as they are, are definitions,
which are immediately assumed at the outset of the science. By concepts
Hegel means, significantly for us, self-conscious thoughts (LHP, p. 286) or, in
Spinozas terms, reflective ideas (idea ideae, in the singular).
42 The reader is invited to consult my The Philosophical Method of Spinoza,
Dialogue XVII (1988), 89110. This present chapter involves a limited
application of that articles argument to Hegels treatment of Spinoza, and in
criticism and mitigation of it.
43 Harris, Errol E., The Substance of Spinoza (New Jersey: The Humanities Press,
1995), ch. 13: The Concept of Substance in Spinoza and Hegel, pp. 20014.
44 Yovel, Yirmiyahu, Spinoza and Other Heretics: The Adventures of Immanence
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1989), ch. 2: Spinoza and Hegel:
Substance or Spirit?, pp. 2750.
45 Rosen, Stanley, Hegel, Descartes and Spinoza in Spinozas Metaphysics: Essays
in Critical Appreciation, ed. James B. Wilber (Amsterdam, NY: Van Gorcum,
Assen, 1976), pp. 11432.
46 Harris (1995), 212. So often right about Spinoza, Harris is mistaken in denying
Spinozas use of the geometrical method really, confirming his error is not
just the seriously used apparatus of definitions, axioms, propositions etc. In
deduction, Spinozas claims that (i) all things follow from Gods eternal decree
by the same necessity as it follows from the essence of a triangle that its three
angles are equal to two right angles (IIApp, SCW, p. 276) and (ii) ...I know
that what I understand is the true [philosophy]...in the same way that you
[Albert Burgh] know that the three angles of a triangle are equal to two right
angles (Letter 76, SCW, p. 949).
117
47 Yovel (1989), p. 48. He writes: Moreover, if we consider that Spinoza preceded

Hegel in rejecting an a priori method in philosophy, that his true method,
under the deductive mantle, is the inner explication of a basic idea vera and
that his analysis of the infinity of God as qualitative and not quantitative and
open-ended preceded (and clearly inspired) Hegels own, we can see that in the
deep structure of his system, Spinoza had already come a great deal closer to
Hegel than that latter recognized or admitted. By mantle, Yovel presumably
means a cloak or covering. Briefly treating the TIE as Hegels major forerunner
in rejecting an a priori method (35), Yovel writes too little, but seems to mean
a developmental and empirical method. See Maxwell (1988), the long n.36 on
the emending empirical (1068). Yovel briefly raises the method as reflective
knowledge and I shall consider this in stage (3) here. On the infinity of God,
and following Hegel, Yovel repeatedly errs in calling natura naturans infinite
and natura naturata finite (32,48). Natura naturata, as the system of divine
modes under each attribute is infinite also (IP 16, P21, P22, P28, P29S) as modal
individual (Lem7, IIP13S).
48 Rosen (1976), p. 125. He continues: First, there is no deduction for Hegel in the
geometric or axiomatic sense, but rather development (which includes history)
toward the completeness of what is initially an abstract Whole. Spinoza follows
entirely the quasi-mathematical rationalism of Descartes: he lacks any sense of
history or dialectic. The second defect follows at once from the first. Despite the
initial identification between God and nature (and so between man and God)
there is no alienation of God from man, and so from himself, because of the
absence of self-consciousness. The thinking of Spinozas God is indistinguishable
from the manifestation of eternal order. Here, Rosen is mistaken to hold (i) that
Spinoza follows entirely Descartes quasi-mathematical method, and that in
God is the absence of self-consciousness. Spinozas relation to mathematics is
indeed more complex and promising than Rosen sees; and, after Hegel, Rosen
ignores the reflectivity of idea ideae, restricting reflection to the correspondence
of mind- and body-modifications alone, which he considers inadequate for selfconsciousness (127).
Hegels Reconciliation with Spinoza

John McCumber
Entre Hegel et Spinoza, il se passe quelque chose dessentiel.1

This quote from Pierre Machereys discussion of Hegel and Spinoza is, as I
have given it, brief to the point of cryptic and decontextualized to the point of
emptiness. It nonetheless introduces us at once to the depth of the problematic
between Hegel and Spinoza. For what happens between them is not merely
a number of agreements and disagreements, criticisms and rejoinders; it is
nothing less than an establishment and exploration of the very notion of a
philosophical between. Spinoza and Hegel show us, in other words, what
it is for one philosopher to be related to another. Among the major lessons
will be that the intellectual space between them is highly plastic. In some
respects it almost disappears, so that they stand shoulder to shoulder. On
other occasions, they are perhaps as widely separated as it is possible for two
philosophers to be.
One thing Macherey establishes is that this between of Hegel and Spinoza is
not well understood by Hegel himself, who not only misreads Spinoza on many
points but also rejects the very notion of a philosophical between, in that he
undertakes to incorporate Spinoza into his system. For Hegel, there is nothing
between him and Spinoza, any more than there is anything between me and
the sandwich I had for lunch. I will not, then, direct my attention here to the
merits and demerits of Hegels criticisms of Spinoza. Rather, I will try to lay out
just one specific area of agreement and disagreement and examine its plasticity.
How, in this restricted field, does Hegel take up proximity to Spinoza? How does
he lose it? If so, does he try to get it back?
119
Proximity
One area in which Hegel and Spinoza stand together, against deep and powerful
currents in much contemporary thought, is on the nature of freedom. There is
a view that we humans can act in ways which are not determined by previous
events: that our actions, unlike those of other animals, are not the outcomes
of causes bumping along mechanically along through time like billiard balls,
but result from the free decisions of our will. To reject this view, its proponents
urge, is to deny human freedom and so to absolve us of all responsibility for our
actions, from which it follows that human life has no moral worth at all.
Spinoza and Hegel both reject this view, and so are generally viewed as outand-out determinists. They do not deny moral worth in general, however, and
in particular they place extremely high value on human freedom. It is the key
concept in the final part of Spinozas Ethics, which after all is entitled Of Human
Freedom. And freedom, Hegel says often, is the goal of history, and so of that
intervention into history which is his own philosophy.
What they do deny is freedom of the will in its plenary sense, the idea I
mentioned above that humans have a capacity for unconstrained choice. Spinoza
believes, he tells us in a letter, not in free decision but in free necessity: a thing
is free, which exists and acts solely by the necessity of its own nature (Ep 62/G
II 390, also cf. Ethics ID7).2 To be sure, we feel that we have free choicebut that
feeling is an illusion, due to the fact that we are conscious of our actions but not
of their causes (E IIIP2). Thus, Spinoza goes on, if a rock thrown in the air could
think, it would upon reaching the top of its trajectory believe that its motion
came from its own volition. The stone would therefore conclude that it was free
either to continue upward or fall to earth as it wished; but in reality, its fall back
to earth is predetermined and inevitable (Ep 62).
For Hegel in his Science of Logic, freedom is necessity made manifest (VI
239).3 What necessitates me is something whose connection with me is
opaque, and which therefore seems to act on me from a distance. Once that
somethings causal connections with me are understood, I know why and how
it is necessitating my action. My cause and I are now understood as parts of a
single larger whole, consisting of us and the causal links that connect us. As parts
of a single whole, my cause and I are mutually identified, and in recognizing this,
I am free.
120
The model here is almost Freudian: if a childhood trauma has caused my

current neurotic symptom, coming to understand that liberates me from the
symptom. It does not, for Hegel, ipso facto make the symptom go away (though
presumably that might happen). My liberation from the symptom consists,
not in its disappearance, but in the fact that I can work on it; though the original
trauma continues to affect my behavior, I can now affect its action as well,
and what was a one-way causal relation becomes a bidirectional reciprocity
(Wechselwirkung; VI 237). Thus, Hegel would agree with Spinoza that the stone
has no choice about falling back to earth; but for Hegel, it would become free
only if it could recognize thisonly if the necessity of its fall back to earth could
become manifest to it.
We can already see here what I have called the plasticity of the between, for
Hegel and Spinoza stand at once togetherboth deny freedom of the willand
far apart, because Spinoza is quite happy to talk about the freedom of a stone,
while Hegel confines freedom to sentient beings. Before exploring this, however,
I would like to dwell a bit more on their rejection of freedom of choice.
Their motives for this are many, but one of them is that freedom of choice,
or of the will, is unnatural. Nature, for them, as for the science of their day,
is basically a law-governed realm of causal determinacy; freedom of the will
implies that some events, namely human actions, are uncaused, and are therefore
nonnatural. The idea that we have a capacity, in Kants words, to begin something
truly new,4 to make uncaused decisions for which we are morally responsible, is
thus at bottom a view that we are supernatural beings.
The idea that we are ethically supernatural in this way originated in Christian
metaphysics; it is not found in ancient philosophy. For St Augustine, free will is
Gods direct gift to us and so of supreme value.5 Augustine then uses this concept
of freedom to explain why evil things happen. The argument is complex, but its
gist is that Gods gift of free will to us is a good which outweighs our repeated use
of our freedom to do evil. Such a view easily becomes not merely tendentious
but offensive. It seems to imply, for example, that it was better for 20 terrorists to
have freedom of the will on 9/11 than that 3000 other people should live.
Because of its supernatural origins and offensive consequences, this view of
the freedom of the will has often been rejected by philosophers, who usually
attempt to render the action of the will compatible with causal necessity (as
Hume did),6 or to deny its freedom altogether. This does not mean that freedom
of the will in its plenary form cannot be philosophically salvaged, but I think it
explains two other things: why Spinoza and Hegel are not interested in salvaging
it, and why we should be interested in them.
121
Their rejection of freedom of the will leads Hegel and Spinoza back,
unsurprisingly, to the pre-Christian notions of freedom found in the Greek
philosophers, and particularly in Aristotle. For Aristotle, too, freedom is not
a matter of choice. Indeed, in his Metaphysics Aristotle remarks that the free
person is one who makes the fewest choices:
It is as in a house, where the freemen are least at liberty to act at random but all
things are ordained for them. (Metaphysics 1075a 19f; Ross trans.)
For Aristotle, we are responsible for our acts not because we have chosen them
over alternatives, but because their cause lies in usin the form either of
a desire or of a train of reasoning which shows us that the action will lead to
flourishing (eudaimonia; cf. Nicomachean Ethics III.12). A truly free act for
Aristotle is, we may say, one that both our desire and our reason have sanctioned:
one whose cause not merely lies in us, but encompasses our entire nature as
acting beings (cf. Nicomachean Ethics I.13). Once reason has come together with
desire to tell us what we should do, no alternative course of action is available;
the only question is whether the strength of other, irrational desires will keep us
from doing what reason commands.
To act freely for Aristotle is thus to act according to what he thinks is your
basic nature as a rational being. Though his philosophical account of that nature
is specific to him, Aristotles overall view does not depart greatly from Greek
tradition, which began by viewing freedom as simply the ability to continue as
we were.7 Spinozas claim that to be free is to act from the necessity of your own
nature, and Hegels that to be free is to recognize the necessity of your actions,
are visible descendants of this Aristotelian notion.
Conatus and freedom in Spinoza

Hegel and Spinozas philosophical proximity as regards the freedom thus
reside in their status as philosophical descendants of Aristotle, rather than of
Augustine. But they are at deep odds within this family, because, as we have
seen, Spinoza allows that natural beings, even stones, can be free, while Hegel
restricts freedom to sentient beingsto us. This mutual distance expresses a
basic divergence of their philosophies. Hegels restriction of freedom to us is
part of his view that the cosmos is hierarchically structured, with usin virtue
of our status as Geist, or spiriton top; mere natural objects are beneath us.
122
Spinoza, much more ontologically democratic, sees our minds as merely one
aspect of the underlying unity of all things.
But, I will argue (being a sort of Hegelian myself), things are a little more complex.
We can see how this is the case by turning first to Spinozas concept of acting by
necessity of our nature. This cannot mean being pushed around by your desires,
which from Plato on has been a, even the, leading nightmare of philosophical
ethics; but why not? It is, after all, our nature to have desires; why should freedom
for Spinoza not be simply the ability to act on them? The reasons lie deep in his
metaphysics, but the underlying ideas can (I hope) be made fairly clear.
Individual things for Spinoza are not ontological bedrock, the basic building
blocks of reality, but are modes or (as he calls them at E IIIP6) expressions
of something else, namely of the power by which God himself is and acts.
To understand a human being as she truly is in herself (in se) is therefore to
understand her as a specific expression of divine power, and what she is as such
an expression is an activity. This gives us two crucial components in Spinozas
view of the human individual: first, a human being (like anything else) is most
basically an activity, not an object, and second, this activity, as a manifestation
of the divine, possesses what I will call pure being, in that nonexistence does
not enter into it at all: no thing has anything in itself (in se) by which it can be
destroyed (E IIIP6).
This second feature seems obvious enough, given the premises; but it is not
trivial. For Plato in the Sophist, for example, sensory beings do not possess pure
being but are (so to speak) hybrids compounded out of being and nonbeing;
they are not onta but gignomenawhich means that it is intrinsic to their nature
to be temporary (Sophist 256a57a). For Spinoza, by contrast, individual things
have an innate tendency to persist, or as he puts it to persevere in their being
(E IIIP6)a tendency which he calls their conatus, their striving to preserve
themselves. Since what they most basically are is an activity, this conatus is a
tendency to maintain that activityand not merely to maintain it, but to
increase it. Thus, though the human mind and body can undergo great changes
(E IIIP11), those changes are merely the increase or decrease of the specific
activity that constitutes that human being as a manifestation of divine power.
To understand the human individual as an expression of divine power is to
understand that his or her efforts to preserve and enhance his or her power of
acting will also aim to preserve and enhance the powers of other individuals,
who are equally expressions of divine power. Thus, I can think and act more
powerfully when conjoined to others than I can alone:
123
To man, then, there is nothing more useful than man. Man, I say, can wish for
nothing more powerful to the preservation of his being than that all should so
agree inall things that the minds and bodies of all would compose as it were,
one mind and one body, that all should strive (conentur) together (simul) to
preserve their being (suum esse conservare); and that all, together, should seek
for themselves the common advantage of all. From which it follows that men
who are governed by reason...want nothing for themselves that they do not
desire for the rest of men. (E IVP19)
How, then, are things like disagreement, conflict, and strife even possible?
Precisely because a human being is a singular expression of divine power, one
among many. As such, it is not only located among other such finite beings, but
is affected by them:
The idea of a singular being which actually exists has God for a cause... insofar
as he is considered to be affected by another idea of a singular being which
actually exists, and of this God is also the cause insofar as he is affected by
another third [idea]and so on to infinity. (E IIIP9)
Any change in an individual, including an individual human being, is produced

by Godbut by God working through other singular things: my body is
surrounded by other bodies which affect it in certain ways. Since the bodies
among which I find myself are not exactly the same as those among which any
other human being finds himself or herself, the contents of our minds differ; and
because we think differently, we find ourselves in disagreement and conflict.
God thinks all thoughts at once, but our finite minds cannot do this. If we could
understand ourselves and other things perfectly, we would approach a Gods-eye
view and see that all are expressions of divine power, but our understanding is
limitedthat is, it can always be increasedand the effects on us of those other
things are to some degree inadequately understood, which makes them what
Spinoza calls passions. Human disagreement thus comes not from our true
being but from outside, from the fact that we are affected by other bodies, and
do not understand fully just how (E IVPP33 and 34).
The remedy is, as much as possible, to know ourselves and other human
beings for what we truly are: expressions of divine power. To the extent that we
do that, we are able to act according to our true nature, rather than as driven by
our passions. And to that extent we see that beneath it all, humans are in perfect
agreement. To the extent that we see things correctly, we are wise; because we act
according to our true nature, we are free; and because we agree with all human
124
beings, we are good. With this, Spinoza expresses what makes him a great
philosopher: a moral vision of the world. Perhaps the greatest, for his vision
unites wisdom, happiness, and goodness with true human nature in a way that is
unique in its rational grounding and persuasive power.
Hegel, however, was not persuaded.
Hegels reverse conatus

Why not? For Spinoza as for Hegel, a human being becomes free by understanding
the contexts which necessitate his or her actions; the philosophical distance
between the two shrinks away. But it suddenly widens again when we see that
freedom as self-awareness for Spinoza is not fundamentally different from the
kind of freedom he accords to beings of nature; stones and people are free
when they act in accordance with their natures, which in the case of humans
means rationally. For Hegel, freedom as self-awareness expresses a rupture with
nature so deep that nature cannot be called free.
Nor is this the only kind of rupture valorized by Hegel. When we look at the
nature of conatus in his philosophy, we find that it has changed drastically, coming
to embrace nothing less than a striving for self-destruction. This turnabout is
evident from the very beginning of Hegels account of self-consciousness in the
Phenomenology of Sprit, the Battle for Life and Death in which consciousness
seeks first of all to demonstrate that
It is not attached to any specific existence, not to the individuality common to
existence as such, that it is not attached to life. (PhS 187)8
Consciousness here does not seek to persevere, quite the opposite: it seeks
its own destruction. And not only here: in the course of the Phenomenologys
rise from self-consciousness to Absolute Spirit, Hegel repeatedly characterizes
consciousness as not merely wishing, but striving to die: it has what I will call
a death-conatus. To give a further few of the more famous examples in the
Phenomenology:
Ascetic consciousness, the highest point of the Unhappy Consciousness

section, is bent upon its own destruction and has to be saved by the
Mediator, which moves the Phenomenology from self-consciousness into
Reason (PhS 2256).
The ethical order (inspired by Sophocless Antigone) is a virtual celebration
of death, which it calls pure being, and of the dead (PhS 452).
125
The tensions of Kantian morality lead, in the Beautiful Souls, to a spirit

which, like Goethes Werther, is pining away in consumption before
achieving the all-important transfiguration into Absolute Spirit (PhS 668).
Some of these transitions are quite important in the design of the book (though
showing just how would take us afar afield). In none of them, to be sure, does
consciousness actually die; that would put an end to the whole process. But in
each case it strives to die, and if this striving were not in deadly earnest (so to
speak), the important transformations that follow would not be achieved.
This move of Hegels stands in stark and even frightening contrast to the
sublime moral vision of the man he called the central point (Hauptpunkt) of
modern philosophy and of whom he said when one begins to philosophize, one
must first be a Spinozist (LHP 163, 165). It raises then, a number of questions,
which I will discuss under two headings. First, Why does this happen? Why
would Hegel locate the death drive at the core of self-consciousness, and so
at the core of humanity? And second: what, in Hegels philosophy, does that
lead to?
These questions do not have simple or easy answers. I will begin with the
second family, by pointing out that one thing which results from the deathconatus in Hegels philosophy is a strong emphasis on antagonism in human
relations. In the spirit of Spinozas statement that good people want nothing for
themselves that they do not desire for the rest of men, the death-conatus leads
not merely to seeking ones own death, as with Antigone, but to an attempt to
kill others, as with the Battle for Life and Death. Turning against ones own
life recurrently means turning against life in general, and this leads directly to
conflict.
In contrast for Spinoza, for whom human conflict contravenes human nature
and is best eliminated from it, for Hegel conflict thus seems to be essential to
our becoming what we are. This leads, as we would expect, to global differences
between Hegels social philosophy and Spinozas. Tracing them would take me
into every page either man ever wrote on the topic. I will, however, mention one
basic principle: for Hegel only beings who have a death-conatus can be free:
It is only through staking ones life that freedom can be won; only thus is it
proved that for self-consciousness its freedom is not...its submergence in the
expanse of life, but rather than there is nothing present in it which could not be
regarded as a vanishing moment. (PhS 187)
Hegels restriction of freedom to human beings, the contrast with Spinoza with
which we began, is thus grounded in his concept of the death-conatus. It is
126
because our basic human activity can be the seeking of our own death that we
are so radically unlike beings of nature that only we can be called free.
A second set of consequences has to do with the nature of history. Although
Hegel sees conflict as extremely important for human life, unlike Nietzsche he
does not value it for its own sake. He fully recognizes, then, that violence is evil;
since violence is necessary for us to be what we are, it is a necessary evil. As such, it
is something that must be overcome and its overcoming must stand somewhere in
its futureas the telos of the world. To put the matter in plain (i.e. non-Hegelian)
language: if the present is rent with conflict and violence, and if the absence of
these is desirable, then either we give up on that desire entirely, and simply see
humanity as condemned to endless violence, or we posit the absence of violence
as a future state toward which we are moving. Hegel expresses this motivation
very clearly in the Preface to his Lectures on the Philosophy of World History:
When we look at this drama of human passions, and observe the consequences
of their violence and of the unreason that is linked not only to them but also
(and especially) to good intentions and rightful aims; when we see something
funky here wickedness, the decline of the most flourishing nations mankind has
produced we can only be filled with grief for all that has come to nothing. And
since this decline and fall is not merely the work of nature but of the will of men,
we might well end with moral outrage over such a drama and with a revolt of our
good spirit (if there is a spirit of goodness in us)....
But as we contemplate history as this slaughter bench, upon which the
happiness of nations, the wisdom of states, and the virtues of individuals were
sacrificed, the question necessarily comes to mind: what was the ultimate goal
for which these monstrous sacrifices were made?...And in this perspective the
events that present such a grim picture for our troubled feeling and thoughtful
reflection have to be seen as the field in which we want to see only the means for
what we claim is the substantial determination, the absolute end-goal of, equally,
the true result of world history. (XII.335)
Instating peace as a goal is what Hegel does on the level of the State when, in
the Philosophy of Right, he makes public authority grow from vendetta (EPR
104). Hegels teleological history, which so distinguishes him from Spinoza,
thus springsI am suggestingfrom his view that conflict is intrinsic to human
life, and thus from his view of the death-conatus.
But where does the death-conatus come from?
It has its ground in a split within the self, which we see most clearly in the
Battle for Life and Death. The reason consciousness wants to show that it is
not attached to life there is that it wants to identify with its own ego, or mind,
127
which it holds to be completely distinct from its body: the basic message that it
sends by risking its life is I am not my body. If I am not my body, you are not
yours either, and we both should die to show this.
This, alas, just pushes the mystery back one step, for the question now is: why
is the ego defined here as wholly distinct from the body? Hegel knew perfectly
well that Spinoza had provided a rationale for viewing mind and body as the
same. Why are they so separate here?
We can answer this third question by noting that there are in fact for Hegel
two different distinctions between mind and body, one of which is known to
consciousness in the Battle for Life and Death and the other not. Consciousnesss
mind, at this stage, is wholly empty: it has no concrete thoughts to think and is
merely, Hegel says, the motionless tautology of II. As motionless, it cannot
change: there is nothing in it to change. The body, by contrast, is constantly
changing. This mutability is what consciousness seeks to escape by identifying
wholly and solely with its mind; it seeks death to escape from the changes in
its body. The same is true in the other examples I have given, on down the
line: in each case, consciousness seeks death because it wants to identify itself
with something that never changes and hence is noncorporealwith the
Unchangeable whom the ascetic seeks, with the eternal and divine laws of the
ethical order, with the Kantian moral law. Mind and body are distinct because
the one changes continually, while the other aspires not to change at all.
This brings us to a still deeper contrast between Hegel and Spinoza. For
Spinoza, there are many things about us that change; but our basic conatus
persists in both mind and body. For Hegel, the body is entirely plastic. There is
nothing underlying our physical being which can remain the same, and the only
stable identity must be posited in a completely different realm:
[The pathway of the Phenomenology] has a negative significance for [consciousness], and ...counts for it rather as the loss of itself; for it does lose its truth on
this path. The road can therefore be regarded ...more precisely as the way of
despair.
Whatever is confined within the limits of a natural life cannot by its own
efforts go beyond its immediate existence; but it is driven beyond it by something
else, and this becoming uprooted is its death. (PhS 78 and 80)
The pathway of the Phenomenology is a series of fundamental transitions in

which consciousness recurrently loses all its truth, or all the content which it
has developed so far. Death for Hegel is the discovery of the instability in the
human spirit which is brought about by its necessary embodiment.
128
To sum up Hegels views: Violence is intrinsic to human life because we are

divided between a body which changes continually and a mind (or soul) that
seeks not to change at all. But why is there no stability in the corporeal world
for Hegel? Why are fundamental transformations necessary? Why do bodies
not have enduring identities?
We may, I fear, be getting beyond the realm of philosophical argumentation
altogether here into matters of feeling, culture, and temperament. For Plato, there
was no stability to the sensory world; Aristotle provided arguments that Plato
was wrong, but reading chapter nine of Book One of Aristotles Metaphysics
cannot help but suggest that there is also a matter of how existence feels to the two
men. Similarly, perhaps, for Hegel. Certainly German culture, largely through its
Protestant heritage, is unusually receptive to the idea of human life as capable of
radical transformation. Who can deny that Hegels Christian upbringing, with
its account of mankind as fallen, is at play in his view of the omnipresence of
violence?
I will leave this for a moment and turn to the other difference between mind and
body for Hegelthe one of which consciousness is not aware. This is that while
bodies, inall their protean changeability, actually exist, mind as consciousness
conceives itas belonging to an unchanging, supernatural realm of the
spiritdoes not. All of consciousnesss efforts, throughout the Phenomenology,
to identify with nonphysical being, to claim that it can dispense with its own
body, ultimately fail. In every stage of the Phenomenology, consciousness starts
with what it believes to be an ultimate and so unchanging, truth; and every
time consciousness is then driven out of that certainty. At the books end,
consciousness finishes its quest for unchanging truthby abandoning it. And
so, in Absolute Spirit, Hegel is reconciled with Spinoza: there is no domain
over and above this one, God is not other than we:
The reconciling Yea...is the existence of the I which...in its complete
externalization and opposite, possesses the certainty of itself: it is God
manifested in the midst of those who know themselves in the form of pure
knowledge. (PhS 671)
At the end of the Phenomenologys section on revealed religionjust before

the books final transition into absolute knowing, and so at another crucial
transitionwe find this establishment of the God within presented as the death
of the God without:
...the death of the abstraction of the divine being which is not posited as
Self. This is the painful feeling of the Unhappy Consciousness that God himself
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is dead. This hard saying is the expression of the innermost simple selfknowledge, the return of consciousness into the depths of the night in which
II. (PhS 785)
The references to the earlier transitions I have mentioned make clear that this
death of God is the end of all unchanging realms. It is the final unmasking of the
deepest illusion. But if this insight can only be reached by a pathway of violence
and despair, the illusion of an eternal world must be constitutive for humanity
for Hegel.
In his Lectures on the History of Philosophy, Hegel talks about why people are
so vehemently opposed to Spinoza (and, as often when he talks about Spinoza,
he is also talking about himselfthough he may not know it):
The Spinozistic universal substance is an outrage to the representation of
the freedom of the subject; for that I am subject, spirit, and so forthall this
determinacy is for Spinoza only modification [i.e. modes of substance]. This is
the outrageous side which the Spinozistic system has within it and what produces
the resistance to it; for the human being has the consciousness of freedom, of the
spiritual, which is the negative of the corporeal, and [the consciousness that]
spirit is first [erst] what it is in what is opposed to the bodily. (LHP 1934)
Now we see that violence, grounded in the death-conatus, is not the only thing
that separates Hegel from Spinoza. There is also the fact that no less essential to
humanity than violence, for Hegel, is the tenacious embrace of a falsehood. This
gives us a different, and here my final, way to think of the difference between
Hegel and Spinoza. In his letter to Kstner of 5 August l790, Kant puts his
attitude toward metaphysics thus:
My efforts...in no way aim to work against the philosophy of Leibniz and
Wolff....I aim to achieve the same end, but by a detour which in my opinion
those great men held to be superfluous.9
Similarly, then, for Hegel, the final reconciliation with our bodily nature which
he advocates places him close to Spinoza, but for him, it cannot be attained in
the peaceful Spinozistic way. It requires not merely disagreement but violence,
not merely truth but falsehood. Who is right? I can hardly presume to decide
that here, but Spinozas view is certainly the more beguiling.
There is a final corollary of this. If the unchanging realm of spirit is an illusion,
the same must be true for the teleological structure of history, for as structuring
all of history that structure would have to be transhistorical, a general, and so
ahistorical scheme into which everything can be placed. If that is the case, it also
130
holds, I suggest, for the overall hierarchical structure of the Hegelian cosmos,
which is also grounded in the need for that historical telos.
The telos of history is certainly not to be found from the horrible facts of history,
which Hegel does not deny; it comes, as we saw, from our need to see history as
having been useful for something. True, the progress of human freedom is not
for Hegel a mere fantasy; it is there in the facts, as one golden thread in a tapestry
of blood. But it is we who select it out and tell it as a story, and it is the goal of
our story, not of the facts. The teleological structure of Hegels philosophy, which
to Macherey differentiates him definitively from Spinoza, is thus a conceptual
ladder, which we must throw away once we have climbed itbut only then.
Can we say that Hegel has come out at the same place as Spinoza? Certainlythey
are closer than they often seem to be, but the space between them is plastic, and
opens up again at various places. When we look at where Hegel ends, it is hard to
see basic differences: both come out with the dynamism of nature equated to the
dynamism of thought, and with human freedom lying in the appreciation of this.
When we turn to the conatus, however, and to Hegels restriction of freedom to
those who have such a conatus, the space between yawns wide indeedexactly
as wide, in fact, as that between spirit and nature in Hegels system.
Notes
1 Pierre Macherey, Hegel ou Spinoza (Paris: Maspero, 1970), p. 12.
2 Spinoza is cited after Benedict de Spinoza, Opera, 4 volumes, ed. Carl Gebhard
(Heidelberg: Winter, 1925) (henceforth, G, volume number, page number).
3 Hegel is cited after G. W. F. Hegel, Werke, 20 volumes, ed. Eva Moldenhauer and
Karl Markus Michel (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 197071).
4 Cf. Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, Akademie-Ausgabe (Berlin: Walter
de Gruyter & Predecessors, 1902) B edn, III. pp. 4768.
5 Cf. Saint Augustine De libero arbitrio, ed. W. M. Green (Vienna: Corpus
scriptorum ecclesiasticorum latinorum, 1956), II. pp. 17.
6 David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature, ed. L. A. Selby-Bigge (Oxford:
Clarendon, 1888), pp. 397413.
7 See Max Pohlenz, Freedom in Greek Life and Thought, trans. Carl Lofmark
(Dordrecht: Reidel, 1966).
8 The Phenomenology of Spirit is cited after the paragraph numbers in G. W. F. Hegel,
Hegels Phenomenology of Spirit, trans. A. V. Miller (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1977).
9 Kant, Werke, XIII p. 278; cf. also Gerard Lebrun, Kant et la fin de la
mtaphysique (Paris: Armand Colin1970), p. 290f.
Part Three
The Psychic Life of Negation
Affirmative Pathology: Spinoza and Hegel

on Illness and Self-Repair
Christopher Lauer
In a puzzling and often cited passage in Part IV of the Ethics, Spinoza gives the
example of a certain Spanish poet who, overcome by illness, was so profoundly
changed that he no longer believed his previous works were his own (E IVP39S).1
This passage is often cited as posing a significant challenge to Spinozas theory
of personal identity,2 particularly since Spinoza dismisses this case and others
like it, so as not to afford material for the superstitious to raise new problems
(E IVP39S). If all individuals strive to persevere in their being, and if among
complex bodies this means striving to maintain a constant proportion of motion
and rest among their constituent parts, then why, a common objection runs,
would a complex body overcome with sickness not strive to maintain itself in
its very sickness?
Deleuze3 offers the most persuasive answer I have seen, pointing out that for
Spinoza, since no body is ever the adequate cause of its own demise (E IIIP4),
every such instance of sickness involves the influence of an external body (Deleuze
SPP, 42). If, say, the Spanish poet had ingested a poison that caused him to lose
his memory, then the way we would test whether or not he remained the same
person would be to determine whether the introduction of the poison had so
disturbed the proportions of motion and rest4 among his various body parts that
he could no longer perform the same actions. It would be a mistake here to place
overly rigid conditions on the maintenance of self-identity. As Spinoza notes
following the Lemmas in Part II of the Ethics, the human body is sufficiently
complex that it can undergo a great amount of change and still remain capable
of the same actions and affections (E IIP14). Since a bodys striving to persist
(conatus) does not derive from any idea of it, it will not be annulled by reflections
134
on its changes from moment to moment, but will continue until the body is no
longer able to maintain a stable proportion of motion and rest. Thus, if the poets
change in activity is sufficiently great, we might indeed say that he no longer
strives to be the man he was. If, on the other hand, he regained his memory
after a time and once again took up writing, then we might say that the amnesia
had severely weakened him, but that his body eventually regained its former
strength.5 In either case, the change was not a result of a striving either to grow
sick or to recuperate, but simply of a striving to persist that was inhibited by an
external body. In observing that we still have very little idea of what the human
body is capable of (E IIIP2S), Spinoza seems to hold out hope that physiology
might one day be able to give a more definite explanation of the poets breakdown
and similar phenomena, but for the time being he suggests that these riddles are
more trouble than they are worth and thus asks us to remain content that they
will not require any special metaphysical insights, but merely greater knowledge
of human physiology.
Given the tremendous wealth of practical insights that Spinoza develops in
the Ethics and elsewhere, he may certainly be forgiven for leaving the matter
there and leaving it to other theorists to determine in greater detail what sorts
of striving to overcome sickness the human body is capable of. But for Deleuze,
this reluctance to go farther is a sign not just of Spinozas exhaustion with
the details of philosophical psychology, but of his resistance to the totalizing
strain of modern philosophy which reaches its pinnacle in Hegel. In Deleuzes
account, what is most significant about Spinozas treatment of illness and death
is his insistence that sickness and evil are nothing positive. While a poison or a
virus will generally be composed of its own internal combination of bodies in
a particular proportion of motion and rest and thus strive to persist in its own
being, the sickness that either causes is itself nothing (Deleuze EPS, 249). That is,
the sickness does not express any law of composition, but is merely a name for
the breakdown in composition that occurs when two contrary bodies meet each
other. Spinoza thus manages to avoid ambitious claims about the necessity of
negativity in personal development, which, for Deleuze, marks perhaps his most
important difference from Hegel. Inverting Hegels own judgment of Spinoza,6
Deleuze argues that to the extent that it replaces talk of Gods development with
considerations of his perfection as expressed through his attributes, Spinozas
philosophy is a philosophy of pure affirmation (Deleuze EPS, 60). Whereas
Hegel traces the development of spirit in response to various obstacles that are
put in its way, Spinoza shows how the human being can develop solely through
the affirmation of God in his totality (Deleuze SPP, 13; Deleuze EPS, 60).
Affirmative Pathology: Spinoza and Hegel on Illness and Self-Repair
135
Because the mind strives to think only of those things that affirm its power of
acting and not of those that negate it (E IIIP54), Spinozan thought does not
concern itself with death and defect (E III Pref.); it seeks only to grasp God as a
free, immanent cause of all things.
Yet, it is my contention here that Spinoza and Hegel are far closer than
Deleuze implies. While there is much more to be said in adjudicating Deleuzes
allegations of the stifling negativity of Hegelian thought and Hegels attacks on the
unmotivated transitions of Spinozism, we should not let this opposition obscure
the fact that Hegel does not assume that individual psyches grow dialectically
any more than Spinoza assumes that individual persons grow happier and more
powerful by following the geometric method. Indeed, I will show that Spinozas
psychology is not as purely affirmative and Hegels not as purely negative as
Deleuze suggests and that Hegel actually develops a more complete model of the
kind of self-repair that Spinoza outlines in the Ethics. For each, personal growth
entails the overcoming of repetitive associations through exposure to new ways
of organizing the world. The difference is that Hegelat least in the realm of
mental illnessprovides concrete explanations of how this can happen. Hegel,
that is, offers an explanation of how to embrace health without prioritizing
sickness in precisely the manner that Deleuze thinks a good Spinozist ought.
Spinoza on self-repair
As affirmative and life-embracing as Spinozas approach to philosophy is,
death, decay, and sickness are never completely absent. Indeed, throughout his
writings, Spinoza takes a broadly negative approach to human bondage, always
emphasizing that liberation primarily requires overpowering negative passions
with stronger, positive ones, for we will never become the adequate causes of
anywhere near all of our affections (E IVP4). In the Theological-Political Treatise,
for instance, he notes that the mind is very often so preoccupied with greed,
glory, jealousy, anger, etc., that there is no room for reason.7 And in the Treatise
on the Emendation of the Intellect, he is even more insistent that the philosophers
task consists in abandoning certain evils for the sake of a certain good (TIE 7).
The task of philosophy is thus not simply to create ever new and more adequate
concepts, but to release the mind from such negative patterns of thought and
free it to make general connections. It involves both preparation for the future
bodies one might encounter and self-repair against those bodies that have
already brought damage.
136
To this end, one of the primary tasks of Spinozas psychology is to show

how minds can be released from the painful or stultifying connections of the
imagination. In the Ethics, he first notes that every thought corresponds to a
particular combination of affections of the body. And since bodies tend to become
habituated to repeatedly encountering successions of other bodies, minds tend
to imagine connections between other ideas that they repeatedly encounter in
succession. Thus, if I am in the habit of seeing Peter in the morning, Paul at
noon, and Simon in the evening, I will begin to associate Paul with the warmth
of the day even if it is pure happenstance that our paths have crossed at that time
(E IIP44S). While the imagination of such patterns is an important first step
in forming notions of what is common among all the bodies one encounters,
it is prone to fixate on such connections without looking beyond them to
determine what is actually common among these bodies and what is merely a
matter of serendipitous conjunction. The way to avoid the stifling regularity and
arbitrariness of such associations is to allow oneself to form as many common
notions of the world as possible. By observing commonalities among bodies
and sets of bodies, I can actively cultivate relationships with bodies that agree
with mine and thus become more able to accommodate sudden changes in my
world without changing my nature (E IIP38). The more types of bodies I come in
contact with, the more I will be able both to affect other bodies and to be affected
by them and thus the more powerful and secure I will be (E IVP38). A happy or
powerful person is one who ceases to see external bodies as threats and is able to
be affected by a great number of objects.
But of course, the world contains many bodies that are not only different from
me but also pose actual threats to my bodily integrity. There are environmental
toxins, heavy falling bodies, and malicious people that I know from experience
pose dangers to human bodies like mine and, given the vast unknown
complexities of the body, likely many others that will cause me harm in ways
I do not comprehend. If the injury they cause me is not itself anything, then
how can I explain the new kinds of motions my body undertakes to overcome
it? Since no object ever brings about its own destruction (E IIIP4), Spinoza
must find a way to explain how disease afflicts the body without positing an
active capacity for decay. What is missing in Spinozas account is an explanation
of how the conatus of a body can be severely compromised or even put out
of action without compromising the essence of the body. What is clearly not
Spinozas answer is the Brownian opposition of sensibility and irritability that
Hegel criticizes in the Phenomenology of Spirit.8 Spinoza recognizes as well as
Hegel that even though a poison can turn a bodys resources against it, positing
137
anything like a faculty of being poisoned would have as little explanatory power
as the positing of a dormative power has to explain opiums effects. Instead,
the power to be affected is nothing but a bodys ability to maintain a constant
proportion of motion and rest among its constituent parts even as it encounters
foreign bodies. Such an account requires an explanation of the positive striving
to overcome sickness that does not make sickness itself a condition of health.
It needs an explanation of why it is unhealthy for parts of the mind to remain
isolated and self-obsessed. It needs to trace the minds emergence from blockage
into free self-determination. What such an account needs, in short, is Hegelian
anthropology.
The Dreaming Soul in Hegels Anthropology

In Hegels mature system, Anthropology is the first moment of the Philosophy
of Subjective Spirit. As a theoretical presupposition of phenomenologys study
of conscious subjectivity, anthropology studies what Hegel (following Aristotle)
calls the soul, the set of natural preconditions for human consciousness. In this
context, anthropology investigates the vast recesses of the soul that underlie
consciousness but are not yet determined by conscious self-constitution. In
particular, it is the second moment of the Anthropology that is most relevant
to Spinozas project of overcoming the limitations of the imagination. Unlike
the Natural Soul, which constitutes the souls presentient sexual and sleep-wake
cycles, and the Actual Soul, which has already begun to orient itself in relation
to its world, the Dreaming Soul is consumed by self-division. It is dreaming
because its moments are isolated.9 Just as we lose track of our integrity in our
nightly dreams, the sleepwalker, the fool, and the maniac experience a blockage
(Knoten) in their striving for self-unity. The Dreaming Soul is itself divided into
three sections, of which (following the typical Hegelian pattern) the second traces
its self-alienation. Whereas the merely sentient soul has a baseline access to the
world around it and thus can be found in such self-consciously privative states as
hypnosis and somnambulism, in dementia (Verrcktheit)10 the concrete human
being comes to a standstill in the one form of feeling and remains in self-feeling
in opposition to his rational actuality (LPS, 109).11 The demented soul, that is,
is trapped in a single feeling that overwhelms all others. Since it is characteristic
of dementia that the physicality of the sick body is inseparable from the spiritual
illness (LPS, 110), the soul only escapes this self-absorption by habituating itself
to new possibilities.
138
However, it is crucial both for Hegels own dialectical aims and for our
application of this movement to Spinozas psychology that Hegel does not define
this position by the negativity of dementia, but by the positivity of self-feeling
(Selbstgefhl). Contrary to Deleuzes complaints, the Hegelian soul does not
seek to incorporate the negativity of madness into some higher neurotic selfawareness,12 but finds merely the consequences of a diminishment of its powers.
To understand how the embodied spirit works through trauma and other
forms of blockage, Hegelian anthropology holds that we must first understand
what precisely is being blockedthat is, how to identify a healthy immersion in
ones feelings.
Self-feeling as a positive phenomenon

When he lectured on the philosophy of spirit, Hegel liked to begin each course by
noting that his task was not merely to give a catalog of different forms of thought,
but to show the process by which spirit grows into its own freedom.13 And since
the meaning of this freedom can be summed up by the Delphic directive to know
oneself, Hegel would emphasize that it must be guided by empirical human
knowledge [Menschenkenntnis] (LPS, 7), and in particular by an empirical
study of the deficiency [Mangelhaftigkeit] of human inclinations. Freedom, that
is, entails knowledge both of ones own striving and of those external things that
may impede it. The story of spirits development is not a story of hardship and
limitation molding its indomitable desire into noble wisdom, but neither is it a
wistful tale of the fleeting beauty of moments of spiritual weakness. Rather, it
is a series of case studies in which each moment is judged on its adequacy to a
fully realized concept of freedom and valued primarily for its ability to express
this freedom. Moments of spiritual weakness are studied not for prudential
considerations of how they might best be navigated and manipulated, but in
order to bring about the freedom of Delphic self-knowledge, so anything that
absolute spirit preserves from dementia must be constitutive of this freedom.
Yet, although dementia is judged according to the same standard as every other
moment of subjective spirit, this does not mean that every one of these moments
plays the same role in the dialectic. While there are moments of the dialectic that
serve as uncircumventable way stations on the path to absolute spirit, the most
famous of which is perhaps the eventual slaves trembling before death,14 there
are also moments like the genius of the mothers womb (LPS, 8990), or even the
master himself, that dissolve or atrophy in their opposition to a more powerful
139
moment. While the splitting of the soul into autonomous and heteronomous
sides and of self-consciousness into ruling and slavish sides is necessary for spirit
to return to itself, absolute spirit can only be said to be a genius or a master in the
most limited of senses. And then there are pseudo-moments like those that would
be described by astrology and panpsychism (LPS, 345), if only such studies had
anything positive to contribute to spirits self-knowledgemoments for which
Hegel takes pains to carve out a space but which leave only the barest precipitate
in the dialectic. A comprehensive dialectical account of spirit must acknowledge
that spirit has a preconscious relation to the cosmos and to earthbound nature,
but neither astrology nor facile panpsychism has anything to contribute to
philosophical knowledge of this relation. While it is clear that Hegel believes that
the sick soul is more primitive than the self-determining soul of habit and that
spirit is dependent on the natural organism, it is less clear whether or not this
sickness is necessary for spirits progress toward healthy self-actualization. Thus,
in order to determine how dementia is preserved in absolute spirit, we need to
ask whether its Aufhebung is most like that of the slave (an essential moment in
the dialectic), the master (an inessential moment), or the astrological relation of
soul and cosmos (a mere placeholder with little or no explanatory power).
One possible reading would have dementia dissolve mostly, but not entirely,
into healthy habits. While self-conscious spirit has passed beyond dementia, this
reading would have it, there is always present in consciousness an irreducible
reserve of madness that threatens to break out at any time. Kirk Pillow has
made a convincing case that the sleep-wake cycle plays this sort of role in
Hegels anthropology. While the conscious spirit of phenomenology no longer
experiences its feelings as something contingent, as the waking soul does in
trying to identify with its sleeping counterpart, it remains subject to sleeps
periodic eruptions of the imagination so that the primordial soup of contingent
association in its sleeping substance will not cease to nourish it.15 More generally,
Pillow concludes, Each moment of the souls natural subjectivity may, in its
arbitrary willfulness, threaten the project of self-fashioning on which mind has
embarked.16
But it is not at all obvious that Hegel identifies a similar role for dementia
in spirits development. Indeed, Hegels language often suggests that dementia
is an entirely negative phenomenon that is most striking for its distance from
the exercise of healthy reason. In Hegels summary at the beginning of the
Anthropology section, it initially sounds as if the negativity of illness constitutes
the entirety of the dreaming souls second moment. The second part of the
Anthropology, Hegel writes,
140
is the dreaming soul, the difference of the sentient soul from itself. The first element here is the sentient soul as totality relating to itself, a separation without any
separation, or a separationless separation. The second element is that the sentient
soul no longer senses itself in its universality, but is immersed in its particularity.
This immersion in particularity is a pathological condition. (LPS 32)
This would seem to indicate that in contrast to such phenomena as animal

magnetism and clairvoyance, dementia is something entirely negative, a
diremption of the sentient soul from itself that does not make any higher
unity manifest. At most, dementia would seem to be spiritually instructive
for its extremity, and thus spirit would have to back away from a preconscious
immersion into particularity just as it backs away from phrenologys hopeless
effort to find itself as an observable natural being in the 1807 Phenomenology of
Spirit (PhS, 189, 340).
Yet, we should not forget that the discussion of dementia appears not under
its own heading, but under the Encyclopedia subheading of self-feeling. In the
18278 lecture course, Hegel first introduces this term in relation to the sense
of touch, which, unlike the ideal senses of sight and hearing and the inwardly
directed senses of taste and smell, is a sensing of ones independence from ones
environment (LPS, 76). As a moment of the dreaming soul, Selbstgefhl is the
preconscious movement of determining the boundaries of the self. When this
movement succeeds, the person is self-possessed (besonnen), and where it fails,
the result is dementia. But according to the student notes recorded in Boumanns
Zustze, Hegel was careful to clarify that tracing the possibility of dementia
inherent in self-feeling does not imply that every soul must pass through
dementia. Just as the Philosophy of Right takes crime as a necessary possibility
of human freedom without assuming that every human being is a criminal,
anthropology takes dementia as a necessary possibility of the souls self-feeling
without assuming that every soul must be or have been insane. Rather, Crime
and insanity are extremes which the human spirit in general has to overcome
in the course of its development, but which do not appear as extremes in every
individual but only in the form of limitations, errors, follies, and non-criminal
guilt.17 If this analogy held completely, then dementia would introduce an everpresent challenge to sound reason that simultaneously threatens its integrity and
reminds it of the self-correctives that have become second-nature for it.
But this reading still does not tell us how dementia is present in sanity. While
the notion that crime stands alongside order in a developed state is an intuitively
appealing one, it is less obvious how dementia is preserved in the everyday
exercise of reason. If dementia is the blockage (Knoten) of self-feeling (LPS,
141
121), then how can self-feeling be interpreted as a positive phenomenon? In

arguing that spirit is distinct from nature for its ability to bear anguish (Schmerz),
Hegel notes that self-feeling is affirmative in the sense that, when it is negated,
it does not disappearwhich is not the case in nature....In injury, the negation
of my self-feeling is itself still my self-feeling. What negates spirit is subordinate
to spirits affirmation, its unity with itself. This is the determination of freedom
itself (LPS, 14). According to Ferdinand Walters transcription, Hegel elaborates
on this affirmativity by observing that I am simpleisan affirmative, and I
am hungry a negative (LPS, 19n) because pain of any sort brings the soul into
opposition with itself and drives it to overcome this opposition. Anguish, then,
is a sign of a being-for-self that does not disappear in the face of negation, but
always refers the human being back to his or her simplicity.
While the possibility of such anguish is inherent to human life itself, the
dreaming souls drive to separate itself from its merely animal existence makes
it especially acute at this stage. Yet, Hegel explains what is unique about sentient
anguish by pointing to the comparatively light pain of forgetting: When we
have forgotten something, we are divided: the one which we are in ourselves; the
other, the consciousness, the power over us (LPS, 88). Forgetting, considered
not as an act of the theoretical spirit studied by psychology, but as a disturbance
of the sentient soul studied by anthropology, throws the human being into
a preconscious self-division in which the soul feels itself to be torn away from
its content. There is a uniquely helpless tinge to this anguish, which highlights
the souls inability even to grasp itself by latching on to what Donald Rumsfeld
once called a known unknown. Forgetting is paradigmatic for the anguish of
the dreaming soul because, in a certain sense, all its unknowns are unknown. If
phenomenology studies spirits division of itself from its object, anthropology
studies the souls separation from a content that does not even have enough
determinacy to be called an object (LPS, 88). Such a self-divided soul can be said
to be dreaming in the sense that it is not alienated from an external world, but is
full of internal fissures and discontinuities. Or as Hegel puts it, In this diseased
condition, the human being is in a rational dreamhe is still outwardly directed,
but in such a way that an obstruction [Hemmung] has arisen (LPS, 94). The
same might be said of Spinozas Spanish poet. Though he continues to interact
with external bodies in a manner that would for a stranger be indistinguishable
from the actions of someone with a fully intact memory, to the extent that parts
of his body linked to his old life as a poet remain, they have been severed from
his general conatus. It would thus be disingenuous to suggest that this is simply a
case of an old body dying and a new one being created. It may indeed be useful
142
to think of the poet and nonpoet as distinct because of their radical differences
in patterns of acting (just as we distinguish the pack-horse from the racehorse),18
but if the goal of an ethics is to increase our power of acting, then it should also
help us understand and to a limited extent embrace those objects that inhibit our
conatus. To understand the full range of relations among the various parts that
compose the poets body, we need an account of the striving to be whole that unites
them even as they are blocked or restricted in their interaction. What Hegels
concept of self-feeling offers this project is an organic conception of overcoming
trauma that accounts for the impulse toward health in its very structure.
For Hegel, the positivity of self-feeling consists in opening the possibility of
a new form of pain, an obstruction of the souls preconscious feeling of its own
self-unity. Dementia first becomes possible at this stage because illness in general
can only appear on the basis of an intensification of the division between body
and spirit. Thus, Hegel explains that dementias deep wounds are sometimes
avoidable by remaining within the natural souls simple unity of feelings and
their embodiment. In contrast to Spinoza, who elects to ignore trembling,
pallor, sobbing, laughter, and so on, because they are related to the body without
any relation to the mind (E IIIP59S), Hegel thinks this very externality helps
restore the souls sense of continuity with the body. For instance, in times of
distress, pain can be so internalized as to seem inseparable from the soul. But
through tears the pain is turned outwards and relieved (LPS, 85). So long as the
souls self-division can be immediately expressed in the body, it poses no lasting
threat. As a blockage of self-feeling, dementia can only appear once the soul has
taken possession of its feelings as belonging not to the body, but to itself (LPS,
108). Feeling, then, is an odd sort of unity that only appears as the body is no
longer taken to be the souls true self-expression.
But to avoid prioritizing dementia as a condition for healthy habituation,
Hegel is careful to clarify that what ultimately matters about self-feeling is not
the negative moment of the pain of self-forgetting, but the unity of self-feeling.
According to Walters transcription, Hegel reminded his audience at this point
that Physical illness is merely the struggle of the health of the body against
disease. Without health there would be only death. Health, the harmonious
condition, must exist as the basic condition. The same is true of the psychological
dimension (LPS, 106n). Like sickness, dementia is nothing positive, but a
mere privation of the unity of self-feeling. Sickness can be so obtrusive in
its appearance that it is easy to forget that it is nothing at all without healthy
organic life. Despite psychologys general emphasis on the particularities of
various pathologies, Hegel concludes, the systematic study of self-feeling should
143
concern its positive contributions to spirits return to itself and thus emphasize
what is actually felt in the disruption of self-feeling.
Seen in this positive sense, self-feeling appears in its fullest form when the
individual feels himself entirely in this abstraction of the self (LPS, 107). In
the nonpathological forms of self-feeling, the individual senses himself, and to
this feeling belongs the exclusion of particularity. He takes the feeling back into
himself (LPS, 108). All concrete determination of the soul is taken to be merely
negative and hence superfluous. Hegels word for this state is Besonnenheit, which
Williams translates as self-possession, but we might also render as composure.
Since it flees all determinations, it is as difficult to identify a positive example of
such composed self-identity as it is to express affirmatively what it feels like to
be healthy, but I find John Travoltas sidewalk strut from Saturday Night Fever a
particularly expressive artistic rendering of it. For Travoltas Toby Manero at this
moment, there is no question that his body belongs to him or that any corporeal
limitation that appeared would be purely contingent and external. Moreover, the
fact that all threats to his sentient unity are mere abstractions appears not as a
determinate, negative thought, but as a purely affirmative feeling.
And if a preconscious forgetting is the paradigmatic case of a threat to selffeeling, composure should also entail a feeling that is antithetical to forgetting.
As Hegel describes it, this feeling appears most saliently as the feeling of
youthfulness. Whereas old age carries with it a corporeal weakness and declining
memory, youths resistance to these maladies allows for a greater power of
self-feeling (LPS, 109). With fewer gaps and inconsistencies in memory, the
young adult is better able to unite the souls disparate moments and thus take
possession of the soul as totality. In this affirmation of the self as a feeling soul,
the possibility of forgetting is not taken to be anything real, but is felt as a mere
contingency of self-possession.
Hegel on dementia and recovery

When, however, this power of memory is weakened, whether by the normal
passage of time, a physical illness, or a blow to the head, memories can
become erased and nevertheless effective in the soul of the afflicted. The
result is a state of restrictedness (Beschrnktheit) in which the soul becomes
fixated on certain feelings at the expense of other, forgotten ones (LPS, 110).
When this restricted fixation becomes permanent, the result is dementia
(Verrcktheit). Since self-possessed self-feeling is the denial of the separation
144
of body and soul, dementia as its negation is not a return to self-division,

but an intensification of the souls assertion of its independence from every
particular corporeal affection. But in this assertion of independence, selffeelings dependence on the body again becomes manifest, since the soul can
only be self-possessed by finding itself in complete unity with the body (LPS,
112). Precisely by forgetting its corporeality, dementia shows itself to be that
much more intimately bound up with the body.19
The various forms of dementia thus do not differ in their forgetting of the
body, but in the feelings of self-unity they take to be absolute. In imbecility,
the lowest form of dementia, the soul gets lost in its self-feeling without any
content at all, separating itself from any interaction with the outside world.
The individual appears completely vegetative because any particular relation
is a matter of complete indifference to the weakened soul. In folly (Narrheit),
as in Spinozas accounts of pride (superbia) and disparagement (despectus)
(E IIIP26S),20 the soul seizes on a single feeling and gives it a disproportionate role
in the totality of the soul. This fixation tends to happen most commonly, Hegel
wryly observes, with pleasurable feelings, such as pride, love, and anger, which
exaggerate the importance of the individual (LPS, 116). Even anxiety tends to
take on an egotistical form in folly, with the individual becoming fixated on the
paranoid fantasy that the whole world regards her with malevolent intentions. In
the folly of pride, the totality underlying normal oscillations between meekness
and self-regard is forgotten, and the individual reinterprets the world to conform
to this self-aggrandizing feeling. This fixation cannot even be called perverse,
since it operates before there is even a mature self-consciousness to redirect. The
self-possessed feeling of the soul as an actual totality is replaced with a particular
feeling that is taken to encompass the entire self.
In mania (Tollheit), the final form of dementia, the individual is sometimes
able to step outside of the feelings on which folly fixates, but these feelings still
retain a powerful allure, so that the soul oscillates between complete fixation
and a self-possessed realization of the folly of such fixation. Thus, it is not
uncommon for the maniac to oscillate between violent fits of rage and deep
feelings of love for the very person targeted by the rage (LPS, 118). Of course,
even healthy people are sometimes overtaken by rage. The maniac is different,
however, in experiencing a radical disconnect between his manic and ethical
sides, so that the descent into frenzy (Wut) is uncontrollable and alienating.
While both joyful and immoderate passions periodically take over almost
everyone, the manic personality is unique in that reason exercises no control at
all during the manic periods but only returns when the mania has died down.
145
To translate this contention into Spinozas language, mania inspires passions so

great that the intellect is unable to find positive affects to counteract them and
is thus an extreme example of his general principle that there will always be
something stronger than reason (E IVP4). While the intellect may ultimately
be able to form clear and distinct conceptions of its manic passions and even
work to forestall later manic states (cf. E VP4), it is nonetheless powerless for the
duration of the state. The soul is divided against itself, with neither side holding
sway over the other.
For Hegel, this means that spirit cannot simply rely on spirits priority over
nature to overcome sickness, but must seek out physiological interventions even
before it attempts a psychological cure (LPS, 119). While self-feelings hybrid
status as both physical and spiritual resists any reduction of the spiritual to the
physical, in severe cases of dementia the physical can so overpower the spiritual
that a purely psychological intervention would be futile. In confronting the
demented, we must not forget that we are treating an embodied illness, which
gains its strength by denying its unity with the body. In such cases, exposing
the patient to many different types of things would clearly not offer the same
potential for personal growth as it would in a healthy person. Physicians would
have to restore the unity of the patients conatus before the patient even began
to formulate new common notions. These descriptions of the various forms of
dementia and their cures are therefore not merely examples of the interesting
curiosities with which Hegel loved to fill his lectures. In their very hybridity
of the anthropological and the psychological, they fill in the range of spirits
possibilities. By carving out a space for therapy in the dialectic, Hegel cannot
help but recognize that spirits progress through the dialectic is not a grand
march toward some mythic freedom but the play of a spirit already free to move
among its various dialectical moments.
Here, we are finally in a position to say how dementia is retained in selfconscious reason. Rather than reverse course and step back from the excesses
of dementia as observing reason steps back from the excesses of phrenology or
simply move on to developing healthy habits as the slave moves on to stoicisms
work of actualizing freedom, spirit instead lingers on the treatment of dementia.
If the Philosophy of Subjective Spirit is the story of spirits increasing knowledge
of itself as free, then dementia is neither a step along the way to becoming free
(like the slave) nor an initially promising dead end on the path to freedom (like
phrenology). Instead, it is the opposite of self-possession, which must be restored
before habits can be developed and the soul can bring itself to consciousness.
Its position is thus most closely analogous to that of the master, who stands
146
opposed to the moment of spirit that can come to know itself as free. Dementia
is not a step on the path to self-knowledge, but a misstep that can and ought
to be avoided. While Hegel, like most psychologists of his day, seems to have
been most intrigued by the demented side of self-feeling, he also recognizes
that it is its self-possessed side that carries out the real spiritual work. From this
perspective, Spinoza was right to find the case of the Spanish poet intriguing, but
not ultimately threatening to his analysis of the human being as governed by the
conatus to maintain itself. The poet does show that individual striving for unity
can be severely disrupted, even to the point of dissolving the very identity of the
individual, but the disruption itself is nothing real, but only an indication of the
identity that has been lost.
Negativity and loss

For anyone familiar with Deleuzes Hegel, this is a surprising result. How could
the same Hegel who once dismissed historical periods without pain and loss as
blank pages in the book of history21 treat disruption and loss in an individual
soul so blithely? Must the soul not be able to make something of the everoutstanding possibility of its dissolution into madness? Hegel does not, to be
sure, maintain that episodes of dementia are irrelevant to spirit. The possibility
of dementia does, he thinks, help us to understand the dependence of spiriton a
vulnerable and physiologically complex body. Indeed, because it holds together
the contradiction that its objects are both separate from it and belong to it, the
waking soul itself is pain, and even in the best of the circumstances, thought is
never just a concord of various ideas with one another (EPS, 282z). The opposite
of this general pain of existence is not a Spinozan concord of bodies, but a
sleep in which the division of consciousness vanishes into a plane of immanent
nondifferentiation (LPS, 67). Deleuze is thus right to find a sharp difference
between Hegels division of spirit from nature and Spinozas insistence that
every object of thought is a body more or less compatible with the thinkers.
The positivity of self-feeling is for Hegel a part of spirits broader, essentially
negative relationship to its objects in which consciousness really does find itself
to be a theater22 for the interplay of concepts (LPS, 14). But this does not imply
that individuals grow and advance solely by placing themselves in opposition to
their environments. The souls composure is not a rejection of dementia, is not
a weak yes that grows out of a no,23 but a solid, unequivocal affirmation of
embodiment. Though Hegel tends to emphasize the power of negativity in his
147
systematic summaries of his approach,24 he maintains that mental health can

only be analyzed positively. Spirits integrity depends in large part on its refusal
to treat everything it encounters as an obstacle.
What, then, are we to make of Deleuzes opposition of Spinoza, the affirmative
thinker, and Hegel, the negative thinker? Negativity can of course mean many
things, and I have tried to show that the Hegelian dialectic works quite differently
in different spheres. Indeed, we might even say that philosophers still have very
little idea of what kind of movements dialectics are capable of. On the question
of self-repair, we have seen that far from advancing a psychology built on each
individuals efforts to overcome obstacles, Hegel begins with the same kind
of self-seeking material being that Spinoza posits in the Ethics. In at least this
limited sense, Hegel, that great thinker of destruction and decay, would second
Spinozas maxim that a free man thinks of death least of all things (E IVP67).
While freedom for Hegel also entails complex social, political, and religious
institutions that lie outside the scope of Subjective Spiritto say nothing of
the dialectic of Self-Consciousness and its mordant fixation on death and
dominationa free person must at least be self-possessed (besonnen), which
involves a suspension of negativity after the model of Travoltas Manero. Such
a state implicitly rejects the Cartesian separation of body and mind and grasps
its necessary unity with the body. A free person is thus one who understands
the causes of his or her emotions as much as possible and strives to reduce the
influence of controlling passions.
To this extent, Spinozas doctrine of human conatus is negative in the same
way Hegels account of self-feeling is. Both hold that while the embodied mind
is vulnerable to all sorts of maladies that need to be protected against, these
maladies do not serve any essential function in the education of the mind.
Instead, they remain always as outstanding possibilities that help illuminate
the essentially positive striving of self-feeling. While sickness is for Spinoza
nothing real, this does not imply that it can be ignored or dismissed as a source
of metaphysical prejudice. Because a free person strives not only to be affected
by many things but also to avoid interactions with things that will decrease his or
her power, rational self-preservation entails seeking to understand those things
that can kill, harm, or weaken us. And because we are freer to the extent that
others around us are also guided by reason, we ought to strive to understand
potential sources of irrationality both in ourselves and in others. For this, I have
argued, Hegels Anthropology is a valuable resource that Spinozists should not
overlook. Spinoza understood perhaps as well as anyone that true philosophical
friendships are rare and well worth protecting.
148
Notes
1 For the most part, I have followed the translations of Samuel Shirley in
Spinoza: Ethics, Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect, and Selected Letters
(Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Company, 1992).
2 Martin Lin, Memory and Personal Identity in Spinoza, Canadian Journal of
Philosophy 35:2 (2005): 24368; Michael Della Rocca, Spinozas Metaphysical
Psychology, in The Cambridge Companion to Spinoza, ed. Don Garrett.
(Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press, 1996): pp. 193215; Wallace
Matson, Death and Destruction in Spinozas Ethics, Inquiry 20:4 (Winter
1977): 40315.
3 My reading of Deleuzes reception of Spinoza is based primarily on his 1968
thse complmentaire, Spinoza and the Problem of Expression, trans. Martin
Joughin (New York: Zone Books, 1992), though it also incorporates references
to Spinoza: Practical Philosophy, trans. Robert Hurley (San Francisco: City
Lights, 1988).
4 What precisely Spinoza means by proportion [ratio] of motion and rest is
famously elusive. In the Short Treatise, he suggests that it can be comprehended
by whole number proportions (e.g. one part motion to three parts rest), and that
the composition of a given human body could be comprehended through a vast
array of such proportions (The Collected Works of Spinoza, ed. Edwin Curley
[Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1985], v. 2, p. 96). It is unclear,
however, how such a model could account for the multiple levels of interaction
among the various organic systems in the human body. For further discussion,
see Lin, Memory, pp. 24850.
5 I also see no metaphysical problem with concluding that what had happened in
the interim was that the Spanish poet had in fact died with a beating heart and
was later brought back to life through a chance interaction of various bodies
or judicious medical intervention. The determining factor, it would seem,
would be the physiological question of whether the restoration of memory was
caused by the conatus of his body or some external factor. Since Spinoza grants
no special metaphysical status to life, reanimation would seem to be no more
philosophically problematic than conception or budding.
6 In the Lectures on the History of Philosophy: Volume III, trans. Haldane and
Simson (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1995), Hegel argues that
Spinoza begins to grasp the negativity of thought, but does not fully follow
through on this line of thinking (288). For a critique of this reading, see
149
YitzhakY.Melamed, Acosmism or Weak Individuals? Hegel, Spinoza, and the

Reality of the Finite, Journal of the History of Philosophy 48.1 (2010): 7792.
7 Benedict de Spinoza, Theological-Political Treatise, trans. Michael Silverthorne
and Jonathan Israel (Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press, 2007), XVI,
7, p. 199.
8 G. W. F. Hegel, Gesammelte Werke Bd. 9: Phnomenologie des Geistes (Hamburg:
Felix Meiner Verlag, 1980), pp. 15060; G. W. F. Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit,
trans. Miller (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977), 26586. See also David
Farrell Krell, Contagion: Sexuality, Disease, and Death in German Idealism and
Romanticism (Bloomington, IL: Indiana University Press, 1998), pp. 929.
9 Here Hegels conception of dreaming is quite close to Spinozas. For Spinoza, as
for Hegel, dreaming is the form of thought in which thoughts own opacity to
itself becomes most manifest. In both waking life and dreaming, it is only our
imaginations that form ideas about willful control over ourselves, and those
who believe that they speak, or keep silent, or do anything from free mental
decision are dreaming with their eyes open (E IIIP2S).
10 Here I follow Williamss translation mainly for lack of a better alternative. Other
commentators (e.g. Daniel Berthold-Bond, Hegels Theory of Madness [Albany,
NY: SUNY Press, 1995]) have used the more general madness, which also
seems as good as any. For Hegel, Verrcktheit is a technical term that does not
correspond neatly to the common terms of folk psychology. What he aims to
emphasize most with this term is the disruption of the souls striving for unity.
11 Hegel, Vorlesungen Bd. 13: Vorlesungen ber die Philosophie des Geistes
Berlin1827/1828 (Hamburg: Felix Meiner Verlag, 1994). While pagination refers
to the German edition, I have for the most part relied on Robert Williamss
excellent translation (Hegel, Lectures on the Philosophy of Spirit 18278, trans.
Williams [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007]).
12 Thus, Jean-Luc Nancy writes of the preceding section on hypnotism that since
this stage is the darkness of spirit, it is scarcely a stage (The Birth to Presence,
trans. Brian Holmes etal. [Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 1993], p. 18).
That is, the Dreaming Soul is not a moment in the autobiography of spirit, but
an indication of the depths of spirits origins.
13 For instance, in his introductory comments to the 18278 Lectures on the
Philosophy of Spirit, Hegel states that the task of the Philosophy of Spirit as a
whole is to watch spirit achieving by itself its vocation and its destiny, namely,
freedom (LPS, p. 7).
14 Hegel PhS, p. 114, 194.
150
15 Kirk Pillow, Habituating Madness and Phantasying Art in Hegels

Encyclopedia. The Owl of Minerva 28 (1997): 188.
16 Ibid., p. 189.
17 Hegel, Werke Bd. 10: Enzyklopdie der philosophischen Wissenschaften III
(Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1986), p. 163, 408z.
18 Cf. Deleuze and Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus, trans. Brian Massumi
(Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1987), p. 257.
19 See Ferrarin, Hegel and Aristotle, 263n, for a discussion of the novelty of this
claim.
20 Here the connection between Spinoza and Hegel is especially close, since
Spinoza notes that pride is a kind of madness, in that a man dreams with his
eyes open that he can do all those things that his imagination encompasses,
which he therefore regards as real, exulting in them, as long as he is incapable
of thinking of those things that exclude their existence and limit his power of
activity (E IIIP26S). For Hegel as for Spinoza, instances of folly arise through
the intensification of one part of the mind at the expense of the individual as a
whole.
21 G. W. F. Hegel, The Philosophy of History, trans. J. Sibree (New York: Dover,
1956), pp. 267.
22 For a critique of this Hegelian theatre as a false theater, see Deleuze, Difference
and Repetition, trans. Paul Patton (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994),
p. 10.
23 Difference and Repetition, pp. 535.
24 See, for example, Hegels famous reflection on the monstrous power of the
negative (PhS, p. 27, 32).
Of Suicide and Falling Stones: Finitude,

Contingency, and Corporeal Vulnerability in
(Judith Butlers) Spinoza
Gordon Hull
Everyone knows that Judith Butler is a Hegelian. As she says, in a sense, all of
my work remains within the orbit of a certain set of Hegelian questions: What is
the relation between desire and recognition, and how is it that the constitution of
the subject entails a radical and constitutive relation to alterity? (SD xiv).1 Butler
also claims to be a Spinozist: her recent writing makes numerous references to
conatus, which she underscores remains at the core of my own work (UG,
198).2 There would appear to be an incoherence in this juxtaposition, as received
wisdom suggests that Spinoza and Hegel do not mix: one chooses Spinoza or
Hegel. For his part, Hegel tells us that Spinoza is naively affirmative; Deleuze,
whose reading lies at the base of many contemporary reassessments, sees in this
affirmation a joyous rejection of transcendence.3 The incompatibility is now
taken to be axiomatic; as Pierre Macherey puts it, it is Spinoza who constitutes
the true alternative to Hegelian philosophy (HS, 13).
In this chapter, I argue that Butlers idiosyncratic reading of Hegel forces us
to confront the possibility that a Spinoza liberated from the need to appear as
Hegels alternative is actually much more attentive to negativity than is often
surmised. In particular, one should resist the tendency to couple transcendence
and the negative and instead consider the necessary finitude of all existing
things. As I will illustrate by way of Butler, Spinoza is deeply attuned to human
corporeal vulnerability. Since attention to finitude and corporeal vulnerability
are at the core of Spinozas work, and since, as Butler herself persuasively
argues, such attention to finitude and vulnerability are necessary components
of any theory adequate to the political present, I offer a Spinoza read by way of
Butlers Hegel as an alternative and corrective to a purely affirmative Spinoza
152
read in opposition to Hegel. To put the point too schematically, readings of the
affirmative Spinoza tend to develop the importance of conatus as resistance, at
the expense of developing an understanding of the importance of limitations
imposed by our own finitude.4 It seems to me that much of Butlers thought can
be read as bringing those elements together. How do we understand conatus,
and marshal it as resistance, given the inevitability of finitude and constraint as
factors that structure the desires through which we actually live?
The chapter proceeds as follows. In the first section, I outline the basic
parameters of Butlers readings of Hegel and Spinoza. In the following section,
guided by Butler, I pursue a reading of Spinoza on desire and vulnerability
that emphasizes our constitutive vulnerability as finite beings. I then draw two
consequences of this emphasis. First, Spinoza needs not just to be regarded as
a thinker of necessity but also of contingency. Second, Spinoza is engaged in a
systematic project of denaturalizing political and other norms. In the final section,
I apply this discussion to the problem of the constitution of the multitude, as it
has been taken up by contemporary readers of Spinoza.
The politics of reading

Let me begin where Butler does, with grief in the face of loss. Both Undoing
Gender and Precarious Lives begin by approaching the question of our
finitude, as experienced in the loss of someone we love. In Undoing Gender,
she presents mourning as an acceptance of being undone by loss, that is,
of the transformative effect of loss, which cannot be charted or planned
(UG, 18). How might one understand this response as Spinozist? As an initial
orientation to the problem, consider the difference between Hegel and Spinoza
on the experience of loss. Hegels understanding, as he emphasizes early in the
lectures on the Philosophy of History, needs to be understood as a theodicy,
a point he announces in the introduction (Werke XII, 29) and to which he
returns in the final paragraph of the lectures, concluding that what has
happened and happens every day, is not only not without God, but essentially
the work of God himself (Werke XII, 540).5 As texts like this indicate, Hegel
is deeply troubled by the suffering of those on the slaughter bench that is
history, by the problem of how to understand the losses that this suffering
entails, and by the problem of how loss and suffering change the meaning
of and become incorporated into the totality of world history. The question
Of Suicide and Falling Stones
153
is explicitly one of allowing oneself to be affected by this suffering without

being undone: how can an honest cataloging of these misfortunes not cause
us to retreat into private life, and from there enjoy the distant sight of the
mass ruins [Trmmermasse] (Werke XII, 35)? The question of history is thus
essentially one of mourning and memorial, of making sense and coherence of
an aggregation of loss.6
The reference to theodicial politics immediately brings to mind Spinozas
critique of teleology in the Ethics, where he uses as an example God-based
explanations of the event of a stone falling on someones head and killing him
(E1Appx). As Macherey emphasizes, teleology allows Hegel to set aside two
possibilities from the start. One is that the dialectical process will turn out to
have no sense and lack any unity in itself, that is, that the death of our friend
is ultimately without genuine explanation. The second is that the process will
encounter contradictions and antagonisms that cannot be resolved within the
unity of the system, that is, that we can explain our friends death with the
interplay of physical forces, but that this explanation is not one to which we can
attach any unifying narrative coherence (HS, 252).
By pursuing what Macherey calls an antiteleological dialectic without
guarantee, Spinoza approaches the study of historically situated individuals
differently. One sees this approach as well in Butlers discussion of mourning:
we might have to accept that we have lost, and that we cannot assign this loss
to a larger purpose without effacing it as loss. To ask how to confront loss
without guarantee is to abandon the comforts of teleology and instead pursue
the uncertain social processes surrounding the loss. Reappropriating Hegels
tarrying with the negative, she proposes that there is a benefit to tarrying
with grief, which is one of the most important resources from which we must
take our bearings and find our way (UG, 23). Such tarrying discloses that the
precariousness instanced by grief has to be grasped not simply as a feature of
this or that life, but as a generalized condition (FW, 22).
These Spinozist commitments are intended to supplement, not replace,
Hegel. The dialectic between desire and recognition is Butlers central emphasis
in Hegel (UG, 240), and it is there that she brings Hegel and Spinoza together.
Theodicy comforts because it guarantees recognition. Precariousness accordingly
emerges when one abandons theodicy and views desire as both operating in
and overdetermined by a social context that may or may not be receptive to
it. That is, the possibility of being sustained relies fundamentally on social
and political conditions, and not only on a postulated internal drive to live
154
(FW, 21). As a result, conatus and recognition are deeply entwined, and Hegel
was in a way, extrapolating on Spinoza here (UG, 31; cf. PLP, 62). At one
level, this means that an account of recognition will have to take into account
the desire for recognition, and that a certain desire to persist, we might say,
following Spinoza, underwrites recognition (GA, 44). At the same time, the
desire for recognition will complicate what it means to speak of desire. Since
the desire to live becomes a desire for the conditions necessary to sustain life,
and since recognition is necessary for such sustenance, desire can no longer be
thought as the outward or expressive striving of an atomic individual. To strive
is already to strive in a context and to desire in a way that reflects the realities of
that context.7
Butlers essay on Spinozas Ethics exemplifies this reading of conatus. Her
primary interpretive move is to deny that Spinoza establishes any logical priority
between his statement of conatus (E3P6) and the desire to live well. He writes,
nobody can desire to be happy, to do well and to live well without at the same
time [simul] desiring to be, to do and to live; that is, actually to exist (E4P21).
One might suppose that Spinoza means that the desire to live well presupposes
the desire to live. As Butler points out, however, what Spinoza actually says is
that both desires are engaged simultaneously...it is as if in desiring to live
well one finds that that one has engaged the desire to live (DL, 114). Butler
illustrates the point with Spinozas remarks on suicide in the immediately
preceding Scholium (E4P20S). There, Spinoza notes a logical consequence of
his presentation of conatus that it is impossible that someone should commit
suicide from the necessity of his own nature, which in turn entails that those
who do such things are compelled by external causes. Spinozas third example
is the one that interests Butler; in it, someones suicide happens because hidden
external causes so dispose his imagination, and so affect his Body, that it takes
on another nature, contrary to the former, a nature of which there cannot be an
idea in the Mind (E4P20S). Given that, for Spinoza, we are creatures of affects
and imaginations, and given that someones imagination can thus be hijacked
by external causes of which she cannot form an idea, Butler sees an instance of
a larger Spinozist point, that there is already...a manner in which externality
works upon desire that modulates its relation to life (DL, 116). In other words,
the I is already responsive to alterity in ways that it cannot always control
(DL, 121). We thus find in Spinozas conatus a principle of deconstitution that
is held in check and that, only in check, can function to keep the future open
(DL, 126).
155
Fragile desires
Is this a plausible reading of Spinoza? Macherey convincingly shows that, for
Spinoza, one essential mistake that generates teleology is confusion between
understanding the essence of something and its existence. Eliminating this
confusion is accordingly of great consequence. As Macherey explains:
One needs to renounce the ambition of an exhaustive knowledge of singular
things, that is to say, of their global connection, which is by definition
inaccessible: the infinite cannot be apprehended starting from the finite, in a
movement of totalization, where indeed it loses its intrinsic necessity to become
a pure possibility, that is to say, a formal fiction. One needs therefore to be
limited to knowledge of fixed and eternal things and their laws, insofar as they
govern the existence and ordering of singular things: starting from these laws,
singular things are intelligible, sufficiently at least that one is able to set aside the
temptation of interpreting them starting from an imaginary end. (HS, 1889;
internal citations to TdIE 101)
In other words, giving up on teleology entails admitting a necessary epistemic

loss; we will never fully understand the existence of finite things since we cannot
derive this existence from their essence. This limitation is due to the fact that we
would need to understand the infinite causal series that produced each existing
thing, but such knowledge is in principle inaccessible to us. This is not to say
that we should give up and regress to the confusion of the passive affects. Indeed,
our understanding of the laws of motion and rest are enough to make singular
things sufficiently intelligible that we no longer need to rely upon teleology. But
sufficient intelligibility of something does not mean its complete intelligibility
and confusing those terms is precisely the confusion of teleology.
One knows that all of us, insofar as we are understood as singular things,
are essentially defined by the effort to continue in our existence. However, this
knowledge of our essence is of only limited value in negotiating our spatiotemporal
existence. This is the fundamental lesson of the discussion of suicide. Suicides
happen, but it is conceptually impossible for someones suicide to be explicable
in terms of her essence. Therefore, to understand suicide, we need to understand
the person in terms of her existence. That means we need to understand her
in terms of the affects and emotional physics outlined in Ethics III. As Spinoza
points out, this state of affairs is going to generate substantial limitations in our
understanding. This is because the individual components of the human body,
and consequently the human body itself, are affected by external bodies in a
156
great many ways (E2P13Post3). Thus, different men can be affected in different
ways by one and the same object, and one and the same man can be affected by
one and the same object in different ways at different times (E3P51). Not only
is each of us differently constituted internally and therefore differently disposed
to react to external events, each of which is differently located spatiotemporally,
so the events that affect us will be different. Since our emotional responses tend
to be habitual, this process is iterative, and the prospect of understanding the
full causal structure that generates a particular persons response to a particular
stimulus at a particular time becomes impossible.
As part of the sufficient understanding enabled by attention to physical laws,
however, Spinoza takes it as axiomatic that all finite things can be destroyed
and that we, as finite things, are accordingly quite fragile. His discussion centers
on the axiom and opening propositions of Ethics IV. The axiom reads: there is
in nature no singular thing such that there is not something else stronger and
more powerful. Indeed, whatever thing there is, there is another more powerful
by which that thing can be destroyed (E4Ax). The propositions then apply the
point to human existence and our ideas. Thus, external causes (E4P3) cause
an individual to undergo changes other than those which can be understood
through his own nature and of which he is the adequate cause (E4P4). In
short, we are constitutively vulnerable and precarious; in Butlers terms, to live
is always to live a life that is at risk from the outset and can be put at risk or
expunged quite suddenly from the outside (FW, 30).8 Gabriel Albiac writes of
Spinozas axiom:
The constant possibility, the continuous risk of annihilation, permanently
revolves around the essential conatus, characteristic of all beings: there is no life
without risk, no being without wagering. Such is the space that I would qualify
despite conventionsas the tragic Spinoza: the one who, inall lucidity, notes the
impossibility of resting on what, in fact, is unthinkable: a static substantiality.
Life as threat, as despairing lookout and expectation, is the only metaphysical
incentive of Spinozas morals. Because one must live, be, remain in one way or
another, at any cost.9
In terms that Butler will echo, he adds that not only does the exterior undo us;
it literally forms us (139).
The external causes which structure or even derail our endeavor to survive
occur whether or not we have adequate knowledge of their causal structure,
and therein lies a further problem: our strivings could be unwittingly selfdestructive. Spinoza writes that, the mind, both insofar as it has clear and
157
distinct ideas and in so far as it has confused ideas, endeavors to persevere in

its own being over an indefinite period of time (E3P9). That conatus occurs
by nature, in other words, does not indicate that it cannot be misdirected; this
is precisely one of the ways it is vulnerable to external causes. Because ideas
are imaginative representations, they have their own force as such (E4P1). To
confront a false idea with a true one is to set in conflict two different ideas, and it
is their relative psychic strengths that determines which will prevail. Confused or
false ideas to which we have a deep psychic attachment can thus be very difficult
to overcome.10 The presence and persistence of confused ideas adds further to
the fragility of existence, as individuals represent techniques for survival which
are based on a false understanding of the cause of a threat and a false estimation
of how to overcome it.
For Spinoza, religious superstition is a paradigmatic instance of the problem.
An ignorant search for causes makes us vulnerable to political manipulation, and
he proposes that monarchy functions by keeping men in a state of deception,
using religion to cloak the fear by which they must be held in check, so that they
will fight for their servitude as if for salvation (TTP Pfc. 7). Spinozas discussion
of superstition can be aligned with Butlers of grief in the face of loss. Butler takes
it to be the case that the cause of this affect is our constitutive vulnerability. We are
unable to hold onto those we love. As Spinoza suggests, when the mind thinks
of its own impotence, by that very fact it feels pain (E3P55). How we respond
to this pain is of decisive normative importance, as an ethical quandary arises
about how to live the violence of ones formative history, how to effect shifts and
reversals in its iteration (FW, 170). One response, as exemplified by US policy
after 11 September 2001, is a violent effort to repulse the pain, to respond to
a felt passivity with a program of militarized security. In such a program, the
sovereign State, in its role as the figurative embodiment of the socius, presents
itself as intrinsically invulnerable, projecting its own actual vulnerability outward
onto others. The result is a country that systematically idealizes its own capacity
for murder (FW, 46) by the representation of its own destructiveness [as]
righteous and its own destructibility unthinkable (FW, 47; emphasis original).
This epistemic inegalitarianism (FW, 181) is exemplified, inter alia, by torture
(FW, 5462, 63100), the indefinite detention of those deemed terrorists (PL,
50100), the framing of all criticisms of Israeli military policy as anti-Semitic
(PL, 10127), and the refusal to publicly mourn Palestinians or those killed by
the US war effort in Iraq and Afghanistan (PL, 328).
These responses, however unfortunate, can never be eradicated a priori, and
the struggle against violence accepts that violence is ones own possibility
158
(FW, 171). We must therefore understand what triggers them and guard against
that. As with superstition in Spinoza, the central problem is that the violent
response presents a confused idea about the cause of the affect, treating purely
as a matter of external forces a vulnerability which is primarily enabled by the
finitude of the subject itself. From a Spinozist point of view, one might suggest
that recognition of our finitude thereby becomes the paradoxical precondition
for liberation.
The necessity of contingency

Embodied and fragile, human agents are always situated in the context of other
finite things. This much, at least, we know from the physical laws governing the
existence of all finite things and from their corollaries that explain the human
affects. What does this mean for our efforts to understand? Most centrally,
it means that we will have to be very careful with the move to universals in
thought. The problem is not our initial move to common notionsindeed, as
Spinoza makes extremely clear, they are a necessary condition for living well.
The problem is overreliance on them, which is most often manifest in a tendency
to naturalize and/or ontologize them, to treat constructs of thought as parts of
nature and therefore as necessary. It is indeed correct to describe natural events
as necessary in the metaphysical sense, but that does not entail that it is always
correct for us to apply necessity to our understanding of those events. Instead,
our own contingency as knowers and as agents generates a necessary contingency
to our accounts of things in the world, and suggests that we must be careful to
avoid unwittingly effacing this contingency.
For example, consider Butlers discussion of gay marriage, which centers on
the question of whether finding legitimation in State-sanctioned definitions of
familial roles is the best way to advance the cause of kinship relations that have been
previously cast outside of those roles. At one level, the strategy seems promising,
insofar as recognition guarantees that desire and sexuality are ratified, justified,
known, publicly instated, imagined as permanent and durable (UG, 111).
Unfortunately, such a strategy for legitimation creates its own problems, in that
the enstatement of these questionable rights and obligations for some lesbians
and gays establishes norms of legitimation that work to remarginalize others and
foreclose possibilities for sexual freedom which have also been long-standing
goals of the movement (CHU, 160). Butlers concern is that the turn to marriage
159
law unwittingly legitimates the naturalization or ontologization of normative

heterosexuality, which produces sexual difference as the metaphysical basis of
what it means to be human. Homosexual kinship relations are ratified only on
the condition that they follow the established normative structure of heterosexual
kinship; validation of gay marriage then perversely becomes a validation of
heteronormativity and an unwitting fight for servitude. The underlying problem
is that the universal to which one appeals is always already social, and therefore
functions actively and normatively to constrain what will and will not count
as an intelligible alternative within culture (CHU, 148). Failing to notice this
invisibly ontologizes categories and makes them almost irresistible, magnifying
the problems of ideology. As Spinoza puts it, an affect toward a thing which
we imagine to be necessary, other things being equal, is more intense, than to
something possible or contingent (E4P11). In Butlers terms, the notion that
norms subsist transcendentally and do not require constant reiteration is one
of the most effective actions of such norms (Reply, 182).
Of course, the interpretation I have just announced appears to fly in the face
of Spinozas well-known defense of necessity.11 In the face of this, how can a
Spinozist not treat all things as necessary? One should start with an application
of the Aristotelian distinction between knowing that something is the case
and having causal knowledge on account of which it is. Specifically, we need to
avoid conflating the claim that something is necessary with a further claim that
articulates an account of what causal series is necessary. That is, we can speak of
necessity in general terms, or we can speak of the causal order through which
each thing is necessary. However, to speak of the causal order through which
each thing is necessary is to speak in terms of the causality of God/nature. It
is not to begin with the actions of the thing in question, because its actions are
reactions to things which affect it; those reactions are themselves reactions, and
so forth, ad infinitum (E1P28). Of course, it is axiomatic that the knowledge
of an effect depends on, and involves, the knowledge of the cause (E1Ax4),
so the closing ad infinitum renders complete causal knowledge starting with
an effect impossible.12 This is why Spinoza is able to clarify his remarks on
necessity by noting that, when we refer to objects in the world, contingency
is appropriate: all particular things are contingent and corruptible. For we
can have no adequate knowledge of their duration...and that is what is to be
understood by the contingency of things and the possibility of their corruption.
He concludes by underscoring that this is an epistemic, not metaphysical, point:
beyond this, there is no other contingency (E2P31Cor).
160
The practical importance of this distinction emerges in the TTP, in the chapter
on laws. There, Spinoza criticizes the use of fate as an explanatory mechanism:
We ought to define and explain things through their proximate causes, and
consideration of the universals of fate and the concatenation of causes is unable
to serve our cognition at all concerning the formation and ordering of particular
things....For use of improving our life, it is instead necessary to consider
things as possible. (TTP, 4.1/G 44; cf. E4P62Sch)
In this context, fate follows the same logic as necessity. From the major premise
that all things are determined by fate, and the minor that a particular is a thing,
we conclude that the particular is determined by fate. This is true, but only of
abstract relevance to practical reason. If I confront an angry mob, it makes no
difference to my response if I regard the mobs arrival as metaphysically necessary
or metaphysically contingent, fated or not. I still have to do something, and it
would help to be able to say something plausible (if metaphysically uncertain
and incomplete) about how the mob got there.
In other words, general metaphysical pronouncements about necessity do not
help us improve our lives; indeed, they might get in the way since they obscure the
more accessible structures through which we can act upon the ways that man,
insofar as he is part of nature, constitutes part of the power of nature (TTP,
4.2/G 44). This is to say that universal necessity is, of itself, an almost empty
claim, no better than saying that things happen teleologically, for a reason. In
such a context, to say that something is fated or necessary is disempowering.
What is important to understandparticularly if one wants to improve ones life
by acting as a part of nature, rather than by being passive with respect to itis
the particular series of causes that can most be said to be proper to a thing. Of
course, we will never fully understand the entire causal structure through which
we could meaningfully indicate the necessity of that thing. We will therefore
have to, in an honest admission of ignorance, acknowledge that we are treating
the thing as contingent.
Denaturing society
A second move enabled by attention to the fragility of our desire to understand
is a denaturalization of social bodies. In other words, the tendency to ontologize
norms also needs to be viewed as endemic to social bodies, where it functions
as what Foucault would call a dispositive of power. Both Spinoza and Butler
161
recognize the need to apply this model of agency and intelligibility (PL, 45)
at a transindividual level.13 At such a level, and in Spinozistic terms, naturalized
social norms can be viewed as the conatus of the social order acting through
various normalizing processes to persevere over time. Like individual bodies,
social bodies are finite and precarious. Norms serve as the stabilizing lexicon
through which the social order constitutes itself as a unity and through which it
can be considered as such a unity. This is why violent demands for unity emerge
so stridently when the norms of the socius are threatened or otherwise shown
to be contingent and precarious. For Butler, of course, the failure of the United
States to reconsider the terms of its national identity after 9/11 needs to be
understood in these terms (PL, 3941). There are other examples in Butler and
Spinoza, however, and all are marked by the sheer violence with which the social
body in question attempts to assert its invulnerability by presenting its ordering
principles as transcendentally, rather than immanently, generated.
Spinoza offers an account of the mechanisms through which this process
occurs. Because we as individuals tend toward naturalized social categories,
we also tend to direct our energies not against the categories, but against those
who transgress them (cf. E3P49). Treating immanent norms as transcendental
is a species of superstition, and it is fear that engenders, preserves, and fosters
superstition (TTP Pfc./G 2). Exposing superstition as ideology is disruptive; as
Butler puts the point, the articulation of foreclosure is the first moment of its
potential undoing, for the articulation can become re-articulated and countered
once it is launched into a discursive trajectory, unmoored from the intentions by
which it is animated (CHU, 158). The expression which causes the most violent
response is accordingly the one that would denaturalize the superstitions that
constitute the state form itself (UG, 180).
In this respect, Spinozas Theologico-Political Treatise, which argues that the
Biblical text is the product of human labor, error, and accumulation, can be read
as a critique of the reduction of religion to a transcendental unity legitimating
the State; the backlash following its publication was entirely predictable. People
fought for their servitude, becoming agents of the conatus of a repressive social
apparatus, because of the fantasy structure that desires universal recognition for
the particularity of ones own religious feelings. The TTP is then a critique of the
cathected site of this fantasy/anxiety, the Biblical text itself. To demonstrate that
this text is the product of human composition is essentially to dress it in drag.
The superstitious want nothing of this: God and gender have natural meanings,
not constructed ones. Guided purely by their imaginations, they are eager
not to guide men by reason but to restrain them by fear so that they may shun
162
evil rather than love virtue, [and] have no other object than to make others as
wretched as themselves (E4P63Sch1). In her discussion of gay marriage, Butler
reveals another such cathected site in the child and the production of State
norms to control the natural kinship relations of heterosexual marriage. Here,
the figure of the child is one eroticized site in the reproduction of culture, one
that implicitly raises the question of whether there will be a sure transmission
of culture through heterosexual procreation...whether culture will be defined,
in part, as the prerogative of heterosexuality itself (UG, 124). Put differently,
the TTP was subjected to violent criticism because it violates the miscegenation
taboo: the site of cultural reproduction is shown to be impure. Nonheterosexual,
nonmatrimonial kinship relations are attacked in the same way, and for the
samereason.
A body confronted with transcendental social norms that deny its very
possibility is at risk of death, because in order to comport with the social norms,
it has to cease to be what it is. Spinoza writes, that which constitutes the form
of the human body consists in this, that its parts communicate their motions to
one another in a certain fixed proportion (E4P39Pr). To lose this proportion is
to die; the destruction of the physical body is only accidental, as the example of
the amnesiac Spanish poet indicates (E4P39Sch).14 By dividing individuals into
those who are recognized by prevailing social norms and those who must cease
to be in order to obtain recognition, and by casting the norms as natural and
necessary, such a situation establishes a politically induced precarity on the base
of our shared precariousness. How, then, does one proceed in the face of the
apparently unavoidable violence of the State and its transcendental categories?
The initial point is to deny the move to transcendence, and claim that the socius
is itself malleable, because we ourselves constitute it, and because we ourselves
can change. Recent Spinoza scholarship accordingly points to immanence,
and Butler points both to immanence and to iterability as the way in which
immanence is lived.
Such an approach would allow norms to be revised, providing for the survival
of those previously excluded, and in this precise sense would be nonviolent.
Such nonviolence would simultaneously pose a direct threat to the survival of
any socius that was premised on the eternal fixity of its norms. The sine qua non
of this new ethics is the recognition of ones own finitude, and resisting the urge
to seek refuge in transcendental categories. As Butler puts it, we need to be
willing, in the name of the human, to allow the human to become something
other than what it is traditionally assumed to be (UG, 35). Even the bedrock
category of the human is revisable: conatus as a principle of deconstitution.
163
The tragic Spinoza

To Butlers idiosyncratic Hegelianism, then, one must add an idiosyncratic
Spinozism. Butlers references to Spinoza are more than citations to conatus; they
point us, by way of Hegel, to a subaltern Spinoza defined by a recognition of our
finitude and corporeal vulnerability, a (following Albiac) tragic Spinoza who
takes as axiomatic our ability to be destroyed by the indefinitely many forces larger
and more powerful than ourselves. This tragic Spinoza reasons rigorously from
our vulnerability, by way of our affects, to a series of theses about the fragility of
the concepts and social institutions we must create in order to sustain ourselves.
The tragic Spinoza is not productively framed by a simple opposition to Hegel,
one that accepts Hegels attachment of meaningful negativity to transcendence;
indeed, the tragic Spinoza can perhaps best be located in the space opened by
rejecting Hegels false dichotomy between his own emphasis on the labor of the
negative and Spinozas supposedly flat, abstract being. The tragic Spinoza matters
now because so much of contemporary democratic theory is defined, one way or
another, by its opposition to Hegel. Butlers intervention in this regard is crucial,
because it points in two directions at once: both to a Hegel not defined by radical
teleological closure and to a Spinoza whose recuperation is able to proceed not just
from an affirmation of the multitude and of joy, but from a recognition of the very
real difficulties in constituting that multitude. What Butler sees, and what the tragic
Spinoza shows clearly, is that the politics of democracy is, at the end of the day, a
politics, which is to say that it involves a willingness to admit that democracy is, at
best, a project whose fulfillment is in no way guaranteed, not even as a tendency.
Spinoza focuses on a democracy in which everyone absolutely maintains
political rights, so long as they live honestly, have their own right, and maintain
the laws of the commonwealth (TP, 11.3). In commenting on this passage, Hardt
and Negri propose the following:
When Spinoza calls democracy absolute he assumes that democracy is really
the basis of every society. The vast majority of our political, economic, affective,
linguistic, and productive interactions are always based on democratic relations.
At times we call these practices of social life spontaneous and at others think of
them as fixed by tradition and custom, but really these are the civil processes
of democratic exchange, communication, and cooperation that we develop
and transform every day. If such democratic interactions were not the basis
of our living in common, then society itself would be impossible. That is why
for Spinoza other forms of government are distortions or limitations of human
society whereas democracy is its natural fulfillment.15
164
In this gloss, it seems to me, one sees quite clearly both the power of the
anti-Hegelian Spinoza, and its limitation. The power should be apparent. Against
any top-down teleological closure, one opposes a democracy that is fundamental,
open, and thereby affirming of the power of the multitude.16
The tragic Spinoza offers two sorts of qualification to that line of thought.
First, insofar as a democratic socius is lived, the formal definition of democracy
becomes constitutive: one is speaking of existence, not essence. Spinozas
exclusion of those guilty of crime and infamy, as well as his stipulation of the
need to live honestly, bear witness to continuous efforts to restrict democracy
by branding those who do not commit to prevailing social norms as deviant,
immoral, or otherwise as refusing to live by the laws. The tragic Spinoza offers
an account by way of which those efforts can be brought into question, even if
his own text sometimes repeats them.17 Too many lives are forced into precarity,
a politically induced condition in which certain populations suffer from failing
social and economic networks of support and become differentially exposed
to injury, violence, and death (FW, 25). To live well, to remove the fixation
on death created by politically induced precarity, requires livable social norms
that respond to human precariousness, not with a program of securitization and
differential suffering, but with an ethical recognition of our common fragility.
It is impossible to be free in the relevant sense without livable, revisable social
norms.
Second, as is often noted, Spinozas thought is marked by a fluctuating regard
for the masses.18 I would like to conclude by suggesting that the tragic Spinoza
offers us a way of thinking through this ambivalence. The problem with the
multitude for Spinoza is clear enough: the vulgar are defined entirely by their
passive affects and thus constantly subject to manipulation by political elites.
Superstitious and buffeted about by the machinations of others, the multitude
constantly risk devolution into a Hobbesian mob, desiring nothing more
than that others be as miserable as themselves. The problem is constitutive;
because of our vulnerable finitude, we are all susceptible to ignorance of causes
and manipulation by others. This implies that the project of democracy faces
ineliminable problems generated by inappropriate responses to human finitude,
that is, responses that attempt to deny it or project it onto others. Butlers work
tirelessly not only provides examples of those inappropriate responses but also
attempts to theorize a sense of political agency that provides resources to combat
them. Hence, she only offers a commitment to a democracy of resistance that
simultaneously emphasizes apprehension of our equality as finite beings, and the
165
need to articulate the specific, local ways that norms and social institutions are
themselves inherently vulnerable due to their dependence on iteration.
In other words, Butlers understanding of politics is radically antiteleological;
that this account can be traced to Spinoza suggests that the affirmative Spinoza
needs nuance. It is true that our essence, qua rational being, always agrees with
that of others. But understanding how to manage our existence introduces a
host of problems for which the axiom in E4 offers an organizing principle.
If one forgets the gap between essence and existence, and tries to apply our
essential nature as striving beings directly to our spatiotemporal existence as
finite, vulnerable beings, one gets an abstract account of resistance, a subtle
reinscription of teleology, or both. In particular, one needs to avoid a lapse
into the transcendental subjectivity of the multitude.19 In different terms,
although it is certainly true that Spinozas problem here cannot be read as
a repetition of the Hobbesian problem of how to constitute a people out
of the multitude, it remains that Spinozas problem also should not be read
as an outright rejection of the Hobbesian problem either.20 Hobbes put the
problem transcendentally; for Spinoza, one needs to think the constitution of
the multitude immanently. Butlers work on iterability and the ways in which
we simultaneously embody and transgress norms seems designed, in part, to
do exactly this.
When Hegel reflected on the example of a devolved multitude that was closest
to him, the Terror of the French Revolution, he had very little to offer those
whose lives were extinguished on the slaughter bench of history. All he could
provide was the theological assurance that their deaths had been meaningful
in the larger sense of the development of world history. Today, we are no longer
confident that such a redemptive teleology is at work, either retrospectively or
as a realizable project. To affirm the constitutive process of democracy without
lapsing into theology is to affirm the monstrosity of the multitude, as that
excess as remainder that is irreducible to the antinomies of legal and political
thought...that permanent excess of force over law (Montag, Whos Afraid,
663). As Negri proposes, the multitude needs to be thought as a common
subject, a collective force, a being other...just like those carnivalesque
masses [of before]...who...never became people, but only multitude of
desires, subverting any manipulation and any mystification.21 At the same
time, Butlers tragic Spinoza serves as a stark reminder of Balibars warning
that the constitutive role of the multitudo very much risks...appearing as
purely theoretical, in the bad sense of the term, in the sense of a theory which
166
remains permanently inadequate to practice (Anti-Orwell, 17). Perversely,

one obstacle to the proper appreciation of this constitutive role is the need to
view Spinoza as the philosopher of positivity who allows no place for treating
things as externally caused and thus as contingent and vulnerable. Accordingly,
when Negri suggests of Butler that no matter how powerful and effective her
attack on patriarchal Power is, its continual assertion of Hegelian dialectics
limits its critical impact (Praise, 281n15), we need to proceed with caution:
at issue in her assertion of Hegelian dialectics is precisely a materialist
reconfiguration of Hegelian terms in an effort to discover in them only that
which best agrees with practice, certainly and indubitably demonstrated by
reason and rigorously deduced from the condition of human nature itself
(TP, 1.4). It turns out that this condition is finite, vulnerable, and fearful and
that we ignore this at our peril.
Notes
1 See also UG 195 on the labor of the negative. Spinoza references per
convention; I generally follow the translation in Ethics, Treatise on the
Emendation of the Intellect and Selected Letters, trans. Samuel Shirley
(Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Company, 1992). Original text:
Benedictus de Spinoza, Opera, ed. Carl Gebhardt (Heidelburg: Carl Winters
Universitaetsbuchhandlung, 1925), with modifications to the translation my
own. Butler references are as follows:
CHU: Judith Butler, Ernesto Laclau, and Slavoj iek, Contingency, Hegemony,
Universality: Contemporary Dialogues on the Left (London: Verso, 2000).
DL: The Desire to Live: Spinozas Ethics under Pressure, in Politics and the
Passions 15001850, ed. Victoria Kahn, Neil Saccamano and Daniela Coli
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006), pp. 11130.
FW: Frames of War: When is Life Grievable? (London: Verso, 2009).
GA: Giving an Account of Oneself (New York: Fordham University Press, 2005).
PLP: The Psychic Life of Power: Theories in Subjection (Stanford, CA: Stanford
PL: Precarious Life: The Powers of Mourning and Violence (London: Verso, 2004).
SD: Subjects of Desire: Hegelian Reflections in Twentieth-Century France (New
York: Columbia University Press, 1999).
UG: Undoing Gender (New York: Routledge, 2004).
167
2 See also the references at FW p. 30; GA pp. 434, 49; PLP pp. 278, 62; and
UG p. 31, 235. I am not aware of any secondary work that goes much beyond
pointing to the conatus references in Butler. The best work on her recent
ethics, for example, Annika Thiem, Unbecoming Subjects: Judith Butler, Moral
Philosophy, and Critical Responsibility (New York: Fordham University Press,
2008), is almost silent on the topic. My sense is that, among the prominent
French interpretations, Butlers Spinoza is closest to Machereys. In addition to
Hegel ou Spinoza (Paris: Franois Maspero, 1979) [HS], see Spinoza, the End
of History, in In a Materialist Way, ed. Warren Montag and trans. Ted Stolze
(London: Verso, 1998), pp. 13658.
3 Expressionism in Philosophy: Spinoza, trans. Martin Joughin (New York: Zone
Books, 1992), p. 333 et passim.
4 This development is explicit in, for example, Laurent Bove, La Stratgie du
conatus: Affirmation et Rsistance chez Spinoza (Paris: J. Vrin, 1997) and Filippo
del Lucchese, Conflict, Power, and Multitude in Machiavelli and Spinoza: Tumult
and Indignation (New York: Continuum, 2009). My treatment of the Spinoza
literature will be somewhat synecdochal, as my point is to engage a strategy
of reading Spinoza and not to produce a full engagement with the scholarship
implicated, to varying degrees, in that strategy. It seems to me that the strategy
originates in Deleuzes Expressionism book, and finds a central moment of
expression in Negris Savage Anomaly. Both Deleuzes and Negris later work
make their own overall position harder to assess.
5 For the divergences on this point between Hegel and the Spinoza of the Political
Treatise, see especially Macherey, Spinoza, the end of History and Antonio
Negri, Spinozas Anti-Modernity, Graduate Faculty Philosophy Journal 18
(1995), 115.
6 To mourn someoneto include his or her in historyis to recognize his or hers
as a human life, connected somehow to ones own. This is why textual practices
like Hegels exclusion of the nomads of Central Asia and Siberia as unhistorical
(Werke XII, p. 143), and the San Francisco Chronicles refusal to print Palestinian
obituaries, are political acts: we have to consider the obituary as an act of
nation building (PL, p. 35). That is, the prohibition on certain forms of public
grieving itself constitutes the public sphere on the basis of such a prohibition
(PL, p. 37). The nomads, Hegel reminds us, have themselves not stepped
forward to historical territory [Boden] (Werke XII, p. 143; my emphasis).
7 Warren Montag proposes that this transindividualization of desire and affect is
what constitutes the danger of the multitude in Spinozas philosophy (Whos
Afraid of the Multitude? Between the Individual and the State, South Atlantic
168
Quarterly 104 (2005), 65573: 670). Cf. Macherey: conatus is an effort to

persevere in its being which...attaches [finite things], through the mediation
of their mutual relations, to all of nature, of which these things are precisely only
parts (Spinoza and the End of History, p. 144).
8 For more on this point in Butler, see Thiem, Unbecoming, pp. 5191, and the
literature cited there.
9 Gabriel Albiac, The Empty Synagogue, in The New Spinoza, eds Warren
Montag and Ted Stolze (Minneapolis, MN: University Minnesota Press, 1997),
pp. 10944: 139.
10 These points are emphasized in Pierre Macherey, Introduction lEthique de
Spinoza: La quatrime partie, la condition humaine (Paris: Presses Universitaires
de France, 1997), pp. 5963. See also Hasana Sharp, The Force of Ideas in
Spinoza, Political Theory 35 (2007), 73255; and Caroline Williams, Thinking
the Political in the Wake of Spinoza: Power, Affect and Imagination in the
Ethics, Contemporary Political Theory 6 (2007), 34969.
11 See, for example, E1P29, E1P33, E2P44, and E1P33Sch1.
12 Hobbes had a similar view: see my Hobbes and the Making of Modern Political
Thought (New York: Continuum, 2009), pp. 5169; some of what follows draws
upon the discussion there.
13 In Spinoza, see E2D7; for Butler, see PL pp. 415. I am aware that I am glossing
a substantial interpretive debate about some very difficult Spinozist texts; for
its contours, see tienne Balibar, Potentia multitudinis, quae una veluti mente
ducitur: Spinoza on the Body Politic, in Current Continental Theory and Modern
Philosophy, ed. Stephen H. Daniel (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press,
2005), pp. 7099; and Montag, Whos Afraid.
14 That ones identity is found in a specific proportion of forces is emphasized in
Jeffrey Bernstein, The Ethics of Spinozas Physics, North American Spinoza
Society Monograph 10 (2002), 319. For the scholiums reference to the Spanish
poet as it pertains to death, see especially Warren Montag, Bodies, Masses,
Power: Spinoza and his Contemporaries (London: Verso, 1999), pp. 326.
15 Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire (New York: Penguin, 2004),
p. 311.
16 Del Lucchese notes that the power of democracy relative to other forms of
government follows from the fragility axiom: the much larger multitude ipso
facto has more power than the patricians or the king (Conflict, p. 135).
17 This tensionthe extent to which Spinozas work from beginning to end
remains haunted by figures of the inassimilable, the exceptions to the
169
democracy without exceptions, and simultaneously by the impossibility of their

exclusionis explored in Montag, Bodies, pp. 869.
18 See, especially, Montag, Bodies; Montag, Whos Afraid; and Balibar, Spinoza:
The Anti-Orwell, in Masses, Classes, Ideas (London: Routledge, 1994), pp. 337.
19 I raise this line of objection to Hardt and Negris Empire, relying on The
Savage Anomaly for Negris Spinoza, in Capital sive natura: Spinoza and the
Immanence of Empire, International Studies in Philosophy 37:2 (2005), 2948;
see also the related complaints about Empires strangely nonlocal sense of
the body of the multitude in Margret Grebowicz, Relocating the Non-Place:
Reading Negri With/Against Haraway, International Studies in Philosophy
38:2 (2006), 3954. On the other hand, in a later text, Negri points directly to
the problem and proposes that Spinozan democracy...must be conceived
as a social practice of singularities that intersect in a mass process (Reliqua
desideratur. A Conjecture for a Definition of the Concept of Democracy in the
Final Spinoza, in The New Spinoza, 21846: 237). This formulation seems to me
to be better, but Negris retention of language about democracy as a tendency
(see, e.g. 240) still contains the remnants of a teleology that Spinoza rejects out
of hand. I will not pursue the point here, but it seems to me that Hardt and
Negris Multitude is considerably less prone to the problem than Empire.
20 For a brief and forceful statement of Spinozas rejection of transcendence, see
Negri, Reliqua Desideratur. For Hobbess constitution of the people from the
multitude, see my Hobbes and the Making, pp. 11926.
21 Cesare Casarino and Antonio Negri, In Praise of the Common: A Conversation
on Philosophy and Politics (Minneapolis, MN: University Minnesota Press,
2008), p. 216. Hardt and Negri make similar points about the constitutive
process in Multitude (see 289312 and 33640).
Thinking the Space of the Subject between

Hegel and Spinoza
Caroline Williams
Introduction
While it is certainly possible to locate a series of common themes within the
philosophical perspectives of Hegel and Spinoza, this chapter will not seek a
rapprochement of the two philosophers. Neither will it interrogate the nature
of Hegels dispute with Spinoza. Instead my aim is to reflect upon some of the
theoretical effects of this dispute within contemporary continental philosophy,
specifically in relation to the concept of the subject. Certainly, these two thinkers
share a preoccupation with the form of relation between being and thought
seeking, through a philosophy of immanence, to gather up this relation as a
knowledge that may become the power of the infinite, or the Absolute. There
is, therefore, a certain proximity of philosophical direction to be noted. Indeed,
as several commentators have pointed out, Hegels philosophy follows in the
shadow of Spinoza, borne out by the formers well-known observation that
thought must begin by placing itself at the standpoint of Spinozism; to be a
follower of Spinoza is the essential commencement of all philosophy.1 We might
further speculate that in sharing Spinozas problematic, and by tracing out, once
again, the elements of his thinking, Hegel also returns us to Spinoza and to
the power of an infinite thought. It is also apparent, however, that a relation of
tension marks the intersection of these two philosophies, played out in so many
contemporary appropriations of the two, as well as within the confrontation of
Hegels philosophy with that of Spinoza. It is the contemporary framing of this
tension between the two that is the central focus here.
My interest, then, is primarily not with an interrogation of the nature of
Hegels dispute with Spinoza, or with an assessment of its ultimate status or utility,
Thinking the Space of the Subject between Hegel and Spinoza
171
but rather with the form taken by this opposition in a range of contemporary
positions. However, there is a sense in which an aspect of Hegels critique is
central to my problematic here, namely to think the space of the subject (rather
than the presuppositions of the subject itself) between Hegel and Spinoza, since
it is clear that the idealist reading of Spinoza presented by Hegel continues to
hold weight, finding various echoes, repetitions, and reversals in contemporary
thought. Insofar as Hegel locates in Spinozas philosophy an inert, passive, a
priori conception of Substance, which lacks a dialectical logic of exposition and
manifestation, he portrays him as unable to account for substance as subject, as
that doubling which sets up opposition, self-moving negativity, the spontaneous
becoming of itself. Thus, in the historical journey of consciousness toward
knowledge presented in the Phenomenology of Spirit, self-consciousness ...in
its own restless process of superseding itself, or negativity2 ...enriches itself
till it has wrested from consciousness the entire substance and has absorbed
into itself the entire structure of the essentialities of substance (PhS 801), a
movement that is the circle that returns into itself, the circle that presupposes
its beginnings and reaches it only at the end (PhS 802). Furthermore, and as
Alexandre Kojve echoes, it appears that Spinozas philosophy offers no concrete
temporalization or historicization of substance but only the latters abstract
eternity; he is unable to give expression to the particularity and differentiation
of the world, as well as to the real existence and emergence of concrete forms
of individuality, personality, or subjectivity.3 Spinoza, as Hegel famously notes,
divests all things of their determination and particularity and casts them back
into the one absolute substance, wherein they are simply swallowed up, and all
life in itself is utterly destroyed (LHP, Vol. III, 288).
We may nonetheless agree with a range of important commentaries upon
this Hegel-Spinoza matrix that Hegel misses the essential structure of Spinozas
philosophy in making these claims, particularly the relation between substance
and attribute, which should be viewed, as Pierre Macherey powerfully argues,
not in accordance with a relation of hierarchy but rather one of reciprocity
and interdependence.4 Absolute substance has this multiplicity and infinity
of attributes within itself as the product of its activity and causality, just as it
likewise requires the instantiation of the modes. Perhaps, Spinozas purely spatial
logic of actuality and multiplicity requires no temporal logic of beginning or
manifestation, a dialectic, because this ontology of production already has
its outside on the inside. Indeed, it may be against Hegels claim of Spinozas
acosmism that Jean-Luc Nancy will describe Spinoza as the first thinker of the
world.5
172
If we point, therefore, to some well-knownif still sometimes controversial

aspects of Spinozas philosophy, it is not in order to advance the Hegelian critique
briefly described above nor to suggest there is now space for a thinking of the
subject. While it might be argued that the philosophical motif of subjectivity
is central to Hegels philosophy and to the Hegelian-inspired tradition of
philosophical discourse, to think the space of the subject from the perspective of
Spinozas philosophy arguably leads to a philosophical cul-de-sac or dead-end,
or at best, a paradox: namely, that of the subject, or thought, trying to think its
own conditions, its own beginnings. If Spinoza, like Hegel, finds the true path
of philosophy to be freedom and knowledge of causality, for him this journey
is not the movement and genesis of a subject overcoming the inner-most
contradictions of self and world. We need then to consider precisely how and why
the space of subjectivity might be important in Spinozas philosophy. My chapter
will be divided into three parts. After identifying some of the philosophical
risks inherent within the Hegel-Spinoza matrix explored here, the chapter will
assemble the space of subjectless subjectivity, or subjectivity without the subject,
in Spinozas philosophy.6 Here, I will explore the figures of imagination and
conatus as processes without a subject before turning to investigate the terms of
a possible dialog between psychoanalysis, Spinozas thought, and contemporary
Hegelian perspectives.
Unraveling the subject with Spinoza

Significantly, we find only two direct references to the subject as subjectum in
Spinozas Ethics, both of which occur in relation to the first kind of knowledge,
where an imaginative, self-consistent subject finds its freedom in ignorance of
the nature of things, and the realm of causality (see E IIIP5; E VAx1). On the
one hand, the absence of the concept of subject is clearly because the empiricotranscendental doublet had yet to crystallize in thought, had yet to master (if it
ever could) the elements governing its formation and hence find its wayand
its voicein philosophical discourse (there is no grammatical I). As Foucault
tells us in The Order of Things, there must be an analytic of finitude in order
to make appear the subject, Man, and establish a contract between an object
or totality and a philosophical subject caught up in interminable reflexivity
with itself.7 On the other hand, there is little discussion of the subject simply
because both Spinozas conception of the world as the spatial totality of the
sense of existence to use Nancys beautiful formulation (1988, 54), coupled
173
with what I will call here, drawing upon the rich and adventurous formulations
of contemporary scholarship,8 his ontology of encounter, require no theory or
faculty of consciousness as interiority since the very starting point of this ontology
precludes the kind of containment or identity that generally accompanies such
a position. There remains, it might be argued, a residual idealisman implicit
Hegelianismin contemporary positions such as Alain Badious location of a
subjective modality in the intellect as the only way Spinoza can link being to the
infinite, because arguably Spinozas philosophy has no requirement for intellect
to act as a subjective agency.9
Indeed, tienne Balibar has suggested that one of the central reasons for the
allegiance to Spinoza by many currents of modern philosophy, from vitalism to
structuralismdespite their many theoretical divergencesis precisely because
together they viewed him as an adversary of subjectivity and as a profound
critic of the primacy of consciousness.10 Indeed, Balibar goes so far as to
suggest (rewriting Althussers well-knownand rather unHegelianformula of
history as a process without a subject or goal) that we find in Spinoza something
rather odd in classic modern philosophy, a process (or anthropology) of
consciousnesswithout a subject. In the discussion here, I want to explore further
this fascinating formulation and to think what its fleshing out might entail for a
thinking of the paradoxical space of subjectless subjectivity in Spinozas thought.
The kind of approach I suggest here might appear to mark a clear departure
from Hegelian philosophy. This is far from a complete philosophical break,
however, since there are several interesting Hegelian-inflected configurations of
the subject within contemporary thought that also seek to subvert the subject
and develop what we may describe cautiously as antihumanist perspectives. If we
trace, with Giorgio Agamben, the etymological roots of the concept of absolute,
we might find the rationale for these readings of Hegel.11 The root comes from the
Latin verb solvo, which indicates the work of loosening, freeing, unbinding that
leads something back to itself. Thus, we find the Hegelianism of Judith Butlers
performative subject, always in the process of undoing, and Slavoj ieks
Lacanian subject forever plagued by the specter of negativity and incompletion,
where negativity and desire become part of an ontological rift that constitutes a
subject forever in search of itself, for it is always other in order to be itself; where
the subject is always caught at the outset in a relation of an inside (alienation)
and an outside (failure of signification) that constitutes and limits it only by
dividing it from itself. If we can agree that such positions have their antecedents
in Hegels thought, and specifically the dialectic between masterandslave, we
174
must also note that it is not to those reductive philosophical tropes of teleology,
rationality, foundation, and metaphysics that historically have been understood
to ground the theoreticalalbeit dialecticalcontact between subjectivity and
totality. Such thinkers have taken their point of departure not from Kojves
humanistand gloomy political portrayal of the end of history, but instead from
Hyppolites continuous interrogation of the Hegelian theme of the completion
of self-consciousness, his attention to the disquiet of the self,12 as well as his
bringing together of Hegelian negativity and Lacanian psychoanalysis. Unlike
Hegels absolute knowledge, synthetically developed in the long dialectical
journey through its various historical forms, Lacans object of desire (objet petit
a) will forever deceive the subjectits meaning will always dissipate in the
light of the subjects experience of it. Hence, Lacan describes his own strategic
use of Hegelian philosophy in terms of its strange lure: Our use of Hegels
phenomenology does not imply any allegiance to his system...It is our own
Aufhebung that transforms Hegels, his own lure, in a moment that reveals, not
the steps of an ideal process but the avatars of a lack (cited in Macherey, 1998,
55).13 Butler similarly claims that the dystopic resolution of Hegels discussion
of Mastery and Slavery and his portrayal of the Unhappy Consciousness is
one of the least interrogated parts of his historical narrative.14 She proposes to
arrest the text prior to its resolution in Spirit... to pursue the path that Hegel
introduces only to foreclose (1997, 34). If there is a dialectic of the subject at
work in these positions, it is one deprived of genesis and resolution. Perhaps, it
is also a position that may share the space of subjectivity identified above with
Spinozas thought. Before turning to map out and analyze such a conceptual
space, let us first highlight two significant risks or tensions marking this place
between Hegel and Spinoza.
A first difficulty, at least in my view, is the risky implications endemic to
Hegelian readings of finitude (e.g. Hyppolites attention to the disquiet of
the self, Nancys focus upon the restlessness of the negative). I wish only to
highlight this problem, a full discussion of which is outside the scope of the
present chapter. The logic of such an analytics of finitude, if I may continue to
utilize Foucaults formulation (or what Bruno Bosteels has recently referred to as
the jargon of finitude15), is the kind of ethical turn prescribed within philosophicopolitical critique. This turn is, simultaneously, a turn away from the problem of
the Infinite (as the existence of an infinity of other worlds and ways of being).
That philosophy must begin with the Infinite and conceive the finite through
the infinite is arguably one of the central tenets of Spinozas philosophy.
175
Classical thought, Deleuze reminds us, continually loses itself in infinity, in its
attempts to place the finite within its order, and to trace a relation that may raise
life to the infinite itself (Deleuze, 1988). This is a problem persistently traversing
Spinozas thought. Indeed, we cannot think with Spinoza without reference to
this aspect of the infinite.
A second risk, which nicely illustrates the productive tension between Hegel
and Spinoza that I wish to locate and develop here, concerns the way in which
this tension is also played out in some of the contemporary Hegelian positions
noted here. For example, in The Psychic Life of Power and, more recently, with
an attention to the ethical relation to the other, Giving an Account of Oneself,
Judith Butler has sought to flesh out her ontological commitments to the (now
unraveled) subject. Here, she has drawn attention to a passionate attachment
to existence, a desire to be, or a striving to persist in being, a potentia or
possibility that governs the subject and has its source not in a Hegelian/Lacanianinspired idea of a desiring subject but rather in Spinozas concept of conatus.16
Indeed, in the essay on Hegels Unhappy Consciousness to which I refer above,
Butler argues that the body, presented by Hegel as an ever-changing inchoate
mass disavowed or renounced but never finally suppressed by consciousness,
itself proliferates and exceeds the domains of power that inscribe and fabricate
it. She thus speculates whether the body as desire might have as its final aim,
the continuation of itself...linking Hegel, Freud and Foucault all back to
Spinozas conatus, where the dynamic of withdrawal and capture of desire (the
doubling of desire) signals the vulnerability of every strategy of subjection
(Butler, 1997, 62). Likewise, Lacans Hegelianism is perhaps supplemented by a
latent Spinozism, where the latters pantheism is understood as the reduction
of the field of God to the universality of the signifier.17 We have already noted
an aspect of Badious reading of Spinoza, which in Hegelian fashion finds in the
tensions of the Ethics a surging forth of a subject or subject effect, identifying
the disjuncture of infinite and finite as the root of this, and instead infusing
Spinozas conception of substance with a mathematical infinite (Badiou, 2006).
I thus merely draw attention to Badious latent, inescapable Spinozism everywhere
present in Logics of World and perhaps deserving of a research paper in itself.18
Thus, it is within this dynamic and complex space, between Hegel and Spinoza,
that I will reconfigure a conception of subjectivity without the subject. I seek also
to respond to the Hegelian-inspired critique of Spinoza argued most forcefully
by iek, namely that Spinozas concept of conatus as a generative potentia and
positivity is unable to conceive the elementary twist of dialectical inversion
176
characterising negativity and associated with Lacans own theorization of lack.19

Against this Hegelian critique, and embracing the idea of subjectless subjectivity
introduced above, it may be argued that Spinozas philosophy offersand perhaps
in ways compatible with contemporary Hegelianismthe conceptual resources
to reconfigure the subject. To construct such an argument I will draw upon the
recent trend or affective turn within contemporary theory that develops in the
wake of Spinoza.20 This permits a reconsideration of the threshold or boundaries
of subjectivity as well as offering some resources to think about affect as an
always constructed, mediated, and culturalized intensity or force that exceeds
the subject.
Affect also brings into play two additional key concepts from Spinoza. First,
a notion of conatus both as a generative force or potentia that pulsates through
all forms, driving their preservation and persistence and also significantly as
a fractural, conflict-ridden site through which affects must pass. This fractural
aspect of conative striving is important since it permits one to emphasize the
ambivalent structure of the affects described by Spinoza in Ethics Part III.
Second, a concept of imagination conceived not as a subjective faculty of the
subject but as an impersonal conductor of affects. In my view, these two concepts
present in the Ethics provide the conceptual foundation for my argument here
since as processes without a subject they carry the logic of affects autonomy
still further. They are also ones with great psychoanalytic resonance. I propose,
therefore, to establish their role and function in Spinozas philosophy, before
investigating the terms of a possible dialog between psychoanalysis, Spinozas
thought, and contemporary Hegelian perspectives.
Spinozas psychophysics
How, then, might we theorize subjectivity as an impersonal process without a
subject, which is itself relational and affective, extensive and intensive, and which
precludes the ideas of boundary and containment? We have seen already that
Spinozas point of reference is certainly not the subject as subjectum (which is
deconstructed in the Appendix to Part I of the Ethics). It is crucial, therefore, to
underscore the classical conception of individual embraced in his approach.
An individuum is a composite of differential relations between bodies/things,
and it can refer to human and nonhuman forms alike. Indeed, an important
aspect of Spinozas ontology has to be the constitutive relationality established
177
in his approach, which calls into question the existence of boundaries between
individual things. Relation, here, must not simply be thought as a link, connection,
or association between two or more discrete objects; relation is literally a taking
in hand, a production of something that did not exist before and which, through
the process of relation, becomes an aspect of that things existence. Furthermore,
when a body is in motionand we might agree with this dynamic ontology that
there is always the potential for variation, then the body will exceed or overflow
its current state. To be an individual is always to be composed of other bodies.
The more complex a body then the more relations it will have with other bodies
and the more its identity will be compatible with a great many different entities.
An individual can be a rock, an animal, a poem, a musical score, a virus, a storm,
and, of course, all individuals are subject to infinite variability and possibility.21
To be an individual, then, is to be a (shared) center of relations of motion and
rest; it is also to participate in a kind of virtual reality of possibility, that which
Brian Massumi calls (after Foucault) an incorporeal materialism. Individuals can
be simple and more complex: the greater the order of complexity, we might say,
the greater the power to interact with the rest of nature. There is, then, a dynamic
reciprocity between the unity of substance and the multiplicity of individuals
which is always more than the dialectical exchange between two parts.
If we wish now to place Spinozas theory of affect into this reading of Spinozas
ontological system, we may do so only by extricating affect from any essentialist
position that seeks its naturalization as an emotion or feeling attributable to a
conscious subject. Affect cannot simply be housed by either body or mind and is
often viewed as overflowing the body. Affect passes through, between and beyond
the subjects who remain to all intents and purposes its effects. Affect anchors
identity through its normative displays and often compels or moves the subject
toward a certain course of action. Spinoza defines affect as the affections of the
body by which the bodys power of activity is increased or diminished, assisted
or checked, together with the ideas of these affections (E IIID3). In this way,
and to the extent that affects communicate ideas and images as well as forces
and powers, they are, in an important sense semiotic as well as material. Spinoza
describes them as images and corporeal traces, eventually materialized in signs,
norms, social and political practices, modes of living, and ethical relations.
Ethics thus becomes a kind of psychophysics, for Spinoza, who proceeds in a
materialist way by recognizing the irreducible complexity of the affects, which
cannot be attributed to either an agentic capacity or an intention of the will. In
this way, affects are best understood as transitive states through which bodies
pass, they meander through and between bodies, resting like foreign objects,
178
or excessive impersonal forces. It is this force field, which is explored through

Spinozas concepts of conatus, as the fractural site through which affects have to
pass, and imagination, as the impersonal conductor of affects. These are the twin
concepts, developed in the Ethics, which are able to account for the unfolding
of affective life. They are also, I argue, the ones with greatest psychoanalytic
resonance.
However, it must be underscored that I am not seeking to reduce the conatus to
the Freudian drive or libido. This would be to distort the antihumanist direction
of Spinozas argument. Yet, it is apparent from the preceding discussion that
affect has a certain metabolic or energetic structure that passes between bodies
conceived in an extremely broad way. As the essence of a thing, conatus denotes
the striving to persist and persevere in itself (E IVP22Dem). This quantum of
vital force or power in its human shape is a form of desire, an energetic force that
pulsates through bodies and is not wholly contained or controlled by them. But
it entails no internal (ontological drawn) limitation or Spaltung, no deathly force,
no negativity and no lack. It thus appears, at the very least, incompatible with
Freuds mature reflections emphasizing the co-presence of life and death drives
in the psyche. Likewise, the Lacanian account of desire arises as a presence only
from a background of absence or lack, indicating the impossibility of sublating
desire and reconciling identity with recognition, also appears at odds with
Spinozas perspective. Hence, ieks emphatic Hegelian rejection of Spinoza:
What is missing in Spinoza is the elementary twist of dialectical inversion
characterizing negativity, the inversion by means of which the very renunciation
of desire turns into desire of renunciation, and so on. What is unthinkable
for him is what Freud terms death-drive: the idea that conatus is based on a
fundamental act of self-sabotaging. (iek, 2003, 34)
Leaving aside at this point the broader question concerning the status of the
conatus of nonhuman individuals (what might be the agency of these objects/
things, and how might they conduct or channel affects?) it is necessary to
scrutinize still further the terms of debate opened up by iek. If we can agree that
that the conatus is a striving for perseverance or indefinite existence beyond the
present, then any striving thing will seek to maintain an equilibrium among its
parts/relations while being in a state of continuous regeneration and becoming.
In order to promote its persistence, the conatus of any complex individual body
(be it an eco-system, or a political collective, such as the multitude) will tend
toward greater interaction and communication with its wider environment.
Furthermore, and as we shall develop below, insofar as the conatus unfolds
179
affective intensities within a social field, it becomes a fractural site upon which
the affective density of the political unfolds, introducing what Laurent Bove has
called a dynamic of affirmation and resistance.22 It is for this reason, I think, that
the name of Spinoza persists in psychoanalytic discussions (e.g. in the writings
of Lacan and Butler) regarding the production of the subject. His name persists
precisely because the dynamic account of affectivity and affective relations
offered in the Ethics elicits a framework for theorizing the sites of ambivalent
identity, latent antagonism, and resistance in ways that exceed/challenge the
Hegelianism of ieks position.
However, I have argued that it is not enough to describe affect simply as
an unconscious process immanent to experience. Affect is not an originary
experience of a body upon which a world is constructed. Thus, in a Spinozist
way, Lacoue-Labarthe and Nancy write, For the affect, if it is, is only that:
the affection of an inside by an outside, therefore the division of the two and
their reciprocal penetration.23 There can be no psychology of affects but only
a necessary study of the mechanisms and forces contributing to the shaping of
political bodies, subjects, and collectivities. It is likely for this reason that Judith
Butler, following psychoanalyst Jean Laplanche, proposes to consider the drives
(e.g. eros and thanatos), not as primary sources but following instead from an
interiorisation of the enigmatic drives of others and carry[ing] the residues of
those originally external desires. As a result, every drive is beset by a foreignness
(trangret), and the I finds itself to be foreign to itself in its most elemental
impulses (Butler, 2005, 71). Adrian Johnston, also drawing upon Lacan has
theorized the continuous process of reciprocal modification linking natural
and symbolic registers, and emphasizing the plasticity of affect as it morphs into
signifiers which can never become its own stable referents. It is for this reason
that I propose to examine the interactive aspect of the conatus as giving rise to
a fractured field of affective relations rather than merely a primary drive toward
persistence and preservation.
The basis for such a suggestion is abundantly present in the Ethics where
Spinoza considers affects according to the field of relational forces that shape and
nurture them. Placed within the context of his theory of affective life, Spinoza
shows us the way in which the conatus (desire) mobilizes joy or sadness to sculpt
and shape the intensity or potentia of the body. As transitive states through
which bodies pass, the primary affects may involve increases or decreases in our
power to act, depending upon the kind of affection or passion they engender,
and the form of encounter produced, and they will vary in intensity according
to particular political field within which they emerge. It is perhaps at this point
180
in the genesis of subjectivity that Lacan will refer to the wandering and erring
of desire, as the subject searches endlessly for the imaginary objet petit a as the
lost Cause of desire, and at this point too, that Spinoza will note the way that
individuals are often conscious of their appetites but ignorant of the causes that
determine them to act. The knot here tied (for both thinkers, perhaps) between
the figures and forms of imaginary life and knowledge, passion and turbulence,
the dependence on others, objects, relations without which no persistence is
possible, implicates desire in a matrix of life that may well, at least partially,
deconstitute the I who endeavours to live.24 In this way, the power of the affects,
while appearing to originate in the power of life or conatus, nonetheless fold
backupon this being and contribute to its very subjection. This further indicates
the autonomy of affect, which is only retroactively part of the inner-world of the
subject (through the imaginary figures through which day-to-day life persists).
Instead, affect circulates ambivalently throughout the social body within and
outside the moorings of power, and it is thus part of the dynamic of composition
and decomposition.
Anticipating, in various ways, Butlers own discussions of ambivalence,
Spinoza also argues that the affects are subject to vacillation or ambivalence
(fluctuatio animi) and that the object or image of the other can be the cause
of many conflicting passions (see E IIIP17S). Significantly, conflicting passions
may persist simultaneously. Thus, the mind can be drawn, at one and the same
time, toward passive and active affects. From this it is clear, Spinoza writes,
that we are in many respects at the mercy of external causes and are tossed
about like the waves of the sea when driven by contrary winds, unsure of the
outcome and of our fate (E IIIP59S). This perpetual push-pull of the affects is
of vital importance within a socio-political milieu, suggesting the malleability
of the affects. It follows that affects such as love may be built upon hatred, fears
upon nascent hopes, and sadness upon hidden joys; as Spinoza tells us in Part
IV, Proposition 6, the force and increase of any passive affect can surpass all
other activities and powers should it remain firmly fixed there. Such ambivalent
and autonomous networks of affective relations can be extremely powerful and
contagious, disrupting relations of agreement and disagreement and finding
their (temporary) coherence, to varying degrees, in the imagination.
In the Ethics, imagination becomes a powerful albeit impersonal conductor
of affects. It is inextricably and dynamically (dialectically) bound up with the
power of the conatus: the conatus works upon and mobilizes the imagination; in
turn, the always already social and collective imagination is weighed down by
imaginary significations, habits, and norms that often openand delimitthe
181
field of affective forces along of given plane of action-reaction. Given the body
retains traces of the changes brought about through interactions with other
bodies and things, imagination will reflect the diverse ways in which bodies are
affected by particular experiences, such that one is effectively many. We strive
to imagine that which will aid the bodys power of acting, but the ambivalent
structure of affective life (manifested in images, objects, signs) may unravel this
power of desire. Pierre Macherey has argued that Spinozas entire theory of the
affects turns on this idea of the affective ambivalence that taints all our joys
with sadness insofar as, through an imaginary fixation, they assume the form
of a love for external things (Macherey, 1996, 155).25 Is imagination an aporetic
structure, at once positive and negative, which dislocates as well as transforms?
Might the desubjectifying and impersonal logic of affect and conatus nonetheless
introduce a tragic element into Spinozas Ethics? Spinozas theory of affect and
conatus arguably takes us much further than the concept of the subject shaping
Hegels thought but it also, as we have observed, runs productively alongside
several contemporary Hegelian positions. In identifying this tragic element of
his thought, in particular the logic of ambivalence, might we have turned full
circle back to the analytic of finitude presented earlier in my paper as the risk
endemic in aspects of contemporary Hegelianism?26
Infinite thought
In conclusion, it is important to make an argument against such a position.
We have already drawn attention to the importance of the infinite in Spinozas
thought. It is in the transition to Part V of the Ethics that a response to this
question must commence, where finite life is folded into the order of the infinite
through the eternity of thought. Indeed, against Badious attempt to introduce
a gap (wherein the event can emerge) between the infinite and finite modes,
Spinoza establishes a relation between eternity and existence itself.27 In other
words, nature is eternal in and through the (finite) modes, and this implies that
eternity is nothing other than natures occurrence in and as the modes. Thus,
Spinoza writes: the modes intrinsic infinitude is the power to bring about that
which can be understood solely through the laws of its own nature (EIVD8,
Ax1). Since substance is therefore without beginning or end (it is always already
there), without transcendence and without telos or origin, it follows that we
should not think of eternity as we might with Hegel alongside the model of
totality and absolute knowledge. Natures eternity is its infinite variability and
182
generativity, its conatus, we must add; it is itself an open series and has no simple
identity. When Spinoza writes, It is of the nature of Reason to perceive things
under a certain species of eternity (E IIP44), he later marks out the different
ways in which we can encounter the same object or idea. Thus, it is with different
degrees of capacity/intensity, and different degrees of cognition (reason,
imagination, intellect), each of which may sometimes overlap and disturb the
degree of activity and complexity of a given body. To understand an object or an
idea sub specie aeternitatis, or to understand an imminent, singular essence as
finite and determinate, is also to see a form of connection that does not collapse
either into a division between part and whole, or into a logic of identity. In other
words, the perspective of eternity preserves the reciprocity between singular
essence of things and the infinite. It is perhaps in this light that we should view
Badious recent Spinozist quest in Logics of Worlds.28 In response to the question:
What is it to Live? Badiou draws upon the Scholium to Proposition 23 of Book V
of the Ethics. He suggests that to live for and experience an idea is to experience
in the present the eternity that authorizes the creation of this present (2009,
510). Indeed, for Badiou, The infinite of worlds is what saves us from every
finite dis-grace (2009, 514).
If Hegel returns in Spinoza, and returns us to Spinoza, and if contemporary
Hegelianism is likewise inflected with Spinoza, might this be because Spinozism
opens up so many singular paths of thinking? Thus, Nancys restless negative is
given a Spinozist twist: its affirmativity and its movement toward truth is its
insistence in itself, without renunciation or evasion, its praxis, and the conatus of
its being.29 The conatus of thought, indeed the conatus of any thing can certainly
be viewed through the refracted lens of Hegelian philosophy. But that it can also
be something more, that it can find its (ambivalent) shape not only in the desire
and negativity and the vulnerability of every strategy of power but also in virtue,
power as potentia, and the infinite itself, may offer an opportunity to explore
another terrain in Spinozas thought, or to read Spinozas philosophy in excess of
a Hegelian problematic.
Notes
1 G. W. F. Hegel, Lectures on the History of Philosophy: Volume III, trans E. S.
Haldane and F. H. Simson (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1955), p. 257.
2 G. W. F. Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit, trans. A. V. Miller (New York and
Oxford: Oxford University Press Hegel, 1977), 803.
183
3 Alexandre Kojve, Introduction to the Reading of Hegel, trans. J. Nichols (Ithaca:

Cornell University Press, 1980).
4 Pierre Macherey, The Hegelian Lure: Lacan as Reader of Hegel, in In a
Materialist Way, trans. Ted Stolze (London: Verso, 1998).
5 Jean-Luc Nancy, The Sense of the World, trans. by J. S. Librett (Minneapolis, MN:
University of Minnesota Press, 1998), p. 54.
6 Paul Bains develops a notion of subjectless subjectivity in his chapter on
Raymond Ruyer and Gilles Deleuze in B. Massumi, ed. A Shock Thought
(London: Routledge, 2002). I use it in a quite different way here.
7 See Michel Foucault, The Order of Things: An Archeology of the Human Sciences,
trans. by A. Sheridan (London: Tavistock, 1970).
8 It is not possible to reference the range of continentally inspired readings of
Spinoza that have influenced my thoughts heresome of which appear to draw
silently upon Spinoza. Of particular influence upon my own interpretations
have been: Gilles Deleuze, Expressionism in Philosophy: Spinoza, trans. M.
Joughin (New York: Zone Books, 1990) and Spinoza: Practical Philosophy, trans.
R. Hurley (San Francisco: City Lights, 1988); Pierre Macherey, The Encounter
with Spinoza, in Deleuze: A Critical Reader, ed. P. Patton (Oxford: Blackwells,
1996) and The Problem of the Attributes, in New Spinoza, ed. W. Montag
and T. Stolze (Minneapolis, MN: Minnesota University Press, 1997); tienne
Balibar, Spinoza: From Individuality to Transindividuality, Mededelingen
vanwege het Spinozahauis (Delft: Eburon, 1997) and Spinoza and Politics, trans.
P. Snowdon (London: Verso Books, 1998); Antonio Negri, The Savage Anomaly:
The Power of Spinozas Metaphysics and Politics, trans. M. Hardt (Minneapolis,
MN: Minnesota University Press, 1991); Warren Montag, Bodies, Masses, Power:
Spinoza and His Contemporaries (London: Verso Books, 1999); and Vittorio
Morfino, Spinoza: An Ontology of Relation? in Graduate Faculty Philosophy
Journal 27 (2006): 10327.
9 See Alain Badiou, Spinozas Closed Ontology, in Theoretical Writings, trans.
by R. Brassier and A. Toscano (London: Continuum, 2006), pp. 8396; and
Spinoza, in Being and Event (London: Continuum, 2007), pp. 11220.
10 tienne Balibar, A Note on Consciousness/Conscience in the Ethics, Spinoza
Spinozana 8 (1992): 3753.
11 Giorgio Agamben, Potentialities: Collected Essays in Philosophy, trans. D. HellerRoazen (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1999), p. 116.
12 Jean Hyppolite, Genesis and Structure in Hegels Phenomenology, trans. by S.Cherniak
and J. Heckman (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1974), p. 149.
184
13 This also gives philosophical sense to a comment posed by one of Lacans

students at the close of a seminar discussion: It was fortunate that Oedipus
did not know too soon what he knew only at the end, for he still had to
fill out his life (Jacques Lacan, Desire, Life, and Death, in The Seminar
of Jacques Lacan, Book II: The Ego in Freuds Theory and in the Technique
of Psychoanalysis, ed. Jacques-Alain Miller [Cambridge, MA: Cambridge
University Press, 1988], p. 218).
14 Judith Butler, The Psychic Life of Power: Theories of Subjection (Stanford, CA:
Stanford University Press, 1997), p. 31.
15 Bruno Bosteels, Hegel in America, in Hegel and the Infinite: Religion, Politics
and the Dialectic (Columbia: Columbia University Press, 2011).
16 Judith Butler, Giving An Account of Onself (New York: Fordham University
Press, 2005), p. 44.
17 See, for example, Elisabeth Roudinesco, Jacques Lacan (Oxford: Polity, 1997),
pp. 5260. Lacans Spinozism is explored most recently by A. K. Kordela
($urplus: Spinoza, Lacan [New York: SUNY, 2007]), for whom Spinozas Nature
(or secular causality) as a system of signifiers, is a profoundly differential
system which produces and utilizes a surplus to sustain certain forms of
disciplined subjectivity. Kordela does not explore the conative or imaginary
aspects of this surplus as I do here. This also Uenos thoughtful reading Desire
and the Double in Spinoza (O. Ueno, Res Nobis Similis: Desire and the
Double in Spinoza, in Desire and Affect: Spinoza as Psychologist, ed. Y. Yovel
(New York: Little Room Press, 1999).
18 I begin this project in Subject and Event between Althusser and Badiou
(unpublished paper). We also take this opportunity to notebut leave to one
sideMachereys observations regarding the style of argumentation present
in the Spinoza scholarship of Deleuze and Negri, which similarly embrace a
dialectical logic (see Macherey, The Encounter with Spinoza).
19 Slavoj iek, Organs without Bodies (London: Routledge, 2003), pp. 3341.
Heidi Ravven has also responded to this Hegelian critique suggesting contra
iek that negativity as a motor of unfolding resistance has its place in Spinozas
philosophy. See H. Ravven, Hegels Epistemic TurnOr Spinozas? in Idealistic
Studies 33 (2003): 195202.
20 See, for example, Brian Massumi, Parables for the Virtual: Movement, Sense,
Affect (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2002); J. Protevi, Political
Affect: Connecting the Social and the Somatic (Minneapolis, MN: Minnesota
185
21 I dont have the space to do justice to this aspect of Spinozas thought, which
certainly challenges anthropocentric conceptions of agency. Spinoza recognizes
the forcefield constituting individual things in Letter 58. For a fascinating
account of its implications see Jane Bennetts discussion of thing-power (Jane
Bennett, The Force of Things: Steps toward an Ecology of Matter, in Political
Theory 32.3 (2004): 34772; Jane Bennett, Vibrant Matter: A political Ecology
of Things (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2010)); Y. Melamed,
Acosmism or Weak Individuals? Hegel, Spinoza, and the Reality of the Infinite,
Journal of the History of Philosophy 48 (2010): 7792; Hasana Sharp, Spinoza and
the Politics of Renaturalization (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2011).
22 Laurent Bove, Hilaritas and Acquiescentia in se ipso, in Spinoza on Reason and
the Free Man, ed. Y. Yovel and G. Segal (New York: Little Room Press, 2004).
23 P. Lacoue-Labarthe and Jean-Luc Nancy, The Unconscious is Destructured like
an Affect, in Stanford Literature Review 6.2 (1989): 191209.
24 Judith Butler, The Desire to Live: Spinozas Ethics Under Pressure, in Politics
and the Passions 15001850, ed. V. Cahn, N. Saccamano, and D. Coli (New
Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2006), p. 121.
25 In a penetrative review essay on Butlers The Psychic Life of Power, Macherey
explores this logic of ambivalence. He seems also by implication to draw closer
Butlers Hegel toward Spinoza. See Pierre Macherey, Out of Melancholia: Notes
on Judith Butlers The Psychic Life of Power: Theories in Subjection, in Rethinking
Marxism 16 (2004): 717.
26 I have explored some of the ethico-political resources present in Spinoza
that may accommodate this logic of ambivalence (see Caroline Williams,
Thinking the Political in the Wake of Spinoza: Power, Affect and Imagination
in the Ethics, in Contemporary Political Theory 6 (2007): 34969).
27 Julie Klein has embarked on a close textual analysis of this relation in By
Eternity I Understand: Eternity According to Spinoza, in Iyyun The Jerusalem
Philosophical Quarterly 51 (2002): 295324.
28 Alain Badiou, Logic of Worlds (London: Continuum, 2009). Badious book is
also Spinozist in terms of its structure of argument, which is partly organized in
terms of propositions, proofs, and scholiums.
29 Jean-Luc Nancy, Hegel: The Restlessness of the Negative, trans. by J. Smith and
S. Miller (Minneapolis, MN: Minnesota University Press, 2002).
Part Four
Judaism beyond Hegel and Spinoza
10
The Paradox of a Perfect Democracy:

From Spinozas Theologico-Political Treatise
to Marxs Critique of Ideology
Idit Dobbs-Weinstein
Apologos
The immediate thought arising from the suggestion to me Hegel after Spinoza,
was but, of course, that is Marx. This chapter will be the unfolding mediation
of this immediate thought or idea in its properly political aspect, that is, as a
historical materialist dialectics. The unifying premise of this chapter is that
Marxs attentive engagement with Spinoza, his reading of Spinozas political
writings as significant to current debates, motivate his critique of Hegel and the
Left Hegelians and constitutes the unifying thread of his thought, beginning
with the critique of religion, through the critique of ideology, to the critique of
political economy. The concrete way in which Hegels specter will hover over
the chapter is already anticipated in the first part of the chapters title; for, the
paradox of the perfect democracy exemplified historically and materially in the
Hebrew Commonwealth does not enter into Hegels political philosophy, not only
insofar as the Hebrew Commonwealth is excluded from world history, whether
it is understood nonmaterially as the unfolding of Spirit in time or concretely as
the unfolding of the Idea in space as Nature or God.1 This absence is especially
glaring when it is found in a philosopher whose philosophical career began with
a reading of Jacobis ber die Lehre des Spinoza in conversation with Schelling
and Hlderlin but who then relegated Spinozas thought to the prehistorical, prephilosophical Orient in one regally a-historical stroke.
190
Prologos
Among Marxs early notebooks which are published in the first volume of
the MEGA, there is a text entitled Spinoza Theologische-Politische Traktat von
Karl Heinrich Marx. Berlin1841.2 These notebooks are composed of rearranged
and fragmented chapters of Spinozas Theologico-Political Treatise together with
a rather idiosyncratic selection of Spinozas letters. That this strange work has
remained almost entirely hidden (or even occult) may well be a reflection of a
deep dis-ease with its form as well as its content. Even when this texts existence
is recognized, it is nonetheless almost entirely ignored, with the exception of
a very brief discussion in one chapter of Yirmiyahu Yovel, Spinoza and Other
Heretics, volume 2, and volume one of Cahiers Spinoza, published in 1977
which, in addition to Marxs text, contains six articles, only three of which
are devoted to it. Even more striking is the fact that in the Anglo-American
philosophical world these early writings remain almost entirely unknown or
unacknowledged.3 The differences between the European and Anglo-American
academies notwithstanding, studies that address Marxs critique of religion, that
is, On the Jewish Question, The Holy Family, and Theses on Feuerbach, fail to
ask an obvious question, namely, what, if any, is the relation between Spinozas
radical critique of religion and Marxs critique of ideology and the oppressive
institution whose expression it is.
Following a brief preface on the politics of Marxs scholarship, especially in
relation to history and politics, the first part of the chapter briefly frames the
occlusion of the relation between Spinoza and Marx in the context of the history
of Spinoza misappropriations so as to make intelligible the argument that Marxs
rearrangement of Spinozas TTP is the source of his radical critique of Hegel and
the Left Hegelians, who claim to be Spinozas legitimate modern heirs, and whose
respective critiques of religion are said to be influenced by Spinoza. Against
Ludwig Feuerbach and Bruno Bauer, in particular, whose critiques of religion
and materialism remain strictly metaphysical, Marx deploys another Spinoza,
whose critique of religion is simultaneously a critique of Hegelian metaphysics,
the concrete overcoming of which renders possible a radical democratic politics.
In the second part of the chapter, I shall first explore the paradox at the heart
of the uncanny claim in Spinozas TTP, chapter seventeen that in the Hebrew
Commonwealth the perfect theocracy was a perfect democracy both with
respect to freedom and with respect to equality. Second, I shall argue that this
paradox is the model for Marxs political philosophy in subsequent writings
The Paradox of a Perfect Democracy
191
precisely because it provides the blueprint to a freedom from human rule that is
concurrent with a radical economic equality.
Provisos
Just as Marxs thought has generated a rich variety of zealous disciples, so
has Spinozas, so that in any attempt to retrieve either thinker from polemical
battles, one is compelled first to clear some of the most common, often violent
misappropriations that their respective works have generated. Hence, I must
frame this chapter with three preliminary provisos which will be supplemented
at crucial moments of the discussion.
First, if a historical materialist dialectic is to be critical, it must simultaneously
be a reflection of concrete material institutions and practices and of the ideology
or forms of consciousness to which they give rise. For both Marx and Spinoza,
this is as true of the philosophers lofty ideas/ideals as it is of the vulgar
masses. Briefly and explicitly stated, throughout his writings, Marxs dialectical
articulations of the relations between specific oppressive material conditions, be
they religious, political, or economic and the alienated forms of consciousness
reflecting them can, without exaggeration, be said to be nothing other than the
nineteenth century expression of Spinozas repeated claim in the Ethics that
mind is nothing but an idea of body, stated explicitly in historical terms. Now,
in anticipation of an objection, I want to state categorically what I have argued at
length elsewhere, namely, that the Ethics is not a metaphysical text, with a brief
physical digression, but rather an ethics/politics, heir to a materialist Aristotelian
tradition, in which tradition the physis of the human psyche, whose motion and
action originate in appetition or desire, lives in the polis, for only gods and beasts
live outside the city.
Consequently and second, Spinozas TTP and TP are thoroughly historical,
pace Hegel and others, in at least two ways, provided that by history we do not
mean a philosophy of history or any other future-oriented historical narrative,
or for that matter an account of time, a metaphysical being par excellence
for Spinoza. Thus, in exploring the theological-political origin of the state, the
TTP first engages the current dogmata that sustain and legitimize oppressive institutions and then turns to the historical origin of the nation-state in
the Hebrew Commonwealth as well as to its transformation or deformation
from an absolute democracy, through aristocracy, to monarchy (as distinct
192
from theocracy). Furthermore, the TP, as a materialist dialectical inquiry

begins from concrete, existing political forms of government, rather than posits
abstract, letalone ideal ones, in order to explore the democratic possibilities that
they may harbor. That is why, inter alia, Spinoza explores at length two different
forms of aristocracy whose material possibility is found in concrete recent Dutch
history.
Third, insofar as Spinozas TTP and TP were written in mercantilist Holland,
and insofar as he was no ogre, although he was certainly avant-garde, perhaps,
still is, the masses whom he was the first to theorize carefully,4 could not possibly
be Marxs proletariat. Likewise, Marxs proletariat can no longer be said to exist
now and, hence, do not appear in the thought of other historical materialists
committed to demystification, such as Horkheimer and Adorno, for which
they are criticized as defectors from Marxism in the grandiose fashion of all
a-historical dogmatic criticism.5
Homage to a dead dog6: The Notebooks

It is no exaggeration to claim that the same methodological, or more precisely
if awkwardly named epistemico-methodological, principle constitutes the
continuity of Spinozas and Marxs works as well as motivates their rigorously
materialist dialectic, namely, omnis determinatio est negatio, whether it is
explicitly expressed in these term or in less obvious but equally rigorous ones,
for example, all definitions in Spinozas Ethics. I want to further claim that it is
indeed this principle, which Hegel repeats, deploys, and explicitly refers back
to Spinoza, which Marx appropriates against Hegel and the Left Hegelians in a
manner more subtle and truer to Spinoza than his proclaimed followers. This
is also the principle that constitutes the continuity between Marxs critique of
religion and his critique of political economy. Now, although this claim in an
embryonic form has been acknowledged several times, and is even found in
Robert Tucker in a note on the Grundrisse in the Marx-Engels Reader,7 it has
remained merely that, and was pursued only briefly in one essay in the Cahiers
Spinoza by Maximilian Rubel, entitled Marx la rencontre de Spinoza.8 More
important, left to this benign neglect and owing to it, the acknowledgment of
the provenance of this principle also covers over the fact that it is ubiquitous in
Spinozas writings beginning with the TIE and accounts for the epistemic status
of the definitions first in the exposition of Descartes Principles, but is still more
193
important in the Ethics. It is key to the difference between Cartesian analytic,

that is, tautological definitions, and Spinozas Euclidian, that is, generative ones,9
which were clearly of great interest to Marx as is evident by his selections of the
correspondence with Simon de Vries on definitions, that is, determinations. It
is from this perspective that we may be able to shed some light on the relation
between what at first glance may appear unrelated, while also accounting for the
selection of both passages and letters.
Now, it is not my intention here to either repeat or take issue at great length
with Alexandre Matherons painstaking study of the first Cahier on the TTP
which carefully compares Spinozas and Marxs TTP texts. Taking issue with
it in any way, which I will do briefly, feels petty in comparison to Matherons
careful scholarship both here and elsewhere. I shall, therefore, focus only on one
set of claims and the conclusion drawn from them in Matherons discussion of
the first chapter of Marxs TTP on miracles. While I share Matherons surprise
about the absence of reference to Spinozas Ethics, especially to Appendix 1, in
the discussion of miracles and other prejudices in the Notebooks, as well as at
the glaring absence of the Preface of the TTP, I disagree with his conclusion
that Marx had no interest in the genesis of illusion in self-interest, a purported
disinterest which is also, according to Matheron, evident in Marxs disinterest
in the Jewish projection of election, the form of worship consequent upon it,
letalone relation to others. First, Marxs selection of Letter 17 to Peter Balling
would be inexplicable, at best mere curiosity, were it not for the fact that it
concerns the relation between illusion, imagination, and confused awareness
of self-interest. Second, and more important, at the core of Marxs critique
of religion and polemic with theologians is the origin of false consciousness,
which false consciousness is nothing other than mistaken or misplaced selfinterest. It is important to note, even if prematurely, that the question of selfconsciousness, true as well as false, is simultaneously a question of religious and
class identification, that is, of politics and economics.
Based upon Spinozas logical syntax, connecting disparate fragments by
terms such as scilicet, itaque, quia, Matheron argues that Marxs elimination of
the problem of self-interest as well as Jewish election makes possible a logical
conclusion about human stupidity in general, a conclusion which precisely
owing to its general form, effaces all aspects of Spinozas thought.10 This is a
remarkable claim. Now, admittedly, the syntax of Marxs TTP, especially Marxs
use of conjunctions to connect different fragments, is very clever. But, one may
as easily argue that it proceeds more geometrico as more logico. In fact, were it the
194
case that Marxs method here was logical, it would resemble a Cartesian rather
than a Spinozist form of argumentation. This claim about Marxs method cannot
be supported for at least two reasons, one material, the other philosophical.
First, the selection of the correspondence with de Vries as well as Meyer makes
evident that Marxs interest in Spinozas method is not incidental and in fact
provides him with the tools for a materialist dialectical critique. And, insofar
as Matheron emphasizes the advantage of this methodological procedure and
locates its effects in the generality of the conclusion, even if by logic he means
dialectics, it is certainly not a materialist, letalone historical dialectic but rather
an abstract Hegelian one. Second, philosophically, the problem of Jewish election,
let alone the Jewish question remained a focus of Marxs critique not only of
religion but also, and more important, of the modern State, the Christian nature
of which he emphasizes and critiques in his exchange with Bauer. Furthermore,
Jewish specificity is not absent from the chapter on miracles. Further on in the
chapter, Marx refers to Jews and others like them,11 a likeness constituted by
shared ignorance and the illusion that they were Gods beloved elect.12 Finally,
it is precisely the particularity of the Hebrew Commonwealth that is of central
importance to Marx in several subsequent chapters, for it is that concrete, material
historical particularity that makes manifest the paradox of the perfect democracy,
a paradox whose dialectical implications were of great significance to Marx.
Before I turn to the Hebrew Commonwealth in Spinoza and Marx, I wish to
provide a brief justification of my claim that the principle omnia determination
est negatio underlies the peculiar unity of the selections of fragments and letters
in the Notebooks as well as hazard a preliminary explanation of the absence
of the Ethics. Taken materially and historically (and following Aristotle and
his materialist Jewish heirs), the principle would demand that any dialectical
inquiry will begin from the most important and prevalent, contemporaneous
philosophical opinions precisely because they are the theoretical expressions
or forms of consciousness reflecting existing, oppressive institutions, religious,
legal, and economic. Just as Cartesian philosophy and Calvinist as well as
Mennonite theology are expressions of the economic and political institutions
of seventeenth century Holland, so also Hegelian philosophy and theology
are the expressions of nineteenth century German institutions. That is why
Spinozas interlocutors are Cartesians, Calvinist, and Mennonite scientists,
philosophers, and theologians, and Marxs are Hegelian, Christian theologians,
and metaphysicians. And here, ironically, Marxs concern may appear to be
narrower and more academic than Spinozas, whose concern with prejudice is
extended to the vulgar as well as to theologians and metaphysicians, precisely
195
because the affective unification of the masses as masses, their constitution by

the same passions, especially the hope and fear generated by religious authorities
and dogmatic theologians, turn them into the most extensive force.13 Whereas
the narrower focus of the Notebooks may partly account for the strange absence
of the Appendix to Ethics Part I as well as of the preface to the TTP, as will
become evident in the conclusion, Spinozas conception of the masses will play
an important role in Marxs theorizing of the proletariat in the Introduction to
the Critique of Hegels Philosophy of Right.
What is astonishing about both Spinoza and Marx, and is rarely remarked
upon, is the fact that both undertook radical and rigorous critiques of religion
and/or metaphysics which were often addressed to the theologians and
metaphysicians. That in many of these contexts neither Spinoza nor Marx
distinguishes between theology and metaphysics is not surprising, especially
since in the context of a theologico-political critique, the place of religion in
the commonwealth is of the utmost importance, precisely because, materially
and historically understood, it is not merely a passive expression of alienated
consciousness but also, and more important, it is a material political force.14
Moreover, for both Spinoza and Marx, the critiques seek to liberate politics from
religion by appeal both to critical theologians and, in Spinozas case, to openminded Christian politicians. Oldenberg, Meyer, and de Vries are to Spinoza
what Ruge, Bauer, and Feuerbach are to Marx.
Now, I have argued at length elsewhere that Spinoza did not believe that the
critique of religion can eliminate the need for religion, precisely because it is a
human institution arising out of very powerful affects and will not repeat the
argument here.15 In the light of the prevalent scholarship on Marx, exemplified
by the separation between the young and old Marx in lieu of a lengthy argument
for the relative impotence of theory, allow me to cite two proof texts and briefly
comment on them.
Religious estrangement as such occurs only in the realm of consciousness of
mans inner life, but economic estrangement is that of real life; its transcendence
therefore embraces both aspects.16
Feuerbach, consequently, does not see that the religious sentiment itself is
a social product, and that the abstract individual whom he analyses belongs in
reality to a particular form of society.17
Insofar as Marx repeatedly argues that the forms of consciousness, be they

religious or ideological, are reflections of economic and other social institutions,
it should be clear that no amount of philosophical critique can suffice to overcome
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them, unless and until the real material, that is, historical conditions obtain; that
is, until the social and economic institutions can be changed. More precisely
stated, understood in relations to institutions of power, whose maintenance
depends upon the control of beliefs and opinions, the question of the overcoming
of religion/ideology will depend upon the existence of concrete material, that is,
objective conditions which will render such overcoming really possible. Further,
it cannot be overemphasized that to the extent that the institutions of power
in question are the secular face of deeply entrenched theologico-political
prejudices or Weltanschauungen, the difference between religion and ideology
is nominal.
The Commonwealth
But Nature? Surely, she creates individuals, not nations, which are distinguished
[into nations] only through a diversity of languages, of laws, and of accepted
customs; and only the last two, namely, laws and customs, can be the origin of
the singular character (ingenium), mode of life (conditionem), and prejudices
(praejudicia) of any singular nation whatsoever.18
As alluded to in my critical engagement with Matheron, the question of the

uniqueness of the Hebrew Commonwealth in its particularity is inseparable, for
Marx, from the Jewish question as it is manifest in its historical specificity, that
is, in its specifically German, Christian form. Spinoza was the first thinker to
theorize the modern State, the purportedly secular State, freed not only from the
oppressive authority of the Roman Catholic, universal, church, and the feudal
institutions concomitant with it but also from Christianity. And, it is in this state
that the Jewish question is transformed from a religious into a political, legal,
and economic question precisely through the occlusion of its origins as religious
and of its history as persecution.19 This is why the critical engagement with Bauer
immediately succeeded the reconstructed TTP and was immediately succeeded
by the Critique of the Philosophy of Right.
Insofar as Spinoza has been understood even by some of his most attentive
readers as a metaphysician, before proceeding, I must provide a gloss to a
few fundamental terms deployed in the TTP which are mistranslated and
misunderstood insofar as they are read from the perspective that they seek to
undermine; (1) the Latin term status naturalis, that is, natural state, is translated
as if it were identical to status naturae, that is, state of nature. However, insofar
197
as Spinoza dismisses as absurd all those who understand human association,

let alone freedom, as freedom from nature, all those who view the human as
a dominion within a dominion, that is, all those who understand the state of
society to be an overcoming of a state of nature, this little mistranslation renders
Spinozas critique literally incoherent. In contrast, for Spinoza, the natural state is
coextensive with the civil State; properly understood, they are two aspects of the
same thing. Hence, however we interpret the term pactum, the term typically
translated as covenant or contract, it cannot possibly be understood as the
abstract social contract of political philosophy from the seventeenth century
on. Finally, for the present purpose, the most telling and violent mistranslation
is that of the Latin term salus by salvation, an a-historical and a-political
Christian theological concept.20 Given that one of the purposes of the State is
safety/security, that is, some form of salus, the other being freedom, given that
Spinoza radically dissociates religious and political concerns, and given that he
does not admit anything extra-natural, even were individual salus distinct
from salus publica, it cannot be extra publica, since to the same extent that there
exists nothing extra-natural, so also there exists nothing extra-political.
Hence, Spinozas critical analysis of the Hebrew State, an analysis that also
provides a genealogy of the transformation of ethics/politics into religion/
metaphysics or, more precisely, the usurpation of the former by the latter,
exposes the prejudice specific to the abstract religious, metaphysical, or ontotheological view of the Jew. The Jew embodies specific, essential national
characteristics by nature, whether it is the stubborn Jew, specifically named
in the TTP or, by extension, the suffering servant, the carnal lover of money,
etc. In the theological/metaphysical fiction of the material mode of existence
of the generic Jew, Jewish election becomes an unredeemed and unredeemable
existence, one incapable and unworthy of freedom. By detaching the history
of the Hebrew State from the dominant theological narrative or the history
of salvation, Spinoza simultaneously makes evident both the falseness of
accounts that explain differences among nations as natural manifestation of
purportedly historical necessity and their insidious political consequences. His
emphatic claim that nature creates individuals not nations is in fact a response
to the Christo-platonic view of the Jew in both its religious and the so-called
secular garb.
Responding to the question why, despite its original unity, a unity constituted
by Mosaic Law, the Hebrew State suffered the vicissitudes that it did or why the
Hebrews forsook the Law, and why they were so many times conquered, and
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why it came about that their state was utterly destroyed, Spinoza presents the
commonly prejudice that suggests that the fate of the Hebrew State resulted
from the stubbornness of the race. Explaining the destruction of the State to
be a consequence of a disobedience originating in the nature of the Jews qua
Jews, the suggestion indicates that the fate of the Jew is an expression of divine
justice. In response, Spinoza summarily dismisses this suggestion as childish,
that is, unworthy of philosophical consideration. For, the naturalistic form of this
suggestion, that is, the reference to the Hebrew community as a genos, turns
nature upside down, reifying nature (and simultaneously personifying GodNature), and thereby establishing a real and radical distinction between Nature
and the specific historical conditions and conventions in which it is expressed.
But, were this the case, religion/politics would constitute a dominion within a
dominion which Spinoza emphatically and repeatedly denies. Dismissing this
suggestion as foolish, in lieu of a response Spinoza asks: for, why was this nation
more stubborn than others?21
God as Nature does not elect, nor redeem a people, nor for that matter does
it distinguish between human and other natural individuals, God as elected is
the concrete historical response to fear and hope, the primary passions that are
the origin of both politics and religion.22 The more an individual understands
God as Nature, the less she is a passive subject of hope and fear, and the freer she
is. But, to the same extent that she is free, to that extent she would overcome
or repress the fears and concomitant prejudices that define her national,
which is to say, religious belonging, were it ever the case that the natural state
was ever really distinct from the civil one.23 And, were such an overcoming or
transcendence of national belonging really possible, so would it be possible for
the individual to overcome her nations law, customs, and prejudices even if
she does not transgress them; that is, she will become morally autonomous
by becoming heteronomous to her nations laws and customs and, thereby,
overcome history and jewishness. But, this is precisely what Spinoza denies,
pace Stoic readings of the Ethics.24 For, not only does reason not have power over
the primary passions but also, were it not for the power of the primary passions,
the passions necessary for self-preservation, there would be no need for religion
or politics, that is, there would be nothing but the natural state. The only difference
acknowledged by Spinoza between the natural state and civil State is that in the
former, individual fears arise from indefinitely many individual circumstances
and hence differ, whereas in the latter, all men fear the same things, and all
have the same ground for security, the same way of life,25 as determined by laws
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and customs. Understood in this way, the natural/civil State,26 were it to come
into being, would be the overcoming of religion and of the civil (covertly religious)
nation state. Indeed, for Spinoza, the fundamental difference between religion and
politics is that concretely, that is, historically understood, to the same extent that
religion seeks to legislate true and false beliefs, as distinct from permissible
and impermissible actions, to that extent has it been and continues to be the
source of the political discord that undermines the possibility of sovereignty and
hence the concrete liberty necessary for the security and commonwealth (salus
publica) that are the raison detre of politics or the commonwealth, letalone the
freedom at which it aims. Differently stated, it is Spinozas claim that religion as
an institution always seeks to legislate belief rather than action. For, the control
of belief is ipso facto also the control of action. Properly understood, then, the
relation between religion and the natural/civil State is thoroughly antagonistic,
whereas the raison detre of religion is obedience, that of the natural/civil State
is freedom. And as Spinoza points out nobody knows by nature that he has
any duty to obey God....27 Stating that the natural state is prior to religion
in nature and time, Spinoza repeatedly emphasizes that prior to religion and
law there is no sin, wrong, or duty. That is, obedience and disobedience arise
from human convention or projections of what is and is not beneficial to selfpreservation, letalone, (salus) health and commonwealth (salus publica).
The Hebrew Commonwealth

Since the Hebrews did not transfer their right to any other man, but, as in a
democracy, they all surrendered their rights on equal terms, crying with one
voice Whatever God shall speak, we shall do....it follows that this covenant
left them all completely equal...they all shared equally in the government of
the state.28
What is most remarkable about Spinozas genealogy of the original Hebrew

Commonwealth, of its uniqueness and reasons for its stability and longevity, is
his argument that the God of the Hebrew Commonwealth was democratically
elected by the people. Mosaic law is the divine law of the people. For it was
through this very belief that Gods power alone could save them that they
transferred to God all their natural power of self preservation.29 In short, for
Spinoza, the first and only true, that is, legitimate theocracy was also the most
comprehensive democracy. It is in this state, where there was no difference
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between civil law and religion that piety equaled justice, impiety injustice,
which injustice was an infraction against all other citizens, and hence, deprived
the offender of her citizenship, that is, membership in the community. As an
exemplary democracy, where there is no mediator between equal citizens and
the elected God, the original Hebrew Commonwealth is politically originary
in a more important way, namely that it seems the most natural form of the
state , approaching most clearly to that freedom which nature grants to every
man.30 This is also the moment where electing and being elected are identical.
To transgress the law at this moment entails that there is no other law. She who
transgresses the covenant which is her own does not yet belong to an other
community; she is not a member of some prepolitical moral community, nor
does she inhabit a solitary natural place because to be bound by law is to be
bound to the laws of this nation whose existence was brought into being by her
own election.
It cannot be overemphasized that, for Spinoza, especially when we seek to
understand his influence on Marx, the original/originary covenant is not based
upon reason; originating, as it does, out of fear, its primary motivation for the
alienation of ones power is self-preservation as it is perceived individually by the
fool, the mad, or the sane alike.31 For, even when some of the individuals who
seek self-preservation may do so on the basis of understanding, nonetheless,
what is understood is what is to be feared. More precisely, for Spinoza, properly
understood, a true and enduring democracy cannot be based upon reason but
only upon what is common to all natural, living entities, that is, the a-rational
desire for self-preservation and flourishing. For even were it the case that rational
deliberation is the domain of the fewthe conceit of many philosophers who
persist in the illusion of reasons powernonetheless, fear is common to all living
entities, qua living, including those capable of rational deliberation. Once again,
for Spinoza, reason has no power over the affects nor can it effect democracy;
for reason, is, at best, the mediation of the few about what ought to be feared by
all members of a commonwealth, that is, reason may, at best, make possible the
substitution of a single, common fearful or hopeful image for indefinitely many
individual ones. I want to suggest that this is, in fact, what Marx has in mind
when he argues that a class must be formed... to which I shall turn in the
conclusion.
Before proceeding to a brief consideration of Spinozas impact on Marxs
critique of religion and the State, two central aspects of Spinozas political
philosophy must be reconsidered in relation to Marx. First, I cannot overemphasize the centrality of the psychology of the affects to Spinozas elaboration
201
of democracy as is evident from my brief treatment of fear above and which I insist,
against Matheron, is inseparable from his concern with self-interest. Second, I
must remark upon the place of political economy in Spinozas consideration of
democracy, which is ignored. In light of the brevity of his remarks on economic
equality, this is not surprising. Whereas in the discussion of the origin of the
Hebrew democratic commonwealth, Spinoza seeks to uncover the common
element, fear, unifying the indefinitely many subjective experiences of the natural
state that gives rise to the election of God, in his discussion of the endurance of
the original Hebrew State, after he addresses the patriotism consequent upon the
legal daily ritual that constituted the particularity or uniqueness of the Hebrews,
Spinoza seeks to uncover the objective element that proved to be most effective
in deterring citizens from contemplating defection and from ever wanting to
desert their country, to wit, the motive of self-interest, the strength and life of all
human action. This, I say, was a feature peculiar to this state.32 As he notes, the
peculiar attention to self-interest in the original legal institution of the State took
the form of absolute equality of ownership, a form which recognizes self-interest
as a primary and objective dimension of the legitimacy of the commonwealth in
which citizen and subject are identical. Nowhere else did citizens have stronger
right to their possessions than did the subjects of this state, who had an equal
share with the captains in lands and fields and were each the owner of their share
in perpetuity.33 Moreover, even when individuals were compelled by need to sell
(alienate) their property, the law required that it be restored to them during the
jubilee, and there were other similar enactments to prevent the alienation of
real estate.34 Spinoza concludes this brief reflection on the economic basis of the
exceptional stability and duration of the Hebrew Commonwealth, a basis which
he presents as materially objective, with a remarkable observation that sheds
light not only on the specificity of the Hebrew Commonwealth but also, more
important, on this election: Thus the Hebrew citizens could enjoy a good life
only in their own country; abroad they could expect only hurt and humiliation.35
Viewed in this light, the homeless Jew, whose commonwealth is no longer
possible, is a specter, a despised specter in the Christian commonwealth whose
rejection, as Christian, she embodies or legally personifies. So long as the State
remains a Christian State, overtly or covertly, so long as its institutions and
rituals remain rooted in religious Christian symbols, the Jew could not be its
citizen, even if she is its subject.
In anticipation of the objection that Spinozas understanding of equality
as property ownership is radically at odds with Marxs view of property as
exemplary of the alienated existence in bourgeois civil society, the subject of
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his sustained ongoing critique, I can only reply: of course, if we ignore history.
For, it cannot be overemphasized that the democratic equality of which Spinoza
speaks in the TTP refers to the original Hebrew Commonwealth, which, he
insists, has not existed since its demise nor can it exist again. The interruption
of the TP by Spinozas death is all the more poignant because it occurs at the
beginning of his discussion of democracy, the form of commonwealth he
describes as the completely absolute state.36 Moreover, it is important to note
that the TTP is addressed, first and foremost (even if covetly), to the educated
Calvinist authorities, whom he sought to convince that the imposition of
religious rules on the nascent Dutch republic would undermine its chances for
peace and prosperity. And, although there is no doubt that equality in the nascent
republic was based upon property ownership, what is striking about Spinozas
argument is his insistence that ownership should not be a matter of station or
other privilege, that is, class. Instead, he argues for the objective, nonreligious,
conditions of peace and stability, an argument that implicitly intends to appeal
to the self-interest of the sovereign power. And, again, as stated earlier, Spinozas
and Marxs idioms necessarily differ precisely insofar as they respond to different
concrete material conditions, economic as well as religious/ideological ones. In
contradistinction, the appeal to self-interest, to need as the basis of civil society,
on the one hand, and to alienation as source of social ill, on the other, is common
to both thinkers.
From Marxs TTP to Spinoza on Hegels Philosophy of Right

[I]t goes without saying that all forms of the state have democracy for their truth
and that they are therefore untrue insofar as they are not democracy.37
If the Notebooks represent the true, concrete historical form that Spinozas TTP
as a critique of religion could assume in the nineteenth century, in general, then
the Critique of Hegels Philosophy of Right is the first form which Spinozas TP, as
a critique of political institutions, must assume in Germany, in particular. Marxs
claim that all forms of the state have democracy for their truth, is but a concrete
historical encapsulation of Spinozas uncovering of the democratic possibilities
inall forms of the nonabsolute, that is, democratic State.
Returning to my general claim that Marxs TTP provides the critical tools
for his engagement with Hegel and the young Hegelians, I want to narrow it
to the claim that the selections from chapters on the commonwealth and the
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Hebrew Commonwealth are the core of Marxs critique of those who violently
incorporated Spinozas thought into a Christo-Platonic speculative philosophy,
precisely because, all claims to the contrary notwithstanding, the purportedly
modern secular State of Hegel, Bauer, and Feuerbach, is only formally secular,
even in its most liberated, French form. Viewed in light of the principle omnis
determinatio est negatio, the significant determination adopted from Spinoza
is the distinction between nature, abstractly or metaphysically conceived, and
specific laws, customs, and prejudices; the former creates individuals, the latter,
nations. In the light of the abbreviated nature of Marxs TTP, it is especially
striking that he selected all of Spinozas formulations of this distinction, including
the following one on Jewish particularity:
Through this alone, then, nations differ from one another, namely by reason of
the society and laws under which they live and are governed. Thus, the Hebrew
nation was chosen by God before all others not by reason of its understanding
not of its spiritual qualities, but by reason of its social organization and good
fortune whereby it achieved supremacy and retained it for a many years.38
It cannot be overstated that Marxs selected fragments concerning the

particularity of the Hebrew Commonwealth are gathered in a manner such
as to emphasize the distinction between spiritual/intellectual superiority and
the material, that is, practical, prosperity that constituted the election of the
Hebrews, an emphasis that simultaneously literally repeats the explanation of
election in the TTP and, through extensive ellipses, intensifies its claims. The
former excellence is theoretical and hence may be said to be a-historical and
a-political, whereas the latter is material, historical, and political.39 Moreover,
by isolating some sentences and paragraphs from their surrounding discussion,
Marx succeeds in rendering more visible, more exoteric, what in Spinozas TTP
is semihidden by prolonged historical discussions as well as seventeenth century
theologico-political idiom. Thus, for example, Marx isolates the following
sentence: the end (finis) of the state, therefore, is truly (revera) freedom.40
That is, Marx highlights the emancipation that is the end of the State, in its
double sense of purpose and overcoming. Elsewhere, by isolating a part of a
long paragraph, and thereby creating a new thesis, Marx brings to light a
dimension of Spinozas discussion of the Hebrew Commonwealth that may
be obscured not only by the abundant discussion but also, more importantly,
he highlights the key difference between Judaism and Christianity. Clearly,
religious doctrines were not teachings (dogmata) but laws and commands;
piety was judged to be justice, impiety a crime and injustice.41 That is, Marx
204
highlights precisely what is extraordinary about the identity of civil law and
religion in the Hebrew Commonwealth, namely, the absence of dogmata.
For, to recall, Christianity is the repudiation of Mosaic law, qua law, or its
overcoming by dogmata. Whereas in the Hebrew Commonwealth freedom is
the concrete freedom to enact laws, for Christianity, freedom is a metaphysical
freedom from laws. Insofar as the former is concerned with action, unlike the
latter, it does not legislate what is true and false but only what is good and
bad. Thus understood, the freedom to legislate is simultaneously the freedom
to philosophize or freedom of belief.
Since both Spinoza and Marx view the aim of the State as freedom, that is,
since they examine the Hebrew Commonwealth as a practical, political matter
about the precise form of the State, its laws and institutions, the election of
the Jews, that is, concrete, material, or institutional particularity becomes a
moment of contestation about human liberation/emancipation, religious or
political, transcendental/spiritual or historical. Or, yet again, the question of
the human freedom which is the singular concern of both Spinoza and Marx
becomes a question of the relation and distinction, sameness and difference,
determination and negation, between the natural and civil state. If the natural
state (status naturalis) is not really distinct from the civil State (status civilis)
whose separation is at the core of the modern conception of civil society as the
overcoming of the state of nature (status naturae) critiqued by both Spinoza
and Marx, then the question becomes how does nature appear in different
forms of political association and whether there can be a civil society, or
human community, whose institutions do not require alienation, especially the
alienation of purportedly natural rights, the rights that do not differ between
madmen, fools, and philosophers, in short the rights that do not differ between
madmen, fools, and philosophers, in short, the rights that approximate the
perfect democracy.
Insofar as religion/ideology, for both Spinoza and Marx, is the alienated
form of consciousness reflecting material needs and institutions, economic and
political, for both Spinoza and Marx, then the critique of religion/ideology and
that of political economy cannot be really separate. And, although it may seem
strange that both turn to the critique of religion/ideology before they turn to the
critique of political economy, both Spinoza and Marx are painfully aware that no
thought can bring about institutional change and hence try to discover modes
in which a unified form of consciousness, masses for Spinoza, classes for Marx,
may be forged so as to desire change/liberty and be able to bring it about when
the material conditions obtain.
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In lieu of a lengthy conclusion, I wish to focus on what I view as one of the

most remarkable and neglected moments in Marx concerning the real, that
is, materially concrete possibility of emancipation in Germany or the coming
to be of socialized humanity. Toward the end of the Introduction to the
Contribution to the Critique of Hegels Philosophy of Right, in response to the
question of the reality of such possibility, Marx claims:
A class must be formed, which has radical chains, a class in civil society, a class
which is not a class of civil society, a class which is the dissolution of all classes,
a sphere of society which has a universal character because its sufferings are
universal, which does not claim a particular redress because the wrong which is
done to it is not a particular wrong but wrong in general.42
Before proceeding, I want to recall the fact that recht means law, that is, that
real political emancipation is an emancipation of the law rather than of the
abstract subject consciousness. Insofar as Marx claims that the German State
has committed a general wrong, he is claiming that it is an absolutely illegitimate
State, or the State whose negation is the determination of the absolute, that is,
democratic State, or the State whose citizens are subject to no human ruler. But
what is most remarkable about Marxs first discussion of the proletariat is that its
most important aspect is generally ignored with few exceptions (most noted of
which is Balibar), namely that the proletariat never exists, nor has ever existed
as a classit is certainly not the working class. It is a class whose unity as
a single suffering, that is, passion, can only come into being through critical/
intellectual intervention, whose unity is nothing other than the formation of a
single fear and single hope. And as Marx makes clear in a language remarkably
similar to Spinoza, the proletariat does not result from naturally existing
poverty, but poverty artifically produced, [it] is not the mass of the people
mechanically oppressed by the weight of society, but the mass resulting from
the disintegration of society and above all from the disintegration of the middle
class.43 To paraphrase Spinoza, by nature there is no poverty and no class, these
exist only by convention, custom, prejudice, in short, artifice. The only weapon
against prejudice is critique. Lest I be misunderstood about the role of the
philosopher and the power of reason, allow me to quote Marx: It is clear that
the arm of criticism cannot replace the criticism of arms. Material force can only
be overthrown by material force; but theory itself becomes a material force when
it has seized the masses.44
From the preceding, it should be clear that in my view for neither Spinoza nor
Marx is the liberation of politics from religion the emancipation of individual
206
minds from ideology. For, even if individuals are motivated by self-interest and a
single class consciousness, this does not entail that the form of consciousness is
rational or that, once humanized, the human animal, including the philosopher,
ceases to be animal.
Notes
1 A substantive engagement with the absence of Spinozas political writings
from Hegels Philosophy of Right as well as Philosophy of History is as much
a desideratum as it is beyond the scope of this chapter. Suffice it to indicate
that,given Hegels view of the State, the Hebrew Commonwealth was not a
State, perhaps it was even an anti-State, insofar as, despite its elaborate laws,
the identity of its laws with religion, its prohibition on graven images, that
is, its rejection of art, as well as its radically particularistic claims, would
not even qualify it to belong to the kind pre-History to which the Orient is
consigned.
2 Marx-Engels Gesamtausgabe (Berlin: Dietz Verlag, 1972), vol. 1.
3 Steven B. Smith is the exception, although he does not discuss this text, or
Marxs relation to Spinoza. See, Spinoza, Liberalism, and the Question of Jewish
Identity (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1997).
4 tienne Balibar, a careful reader of Spinoza and Marx, explores and emphasizes
this in Spinoza and Politics, trans. Peter Snowdon (New York: Verso, 1998).
5 See Editors Afterwards, in Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno,
Dialectic of Enlightenment, trans. Edmund Jephcott, ed. Gunzelin Schmid Noerr
(Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2002), especially pp. 2437.
6 In the Afterward to the Second German Edition of Capital Marx summarily
dismisses Hegels and Spinozas critics saying: But, just as I was working at
the first volume of Das Kapital it was the good pleasure of peevish, arrogant,
mediocre, epigonoi, who now talk large in cultured Germany, to treat Hegel in
the same way as the brave Moses Mendelssohn in Lessings time treated Spinoza,
i.e., as a dead dog, I therefore openly avowed myself the pupil of that mighty
thinker... . In so doing Marx clearly also pays tribute to Spinoza and Hegel
as philosophical beacons. Karl Marx, Capital, vol. 1. ed. Frederick Engels (New
York: International Publishers, 1967), pp. 1920.
7 The Marx-Engels Reader, 2nd edn, ed. Robert C. Tucker (New York: Norton &
Co., 1978), p. 228, n. 8. Henceforth, MER.
207
8 See, respectively, Marx-Engels Reader, 228n, in which Tucker also immediately

limits its appearance in Spinoza to a letter to Jelles, and thus also minimizes its
centrality in his thought; See also, Cahiers Spinoza, 1 (1977), 728.
9 See Meyers preface to Spinoza, Descartes Principles of Philosophy, in The
Collected Works of Spinoza, vol. 1, p. 227, and Spinoza, Ep 9 to de Vries.
10 Cahiers Spinoza, Matheron, p. 162. Henceforth, CS.
11 Marx, TTP, CS, 36, {15}.
12 The numerous references to the prophets are also direct references to the
Prophets of Hebrew Scripture whose form of speech is ad captum vulgi.
13 Whereas the psychology of the affects, especially primary political ones, fear and
hope, is central to Spinozas political philosophy, it appears to be of little interest
to Marx with the exception of forms of consciousness as they constitute a class.
Although this is a central problem in thinking the making of the proletariat in
Marx, it is clearly beyond the confines of this chapter.
14 Cf. Hegels Philosophy of History, passim.
15 See, Idit Dobbs-Weinstein, The Power of Prejudice and the Force of Law:
Spinozas Critique of Religion and Its Heirs, Epoche, A Journal for the History of
Philosophy, 7:1 (Fall, 2002): 5170.
16 MER, The Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, p. 85.
17 MER, Theses on Feuerbach, p. 145.
18 TTP, XVII/207.
19 Insofar as Scripture remains an extensive force in Hobbes commonwealth, even
if its interpretive authority now rests with the sovereign, it is a modern State in
name only, just as Hegels and Bauers Germany is, according to Marx.
20 See The Power of Prejudice and the Force of Law, op. cit.
21 TTP XVII/207.
22 See E I App.
23 Properly understood, Spinozas radical critique of religion and demand for a
stringent restriction of religion in the State, its radical separation from power,
never assumes that the psychological need for religion can ever be overcome.
On the contrary, to overcome the need for religion would amount to an
overcoming of hope and fear, that is, nature, which, for Spinoza, is absurd.
Instead, by instituting customs and formulating laws, the secular State
redirects the affects, especially fear and hope. Thus understood, the secular
civil State is never the overcoming of religion but its usurpation.
24 Cf. E V Pref.: Nevertheless, the Stoics thought that they [the affects] depend
entirely on our will, and that we can command them absolutely. But experience
cries out against this....
208
25 TP III/49.
26 Awkward as the term natural/civil state may appear, I use it deliberately to

draw a distinction between a form of the State that is secular in form only as
were all European States in the seventh century and arguably still are all nation
states.
27 TTP XVI/188.
28 Spinoza, TTP XVII/196. My emphasis.
29 TTP XVII/195 (Gebhardt, 192). My emphasis.
30 TTP XVI/185.
31 TTP XVI/17980.
32 TTP XVII/205. My emphasis.
33 Ibid. My emphasis.
34 Ibid. My emphasis.
35 Ibid. My emphasis. I.
36 TP, XI/135.
37 Marx, Contribution to the Critique of Hegels Philosophy of Right, The MarxEngels Reader, pp. 1920.
38 Cahier, [142], 86. Marxs emphasis (absent in the TTP).
39 The emphasis here is on may be said to be, since for neither Marx nor Spinoza
does the natural state exist as such.
40 Cahiers, [37] 44.
41 Cahiers, [58] 54.
42 MER, Contribution, Introduction, p. 64.
43 Ibid.
44 MER, Contribution, Introduction, p. 60.
11
Spinoza, Hegel, and Adorno on

Judaism and History
Jeffrey A. Bernstein
Introductory remarks
In his poem I Wasnt One of The Six Million: And What Is My Life Span?
Open Closed Open, the Israeli poet Yehuda Amichai writes the following lines:
Jewish history and world history/grind me between them like two grindstones,
sometimes to a powder.1 To the extent that it expresses the sentiment of Jews
throughout the world, what follows can be understood as a commentary upon
Amichais verse. Indeed, a great deal of the most prescient Jewish thought of the
past three centuries occurs precisely as a result of this dual allegiance to world/
universal history (with its striving for some iteration of perpetual peace) on the
one hand, and Jewish history (with respect either to the fulfillment of divine
promise or the creation of a Jewish State) on the other.2 My contention in this
chapter is that the intersecting thoughts of Spinoza, Hegel, and Adorno provide
a crucial resource for continued reflection upon this issue.
Methodologically, I take as my point of departure Pierre Machereys
insightful attempt at effecting a rapprochement between Spinoza and Hegel:
We shall only be concerned to read Spinoza and Hegel together, that is, one
with the other, but also one against the other, so as to draw out the eventual
elements of divergence as they can appear through their very convergence....
[N]o doubt Spinoza and Hegel talk about the same thingand this is why there
exists a real community of thought between thembut they speak about it
differently, and perhaps even in an opposite wayand this is why, if it is not
permissible purely and simply to equate their philosophical positions, neither
can they be completely separated.3 The beginnings of such a rapprochement
will be attempted here largely by means of reading Spinozas Theological-Political
210
Treatise4 and Hegels Lectures on the Philosophy of History5 together as they

relate to the question of Judaism and history. It is a matter of showing how
their insights relate despite the widely varying philosophical contexts in which
they occur. In Spinozas terms, the aim is to infer correctly the differences,
agreements and oppositions of things.6
Can the same claim be made in Hegelian terminology? Will the otherness of
the two thinkers undergo reconciling mediation? Not exactly. One of the principal
points of this chapter is to show that, in reading Spinoza and Hegel together
nonreductively, reconciliation occurs only as abstraction. Differently stated, my
thesis runs as follows: if Spinozas political history of the Jewish people is thought
within the context of Hegels speculative history of Spirit (where real Jews become
transformed into the figure of the Jews), the outcome replicates Adornos insight
that Auschwitz names the historical and figural reification of real Jews by objective
Spirit. Spinoza and Hegel together point toward a politically and historically
unreconciled Judaism insofar as it is the product of external reification. If Adorno
is correctif wrong life cannot be lived rightly7mediation simply allows one
to better apprehend current socio-political alienation. Adornos thought can thus
be understood as formalizing Spinozas account of real, historical Jews thereby
driving the Hegelian conception of history past its own reconciling tendencies
(at least according to a certain interpretation). In this way, Adorno allows us
to think the simultaneity of Hegel after (i.e., emerging out of ) Spinoza and
Spinoza after (i.e., in light of ) Hegel.
On the poverty and truthfulness of language for history

In attempting to discern the contexts which separate Spinoza from Hegel,
it is important first to articulate why simple preferences for one thinker over
another cannot be what is at issue in understanding the question concerning
Judaism and History. Both Spinoza and Hegel were critical of the ancient
Hebrew Commonwealth. Indeed, on the surface, Spinozas comment that the
fundamental principles of Judaism make the Jews effeminate (effaeminarent)
(TTP III/46; translation modified) appears every bit as disparaging as Hegels
pronouncement that the spiritual self-alienation of the Jews renders them
the most depraved (das verworfenste).8 Despite the tone of these remarks,
both Spinoza and Hegel advocated civil rights for the Jews.9 Were one to leave
the analysis at this level, however, very little about these thinkers would be
Spinoza, Hegel, and Adorno on Judaism and History
211
understood. The pertinent question deals with what exactly differentiates their
apparently similar accounts; what necessitates Hegels transformation of real Jews
into the figure of the Jews such that his criticism and advocacy take on such a
radically different character than Spinozas? I use the term figure (with respect
to Hegel) deliberately in order to indicate that the question of language plays a
crucial role in this transformation of real Jews into the Jews (and therefore,
in the difference between Spinozas and Hegels reflections about history). For
this reason, a brief discussion of language and its relation to historical inquiry is
appropriate at this point.
Figural interpretation, according to Auerbach, establishes a connection
between two events or persons in such a way that the first signifies not only
itself, but also the second, while the second involves or fulfills the first. The two
poles of a figure are separated in time, but both, being real events or persons,
are within temporality. They are both contained in the flowing stream which
is historical life, and only the comprehension...of their interdependence is a
spiritual act.10 When a first event prefigures a second, the concrete particularity
and historical context of both events is de-emphasized in favor of a relationality
the index of which is decisively nonsensuous. Put differently, the spiritual truth
of the events is what gets expressed in the activity of figuration; as such, this
spiritual truth is inevitably universal. For this reason, I use figuration to name
the speculative employment of language in Hegel.
Before turning to Hegel, however, it is important to understand what
conception of language is being transformed in (and rejected by) Hegels thinking.
What is Spinozas understanding of language such that it becomes subsumed in
the Hegelian transformation? Insofar as it expresses thought, the aim of language
(for Spinoza) is to indicate individual things. To the extent that this same language
always refers to universal categories, it is constituted by an inherent limitation,
or (in Spinozas terms) poverty (TIE, 258). Hence, definitionswhether they
have a determinate (extra-mental) object or notalways express individuals.11
That real individual things (as modes) are not substantially distinct from one
another (E IID7) only serves to indicate a double sense to this poverty: not
only does language fail to fully capture the individuality of modes but it also
cannot fix the fluid character of individuals which occur in the modal efflux. For
this reason, hardness cannot refer in (God, or rather) nature to anything other
than this or that hard thing; thus understood, essences (as the ideated content
of definitions) are not metaphysically distinct from the singular existences to
which they refer.12
212
Given his thoroughgoing nominalism, Spinozan history can only indicate

that which is provisional, local, and geared toward what in Hegelian terms would
be called sensuous particulars. If language ultimately cannot help (at least in
one respect) referring to universals, one can nonetheless opt for the intellectual
affirmation of individuals (TIE, 258). And insofar as nature creates individuals,
not nations, and it is only differences of language, laws, and of established
customs that divides individuals into nations (TTP XVII/200), historical
inquiry can only refer to conventions. This point can be differently stated in
the following manner: historical inquiries, when approached correctly, serve
to instruct the reader about specific social-political situations (e.g. the Hebrew
Commonwealth) and their causes. Moreover, if the distinction between the
content of an historical inquiry and the circumstances under which that inquiry
was written are only modally distinct, then the historical inquiry expresses a
specific set of contemporaneous circumstances as wellthat is, Spinozas account
of the Hebrew Commonwealth in the TTP amounts to a moment of reflective
praxis aimed at resisting the attempt by the Dutch Calvinists at instituting a
Hebraic-styled theocracy in Holland.13
But just because the TTP expresses individual events and contexts, this does
not mean that it has to be thought merely contingently. Rather, it is ultimately
reason and intellect which allow the reader to approach the material in the
TTP by means of its causes. As a result, according to Spinoza, people who are
motivated solely by fear and superstitionin the terminology of the Ethics, sad
affectsare ill-suited to understand it. Spinozas concern in the TTP relates,
unsurprisingly, to the specifically religious expression of these affects: I know
how deeply rooted in the mind are the prejudices embraced under the guise of
piety. I know too, that the masses can no more be freed from their superstition
than from their fears. Finally, I know that they are unchanging in their obstinacy,
that they are not guided by reason, and that their praise and blame is at the mercy
of impulse. Therefore, I do not invite the common people to read this work, nor
all those who are victims of the same emotional attitudes (TTP Pref./78). Qua
historical inquiry, therefore, Spinozas TTP is located (one might say) in a gray
areathat is, just the other side of imagination (focused as it is on contingency)
and just this side of the geometrically fashioned discourse of the Ethics. The
TTP is a political intervention in contemporary discourse by virtue of its ability
to narrate concrete individual circumstances which may provoke understanding
in its readers. With respect to (1) the conception of language embedded in it and
(2) the political emphasis in both its content and circumstance, it would not be
wrong to call the strategy of the TTP historical materialism.
213
Hegels conception of language also cannot help directing thought toward

universality. But this does not mean that language, for Hegel, is impoverished;
rather, Hegel views this as its benefit. If it is not yet the house of being ( la
Heidegger), language is at least the house of essence; for Hegel, the universalizing
capacity of language is what allows for the expositor of systematically organized
science (Wissenschaft)or rather, philosophy, to move beyond the mere
contingency of existing sensuous particularity to the essential character of
phenomena: It is as a universal too that we utter what the sensuous [content]
is. What we say is: This, i.e., the universal This; or, it is, i.e., Being in general.
Of course we do not envisage the universal This or Being in general, but we
utter the universal; in other words, we do not strictly say what in this sensecertainty we mean to say. But language, as we see, is the more truthful (PhS:
60). This capacity of language allows for the dialectical mediation of particular
sensible phenomena, and for the self-surpassing of such phenomena, so that
they can become exhibited essentially (i.e. in their truth). To claim that language
inevitably says more than its utterers want it to say, however, is not to claim that
it says everything all at once. Rather, such a claim means that the exhibition of
the truthful and essential character of phenomena happens over timethat is,
historically. Put differently, as inevitably connected with self-conscious, knowing
and expositing subjects, such an exhibition of truth and essence amounts to
stages in the historical development of spirit. The more sensuous particulars
are grasped in their intelligibility and mindedness14 (i.e. viewed in their
universality), the more they are understood as moments of spirits unfolding
process in/as history.
This capacity of language to grasp the universal essence of things over time
Hegel terms speculative. As alluded to above, this employment of language
neither issues in an immediate grasping of the systematic whole (i.e. everything
at once) nor reduces such a whole to the final moment within a developmental
narrative. Its promise is simultaneously lofty and modestspeculative language
promises to elucidate the development of spirit both as development and
as completed whole. However, since spirit has not yet completely unfolded
itself, this promise remains, to a certain extent, something still to be achieved.
Differently stated, the speculative employment of language ultimately refers to
language as a whole even as it concretely occurs in the subject-predicate form
of particular sentences. For this reason, Hegel ceaselessly reminds his readers
that they will misunderstand philosophical thought if they look either for strict
identity between subject and predicate or for a complete presentation of system
at any one time: the matter (Sache) is not exhausted by its goal (Zwecke), but by
214
carrying it out, nor is the result the actual whole, but rather the result together
with its becoming (Werden) (PhS 2; translation modified). This capacity to
refigure, transfigure, and configure apparently disparate phenomena (understood
within the context of the systematic unfolding of the whole) is how language
expresses essence over time. Differently stated, this speculative employment of
language allows for its ordinary, propositional appearance to achieve the goal
of plasticity (PhS: 39) and express the movement of history. It is in this sense,
therefore, that Hegel can hold that [t]he True is the whole (PhS: 11).
If speculative language and thought expresses the universal in the particular,
and if spirit is nothing less than the universal in its intelligible totality (development
as well as result), then speculative discourse carries within itself the function of
showing the spiritual character of phenomenal reality: [T]he task nowadays
consists not so much in purging the individual of an immediate, sensuous mode
of apprehension, and making him into a substance that is an object of thought
and that thinks, but rather in just the opposite, in freeing determinate thoughts
from their fixity so as to actualize and spiritualize (zu verwirkilichen und zu
begeisten) the universal (PhS: 201; translation modified). In other words, the
phenomenon is simultaneously destroyed (with respect to the contingent aspect
of its particularity), preserved (with respect to its essential connection to the
universal), and raised to a higher unity (within the universal). Insofar as this
movement displays the spiritual essence of phenomenal reality, it exposes the
structure of reality as a mediation between universal and particularthat is, as
incarnational. That Hegels thought occurs in a thoroughly Christian context is
generally acknowledged. Similarly, that Hegel understands the Christian religion
to have been (in some sense) superseded by absolute knowing is not a terribly
controversial claim.15 However, because this supersessional movement occurs
through the transfiguration of the particular, doctrinal content of Christianity
into form, Christianity remains operative. The claim here is that Hegels thought
is fundamentally Christian in its form insofar as the incarnational movement
operates throughout his thinking and his conception of reality. It comes as
no surprise, therefore, that Hegel gives the following articulation of spirits
unfolding in/as history: In our knowledge, we aim for the insight that whatever
was intended by the Eternal Wisdom has come to fulfillmentas in the realm
of nature, so in the realm of spirit that is active and actual in the world. To that
extent our approach is a theodicy, a justification of the ways of God (IPH, 18).
Differently stated, the fundamental character (or form) of Hegels conception of
history is religious.
215
In juxtaposing Spinozas impoverished language with Hegels truthful

language, and in showing the respective roles they play in Spinozas political
history and Hegels speculative-religious history, I have thus far traveled an
analogous course to the one covered in chapter six of Karl Marxs The Holy
Family;16 for both courses show that the movement away from politics issues in
religion. Differently stated, Hegels speculative world history transforms Spinozas
political history of Judaism into a necessary (if ultimately inadequate) figure of
spirit. At this juncture, it might be tempting to argue that Hegels conception
of historyas informed by a Protestant incarnational sensibilityis every bit
as particular as Spinozas account. There are two points which recommend
against proceeding thus. First, in transforming incarnational Christianity from a
doctrinal moment to the form of history, Hegel is divesting it of its particularity
in favor of a universality in which all manifestations of spirit would participate;
the argument that a false-consciousness pervades Hegels thinking on this issue
thus loses some force. Second, by arguing against Hegel as if he were simply
mistaken would be to miss the deep and sobering insight of Hegels conception
of Judaism and history. This insight is, to be sure, not immediately evident, but
becomes so through the ensuing rapprochement with Spinoza and the Adornian
development. It may be provisionally stated as follows: the particularity of the
Jews, while crucial in the development of world spirit, has proved an impediment
for the rest of the (Western) world in recognizing them as an authentic and
living people. This is borne out historically by the fact that the offspring religions
have historically had such difficulties in accepting the actuality of Judaism.
Writing in the aftermath of the Shoah and the subsequent attempt to redress
the Jewish question, Herman Levin Goldschmidt puts the point thus: Judaic
studies are compromised without the vital support of the surrounding, nonJewish community, when that community does not take Judaism seriously as an
object of study and rejects Jews as a witness to their own truth, or unconsciously
suppresses Jewish concerns while praising the Jewish past.17
Returning for the moment to the question of civil rights for the Jews, the point
might be put this way: whereas Spinoza favors civil rights for the Jews insofar
as no individual is less deserving of rights than any other (and Jews ultimately
refers to the sum total of individual Jews [TTP XVII/200]), Hegel favors civil
rights insofar as the Jews (whatever else they are) are primarily human beings
(EPR, 295). These distinct positions follow directly from Spinozas and Hegels
respective conceptions of the role which language plays in terms of history. In
recasting sensuous particularity in terms of universality, Hegel transforms the
216
political question of actual Jews into the speculative-religious question of the

figure of the Jews. At this point, I will now show how the differing contexts
yield divergent statuses to largely similar claims made by Spinoza in the TTP and
by Hegel in the Lectures on the Philosophy of History.
Jewspolitical and figural: Spinoza

and Hegel on Jewish history
In his Lectures on the Philosophy of History, Hegel locates Judaism and Spinoza
in the same spiritual epoch/historical worldthe Oriental. The Oriental epoch/
world is characterized by an emphasis on abstract unity: In the world of the
ancient Orient, people do not yet know that the Spiritthe human as such
is free. They know only that one person is free; but for this very reason such
freedom is mere arbitrariness, savagery.... This one person is therefore only a
despot, not a free man (IPH, 21). Spinozas one substance (in which everything
occurs) is simply the conceptual expression of this un-freedom. In his Lectures
on the History of Philosophy, Hegel holds that, [t]his abstract negativity and
complete dissolution, coupled with the abiding of the one [substance], is the
basic characteristic of the Oriental mode of representation...Spinozism is [its]
most general and most customary mode of intuition.18 Since Spinoza relegates
all particular being into the abyss of the One Identity (LHP 163), his thought
expresses both the despotic character of the abiding One and the passive and
contingent character of the finite many.
But does this mean that Judaism (with its intellectual representative in
Spinoza) is simply other to (Western) world history? Not exactly. In holding
that Spinozas thought replicates Chinese philosophy as much as Eleatic monism
(IPH, 70), Hegel quietly prepares his readers for an interesting articulation
of the aforementioned dialectic between inner and outer characteristic of
Enlightenment Judaism. For while Judaism is, as such, located in the Orient, it
also prepares the transformation into the Occident: the idea of Light [as found
in the Persians] has at this stage advanced to that of Jehovahthe purely One.
This forms the point of separation between the East and the West; Spirit descends
into the depths of its own being, and recognizes the abstract fundamental
principle as the Spiritual (PH, 195). The concept of the One emerges from the
Oriental world and makes its appearance by means of Judaism into the West.
Whereas Judaism understands this relation in an unmediated fashionthat is,
217
as a radically transcendent God over and against a radically finite creation

Christianity will develop it (by means of incarnational mediation) into the GodMan figure whose philosophical analog is the systematic union of the one and
the many.
Current Judaism is, therefore, a problematic phenomenon. It serves the crucial
historical function of bringing the Oriental and Occidental worlds together, but
its current iteration resists the incarnational character of the Occidental world. It
is, so to speak, a throwback; it is a strange exclusivity which is literally of another
time and place. This situation of exclusivity is lost neither on Hegel nor on Spinoza,
although their comprehension of it is dissimilar. For Hegel, this exclusivity
follows essentially from their conception of the radically transcendent divinity:
God is known as the creator of all men, as he is of all nature, and as absolute
causality generally. But this great principle, as further conditioned, is exclusive
Unity. This religion must necessarily possess the element of exclusiveness, which
consists essentially in thisthat only the One People which adopts it, recognizes
the One God, and is acknowledged by him (PH, 195). In sharp contrast, Spinoza
views this perception of Judaism as status in statu in political terms: As to their
continued existence for so many years when scattered and stateless, this is in no
way surprising, since they have separated themselves from other nations to such
a degree as to incur the hatred of all, and this not only through external rites alien
to the rites of other nations but also through the mark of circumcision, which
they most religiously observe. That they are preserved largely through the hatred
of other nations is demonstrated by historical fact (TTP III/45). Wherever Jews
live, they are (in a decisive respect) outsiders. Moreover, the fact that they are
both exclusive and excluded serves to strengthen the social and political identity
of actual Jews. For Spinoza, the ceremonial laws and practices serve a decisive
political function in this regard (TTP V/5961).
But is the quality of exclusivity essential to Judaism on Spinozas terms?
Given that Spinozan essence is not different from Spinozan individuals, the
answer would be yes, but not in any universal sense. In his discussion of the
Jews as chosen, Spinoza holds that this only refers to the specific government
of the Hebrew Commonwealth and the society issuing from it: the individual
Jew, considered alone apart from his social organization and his government,
possesses no gift of God above other men, and there is no difference between
him and a Gentile (TTP III/40). In other words, given the conventional
character of all collective identity, nature bestows no greater gifts or benefits
on any one group than on any other. In holding this, Spinoza tacitly secularizes
218
the normative rabbinic view that the Jews are chosen in the sense of being
called to accept the Torah and follow its commandments and prohibitions. This
is essential insofar as it characterizes the actual situation of individuals (which
follows a causal order in the modal efflux) but not in any other sense. For Hegel,
in sharp contrast, this exclusivity is the spiritual shape of Judaism in its emergence
from Oriental despotism and in its subsequent refusal to undergo historical
transformation into the Western world. It is true that Hegels later reflections
on Judaism accord a necessary developmental place for the religion and people
in history and, therefore, lack the severity of his early remarks (where Judaism
is seen, by and large, as something simply different from Christian Europe).19
However, the emphasis on the Jew as pariah remains unchanged.
It is not just the outsider quality which disturbs Hegel. Were the Jews to have
taken a prophetic stance toward the host societyas their forerunners did during
the period of the Hebrew Commonwealthone senses that this would meet with
Hegels approval. After all, Hegel views the negation of natural deities invoked in
the figure of the monotheistic divinity as a genuine historical development: The
Spiritual speaks itself here absolutely free of the Sensuous, and Nature is reduced
to something merely external and undivine. This is the true and proper estimate
of Nature at this stage; for only at a more advanced phase can the Idea attain a
reconciliation...in this its alien form. Its first utterances will be in opposition
to Nature; for Spirit, which had been hitherto dishonored, now first attains its
due dignity, while Nature resumes its proper position (PH, 196). Put differently,
the function of the Biblical prophetic stance is to negate the immanence and
particularity of nature in favor of something higherethics and divine law.
It is, similarly, not simply the fact that Judaism negates nature which is
problematic for Hegel. Rather, it is that Judaism negates without sublation; it
destroys without recomposition; it finds no actual reconciliation with what it
opposes. Judaism, one might say, is death without resurrection. It is precisely
in the rejection of synthesis with the host cultures, that Judaism evinces (for
Hegel) a developmental delay, a particularized moment hypostatized into the
whole.20 It is the slavish adherence to its own laws and customs which leads
the young Hegel to exclaim that The great tragedy of the Jewish people...can
rouse neither terror nor pity...it can arouse horror alone. The fate of the
Jewish people is the fate of Macbeth who stepped out of nature itself, clung to
alien Beings, and so in their service had to trample and slay everything holy in
human nature, had at last to be forsaken by his gods (since these were objects
and he their slave) and be dashed to pieces on his faith itself (ETW 2045).
219
Differently stated, in failing to both (1) reconcile with what it negates and (2)
raise itself to a higher developmental stage, current Judaism occupies for Hegel
much the same developmental status as does art21: it exists as something past.
Judaic alienation from a transcendent divinity is the legacy which Judaism
bestows on world history. In Hyppolites words, It is the destiny of the Jewish
people to live eternally separated from God and men so as to project its ideal
outside of itself through rejection and to have cut this ideal off from life.22 Once
superseded, Judaism has (as it were) fulfilled its mission.
How does one refer to a figure or community which is dead yet (as the British
pop standard goes) wont lie down? In a possible ironic echoing of the opening
sentence to Marx and Engels Communist Manifesto, Leo Pinsker writes the
following in1882: Among the living nations of the earth the Jews occupy the
position of a nation long since dead...the world saw in this people the frightening
form of one of the dead walking among the living. This ghostlike apparition of
a people...could not fail to make a strange and peculiar impression upon the
imagination of the nations. And if the fear of ghosts is something inborn, and
has a certain justification in the psychic life of humanity, is it any wonder that it
asserted itself powerfully at the sight of this dead and yet living nation?23 What
is interesting about Pinskers statement is that, locating as he does the concern
over ghosts within a problematic of fear, he returns the discussion to a social and
political register in the vicinity of Spinozas thought. To say that fear is inborn
is to say that it is natural. The problem of the specter of Judaism is thus recast as
a political problem. And irrespective of how one might view Pinskers proposed
remedy to the problem, this recasting allows for the deeply Spinozan option of
education and habituation away from sad affects toward something like joy. At
the very least, it locates the problem on the societal and political level.
Hegels exposition of the history of the Jews, however, does not constitute a
break within history (although, in some sense, it continues the Kantian attempt
at influencing the direction of history in the very writing of it). That Jews may
be deserving of civil rights insofar as they are essential human beings in no way
affects the essential character of world historythat it is not a place for happiness
(IPH, 29). While it would be wrong to read Hegels remarks to the effect that
history is a slaughter-bench (IPH, 24) in a justificatory manner, it would be less
incorrect to view them as a description of what eventually happens to outmoded
forms of spirit. If the Jews cannot attain the next level of development,
such development will occur in spite of them. From the standpoint of world
history (i.e. from the standpoint which has attained philosophical cognition
220
with respect to history), this in no way devalues the study and understanding
of Judaism. What it does mean, however, is that this understanding occurs on
the hither side of the supersessional movement: However erroneous a religion
may be, it possesses truth, although in a mutilated phase...and a philosophy of
History has to seek out the spiritual element even in the most imperfect forms
(PH, 1956). Again, the resonances with Spinozas thought are strangely clear:
the history of the Jews is to be studied for what we can learn from it. And in both
cases, the lessons of this history have to do with its limitations. For Spinoza, the
social and political history of the Hebrew Commonwealth (plagued as it was by
theologico-political fanaticism) leading to the exclusivity of Diasporic Judaism
teaches the dangers of religious extremism. For Hegel, this same extremism is the
result of an essential developmental failure to incarnationally overcome spiritual
alienation. Again, one sees that it is the respective philosophical contexts which
determine the different trajectories followed by Spinoza and Hegel. Simply
stated, Hegelian history is fundamentally teleological; Spinozan history remains
steadfast in its rejection of final causality. This dichotomy amounts to the
difference between a historical theodicy and one that makes secularized use of
the Judaic ban on divine representation.24
The spiritual alienation characteristic of Hegels Jews finally manifests itself
politically in the problematic nature of the Hebrew Commonwealth. For Hegel,
the Jewish adherence to law and custom in the face of a radically transcendent
divinity exhibits a prosaic type of cognition in which human beings are
understood as individuals with a merely finite existence (PH, 196). To name
this cognition prosaic is to invoke its opposite, presumably the poetic, which
would be the form of cognition appropriate to incarnational mediation as it
expresses (by means of figuration) the universal/infinite in the particular/finite.
This reiteration of the Pauline distinction between the letter and the spirit is now
taken up in Hegels claim that the [s]tate is an institution not consonant with the
Judaistic principle (PH, 197) insofar as the State does not operate in a prosaic
manner. Insofar as, for Hegel, [t]he state is the divine Idea as it exists on earth
(IPH, 42), it systematically manifests spirit in all of its particular aspects and
institutions. Hegel elaborates: [t]he state is the Idea of Spirit in the externalized
form of human will and its freedom. It is in the state, therefore, that historical
change occurs essentially, and the elements of the Idea are reflected in the state
as various political principles. The forms of government, in which the worldhistorical peoples have blossomed, are characteristic of those peoples (IPH,
50). Human will and freedom (subjective spirit) and governmental and societal
221
institutions (objective spirit) are therefore the incarnation of spirit as it occurs

in the specific unified form of the State. To say that this form is not consonant
with Judaism is to mark a failure of Judaism to express the identity of identity
and difference. Mired in finite particularity, even the divine covenants express
nothing so much as an emphasis on the family as the primary organizational
unit (PH, 197). But this organizational unit has quite limited extension: the
internal dissention during the period of the first Hebrew Commonwealth was
a result of an inability to allow the one God to be worshipped in different
Temples (PH, 198). It is, ultimately, the prosaic attitude of Judaism which
brought about the dissolution of the Commonwealth. It is for this reason that
Hegel holds that, properly speaking, no political union existed (PH, 197). This
explanation is perfectly in keeping with the speculative-religious character of
Hegels conception of history. The problem, in other words, is not the relation
between religion and politics (for in this conception, the State has its basis in
religious soil) but rather the essentially abstract and alienated character of this
specific religious formation.
As mentioned above, Spinoza does not view the limitations of the Hebrew
Commonwealth along developmental lines. For him, these limitations are
solely theologico-political. The differentiated structure of governance present
in the Hebrew Commonwealth left the law-making authority in one body (the
Levites) and the law-enforcing authority in another (the Supreme Councils).
Both sides craving power, internal discord ensued. Moreover, the prophets
reacting to the consolidated religious authority of the Levitesintervened by
supporting emergent potential rulers. Insofar as the corrupt character of the
political organization remained, Spinoza holds that [the prophets] merely
succeeded in installing a new tyrant at the cost of much citizen blood. There was
no end, then, to discord and civil wars, but the causes which led to the violation
of the divine law were always the same, and could be removed only along with
the whole constitution (TTP XVII/203). Differently stated, the intrusion of
religion into the structure of governance has disastrous results. This is exactly
the opposite lesson from the one which Hegel gleans; since the Hegelian state
has an essentially religious character, the problem has to do with the religious
formation which can best accommodate the differentiated political character of
the state. For Spinoza, the problem is, in sharp contrast, one of finding a political
formation which can best accommodate the differentiated passions (religious or
otherwise) of the individuals making up the commonwealth. For Hegel, this is
an issue to be solved through evolution and development. For Spinoza (if such a
222
problem is not simply coeval with political association), it is to be solved through

education, habituation, and the formation of government.
In figuratively taking up the history of the Jews, Hegel transforms Spinozas
political history into a speculative-religious one. Thus, as Steven Smith notes, [e]
ven if Hegel shows a greater appreciation for Judaism in his later works...[it]
occupies only a moment in the progress of Geist through history.25 In other
words, Judaism is a moment which does not progress (qua Judaism). It can either
remain what it is (by developmental delay) or, to the extent that it attains societal
form, it does so in the mode of being surpassedthat is, by/as Christianity.
Insofar as Christianity raises incarnational mediation to a conceptual level, it (1)
preserves its essential (if nondoctrinal) integrityit does not become surpassed
and (2) shows itself as the deep structure of Hegelian dialectics. The following
question now emerges: if this rapprochement between Spinoza and Hegel
necessitates a nonreductive dialog between the two, what might this now look
like? More specifically, is it possible to think the concretely political character
of Spinozas history of Judaism within the context of Hegelian developmental
history? Might Spinozan Judaism have attained a societal figure or form (in Hegels
sense)? My claim is that the accomplishment of this is to be found in Adornos
thought. It is to his reflections on Judaism and history that I now turn.
Adornos Auschwitz
If Spinozan history narrates particular natural human associations, and if
Hegelian history explicates the unfolding of spirit within nature (i.e. the raising
of sensuous and particular nature to intelligible universality), Adornian history
amounts to the remembrance of such natural particularity after its eclipse by
spirit. Writing with Horkheimer in the 1940s Adorno states that: A philosophical
interpretation of world history would have to show how, despite all the detours
and resistances, the systematic domination over nature has been asserted more
and more decisively and has integrated all internal human characteristics.26 It
cannot be a matter, therefore, of undoing Hegelian speculative history. Rather,
it is solely a matter of finding the particular after its subsumption in the universal.
For Adorno, the very labeling of natural sensuous particularity as inessential
(as occurs in Hegelian history) signals an attempt by Enlightenment societies
to dominate it. And since (as for Spinoza) nature creates individuals, the
domination of nature constitutes the real problem.
223
While there can be no question of simply returning to such particularity after

it has been eclipsed, it can be mediately approached through memory. Mediation,
for Adorno, provides no social or political reconciliation, but rather heightens
the awareness of present injustice: No universal history leads from savagery to
humanitarianism, but there is one leading from the slingshot to the megaton
bomb. It ends in the total menace which organized mankind poses to organized
men, in the epitome of discontinuity. It is the horror that verifies Hegel and
stands him on his head. If he transfigured the totality of historical suffering into
the positivity of the self-realizing absolute, the One and All that keeps rolling
on to this daywith occasional breathing spellswould teleologically be the
absolute of suffering.27 Adorno inverts Hegels speculative emphasis on the
universal by following (to the letter) his statement about the slaughter-bench of
history, thereby deducing the consequences of universal suffering of particulars.
Put differently, if Hegelian history is itself anything other than an abstraction,
then it must refer back to sensuous particularity. Once this move is made, it
becomes cleargiven that world history is not the place for happinessthat the
legacy of such history is suffering. Hence, it is no exaggeration but rather (again)
a literal reading of Hegelfrom the standpoint of the particularwhen Adorno
states: The expression of history in things is no other than that of past torment
(MM, 49).
Reading Hegel from the standpoint of the negative allows Adorno to focus
on the particular and thus return the discussion to social and political concerns
over and against speculative ones. For this reason, Adorno transforms the
historical focus from spirit in its totality to objective spiritthe institutions
which both structure and emerge from society. It is, therefore, no longer a matter
of attaining systematic cognition of the whole in any positive sense. Such a
conception, from the vantage point of the socio-modal efflux can only express
ideology. It is precisely this which leads Adorno to state that [t]he whole is the
false (MM, 50).
The question now becomes: what is the legacy of the Jews from the vantage
point of the objective spirit of Europe? Does Judaism become a figure for
European objective spirit? Adornos answer is: horrifically, yes. Jewish exclusivity
becomes the principle by which the Jews are excluded: The Jews are today the
group, which in practice and in theory, draws to itself the destructive urge which
the wrong social order spontaneously produces. They are branded as absolute
evil by absolute evil. In this sense they are indeed the chosen people (DoE, 137).
Differently stated, the figurative perception of the history of actual Jews has
224
created a society informed by that perception; Judaism has attained the societal
form of exclusion and destruction. Adorno elaborates: Civilization is the
triumph of society over naturea triumph which transforms everything into
mere nature. The Jews...are pronounced guilty of what, as the first citizens,
they were the first to subjugate in themselves: the susceptibility to the lure of base
instincts, the urge toward the beast and the earth, the worship of images. Because
they invented the concept of the kosher, they are persecuted as swine (DoE,
153). With Spinoza, Adorno emphasizes the ceremonial laws as a structuring
quality of historical Judaism. With Hegel, Adorno emphasizes the negation of
nature through ethics and law as an essential feature of this same history. Finally,
in simultaneously adopting the developmental model and emphasizing natural
particularity, Adorno is able to locate the problem of European anti-Semitism
as a societal reification of concrete Jewish practices now turned back against
the Jews. Put otherwise, Adornos analysis focuses neither specifically on the
Jewish polity (as does Spinoza) nor developmentally on Judaism with respect to
Christianity (as does Hegel). Instead, Adorno locates the particularity of current
Judaism through the lens of dysfunctional societal mediation.
It is for this reason that Adornos thought is able to express what the figure
of Judaism would look like raised to a societal form. This is not to say that
Judaism-in-itself produces this kind of society. Rather, it is in the raising of
Judaism to a societal form that it loses its particularity and becomes completely
for society. For this reason, Adorno can legitimately locate the characteristics
imposed upon Jews as ones historically developed in Judaism without creating
a stereotype. That Judaism developed certain laws or practices has more to do
with social and political circumstances than it does with speculative essence.
That such circumstantial practices get taken as essential qualities is a product of
societal reification. For Adorno, such reification has a direct affect on the reified
subject as well; responding to the question of the spectral and unreal quality
which European societies have bestowed upon Judaism (with respect to [1] the
perception of developmental delay and [2] the extreme psychological opacity
and torment undergone in the Shoah and its aftermath), Adorno provides a rare
autobiographical allusion: it may have been wrong to say that after Auschwitz
you could no longer write poems. But it is not wrong to raise the less cultural
question whether after Auschwitz you can go on livingespecially whether one
who escaped by accident, one who by rights should have been killed, may go on
living. His mere survival calls for the coldness, the basic principle of bourgeois
subjectivity, without which there could have been no Auschwitz; this is the
225
drastic guilt of him who was spared. By way of atonement he will be plagued
by dreams such as that he is no longer living at all, that he was sent to the ovens
in1944 and his whole existence has since been imaginary, an emanation of the
insane wish of a man killed twenty years earlier (ND, 3623). With this, Adorno
yokes together the themes of exclusivity and spectrality under the aegis of
internalization: survival in Auschwitz called for exclusive concern over ones own
survival, and the guilt-effect of such comportment is the dream of becoming a
specter-to-oneself. Auschwitz, for Adorno, thus names both the figural status
of the Jews as societally reified, excluded, dominated, and destroyed, as well as
the internalization of this figural status.
Conclusion
The forgoing analysis misses its mark if it suggests anything like a special
historical status for Judaism. If Spinoza is correct, then Jews are no different
than any other collectivity formed in the modal efflux which is nature. If Hegel
is correct, then Judaism (like all collectivities) can be viewed from a broader
historical perspective as to what it may have contributed to an emerging world.
Adorno reminds us that such historical emergence cannot be thought along
teleological and figurational lines without risking the loss of the particularity
in question. Put differently, an important lesson one might learn from this trios
reflections on Judaism and history is that the speculative Good Friday runs a
continuous risk of ushering in an actual Kristallnacht. And the scope of this
lesson, as unfortunately confirmed on a daily basis, is indeed universal.
Notes
1 Yehuda Amichai, Open Closed Open, trans., Chana Bloch (USA: Harcourt Inc.,
2002), p. 7.
2 I do not mean to imply that Jewish history has always and only been
tethered to particularity. Similarly, world history has not always expressed
universality.
3 Pierre Macherey, Spinoza, the End of History, and the Ruse of Reason, in
Pierre Macherey, In A Materialist Way: Selected Essays, ed. Warren Montag,
trans. Ted Stolze (New York: Verso Books, 1998), p. 136.
226
4 Baruch Spinoza, Theological-Political Treatise, 2nd edn, ed. & trans. Samuel
Shirley (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Company, 2001). Citations refer to
chapter number and page number in Shirleys edition.
5 For the Introduction to the Lectures, see G. W. F. Hegel, Introduction to The
Philosophy of History with an Appendix from The Philosophy of Right, trans. Leo
Rauch (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Company, 1988). For the actual
text of the Lectures, see G. W. F. Hegel, The Philosophy of History, trans. J. Sibree
(New York: Dover Publications, 1956). Subsequent references occur as (PH:
page number).
6 Baruch Spinoza, Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect, in Baruch
Spinoza, Ethics, Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect and Selected Letters,
trans., Samuel Shirley (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Company, 1992),
p.239.
7 Theodor W. Adorno, Minima Moralia: Reflections On A Damaged Life, trans.
E.F.N. Jephcott (New York: Verso Books, 2005), p. 39.
8 G. W. F. Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit, trans. A. V. Miller (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1977), p. 206; translation modified.
9 See Spinoza, TTP, XX/229 and G. W. F. Hegel, Elements of the Philosophy of
Right, trans. H. B. Nisbet (Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press, 1995),
pp. 2956, respectively.
10 Erich Auerbach, Mimesis: The Representation of Reality In Western Literature,
trans. Willard R. Trask (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2003), p. 73.
11 See Letter 9 in Baruch Spinoza, Letters, trans. Samuel Shirley (Indianapolis, IN:
Hackett Publishing Company, 1995), p. 91.
12 Baruch Spinoza, Principles of Cartesian Philosophy with Metaphysical Thoughts,
trans. Samuel Shirley (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Company, 1998),
p.99.
13 tienne Balibar, Spinoza and Politics, trans. Peter Snowden (New York: Verso
Books, 1998), pp. 1822. For a reading of the TTP which emphasizes its role as a
theory of history which simultaneously plays a role in history, see Andr Tosel,
Superstition and Reading, trans. Ted Stolze, in The New Spinoza, ed. Warren
Montag and Ted Stolze (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press,
1997), pp. 14666.
14 Terry Pinkard, German Philosophy 17601860: The Legacy of Idealism
(Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press, 2002), p. 233.
15 This is one way to understand Hegels famous claim in Glauben und Wissen that
philosophy must replace the historic Good Friday with the speculative Good
227
Friday in exhibiting the development of spirit (see G. W. F. Hegel, Faith&

Knowledge, trans. Walter Cerf and H. S. Harris [Albany, NY: SUNY Press,
1977],p. 191).
16 Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The Holy Family, trans. Richard Dixon and
Clement Dutts (USA: Progress Publishers, 1956).
17 Hermann Levin Goldschmidt, The Legacy Of German Jewry, trans. David
Suchoff (New York: Fordham University Press, 2007), p. 242.
18 G. W. F. Hegel, Lectures on the History of Philosophy: The Lectures of 1825
1826Volume III: Medieval and Modern Philosophy, trans. R. F. Brown, J. M.
Stewart and H. S. Harris (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1990),
p.39.
19 See G. W. F. Hegel, Early Theological Writings, trans. T. M. Knox (Philadelphia,
PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1975); subsequent references occur as (ET:
page number).
20 Werner Hamacher, PleromaReading in Hegel, trans. Nicholas Walker and
Simon Jarvis (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1998), p. 50.
21 See G. W. F. Hegel, Hegels Aesthetics: Lectures on Fine ArtVolume 1, trans.
T.M. Knox (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998), p. 11.
22 Jean Hyppolite, Introduction to Hegels Philosophy of History, trans. Bond Harris
and Jacqueline Bouchard Spurlock (Florida: University Press of Florida, 1996),
p. 31.
23 Leo Pinsker, Auto-Emancipation: An Appeal to His People by a Russian Jew, in
The Zionist Idea: A Historical Analysis and Reader, ed. Arthur Hertzberg (New
York: Atheneum, 1984), p. 184.
24 For further development of this aspect of the TTP, see Jeffrey Bernstein,
Aggadic Moses: Spinoza and Freud on the Traumatic Legacy of TheologicalPolitical Identity, Idealistic Studies, 38, 12 (2008): 321.
25 Steven B. Smith, Spinoza, Liberalism, and the Question of Jewish Identity (New
Haven: Yale University Press), p. 193.
26 Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno, Dialectic of Enlightenment:
Philosophical Fragments, trans. Edmond Jephcott (Stanford, CA: Stanford
27 Theodor W. Adorno, Negative Dialectics, trans. E. B. Ashton (New York:
Continuum, 1995), p. 320.
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iek, Slavoj. Organs Without Bodies. London: Routledge, 2003.
Index
Absolute Spirit 77, 924, 99100, 1245,
128, 1389 see also spirit
acosmism 99, 10310, 113, 115n. 35
Adorno, Theodore 1618, 192, 20910,
215, 2225
Afghanistan 157
Agamben, Giorgio 173
Albiac, Gabriel 14, 156, 163
alienation 57, 86, 89, 137, 173, 195,
2004, 210, 21920
all determination is negation see omnis
determinatio est negatio
Althusser, Louis 46, 11, 8396, 173
Althusserian circle 6, 19n. 21, 85
Amichai, Yehuda 209
amor Dei intellectualis see intellectual
loveof God
Anselm, Saint 1045
anti-humanism 4, 173, 178 see also
humanism
anti-Semitism 157, 224
aristocracy 1912
Aristotle 73, 121, 128, 137, 159, 194
atheism 23, 92, 98, 102, 109
attribute 5, 7, 2531, 34, 66, 70, 912,
95,1003, 110, 112, 115n. 36,
134, 171
Auerbach, Erich 211
Augustine, Saint 1201
Auschwitz 210, 2225
Badiou, Alain 19n. 21, 173, 175,
1812
Balibar, tienne 4, 79, 39, 424,
51,56,59n. 2, 60n. 27, 165,
173,205
Balling, Peter 193
Bauer, Bruno 190, 1946, 203
Bible 161, 218
Bhme, Jakob 112, 115n. 33
Bove, Laurent 8, 56, 179
Burgh, Albert 116n. 46

Butler, Judith 1415, 15166, 1734,
17980
Calvinism 194, 202, 212
causation 79, 1112, 14, 29, 313, 447,
71, 934, 1025, 11112, 114,
11921, 1335, 15560, 180, 212,
217, 220
causa sui (cause of itself) 8, 29, 33,
934, 1025, 107, 112, 114
final cause 103, 115n. 32, 220
seealsoteleology
immanent cause 44, 46, 93, 135
seealso immanence
Chinese philosophy 216
Christianity 83, 112, 1201, 128, 1947,
2014, 214, 21718, 222, 224
civil society 1, 7, 910, 558, 67,
87,2015
common notions 46, 51, 136, 145, 158
communism 44
communitarianism 44, 57
conatus 8, 12, 15, 44, 46, 48, 712, 100,
112, 115n. 37, 12130, 1336,
1412, 1457, 148n. 5, 1517,
1613, 167n. 2, 172, 17582
death-conatus 1246, 129 see also
death drive
continental philosophy 3, 6, 15, 170
corpora simplicissima 8, 45, 73
death drive 12, 125
Deleuze, Gilles 3, 5, 19n. 14, 45,
83,133,135, 138, 1467,
151,167n. 4
democracy 1, 1617, 70, 77, 1634,
168n.16, 169n. 19, 189206
Derrida, Jacques 834, 90, 94
Descartes, Ren 2, 48, 90, 101, 1056,
117n. 48, 1924
238
Index
desire 3, 9, 15, 4458, 1212, 1514, 158,

173, 17882, 191
dialectic,
of Hegel 1012, 44, 49, 65, 679,
75, 77, 83, 868, 90, 956, 111,
1457, 153, 166, 222
and logic see logic, dialectical
of Marx 4, 16, 88 see also Marx,
Marxism
of master and slave 2, 4851, 55, 58,
87, 1389, 145, 1734
materialist 4, 869, 189, 1914
seealso materialism
mathematical 10
method see method, dialectical
nonteleological 58
progression 13, 31, 33, 47, 63, 76
of recognition 51 see also recognition
and Spinoza 78, 108, 11011,
117n.48, 153, 171, 192
of the subject 174, 180
dreaming soul 14, 137, 13941, 149n. 12
Engels, Friedrich 88, 219
Enlightenment 12, 4, 16, 23, 216
moderate German Enlightenment 23
Jewish 216
ethics see moral philosophy
Euclid 98, 106, 11112, 193
Germany 23, 128, 194, 196, 202,

205,206n. 6
German philosophy 83
di Giovanni, George 41n. 12
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von 23, 125
Goldschmidt, Herman Levin 215
Greek philosophy 121
Hardt, Michael 163
Harris, Errol 108, 110, 116n. 46
Hebrew language 95
Hebrew State 1617, 53, 56, 189206,
21012, 21821
Heidegger, Martin 19n. 18
Herder, Johann Gottfried 23
Hobbes, Thomas 7, 42, 54, 702, 76,
87,1645
Hlderlin, Friedrich 24, 189
Holocaust see Shoah
Horkheimer, Max 192, 222
humanism 49, 87 see also anti-humanism
Humanist Controversy 87
humanitarianism 223
Hume, David 120
hylomorphism 43, 65
Hyppolite, Jean 879, 174, 219
family 910, 535, 58, 67, 121,

158, 221
fascism 434
Feuerbach, Ludwig 878, 190, 195, 203
Fichte, Johann Gottlieb 23
Fischbach, Franck 49
Foucault, Michel 160, 1727
France 4, 6, 19n. 17, 203
French Communist Party (PCF) 86
French philosophy 83
French Revolution 165
Frankfurt School 16
free will 2, 1112, 637, 11921
Freud, Sigmund 12, 42, 120, 175, 178
Fukuyama, Francis 49
imagination 13, 27, 367, 45, 53, 569,

71, 74, 100, 102, 1369, 149n.9,
1545, 157, 161, 172, 17682,
193, 212
immanence 2, 5, 7, 1012, 29, 33, 35, 37,
44, 46, 51, 75, 90, 93, 95, 110,
112, 135, 146, 1612, 165, 170,
179, 182, 218
individual 2, 4, 710, 26, 36, 427,
508, 6578, 98, 103, 1223,
144, 146,154, 157, 161, 1768,
198, 21112, 217 see also
methodological individualism
intellectual love of God 99, 1012,
115n.32
Iraq 157
Israel 157, 209
Italy 6
Gainza, Mariana 379

Geist see spirit
Genesis 93, 95
Jacobi, Friedrich Heinrich 23, 34, 189

Jelles, Jarig 99, 102, 207n. 8
Jena 24
Index
Johnston, Adrian 179
Judaism 1618, 91, 189206, 20925
Kant, Immanuel 12, 23, 489, 53, 120,
125, 127, 129, 219
Kstner, Abraham Gotthelf 129
Kojve, Alexandre 49, 89, 171, 174
Lacan, Jacques 17380
Lacoue-Labarthe, Philippe 179
language 44, 21016
Laplanche, Jean 179
Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm 70, 71, 76,
103, 105, 129
Lenin, Vladimir Illyich 6, 88
Lessing, Gotthold Ephraim 23, 206n. 6
Levinas, Emmanuel 83
liberalism 4, 424
logic,
dialectical 11, 171
of Hegel 11, 25, 312, 612, 83, 86, 89,
905, 99, 1023, 106, 109, 112, 119
Plotinian 11
transindividual 44
Lucchese, Del 168
Macherey, Pierre 46, 58, 85, 8995, 118,
130, 151, 153, 155, 167n. 2, 171,
181, 209
Machiavelli, Niccol 73
Marx, Karl 2, 4, 6, 11, 1617, 42, 53,
849, 189206, 215, 219
Marxism 4, 17, 19n. 17, 42, 857
Massumi, Brian 177
master and slave see dialectic, of master
and slave
materialism 1, 4, 6, 23, 85, 88, 92, 166,
177, 1914, 212
Matheron, Alexandre 6, 46, 567, 1934,
196, 201
Matheron, Franois 87
memory 46, 48, 56, 60n. 27, 1334, 143,
148n. 5, 223
Mendelssohn, Moses 23, 206n. 6
Mennonites 194
Merleau-Ponty, Maurice 4
method,
deductive 10, 69
dialectical 35, 62, 68, 98
239
geometrical 10, 65, 69, 75, 98101,

1068, 115n. 30, 116n. 46, 135
of Hegel 25, 612, 689, 756
immanent 75
of Marx 194
mathematical 25, 345, 98,
1056
progressive 10, 76
resolutive-compositive 723
of Spinoza 10, 61, 65, 72, 756, 98,
1002, 1056, 115n. 30
methodological individualism 4, 7, 42,
65, 76 see also individual
Meyer, Ludwig 1945
Miller, A. V. 93
mode 79, 1112, 26, 2831, 35, 37,
3940, 45, 92, 95, 99103,
11012, 114n. 30, 115nn. 31,
367, 122, 129, 181, 211, 225
monarchy 70, 157, 191
monism 216
monotheism 91, 98, 218
moral philosophy
of Spinoza 99103, 113, 124,
142, 156
multitude 10, 56, 734, 152, 1635,
168n.16, 178
Nancy, Jean-Luc 149n. 12, 1714,
179,182
natural law 70, 76
natura naturans 117n. 47
natura naturata 115n. 36, 117n. 47
necessitarianism 70, 103, 108, 152,
15860
negation 3, 8, 1015, 2531, 36, 40, 48,
50, 64, 66, 6970, 75, 83, 878,
91, 96, 98112, 115n. 36, 135,
13844, 147, 151, 153, 163, 171,
1734, 178, 182, 2045, 21819,
224 see also negation of the
negation
negation of the negation 10, 19n. 14,
29, 31, 356, 40, 69, 84, 8890,
99101, 103, 105, 10713
Negri, Antonio 6, 19n. 17, 86, 163, 1656,
167n. 4, 169n. 19
Netherlands 192, 194, 202, 212
Nietzsche, Friedrich 83, 126
240
Index
nihilism 23
nominalism 212
Oldenberg, Henry 195
omnis determinatio est negatio 5, 17, 25,
29, 36, 3940, 99, 1023, 110,
192, 194, 203 see also negation
ontological argument 102, 1045, 113,
116n. 39
overdetermination 86, 88, 153
Palestine 157
panpsychism 139
pantheism 24, 98, 175
Parmenides 63
passions 47, 99101, 109, 123, 135,
1445, 17980, 198
Paul, Saint 220
Persia 216
person 9, 29, 646, 76, 98, 103, 105,
10912, 135, 1556
personal identity 133, 146 see also
individual
philosophy of history 3, 1718, 46,
153,191
of Feuerbach 88
of Hegel 18, 62, 64, 68, 77, 89, 119, 126,
12930, 152, 165, 210, 215, 223
and Judaism 20925
phrenology 140, 145
physics,
of Spinoza 8, 73, 156
Pillow, Kirk 139
Pinsker, Leo 219
Plato 112, 122, 128, 197, 203
Plotinus 11
postmodernism 43
proportion of motion and rest see ratio
ofmotion and rest
Protestantism 128, 215
psychoanalysis 15, 172, 174, 176, 1789
Rand, Ayn 42
ratio of motion and rest 456, 71, 1334,
137, 148n. 4, 162, 177
rational choice theory 2, 52
recognition 9, 4854, 58, 66, 1514
reflection 5, 8, 2830, 35, 67, 91, 104,
108, 110
reification 210, 2245

relationality 2, 9, 36, 4055, 70, 76,
1767, 180
resistance 152, 165, 179
Roman Catholicism 196
Romanticism 24
Rosen, Stanley 108, 117n. 48
Rubel, Maximilian 192
Ruge, Arnold 195
Rumsfeld, Donald 141
Sartre, Jean-Paul 4
Schelling, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph
234, 189
Schleiermacher, Friedrich 24
Schmitz, Kenneth 99
self-negation see negation of the negation
September 11, 2001 120, 157, 161
Shoah 215, 224
Simondon, Gilbert 7, 434, 51, 59n. 2,
60n. 18
simplest bodies see corpora simplicissima
Smith, Steven 222
social contract theory 10, 17, 42, 525,
70, 73, 76, 87, 197, 199200
Sophocles 1245
Spanish poet 1334, 1412, 146,
148n.5,162
spirit 37, 614, 778, 83, 87, 925, 98,
105, 109, 121, 12930, 134,
1378, 1401, 143, 1456, 174,
189, 210, 21314, 21819, 2203
see also Absolute Spirit
Stalinism 43
State 910, 17, 42, 523, 55, 578,
678, 74, 77, 1578, 1612, 191,
194206, 220
state of nature 17, 703, 87, 196201, 204
stoicism 145, 198
striving see conatus
structuralism 856, 173
subject 6, 8, 11, 13, 1516, 23, 27, 32,
345, 42, 4652, 557, 65, 67,
89, 93, 98, 105, 10910, 129, 151,
165, 17082, 201, 205, 213
substance 59, 11, 2437, 40, 42, 67, 915,
98103, 107, 10912, 115n. 36,
129, 171, 175, 177, 181,214
suicide 14, 1545
Index
teleology 4, 11, 15, 356, 46, 50, 558,
8991, 98112, 115n. 32, 126,
12930, 153, 155, 160, 1635,
169n. 19, 174, 181, 220, 225
theocracy 53, 578, 60n. 27, 190, 192,
199, 212
theodicy 15, 1523, 214, 220
totality 18, 2930, 32, 34, 39, 423, 66, 77,
83, 89, 104, 115n. 36, 134, 1434,
152, 155, 172, 174, 181, 214, 223
transindividuality 710, 3940, 424,
4753, 568, 60n. 18, 161
Travolta, John 143, 147
Tucker, Robert 192
unhappy consciousness 15, 87, 124,

128,1745
United States 157, 161
universals 15860, 21116
de Vries, Simon 1935
Walter, Ferdinand 1412
Wolff, Christian 129
Yovel, Yirmiyahu 108, 110,
117n. 47, 190
iek, Slavoj 15, 173, 175, 1789
241

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Bloomsbury Studies in Philosophy

Between Hegel and Spinoza

Bloomsbury Studies in Philosophy

Between Hegel and Spinoza

LON DON N E W DE L H I N E W YOR K SY DN EY

175 Fifth Avenue

Introduction Hasana Sharp and Jason E. Smith

The Misunderstanding of the Mode. Spinoza in Hegels

Desire is Mans Very Essence: Spinoza and Hegel as Philosophers

The Problem of the Beginning in Political Philosophy: Spinoza

Part 2 Hegels Spinoza

Hegels Treatment of Spinoza: Its Scope and its Limits

Hegels Reconciliation with Spinoza John McCumber

Part 3 The Psychic Life of Negation

Affirmative Pathology: Spinoza and Hegel on Illness and

Of Suicide and Falling Stones: Finitude, Contingency, and

Thinking the Space of the Subject between Hegel and

Part 4 Judaism beyond Hegel and Spinoza

10 The Paradox of a Perfect Democracy: From Spinozas

Hasana Sharp is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at McGill University,

Ethics Demonstrated in Geometric Order () (Ethica)

If Kant is the widely acknowledged intellectual father of the Enlightenment,

Between Hegel and Spinoza

Between Hegel and Spinoza

doubt a matter of strategy, on the philosophical and political fronts, in a very

Between Hegel and Spinoza

Machereys localization of these points of convergence should, however, give

have to reflect on its own conditions of possibility. Why is it possible to begin

Between Hegel and Spinoza

encounters with others. Within this structure of causality, the individual is

Between Hegel and Spinoza

priority of the institutionfamily, civil society, or the Stateover the individual.

Where Maxwell challenges Hegels criticisms of Spinoza through a patient

Between Hegel and Spinoza

By calling attention to the distinct types of analysis performed by each

Between Hegel and Spinoza

Without dismissing genuine differences between Hegel and Spinoza, Lauer

Between Hegel and Spinoza

the principle Spinoza identifies in a letter (a principle, which, unsurprisingly,

Between Hegel and Spinoza

the juxtaposition of Spinoza and Hegel on the question of Judaism in history

9 G. Deleuze, Spinoza: Practical Philosophy, trans. by R. Hurley (San Francisco,

Between Hegel and Spinoza

23 E. Balibar, Individualit et transindividualit chez Spinoza, in Architectures de

The Individual and

The Misunderstanding of the Mode. Spinoza in

Spinoza in late eighteenth century and early

Between Hegel and Spinoza

Spinozas theory as the system of fulfilled dogmatismexpresses the opinion

This anti-Spinozist stance forms part of the construction of a pantheism in

The Misunderstanding of the Mode

The frequency of the name of Spinoza in the

Between Hegel and Spinoza

Hegel considers Spinozas proposition to be one of universal importance,

The Misunderstanding of the Mode

In the second section of the second chapter (Quantum), Spinozas name

Between Hegel and Spinoza

Hegel proposes to correct Spinozas concept of mode: According to the preceding,

Absolute indifference is the last determination of being before it becomes

The Misunderstanding of the Mode

Spinoza in the Doctrine of Essence of 1813

Between Hegel and Spinoza

Second, Hegel analyses the concept of attribute. In this analysis, he underlines