Spinoza in Post-Marxist Philosophy - (Spinoza Studies) by Katja Diefenbach (Hardcover)

About the Book

Revises continental philosophy's portrayals of the relationships between matter, affect, thought and the power of the multitude.

Book Synopsis

The book begins from the insight that very few seventeenth-century philosophers have received more antithetical interpretations than Baruch de Spinoza. He has been regarded as an atheist and a rationalist, as a pantheist and a vitalist, as a Jewish critic of religion and a great thinker in the Marrano tradition. In the twentieth century, however, Spinoza was conceived as a materialist who was strikingly ahead of his time, providing Marxism with concepts of overdetermined dialectics, plural temporality and nonteleological praxis.

Beginning with Althusser's interest in the concept of immanent causality, the book reconstructs post-Marxist readings of Spinoza from Negri to Balibar, Matheron to Tosel, and Gueroult to Deleuze. It examines how these authors adapt Spinoza's unconventional doctrines of the differentiality of being, the self-forming capacity of matter, the excess of the positive affects, and the multitude's power of self-government. The book fundamentally revises continental philosophy's portrayals of the relationships between matter, affect, thought, and the multitude.

Review Quotes

None other than Hegel famously proclaimed: 'You have to be a Spinozist or you are not a philosopher.' Coming from Hegel, Spinoza's harsh critic, the admission testifies to the towering status of Spinoza's thought, to the point that in the subsequent history it presented a formidable alternative to the legacy of Hegelian dialectic. Katja Diefenbach's book meticulously researches the impact of Spinozist thought in the twentieth century, particularly its political implications, discussing all its major proponents from Althusser to Negri, from Gueroult to Balibar, from Derrida to Deleuze above all, and many more. But this is not merely a scholarly work, notwithstanding its thorough and awe-inspiring scholarship, this is a passionate plea for Spinoza as a source for a reinvention of politics for our times.--Mladen Dolar, University of Ljubljana

While there have been multiple books published on Spinozist Marxism, Diefenbach's is the first to consider the entirety of the different interpretations, encompassing Althusser, Negri, and others. In doing so she demonstrates how much Spinoza is a provocative and productive point of reference for contemporary philosophy and politics.--Jason Read, University of Southern Maine

Exegetically rigorous and boldly argued, this book is one of the finest contributions to recent German-language Spinoza scholarship and a notable essay in contemporary Spinozist Marxism. It has had a substantial influence on the German academic discussion, and its translation is certain to captivate a discerning international readership.--Martin Saar, Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main