When Spinoza Met Marx: Experiments in Nonhumanist Activity

Description

Explores concepts that bring together the thinking of Spinoza and Marx. Karl Marx was a fiery revolutionary theorist who heralded the imminent demise of capitalism, while Spinoza was a contemplative philosopher who preached rational understanding and voiced skepticism about open rebellion. Spinoza criticized all teleological ideas as anthropomorphic fantasies, while Marxism came to be associated expressly with teleological historical development. Why, then, were socialists of the German nineteenth century consistently drawn to Spinoza as their philosophical guide? Tracie Matysik shows how the metaphorical meeting of Spinoza and Marx arose out of an intellectual conundrum around the meaning of activity. How is it, exactly, that humans can be fully determined creatures but also able to change their world? To address this paradox, many revolutionary theorists came to think of activity in the sense of Spinoza—as relating. Matysik follows these Spinozist-socialist intellectual experiments as they unfolded across the nineteenth century, drawing lessons from them that will be meaningful for the contemporary world. https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226822341.001.0001 Contents Abbreviations, Citational Shortcuts, and a Note on Translation Preface Introduction: When Spinoza Met Marx, or Activity in a Nonhumanist Key 1: The Headless Revolution: Heinrich Heine’s Ethos of “Vigorous Repose” 2: Love and Friendship: Berthold Auerbach and Moses Hess on Understanding and Activity 3: When Marx Met Spinoza: Determination, Contingency, and Substance 4: Spinoza against Bismarck, or Johann Jacoby and the Pursuit of Monist Democracy 5: An Ethics of Natural Necessity: Jakob Stern, Free Thought, and German Social Democr acy 6: What Is “Nature”? Georgi Plekhanov and the Dilemmas of Consistent Materialism Conclusion: The Persistence of Vigorous Repose Acknowledgments Notes Bibliography Index