'Baruch Spinoza' tag archive

In the first few pages of chapter 4 of his Theological Political Treatise (1670), Spinoza defines his conception of the law. 1 In fact, he defines the law twice, first in terms of compulsion or necessity and then in terms of use. I would like to investigate here these definitions, in particular the second one, […]

At strategic points in Reading Capital, Louis Althusser introduces Spinoza’s idea of an immanent cause as the decisive concept that is absent from Marx’s discourse. [1] For the Althusser of 1965, Spinoza’s model of causality is the great missing link in Marx’s thought, a philosophical omission and lacuna of symptomatic force. It explains the whole […]

The Inorganic Body and the Ambiguity of Freedom Andrew Collier The universality of man manifests itself in practice in that universality which makes the whole of nature his inorganic body, (1) as a direct means oflife and (2) as the matter, the object and the tool of his life activity. Nature is man’s inorganic body, […]

ALTHUSSBR’S BPISTBMOLOGY: Ihe limils of Ihe Iheo..y of Iheo..elical p ..aclice PaulPatton concepts and theses which would permit the demarcation of science from other kinds of theoretical discourse. Dialectical materialism, then, was thought to be the philosophical theory Within which the scientific character of historical materialism could be demonstrated. Althusser’s marxist philosophy, however, was no […]

Gilles Deleuze and the redemption from interest Peter Hallward Deleuze writes a redemptive philosophy. In conjunction with its mainly artistic allies, it is designed to save its readers from a situation contaminated by ʻconsciousnessʼ, ʻrepresentationʼ, ʻanalogyʼ, ʻrepressionʼ, ʻlackʼ, and ʻthe Other [autrui]ʼ. Redemption from these things, according to Deleuze, provides immediate access to a very […]

Now I say that mind and anima are held in union with the other, and form of themselves a single nature, but that the head, as it were, and lord in the whole body is the reason which we call mind or understanding, and it is firmly seated in the middle region of the breast. […]

Interview Étienne BalibarConjectures and conjunctures PO: In Spinoza and Politics you set out to show that the relationship between philosophy and politics is such that ʻeach implies the otherʼ. Was this true of your own intellectual development?Balibar: I think so, yes. The two things were closely connected in the circle around Althusser at the École […]

One of the few terminological constants in Deleuzeʼs philosophical work is the word ʻimmanenceʼ, and it has therefore become a foothold for those wishing to understand exactly what ʻDeleuzean philosophyʼ is. That this ancient and well-travelled notion is held to have been given new life and meaning by a Deleuzean approach is evidenced in much […]

Christian Kerslake is perfectly right to characterize Deleuzeʼs project as ʻa philosophy of the absoluteʼ, and in particular as one conceived in more or less direct competition with that of Hegel (ʻThe Vertigo of Philosophyʼ, RP 113). He is wrong, however, to emphasize the fundamentally discontinuous evolution of this philosophy, from an early period supposedly […]

Empire and the multitude A dialogue on the new order of globalization Antonio negri and danilo zolo danilo zolo For a long time I resisted the calls, from many quarters, to publicly debate Empire, the book you co-authored with Michael Hardt, which has prompted a debate of exceptional scope and intensity on both sides of […]

No doubt we all like to think that we think, and many of us would like to know how it is that we think as we do.* It appears that the question has ceased to be a purely theoretical one. It now seems that more and more of the powers that be [plus en plus […]