Marx with Spinoza: Production, Alienation, History

by Franck Fischbach, Jason Read (Translator)

Overview

Spinoza and Marx would seem to be two very opposed philosophers. Spinoza was interested in contemplating eternal truths of nature while Marx was interested in the history of capital.
Franck Fischbach suggests that by reading the two together we may better understand both history and nature, as well as ourselves, making possible a new understanding of human nature. Rather than see history and nature as opposed, history is nothing but the constant transformation of nature.
Central to this transformation is a new understanding of alienation not as loss of the self in a world of objects, but as loss of objects in a world that disconnects us from nature and social relations, leaving us isolated as a subject. The isolated individual, the kingdom within a kingdom, as Spinoza put it, is not the condition of our liberation but the basis of our subjection.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781399507677
Publisher:	Edinburgh University Press
Publication date:	02/28/2025
Series:	Spinoza Studies
Pages:	160
Product dimensions:	5.43(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.00(d)

Table of Contents

Reference Conventions

Preface to the Second Edition

Introduction: Spinoza, Marx and the Politics of Liberation　

1. Marxism and Spinozism
2. Pars Naturae
3. Enduring Social Relations
4. The Identity of Nature and History
5. With Respect to Contradiction
6. The Secondary Nature of the Consciousness of Self
7. Subjectivity and Alienation (or the Impotence of the Subject)
8. The Factory of Subjectivity
9. Pure and Impure Activity

Conclusion: Metaphysics and Production

Appendix: The Question of Alienation: Frédéric Lordon, Marx and Spinoza

Works Cited

Editorial Reviews

By employing Spinoza as a lens or filter for rereading Marx, Fischbach’s wonderfully lucid analysis not only demonstrates how much the two thinkers share foundational philosophical arguments but also casts a new light to illuminate Marx’s work as a whole.

Duke University Michael Hardt

Fischbach’s book provides a crucial counterbalance against the presumed affinity between Marx’s later works and Spinoza’s monist metaphysics.

Marx and Philosophy Review of Books - Kenneth Novis

Twentieth-century Marxism has often turned to Spinoza to breathe new life into Marx's thought (think of Louis Althusser and Antonio Negri). In a similar vein, Franck Fischbach offers us an astonishing new reading of Marx's 1844 Manuscripts in the light of Spinoza, simultaneously generating an original reading of Spinoza in the light of Marx. At the intersection of these two interpretive movements lies a novel conception of alienation, which, in Fischbach's hands, becomes a sharp theoretical tool for reading the present.

University of Milan-Bicocca Vittorio Morfino