Abstract
This chapter examines the notion of immanent causality developed by Spinoza and Marx. In this causality, effects are not separate from their generating causes, constituting a whole with them. In other words, immanent causality distances itself from a metaphysical conception that supposes there is another world, different from ours (whether it is called the world of ideas or celestial world). The hypothesis sustained here is that—despite the differences between Spinoza and Marx—both thinkers enacted a profound rupture with a transcendent conception of the world (a conception that is currently in expansion). This immanent view has decisive repercussions in Spinoza’s polemic with different metaphysical approaches, as well as in how Marx elaborated his critique of political economy. The chapter closes with a Brief Excursus on Hegel. In it, I argue that even with the explicit religious motifs present in Hegel’s thought (which does not allow us to consider him as a defender of a strong immanentism), he should be recognized for his important contribution—in other aspects—to Marx’s thinking.
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Notes
- 1.
Baruch Spinoza, ‘Short Treatise on God, Man and His Well-Being’, in The Collected Works of Spinoza, vol. 1 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985), 76.
- 2.
Every text is directed to a certain public: this chapter is not aimed only at Spinoza’s readers, but also to that public more focused on Marx’s thinking (which is not familiar with the Dutch philosopher). For this reason, it was necessary to reconstitute here certain steps already known by the readers of Spinoza.
- 3.
Baruch Spinoza, ‘Ethics’, in The Collected Works of Spinoza (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985), I, D. 6, 409.
- 4.
Ibid., I, P. 18, 428.
- 5.
Baruch Spinoza, ‘Theological-Political Treatise’, in Spinoza: Complete Works (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 2002), 453.
- 6.
Baruch Spinoza, ‘Letter 64, Spinoza to Schuller [29 July 1675]’, in Spinoza: Complete Works (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 2002), 918–19.
- 7.
Pierre Bayle, Historical and Critical Dictionary: Selections (New York: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1965), 311.
- 8.
Baruch Spinoza, ‘Letter 55, Boxel to Spinoza [September 1674]’, in Spinoza: Complete Works (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 2002), 901.
- 9.
G. W. F. Hegel, The Science of Logic (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 283.
- 10.
Spinoza, ‘Ethics’, 1985, II, P. 3, Sch., 449.
- 11.
Ibid., II, P. 3, Sch., 449.
- 12.
Spinoza also claims that there are infinite modes (immediate or mediate). His example of an immediate infinite mode of extension is “motion and rest.” Spinoza, ‘Letter 64, Spinoza to Schuller [29 July 1675]’, 919.
- 13.
In the words of G. Deleuze: “All the formally distinct attributes are conducted by understanding to a substance that is ontologically one.” Gilles Deleuze, Spinoza et le Problème de l’expression (Paris: Les Éditions de Minuit, 1968), 56.
- 14.
Albert Einstein, Ideas and Opinions (New York: Crown Publishers, 1960).
- 15.
Lynn Margulis and Dorion Sagan, What Is Life? (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2000), 58, my emphasis.
- 16.
Antonio Damasio, Looking for Spinoza: Joy, Sorrow and the Feeling Brain (London: William Heinemann, 2003). This is not the place to debate whether Damasio’s reading of Spinoza is correct: specialists are divided on this. I mention the issue only to illustrate that while in Descartes’ Error the tone of the book was to point to the outdatedness of Descartes’ hypotheses, in Looking for Spinoza, to the contrary, what Damasio emphasizes is precisely the current relevance of the Dutch philosopher.
- 17.
Spinoza, ‘Ethics’, 1985, I, Appendix, 440–41. As is clear from the quotes presented in this book, the three thinkers analyzed here (Spinoza, Marx, and Darwin) repeatedly refer, in their texts, to “man” or “men.” It is an undeniable conquest of the feminist movement to have attained, with complete justice, a broadening of this designation, convoking us to designate historical and real men and women (as well as all those who do not recognize themselves in a binary sexuality). If in this book the old terminology is maintained, it is due to the obvious reason that it is not up to me to change the passages of texts produced in another historical moment.
- 18.
Spinoza, ‘Theological-Political Treatise’, 400–1.
- 19.
Ibid., 448–49.
- 20.
Baruch Spinoza, ‘Ethics’, in Spinoza: Complete Works (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 2002), I, Appendix, 241.
- 21.
G. W. F. Hegel, Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion, vol. 1 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984), 84.
- 22.
G. W. F. Hegel, Lectures on the History of Philosophy 1: Greek Philosophy to Plato (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1995), 73.
- 23.
Spinoza, ‘Theological-Political Treatise’, 519.
- 24.
Ibid., 440.
- 25.
Ibid., 439.
- 26.
Apud Georges Friedmann, Leibniz et Spinoza (Paris: Editions Gallimard, 1962), 203–4.
- 27.
Baruch Spinoza, ‘Letter 47, Fabritius to Spinoza [16 February 1673]’, in Spinoza: Complete Works (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 2002), 886.
- 28.
Baruch Spinoza, ‘Letter 48, Spinoza to Fabritius [30 March 1673]’, in Spinoza: Complete Works (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 2002), 887. Fernando Bonadia de Oliveira takes a closer look at the reasons presented by Spinoza for declining an invitation to teach at Heidelberg University. Oliveira places the arguments presented in the Letter to Ludovicus Fabritius in a consistent dialogue with other parts of Spinoza’s work. Cf. Fernando Bonadia Oliveira, ‘Por Que Espinosa Recusou o Convite Para Ser Professor de Filosofia Em Heidelberg?’, Trilhas Filosóficas 1, no. 1 (2008): 101–14.
- 29.
Idit Dobbs-Weinstein, Spinoza’s Critique of Religion and Its Heirs: Marx, Benjamin, Adorno (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 82.
- 30.
Ibid., 25.
- 31.
Spinoza, ‘Ethics’, 1985, I, Appendix, 439–41.
- 32.
Ibid., II, P. 48, Sch., 483.
- 33.
Spinoza, ‘Short Treatise on God, Man and His Well-Being’, 87.
- 34.
Cf. Deleuze, Spinoza et le Problème de l’expression; Antonio Negri, The Savage Anomaly: The Power of Spinoza’s Metaphysics and Politics (Minneapolis and Oxford: University of Minnesota Press, 1991); Vittorio Morfino, A Ciência das Conexões Singulares (São Paulo: Editora Contracorrente, 2021); Marilena de Souza Chauí, Política em Espinosa (São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2003).
- 35.
György Lukács, Para Uma Ontologia do Ser Social, 2 vols (São Paulo: Boitempo Editorial, 2010).
- 36.
Spinoza, ‘Ethics’, 1985, II, P. 40, Sch. 2, 478.
- 37.
Chauí, Política em Espinosa, 313.
- 38.
Karl Marx, ‘Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Law’, in MECW, vol. 3 (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 2010), 175.
- 39.
Cf.: Karl Marx, Cuaderno Spinoza (Barcelona: Montesinos Ediciones de Intervención Cultural, 2012).
- 40.
Gérard Bensussan and Jean-Luc Cachon, ‘Spinozisme’, in Dictionnaire Critique du Marxisme, ed. Gérard Bensussan and Georges Labica (Paris: Presses Universitaires France, 1985), 1082.
- 41.
Karl Marx, ‘Economic Manuscripts of 1857–1858’ (Grundrisse), in MECW, vol. 28 (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 2010), 28.
- 42.
Karl Marx, Capital, vol. 1 (London: Penguin, 1982), 422.
- 43.
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, ‘The Holy Family’, in MECW, vol. 4 (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 2010), 125, 129.
- 44.
For a different argument than the one I support here, I refer the reader to the study by André Tosel, ‘Pour une étude systématique du rapport de Marx à Spinoza: remarques et hypothèses’, in Spinoza au XIXe siècle: Actes des Journées d’Études Organisées à la Sorbonne, 9 et 16 mars, 23 et 30 Novembre 1997, ed. André Tosel, Pierre-François Moreau, and Jean Salem (Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne, 2007).
- 45.
Karl Marx, ‘Letter from Marx to his Father, in Trier, November 10, 1837’, in MECW, vol. 1 (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 2010), 18.
- 46.
Cf. Darren Roso, ‘Interview with Michael Heinrich’, Historical Materialism, 2018, https://www.historicalmaterialism.org/interviews/interview-with-michael-heinrich.
- 47.
Cf. Ludwig Feuerbach, The Essence of Christianity (New York: Prometheus Books, 1989), xiii–xiv.
- 48.
Marx, ‘Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Law’, 175.
- 49.
Ibid., 176.
- 50.
It is a controversial issue to precisely determine the point at which Feuerbach’s notion of religious alienation was influenced by Spinoza, considering the ambivalent position of the former in relation to the latter. In the 1843 Principles of the Philosophy of the Future, Feuerbach complimented Spinoza as the “Moses of modern free-thinkers and materialists.” But in the Provisional Theses for the Reformation of Philosophy, of the same year, Feuerbach assumed the predominant Hegelian interpretation that the Spinozan substance lacks reflection, and referred pejoratively to it as “this dead and phlegmatic thing.” Cf. Ludwig Feuerbach, The Fiery Brook: Selected Writings (London: Verso, 2012), pages 196 and 154, respectively.
- 51.
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, ‘The German Ideology’, in MECW, vol. 5 (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 2010), 39.
- 52.
Ibid., 40.
- 53.
Marx, Capital, 284.
- 54.
Karl Marx, ‘Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844’, in Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 and the Communist Manifesto (New York: Prometheus Books, 1988), 110.
- 55.
Marx, Capital, 644.
- 56.
Ibid., 290.
- 57.
Ibid., 268–69.
- 58.
To avoid misunderstandings, it would also not be correct to affirm that Spinoza’s causality is linear: the infinito causarum nexu (infinite connection of causes) does not allow an understanding of this nature. On the other hand, I maintain that the incorporation of contradiction into the theory of causality is in fact a distinctive feature of Marx.
- 59.
Further indications of Marx’s adoption of a dialectical view of causality can be found in Value, Price and Profit. This text warns workers of the limits of a struggle purely over wages. “they are fighting with effects, but not with the causes of those effects; that they are retarding the downward movement, but not changing its direction; that they are applying palliatives, not curing the malady” Karl Marx, ‘Value, Price and Profit’, in MECW, vol. 20 (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 2010), 148.
- 60.
Marx, ‘Economic Manuscripts of 1857–1858’, 31, my emphasis.
- 61.
Marx, Capital, 209.
- 62.
Karl Marx, ‘Wage Labour and Capital’, in MECW, vol. 9 (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 2010), 224.
- 63.
Marx, Capital, 255.
- 64.
“Even Marx’s theory of value pays its dues to this metaphysical tradition.” Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, Empire (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2001), 355. The authors state that we live in “a new regime of production.” Ibid., 205.
- 65.
I refer readers particularly to the articles of the excellent dossier on immaterial labor organized by Henrique Amorim, ‘Dossiê – O Trabalho Imaterial em Discussão: Teoria e Política’, Caderno CRH 27, no. 70 (January/April 2014), 35–37. Amorim argues that, for not having sufficient clarity about the category of abstract labor in Marx, the defenders of the centrality of immaterial labor (including Negri, Gorz and Lazzarato) confuse distinct levels of theorization in political economy.
- 66.
Marx, ‘Economic Manuscripts of 1857–1858’, 41–42.
- 67.
In the formulation of Capital, the common substrate of the different forms of human labor is the fact that they are “a productive expenditure of human brains, muscles, nerves, hands etc.” Marx, Capital, 134.
- 68.
Ibid., 151.
- 69.
Ibid., 152.
- 70.
Marx, ‘Economic Manuscripts of 1857–1858’, 43.
- 71.
Karl Marx, ‘Letter to Ferdinand Lassalle, February 22, 1858’, in MECW, vol. 40 (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 2010), 270.
- 72.
Marx, Capital, 929.
- 73.
Karl Marx, ‘The Civil War in France’, in MECW, vol. 22 (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 2010), 335.
- 74.
“To conquer political power has therefore become the great duty of the working classes.” Karl Marx, ‘Inaugural Address of the Working Men’s International Association’, in MECW, vol. 20 (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 2010), 12.
- 75.
Ibid., 11.
- 76.
Spinoza, ‘Theological-Political Treatise’, 388.
- 77.
Hegel, The Science of Logic, 283.
- 78.
Pierre Macherey, Hegel or Spinoza (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2011), 12. In the 1990 Preface to the second edition of the same work, Macherey offers a more nuanced view of the relationship between Hegel and Spinoza, as if inviting his readers to mitigate the harshness of his earlier comments. He even feels obliged to make a long comment—not very persuasive—to claim that the conjunction “or” in the title of his book (Hegel or Spinoza) does not have an exclusionary meaning. Cf. Ibid., 4–6. But it is impossible not to wonder why this explanation was not made somewhere in the 250 pages of the first edition.
- 79.
Negri, The Savage Anomaly, 140–41.
- 80.
Ibid., 71.
- 81.
Ibid., 261.
- 82.
Marx, Capital, 102–3.
- 83.
Jason Read, ‘Beginnings Without Ends: A Review of Pierre Macherey, Hegel or Spinoza’, New APPS: Art, Politics, Philosophy, Science, 10 January 2012, https://www.newappsblog.com/2012/01/jason-read-reviews-the-new-translation-of-pierre-macherey-hegel-or-spinoza.html.
- 84.
Mariana de Gainza, ‘Spinoza: Uma Filosofia Materialista do Infinito Positivo’ (Doctoral thesis, Programa de Pós-graduação em Filosofia Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas da Universidade de São Paulo, 2008), 197.
- 85.
Spinoza, ‘Ethics’, 1985, III, P. 4, 498.
- 86.
Hegel, The Science of Logic, 382–83.
- 87.
Marx, Capital, 531.
- 88.
Hegel, The Science of Logic, 92.
- 89.
Marx, ‘Economic Manuscripts of 1857–1858’, 197.
- 90.
Ricardo Antunes and Ruy Braga, Infoproletários: Degradação Real do Trabalho Virtual (São Paulo: Boitempo, 2009).
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Vieira Martins, M. (2022). Spinoza and Marx: Thinkers of Immanence. In: Marx, Spinoza and Darwin. Marx, Engels, and Marxisms. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-13025-0_2
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