Marx and the aenigma of Spinoza

Abstract

Marx was an attentive reader of Spinoza’s political philosophy, no doubts. The deeper assimilation took place between 1841 and 1842, in his “democratic” phase that precedes the transcendental moment of Kritik to the political philosophy of Hegel and to the overcoming Republican-Liberalism of Bauer and Ruge. Marx, following the Hegelian method itself refutes the political Spinozism by considering it, not so much a point of view absolutely false, but as not constituting the highest Standpunkt of Liberalism, which is that of Hegel. Refuting the real system, Marx sees Spinoza as content area and as a subordinate moment of Hegel’s political philosophy in toto.

The “nerve refutation” of Spinoza, the attack in his own trenches, takes place in realities by lifting a shot within the same political Hegel. The True Kritik to Spinozism is to recognize his point of view as essential and necessary in the development of Liberalism, which is embedded in a higher and more concrete philosophical and political level, as is the Hegelian Grundlinien. Spinoza can be understood in its entirety, in its limitations and blind spots, through the mediation process conducted by the Hegelian Marx parricide.