"How did Baruch Spinoza, the seventeenth-century Dutch-Jewish philosopher, become a nineteenth-century German Marxist? It is on its face an unlikely development. 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. Further, Spinoza criticized all teleological ideas as anthropomorphic fantasies, while Marxism came to be associated expressly with teleological historical development. Yet socialists of the German nineteenth century were 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 about the meaning of activity. How is it, exactly, that humans can be fully determined creatures - creatures in nature and governed by causal laws of nature - and also able to change their world? To address this seeming paradox, many revolutionary theorists scrapped the idea of activity as something autonomous humans do when they assert themselves against nature and its causal laws. Thinking with Spinoza, they came to think of activity instead as relating - as the state of relations between humans and between humans and the non-human world. Matysik follows these Spinozist-socialist intellectual experiments in the meaning of activity that unfolded across the nineteenth century, drawing lessons from them that may be meaningful for the environmental-justice issues confronting the contemporary world"--

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.

Reforming the Moral Subject explores a movement known as "ethics reform" that flourished in Central Europe between 1890 and 1930. Tracie Matysik examines the works of German-speaking intellectuals and activists-moral philosophers, sociologists, legal theorists, pedagogy specialists, psychoanalysts, sexual liberationists, and others-who discovered in the language of ethics a means to revitalize the public sphere. Ethics reformers used the academic field of moral philosophy to contest public- and state-sponsored rhetoric that they thought equated "morality" with national loyalty, religious tradition, and repressive sexual mores. They founded organizations and periodicals, circulated brochures, and hosted lectures and conferences, all aimed at rethinking ethics for a secular modernity. Arising in a context sharply influenced by materialism, Darwinism, and the advent of sexology, ethics debates gradually focused not surprisingly on the role of sexuality in definitions of ethics and of the moral subject. Intellectuals and activists came to agree that sexuality was central to the formation of the moral subject. Some viewed the moral subject as that individual who had learned to suppress sexual drives, while others saw sexual drives and sexual autonomy as the source of moral energy and sentiment. The association of sexuality with a wide and variegated discussion of ethics made the sexualized moral subject an open concept that could not be fully regulated, confined, or conflated with national identities. Matysik's compelling intellectual and cultural history of ethics and moral subjectivity reframes the nature of German liberalism and intellectual activism from the end of the nineteenth century until the interwar period.

Spinoza in Germany presents fifteen newly commissioned essays by a distinguished set of international experts examining the legacy and influence of Spinoza on German thought in the long nineteenth century. The focus on Spinoza's influence illuminates both the nature of his philosophical contribution, as well as novel aspects of the philosophical lineage from idealism to Marxism, psychoanalysis, and beyond. The chapters are at the cutting edge of research on modern German thought, not only concerning canonical figures like Herder, Kant, and Marx, but also thinkers whose importance has since been neglected such as Salomon Maimon and Lou Salom?.

French philosophy is an internationally celebrated national philosophical tradition, and this Oxford Handbook offers a comprehensive approach to its history since 1800. The Handbook features essays written by renowned international specialists, illuminating key movements and positions, themes and thinkers in nineteenth-, twentieth- and even twenty-first-century French philosophy. The volume takes into account developments in recent historical scholarship by broadening the notion of Modern French Philosophy in two ways. Whereas recent approaches in the field have often ignored early nineteenth-century developments, this volume offers comprehensive treatment of French thought of this period in order to grasp better later developments. Moreover, the volume extends the canon at the other end of the period of Modern French Philosophy by including work on philosophers who have come to prominence only in the last ten or twenty years. The volume takes 'French philosophy' in a broad sense to include all philosophy carried out in France over the last 200 years, and it illuminates the institutional and cultural background of this national philosophical tradition in such a way as to provide a fuller and more comprehensive understanding of its unity and of its more famous moments in the twentieth century.

There have been many Spinozas over the centuries: atheist, romantic pantheist, great thinker of the multitude, advocate of the liberated individual, and rigorous rationalist. The common thread connecting all of these clashing perspectives is Spinoza’s naturalism, the idea that humanity is part of nature, not above it. In this sophisticated new interpretation of Spinoza’s iconoclastic philosophy, Hasana Sharp draws on his uncompromising naturalism to rethink human agency, ethics, and political practice. Sharp uses Spinoza to outline a practical wisdom of “renaturalization,” showing how ideas, actions, and institutions are never merely products of human intention or design, but outcomes of the complex relationships among natural forces beyond our control. This lack of a metaphysical or moral division between humanity and the rest of nature, Sharp contends, can provide the basis for an ethical and political practice free from the tendency to view ourselves as either gods or beasts. Sharp’s groundbreaking argument critically engages with important contemporary thinkers—including deep ecologists, feminists, and race and critical theorists—making Spinoza and the Politics of Renaturalization vital for a wide range of scholars.

Why do people work for other people? This seemingly naïve question is at the heart of Lordon's argument. To complement Marx's partial answers, especially in the face of the disconcerting spectacle of the engaged, enthusiastic employee, Lordon brings to bear a "Spinozist anthropology" that reveals the fundamental role of affects and passions in the employment relationship, reconceptualizing capitalist exploitation as the capture and remolding of desire. A thoroughly materialist reading of Spinoza's Ethics allows Lordon to debunk all notions of individual autonomy and self-determination while simultaneously saving the ideas of political freedom and liberation from capitalist exploitation. Willing Slaves of Capital is a bold proposal to rethink capitalism and its transcendence on the basis of the contemporary experience of work.

Essays on Judaism in the modern world, from philosophy and history to art and politics In these essays Deutscher speaks of the emotional heritage of the European Jew with a calm clear-sightedness. As a historian he writes without religious belief, but with a generous breadth of understanding; as a philosopher he writes of some of the great Jews of Europe: Spinoza, Heine, Marx, Trotsky, Luxemburg, and Freud. He explores the Jewish imagination through the painter Chagall. He writes of the Jews under Stalin and of the “remnants of a race“ after Hitler, as well as of the Zionist ideal, of the establishment of the state of Israel, of the Six-Day War, and of the perils ahead.

What was German modernity? What did the years between 1880 and 1930 mean for Germany's navigation through a period of global capitalism, imperial expansion, and technological transformation? German Modernities From Wilhelm to Weimar brings together leading historians of the Imperial and Weimar periods from across North America to readdress the question of German modernities. Acutely attentive to Germany's eventual turn towards National Socialism and the related historiographical arguments about 'modernity', this volume explores the variety of social, intellectual, political, and imperial projects pursued by those living in Germany in the Wilhelmine and Weimar years who were yet uncertain about what they were creating and which future would come. It includes varied case studies, based on cutting-edge research, which rethink the relationship of the early 20th century to the rise of Nazism and the Third Reich. A range of political, social and cultural issues, including citizenship, welfare, empire, aesthetics and sexuality, as well as the very nature of German modernity, are analyzed and placed in a global context. German Modernities From Wilhelm to Weimar is a book of vital significance to all students of modern German history seeking to further understand the complex period from 1880 to 1930.

Illuminates the culture and worldview of socialist secularism and its impact on German history between the Kaiserreich and the Third Reich.