HEGEL AND SPINOZA Series Editors Slavoj Žižek Adrian Johnston Todd McGowan diaeresis H E G E L A N D S P I N O Z A Substance and Negativity Gregor Moder Foreword by Mladen Dolar Northwestern University Press Evanston, Illinois Northwestern University Press www .nupress .northwestern .edu Copyright © 2017 by Northwestern University Press. Published 2017. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data Names: Moder, Gregor, 1979– author. | Dolar, Mladen, writer of foreword. Title: Hegel and Spinoza : substance and negativity / Gregor Moder. Other titles: Hegel in Spinoza. English | Diaeresis. Description: Evanston, Illinois : Northwestern University Press, 2017. | Series: Diaeresis | Based in part on Hegel in Spinoza : substanca in negativnost. Ljubljana : Društvo za teoretsko psihoanalizo, 2009; translated from Slovenian by the author—Email from publisher. Identifiers: LCCN 2017016865 | ISBN 9780810135420 (cloth : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780810135413 (pbk. : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780810135437 (e-book) Subjects: LCSH: Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, 1770–1831. | Spinoza, Benedictus de, 1632–1677. | Negativity (Philosophy) | Substance (Philosophy) Classification: LCC B2949.N4 M6313 2017 | DDC 193—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017016865 Contents Acknowledgments vii Foreword: Hegel or Spinoza? Yes, Please! ix Mladen Dolar Note on Sources and Abbreviations xiii Introduction. Hegel and Spinoza: The Question of Reading 3 1 Hegel’s Logic of Pure Being and Spinoza 16 2 History Is Logic 37 3 Telos, Teleology, Teleiosis 59 4 Death and Finality 82 5 Ideology and the Originality of the Swerve 104 Conclusion. Substance and Negativity: The Primacy of Negativity 121 Notes 147 Bibliography 167 Index 173 Acknowledgments This book would not have been possible without the incessant inspira- tion I received from conversations with many colleagues and friends. I am indebted to, among many others, Andrew Cole, Mirt Komel, Pierre Macherey, Catherine Malabou, Jamila M. H. Mascat, Robert Pfaller, Slavoj Žižek, and Alenka Zupančič; to the international community at the for- mer Jan van Eyck Academy in Maastricht, the Netherlands, as well as to the group of friends of German Idealism gathered at the Aufhebung Association in Ljubljana, Slovenia; and above all to Mladen Dolar, who carefully read and generously commented on earlier drafts. I learned a great deal from all of them. The majority of the research for this project was funded by University of Ljubljana, for which I am eternally grateful. And finally, I would like to thank everyone who helped in preparing the manuscript for publication, to Adrian Johnston, Todd McGowan, and Slavoj Žižek; and to Nathan MacBrien, who led me through the process with great kindness and absolute professionalism. vii Foreword: Hegel or Spinoza? Yes, Please! Mladen Dolar At a famous spot in the lectures on the history of philosophy Hegel em- phatically proclaimed: “Either Spinozism or no philosophy at all” (Ent- weder Spinozismus oder keine Philosophie).1 It is true that Hegel, in the pictur- esque dramaturgy of his lectures given to an enthralled audience, never missed a chance to praise or scold, often exaggerating in the heat of the moment, yet he nonetheless never said anything quite like this about anyone else. If one truly wants to be a philosopher then one has to be a Spinozist; one must embrace Spinoza’s courage and audacity of thinking; one has to espouse the speculative stance of the unity of thinking and being. More than that, one has to engage with thinking which is at the same time a production of being and not merely a reflection of some- thing supposedly existing before and outside of thought. Not only engag- ing with the absolute, but also producing the absolute. Spinoza is thus presented as the touchstone of any modern thought, the decisive entry into philosophy and the prospect of its highest reach. And yet within the same dramaturgical move typical of the lectures, this high praise is trans- formed into a sharp criticism over the course of only a few sentences: the audacious journey got stuck already at the very first step; Spinoza’s sub- stance, so courageously proposed in the beginning, is stuck in its rigidity, remaining within the boundaries of understanding (Verstand), unable to reach the realm of reason (Vernunft). It is bereft of all movement and change because it lacks the inner driving force of negativity: Understand- ing deals with determinations that do not contradict each other. Negation is simple determinateness. Negation of negation, however, is contradic- tion, it negates the negation; thus it is affirmation, but at the same time also negation as such. This contradiction is something that understand- ing cannot endure; it pertains to reason. This is the point that is lacking in Spinoza, this is his shortcoming.2 For Hegel, negativity is precisely the speculative lever that enables us to think the life of the absolute; it is the way by which every substantial determination necessarily passes over into its other and thereby loses itself; it loses its self- identity, it negates itself, it progresses through the persistent movement of self- referential negation, “negation of negation.” ix