Spinoza's Critique of Religion and its Heirs
Marx, Benjamin, Adorno

This book sheds new light on those who inherit Spinoza's thought and its consequences materially rather than metaphysically.

Idit Dobbs-Weinstein (Author)

9781107094918, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 17 June 2015

290 pages
21.6 x 14 x 2.1 cm, 0.48 kg

'This signal intervention demonstrates Spinoza's profound significance for Marx, Benjamin and Adorno. In a striking tour-de-force, Dobbs-Weinstein shows how many of the critical motives in Marx, Benjamin and Adorno gain their full thrust when seen in the context of the seminal role Spinoza plays in Marx and how the engaged and intense discussions between Benjamin and Adorno bear out the critical force of this legacy. Dobbs-Weinstein's book is an engagingly argued study that highlights the deep and hidden but decisive presence of Spinoza's thought in critical theory.' Willi Goetschel, University of Toronto

Spinoza's heritage has been occluded by his incorporation into the single, western, philosophical canon formed and enforced by theologico-political condemnation, and his heritage is further occluded by controversies whose secular garb shields their religious origins. By situating Spinoza's thought in a materialist Aristotelian tradition, this book sheds new light on those who inherit Spinoza's thought and its consequences materially and historically rather than metaphysically. By focusing on Marx, Benjamin, and Adorno, Idit Dobbs-Weinstein explores the manner in which Spinoza's radical critique of religion shapes materialist critiques of the philosophy of history. Dobbs-Weinstein argues that two radically opposed notions of temporality and history are at stake for these thinkers, an onto-theological future-oriented one and a political one oriented to the past for the sake of the present or, more precisely, for the sake of actively resisting the persistent barbarism at the heart of culture.

Introduction: whose history, which politics?
1. The theologico-political construction of the philosophical tradition
2. The paradox of a perfect democracy: from Spinoza's Theologico-Political Treatise to Marx
3. Judgment Day as repudiation: history and justice in Marx, Benjamin, and Adorno
4. Destitute life and the overcoming of idolatry: dialectical image, archaic fetish in Benjamin's and Adorno's conversation
5. Untimely timeliness: history, the possibility of experience, and critical praxis
Afterword: the possibility of political philosophy now.

Subject Areas: Jewish studies [JFSR1], History of ideas [JFCX], Religion & politics [HRAM2], Philosophy of religion [HRAB], Religion & beliefs [HR], Social & political philosophy [HPS], History of Western philosophy [HPC], Philosophy [HP], History [HB], Theory of art [ABA]