Althusser and Spinoza

Althusser and Spinoza: Detours and returns makes us see not a pre-existing object (be it Althusser or Spinoza) which we could have seen but we didn’t, but an object which the book itself produced in its operation of knowledge and which did not pre-exist it. This is Sánchez Estop’s synchronic/immanent object: a kaleidoscopic Althusser-Spinoza consisting of “the anti-humanist”, “the reader”, “the structuralist”, “the conjuncturist” and “the aleatory.” – Kiarina Kordela, Macalester CollegeAlthusser and Spinoza shows us with insight and mastery how Spinoza inhabits and determines at every moment the intricate fabric of Althusser’s protean thought. Brilliantly conceived, elegantly articulated and laced with discoveries plumbed from the manifold Althusserian archive, Sánchez Estop’s extraordinary book is essential reading for anyone interested in the postwar French renewal and radicalisation of epistemology, political theory, and Marxism. – Nick Nesbitt, Princeton UniversityIn this first substantial philosophical study of the Spinoza-Althusser connection, lucidly translated by Elise Hendrick, Sánchez Estop shows how Spinoza influenced Althusser’s thinking on not one but at least five different core topics. Employing a fresh and meticulous analysis of an impressive range of texts, Sánchez Estop tells a compelling and original story of how Spinoza’s philosophy guided Althusser in his long struggle to respond to the post-Stalinist crisis of Marxism. In addition to revealing the deep links between the two philosophers, the book provides deep interpretative insights on each of them. It provides a comprehensive understanding of Althusser’s thought in all its polythetic complexity. And it offers an antidote to the common view of Spinoza as an arch-determinist—instead, it shows how Althusser read Spinoza (through Marx) as a philosopher of the aleatory, avoiding determinism without retreating into traditional notions of human freedom. – Alexander Douglas, University of St Andrews

Juan Domingo Sánchez Estop is an associated researcher of the Cercle de Philosophie of the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB). A former student of Universidad Complutense de Madrid, then Professor of Philosophy at the same University, Juan Domingo Sánchez Estop has worked and published on Althusser, Spinoza, Marxism and Materialist Philosophy. He is the author of La dominación liberal (2009), under the pseudo “John Brown”; Althusser et Spinoza, détours et retours (2022); and of a Spanish translation of Spinoza’s Correspondence, Spinoza, Correspondencia completa, (1986) and the Political Treatise (forthcoming). He contributed chapters to Althusser and Law (2013) and Spinoza’s Authority (2017), along with numerous articles on Spinoza, Althusser, early modern philosophy and philosophical materialism. He is a member of the Editorial Board of the reviews Demarcaciones and Décalages, both devoted to Althusserian studies and of the Mexican review Círculo spinoziano. He is also a member of the Directive Board of the Seminario Spinoza de España.

Dan Taylor is a Senior Lecturer in Social and Political Thought at the Open University. He specialises in political theory and British politics. He’s the author of three books including Spinoza and the Politics of Freedom (Edinburgh University Press, 2021), and Island Story: Journeys Through Unfamiliar Britain (shortlisted for the Orwell Prize in 2017). In 2023 he was awarded the title BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinker.

Élise Hendrick is a freelance translator with twenty working languages. Most recently, she completed the first full-length English translation of the overlooked 1909 book The Social Basis of the Female Question by Aleksandra Kollontai. In addition to her work as a translator, she writes political commentary, analysis, and satire. Her writings have appeared in English, Spanish and German.