Although one of the most important reference points for the structuralist and poststructuralist movements in France, Spinoza continues to receive little attention from scholars in Britain and the US. The notorious difficulty of his work, together with the paucity of adequate commentary, has rendered him all but inaccessible, impeding our understanding of the movements that have so influenced our thinking. This book seeks to show, against the grain of English language commentary, that Spinoza is neither a Cartesian nor a liberal but precisely the most thoroughgoing materialist in the history of philosophy. The work begins by examining Spinoza's notion of the materiality of writing, a notion developed through his examination of Scripture. It then postulates the two fundamental principles of Spinoza's philosophy: there can be no liberation of the mind without a liberation of the body, and no liberation of the individual without a collective liberation.

Warren Montag is an Associate Professor of English at Occidental College in Los Angeles. He is the author of The Unthinkable Swift, co-editor of Masses, Classes and the Public Sphere (both from Verso), and editor of the collection The New Spinoza..

Praise for Warren Montag's, The Unthinkable Swift:

“Provocatively challenging and daring” — Carole Fabricant, Eighteenth-Century Fiction

Cloth
1 85984 701 3
£22 / US$35 / CAN$45