Towards a Marxist Reading of Spinoza

This volume is the first English-language translation of Jean-Toussaint Desanti­, a major author of post-war French philosophy. He had a considerable influence on other key figures of French philosophy, particularly Louis Althusser, Étienne Balibar and Gilles Deleuze. Desanti's detailed analyses of the rationalist philosophy of Spinoza – divorced from its former politicisation – demonstrate the relationship between a current of ideas and the economic and social reality within which it develops. He questions what the application of the method of historical materialism entails within the history of philosophy, revitalising the critical spirit that demands that we remain circumspect about the dictates of any higher authority.