We were Spinozists

Ethics does not 'begin' with God, but it ends there, or at least it arrives there, after a whole series of demonstrations, a difficulty that interpreters traditionally circumvent by emptying of all content all the propositions that do not yet concern the unique and really existing substance, in order to turn them into nothing more than the formal preconditions of a discourse that really begins after them.” Macherey, ibid., p. 92. Emphasis in original.

75Macherey, ibid., p. 96.

76Macherey, ibid., p. 97. My emphasis.

77Macherey, ibid., p. 98. Toward the end of his discussion of the attributes, Macherey reiterates this point: “But we have said enough not to have to insist again that, for Spinoza, the infinite diversity of the attributes implies that they are at the same time irreducible to and equal within substance. Thus the difference between thought and extension, or any relationship between any attributes whatsoever, does not have their subordination to substance as a consequence (as with that which is divided compared to that which is united), but on the contrary, it identifies them with substance absolutely. This is as true for thought as it is for any other attribute in general.” ibid., p. 110.

78Macherey, ibid., p. 143. Spinoza, E1D1: “By cause of itself I understand that whose essence involves existence, or that whose nature cannot be conceived except as existing.” E1P7: “It pertains to the nature of a substance to exist.”

79Macherey, Hegel or Spinoza, p. 200 and p. 210.

80Macherey, ibid., p. 212.

81Deleuze quoted in Joughin, “Translator's Preface,” Expressionism in Philosophy: Spinoza, p. 11. See also Deleuze and Guattari, What Is Philosophy?, p. 48. “Immanence does not refer back to the Spinozist substance and modes but, on the contrary, the Spinozist concepts of substance and modes refer back to the plane of immanence as their presupposition.”

82The latter acts almost like an introduction to the thought of Spinoza through the lens of Deleuze. The reason why I focus on the former is that many of Deleuze's key theses in both books are developed in greater detail in the former.

83Peden says the title of the English translation is potentially misleading since it introduces a formulation that Deleuze did not develop until later in his career. See Spinoza Contra Phenomenology, p. 305 n.10.

84Deleuze, Expressionism in Philosophy: Spinoza, 13-22.

85Deleuze, ibid., p. 42.

86Deleuze, Expressionism in Philosophy: Spinoza, p. 80.

87This is one key difference between Deleuze and Macherey.

88For the most concise and condensed exposition of immanence see Deleuze, Immanence: A Life.

89Deleuze, Expressionism in Philosophy: Spinoza, p. 95. My emphasis.

90Deleuze, ibid., p. 165.

91Deleuze, ibid., p. 167.

92Deleuze and Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus, p. 22.

93Deleuze and Guattari, ibid., p. 20

94Deleuze and Guattari, ibid., p. 153.

95“The problem of whether there is a substance of all substances, a single substance for all attributes, becomes: ^{Is there a totality of all BwO's? If the BwO is already a limit, what must we say of the totality of all BwO's?” Deleuze and Guattari, ibid., p. 154.}

96Deleuze and Guattari, ibid. Deleuze and Guattari provide another tentative answer (although they would cringe at a suggestion that the answer is somehow final) to this question at a later point in the discussion: “When we asked the question of the totality of all BwO's, considered as substantial attributes of a single substance, it should have been understood, strictly speaking, to apply only to the plane. The plane is the totality of the full BwO's that have been selected (there is no positive totality including the cancerous or empty bodies.” ibid. p. 165.

97Deleuze and Guattari, ibid., p. 158.

98Deleuze, Difference and Repetition, p. 304.

99Deleuze shares this claim with Gueroult. See Peden, Spinoza Contra Phenomenology, p. 194. Although there many formulations of how the attributes relate, here is fairly concise explanation: “Why not deduce the unity of substantial modification directly from the unity of substance? Because God produces things in attributes that are formally or really distinct; attributes are indeed expressive, but each finds expression on its own account, as an ultimate and irreducible form.” Expressionism in Philosophy: Spinoza, p. 127.

100Deleuze, ibid., p. 62.

101Deleuze, ibid., p. 128.

102Peden, Spinoza Contra Phenomenology, p. 214.

103Landon Frim makes the case that substance is not a formal idea but is necessarily the most concrete idea through a close reading of the Emendation. See Frim, “Sufficient Reason and the Causal Argument for Monism,” especially pp. 141-151.

104E1D3: “By substance I understand what is in itself and is conceived through itself, that is, that whose concept does not require the concept of another thing, from which it must be formed.” E1D5: “By mode I understand the affections of a substance, or that which is in another which it is also conceived.”

105E1P1

106E1P16. For an analysis of acosmism see again Melamed, “Acosmism or Weak Individuals?: Hegel, Spinoza, and the Reality of the Finite.”

107E3P6

108E4P18S

Kimes