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 College
Althusser 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 University
In 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