During the last quarter or so of the eighteenth century and then well into the nineteenth century a wave of neo-Spinozism swept through German philos… - Benedictus de Spinoza

Certain critics from the democratic camp, inclined to operate with the help of indirect evidence, have looked upon the “ironic” attitude of the author to the compromise leaders as the expression of an undue subjectivism vitiating the scientific character of his exposition. We venture to regard this criterion as unconvincing. Spinoza's principle, “not to weep or laugh, but to understand” gives warning against inappropriate laughter and untimely tears. It does not deprive a man, even though he be a historian, of the right to his share of tears and laughter when justified by a correct understanding of the material itself.

CAUSA (causa) Todo lo que existe se relaciona causalmente, de manera que este vínculo constante permite hablar de «orden y conexión» (E2P7), de leyes naturales, etc., por contraste con lo que sería el caos o la excepción sobrenatural (el milagro). Como ya afirmó la tradición y la ciencia moderna lleva al límite, la inteligibilidad de lo real descansa en el conocimiento de los efectos por las causas (TIE 85, E1Ax4), lo que se resume en el adagio causa sive ratio o dar razón causal de algo. Hay que partir de lo que es causa de sí (Dios) y comprender desde ahí las secuencias productoras (E1Def1, P16, P18, P28) que eliminan la contingencia y la indeterminación (E1P27 y P29). Ahora bien, a menudo no es posible conocer la concatenación causal de la realidad a escala microfísica, lo que abre la puerta a la consideración — en la vida cotidiana — de las cosas «como si» fueran posibles.

Instead of engaging in this rather boring academic exercise of opposing Spinoza and Levinas, what I want to accomplish is a consciously old-fashioned Hegelian reading of Spinoza - what both Spinozeans and Levinasians share is radical anti-Hegelianism. My starting hypothesis is that, in the history of modern thought, the triad of paganism-Judaism-Christianity repeats itself twice, first as Spinoza-Kant-Hegel, then as Deleuze-Derrida-Lacan. Deleuze deploys the One-Substance as the indifferent medium of multitude; Derrida inverts it into the radical Otherness which differs from itself; finally, in a kind of "negation of negation," Lacan brings back the cut, the gap, into the One itself. The point is not so much to play Spinoza and Kant against each other, thus securing the triumph of Hegel; it is rather to present the three philosophical positions in all their unheard-of radicality - in a way, the triad Spinoza-Kant-Hegel does encompass the whole of philosophy.