Hegel on Spinoza's Schwindsucht
example · Hegel ·
retold in 6 talks
Hegel notes that Spinoza died of tuberculosis (Schwindsucht, literally 'seeking-to-disappear'), and quips that he was therefore consistent: his philosophy teaches that every particular identity seeks its disappearance in substance, so he died accordingly.
≤2000talks it is told in, per year2026
As told 6
“Hegel makes just a wonderful evil remark he says the basic lesson of Spinoza's philosophy is that every particular identity searches for its disappearance annihilation in substance so Spinoza was consequent and died accordingly for Schwindsucht.”
“If by nature women were equal to men... surely among nations so many and different some would be found where both sexes rule alike... And since this is nowhere the case, one may assert... that women have not by nature equal right with men.”
“Spinoza says that what appears to us as the signifier of the highest, the most noble thing like God, it's a false positive term.”
What it carries
one story, many jobs: the ideas this anecdote is deployed to argue, one tally mark per use (an idea page shows the same relation from the other end, as its shelf of stories)
contents · one story, 3 jobsuses
la langue
×1
natural inferiority of women
×1
desacralizing Spinoza
×1
Its cast and sources
populated by
Pierre Macherey2Moritz Schreber2Pier Paolo Pasolini2Franco Zeffirelli2Martin Scorsese2Gérard Lebrun2Daniel Paul Schreber1Jean Clavreul1
alongside works
Every retelling 6
Hegel notes that Spinoza died of tuberculosis (Schwindsucht, literally 'seeking-to-disappear'), and quips that he was therefore consistent: his philosophy teaches that every particular identity seeks its disappearance in substance, so he died accordingly., illustrating la langue,Hegel's wordplay,Spinoza's philosophy
Žižek quotes Spinoza’s argument that women’s natural inferiority is proven by their historical subordination, using this to 'desacralize' Spinoza and agree with Harman that Spinoza reduces potentiality to actuality, though Žižek rejects Harman’s substantialist solution., illustrating natural inferiority of women,desacralizing Spinoza
Spinoza's personalized God is a 'false positive term' for our ignorance/gap; similarly, the Phallus is a name for the inconsistency of the symbolic order., illustrating false positive term,signifier of the inconsistency of the other
The traditional notion of God collects the positive content of everything humans don't know, 'when we don't know it we call that God', paralleling phlogiston as placeholders that objectivize a lack of knowledge., illustrating signifier of the lack of the signifier
Spinoza dismisses the personal notion of God (old wise man with a beard) as merely a name for our ignorance: when you reach the limit of knowledge, you posit a personal God as the embodiment of that void, a positive entity whose truth is nothing., illustrating the subject as self-relating negation,Asiatic mode of production as empty envelope,determinate negation
At a UCLA conference on Spinoza, a defender could not bring himself to accept Spinoza's own conclusion that women have fewer rights because they have less power. Žižek then points out that the 'affect imitation' Deleuze celebrates was, for Spinoza himself, exemplified by the horrific lynching mob that murdered the De Witt brothers., illustrating Spinoza,affect,ideology,Deleuzian misreading