Studies in German Literature, Linguistics, and Culture Religion, Reason, and Culture in the Age of Goethe } Edited by } Elisabeth Krimmer and Patricia Anne Simpson @ CAMDEN HOUSE Roches, New ork10: “The Magic Formula We All Seck”; Spinoza + Fichte = x Frederick Amrine Sol ois precast diffi, am rare rant (oval excellent hing ar dial they are) Spine, Bair The Revolutionary Rhizome ‘urs, oun tm ae om Spinoza athe moment Mach ofthe st for ths emarabe renutice i duet Gils Delewe, who ‘rote vo books on Spin and then went even fate in his esc Ing manoxo Wht 1 Pion, acing Spinora both the "pnce™ snd he "Christ of poop And elewe hardy slon ni en be Sn pow om age ot cing oh re (of Goethe? The cotrovesy ver Sino sll gress minor fap Levis White Beck's cc Rina, Lary Gorman Pep? Ba as Necome the deaing inlet eonrovery ofthe le age ance the publion of redrck Beer inducnt say Tae Fee ef Rear in 1987 Pures, ve th pst decade, he neler arora Jonathan Insel publ chee mavens suerng tar, basal every ag sar thike ofthe Elghenmene was close pio Sepa tay bein ode: Wal Set, dies dvlopment woul be ead st 1 nwray instr ‘aut, cna he Spina (Spnora controversy) culmea that we ave and ‘and bod he extent and the inport of Spon infect on the ABE of Goethe ‘And the celty of Spinena to contemporary dscoue ‘yond doubsometow, he urs in everyone's equations Nor so wit Fiche, Some oxtanding schaluship fs been pub lished in recent decades,® but compared to the boom in Spinoza, Fichte ses remains cotage indury. Indeed, ce has long. Bee the ies specced andthe let understood of te ges plovphet rgel wanted ro be busied nex o Biche, and he way but Hehe aes coy afew sentences in Berean Rael’ 826-page Ploy of Western Plats, which enone only the Reden em ale dee Nation “Tim Mac Rouse We AU Se” 6 245, (Acesses tothe German Nation) and diamists him as peshaps insane? Fiche is one ofthe few major thinkers to whom Deleuze did not devote study; and he seldom mentions him by name. But I shal argue that, ‘especialy in Deleuze's late philosophy, Fchte conubuts the terms {hat allow Deleze’s philosophy to add up. Indeed I want to go even further, and suggest that all thee of thee seminal thinkers pisos, Fiche, and Deleuze—are deeply connected by a Deleusian rhinoms stretching across four centuries Deleuze and Goats famoy Pot ‘orward the concept of the “chizome” in chapter one of A Thound Plates 38a model for a complex nexus of influences and connections tha transcends local and proximal causality? Viewed in thi ight, both the Spinasareis speiically anda range of larger lroeswithia German ‘elim can be situated within + mach lager contest, and those babes reveal a suprisingly direct relevance to the latest philovophial develop. ‘ments culminating inthe work of Giles Dleuse Ironically, it is Charles Taylor's book on Heat, ofall people, that ‘rovides the clue. In his magacen se chapet, “The Aims of « New Epoch,” Taylor connects the fled Revolution of 1789 forward to the faled “French” revolution of 1968, and back to Spinoza Trot tothe degree Jonathan Israel asrs, Spinoza was indeed omnipresent in the lntellctal feof the German speaking world atthe ead of the igh ‘cent and the beginning of the nineteenth century Ta response to She Slur oftheir Revolution, the generation ofthe 1790s suove to stain 8 specifi kind of philosophical breakthrough that was formulated var. ‘uly asa union of Spinoza oF the “Spinorst” Goethe + Kant or okt, eg termed ie 2 “union of snion and nonunion” thac would recone Sudstans (substance) and Sudjte (uber), Schelling began as a Fichtean, 4nd then went on to complement Fiche wit Spinora As ary 28 1798) Holden, Scheling, and Hegel were exchanging lets in which they seem to équate Fiehe's Absolute “I” with Spinova’s “God! In a famous eter to Jacobi of9 June 1785, Goethe declared Spina’ pho sophia project be his i's wor Spinoza + Fichte Spinoza and Fichte might sem inially to have no common denomins tor. After all, they ae the pine expresions of the very opposion tat the generation ofthe 17908 labored so mighty to stheste, Moreover Fiche had gone oat of his way to erie Spinoza as « “dogmas” in the eae version ofthe Wisenchyteig or Since of Kaowledge 2 and we Know that Jacob's acconacon of “Spincaam™ (tntanouse to ‘heiam) was the charge that fended Fichte more than any other Bot T shall ange hat irs easer chan one might imagine to reconele Pee and Spinoza, because Fchte's philosophy & safased with Spinozst elementright fom the beginning, and he moves even further inthe direction of Spinoza in his late philosophy. “The strongest evidence of his Spinozst rum is contained in three emarhable dates om the st year of che’ if, which were supprested by Fichte's som and have been published oaly very reer. These wl ‘be discussed more fly below” Even inversions of hit Wicentchafare thar date from the euro of the century, Fite has begun vo vee sharply ‘toward Spinor, abandoning his earlier, dialectical presentation and sek ing 0 explain te nature of inellctaliulon through a systematic stalogy t© mathematical construction, Inded, inthe Nene Bearberung ‘of 1800 ro 1801, Fchte begins each of eight sections with Lebar or proposition, fllowed by specific postulates and corollries—tat is he gues mort geomarice, a Spinoza, and he ascres at his arguments falubic the same igor a mathematics iself Adin another ex rom the ‘ime period Fiche describes the method ofthe Wiaenshfllere “the maths of reason itself" Moreover, the uninshed and unpublished ‘manuscript ofthe same late veson ofthe Witenshadie eas wi ‘eres of disjointed speculations and noes, many of which are stringy Spinozs. Fiche even goes ofa aso speculate about the peasy of “pare inion of God” that might serve asthe "band foe connecing the cai ineligible word” (Breszesle 21), Expression ‘Chares Tay contends that what drew Herder, Goethe, and other of the next generation to Spinora was "1 vision of the way in which the finite subject ited into @ universal current of lie” (Taylor 16). In late ‘versions of the Wisenscafslere,Fichte had begun arclating the same Spinozist sion of God 2 pure, self unfoing, and selP expressing Me. Ta an exaaocdiary pasage Bom the version of 1810, fr example, Fchte follows Spinoza in defining God a the sage substance: “Nor Eine ist, Schlechia durch sich selbst: Go, und Gore it ct der rate Begs, en wir socben aussprachen, sondern est in sch selbet Inter Lebea” (Only one thing exiss absolutely through ite?! God, and God is not the dead concepr which we enunciated just now, but he isin bimclf ‘pure it). che then proceed to an assertion that echoct perfectly Delewze's interpreuition of Spinoza: “Soll nun das Wisen dennoch Sein... o kana es, da neh ist dean Got, doch nr Got ber sin, aber anser ihm selber seine Asserung” (However, i there sould be Jcnowiedge then it can oaly be God himself, becntse there nothing but God, but ouside of God himself. his expeesion). Taylor's night ‘is confirmed: what united the Whole genertion ofthe 179%, drew them 1 Heres, and drew Herder to Spinoza, was a ehared anthropology of ‘presion. But what deew Deleuze and the lte Bch to Spinoza was “i MacieFonana We Au San” 6 247 1 metaphysics and an ontology of expression that opened the door £0 4 potent, soareductve philosophical monism. Justa Spinoza fought 0 ‘overcome Cartesian duals, Deleaze svove to redeem the orga sin of metaphysics, its perpetual construction of tanseendental Otherto which concepts can only refer, rough the expreve immanence of Uv. Ing concept “Bxpresiom is so central to Deleuze's interpretation of his atch-pe: ecesorSpinora that is tants righly fated the concep in te ttle of his major study of Spinora, Expresionom in Pllaepy, demnor ing Spinosa’s mame to the subride-? Aad dhe Bint sentence of Deewze’s Inroioton quotes the sath defnton of Spinora's Ess, the word “expresses” with added italic: "By God 1 understand 1 Being absolutely infnie, that's substance consiing ofa infty of atabtes ‘of which each one express an eternal and infinite ence” (13) The a tle substance that is God express ine initially inthe two attest are God's extence, and then aguin atthe level ofthe move, which an Be viowed a an expression, asi Were, of epresion tel” (14), Hence, “God express himself in himself before’ expensing himself in his ec he xpreseshimscf in himself onstiuing natura mazurans, bere expres ing himself through producing within himel® natura naswata™ (4) 29 Important epistemological correlates flow dzcty fom ths ontology of ‘spresio, chily the pevileging of inestion athe organ whereby expres. ‘son i apprehended immediately. And itis just di ampec of Spinoza’ ep ‘emology that allows him to trascend the Caresan conception of tty and diinctnest as embodied in dscusve dough (18) Indeed, its what makes Spinora the perfec care forthe ily inearred by Cartan duals (17), What made Spinoza so exctng to Herder, Goethe, and the pom, Kanan, and led Deleuze to recuperate his philosophy yet ean at the end ‘ofthe twentieth century, shi epstemology of intelectual ination amned Toran ontology of uniing expression, “Taylor reminds us that the student? rallying cry in May 1968, “décloisonnement™ (opening up), wae Ukewise 2 all for unity. In the ‘ase of Deleuze, it was the failure of che “French” revolution of May. 1968, in which stadens took to the sees, lying under the mote “Limagination au poovoi'” (all power tothe imagisson!, that led to + desire for unity. Like thele German ancestor, the peneradon of 1968 strove for 2 unifying philosophy at well, which Deleuze and Guat, famouly cermed “the magic formula we all seek, PLURALISM = -MONISM” (4 Tionsond Plateaus 20) (To underscore the point, they int that final equation all n caps.) My ow contention here i thet, ‘pecially in his late writings, Deleuze hit upon the same magic for sla by synthesizing Spinoza and Fhe va a tchavrtung (cecipoc 'y) whereby all dre ofthese intensely radial phionephers ae mut ‘eansformed,luminaed, and renewed,