Notes to Chapter 3 { 303217 ). Ze’ev Levy (Baruch Spinoza, 82 – 83 ) notes this borrowing (and that Friedrich Kuntze
already underscored it in 1912 ). David Biale (Not in the Heavens, 32 ) also notes the origin of
the interpretation of Spinoza’s “acosmism” in Maimon.
22. See Hegel, LHP, 3 : 280.
23. Ibid., 3 : 282.
24. Ibid., 3 : 257.
25. Ibid., 3 : 258.
26. In the 1812 / 13 volume 1 of Wissenschaft der Logik (hereafter WL), Hegel faults Spinoza
for conceiving of the infinite as absolute affirmation of existence and the finite, in contrast, as
negation. In Hegel’s view Spinozan substance cannot achieve a speculative relation of iden-
tity with the other because differentiation into determinate being, for Spinoza, is mere nega-
tion. Hegel sees the advantage of his theory over Spinoza’s in its ability to conceive of affirma-
tion of the absolute as a dynamic process of self-differentiation into an Other, and, finally, as a
mediated reflection of the Other in the self (universal subjectivity). For Hegel, Spinoza’s sub-
stance is timeless and inert and fails to achieve subjectivity through dialectical development
(WL, 1 : 161 – 62 ). Hegel also devotes a substantial Anmerkung to Spinoza (ibid., 1 : 376 – 78 ),
to which he refers back in the in the 1816 second volume (WL, 2 : 14 – 15 ). In identifying Spi-
noza’s purported failure to think dialectical development, Hegel inscribes himself according
to a secularized suppercessonist logic as the fulfillment of Spinoza—that is, as the necessary
product of the dialectical movement of thought that Spinoza was “not yet” equipped to com-
prehend. Pierre Macherey analyzes how Hegel constructs Spinoza as a necessary but limited
and flawed precursor that he, Hegel, has moved beyond (Hegel ou Spinoza, 17 – 18 ). On the
temporality that Hegel inscribes by repeatedly characterizing Spinoza’s substance as “not
yet” absolute spirit, see ibid., 18. In addition to Hegel’s secularly supersessionist treatment
of Spinoza in LHP that I analyze in this chapter, several passages from WL do similar work.
In his understanding of negation, for example, Spinoza “stops” (bleibt... stehen) at the con-
ception of negation as determinacy or quality and does not “proceed” (geht nicht... fort) to
Hegel’s insight of absolute or self-negating negation (WL, 1 : 376 ). Hegel also faults Spinoza’s
mode of thinking sub specie aeternitatis for its inability to think the finite in terms of becom-
ing (werdend) (ibid., 1 : 377 ). Hegel’s secularized supercessionist stance vis-à-vis Spinoza is
likewise unmistakable in another passage, in which he argues that in critiquing Spinoza the
goal must not be “Widerlegung” but rather sublimation (WL, 2 : 14 ).
27. Hegel, LHP, 3 : 260 (emphasis added).
28. Ibid., 3 : 260 – 61.
29. Ibid.
30. “It has been already remarked (pp. 257 , 258 , 280 ) that undoubtedly Substance with
Spinoza does not perfectly fulfill the conception of God, since it is as Spirit that He is to be
conceived” (ibid., 3 : 281 ).
31. Ibid., 3 : 280.
32. Ibid., 3 : 286. In Spinoza “there is lacking the infinite form, spirituality and liberty”
(ibid., 3 : 287 ).
33. Ibid., 3 : 287.
34. Ibid., 3 : 284 – 89.
35. Ibid., 3 : 288. In a similar vein, Hegel repeatedly critiques determination (the particu-
larization of substance) in Spinoza as a form of negation that drains the particular of im-