Notes to Chapter 6 { 34 7Feuerbach sees in Spinoza and Hegel the same flaw of assigning the true, concretely exist-
ing something the status of mere predicate of an abstract subject (the absolute for Hegel;
substance for Spinoza), thereby insuring that these ways of doing philosophy encounter real
being only as part of the hermetically sealed feedback loop of their own projected conceptual
categories (ibid., 157 ).
64. According to Feuerbach, “Hegelian philosophy is the suspension of the contradiction
of thinking and being, as in particular Kant had articulated it. But, note well, the suspen-
sion of this contradiction is only within contradiction, i.e. within the one element, within
thinking. For Hegel thought is being, thought the subject, being the predicate” (“Provisional
Theses,” 166 ).
65. Feuerbach writes: “The true relation of thinking and being is simply this. Being is
subject and thinking a predicate.... Thinking comes from being but being does not come
from thinking. Being comes from itself and through itself ” (ibid., 167 ).
66. Feuerbach, Principles of the Philosophy of the Future, 30 – 31.
67. Ibid., 31.
68. Feuerbach writes: “The contradiction of modern philosophy... is due to the fact that
it is the negation of theology from the viewpoint of theology or the negation of theology that
itself is again theology; this contradiction characterizes especially the Hegelian philosophy”
(ibid., 31 ); “whoever fails to give up the Hegelian philosophy, fails to give up theology” (“Pro-
visional Theses,” 167 ); and “the Hegelian philosophy is the last place of refuge and the last
rational support of theology” (ibid.).
69. Feuerbach, Principles of the Philosophy of the Future, 31.
70. Ibid., 71.
71. Lloyd, PN, 10.
72. Ibid., 11.
73. Erich Thier, Das Menschenbild des jungen Marx, 49.
74. Lloyd, PN, 22.
75. Ibid., 21.
76. Hess, “The Philosophy of the Act,” 249 ; PSS, 210.
77. Ibid.
78. Ibid., 249 – 50 (translation modified); PSS, 210.
79. Lloyd lucidly describes Spinoza’s critique of the epistemological and ethical error
of false individuality that Hess appropriates to his own context, and the increased freedom
and power to be gained through a knowledge that overcomes this error: “The mind is under
constant threat of succumbing to a false individuality—of seeing individuals as essentially
independent of the rest of the world, as individual substances. This is a metaphysical error
that Spinoza sees as breeding moral error. To see interaction with the rest of reality as inci-
dental to a thing’s individuality—to see things only as ‘wholes’—is the underlying illusion
built into obsessive loves and hates. True freedom of mind, and with it true understanding of
individuality, is to be attained only through the apprehension of truth involved in the higher
forms of knowledge. The mind’s active affirmation of reality through adequate knowledge,
Spinoza sees as a vulnerable force, with dubious power against the frequently overwhelming
external forces that put the mind into bondage—a force, nonetheless, that contains the germ
of freedom” (PN, 30 – 31 ).
80. In an unpublished draft of “Zur Philosophie der Tat” (probably from 1844 ), Hess