346 } Notes to Chapter 6
incredible interpretation” of Spinoza when Hess seems to claim here that Spinoza’s concept
of substance is decisive only for his metaphysics, and that the subject is decisive for his eth-
ics. I read Hess’s strategic aim of countering the Hegelian charge that Spinozan substance
leaves no room for subjectivity as paramount here, not a desire on Hess’s part to relegate
substance and the subject rigorously to different spheres.
55. In a letter to Berthold Auerbach of July 6 , 1840 , Hess refers to Spinoza’s Ethics, I,
p 23 as evidence that, according to Spinoza, there exist contingencies (Hess suggests that
Auerbach, who was translating Spinoza’s works, render “Accidentes” as “Zufälligkeiten”
in German) that are also necessary. “What does this mean?,” Hess asks. “Well, they [neces-
sary contingencies] are the same things [as contingencies], but insofar as we consider them
in relation to their essence, their ground, in brief, in relation to the other in and through
which they are true [in bezug auf das andre wodurch und worin sie wahrhaft sind]” (Moses
Hess Briefwechsel, 62 ). In Hess’s reading, the lesson to be learned from Spinoza is not that
greater knowledge negates contingent particularites, but rather that it reveals to us the wider
contexts that in fact constitute particularities.
56. Hess, PSS, 151.
57. Ibid.
58. Ibid., 88.
59. Ibid., 94.
60. Ibid., 147.
61. For a further argument by Hess against the view that freedom and order are in conflict,
see ibid., 156.
62. The essay appeared in Georg Herwegh’s famous Einundzwanzig Bogen aus der
Schweiz (Twenty-one sheets from Switzerland). Silberner emphasizes differences between
Hess’s 1843 “philosophy of the act” and the version he had articulated two years earlier in
Die Europäische Triarchie. In the earlier work Hess followed Cieszkowski in calling for a
philosophy that could discern the future from the past and present and still, according to
Silberner, opposed thought and action. Moreover, “the human being for him was not an
autonomous being but rather a medium through which the absolute spirit realized itself ”
(Moses Hess, 127 ). In the 1843 philosophy of the act, however, Hess no longer views thinking
and acting as opposed but rather sees each as “activity of the self ” [Tätigkeit des Ich] (ibid.).
Silberner attributes this shift in part to Hess’s engagement with Johann Gottlieb Fichte but
also rightly warns against overestimating Fichte’s influence. I read these two articulations of
Hess’s philosophy of the act as compatible, despite the different emphases Silberner high-
lights. Hess’s opposition between thought and action in Die Europäische Triarchie occurs
as part of his wider critique of the disempowering effects of this dualistic opposition—that
is, of abstracting thought from its implication in immanent action. And Hess’s emphasis on
the individual Ich in the 1843 essay in no way makes individuals immune to his critique of
theological subjectivity—on the contrary.
63. Feuerbach wrote “Provisional Theses for the Reformation of Philosophy” in spring
1842 , but the censor delayed its publication and it did not appear until fall 1843. Whereas in
Principles of the Philosophy of the Future Feuerbach describes the still-theological modern
philosophical tradition that culminates in Hegel as beginning with Descartes, in “Provisional
Theses” ( 156 ) he describes it as beginning with Spinoza. Indeed, Feuerbach’s opening salvo
at Hegel in “Provisional Theses” is to apply Hegel’s critique of Spinoza to Hegel himself.