On Bookchin's Hidden Spinozism

Abstract

This paper argues that Murray Bookchin’s conception of matter and thought aligns with Spinoza’s views, particularly as outlined in Spinoza’s treatment of bodies in the second part of the Ethics. I argue that Bookchin’s redefinition of matter in terms of a dynamic interaction of self-organized organisms echoes Spinoza’s conception of bodies. Both thinkers reject a fundamental separation between humans and nature, recognizing human complexity as a natural outgrowth of nonhuman organization. Furthermore, I read Bookchin’s ideas on natural mind alongside Hasana Sharp’s renaturalization of ideology, which emphasizes Spinoza’s notion of a transindividual power of thinking involving both human and nonhuman beings. I maintain that this conception of thought challenges modern science’s view of nature as an object of thought but not a thinking entity, thus theorizing a power of thinking inherent to nature. By reconceptualizing matter, rationality, and science, this approach forms the basis of an ecological ethics that recognizes alterity as an active element in natural and social history, grounding Bookchin’s theory of ecological ethics in Spinoza’s philosophy.