The Spinozian Condition: Macherey and Lyotard, or, the two-faced ’79

Editorial introduction

Abstract

The article explores the dialectic between Spinoza and Hegel proposed by Macherey in Hegel or Spinoza, relating it to Lyotard’s position, particularly with regard to the question of the historicity of philosophy and the role of grand narratives. While Lyotard, in the context of postmodernity, proclaims the end of metanarratives, expressing a crisis of the totalising visions of history, Macherey rejects this vision of the end of philosophy as a simple caesura, proposing rather a living dialectic between apparently distant thinkers such as Spinoza and Hegel. Philosophy, for Macherey, is not a closed or static field, but a critical practice that continuously interrogates the historical and social datum, keeping a space open for radical critique. In this context, the dialectic proposed by Macherey emerges as a path of resistance against the reductionism and sterilisation of thought, which Lyotard denounces. The article emphasises how Macherey, although critical of an overly dogmatic reading of philosophy, rejects the idea that philosophy can be reduced to a purely theoretical exercise detached from reality, as is the case in Lyotard’s postmodern condition. Macherey’s proposal is to keep alive the dialectical tension between different philosophical traditions, without resolving them into a single unified narrative, but rather through a continuous questioning of historical and philosophical contradictions.