ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book differentiates the position of this Spinozian-Marxian psychoanalytic epistemontology from Deleuze's conception of "expression", as well as from other attempts to oppose the dominant epistemological tradition. It explains that Sohn-Rethel's theory undermines the (post-)Kantian dissociation of representation and things, by showing that the Kantian a priori categories of thought are a posteriori effects of the relations of things. The book shows the necessary interconnection between capitalist economy and psychoanalytic thought. It also shows the impact of value's permeation of the economy and epistemontology in secular capitalist modernity on aesthetic, as well as ethical, value. The book concludes by juxtaposing the capitalist biopolitical mechanisms and Spinoza's conception of the third kind of knowledge – which understands the body and mind in terms of their singular essence – as the means to secular salvation.
