SPINOZA AND MARX see point 11

11. Finally — and this is where Spinoza’s materialism comes into play — the prime measure of such adequacy is not some ultimate reconciliation of Spirit and matter, but rather the degree to which human powers are realized and increased. Humankind is a determinate mode of objective Substance just like everything else in Nature, and as such it tends (according to the principle Spinoza calls “conatus” – striving) to develop its powers to the utmost.14 What distinguishes humans is that, by acting in the mode of Thought as well as Extension, they are able to understand, submit to, participate in, and thereby enhance the forces of Nature, of which they nonetheless remain a part. (This insistence on the situatedness of humankind in and as part of Nature is what endears Spinoza to modern-day environmentalists, along with his critique of and “monist” alternative to Cartesian subject-object dualism.15) Unlike imagination, adequate thinking furthers human-natural development rather than hindering it.