Marx and Ancient Philosophy (uncorrected, pre-publication)

2004

2020

ISBN: 978-1-939873-07-1 (Paperback) ISBN: 979-8-604130-95-7 (Amazon) ISBN: 978-1-939873-09-5 (Hardback) ISBN: 978-1-939873-08-8 (E-book) Library of Congress Control Number: 2020901135 Tabak, Mehmet. / Mehmet Tabak p. cm Includes bibliographical references.

Throughout all his life Karl Marx wrote angrily about capitalism. By use of a dialectic approach he was convinced that the working class had to unite and make a social revolution and thereby free them selves from exploitation. Marx himself was in many ways a dialectic person as we try to show in the note. So in some sense he became one with his scientific methodology.

Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal, 2023

One of the enduring myths of the Soviet ideology of dialectical materialism is that Marx was a Hegelian, an objective idealist, when he wrote his doctoral dissertation "The Difference Between the Democritean and Epicurean Philosophy of Nature." However, a study of both the formation of the Young Hegelian movement and Marx's dissertation shows that Marx was never a Hegelian. Rather, he was an independent-minded Young Hegelian who critically applied Hegel's dialectical method, disagreed with Hegel's appraisal of Epicurus, and openly promoted atheism. This study establishes, both historically and logically, why Marx was never a Hegelian and why he was able to break from the limitations of Young Hegelianism earlier than anyone.

I. Introduction. The works of Karl Marx are among the most influential works in the history of social sciences. Despite the fact that they were written in the 19th century and ailing communist regimes in the 20th century claimed that there political systems and ideology were based on his theories, Marx’s works are still today widely read and quoted by social scientists and philosophers. Following the increased polarisation of Western societies since the 1980s, particularly in the last decade, interest in Marx is rising and the number of university courses that deal with his thought is increasing. The works of Marx are wide ranging in scope. He wrote poems, studied mathematics, published philosophical and political articles and books that dealt with political economy. In this book, we will concentrate on those aspects of Marx's texts that relate to what we prefer to call theories of science or ‘metascience’, i.e. the epistemics (ontology and epistemology) of the texts in question and the historiography of science which we will find in the texts. Concerning epistemics we will highlight problems such as: a) the dialectical world view of Marx and his inversion of Hegel's philosophy (the relationship between humanity and nature, human essence, determinism and process-ontology); b) Marx's 'project' or disciplinary aims, referring to the motives of his theoretical practice and its relation to political activity; c) Marx's critique of the dominant philosophy (i.e. in Germany Hegelianism) and political economy; d) Marx's view of the existing sciences, referring to their philosophical premises as well as the relationship between science and society; e) Marx's criteria of science and his view of 'ideal' science. We will approach these five main topics by looking at some of his main works as they appear chronologically and we will do it in two main steps. In the following second chapter we will highlight Marx's early writings and at the end of it we will concentrate on his and F. Engels's work German Ideology. The works that we concentrate on in that chapter are to be characterized as a metacritique of the political philosophy of Hegel, the Young Hegelians and political economy. The third chapter covers, with reference to German Ideology, the Works which Marx wrote in 1857/58 and after. Interpretation of Marx's writings is a hermeneutical and practical problem. Objectivist (R.J. Bernstein 1983, pp. 8-16) interpretations tend to claim to understand what Marx "really meant". Two approaches of this kind are quite usual. On the one side, we have internalist approaches which either attempt to find the origin of Marx's theories within the sphere of theoretical practice (i.e. his work is seen as a transformation or synthesis of some other theoretical systems, c.f. the philosophy of Aristotle, Hegel, Young Hegelians and political economy) - or we have internalist approaches in the form of teleological interpretations that see Marx's academic career and works inevitably ending and aiming at particular works (c.f. Althusser's and Balibar’s (1998) 'reading' of Marx's works through Capital). On the other side, we have externalist interpretations that reduce his work to external factors such as political practice or the 'world view' of certain social group or classes (c.f. G. Lukács) that Marx came into contact with or worked with. We do not adhere to these methodological canons. Our point of departure is that Marx's work must be seen as a result of his practical context in which his political 'project' (in the wider existential sense) is most interesting. His political 'project' (i.e. his act of relating himself to interests of social groups and contexts etc.), must however be understood as nothing more than our abstraction and does not imply any theory of its inner structure of necessity. Marx's 'project' and theoretical problematique at particular time in his development is an 'open' project and an open problematique that has the potential of being formed differently according to his active interiorization of his practical situation and shifting contexts. The practical situation consists both of theoretical and philosophical traditions that he in an active way bases his thought on - and social interests and forces which he attempts to join. Accordingly, we would like to approach the development of his thought as a process of ‘structuration’ in which he actively structures his thought (see A. Giddens (1993) for a discussion of the concept of structuration and J. Coopley et.al. (2001) and R. Bhaskar (1978 and 1979) for arguments for critical realist methodology). Furthermore, as Marx's work is a result of an open project our own understanding is only a 'fusion' of our horizons and interests on the one side and Marx's horizons on the other side, as they appear to us. This does not mean that we claim to impute meaning in Marx's work. We are only sticking to Our hermenutical position which is dialogical (see H.-G. Gadamer 1977). Knowledge and understanding is a matter of praxis.

In the twenty-first century, new debates over globalization, 'market society' and the crises of capitalism are leading to a resurgence of interest in Marx's ideas about politics, economics, history and human nature. This collection of articles brings together the latest work of some of the world's leading Marxist philosophers, along with that of a new generation of young researchers. Based upon work presented at meetings of the recently founded and fast-growing Marx and Philosophy Society, it offers a unique snapshot of the best current scholarship on the philosophical aspects and implications of Marx's thought. Contributors discuss Marx's moral and political philosophy, his critique of orthodox economics, and his relation to more recent trends in social theory. Although many diverse perspectives are represented, all share a commitment to careful historical scholarship and philosophical clarity and rigour.

History of European Ideas, 1989

In &g&r False ~~~~~~ Gezruitre U~~~~~~~ (a chapter from his incompfete final work, The U~t~~~~y of ~~~~~~ge~~g~, Georg Lukacs describes the development of classical German philosophy from Kant's theoretical rejection of ontology to "the fully evolved ontology of Hegel'.' 'Hegel's logic', he observes, '.. , is not a lagic in the scholastic sense, not a formal logic, but rather an inseparable intellectual union of logic and ontology, On the one hand, as far as Hegel is concerned, the genuine ontological relatianships only find their adequate mental expression in the Forms of logical categories, while on the other hand these logical categories are not conceived simply as determinations of thought, but must rather be understood as dynamic components ofreality, as stages or steps along the road towards the self-attainment of Mind.'2 The highest ambition of the Hegelian system, as Lukacs explains, was to provide a 'unitary ontology for nature and history'.3 Whereas Kant saw in the categories only epistemological principles of knowing, in Hegel's work they are transformed and expanded into ontological principles of being, or objective thought-entities with a being independent of any particular mind. The Absolute Idea is the form of Hegel's Log&, while the categories are its content. The logical categories are epistemological (as definitions of the existent world); they are at the same time ontological (as definitions of the Absolute). Their dialectica progression towards unity of form and content is the motion whereby the Idea, as Charles Taylor writes, emerges as 'the inner reason which makes the external reality what it is'.4 Luk5cs believes that Hegel was fundamentally mistaken in seeing nature structured according to the categories of thought. However, he is equally convinced that by ignoring Hegef's work modern Marxism has produced a 'chaos of ingeniously distorted, superficially reductionist and falsely "profound" theories'. A genuine renovation of Marxism, he contends, requires 'a wellfounded and founding ontology that finds a real basis for social being in the objective reality of nature, and that is equipped to depict social being in its simultaneous identity and difference with nature'.' My purpose in this paper will be to explore Luk&cs' argument with a view to clarifying some of the difficulties arising from Marx's approp~ation of the Hegefian dialectic. What I propose to demonstrate is that from the time of the 1844 ~~~~~~r~~~~ Marx's rejection of Wegel's ontology excluded the possibility of culmination in an Hegelian selfmediated, or concrete universal, with the consequence that from the standpoint of dialectics Marx necessarily produced an abstracr definition of human freedom.

"This study of Karl Marx’s pre-1844 writings argues that the crucial link between his ‘mature’ social theory and preceding philosophical traditions lies in the elaboration in these early texts of what is here termed a ‘political epistemology’. This can be summarised as a critique of laws and social institutions which treats them as human beings’ operative conceptualisations of their practical interdependence. It is on the basis of this implicit equation that Marx transposes the terms of German Idealist investigations of consciousness and knowledge into an original analysis of political power and social conflict. The historical and philosophical background to this idea of a ‘political epistemology’ is sketched through a consideration of the neo-Scholastic rationalism of the eighteenth century, the critical idealism of Kant, and the post-Kantian idealism of Fichte, Schelling and Hegel. Marx’s student writings provide evidence of the importance of key post-Kantian themes and problems in shaping his early intellectual outlook. Marx’s political journalism of 1842-3 takes forward these epistemological issues into an engagement with the social antagonisms of Vormärz Prussia. Finally, Marx’s 1843 critique of Hegel is re-interpreted, not as an outright rejection of the post-Kantian project, but as an attempt to refound it upon new ground, with the aim of realising more adequately its original principle of understanding human experience and activity as radically self-determining. In conclusion it is proposed that a reading of Marx that attends carefully to his redeployment of post-Kantian arguments will help us to make clearer sense of the complex theorisations of society, history, and economy developed in his later writings. Such an interpretation suggests that Marx’s central concern remains one of realising a self-conscious and self-determining collective agency in society, and an epistemologically informed diagnosis of the unbridgeable oppositions and illusory misrecognitions that result from the obstruction of this practical goal."

British Journal for the History of Philosophy, 2014

This paper considers whether Marx’s views about communism change significantly during his lifetime. According to the ‘standard story’, as Marx got older he dropped the vision of self-realization in labour that he spoke of in his early writings, and adopted a more pessimistic account of labour, where real freedom is achieved outside the working-day, in leisure. Other commentators, however, have argued that there is no pessimistic shift in Marx’s thought on this matter. This paper offers a different reading of this debate. It argues that there are two visions of the good life in Marx. However, it suggests that these two visions cannot be understood in terms of a simple shift between a ‘young’ and ‘mature’ Marx. Rather, it claims that Marx moves between these two visions throughout his writings. In this way, it suggests that Marx’s intellectual development on this issue is best understood as an oscillation rather than a shift. Once this interpretive claim is advanced, the paper then moves on to consider some potential causes and implications of Marx’s life-long oscillation between two different conceptions of the good life.

This paper is an undergraduate exploration into the history of philosophy; responding to the seemingly overwhelming acceptance and admiration, by academia by-and-large, for a man who in this students opinion, deserves it not. Modern "thinkers" continue to champion the philosophical premise laid out by Karl Marx and his cohorts for the governance of mankind. When a closer look is taken at the metaphysical and epistemological underpinnings of this system, it becomes apparent that it is inherently flawed and belongs in the sociological waste-can of politically philosophical notions and failed political experiments. The Hegelian dialectic which Marx champions so vehemently, teemed with his materialistic ideas, is a recipe for a logically fallacious mess. It holds no water when held to the scrutiny of a simple rational assessment, viewed from a perspective of objectivity and sanity.