Marxism and Philosophy.
After thinking about some of these issues for a while I have realized that there are numerous blogs out there that are far better at writing about contemporary issues in the manner which I do and that it is time that I begin to live up to the name of the blog. While I will not entirely cease to write about them, my main focus will be marxist philosophy.
To start, then, philosophy as a discipline is probably unlike any other, and yet it shares similarities and connections with all of them. Many do not understand what philosophy is, confusing it with just existentialist "what is the meaning of life?" type questions, others turn it into an oracle of some kind that can give us answers to everything and anything.
Though trying to give a simple explanation of what philosophy is does not work, there is no single definition, it can be characterized by certain traits and methods. Philosophy is not concerned with data in the first hand, they are interested in what data might be meant to mean. Philosophy is also interested in logic: formal and that which relates different systems to one another (from formal, modal, axiological, hegelian, etc). The creation of particular terms and structures is what Althusser upheld as so vitally important in the late Marx writing's. He did not simply take the English economists, French socialists and German philosophers and put them together. Marx entered a new term into the equation: the class struggle, opening up the "continent of history" which changed the entire theoretical structure and gave us a completely new way to understand the world.
With these, all too brief, remarks, I will move on to the question posed not from the beginner but by the communist. What good is philosophy, anyway? Class struggle is won by action, not navel-gazing. In many cases, I must say - I agree! The entire labour movement should not sit down and start reading Hegel's Logic. Nor, of course, should some ivory tower elite be doing the philosophising, sending it's messages down to the masses below with a messenger pigeon. Philosophy is as much a birth of a class as it is the development of a school of philosophers. The two must have an organic relation in the manner of what Gramsci spoke of.
As ever, a choice not to do something is a political choice to side with the hegemone. If I do not vote, I vote for the burgeoise. If I am not in a trade union, I am in the trade union of the burgeoise. So it is with philosophy, too, as all human actions are similar and political. Philosophers can either step away from the class struggle, thus leaving aside all pretentions for ever penetrating ideology, and side with the burgeoise in it's analytical or contintental forms.
Marxist philosophy is the basic theoretical tool and defence for marxism and against the ideology of the upper classes. It is a weapon in the class struggle, a means to abolish ideology and a methodology to underline and systemize marxist theory in large, between sociology, economy and politics. It can aid us in the "ruthless critique of all that exists": against the atomism of liberals, the hidden idealism of postmodernists and to make us understand how aesthetics, religion and democracy might all be understood (or not) in specific ways and through specific structures. It may illuminate an understanding of history as hegemonic, as deterministic vulgar marxist or similar. It is the tool against deviations and the manner in which we systemize what we understand and what we criticise. It is important for all these reasons and many more.
These are then the opening remarks of a systematic attempt to somehow develop and apply marxist philosophy in all it's varied guises. To conclude:
The philosophers have only described the world, the point, however, is to change it!
To start, then, philosophy as a discipline is probably unlike any other, and yet it shares similarities and connections with all of them. Many do not understand what philosophy is, confusing it with just existentialist "what is the meaning of life?" type questions, others turn it into an oracle of some kind that can give us answers to everything and anything.
Though trying to give a simple explanation of what philosophy is does not work, there is no single definition, it can be characterized by certain traits and methods. Philosophy is not concerned with data in the first hand, they are interested in what data might be meant to mean. Philosophy is also interested in logic: formal and that which relates different systems to one another (from formal, modal, axiological, hegelian, etc). The creation of particular terms and structures is what Althusser upheld as so vitally important in the late Marx writing's. He did not simply take the English economists, French socialists and German philosophers and put them together. Marx entered a new term into the equation: the class struggle, opening up the "continent of history" which changed the entire theoretical structure and gave us a completely new way to understand the world.
With these, all too brief, remarks, I will move on to the question posed not from the beginner but by the communist. What good is philosophy, anyway? Class struggle is won by action, not navel-gazing. In many cases, I must say - I agree! The entire labour movement should not sit down and start reading Hegel's Logic. Nor, of course, should some ivory tower elite be doing the philosophising, sending it's messages down to the masses below with a messenger pigeon. Philosophy is as much a birth of a class as it is the development of a school of philosophers. The two must have an organic relation in the manner of what Gramsci spoke of.
As ever, a choice not to do something is a political choice to side with the hegemone. If I do not vote, I vote for the burgeoise. If I am not in a trade union, I am in the trade union of the burgeoise. So it is with philosophy, too, as all human actions are similar and political. Philosophers can either step away from the class struggle, thus leaving aside all pretentions for ever penetrating ideology, and side with the burgeoise in it's analytical or contintental forms.
Marxist philosophy is the basic theoretical tool and defence for marxism and against the ideology of the upper classes. It is a weapon in the class struggle, a means to abolish ideology and a methodology to underline and systemize marxist theory in large, between sociology, economy and politics. It can aid us in the "ruthless critique of all that exists": against the atomism of liberals, the hidden idealism of postmodernists and to make us understand how aesthetics, religion and democracy might all be understood (or not) in specific ways and through specific structures. It may illuminate an understanding of history as hegemonic, as deterministic vulgar marxist or similar. It is the tool against deviations and the manner in which we systemize what we understand and what we criticise. It is important for all these reasons and many more.
These are then the opening remarks of a systematic attempt to somehow develop and apply marxist philosophy in all it's varied guises. To conclude:
The philosophers have only described the world, the point, however, is to change it!
Labels: critique, Marxist philosophy
posted by Björn at 11:37 PM
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