{{Short description|Philosophy influenced by Marxist political thought}} {{Marxism|expanded=philosophy}} '''Marxist philosophy''' or '''Marxist theory''' are works in [[philosophy]] that are strongly influenced by [[Karl Marx]]'s [[Historical materialism|materialist]] approach to [[theory]], or works written by [[Marxist]]s. Marxist philosophy may be broadly divided into [[Western Marxism]], which drew from various sources, and the official [[philosophy in the Soviet Union]], which enforced a rigid reading of what Marx called [[dialectical materialism]], in particular during the 1930s. Marxist philosophy is not a strictly defined sub-field of philosophy, because the diverse influence of Marxist theory has extended into fields as varied as [[aesthetics]], [[ethics]], [[ontology]], [[epistemology]], [[social philosophy]], [[political philosophy]], the [[philosophy of science]], and the [[philosophy of history]]. The key characteristics of Marxism in philosophy are its materialism and its commitment to political practice as the end goal of all thought. The theory is also about the struggles of the [[proletariat]] and their reprimand of the [[bourgeoisie]]. Marxist theorist [[Louis Althusser]], for example, defined the philosophy as "[[class struggle]] in theory", thus radically separating himself from those who claimed philosophers could adopt a "[[God's eye view]]" as a purely neutral judge. ==Marxism and philosophy== [[File:G.W.F. Hegel (by Sichling, after Sebbers).jpg|thumb|200px|[[Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel]] was an important figure in the development of Marxism.]] There are endless interpretations of the "philosophy of Marx", from the interior of the Marxist movement as well as in its exterior. Although some have separated Marx's works between a "[[young Marx]]" (in particular the ''[[Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844]]'') and a "mature Marx" or also by separating it into purely philosophical works, economics works and political and historical interventions, Étienne Balibar has pointed out that Marx's works can be divided into "economic works" (''[[Das Kapital]]'', 1867), "philosophical works" and "historical works" (''[[The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte]]'', the 1871 ''[[The Civil War in France|Civil War in France]]'' which concerned the [[Paris Commune]] and acclaimed it as the first "[[dictatorship of the proletariat]]", etc.)[[Étienne Balibar]], 1993. ''La philosophie de Marx'', [[La Découverte]], Repères (English edition, ''The Philosophy of Marx''. Verso, 1995) Étienne Balibar claimed that if one philosopher could be called a "Marxist philosopher", that one would doubtlessly be [[Louis Althusser]]:
Althusser proposed a 'new definition' of philosophy as "class struggle in theory"... Marxism had proper signification (and original "problematic") ''only'' insofar as it was the theory of ''the'' tendency towards communism, and ''in view'' of its realization. The criteria of acceptance or rejection of a 'marxist' proposition was always the same, whether it was presented as 'epistemological' or as 'philosophical': it was in the act of rendering intelligible a ''communist policy'', or not." (''Ecrits pour Althusser'', 1991, p.98).
In 1938, Trotsky had written ''"Their Morals and Ours"'' which consisted of [[ethics|ethical polemics]] in response to criticisms around his actions concerning the Kronstadt rebellion and wider questions posed around the perceived, "amoral" methods of the Bolsheviks. Critics believed these methods seemed to emulate the Jesuit maxim that the "[[Consequentialism|ends justifies the means]]". Trotsky argued that Marxism situated the foundation of morality as a product of society to [[Marxian class theory|serve social interests]] rather than "eternal moral truths" proclaimed by institutional religions.{{cite book |last1=Knei-Paz |first1=Baruch |title=The social and political thought of Leon Trotsky |date=1978 |location=Oxford [Eng.] |publisher= Clarendon Press |isbn=978-0-19-827233-5 |pages=556–560 |url=https://archive.org/details/socialpoliticalt0000knei/page/300/mode/2up?q=proletarian+culture}} On the other hand, he regarded it as farcical to assert that an end could justify any criminal means and viewed this to be a distorted representation of the [[Jesuit]] maxim. Instead, Trotsky believed that the means and ends frequently "exchanged places" as when [[democracy]] is sought by the working class as an instrument to actualize socialism. He also viewed revolution to be deducible from the laws of the development and primarily the class struggle but this did not mean all means are permissible.{{cite book |last1=Knei-Paz |first1=Baruch |title=The social and political thought of Leon Trotsky |date=1978 |location=Oxford [Eng.] |publisher= Clarendon Press |isbn=978-0-19-827233-5 |pages=556–560 |url=https://archive.org/details/socialpoliticalt0000knei/page/300/mode/2up?q=proletarian+culture}} Marx's critique of the ideology of the human rights thus departs from the [[counterrevolutionary]] critique by [[Edmund Burke]], who dismissed the "rights of Man" in favour of the "rights of the individual": it is not grounded on an opposition to the [[Age of Enlightenment|Enlightenment]]'s [[Universality (philosophy)|universalism]] and [[humanism|humanist]] project on behalf of the right of [[tradition]], as in Burke's case, but rather on the claim that the ideology of economism and the ideology of the human rights are the reverse sides of the same coin. However, as Étienne Balibar puts it, "the accent put on those contradictions can not not ring out on the signification of 'human rights', since these therefore appears ''both'' as the language in which [[Exploitation of labour|exploitation]] masks itself and as the one in which the exploited class struggle express itself: more than a truth or an illusion, it is therefore a ''stake''".[[Étienne Balibar]], ''The Philosophy of Marx'', 1993, p.74 original edition ''Das Kapital'' ironizes on the "pompous catalogue of the human rights" in comparison to the "modest ''Magna Charta'' of a day work limited by law": {{blockquote|The creation of a normal working-day is, therefore, the product of a protracted civil war, more or less dissembled, between the capitalist class and the working-class... It must be acknowledged that our labourer comes out of the process of production other than he entered. In the market he stood as owner of the commodity "labour-power" face to face with other owners of commodities, dealer against dealer. The contract by which he sold to the capitalist his labour-power proved, so to say, in black and white that he disposed of himself freely. The bargain concluded, it is discovered that he was no "free agent," that the time for which he is free to sell his labour-power is the time for which he is forced to sell it, that in fact the vampire will not lose its hold on him "so long as there is a muscle, a nerve, a drop of blood to be exploited." For "protection" against "the serpent of their agonies," the labourers must put their heads together, and, as a class, compel the passing of a law, an all-powerful social barrier that shall prevent the very workers from selling, by voluntary contract with capital, themselves and their families into slavery and death. In place of the pompous catalogue of the "inalienable rights of man" comes the modest Magna Charta of a legally limited working-day, which shall make clear "when the time which the worker sells is ended, and when his own begins.'' Quantum mutatus ab illo!''[How changed from what he/it was!]"Karl Marx, ''Das Kapital'', [http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch10.htm#S7 chapter X, section 7]}} But the communist revolution does not end with the negation of individual liberty and equality ("[[Collectivist anarchism|collectivism]]"[[Louis Dumont (anthropologist)|Louis Dumont]] argued that Marx represented exacerbated [[individualism]] instead of [[holism]] as the popular interpretation of Marxism as "collectivism" would have it), but with the "negation of the negation": "individual property" in the capitalist regime is in fact the "expropriation of the immediate producers." "Self-earned private property, that is based, so to say, on the fusing together of the isolated, independent laboring-individual with the conditions of his labor, is supplanted by capitalistic private property, which rests on exploitation of the nominally free labor of others, i.e., on wage-labor... The capitalist mode of appropriation, the result of the [[capitalist mode of production (Marxist theory)|capitalist mode of production]], produces capitalist private property. This is the first negation of individual private property, as founded on the labor of the proprietor. But capitalist production begets, with the inexorability of a law of Nature, its own negation. It is the negation of negation. This does not re-establish private property for the producer, but gives him individual property based on the acquisition of the capitalist era: i.e., on co-operation and the possession in common of the land and of the means of production.Karl Marx, ''Das Kapital'', [http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch32.htm chapter XXXII, section 1] === Criticisms of Ludwig Feuerbach === {{Main|Ludwig Feuerbach|Marx's theory of alienation}} What distinguished Marx from Feuerbach was his view of Feuerbach's [[humanism]] as excessively abstract, and so no less ahistorical and idealist than what it purported to replace, namely the reified notion of God found in institutional Christianity that legitimized the repressive power of the Prussian state. Instead, Marx aspired to give [[ontological]] priority to what he called the "real life process" of real human beings, as he and Engels said in ''The German Ideology'' (1846):
In direct contrast to German philosophy, which descends from heaven to earth, here we ascend from earth to heaven. That is to say, we do not set out from what men say, imagine, conceive, nor from men as narrated, thought of, imagined, conceived, in order to arrive at men in the flesh. We set out from real, active men, and on the basis of their real life process we demonstrate the development of the ideological reflexes and echoes of this life process. The phantoms formed in the human brain are also, necessarily, sublimates of their material life process, which is empirically verifiable and bound to material premises. Morality, religion, metaphysics, all the rest of ideology and their corresponding forms of consciousness, thus no longer retain the semblance of independence. They have no history, no development; but men, developing their material production and their material intercourse, alter, along with this, their real existence, their thinking, and the products of their thinking. Life is not determined by consciousness, but consciousness by life.{{cite book|title=The German Ideology|chapter=Part I: Feuerbach. Opposition of the Materialist and Idealist Outlook A. Idealism and Materialism|url=https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/german-ideology/ch01a.htm|first1=Karl|last1=Marx|first2=Friedrich|last2=Engels}}
=== Historical materialism === {{Main|Historical materialism|Dialectical materialism}} Marx summarized the materialistic aspect of his theory of history, otherwise known as [[historical materialism]] (this term was coined by Engels and popularised by [[Karl Kautsky]] and [[Georgi Plekhanov]]), in the 1859 preface to ''[[A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy]]'':
In the social production of their existence, men inevitably enter into definite relations, which are independent of their will, namely [[relations of production]] appropriate to a given stage in the development of their material [[forces of production]]. The totality of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation, on which arises a legal and political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness. The [[mode of production]] of material life conditions the general process of social, political and intellectual life. It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but their social existence that determines their consciousness.
=== Revisionism === In Marxist philosophy, "revisionism", otherwise known as "Marxist reformism", represents various ideas, principles, and theories that are based on a [[reform]] or revision of [[Marxism]]. According to their critics, this involves a significant revision of [[Orthodox Marxism|fundamental Marxist theories and premises]], and usually involves making an alliance with the [[bourgeois class]].''[[Oxford English Dictionary]]'' Revisionism 1. "A policy first put forward in the 1890s by Edward Bernstein (1850–1932) advocating the introduction of socialism through evolution rather than revolution, in opposition to the orthodox view of Marxists; hence a term of abuse used within the communist world for an interpretation of Marxism which is felt to threaten the canonical policy." Cites the first use in English "1903 ''Social-Democrat VII''. 84 (''heading'') Revisionism in Germany." Some academic economists have used ''revisionism'' to describe [[Communist Party of the Soviet Union#Post-Stalin years (1953–1985)|post-Stalinist]], Eastern European writers who criticized [[one-party rule]] and argued in favour of [[freedom of the press]] and [[Artistic freedom|of the arts]], intra- and sometimes inter-party democracy, independent [[labour union]]s, the abolition of bureaucratic privileges, and the subordination of police forces to the judiciary power.{{Cite journal |last=Paltemaa |first=Lauri |date=2007 |title=The Democracy Wall Movement, Marxist Revisionism, and the Variations on Socialist Democracy |url=http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10670560701562325 |journal=[[Journal of Contemporary China]] |language=en |volume=16 |issue=53 |pages=602 |doi=10.1080/10670560701562325 |s2cid=143933209 |issn=1067-0564|url-access=subscription }} In Marxist discourse, ''revisionism'' often carries [[pejorative]] connotations and the term has been used by many different factions. It is typically applied to others and rarely as a self-description. By extension, Marxists who view themselves as fighting against revisionism have often self-identified as Marxist–Leninist [[anti-revisionists]]. ''Revisionism'' is most often used as an epithet by those Marxists who believe that such revisions are unwarranted and represent a watering down or abandonment of Marxism—one such common example is the negation of [[class struggle]].{{cite book |first=Mao |last=Tse-Tung |author-link=Mao Zedong |date=July 1964 |url=https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/works/1964/phnycom.htm |title=On Khrushchov's Phoney Communism and Its Historical Lessons for the World |quote=... the revisionist Khrushchov clique base themselves mainly on the argument that ... class struggle no longer exists. |via=[[Marxists Internet Archive]]}} [[File:Bernstein Eduard 1895.jpg|thumb|left|200px|upright=0.6|[[Eduard Bernstein]], an early revisionist]] Revisionism has been used in a number of contexts to refer to different or claimed revisions of [[Marxist theory]]. Those who opposed [[Karl Marx]]'s revolution through his lens of [[class struggle]] and sought out non-revolutionary or more conciliatory means for a change are known as revisionists. [[Eduard Bernstein]], a close acquaintance of Marx and [[Friedrich Engels]], was one of the first major revisionists, and was prominent in the [[Social Democratic Party of Germany]] (SPD).{{cite book |last1=Steger |first1=Manfred |title=The Quest for Evolutionary Socialism: Eduard Bernstein And Social Democracy |date=1997 |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |location=Cambridge, England}} In the late 19th century, the term ''revisionism'' was used to describe [[Reformist socialism|reformist socialist]] writers, such as Bernstein, who sought to revise Marx's ideas about the transition to socialism and claimed that a revolution was not necessary to achieve a socialist society.{{cite book |editor-first=Wolfgang |editor-last=Eichhorn |editor-link=Wolfgang Eichhorn |chapter=Über Eduard Bernstein. Gegensatz und Berührungspunkte zu Rosa Luxemburg und W. I. Lenin |language=de |trans-chapter=About Edward Bernstein. Contrast and points of contact with Rosa Luxemburg and V. I. Lenin |title=[[Jahrbuch für Forschungen zur Geschichte der Arbeiterbewegung]] |trans-title=Yearbook for research into the history of the labor movement |number=I |date=2002}} The views of Bernstein gave rise to [[evolutionary socialism]], which asserts that socialism can be achieved through gradual peaceful reforms from within a capitalist system.{{cite book |editor-first=Philip P. |editor-last=Wiener |url=http://etext.virginia.edu/DicHist/dict.html |title=Dictionary of the History of Ideas |publisher=[[Charles Scribner's Sons]] |location=New York |date=1973–74}} referenced in {{cite web |first=R. K. |last=Kindersley |url=http://etext.virginia.edu/DicHist/dict.html |title=Marxist revisionism: From Bernstein to modern forms |website=[[University of Virginia]] Library |access-date=28 April 2008}} {{Clear|left}} ==Differences within Marxist philosophy== The status of [[humanism]] in Marxist thought has been quite contentious. A number of Marxists, especially Hegelian Marxists and also those committed to political programs (such as some [[Communist Party|Communist]] Parties), have been strongly humanist. These humanist Marxists believe that Marxism describes the true potential of human beings, and that this potential can be fulfilled in collective freedom after the Communist revolution has removed capitalism's constraints and subjugations of humanity. A particular version of the humanism within the Marxism is represented by the school of [[Lev Vygotsky]] and his school in [[theoretical psychology]] ([[Aleksei N. Leontiev|Alexei Leontiev]], [[Laszlo Garai]][http://www.staff.u-szeged.hu/~garai/Interview%20with%20Laszlo%20Garai.htm Interview with Laszlo Garai on the Activity Theory of Alexis Leontiev and his own Theory of Social Identity as referred to the meta-theory of Lev Vygotsky. Journal of Russian and East European Psychology, vol. 50, no. 1, January–February 2012, pp. 50–64]). ==Key works and authors== {{cols}} *[[Karl Marx]] and [[Friedrich Engels]], especially the earlier writings such as ''[[Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844|The 1844 Manuscripts]]'', ''[[The German Ideology]]'' and "[[Theses on Feuerbach]]", but also the ''[[Grundrisse]]'', ''Das Kapital'' and other works inspired *[[Theodor Adorno]] *[[Louis Althusser]] *[[Alain Badiou]] *[[Étienne Balibar]] *[[Walter Benjamin]] *[[Ernst Bloch (philosopher)|Ernst Bloch]] *[[Nikolai Bukharin]] *[[Amadeo Bordiga]] *[[Cornelius Castoriadis]] *[[Maurice Cornforth]] *[[Guy Debord]] *[[Joseph Dietzgen]] *[[Hal Draper]] *[[Raya Dunayevskaya]] *[[Laszlo Garai]] *[[Antonio Gramsci]] *[[Jürgen Habermas]] *[[C. L. R. James|CLR James]] *[[Fredric Jameson]] *[[Karl Kautsky]] *[[Karl Korsch]] *[[Antonio Labriola]] *[[Paul Lafargue]] *[[Henri Lefebvre]] *[[Claude Lefort]] *[[Vladimir Lenin]] *[[Georg Lukács]], ''[[History and Class Consciousness]]'' developed the theory of [[ideology]] to include a more complex model of [[class consciousness]] *[[Rosa Luxemburg]] *[[Herbert Marcuse]] *[[Ralph Miliband]], often considered a main proponent of Instrumental Marxism, however some dispute this{{Cite web|last=Schulman|first=Jason|date=August 2019|title=Miliband and the State|url=https://jacobinmag.com/2019/08/leo-panitch-ralph-miliband-the-state-in-capitalist-society-socialism|website=Jacobin|language=en-US|access-date=July 18, 2020}}{{Citation|last=Barrow|first=Clyde W.|date=2008|chapter=Ralph Miliband and the Instrumentalist Theory of the State: The (Mis)Construction of an Analytic Concept|title=Class, Power and the State in Capitalist Society: Essays on Ralph Miliband|pages=84–108|editor1-last=Wetherly|editor1-first=Paul|editor2-last=Barrow|editor2-first=Clyde W.|editor3-last=Burnham|editor3-first=Peter|location=London|publisher=Palgrave Macmillan UK|language=en|doi=10.1057/9780230592704_5|isbn=978-0-230-59270-4}} *[[Ho Chi Minh]] *[[Antonio Negri]] *[[Antonie Pannekoek]] *[[Georgi Plekhanov]] *[[Georges Politzer]] *[[Jacques Rancière]] *[[Helmut Reichelt]] *[[M. N. Roy]] *[[Jean-Paul Sartre]] *[[Leon Trotsky]],''"Their Morals and Ours"'' *[[Deng Xiaoping]] *[[Mao Zedong]] *[[Slavoj Žižek]] {{colend}} ==See also == {{cols|colwidth=16em}} *[[:Category:Marxist theorists]] and [[list of contributors to Marxist theory]] *[[Critical theory]] *[[Dialectical materialism]] *[[Freudo-Marxism]] *[[Marxist ethics]] *[[Marxist explanations of warfare]] *[[Marxist feminism]] *[[Neo-Marxism]] *[[Marxist humanism]] *[[Orthodox Marxism]] *[[Post-Marxism]] *[[Analytical Marxism]] *''[[Rethinking Marxism]]'' {{colend}} ==References== {{reflist|30em}} == Bibliography == * [[Étienne Balibar|Balibar, Étienne]], ''The Philosophy of Marx''. Verso, 1995 (French edition: ''La philosophie de Marx'', La Découverte, Repères, 1991) * [[Thomas Bottomore|Bottomore, Thomas]], ed.. ''A Dictionary of Marxist Thought''. Blackwell, 1991. {{Philosophy topics}} [[Category:Marxist theory| ]] [[Category:Social philosophy]]