Alienation: Marx's Conception of Man in Capitalist Society (review)

Abstract

268 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY way he is able to offer a useful and comprehensive text--even if it is going to be superseded in 30 or 40 years by a critical edition. He also promises a second volume which should contain sdections of other lecture notes and of an original manuscript of Scbelling, the Ages o~ the Worm (1827-1828)--all this to illustrate a large number of themes developed in the first volume. We can only wait impatiently for this volume, hoping that it is going to clear up the philosophical and literary sources of the published texts in the same exemplary way as this has been done for the historical information concerning the letters. MIKLOSVETO Yale UniverMty Alienation: Marx's Conception o/Man in Capitalist Society. By Bertell OUman. (Cambridge , England: Cambridge University Press, 1971. Pp. 325+xvi. $10.50) Only a few years ago, Marx's philosophical reputation among most English-speaking philosophers was so low as to be almost nonexistent. One of America's leading interpreters of nineteenth-century Continental philosophy could suggest, and could be astonished at being contradicted upon doing so, that had not some of Marx's followers won a country, he would scarcely even be remembered today; and that, even though they had, he could hardly be taken seriously as a philosopher. In the past few years, however, a considerable number of substantial philosophical studies of Marx's philosophy have appeared in English--some translations of classics and recent works by Continental authors (e.g., Georg Lukfics's History and Class Consciousness, and Adam Schaff's Marxism and the Human Individual), and also quite a few studies by English-speaking writers; nor does the flood show any signs of ebbing. And it is now becoming clear to increasing numbers of Anglo-American philosophers that Marx is a philosopher to be reckoned with, even though he did not develop his philosophical views as explicitly and systematically as most of them ordinarily expect other philosophers to do. While this latter circumstance may have contributed to his neglect in the past, it now appears to serve as a stimulus to many writers, for whom the task of reconstructing Marx's views on various philosophical questions is as welcome a challenge as the task of dealing with these views is found philosophically rewarding. Bertell Ollman is one such writer; and while he is a political scientist by profession, he clearly intends his book Alienation: Marx's Conception o/Man in Capitalist Society to be viewed as a contribution to the understanding of Marxism as a philosophy. Part I of his book is a "Philosophical Introduction"; Part II deals with "Marx's Conception of Human Nature"; Part III is entitled "The Theory of Alienation"; and his Conclusion ("A Critical Evaluation") is largely philosophical in nature. Marx's "theory of alienation" is at the very heart of his philosophy of man and society; and on its dust-jacket flap, the book is proclaimed "the most thorough account of Marx's theory of alienation yet to have appeared in English." This claim is disputable; but one might well expect much of philosophical interest on this topic from a book of 325 pages with Ollman's title. One can hardly fail to be disappointed, therefore, by the sketchiness and brevity of Ollman's actual discussion of what Marx has to say about "alienation." Only 250 pages of the book are text, of which half are devoted to preliminaries and a presentation of Marx's views on man's nature; and fully two thirds of the part dealing with the "theory of alienation" are given over to discussions of "the labor theory of value" and "value relations ." A mere 27 pages--divided into six chapters--are devoted to Marx's richly suggestive and highly important discussion of "alienation" in all of the various forms in which it occurs in capitalistic society. Reference to numbers of pages is usually inappropriate in a review of a book; but in this case it is telling. Ollman cannot (nor could anyone) BOOK REVIEWS 269 do anything like justice to Marx's discussion of the various forms of alienation in so short a space. Moreover, he...