Conclusion

Abstract

In this conclusion, the authors show how their studies contribute to the imperative (renewed) reflection of materialist critique of society on its own theoretical and practical conditions of possibility, on the preconditions of the validity of its claim to truth, and on the latter’s actual consequences. In contrast to dogmatic forms of Marxism and Marxology alike, they demonstrate how the catastrophic developments of the twentieth century, namely Fascism and National Socialism on the one hand and the “actually existing socialism” on the other, compel any contemporary materialist critique to reflect upon two massive problems: (1) the temporal core of a critique (and its truth), which was once still able to comprehended its object, capitalist social relations, in the light of the possibility of their self-generated susceptibility to communist sublation, and (2) the potential for violence that is inherent to the necessary “abolutism of truth” (Marcuse) of Marx’s scientific critique of society. Only by incorporating instead of splitting off these insights, one can still reasonably adhere to Marx’s materialist critique.