Ideology and Interpretation: The Case of Althusser

Abstract

Many recent interpretations of Marx have asked whether his work represents a or a many (see LaCapra 1983). Partisans of the one, the Parmenideans, we might call them, have often stressed the underlying continuity and coherence of Marx's writings from his earliest writings, such as the doctoral dissertation, Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right, and Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts (1844), to the later works up to and including Capital. According to Shlomo Avineri's (1968) study of Marx's social and political thought, the distinction between the and the Marx, between alienation and surplus value, is misplaced (see also Calvez 1956; Meszaros 1972; Kolakowski 1978). Marx's writings are said to form one corpus unified by a single underlying intent. The coherence of Marx's life's work is not, for Avineri, merely a methodological postulate; rather, the evidence of this continuity is supplied by Marx's own self-understanding. Responding to those critics who see Marx's later determinism as a repudiation of his earlier moral and humanistic concerns, Avineri (1968: 40) writes, Not only is there no 'caesura' between the young and the old Marx, but the guarantee of continuity has been supplied by Marx himself.