Marx (1818–1883)

Abstract

Marx stands apart from many other thinkers assessed in this volume. He did not consider himself a political philosopher. Philosophers, he famously declaimed, merely interpreted the world; the point was to change it. His theoretical enterprise sought to explain the world in order to change it, which involved not merely thought but practical activity. This took him into the realms of political economy, rather than political philosophy. Yet in truth Marx was not implicitly anti-philosophical; he merely attempted to underline its limitations as a theoretical instrument in the shaping of the practice of human emancipation. Given this, his patently philosophical roots, and the indelible mark his ideas left on twentieth-century politics, he attracted much philosophical attention, inviting philosophical refutation and defence. Marx is still a ‘live’ thinker. Often commentators wittingly or unwittingly became engaged in a political activity, of attacking, defending or resuscitating Marx. What often became the centre of interpretive disagreement were Marx’s claims to truth, whether methodological or substantive claims about history and contemporary capitalist society. At the same time, less politically engaged lines of questioning were advanced, concerning the meaning of certain texts irrespective of truth claims.KeywordsProductive ForceProduction RelationWage RelationMoral DiscourseClass StruggleThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.