The Marxist Philosophy of Ernst Bloch by Wayne Hudson

Abstract

660 BOOK REVIEWS times recalls that of De veritate. (As Marrone points out, this work is representative of Grosseteste's earlier and more 'Augustinian' period.) These passages have suggested to most scholars that even in his efforts to come to grips with Aristotle, Grosseteste continued to hold to his early views on the place of divine illumination in man's knowledge of simple truth" (p. 195). He then goes on to explain why it is we ought not to take Grosseteste to mean what he appears to mean, even if, as he admits : "Every historian who has written about Grosseteste's thought" has tended to do so. His recommendation is that we consider such passages in the text as attempts at imagery or metaphor, to be read in the corrective light of what Robert says elsewhere-or rather, fails to say elsewhere about divine illumination in explaining how man knows truth. Here again, the simpler lesson would seem to be that Grosseteste, like William of Auvergne, remained committed to St. Augustine's illumination theory, despite the newly discovered insights from Aristotle. The foregoing critical remarks, it must be emphasized, reflect this reviewer 's opinion only as to Marrone's general thesis, i.e., his contention that William of Auvergne and Robert Grosseteste are in the business of replacement rather than synthesis. The running comment he provides on how the two men handled the exposition of truth is very well done, and will be of help to anyone who seeks to learn what they thought about the subject. As a final note, I might refer the reader to another recent study, viz., The Philosophy of Robert Grosseteste by James McEvoy (Oxford, 1982), who, it seems to me, strikes a better balance in the way he presents one of Marrone's two scholars in this complex period of transition. FRANCIS E. KELLEY St. Bonaventure University St. Bonaventure, New York The Marxist Philosophy of Ernst Bloch. By WAYNE HUDSON. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1982. $27.50. This is an impressive book whatever one thinks of Bloch's philosophy. Ernst Bloch was one of the most elusive thinkers in twentieth century Marxism; at times he seemed studiously vague not only in his prose but in thought as well. All the more reason then to be grateful to Hudson for his systematic, clear presentation and analysis of Bloch's philosophy. The origin of this work was Hudson's doctoral dissertation on Bloch written under Leszek Kolakowski at Oxford in 1975. Thus, one needs to BOOK REVIEWS 661 qualify the author's claim that this book is an introduction of Bloch to the English-speaking world since it is anything but an introduction for the general reader. Rather, the detail of argument and the frequent allusions to and comparisons with other philosophers and philosophical schools make the book most attractive to teachers and serious graduate students in philosophy. Hudson displays a scholar's attention to fine points of nuance besides commendable mastery of material on classical German philosophy, Marxism, and Bloch himself. One senses Hudson has fairly and carefully set forth Bloch within a context of Marxist revisionism even when the author disagrees with his subject. The research is indeed thorough, perhaps even a bit excessive-941 footnotes for 218 pages of text! To use Isaiah Berlin's parable, Bloch is best understood as a hedgehog rather than a fox-a man with a single great insight which he uses to retrieve and re-cast other ideas that became conventional. That single insight was the importance of utopian thinking. In six chapters Hudson unfolds Bloch's approach, not so much chronologically as thematically, helping the reader to see the basic insight, explaining how Bloch developed this insight into a metaphysical system, and showing where Bloch has enriched, challenged, confused, and strayed from the Marxist tradition. The opening chapter is a brief outline of Bloch's biography and a short note on the ambiguity of his use of the term " not yet." Chapter two covers the major themes in Bloch's project for a utopian philosophy while the two middle chapters expand this effort to illustrate how Bloch conceived of a " Marxist metaphysic." The last...