Classical Materialism Research Articles

The Subjective Dimension of Historical Materialism—From the Perspective of “Need”

The thought of need always occupies an important position in Marx’s theory. Through the literature review of Marx’s need thought, we can conclude that it is a central clue running through Marx’s thought, but also the basic category of historical materialism. The position of need thought in historical materialism lies in the need of people to promote the development of productive forces. The need of people is the source of promoting social development, and the targeted activities to meet the needs are the driving force of social development. In the classical historical materialism, it emphasizes the objective dimension of historical materialism, while ignoring the subjective dimension of the dominant factors of the social and historical process, which Marx also attaches great importance to. For the study of needs, it can be further found that social history is not only “a natural historical process”, but also a specific historical process based on the reality of human subjects.

Hamlet and Lucretian Anxiety

ABSTRACT Lucretius’s poem De rerum natura articulates a philosophy meant to help its adherents avoid anxiety and inner turmoil. Although Shakespeare was acquainted with and influenced by Lucretius, scholarship has neglected this influence upon Hamlet, a play whose title character is most famous for inner turmoil and melancholy. This essay argues that that the play has a Lucretian aspect, such that classical materialism is reflected in its tapestry of metaphysical anxieties. Besides Christian concerns about the afterlife, Prince Hamlet’s suffering may also, therefore, be understood in the context of a Lucretian ethics and science. Lucretius propounded a materialist view of the soul, and viewed death as the separation of the atoms of body and soul from each other. Thus, this essay points out certain scenes in the play which suggest or investigate atomic decomposition. In particular, the Gravedigger scene represents Lucretian-materialist attitudes toward death.

Notes from the Editors, November 2018

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 The twenty-first century has resulted in a vast upsurge of ecological Marxism and ecosocialism more generally, building on the environmental critique of capitalism embedded in classical historical materialism. At the same time, it has also engendered opposing tendencies and approaches concerning how we understand relentless ecological destruction under capitalism. This issue is dedicated to exploring the theoretical advances, schools of thought, and debates on the left in regard to our world's ecological crisis, which threatens the survival of humanity and is inescapable within the present capitalist system of production.

ФІЛОСОФІЯ ІСТОРІЇ В КОНТЕКСТІ ЛІНГВІСТИЧНОЇ (НАРАТИВНОЇ) ФІЛОСОФСЬКОЇ ТРАДИЦІЇ

The authors consider the problem of the disciplinary status of linguistic (narrative) philosophy of history. The problem is examined in the context of analysis of its basic assumptions, which have been described in the works of A. Danto and F. R. Ankersmit. This philosophical tradition mainly developed in the first half of the twentieth century as a reaction to the impossibility of empirical verification of the scientific adequacy of the theoretical concepts of the regularities of historical development, which were established within the classic philosophy of history. Rejection of the gnosiological problematics lies on the basis of linguistic (narrative) philosophy of history. Also the notion of a fact is replaced by the notion of interpretation of a fact on the basis of narrative. The study of meanings and values of these narratives is based on language as the ontological Foundation of consciousness.According to A. Danto the scientific failure of the theory (concept) of the historical process lies in the impossibility of assessment by the researcher of the entire length of the process, especially of the stage of completion (the «end of history»). The observer does not know the final result of the whole process. Therefore, the observer can not estimate the value and meaning both of a process as a whole and its individual stages. Thus, the conclusion is that the history as a series of past events cannot be the subject of the philosophy of history. Only the interpretation of history in the philosophical studies and narrative representations can be the subject of the philosophy of history.According to F. G. Ankersmit «past» and «history» by themselves do not have narrative structure. The researcher also doesn’t have a set of rules of language translation of the past into the language of modernity. These rules would allow to compare the historical narrative with the «past».Thus, in the context of linguistic tradition the «philosophy of history» transforms into the «theory of historical narrative». This theory only logically analyzes the existing historiographical narrative. In fact, this position does not replace the basic methodological approach of classical philosophy of history to the study of reality (a theory based on the uncertainty of the outcome of the process). Only the subject of study is changed: the historical process is replaced by a historical narrative (not the source of the study of history but its interpretation).This approach can be used for the formation of historical consciousness, but it is unsuitable for real historical research. At the same time in the frames of classical philosophy of history a series of methodologies have been recently created. These methodologies allow to use empirical research methods and build it on the basis of concepts. These concepts find a complete confirmation with the help of an independent group of historical sources. So, today, as a result of repeated empirical evidence the concepts of cliometrics, revolutionary crises, and historical development as a result of adaptation of society to changing conditions of existence are finally created. These concepts were developed on the basis of the methodology of historical materialism. At the same time a linguistic (narrative) philosophical tradition only explains the basic foundation of own methodology and criticizes the methods of the opponents. Predictive capability of the methodology of narrative philosophy of history doesn’t enable to adequately use it in a real historical research, although this methodology has been successfully used for the formation of a historical consciousness, including professional surrounding. Therefore, at the present stage of development of the philosophy of history, linguistic tradition as the methodology of the research is much less promising than the methods developed on the basis of classical historical materialism.

Dos teorías informacionales de la conciencia

The paper presents two theories that seek to explain consciousness on the basis of the concept of information. Ortiz understands information as a material structure that shapes the human cerebral cortex, thus configuring consciousness, while Chalmers considers information as an “abstract space” not material but realizable in the physical, therefore, an element that could explain the ineffable character of consciousness. Both perspectives appear in a theoretical context in which classical materialism as hegemonic scientific image of the world shows an apparent insufficiency to account for the phenomenological aspect of consciousness.

DIALÉTICA NEGATIVA E MATERIALISMO DIALÉTICO: DA SUBJETIVIDADE DECOMPOSTA À OBJETIVIDADE PERVERTIDA

RESUMO O trabalho apresenta uma discussão polêmica, complexa e enigmática para a teoria do conhecimento: a elaboração da dialética negativa na concepção da teoria crítica frankfurtiana – sobretudo, adorniana – na interface com a dialética materialista, do marxismo. Do estudo emerge uma proposta de reestruturação do universo objetivo no sentido de indicar elementos subjetivos – por intermédio da teoria psicanalítica – como possibilidade de superação do estado da alienação ampla: intelectual, política, cultural e humana. Trata de confrontar aspectos metodológicos, teóricos e subjetivos em âmbito social amparado por uma perspectiva crítica. As contribuições, para além dos embates entre o idealismo clássico e o materialismo moderno, atravessam, entre outras, as perspectivas heideggeriana, hegeliana, kantiana, freudiana, marxiana e adorniana, visando apresentar fundamentos epistemológicos e teóricos que embasam a teoria crítica ao tempo que identifica diferenças e convergências entre o materialismo sócio-histórico dialético e a dialética negativa; componentes relevantes para compreender a incursão desta teoria no âmbito das diversas áreas do conhecimento.

Did Lenin Refound Marxist Dialectics in 1914?

During the twentieth century a number of competing accounts of Lenin’s theory and practice have sought to reclaim its true meaning from ossification under Stalinism. One account popular today is the Hegelian-Marxist interpretation of Lenin’s Philosophical Notebooks written in 1914 and 1915. According to thinkers such as Raya Dunayevskaya and Kevin Anderson, Lenin’s notebooks on Hegel’s Science of Logic represent a radical break from classical dialectical materialism. For these Hegelian-Marxists, Lenin’s acerbic remarks on Engels’s and Plekhanov’s dialectics reveal him as the forerunner of Georg Lukács and Herbert Marcuse and represent a thoroughgoing reconceptualization of the dialectics of revolution. In this article I submit these arguments to the test of a fine grained textual analysis. I conclude, opposite to the Hegelian-Marxist narrative, that Lenin neither intended to nor accomplished a refoundation of Marxist dialectics in 1914. The notion of quantity-quality leaps Lenin adds to his works from 1914 onwards show him less as an innovator in Marxist philosophy and more as a keeper of the flame of dialectical materialist orthodoxy.

Stoffwechsel, Energie und Entropie in Marx’ Kritik der Politischen Ökonomie:

Until recently, most commentators, including ecological Marxists, have assumed that Marx’s historical materialism was only marginally ecologically sensitive at best, or even that it was explicitly anti-ecological. However, research over the last decade has demonstrated not only that Marx deemed ecological materialism essential to the critique of political economy and to investigations into socialism, but also that his treatment of the coevolution of nature and society was in many ways the most sophisticated to be put forth by any social theorist prior to the late twentieth century. Still, criticisms continue to be leveled at Marx and Engels for their understanding of thermodynamics and the extent to which their work is said to conflict with the core tenets of ecological economics. In this respect, the rejection by Marx and Engels of the pioneering contributions of the Ukrainian socialist Sergei Podolinsky, one of the founders of energetics, has been frequently offered as the chief ecological case against them. Building on an earlier analysis of Marx’s and Engels’s response to Podolinsky, this article shows that they relied on an open-system, metabolic-energetic model that adhered to all of the main strictures of ecological economics – but one that also (unlike ecological economics) rooted the violation of solar and other environmental-sustainability conditions in the class relations of capitalist society. The result is to generate a deeper understanding of classical historical materialism’s ecological approach to economy and society – providing an ecological- materialist critique that can help uncover the systemic roots of today’s “treadmill of production” and global environmental crisis.

Relational Realism: The Evolution of Ontology to Praxiology in the Philosophy of Nature

With the advent of quantum theory, the philosophical distinction between “what appears to be” and “what is reasoned to be” has once again, after several centuries of easy dismissal by classical mechanistic materialism, become an important feature of physics. In recent well-regarded interpretations of quantum physics, including those proposed by Robert Griffiths, Roland Omnès, and Nobel laureate Murray Gell-Mann, we have seen careful investigations into the physical (i.e., not “merely philosophical”) distinction between the order of contingent causal relation and the order of necessary logical implication. I argue that a careful philosophical exploration of the function of the logical order in modern interpretations of quantum physics compels the abandonment of derivative classical, dualistic understandings of “determinism versus indeterminism,” “logical necessity versus causal contingency,” “subject versus object,” “epistemic versus ontological,” among other fundamental dualisms. The incoherence underlying this classical understanding of these principle-pairs as mutually exclusive features of reality can be relieved if they are instead understood as mutually implicative features of fundamental units of relation or “quantum praxes.”

The changing features of the body-mind problem

The body-mind problem invites scientific study, since mental events are repeated and repeatable and invite testable explanations. They seemed troublesome because of the classical theory of substance that failed to solve its own central problems. These are soluble with the aid of the theory of the laws of nature, particularly in its emergentist version [Bunge, M., 1980. The Body-mind Problem, Pergamon, Oxford] that invites refutable explanations [Popper, K.R., 1959. The Logic of Scientific Discovery, Hutchinson, London]. The view of mental properties as emergent is a modification of the two chief classical views, materialism and dualism. As this view invites testable explanations of events of the inner world, it is better than the quasi-behaviorist view of self-awareness as computer-style self-monitoring [Minsky, M., Laske, O., 1992. A conversation with Marvin Minsky. AI Magazine 13 (3), 31–45].

Metabolism, energy, and entropy in Marx's critique of political economy: Beyond the Podolinsky myth

Until recently, most commentators, including ecological Marxists, have assumed that Marx's historical materialism was only marginally ecologically sensitive at best, or even that it was explicitly anti-ecological. However, research over the last decade has demonstrated not only that Marx deemed ecological materialism essential to the critique of political economy and to investigations into socialism, but also that his treatment of the coevolution of nature and society was in many ways the most sophisticated to be put forth by any social theorist prior to the late twentieth century. Still, criticisms continue to be leveled at Marx and Engels for their understanding of thermodynamics and the extent to which their work is said to conflict with the core tenets of ecological economics. In this respect, the rejection by Marx and Engels of the pioneering contributions of the Ukrainian socialist Sergei Podolinsky, one of the founders of energetics, has been frequently offered as the chief ecological case against them. Building on an earlier analysis of Marx's and Engels's response to Podolinsky, this article shows that they relied on an open-system, metabolic-energetic model that adhered to all of the main strictures of ecological economics – but one that also (unlike ecological economics) rooted the violation of solar and other environmental-sustainability conditions in the class relations of capitalist society. The result is to generate a deeper understanding of classical historical materialism's ecological approach to economy and society – providing an ecological-materialist critique that can help uncover the systemic roots of today's “treadmill of production” and global environmental crisis.

"Nichts Ist Also Der Tod . . ." östliche Und Westliche Elemente in Brechts Denken über Tod Und Identität

Brecht was one of the European writers who consistently viewed man's identity in its relation with death. His inspiration on this score consisted of basic philosophical writings on the problem, both from the Eastern and from the Western cultural domain. From the beginning an essential element of Brecht's conception of death is doubt of the personality as a temporal continuum, including the epistemological and ethical implications of such doubt. This anti-religious and anti-metaphysical starting-point offers possibilities of development in various directions: towards a Western atheist-materialist view of death and the individual as well as towards an a-metaphysical Eastern one. In his early works (1913–1922) the influence of Nietzsche is obvious. In Mann ist Mann (1926) Brecht "secularises" the Buddhist denial of the unity and indivisibility and imperishability of individual personality and the conception of rebirth. Some parts of the Badener Lehrstuck vom Einverstandnis (1929) show a striking resemblance to Lao-tzu. The eastern representations are still present in the background of Brecht's "rectifications" of Lucretius' and Epicurus' descriptions of the fear of the death (1939–1956). In this "Lucretius aggregate" Brecht tries to bring classical materialism up to date by making it shade off into historical and dialectical materialism.

Marx, Freud and the problem of materialism

There are a number of senses in which the term, materialism, can be used: 1. What might be called classical material? ism is a position of great antiquity and prestige in the West, its influence growing according to the successes of modern science. Classical materialism itself has two aspects: ? a doctrine about the nature of reality, in which it is claimed that in its essential proper? ties, the world is made up of matter alone, that is, entities defined by physical proper? ties - fundamentally, extension and duration; ? an epistemology in which the secondary qualities of mind, consciousness, will, inten? tion and desire, are accounted for in purely materialistic terms. In the modern world, this project has largely befallen certain schools of psychology, for example, behav? iorism. Its relation to psychoanalysis will be discussed below.

Imagens do materialismo nos contos de Voltaire

Os contos filosóficos de Voltaire organizam-se a partir de dois pólos de reflexão: de um lado, a discussão sobre a noção de uma providência divina benfeitora, e, em alguns casos, mais precisamente, sobre o otimismo leibniziano; de outro, a polêmica em torno do materialismo ateu. Procuramos demonstrar de que modo, através de situações e personagens dos contos voltaireanos, a crítica das teorias providencialistas contribui para delinear o universo próprio dos conceitos do materialismo clássico.

Engels: The myth of science

The effort to situate Marx's thought in its singularity and to explore the terrain where it effectively took root and meaning must reveal how Marx, far from developing a form of thought based on classical materialism, opened a new epistemological space, which related cri? tical thought closely to the sphere of German idealist reflection. Marx's concrete problematic then appears to be shaped by the movement of transcendental reflection and is supported by the whole of Hegel's work in its radical destruc? tion of the basis of metaphysics. But this engagement of epistemological space proper to critical thought was not possible without first making a number of important distinctions. The area of thought of the critique is open to definition only after Marx himself is distinguished from marxism. Marx, the thinker of his own thought, must be distin? guished from the Marxist thought which is not Marx's own. It is, in fact, easy to recognise that Marxism has institutionalized something completely at odds with the thought of Marx. But merely to acknowledge the establishment, in the name of marxism, of Engel's ideas, is an inadequate basis for recovering the thought of Marx in its radical originality. Marxism as a result of the deep distortion imposed on Marx's thought cannot be under? stood only as the effect of the violence of

Activity in Marx's Philosophy (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 231 within an established system of law and power. Men are equal before the law; that is, no man is exempt from punishment if he has done wrong. In tiffs sense equality declares the power of the state, not its limitation. On the other hand men are not equal in political wisdom, and the principle of utility dictates that the wise should rule the foolish . Nor are men naturally brothers. To suppose so usually betrays a zeal for my notions as to what men should be and how they should live. It frequently means distaste for the presenL He that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen is particularly apt to suppose that he loves his distant cousin whom he hath not seen.... Mr. Mill for instance, never loses opportunity of speaking with contempt of our present "wretched social arrangements," the low state of society, and the general pettiness of his contemporaries, but he looks forward to an age in which all-embracing love of Humanity will regenerate the human race. Under such a scathing attack Mill's doctrine of liberty presents a bedraggled appearance. But the brilliance of the attack leaves us with no defense against the limitless extension of criminal law. Stephen does not want this anymore than does Mill He wishes to protect a man's home and family against the "busy body and worldbetterer " (p. 159), but he does so on the assumption that what goes on within a man's home is innocent, not that it may be a haven for vice. Where then can we come by the distinction between the innocent and the vicious act so as to provide a desired limitation to the reach of law? For Stephen the answer is to be found in the reasonablehess of Christianity. What will prove in the long run to have utility will depend upon whether there is a God and a Future State. If a man's actions threaten him with damnation utility dictates present punishment (with a view to reform, I suppose). Thus morality underwrites the law. Moreover Christian doctrine provides the code that is to be enforced, and thus the limits of its application. To the contemporary reader this conclusion must appear lame, just as its contemporary affirmation by Devlin must seem wistfuL Too many of us no longer regard Christianity as reasonable, and Christians themselves disagree profoundly on questions of theology and morality. Still, one might see in Christianity, conceived as a reasonably orthodox theology and moral code, an example of what is necessary in order to provide a reasonably harmonious society under law. Some ideological consistency is necessary to the functioning of the great Leviathan. Stephen, a true disciple of Hobbes, seizes on whatever vestiges of religious orthodoxy he can find in order to provide a positive alternative to libertarianism. But, lacking such orthodoxy (even wistfully), we may well wonder how we are to build effective barriers to the extension of criminal law, where Stephen has so effectively demolished those of Mill. A. R. LoucH Claremont Graduate School Activity in Marx's Philosophy. By Norman D. Livergood. (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff , 1967. Pp. xii+109. Guilders 16.20) This analysis of Marx's use of the concept of "activity" is fundamental for a critical understanding of his materialism. Activist materialism is in definite contrast to mechanical materialism and also gives a decidedly practical emphasis to Marx's dialectic of history. The earliest expression that Marx gave to this concept and to his revolt against both mechanical and romantic versions of action is found in his 1841 Ph.D. dissertation at Berlin; this dissertation appears for the first time in English translation as an Appendix to this volume. Here Marx favors Epicurus against Demo- 232 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY critus because he attributes to the atoms an internal principle of activity. Even if it is only the activity of "declination," to Marx this was of great philosophical importance, for it freed materialism from determinism. He made a strong point of this criticism of classical materialism when he criticized his speculative Young-Hegelian friends, to whom he refers contemptuously as "the Holy Family." The difference from Hegel is that, whereas...