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Marxism and Philosophy
Marxism began with the repudiation of philosophy, yet Marxists have often resorted to distinctively philosophical modes of reasoning. In recent years, Western Marxism has been more concerned with philosophy than with research or political activity, and in this book Callinicos explores the
ambivalent relationship between Marxism and philosophy. Beginning with Marx and the legacy of Hegelianism, he surveys the schools of Marxist philosophy from Engels and the Second International through the revolutionary Hegelianism, of the 1920s, the Frankfurt School, and the anti-Hegelian Marxism of
Adorno and Althusser.
ambivalent relationship between Marxism and philosophy. Beginning with Marx and the legacy of Hegelianism, he surveys the schools of Marxist philosophy from Engels and the Second International through the revolutionary Hegelianism, of the 1920s, the Frankfurt School, and the anti-Hegelian Marxism of
Adorno and Althusser.
- GenresPhilosophy
184 pages, Paperback
First published March 24, 1983
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59 people want to read
About the author
Alex Callinicos
141 books71 followersAlexander Theodore Callinicos, a descendant through his mother of Lord Acton, is a political theorist and Director of the Centre for European Studies at King's College London. He holds both a BA and a DPhil from Oxford University.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
November 12, 2022
CRITIQUE:
Hegel's Influence on Marx
This is an erudite, lucid and well-structured study of Marxism and its relationship with the philosophy of Hegel and subsequent Marxist and other philosophers who were influenced by Hegel's Idealism and/or Marx's Materialism.
Some of the subject matter was covered by Marcuse's "Reason and Revolution", although, oddly, Callinicos doesn't mention it.
As with Marcuse's work, I was tempted to ask whether it aimed to develop and define an Hegelian Marxism, or a Marxist Hegelianism.
This is not the only goal of Callinicos' work. The second half of the book contains a useful analysis of trends in the philosophy of science and the philosophy of language. Callinicos clearly has an interest in Continental Philosophy in its own right, no matter what the relationship with Marxism.
He also identifies that critical theory (as Horkheimer renamed Marxism) had become detached from the proletariat by the Second World War and the experience of American consumerism in exile.
My own view has been that Marxism was distracted and compromised by the growing concentration on culture, ideology and language, and the diminution of focus on economics and politics (i.e., the immediate arena of the class struggle).
Callinicos says in the course of his discussion of Adorno:
The Repudiation of Philosophy
In the Introduction, Callinicos quotes Marx (and Marx and Engels) on philosophy:
Despite this scepticism about the value of philosophy (Callinicos refers to it as a "repudiation" of philosophy), and Marx's far more specific critique of Hegel's philosophy, Marx's "Capital" was heavily indebted to Hegel's dialectic. It was fundamental to Marx and Engel's concepts of dialectical materialism and historical materialism.
Hegel's Dialectic
Callinicos describes Hegel's dialectic in these terms (This is an amalgam of various quotes and comments that I have assembled; I haven't sought to differentiate material written by Hegel and Marx as opposed to Callinicos):
Callinicos quotes Lukacs:
Paraphrasing Hegel
The Hegel police squad warns you not to paraphrase Hegel, because you will inevitably miss some of the nuances of his thought, and therefore get it wrong (or differ from the views of the Hegel police).
Nevertheless, below is an attempt to make sense of Hegel's dialectic in more accessible terms:(1)
A single Being, entity or consciousness perceives another entity in the outside world or reality, by grasping it and dragging it into its own consciousness.
The negation does not cancel out the other entity. Instead, it combines elements of it with its own consciousness. The process of negation negates the negation, so that the consciousness of the original Being is now an aggregate of the two that consists of elements of both entities.
This enlarged consciousness also forms part of the Absolute Idea or Absolute Spirit. Thus, all consciousnesses have collectively imported all of external reality (i.e., the whole world) into the Absolute Idea or Absolute Spirit. Some believe that this Absolute Spirit corresponds with God. This is where Hegel is at his most Idealistic.
Alex Callinicos Source
Marx's Inversion of Hegel's Dialectic
Marx criticises Hegel's idealist version of the dialectic as an inversion of thought and reality, as the creation of an "upside-down world".
He states that Hegel is walking on his head, instead of on his feet:
In the words of Callinicos -
Dialectical Materialism
Callinicos also argues that "Marx's later Hegelianism is primarily methodological."
In other words, he sought to utilise some aspects of Hegel's dialectical method, without adopting its idealistic elements. Instead, he adopted a materialist approach.
In the Afterword to "Capital", Marx himself said:
By inverting the components of Hegel's dialectic and walking on his feet, Marx undertook to reveal the contradictions of existing society.
Historical Materialism
Marx and Engels declared in "The German Ideology" that -
Marx also introduced the concepts of the forces of production and the relations of production.
The forces of production are "the specific technical organisation of the labour-process".
On the other hand, the relations of production are "the social relations based on class antagonism".
The combined forces and mode of production (the base) lay the foundation for the superstructure.
This is not an economic determinist process. It doesn't argue that the base inevitably causes the superstructure to exist. Instead, it posits that a particular stage of superstructure cannot exist, unless a prerequisite level of base already exists. By way of analogy, cyber culture could not exist without computers, the world wide web and the internet.
The emphasis on the relations of production highlights the relationship between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. From an historical point of view, this highlights the class struggle, and the aim of the proletariat to escape its role in capitalism.
Callinicos argues that "the introduction of the concept of relations of production set exploitation, social conflict, and struggle at the centre of Marx's account of historical development. It thus provided the theoretical foundation of the opening words of the Communist Manifesto: 'the history of hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.'"
In other words, it was the foundation of what would become known as historical materialism. Callinicos concludes that -
"History is only intelligible as the self-realisation of man."
This concerns the material conditions under which mankind lives and works.
Inevitability and Determinism.
Historical materialism is supposed to move (or trend) towards the self-realisation of man. This might make sense as an application of dialectical materialism.
However, to the extent that the self-realisation of man involves the proletariat achieving both victory over the bourgeoisie, and a state of communism, I question whether there is anything in either dialectical materialism or historical materialism that makes it inevitable that humanity will arrive at a state of communism.
In other words, is the expectation that humanity will arrive at a state of communism no more than wishful thinking, or possibly even a self-fulfilling prophesy, determined by neither philosophy nor science? Unfortunately, Callinicos doesn't cast any light on this issue, presumably because he is committed to the cause and the outcome.
FOOTNOTES:
(1) Unfortunately, GoodReads deleted all of my notes, reviews and writings on Hegel (as well as many other reviews and creative works) when they removed the My Writings section of my profile.
SOUNDTRACK:
Hegel's Influence on Marx
This is an erudite, lucid and well-structured study of Marxism and its relationship with the philosophy of Hegel and subsequent Marxist and other philosophers who were influenced by Hegel's Idealism and/or Marx's Materialism.
Some of the subject matter was covered by Marcuse's "Reason and Revolution", although, oddly, Callinicos doesn't mention it.
As with Marcuse's work, I was tempted to ask whether it aimed to develop and define an Hegelian Marxism, or a Marxist Hegelianism.
This is not the only goal of Callinicos' work. The second half of the book contains a useful analysis of trends in the philosophy of science and the philosophy of language. Callinicos clearly has an interest in Continental Philosophy in its own right, no matter what the relationship with Marxism.
He also identifies that critical theory (as Horkheimer renamed Marxism) had become detached from the proletariat by the Second World War and the experience of American consumerism in exile.
My own view has been that Marxism was distracted and compromised by the growing concentration on culture, ideology and language, and the diminution of focus on economics and politics (i.e., the immediate arena of the class struggle).
Callinicos says in the course of his discussion of Adorno:
"The reduction of reality in all its concreteness and variety to the expressions of the Absolute reflects the process of abstraction at work in reality itself, the transformation of concrete, useful labours into abstract social labour inherent in the exchange of commodities.
"Critical theory must, therefore, preserve a moment of abstraction, of reflection, not allowing the concept of the totality to disintegrate, if it is to fulfil its role of understanding, and demystifying reality."
The Repudiation of Philosophy
In the Introduction, Callinicos quotes Marx (and Marx and Engels) on philosophy:
"The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it."
"Philosophy and the study of the actual world have the same relation to one another as onanism and sexual love."
Despite this scepticism about the value of philosophy (Callinicos refers to it as a "repudiation" of philosophy), and Marx's far more specific critique of Hegel's philosophy, Marx's "Capital" was heavily indebted to Hegel's dialectic. It was fundamental to Marx and Engel's concepts of dialectical materialism and historical materialism.
Hegel's Dialectic
Callinicos describes Hegel's dialectic in these terms (This is an amalgam of various quotes and comments that I have assembled; I haven't sought to differentiate material written by Hegel and Marx as opposed to Callinicos):
"Its starting point is the original dumb unity of Being, the most basic of categories, whose complete lack of any specific quality...renders it identical to Nothing.
"But the self-negation of Being is also the means through which it acquires a determinate content.
"For Hegel, negation does not simply cancel that which it negates, it is, rather, determinate negation, which absorbs the cancelled category within a new unity, providing the impulse to move from one category to another.
"It is only, moreover, by virtue of negation that Being acquires a content; the definite shape and character possessed by any entity depends upon the contrast between it and what it is not, the barrier it sets up between itself and others.
"The differentiation of Being is also its self-estrangement.
"All things are contradictory in themselves, and negativity...is the inherent pulsation of self-movement and liveliness...
"Determinate negation does not simply introduce difference into the original unity of Being...negation, as the negation of the negation, breaks down the barriers between the determinations that have evolved in the sphere of Essence, bringing to consciousness their inner unity...
"This structure reveals the pattern through which the Absolute Idea alienates itself in the external realm of nature before attaining full consciousness of itself in Absolute Spirit."
Callinicos quotes Lukacs:
"Since consciousness is not the knowledge of an opposed object, but is the self-consciousness of the object, the act of consciousness overthrows the objective form of its object."
Paraphrasing Hegel
The Hegel police squad warns you not to paraphrase Hegel, because you will inevitably miss some of the nuances of his thought, and therefore get it wrong (or differ from the views of the Hegel police).
Nevertheless, below is an attempt to make sense of Hegel's dialectic in more accessible terms:(1)
A single Being, entity or consciousness perceives another entity in the outside world or reality, by grasping it and dragging it into its own consciousness.
The negation does not cancel out the other entity. Instead, it combines elements of it with its own consciousness. The process of negation negates the negation, so that the consciousness of the original Being is now an aggregate of the two that consists of elements of both entities.
This enlarged consciousness also forms part of the Absolute Idea or Absolute Spirit. Thus, all consciousnesses have collectively imported all of external reality (i.e., the whole world) into the Absolute Idea or Absolute Spirit. Some believe that this Absolute Spirit corresponds with God. This is where Hegel is at his most Idealistic.
Alex Callinicos Source
Marx's Inversion of Hegel's Dialectic
Marx criticises Hegel's idealist version of the dialectic as an inversion of thought and reality, as the creation of an "upside-down world".
He states that Hegel is walking on his head, instead of on his feet:
"What I had to do was turn Hegel from his head back to his feet, so that we can start walking again."
In the words of Callinicos -
"Hegel's dialectical method reduces empirical objects to mere semblances of genuine existence, incarnations of the Absolute..."
"The transcendence of contradictions in Hegel's Absolute serves to conceal the real contradictions constitutive of existing society, notably that between civil society and the political State."
Dialectical Materialism
Callinicos also argues that "Marx's later Hegelianism is primarily methodological."
In other words, he sought to utilise some aspects of Hegel's dialectical method, without adopting its idealistic elements. Instead, he adopted a materialist approach.
In the Afterword to "Capital", Marx himself said:
"I...openly avowed myself the pupil of that mighty thinker, and even here and there, in the chapter on the theory of value, coquetted with the modes of expression peculiar to him. The mystification which dialectic suffers in Hegel’s hands, by no means prevents him from being the first to present its general form of working in a comprehensive and conscious manner.
"With him it is standing on its head. It must be turned right side up again, if you would discover the rational kernel within the mystical shell."
By inverting the components of Hegel's dialectic and walking on his feet, Marx undertook to reveal the contradictions of existing society.
Historical Materialism
Marx and Engels declared in "The German Ideology" that -
"[The] premises from which we begin are not arbitrary ones, not dogmas, but real premises...the real individuals, their activity and the material conditions of their life."
Marx also introduced the concepts of the forces of production and the relations of production.
The forces of production are "the specific technical organisation of the labour-process".
On the other hand, the relations of production are "the social relations based on class antagonism".
The combined forces and mode of production (the base) lay the foundation for the superstructure.
This is not an economic determinist process. It doesn't argue that the base inevitably causes the superstructure to exist. Instead, it posits that a particular stage of superstructure cannot exist, unless a prerequisite level of base already exists. By way of analogy, cyber culture could not exist without computers, the world wide web and the internet.
The emphasis on the relations of production highlights the relationship between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. From an historical point of view, this highlights the class struggle, and the aim of the proletariat to escape its role in capitalism.
Callinicos argues that "the introduction of the concept of relations of production set exploitation, social conflict, and struggle at the centre of Marx's account of historical development. It thus provided the theoretical foundation of the opening words of the Communist Manifesto: 'the history of hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.'"
In other words, it was the foundation of what would become known as historical materialism. Callinicos concludes that -
"History is only intelligible as the self-realisation of man."
This concerns the material conditions under which mankind lives and works.
Inevitability and Determinism.
Historical materialism is supposed to move (or trend) towards the self-realisation of man. This might make sense as an application of dialectical materialism.
However, to the extent that the self-realisation of man involves the proletariat achieving both victory over the bourgeoisie, and a state of communism, I question whether there is anything in either dialectical materialism or historical materialism that makes it inevitable that humanity will arrive at a state of communism.
In other words, is the expectation that humanity will arrive at a state of communism no more than wishful thinking, or possibly even a self-fulfilling prophesy, determined by neither philosophy nor science? Unfortunately, Callinicos doesn't cast any light on this issue, presumably because he is committed to the cause and the outcome.
FOOTNOTES:
(1) Unfortunately, GoodReads deleted all of my notes, reviews and writings on Hegel (as well as many other reviews and creative works) when they removed the My Writings section of my profile.
SOUNDTRACK:
April 16, 2022
Goodreads tells me I read this book over a decade ago. Interestingly, I have absolutely no recollection of doing so. If I did, I’m quite sure I didn’t get much of it at the time—even if some of the chapters are derectly relevant to my academic work. Anyway…
This is bound to be a disappointment to anyone looking for a primer on Marxism and philosophy. Callinicos kicks off with a challenging discussion on the differences between the continental and analytical traditions on philosophy. Chapters 2 and 3 are the most expository, dealing with Marx (and Engels) and later Marxists, respectively. However, the rest of the book is an interesting and quite original attempt to reconcile Marxism with the analytical tradition—in counterdistinction to the marriage of Marxism and post-structural philosophy fashionable at the time of writing. This is advanced stuff, which I could only follow because of that extra decade of reading I’ve done after my first reading of this book. I haven’t read the latter book in its entirety yet, but it seems that the latter part of this book preempts some of the arguments in his Against Postmodernism.
Reading this (with Callinicos’s Althusser sympathies) and Balibar’s the Philosophy of Marx back to back has been a very refreshing reminder of the key debates and guide to the various positions in the debate. Highly recommended, even after 40 years.
This is bound to be a disappointment to anyone looking for a primer on Marxism and philosophy. Callinicos kicks off with a challenging discussion on the differences between the continental and analytical traditions on philosophy. Chapters 2 and 3 are the most expository, dealing with Marx (and Engels) and later Marxists, respectively. However, the rest of the book is an interesting and quite original attempt to reconcile Marxism with the analytical tradition—in counterdistinction to the marriage of Marxism and post-structural philosophy fashionable at the time of writing. This is advanced stuff, which I could only follow because of that extra decade of reading I’ve done after my first reading of this book. I haven’t read the latter book in its entirety yet, but it seems that the latter part of this book preempts some of the arguments in his Against Postmodernism.
Reading this (with Callinicos’s Althusser sympathies) and Balibar’s the Philosophy of Marx back to back has been a very refreshing reminder of the key debates and guide to the various positions in the debate. Highly recommended, even after 40 years.
August 19, 2015
Something more than an introduction, this little book gives a cursory summary of the field at the time it was written - the 1980s. Still, it's a pretty good little text, starting with modern philosophy before Marx -- Kant, Descartes, Hegel, etc -- and ending with debates as they were in the 80s. Hegelian Marxists will probably find it too Althusserian, Althusserians too orthodox, but his short engagements -- with language, ideology, science -- are useful, even when you might not agree with him. There's also much to agree with, including his take on science, ideology, and some of his reading of Marx. Probably the most anomalous and uninteresting sections are those on English and analytic philosophers. A book like this would now have to deal with Badiou (a kind of modern-day Althusser) and Zizek (probably the dominant Hegelian philosopher). Still, I'd recommend it as a good place to go one step beyond an introduction. A decent little book. 3.5 stars.
February 2, 2015
not a bad little summation of what is a fairly broad topic. throws some key Marxist categories under the bus (commodity fetishism, false consciousness, &c.), so that's interesting, if not necessarily cool.
October 28, 2017
This little book offers a good overview of the philosophical arena in which Marxism operates as a 'scientific research programme' and a theory of working class revolutionary activity. The engagement with philosophy of language is fruitful, and the attempt to shift Marxism away from anti-naturalism/a priori principles is (I think) well conceived. Interestingly, Callinicos argues against the idea of 'false consciousness', in the process dismissing commodity fetishism.
The main drawbacks are the short, cursory nature of the book leaving little space for more than a defense of the classical revolutionary tradition.
The main drawbacks are the short, cursory nature of the book leaving little space for more than a defense of the classical revolutionary tradition.
April 15, 2024
Not a bad introduction to Marxist philosophy if you want a more analytical approach.
Lots of philosophy of language and science in here so be ready to tackle those topics.
Lots of philosophy of language and science in here so be ready to tackle those topics.
January 17, 2025
Trotskyite jumpscare
April 14, 2014
An appreciation of philosophy from a Marxist perspective. Notable however for lack of discussion of issues related directly to Marxism: justice, democracy, liberty, freedom, philosophy of economics and the critiques (rejection of) Marxism. Callinicos and the SWP's recent problems could be said to stem directly from this.
December 29, 2012
Garbage.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews