The essay takes its point of departure from Monod's reading of dialectical materialism in Chance and Necessity. A passage of Engels's Dialectics of Nature, which identifies Spinoza's concept of causa sui with the Hegelian concept of interaction [Wechselwirkung], provides the opportunity to examine the consequences of Monod's claims more closely. Using Spinoza's philosophy as a litmus test, the essay attempts to demonstrate the debt of Engels's materialism to Hegel's Science of Logic by tracing the development of the concept of Wechselwirkung (...) in classical German philosophy. A profound difference between the Spinozan and Hegelian concepts becomes apparent: while the concept of Wechselwirkung implies a totality present to itself as simultaneity, permitting the flow of a linear, homogenous and empty time upon which stages of development can be inscribed, the concept of causa sui implies a totality without closure, a totality whose eternity is identified with the necessary and infinite network of modal durations. The essay concludes by suggesting that Spinoza's concept of causa sui allows us to rethink the relation between freedom and necessity in the Marxist tradition in conjunctural and aleatory terms. (shrink)

Georges Florovsky’s essay ‘On the Grounding of Logical Relativism’ has attracted attention from various theologians and students of Russian thought but has until now avoided a serious philosophical analysis and critique. The complex but thought-provoking essay presents Florovsky’s so-called logical relativism, a position which he seemed to maintain for the rest of his career. This paper will show that by conflating ‘scientific’ with ‘alethic’ relativism, Florovsky exposed himself to detrimental philosophical and theological critique. After some methodological remarks, the first part (...) of the paper will introduce Florovsky’s article, and present its central argument as a scientific relativism which is then conflated with a truly logical or alethic relativism. The second and third parts will highlight the philosophical and theological problems with Florovsky’s position. (shrink)

A paradox, according to the OED, is ‘a statement seemingly self-contradictory or absurd, though possibly well-founded or essentially true’. In this article I shall try to show that the classical orthodox Marxist view of morality is a paradox. I shall seek to resolve the paradox by trying to show that it is only seemingly self-contradictory or absurd. But I shall not claim the standard Marxist view of morality to be well-founded or essentially true. On the contrary, I shall suggest that, (...) though coherent, it is ill-founded and illusory. (shrink)

A paradox, according to the OED, is ‘a statement seemingly self-contradictory or absurd, though possibly well-founded or essentially true’. In this article I shall try to show that the classical orthodox Marxist view of morality is a paradox. I shall seek to resolve the paradox by trying to show that it is only seemingly self-contradictory or absurd. But I shall not claim the standard Marxist view of morality to be well-founded or essentially true. On the contrary, I shall suggest that, (...) though coherent, it is ill-founded and illusory. (shrink)

The sorites paradox is the name given to a class of paradoxical arguments, also known as little by little arguments, which arise as a result of the indeterminacy surrounding limits of application of the predicates involved. For example, the concept of a heap appears to lack sharp boundaries and, as a consequence of the subsequent indeterminacy surrounding the extension of the predicate ‘is a heap’, no one grain of wheat can be identified as making the difference between being a heap (...) and not being a heap. Given then that one grain of wheat does not make a heap, it would seem to follow that two do not, thus three do not, and so on. In the end it would appear that no amount of wheat can make a heap. We are faced with paradox since from apparently true premises by seemingly uncontroversial reasoning we arrive at an apparently false conclusion. (shrink)

For the purpose of understanding recent developments in Soviet historiography, it is necessary to consider its philosophical basis in the classic works of Marx and Engels. Especially pertinent are the normative orientations and epistemic foundations of Marxian social science, and the relevance of scientific socialism and historical materialism to the leading principles of not only Marxian historiography, but also political economy. Of basic importance is the dual commitment of socialist humanism to both the common good and the partisan interests of (...) a particular class, and the dual character of materialist dialectics in its effort to be scientifically impartial and intellectually partisan at the same time. Also revealing is the high degree of correlation between "vulgar Marxist" partisanship in the social sciences and ultra-leftist heterodoxy and between "formalism" or "academicism" in social science and revisionist political persuasions. (shrink)

The paper questions an official narrative of Soviet Marxism that had been formulated both by the Bolshevik leaders and the Western European Marxists. It proposes to shift the discussion from a historically constituted understanding of Soviet Marxism as a partisanship of theory to the epistemic conditions of Marxism after the October Revolution. The paper argues that a post-revolutionary Soviet logic assumes that theory should start where Marx ended and that it should act in a Marxist fashion across all conceptual and (...) practical realms. Instead of asking ‘how’, the Soviet thought returns to the old pre-critical question of ‘what is’, and reformulates this ‘what is’ in the Marxist post-critical terms. Constructing a new critical concept of Soviet Marxism, the paper proceeds with the analysis of the post-critical status of knowledge after the revolution and recovers forgotten and repressed epistemological alternatives to orthodox Bolshevism. (shrink)

Trotsky’s contribution to historical materialism has been subject to two broadly defined critical assessments. Detractors have tended to dismiss his interpretation of Marxism as a form of productive force determinism, while admirers have tended to defend his Marxism as a voluntarist negation of the same. In this essay I argue that both of these opinions share an equally caricatured interpretation of Second International Marxism against which Trotsky is compared. By contrast, I argue that Trotsky’s Marxism can best be understood as (...) a powerful application and deepening of the strongest elements of Second International methodology to a novel set of problems. Thus, against Trotsky’s admirers, I locate his Marxism as both emerging out of, in addition to breaking with, Second International Marxism; while, against his critics, I argue that it was precisely the strengths of this earlier interpretation of Marxism that informed Trotsky’s powerful contributions to historical materialism: his concept of combined and uneven development and his discussion of the role of individual agents within the Marxist interpretation of history. (shrink)

Trotsky's contribution to historical materialism has been subject to two broadly defined critical assessments. Detractors have tended to dismiss his interpretation of Marxism as a form of productive force determinism, while admirers have tended to defend his Marxism as a voluntarist negation of the same. In this essay I argue that both of these opinions share an equally caricatured interpretation of Second International Marxism against which Trotsky is compared. By contrast, I argue that Trotsky's Marxism can best be understood as (...) a powerful application and deepening of the strongest elements of Second International methodology to a novel set of problems. Thus, against Trotsky's admirers, I locate his Marxism as both emerging out of, in addition to breaking with, Second International Marxism; while, against his critics, I argue that it was precisely the strengths of this earlier interpretation of Marxism that informed Trotsky's powerful contributions to historical materialism: his concept of combined and uneven development and his discussion of the role of individual agents within the Marxist interpretation of history. (shrink)

This article examines the relationship between progressive Islam, Marxism, and Tan Malaka. Progressive Islam is one of the new movements in contemporary Islamic dynamics. Marxism is a tradition of thought. Tan Malaka is one of the Muslim leaders who uses the tradition of Marxism in every thought and struggle. This article uses the method of philosophy with the technique of historical-factual study of figures. Data analysis uses the concept of externalization from the sociological theory of knowledge. The result is that (...) Marxism is one of the external spaces of progressive Islam, where its characters externalize. Similarly to progressive Islamic figures, Tan Malaka also externalized Marxism, so that he could have knowledge about Marxism. Thus Marxism became the connecting bridge between progressive Islam and Tan Malaka. This is the relationship between progressive Islam, Marxism, and Tan Malaka. (shrink)

Focusing on the conceptual terms of the idealist-realist debate, the paper shows that the inability of the realists to recognize Marx’s idealist heritage is out of the realists’ limited understanding of the category of idealism in their reading. To prove the paper’s case, the first section starts with elucidation of Marx’s concept of epistemological idealism as read by his interpreters. It shows the actual meaning of epistemological idealism as used by Kolakowski, Lukacs, and other idealist readers of Marx. The second (...) section shows how the realists conflate the two idealisms, how the realist reading is erroneously grounded on failure to clarify the difference between the concept of ontological and epistemological idealism. The third section highlights the differences between epistemological and ontological idealism. It explains that Ontological idealism claims that idea is the fundamental reality, while epistemological idealism suggests that knowledge is dependent upon the subject. (shrink)

The issue on whether the epistemological view of Engels and the Marxists can be identified to Marx opens the question on what Marx’s actual view on knowledge. This debate on Marx’s epistemology is divided between realist and idealist interpretation of his texts: the former reads that for Marx knowledge is a copy of an independent reality existing outside of man, while the latter views that for the same philosopher, knowledge is in some sense constructed by the subject. This study contributes (...) to the discussion by closely reading the epistemology of the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844. The Manuscripts contain important epistemological remarks that are subject of scholarly debate. The scope of the study aims to read the texts on their own terms, and through that, avoid the reductive readings of Marx that plague his interpretations. Through this approach, this study argues that Marx in the Manuscripts conveys an idealist epistemology based on his concept on how human need shapes human cognition. Marx further develops this idealism in the texts in his critique of political economy, where he shows that this science is grounded on the estranged need. In the end, this study underscores that the Manuscripts’ idealism shows a part in Marx’s thinking that underlines the role cognition plays to address forms of estrangements brought by the structures of private property. It highlights how Marx empowers man as capable of resolving the estrangements in the society through the development of both action and cognition. (shrink)

This thesis provides new perspectives on the epistemic conditions of pre- and post-revolutionary Soviet thought and constructs a transdisciplinary entry point into a materialist ontology of ‘poor life’. The concept of poor life engages contemporary debates on class composition and individuation from the materialist viewpoint of self-organising labour causality and social mediation. The thesis opens with a critical examination of the ‘Western’ and ‘Eastern’ divide in Marxist philosophy and shifts discussion from the official doctrine of Bolshevism to the under-represented epistemologies (...) of Empirio-Marxism and Spinozist- Hegelianism in the philosophy and political theory of Alexander Bogdanov, the writings and art criticism of Andrei Platonov and the experimental philosophy and psychology of Lev Vygotsky. A transdisciplinary, post-revolutionary logic assumes that theory should start where Marx ended and that it should act in a Marxist fashion across all conceptual and practical realms. The reconstruction of these epistemological conditions leads to an alternative philosophical genealogy of Soviet avant-garde art and the writings of Andrei Platonov. The thesis explores the connections between the Empirio-Marxism of Bogdanov and the problematic of construction, ‘life-building’ and production in the theories of the Soviet avant-garde. Bogdanov proposes an organisational ontology of the active and productive capacity of labour to compose and construct historically determined ‘life-complexes’ and orders of material relations. In turn, the organisation of sensibility, things and relations, or communist ‘life-building’, becomes the primary theoretical and practical agenda of Proletkult, Constructivism, Productivism and the Literature of Fact. The thesis demonstrates the unique place of Andrei Platonov within these conceptual settings. The core of the thesis is a reconstruction of Platonov’s method and form of writing, the aim of which is to demonstrate the conceptual reciprocity of the problems of ‘lifebuilding’ and ‘poor life’. Platonov stresses the negativity of partition and compartmentalisation within the compositional logic of ‘life-building’. In the experience of social poverty, the selforganising force of labour produces a disjunctive unity of thinking and speech, reaction and act, time and space. Vygotsky’s Spinozist-Hegelianism exposes the structural logic of this negativity. The reconstruction of his system shows how mediation produces a dialectical dramaturgy of individuation out of the compositional materiality of poverty and the given ensemble of social relations. The thesis concludes by outlining a differential unity between the three authors. The Soviet problematisation of poor life links social and ontological degrees of organisation, offering epistemological models of compositional productivity and of the individuating negativity of ‘life-building’. The epistemic conditions that we reconstruct in the thesis may have vanished along with their revolutionary context, but they are likely to resurface in the course of any new experiment in radical social transformation. (shrink)

In recent decades, Marxists have tended to want to preserve the specificity of Marx’s materialism by distinguishing it from competing “new materialisms,” including the materialism of the body. James Arnett, closely reading Marx and Spinoza along with Engels and Samuel Delany, reminds us that things are not nearly so simple.

Contemporary theory encounters two Spinozas. Sean Grattan reviews Spinoza Now.

Spinoza’s multitude is less a universal subject than a localized, contingent phenomenon: a crowd. Justin Rogers-Cooper draws the consequences.