Abstract

The current issue over Marx's Grundrisse and Capital is whether these works represent a unity with or a rupture from his earlier writings. A third interpretation is more adequate than either of these: the new "dialectic method" of the later works transforms elements of his earlier outlooks into a new synthesis. In earlier works Marx describes three processes: the historical generation of the concrete, the historical development of categories, and the methodological ordering of these categories. However, his views changed on which of these processes are primary. In the later works, the third process becomes independent; this modifies his view of the other two processes, and thereby of the relation of consciousness and laws of social development to material conditions