Marxian Metaphysics and Individual Freedom

Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 14:229-242 (1982)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

The principles of historical materialism involve Marx in making two crucial claims about freedom. The first is that the revolutionary proletariat is, in an important sense, more free than its class antagonist the bourgeoisie. The second is that the beneficiaries of a successful proletarian revolution—the members of a solidly established communist society—enjoy a greater freedom than even proletarians engaged in revolutionary praxis. It is perhaps natural to take Marx to be operating here with what might be called a logically continuous notion of freedom, established communists enjoying to perfection what revolutionary proletarians merely imperfectly experience and what the bourgeoisie entirely misses. But whatever one's views might be about what Marx in fact says about freedom this cannot be what he ought to say for his theory of freedom to work. The kind of line Marx need to take finds a significant precedent in his economics where we find a theory implying two quite distinct logical dimensions in that the principles and concepts designed to apply to the transactions of capitalism necessarily lack descriptive purchase on communist economic reality. The existence of these two dimensions, and particularly Marx's comparative silence as to the nature of the second, reflect his conviction that the transition between the two systems must be marked by a profound conceptual as well as material break. Consequently it is not unreasonable, perhaps, to look for an analogous discontinuity in his metaphysics and to expect to find two distinct varieties of freedom, the one reflecting the nature of class society, the other of human community.

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 90,593

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

The freedom of collective agents.Frank Hindriks - 2007 - Journal of Political Philosophy 16 (2):165–183.
Mill and Marx: Human Nature, the Individual and Freedom.Paul M. Smart - 1989 - Dissertation, Keele University (United Kingdom)
Marx, Rationalism and the Critique of the Market.Tony Fluxman - 2009 - South African Journal of Philosophy 28 (4):377-413.
The Problem of freedom.Mary T. Clark (ed.) - 1973 - New York,: Appleton-Century-Crofts.
Marxian Freedom, Individual Liberty, and the End of Alienation.John Gray - 1986 - Social Philosophy and Policy 3 (2):160.
Freedom in Marx.Manfred Baum - 2007 - Radical Philosophy Review 10 (2):117-131.
Li Zehou's Aesthetics as a Marxist Philosophy of Freedom.Brian Bruya - 2003 - Dialogue and Universalism 13 (11-12):133-140.
Marx's Conception of Freedom in his Late Years. Hung-te - 1999 - Philosophy and Culture 26 (3):221-236.
Intellectual Freedom and Economic Sufficiency as Educational Entitlements.Jane Fowler Morse - 2001 - Studies in Philosophy and Education 20 (3):201-211.

Analytics

Added to PP
2017-02-21

Downloads
32 (#431,738)

6 months
1 (#1,040,386)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Citations of this work

No citations found.

Add more citations

References found in this work

The Bounds of Sense.P. F. Strawson - 1966 - Philosophy 42 (162):379-382.
Marx's dialectic of labor.G. A. Cohen - 1974 - Philosophy and Public Affairs 3 (3):235-261.

Add more references