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Althusser
Louis Pierre Althusser (, ; ; 16 October 1918 – 22 October 1990) was a French Marxist philosopher. He was born in Algeria and studied at the École normale supérieure in Paris, where he eventually became Professor of Philosophy. Althusser was a long-time member and sometimes a strong critic of the French Communist Party (''Parti communiste français'', PCF). His arguments and theses were set against the threats that he saw attacking the theoretical foundations of Marxism. These included both the influence of empiricism on Marxist theory, and humanist and reformist socialist orientations which manifested as divisions in the European communist parties, as well as the problem of the cult of personality and of ideology. Althusser is commonly referred to as a structural Marxist, although his relationship to other schools of French structuralism is not a simple affiliation and he was critical of many aspects of structuralism. Althusser's life was marked by periods of intense men ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aleatory Materialism
Louis Pierre Althusser (, ; ; 16 October 1918 – 22 October 1990) was a French Marxist philosopher. He was born in Algeria and studied at the École normale supérieure in Paris, where he eventually became Professor of Philosophy. Althusser was a long-time member and sometimes a strong critic of the French Communist Party (''Parti communiste français'', PCF). His arguments and theses were set against the threats that he saw attacking the theoretical foundations of Marxism. These included both the influence of empiricism on Marxist theory, and humanist and reformist socialist orientations which manifested as divisions in the European communist parties, as well as the problem of the cult of personality and of ideology. Althusser is commonly referred to as a structural Marxist, although his relationship to other schools of French structuralism is not a simple affiliation and he was critical of many aspects of structuralism. Althusser's life was marked by periods of intense men ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ideology And Ideological State Apparatuses
"Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses (Notes Towards an Investigation)" ( French: "Idéologie et appareils idéologiques d'État (Notes pour une recherche)") is an essay by the French Marxist philosopher Louis Althusser. First published in 1970, it advances Althusser's theory of ideology. Where Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels posited a thinly-sketched theory of ideology as a system of falsehoods serving the ruling class, Althusser draws upon the works of later theorists such as Antonio Gramsci, Sigmund Freud and Jacques Lacan to proffer a more elaborate redefinition of the theory. Althusser's theory of ideology has remained influential since it was written. Reproduction of the relations of production Althusser begins the essay by reiterating the Marxist theory that in order to exist, a social formation is required to essentially, continuously and perpetually reproduce the productive forces (labour power and means of production), the conditions of production and the relations of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ideological State Apparatuses
"Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses (Notes Towards an Investigation)" ( French: "Idéologie et appareils idéologiques d'État (Notes pour une recherche)") is an essay by the French Marxist philosopher Louis Althusser. First published in 1970, it advances Althusser's theory of ideology. Where Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels posited a thinly-sketched theory of ideology as a system of falsehoods serving the ruling class, Althusser draws upon the works of later theorists such as Antonio Gramsci, Sigmund Freud and Jacques Lacan to proffer a more elaborate redefinition of the theory. Althusser's theory of ideology has remained influential since it was written. Reproduction of the relations of production Althusser begins the essay by reiterating the Marxist theory that in order to exist, a social formation is required to essentially, continuously and perpetually reproduce the productive forces (labour power and means of production), the conditions of production and the relations of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
For Marx
''For Marx'' (french: Pour Marx) is a 1965 book by the philosopher Louis Althusser, a leading theoretician of the French Communist Party (PCF), in which the author reinterprets the work of the philosopher Karl Marx, proposing an epistemological break between the young, Hegelian Marx, and the old Marx, the author of ''Das Kapital'' (1867–1883). The book, first published in France by François Maspero, established Althusser's reputation. The texts presented in ''For Marx'' are theoretical interventions in a definite conjuncture, particularly aiming at the definition of the lines to be pursued by the PCF after Stalin's years in the Soviet Union. Althusser's position is of theoretical antihumanism, and is against the teleology of history. Althusser defends that history is a process without subject and with an open end, but that has determinations that can be theorized by the science of history as constructed by Marx in his mature work, ''Das Kapital''. Society is then conceptualize ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Reading Capital
''Reading Capital'' (french: Lire le Capital) is a 1965 book about the philosopher Karl Marx's ''Das Kapital'' by the philosophers Louis Althusser, Étienne Balibar, and Jacques Rancière, the sociologist Roger Establet, and the critic Pierre Macherey. The book was first published in France by François Maspero. An abridged English translation was published in 1970, and an unabridged translation in 2015. The book was influential among intellectuals. Summary The philosopher Louis Althusser and his co-authors — the philosopher Étienne Balibar, the sociologist Roger Establet, the philosopher Jacques Rancière, and the critic Pierre Macherey — discuss Karl Marx's ''Das Kapital'' (1867–1883) and subjects such as the labor theory of value, dialectical materialism, and historical materialism. Rancière notes that his contribution builds on Althusser's ''For Marx'' (1965). Publication history ''Reading Capital'' was first published in French by François Maspero in 1965. An abri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Interpellation (philosophy)
In Marxist theory, interpellation is the process by which we encounter a culture's or ideology's values and internalize them. It is associated in particular with the work of French philosopher Louis Althusser.(Verso: 1970, p.11) According to Althusser, every society is made up of ideological state apparatuses (ISAs) and repressive state apparatuses (RSAs) which are instrumental to constant reproduction of the relations to the production of that given society. While RSAs are institutions that directly repress dissent and opposition (police/military) ISAs reproduce capitalism through non-repressive ideological means (family, church, schools, the media and politics). Consequently, 'interpellation' describes the process by which ideology, embodied in major social and political institutions (ISAs and RSAs), constitutes the very nature of individual subjects' identities through the process of "hailing" them in social interactions. Althusser's thought has made significant contribut ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hélène Rytmann
Hélène Rytmann (15 October 1910 – 16 November 1980) was a French revolutionary and sociologist. She was active as a Communist militant in the French resistance to Nazism. A member of the French Communist Party, she was expelled after accusations of Trotskyism and having participated in summary executions of former Nazi collaborators. Rytmann was murdered by strangulation in 1980 by her husband Louis Althusser. Her murder attracted much attention from the French media and there were requests to sentence Althusser as an ordinary criminal, but he was instead declared unfit to stand trial by reason of insanity and committed to a psychiatric institution for three years. Early life Rytmann was born in Paris in 1910 to a Jewish family of Russian and Lithuanian origin. According to Althusser, Rytmann was sexually abused as a child by her family doctor. At age 13, the doctor forced Rytmann to administer a lethal dose of morphine to her father who was suffering from terminal cancer ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Structural Marxism
Structural Marxism is an approach to Marxist philosophy based on structuralism, primarily associated with the work of the French philosopher Louis Althusser and his students. It was influential in France during the 1960s and 1970s, and also came to influence philosophers, political theorists and sociologists outside France during the 1970s. Other proponents of structural Marxism were the sociologist Nicos Poulantzas and the anthropologist Maurice Godelier. Many of Althusser's students broke with structural Marxism in the late 1960s and 1970s. Overview Structural Marxism arose in opposition to the instrumental Marxism that dominated many western universities during the 1970s. In contrast to other forms of Marxism, Althusser stressed that Marxism was a science that examined objective structures, and he believed that historistic and phenomenological Marxism, which was based on Marx's early works, was caught in a "pre-scientific ideology". Toward the middle of the 1970s and th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ideology
An ideology is a set of beliefs or philosophies attributed to a person or group of persons, especially those held for reasons that are not purely epistemic, in which "practical elements are as prominent as theoretical ones." Formerly applied primarily to economic, political, or religious theories and policies, in a tradition going back to Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, more recent use the term as mainly condemnatory. The term was coined by Antoine Destutt de Tracy, a French Enlightenment aristocrat and philosopher, who conceived it in 1796 as the "science of ideas" to develop a rational system of ideas to oppose the irrational impulses of the mob. In political science, the term is used in a descriptive sense to refer to political belief systems. Etymology and history The term ''ideology'' originates from French ''idéologie'', itself deriving from combining (; close to the Lockean sense of ''idea'') and '' -logíā'' (). The term ideology, and the system of ideas asso ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Overdetermination
Overdetermination occurs when a single-observed effect is determined by multiple causes, any one of which alone would be sufficient to account for ("determine") the effect. That is, there are more causes present than are necessary to cause the effect. In the philosophy of science, this means that more evidence is available than is necessary to justify a conclusion. Overdetermination is in contrast to underdetermination, when the number or strength of causes is insufficient. The term "overdetermination" (german: Überdeterminierung) was also used by Sigmund Freud as a key concept in his psychoanalysis. Freud and psychoanalysis Freud wrote in ''The Interpretation of Dreams'' that many features of dreams were usually "overdetermined," in that they were caused by multiple factors in the life of the dreamer, from the "residue of the day" (superficial memories of recent life) to deeply repressed traumas and unconscious wishes, these being "potent thoughts". Freud favored interpreta ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Georges Canguilhem
Georges Canguilhem (; ; 4 June 1904 – 11 September 1995) was a French philosopher and physician who specialized in epistemology and the philosophy of science (in particular, biology). Life and work Canguilhem entered the École Normale Supérieure in 1924 as part of a class that included Jean-Paul Sartre, Raymond Aron and Paul Nizan. He aggregated in 1927 and then taught in lycées throughout France, taking up the study of medicine while teaching in Toulouse. He took up a post at the Clermont-Ferrand based University of Strasbourg in 1941, and received his medical doctorate in 1943, in the middle of World War II. Using the pseudonym "Lafont" Canguilhem became active in the French Resistance, serving as a doctor in Auvergne. By 1948 he was the French equivalent of department chair in philosophy at Strasbourg as well. Seven years later, he was named a professor at the Sorbonne and succeeded Gaston Bachelard as the director of the Institut d'histoire des sciences, a post he oc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Western Marxism
Western Marxism is a current of Marxist theory that arose from Western and Central Europe in the aftermath of the 1917 October Revolution in Russia and the ascent of Leninism. The term denotes a loose collection of theorists who advanced an interpretation of Marxism distinct from both classical and Orthodox Marxism and the Marxism-Leninism of the Soviet Union. Less concerned with economic analysis than earlier schools of Marxist thought, Western Marxism placed greater emphasis on the study of the cultural trends of capitalist society, deploying the more philosophical and subjective aspects of Marxism, and incorporating non-Marxist approaches to investigating culture and historical development. An important theme was the origins of Karl Marx's thought in the philosophy of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and the recovery of what they called the "Young Marx" (the more humanistic early works of Marx). Although early figures, such as György Lukács and Antonio Gramsci were promine ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
