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Marx's Theory Of Human Nature
Some Marxists posit what they deem to be Karl Marx's theory of human nature, which they accord an important place in his critique of capitalism, his conception of communism, and his 'materialist conception of history'. Marx, however, does not refer to human nature as such, but to ''Gattungswesen'', which is generally translated as 'species-being' or 'species-essence'. According to a note from Marx in the '' Manuscripts of 1844'', the term is derived from Ludwig Feuerbach's philosophy, in which it refers both to the nature of each human and of humanity as a whole. However, in the sixth ''Theses on Feuerbach'' (1845), Marx criticizes the traditional conception of human nature as a species which incarnates itself in each individual, instead arguing that human nature is formed by the totality of social relations. Thus, the whole of human nature is not understood, as in classical idealist philosophy, as permanent and universal: the ''species-being'' is always determined in a specific ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Capitalism
Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for Profit (economics), profit. Central characteristics of capitalism include capital accumulation, competitive markets, price system, private property, Property rights (economics), property rights recognition, voluntary exchange, and wage labor. In a market economy, decision-making and investments are determined by owners of wealth, property, or ability to maneuver capital or production ability in Capital market, capital and financial markets—whereas prices and the distribution of goods and services are mainly determined by competition in goods and services markets. Economists, historians, political economists and sociologists have adopted different perspectives in their analyses of capitalism and have recognized various forms of it in practice. These include ''Laissez-faire capitalism, laissez-faire'' or free-market capitalism, anarcho-capitalism, state capi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Commodity Fetishism
In Marxist philosophy, the term commodity fetishism describes the economic relationships of production and exchange as being social relationships that exist among things (money and merchandise) and not as relationships that exist among people. As a form of reification, commodity fetishism presents economic value as inherent to the commodities, and not as arising from the workforce, from the human relations that produced the commodity, the goods and the services. In the first chapter of '' Capital: Critique of Political Economy'' (1867) commodity fetishism explicates that the social organization of labour occurs through the buying and selling of commodities (goods and services); therefore, in the marketplace, capitalist social relations among people—who makes what, who works for whom, the production-time for a commodity, etc.—are social relations among ''objects'', not among individual persons. At market, the commodities appear in a depersonalized form, as material goods ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
A Defence
A, or a, is the first letter and the first vowel of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''a'' (pronounced ), plural ''aes''. It is similar in shape to the Ancient Greek letter alpha, from which it derives. The uppercase version consists of the two slanting sides of a triangle, crossed in the middle by a horizontal bar. The lowercase version can be written in two forms: the double-storey a and single-storey ɑ. The latter is commonly used in handwriting and fonts based on it, especially fonts intended to be read by children, and is also found in italic type. In English grammar, " a", and its variant " an", are indefinite articles. History The earliest certain ancestor of "A" is aleph (also written 'aleph), the first letter of the Phoenician alphabet, which consisted entirely of consonants (for that reason, it is also called an abjad to distinguish ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Productive Forces
Productive forces, productive powers, or forces of production (German: ''Produktivkräfte'') is a central idea in Marxism and historical materialism. In Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels' own critique of political economy, it refers to the combination of the means of labor (tools, machinery, land, infrastructure, and so on) with human labour power. Marx and Engels probably derived the concept from Adam Smith's reference to the "productive powers of labour" (see e.g. chapter 8 of ''The Wealth of Nations'' (1776)), although the German political economist Friedrich List also mentions the concept of "productive powers" in ''The National System of Political Economy'' (1841). All those forces which are applied by people in the production process (body and brain, tools and techniques, materials, resources, quality of workers' cooperation, and equipment) are encompassed by this concept, including those management and engineering functions technically indispensable for production (as contra ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (; ; 27 August 1770 – 14 November 1831) was a German philosopher. He is one of the most important figures in German idealism and one of the founding figures of modern Western philosophy. His influence extends across the entire range of contemporary philosophical topics, from metaphysical issues in epistemology and ontology, to political philosophy, the philosophy of history, philosophy of art, philosophy of religion, and the history of philosophy. Born in 1770 in Stuttgart during the transitional period between the Enlightenment and the Romantic movement in the Germanic regions of Europe, Hegel lived through and was influenced by the French Revolution and the Napoleonic wars. His fame rests chiefly upon ''The Phenomenology of Spirit'', ''The Science of Logic'', and his lectures at the University of Berlin on topics from his ''Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences''. Throughout his work, Hegel strove to address and correct the probl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Marx's Theory Of History
Historical materialism is the term used to describe Karl Marx's theory of history. Marx locates historical change in the rise of class societies and the way humans labor together to make their livelihoods. For Marx and his lifetime collaborator, Friedrich Engels, the ultimate cause and moving power of historical events are to be found in the economic development of society and the social and political upheavals wrought by changes to the mode of production. Historical materialism provides a challenge to the view that historical processes have come to a close and that capitalism is the end of history. Although Marx never brought together a formal or comprehensive description of historical materialism in one published work, his key ideas are woven into a variety of works from the 1840s onward. Since Marx's time, the theory has been modified and expanded. It now has many Marxist and non-Marxist variants. Enlightenment views of history Marx's view of history is shaped by his enga ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tool
A tool is an object that can extend an individual's ability to modify features of the surrounding environment or help them accomplish a particular task. Although many animals use simple tools, only human beings, whose use of stone tools dates back hundreds of millennia, have been observed using tools to make other tools. Early human tools, made of such materials as stone, bone, and wood, were used for preparation of food, hunting, manufacture of weapons, and working of materials to produce clothing and useful artifacts. The development of metalworking made additional types of tools possible. Harnessing energy sources, such as animal power, wind, or steam, allowed increasingly complex tools to produce an even larger range of items, with the Industrial Revolution marking an inflection point in the use of tools. The introduction of widespread automation in the 19th and 20th centuries allowed tools to operate with minimal human supervision, further increasing the productivity of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin ( April 17, 1790) was an American polymath who was active as a writer, scientist, inventor, statesman, diplomat, printer, publisher, and political philosopher. Encyclopædia Britannica, Wood, 2021 Among the leading intellectuals of his time, Franklin was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States, a drafter and signer of the United States Declaration of Independence, and the first United States Postmaster General. As a scientist, he was a major figure in the American Enlightenment and the history of physics for his studies of electricity, and for charting and naming the current still known as the Gulf Stream. As an inventor, he is known for the lightning rod, bifocals, and the Franklin stove, among others. He founded many civic organizations, including the Library Company, Philadelphia's first fire department, and the University of Pennsylvania. Isaacson, 2004, p. Franklin earned the title of "The First American" for his early and indefa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Homo Faber
''Homo faber'' () is the concept that human beings are able to control their fate and their environment as a result of the use of tools. Original phrase In Latin literature, Appius Claudius Caecus uses this term in his ''Sententiæ'', referring to the ability of man to control his destiny and what surrounds him: ''Homo faber suae quisque fortunae'' ("Every man is the artifex of his destiny"). In older anthropological discussions, ''Homo faber'', as the "working man", is confronted with ''Homo ludens'', the "playing man", who is concerned with amusements, humor, and leisure. It is also used in George Kubler's book, '' The Shape of Time'' as a reference to individuals who create works of art. Modern usage The classic ''homo faber suae quisque fortunae'' was "rediscovered" by humanists in 14th century and was central in the Italian Renaissance. In the 20th century, Max Scheler and Hannah Arendt made the philosophical concept central again. Henri Bergson also referred to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Biopower
Biopower (or ''biopouvoir'' in French) is a term coined by French scholar, philosopher, historian, and social theorist Michel Foucault. It relates to the practice of modern nation states and their regulation of their subjects through "an explosion of numerous and diverse techniques for achieving the subjugations of bodies and the control of populations". Foucault first used the term in his lecture courses at the Collège de France, and the term first appeared in print in ''The Will to Knowledge'', Foucault's first volume of ''The History of Sexuality''. In Foucault's work, it has been used to refer to practices of public health, regulation of heredity, and risk regulation, among many other regulatory mechanisms often linked less directly with literal physical health. It is closely related to a term he uses much less frequently, but which subsequent thinkers have taken up independently, biopolitics, which aligns more closely with the examination of the strategies and mechanisms ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Michel Foucault
Paul-Michel Foucault (, ; ; 15 October 192625 June 1984) was a French philosopher, historian of ideas, writer, political activist, and literary critic. Foucault's theories primarily address the relationship between power and knowledge, and how they are used as a form of social control through societal institutions. Though often cited as a structuralist and postmodernist, Foucault rejected these labels. His thought has influenced academics, especially those working in communication studies, anthropology, psychology, sociology, criminology, cultural studies, literary theory, feminism, Marxism and critical theory. Born in Poitiers, France, into an upper-middle-class family, Foucault was educated at the Lycée Henri-IV, at the École Normale Supérieure, where he developed an interest in philosophy and came under the influence of his tutors Jean Hyppolite and Louis Althusser, and at the University of Paris (Sorbonne), where he earned degrees in philosophy and psychology. Aft ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Grundrisse
The ''Grundrisse der Kritik der Politischen Ökonomie'' (''Foundations of a Critique of Political Economy'') is an unfinished manuscript by the German philosopher Karl Marx. The series of seven notebooks was rough-drafted by Marx, chiefly for purposes of self-clarification, during the winter of 1857–8. Left aside by Marx in 1858, it remained unpublished until 1939. Contents The ''Grundrisse'' is very wide-ranging in subject matter and covers all six sections of Marx's critique of political economy (of which only one, the first volume of ''Das Kapital'', ever reached a final form). It is often described as the rough draft of ''Das Kapital'', although there is considerable disagreement about the exact relationship between the two texts, particularly around the issue of methodology. Due to its breadth and its incorporation of themes from Marx's earlier writings, the ''Grundrisse'' is central to Marx's body of work. Its subject matter includes the prices of production, relations ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
