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Althusser
Louis Pierre Althusser (, ; ; 16 October 1918 – 22 October 1990) was a French Marxist philosopher who 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. 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 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. He later described himself as a social anarchist. Althusser's life was marked by periods of intense mental illness. In 1980, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
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 conception and critique 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 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Interpellation (philosophy)
Interpellation is a concept introduced to Marxist theory by Louis Althusser as the mechanism through which pre-existing social structures "constitute" (or construct) individual human organisms as Subjectification, subjects (with consciousness and agency). Althusser asked how people come voluntarily to live within class, gender, racial or other identities, and argued that this happens through "state apparatuses" (such as the family, mass media, schools, churches, the judicial system, police, government) continually telling individuals what they are from infancy. In this way, apparatuses maintain the social order. In Althusser's view, apparatuses call us (or ‘hail’ us, French ''interpeller'') by labels, and we learn to respond to those labels. In this Structuralism, structuralist philosophy, social structures constitute subjects rather than individuals constituting their own subjectivity for themselves. Origin of the term The term ''interpellation'' is more common in French� ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Young Marx
The correct place of Karl Marx's early writings within his system as a whole has been a matter of great controversy. Some believe there is a ''break'' in Marx's development that divides his thought into two periods: the "Young Marx" is said to be a thinker who deals with the problem of Marx's theory of alienation, alienation, while the "Mature Marx" is said to aspire to a scientific socialism. The debate centers on the reasons for Marx's transition from philosophy to the analysis of modern capitalist society. The controversy arose with the posthumous publication of the works that Marx wrote before 1845 — particularly the ''Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844'' — which had been unavailable to earlier generations of Marxists. These writings, first published between 1927 and 1932, provide a philosophical background to the economic, historical and political works that Marx had hitherto been known for. Orthodox Marxism follows a positivist reading that sees Marx as having ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
For Marx
''For 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 conceptualized as a complex w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Reading Capital
''Reading 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).He explores the dynamics of capital accumulation, exploitation of workers, and the resulting class struggles. Marx critiques the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Marxist Humanism
Marxist humanism is a philosophical and political movement that interprets Karl Marx's works through a humanist lens, focusing on human nature and the social conditions that best support Eudaimonia, human flourishing. Marxist humanists argue that Marx himself was concerned with investigating similar questions. Marxist humanism emerged in 1932 with the publication of Marx's ''Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844'', and reached a degree of prominence in the 1950s and 1960s. Marxist humanists contend that there is continuity between the early philosophical writings of Marx, in which he develops his Marx's theory of alienation, theory of alienation, and the structural description of capitalist society found in his later works such as ''Das Kapital, Capital''. They hold that it is necessary to grasp Marx's philosophical foundations to understand his later works properly. Contrary to the official dialectical materialism of the Soviet Union and to the structural Marxism of Lou ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
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] [Amazon] |
Structural Marxism
Structural Marxism (sometimes called Althusserian 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 historicist and phenomenological Marxism, which was based on Marx's early works, was caught in a "pre-scientific ideology". ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Overdetermination
Overdetermination occurs when a single-observed effect is determined by multiple causes, any one of which alone would be conceivably sufficient to account for ("determine") the effect. The term "overdetermination" () was used by Sigmund Freud as a key concept in his psychoanalysis, and later by Louis Althusser. In the philosophy of science, the concept of overdetermination has been used to describe a situation in which there are more causes present than are necessary to cause an effect. Overdetermination here is in contrast to ''underdetermination'', when the number or strength of causes is insufficient. 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 interpr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Ideology
An ideology is a set of beliefs or values attributed to a person or group of persons, especially those held for reasons that are not purely about belief in certain knowledge, in which "practical elements are as prominent as theoretical ones". Formerly applied primarily to Economy, economic, Political philosophy, political, or Religion, religious theories and policies, in a tradition going back to Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, more recent use treats 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 Linguistic description, descriptive sense to refer to List of political ideologies, political belief systems. Etymology The term ''ideology'' originates from French language, French , itself coined from combining (; close to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
