Differences Within Marxist Philosophy
Some varieties of Marxist philosophy are strongly influenced by G.W.F. Hegel, emphasizing totality and even teleology: for example, the work of Georg Lukács, whose influence extends to contemporary thinkers like Fredric Jameson. Others consider "totality" merely another version of Hegel's "spirit," and thus condemn it as a crippling, secret idealism.
Theodor Adorno, a leading philosopher of the Frankfurt School, who was strongly influenced by Hegel, tried to take a middle path between these extremes: Adorno contradicted Hegel's motto "the true is the whole" with his new version, "the whole is the false," but he wished to preserve critical theory as a negative, oppositional version of the utopia described by Hegel's "spirit." Adorno believed in totality and human potential as ends to be striven for, but not as certainties.
The status of humanism in Marxist thought has been quite contentious. Many Marxists, especially Hegelian Marxists and also those committed to political programs (such as many Communist Parties), have been strongly humanist. These humanist Marxists believe that Marxism describes the true potential of human beings, and that this potential can be fulfilled in collective freedom after the Communist revolution has removed capitalism's constraints and subjugations of humanity. A particular version of the humanism within the marxism is represented by the school of Lev Vygotsky and his school in theoretical psychology (Alexis Leontiev, Laszlo Garai). The Praxis school based its theory on the writings of the young Marx, emphasizing the humanist and dialectical aspects thereof.
However, other Marxists, especially those influenced by Louis Althusser, are just as strongly anti-humanist. Anti-humanist Marxists believe that ideas like "humanity," "freedom," and "human potential" are pure ideology, or theoretical versions of the bourgeois economic order. They feel that such concepts can only condemn Marxism to theoretical self-contradictions which may also hurt it politically.
Read more about this topic: Marxist Philosophy
Famous quotes containing the words differences, marxist and/or philosophy:
“The extent to which a parent is able to see a child’s world through that child’s eyes depends very much on the parent’s ability to appreciate the differences between herself and her child and to respect those differences. Your own children need you to accept them for who they are, not who you would like them to be.”
—Lawrence Balter (20th century)
“Why juggle with the term “bourgeois” in regard to Flaubert? You know quite well that in Flaubert’s sense it was not a class category. In other words, Flaubert in the eyes of Marx was a bourgeois in the Marxist sense, while Marx in Flaubert’s eyes was a bourgeois in a Flaubertian sense.”
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)
“When Philosophy with its abstractions paints grey in grey, the freshness and life of youth has gone, the reconciliation is not a reconciliation in the actual, but in the ideal world.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)