Marx's Theory of Human Nature - Gerald Cohen's Criticism

Gerald Cohen's Criticism

One important criticism of Marx's 'philosophical anthropology' (i.e. his conception of humans) is offered by Gerald Cohen, the leader of Analytical Marxism, in Reconsidering Historical Materialism (in ed. Callinicos, 1989). Cohen claims: 'Marxist philosophical anthropology is one sided. Its conception of human nature and human good overlooks the need for self-identity than which nothing is more essentially human.' (p173, see especially sections 6 and 7). The consequence of this is held to be that 'Marx and his followers have underestimated the importance of phenomena, such as religion and nationalism, which satisfy the need for self-identity. (Section 8.)' (p173). Cohen describes what he sees as the origins of Marx's alleged neglect: 'In his anti-Hegelian, Feuerbachian affirmation of the radical objectivity of matter, Marx focused on the relationship of the subject to an object which is in no way subject, and, as time went on, he came to neglect the subject's relationship to itself, and that aspect of the subject's relationship to others which is a mediated (that is, indirect), form of relationship to itself' (p155).

Cohen believes that people are driven, typically, not to create identity, but to preserve that which they have in virtue, for example, of 'nationality, or race, or religion, or some slice or amalgam thereof' (p156-159). Cohen does not claim that 'Marx denied that there is a need for self-definition, but he failed to give the truth due emphasis' (p155). Nor does Cohen say that the sort of self-understanding that can be found through religion etc. is accurate (p158). Of nationalism, he says 'identifications take benign, harmless, and catastrophically malignant forms' (p157) and does not believe 'that the state is a good medium for the embodiment of nationality' (p164).