Louis Althusser and the Traditions of French materialism

copy Koninklijke Brill NV Leiden 2009 DOI 101163146544609X12537556703359

Historical Materialism 17 (2009) 121ndash142 brillnlhima

Review Articles

Louis Althusser Warren Montag Houndmills and New York Palgrave Macmillan 2003

Louis Althusser and the Traditions of French Marxism William S Lewis Lanham Maryland Lexington Books 2005

Althusser Th e Detour of Th eory Gregory Elliott Historical Materialism Book Series Leiden Brill 2006

AbstractIn the past few years there has been a renewed interest in the work of Louis Althusser although in some cases this interest has been one-sided focusing mainly on his later writings on aleatory materialism Th e three books reviewed in this article however off er balanced and insightful overviews of the totality of Althusserrsquos work placing it in the wider context of Marxist political and theoretical debates and stressing both its originality and strengths but also its contradictions

KeywordsAlthusser Marxist philosophy ideology Lewis Montag Elliott

Readings of Althusser

Introduction

Over recent years the work of Louis Althusser has once again begun to attract attention especially since the posthumous publication of his unpublished texts1 Th is renewed theoretical interest has largely focused on previously unknown aspects of his theoretical trajectory such as his attempt to articulate an lsquoaleatory materialismrsquo which has been heralded as a salutary exodus from classical-Marxist materialism Th e ideological exhaustion of neoliberalism the postmodern attack on classical humanism the continuing academic interest in what has been labelled lsquoFrench Th eoryrsquo and a political landscape characterised by the re-emergence of political and theoretical radicalism have also contributed to this new interest in Althusser and have ndash partially at least ndash lifted the anathema that he and most Marxists of his generation had received during the heyday of theoretical anti-communism2

1 Althusser 1993 1994 1995 1997 1999 2003 and 20062 It is worth noting that in Greece there has been a continuing interest in Althusser and his

work In the 1970s this interest was evident in infl uential left-wing journals such as Politis but

122 Review Articles Historical Materialism 17 (2009) 121ndash142

One of the main tendencies of this work has been the attempt to present an image of an lsquootherrsquo Althusser especially since the later writings could readily be drawn upon for this purpose Th e most notable such case was Toni Negrirsquos conceptualisation of an Althusserian Kehre3 from an earlier lsquostructuralistrsquo preoccupation with objective social tendencies towards a more open confrontation with the potential creativity of the multitude in the sense of a lsquosearch for an open subjectivity that would construct theory and struggle togetherrsquo4 In this reading a new image of Althusser emerges one with much more in common with Negrirsquos own preoccupation with the potentiality of the subjectivity of new forms of immaterial labour than to the lsquoclassicalrsquo communist strategy

At the same time one can also note the preoccupation with the later Althusser of the group around the French journal Multitudes where the rejection of classical Marxism and of any attempt to produce a coherent dialectical theorisation of social reality goes hand in hand with the search for a new ontology of constantly re-emerging encounters in an open space of singular struggles and creative practices without centre and consequently without the need to rethink political organisation and strategy5

Th e same attempt at presenting an lsquootherrsquo post-communist Althusser is evident in the postmodernist reading of Althusser proposed by Callari and Ruccio (1996) Th is reading presents Althusserrsquos work as marking a clear break with classical Marxism and modernism Modernist Marxism is presented as plagued by essentialism and teleology with production being understood as the causal centre of social reality and the proletariat as the historical subject of social change Callari and Ruccio think that there is the possibility of an lsquootherrsquo Marxism exemplifi ed in the work of Althusser that counters these essentialist systemicist and teleological tendencies and off ers the possibility of thinking the heterogeneity complexity and multiplicity of social struggles and of rejecting classical Marxismrsquos premises such as the primacy of the struggles in production or the determination-in-the-last-instance by the economic As a result it is also obvious that this postmodern Althusser is also a postcommunist one refusing the basic tenets of communist politics such as the political centrality of the labour movement But this reading also has epistemological consequences Althusserrsquos insistence on the possibility of treating Marxism as a science and as an attempt to produce scientifi c explanations is duly discarded6

On the other hand GM Goshgarianrsquos lengthy introductions to the English-language collections of Althusserrsquos posthumously published works7 off er a much clearer view of the political considerations behind Althusserrsquos interventions For Goshgarian Althusserrsquos

also in the fact that political tendencies in the Left such as Brsquo Panelladiki the radical youth of the Eurocommunist Communist Party of the Interior that broke away from it in 1978 were openly Althusserian in their theoretical orientation From the 1980s onwards this interest has been evident especially in the reference to Althusser in infl uential Marxist journals such as Th eseis (directed by John Milios) but also in the publication of monographs on Althusser On this see Fourtounis and Baltas 1994 Fourtounis 1998 Baltas 2002 and Sotiris 2004

3 Negri 19934 Negri 1996 p 595 Ichida and Matheron 2005 Matheron 2005 Moulier-Boutang 2005 6 lsquoOf course Althusser himself did not help matters by invoking such terms as science

society eff ect structural causality reproduction and so on ndash terms that allude to a sense of closure for the objects and methods of Marxist discoursersquo (Callari and Ruccio 1996 p 35)

7 Goshgarian 2003 Goshgarian 2006

Review Articles Historical Materialism 17 (2009) 121ndash142 123

work from the beginning was intended not only as a left-wing criticism of Stalinism but also as a left-wing correction of the political line of the Communist movement this political orientation being the main element of continuity in Althusserrsquos work As a result Goshgarianrsquos introductions off er us an image of Althusser as a communist thinker contrary to a tendency to depict him as either lamenting an irremediable and irreversible crisis of the communist project or looking for new movements and subjectivities Goshgarian has also suggested that a closer reading of the totality of Althusserrsquos published and unpublished works show that a preoccupation with an open conception of the lsquoencounterrsquo of the elements of the historical situation and an emphasis on the radical break with any form of teleology is the common thread running through all of his writings even from the time of his small book on Montesquieu

However lacking among this renewed interest has been a consideration of the work of Althusser in its totality set against its historical political and theoretical background Th at is exactly what makes the three books that are the focus of this article particularly interesting not only do they off er comprehensive accounts of Althusserrsquos main positions but they also consider Althusser within the broader context of the evolution of Marxism its debates and its relation to questions of political strategy and tactics

Rethinking Althusser on art theory and practice

Warren Montagrsquos book is neither a typical monograph on Althusser nor a simple introduction Designed for a book-series that critically explores key-fi gures in literary theory it off ers a highly original reading of Althusser one which insists on the importance of Althusserrsquos work contrary to traditional criticisms of Althusserian lsquostructuralismrsquo It is for this reason that he distances his approach not only from EP Th ompsonrsquos attack on Althusser8 but also from Terry Eagletonrsquos initial attempt at an lsquoAlthusserianrsquo theory of literature9 (one that Montag thinks was closer to Leacutevi-Strauss than to Althusser) from the British Althusserianism of Hindess and Hirst10 from Jamesonrsquos criticism of Althusser and even from commentators more sympathetic to Althusser such as Ted Benton11 Montag wants to show that the work of Althusser ndash and Macherey in what concerns literary theory especially ndash is a far more complex and contradictory theoretical endeavour than has previously been supposed one that from the beginning included both the theorisation of structures and the confrontation with the open and even aleatory character of conjunctures12

In line with the book-seriesrsquo stated purpose Montag starts by reading Althusserrsquos works on art and the theatre especially since lsquoAlthusserrsquos most productive period coincided with a new-found interest in contemporary painting and literature particularly dramarsquo (p 17)

8 Th ompson 1978 9 Eagleton 197610 Hindess and Hirst 197711 Benton 198412 Montag refers explicitly to Balibar (1993) and his position that even in For Marx one

could discern the antagonism between a materialism of the structure and a materialism of the conjuncture


Drawing upon not only Althusserrsquos published interventions in the 1960s but also his correspondence with Franca Madonia13 he is able to situate Althusserrsquos growing interest in non-realist art within the context of his more general theoretical tendency to think that social structures are never directly present or visible but felt through their eff ects and traces He also links Althusserrsquos rejection of classical realism to his theoretical anti-humanism his negation of a notion of human essence that is expressed in works of art and his conception of ideology Consequently he thinks that lsquo[f ]or Althusser the function of art was not so much to make reality visible as to make visible the myths that govern without our knowledge and consent the way we think about and ldquoliverdquo this realityrsquo (p 21)

In this direction Montag off ers a very careful reading of Althusserrsquos interpretation of Bertolazzirsquos El Nost Milan In particular he draws attention to the way that Althusser insists that the importance of the play lies in a lsquodialectic in the wingsrsquo14 making El Nost Milan not a depiction of social reality but a lsquocritique of the dominant form of consciousnessrsquo (p 25) Montag also provides a reading of Althusser on Brecht For Montag Althusser sees in Brechtrsquos plays a dissociated structure that off ers the possibility of a radical critique of ideological consciousness and of any notion of a consciousness that would freely act based upon a complete knowledge of the situation and the dilemmas it poses Montag thinks that Althusserrsquos writings on the theatre are an example of his more general preoccupation with structures as lsquoabsent causesrsquo and of his thoroughgoing critique of the self-conscious subject of theoretical humanism Montag stresses the analogies between Althusserrsquos reference to modern theatrersquos ability to bring forward social complexity and confl ictuality through displacements and changes in the disposition of the plays and his descriptions of philosophical interventions

Montag carefully presents the diffi culties Althusser faced in his attempts to delineate a theory of the materiality of art and turns to the introduction to Reading lsquoCapitalrsquo as his most comprehensive eff ort to think the very diffi culty of reading and to distance it from a conception of a lsquoreading that deciphers the signs that both express and conceal truthrsquo (p 45) According to Montag Althusser follows Spinoza in his refusal to treat the text of the Scripture as the covering of a hidden meaning and in his choice lsquoto take the Scripture as it is its gaps lacunae inconsistencies and outright contradictions of doctrine and narrative as irreduciblersquo (p 48) In the same way Althusser thinks that Marx in his reading of Smith turns his attention not to what Smithrsquos text fails to see but to what it sees but is unable to make explicit except in the form of absences and aporiae

Montag then turns to another important intervention from Althusserrsquos circle of that period namely Pierre Machereyrsquos Th eory of Literary Production15 For Montag the importance of Machereyrsquos text lies in its rejection of any normative approach of literary theory and his insistence on the literary text being real and irreducible to something more real than itself Th is leads Macherey to a rejection of a classical notion of literary creation that has more to do with a theological conception of truth as Godrsquos will than with the materiality of the literary text For Montag when Macherey replaces the notion of creation with that of

13 Althusser 199814 Althusser 2005 p 13815 Macherey 2006


literary production he follows Spinoza and his insistence that lsquothe method of interpreting Scripture is the same with the method of in interpreting naturersquo (p 56) He also points out that Macherey was far from simply proposing to do away with the centrality of the author in the sense proposed by formalist and structuralist theories

As Macherey points out although this approach to literature appears to dispense with the very notion of the author in fact it simply displaces the problems posed by the notion of the author to the level of the system as a whole Neither formalism nor structuralism can explain the emergence of the system nor how out of the set of potential narratives one rather than another is generated (p 58)

In light of the above it is obvious that for Montag Machereyrsquos text is proof that even lsquoHigh Althusserianismrsquo was far from being a simple structuralism Th e irreducibility of the literary text means that multiple meanings exists within the text itself in the form of lsquofaults inconsistencies and contradictions [that] are not signs of artistic failure but of the historical necessity that made the work what it is and no anotherrsquo (p 60) a position in line with Althusserrsquos notion of symptomatic reading in Reading lsquoCapitalrsquo

Montag then proceeds to deal with Althusserrsquos notion of ideology He notes that from the beginning Althusserrsquos conception of ideology was diff erent from a traditional Marxist one not only because the opposition between ideology and science is not symmetrical to the opposition between the false and the true but also because the notion of lsquothe imaginaryrsquo that Althusser uses ndash a notion that has more to do with Spinoza than with Lacan ndash means that ideology can be conceived as an lsquounconscious structure that determines both how people think and how they will actrsquo (p 63) Montag thinks that Althusser realised that centring ideology on representation was inadequate and left open the question of the materiality of ideology Th at is why in lsquoIdeology and Ideological State Apparatusesrsquo Althusser gave a new meaning to both lsquorepresentationrsquo and lsquothe imaginaryrsquo since now the ideological projection of a free individual is considered at the same time a fi ction (as an image of the human condition) and the material reality of the everyday practices institutions and apparatuses that interpellate and produce human subjects as free individuals Montag following recent writings by Macherey on this subject thinks that that this conception of the materiality of ideology off ers also the possibility of thinking the materiality of the work of art not only in the moment of its production but also of its reproduction and re-reading as

Th e work itself is constantly reinscribed in other works perpetually transformed by its encounter with what it is not not merely other literary texts but discourses of all kinds and the practices and institutions in which these discourses are embedded (p 68)

Th e second part of the book is a presentation of some key concepts of Althusserrsquos theoretical framework and includes passages from texts by Althusser and Balibar on the same Th ese include a concept of history demarcated from both Hegel and structuralism Althusserrsquos critique of humanism and of the idea of a human nature or human essence the theory of ideology the replacement of creation with production by Macherey the notion of symptomatic reading and the notion of philosophy as intervention


Th e third part of the book off ers some readings of classical literary texts Th e fi rst one concerns Conradrsquos Heart of Darkness where Montag fi nds clear echoes of the rise of the international-socialist movement that manage to intermingle with the narrative

[A] voice murmurs over and through Heart of Darkness interrupting it preventing it from closing upon itself in completion opening it to other texts other histories Th e voice is not the whine of those pledging the lsquoright of labor to liversquo it is the voice of the living power of labor the power of cannibal crews armed savages mutineers and the apocalyptic moment of the mass strike (p 101)

Th e second reading concerns Defoersquos Robinson Crusoe Montag thinks that the diff erent and contradictory stances depicted in the book and the possibility of diff erent readings of the book refl ect the social and ideological contradictions of that era and result in the particular openness of the novel

[F]ar from gathering itself into a coherent whole as it proceeds from beginning to end the text progresses through a dissociative movement the force of which pulls it apart separating from itself Th is dissociation however is not the eff ect of some primal disorder or indeterminacy it is historically determined by the multiple and intersecting struggles of Defoersquos time not simply the struggle of citizen against state but also the propertyless against the propertied worker against employer slave against master (p 117)

Finally Montag turns to Althusserrsquos autobiographical Th e Future Lasts a Long Time carefully avoiding both the danger of taking it at face-value ndash something exemplifi ed by the way he presents Althusserrsquos obviously false references to his mediocrity ndash and the temptation of seeking a psychological or biographical explanation of Althusserrsquos œuvre opting instead to treat Althusserrsquos autobiography as just another moment in lsquodiverse series of texts each itself forced apart by the very power imparted to itrsquo (p 131)

Montag draws some important conclusions concerning the lsquoirreducible materiality of works the confl icts and contradictions proper to themrsquo (p 135) and the always incomplete and unfi nished character of any work of art in its constant reappropriation He also concludes that the contradiction between a materialism of the structure and a materialism of the conjuncture is constitutive of Althusserrsquos work and can be considered a lsquodialectical motor of contradictions driving his thought forward without any possibility of a fi nal resolutionrsquo (p 133) providing in this sense the very fecundity of his endeavour But Montag is also very careful to distinguish his approach form any attempt to present Althusser as oscillating between modernismrationalism and postmodernismirrationalism On the contrary he presents Althusserrsquos theoretical self-criticism as still centred upon the diffi culties and open questions of scientifi c practices that try to contribute to lsquonot only the knowledge of the social world but to its transformationrsquo (p 135)

For if Althusser rejected any notion of a logic of scientifi c discovery or a a priori method that would serve to guarantee the truth of a given scientifi c practice and its fi ndings he never did so on the basis of another opposing a priori postulate ie that there can be no truth no science or that art exceeds our capacity to speak or know it On the contrary he rejected these alternatives of transcendental reason


(high postmodernism is transcendentalism in an almost pure form) in favour of the primacy of scientifi c practice over theory speaking of the necessity of writing a history of the sciences as it was with its accidents and chance encounters its regressions as well as its advances (p 134)

Th ere is no doubt that Montag has produced a book that is both insightful and fascinating Contrary to a recent tendency to over-emphasise Althusserrsquos later writings as the canonical texts of a new lsquoopenrsquo materialism of aleatory practices and encounters Montag mainly refers to Althusserrsquos lsquoclassicalrsquo texts of the 1960s treating them not as examples of structuralist obsession but as eff orts to think the very complexity and confl ictuality of social practices His proposal to re-read Althusserrsquos writings on art and the theatre as exemplifi cations of the inherently contradictory character of discursive practices embedded in social antagonism is also fruitful Equally important is his treatment of Althusserrsquos confrontation with a possible materialist theory of reading one that brings forward the always open incomplete and confl ictual nature of every text and the constant eff ectivity of social practices and class-struggle In this way he off ers a welcome correction of the standard accusation that Althusser in the early 1960s proposed a simplistic scienceideology dichotomy Montagrsquos treatment of Althusserrsquos theory of ideology is also important stressing the importance of the materiality of practices

Montagrsquos treatment of Machereyrsquos Th eory of Literary Production as a paradigmatic text of the original Althusserian project off ering it the place traditionally attributed to Balibarrsquos much more structuralist intervention in Reading lsquoCapitalrsquo16 is also of particular interest I think that Montag is right in his choice especially since Macherey is not only concerned with questions of literary theory but also with the more general problems of a materialist epistemology Machereyrsquos refusal of empiricism in favour of a theory of knowledge as production17 criticism of structuralism18 and humanist ideology and emphasis on the distinction between necessity and teleology19 provide ample evidence of the importance of Th eory of Literary Production And it is reading Althusser through Macherey (and vice versa) and both through Spinoza that also helps Montag restate the materiality of the literary text as the irreducibility of the text to anything other than itself20 a useful correction against all forms of dualism

Th e main criticisms that can be raised against Montag have to do with the limits of his attempt to think Althusser through the questions concerning literature and artistic

16 Balibar 199017 lsquoKnowledge is not the discovery or reconstruction of a latent meaning forgotten or

concealed It is something newly raised up an addition to the reality from which it beginsrsquo (Macherey 2006 p 6)

18 lsquo[A] historical question (and we might call such a question a lsquostructurersquo) not only implies the possibility of change but is the incarnation and real inscription of this possibility [ ] Th e question of structure is not the delayed materialization the late incarnation of a pre-existing meaning it is the real condition of its very possibilityrsquo (Macherey 2006 p 11)

19 lsquoNor must we confuse necessity with fatality the work is not the product of chance but does involve novelty which is inscribed in its very letter It is this mobility which makes the work possible and from which it emerges Although it is not rigidly subordinated to a model its progress is not random but becomes an object of knowledgersquo (Macherey 2006 p 56)

20 On this see Montagrsquos own comments (Montag 2005)


production As a result not enough emphasis is placed upon the political nature of Althusserrsquos endeavour and his attempt to off er a theoretical correction to the crisis of communist strategy Th is for example might have helped explain why Althusser had at the same time to introduce a theory of knowledgeable social structures as the prerequisite of the scientifi c guidance of political choices in sharp contrast to the theoretical poverty of the communist movement and to insist on the singularity of conjunctures in order to prevent the return to dogmatism

Th e second point of criticism has to do with Montagrsquos emphasis on the literary text as a case-study of material production Although he off ers valuable insights on what a materialist approach might include ndash such as the irreducibility of the text the conception of the text as the product of multiple determinations and the consideration of both its production and reception as material practices ndash the problem is that not all of social reality can be presented as a text or artefact Th at is why the question of a materialist conception of practice that would take into account the complex and open-to-the-future character of social totality is still indispensable Montag has partly tried to answer this question through Spinozarsquos theory of singularities as the constant possibility of new encounters eff ects and meanings21 I think that a combination between structural causality and the constant eff ectivity of social antagonism (itself both lsquostructuralrsquo and lsquoconjuncturalrsquo) can also off er a way forward

Th e fi nal criticism relates to Montagrsquos treatment of Balibarrsquos insistence on a tension between a materialism of the structure and a materialism of the conjuncture in Althusser Th ree points have to be made here Th e fi rst is that the very notion of structure employed by Althusser had less to do with him embracing structuralism and more with an attempt towards a theorisation of the relational character of social reality (in the sense of the ontological primacy of the relation over its elements) and of the tendency of social forms and apparatuses to reproduce themselves despite being transversed by social antagonism ndash a crucial question for critical social theory Th e second is that not enough attention is paid to the modalities of structural causality I think that it off ers the possibility of negating at the same time a mechanical one-dimensional conception of structural imperatives and an equally one-dimensional conception of a multitude of conjunctural determinations Th e third is that the only way to avoid treating this tension as tragically unresolved is to treat it as a dialectical contradiction inherent to Marxism as historical materialism Th erefore the question is not what side to choose but how to deal with it And it here that Althusserrsquos own self-critical conception of philosophy as intervention can be most fruitful If historical materialism can never be a closed rigidifi ed scientifi c system but is instead a constant struggle with the complexity and confl ictuality of social reality that necessarily leads to such tensions then there is also a constant need for philosophical interventions as (self-)corrections in the form of constantly lsquobending of the stick to the opposite sidersquo

21 Montag 2005 p 189


Placing Althusser in the context of French Marxism

William Lewisrsquos book is not just a monograph on Althusser but an attempt to situate Althusserrsquos work within a wider historical political and theoretical context ndash that of the evolution of French Marxism and its relation to the history and politics of the French Communist Party (PCF) It off ers an historical approach to Althusser lsquothat allows his thought to be treated not in isolation but as a philosophy of practice with a historyrsquo (p 17) Th is double focus on philosophy and politics illuminates the complex and uneven ways theory and political practice are interwoven As Lewis notes

By studying Francersquos tradition of attempts to understand and practice Marxist Philosophy and specifi cally by looking at the French Communist Party as it attempted to function in a Western democracy one can observe the evolving history of a mass movement motivated in part by the theory that it was the vehicle of revolutionary political change (p 10)

Lewis notes that originally despite the evocation of lsquoBolshevisationrsquo by the PCF Marxism was not the only theoretical tradition in its ranks and that elements of other non-Marxist French socialist traditions survived22 Many of those who rallied around the PCF after the split at the Congress at Tours were more motivated by the radicalism of the Soviet Revolution and the experience of World War I than by a theoretical acquaintance with the work of Marx Lewis notes the minimal number of Marxrsquos or Engelsrsquos works published by the PCF in the fi rst half of the 1920s and the simplicity of the PCFrsquos paedagogical pamphlets of that period Instead the works of Plekhanov and Stalin are used as references for a conception of Marxism as an economic determinism and of historical dialectics as proof of the inevitability of communism

Th is provides Lewis with the opportunity to discuss the more general problem of the relation between class-position and epistemology According to Lewis despite the references in the German Ideology to the epistemologically-privileged position of the proletariat the mature Marx does not seem to insist on such a position On the contrary he thinks that it was mainly Engels in his later works who insisted that lsquotrue knowledge is dependent upon class positionrsquo (p 61) And it is on the basis of such positions that according to Lewis Lenin developed his theory of knowledge later simplifi ed by Stalin according to which the social division between the workers and the bourgeoisie is also the division between those who are able to see social reality as it is and those lsquowho cling to the illusion that history and the world are the result of ideasrsquo (p 61)

For Lewis the necessity of collaborating with Socialists Radicals and left-wing Catholics during the 1930s in the context of the Front Populaire strategy led to a change of the PCFrsquos rhetoric and the adoption of a more humanistic conception of communism But despite this change in rhetoric the canonical texts of this period were those written by Stalin According to Lewis Stalin off ers a very lsquovery schematic and truncated version of Marxist philosophyrsquo (p 73) that claimed to have grasped the laws of motion of both nature and

22 lsquoLong after it was supposedly totally ldquoBolshevizedrdquo French Communism retained elements from its French Socialist antecedents the ghosts of Proudhon and Fourier appear alongside Saint-Simonrsquos in many of its policy positions theoretical justifi cations and pedagogical textsrsquorsquo (p 25)


human society Although the PCF found in Stalinrsquos texts the lsquoalgebra of revolutionrsquo (p 75) the results were disastrous since the Party defi ned as theory the lsquothe crude distinction between true communist knowledge and faulty bourgeois knowledge the fl awed philosophy of science and of history that went along with this distinction and economism associated with the crude infrastructuresuperstructure relationshipsrsquo (p 75)

Lewis distinguishes three schools of Marxism in French intellectual life by the end of the 1920s Th e fi rst was that of the Clarteacute group with utopian and Sorelian overtones Th e second was that of Le Cercle de la Russie Neuve which focused on the Marxist philosophy of science Th e third was that of the Philosophies group and Lewis studies the group of young intellectuals ndash among them Paul Nizan Georges Politzer and Henri Lefebvre ndash associated with the series of journals Philosophies Esprit La Revue Marxiste and Avant-poste and their theoretical itinerary from the criticism of French academic philosophy to German idealism and fi nally through the discovery of Hegel to Marxism He pays particular attention to Lefebvrersquos 1938 Le Mateacuterialisme dialectique a highly original attempt to think Marxism through the re-appropriation of Hegelian notions of lsquomanrsquos self-alienation and eventual reunifi cation through his activityrsquo (p 102) and to overcome economic determinism through the use of Hegelian dialectic which however failed to establish an alternative to the emerging Stalinist orthodoxy within the ranks of the PCF

Lewis then proceeds to examine the three variations of French Marxism after 1945 Th e fi rst is the lsquooffi cialrsquo Marxism of the PCF which after the War fully endorsed the Stalinist distinction between bourgeois and proletarian science and used it as a legitimisation of its politics and leadership since the lsquo ldquohistoric rolerdquo of party leaders has made them the possessors and the administrators of a science that understands the world in its truthrsquo (p 126) Th e second variation was Hegelian Marxism Lewis notes the importance of August Cornursquos treatment of Marx lsquoas essentially a Left Hegelianrsquo (p 129) and stresses the importance of Lefebvrersquos post-WWII Hegelian readings of Marxism as a theory of human alienation with lsquoalmost no mention of the class struggle as the process that drives this transformationrsquo (p 133) Th e third variation is existentialist Marxism which was also infl uenced by a certain reading of Hegel especially that of the Phenomenology of Spirit by Alexandre Kojegraveve and Jean Hyppolite Existentialist philosophers such as Merleau-Ponty and Sartre lsquotook the work of Kojegraveve and Hyppolite on Hegelrsquos dialectic of consciousness quite seriouslyrsquo (p 138) But contrary to the Marxist emphasis on consciousness as the product of work and social structures Sartre takes consciousness as ontologically given It was mainly Merleau-Ponty who rejected this lsquoradical separation of the individual from himself from the world and from historyrsquo (p 142) and was the fi rst to approach Marxism and communist politics even to the extent of providing a complex apologia for the Moscow trials of the 1930s although as Lewis notes in the 1950s he became again critical of traditional Marxist dialectic In same period Sartre became a political ally of the PCF without abandoning his initial emphasis on individual freedom and self-realisation

Lewis thinks that all the initial responses of French Marxism to the revelations about the Stalinist period after 1956 ndash the existentialist Marxistsrsquo attempts to produce a phenomenological Marxism the re-emergence of Hegelian Marxism and the modest attempts of orthodox Marxists to adapt themselves to the new situation ndash did not really off er an alternative and can be respectively characterised as lsquoan interesting retreat an impotent miscegenation and a dead endrsquo (p 158)

For Lewis the only real alternative was the intervention of Louis Althusser For Lewis Althusserrsquos project was primarily a political one to change the political line of the Party


required a theoretical break with both humanist and Stalinist readings of Marx Th at is why Althusser insists on the break between the texts by the young Marx grounded on a conception of the human essence and the texts of Marxrsquos maturity Lewis also pays particular attention to the importance of the notion of practice for Althusser to the way he considers science as a practice capable of producing new knowledge to the sharp distinction he draws between Hegelian dialectics and Marxrsquos conception of the dialectic and to his conception of social totality as contradictory overdetermined and unevenly developed He also notes the contradictions of Althusserrsquos notion of the lsquoTh eory of theoretical practicersquo and he thinks that this conception of philosophy lsquoin no way provides an adequate response to the criticism that Althusserrsquos description of science and philosophy are both excessively rationalist and excessively conventionalistrsquo (p 175) Lewisrsquos judgement is that Althusserrsquos project was successful in what concerns his diff erentiation of Marxism from the lsquoeconomismhumanism dyadrsquo (p 178) He also stresses his conception of ideology and his critique of ideological state-apparatuses and praises Althusser for lsquoattributing to Marx the founding of a science and an epistemology based on the structural articulation of levels of practice (economic political ideological and theoretical) that have no discernible relation one to the otherrsquo (p 181)

For Lewis the fact that Althusser did not produce the lsquoreal Marxrsquo that he claimed to have been referring to does not diminish the importance and originality of this work He thinks that in his self-criticism of his initial theoreticism Althusser abandons neither his conventionalism nor his epistemological realism but off ers a diff erent defi nition for the intervention of philosophy and its political character

As ideology runs deep and because it guides and allows social practice and affi liation its critique by philosophy can be powerful politically By marking out parts of a discourse as correct and scientifi c from other parts that are incorrect and ideological philosophy gives lsquoammunitionrsquo to that group of people whose practices are guided by science and it erodes the ideological fortifi cations of those guided by prejudice (p 195)

Lewis thinks that this conception which rejects classical notions of Marxist philosophy as off ering formulae for revolution and human liberation bringing it closer to cultural critique is capable of lsquoreconfi guring Marxist philosophy as a practice that is able to suggest given present realities what events are possiblersquo (p 198) Lewis suggests rethinking the possibility of historical materialism as an understanding of social structures avoiding at the same time crude scientism and the postmodern negation of scientifi city

Th at the revolution and its end cannot be predicted and implemented according to a philosophical understanding of the necessary economic determination of history does not mean that Marxrsquos theory of economic determination his lsquogeneral theory of historyrsquo should be abandoned Th is theory has much explanatory power albeit less than Marxist-Leninists believed it to have (p 206)

Lewisrsquos primary achievement is that he presents Althusserrsquos texts as a response to the crisis of French Marxism and as an eff ort to intervene not just in theoretical debate but ndash in the last instance ndash in the political orientation of the PCF Th e theoretical poverty of French Marxism and the inadequacy of the various attempts to deal with this problem ndash lsquoorthodoxrsquo


Hegelian and existentialist ndash stress the originality of Althusserrsquos project which emerges in this reading as neither a neo-Stalinist turn nor an exit from Marxism but a quest for a materialist reading of Marxism as a means for a left-wing response to the crisis of communist strategy Lewisrsquos treatment of the diff erent variants of French Marxism before Althusser is critical but also respectful exemplifi ed by the way he emphasises the originality and depth of Lefebvrersquos or Merleau-Pontyrsquos texts at the same time bringing forward their inadequacy to theorise social totality and their distance from Marxrsquos original formulations What emerges is a picture of French Marxism oscillating between the imposition of Stalinist orthodoxy and the quest for an exodus from historical materialism And Lewis is right to present the post-WWII turn towards a more humanist reading of Marx as a retreat and an inadequate answer to the limits of the Stalinist simplifi cation of Marxism into vulgar economism

Lewisrsquos assessment of Althusser is balanced and insightful avoiding traditional criticisms of lsquostructuralismrsquo and treats Althusserrsquos theoretical anti-humanism and anti-economism as an attempt to think through the complexity of social structures and the uneven and overdetermined character of their contradictions He does not avoid stressing the limits of Althusserrsquos initial characterisation of philosophy as lsquoTh eory of theoretical practicersquo he also stresses the theoretical value of Althusserrsquos later redefi nition of philosophy as political intervention in theory He is also right to insist that although Althusser failed to produce the lsquoReal Marxrsquo he off ered an original approach to the development of historical materialism Th e same goes for Lewisrsquos more general position on the continuing necessity of a materialist practice of philosophy and his refusal to accept neither a view of Marxist philosophy as a lsquoscience of sciencesrsquo nor a postmodern disavowal of scientifi city

On the other hand I disagree with Lewisrsquos position that we can use Althusserrsquos work to refute the epistemological primacy of the proletariat What Althusser mainly refuted was the bureaucratic voluntarism of Lysenkoism and more generally any conception of theory and scientifi c research being governed by party-diktats I agree with Lewis that we must discard all simplistic notions of the Communist Party and its leadership as guarantors of scientifi c objectivity But I also think that we must follow Althusserrsquos positions in the 1970s and insist that a certain degree of class-partiality is a prerequisite for the theorisation of social reality as an open space of class-antagonism Th is necessity of an internal position in the struggle23 especially in scientifi c terrains that are by defi nition confl ictual does not undermine the need for scientifi c standards but stresses the complex interplay of science ideology and class-struggle in the theorisation of the social Th is conception of scientifi city as a political ndash in the last instance ndash stake remains a fruitful break from positivism without the historicist or messianic overtones of other conceptions of the epistemologically-privileged position of the proletariat such as Lukaacutecsrsquos And although Lewis is right in his sharp criticism of the Stalinist conception of science I think that we should avoid thinking in terms of a linear development form Lenin to Lysenko Lenin ndash and we owe to Althusser this reading of Leninrsquos Materialism and Empirio-Criticism24 ndash was at the same time stressing the political importance of materialism and defending scientifi c knowledge presenting both political eff ectivity and scientifi c objectivity as stakes in social antagonism Th is was

23 See his insistence that Marxist theory was conceived lsquo ldquowithin and from within the Workerrsquos Movementrdquorsquo (Althusser 1976 p 265)

24 Althusser 1971


the point of Leninrsquos provocative reference to a partisanship in philosophy25 which had nothing to do with the subsequent conception of lsquoMarxist Th eoryrsquo as the justifi cation of the Partyrsquos leadership Stalinist economism was mainly a right-wing turn exemplifi ed by the naturalistic conception of the class-neutral and progressive character of the productive forces leading to the refusal to revolutionise productive relations and the labour-process during the Stalinist period In this sense the proletarian-sciencebourgeois-science dichotomy and lsquoLysenkoismrsquo ndash despite the voluntarist rhetoric ndash were grounded on an already accomplished right-wing theoretical turn26

Th e main criticism that can be raised against Lewis has to do with his treatment of Althusserrsquos epistemological positions and more generally his thinking on the theoretical status of philosophy27 Lewis seems to suggest that Althusserrsquos earlier formulations in the texts up to 1965 were burdened by a tension between conventionalism and scientifi c realism I do not think this is an accurate description because it misses the importance of Althusserrsquos defi nition and subsequent rejection of empiricism Althusser chooses to defi ne as empiricist every epistemological position that considers knowledge to be an attribute of reality itself either as classifi cation of lsquosurfacersquo raw data and sensory experiences or as extraction of a hidden-beneath-the-surface kernel of truth We can say that Althusser thinks that both traditional empiricism and traditional realism represent variations of empiricism On the contrary he presents as materialist the position that knowledge of the real is something diff erent than the real itself something that is not extracted but produced Th is conception of knowledge as production as a result of processes of transformation and displacement is what provides the originality of Althusserrsquos position Althusserrsquos self-criticism then has less to do with a hypothetical rejection of conventionalism but with his realisation that he had succumbed to the temptation to defi ne a set of philosophical guarantees of the lsquoknowledge-eff ectrsquo Th e basis of his theoreticism is exactly his insistence of the possibility of a science of sciences which is at the same time the absolute limit of the lsquoTh eory of theoretical practicesrsquo28

And in this sense Althusserrsquos second defi nition of philosophy is not about a change in epistemological positions but more like a profound rethinking of the very nature of philosophy itself Althusser seems to suggest not only that scientifi c practice is transversed by the class-struggle but also that the eff ects of this encounter between science and class-struggle are philosophical Philosophy emerges as a necessary result of the complex interplay between science ideology and class-struggle What is more the very notion of scientifi city emerges as the stake of theoretical ndash and in the last instance political ndash contradictions in the form of a balance of forces between lsquospontaneous philosophiesrsquo and theoretical ideologies Th at is why philosophy cannot be described as something similar to Lockersquos midwife or as some form of assistance to the sciences ndash a position that brings us back to a

25 See his various references in Lenin 197226 See Dominique Lecourtrsquos analysis of the technicist foundations of Lysenkoism and its role

as ideological justifi cation of Stalinist policies in Lecourt 197727 For a criticism of Lewisrsquos epistemological positions see Verikoukis 2007 and Verikoukis

200928 And it is exactly the Introduction to Reading lsquoCapitalrsquo which chronologically is the last

text of the book that provides a depiction of this limit because it falls short from off ering the epistemological guarantees it initially promised


traditional image of philosophy being able to help or off er guarantees for the lsquoextractionrsquo of truth Philosophical considerations and confl icts (even in the form of spontaneous materialist or idealist representations) are always already present in scientifi c practice and it is in this plane that philosophy intervenes Althusser after his self-criticism did not abandon his conception of knowledge as production (despite his lsquofl irtingrsquo with forms of atomistic empiricism in some of the later writings) What he abandons is any notion of guarantees of scientifi city As a result a more open (and in a way more tragic) conception of science emerges (in line with the evolution of Althusserrsquos conception of the communist movement) one in which there is never a foundation of truth and scientifi city there is always the possibility of error and deviation and where philosophy can intervene only in the form of constant (over)corrections

A theoretical response to the crisis of the communist movement

Gregory Elliottrsquos book29 remained for many years an important reference in the literature on Althusser Th is new edition also includes a postscript on Althusserrsquos posthumously-published texts that broadens its scope and makes it perhaps the most comprehensive monograph on Althusser available in English30 Although written by someone who is not an lsquoAlthusserianrsquo and remains highly critical of aspects of Althusserrsquos positions it nevertheless acknowledges the importance of Althusserrsquos theoretical and political intervention and treats it as a theoretical confrontation with the strategic crisis of European communism

Elliott refuses traditional criticisms of Althusserrsquos lsquoStalinismrsquo and presents his work in its historical and political context as an attempt at an anti-Stalinist reconstruction of historical materialism He thinks that two events were of particular importance the lsquoTwentieth Congress and its aftermath (1956ndash) and the Sino-Soviet split in the international Communist movement (1960ndash)rsquo (p 2) Althusserrsquos work represented the quest for a Leninist alternative to both Stalinism and social democracy

Th e alternative to Stalinism and social democracy alike was a revival of Leninism Althusserrsquos Leninism may have been neo-Maoist but Marxistsocialist humanism was in general anti-Leninist To adhere to its positions Althusser believed was to wrench political practice from its orientation towards the class struggle and consecrate in theory the practical abandonment of the revolutionary project (p 23)

Th is justifi es Althusserrsquos polemic against historicism and humanism in order to restore the scientifi city of Marxism although Elliott thinks that Althusser is too schematic in his attempt to assimilate diff erent thinkers lsquoto a single problematic of historicism derived from Hegel reworked by Feuerbach and the young Marx superseded in Capital rsquo (p 30) For Elliott Althusser tried to fi ght the anti-naturalist historicist trends within Marxism and their relativistic negation of the possibility of a scientifi c knowledge of social reality

29 First published by Verso in 1987 and for a long time out of print30 Being broader in scope and more thorough in its coverage of Althusserrsquos work than

Callinicosrsquos Althusserrsquos Marxism (1976) and Bentonrsquos Th e Rise and Fall of Structural Marxism (1984)


Althusser was not alone in this attack on theoretical humanism and historicism and Elliott stresses the parallel rise of structuralist trends in the social sciences and also Lacanrsquos anti-humanist reading of Freud

Althusserrsquos more immediate target was what Elliott describes as the PCFrsquos lsquoStalinist de-Stalinisationrsquo (p 56) exemplifi ed by the work of Garaudy Elliott provides a detailed and coherent presentation of Althusserrsquos attempt to off er an alternative conception of the materialist dialectic which refuted the Marxist tradition of viewing it as a development or inversion of Hegelrsquos logic a position shared by both lsquoleft-wingrsquo historicists and the Stalinist orthodoxy He avoids schematic rejections of Althusserrsquos theoretical anti-humanism and anti-empiricism as lsquostructuralismrsquo and stresses the originality of Althusserrsquos search for a Marxist epistemology and for a non-historicist conception of social totalities and forms

Th e cornerstone of this attempt was to present Marxrsquos theoretical revolution as an epistemological break which brought about a philosophical caesura and a novel conception of materialist dialectics which could be extracted by applying the relevant reading protocols on the work of Marx especially Capital In this sense lsquoMarxist philosophy existed de jure and was active de factorsquo (p 74) although as Elliott notes it was not clear what made this (re)construction of Marxrsquos unwritten philosophy more accurate than other Th is is where the notion of a possible lsquoTh eory of theoretical practicersquo enters and Althusser turns toward Bachelardian epistemology and Spinoza leading to an anti-empiricist epistemology according to which lsquo[k]nowledge was not vision but production not abstraction (or purifi cation) but appropriationrsquo (p 81) Elliott is right to stress both the strengths and the limits of Althusserrsquos epistemology which entailed the same contradiction and ideological illusion that Althusser attributed to classical ndash idealist ndash philosophy a scientifi c philosophy able to draw a line of demarcation between the scientifi c and the ideological For Elliott Althusser tried to think the specifi city of science using a combination of a conventionalist insistence on the historical social and theoretical character of scientifi c practice and a materialist-realist insistence on the independent existence of objective reality However the rebuttal of the empirical aspect of science and the confl ation of lsquothe empirical and the empiricistrsquo (p 93) led to an unresolved tension between the realism of Althusserrsquos Marxist commitment and the relativism and rationalism of his non-Marxist references

Elliott also stresses the lacunae of this reading especially Althusserrsquos refusal to deal with the Grundrisse the most lsquoHegelianrsquo of Marxrsquos mature works Elliott thinks that Althusserrsquos reconstruction of historical materialism had the cost of alienating the emergence of historical materialism as a novel science from its wider historical context (p 123) Particular attention is paid to Althusserrsquos new conception of the overdetermined contradiction his new topography of the social totality which emphasised complexity and the lack of a centre the new conception of lsquostructural causalityrsquo and the refusal of a one-sided emphasis on productive forces Elliott underlines both the rather schematic character of Althusserrsquos and Balibarrsquos texts in Reading lsquoCapitalrsquo but also the fact that by insisting on the distinction of mode of production and social formation and the coexistence of diff erent modes of production they broke new ground for historiography

Elliott gives a broad picture of the political repercussions within the PCF created by Althusserrsquos interventions the repudiation of theoretical anti-humanism by the Party the reaction of the Maoist sympathisers of Althusser and his own silence on these matters For Elliott Althusser was indeed infl uenced by the Chinese Cultural Revolution and its lsquooriental Zhdanovism propagated from Peking in reparation for his aristocratism of theoryrsquo (p 179)


It is this light of his lsquoMaoistrsquo turn that Elliott judges Althusserrsquos redefi nition of philosophy as in the last instance class-struggle in theory as a lsquosubstitution of ldquopoliticismrdquo for ldquotheoreticismrdquo rsquo (p 179) Elliott does not deny the merits of this new conception of philosophy as an lsquounderlabourer to the sciencesrsquo (p 186) but thinks that the negation of any epistemological guarantee reinforces relativistic tendencies and can legitimise forms of political manipulation of theory reminiscent of classical Stalinist positions Elliott is also critical of Althusserrsquos lsquosecond phasersquo tendency to view lsquohistorical materialism as the theorisation of proletarian visionrsquo (p 194) compromising its claims to scientifi city For Elliott Althusserrsquos new emphasis in the 1970s on the primacy of the class-struggle (and of productive relations over productive forces) betrays the infl uence of Maoist voluntarism upon him Elliott off ers a detailed account of Althusserrsquos theory of ideology and the ideological state-apparatuses He thinks that Althusser failed to solve the questions that ideology poses for Marxist theory tending to infl ate both the role of ideology and the ability of the ruling class to dominate since lsquolittle effi cacy can be assigned the oppositional ideologiesrsquo (p 211) His assessment of Althusserrsquos self-criticism is rather negative lsquoEmploying an increasingly hortatory rhetoric of the class struggle he retreated from the highly sophisticated and original versions of Marxist philosophy and historical materialism of 1962ndash5 into the schematic Marxism-Leninism of 1968ndash74rsquo (p 222)

I think that Elliottrsquos reading of Althusserrsquos self-criticism underestimates the depth of Althusserrsquos attempt to rethink the theoretical and political status of philosophy and the fecundity of his defi nition of philosophy as in the last instance class-struggle in theory ndash which in my view is an attempt to think at the same time both the limits and the indispensability of philosophy as a theoretical practice Redefi ning philosophical constructions as interventions rather than as scientifi c truths answers the unavoidable contradictions of any philosophy that claims to be the lsquoscience of sciencesrsquo Elliott also underestimates the fact that for Althusser philosophical interventions always tend to lsquobend the stick to the other sidersquo and have to be judged by their results in scientifi c and political practices In a way philosophical interventions for Althusser always have to take the form of painful and inherently excessive corrections in the dialectic of constant self-criticism that is the only way to counter the recurring eff ects of the dominant ideology especially since historical materialism opens up a terrain which is by defi nition contradictory and antagonistic

Elliott considers Althusserrsquos attempt to theorise Stalinism in his Reply to John Lewis as theoretically fl awed He thinks that Althusser failed to fully understand Stalinism describing it as economism and incorporating in his schema aspects of the Maoist endorsement of Stalin For Elliott who seems closer to a classical-TrotskyistDeutscherite position (see for example his criticism of Bettelheimrsquos Class Struggle in the USSR) the notion of lsquosocialism in one countryrsquo and not lsquoeconomismrsquo must be considered the basic deviation of Stalinism (p 238) A point of criticism must be raised here I think that economism remains a fruitful concept It refers to treating socialist construction as a technical process of expanding productive forces to the failure to realise that productive forces are not neutral but are conditioned by the relations of production and to the refusal to revolutionise social forms and the organisation of social production and reproduction Above all it treats the emergence of exploitative and repressive relations within the context of the dictatorship of the proletariat as the outcome of a complex form of class-struggle waged both at the


economic and the political and ideological level and also one in which in most cases the adoption of capitalist forms of labour-process and organisation of production does not take the form of a conscious decision but that of a constant slippage towards what seems to be lsquotechnically viablersquo in the end leading to an historically original form of lsquostate-capitalismrsquo31 Th is is a better way to theorise the mutation of lsquoactually existing socialismrsquo than the classical anticommunist view of the power-greedy Bolsheviks the rather undialectical reference to a socialist base with an oppressive superstructure and the simple critique of violence Also there is no doubt that there was a certain degree of mythologisation of China and Maoism But the Cultural Revolution served as the example of an uneven contradictory and fi nally defeated attempt for a left-wing self-criticism of lsquoactually existing socialismrsquo that emphasised the necessity of treating the productive process education science and culture as non-neutral terrains of the class-struggle32

For Elliott Althusser in his later theorisation of the lsquocrisis of Marxismrsquo not only failed to counter the anti-Marxist bias of French intellectuals in the late 1970s but also projected his own theoretical shortcomings into a lsquonew theoretical scepticismrsquo (p 267) that emphasised the lacunae in Marxist theory which was depicted as a lsquovery diff erent creature from the omnipotent because true doctrine of high Althusserianism (p 298) On the other hand Elliott refers approvingly to Althusserrsquos public interventions against PCFrsquos positions especially What Must Change in the Communist Party a text characterised by open criticism of the PCFrsquos right-wing turn and Stalinist legacy and by a left-wing turn towards the lsquoMarxist traditionrsquos emphasis on working-class self-emancipationrsquo (p 286) I think that Elliott tends to underestimate the theoretical extent of Althusserrsquos left-wing criticism of western Communism It is true that he praises Althusserrsquos more openly political interventions but more emphasis is needed on the fact that all of Althusserrsquos theoretical eff ort was an attack and criticism of the economism and reformism of the Communist movement a fact reinforced by the availability of Althusserrsquos unpublished manuscripts from the 1970s33

In his overall assessment of Althusserrsquos theoretical adventure Elliott praises the originality of Althusserrsquos 1962ndash5 interventions his reading of Marxrsquos texts his polemic against the theoretical infatuation with the young Marx his reconceptualisation of social structures and totalities his anti-teleological stance and his emphasis on the lsquocognitive autonomy of scientifi c theoryrsquo (p 306) noting the areas in which the Althusserian programme proved theoretically fruitful He is critical of Althusserrsquos theoreticism the way his anti-humanism denied the importance of human agency and also of the failure of his self-criticism to off er an alternative despite the reference to the lsquodeus ex machina of class strugglersquo (p 303)

In the postscript on the posthumously published texts Elliott begins by a reading of Althusserrsquos autobiography Th e Future Lasts a Long Time a reading which avoids the mistake ndash made by many commentators ndash of taking Althusser at his word and considering it an interpretative key for his other texts He presents Althusserrsquos early texts from the late

31 At least in the sense theorised by Charles Bettelheim in his monumental Class Struggle in the USSR (1976ndash8)

32 And this makes Alain Badioulsquos recent appraisals of the Cultural Revolution more than welcome See for example Badiou 2005

33 On this see Goshgarian 2006


1940s that prove the early infl uence of Hegel upon him and his gradual distancing from Catholicism He also pays attention to Althusserrsquos unpublished texts from the 1960s which show Althusser tentatively experimenting with a lsquogeneral theory of discoursersquo infl uenced by Lacan criticising Leacutevi-Strauss and lsquostructuralismrsquo and insisting on theoretical anti-humanism

It is interesting that for Elliott Sur la reproduction34 ndash the big manuscript published only in 1995 and from which Althusser extracted the famous 1969 text on ideology and the ISAs ndash lsquoadds nothing of enduring valuersquo (p 352) to the texts Althusser himself had chosen to publish I think that this dismissal of the importance of Sur la reproduction is unjustifi ed precisely because this text off ers a more complete image of Althusserrsquos thinking about productive relations and social reproduction as well as answers criticisms of Althusserrsquos theory of ideology as lsquoahistoricalrsquo or lsquofunctionalistrsquo

Reading Althusserrsquos later writings on lsquoaleatory materialismrsquo Elliott stresses the open questions they pose both in terms of interpreting their radically anti-teleological stance and of confi guring the relation of these texts to Althusserrsquos earlier formulations For Elliott lsquoaleatory materialismrsquo can be seen as a continuation of Althusserrsquos eff ort to reconstruct historical materialism in its radical break with historical Marxist orthodoxy

In other words lsquoaleatory materialismrsquo may be regarded as the continuation by other means of Althusserrsquos abiding project from the 1960s onwards the deconstruction of historical Marxism ndash or the ideological orthodoxy of Communism ndash and the reconstruction of historical materialism And in its anti-fi nalist Althusserian rendition historical materialism was all along (to extend his own category) a theory of history as a process without an origin a subject a centre or goal(s) (p 366)

Th is reading along with Elliottrsquos emphasis on the importance of Althusserrsquos texts from the 1960s is a welcome deviation from the tendency to discard the main corpus of Althusserrsquos work in the name of the lsquootherrsquo Althusser of the texts on lsquoaleatory materialismrsquo35

Elliottrsquos fi nal assessment is that Althusser attempted both a radical critique of Stalinist Marxism and a critique of the historicist and economist tendencies in historical Marxism and their latent historical teleology a critique that despite its historical importance was limited by its internal contradictions

i its lsquoantiempiricismrsquo by an unstable compromise between rationalism and conventionalism

ii its lsquoanti-humanismrsquo by a paradoxically historicist dissolution of human nature and repetition of the structure agency dichotomy

iii its lsquoanti-historicismrsquo by its institution of a theory history antinomy iv and its lsquoanti-economismrsquo by an elliptical resolution of the base superstructure

conundrum via the volatile category of lsquorelative autonomyrsquo (p 368)

34 Althusser 199535 See for example Negri 1993


On the whole Elliott manages to avoid both the anathema of most polemics against Althusser36 and the eulogy of texts on Althusser written within the lsquoAlthusserianrsquo tradition providing a criticism of Althusser that is both substantiated and well argued focusing on the actual contradictions of Althusserrsquos theoretical edifi ce Th e Detour of Th eory is still indispensable reading for anyone trying to come in terms with Althusser as an important yet contradictory moment in the history of Marxism

Conclusion

What emerges from these readings is not just a richer view of Althusserrsquos work but rather a window onto an important part of the history and development of Marxism its contradictions open debates and limits Althusser did not just produce a set of theoretical propositions to be judged independently of historical context He intervened in a terrain already defi ned both by the history of Marxism the diff erent theoretical and ideological currents within the labour-movement the evolution of the world communist movement and the development of lsquoactually existing socialismrsquo Althusser intervened at the time of a condensation of contradictions in which the advance of the popular masses went hand in hand with theoretical poverty and strategic crisis His answer the initial attempt at a theoretical rectifi cation that would necessarily lead to political rectifi cation was schematic and underestimated the complex dialectical interplay of theory and practice of political action and theoretical construction However it was not unjustifi ed since he managed to redefi ne the terrain of Marxist theoretical debate provoking discussion and promoting research in new areas His self-criticism despite its limitations and unavoidable contradictions is a testament to the uneven and contradictory nature of Marxism itself and a confrontation with the peculiarity of philosophy as a theoretical practice without a proper object one which remains both necessary and unavoidable His readiness to revise his previous positions is evidence of his theoretical courage and attests to the fact that in philosophy lsquobending the stick to other sidersquo is the only possible intervention

All three books can help us make a more general assessment of Althusser and Althusserianism in general in order to evaluate what remains viable today of this theoretical trend However critical one might be there is no doubt that Althusser insisted on treating historical materialism as a science or a scientifi c theory He opened the discussion of a possible Marxist epistemology by insisting on the priority of theoretical construction and the drawing of a line of demarcation against all forms of empiricism He foregrounded the importance of Marxrsquos mature works being one of the fi rst writers to stress the originality of Marxrsquos theory of value He articulated elements of a highly original materialist dialectic stressing the complex uneven and overdetermined character of social formations and the relative autonomy of ideological and political relations He re-opened up ideology as a problem for Marxism distinguishing it from lsquofalse-consciousnessrsquo simplifi cations emphasising both the subject-formatting role of ideology and the role of state-apparatuses in the reproduction of ideological forms He tried hard to defi ne the specifi city of philosophy as a theoretical practice and the interarticulation of philosophical theses and the class-struggle giving new meaning to the recurrence of the materialismidealism dichotomy He

36 See for example Th ompson 1978 also Vincent et al 1974


redefi ned materialism not as naturalism but as radical anti-teleology He elevated self-criticism to a philosophical (and in the last instance political) strategy He emphasised the importance of a certain class-partiality on the part of the oppressed as an epistemological prerequisite of scientifi c objectivity in social science

But there were also limits to this attempt the theoreticist arrogance of his initial conception of Marxist philosophy a conception of social reproduction that bordered upon systemic functionalism an underestimation of social forms and a tendency to view class-struggle as mainly open antagonism a growing move from dialectics towards the aleatory atomism of the encounter the always open possibility of his conception of science turning into either a rationalism or a relativistic constructivism and fi nally his inability to integrate his own self-criticism with his initial positions into a new theoretical synthesis leading sometimes to self-negation But if the importance of a philosopher lies not only in his achievements but also in his failures and shortcomings as long as these highlight inherent contradictions of social reality and social theorising then a critical return to Althusser is always necessary and books like those written by Montag Lewis and Elliott surely assist this return

A fi nal note concerns the actual position of Althusserrsquos work in contemporary debates As noted earlier there has been a renewed interest in Althusser since the 1990s However one cannot avoid noticing that this interest has been less pronounced than the one accorded to other philosophers such as Deleuze Badiou or Agamben to mention only a few examples And one might also notice that a great part of this renewed interest in Althusser has had more to do with his later writings on aleatory materialism than with the bulk of his work

I think that the reason for this lies in the very complexity of Althusserrsquos work and his insistence on the possibility of renewing the Marxist project It is true that current radical theorising focuses on forms of immanent materialism on the eff ectivity of social antagonism on a sharp distinction between liberalism and democracy and on the possibility of events as ruptures and historical singularities Surely aspects of Althusserrsquos work resonate with these questions Th ere are however other aspects of this work that are diff erent and which represent Althusserrsquos lsquoanomalyrsquo to use the term employed by Negri in connection with Spinoza37 Th ese are Althusserrsquos insistence on the possibility of treating historical materialism and psychoanalysis as sciences aiming at the same time at both interpreting and changing social (and psychic) reality his insistence on some form of dialectics (in the form of the necessarily contradictory character both of social reality and the knowledge process) and of course his reference to the communist movement in the sense both of the historicity of the workerrsquos movement and the actuality of communism as lsquothe real movement which abolishes the existing state of aff airsrsquo To follow Althusserrsquos path means to go beyond simply reconstructing a materialist conception of singular resistances and refusals It means to face the challenge of rearticulating the philosophical theoretical and political prerequisites of a renewed counter-hegemonic project of profound social change And this is more necessary today than ever

Reviewed by Panagiotis SotirisUniversity of the Aegeanpsotirisotenetgr

37 Negri 1991


References

Althusser Louis 1971 Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays translated by Ben Brewster New York Monthly Review Books

mdashmdash 1976 lsquoNote sur les AIErsquo in Althusser 1995mdashmdash 1993 Eacutecrits sur la psychanalyse Freud et Lacan Paris StockIMECmdashmdash 1994 Lrsquoavenir dure longtemps Paris StockIMEC ndash Le livre de Pochemdashmdash 1995 Sur la reproduction edited by J Bidet Paris Presses Universitaires de Francemdashmdash 1997 Th e Spectre of Hegel Early Writings translated by G M Goshgarian London

Versomdashmdash 1998 Lettres agrave Franca Paris Stock IMECmdashmdash 1999 Machiavelli and Us translated by Gregory Elliott London Versomdashmdash 2003 Th e Humanist Controversy translated by G M Goshgarian London Versomdashmdash 2005 For Marx London Versomdashmdash 2006 Philosophy of the Encounter Later Writings 1978ndash1987 translated by GM

Goshgarian London VersoAlthusser Louis and Eacutetienne Balibar 1990 Reading lsquoCapitalrsquo London VersoBadiou Alain 2005 lsquoTh e Cultural Revolution Th e Last Revolutionrsquo Positions 13 3 481ndash

514Balibar Eacutetienne 1990 lsquoOn the Basic Concepts of Historical Materialismrsquo in Althusser and

Balibar 1990mdashmdash 1993 lsquoLrsquoobjet drsquoAlthusserrsquo in Lazarus (ed) 1993Baltas Aristides 2002 Gia tin epistimologia tou Louis Althusser i epistimi istorias mias epistimis kai

i fi siki os tropos paragogis (On Louis Althusserrsquos Epistemology Th e Science of History of a Science and Physics as a Mode of Production) Athens Νήσος

Baltas Aristides and Giorgos Fourtounis 1994 O Louis Althusser kai to telos tou klassikou marxismou (Louis Althusser and the End of Classical Marxism) Athens Πολίτης

Benton Ted 1984 Th e Rise and Fall of Structural Marxism Basingstoke MacmillanBettelheim Charles 1976ndash8 Class Struggles in the USSR 2 vols translated by Brian Pearce New

York Monthly Review PressCallari Antonio and David F Ruccio 1996 lsquoIntroductionrsquo in Callari and Ruccio (eds) 1996mdashmdash (eds) 1996 Postmodern Materialism and the Future of Marxist Th eory Essays in the

Althusserian Tradition Hanover Wesleyan University PressCallinicos Alex 1976 Althusserrsquos Marxism London Pluto PressEagleton Terry 1976 Criticism and Ideology A Study in Marxist Literary Th eory London New

Left BooksFourtounis Giorgos 1998 Louis Althusser to anapodrasto mias adinatis theorias (Louis Althusser

Th e Inescapable Character of an Impossible Th eory) Athens Εθνικό Μετσόβιο ΠολυτεχνείοGoshagarian Geoff rey 2003 lsquoIntroductionrsquo in Althusser 2003mdashmdash 2006 lsquoIntroductionrsquo in Althusser 2006Hindess Barry and Paul Hirst 1977 Mode of Production and Social Formation An Auto-Critique

of Pre-Capitalist Modes of Production London MacmillanIchida Yoshihiko and Franccedilois Matheron 2005 lsquoUn deux trois quatre dix milles Althusser rsquo

Multitudes 21 167ndash77Lazarus Sylvain (ed) 1993 Politique et philosophie dans lrsquoœuvre de Louis Althusser Paris Presses

Universitaires de FranceLecourt Dominique 1977 Proletarian Science London New Left BooksLenin Vladimir Illich 1972 [1908] Materialism and Empirio-criticism Peking Foreign

Languages PressMacherey Pierre 2006 A Th eory of Literary Production London Routledge ClassicsMatheron Franccedilois 2005 lsquoldquoDe problegravemes qursquoil faudra bien appeler drsquoun autre nom et peut-ecirctre

politiquerdquo Althusser et lrsquoinsituabiliteacute de la politiquersquo Multitudes 22 21ndash35


Montag Warren 2003 Louis Althusser Basingstoke Palgrave Macmillanmdashmdash 2005 lsquoMateriality Singularity Subject Response to Callari Smith Hardt and Parkerrsquo

Rethinking Marxism 17 2 185ndash90Moulier-Boutang Yann 2005 lsquoLe mateacuterialisme comme politique aleacuteatoirersquo Multitudes 21

159ndash66Negri Antonio 1991 Th e Savage Anomaly Th e Power of Spinozarsquos Metaphysics and Politics

Minneapolis University of Minnesota Pressmdashmdash 1996 lsquoNotes on the Evolution of the Th ought of the Later Althusserrsquo in Callari and

Ruccio (eds) 1996Negri Toni 1993 lsquoPour Althusser Notes sur lrsquoeacutevolution de la penseacutee du dernier Althusserrsquo in

Futur Anteacuterieur Sur Althusser passages available at lthttpmultitudessamizdatnetPour-Althusser-notes-sur-lhtmlgt

Sotiris Panagiotis 2004 Kommounismos kai fi losofi a I theoritiki peripetia tou Louis Althusser (Communism and Philosophy Th e Th eoretical Adventure of Louis Althusser) Athens Ελληνικά Γράμματα

Th ompson Edward P 1978 Th e Poverty of Th eory amp Other Essays London MerlinVerikoukis Hristos 2007 lsquoBook Review of Louis Althusser and the Traditions of French Marxism

by William S Lewisrsquo New Proposal 1 1 81ndash5mdashmdash 2009 lsquoKnowledge versus ldquoKnowledgerdquo Louis Althusser on the Autonomy of Science and

Philosophy from Ideology ndash A Reply to William S Lewisrsquo Rethinking Marxism 21 1 67ndash84Vincent Jean-Marie et al 1974 Contre Althusser Paris Union Generale drsquo Editions


One of the main tendencies of this work has been the attempt to present an image of an lsquootherrsquo Althusser especially since the later writings could readily be drawn upon for this purpose Th e most notable such case was Toni Negrirsquos conceptualisation of an Althusserian Kehre3 from an earlier lsquostructuralistrsquo preoccupation with objective social tendencies towards a more open confrontation with the potential creativity of the multitude in the sense of a lsquosearch for an open subjectivity that would construct theory and struggle togetherrsquo4 In this reading a new image of Althusser emerges one with much more in common with Negrirsquos own preoccupation with the potentiality of the subjectivity of new forms of immaterial labour than to the lsquoclassicalrsquo communist strategy

At the same time one can also note the preoccupation with the later Althusser of the group around the French journal Multitudes where the rejection of classical Marxism and of any attempt to produce a coherent dialectical theorisation of social reality goes hand in hand with the search for a new ontology of constantly re-emerging encounters in an open space of singular struggles and creative practices without centre and consequently without the need to rethink political organisation and strategy5

Th e same attempt at presenting an lsquootherrsquo post-communist Althusser is evident in the postmodernist reading of Althusser proposed by Callari and Ruccio (1996) Th is reading presents Althusserrsquos work as marking a clear break with classical Marxism and modernism Modernist Marxism is presented as plagued by essentialism and teleology with production being understood as the causal centre of social reality and the proletariat as the historical subject of social change Callari and Ruccio think that there is the possibility of an lsquootherrsquo Marxism exemplifi ed in the work of Althusser that counters these essentialist systemicist and teleological tendencies and off ers the possibility of thinking the heterogeneity complexity and multiplicity of social struggles and of rejecting classical Marxismrsquos premises such as the primacy of the struggles in production or the determination-in-the-last-instance by the economic As a result it is also obvious that this postmodern Althusser is also a postcommunist one refusing the basic tenets of communist politics such as the political centrality of the labour movement But this reading also has epistemological consequences Althusserrsquos insistence on the possibility of treating Marxism as a science and as an attempt to produce scientifi c explanations is duly discarded6

On the other hand GM Goshgarianrsquos lengthy introductions to the English-language collections of Althusserrsquos posthumously published works7 off er a much clearer view of the political considerations behind Althusserrsquos interventions For Goshgarian Althusserrsquos

also in the fact that political tendencies in the Left such as Brsquo Panelladiki the radical youth of the Eurocommunist Communist Party of the Interior that broke away from it in 1978 were openly Althusserian in their theoretical orientation From the 1980s onwards this interest has been evident especially in the reference to Althusser in infl uential Marxist journals such as Th eseis (directed by John Milios) but also in the publication of monographs on Althusser On this see Fourtounis and Baltas 1994 Fourtounis 1998 Baltas 2002 and Sotiris 2004

3 Negri 19934 Negri 1996 p 595 Ichida and Matheron 2005 Matheron 2005 Moulier-Boutang 2005 6 lsquoOf course Althusser himself did not help matters by invoking such terms as science

society eff ect structural causality reproduction and so on ndash terms that allude to a sense of closure for the objects and methods of Marxist discoursersquo (Callari and Ruccio 1996 p 35)

7 Goshgarian 2003 Goshgarian 2006












































21 Montag 2005 p 189



























24 Althusser 1971


















































Conclusion










37 Negri 1991


References









































































21 Montag 2005 p 189



























24 Althusser 1971


















































Conclusion










37 Negri 1991


References

































































21 Montag 2005 p 189



























24 Althusser 1971


















































Conclusion










37 Negri 1991


References



























































21 Montag 2005 p 189



























24 Althusser 1971


















































Conclusion










37 Negri 1991


References




















































21 Montag 2005 p 189



























24 Althusser 1971


















































Conclusion










37 Negri 1991


References












































21 Montag 2005 p 189



























24 Althusser 1971


















































Conclusion










37 Negri 1991


References


































21 Montag 2005 p 189



























24 Althusser 1971


















































Conclusion










37 Negri 1991


References
























































24 Althusser 1971


















































Conclusion










37 Negri 1991


References
















































24 Althusser 1971


















































Conclusion










37 Negri 1991


References










































24 Althusser 1971


















































Conclusion










37 Negri 1991


References



































24 Althusser 1971


















































Conclusion










37 Negri 1991


References















































































Conclusion










37 Negri 1991


References







































































Conclusion










37 Negri 1991


References






























































Conclusion










37 Negri 1991


References
























































Conclusion










37 Negri 1991


References




















































Conclusion










37 Negri 1991


References












































Conclusion










37 Negri 1991


References
































Conclusion










37 Negri 1991


References




































37 Negri 1991


References































References









































Documents

Louis Althusser and the Traditions of French materialism