Suchting 1982 Materialism

8/3/2019 Suchting 1982 Materialism

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/suchting-1982-materialism 1/9

On Materialism·

Wal Suchting

TEACHER

SI FU

TEACHER

SI FU

TEACHER

SI FU

Si Fu, name the basic questions ofphilosophy.

Are things external to us, selfsufficient, independent of us , or

ar e things in us, dependent on us ,non-existent without us?

What opinion is th e correct one?There has been no decision about

i t . . . .

Why has th e question remainedunresolved?

The Congress which was to he.ve madethe decision took place two hundredyears ago at Mi Sant monastery, whichl ies on th e bank of th e Yellow River.

The question was: Is th e YellowRiver real or does i t exist only inpeople's heads? But during thecongress th e snow thawed in th emountains and swept away the Mi Sangmonastery with all th e participantsin the congress. So the proof thatthings exist externally to us , selfsufficiently, independently of us was

no t furnished.- Brecht [1]

Abandoning the study of John Stuart Mill only

for that of Lachelier, th e less Mme de Cambremerbelieved in th e reality of th e external world,

th e more desperately she sought to establishherself, before she died, in a good positionin i t .

- Proust [2]

Introduction

called himself a 'materialist ' and Engels dubbede account of society and history which he regarded

sharing with Marx, 'h istor ical materialism' (o rconception of history') . What does

commitment to 'materialism' come to? The aim ofpaper is to outline an answer to that question.

A f i rs t answer

says what he means by his general materialism in

For Hegel, the process of thinking . . . is th e

creator of th e real world, which is only i ts

external appearance. With me the reverse is

This paper is essentially a swmnary report on a more extensive inquiry whichoriginated with and has been centred upon a study of Lenin's MateriaUsm andF>npirio-Crit1:aism. I t presents, as fa r as possible, some account of those

parts of th e larger piece that do no t bear directly on that book. Fo r th esake of brevity I have omitted th e bulk of references to relevant l i tera tu re ,

retaining for the most part only a few pointers to the works of Marx, Engels

and Lenin. Other references, in particular exchanges with other current

writers on th e subject, would have illuminated my own positions, which ar eset ou t perhaps to o compendiously, but these will appear iR th e more complete

true, th e world of ideas being nothing but th ematerial world transposed (umgesetzte) andtranslated into th e human head. [3]

This statement of materialism involves two theses:f irst ly, that th e material world pre-exists ideas,thinking, and secondly, that the latter is or can bethe vehicle of accurate knowledge of th e former. Ishall call these th e Independence and Knowability

Theses respectively (for short, henceforth, ' IT' and

'KT'). Engels' work on Feuerbach contains a substantially similar formulation [4]. A necessary andsufficient condition for idealism is a denial of IT.

3 Some problems with this answer

There ar e difficul t ies with this answer, at least i f

i t is set up as an exhaustive one. I shall mention

two of them.

(a) What o f historical materialism?How, i f at al l , does this characterization apply to

historical materialism? The query arises i f only

from the fact that social-historical affairs would

seem to be at least partly constituted by suchthings as intentions, implying some forms of aware

ness, and hence that such states of affairs ar e no t

causally independent of such forms.

(h) The answer is dogmaticHow ar e IT and KT to be defended? Consider IT andindeed prescind from th e problem just noted. How cananyone possibly know whether th e material worldexisted before any form of consciousness did, andindeed i f i t would exist i f human beings (and anyother conscious inhabitants of th e cosmos) were todisappear? And, with regard to KT, how could anyoneknow i f this were true? For, i f there were somenook or cranny of nature which human beings could no t

know about, then we could no t know that we could notknow, otherwise we would know something about i t ,

contrary to hypothesis.

Now all this is l ikely to be dismissed by th erobust-minded as a typical philosopher's paradox,which fortunately, in this case at least , can beeasily rejected. For, i t will surely be said, weneed only appeal to th e best science, which te l ls usthat th e earth existed long before humans - referenceto th e fossil records suffices. And, as fo r th e

captious subtlety about knowledge, surely th etriumphant progress of science over th e last few

piece which I hope to publish in the near future. As regards th e l i terature,I am uniquely indebted to Althusser, particularly PhiZosophie e t phiZosophies p o n t a n ~ e des savants, 'Lenin and Philosophy', and Essays in SeZf-Critiaismand Lecourt, Une Crise et son enjeu. In more personal terms I am deeply

indebted to John Burnheim for conversations about th e themes of th e paper

and remarks upon drafts of various pieces, and to Roy Edgley fo r writtencomments at various stages. Both have helped me in ways too numerous to

acknowledge in detai l .

I



centuries is sufficient warrant fo r i t s further

successes.However, that ' inductive' , scientif ic arguments of

this sort are in no way decisive, or, indeed, in somecases even relevant, should be evident to anyone whois at a ll familiar with th e ways in which traditionalphilosophers have tried to take account precisely offacts like those just mentioned (Berkeley fo r

instance), or , for example, th e ways in whichChristians tried to cope with th e evidence of th efossil record in the early days of Darwinian evolu

tionary theory. There is no scientif ic resul t whichidealism cannot cope with by some further elaborationof th e doctrine. Such devices may appear to th e

materialist to be th e merest fabrications, patentlydesigned only to save a position and having no other

theoretical just if ication. But this is so only froma materinlist standpoint, which involves a commitmentto th e best results of the sciences, unglossed byidealism. That is , after this standpoint has been

a d o p t e d ~ then science can afford (massive) evidence

in favour of materialism. So we seem to be on th emerry-go-round of a circular argument i f we seek todefend materialism (a s so far formulated anyway) byappeals to science.

4 Another s tar t

The preceding may suffice at least to arouse somedegree of uneasiness about th e in i t ia l characterization of materialism (and idealism), and so stimulate

an attempt to find a fresh place to s tar t .

I think that this is in fact to be found, to begin

with, in Marx's Theses on Feuerbach. In th e f i rs t hewrites that 'the chief defect of a ll hitherto existing materialism . . . is that objectivity, reali ty , th e

sensible world' is no t conceived as 'sensible human

activitY3 practice, . . . as act ivi ty which belongs to

th e objective world'. And the second thesis runs:The question whether objective truth can be

attributed to human thinking is no t a questionof theory bu t a practical question. In practicemust man prove th e t ruth, i .e . th e reali ty andpower . . . of his thinking. [5]

Forty years or so later Engels spelled ou t th e samel ine of thought in th e work to which Marx's Theseswere f i rs t published as an appendix. Engels isdiscussing the views of philosophers such as Hume

and Kant 'who question th e possibi l i ty of any knowledge, or at least of an exhaustive knowledge, of the

world'. He writes: [6]The most tel l ing refutation of this as of a ll

other philosophical crotchets is practice,

namely, experiment and industry. If we areable to prove the correctness of our conception

of a natural process by making i t ourselves,

bringing i t into being ou t of i t s conditionsand making i t serve ou r own purposes into th e

bargain, then there is an end to th e Kantian

ungraspable ' thing-in- i tself ' . The chemical

substances produced in th e bodies of plantsand animals remained just such ' things-inthemselves' unti l organic chemistry began toproduce them one after another, whereupon th e

' thing-in-i tself ' became a ' thing-for-us ' , as,for instance, al izarin, th e colouring matter

of th e madder, which we no longer trouble togrow in the madder roots in th e field, bu tproduce much more cheaply and simply from coal

tar .Engels at tes ts , then, to pu t i t very briefly, that(1) as a result of practical interventions in theworld, we can (2) know things that we did not knowbefore.

Lenin's commentary on th e second point is ful l of

2

instruction [7]. He s tar ts thus:Engels clearly and explic i t ly states that he i s

contesting both Hume and Kant . . . . What is thekernel of Engels' objection? Yesterday we didno t know that coal ta r contains alizarin.Today we have learned that i t does. The questionis , did coal ta r contain al izarin yesterday?

Of course i t did. To doubt i t would be to makea mockery of modern science.

He continues:

And i f that is so , three important epistemo

logical conclusions follow:(1) Things exist independently of our conscious

ness, independently of ou r sensations, outsideof us, fo r i t is beyond doubt that alizarinexisted in coal tar yesterday and i t is equallybeyond doubt that yesterday we knew nothing ofthe existence of this a l izarin and received nosensations from i t .(2) There is definitely no difference inprinciple between th e phenomenon and th ething-in-i tself . . . . The only difference is

between what is known and what is not yet

known . . .(3) In th e theory of knowledge . . . we must

not regard our knowledge as ready-made andunalterable, bu t must determine how knowledgeemerges from ignorance, how incomplete, inexact knowledge becomes more complete and moreexact.

Now i f we take what Lenin says at face value, he doesseem to think of himself as presenting an argument:thus he speaks of 'conclusions', and of something's

being a 'deduction'. (I shall come back to thiswhole question later in Section 10.) Meanwhile le t

us t reat wha.t has been cited as an argument. Whatthen are the premises, what the conclusions, and howar e they related?

The main premise would seem to be ~ h a t there exist(indefinitely many) cases of th e coming to be (as a

resul t of practical interventions) of knowledge - ata certain time people know things they did no t knowbefore. That is , the preliminary assumption is thatsome knowledge about th e world exists. Lenin's

example, taken from Engels, is th e knowledge thC'.tcoal ta r contains al izarin. Now he says that threeepistemological 'conclusions follow' from this .These are l isted (1) - (3) in th e passage cited above.

Conclusion (1) is essentially the 'ontological'formulation of materialism embodied in th e IT. Whatis th e relation between this 'conclusion' and th e

basic premise? In part icular, what, i f any, is the

argument? The answer would seem to be that , in asense, there is no argument. The t rain of thought,

as i t might be called cautiously, seems to be th efollowing. (a) Today we know that coal ta r contains

al izarin. (b) Yesterday th e alizarin which comesfrom coal ta r was no t an object of knowledge fo r us .

(c) Coal ta r contained alizarin yesterday. Therefore

(d) alizarin existed in coal ta r yesterday, independ

ently of our knowing i t dirl. Now (a) and (b) may betaken to be just versions of th e in i t ia l main premise.Of (c) Lenin says that i t is 'beyond doubt': ' to doubti t would be to make a mockery of modern science'. Inother words, someone cannot consistently both deny(d) and also take the resul ts of modern science

seriously. (An alternative to (c ) is to assume, fo r

example, that knowing about alizarin in coal today

actually brings i t into existence, so that i t is a

matter of creation rather than discovery.) Indeedthis seems to be also th e general character of th e

just if ication of the primary assumption that knowledgeexists. So, overall, th e 'argument' is that i f youtake the results of scientif ic practice seriouslythen you are committed to IT.



Now i f conclusion (1) bears upon th e f i rs t componnt of th e material is t position - th e 'ontological '

IT - conclusions (2) and (3) bear on th e second

th e 'epistemological ' one, embodied in KT.The t ra in of thought to (2) seems to be this. I f

have examples of what was not known yesterday

known today, then, in th e absence of reasonso the contrary, we are just if ied in thinking that

process of acquisition of fresh items of knowhas no l imit , that there is no point where what

s unknown today cannot become known tomorrow. Con

(2) is thus anti-scepticaZ in import.Conclusion (3) is , in effect, th e converse of th e

and th e t rain of thought similar . I f

l ike that of th e discovery of alizarin in coal

ar give us grounds for affirming the open-endedness

f th e process of acquisition of knowledge, and areanti-sceptical in significance, then th e very

cases and th e very same conclusion, when con

from this very aspect of open-endedness,

as their other face, the idea that any given

th e development of knowledge i s only aalterable, revisable, corrigible one,

transformation into more exact knowledge,

t s t i l l knowledge no less subject to correction.conclusion (3) is anti-dogmatic in import.

The combination of conclusions (2) and (3) is th ethesis of the openness of knowledge from a mater

standpoint, that i s , th e thesis that the

of knowledge is not limited in principlehorizon, eitper of unsolvable or of definit ive

y solved problems - in other words KT.Thus (1) - (3) conjointly add up to th e 'o f f ic ia l '

materialism in terms of IT and KT.

'Philosophical ' and ' scientif ic ' materialism

how much nearer are we to an adequate charactermaterialism? Certainly we can now see

clearly that both constituents of th e original

materialism are in some senseor implications of this original , primary

of th e existence of items of knowledgein material practices, and hence that thisi s a more: fundamental approach to material

m than either IT KT.Nevertheless, we s t i l l have th e problem of circular

Thus in the case of 'conclusion' (1), for- namely, that X existed yesterday, though

discovered today - i t would of course have been

to make contrary assumptions: that i t simply

into existence, uncaused, at the moment of disor that God caused i t to do so , or that th e

of discovery brought i t into existence (so

i t was not so much discovery as creation), orWe are inclined to dismiss such possibi l i because we think that they are - to pu t i t

- scientif ically implausible: inconsistent both

scientif ic resul ts and with regulative principlesf scientif ic thinking (e.g. regarding the search fo r

sufficient conditions). This is basicto register a commitment to the unglossed

of material practices which aim at th e acquist ion of knowledge and th e solving of problems. Tha.t

having been made th e theses of materialism

re easily unpacked - but not unti l then.What he.s just been said may appear as circular as

th e infidels found th e interlockingf bel ief in the Scripture and bel ief in God. And

as a move purely within th e domain ofi t is . But, as we shall see, there are extra

considerations which break the circle.r th e moment what th e preceding shows is that i t i s

to distinguish between at least two differnt senses of 'materialism'. The f i rs t is what may be

called ' scientif ic ' materialism, and consists ofvarious factual assertions about th e world, as fo rexample, that inorganic matter temporally preceded

and was th e causal condition for organic matter, andthat 'mental' phenomena have such and such causal

relations to physical ones. (Perhaps 'natural scienti f ic materialism' would be more accurate, in order toallow for historical materialism's also being ascientif ic materialism. But all that is in questionis a label .) The second sort of materialism is whatmay be called 'philosophical ' materialism (perhaps

better: 'methodological materialism') . Speaking fo rth e moment wholly from within th e domain of theory

(the point of th e qualification will come ou t la ter)this is not a set of assertions about th e world (o r

anything else) but, in the etymologically primitivesense of th e word, a 'posi t ion ' : a place where onestands. Lenin says that materialism is a ' l ine ' .

In th e sense of that multifaceted description whichis relevant here, ' l ine ' is a directly pol i t ica lmetaphor: they ar e l ines in a way in which pol i t ica lgroupings have l ines. These are programmes, stances,attitudes, orientations, stra tegies . Such are based

upon factual assertions, but they are no t primarilyreports of fact; they are the laying down of guide

l ines forinformed

action to bringabout

certainchanges. To be a material is t in this sense is to

' take a stand' , from the vantage-point of whichcertain perspectives are vouchsafed and no t others.In this sense materialism is l i teral ly a 'Weltan

schauung' - a 'view' or 'outlook' on the world.

Materialism as a line i s just if ied much as a stra ightforwardly poli t ical l ine is , namely, by considering

th e ultimate effects on th e poli t ical situationinduced by following that l ine. So 'philosophicalmaterialism' is th e policy (etc.) of seeking the solut ions of theoretical and practical problems in th eresults of appropriate material practices unglossed

by interpretations which would cal l inro question th e

existence of th e subject-matter of th e practice inde

pendent of th e inquiry or the possibi l i ty of knowingi t in detai l without primary reference to non

material determinants [8].

6 'Tradit ional ' materialism, and idealism

I ha.ve characterized 'philosophical materialism' as acertain programme or standpoint or 'position' to dowith th e primacy of th e idealist ically unglossed

resul ts of material practices in inquiry and problem

solving in general. Now a practice is a regular wayof transforming a certain sort of pre-existing situat ion by applying various sorts of instruments to i tby th e us e of labour-power (ultimately at least ,

human labour-power). The practice might be ordinaryeconomic practice, in which case th e situation might

be one of transforming an ingot of steel into a sheetof th e same by using rollers. Or i t might be pol i t i -

cal practice in which case th e situation might be oneof transforming a certain set of desires, interests,and so on into a set sufficiently consensual to

permit the reproduction of th e particular society,by means of certain procedures of delegation or representation. Or i t might be a scientif ic-experimental

practice, in which an object i s worked upon by a beambalance (and associated procedures of computation)

so as to yield an answer to the question: 'What is

the object 's mass?' Or i t might be anyone of numberless other cases. But what is true of any and a ll of

them is that th e fundamental aspect of th e situationis the mode o f transformation and hence th e instY'1Amenta-

tion (in a broad sense of that word). I t is thiswhich defines what aspects of the objective situationare open to inquiry, and what th e scope of th einquiry thus defined. I t is th e mode of transforma-

3



t ion or instrumentation t h ~ t marks off , within acertain context, what, on th e one hand, counts asthe'object ' , what th e 'object-for-us ' (e.g. th e electriccharge on a body i s an aspect of th e la t ter which isi rrelevant for inquiry i f we do no t have some way ofdealing with i t : i t i s at most an intrusive factor);i t also marks off, on th e other hand, what counts as

th e ' subject ' of th e inquiry, for whatever i s going

on in th e depths of tha.t subjectivity i t counts fornothing unti l i t is embodied in some mode of manipula

ting the world, directly or indirectly, and is then,

in effect, identical with i t . Thus ' subject ' and'object ' are not two items pre-constituted with

respect to th e practice that unites them; rather, i tis th e practice that is primary, ' subject ' and 'ob

ject ' (i n th e particular context) being constitutedwithin that practice.

Now i t is possible of course to abstract th e twoterms or poles of th e practical relat ion from thisrelation and consider them in isolation, one of thembeing inevitably regarded as primary and constitutingwith respect to th e other. The standpoint of th e

primacy of th e subject - in any of th e various formsin which subjecthood may be exemplified - i s th e

( theoretical) root of idealism(the way of ideas,

what is special about th e subject) . The idealism maybe of a directly ontological sort (the world-generatin g Subject of Christ ianity being th e most obvious

and influential exemplar), or i t may be of an - in

orlgln at leas t - epistemological sort , where thel imits of a ll knowledge are defined by th e characterist ics of the subject. (Thus the 'primacy' of mindwith respect to nature in th e original formulation ofidealism can be either a temporal-causal one or onerelating to this real or logical construction ofknowledge.) The standpoint of th e primacy of theobject is th e root of what may be called traditionalmaterialism, ' a l l hitherto existing materialism', as

Marx says in the f i rs t of th e Theses on Feuerbach.

According to this positjon the object imprints i t se l f

in some way on the subject (another sort of object)which thus reflects the object like a mirror.

' . . . objectivity, reali ty , th e sensible world is

conceived only in th e form of th e object or of

observation . . . . ' ( 'observation' : 'Anschauung',

passive registration, intuition [9]). So idealismand t radit ional materialism belong to the same(dogmatic) problematic, th e one simply inverting th eorder of primacy defined by th e other, and hence

being simply mirror-images of each other. I t is nowonder then that materialisms of this sort tend tolapse into idealisms when th e problems of th e re lat ions Qf the subject to th e object are looked at moreclosely (problems of representationalism etc . ) .

rhuswhat I

havecalled ' t radi t ional

materialism'i s .a doctrine which holds in solution, as i t were,

two materialisms. On the one hand there is 'scientif-

ic ' materialism, which is th e proper bearer of t radit ional materialism's assertions about th e world. On

th e other hand there is 'philosophical ' materialism,

which is what remains: no t a doctrine which occupiesa part of theoretical space, but one which demarcates

a part of that space.

7 This formulation of materialism and th e problems

of th e earl ier one

The approach to the problem of a characterization of

a Marxist materialism indicated in Sections 5 and 6(and particularly 5) above has a number of advantages,

no t the leas t of which is that i t is not subject to

the two problems outlined in Section 3. I shall con

s ider just th e second of those problems here, leaving

th e discussion of historical materialism unti l

4

Section 11.

The distinction in question renders innocuous theproblem of the defensibi l i ty of IT and KT. For, given

a commitment to philosophical materialism, scientif icmaterialism vouchsafes solid evidence for the exis t -

ence of th e world independently of consciousness.

And since philosophical materialism i s a programmeand not a set of straightforward assertions, th ecommitment is not to the assertion of th e knowability

of th e world in general and in detail , but to a modeof inquiry which is not limited by assumptions to the

contrary. I t could be that th e method of exploringth e world with th e tools of material practicesshould eventually run into insuperable dif f icul t ies ;

bu t there is no reason at th e moment to think thatthis is l ikely, so , as far as this goes at least ,commitment to philosophical materialism is in order.(Cf. th e Principle of Determinism interpreted as amaxim of inquiry rather than as a substantiveassertion about the world.)

Apart from th e reasons already given fo r introducing a distinction between 'philosophical ' and' s c ient i f ic ' materialism, there i s a further reason,

namely, that this distinction permits a decisiverejection of any tendency to identify materialism

with some part icular scient i f ic theory or theories,a tendency which has one or both of two resul ts :either in 'materialism' forming an obstacle to th e

advance of inquiry or in such advances being interpreted as refutations of 'materialism'. Though hedoes no t in fact make th e above distinction between

materialisms, Rayrnond Williams has pu t this danger so

well that I cannot do bet ter them quote him on th epoint:

. . . materialism . . . in i t s ear l ies t phases

. . . defines i t s own categories in terms ofdemonstrable physical investigations. Yet. . . in th e continuing process of investigat ion, th e in i t ia l and a ll successive" categoriesare inherently subject to radical revision,

and in this are unlike the re la t ively protectedcategories of presumed or revealed t ruths; . . .[further] in th e very course of opposing

systematic universal explanations of many ofth e common-ground processes, provisional andsecular procedures and findings tend to be

grouped into what appear bu t never can besystematic, universal and categorical explana

t ions of th e same general kind. Thus materialinvestigation . . . finds i t se l f pulled . . .toward closed generalizing systems: findsi t se l f materialism or a materialism. There

is thus a tendency for any materialism, a tany point in i ts history, to find i t se l f stuckwith i t s own recent generalizations, and indefence of these to mistake i ts own character:to suppose that i t is a system l ike others,of a presumptive explanatory kind, or that i tis reasonable to set up contrasts with other(categorical) systems, a t th e level no t ofprocedures bu t of i ts own past ' f indings ' or' laws' . What then happens is obvious. Theresul ts of new material investigations are

interpreted as having outdated 'materialism'.Or, conversely, defence of ' the materialistworld-view', specified in certain positionsnow frozen in time, involves contempt for or

rejection of apparently incompatible evidence

and procedures, and their categorical assign

ment to systems taken to be alternative andof th e same kind: in th e ordinary rhetoric,' idealism'. Intellectual confusion is then

severe enough, but i t is made worse by th efact , on th e one hand, that much of th e new'evidence' and 'procedures' , especially in i t s



interpreted and theoretically presumed forms,

is indeed incompatible, not only (which is no t

important) with th e frozen 'world-view' bu twith th e significant cr i te r ia of th e materialis t enterprise; and by th e fact, on th e otherhand, that within the world-view, howeverfrozen, there is s t i l l hard, often very hard

evidence of a kind that is indeed l ikely tobe smothered in th e difficul t process of th esearch for genuine compatibilit ies andnecessary reformulations. [10]

t was precisely this identification of a transitory( i f long and crucial) phase in the history of natural

with materialism as such which brought i tround th e turn of th e century, that advances

this phase tended to drive some into a reactdefence of th e 'o ld ' against the 'new'

(the former becoming an 'obstacle' - on whiche later) bu t some into idealism, the claim being

had 'disappeared'.

8 Materialism or idealism?

I t is now necessary to ask a further question (forth e moment, in the inadequate language of a teleology

of choice): Why adopt the position of 'philosophical'materialism?

Put most broadly th e answer is developed as

f o l l o w s ~ (1) The alternatives are materialism andidealism. (2) Idealism is unacceptable because

(A) i t generates certain cognitive consequences fo r

theory and practice which (B) are inconsistent with(what may be called) 'emancipatory' interests.These summary indications must now be spelled ou t al i t t l e .

(AJ Idealism has certain distinctive cognitive

consequencesVery broadly speaking we can distinguish three sortsof such consequences. (1) Idealisms invariably in volve complications and mysteries which materialism

does not. (2) In particular every consistent idealism is ultimately either a theism of some sort or asolipsism. (3) These may be regarded as specialcases of another consequence, namely, that every

idealism generates 'closures ' in theory, puts

'obstacles ' of certain sorts on the path of th edevelopment of knowledge.

Let us look at these in a l i t t le more detail .(1) Idealisms typically invite entanglement in one

or other of the constructions which have theirclassic exemplifications in the history of philosophy

- th e elaborate philosophical stories of a Berkeley,

a Kant, a Hegel. This is what Lenin is driving at insaying that idealism ' i s nothing but a disguised andembellished ghost story' [11]. Now i t is no timpossible that ghosts exist. The point is thatnormally we take i t that they do not, and specialreasons have to be provided to make us believe intheir existence, given the acceptance of certainbroad features of ordinary practice and scientif ictheory. From this point of view th e argument formaterialism has rather the character of an onus

argument: in th e circumstances i t is rather thatidealism has to show cause why i t , rather than

materialism, should be taken seriously.I t may be noted that th e point made here j ibes

neatly with what Engels says in a passage of LudwigFeuerbach which has been but l i t t le attended to incomparison with th e sentence which Lenin ci tes.Engels begins by giving a characterization of mater

ialism in terms of th e independence of th e naturalworld from mind, and in terms of th e knowability ofthe former by th e la t ter . But later in the samework (towards th e beginning of Chapter IV), he makesa rather different statement on materialism, the

connection of which with th e earl ier one he does no t

make clear. He te l ls us in th e la ter passage how th epost-Hegelian tendency in th e l840s, 'essentiallyconnected with th e name of Marx', involved a returnto ' the materialist standpoint ' :

That means i t was resolved to comprehend th ereal world . . . just as i t presents i t sel f toeveryone who approaches i t free from pre-conceived ideal is t crotchets (Schrullen).I t was resolved mercilessly to sacrificeevery idealist crotchet which could no t bebrought into harmony with th e facts conceived

in their own and no t in an imaginary inter-connection. And materialism means nothing

more than this . [12] (emphases added)Note that Engels does no t say that materialism is

committed to a view of th e world as i t immediatelypresents i t sel f - which would be crass empiricism/

positivism, rejected by him elsewhere [13] - but asi t presents i t sel f to someone free of ideal is t preconceptions, ' crotchets ' . (Cf. Engels' us e of thisterm in the passage cited at the beginning of Section4 above.) In th e l ight of th e exegesis presentedhere the inner connection between Engels' two prima

facie quite heterogeneous characterisations of

materialism should be clear.(2) The logical conclusion or presupposition of

every consistent idealism is a theism of some kind oranother [14] (or a solipsism). That is , i f nature is

no t independent of a subject or subjects, as material

ism claims, then i t must be the product of somecreative subject - and to this, as Aquinas says

succinctly, 'everyone gives th e name of God'. ( I f

not, we may add, what is at least prima facie nature

must be an i l lusion of some kind and this - since th eexternal world includes other people, or what passes

fo r such - is solipsism.)(3) More generally, idealism tends to have a

'blocking' effect, that is , th e effect of putting ofobstacles on th e path of inquiry. I t is unnecessary

to l i s t here detailed examples of th e various barricades which idealist philosophy has placed from time

to time on the progress of inquiry: the 'foundations'of a l l possible knowledge (e.g. ' impressions' and' ideas ') , or type of inference (e.g. Aristotelian

logic), or explanation (e.g. teleological), or thenature of space and time (e.g. Kant) , or the nature

of consciousness (the mind as necessarily conscious

of i ts own nature), and so on. (This is no t to say

that knowledge has never developed within the context

of an idealism, or that materialism has never func-

5



tioned in blockages. But insofar as th e f i rs t has

occurred i t was not due to the framework qua ideal is tand idealism always exacts i ts price eventually byholding up th e development even of th e knowledgewhich may have originally developed within i t . Thehistory of Platonism furnishes examples. On th e

second possibi l i ty see th e end of Section 7 above.)

Indeed one of th e most general things that may be

said about traditional philosophy is that i t has

endeavoured to subject science to i t se l f in one oranother way, either by subsuming science as a mere

stage on the path to more perfect knowledge (e.g. thePlatonic eidos or the Hegelian Idea), or by circum

scribing i t some allegedly unalterable forms of'understanding' or 'reason' (e.g. Locke, Kant, Husserl

each in his own way). And this attempted subjectionof science has i t s root in idealism's point of departure in the knowing subject: the nature and limits ofknowledge are allegedly set by the cognitive powersof this subject. For materialism on th e contrary thelimits of knowledge are contingent, variable, shift ing, set by the contingent, variable, shifting limitsof forms of practical intervention. The limits are

typically set in the twin modes of dogmatism andscepticism [IS]. In some cases this dogmatism simply

prescribes what is knowable tout court. In othercases these l imits are seen as having a 'beyond' with

respect to rational scientif ic procedures, a beyondwhich is then the province either of scepticism or ofsome allegedly higher form of knowledge, ei ther meta

physical or of a sort perhaps better identified as

fai th or the l ike.

(E) The cognitive consequences o f idealism for theoryand practice are inconsistent with what may be called

(without any but verbal allusion to Habermas)'emancipatory interests 'I started this section by asking a question (in the

just if icatory mode): Why materialism? I said thatthis question was to be answered in two steps. The

f i rs t of these was to point to certain consequencesof the contrary standpoint, namely, idealism. Theseconsequences or effects are, I have suggested, two-fold, namely, th e interpretation of th e knowledge-situation in an unnecessarily complicated manner, andth e generation of theisms and of obstacles to th e

production of knowledge. Now a final question con

fronts us, assuming th e cogency of this preceding

part of th e argument: What exactly is unacceptable

about these consequences from a materialist stand

point?

As to (1), I shall not dwell upon th e complications

of idealism beyond saying that, other things being

equal, a straightforward account is to be preferredto a complicated one: I explicitly flag this as some-thing which I am taking fo r granted.

As to (2), history shows that theisms and re l i -

gions in general have, overall , worked to ini t iate

other forms of human enslavement or to maintain ol d

ones. The only possible thoroughgoing, consistentenemy of theism is a standpoint from which nature

exists independently of a ll forms of mind, namely,

materialism. (As to solipsism, we have yet to hearof a poli t ics on this basis.)

As to (3), blocks to th e advancement of learning

are no t in th e interests of emancipation from exploitation: i t is always in th e interests of the exploitedto know as much as possible about the nature of theirsituation.

In these respects i t should be noted that I am no tsaying either of two things. First ly, I am not say

ing that knowledge by or in i t se l f (whatever thatmeans) is emancipatory. This would be an idealism.Knowledge can be emancipatory only when i t isembodied in appropriate social practices. Secondly,

6

I am no t s a ~ r i n g that th e advance of knowledge cannot,

in certain circumstances, be counter-emancipatory:such advances may open up th e possibi l i ty of creatingnew mechc.nisms of exploitation and oppression as well

asnew ways

of fightingthem. The

point is

just thatlack of knowledge is in general something which worksin the interests of exploitation whereas new know-ledge may work in th e interests of the exploited.

Thus, in sum, th e argument has been that idealism

typically generates certain consequences in theory

which in turn have effects as regards th e distributionof social power. So, in the final analysis, theanswer to the question 'materialism or idealism?' isa polit ical answer, though one mediated by th etheoretical consequences of idealism.

9 'Spontaneous' materialism and ideali.sm.. The

contradictory unity of materialism and idealism

On th e above view, then, materialism and idealism, as

philosophies, should be looked at in Marxist perspectiv e as ' l ines ' in the sense of regulative principlesor procedure, like poli t ical l ines. They induce

opposed effects, cognitively and socially. Since

these effects relate to specific objective socialforces, materialism and idealism are also ' l ines ' inthe yet further sense of military l ines: they dividegroups into warring camps. Hence the thesis that the

history of philosophy is th e history of th e strugglebetween th e two.

But we can trace further th e root of th e strugglebetween materialism and idealism. The point ofdeparture here is th e reflection that what I have

called 'philosophical ' materialism (in contrast with

' scientif ic ' materialism) did no t always exist: both

phylo- and onto-genetically, philosophical materialism as an explicit line is rooted in and based uponwhat may be called 'spontaneous' materialism, whichis a certain quotidian, unreflexive at t i tude towards

the world. In a different context L u k ~ c s ha s pu t th e

relevant point here so well that I cannot do betterthan to quote him:

. . . people in their everyday l i fe typicallyreact in a spontaneously materialist fashion

to th e objects of their environment, whether

or not these reactions by th e subject of th epractice are afterwards interpreted. This is

an immediate consequence of th e nature oflabour. Every process of labour presupposes

a complex of objects, of laws, which determine

i t with regard to i t s type, i t s motions, i ts

modes of performance, and so on, and these aretreated spontaneously as existing and function-



ing independently of human consciousness. Thenature of labour consists precisely in th eobserving, the exploring and util is ing of thisindependently existing being and ch.mge. Evenat the stage where the primitive does no t ye t

produce tools, bu t only seizes on stones of

specific shapes and throws them away after use,

he must already have made definite observations

about which stones are suitable for specificuses, by virtue of their hardness, form, andso on. The very fact that, from among manystones he chooses one as apparently suitable,th e very type of choice, shows that man is

more or less conscious of th e fact that he isobliged to act in an external world that is

independent of him, tpat he therefore mustattempt, as well as he is able, to explorethis environment which exists independently ofhim, to dominate i t in thought through observa

t ion, in order to be able to exist, in orderto avoid th e dangers that threaten him. Evendanger as a category of th e inner l i fe of humanbeings shows that the subject is more or lessconscious of confronting an external world

which exists independently of his conscious

ness. [16]phylogenetic situation ha s i ts ontogenetic

complement in the formation of th e l i fe of every

individual human being.

But, as Luk§cs also points out [17], this spontane

ous materialism, though inextinguishable, can andoes peacefully coexist with a ll manner of non

ideas of a magical, animistic and re l ig i -

ous nature, in short a far-reaching anthropomorphic

and ultimately idealist view of th e world. This has

oots "lhich demand a separate ina,uiry. I t mustsuffice to mention two factors. The f i rs t is th e

importance of the early division of social labour

which separates out a group largely or total ly freefrom th e exigencies of material productive labour andso from th e sources par excellence of spontaneous

Such a group tends to ascribe to theideas with which they are largely concerned a primary,

demiurgic significance [18]. The second is th e perasive tendency of pre-scient i f ic thought to explain

th e unfamiliar in terms of the familiar (a s i t is

characteristic of scient i f ic thought to explain th e

familiar in terms of th e unfamiliar). Now there is

othing more familiar thc.n our experience of intent ional action, of agency, and hence the universaloccurrence, at leas t in early stages of thought about

th e world, of explanations of the mysterious in terms

of the actions of beings more or less l ike ourselves

in important respects.

This 'spontaneous' idealism, corresponding to'spontaneous' materialism, is th e fount and origin ofidealism as an explic i t , more or less systematised

philosophical trend. The lat ter , in struggle with aprimitive materialism, articulating the spontaneously

materialist at t i tude to th e world, and already in

struggle with spontaneous idealism, evokes, cal lsinto being, both idealism and materialism, each

representative and agent of social forces. This i s aprocess thc.t can be followed paradigmatically inearly Greek philosophy which can be seen as a f i rs t

attempt to de-anthropomorphize earl ier thought by anessential ly material ist viewpoint (dialectical too,bu t that is another story), and then as an attempt,

culminating in Plato, to combat precisely this

materialist assault . (Plato, in his famous passageon th e batt le of th e Gods and th e Giants [19], said

long ago just what Engels said more recently about

th e fundamental place of th e struggle between material

ism and idealism in the history of philosophy.)Idealism is constantly reborn, both in i ts spon-

taneous form and as reflected and systematized inphilosophical doctrines. As pointed ou t above i tfinds a natural ' cul ture ' in th e division between

mental and manual labour; and the tendencies generated

here are fostered by th e role which idealism plays inideologies appropriate to th e maintenance of exploitative societies (cf. the preceding section). Again,

as indicated above, idealisms take root at pointswhere i t i s a question of coping with the unfamiliar

by means of inadequate theoretical tools, ei therthose restr ic ted to concepts taken from everyday

thinking, or ones stemming from scientif ic theorieswhich have reached th e l imits of their applicabil i ty.Hence th e familiar presence of idealism in thought

about human beings and society, any sort of adequate

theorization of which does no t precede roughly th e

mid-nineteenth century (Marx and Freud), and atturning-points in th e history of scient i f ic theury

(relat ivity and quantum theory).Thus th e idea of struggle is constitutive of the

materialism/idealism couple. They are, both system

atically and historical ly, Siamese twins. But th is ,

th e very ground of their unity, their inseparabil i ty- that they continuously generate each other - is

also th e ground of the conflict between them, since

th e whole raison d ' ~ t r e of th e one is to oppose theother. Thus they are ' in ternally ' related bystruggle: i t is not that each is constituted independ

ently of the other and only afterwards engages instruggle with the other, bu t rather that they are

born in struggle. (They form a 'unity of opposites ' .)

10 The idealism of th e philosophical enterprise

I began th e main part of the discussion of the nature

of materialism and idealism from Section 3 onwards in

a mode which smacked strongly of th e teleology ofchoice, of th e framework of just if ication. The course

of th e argument led to the view that materIalism andidealism are, in the final analysis, expressions of

certain practical orientations which are themselvesboth bases and consequences of specific social group

ings. Though i t was inevitable that the discussion

would have to begin in th e just i f icatory mode which

is familiar and customary, i t is necessary at thispoint (borrowing Wittgenstein's metaphor) to kick

away the ladder by which I have reached i t . Questions

of justi f ication give way to questions of explana-tion. If I have so far put th e question in terms ofconstructing just i f icatory arguments for the adoption

of materialism or idealism, arguments which might be

taken to be ones apt to produce convinction in someone as regards th e materialist or idealist positions,I must now replace this mode with another and see

that the real question (which cannot be pursued anyfurther here) is : what detePmines th e distribution o f

bearers/agents o f ideoZogy to materialist/ idealistpositions? The programmatic, schematic answer is :those factors which determine the course of th e classstruggle. (One consequence of this is an exclusion ofvoluntarism in th e matter of ideological classstruggle. For i f the standpoints of materialism andidealism are rooted in th e sphere of th e pract ical ,then ideological class struggle in these directionshas an only ' relat ive autonomy', and change of dis t r i -

bution of ideological agents is basically not amatter of recommending different interpretations ofth e world, bu t of changing i t in such a way as to

effect different distributions. This is of course

only to rei terate th e theme of Marx's 11th Thesis onFeuerbach about th e necessity to change rather themsimply ' interpret ' th e world.)

Now i t is characteristic of th e whole traditionalphilosophical enterprise that i t conceives of philosophy as a special, genuinely theoretical branch of

7



knowledge issuing in distinctive sorts of propositionsth e choice between which is decided within the subjecti t sel f by means of theoretical arguments. (There ar eexceptions, probably the chief of whom is Nietzsche.

But in a definite sense he to o was lodged in th e sameproblematic by virtue of identifying reason with a.rgument, and in dismissing the primacy of argument foundhimself on th e field of i rrat ionalism.) Thus philosophy is thought of as having an essentially autonomous history determined by th e internal logic of i t s

arguments.

But a ll this is , from the standpoint summarized inth e opening paragraph of this section, thoroughly

idealist .. Thus the t radi t ional philosophical enterprise is inherently idealist. In particular, idealism

i t se l f is , quite apart from i ts content, idealist ,and, paradoxically enough - from th e ordinary stand

point - so is traditional materialism (a resul t whichmight have been expected, considering the thesis,earl ier set out, that idealism and traditional materialism are mirror images of one another theoretically).There are no valid arguments from true premises,

rationally believed, which issue in the materialistposition - even i f deduction is used in the common-sense, Sherlock Holmes sense. Indeed, there are no

purely discursive arguments of any sort which havematerialism as a conclusion.

11 Historical materialism

I have distinguished the following kinds of materialism: philosophical, scientif ic, t radi t ional andspontaneous. Where does 'historical materialism' f i tin here? With a consideration of this question Itake up a thread explic i t ly dropped at the beginning

of Section 7.

The claim of what Engels la ter called 'h istor icalmaterialism' or ' the materialist conception of his t -

ory' was, in i t s founding document, The German

Ideology, to be a science of history rather than an

ideology which had history as i t s subject-matter,specifically th e particular ideological formation

called philosophy. But i f i t was this that was inquestion, why cal l i t historical materialism? AsAlthusser has remarked [20], we do no t talk about

chemical materialism, fo r example, rather than simply

chemistry. The answer, he goes on to indicate, is tobe sought in th e historical context in which i t arose

- th e predominance no t just of philosophies of historybu t of specifically idealist philosophies of history.So th e name 'h istor ical materialism' has a polemicalimport. In th e f i r s t place, then, historical materi

alism is a materialism insofar as i t is consistentwith philosophical materialism in th e sense given that

term at th e end of Section 6 above. And this characterizatjon does no t run into th e trouble that th e

in i t ia l rlefinition of materialism di d in this context,

fo r i t is perfectly compatible with philosophicalmaterialism that an object of inquiry should be

partly constituted by intentions and so on.But i t s character as materialist in this general

agonistic sense does no t suffice to characterizehistorical materialism as a particular sort ofmaterialist theory. What is then considered as such?

Now this may well seem a very easy question toanswer, whatever may be the adequacy of th e answer to

th e problems of society and history. For surely Marxsaid quite clearly what he meant by historical mater

ialism in th e famous preface to A Contribution to the

Critique of polit ical Economy:

8

The mode of production of material l i fe

conditions (bedingt) th e general process ofsocial , poli t ical and mental (geistigen) l i fe.

I t is no t th e consciousness of men that determines (bestirnmt) their being, but, on th e

contrary, their social being that determines

their consciousness. [21]There are doubtless t ricky problems about what thisthesis amounts to - problems fo r th e solution ofwhich concerts l ike 'determination (i n the las t

instance) ' , 'dominance', ' relat ive autonomy', etc.have been formed - and then problems about theempirical adequacy of one or another version. Butsurely this is what the materialism of historicalmaterialism comes to ? Let us cal l i t , just to be

able to refer to i t briefly, 'economic materialism'.

Marx gives us many paradigmatic examples of i t . See,

for instance, th e derivation of the bourgeois ideology of equality and freedom from th e material condi

t ions of th e exchange-relation in the Grundrisse

[22] or, to cite a more compendious example, histreatment of th e relation of exchange-practices andcertain legal structures and practices in th e'Marginalia to Adolf Wagner's Textbook' [23].

There can be no doubt at all that a central thesisof Marx's historical materialism is what I have

called 'economic materialism'. But is this th e only

central aspect of materialism here? To give somepurchase to th e question, consider the furtherquestion: How does economic materialism apply to

th e economic i tself? This may seem a needlesssubtlety. But consider some of Marx's analyses,which we may take from th e f i rs t couple of chapters

of th e f i rs t volume of Capital. For example:Men do not . . . bring the products of theirlabour into relation with each other as values

because they see these objects merely as thematerial embodiments of homogeneous humanlabour. The reverse is t rue. By equating

their different products to each other inexchange as values, they equate their different kinds of labour as human labour. They dono t know i t , but they do i t . Value, therefore,

does not have what i t is written on i t s forehead. Rather, i t transforms every product of

labour into a social hieroglyphic. Later on,men try to decipher th e hieroglyphic, to getbehind th e secret of their own social product,

for th e characteristic which objects of ut i l i ty

have of being values is as much men's socialproduct as is their language. [24]

Thus, to star t with at least , the economic practiceis carried on in accordance with principles of whichth e executors of the practice are unaware - i t is no t

that they have false ideas about the principles, bu t

rather that they do not have any ideas at all . I t

just happens that way, like a chi ld 's speaking of alanguage. (Marx's analogy with language at th e endof the passage is not a mere accidental flourish.)'They do no t know i t , but they do i t . ' [25] At alater stage the executors of th e practice may formtheories about th e functioning of the practice bu t i t

is the objective character of th e practice that willbe decisive here, no t least in determining misappre

hensions about th e practice (e.g. ' the fetishism ofcommodities').

Or, consider Marx's derivation of money in thefollowing chapter on 'The Process of Exchange'. Atthe beginning of this chapter he traces, in a passage

of the utmost inspissation and subtlety, th e way inwhich money arises as a necessary condition fo r th e

operation of a ramified commodity-producing economy.The actual argument cannot even be summarized here,bu t is in any case unnecessary fo r th e purposes of

the present theme. Al l that is essential is thegloss which Marx adds. 'I n the i r dif f icul t ies ' ,

Marx writes - that is , in their diff icult ies of being

in the situation of a ramifying commodity-producing

economy without th e invention of money -our commodity-owners think l ike Faust: 'I n th e



beginning was th e deed.' They have alreadyacted before thinking. The natural laws of th ecommodity have manifested themselves in th enatural inst inct of th e owners of commodities.

[26]again, as in the previous case, a certain pract

e - that of commodity-exchange - extends i t se l f inwith the objective tendencies of i ts

executors of th e practice conforming

to these tendencies. Again, i t is not aof a relation between a mode of production on

e one hand, and a superstructural feature on th ebu t between th e objective structure of a

and th e way in which i t i s carried on , th eincluding ideas about what is going on.

This idea of th e primacy of material practices into th e explanation of social l i fe and i ts

and in part icular with regard to thought

th e la t ter may be called 'pract ical materialism'.t is different from what I have earl ier called

materialism which asser ts that one ofpractices, namely th e economic, is primary with

to th e determination ( ' in th e last instance')f th e other practices which go to consti tute a

'Pract ical ' and 'economic' materialism are

independent insofar as neither entai ls th e.This distinction between 'economic' and 'p ract ical '

Turandot, Scene 4a (Gesammelte Werke, Suhrkamp ed., 5: 2211f).

Cities of the Flain, Part II (Remembranee o f Things Past, 8: 96f).Capital, 1: 102. (In th is paper publ ished t ransla t ions are revised - as

here - without notice, in accordance with th e Marx-Engels Werke.) Cf . also

Grundrisse, 101£.Engels, Ludwig Feuerbaeh, 345-347

Marx-Engels, Seleeted Works, 1: 13.

Engels, Ludwig Feuerbaeh, 347.

Fo r th e whole discussion se e Materialism, 101ff.

Cf . also what is said about Engels ' al ternat ive character isa t ion o fmaterialism in Section 8 below. This dis t inct ion between 'philosophical '

and ' sc ient i f ic ' materialism j ibes with Lenin 's dis t inct ion between two

senses of th e term 'matter ' . On th e one hand, there is 'matter ' functioningin a philosophieal context : 'matter ' is here that which Lenin calls a' ca tegory' . In this sense 'mat ter ' refers simply to that which (whatever

in i t s specif ic nature i t is ) exis ts independently of consciousness.

( 'Matter ' is here ' topic-neutral ' to us e Ryle' s term.) As a ' ca tegory' ,

'matter ' does no t change i t s reference (Materialism, 130, 262). But on th eother hand there is 'mat ter ' functioning in th e seienti f ie context: 'matter '

is here what Lenin cal ls a ' concept ' . In this sense 'matter ' refers to th espeeifie nature of what exis ts independently of consciousness ( that which is

referred to ' topic-neutra l ly' by 'matter ' considered as a ' ca tegory' ) , and

we know about i t by reference to part icular scient i f ic theories (Materialism,

129, 269). Since theories change so does what we take matter in this sense

to be . This dis t inct ion between two senses of 'matter ' is one which wouldbe induced precisely by th e dis t inct ion between what I have called'philosophical ' and ' sc ient i f i c ' mater ial ism.

9 Marx-Engels, Seleeted Works, 1: 13 (Cf. text to note 6 above).

Williams (reprint) , 103f.

MateriaUsm, 182.Engels, LudJ»ig Feuerbaeh, 361.e.g. Dialeeties o f Nature, 113.Cf. Lenin, Materialism, 22 .

Lenin' s ' re la t ive ' and ' absolute ' t ruth ar e polemical concepts aimed a t

dogmatism and scepticism respectively.Luklics, Die Eigenart des Asthetisehen, 45f. Cf . also 112.

Luklics, op.ei t . , 50.

Cf . Marx and Engels, The German Ideology, Marx-Engels, CoUeeted Works,5: 92f . , Engels to C. Schmidt, 27 October 1890, Marx-Engels, Seleeted Works,3: 492ff.

Sophist, 246 a-c.

Lenin and Philosophy, 44.

Harx-Engels, Seleeted Works, 1: 503.

Grundrisse, 240ff.

materialisms is no t made by Marx; at least i t does

not come out expl ici t ly in his writings though bothare present there. So the overt textual grounds forintroducing i t are sl ight . I can only adduce th e

points that , whilst th e Theses on Feuerbach stress th e

fundamental role of practice in th e new materialism

( 'All social l i fe is essentially practical ' [27]) i tis not specifically economic practice that is inquestion at al l , at least not explicit ly; that inThe German Ideology th e material is t conception ofhistory is demarcated from th e idealist conception in

respect simply of th e fact that th e former 'does notexplain practice from the idea but explains th e forma

tion of ideas from material pract ice ' [28]; that inthe same seminal work th e materialist conception is

sometimes put as generally as : ' I t is no t consciousness tha.t determines l i fe , bu t l i fe that determines

consciousness' [29]; and that th e second of th e twoformulations quoted a t th e beginning of this sectionfrom th e '1859 Preface' is very similar to th e las t

cited from The German Ideology - 'being' or even

' social being' is a great deal less specific than'mode of production of material l i fe ' . But i f Marxactually works with this sense of materialism without

making i t expl ici t or even being specially aware of

i t - as I have suggested may be th e case - then th isis i t se l f an example of th e situation to whichpractical materialism points.

23 Texts on Method, 210.24 Capital, 1: l66f.25 Marx clear ly thought th is sentence was very important. In th e French

t ransla t ion of J . Roy, whi ch he supervised, he inver ts th e order of th eoriginal sentence, and, more importantly, emphasizes i t : 'I l le font, sans

le savoir' (70). See also the important passage of supplementary explana

t ion in the f i r s t edition of Capital, Vol. 1 , but not in la ter editions which

may be consulted in Value: Studies by Karl Marx, 36.26 Capital, 1: 180.

27 Marx-Engels, Seleeted Works, 1: 15.

28 Marx-Engels, CoUeeted Works,S: 54 .

29 ibid., 37 .

Bibliography

Althusser, L., Philosophie et philosophie s p o n t a n ~ e des savants (]96?) , Paris ,

Maspero, 1974Althusser, L., Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays, London, New Left Books,

1971Althusser, L. , Essays in Self-Critieism, London, NLB, 1976.

Engels, F., Ludwig Feuerbaeh and th e End of Classieal German Philosophy inMarx-Engels, Seleeted Works in Three Volumes, Vo1.3.

Engels, F. Dialeeties of Nature, London, Lawrence and Wishart, 1941.

Lecourt, D., Une erise et son enjeu (Essai su r la position de Lenine enphilosophie), Paris, Maspero, 1973.

Lenin, V. 1 ., Materialism and Empirio-Critieism, Vo1.l4 of th e CoUeeted Works,Moscow, Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1962.

Luklics, G. , Die Eigenart des Asthetisehen, Werke, Vols .11-12, Neuwied,

Luchterhand, 1963.

Marx, K. , Grundrisse, Penguin/New Left Review, 1974.

Marx, K., Capital, Vol.l , Penguin/New Left Review, 1976.

Marx, K., Le Capital, Livre I ( t rans . J. Rey), Paris , Garnier-Flammarion, 1969.Marx, K. Texts on Method (trans. T. Carver), Oxford, Blackwe11s, 1974.

Marx, K. Value: Studies by Karl Marx ( t rans . A. Dragstedt), London, New Park

Publications, 1976.

Marx, K. and F. Engels, Werke, Berlin , Dietz, 1956ff.

Marx, K. and F. Engels, CoUeeted Works, Moscow, Progress Publishers, 1975ff.

MRrx, K. and F. Engels, Seleeted Works in Three Volumes, Moscow, Progress

Publishers, 1969.

Williams, R. , 'Problems of Materialism', New Left Review, No.l09, May-June 1978.

Reprinted in Problems o f Materialism and Culture, London, NLB, 1980.

9

Documents

Suchting 1982 Materialism