Marxism and the Status of Philosophy - Historical Materialism

Georges Labica

What is the relation of Marxism to philosophy? Is Historical Materialism the supersession of philosophy as idealist speculation? Is there still some space left for it? Is philosophy a particular form of what we call ideology? Is philosophy destined to disappear? By returning to Marx and Engels’s theoretical and political trajectory and in particular their insistence on a radical way out of philosophy, Georges Labica shows how any Marxist engagement with philosophy cannot be the production of just another philosophy, but must rather be an intervention against philosophy as ideology—an intervention within philosophy and its contradictions, which are the result of class struggle.

This new edition of a major work on Marxism and philosophy is published here with a new introduction by Stathis Kouvelakis and Panagiotis Sotiris.

Biographical Note

Georges Labica (1930–2009) taught philosophy at the University of Algiers after liberation and at the Nanterre (Paris X) from 1968 onwards. Actively involved in the Algerian anti-colonial struggle in the ranks of the FLN and in struggles in France, he was a member of the PCF from 1954 to 1982 and co-founded the journal Dialectiques in 1973. He wrote important studies on Arab-Muslim thought, Marx and Marxism, Robespierre, violence, and co-edited with Gérard Bensussan the Dictionnaire critique du Marxisme.

Readership

This book is especially relevant to students and researchers on philosophy, Marxist philosophy, French Philosophy, Communist Politics, the life and theory of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.

Introduction: Georges Labica, a Political and Intellectual Profile
Stathis Kouvelakis and Panagiotis Sotiris
Foreword: Guidelines

Part 1 Speaking German

1 Typology of Europe

2 The Triarchy

3 The Young Engels

Part 2 The Way Out (I): Critical Philosophy

4 The Sojourn in Philosophy

5 Critical Passages

6 Philosophy and Proletariat

7 Under the Sign of Feuerbach

Part 3 The Way Out (II): The Critique of Philosophy

8 Parricide

9 ‘It Ought to Be Changed’

10 The Lesson of Saint Max

Part 4 The Concept of Bourgeois Society

11 The Real Jew and the Sabbath Jew

12 The Upsurge of the Proletariat

13 Competition

14 The Division of Labour

Part 5 History-Ideology

15 The Material Base

16 Ideology

17 The Sign of Proudhon

18 The Standpoint of the Working Class

Conclusion The Status of Philosophy

Conclusion

Chronological Table
Bibliography
Index