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The Schema of the Theory of Reification

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Published May 2022

Wataru Hiromatsu

Author: Wataru Hiromatsu
Translator: John Hocking
Hiromatsu argues that the change from Marx’s theory of self-alienation to the concept of reification is crucial in establishing a new relational worldview which is still relevant today. Amongst other topics, his discussion of the understanding of society sees such as a relational dynamic wherein the individual is constantly composed and composing in relation to others, including nature. This understanding is, he argues, the “single science of history” of Marx and Engels. It overcomes the hypostasizing subject – object relation still prevalent today.

Originally published in Japanese as Busshōkaron no kōzu by Iwanami Shoten, Publishers, Tokyo, 1983, 1994. © By Kuniko Hiromatsu.

Biographical Note

John Hocking, MA 2000, University of Tokyo, is a freelance academic/literary translator from Japanese to English. He is currently undertaking two book translation projects, one of two short works by the philosopher Miki Kiyoshi, and the other of a work by Hiromatsu on the philosophy of the theory of relativity.

Readership

All academic libraries, specialists in Marxism, specialists in philosophy, specialists in the social sciences

Table of Contents

Translator’s Preface

Introduction

Prologue

1. For an Extolling of Materialist History
1.1. The Dialectical Sublation of Classical Philosophy
1.2. The Overcoming of Humanism, and a New Horizon
1.3. The Sublation of the Theory of Alienation, and the Theory of Reification

2. The Composition and Scope of the Theory of Reification

2.1. The Reification of Social Relations and the Nature of Being of Cultural Forms
2.2. The Law-like Nature of the Historical Dynamic and the Significant Acts of the Subjects Involved
2.3. The Systematic Method of the Critique of Reification and the Standpoint of Value Judgement

3. The Theory of Reification of the Historical World
3.1. The Being-Structure of the World of the Commodity
(A) The Twofold Nature of the World of the Commodity
(B) The Problematics of the Theory of Value
(C) The Objectivity of Commodity Value
(D) The Fetish Nature of Commodity Being
(E) The Fourfold Nature of the World of the Commodity

2 The Being-Structure of the Historical World
(a) The Twofold Nature of the Information World
(b) The Problematics of Theories of Meaning
(c) The Objectivity of Social Acts
(d) The Historical Nature of the Natural World
(e) The Fourfold Nature of the World

4. The Historical Reification of the Natural World

5. Philosophy in Marx

Epilogue — Expanding the Theory of Reification

Index