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Publication details

Year: 2021

Pages: 85-100

Series: East Asian Journal of Philosophy

Full citation:

Tom Rockmore, "Marx the Fichtean", East Asian Journal of Philosophy 1 (1), 2021, pp. 85-100.

Abstract

We ignore the history of philosophy at our peril. Engels, who typically conflates Marx and Marxism, points to the relation of Marxism to the tradition while also denying it. In his little book on Feuerbach, Engels incorrectly depicts Feuerbach as leading Marx away from Hegel, away from classical German philosophy and away from philosophy and towards materialism and science. This view suggests that Marx is at best negatively related to classical German philosophy, including Hegel. Yet Engels elsewhere correctly suggests that Marx belongs to the classical German philosophical tradition. In the preface to Socialism, Utopian and Scientific, Engels wrote: “We German socialists are proud that we trace our descent not only from Saint Simon, Fourier and Owen, but also from Kant, Fichte and Hegel” (Marx and Engels 2010b, p. 459). I will be focusing on Marx’s relation to Fichte, who is rarely mentioned in the Marxist debate, but who, I will argue, was doubly crucial both for the formulation of Marx’s position and for assessing his contribution. One result will be to indicate that Marx, in reacting against Hegel, did not, as is often suggested, ‘leave’ philosophy, but in fact made a crucial philosophical contribution.

Cited authors

Publication details

Year: 2021

Pages: 85-100

Series: East Asian Journal of Philosophy

Full citation:

Tom Rockmore, "Marx the Fichtean", East Asian Journal of Philosophy 1 (1), 2021, pp. 85-100.