Re: Althusser

[davidmci@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (David McInerney)]

Friday, 12 January 1996, Jerry wrote:

>As is the case with all schools of intellectual thought, I would suggest
>that Althusser's writings should be read with an understanding of the
>historical context in which they arose.

I couldn't agree more.

>More particularly, Althusser's
>writings, especially his early writings, can be viewed as a reaction
>against the *humanism* of Sarte and the existentialists and was influenced
>by the growth of *structuralism* in French thought (although, in the
>"Forward to the Italian Edition" of _Reading Capital_, Althusser
>vehemently insists that he was not a structuralist [p. 7]. In another
>work, Althusser suggests that "our terminology ... is too
>'structuralist'", but that "Marxism is not 'structuralism'" [Macciocchi,
>_Letters from Inside the Italian Communist Party to Louis Althusser_, p. 3]).

Althusser's work (like anyone's I guess) is not a totally consistent,
seamless whole -- to say as much would be to go against the principle of
reading Althusser employs (Chris B. has commented already on Warren
Montag's work on this point).  Althusser's self-criticism has a lot to do
with his changing attitude toward the PCF as a mass party and to his own
role as a party intellectual, in the context of certain political events
(e.g. May 1968) and even simply certain inconsistencies which he recognises
in his work, mainly revolving around his formalism in _Reading Capital_ and
_For Marx_.  BTW, Althusser reflects on the structuralism issue in _Essays
in Self-Criticism_ , as well as things like his relation to the work of
Spinoza, the concept of epistemological break, the science/ideology
distinction, the young Marx, etc.

>Althusser's concept of the "epistemological break" was used to justify
>his claim that there was a radical departure in Marx's thought from the
>"young Marx" to the "mature Marx." He claimed that in the course of his
>intellectual development, Marx completely broke with "Hegelianism" and
>"Feuerbachianism." [BTW, Althusser's texts, IMHO, show very little
>understanding of both Hegel and Feuerbach].

I'm no Hegel scholar.  I am familiar with the way Hegel has been used
within Marxism (and by Lacanians, deconstructivists etc) -- i.e. I am
familiar with the way "Hegel" has functioned in political and historical
context since Marxism appeared.  And I think that, thought of in this way,
Althusser's work gets to the heart of the matter.  He is concerned with
Hegelianism and Feuerbachism, not Hegel and Feuerbach partcularly.  Have
you read the later (1968 ->) stuff on Hegel by Althusser, by the way?  It
is a lot different, and makes a clearer distinction between Hegel and
Hegelian-Marxism.

>The more specific context of
>the development of this idea, IMO, was a reaction against the writings of
>Lukacs, Marcuse, and Korsch in the 1960's which placed greater emphasis
>on the concepts of alienation, fetishism, dialectics, and humanism in the
>"young Marx."

My point precisely. But did all of these people get Hegel and Feuerbach so
terribly wrong?  Doesn't Althusser's critique apply to Hegel at all?

>Other than the above, the Althusserian project might be viewed as yet
>another effort to deal with the problems of functionalism, economism, and
>determinism in Marxist thought. In this sense, it might also be viewed as
>a reaction against Soviet orthodoxy ("diamat").
>
>Jerry

It's certainly opposed to DiaMat (and economism etc), that much is for
sure.  I liked this post Jerry!


Mr. David McInerney,
Political Science Program, Research School of Social Sciences,
The Australian National University, Canberra, A.C.T., AUSTRALIA  0200.
e-mail: davidmci@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx; ph: (06) 249 2134; fax: (06) 249 3051




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