In the first two essays of this book, Louis Althusser analyses the work of two of the greatest thinkers of the Enlightenment - Montesquieu and Rousseau. He shows that although they made considerable advances towards establishing a science of politics, particularly in comparison with the theorists of natural law, they nevertheless remained the victims of the ideologies of their day and class. Montesquieu accepted as given the political notions current in French absolutism; Rousseau attempted to impose by moral conversion an already outdated mode of production. The third essay examines Marx's relationship to Hegel and elaborates on the discussions of this theme in Althusser's earlier books, For Marx and Lenin and Philosophy. Althusser argues that Marx was able to establish a theory of historical materialism and the possibility of a Marxist philosophy of dialectical materialism not simply by turning his back on Hegel, but by extracting and converting certain categories from Hegel's Logic and applying them to English political economy and French socialist political theory.
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Enlightenment advances towards a science of politics, and Marx's relationship to Hegel

Produktdetaljer

ISBN
9781844675722
Publisert
2007-01-17
Utgiver
Vendor
Verso Books
Vekt
214 gr
Høyde
198 mm
Bredde
132 mm
Dybde
18 mm
Aldersnivå
P, 06
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Heftet
Antall sider
192

Forfatter
Oversetter

Biographical note

Louis Althusser was born in Algeria in 1918 and died in France in 1990. He taught Philosophy for many years at the Ecole Normale Superieur in Paris, and was a leading intellectual in the French Communist Party.