It didn't take long to find the first quote I was looking for. It was of
course in Marx's "Introduction to A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s
Philosophy of Right", which contains a dozen of his juiciest passages. I
phrase I had in mind was "But man is no abstract being squatting outside
the world." This article also has the choice words on the criticism of
religion, the abolition of the proletariat, the proletariat as universal
class, the weapons of criticism, and more more more. Anyway, I picked out
the key passages for my purpose, which now head my growing web page:
http://www.autodidactproject.org/quote/marx-skeptic.html
These quotes of course add new elements to the topic of my web
page--religion, etc., but they too are part of the discussion of skepticism
and the knowability of reality, and the relation of theory to social
life. They address the question of praxis centrally, certainly as
effectively as the later Theses on Feuerbach, even though they stem from
Marx's Feuerbachian period before his break from the Youug Hegelians tout cout.
I've going to review a few other passages before I finalize this web
page. I guess my memory is playing tricks after all these decades. I
though Engels had written something else on the nature of axiomatic
reasoning (proof), i.e. that all proofs depend on premises, but the choice
of premises is outside of logic, but comes from the real world itself. But
probably I am misremembering one of the other quotes I've used.
At 12:24 PM 6/12/2005 -0400, Ralph Dumain wrote:
Looking over the Theses on Feuerbach, one wants to reproduce the whole
thing without taking anything out. And all my other quotes are out of
context, thus perhaps distorting the overall picture of what Marx was
dealing with, while applicable to entirely different situations. Then
again, I've provided links so that people can explore the source texts
further. In selecting these quotes, I wanted to use them as a reference
basis for many discussions. I was thinking about praxis as a
counterweight to skepticism and a certain kind of dualism. Thesis one
relates to this theme, of course, but then one needs to clarify what is
meant by "hitherto-existing materialism" (which admittedly is an issue),
the contributions of idealism, Feuerbach's ideas, the theoretical
attitude, the "dirty-Jewish" conception of practice. This seemed a bit
much for a quote. one would use to preface other discussions.
I must say though that I got a fresh take on the subject from reading the
Theses through again. There was a discussion several months ago, on the
marx-hegel list, I believe.
Marx:
1
The main defect of all hitherto-existing materialism — that of Feuerbach
included — is that the Object [der Gegenstand], actuality, sensuousness,
are conceived only in the form of the object [Objekts], or of
contemplation [Anschauung], but not as human sensuous activity, practice
[Praxis], not subjectively. Hence it happened that the active side, in
opposition to materialism, was developed by idealism — but only
abstractly, since, of course, idealism does not know real, sensuous
activity as such. Feuerbach wants sensuous objects [Objekte],
differentiated from thought-objects, but he does not conceive human
activity itself as objective [gegenständliche] activity. In The Essence of
Christianity [Das Wesen des Christenthums], he therefore regards the
theoretical attitude as the only genuinely human attitude, while practice
is conceived and defined only in its dirty-Jewish form of appearance
[Erscheinungsform]. Hence he does not grasp the significance of
‘revolutionary’, of ‘practical-critical’, activity.
At 07:52 AM 6/10/2005 -0400, Charles Brown wrote:
I notice you start with the second thesis on Feuerbach. Any reason not to
include the first thesis where the terms "practical-critical activity" or
praxis occur ?
Charles
^^^^^^
Ralph Dumain
I'm assembling some key quotes relevant to recent discussions on these
lists and also to projects I'm working on. I would appreciate suggestions
for additional quotes surrounding this theme:
Marx & Engels on Skepticism & Praxis
http://www.autodidactproject.org/quote/marx-skeptic.html
I'm sure I'm forgetting something. There is some quote in young Marx's
works about the spectator theory of knowledge (crouching outside the
universe looking in), but I can't place it. I thought there was something
else from Engels on the nature of deductive, axiomatic reasoning (proofs
stemming from axioms), but I haven't found what I was looking for, and I
may have misremembered quotes I've already found.
_______________________________________________
Marxism-Thaxis mailing list
Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu
To change your options or unsubscribe go to:
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
