Jim, In my book Marx was not an essentialist. I wrote an article which appeared in the British (Marxist) journal 'New Interventions' in October 1993 arguing a Critical Realist critique of Scott Meikle's book 'Essentialism in the Thought of Karl Marx'. I used Bhaskar's concepts of (1) epistemic fallacy (2) transitive and intransitive dimensions of reality (3) realist ontology (4) generative mechanisms, to argue that Meikle's Aristotelian essentialism has a damaging trans-historical character to its analysis. This is related to a tendency to philosophical anthropomorphism. It is common to many Aristotelian essentialist analyses that history is conceived of as the realisation of human need, via the interaction of humanity and nature. Indeed, there is a tendency to utilise this trans-historical principle as a comprehensive definition of a materialist conception of history. Andrew Collier comments that:
"Meikle's contention that for Marx the human race constitutes a real whole entity, with its own essential nature and line of necessary development, leading to the realization of its potential; that barring accidents there is a goal which mankind will reach, a goal already implicit in the essence of this 'socialized man' before it reaches maturity....seems to be wrong in several ways. First of all, it makes the transformation of capitalist society into socialist society look like the transformation of a kitten into a cat, when in reality it is much more like the transformation of a rat into a cat's dinner. We cannot look at capitalism and say "there, but for accidents, goes a future socialism"." ['Aristotelian Marx', in Inquiry no.29, p465] This is a small excerpt from what was a long article, written before I owned a computer so unfortunately I cannot send the article as an attachment. But I will add one more sentence from my article: "....it has *not* been the materialist necessity of the interaction of humanity and nature that has *principally* defined the character of history, but rather the structural mechanisms of an ontology of distinct modes of production." I was arguing that the abstraction of what is anthropomorphic from the overall character of reality is a symptom of the illicit trans-historical nature of the categories of Aristotelian essentialism. This represents a barrier to the task of scientific analysis of the specific character of social relations. I imagine if your friend contacts 'New Interventions' at [EMAIL PROTECTED] and/or [EMAIL PROTECTED] then some arrangement could be made to send a copy of that issue in return for payment. Phil Walden -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Jim Farmelant Sent: 06 February 2006 21:36 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; marxism-thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Marx and essentialism Someone as asked me offline: "How may I best come to understand, for my Marx Seminar, the connection/opposition between Marx as presently conceived and essentialism?" Anybody here have any ideas on the matter? Jim F. _______________________________________________ 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 _______________________________________________ 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
