Well on Marxmail I had posted
the following in response to
another poster, who had drawn
a comparison between Cohen and
Althusser.
-------------------
I suspect that Jerry Cohen would
not have minded if people took
note of his passing by debating
the merits of his works.
Actually, I find his reading
of Marx to have been closer
to the readings that were
provided by such Second
International Marxists like
Kautsky and Plekhanov.
I believe that
somewhere in KMTH he makes
such an acknowledgement.
But yet he did seem to have
to come to such a reading by way
of Althusser, even though
he rejected Althusserianism.
G.A. Cohen discussed Althusser
in his foreword to KMTH. There,
after detailing some of the
positive contributions of the
Althusserians to Marxism
(which for Cohen included the re-emphasis
on Marx's more mature writings like
*Capital* rather than the earlier
writings like the *1844 Manuscripts*
and the attention that
Althusser and his followers paid to
historical materialism) then
proceeded to note what he regarded
as some of their more negative attributes.
Writing thus:
"Above all, I found much of *Lire Capital* critically vague. It
is perhaps a matter for regret that logical positivism, with its
insistence on precision of intellectual commitment, never
caught on in Paris. Anglophone philosophy left logical positivism
behind long ago, but it is lastingly the better for having engaged
with it. The Althusserian vogue could have unfortunate consequences
for Marxism in Britain, where lucidity is a precious heritage, and
where it is not generally supposed that a theoretical statement,
to be one, must be hard to comprehend."
Alas, one consequence of Cohen's work was to revive the
very sort of mechanical materialism that Althusser had
rejected along with humanist Marxism, but which
the young Jerry Cohen seems to have imbibed along with his
mother's milk, having been born and raised within
the milieu of the Canadian CP. Cohen, himself, years
later, came to see the inadequacy of this type of historical
materialism but seemed to draw the conclusion that the
problem laid with historical materialism in general rather
than with the specific variety of historical materialism
that he had embraced.
Jim Farmelant
---------- Original Message ----------
From: jksc...@yahoo.com
To: "marxist philosophy" <marxistphiloso...@yahoogroups.com>
Subject: [marxistphilosophy] G.A. Cohen Goes Home
Date: Fri, 7 Aug 2009 17:57:20 +0000
Unless I missed it the death the other day of Jerry Cohen attracted no comment
on a list devoted to Marxist philosophy. I know that as first a founder of
analytical Marxism, then as a refugee from Marxism to liberal egalitarianism,
he was not favored among the participants here. But IMHO he was one of the most
influential and important Marxist thinkers of the latter half of the 20th
century, and his legacy requires comment.
Not much time here but I will note a few thoughts;
- In the context of a sharp decline in the quantity and quality of Marxist
theory, Cohen and the AMs stood for the disconnection of theory from practice,
the entrenchment of Marxism as another academic exercise. In some ways this was
not their fault giving the collapse of Marxism as a movement and a force in the
world.
- Cohen helped bring a level of rigor and precision in Marxist thinking that
had been sorely lacking for a very long time. If it's complained that his work
lacked popular accessibility, what are we to say about Adorno, a favorite here
who gets wide discussion?
- Cohen's major work on Karl Marx's Theory Of History is very valuable, but
went down the wrong track in reviving a stagist, mechanical, primacy of the
productive forces 2d Internat'l conception of historical materialism. (Possibly
due in part to his roots in the Canadian CP.)
True, Marx gave that view a lot of space, but Cohen almost totally neglected
Marx's alternative class struggle view, which I think is more true and valuable
and gets no less, arguably more, space. Brenner is far better on this (and no
less rigorous).
- Cohen's turn to traditional style moral philosophy as important, first as a
complement to his idea of historical materialism, then as a replacement for
Marxism and materialist analysis, was a major retrogression. No doubt there is
more ethics in Marx and Marxism than Marx cared to admit, but Marx pointed the
way in integrating these into materialist analysis.
Cohen's own positive ethical views were, moreover, disappointingly primitive
and underdeveloped. See his awful Egalitarianism book, but also earlier papers
on exploitation and his paper critiquing value theory -- a real train wreck.
And I don't accept value theory myself! I haven't carefully read the last book
in Rawls.
Btw in that book Cohen lists as the big three books on political philosophy
Rawls' A Theory of Justice, Hobbes' Leviathan, and Plato's Republic. Marx's
Capital doesn't make his cut. Given Cohen's a priori turn to liberal morality,
Marx might be happy to be left out.
- Cohen was nonetheless a major influence, one of the few really original
thinkers in late 20th century Marxism, along with perhaps Althusser -- who, it
might argued, paralleled him in a French sort of way. The people we tend to
discuss, Marx, the Western Marxists, all had their roots and did much or all of
their important work before 1950.
It says something about the state of Marxism that Cohen and Althusser are among
the giants of postwar Marxism.
More later.
Justin
------------------------------------
Yahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/marxistphilosophy/
<*> Your email settings:
Individual Email | Traditional
<*> To change settings online go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/marxistphilosophy/join
(Yahoo! ID required)
<*> To change settings via email:
mailto:marxistphilosophy-dig...@yahoogroups.com
mailto:marxistphilosophy-fullfeatu...@yahoogroups.com
<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
marxistphilosophy-unsubscr...@yahoogroups.com
<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
____________________________________________________________
Save hundreds on an Unsecured Loan - Click here.
http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL2141/fc/BLSrjpTIqYxJbH6dIYrsDXsANGPURB1PfnYcqVwteJRPS3VjnikVXxOWHfS/
_______________________________________________
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
