Marx and Philosophy: Three Studies

MARX AND PHILOSOPHY Three Studies W. A. Suchting Reader, Department of General Philosophy University of Sydney

M

MACMILLAN

© W. A. Suchting 1986 All rights reseiVed. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written pe�mission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, s:opied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright Act 1956 (as amended). Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. First published 1986 Published by TilE MACMILLAN PRESS LTD Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 2XS and London Companies and representatives throughout the world Printed in Hong Kong British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Suchting, W.A. Marx and philosophy: three studies. 1. Communism and philosophy I. Title HX533 335.4'11 ISBN 0-333-39429-1

Was du ererbt von deinen Viitern hast, Erwirb es, um es zu besitzen. Was man nicht nutzt, ist eine schwere Last; Nur was der Augenblick erschafft, das kann er nutzen. Goethe*

*Faust, 1, 682-5 ('Earn what you have inherited from your fathers so as to make it your own. What is not used is a dead weight; the moment can make use only of what it brings forth.')

Contents

1 2 3

ix

Preface Acknowledgements Notes on Referencing Foreword: Marx and Philosophy Introduction: Layout of the Book

xix

Marx and 'the Problem of Knowledge' Marx, Lenin and the Concept of Materialism Marx, Hegel and 'Contradiction'

1 53 81

Notes and References Index

X

xii

XV

104 129

Preface The main lines of the following studies were worked out in drafts written during the second half of the 1970s, and the finished products still bear the intellectual marks of those times. Had I been tackling the problems in question afresh now I might have treated them somewhat differently and here and there presented the results other­ wise. But since I have not significantly changed my mind on the central issues the pieces may stand as they are. Meanwhile, 'To morrow to fresh Woods, and Pastures new'. 12 September 1984

w. A. s.

12.9.84

Acknowledgements My chief debt is to the writings of Louis Althusser; some readers may recognise that the title of this book makes perhaps immodest allusion to one of his. If he is at present treated as a 'dead dog' by many who have buried him with as little comprehension as they once praised him, intellectual history is only repeating itself once more. To a lesser degree I have learnt a great deal from some writers whom he has deeply influenced. As regards references to 'the literature', when my views are the same as or similar to those published by others, I have not necessarily noted the fact though I hope I have acknowledged significant debts. Where my views differ from those of others I have generally not entered into polemic with them, because I want my own positions to stand out as sharply as possible, obscured as little as possible by the dust and smoke of conflict. If readers are familiar with the opposing views in question then they should be able to see roughly how the polemic would go; and if they are not they need not be worried by the diff erences. However, here and there I have struck an agonic note where this might assist the exposition of my own positions. I have also given some references (determined largely by the accidents of my reading) where this contains developments of, or backing for, a point of my own or where I think the reader might be helped in following a theme further. More personally, Roy Edgley commented on very early drafts of most of the material on which the studies which comprise this book are based. For this I am indebted to him, especially since he did not agree with a great deal of it. However my major personal debt is to my friend and colleague John Burnheim, from whom I have learnt an incalculable amount over a number of years of conversations and written exchange. Whatever the value of this book it would have been a much poorer thing without him. The process of working out ideas is a complex one in which many un important influence gets lost, like a stone which may be structur-

Acknowledgements

xi

ally important in a building but whose provenance is forgotten. Nevertheless Danke, dass die Gunst der Musen Unvergangliches verheisst: Den Gehalt in deinem Busen Und die Form in deinem Geist.* Thanks are due to Jon Atkins who helped read the proofs.

•Goethe, 'Dauer im 'Wechsel' ('Thanks be to the favour of the Muses which forever promises that what is said will remain in your heart and how it is said in your mind. ' Freely rendered.)

Notes on Referencing 1 TO MARX (AND ENGELS) For the convenience of the reader references to the works of Marx (and Engels) are in general included in the main text. Where a passage from Marx or one of his works referred to has appeared in a volume of the Marx-Engels Collected Works now being edited from Moscow, the reference is to this. If it has not yet appeared there, but is in the Pelican Marx Library, then this is cited. Otherwise, references are to the Selected Works in Three Volumes by Marx and Engels (Moscow) or to other editions as specified at the place. References to the original texts are in general to the standard Werke, published by Dietz, the principal exception being the Grun­ drisse, not included in the Werke, where the text used has been the Dietz 1953 edition. Other separate editions are indicated in self­ evident ways. The principal abbreviations used are as follows. c cw

EW G Gr PW sw

=

=

=

=

=

=

TSV

=

w

=

Capital, 3 vols (Penguin/New Left Books, 1976-81). (Marx-Engels) Collected Works (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1975ff). Early Writings (Penguin/New Left Books, 1975). Grundrisse (Penguin/New Left Books, 1973) . Grundrisse (Berlin: Dietz, 1953). Political Writings, 3 vols (Penguin/New Left Books, 1973-74). (Marx-Engels) Selected Works in Three Volumes (Mascow: Progress Publishers, 1969) . Theories of Surplus-Value, 3 vols (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1%3-71). (Marx-Engels) Werke (Berlin: Dietz, 1956ff) .

When the edition in question is in more than one volume the reference is to the volume number followed by a colon and a pagexii

Notes on Referencing

xiii

number (unless otherwise specified) . For example, 'CW 2:36' refers to Marx-Engels Collected Works, vol. 2, p. 36. English translations of Marx's writings are very frequently patchy in quality, and sometimes simply unreliable. I have therefore had to revise a considerable number of the passages cited. This has been done without notice, as flagging each change would have fairly littered the text with such indications. All other translations are mine exclusively. 2

LENIN

References to Lenin are to the Collected Works, 4th edition of the English translation published in Moscow under various imprints (most recently 'Progress Publishers') and various dates, and abbre­ viated as 'Lenin, CW' followed by volume and page number(s), as above. 3

HEGEL Werke PG PS WL SL EL

=

Werke in zwanzig Biinden (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1969ff) . Phiinomenologie des Geistes ed. J . Hoffmeister (Hamburg: F. Meiner, 6th edn, 1952) . Phenomenology of Spirit Translated by A. V. Miller (Oxford/New York: Clarendon Press, 1977) . Wissenschaft der Logik ed. G. Lasson (Leipzig: F. Meiner, enlarged reprint of the 2nd edn, 1951). Hegel's Science of Logic Translated by A.V. Miller (London: Allen & Unwin, New York: Humanities Press, 1969) . Enzyklopiidie der philosophischen Wissenschaften im Grundrisse (1830) Erster Teil: Wissenschaft der Logic. Mit den mund/ichen Zusiitzen, vol. 8 of the Werke. Translated by W. Wallace as The Logic of Hegel (3rd edn, Oxford/New York: Clarendon Press, 1975).

I have also altered, frequently and without notice, passages cited from translations of Hegel, in particular from those listed above.

Foreword:

Marx and Philosophy

Marx and Philosophy: I shall begin by situating the book in fairly general terms, and do so by glossing each word in the title. In the Introduction which follows I shall say something more detailed about the contents. First of all then, the book is about certain aspects of the work of Marx, and not, for instance, about 'Marxism' , except to the extent that certain works in the tradition thus designated are specially relevant to the discussion of Marx's own thought. This is not the place to argue the point, which will be here simply assumed, namely, that 'Marxism' does not name an even approximately unitary body of theory or practice. It has always been a construction - an historical construction - the constituent parts of which have been theoretical responses to various concrete circumstances. Each has had definite practical consequences , and each has called upon various texts from Marx for canonical legitimation, this being largely what gives them the 'family resemblances' necessary for them all to be said to be part of the history of a common doctrine.1 'Marxism' is like an inhabited countryside which when seen from a great altitude seems homoge­ neous enough but when surveyed from closer up presents a rather different picture. Then you see many different towns, of different sizes and different ages, some with flourishing populations and others nearly deserted, in different states of repair, linked by roads some of which have not been used for a long time, the sites sometimes clearly chosen for defensive sometimes for offensive reasons, with signs of warfare both against others and also internecine. However, all have some sort of communications with a large city that stands out as the most important. This too looks like the pictures on the tourist posters upon the walls of the other towns, at least until you approach more nearly. Then it turns out to be a very diverse place indeed. It clearly grew up slowly, with buildings of different styles, some the result of renovating others, some built from the remains of earlier ones, a XV

xvi

Foreword

few finished sufficiently to live in fairly comfortably - quite a number of these are grandiose ones - others with scarcely the foundations laid, or clearly knocked up without much done in the way of infra­ structure. There are many wide streets, but it is also full of narrow lanes, some leading to nowhere in panicular, others to dead ends. Such, to drop the image, is the work of Marx himself, very far from the thought 'cast from a single piece of steel' of which Lenin once spoke.2 So to talk about 'Marx's thought' is to refer to a very mixed bag indeed. If what 'Marx' refers to is highly problematic, then the same is not less true of 'philosophy' . Philosophy! What is there in common between, say, Plato, Heidegger and Carnap? I believe there are at least family resemblances, but again this is not the place to argue the point. I hope it will be sufficient here merely to acknowledge the at least initial fogginess of the term; at any rate I am going to rely on an intuitive understanding, mediated by certain paradigms, of the scope of the idea of 'philosophy'. Finally, the title brings the two together with that most discreet of all words: 'and'. Indeed it is meant here to carry the burden of openness. Marx - like any other thinker - can be related to philos­ ophy in one or more of at least three ways. Firstly, we may look for his contributions to philosophy in the pretty straightforward sense in which this is done say in articles in The Philosophical Review. And certainly various parts of Marx's work fall under this description you need only think of his doctoral dissertation and the work immedi­ ately connected with this, the 1843 critique of the sections on the state in Hegel's Philosophy of Right, and many pages of the 1844 Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts. This is so even though M_!!!:L.w.r_ote next to nothing of this son after about 1846 or 1847. ' Secondly, and quite apart from The-aoove; he might be-said to have related to philosophy, even made contrib utions to it by virtue of what is 'implicit' in his writings, in terms of the sorts of 'assl)mptions' or 'presuppositions' he may have made. This is the way in which, for example, Galileo or Freud may be said to have contributed to philosophy in writings on motion or the clinical works (however much they intended them to be purely scientific) . So, for example, someone may analyse the 'philosophical significance' of the notion of 'labour' in the 1844 Manuscripts. Thirdly, there is a more radical sense in which Marx might be argued to relate to philosophy: not by virtue of contributing to it from the inside so to speak, as a going concern, but by virtue of his treatment of it as a concern, as a type of

xvii

Foreword

practical theoretical �ctivlty, as a distinctive type of 'discourse'- in particular, by doing_a 'metacritique' of it. In such a case 'Marx and Philosophy' would have a subject-matter of the same sort as, say, 'Marx and Religion'. This is indeed suggested by the comments on philosophy, on 'the philosophers', in the 1845-1846 period, in the 'Theses on Feuerbach' and The German Ideology. The studies in this book will be concerned to some extent with 'Marx and Philosophy' in the first of the three senses just distin­ guished. I shall definitely be concerned with 'Marx and Philosophy' in the third sense: my���pal intere..§.Li£ inde.ed.in..w..orks_ D.( MfMarx, the outlining and usemthis different problematic permits us to push straight into the heartland of Marx's thinking where resides his central concept of material practice or what may be called his 'practical materialism'. In the first study the emphasis is on 'practice', the 'practical' side of this notion. The 'material' or 'materialism' aspect is the central theme of the second study, 'Marx, Lenin and the Concept of Materialism'. In the 'Theses on Feuerbach', which Engels correctly characterised as 'the first document in which is deposited the brilliant germ of the new world outlook' (SW 3:336) , Marx contrasted his own 'new material­ ism' with 'the old materialism', with 'all hitherto existing materialsm' (SW 1:13, 15) But in what, more precisely, does the specificity of 'the new materialism' consist? The answer to this question is by no means xix

XX

Introduction

clear. Marx himself, in a characterisation in the first volume of Capital, cited a countless number of times, speaks in terms which seem hardly different from traditional conceptions. I argue that the answer must be sought in the central notion of material practice, already introduced and partly explored in the first study. But this opens up some complex issues and makes it necessary - so I argue to distinguish between a number of different senses of 'materialism'.. Amongst these different senses one will be found lacking, namely, 'dialectical materialism'. This might even be thought a notable ab­ sence in view of the fact that reference is often made to a philosophi­ cal position or world-view of this name, ascribed explicitly or by way of implication to Marx. Now even though Marx did not use this term he certainly subscribed, in some sense, to the idea of a 'dialectic'. The task of the third study, 'Marx, Hegel and "Contradiction" ' is to make some contribution to finding out just what this comes to in Marx with regard to a basic notion.

1

Marx and 'the Problem of Knowledge' In the beginning was the deed! Goethe1

1 INTRODUCTION 'Epistemological' questions arise very early in Marx's work.2 For example, the notes for the doctoral dissertation (1841) pose the problem of the theoretical conditions for the possibility of Hegel's political accommodation ( CW 1:84); the 1843 critique of Hegel's philosophy of the state provides an answer. The 1844 Manuscripts di�S.!ISS the basis and development of human sense-perception. Basic questions relating to materialism and idealism are absohitely central to the brief notes (written in 1845) which Engels described, in publishing them for the first time under the title 'Theses on Feuer­ bach', as 'the first document in which is deposited the brilliant germ of the new world outlook' (SW 3:336); the same is true of The German Ideology, written soon after, as of The Poverty of Philosophy (1847). Ten years later, in the 'Introduction' to the Grundrisse (1857-58) he discusses general questions of methodology, and in Capital 'epistemological' standpoints are present both explicitly and implicitly, as they are in one of Marx's last important writings, the 'Marginalia' to Adolph Wagner's Textbook of Political Economy (1879--80). Of course there is no extended and comprehensive treatment of matters of this sort in Marx's work and consideration of them cer­ tainly retreated as he became more and more preoccupied with concrete questions of politics and political economy. Nevertheless there are ample materials on which to base an attempt to reconstruct his views in this regard, and it is to this project that I want to contribute in the present study.:� I shall for the most part confine myself to the period of Marx's work which begins with the 'Theses-on

1

2

Marx and Philosophy

Feuerbach'; indeed it is with a consideration of the first of these that I shall begin.

2

THE FIRST OF THE 'THESES ON FEUERBACH'

This runs, in greater part, as follows: 'The chief defect in all material­ ism up till now (Feuerbach's included) is that objectivity, actuality, sensibility [der Gegenstand, die Wirklichkeit, Sinnlichkeit] is grasped only in the fonn of the object or the given [des Objekts oder der Anschauung]; not however as sensible human activity, practice [sin­ nlich menschliche Tiitigkeit, Praxis], not subjectively. Hence the active side [was] worked out abstractly, in opposition to materialism, by idealism - which naturally knows nothing of real sensible activity as such. Feuerbach appeals to sensible objects [sinnliche Objekte]­ ones really different from thought-objects [Gedankenobjekten]: but he does not grasp human activity itself as objective [gegenstiindliche] activity.' (CW 5:3)

3

'OBJECTIVITY', 'ACTUALITY', 'SENSIBILITY'; 'OBJECT', 'THE GIVEN'

The first problem is to achieve some preliminary understanding of these terms, about which the first of the two parts of the first sentence is organised.

3.1

'Objectivity'/'Object'

It is fairly clear that the first of the terms, 'objectivity' ('der Gegen­ stand') directly contrasts with 'object' ('das Objekt'). But the sense of the contrast thus marked out by the verbal �istinction is by no means a clear one; indeed the way in which I have,wade the distinction is to some extent arbitrary, because English do&s not have two words as different as the two German ones. But then again the import of the distinction is no more obvious in the original than in the translation. This is, I believe, because Marx is using here a distinction which has its origin (proximate anyway) in Hegel. 'The Object' ('Das Objekt') is the title (in the definitive En­ cyclopedia exposition anyway) of the second main sub-division of the

Marx and 'the Problem of Knowledge'

3

last of the three broadest divisions of Hegel's Logic, namely, the 'Doctrine of the Notion [Begriff]'. In the first main sub-division of the latter ('The Subjective Notion') reality is conceived as 'subject', as having the inner articulation of thought-contents, in abstraction from an object of thought. At the end - by an argument which fortunately does not need to be traced out here - subjective thinking in abstrac­ tion from an object of thinking goes over to the opposite idea, namely, that of the world conceived as purely objective, as made up of objects (Objekte), constituted as such without reference to a subject. But in the course of the argument of this section - which again we do not have to follow for present purposes- this view is also shown to be inadequate and is replaced by a synthesis of the opposing abstractions: the world is now grasped as thinking, certainly, but as thinking which necessarily has an object, so that the object is for a subject. Grasped as such, what was formerly conceived as 'das Objekt' becomes 'der Gegenstand', that is, what, etymologically speaking, 'stands against' something else (a subject). By 'object' [Objekt] is commonly understood not merely an ab­ · stract being or existing thing or some actuality or other, but what is concrete, completely independent in itself . . . That an object is also what is objective [Dass das Objekt auch Gegenstand . . . ist] and something external to something else will be seen later on, insofar as it puts itself in opposition [Gegensatzj to the subjective [zum Subjektiven]. (EL, Sec. 193) So Marx would seem to intend, by using the distinction which I am elucidating, that what is on the side of the object in knowing - 'der Gegenstand' - should not be conceived as constituted in total inde­ pendence of what confronts it on the side of the subject. (This formulation is only a first approximation which will be replaced later on.) 3.2

'Actuality'4

This also has Hegelian overtones. In Hegel's Logic, 'Die Wirklich­ keit' is the title of the third main sub-division of the 'Doctrine of Essence', in turn the second of the three broadest divisions of the system. 'Die Wirklichkeit' is the synthesis of the preceding two categories of 'Ground' and 'Appearance': it signifies the stage at

4

Marx and Philosophy

which 'Ground' is fully manifest, at which the nature of things is taken to be a single whole whose 'essence' and the appearance of that essence are discriminable but not separable aspects (something like the form of a numerical series and its members).So 'actuality' chimes in with the meaning of 'Gegenstand' as that which, by virtue of the moment of 'appearance' contained in it, is completely 'for us'. Thus both 'objectivity' and 'reality' in the first trio are in a sense in apposition and together contrast with 'object' in the following pair of terms. 3.3

'Sensibility'/'the Given'

'Sensibility' harks back, proximately at least, to Kant: The capacity (receptivity) for receiving ideas [Vorstellungen] through the mode in which we are affected by objects [Gegenstande] is entitled sensibility [Sinnlichkeit/. Thus sensibility alone yields us the given [Anschauungen]; but it is through the understanding that [objects] are thought, and from the under­ standing arise concepts. All thinking must ... relate ultimately to the given, and therefore, with us, to sensibility .. (Critique of Pure Reason, A 19 B 33, Kemp Smith's trans., revised). .

=

So it turns out that to understand 'sensibility' we must bring in precisely the remaining term of the set we are explicating, namely, 'the given' ('Anschauungen').5 Indeed this also involves the term 'idea' which will occur in a later context and can conveniently be introduced now. 'Idea [Vorstellung]' is Kant's most general term for any mental content which may be said to 'represent'.6 One of its species contains those that relate to objects: this is 'knowledge [Erkenntnis]'. 'Knowl­ edge' is either 'the given [Anschauung]' or 'concept [Begriff]'. 'The former relates immediately to the object and is single, the latter refers to it mediately by means of a feature which several things may have in common' (op. cit., A 320 B 377). Thus 'the given' denotes that aspect of knowledge by virtue of which it refers directly to particulars, that is, refers in each case without reference to other particulars. The sphere of intuition is that of the purely receptive, passive dimension of mind. It is the raw material of knowledge on =

Marx and 'the Problem of Knowledge'

5

which the active, 'spontaneous' factor of conceptualisation works. Thus, in sum, for Kant, sensibility is the mental capacity for being affected by objects, the result of such affection being the given, which, when worked upon by the understanding, may yield concepts, and thereby knowledge proper. 7 In Hegel's philosophy of mind, immediate apprehension of an individual object is the province of 'sensible consciousness' ('Das sinnliche Bewusstsein') (EL, Sec. 418). This is the first phase of the section entitled 'Consciousness', which culminates in 'Reason', after which we proceed to 'Mind' ('Der Geist'), the first phase of which is 'Theoretical Mind', The initial phase of this is 'The Given' (EL, Sec. 446ff). The given is immediate as in Kant- or, more exactly, that in the case of which the mediation is not yet explicit. It has both outward and inward moments.As content of mind it is inward, but as having a reference to what is other than the subject it is outward. But insofar as the given is 'intentional' its outwardness is just an aspect of its inwardness. The given qua inward (though having intentionality) is just 'idea'· ('Vorstellung') (EL, Sees 451ff). This has the sense of 'picture-thinking', the picture being a particular with universal intent. When the latter achieves independence we have 'thinking' proper (EL, Sees 465ff). Thus in Hegel the broad sequence is the same as in Kant: from sensibility - or 'sensible consciousness' - through the given/ideas, to thinking. The difference is mainly that for Kant the given is a sub-class of 'ideas', whereas for Hegel 'ideas' are a develop­ ment of one aspect of the given. But both view sensibility/sensible consciousness as a capacity for apprehension of objects, and for both this is immediate. 3.4

The 'Chief Defect' in Traditional Materialism

If we come back now to the group of terms in the first of the 'Theses on Feuerbach' we can see that the two sub-groups have a common arrangement: in both there is one set which are object-oriented (objectivity, actuality/object) and one which is subject-oriented (sensibility/the given). So we may take it that the contrast intended is between, on the one hand, objectivity, actuality/object, and on the other sensibility/the given; and that contrast between the terms in each set relates to the 'chief defect' of traditional materalism. How­ ever Marx does not tell us, except by implication, what exactly is the

6

Marx and Philosophy

'defect' of traditional materialism. The implication, signalled in the contrast between 'objectivity' and 'object', is made a little more explicit with the reference to 'sensible human activity, practice' in the second part of the first sentence. Still, we have in effect an answer to a question that has not yet been made clear: why is grasping objec­ tivity (etc.) as pure object a defect that is remedied by grasping the same as practice (etc.)? This is a question the answer to which is partly implied in the rest of the passage cited; but we shall have to turn to the second of the 'Theses' for more - though not fully explicit - instruction. Meanwhile let us look at the second main sentence in the passage. 4

' . . . THE A CTIVE SIDE WAS WORKED OUT ABSTRACTLY ... BY IDEALISM .. . '

It is a story familiar to students of the history of philosophy how it was effectively Kant who introduced into epistemology the idea of object-constituting activity of the subject. According to the doctrine of the Critique of Pure Reason knowledge results from a combination of the workings of the faculties of 'receptivity' and 'spontaneity': The former suppli, es the raw materials of knowledge and the latter syn­ thesises them into objects according to the forms of space and time on the one hand, and the categories of the understanding on the other. Hegel (we need not be concerned here with the transitional figures of classical German philosophy, especially Fichte and Schelling) picked up the idea of the centrality of the idea of activity for epistemology, and radically generalised it. It emerged as important early in the Phenomenology of Spirit, in the famous section on 'the relation of domination and servitude'. In labouring for his master, in transforming the world into objects of use and enjoyment for him, the bondsman discovers and develops his capacities on the one hand, and, on the other, discovers the nature of the external world on which he is forced to act (Ch. IVA ad fin). But it is in the Logic that the theme of activity finds its most comprehensive and abstract working-out. Taking up the thread where it was dropped in explaining the distinction between 'Objekt' and 'Gegenstand' above, we find that the former goes through three main phases. In the first, 'Mechanism', the object comes forward as a

Marx and 'the Problem of Knowledge'

7

sheer multiplicity, the parts of which are related in a purely external way. In the second, 'Chemism'; unity begins to reappear when it is seen that the very independence of the separate objects is an ex­ pression of a form of relatedness to one another. In the last section, 'Teleology', the preceding two are brought together into a unity; objects in their plurality retain an independence consistent with the dependence presupposed by their being in the unity of an End, a telos. In Teleology the separation between object and subject- the second represented by the End - is done away with: the latter has ceased to be merely subjective, being now embodied in an objective state of affairs, whilst this is at once independent but also the vehicle and expression of the subjective. The objective is now in fact just the Means to the End, and in this unity we have the unity of the subjective and objective which is the essential character of 'the Idea', the subject-matter of the last phase of the Logic. The first phase of 'the Idea' is 'Life'. This is just the conception of the unity of different factors, where the unity is nothing but the relation between the factors as brought together for the realisation of some End, whilst the factors only have their existence as such in being thus related. That exemplification of Life which is the organism has brought the inorganic within itself as a means to its own Ends. The external world is both what always confronts it, and also what is ever being absorbed within it. This twofold relationship is the essen­ tial nature of the second main sub-division of the Idea, what Hegel calls by the inclusive name 'Knowing'. From being considered pri­ marily in its external aspect, in Life, the world is now considered from the point of view of the process of its internalisation. This can happen in one or other of two ways. Firstly, the subject can take up a passive attitude, and then the object as it is enters the subject by modifying consciousness. The subject appropriates it by analysing and synthesising what is thus vouchsafed it. This is Knowing as usually understood. It is still an imperfect internalisation of the object because the subject is determined from without by the nature of the modification of its consciousness: the object is just 'given', 'data' in the original meaning of the word. But, secondly, the ·subject may take up an active stance and make the world subjective by transforming it in line with its own character. This is Knowing as 'Willing'. But this too is imperfect because the End-as-Realised is never fully adequate to the End-as-Intended. The contradiction can only be removed by a category in which the object is no longer alien

8

Marx and Philosophy

to the subject that wills, but is identical with the subject in its real nature. What is projected as an 'Ought' is the inner nature of the real, and what is is just the eternal working together of Knowing proper and Willing. This is the 'Absolute Idea'. Marx says that 'the active side [was] worked out abstractly, in opposition to materialism, by idealism'. That is, the factor of activity was developed theoretically in abstraction from, neglecting, that which materialism emphasises, namely, the factor of sense-perceptible reality.This is underlined in the immediately following words where Marx says that 'idealism . .. naturally knows nothing of real sensible activity as such'. Kant's object-constituting activity is a process of some sort purely internal to the subject. Hegel is at pains to point out that the (active) relation of subject to object is for him internal to subjectivity in an appropriately broad sense. Thus he writes that to speak of 'the unity of thinking and being' might make it seem as if the subjective is 'neutralised' by the objective, Thinking by Being. But in the negative unity of the Idea thinking over-reaches (iibergreift] being, subjectivity over-reaches objectivity. The unity of the Idea is subjectivity, thinking, infinity and is in consequence to be essentially distinguished from the Idea as substance, just as this over-reaching subjectivity, thinking, infinity is to be distin­ guished from the one-sided subjectivity, the one-sided thinking, the one-sided infinity to which it descends in judging and defining. (EL, Sec. 215)

5 DRAWING SOME THREADS TOGETHER We can now begin to see the picture of traditional materialism and of idealism which underlies the remarks in the first of the 'Theses on Feuerbach'.Constitutive of both is the subject/object couple. What is characteristic of the materialist position is the priority accorded the object, conceived as constituted independently of anything else and vouchsafing its nature to the subject in a direct, unmediated way in Anschauung. And put in this way it then becomes apparent that the traditional materialism that Marx concentrates on here is only one of many species of a more general position characteristic of which is taking the basis of knowledge to be a direct inspection of a real object

Marx and 'the Problem of Knowledge'

9

of one sort or another. In this perspective traditional materialism is on all fours with, say, classical British empiricism.What is character­ istic of the idealist position is the priority accorded the subject, and in particular the constituting activity of the subject. If for the first position the subject is, ideally, the perfect mirror of the object, for the second position the object becomes, with Hegel, the perfect mirror of - indeed is - the subject. Kant's is a half-hearted idealism, insofar as what it takes to be constituted by the subject are empirical objects (the 'content' of which is supplied to the subject indepen­ dently of it), leaving the noumenal domain outside the scope of the subject and also unknowable. Hegel's was the project of absorbing the entire domain of the real into the ambit of the subject, into a super-subject, the Absolute Subject. Both, Marx partly says, partly implies, are abstract, that is, one-sided: the first abstracts from the cognitive activity which the second emphasises at the expense ef what the first concentrates upon. Nevertheless, all this is still at the level of assurances, as Hegel would say: Marx has asserted that a certain position is defective - and by implication another too - and has suggested an alternative, but has not told us in any explicit way what the defectiveness consists in.This lack is to some extent made good in the second of the 'Theses'. 6

THE SECOND OF THE 'THESES ON FEUERBACH': THE 'PROBLEM OF KNOWLEDGE'

The second of the 'Theses' runs, in full, as follows: 'The question whether objective [gegenstandliche] truth pertains to [zukomme] human thinking - is not a question of theory but a practical question. In practice must people prove the truth, i.e. actuality [Wirklichkeit] and power, this-worldliness [Diesseitigkeit] of their thinking. The dispute over the actuality or non-actuality of thinking - that is isolated from practice - is a purely scholastic question.' (CW 5:3) 'The question whether objective truth pertains to human thinking', 'the dispute over the actuality or non-actuality of thinking' - this is the classical 'problem of knowledge'.It arises as follows.The point of departure is a subject and an object of knowledge, as we came upon them in the immediately preceding discussion. The former is that wherein a cognitive process of some sort is conceived to occur; the latter is an extra-discursive somewhat which the subject's knowledge

10

Marx and Philosophy

is conceived to be about . That knowledge presupposes truth , which consists in general in an accurate representation by the subject of characters of the object. The 'problem of knowledge' is that of finding a criterion (or set of criteria) of truth, such that an affirmation of the latter is 'justified', 'properly evidenced', 'guaranteed' (etc.) by a satisfaction of the former.This defines the task of classical, tradi­ tional epistemology, which is to find such quite general criteria or guarantees of truth. Qua guarantees the requisite criteria must form a specially privileged domain of knowledge. (This domain has been generally identified with that of statements which cannot but be true, but this is not crucial. 8) Epistemology qua general must be a priori at least in the sense of not presupposing the truth of any particular beliefs or results of inquiry.9 But there is a fundamental difficulty in the way of solving this problem (a difficulty which was recognised at least as long ago as the Greek sceptics).10 It may be put in many different ways; the following is one. The problem is to find a criterion which guarantees that a representation is a true representation of reality. Now a putative criterion is presumably a claim to knowledge and hence to truth. Therefore it is either to be justified by some further criterion or it is insusceptible of further guarantee.If the latter, then there are some representations that do not need to be justified by criteria, contrary to the requirements of the model.If the former, then either the chain of further criteria has a last member or it has not. If it has, then the case reduces itself to the one just considered. If it has not, then there are no ultimate criteria of knowledge.In brief, the choice is either dogmatism (there are items of knowledge not capable of being guaranteed or justified) or scepticism (no statement is susceptible of being guaranteed or justified).11 So it would seem that the problem cannot in principle be solved, resulting as it does either in some items of assumed knowledge falling outside its own account (dogmatism) or in all such items doing so (scepticism).In general the great historical systems are more or less complex combinations of dogmatism and scepticism. In any case the course of modern (post-Cartesian) philosophy may be viewed in the light of different approaches to the 'problem of knowledge'. Such approaches may be schematically laid out as fol­ lows.

(1) A criterion which neither needs a criterion nor is dogmatic is

Marx and 'the Problem of Knowledge'

11

sought in what is in some sense self-authenticating. There are two main variants here. (a) One takes the subject as primary source.The great historical exemplar here is of course the Cartesian cogito. (b) The variant that takes the object as primary source. The exemplars here are traditional materialisms and empiricisms which take certain sorts of perceptual judgements as guaran­ tors of claims to empirical truth. (2) An attempt is made to change the terms of the problem by trying to remove the 'gap' between subject and object which gives rise to this need for a criterion. Again there are two main variants. (a) Taking the object as primary, knowledge is held to be some kind of merging of the subject with the object (Jacobi, Bergson, 'Verstehen' epistemologies of various sorts, etc.). (b) Taking the subject as primary, this approach, whose exemp­ lar is Kant, has the object as such constituted in some way by the activity of the subject. (3) Hegel in a sense returns to the beginning: for him the subject is self-authenticating, not so much as origin or foundation, rather as end, and indeed as a subject which includes- in a special sense - the object. The Absolute subject authenticates itself by being the end-point of a development through forms that assume some sort of distinction between subject and object and show them­ selves to be not able to be carried through consistently. The Absolute Subject is the sole entity than can be consistently thought.113 This is, of course, not a mere random sequence. The failure of the Cartesian project gives place to the second variant which works itself out by disintegrating its own presuppositions. Berkeley's doctrine of ideas makes it impossible to account for physical objects without re-introducing problems it was meant to avoid (e.g. the relation of ideas to their grounds. duplicated in the relation of ideas to God). Hume, at the very end of the Treatise, confesses himself unable to construct the concept of the subject (self) in his own terms.Intuitions - on option (2a)- solve the problem by the incoherent assumption of a subject of knowledge which yet is not an independent subject at all. Kant takes his problem from Hume (especially the problem of justifying the assumption of synthetic a priori statements). But, quite apart from detailed problems, his position shows the familiar

12

Marx and Philosophy

face of dogmatism (assumption of the necessary character of certain results in logic, mathematics and physics) and scepticism (things-in­ themselves). Hegel's is an attempt to overcome the subject-object dualism by absorbing the second into the first, or, rather, by sinking both into the idea of the Absolute Subject. It is the combination of subtlety and lack of any positive outcome in the attempts to solve the problem of knowledge according to the various classical options that undoubtedly leads Marx to call it - in the terms in which it is posed - 'a purely scholastic question', 12 and also leads him to recur to the notion of practice introduced in the first of the 'Theses'. So now, having got a better grip on the significance of the problem which is assumed there, we must return to that first passage and try to make out more clearly what Marx's alternative in fact is.

7

'SENSIBLE HUMAN ACTIVITY, PRACTICE'

The first of the 'Theses' cited in Section 2 makes at least three relevant points: (1) 'objectivity, reality, sensibility' must be grasped 'as sensible human activity, practice'. (2) To grasp objectivity (etc .) thus is to grasp it 'subjectively'. (3) 'Sensible human activity, practice' is 'objective [gegenstandlich]', that is, of the character of objects qua 'Gegenstande'. What does (1) mean? The problem lies in the first place in the interpretation of 'as': objectivity (etc.) is to be grasped 'as' practice. The formula is repeated, in substantially the same terms, though only with respect to sensibility, in Theses 5 and 9, so the 'as' is not a mere trick of expression. In fact this connecting of 'sensibility' and 'activity' recalls a long passage in the 1844 Manuscripts ( CW 3: 299ft) written a year before the 'Theses'. The passage is a difficult one, and contains many viewpoints not obviously relevant here. But the thread of the argu­ ment which I think affords us an important clue to Marx's meaning may be put as follows. Humankind's primary relation to the world is an active one, specifically the relation involved in labour. In trans­ forming the world through labour, two things happen simulta­ neously. Firstly, the object of labour is changed, in accordance with certain human aims, into a new sort of object- a 'humanised' object.

13

Marx and 'the Problem of Knowledge'

But, secondly, the subject of labour, the labourer, develops new sensory capacities adequate to the reception of the new objective characteristics thus brought forth - the subject becomes 'naturalised'.31 This suggests that what'is of primary significance is not the 'subject' or the 'object' but thtr practical relation by which the real object is transformed in labour. This practical relation thus has two aspects, namely, the 'subjective', which is the factor of the executor of the practice, whose sensory capacities are determined by the practice, and the 'objective', which is the factor determined by the real object. In other words, 'subject' and 'object' - that is, the real object as an object-for-us - are not constituted prior to the practice, but are constituted within practice as moments of it. This takes account of points (2) and (3) above. And it also brings us in fact to the point of view of the third of the 'Theses', in which Marx says that 'the coincidence of the changing of circumstances and of ... self-changing can be ... rationally understood only as .. practice' (CW 5:4). This is then ready to be generalised.Marx's considerations in the 1844 Manuscripts referred in the first place to cases in which labour brought forth new sorts of objects and thus called forth new sensory capacities to deal with them, as when, for example, a new way of preparing food calls forth new gustatory, olfactory, etc.abilities, new types of music, new capacities for aural perception, and so on. But the viewpoint is equally applicable to situations where what is in question is an exploration of the world as it is and where the sensory capacities in the basic sense of the word are not necessarily extended. Consider examples of the simplest kinds of knowledge of the world. Thus it is found that kinds of objects differ with respect to the degree to which they resist penetration by other kinds of bodies; that some sorts disappear when immersed in a certain sort of liquid and are subsequently recoverable by evaporation, and indeed that they do this to different degrees; that, independently of other properties like shape or volume, bodies are similar in having a characteristic the magnitude of which can be compared in terms of the muscular strains involved in supporting them, and indeed that this correlates with the effort required to put them into motion. Thus the common-sense concepts of hardness, solubility and weight are born out of practical relations between objects (including human beings), which, in the form of what may be called 'procedures', serve to discriminate certain features of the world from others. Simply as thus discrimi­ nated, isolated from other features of the world, such ideas may be .

14

Marx and Philosophy

called 'abstractions', and as discriminated by practical operations they may be appropriately described as 'real' rather than in some sense merely 'mental' in provenance and nature. So altogether they may be called 'real abstractions'.14 Thus it is not a matter of first having concepts of hardness, or solubility or weight, and then trying to find methods of applying them to the world: for such concepts are 'ever-already' applied and it is rather a matter of finding an adequate set of representations for classifying things according to the results of practical interactions. These examples are of the simplest, taken from the sphere of everyday knowledge. Properly scientific concept-formation proceeds in the same practical mode, though with characteristic differences. This is not the place to explore the differences between everyday and scientific concept-formation, but certain features are fairly clear. Thus science refines the practical procedures born in everyday life to gain knowledge of aspects of the world available to it, often by way of theories about the operation of those procedures. For example, beam-balances of various degrees of sophistication are developed, dependent in general on items of general knowledge like the princi­ ple of the lever; anomalies at the everyday level are removed by more refined conceptual discriminations (for example, differences in the weight of the same object at different places accounted for in terms of the differences in the concepts 'weight' and 'mass'); the scientific concepts thus arrived at are both generalized and further analyzed ('inertial' mass is now the general concept of that about a body which is responsible for resisting tendencies to acceleration, and 'gravita­ tional' mass is what determines the magnitude of tendencies for acceleration between bodies at a given distance from one another); and so on.1 5 But whatever the differences between the concepts formed at the levels of everyday knowledge on the one hand and scientific knowledge on the other, what they have in common is that they are ultimately anchored semantically, they are introduced, by procedures which apply them, whether directly, or, especially in the case of science, often indirectly . 16 The situation is no different in principle as we move away from the inorganic physical world. Let us, for the sake of brevity, spring straight into the domain of the economy of a society - let us say in a particular generalized commodity-producing society. Then in such a case the practical operation of exchange of products in the market generates certain 'real abstractions' from the multiplicity of charac­ teristics of the products exchanged.Thus there are, on the one hand ,

Marx and 'the Problem of Knowledge'

15

the 'use-value' of those products and, on the other, their 'exchange­ value', the last reducible, in the final analysis, according to Marx's theory of value, to ratios of amounts of 'abstract labor' (itself a 'real abstraction' from use-value-creating labour).Again, from the endless variety of concrete characteristics of people both individually and in their relations, economic practices (including struggle at the eco­ nomic level over the control of the productive resources and the products of their use) generate the 'real abstraction' of 'class' and of 'class-individuals', of 'class-interest' and 'class-behaviour'. It may be noted immediately that this approach does not so much solve the traditional 'problem of knowledge' as dissolve it. For what the traditional picture basically involves is the idea of a knowing subject and a (putatively) known object, each constituted indepen­ dently of the other, the content of the knowledge of the first being a set of representations of some kind, which stand in some form of correspondence to the object.The problem is then: how can we know when a correspondence between the representations and the object obtains? Different answers offer different suggestions as to the right procedures (perhaps involving practical interventions) to apply in instituting proofs of that correspondence. The key to the door out of this is a rejection of the idea of pre-constituted epistemological subjects and objects, including the idea of systems of representations set up in advance of pi:dcedures which attempt to relate them to the object, the world. This key is supplied in the first of the 'Theses' and in the passage in a later work where he writes that 'the relations of people to nature are .. practical from the outset, that is, relations established by action . . . rather than theoretical relations' (TM l90) Y It is precisely 'theoretical relations' that are regarded as primary in the traditional epistemological picture: people have sets of represen­ tations and then seek to find out what they represent, if anything. Marx argues, in effect, that this picture reverses the actual relation, which is in general that practical relations precede corresponding systems of representations. 'Subjects' and 'objects' in the epistemological sense required by traditional epistemology, namely as vehicles of systems respectively of representations and of what the representations refer to, are derivative from practical relations, in the sense that the systems of representations available are determined by the types of practical relation ; and the 'reference' of such representations is just the world insofar as certain aspects of it are discriminated by certain types of .

16

Marx and Philosophy

practical interactions and their corresponding representations. But this is just to say that there are no 'subjects' or 'objects' in general, such as is required by traditional epistemology, which deals with such entities and their relations in complete generality. The only 'subject' that can be detected is just that system of representations which depends for its meaning on the types of interactions engaged in and which changes in those interactions. 18 The 'object' is that which stands as one pole of the practical relation: nothing in particular can be said about it except insofar as it is discriminated by interactions with it.

8 A SECOND SENSE OF 'PRACTICE' : 'THEORETICAL PRACTICE' The sense of 'practice' upon which I have just been commenting is a primary one in that practices of this sort are at the basis of all our knowledge. But there is another sense to be distinguished also, one which is sketched in the 'Introduction' to the Grundrisse a dozen years later. We must now look at it in the context of the present argument, as it will serve as the point of departure for some further developments. I shall first cite the passage in detail and then com­ ment upon it. Marx begins by saying that When we consider a given country from the standpoint of political economy . . . the correct thing seems to be to start with the real and concrete, and therefore . . . with e.g. the population, which is the foundation and the subject of the entire social act of production. However, he goes on, . . . on closer examination this proves to be false. The population is an abstraction if I leave out, for example, the classes of which it is composed. These classes in turn are an empty word if I do not know the elements on which they rest, e.g. wage-labour, capital, etc. These presuppose exchange, division of labour, prices, etc . . . Thus if I were to begin with population this would be a chaotic idea [Vorstellung] of the whole, and I would then, by means of a process of further characterisation [Bestimmung] , come upon ever

Marx and 'the Problem of Knowledge'

17

more simple concepts ; from the concrete as grasped in ideas [von dem vorgestellten Konkreten] towards ever more tenuous abstrac­ tions until I had arrived at the simplest characteristics. From there the journey would have to be retraced until I had finally arrived at the population again, however this time not as a chaotic idea of a whole, but as a rich totality of many characteristics and relations. In fact The first path is that historically taken by economics in its begin­ nings. The economists of the 17th Century, e.g. , always began with the living whole, with population, nation, state, several states, etc. ; but they always conclude by discovering through analysis a small number of abstract general relations, like division of labour, money, value, etc. which serve as means of characterisation. As soon as these individual moments had been more or less demar­ cated and abstracted, there began the economic systems, which ascended from simples like labour, division of labour, need , exchange-value to the state, exchange between nations and the world market. This second way, Marx continues, is obviously the scientifically correct method. The concrete is concrete because it is the focussing [Zusammenfassung] of many characteristics, therefore unity of the manifold. Hence it appears in thinking as a process of focussing, as result, not as starting point, though it is the actual starting point and hence also the starting point as regards data and ideas [der Anschauung und der Vorstel­ lung] . Along the first path the idea in its fullness was distilled into abstract characterisations, along the second, the abstract charac­ teristics lead to the reproduction of the concrete by way of think­ ing . . . the method of rising from the abstract to the concrete is . . . the way in which thinking appropriates the concrete, repro­ duces it as a mental concrete [ein geistig Konkretes) . . . . the concrete totality is a totality of thoughts, a thought-concretum [Gedankenkonkretum) , in fact a product of thinking, of conceiv­ ing . . . a product . . . of the working-up [Verarbeitung] of data and ideas into concepts. The whole, as it appears in the head as a whole of thoughts, is a product of the thinking head , which appropriates the world in the only mode possible for it, a mode

18

Marx and Philosophy

which is different from the artistic, religious, practico-mental [praktisch-geistig] appropriation of this world . · The real subject retains its independence, outside the head, after as before; so long, of course, as the head behaves only . . . theoretically (G 100-2). Let us now sort out the main threads in this passage. (1) Marx distinguishes in the first place what he calls at the end 'the real subject', that which exists independently of any cognitive activity. 19 (2) A particular reality is 'concrete'. It is so by virtue of being in fact, though not (to start with) for knowledge, a unity of various properties and the term of various relations. (3) In distinction from this 'real concrete' as it may be called, there are various types of apprehension of it, namely, 'data [Ans­ chauung]' (I translate it thus here because 'data' seems to fit better with the context) , 'ideas [Vorstellungen]', and 'concepts [Begriffe]' or 'thoughts [Gedanken]' . (It is obvious from the considerations of section 3 above that Marx is here using a Kantian- Hegelian terminology. 20) (4) Cognitive apprehension of the real concrete begins with 'data'. About this nothing is said, but we may assume that Marx under­ stood it to be that primitive relation to the object in which particularity is the determining characteristic. It is not in fact mentioned except when coupled with 'ideas'. These Marx clearly takes to be rough and ready, internally minimally structured holistic representations. They might appear to be very concrete forms of knowledge but are in fact very abstract in the sense that they abstract from the articulations which make the real concrete concrete. We may reasonably take these to be produced in the course of practice in the first sense, that discussed in the previous section. (5) 'Data' and 'ideas' are subject to a 'working-up' (or 'working­ over') - the 'work' here mimics the 'Arbeit'-root of the original ­ which results in 'concepts' or 'thoughts'. These permit the con­ ceiving of the various real characteristics (properties and rela­ tions) by virtue of which the real concrete is concrete. (What is 'worked-up' at a certain stage may of course also include con­ cepts formed at an earlier stage. ) (6) The product of combining these concepts in their abstraction from one another so as to yield a means for grasping the real in its concreteness is 'a mental concrete', 'a totality of thoughts', 'a

Marx and 'the Problem of Knowledge'

19

thought-concretum', 'a whole of thoughts'. 21 This combining will in general take the form of chains of argument. (7) The process by which this 'theoretical concrete' (as it may be called) comes to be (indicated in 5 and 6 just above) is a specific 'mode [Weise]' of 'appropriation' - 'specific' insofar as there are other modes which appropriate the world in different ways.

9 THE CONCEPT OF A 'MODE OF THEORETICAL PRODUCTION' Marx never spelled out this idea of a 'mode of theoretical produc­ tion'. But it is worth the effort to try to sketch in this part of the picture. The fairly obvious strategy in attempting to do so is to take as a model the concept of a 'mode of production' in the economic sense, such as we have it in Marx's writings, partly explicitly, largely implicitly, especially in the analyses in Capital. It may be remarked here that despite his achievement in having been the first to focus attention on the ' 1857 Introduction' with respect to the idea of 'theoretical practice' , and to use, however implicitly, the analogy of Marx's analysis of economic production to elucidate the production of knowledge, Althusser22 has failed to press the analogy. Specifically, he has failed to extend it, decisively and consistently anyway, past what is effectively Marx's exposition of the labour-process, which explicitly prescinds from the special features of production in different forms of social organization, that is, from the question of (social) relations ofproduction. For not doing this Alth­ usser has been criticised from various quarters, the whole idea of theoretical production on the analogy of economic production being thereby impugned. Now despite indications here and there in his writings I think it is correct to say that he has indeed neglected (though by no means ignored) the question of the relation of the theoretical to the social and certainly has not pressed the analogy with economic production in the way indicated above. To that extent, and that extent only, the criticisms referred to are just. But the conclusion I draw is not that the analogy should be backed away from (my impression is that this is what some have done, being inclined to say that it was, to begin with, only a suggestive metaphor) but that, on the contrary, it should be pushed further. In the present context the idea of a 'mode of production' enters in a twofold way. It does so, firstly, as the overarching system within

20

Marx and Philosophy

which the production of items of knowledge occurs, and secondly, as the model for understanding this production of knowledge. So for both reasons we must begin by looking at the idea of a mode of production in the economic sense. I shall begin by outlining what I take Marx's general idea of a mode of production to have been23; I shall then apply this to the understanding of the production of knowledge. 9.1

Marx's Concept of an (Economic) 'Mode of Production'

To start with, Marx may be said to have conceived of a 'mode of production' as a certain sort of structure. As such it consists, first, of certain terms or elements - what I shall call 'factors' - and, second, of certain relations between these. As regards the elements of the structure, the 'factors' , Marx lists, in the first place, three: (1) the pre-existing raw materials that are transformed in the process; (2) the tools or instruments which are used to transform (1); and (3) the labour-power which applies (2) to (1) . In addition he specifies (4) the plan according to which the process proceeds. For the sake of completeness these may be added to this list the aim of the process, which is (5), the product , the use-value for the sake of the generation of which the process is initiated. Marx calls (1) and (2) together, the 'means of production', and (1)-(3) in a specific combination, 'productive forces' . As regards the relations which help define the structure , these may be divided in turn into (1) 'social' relations, and (2) 'technical' relations. The first are relations of control over the factors of produc­ tion (and hence over the product) by agents of production. (Where there is differential control we have, in the historically most signifi­ cant cases at least, class relations of production. ) The second are relations between the factors generated by the social relations within the constraints of the natural objective necessities of the process of production itself. Thus relations of production combine factors of production into productive forces. Marx uses the idea of 'mode of production' in at least three senses, which may be ordered with respect to increasing concreteness. Of course , the real social system which is theorized by means of the idea of a mode of production is not made up of these like a nest of Chinese boxes. Rather, the less concrete concepts are derived from the more concrete by dropping conceptual determinations. But it is perspicu-

Marx and 'the Problem of Knowledge'

21

ous to begin with the most abstract/least concrete and work up to the least abstract/most concrete ('abstract' and 'concrete' both being understood to be within the domain of theory).

(1) The 'labour process' is essentially the production of use-values considered only with respect to the factors of production (1)-(4) and the technical relations of production. (2) The 'production process' results from the addition of the concep­ tual determinant '(social) relations of production' to the notion of the labour-process. The process of production theorizes in particular how the process of production thus formed reproduces itself by way of specific sorts of exchange, distribution, circula­ tion and consumption of its products. (The possible social relations of production are also deter­ mined by the character of the factors of production and hence by the technical relations insofar as the latter are determined by the former.) (3) What may be called 'mode of production' in the widest sense embeds the preceding notion within a system of political and ideological relations. With regard to the first, every process or production works, for example, within the context of a particular form of state (representative democracy, military dictatorship, etc.) , which has certain effects on the process of production (the state as consumer to different extents, different degrees of state interventions in the control of the economy through management of credit, of labour conditions, etc.). Similarly, with regard to the second, every process of production works within the context of certain ideological relations understood (roughly) as the ways in which people experience their real conditions of existence and as the theorizations of those ways. 24 They have definite effects on that process, be they general ideologies of free enterprise which inculcate 'freedom' for capital and labor to regulate themselves, or racist ideologies which favour differential wages and condi­ tions according to ethnic differences, etc. The various distinctions made must not thought of as marking off separable social realities. Thus there are not separable items which are technical versus social relations of production, but j ust a single item with respect to which we can conceptually distinguish these features. Again, there are no topographically separable areas of the 'economic', the 'political', the 'ideological', but only theoretically distinguishable aspects of every point of social space, so to speak.

22 9.2

Marx and Philosophy The Concept of a 'Theoretical Mode of Production'

It was remarked above that Marx's concept of an (economic) mode of production is central for the understanding of theoretical production in at least two ways. Firstly, it serves as a model for constructing the concept of theoretical mode of production. And secondly, theoretical production takes place within, and is hence conditioned by, the framework of economic production. I shall say something about these two points in order. 9.21

The Genera/ Idea of a Theoretical Mode of Production

Corresponding to the threefold distinction made with respect to an economic mode of production the following may be distinguished with regard to theoretical production: a iabour-process, a pro­ duction-process and a mode of production in the broadest sense. Firstly, following the economic model the theoretical labour-pro­ cess may be identified in terms of the 'factors' of production and the 'technical' relations of production. Take as a simple exemplar the determination of the mass of an object by means of a simple beam­ balance. Then we have the following aspects: ( 1 ) The raw materials, which consist of the real object under a certain description. (2) The tools or instruments of production which are applied to (1), namely a) the balance itself, and b) pre-existing items of knowledge like the law of the lever, principles of buoyancy, statistical methods (for working up 'raw' data into a final result), etc. (3) The labour-power which is used for applying (2) to (1), namely the technical labour­ power necessary for setting the process up, and the labour-power necessary for performing calculations and inferences. (The two are not , of course, always clearly distinguishable, as in the case of determining the level of accuracy of the balance.) In addition there is (4) , the general lay-out of the process of measuring mass, which defines the technical relations of production. Finally, (5) the product, is here a statement of the mass of the body in question, a product which can in general be described as the solution or answer to a problem. Of course the theoretical labour-process need not be experimental, in which case (1) consists of a body of pre-existing representations which are transformed, wholly or partly, into others. For example, Marx's labour theory of value was generated from the 'classical'

Marx and 'the Problem of Knowleige'

23

theories of value by operating upon them with new theoretical means of production (broadly: historical materialism) . Secondly, once more following the economic :nodel, there is a theoretical production-process, consisting of the t�eoretical labour­ process in the context of the social relations of theoretical production (including relations determining the mode of circdation of the pro­ ducts) . The theoretical production-process introduces, for example, the. forms of control exercised by experimenters over their apparatus and the ways in which the products of theoretical practice circulate (e.g. through journals involving power-relations between authors, editors and referees of papers). Finally, in the third and widest sense of the idtoa of a theoretical mode of production, a theoretical production-process is located in a set of political and ideological practices and institutions. An example of the first is the 'institutionalisation' of science in the seventeenth century (Royal Society, 1662, Academie des Scimces, 1666) . The ideological dimension of a theoretical mode of production25 is ex­ emplified in the way in which an executor of practice is 'inserted' into the practice. For example, the institutionalisaticn of science just referred to was a main factor in changing people's view of the aim of science from the Cartesian-Baconian one, involving the improvement of human life and general 'enlightenment' , to one ill which that aim is defined as the search for truth as such.26 Again, Hans Blumenberg has pointed to 'curiosity' as a distinctive stance of the post-medieval theoristY 9.22

The Economic ('Embedding') and Theoretical ('Embedded') Modes of Production

A theoretical mode of production is always 'embedded' in an econ­ omic mode of production. And it is a thesis of Marx's historical materialism that this 'embedding' mode of producrion has a crucially determining influence on the 'embedded' mode. This is of two broad sorts. Firstly, the embedding mode may exercise its influence quite directly. For example, with regard to the theoretical labour-process, the possibilities with regard to the nature of scientific instrumentation will be broadly set by the prevailing type of economic 'tool' (e.g. ones characteristic of handicraft production, or machine-tools, or on more or less fully automated tools).

24

Marx and Philosophy

Again, with regard to the theoretical production-process, the influ­ ence of the capitalist imbedding mode is seen in the increasing concentration and centralisation of scientific research. Finally, the political characteristics of the embedding mode in the broadest sense may exercise a direct influence on the embedded mode through, for example, allocation of funds for research ; and the direct influence of ideological features of the embedding mode is exemplified in the generally prevailing ancient difference in attitude to manual versus mental labour defining the difference between purely contemplative scholar and banausos.28 Secondly, the embedding mode may exercise its influence in ways mediated by the character of the embedded mode. For example, the course of development of the embedding mode may indirectly bring about the development of new branches of science with distinctive objects and methods - the rise of agricultural chemistry in the nineteenth century is an instance.29 Another is the way in which 'nature' is conceptualised at a time - for instance as like a living organism or like a machine. 30 But at least two important additional remarks must be made. Firstly, features of a theoretical · mode of production may not be determined by the embedding mode but actually be inconsistent with it. For example, the practice of one scientist's being able freely to use the results of another (conditional upon the observance of certain rules of proper acknowledgement, viz.) is inconsistent with the character of capitalism or a generalised commodity-produdng so­ ciety. (The increasing commoditization of information only brings the point just made into higher relief.) Secondly, the above very abbreviated presentation has concentrated upon the effects of the embedding mode upon the embedded mode. But there can be an important influence in the opposite direction. For example , Galileo's development of the idea of an axiologically neutral, immanently necessitated world as against the medieval view of an axiologically hierarchical, God-dependent one was a factor of not inconsiderable importance in the emergence of the modern bourgeois world. 31 9.23 A Further Example

What has just been said about the idea of a theoretical mode of production is very schematic, and has been illustrated with largely disconnected examples. A more persuasive presentation would re-

Marx and 'the Problem of Knowledge'

25

quire �ore carefully worked-out exemplification. There is no space for this in the present study. Instead I shall make some - though by no mea.ns all - of the above points a little more concrete in terms of a single t:xample. The materials for this have been drawn from a recent book -. Gideon Freudenthal's Atom und Individuum im Zeitalter NewtoriS32 - where the detailed argument can be found. (Freudent­ hal's b ok is not written in the context of the account I have been putting forward, but simply lends itself to illustrative use in connec­ tion with it.) Freudenthal's argument may be summarised, for present purposes, as follows. ( 1) Newton has a basic premise - call it 'P' - which may be put in the form of two clauses thus. P 1 : The material world is composed of fundamental particles which are identical as regards volume and mass. P.2: These particles have certain identical properties (extension, hardness, impenetrability, mobility and - especially - inertia) which Newton calls 'essential' . By this he means that they are unchangeable and belong to the individual particles inherently, independently of the existence of other such par­ ti