Marx, Epicurus, and the Origins of Historical Materialism

Marx, Epicurus, and the Origins of Historical Materialism

Author: Diego Fusaro

Publisher:

Published: 2018

Total Pages: 178

ISBN-13: 9781912142156

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Diego Fusaro's monograph on the influence of Epicurus on Marx's thought is multilayered. It not only explains Epicurean thought and how it impacted the young Marx, but also manages to do unto Marx what Marx did unto Epicurus. Marx employed Epicurus' critical stance toward Plato and Aristotle as an excuse, as it were, to drop not-so-subtle hints about the philosophy and politics of the Germany of his day. Fusaro, described by the influential paper La Repubblica (July 2013) as possibly the "brightest star in the Italian philosophical firmament of our times," employs Marx's critique of the German present of Marx's time to propose a critique of our own times, a critique of economic libertarianism and moral libertinism. Fusaro's underlying argument seems to be that we live in times that are nothing but Epicurean, in which dogmatic and hedonistic liberalism dominates our lives, as pensée unique. This monograph combines a twofold approach: the exoteric and the esoteric. Exoterically, it analyses of the long-ignored University dissertation of the young Karl Marx and the influences of Greek Atomism on the molding of Marx's thought system. Esoterically, or by implication, it analyses our contemporary world.


Marx’s Ecology

Marx’s Ecology

Author: John Bellamy Foster

Publisher: NYU Press

Published: 2000-03-01

Total Pages: 322

ISBN-13: 1583673806

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Progress requires the conquest of nature. Or does it? This startling new account overturns conventional interpretations of Marx and in the process outlines a more rational approach to the current environmental crisis. Marx, it is often assumed, cared only about industrial growth and the development of economic forces. John Bellamy Foster examines Marx's neglected writings on capitalist agriculture and soil ecology, philosophical naturalism, and evolutionary theory. He shows that Marx, known as a powerful critic of capitalist society, was also deeply concerned with the changing human relationship to nature. Marx's Ecology covers many other thinkers, including Epicurus, Charles Darwin, Thomas Malthus, Ludwig Feuerbach, P. J. Proudhon, and William Paley. By reconstructing a materialist conception of nature and society, Marx's Ecology challenges the spiritualism prevalent in the modern Green movement, pointing toward a method that offers more lasting and sustainable solutions to the ecological crisis.


The History of Philosophy

The History of Philosophy

Author: Alan Woods

Publisher: Wellred Books

Published:

Total Pages: 346

ISBN-13:

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Alan Woods outlines the development of philosophy from the ancient Greeks, all the way through to Marx and Engels who brought together the best of previous thinking to produce the Marxist philosophical outlook, which looks at the real material world, not as a static immovable reality, but one that is constantly changing and moving according to laws that can be discovered. It is this method which allows Marxists to look at how things were, how they have become and how they are most likely going to be in the future, in a long process which started with the early primitive humans in their struggles for survival, through to the emergence of class societies, all as part of a process towards greater and greater knowledge of the world we live in. This long historical process eventually created the material conditions which allow for an end to class divisions and the flowering of a new society where humans will achieve true freedom, where no human will exploit another, no human will oppress another. Here we see how philosophy becomes an indispensable tool in the struggle for the revolutionary transformation of society.


Materialism

Materialism

Author: Robin Brown

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2019-04-29

Total Pages: 130

ISBN-13: 0429535376

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The doctrine of materialism is one of the most controversial in the history of ideas. For much of its history it has been aligned with toleration and enlightened thinking, but it has also aroused strong, often violent, passions amongst both its opponents and proponents. This book explores the development of materialism in an engaging and thought-provoking way and defends the form it takes in the twenty-first century. Opening with an account of the ideas of some of the most important thinkers in the materialist tradition, including Epicurus, Lucretius, Hobbes, Hume, Darwin and Marx, the authors discuss materialism’s origins, as an early form of naturalistic explanation and as an intellectual outlook about life and the world in general. They explain how materialism’s beginnings as an imaginative vision of the true nature of things faced a major challenge from the physics it did so much to facilitate, which now portrays the microscopic world in a way incompatible with traditional materialism. Brown and Ladyman explain how out of this challenge materialism developed into the new doctrine of physicalism. Drawing on a wide range of colourful examples, the authors argue that although materialism does not have all the answers, its humanism and commitment to naturalistic explanation and the scientific method is our best philosophical hope in the ideological maelstrom of the modern world.


Oxford Handbook of Epicurus and Epicureanism

Oxford Handbook of Epicurus and Epicureanism

Author: Phillip Mitsis

Publisher: Oxford Handbooks

Published: 2020

Total Pages: 848

ISBN-13: 0199744211

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This volume offers authoritative discussions of all aspects of the philosophy of Epicurus (340-271 BCE) and then traces Epicurean influences throughout the Western tradition. It is an unmatched resource for those wishing to deepen their knowledge of Epicureanism's powerful arguments about death, happiness, and the nature of the material world.


A Philosophy for Communism

A Philosophy for Communism

Author: Panagiotis Sotiris

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2020-05-18

Total Pages: 566

ISBN-13: 9004291369

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In A Philosophy for Communism: Rethinking Althusser Panagiotis Sotiris attempts a reading of the work of the French philosopher centered upon his deeply political conception of philosophy. Althusser’s endeavour is presented as a quest for a new practice of philosophy that would enable a new practice of politics for communism, in opposition to idealism and teleology. The central point is that in his trajectory from the crucial interventions of the 1960s to the texts on aleatory materialism, Althusser remained a communist in philosophy. This is based upon a reading of the tensions and dynamics running through Althusser’s work and his dialogue with other thinkers. Particular attention is paid to crucial texts by Althusser that remained unpublished until relatively recently. Shortlisted for the Deutscher Memorial Prize 2021.


The Politics of Change

The Politics of Change

Author: W. Bonefeld

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2000-09-25

Total Pages: 216

ISBN-13: 0333993799

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This work takes a critical view of the debate on globalization and assesses revamped versions of structuralist thought, which underpin much of the globalization discourse. In contrast to conventional views of change, the book emphasizes change as a politics of emancipation.


Philosophy of the Encounter

Philosophy of the Encounter

Author: Louis Althusser

Publisher: Verso

Published: 2006-06-17

Total Pages: 360

ISBN-13: 9781844670697

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From Althusser's most prolific period, this book is destined to become a classic.