Tim Redd
12th December 2014, 04:34
After having read the paper "Marx's Naturalism and Theory of History" at the url http://www2.hawaii.edu/~manicas/pdf_files/New_Courses/Marx%27sPhilosophy.pdf I mostly oppose the theme of the paper. This paper is being pushed as an important work by some.
The main theses of the paper is that rather than idealism or materialism, Marx supported a philosophy called naturalism. I disagree with that assertion. From what I understand in reading Marx he supported materialism based upon using the dialectical methodology. I will detail the argument of the author favoring that Marx was for naturalism rather than materialism and then set out an argument against the claims of the author.
To begin with Marx is quoted or claimed to oppose materialism, but it isn't materialism based upon dialectics that he opposes, but rather mechanical materialism that was promoted in the 18th century by French materialists such as Moleschott, Buchner and Diderot. Marx in fact promoted materialism that advocated that thinking and ideas are ultimately determined by the material conditions of life and the non-supernatural. And he did so by concurrently understanding that good materialism uses dialectics as its method for explaining the motion and development of things, events and processes.
I will add more later to this later as time permits. But please feel free to express your ideas.
The main theses of the paper is that rather than idealism or materialism, Marx supported a philosophy called naturalism. I disagree with that assertion. From what I understand in reading Marx he supported materialism based upon using the dialectical methodology. I will detail the argument of the author favoring that Marx was for naturalism rather than materialism and then set out an argument against the claims of the author.
To begin with Marx is quoted or claimed to oppose materialism, but it isn't materialism based upon dialectics that he opposes, but rather mechanical materialism that was promoted in the 18th century by French materialists such as Moleschott, Buchner and Diderot. Marx in fact promoted materialism that advocated that thinking and ideas are ultimately determined by the material conditions of life and the non-supernatural. And he did so by concurrently understanding that good materialism uses dialectics as its method for explaining the motion and development of things, events and processes.
I will add more later to this later as time permits. But please feel free to express your ideas.