Alienation

[hoopla]

What books, not by Marx, ought I read to understand his concept of alientaion? Cheers

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Bertell Ollman's 'Alienation' (if you ignore his idealistic musing on 'internal relations'); a copy can be found here:

http://www.nyu.edu/projects/ollman/books/a.php

Istvan Meszaros's book of nearly the same name:

http://www.marxists.org/archive/meszaros/w...alien/index.htm (http://www.marxists.org/archive/meszaros/works/alien/index.htm)

And Allen Wood (not the Alan Woods of Woods and Grant fame!): 'Karl Marx' (2nd edition, 2004), pages 1-60.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0415316...glance&n=266239 (http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0415316987/026-6675159-9510838?v=glance&n=266239)

And here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marx's_th...of_human_nature (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marx's_theory_of_human_nature)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marx's_theory_of_alienation

Hope that helps!

[Leo]

I think this thread should be in Theory or Learning instead of philosophy.

And, if you want to learn about alienation, the guy you wanna read after Marx is Debord. Here's a link to Society of Spectacle:

http://library.nothingness.org/articles/SI/en/pub_contents/4

[hoopla]

I mean, more, who Marx used in forming his views on alienation: I mean Feuerbach - what, who else?

I've just read the wood book for the second time: I think its very good.

I've read society of spectacle, but when I had only really read a tiny amount of other works, so I'm a bit unsure of what to make of it.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Try M Wartofsky's book on Feuerbach, then.

[hoopla]

Cheers Rosa, but I can' find a review: whats it like, and are you sure that it would be m more interesting than tackeling a primary source.

Anyone else connected with species being etc?

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Wartofsky's book came out well over twenty years ago, but it was highly praised then.

Wartofsky was a US Marxist of the 'old school' (his first name was 'Marx' would you believe?), who sadly died nearly ten years ago.

By all means read Feuerbach's original work; you might like to check out this though:

White, J. (1996), Karl Marx And The Intellectual Origins Of Dialectical Materialism (Macmillan).

This will give you the background to Marx's ideas, as well as the thinkers who influenced him (as far as I can recall it omits to metion the Scottish historical materialists, who influenced Hegel and thus Marx -- Fergusson, Millar, Hume and Smith).

[I have just checked, and I was nearly right, White hardly mentions them. It is to their work that I will be appealing to try to resurrect a non-Hermetic version of Historical Materialism (when my current project is finished). As far as I can tell, little work has been done on this, so I will be breaking new ground.]

You might need to check out Schelling too (a far more impressive thinker than Hegel), and Adam Mueller. [Details in White.]

If I can think of any others, I'll let you know.

[More Fire for the People]

Marx & Marxists on alienation (http://marxists.org/subject/alienation/index.htm) is pretty good. I've mainly read Marx’s writings on alienation so I’m afraid I’m not of much use.