Question about Marx quote on..

[R_P_A_S]

Marx said something like this. and I would like for someone if possible to explain to me what this means? I'm just a tad bit confused...

"JUST AS PHILOSOPHY FINDS IT'S MATERIAL WEAPONS IN THE PROLETARIAT, SO THE PROLETARIAT FINDS ITS INTELLECTUAL WEAPONS IN PHILOSOPHY.

PHILOSOPHY CAN ONLY BE REALISED BY THE ABOLITION OF THE PROLETARIAT AND THE PROLETARIAT CAN ONLY BE ABOLISHED BY THE REALISATION OF PHILOSOPHY."

WHAT?? LOL

[Amusing Scrotum]

The second part of that quote -- "PHILOSOPHY CAN ONLY..." -- doesn't show up on a Google search. (Or an MIA search.) So I don't really know where you've found that. In a written text, maybe? That is, a text that isn't on MIA.

The first part of the quote, however, comes from the Introduction to A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1843/critique-hpr/intro.htm) ... published in 1844. And the quote seems to have been translated slightly differently on MIA. To wit:
As philosophy finds its material weapon in the proletariat, so the proletariat finds its spiritual weapon in philosophy. And once the lightning of thought has squarely struck this ingenuous soil of the people, the emancipation of the Germans into men will be accomplished.
That document was written by a young Marx; he was in his mid-twenties, maybe late twenties at the time. And, at that point in his life, Marx used to play around with language a lot. A clever play on words was very much his forté.

Indeed, one of my favourite lines by Marx is his arms of criticism turn into the criticism of arms ditty. I thought it was earlier in the piece I linked, but it appears I was wrong ... and I can't find it after searching. So, maybe it wasn't Marx who said it after all, but I'm sure it was. :wacko:

Anyway, it's a good play on words and, as I said, that was something Marx, particularly in his younger years, did a lot. Just look at the opening paragraphs of the piece I linked for more examples of Marx in full flow. At the very least, it's pleasing to the eye.

As for the meaning, you've gotta' read the whole piece to get that. It's been a while since I've read that document, and I can't be arsed to re-read it now, but the general point, if memory serves me correctly, is how the interplay between theory and praxis takes place.

For instance, at the beginning of the piece, Marx says: Thus, the criticism of Heaven turns into the criticism of Earth, the criticism of religion into the criticism of law, and the criticism of theology into the criticism of politics.

Based on that, I'd say the quote you've presented basically means philosophy, in its fullest and truest sense, finds it foot soldiers in the workers movement. And, conversely, the workers movement finds it most potent theoretical weapons in the realm of philosophy.

Or, in simpler terms, communism is the theory of the working class and the working class use communist theory to combat the ruling ideas. And when this happens on a wide scale -- "And once the lightning of thought has squarely struck this ingenuous soil of the people" -- we will be in a revolutionary era -- "the emancipation of the Germans into men will be accomplished."

[Severian]

Originally posted by [email protected] 27, 2006 01:00 pm
Marx said something like this. and I would like for someone if possible to explain to me what this means? I'm just a tad bit confused...

"JUST AS PHILOSOPHY FINDS IT'S MATERIAL WEAPONS IN THE PROLETARIAT, SO THE PROLETARIAT FINDS ITS INTELLECTUAL WEAPONS IN PHILOSOPHY.

PHILOSOPHY CAN ONLY BE REALISED BY THE ABOLITION OF THE PROLETARIAT AND THE PROLETARIAT CAN ONLY BE ABOLISHED BY THE REALISATION OF PHILOSOPHY."
It's an opinion he later dropped partly - the importance of philosophy part.

But he's starting to realize that all his youthful ideals, which he'd expressed through Hegelian philosophy - could only be realized by the self-organization of the working class.

[gilhyle]

It was true of Germany in the 1840s that philosophy played a disproportionate role in the development of communism not only because of Marx and Engels but also others such as Moses Hess. Indeed in some early writings from the same year as this quote Engels speaks of the 'Philosophy Communists', sometimes (I think incorrectly translated) as the 'Communist Philosophers'.

This can be understood as a product of the breakup of the Hegelian movement with its unique combination of philosophy, historical and political analysis.

During 1843 Marx (and Engels as it happens) toyed with the idea of a reciprocal and even symmetric relationship between intellectuals and workers, such that workers could form the mass and intellectuals the leadership of a movement for democratic liberation. They subsequently rejected this model

[Leo]

I think this thread should be moved to philosophy.

[Lamanov]

Simple and powerfull: he's saying how abolition of proletariat as a class, which means abolition of alienated labor as a basis of class society, will at the same time become the abolition of separation of mental and manual labor, that is, of philosophy of life and life itself as a practice. Philosophy, with its practical implications, will be reabsorbed in society with the revolutionary practice of proletariat... with revolution.


Originally posted by AS
Marx used to play around with language a lot. A clever play on words was very much his forté.

It's not just a word play.

He's making a détournement.

In words of Debord:

Détournement is the opposite of quotation, of appealing to a theoretical authority that is inevitably tainted by the very fact that it has become a quotation — a fragment torn from its own context and development, and ultimately from the general framework of its period and from the particular option (appropriate or erroneous) that it represented within that framework. Détournement is the flexible language of anti-ideology. It appears in communication that knows it cannot claim to embody any definitive certainty. It is language that cannot and need not be confirmed by any previous or supracritical reference. On the contrary, its own internal coherence and practical effectiveness are what validate the previous kernels of truth it has brought back into play. Détournement has grounded its cause on nothing but its own truth as present critique.

...

The young Marx, inspired by Feuerbach’s systematic reversal of subject and predicate, achieved the most effective use of this insurrectional style, which answers “the philosophy of poverty” with “the poverty of philosophy.” Détournement reradicalizes previous critical conclusions that have been petrified into respectable truths and thus transformed into lies.