Karl Marx: Existence and Social Consciousness

Marx’ ‘The German Ideology’ starts from the first premise of human history itself, “the existence of living human individuals”, and ends at the current stage of

Karl Marx is considered to be one of the most influential thinkers of our age. Born in Germany in 1818, he was greatly influenced by philosophers such as Hegel, Feuerbach & St. Simon. He made an immense contribution to the different areas of sociology- definition of the field of study, analysis of the economic structure and its relations with other parts of the social structure, theory of social classes, study of religion, theory of ideology, analysis of the capitalist system etc. In this essay, we will deal with his contribution to the study of social development or the materialist conception of history.

It is a commonplace that Marx's theory is a continuation of the German classical philosophy-Hegel's in the first place. He, however, wanted to turn the 'upside down' idealist dialectics the right way up, as he said, and put it on a materialist basis. In doing so he followed not so much Feuerbach's example as the materialism of the English and French Enlightenment with which he had already been well acquainted, as is clear from his work Die heilige Familie. Feuerbach instead inspired Marx to preserve the humanistic pathos, which was present in the Prometheus cult in his doctoral dissertation, also on materialistic grounds, instead of the 'sunshine idealism' he praised in the recommendation. Only an 'anthropologic' materialism could naturally serve such purposes-the mature Marx, too, always categorically distanced himself from the metaphysical and natural scientific materialisms. He also distanced himself from Feuerbach's unhistorically anthropological materialism. His materialism can only be termed anthropological if anthropology is understood as a historical anthropology (as Marx himself said in his work Das Elend der

Marx’s notions

Marx explains that men produce these ideas, and they are, therefore, dependent on the historical time period, for men’s thoughts change. These ideas that seem so important and detrimental to society do not decide what men are because men are defined by their production. “Men are the producers of their concepts…Consciousness can never be anything else than conscious existence, and the existence of men is their actual life-process” (Denise – Marx 190). Marx describes that these supernatural ideas and moral dilemmas are simply decided based on economic status. Marx continues this by explaining that in order to define reality, one must not do this based off what men think and say, but one must focus on what men do. “We set out from real, active men, and on the basis of their real life-process we demonstrate the development of the ideological reflexes and echoes of this life-process” (Denise – Marx 190). Marx describes all of this to say that these things are defined based on the specific society’s economic status. Meaning that men are defined not by their moral or religious values, but by their production and their process.

Karl Marx drew from the philosophies of the great thinkers of his time to perfect his ideal communist system. He was born into a time when ideas of the Enlightenment were widespread. He read the works of Adam Smith, David Ricardo, and the Comte de Saint-Simon (Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia). However, he was especially influenced by G.W.F. Hegel, the most prominent philosopher in Germany in the early 1800s (Microsoft Encarta). Hegel believed that ideas evolve through a continual process of contradiction and resolution and that human history is driven by this evolution. Consequently, Marx developed the belief that history evolves through a series of conflicts in a predictable, unavoidable

The german philosopher, Marx, is considered one of the most influential thinkers of all time. His philosophies are used throughout literature after his time. Marx wrote during a time which the excesses of the new Industrial Revolution were most prominent. His ideas revolutionized thoughts about capitalism and its relation to business, individuals, states and the environment. The motivation of idea behind Marx’s philosophy was the idea of materialism. Materialists believe that it is the material conditions of the world, for instance, the structure of the economy and the distribution of wealth, that give rise to ideas such as who should leads and deserves to earn what they earn. The idea is contrary to idealism, which states that it is ideas that give rise to material reality. The traits of Marxism is found throughout the novel Brave New World.

The philosophy of Karl Marx begins with the belief that humans are inherently cooperative with common characteristics and shared ends. To human beings, life is considered an object and therefore, humans make their “life-activity itself the object of his will and of his consciousness” (Tucker 76). In other words, humans are able to think, imagine, and “produce even when he is free from physical need and only truly produces in freedom therefrom” (p. 76). It exemplifies that idea that humans not only have the capability to create things for survival but express themselves in what they produce, within the standards of the human race or universally. When capitalist wage-labor enters the picture, it forces these shared ends and the freedom of expression in human production to cease, causing a rise of competitiveness among

Marx’s (1987) “materialist conception of history” (p. 146) provides an outline through which he presents the intimate connection between society and the provision of material need through the ages. His theory begins with the pre-modern individual, whose existence consists only of productive actions vital to only his own survival, such as gathering food and building shelter. Marx considers this

Marx uses the concept of labor as the social activity to explain how humans are shaped by the interaction of society and themselves. He points out the concept of objectification of labor to describe humans themselves as the subsistence of objectification. “The product of labor is labor embodied and made objective in a

According to Marx, the act of production and means of organisation thereof, including the relationship between members of the

As Marx's writings were so diverse and had such great variety, the circumstances under which these writings were written are extremely important to understand. The next few points are to

Analysis of the Main Strengths and Weaknesses of Marx’s Sociological Thought “The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles” Marx and Engels (1967, p.67) Born in 1818, Karl Marx, using his philosophical and socialist ideas, attempted to show how conflict and struggle in social development were important in the development of a society. The works of Marx were influenced by three distinct intellectual traditions: German idealist philosophy, French socialism and British political economy. German idealist philosophy is an approach based on the thesis that only the mind and its content really exist. This philosophy maintains that it is through the advance of

Marx’s entire theory stated in The German Ideology borrows from his own teacher, Hegel, who he himself argued that consciousness is a continual process called the “dialectic between oppositions” (thesis and antithesis). This is familiar to us due to the “Hegelian Philosophy”. For Marx however the process is instead economic and is amid those with money and

We adhere to Marx’s doctrines, then, without making any attempt to diverge from them, to improve or correct them. The goal of these arguments is an interpretation, an exposition of Marx’s theory as Marx understood it. But this ‘orthodoxy’ does not in the least strive to preserve what Mr. von Struve calls the ‘aesthetic integrity’ of