Life Is Not Determined By Consciousness, But Consciousness By Life

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

Initially we shall examine the concept of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels view of Socialism as described by Michael W. Doyle. At the very beginning of the chapter he states that “[Marx and Engels] are perhaps best known for the materialist conception of history in which the conditions of production shape all other areas of society — institutions, laws, ideas and morality” (Doyle 322). Both of

Karl Marx and Freidrich Engels' Communist Manifesto is one of the world's most influential pieces of political literature. The manifesto was created for the purpose of outlining the aims and goals of the "The Communist League". The Communist League was made up of radical proletariats who were fed up with the bourgeoisie social order and sought to overthrow them. The manifesto is known to have been written by Marx and assisted and edited by Engel therefore the many ideas and theories expressed by this work are known as Marxism. Marxism has many poignant views on changing society and its class structure, and what needs to be done to achieve these changes. The Marxism theories do fall

Fredrich Engles (1820-1895) was a German social scientist, journalist, and professional revolutionary. He was chiefly known for his close collaboration with Marx. He helped Marx with ideas on economics and with his writings. His communist beliefs took effect in the BNW in the concept that everyone is enslaved to the civilization and that there is complete equality in each caste.

The Communist Manifesto, written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, is a political pamphlet summarizing Marx and Engels political theories on communism. Marx and Engels were German authors and revolutionaries with unique ideas for their time. Engels joined the Communist League in 1847, where he outlined twenty-two questions about communism in the “Draft of the Communist Confession of Faith”(Engels). These ideals were restructured and published four months later in his piece, “The Principles of Communism”. Marx saw value in

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

Consciousness refers to the human ideas, views and conceptions. Therefore false consciousness means misunderstood or misinterpreted ideas, views or conceptions. In capitalism, both capitalists and workers have incorrect assessments of how the system works and of their role and interest in it; this in itself is false

That being said, Marx again is a dialectical thinker so believing only in constant change alone is one-sided in his perspective. Another quote raised by the instructor is the "unity of opposites." Essentially, this quote ties in with the dialectical method and suggests that although social change is inevitable in the eyes of Marx, it is at the same time not the only thing happening. Rather, Marx is hinting that there is an underlying theme that constantly remains the same. Simply put, this is the conflict between the capitalist and the worker, leading to the next issue to be covered in this paper.

Marx rejected Hegel’s dialectics based on a movement of human thought and ideas, and argued that dialectics involved contradictions based on an economic system, otherwise known as dialectical materialism. Therefore, the dynamic for change eventually created by a process of dialectics lies in the conflict between two opposing factors (Lee and Newby 2000, pp. 114 - 119).

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels collaborated to produce The German Ideology, which was one of the classic texts generated by the two. Even though The German Ideology stands our as one of the major texts produced by the two, it was never published during Marx’s lifetime. This was a clear expression of the theory of history by Marx and its associated materialist metaphysics. One of the main reasons this text is a classic text by these philosophers is the fact that it introduces students to the basic tenets of the philosopher’s approach. Notably, Karl Marx produced The German Ideology in 1846 as a critique of George Friedrich Hegel and his followers in Germany. The philosophers sought to differentiate their concept of socialism from existing ones and exhibit how socialism emerges ordinarily from the social conflicts embedded in capitalism.

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

While literary critics do attempt to elaborate or develop ideas articulated by Karl Marx, it is important and necessary to make a distinction between Marx's specific socio-economic and political agenda and the body of literary theory which emerged years later. Marxist literary criticism proceeds from the fundamental philosophical assumption that "consciousness can never be anything else than conscious existence...Life is not determined by consciousness, but consciousness by life" (Marx 568-9). Marxist critics use this challenge to the notion of an innate, prefigured, individual human nature to reexamine the nature of creative or literary authority.

In investigating further the basis of Marx's philosophy, one must note the shared belief of Hegel's and Marx's Dialectics. Dialectics is a philosophy at the heart of Marxism; it holds that all things exist not as what they are, but that every thing is in a transitory stage. An acorn is not simply an acorn; it is a future oak tree. A caterpillar exists as a future butterfly. By this philosophy, which can be understood and accepted rather simply (without an offhand disregard for the uniqueness and importance of each individual present stage of an object); it is Marx's later social implication of this philosophy which would meet resistance (Marx, Capital 103). As it were, Marx's Dialectics, at their heart, were simply a method whereby he claimed to understand more the essence of something, rather than its appearance. An appearance alone- the acorn, the caterpillar- fundamentally ignored the essence of something; the future oak tree, the future butterfly. Appearances were not necessarily deceiving or untrue, they simply did not- and could not- represent the whole of something's existence. A caterpillar is indeed a caterpillar, but since one knows that a

Marx's view of the idea of "dialectic" comes from Hegel, who thought that no ideas, social formations, or practices were ever eternal or fixed, but were always in motion or flux (something like Derrida's "play"). Hegel said that this motion or flux or change happens in a certain pattern, which he called a "dialectic." Hegel says, change occurs as the result of a struggle between two opposed forces, which then get resolved into a third entity. Hegel's model of change looks like this: you start with a proposition or a position, which he calls a "thesis;" the thesis then stands in opposition to another position, which he calls the "antithesis" (and thus far it does work like our old friend the binary opposition). But then the struggle between thesis and antithesis is resolved into a third position, or set of ideas or practices, which Hegel calls the "synthesis." Then, of course, the synthesis eventually becomes a thesis, with an antithesis, and the whole process starts over. But that, says Hegel, is how change happens--by the continual struggle between thesis, antithesis, and synthesis.

For it is our task — and this is the fundamental conviction underlying this book — to understand the essence of Marx’s method and to apply it correctly. In no sense do we aspire to ‘improve’ on it. If on a number of occasions certain statements of Engels’ are made the object of a polemical attack this has been done, as every perceptive reader will observe, in the spirit of the system as a whole. On these particular points the author believes, rightly or wrongly, that he is defending orthodox Marxism against Engels himself.