Abstract
This chapter presents Marx’s theoretical contribution as primarily that of providing a critical theory. His critical theory went beyond the critique of theory and developed into a radical theory. It exposes and illuminates all kinds of aspects of reality and guided a practice-based emancipation movement. Marx’s fierce critique of various theories (including theories outside of philosophy and religion) is at least partly based on these theories’ reliance on what we may call the “bystander perspective.” His critical theory seeks to transform theories from external, indifferent observation to ordinary individuals’ reflections about the world in which they live and to reflect on the conditions required for a more equal participation of ordinary individuals in history.
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Notes
- 1.
Karl Marx, “Notebooks on Epicurean Philosophy,” in Marx–Engels, Collected Works, vol. 1 (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1975), 432.
- 2.
Marx, “Notebooks,” 436.
- 3.
Karl Marx, “Theses on Feuerbach [Original version],” in Marx–Engels, Collected Works, vol. 5 (New York: International Publishers, 1976), 5.
- 4.
Karl Marx, “Difference Between the Democritean and Epicurean Philosophy of Nature,” in Marx–Engels, Collected Works, vol. 1 (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1975), 85.
- 5.
Marx, “Difference Between the Democritean and Epicurean Philosophy of Nature,” 85.
- 6.
See Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, “The Holy Family, or Critique of Critical Criticism—Against Bruno Bauer and Company,” in Marx–Engels, Collected Works, vol. 4 (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1975), 58–59.
- 7.
Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, “The German Ideology. Critique of Modern German Philosophy According to Its Representatives Feuerbach, B. Bauer and Stirner, and of German Socialism According to Its Various Prophets,” in Marx–Engels, Collected Works, vol. 5 (New York: International Publishers, 1976), 28.
- 8.
Marx and Engels, “German Ideology,” 30.
- 9.
Marx, “Theses,” 3.
- 10.
See Etienne Balibar, The Philosophy of Marx, trans. Chris Turner (London: Verso, 2007), 23.
- 11.
Marx and Engels, “German Ideology,” 58.
- 12.
See Karl Marx, “Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844,” in Marx–Engels, Collected Works, vol. 3 (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1975), 241.
- 13.
Marx, “Economic,” 240.
- 14.
Tomonaga Tairako, “Philosophy and Practice in Marx,” Hitotsubashi Journal of Social Studies 34, no. 2 (December 2002): 47–57. http://www.jstor.org/stable/43294462.
- 15.
Marx, “Economic,” 331.
- 16.
Marx, “Economic,” 337.
- 17.
Marx and Engels, “German Ideology,” 31.
- 18.
On how Marx expanded the traditional field of practice (from ethical-political practice to a broader field including material production practice, political practice, scientific and technological practice, etc.), see my article “Delimitation and Expansion of the Field of Practice—Aristotle and Marx,” Philosophical Research, no. 12 (2017): 34–42. https://kns.cnki.net/kcms/detail/detail.aspx?FileName=ZXYJ201712005&DbName=CJFQ2017.
- 19.
The original German quote reads as follows: “aber dieser Individuen, nicht wie sie in der eignen oder fremden Vorstellung erscheinen mögen, sondern wie sie wirklich sind, d. h. wie sie wirken, materiell produzieren, also wie sie unter bestimmten materiellen und von ihrer Willkür unabhängigen Schranken, Voraussetzungen und Bedingungen tätig sind.” See Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, “Die deutsche Ideologie,” in Marx–Engels–Werke, Band 3 (Berlin: Dietz Verlag Berlin, 1978), 25. The translators are grateful to Sylvia Schroeder for assisting with the translation of this quote.—Trans.
- 20.
Marx and Engels, “German Ideology,” 37.
- 21.
See Marx and Engels, “German Ideology,” 39.
- 22.
See Marx and Engels, “German Ideology,” 42.
- 23.
Kai Nielsen, Marxism and the Moral Point of View—Morality, Ideology and Historical Materialism (New York: Routledge, 1989), 33.
- 24.
Karl Marx, “Introduction to Contribution to Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Law,” in Marx–Engels, Collected Works, vol. 3 (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1975), 182.
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Li, Z. (2023). Theoretical Criticism and the Concept of the Individual. In: The Concept of the Individual in the Thought of Karl Marx. Marx, Engels, and Marxisms. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-22591-8_8
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