{"resolved":true,"match_type":"uuid","source_type":"original_book","book_id":"cfa147d3-494e-49cc-b356-7aceff50b181","title":"Marx and the Concept of Historical Time","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":null,"requested_by":"printed_page","book":{"source_type":"original_book","book_id":"cfa147d3-494e-49cc-b356-7aceff50b181","id":"cfa147d3-494e-49cc-b356-7aceff50b181","uuid":"cfa147d3-494e-49cc-b356-7aceff50b181","title":"Marx and the Concept of Historical Time","normalized_title":"marxandtheconceptofhistoricaltime","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":null,"isbns":[],"parsed":true,"ai_readable":true,"document_type":"book","page_count":216,"navigation_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/cfa147d3-494e-49cc-b356-7aceff50b181","title_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/title/Marx%20and%20the%20Concept%20of%20Historical%20Time","fixed_page_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/cfa147d3-494e-49cc-b356-7aceff50b181/page/{printed_page}","path_api_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/book/cfa147d3-494e-49cc-b356-7aceff50b181/page/{printed_page}","read_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/read/cfa147d3-494e-49cc-b356-7aceff50b181","page_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/cfa147d3-494e-49cc-b356-7aceff50b181/page","search_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/cfa147d3-494e-49cc-b356-7aceff50b181/search"},"page":{"printed_page":2,"pdf_page":6,"physical_index":6,"physical_index_base":0,"printed_page_status":"recognized","page_sha256":"f3b73eeace5bc755c04789f1858b54f9648e80deb03119054d252f67dce3e8ed"},"chapter":"Marx and the Concept of Historical Time","content":"The German Ideology, which is to say that this work provides us with the means of thinking a ‘materialist concept of history’. This position is not without its critics (which would possibly include Marx himself, who famously suggested in his preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy that The German Ideology was best left to ‘the gnawing criticism of the mice.’<sup>4</sup>) As Chris Arthur has recently reminded us, the expression ‘a materialist conception of history’ is simply not within the pages of The German Ideology.<sup>5</sup> Marx and Engels speak of ‘practical materialists’, a ‘communist materialist’, the ‘materialist outlook’ [materialistischer Anschauung], a ‘materialist basis’ of historiography, and even their ‘conception of history’ [Geschichtsauffassung], but there is, strictly speaking, no mention of ‘a materialist conception of history’. The actual appearance of the name notwithstanding, this thesis proceeds from the premise that there is a distinctive conception of history – one consistent with ‘the materialist outlook’ – which can be articulated as a concept – a philosophical concept – of history. Hence this thesis ‘agrees’ with Massimiliano Tomba’s assertion that ‘“Historical materialism” as a theory of history or a materialist conception of history does not exist’<sup>6</sup>, not because there is no theory of history or materialist conception of history in The German Ideology, but because Marx and Engels never use the term ‘historical materialism’ in The German Ideology. Indeed, this thesis argues, it is precisely the existence of a materialist concept of history in The German Ideology that destabilises the codified tradition known as ‘Historical Materialism’. This does not mean that The German Ideology presents us with a readymade concept of history. Far from it. As a manuscript, The German Ideology is – to put it bluntly – a mess. And this is not simply because it has been organised in various different ways by various different editors throughout history, such that it is dubious to speak of ‘The German Ideology’ as such.<sup>7</sup> More importantly, The German Ideology is, common to all its historical manifestations, a hodgepodge – a collage – of overlapping political, philosophical, economic and historical insights, characterised by a haphazard mixture of historical and transhistorical claims, which is to say claims specific to a single mode of production (particularly capitalism) and claims meant to be grasped at either the level of all human history to date, or all human history to date and speculatively to come. Added to this is the fact that the reception of The German Ideology has always been dominated by the so-called ‘Feuerbach Chapter’ (in most editions the first chapter), obfuscating the fact that the vast majority of the manuscript is actually a critique of the ‘Young Hegelians’ Bruno Bauer and – most notably – Max Stirner. For Gary Browning, this ‘exclusive focus upon the opening section of The German Ideology…underrates this devotion of attention towards Stirner and neglects the provenance of parts of the opening section in critical reflection upon Stirner.’<sup>8</sup> This thesis is complicit in Browning’s charge: it concentrates exclusively on the socalled ‘Feuerbach Chapter’. But it does so in such a way which demonstrates that a ‘materialist concept of history’ not only exists in The German Ideology, but is of great consequence to the philosophies of history and time alike.\n\nGerman works are modified, the German edition will be cited first, followed by the English language edition in parentheses.\n\n<sup>4</sup> Karl Marx, A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, [1859] (hereafter Contribution), trans. S.W. Ryazanskaya (New York: International Publishers, 1970), 22.\n\n<sup>5</sup> See Arthur’s review of Terrell Carver and Daniel Blank’s Marx and Engels’s “German Ideology” Manuscripts: Presentation and Analysis of the “Feuerbach Chapter” (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), and A Political History of the Editions of Marx and Engels’s “German Ideology” Manuscripts (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), in the online resource Marx and Philosophy Review of Books, http://marxandphilosophy.org.uk/reviewofbooks/reviews/2015/1846 (accessed 1 July 2015).\n\n<sup>6</sup> Massimiliano Tomba, Marx’s Temporalities, trans. Peter D. Thomas and Sara R. Farris (Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2013), vii. Tomba continues: ‘“Historical materialism” is not a passe-partout for the comprehension of history, but a practical mode of intervention into history.’ Ibid. This argument is misleading, because it implicitly suggests that the philosophy of history is essentially indifferent to the ‘practical mode of intervention into history’. It relegates the existence of the materialist concept of history – indeed the concept as such – to ‘passe-partout’ comprehension, to pure thought.\n\n<sup>7</sup> On this point, see again Arthur’s review of Carver and Blank’s work in Marx and Philosophy Review of Books (see footnote 5).\n\n2","previous_page":1,"next_page":3}