Skidmore College Creative Matter Philosophy Faculty Scholarship Philosophy Department 11-2015 Is There Less Bullshit in For Marx than in Reading Capital? William S. Lewis Skidmore College Follow this and additional works at: https://creativematter.skidmore.edu/phil_rel_fac_schol Part of the Philosophy Commons Recommended Citation Lewis, William S., "Is There Less Bullshit in For Marx than in Reading Capital?" (2015). Philosophy Faculty Scholarship. 2. https://creativematter.skidmore.edu/phil_rel_fac_schol/2 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Philosophy Department at Creative Matter. It has been accepted for inclusion in Philosophy Faculty Scholarship by an authorized administrator of Creative Matter. For more information, please contact [email protected]. C Abstract: C R R I This paper explores G. A. Cohen’s claim that Althusser’s Marxist philoso- I S phy is bullshit. This exploration is important because, if we are persuaded S I I Is There Less S by Cohen’s assertion that there are only three types of Marxism: ana- S lytic, pre-analytic, and bullshit and, further, that only analytic Marxism is & & concerned with truth and therefore “uniquely legitimate” then, as political C C R philosophers interested in Marxism’s potential philosophical resources, R I we may wish to privilege its analytic form. However, if Cohen’s attribution I Bullshit in For T T I is misplaced, then we may wish to explore why Cohen was so insistent I Q in this ascription and what this insistence reveals about his own politi- Q U U E cal philosophy. The first half of this paper explains what Cohen means by E bullshit and it examines the distinction between bullshit and non-bullshit Marx then in / / Marxism. The second half explores what the insistent misattribution of Volume 2 / Volume 2 / Issue 2 the epithet “bullshit Marxism” to Althusser’s Marxism reveals about Co- Issue 2 hen’s own Marxist political philosophy. Reading Capital? Keywords: Althusser, G. A. Cohen, bullshit, Marxism, analytic, political, philosophy This paper explores G. A. Cohen’s 1978 claim in the introduction to Karl Marx’s Theory of History [KMTH] that there is more bullshit in Al- thusser’s contribution to Reading Capital [RC] than there is in the essays comprising For Marx [FM].1 This exploration is important because, if we William Lewis are persuaded by Cohen’s claim that there are only three types of Marx- ism: analytic, pre-analytic, and bullshit and, further, that only analytic Marxism is concerned with truth and therefore “uniquely legitimate” then, as Marxist philosophers interested in Althusser’s classic work between 1960-1965, we may wish to privilege FM over RC. 2 This is the case as the former may already be analytic or amenable to analytic correction to an extent that the latter, due to its bullshit quotient, is not. In order to pursue this investigation and to better understand why Cohen identified at least some portion of Althusser’s work as bullshit , we will first examine the scattered references to Althusser and “Althus- serians” that appear throughout Cohen’s writings.3 Second, we will give 1 Cohen, 2000b, p. x. Cohen calls Lire le capital “critically vague,” a description that marks the work as bullshit according to at least one of the criteria that Cohen develops. 2 Cohen, 2000a, pp. xxv–xvi, 2013a, p. 123, 3 Though there are considerable theoretical difference between Althusser and those who 142 Is There Less Bullshit in For Marx then in Reading Capital? 143 Is There Less Bullshit in For Marx then in Reading Capital? an account of what Cohen means when he labels a philosophical argu- C he intended to convey with this phrase and “how one was supposed to go C R R 8 ment “bullshit.” Third, we will apply Cohen’s criteria for bullshit to FM and I about telling whether or not it was true.” The demand was followed by an I Althusser’s contributions to RC to see whether his assertion that FM has S admonition to always cover the “ground rules” in a philosophical argu- S I I more bullshit than RC is true. This done, we should then be in a position S ment, a reproach that Cohen testifies “hit me hard and sunk in deep.” The S to decide whether to privilege FM over RC because of its closer potential internalization of this admonition had the effect of discouraging Cohen & & or actual connection to the truth. thenceforth from “writing…in the fashion of a poet who puts down what C C R sounds good to him and who needn’t defend his lines.” From then on, Co- R I hen shares that he challenged himself to ask of each sentence “precisely I T T Cohen on Althusser I what this sentence contributes to the developing exposition or argument” I Q and he reasoned that it is only “when you practice that sort of…self-criti- Q U U 9 Like the British historian Tony Judt, Cohen found many opportuni- E cism” that you become analytical.” E ties throughout his career to criticize the work of Louis Althusser and of Like many an autobiographical account, this narrative of enchant- / / “Althusserians.” 4 It is also clear that, for both the intellectual historian ment, disenchantment, and growth is a bit too tidy. 10 And, though it tells Volume 2 / Volume 2 / and the political philosopher, there was something in Althusser’s phi- Issue 2 us something about Cohen’s psychological motivation for contrasting Issue 2 losophy (and perhaps the attention paid to it) that was unsupportable and his Marxism to that of Althusser, it is a bit vague on specific criticisms of which both scholars thought must repeatedly be exposed and decried. Althusser’s work. Unfortunately, such criticisms were never made. What While Judt was content to repeatedly invoke the caricature of Althusser we do have, however, are Cohen’s broad characterizations of Althusser’s and Althusserianism first sketched in his book Marxism and the French ideas and methodology as wells as concise judgments about the value of Left, for Cohen, this founding took the dual form of an autobiographical some of these ideas and about some of his specific works. In the following and a philosophical break.5 paragraphs, we will make use of these remarks to detail the reasons given In the autobiographical version of this break, Cohen tells a tale of for the philosophical break with Althusserianism. attraction to Althusserian ideas and recounts his reading of Pour Marx Famously, Cohen wrote in the foreword to KMTH that he was and Lire le Capital in their original French editions in 1968.6 Like the revolu- inspired by Althusser’s Pour Marx, which “persuaded [him] that the abid- tions of that spring, however, this “intoxication” with Althusserian ideas ingly important Marx is to be found in Capital and the writings prepara- was not to last. The first event that Cohen gives as explanation for this tory to it.”11 We also have approbatory remarks from Cohen in the 2002’s falling out was his realization that the “reiterated affirmation of the value “Complete Bullshit” essay about the “Althusserian school” champion- of conceptual rigour was not matched by conceptual rigour in [Althus- ing the idea of a “conceptually rigorous” Marxism.12 This is the extent of serian] intellectual practice.”7 The second experience was an encounter explicitly positive remarks by Cohen on Althusser and Althusserianism. with a “tough American philosopher” who challenged Cohen to explain From the generous remark about FM convincing him of Capital’s primacy exactly what he meant when he said that, “in Marx’s view, the rich capital- in the foreword to KMTH, Cohen proceeds to a disparaging assess- ist’s mistress does not love him because of his money: instead she loves ment of Althusser’s RC as “critically vague” and as an example of “how the money itself.” This philosopher wanted Cohen to explain exactly what call themselves Althusserians, we will stick with the rough grained category suggested by Cohen’s usage where the category “Althusserian” includes the theoretical writings of Althusser and anyone 8 Cohen, 2000a, p. xxii. whose Marxism Althusser’s reading of Marx has profoundly influenced. 9 Cohen, 2000a, p. xxii. 4 Montag, 2013, p. 11. 10 Cohen, 2000a, p. xxii) The encounter with the “tough American philosopher” happened prior 5 Judt, 1986, pp. 221–233; Riley, 2011. to the 1968 publication of (Cohen, 1968) and also prior to Cohen’s reading of FM and RC. 6 Cohen, 2000b, p. xxi. 11 Cohen, 2000b, p. x. 7 Cohen, 2000a, p. xxi. 12 Cohen, 2013a, p. 112. 144 Is There Less Bullshit in For Marx then in Reading Capital? 145 Is There Less Bullshit in For Marx then in Reading Capital? elegantly-and evasively-the French language could be used.”13 Cohen also C Hobbes from 1988-89, Cohen makes explicit and apparently favorable ref- C R R makes a first attempt at a sociology of the profession in this introductory I erences to Althusser’s theories of reading and of scientific development I section when he attributes this vagueness to the fact that “logical posi- S when he remarks that “there is game theory in Hobbes, but in a practical S I I 18 tivism, with its insistence on precision of intellectual commitment, never S untheorized, not made explicit state.” S caught on in Paris.”14 This reference from the late 1980s is the only positive mention & & From general comments about the lack of lucidity of RC and spec- of Althusser in Cohen’s oeuvre after 1978 and, along with the negative C C ulations about the reasons for this obscurity, Cohen passes on in KMTH’s R assessment of structural causality, it is one of the few that explicitly R foreword to a brief discussion of the “doctrinal differences” between I mentions one of Althusser’s methods or concepts.