Vittorio Morfino Althusser as Reader of Gramsci Abstract: The article reconstructs the and developments of Althusserian theory as on complex relation between Althusser and Gramsci. a negative image: from For Marx to Reading Considering both published and unpublished Capital, from ‘Ideology and Ideological State writings, the article argues that this relation is Apparatuses’ to the texts on the crisis of Marx- profoundly ambivalent: on the one hand, Gramsci ism, Althusser never ceases to define his own is considered the sole precursor in the Marxist position in relation to Gramsci. However, if we tradition who tried to think the superstructure, consider the posthumously published texts and and particularly politics; on the other hand, he documents held in the IMEC Archive, we receive is the paradigm of a conception of temporality an even stronger impression. From the early and politics from which Althusser wants to take 1960s onward, we find a large number of extracts distance. and notes (drawn from the Notes on Machiavelli, Gramsci’s Selected Writings, Historical Mate- Keywords: Gramsci, Historical time, rialism and the Philosophy of Benedetto Croce, Ideology, Hegemony, Force. and the critical edition of the Quaderni), a pro- jected article for Rinascita, the final chapter on Resumen: Este artículo reconstruye la hegemony in Marx in His Limits, and finally a compleja relación entre Gramsci y Althusser. text with the title What is to Be Done?, which is Considerando tanto trabajos publicados como entirely dedicated to Gramsci. inéditos, este artículo argumenta que esta With respect to this layered confrontation, relación es profundamente ambivalente: por un it is helpful to establish some schematic points: lado, Gramsci es considerado el precursor único First, Althusser’s encounter with Gramsci en la tradición marxista que trató de pensar la in the summer of 1961 also carries an encounter superestructura, y particularmente la política; with Machiavelli, which makes it such that the por otro, es el paradigma de la concepción de two authors are constantly thought in one another, temporalidad y política de las cuales Althusser the one through the other. quiere distanciarse. Second, there is a strong ambivalence in Althusser’s judgment towards Gramsci. On the Palabras clave: Gramsci, Tiempo histórico, one hand, he is considered the sole precursor in Ideología, Hegemonía, Poder. the Marxist tradition who tried to think the super- structure, and particularly politics. On the other hand, Gramsci is the paradigm of a conception Among the authors whom Althusser con- of temporality and politics from which to take fronts while working out his theory, Gramsci is distance. probably the most constantly present. From the Third, in terms of taking distance, two tem- beginning of the 1960s through the 1970s, his ref- porally distinct phases must be highlighted. Start- erences to Gramsci, either recognitions of debt or ing with a critique of the misrecognition of the distances taken, allow us to identify the contours specificity of the status of science in general and Rev. Filosofía Univ. Costa Rica, LVIII (152), 15-27, Setiembre-Diciembre 2019 / ISSN: 0034-8252 Esta obra está bajo una Licencia Creative Commons Atribución-NoComercial-SinDerivadas 3.0 Costa Rica 16 VITTORIO MORFINO the science of history in particular, typified by very important theme, in G. and in itself. the second half of the 1960s, Althusser passes, That any new progress of productive forces through the end of the 1970s, to a critique of the and the mode of production supposes new concept of hegemony in which class domination attitudes towards labor, and, through these would be lost. new technical attitudes, a whole upheaval of the existing mode of life. [...] The essen- tial idea of G. is that to create these new 1. The Encounter with Gramsci habits of life, this new way of life ordered according to new content of the division of labor, it is necessary to make violence Althusser’s encounter with Gramsci took to nature– i.e., the old disciplines become place at the beginning of the 1960s. In a letter ‘nature and correspond to the old mode of to Franca Madonia dated 28 November 1961, production–, this violence, this training, are Althusser refers to a letter from the previous inevitable –all of human history is consid- summer that he sent to Bertinoro (Althusser, ered from this point of view as a training 1998b, 122). This earlier letter bears witness to for animality, if it can never be heard of... several pages of extracts and typewritten notes Incredible violence most often. Which sup- preserved in a dossier ‘Gramsci sur Machiavel poses, this violence, a coercion character- (renvoi au texte italien).’ Here Althusser carefully ized, and organized [...] (24) notes the essential features of Gramsci’s reading of Machiavelli, probably in view of the course he will dedicate to the latter thinker in 1962 2. From ‘Contradiction and (Althusser 2006a, 193-254). However, along the Overdetermination’ to way, his attention is also drawn to other themes. ‘The Object of Capital’ For example, a passage of Gramsci’s on ideol- ogy that he translates (p. 294 Does not conceive Althusser’s first approach to Gramsci is fol- ideology as something artificial and mechanical lowed by two public, antithetical positions, the (like a coat on the skin), conceives of it as ‘skin first in the essay ‘Contradiction and Overdetermi- that is produced organically’ by the entire animal nation,’ published in La Pensée in December 1962 organism’) (ALT2. A31-05.06, 20.); or a page (and then in 1965 in For Marx) and the second, (128) on the educative function of the state in famously, in ‘The Object of Capital’ in 1965. relation to the masses, carried out positively by In ‘Contradiction and Overdetermination,’ the school and repressively by the courts, but Althusser argues that Marxist philosophy is nei- also, ‘a multitude of other initiatives aim to this ther the object of an inversion [renversement] end, other so-called private activities, which form nor the object of an extraction. Instead, Marxist the basis of the political and cultural hegemony philosophy is a matter of thinking ‘the trans- 1 of the dominant classes,’ (14 ) which Althusser formation of its [TN: the Hegelian dialectic] comments on as follows: structures’ (Althusser, 2005, 55). In this frame- work, revolution cannot be thought through the Important idea of Gramsci: that the state category of simple contradiction; it is the product is not reducible to the state apparatus, but includes all kinds of other forms of pressure of an accumulation of partially heterogenous etc. that the state is political society + civil contradictions, ‘which do not all have the same society = armored hegemony of coercion (p. origin, the same sense, nor the same level or point 132)/// G. against the identification of state of application, but which nevertheless ‘merge’ and government. /// (p. 16) into a ruptural unity’ (2005, 62, trans. mod.). The concept of overdetermination allows the Russian Finally, he takes note of some of Gramsci’s revolution to be thought not as the exception to reflections in a section on ‘Animality and Indus- the rule of simple contradiction, but precisely as trialism’ on pages 326–329 and comments: the rule of the rule. Rev. Filosofía Univ. Costa Rica, LVIII (152), 15-27, Setiembre-Diciembre 2019 / ISSN: 0034-8252 ALTHUSSER AS READER OF GRAMSCI 17 The basic notion [is] that the Capital-Labour a remarkable example of a theoretical solu- contradiction is never simple, but always tion in outline to the problems of the specified by historically concrete forms and interpenetration of the economic and the circumstances in which it is exercised. It is political. Unfortunately, at least as far as specified by the forms of the superstructure France is concerned, who has taken up [...]; specified by the internal and external and followed through Gramsci’s theoretical historical situation which determines it on effort? (2005, 77, fn. 29) the one hand as a function of the national past [...] and on the other as functions of the Thus in 1962, Althusser considers Gramsci existing world context. (2005, 68-69) the only Marxist author who has opened the path on which he is attempting to advance; in Althusser’s reference to Gramsci here is particular, the concept of hegemony makes it still implicit, expressed in the need to establish possible to rigorously think (Althusser uses the the concept of overdetermined contradiction in strong expression ‘theoretical solution in outline a Marxist conception of history that is not the [esquisse de solution théorique]’) the relation of simple inversion [renversement] of the Hege- the economic and the political without forcing it lian conception, but its radical transformation. into the essence-phenomenon relation. In 1965, at The concepts of mode of production and social the height of the seminar on Capital, things will class in fact change the concepts of civil society already have greatly changed, probably as a result and state, as well as their relation. Rather than of a deeper knowledge of Italian Marxism. a ‘tacit identity (phenomenon-essence-truth- The announcement of this change is located op...) of the economic and the political,’ it is in two series of excerpts which are likely dat- a ‘relation between the determinant instances able to when Althusser was preparing for the in the structure-superstructure complex which seminar. The first series considers some extracts constitutes the essence of any social formation’ from Gramsci’s Selected Works, which Althusser (2005, 74). titles ‘selected morsels [morceaux choisis] (17) Althusser uses Gramsci to intervene with sq’ (ALT2.A57-01.03).2 It is made up of a few regard to the theory of the specific efficacy of the extracts from pages 17-45, which take as their elements of the superstructure and their essence: object the Gramscian concept of philosophy as a unitary and coherent conception of the world in Like the map of Africa before the great explorations, this theory remains a realm its relation to religion, common sense, intellectu- sketched in outline, with its great mountain als, the masses, ideology, and politics.