Karl Marx’s Political Epistemology Subjectivity, abstraction and the state in the writings o f the early 1840s James Martin Mclvor Government Department London School of Economics and Political Science University of London Submitted for Examination for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy, University of London. March 2004 1 UMI Number: U615251 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Dissertation Publishing UMI U615251 Published by ProQuest LLC 2014. Copyright in the Dissertation held by the Author. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest LLC 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 Th£S £S F Abstract This study of Karl Marx’s pre-1844 writings argues that the crucial link between his ‘mature’ social theory and preceding philosophical traditions lies in the elaboration in these early texts of what is here termed a ‘political epistemology’. This can be summarised as a critique of laws and social institutions which treats them as human beings’ operative conceptualisations of their practical interdependence. It is on the basis of this implicit equation that Marx transposes the terms of German Idealist investigations of consciousness and knowledge into an original analysis of political power and social conflict The historical and philosophical background to this idea of a ‘political epistemology’ is sketched through a consideration of the neo-Scholastic rationalism of the eighteenth century, the critical idealism of Kant, and the post-Kantian idealism of Fichte, Schelling and Hegel. Marx’s student writings provide evidence of the importance of key post-Kantian themes and problems in shaping his early intellectual outlook. Marx’s political journalism of 1842-3 takes forward these epistemological issues into an engagement with the social antagonisms ofVormar\ Prussia. Finally, Marx’s 1843 critique of Hegel is re-interpreted, not as an outright rejection of the post-Kantian project, but as an attempt to refound it upon new ground, with the aim of realising more adequately its original principle of understanding human experience and activity as radically self­ determining. In conclusion it is proposed that a reading of Marx that attends carefully to his redeployment of post-Kantian arguments will help us to make clearer sense of the complex theorisations of society, history, and economy developed in his later writings. Such an interpretation suggests that Marx’s central concern remains one of realising a self-conscious and self-determining collective agency in society, and an epistemologically informed diagnosis of the unbridgeable oppositions and illusory misrecognitions that result from the obstruction of this practical goal. 2 Author’s declaration I declare that the work presented in this thesis is mine alone. Signed James Martin Mclvor 3 Acknowledgements The main part of the research upon which this thesis is based was made possible by a three year postgraduate studentship awarded by the British Academy (latterly the Arts and Humanities Research Board). I owe a debt to Professor John Charvet which goes a long way beyond his supervision of the bulk of the research and writing contained in this thesis. It was his course in political philosophy which fed my interest in the subject as an undergraduate, and it was also his encouragement which led me to pursue that interest at postgraduate level. He then came to my rescue when my initial supervisor moved on, a year into my research. Through subsequent years his guidance was supportive, appropriately sceptical, and always wise. I am very grate fill for it. Dr Diemut Bubeck played a crucial role in supporting my transition from Master’s to PhD level, advised on my initial research proposal and supervised the first year of work. Without her I would not have started this project, nor I suspect would I ever have reached the end were it not for her judicious steers in its early stages. Dr Paul Kelly and Professor Rodney Barker were Advisors on my research at different stages and were the source of many valuable comments and suggestions, in this formal capacity and at other times. Dr Michael Rosen and Dr Andrew Chitty very kindly agreed to discuss some of my ideas with me at a time when I was looking for more specialised advice. Their comments were as lucid and insightful as their published work had led me to expect. Many others have made invaluable contributions to my efforts, sometimes by responding direcdy to papers or presentations, sometimes more unwittingly, in exchanges about related subjects and issues. These include Michael Bacon, Sebastian Budgen, Tony Burns, Terrell Carver, David Casde, Cecile Fabre, Cillian McBride, David Palfrey, Jorgo Riss, Justin Rosenberg, Alan Ryan, and Larry Wilde. I want especially to express my appreciation to Philip Cook, whose intellectual companionship and shared enthusiasms will always be one of my best memories of the years spent on this thesis. I am also grateful to those friends and colleagues who provided healthy distractions from lonely research at various points over the years, but who generously and without complaint allowed me the time and space to finish it when it was time to do so: Hilary Wainwright; my fellow editors at Historical Materialism; and everyone at Catalyst, especially John Underwood and Mark Donoghue. Theba Islam and Benjamin Smith are both inspirational friends who taught me to find ways of doing the things I wanted to do. I would like to dedicate this thesis to my mother and father, Elizabeth Hargest and James Mclvor, for being wonderful parents; and to Claire Moon, who inverted my world, and set me on my feet. 4 Table of Contents INTRODUCTION ......................................................................................................... 8 1. Missed connections: Karl Marx and political philosophy............................................. 8 2. The idea of a political epistemology............................................................................. 13 3. ‘Marx before Marxism’.....................................................................................................18 The canonical accounts ..................................................................................................18 The ‘mythology of docrines\.......................................................................................... 21 The ‘tacit dimension .................................................................................................. 24 The young Marx and ‘philosophy ...............................................................................25 Theyoung M arx and ‘politics*. .................................................................................. 27 4. Organisation of the thesis.............................................................................................. 31 5. A note on translations......................................................................................................34 CHAPTER ONE: EPISTEMOLOGY AND THE STATE................................................................... .36 1. Natural law and the sceptical challenge ..........................................................................37 2. Enlightened absolutism and the Leibniz-Wolffian philosophy....................................41 3. Kant’s Copemican revolution......................................................................................... 50 The two sources of human knowledge........................................................................... 50 The structures of rational ageny .................................................................................. 56 Deducing the Rechtsstaat ............................................................................................ 60 CHAPTER TWO: REVOLUTION UNFINISHED?............................................................................... 67 1. The ‘determinate and express principle of Idealism’ .....................................................68 2. ‘Kant’s way out of Kant’..................................................................................................71 3. The immorality o f‘morality’............................................................................................83 4. The state of the Understanding .................................................................................... 90 5. Beyond Reflection............................................................................................................98 CHAPTER T H R E E : MARX’S STU D EN T W RITINGS, BERLIN 1837-41.............................................. 102 5 CONTENTS 1. Law and philosophy.........................................................................................................102 2. Epicurean atomism: objectifying the contradiction.................................................... 110 Hegel's history of atomism.......................................................................................... 112 Marx's correction.........................................................................................................115 3. Religion and self-consciousness...................................................................................