Re: [OPE] Bhaskar as Marx's method?

On 2011-02-10 18:48, Jurriaan Bendien wrote:
> I am very wel aware that, in the words of your favourite elite philosopher
> Althusser "there is no innocent reading". [...]
>
> This includes Althusser himself, incidentally, who - as Scott Hamilton
> notes - admitted in his autobiography The Future Lasts A Long Time that he
> never read most of Marx, let alone Hegel; got his best ideas by
> 'eavesdropping' on graduate students in university cafeterias; and invented
> some of the quotes and references in his most famous works. In fact, the
> "heroes" of the Left all turn out to be very dubious weirdos on closer
> inspection, who don't really have much knowledge of Marx at all. I am
> supposed to respect these people even though they are a bunch of quacks and
> charlatans!

To clarify one thing: I do not consider myself to be an Althusserian.
I'm very sympathetic to Ellen Meiksins Wood's critique of the
methodology of Althusserians such as Poulantzas; it is far superior to
the rant above. And surprise, her critique makes no reference to their
faithfulness to Marx but their qualities as historical materialists.

That said, I'm influenced by two key works by Althusserians because they
open up inquiry in a fruitful direction:

    Etienne Balibar, 'The Basic Concepts of Historical Materialism'
    Louis Althusser, 'Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses'

//Dave Z
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Received on Thu Feb 10 13:35:11 2011