[OPE-L:4071] Re: Althusser query

Paul Zarembka (zarembka@acsu.buffalo.edu)
Mon, 27 Jan 1997 20:34:08 -0800 (PST)

[ show plain text ]

I suspect the assertion about Althusser is bogus, since Althusser made a
big deal about the necessity of not just reading Capital carefully, but
reading it several times and going back to the German original. I looked
over the autobiography a couple of years ago and didn't notice any such
statement (but I didn't read it all).

I think the other list referred to is Marxism-International and I saw the
posting and just deleted it.

Paul

*************************************************************************
Paul Zarembka, supporting the RESEARCH IN POLITICAL ECONOMY Web site at
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/PZarembka, and using OS/2 Warp.
*************************************************************************

On Mon, 27 Jan 1997, Gerald Levy wrote:

> On another list someone claimed that Louis Althusser admitted in his
> autobiography that he hadn't completely read _Capital_ at the time that he
> taught a course on that subject and when he co-authored _Reading Capital_.
> It was further claimed that he said that he eventually finished reading
> all of VI, but never read the whole of VII and VIII.
>
> I haven't read Althusser's autobiography so I wonder: how much of the
> above is true?
>
> Can anyone remember any other instances of people teaching and writing
> about _Capital_ without having read it?
>
> In solidarity, Jerry
>