Marxian Totality

Inverting Hegel to Expound Worldly Matters
Erscheinungsjahr 2024
ISBN: 978-90-04-70396-4
Verlag: Brill

Buch, Englisch, Band 322, 204 Seiten, Format (B × H): 155 mm x 161 mm, Gewicht: 18275 g

Reihe: Historical Materialism Book Series

The present volume represents the first book-length monograph on the Marxian concept of totality as seen from a philosophical and sociopolitical perspective. Drawing on a large number of classical and contemporary works, Boveiri elucidates the distinctive features of Marxian totality with a particular focus on its methodology. The work has four fundamental elements, or moments. First, it develops arguments against undialectical conceptions of totality. Then it presents a critical reading of Hegelian totality focused on The Science of Logic. Its penultimate section examines the shortcomings of two well-known conceptions of totality, one by Georg Lukács, another by Karel Kosík, before a final section examines in detail the developmental characteristics of Marxian totality. The volume concludes with a chapter dealing with methodological implications.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Boveiri, Kaveh

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Politische Ideologien Marxismus, Kommunismus

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Acknowledgements

Prologue

1 Two Misconceptions of Totality

1 The Atomist-Rationalist Conception of Totality

2 The Organicist and Organicist-Dynamic Conception of Totality

3 Conclusion

2 On Hegel’s Totality

1 Totality in the Doctrine of Being

2 Totality in the Doctrine of Essence

3 Totality in the Doctrine of Notion

4 Conclusion

3 On Lukács’s Totality

1 Conclusion

4 On Kosík’s Totality

1 Totality: Concrete and Pseudo-concrete

2 Totality and Objectivity

3 Objekt-Gegenstand: Marx’s Distinction

4 Objectivity in Kosík: Conceptual-Lexical Discussion and Its Implications

5 Praxis, Labour, Care, and Totality

6 History and Totality

7 Factor Theory, System, Structure, and Totality

8 Criticism of Kosík

9 Conclusion

5 Marxian Totality Seen through His Works

A Note on the Difficulty and the Strategy Adopted

1 Prelude – The Poem and the Letter to His Father: Marx, a Diver in Search of the Sache selbst in Life in the Street

2 Marx in the Laboratory: Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844

3 Prototype-Genesis: Totality in the German Ideology and the ‘Theses on Feuerbach’

4 Totality in Oscillation: The Grundrisse

5 Totality in Categorial Movement: Capital

6 Conclusion

6 The Relationship between the Grundrisse and Capital and between the Method of Enquiry and the Method of Exposition

1 The Roots of the Thesis of a Rupture in Marx’s Works

2 The Idea of a Rupture between the Grundrisse and Capital

3 The Alternative Reading

4 Conclusion

Epilogue

Appendix1: Rereading of a Passage from the French Edition of First Volume of Capital Edited by Marx

Appendix2: Some Passages of CapitalIII, in Original and in Translation, for Further Verification

Appendix3: Note on Translation

Bibliography

Index

Über Autor(innen)

Kaveh Boveiri, Ph.D. (2019), Université de Montréal, is a lecturer in sociology at the department of Sociology of the Université de Montréal and at the department of management of HEC-Montréal. He has edited three books and published and translated many articles in English, French, German and Farsi.