The Gramscian Moment: Philosophy, Hegemony and Marxism

Erscheinungsjahr 2009
ISBN: 978-90-04-16771-1
Verlag: Brill

Buch, Englisch, Band 24, 478 Seiten, Format (B × H): 160 mm x 240 mm, Gewicht: 962 g

Reihe: Historical Materialism Book

Antonio Gramsci's Prison Notebooks are today acknowledged as a classic of the human and social sciences in the twentieth century. The influence of his thought in numerous fields of scholarship is only exceeded by the diverse interpretations and readings to which it has been subjected, resulting in often contradictory 'images of Gramsci'. This book draws on the rich recent season of Gramscian philological studies in order to argue that the true significance of Gramsci's thought consists in its distinctive position in the development of the Marxist tradition. Providing a detailed reconsideration of Gramsci's theory of the state and concept of philosophy, The 'Gramscian moment' argues for the urgent necessity of taking up the challenge of developing a 'philosophy of praxis' as a vital element in the contemporary revitalisation of Marxism.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Thomas, Peter

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Politikwissenschaft Allgemein Politische Theorie, Politische Philosophie
• Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Sozialphilosophie, Politische Philosophie
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Kultur- und Ideengeschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Geschichte der Westlichen Philosophie Westliche Philosophie: 20./21. Jahrhundert
• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Politische Ideologien Marxismus, Kommunismus

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Acknowledgements
A Note on the Text
Preface

Chapter One The Moment of Reading ‘Capital’
1.1. ‘I can only think of Gramsci…’
1.2. Reading ‘Capital’ in its moment
1.3. ‘The last great theoretical debate of Marxism’
1.4. Marxist philosophy
1.5. The Althusserian and Gramscian moments
1.6. Philosophy, hegemony and the state: ‘metaphysical event’ and ‘philosophical fact’

Chapter Two Antinomies of Antonio Gramsci?
2.1. Incompletion and reconstruction
2.2. A theoretical toolbox?
2.3. ‘Antinomies of Antonio Gramsci’
2.4. 1+1=3
2.5. Detours via detours
2.6. The emergence of hegemony…
2.7. …and its deformation
2.8. Three versions of hegemony in the West
2.9. Political society + civil society = state
2.10. Shadows of Croce
2.11. East and West, past and present
2.12. Antinomies of the united front
2.13. The spectre of Kautsky
2.14. A labyrinth within a labyrinth?

Chapter Three ‘A Riddle Wrapped in a Mystery inside an Enigma’? On the Literary Form of the Prison Notebooks
3.1. Traces of the past
3.2. Code language
3.3. Hieroglyphs
3.3.1. ‘Für ewig’
3.4. Incompletion: a work in progress
3.5. An unfinished dialogue
3.6. An Ariadne’s thread

Chapter Four Contra the Passive Revolution
4.1. The ‘integral state’
4.2. The long nineteenth century
4.3. The birth of civil society
4.4. Passive revolution
4.5. War of position
4.6. ‘War of position’ versus ‘war of movement’
4.7. Two phases of passive revolution
4.8. Duration versus historical epoch
4.9. Crisis of authority
4.10. Modernity as passive revolution?

Chapter Five Civil and Political Hegemony
5.1. Consent versus coercion
5.1.1. ‘Political leadership becomes an aspect of domination’
5.1.2. The ‘dual perspective’
5.2. Civil society versus the state

Chapter Six ‘The Realisation of Hegemony’
6.1. West versus East
6.2. Hegemony, bourgeois and proletarian
6.3. Actuality of the united front

Chapter Seven ‘The Philosophy of Praxis is the Absolute “Historicism”’
7.1. ‘The absolute “historicism”’
7.2. Two critiques: liquidation and dilution
7.3. Ideology sive philosophy
7.4. Towards a philosophy of praxis

Chapter Eight ‘The Absolute Secularisation and Earthliness of Thought’
8.1. Althusserian science
8.2. Traces of immanence
8.3. Gramsci: linguist
8.4. Why immanence?
8.5. Gramsci: economist
8.6. Immanence = theory
8.7. The identity of theory and practice

Chapter Nine ‘An Absolute Humanism of History’
9.1. The humanist controversy
9.2. Humanism, hegemony and intellectuals
9.3. Organic and traditional intellectuals
9.4. Renaissance humanism
9.5. Philosophos sive politicus
9.6. The ‘modern Prince’ and apparatus of proletarian hegemony as ‘philosophical fact’

Chapter Ten Marxism and Philosophy: Today

References
Index

Über Autor(innen)

Peter D. Thomas (Ph.D, 2008) studied at the University of Queensland, Freie Universität Berlin, L’Università “Federico II”, Naples, and the Universiteit van Amsterdam. He has published widely on Marxist political theory and philosophy. He is a member of the editorial board of the journal Historical Materialism: Research in Critical Marxist Theory