Hablar del poder comunista significa estudiar el “poder” como potencia, que esconde, de hecho, una cuestión central que aleja a Marx y a la teoría materialista de las diferentes formas de idealismo político, viejas o nuevas, tanto como aleja a la teoría dialéctica de sus muchos enemigos. Y esta es precisamente la cuestión de la posibilidad, o de la correcta comprensión de la categoría de posibilidad, o la relación entre lo posible y lo imposible, posibilidades materiales y posibilidades meramente (...) subjetivas. Esto nos llevará también a la cuestión de la _contradicción, _la de la organización (como poder comunista en acto), y de la idea de negación determinada, o de la Revolución como “negación de la negación” —que es como Marx se refiere a esta tanto en los _Manuscritos de París _(1980: 164) como en _El Capital _(2013: 535). (shrink)

Los llamados a huir del capitalismo, a “cambiar el mundo sin tomar el poder” y construir inmediatamente un afuera de las relaciones de dominación intrínsecas al primero han capturado de forma efectiva el imaginario político de los movimientos sociales en las últimas décadas. Este artículo pretende criticar lo que llamaré la “ideología de la huida”, presentándola como un ejemplo de falsa alternativa al capitalismo. Me centraré para ello en el análisis crítico de John Holloway y Raúl Zibechi como exponentes teóricos (...) de la misma, y en las llamadas “Escuelas alternativas” como una de sus expresiones prácticas, para después exponer cómo El Capital de Marx contiene una crítica de esta clase de proyectos. Se argumentará, primero, que sus defensores yerran al tratar de ubicar las potencias revolucionarias en un elemento externo al capitalismo, pues este acaba revelándose como una ficción ideológica. Posteriormente se demostrará que los intentos de buscar o construir un “más allá” de las relaciones de producción capitalistas son tan viejos como el propio capitalismo, y que la necesidad de su fracaso viene dictada por la misma naturaleza de este último, para acabar argumentando que la concepción marxiana de la política revolucionaria contiene una alternativa real a la ideología de la huida en todas sus versiones. (shrink)

The concept of living labor in Marx’s Grundrisse represents the key notion that conceptually ties his early theory of alienation with the drafts of Capital of the 1860s. Through a critique of the formalism that opened space for Marx’s economic writings, I explore living labor, not only as alienated within the capital–laborrelation, but as an absolute, metahistorical exteriority. Furthermore, the interpretive writings of Enrique Dussel on the Grundrisse are contrasted with the reading ofMichael Hardt and Antonio Negri to (...) show how living labor can be understood as ethical excess within the framework of biopolitical production. (shrink)

The concept of living labor in Marx’s Grundrisse represents the key notion that conceptually ties his early theory of alienation with the drafts of Capital of the 1860s. Through a critique of the formalism that opened space for Marx’s economic writings, I explore living labor, not only as alienated within the capital–laborrelation, but as an absolute, metahistorical exteriority. Furthermore, the interpretive writings of Enrique Dussel on the Grundrisse are contrasted with the reading ofMichael Hardt and Antonio Negri to (...) show how living labor can be understood as ethical excess within the framework of biopolitical production. (shrink)

At the beginning of the third section of Book II of Capital, Marx distinguishes between the direct process of the production of capital and the total process of its reproduction. The former includes both the work process as well as the value-creating process. As we shall see, the latter includes both the process of consumption mediated by circulation, as well as the process of reproduction of capital itself. In the different forms assumed by capital within its cycle, and even (...) more in the different forms assumed by this cycle, the movement of individual capital turns out to be a part of the total movement of social capital. (shrink)

In his early works, Habermas wants to preserve both, the German idealist notion which gives primacy to self-reflection in the history of the human species, and the Marxist materialist conception that self-reflection is based on the material conditions of existence. ;Such dual preservation cannot be maintained; for the primacy given to self-reflection by German idealism is based on a prior spiritualization of the conditions of reflection. It is precisely with those alienated conditions that Habermas's "neo-Marxism" seeks to limit "materialistically" critical (...) self-reflection. This is a bad overcoming of Hegel, since it preserves the Spirit as alienated otherness. ;However, Habermas's more recent linguistic turn evinces an attempt to ground critical self-reflection by means of a de-historicized anticipation of an ideal speech situation through the formal rules of cogency of speech. ;An atheistic reading of Hegel's conception of life, which regards universal life as "congealed space" or pure positivity, allows for a transition to Marx's practical communism. ;The existential attitudes towards death have as their ontological correlate, the motion of life; that is, historical acts may be regarded as attempts to appropriate objectivity which, as pure positivity, cannot be appropriated in principle, especially after the notion of an all-encompassing transcendental subjectivity, which posits the object as alienated subject, has been rejected. ;In the early Marx, historical and social investigations were limited by the primacy of the subject, the object being subordinated to it. To this extent, he naively remained at the level of ideology, i.e., "lived relations." In this manner, the unconditioned supersensible, in the form of a transcendental subjectivity, clouds the examination of the objective conditions of existence. ;The mature Marx's turn to the object expresses the elimination of the unconditioned, and the concomitant consideration of social reality as the basis of positive and negative ideologies, to the extent that the consciousness of freedom arose from the forced emancipation of consciousness from and by material conditions. (shrink)

Most social scientists and philosophers claim that sociology and philosophy are disjoint fields of inquiry. Some have wondered how to trace the precise boundary between them. Mario Bunge argues that the two fields are so entangled with one another that no demarcation is possible or, indeed, desirable. In fact, sociological research has demonstrably philosophical pre-suppositions. In turn, some findings of sociology are bound to correct or enrich the philosophical theories that deal with the world, our knowledge of it, or (...) the ways of acting upon it. While Bunge's thesis would hardly have shocked Mill, Marx, Durkheim, or Weber, it is alien to the current sociological mainstream and dominant philosophical schools. Bunge demonstrates that philosophical problematics arise in social science research. A fertile philosophy of social science unearths critical presuppositions, analyzes key concepts, refines effective research strategies, crafts coherent and realistic syntheses, and identifies important new problems. Bunge examines Marx's and Durkheim's thesis that social facts are as objective as physical facts; the so-called Thomas theorem that refutes the behaviorist thesis that social agents react to social stimuli rather than to the way we perceive them; and Merton's thesis on the ethos of basic science which shows that science and morality are intertwined. He considers selected philosophical problems raised by contemporary social studies and argues forcefully against tolerance of shabby work in academic social science and philosophy alike. (shrink)

In this newly edited Book XI of Plato’s Republic, to be considered as the authentic conclusion of the dialogue, Socrates meets a Stranger from Trier, and discusses with him the questions of social reform, power and future revolutions.

El objetivo de este artículo es criticar la representación tradicional del trabajo periodístico de Karl Marx, habitualmente olvidado por un canon engañoso que sólo asume sus artículos al precio de convertirlos en una obra menor. Uno de los problemas de esta concepción tradicional es que disocia sus contribuciones teóricas y económicas del desarrollo histórico del pensamiento del autor . Intentaremos señalar la importancia del periodismo maduro de Karl Marx en dos áreas: en la construcción de los conceptos centrales (...) de su crítica contra el capitalismo y en la producción de cartografías políticas para intervenir en el conflicto de clases. Este artículo plantea varias hipótesis y afirmaciones tentativas sobre el periodismo de Karl Marx que pueden servir como punto de partida de una investigación crítica. (shrink)

The following article proposes a change of perspective in the capital-theory debate of political economy. Instead of insisting upon the differences between a Marxian labour theory of value and a Ricardo-Sraffaian theory of prices of production (Marx versus Sraffa) the common basis of the two approaches is stressed. The common basis consists in the paradigm of duality between physical quantities and evaluation standards. The last part of the paper collects sceptical arguments concerning the question of whether the duality paradigm (...) can provide an adequate approach to an analysis of modern technical change. (shrink)

L’interview retrace la carrière universitaire de l’historien Mario Kessler, né en RDA. Il a étudié l’histoire à Iéna et à Leipzig, a rédigé ses thèses de doctorat et de post-doctorat alors qu’il se trouvait encore en RDA, mais a dû trouver sa voie dans un système universitaire entièrement nouveau en 1990. Il y est parvenu sans changer sa position politique de socialiste critique. Grâce à la formation universitaire de sa famille et à sa connaissance de la littérature occidentale, il (...) disposait déjà avant 1989 d’une avance en matière de connaissances, qu’il a pu mettre à profit, par exemple lors de ses nombreux postes de professeur invité et de ses séjours de recherche aux États-Unis. Il n’a jamais oublié ce qu’il devait à ses professeurs et compagnons universitaires de l’Est et de l’Ouest. (shrink)

In his 1985 book on philosophy and atheism, the Canadian thinker Kai Nielsen, a prolific writer on the subject, wonders why the philosophy of religion is ‘so boring’, and concludes that it must be ‘because the case for atheism is so strong that it is difficult to work up much enthusiasm for the topic.’ Indeed, Nielsen even regards most of the contemporary arguments for atheism as little more than ‘mopping up operations after the Enlightenment’ which, on the whole, add little (...) to the socio-anthropological and socio-psychological accounts of religion provided by thinkers like Feuerbach, Marx and Freud, as any ‘reasonable person informed by modernity’ will readily acknowledge. On this view, the answer to Kant's question – ‘What may we hope?’ – does not gesture towards a resurrection and personal immortality, but instead to the death of religious discourse itself: I think, and indeed hope, that God-talk, and religious discourse more generally, is, or at least should be, dying out in the West, or more generally in a world that has felt the force of a Weberian disenchantment of the world. This sense that religious convictions are no longer a live option is something which people who think of themselves as either modernists or post-modernists very often tend to have. (shrink)

(No abstract is available for this citation).

Enrique Dussel's writings span the theology of liberation, critiques of discourse ethics, evaluations of Marx, Levinas, Habermas, and others, but most importantly, the development of a philosophy written from the underside of Eurocentric modernist teleologies, an ethics of the impoverished, and the articulation of a unique Latin American theoretical perspective. This anthology of original articles by U.S. philosophers elucidating Dussel's thought, offers critical analyses from a variety of perspectives, including feminist ones. Also included is an essay by Dussel that (...) responds to these essays. (shrink)

Durante los años 1853 y 1854 surgió una ola de huelgas en varios distritos industriales de Inglaterra, especialmente en los sectores textiles de Lancashire y Manchester. Este ciclo de luchas, que pugnaba principalmente por un aumento de los salarios, fue visto por Ernest Jones y el movimiento Cartista como una oportunidad para organizar una asociación obrera a escala nacional. Karl Marx, que compartía la visión de los cartistas, analizó el movimiento desde el New York Tribune, brindando apoyo a la (...) iniciativa a la que dio lugar: el Parlamento Obrero. A continuación, se ofrece la traducción de cuatro textos periodísticos que Marx publicó en apoyo a la institución obrera –la mayoría inéditos en español–, seguidos de «Las luchas por la organización obrera en la época victoriana (1853-1854)», un estudio crítico sobre el ciclo de huelgas y las expectativas de organización obrera durante aquellos años, donde se defiende que este fallido intento de organización constituye un precedente de la sección británica de la Asociación Internacional de Trabajadores. La traducción y edición de los textos de Marx, y el estudio crítico que los acompaña, han sido realizados por Mario Espinoza Pino (Universidad de Granada). (shrink)

While ancient civilizations worshipped strong, active emotions, modern societies have favored more peaceful attitudes, especially within the democratic process. We have largely forgotten the struggle to make use of _thymos_, the part of the soul that, following Plato, contains spirit, pride, and indignation. Rather, Christianity and psychoanalysis have promoted mutual understanding to overcome conflict. Through unique examples, Peter Sloterdijk, the preeminent posthumanist, argues exactly the opposite, showing how the history of Western civilization can be read as a suppression and return (...) of rage. By way of reinterpreting the _Iliad_, Alexandre Dumas's _Count of Monte Cristo_, and recent Islamic political riots in Paris, Sloterdijk proves the fallacy that rage is an emotion capable of control. Global terrorism and economic frustrations have rendered strong emotions visibly resurgent, and the consequences of violent outbursts will determine international relations for decades to come. To better respond to rage and its complexity, Sloterdijk daringly breaks with entrenched dogma and contructs a new theory for confronting conflict. His approach acknowledges and respects the proper place of rage and channels it into productive political struggle. (shrink)

Between the 1960s and the 1970s, Marxism reached its maximum success in Italy, but that phase also corresponded to the crisis of the Italian Communist Party’s cultural hegemony, challenged by both the attacks coming from the New Left and innovative readings of Marx’s works. Marxist historicism, on which the Italian Communist Party had based its cultural policy after the the Second World War, consequently suffered heavy attacks. This article illuminates one of the responses to historicism’s decline, providing an account (...) of the book series La Scienza Nuova, issued by the publishing house Dedalo in Bari and edited by the communist intellectual Mario Spinella, who was able to remain loyal to his party demonstrating, at the same time, cultural autonomy. Also grounding on archival documents, the article posits that Spinella’s aim was to attract New Left readers by selecting books on topics and by authors that were in fashion in Italy and abroad, but incorporating them into a theoretical framework based on Marxist historicism, in order to preserve the latter in an evolving cultural environment. (shrink)

This article considers the engagement of Mario Tronti - one of the leading figures of classical Italian workerism [operaismo] - with the thought of Max Weber. Weber constituted one of Tronti’s most important cattivi maestri. By analysing Weber’s influence upon Tronti’s development, this article aims to show the ways in which this encounter affected his Marxism and political theory in general. In particular, during the period of the debate in Italian Marxism about the thesis of the autonomy of the (...) political, Tronti increasingly adopted Weberian terminology and theoretical points of reference. Ultimately, the article argues that Tronti’s heretical method led him to incorporate and to re-propose theoretical and political problematics that are characteristic of bourgeois political theory: namely, the dyad administration/charisma, and a teleological and anthropological approach to history. Focusing upon this heterodox encounter therefore enables us to understand one of the trajectories of the transformation of Marxism that occurred during its recurrent rendezvous with the ‘Marx of the bourgeoisie’. (shrink)

pt. I. Matter: 1. Philosophy as worldview ; 2. Classical matter: bodies and fields ; 3. Quantum matter: weird but real ; 4. General concept of matter: to be is to become ; 5. Emergence and levels ; 6. Naturalism ; 7. Materialism -- pt. II. Mind: 8. The mind-body problem ; 9. Minding matter: the plastic brain ; 10. Mind and society ; 11. Cognition, consciousness, and free will ; 12. Brain and computer: the hardware/software dualism ; 13. Knowledge: (...) genuine and bogus -- pt. III. Appendices: 14. Appendix A: Objects ; 15. Appendix B. Truths. (shrink)

É bastante conhecida a interrogação do filósofo Immanuel Kant a respeito da possibilidade ou não de se ensinar filosofia. Partindo-se da premissa de que não é possível dissociar a filosofia de seu ensino, este artigo se propôs a responder a seguinte questão: de que maneira a Revista Digital de Ensino de Filosofia (ReFiLo) contribui para o debate e o fortalecimento da educação filosófica no Brasil? Para responder a esta pergunta, realizou-se uma pesquisa de natureza qualitativa e quantitativa, adotando-se a pesquisa (...) bibliométrica para caracterizar a produção científica publicada pela revista entre 2015 e 2021. Os resultados do estudo indicaram que a ReFiLo difundiu 116 publicações, as quais 76% referem-se a artigos de periódicos científicos. Os dados revelaram, ainda, que essas publicações foram produzidas por 155 filósofos e filósofas da educação com formações acadêmicas variadas, especialmente nas áreas de filosofia e educação. Os resultados mostraram, também, que a pesquisa bibliográfica e a documental foram as mais utilizadas na construção dos trabalhos publicados pela ReFiLo. As 116 publicações geraram um total de 217 palavras-chave, que representaram o conteúdo filosófico-educacional dos trabalhos comunicados. Por fim, os dados sinalizaram que as 116 publicações foram escritas, sustentando-se teórica e metodologicamente, em 1.011 obras. Esta pesquisa concluiu que a ReFiLo se caracteriza por ser um periódico filosófico-educacional aberto e democrático que recepciona, avalia e publica reflexões sobre a educação filosófica produzida por autores/as com diferentes capitais filosófico-educacionais acumulados e que promovem os movimentos de resistências para manter a filosofia viva nos currículos escolares. (shrink)

It is generally argued that if the wave-function in the de Broglie–Bohm theory is a physical field, it must be a field in configuration space. Nevertheless, it is possible to interpret the wave-function as a multi-field in three-dimensional space. This approach hasn’t received the attention yet it really deserves. The aim of this paper is threefold: first, we show that the wave-function is naturally and straightforwardly construed as a multi-field; second, we show why this interpretation is superior to other interpretations (...) discussed in the literature; third, we clarify common misconceptions. (shrink)

Let R be an o-minimal expansion of an ordered group R has no poles, R cannot define a real closed field with domain R and order R is eventually linear and every R -definable set is a finite union of cones. As a corollary we get that Th has quantifier elimination and universal axiomatization in the language with symbols for the ordered group operations, bounded R -definable sets and a symbol for each definable endomorphism of the group.

Suppose G is a definably connected, definable group in an o-minimal expansion of an ordered group. We show that the o-minimal universal covering homomorphism equation image: equation image→ G is a locally definable covering homomorphism and π1 is isomorphic to the o-minimal fundamental group π of G defined using locally definable covering homomorphisms.

I want to combine two hitherto largely independent research projects, scientific understanding and mechanistic explanations. Understanding is not only achieved by answering why-questions, that is, by providing scientific explanations, but also by answering what-questions, that is, by providing what I call scientific descriptions. Based on this distinction, I develop three forms of understanding: understanding-what, understanding-why, and understanding-how. I argue that understanding-how is a particularly deep form of understanding, because it is based on mechanistic explanations, which answer why something happens in (...) virtue of what it is made of. I apply the three forms of understanding to two case studies: first, to the historical development of thermodynamics and, second, to the differences between the Clausius and the Boltzmann entropy in explaining thermodynamic processes. (shrink)