REUIEWS - Radical Philosophy Archive

person in question belongs to the party ofthe exploiters." In philosophy, too, indifferentcannot mean anything but satisfied. This isthe real significance of abstention.(pp45-6) .Nizan shares Lenin's uncompromising and starkview of the situation: for them there are only twosides: the side of the oppressed and the side of theoppressors. And Nizan argues that when one looks atthe real effects, as opposed to merely the intentions,of bourgeois academic philosophy, it is apparent thatsuch philosophy very definitely takes sides. Theacademic philosophy that Nizan is talking about, andthe academic philosophy of our own time and place,is of no use to the oppressed. In fact, it ispositively a hindrance to them, for it obscures andhides the very features of existence which theoppressed, in their struggle against oppression, mustbring to consciousness. (4)Man - would embrace the philosophy of theirmentor.(pI06)Furthermore, the effects of the academic'sphilosophy do not stop with students inside theuniversity; but via these students and ojheTreadersetc academic philosophy is disseminateamore widely.The ideas which are worked out and refined byacademic philosophers are subsequently simplified,crudified and assimilated ultimately even into contemporary 'common sense' (5). The ideas ofacademic philosophers, thus worked upon, are used inall branches of ideology: they appear in the pronouncements of politicians, in th newspapers and on TV, inmoral and scientific thought - in every area of life.The process may be briefly described asfollows: a group of philosophers, occupyingthe top positions in the University hierarchy,produces groups of ideas. These ideas are theraw material worked up in the University.They pass through a number of differentworkshops where they are reshaped, polishedand simplified - or, to be more precise, wherethey are vulgarised and made fit for publicconsumption.The great anonymous mass of human beings undoubtedly have a real need for a philosophy- that is, for a consistent world-view and abody of guiding principles and clearly definedaims - this mass is effectively deprived by thebourgeois{e of any ideological material whichmight prove relevant to their existences.(pI08)(pp84-5)Just because of this 'irrelevance', academicphilosophy fails to-attend to the real conditions ofsocial existence and thus tends to describe theworld in idealised terms - ignoring the needs, thealienation and the misery which are the real factsof oppression. And by portraying the world in thisone-sided way, academic philosophy idealises theworld and thus has the effect of justifying theestablished order:Thus, the supreme function of bourgeoisphilosophy is to obscure the miseries ofcontemporary reality: the spiritual destitution of vast numbers of men and theincreasingly intolerable disparity between whatthey could achieve and what little they actuallyaccomplished. This philosophy conceals thetrue nature of bourgeois rule It mystifiesthe victims of the bourgeois regime It headsthem into culs-de-sac where their rebelliausinstincts will be extinguished. It is thefaithful servant of that social class which isthe cause of all the degradation in the worldtoday, the very class to which the philosophersthemselves belong.(p91)But is this academic philosophy worth botheringabout? It seems to be an utterly trivial, esotericand absurd pass-time of a small handful of professionalphilosophy academics - it seems a harmless enoughthing. Again, however, Nizan insists that we lookat the actual phenomenon of academic philosophy inits real context. Then we see that philosophy is notjust a pass-time for academics - it has definite andreal effects upon others.As regards philosophy, this process is much moreclearly at work in France, where state control ofeducation is more centralised and direct than in thiscountry, and where philosophy is a part of the statecontrolled secondary school curriculum. But eventhough philosophy as such is not taught in schools inthis country, and even though philosophy as such playsa smaller role in the wider culture here, it would bewrong to think that the ideas of academic philosophershave no effects outside the universities. Althoughit is less apparent, much the same process is at workhere as in France.Indeed, as a teacher I have been struck by thefact that the students I teach have already formed adefinite and surprisingly uniform philosophy beforethey arrive at university. They come to universitywith a homogeneous positivistic empiricist and liberalindividualist view, albeit often unconsciously.Thus Nizan argues that academic philosophy isnot merely an esoteric pass-time, it also has anexoteric form in which it ds disseminated to the massof the people.Just because academic philosophy is not as itappears to be, it is worth attacking. Just becauseit is not about mere 'concepts' but about reality;and just because what it says about reality is not'detached' and 'neutral' as it pretends, but servesto justify the established order; and just becauseacademic philosophy is not absurd and pointless gameswith words but in fact has real and important socialeffects - just because academic philosophy is not asit first appears, it is worthwhile and even necessaryto attack it.This philosophy is not dead. But it must bekilled. For a philosophy does not voluntarilybow out of existence, any more than a regimedies until it is attacked. A new philosophydoes not triumph until its predecessor has beendestroyed, but a considerable effort is requiredto b.ring about the latter's dissolution.First of all, most academic philosophers areemployed as teachers, and their ideas are taught tostudents and effect th m. For example:When, day after day, M. Brunschvieg expoundshis philosophy without ever mentioning thatmen suffer, that their private lives are oftennothing but a welter of trivial, painful orcalamitous episodes, M. Brunschveig's studentstend to forget what real men are like. Thesedutiful disciples meekly surrender to theillusion (which is so comforting to theirconsciences) that any man - or rather, anyrepresentative of that abstraction they call(p48)'Academicism' is frequently used in an illdefined and superficial way, and critiques of theacademicism of recent British philosophy havefrequently concentrated almost exclusively on itsimmediate appearances (6). Nizan's critique of54In so far as it impinges on them, which it doessee below.- 396Hence 'common sense' is not a neutral foundationfrom which to construct a philosophy.See foo note (3).

academicism goes beyond this which is what gives itits depth and strength. 'Academicism', for Nizan,is not merely a style of thought; for he neverloses sight of the fact that academic philosophy(like any other sort of thought) is not just thought- it has not only a conceptual-spiritual being, butalso a social-material existence. 'Academicism' isnot, therefore, merely a style of thought, it isalso a social-material form. And Nizan's book isnot therefore aimed just at academic philosophy, butmore precisely at bourgeois academic philosophy. (7)The criticism has been made that some people areproclaiming themselves to be 'radical philosophers'while in fact taking the 'Academic road'. The wholeof Nizan's book is an attack upon the 'Academic road' ,but his account of the 'revolutionary philosopher' isparticularly important in this context. Accordingto Nizan, the revolutionary philosopher must beclosely in touch with the revolutionary struggle. Hemust identify his interests with those of the oppressedand exploited - the working class. Nizan continues:But I would go even further and bluntly assertthat the technician of revolutionary philosophymust be and will be a member of a particularpolitical party.THE REVOLUTIONARY PHILOSOPHER3Because he remains aware of its politicalconsequences, Nizan stresses the importance of thestruggle in the ideological realm. But he is aware,too, of the limitations of this form of struggle.He discusses these matters in his last chapter inwhich he outlines his ideal of 'the revolutionaryphilosopher'. This chapter has great relevance tothe present attempts to develop a movement of'radical philosophers'.(pl38)It seems to me that this is the one major placein' which Nizan's views need rethinking in the lightof our present situation. This assertion of Nizan'swould seem to imply a denial of the value of amovement like Radical Philosophy which is independentof political parties; but I think it would be wrongto draw this conclusion from Nizan's ideas as awhole.First of all, and on the basis of the ideas Ihave already outlined, Nizan argues that theoreticalwork - work in the ideological domain - is a vitaland a necessary part of the revolutionary struggle.And it is wrong, therefore, to despise intellectualwork for not being concrete practical politicalactivity. The vital message of Nizan's book isthat knowledge and understanding are weapons thatdo have concrete practical effects:When considering a movement like Radical Philosophy it is crucial to see it in its context. Today,in Britain, the situation on the left is very different from what it was in France in 1932, when Nizanwas writing. Then, the forces of the left wereconcentrated and united overwhelmingly in theCommunist Party - 'The Party'. The revolutionaryleft at the present time, however, does not have thesort of unity which makes reference to 'The Party'possible. The left here now is split into sectarianfragments (and this is indicative of its impotence).Indeed, in the current situation many leftists havewithdrawn from active political engagement in any ofthe 'Parties', and there has grown up a widespreadsuspicion against all 'Parties'. It is in thisKnowledge and understanding are weapons. Thequestion now is: will the bourgeoisie bepermitted to consign these weapons to thescrapheap, or will men take up these weaponsonce again and use them as they see fit? Inthe unive sities, the lycees and the elementaryschools, young people are indeed learning howto handle and apply these weapons, but forstrictly academic purposes. Is there nopossibility of their using this knowledge andunderstanding in more productive ways?context that a movement like Radical Philosophybecomes necessary.If the forces of the left wereunited and strong in such a way that there was a'The Party', then no doubt there would be less needfor a movement with such a vaguely and broadly definedtype of radicalism, or with such a limited area ofactivity (philosophy). But in the present contextit seems to me that there is a very real need for amovement like Radical Philosophy, and very real anduseful tasks they can perform.(p136)The tendency to despise theoretical work iswidespread on the left in this country (and inAmerica). The slogan that 'theory should not bedivorced from practice' is twisted into its opposite:it is interpreted to mean that only concretepractical political activity has any real effectsor any real value in the struggle. Against thisNizan stresses that ideological work does have realeffects and that the struggle against bourgeoisideology is an important one. He quotes MarxAs for an assessment of Radical Philosophy inthis light - it is still too soon to pass any finaljudgement. Radical Philosophers (and other intellectuals) have only just begun the process of organisingthemselves as a group and of working together.Whether an effective group of radical philosopherswill emerge from these efforts remains to be seen.But, already, some of the dangers which threaten thedevelopment of an effective movement are becomingclear. I have mentioned them already and tried tobring out the way in which Nizan's book is relevantto them. First of all, radical philosophers mustresist all the forces of their training and thepressures of their situation (either as students orteachers) which push them to take the 'Academicroad' - a road that can be taken even in Marxistclothes. But secondly, no sort of ultra-radical,'practice not theory' type of sectarian idealism andpurism - whether in a libertarian or Leninist guise- should be allowed to fragment and destroy themovement before it has developed.(p127) :The weapons of criticism cannot replace thecriticism of weapons. Material force can onlybe overthrown by material force; but theoryitself becomes a material force when it hasseized the masses.Like Marx, Nizan is also very conscious of thelimitations of the 'weapons of criticism'; and so healso opposes a second tendency which has manifesteditself on the left and particularly among some radicalphilosophers: the tendency to believe in the absolutevalue of theoretical work in itself, and the tendencytherefore to struggle only for a more congenialintellectual climate in which to think.7Nizan also has well developed views about theways in which the academic set-up and the classsituation of the academic (petit-bourgeois)effect him and his philosophy. For the sake ofbrevity and clarity, I have omitted any accountof Nizan's sociology of bourgeois academicism.Nevertheless, it is an extremely important partof his argument and should not be forgotten orignored.Nizan describes the task with absolute clarityand simplicity. And although he says everythingthat Radical Philosophy has been trying to say - andmuch better - this only makes the task of contemporaryradical philosophers more urgent. Now we can readNizan and know what is to be done - but still wemust do it. This is hard work, and would-be radicalphilosophers must undertake it together.40

is little discussion of the vexed question of thetransition from capitalism to communism, and he alsoconfesses to being puzzled by the tension between thelong-term view of the Grundrisse and Marx's prognostications about a fairly imminent revolution implied insuch later political writings as the Drafts for theCivil War in France and his remarks on Bakunin'sFULL MARXKarl-Peter Markl" Kevin Mulligan &Ali RattansiStatism and Anarchy.Situating Marx edited by Paul Walton and Stuart Hall,paperback El.45; hardback E2.95Sociology of Meaningby John B O'Malley, paperbackEl.s5; hardback E3.9SThis review was written in the framework of theSaturday morning group on Radical Epistemology and theCritique of Method at the Social and Political SciencesDeE rtment, Cambridge, in September 1972The growth of sophisticated Marx scholarship inrecent years serves to bring home to us not only thediversity of intellectual traditions upon which Marxdrew, but also the way in which these different traditions, working in different conjunctures, have developedwithin Marxism so that today we have not merely'Marxism', but several different kinds of Marxism.This latest offering on 'Situating Marx' grew out ofa symposium held at Birmingham University to 'record'the publication of McLellan's selections from theGrundrisse, and it is an attempt to come to terms withprecisely this diversity of intellectual traditions;it is the first, tentative step towards 'rediscoveringthe "total Marx"', as the editors put it - anevaluation of the differing traditions, and thedevelopment of 'a Marxism for our times and thus forthe times to come'. Especially, we are warned aboutthe dangers of ignoring this latter task in favour ofequally important problems within Marxist historiography, though it is perhaps ironic that most of thecontributions to this volume remain imprisoned withinthe academicism of Marxist historiography; this is themajor shortcoming of a volume which in other respectscontains much that is of interest and value.McLellan's paper on the Grundrisse (which in aslightly different form has appeared twice before,' inEncounter November 1970 and as the introduction to hisselections from the Grundrisse) outlines in a briefbut lucid overview the interpretative shifts - he listssix - that have characterized the development ofMarxist thought from the evalutionism of the GermanSocial Democrats to the latest structuralist elaborations of Althusser; the paper concludes with anevaluation of the importance of the Grundrisse. Theaccount, however, is too brief and there is littlecritical discussion of these developments; the importantreplies to Althusser by U Jaeggi and A Schmidt, forinstance, are completely neglected. (1)We believe, with McLellan, that any account ofMarx's intellectual development which claims that heabandoned the concept of alienation in his later worksor that his intellectual development was ruptured byone precise 'epistemological break' needs to berejected (2). McLellan's discussion is not entirelypanegyric, however, for he points out that even thoughthe Grundrisse reveals that the growth of technologyand automation, the rise in working-Class livingstandards and scientific competence, the emergence ofleisure - the very factors often cited to disproveMarx's analysis - are actually viewed by Marx asnecessary preconditions for his revolution (3). There123Urs Jaeggi, "Ordnung und Chaos", Der Strukturalismus als Methode und Mode.Alfred Schmidt "Der strukturalistische Angriffauf die Geschichte" in 'Beitrage zur marxistischen Erkenntmistheorie', edition Sulrrkamp, 1969.A point very well made by R.J. Bernstein in his most readable text, Praxis and Action, 1972.A point already emphasized by Martin Nicholaus inThe Unknown Marx, NLR 48.The tension between these two views may be moreapparent than real, for McLellan fails to consider thepossibility that Marx's historical perception was evengreater than he is given credit for, that the first andbetter known theory of revolution derived from ananalysis of a capitalist system still undergoing andexperiencing the birth-pangs of industrialization - aprocess of transition described by Engels in his prefaceto the English edition of Capital a being from 'theperiod of manufacture proper, based on the division ofmanual labbur', to the 'period of modern industry basedon machinery' (4) and in which it was threatened by animpoverished class-conscious labour force, while hisreflections in the Grundrisse relate to a fullyindustrialized capitalism which, for historicallyspecific reasons, has managed to contain the revolutionary threat and is well on its way to exhaustingits potentialities for further development. (5)Walton's paper From Alienation to Surplus Valueis an analysis of the centrality of labour as acategory in Marx's thought, and the way in which itprovides the unifying element in all his work, fromthe l844Manuscripts to Capital; what is problematicin Wait on 's remarks, 'as Nicolaus points out in hisComment on the paper (p.37), is his description of'labour' as a central ontological assumption and asproviding the philosophical basis for his economics.This leads Walton to misunderstand certain aspects ofthe relationship between Marx's early and laterwritings, a misunderstanding that results from confusing political economy with philosophy. Walton seesthe Marx of 1844 as already having worked out hisontology - "man's special teleological nature" (p. 20)- and argues that the only break in his thought is anempirical not an ontological one, consisting in a"shift from merely viewing capitalism as extractingsurplus from labour to his demonstration of how thisis based on the extraction of surplus-value" (p.28).Walton's assumption that labour is an ontologicalrather than a socio-economic category commits him tothe view that the historicity which informs Marx'slater work, of which he is clearly aware, is alreadypresent in the EPM's, and he therefore fails tounderstand (see p.27) McLellan's earlier remark that"what is new in Marx's picture of alienation in theGrundrisse is that it attempts to be firmly rooted inhistory", allowing Marx to treat the centTal themes ofthe Paris Manuscripts "in a much maturer way" (p .12) .Walton is right to point out that there occurs in Marx'swork a shift from focussing on the market mechanism ofcapitalism to its productive relations, but fails torealize its relation to the increasing historicitywhich informs his later work. In the 1844 Manuscriptswe find an anthropological conception of alienationin which the origin of alienation is found to be nota specific social formation but in human nature,alienated man being contrasted to man as a 'speciesbeing'; it is only with The German Ideology that Marxbreaks with this conce tion and analyses alienationand exploitation as being rooted in specific historicalstructures, and it is this transformation in hishistorical awareness which eventually resulted inMarx's view of the significance of the mode ofproduction on which the theory of surplus-valueextraction in'its final form is based (6). To treatlabour as an ontological category and thus to anthropologize the concept of alienation is to reverse a stepthat marks a crucial development in Marx's thought.5Capital Vol.I, Moscow 1961, pS.cf. interalia, the works of A Touraine and Serge6Mallet.See, for a similar viewpoint, E. Handel, The441Formation of the Economic Thought of Karl Marx,NLB 1971, ch. 10.

The problem of alienation raises, however, theconverse problem of non-alienation and the classlesssociety and Sohn-Rethel's Mental and Manual Labour inMarxism is a remarkably interesting and suggestivediscussion of this theme. As he points out, in asocialist society "the control of social productioncannot lie with the workers so long as such controlnecessi tates intellectual work beyond their scope",(p.47) while it is an essential condition of capitalistic relations "that the technology of production befounded upon a knowledge of nature from sources otherthan manual labour". (p. 46) . One of the main criteriafor judging socialist progress must, therefore, be theelimination of the division of "head and hand". Theintellectual basis of this division Sohn-Rethellocates in the a-historical, universal character ofmathematics and science; the possibility of classlessness and the abolition of the division of labour "canbe theoretically established only by proving that thelogic of scientific thinking originates in socialhistory - failing this, it would be technocracy, notsocialism, we must expect of the future". He findsthe social and economic roots of this thinking in therise of commodity production in the Greek City States,and initially appearing in the philosophy ofPythagoras, Heraclitus and Parmemides around SOOBC;the reason for this lies in the fact that commodityexchange is a process of abstraction by action,operating in time and space - an activity abstractfrom 'use', developing its own institutions, especiallymoney, which then permeate the character of thought,leading eventually to the development of the ahistorical, timeless and universal logic of theabstract intellect.Sohn-Rethal also argues that with the advent ofmonopoly capitalism and the emergence of 'scientificmanagement' there is developing a growing contradictionbetween the commensuration of manual labour, now basedon time and motion study, and the relations ofcapitalist production, requiring as they do acommensuration of labour based on the exchange valueof products.This essay is undoubtedly the most substantiveone in the volume; several problems, however, remainoutstanding and our purpose here can only be to statesome of them though they merit a great deal ofdiscussion:(1)Sohn-Rethel assumes (see p.50) that merely bylocating the socio-economic roots of universallogic he has thereby seriously undermined itsvalidity - such an assumption is seriouslyquestionable;(2)In so far as social organization is a constituentfeature of technology it is obvious that socialism will require a different technology; but itis by no means obvious, as Sohn-Rethel seems toimply, [and this follows from (1) above] that theabolition of the division between mental andmanual labour will require the development, forinstance, of a mathematics whose logical principles will be entirely at variance with thecategories of mathematics under capitalism;(3)It must be pointed out that within capitalism therelationship between commensuration of labour bythe exchange value of products and commensurationby time and motion study is complementary ratherthan contradictory.If Sohn-Rethel is interested in applying historicalmaterialism to social and intellectual structures,O'Neill is concerned to defend its critical functionagainst attacks by Habermas and Althusser; the formeris taken to task for his scient is tic and technologicalreading of Marx while the latter is more justifiablyaccused of having robbed M

does not, participates in the impure reality of his age. (pIg) Philosophy, argues Nizan, is not pure thought: Philosophy-in-itself does not exist: there exist only different philosophies The various philosophies are produced by d fferent philosophers. (p7) Philosophy has