Marxism and the status of philosophy

An extension and original work that exmaines the formative years as Marx and Engels strove to transcend the confines of the German philosophical tradition.

In a detailed study of the works of Marx and Engels up to 1848, Labica reappraises the orthodox view that their mature ideas derived from an amalgamation of three sources (Ger man philosophy, French socialism and English political economy).

Georges Labica traces their evolution from philosophy, which provided the sole available medium for social criticism in Germany, to the develop ments of the concept of bourgeois society. He demonstrates the rapid and basic conceptual change that is achieved in this period, charting the rejection in turn of Hegel, Feuerbach. Stirner and Proudhon. Works such as The German Ideology. The Poverty of Philosophy and The Communist Manifesto are all considered in this light.

In this penetrating study the reader is provided with a lucid and clearly written account of the major trans formation as philosophy comes to be understood as ideology, and historical materialism takes the place of human Itarian utoplanism..