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Karl Marx

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 September 2009

Anthony O'Hear
Affiliation:
University of Bradford
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Summary

Although it was, until recently, unfashionable in certain circles to say this, Marx was not a philosopher in any interesting sense. He was a social theorist. As social theory, I am thinking primarily of two areas (in all social theory, there is also a large body of empirical work, which I am not competent to comment upon): (a) the methodology of social inquiry, and its metaphysical presuppositions, and (b) normative philosophy (ethics and political theory).

Many social theorists are also philosophers: Hobbes, Locke, Hegel and Mill provide good examples. They articulate and develop a general philosophy, a metaphysics and an epistemology, and typically their social theory relies in essential ways on that general philosophy, or at any rate they believe that it does. There is a connection, for example, between Mill's empiricism, on the one hand, and, on the other, both his utilitarian philosophy, and the methodology of social science that he outlines in Book VI of his A System of Logic.

Marx also believed that his social theory depended on certain philosophical assumptions, but, unlike these aforementioned social theorists, he does not, for the most part, articulate or develop in any significant way the philosophy on which he believes his social theory depends.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 1999

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  • Karl Marx
  • Edited by Anthony O'Hear, University of Bradford
  • Book: German Philosophy since Kant
  • Online publication: 29 September 2009
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511524110.006
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  • Karl Marx
  • Edited by Anthony O'Hear, University of Bradford
  • Book: German Philosophy since Kant
  • Online publication: 29 September 2009
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511524110.006
Available formats
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To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Karl Marx
  • Edited by Anthony O'Hear, University of Bradford
  • Book: German Philosophy since Kant
  • Online publication: 29 September 2009
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511524110.006
Available formats
×