Activity In Marx S Philosophy Karl Heinrich Marx The Difference Between The Democritean And Epicurean Philosophy Of Nature With An Appendix An English Translation Of Marx S Doctoral Dissertation

Activity in Marx's philosophy. - Karl Heinrich Marx, The difference between the Democritean and Epicurean philosophy of nature. With an appendix. [An English translation of Marx's doctoral dissertation].

The Difference between Democritean and Epicurean Natural Philosophy

A new English translation of Karl Marx's 1841 "Differenz der demokritischen und epikureischen Naturphilosophie", or in english "The Difference Between the Democritean and Epicurean Philosophy of Nature". This unique bilingual edition contains the original German manuscript in the back for reference after the English Translation. This edition includes a new introduction by the translator and reference materials including a Glossary of Philosophic and Economic Marxist Terminology, an Index of Personalities Associated with Marx and a Timeline of Marx’s Life and Works. This is Volume I in The Complete Works of Karl Marx by NL Press. This manuscript is Marx's Doctorate university Thesis. It is one of the most critical texts to understand the foundation of Marx's political theories. Here he elaborates his initial, basic dialectical understanding of perception through a de-mysticized Epicurean Naturalism. This is an anachronistic re-interpretation of Epicurean cosmology through the lens of Hegelianism. He creates a dichotomy between Epicurus and Democritus, although he admits that "Epicurus borrowed his physics from Democritus." The "rationality" Marx advocates for is inherently an amoral and misanthropic form of anti-logos reason, or in Hegelian terms, it is missing the Geist, the Super-rational "glue" that enables human reasoning in the first place. This work, as with all of Marx's writings, it deeply anti-socratic and thus anti-existentialist in his denial of Self-Consciousness (mimicking Schopenhauer & Nietzsche): "If self-consciousness, which knows itself only under the form of abstract generality, is elevated to the status of absolute principle, then the door is opened to superstitious and unfree mysticism".

Activity in Marx’s Philosophy

This essay attempts to demonstrate the significance of the principle of activity in the philosophy of Karl Marx. The principle of activity in Marx has both a general and a specific meaning. In general the princi ple refers to the activist element in Marxian practice motivating both Marx and his contemporary devotees. The specific facet of the principle relates to Marx's philosophy - the principle of activity being that con cept which underlies the entire system. Activity for Marx is both a philosophic concept and an element of human experience demanded by his system. Marx, that is, not only theorizes about activity but also illustrates his theory in hislife. Hence, we find the principle of activity both in his writings and in his doings. the words Action, Tiitigkeit, or Praxis to refer to Marx most often used the principle of activity. No major philosopher has fully dealt with the concept of action. We sometimes suppose that action only occurs when we can observe some outward result or motion. Spinoza's definition of action disallows this narrow interpretation of activity. I say that we act when anything is done, either within us or without us, of which we are the adequate cause, that is to say ... when from our nature anything follows, either within us or without, which by that nature alone can be clearly and 1 distinctly understood.