Louis Althusser and French Epistemology (original) (raw)

Science as critique: Marx vs. Althusser

Another old essay from a long out of print book. A critique of Louis Althusser's interpretation of Marx as developed in his books For Marx and Reading Capital, this is also probably the most succinct summary I have given anywhere of the main arguments of my own book Marx's Method. Originally published in J. Mepham and J-H. Ruben (eds), Issues in Marxist Philosophy, vol. 3, Brighton: Harvester Press, and Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities, 1979, 27-54.

The Two Bachelards of Louis Althusser

parrhesia: a journal of critical philosophy, 2019

One thing that often strikes readers of Louis Althusser's classic works Pour Marx and Lire le Capital as out of place, if not totally bizarre, is the constant references made to non-Marxist philosophers, indeed, to philosophers whose theoretical positions are commonly held to be thoroughly idealist. Looking perhaps for reader's guides or introductions to Marx's thought, they are met instead with Althusser's passion for theory and scientificity. Classical Marxist themes such as exploitation, alienation, and commodity fetishism, not to mention class struggle, are hardly mentioned. After all, are not philosophers working in Marx's wake supposed to be transforming the world and not merely contemplating it and producing various theories about it? Of course, it is well-known that Marx sought to settle his philosophical accounts with Hegel's idealism (and his young leftist followers) and Feuerbach's attempted materialist reversal of Hegel in texts such as the German Ideology and the Theses on Feuerbach. Althusser, in his typology of Marx's work, classifies these polemical texts as so-called "works of the break," 1 that is, works wherein Marx had not yet fully articulated and elaborated the dialectical materialist philosophical position that would later be considered one of his greatest theoretical innovations-still under the shadow of German Idealism, Marx had not yet worked out the philosophical position his nascent historical materialism required. We even know today that Marx read and took extensive notes on Spinoza's Theological Political Treatise as well selected fragments and correspondence in 1841 2 , but certainly nowhere in these notes does Marx claim, as Althusser fa-the two bachelards of louis althusser · 175 mously will, that Spinoza is "Marx's only direct ancestor." 3 Rather, as Alexandre Matheron notes, it is difficult to conclude what exactly Marx gleaned from his reading of Spinoza, which is ultimately more of a montage of citations than a close reading: perhaps Marx projected his own ideas on to Spinoza or perhaps Spinoza was a kind of foil for Marx. 4 Though Marx's texts themselves do not directly make clear this relation of direct ancestry that Althusser posits, Pierre Macherey, one of Althusser's most inventive and precocious students, ends his 1977 study Hegel ou Spinoza by drawing out this connection between Spinoza and the dialectical materialism Marx sought to found:

Beyond Ideology: Althusser, Foucault and French Epistemology

The philosophy of Louis Althusser is often contrasted with the ideas of Michel Foucault. At first sight, the disagreement seems to be about the concept of ideology: while Althusser seem to be huge advocate of the use of the concept, Foucault apparently dislikes and avoids the concept altogether. However, I argue in this article that this reading is only superficial and that it obscures the real debate between these two authors. Althusser, especially in his recently posthumously published Sur la reproduction (1995), appears to agree on many points with Foucault. The real dispute lies not in the concept of ideology, but in its connection with its counterpart ‘science’. Both Althusser and Foucault were in a way epistemologists, focusing on the question on how sciences develop and how scientific practice works. Focussing on their shared background in the French epistemology, with authors such as Gaston Bachelard and Jean Cavaillès, the real discussion appears to be about whether science can really be opposed to ideology or not. Focusing on these aspects of their works can shed new lights on their oeuvre as well as on the nature of scientific practice.