Suchergebnisse

Overviews two implications of the work of Karl Marx that demonstrate its relevance for contemporary understandings of the social world: its worldview implications, & its implications for humanistic studies. It is suggested that political programs can only be developed on the basis of a utopic worldview. Marx has produced a worldview that imagines an unconstrained association of free men, which continues to serve as a foundation for many political projects, from those of the Frankfurt school & critical theory to French poststructuralism & postmodernism. These projects are considered to be crystallizations of Marx's ideas in the academy. This crystallization has taken the form of two poles: a humanities that sees freedom as related to authentic human subjectivity; & a humanities that sees freedom negatively, in terms of its vulnerability to social systems. These poles represent Marx's duality in conceiving of man as both subject & object. It is concluded that, however debates between these poles are decided, their debt to Marx's thought is unquestionable. D. Ryfe