How Do We Recognize Marxism? Cover Image

Po czym poznać marksizm?
How Do We Recognize Marxism?

Author(s): Roman Kanda
Subject(s): Sociology, Structuralism and Post-Structuralism, Marxism, Political economy, Theory of Literature
Published by: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego
Keywords: Marxism; discourse and theory; modern criticism and critique of modernity;

Summary/Abstract: The title of the study is a paraphrase of Gilles Deleuze’s inspiring work How Do We Recognize Structuralism? (1974). The explanation proceeds in three steps. First, the author – following Wolfgang Iser’s conception – defines the relevant differences between ‘discourse’ and ‘theory’ (W. Iser). Second, he presents Marxism as a discoursive ideal type (Max Weber’s Idealtyp) that characterizes several (seven) distinctive features: (i) totality, (ii) dialectics, (iii) base and superstructure, (iv) materialism and historization, (v) subjective and objective, (vi) true and inevitable, (vii) revolutionary practice. In the third chapter of his study, the author briefly formulates a wider sociological context; inspired by the concepts of Shmuel Eisenstadt and Cornelius Castoriadis, he defines Marxism as one of the discourses articulating the cultural project of modernity and as part of a permanent process of ‘social self-production’.

  • Issue Year: 15/2020
  • Issue No: 2
  • Page Range: 123-138
  • Page Count: 16
  • Language: Polish