A Guide to Marx’s Theses on Feuerbach
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Published
Apr 20, 2024
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Abstract
Karl Marx’s Theses on Feuerbach is, as Friedrich Engels argued, the “first document” that “deposited the brilliant germ of the new world outlook.” Its shortness and celebrated phrases have made it a classical pedagogical tool for teaching Marxism. However, with such ubiquity, this philosophically loaded text has provided fertile ground for one-sided interpretations and de-contextualized misunderstandings. To combat this, the present essay historically and philosophically elaborates on the rise of the Young Hegelians and how Marx’s Theses are situated in a broader critique of the philosophical movement he and Engels were once a part of. The essay also provides an exegesis of the Theses and incorporates critiques of the misconceptions which have arisen with the text’s popularity. In the process, the Marxist position on questions of praxis, truth, universals, human essence, and more, is set forth.
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Keywords
Marxism, Dialectical Materialism, Young Hegelians, G. W. F. Hegel, Ludwig Feuerbach
References
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Carlos L. Garrido. 2023. The Purity Fetish and the Crisis of Western Marxism. Dubuque: Midwestern Marx Publishing Press.
Carlos L. Garrido. “What is the Fetishism of Commodities.” Midwestern Marx Institute for Marxist Theory and Political Analysis (May 17, 2022b): https://www.midwesternmarx.com/articles/what-is-the-fetishism-of-commodities-by-carlos-l-garrido
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Cheng Enfu.2022. “On the Three Stages in the Development of Socialism.” [In Chinese.] Science and Society, no. 86(2).
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David Sedley.1998. Lucretius and the Transformation of Greek Wisdom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Domenico Losurdo. 2004. Hegel and the Freedom of Moderns, trans. by Marella and Jon Morris. Durham: Duke University Press.
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Frances Stoner Saunders. 1990. The Cultural Cold War: The CIA and the World of Arts and Letters. New York: The New Press.
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Georg Lukács. 1971. History and Class Consciousness. Cambridge: MIT Press.
G.W.F. Hegel. 1978. Philosophy of Right. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
G. W. F. Hegel. 1993. Science of Logic. Trans. A.V. Miller. Atlantic Highlands: Humanities Press International.
G. W. F. Hegel. 1956. The Philosophy of History. New York: Dover Publications.
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Karl Löwith.1991. From Hegel to Nietzsche: The Revolution in Nineteenth Century Thought. New York: Columbia University Press.
Karl Marx. 1999. A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy. New York: International Publishers.
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Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. 1967. Marx-Engels Collected Works Vol. 5. Moscow: Progress Publishers.
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Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. 2001. Marx-Engels Collected Works Vol. 49. New York: International Publishers.
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. 2001. Marx-Engels Werke Vol. 27. Berlin: Institute for Marxism-Leninism.
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. 2002. The Holy Family. Honolulu: University Press of the Pacific.
Karl Marx. 1982. Capital Vol. I. New York: Penguin Publishers.
Karl Marx. 1988. Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844. Amherst: Great Books in Philosophy.
Karl Marx. 1995. “Proudhon Judged by Karl Marx.” In The Poverty of Philosophy. New York: Prometheus Books.
Keti Chukhrov.2020. Practicing the Good. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Laurence Hemming. “Heidegger’s ‘Productive Dialogue with Marxism.’” Philosophy Today 58(2) (March 2014), 179-195.
Lawrence S. Stepelevich. 1999. The Young Hegelians: An Anthology. New York: Humanities Books.
Ludwig Feuerbach. 1888. The Essence of Christianity. London: Trübner & Co.
Marcello Musto. 2021. Karl Marx’s Writings on Alienation. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Marilyn Chapin Massey. 1983. Christ Unmasked: The Meaning of the Life of Jesus in German Politics. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
Martin Hägglund. 2019. This Life. New York: Pantheon Books.
Martin Heidegger. 1976. “Martin Heidegger im Gespräch.” In Gesamtausgabe Vol. 16, ed. Friedrich-Wilhelm von Herrmann. Frankfurt: Klostermann.
Michael Parenti. 1997. Black Shirts and Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism. San Francisco: City Lights Books
Nikolai Bukharin. 1931. “Theory and Practice from the Standpoint of Dialectical Materialism.” In Science at the Cross Roads. London: Kniga LTD.
Philip Wheelwright. 1975. The Presocratics. Indianapolis: The Odyssey Press.
P. N. Fedoseyev. 1973. Karl Marx: A Biography. Moscow: Progress Publishers.
Roland Boer. 2012. Criticism of the Earth. Boston: Brill.
Roland Boer. “Motion, Matter and Dialectics: From Marx’s Doctoral Thesis to Engels’ Dialectics of Nature.” Science and Society 86(3) (July 2022).
Allen W. Wood. 1981. Karl Marx. Boston: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
A. A. Long and D. N. Sedley.1987. The Hellenistic Philosophers: Translation of the Principal Sources with Philosophical Commentary Vol. I .Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Antonio Gramsci. 1971. Selections from the Prison Notebooks. New York: International Publishers.
Bruno Bauer. Kritik der evangelischen Geschichte der Synoptiker Vol. III (Leipzig, 1842).
Carlos L. Garrido. “Book Review: Karl Marx’s Writings on Alienation. By: Marcello Musto.” Midwestern Marx Institute for Marxist Theory and Political Analysis (July 09, 2022a): https://www.midwesternmarx.com/articles/book-review-karl-marxs-writings-on-alienation-by-marcello-musto-reviewed-by-carlos-l-garrido
Carlos L. Garrido. 2022. Marxism and the Dialectical Materialist Worldview: An Anthology of Classical Marxist Texts on Dialectical Materialism. Dubuque: Midwestern Marx Publishing Press.
Carlos L. Garrido. 2023. The Purity Fetish and the Crisis of Western Marxism. Dubuque: Midwestern Marx Publishing Press.
Carlos L. Garrido. “What is the Fetishism of Commodities.” Midwestern Marx Institute for Marxist Theory and Political Analysis (May 17, 2022b): https://www.midwesternmarx.com/articles/what-is-the-fetishism-of-commodities-by-carlos-l-garrido
Cheng Enfu and Lu Baolin.2021. “Five Characteristics of Neoimperialism: Building on Lenin’s Theory of Imperialism in the Twenty-First Century.” [In Chinese.] Monthly Review, no.73(1).
Cheng Enfu.2022. “On the Three Stages in the Development of Socialism.” [In Chinese.] Science and Society, no. 86(2).
David Friedrich Strauss. 1902. The Life of Jesus: Critically Examined. London: Swan Sonnenschein and Co.
David McLellan. 1969. The Young Hegelians and Karl Marx. New York: F. A. Praeger.
David Sedley.1998. Lucretius and the Transformation of Greek Wisdom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Domenico Losurdo. 2004. Hegel and the Freedom of Moderns, trans. by Marella and Jon Morris. Durham: Duke University Press.
Ellen Meiksins Wood, John Bellamy Foster, et. al. In Defense of History: Marxism and the Postmodern Agenda (New York: Monthly Review, 1997).
Erik Linstrum. “Strauss’s ‘Life of Jesus’: Publication and the Politics of the German Public Sphere.” Journal of the History of Ideas 71(4) (October 2010), 593-616.
Evald Ilyenkov. 1975.“The Universals.” In Philosophical investigations in the USSR. Chestnut Hill: Boston College.
Frances Stoner Saunders. 1990. The Cultural Cold War: The CIA and the World of Arts and Letters. New York: The New Press.
Friedrich Engels. 2012. Dialectics of Nature. London: Wellred Books.
Friedrich Engels. 2018. Ludwig Feuerbach and the Outcome of Classical German Philosophy. New York: International Publishers.
Friedrich Engels. 1993. Socialism: Utopian and Scientific. London: Bookmarks.
Gabriel Rockhill. “Capitalism’s Court Jester: Slavoj Žižek.” CounterPunch (January 02, 2023): https://www.counterpunch.org/2023/01/02/capitalisms-court-jester-slavoj-zizek/
Gabriel Rockhill. “The CIA and the Frankfurt School’s Anti-Communism.” The Philosophical Salon (June 27, 2022): https://thephilosophicalsalon.com/the-cia-the-frankfurt-schools-anti-communism/
Georg Lukács. 1981. Destruction of Reason. Atlantic Highlands, Humanities Press.
Georg Lukács. 1971. History and Class Consciousness. Cambridge: MIT Press.
G.W.F. Hegel. 1978. Philosophy of Right. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
G. W. F. Hegel. 1993. Science of Logic. Trans. A.V. Miller. Atlantic Highlands: Humanities Press International.
G. W. F. Hegel. 1956. The Philosophy of History. New York: Dover Publications.
Gustav Mayer. “Die Anfänge des politischen Radikalismus im vormärzlichen Preußen.” Zeitschrift für Politik 6 (1913), 1-113.
Helmut Hirsch. “Karl Friedrich Köppen der Intimste Berliner Freund Marxens.” International Review for Social History, 1 (1936), 311-370.
Horton Harris. 1973. David Friedrich Strauss and His Theology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Immanuel Kant. 1996. Critique of Pure Reason. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing.
Johann Eduard Erdmann. 1966. Grundriss der Geschichte der Philosophie. Berlin: W. Hertz.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. 1990. Faust. Ed. Walter Kaufmann. New York: Anchor Books.
John Bellamy Foster. 2000. Marx’s Ecology. New York: Monthly Review Press.
John Bellamy Foster. 2023.“The New Irrationalism.” Monthly Review 74(9) (February 2023): https://monthlyreview.org/2023/02/01/the-new-irrationalism/
John T. Noonan. “Hegel and Strauss: The Dialectic and the Gospels.” The Catholic Biblical Quarterly 12(2) (April 1950), 136-152.
Kaan Kangal. 2020. Friedrich Engels and the Dialectics of Nature. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Karl Löwith.1991. From Hegel to Nietzsche: The Revolution in Nineteenth Century Thought. New York: Columbia University Press.
Karl Marx. 1999. A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy. New York: International Publishers.
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. 1975a. Marx-Engels Collected Works Vol. 2. Moscow: Progress Publishers.
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. 1975b. Marx-Engels Collected Works Vol. 3. Moscow: Progress Publishers.
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. 1967. Marx-Engels Collected Works Vol. 5. Moscow: Progress Publishers.
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. 1976b. Marx-Engels Collected Works Vol. 6. Moscow: Progress Publishers.
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. 2001. Marx-Engels Collected Works Vol. 49. New York: International Publishers.
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. 2001. Marx-Engels Werke Vol. 27. Berlin: Institute for Marxism-Leninism.
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. 2002. The Holy Family. Honolulu: University Press of the Pacific.
Karl Marx. 1982. Capital Vol. I. New York: Penguin Publishers.
Karl Marx. 1988. Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844. Amherst: Great Books in Philosophy.
Karl Marx. 1995. “Proudhon Judged by Karl Marx.” In The Poverty of Philosophy. New York: Prometheus Books.
Keti Chukhrov.2020. Practicing the Good. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Laurence Hemming. “Heidegger’s ‘Productive Dialogue with Marxism.’” Philosophy Today 58(2) (March 2014), 179-195.
Lawrence S. Stepelevich. 1999. The Young Hegelians: An Anthology. New York: Humanities Books.
Ludwig Feuerbach. 1888. The Essence of Christianity. London: Trübner & Co.
Marcello Musto. 2021. Karl Marx’s Writings on Alienation. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Marilyn Chapin Massey. 1983. Christ Unmasked: The Meaning of the Life of Jesus in German Politics. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
Martin Hägglund. 2019. This Life. New York: Pantheon Books.
Martin Heidegger. 1976. “Martin Heidegger im Gespräch.” In Gesamtausgabe Vol. 16, ed. Friedrich-Wilhelm von Herrmann. Frankfurt: Klostermann.
Michael Parenti. 1997. Black Shirts and Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism. San Francisco: City Lights Books
Nikolai Bukharin. 1931. “Theory and Practice from the Standpoint of Dialectical Materialism.” In Science at the Cross Roads. London: Kniga LTD.
Philip Wheelwright. 1975. The Presocratics. Indianapolis: The Odyssey Press.
P. N. Fedoseyev. 1973. Karl Marx: A Biography. Moscow: Progress Publishers.
Roland Boer. 2012. Criticism of the Earth. Boston: Brill.
Roland Boer. “Motion, Matter and Dialectics: From Marx’s Doctoral Thesis to Engels’ Dialectics of Nature.” Science and Society 86(3) (July 2022).
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How to Cite
A Guide to Marx’s Theses on Feuerbach. (2024). World Marxist Review , 1(1), 41-64. https://doi.org/10.62834/0hv57253