Instead of abstract man, Marx argued that there is an ensemble of societal relations that underpins social formations of various kinds as well as a variety of forms of individuality. In this second volume of Thinking with Marx Today, Lucien Sčve presents what he calls Marxs revolution in anthropology. He deftly analyzes the philosophical preconditions and the fundamental concepts of this anthropology. This is followed by critiques of Nietzsche, Heidegger, and contemporary primatology coupled with borrowings from Freud, Politzer, Vygotsky, and contemporary literature on biography. Sčves aim is nothing less than to outline a science of human individuality.
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Part 1 A Revolution in Anthropology
1 An Introductory Survey
1In Search of Biography
2Sartre: The Unpleasant Surprises of the Original Project
3Politzer: Towards a Psychology Embedded in the Economy
4Marx: An Entirely New Approach to the Psychological
5Historical Essence of the General Figures of Individuality
6Drive and Desire: The Social Genesis of the Psychological
7Capacities: The Key Idea of Objectivation
8Time and Biography
9Historical Time and the Human Condition
2 Philosophical Approaches
1No Anthropological Revolution without a Philosophical Revolution
2The Theses on Feuerbach: Goodbye to Man
3The Traps of Hominism
4The Use and Misuse of Abstraction
5What the Sixth Thesis on Feuerbach Says When Read without
Misinterpretation
6The Key Question of the Essence
7On the Essentiality of Social Relations
8On Praxis
9Philosophy of Praxis or Materialism of Tätigkeit
3 Marxian Anthropology and Its Fundamental Concepts
1The Characteristics of Humanity
2The Processes of Hominisation
3Human Activity and Its Mediators
4The Ensemble of Social Relations as Objective Humanity
5Mind and Thing-Form
6The Human World and Its Corollary: Individual Hominisation
7Aneignung and Its Effects
8Historical Forms of Individuality
9Figures of Individuality and Forms of Individuation
10Althusser and the Forms of Individuality
11Is Theoretical Anthropology a Mirage?
4 Questions and Additions
1Is Marx Truly Innovative?
2A Fundamentally Post-hegelian Conception
3Points of Agreement and Disagreement Concerning the Human Essence
4The Ambiguity of Anti-Essentialism
5A Puzzling Ignorance
6And That is Why Your Marxism is Blind
7A Careless Refutation
8A Highly Structural Obfuscation
9Productive Activities and Signifying Activities: Quite Distinct Practices
10The Idea That Everything Is a Language and Its Effects
5 Objections and Responses
1A Missing Theory of the Superstructures?
2On the Meaning of an Objection
3Naturalism: Substitute for Historical Materialism
4Under-Estimation of the Natural in Man?
5On Some Naturalist Mistakes in Marx
6Marx and the Idea of Human Nature
7On Anthropological Invariants
8An Implausible Hypothesis
9The Illusion of Biological Materialism
10Does Marx Reduce the Psychological Subject to the Social Individual?
11A Politically Disturbing Conception?
12Marx and Human Rights
Part 2 An Approach That Is Still Relevant
Introduction to Part 2
6 Critique: Nietzsche, Freud, Heidegger, and Primatology
1Nietzsche and The Death of Man
2How Nietzsche Thinks Woman
3Feminism Is the Enemy
4Anthropology Structured by Bad Abstraction
5The Superman and His Doubles, the Sub-men
6Is God Truly Dead in Nietzsche?
7Freuds Innovation
8Obsolete Biological Foundation
9Freudianism Does Not Have the Anthropology It Deserves
10Freud and Marx
11How Should We Read Heidegger?
12An A-critical Critique of Humanism
13The Worst Oblivion
14Anthropoid Apes
15Erasing the Boundary between Animal and Human
16The Significance of Erasing the Boundary between Animal and Human
7 The Heuristic Example of Vygotskys Work
1Productive Perspectives for All the Human Sciences
2The Example of Vygotsky
3Ape, Tool, and Sign
4Vygotskys Revolution in Anthropology
5A New Psychology
6Prophetic Hypotheses on Cerebral Functioning
7Vygotsky the Educationalist
8Avant-Garde Views in Defectology
9Thoughts in the Grip of Prejudice
10Leontievs Contributions
11Open Research
12Vygotskys Limitations
13Truly Unlimited Potential
8 A Critical Examination of Man in Marxist Theory and the Psychology of
Personality
1Politzer: Another Critique of Psychology
2Freudianism between Discovery and Illusion
3Concrete Psychology: True and False Problems
4Moments of Research
5Anticipatory Works
6The Structure of the Field of the Sciences of Man
7Two Paradoxes and Their Solution
8On the Form of a Science of the Singular
9What Is Personality?
10Outline of Content
11A Very Mixed Reception
12Towards an Unlimited Debate
13What Knowledge of Individuality?
14Three Objections
9 The Return of Biography?
1Sartre: Understanding a Life in Interiority
2Gustave Flaubert and His Original Project
3Strengths and Weaknesses of a Biography In Interiority
4Bourdieu: Accounting for a Life Through Its Fields
5From the Biographical Illusion to the Biographical Elision
6Le Goff: How to Write a Historical Biography Today?
7Daniel Bertaux: Again on Life History
8The Social Sciences Deprived of Psychology
9Marxian Contributions and New Research Prospects
10 A Crucial Task: Think Personality Anew
1Identification
2With Freud, beyond Freud
3With Marx, beyond Marx
4Genesis of Personality
5Alienation
6We Should Study Capital To Think Alienation
7Alienation and Personality
8Once Again on the Principles of Use-Time
9Personality and Biography: What Autonomy?
10Do We Freely Think What We Think?
11Intellectual Biography
12Towards a Critique of the Idea of Sublimation
13Reversal and Autonomy
14Rethinking Ideas on Ageing
15The Life That Dies and the Life That Does Not Die
16From Personality to the Person
17Historical Urgency: Saving the Human Planet
Bibliography
Index
Lucien Sčve was a theoretician of individuality, a politically committed philosopher, and interpreter and continuator of Marxs thinking. His four-volume Thinking with Marx Today is the culmination of sixty years of thinking and activism. He died in March 2020.
