Social Structure and Forms of Consciousness, Volume 1: The Social Determination of Method

by István Mészáros

This new work (the first in a two-volume series) by the leading Marxian philosopher of our day is a milestone in human self-understanding. It focuses on the location where action emerges from freedom and necessity, thefoundation of all social science.

Today, as never before, the investigation of the close relationship between social structure--defined by Marx as "arising from the life-process of definite individuals"--and the various forms of consciousness is particularly important. We can only perceive what is possible by first identifying the historical process that constrains consciousness itself and therefore social action.

The relationship between social structure and forms of consciousness discussed in this volume is multifaceted and profoundly dialectical. It requires the presentation of a great wealth of historical material and the assessment of the relevant philosophical literature, from Descartes through Hegel and the Liberal tradition to the present, together with their connections with political economy and political theory. Istvan Meszaros moves beyond both abstract solutions to the surveyed methodological questions and one-sided structuralist evaluation of the important substantive issues, bringing the process of our understanding of social structure and consciousness to a level not previously attained.

Above all, in the spirit of the Marxian approach, even the most complicated problems are always analyzed in relation to the major practical concerns of our time. The primary aim of this work is to outline the dialectical intelligibility of historical development toward a viable societal reproductive order. Social Structures and Forms of Consciousness is of the highest importance as both a political and philosophical work, illuminating the place from where we must act, today.

Genres: Philosophy, Politics

432 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2009

About the author

István Mészáros was a Hungarian Marxist philosopher. Described as "one of the foremost political philosophers of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries" by Monthly Review, Mészáros wrote mainly about the possibility of a transition from capitalism to socialism.

Reviews

[David Anderson · Rating 4 out of 5]

"The first volume of István Mészáros’s Social Structure and Forms of Consciousness, is a classic work of ideology critique and socialist vision. Its twofold aim involves a critical project of demystification that analyses the dominant forms of consciousness that developed within and have ideologically supported the social structures of capitalism, and a project of reconstruction that elaborates the methodological contours of a qualitatively different, non-antagonistic hegemonic alternative to the capitalist form of social relations. Mészáros seeks to demonstrate that nothing short of a radical overturning of the capitalist social form will put an end to the antagonisms and structural contradictions whose trajectory of development has resulted in a completely unsustainable form of being manifest in destructive practices of production and consumption, militaristic enforcement of its imperatives, environmental devastation – capitalism is, he maintains, in its “descending phase”. This form of being is, however, sustained by the forms of consciousness about it that are generated within it. “[T]he representative figures of capital’s social horizon must conceptualize everything in a determinate way.” (12) Therefore, the theoretical articulation of the forms of consciousness consistent with this alternative is a necessary stage in its positive realization, serves to undermine assumptions regarding the eternality of the capitalist system (maintained by the dominant ideologies of political economy), and constitute the first act of self-realization necessary for the institution of the radically different form of social metabolic order.

"Mészáros outlines seven mutually supporting and interlocking features of the ideological methodologies of the capitalist epoch: scientism, formalism, individualism, negative determinations, inadequate articulation of historical temporality, dichotomous thinking, and empty universalism, and traces these through the works of the “major players” in philosophical, social, and political-economic theory...."

From the review by A F Pomeroy in Marx & Philosophy Review of Books.

https://marxandphilosophy.org.uk/revi...

[Greg Chamberlin]

Time passes. Just last night I picked up this book and started reading it, moving slowly. Perhaps by summer's end I'll have finished it!


I continue to read this important book, although in fits and starts. It is a challenging read as Meszaros takes on the Western Philosophic Tradition to illustrate the dead-ends which keep us locked into impasse after impasse.

A touch of guilt when I consider that I haven't read in this book for some time..., but not enough guilt to motivate to try reading it again right now!

[Jon · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think Hungarian István Mészáros is one of the most historically interesting Marxists I've heard of. A child laborer who became a scholar after WWII (and whose doctoral advisor was Lukács), Mészáros was an active supporter of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, and chose exile upon its defeat. He was at first a professor in Italy, and then in 1959 migrated to the UK.

He was a very prolific writer and remained an adherent to Marxism, and historical materialism in particular, his entire life. Social Structure and Forms of Consciousness, Volume 1: The Social Determination of Method, one of his later works, and has affinities with the works of others, such as Horkheimer and Adorno and their criticism of instrumental reason, and also Gramsci's texts on hegemony and (probably most of all) Marx on superstructure and ideology.

That is not to say this is just some rehash of the others. "Western" Marxists, for the most part, fused their Marxism with other ideas, but Mészáros seems to have developed his ideas while more or less remaining within the ambit of Marx's elaborated historical materialism; with such a body of work Mészáros clearly stands on his own. Many of his arguments may be objectionable to some; he is highly critical of Hegel, for instance, calling the negation of the negation "some imaginary postulate" and "the magic mediator of contradictions." Personally I liked following Mészáros's line of thought here, but I'm not sure I'm ready to go so far. Does "negativity as self-transcending contradiction" completely contradict the historical materialist outlook? This question interests me, and I'd like to contrast it with Engels in Anti-Duhring:

The Hegelian negation of the negation, in default of anything better and clearer, has in fact to serve here as the midwife to deliver the future from the womb of the past. The abolition of 'individual property', which since the sixteenth century has been effected in the way indicated above, is the first negation. It will be followed by a second, which bears the character of a negation of the negation and hence of a restoration of 'individual property', but in a higher form, based on the common ownership of land and of the instruments of labour.

At any rate, Social Structure and Forms of Consciousness, Volume 1: The Social Determination of Method is a very thorough investigation into the transformation of philosophy, at the onset of the modern age and its capitalism, into (to revert to Gramsci's vocabulary) the scaffolding upon which the ideology of the bourgeoisie was transformed into hegemony.

Mészáros has proven to be a challenging read, but the challenge has only deepened my own understanding of historical materialism.

[Luna · Rating 2 out of 5]

Unfortunately this book wasn't for me. I only managed to read a couple of chapters; there are some interesting and valid points made in this book, but I found the language far too convoluted, rambling and pretentious.