Introducción a la filosofía de la praxis

by Antonio Gramsci

Introduccion A La Filosofia de la praxis de Gramsci Antonio. Peninsula , 1976.

Genres: Politics

153 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1972

About the author

Antonio Francesco Gramsci was an Italian Marxist philosopher, linguist, journalist, writer, and politician. He wrote on philosophy, political theory, sociology, history, and linguistics. He was a founding member and one-time leader of the Italian Communist Party. A vocal critic of Benito Mussolini and fascism, he was imprisoned in 1926, where he remained until his death in 1937.

During his imprisonment, Gramsci wrote more than 30 notebooks and 3,000 pages of history and analysis. His Prison Notebooks are considered a highly original contribution to 20th-century political theory. Gramsci drew insights from varying sources — not only other Marxists but also thinkers such as Niccolò Machiavelli, Vilfredo Pareto, Georges Sorel, and Benedetto Croce. The notebooks cover a wide range of topics, including the history of Italy and Italian nationalism, the French Revolution, fascism, Taylorism and Fordism, civil society, the state, historical materialism, folklore, religion, and high and popular culture.
Gramsci is best known for his theory of cultural hegemony, which describes how the state and ruling capitalist class — the bourgeoisie — use cultural institutions to maintain wealth and power in capitalist societies. In Gramsci's view, the bourgeoisie develops a hegemonic culture using ideology rather than violence, economic force, or coercion. He also attempted to break from the economic determinism of orthodox Marxist thought, and so is sometimes described as a neo-Marxist. He held a humanistic understanding of Marxism, seeing it as a philosophy of praxis and an absolute historicism that transcends traditional materialism and traditional idealism.

Reviews

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

Before I read Marx, I read Adorno; before I read Gramsci, I read Laclau & Mouffe. Turns out that in both cases, going to the source is a good idea (and starting out with it instead of retracing my steps there would have saved me some unnecessary theoretical straying). Needless to say, the Gramsci that arises from this excerpted version of the Prison Notebooks is not the culture-war everything-goes guru that his later interpreters make him out to be.

The book is divided in 7 parts, which spread their attention between Marxism proper, Benedetto Croce, Bukharin's Historical Materialism: a system of sociology, the role of intellectuals, Macchiavelli and finally a very short bit on the State. Interspersed are comments on Sorel, Luxemburg and my much-maligned compatriot De Man. Its themes vary, but its dedication to marxist historical and dialectical materialism and stands out before all other characteristics - quite the opposite of what its academic interlocutors would have you believe. This does not mean that it does not attack vulgar determinism, which leaves no space for organizing; in fact, it does so explicitly:

The determinist, fatalistic, mechanical element has been a direct ideological 'aroma' of [marxism], a form of religion and stimulant (albeit with the effect of anaesthesia), historically necessary and justified if one takes into account the inferior character of certain social layers. If one does not have the initiative in the struggle and it turns into a series of nothing but defeats, mechanical determinism becomes a formidable source of moral resistance, of cohesion, of patient and stubborn persistence ... But once the inferior leads, bears responsibility for the economic activity of the masses, the mechanistic way of thinking reveals itself to be a direct danger and a revision of the entire way of thinking takes place as the general way of being has shifted ... Hence, we must demonstrate the futility of the mechanical determinism that, even if it is explicable as the naïve philosophy of the masses, it becomes source of passivity and bone-headed complacency when appropriated by intellectuals as if it were a coherent and thought-out philosophy. (33-34)

However, rather than reading as an attack on the communists who underscore the importance of the development of the means of production, it applies to "left-communists" who these days are represented by Endnotes and similar anarcho-academic cliques.

Besides from this, Gramsci is deeply appreciative of the historical nature of marxism, grasping that the relevance of marxism will wither away with the transcendence of capitalist class relations, that "objectivity" must always mean human objectivity and hence historical subjectivity; that, in a Hegelian turn of phrase, humanity's knowledge tends towards objectivity as the contradictions pitting human groups against one another dissolve and that until then "partial idologies" must be held at bay. Beliefs and understanding are disseminated in groups, not spread through debate, and hence "originality" is not the ability of atomized individuals to come up with seemingly "new" ideas, but rather with the success of an intellectual to spread their synthesis amongst the broadest masses. Gramsci, here, is a mature marxist here who resolutely declines to attach to humanity absolute essences and doctrines.

Hence, it is especially glaring when he does fall to a certain reductionism. The interests of the proletariat are the interests of all humanity in an over-arching, broad sense, but in day-to-day life, great contradictions between (for example) petty producers and peasants vis-a-vis the proletariat can exist. However, Gramsci reasons that "[marxism] does not attempt to peacefully resolve the contradictions that exist in history and society; it is the theory of these contradictions (124)". Mao, perhaps the most influential communist theoretician of the mid-20th century, goes straight against this: for him, the revolutionary masses can only be forged by creating a hierarchy of contradictions and accordingly pacifying some (the contradiction between poor and rich farmers) while intensifying others (the contradiction between landlords and farmers as such). An understanding of the historical hierarchy of contradictions seems absent.

A final caveat is that the attraction The Prison Notebooks exerts on bourgeois academia is tied directly to its non-concrete nature: apart from a few historical notes (such as on the French Revolution), Gramsci dabbles mostly in sandbox societies, and is hence very open and unfinished. The task of academia is not to draw on all cracks and pores until the framework is a loose tangle of sticks, as Laclau & Mouffe do, but rather to apply and test the Notebooks against history. For instance, off the top of my head, how does Gramsci's assertion that the peasantry uniquely fails to produce an intellectual class galvanizing its ideology relate to the experiences of the Chinese Revolution, and, conversely, to the Khmer Rouge's (and others') poor-peasant lines?

Very interesting stuff, grounded in proper (albeit veiled) marxism-leninism, but that should never be divorced from its broader ideological/methodological background. Requires a few more readings.

[Sararo Fernández · Rating 4 out of 5]

Literalmente lo leí de dos sentadas. Es bastante basicorro pero me parece súper buena explicación de bases ( es literalmenre un desarrollo de las tesis sobre feuerbach). Le pongo 4 porque como digo es bastante basiquillo pero además de necesario lo recomiendo mucho porque está todo genial organizado y escrito mi niñe le mejor. Estoy leyendo mucho de esta persona últimamente pero todavía no tengo una opinión de él del todo formada así que eso lo dejo para los siguientes

[Tomás · Rating 5 out of 5]

«Introducción a la filosofía de la praxis» es un pequeño libro que compila una parte fundamental del volumen de los «Quaderni» dedicado al estudio del materialismo histórico y la filosofía de Croce. Este libro, aunque relativamente corto, condensa los elementos fundamentales de la concepción que tiene Gramsci de la filosofía de la praxis, elementos que incluyen grandes conceptos como el del «bloque histórico», de la «hegemonía», de la «nueva inmanencia», de la praxis en general, de la «traductibilidad» y de las relaciones entre estructura (económica) y superestructura (ideológica), así como el lugar de los intelectuales en la cultura.
Además, el libro desarrolla un asunto medular en el pensamiento de Gramsci, a saber: la especificidad de la política frente a cualquier causalismo económico (lugar común de los marxismos dogmáticos). Para Gramsci, la política como praxis, esto es, como lugar de la transformación social y de la organización de las voluntades colectivas, incluye en sí misma una serie de elementos (que comprenden caracteres hasta psicológicos) que la vuelven irreductible a lo económico. Sin embargo, esto no significa que esté desligada de la economía, cosa contraria, sino que constituye un bloque histórico «orgánico» que es menester asir en función de la nueva inmanencia que inaugura Marx con la filosofía de la praxis. Por lo tanto, Gramsci esboza las bases de un modo de análisis crítico en un sentido complejo.
Se trata, por lo anterior, de un libro de suma relevancia cuya vigencia e importancia revitalizan el marxismo y las posibilidades que tiene de constituirse como una hegemonía antagónica.

[Owl · Rating 3 out of 5]

vond het een beetje houterig vertaald, wat het soms moeilijk te lezen maakt.

[Alejandro]

Las partes que he entendido (pocas) me han parecido realmente interesantes, aunque yo no llamaría «Introducción» a este texto. Me hará falta una segunda -y quizás tercera- lectura para verme capaz de darle una puntuación.

Crear una nueva cultura no significa sólo hacer individualmente descubrimientos «originales» sino que significa también -y especialmente- difundir críticamente verdades ya descubiertas, «socializarlas» por así decir.