What do you think?
Rate this book
Marx: The First Hundred Years
Book by McLellan, David
- GenresPolitics
316 pages, Paperback
First published January 25, 1983
1 person is currently reading
21 people want to read
About the author
David McLellan
53 books38 followersDavid McLellan (born 10 February 1940) is an English scholar of Karl Marx and Marxism. He was educated at Merchant Taylors' School and St. John's College, Oxford University.
McLellan is currently visiting Professor of Political Theory at Goldsmiths' College, University of London. He was previously Professor of Political Theory at the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Kent.
McLellan has also been Visiting Professor at the State University of New York, Guest Fellow in Politics at the Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Simla, and has lectured widely in North America and Europe.
McLellan is currently visiting Professor of Political Theory at Goldsmiths' College, University of London. He was previously Professor of Political Theory at the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Kent.
McLellan has also been Visiting Professor at the State University of New York, Guest Fellow in Politics at the Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Simla, and has lectured widely in North America and Europe.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 of 1 review
August 31, 2023
Ernest Mandel is brilliant on the economics essay. He doesn't even pretend he's writing about something interesting.
Roy Edgley's essay on philosophy is an outstandingly childish attempt to redefine Marxist science in response to Popper's falsification theory.
Quote:
"Marx recognises that science is not empiricist, i.e that it has a conceptual content not reducible to empirical observation"
My, what insight! That it has conceptual content not reducible to empirical observation, does not make science non-empirical. By treating empiricism as a coincidental appendage to science he altogether avoids the falsifiability question. Clever! Now we're free from any kind of standards that might require us to think about things for a moment, we go on to re-define the role of Marxist science. Hold onto your seats!
"it [empirical science] treats phenomenal appearances as the whole of reality, failing [!!!] to recognise the need for a critique of empirical concepts and the development of theoretical concepts"
Such words as can only be written by a philosopher.
He goes on:
"Hermeneutic philosophy makes the mistake of accepting an empiricist account of natural science and that because social understanding is not empiricist it must be different from natural science"
Such would be a reasonable conclusion. Further:
"it fails to realise that those commonplace concepts are themselves predominantly empirical, registering only phenomenal appearances and not the real relations those appearances mask."
Given empirical reality and theory, it is reality that must be wrong. We're now enjoying the fruits of thoroughly de-mystified science: "he is concerned with illusion, mystification, the lack of scientificity"
Marxism is the science of the critique of science because it is the only science to recognise it needn't have any recourse to observable reality which, predictably, is the realm of bourgeois science, or better yet, ideology.
We need not bother testing these hypotheses because that would be to mystify, and mask reality. Nothing could be more demystified, more scientific, than theory debased from reality.
The rest ranges from okay to good.
Roy Edgley's essay on philosophy is an outstandingly childish attempt to redefine Marxist science in response to Popper's falsification theory.
Quote:
"Marx recognises that science is not empiricist, i.e that it has a conceptual content not reducible to empirical observation"
My, what insight! That it has conceptual content not reducible to empirical observation, does not make science non-empirical. By treating empiricism as a coincidental appendage to science he altogether avoids the falsifiability question. Clever! Now we're free from any kind of standards that might require us to think about things for a moment, we go on to re-define the role of Marxist science. Hold onto your seats!
"it [empirical science] treats phenomenal appearances as the whole of reality, failing [!!!] to recognise the need for a critique of empirical concepts and the development of theoretical concepts"
Such words as can only be written by a philosopher.
He goes on:
"Hermeneutic philosophy makes the mistake of accepting an empiricist account of natural science and that because social understanding is not empiricist it must be different from natural science"
Such would be a reasonable conclusion. Further:
"it fails to realise that those commonplace concepts are themselves predominantly empirical, registering only phenomenal appearances and not the real relations those appearances mask."
Given empirical reality and theory, it is reality that must be wrong. We're now enjoying the fruits of thoroughly de-mystified science: "he is concerned with illusion, mystification, the lack of scientificity"
Marxism is the science of the critique of science because it is the only science to recognise it needn't have any recourse to observable reality which, predictably, is the realm of bourgeois science, or better yet, ideology.
We need not bother testing these hypotheses because that would be to mystify, and mask reality. Nothing could be more demystified, more scientific, than theory debased from reality.
The rest ranges from okay to good.
Displaying 1 of 1 review