Introduction¶
Core Argument¶
The author began work on this History of Philosophy twenty-seven years ago as part of Reason in Revolt, but the philosophy section was omitted due to length. The manuscript lay dormant for over two decades before being published online and now in book form, spurred by comrades in the International Marxist Tendency to combat bourgeois ideology during capitalism's terminal crisis. The text has been revised, with new sections on the Middle Ages and a final chapter explaining why philosophy ends with Marxism. The appendix on Indian philosophy has been omitted and the chapter on Islamic philosophy reduced due to space constraints; Oriental philosophy developed on different lines from Western philosophy, which peaked in Hegel and culminated in Marx and Engels, and would require additional volumes to do justice.
Philosophy emerges when humans explain the world without supernatural agencies, marking the beginning of a scientific understanding. Marxism is a world outlook, with German classical philosophy, especially Hegel, as its most important source. Marx negated Hegel's idealism while preserving the dialectic, placing it on a materialist foundation. Studying the history of philosophy is necessary because Marx and Engels could presuppose a basic knowledge of it, but this cannot be assumed today. Hegel's History of Philosophy presented philosophy as an organic process of contradictions, where negation preserves what is valid—sublation. The author adopts Hegel's method from a materialist standpoint, tracing the overarching line of thought with its immanent laws, while rejecting mechanical 'Marxism' that reduces everything to productive forces or class struggle. As Engels noted, economic development ultimately dominates ideology, but philosophy also reacts back on society and can flourish in economically backward countries.
The economy creates nothing absolutely new but determines how existing thought is altered and developed, mostly indirectly through political, legal and moral reflexes. The author argues that bourgeois thinkers lack dialectics, seeing only cause and effect rather than interaction where economic movement is the strongest force. The task of Marxists is to extract essential rational principles from conflicting ideas that have advanced humanity. Modern bourgeois philosophy dismisses past thought as 'metanarratives'. The bourgeoisie once produced great thinkers but now displays senile decay. A new Cambridge translation of Hegel's Science of Logic mistranslates Denken (thought) as 'discourse', sneaking postmodern subjectivism into Hegel. The author declares his partisan standpoint of dialectical materialism, arguing that philosophy is a battlefield between materialism and idealism, and that false objectivity merely disguises class interests. Philosophy is a revolutionary weapon; the ruling class uses it to confuse youth. Marxism must rescue valuable past thinkers like the Greeks, Spinoza, French materialists, and Hegel, discarding what is false, as part of the revolutionary heritage.