Marx’s Revolution in Philosophy

Wellred

Core Argument

Here, Alan Woods argues that Marx’s Theses on Feuerbach constitute a fundamental rupture in the history of philosophy, moving beyond both mechanical materialism and Hegelian idealism by grounding thought in revolutionary practice. The chapter’s core narrative thrust is that the “problem of knowledge” is a false problem, generated by a dualistic separation of consciousness from the material world and from human sensuous activity. Woods insists that humans are not contemplative observers but active participants in their environment; consciousness does not erect a barrier between subject and object but connects them through practical, transformative labour.

Woods grounds this argument in a materialist account of evolution and neurobiology. He draws on scientific descriptions of synaptic transmission to dismiss the “mystical-idealist view” of consciousness as an independent “thing” or soul. The hand, not the brain, is presented as the primary driver of human development: manual labour, tool-making, and collective activity necessitated the growth of the brain and the emergence of language. Woods cites Engels’s dictum that “the hand developed the brain” and references Australopithecus to support the claim that tool use predated major brain expansion. This evolutionary narrative is deployed to refute Cartesian dualism, which Woods traces from Plato and Pythagoras through Descartes, arguing that the insoluble problem of mind-body interaction is a product of treating consciousness as a separate entity.

The chapter’s central polemic is directed against bourgeois individualism and its philosophical reflections. Woods argues that the notion of the isolated, free-willing individual is an ideological product of capitalist social relations, which atomise and alienate people. He contrasts this with the inherently collective consciousness of the working class, forged in co-operative labour and struggle. The “vacuous platitudes of Postmodernism” and popular culture’s fascination with runaway robots (e.g., Terminator) are cited as symptoms of an alienated world where people feel controlled by forces they cannot comprehend. The ultimate target is the idea of an eternal “human nature”; Woods insists that human nature is historically mutable and can only be fundamentally transformed by abolishing the irrational relations of capitalist production. The chapter culminates by returning to Marx’s third thesis: the unity of changing circumstances and self-change can only be understood as “revolutionary practice.” To revolutionise thought, it is necessary to revolutionise society.