Philosophy
Karl Marx was born in Trier, May 5, 1818. He is a German economist, philosopher and revolutionary, the founder of Marxism. Father of Karl Marx was a Jewish lawyer who abandoned his faith in order to avoid anti-Semitism. Young Carl attended school in Trier, and then studied law at the University of Bonn.
During his stay in Bonn, Carl got into debt and, even, was wounded in a duel. When his father Charles learned about it, he got furious so Karl Marx moved to Berlin to study there at the local university. There Karl came under strong influence of his teacher Bruno Bauer, who had very radical ideas about politics and religion. Perhaps familiarity with Bauer greatly influenced the further biography of Karl Marx.
While a student at the University of Berlin, Marx was also heavily influenced by the philosophy of Hegel. Marx became interested in philosophy and in 1841 received his doctorate in philosophy. In 1842, Karl Marx became editor and journalist of the newspaper "Rheinische Zeitung" in Cologne. Karl Marx openly criticized the government and stood up for abolition of censorship. As a result, in 1843, Karl Marx was dismissed from his post and the newspaper was closed.
Carl moved to Paris, where he became interested in communist ideas. In 1844 Friedrich Engels met Karl Marx. They had similar ideas about the various revolutionary problems. They began to work together to develop the basic principles of communism and the organization of labor.
When Karl Marks lived in France, he was closely watched by government. As a result, in 1845 he was ordered to leave Paris because of his activities. Karl Marx moved to Brussels, where he established a network of revolutionary groups, which in 1847 were united in an organization, called "Communist League." Marx and Engels soon expressed their principles of communism in the Communist Manifesto.
Most of the ideas outlined in the Manifesto were innovative. Marx and Engels were against the idea of capitalism and the tried to develop the working class. Karl Marx assumed that the existing capitalist system will be rejected, there will be a revolution of the working class, which will form a society in which all are equally provided.
In 1848, Karl Marx was expelled from Belgium after the revolutions in France and Germany. He moved to Paris and then back to Cologne. There Marx founded the communist magazine "Neue Rheinische Zeitung" and worked in the local communist organizations. In 1849, Marx was arrested and has been charged with incitement to armed rebellion, but was acquitted and deported from Germany. Soon Carl returned to France and lived there until he was not expelled and sent to London.
In London, Karl Marx devoted all his time to a worldwide communist movement. He wrote his famous work "Capital", which analyzed the capitalist economy and its exploitation of the working class. Soon Marx published "The Civil War in France" in 1871, which was written about the government of Paris during the Franco-Prussian War. During his stay in London, Karl Marx also wrote articles for numerous publications, including the New York Daily Tribune.
Communist League disbanded in 1852, but Marx did not even think to give up. He formed the first international organization in London, it included many members of the Communist League. Government pressure forced Charles to move the headquarters of the organization to the United States.
Founder of Marxism died on March 14, 1883. Despite the fact that Marx was not greatly influential in his life, but his ideas have become very popular after his death. In Russia and China, there were numerous communist revolution in the name of Marx and communism.
Karl Marx and Engels are the founders of Marxism. Their philosophy is set out in a number of papers. In particular, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels' The German Ideology "," The Communist Manifesto "; Marx "Class Struggles in France from 1848 to 1850", "The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte", "Critique of Political Economy", "Preface", "Capital" and so on.
Marxism philosophy emerged in the 40s. XIX century. Its theoretical sources were the most significant philosophical, economic and socio-political theory of the end of XVIII - early XIX centuries. And, in particular, German classical philosophy in the face of such thinkers as Hegel and Feuerbach, classical bourgeois political economy (Adam Smith, David Ricardo), the work of the utopian socialists (Saint-Simon, Fourier, Owen) and the works of French historians of the restoration era (Thierry, Guizot, Mignet). The emergence of Marxism philosophy contributed to the great achievements in the field of natural sciences: the law of conservation and transformation of energy, the discovery of the cell, the evolutionary theory of Darwin et al., and their philosophical generalization. Marx and Engels relied on the most significant ideas of their time in their creative activity, which they critically reworked, having learned the most valuable of all created by their predecessors.
Theoretical basis of Marxism philosophy is dialectical materialism, according to Engels, the science of the most general laws of motion and development of nature, society and thought. Materialistic philosophy of Marxism is manifested in the fact that it accepts the matter as the sole basis of the existing world; consciousness is regarded as a property of highly organized forms of matter, the specific function of the human brain, with its ability to reflect existing world objectively. Dialectical essence of Marxism is defined by the recognition of universal interconnection of objects and phenomena of the world, which is in constant motion and development.
Historical materialism studies of the most general laws of development of human society stand as the main part of Marxism theory. The main difference between the philosophy of Marxism and all previous works is to spread materialism to the understanding of the history of social development, to clarify the role of human activity in the knowledge, close unity and mutual influence of materialism and dialectics.
Just take a look at the most detailed essence of dialectical materialism. Dialectical materialism studies the relation between consciousness and matter, thought and being, laws, categories, the most common form of expressing the universal forms of being and knowing. Dialectical materialism considers that the matter is primary and consciousness is secondary.
A fundamental principle of the Marxism theory of knowledge is a dialectical materialism solution to the issue of the primacy of material fact in relation to thinking, recognition bases of cognitive processes of human activity, which is the human interaction with the surrounding reality in specific historical conditions and at the same time serving as a criterion of the truth or falsity of the results human activity.
According to the ideas of Marx and Engels, man and nature are closely related to each other and at the same time represent two different quality material systems. Acting in all possible ways and instruments of labor to the phenomena of nature, man transforms nature and at the same time changes, develops itself. This is precisely the objective material activity of people called practice. Practices, understood in the broadest sense, acts Strezhnev concept in the first place, in the theory of knowledge.
The most important role in philosophy, according to the ideas of Marx and Engels, belongs to the universal laws of dialectical development and categories.
Marx believed that knowledge of universal laws is crucial in the knowledge of nature, society and thought, but the specific form of their manifestations may be studied only on the basis of knowledge and special laws. The laws unique to certain specific areas of human activity.
The basic ideas of historical materialism formulated by Marx and Engels are mentioned in his early works, such as "The Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1884", "The Holy Family", "The German Ideology" and especially in "The Poverty of Philosophy" and " Manifesto of the Communist Party. " Further development of this theory was processed in subsequent works of the founders of this doctrine.
The subject of historical materialism is the social life in all its diversity and complexity. There are social laws with a universal character. These include such principles: The law defines the role of social being in relation to the public consciousness; the decisive role of the productive forces in relation to economic relations; defining the role of the economic basis in relation to the superstructure, as well as the law include the division of society into classes and class struggle, which is characteristic only for a few socio-economic formations.
The peculiarity of historical materialism is that social development regards as a natural historical process. So that natural phenomena depends not only on the people, but form their will and consciousness.
Theoretical legacy of Karl Marx is an important and rich in content economic thought, which has deep generalizations in logical rigor of reasoning, the organic unity of the historical and logical analysis.
Key achievements of Marxism:
• Enrichment of the research methodology of economic and social processes;
• The creation of the original analytical apparatus of scientific analysis, based on the identification of the relationship of technical, economic and political problems.
Historical significance of Marxism remains associated with the activity of large numbers of people - the proletarians. Together with the World industrialization, following the emergence and development of the proletariat in different countries, Marxism became very popular. In our time employees account for the majority of mankind. Consequently, the social basis of Marxism has increased enormously; Marxism develops in general, and philosophy as an integral part. The supreme goal of Marxism - development and theoretical basis for the liberation of the enslaved humanity. Marxism proves inevitable destruction of all bondage, humiliation, alienation and slavery among people. This higher meaning of the historical process is realized through the study, the analysis of the study, on the one hand, the universal practical experience of mankind, and, on the other - the universal spiritual experience of mankind.
References
Curtis, Michael. Marxism. New York: Atherton Press, 1998.
Eagleton, Terry. Marxism and Literary Criticism. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006.
Levi, Margaret. Marxism. Aldershot, Hants, England: E. Elgar, 2001.
Lichtheim, George. Marxism: An Historical and Critical Study. 2005.
Marcuse, Herbert. Soviet Marxism: A Critical Analysis. New York: Columbia University Press, 1998.
Marx, Karl, and Friedrich Engels. Capital. Chicago: Encyclopædia Britannica, 1955.
Pennock, J. Roland. Marxism. New York: New York University Press, 1983.
Williams, Raymond. Classical Marxism. Oxford England: Oxford University Press, 2009.
