This article was downloaded by: [University of Cambridge]

On: 26 December 2014, At: 14:53

Publisher: Routledge
Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House,
37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK

Critical Review: A Journal of Politics and Society

Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information:
http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rcri20

From Aristotle to Marx

a
Chris Sciabarra
a
Department of Politics , New York University , 25 Waverly Place, New York, NY, 10003
Published online: 01 Sep 2008.

To cite this article: Chris Sciabarra (1990) From Aristotle to Marx, Critical Review: A Journal of Politics and Society, 4:1-2,
61-73, DOI: 10.1080/08913819008459593

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/08913819008459593

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the “Content”) contained in the
publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make no representations
or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any
opinions and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors, and are not the
views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content should not be relied upon and should be
independently verified with primary sources of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses,
actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever or howsoever
caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arising out of the use of the Content.
This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic
reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any
form to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://
www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions
 Chris Sciabarra

FROM ARISTOTLE TO MARX

ESSENTIALISM IN THE THOUGHT OF KARL MARX

by Scott Meikle
LaSalle, Ill.: Open Court, 1985. 195 pp., $24-95
Downloaded by [University of Cambridge] at 14:53 26 December 2014

Meikle emphasizes the roots of Marx's dialectical method in Aristotelian essentialism and
organicism. This is shown to constitute a challenge to liberal scholars to rethink their
methodological premises. Though many liberals claim Aristotle as their intellectualforebear,
they haue not grasped the Aristotelian propensity for holistic analysis of social phenomena—as
Marx did. In order to reclaim Aristotle's legacy, liberals must reformulate their economic and
political ideas within a broader context that takes account of historical, cultural and socio-psy-
chologicalfactors.

While it is generally recognized that Marx owed much to Hegel, it is

sometimes overlooked that both theorists were profoundly influenced by
the works of Aristotle. Essentialism in the Thought of Karl Marx offers a
provocative analysis of the dialectic as a descendant of Aristotelian essen-
tialism and organicism. This constitutes an important contribution to
Marx scholarship. While the Aristotelian influence on Marx has been
noted by other authors, no previous work succeeds in establishing this
intellectual bond with such clarity. In the process, Meikle challenges
some of liberalism's most precious intellectual presuppositions concern-
ing Marxist method. More importantly, his work enables liberal scholars
to identify significant and promising dialectical tendencies within the
works of some of their own theoretical representatives.

Chris Sciabarra, Department of Politics, New York University, 25 Waverly Place, New York,
NY 10003, is the recipient of an Earhart Foundation fellowship. He wishes to acknowledge
the helpful comments of the editor and two anonymous referees.
6l
 62 Critical Review Vol. 4, Nos. 1-2

Marx's Aristotelian Roots

Meikle argues that since the days of ancient Greece, there has existed a
philosophical dichotomy between methodological atomism and essen-
tialism. The atomists see the atom as the primary ontological and episte-
mological unit. Atomism is the basis of reductive materialism because it
conceives "an ontology of simples, of basic building-blocks lacking
complexity" (154). It finds modern-day expression in positivistic social
science, which focuses almost exclusively on observable, material phe-
nomena. Positivism dismisses essentialism as a "metaphysical" philo-
sophical doctrine.
Essentialism opposes reductionist and positivist methods. It views the
whole as a dynamic, evolutionary, organic system. The whole is consti-
Downloaded by [University of Cambridge] at 14:53 26 December 2014

tuted by parts which are internally related and reciprocally interactive.

Marx's essentialist methods investigate the nature of the totality and its
teleological functions. This Marxian essentialism, Meikle argues, owes
much to the pioneering thought of Aristotle.
Meikle's discovery of an explicitly Aristotelian ontology at the core of
Marx's method enlists him in the growing ranks of theorists who are
convinced of the strong links between Aristotle and Marx. In 1936,
Sidney Hook claimed that Marx's "dialectical materialism has its basis,
but not its fulfillment in Aristotle's naturalism." Hook recognized the
Hegelian element in Marx's philosophical method, but he argued that
Marx's "fundamental metaphysical starting point . . . was Aristote-
lian."1 Indeed, the Aristotelian conception is the foundation of Marx's
understanding of the necessary internal relationship between theory and
practice, thought and activity.
More recently, Richard Bernstein uncovered a correlation between
Aristotelian and Marxist notions of praxis.2 Bernstein argued that the
Aristotelian notion is not a static, one-dimensional formulation. Aristotle
saw human reason, not merely as a faculty or capacity/but as an actuality.
"When Reason is fully actualized, both the understanding and what is
understood are characterized as rational: they are, according to Aristotle,
identical."3Bernstein suggests that this Aristotelian conception is funda-
mentally dynamic. "The actual is not a static reality, but the process of
activity itself manifested in a variety of forms."4 Bernstein claims that
Marx appropriates the Aristotelian concepts of actuality and potentiality.
By understanding what "man" is, Marx shows an appreciation for what
he can become. His chief difference with Aristotle is that Marx views
human nature as dependent upon changing historical circumstances.5
 Sciabarra • From Aristotle to Marx 63

This historicist element in Marx's thought introduces a relativist dimen-

sion to man's nature.
Carol Gould, in her brilliant examination of Marx's Social Ontology,
argues that Marx gives an Aristotelian ontological primacy to "concretely
existing individuals who constitute . . . social reality by their activ-
ity."6 Marx does not view individuals apart from their concrete relations,
nor does he see these relations as disembodied abstractions. Thus indi-
viduals do not exist apart from their relations. Marx embraces an Aris-
totelian conception of the individual as "a concrete individual . . . of a
given kind . . . a numerically distinct, concretely existing person char-
acterized by a given mode of activity."7 Like Bernstein, Gould contends
that Marx's most significant departure from Aristotelianism is his insis-
tence that the essence of human nature changes historically, developing
Downloaded by [University of Cambridge] at 14:53 26 December 2014

over time.
Other writers, too, have seen a Marxian-Aristotelian link. Frederick
Copleston notes a profound continuity in the common epistemological
and ontological realism of Aristotelian, Thomistic and Marxist philoso-
phy.8 And Herbert Marcuse suggests in Reason and Revolution that
Hegel, and Marx after him, rediscovered the extremely dynamic character
of the Aristotelian metaphysic, which treats all being as process and
movement.9 For Marcuse, Hegelian "logic" does not invalidate formal
logic; it merely gives "content" to the principle of identity.
These interpreters complement Marx's own acknowledged debt to
Aristotle. Marx recognized Aristotle as "the greatest thinker of antiquity,"
who "was the first to analyze so many forms, whether of thought, society,
Nature, and amongst them also the form of value."10 Engels called
Aristotle "the Hegel of the ancient world" who "had already analyzed the
most essential forms of dialectic thought."11 Lenin too, argued that within
Aristotle can be found "the living germs of dialectics and inquiries about
it."12

Essentialism and Dialectics

Certain liberal scholars condemn Marxist dialectics for its embrace of the
"ambiguous" notion of "contradiction." Karl Popper argues, for instance,
that the dialectic discards the law of non-contradiction.13 This suggests
that one of the most important conceptual categories of dialectical method
is in direct conflict with Aristotle's own laws of logic. But Popper
completely misunderstands the nature of dialectics. Meikle writes that
where Aristotle saw the essence of a thing in terms of its unfolding
 64 Critical Review Vol. 4, Nos. 1-2

ontological unity, Marx and Hegel view this as a unity "in contradiction."
The Marxian-Hegelian understanding of "contradiction" is thus not an
invalidation of Aristotelian logic. Rather, it is an ontological category
which explains the dynamism and movement of a whole. It expresses the
instability "between what exists and what is in the process of coming-to-
be" (36).
Dialectics does not deny the logical proposition of identity, that A
equals A. It gives the law of identity an ontological emphasis which
derives from the original Aristotelian metaphysic. Thus, A does equal A,
but A is conceived as a relational-unit. As Bertell Oilman writes, "given
these are 'AY relations, this is what 'A' must become and, in the becom-
ing, 'A' may be said to obey the law of its own development."14 This
development takes place within an organic whole in which certain proc-
Downloaded by [University of Cambridge] at 14:53 26 December 2014

esses are both supportive and destructive of each other.

Meikle contends that the contradictions identified by Marx are not
those of formal logic. They are contradictions of material and historical
content, of being itself. They are "immanent" contradictions, constitutive
of the real nature or essence of an entity. These contradictions develop
and grow throughout the life-process of the entity. For Marx, "the law
of the normal life of the entity or essence is the law of the unfolding of its
constitutive contradiction" (118-9).
Marxian essentialism sees contradictions as both actual and potential.
They are actual since they exist. They constitute the nature of an entity.
But they are also potential, since their existence forms the basis of an
entity's development over time. Crises that occur in the life-process of an
entity are real manifestations of the entity's internal contradictions.
Meikle's exploration of the concept of "contradiction" is similar to that
of Robert Heilbroner. Characterizing the concept as a relational (rather
than logical) construct, Heilbroner offers an important conceptual clari-
fication. He writes,
The bgical contradiction (or "opposite" or "negation") of a Master is not a
Slave, but a "non-Master," which may or may not be a slave. But the
relational opposite of a Master is indeed a Slave, for it is only by reference to
this second "excluded" term that the first is defined.15

Thus, in each "contradiction" that Marx uncovers, there is a sense in

which one element cannot exist without the other since each is a precon-
dition of the other's existence. Things that appear separate and opposed
reciprocally presuppose each other. There is an organic conjunction of
polar factors which propels the whole toward some kind of resolution.
 Sciabarra • From Aristotle to Marx 65

Heilbroner views dialectical "contradiction" as a Heraclitean deriva-

tive. Unlike Heilbroner, though, Meikle argues for the Aristotelian basis
of dialectical insight. Meikle contends that the achievements of Aristotle
were appropriated by Hegel, who replaced eighteenth-century atomist
premises with Aristotelian essentialist and organicist categories. Like
Aristotle, Hegel "conceives the form of law in terms of the realization of
potentialities in a whole which has an essence in which those potentialities
inhere" (31). It is the development of these potentialities over time that
constitutes the "unfolding" of an entity's "contradictions." Hegel, how-
ever, views time ideologically. He conceptualizes world history as a series
of stages "in each of which a higher level of human consciousness of
freedom is attained" (32). Hegel applied Aristotelian organic categories not
just to nature, but to history as well.
Downloaded by [University of Cambridge] at 14:53 26 December 2014

According to Meikle, then, Marx seeks "to transpose Hegel into the
form of Aristotelian materialism without losing what Hegel has gained"
(43). Marx conjoins Hegelian historicism and Aristotelian essentialism,
and achieves a structured critique of classical political economy and its
"analytical methods." The political economists created a model of static
equilibrium in which all social incompatibilities are identified as apparent,
rather than real. However, Marx's dialectical essentialist method views
these incompatibilities as the basis for social movement. Contradictory
forces are "made compatible in reality through their interweaving,
changes of form, and sometimes by forcible and violent readjustments,
within the continuing movement. Movement allows incompatibles to
survive together, at least for a while." Marx criticizes the classical econo-
mists who abstracted this movement from the social whole. They recon-
ciled incompatible social forces by creating artificial conceptual
consistency. They were unable to grasp that "a complex whole can contain
contradictions through movement" (69).
Unlike the methods of classical political economy, Marx's dialectic
compels the social scientist to reject static conceptualization, and to
identify the nature of an entity as internally related to its "typical forms of
movement." Marx's method achieves this dynamism because "it incorpo-
rates, rather than banishes, the time dimension of movement. It does not
need to. remove them because it is not embarrassed by them" (69).

Essentialism and Historicism

Meikle argues that Marx's rejection of the ahistorical, analytical methods

of "bourgeois" social science illustrates his acceptance of Aristotelian
 66 Critical Review Vol. 4, Nos. 1-2

ontological categories. This insight is one of Meikle's most important

contributions to Marx scholarship. Previous authors, such as Bernstein
and Gould, suggested that the historical dimension signifies a Marxian
departure from Aristotelianism. Meikle argues that Marx's emphasis on the
dynamic role of history is in basic agreement with the Aristotelian
conception of time. For Aristotle, "an essence is a locus of change and
motion. . . . Aristotle . . . makes time ontological as a function of the
movement and change of real existents" (165). Like Aristotle, Marx incor-
porates this temporal element into his conceptual categories. He sees
change as immanent to and constitutive of the essence of real entities.
For Marx, the central "entity" which must be scrutinized is capitalism,
an organic and historical system that is a spontaneous, unintended conse-
quence of the intentional interactions of real human individuals. Yet, the
Marxian approach is not merely historical. Its essentialist character traces
both the actual means by which the market economy evolves, and the
Downloaded by [University of Cambridge] at 14:53 26 December 2014

"value-form" in its "typical life process," that is, its "process of decay and
passing-away." For Marx, capitalism fully realizes the value-form and
"must, of its nature, develop into another form of society . . .'•' (65).
Marx's essentialism utilizes the premises of dialectical method in its
construction of a theory of history and human society. Marx's analysis of
the transformation of the value-form in history leads to a "systematization
of the laws of capitalist economy," such that socialism is both its historical
product and its natural outgrowth. Meikle emphasizes, dubiously, that
following in the footsteps of Aristotle, Marx's approach here is teleologkal
rather than deterministic. Strict determinism dictates what must happen.
Marx does not predict necessary historical development; he suggests laws
of the transformation of man's essence in the value form, laws which are
"effectively definitional of a thing's nature" (174). He offers an insight into
the immanent possibilities that emerge from the contradictory tensions
that exist. Thus, his vision of communism is an extension of his under-
standing of the internal contradictions of capitalism and their dynamic
movement over time toward resolution. But this does not entail a prede-
termined plan of history— though as we shall see, Marx acted as though,
in some respects, he possessed such a plan. Since a tehs provides not just
a possible but a definite "target" for historical development, his teleology
cannot easily be used to deny his historical determinism.

Positivism vs. Essentialism

Marx's organicism, like Aristotle's, is thoroughly opposed to the static,

ahistorical limitations of positivist social science. It transcends one-
 Sciabarra • From Aristotle to Marx 67

dimensional analytical models, and embraces an interpretive, historical

dimension.16 But another way of looking at this is to say that Marxism
is a closed system that resists falsificatory testing, especially inasmuch as
it presumes to predict the future.
Meikle maintains, however, that Marxian essentialism is founded on
Aristotle's materialism. Thus, to speak of the "essence" of an entity is not
to embrace a quasi-mystical or supernatural construct. The "essence" of
an entity is an objective reality which exists independently of human
thought and feeling; therefore, its nature can be tested. For example,
Meikle argues that

part of the essence of gold as we presently understand it is that it is that

element having the atomic number 79. We did not always know this; we
discovered it. It was part of the essence of gold before we knew it to be so,
and would still have been part ofthat essence even if there had never existed
any intelligent creatures like humans to discover it. Other entities, such as
Downloaded by [University of Cambridge] at 14:53 26 December 2014

forms of human society, also have essences which have to be discovered.

(177)

Marx's inquiry into the nature of capitalism is an investigation of its

essential forms and historical tendencies. Marx may have misidentified
those forms and tendencies, but we now know this because they are not
mystic entities that are impervious to testing. It is on the question of
whether Marx's reach exceeded his grasp, rather than on the question of
whether he was grasping at phantoms, that Meikle fails to guide us. Marx
wrote as if he had privileged access to information on the ultimate goals
of human history. While Marx recognized that humanity evolves and
changes over time, he suggested a view ofhuman "essence" which borders
on the omniscient. The feasibility of Marx's historical teleology is highly
questionable; it is not true that history must culminate in communism,
but this is established by reference to economic and historical facts which,
by falsifying the socialist and revolutionary assumptions of Marxism,
demonstrate deficiencies in the content, not necessarily the method, of
Marx's thought.17
The dialectical method is grounded in a relational epistemology, one
that demands an investigation and understanding of context in order to
identify the nature of the entities involved. No human being can ever have
a complete grasp of all the subtle nuances and sophisticated complexities
of life in order to explain, on a metaphysical level, the "ultimate" nature
of every real existent. The essence of a concept is not metaphysically
absolute, which would imply our omniscience. All human knowledge is
 68 Critical Review Vol. 4, Nos. 1-2

open-ended. An entity is what it is independent of human thought or

feeling. But our definition of the entity's nature is one that may change
with the growth of human knowledge.18
To engage in dialectical thinking is to be highly sensitive to context.
But it does not necessarily mean seeking to identify a totalistic grasp of
context independent of a particular vantage-point. Nothing in dialectics,
then, forbids projecting our understanding into the future. In keeping
with the Aristotelian tradition, Marx recognized potentiality in actuality.
He believed that the potential for socialism emerged from the actual
historical and systemic conditions that capitalism provides. But he pos-
tulated an indefensible, metaphysical identification of historical tendencies
which implied a synoptic vantage-point that no social theorist can ever
achieve.
Our dismissal of Marx's historical teleology is not a condemnation of
the future-orientation of dialectical method. All social science methods
Downloaded by [University of Cambridge] at 14:53 26 December 2014

embody assumptions about the future. But they must, to be valid, also
incorporate humility about the possible state of our knowledge of com-
plex, changing societies. The true value of dialectics lies in the organic,
relational and structural thrust of its analysis of historically constituted
factors and conditions in understanding both the past and the possible
future.

Toward a Dialectical Sensibility

Meikle's investigation of the Aristotelian-Marxian link constitutes a

challenge to those liberals who have neatly defined the history of philos-
ophy as a struggle between the "Aristotelianism" of Aquinas, Locke, and
the American founders, and the "Platonism" of Hegel, Marx, and the
Bolsheviks.19 Claiming Aristotle as their intellectual forebear, natural-
rights theorists argue that man's nature is fulfilled by recognizing those
"rights" which enable him to freely realize his "essence." This essence is
usually defined individualistically: individuals have different essences to
realize, and as long as they operate within the boundaries of a non-coer-
cive political order, the liberal society should maintain neutrality between
them. No "lifestyle" is given ontological or moral priority within the
broader scheme that sanctions the free development of individual diver-
sity.20
Conversely, other liberals oppose all totalistic philosophies. Popper,
for instance, criticizes Marxism for its historicist, Utopian prophecies and
 Sdabarra • From Aristotle to Marx 69

its dystopian, practical consequences. Popper applauds Marx's opposition

to psychologism and his defense of the autonomy of sociology. But he
views the Marxist project as a Platonic and Hegelian derivative. Popper
maintains that this triumvirate—Plato, Hegel, and Marx —provides an
intellectual rationale for "radical" social engineering, collectivism and
totalitarianism. They are the true enemies of the open society.21 This
criticism of Marxian method, as opposed to its socialist content, ignores
the fact that for Marx, revolution was to be the outcome of organic crises
of capitalism, not of the legislation of social engineers—radical or piece-
meal.
Popper might have been more sensitive to this essentialist aspect, since
he recognizes the "Aristotelian roots" of Hegelianism and Marxism. But
he dismisses Aristotle's thought as a mere systematization and outgrowth
of Platonism. His contention that Aristotle "was not a man of striking
originality of thought" is symptomatic of a deep distrust of Aristotelian-
Downloaded by [University of Cambridge] at 14:53 26 December 2014

ism within that part of the liberal academy which rejects the concept of
"natural rights."22
Like Popper, Hayek views the Aristotelian legacy as a mixed blessing.
He argues that Aristotle, Cicero, and St. Thomas Aquinas formulated a
critical conception of reason which is the basis of contemporary liberal-
ism.23 But Hayek denigrates Aristotle for his ignorance of evolution.
Aristotelianism is also criticized as "the foundation of socialist thought."24
Hayek writes that "the anti-commercial attitude of the mediaeval and
early modern Church, condemnation of interest as usury, its teaching of
the just price, and its contemptuous treatment of gain is Aristotelian
through and through.25
Hayek does not recognize that his own methodology contains dy-
namic, dialectical elements first presented in the works of Aristotle. Like
Marx, Hayek understands that the liberal ideal cannot be divorced from
its wider social, historical, or moral context. Hayek's dialectic goes be-
yond the strictures of methodological individualism. It views society as
an organic and historically constituted whole of internally related pro-
cesses and structures.
Hayek is not the only neo-liberal thinker to recognize the broad
preconditions of the capitalist economy. The novelist-philosopher Ayn
Rand also rejected the one-dimensional view of liberalism as a purely
political project. Rand disassociated herself from the modern libertarian
movement despite some of their basic political affinities because, she
claimed, the libertarian anarchists focused on a single strand of social
reality — politics — and disconnected it from the corpus of a complex
 70 Critical Review Vol. 4, Nos. 1-2

philosophical totality. Like Marx, Rand saw anarchism and statism as two
sides of the same coin. Her defense of capitalism attempted to integrate
those meta-ethical, epistemological, and psycho-cultural components
which are essential to its systemic survival. Rand viewed these internally
related social and philosophical factors as both the prerequisites for and
products of capitalism.26
Though Rand acknowledged her own intellectual debt to Aristotle, she
would have denied any similarity between her philosophy and Marxist
dialectics. But Rand's hostility to communism should not obscure the fact
that she was educated in the early 1920s at the University of Petrograd
(now the University of Leningrad) in the Soviet Union. In the aftermath
of the "Silver Age" of Russian philosophy, this was an exciting time in the
Soviet universities.27 It is possible that Rand learned much from her
Hegelian professors, absorbing the totalistic and contextual thrust of
dialectical method, while repudiating its Marxist ideological content.
Downloaded by [University of Cambridge] at 14:53 26 December 2014

Speculating on such a Hegelian-Marxian-Randian link only bolsters our

appreciation of their common Aristotelian roots.
Meikle's book prompts the thought that liberalism in general and much
of neo-liberalism in particular suffer from an incomplete Aristotelianism.
In rejecting Marxism, liberals like Popper do not realize that their own
world view has as many totalistic implications as the Marxian vision. And
neo-liberals often sever their libertarian ideal from the socio-historical
and psycho-cultural contexts upon which it genetically depends. The best
hope for liberal social science lies in its dialectical grasp of the internal
relationship between economic, political, personal and intellectual free-
dom. If the movement in Eastern Europe means anything, it is that each
of these spheres is a precondition of the other's existence.
To embrace a' dialectical sensibility does not imply that liberals must
invent their own version of historical determinism. To do more than
speculate on the possibilities of historical development is to commit a
synoptic fallacy. This was the most problematic post-Hegelian inversion
of Aristotle's teleology: the belief that one could identify the metaphysical
purpose of human history in advance of its achievement. No human being
is in an omniscient position to identify the underlying telos of evolution.
On the other hand, we can be rather certain that that telos will not involve
the absolute freedom entailed by conscious human control over history.
Marx himself maintained that people both shape and are shaped by
historical conditions. But he exhibited a certain degree of intellectual
hubris by suggesting that we could achieve complete mastery over our
destiny.
 Sciabarra • From Aristotle to Marx 71

A dialectical sensibility in liberal social science can avoid the quagmire

of historical teleology, while admitting the importance of historical con-
text. The approach of figures such as Hayek and Rand is crucially impor-
tant in this regard, since they point toward the construction of a radical,
yet neo-liberal dialectic, one which recognizes the organic inter-relation-
ships between and among contradictory social forces and historical con-
ditions.28 Meikle's book makes clear that this dialectical perspective is not
a peculiarly Marxist legacy: it is Aristotelian, and it is the birthright of
anyone who seeks a more realistic understanding of society than that
offered by arid, one-dimensional, ahistorical models of human behavior.

NOTES
Downloaded by [University of Cambridge] at 14:53 26 December 2014

1. Sidney Hook, From Hegel to Marx: Studies in the Intellectual Development of Karl
Marx (New York: Regnal and Hitchcock, 1950 [1936]), 36.
2. Richard J. Bernstein, Praxis and Action: Contemporary Philosophies of Human
Activity (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1971).
3. Ibid., 16.
4. Ibid., 34.
5. Ibid., 70.
6. Carol C. Gould, Marx's Social Ontology: Individuality and Community in Marx's
Theory of Social Reality (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1978), xiv.
7. Ibid., 33.
8. Frederick Copleston, A History of Philosophy, bk. 3, vol. 7: Fichte to Nietzsche
(Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1985), 334.
9. Herbert Marcuse, Reason and Revolution: Hegel and the Rise of Social Theory
(Boston: Beacon Press, 1960).
10. Karl Marx, Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, vol. 1: The Process of
Capitalist Production, ed. Friedrich Engels, trans. from the 3rd German edition
by Samuel Moore and Edward Aveling (New York: International Publishers,
1971 [1871]). 408, 59.
11. Friedrich Engels, Herr Eugen Duhring's Revolution in Science (Moscow: Prog-
ress Publishers, 1947 [1878]), 29, 29n.
12. V. I. Lenin, "On Aristotle's Metaphysics," in Reader in Marxist Philosophyfront
the Writings of Marx, Engels, and Lenin, ed. Howard Selsam and Harry Martel
(New York: International Publishers, 1963), 361.
13. Karl Popper, "What is Dialectic?," Conjectures and Refutations (London:
Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1963 [1940]).
14. Bertell Oilman, Alienation: Marx's Conception of Man in Capitalist Society, 2nd
ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976), 19.
 72 Critical Review Vol. 4, Nos. 1-2

15. Robert Heilbroner, "The Dialectical Approach to Philosophy," in The Main

Debate: Communism versus Capitalism, ed. Tibor Machan (New York: Random
House, 1987), 8.
16. Ironically, both Austrian economists and Marxists reject the neo-classical
economists' obsession with static equilibrium analysis. Though Austrians
and Marxists have been classic theoretical rivals, they share many of the same
dynamic methodological insights. This subject would take me well beyond
the scope of the current essay.
17. See Chris Sciabarra, "Marx on the Precipice of Utopia," Critical Review 2, no.
4 (Fall 1988): 76-81.
18. See Ayn Rand, Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology (New York: New Amer-
ican Library, 1979 [1966-67]), especially 52-72.
19. See for instance Tibor Machan's Preface to The Libertarian Alternative, ed.
Tibor Machan (Chicago: Nelson-Hall, 1977) and Ayn Rand's title essay in
For the New Intellectual (New York: New American Library, 1961).
20. Neither Machan (e.g. in his Individuals and Their Rights [La Salle, Ill.: Open
Downloaded by [University of Cambridge] at 14:53 26 December 2014

Court, 1989]) nor Rand separate the political and the moral. Murray
Rothbard, by contrast, maintains that libertarianism is a purely political
project with no implications for personal morality. See Rothbard's The Ethics
of Liberty (Atlantic Highlands, N.J.: Humanities Press, 1982).
21. Karl Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies, 2 vols. (Princeton, N.J.:
Princeton University Press, 1971 [1962]).
22. Ibid., vol. 2, 1.
23. F.A. Hayek, "Kinds of Rationalism," in his Studies in Philosophy, Politics, and
Economics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980 [1966]), 94.
24. F. A. Hayek, The Fatal Conceit: The Errors of Socialism, ed. W. W. Bartley, III
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989), 143, 47.
25. Ibid., 47.
26. See Rand, Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal (New York: New American Library,
1967) and Philosophy: Who Needs It (New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1982). Also
see Chris Sciabarra, "Ayn Rand's Critique of Ideology," Reason Papers no. 14
(Spring 1989): 32-44. That Rand's perspective embraces the philosophy of
internal relations is a contention which must be justified. This would take me
beyond the scope of the current essay. Rand's relationism, like Marx's, is
based on what Carol Gould has called an "asymmetric internality" (see
Gould 89, 92, 180n7, i81n4, 184n22). Marx's thought recognized internal
relations even though it was skewed toward material or economic explana-
tions. O n the other hand, Rand's recognition of internality is skewed toward
philosophical or ideational explanations rooted in her basic assumptions
about human nature.
27. On the "Silver Age," see Bernice Glatzer Rosenthal, Dmitri Sergeevich
Merezhkovsky and the Silver Age: The Development of a Revolutionary Mentality
(The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1975).
 Sdabarra • From Aristotle to Marx 73

28. That Hayek and Rand offer significant dialectical alternatives in the neo-lib-
eral tradition is a contention which merits detailed discussion. I discuss the
Hayekian dialectic in my Toward a Radical Critique of Utopianism: Dialectics and
Dualism in the Works of Friedrich Hayek, Murray Rothbard and Karl Marx (New
York University Ph.D. diss., 1988) and the Randian dialectic in my "Ayn
Rand's Critique of Ideology." The latter is part of a broader, book-length
project which will assess Rand's philosophical method and critique of "anti-
conceptualism."
Downloaded by [University of Cambridge] at 14:53 26 December 2014