Marx and Singularity: From the Early Writings to the Grundrisse (Historical Materialism)

"Marx and Singularity by Luca Basso attempts to understand the development of Marx's thought, from the early writings to the Grundrisse, as a search for individual realisation. Drawing upon the concept of singularity in contemporary French theory, and problematising its relation to Marx's vocabulary, this book challenges organicist interpretations of Marx's early work. The productivity of the notion of singularity is argued to be based on the fact that it allows us to highlight the element of individual realisation, stressing at the same time its distance from the modern conception of individuality. The "correlate" of singularity is the reciprocity, moving and unstable, between the "individual" and the "collective", which occurs in class struggles."--Publisher's website. 1. The question of individuality1.1. Individuals, determination and contingency1.2. Gattungswesen and politics: from the Critique of Hegel's Doctrine of the State to The Holy Family1.3. The individual separation between bourgeois and citoyen1.4. A society without relations1.5. The need for a change of perspective: The German Ideology2. Beyond the 'private - social' dichotomy2.1. Social power and randomness in The German Ideology2.2. The ambivalence of the community2.3. Singularity and practice: the realisation of 'individuals as such'.2.4. Common class-action2.5. Towards 1848: thinking in the conjuncture3. Social Nexus and Indifference3.1. The genesis of individuality and capitalism in the Grundrisse: the breakthrough of the critique of political economy3.2. Gemeinwesen in precapitalist social formations 3.3. Society as an ensemble not of individuals, but of relations 3.4. The subject between universality and emptiness3.5. Isolation: a sentence or a potentiality ConclusionBibliographyIndex The productivity of the notion of singularity is argued to be based on the fact that it allows us to highlight the element of individual realisation, simultaneously stressing its distance from the modern conception of individuality. The correlate of singularity is the reciprocity, moving and unstable, between the individual and the collective, which occurs in class struggles. Using the concept singularity, drawn from French theory, Basso attempts to understand Marx's development as a search for individual realization.