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

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. Contents 6 Introduction The Individual and Singularity 8 Chapter One The Question of Individuality 30 1.1. Individuals, determination and contingency 30 1.2. Gattungswesen and politics: from the Critique of Hegel’s Doctrine of the State to The Holy Family 33 1.3. The individual separation between bourgeois and citoyen 43 1.4. A society without relations 59 1.5. The need for a change of perspective: The German Ideology 73 Chapter Two Beyond the ‘Private-Social’ Dichotomy 80 2.1. Social power and chance in The German Ideology 80 2.3. Singularity and practice: the realisation of ‘individuals as such’ 103 2.4. Common class-action 111 2.5. Towards 1848: thinking in the conjuncture 116 Chapter Three Social Nexus and Indifference 130 3.1. The genesis of individuality and capitalism in the Grundrisse: the breakthrough of the critique of political economy 130 3.2. Gemeinwesen in precapitalist-social formations 141 3.3. Society as an ensemble not of individuals, but of relations 149 3.4. The subject between universality and emptiness 157 3.5. Isolation: a sentence or a potentiality? 167 Conclusion 186 References 190 Name Index 206 Subject Index 209 "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. Using the concept singularity, drawn from French theory, Basso attempts to understand Marx's development as a search for individual realization.