Philosophy After Marx: 100 Years of Misreadings and the Normative Turn in Political Philosophy (Historical Materialism Book Series, 65)

Christoph Henning writes a concise history of misreadings of Marx in the 20th century. Focussing on German philosophy from Heidegger to Habermas, he also addresses the influence of Rawls and Neopragmatism, subsequently scrutinizing a previous history of Marx-interpretations that had served as the premises upon which these later works were based. Henning sketches a historical trajectory in which a theory of socialist politics enters the fields of economics, sociology, critical theory and theology, before finally - overloaded with intellectually dead freight - entering into philosophy. In so doing, he takes a hermeneutic approach to how misreadings in a specific field proliferate into further misreadings across a variety of fields, leading to an accumulation of questionable preconceptions. With the recent resurgence of interest in Marx, Henning's historical recursions make evident where and how academic Anti-Marxism had previously got it wrong. English translation of Philosophie nach Marx. 100 Jahre Marxrezeption und die normative Sozialphilosophie der Gegenwart in der Kritik , Transcript-Verlag, Bielefeld, 2005. Contents ‘Sandblasting Marx’ – A Review by Fredric Jameson 1 Introduction 1.1 The problem 1.2 Retaining Marx? A preliminary account of his theory 1.3 The lacuna in contemporary social theory 1.4 On the method employed in this study 1.4.1 The choice to work with texts only 1.4.2 The focus on German-language texts 1.5 The structure of the study 2 Marx Yesterday: A Genealogy of Misconceptions 2.1 Marx in the theory of Social Democracy 2.1.1 The Erfurt Programme 2.1.2 Revisionism 2.1.3 Neo-Kantianism: a fortunate coincidence 2.1.4 Orthodoxy 2.1.5 Key elements of Marxian theory I: the schemes of reproduction 2.1.6 Key elements of Marxian theory II: the falling rate of profit 2.2 Marx in the theory of communism 2.2.1 The role of violence 2.2.2 The organisation of the party 2.2.3 The dictatorship of the proletariat 2.2.4 A creative evolution of Marxism? 2.2.5 Trotskyism – a lesser evil? 2.2.6 Key elements of Marxian theory III: imperialism 2.3 Marx in economic theory 2.3.1 Marx between economic paradigms 2.3.2 Neoclassical refutations of Marx 2.3.3 Adoption of the neoclassical approach by Marxists 2.3.4 Diffusion of the paradigm into neighbouring sciences 2.3.5 Key elements of Marxian theory IV: the theory of money 2.4 Marx in (German) sociology 2.4.1 The division of the world into norm-free functions and normative frames 2.4.2 Whence the predominance of the neoclassical approach in sociology? 2.4.3 Normativity as a placeholder for incomplete worldviews 2.4.4 The flaws are projected onto the symbolic figure Marx 2.4.5 Critique of the technocracy-hypothesis and of industrial sociology 2.4.6 The sociological approach to social classes Key elements of Marxian theory V: classes Classes (and more) in Max Weber Classes in Helmut Schelsky Classes in Luhmann 2.5 ‘From Marx to Heidegger’: Social Philosophy 2.5.1 A categorisation attempt by René König 2.5.2 Confronting the philosophical history of idealism The influence of Fichte The influence of Nietzsche The influence of Hegel Vitalism and the philosophy of Weltanschauung 2.5.3 Rudolf Eucken as precursor 2.5.4 Georg Lukács as mediator 2.5.5 Martin Heidegger as offshoot Heidegger and Marx Heidegger and nihilism 2.5.6 Niklas Luhmann’s philosophy of systems 2.5.7 Key elements of Marxian theory VI: Marx and Hegel Marx as a critic of Hegel Hegelian Marxism: semantic displacements 2.6 Critical theory or the dissolution of critique in religion 2.6.1 Horkheimer’s vitalism 2.6.2 Pollock’s hermetic analysis of state capitalism 2.6.3 Adorno’s quietist utopianism 2.6.4 Key elements of Marxian theory VII: Marx’s critique of religion 2.6.5 The critique of religion as a political issue 2.6.6 Four theological views of Marx Rejection of ‘atheism’ Tolerance in spite of ‘atheism’ Religious socialism Excursus: critique of the theory of secularisation The separation of religion and politics 2.6.7 Walter Benjamin’s political theology 3 Marx Today: Critique of Contemporary Philosophy 3.1 Jürgen Habermas or the return of the philosophy of law 3.1.1 Anthropological beginnings 3.1.2 Transformation into rationality types 3.1.3 The myth of ‘normative foundations’ 3.1.4 Key elements of Marxian theory VIII: Marx and ethics 3.1.5 Procedural structures 3.1.6 Key elements of Marxian theory IX: Marx and law 3.2 John Rawls or the apotheosis of ignorance 3.2.1 John Rawls as a neoclassical theorist 3.2.2 Justifying Stakhanov 3.2.3 The communitarian response 3.2.4 Responses within post-1989 German philosophy Otfried Höffe Wolfgang Kersting Axel Honneth 3.3 Business ethics: a ‘normatively substantial’ social theory? 3.3.1 Reasons for the rise of this discipline 3.3.2 Theological business ethics 3.3.3 Managerial business ethics 3.3.4 Historicist business ethics 3.3.5 The Hegelianism of business ethics 3.3.6 The critique of globalisation as a placeholder 3.4 Neo-pragmatism or the persistence of Hegel 3.4.1 The German reception of pragmatism as the index of a problem 3.4.2 A transformation of German idealism? 3.4.3 Neo-pragmatism and Marxism as hostile brothers 3.4.4 The conservation of rationality and normativity in Marx 4 Conclusion: What Philosophy after Marx? 4.1 The reality check as a philosophical litmus test 4.2 Topology of social philosophy 4.2.1 Kant’s philosophical topology 4.2.2 The overcoming of dualism in Hegel 4.2.3 The transformation of (Hegelian) philosophy in Marx 4.2.4 The transformation of (Hegelian) philosophy in pragmatism 4.2.5 Supernormativism: philosophy twice transformed 4.3 The function and scope of theory after Marx 4.3.1 The avoidance of theory in critiques of Marx 4.3.2 Marx’s theory is not a determinism 4.3.3 Marx’s topic is civil society 4.3.4 Neoclassical redeployments within economic theory 4.3.5 The side-play of dialectics as discursive displacement 4.3.6 The task of a critique of normative social philosophy 4.4 Normative theory: Ethics as a surrogate for explanation Afterword to the English Translation References Person Index Henning's Philosophy After Marx Recapitulates The History Of Marx-interpretations As A History Of Misinterpretation. Illustrating How Marx's Original Theories Are More Sustainable Than Their Critiques From Sociology, Economics Or Philosophy, The Work Culminates In A Criticism Of Recent Critical Theories. By Christoph Henning ; Translated By Max Henninger. Includes Bibliographical References (pages 565-655) And Index.