The concept of nature in Marx

In The Concept of Nature in Marx, Alfred Schmidt examines humanity's relation to the natural world as understood by the great philosopher-economist Karl Marx, who wrote that human beings are ‘part of Nature yet able to stand over against it; and this partial separation from Nature is itself part of their nature'. In Marx, industry and science are the mediation between historical man and external nature, leading either to reconciliation or mutual annihilation. Schmidt explores this tension between man and nature in Marx and shows how his understanding of nature is reflected in the work of writers such as Bertolt Brecht, Walter Benjamin and Ernst Bloch. Schmidt's close reading of Marx's own writings and his relation of them to the positions of Kant, Hegel, Engels, Lenin, the early Lukacs and Sartre, enables him to establish the significance of the mature Marx's sense of the interpenetration of nature and society. He shows how Marxism cuts right across the traditional tendency to counterpose an abstract concept of man with an abstract concept of nature. Schmidt stresses the importance in Marxism of the development of industry and science as the mediation between historical man and external nature, leading either to their reconciliation (if positive) or to their mutual annihilation (if negative). He then both explores this mediation in history and shows how an awareness of its positive and negative possibilities is reflected in such writers as Bertolt Brecht, Walter Benjamin and Ernst Bloch. **The Concept of Nature in Marx** (German: *Der Begriff der Natur in der Lehre von Marx*) is a 1962 book by the philosopher Alfred Schmidt. First published in English in 1971, it is a classic account of Karl Marx's ideas about nature. (Source: [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Concept_of_Nature_in_Marx)) [translated From The German By Ben Fowkes. Translation Of Der Begriff Der Natur In Der Lehre Von Marx. Bibliography: P. [241]-246.