Philosophy and the Spontaneous Philosophy of the Scientists & Other Essays

185 Pages·1997·1.77 MB·English

by  Louis Althusser

Philosophy and the Spontaneous Philosophy of Scientists

Louis Althusser

Philosophy and the
Spontaneous Philosophy
of the Scientists

&
Other Essays

Edited by Gregory Elliot

V E R S O
London - New York
1990

Prepared © for the Internet by David J. Romagnolo,
[email protected] (September 2003)
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Philosophy and the Spontaneous Philosophy of Scientists
The following collection of essays span the period 1965-1978 and give
expression to what some might characterize as a "right- ward drift" in
certain of Althusser's political and ideological positions. Two of the
seven essays listed in the table of contents below appear in other
collections of this site and are not reproduced here. Moreover, I have not
reproduced the editor's "Introduction", although the editor's footnotes
acompanying each of Althusser's essays have been retained. These
essays can be downloaded as a single large file (607k) or in three parts as
outline below. An index from the text is also included, albeit modified to
exclude the small Roman Numerial references to pages from the editors
Introduction. Although the subject headings and page references in the
index are NOT linked to the various sections of the text, it should prove
useful once you have downloaded and saved all sections of the book (in
one folder) on your hard drive. You will need to use two browsers (or
two windows of the same browser) at the same time: one for viewing the
text, and the other for viewing the index. Using the browser's "Find..."
command, key words from the index can be entered, or, you can go to
specific page references by entering "page x" (where "x" is a number --
there must be a space between the word "page" and the number). Below
is the complete table of contents.

Contents

[ Part 1 -- 202k]
Introduction
Gregory Elliott [not available] vii
1 Theory, Theoretical Practice and Theoretical Formation:
Ideology and Ideological Struggle 1
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Philosophy and the Spontaneous Philosophy of Scientists
2 On Theoretical Work: Difficulties and Resources 43

[ Part 2 -- 282k]
3 Philosophy and the Spontaneous Philosophy of the
Scientists (1967) 69
Preface 71
Lecture I 73
Lecture II 101
Lecture III 119
Appendix: On Jacques Monod 145
4 Lenin and Philosophy 167
[available in the collection Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays]
5 Is it Simple to be a Marxist in Philosophy?
203
[available in the collection Essays in Self-Criticism]

[ Part 3 -- 128k]
6 The Transformation of Philosophy 241
7 Marxism Today 267
Index 281

Download
All as one file (607k)
m
Part 1 (202k)
m
Part 2 (282k)
m
Part 3 (128k)
m

From Marx to Mao Other Documents Reading Guide
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Philosophy and the Spontaneous Philosophy of Scientists

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Philosophy and the Spontaneous Philosophy of Scientists

Louis Althusser

Philosophy and the
Spontaneous Philosophy
of the Scientists

&
Other Essays

Edited by Gregory Elliot

V E R S O
London - New York
1990

Prepared © for the Internet by David J. Romagnolo,
[email protected] (October 2003)
Transcriber's Note -- The following collection of essays span the period
1965-1978 and give expression to what some might characterize as a
"right-ward drift" in certain of Althusser's political and ideological
positions. Two of the seven essays listed in the table of contents below
appear in other collections of this site and are not reproduced here.
Moreover, I have not reproduced the editor's "Introduction", although the
editor's footnotes acompanying each of Althusser's essays have been
retained. An index from the text is also included, albeit modified to
exclude the small Roman Numerial references to pages from the editor's
Introduction. Although the subject headings and page references in the
index are NOT linked to the various sections of the text, it should prove
useful once you have downloaded and saved all sections of the book (in
http://www.marx2mao.net/Other/PSPS90.html (1 of 181)9/6/2006 8:43:38 PM
Philosophy and the Spontaneous Philosophy of Scientists
one folder) on your hard drive. You will need to use two browsers (or
two windows of the same browser) at the same time: one for viewing the
text, and the other for viewing the index. Using the browser's "Find..."
command, key words from the index can be entered, or, you can go to
specific page references by entering "page x" (where "x" is a number --
there must be a space between the word "page" and the number). Below
is the complete table of contents.

Contents

Introduction
Gregory Elliott [not available] vii
1 Theory, Theoretical Practice and Theoretical Formation:
Ideology and Ideological Struggle 1
2 On Theoretical Work: Difficulties and Resources 43
3 Philosophy and the Spontaneous Philosophy of the
Scientists (1967) 69
Preface 71
Lecture I 73
Lecture II 101
Lecture III 119
Appendix: On Jacques Monod 145
4 Lenin and Philosophy 167
[available in the collection Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays]
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Philosophy and the Spontaneous Philosophy of Scientists
5 Is it Simple to be a Marxist in Philosophy? 203
[available in the collection Essays in Self-Criticism]
6 The Transformation of Philosophy 241
7 Marxism Today 267
Index 281

page 1

*Théorie, practique théorique et formation théorique.
Idéologie et lutte idéologique,
April 1965.
Unpublished typescript.
Translated by James H. Kavanagh

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Philosophy and the Spontaneous Philosophy of Scientists

page 2 [blank]
page 3

These reflections are designed to present, in as clear and systematic a form as possible, the
theoretical principles that found and guide the practice of Communists in the domain of theory
and ideology.

1. Marxism is a Scientific Doctrine
A famous title of Engels's underscores the essential distinction between Marxism and previous
socialist doctrines: before Marx, socialist doctrines were merely utopian ; Marx's doctrine is
scientific.[1] What is a utopian socialist doctrine? It is a doctrine which proposes socialist goals
for human action, yet which is based on non-scientific principles, deriving from religious, moral
or juridical, i.e. ideological, principles. The ideological nature of its theoretical foundation is
decisive, because it affects how any socialist doctrine conceives of not only the ends of socialism,
but also the means of action required to realize these ends. Thus, utopian socialist doctrine
defines the ends of socialism - the socialist society of the future - by moral and juridical
categories; it speaks of the reign of equality and the brotherhood of man; and it translates these
moral and legal principles into utopian - that is, ideological, ideal and imaginary - economic
principles as well: for example, the complete sharing-out of the products of labour among the
workers, economic egalitarianism, the negation of all economic law, the immediate
disappearance of the State, etc. In the same manner it defines utopian, ideological and imaginary
economic and political means as the appropriate means to realize socialism: in the economic
domain, the workers' co-operatives of Owen, the phalanstery of Fourier's disciples, Proudhon's
people's bank; in the political domain, moral education and reform - if not the Head of State's
conversion to socialism. In constructing an ideological representation of the ends as well as the
means of socialism, utopian socialist doctrines are, as Marx clearly showed, prisoners of
bourgeois and petty-bourgeois economic, juridical, moral and political principles. That is why
they cannot really break with the
1. Socialism: Utopian and Scientific, in Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Selected Works, vol. 3,
Moscow 1970, pp. 95-151. [Ed.]
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Philosophy and the Spontaneous Philosophy of Scientists

page 4
bourgeois system, they cannot be genuinely revolutionary. They remain anarchist or reformist.
Content, in fact, to oppose the bourgeois politico-economic system with bourgeois (moral,
juridical) principles, they are trapped - whether they like it or not - within the bourgeois system.
They can never break out towards revolution.
Marxist doctrine, by contrast, is scientific. This means that it is not content to apply existing
bourgeois moral and juridical principles (liberty, equality, fraternity, justice, etc.) to the existing
bourgeois reality in order to criticize it, but that it criticizes these existing bourgeois moral and
juridical principles, as well as the existing politico-economic system. Thus its general critique
rests on other than existing ideological principles (religious, moral and juridical); it rests on the
scientific knowledge of the totality of the existing bourgeois system, its politico-economic as well
as its ideological systems. It rests on the knowledge of this ensemble, which constitutes an
organic totality of which the economic, political, and ideological are organic 'levels' or 'instances',
articulated with each other according to specific laws. It is this knowledge that allows us to define
the objectives of socialism, and to conceive socialism as a new determinate mode of production
which will succeed the capitalist mode of production, to conceptualize its specific determinations,
the precise form of its relations of production, its political and ideological superstructure. It is this
knowledge that permits us to define the appropriate means of action for 'making the revolution',
means based upon the nature of historical necessity and historical development, on the
determinant role of the economy in the last instance on this development, on the decisive role of
class struggle in socioeconomic transformations, and on the role of consciousness and
organization in political struggle. It is the application of these scientific principles that has led to
the definition of the working class as the only radically revolutionary class, the definition of the
forms of organization appropriate to the economic and political struggle (role of the unions;
nature and role of the party comprised of the vanguard of the working class) - the definition,
finally, of the forms of ideological struggle. It is the application of these scientific principles that
has made possible the break not only with the reformist objectives of utopian socialist doctrines,
but also with their forms of organization and struggle. It is the application of these scientific
principles that has allowed the definition of a revolutionary tactics and strategy whose
irreversible first results are henceforth inscribed in world history, and continue to change the
world.
In 'Our Programme', Lenin writes:
We take our stand entirely on the Marxist theoretical position: Marxism
was the first to transform socialism from a utopia into a science, to lay a
firm

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Philosophy and the Spontaneous Philosophy of Scientists
foundation for this science, and to indicate the path that must be followed
in further developing and elaborating it in all its parts. It disclosed the
nature of modern capitalist economy by explaining how the hire of labour,
the purchase of labour-power, conceals the enslavement of millions of
propertyless people by a handful of capitalists, the owners of the land,
factories, mines, and so forth. It showed that all modern capitalist
development displays the tendency of large-scale production to eliminate
petty production and creates conditions that make a socialist system of
society possible and necessary. It taught us how to discern - beneath the
pall of rooted customs, political intrigues, abstruse laws, and intricate
doctrines - the class struggle, the struggle between the propertied classes
in all their variety and the propertyless mass, the proletariat, which is at
the head of all the propertyless. It made clear the real task of a
revolutionary socialist party: not to draw up plans for refashioning
society, not to preach to the capitalists and their hangers-on about
improving the lot of the workers, not to hatch conspiracies, but to
organize the class struggle of the proletariat and to lead this struggle, the
ultimate aim of which is the conquest of political power by the proletariat
and the organization of a socialist society.[2]
And, having condemned the Bernsteinian revisionists who 'have . . . not . . . advanced . . . by a
single step . . . the science which Marx and Engels enjoined us to develop', Lenin adds:
There can be no strong socialist party without a revolutionary theory
which unites all socialists, from which they draw all their convictions, and
which they apply in their methods of struggle and means of action.[3]
From one end of Lenin's work to the other, the same theme is tirelessly repeated: 'without
revolutionary theory , no revolutionary practice' .[4] And this revolutionary theory is exclusively
defined as the scientific theory produced by Marx, to which he gave most profound form in his
'life's work' - the work without which, says Engels, we would still ' be groping in the dark ':
Capital.[5]

2. Marx's Double Scientific Doctrine
Once we advance the principle that the revolutionary action of Communists is based on scientific
Marxist theory, the following question must be addressed: what is Marxist scientific doctrine?
2. Collected Works, vol. 4, Moscow 1960, pp. 210-11.
3. Ibid., p. 211.
4. See, for example, What is to be Done?, Collected Works, vol. 5, Moscow 1961, p. 369. [Ed.]
5. 'Speech at the Graveside of Karl Marx', Selected Works, vol. 3, p. 162.
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