Positions, 1964-1975 pdf

Louis Pierre Althusser (French: 16 October 1918 – 22 October 1990) was a French Marxist philosopher. He was born in Algeria and studied at the École normale supérieure in Paris, where he eventually became Professor of Philosophy.Althusser was a long-time member and sometimes a strong critic of the French Communist Party (Parti communiste français, PCF). His arguments and theses were set against the threats that he saw attacking the theoretical foundations of Marxism. These included both the influence of empiricism on Marxist theory, and humanist and reformist socialist orientations which manifested as divisions in the European communist parties, as well as the problem of the cult of personality and of ideology. Althusser is commonly referred to as a structural Marxist, although his relationship to other schools of French structuralism is not a simple affiliation and he was critical of many aspects of structuralism.Althusser's life was marked by periods of intense mental illness. In 1980, he killed his wife, the sociologist Hélène Rytmann, by strangling her. He was declared unfit to stand trial due to insanity and committed to a psychiatric hospital for three years. He did little further academic work, dying in 1990.

Positions, 1964-1975 pdf by Louis Althusser

Disons-le sans détour : qui veut aujourd’hui tout sim plement comprendre la découverte révolutionnaire de Freud, non seulement reconnaître son existence, mais aussi connaître son sens, doit traverser, au prix de grands efforts critiques et théoriques, l’immense espace de préjugés idéologiques qui nous sépare de Freud. Car non seulement la découverte de Freud a été, comme on va le voir, réduite à des disciplines qui lui sont, en leur essence, étrangères {biologie, psychologie, sociologie, philosophie); non seulement de nombreux psychana lystes (notamment dans l’école américaine) se sont faits
les complices de ce révisionnisme; mais, qui plus est, ce révisionnisme a lui-même objectivement servi la prodi gieuse exploitation idéologique dont la psychanalyse a été l’objet et la victime. Ce n’est pas sans raison que naguère {en 1948) des marxistes français dénoncèrent dans cette exploitation une « idéologie réactionnaire », servant d’argument dans la lutte idéologique contre le marxisme, et de moyen pratique d’intimidation et de mystification des consciences.