Essays in Self-Criticism pdf

Луи Пьер Альтюссер (французский: 16 октября 1918 - 22 октября 1990) был французским философом-марксистом. Он родился в Алжире и учился в Высшей нормальной школе в Париже, где в конечном итоге стал профессором философии. Альтюссер был давним членом, а иногда и резким критиком Французской коммунистической партии (Parti communiste français, PCF). Его аргументы и тезисы были противопоставлены угрозам, которые он видел в нападении на теоретические основы марксизма. К ним относились как влияние эмпиризма на марксистскую теорию, так и гуманистические и реформистские социалистические направления, проявившиеся в расколах в европейских коммунистических партиях, а также проблема культа личности и идеологии. Альтюссера обычно называют структурным марксистом, хотя его отношение к другим школам французского структурализма не является простой принадлежностью, и он критически относился ко многим аспектам структурализма. Жизнь Альтюссера была отмечена периодами сильных психических заболеваний. В 1980 году он задушил свою жену, социолога Элен Ритманн. Он был признан неспособным предстать перед судом из-за невменяемости и помещен в психиатрическую больницу на три года. Он мало занимался научной работой и умер в 1990 году.

Essays in Self-Criticism pdf Луи Альтюссер

Louis Althusser became a controversial figure in France with the publication of his essay "Contradiction and Overdetermination" in 1962. He became a politically controversial figure when the essay "Marxism and Humanism" appeared in 1964. The reason was his attack on the notion of humanism. "Ten years ago", he wrote at the time, "socialist humanism only existed in one form: that of class humanism. Today it exists in two forms: class humanism, where the dictatorship of the proletariat is still in force (China, etc.), and (socialist) personal humanism where it has been superseded (the USSR)". But while "the concept 'socialism' is indeed a scientific concept . . . the concept 'humanism' is no more than an ideological one". His purpose at this time was thus, first, to distinguish between the sciences and the ideologies; and second to show that while Marxism is a science, all forms of humanism must be classed among the ideologies. This was the basis of what he called "theoretical anti-humanism". (Althusser's use of the term "humanism" is specific, and it has of course nothing to do with "humanitarianism".) The reaction to his arguments, however, went far beyond the realms of theory, and into the political world itself. I will try to outline this political reaction and Althusser's response to it, because this is one of the best ways of approaching his philosophical work, and also of learning something about a man whom the French weekly Le Nouvel Observateur thought it useful 1. Both articles are reprinted in For Marx (Allen Lane, 1969).
 to describe as "one of the most mysterious and least 'public' figures in the world"! It was clearly impossible for the French Communist Party, of which Althusser has been a member since 1948 to endorse all of his writings as they appeared, since on certain points they put its own positions in question. Nevertheless, these writings were intended as an intervention in the debate within the party, and the enormous interest which they raised did not remain without an echo there. Articles, some of them hesitantly favourable, began to appear in Party journals. Lucien Sève, in some ways the Party's senior philosopher, devoted a long note to Althusser in his work La Théorie marxiste de la personnalité, outlining certain points of disagreement. But Althusser stuck to his position. Waldeck Rochet, Party General Secretary at the time, gave encouragement to his research work, while distancing the Central Committee from its conclusions.