Studies of the Paris Manuscripts: The Turning Point of Marx

ISBN-13: 9789813296169 / Angielski / Twarda / 2020 / 359 str.

Lixin Han

Recenzje

"Han aims to advance a new explanation of early Marx ... . Han's work embodies the combination of philology and philosophical theory. His argument not only draws on the achievements of philology related to the Paris Manuscripts since the 1960s, but also makes a rigorous argument from philosophical theory. ... Han advocates the research path of combining Marx's philology research with Hegel's theory research, which is of great significance for improving the traditional paradigm of early Marx research." (Fei Huang and Shuang Liang, Marx and Philosophy, marxandphilosophy.org.uk, August 5, 2022)
"This is one of those books that set a new standard in scholarly research. ... To those who are interested in a detailed take on Marx's intellectual journey in his Paris period, this book is highly recommended. One finds there extremely interesting insights into the Asian (Chinese and Japanese) debates on the young/mature Marx. This book is an example of what good scholarship should look like." (Kaan Kangal, Science & Society, Vol. 85 (4), October, 2021)

Spis treści

Preface.- English edition preface.- Translator notes.- Chapter 1 From State to Civil Society I.- Chapter 2 From State to Civil Society II.- Chapter 3 Is “Return to Hess” Actually Essential?.- Chapter 4 Philological Studies of the Paris Manuscripts and their Significance.- Chapter 5 The Fallacy in the Four Aspects of Alienated Labor.- Chapter 6 Is Marx’s Alienated Labor Theory Circular Reasoning?.- Chapter 7 The Logic of the Transition from Individual to Society in Phänomenologie des Geistes.- Chapter 8 The Logic of the Transition from Individual to Society in the Jena Manuscript of Philosophie des Geistes.- Chapter 9 The New Vantage Point on Comments on James Mill.- Chapter 10 The Alienation of Intercourse in Comments on James Mill: The Turning Point of Marx.- Chapter 11 Alienation and Reification.- Chapter 12 The Turning Point of Marx’s View on Communism.- Chapter 13 The Transition from Feuerbach to Hegel.- Chapter 14 Is Objectification Identical to Alienation?.- Afterword.- Bibliography. 

O autorze

Lixin Han (born in 1966, Ph.D. in social sciences at Hitotsubashi University, Japan) is a professor and supervisor of Ph.D. candidates in the Department of Philosophy at Tsinghua University as well as the director of Center for MarxEngelsLiterature Research at Tsinghua University (CMELR). His research concentrates on Marxist philosophy, Hegel Philosophy, ecological Marxism and environmental ethics. Currently, he is charge of several research projects, including: A digital edition of Feuerbach, Die deutsche Ideologie (MEGA② I-5); the interpretation of Marx’s manuscripts; the translation of as well as research on “Japanese Marxism”. Some representatives of his publications are: Ecology and Marx: A Unification of Naturalism and Humanism (in Japanese, 2001); Environmental Axiology, Environmental Ethics: A True Moral Revolution (2005); Studies of the Paris Manuscripts: The Turning Point of Marx (2014). He has also published more than 100 papers in domestic and foreign journals.

Blurb

This book is devoted to the studies of Karl Marx’s Paris Manuscripts and presents a new interpretation of early Marx, arguing that his transition to maturity can be found in these manuscripts, and specifically in Comments on James Mill, which was drafted between the First Manuscript and the Second Manuscript. In Comments on James Mill, Marx succeeds in transferring his theoretical framework from the isolated individual to the society and establishes his basic goal, i.e., to explicate the nature of humans and society from the perspective of external economic relations, marking the advent of historical materialism. 

This study reopens the possibility of interpreting the Paris Manuscripts from the perspective of Hegel. According to the author, it was during the Paris Manuscripts period that Marx shifted his theoretical foundations from Feuerbach to Hegel. On the basis of Hegel’s alienation concept, Marx constructs a new form of alienation theory with “alienation of intercourse” at its core. The theoretical challenge tackled by this book is to restore the authority of alienation theory, and strengthen the position of the Paris Manuscripts in the history of Marx thought, so as to rearrange the traditional landscape of research on early Marx thought.

This interpretation, proposed and published for the first time in the world, could compete with the theses of Louis Althusser and Hiromatsu Wataru, which consider Die deutsche Ideologie to be the turning point of Marx. Further, it represents a significant contribution by a Chinese scholar to the international research on Marx.