Abstract
The chapter addresses the question as to whether East-Central European Marxism was a distinctive intellectual phenomenon by focusing on the case of Czechoslovak Marxism. It gives an affirmative answer, as it claims that the philosophy of praxis makes up its conceptual core. In a first step, Czechoslovak Marxism is situated in a broader plane of East-Central European Marxism and contrasted with Western Marxism. Then, two important intellectual sources of Czechoslovak Marxism are discussed: Marx’s early project of practical Materialism and Lukács’s theory of revolutionary spontaneity. In a third step the claim is substantiated that until the appearance of Marxist humanism in the late 1950s, one cannot sensu stricto speak of any comprehensive philosophy of praxis within Marxism. Thereafter, it is argued that it was specifically Czechoslovak Marxist humanism that came up with a comprehensive philosophy of praxis, including a theory of subjectivity. After that, Marxist philosophy of praxis is confronted with existential phenomenology. In a final step, a critical eye is cast on Andrew Feenberg’s efforts to accomplish a synthesis of the Marxist philosophy of praxis and Heidegger’s philosophy.
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Notes
- 1.
What Anderson has especially in mind are the forms that Western Marxism took in the 1950s and 1960s.
- 2.
It is perhaps no coincidence that Marx’s Theses on Feuerbach, as Anderson notes, did not play an important role in Western Marxism in the 1950s and 1960s as it did in East-Central European and Soviet Marxism.
- 3.
See also Boltanski (2002, pp.1–22).
- 4.
The majority of them belonged to the ranks of party intellectuals, who were actively engaged in politics, e.g. during the Prague Spring of 1968.
- 5.
Some of the philosophers who can be classified as belonging to Western Marxism proposed a philosophy of praxis of their own, such as Guido D. Neri in Italy, Adolfo Sánchez Vásquez in Mexico, Michel Henry in France, or the early Herbert Marcuse in Germany, some of them being inspired by developments in Eastern European Marxism. The later Lukács, who witnessed the flourishing of the philosophy of praxis in the 1960s, which he occasionally described as a “renaissance” of Marxism, came up with the ontology of labour of his own in Ontology of Social Being, understanding labour as a paradigm of teleological positing. See Lukács (1973, pp. 162–174).
- 6.
For the elaboration of the project of practical Materialism in context of Karel Kosík’s philosophy of praxis see Landa (2022).
- 7.
See the first Thesis (Marx 1978, p.143). In this sense, Sebastian Rödl has recently argued that the Theses on Feuerbach can be interpreted as offering a materialist alternative to contemporary versions of naturalism and eliminative Materialism, since they highlight precisely spontaneous knowledge: We know ourselves as material objects differently – namely spontaneously, subjectively – than we know other material objects in space and time (Rödl, 2007, pp.121–123).
- 8.
Lukács focuses on the “existential” moment of praxis, emphasising “everydayness”, in his writings from the 1960s, especially Lukács (1963).
- 9.
Due to lack of space, Polish, Hungarian, and Yugoslav attempts to formulate a philosophy of praxis must be put aside in this chapter, although they addressed the same issues and came up with similar conceptions.
- 10.
The case of Radovan Richta is complicated. He represents a typical case of how one philosopher can move easily between (seemingly contrary) intellectual currents. While his work on the STR (Scientific-technological revolution) promotes science and cybernetics, his other smaller and more philosophy oriented papers are more than compatible with the philosophy of praxis. We shall refer more to his later texts, in which he offers a philosophy of praxis of his own.
- 11.
Such productivism was critiqued by Arendt (1998, pp.126–135).
- 12.
The relationship between theory and praxis in Marxism-Leninism is obviously more complicated than is presented above. First of all, it could be argued that Lenin developed the concept of praxis closely following the second Thesis on Feuerbach, and therefore following from practical Materialism. But this does not mean he endorsed the primacy of praxis over theory. It seems that quite the opposite is the case. Treating praxis as the sole criterion of something else is not a commitment to the primacy of it. Even in his later writings, Lenin never progressed beyond this perspective. The same applies to Stalinist theoreticians, who verbally committed themselves to the primacy of praxis, but then in turn endorsed the determinist character of historical laws, which can theoretically be mastered and consequently used as a tool in reshaping reality. However, this is a classical contemplative (theoretical) stance towards reality in general and praxis in particular. On the other hand, something different is represented by the disregard or very loose relationship Stalinism very often showed towards (some) scientific theories and knowledge. In this case, theory was sometimes forcibly adapted to praxis, or better stated to some practical goals. This was by no means pure pragmatism, because that perspective was already defended by the so-called “teleologists” against the “geneticists” in the late 1920s in their battle for the future form of economic planning. To sum up, we believe that Stalinist theoreticism on one hand and Stalinist voluntarism on the other are not mutually exclusive “qualities”, but rather form a contradiction of Stalinism itself. For the debate between the teleologists and geneticists see Collier (2011, pp.55–61) and Spulber (1965).
- 13.
This has been portrayed by Koestler (1940).
- 14.
Of course, this did not mean cancelling any action whatsoever. Rather, traditional philosophy took the resolution of contradictions as a theoretical problem. Action then occurred as an application of the result of the said resolution. According to Marxism, this is precisely the essence of reformism and a contemplative attitude towards action. See Feenberg (2014, pp.16–19).
- 15.
This form of critique applies also to philosophical perspectives which aim to avoid both subjectivism and objectivism and formulate some sort of middle ground, as is the case with both Husserlian (at least the standard version) and Heideggerian phenomenology.
- 16.
Lubomír Nový points out this peculiar space between intention and its realisation, which generates a “field of indeterminate potentialities, becoming without guarantees” (Nový, 1968, p.129).
- 17.
For a definition of the correlationism and its critique see Meillassoux (2010).
- 18.
(italics ours)
- 19.
Despite all the talk of the famous “Kehre” in Heidegger’s philosophy, there seems to be some profound unity in his philosophical project. This might best be displayed in the Letter on Humanism (1949) after he already announced his turn. Heidegger writes in the passage on the concept of being in Being and Time: “In Being and Time (p. 212) we purposely and cautiously say, il y a l’Être: “there is / it gives” [“es gibt”] being. Il y a translates “it gives” imprecisely. For the “it” that here “gives” is being itself. The “gives” makes the essence of being that is giving, granting its truth. The self-giving into the open, along with the open region itself, is being itself.” (Heidegger, 1998, pp.254–255). Bearing in mind what Heidegger writes earlier and later in the text, it becomes more apparent that all Heidegger’s “concepts” such as “clearing”, “care”, “being”, “Lichtung”, “ek-sistence”, “openeness” point to the one and the same thing. For the unity of Heidegger’s philosophy and the foundational role of human existence in his concept of being see Sheehan (2015).
- 20.
We need to stress here that we must not confuse the concept of decorrelation with that of alienation in a fashion similar to that by which Lukács allegedly confused alienation with objectification. Decorrelation is a necessary component of any praxis, and does not denote anything negative or wrong. Only through decorrelation, as we understand it, is society and even critical thought possible.
- 21.
The enumeration of the elements should not suggest a ranking of their importance. Together they are tightly interconnected and form the totality of the concept. They are its moments.
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Landa, I., Růžička, J. (2022). The Varieties of Praxis: Marx, Lukács, Feenberg, and Czechoslovak Marxism. In: Cressman, D. (eds) The Necessity of Critique. Philosophy of Engineering and Technology, vol 41. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-07877-4_11
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