I never received formal education in the subject and I want to learn about it so that I may have a better understanding of the philosophy of our political tradition. I’d appreciate any suggestions on materials to get an introduction to the topic.
I never received formal education in the subject and I want to learn about it so that I may have a better understanding of the philosophy of our political tradition. I’d appreciate any suggestions on materials to get an introduction to the topic.
Which field? As a Marxist, my favorite work is Politzer’s Elementary Principles of Philosophy. It goes over Idealism, Materialism, Dialectical Idealism, and then ties it together into Dialectical Materialism, and then Historical Materialism.
Philosophy has a long history, and it builds and rejects and references previous philosophers all the time, so if you want to study all of philosophy, there is no real waste in starting from the “classical” philosophers like Plato, Aristotle, and Socrates, and moving up from there to your Hegel, Decartes, Nietzche, etc, though I personally stick with Marxists.
Was it you that recommended Elementary Principles to me a few months back? I finally got around to starting it and I’m a bit over halfway through and it’s probably going to be my gold standard for understanding not only the pipeline between classical philosophy to Marxism, but it’s also a way better resource imo for understanding Material and Historical Dialectics. It’s so good and it’s very easy to read.
I think so? I’ve recommended it before. Glad you like it! Read it over the course of a week and it expanded my knowledge of Marxist philosophy dramatically. It’s extremely clear and tries to meet everyone, no academic language that might go over untrained heads, without getting dull.
It’s absolutely filling in a few holes in my own reading. My former understanding was that Marx and Engels agreed with the conclusion of Hegel’s work but not the meat and potatoes of it. This does a good job at answering a lot of the whys so far. Like I basically only knew Hegel, like most religious philosophers as an idealist, and Marx and Engels as Materialists, but outside of organized religion, I wasn’t familiar with how those schools of thought evolved over time. Or the fact that Idealism still perpetuates itself in everything around us even today.
For me, 2 of the biggest aspects were the evolution of philosophy over time alongside Mode of Production, scientific developent, and technological development, as well as dialectics as comparing subjects within their contexts and trajectories. Massive change in understanding.
Sounds like the rest of the book is gonna be really good then.
I guess I want to get to Marx and the anarchists by understanding the history before them, what people’s arguments were, and the context for why people asked certain questions and gave the answers they gave.
Also I think it is useful to get a general understanding of even people we disagree strongly with, so it would be important to look into that too.
In that case, I would still read Politzer, as he brilliantly lays it out for the average student, as he was a Professor at a French Worker University. It goes over the entire history of how Marxist philosophy came to be. However, I would follow it up with Socialism: Utopian and Scientific by Engels, who goes over the history of Utopian Socialism and how Socialism came to be Scientific.
For Anarchists, I hear The Conquest of Bread by Kropotkin and Anarchism and Other Essays by Goldman are good. I however have not read them myself.
What general Theory have you read so far?
I’d toss Bukanin on the list for Anarchist theory too. I got a few of his and the ones that you mentioned lined up as soon as I get off my absurdism kick.
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