Karl Marx: Existence and Social Consciousness Essay

Words: 2560
Pages: 11
Open Document
A paper written for Classical Sociology, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

Introduction

“It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but, on the contrary, their social being that determines their consciousness” – Karl Marx

The above notion by Karl Marx is the base of all his succeeding works; it is Marx’s concept of Man and how he critiqued the existing dominant ideology of German thought, and relates his argument to societal change and history – specifically the relations of production. In order to explain what Marx meant by the proposed notion, I will have to explain Marx’s concept of Man, and how an activity (labour) was a primordial means for Man to gain self-realization, which laid the grounds …show more content…
Feuerbach argues in contrast to Hegel that God is nothing else than Man, and it is Man who constructs this imaginary transcendental being. Using Hegel’s idea of Homo laborans and flipping his dialectic (which ignored real individuals, Marx located it in the material realm), Marx criticized Feuerbach for ignoring labour and the modification of natural conditions (Nature) of human existence into social conditions, and also ignoring nature as a practical human activity (praxis); Marx’s ninth thesis on Feuerbach (McLellan 1977: 156-8, Hamilton 1974: 23-4). Feuerbach’s “species-being” was based on single, isolated individuals whom Marx criticised with his sixth thesis, stating that human nature is a unity of social relations (Marx 1977: 156-8). Marx however acknowledged Feuerbach’s subject-thought predicate and resolved Feuerbach’s naturalism using the theory of praxis and the Hegelian dialectic – thesis-antithesis-synthesis – that the activity itself links Man to Nature: “Productive life is, however, species-life. It is life creating life; life activity that resides the whole character of a species, its species-character, and free, conscious activity is the species-character of human beings. Life itself appears only as a means of life” (1844 Manuscripts) (Zhang 1994: 16-7). Marx concretely defines this “free conscious activity” of human nature as labour: the life-activity of the worker (Man), resulting in the manifestation of his own life; fulfilling Man’s
Show More

Related Documents: Karl Marx: Existence and Social Consciousness Essay

Karl Marx False Consciousness Analysis

Karl Marx’s German ideology can be verified by 8 sections, Marx regarded ideology as a false abstract idea of human society; which is false consciousness. Generally, true consciousness considers having historicity and scientific characteristic and social ideas like false consciousness are considered ideologies. In Marx, ideology was also an expression of discrepancies in individuals' consciousness and existence. A small number of rulers dominate the people's thinking with plausible logic, and furthermore…

Words 250 - Pages 1

Understanding Conflict Through Sociological Perspective Essay

What is Conflict? 6 7. Works of Karl Marx 9 8. Conflict of interest 12 9. Conflict perspective in sociology 13 10. In classical sociology 14 11. Modern approaches 17 12. Types of conflict theory 20 13. Conclusion 21 14. Bibliography, websites referred 21 Introduction Conflict is the struggle for agency or power in society. Social conflict or group conflict…

Words 5344 - Pages 22

A Bug’s Life Through the Lens of Karl Marx Essay

A Bug’s Life through the lens of Karl Marx Disney’s Pixar film, A Bug’s Life, is much more than meets the eye. The film is not only an animated comedy; it holds deep sociological theory within its plot. Many of the major themes and concepts of the movie can be viewed through the lens of the famous theorist Karl Marx. Marx’s theory is famous for focusing on how society functions. In particular he concerns himself with how capitalism, the working class, and the revolutions create problems in our society…

Words 2089 - Pages 9

Social Theory Midterm Essays

Ross Adler Social Theory Jose Tomas Atria 17 July 2015 Marxist Theory of Class In his works, Karl Marx theorized and wrote extensively about class and class struggles. He formulated a compelling theory on class through an analysis of the historical modes of production and tied it to concrete historical reality. He was particularly interested in the role of property and how ownership manifests itself in different ways across history and its relationship with the advancement of the division of labor…

Words 3280 - Pages 14

Philosophy-Religion Essay

Course: Date: Marx, Freud, and Nietzsche Attacks on Religion Religion, belief in God, and Christianity has received sharp critics by some of the well-known philosophers in history. This made them come with their own view of human nature, value, and origin. Their argument has stimulated research in the field of religion and philosophy to enable researchers to come up with a comprehensive insight into their schools of thought. This paper is going to discuss these attacks by Karl Marx, Nietzsche, and…

Words 1218 - Pages 5

The Communist Manifesto

The nineteen hundreds introduced some of the most crucially significant social and economic phenomena and concepts that we know of today. That era of time carried historical changes and developments that were only understood in targeted context, when magnified to the larger scale. For that, class conflict, a focal contributor of change, was called upon as one of the blaming factors for the driven revolutions that fought to end both, the oppression of the working class and the thriving of an esteemed…

Words 1697 - Pages 7

Class Division Of Class Analysis

increasingly irrelevant to sociology. This discussion with use the concept of Karl Marx, Class theory, Globalisation and identity to illustrate how and why class is becoming unnecessary. Class has been a central concept that enables a better understanding of society. The traditional definition of class is a set of things or persons that have common attributes, qualities or…

Words 1818 - Pages 8

Karl Marx Research Paper

The world has not seen too many philosophers who have the huge range of expertise like Karl Marx. Besides being one of most famous philosophers of all time, Marx was an expert economist, a prudent historian, an adept sociologist, a respected journalist, and an active communist and social revolutionist. Born on 5th May 1818 in Prussia, this non-religious activist struggled heavily to establish himself as a social revolutionist and philosopher. He pursued his higher studies from the universities of…

Words 1248 - Pages 5

Progression Towards Individualism

However, not everyone supported modernity. Many prominent authors and thinkers of their time, including Karl Marx, Ivan Turgenev, and Hannah Arendt, criticized modernity in favor of keeping groups. Throughout the two centuries following the French Revolution, modernity became…

Words 1232 - Pages 5

Essay On Culture And Identity

will also be explained. Culture is defined simply as the way of life of a group of people. This relates to how they live their lives, the patterns of social organisation and the ‘norms’ they are expected to follow. Culture varies between societies and across time. It is an extremely important part of everyday…

Words 3312 - Pages 14