File spoon-archives/marxism-international.archive/marxism-international_1997/97-04-13.095, message 84


From: "Karl Carlile" <joseph-AT-indigo.ie>
Date: Sat, 12 Apr 1997 17:11:22 +0000
Subject: Re: M-I: Althusser


KARL: Hi Louis. It is warm and sunny in Dublin which makes for an 
extraordinary change.

LOUIS:Althusser, at least in his early writings, was engaged in a thoroughly
worthwhile project, and that was to show that Marx was not an economic
determinist. He was doing battle particularly with the orthodoxy of the
intelligentsia grouped around the French Communist Party. The only thing I
find unfortunate about Althusser is that he felt compelled to ally
himself with structuralism. His rather obscure language and use of terms
borrowd from psychoanalysis like "overdetermination" didn't help matters
either.

KARL: For me me one of the more interesting aspects of Althusser's
writings are those concerned with the relationship between the
earlier and later works of Marx. Althusser's discontinutity thesis
was quite provocative and helped draw attention to some interesting
questions such as the question of the relationship of humanism to
marxism. It seems to me that the debate concerning issue of the
character of the relationship between the text of the earlier and
later Marx is one that seem to have died  a, perhaps, somewhat slow
death, rather than been resolved.

                                Yours etc.,
                                                Karl
                                      




                          Yours etc.,
                                     Karl   


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