Person
Karl Marx
German philosopher and social theorist (1818–1883); one of the starting points of critical approaches through his theories of history, economics and ideology.
Biography
Karl Marx was born in 1818 and died in 1883. The author of the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry stresses that he is often treated as an activist rather than a philosopher, a revolutionary whose works inspired communist regimes in the twentieth century, whereas he was trained academically as a philosopher (with a doctorate in ancient philosophy) and engaged directly with contemporaries such as Hegel.
His writings cover alienation, a theory of history, economic analysis, a critical engagement with capitalist society (raising issues about morality and ideology), an account of the modern state and a prediction of a communist future. In The German Ideology, written with Friedrich Engels in 1845–46, appears the thesis that in any society the ruling ideas are those of the ruling class; the SEP author regards this as the core of the theory of ideology.
In this lesson Marx serves only as a pointer: the strand of classical social thought that asks about order arising from conflict and class interest rather than from consensus. The detail belongs to the lesson in the critical-approaches unit.
In this course
Only a pointer in Roots of Social Thought; treated in depth in From Marx to Ideology.
Key works
- Marx, Karl; Engels, Friedrich. The German Ideology, part I: Feuerbach (section 'Ruling Class and Ruling Ideas'). Marxists Internet Archive (1845). https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/german-ideology/ch01b.htm — “The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas” and the means of mental production.