Book Section
This chapter proposes one definition of critical materialism and a critique of politics based on several authors from Marx to Foucault. This critique occurs in several stages and unfolds as a criticism of universals such as human freedom, general interest, political rationality, or reconciled political community. The decisive materialist-historical question, then, is which of the different materialities is dominant at a certain point of time. I argue that Marx condemns politics as an illusion. He thought of ‘political reason’ as a form of ‘spiritualism’. Hence, critical materialism argues for a move away from the illusion of politics.
Keywords: historical materialism; historical block; material practices; political illusion; materialism (philosophy); critical materialism; political science; Foucault, Michel; Althusser, Louis
Part of Materialism and Politics Containing:
From ‘Materialism’ towards ‘Materialities’ / Bernardo Bianchi, Emilie Filion-Donato, Marlon Miguel, Ayşe Yuva
Introduction to Part I / Stefan Hagemann
Materialist Variations on Spinoza: Theoretical Alliances and Political Strategies / Mariana de Gainza
Non Defuit Materia: Freedom and Necessity in Spinoza’s Democratic Theory / Stefano Visentin
Temporality and History in Spinoza: The Refusal of Teleological Thought / Ericka Marie Itokazu
Spinozist Moments in Deleuze: Materialism as Immanence / Mauricio Rocha
Are there One or Two Aleatory Materialisms? / Vittorio Morfino
Introduction to Part II / Marlene Kienberger, Bruno Pace
Language Follows Labour: Nikolai Marr’s Materialist Palaeontology of Speech / Elena Vogman
Materialism and Capitalism Today: Zoo-aesthetics and a Critique of the Social Bond after Marcel Mauss and André Leroi-Gourhan / Catherine Perret
The Product of Circumstances: Towards a Materialist and Situated Pedagogy / Marlon Miguel
In the Labyrinth of Emancipation: An Inquiry into the Relationship between Knowledge and Politics / Bernardo Bianchi
A Materialist Education: Thinking with Spinoza / Pascal Sévérac
Introduction to Part III / Alison Sperling
Materialism, Matter, Matrix, and Mater: Contesting Notions in Feminist and Gender Studies / Cornelia Möser
Anarchafeminism & the Ontology of the Transindividual / Chiara Bottici
Psychodynamism of Individuation and New Materialism: Possible Encounters / Émilie Filion-Donato
Emergence that Matters and Emergent Irrelevance: On the Political Use of Fundamental Physics / Christoph F. E. Holzhey
Introduction to Part IV / Daniel Liu
Materialism against Materialism: Taking up Marx’s Break with Reductionism / Frieder Otto Wolf
Materialism, Politics, and the History of Philosophy: French, German, and Turkish Materialist Authors in the Nineteenth Century / Ayşe Yuva
The Historicity of Materialism and the Critique of Politics
On Populist Illusion: Impasses of Political Ontology, or How the Ordinary Matters / Facundo Vega
Theory’s Method?: Ethnography and Critical Theory / Marianna Poyares
Title
The Historicity of Materialism and the Critique of Politics
Author(s)
Alex Demirović
Identifier
Description
This chapter proposes one definition of critical materialism and a critique of politics based on several authors from Marx to Foucault. This critique occurs in several stages and unfolds as a criticism of universals such as human freedom, general interest, political rationality, or reconciled political community. The decisive materialist-historical question, then, is which of the different materialities is dominant at a certain point of time. I argue that Marx condemns politics as an illusion. He thought of ‘political reason’ as a form of ‘spiritualism’. Hence, critical materialism argues for a move away from the illusion of politics.
Is Part Of
Place
Berlin
Publisher
ICI Berlin Press
Date
2 March 2021
Subject
historical materialism
historical block
material practices
political illusion
materialism (philosophy)
critical materialism
political science
Foucault, Michel
Althusser, Louis
Rights
© by the author(s)
Except for images or otherwise noted, this publication is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Language
en-GB
page start
313
page end
326
Source
Materialism and Politics, ed. by Bernardo Bianchi, Emilie Filion-Donato, Marlon Miguel, and Ayşe Yuva, Cultural Inquiry, 20 (Berlin: ICI Berlin Press, 2021), pp. 313–26

References

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  • Adorno, Theodor W., and Max Horkheimer, Briefwechsel, 4 vols, in Theodor W. Adorno. Briefe und Briefwechsel, 8vols (Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, 1994–), IV.4: 1950–1969 (2006)
  • Foucault, Michel, ‘“Omnes et Singulatim”: Toward a Critique of Political Reason’, in Essential Works of Foucault 1954–1984: Power, ed. by Paul Rabinow, James D. Faubion (New York: New Press, 2001), pp. 298–325
  • Foucault, Michel, Security, Territory, Population: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1977–78, ed. by Arnold I. Davidson (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007)
  • Foucault, Michel, The Birth of Biopolitics: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1978–79, ed. by Arnold I. Davidson (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008)
  • Horkheimer, Max, ‘Anfänge der bürgerlichen Geschichtsphilosophie’, in Gesammelte Schriften, 19 vols (Frankfurt a.M.: Fischer, 1987), II, pp. 177–268
  • Marx, Karl, ‘Theses on Feuerbach’, ed. by Friedrich Engels, in MECW, V (1976), pp. 6–8
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  • Marx, Karl, ‘Critical Marginal Notes on the Article “The King of Prussia and Social Reform. By a Prussian”’, in MECW, III (1975), pp. 189–206
  • Marx, Karl, ‘Kritische Randglossen zu dem Artikel “Der König von Preußen und die Sozialreform. Von einem Preußen”’, in MEW, I (1981), pp. 392–409
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  • Marx, Karl, Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, 3 vols (London: Penguin, 1976), I, trans. by Ben Fowkes
  • Marx, Karl, and Friedrich Engels, Marx-Engels-Werke, 44 vols (Berlin: Dietz, 1956–2018) [= MEW]
  • Marx, Karl, and Friedrich Engels, Collected Works, 50 vols (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1975–2004) [= MECW]
  • Žižek, Slavoj, The Ticklish Subject: The Absent Centre of Political Ontology (London: Verso, 1999)

Cite as: Alex Demirović, ‘The Historicity of Materialism and the Critique of Politics’, in Materialism and Politics, ed. by Bernardo Bianchi, Emilie Filion-Donato, Marlon Miguel, and Ayşe Yuva, Cultural Inquiry, 20 (Berlin: ICI Berlin Press, 2021), pp. 313-26 <https://doi.org/10.37050/ci-20_17>