Marx’s Critique and its Implications for a Critical Philosophy

This lecture will present the principles and epistemological aspects of Marx’s critical method and the specific categorical structures associated with it. It will thus present, among other things, Marx’s distinction between the esoteric and exoteric levels of analysis, between the real object and the object of knowledge, and indicate the connection of his epistemological approach with that of French historical epistemology. It will then attempt to show, using Marx’s critique of political economy as an example, how Marx’s method of historicizing categories and “denaturalizing” them can be an effective tool for a critical theory of deideologization and defetishization.