Althusser Revisited. A Textological Reading

Description

In the fifties of 20th century, when the theoretical impacts of humanist Marxism were on the climax in Europe, a kind of thinking- trend of scientism- which is totally opposite to the humanist tendency, has sharply emerged within the western Marxism. Under the banner of western Marxist scientism were mainly Louis Althusser in France, Della-Volpe and L. Colletti in Italy, the Marxists of functionalistic analysis coming up later in the US and the UK and so on, among whom Althusser is the first to put forward a call to arms with a clear idea to fight “For Marx” with a scientific position.

This book is the first academic monograph in China which conducts an investigation into the philosophical thoughts of Louis Althusser employing the method of textual interpretation. The investigation is focused on Althusser’s three classical texts, namely For Marx, Reading Capital and Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses. The writer manages to disclose the latent methodological Gestalt which has been concealed for long in the studies on Althusser. That is mainly his text “Problématique and Lecture Symptomale” which function as the deep theoretical Gestalt in the context of the investigation of the epistemological history. Here the writer introduces a kind of composition method of theoretical “Counter-strike”, interweaving the text with the deconstruction and post-modern dissolution in the way of appenda. It therefore becomes a thorough study of Althusser’s epistemology which has been concealed for long, his theory on ideological which has the greatest impact in the critical theory of contemporary western culture, especially the idea of Ideological State Apparatus which revealed with a keen insight. Meanwhile this book makes a renewed analysis on Althusser’s historical interpretation on Marx. The important concepts such as “rupture” in the process of Marxian philosophy, “theoretical rejection of humanism” and “history is a process without subject” are all interpreted and analyzed.

In the fifties of 20th century, when the theoretical impacts of humanist Marxism were on the climax in Europe, a kind of thinking- trend of scientism- which is totally opposite to the humanist tendency, has sharply emerged within the western Marxism. Under the banner of western Marxist scientism were mainly Louis Althusser in France, Della-Volpe and L. Colletti in Italy, the Marxists of functionalistic analysis coming up later in the US and the UK and so on, among whom Althusser is the first to put forward a call to arms with a clear idea to fight “For Marx” with a scientific position.