Essentialism In The Thought Of Karl Marx _ Scott Meikle

ESSENTIALISM IN THE THOUGHT OF KARL MARX

Scott  Meikle

First Published 1985

Pages : 205

Preface

Abbreviations

1. Introduction

i The object

ii The plan

iii Accident and necessity in history

iv Atomism and dialectics in the twentieth century

2.Historiography and Dialectical Philosophy

i The hidden agenda

ii Aristotle and the ‘biological analogy’

iii The organicism and historicism of the nineteenth century

iv Hegel: natural vs. dialectical processes of development

v Marx: ‘setting Hegel on his feet’

(a) Inverting the universal and particular

(b) The concrete universal: the real starting point for history

(c) Propelled into political economy

3.The Coming-to-be of Capital

i. The ‘analytical method’ of classical political economy

ii The starting point for the political economy of the capitalist system

iii The pre-history of capital: commodities and money

iv The logical and the ‘historical’ derivation of categories

v The formation of the final form of value: capital

vi Contents

4. The Two Turning-points of History and theTwo Regulators

i Forms of supply of human social labour

ii The plan: customary and conscious

iii Essence and class

5. ‘Methods of Labour’ and Extraction of Surplus Labour

i The general theory of history and the theory of the history of capital

ii Social productivity

iii Contradiction: form and content

iv Europe from debt-bondage to wage-labour

6. History as Change and History as Progress

i Necessities in the historical process

ii The society of universal relations

iii The universalisability of exchange-value

iv Possible world histories

7. Atomism and Essentialism

i The two traditions

ii Identity: essence and matter

iii Wholes and parts; kinds and species

iv Essence and potential

v Chance and necessity

vi Real necessity

vii Essence and time

viii Teleology and explanation

ix Echient causation and teleology

x Law

Glossary

Select Bibliography

Index