Search

This text proposes to overcome the wide-spread error of dismissing Marx’s critique of all materialism before him as being reductionist and therefore philosophically and scientifically unacceptable. Instead, it attempts to create a non-reductionist understanding and practice of materialism in philosophy — especially by referring to key contributions by Althusser and Bhaskar and by criticizing the ‘materialist illusion’ of the early Marx — thereby articulating another key element of the ‘finite Marxism’ defended by the author. Frieder Otto Wolf, ‘Materialism against Materialism: Taking up Marx’s Break with Reductionism’, 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. 277–92

The article addresses the question of whether the category of Unverfügbarkeit disappears in non-metaphysical preconditions or how it can be re-conceptualised in, for example, an amorous relationship. The notion of an all-round Verfügbarkeit in amorous relationships is criticised; the possibilities are discussed of being able to avoid those power differences which, when they appear in different life contexts, are developed and go on to assume an independent existence. As a constructive approach, the concept of a ‘free love’ is introduced into the debate.