La tesis doctoral de Marx.

The doctoral dissertation written by Marx between 1838 and 1841 was one of the first philosophical works of the thinker born in Trier. In that work, titled The Difference between the Democritean and Epicurean Philosophy of Nature, he seeks to show the specific difference between the two authors. Beyond that, his general objective was to demonstrate that post-Aristotelian or Hellenistic schools had their own thought that did not draw on the theses of their predecessors. But, why did Marx pick Democritus and Epicurus and not other authors like Sextus Empiricus, Zeno of Citium, or Antisthenes? What was the method used by Marx in his doctoral dissertation? The article returns to this text, which for many is not relevant among Marx's initial philosophical interests, in order to show that he already had notions of a humanism in which the freedom of physical nature prevails and in which, historically, he begins to come close to materialist notions, moving away from the muddy waters of Hegelian metaphysics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]