The Ontological Turn in the Marxism of Georg Luka´cs and Antonio Negri

Abstract

Ontology, the theory of being, its logic and categories, is a form of thought that is not generally compatible with Marxism, at least not in an affirmative mode. On the contrary, Marxist analysis almost always takes ontology as the target of ideology critique. Indeed, Marx's 11th thesis on Feuerbach has often been taken as a wholesale negation of ontology or metaphysics in both its idealist and materialist forms, a demonstration of its deceptive contemplative quietism, the practical effect of which is to provide social exploitation with a theoretical, or even theological, alibi: "The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it" (Marx and Engels, 1998, p. 571). Thus, Marx apparently felt that his own thought was not philosophy because it was not a metaphysical ideology but a critical practice, and thus he was not a philosopher but a theoretically sophisticated militant. Many Marxists seem to accept these distinctions without a second thought. Take Herbert Marcuse...