display all the ideas for this combination of philosophers
3 ideas
5281 | Consciousness is a social product [Marx/Engels] |
Full Idea: Consciousness is from the very beginning a social product. | |
From: K Marx / F Engels (The German Ideology [1846], §1.A) | |
A reaction: This slogan has produced the sociological view of truth which has stood opposed to philosophy for the last 150 years. It would be silly to deny that there is a good point here, but equally silly to think that all consciousness is explicable in this way. |
5276 | The nature of an individual coincides with what they produce and how they produce it [Marx/Engels] |
Full Idea: As individuals express their life, so they are; what they are, therefore, coincides with their production, both with what they produce and with how they produce. | |
From: K Marx / F Engels (The German Ideology [1846], §1.A) | |
A reaction: This appears to be contradicted by their subsequent idea that 'alienation' from the means of production is possible. Presumably intellectuals (in all ages) are to some extent exempt from this rule. It is, in fact, not true. |
21998 | Bourgeois interests create our morality, law and religion [Marx/Engels] |
Full Idea: Morality, law and religion are bourgeois prejudices, behind which lurk in ambush just as many bourgeois interests. | |
From: K Marx / F Engels (The Communist Manifesto [1848], p.230), quoted by Peter Singer - Marx 9 | |
A reaction: The obvious question is whether this creation of values is conscious or unconscious. Personally I believe in conspiracies. Some cynical conversations go on behind the scenes, of which historians will never hear. |