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Single Idea 5277

[filed under theme 15. Nature of Minds / B. Features of Minds / 1. Consciousness / a. Consciousness ]

Full Idea

Life is not determined by consciousness, but consciousness by life.

Gist of Idea

Life is not determined by consciousness, but consciousness by life

Source

K Marx / F Engels (The German Ideology [1846], §1.A)

Book Ref

Marx,K./Engels,F.: 'The German Ideology', ed/tr. Arthur,C.J. [Lawrence and Wishart 1985], p.47

A Reaction

This slogan is the heart of Marxism. It begs the obvious question of what determines (social) life? Aristotle is at least partly right - that some activities and social organisation are 'unnatural', going against the grain of the human 'given'.

Related Ideas

Idea 22792 Individuals attain their right by discovering their self-consciousness in institutions [Hegel]

Idea 23872 'Society determines consciousness' is contradictory; society only exists in minds [Weil on Marx/Engels]

The 32 ideas from K Marx / F Engels

23872 'Society determines consciousness' is contradictory; society only exists in minds [Weil on Marx/Engels]
5277 Life is not determined by consciousness, but consciousness by life [Marx/Engels]
5280 Language co-exists with consciousness, and makes it social [Marx/Engels]
5276 The nature of an individual coincides with what they produce and how they produce it [Marx/Engels]
5278 Philosophy is no more than abstractions concerning observations of human historical development [Marx/Engels]
5281 Consciousness is a social product [Marx/Engels]
5273 Young Hegelians think consciousness is chains for men, where old Hegelians think it the bond of society [Marx/Engels]
5283 In communist society we are not trapped in one activity, but can act freely [Marx/Engels]
5282 If the common interest imposes on the individual, his actions become alienated and enslaving [Marx/Engels]
5274 Young Hegelians proposed changing our present consciousness for liberating critical consciousness [Marx/Engels]
5275 Men distinguish themselves from animals when they begin to produce their means of subsistence [Marx/Engels]
5284 Communism abolishes private property and dissolves the powerful world market [Marx/Engels]
5279 Human history must always be studied in relation to industry and exchange [Marx/Engels]
5286 Most historians are trapped in the illusions of their own epoch [Marx/Engels]
5289 When aristocracy or the bourgeoisie dominate, certain values dominate with them [Marx/Engels]
5285 Slavery cannot be abolished without the steam-engine [Marx/Engels]
5288 The class controlling material production also controls mental production [Marx/Engels]
5290 The revolutionary class is opposed to 'class', and represents all of society [Marx/Engels]
5287 Philosophical problems are resolved into empirical facts [Marx/Engels]
5291 The law says private property is the result of the general will [Marx/Engels]
5294 To assert themselves as individuals, the proletarians must overthrow the State [Marx/Engels]
5292 Individuals are mutually hostile unless they group together in competition with other groups [Marx/Engels]
5293 Only in community are people able to cultivate their gifts, and therefore be free [Marx/Engels]
21992 Producing their own subsistence distinguishes men from animals [Marx/Engels]
5301 The history of all existing society is the history of class struggles [Marx/Engels]
5302 Modern governments are just bourgeois management committees [Marx/Engels]
5303 For the proletariate, law, morality and religion are just expressions of bourgeois interests [Marx/Engels]
5304 Communism aims to abolish not all property, but bourgeois property [Marx/Engels]
5306 The free development of each should be the condition for the free development of all [Marx/Engels]
5305 Communists want to rescue education from the ruling class [Marx/Engels]
5307 Many of the bourgeois rights grievances are a form of self-defence [Marx/Engels]
21998 Bourgeois interests create our morality, law and religion [Marx/Engels]