A philosophy for communism : : rethinking Althusser / / by Panagiotis Sotiris.

• Superior document: Historical materialism book series ; Volume 211
• VerfasserIn: Sotiris, Panagiotis,
• Place / Publishing House: Leiden ;, Boston : : Brill,, [2020]; ©2020
• Year of Publication: 2020
• Language: English
• Series: Historical materialism book series ; Volume 211.
• Physical Description: 1 online resource.

In A Philosophy for Communism: Rethinking Althusser Panagiotis Sotiris attempts a reading of the work of the French philosopher centered upon his deeply political conception of philosophy. Althusser’s endeavour is presented as a quest for a new practice of philosophy that would enable a new practice...

Table of Contents

• Introduction
• Part One: Structure, Conjuncture, Encounter
• 1 The Many Readings and Misreadings of Althusser
• 1.1 The polemic against theoreticist structuralism
• 1.2 Althusser as the repetition of communist orthodoxy
• 1.3 Althusser’s work as rupture of the dialectic of theory and practice
• 1.4 The possibility of another reading
• 2 Althusser and Hegel: The Never-ending Confrontation
• 2.1 The 1947 Thesis
• 2.2 The polemics against French Hegelianism
• 2.3 The Critique of Hegel
• 3 ‘This man is indeed alone in facing his task’: Althusser on Montesquieu
• 3.1 Montesquieu’s revolution in method
• 3.2 Montesquieu’s politics
• 3.3 Montesquieu as anti-teleology
• 4 Structure Revisited
• 4.1 ‘Althusser of the structure’ vs. ‘Althusser of the conjuncture’?
• 4.2 High Althusserianism revisited
• 4.3 Structures without structuralism?
• 4.4 Althusser’s self-criticism: From structures to enduring relations
• 4.5 The critique of Feuerbach as critique of Phenomenology and Structuralism
• 4.6 From structure to the conjuncture
• 5 Materialism as Philosophy of the Encounter
• 5.1 An Althusserian Kehre?
• 5.2 Rethinking the genealogy of the encounter
• 5.3 The encounter as anti-teleology and as new practice of politics
• 6 From the Critique of Natural Law to the Void of the Forest and the Inexistence of the Origin: Althusser on Rousseau
• 6.1 The 1956 course
• 6.2 The 1958–59 course
• 6.3 The 1965–66 course
• 6.4 The 1972 course
• 6.5 A comparison between the three courses
• 7 From the ‘Hidden God’ to the Materialism of the Encounter: Althusser and Pascal
• 7.1 Althusser in captivity and Pascal
• 7.2 Lucien Goldmann and the ‘Hidden God’
• 7.3 From the materiality of ideological practices to aleatory materialism
• 8 The Difficulties of Being a Materialist in Philosophy: Assessing Aleatory Materialism
• 8.1 The genealogy of aleatory materialism
• 8.2 A philosophy of the encounter
• 8.3 Pierre Raymond on aleatory materialism
• 8.4 Contradictions of aleatory materialism
• 8.5 Contingent encounter or materialist dialectic?
• 9 Spinoza in Althusser-as-Laboratory
• 9.1 Spinozist epistemology
• 9.2 Spinoza and singularity
• 9.3 Spinoza and the rejection of classical theories of knowledge
• 9.4. Spinoza in the genealogy of the materialism of the encounter
• 10 Structure and/as Conjuncture
• 10.1 Rethinking singularity
• 10.2 Contradiction and antagonism
• 10.3 Specific historicities
• 10.4 The dialectic of structure and conjuncture and the recurring necessity of philosophical interventions
• Part Two: A New Practice of Philosophy
• 11 Althusser’s Struggle with the Definition of Philosophy
• 11.1 The aporiasb of theoretical practice
• 11.2 The politics of the epistemological break
• 11.3 Philosophical self-criticism
• 11.4 Philosophy and/as politics
• 11.5 The spontaneous philosophy of the scientists
• 11.6 Philosophy as class struggle
• 12 Philosophy as Laboratory
• 12.1 Redrawing the line of demarcation with idealism
• 12.2 The margin and the encounter
• 12.3 Philosophy and ideology
• 12.4 Different practices of philosophy
• 12.5 Philosophy and abstraction
• 12.6 Practice revisited
• 12.7 Philosophy and practice
• 12.8 How can anybody be a philosopher?
• 13 A Philosopher Always Catches a Moving Train
• 13.1 The return of philosophical metaphors
• 13.2 The new practice of philosophy revisited
• 13.3 Portrait of a materialist philosopher
• 14 Althusser and Gramsci on Philosophy
• 14.1 Gramsci and the philosophy of praxis
• 14.2 Althusser and Gramsci: a missed encounter?
• 14.3 The open question of Marxist philosophy
• Part Three: Is There an Althusserian Politics?
• 5 Althusser 1960–65: Attempting a Theoretical Correction of a Political Strategy in Crisis
• 15.1 Althusser’s political engagement
• 15.2 The politics of the 1960–65 texts
• 15.3 The debate on ‘student problems’
• 16 The Politics of Theoretical Anti-Humanism
• 16.1 Theoretical anti-humanism as a theoretical and political strategy
• 16.2 Marx’s Sixth Thesis revisited
• 16.3 The combination of historicism and humanism as the main danger
• 16.4 The debate at Argenteuil
• 16.5 The Humanist Controversy revisited
• 16.6 Theoretical anti-humanism in the 1970s
• 17 Althusser’s Self-Criticism
• 17.1 1966: The turning point
• 17.2 Althusser on the Cultural Revolution
• 17.3 May 1968 and the new challenges
• 17.4 On the Reproduction of Capitalism as a political statement
• 17.5 Balibar and the new practice of politics
• 17.6 The left-wing criticism of Stalinism
• 18 Althusser in the 1970s: Break and Open Criticism of Communist Reformism
• 18.1 The French debate and the abandonment of the dictatorship of the proletariat
• 18.2 Althusser’s confrontation with the crisis of the communist movement
• 18.3 Facing the crisis of the Party
• 18.4 The confrontation with the crisis of Marxism
• 18.5 Marx in his Limits
• 18.6 Traces of communism
• 18.7 The debate on the state
• 18.8 Confronting Gramsci
• 19 The Politics of the Encounter: Machiavelli and Beyond
• 19.1 The first confrontation
• 19.2 The founder of a theory without precedent
• 19.3 Thinking under the conjuncture
• 19.4 A philosophical reading of Machiavelli
• 19.5 The encounter and the New Prince
• 19.6 Throwing the dice: Machiavelli in the 1980s texts
• 19.7 Althusser’s solitude
• 19.8 A Convergence for Liberation : Althusser in the 1980s
• 19.9 How to organise good encounters?
• 20 How to Make Lasting Encounters: Althusser and Political Subjectivity
• 20.1 The subject as problem and not answer
• 20.2 The return of the subject?
• 20.3 A non-subjectivist theory of subjectivity
• 20.4 Political organisations and collectivities as knowledge processes and forms of collective intellectuality
• 21 The Limits of Althusserian Politics
• Conclusion
• References
• Index
• .