Rhetorical Gestures (was Re: Spivak sez...)

Charles Brown CharlesB at CNCL.ci.detroit.mi.us
Wed Oct 13 11:57:22 PDT 1999


Oh sorry. I actually thought it would be interesting to see Marx reading Kant. I always liked Engels and Marx's image of extracting the rational kernel from left-liberals ( after turning them off of their head onto their feet).

But was Spivak using "Kant" in that way ? I got the impression from your post that Spivak was referring to Kant himself. So, how does she read Kant from below ? The philosophical problem with Kant is not only racism but dualism and agnosticism. Does she address these ?

I don't ask this idlely. I always thought that many of the "post" philosophies were neo-Kantianisms. It would help to clarify the polemics if this were more out in the open. Then at least we could ask them to give responses to the long history of critiques of Kant, and avoid a lot of "reinventing the philosophical wheel".

CB


>>> Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> 10/13/99 02:24PM >>>
Charles Brown wrote:


>Charles: Anybody know examples of how Marx did this and where ? I
>cannot remember ever reading Marx using Kant's name.

I was using "Kant" as a representative of the Western philosophical tradition, because he was the guy Spivak had been talking about. Obviously in Marx's case, Hegel and Ricardo are the relevant names.

Doug



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list