> Ian Murray wrote:
>>
>>
>> The same could be said of historical narratives that leave out the
>> people and their motivations.
>>
>
> True -- but so? Who presents such narratives? For me the archetype of
> all psychological theories of social action is the xtian doctrine of
> Providence. And of course I'm thinking of the contrast of historical and
> providential explanation offered in Marx's comments on Proudhon's use of
> the latter concept.
>
The fact that providence doesn't exist doesn't mean that psychological factors don't.
Marx frequently points to them to explain history. For example, as I pointed out earlier, he points to the psychology of "conservative" French peasants to explain Louis Bonaparte.
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1852-18b/ch07.htm
At the most general level the role he assigns to such factors expresses his sublation of Hegel's idea of the "passions". This is explicitly acknowledged by Engels.
"we simply cannot get away from the fact that everything that sets men acting must find its way through their brains - even eating and drinking, which begins as a consequence of the sensation of hunger or thirst transmitted through the brain, and ends as a result of the sensation of satisfaction likewise transmitted through the brain. The influences of the external world upon man express themselves in his brain, are reflected therein as feelings, thoughts, impulses, volitions - in short, as 'ideal tendencies,' and in this form become 'ideal powers.' If, then, a man is to be deemed an idealist because he follows 'ideal tendencies' and admits that 'ideal powers' have an influence over him, then every person who is at all normally developed is a born idealist and how, in that case, can there still be any materialists." Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy, Marx and Engels, Selected Works, vol. 3 p. 352
"In the realm of history the old materialism becomes untrue to itself because it takes the ideal driving forces which operate there as ultimate causes, instead of investigating what is behind them, what are the driving forces of these driving forces. The inconsistency does not lie in the fact that ideal driving forces are recognized, but in the investigation not being carried further back behind these into their motive causes. On the other hand, the philosophy of history, particularly as represented by Hegel, recognizes that the ostensible and also the really operating motives of men who act in history are by no means the ultimate causes of historical events; that behind these motives are other motive powers, which have to be discovered. . . . It is a question of investigating the driving powers which - consciously or unconsciously - lie behind the motives of men who act in history." (p. 367. The entire discussion from p. 365 to p. 368 is extremely interesting from this standpoint.)
July 14, 1893, Engels' Letter to Franz Mehring
"Otherwise there is only one other point lacking, which, however, Marx and I always failed to stress enough in our writings and in regard to which we are all equally guilty. That is to say, we all laid, and were bound to lay , the main emphasis, in the first place, on the derivation of political, juridical and other ideological notions, and of actions arising through the medium of these notions, from basic economic facts. But in so doing we neglected the formal side ‹ the ways and means by which these notions, etc., come about ‹ for the sake of the content. This has given our adversaries a welcome opportunity for misunderstandings, of which Paul Barth is a striking example.
"Ideology is a process accomplished by the so-called thinker consciously, indeed, but with a false consciousness. The real motives impelling him remain unknown to him, otherwise it would not be an ideological process at all. Hence he imagines false or apparent motives."
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/letters/engels/93_07_14.htm
Ted