Lenin as philosopher (was: marxist sociology)

Jim Farmelant farmelantj at juno.com
Sun Feb 24 04:57:57 PST 2002


On Sun, 24 Feb 2002 04:10:35 +0000 "Justin Schwartz" <jkschw at hotmail.com> writes:
>


>
> >
> > > And the philosophical materialism has nothing, logically, by way
> of
> > > connection with historical materialism. One might well be an
> > > out-and-out
> > > phenomenalist and still think that in social explanation the
> economy
> > > was
> > > primary, etc. Gramsci was clearly some sort of antirealist, a
> > > conventionalist and social constructionist in the tradition of
> > > Croce, but if
> > > he wasn't a Marxist revolutionary, no one was.
> >
> >I think that is true. And indeed Gramsci advanced a consensus
> >theiry of truth that was remarkably similar to that of C.S. Peirce,
> >and given that Gramsci does seem to have been familiar
> >with American pragmatism, perhaps he was influenced by Peirce.
>
> Does he mention him anywhere? Where does hetalk about which prags?

I can't find any specific reference by Garmsci to Peirce but he does discuss pragmatism a bit in The Prison Notebooks where he writes about Marxism's influence (or as he phrased the philosophy of praxis' influence) on then contemporary bourgois philosophy, writing that "certain of its elements have been absorbed and incorporated by a number of idealist currents" (e.g., "Croce, Gentile, Sorel, Bergson even, pragmatism"). (p. 389).

Actually it would be somewaht surprising if Gramsci didn't know anything about American pragamtism since Georges Sorel, whose writings Gramsci closely read, had written a book on the subject.


>
> jks
>
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