> The last two words are, I believe, sometimes translated as
> "revolutionary practice." If that is the correct translation, then Marx
> hadn't gotten his own thought straight when he wrote these words. I
> take
> it that "revolutionising" catches up (as "revolutionary" does not
> necessarily) that it is through revolutionary practice (and collective
> reflection on it) that men/women _also_ revolutionize themselves.
>
> But those needed 'moral' premises have no existence prior to or
> autonomously of human practice (struggle).
As I've said before, I interpret "practice" as expressing an ontological, epistemological and developmental doctrine. It's Marx 's term for human "sensuous existence." The ontological and epistemological doctrine involved makes human experience conceived in this way potentially able to provide rational grounds for ethical beliefs. "Revolutionising practice" is developmental because it increases the degree of rational self-consciousness, In particular, it can lead to more rational ethical beliefs. Marx makes a claim in the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts that illustrates all these aspects. It has individuals coming to know the value of mutual recognition through "revolutionising practice."
> When communist artisans associate with one another, theory,
> propaganda, etc., is their first end. But at the same time, as a
> result of this association, they acquire a new need — the need for
> society — and what appears as a means becomes an end. In this
> practical process the most splendid results are to be observed
> whenever French socialist workers are seen together. Such things as
> smoking, drinking, eating, etc., are no longer means of contact or
> means that bring them together. Association, society and conversation,
> which again has association as its end, are enough for them; the
> brotherhood of man is no mere phrase with them, but a fact of life,
> and the nobility of man shines upon us from their work-hardened
> bodies.
> <http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/manuscripts/
> needs.htm>
The ethical value individuals are said to have discovered in this "practical process" must have existed in some sense prior to their discovery of it, no? Perhaps it's a sense derivable from, heaven forbid, Plato.
Ted