Charles ^^^^^ http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/theses/theses.htm Theses On Feuerbach
Written: by Marx in the Spring of 1845, but slightly edited by Engels; First Published: As an appendix to Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy in 1888; Source: Marx/Engels Selected Works, Volume One, p. 13 - 15; Publisher: Progress Publishers, Moscow, USSR, 1969; Translated: W. Lough from the German; Transcription/Markup: Zodiac/Brian Basgen;
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I The chief defect of all hitherto existing _materialism_ (emphasis added -CB) - that of Feuerbach included - is that the thing, reality, sensuousness, is conceived only in the form of the object or of contemplation, but not as sensuous human activity, practice, not subjectively. Hence, in contradistinction to _materialism_ (emphasis added -CB), the active side was developed abstractly by _idealism_ (emphasis added - CB) - which, of course, does not know real, sensuous activity as such.
Feuerbach wants sensuous objects, really distinct from the thought objects, but he does not conceive human activity itself as objective activity. Hence, in The Essence of Christianity, he regards the theoretical (emphasis added -CB) attitude as the only genuinely human attitude, while practice is conceived and fixed only in its dirty-judaical (sic) manifestation. Hence he does not grasp the significance of “revolutionary”, of “practical-critical”, activity.
II The question whether objective truth can be attributed to human thinking is not a question of _theory_ (emphasis added -CB) but is a practical question. Man (sic)must prove the truth - i.e. the reality and power, the this-sidedness of his thinking in practice. The dispute over the reality or non-reality of thinking that is isolated from practice is a purely scholastic question.
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