Marx’s critical method was later frozen into a general philosophical worldview

Evidence

Croce, of course, speaks as a non-Marxist, and the terminology of Karl Korsch will perhaps be more familiar: “Even where Marx departs from that purely critical position, he does not lay down any general propositions as to the essential nature of all society but merely describes the particular conditions and developmental tendencies inherent in the historical form of contemporary bourgeois society. The critical principle of Marx’s social science was during the subsequent development of Marxism converted into a general social philosophy. From this first misconception, it was only a step further to the idea that the historical and economic science of Marx must be based on the broader foundation not only of a social philosophy but even of an all-comprehensive ‘materialistic philosophy’ embracing both nature and society, or a general philosophical interpretation of the universe. Thus the definitely scientific forms which the real kernel of the philosophical materialism of the 18th century had assumed in the historical materialism of Marx were ultimately carried back to what Marx himself had once unmistakably repudiated as ‘the philosophical phrases of the Materialists about matter.’” — Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form, 714

Categorization

• DEFINE: Establishes the distinction between Marx’s critical-historical method and the later doctrinaire ‘materialistic philosophy’ into which it was converted.
• XREF: This ‘critical principle vs. general philosophy’ distinction is the core of Lukács’s own History and Class Consciousness reading and of the Frankfurt School’s rejection of orthodox diamat. Connects directly to Adorno’s negative dialectics. — connects to: Absolutized Theory misreads Marx by omitting his movement between abstraction levels

Broader Connections

• Absolutized Theory misreads Marx by omitting his movement between abstraction levels #expands (0.82)