Marx’s philosophy is irreducible to its Hegelian and materialist sources

Evidence

The study of the philosophical culture of a man like Marx is not only interesting but necessary. But one must not forget that it belongs exclusively to the field of the reconstruction of his intellectual biography. The elements of Spinoza, Feuerbach, Hegel, French materialism, etc., are in no way essential parts of the philosophy of praxis, nor can that philosophy be reduced to those elements. What is interesting is precisely the transcending of the old philosophies, the new synthesis or the elements of a new synthesis and the way of conceiving philosophy. … At the level of theory the philosophy of praxis cannot be confounded with or reduced to any other philosophy. Its originality lies not only in its transcending of previous philosophies but also and above all in that it opens up a completely new road, renewing from head to toe the whole way of conceiving philosophy itself. — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 1645

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to how later critical theory (Adorno’s critique of orthodox Marxism as masochism, the Frankfurt School reading of Marx) treats the philosophy of praxis as an original synthesis rather than a derivation from German idealism and French materialism.
• DEEPTHINKING: The claim that a philosophy’s originality renews ‘the whole way of conceiving philosophy itself’ — a genuinely paradigm-shifting idea about what theoretical novelty is.