Marx locates reality in phenomenal forms, not behind them
Evidence
Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, The Holy Family . We have not been able to trace such a statement in the text. It would appear in any case to be a slight distortion of the actual position of Marx and Engels. In Capital Marx clearly distinguishes the reality of the content from the phenomenal form [Erscheinungsform ] of things, while maintaining that this reality can only be derived from the phenomena and can have no separate existence apart from them. — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 2564
Categorization
- DEFINE: Clarifies Marx’s distinction between content-reality and phenomenal form (Erscheinungsform), a distinction later cultural theory reworks when it asks how ideology and representation relate to underlying social relations.
- XREF: Connects to Althusser and to Stuart Hall’s repeated insistence that the economic is never available except through its forms of appearance. — connects to: Marx derives the reality of content only from phenomena without granting it separate existence; Marx’s theory of fetishism depends on phenomenal forms being real, not imaginary — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 519; Marx derives superstructures from the phenomenal forms of exchange relations — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 520 (+1 more)
- yield-rescued: below the book’s yield-target cutoff, included anyway for connecting to: Marx derives the reality of content only from phenomena without granting it separate existence; Marx’s theory of fetishism depends on phenomenal forms being real, not imaginary — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 519; Marx derives superstructures from the phenomenal forms of exchange relations — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 520 (+1 more)