Materialism, Matter and Materiality in the Work of Althusser

Auteurs

  • Warren Montag Occidental College

DOI :

https://doi.org/10.15691/0718-5448Vol4Iss2a357

Mots-clés :

Ideology, Marxism, Materialism, Materiality, Althusser

Résumé

Over a decade ago, a number of philosophers declared that the time of what they called “the linguistic turn,” that is, a philosophical orientation to language as the sole medium through which reality could be apprehended, had come to an end, having foundered on its own contradictions. In its place, they proposed a turn to objects or things, that is, that to which we were previously told we could gain access only through language or consciousness, insofar as they reflected or represented reality from a position outside of it. Thus, they established the materiality of objects, but at the expense of a dematerialization of language. One of the principal targets of the new materialism was the concept of ideology, to them a realm of ideas, not things. In his famous essay, “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses,” published in 1970, Althusser preempted the arguments of the new materialism by asserting that ideology does not consist of ideas but exists in the materiality of apparatuses, practices and rituals. Just as importantly, discourse too possessed a materiality and a reality which was the necessary condition of its functions, including the production of meaning.

Références

Althusser, Louis. 1969. For Marx. Translated by Ben Brewster. London: Verso.

Althusser, Louis. 1971. “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses (Notes towards an Investigation).” In Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays, 127–186. Translated by Ben Brewster. New York: Monthly Review Press.

Althusser, Louis. 1995. “Idéologie et appareils idéologique d’état (Notes pour une recherche).” In Sur la reproduction, 269-314. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.

Althusser, Louis. 2003. “Three Notes on the Theory of the Discourses.” In The Humanist Controversy and Other Writings, 33–84. Translated by G. M. Goshgarian. London: Verso.

Althusser, Louis. 2006. “Philosophy and Marxism.” In Philosophy of the Encounter: Later Writings, 1978–87, 251-291. Translated by G. M. Goshgarian. London: Verso.

Althusser, Louis. 2014. “On the Cultural Revolution.” Translated by Jason E. Smith. Décalages 1, no. 0: 1–19.

Althusser, Louis. 2015. Reading Capital: The Complete Edition. London: Verso.

Aristotle. 1952. Metaphysics. Translated by Richard Hope. New York: Columbia University Press.

Aubenque, Pierre. 1962. Le problème de l'être chez Aristote. Paris: Presses Universitaire de France.

Bryant, Levi, Nick Srnicek, and Graham Harman, eds. 2011. The Speculative Turn: Continental Materialism and Realism. Melbourne: Repress.

Derrida, Jacques. 1976. Of Grammatology. Translated by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Marx, Karl. 1977. Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy. Moscow: Progress Publishers.

Trotsky, Leon. 1940. “Balance sheet of the Finnish Events.” Fourth Interna-tional 1, no. 2: 41–44.

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Publiée

2021-12-28

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Comment citer

Montag, Warren. 2021. « Materialism, Matter and Materiality in the Work of Althusser ». Síntesis. Revue De Philosophie 4 (2): 19-33. https://doi.org/10.15691/0718-5448Vol4Iss2a357.

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