Rough Theory

Theory In The Rough

Monthly Archives: May 2009

Imminence of Immanences

6 Comments Posted by on May 29, 2009

So I’ve fallen into silence again here – apologies… It’s the end of the term, and I’m trying to get everything together to leave again for London, where I’ll be attending the following conferences, and presenting papers that, I’m quite firmly certain, will be less megalomaniacal than the abstracts below imply. And, while I’m there, [...]

Events

Refractions

3 Comments Posted by on May 18, 2009

Over at Limited, Inc., roger has just written one of those lovely comments from which it’s possible to draw a large amount of energy in an otherwise gruelling period. There are moments in the process of navigating the final stages of the thesis, where everything related to the work can look so familiar and worn [...]

Links, Marxes, Overheard, Political Economy, Writing

Circular Reasoning

Leave a Comment Posted by on May 13, 2009

I’ve just been reading a work that makes the very common argument that Hegel begins the Science of Logic with the category of Being because that category is the most abstract and free of determination possible – qualities that apparently assure us that Hegel isn’t presupposing any more than he absolutely has to, at the [...]

Abstraction, Capital v.1, Logic, Logic of Science, Self-Reflexivity

Form Matters

Leave a Comment Posted by on May 13, 2009

One of the most often overlooked elements of Marx’s critique of political economy, is that Marx views the political economists as reductive materialists. The nature of this critique becomes clear at least from chapter 3 of Capital, where Marx introduces the concept of “social metabolism” – the process by which material needs are met by [...]

Abstraction, Capital v.1, Materialism, Political Economy

Hunger Is Hunger

3 Comments Posted by on May 12, 2009

Two passages, one from early and one from late in the Grundrisse. The first, from the section I discussed yesterday, where Marx grapples with the extent to which his categories are historically specific: Firstly, the object is not an object in general, but a specific object which must be consumed in a specific manner, to [...]

Ecology, Grundrisse, Materialism, Philosophy of History, Political Economy

The Abstraction Before Us

5 Comments Posted by on May 12, 2009

Marx starts what is now published as the introduction to the Grundrisse: The object before us, to begin with, material production. It takes over 800 pages of manuscript before he arrives at the starting point he retains in Capital: (1) Value This section to be brought forward. The first category in which bourgeois wealth presents [...]

Abstraction, Grundrisse, Materialism, Philosophy of History, Political Economy

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