Marxism & Sciences
Journal Data
| Type | JOURNAL |
|---|---|
| Publisher | "Marxism & Sciences: A Journal of Nature, Culture, Human and Society" |
| ISSN | 2822-2849 |
| OpenAlex | S4387280453 |
| Total publications | 99 |
| Coverage period | 2022 - 2026 |
| Language | EN |
| Impact factor | 0.079 |
This journal focuses on Marxism and sciences. Marxism is a foundational classical social theory highly relevant to social anthropology, and critical theory and science and technology studies (STS) are explicitly listed as related areas
Academic and Historical Perspectives in Psychology · Complex Systems and Decision Making · Contemporary Sociological Theory and Practice · Critical Theory and Philosophy · Digital Education and Society · European history and politics · German Social Sciences and History · Hearing Impairment and Communication · History and Developments in Astronomy · History of Science and Medicine
Mikhail Lifshits on the Antinomies of Winckelmann
Winckelmann and the Three Epochs of Bourgeois Weltanschauung which was written as an introduction to a Russian edition of Winckelmann's famous treatise on the history of the art in antiquity.In his text, translated into English in 1946, Lifshits saw Winckelmann as an adherent of Enlightenment rationalism (comparing him, i.a., with Robespierre) and tried to show how the later bourgeois reception of Winckelmann's ideas degraded in three steps to fa…
The Epistemological Basis of Alexander Bogdanov’s Theory of Proletarian Culture
Socialism and Cybernetic Planning
Should Marxism draw inspiration from cybernetic management theories and systems science in order to rethink the question of economic planning?In this article, we propose to examine the convergence between cybernetics and socialism through the example of Cybersyn: how did Marxist and cybernetic perspectives interact-or contradict one another-at the technical, theoretical, and political levels in this specific case?The hypothesis is as follows: fro…
Uneven Ties
This paper develops a non-essentialist and non-reductionist Marxist theory of international relations by integrating insights from historical materialism, world-systems theory, the Althusserian concept of overdetermination, and Alexander Bogdanov's Tektology.It challenges economistic and determinist interpretations that either reduce international dynamics to domestic class relations or isolate them within an autonomous geopolitical realm.Instead…
Hegel and the World-Historical Unity of Science
This paper is based on a lecture Damerow and Lefvre gave at a Hegel-Congress in 1982.It was first published in Hegel-Jahrbcher 1983 and discusses the concept and function of science from a historical materialist point of view.Starting from the dilemma of the Hegelian systematical view on science in terms of Wissenschaft the authors advance a critique as well as an apology of this notion to defend an internationalist view on scientific development…
Intelligent Specters
Once more, a specter is haunting us -the specter of intelligence.Artificially, it returns, awakened from the bowels of industry.The capitalists have seized its power; against us turned its devilish force.Against specters, only one solution: Exorcism!Deep generative models such as ChatGPT or DeepSeek-the latest artifacts in the long history of digital automation-have, without much doubt, already implanted their roots within the soil of our culture…
The Sci-Tech-Economic Complex
This article proposes to reconceptualise some key terms within the Critical Theory of technology.On the one hand, its goal is to bring forward a dense defence of a Marcusean understanding of Marxism that includes the problematisation of otherwise unquestioned premises known from certain scientist or positivist Marxisms-like the neutrality of science and technology, the positivity of labour, or the revolutionary tendency of productive forces.On th…
The Translations of Bogdanov’s “Science and the Working Class”
1918 text, alongside two other highly relevant texts, is digitally available in English (Bogdanov 1918).We plan to republish them in the coming issue of M&S. Bogdanov had refined his notion
Bogdanov’s Red Star and Ilyenkov’s Critique
This paper is based on a lecture Damerow and Lefvre gave at a Hegel-Congress in 1982.It was first published in Hegel-Jahrbcher 1983 and discusses the concept and function of science from a historical materialist point of view.Starting from the dilemma of the Hegelian systematical view on science in terms of Wissenschaft the authors advance a critique as well as an apology of this notion to defend an internationalist view on scientific development…
Marxist Systems Thinking and the Categorization of Materialist Dialectic
In this paper, I consider the relationship between the systematicity of Marxism and the attempts to analyse materialist dialectic in terms of categories and laws.Is the categorization of materialist dialectic a necessary outcome of the scientific character of Marxist thought and a confirmation of that scientificity?Or is Marxism a systemic mode of thought precisely because it rests on conceptions of dialectic and materialism that are expressed th…
Organizational Hegemony
This text explores the profound intellectual relationship between Antonio Gramsci and Alexander Bogdanov, two pivotal figures of 20th-century Marxism whose legacies have historically been viewed as parallel but independent.Recent discoveries, most notably Gramsci's 1920s Italian translation of Bogdanov's science fiction novel Red Star, conclusively prove that Gramsci directly and deeply engaged with Bogdanov's ideas during a critical phase of his…
Ouroboros, Part One
In this article-the first of two-I reconsider Marx's dialectical method through the problem of systems and circularity, intervening in a twentieth-century impasse between technocratic systems theory and anti-systemic fragmentation.As I'll argue, the stakes remain pertinent.Attempts to theorize social systems have tended to oscillate between closed, equilibrium-oriented models that treat society as a self-regulating whole open to expert management…
In Memoriam
In Memoriam
Introduction
Marx, Engels and the Communist Revolution Between Determinism, Telos and Self-Emancipation
It seems that history has tricked the communist movement.It has cast into doubt the certainty of a revolutionary outbreak and victory in the most developed capitalist countries.Former tsaristic Russia had a successful revolution, but shortly after became a highly bureaucratized state-in many respects not very different from other modern state apparatus.This has caused much confusion about the value of the notion of revolution in Marx and Engels.T…
Vladimir Iurinets–A Forgotten Marxist Critic of Husserl
In this paper, I will shortly present a hitherto quite forgotten Soviet Marxist critic of the 1920s, Vladimir Iurinets (, in Ukrainian , 1891(, in Ukrainian , -1936/37)/37).Of Ukrainian origin, he subsequently became one of the numerous victims of Stalinism and of his production only some articles remain.Although my presentation of him is only a first approach, his work and especially his evaluation of the problematic points of Husserl's philosop…
The Neotenous Image
Authoritarianism in Crisis
Capitalist Contradiction and the Spiritual Crisis
Feuerbach's great achievement is: (1) The proof that philosophy is
Capitalism as a Species of Automation
For many decades, full automation has been treated as a possible outcome arising from the incessant transformation of the world's labour processes.The recent massification of ChatGPT and generative AI technologies has exacerbated the speculative tendency to move freely between the sense that this future is possible, on the one hand, and that it is proximate, on the other.Increasing confidence that this impending trajectory is already secured has …
The Silent Weight of Class
WHAT IS COURTESY?Courtesy is more than politeness.Rooted in the Old French courtoisie, originally denoting the disciplined behavior expected in royal courts, it has long functioned as a tool of social regulation.As Norbert Elias (1969) suggests, such codes of conduct internalized hierarchies by rendering domination respectable, even virtuous.In this sense, courtesy operates not only as etiquette but as ideology: a form of soft power that legitimi…
Seeing Dialectically
Anatoliy Arsen’ev, Evald Ilyenkov & Vasily Davydov
Talking Hands
No prominent publications on this page.
Back to Engels
In hearing nature hears itself, in smelling it smells itself, in seeing it sees itself. (Marx, 1841) OTH WESTERN MARXISM AND SOVIET MARXISM share the assumption that Engels and Marx agreed upon a division of labour between them: Engels had specialized in nature and Marx in history. 1 Therefore, the contributions of Engels were either rejected or embraced for this exact reason in Western Marxism and Soviet Marxism, respectively. Consequently, thes…
Marxism, from Ideology to Science
This text is a reflection on the current fate and prospects of Marxism. It discusses Marxism's retreat from science to ideology shortly after the passing of the founders of Marxism and the essence of ideology as false consciousness, understood in Spinoza's materialist logic. The role of Ilyenkov as a theorist close to Marxism, who took the first major step towards returning the latter to the dignity of critical science and the internal contradict…
The Cost of Freedom in the Neoliberal World of Blood and Oil
Die Produktion des Bewusstseins for Soprano & Trumpet
OF 2018, I CAME across an announcement of a composing competition honouring Karl Marx's 200th birth anniversary, organised by Birmingham Contemporary Music Group with the cooperation of Trier Municipality. The competition had three categories, namely duo with or without a singer, ensemble with or without a singer, and electroacoustic, for composers to submit pieces that are linked to Karl Marx and his work. Before moving on to explaining the comp…
Interviews
The totality of the contemporary crisis of capitalism rather invites us to rethink the fundamental premises of Marxism in its totality, as the method of understanding and transcending capitalism and reflecting on the historical, present, and possible future forms of human-human and human-nature relations. In an age characterized by the urgent need for a "new beginning," the quest for revisiting, rethinking, and clarifying Marxism's foundational p…
Electric Bass Improvisations on Engels
Revisiting the Semi-Feudal Question in the Philippines
Notwithstanding the insistence of the mainstream left that the Philippines' mode of production remains semi-feudal and semi-colonial, even as other left organizations persevere in their belief to the contrary that the country is already capitalist, albeit an appendage to the world capitalist system-Marxist thinkers must never cease from studying the question on the foreground that different social movements in the Philippines advocating socialism…
On the Differences between the Classical and the “Western” Marxist Conceptions of Science
This essay aims to provide an account of the differences between what I call the "Classical Marxist" conception of science which was adhered to by Marx and Engels and further developed by Boris Hessen and others on the one hand, and the conception of science which characterizes "Western Marxism" as it developed through the work of the theorists of the Frankfurt School on the other hand. I argue that Western Marxists such as Herbert Marcuse and Ma…
Unity, Motion, and Reciprocity in Friedrich Engels’ Dialectics of Nature
The Dialectics of Nature is one of the most significant works regarding materialist dialectics, first and foremost because it fills the gap in expounding materialist dialectics as the objective law of motion on earth. The fundamental aspect of this expounding is the view that postulates human and nature in their unity and presenting the dialectic as the objective law of motion on earth through the sphere of natural sciences and establishing the m…
Time=Money
This paper is about the possibility of using the notion of the Ideal in physics, this on top of its known role in communications, education, and economy. Present day fashion is to import concepts and methods from the natural sciences into the humanities. However as human culture covers all human knowledge, this one-way approach demands critique. Not only by arguing about the limitations of this fashion, but by investigating the reverse. To what e…
Variations on Themes Composed by Engels
Marx
Friedrich Engels’ Importance for Contemporary Materialist Epistemology
In this contribution for Friedrich Engels' bicentennial birthday, we investigate to what extent the epistemological ideas of F. Engels, based in nineteenth-century science, can serve as stepping stones towards a novel materialistic epistemology given de contemporary state of the sciences. I look at Engels as an historical figure in his nineteenth-century context with strong and pertinent emancipatory ideas, who understood the need of a materialis…
In the Name of the Comradeship of the Cosmos
Roots of Social Reproduction Theory in Marx and Engels
The social reproduction theory aims to construct a total analysis of the production of things and the production and reproduction of people.Therefore, it broadens social production by including the care and reproduction work-by womenrather than just seeing it as capital accumulation/commodity production and reproduction of capital.Social reproduction theory is a materialist theory of (social) life and has its roots in Marxism.Historical materiali…
Engels, Reductionism and Epigenetics
This article has three goals: To reprise Engels' view of dialectical change; second to review how epigenetics challenges classical genetics and assess its tenets against those of Trofim Lysenko; finally, to consider the political rise of Lysenko. Engels viewed interconnectedness and change as key principles of nature and society, as did Marx. Eschewing a-priori schematization, both viewed theory as derived from and tested by practice. Western cla…
Domenico Losurdo’s Historical Interpretation of Class Struggles
The objective validity of Engels' dialectic theory as a method of reasoning
What gives validity to Engels' dialectical theory?Is it the process of nature's own functioning that provides validity to the dialectic, or is it the logical order of the concepts?The orthodox Marxists, who take Engels' dialectic as the "dialectic of nature," are in favour of the former.The proponents of the latter seem to reject the dialectic of nature by associating the dialectic with Hegel's logical operations.The former reduces thinking to th…
Engels’ Fourfold Revenge
This paper confronts the familiar prejudice in Western Marxism that Engels' thought, as articulated in Anti-Duhring and the Dialectics of Nature, is of marginal interest and should be excised from Marxist theory. I argue that this view is mistaken. If we do not take seriously his insights about science, philosophy, nature, and history, his insights will take a fourfold revenge upon us. Natural science takes its revenge by unleashing technology th…
Lewontin’s Legacy and the Influence of Engels
Dick Lewontin's passing on the 4th of July, while this journal's inaugural issue was being compiled, marks the end of a dominating, and yet troubled, era for radical science, especially in the United States. He was preceded in death by his longterm comrade and friend
Trajectories and Themes in World Popular Music
HIS COMPREHENSIVE BOOK does not only present trajectories and themes in world popular music as promised in the title. It also examines the fundamental tenets of recent scholarship on popular music. This review investigates the book within the context of these recent trends, consisting of a set of shifts in terminology and focus such as from 'world music' to 'world /global popular music' and from musical identities in culture to musical identities…
Actuality of Friedrich Engels at his 200th Birthday
How the World Works
Cosmic
Marxism and the New Materialism