German Biographies of Marx between the Two World Wars

A Comparative Study

Bibliographic Data

ID3971439
AuthorsFeixia Ling (Institute of Marxist Philosophy and Chinese Modernization, Sun Yat-sen University, Key Research Institute of Humanities and Social Sciences of the Ministry of Education in University, 135 Xingangxi Road, Haizhu, Guangzhou, China, corresponding author)
Year2023
Volume28
Issue8
Pages852-870
Publication date2023-11-17
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueThe European Legacy (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1084-8770 • E-ISSN: 1470-1316
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/10848770.2023.2253634
OpenAlexW4386616865
LanguageEN
References cited14

This article offers a comparative study of seven German biographies of Karl Marx (1818–1883) that were published between the two world wars. The interpretations of Marx’s theory of historical materialism presented in these biographies fall into three groups or approaches: the orthodox, the neo-Kantian, and the psychological. Some biographies place Marx the revolutionary above Marx the theorist, while others reverse this order. Similarly, some of the biographies explain the relationship between Marx’s life and thought by adopting the “experience–psychology–thought” framework. The orthodox approach emphasizes the objectivity of cognition in the base–superstructure relationship. Yet both the orthodox and the neo-Kantian approach, which stresses Kant’s cognitive critique and the “is–ought” dualism, fail to grasp Marx’s subject–object dialectics, while the psychological approach undermines the theoretical significance of historical materialism. In comparing and assessing these works I argue that the biographers’ historical and scholarly horizons are dictated by their political standpoint and academic perspective and thus determine their choice of approach, which not only indicates if they will lean toward the theoretical or the revolutionary Marx, but also why they fail to adequately deal with the relationship between Marx’s life and his thought. Nevertheless, I conclude that these biographies, despite their various shortcomings, establish the basic paradigm and parameters of any biography of Marx

Dialectic · Epistemology · German · Historical materialism · Marxist philosophy · Politics · Sociology · European history and politics · Law · Philosophy · Political Economy and Marxism · Weber, Simmel, Sociological Theory

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