Karl Marx and Human Nature Essay

I cast off taken for my study hotshot chapter from the book Marx and military personnel genius by Nor homo Geras. In the second chapter Norman Geras deals with the mercifuls reputation and historical physicalism. Although many Marxists denied Marxs theory of forgiving personality that thither was a valet de chambre nature to be found in Marxs words, at that place is in concomitant a Marxist designing of tender nature which remains, to some degree, constant through pop level and across mixer boundaries. The sixth of the Theses on Feuerbach provided the canonics for this interpretation of Marx according to which there was no eternal human nature to be found in his shits.Feuerbach resolves the warmheartedness of religion into the essence of man human nature. But the essence of man is no abstraction inherent in each wiz individual. In reality, it is the ensemble of the affable dealings. Feuerbach, who does not enter upon a chiding of this real essence, is hence obliged kind-hearted nature Thus, Marx appears to say that human nature is no more than what is do by the social relations. Norman Geras Marxs Theory of Human Nature, however, offers an extremely detailed argument against this position.In step to the foreline, Geras shows that, while the social relations be held to determine the nature of wad, they are not the except such(prenominal) determinant. In fact, Marx makes statements where he preciseally refers to a human nature which is more than what is conditi championd by the circumstances of ones life. In Capital, in a footnote critiquing functionalism, he says that utilitarians must reckon with human nature in general, and because with human nature as modified in each historical epoch. Marx is arguing against an abstract intention of human nature, offering instead an key rooted in sensuous life.While he is quite intelligible that individuals express their life, so they are. Hence what individuals are depends on the materi al conditions of their achievement, he also believes that human nature will condition (against the background of the fertile forces and relations of production) the way in which individuals express their life. History involves a around-the-clock revolution of human nature, though this does not mean that every nerve of human nature is wholly variable what is transformed need not be wholly transformed.Marx did criticize the tendency to transform into eternal laws of nature and of reason, the social forms springing from your present dash of production and form of property, a parade sometimes called reification. For this reason, he would likely begin wanted to criticize received aspects of some accounts of human nature. Human beings collectively work on nature merely do not do the same work there is a division of perseverance in which people not only do different jobs, but according to Marxist theory, some people live from the work of others by owning the means of production. How this is accomplished depends on the oddball of society. Production is carried out through very definite relations in the midst of people. And, in turn, these production relations are immovable by the train and lineament of the successful forces that are present at any precondition time in history. For Marx, productive forces refer to the means of production such as the tools, instruments, technology, land, raw materials, and human knowledge and abilities in terms of victimization these means of production.Human nature, Marxs ethical thought and insanity Gears says of Marxs work that Whatever else it is, theory and socio-historical explanation, and scientific as it may be, that work is a moral indictment ministrationing on the conception of prerequisite human needs, an ethical standpoint, in other words, in which a view of human nature is involved . Alienation, for Marx, is the estrangement of worldly concern from aspects of their human nature.Since as we have seen human nature consists in a particular set of decisive drives and tendencies, whose exercise constitutes flourishing alienation is a condition wherein these drives and tendencies are stunted. For essential powers, alienation substitutes disempowerment for making ones own life ones object, ones life becoming an object of capital. Marx believes that alienation will be a feature of all society forrader communism. The opposite of, alienation is actualization or self-importance-activity- the activity of the self, controlled by and for the self.Human nature and the expansion of the productive forces It has been held by several writers that it is Marxs conception of human nature which explains the primacy thesis concerning the expansion of the productive forces, which according to Marx, is itself the primal driving force of history. If true, this would make his account of human nature mayhap the most fundamental aspect of his work. Geras writes, historical materialism itself, this whole reference bookistic approach to society that radicalates with Marx, rests squarely upon the idea of a human nature.It highlights that specific nexus of universal needs and capacities which explains the human productive process and mans organized transformation of the material environment which process and transformation it treats in turn as the prat both of the social come out and of historical tack. The tendencys autonomy is just its independence of social expression, its rootedness in fundamental material facts of human nature and the human situation. historical progress consists fundamentally in the harvest-tide of peoples abilities to limit and control the world about them.This is the most basic way in which they develop and express their human essence. historic materialism Historical materialism started from a fundamental underlying reality of human existence that in order for human beings to survive and continue existence from generation to generation, it is indispe nsable for them to stimulate and reproduce the material requirements of life. Marx then extended this premise by asserting the importance of the fact that, in order to carry out production and exchange, people have to enter into very definite social relations, most fundamentally production relations.Norman Geras analyzed historical materialism and postulated that society has moved through a number of types or modes of production. That is, the caliber of the production relations is determined by the character of the productive forces these could be the simple tools and instruments of early human existence, or the more developed machinery and technology of present age. The main modes of production Marx place generally include antediluvian communism or tribal society (a prehistoric map), ancient society, feudalism, and capitalism.In each of these social stages, people interact with nature and produce their sustainment in different slipway. Any surplus from that production is all otted in different ways. Ancient society was ground on a govern class of slave owners and a class of slaves feudalism was based on landowners and serfs and capitalism based on the capitalist class and the works class. The capitalist class privately owns the means of production, distribution and exchange (e. g. , factories, mines, shops and banks) while the working class live by ex changing their socialized labor with the apitalist class for wages. Marx identified the production relations of society (arising on the basis of given productive forces) as the economic base of society.He also explained that on the stem of the economic base their arise certain policy-making institutions, laws, customs, culture, etc. , and ideas, ways of thinking, morality, etc. These constituted the political/ideological superstructure of society. This superstructure not only has its origin in the economic base, but its features also ultimately correspond to the character and growth of that economic base, i. . the way people organize society is determined by the economic base and the relations that arise from its mode of production. Historical materialism back be seen to rest on the following principles1. The basis of human society is how humans work on nature to produce the means of subsistence. 2. There is a division of labor into social classes (relations of production) based on property ownership where some people live from the labor of others. 3. The system of class division is dependent on the mode of production. 4.The mode of production is based on the level of the productive forces. 5. Society moves from stage to stage when the dominant class is replaced by a newfangled appear class, by overthrowing the political shell that enforces the old relations of production no longer corresponding to the new productive forces. This takes place in the superstructure of society, the political arena in the form of revolution, whereby the underclass liberates the productive forces with new relations of production, and social relations, corresponding to it.Human nature and historical materialism Marxs theory of history attempts to describe the way in which humans change their environments and (in dialectical relation) their environments change them as well. That is Not only do the accusatory conditions change in the act of reproduction, e. g. the village becomes a town, the wilderness a cleared field etc. but the producers change, too, in that they bring out new qualities in themselves, develop themselves in production, transform themselves, develop new powers and ideas, new needs and new language.The first premise of all human history is, of course, the existence of living(a) human individuals. Thus the first fact to be established is the physical organization of these individuals and their consequent relation to the rest of nature. Thus History does nothing, it possesses no immense wealth, and it wages no battles. It is man, real, living man who does all that, who possesses and fights history is not, as it were, a person apart, development man as a means to achieve its own aims history is nothing but the activity of man pursuing his aims.So we can see that, even before we begin to consider the precise character of human nature, real, living humans, and the activity of man pursuing his aims is the very grammatical construction block of Marxs theory of history. Humans act upon the world, changing it and themselves and in doing so they make history. But even beyond this, human nature plays two key roles. In the first place, it is part of the explanation for the growth of the productive forces, which Marx conceives of as the driving force of history. Secondly, the particular needs and drives of humans explain the class antagonism which is generated under capitalism.Conclusion and critical remarks present I would like to say that Marxist philosophical anthropology is one sided. Its conception of human nature and human good overlooks t he need for self identity than which nothing is more essentially human. The consequence of this is held to be that Marx and his followers have underestimated the importance of phenomena, such as religion and nationalism, which satisfy the need for self identity. In the study of human nature and historical materialism, history is what is made by human beings and its nature.According to Marx human beings are working and changing the world, Marx ignored all other factors that at work in the development of history. History has been developed not only by human beings but also through various elements. Historical materialism is caused by the production of things and there by arising social relationships. Here it implies that economy is the basic structure of society that controls and develops. But it is a reductionist approach, it is impossible to reduce the basic structure as economic relations alone.