A Serendipitous Farce:Rebutting Althusser's Critique of Engels'"Historical Materialism"
In his later years,Engels'exposition of historical materialism focused on affirming the decisive role of economic factors in the profound roots of human history,culminating in his landmark theory,the"historical materialist conception of history".However,French scholar Althusser argues that this theory falls short of supporting the idea of an ultimate deterministic foundation.His contention revolves around the notion that within the historical materialist conception,economic factors persist as external forces of chance events rather than intrinsic essences.A scrutiny of Althusser's critique logic reveals interesting insights.In the"superstructure efficiency inference",he confounds contingent events with historical contingency,interpreting the connection between necessity and contingency as an obligatory fusion of necessary and contingent events.Within the"combination of individual wills inference",Althusser not only neglects the nuanced layers of economics in Engels'context but also dismisses the unity of forces and objective facts,along with the identity between these forces and contingent events.He erroneously perceives force as economic determinism and,based on this,identifies the resolution of historical mysteries as contingent events determining necessity.Upon reflection,Althusser's critique logic hints at something deeper:his early criticism of Engels'"historical materialist conception"essentially foreshadows the proposition of historical materialism concerning chance encounters in later years.Unfortunately,various logical paradoxes suggest that in Defending Marx,he merely orchestrates a farce centered on the theme of"coincidence".
万方数据
