Freedom and the limits of technology: Marx and beyond.
Item
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Title
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Freedom and the limits of technology: Marx and beyond.
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Identifier
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AAI9807951
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identifier
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9807951
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Creator
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Kats, Yefim.
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Contributor
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Adviser: Stefan Bernard Baumrin
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Date
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1997
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Philosophy | Political Science, General | Sociology, General
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Abstract
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We show first, that Marx's program is based on the assumption of infinite technological growth.;Second, we show that this assumption is at best unsubstantiated, because neither Marx nor his followers ever developed an explicit theory of technological growth.;Third, we show that the assumption of infinite growth is at worst wrong, because it clashes with the concept of labor as it is developed in the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts--a process of self-objectification,;Fourth, we show that such a theory of labor recapitulates the Hegelian dialectic. Thus, the allegedly "material" process of labor turns out to be an intrinsically self-conscious process. Marx does not begin with material presuppositions. He does not take labor as a material activity, and does not study it as a scientist. On this account, Marx is not a materialist. Historically, Marx remains one of the representatives of the transcendental philosophy which we trace to Descartes.;Therefore, in the first chapter we try to show how Marx's concept of human activity (praxis) arises from the constructivist foundation laid down by Descartes and Kant. We show that Marx understood the structure of objective activity in accordance with the structure of Kantian "construction.".;In the second chapter, we see how the unpacking of the concept of construction led Marx to a form of essentialism based on the conception of species-being (Gattung). These considerations help us to see how Marx's concept of objectivity determined the nature of his "materialism.".;In the third chapter we show that first, the "phenomenology of labor" recapitulates Hegelian "phenomenology of consciousness;" second, technology becomes a "moment" in a schema of self-reference and objectification. Consequently, the Marxist postulate of infinite technological growth clashes with the dialectic of self-reference.;The fourth chapter shows how the philosophical controversy between orthodox Marxism and revisionism, arises from these two aspects of Marx's thought--constructivism and essentialism. In this context, we show the connection between Bogdanov's philosophy of praxis, and the constructivism of the "young" Marx. We see how Bogdanov's quest for "infinite creativity" is connected with the Fichtean-Marxian quest for infinite growth.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
