Karl Marx Man as a social and historical being
Karl Marx writes: It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but rather their social existence that determines their consciousness. Explain the meaning of this thesis. Your presentation should focus on highlighting the origin of human consciousness. It will have to integrate central elements of historical materialism, and insist on the notion of ideology. You will have to seek to clear the anthropological foundations (man as a social being, and the question of work) of Marxian thought, and, quickly, the criticism he addresses has a certain philosophy of consciousness.
Sample Solution
Marx and Engels both formed the theory that it isn’t what we think that decides our reality, it is instead our reality that decides what it is that we are capable of thinking. Karl Marx famously said, “It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but rather their social existence that determines their consciousness.” Our ability to think for ourselves is limited: our ideas are shaped by the material conditions of life. The structure of society is a result of individuals reproducing themselves, both physically and mentally through their labor. Marxist critics use this challenge to the notion of an innate, prefigured, individual human nature to reexamine the nature of creative or literary authority.
