French philosopher louis althussers 19181990 concept of overdetermination is a complex, multifaceted, and structural model of causality. Thus overdetermination is used to refer to multiple causality or for instance in freud a hysterical symptom or in althusser a revolutionary situation or just the. Contradiction, uneven development, and overdetermination. We could therefore take his dialectic from him and apply it to life rather than to the idea. In reply to john lewis 197273, althusser addressed the criticisms of the english marxist toward on marx and reading capital. Rather than considering ideology as mistaken ideas about the world, for him ideology is. Louis althusser, contradiction and overdetermination platypus. Althusser s marxist writing, especially his concept of overdetermination, spearheaded innovative neomarxist accounts of capitalism in the 1970s and 1980s in fields such as class theory, state theory, and political economy. For althusser, the concept of overdetermination is. Louis al thusser was born in algeria in 1918 and died in france in 1990. I demonstrate the overall structure of louis althusser s original theory of overdetermination through a close examination of his major works and compare it to resnick and wolffs reformulation. To return to the work of louis althusser in the present conjuncture is, as jacques bidet noted a decade ago, to confront a discourse that seems to come from another age, but one which still retains an unassailable and singular power of theoretical provocation bidet, 5.
Famously, the french marxist louis althusser wrote that the problem in marxism is philosophical. The abstract is the startingpoint for theoretical practice, its generality i, while the concrete is its endpoint. Althussers lenin, the lenin he put to work in the field of philosophy, was admittedly an. Beneath the description and sublimation of the attributes of the state, marx finds here also a new concept. Hailing from alsace on his fathers side of the family, his grandparents were pieds noirs, or french citizens who had chosen to settle in algeria. An interview with louis althusser louis althusser did not often given television interviews.
Rethinking overdetermination, structural power, and social. In althusser the need for a concept of overdetermination appears in marxism at the point where the ideology of simple and general contradictions is undermined by historical process. Notes on althussers notion of ideological state apparatuses isas and the use of machiavelli sergio alloggio in the constant need to ward things off, you can become so weak that you are unable to protect yourself any more. Louis pierre althusser 19181990 was a french marxist philosopher. This is the work in which louis althusser formulated some of his most influential ideas. Althusser and the problem of historical individuality.
Althussers pioneering concept of ideological state apparatuses is extended to the unique role of consumerism as a particular ideology enabling and supporting u. More precisely, it is intended to evaluate to what extent, if any, some aspects of marxs discussion on the contradictory role played by money in the process of simple circulation of commodities can be seen as supporting an overdetenninistic. Althussers efforts have been greatly extended by others, pierre bourdieu and goran therborn in particular, and have served as the point of departure for the work of postmodern icon michel foucault, whose negative dependence on althusser deserves special consideration in light of his celebrity status and his antimarxism. These include religions, schools, the family, the law, political parties, trade unions, the media, the arts, and pop culture. Overdetermination is a crucial concept, because it is rightly seen as the key to a noneconomistic marxism and has been championed as such by ggrw. Althusser overdetermination pdf at present, althussers philosophy as a whole is undergoing a critical is closely related to the idea of overdetermination or the theory that.
Contradiction and overdetermination marxists internet archive. For antiessentialistmarxism,theyaredistinctneverreducibletoeachother butinseparablyintertwinedclustersofprocessesintheoverdetermined whole. Althusser for marx these pages are dedicated to the memory of jacques martin, the friend who, in the most terrible ordeal, alone discovered the road to marxs philosophy and guided me onto it. Louis althusser how texts create an ideal reader the persuasive aspects of all kinds of texts are what fascinated althusser. Althusser is an interesting guy but i dont think we gain much in understanding the world by reading just another marxist reductionist philosopher. My main interest in this task lies not so much in revealing the difference. Contradiction and overdetermination school of arts and sciences. Sep 25, 2016 louis althussers renowned short text ideology and ideological state apparatuses radically transformed the concept of the subject, the understanding of the state and even the very frameworks of cultural, political and literary theory. Althusser was born in french algeria in the town of birmendreis, near algiers, to a piednoir petitbourgeois family from alsace, france. Louis althusser, contradiction and overdetermination.
Cornus biographical studies of marx and engels, and recently as a radically new approach in the work of louis althusser and his disciples. Structure and conjuncture literary study and the return to. Thls paper deals with the generic and abstract analyses of money set forth by marx at the beginning of capital. His father, charlesjoseph althusser, was a lieutenant officer in the french army and a bank clerk, while his mother, lucienne marthe berger, a devout roman catholic, worked as a schoolteacher.
Althusser uses it similarly to denote the complexity of any contradiction, a complexity due to the influence of a. Althussers interpolations are indicated by square brackets. While this essay wholeheartedly agrees with wolffs work toward a reflexive marxism, it finds his proposed reinsertion of hegelian philosophy into marxism problematic and argues that an alternative to hegelianism can be found in althusser. Louis althusser stanford encyclopedia of philosophy. Louis althusser was born on october 16 th, 1918 in birmandreis, a suburb of algiers. The event has to it, in capitalist culture, an overapplication determination of agitation. For marx, first published in france in 1968, has come to be regarded as the founding text of the school of structuralist marxism which was presided over by the fascinating and enigmatic figure of louis althusser. What remains absent in althusser s work is an actual demonstration of how these concepts function together. Spanning the years 1964 to 1973, on ideology contains the seminal text, ideology and ideological state apparatus 1970, which revolutionized the concept of subject formation.
Thus in contradiction an d overdetermination, althusser cites all the conditions present in the overdetermined contradiction that was october 1917. The power of this discourse to speak and to intervene in the current postpoststructural, postpostmodern, post. In grappling with this problem of causality in for marx particularly in the essay contradiction and overdetermination, althusser draws on the freudian notion of overdetermina tion. But such an inversion in sense would in fact leave the dialectic untouched. In althusser the need for a concept of overdetermination appears in marxism at the point where the ideology of simple and general contradictions is undermined.
Louis althusser, contradiction and overdetermination philpapers. Key arguments in louis althussers ideology and ideological. He taught philosophy for many years at the ecole n ormale superieure in paris and was a leading intellectual in the french communist. Althussers influential attack on marxism and the concepts of dialectical. Overdetermination occurs when a singleobserved effect is determined by multiple causes, any.
This second way of using overdetermination comes closest to althusser s use of the notion. I have to admit though he has a few interesting points on the generation of subjects via police and state its apparatuses. This is the position reached in the article referred to in the first sentence of contradiction and overdetermination. Introduction althusseroncesuggestedinhis readingcapitalalthusserandbalibar.
Not just because the state can no longer be the reality of the idea, but also and primarily because it is systematically thought as an instrument of coercion in the service of the ruling, exploiting class. Andsoitwouldfollowthatatleast one sort of overdetermination is indeed everywhere. Drawing from both freud and mao zedong, althusser used the idea of overdetermination as a way of thinking about the multiple, often opposed. Jun 23, 2017 there will be in effect, a unity or intermediation of contradictions mutually reinforcing each other. In discussing the formation of a ruptural unity which precipitates revolution he contends that a vast accumulation of contradictions comes into play. Initially afraid of joining the party because of enss opposition to communists, althusser did. In fact, the role of lenin in contradiction and overdetermination is often. Althusser contradiction and over determination louis althusser. The overdetermination argument against eliminativism. In this paper i consider althusser s concept of overdetermination as a variation on the theme of a spinozist physics of modes that attempts to incorporate the. Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your universitys proxy server configure custom proxy use this if your affiliation does not provide a proxy. The determinant contradictions the reasons for popular revolt are not addressed and so their great mass is displaced onto the singular event. While he borrowed the word and idea of dialectic from hegel, althusser insists that marx the concept of overdetermination is althusser s way of expressing the.
History, for althusser, is a process without a subject. Freud used this term to denote how a single element of behaviour expresses a complex motivatione. This paper is a critical investigation of stephen resnick and richard wolffs theory of overdetermination. A rare exception was his april 1980 appearance on the italian radio television rai program multimedia encyclopaedia of the philosophical sciences. One might argue that overdetermination is impossible because it is precluded by the correct theory of the nature of causation. The essential task that louis althusser devoted his philosophical career, and this book most pointedly, to was rescuing what he understood as the science of marxism from the philosophical musings of the young marx, which althusser believed constituted neither marxist science nor philosophy. Today 21 1 feuerbachs philosophical manifestoes 41. The marxist philosopher louis althusser imported the concept into marxist political theory in an influential essay, contradiction and overdetermination. An az of theory althusser part ii ceasefire magazine. Abstract althusser for althusser, the theoretical opposition between the abstract and the concrete lies wholly in the realm of theory.
I am not particularly taken by this term overdetermination borrowed from other disciplines, but i shall use it in the absence of anything better, both as an index and as a problem, and also because it enables us to see clearly why we are dealing with something quite different from the hegelian contradiction. Althussers theory of ideology an essay, ideology and ideological state apparatuses, was extracted from this book and has been widely distributed, anthologized, and translated. The inversion would then be an inversion of the sense of the dialectic. Pdf one of the central topics of study in the humanities is the question of ideology. An instance of a popular riot calling for revolution could exemplify overdetermination. Louis althusser in an article devoted to the young marx1, i have already stressed the ambiguity of the idea of inverting hegel. Contents to my english readers 9 acknowledgements 17 introduction. What remains absent in althussers work is an actual demonstration of how these concepts function together. This is althussers clarification of the classical marxist assertion that the superstructure q. But althusser s use of overdetermination has an aspect which is entirely foreign to freud.
The concept of overdetermination is althussers way of expressing the. Key arguments in louis althussers ideology and ideological state apparatuses the capitalist state requires not only a realistic mechanistic means of reproducing goods machinery and workers to operate it, but also a reliable means of reproducing the labourpower that produces the goods. While he borrowed the word and idea of dialectic from hegel, althusser insists that. Oct 25, 2016 althusser locates state power not just in state apparatus like the armed forces and the criminal justice system, but also in ideological state apparatuses. Given that the twolevels case is far more widespread than the tworocks case, all that would follow would be that some overdetermination cases are farmorewidespreadthanothers. Althussers theory could link to the third way, because of the way it assumes a priority of ideology over individuals and because of its elision of resistance. Louis pierre althusser was a french marxist philosopher. At present, althusser s philosophy as a whole is undergoing a contradiction, uneven development, and overdetermination is that of the. Louis al thusser was born in algeria in 1918 and died in. The text has influenced thinkers such as judith butler, ernesto laclau and slavoj zizek. But none of the commonly defended theories of causation counterfactual analyses, covering law analyses, probabilityraising analyses, primitivist analyses stand in the way of the sort of overdetermination under discussion. He was born in algeria and studied at the ecole normale superieure in paris, where he eventually became professor of philosophy. Althusser repudiates the plenitude of the subject, whose interpellation conceals its lack.
Althusser, given the very nature of his project and intervention intervenconjunctures, formalization looks almost impossible. Thus overdetermination is used to refer to multiple causality or for instance in freud a hysterical symptom or in althusser a revolutionary situation or just the social itself. Jan 10, 2011 machiavelli and us radical thinkers althusser, louis, matheron, francois, elliott, gregory on. The unity they constitute in this fusion into a revolutionary rupture, is constituted by their own essence and effectivity, by what they are, and according to. It seemed to me that strictly speaking this expression suited feuerbach perfectly. In fact a hegelian contradiction is never really overdetermined, even when it has. The unevenness of capitalist development led, via the war, to the russian revolution because in the revolutionary situation facing the whole of humanity russia was the overdeterminahion link in the chain of imperialist states. In contrast to the idea that simple internal contradictions within a system or social formation produce effects, overdetermination proposes that revolutionary effects are the. Althusser contradiction and over determination free download as. Structuralism constituted an intellectual revolution in the 1960s and. Ben brewster, presentation of althusser, nlr i41, january.
Theodore sider philosophy and phenomenological research 67 2003. For althusser overdetermination of a contradiction is the reflection in it of its conditions of existence within the complex whole. More than a quarter of a century after louis althussers heyday, one wonders how this rather troubled french professor managed to create such a buzz with the publication of only two books. In arguing for an overdeterminedtheoryofhistory, althusseradvancesthethesisthat historyisaprocesswithoutasubject. Overdetermination in for marx althusser introduces the notion of overdetermination in for marx to express the complexity of determination in the structured social formation. Also an institutional framework of althusserian studies or althusserian society is equally unimaginable one only has to think of overdetermination and such a school would immediately be dissolved. For althusser overdetermination of a contradiction is the reflection in it of its conditions. Lacan shows that the subjects failure to express itself in language makes the subject a void. Inlight of overdetermination 1 joyoung shin 2 contents introduction althussers overdetermination marxs epistemological break the process of knowledgeproduction althussers overdeterministmarxism conclusion i. But perhaps althussers sectarianism was a way of warding off the conservative and managerial implications built into his theory.
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