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You are here: The Platypus Affiliated Society/Archive for author Salim A

Die historischen Wurzeln der Linken und des Marxismus liegen in den bürgerlichen Revolutionen des 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts und deren Krise im 19. Jahrhundert. Der Lesekreis versucht diesen geschichtlichen Hintergrund durch die Lektüre von Texten von Marx und der radikalen bürgerlichen Philosophie der Aufklärung herauszuarbeiten. Durch Texte von Autoren wie Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Georg Lukács, Karl Korsch und Leszek Kołakowski versuchen wir, das Problem des politischen Bewusstseins der Linken im 20. Jahrhundert, das bis heute prägend bleibt, zu beleuchten.


Wöchentlich Freitags ab dem 30.09.

18:30–21:30 Uhr

Raum 7.F03, Toni-Areal, Pfingstweidstrasse 96, Zürich

Für eventuelle Frage könnt ihr gerne eine Mail schreiben: platypus.zurich@gmail.com


Die Texte werden im Voraus gelesen und dann zusammen diskutiert. Neueinsteiger/innen sind herzlich willkommen. Vorkenntnisse werden keine benötigt.

  • vorausgesetzte / + empfohlene Texte

SITZUNGEN


30.09.2022 | Woche A. Einführung: Das Kapital in der Geschichte

+ Being and becoming (freedom in transformation) chart of terms

+ Capital in history timeline and chart of terms

+ Capital in History Teach In [Video] (2011)

+ Capitalist contradiction chart of terms 

+ G.M. Tamas, Telling the Truth About Class [HTML] (2007)

+ Robert Pippin, On Critical Theory (2004)

+ Rainer Maria Rilke, Archaïscher Torso Apollos (1908)


07.10.2022 | Woche B. Radikale Bürgerliche Philosophie I. Rousseau: Gesellschaft am Scheideweg

„Radikal sein ist die Sache an der Wurzel fassen. Die Wurzel für den Menschen ist aber der Mensch selbst.“

— Marx, Zur Kritik der Hegelschen Rechtsphilosophie (1843)

„Wer den Mut besitzt, einem Volke Einrichtungen zu geben, muß sich imstande fühlen, gleichsam die menschliche Natur umzuwandeln, jedes Individuum, das für sich ein vollendetes und einzeln bestehendes Ganzes ist, zu einem Teile eines größeren Ganzen umzuschaffen, aus dem dieses Individuum gewissermaßen erst Leben und Wesen erhält; die Beschaffenheit des Menschen zu seiner eigenen Kräftigung zu verändern und an die Stelle des leiblichen und unabhängigen Daseins, das wir alle von der Natur empfangen haben, ein nur teilweises und geistiges Dasein zu setzen. Kurz, er muß dem Menschen die ihm eigentümlichen Kräfte nehmen, um ihn mit anderen auszustatten, die seiner Natur fremd sind und die er ohne den Beistand anderer nicht zu benutzen versteht.“

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Vom Gesellschaftsvertrag (1762)

+ Rilke, Archaïscher Torso Apollos (1908)

+ Pippin, On Critical Theory (2004)

+ Being and becoming (freedom in transformation) chart of terms

+ Capital in history timeline and chart of terms

  • Rousseau, Auszüge aus Der Gesellschaftsvertrag (1762)

14.10.2022 | Woche C. Radikale Bürgerliche Philosophie II. Adam Smith: Über den Wohlstand der Nationen (Teil 1)

  • Adam Smith, Auszüge aus Der Wohlstand der Nationen (1776)

(Einleitung und Plan des Werkes

Buch I: Von den Ursachen der Zunahme in der Ertragskraft der Arbeit und von den Regeln, nach welchen ihr Ertrag sich naturgemäß unter die verschiedenen Volksklassen verteilt

I.1. Teilung der Arbeit

I.2. Über den Trieb, der die Teilung der Arbeit veranlasst

I.3. Die Teilung der Arbeit hat ihre Schranken an der Ausdehnung des Marktes

I.4. Vom Ursprung und Gebrauch des Geldes

I.5. Vom wahren und nominellen Preise der Waren, oder von ihrem Preise in Arbeit und ihrem Preise in Geld

I.6. Die Bestandteile des Warenpreises

I.7. Der natürliche Preis und der Marktpreis der Waren

I.8. Der Arbeitslohn

I.9. Der Kapitalgewinn

Buch III: Die verschiedenen Fortschritte zum Reichtum bei den verschiedenen Nationen

III.1. Der natürliche Fortschritt zum Reichtum

III.2. Entmutigung des Ackerbaus in Europa nach dem Fall des römischen Reiches

III.3. Entstehen und Wachsen der Städte nach dem Fall des römischen Reiches

III.4. Beitrag des städtischen Handels zur Vervollkommnung der Landwirtschaft)


28.10.2022 | Woche D. Radikale Bürgerliche Philosophie III. Adam Smith: Über den Wohlstand der Nationen (Teil 2)

  • Smith, Auszüge aus Der Wohlstand der Nationen (1776)

(Buch IV: Systeme der politischen Ökonomie

IV.7. Über Kolonien

Buch V: Die Staatsfinanzen

V.1. Die Staatsausgaben)


04.11.2022 | Woche E. Radikale Bürgerliche Philosophie IV. Was ist der dritte Stand?

+ Bernard Mandeville, Die Bienenfabel (1732)


11.11.2022 | Woche F. Radikale Bürgerliche Philosophie V. Kant und Constant: Bürgerliche Gesellschaft

+ Being and becoming (freedom in transformation) chart of terms

+ Kant's 3 Critiques and philosophy charts of terms [PNG]

+ Rousseau, Abhandlung über den Ursprung und die Grundlagen der Ungleichheit unter den Menschen (1754)

+ Rousseau, Auszüge aus Der Gesellschaftsvertrag (1762)


18.11.2022 | Woche G. Radikale Bürgerliche Philosophie VI. Hegel: Freiheit in der Geschichte

+ Being and becoming (freedom in transformation) chart of terms


25.11.2022 | Woche 1. Was ist die Linke? II. Utopie und Kritik

+ Capitalist contradiction chart of terms  

+ Being and becoming (freedom in transformation) / immanent dialectical critique chart of terms


02.12.2022 | Woche 2. Was ist Marxismus? I. Sozialismus

  • Marx, Auszüge aus Ökonomisch-philosophische Manuskripte (1844)

+ Commodity form chart of terms

+ Being and becoming (freedom in transformation) / immanent dialectical critique chart of terms

+ Capitalist contradiction chart of terms  

  • Marx und Friedrich Engels, Auszüge aus dem Manifest der Kommunistischen Partei (1848)

Marx, Die kommende Schlacht (aus Das Elend der Philosophie, 1847)


09.12.2022 | Woche 3. Was ist Marxismus? II. Die Revolution von 1848


17.12.2022 | Woche 4. Was ist Marxismus? III. Bonapartismus

+ Karl Korsch, Der Marxismus der Ersten Internationale (1924)

+ Korsch, Einleitung zu Marx' Kritik des Gothaer Programms (1922)


20.12.2022 | Woche 5. Was ist Marxismus? IV. Kritik der politischen Ökonomie

„Der Fetischcharakter der Ware ist keine Tatsache des Bewußtseins sondern dialektisch in dem emminenten Sinne, daß er Bewußtsein produziert. […] [D]ie Vollendung des Warencharakters in einem Hegelschen Selbstbewußtsein [inauguriert] die Sprengung der Phantasmagorie.“

Theodor W. Adorno, in einem Brief an Walter Benjamin, 2.-4. August 1935

+ Commodity form chart of terms

+ Capitalist contradiction chart of terms 

+ Organic composition of capital chart of terms

+ Marx on surplus-value chart of terms

+ Being and becoming (freedom in transformation) / immanent dialectical critique chart of terms


06.01.2023 | Woche 6. Was ist Marxismus? V. Verdinglichung

  • Georg Lukács,Das Phänomen der Verdinglichung (Teil I des Kapitels Die Verdinglichung und das Bewusstsein des Proletariats, in: Geschichte und Klassenbewusstsein, 1923)

+ Commodity form chart of terms

+ Reification chart of terms

+ Capitalist contradiction chart of terms

+ Organic composition of capital chart of terms

+ Being and becoming (freedom in transformation) / immanent dialectical critique chart of terms


13.01.2023 | Woche 7. Was ist Marxismus? VI. Klassenbewusstsein

  • Lukács, Auszüge aus Geschichte und Klassenbewusstsein (1923) (Vorwort (1922), Klassenbewusstsein (1920), Was ist orthodoxer Marxismus? (1919))

+ Capitalist contradiction chart of terms

+ Reification chart of terms

+ Being and becoming (freedom in transformation) / immanent dialectical critique chart of terms

+ Herbert Marcuse, A Note on Dialectic (1960)

+ Marx, Vorwort zur ersten und Nachwort zur zweiten Auflage (1867/1873) von Das Kapital Bd. I (1867)


20.01.2023 | Woche 8. Was ist Marxismus? VII. Das Telos der Philosophie

+ Capitalist contradiction chart of terms 

+ Being and becoming (freedom in transformation) / immanent dialectical critique chart of terms

+ Marcuse, A Note on Dialectic (1960)

+ Marx, Auszüge aus seiner Doktordissertation (1839-41)

+ Marx, Brief an Arnold Ruge (September 1843)

+ Marx, Thesen über Feuerbach (1845)


Empfohlene Hintergrundlektüre für die zweite Hälfte (Frühlingssemester 2023) des Lesekreises: „Was ist revolutionärer Marxismus?“

+ Richard Appignanesi und Oscar Zarate / A&Z: Lenin für Anfänger (1977)
+ Sebastian Haffner: Die deutsche Revolution 1918/19 (1968)
+ Tariq Ali and Phil Evans: Trotzki für Anfänger (1980)
+ James Joll: The Second International 1889–1914 (1966)
+ Edmund Wilson: Auszüge aus To the Finland Station: A Study in the Writing and Acting of History (1940)

Platypus Frankfurt lädt anlässlich des Beginns der Vorlesungszeit zu einer Reihe von Vorträgen ein.

Die historischen Wurzeln der Linken und des Marxismus liegen in den bürgerlichen Revolutionen des 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts und deren Krise im 19. Jahrhundert. Der Lesekreis versucht diesen geschichtlichen Hintergrund durch die Lektüre von Texten von Marx und der radikalen bürgerlichen Philosophie der Aufklärung herauszuarbeiten.

When? Thursdays 7.30 pm
Where? Laidak, Boddinstraße 42, Berlin - Neukölln

Week F. Radical bourgeois philosophy I. Rousseau: Crossroads of society | Sep. 8, 2022

To be radical is to go to the root of the matter. For man, however, the root is man himself.
— Marx, Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right (1843)

Whoever dares undertake to establish a people’s institutions must feel himself capable of changing, as it were, human nature, of transforming each individual, who by himself is a complete and solitary whole, into a part of a larger whole, from which, in a sense, the individual receives his life and his being, of substituting a limited and mental existence for the physical and independent existence. He has to take from man his own powers, and give him in exchange alien powers which he cannot employ without the help of other men.
— Jean-Jacques Rousseau, On the Social Contract (1762)

• Max Horkheimer, "The little man and the philosophy of freedom" (1926–31)

• epigraphs on modern history and freedom by James Miller (on Jean-Jacques Rousseau), Louis Menand (on Marx and Engels), Karl Marx, on "becoming" (from the Grundrisse, 1857–58), and Peter Preuss (on history)

+ Rainer Maria Rilke, "Archaic Torso of Apollo" (1908)

+ Robert Pippin, "On Critical Theory" (2004)

+ Being and becoming (freedom in transformation) chart of terms

• Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Discourse on the Origin of Inequality (1754) PDFs of preferred translation (5 parts): [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]

+ Capital in history timeline and chart of terms

Rousseau, selection from On the Social Contract (1762) [on freedom and alienation]


Week G. Radical bourgeois philosophy II. Adam Smith: On the wealth of nations (part 1) | Sep. 15, 2022

Adam Smith, selections from The Wealth of Nations

Volume I [PDF]
Introduction and Plan of the Work
Book I: Of the Causes of Improvement…
I.1. Of the Division of Labor
I.2. Of the Principle which gives Occasion to the Division of Labour
I.3. That the Division of Labour is Limited by the Extent of the Market
I.4. Of the Origin and Use of Money
I.5 Of the Real and Nominal Price of Commodities
I.6. Of the Component Parts of the Price of Commodities
I.7. Of the Natural and Market Price of Commodities
I.8. Of the Wages of Labour
I.9. Of the Profits of Stock
Book III: Of the different Progress of Opulence in different Nations
III.1.
Of the Natural Progress of Opulence
III.2. Of the Discouragement of Agriculture in the Ancient State of Europe after the Fall of the Roman Empire
III.3. Of the Rise and Progress of Cities and Towns, after the Fall of the Roman Empire
III.4. How the Commerce of the Towns Contributed to the Improvement of the Country


Week H. Radical bourgeois philosophy III. Adam Smith: On the wealth of nations (part 2) | Sep. 22, 2022

Smith, selections from The Wealth of Nations

Volume II [PDF]
IV.7, Of Colonies
V.1. Of the Expences of the Sovereign or Commonwealth Article 2d and 3d and Part IV


Week I. Radical bourgeois philosophy IV. What is the Third Estate? | Sep. 29, 2022

• Abbé Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès, What is the Third Estate? (1789) [full text]

+ Bernard Mandeville, The Fable of the Bees (1732)


Week J. Radical bourgeois philosophy V. Kant and Constant: Bourgeois society | Oct. 6, 2022

• Immanuel Kant, "Idea for a universal history from a cosmopolitan point of view" and "What is Enlightenment?" (1784)

+ Being and becoming (freedom in transformation) chart of terms

+ Kant's 3 Critiques [PNG] and philosophy [PNG] charts of terms

• Benjamin Constant, "The liberty of the ancients compared with that of the moderns" (1819)

+ Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Discourse on the origin of inequality (1754)

+ Rousseau, selection from On the social contract (1762)


Week K. Radical bourgeois philosophy VI. Hegel: Freedom in history | Oct. 13, 2022

"When we look at this drama of human passions, and observe the consequences of their violence and of the unreason that is linked not only to them but also (and especially) to good intentions and rightful aims; when we see arising from them all the evil, the wickedness, the decline of the most flourishing nations mankind has produced, we can only be filled with grief for all that has come to nothing. And since this decline and fall is not merely the work of nature but of the will of men, we might well end with moral outrage over such a drama, and with a revolt of our good spirit (if there is a spirit of goodness in us). Without rhetorical exaggeration, we could paint the most fearful picture of the misfortunes suffered by the noblest of nations and states as well as by private virtues — and with that picture we could arouse feelings of the deepest and most helpless sadness, not to be outweighed by any consoling outcome. We can strengthen ourselves against this, or escape it, only by thinking that, well, so it was at one time; it is fate; there is nothing to be done about it now. And finally — in order to cast off the tediousness that this reflection of sadness could produce in us and to return to involvement in our own life, to the present of our own aims and interests — we return to the selfishness of standing on a quiet shore where we can be secure in enjoying the distant sight of confusion and wreckage… But as we contemplate history as this slaughter-bench, upon which the happiness of nations, the wisdom of states, and the virtues of individuals were sacrificed, the question necessarily comes to mind: What was the ultimate goal for which these monstrous sacrifices were made?… World history is the progress in the consciousness of freedom — a progress that we must come to know in its necessity… The Orientals knew only that one person is free; the Greeks and Romans that some are free; while we [moderns] know that all humans are implicitly free, qua human… The final goal of the world, we said, is Spirit’s consciousness of its freedom, and hence also the actualization of that very freedom… It is this final goal — freedom — toward which all the world’s history has been working. It is this goal to which all the sacrifices have been brought upon the broad altar of the earth in the long flow of time." 
— Hegel, Introduction to the Philosophy of History

• G.W.F. Hegel, Introduction to the Philosophy of History (1831) [HTML] [PDF pp. 14-128] [Audiobook]

+ Being and becoming (freedom in transformation) chart of terms


Week 1. What is the Left? I. Capital in history | Oct. 20, 2022

• Max Horkheimer, "The little man and the philosophy of freedom" (1926–31)

• epigraphs on modern history and freedom by Louis Menand (on Marx and Engels), Karl Marx, on "becoming" (from the Grundrisse, 1857–58), and Peter Preuss (on history)

+ Being and becoming (freedom in transformation) chart of terms

• Chris Cutrone, "Capital in history" (2008)

+ Capital in history timeline and chart of terms

+ video of Communist University 2011 London presentation

+ Capitalist contradiction chart of terms 

Cutrone, "The Marxist hypothesis" (2010)

Cutrone, “Class consciousness (from a Marxist perspective) today” (2012)

+ G.M. Tamas, "Telling the truth about class" [HTML] (2007)

+ Robert Pippin, "On Critical Theory" (2004)

+ Rainer Maria Rilke, "Archaic Torso of Apollo" (1908)


Week 2. What is the Left? II. Utopia and critique | Oct. 27, 2022

• Max Horkheimer, selections from Dämmerung (1926–31)

Adorno, “Imaginative Excesses” (1944–47)

• Leszek Kolakowski, “The concept of the Left” (1958)

• Herbert Marcuse, "Note on dialectic" (1960)

Marx, To make the world philosophical (from Marx's dissertation, 1839–41), pp. 9–11

Marx, For the ruthless criticism of everything existing (letter to Arnold Ruge, September 1843), pp. 12–15

+ Capitalist contradiction chart of terms 

+ Being and becoming (freedom in transformation) / immanent dialectical critique chart of terms


Week 3. What is Marxism? I. Socialism | Nov. 3, 2022

Marx, selections from Economic and philosophic manuscripts (1844), pp. 70–101

+ Commodity form chart of terms

+ Being and becoming (freedom in transformation) / immanent dialectical critique chart of terms

+ Capitalist contradiction chart of terms 

Marx and Friedrich Engels, selections from the Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848), pp. 469–500

Marx, The coming upheaval (from The Poverty of Philosophy, 1847), pp. 218–19


Week 4. What is Marxism? II. Revolution in 1848 | Nov. 10, 2022

Marx, Address to the Central Committee of the Communist League (1850), pp. 501–511 and Class struggle and mode of production (letter to Weydemeyer, 1852), pp. 218–220

Engels, The tactics of social democracy (Engels's 1895 introduction to Marx, The Class Struggles in France), pp. 556–573

Marx, selections from The Class Struggles in France 1848–50 (1850), pp. 586–593

Marx, selections from The 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte (1852), pp. 594–617


Week 5. What is Marxism? III. Bonapartism | Nov. 17, 2022

+ Karl Korsch, "The Marxism of the First International" (1924)

Marx, Inaugural address to the First International (1864), pp. 512–519

Marx, selections from The Civil War in France (1871, including Engels's 1891 Introduction), pp. 618–652

+ Korsch, Introduction to Marx, Critique of the Gotha Programme (1922)

Marx, Critique of the Gotha Programme, pp. 525–541

Marx, Programme of the Parti Ouvrier (1880)


Week 6. What is Marxism? IV. Critique of political economy |

The fetish character of the commodity is not a fact of consciousness; rather it is dialectical, in the eminent sense that it produces consciousness. . . . [P]erfection of the commodity character in a Hegelian self-consciousness inaugurates the explosion of its phantasmagoria.
— Theodor W. Adorno, letter to Walter Benjamin, August 2, 1935

+ Commodity form chart of terms

+ Capitalist contradiction chart of terms 

+ Organic composition of capital chart of terms 

+ Marx on surplus-value chart of terms

Marx, selections from the Grundrisse (1857–61), pp. 222–226, 236–244, 247–250, 276–293 ME Reader pp. 276–281

Marx, Capital Vol. I, Ch. 1 Sec. 4 "The fetishism of commodities" (1867), pp. 319–329

+ Being and becoming (freedom in transformation) / immanent dialectical critique chart of terms


Week 6. Nov. 24, 2022 U.S. Thanksgiving break


Week 7. What is Marxism? V. Reification | Dec. 1, 2022

• Georg Lukács, “The phenomenon of reification” (Part I of “Reification and the consciousness of the proletariat,” History and Class Consciousness, 1923)
+ Commodity form chart of terms
+ Reification chart of terms
+ Capitalist contradiction chart of terms
+ Organic composition of capital chart of terms
+ Being and becoming (freedom in transformation) / immanent dialectical critique chart of terms


Week 9. What is Marxism? VI. Class consciousness | Dec. 8, 2022

Lukács, “Class Consciousness” (1920), Original Preface (1922), “What is Orthodox Marxism?” (1919), History and Class Consciousness (1923)
+ Capitalist contradiction chart of terms 
+ Reification chart of terms
+ Being and becoming (freedom in transformation) / immanent dialectical critique chart of terms
+ Herbert Marcuse, "Note on dialectic" (1960)
+ Marx, Preface to the First German Edition and Afterword to the Second German Edition (1873) of Capital (1867), pp. 294–298, 299–302


Week 10. What is Marxism? VII. Ends of philosophy | Dec. 15, 2022

Korsch, “Marxism and philosophy” (1923)

+ Capitalist contradiction chart of terms 

+ Being and becoming (freedom in transformation) / immanent dialectical critique chart of terms

+ Herbert Marcuse, "Note on dialectic" (1960)
+ Marx, To make the world philosophical (from Marx's dissertation, 1839–41), pp. 9–11

+ Marx, For the ruthless criticism of everything existing (letter to Arnold Ruge, September 1843), pp. 12–15

+ Marx, "Theses on Feuerbach" (1845), pp. 143–145


Winter break readings

+ Richard Appignanesi and Oscar Zarate / A&Z, Introducing Lenin and the Russian Revolution / Lenin for Beginners (1977)
+ Sebastian Haffner, Failure of a Revolution: Germany 1918–19 (1968)
+ Tariq Ali and Phil Evans, Introducing Trotsky and Marxism / Trotsky for Beginners (1980)
+ James Joll, The Second International 1889–1914 (1966)
+ Carl Schorske, The SPD 1905-17: The Development of the Great Schism (1955)
+ J.P. Nettl, Rosa Luxemburg (1966) [Vol. 1] [Vol. 2]
+ Edmund Wilson, To the Finland Station: A Study in the Writing and Acting of History (1940), Part II. Ch. (1–4,) 5–10, 12–16; Part III. Ch. 1–6

Welches sind die ererbten Probleme und Aufgaben der Alten und Neuen Linken, die zur Gründung der Partei DIE LINKE führten? Welche Bedeutung hat DIE LINKE im Kampf für den Sozialismus und was sind die Lehren der letzten zwei Jahrzehnte für eine neue Generation von Sozialisten?