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Louis Althusser |
Étienne |
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( Glossary and Index ) | |||
First published
by François Maspero, Paris, 1968
© 1968 by Librairie François Maspero
This translation first published 1970
© NLB 1970
page 309
Glossary
The present form of this Glossary requires some explanation. Many of the entries are the same as those in the Glossary which I prepared for the English translation of For Marx. Included here as well, however, are concepts from Reading Capital, making it, in effect, a completely new Glossary. Althusser's Letter to the Translator, written originally to accompany the Glossary in For Marx, explains the nature of his own corrections -- marked 'L.A.' in the text.
Technical Marxist terms are only included in this Glossary when they have a special meaning for Althusser and Balibar. The same is true for the terms from the Freudian theory of instincts used by Balibar in Chapter 2 of his paper.
Ben Brewster
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A B S T R A C T (abstrait ). For Althusser, the theoretical opposition | |
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between the abstract and the concrete lies wholly in the
realm |
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A L I E N A T I O N (aliénation, Entdusserung ). An ideological concept | |
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used by Marx in his Early Works (q.v.) and regarded by
the parti- sans of these works as the key concept of Marxism.
Marx derived the term from Feuerbach's anthropology where it
denoted the state of man and society where the essence of
man is only pre- sent to him in the distorted form of a god,
which, although man created it in the image of his essence
(the species-being), ap- pears to him as an external,
pre-existing creator. Marx used the concept to criticize the
State and the economy as confiscating the real
self-determining labour of men in the same way. In his later
works, however, the term appears very rarely, and where it
does it is either used ironically, or with a different
conceptual content (in Capital, for instance). |
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B R E A K, E P I S T E M O L O G I C A L (coupure epistémologique ). A con- | |
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cept introduced by Gaston Bachelard in his La Formation de
l'esprit scientifique, and |
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related to uses of the term in
studies in the history of ideas by Canguilhem and Foucault
(see Althusser's Letter to the Trans- |
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C A U S A L I T Y, L I N E A R, E X P R E S S I V E A N D S T R U C T U R A L | |
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(causalité linéaire, expressive et structurale ). Whereas class- ical theories of causality have only two models, linear (trans- itive, mechanical) causality, which only describes the effects of one element on another, and expressive (teleological) causality, which can describe the effect of the whole on the parts, but only by making the latter an 'expression' of the former, a phenomenon of its essence, Marxist theory introduces a new concept of the effect of the whole on the parts, structural, complex causality, where the complex totality (q.v.) of the structure in dominance (q.v.) is a structure of effects with present-absent causes. The cause of the effects is the complex organization of the whole, present-absent in its economic, political, ideological and know- ledge effects. Marx himself often used the theatrical analogy of the Darstellung (representation, mise en scène ). Empiricist ideologies, seeing the action on the stage, the effects, believe that they are seeing a faithful copy of reality, recognizing themselves and their preconceptions in the mirror held up to them by the play (see D E N E G A T I O N). The Hegelian detects the hand of God or the Spirit writing the script and directing the play. For the Marxist, on the contrary, this is a theatre, but one which reflects neither simple reality nor any transcendental truth, a theatre without an author; the object of his science is the mechanism which produces the stage effects. |
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C O M B I N A T I O N / C O M B I N A T O R Y (combination,Verbindung /com- | |
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binatoire ).
The only theory of the totality (q.v.) available to classical philosophy is
the Leibnizian conception of an express- ive totality (totalité expressive ) in
which each part 'conspires' in the essence of the totality, so that the
whole can be read in each of the parts, which are total parts (partes totales )
homo- logous with it. Modern structuralism (q.v.) reproduces this ide- ology
in its concept of a combinatory, a formal pattern of re- lations and (arbitrarily occupied) places which recur as homo- logous patterns with a
different content throughout the social formation and its history. Theoretically, the combinatory will produce all the possible structures of the
social formation, past, present and future, which are or will be realized
or not accord- ing to chance or to some kind of principle of natural selection.
Marxism has an apparently similar concept, that of combination or Verbindung (Marx). The Verbindung, however, has nothing in common with
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the formalism of the combinatory: it is a complex structure, doubly
articulated (in the mode of production, by the productive forces connexion
and the relations of production connexion -- q.v.), and one that specifies
its content (its 'supports' -- q.v.), which changes with a change in the
formation or mode of production analysed. |
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C O N C R E T E - I N - T H O U G H T / R E A L - C O N C R E T E (concret-de-pensée/ | |
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concret-réel ). In Feuerbach's ideology, the
speculative abstract (q.v.), theory, is opposed to the
concrete, reality. For the mature Marx,
however, the theoretical abstract and concrete both exist
in thought as Generalities I and III (q.v.). The concrete-in-thought
is produced wholly in thought, whereas
the real-concrete 'sur- vives independently outside thought
before and after' (Marx). |
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C O N J U N C T U R E (conjoncture ). The central concept of the Marxist | |
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science of politics (cf. Lenin's 'current moment'); it denotes the exact balance of forces, state of overdetermination (q.v.) of the contradictions at any given moment to which political tactics must be applied. |
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C O N S C I O U S N E S S (conscience ). A term designating the region | |
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where ideology is located ('false consciousness') and
supersed- |
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C O N T R A D I C T I O N (contradiction ). A term for the articulation of | |
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a practice (q.v.) into the complex whole of the social formation (q.v.). Contra- dictions may be antagonistic or non-antagonistic according to whether their state of overdetermination (q.v.) is one of fusion or condensation, or one of displacement (q.v.). Bal- ibar also uses contradiction in a more limited sense in relation to the theory of 'tendency' (q.v.). The 'causes' which counter-act the tendency of the rate of profit to fall are identical with the 'causes' of the original tendency -- these causes (non-contradic- tory) have reciprocally limiting (contradictory) effects: they define the possible limits of variation (Grenzen ) within which an element or relation within the mode of production or social formation moves. They also define other limits (Schranken ): the barriers beyond which the mode of production or social forma- tion itself cannot go. |
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C O N T R A D I C T I O N S, C O N D E N S A T I O N, D I S P L A C E M E N T A N D | |
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F U S I O N O F (condensation, déplacement et fusion des
contra- dictions ). Condensation and displacement were used by
Freud |
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formation are neutralized by
displacement; in a revolutionary situation, however, they
may condense or fuse into a revolutionary rupture. |
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D E N E G A T I O N (dénégation, Vernesnung ). Freud used the term | |
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Verneinung
(normally translated into English as negation, but denegation has been
used in this text because of the Hegelian ambiguity of negation ) to designate an unconscious denial masked by a conscious acceptance, or vice
versa (in fetishisms, for example, there is a denegation of the female's
absence of a penis). Translated into French as dénégation, it is one of a
set |
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D E V E L O P M E N T, U N E V E N (développement inégal ). A concept of | |
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Lenin and Mao Tse-tung: the overdetermination (q.v.) of all the
contradictions in a social formation (q.v.) means that none
can develop simply; the different overdeterminations in
different times and places result in quite different
patterns of social development. |
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D I A L E C T I C O F C O N S C I O U S N E S S (dialectique de la conscience ). | |
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The Hegelian dialectic, or any dialectic where the
various ele- ments or moments are externalizations of a
single, simple, in- ternal principle, as Rome in Hegel's
Philosophy of History is an expression of the abstract legal
personality, etc. |
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D I S L O C A T I O N (décalage ). Empiricist and historicist problemat- | |
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ics assume a
one-to-one correspondence (correspondence bi- univoque ) between the
concepts of a science and its real object, and a relation of expressive
homology between these objects themselves (although these correspondences may be direct or inverted -- i.e., the order of emergence of the
concepts in the science may follow the historical sequence, or, on the
contrary, follow a reverse order). Althusser argues, on the contrary, that
the relations between ideology and the other practices, between the
different practices in general, between the elements in each practice,
and between ideology and science, are, in principle, re- lations of dislocations,
staggered with respect to one another: each has its own time and rhythrn
of development. The totality |
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E F F E C T I V I T Y, S P E C I F I C (efficacité spécifique ). The character- | |
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istic of Marx's later theory: the different aspects of the social
formation are not related as in Hegel's dialectic of
conscious- ness (q.v.) as phenomena and essence, each has its
precise influ- ence on the complex totality, the structure in
dominance (q.v.). Thus base and super-structure (q.v.) must
not be conceived as vulgar Marxism conceives them, as
essence and phenomenon, |
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E M P I R I C I S M (empirisme ). Althusser uses the concept of empir- | |
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icism in a very wise sense to include all 'epistemologies' that
oppose a given subject to a given object and call knowledge
the abstraction by the subject of the essence of the object.
Hence |
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F E T I S H I S M (fétichisme ). Fetishism is the mechanism which | |
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conceals the
real functioning (the real movement -- wirkliche Bewegung ) of the dominant
structure in the social formation, i.e., it is the constitutive dislocation
(q.v.) between the ideo- logical practice and the other practices (q.v.).
This is not a sub- jective mystification, but the mode of appearance of
reality (Marx calls it a reality -- Wirklichkeit ). In the capitalist mode of
production it takes the form of the fetishism of commodi- ties, i.e., the personification of certain things (money-capital) and the 'reification' of a
certain relationship (labour). It does |
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F O R M A T I O N, S O C I A L (formation sociale ). [A concept denoting | |
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'society' so-called. L. A.]. The concrete complex whole
com- prising economic practice, political practice and
ideological practice (q.v.) at a certain place and stage of
development. Historical materialism is the science of social
formations. |
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G E N E R A L I T I E S I, I I A N D I I I (Généralités I, II et III ). In the- | |
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oretical practice (q.v.), the process of the production of
knowl- edge, Generalities I are the abstract,
part-ideological, part- scientific generalities that are the
raw material of the science, Generalities III are the
concrete, scientific generalities that |
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H I S T O R I C I S M (historicisme ). A currently widespread interpre- | |
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tation of
Marxism which originated around the time of the Octo- ber Revolution, and
which dominates the ideas of authors as diverse as Lukács, Korsch, Gramsci, Della Volpe, Colletti and Sartre. It is characterized by a linear view of
time (q.v.) sus- ceptible to an essenial secion (q.v.) into a present at any
mo- ment. The knowledge of history is then the self-consciousness |
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H U M A N I S M (humanisme ). Humanism is the characteristic feature | |
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of the ideological problematic (q.v.) from which Marx
emerged, and more generally, of most modern ideology; a
particularly conscious form of humanism is Feuerbach's
anthropology, which dominates Marx's Early Works (q.v.). As
a science, however, his- torical materialism, as exposed in
Marx's later works, implies a theoretical anti-humanism.
'Real-humanism' characterizes the works of the break (q.v.):
the humanist form is retained, but us- ages such as 'the
ensemble of the social relations' point for- ward to the
concepts of historical materialism. However, the ideology
(q.v.) of a socialist society may be a humanism, a pro-
letarian 'class humanism'
[an expression I obviously use in a provisional,
half-critical sense. L. A.]. |
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I D E O L O G Y (idéologie ). Ideology is the 'lived' relation between | |
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men and their world, or a reflected form of this unconscious
relation, for instance a 'philosophy' (q.v.), etc. It is
distinguished from a science not by its falsity, for it can
be coherent and log- ical (for instance, theology), but by the
fact that the practico- social predominates in it over the
theoretical, over knowledge. Historically, it precedes the
science that is produced by making an epistemological break
(q.v.) with it, but it survives alongside science as an
essential element of every social formation (q.v.),
including a socialist and even a communist society. |
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K N O W L E D G E (connaissance ). Knowledge is the product of theor- | |
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etical practice (q.v.); it is Generalities III (q.v.). As such
it is clearly distinct from the practical recognition
(reconnaissance ) of a theoretical problem. |
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M A T E R I A L I S M, D I A L E C T I C A L A N D H I S T O R I C A L (matérial- | |
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isme, dialectique et historique ). Historicists, even those who
claim to be Marxists, reject the classical Marxist
distinction between historical and dialectical materialism
since they see philosophy as the self-knowledge of the
historical process, and hence identify philosophy and the
science of history; at best, dialectical materialism is
reduced to the historical method, while the science of
history is its content. Althusser, rejecting historicism,
rejects this identification. For him, historical materialism
is the science of history, while dialectical materialism,
Marxist philosophy, is the theory of scientific practice
(see T H E O R Y). |
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M O D E L (modèle ). The theory of models is a variant of empiricism | |
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(q.v.).
According to this theory, Capital, for example, analyses not the real
capitalist world, but the properties of an ideal, simplified model of it,
which is then applied to empirical re- ality, which, of course, it only fits
approximately. For Althusser, the theory in Capital is only 'ideal' in the
sense that it only involves the object of knowledge, like all theory, not
the real object, and the knowledge it produces is perfectly adequate to its
object, not an approximation to it. Related to the general theory of models
are both the view that Volume Three of Capital is a concretization,
removing the simplifications of the ideal model of Volume One, and the
theory of the 'English example' in Capital as a model for capitalist development everywhere else. For Althusser, Volume Three is as much concerned
with the ob- ject of knowledge as Volume One, and England is only a source
of illustrations in Capital, not a theoreical norm. |
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N E G A T I O N O F T H E N E G A T I O N (négation de la négation ). A He- | |
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gelian conception that Marx 'flirts' with even in his mature |
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O V E R D E T E R M I N A T I O N (surdétermination, Überdeterminierung ) | |
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Freud used this term to describe (among other things) the
re- presentation of the dream-thoughts in images privileged
by |
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of a contradiction is the reflection in it
of its conditions of existence within the complex whole,
that is, of the other contradictions in the complex whole,
in other words its uneven development (q.v.). |
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'P H I L O S O P H Y' / P H I L O S O P H Y ('philosophie '/philosophie ). 'Phi- | |
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losophy' (in inverted commas) is used to denote the
reflected forms of ideology (q.v.) as opposed to Theory
(q.v.). See Althus- ser's own 'Remarks on the Terminology
Adopted' [in "On the Materialist Dialectic". --PROBLEM -- ALSO ON FOR MARX!! DJR] p. 162 . Philosophy (without in- verted commas) is
used in the later written essays to denote Marxist
philosophy, i.e., dialectical materialism. |
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P R A C T I C E, E C O N O M I C, P O L I T I C A L, I D E O L O G I C A L A N D T H E - | |
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O R I E T I C A L (pratique économique, politique,
idéologique et théorique ). Althusser takes up
the theory introduced by Engels and much elaborated by Mao
Tse-tung that economic, political and ideological practice
are the three practices (processes of production or
transformation) that constitute the social form- ation
(q.v.). Economic practice is the transformation of nature |
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P R O B L E M A T I C (problématique ). A word or concept cannot be | |
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considered in isolation; it only exists in the theoretical
or ide- ological framework in which it is used: its
problematic. A re- lated concept can clearly be seen at work
in Foucault's Madness and Civilization (but see Althusser's
Letter to the Translator). |
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P R O D U C T I O N / D I S C O V E R Y O F A K N O W L E D G E (production / | |
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découverte d'une
connaissance ). Engels noted the difference between Priestley's production
of oxygen without realizing the theoretical significance of the new substance, and Lavoisier's discovery of (the concept of) oxygen, with its
revolutionary consequences for the science of chemistry. He compared
this with the difference between the production of the reality of surplus-value in classical economic theory and Marx's discovery of the concept of
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surplus-value. The slightly pejorative use of production here should not
be confused with Althusser's insistence that know- ledge is a specific mode
of production (q.v.). |
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P R O D U C T I O N, M O D E O F (mode de production, Produktionsweise ). | |
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The mode
of material production is the central concept of the theory of the economic
practice of the social formation. It is itself a complex structure, doubly
articulated by the productive forces connexion and the relations of production connexion (q.v.), and containing three elements: the labourer,
the means of pro- duction (sub-divided into object of labour and instrument of labour), and the non-labourer. The term can also be applied
by analogy to any other practice or level, for they are all also doubly
articulated, contain a similar set of elements, and pro- duce a specific
product.
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P R O D U C T I V E F O R C E S / R E L A T I O N S O F P R O D U C T I O N (forces | |
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productives /rapports de production ).
These concepts are gen- erally taken (even by some
Marxists) to mean the machines or their productivity on the one hand,
and the human relations be- tween the members of a society on the other.
For Althusser and Balibar, on the contrary, they are the two different
articula- tions of the combination (q.v.) of the mode of production: they |
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R E A D I N G (lecture ). The problems of Marxist theory (or of any | |
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other theory) can only be solved by learning to read the texts
correctly (hence the title of Althusser's later book, Lire
le Capital, 'Reading Capital '); neither a superficial
reading, col- lating literal references, nor a Hegelian
reading, deducing the essence of a corpus by extracting the
'true kernel from the mystified shell', will do. Only a
symptomatic reading (lecture symptomale -- see
P R O B L E M A T I C), constructing the proble- matic, the
unconsciousness of the text, is a reading of Marx's work
that will allow us to establish the epistemological break
that makes possible historical materialism as a science
(q.v.). Both Hegelian and empiricist readings are attempts to return
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to the myth of direct communication, to the Logos, and they therefore
have a religious inspiration. Marx's own reading of the classics provides an
example of symptomatic reading. While apparently merely recording
the discoveries of the classics, their sightings (vues ) and at the same time
noting their omis- sions (manques ) and oversights (bévues ), Marx in fact
shows that the classical texts contain something in their omissions that
the classics did not know they contained. The symptomatic reading
analyses the textual mechanism which produces the sightings and oversights
rather than merely recording it. |
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R E P R O D U C T I O N (reproduction ). Simple reproduction is often | |
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regarded as
simplified 'model' (q.v.) of extended reproduction, and the analysis of
reproduction as the realization of production in history, the introduction
of temporality into the analysis of production, in the form of the conditions
of its continuation. Balibar shows, however, that simple reproduction is
the concept of social production. Social production is only apparently the
production of things; in reality it is the production of a social relation, i.e.,
the reproduction of the relations of production. Hence simple and extended reproduction are synchronic (q.v.) concepts of the mode of production.
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S C I E N C E (science ). See I D E O L O G Y and P R A C T I C E. | |
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S E C T I O N , E S S E N T I A L (coupe d'essence ). Ideological theories | |
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(empiricism,
idealism, historicism) see the historical totality as analysable in a present, a
contemporaneity, in which the re- lations between the parts can be seen
and recorded. To see this present implies the possibility of cutting a section
through the historical current, a section in which the essence of that current
is visible. This essential section is impossible for Althusser and Balibar
because there is no present for all the elements and structures at once in
their conceptual system (see T I M E). The possibility of an essential section
is one of the positive tests for an empiricist ideology of history.
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S P O N T A N E I T Y (spontaneité ). A term employed by Lenin to | |
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criticize an ideological and political tendency in the Russian
Social-Democratic movement that held that the revolutionary
movement should base itself on the 'spontaneous' action of
the working class rather than trying to lead it by imposing
on this action, by means of a party, policies produced by
the party's theoretical work. [For Lenin, the real
spontaneity, capacity for action, inventiveness and so on,
of the 'masses', was to be re- spected as the most precious
aspect of the workers' movement: but at the same time Lenin
condemned the 'ideology of sponta- neity' (a dangerous
ideology) shared by his opponents (populists and 'Socialist
Revolutionaries'), and recognized that the real spontaneity
of the masses was to be sustained and criticized |
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Althusser
generalizes this by arguing that each practice (q.v.) and
its corresponding science must not be left to develop on
their own, however successful they may temporarily be, since |
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S T R U C T U R A L I S M (structuralisme ). A fashionable ideology ac- | |
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cording to
which only the relations between the elements (i.e., their places) in the
totality are significant, and the occupants |
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S T R U C T U R E, D E C E N T R E D (structure décentrée ). The Hegelian | |
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totality (q.v.) presupposes an original, primary essence
that lies
behind the complex appearance that it has produced by
external- ization in history; hence it is a structure with a
centre. The Marxist totality, however, is never separable in
this way from |
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S T R U C T U R E I N D O M I N A N C E (structure à dominante ). The Marx- | |
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ist totality (q.v.) is neither a whole each of whose elements
is equivalent as the phenomenon of an essence (Hegelianism),
nor are some of its elements epiphenomena of any one of them
(economism or mechanism); the elements are asymmetrically
related but autonomous (contradictory); one of them is
domi- nant. [The economic base 'determines ' ('in the last
instance') which element is to be dominant in a social
formation (see |
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S T R U C T U R E, E V E R - P R E - G I V E N (structure toujours-déjà-donnée). | |
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See S T R U C T U R E I N D O M I N A N C E |
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S U P E R S E S S I O N (depassement, Aufhebung ). A Hegelian concept | |
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popular among Marxist-humanists, it denotes the process
of historical development by the destruction and retention
at a higher level of an old historically determined
situation in a new historically determined situation -- e.g.
socialism is the super- session of capitalism, Marxism a
supersession of Hegelianism. Althusser asserts that it is an
ideological concept, and he sub- stitutes for it that of the
historical transition, or, in the dev- elopment of a science,
by the epistemological break (q.v.). |
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S U P E R S T R U C T U R E / S T R U C T U R E (superstructure/structure ). | |
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In classical Marxism the social formation (q.v.) is analysed into
the components economic structure -- determinant in the last
instance -- and
relatively autonomous superstructures: (1) the State and
law; (2) ideology. Althusser clarifies this by dividing it
into the structure (the economic practice) and the
super- structure (political and ideological practice). The
relation be- tween these three is that of a structure in
dominance (q.v.), determined in the last instance by the
structure. |
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S U P P O R T (support, porteur, Träger ). Humanist ideologies see | |
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the social totality
as the totality of inter-subjective relations between men, as civil society, tho
society of human needs. In other words, they are anthropologies strictly
homologous with the classical economic theory of the homo oeconomicus. In
Marxist theory, on the contrary, the real protagonists of history are the social
relations of production, political struggle and ideology, which are constituted by the place assigned to these prohgonists in the complex structure of
the social formation (e.g., the labourer and the capitalist in the capitalist
mode of production, defined by their different relations to the means of pro
duction). The biological men are only the supports or bearers of the guises
(Charaktermasken) assigned to them by the struc- ture of relations in the social
formation. Hence each articulation of the mode of production and each level
of the social formation defines for itself a potentially different form of historical in- dividuality. The correspondence or non-correspondence of these forms of historical individuality plays an important part in transition (q.v.).
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S Y N C H R O N Y / D I A C H R O N Y (synchronie /diachronie ). Althusser | |
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and Balibar
oppose the structuralist (q.v.) ideological use of these terms, and insist
that the synchrony of an object is merely the concept of that object,
existing as one of a set of concepts |
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T E N D E N C Y (tendance, Tendenz ). Marx describes a number of the | |
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capitalist mode of production as tendencies (notably the ten- dency of the
rate of profit to fall). These tendencies have often been seen as the patterns
of historical development from one mode of production to another, as the
symptoms of the 'negation of the negation' (q.v.) which leads to a higher
historical phase. Balibar shows that they are in fact merely the concept
of the pattern of development peculiar to a mode of production, the
concept of the limits of variation (see C O N T R A D I C T I O N ) of |
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T H E O R Y, 'T H E O R Y', T H E O R Y (théorie, 'théorie ', Théorie ). For | |
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Althusser theory is a specific, scientific theoretical
practice (q.v.). In For Marx, Chapter 6, 'On the Materialist
Dialectic', a distinction is also made between 'theory' (in
inverted commas), the determinate theoretical system of a
given science, and Theory (with a capital T), the theory of
practice in general, i.e. dialectical materialism (q.v.).
[In a few words in the preface to the Italian translation of
Lire le Capital, reproduced in this English translation, I have pointed out that I now regard my
definition of philosophy (Theory as 'the Theory of
theoretical practice') as a unilateral and, in consequence,
false conception of dialectical materialism. Positive
indications of the new de- finition I propose can be found:
(1) in an interview published in L'Unità in February
1968 and reproduced in the Italian trans- lation of Lire le
Capital (Feltrinelli) (not included here) and in La Pensée (April 1968);
2) in Lénine et la philosophie, the text of a lecture
I gave to the Société Française de
Philosophie in February 1968, and published under the same
title by François Maspero in January 1969. The new
definition of philosophy can be resumed in three points: (1)
philosophy 'represents' the class struggle in the realm of
theory, hence philosophy is neither a science, nor a pure
theory (Theory), but a political practice of intervention in
the realm of theory; (2) philosophy 'represents'
scientificity in the realm of political practice, hence
philosophy is not the political practice, but a theoretical
practice of inter- vention in the realm of politics; (3)
philosophy is an original 'instance' (differing from the
instances of science and politics ) that represents the one
instance alongside (auprès de ) the other, in the form
of a specific intervention (political-theoret- ical). L. A.]. |
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T I M E (temps ). Hegelian theories of history see time as the mode | |
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of existence
(Dasein ) of the concept (Begriff ). There is there- fore a unique linear time
in which the totality of historical possibilities unfolds. Empiricist theories
of history as a chron- ology of 'events' accept the same conception of time
by default. This simple unilinear time can then be divided into 'events'
(short-term phenomena) and 'structures' (long-term phenomena), or |
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periodized in evolutionist fashion into self-contemporaneous 'modes of
production', the static or 'synchronic' analysis of which has a dynamic or
'diachronic' development in time into another mode of production. This
dynamics or diachrony is then history. For Althusser and Balibar, on the
contrary, there is no simple unilinear time in which the development of
the social formation unfolds: each level of the social formation and each
element in each level has a different temporality, and the to- tality is
constituted by the articulation together of the dis- locations (q.v.) between
these temporalities. It is thus never possible to construct a self-contemporaneity of the structure, |
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T O T A L I T Y (totalité, Totalität ). An originally Hegelian concept | |
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that has become confused by its use by all theorists who wish |
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T R A N S I T I O N (passage ). Marx's analysis of the transition from | |
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one mode of
production to another has two sides. First there is the analysis of the
pre-history of the mode of production, the genealogy of its constitutive
elements, as they emerge in the interstices of the previous mode of
production. Second there is the analysis of the phase of transition itself,
which is not a destructuration-restructuration, but a mode of production
in |
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introduction of machines breaks down this feudal connexion be- tween the
labourer and his means of labour, replacing it by one homologous with
the property connexion, in which the means and the object of labour are
connected and opposed to the labourer.
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W O R K S O F M A R X, E A R L Y, T R A N S I T I O N A L A N D M A T U R E | |
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(Oeuvres de jeunesse, de maturation et de la
maturité de Marx ). Althusser rejects the view that
Marx's works form a theoretical unity. He
divides them as follows: Early Works (up to 1842); Works
of the Break (Oeuvres de la Coupure --1845); Transitional
Works (1845-47); Mature Works (1857-83). It should be
remem- bered, however, that the epistemological break (q.v.)
can neither be punctual, nor made once and for all: it is to
be thought as a 'continuous break', and its criticism
applies even to the latest |
A Letter to the Translator
Thank you for your glossary; what you have done in it is extremely important from a political, educational and theoretical point of view. I offer you my warmest thanks.
I return your text with a whole series of corrections and interpolations (some of which are fairly long and important, you will see why).
A minor point: you refer twice to Foucault and once to Canguilhem vis-à-vis my use of 'break' and, I think, of 'problematic'. I should like to point out that Canguilhem has lived and thought in close contact with the work of Bachelard for many years, so it is not surprising if he refers somewhere to the term 'epistemological break', although this term is rarely to be found as such in Bachelard's texts (on the other hand, if the term is uncommon, the thing is there all the time from a certain point on in Bachelard's work). But Canguilhem has not used this concept systematically, as I have tried to do. As for Foucault, the uses he explicitly or implicitly makes of the concepts 'break' and 'problematic' are echoes either of Bachelard, or of my own systematic 'use' of Bachelard (as far as 'break' is concerned) and of what I owe to my unfortunate friend Martin (for 'problematic'). I am not telling you this out of 'author's pride' (it means nothing to me), but out of respect both for the authors referred to and for the readers.
As for these authors: Canguilhem 's use of the concept 'break' differs from mine, although his interpretation does tend in the same direction. In fact, this should be put the other way round: my debt to Canguilhem is incalculable, and it is my interpretation that tends in the direction of his, as it is a continuation of his, going beyond the point where his has (for the time being) stopped. Foucault : his case is quite different. He was a pupil of mine, and 'something' from my writings has passed into his, including certain of my
page 324
formulations. But (and it must be said, concerning as it does his own philosophical personality) under his pen and in his thought even the meanings he gives to formulations he has borrowed from me are transformed into another quite different meaning than my own. Please take these corrections into account; I entrust them to you in so far as they may enlighten the English reader (who has access in particular to that great work, Madness and Civilization ), and guide him in his references.
Much more important are the corrections I have suggested for some of your rubrics. In most cases they are merely corrections (precisions) which do not affect the state of the theoretical concepts that figure in the book (For Marx ). They cast a little more light on what you yourself have very judiciously clarified. But in other cases they are corrections of a different kind: bearing on a certain point in Lenin's thought, for example (my interpolation on the question of spontaneity). And finally, in other cases (see my last interpolation), I have tried to give some hints to guide the English reader in the road I have travelled since the (now quite distant) publication of the articles that make up For Marx. You will understand why I am so insistent on all these corrections and interpolations. I urge you to give them a place in your glossary, and add that (1) I have myself gone over the text of the glossary line by line, and (2) I have made changes in matters of detail (which need not be indicated) and a few important interpolations.
As a result, everything should be perfectly dear. And we shall have removed the otherwise inevitable snare into which readers of 1969 would certainly have 'fallen', if they were allowed to believe that the author of texts that appeared one by one between 1960 and 1965 has remained in the position of these old articles whereas time has not ceased to pass. . . . You can easily imagine the theoretical, ideological and political misunderstandings that could not but have arisen from this 'fiction', and how much time and effort would have had to be deployed to 'remove' these misunderstandings. The procedure I suggest has the advantage that it removes any misunderstanding of this kind in advance, since, on the one hand, I leave the system of concepts of 1960 to 1965 as it was, while on the other, I indicate the essential point in which I have developed in the intervening years -- since, finally, I give references to the new writings that contain the new definition of philosophy that I now hold, and I summarize the new conception which I have arrived at (provisionally -- but what is not provisional?).
Louis Althusser, 19 January 1970
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absence, 16, 18-19, 21-3, 26-30, 28n, |
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229, 233, 243, 248, 250-1, 253, |
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258, 260-2, 265, 267n, 268-9, |
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98-9, 175-6 |
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contract, 230-3, 266-7 |
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theoretical, 49, 150, 183, 246, 254, |
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genealogy of, 279-84, 293, 298, 302 |
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facts, 44, 50, 61, 102, 109, 121n, |
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given, 19, 44, 84, 112, 122, 159, |
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political, 109, 133, 154, 248 |
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individuality, historical forms of existence |
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146, 165, 170-3, 175, 210, 213- |
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Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm, 96-7, |
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Marchal, André, 161 |
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Afterword to second German edition, 50, |
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spatial, 24, 26-7, 26n, 27n, 182 |
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nation, 41, 87-8, 256, 273 |
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origins, 44, 54, 62-4, 125, 163-4, |
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Politzer, Georges, 39n, 138n |
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273, 276-7, 304 |
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Quesnay, François, 18, 84, 268 |
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on an extended scale, 13, 165, 260-1, |
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self-consciousness, 124-5, 137, |
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centred, 98-9, 253 |
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technology, 171, 204, 211, 234, 239, |
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transformation, 61, 65, 88-9, 108n, |
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wages, 22, 28n, 84, 149, 152, 154-5, |
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working-day, 116-17, 222, 236, 287, |