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Stoicism is a philosophical school founded by Zeno of Citium in Athens in the early third century BC.1 It is a philosophy of personal ethics based on his logical system and his views on the natural world. The Stoics believed that everything around operated according to a law of cause and effect, resulting in a rational structure of the universe. They thought that "we cannot control what happens around us, but we can control what we think about these events" instead of imagining a falsely positive ideal society.2

His philosophical doctrine was based on the mastery and control of facts, things and passions that disturb life, using courage and reason for personal character. As rational beings, their goal was to achieve, based on tolerance and self-control, eudaimonia (happiness or bliss) and wisdom in accepting the moment as it presents itself, by not allowing oneself to be dominated by the desire for pleasure or by the fear of pain, by using the mind to understand the world and do its part in the plan of nature without material goods, work together and treat others fairly and equitably.

The Stoics are especially known for teaching that "virtue is the only good" for human beings, and that those external things, such as health, wealth, and pleasure, are not good or bad in themselves (adiaphoria), but have value as "material for virtue to act." Alongside Aristotelian ethics, the Stoic tradition constitutes one of the main foundational approaches to virtue ethics.3 The Stoics also held that certain destructive emotions were the result of errors of judgment, and believed that people should aim to maintain a will (called pro-harisis) that is "in accordance with nature." Because of this, the Stoics thought that the best indication of an individual's philosophy was not what a person said but how a person behaved.4 To live a good life, one had to understand the rules of the natural order since they thought everything was rooted in nature.

Many Stoics, such as Seneca and Epictetus, emphasized that because "virtue is sufficient for happiness," a sage would be emotionally resistant to misfortune. This belief is similar to the meaning of the phrase "stoic calm," although the phrase does not include the stoic "radical ethical" views that only a sage can be considered truly free and that all moral corruptions are equally vicious.5

During the Hellenistic period it acquired greater importance and diffusion, gaining great popularity throughout the Greco-Roman world, especially among the Roman elites. Its period of pre-eminence dates from the third century BC. C. until the end of the second century AD. C., and among his followers was the emperor Marcus Aurelius. After this, he showed signs of exhaustion that coincided with the social decomposition of the high Roman Empire and the rise of Christianity. Since then it has seen revivals, especially in the Renaissance (neostoicism) and in the contemporary era (modern Stoicism).6

Index

1 Etymology

1.1 Origins

1.2 Modern use

2 Historical perspective

2.1 Ancient Stoicism

2.2 Middle Stoicism

2.3 New Stoicism

2.4 Timeline

3 Later influence

3.1 Neoestoicismo

3.2 Modern Stoicism

4 Philosophical doctrines

4.1 Principles of Stoic philosophy

4.2 Logic

4.2.1 Propositional logic

4.2.2 Categories

4.2.3 Epistemology

4.3 Physics

4.4 Ethics: Stoic Morality

4.4.1 The doctrine of "indifferent things"

4.5 Social philosophy

5 Main figures

6 See also

7 References

8 Bibliography

9 External links

Etymology

Origins

Stoicism was originally known as "Zenonism," after the founder Zeno of Citium. However, this name was soon abandoned, probably because the Stoics did not consider their founders to be perfectly wise and to avoid the risk of philosophy becoming a cult of personality.7 The name "Stoicism" derives from the Stoa Poikile (Ancient Greek: ἡ ποικίλη στοά), or "painted portico", a colonnade decorated with scenes of mythical and historical battles, on the north side of the Agora of Athens, where Zeno and his followers met to discuss their ideas.89

Modern use

The word "stoic" commonly refers to someone who is indifferent to pain, pleasure, sorrow, or joy.10 Modern usage as "a person who represses feelings or endures with patience" was first cited in 1579 as a noun and in 1596 as an adjective.11 The DRAE defines "stoic" as "strong, even-handed in the face of misfortune" and "stoicism" as "strength or dominion over one's own sensibility."1213 In contrast to the term "epicurean," in the notes to the entry of Stoicism in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, "the meaning of the English adjective Stoic is not entirely misleading with respect to its philosophical origins."14

Historical perspective

Bust of Antisthenes, founder of the cynical school (British Museum).

Stoicism was founded by Zeno of Citium (ca. 333-262 BC)—sometimes called Zeno the Stoic to distinguish him from Zeno of Elea—of Cypriot origin and possibly of mixed Greek and Eastern ancestry.15 He moved to Athens in 311 BC. C. after a hectic life. At that time Athens was the cultural center of the Greek world, where the main schools of philosophy congregated. During his stay, he came into contact with Socratic philosophy, especially that of the cynical school, and the megaric. According to Diogenes Laertius, he initially leaned towards cynicism, being someone especially close to Crates, but soon left this school by rejecting the numerous "exaggerations" they incurred, because they could not offer him any valid life program. After this abandonment of cynicism, he studied with other philosophers of the Platonic, Aristotelian and Megaric schools but, dissatisfied with them, he ended up creating his own school, in which he combined multiple cynical aspects with those of other philosophers such as Heraclitus.16 Since ancient times, the possible influence on Zeno of Semitic doctrines such as Judaism or the philosophies of the Middle East was studied; the considerable resemblance between Stoicism and Christianity in some doctrines, especially in ethics and cosmology, suggested to Christian panegyrists such as Quintilian and Tertullian that Zeno was familiar, by his Semitic origin, with Judaism.17

While the doctrines of Epicureanism were fixed by its founder, Stoicism had a long development.18 The history of Stoicism is divided into three periods: old "stóa", middle "stóa", and new "stóa".19

Ancient Stoicism

Bust of Chrysippus of Solos (British Museum).

The term Stoicism comes from the place where Zeno began, in 301 BC. C., to give his lessons in the Stoá poikilé (in Greek Στοά, stoá, 'portico'), which was the painted Portico of the agora of Athens. He soon attracted numerous followers, who, after Zeno's death, would continue and expand his philosophy. Stoicism was the last great school of philosophy in the Greek world to be founded, and it continued to exist until 529 AD. C. Emperor Justinian closed the School of Athens. The cynical school had a clear influence on the Stoá. This is evident from the beginning of this, as sources state that its founder, Zeno of Citium, studied directly with a cynic: Crates. Late Stoics, like Epictetus, identified the cynical Diogenes of Synope as a wise man' dechado.

The doctrinal corpus of Stoicism was based on Zeno's writings, now lost; however, it is known that he wrote numerous works whose titles included: Of life according to nature; Of the universals; Dialectical arguments and Of the passions. When Zeno dies in 261 BC. C. take over the Cleantes and Chrysippus school. According to Laertius, the latter is responsible for the fact that Stoicism endured: "Without Chrysippus there would have been no Stoah." Indeed, Chrysippus, who will lead the Stoá from 232 BC. C. until his death, which occurred in 208 BC. C., fixed the canon of Stoicism, perfected logical investigations and systematized the teachings of Zeno. Unfortunately, only a few fragments and a few references made by other authors have survived of his work, making it difficult to discern which parts of the ideology are due to Zeno, Chrysippus and Cleantes. In general, only a few fragments of the oldest Stoic texts have been preserved.

Middle Stoicism

With the death of Chrysippus, the first phase of Stoicism, called Ancient Stoicism, was concluded. This first stage was characterized above all by the formal establishment of doctrine. After Chrysippus, they directed the diogenes school of Babylon and Antipater of Tarsus, beginning the epoch called Middle Stoicism. During it there is the expansion of Stoicism throughout the Mediterranean world, taking advantage of the momentum of the Hellenistic world and the commercial networks that emerged with the rise of Rome. Its main figures were Panetius of Rhodes (185-109 BC) and, above all, Posidonius of Apamea. Perhaps the most prominent event of this period was the introduction of Stoicism among Roman elites. The Roman aristocratic society of the second and first centuries BC. C. greatly valued the times of "our fathers", referring to the previous centuries in which the economic and military relevance of Rome was still scarce. The simplicity and sobriety of the life of those times was idealized and exalted and, as in the entire Greek world, the more sophisticated modern luxuries and customs that had been introduced as the Roman Republic gained preeminence were viewed with distrust. The Stoic doctrine, very favorable to these views, was successfully introduced, and gained such well-known adherents as Cato the Elder, Scipio Africanus, and Cato the Younger; the remarkable fame of these further favored Stoicism, which was soon the philosophical school most admired by the Romans. Of the writings of the middle period, only a few fragmented texts are preserved, again.

New Stoicism

Seneca's bust of a double herma (Antikensammlung Berlin).

Usually, it is considered that after the death of Cato the Younger and the resolution of the civil wars that led to the establishment of the Roman Empire, the last stage of Stoicism arises, the so-called New Stoicism or Roman Stoicism. The philosophers of this stage have become much more famous and well-known than the ancient Stoics (and their works are preserved in greater numbers), and materialized the implantation of Stoicism as the main doctrine of the Roman elites. Roman Stoicism stands out for its eminently practical aspect, where the logical, metaphysical or physical considerations of ancient Stoicism take a back seat to develop, above all, the ethical aspect of the school. The main exponents of this stage, and possibly the most famous Stoics, were Lucius Anneus Seneca (4 BC-65 AD), one of the best-known Roman writers and perhaps the best-known Stoic, Epictetus (50-130 AD), born slave, and Emperor Marcus Aurelius (121-180 AD). The work of Seneca, Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus allows us to approach, in a simple and didactic way, the main aspects of Stoicism, although they did not introduce any essentially original element in the doctrine.

Bust of Marcus Aurelius (Glyptotheque of Munich).

After the death of Marcus Aurelius, Stoicism is considered to go into decline. The successive political, economic and military crises that devastated the Roman Empire during the third century, have as a consequence a revaluation of spirituality that Stoicism cannot face, emerging Neoplatonism, which, from 250 AD. C., will displace Stoicism as the main doctrine of the elites. The cultural turn of this era causes the Stoic life plan to be negatively considered; at this time, essentially, Stoicism will gain its reputation as stranded and rigid. Likewise, the rise of Christianity adversely affects all Hellenistic philosophical schools, as many of its teachings are rejected as contrary to Christian doctrine. By the year 300, the only one of these capable of objecting anything to Christianity is Neoplatonism, and the triumph of that sentence definitively to the Hellenist movement in general, which formally concludes in 529, when Justinian closes the philosophical schools of Athens (the Lyceum, the Academy, the Stoá).

Chronology

Later influence

Justo Lipsio, the founder of neo-Stoicism.

Stoicism will influence numerous later philosophical currents, from the early Church fathers to Descartes and Kant. As has been said, the early fathers of the Church admired the ethics of Stoicism, which they considered especially close to their own; his calmness, his serenity, as well as his position in the face of adversity caused some Christians like Tertullian to treat Stoics as Seneca in the terms of "saepe noster" ("often one of our own"), while St. Jerome included him in his catalogue of saints. There was even a legend that Seneca had been baptized before he died by St. Paul, with whom he would also have corresponded, and that Marcus Aurelius would have also corresponded with the pope and some Roman Christians. During the Renaissance, Stoicism gained diffusion among humanist and university currents: Calvin's first work was an edition of Seneca's De clementia, and references to new Stoicism are constant in Erasmus, Jean-Louis Vives, and Michel de Montaigne. At this time the Stoic vital attitude was revalued; today, the term "stoicism" is used daily to refer to the attitude of taking the adversities of life with strength and acceptance.

Neoestoicismo

This section is an excerpt from Neostoicism. [edit]

Peter Paul Rubens: The Four Philosophers. From left to right: the painter Peter Paul Rubens himself, his brother Philipp, the famous scholar Justo Lipsio and his pupil Jan Van den Wouwer. Above, the meeting is chaired by a replica of the Hellenistic bust known as the PseudoSeneca.

Neostoicism was a philosophical movement born in the sixteenth century that united in its conception elements of Stoicism and Christianity. It was founded by the Belgian humanist Justo Lipsio who in 1584 published his famous dialogue De constantia where he laid the foundations of this new philosophical and spiritual movement. Later he further developed his theory in the treatises Manductio ad stoicam philosophiam (Introduction to Stoic Philosophy), Physiologia stoicorum (Physics of Stoicism) and Ethica (Ethics).

Neo-Stoicism is a practical philosophy that holds that the basic norm of life should be that man cannot yield to earthly passion but submit to God's dictates. Neo-Stoicists distinguish between four stoic passions: gluttony, joy, fear, and pain. He rediscovers the value of philosophers like Epictetus and Seneca and unites them to the biblical Book of Job.

Neo-Stoicism had a direct influence on many writers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries such as: Montesquieu, Bossuet, Guillaume du Vair, Francis Bacon, Joseph Hall, Francisco de Quevedo or Juan de Vera y Figueroa.

Modern Stoicism

This section is an excerpt from modern Stoicism. [edit]

Modern Stoicism is an intellectual and popular movement that began in the late twentieth century with the aim of reviving the practice of Stoicism. It should not be confused with neo-Stoicism, an analogous phenomenon in the seventeenth century. The term "modern Stoicism" covers both the resurgence of interest in Stoic philosophy and philosophical efforts to adjust ancient Stoicism to the language and conceptual framework of the present. The rise of modern Stoicism has received international media attention since about November 2012, when the first annual Stoic Week event was organized.20

Philosophical doctrines

Principles of Stoic Philosophy

Philosophy does not promise to assure anything external to man: otherwise it would mean admitting something that lies beyond its true object of study and matter. For in the same way that the material of the carpenter is wood, and that of the sculptor, bronze, the object of the art of living is the life of each one.

— Epictetus.21

The Stoics proclaimed that freedom and tranquility can be achieved only by being indifferent to material comforts, external fortune, and by devoting oneself to a life guided by the principles of reason and virtue (such is the idea of imperturbability or ataraxia). Assuming a materialistic conception of nature, they followed Heraclitus in the belief that the first substance is found in fire and in the veneration of logos, which they identified with the energy, law, reason and providence found in nature. The reason of men was also considered an integral part of the divine and immortal logos. Stoic doctrine, which considered each person essential as a member of a universal family, helped to break regional, social and racial barriers, and to prepare the way for the propagation of a universal religion. The Stoic doctrine of natural law, which makes human nature the norm for evaluating social laws and institutions, had much influence in Rome and in later Western legislations. It also had importance in later currents and philosophers, such as Descartes and Kant.

The ancient Stoics divided philosophy into three parts (D.L. 7.41): logic (theory of knowledge and science, which includes rhetoric and dialectics), physics (science about the world and about things), and ethics (behavioral science). They all refer to aspects of the same reality: the universe as a whole and knowledge about it. This can be explained and understood globally because it is a rationally organized structure of which man himself is an integral part, the most important facet being ethics.

They were based on 4 cardinal virtues:

Practical knowledge: the ability to handle complex situations with a calm mind.

Temperance: The ability to restrain and moderate the attraction of worldly pleasures and goods.

Justice: being fair to others even when they have made a mistake or disrespected us.

Courage: not only in extreme situations but on a day-to-day basis with clarity and integrity.

Logic

For the Stoics the field of logic included not only what is modernly understood by it, but also epistemology, rhetoric and grammar. In the field of logic they developed inductive logic. They divided logic into Rhetoric (science of right saying) and Dialectics (D.L. 7.41).

Propositional logic

Diodorus Cronus, who was one of Zeno's teachers, is considered the philosopher who first introduced and developed an approach to logic now known as propositional logic, which is based on statements or propositions, rather than terms, making it very different from Aristotle's logic. Later, Chrysippus developed a system that became known as Stoic logic and included a deductive system, the Stoic syllogistic, which was considered a rival to Aristotle's syllogistics (see syllogism). The new interest in Stoic logic occurred in the twentieth century, when important developments in logic were based on propositional logic. Susanne Bobzien wrote, "The many close similarities between the philosophical logic of Chrysippus and that of Gottlob Frege are especially striking."22

Bobzien also notes that "Chrysippus wrote more than 300 books on logic, on virtually any subject that interests current logic, including the theory of speech acts, the analysis of sentences, singular and plural expressions, types of predicates, indexes, existential propositions, orational connectors, negations, disjunctions, conditionals, logical consequence, valid forms of argument, theory of deduction, propositional logic, modal logic, temporal logic, epistemic logic, theory of supposition, logic of imperatives, ambiguity, and logical paradoxes."22

See also: Eudaimonia

In philosophical terms, things that are indifferent are outside the application of the moral law, that is, without a tendency to promote or obstruct moral ends. Actions that are not required or forbidden by the moral law, or that do not affect morality, are called morally indifferent. The doctrine of indifferent things (ἀδιάφορα, adiaphoria) emerged in the Stoic school as a corollary of its diametrical opposition of virtue and vice (καθήκοντα kathekonta, "convenient actions", or actions according to nature; and ἁμαρτήματα hamartemata, errors). As a result of this dichotomy, a large class of objects were left unassigned and therefore considered indifferent.

Finally, three subclasses of "indifferent things" developed: things to prefer because they help life according to nature; things to avoid because they hinder you; and indifferent things in the strict sense. The principle of adiaphora was also common to cynics. Philip Melanchthon revived the doctrine of indifferent things during the Renaissance.

Social philosophy

A distinctive feature of Stoicism is its cosmopolitanism; According to the Stoics, all people are manifestations of the one universal spirit and must live in brotherly love and help each other. In the Discourses, Epictetus comments on man's relationship with the world: "Every human being is primarily a citizen of his own community; but he is also a member of the great city of gods and men, of which the political city is only a copy."40 This sentiment echoes that of Diogenes of Sinope, who said, "I am neither Athenian nor Corinthian, but a citizen of the world."41

They argued that external differences, such as rank and wealth, have no importance in social relations. Instead, they advocated the brotherhood of humanity and the natural equality of all human beings. Stoicism became the most influential school in the Greco-Roman world, and produced a number of notable writers and personalities, such as Cato the Younger and Epictetus.

In particular, they were noted for their urgency of clemency towards slaves. Seneca exhorted: "Remember kindly that he you call a slave was born of the same population, is smiled by the same heavens and, on equal terms with yourself, breathes, lives and dies."42

It is called the cynical school (from the Greek kyon: 'dog', a name attributed due to its frugal way of life) to the one founded in Ancient Greece during the second half of the fourth century BC. The Greek Antisthenes was its founder and Diogenes of Sinope one of its most recognized and representative philosophers of his time. They reinterpreted the Socratic doctrine considering that civilization and its way of life was an evil and that happiness was given following a simple life and according to nature. Man already carried in himself the elements to be happy and conquer his autonomy; it was indeed the true good. Hence the contempt for riches and any form of material concern. The man with the least needs was the freest and the happiest. Included in this school, in addition to those already mentioned, are Crates of Thebes, disciple of Diogenes, Hipparchyah, one of the first philosophers, and Menippus of Gadara.1

The cynics were famous for their eccentricities, of which Diogenes Laertius counts many, and for the composition of numerous satires or diatribes against the corruption of the customs and vices of the Greek society of his time, practicing an attitude often irreverent, the so-called anaideia. Certain aspects of cynical morality influenced Stoicism, but while the attitude of cynics is critical of the ills of society, that of the Stoics is one of action through virtue.

Index

1 Cynicism

1.1 Description of a cynical person

2 Modern and ancient cynicism

3 Important characters of cynicism

3.1 Antisthenes

3.2 Crates of Thebes

3.3 Diogenes of Sinope

3.4 Metrocles and Hiparquía

3.5 Menedemus

3.6 Menipo

- 3.7 Syracuse

3.8 Onesycritus of Astypalaia

4 References

5 External links

Cynicism

Cynicism is a movement that developed in Greece, during the fourth and third centuries BC. C., and continued in the great cities of the Roman Empire: Rome, Alexandria and Constantinople until the fifth century. One of the origins of the name is associated with one of its founders, the first was Antisthenes, who gave it this name for the place where he used to teach, which was a gym called Cinosarges, which, translated, would come to be white dog or fast dog. Later, because of the behavior of Antisthenes and Diogenes, they were nicknamed cynics, since their behaviors resembled that of dogs, although at first this school was called "minor Socratic school". The cynical attitude was initiated in the West by Diogenes of Sinope in the fourth century BC. C.

Cynicism was not a school despite this title. A philosophical school was an establishment in which a doctrine or intellectual inspiration was imparted by a group of people led by a superior. Antisthenes was one of its founders and the meetings were held in a gymnasium they frequented. They were against the school, repudiating the sciences, norms and conventions, especially Antisthenes.

Description of a cynical person

These individuals aspired to identify with the figure of the dog, for the simplicity and brazenness of canine life. They wore beards, wore saddlebags and staff, practiced word games as a methodology: to those who proposed incomprehensible ideas and theories, they put gesture, humor and irony.

Cynics took nature and animals as their model; they invited the uproar of every burial.

Alcifrón portrays a cynic as follows:

It's a horrible and painful sight to watch, when he waves his dirty mane and looks at you insolently. He is presented half naked, with a threadbare cloak, a hanging bag and, between his hands, a mace made of wild pear wood. It goes barefoot, does not wash and lacks craft and benefit. He does not want to know anything about his farm or about us, his parents, but, on the contrary, he denies us, because he affirms that all things are the work of nature and that the union of elements is the cause of the generation and not the parents. Evidently, he despises money and abhors the cultivation of the land. He has no sense of shame and modesty has been erased from his face.2

Modern and ancient cynicism

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Over time, the concept of cynicism was mutating, and today it is associated with the tendency not to believe in human sincerity or goodness, neither in their motivations nor in their actions, as well as a tendency to express this attitude through irony, sarcasm and mockery.

Almost 2000 years after certain Greek philosophers had embraced classical cynicism, in the seventeenth and eighteenth century writers such as Shakespeare, Swift and Voltaire, following the traditions of Geoffrey Chaucer and François Rabelais, use irony, sarcasm and satire to ridicule human behavior and reactivate cynicism. In the literary aspect, nineteenth and twentieth century figures such as Oscar Wilde, Mark Twain, Dorothy Parker and H. L. Mencken used cynicism as a way to communicate their opinions under some manifestations of human nature. In 1930, Bertrand Russell, in the essay "On the Cynicism of Youth," was able to describe the extent to which (in his view) cynicism had penetrated Western consciousnesses en masse, and placed special emphasis on the areas partially influenced by cynicism: religion, the homeland (patriotism), progress, beauty, and truth.

Many modern and contemporary philosophers have had a notable influence of ancient cynicism. In the philosophy of Rousseau, Nietzsche, Michel Onfray or Peter Sloterdijk you can notice an influence of the cynicism of Antisthenes and Diogenes very marked, so that through them survive in later thought ideas and proposals of ancient cynicism such as the preferability of nature in the face of convention, the need for valorative transformation of society, freedom of speech or the value of autarky.3

Important figures of cynicism

Antisthenes

He was one of the most important philosophers of his time, a direct disciple of Socrates; he in turn had a decisive influence on some of the schools that were formed in this period, both for his theories and for his attitude and way of life.

Antisthenes was born in Athens, between 450 and 445 BC. C., and died in 366 BC. His father was an Athenian citizen and his mother a Thracian slave. This miscegenation prevented him from obtaining Athenian citizenship, but it does not seem that this bothered him too much.

His philosophical career began as a disciple of the famous sophist Gorgias, who like every sophist charged to teach, so it could be deduced that Antisthenes enjoyed a good economic position. At this same time he also began in the Orphic mysteries. However, his main apprenticeship was with Socrates, of whom he became a disciple and friend until his death.

Antisthenes was present at Socrates' death as they discussed the immortality of the soul and waited for the time to drink the poison that would cause his death. The tranquility of the old master in such decisive moments made a deep impression on all who were present there. This probably influenced Antisthenes' later insistence on ataraxia.4

One fine day Antisthenes decided to dispense with everything superfluous and found his own school. He did it in a gym on the outskirts of Athens called Cinosarges, which means "white dog." The change is so radical that it also manifested itself externally: he began to wear a mantle, a handbag and a cane, clothing that became the uniform of the cynic. He decisively dispensed with everything he cannot carry with him, with the intention of freeing himself from the whims of fortune and governing his own destiny.

His goal was to achieve the happiness and virtues of a human being and, as he claimed, this was achieved if he depended only on himself. The fundamental thing for the cynic was autarky, that is, independence from all external conditioning, self-sufficiency, which could be learned but required effort. Gone was everything that he considered no longer belonged to the sage, family, money, fame and above all his old thoughts. He once claimed that the greatest joy was undoubtedly to die happily.

Antisthenes lived according to his own law, which he himself chose for himself. Established laws and social conventions were not important to this sage, who like all cynics despised norms, institutions, customs, and everything that represented a bondage for man. He preached a return to nature as a revulsive to the social and cultural domestication that was imposed on the cities. He had a wide culture and wrote numerous books, of which only two brief fragments are preserved today.

Crates of Thebes

Crates of Thebes was a wealthy citizen of good social standing, who gave up all his fortune to become a cynical philosopher. He was a disciple of Diogenes and teacher of Zeno of Citium. Crates, unlike his teacher, was a kind and calm man, which earned him the nickname "the philanthropist", as well as "door opener", because people called him home to ask for advice and chat with him. He was born in Thebes around 368 BC. C., but soon went to Athens to become a follower of Diogenes. He died around 288 BC. Like all cynics he preached autarky and simplicity by setting an example with his life and actions, and although his style was less aggressive than his predecessors, his attitude was the same as the others.

For Crates philosophy freed him from his external slavery, in terms of family, property or social customs and also freed him from internal slavery, from his opinions, maintaining his radical individual freedom. To be able to live happily, he believed that the minimum was enough, and that frugality and distance from institutions and laws were essential.

Crates wrote quite a few works of literature in which he managed to maintain a good standard. They were parodies that hid ethical messages. He intended to propagate the principles of Diogenes in an attractive way, and in this way he managed to reach a fairly wide audience.

Diogenes of Sinope

Diogenes of Sinope was born in Sinope (Asia Minor) between 413 BC. C. and 400 BC. He died in Corinth in 323 BC. He was banished from Sinope. Forced by these circumstances, he wandered through Sparta, Corinth and Athens, and in the latter city he frequented the Cinosarges and became a disciple of Antisthenes, chose to lead an austere life and adopted cynical clothing, as his master.

From his beginnings in Athens, he showed a passionate character. He put into practice in a radical way the theories of his teacher Antisthenes. He took freedom of speech to the extreme, and his dedication was to criticize and denounce everything that limited man, in particular institutions. He proposed a new assessment in contrast to the traditional valuation and constantly confronted social norms. He considered himself cosmopolitan, that is, a citizen of the world; he affirmed that anywhere the cynic is found as in his home and recognizes the same in others, and therefore the world belongs to everyone.

Legend has it that he got rid of everything that was not indispensable, and even abandoned his shield when he saw that a boy drank water in the hollow of his hands. He said that all this was possible but that hard training was needed. Diogenes, like all cynics, recommended training to acquire the areté, exercise both physically and mentally to harden and reach impassibility and self-sufficiency; independence was achieved through effort. He wrote some books, which have been lost. They were of a brief character and in the form of maxims or sharp and ironic sentences.

His death has given to speak and currently the true cause is not known. According to some he died of his own free will, committing suicide through the "containment of the breath", master of his destiny and the moment of his death, although this would be something metaphorical, since it is impossible to die by stopping breathing voluntarily. According to others, he died of dog bites or indigestion from eating raw octopus.

Metrocles and Hiparquía

Metrocles, brother of Hipparchy and from a wealthy family, was born in Maronea (Thrace). From a very young age he began to have philosophical concerns, and thanks to the fact that he had a lot of money he was able to dedicate himself to it.

He was a shy child, and to reinforce his character his parents decided to entrust him to the master Crates, who honoring his reputation as hard advised Metrocles to fortify his body. While Metrocles was one day in one of his trainings, a windiness escaped him involuntarily, which he found so extremely humiliating that he locked himself in his room with the intention of letting himself die of hunger. Crates entered the cabin and tried to convince with words that he had not done anything absurd, but that it would have been for nature not to do it; then the teacher began to let go of flatus to encourage him with reasons, and so it was that so many windynesses heard the student who ended up getting used to it and rejected the idea of taking his own life. From then on Metrocles was a disciple of Crates and was a celebrated philosopher.

He died at a late age strangling himself with his hands, although it is believed, given the impossibility of dying by this method, that he instead hanged himself.

Her sister Hipparchy was one of the first female philosophers, the only cynic. When he was fifteen he felt a deep interest in the Cynical School and decided to follow in the footsteps of Crates. She lived with him and eventually married him despite her family's opposition. She wanted so much to marry Crates that she threatened to commit suicide if she didn't. Hipparchy wanted to become cynical since the way of life of a cynical person was something unusual and that appealed to him.

With Crates he shared a very peculiar way of cynical life. They both decided to lead this lifestyle. They had at least one son raised under cynical values. During the pregnancy she did not abandon her exercises and when her son Pasicles was born she washed it in the shell of a turtle and also with cold water.

Hipparchy always attended each and every meeting her husband went to. This was radically rejected by the society of ancient Greece, since at this time women had to deal only and exclusively with domestic and weaving work.

Menedemus

Philosopher of the sect of Phaedo and disciple of Calloto Lampsaceno, Menedemus came from a noble family. It is said that he was a great superstitious. His clothing consisted of a dark robe, on his head an archadic helmet that had drawn twelve signs, with tragic footwear, a fairly long beard and an ash cane in his hand. The Eretrienses sent him to Megara, to Plato's school, where he left the militia; there he met Stilphon and both sailed to Élide and met Moscus and Anquipilo, both disciples of Phaedo. Menedemus was a very serious man because of Crates, who called him the bull Eretrio and the aesculapius Phliasius. And Timon says he was very vociferous and futile as soon as he spoke. They say he was a simple and very careless man; moreover he kept no order for the people who heard him because there were no seats around him, but each one sat where he wanted.

He greatly appreciated Aratus and Lycophron, a tragic poet; also to Antagoras Rhodium; but more than everyone he venerated Homer, and then the lyrics. Menedemo's speeches were very difficult to comprehend. He was of changing wit and inventor of new phrases. It is said that he did not write or compose anything. At first, he was greatly despised by society and the Eretrienses called him a dog, but later they rectified and admitted him into the government of the republic. He was ambassador of Lysimachus and the courts of Ptolemy.

Finally, according to Heraclides, he died at the age of seventy-four.

Menipo

Of Phoenician origin, Menippus was a philosopher and poet in the cynical school. It is believed that he was the propeller of the Menipean satire written in verse and prose. Very little information is known about his life in general, although it is known that he was a freed slave. Some philosophers claim that the books where his name is found are not his, but of Dionysius and Zopiro, who gave them to Menippus so that he could put them in order. These cynical books were thirteen, among which were: Funeral Homes, Testaments, Elegant Letters, In Person of the Gods, To the Physicists, Mathematicians and Grammarians, The Generation of Epicurus and The Superstitious Epicurean Celebration of the Twentieth Day of the Month.

Mónimo of Syracuse

Monimo of Syracuse was a cynical philosopher who was a disciple of Diogenes. He was the slave of a Corinthian banker when he met the one who would be his teacher. Through contact with Diogenes he learned about the philosophy and way of life of the cynics. In order to devote himself to this way of life, he pretended to be crazy throwing away the money that his master commissioned him to account for and keep. With this he managed to be released and was able to develop his life as a wandering philosopher. He became a reputed sage, author of a treatise On Impulses and a Protréptico.

Onesycritus of Astypalaia

The life of Onesicritus of Astypalaia took place between 380 BC. C. and 300 BC He accompanied Alexander the Great on one of his explorations to India. This intellectual is related to the "cynical school". Few testimonies are preserved that speak about him. He was a disciple of Diogenes, although this cynic is not well known; it became more popular from the arrival of the Macedonian army in India on its journey with Alexander the Great.

Onesicritus, as with other authors, wrote about India in many of his works.

Throughout his life he traveled through many countries. It is said of him that he did not consider himself a real cynic. He was not like his predecessors, but his attitude and the spread of cynicism caused Diogenes Laertius to include him in his book; Onesycritus' name appears on any list of cynical philosophers.

Marxism is a theoretical perspective and a method of analysis and socio-economic synthesis of reality and history, which considers class relations and social conflict using a materialistic interpretation of historical development and adopts a dialectical vision of the social transformation and critical analysis of capitalism, composed mainly of the thought developed in the work of the philosopher, German sociologist, economist and revolutionary journalist of Jewish origin,1 Karl Marx, who contributed to sociology, economics, law and history.2

This group of philosophical, social, economic, political doctrines, etc. acquired a more defined form after his death by a series of thinkers who complement and /or reinterpret this model ranging from Friedrich Engels, Marx's companion and co-editor, to other thinkers such as Georgy Plekhanov, Lenin, Leon Trotsky, Rosa Luxemburg, Antonio Gramsci, Georg Lukács or Mao Zedong.2

It is correct to speak of Marxism as a current of human thought. Marxism is mainly associated with the set of political and social movements that emerged during the twentieth century, among which the Russian Revolution, the Chinese Revolution and the Cuban Revolution stood out.

Marxism has sought to develop a unified social science (history, sociological theory, economic theory, political science, and epistemology) for the understanding of class-divided societies and the foundation of a revolutionary vision of social change that has inspired countless social and political movements in the world throughout modern history. It presents three identifiable dimensions: an economic-sociological dimension, a political dimension and a critical-philosophical dimension expressed in the previous philosophy in the idealism of Hegel and in the materialism of Feuerbach.3 Marxist analysis, called historical materialism, emphasizes the determining character of material conditions – social relations and places in production – in people's lives and in the consciousness they have about themselves and about the world. This material basis is considered, in this perspective, ultimately determinant of other social phenomena, such as social and political relations, law, ideology or morality.

It has developed into many different branches and schools of thought, with the result that there is now no single definitive Marxist theory.4 Different Marxist schools place greater emphasis on certain aspects of classical Marxism while rejecting or modifying other aspects. Many schools of thought have tried to combine Marxist and non-Marxist concepts, which has led to contradictory conclusions.5

Historical materialism and dialectical materialism remain the fundamental aspect of all Marxist schools of thought. This view is not accepted by some post-Marxists such as Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, who claim that history is not only determined by modes of production, but also by consciousness and will.6 Several currents have also developed in academic Marxism, often under the influence of other points of view: structuralist Marxism, historical Marxism, Phenomenological Marxism, Analytical Marxism, Humanist Marxism, Western Marxism and Hegelian Marxism. Marx's legacy has been disputed among numerous tendencies, which include Leninism, Marxism-Leninism, Trotskyism, Maoism, Luxembourgism, and libertarian Marxism.

Marxism has had a profound impact on the global academy and has influenced many fields such as archaeology, anthropology,78 science studies,9 political science, theater, history, sociology, art history and theory, cultural studies, education, economics, ethics, criminology, geography, literary criticism, aesthetics, film theory, critical psychology, and philosophy.

Index

1 Introduction and summary

2 Etymology

3 Intellectual influences of Marx and Engels

4 Materialist conception of dialectics

5 Materialist conception of history

5.1 Analysis of social classes

5.2 Class struggle and modes of production

5.3 Communism, socialism and dictatorship of the proletariat

6 Marxist conception of ideology

6.1 Morality in Marxism

6.2 Ideas about crime

7 Marxist theory of alienation

7.1 Marxist anthropology and labour theory

7.2 Commodity fetishism

7.3 Marxist critique of religion

7.4 Bourgeois family and child exploitation

8 Marxist conception of the state

8.1 The origin of the state

9 Marxist economics

9.1 The accumulation of capital, labour and surplus labour

9.2 Theory of value and surplus value

10 Parties, movements and governments inspired by Marxism

11 Criticism of Marxism

12 Currents arising from Marxism

13 Works

13.1 Works of Marx

13.2 Works by Engels

13.3 Works by Marx and Engels

13.4 Works of Lenin

13.5 Other works

14 See also

15 References

16 Bibliography

17 External links

Introduction and summary

The central components of the Marxist explanatory theoretical model can be divided into four essential elements:

In the first place, the concept of "class struggle", which is formulated for the first time in the Communist Manifesto and which is progressively transformed into the method of materialist analysis of human history resulting from material economic conditions, around the concepts of "social class", "contradiction" and "social division of labour" (historical materialism). In turn, Marxism follows the philosophical current where matter is the substrate of all reality, whether concrete or abstract (dialectical materialism). This method is at the same time based on hegelian logic commonly called "dialectic" (although in strictly Hegelian terms it is an "ontological logic", a model that at the same time surpasses the Hegelian concept of dialectics). Interestingly, Marx did not specify in any particular work what the global limits of this method were, nor what was his concept of dialectics, however the prologue of the Critique of Political Economy of 1859 is cited as its most precise formulation.

The second central point of the Marxist theoretical model is the critique of the economy of capital, which is developed extensively in his work Capital, composed of three official volumes and a fourth volume published posthumously under the name of Theories on Surplus Value. In this work, starting from a critique of the theories of the representatives of classical economics, Marx develops his labor theory of value, an alternative model for calculating the concept of "value" of the capitalist economy, based on the transformation of "labor power" into a "commodity" and that the value of every commodity is the "socially necessary labor time, distinguishing between "use value" and "exchange value", and reformulating it in his theory with which he tries to describe the exploitation of the proletariat by "capital".10 This research has direct political consequences, since the Marxist hypothesis would prove that in reality capitalist society is founded around the theft of human labour through the concept of "surplus labour" and "surplus value", legitimized in the rule of law through private ownership of the means of production and the free usufruct of those profits.11121314

The third central point is the concept of "ideology", which is developed by Marx in his first books such as The German Ideology (co-authored with Engels) and which attempts to explain the forms of mental domination of capitalist society and its relationship with the economic composition of it. This concept is abandoned for some years by Marx to focus on political analysis. However, it reappears strongly in his book Capital, under the concept of "commodity fetishism", which would be a way of explaining a person's psychological inability to perceive the "use value" of a commodity.1015 This concept is extremely important, because it describes all the consequences of the forms of production of life within capitalism: the theory of added value, the idea that capitalism makes money by paying workers less than it deserves and keeping the rest as profit

The fourth central point of the Marxist theoretical model is the concept of "communism", a mode of production generated from the capitalist mode of production, which can go beyond the limits of capitalist society founded on human exploitation, on the extraction of value. Marx used the word many times, but he never explained what its scope and characteristics were (except for some relatively short but lucid references, such as those that can be found in his Critique of the Gotha Program of 1875). A critical analysis of Marx's work would show that he would not have been willing to describe something that does not yet exist; therefore, the meaning of "communism" is found in a synthesis, as well as of the fundamental economic problems explicitly found in Capital as an analysis of Marx's political-juridical critique of capitalist institutions.

Engels coined the term scientific socialism to differentiate Marxism from the earlier socialist currents encompassed by it under the term utopian socialism. The term Marxist socialism is also used to refer to the specific ideas and proposals of Marxism within the framework of socialism.

The aim is for workers to have access to the means of production in an institutionalised manner; that is, using the public institutions of the State so that the workers obtain means of production and prevent "the bourgeoisie from increasingly concentrating the means of production, property and population of the country. It brings together the population, centralizes the means of production (mainly, the factories) and concentrates property in a few hands."16

Marx proposes the abolition of private appropriation (a broader concept than that of property, which is merely juridical) over the means of production, that is, "the abolition of the bourgeois property system," as he mentions in his Communist Manifesto: "What characterizes communism is not the abolition of property in general but the abolition of the bourgeois property system, "which characterizes communism." 17 since the bourgeoisie not only appropriates the social product by law, but also corrupts institutions or other legal mechanisms to appropriate workers' property. An example of this has been the theft (dispossession) of land from indigenous people and peasants for the installation of agro-industries and mining-energy projects.

With access to the means of production by workers, Marxism concludes that a society without social classes will be achieved where everyone lives with dignity, without the accumulation of private property over the means of production by a few people, because it assumes that this is the origin and root of the division of society into social classes. This would imply enormous competition and efficiency in the economy; moreover, the worker could not exploit himself nor could he exploit another worker because both would have means of production. What such a scenario could cause is that workers would organize to create larger companies through fair partnerships; for this reason Marx expresses that "the average price of wage labor is the minimum possible. That is, the minimum necessary for the worker to remain alive. All that the wage worker obtains from his work is therefore what he strictly needs in order to continue living and reproducing. We do not aspire in any way to impede the income generated by personal labor, destined to acquire the goods necessary for life." And he emphasizes in his Manifesto: "We only aspire to destroy the ignominious character of bourgeois exploitation, in which the worker lives only to multiply capital." Thus, then, the worker or workers will own their own businesses, initiating a high trade; for this reason, the Manifesto specifies that "communism does not deprive anyone of the power to acquire goods and services."18

Marx considers that each country has its particularities and, therefore, the measures to provide the workers with means of production may be different, and that at first it will seem that they are not enough. Marx is clear about the law of scarcity and therefore the distribution of means of production in an institutionalized and legal way will gradually take place in a slow but effective transition; for this reason he concludes in his Manifesto: "(...) by means of measures which, although at the moment they seem economically insufficient and unsustainable, in the course of the movement will be a great driving force, and which cannot be dispensed with, as a means of transforming the entire current production regime".18

In conclusion, Marx proposes the use of state institutions, such as the use of taxes to finance the purchase and distribution of the means of production to workers, which over time will form a market of perfect competition.

Etymology

The term Marxism was coined by Karl Kautsky, who considered himself an orthodox Marxist during the dispute between Marx's orthodox and revisionist followers.19 Kautsky's revisionist rival Eduard Bernstein also later adopted the use of the term.19 Engels did not support the use of the term Marxism to describe his views or those of Marx.20 Engels claimed that the term was being used abusively as a rhetorical qualifier by those attempting to describe his views or those of Marx.20 Engels claimed that the term was being used abusively as a rhetorical qualifier by those attempting to describe his views or those of Marx.20 Engels claimed that the term was being used abusively as a rhetorical qualifier by those attempting to describe his views or those of Marx.20 Engels claimed that the term was being used abusively as a rhetorical qualifier by those attempting to portray his views. becoming true followers of Marx while throwing others in different terms, such as those of Lassalle.20 In 1882, Engels claimed that Marx had criticized the self-proclaimed Marxist Paul Lafargue by saying that if Lafargue's views were considered Marxist, "one thing is certain and that is that I am not a Marxist."21

Intellectual influences of Marx and Engels

Hegel

Feuerbach

Marx had great philosophical influences, that of Feuerbach, who gave him and affirmed his materialist vision of history, and that of Hegel, based on Kantian philosophy and which inspired the young Hegelians, who among them, Marx used dialectics in the application of materialism. Although for his doctoral dissertation work he chose the comparison of two great materialist philosophers of ancient Greece, Democritus and Epicurus, Marx had already made the Hegelian method, his dialectic, his own. As early as 1842 he had elaborated his Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Law from a materialist point of view. But in the early 1840s, another great philosophical influence took effect on Marx, that of Feuerbach, especially with his work The Essence of Christianity. Both Marx and Engels embraced Feuerbach's materialist critique of the Hegelian system, albeit with some reservations. According to Marx, Feuerbachian materialism was inconsistent in some respects, which is why he calls it "contemplative." It is in the Theses on Feuerbach (Marx, 1845) and The German Ideology (Marx and Engels, 1846) that Marx and Engels settle their accounts with their philosophical influences and establish the premises for the materialist conception of history.

If in Hegel's idealism history was a course of continuous contradictions that expressed the self-development of the Absolute Idea, in Marx it is the development of the productive forces and the relations of production that determine the course of socio-historical development. For idealists the engine of history was the development of ideas. Marx exposes the material basis of these ideas and finds the common thread of historical evolution.

Marx's revision of Hegelianism was also influenced by Engels' 1845 book, The Condition of the Working Class in England, which led Marx to conceive of historical dialectics in terms of class conflict and to see the modern working class as the most progressive force for revolution. Thereafter, Marx and Engels worked together for the rest of Marx's life so that the collected works of Marx and Engels were usually published together, almost as if they were the result of one person.

But the most considerable part of the main guiding ideas, particularly in the economic and historical field, and especially their clear and definitive formulation, correspond to Marx. What I contributed—if you except, all the more, two or three special branches—could have been contributed by Marx even without me. On the other hand, I would never have achieved what Marx achieved. Marx was taller, saw farther away, watched more and faster than all of us combined. Marx was a genius; we, the others, at most, men of talent. Without him the theory would not be today, by far, what it is. That is why it legitimately bears its name.

Friedrich Engels (1886) Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of German Classical Philosophy - Part 4 (Engels' Footnote)22

Saint-Simon

Proudhon

However, according to Isaiah Berlin, it was the works of Engels, rather than those of Marx, that were the main source of the historical and dialectical materialism of Plekhanov, Kautsky, Lenin, Stalin, Mao and even Trotsky.23

Heraclitus

Epicurus

In short, Marx and Engels were based on the classical German philosophy of Hegel and Feuerbach; the British political economy of Adam Smith and David Ricardo; and French revolutionary theory, together with the French socialism of Rousseau, Saint-Simon, Charles Fourier, Babeuf and Proudhon respectively, to develop a critique of society that was both scientific and revolutionary.24 Of these, according to Rudolf Rocker, it was Proudhon—founder of mutualism—who would most inspire Marx.25 This critique reached its most systematic expression in the most important work devoted to capitalist society, Capital: Critique of Political Economy.

In addition to the roots mentioned, some Marxist thinkers of the twentieth century, such as Louis Althusser or Miguel Abensour, have pointed out in Marx's work the development of themes present in the work of Machiavelli26 or Spinoza.2728 Marx was influenced by the atomism of Epicurus and the French materialists. Marx also pointed out the importance of Aristotle29 in the labor theory of value,30 differentiating the price of value3132 and distinguishing between use value and exchange value.3334 In Capital he concludes: "The brilliance of Aristotle's genius is demonstrated only by this, which he discovered, in the expression of the value of commodities, a relationship of equality. The peculiar conditions of the society in which he lived only prevented him from discovering what, 'in truth', was at the bottom of this equality."33

Another Greek philosopher of great influence was Heraclitus, considered one of the founders of dialectics.35363738 Hegel himself considered himself philosophically heir to Heraclitus, to the point of affirming: "There is no proposition of Heraclitus that I have not accepted in my Logic" (Hegel, Lessons on the History of Philosophy). Engels, who associated himself with the Young Hegelians, also gave Heraclitus credit for inventing dialectics, relevant to his own dialectical materialism.39 Vladimir Lenin himself reaffirmed the above.36

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels also saw in the new understanding of biology brought about by Charles Darwin's The Origin of Species and the understanding of evolution by natural selection as essential to the new understanding of socialism, as it provides a basis in the natural sciences for the historical class struggle.404142 On the other hand, Engels turned to Lewis H. Morgan and his theory of social evolution in his work The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State. Alexander Vucinich states that "Engels credited Marx for extending Darwin's theory to the study of internal dynamics and change in human society."43

He then wrote a scathing critique of young Hegelians in two books, The Holy Family (1845) and The German Ideology in which he criticized Bruno Bauer and Max Stirner. In The Misery of Philosophy (1845), Marx also criticized Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, who had become famous with his cry "Property is theft!" In addition, he criticized Feuerbach's conception of human nature in his sixth thesis on Feuerbach as an abstract "type" who was embodied in every singular individual: "Feuerbach resolves the essence of religion in the essence of man. But the essence of man is not an abstraction inherent in every individual. Actually, it is the set of social relations." So, instead of finding oneself in the singular and concrete individual subject just like classical philosophy, including contractualism (Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau), but also political economy, Marx began with the totality of social relations: work, language, and all that constitutes our human existence. He claimed that individualism was an essence the result of fetishism or the alienation of commodities. In Capital, Marx criticizes Smith and Ricardo's labor theory of value.

Also various sociologists and philosophers, such as Raymond Aron and Michel Foucault, have traced in the Marxist vision of the end of feudalism as the beginning of absolutism and the separation of the State and civil society, the influence of Montesquieu and Tocqueville, in particular in their works on Bonapartism and the class struggle in France.

Materialist conception of dialectics

This section is an excerpt from Dialectical Materialism. [edit]

Dialectical materialism—an expression coined by Georgy Plekhanov—44 is the current of materialism according to the original approaches of Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx that were later enriched by Lenin and later systematized by members of the Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union mainly.45 This philosophical current defines matter as the substrate of all reality, whether concrete or abstract (thoughts),45 it emancipates the primacy and independence of matter from consciousness and the spiritual, declares the knowability of the world by virtue of its material nature, and applies dialectics—based on the dialectical laws proposed by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel—to interpret the world, thus overcoming mechanistic materialism. Dialectical materialism is one of the three components—the philosophical basis—of Marxist-Leninist communism.46 Called Diamat, dialectical materialism was also the official philosophy of the former Soviet Union.47

Dialectical materialism

Materialist conception of history

Main article: Historical materialism

Historical materialism (a term coined by the Russian Marxist Georgy Plekhanov), also known as the materialist conception of history, is a Marxist methodology that focuses on human societies and their development throughout history, arguing that history is the result of material rather than ideal conditions.

This work defends what we call "historical materialism" [...] that conception of the paths of universal history that sees the final cause and the decisive driving force of all the important historical events in the economic development of society, in the transformations of the mode of production and change, in the consequent division of society into different classes and in the struggles of these classes among themselves.

Frederick Engels (1880) From Utopian Socialism to Scientific Socialism, Prologue to the English Edition of 1892.48

Marx summarized the genesis of his materialist conception of history in Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (1859):

The first work undertaken to resolve the doubts that plagued me was a critical revision of the Hegelian philosophy of law, work whose introduction appeared in 1844 in the Franco-German Annals, which were published in Paris. My research led me to the conclusion that both legal relations and forms of state cannot be understood by themselves or by the so-called general evolution of the human spirit, but, on the contrary, lie in the material conditions of life whose whole Hegel summarizes following the precedent of the English and French of the eighteenth century, under the name of "civil society", and that the anatomy of civil society must be sought in political economy.

In Brussels, where I moved as a result of an order of banishment issued by Mr Guizot, I continued my studies in political economy starting in Paris. The general result to which I arrived and which once obtained served as a common thread to my studies can be summarized as follows: in the social production of their lives men establish certain necessary relations independent of their will, relations of production that correspond to a certain phase of development of their material productive forces. The set of these relations of production forms the economic structure of society, the real basis on which the legal and political superstructure is built and to which certain forms of social consciousness correspond. The mode of production of material life conditions the process of political and spiritual social life in general. It is not man's consciousness that determines his being but, on the contrary, the social being is what determines his consciousness.

Upon reaching a certain stage of development, the material productive forces of society come into contradiction with the existing relations of production or, what is nothing more than the juridical expression of this, with the relations of property within which they have developed up to there. Of forms of development of the productive forces, these relations become their obstacles, and thus an epoch of social revolution opens.

By changing the economic base, the entire immense superstructure erected on it is transformed – more or less quickly. When these transformations are studied, it is always necessary to distinguish between the material changes that have occurred in the economic conditions of production and that can be appreciated with the accuracy of the natural sciences, and the juridical, political, religious, artistic or philosophical forms, in a word the ideological forms in which men acquire awareness of this conflict and struggle to resolve it. And just as we cannot judge an individual by what he thinks of himself, we cannot judge these epochs of transformation by his consciousness either, but, on the contrary, this consciousness must be explained by the contradictions of material life, by the conflict between the social productive forces and the relations of production.

No social formation disappears before all the productive forces that fit within it develop, and new and higher relations of production never appear before the material conditions for their existence have matured within the old society itself. For this reason, humanity always proposes only the objectives that it can achieve, because, looking better, it will always find that these objectives only arise when the material conditions for their realization are already given or, at least, are being gestated. Broadly speaking, we can designate as many other epochs of progress in the economic formation of society the Asian, the ancient, the feudal and the modern bourgeois mode of production.

Bourgeois relations of production are the last antagonistic form of the social process of production; antagonistic, not in the sense of an individual antagonism, but of an antagonism that comes from the social living conditions of individuals. But the productive forces developing in bourgeois society provide, at the same time, the material conditions for the solution of this antagonism. With this social formation, therefore, the prehistory of human society is closed.49

K. Marx (1875) Prologue to the Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy

In Capital, Marx exposes his famous materialist conception of history according to this point of view it has been economic factors that have driven history and determine what they most call the cultural superstructure of religious, artistic, legal, philosophical, ethical and political ideas in any society. Historical materialism is an example of the scientific socialism of Marx and Engels, which attempts to show that socialism and communism are scientific necessities rather than philosophical ideals.5051 In conclusion, history is not the development of Hegel's "absolute" spirit, but the material product of real and concrete men pushed by their socio-economic conditions.

Analysis of social classes

First edition of the Manifesto of the Communist Party.

The concept of social class was not invented by Karl Marx, but by the founders of political economy (Adam Smith...), the founders of the tradition of French political history (Alexis de Tocqueville), and of the history of the French Revolution (Guizot, Mignet, Thierry). For English theorists, the criteria for the identity of a social class lie at the origin of income: the types of income, land rent, profits and wages. These three groups are the main ones for the nation: landowners, workers and entrepreneurs.

Among French thinkers, the term "class" is a political term. For example, for authors like Tocqueville, there are differences between classes when various social groups compete for control of society. Marx pointed out his contribution to the understanding of social classes:

Now, for me, it is not I who deserves credit for the discovery of the existence of classes in modern society, as well as the struggle that is dedicated to it. The bourgeois historians had put before me the historical development of this class struggle, and some bourgeois economists described the economic anatomy to me. What I am bringing is: the demonstration that the existence of social classes is only linked to the historical phases through the development of production, that the class struggle necessarily leads to the dictatorship of the proletariat and that this same dictatorship represents nothing but a transition towards the abolition of all classes and towards a classless society.

Letter from Marx to J. Weydemeyer. March 5, 1852.52

For Marx, social classes are part of social reality. The struggles of these social classes point to social change as a lasting phenomenon. These classes are the result of a mechanism of division of labor, which developed at the same time as the privatization of the means of production. Social classes arise when the differentiation of tasks and functions ceases to be a matter of chance to become an inheritance. There is a tendency towards polarization between the two most antagonistic classes to each other. This antagonism is the basis of any transformation that affects the functioning of social organization and that modifies the course of history. For Marx, the process of capitalist production creates two positions: that of the exploiters (entrepreneurs) and the exploited (workers). Individualistic and collective behaviors are explained through these positions in the reproduction of a system. Class conflict is a cultural trait of society. These conflicts are the engine of great social changes. Marx is interested in endogenous changes, that is, those that are born of the functioning of society. The position of the individual in the relations of production (worker or exploiter) is, according to him, the element that allows the definition of class.

Marxists consider that capitalist society is divided into social classes, of which they take into consideration mainly two:

The working class or proletariat: Marx defined this class as "individuals who sell their labor and do not possess the means of production,"53 whom he considered responsible for creating the wealth of a society (buildings, bridges, and furniture, for example, are physically built by members of this class; services are also provided by wage earners). Engels points out that the proletariat was born in the wake of the industrial revolution in the second half of the eighteenth century in England and was then repeated in all the civilized countries of the world.54

The bourgeoisie: those who "own the means of production" and employ the proletariat. They constitute the mercantile class par excellence: their wealth comes from the intellectual administration of business. They appropriate the economic surplus of the whole society by the mechanism of surplus value, capable of confiscating in a non-coercive way (mercantile, rational) the value of labor, pillar of all value and wealth.

There are other classes that integrate aspects of the two main ones, or that being associated with one, manifest new particular features of their own.

The lumpenproletariat: those who live in extreme poverty and cannot find work regularly. It ranges from the broad mass of unemployed homeless people with precarious jobs, to extremely marginal sectors such as prostitutes and soldiers of organized crime, etc.

The petty bourgeoisie: it is part of the working people, but to a lesser or greater extent its work creates capital and finds in it its support, although at levels of accumulation always much lower than that of the big bourgeoisie. This capital generates the most diverse social segments, depending on whether it is mainly intellectual (professionals), or mercantile (small merchants), or real estate (small and medium peasants, urban rentiers) or financial (small speculators) or directly industrial (small entrepreneurs).

Some authors highlight the distinction in Marx's work between class itself and class for itself. The first refers to the existence of a class as such55 and the second to the individuals who make up that class as aware of their position and historical situation. Analyzing the situation in Britain in the 1840s, Marx notes:

In principle, economic conditions had transformed the mass of the country into workers. The domination of capital has created in this mass a common situation, common interests. Thus, this mass is already a class in front of capital, but not yet for itself. In the struggle, of which we have pointed out some phases, this mass gathers, constituting itself as a class for itself. The interests they defend become class interests.

Marx, Karl; The Misery of Philosophy, p. 257. Ed. Júcar.

Marx believes that, in order for there to be no social class, there must be a class consciousness: the consciousness of having a common place in society. Marx pointed out that it is not enough for many men to be on the side of a single economic plan for the class spirit to be formed. Class consciousness denotes the consciousness, of itself and of the social world, which possesses a social class and its ability to act rationally in its best interest, therefore class consciousness is required before it can effect a successful revolution and therefore the dictatorship of the proletariat.

According to Marxist analysis, the ruling social class organizes society by protecting its best privileges. To this end, the State is established, a political instrument of domination: "police and army responsible for maintaining security and public order, the "bourgeois" order. Marx also speaks of "the dominant ideology." In any society, there are ideas, beliefs and values that dominate social and cultural life. These dominant ideas are produced by the ruling class, that is, the bourgeoisie. Therefore, these ideas express the opinion of these classes, that is, they justify it and strive to perpetuate themselves. These ideas penetrate the mind, and often function as a worldview against your real interests.

Class struggle and modes of production

Main articles: Class struggle and Mode of production

Engels shared the basic assumptions with Marx that the history of mankind is a "history of class struggles" and that its course is largely determined by economic conditions.56 Engels says this formula is limited to written history.57 However Marx did not "invent" the concept of class struggle. In reality, the class struggle has been theorized long before him, by historians of the restoration, such as François Guizot and Augustin Thierry. Marx's fundamental contribution to this concept is to have shown that the class struggle is not extinguished in the French Revolution, but is prolonged in bourgeoisie/workers opposition in the capitalist era.

In Anti-Dühring and in his later writings, Engels further elaborated the philosophy concepts of history. Engels' view of history is characterized by fundamental optimism. Like Hegel, he does not understand human history as an "intricate confusion of senseless violence," but as a process of development, whose internal law can be perceived through all apparent coincidences.58

Thus, Marx borrows from classical economists the implicit idea of classes as a factor of production, class history, and conflict as the producer of history. To all these theories, Marx brings the concept of the state of social class as its intrinsic struggle: without struggle there are no classes. Social classes are achieved with historically determined perpetual struggles. Each stage of society that has occurred throughout history can be characterized through a different mode of production.

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