In this lecture course Reiner Schürmann reads Marx's work as a transcendental materialism.
Arguing that what is most original in Marx is neither his political or sociological nor his
economic thinking but his philosophical axis Schürmann shows that Marx conceives being as
polyvalent praxis. With patient rigor Schürmann delineates this notion of praxis from the
interpretations proposed by Louis Althusser and the Frankfurt School as he traces Marx's move
beyond the dualism that has governed ontology since Descartes. Stepping out of this dualism
however Marx does not espouse a monism either-be it an immobile one as Parmenides' or a
dynamic one as Hegel's. On the problem of universals Marx's transcendental materialism is
nominalistic: being as action is irreducibly manifold. Extending his highly original engagement
with the history of philosophy Schürmann in the course of these lectures draws out the
philosophical axis in Marx's work which determines and localizes his theories of history of
social relations and of economy. On this view Marx's unique place in philosophy stems from the
fact that the grounding of phenomena is seen by him not as a relation that produces cognition
as in Kant nor as a relation of material sensitivity as in Feuerbach but the grounding
occurs in labor in praxis in the satisfaction of needs. Whereas the Marxist readings of Marx
conceive history classes and social relations as primary realities Schürmann brings out a
radically immanent understanding of praxis in Marx that introduces multiplicity into being.
Following Schürmann's own suggestion this edition is complemented by a reprinting of his
Anti-Humanism essay in which he reads Marx alongside Nietzsche and Heidegger as spelling out
the dissociation of being and action. This rupture puts an end to the epochal economy of
presence and returns principles to their own precariousness. As a whole this volume brings out
one of the less appreciated facets of Schürmann's work and offers an interpretation of Marx
that resonates with the readings of Jacques Derrida Michel Henry Antonio Negri and François
Laruelle.
