by Ana Bazac
The epistemological theory of incommensurability states that two scientific theories based on different presumptions (about the same object, of course), thus different models of solving the problems questioned and answered by these theories, are incommensurable: namely, they cannot be mutually criticised/they cannot criticise each other. So, they are parallel.
It’s true that Thomas Kuhn who presented this theory, had in view the evolution of science, its change with and on the basis of new, better general theories as worldviews explaining the objects pursued by a science (paradigms with their metaphors and concepts, resulted from or even consisting in exemplar cases showing the necessity and possibility of new paradigms which successfully may be applied to different cases related to the object). These general theories/paradigms are scientific images about the set of objects from a discipline. In the evolution of a science, a new paradigm supporting a set of theories about problems of the studied object is more efficient – and thus this set of theories gives a more veridical picture about the object – than the former paradigms with its theories.
Using Popper’s concept of falsifiability, the old paradigm/theories are easier falsified than the new ones which, at least until the evidence of anomalous cases which cannot be solved with these new theories, cannot be denied by any fact. Therefore, at least the former paradigm cannot criticise the new one. But can the new paradigm criticise the former? Don’t forget, the scientific criticism is always from the standpoint of the coherent solving of the problems of the object. The scientific theories are “technicalities”, they solve specific, circumscribed problems: but they do this in the framework of paradigms. The new scientific theories “belonging” to the new paradigm criticise the old theories simply through their existence, and can criticise the anterior theories, but à quoi bon? At least for a while. So, all of these paradigms and theories are moments in the history of that science. Anyway, and even though neither science as discovery/production nor the paradigms are neutral, contemplative endeavours of abstract subjects, this historical perspective offers a more reassuring tableau for the philosophers of science.
However, besides this historical, vertical view about science, there is also the situation of competing alternative theories (paradigms) in a time interval. Presumably, in this horizontal view, all the former and present theories (paradigms) can be and are criticised. And it’s possible that the former theories are more efficient, but they are no “in fashion”. Yes, we can localise the horizontal landscape of alternative paradigms and, thus, theories as “normal” crisis moments eventually anterior to the total victory of one paradigm over the others, within the historical evolution of scientific knowledge as such, but nevertheless in a given interval the relationships between the alternative theories (paradigms) are difficultly endured. That is to say, in a time interval their influence on the reasonable understanding of people is not always beneficial.
***
Let’s work a little on a couple of concepts foremost in all disciplines of humanities: culture and civilisation.
The traditional and “official” paradigm is that culture implies the spiritual part of human creation (philosophy, art, science, religion), while civilisation refers to the material and practical part (tools, machines, work technologies, organisation of social relations, space planning, goods). Thus, culture and civilisation are separated and, more, in a hierarchy that subordinates the vulgar everyday preoccupations to the celestial disinterested spiritual creation.
Actually, the human creation is induced by every problem, taking place mainly either on the theoretical or on practical level: thus, it is manifesting everywhere, with the same force. Thinking is anterior to doing, but as all the anthropological, paleontological, archaeological research proved, thinking and doing developed together. They are inseparable and mutually precede each other.
Both culture and civilisation imply theory and action/praxis, culture and civilisation overlap/are identical, and if we nevertheless want a delimitation between them, culture signifies the moment of invention while civilisation is the moment of distributed, disseminated culture. Civilisation is the everyday manifestation of the civilised humans, that is, of the humans who have developed their human culture.
The couple of concepts culture-civilisation is not part of an endless chatting about concepts for artistic minds far away from the real life. Just on the contrary: these concepts lie in the core of (not only) present practical, geopolitical debates.
***
The dominant paradigm is: a single civilisation, and many cultures. What does this mean? That the development of science and technology – thus, of the practical manifestation of the scientific and technological creation – would lead to a generalisation of always the newest level of material civilisation worldwide. People may not have modern sanitation, but all of them have mobile phones. Well, if the newest level of material civilisation is at the same time the highest, this aspect is neglected by the dominant worldview: because, unlike culture, civilisation is unitary, and it’s embarrassing to confront and explain the lack of modern sanitation and potable water and the excess of general junk food, while at the same time using the mobile phones.
But, according to the dominant paradigm, culture – thus, the many and different cultures – would be blameworthy for the slowness and delay of introducing, taking over and assuming the single modern civilisation. “Some ones are incompatible with the order, rigorous discipline of work, formal rules and institutions of personal freedom, specific to the modern civilisation”. Consequently, what to do? On the one hand, to accept this inevitable handicap generated by the values embedded and promoted by the backward cultures, while on the other hand, to accelerate the destruction of this out-of-date cultural brake: the means are not disputable since the end is so bright, isn’t it?
And the dominant paradigm doesn’t consider an abstract civilisation of, say, Daniel Defoe’s Laputa, but absolutely explicitly the Western/core capitalist countries as the model of civilisation as such and the single one. Therefore, the human history is the inevitable imposition of the Western civilisation worldwide, the reduction of the incompatible cultural values of non-Western more or less “exotic” societies.
What is incredible if not wholly ridiculous is the ignorance and unconscious assumption of the antinomic feature of this dominant paradigm of civilisation: “rationality” (of work, efficiency and results) would be the peculiarity of the Western model of civilisation, and thus, even if the means to impose this rationality are not all of them very pleasant, they are “rational” anyhow. The ideologist servants supporting the dominant paradigm act in a manner with two versants.
One is the negative, the fear from and the rejection of the social, of the structural relations of societies, of the domination-submission relationship and its coexistence with horizontal mutual aid and collaboration, of colonialism, of Centre-Periphery international relations; and here, the social with its aspects is part of civilisation: which is once more reduced to material acquisitions of science and technology, in a simplistic technophile point of view that, in its deep down, wonders why do people with mobile phones oppose the capitalist order of society.
The other is the positive, the euphemistic call of the value of capitalist individualism, unlimited egotism despising both humanity and nature: “autonomy”, “personal/individual initiative”, “freedom”. For these ideologists, the values would float in the human mentalities absolutely detached from the structural social relations and the concrete historical context marked by colonialism and Centre-Periphery international relations. And they are culture, giving the colour that would cause the destiny of a society. And thus, since different values and different cultures determine different destinies concerning the arrival at the top of societies, at a high civilisation, these values and these cultures have different positions in a hierarchy of values and a hierarchy of cultures: there are inferior values as equality, solidarity, mutual aid, freedom of all, and superior values as freedom to dominate, discrimination, egotism, while the cultures where these values are nurtured are “minor” and “major”.
Kant is biggest than the disparately articulated worldview of pacha mamma. And obviously, the entire world, thus Latin America, too, must know what a professional philosopher of the Germany of the Enlightenment did bring to the world civilisation[1]. But just from the standpoint of a relationship between culture and civilisation, there is no hierarchy of cultures (and lesser of values) because the worldview of pacha mamma brought about to the Andean civilisation anterior the colonisation of Latin America just as much – but, obviously, it’s not about a quantitative measurement – as Kant did for the Enlightenment Germany and post-Enlightenment Europe. The fact that his work was not fully received and well understood, and thus the fact that the culture as such has a complicated, mediated, discontinuous influence on the real civilisation, is similar to the influence of the pacha mamma worldview in Latin America. Accordingly, and letting aside any Eurocentric assumption, we learn only what exists – here, the European and American philosophy, and not the pacha mamma worldview, the Latin American researchers still having a big duty to present its forms and ways – and we evaluate the contributions of these “existentials” (Heidegger). But this in no way means that we imagine a hierarchy of cultures.
Here the incommensurability theory seems to work: Kant and the pacha mamma worldview are exterior to each other. But: they both are parts of the unique human culture and civilisation.
The old and the most important epistemological description of the human knowledge – in other words, of its results, culture and civilisation – is that they are subject-object relationships. The object is what is cut out from the world, because it is interesting for the subject, in a moment in the flux of knowing. We study Kant, as well as the pacha mamma worldview: so, they are objects. Absolutely different – and based on different paradigms – thus, incommensurable. But since they both are parts of the human culture and civilisation, we can both search for and understand each of their peculiar conditioning, and each of their unique contribution to the unique human culture and civilisation. As Gödel has demonstrated, the ultimate explanation of an object is outside it. Neither Kant nor the pacha mamma worldview can be exclusively understood in an isolated manner, by themselves. Their comprising structures – the world culture, the world civilisation – are new and superior factors explaining them.
***
The above dominant paradigm of the model of civilisation and the determinant role of culture over civilisation is promoted not only by those who see the Western values, culture and civilisation as the single models for humankind, but – and not too paradoxically – also by some representatives of the non-Western cultures. Epistemologically, it is about the theory of multipolarity in culture and civilisation, the multiplication of cultural-civilisational models alternatives to the Western one, their communication – obviously – and/but at the same time their parallel existence occupying specific geographic topoi and having specific spheres of influence. The peculiarity of the alternative civilisation models is given by culture. The different culture-civilisation models are incommensurable, because absolutely opposed.
But there are two types of perspectives on multipolarity.
One is that which sees culture as a hierarchy having on the top religion, that subordinates the moral values. This model, related to the civilisation model based on an accelerated development of science and technology, is doubly contradictory: firstly, while religion is not rationally substantiated, science and technology are; secondly, the moral values are rationally substantiated, while religion is based on unquestionable authority, and is fragmented and closed within different frames given by different historical authorities. Accordingly, this model of multipolar civilisation has not a consistent set of values triggering consistent actions for the development of an alternative to the model of Western civilisation predominance. But it reduces the possibility of intercultural communication: because the religious frames are opaque to rational deconstruction. This last aspect of our epistemological analysis was forecasted by Huntington, even if he reduced the rational deconstruction to the liberal secularism and considered the liberal democracy as the peak of civilisation, in inevitable clash with the world[2].
The other perspective envisages the alternative culture having in its top the moral and social values as they are preserved in a millenary cultural tradition that, even though it is always related to a concrete community/nation, in fact condenses the universal moral values generated by the historically proven indispensability of altruism, mutual aid and the collective wellbeing as the ultimate individual motivation. In fact, and since the ultimate explanation of the individual is outside him/her, just because of the social feature of the human being, the reason-to-be of the individual cannot restrict to the individual conatus.
Thus, if the first perspective on multipolarity cannot be a universal attraction because of the reduction of universal moral values to religious particularism, and the particularisms compete and are more or less exclusive one to the other, the second one can be.
***
The religious form is only a manner of signalling either universal values of justice, respect to the human life and wellbeing, or it can be a more or less covered particularism and exceptionalism. In every religion both universalistic and particularistic values loom, because religion resulted in the frame of asymmetrical relations both between the humans and nature and between humans. However, religion is not only a result focusing on the spiritual relation of man and God, but a social institution framed within and confronting the domination-submission structure of social relations. It is not only culture/a bulk of ideas, but an aspect of civilisation. And obviously, it is a historical social institution. Consequently, in a certain while religion may promote mainly universalism, even though in an implied manner, or mainly particularism, stifling the other aspect.
And from this standpoint, we have to acknowledge that nowadays a religion that advances particularism and exceptionalism as justification of injustice and domination is not the same as the religion that legitimises the abolition of injustice, neo-colonialism and imperialism. The Latin American Theology of Liberation is not tantamount to a theology that justifies arbitrariness and genocide, infringement of moral, of human solidarity. To consider that fighting against injustice, one becomes a martyr entering in the realm of blessed and received spirits by Allah – thus dying in His name, as surpassing the deep sorrow for the end of one’s concrete and unique and unrepeatable life – is not bigotry, but an ultimate force fuelling the life.
On the contrary, to assume that the dogma constituted from real and imagined historic events would legitimise the despise of all the other humans who do not share the particularism of that “incontrovertible truth”, thus the infringement of the human distinction between good and evil, is religious extremism. And the philosophers who discuss only the “high religious principles” and concepts in their strict narrow inferences refuse to see their concrete moral basis and the moral difference between the religious extremism that legitimises moral depravity and the power of the rules with all costs, and on the other hand, the religion that subverts this power.
***
Once again, culture = civilisation, and civilisation = culture. What does this mean, letting aside that archaeology speaks about, say, strata of Neolithic culture, while proving them with peculiarities and change in tools, technology, absolutely material aspects in the everyday civilisation? It means that the spiritual creations have civilisational function, and are so, indeed. But it depends what kind of civilisation do these creations fuel. It also means that civilisation is, of course, the basis of any culture, but first and foremost, it emphasises the differences between its spiritual and its material parts, namely, their contradictions.
Why? Because – and this takes part from civilisation – of the “relations of production appropriate to a given stage in the development of their material forces of production”[3], so of the class division and structure determined, ultimately, by the historical form of domination-submission class relations. The spiritual part of the human creation reflects all of these complicated social relations and positions, thus interests. But it reflects them in a complicated, multi- and overlapping mediation by the human thinking as such, by the already existing social ideas and values and their differences and oppositions, by the social institutions and commands: in a permanent play of individual conatus, appurtenance to different communities and to the human species, of short-term and long-term evaluation, of moving priorities, of knowledge and ignorance.
What does Marx’s so quoted and so misunderstood expression of the dialectical materialism theory mean? “It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but, on the contrary, their social being that determines their consciousness”[4]. “Es ist nicht das Bewusstsein der Menschen, das ihr Sein, sondern umgekehrt ihr gesellschaftliches Sein, das ihr Bewusstsein bestimmt”. Here, Sein is not the Greek and Heideggerian Being as beingness, mystery of existence as such, of its what exists? beyond the concrete existence and of what does this existence beyond any concrete existence mean, but on the contrary, just the concrete existence of Dasein: an old concept in German philosophy, anterior to Heidegger, but used by Heidegger just in the unique significance of human being, sharing and promoting the problem of beingness. Accordingly, Sein/being meant in Marx, concrete existence. Marx was a coryphaeus of the following existentialism promoted by both Sartre and Heidegger, with all their differences.
And, of course, this concrete existence is marked by ideas which are profoundly internalised and which fuel, trigger the humans’ thinking and actions. There is no exclusivist view in Marx, he was the heir of Kant’s proof of the epistemic precedence of the mental production: the huge importance of ideas was n times theorised as ideology that determines the persistence and change of social relations, and that is created by humans in their multiple historical positions in order to enjoy life: this is literature, philosophy, science.
But the above expression condenses something very simple and understandable: that civilisation, and thus culture, are not the result of some “transcendent” principles, but of the whole existence of society, the whole civilisation. This “whole existence” means just what it says. And yes, the economic relations have a much more explicative power of civilisation, and thus of culture, than the laws, the religious dogma and the philosophical theories: because these last ideal constructs are not final moments of the inference (“why”, and “why”, and “why”) related to the real existence of humans, to the fulfilment of existential needs for their conatus, and require their explanation “descending” to the productive actions for the human existence[5].
Once more, the whole existence is the result of the entire process and result of thought. Thus, the whole existence is comprised within the world of concepts, ideas, theories: which are abstract[6], they grasp the essence of the world (and of the historical human thinking about it) as if they were “transcendental”, namely with the entire ability to discover the world from the inferences of “pure concepts”[7]. But the huge difference between Marx’s concepts and theories and those of all the thinkers who are servants of the power of domination is that for the latter, the concepts and “principles” are given: they are the origin that legitimises the end of their capacity of reasoning and the inevitability of things. For these servants, the given is not questioned and questionable, and thus any attempt against this inviolability of the given is the proof of subversion and thus, considered malignant, false, “misinformation”, and a sufficient reason for “repressive tolerance”[8]. The concept is closed, indeed the human history arrived at its end (as in Fukuyama). While in Marx, there is no unquestionable concept/theory, the real social process is not pre-destined by the given inexorable concepts and theories, both history and the human thinking are open.
What a huge epistemological difference between the theories based on the given “principle of race difference”, or the given “hierarchy of cultures”, or the given “progress of science and technology as the explaining factor of the world”, or the “unaccountability of the powerful”, and on the other hand the deconstruction pattern of all these “given”[9].
The given itself must be analysed, “measured”: according to the totality of the object, it “substantiates”. The discussion about cultures cannot stop at cultural details/technicalities, as the theories about civilisations cannot ignore/exclude the cultural imbrication in the material fabric. Therefore, the incommensurability theory is not a neutral technical standpoint fit for innocent concepts which, obviously, have their own life/relative autonomy, but an epistemological criterion that, as every other one – and as every theory – must, and can be, falsified. By the real social life transposed into alternative points of view/theories.
Today we are the perplex witnesses that as the material civilisation is uneven in society, so the richness of the human culture is distributed in a very inequal way. But this is not an inevitable given. Neither the dominant policy that accelerates the fragmentation and isolation of the available information, and thus of the world population. Yes, having this type of informational environment, people become used to not depart from the dominant Single Truth, to not know how to have a different point of view. The Enlightenment type intellectuals knew that the single way to overturn this decay of the human rationality is the spreading of culture, and civilisation[10]. It’s the time to assume this function.
***
The history of the dominant values in modernity and late modernity/ “post-modernity” shows the transition from Enlightenment type to relativistic and neo-liberal type of thinking. The last type is confronted with its consequences on both civilisations and cultures.
In the world of theories, a certain ordering of the general representation about the present human society is made with the concepts of culture and civilisation. It comprises the understanding of civilisation as level of material culture – it reflecting the present science-technology revolution – and, since science and technology disseminate inexorably, unifying the appearance of all the human societies, and this level is high, the future of the humans would be bright. But, because the present is full of conflicts – despite the unifying technological civilisation – there is another factor guilty of dissimilarities and animosities: the culture that would be specific to almost every society. Therefore, the state of the world is characterised by the coexistence of these two tendencies, represented by the two concepts: the tendency of unification, uniformity and, inherently, peace, and the tendency of separation, differentiation and wars.
This theory is the exponent of the traditional liberal trust in science and technology, or in other words, it continues the tradition of Enlightenment (trust in science, education, benign character of technology). Some ones hope that the spreading of science and technology will counteract the divisive influence of different cultures. Other ones – also nowadays, continuing Huntington – consider that no technological sophistry implemented worldwide could oppose the original and deeper differentiation of human societies, inexorably generating devastating wars.
It is not the place to discuss the historical and cultural origins of the definitions of culture and civilisation. Almost unanimously, the difference between the two concepts was seen in the shadow of the historical division of labour – the material one and the spiritual one – and represented: culture – the spiritual works, belonging rather to the superstructure of society – while civilisation, the material parts rather surrounding the structure. The division of labour has sealed the Zeitgeist with the strong tradition of opposition between culture and civilisation.
However, the culture-civilisation separation has also an ontological ground: the priority of spiritual vectors of innovation: articulated language, writing, (virtual) signs and symbols, all sending to the world of meanings.
Since between the material and spiritual aspects there is continuity and interdependence, and since everything is erected from the ideas, these ones being constructed in the human mind, it results that although the concepts overlap, for all that they may be differentiated. In my proposition: culture is the innovative moment of the human creation as answer to the natural and social environment, while the spreading of culture – therefore, an advanced phase of culture – is civilisation. Thus, culture is also material, while civilisation involves al the spiritual aspects of the humans.
Some ideas are ideological – reflecting social positions – but according to the school of liberal optimism (manifested in the theory of one single civilisation) the material aspects, science and technology would be freed from ideologies.
The optimistic theory of one single civilisation may declare that the many cultures must be respected, but what is somehow more important is that, from the advent of modernity onwards, a civilisational integration takes place on world scale, meaning always the newest scientific and technological acquisitions and, accordingly, the highest values.
That which the real world has denied and other theories have formulated was, however, that not only the many cultures, but also the unifying civilisation is paradoxical: it has contradictions and is full of contradictory values.
***
Therefore, can we justify the liberal optimism of the integrative tendency of the world through the single modern – and post-modern – civilisation?
First of all, although there is a complex of causes explaining the historical predominance of the Western civilisation, the structural power relations (domination-submission, including at world level, as Centre-periphery relations) are those which have controlled the diffusion of this civilisation. The power relations have selected the scientific data/tools free to be spread outside a country and outside the Western world. The power relations have shaped the ways of implementing the selected technologies, so the kind of implemented technologies, the rhythm of implementation and the rhythm of prevalence of the implemented technologies.
Concretely, it is about the capitalist market relations which, on the one hand, consider science and technology as instruments of power (for this reason the capitalist selection of science and technology is a means of world competition and subordinated to the laws of competition), and on the other hand, consider them as goods, necessary to be spread both in order to maximise the private profit and to disseminate the values and meanings of approval of and contentment within the system.
The dominant civilisation, contradictory, is based on science and technology which make possible the substitution of the old scarcity as ontological factor with abundance, and the extensive production with an intensive one, meaning not only the use of tailings and the economical use of every part of the productive process, but also the ecological management of nature. The present scientific and technological knowledge denies the traditional capitalist externalisation of losses in the greater social and natural system. The present knowledge has irrefutable arguments against the ceaseless use of raw materials and energy for the present expanded, useless and wasteful needs caused by the capitalist market logic (and no technological improvement does annul the Jevons paradox, because this improvement only pushes for more extensive use[11]). Accordingly, the general ecological crisis of the world is so deep that the scientists warn against the continuation of the present type of “civilization”[12].
And nevertheless, it is just this type of civilisation that spreads. Because the economic logic of the world is capitalist, no “revolution in a single country” (for taking over Trosky’s formula “socialism in a single country”) is able to counter it all the way: at internal level, one may introduce social policies for the most deprived, but the extensive extractive policies and the agriculture subordinated to the modes of agribusiness give a contradictory character to the civilisation erected in this type of countries.
***
From a philosophical standpoint, it is worth to note that, because of ideological private interests, the dominant theories have depicted the process of implementing technologies as neutral and independent from values. But, while the scientific formulas and technological schemes are neutral from values, representing only the level of knowledge and epistemological problems, their implementation as such is a social process, depending on the power relations, therefore, on the dominant values. And these values are ideological, framing, selecting and supporting those technologies which match with the dominant interests within the power relations.
Consequently, to speak only about science and technology as neutral processes giving the neutral, “technical” characteristic of civilisations is already unsustainable: although civilisations – as every human/social phenomenon – are dialectical (or paradoxical, as I said), so involving both positive and negative, neutral/technical and ideological aspects, they are characterised by a certain prevalence of different values; for example, a main value – resulting from the value of “my right”/”my interests as the only legitimate” – selecting and shaping the necessaries technologies form an ideological viewpoint was war; war – that is a project – was sung by the PR intellectuals, becoming “culture”; but war was, first, civilisation, transforming the whole material life according to it.
Is civilisation an-ideological only because the dominant theory has induced the idea that the technological progress brings automatically welfare? Or because the “civilised/ “decent” peoples were educated that everything is right for them, that the fruits of the world are accounted for regardless of the costs paid by other peoples, by the Earth and by the next generations? Or: because the private profit and growth are considered as identical with progress, development, enrichment, prosperity for all? If the technological civilisation does not prove much responsibility, would the technological civilisation be guilty or the culture of domination (considered as natural and eternal, including of the Earth)?
From a methodological standpoint, a metaphysical position reduces everything to one single cause. To reduce civilisation to the technological level (certainly based on the science/knowledge level) – that, we saw, is implemented selectively and not at all according to the neutral logic of epistemology – means to once more erase from the concerns of theories/intellectuals the concrete life of humans; because, since culture is “the spiritual”, and since the technological progress is framed by ideological values, other concepts (reflecting human needs) must be advanced as features of civilisation. The human habitat and the natural one, though coexisting with the present technology, are – many of them – harmful, even malign. And civilisation means – from its ancient original sense – security of life, threatened by both exceptional situations (as wars) and “normal” situations. Finally, civilisation means economic and political relations, as well as institutions, reflecting nowadays the chaotic aspect of a fin de cycle (in an ancient wording)/of a system crisis which no cultural detours may hermeneutically paint in at least a neutral “technological” colour.
# Notes
[1] Ana Bazac, “Kant’s relevance for revolutionary politics”, Revolutionary Marxism, 2025, Special annual English edition, Türkiye, pp. 103-131, https://www.devrimcimarksizm.net/sites/default/files/revolutionary_marxism_2025.pdf.
[2] Samuel p. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, New York, NY: Simon and Schuster, 1996, p. 142: “as the Russians stopped behaving like Marxists and began behaving like Russians, the gap between Russia and the vest broadened. The conflict between liberal democracy and Marxist Leninism was between ideologies which, despite their major differences, were both modern and secular and ostensibly shared ultimate goals of freedom, equality, and material well-being. A Western democrat could carry on an intellectual debate with a Soviet Marxist. It would be impossible for him to do that with a Russian Orthodox nationalist”.
[3] “In the social production of their life, men enter into definite relations that are indispensable and
independent of their will, relations of production which correspond to a definite stage of development of their material productive forces. The sum total of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation, on which rises a legal and political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness. The mode of production of material life conditions the social- political and
intellectual life process in general”. Karl Marx, “Preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy” (1859), pp. 502-506 of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Selected Works in three volumes, Volume One, Moscow, Progress Publishers, 1973, p. 503; see also, https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1859/critique-pol-economy/preface.htm.
[4] Ibidem. But see also Martin Nicolaus, “The Unknown Marx”, New Left Review, No.48 Mar/Apr 1968, pp. 41-61.
[5] Karl Marx, “Preface…”, ibidem: “neither legal relations nor political forms could be comprehended whether by themselves or on the basis of a so-called general development of the human mind, but that on the contrary they originate in the material conditions of life, the totality of which Hegel, following the example of English and French thinkers of the eighteenth century, embraces within the term “civil society”; … the anatomy of this civil society, however, has to be sought in political economy.”
[6] This abstractness of concepts is not tantamount to the abstract/ideal feature of the world. The abstract character of concepts means that they arrive to perceive the totality of the concrete (remember Hegel: “the true is the whole”), on the basis of the conscious consideration of the many faces of the concrete. In order to be known, the world ought to not be “dissolved into its sensual manifoldness”, but to be described at a more and more universal and necessary level on the basis of clear inferences about the concrete.
What does this mean? That the abstractness is not a neutral, aseptic, epistemic endeavour of the human mind generating “transhistorical” concepts “underlying concrete social appearance”, but a concrete social process taking place in the social process of labor for the human existence. “Hegel metaphysicized the concept of labor as the labour of the Concept alone: its labor, that of the Weltgeist, gives rise to history”. Marx showed “that the moment of the Concept in Hegel is due to the progress of humanity as a result of labor. The history-making activity of people makes history”.
See G.W.F. Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit (1807), Translated by A. V. Miller with Analysis of the Text and Foreword by J. N. Findlay, Oxford University Press, 1977, Preface, 20., p. 11.
Moishe Postone and Helmut Reinicke, “On Nicolaus’ ‘Introduction’ to the Grundrisse”, Telos, 22, (Winter 1974-5), pp. 130-148 (132,133).
[7] This analogy with Kant is not fortuitous: because, as Kant’s pure /transcendental concepts inferred from other transcendental concepts, Marx’s pure concepts were abstractions resulted after a previous inference line leading to abstract concepts which, however, depicted only an inferior concrete level of reality. “All economists share the error of examining surplus value not as such, in its pure form, but in the particular forms of profit and rent. What theoretical errors must necessarily arise from this will be shown more fully in Chapter III 4 , in the analysis of the greatly changed form which surplus value assumes as profit”, Marx quoted in Enrique Dussel, Towards and Unknown Marx. A commentary on the Manuscripts of 1861-1863 (1988), Translated by Yolanda Angulo, Edited, with an Introduction, by Fred Moseley, London and New York, Routledge, 2001, p. 43.
[8] Martin Nicolaus, “Remarks at ASA Convention”, The American Sociologist, Vol. 4, No 2, May 1969, pp. 154-156: “Imperial wars such as the one against Vietnam are usually two-fronts wars, one against the foreign subject population, one against the domestic subject population…Experience in the Vietnam teach-in’s has shown that dialogue between the subject population and its rulers is an exercise in repressive tolerance”. (I underlined, AB).
[9] “Open Letter of Scholars in Support of UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese”, Völkerrechtsblog, 26.02.2026, doi: 10.17176/20260226-144925-0; Ana Bazac, “The Problem of the Coexistence of the Concept of Human Nature and Racism”, Dialogue & Universalism, 1/2021, pp. 139-156.
[10] K. Tymiriazeff, “Karl Marx and Charles Darwin”. In Karl Marx, Man, Thinker, and Revolutionist (1919), A Symposium edited by D. Ryazanoff, London, Martin Lawrence Limited, 1927, p. 174 (when the second edition of the first volume of Capital was published in 1873, Marx sent a copy to Darwin; this one acknowledged the receipt of the book in the following letter:
October 1st, 1873. Dear Sir, I thank you for the honour which you have done me by sending me your great work on Capital; and I heartily wish that I were more worthy to receive it, by understanding more of the deep and important subject of political economy. Though our studies have been so different, I believe that we both earnestly desire the extension of knowledge; and this, in the long run, is sure to add to the happiness of mankind.
I remain, dear Sir, Yours faithfully, Charles Darwin).
[11] Polimeni, John M. Kozo Mayumi, Mario Gianpietro and Blake Alcott, The Jevons Paradox and the Myth of Resource Efficiency Improvements, London, Sterling, Va., Earthcan, 2008.
[12] US Global Change Research Program. Climate Science Special Report, Fourth National Climate Assessment, Volume I, 2017.