The Arcades Project - Operi

tive . . , content hy the historical and social science of economics . ... In this sense,
Marx materiali.st social science is not sociology but economics. H Korsth, Karl
Marx, vol. 3, p. 103.54
[N16a,2]
A citation from Marx on the mutahility of nature (in Korsch, Karl Marx, vol. 3,
p. 9): "Even the naturally grown variations of the human species, such as differ­
ences of race, . .. can and must be abolished in the historical process. "55
[N16a,3]
Doctrine of the superstructure, according to Korsch: Neither 'dialectical causality'
in its philosophic definition, nor scientific 'causality' supplemented by interactions,'
is sufflcient to determine the particular kinds of connections and
relations existing hetween the economic 'base' and the juridical and political 'superstructure
. .. " together with the 'corresponding' forms of consciousness . ...
Twentieth-century natural science has learned that the 'eausal' relations which
the researcher in a given field has to estahlish for that field cannot he defined in
terms of a general concept or law of causality, but must he determined specifically
for each separate field. * [*See Philipp Frank, Das Kmtsalgesetz und seine Grenzen
(Vienna, 1932).] ... The greater part of
the results . . . obtained by Marx and Engels consist not in theoretical formulations
of the new principle hut in its specific applieation to a series of , . , questions,
which are either of fundamental practical importance or of an extremely suhtle
nature theoretically. , . . * [*Here, for example, belong the questions raised by
Marx at the end of the 1857 Introduction' (pp, 779ff.), and
which concern the "unequal development' of different spheres of social life: un­
equal development of material production vis-a.-vis artistic production (and of the
various arts among themselves), the level of edutation in the United States as
compared to that of Europe, unequal development of the relations of production
as legal relations, and so forth.] The more pl'ecise scientific determination of the
present contexts is still a task for the future . .. , a task whose center will lie, once
again, not in theoretical formulation but in the fUi·ther application and testing of
the principles implicit in Marx's work. Nor should we adhere too strictly to the
words of Marx, who often used his terms only figuratively-as, for instance, in
describing the connections under eonsideration here as a relation between base'
and 'superstructure,' as a 'correspondence,' and so on. , .. In all these cases, the
Marxian concepts (as Sorel and Lenin, among the later Marxists, understood best)
are not intended as new dogmatic fetters, as preestablished conditions which must
be met in some particular order by any 'materialist' investigation, They are,
rather, a wholly undogmatic guide to research and action." Korseh, Karl Marx
(manuscript), vol. 3, pp. 93-96." [N17]
Materialist eonception of history and materialist philosophy: 'The formulas of
materialist history that were applied by Marx and Engels . . . solely to the . . .
investigation of' bourgeois society, and transferred to other historical periods only
with suitable elaboration, have been detached by the Marxist epigones from this
specific application, and in general from every historical connection; and out of