We are very excited to announce the release of the Italian edition of History of Philosophy, a Marxist Perspective, by our editor-in-chief, Alan Woods. We congratulate our Italian comrades on producing this translation, which has made this important text accessible to an entirely new audience.
Buy your copy of the new Italian translation of History of Philosophy here!
Buy your copy of the original English-language version here!
There is no better time for the publication of this work. Global capitalism has entered an era of instability without precedent. Some might ask: what is the connection between the current situation, and a book on philosophy? In fact, this connection both exists and runs deep.
Balances that have been maintained for a long time are now shaken. Living forces (in the economy, in international relations, in the class struggle, in the relationship between man and nature) are colliding, and are apparently out of control. Faced with this scenario, it is easy to become disoriented if one is not able to understand the connection between these apparently chaotic events; and rationally understand that, beneath this chaos, there is a bigger process underway.
We need to equip ourselves with a way of thinking, a philosophy in fact, that is able to deeply understand reality and its movement, to be able to predict the evolution of the world situation and therefore to be able to act consciously on it.
Such a philosophy was made available to us by the brilliant work of Marx and Engels. Mastering Marxism and applying it in the study of reality and human activity is not only an enlightening experience for anyone, but an obligation for those who want to try their hand at transforming this reality by engaging in revolutionary struggle.
Marxism, however, did not come out of Marx's head fully formed. It is the result of a long development of human thought, in which different visions of the world have confronted and clashed, starting from the fundamental opposition between materialism and idealism that runs through the entire history of philosophy.
Alan Woods's work traces this long and fascinating development, from the first Ionian materialists to classical Greek philosophy, through the dark years of the Middle Ages and the obscurantism of the Church, from Arab philosophy to the Renaissance and the great modern philosophers, up to the Hegelian dialectic that Marx would take up again, putting it on materialist bases, giving rise to dialectical materialism. This is a true journey of discovery that brings us face to face with giants of thought.
In this journey, applying the Marxist method, Alan Woods does not limit himself to enunciating the fundamental ideas of each philosopher, but shows how, in the succession between different schools, in which each denies the previous one, amidst so many mystical and ultimately erroneous aspects of each, a rational core is nevertheless preserved that contributes to the overall process. This process is inevitably linked to the development of the productive forces throughout the history of human civilization. Thus, ingenious intuitions of antiquity can only find fulfillment millennia later with the development of science and modern technology; and at the same time certain ideas can only arise on the basis of a certain level of material development of humanity.
This approach has nothing to do with that mixture of arid schematism and vacuous postmodernist navel-gazing that dominates philosophy faculties and that mortifies many young people who enter them, moved by the hope of better understanding the world. This text will also be a breath of fresh air for them.