After “The Darkness at Noon”: A Biographical Study of Marxism as Critical Theory

Rethinking Marxism after the Cold War includes the task of reconstructing its genesis, beginning with the role of left Hegelianism in Marx′s development of historical materialism. Reviews the debates within the Hegelian school at the time of Marx′s “conversion” to it, in order to situate his dissertation project (1838‐41) on the difference between the Democritean and Epicurean philosophy of nature. A standard view has Marx writing from the perspectives of his mentor, Bruno Bauer,with whom he later broke in “On the Jewish Question” (1843). Argues that this view is incorrect. Instead, Marx constructs an analogy, according to which Democritus is to the Old Hegelians as Epicurus is to the Young Hegelians. The Epicurean “atom” then becomes a cryptogram of Bauerian Selbstbewusstsein. Although Epicurus has his sympathy, Marx is ultimately critical of him. Epicurean freedom is abstract and theoretical, but the liberation Marx aims towards is concrete and effective.