Marxism and Phenomenology: Theories of Crisis and their Synthesis

First published in 1986. The social sciences in the twentieth century have tended to fragment into different disciplines and schools of thought. Often these schools of thought are complete but closed systems of thought, permitting no exchange of ideas with other disciplines or schools. In view of this, one very interesting recent development has been the attempt by some Marxist theorists to develop a theory of phenomenological Marxism. At first sight the possibility of a liason between dialectical materialism and subjective idealism appears remote and indeed other Marxists have dismissed phenomenological Marxism as simplistic humanism, revisionist and incompatible with Marxist science. This book explores the possibilities and difficulties of synthesising two apparently disparate philosophical frameworks. It looks at the philosophical roots of the two frameworks and discusses the logic, epistemology, ontology and methodology of each. The author concludes that a synthesis between Marxism and phenomenology is not impossible on philosophical grounds.