QuestionsAre we free?Social existence determines consciousness
Are we free?No free will

Social existence determines consciousness

Karl Marx 1818 · 1883History is the history of class struggles.
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What it claims

It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but their social existence that determines their consciousness.

Why

To produce, people enter relations they did not choose, and those relations shape their ideas.

In short

"Social existence determines consciousness" is an argument by Karl Marx (A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, Preface (1859)) on the question "Are we free?" (answer: no free will). Its claim: It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but their social existence that determines their consciousness. According to AskPhilosophy's logic check (Z3 solver), the argument is valid only if one grants a premise the author leaves unstated (P3). AskPhilosophy presents 3 objections, 1 of them with a documented reply, and the original text behind each premise, checked word for word.

A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, Preface (1859)
Valid with an implicit premise

We think we choose our ideas. Marx argues the opposite: what we think depends first on our place in production, and nobody chose those relations. Here he sums up, in one page, the "guiding principle" of all his research.

P1To produce what keeps them alive, people enter into definite, necessary relations independent of their will: relations of production.
P2These relations form the real foundation of society. Law, politics and forms of consciousness rise on this foundation and correspond to it: the mode of production conditions all social, political and intellectual life.
P3 · implicit premiseIf consciousness depends on relations nobody chose, and ideas do not act back on those relations to the point of determining them in turn, then social existence determines consciousness, and not the other way round.
Therefore it is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but their social existence that determines their consciousness.

click a premise to reject it

If you accept every premise, logic forces you to accept the conclusion. So the debate is about the premises.
Checked by a logic solver: the premises cannot all be true while the conclusion is false.
Without the implicit premise: Without P3, the computer finds a case where relations of production are not chosen and condition consciousness, but ideas (a religion, a discovery) change production in turn: determination runs both ways.
Valid with P3. It holds the decisive assumption: ideas can act on the economy, but not to the point of determining it. Without it, influence could run both ways, and "not the other way round" would no longer follow. Almost all the objections, Engels' included, aim at this point.
Analogy. A child born in a castle and a child born in a mine will not have the same ideas about work, justice or merit. Marx says: this is no accident, and it was not their ideas that first built the castle and the mine. The critic answers: but a new idea can also close the mine.

Objections

3

Each objection is a conversation: click to see who replies and where the debate stands.

T
The fatalism objection attacks the conclusion

If our ideas are determined by our place in society, nobody can change anything: why call for revolution? And why believe Marx, if his own theory is only a reflection of his situation?

Marx replies
summary: their text is not yet in our corpus
Marx
The materialist doctrine that makes people products of circumstances and upbringing forgets that it is people who change circumstances, and that the educator must himself be educated.
The debate goes on (our summary) The critic would reply: if people change circumstances, then consciousness is not only determined, it also determines. One must say where determination stops, and the thesis loses its force.
F
Friedrich Engels, letter to Joseph Bloch 1890 · attacks premise 3

Seven years after Marx's death, his closest collaborator clarifies: the economy is determining only "in the last instance". Law, politics, philosophical and religious ideas also act on the course of history. Saying the economy is the only factor turns the thesis into an empty phrase. (This letter is not yet in our corpus.)

no reply
summary: their text is not yet in our corpus
No reply possible: objection raised in 1890, after the author's death (1883).
Karl Popper, The Poverty of Historicism 1957 · attacks premise 3

The course of history depends on the growth of knowledge: a scientific discovery can overturn all of production. Yet we cannot predict what we will discover tomorrow. So ideas weigh on the base, and history follows no law. Popper adds (Conjectures and Refutations, 1963) that Marxists later adjusted the theory to fit every fact: it is then no longer falsifiable, hence no longer scientific.

no reply
summary: their text is not yet in our corpus
No reply possible: objection raised in 1957, after the author's death (1883).
What today's voices say
Criticize it
Jordan PetersonHe rejects the view that we are pawns of social forces, because individuals are also the creators of those forces.
Karl PopperHe rejects Marx's historical materialism and holds that there are no laws of history to predict the future.