Karl Marx
History is the history of class struggles.
Karl Marx (1818 – 1883, Germany, then exile in Paris, Brussels and London) : marxism and materialism. To understand a society, start from how people produce what keeps them alive, not from what they think of themselves. Law, politics, morality and religion rise on that base. On AskPhilosophy: 6 reconstructed arguments, 5 quotes checked word for word against the original texts, and 4 common beliefs examined; every text carries an authenticity badge (written by the author, posthumous, student notes, reported, apocryphal).
Why he matters
Few thinkers have changed the real world so much: parties, trade unions, revolutions and regimes of the 20th century claimed him, often far from his texts. In philosophy and the social sciences, his ideas (classes, ideology, alienation, commodity fetishism) remain tools debated by followers and critics alike.
His times
Born in Trier to a Jewish family that had converted to Protestantism. A doctor of philosophy (1841) and a journalist, he was censored, then expelled from Germany, France and Belgium. He lived in London from 1849 until his death, often in poverty, helped by his friend Friedrich Engels, with whom he wrote several books. He published only the first volume of Capital (1867): Engels edited the next two after his death.
His positions
click a row to see the evidenceAn outright atheist: "man makes religion". He does not try to refute God; he takes the critique of religion as finished (after Feuerbach) and asks why people need it.
He starts from "real men" and a life-process that can be verified empirically. But Capital proceeds by abstractions, in Hegel's manner: neither a pure empiricist nor a rationalist.
The truth of a thought is proved in practice; a debate about truth cut off from practice is "scholastic". He believes a scientific knowledge of economics and history is possible.
A materialist: even the "phantoms" of the brain are products of the material life-process. He does not treat the mind-body question in Descartes' way, and this passage is co-written with Engels.
People enter relations "independent of their will". But they also change the circumstances that shaped them. For him freedom is not individual free will: it is a collective achievement.
Law, morality and religion hide class interests; the ruling ideas are those of the ruling class. Yet his texts are full of moral indignation: scholars still debate whether he condemns capitalism in the name of justice.
The critique of religion is "the prerequisite of all criticism": it plucks the imaginary flowers from the chain so that man throws off the chain.
No meaning comes from heaven: man must "revolve around himself". But he sees free, conscious activity as what makes us human, which looks like an objective meaning. Readers disagree.
No fixed nature in each individual: the human essence is "the ensemble of the social relations". It is conditions that damage people, and people can change those conditions.
He wants to abolish private ownership of the means of production and puts the community before the isolated individual. But the stated goal is "the free development of each", and he rejects order and tradition: he does not fit this axis well.
No eternal foundation for morality: each age's morality reflects its social relations. His horizon is human emancipation, a society where the free development of each is the condition for that of all.