Feuerbach: The roots of the socialist philosophy

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Engels Friedrich. Feuerbach: The roots of the socialist philosophy

INTRODUCTION

AUTHOR'S PREFACE

FEUERBACHI

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APPENDIX. MARX ON FEUERBACH

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In the preface of the "Critique of Political Economy," published at Berlin, in 1859, Marx explained how we two, in 1845, in Brussels, intended to work out together the antagonism of our views – that is, the materialistic philosophy of history, as developed by Marx – to the ideological German philosophy, and, in fact, to compare it with our present philosophic knowledge. The design was carried out in the form of a criticism of post-Hegelian philosophy. The manuscript, two big octavo volumes, had long been at its intended place of publication in Westphalia, when we received the news that altered circumstances did not permit of its being printed. We postponed the publication of the manuscript indefinitely, all the more willingly, as we had attained our main object, an understanding of our own position.

Since then more than forty years have elapsed, and Marx has died without either of us having had an opportunity of coming back to the antithesis. As regards our position with reference to Hegel, we have explained that, as occasion has arisen, but, nowhere, as a whole. We never came back to Feuerbach, who occupies an intermediate position between the philosophy of Hegel and our own.

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Under these circumstances a short, compact explanation of our relations to the Hegelian philosophy, of our going forth and departure from it, appears to me to be more and more required. And just in the same way a full recognition of the influence which Feuerbach, more than all the other post-Hegelian philosophers, had over us, during the period of our youthful enthusiasm, presents itself to me as an unendurable debt of honor. I also seize the opportunity the more readily since the editor of the "Neue Zeit" has asked me for a critical discussion of Starcke's book on Feuerbach. My work was published in the fourth and fifth volumes of 1886 of that publication and here appears in a revised special edition.

Before sending this manuscript to press I once again hunted up and examined the old manuscript of 1845-6. The part of it dealing with Feuerbach is not complete. The portion completed consists in an exposition of the materialistic view of history and only proves how incomplete at that time was our knowledge of economic history. The criticism of Feuerbach's doctrine is not given in it. It was therefore unsuitable for our purpose. On the other hand, I have found in an old volume of Marx the eleven essays on Feuerbach printed here as an appendix. These are notes hurriedly scribbled in for later elaboration, not in the least degree prepared for the press, but invaluable, as the first written form, in which is planted the genial germ of the new philosophy.

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