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Intellectual and Manual Labour: A Critique of Epistemology by Alfred Sohn-Rethel; MartinSohn-Rethel; Marxism and Materialism: A Study in Marxist Theory of Knowledge by David-

Hillel RubenReview by: William H. ShawThe American Historical Review, Vol. 84, No. 3 (Jun., 1979), pp. 708-709Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of the American Historical AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1855404 .

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Reviewsof Books

GENERALALFRED SOHN-RETHEL. Intellectualnd Manual La-bour:A Critique fEpistemology.ranslated by MAR-TIN SOHN-RETHEL. AtlanticHighlands,N.J.: Hu-manities Press. 1978. Pp. XiV, 2I6. $I9.00.DAVID-HILLEL RUBEN. Marxism and Materialism:AStudyn Marxist Theory fKnowledge. Marxist The-ory and ContemporaryCapitalism.) AtlanticHighlands,NJ.: HumanitiesPress. I978. Pp. x,199. $20.00.AlfredSohn-Rethel's IntellectualndManual Labourembarks n a strange, fnot incoherent, roject.The authorbelieves that ifsociety s to controltechnologynd ifmental nd manual abor aretobe integrated-twoaudable Marxiangoals-thenit is necessary odemonstrate ot onlythe socialrootsof sciencebut the social prerequisites f n-tellectual bstractiontself. urning o Marx's dis-cussionofexchange nCapital, ohn-Rethel eizeson what he considers he"abstractness" nherentin commodityxchange.This consists, rimarily,inthefact hat nthemarket-placehe xchange fgoods is separated "abstracted")from heir on-sumption,nd money merges s the bearerof nabstraction, amely, xchangevalue. These "ab-stractions" recarried utunconsciously,uttheynonetheless enerate uch nonempirical onceptsas time, pace, matter,motion, nd quantitywithwhich the intellect, specially n science, mustwork.Kant, to whomtheauthor compareshim-self, hought uch conceptsweresupplieda prioriby the mind as it organizedsense experience;Sohn-Rethel ees themas a result of the com-modity process. The intellect,however, s notaware of he ocialgenesis f tsbasicconcepts ndso views itself, ncorrectly,s self-sufficientndindependentof manual labor-hence, the un-happyschismbetweenmental nd physicalworkand thealienation f sciencefrom ociety.Regardless fwhat one makes ofSohn-Rethel'sintended nterprise,ne will search his book invainfor ny conceptual r procedural larity-or

indeed for anythingresembling rgument.Histheme s frequently oiced,Marx is quoted,andmany entences re strung ogether,utthereaderis continuallyhard pressed to understandwhatpoint the author thinkshe is makingor how itsupportshis thesis.By contrast, avid-HillelRuben's Marxism ndMaterialisms a modelofclarity nd competence.AlthoughRuben's book s directed o those ntheMarxist radition, e isevidentlythomewith heliterature nd sensitive o the professionaltan-dardsof ontemporary on-Marxist, nglo-Amer-ican philosophy.Ruben contends hat fMarxistmaterialisms tobe consistent,hen it requiresa correspondencetheory f knowledge.He returns o Kant in orderto make his case, showinghow Kant's belief hatall knowledge resupposes he nterpretivectivityof thoughtcannot be squared with his com-mitment o theexistence fobjects ndependent fthemind.Hegel and Feuerbachgraspedoppositehorns of this dilemma,and Marx followed helatter n adopting materialist erspective. s amaterialist, hough,he must lso hold the episte-mologicalthesis that truth onsists n the corre-spondence fthoughto the world.The author hen urns, ppropriately,o arguingthata correspondenceor reflection) heory-al-though onsidered y manyMarxists o be fatallyundialectical-is,when uitably tated, cceptablefrom he Marxistpoint fview. n hisfinal hapterRuben reviews enin's attempt o formulateucha theory in Materialism nd Empirio-Criticism,on-cluding that, although Lenin's heart was in theright lace philosophically, e confused reflec-tion heoryfknowledge ith n untenable eflec-tiontheory fperception.Ruben is precise nhis terminologynd carefulto distinguish elated but distinctphilosophicalpositions.He discusses Kant, Hegel, and Marxwith ntelligence,nd his basic thesis s sensibleand well argued.One mightwish, however, hattheauthorhadbeen more mbitious.He pavesthewayfor materialistheory fknowledge ut doesnotactually evelop ne; nordoeshe attend o the

708

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General 709problems hat ontemporaryon-Marxist hiloso-phers have raised forcorrespondence heories fthetypehe suggests. hese are bigtasks. PerhapsRuben will be kindenough to undertake hem nthefuture.

WILLIAM H. SHAWUniversityfTennessee,Nashville

DICK HOWARD. The Marxian Legacy.New York: Uri-zen Books. I977. Pp. xv, 340. Cloth$I5.00,paper$6.95.DickHoward was a member f heNewLeftwho,in the course of the ig6os, moved from phenome-nological-existentialtanceto the Marxistunity ftheory nd praxis. Marxist theory nabled theNew Leftto discover hat the locus of politicalactionwas that phereof he everyday hat s civilsociety.But thedisintegrationf hemovementnthe I970s forcesHoward to ask anew, what is thepolitical?" as the foundationfor revolutionarypraxis.Marxism s not a closedsystem.Rather, tis a project that mediates philosophy nd theworld. n a differentituation, ne must rethinktheMarxistproject. herefore, owardgoesbackto interrogatehose eminalMarxist hinkers hohad similar oncerns bout theapplication ftheMarxistunity ftheory nd praxisto their itua-tions-namely Luxemburg,Bloch, Horkheimer,Habermas,Sartre,Merleau-Ponty, laude Lefort,and CorneliusCastoriadis.This bookis neither ntellectual ortraiture orhistory f ideas but a personal,critical tudyoftheseeight hinkersn order o renew he Marxistunity f heory nd praxis. I will be startingromthepremises f Marx, adaptinghis method o thepresent, nd thenusingthe structure f hatpres-ent-includingthe essonof he NewLeft-to crit-icize Marx. This does not essen he mportancefMarx; nor hould tbe interpreted ithin Mani-chaean friend-foeontext" p. 20). Howard s hon-estand forthrightn his criticism f hepositivism,elitism, nd bureaucratizationnherent n Marx-ism.Nevertheless,e believes hatMarxism s stillthe only philosophy o open a horizon in ourworld. And he is acute in his evaluation of theeight Mlarxisthinkers.The author oncludes hat Castoriadis and Le-fort aveopened up the dimension fthepoliticalwhichhad for oo longbeen takenforgranted ythe revolutionaries.t is to the structure nd sup-positionsof this political projectthat attentionmustnow be turned" p. 300). This book s in tselfan admirableproject.And,forHoward,thequestfor hepoliticalproject s thenexttask.But there s a gnawing uestion: s theproject f

theory ufficients praxis? After ll, it was notMarx with his theory, ut Lenin and Mao withtheir praxis who did succeed in changingtheworld. And there s a price to be paid for evolu-tion.That is the dilemma.DONALD M. LOWESan Francisco tateUniversity

ARTlITR L.. STINCIICOMBE. TheoreticalMethods n So-cmalHistory.Studies nSocial Discontinuity.) ewYork: Academic Press. 978. Pp. x, I30. $Io100.This is a book by a sociologist bout the relation-ship betweengeneral heories nd historical tud-ies that challenges the conventional ociologist'snotionof theory nd data but confirms he work-ing nstincts f he ordinary istorian. t is a "per-sonal" book in that t is not a systematic reatiseon the subject r even review f he iterature uta seriesofcase studieson thewritings fTrotsky,de Tocqueville, Smelser, nd Bendix to discoverhowtheorists ctuallydo historical tudies s op-posed to what they ay theydo. The book is alsopersonal n thatthe introductionnd conclusionsare written n an argumentative nd sometimesdidacticstyle hat has overtones fclassroom n-tellectual rovocation.Arthur . Stinchcombe's rimary ontentionsthat causal theory,nd especially heories fepo-chal historicalmovements r change, should bederivedfrom mpirical tudiesand from he de-tailedconstructionf nalogiesbetweennstances,not deducedfrom eneral heoreticaluppositions.Thus he analyzes he trategiesf elected uthorsto see howtheygoabouttheorymaking egardlessoftheirpresumed heoretical ommitments.n anexcellent chapter on Trotsky's History f heRussianRevolutionnd de Tocqueville's Old Regime nd theFrench evolution,tinchcombe hows how Trotskyanalyzesthe revolutionnterms fthe exercise fpolitical authority nd the situationsand dis-positions hat channelthe choices people make tosustainor replace an existing egime. n theRus-sian Revolutionhe analysisfocuseson the break-downoftheauthorityfthe tsarist egime nd ontheway n which ompeting rganizations,nclud-ingthe state nd the Bolshevik arty, ttemptedobecome the channel throughwhichsolutionstopolitical nd economicproblems ould be found.In his analysis of Smelser's Social Change in theIndustrialRevolution, tinchcombe finds a similarpattern fhistorical hangedescribed n terms fan initial unctionallyntegrated ituation, proc-ess of change in which working-class amiliesadapted household and familyneeds to the ex-igencies f newfactory ystem,nd the cumula-tion of choiceswhich, ncemade,builtup a new