Divergent Paths is the first volume of a groundbreaking three-volume work. Its purpose is to explore the relationship between Hegel and Marx; to define the relationship between Hegel and Engels; and to distinguish between the theories of Marxism and Engelsism. Marx used Feuerbach towards the critique and ultimate transformation of Hegels phenomenology and humanism. This transformation, which cut out Hegels idealism by identifying the environment in which people produced their sustenance as the subject of history, marks the genesis of historical materialism. Marx continued to use Hegels logical categories. In chapter three of Divergent Paths, Norman Levine conducts an in depth study of Marxs 1841 doctoral dissertation, The Difference Between Democritus and Epicurus Philosophy of Nature. It is the center of gravity and controversy of Levines study. Placed alongside Hegels Philosophy of History, Levine isolates the categories Marx appropriated from Hegel to show, conclusively, that Marx was not a dialectical materialist. Levine then claims that Engels totally distorted the Hegelian legacy, and this debasement is enshrined in his 1887 essay Ludwig Feuerbach and The End of Classical German Philosophy. Levine brilliantly locates Marxism as the theory of Marx, and Engelsism the theory of Engels. According to Levine both embodied a separate view of history and society, and their contradictions are expressive, in part, of their divergent receptions of Hegel. This is an analysis like no other published to date with two more volumes planned. Philosophers, sociologists, anthropologists and historiographers of Marx and Engels cannot afford to miss this study.
Editorial Reviews
Review
Levine”s study of Marx in these early years is a detailed, well-researched, and stimulating account of his intellectual development and self-understanding….thought provokinggggg — Joe McCoy, July 2007, Department of Philosophy, University of Nevada-Reno
Divergent Paths updates and further develops intellectual issues first raised in The Tragic Deception (1975) and Dialogue Within the Dialectic (1984). The present volume approaches these issues through close reading of the relationship to Hegel not only of Marx and Engels, but of major 20th century Marxists or theorists of Marxism from Lukacs to Roemer. Levine seeks once again to “de-Hegelianize” Marxism by placing history and human activity at the center of Marxist theory and politics. The issues of philosophy and method he takes up are abstract, but nevertheless provide a necessary point of departure for any effort to confront the contemporary crisis of Marxism. — Arif Dirlik, author of Marxism in the Chinese Revolution
Levine”s study of Marx in these early years is a detailed, well-researched, and stimulating account of his intellectual development and self-understanding….thought provoking — Joe McCoy, July 2007, Department of Philosophy, University of Nevada-Reno
About the Author
Norman Levine is the author of The Dialogue within the Dialectic and The Tragic Deception: Marx Contra Engels.
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