Probe Into Althusser’s Structuralism Methodology In Interpreting Marx

With the 1945 liberation, Paris substituted London, became the European center of intellectual resistance and revived Marxist science in the course of criticizing humanism Marxism. “Pour Marx” and “Lire Le Capital” were the originality works of Scientism Marxism in which Althusser put forward not only the concept of reconstructing Marxist philosophy from the epistemology of history of science but the Structuralism Methodology which revolutionized Marxist philosophy, and these were totally called the interpretation theory of Textology. This is analyzed from five aspects step by step in thesis.Chapter one summarizes the recent 100 years’ development of structuralism and briefly represents the western literary criticism background of the production of Althusser’s text hermeneutic. Structuralism started in Saussure’s structural linguistics, sprang up in Russian formalism literature, was named by “L’Ecole de Prague” and revolutionized in French humanities. Being established in anthropology ultimately, Structuralism Methodology had possessed the essential features of integrality, synchronicity and criticalness, and while it provided Althusser with methodology for his interpreting the philosophical concepts of “probl é matique” and structural causal relationship, it prompted to guide the French scientific socialism in the 1960 s and 1970 s, being impelled by the critical spirit.Chapter two reviews the historical context of Althusser’s interpreting Marx and briefly states the domestic and international environment of the production of his text hermeneutic. Althusser strived to eliminate the erosion of empiricism, historicism and reductionism by reflecting dogmatism and criticizing humanism, pointed out that there was the “Coupure épistémologique” from ideology to science and determined the nature II of Marxist philosophy as “theoretical anti-humanism” and then formed Althusser School which developed a school of its own in theory and turned the critical point of Western Marxism to bourgeoisie culture.In Chapter three Althusser’s reading theory of text hermeneutic is summarized as is the structuralism methodology premise of his scientifically interpreting Marx. It seems to Althusser that any text constituted by words could be divided into surface structure and deep structure, and by immediate reading the surface structure, ie. the writing structure, the logical relationship of language could be understood while by “lecture symptomale” the deep structure, ie. the thinking structure, the structural relationship in theories could be understood. The methodology basis of Althusser’s Marxist outlook was illuminated in consequence, ie. the dogmatism mistake was rooted in people’s being stuck with the reading fetishism while the mistake of humanism was rooted in the intellectual’s being cheated by ideology because of bourgeois education, so that what was determinative for interpreting “Das Kapital” was political factors but not theoretical factors.In Chapter four, Althusser’s cognitive theory of text hermeneutic is analyzed, which is the cornerstone of Structuralism Methodology in interpreting Marx. He believed that immediate reading could only produce unrealistic cognition while “lecture symptomale” could produce scientific cognition. Although Heidegger had tried to break the ideological closeness, the Descartes Circle and teleology Circle forming from modern times in Europe deep-rooted empiricism and reductionism, as was because the wakeful “sujet” contained the two negative meaning of “autonomy/submit”. When Heidegger deconstructed “look”, the declining subject was increasingly materialized as the prior Him. In order to criticize humanism, Althusser secluded the subject thus made abstract person return to social structure and become concrete person. There was no confusion between real object and cognitive object, simultaneity and synchronicity as well as history and logic, as established premise for the production of scientific cognition. By clarifying historical materialism as the science of history’s border, analyzing theoretical practice basing on complex construction, Althusser put forward “Coupure épistémologique”, “surdé termination” and “causalité structural” thus established the condition for the production of scientific cognition. In the production of cognition, Althusser drew a conclusion distinguishing three “general”, ie. general A was the initial abstract as the raw material of concrete scientific theory practice, general B being the thinking concrete as the product and achievement of concrete scientific theory practice, while general C was the fresh cognition as the processing result of A to B. This fresh cognition, as the “reprise”, produced concept which was the “problématique” guiding and governing theorists to think, as a result, theoretical practice possessed the inwardness of truth criterion. As a result, scientism Marxism hence possessed the two marks as “theoretical practice” and “truth criterion”.In Chapter five, the theoretical innovation of Althusser’s text hermeneutic is pointed out, ie. Ideological State Apparatuses(ISAs) is his theoretical achievement when scientifically interpreting Marx by means of Structuralism Methodology. Since it could be functionally converted, text structure was converted by Althusser under the premise of the division of singular and plural “ideology”. The plural “ideology” was stripped from the category of the opposition between singular form and science, hence it became the materiality existence with no history. The plural ideology having immutability structurally and functionally, individuals became plural ideological citizens. Althusser believed that ISAs was the natural result of the logical development of historical materialism when resolving the paradox of Marxist philosophical reproduction. In the ideological sphere, the most drastic site of class struggle, even the ruling class could not issue orders optionally, so in the battleground of ideology, the stake of science and philosophy was theoretical practice, the winning philosophy becoming science otherwise ideology. While the stake of philosophy and politics was dominant right and this was one form of class struggle in modern society so politics had to be intervened theoretically.In short, the interpretation theory of textology was in effect the annotation methodology of classical works. Referencing the normal form of structuralism, Althusser constructed dual reading theory and dual cognition theory with the starting point of the dual structures of text and acquired rich achievement, ISAs, in interpreting Marx by means of structuralism. He enriched and developed Marxist theory of state because of the originality of the concept of ISAs.