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Karl Marx 1845

Theses On Feuerbach

Written: by Marx in Brussels in the spring of 1845, under the title 1) adFeuerbach;Marxs original text was first published in 1924, in German and in Russian translation,

by the Institute of Marxism-Leninism inMarx-Engels Archives, Book I, Moscow. The

English translation was first published in the Lawrence and Wishart edition of The

German Ideologyin 1938. The most widely known version of the Theses is that based

on Engels edited version, published as an appendix to hisLudwig Feuerbachin 1888,

where he gave it the title Theses on Feuerbach;

Translated: by Cyril Smith 2002, based on work done jointly with Don Cuckson.

1

The main defect of all hitherto-existing materialism that of Feuerbach included is

that the Object [der Gegenstand], actuality, sensuousness, are conceived only in the form of

the object [Objekts], or of contemplation [Anschauung], but not as human sensuous activity,

practice [Praxis], not subjectively. Hence it happened that the active side, in opposition to

materialism, was developed by idealism but only abstractly, since, of course, idealismdoes not know real, sensuous activity as such. Feuerbach wants sensuous objects [Objekte],

differentiated from thought-objects, but he does not conceive human activity itself as

objective [gegenstndliche] activity. In The Essence of Christianity [Das Wesen des

Christenthums], he therefore regards the theoretical attitude as the only genuinely human

attitude, while practice is conceived and defined only in its dirty-Jewish form of appearance

[Erscheinungsform][1]. Hence he does not grasp the significance of revolutionary, of

practical-critical, activity.

2

The question whether objective truth can be attributed to human thinking is not a question

of theory but is a practicalquestion. Man must prove the truth, i.e., the reality and power, the

this-sidedness [Diesseitigkeit]of his thinking, in practice. The dispute over the reality or non-

reality of thinking which is isolated from practice is a purely scholastic question.

3

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/theses/index.htm#jewishhttp://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/theses/index.htm#jewish

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7

Feuerbach consequently does not see that the religious sentiment is itself a social

product, and that the abstract individual that he analyses belongs in reality to a particular

social form.

8

All social life is essentially practical. All mysteries which lead theory to mysticism find

their rational solution in human practice and in the comprehension of this practice.

9

The highest point reached by contemplative [anschauende] materialism, that is,

materialism which does not comprehend sensuousness as practical activity, is the

contemplation of single individuals and of civil society [brgerlichen Gesellschaft].

10

The standpoint of the old materialism is civil society; the standpoint of the new is human

society or social humanity.

11

Philosophers have hitherto only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to

change it.

1.Dirty-Jewish according to Marhsall Berman, this is an allusion to the Jewish God

of the Old Testament, who had to get his hands dirty making the world, tied up with a

symbolic contrast between the Christian God of the Word, and the God of the Deed,

symbolising practical life. See The Significance of the Creation in Judaism, Essence ofChristianity 1841

http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/feuerbach/works/essence/ec11.htm

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Deutsch| 1938 Translation| Engels edition

Engels on Feuerbach| Image of Thesis 11| Works Index

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