Ramkrishna Bhattacharya In the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts Marx emphasized the fact that humans become truly human only when they can rise above consumption and set themselves to other kinds of activity excepting those meant to supply their daily needs, the means of subsistence. One of their objections against the capitalist society, nay of class…
Ramkrishna Bhattacharya Sebastiano Timpanaro believed that ‘the agreement between materialism and Leopardian pessimism had its basis in hedonism; and hedonism is the basis of all scientific systems of ethics’ (On Materialism p.66). I have already critiqued Timpanaro’s concept of ‘materialist pessimism’ (Psyche and Society 11: 2 December 2013, 7-15). Let us now turn to…
Ramkrishna Bhattacharya Sebastiano Timpanaro One of the novel and surprising concepts proposed by Sebastiano Timpanaro (1923-2000), the well-known Marxist philologist-cum-philosopher, is that of ‘materialist pessimism’ (p.66). His plea is to recognize this concept as a part of the Marxist worldview. Time and again he comes back to it in his book, Sul Materialismo (1970, translated…