Dialectical Aristotelianism: On Marx's account of what separates us from the animals

Whyman, Tom

Abstract

I have noticed, in Anglophone philosophy, a certain way of invoking Marx. The pattern here is—understandably, given the relative scarcity of substantial engagement with Marx outside of (radical) political theory—a rather loose one. But I've spotted it in the work of John McDowell, Michael Thompson, and Mary Midgley. In each of these thinkers, Marx is invoked in the context of an inquiry into human nature: into the question of what (if anything) separates us from the animals.

In this paper, I propose to adjudicate a certain debate between these three thinkers—a debate which their shared invocation of Marx allows us to stage. I will argue that this debate between McDowell, Thompson, and Midgley, such as it is, is doomed to remain interminable, unless we clear up a confusion about Marx which all three share. Clearing up this confusion will allow us to get in focus an account of human nature I label “Dialectical Aristotelianism”. I am unable to offer a detailed defense of this position here—rather, I offer it as something which might be worked out more comprehensively in other work.1

The point I wish to make here, and the way I wish to make it, unfortunately demands a structure which might at first glance seem a little obscure. To spell it out: in Section 1, I introduce the perennial philosophical problem of “what separates us from the animals”—working my way toward Midgley's critique of the “single distinguishing factor” conception of what separates human beings from other animals in Beast and Man. Sections 2 and 3 relate an existing debate between McDowell and Thompson, who both incorporate Marx into their attempts to find such a single distinguishing factor. In Section 4, I introduce Midgley's specific criticisms of what she sees as Marx's attempt to identify a “single distinguishing factor” answer to the question of what separates us from the animals—criticisms which would seem to do for McDowell and Thompson as well. In Section 5, I explain why (in my view) Midgley was wrong about Marx—and then proceed to demonstrate that, in The German Ideology, he and Engels (albeit in an incomplete, increasingly disputed text) can be read as providing us with a “single distinguishing factor” answer to the question of what separates us from the animals that does not suffer from the problems Midgley identifies with (usual) attempts to identify such a factor. The result is an account which is, handily, able to incorporate the best of Midgley's, McDowell's, and Thompson's views. This is the position that, in the conclusion, I label “Dialectical Aristotelianism”.

Citation

Whyman, T. (2024). Dialectical Aristotelianism: On Marx's account of what separates us from the animals. Constellations: An International Journal of Critical and Democratic Theory, 31(3), 354-367. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8675.12712

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Aug 3, 2023
• Online Publication Date: Aug 24, 2023
• Publication Date: 2024-09
• Deposit Date: Aug 31, 2023
• Publicly Available Date: Aug 31, 2023
• Journal: Constellations: An International Journal of Critical and Democratic Theory
• Print ISSN: 1351-0487
• Electronic ISSN: 1467-8675
• Publisher: Wiley
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 31
• Issue: 3
• Pages: 354-367
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8675.12712
• Keywords: General Medicine
• Public URL: https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1727174