Marx's Theory Of Materialism: Marx And Consciousness

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Victoria Roney
Professor Fitz-Gibbon
09-17-17
Paper #1

Marx and Consciousness Materialist theory believes that matter is the only thing that can be proven to exist. Materialists argue that matter precedes consciousness. Marx theory of materialism stems from the idea that the basis of reality is matter and through matter, the mind is created. The main purpose of this essay is to identify and describe how consciousness is created from the previous Hegelian ideas of materialism that are further developed by Marx. Marx emphasizes that “life is not determined by consciousness, but consciousness by life.” (p. 112) When referring to consciousness, Marx explains that through the matter in the society we live in and its surrounding social structures, …show more content…

Humans are disciplined to exist under certain constraints of power which develops consciousness. Consciousness of the mind is not the origin of ideas independent from life. Life is determined by means of production in particular economic systems. Consciousness is determined by productive forces. The substructure are the forces of production: the employer, the employee and their work conditions combined with reality of life: class, religion, culture. This is a causal relationship between consciousness and life. This relationship happens because of the advances in material forces, but only happens through human action, which is dependent upon ideological …show more content…

At a certain stage of development, material productive forces in society come in conflict with the existing relations of production. Consciousness is explained through the contradictions of material life: from the occurring struggle between the social productive forces and the relations of production. Social order does not vanish before the productive forces. New, higher relations of production never precede the material conditions of their existence that have been cultivated from the original society. Marx’s position was illustrated in The German Ideology:
“The production of ideas, concepts, of consciousness is directly interwoven with the material activity and the material relationships of men; it is the language of actual life. Conceiving, thinking, and the intellectual relationships of men appear here as the direct result of their material behaviour... Consciousness does not determine life, but life determines consciousness.” (Marx,

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