Philosophy and the Spontaneous Philosophy of the Scientists

Collected here are Althusser´s most significant philosophical writings from 1965 to 1978. Intended to contribute, in his own words, to a “left-wing critique of Stalinism that would help put some substance back into the revolutionary project here in the West,” they are the record of a shared history. At the same time they chart Althusser´s critique of the theoretical system unveiled in his own major works, and his developing practice of philosophy as a “revolutionary weapon.” Attesting to the unique place which Althusser has occupied in modern intellectual history—between a tradition of Marxism which he sought to reconstruct, and a “post-Marxism” which has eclipsed its predecessor—these texts are indispensable reading.