Historical materialism and supervenience

Philosophy of the Social Sciences 35 (4):420-446 (2005)
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Abstract

In this article I put forth a new interpretation of historical materialism titled the supervenient interpretation . Drawing on the insights of analytical Marxism and utilizing the concept of supervenience, I advance two central claims. First, that Marx's synchronic materialism maintains that the superstructure supervenes naturally on the economic structure. Second, that diachronic materialism maintains that the relations of production supervene naturally on the forces of production. Taken together, these two theses help bring to the fore the central tenets of historical materialism. Furthermore, they help resolve what I call the problem of reductionism and the problem of verification . Key Words: Marx • historical materialism • supervenience • synchronic materialism • diachronic materialism.

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Colin Farrelly
Queen's University

Citations of this work

Determination from Above.Kenneth Silver - 2023 - Philosophical Issues 33 (1):237-251.

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References found in this work

The Language of Morals.Richard Mervyn Hare - 1952 - Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.
Supervenience and mind: selected philosophical essays.Jaegwon Kim - 1993 - New York, NY, USA: Cambridge University Press.
Mental Events.Donald Davidson - 2001 - In Essays on Actions and Events. Oxford: Clarendon Press. pp. 207-224.
Moral realism.Peter Railton - 1986 - Philosophical Review 95 (2):163-207.

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