Materialist Epistemontology: Sohn-Rethel with Marx and Spinoza

What is it about?

How Sohn-Rethel developed Marx's theory of commodity fetishism as a materialist alternative to Kant's explanation of abstract thought, and how in this theory the structures of being and thought are intertwined so that epistemology is always also ontology, and vice-versa, as is the case in Spinoza's philosophy.

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Why is it important?

This essay foregrounds the importance of the unconscious in both Marx and Sohn-Rethel, and redefines accordingly the concepts of manual and intellectual labor, while also linking the Marx—Sohn-Rethel line of thought to Spinoza.