Charles Brown wrote:
CB: Is it Marx's meaning or the amended view of Marx that takes account of the irrational factors you mention ?
I think that Marx's meaning does, but that it doesn't do so adequately.
That it takes account of irrationality is demonstrated by the contrasting, in the passage from the 18th Brumaire, of "enlightenment" and "judgment" with "prejudice" and "superstition" so it's not just "self-consciousness" per se that expresses conditions but the degree of rationality, the degree of "enlightenment," of self-consciousness. The "prejudice" and "superstition" are made a cause of the coup d'etat of Napoleon III They're also treated in the same passage as internally related (which means more that just "related") to the conditions of peasant life, in particular, to peasant social relations.
Ted
