In the world of philosophical thinking, Karl Marx is a contemporary Dialectic Materialistic philosopher who was born on 5 May, 1818 at Trier, a small town of Germany. Like other philosophers, Marx did not write on epistemology, metaphysics, aesthetics or ethics.
This is why critics can comment that Marx is not a philosopher. Marxism is closely related to society and people as Marx reflected on the class struggle theory, surplus value theory, and Dialectic Materialism.
Marx was also a critic of traditional philosophy and a strong supporter of two German philosophers named Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and Ludwig Feuerbach. Thus, Marx established his philosophical theory Dialectic Materialism from Hegel and Feuerbach.
Marx borrowed Dialectic method from Hegel and Feuerbach. Three concepts are embedded in Dialectic method as Thesis, anti-thesis and synthesis. Hegel described that opposition is a character of Dialectic method. We can see this oppositional tendency in every object of the world.
If there is any positive side named thesis, there must be occurred an opposition that is antithesis. But they will make a unity at a time.
For this unifying tendency, synthesis is the last stage of Dialectic method. The most significant is that Hegel applied Dialectic method in the absolute world. But Marx applied it in the material world.
Feuerbach comes next. Feuerbach is the founder of Mechanical Materialism. He held that matter evolves through Mechanical process. But Marx rejected Mechanism and accepted Materialism.
Thus, Marx established his philosophical theory Dialectic Materialism. In the process of force and change of the world, matter starts changing and it takes a form such as qualitative from quantitative.
For example, if we heat a glass of water for half an hour it will change into vapor. Marx observed such changes in world. Marx observed Dialectic method in human society like Feuerbach.
He summarized that human society is not stable or unchangeable. Again, it is not controlled by any supernatural power. Society changes from one stage to another following Dialectic rule.
Marx did his PhD on 'Difference between Democritean and Epicurean Philosophy of Nature'. It describes the main theme of his philosophical idea. He illustrated that man is the creator of his own fate. Man is not controlled by meta-physical concept like God. Man can change his fate through his action.
Being a philosopher, Marx held that the main task of philosophy is to arise man's consciousness and conscious man about his freedom. From this point of view, Karl Marx was a Materialistic philosopher.
According to Marx, the main source of knowledge is nature. At first nature reflects in our brain and then it creates sensation about any knowledge. Thus, nature plays a vital role for acquiring knowledge.
Marx did not reject the subjective knowledge. However, object is the main source of knowledge. So knowledge is a combination of subject and object. Marxist philosophy is known as the philosophy of action.
Breaking the idealistic thinking of Hegel, Marx develops a concept of the practical application of his theory. Marxist theory was not only bounded by the theoretical world but also it contains practical applications.
Marxist philosophy of action expressed in his thesis about Ludwig Feuerbach. In this thesis Marx expressed a view for giving emphasize on changing the world.
Marx wants to change the traditional ideas of philosophy and focuses on its applications. In the epistemological idea, Marx's concept is known as epistemological break.
The concept of application is that socio economic issues are to be given much priority than the absolute ideas like god. The basis of philosophy is to be raised from society, and society is closely related with practical life and the activities of practical world. That is why philosophy of action is also called philosophy of practice.
Marxist philosophy is a philosophy of humanity. Marx wanted to bring out the labor class by breaking down the capitalist society. In Marx's era, capitalism was in the core stage of society.
Being capitalists, the wealthy class started exploiting the wealth off class. Marx named the wealthy class as the bourgeois and the wealth off class as the proletariat. The proletariat class was covered by the labor class.
Social disparity prevailed among the two classes. The bourgeois governed the proletariat and the proletariat was ruled. The main cause of social disparity was for the ownership of private property. Marx finds out the remedy. He wants to make proletariat class free. For making them free, he underscores a change.
Marx declares social disparity can be removed by solving economic disparity. Because, economy controls every aspect, like culture, religion, education, arts, literature and so on, of a society. According to Marxist view, economy is the structure of a society and culture, religion, arts, literature are the super structure.
Economy can make a society equal. For this, critics called Marxism as economic determinism. They comments economy cannot be the structure but Marx did it. Marx wants to establish an equal society. Being a strong supporter of equality, Marx directs the labor class for procuring revolution.
This revolution was only for establishing equal rights. In this sense, Karl Marx was a revolutionist. Marx and Engels wrote in their famous book named Communist Manifesto. Marx described in this book that the history of mankind is the history of class struggle and class struggle is the impetus of manifesting society.
Marx wants to break down the class from society. Because in a class society the relation among men are a relation of class and consideration of equal right is not possible. So, Marx is a name of revolution in the world of philosophy.
The importance of Marxist philosophy did not fade away with the passage of time; even two hundred years later it is rather more prominent than it was earlier. The class difference is vigorous nowadays. On one hand, it is increasing day by day. The wealthy class is still exploiting the wealth off class.
Marx's concept of equality is relevant to erode the class and removing exploitation. Marxism can be a name of relief. By his changing concept, we can change our society and work for the deprived class especially for the labor class. We can free ourselves from the traditional area and think for the improvement of our surroundings.