Event overview
InC Seminar Series: 'The future: philosophy between utopia and end-time prophecy'
Phil Homburg (Sussex): 'Can a materialist dream? Marx and Benjamin on Fourier’s Utopianism'
Both Benjamin and Marx defend Fourier as an exemplary figure among the so-called Utopian Socialists, while, at the same time, criticizing Fourier on a number of grounds, particularly his hypostatization of labour and his adherence to certain mechanical materialist principles. Fourier’s radicalism, however, stands in stark contrast other Utopian Socialists. As Marx claims, Fourier differs from Proudhon—whom Marx called a petty-bourgeois utopian—in that his utopianism lies in anticipation and imagination of a new world, rather than ultimately siding with already existing social reality.
Despite this radicalism, however, it is necessary to examine the limits of Fourier thought, particularly his hypostatization of labour. Benjamin writings on Fourier demonstrate that his utopian construct—the phalanstère—is a unique synthesis of utopianism and mechanical materialism. Underlying this, however, is an antithesis between a utopian impulse and the inability to see beyond a subject and world governed by mechanical laws. Thus, while Fourier treats social reality as something that can be altered, the subject—an ahistorical physiological construct of natural impulses and passions— is treated as ontologically prior. As with his conception of labour, Fourier does not account for the historical specificity of his account. This paper aims to bring together the Marxian and Benjaminian criticisms of Fourier through a shared conception of the problem of natural history. Fourier’s account, despite its radical break with the existing social order, remains one-sided as long as it does not take into account the formation of the subject and the reciprocal relationship between that account and the critique of social reality.
Phillip Homburg is a DPhil candidate at the Centre for Social and Political Thought at Sussex University. His research is on Walter Benjamin’s materialism and his critique of neo-Kantian epistemology.
Dates & times
| Date | Time | Add to calendar |
|---|---|---|
| 6 Mar 2012 | 5:00pm |
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