Deepening the Crisis

New Directions in Phenomenological Marxism

Abstract

Despite having naturalized the way in which liberal ideology analyzes consciousness, in the mid-twentieth century phenomenology articulated an ambitious project of fusing with different Marxist orientations. Some currents sought to investigate the path of reification of consciousness in light of a capitalist being-in-the-world. Others examined the components of mathematization and the theory of multiples both in the genesis of the revolutionary subject and in its constitution through the process that reduces the use value of commodities to their exchange value. Considered as ramifications of a single orientation, the scope of science expanded, in accordance with Edmund Husserl's call, to focus on things themselves. Along the way, the archaic binary of nature/culture was unsettled in order to adapt it to the ontic-ontological difference. It appears, however, that none of the branches managed to deepen the understanding of the notion of crisis, however central to the thought of Husserl, if not Karl Marx. In Groundwork for a Phenomenological Marxism, Canadian philosopher Ian H. Angus identifies this gap and sets out to articulate an analytical juxtaposition between Marx's theory of crisis in Capital and Husserl's Krisis. His thesis identifies that the second supplements the first by allowing the foundation of a plan in which the Euro-American individual would find the condition to become a self-responsible entity only from the recognition of himself as a natural being. The elevation of consciousness towards an ethical disposition would relate the theorization of nature to the diversification necessary to organize new ways of working. In this way, the possibility arises of overcoming North-Atlantic rationality through renewed understanding of the meaning of an ontology of labor. The aim of this article is to examine the ramifications of this new phenomenological Marxism, explain the constitutive steps proposed by Angus and identify the resistance through which to radically integrate the project as a decentralizing vision of European sciences. We acknowledge how Angus aims to positively integrate into his project the dialogue provided with Canadian “Indigeneity” and the expansion of the idea of reproduction required by criticisms of Marxism. Despite his overcoming of these two crucial obstacles to founding phenomenological Marxism, our objective is to question the legitimacy of his reading of Marx's mapping of the mode of production of capital. Consequently, we argue by means of a supplementation to his project that phenomenology, as led by him toward a hermeneutic ethics, reaches a philosophical impasse. With ecological destabilization as the critical backdrop of his revised ontology of labor, Angus seems to invest in Husserlian phenomenology to dispel the need to collectivize economic force and engage in a transnational configuration of labor relations according to differential criteria and new leadership. Criticism of the project becomes relevant to the extent that what is at stake is whether philosophy still has the wherewithal to act relevantly regarding the plight faced by nature in our time.