It is often thought that Marx, despite starting out as a philosopher, sought to break with philosophy in order to carry out his mature work. In this essay, Christoph Schuringa argues that Marx's overall project, culminating in Capital, is not concerned with replacing philosophy with some other enquiry, but to raise philosophy itself to its highest power and to actualize it. As a philosopher, Marx, far from carrying out any derivative work, sought to surpass his predecessors s

"Our unfreedom under capitalism stems from how the purpose of our economy, of our life-sustaining activities, is already decided."

"What I will seek, then, is to uncover something about the underlying mentality that exemplifies the ideal of an unalienated life."