This essay explores Marx’s break from philosophy, arguing that his materialism emerges from a commitment to understanding and transforming real social life. Rejecting both idealism and traditional materialism, Marx develops a theory centered on practical, sensuous human activity embedded in historical social relations. By prioritizing lived reality over abstract thought, he moves beyond philosophy toward a revolutionary framework aimed at grasping and changing the conditions

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

"To live in hopeless times is not only subjectively to feel hopeless. It is for that feeling in a real way to reflect the way things are."