grounds for our knowledge of the world? How do we know what we know, and how do we know if it is true?
Marx’s epistemology is one of the weaker and less original aspects of his thought, but it is important for two reasons. It is the strictly philosophical basis of the great ideas to come, and its dynamic character echoes through all of Marx’s systematic thought. As we have seen, he had transformed his influences to the point where they could blend to become an exclusively materialist philosophy. In line with this, he wished to base all knowledge on strictly scientific premises.
For Marx, our knowledge began in our experience – our sensations and perceptions – of the material world. But Marx’s materialism differed significantly from that of his predecessors. Earlier materialists tended to view sensation and perception in passive terms. Light strikes our eyes, we feel heat, we hear a sound. Our perception of such sights and sounds in no way changes them: they are things that affect us. For Marx, on the other hand, such perception was an interaction between us, the subject, and the material object. This object (the world around us) becomes transformed in the process of being known. Our perception does not discover the truth of the world, just its appearance. Thus our knowledge too cannot be the truth. Instead, our knowledge consists of practical methods by which we can manipulate and gain control over the natural world. Our knowledge of the world is not passive, it is purposive. It is a two-way process – active and reactive – in line with the dialectic.
The synthesis of scientific knowledge we thus gain enables us to impose patterns of order and to manipulate or anticipate the workings of nature. This process does not arrive at the truth, as it is usually conceived. “The question of whether objective truth can be attributed to human thought has nothing to do with theory, it is a purely practical question. The truth is the reality and power of thought, which can only be demonstrated in practice.” This leads Marx to his famous conclusion: “Philosophers have previously only interpreted the world, but the real task is to change
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