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Selected Works (World Philosophers and Their Works)

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The philosophical dimensions and interest of Karl Marx’s work were largely underestimated for a variety of reasons. First, the general disrepute of “speculative” as opposed to “empirical” thought in the later nineteenth century led Friedrich Engels and his collaborators to stress the hardheaded empiricism, scientism, and even positivism of Marx’s work when they undertook to turn it into the ideology of a mass movement during the 1880’s. Marx himself was probably involved in this effort. In any case, its success was ensured by consolidation of power in...

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