RICERCA ITALIANA     

Issues of German classical philosophy: edition of texts and critical studies

Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca

Abstract

Betwenn the issues of German classical philosophy this project intends to study the development of Marx's and Engels' thought.
The events of recent history have led to take off the validity of ideological-dogmatic readings on this thought. This fact gives us back the opportunity of a new and more rigorous appraisal of these thinkers as real classics in our culture, at the same time keeping in mind the persisting value of many kind of interpretations and of critical and interpretative instruments that these two authors can still offer in analysing present reality. By this way we have to resume a theorical and philological tradition so important in Italy as it has given origin to notable works even on the international level. Our great task is to move on in editing Marx - Engels "Complete Works" (from now MEOC). The edition was started a few years ago by Editori Riuniti in Rome and then stopped (the work may be started again with the same publisher Editori Riuniti, or, if they changed their editing project, with some other publisher we'll find reliable and ready to undertake the work). The MEOC edition is mainly based on the german Marx-Engels Werke (MEW) and on the later english edition Marx-Engels Collected Works (CW); she could take into account only partially the great critical work of the new Marx-Engels-Gesamtausgabe (the so called MEGA2) prepared following the most modern criteria of textual critic. This edition, earlier interrupted, was started again some years ago thanks to an international effort. Our project aim is, first of all, to fill the gaps caused by the fact that the italian work has not been carried out, basing ourselves, where possible, on the already published volumes of MEGA2 (the natural continuation may then consist in re-examining that part of the ended work still based on MEW and on CW). Along with the work of edition, is foreseen the publication of a dictionary of the most important terms used by the two authors and of critical studies on their theories and on important interpretations of them. The research unities plan to organise periodical seminars on different aspects of the works of Marx and Engels and some congresses. Through the activity of the research unities and their exchange of informations it will also be possible to map out the Marx-Forschung in Italy. A final international congress (Fall 2005) on "The present situation of the Marxforschung in Italy" is planned with the partecipation of all the research unities.
INNOVATIVE FEATURE OF THE RESEARCH PROJECT
It is clear the innovative feature of the research project as it proves to fill a great gap of the italian publishing world, providig instruments that can be useful on many levels. The research claims an interdisciplinary confrontation where scholars of the philosophical area will work close to specialist in economics and to researchers in the field of human sciences. Of great relevance is the presence, among the components of the unit 3 (Siena, coord. Mazzone) and unit 4 (Venezia, coord. Turchetto), of scholars who take part to, or lead, workgroups on MEGA2. More generally, we stress that the scientific activity of the components of the Research Program takes place in a context of collaboration with important national and international institutions (see 2.2); this collaboration is a fundamental point to grant the project a wide dimension and a full possibility of development in the strict integration of the international scientific activity. <<<

Principal Investigator

Mario CINGOLI Università degli Studi di MILANO-BICOCCA

Research Objectives

The fundamental aim of the research program is to continue the italian edition of Marx-Engels "Works" (MEOC), of which only 32 volumes of the 50 foreseen have been published, before the abandoning of the project. The MEOC edition is mainly based on the german Marx-Engels Werke (MEW)and on the later english edition Marx-Engels Collected Works (CW); it could take into account only partially the great critical work of the new Marx-Engels-Gesamtausgabe (the so called MEGA2) prepared following the most modern criteria of textual critic. This edition, earlier interrupted, was started again some years ago thanks to an international effort. Our project's aim is, first of all, to fill the gaps caused by the fact that the italian work has not been carried out, basing ourselves, where possible, on the already published volumes of MEGA2 (the natural continuation may then consist in re-examining that part of the ended work still based on MEW and on CW). Through this edition we want to offer a reliable and updated instrument not only for specialists, who can consult the critical edition and the original texts, but also for the general scholar, even not philologist or however not specialist of the Marx-Engels-Forschung. In other words, as V. Zimmerli has well said, the point is to give the italian reader the chance to read Marx and Engels as "classics of the history of philosophy". More in detail, as far as this edition is concerned, we intend to publish the following volumes:
- Writings of Marx and Engels from July 1870 to September 1871 (on the French-Prussian war and the Paris Commune);
- Writings of Marx and Engels on etnoantropology (Marx, first italian edition of the "Etnological Notebooks", Engels " The Origin of the Family, of the Private Property and of the State" and other writing of etnoantropological subject); writings of Engels on the history of Christianity; Engels, "Ludwig Feurbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy";
- Marx, Unpublished manuscripts for Capital, Book III (1871-1883);
- Marx, Commodity
- Engels, letters from 1888 to 1890.
On the basis of this renewed interest for the textual aspect of the works of Marx and Engels, set free of the ideological deformations produced by last century readings, is foreseen the publication of a dictionary of the most important terms used by the two authors and of critical studies on their theories and on important interpretations of them.
Thus, homogenous and reciprocally linked levels of the present Research Project are, on the one hand to put the works of Marx and Engels at disposal of the majority of the scholars, on the other their critical appraisal.
The research unities plan to organise periodical seminars on different aspects of the works of Marx and Engels and some congresses. Through the activity of the research unities and their exchange of informations it will also be possible to map out Marx-Forschung in Italy. A final international congress (Fall 2005) on "The present situation of the Marx-Forschung in Italy" is planned with the partecipation of all the research unities. <<<

First Results

As we have said, the Program will take place in only one phase: the expected results are therefore the ones above described. <<<

Timescale

24 months

National and international background

Since the middle of the sixties it emerged in the most of Europe a renewed interest in the works of Marx and Engels, that led to new and relevant readings and interpretations of their thought. The most important achievement of such process was the progressive detachment of the thought of Marx and Engels from marxism as a ideological and dogmatic apparatus.
Such new readings and interpretations have insisted both on critical-filological analysis and on theoretical investigation.
Of great relevance was the constitution of Imes (Internationale Marx-Engels-Stiftung), located at Amsterdam, that gave a basic contribution to start again the "Neue Marx-Engels Gesamtausgabe" (MEGA2), interrupted after the events of 1989.
The MEGA2, started in 1975, committed itself with great merit in the enterprise of a historical and critical edition of the works of Marx and Engels already started between the two wars, the so called MEGA1, and then interrupted in the age of Stalin.
We cannot forget of course that, at least for the volumes published before 1989, the MEGA2 was commissioned by the German Democratic Republic and by the Soviet Union, where marxism was the State ideology: we thus will have to clean up this part of the edition - whose level of filological and scientific reliability is however very high - from the remnants of ideological influences. We will first consider the two critical edition MEGA1 and MEGA2, then the edition Marx-Engels "Werke" (MEW) aimed to a more general public, confronting the work of translation with the english edition Marx-Engels "Collected Works" (CW) and with the most reliable translations of single works published in italian and in other languages.
In particular the MEGA2 edition allows to follow, for the first time after thirty years of historical and critical studies, the whole "iter" of marxian elaborations of the theory of the "capitalistic mode of production". The three redactions of marxian theory which took place between 1857 and 1865 (the first draft, known as "Grundrisse" dated 1867-1858, the 1861-1863 Manuscripts and the third draft finished before the end of 1865) allow us, through a historical and critical reconstruction, to reread marxian work in a new way or indeed to read it for the first time. As much important is the edition of the marxian "Ethnological Notebooks" (1881-1882), published, both in english and in german, by Lawrence Krader in the sixties. This text is quite important because gives us an insight on the connections and on the differences between the work of Marx and the work of Engels (through a confrontation with Engels' texts on an antrophological subject) in the same period.
From a theoretical point of wiew there has been an attempt to reread the works of Marx and Engels rigorously and sistematically both at East (especially Vigodskij, Jahn, Hecker) and at West (Backhaus, Schwarz, Althusser and his school) that led to the organization of important international congresses, that have gathered the most important scholars of the Marx-Forschung all over the world. We are therefore intentioned to carry out the edition of Marx-Engels "Complete Works" basing ourselves firstly on the already published volumes in the MEGA2 and also taking into account the important theoretical achievements which have a feedback on the very approach to texts. The natural following of the project could be to reconsider that part of the work still based on MEW and CW.
Of great relevance is the presence, among the components of the unit 3 (Siena, coord. Mazzone) and of the unit 4 (Venice, coord. Turchetto), of scholars who take part to, or lead, workgroups on MEGA2. More generally, we stress that the scientific activity of the components of the Research Program takes place in a context of collaboration with important national and international institutions as the "Istituto Italiano di Studi Filosofici", the "Istituto di Studi sul Capitalismo", the "Internationale Gesellschaft Hegel-Marx fuer dialektisches Denken", the "Zentrum Philosophische Grundlagen der Wissenschaften an der Universitaet Bremen", the "Zentrum fuer Hohere Studien an der Universitaet Leipzig", the "Institut fuer kritische Theorie" of Berlin, the "Departamento de Filosofia" of the Universidad Complutense of Madrid, the "Departamento de Filosofia" of the University of Lisbon. <<<