Science and Method

Events

Events Search and Views Navigation

Event Views Navigation

Today

  • Marxist Psychology: Vygotsky’s Cultural-Historical Theory

    Featured
    Online Event - Zoom Meeting
    Reading Group

    A six-week workshop with Carl Ratner, in which we will seek to solve the riddle Marx posed in his first thesis on Feuerbach: "in contradistinction to materialism, the active side was developed abstractly by idealism – which, of course, does not know real, sensuous activity as such." Exploring a materialist theory of subjectivity which does know sensuous activity, we will see how historical materialism can be extended to reveal how it is compatible with psychology and how human psychology is itself a historical-materialist phenomenon.

  • Marx’s Capital, Vol. II – On the Circulation of Capital

    Online Event - Zoom Meeting
    Reading Group

    A ten-session study group covering Marx's Capital, Volume II, The Process of Circulation of Capital. Marx addresses the question: How can the reproduction of society as a whole take place, if there is no conscious social planning that ensures that all needs are met, in the necessary proportions, such that life can persist and the capitalist relations of production be sustained? We discover the answer, but we also learn of new contradictions and sources of crisis inherent to capitalist society.

  • Hegel for Radicals: The Philosophy of Right

    Online Event - Zoom Meeting
    Reading Group

    The MEP’s recurring series Hegel for Radicals continues ten sessions on Hegel’s 'Philosophy of Right', a treatise on the meaning of freedom and the kind of institutions that are required for its realization.  Our study is inspired by the insight of Andy Blunden, in his recent book, 'The Capital-Logic Debate', that the key to understanding Marx’s dialectical method in his investigation of Capital lies in understanding the method Hegel employed in the Philosophy of Right.

  • Lev Vygotsky

    Historical-Materialist Psychology: Vygotsky’s Contribution

    Featured
    Online Event - Zoom Meeting
    Reading Group

    Carl Ratner presents a new edition of this six-week series, in which we explore Lev Vygotsky's approach to historical-materialist culture. Vygotsky (1896-1934) was a dedicated academic Marxist who was active in efforts during the revolutionary period to develop socialist cultural institutions and social sciences. He said, “We must learn from Marx’s whole method how to build a science, how to approach the investigation of the mind.”

  • Adam Smith and ‘The Wealth of Nations’

    Online Event - Zoom Meeting
    Reading Group

    Read and discuss the works of Adam Smith in this ongoing study group. The group is currently reading Book 4 of Smith's 'The Wealth of Nations'. Smith's notion of capital was important to Marx in the development of Marx's understanding of capital, and Marx frequently quoted from Smith in his discussions in Capital and other writings.

    Get Tickets Free

  • Hegel for Radicals: On Art and Literature

    Featured
    Online Event - Zoom Meeting
    Reading Group

    Francis Fukuyama proclaimed The End of History in the 1990’s; art critic Arthur C. Danto proclaimed The End of Art in the 1960s. The genesis of both concepts are credited to Hegel. The MEP’s recurring series Hegel for Radicals resumes with a seminar on Hegel’s Lectures on Aesthetics, where we will study his understanding of art and literature.

    Get Tickets Free

  • Highlights of Capital Volume III: The Automatic Fetish

    Featured
    Online Event - Zoom Meeting
    Virtual Event
    Reading Group

    A weekly study group on Marx's Capital, Volume III, based on Beverley Best's 'The Automatic Fetish.' Marx's work integrates and completes his analysis of capital, enabling us to understand and make sense of how the phenomena we see occurring on the surface of society are related to the underlying system.