Marx, Engels and Dialectics

Abstract

Two familiar ‘facts' about Marx, Engels and their views are in reality fictions. The first is that Marx and Engels speak with the same voice on all important theoretical issues; that their works supplement each other; and that they had a perfect intellectual partnership. The second fiction is that as Marx grew older, he embraced the positivism and determinism fashionable at the time. The strongest evidence for the second fiction is the claim that Marx approved of Engels's Anti-Dühring of 1877–8 and agreed in principle with other works by Engels, such as the Dialectics of Nature. I attack the second fiction in detail, and then use my conclusions to attack the first. This exposes a divergence between the views of Marx and Engels on classic problems in social science.