The concept of objectivity in Gramsci

Abstract

The paper discusses Gramsci’s treatment of the objectivity issue in the Prison Notebooks, initially suggesting the existence of two poles of theoretical tension within the Marxist tradition until then: the Theses on Feuerbach and its critique of metaphysical materialism and the kind of philosophical materialism that drains into Soviet Marxism. From this initial position, in the first part of the article, the concepts of praxis, “active side” of human thought, becoming and objectivity are discussed. In the second part is addressed, first, the positioning on the concept of matter and philosophical materialism, underlining Gramscian criticism of the deterioration of Marxism by the metaphysical search for a “first philosophy” and the battle to reintegrate it into the Marxist perspective of praxis, without thereby adopting an idealist position; secondly, it shows how, recovering the Labriolian idea of Marxism’s self-sufficiency, Gramsci erodes to such an extent the bases of historical materialism in the criticized form that the tradition itself must be called by another name: philosophy of praxis.