Alec Hinshelwood (Leipzig): Marx and Rational Animality

According to tradition, we humans are the rational animal; and in this paper, I pursue the idea that our rationality and animality must be a unity. Moreover, I suggest that this unity is to be comprehended from what Marx calls, in his 10^th thesis on Feuerbach, ‘the standpoint of […] social humanity’. That is, I suggest that the unity of our rationality and animality can be grasped only by acknowledging the social character of the activity of human living, and I argue that Marx understood that activity better than his Aristotelian or Hegelian sources.

Zur Person:

Alec Hinshelwood is a wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter at the University of Leipzig. His main areas of interest are ethics, Marx, classical German philosophy, and the philosophy of mind and action. Before taking up his position at Leipzig, he was a Visiting Scholar at the University of Potsdam, funded by the Leverhulme Trust. He did his PhD at University College London and the BPhil at Oxford. His recent publications include 'Marx und vernuftiges Tiersein' in the Deutsche Zeitschrift fuer Philosophie and 'Moorean Paradox in Practice' in the Australasian Journal of Philosophy. He is the guest editor of a special edition of the European Journal of Philosophy, 'Beings and Doings', on the philosophy of action.