Pierre Macherey (; born 17 February 1938, Belfort) is a French

Marxist Marxism is a Left-wing politics, left-wing to Far-left politics, far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a Materialism, materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand S ...

philosopher A philosopher is a person who practices or investigates philosophy. The term ''philosopher'' comes from the grc, φιλόσοφος, , translit=philosophos, meaning 'lover of wisdom'. The coining of the term has been attributed to the Greek th ...

and

literary critic Literary criticism (or literary studies) is the study, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often influenced by literary theory, which is the philosophical discussion of literature's goals and methods. Th ...

at the University of Lille Nord de France. A former student of

Louis Althusser Louis Pierre Althusser (, ; ; 16 October 1918 – 22 October 1990) was a French Marxist philosopher. He was born in Algeria and studied at the École normale supérieure in Paris, where he eventually became Professor of Philosophy. Althusser ...

and collaborator on the influential volume '' Reading Capital'', Macherey is a central figure in the development of French post-structuralism and Marxism. His work is influential in

literary theory Literary theory is the systematic study of the nature of literature and of the methods for literary analysis. Culler 1997, p.1 Since the 19th century, literary scholarship includes literary theory and considerations of intellectual history, mo ...

and

Continental philosophy Continental philosophy is a term used to describe some philosophers and philosophical traditions that do not fall under the umbrella of analytic philosophy. However, there is no academic consensus on the definition of continental philosophy. Pri ...

in Europe (including Britain) though it is generally little read in the United States.

Scholarly work

Macherey is known for his contribution to ''Reading Capital'', his influential work in Marxist literary criticism, and intensive philosophical engagement with both Spinoza and

Hegel Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (; ; 27 August 1770 – 14 November 1831) was a German philosopher. He is one of the most important figures in German idealism and one of the founding figures of modern Western philosophy. His influence extends a ...

. His work on these figures (from his early ''Hegel or Spinoza'' through his ''Hegel et la société'' and his five volume study of Spinoza's ''Ethics'') complicates a relationship that is often otherwise taken to be a simple opposition between the competing paradigms of 'immanance' and 'dialectics'. For Macherey, as Jason Read puts it, "the task is not to choose between Team Hegel and Team Spinoza, but to interrogate each by means of the other." Since October 2000, he has been engaged in a group project entitled "La ''Philosophie au sens large''" (Philosophy in the grand sense), which has been hosted on the academic web platform Hypotheses.org since 2009. The project collects essays, presentations, and longer form studies that highlight the interrelation between philosophy and the literary, political, artistic, and social scientific thought that conditions it. The project is described as an attempt to reformulate the problematic of practice. In this context, Macherey has described philosophy in the 'grand sense' as " a conjunctural practice, which has no other means of surpassing the limits imposed by the conjunctures with which it is confronted other than to reflect on them and to elucidate their conditions in such a way as to eventually be able to intervene with regard to them and, therefore, to contribute to the transformation or evolution of these conjunctures."

Works

Only a partial selection of Macherey's work has been translated into English.
"The Productive Subject"
Viewpoint Magazine 5 (October 2015) * '' Reading Capital'', (1965 - with

, Étienne Balibar and Jacques Rancière) * ''Hegel ou Spinoza'', Maspéro, 1977 (reed. La Découverte, 2004) * ''A Theory of Literary Production'' (1978): * ''Hegel et la société'', PUF, (1984) * ''The Object of Literature'' (1995): * ''In a Materialist Way: Selected Essays'' (1998 ed.

Warren Montag Warren Montag (born March 21, 1952) is a professor of English at Occidental College in Los Angeles, California. He is known primarily for his work on twentieth-century French theory, especially Althusser and his circle, as well as his studies of t ...

): * "Hegel or Spinoza", University of Minnesota Press (Jan 2012). Translator, Susan M. Ruddick

References

External links

Pierre Macherey's personal site

Macherey from the Literary Encyclopedia

{{DEFAULTSORT:Macherey, Pierre 1938 births Living people French literary critics Marxist theorists École Normale Supérieure alumni University of Lille Nord de France faculty French male writers French philosophers Spinoza scholars Spinozist philosophers Neo-Spinozism