These are just little paragraphs that were for a midterm that helped understand 4 authors: Marx, Benjamin, Althusser and Foucault.

Essay by thedolphinscryUniversity, Master'sA-, November 2003

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1.According to Karl Marx, consciousness is doubled into two methods: the living individual and the transformation into real life. "In the first method of approach the starting-point is consciousness taken as the living individual; in the second method, which conforms to real life, it is the real living individuals themselves, and consciousness is considered solely as their consciousness." (768)

In the quote from above I believe it is telling us that Marx believes real life forms men's thoughts and consciousness. Without active men, we do not have an active conscious...or a real life.

Marx says that we have no choice in who we are. He thought that our consciousness doesn't determine life, but life determines our consciousness. As human beings we all have consciousness but we have limitations to that consciousness and our lives. He states, "...they work under definite material limits, presuppositions and conditions independent of their will."

(768) Those limitations are the ones stated in the quote we were to interpret. (" Conceiving, thinking, the mental intercourse of men...") Marx believed that men are the producers of life...and example of this is when we were talking about the discussions over black vs. white, the different religions and the morality issues of what is okay in our lives, as in, if we were brought up that stealing is okay, then we believe it's okay. Marx believed that we were the producers of a people. He also believed that who we are is where we belong in society. He thought that we were not to ponder on life then live it, but we are to live life then ponder on what we have accomplished. "That is to say, we do not set out from what men say, imagine, conceive, nor from men as narrated, thought of, imagined, conceived,