Abstract
According to many of Althusser’s students, structural causality was central during their period of Cahiers pour l’Analyse. Structural causality is Althusser’s most important endeavor to overcome Hegelian dialectics. But, the question is: whether he really succeeded in doing so? Through the concept of structural causality, Althusser opposed the conventional conceptions of causality (linear and expressive). Some of Althusser’s commentators (such as Ted Breton) argued that when he theorizes structural causality, he fails to really grasp the specific causal relations in the totality of the society, and therefore, it fails to be an important and useful political concept.
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Notes
- 1.
Marx 1975, p.
- 2.
Althusser 2005, p. 93. See also ibid., pp. 161–218.
- 3.
Ibid., pp. 93–94.
- 4.
Althusser and Balibar 2009, p. 213.
- 5.
Hallward and Peden 2012, p. 269.
- 6.
Pluth 2014, p. 340.
- 7.
Ibid., p. 345.
- 8.
Cited from Montag 2014, p. 74.
- 9.
Althusser and Balibar 2009, p. 207.
- 10.
Ibid.
- 11.
Mao 2009, p. 58.
- 12.
Ibid., p. 74.
- 13.
Althusser 2005, pp. 202–3.
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Hamza, A. (2016). Structural Causality. In: Althusser and Pasolini. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-56652-2_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-56652-2_5
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