THE POLITICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF THE CONCEPT OF NEGATIVITY

Abstract

The author, by introducing a new interpretation of the classical distinction between idealism and materialism, elaborates the concept of historicity of being. In opposition to the idealist reduction of the real on the form he argues for the concept of the real which prevents the closure of the symbolic system, undermining the form and indicating its necessary historicity and contingency. Superseding the merely epi-stemological or ontological position, the author shows that the objective being, far from being fixed and given, is socially constituted through human activity. In this conceptual framework he criticizes the classical Marxist notion of class straggle.