Althusser’s Return to a New Materialism: a Reading of the 10th and 11th Theses on Feuerbach

Abstract

The author answers the question of how to think new materialism in the work of Louis Althusser. In contrast to the dominant reading that focuses on the late, aleatory Althusser, the article launches the thesis that without thinking together both structure and contingency, reproduction and politics, the central kernel of Althusser's rupture and innovation is lost. The key to this thesis is a close reading of Theses on Feuerbach, which shed new light on Althusser's conception of philosophy. A diagonal reading of the 10th and 11th Theses demonstrates specific relationships between science (of history), politics, and philosophy, which are at the centre of any new materialism.