Reading Althusser

Abstract

In Reading Capital (Lire le Capital) Althusser wrote that Marx only partially grasped the concept of the revolution that he triggered in the theoretical field. In order to complete Marx’s work, Althusser set a double task: first he had to carefully analyse the symptomatic reading, which is the method of reading employed by Marx in his critique of classical political economy, and then apply this method to Marx himself. The article argues that by doubling the symptomatic reading, Althusser only partially grasped the concept of revolution that he triggered in the political field. In order to complete Althusser’s project we need to apply the symptomatic reading that Althusser used in his reading of Marx to Althusser himself. To do that we have to read him as a philosopher and pose him questions regarding the specificity of the object of his theory, the specificity of the relation between his theory and its object, and the nature of the type of discourse employed in analysis of this object.