Gramsci’s Philosophy of Praxis

Abstract

Gramsci’s Philosophy of Praxis was an attempt to present Marxism as a political philosophy promoting the inter-definable relation between theory and practice. No practice without theory; every man was a philosopher. Marx’s call to change the world (act) more than interpret it (think) did not repudiate philosophy. It reaffirmed the unity theory-practice contextualising it in history. This characterised the intellectual project of the Prison Notebooks as the way ahead for the political affirmation of the working class. Praxis became a pedagogical, consciousness- raising practice. Enriched by other concepts – structure-superstructure (mode of production), intellectuals-working class (historic bloc) – Gramsci’s praxis was also an attempt to prevent Marxism, philosophically presented as historical materialism, from morphing into metaphysics and vulgar materialism. Respecting the strictures of ‘translatability’, praxis is adopted to discuss the 1970s industrialisation and its aftermath in Malta.