On Searching of the Lost Materialism: The Karl Marx’sDoctoral Thesis

Abstract

We intend in this paper to elucidate the philosophical position of Marx present in his doctoral thesis in the face of a fundamental aspect: dialectical materialism. Therefore, the present article intends to show a possible interpretation on Marx’s thesis where he addresses a topic, at first sight, less important from the philosophical point of view. Marx’s thesis does not simply seek to insert itself into the set of the history of philosophy works in order to demystify certain prejudices related to the understanding of Democritus and Epicurus, but rather intend to apprehend the meaning of a materialism capable of accounting of the deficit of freedom, quite demanded by the idealism prevailing in his time. To this end, we shall concentrate on his thesis, Difference Between the Philosophies of Nature in Democritus and Epicurus, in order to understand more precisely the reasons why Marx formulated certain conclusions in the analysis between the two Greek philosophers, exposing their arguments, going through the historical context of the work.