Marxist philosophy or Marxist theory are terms which cover work in philosophy which is strongly influenced by Karl Marx's materialist approach to theory or which is written by Marxists. It may be broadly divided into Western Marxism, which drew out of various sources, and the official philosophy in the Soviet Union, which enforced a rigid reading of Marx called "diamat" (for "dialectical materialism"), in particular during the 1930s.
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Marxist philosophy or Marxist theory are terms which cover work in philosophy which is strongly influenced by Karl Marx's materialist approach to theory or which is written by Marxists. It may be broadly divided into Western Marxism, which drew out of various sources, and the official philosophy in the Soviet Union, which enforced a rigid reading of Marx called "diamat" (for "dialectical materialism"), in particular during the 1930s.
The phrase "Marxist philosophy" itself does not indicate a strictly defined sub-field of philosophy, because the diverse influence of Marxist theory has extended into fields as diverse as aesthetics, ethics, ontology, epistemology, and philosophy of science, as well as its obvious influence on political philosophy and the philosophy of history. The key characteristics of Marxism in philosophy are its materialism and its commitment to political practice as the end goal of all thought.
Louis Althusser, for example, defined philosophy as "class struggle in...
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