Open AccessIs Western Marxism Western? The Cases of Gramsci and Tosaka
Author(s) -
Takahiro Chino
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
journal of world philosophies
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.132
H-Index - 3
ISSN - 2474-1795
DOI - 10.2979/jourworlphil.2.1.03
Subject(s) - impossibility , pessimism , marxist philosophy , hegemony , focus (optics) , sociology , epistemology , communism , political science , philosophy , law , politics , physics , optics
This paper aims to show that two eminent Marxists in the 1930s, the Italian Antonio Gramsci and the Japanese\udTosaka Jun, shared three important characteristics of so-called Western Marxism: the methodological development of\udMarxism, the focus on the superstructure, and the pessimism about the impossibility of immediate revolution.\udShowing that Gramsci and Tosaka shared these characteristics enables us to revisit the framework of “Western\udMarxism,” which confusingly consists of both theoretical characteristics and geographical criteria. Looking at Gramsci\udand Tosaka on the same plane allows us to revisit Marxist thought different from the orthodox Marxism in Soviet\udRussia, and not strictly as a Western, but as a part of potentially global movement of thought