SOURCE: “Consciousness, Praxis, and Reality: Marxism vs. Phenomenology,” in Husserl: Expositions and Appraisals, edited by Frederick A. Elliston and Peter McCormick, University of Notre Dame Press, 1977, pp. 304-13.

In this comparison of Marxism and phenomenology, originally presented as a lecture in 1972, Wartofsky shows the errors of phenomenology from the Marxist point of view.

The beginning of phenomenology is the reassertion of subjectivity. The beginning of Marxism is the attack upon subjectivity. To contrast Marxism and phenomenology is to find, in the first place, the common point of departure for each, the common Problematik to which each addresses itself. Otherwise we are in the strange position of counterposing two indifferent world views or two incommensurable methodologies, without mediation. It is clear from the history of the subject that Marxism and phenomenology are not alien to each other. First, phenomenological themes lie at the heart of the origins of Marxism...