Abstract

This paper argues that in Marx’s metaphysics, especially in his philosophical anthropology, a certain number of reasons can be identified which explain why he neither developed a political theory nor disposed of the conceptual space that might have enabled him to integrate a plausible system of political institutions within his social philosophy. As I argue here, this can be shown via a close analysis of the way Marx both criticised Hegel’s metaphysics while at the same time integrating a number of crucial conceptions of Hegel’s philosophy within a philosophical anthropology. The article therefore demonstrates that the metaphysics of species being is to be understood as a synthesis of Hegel, Feuerbach and Hess, leaving no room for a tension between individual and species.