Quote

We totally misunderstand both his aims and his contribution if we try to read into Marx some anticipation of either the modest successes or the disastrous failures of those who later thought they were acting in his name.

Allen W. Wood

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Allen W. Wood
Age: 82
Born: 1942
Born: January 1
Academic
Philosopher
Professor
University Teacher
Seattle
Washington
Allen William Wood
Later
Aims
Name
Successes
Either
Anticipation
Names
Failures
Acting
Modest
Read
Contribution
Misunderstand
Thought
Aim
Disastrous
Trying
Totally
Marx

More quotes by Allen W. Wood

Image
Some empirical feelings, such as sympathy, are indispensable parts of certain moral virtues.
Allen W. Wood
Image
Fichte would identify all states of our minds with states of our body - perhaps not merely of our brain, but the whole body as an acting organism.
Allen W. Wood
Image
I do not know how much my own work has achieved, and I must not pretend it has done more than it has.
Allen W. Wood
Image
It is both theoretically mistaken and morally wrong to regard others as objects of investigation rather than partners in free rational communication.
Allen W. Wood
Image
The Russian revolution did not occur until a generation after Marx's death. He was not involved with it, or with what came after it. His works do not describe post-capitalist society, and a fortiori they do not recommend any part of what the Soviet Union did.
Allen W. Wood
Image
What Smith and Marx have in common is that they were both philosophers of great vision and perceptiveness, deep humanity, and a sense of social reality that has been lost in the abstractly formalistic economic theories that have dominated the field since the last third of the nineteenth century.
Allen W. Wood
Image
One rational standard of action is how well it promotes the end it seeks. Another standard is whether it aims at ends which are good. Both of these, but especially the former, depend on judgments of fact.
Allen W. Wood
Image
Freedom is a permanent problem for us, both unavoidable and insoluble.
Allen W. Wood
Image
Marx is thought of as an implacable foe of capitalism. But go back and read the first section of the Communist Manifesto. Notice how it contains a paean of praise for the way capitalism and the bourgeoisie have both enriched the human powers of production and also enabled us to see with clear vision the nature of human society and human history.
Allen W. Wood
Image
I wish that our culture could retain the symbolism and emotional power of traditional religion while combining it with reason and science and using the combination to enhance our humanity rather than impoverishing it by choosing the one side or the other.
Allen W. Wood
Image
Reason necessarily expresses itself through emotions and emotions are healthy only insofar as they are expressions of reason.
Allen W. Wood
Image
Many who are committed to reason and science have turned against religion altogether and treat it with fear and contempt.
Allen W. Wood
Image
I don't think Kant's approach to religion is any longer viable in its original form. But that does not mean it is simply wrong or that we cannot learn from it.
Allen W. Wood
Image
Teaching and writing about philosophy is about the only thing I've ever been really good at.
Allen W. Wood
Image
Sometimes when a philosopher's views are widely rejected by the world, the fault is not with the philosopher but with the world.
Allen W. Wood
Image
Kant does not regard freedom as an item of faith because it is too basic to our agency to be related to any end.
Allen W. Wood
Image
Adam Smith was aware of the way that economic interests could have a distorting and destructive effect both on the market and on politics.
Allen W. Wood
Image
The problem is that many who reject Marx do not read him, or read him only by bringing prejudices to their reading that prevent them from understanding him.
Allen W. Wood
Image
Notice that tearing oneself out of the insensible state is the opposite of remaining in it the man who is beneficent from duty nevertheless acts with feelings, if not with empirical inclinations.
Allen W. Wood
Image
In general, those who defend capitalism are basically out of touch with reality.
Allen W. Wood