ABSTRACT
Marx’s most purely philosophical work (apart from his doctoral dissertation on Democritus and Epicurus) is found in a set of notes written in 1844 and known variously as his ‘Paris’, ‘Economic-Philosophical’ or simply ‘1844’ Manuscripts. They first appeared in print in 1932, when the beginning of a complete edition of the works of Marx and Engels, published in Moscow, brought to light several important new texts. Especially after their publication in English translation in 1959, the Manuscripts became a subject of debate and controversy as their importance was asserted by commentators eager to see Marx as a humanist thinker deeply concerned with the individual, and not simply an advocate of class warfare and social revolution. For some, Marx the moralist seemed less alarming than Marx the revolutionary, and less problematical than Marx the social scientist. This may have been a mistake; yet the opposing tendency to write off these early works of Marx as of little or no interest is just as wrong as the tendency to elevate them to a level higher than his mature works.
