Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book includes a collection of papers that were presented at the annual conferences of the Marx and Philosophy Society in London between 2012 and 2016. It talks about philosophers from around the world together to consider historical issues in Karl Marx scholarship and to connect Marx's ideas with recent debates in contemporary philosophy. Philosophical studies of Marx tended to focus on topics like materialism and dialectics, but commentators are more interested in Marx's social and political thought and his ideas on such issues as freedom, recognition and human flourishing. David Leopold examines Marx's relationship to a different tradition, namely, the utopian socialism of Charles Fourier, Robert Owen and Henri de Saint-Simon. As a social and political programme, post-Kantian perfectionism looks to eliminate the obstacles that stand in the way of freedom, whether they are economic, social or political.