ABSTRACT
ANGUS tells us his post-Marxist critique “argues that the advances in Marxist theory that the concept of articulation achieves can … be secured and developed only within a theoretical perspective that retrieves a key experiential dimension” (p. 539). In his account, contemporary Marxism is trapped within a metaphysical opposition between a denial of experiential immediacy, as argued by existential phenomenologists (e.g., Sartre), on the one side, and a denial of a sutured totality, as argued by Marxist structuralists (e.g., Althusser), on the other. Laclau (1977/1982, 1988), Laclau and Mouffe (1985, 1987), and Hall (1982, 1985, 1986a, 1986b, 1986c, 1988) work at denying both sides of this metaphysical opposition, and they propose articulation theory as the exit from this metaphysical trap. Angus contends, nevertheless, that those attempts are partially unsuccessful insofar as they remain trapped within the oppositions they struggle to deny. To make good on the escape, Angus argues that phenomenological terms must be introduced into the discourse, specifically the terms experience and world, for the deconstruction of immediacy and totality to be realized.
