ABSTRACT
The search for a scientific explanation of history, such as that engaged in by Marx, is rooted in a thesis of the philosophy of history. In fact, Marx affirms: In the social production of their existence, men inevitably enter into definite relations, which are independent of their will, namely relations of production appropriate to a given stage in the development of their material forces of production. Jürgen Habermas holds that the heirs of Marxism belonging to the Frankfurt School have the same hopes as those who first articulated the Marxist philosophy of history. But, the ‘mechanism’ that the early Marxists envisaged no longer works. The basic mechanism of the Marxist philosophy of history, which allows one to attribute an emancipatory potential determined by an inexorable augmentation of productive forces, stops working.
