ABSTRACT
The thought concrete is Marx's reconstruction of that world in the theories of what has come to be called "Marxism." Serious work on Marx's dialectical method can be distinguished on the basis of which of the categories belonging to the vocabulary of dialectics is treated as pivotal. Despite several explicit remarks on the centrality of abstraction in Marx's work, the process of abstraction has received little attention in the literature on Marxism. Marx's abstractions were said to stand out insofar as they invariably included elements of change and interaction, while his practice of abstracting was found to include more or less of each as suited his immediate purpose. The main aspect of Marx's process of abstraction, or mode in which it occurs, is the abstraction of level of generality. Another mode in which Marx's abstractions occur is that of vantage point. Using the force of abstraction, as chapter tries to show, is Marx's way of putting dialectics to work.
