ABSTRACT

This critique of scientism and historicism, of the objectivity of the scientific enterprise and its worth in human affairs, consciously and clearly separated Sorel from Marx and the latter's doctrine of historical materialism.2 Sorel sought to show that he was a socialist for precisely the opposite reasons as Marx. Sorel attempted to release the animal passions by means of myths-to set humanity free in the flame of revolutionary enterprises. Marx's aim was to realize through the struggle for socialism the specifically human impulses of menthe rational fulfilment and transformation of sensuous experience.3 Between the two men stood the vast gulf of the place of reason in human affairs.4