ABSTRACT
My intention in this chapter is to examine a further attempt to synthesise Marxism with another theoretical perspective, namely, structuralism. The emergence of structuralist or scientific Marxism has provoked a great deal of interest and controversy. In what sense is it a departure from other branches of Marxist theory, and in what respect can it be said to be scientific? Further indication of the current search for direction in Marxist philosophy is the turn towards scientific realism. In the context of the crisis in science it is relevant to challenge the assumptions made by this theory and to ask if it can substantiate its claims to explanatory power. I shall examine certain perennial epistemological problems which have particular relevance for these perspectives – the science/ideology disjunction, the relations of subject to object, abstract to concrete, and the nature of reality.
