ABSTRACT
In common with structuralism, Marxism has had both a positive and a negative effect on contemporary continental philosophy. This chapter describes the relationship between Marxism and recent continental philosophy with a brief look at Frankfurt School writings in the post-war period. The Critique of Dialectical Reason was written during the Algerian war of liberation, and represented an attempt by Sartre to reorient his thought on a more consciously Marxist basis than hitherto, during what he identified as a crisis for Marxism and dialectical thought. Sartre takes issue with the notion of a dialectic in nature, particularly as formulated by Engels, claiming that this amounts to 'Nature without men'. The structural Marxism of Louis Althusser and his disciples proved to be one of the most influential versions of Marxism since the Second World War, constituting a major force in continental philosophical discourse from the 1950s through to the 1970s.
