Page - 49 - in Otto Bauer (1881–1938) - Thinker and Politician

thematerialist view of history 49 important ofwhich included anevolutionary interpretationof thehistorical processandresultingreformistorientation.AlmostallAustromarxists,mostof whomheldPhDs fromtheUniversityofVienna,were influencedby itsbour- geois professors. Followers of Johann FriedrichHerbart and Friedrich Jacob dominated thephilosophydepartment there, butunlike inFrance, therewas nostrongmaterialist tradition.Theworksof ‘itinerantpreachers’, suchasKarl Vogt, JacobMoleschottandLudwigBüchner,wereknowninAustria, yet they didnotprovokeanymajor interest,andthesynthesisofphilosophicalmateri- alismanddialecticswasneitherunderstoodnoraccepted.Likewise, the influ- enceofGermanidealismwasminor–amongGermanphilosophers,onlyKant commanded respect and attention.Hegelwas regarded as a dangerous irra- tionalistandmystic.Furthermore,therewasstrongresistanceagainsttheneo- Kantianmethodology and its dichotomous understanding of the sciences – i.e. thedifferentiationbetweennomotheticandidiographicsciencesmadeby theBadenSchool.TheAustrianconceptionofMarxism,withinwhichneither philosophicalmaterialism normaterialist dialectics were granted a right to exist,evolvedinthisintellectualclimate.Inthefieldsofontologyandepistem- ology,Kantianismandempirio-criticism,respectively,hadbecomeprevalent. The limited receptionofMarxism inAustriawas conditionedbyobjective circumstances and, in a sense, historically justified.During theperiodof the SecondInternational, onlya fewelementsofMarx’s theoryweresubjected to factual analysis, ashis earlywritingsdidnotappearuntil the 1920s.However, it also resulted from the programmatic task that theAustromarxists had set themselves. They had no desire to prove the legitimacy and correctness of historicalmaterialism in theway earlier generations had done. Rather, they wanted to utiliseMarx’s findings andmethod for their own research in the areasofphilosophy,law,economyandhistory.Indoingso,theywereawarethat any furtherdevelopmentofMarxismwould involveconfronting itsbasic the- oreticalandphilosophicalassumptionswiththelatestfindingsofhardscience and explanations offeredbyother currents of intellectual culture. For itwas notMarxism,butpositivism,scientism,socialDarwinism,naturalismandKan- tianismthatdefinedperceptionsofsocialandhistorical realityat thetime.Of no less importancewere the insightsof formal sociology (FerdinandTönnies, GeorgSimmelandMaxWeber),whichwerethrivingparticularlyinGermany.11 11 Theconceptsofsocietyandsocial tiescontainedinFerdinandTönnies’sCommunityand Society(1887)andGeorgSimmel’sSociology.InquiriesintotheConstructionofSocialForms (1908)met with lively interest in scientific andMarxist circles. See Tönnies 2003 and Simmel2009.