San Francisco Philosophy Reading Group

For this session, we'll read and discuss Ludwig Feuerbach's Principles of the Philosophy of the Future. We'll aim to read and discuss the full essay (~100 pages), but if you are pressed for time you can focus on the later half (§31 - 65) where Feuerbach describes his vision for the Philosophy of the Future.

Feuerbach was a Young Hegelian philosopher, who is perhaps best known for his critiques of Religion, as well as his influence on Marx + Engel's historical Materialism (we'll read Marx's critique of Feuerbach in our next session). In Principles of the Philosophy of the Future, Feuerbach traces the history of modern philosophical development, culminating in his critique of Hegel's absolute idealism. He then presents his vision of materialist philosophy, which emphasizes the primacy of sensuous, material reality over Hegel's idealism.

For this session, we’ll read and discuss Marx’s Theses on Feuerbach and Part I of The German Ideology. The Theses are a set of brief but pivotal notes where Marx critiques Feuerbach’s contemplative materialism and sketches the foundations of his own praxis-oriented historical materialism. The German Ideology builds on this, offering a systematic account of history and social change grounded in material life, labor, and the development of productive forces.

These texts mark a decisive break from both Hegelian idealism and Feuerbach’s abstract materialism. Marx and Engels argue that consciousness does not determine life; rather, life determines consciousness. They lay the groundwork for a theory of history rooted in real human activity, particularly labor, and criticize prior philosophy for detaching itself from the conditions of material existence. These readings set the stage for all later Marxist theory.