La obra de Louis Althusser intento ser una renovación radical del marxismo. Dentro de las múltiples consecuencias de su aparición está la de generar una acalorada discusión sobre Marx y el marxismo en América Latina. El presente texto trata de una evaluación global de las “lecturas” y la presencia contradictoria de Althusser en la intelectualidad latinoamericana. Es una “cartografía” en tanto que ubica los principales autores, temas y debates. Louis Althusser´s work try to be a radical renovation of the Marxism. (...) Among the many consequences of its appearance it is to generate a heated discussion on Marx and Marxism in Latin America. The present text treats of a global evaluation of the "readings" and Althusser's contradictory presence in the Latin-American intellectuality. It is a cartography" while it is located the principal authors, topics and debates. (shrink)

The ArgumentStarting from the thesis that a science constructs the knowledge of the part of the world allotted to it, the present paper aims at bringing together all the various aspects of physics under a unified conceptual framework — that provided by the Marxian concept “mode of production.” After an introduction providing the initial plausibility grounds for the undertaking, the concept is analyzed into its conceptual elements in Part I of the paper. The analysis presents the reconstruction initiated by Louis (...) Althusser and developed by his followers. Part II starts from a characterization of physical problems. This offers a basis for “reading” physics in the terms introduced in Part I. The rest of Part II is devoted to the identification of all the aspects of physics with the conceptual elements in question. The paper aims at three things: to uncover the connections holding among seemingly disparate aspects of physics, usually discussed in almost total independence from each other; to take full account of the social dimensions of physics without vindicating social constructivism; to show that the boundaries separating the disciplines of philosophy, history and sociology of science are more arbitrary than usually considered. (shrink)