This article offers a detailed analysis of Ilyenkov’s conception of the relationship between the logical and the historical. It posits that Ilyenkov, by overcoming the theoretical impasses of mainstream Soviet Marxism, was the first thinker to recognize the centrality of this relationship in dialectics. Through a brief overview of the official conception of Diamat, I explain that the latter broadly understood the relation of the logical and the historical in a rather superficial way. I then argue that Ilyenkov’s approach to (...) dialectics as the ascent from the abstract to the concrete, combined with his research orientation towards the method of Marx’s Capital and his reevaluation of Hegel’s philosophy led him to a much deeper understanding of the inner unity of the method of ascent from the abstract to the concrete and the relation of the logical and the historical. In reconstructing Ilyenkov’s analysis on this matter, I explain how the unfolding of the categories throughout the ascent from the abstract to the concrete is inextricably intertwined with the relation of the logical and the historical. Therefore, the article concludes by arguing that Ilyenkov’s analysis marks a significant advance in the understanding of dialectics in the history of Marxism, and a core aspect of this deeper understanding is his systematic approach to the relationship of the logical and the historical. (shrink)

This article aims to contribute to the literature on Marx’s systematic-dialectical method through a critical reading and discussion of the significance and presentational ‘architecture’ of the section on commodity fetishism in the dialectical sequence of form-determinations inCapital. In order to undertake this task, the paper firstly explores the content and expositional structure of the first three sections of Chapter 1 ofCapital. This sets the stage for a methodologically-minded close examination of Marx’s presentation of the fetish character of the commodity, which (...) shows that there is a precise systematic sequence which gives unity to the flow of his argument within the section on ‘The Fetishism of the Commodity and its Secret’. The conclusion is that only through a proper grasp of the dialectical method can the full systematic significance and implications of Marx’s account of commodity fetishism be uncovered. (shrink)