Work and Abstraction: The Question of the Essence of Philosophical Materialism

About the event

10th Festival of Abstract Thought 🗓️ October 22-26, 2025, Jazdów Estate, Warsaw FROM THE BELLY. Body, corporeality, materiality. Program here: https://www.fma.waw.pl/ Meeting - no registration required Work and abstraction, or the question of the essence of philosophical materialism 🗓️ Friday, 24.10.2026, ⏰ 8:00 PM - 9:30 PM Rotational House of Culture Karl Marx is commonly regarded as the founder of historical and dialectical materialism, although he himself did not use either of these terms. He is considered a theorist of communism and socialism, while descriptions of post-capitalist societies appear only sporadically in his writings. He was certainly one of the most important materialists in the history of philosophy, although the main theoretical inspiration for his critique of the political economy of capitalism was Hegel's idealist logic. In what sense, then, was Marx a materialist? Classical introductions to his thought most often concern concepts such as alienation, commodity, exploitation, or the dialectic of productive forces and relations of production. We, however, will try to approach Marx's materialism from a different angle—from the seemingly least materialist side. By analyzing the famous first chapter of Capital, we will try to see Marx's materialism primarily as a theory of abstraction. We will look at how abstraction works in capitalism, how the abstraction of labor is created, and why it is precisely this question about the relationship between labor and abstraction that constitutes the essence of philosophical materialism. Mikołaj Ratajczak – philosopher, historian of concepts, translator, and editor. Assistant professor at the Department of Philosophy of Culture and Politics at IFiS PAN, collaborator of the scientific journal "Praktyka Teoretyczna." From 2012–2015, editor of the philosophy and social sciences section at PWN Scientific Publishing. He is the author of the first monographic study in Polish and one of the first in the world on the history of the development of contemporary radical political philosophy in Italy (Form of Life and the Common Good, Warsaw 2020). Expert and translator of Karl Marx's thought, since 2017 he has co-led the nationwide, open online seminar "Reading Marx." EVENT ACCESSIBILITY - Meetings are held at the Rotational House of Culture, which is accessible to people with mobility disabilities. - We organize translation of meetings and lectures into Polish Sign Language (PJM). If you need PJM translation, please submit your request here by 19.10. Link: https://forms.gle/EuJbZdYSDV7UzwVt7 The project is co-financed by the City of Warsaw Funded by the Minister of Culture and National Heritage from the Culture Promotion Fund – a state special-purpose fund. Organizing body: Open Wild Elderberry Association Our socials: - FB https://www.facebook.com/fma.waw - IG: @festiwalmysliabstrakcyjnej