The Rhythm of Thought in Gramsci
A Diachronic Interpretation of Prison Notebooks
Description
Using a diachronic method of investigation, this work uncovers the origins and development of Gramsci’s core concepts. The first section analyzes the relation between structure and superstructure and the concepts of hegemony and the regulated society. The second investigates alternative conceptual pairings to structure-superstructure, encompassing questions of political and cultural organisation, and Gramsci's relation to Marx, Engels, and Lenin.
Author Bios
Giuseppe Cospito, Ph.D. (1999), University of Turin, is Assistant Professor of History of Philosophy at the University of Pavia. He has published monographs and a number of articles on Niccolò Machiavelli, Giambattista Vico, Carlo Cattaneo and Antonio Gramsci.
More Info
Publication date: December 26, 2017
Table of Contents
A Note on the Text
Preface: Questions of Method
PART ONE: PHILOSOPHY-POLITICS-ECONOMICS
1. Structure and Superstructures
1.1. Working hypothesis
1.2. The ‘Bukharin’ phase (from the party school to Notebook 4, §§ 12 and 15: 1925–30)
1.3. The ‘centrist’ thesis from the end of 1930 (Notebook 4, § 38)
1.4. The ‘crisis’ of 1931 (Notebook 7)
1.5. Moving beyond the architectural metaphor (Notebook 8: end of 1931 – beginning of 1932)
1.6. The ‘inertia’ of the old formulations (Notebooks 10, 11 and 13: 1932–3)
1.7. ‘Unended Quest’ (Notebooks 10, 11, 14, 15 e 17: 1932-35)
1.8 Provisional conclusions
2. Hegemony
2.1. Introduction
2.2. ‘Posing the issue’
2.3. Hegemony and civil society
2.4. Hegemony and the intellectuals
2.5. Hegemony and the party
2.6. The sources of Gramsci’s concept of hegemony
2.7. A (re)definition of Gramsci’s concept of hegemony
3. Regulated Society
3.1. Philosophy-Politics-Economics
3.2. ‘Importuning the texts’
3.3. The regulated society ‘from Utopia to science’
3.4. Towards a new Reformation?
3.5. Gramsci as critic of the ‘critical economy’
3.6. Toward ‘a new economic science’
PART TWO: THE ANALYSIS OF SEVERAL INTERNAL DYNAMICS OF THE NOTEBOOKS
4. The ‘Alternatives’ to Structure-Superstructure
4.1. ‘Quantity and quality’
4.2. ‘Content and form’
4.3. ‘Objective and subjective’
4.4. ‘Historical bloc’
5. The Gradual Transformation in Gramsci’s Categories
5.1. Methodological premise
5.2. Organic centralism; Postilla
5.3. Common sense and/or good sense
5.4. Civil society
6. Gramsci and the Marxist Tradition
6.1. ‘Marx, the author of concrete political and historical works’: Caesarism and Bonapartism
6.2. Engels and the Marxist vulgate
6.3. Conclusion: Gramsci, from Lenin to Marx
Bibliography
Index
