Notre travail porte sur la conception de l’histoire d’Antonio Gramsci, apprehendee a partir du probleme de la periodisation (comment discerner les distinctions pertinentes dans le cours des evenements, et faire droit aux ruptures radicales comme les revolutions ?). Nous montrons que Gramsci evite l’ecueil d’une philosophie de l’histoire dogmatique, qu’elle soit materialiste ou idealiste. Son historicisme s’accompagne d’une constante attention a la concretude et a la complexite des pratiques, situations et acteurs historiques – loin de les homogeneiser comme Althusser le lui a reproche. Pour autant, et contrairement aux philosophies neo-idealistes (Croce et Gentile) contre lesquelles elle se construit, sa pensee ne dissout pas l’unite et la consistance du processus historique en une multiplicite de cas absolument singuliers et contingents. Elle parvient a saisir les epoques historiques comme des totalites relativement coherentes, qualitativement distinctes les unes des autres, et a rendre leur succession intelligible. En ce sens, ses reflexions fournissent des ressources precieuses pour repondre au « refoulement » de l’histoire qui nous semble caracteriser de nombreuses theories post-modernes, et en particulier le post-marxisme de Laclau et Mouffe. Gramsci propose donc une philosophie de l’histoire ouverte, lourde d’enjeux pratiques. Pour le montrer, nous etudions les concepts historico-politiques decisifs qu’il forge (rapports de force, bloc historique, hegemonie, revolution passive, crise, etc.), et les analyses qu’il consacre a des periodes et situations historiques determinees (Renaissance, Reforme, Revolution francaise, Risorgimento, fascisme, americanisme, etc.).

Saisir l’histoire : conception de l’histoire et périodisation chez Antonio Gramsci

This paper is part of a research on Piero Sraffa's biography and studies the relationship between Piero Sraffa and the Italian Communist leader and political theoretician Antonio Gramsci during the years 1919–1927. This period extends from the beginning of their friendship to the first year of Gramsci's imprisonment (he was arrested in November 1926), which was also the year of Sraffa's departure for England, where he settled as a lecturer at the University of Cambridge.

The friendship between Piero Sraffa and Antonio Gramsci in the years 1919-1927

Within the framework of Gramsci's prison writings, Notebooks 10 and 11 constitute the \"'philosophical' notebooks par excellence.\" Their integrating concept is that of philosophy of praxis. Christian Riechers states that the phrase \"philosophy of praxis\" is specific to the terminology of the Prison Notebooks, while Derek Boothman writes that \"for 'Marxism,' Gramsci normally uses the term 'philosophy of praxis'.\" Neither of these statements is precise. Since the appearance of the 1975 Italian critical edition, it has become possible to see how the concept emerges in Gramsci's prison writings.

Gramsci's “philosophy of praxis”

Through the Prison Notebooks and the papers left by Sraffa, it is possible to attempt a reconstruction of the intellectual paths taken by the two authors and discover unexpected convergences, as well as obvious differences. The key concept employed here is that of the ‘translatability of scientific languages’. From this concept, Boothman has argued, stems the ‘open’ character of Gramsci's Marxism. The theme of the translatability of languages is also present in Sraffa: in a Note written after the important theoretical turning point of the summer of 1927, he states his intention to write a book that will consist in the translation of Marx into English, that is in the translation of the ‘metaphysics’ of Hegel into that of Hume. It can be shown that issues that have a prominent importance in Gramsci's thought help us to understand the meaning and importance of Production of Commodities by Means of Commodities.

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Two translators: gramsci and sraffa

Introduction Chapter 1. Piero Sraffa 1. The early writings: money and banking 2. Friendship with Gramsci 3. Criticism of Marshallian theory 4. Imperfect competition 5. Criticism of the representative firm 6. Cambridge 7. Wittgenstein 8. Friendship with Keynes and the criticism of Hayek 9. The critical edition of Ricardo's writings 10. Production of Commodities by Means of Commdities 11. Critique of the marginalist approach 12. The Sraffian revolution Chapter 2. 'Production of Commodities by Means of Commodities' between criticism of the marginalist approach and reconstruction of the classical approach 1. Introduction 2. The quantities produced assumption 3. The clash between the classical and marginalist approaches 4. Sraffa and Wittgenstein: the problem of method in economics 5. Sraffa and Keynes 6. Summing up Chapter 3. The Sraffian Schools 1. Introduction 2. The critique of the marginalist theory 3. The rediscovery of the classical approach 4. The analytical contributions stemming from Sraffa 5. The 'Ricardian' reconstruction: Pasinetti 6. The 'Marxian' reconstruction: Garegnani 7. The 'Smithian' reconstruction: Sylos Labini 8. A preliminary evaluation of the three lines of enquiry 9. Conclusions

Tatiana Schucht

Papers

Lettere a Tania per Gramsci