How are new structures, new "worlds" created? Is their creation a smooth evolution of some previous ones, or the unpredictable result of the encounter of different elements with independent histories? What consequences does the acceptance of one position or the other have for Marxism and philosophy? Can we speak of a unified Marxist philosophy, or must we seek a new practice of philosophy for Marxism?
Althusser, after the defeat of his theoretical and political struggle against the removal of the concept of the dictatorship of the proletariat from the program of the Communist Party and following his personal tragedy, attempts to find refuge in the embrace of great philosophers. There, in moments from the works of Epicurus, Lucretius, Machiavelli, Spinoza, Hobbes, Rousseau, and mainly Marx, he will try to reconstruct the "underground current" of a materialism of encounter, unpredictability, and contingency, in definitive rupture with any idealism of teleology.
This original edition includes four texts by Louis Althusser written from 1982 to 1986. These texts are considered quintessentially programmatic of the "philosophy of encounter," leaving an indelible mark on its reception and fueling critical theoretical debates surrounding the later work of the French philosopher.
