1

Man

in Marxist Theory

Lucien Sve

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Foreword

The book you are about to read is quite the opposite of an occasional work, a work of improvisation.

I took a passionately keen interest in the problems of activity. It was partly the wish to do psychology which, as actual student in

1945, made me turn to philosophy (in French education it includes psychology) and later, a certificat de license in prompted me to

opt for the one in psychophysiology. But, although often captivating in detail, existing psychology was nothing but a

disappointment overall. I found scientific rigour only in the anything that had actual bearing on problems of real human life, in the

first place my own. It was almost independently of this university education in psychology, and often in opposition to literary or

philosophical drafts in search of autobiographical understanding. La Crise de la psychologie contemporaine had been published in

1947 by Editions sociales: this profound critique by Politzer played a part in directing my thought towards Marxism. The fact that

the uncompromising nature of his rejection of conventional psychology resulted precisely in the promise of a psychology that was

both concrete and scientific, which was just about what I was longing for, that's what mattered to me. I agreed about what Politzer

rejected as much as about what he proclaimed. Although appearing to me to contain a large kernel of truth in this respect,

psychoanalysis interested me less than the disliked work of Janet which, in spite of its limitations, filled me with enthusiasm with its

understanding of psychological activity and the historico-social nature of the personality.

A crucial turning point in this reflection on psychology resulted from the fact that from 1950 onwards I seriously undertook the

study of Lenin. In Lenins school I gained the firm that bourgeois ideology which naturalizes psychological activity and the personality that this naturalism may assume materialist or spiritualistic forms. In Lenin, on the contrary, I thought I psychology in which the real life of the individual is understood as the interiorisation of political relations. This is why when in several articles

in its No. 4 (1953) issue, the Marxist physiology as the basis of a truly materialist psychology, I sent a long letter of disagreement in

which I sought to trace the boundary, i.e. the limits of validity, between the Pavlovian which I wished to base on historical

materialism but which at that time I confused, in actual fact, with a social psychology. It is this position which is expressed in my article in L Raison, in No. 910, December 1954) and in my intervention in symposium on Lenin organized by La Pense (Lnine et psychologie, La Pense, No. 57, September 1954).

But in the meantime another crucial turning point had taken place in my thought, of which these publications as yet showed no

trace:close reading and study of Capital in 1953,a reading in which I did not forgo putting my psychological questions to Marxs text. In numerous notes which remained in the state of rough drafts I began to discern; specific terrain for the psychology of

personality articulated with historical materialism, and by way of Capital I thought out a number essential concepts which the final

chapter of the present work brings into play, in particular the concept of labour-time, a crucial one in my opinion. However, many

indispensable aspects of knowledge in psychology and even more in Marxism were lacking to me. My work on psychology

continued until 1956, but it was getting bogged down, and the course of my activities resulted in my devoting myself mainly to

other problems during these years: criticism of revisionist distortions of Marxism,the dialectic, the history of French philosophy

since nineteenth century.

In actual fact, through the underlying logic of all theoretical research when it concerns a really fundamental theoretical problem

and pursued for several decades, each of these subjects led me in some to the theory of personality: the struggle against rightist

revisions Marxism and the critique of existentialism presented the problem of psychologism; the history of French philosophy in the

nineteenth century that of biologism; as for studying the dialectic, to which, I increasingly devoted myself, it is the crucial

epistemological prerequisite for any theoretical work which aspires to scientific rigor. Teaching philosophy at the lyce, both

through the psychology curriculum I had to cover and through the psycho-educational practice which I had to develop, also never

stopped pushing me in the same direction. That is why when the journal LEcole et la nation asked me in 1962 for an article on the problem of relations between teachers and pupils parents, I saw straight away that this was an opportunity to express publicly a number of ideas I had been hatching for years and, in particular, to take up again the ever necessary critique of physiologism at the

simple and popular but really central level of the belief in natural aptitudes. A first brief article published in November 1962 L Ecole et la nation provoked a lively discussion in the course of which I returned to the problem in more detail (June 1963), and

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which forced me to work through a comprehensive specialized bibliography. After very lively private and public discussions, I took

up the question again in a long article, Les dons nexistent pas LEcole et la nation, October 1964).

In my opinion the criticisms directed at me derived on the one hand from the still inadequately developed concept of the

personality underlying this study and, on the other, from the persistence, even among Marxists, of tenacious pseudo-materialist

illusions on the subject of man. Nevertheless, with regard to the general thrust of the article, i.e. the refutation of the bourgeois

ideology of natural aptitudes, approval of the main point clearly carried the day in the end. I think that Jean Rostands approbation, which has been publicly expressed at various times, should be noted. It is all the more significant if one bears in mind

that, on the basis of some of his older works, he is often held to be a defender of the innateness of intellectual aptitudes.

By giving me a more acute awareness of everything in the theory of personality that remained to be clarified, both in my own

ideas and in the existing scientific literature, these two years of work on the question of natural aptitudes were the direct source of the present work. This was all the more so because the really central importance of the problem of human individuality was

emerging at all the key points in Marxist research and ideological debate: criticising and surpassing dogmatic distortions of

Marxism like its humanist deformation; precise elaboration of historical materialism and reflection on the modalities and human aims of socialism; discussion of recent advances in the human sciences and structuralist antihumanism all constantly put this formidable question on the order of the day: What is man? At the beginning of 1964 I therefore drew up a plan of a short essay in

which hypotheses would be put forward about how to solve this huge question in depth by way of Marxism, and in the summer of

1964 I began a first draft but lack of time and the sudden appearance of new theoretical difficulties at each step stopped me

halfway.

The publication of the three volumes by Louis Althusser and his comrades in 1965 marked a new stage in my work. The

theoretical antihumatust interpretation given there of Capital and, through that, ofall Marxism, resoundingly confirmed some of the

theses in my paper, absolutely contradicted others, and called for a new, deeper investigation of all of them. These extremely rich

volumes and the no less rich discussion to which they gave rise, compelled me to develop in a much more forceful way my own

position which was fundamentally at issue with, although on the same terrain as, theoretical antihumanism and therefore to

postpone my work on the business entirely, which says sufficiently how much it is indebted to them. In 1966 I began a second draft

of my book, which seemed as though it would quickly arrive at its conclusion, and an excerpt from which devoted to Capital, and to

the lessons which emerge from it as far as the concept of man is concerned, appeared in La Nouvelle Critique in November 1966.

Because of numerous difficulties and because of the way the problem matured both subjectively and objectively, I was only able to

take up this work again in the summer of 1967, this time producing an almost completed third draft which corresponds to the text of

a lecture on Marxist theory and human individuality delivered at L Universit nouvelle de Paris u March 1968. The text to be read here is the result of a fourth drafting which once again involved substantial reworking, starting in April and brought to a conclusion

between August and December 1968.

I am certainly not blind to the numerous flaws in this work as it presented here. I can already see many things which would justify

a fifth draft. As Marx wrote in a letter to Lassalle on 22nd June 1858, when he was at work on what he believed to be the final

version of the Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (and what an agonizing truth it is), The job is making very slow progress because things which one has for many years made the chief object of one's investigations constantly exhibit new aspects

and call forth new doubt whenever they are to be put in final shape. Besides, I am not the master of my time but rather its

servant. But a time comes when from the very point of view of conducting research nothing is more indispensable than collective criticism, and this presupposes publication.

Thus, written on the basis of successive investigations, publication and enquiries carried on over nearly twenty years, the book

you ca read here expresses a point of view which, whatever ones judgment of it, has come to maturity as far as the essential is concerned. I express the hope that it will be read and judged as such.

L u c i a n S e v e

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Man in Marxist Theory. Lucien Sve 1974

Chapter I: An Embryonic Science: The Psychology of

Personality

Written: 1974;

Source: Man in Marxist Theory and the psychology of personality, Lucien Sve;

Translated: John McGreal;

Published: The Harvester Press, 1978.

Narrow-mindedness and insularity in specialised fields is never a good thing and has deplorable effects particularly where psychology is concerned ... On the contrary, ability to generalise and a universal approach are necessary for psychological research. (Pierre Janet).

Psychology by no means holds the "secret" of human affairs, simply because this "secret" is not of a psychological order. (Georges Politzer).

FOR anyone who, as a Marxist, is committed to following the development of psychology it appears impossible with the years not

to come to a resolutely critical view of the state it is in. Despite the rapid advances of psychology in general along the scientific

path, this state is dominated, in my opinion, by a sharp contradiction between the many-sided importance and the persistent

immaturity of what ought to be its highest achievement: the theory of, personality. Until recently, this contradiction did not appear

to concern many people: in spite of many signs of the presence of vital unresolved questions and some stimulating bases of such a

theory did not develop, at least not in French Marxist publications. Perhaps there was still little conviction that the condition of

psychology, which in any case was not thought to be doing too badly as a science, ought to be of much concern to Marxists?

Obviously, if one holds this view, there is no sharp contradiction and no awareness of an intolerable theoretical backwardness,

merely a dull complacency as far as discussion about principles is concerned.

But theory abhors a vacuum. And for some time, with quite different starting points, and advancing in different directions, several

Marxist researchers have implicitly, or more often explicitly, come to draw attention to this unsatisfactory state of affairs at the

level of principles in the theory of personality. Some published works and numerous others which have been promised have tried to

prefigure this theory or, at least, to explore approaches to it, some through Freud or Meyerson, through Pavlov or Politzer, and some

by way of an attempt by philosophy to clarify relations between Marxism and humanism; some by economists, sociologists and

historians concerned with the connection of the individual psyche with social structures and groups; some by artists or critics for

whom the interface between creativity and biography never ceases to be a problem; or, more directly, by psychologists and

psychiatrists who, doubtlessly annoyed at times by this influx of amateurs into what is their professional concern, are disinclined to

represent the advances in their science to themselves in the form of a great upheaval of revolutionary discovery but who are among

the foremost in the slow development of these problems.

It appears that a similar development is also occurring outside of Marxism and outside France with obvious mutual interventions.

At the present juncture it would undoubtedly take little to launch a revolution in the state of affairs as it now stands or at least a

process of concerted discussion of fundamentals. Ale aim of this book is to contribute after others to opening up such a discussion which is of the highest importance at the present time; and, in the first place in order to sharpen our awareness of them, to go more

deeply into these two contradictory facts: the extreme importance of the theory of personality and its scientific immaturity.

I. A Science of fundamental importance

THE theory of personality is not only of the utmost importance on the terrain and within the limits of psychology, from the point

of view of the specialists; it is of the utmost importance for the present and future of man. It is unnecessary to prove this obvious

fact here at length. But the fact that this is even more true for all Marxists and for the whole of Marxism is not something which

goes without saying. Does it not go against the deeply rooted idea that, on the contrary, from a Marxist standpoint, what belongs to

psychology is necessarily of minor importance? Indeed, there is no shortage of reasons for forming this opinion of it. Schematically:

Marxism is dialectical materialism, i.e. a philosophy for which consciousness is a function of highly organised matter; is not the

neurophysiological investigation of this higher organisation of matter therefore of primary importance, and the psychological investigation of facts of consciousness which correspond to it secondary? Marxism is the materialist science of history, the principle

of which is that it is not consciousness which determines social life but social life which determines consciousness; is not the

investigation of objective social life i.e. above all the science of economic relations therefore of primary importance and the psychological investigation of forms of subjectivity secondary? Furthermore, Marxism is scientific socialism, i.e. a political doctrine, and in Lenins expression, politics only begins when the masses are counted in millions; is not studying the masses social science as a whole therefore the main thing, and the psychological investigation of the individual subordinate? Practical verification: still not having cleared up the central problem of the personality, psychology clearly appears not to be a fully

developed science; Marxism has existed as a coherent scientific doctrine for more than a century, and half a century ago the

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Bolsheviks were able to carry through the revolution victoriously. Therefore psychology is not a vital component in Marxist theory

and practice, and to see clearly and act correctly a Marxist has no need to look to the psychologist.

Not only that; among Marxists there are also great reserves of distrust with regard to psychology. They know, at a cost, that from

Maine de Biran and Victor Cousin to certain aspects of behaviourism and Freudianism, psychology is often the indirect way by

which ideology introduces bourgeois ideas and the way that idealists try to revise historical materialism and scientific socialism in a

subjectivist direction. If things do not go well from a scientific standpoint in this or that domain of psychology, Marxists might

ultimately be tempted to find this not merely of secondary importance but almost in the natural order of things. Is not psychology in

essence basically a false science? As though by calling, wont it always be inclined towards tackling human problems in an idealist and depoliticised way? Physiology, especially all the more, Pavlovian physiology, which is essentially materialist and progressive,

there it has long been thought is a rigorous science of man and an exemplary corroboration of Marxism which does not threaten to make us deviate towards reactionary idealism and bourgeois individualism. But as far as Pavlovism is concerned, is it not the

physiology of higher nervous activity which in a revolutionary spirit replaces outmoded psychology? Let us go further, and at the

same time closer, to some recent philosophical debates: does not the act of founding Marxism imply the end of all psychology? If,

as Marx writes in the VI Thesis of Feuerbach, the human essence is no abstraction inherent in each single individual but in its reality ... is the ensemble of social relations, is not all psychology in the usual sense of the word, by seeking the secret of psychic man where it cannot exist: in individuals, by that very fact impregnated with speculative humanism, however concrete it professes

to be, and does it not inevitably relapse on this side of Marxist science and the truth?

In the last resort, I consider all these reservations, indeed all these rejections of psychology, which are raised too briefly here,

unjustified, and I will give my reasons. Nevertheless, they rest on historical experience and critical reflection which are perfectly

valid in principle and which I do not mean to underrate. On the contrary in fact; for if it is true as I think, that scientific psychology

has still not reached complete maturity i.e. in its representation of the human individual it is still only unevenly and incompletely disengaged from ideology what is astonishing is the fact that it cannot altogether satisfy a Marxist at the present time; especially

when he expects from it not only the investigation of psychic functions separately but further the unlimited understanding of the

structure and development of human personalities as a whole which, I emphasise to prevent misunderstanding, is the very

standpoint from which this book takes up its position from beginning to end. Only, if the theoretical problems which the

constitution and growth of human personalities present are still not quite matured, this immaturity in point of fact clearly proves

nothing against their importance in principle but, much rather, emphasises the responsibility of Marxist researchers themselves in

their necessary maturation. Not to understand this is to turn absurdly in this vicious circle: because a psychology which is still partly

in the grasp of ideology does not give complete satisfaction, and does not trouble to work to free it, and because it does not free

itself this is seen as confirmation that it is not worth troubling. This vicious circle of unpardonable negligence is made worse by

three sorts of unchallengeable facts.

(1) Psychology and politics

Although this upsets the common and partly correct idea according to which the political and the psychological way of approaching a problem are opposed, it is often precisely political struggles themselves which inexorably present psychological

problems. In other words, and this observation may lead much further than it usually does, many political problems consist at least

in part of a psychological problem which arises for millions of men. In such cases it must be agreed with strict Marxist rigour that

the political battle can only be carried through to the end, or sometimes even be carried on at all, in so far as it can be supported by

a really scientific psychology.

Take the example of the struggle of the French democratic forces against the Gaullist administrations educational policy as it developed in the 1960s with the Fouchet Plan an example which is highly important in all respects. At first the problem might appear to have nothing to do with psychology: from a financial standpoint it involves the sacrificing of schools for atomic strike-

capacity and, more generally, the distribution of budgetary funds in the interests of the monopolies; from a political and ideological

standpoint it involves the education of youth increasingly given over to the employers and forces of reaction. But this still does not

exhaust the essential point. What it also involves, more fundamentally, is a comprehensive plan to reform the whole educational

system by closely adapting it not to the democratically conceived requirements of national development but to strict manpower

needs of big capital caught up in a desperate inter-monopolistic struggle (i.e., by scorning the right of the majority of the peoples children to education) thereby worsening social inequalities, this not openly in the name of class politics of course, but under the

objective pretext that most of them are not gifted enough to exercise their right. Look how democratic I am, the defender of such a policy says: only aptitudes will be taken into account to direct children either into brief educational studies and minor jobs or

into lengthy studies and senior positions. He merely forgets to say among other things that in so far as one can establish it beyond all doubt, inequality in intellectual abilities is itself substantially predetermined by inequality in social conditions and its

system of cumulative effects. Thus selection according to aptitude, which is deeply opposed to the many-sided effort of democratic

schools towards the promotion of all in spite of the effect of class inequalities, amounts to making nature responsible for a policy of cultural Malthusianism and social discrimination. One of those who thought up this policy calmly declares:

On the weight of the evidence there are two pyramids that of society which, with its hierarchy, corresponds to nature. Then there is also the pyramid of aptitudes. By that very fact, these two pyramids have the same profile. The problem is simply to make them coincide.

The politics of monopoly capital are therefore bound up here in a pedagogic in the grand style. Whether one likes it or not,

pedagogy is inseparably, manipulation and simultaneously politics and psychology.

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To get to the bottom of things in criticising such a policy it is also necessary therefore to do psychology - scientific psychology.

For if the psychological theory of the fundamental innateness of intellectual differences, a popular theory which is obvious even for well-educated people, if this deeply mystifying theory were true, such an educational policy could still be blamed for many

things, in particular for the crying inadequacy of efforts to offset natural differences in intelligence. But there would be one thing against which nothing could be said, and against which it would be utopian or demagogic to propose anything along the lines of the

Langevin-Wallon project and, beyond this, of socialist schools: the principle itself - presented by definition as the inevitable result

of this natural and eternal difference of discrimination between the privileged with a lengthy education and the under-privileged with a short education; i.e. precisely the worst of all the aspects of the educational policy corresponding to the wishes of

big capital would have to be basically accepted. Thus, far from being an intellectual luxury or a dubious and superfluous political

argument, the refutation of the bourgeois ideology of intellectual gifts, i.e., the scientific theory of the development of intellectual abilities which implies the whole theory of personality in the last resort is itself a vital part of the question. As for defending, elucidating and tomorrow applying a really democratic plan of educational reform in accordance with the principles presented

twenty years ago by the Langevin-Wallon Commission, it would quite simply be impossible if one disregarded psychological

considerations, for without them one could not understand just what this plan is: a plan which is not only generous but realistic, not only democratic but scientific. In fact, let us ask the question: is it still sufficiently well remembered that if the French

movement for democratic schools had the Langevin-Wallon plan, that invaluable political weapon, as a focus for their struggle, it

owed this largely to advances made before the war by French scientificpsychology behind which were great materialist scientists

like Wallon and Piron who were later personally to play a considerable part in working out this plan?

This is one of the clearest examples one can give of the concrete political importance of psychology, and one which Marxists

particularly cannot fad to reflect. Perhaps it even appears as too conclusive and to be merely a special case, an exception? This

would be a serious mistake. In actual fact, it is an example of general importance, as would no doubt be seen more clearly if more

thought was given to such matters. In an even more central domains let us consider political economy and the all-important wage

disputes on which it throws light. At first it might seem that psychology has nothing to add here either; better, that the psychological

way of approaching these questions is fundamentally wrong. And in one sense it is true: turning economic contradictions into

psychological problems is one of the standard tricks of bourgeois ideology. However, an economic problem as crucial as that of

absolute impoverishment, for example, requires the full clarification of the psychological problems of need an essential concept in the theory of personality. Indeed, if not the historical but the abstract conception of needs, the falsity of which Marx showed more

deeply than anyone, were correct, it would be impossible to reveal in any way the absolute impoverishment of the workers, this

crying reality of capitalism even today, since it means that the fundamental tendency of economic development is to make it

increasingly difficult to satisfy not eternal needs so-called eternal needs are actually only yesterdays needs transfigured into immutable abstractions but needs which objectively develop and vary with conditions of labour and with society itself. By hiding the true causes and real persons responsible for the constantly growing mass of educational backwardnesses and failures, vulgar

psychological mystifications concerning natural aptitudes impede the advance of popular struggles for democratic schools. Similarly, by obscuring the methods and effects of capitalist exploitation and giving rise to the illusion of automatic progress in

workers living conditions with the development of the productive forces, vulgar psychological mystifications concerning needs, attributed to a so-called immutable human nature and separated from the social conditions which determine them, do substantial

harm to the development of struggles against the economic and social policy of the monopolies in power. Here too, there is food for

thought for Marxists about the depth of the links between Psychology and politics and the importance of the theory of personality

from the standpoint of concrete political struggles.

In the same vein, and with other examples if necessary, let us consider the part psychology the part a fully scientific psychology ought to play in the effort to demystify ideologically and to strengthen political struggles at the level of all problems of relations between social groups human relations in the enterprise, relations between races, sexes, generations, and so on, in the latter case, for example, conjointly with the work of political analysis, by clarifying the many psychological variants of the

notion of adolescence, variants which are misleading but which it is not enough to be unaware of. Or again, ought it not also to

tackle in this way a scientific theory of development (and of unequal development) of the personality, which would not distract

from the political basis of things but, on the contrary, would help to rescue it from the persistent cult of the leader, the superstition

of the wonderful great man, in truth, from a certain mythology of genius the magic of which must be dispelled so that the demand

for democracy can grow sharper? More generally, how can the political movement of the masses find its full strength without

working for the universal development of awareness and consequently without engaging in struggle against every source of

ideological mystification? Without a scientific conception of personality how can the battle be joined, not in skirmishes over details

but in a general campaign, with this enormous mass of superstitions one of the most enormous and undoubtedly most characteristic of our time which extends from the old-fashioned and resigned psychology of familial beliefs in atavism, and defects of heart and mind to that mind-bending modern psychology of testological or characterological kind that is churned out in weekly illustrated magazines and floods of low-level scientific vulgarisations; from the emollient everyday psychology of

picture-stories, agony columns and television serials made in U.S.A., to the knowingly mystifying psychology of Slection or Plante; from the cloudy summits of the formal psychology of spiritualist handbooks and ethical humanism to the

abysmal depths of horoscopes, astrological newspapers and your guidebook to the zodiac not to mention many others an extraordinarily entangled mass of superstitions at different levels which on all sides obstruct understanding of real life, make easier

all forms of conditioning, and, more essentially still, keep the broad masses unaware of the real problems and the real psychological

facts. Now the following pages mean to prove if nothing is understood about psychological fife, nothing can really be understood about man and of nothing is understood about man, nothing is understood about anything.

(2) Psychology and anthropology

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This last remark leads on to an examination of the problem from a more theoretical standpoint. So far psychology appears to be

important to Marxism only in practice and as if in particular points: such and such an aspect of the theory of personality being

important for this or that political struggle, and even for political struggle is general. But there is much more: the theory of

personality as a whole is necessarily implied in the coherent scientific whole which constitutes Marxism and the area which it

occupies is crucial today for the development of research. The fact that this theory is both required and suggested by historical

materialism is what will be discussed at length in the next chapter; at all events it is immediately apparent that if Marx was certain

about socialist revolution, it is because the sharpening of contradictions characteristic of capitalist relations of production is

experienced in an unbearable way by the exploited in their actual existence as individuals and because, in a quite remarkable turn of

phrase in The German Ideology, in order ... to assert themselves as individuals the proletarians must overthrow the State. This shows that it is at some very fundamental point, which will have to be located exactly, that the psychology of personality, historical

materialism and scientific socialism are necessarily interrelated. But it must indeed be acknowledged that the Marxist theory of this

interrelation has still not been clearly and convincingly developed. One has only to look around to be convinced that this question,

or, more exactly, this broad ensemble of questions, turns out to occupy a really strategic place today in research into Marxism and

the human sciences. Whether it is a question of hypotheses or objections of Marxists or non-Marxists, the big question, the core of

the problems, for some years has been and undoubtedly will be for a long time, the question to borrow conditionally a terminology in general use of the mediations between the general movement of society of which historical materialism is increasingly, if not always, admitted to be the theory and the life of individuals. And in the first place, it goes without saying, the theory of these mediations presents all the problems of the foundation of psychology.

This is what Sartre expresses, for example, in the preamble to his Critique de la raison dialectique. In it he forcefully takes

Marxists to task for holding to universal sociopolitical schemas, getting rid of the Particular and not studying real men in depth but decomposing them in a bath of sulphuric acid. The result, he adds, is that it has entirely lost the meaning of what it is to be a man; to fill in the gaps, it has only the absurd psychology of Pavlov.

And this is how he hoped to justify his commitment to existentialism despite his professed attachment to historical materialism;

for existentialism, he wrote,

intends, without being unfaithful to Marxist principles, to find mediations which allow the individual concrete the particular fife, the real and dated conflict, the person to emerge from the background of the general contradictions of productive forces and relations of production." So long as Marxism refuses to do it, others will attempt the coup in its

place.

There are, of course, many things to say in reply to Sartre many have been said, and I will come back to them. However, there is no doubt that a number of intellectuals are or were coming back again, certainly not always to Sartres theses but at all events to the concern expressed here by him in his own terms, because even if it is established that the terms are inadequate, the question which

is raised by them has not, for all that, received an answer. This is how, in Pense formelle et sciences de lhomme, G. G. Granger also criticised the Pavlovian typology as a pseudo-solution to the conceptual determination of the individual writing that

Far from representing the final state of a Marxist psychology of personality -final and Marxist surely constituting a contradiction in terms the Pavlovian doctrine must be regarded only as a first step, quite valuable as a reaction against the ultra-conservatism of idealist characterologies but absolutely inadequate and mechanistic in the present context.

It would not be difficult to produce more quotations. Thus, at the present time, there does still seem to be a real gap at the place

where there should be a theory of personality consistent with historical materialism: this is the all-important fact. And it does not

seem unreasonable to think that in such a gap there is both the opportunity for unceasing attempts by speculative humanism to

round off Marxism within a more or less spiritualistic perspective if the gap is held to be contingent and temporary and, on the contrary if it is considered to be structural and permanent one of the sources of an anti-humanist interpretation which, within the limitations of structuralism, comes to the point of rejecting, together with the theoretical legitimacy of the concept of man, the

validity of psychology as a whole in favour of a re-reading of Freud. But, indirectly, the latter trend in research leads us back just as much as the former to the crucial necessity of clearing up the problems on the terrain of Marxism of constituting a scientific

anthropology in which the theory of concrete human individuality is at all events a primary component.

Is there a need to emphasise how important such a clarification might be, precisely as a mediation between the mass of intellectuals and researchers in the human sciences on the one hand and Marxism on the other. It would be a pertinent proof that,

from the theoretical no more than the practical point of view, wholeheartedly going over to Marxism does not imply any disregard

either of man or the requirements of scientific rigour. In the theoretical concerns and cultural sensibility of a large number of

intellectuals, especially on the left, the attitude with regard to the problems of a concrete idea of human individuals now appears as

a major test of whether or not a world view is genuinely alive, scientifically adequate and politically committed. This is a valid test.

lie fact that today Marxism does not clearly and coherently offer a theory of the concrete individual nor, consequently, of numerous

problems which depend on it, plays an objectively negative role among a number of intellectuals on the left engaged in the

extremely complex process of uniting with or going over to the working class, crossing over to the positions of historical

materialism and scientific socialism. It feeds always unfruitful but ever-recurring attempts to fuse Marxism with theories of

individuality and related anthropological, ethical and aesthetic views which are formulated on a basis which is completely foreign

and even contrary to Marxism, more or less out of fine with the needs of the cause. This basis remains non-Marxist in essence and

perpetuates a deep split in the thought of the majority of intellectuals, a faith in theoretical consciousness through which, in the last

analysis, the ideology of the dominant class forces its way. Of course, the intimate reasons for this state of affairs are to be sought

outside the ideological spheres. But it is by no means unimportant that the slowness of Marxism to elaborate the theory of

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personality, and therefore of scientific anthropology, further the persistence of an ideological conjuncture in which the development

of a large number of intellectuals towards working-class positions happens to be checked by an insurmounted attachment in this

domain to mystifying theoretical positions.

Yet this is still not the essential point. Re most essential point is that real scientific elucidation of the problem defined earlier would above all be an invaluable theoretical gain for Marxism itself; in the first place, for effectively and positively settling the

accounts, at least in part, still unfortunately outstanding on its books: from those of psychoanalysis and the psychology derived from

Pavlovism or Politzers concept of drama to those of anthropological structuralism. It would also be an invaluable gain from the point of view of further and more scientifically elaborating, beyond subjective points of view, huge questions for which uncertainty

in the theory of personality constitutes an obstacle; the relations between historical necessity and individual freedom, and between

psychology and epistemology, ethics and aesthetics. In addition, and possibly above all, it would be an invaluable gain for ensuring

a correct understanding of Marxism, since the place one attributes or denies to man in ones overall view, and the conception one thereby has of the theory of subjectivity or individuality, basically determine ones interpretation of its basic principles, in the end either allowing it to be pulled towards or regression to the philosophical humanism from which it emerged or, on the contrary,

reducing it to certain scientific theses which it has produced. It would be, in short, a major gain for completing in a sense we shall be sure to come back to the Marxist conception of man. This shows what importance today, among all the sciences that of the human personality assumes for a Marxist.

(3) Future prospects of the psychology Of personality

Today ... But how much greater still does its importance appear if we look to the future! A Science which is concretely necessary

in many present political struggles and now a crucial area in theoretical research, psychology, in a general sense pointed out earlier,

is even more a science of the future, a science the role of which can only increase immensely with the winning of genuine

democracy, the transition to socialism and the flowering of communism. For example, try to put oneself in mind of the extent and

variety of psychological problems which, carrying out a really democratic reform of education, win present, with all that it will

imply in manifold efforts to develop every childs abilities, in ingenuity in setting up a vast remedial system, in overthrowing the old relations between teachers, pupils and parents, opening up forms of individual freedom within a democratic educational

community, and so on and as a result deepening theoretical problems in education too. This enormous demand on basic psychological theory which will result from the reform of education, will be joined with others, which are no less enormous, issuing

from the implementation of a vast plan to develop production and therefore the rational search for economic incentives, from urban

problems which will be acutely presented by the reorientation of housing policy towards the masses of workers, from policy on

leisure activities, or from the necessary recasting of the attitude of millions of people with regard to the State, public property, the

law, legal proceedings, etc., which will be objectively in the direction of a radical transformation. Actually, one becomes dizzy

when one tries to put oneself in mind of the rate of progress which the democratic transformations in the France of tomorrow will

impose on the science of personality.

But this is still nothing. To appreciate its further importance, one must turn ones attention much further ahead to communism. In this respect, has it been noticed sufficiently that when the Marxist classics define and analyse communist society, among their key

concepts are a number of psychological concepts which, in an unexpected way for those who disregard psychology, assume the

function of a higher form of economic and political categories? The actual definition of distribution in communist society, for

example, is no longer characterised by the principle to each according to his work, as in socialism, but by the principle to each according to his needs a definition in which the concept of need (and the need of each person personal need) is raised to the level of a key economic category. Again, Lenin shows that what replaces the state in its function of governing men after it has withered

away in communism, for example, is increasingly common practice (lhablitude), a higher completed form of democracy. Here, a psychological concept is raised to the level of an absolutely central political category. More generally one can say that after the

multi-millenial era in which, at least for the majority of men, the growth of personalities was essentially subordinate to the

economic and political requirements of the dominant class and the psychological point of view was also therefore subordinate, in

communism this relation is at last turned the other way round, so that the effective maxim of this society can be for the first time:

everything for man. It is the optimal growth of personalities in a given stage of development of the productive forces and culture

which tends to become the dominant goal (and instrument) of society. This amounts to saying that communism ensures but also requires an unprecedented theoretical and practical advance of psychology as the science of development of human personalities. Here, it appears to me, we go to the core of the reasons why Marxism must regard psychology as a fundamental discipline. If it is

true that a scientific psychology is in Principle the theoretical means for human individuals to take their own psychic growth in

hand, then psychological science is not only a vital instrument for communism regarded as a general process of human

emancipation: It constitutes an organic part of it. Let us go even further: and we can see that the reversal of the millenial hegemony

of Politics over psychology will be accomplished: for politics itself win disappear but psychology will not. When communism has

been achieved the Communist Party, its historical task having been accomplished, will dissolve itself, but the task of developing

human personalities will not wither away, quite on the contrary. We can now see why we cannot agree at all with the unfortunately

widespread idea that Marxism would be edified by ignoring or rejecting the human personality and the science of which it is the object. One has misread and misunderstood Marx if one thinks so.

But while from the point of view of its basic conception the psychology of personality has, by definition, its place in Marxist

theory a place which will be rigorously defined as the positive science of personality, there is no doubt at all that it has not up to now emulated the extraordinary advance of the Marxist science of society. And this is unfortunate for communism: for in a sense

communism begins today. In recent years, in actual fact, we have understood more clearly how often a people pays for its

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backwardness in all domains, including backwardness imposed upon it by a regime from which it has since freed itself, even when

it strives unceasingly to enlighten itself. The face of future communism is already being concretely and inexorably prepared in what

we do and do not do in France itself today. Can one not see, then, how serious it would be to mortgage this future by not taking on

the task of constituting the genuinely scientific theory of personality and its development without further delay? At the rate history

moves we cannot help acutely feeling that we are already behindhand. As for the mistakes which, if it was not made up, this delay

would hold in store for the construction of socialism itself, deep critical reflections developed in recent years in the Soviet Union

and other socialist countries have helped us to form an idea of them, in relation to problems as varied as economic planning,

educating the younger generation or strengthening the materialist world outlook and, more broadly still, the very meaning of life.

Increasingly, from the pen of Marxist researchers in these countries, we have read remarks such as these:

It is one of the paradoxes of the present era that in order to drive a car, for example, one has to undergo rather strict tests, whereas

the upbringing of children, the choice of a husband or wife, or fife-style, are essentially left to the free-will and ignorance of

millions of people who, quite often, are vainly seeking advice and help in all sorts of false practices.... Mutual relations between

men have many more numerous implications and meet many more needs, than was originally assumed in the theory of socialist society. In particular, there occurs a complex connection between the economy, psychology and politics, the problem of equality

and authority, collectivism, and individualism, problems of competition, emulation, the opinion which one has of oneself and

others, and the whole gamut of moral, political and economic value-judgments. If, today, in economic theory it is proving

impossible to maintain the pricing system and the criteria used until now in determining prices, the problem of evaluating men, their

qualities and their relations is, with greater reason, even more urgent. In this domain, which is much more vital than the valuation of

various categories of commodities, spontaneity, empiricism, subjectivism and the most varied erroneous conjectures rule as masters.

But, at the same time and in contrast, we can discern more concretely than yesterday the remarkable future prospects to which the

advance of the science of personality is closely linked. If it is true that for humanity the greatest liberations of the past and often still of the present are freedoms of an elemental character (freedom from hunger, insecurity, brutish oppression and violence) one can foresee at a higher stage of development an enormous liberation on a higher level becoming the order of the day: freedom from

stunted and anarchical psychological development, not only for a tiny majority but for all men. In other words, if it is true that

communists will replace the government of men by the administration of things, it appears one can also say that in the same

movement it will replace the primacy of the production of things by the development of men themselves. This is the whole meaning

of Marxs and Engels turn of phrase about the leap from the reign of necessity to that of freedom which communism makes possible for all men: the full development of human mastery over the forces of nature, those of so-called nature as well as of humanitys own nature.

Of course, it is not psychology by itself which will ever be able to give man this mastery over his own nature: it is communism. But it is not communism by itself either: it is communismincorporating the mature science of personality. Nothing emphasises

more strongly how blind Marxists would be to disregard it.

II. An Incomplete Science

In short, while the idea might at first be surprising, it is not difficult, however, to show that the theory of personality is also of the

utmost importance for Marxism itself even if this raises a number of questions which will have to be gone into carefully. On the other hand, when I say that the psychology of personality, i.e. the very core of general psychology, which is so important in the

present and for the future, is nevertheless still not a really fully developed science, it is likely that this assertion will be thought

highly vague, subjective, unprovable and also presumptions from the pen of a layman in psychology: a philosopher.

As far as the presumption and, more importantly the rights and powers of Marxist philosophy in respect of psychology are

concerned, I will come back to this crucial question later on. But as for the opinion that the psychology of personality is still not a

fully developed science, this is anything but a snap judgment. The fully developed character of a science is a precise, objective,

provable fact. Criteria can be drawn both from the history of the sciences and the theory of knowledge. Thus political economy

before Marx was not fully developed; with his work it became so. This means that it definitively elaborated its vital elements through which it has been able to produce everything that one expects of such a science. And what are these vital elements of a

science? A definition through which one can accurately grasp the real essence of its object and, linked with this definition, the

adequate method for studying this object; basic concepts through which one expresses the principal elements and especially the

determinant contradictions of this essence. These elements make it possible with some chance of success to try to identify

the fundamental laws of development of the object studied and, through this, lead on to mastering it in theory and practice, which is

the goal of the whole scientific enterprise. Ale definition and the method, the basic concepts and the fundamental laws of

development all of these having attained a degree of truth that puts an end to the groping of the earlier period here, surely, are the precise, objective, provable criteria of the fully developed character of a science.

Neither the psychology of personality nor, therefore, to be completely rigorous, the general field of psychology, or if one prefers, the psychological sciences in general appear as fully developed on any of these counts. This is not the rash opinion of an amateur; in fact it . is t -hat of most professional psychologists. A science making rapid strides, but still very young such is undoubtedly the appraisal which crops up most frequently in the assessments and diagnoses of the specialists. And this youth, i.e.

this immaturity, in actual fact, shows itself from the outset in the uncertainty in which it finds itself over the most vital question-for

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every science: that of rigorously defining its object, coherently demarcating its terrain, and therefore grasping the very essence of

that of which it wants to constitute the science.

(1) Problems of definition

While emphasising their agreement on a number of significant points in their important statement in May 1957, five of the most

outstanding Soviet psychologists acknowledged the existence between them of serious differences over a whole series of theoretical questions, in particular over those concerning the object of psychology. One hardly runs the risk of being contradicted in saying that the situation is similar today among French psychologists even, no doubt, considering only those who appeal to Marxism. Is it not the same throughout the world? For several decades a highly remarkable characteristic of psychology has been

precisely that in studying its object it has advances with rapid strides even though it still does not know precisely of what this object

consists.

In 1929, in one of his last lectures on the psychological evolution of the personality, Pierre Janet said: The idea of a science is always a very difficult and vague thing. One nearly always carries out scientific Investigations without fully knowing what one is

doing and where one is heading. This difficulty seems especially clear when it is a question of psychological science, the newest

and fastest moving of the sciences today.

Thirty years later Henri Wallon described psychology as a science of which the domain is still unclear and the methods more or less doubtful; in the same spirit Ren Zazzo wrote: Psychology developed well before it was possible for it to be defined, and the continuous growth of its gains and the gains of related sciences has not, be degrees, gradually constituted a real definition .

Although, more recently, throughout The Insights and Illusions of Philosophy, Jean Piaget defends the adult status of psychology

against unrepentant tutelage of philosophers, he did not hesitate to acknowledge the still incomplete character of this still young science And to quote approvingly Paul Fraisses assertion that the territory which it has conquered is increasingly broad but it has scarcely been cleared.

Others go still further. To the opportunely direct question What is psychology? Michel Foucault replied: It is a matter of common knowledge that the scientific status of a psychology is first not well-established and second not at all obvious? And elsewhere, with edifying detachment, he says: I do not think that one ought to try to define psychology as a science.

It seems to me, therefore, that it was on behalf of the whole community of psychologists that Professor A. Leontyev was

speaking, in his inaugural address to their 18th Congress in Moscow in August 1966 when, having remarked that psychology is going through a period of impulsive development went on to say:

Nevertheless, these undeniable advances should not hide the serious difficulties with which psychology throughout the world is still faced in our time. These difficulties concern

the theoretical interpretation of the accumulated facts, the construction of a system of psychological science. Certainly one cannot like Nicolas Lange at the beginning of this century compare modern psychology with Priam seated on the ruins of Troy. In our day the psychologist is rather a builder having before him abundant high-quality materials which, in addition, are completed ensembles, but not having at his disposal the general outline of the most complicated architectural whole which he has to erect. Is not this context

the source of the impression of anarchy reigning in psychological theory?

These few quotations, to which it would be tedious but easy to add many others, clearly reveal the essential point.. if, while

making enormous progress, psychology on the whole has so far remained an incompletely developed science, this is because this

progress has still not been decisive on the problem on which everything rests: the overall map of its domain and the coherent

demarcation of its objects. And, indeed, this is also why the theoretical immaturity one finds there is spread very unevenly:

insensitive, if not questionable, in studying this or that form of behaviour on its own, it reaches its high point precisely where it is a

matter of the whole, where the fundamental problems converge in the theory of personality. Here again it is not a matter of an

arbitrary judgment: it is the general opinion of the experts. To convince oneself it is enough, for example, to examine the

transactions of the Symposium de lAssociation de psychologie scientifique de la lange franaise, held in Lige in 1964, on the problem of models of personality in psychology. At the start of her paper Mme de Montmollin puts forward the idea that no existing model of personality simultaneously and coherently accounts for all aspects of the problem.

Furthermore, as F. Bresson among others emphasises:

One is struck, in the first place, by a heterogeneity: one can see hardly any common features between the factorial analysis of traits and psychoanalysis, or between

psychopathological theories and K. Lewins analyses. If we had had papers on Pavlovian typology or on Sheldons, or on the theories of Hull or Tolman, this heterogeneity would have been compounded still further. Re only common feature seems to be the term personality but we may doubt if it has the same meaning in these different frameworks.

Let us proceed still further: is the personality a real scientific object? It appears doubtful to many people. D. Lagache declares:

I have spoken about the model of the personality in order to fit in with the subject proposed to those giving papers at this Congress. However, I wonder whether psychological

circles are not dominated by the cult of personality. For my part I will say that the personality as such does not exist: what exists are systems of relations. But the personality itself

is only a model.

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And L. Canestrelli adds that the personality is only a mental construction. Are not theories of personality pure ideological constructions then? R. Pags thinks so:

Characterological and personological ideologies are adaptive features of certain societies. It is in this sense that Ash and Bruner are justified in studying other peoples semantic systems of representation and the implicit theories of personality which they reveal. Our scientific psychology of personality is a more or less differentiated part of ideologies

which are both normative and cognitive....

And in his turn P. Pichot is of the opinion that models of personality

Might be considered as a reflection of social models. There is probably more than a grain of humour in the remark that Spearmans hierarchical factorial model could only appear in Great Britain where, following the traditional formula such as the g factor, the Queen is the fountain of honours, whereas Thurstones democratic model reflected the American view of society.

It is J. Nuttin, it seems, who draws the clearest conclusion from this discussion, by declaring:

One is doing science no service in thinking that one has succeeded even though one has still not been able to tackle scient ifically the real problems in all their complexity. One sometimes has the impression that the psychology of personality is very much in the state of preliminary exploration.

Thus in the opinions of the psychologists themselves the psychology of personality today is still taken up with unresolved

problems over the primary question of the determination of its object and the delimitation of its terrain. How exactly is one to

elaborate the theory when one undertakes to construct the theory of personality? It is clear that so long as a question on this crucial

point does not receive a satisfactory reply the psychology of personality will remain in a stage of preliminary exploration , and the actual system of psychological science in general, as Leontyev put it, will continue to be delayed.

But there is worse to come: considered at their highest level of generality, problems of definition in respect of the psychology of

personality clearly appear not only to be unresolved but irresoluble. To restrict ourselves to the most basic point, let us first pose the

problem of the specificity of the psychological investigation of the personality in relation to the biological approach in the broadest

sense of the adjective. In other words, let us pose the general problem of the definition of psychism (psychisme) as a distinct

scientific object and supposed substance of the personality, in relation to its demarcation from the object of neuro- and

physiopsychological investigations. One can try to map out the boundary in three ways, which exhaust all the theoretical

possibilities and which nevertheless all seemingly lead to an impasse.

One can define psychism as an activity or any other analogous term - essentially distinct from the nervous activity which corresponds to it. In this case there is no way of avoiding the spiritualistic dualism of soul and body idealism in the Marxist sense of the word. Whatever its modern variants, such a definition is merely an avatar of the outmoded metaphysical idea of psychology as the science of the soul, an idea which is definitively untenable in the present state of knowledge, for Marxists more obviously than for anyone.

(b) Or, on the contrary, one can define psychism as an activity which is no different from nervous activity. In this case there is no

way of avoiding the evaporation of psychology to the advantage of the biological sciences. In the best of cases it will be a question

of evaporation at some time in the future, in the meantime leaving a psychology without an assignable status to wander about the

fallow lands of the future materialist science. It will be said, for example, that for the moment physiology is unable to tackle certain

very complex problems of psychism on its own terrain and this gives a reprieve to psychological tinkering [bricolage]. But the time

of total investment in the investigation of human psychism by the true materialist psychology, i.e., the neurophysiology of psychic activity, will inexorably come. In the past certain exponents of Pavlovism have supported this liquidationist point of view with

regard to all psychology, understood as a basically autonomous science in relation to the physiology of nervous activity. -Re

mistakes to which this physiologism has led, its sterility from the psychological point of view, the harm which it has done to

materialism itself in the last resort one will clearly see why later all these drawbacks are such that one may doubt whether it finds adherents today among informed and thinking people.

(c) Only one more way out therefore remains: while arguing the unity of psychology and physiology, of the subjective and the

objective, one can maintain that psychology and neurophysiology are none the less ultimately distinct sciences because they

investigate this single object, psychism, from two different standpoints. It then seems as if a big step ,nay have been taken towards a

solution. Unfortunately, therefore, the dilemma recurs in terms which have not been radically altered for having been displaced: is

this difference of standpoint a subjective difference of point of view of simply one object or, on the contrary, is it a difference

grounded on a real distinction within the object itself? In the first case, whatever way one takes it, it will be impossible to justify the

definitive existence of psychology as a science distinct from neurophysiology. The only conceivable science of one, exclusively

one, object is itself a single science. But, by that very fact, one will necessarily prefer and strive to replace a psychological

investigation confined within the Emits of a compartmentalised point of view of psychism, and which necessarily abstracts from its

neurophysiological aspect (i.e. on the supposition considered, quite simply from the actual reality of which psychic activity

consists) by a complete unitary investigation which is able not to abstract from any of its aspects, i.e. in other words, a

neurophysiopsychology which can raise itself to the rank of the sole materialist science of human psychism.

This is what comes out clearly in the work of the very psychologist who has undoubtedly pursued furthest reflection about this

problem. In volume 3 of his Epistemologie gntique Piaget maintains that the relations between psychology and physiology are

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those of two mutually translatable languages: idealist and implicative in the first case and realist or causal in the second. Now, even if one agrees with the Presuppositions on which such a view rests, the fact remains that this Parallel and isomorphic duality of psychological and physiological languages assumes the unity of an identical text. But then the duality of readings of this single

text remains contingent in the last analysis and consequently will only be provisional. Piaget admits it. One cannot deny, he writes,

that one day, neurology and psychology will become mutually assimilated or constitute a common science like "physical chemistry". We can say that this even appears inevitable. This being so, Psychology, a temporary stage in constituting a single general science of human psychism, cannot be regarded in itself as an independent science. In short, in a very roundabout way and

as if taking a step backwards, one is condemned to falling back into impasse (b) and defining psychology appears like an impossible

task.

No doubt in actual scientific life and in a partly empirical way a division of labour has developed and crystallised and this seems

to cut through this Gordian knot in practice; in the everyday activity of disciplines thus constituted these unresolved boundary

problems, i.e. more fundamentally, these problems of rigorously grasping the essence of the objects studied, do not always make

themselves so very obvious. But when things get really serious for example, when it is necessary to clarify the enigmatic concept of personality the irresolution of primary theoretical questions and the technical, pragmatic (i.e. basically ideological) nature of the demarcation of the field, once more come into focus and one finds that in actual fact, in spite of thriving research work, the

stage of preliminary exploration has not been surpassed. This is how at the Lige Symposium on models of personality in psychology, J.R. Paillard, a neurophysiologist, came to regret the absence of expression of a biological standpoint at this Symposium and to wish for the opening up of a dialogue and the search for a common language among psychologists or psychoanalysts and neurophysiologists. What reply did he get? None. At the very most, D. Lagache reminded him that at the present time it is important to bear in mind the specificity of domains and respective methods (a specificity the theory of which remains absolutely problematical in principle) and referred to the prospect of a common approach based on general models when physiology has turned its attention to internal stimuli. In short, confronted with this really basic question, one takes refuge behind a simple statement of fact the principle of which one does not succeed in clearly establishing and which is a precise indication of the

fact that psychology in general, and the psychology of personality in particular, has not yet been able to reach a fully developed

definition of itself in relation to this part of its terrain.

It is this insurmountable difficulty which could be avoided (and this is the final theoretical possibility) by justifying the duality of

psychological and physiological standpoints by reference to an objective duality within psychism itself. But since, at the same time,

being anxious to ward off entirely the idealism of hypothesis (a), one upholds the essential unity of psychism, this amounts to

saying that psychism is conceived as being in essence both unity and duality. In its logical form this idea is not at all unthinkable. It

quite simply means that the relations between the object of an independent psychology and nervous activity are relations of real

difference within a unity, which is the case in every dialectical contradiction. Unfortunately it is not enough for a statement to be

formally acceptable for it to have concrete scientific meaning. As far as we know the effort to give this abstract formulation a clear

and convincing scientific meaning has not produced any decisive result: the precise nature of this peculiar quality of psychism

which would qualitatively distinguish it from nervous activity, even though it is nothing else than this has, up to now proved

elusive. This is to say that it remains to be seen how the investigation of psychism could, in a sense at least in principle be entirely exhausted by physiology and how, at the same time, an objectively specific terrain of investigation could continue to exist

for an autonomous psychology. In a word an impasse. It goes without saying that all the foregoing could also be said and is also true to the same extent concerning methods: from the neurological approach to the clinical approach, via the different types of

behavioural experimentation, one finds the same ambiguities and contradictions.

For similar reasons it does not appear that the situation is any better if one examines the problems of defining the personality as

regards relations between psychology and the social sciences. Here, too, the real difference within dialectical unity remains rather

obscure. One may at first detach the personality from the social conditions in which it is formed, but in doing so one deprives

oneself of any way of accounting for its deep-seated sociality, and encloses oneself in a hopelessly abstract, non-historical

conception of individuality, whether in the form of a spiritualism of the person or a biologism of temperament. In either case the

essential historicity of the personality escapes. Conversely one may go so far as to reduce the personality to social facts, but in

doing so one fails to account for each individuals concrete singularity, except by relegating it to chance (i.e. by proving oneself unable to understand its essential character) or to biological facts, i.e. relapsing into the opposite error and one falls into a sociologism which can in no wise provide access to a psychological theory of personality. In short, while there is nothing in

psychism which is not nervous activity it is nevertheless clearly necessary for it to be distinguished from it in some way, at least if

one is to grant psychology a specific object. Similarly there is nothing which is not social in the personality, and yet its singularity

must be clearly understood as essential if the psychology of Personality is not a false science. In other words, the concept

of social individualitybeing a contradiction in terms, there is no alternative but to recognise the dialectical nature of the personality,

a unity embracing the real difference. Unfortunately, the precise nature of this quality of the psychological personality which

qualitatively distinguishes it from all social facts, although it is social through and through, has so far proved elusive. In other

words, we do not see how the investigation of the personality could, at least in principle, be in any way exhausted by the social

sciences and how, at the same time, a specific terrain could continue to exist for a psychology of personality. Here again an impasse.

Let us even assume that, in spite of these clearly insurmountable difficulties, the existence of a specifically psychological domain

is taken for granted, even though in these circumstances the rigorous definition of its object is obviously impossible: the difficulties

of definition are still not exhausted for all that. In particular, what would be the exact position of the theory of personality in relation

to behavioural science in this domain? In the first place one can conceive the theory of personality as dependent on behavioural

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science, personality being regarded as an ensemble comprised of different types of behaviour. In a general way, this is the

viewpoint for example of characterological and typological systems, the range of personalities being described in terms of factorial

combinations. But if one argues like this, one foregoes in advance the possibility of understanding the personality as a specific

structure and process, i.e. in a word, one simply forgoes understanding the personality. On the other hand, one can immediately lay

down that the personality cannot be analysed in terms of behavioural functions. One then treats it as an ensemble of differentiated

systems which

do not correspond to traditional faculties; the one is not a mnemonic system, the other a perceptual system, a third willpower; each system corresponds to all the psychic aspects

of the individual, motivation, affectivity, perception, thought, willpower, brought to bear on an identical object or activity in the external world in its relations with the individual.

But on this second hypothesis the theoretical demarcation of personality is made according to concepts systems, instances, roles, etc. which do not arise from behavioural science and which do not even have a place in it, so much so that it is difficult to see what connection there is between psychology as behavioural science and the science of personality. Let us go further: if the

functions which behavioural science studies do not constitute elemental systems of which the personality is the whole, what real

status precisely do they have? Indeed, would this not be a leftover of the outmoded psychology of faculties, which the science of

personality is expected to dissolve? Thus we have a behavioural science which fads to understand the personality, or a science of

personality which rejects the way behaviour is divided up. Here, too, the relations appear highly contradictory and confused, not

now externally between psychology and the biological and social sciences but internally, within psychology itself.

In short, it is the whole basic demarcation of the human sciences in the domain of the psychism of individuals which is so

radically problematic. And it is hardly difficult to see that it is primarily this unresolved problem of demarcation, i.e. of definition,

which still stands between the psychology of personality and its full development.

(2) Problems of basic concepts

Uncertain about its definitions and methods, the psychology of personality also has hardly any truly basic concepts though it has plenty of false ones. Moreover, how could a science correctly lay down its basic concepts without a precise knowledge of the

essential nature of its object? Let us consider first of all the series of concepts one meets with most often when it is a question of

dealing with the very foundations of personal activity, concepts related to the motor or supposed motor of this activity such as need, instinct, inclination and desire. All these concepts are at once prone to the general ambiguity pointed out earlier: they all have

a biological and a psychological meaning but exactly what each consists of and what their relations are hardly seems clarified. But

there is much more: even if one passed over this ambiguity, they would be none the less inadequate as basic concepts. One can

verify this even in connection with the one which is undoubtedly the most clearly-grounded of all, that of need. This is definitely a

very important concept which corresponds to an undeniably objective reality whereas, initially at least, the value of concepts like instinct and inclination, which are so often mystifying, and desire, which is inseparable from a complex psychoanalytic problematic,

constitutes a problem. Ale concept of need is straight away articulable with historical materialism, and indeed this is undoubtedly

why it is generally disparaged and even ruled out by vulgar psychological idealism. And yet, strictly speaking, it cannot be regarded

as a primary psychological concept. If one believes it can it seems that this is so in particular because the early stages of individual

development are controlled and rythmed by cycles of satisfaction and reproduction of needs; nothing is more current in psychology

today than to regard what is or appears to be basic in the initial stage of psychic ontogenesis as being the general basis of all

developed psychism, i.e. in short, to assert the identity of basic concepts and concepts pertaining to the early stage. Reflection on

Marxs work induces more caution on such a highly important theoretical question, Marx showed over and over again in connection with historical development that, as a general rule, it is precisely not what is determinant in an earlier stage of social development

which essentially determines the later stage but that, on the contrary, the nature of the transition to a later stage involves deep-seated

transformations in the course of which what was formerly determinant is reduced to a subordinate place, while new elements secure

the determinant role; i.e. that the historical forms which have given birth to a society are not generally those which provide the basic

concepts for understanding it and that, on the contrary, human anatomy contains a key to the anatomy of the ape. These are extremely profound views on the dialectic of development, the value of which goes far beyond the boundaries of the social

sciences. Since it is often still dependent on genetic ideas which are a little too simplistic, psychology would benefit from

assimilating them. The hypothesis, therefore, that the concept of need may be regarded as a basic concept for the psychology of the

early years which is open to question does not automatically mean that it has value as a general basic concept with regard to the developed ensemble of the personality.

This is not all. If it is indeed true that, as opposed to the whole animal world, the nature of man is to born a man in the biological

sense of the word, but to be a man in the psychological sense only in so far as he is humanised through the assimilation of the

human heritage objectively built up in the social world, it follows that while there is, of course, a continuity between nature and

culture it also happens that the relations between them are reversed, so that theory can only derive the cultural from the natural and

therefore, also, the psychological from the biological, through an extraordinary optical illusion." This concerns human needs in the

highest degree. For in their developed form human needs are not at all the expression of a pre-historical, sub-social human nature,

absolutely primary with regard to the psychic activity of which they are supposed to be the basis, but are themselves essentially

produced by human history, by men in the course of their history, i.e. in the first place, of their labour. If need itself is a historico-

social product, this means not only that it is not the basis of psychic activity but that it is this activity itself which plays the part of a

basis with regard to it. In one of the numerous passages in which he simultaneously reflects on theoretical problems of society and

those of human individuality, Marx wrote:

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Whether production and consumption are viewed as the activity of one or many individuals, they appear in any case as moments of one process, in which production is the real

point of departure and hence also the predominant moment. Consumption as urgency, as need, is itself an intrinsic moment of productive activity. But the latter is the point of

departure for realisation and hence also its predominant moment; it is the act through which the whole process again runs its course. Ale individual produces an object and, by

consuming it, returns to himself, but returns as a productive and self-reproducing individual. Consumption thus appears as a moment of production.

Thus to take need as basic in psychology (or in history, as Sartre does, for example, in the Critique de la raison dialectique, in

which need comes before labour"), is to fail completely to understand what, in The German Ideology, Marx calls the basic condition of all history: labour, the production of means of subsistence; and it is therefore to fail to understand man. As we shall see further on, it is to let oneself be taken in, through the deviation of biologism, by the appearance of a materialism of need which is in reality insidiously idealist. In short, it is a similar error to that in political economy which consists in taking the sphere of

consumption as the fundamental sphere and that of production as the secondary sphere. In a word, it is a typical pre-Marxist error.

And it is an error from which a great number of others follow in turn. For example, from the obvious illusion that the elementary schema of all activity is: need-activity-need (N-A-N) and not activity-need-activity (A-N-A) also stems the tenacious illusion that

activity has no other end than the satisfaction of needs, i.e. to use an economic metaphor, the circuit of activity has no other function than sample reproduction; whereas, on the contrary, the least historical reflection on human needs shows that their

development and thus their differentiation, from this point of view alone, requires a conception of expanded reproduction of

activity. This is what a number of psychologists are beginning to acknowledge today, forced by their science to come round on this

point to theses which Marx had established more than a century ago. But this acknowledgment is enough to disprove all

psychological theory which regards need as a primary concept, and to necessitate the search for basic concepts situated on the

terrain of productive activity itself.

These remarks are true not only of the concept of need but of all concepts of the same type including, in my opinion, desire. Of

course, in the Freudian sense of the term as it has been refined in the thinking of J. Lacan, desire is no longer a biological concept at

all and one can in fact maintain, like Louis Althusser, that the specific reality of desire cannot be reached by way of organic need any more than the specific reality of historical existence can be reached by way of the biological existence of "man". The distinction is important. But, nevertheless, in so far as it assumes a representation of activity ruled by the principle of tension

reduction, the concept of desire too, just like that of need or other analogues, remains firmly tied to a homeostatic schema of the

individual, i.e. it is unable to account for the basic psychological fact of the expanded reproduction of activity. No concept based on

the idea of an external motor, intrinsically preceding activity itself, can play the part of a primary concept and validly identify the basis of a scientific theory of human personality. Whatever efforts one makes to break with it, to not understand this is to remain

within a conception in which drives (pulsions) are understood as instincts in the animal sense of the term. It seems that the necessity

for concepts located in the sphere of activity itself to be at the basis of the theory of personality has not so far given rise to

sufficiently productive research.

But perhaps then, in contrast to the preceding concepts behaviour, conduct, pattern, structure, attitude, role, etc., which do appear

to be situated on the terrain of psychic activity, meet the requirements for a real basis? No more that the former, in my opinion.

Because for concepts to be able to play the fundamental part of basic concepts in a science, it is not enough for them to describe and

classify in a more or less satisfactory way the phenomena most frequently observed; much more, they have to express in themselves

or in their relations with one another the determinant contradictions which characterise the essence of its object. This point is

crucial and for Marxists, moreover, well-known. Briefly explaining the starting-point of Marxs dialectical approach in his A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, Engels wrote:

In this method we proceed from the first and simplest relation that historically and in fact confronts us; here, therefore, from the first economic relation to be found. We analyse

this relation. Being a relation of itself implies that it has two sides, related to each other. Each of these sides is considered by itself, which brings us to the way in which they

behave to each other, their interaction. Contradictions will result which demand a solution.

This is how basic contradictions between utility and value within the commodity, between concrete and abstract aspects of social

labour, etc., appear from the very outset in the exposition of Marxist political economy. The discovery of concepts corresponding to

the fundamental contradictions in the object are an essential criterion of the maturity of a science. In this respect it is noteworthy

that although Pavlovian physiology was not developed by starting from a previous knowledge of the Marxist dialectic, one

nevertheless finds at its base contradictions between excitation and inhibition, irradiation and concentration, analysis and synthesis.

One cannot help but reflect also on the fact that, in spite of the doubtful character of a number of its concepts, psychoanalysis

derives a considerable part of its theore