of the usual classificatory schemes. As an idealist, Fichte has been
thought to oppose all forms of materialism. Conversely, it has
been held that Marx was at odds with all kinds of idealism. In
fact, from the Marxist perspective a perhaps stronger point has
often been made concerning the relation of Marx to the philo-
sophical tradition. Since the publication of Engels Anti-Dühring
( 1878), followed by his Ludwig Feuerbach and the Outcome of
Classical German Philosophy ( 1888), the tendency has been to re-
gard philosophy as nonscientific ideology and Marxism as non-
ideological science, although there are signs that a revision in this
attitude with respect to Marx's position is now under way. ¹

Perhaps for these reasons, although there are some exceptions
to be mentioned, for the most part there has been little attention
to the possibility of a relation between the two positions. Books
on Fichte rarely mention Marx. Discussions of Marx, if they men-
tion Fichte at all, usually go no further than to stress that although
Fichte's influence is perceptible in the thought of the Young
Hegelians, it is absent from the Marxian position. ²

If the usual view of the positions of Fichte and Marx were to be
accepted, it would indeed be difficult to argue for a relation be-
tween them since there would not be any relevant common
ground. To be sure, both thinkers were interested in socialism, so-
cial progress, and radical social change, but this limited area of
common concern is hardly sufficient to suggest an important rela-
tion between two of many others in the nineteenth century who
held similar views. But a stronger indication of the presence of a
relation, if not a parallel, between Fichte and Marx, is given by the
same person who did so much elsewhere to suggest that Marxism
makes a clean break with the philosophical tradition. In the fore-
word to the first German edition of Die Entwicklung des
Sozialismus von der Utopie zur Wissenschaft, Engels writes "that
German socialists are proud to be descended not only from Saint
Simon, Fourier, and Owen, but from Kant, Fichte, and Hegel as
well." ³

Although Engels does not state that Marxism is philosophy, he
suggests here that German socialism, including Marxism, is in
part indebted to three of the most important German philoso-
phers. But for the most part, this suggestion has been followed up
in a selective manner only. In the early part of this century, atten-
tion was directed to the relation between Kant and Marx by a
number of writers. ⁴ And since the appearance of Lukács History
and Class Consciousness ( 1923), there has further been wide dis-
cussion of the genesis of Marx's position in relation to Hegel and
the Young Hegelians. But although Engels also indicates the rela-

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