The structural causality in Althuser

Abstract

Althusser claims that “Marx’s immense theoretical revolution” involves the concept of structural causality. Although Marx outlined it only briefly through a series of terms such as Verbindung, Gliederung, and Darstellung, this concept lies for Althusser at the core of Reading Capital. The aim of this paper is to show that Althusser’s interpretation of Marx is grounded in a conception of causality whose philosophical structure depends on three different theses: the constitutivity of relations, the contingengy of relations, and plural temporality.