The Historical Origins of the 1845–46 Manuscripts

Abstract

As mentioned in the previous chapter, the editors of the 1966 Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie edition of The German Ideology were able to identify “five parts” of it, which were “written at different times and in different circumstances” and which had previously been used to construct a chapter “I. Feuerbach” (IMLSED, 1966: 1198). Although this statement is a clear mark of progress, we also have to stress that the 1966 editors did not make much use of their new insights at the time. Thus a completely different and more accurate description of the historical origins of the 1845–46 manuscripts could have been rendered by any editor as early as the mid-1960s.