ALTHUSSER VERSUS HOBBES. THE CRITICISM OF INDIVIDUALISTIC HUMANISM

Althusser worked out two distinct and subsequent interpretation of the political philosophy of Hobbes. In this paper I focus on the older one. According to this interpretation, the philosophy of Hobbes is framed within individualistic humanism. Individualist humanism is one of the conceptual frameworks Marx broke away from when he founded the science of socio-historical reality, that is, historical materialism. This science has made possible to recognize individualistic humanism not just as a false theory, but as a socially active ideology. I thus offer a wide reconstruction of the place of this interpretation in Althusser's philosophy.