Alfred Sohn-Rethel, die Vorsokratiker und die kritische Liquidierung des Apriorismus

Abstract

In his attempt to liquidate Kant’s apriorism and to identify the genesis of the pure forms of thought in the form of commodities and coinage, Sohn-Rethel located a first instance of such a transformation among ancient Greek pre-Socratic philosophers. In particular, in Parmenides’ notion of “being”, he saw a reflection of the materiality of the coinage that was emerging at that time. This article shows the extent to which Sohn-Rethel’s theory, which has been heavily criticized not least for separating production from the exchange of goods, is still viable and can inspire further research.

Keywords

• Sohn-Rethel
• Pre-Socratics
• Parmenides
• apriorism
• materialist epistemology
• coinage