Marx’s Conception of Human Nature

The debate on the Marxian conception of human nature has a long history, within which the theme of human nature is obviously intertwined with that, closely related to it, of the essence of man. As is known, in the Sixth Thesis on Feuerbach, Marx writes that ‘the human essence is not something abstract that is immanent to the individual. In reality, it is the whole of social relations’. From here, the question that some scholars have asked is: is there space in Marxian thought for a conception of human nature, or do the historical-social transformations to which this nature is subject make it impossible to theorize it? The thesis of the impossibility of a Marxist theory of human nature has been convincingly refuted by an acute British Marxist, Norman Geras, in a small book entitled: Marx and Human Nature: Refutation of a Legend (1983). The paper will therefore examine the main features of the Marxian conception of human nature. For Marx the fundamental traits that distinguish men from other animals are the ability to work and the ability to speak. An essential characteristic of man is also his sociality because, according to Marx, language and work are necessarily social activities. Since work is what (together with language) defines the humanity of men, then it follows that one of the most interesting (and least recognized) human characteristics is the need to work, that is the need to be active and to objectify one’s personality.