The Ontology of Objective Entities: A Study Based on the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844

Abstract

Marx's new materialist ontological philosophy is not a traditional practice-based ontology or material ontology, but rather a dialectical material ontology emphasising that entities attain their real determinations through self-mediation via objectivity. Objective entities possess three constitutive characteristics: sensibility, contradiction, and movement. Their extension can be categorised into three levels: sensible entities, living entities, and human entities. Sensibility denotes the essential force by which entities must open themselves to objects for their actual existence, thereby acquiring and conferring objectivity. Secondly, this objectifying relationship inherently contains a dual contradiction: first, the contradiction between the entity itself and the real determinations it acquires through objects; second, the contradiction between the object itself and the objectifying image it presents during its constitution. Finally, the movement mediated by the entity itself constitutes a dialectical process of negation of negation: progressing from self-externalisation to the sublation of this externalisation, ultimately reappropriating the essence of objectivity at a higher level.