Consciousness and consent: Gramsci’s state theory and its ontological consequences

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2019-9

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Tarambwa, Aswad Nyasha

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This thesis investigated whether the elaboration of the role of ideas as a source of power in Gramsci’s state theory to secure the historical bloc constitutes the basis of a paradigm shift from the main premises of historical materialism to a more deontological, contingent logic of politics and revolution. The author was motivated by the available literature on Gramsci which differs immensely on what he intended when he developed highly original concepts such as ‘war of position’, hegemony and intellectual leadership. This provides an opportunity for reconsideration for research. Thus, it is the author’s desire to bring some further clarity to Gramsci’s ontological and epistemological assumption. To that end, the thesis employed Kuhn's idea of ‘paradigms’ as a theoretical framework and Gadamer’s ‘fusion of horizons’ as the historiological method to clearly understand the implications Gramsci’s ideas. The contributions of Antonio Gramsci were re-traced from his somewhat fragmented work, The Prison Notebooks and prison letters. This research shows that Gramsci attempted to update Marxism after the revolution had failed to spread in Western Europe, and in the process, he expanded the paradigmatic boundaries of historical materialism without breaking out altogether.

Subject Keywords

Gramsci, Marxism, State (Theory), Ontology, Ideology, Hegemony, Intellectuals

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11511/69712

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Northern Cyprus Campus, Thesis

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Citation Formats

A. N. Tarambwa, “Consciousness and consent: Gramsci’s state theory and its ontological consequences,” M.S. - Master of Science, Middle East Technical University, 2019.