WORK AS THE HUMAN ESSENCE? ACTIVITY AND ITS MEDIATORS

Abstract

Whether within Marxism or outside of it, Marx is commonly evoked as the thinker who conceived labor as the human essence. With this aspect as its starting point, the main objective of this article is to problematize the widespread notion that labor corresponds to the human essence. In this theoretical, essayistic study, we will follow a notable connoisseur of Marxian work, the philosopher Lucien Sève, and advance the argument that a part of the Marxist tradition fell short of Marx's achievements regarding the question of what is specific to humanity. Our thesis is that revisiting the problem of activity (Tätigkeit) and its mediators allows for an understanding of this issue. It concludes that the human being as such does not possess an essence, as it does not concern an individual in isolation. The human essence is the ensemble of social relations, a conception that comes from Marx and from which Marxism seems to have failed to draw all the consequences