Ghost Hunters: Karl Marx — Max Stirner, Jacques Derrida and Hauntology

Authors: Hanifi Macit M*

DOI: 10.23880/phij-16000187

Volume 4, Issue 2

Abstract

The philosophical, moral and political discourses that determine human relations sometimes attain a different meaning transcending the bodily existence of mankind. Typically, concepts and notions such as God, humankind, the Fatherland, the Emperor, the Pope, church and so on are of this nature. These concepts, which humans have transcended by abstracting human experiences, reincarnate again, materializing as specters. In this study, we evaluate how these abstractions are presented in a visible form and how these mental constructs transform into a specter each, in the context of Karl Marx, Max Stirner and Jacques Derrida. Marx and Stirner are both ghost hunters, but there is a deep discussion on the subject of who creates ghosts and who hunts them. Derrida, on the other hand, talks about the agora of specters and how they materialize, is showing how Marx, a ghost hunter, was smitten by Stirner. Not limited to these considerations, the study describes the ghost hunt by both thinkers. After all, what Derrida did was to demonstrate how the efforts of these two thinkers to expel or overcome specters haunted new ideas, in other words, Hauntology.

Keywords: Karl Marx; Max Stirner; Jacques Derrida; Ghost; Hauntology

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