1 Chapter 2 MarxȂs Philosophical Modernism: Post -Kantian Foundations of Historical Materialism Martin McIvor Recent years have witnessed a remarkable resurgence of interest in the ȁGerman IdealistȂ movement, one that can arguably be said to have transformed our understanding and appreciation of its key thinkers. 1 Originating in the latest German scholarship, this revival has carried over into Anglo-American philosophical discussion where it has connected with contemporary ȁpost -analyticȂ concerns with normativity, discursivity and sociality, and post-Rawlsian developments of contractualism and communitarianism. Attention has focused most obviously upon Kant and Hegel – now seen less as (respectively) dry moralist and esoteric metaphysician, more as powerful and pivotal thinkers of subjectivity, agency and modernity. But it has also extended to take in Fichte, Schelling, the early Romantics, even figures who until recently were known only to few historical specialists such as Karl Reinhold or Friedrich Jacobi. Curiously, however, these inquiries have not yet been followed through into a reconsideration of the ideas of Karl Marx, whose philosophical and political outlook was to a great extent formed through a critical engagement with the legacy of German Idealism. Nor, it must be said, have Marxist philosophers devoted much explicit consideration to what new light might be thrown on MarxȂs thought by this re-evaluation of the intellectual background against which he first began to define his distinctive project. My aim in what follows is to set out an initial approach to this question – necessarily sketchy and inconclusive, but also, I hope, stimulating and suggestive. 1. Philosophy after Kant: freedom and reasons Any attempt to summarise the insights and implications of a voluminous body of recent commentary that ranges from Christine KorsgaardȂs re -appropriations of Kant to Robert PippinȂs re-presentation of Hegel must of necessity be crude and simplistic. I make no claim to do justice to its intricacy and internal diversity, nor to the controversy and debate it has aroused. 2 Nevertheless I think it is possible to identify some broad themes and issues that have motivated contemporary interest in the ideas and debates of the German Idealist period. At the heart of this new interest, I would suggest, is a cluster of issues that have come to be associated with what we now tend to call the condition and experience of ȁmodernityȂ – a condition which, in important respects, is still our own today. Stated very briefly, we can say that for philosophical purposes, the problems