Thomas Dowling

Thesis

Thesis

An historical review and reconstruction of 'reification'

Supervisor: Dr James Clarke and Dr Owen Hulatt

Research

Research

The purpose of my research is to address what is, I would argue, the most important question in critical theory: what does 'reification' - which critical theorists broadly refer to as capitalism's mysterious, autonomous character - actually amount to as a concept? To provide an answer, I am conducting an historical review of:

1. the ways in which reification has been hitherto conceptualised in the post-Kantian and Marxist traditions and
2. the forms that reification has assumed as an historical phenomenon.

On completion, I will proceed to present a consistent theory of reification where others have failed to do so.