"[Althusser] is a professional philosopher who is also a prominent member of the [French Communist] Party without being committed to the official eclecticism. For Althusser, a complete Marxist philosophy remains an unfulfilled desideratum. Only the cornerstone of the building has been laid: the structure remains to be erected. For all its apparent modesty, this approach discloses a resolute determination to build a total system. Is it an accident that Althusser (like Antonio Gramsci a generation earlier) operates within a Catholic culture, as the theorist of a movement which for its adherents has become a substitute for the Church? At any rate the effective completion of his project points in the direction of an all-encompassing synthesis. Impressive in its way, there is nonetheless something scholastic about it. One wonders what Marx would have thought of it."(citations omitted) (1966) … ( more )