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This essay revisits the question of alterations in Marx's view of method from the 1857 "Introduction" to Capital. In the wake of the belated upsurge of interest in Marx's notebooks of 1857–8, posthumously published as the Grundrisse, a dominant interpretation has been developed in Marx scholarship which characterizes the method of the "Introduction" as an ascent from the (transhistorical) abstract to the (historical) concrete and, upon such characterization, stresses the mature Marx's departure from it. Rereading the 1857 "Introduction" with an emphasis on the theoretical import of its examples, I argue, against this interpretation, that although this text does not provide a fully worked-out account of method, it nevertheless offers invaluable insights into some of the central methodological problems with which Marx was concerned and in response to which his dialectical method was developed. In particular, I highlight what could be called Marx's critical historicist approach to the categories and argue that this approach, together with his specific understanding of the process of the reproduction of the concrete in thought, constitute the lasting pillars of Marx's dialectical method, in the 1857 "Introduction" as well as in Capital. Finally, in a concluding section, I re-examine the methodological status of the commodity and argue that the post-1857 emergence of the commodity as Marx's favourite starting point does not represent a fundamental change, or a reversal, in his view of method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay revisits Adorno's relation to Marx through a reading of his recently translated seminar on Marx (1962) within the broader context of the two thinkers' views on the dialectic. While Adorno's critical comments in the seminar seem to be applicable to some of Marx's bold assertions about Hegel's dialectic, taken in isolation, they fail to challenge Marx's more rigorous analysis of the dialectic, as presented in his introduction to the Grundrisse. Nevertheless, read alongside Adorno's mature critique of identity, the text of the seminar could be interpreted as pointing to a much more serious criticism of Marx, that is, the criticism of the primacy of economy that animates Marx's dialectic from within. The essay is concluded with a warning against reducing Adorno's position on Marx to his criticism of the primacy of economy, followed by a brief reference to the fundamentally transitory character of critical theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]