Althusser

Louis Pierre Althusser (1918–1990) was a French Marxist philosopher whose work helped define structural Marxism. He argued that social formations are constituted by impersonal structures rather than by individual will, and that ideology functions to reproduce the conditions of production. He also proposed a methodological rupture, the epistemological break, between the early writings attributed to Karl Marx and his mature, science-oriented critique of capitalism.

Born in Châlons-en-Champagne, Althusser studied at the École Normale Supérieure and spent much of his career teaching there. Early in his career he joined the French Communist Party. His writings sought to reframe Marx through a non-Hegelian, anti-humanist lens and to locate philosophy within the structures that condition social life.

Major works include For Marx (1965) and Reading Capital (1965–67, with Étienne Balibar), which advance a structural reading of capitalism. In Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses (1970), he distinguishes Repressive State Apparatuses from Ideological State Apparatuses and argues that ideology operates materially through institutions such as education, religion, the family, and media to reproduce the relations of production.

In 1980 Althusser murdered his wife during a period of mental illness and was subsequently hospitalized. His influence extends across philosophy, sociology, and literary theory, shaping late 20th-century structuralist and post-structuralist thought, while provoking enduring criticism for its perceived neglect of human agency and for aspects of his political stance.