Continuity or Rupture (part one)

An infamous hypothesis on the difference between the young and the old Marx was formulated by Louis Althusser. He assumes an "epistomological rupture" in Marx's works, i.e. he (schematically) divides Marx's works into a hegelian-philosophical early work and a late essentially scientific work that came to completion in the volumes of "Capital". For Althusser, the rupture took place with the "German Ideology", written in 1845. In their preface the editors argue firmly against such dissection of Marx's works. Karl Reitter explains why Althusser's hypothesis must be seen as inappropriate by describing the aspects of continuity in Marx's works that clearly connect the early and the late work.