Joseph Dietzgen

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Western Philosophy 19th-century philosophy

Name:	Joseph Dietzgen
Birth:	December 9, 1828 (Blankenberg, Germany)
Death:	April 15, 1888 (Chicago, United States)
School/tradition:	Marxism
Main interests:	Epistemology
Notable ideas:	Dialectical materialism
Influences:	Marx, Feuerbach, Hegel
Influenced:	Lenin, Pannekoek

Joseph Dietzgen (December 1828 - 1888) was a socialist philosopher and anarchist sympathizer.

He was born in Blankenberg near Siegburg, Germany. He was, like his father, a tanner by profession. Entirely self-educated, he developed the notion of dialectical materialism independently from Marx and Engels. Ludwig Feuerbach's works had a great influence on his early theories.

He spent some time in the U.S. from 1849 to 1851 and again from 1859 to 1861. From 1864 to 1868, he lived in St. Petersburg, where he was headmaster in the state tannery. Back in Germany, he met Marx in 1869. In 1881, he ran for the elections of the German Reichstag (the parliament), but emigrated in 1884 to New York City. He moved to Chicago two years later, where he became editor at the Arbeiterzeitung.

"For my part, I lay little stress on the distinction, whether a man is an anarchist or a socialist, because it seems to me that too much weight is attributed to this difference." In this he acted to reconcile marxists and anarchists (see Anarchism and Marxism).

Dietzgen's words and life have for some underscored the unity that existed on the political left at the time of the First International, before Anarchists, Revolutionaries, and Social Democrats were later divided.

He died whilst at home smoking a cigar. He had taken a stroll in Lincoln Park, and was having a political discussion in a "vivacious and excited" manner about the "imminent collapse of capitalist production". He stopped in mid-sentence with his hand in the air - dead of paralysis of the heart.

Dietzgen is buried at the Waldheim Cemetery, Chicago, a few feet away from the Haymarket Martyrs.