It is now time to find out whether my various inquiries possess more unity than that deriving from the hermeneutical program I announced in the introduction. They are indeed systernatizations and interpretations of four central themes of Gramsci's Prison Notebooks, augmented by evaluations of three of these four Gramscian themes; and the evaluations are grounded, respectively, on critical analyses of Croce's philosophy, of Bukharin's sociology, and of Hegel's dialectic. My investigation would acquire additional significance, however, if it could be related to other problems of current or perennial interest. Because the subject of Marxism recurs in the Notebooks, it seems a promising one to serve as focus for the integration I am seeking. It turns out that this topic will enable me to formulate an overarching interpretation and an overarching evaluation of Gramsci's thought, and that these are relevant to a background problem to which I now turn.

THE PROBLEM OF THE EVALUATION OF MARXISM

There is little need to belabor the social, political, and cultural importance of Marxism. Adapting an aphorism applicable in many contexts, one might say that Marxism is far too important to be left to Marxists. Therefore, the understanding and evaluation of Marxism may be regarded as a central problem of our time, and hence a crucial topic for social philosophy.

A central fact of the phenomenon of Marxism is that it began as a science and has now become a religion. The scientific origins of Marxism are evident in Marx's claim that “one basis for life and another for science is a priori a lie” and in Engels's talk about the transition of socialism from Utopian to scientific.