Real Abstraction and Early Greek Philosophy

I begin by describing various weaknesses and problems in Sohn-Rethel's account of real abstraction. But most of what I will say will be, in sharp contrast to the paper by Robert Finelli, a vindication and extension of Sohn-Rethel's focus on coined money as the crucial factor in the genesis of Greek philosophy. I will do so by adducing material - historical, numismatic and philosophical - that Sohn-Rethel did not mention. This will include a new suggestion about the historical emergence of the concept of the mere image (copy) that is fundamental to Platonic metaphysics

This paper will build on published work on the relationship between Greek philosophy and ideas and issues of monetization and measurement that can be explored through the lens of real abstraction. Richard Seaford is Emeritus Professor of Ancient Greek at the University of Exeter. His publications include Money and the Early Greek Mind (Cambridge 2004) and The Origins of Philosophy in Ancient Greece and Ancient India (Cambridge 2020), and “Monetisation and the Genesis of the Western Subject”, in Historical Materialism 20.1 (2012) 1–25.