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It is generally recognized that Marx's account of human alienation (estrangement) presented in the 1844 Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts is dependent upon his notion of a human species-being. Since that concept is almost totally ab? sent from Marx's later writings, it is not generally acknowledged that this concept continues to play a central function in Marx's writing and, in particular, in his cri? tique of capitalist society.

In this paper, I shall try to show the full range of implications that Marx draws from his claim that" Man is a species-being... and free conscious activity con? stitutes the species-character of man"(Marx, 1974, pp. 327-328). In the first sec? tion, I will show how Marx's use of the concept of a human species-being is a radical reconceptualization of the philosophic tradition's use of the idea of a hu? man essence. I will then, in the second section, show how this concept functions to ground both Marx's …