Max Adler (Marxist)

Max Adler (1873 to 1937) was an Austrian jurist, politician and social philosopher whose theories were central to Austromarxism. He took a doctorate in law in 1896, practised as a lawyer, and from 1920 was extraordinary professor of sociology and social philosophy at the University of Vienna, while also sitting for the Social Democrats in the Lower Austrian regional parliament. He edited the Marx-Studien with Rudolf Hilferding. Adler combined Marxist themes with Kantian transcendentalism, arguing for a social a priori, the idea that individual consciousness is already socialized, and he treated the dialectic as a sociological method. He also wrote on the Marxist theory of the state in debate with Hans Kelsen and Hermann Heller.