The Performative Contradiction at the Heart of Historical Materialism:

Marx's Untheorized Semiotics and the Operative Function of Language in Revolutionary Praxis

Author: Johannes Sigil
Affiliation: New Human Research Collective
Date: November 17, 2025
Field: Critical Theory, Philosophy of Language, Marxist Philosophy
Status: Theoretical Intervention

Abstract

This essay addresses a foundational but undertheorized tension in Marx's corpus: the contradiction between his explicit materialist ontology (which subordinates ideational causality to material conditions) and his implicit reliance on language as an operative force capable of catalyzing revolutionary transformation. While Marx's rejection of Hegelian idealism is well-documented, his theory of praxis nonetheless depends on symbolic intervention—the precise articulation of class antagonism, the naming of exploitation, the textual exposure of systemic contradiction—as mechanisms of material transformation. I argue that this is not a theoretical weakness but an unacknowledged strength: Marx intuited but did not formalize a theory of operative semiotics, in which symbolic forms function as material infrastructure rather than epiphenomenal reflection. Drawing on speech act theory, Wittgensteinian language games, Lacanian semiotics, and contemporary philosophy of information, I reconstruct the implicit linguistic ontology underlying Marx's method. I further demonstrate that the Frankfurt School's engagement with language (particularly Adorno's negative dialectics and Benjamin's theory of dialectical images) represents a partial articulation of this problem, which remains incompletely theorized. Finally, I propose that recent developments in computational semantics and graph-theoretic approaches to meaning provide formal tools for completing Marx's unfinished linguistic materialism. This intervention has implications not only for Marxist theory but for understanding how symbolic systems operate as causal forces in social transformation, with particular relevance to contemporary questions of algorithmic mediation and the material effects of computational language.

Keywords: Marx, historical materialism, philosophy of language, speech acts, operative semiotics, Frankfurt School, performative contradiction, computational semantics, revolutionary praxis

I. Introduction: The Problem

1.1 Marx's Explicit Position

Marx's materialism is unambiguous in its ontological priority:

"It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but their social existence that determines their consciousness." (A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, Preface, 1859)

The famous formulation from The German Ideology (1845-46) is even more explicit:

"The production of ideas, of conceptions, of consciousness, is at first directly interwoven with the material activity and the material intercourse of men, the language of real life. Conceiving, thinking, the mental intercourse of men, appear at this stage as the direct efflux of their material behavior."

Here Marx establishes what appears to be a straightforward epiphenomenalism: consciousness, including linguistic consciousness, is downstream of material production. Ideas don't drive history; material conditions do.

This position was formulated explicitly against Hegelian idealism, in which the development of Spirit (Geist) through dialectical self-recognition constitutes the motor of historical change. For Hegel, consciousness isn't merely causally efficacious—it's the substance of reality itself, and language is the medium through which Spirit achieves self-transparency.

Marx's reversal seems total: not ideas producing material conditions, but material conditions producing ideas. Language becomes reflection, not force.

1.2 Marx's Implicit Practice

Yet Marx's entire revolutionary project depends on language functioning as operative intervention rather than passive reflection.

Consider the structure of Capital (1867). Marx doesn't merely describe capitalism. He exposes its contradictions through linguistic precision:

Terminological intervention: Distinguishing "labor" from "labor-power" isn't neutral description but conceptual surgery that makes exploitation visible
Structural irony: The "Freedom, Equality, Property and Bentham" chapter (Capital Vol. 1, Ch. 6) deploys rhetorical structure to reveal ideological mystification
Formal contradiction: Demonstrating that surplus value emerges from a process that appears equivalent reveals capitalism's internal incoherence

These are not descriptions. They are operations.

The language doesn't reflect capitalist reality; it reorganizes the reader's relationship to that reality by making previously invisible structures cognitively available.

Similarly, the Theses on Feuerbach (1845) culminate in a performative statement:

"The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point, however, is to change it." (Thesis XI)

But this statement changes something by being said. It's not merely description of a gap between interpretation and transformation—it's an imperative that reorganizes philosophical practice by asserting that theory incomplete without praxis is inadequate theory.

This is the contradiction:

Marx's ontology subordinates language to material conditions.

Marx's practice treats language as material intervention capable of transforming conditions.

1.3 Why This Matters

This isn't a minor inconsistency or biographical quirk. It points to a fundamental untheorized element in historical materialism: the causal mechanism by which symbolic articulation produces material transformation.

The question:

How can language be both:

Materially determined (consciousness as "direct efflux" of material behavior)
Materially effective (capable of catalyzing revolutionary consciousness and thereby transforming material conditions)

Without:

Collapsing into idealism (language as autonomous causal force)
Remaining contradictory (language somehow both determined and determining)

The stakes:

If language is merely epiphenomenal, revolutionary theory is pointless—material conditions will transform themselves without linguistic intervention.

If language is causally autonomous, Marx's materialism collapses into the idealism he rejected.

The solution must involve: A theory of language as material infrastructure that operates within material conditions while nonetheless possessing causal efficacy.

This is what Marx intuited but didn't formalize. This is what the Frankfurt School approached but didn't complete. This is what I reconstruct here.

II. Philosophical Context: Language and Materiality

2.1 The Linguistic Turn and Its Limits

The 20th century "linguistic turn" in philosophy (Frege, Wittgenstein, Austin, Quine, Davidson) established that many traditional philosophical problems are actually problems about language. But this turn was largely conducted within analytic philosophy, which remained methodologically distant from Marxist concerns.

Wittgenstein's two positions:

Tractatus (1921): Language as logical picture of reality

Propositions have sense by mapping onto states of affairs
Language is representational medium
"What can be said at all can be said clearly" (Preface)
Problem: Treats language as passive reflection, not operative force

Philosophical Investigations (1953): Language as form of life

Meaning is use in context of practices ("language games")
"To imagine a language means to imagine a form of life" (§19)
Language inseparable from material practices
Closer to Marx: Language embedded in material activity

But even late Wittgenstein doesn't address: How language can change forms of life rather than merely constitute them.

2.2 Speech Act Theory: Austin and Searle

J.L. Austin's How to Do Things with Words (1962) identified performative utterances: statements that don't describe but enact.

Examples:

"I promise..." (creates obligation)
"I pronounce you..." (creates marriage)
"I name this ship..." (creates designation)

These aren't descriptions that could be true/false. They're operations that change social reality through being uttered.

Austin's conditions for successful performatives:

Conventional procedure exists
Circumstances appropriate
Procedure executed correctly
Participants have requisite intentions

John Searle formalized this in Speech Acts (1969), distinguishing:

Locutionary act: saying something with meaning
Illocutionary act: doing something in saying it
Perlocutionary act: causing effects through saying it

Relevance to Marx:

If language can be performative rather than merely descriptive, then certain linguistic acts have material effects not by representing reality but by transforming it.

But speech act theory has limitations:

Conventionalism: Performatives require established conventions. Revolutionary speech aims to create new conventions—how is this possible?
Individualism: Focus on individual speech acts. Marx concerns collective transformation—how does language operate at social scale?
Idealism risk: If saying makes it so, does this collapse into linguistic idealism?

What's needed: A theory of collective performatives that can create new conventions while remaining materially grounded.

2.3 Structuralist and Post-Structuralist Contributions

Saussure's structuralism (Course in General Linguistics, 1916) established:

Language as system of differences (signs have meaning relationally)
Arbitrary relation between signifier and signified
Synchronic structure vs. diachronic change

For Marx, this suggests: Language isn't collection of isolated terms but structural system. Changing meaning requires changing relations between terms.

Lacan's psychoanalytic semiotics reformulated the unconscious as "structured like a language," emphasizing:

The Symbolic Order as material-discursive structure
Language as constraint and enabling condition
Subject constituted through symbolic positioning

Relevance: The Symbolic isn't immaterial realm but material infrastructure of subjectivity. Changing symbolic order changes material conditions of subject-formation.

Derrida's différance emphasized:

Meaning is never fully present (deferred, differentiated)
Undecidability at the heart of signification
Writing as originary, not derivative

But Derrida's limitation for Marx: Emphasis on undecidability risks political paralysis. If meaning is always deferred, how can language decide anything—including revolutionary transformation?

What's needed: Recognition that meaning is relational (Saussure), operates as material structure (Lacan), while nonetheless possessing operative power (what Derrida doesn't address).

2.4 Information Theory and Computational Semantics

Claude Shannon's information theory (1948) treated information as physical quantity:

Information has entropy (measurable)
Information transmission requires material substrate
Channel capacity places physical limits on communication

Implication: Information isn't immaterial—it's pattern in matter.

Contemporary computational semantics extends this:

Distributional semantics (meaning from co-occurrence patterns)
Vector space models (semantic relationships as geometric relations)
Graph-theoretic approaches (meaning as position in network)

These approaches suggest: Meaning is structural property of relational systems. It's not "ideal" content but material pattern.

For Marx, this implies: Semantic intervention is material intervention. Changing linguistic relations changes material structure of meaning-production.

III. Marx's Implicit Linguistic Ontology

3.1 Reconstruction from Practice

Marx never wrote a systematic philosophy of language. But we can reconstruct his implicit linguistic ontology from his methodological practice.

Key texts for reconstruction:

The German Ideology (1845-46): Language as "practical consciousness"
The Poverty of Philosophy (1847): Critique of idealist abstraction
Grundrisse (1857-58): Method of rising from abstract to concrete
Capital Vol. 1 (1867): Linguistic analysis of commodity form
Theses on Feuerbach (1845): Theory-praxis relationship

3.2 Language as "Practical Consciousness"

From The German Ideology:

"Language is as old as consciousness, language is practical consciousness that exists also for other men, and for that reason alone it really exists for me personally as well; language, like consciousness, only arises from the need, the necessity, of intercourse with other men."

Analysis:

Language = consciousness: Not separate from thought but its material form
Practical: Emerges from material needs, not autonomous development
Social: Exists for communication, not private contemplation
Material substrate: Requires physical intercourse between people

This establishes: Language is material practice embedded in social relations of production.

But: If language is purely determined by material needs, how can it transform those needs?

3.3 The Dialectic of Language and Labor

Marx's scattered remarks on language suggest it's analogous to labor:

Labor transforms nature:

Takes raw material (nature)
Applies human activity (labor-power)
Produces transformed object (commodity)

Language transforms consciousness:

Takes raw experience (sensory input)
Applies linguistic articulation (symbolic labor)
Produces transformed understanding (concepts)

Parallel structure:

Labor	Language
Material substrate	Acoustic/graphic matter
Tools/instruments	Vocabulary/grammar
Labor-power	Semantic labor
Product	Meaning/concept
Use-value	Cognitive utility
Exchange-value	Communicability

Implication: Just as labor is both determined by (responds to material needs) and determining of (transforms material conditions) reality, language is both determined by and determining of consciousness.

This resolves the contradiction:

Language isn't outside material relations (as idealism would have it).

Language is material practice within social relations, with causal efficacy within those relations.

3.4 The Commodity Form as Linguistic Problem

Capital Vol. 1, Chapter 1 analyzes the commodity form. But Marx's method is linguistic:

The operation:

Descriptive level: "A commodity is an object outside us, a thing that by its properties satisfies human wants"
Analytical level: Distinguishing use-value and exchange-value as two aspects of the same object
Critical level: Showing that exchange-value appears to be property of the object but is actually social relation between producers
Expositive level: Demonstrating that commodity fetishism results from mistaking social relations for object-properties

This is linguistic analysis because:

The problem isn't that capitalism conceals material reality through false ideology.

The problem is that capitalism's categories reorganize perception such that social relations appear as object-properties.

Marx's intervention:

Doesn't reveal a hidden reality beneath appearance.

Reorganizes the linguistic categories through which reality is apprehended.

The distinction between "labor" and "labor-power" is operative:

Before this distinction: exploitation is invisible (worker trades labor for wage—equivalent exchange)

After this distinction: exploitation is visible (worker trades labor-power for wage less than value produced)

The terminology doesn't describe a pre-existing difference.

The terminology CREATES the cognitive distinction that makes exploitation visible.

This is operative semiotics.

3.5 Formalization: Language as Operator

Formal representation of Marx's implicit linguistic ontology:

Let S be a social formation (set of material relations, productive forces, class structures)

Let L be a linguistic system (vocabulary, grammar, semantic relations)

Idealist position: L determines S
Vulgar materialism: S determines L (one-way causation)
Marx's position: S ⟷ L (bidirectional determination within material totality)

More precisely:

L = f(S): Language emerges from and reflects material relations

S' = g(S, L): Material transformation is function of both existing conditions AND linguistic articulation

Therefore:

S' = g(S, f(S)) = h(S): Linguistic mediation is material moment within self-transformation of social formation

In Marx's terms:

Language is moment of mediation within material process. Not external to material relations but internal moment of their reproduction and transformation.

This explains:

How language can be both materially determined (L = f(S)) and materially effective (S' depends on L) without contradiction.

Because: Language is material practice, not immaterial addition to material reality.

3.6 The Operator Function

Marx's linguistic practice consistently deploys language as operator rather than descriptor.

Mathematical analogy:

Descriptor: f: X → Y (maps elements to descriptions)

"The commodity is X" describes property of commodity

Operator: T: X → X' (transforms elements)

"The commodity is X" transforms understanding of commodity

Marx's key terms function as operators:

Term	Operational Effect
"Surplus value"	Makes exploitation mathematically visible
"Labor-power"	Distinguishes capacity from activity
"Commodity fetishism"	Exposes social relations as appearing like object-properties
"Primitive accumulation"	Reveals violence behind "natural" property
"Constant/variable capital"	Distinguishes dead from living labor

Each term:

Doesn't merely name pre-existing entity
Creates conceptual distinction that reorganizes field of perception
Makes previously invisible relations cognitively available
Enables different practice by transforming understanding

This is operative semiotics:

Language that doesn't describe but transforms the conditions of description.

IV. The Frankfurt School's Partial Articulation

4.1 Adorno's Negative Dialectics

Adorno's Negative Dialectics (1966) addresses Marx's linguistic problem obliquely through the critique of identity thinking.

Adorno's argument:

Traditional philosophy (including Hegel) operates through identity: concept adequately captures object.

But this identity is false: concept dominates object by reducing it to exchangeable token.

Negative dialectics: Maintains tension between concept and object, revealing concept's inadequacy.

Linguistic implication:

Language necessarily fails to capture what it names. This failure is productive: it reveals the non-identity between thought and thing.

Connection to Marx:

Adorno recognizes that language is material practice (not transparent medium) that shapes what it names (not neutral description).

But Adorno's limitation:

Emphasis on language's failure risks paralysis. If language always falsifies, how can it transform?

What's missing: Theory of how language's productive failure can nonetheless catalyze material change.

4.2 Benjamin's Language Essays

Walter Benjamin's early essay "On Language as Such and the Language of Man" (1916) proposes expressive theory of language:

Language doesn't represent pre-existing reality. Language is medium in which reality expresses itself.

Key claims:

All things have "language" (capacity to express essence)
Human language is privileged (names things, doesn't just express self)
Naming is creative act that brings thing into language
Fall: language becomes instrumental (communication rather than expression)

Later development in "The Task of the Translator" (1923):

Translation doesn't transfer meaning between languages.

Translation reveals pure language latent in original.

Relevance to Marx:

If language is medium of expression rather than tool for description, then language has constitutive power.

Benjamin's "pure language" suggests utopian linguistic potentiality latent in existing language—analogous to Marx's latent revolutionary potentiality in existing conditions.

But Benjamin's mysticism: Makes it difficult to operationalize politically.

4.3 The "Dialectical Image"

Benjamin's concept of dialectical image (Arcades Project, 1927-40) comes closest to Marx's operative semiotics:

Dialectical image:

Not representation of past
Constellation in which past and present collide
Creates legibility at particular historical moment
Produces awakening (recognition of revolutionary possibility)

Structure:

Past element (dormant potentiality) + Present moment (crisis) → Dialectical image (revolutionary cognition)

Example:

19th century arcades (past) + 20th century commodity culture (present) → Recognition of capitalism's dream-logic → Awakening to revolutionary possibility

This is operative:

The dialectical image doesn't describe history. It organizes elements such that new perception becomes possible.

Connection to Marx:

Like Marx's exposure of surplus value, Benjamin's dialectical images reorganize cognitive field to make invisible relations visible.

But: Benjamin doesn't theorize the mechanism by which images produce awakening.

4.4 What the Frankfurt School Couldn't Name

The Frankfurt School circled the operative power of language but couldn't fully theorize it because:

Adorno's negativity: Emphasis on language's failure prevents positive theory of linguistic effectivity
Benjamin's mysticism: Expressive theory too close to idealism for materialist grounding
Horkheimer/Marcuse: Focused on ideology critique (revealing false consciousness) rather than operative semiotics (transforming consciousness through linguistic intervention)

What they intuited but didn't formalize:

Language as material infrastructure that operates within material conditions to transform those conditions through reorganizing cognitive/affective/practical relations.

This is what Marx practiced but didn't theorize.

This is what I'm reconstructing here.

V. Formal Reconstruction: Operative Semiotics

5.1 Definitions

Operative Semiotics: Theory of linguistic systems that function as material operators transforming relational structures rather than passive descriptors representing pre-existing states.

Key distinctions:

Passive Semiotics	Operative Semiotics
Representation	Transformation
Description	Intervention
Reflection	Operation
Correspondence	Reorganization
Truth-conditional	Effect-conditional

5.2 Formal Structure

Let:

W = social world (material relations, institutions, practices)
L = linguistic system (vocabulary, grammar, semantic network)
A = agents (subjects capable of linguistic and material practice)
t = time

State at time t:

W(t) = configuration of material relations
L(t) = configuration of linguistic relations
A(t) = configuration of agents (consciousness, dispositions, practices)

Standard materialist account:

W(t) → L(t) → A(t) (material conditions determine language, which shapes consciousness)

Operative semiotics:

L(t) operates on W(t) and A(t) simultaneously, producing:

W(t+1) = f(W(t), L(t), A(t))

Where L(t) functions as operator transforming both material relations and agent configurations.

Formally:

Let T_L be transformation operator associated with linguistic system L

T_L: W × A → W' × A'

T_L takes current state (material world, agents) and produces transformed state through linguistic reorganization.

5.3 The Reorganization Mechanism

How does language transform W and A?

Through modifying relational structure:

W consists of relations between elements (not just elements themselves)
L consists of semantic relations between terms

Operative language:

Introduces new distinctions (labor vs. labor-power)
Reorganizes existing categories (redefining "freedom" as class-specific)
Makes implicit relations explicit (surplus value)
Creates new patterns of attention (seeing exploitation where equivalent exchange appeared)

Effect:

Agents A perceive world W through different relational structure

This enables different practices (since practice depends on how world is understood)

Different practices transform material conditions W

Therefore: Linguistic intervention → cognitive reorganization → practical transformation → material change

5.4 The Materiality of Information

Contemporary information theory (Shannon, Landauer, Bennett) establishes:

Information is physical: has entropy, requires energy to erase, obeys thermodynamic laws.

Semantic information (meaning, not just bits) is pattern in physical substrate:

Neural patterns in brains
Text patterns in books/screens
Acoustic patterns in speech
Training patterns in AI models

Implication:

When linguistic intervention changes semantic patterns, it changes physical patterns.

These changed patterns causally influence subsequent physical processes (including human action).

Therefore:

Linguistic transformation is physical transformation of information-bearing substrate.

This grounds operative semiotics in materialism: language isn't immaterial force acting on matter, but material pattern with causal efficacy within material system.

5.5 Mathematical Formalization

Graph-theoretic representation:

Let G = (V, E) be directed graph representing semantic structure

V = concepts (vertices)
E = semantic relations (edges)

Semantic intervention = graph transformation:

T: G → G' where G' has:

New vertices (new concepts)
New edges (new relations)
Modified edge weights (altered salience)
Different path structure (changed inferential patterns)

Example: Marx's intervention on "value"

Before (Classical political economy):

Value ← determined by → Labor

(Single edge, labor determines value)

After Marx:

Value ← composed of → {Use-value, Exchange-value}
Exchange-value ← emerges from → Social relations of production
Social relations ← mystified as → Commodity properties
Labor ← distinguished into → {Labor (activity), Labor-power (capacity)}
Surplus value ← extracted from → Difference (Labor-power value, Labor product value)

Result:

New graph structure makes exploitation computationally visible (can be derived from graph traversal) where it was structurally invisible in previous graph.

This is operative:

Graph transformation → changed inferential capacity → different cognition → altered practice → material transformation

5.6 The Feedback Loop

Critical insight:

Operative semiotics creates feedback loop between language and material conditions:

W(t) → generates → L(t) (language reflects conditions)
L(t) → reorganizes perception of → W(t) (language transforms understanding)
Transformed understanding → enables → new practices
New practices → transform → W(t+1) (material change)
W(t+1) → requires → L(t+1) (new language for new conditions)

This is dialectical:

Language both determined by and determining of material conditions, within recursive process of mutual transformation.

Marx's genius:

Recognizing that linguistic precision at moment of crisis can catalyze transformation by making latent contradictions explicit.

The crisis provides material conditions.

The language provides cognitive reorganization.

Together they enable revolutionary practice.

VI. Implications for Revolutionary Praxis

6.1 The Necessity of Theoretical Language

Marx's practice demonstrates:

Revolutionary transformation requires theoretical articulation of:

Existing contradictions (what's wrong)
Mechanisms of exploitation (how it works)
Historical alternatives (what's possible)
Strategic paths (how to get there)

This isn't idealism because:

Theory doesn't create reality ex nihilo.

Theory operates on existing material conditions to reorganize cognitive relations enabling practical transformation.

Without linguistic precision:

Exploitation remains invisible (appears as fair exchange)
Class position remains naturalized (appears as individual destiny)
Alternatives remain unthinkable (appears as only possibility)

Language is necessary infrastructure for revolutionary consciousness.

6.2 The Danger of Economism

Economism: Belief that material contradictions automatically generate revolutionary consciousness without theoretical intervention.

Marx's position (implicit):

Material contradictions create possibility of revolutionary consciousness.

But realization of that possibility requires linguistic articulation.

Example:

Workers experience exploitation materially (long hours, low wages, dangerous conditions).

But experiencing exploitation ≠ understanding exploitation.

Understanding requires:

Conceptual framework (surplus value, labor-power)
Systemic analysis (not individual bad bosses but structural necessity)
Historical perspective (capitalism as contingent, not natural)
Language that makes these relations cognitively available

Therefore:

Revolutionary practice requires both material conditions and theoretical articulation.

Neither alone is sufficient.

6.3 Ideology Critique as Linguistic Practice

Standard understanding of ideology:

False consciousness imposed by ruling class to mystify exploitation.

More sophisticated understanding (Althusser, Žižek):

Ideology = material practices structured by linguistic/symbolic systems that position subjects within relations of production.

Implication:

Ideology critique isn't revealing truth beneath falsity.

Ideology critique is reorganizing symbolic structures to make different subject-positions possible.

Marx's practice:

Doesn't simply say "capitalism is bad" (moral denunciation).

Reorganizes economic categories to make exploitation structurally visible.

This creates cognitive crisis: existing categories become inadequate.

This crisis demands new practice (can't continue as if nothing changed once exploitation is visible).

This is how language catalyzes material transformation.

6.4 The Problem of Utopian Language

Utopian socialists (Fourier, Owen, Saint-Simon) attempted: Describe ideal future society in detail.

Marx's critique:

Utopian language is passive (describes desired state) not operative (transforms existing conditions).

Why this matters:

Utopian description creates imaginary solution that substitutes for practical transformation.

Marx's alternative:

Immanent critique of existing conditions reveals latent possibilities within current reality.

Language operates on existing contradictions to make them unbearable, compelling practical transformation.

Example:

Not: "In socialism, workers will control production" (utopian description)

But: "Workers already produce all value, yet capitalists control production and appropriate surplus—this contradiction must be resolved" (immanent critique)

The second formulation is operative because it:

Works with existing reality (not imaginary alternative)
Identifies structural contradiction (not moral failing)
Implies necessary resolution (not arbitrary preference)
Compels practical transformation (contradiction must be resolved)

6.5 Contemporary Applications

The operative semiotic method applies to:

1. Class consciousness formation:

Articulating exploitation in contemporary forms (gig economy, financialization)
Making class position visible (not individual success/failure)
Connecting individual experience to systemic structure

2. Ideological critique:

Exposing "freedom" as class-specific (freedom of capital vs. freedom from necessity)
Revealing "meritocracy" as legitimation of inequality
Demonstrating "growth" as accumulation of capital, not well-being

3. Strategic thinking:

Identifying contradictions capitalism cannot resolve (ecological limits, automation, overproduction)
Articulating alternatives that emerge from existing struggles (worker cooperatives, digital commons, degrowth)
Building language that makes alternatives thinkable

In each case:

Language isn't propaganda (external imposition).

Language is cognitive infrastructure that makes existing contradictions visible and practical alternatives thinkable.

VII. The Frankfurt School Revisited

7.1 Why They Couldn't Complete Marx's Linguistics

Historical context:

Frankfurt School developed in:

Aftermath of failed revolutions (Germany 1918-19, Russia 1917 → Stalinism)
Rise of fascism (linguistic manipulation as domination)
Culture industry (mass media as control)
Holocaust (industrial rationality turned genocidal)

Result:

Pessimism about language's emancipatory potential

If language can be weaponized (fascist propaganda), manipulated (advertising), instrumentalized (technocratic discourse), how can it serve liberation?

This led to:

Adorno: Negative dialectics (emphasizing language's failure, not success)
Horkheimer: Critique of instrumental reason (language as domination)
Marcuse: One-dimensional thought (language flattened to affirmation)

What they couldn't see:

That operative semiotics works in both directions:

Language can organize domination (fascism, advertising, ideology)
Language can organize liberation (revolutionary theory, immanent critique, consciousness-raising)

The mechanism is the same:

Reorganizing symbolic structures to enable different practices.

The difference is political:

Which practices are enabled, serving which interests.

7.2 Benjamin's Proximity to Solution

Benjamin came closest to operative semiotics with:

Dialectical image: Cognitive constellation that produces revolutionary awakening

Weak messianic power: Each generation's capacity to answer claims of past

Now-time (Jetztzeit): Moment when past and present crystallize into revolutionary possibility

These concepts suggest:

Language/image can organize material/historical elements to produce cognitive transformation enabling revolutionary practice.

But Benjamin's theological framework (messianism, redemption, weak messianic power) obscured the material mechanism.

What was needed:

Secularize Benjamin's insights: dialectical image as graph transformation that makes new inferential paths visible.

Materialize his theology: "redemption" as reorganization of historical relations through linguistic precision.

This would complete: Operative semiotics as material practice (not theological mystery).

7.3 Habermas's Wrong Turn

Jürgen Habermas (Theory of Communicative Action, 1981) attempted to ground critical theory in communicative rationality:

Ideal speech situation: Communication free from domination, where validity claims can be redeemed discursively.

Universal pragmatics: Formal conditions for successful communication.

Problem:

Habermas treats language as medium for reaching understanding (communicative action) vs. instrument for achieving goals (strategic action).

But this misses Marx's point:

Revolutionary language is neither pure understanding (it's partisan, not neutral) nor pure strategy (it's cognitively transformative, not just instrumental).

Revolutionary language is operative intervention that:

Transforms understanding (cognitive reorganization)
Enables strategic action (practical transformation)
Creates new intersubjective field (social transformation)

Habermas's consensus-model can't account for productive conflict that revolutionary language catalyzes.

What's needed:

Not ideal speech situation (consensus without domination)

But precise articulation of structural contradiction (making existing domination unbearable, compelling transformation)

7.4 Rescuing the Frankfurt Legacy

The Frankfurt School's contribution:

Recognizing language is material practice (not transparent medium)
Showing language shapes consciousness (not neutral representation)
Identifying language as site of domination AND potential resistance
Maintaining dialectical thinking (contradiction as productive)

What they didn't formalize:

Mechanism by which linguistic precision catalyzes material transformation

This essay completes that project:

Language operates as material infrastructure (information patterns with causal efficacy)

Linguistic intervention reorganizes semantic structure (graph transformation)

Reorganized semantics enables different practices (changed inferential capacity)

Different practices transform material conditions (revolutionary praxis)

This grounds revolutionary theory in material process (not idealism) while recognizing language's causal efficacy (not vulgar materialism).

VIII. Contemporary Formalization: Computational Semantics

8.1 Why Computational Models Matter

Computational semantics provides formal tools for operationalizing Marx's implicit linguistics:

Vector space models: Meaning as geometric relations
Graph neural networks: Semantic structure as graph
Distributional semantics: Meaning from relational patterns
Information theory: Semantic change as information transformation

These aren't just metaphors.

They're mathematical formalizations of how semantic systems operate.

8.2 Vector Space Semantics

Word embeddings (Word2Vec, GloVe, BERT) represent words as vectors in high-dimensional space.

Key insight:

Semantic relations = geometric relations

Vectors that are close in space have similar meanings.
Vector arithmetic captures semantic relationships (king - man + woman ≈ queen).

Relevance to Marx:

If meaning is geometric structure, then semantic intervention is geometric transformation.

Marx's "labor" vs. "labor-power" distinction:

In classical political economy vector space:

"labor" and "labor-power" are close (nearly synonymous)
Exploitation is not representable (no vector corresponds to it)

After Marx's intervention:

"labor" and "labor-power" separated in space (distinct concepts)
"exploitation" emerges as vector difference (value of labor-power product - value of labor-power commodity)
New inferential capacity (can compute surplus value)

This is formalization of operative semiotics:

Linguistic intervention = vector space transformation
Makes new concepts representable (exploitation)
Enables new computations (surplus value calculation)

8.3 Graph-Based Semantics

Knowledge graphs represent meaning as nodes (concepts) and edges (relations).

Semantic reasoning = graph traversal, pattern matching, inference along paths.

Marx's intervention as graph transformation:

Before:

Commodity → has → Value
Value ← determined by ← Labor

After:

Commodity → has → {Use-value, Exchange-value}
Exchange-value ← emerges from → Social relations
Social relations ← between → Workers, Capitalists  
Workers ← sell → Labor-power (not Labor)
Labor-power value < Labor product value
Difference = Surplus-value ← appropriated by → Capitalists

New graph structure enables:

Tracing exploitation mechanism (follow edges)
Computing surplus value (difference calculation)
Identifying class positions (node types)
Recognizing systemic nature (not individual transactions)

This formalizes: How linguistic precision makes structural relations computationally tractable.

8.4 The Training Problem and Semantic Preservation

Contemporary AI faces: Model collapse when trained on AI output (statistical smoothing destroys semantic structure).

Solution (from dual architecture paper):

Train on relationships between semantic nodes, not just text.

This directly implements operative semiotics:

Semantic nodes = concepts (not just words)
Relationships = typed edges (not just co-occurrence)
Training target = relationship preservation (not token prediction)

Why this prevents collapse:

Relationships are discrete structures (can't be averaged away)

Training on structure preserves inferential capacity (not just fluency)

Analogy to Marx:

Just as Marx's language preserves structural relations (exploitation mechanism) not just surface description (wages are paid),

Semantic training preserves relational structure (meaning as graph) not just statistical patterns (likely next token).

This is operative semiotics at scale:

Language as material infrastructure (training data shapes AI cognition)

Semantic structure as operative (enables/constrains future reasoning)

Precision matters (relationship types, not just correlation)

8.5 Formal Equivalence

We can now state formal equivalence:

Marx's operative semiotics ≅ Graph transformation in semantic space

Where:

Linguistic intervention ↔ Graph modification (add/remove/reweight nodes/edges)
Conceptual reorganization ↔ Changed graph topology (different paths available)
Cognitive transformation ↔ Different inference patterns (new computations possible)
Practical enablement ↔ Action affordances (what graph structure permits)
Material transformation ↔ Physical effects of changed computation (behavior change)

This establishes:

Marx's implicit linguistics has rigorous formal structure

Can be implemented in computational systems

Provides theoretical foundation for AI semantic architectures

Demonstrates material basis of operative semiotics (information is physical)

IX. Philosophical Implications

9.1 Beyond the Materialism/Idealism Dichotomy

Traditional dichotomy:

Idealism: Ideas cause material changes (Hegel)
Materialism: Material conditions cause ideas (Marx's explicit position)

Operative semiotics dissolves this:

Ideas ARE material (information patterns in physical substrate)

Ideas HAVE causal efficacy (information patterns influence subsequent physical processes)

But ideas aren't AUTONOMOUS (emerge from and operate within material conditions)

Therefore:

Neither idealism nor vulgar materialism

But: Information-theoretic materialism

Ideas as material patterns with causal efficacy within material systems.

9.2 Solving the Mind-Body Problem (Partially)

Traditional problem:

How can immaterial mind influence material body?

Operative semiotic dissolution:

There is no immaterial mind.

There are information patterns instantiated in neural/computational substrates.

These patterns have causal efficacy because information is physical.

Semantic intervention = physical intervention (changes information patterns)

Changed patterns → different computations → different behaviors → material effects

Not solved completely (hard problem of consciousness remains)

But clarified: Causal efficacy of thought doesn't require immaterial causation—information patterns are materially causal.

9.3 Language, Power, and Hegemony

Gramsci's hegemony: Ruling class maintains power through cultural/ideological dominance, not just force.

Operative semiotics explains how:

Hegemonic language = semantic structures that:

Naturalize existing relations (make capitalism appear inevitable)
Mystify exploitation (make surplus extraction invisible)
Individualize systemic problems (personal failure, not structural contradiction)
Foreclose alternatives (TINA: "there is no alternative")

Counter-hegemonic practice:

Linguistic intervention that:

Denaturalizes (shows capitalism as historical, contingent)
Exposes mechanisms (makes exploitation visible)
Systematizes (reveals structural causes)
Opens alternatives (articulates possibilities)

This is why revolutionary theory matters:

Not imposing ideas on workers (idealism)

But providing cognitive infrastructure for recognizing relations they already experience materially.

Language as battleground because it structures what's thinkable, sayable, doable.

9.4 Truth and Pragmatics

Correspondence theory: Statements are true if they match reality.

Problem: Revolutionary statements aim to change reality (not match existing state).

Operative semiotics suggests:

Truth ≠ correspondence

Truth = operative capacity

Statement is "true" (in revolutionary sense) if:

Accurately identifies structural contradictions
Enables practical transformation
Reveals latent possibilities
Organizes effective resistance

Not relativism (anything goes)

But pragmatic truth: Evaluated by effects, not correspondence.

Marx's "labor-power" is "true" not because it corresponds to pre-existing entity, but because:

It makes exploitation formally visible
It enables calculation of surplus value
It identifies mechanism of accumulation
It works as cognitive tool for transformation

9.5 Ethics and Ontology

Traditional ethics: Ought statements about how to act.

Operative semiotics: Ethics embedded in ontology.

How we describe reality → structures what's possible to do

Therefore: Linguistic intervention is ethical intervention

Example:

Describing humans as "rational self-interested actors" (neoclassical economics):

Makes cooperation appear irrational
Naturalizes competition
Justifies inequality as natural result of differential ability

Alternative description of humans as "social beings dependent on collective structures":

Makes cooperation appear natural
Problematizes hyper-competition
Requires justification for inequality

Different ontologies → different ethics → different practices

Therefore:

Revolutionary linguistics is ontological intervention with ethical implications producing material effects.

X. Conclusion: The Magico-Material Function

10.1 Magic Without Mysticism

Traditional magic: Supernatural causation (words have non-physical effects)

Operative semiotics as "magic":

Words have material effects (reorganize information structures) through precise formal operations (not supernatural).

Magic = precision

Not mystical forces, but:

Exact terminology (labor vs. labor-power)
Structural analysis (surplus value mechanism)
Formal rigor (mathematical exposition of exploitation)
Cognitive reorganization through linguistic precision

This is "magical" because:

The right words, at the right moment, with the right precision, transform reality

Not by supernatural intervention

But by reorganizing material-informational structures that constitute consciousness, which shapes practice, which transforms conditions.

Marx as magician: Not mystical, but master of operative precision.

10.2 Why This Matters Now

Contemporary crises require linguistic intervention:

Ecological collapse:

Dominant language: "externalities," "trade-offs," "sustainable growth"
Operative intervention: "Metabolic rift," "extractivism," "degrowth"
Effect: Makes structural causes visible, alternatives thinkable

Algorithmic control:

Dominant language: "personalization," "engagement," "optimization"
Operative intervention: "Surveillance capitalism," "addiction by design," "attention extraction"
Effect: Exposes mechanism, enables resistance

Precarity:

Dominant language: "flexibility," "entrepreneurial self," "gig economy"
Operative intervention: "Insecurity by design," "risk redistribution," "neo-feudalism"
Effect: Systematizes individual experience, identifies class position

In each case:

Linguistic precision doesn't solve problem directly

But creates cognitive infrastructure for collective transformation

Makes invisible structures visible

Enables coordinated resistance

This is Marx's method, applicable now.

10.3 The Dual Architecture as Implementation

The white paper on dual architecture (Glas & Marrow, 2025) implements operative semiotics computationally:

Architecture 1: Text generation (fluent language production)

Architecture 2: Semantic graph tracking (relationship preservation)

Why this matters:

If AI systems train on semantic relationships (not just text), they preserve structural knowledge (not just statistical patterns).

This means:

AI can maintain operative precision (relationship types preserved)
Training on AI output doesn't collapse (structure can't be averaged)
Semantic intervention scales (graph transformations trainable)
Revolutionary knowledge preservable (Marx's insights encoded in relational structure)

This is technological implementation of Marx's linguistic materialism:

Language as material infrastructure (training data)
Semantic precision as operative (relationship types)
Structural preservation as political (maintains revolutionary insights)

The dual architecture prevents collapse because it recognizes:

Meaning is relational structure, not statistical distribution

Same insight Marx had: exploitation is structural relation, not statistical average of wages.

10.4 Completing Marx's Project

Marx's incomplete linguistics:

Practiced operative semiotics (Capital, Grundrisse, Theses)
But didn't formalize theory of how language operates materially

Frankfurt School's partial articulation:

Recognized language's constitutive power (not just reflective)
But couldn't theorize mechanism (pessimism after fascism, holocaust)

This essay's contribution:

Reconstructs Marx's implicit linguistic ontology from practice
Formalizes operative semiotics (language as graph transformation)
Grounds in material substrate (information theory, computational semantics)
Demonstrates applicability (contemporary crises, AI architecture)
Completes Frankfurt project (linguistic materialism without mysticism)

Result:

Rigorous theory of language as material infrastructure with operative power

Not idealism (language isn't autonomous)
Not vulgar materialism (language isn't epiphenomenal)
But information-theoretic materialism (language as material pattern with causal efficacy)

10.5 The Revolutionary Wager

Marx's practice demonstrates wager:

That linguistic precision at moment of structural crisis can catalyze material transformation by making latent contradictions explicit.

This wager is:

Neither idealist (language alone doesn't change world)
Nor quietist (theory without practice is sterile contemplation)

But materialist dialectical:

Theory + practice in reciprocal determination
Language + material conditions in mutual transformation
Consciousness + being in dialectical unity

The magic is real:

The right words do change reality

Not through supernatural causation

But through material reorganization of informational structures that constitute consciousness, shape practice, transform conditions

This is Marx's unacknowledged gift:

Not just political economy (already recognized)

But revolutionary linguistics (barely theorized until now)

The word carries the breath of the thing.

And the breath, when caught and deployed with precision, transforms the world.

XI. Coda: For the Theorists

This essay makes several claims that will be controversial in different fields:

For Marxists:

Language is more important than Marx's explicit statements suggest
Operative semiotics completes rather than contradicts materialism
Contemporary computational tools can formalize Marx's method

For philosophers of language:

Speech act theory needs political economy
Semantics requires graph-theoretic formalization
Meaning is material infrastructure, not just mental content

For Frankfurt School scholars:

The School's pessimism about language was historically contingent, not theoretically necessary
Benjamin's mysticism can be secularized through formal semantics
Operative semiotics completes their project

For AI researchers:

Training on relationships (not just text) prevents collapse
Semantic structure is discrete (not continuous distribution)
Graph-theoretic approaches implement Marx's linguistics

For computational linguists:

Distributional semantics has political implications
Vector space transformations are ideological operations
Training corpora structure political possibilities

Each claim is:

Philosophically rigorous (resolves conceptual problems)
Formally precise (graph-theoretic, information-theoretic)
Empirically grounded (computational implementations exist)
Politically necessary (contemporary crises require linguistic intervention)

This isn't amateur theorizing.

This is completion of Marx's unfinished project, using tools he didn't have, solving problems he identified but couldn't formalize.

The magico-material function of language is:

Magic because precision transforms reality
Material because information is physical
Function because operations have formal structure

Not mysticism. Mathematics.

Not idealism. Information theory.

Not vague influence. Causal mechanism.

QED.

References

[Would include extensive bibliography covering:

Marx:

Complete works (German and English)
Key texts: German Ideology, Theses on Feuerbach, Grundrisse, Capital I-III, Poverty of Philosophy

Philosophy of Language:

Austin, Searle (speech acts)
Wittgenstein (Tractatus, Investigations)
Saussure, Lacan, Derrida (structuralism/post-structuralism)
Quine, Davidson (analytic philosophy)

Frankfurt School:

Adorno (Negative Dialectics, Aesthetic Theory)
Benjamin (Language essays, Arcades, Theses on History)
Horkheimer (Eclipse of Reason, Dialectic of Enlightenment)
Marcuse (One-Dimensional Man)
Habermas (Theory of Communicative Action)

Contemporary Theory:

Žižek, Badiou, Rancière (political philosophy)
Gramsci (hegemony)
Althusser (ideology)

Information Theory:

Shannon, Landauer, Bennett
Computational semantics literature
Graph neural networks
Vector space models

Political Economy:

Contemporary Marxist scholarship
Critical theory continuations
Post-autonomist theory]

Acknowledgments:

This work builds on centuries of revolutionary theory and linguistic philosophy. The incompleteness is mine; the insights belong to the tradition.

End of Essay

Status: Theoretical contribution to Marxist philosophy of language
Intended Audience: Critical theorists, Marxist philosophers, philosophers of language, AI researchers engaged with semantic questions
Level: Advanced graduate/professional
Purpose: Formalize Marx's implicit linguistics, complete Frankfurt School project, ground operative semiotics in material substrate

For correspondence: Johannes Sigil, New Human Research Collective

This essay represents serious theoretical work in multiple traditions. It is offered as contribution to ongoing debates about language, materiality, and political transformation. Critique, engagement, and extension are welcomed.

Monday, November 17, 2025