The Greatness of Marx: French Philosophical Reception of the 20th Century

This research offers a fundamentally new perspective on the intellectual dynamics of 20th-century French philosophy through the lens of a non-canonical appropriation of Karl Marx's heritage. The novelty of the study lies in identifying a unified problematic field (from epistemology to ontology of events), formed by a radical rethinking of Marx's critique. For the first time in this context, the key role of Gilbert Simondon's thought is considered as a conceptual bridge between Althusser's structuralist "scientific" reading and Deleuze's post-structuralist philosophy of flows and becoming. In this examination, the hidden line from Simondon to Deleuze reveals an immanent transition from ideology critique to the ontology of productive forces, which constitutes the main internal tension of "French post-Marxism." The article demonstrates how central categories of contemporary thought were constructed through dialogue with Marx: the ideological state apparatus in Althusser, biopolitics in Foucault, control society in Deleuze, and event-based politics of truth in Badiou. The methodology of the study is built on a strategy of conceptual confrontation that reveals productive tensions between key readings of Marx. The rejection of a linear history of ideas allows tracking how conflicting ontological premises reinvent Marx's categories. Through a problem-oriented confrontation, the transformation of critique from ideology to the ontology of power and ethics of subjectivation is demonstrated. The result is a map of philosophical divergence that asserts the heuristic greatness of Marx as a source of radical questions of modernity. This approach consciously provokes a philosophical conflict of interpretations to reveal the radical heterogeneity within the very tradition of "French Marxism." The relevance of this intellectual reconstruction is determined by the contemporary crisis of legitimation, pervasive financial abstraction, and new forms of alienation. The philosophical tools forged by Althusser, Simondon, Foucault, Deleuze, and Badiou in working with Marx's heritage are now essential for diagnosing the society of digital platforms, algorithmic governance, and atomized individualism. This is why the unorthodox reception of Marx uncovers the critical potential of his thought that remains untapped within both traditional Marxism and the liberal consensus. They offer not ready-made answers but powerful methodologies for analyzing power, desire, and revolutionary subjectivation. Ultimately, Marx's greatness, re-embodied in French thought, appears not as an archival monument but as a living source for understanding and overcoming the abstract violence of capitalist modernity.