Karl Marx The work of Marx, like that of other philosophers and thinkers in the 19th century, owed a great deal to the social context into which he was born and thus the issues he tackled were often similar to those of concern to his contemporaries. It was Marx who decided to go beyond the academia and theoretical study and produce an active theory or a practical philosophy which could provide a basis for political action. Whilst at University in Berlin, Marx adopted and later modified the philosophy and principles of Hegel, centrally his dialectal mode of logic. Marx, rather than focusing on a dialectic of ideas as did Hegel, was looking to apply this method to the material world. This was a st