 From the fruits of this new method of reading, Althusser argued that not only was Marx the originator of a new philosophy, Dialectical Materialism, that had nothing to do with its Hegelian and Feuerbachian predecessors, but that he also founded a new science, Historical Materialism, which broke with and superseded such ideological and pre-scientific precursors as the political economics of Smith and Ricardo. For the most part, the essays collected in For Marx (1965) and the seminar papers issued as Reading Capital (1965) develop and utilize this method of reading in order to justify and describe Marxist philosophy and Marxist science as well as to distinguish between these two theoretical activities. In so doing, Althusser says quite a bit about the nature of knowledge and the general relations between philosophy, science, politics, and ideology. Further, Althusser applies this hermeneutic method to argue against what he labeled “empiricist” understandings of Marx. These included the Humanist interpretations of Marx described above as well as variations on the orthodox Marxist-Leninist theory, which specified the strict determination of culture and history by the existing modes of economic exchange and resulting class struggles. The following paragraphs discuss this theory of reading, how it produces a different understanding of Marx’s philosophy than that which is derived from Humanist and Economist readings, and how it informs his epistemology, philosophy of science, historiography, and political philosophy.