Excerpt from a paper I was working on for class. the basis of the paper is a critique of positivism. Up next is Marx's "inversion" of Hegel's dialectical method.
HEGEL’S DIALECTICAL PHILOSOPHY(1)
Hegel’s philosophy constituted an amalgamation of the enlightenment exposition of reason as the harbinger of freedom and the romantic notion of historical progression as an organic process.(2) Through the utilization of reason, Hegel sought to empower individuals as masters over themselves. However, in opposition to positivism, rational society and thus the realization of freedom are not born through separation from and domination over nature. For Hegel, freedom through reason is produced in the course of the “subject’s entering the very content of nature and history.”(3) The historical process of the actualization of freedom is only possible through the dialectical interplay of the subject and object. His theory thereby broke with the general inclination of enlightenment thinking that articulated a fixed subject-object hierarchy. Moreover, Hegel’s philosophy, whose foundation is dialectical, revolves around a subject-object relationship that is encased in a continual process of conflict and negativity and therefore an unrelenting historical movement.
The articulation of a concept of reason that contains a ‘spirit of contradicting’ leads Hegel into a critical intercourse with the Kantian dualism of form and content and positivism’s reification of the social world. His exposition of the dialectic is a critique of Kant’s epistemological framework “dissociating form from content, thought from the ‘thing-in-itself’, and the faculty of knowing from the object of knowledge” as well as positivism’s endeavor to confine truth to a given state of existence.(4) Instead of separating subject/object, form/content or attempting to create a system of independent fixed things, Hegel puts forth the statement that there exists a relation between subject and object, one born from their antagonism as opposites that is the moving, generating principle of history: “in being and in thought negativity is creative, it is the root of movement and the pulse of life.”(5)
Hegel’s thought is organized around the conception that only through the transformation of subject and object in unison can freedom be realized: only through the incorporation of the object into the subject can the subject undergo a development towards the actualization of their potential.(6) Truth is not to be sought in objects that are independent of the knowing subject, for subject and object mutually constitute each other. The unity of a thing, its truth, is determined neither through its separation from others as a particular within the general nor in its existence at a given state of space and time. Positivism’s whole project is founded on an inaccurate premise: that the subject can be removed from their relationship with the subjective world and that the objective world can be frozen in space-time. Hegel argues that to know the thing is to know it through its relations, its oppositions and its contradictions because phenomena are always in a state of movement from actuality to potentiality due to their content of negativity. In fact, positivism’s conflation of existence with the real, the potential, and the essence not only leads to the reification of social reality but also denies the demands for fulfillment of the ‘ought’ implicit in phenomena.
As was alluded to in the prior sentence, Hegel employs the distinction between appearance and essence to critique the separation of form and content, the isolation of social phenomena and the reification of the social world. In stark contrast to positivism, dialectical thinking conceptualizes the appearance or existing form of things in contrast to their potentiality. Through emphasizing the contradiction inherent between phenomena, do to their essence of negativity, dialectical thinking underscores the discrepancy between ‘is’ and ‘ought’. The current state of being of any thing is only a temporary moment towards the realization of its potential. Each thing is not to be concretely understood based upon its present reality, for its potential is held back by its ‘determinate conditions’. Only through the negation of its existing conditions can the thing transition to a stage closer to its ‘ought’. Hegel’s emphasis on the negativity of being and the historical movement from actuality to potentiality produces a critical and positive conception of social change: “in being and in thought negativity is creative, it is the root of movement and the pulse of life.”(7)
Intertwined with Hegel’s conception of ‘negativity’ and contradiction are the notions of labor and alienation (estrangement). Labor is a vital activity within Hegel’s system because of its centrality in the relationship between subject-object and in its basis as the mechanism for overcoming alienation. Through labor, humanity as subject is able to bring the object into them and overcome their current state of existence. Thus, labor becomes the mechanism through which transcendence is possible, as it enables humanity to enter into nature and history and thereby transform them while transforming themselves. Additionally, the active transformation of subject/humanity and object/ nature through labor assists in dealienating the reified world through demonstrating that it is humanity who constructs this world. For Hegel, it was through labor than humanity is able to overcome alienation: “the estrangement between the objective world and the subjective world.”(8)
Hegel’s philosophy emphasizes the essential features of the dialectic: the relational nature of subject and object, the historical and contradictory qualities of phenomena and the distinction between appearance and essence. These notions are front-and-center in Hegel’s lectures on the philosophy of history, which seeks to investigate and explicate the concept that “world history is the progress of the consciousness of freedom.”(9) History being the gradual elimination of self-alienation: “the tension between (its potentiality and its actuality) what it is in itself, subjectively, in its inner purpose and essence, and what it really is (objectively), is thus abolished. It is with itself (actualized), it has itself objectively before itself.”(10) Freedom is thereby actualized when the individual has ‘power of self-determination’, a culmination of the subject’s ability to transcend historical determinations through their negation vis-à-vis their subsumption into themselves.
(1) This synopsis of Hegel’s philosophical theory is extracted from two books: Herbert Marcuse’s Reason and Revolution (New York: Humanity Books, 1941[1999]) and Henri Lefebvre’s Dialectical Materialism (London: Jonathan Cape, 1968).
(2) Irving, M. Zeitlin, Marxism: A Re-Examination (New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold Company, 1967), p. 2.
(3) Marcuse, Reason and Revolution, p. 7.
(4) Lefebvre, Dialectical Materialism, p. 25 and Marcuse, Reason and Revolution, p. 113.
(5) Lefebvre, Dialectical Materialism, p. 33.
(6) Ibid., pp. 37-39.
(7) Ibid., p. 33.
(8) Ibid., p. 77.
(9) G. W. F. Hegel, Reason in History: A General Introduction to the Philosophy of History (New York: Bobbs-Merrill Company, Inc, 1953), p. 24.
Ibid., p. 90.
HEGEL’S DIALECTICAL PHILOSOPHY(1)
Hegel’s philosophy constituted an amalgamation of the enlightenment exposition of reason as the harbinger of freedom and the romantic notion of historical progression as an organic process.(2) Through the utilization of reason, Hegel sought to empower individuals as masters over themselves. However, in opposition to positivism, rational society and thus the realization of freedom are not born through separation from and domination over nature. For Hegel, freedom through reason is produced in the course of the “subject’s entering the very content of nature and history.”(3) The historical process of the actualization of freedom is only possible through the dialectical interplay of the subject and object. His theory thereby broke with the general inclination of enlightenment thinking that articulated a fixed subject-object hierarchy. Moreover, Hegel’s philosophy, whose foundation is dialectical, revolves around a subject-object relationship that is encased in a continual process of conflict and negativity and therefore an unrelenting historical movement.
The articulation of a concept of reason that contains a ‘spirit of contradicting’ leads Hegel into a critical intercourse with the Kantian dualism of form and content and positivism’s reification of the social world. His exposition of the dialectic is a critique of Kant’s epistemological framework “dissociating form from content, thought from the ‘thing-in-itself’, and the faculty of knowing from the object of knowledge” as well as positivism’s endeavor to confine truth to a given state of existence.(4) Instead of separating subject/object, form/content or attempting to create a system of independent fixed things, Hegel puts forth the statement that there exists a relation between subject and object, one born from their antagonism as opposites that is the moving, generating principle of history: “in being and in thought negativity is creative, it is the root of movement and the pulse of life.”(5)
Hegel’s thought is organized around the conception that only through the transformation of subject and object in unison can freedom be realized: only through the incorporation of the object into the subject can the subject undergo a development towards the actualization of their potential.(6) Truth is not to be sought in objects that are independent of the knowing subject, for subject and object mutually constitute each other. The unity of a thing, its truth, is determined neither through its separation from others as a particular within the general nor in its existence at a given state of space and time. Positivism’s whole project is founded on an inaccurate premise: that the subject can be removed from their relationship with the subjective world and that the objective world can be frozen in space-time. Hegel argues that to know the thing is to know it through its relations, its oppositions and its contradictions because phenomena are always in a state of movement from actuality to potentiality due to their content of negativity. In fact, positivism’s conflation of existence with the real, the potential, and the essence not only leads to the reification of social reality but also denies the demands for fulfillment of the ‘ought’ implicit in phenomena.
As was alluded to in the prior sentence, Hegel employs the distinction between appearance and essence to critique the separation of form and content, the isolation of social phenomena and the reification of the social world. In stark contrast to positivism, dialectical thinking conceptualizes the appearance or existing form of things in contrast to their potentiality. Through emphasizing the contradiction inherent between phenomena, do to their essence of negativity, dialectical thinking underscores the discrepancy between ‘is’ and ‘ought’. The current state of being of any thing is only a temporary moment towards the realization of its potential. Each thing is not to be concretely understood based upon its present reality, for its potential is held back by its ‘determinate conditions’. Only through the negation of its existing conditions can the thing transition to a stage closer to its ‘ought’. Hegel’s emphasis on the negativity of being and the historical movement from actuality to potentiality produces a critical and positive conception of social change: “in being and in thought negativity is creative, it is the root of movement and the pulse of life.”(7)
Intertwined with Hegel’s conception of ‘negativity’ and contradiction are the notions of labor and alienation (estrangement). Labor is a vital activity within Hegel’s system because of its centrality in the relationship between subject-object and in its basis as the mechanism for overcoming alienation. Through labor, humanity as subject is able to bring the object into them and overcome their current state of existence. Thus, labor becomes the mechanism through which transcendence is possible, as it enables humanity to enter into nature and history and thereby transform them while transforming themselves. Additionally, the active transformation of subject/humanity and object/ nature through labor assists in dealienating the reified world through demonstrating that it is humanity who constructs this world. For Hegel, it was through labor than humanity is able to overcome alienation: “the estrangement between the objective world and the subjective world.”(8)
Hegel’s philosophy emphasizes the essential features of the dialectic: the relational nature of subject and object, the historical and contradictory qualities of phenomena and the distinction between appearance and essence. These notions are front-and-center in Hegel’s lectures on the philosophy of history, which seeks to investigate and explicate the concept that “world history is the progress of the consciousness of freedom.”(9) History being the gradual elimination of self-alienation: “the tension between (its potentiality and its actuality) what it is in itself, subjectively, in its inner purpose and essence, and what it really is (objectively), is thus abolished. It is with itself (actualized), it has itself objectively before itself.”(10) Freedom is thereby actualized when the individual has ‘power of self-determination’, a culmination of the subject’s ability to transcend historical determinations through their negation vis-à-vis their subsumption into themselves.
(1) This synopsis of Hegel’s philosophical theory is extracted from two books: Herbert Marcuse’s Reason and Revolution (New York: Humanity Books, 1941[1999]) and Henri Lefebvre’s Dialectical Materialism (London: Jonathan Cape, 1968).
(2) Irving, M. Zeitlin, Marxism: A Re-Examination (New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold Company, 1967), p. 2.
(3) Marcuse, Reason and Revolution, p. 7.
(4) Lefebvre, Dialectical Materialism, p. 25 and Marcuse, Reason and Revolution, p. 113.
(5) Lefebvre, Dialectical Materialism, p. 33.
(6) Ibid., pp. 37-39.
(7) Ibid., p. 33.
(8) Ibid., p. 77.
(9) G. W. F. Hegel, Reason in History: A General Introduction to the Philosophy of History (New York: Bobbs-Merrill Company, Inc, 1953), p. 24.
Ibid., p. 90.
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