Marxism and Existentialism: the battle that should never have been

[A.R.Amistad]

It seems that there was an intense battle between 'orthodox' Dialectical Materialists and existentialism when there never should have been. Lucaks and Novak are the two Marxists who leveled the main criticism against existentialism. I respect both of these men's works (I am particularly fond of Lucaks' explanation of Leninism) but the main argument that both level against existentialism is that it is an "anti-scientific" view. I don't think this is necessarily true. I adhere to the theory of dialectical materialism and historical materialism, but I don't think that it is particularly deterministic or taken as an objective truth (maybe an interpretation of objective reality) The supposed contradiction between existentialism and dialectical materialism seems to me to be just as plausible as the idea that existentialism is in contradiction with the theory of gravity. So, I don't think the argument that existentialism is "anti-scientific" is true or holds any water.

But then, I don't agree with the argument that existentialists throw at Marxism. They seems to think that Dialectical and Historical Materialism is a hard-determinist philosophy. Every Marxist philosopher that I have come across has rejected this notion. Engels said on the subject of freedom of the will:

"Freedom is the appreciation of necessity. Necessity is blind so far as it is not understood." -Engels in anti-Duhring

And Lenin says something to a certain extent in his Materialism and Empirio-Criticism

"Freedom does not consist in the dream of independence from natural laws, but in the knowledge of these laws." -Lenin

Sartre seems to want to reject materialism altogether as inherently deterministic. But I think that atheistic existentialism could be described as looking at the world through a purely materialist lens. All that exists is matter in motion. The meaning we give to it is our own. Marxism has long rejected the hard-determinist views of mechanical materialism since Marx's thesis on Feurbach. Hence we Marxists see materialism as dialectically changing. Personally, I think existentialism is in many ways just one big dialectic:

Thesis: Being
Antithesis: Nothingness(matter)
Synthesis: Becoming

Personally, I am a weak-determinist existentialist. I don't agree that we "are condemned to be free." I think that natural and physical science, as well as some aspects of social science, do determine some things, but they can't determine our essence or actions. I do believe that there is a reality external to our sensations (I'm not a strong-empiricist or phenomenologist). So really, it seems like the big argument was (as corny as it sounds) really just one big misunderstanding. Why can't existentialism function as a philosophy with weak-determinism? I think one can be a weak determinist, or compatibilist, and still be an existentialist.

PS: please don't degenerate this into a dialectics vs. anti-dialectics tirade

[BAM]

Personally, I am a weak-determinist existentialist. I don't agree that we "are condemned to be free." I think that natural and physical science, as well as some aspects of social science, do determine some things, but they can't determine our essence or actions. I do believe that there is a reality external to our sensations (I'm not a strong-empiricist or phenomenologist). So really, it seems like the big argument was (as corny as it sounds) really just one big misunderstanding. Why can't existentialism function as a philosophy with weak-determinism? I think one can be a weak determinist, or compatibilist, and still be an existentialist.

So, in other words, "Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past."

If that's the case, why have existentialism at all? What exactly does existentialism add that's not already there in Marx?

When I was a bit younger I too thought Marxism and existentialism were compatible, but I realised that accepting one is always at the expense of the other. The Sartre of Being and Nothingness is only reconcilable with Marx with a lot of difficulty. Heidegger wrote as much in his 1948 "Letter on Humanism" that existentialism and Marxism were incompatible unless the former grounded itself in history. Alas, when Sartre tried to do this in The Critique of Dialectical Reason, and though it was a while ago I tried to read it, the results only seemed to prove my point. There wasn't much existentialism left. [ETA: There wasn't much Marx either.]

I think that was always the problem with Being and Nothingness, the problem of relations with others. Once someone else's subjectivity is accepted as a "facticity" of my existence, all these facticities add up to a lot of discounts against radical freedom, which ends up not looking so radical after all.

[BAM]

Hence we Marxists see materialism as dialectically changing. Personally, I think existentialism is in many ways just one big dialectic:

Thesis: Being
Antithesis: Nothingness(matter)
Synthesis: Becoming

[...]
PS: please don't degenerate this into a dialectics vs. anti-dialectics tirade

You do realise that Hegel's dialectic is not and cannot be materialist? It's not just a question of swapping a few terms of even thinking about Hegel's philosophy to terms of matter. Hegel's Being-Nothingness-Becoming is an instance where he kills matter altogether. Material being for Hegel only makes sense because it is a moment of the Infinite, something which is most certainly not materialist! Being is Becoming Infinite - any existentialist or Marxist should run a mile at such as suggestion.

I would even go so far as to say that Being and Nothingness is an un-dialectical book, in spite of the references to Hegel. I remember Sartre and de Beauvoir saying as much in the last series of interviews Sartre gave before he died. I'll try and remember the reasons for it. Alas I lost my copy of that book, Adieu to Sartre, in which it was talked about.

[A.R.Amistad]

So, in other words, "Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past."


And in many ways I would call this quote (my favorite Marx quote) somewhat of an existentialist one in itself.

So what if it doesn't conform to Hegelian tradition, haven't we rejected the orthodox Hegelian tradition?. So what if it doesn't fit in with the exact words of the typical existentialists. All existentialism is about is how the individual can give meaning to their lives to live authentically. Most existentialists (modern ones) put emphasis on the role of labor in one's life to make something of themselves, which is essentially the goal of communism. Say what you want, but Marxism explain anything about human emotions, meaning-giving and essence of he individual on its own. And it shouldn't! I'm not denouncing Marxism for not concerning itself with the individual too much, I'm praising it. Marxism regulates itself to human society as a whole and how it progresses. I find most ideologies that do try to encompass the role of the individual to fall into a trap of either pretentiousness, hyper-individualism or hard-determinism or all of the above. Marxism is great for analyzing society and nature, but I'm not going to be able to use Marxism to analyze my own personal decisions that aren't directly related to the class struggle. You are right, Marxism entails a level of Free Will that was stressed from Marx, Engels and Lenin and seemed to stp their with a lot of vulgar determinist misusing dialectical materialism. Also, I find that free will has to play a role in the vanguard party theory and permanent revolution, which rejects hard economic determinism. Marxism is a great science for society and nature, and a political and economic prescription for a better society, and existentialism supplements it with a philosophy on how to live as an individual.

[A.R.Amistad]

And for the record, I don't think Sartre did a good job of reconciling Marxism and Existentialism, but I don't think the "orthodox" Marxist arguments leveled against are any good either.

[BAM]

And in many ways I would call this quote (my favorite Marx quote) somewhat of an existentialist one in itself.

True, there are similarities between the approaches of Marx and the existentialists as both stem from a reaction to, and rejection of, the Hegelian system.


So what if it doesn't conform to Hegelian tradition, haven't we rejected the orthodox Hegelian tradition?. So what if it doesn't fit in with the exact words of the typical existentialists. All existentialism is about is how the individual can give meaning to their lives to live authentically. Most existentialists (modern ones) put emphasis on the role of labor in one's life to make something of themselves, which is essentially the goal of communism. Say what you want, but Marxism explain anything about human emotions, meaning-giving and essence of he individual on its own. And it shouldn't! I'm not denouncing Marxism for not concerning itself with the individual too much, I'm praising it. Marxism regulates itself to human society as a whole and how it progresses.

Well, there's Marx and there's Marxism. For Marx, what we need is an analysis of the capitalist mode of production and what it would take to get rid of it. Marxists after Marx were concerned with creating systems and unified theories of everything, but I'm not interested in those, so I don't have anything to say about them in this context.

I agree that the role of labour in one's life makes clear the need for communism, but I don't see how existentialism by itself makes that connection. That is, you would only see existentialism as necessary for communism if you were already a communist. Existentialism could just as easily be seen as a linguistic mystification, a tool of the existing ideological order, of the liberal capitalism that celebrates the individual, etc., which is certainly how Adorno trashed Heidegger and co. in The Jargon of Authenticity (about the only book of his that is worth the effort, actually). If I remember rightly, though, Adorno was silent on Sartre.


And for the record, I don't think Sartre did a good job of reconciling Marxism and Existentialism, but I don't think the "orthodox" Marxist arguments leveled against are any good either. I think he probably did the best anyone could mange. Like I said, it has been a while since I read CoDR, so I can't really remember. I liked the aspects of it that related to uncertainty and game theory but was annoyed at some of the jargon ("fused group", "practico-inert").

[blake 3:17]

And for the record, I don't think Sartre did a good job of reconciling Marxism and Existentialism, but I don't think the "orthodox" Marxist arguments leveled against are any good either.

I think Lukacs accomplished a lot more in History and Class Consciousness than Sartre did in his attempts to reconcile Marxism and existentialism. I tend to see the early Lukacs, along with Walter Benjamin, as Marxist existentialists...

[BAM]

I think Lukacs accomplished a lot more in History and Class Consciousness than Sartre did in his attempts to reconcile Marxism and existentialism. I tend to see the early Lukacs, along with Walter Benjamin, as Marxist existentialists...

I am not sure how you could describe Benjamin as an existentialist, except maybe impressionistically.

As for Lukacs, I can see why you might think that he's an existentialist. Reification, alienation, etc., sound like existentialist concepts and certainly in the case of alienation they are, but existentialism means something different by them. And indeed the meaning of alienation is slightly different in Lukacs than it is in Marx.

[which doctor]

A.R. Amistad,
You should really stop trying to explain the dialectic at the level of thesis-antithesis-synthesis, because it really can't be boiled down to those categories. I even once had a philosophy professor tell the class this was how the dialectic worked, but when you simplify to a formula like that, you're really missing out on what dialectics are all about.


If I remember rightly, though, Adorno was silent on Sartre.
I don't think Adorno ever took up a serious study of Sartre, but he made some comments here and there, and in general thought the French Existentialists were far too optimistic, given that they believed one could affirm their subjective spontaneity at the level of the individual, and from an ontological position.

By the way, I don't think its fair to call Lukacs an existentialist at all. Lukacs generally talks about social positions, such as those of class, instead of at the level of the individual.

[black magick hustla]

Lukacs hated existentialism. This is obvious. The man was so weighted down by hegelian idealism that to him the world is a world of laws and rules.


Here, perhaps I may remind the reader of my studies of the phenomenological method, especially Max Scheler's discussion of it, in order to give due weight both to the (socially determined) unity of the various modern irrationalist trends and to the (likewise socially determined) variety of their stages. Scheler resorted as much as Wittgenstein to this immediate irrationalist foundation as the sole bedrock, the sole content of philosophy. There was, to be sure, the difference that he regarded this irrationalist content as still utterable; only at the existentialist stage of phenomenology did the irrationalism of the foundation manifest itself quite clearly. In stressing this parallel we by no means wish to claim that existentialism influenced Wittgenstein; such methodological issues have a social basis, and both the shared and the unlike elements of the method and conclusions reflect this basis. The same applies to the relation between Wittgenstein and the later existentialist development of phenomenology and semantics as to the epistemological affinity between Mach and Husserl, to which we referred in the appropriate place. (Certainly Scheler's Obnmacht der Vernunft, 'The impotence of reason', may also be mentioned in this context.)Lukacs was a boring Hegelian anyway.

[black magick hustla]

Actually Lukacs wrote a whole essay about existentialism! I just found it. And yes he hates it :

http://www.marxists.org/archive/lukacs/works/1949/existentialism.htm

[black magick hustla]

I dislike existentialism but not for the reason Lukacs does. (He hates it because it affronts his continental, rational sensibilities, which are all based on sand anyway). I don't think there can be such a thing as an "existentialist" thinker because at that level of discourse it all becomes nonsense. I think it is a question one can approach through poetry and literature, but anyone who makes a pretense that he is making a sort of logical axiomatic argument for it is speaking nonsense.

[A.R.Amistad]

Existentialism is a far less unified philosophy than Marxism. The way I see it, as long as there is any free will, there is existentialism. Marxists, at least Engels, Marx and Lenin, advocate a compatibilist approach, which is what I advocate. Both extreme free will and hard determinism are sheer bourgeois nonsense, but free will and realistic determinism are not at odds with each other. I just picked up an awesome book by Daniel Deckett called Freedom Evolves, which is the best argument for compatibilism that I have ever read. I recommend it to everyone:

http://www.amazon.com/Freedom-Evolves-Daniel-C-Dennett/dp/0670031860


So as long as you hold a realistic and compatibilist view on free will, you can still be a Marxist and an Existentialist without contradicting yourself. Here are the basic tenets of existentialism, which should show in and of themselves that they don't have any real contest with Marxism, even orthodox Marxism, with a compatibilist view as opposed to Sartre's mystic view of freedom:

What existentialism is:



Human free will
Human nature is chosen through life choices
A person is best when struggling against their individual nature, fighting for life
Decisions are not without stress and consequences
There are things that are not rational
Personal responsibility and discipline is crucial
Society is unnatural and its traditional religious and secular rules are arbitrary
Worldly desire is futile



The part about society being unnatural may be up for debate, but then again if you hold a compatibilist viewpoint it isn't. I see nothing here in direct conflict with Marxism at all. "Existence precedes essence" is the basis of existentialism.

As for the individualism part, well, I think Marxists need to stop wetting themselves every time they hear the word "individual." Individual, or even individualism, is not necessarily a bad thing, at from a Marxist-Existentialist point of view the individual is key to socialism and communism. That is why I put stress on labor in ones life. One should be passionate about what they do in life and not just do it to make more money or posses worldly things. People should enjoy life to the fullest by laboring, and laboring hard, at what they love doing. That, I think, is key to proletarian philosophy of any brand. The hyper "individualism" advocated by the bourgeoisie, such as the Randists, are not really very individual at all. They are in a form of existential despair called "the despair of necessity," and idea put forth by Kierkegaard about how some people reject their authenticity. So existential individualism should be beneficial to Marxism. As Kierkegaard said about communities:

Kierkegaard

In community, the individual is, crucial as the prior condition for forming a community. … Every individual in the community guarantees the community; the public is a chimera, numerality is everything…I will be the first Marxist of them all to be disgusted by bourgeois and petty-bourgeois individualism, but I find that existentialism's views on the individual (independent of the personal views of any of the classical existentialists) are supplementary to the revolutionary Marxist view of society. I have not been able to find any contradiction except for the view on free will, which is rectified with a modern compatibilist view that is endorsed by Marxist philosophy. I think Marxism and Existentialism deal with related yet separate issues, so they shouldn't really be at odds. For those who are comparing Lucaks to existentialism, yes, I think there is a lot of similarity between them, because I think that existentialism and Marxism in general have a lot of similarity. I also have read Lucaks criticism of existentialism, and I don't think he really gets it at all.

Which Doctor

A.R. Amistad,
You should really stop trying to explain the dialectic at the level of thesis-antithesis-synthesis, because it really can't be boiled down to those categories. I even once had a philosophy professor tell the class this was how the dialectic worked, but when you simplify to a formula like that, you're really missing out on what dialectics are all about.You will have to forgive me comrades, I am actually still struggling with dialectics. I had seen that comparison in a video on dialectics and it sort of gave me an epiphany, but I certainly don't want to come across as an expert on dialectics. I am still learning.

[which doctor]

Which Doctor
You will have to forgive me comrades, I am actually still struggling with dialectics. I had seen that comparison in a video on dialectics and it sort of gave me an epiphany, but I certainly don't want to come across as an expert on dialectics. I am still learning.
No worries my friend, they can be quite difficult to understand. From my understanding, the thesis-antithesis-synthesis model comes from trying to fit the dialectic into an analytical framework, when really 'dialectical thinking' is on a whole different level than analytical thinking, and needs to be treated as such. I don't there will ever be an epiphany when it comes to learning how to think dialectically, since its much more than just a readymade formula. There is a lot of 'bad dialectics' out there, often inherited through Stalinist diamat. But I encourage you to keep up your enthusiasm for the subject, since it is worth it in the long run.

[blackwave]

Will someone who believes in free will tell me exactly what they mean by it, because as far as I can tell it is a totally nonsensical concept.

[A.R.Amistad]

Will someone who believes in free will tell me exactly what they mean by it, because as far as I can tell it is a totally nonsensical concept.
From a compatibilist point of view, here is what free will means:

Compatibilism, as championed by the ancient Greek Stoics (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoics), Hume (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hume) and many contemporary philosophers, is a theory that argues that if free will (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_will) and determinism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Determinism) exist they are in fact compatible. Determinists argue that all acts that take place are predetermined by prior causes, including human actions. If a free action is defined as one that is not predetermined by prior causes, then determinism, which claims that human actions are predetermined, rules out the possibility of free actions.
A compatibilist, or soft determinist, in contrast, will define a free act in a way that does not hinge on the presence or absence of prior causes. For example, one could define a free act as one that involves no compulsion by another person. Since the physical universe and the laws of nature are not persons, actions which are caused by the laws of nature would still be free acts- therefore it is wrong to conclude that universal determinism would mean we are never free.
For example, you could choose to continue reading or to stop reading this article; while a compatibilist determinist would not deny that whatever choice you make will have been predetermined since the beginning of time, they will argue that this choice that you make is an example of free will because no one is forcing you to make whatever choice you make. In contrast, someone could be holding a gun to your head and tell you that unless you read the article, (s)he will kill you; to some compatibilists, that is an example of a lack of free will. And these would argue for inclusion of such internal compulsions as kleptomania (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kleptomania) or addiction (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_addiction). Other compatibilists would disregard a gun as limiting free will, as one can defy a gun and be shot, even though one cannot break free of strong handcuffs.
Further, according to Hume, free will should not be understood as an absolute ability to have chosen differently under exactly the same inner and outer circumstances. Rather, it is a hypothetical ability to have chosen differently if one had been differently psychologically disposed by some different beliefs or desires. That is, when one says that one could either continue to read this page or to delete it, one doesn't really mean that both choices are compatible with the complete state of the world right now, but rather that if one had desired to delete it one would have, even though as a matter of fact one actually desires to continue reading it, and therefore that is what will actually happen.
Hume also maintains that free acts are not uncaused (or self-caused as Kant (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immanuel_Kant) argued) but rather caused by our choices as determined by our beliefs, desires, by our characters, or just for the hell of it (spontaneous random act). While a decision-making process exists in Hume's determinism, this process is governed by a causal chain of events. For example, one may make the decision to support a charity, but that decision is determined by the conditions that existed prior to the decision being made.
Critics of compatibilism often focus on the definition of free will: they agree that the compatibilists are showing something to be compatible with determinism, but they think that something cannot properly be called free will. Incompatibilists are happy to accept that lack of coercion is a necessary criterion for free will (a coerced act is not free), but doubt that is sufficient (an un-coerced act is free). They believe "free will" refers to genuine (e.g. absolute, ultimate) alternate possibilities for beliefs, desires or actions, rather than merely counterfactual (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counterfactual_conditional) ones. In the absence of such possibilities, the belief that free will confers responsibility is held to be false.
However, a compatibilist may respond to the argument mentioned above stating that non-determinism is also incompatible with free will, so the Libertarian is no better off. The compatibilist may also argue on conceptual grounds that "free will" has nothing to do with ultimate causes on a grand metaphysical scale, but instead only refers to an apparent fact of human psychology (i.e., that conscious mental states seem to play an active role in determining the choices that are made).
Compatibilists often continue and argue that determinism is not just compatible with free will, but actually necessary for it. If one's actions aren't determined by one's beliefs, desires, and character, then it seems that they aren't one's real actions.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compatibilism_and_incompatibilism#Compatibilism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_Evolves

[blackwave]

So basically, free will is a semantic trick, insofar as the compatabilist thinks of 'free' as a sociological concept. In this case, it should not be counterposed to determinism.

[A.R.Amistad]

So basically, free will is a semantic trick, insofar as the compatabilist thinks of 'free' as a sociological concept. In this case, it should not be counterposed to determinism.

No, free will is the fact that we have the ability to create our own values, morality, essence, everything subjective. It is also the ability to overcome instincts and to take responsibility for human actions. This is counterposed by determinist mysticism, which holds that everything we do is predetermined and there's nothing we can do about it. (example, humans are inherently greedy, ergo socialism will never work)