How important is Hegel?

[Sinister Intents]

Currently I'm reading Capital Vol 1 again and its significantly easier to read this time having read it a few times already and I feel like I'll retain a lot of information this time. I'm also reading Bordiga on the MIA website in order of date because that seemed the best approach.

Should I backtrack and read Hegel and then go back to Marx and Engels with a different perspective from his works?

[Lord Testicles]

If you want to fully understand anything then any extra reading couldn't do any harm.

[Rafiq]

It is impossible to understand Hegel without some kind of external reference - reading Hegel while having a decent understanding of Marxism is therefore necessary.

Aside from this, I would definitely recommend reading Hegel before divulging into some of the works of Marx and Engels, much of which constitutes as a response to Hegel and presumes that the readers are familiar with Hegel. Marx, like most thinkers, didn't care to give a detailed context of his works for people reading his works nearly two centuries after his death - though one marvels at the fact that they are painfully relevant to our modern context anyway, as though they were written a decade ago.

Again - read an external understanding of Hegel (I HIGHLY recommend Zizek here) and THEN read Hegel, you'll only give yourself a headache going head first... Or even worse, you will gravely misinterpret him.

[Creative Destruction]

Raya Dunayevskaya did quite a bit of backreading with Hegel, so she would be a good one to read before you delve into Hegel, as well.

[Sewer Socialist]

Again - read an external understanding of Hegel (I HIGHLY recommend Zizek here) and THEN read Hegel, you'll only give yourself a headache going head first... Or even worse, you will gravely misinterpret him.

What do you recommend by Zizek?

[ChrisK]

Currently I'm reading Capital Vol 1 again and its significantly easier to read this time having read it a few times already and I feel like I'll retain a lot of information this time. I'm also reading Bordiga on the MIA website in order of date because that seemed the best approach.

Should I backtrack and read Hegel and then go back to Marx and Engels with a different perspective from his works?

I would recommend avoiding Hegel. His influence on Marx's work is wildly exaggerated.

[Creative Destruction]

I would recommend avoiding Hegel. His influence on Marx's work is wildly exaggerated.

lol what

[RedMaterialist]

Currently I'm reading Capital Vol 1 again and its significantly easier to read this time having read it a few times already and I feel like I'll retain a lot of information this time. I'm also reading Bordiga on the MIA website in order of date because that seemed the best approach.

Should I backtrack and read Hegel and then go back to Marx and Engels with a different perspective from his works?

I would start with Marx's Critique of Hegel's Doctrine of the State, then to the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts (1844). I think that might show how Marx developed Hegel's materialism and discarded the metaphysical, spiritual part of Hegel. Then it was a matter of determining what were the material origins and development of capitalism.

Also, there is the Lordship and Bondage chapter from Hegel's Phenomenology. Hegel, I think, shows a dialectical relationship between the two rather than a God-given status of master and slave. Marx then goes on to the economic development of class struggle.

Hegel's writing is so dense (it famously gave Lenin headaches) that I'm not sure it's possible to get a thorough understanding of Hegel before re-reading Capital. I tend to go back and forth between them.

[ChrisK]

lol what

In the mid-1840's Marx's critiques of Hegel reached a point at which he pretty much completely broke with Hegelian thought. In Capital Marx admitted to "coquetting" with Hegelian terminology, which indicates that Hegel's work is pretty useless in understanding Marx.

[RedMaterialist]

I would recommend avoiding Hegel. His influence on Marx's work is wildly exaggerated.


I therefore openly avowed myself the pupil of that mighty thinker, and even here and there, in the chapter on the theory of value, coquetted with the modes of expression peculiar to him.

Marx, 1873. Marx obviously thought Hegel had more than casual influence on Capital.

[Creative Destruction]

In the mid-1840's Marx's critiques of Hegel reached a point at which he pretty much completely broke with Hegelian thought.

This is wholly different from saying that Hegel's influence on Marx's writings were "wildly exaggerated." That's complete nonsense. The fact that Marx uses and turns upside down Hegel's dialectic as a basis for his entire school of thought is a recognition of Hegel's influence. I think you're confusing your "anti-dialectic" opinion with a definitive position on whether Marx was influenced by Hegel. Whether you agree with the dialectical method or not is separate from the fact that Hegel did have a considerable influence on Marx's thought.

[ChrisK]

Marx, 1873. Marx obviously thought Hegel had more than casual influence on Capital.

That is actually what I was referring to. If you'll notice, Marx said he "coquetted" with Hegel's terminology. Now the definition of "coquette" is "to flirt". Marx is flirting with Hegel's terminology. That's not terribly convincing.

Further, here is what you didn't quote:


The mystifying side of Hegelian dialectic I criticised nearly thirty years ago, at a time when it was still the fashion. But just as I was working at the first volume of “Das Kapital,” it was the good pleasure of the peevish, arrogant, mediocre Epigonoi [Epigones – Büchner, Dühring and others] who now talk large in cultured Germany, to treat Hegel in same way as the brave Moses Mendelssohn in Lessing’s time treated Spinoza, i.e., as a “dead dog.” I therefore openly avowed myself the pupil of that mighty thinker, and even here and there, in the chapter on the theory of value, coquetted with the modes of expression peculiar to him.
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/p3.htm

Marx is basically saying that Hegel was wrong, but that he still respected his intellect and certain aspects of his achievement. This is like me saying that Kant was wrong, but I still respect his intellect. Further, given Marx's proclivity for controversy it makes sense that Marx would be doing something like this to be controversial.

[ChrisK]

This is wholly different from saying that Hegel's influence on Marx's writings were "wildly exaggerated." That's complete nonsense. The fact that Marx uses and turns upside down Hegel's dialectic as a basis for his entire school of thought is a recognition of Hegel's influence. I think you're confusing your "anti-dialectic" opinion with a definitive position on whether Marx was influenced by Hegel. Whether you agree with the dialectical method or not is separate from the fact that Hegel did have a considerable influence on Marx's thought.

You'll have considerable difficulty in showing what it was that Marx thought he had taken from Hegel, since Marx didn't deign to tell us. From what he did tell us about his method, however, we can find very little Hegel.

[Creative Destruction]

He's rebutting the idea that Hegel is a "dead dog." In a round about way, he's saying that Hegel is relevant.

[Creative Destruction]

You'll have considerable difficulty in showing what it was that Marx thought he had taken from Hegel, since Marx didn't deign to tell us. From what he did tell us about his method, however, we can find very little Hegel.

wth are you talking about? the dialectic, and the practical expression of it in historical materialism, came directly from Hegel. without Hegel as a basis for Marx, there is no dialectic or hm for that matter. just because he doesn't name-drop Hegel in every other page of his works doesn't mean that there isn't an influence. that's like saying because modern bourgeois economists don't name-drop Keynes in every little thing they do, then that means Keynes is irrelevant to them.

if you do read Hegel (as you adamantly recommend against) and put Marx's criticisms in that context, then it's clear where Marx is coming from and what he's responding to. he didn't develop materialism in a vacuum or with the Gods of Socialism handing it down to him on a stone tablet.

[Creative Destruction]

Mistress Sinistra; for Dunayevskaya, the main compendium on her works about Hegel and Marx are The Power of Negativity: Selected Writings on the Dialectic in Hegel and Marx. This is a review:

http://sdonline.org/56/volume-25-no-2/raya-dunayevskaya-the-power-of-negativity-selected-writings-on-the-dialectic-in-hegel-and-marx-eds-peter-hudis-and-kevin-b-anderson-lanham-md-lexington-books-2002/

It'd be a good starter before you actually get into Hegel himself.

Some of the book is available on Google Books:

http://books.google.com/books?id=d_9BwQg4uWAC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

[Lord Hargreaves]

An understanding of Hegel can help you with reading Marx's earlier work (see the Penguin Classics edition Early Writing with an introduction by Lucio Colletti) but the influence of Hegel behind Capital is much debated.

Personally I think Capital contains within it the vestiges of Hegelianism, but that it isn't otherwise Hegelian.

[RedMaterialist]

That is actually what I was referring to. If you'll notice, Marx said he "coquetted" with Hegel's terminology. Now the definition of "coquette" is "to flirt". Marx is flirting with Hegel's terminology. That's not terribly convincing.

Further, here is what you didn't quote:


http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/p3.htm

Marx is basically saying that Hegel was wrong, but that he still respected his intellect and certain aspects of his achievement. This is like me saying that Kant was wrong, but I still respect his intellect. Further, given Marx's proclivity for controversy it makes sense that Marx would be doing something like this to be controversial.

Marx was saying that the mystifying side of Hegel was wrong. Marx then turned Hegel right side up and used the materialist/dialectic side of Hegel.

Marx also "flirted" with the language peculiar to the "mighty thinker" Hegel. So? As to whether he did it to stir up controversy, Marx was referring to the chapter on value which was published in 1867. Unless you are saying that Marx was stirring up controversy in 1873 over whether he was Hegelian.

But this all seems like playing with words. The real question is whether Hegel's method, the dialectic, had any influence on Marx. Marx and Engels both said it did, Marx's entire theory is built on the understanding that social and economic systems change over time depending on the conditions of class struggle. Darwin's Origin of Species is based on the materialist dialectic of evolution.

[RedMaterialist]

Joan Robinson once said that reading Capital would not be so difficult if Hegel were not constantly shoving his nose in. Or something to that effect.

[Art Vandelay]

Darwin's Origin of Species is based on the materialist dialectic of evolution.
It's not just Darwin, there have been many unconscious dialecticians throughout history, Dimitri Mendeleev for example.

[Zanthorus]

More important than anyone on this forum.

Hegel's Aesthetics is probably the easiest of his works and was the one I found most accessible as an 'in'. You could also try boning up on German philosophy prior to Hegel to understand his intellectual context (Kant is much easier to grasp than Hegel).

[ChrisK]

wth are you talking about? the dialectic, and the practical expression of it in historical materialism, came directly from Hegel. without Hegel as a basis for Marx, there is no dialectic or hm for that matter. just because he doesn't name-drop Hegel in every other page of his works doesn't mean that there isn't an influence. that's like saying because modern bourgeois economists don't name-drop Keynes in every little thing they do, then that means Keynes is irrelevant to them.

Actually, the dialectic, as Marx uses it, is a direct extension of how it was used by Aristotle, the Scottish materialists, and Kant. Historical materialism finds its roots in those thinkers, not Hegel.

Its not about name-dropping. Its about being able to see the ideas of Hegel in Marx's method. Marx wasn't kind enough to tell us his complete method, he only told us that it was dialectic. In fact, here is his most complete formulation of his dialectic:


After a quotation from the preface to my “Criticism of Political Economy,” Berlin, 1859, pp. IV-VII, where I discuss the materialistic basis of my method, the writer goes on:

“The one thing which is of moment to Marx, is to find the law of the phenomena with whose investigation he is concerned; and not only is that law of moment to him, which governs these phenomena, in so far as they have a definite form and mutual connexion within a given historical period. Of still greater moment to him is the law of their variation, of their development, i.e., of their transition from one form into another, from one series of connexions into a different one. This law once discovered, he investigates in detail the effects in which it manifests itself in social life. Consequently, Marx only troubles himself about one thing: to show, by rigid scientific investigation, the necessity of successive determinate orders of social conditions, and to establish, as impartially as possible, the facts that serve him for fundamental starting-points. For this it is quite enough, if he proves, at the same time, both the necessity of the present order of things, and the necessity of another order into which the first must inevitably pass over; and this all the same, whether men believe or do not believe it, whether they are conscious or unconscious of it. Marx treats the social movement as a process of natural history, governed by laws not only independent of human will, consciousness and intelligence, but rather, on the contrary, determining that will, consciousness and intelligence. ... If in the history of civilisation the conscious element plays a part so subordinate, then it is self-evident that a critical inquiry whose subject-matter is civilisation, can, less than anything else, have for its basis any form of, or any result of, consciousness. That is to say, that not the idea, but the material phenomenon alone can serve as its starting-point. Such an inquiry will confine itself to the confrontation and the comparison of a fact, not with ideas, but with another fact. For this inquiry, the one thing of moment is, that both facts be investigated as accurately as possible, and that they actually form, each with respect to the other, different momenta of an evolution; but most important of all is the rigid analysis of the series of successions, of the sequences and concatenations in which the different stages of such an evolution present themselves. But it will be said, the general laws of economic life are one and the same, no matter whether they are applied to the present or the past. This Marx directly denies. According to him, such abstract laws do not exist. On the contrary, in his opinion every historical period has laws of its own. ... As soon as society has outlived a given period of development, and is passing over from one given stage to another, it begins to be subject also to other laws. In a word, economic life offers us a phenomenon analogous to the history of evolution in other branches of biology. The old economists misunderstood the nature of economic laws when they likened them to the laws of physics and chemistry. A more thorough analysis of phenomena shows that social organisms differ among themselves as fundamentally as plants or animals. Nay, one and the same phenomenon falls under quite different laws in consequence of the different structure of those organisms as a whole, of the variations of their individual organs, of the different conditions in which those organs function, &c. Marx, e.g., denies that the law of population is the same at all times and in all places. He asserts, on the contrary, that every stage of development has its own law of population. ... With the varying degree of development of productive power, social conditions and the laws governing them vary too. Whilst Marx sets himself the task of following and explaining from this point of view the economic system established by the sway of capital, he is only formulating, in a strictly scientific manner, the aim that every accurate investigation into economic life must have. The scientific value of such an inquiry lies in the disclosing of the special laws that regulate the origin, existence, development, death of a given social organism and its replacement by another and higher one. And it is this value that, in point of fact, Marx’s book has.”

Whilst the writer pictures what he takes to be actually my method, in this striking and [as far as concerns my own application of it] generous way, what else is he picturing but the dialectic method?
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/p3.htm

Hegel's ideas don't show up in there. What does show up in there is a version of Aristotle's scientific method. I challenge you to find Hegelian ideas in that method.


if you do read Hegel (as you adamantly recommend against) and put Marx's criticisms in that context, then it's clear where Marx is coming from and what he's responding to. he didn't develop materialism in a vacuum or with the Gods of Socialism handing it down to him on a stone tablet.

He's certainly responding to Hegel in his early works. If you really want to understand Capital, then you would be much better off reading Adam Smith, David Ricardo, John Stuart Mill, etc. You know, the economists he studied.

[ChrisK]

Marx was saying that the mystifying side of Hegel was wrong. Marx then turned Hegel right side up and used the materialist/dialectic side of Hegel.

Hegel has no materialist side. Marx flipped Hegel right side up and found Aristotle.


Marx also "flirted" with the language peculiar to the "mighty thinker" Hegel. So? As to whether he did it to stir up controversy, Marx was referring to the chapter on value which was published in 1867. Unless you are saying that Marx was stirring up controversy in 1873 over whether he was Hegelian.

The very use of Hegelian terminology would have been his attempt to stir up controversy.


But this all seems like playing with words. The real question is whether Hegel's method, the dialectic, had any influence on Marx. Marx and Engels both said it did, Marx's entire theory is built on the understanding that social and economic systems change over time depending on the conditions of class struggle. Darwin's Origin of Species is based on the materialist dialectic of evolution.

Nice description of historical materialism. My point is that Hegel is not a part of that. If anything, historical materialism developed out of his rejection of Hegel.

Now you're really stretching evidence. Darwin was writing in the scientific tradition, not in some Hegelian tradition.

[ChrisK]

Currently I'm reading Capital Vol 1 again and its significantly easier to read this time having read it a few times already and I feel like I'll retain a lot of information this time. I'm also reading Bordiga on the MIA website in order of date because that seemed the best approach.

Should I backtrack and read Hegel and then go back to Marx and Engels with a different perspective from his works?

I put this in another post, but I figure I'll mention it a post directed towards you. I would recommend that instead of reading Hegel, your time would be better spent learning about the classics of political economy. You don't actually have to read the likes of Adam Smith and David Ricardo, but learning what their ideas were would give you an insight as to who Marx had read and was responding to in Capital.

[Rafiq]

Marx is basically saying that Hegel was wrong, but that he still respected his intellect and certain aspects of his achievement. This is like me saying that Kant was wrong, but I still respect his intellect. Further, given Marx's proclivity for controversy it makes sense that Marx would be doing something like this to be controversial.

Actually, the opposite is true. The reference to Spinoza is the greatest indication of this - Marx was basically using Hegel's logic itself to explain his connection to him, Marx rejected Hegel FROM Hegel himself. Marx identifying as a PUPIL of Hegel means that although there is a great deal that distinguishes him, Marx is a category of Hegel, an offshoot - just as Hegel (among others) might be called an offshoot of Spinoza.

[Zanthorus]

Hegel's Aesthetics is probably the easiest of his works and was the one I found most accessible as an 'in'.

Addendum: The Philosophy of History is also fairly accessible, although it might be harder to get your bearings if you don't have a basic acquaintance with the events Hegel is talking about already, since it's not a history book in the conventional sense. I managed to finish it in a couple of afternoon's, which is pretty nice when we're talking about Hegel.

The History of Philosophy is probably somewhere between the above two and, say, the Logic. It's accessibility comes from the fact that Hegel takes more familiar thinkers and philosophers as his starting point though, so familiarity with at least some of the material discussed might be helpful. Still haven't finished this one personally, although I'm currently working on other things. It gets harder and easier in different places, e.g. the discussions of dialectics in Plato, and Aristotelian Metaphysics, are difficult to chew on, but it gets easier when he starts talking about their ethics and politics. I've only managed to reach the section on Stoicism after three or four days, but I've had other things distracting me.

[Dodo]

Let me put it this way, reading and understanding Hegel is perhaps more important than reading others to understand Marxism.
Dialectics is at the heart of Marxist Critical thinking and Marxism pretty much HAS NO VALUE anymore(this is an exaggeration to highlight the importance of dialectics) without critical thinking.

The point is, Hegellian concepts lose their value but the "dialectical perception" is what we are dealing with here. Neither Hegel's or Marx's constructed abstractions mean as much as the dialectical view of the world.
The critical attitude and mind is what keeps Marxism alive...if you put these aside, you are pretty much a religious nut that believes in a constructed set of values(forms of objectified socialist-communist ethic(s) ) and an epistemic-ontological background that needs a serious update which no serious intellectual will respect.