Absolute Idea

[Servia]

Did Marx believe in the concept of the "Absolute idea" in regards to dialectics?

[Rafiq]

The absolute idea is not some metaphysical entity one believes in. Instead, it is a notion that is used to describe processes of historical change.

To put it shortly, the answer is yes and no. The "absolute idea" is implicit in Marx, if we compare him to non-Hegelian traditions. When we juxtapose Marx to Hegel - then no, the "absolute idea" is rejected because it purportedly substitutes processes conceivable in terms of the 'inner-logic' of the social dimension, with processes of pure thought. This is the average, highly simplistic and cliche'd assessment of the matter, and it simply isn't enough.

Althusser talks about empiricism, associating the observation of the thing, with the actual thing itself. In this sense, Marx rejects Hegel's absolute idea on anti-empiricst grounds. Marx's point is not that Hegel's notion of an absolute idea is false on some positivistic grounds - his point is one that sprouts from the real controversies of the conditions that which the observer assesses history: Marx's rejection of the absolute idea as such, is not a retreat into positivist philistinism but a rejection of its purported inability to locate the historic antagonisms as they expressed themselves in their own period. For Marx, confusing knowledge of something, with the something in question is the underlying problem.