Hegel

[Pedro Alonso Lopez]

Anybody read Hegel, what problems do you find in his system.

Considering how important this is for Marxism, I think it neccessary everybody know where in fact Marx is coming from.

[ComradeRed]

I found that he depends on semantics a lot of the time, which annoys the hell out of me. I've tried reading various of his writtings, the only one I really "liked" was The Science of Logic.

[Essential Insignificance]

I find Hegel to be decidedly fascinating whilst being highly complicated to comprehend with absolute meticulousness, at the same time.

Perhaps that his "raw" attraction?!

I've read The Phenomenology of Mind, The Philosophy of History, and Lectures on the History of Philosophy.

I don't think -- for now -- I have a proper, firm understanding of Hegel's "overall" philosophy. So I can't really offer any solid critiques against his "system".

I think Marx inherited a lot from Hegel; something a lot of modern day Marxist's tend to "down-play".

Do I think Hegel is a charlatan? Absolutely not!

He had some original things to say, in relation to History and it's progression.

[GodessOfSensuality]

The idea that reason is the driving force behinf history, is a demon constructed by [i]man[i]kind, and is an excuse for practically anything that for the moment thus suite the patriarchate. Hegel is just another male philosopher, who motivates his own unability to gain sexual pleasure by projecting his ideals on the universe.

[Pedro Alonso Lopez]

How did you manage to infer that, has somebody been taking postmodern feminism again?

[The Feral Underclass]

I find Hegel confusing, complicated and boring.

[Pedro Alonso Lopez]

It's not so hard with a bit of study, plus I can't see how you can really understand Marx without at least some of his work behind you.

[The Feral Underclass]

Originally posted by [email protected] 23 2005, 08:18 PM
It's not so hard with a bit of study, plus I can't see how you can really understand Marx without at least some of his work behind you.
Maybe I understand some of Hegel without realising it. I don’t see why understanding Hegel is a prerequisite to understanding Marx? If you pick up a Marxism for beginners book and start from there, then it is quite easy to get a grasp of Marxism.

[Pedro Alonso Lopez]

It's a basis, the basis for Marx's ideas. I am saying this from a philosophical perspective, his political ideas can be watered down but actual ideas in theory etc from a philosophy point of view would enormously benefit from Hegel.

[Coggeh]

Hegel was the prerequisite for alot of Marx's theories . But Hegel himself was extremely backwards , he went on about as long as you feel spiritually free then you are etcHegels advice to any worker exploited by his boss would be "Don't worry yourself about material oppression but only that of the spiritual kind . He thought as long as slavery was abolished man was free . He didn't see capitalism as a stage of exploitation .

Hegel did lay the path for Marx however , Human development according to Hegel had gone through constant evolution starting with primitive oriental despotism in which only one man can be free , and next an aristocratic system which many more were free . (To a degree he was right i suppose)

Later still came the age of feudalism ,monarchy , the French revolution and thus the Prussian State of which Hegel thought it was absolute liberty , in reality this just formed capitalism a subtler way of exploiting I guess . Up to this point however Marx agreed with Hegel and thus decided to elaborate on his works


Edit- Jan 2005 ... oops .. sorry =\

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Coggy, I have dissected Hegel's 'Logic' here:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1035997&postcount=2

A slightly fuller account can be found here:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/Outline_of_Hegel's_errors_01.htm

A greatly extended demolition can be found here:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/page%2008_02.htm#What-Are-Dialectical-Contradictions (http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/page%2008_02.htm#What-Are-Dialectical-Contradictions)


Finally, we have shown many times here that the idea that Das Kapital was based on Hegel's 'logic' is so far from the truth, it's in the next star system; the latest example is here:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1052040&postcount=25

[Raúl Duke]

I find Hegel confusing, complicated and boring.

I find most philosophy, especially idealist types etc, to be that way.

[Coggeh]

Coggy, I have dissected Hegel's 'Logic' here:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1035997&postcount=2

A slightly fuller account can be found here:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/Outline_of_Hegel's_errors_01.htm (http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/Outline_of_Hegel%27s_errors_01.htm)

A greatly extended demolition can be found here:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/page%2008_02.htm#What-Are-Dialectical-Contradictions


Finally, we have shown many times here that the idea that Das Kapital was based on Hegel's 'logic' is so far from the truth, it's in the next star system; the latest example is here:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1052040&postcount=25

Sorry , I just googled revleft and hegel .

Thanks for the links comrade

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

In fact, I have just re-written the article at the second link above to make it clearer.

[kromando33]

It's a basis, the basis for Marx's ideas. I am saying this from a philosophical perspective, his political ideas can be watered down but actual ideas in theory etc from a philosophy point of view would enormously benefit from Hegel.
Well Marx famously 'turned Hegel on his head' when developing his own theory of materialism.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

K:



Well Marx famously 'turned Hegel on his head' when developing his own theory of materialism.


In fact, as I have shown (if you follow the links), Marx actually shot Hegel in the head.

I have merely buried the remains.

[kromando33]

K:



In fact, as I have shown (if you follow the links), Marx actually shot Hegel in the head.

I have merely buried the remains.
You know, I might even be tempted, but when you subscribe to the anthology of conspiracy theories and demagoguery known as 'Trotskyism'.... I cannot.

[Jimmie Higgins]

You know, I might even be tempted, but when you subscribe to the anthology of conspiracy theories and demagoguery known as 'Trotskyism'.... I cannot.

Trotsky is trying to destroy a now non-existant Stalinist state from beyond the grave.... oooooohhhh.

But seriously, in addition to the "upside-down materialism" that other people have pointed out, Hegel believed that society could be changed and perfected by "an enlightened monarch". He was a product of his age and position in society.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

K:


You know, I might even be tempted, but when you subscribe to the anthology of conspiracy theories and demagoguery known as 'Trotskyism'.... I cannot.

You do not know enough logic and/or philosophy to take me on, sonny.

Plus, you are a coward with a big mouth.

[kromando33]

Trotsky is trying to destroy a now non-existant Stalinist state from beyond the grave.... oooooohhhh.
Well my problem is that Trotskyism has no practical bearing or position in material reality, people accuse us 'Stalinists' of being obsessed etc but in reality we don't revere the man, we simply accept his analysis and addition to Marxism-Leninism. In reality it's the Trots who participate in a quasi-spiritualist cult with an individual cult of worship around Trotsky.

It's also infinetely politically opportunistic, so it will do away with it's theories if the situation dictates, the only thing he really came up with was 'permanent revolution' and he stole that idea too, and I just can't see anything practical or real in Trotskyism - it doesn't analyze based on material conditions and objective analysis. Trotskyism peddles conspiracy theories as a substitute for the objective study of history.

Trotskyism has no firm grounding in Marxism, but it has everything to do with Hegelian idealism and fascism, it peddles the 'internationalist' imperialist credo in such a biblical way that would make Hitler blush. It's highly subjectivist in philosophy.



But seriously, in addition to the "upside-down materialism" that other people have pointed out, Hegel believed that society could be changed and perfected by "an enlightened monarch". He was a product of his age and position in society.
Well Hegel ultimately believed that society was moved by the imperceptible, hard-to-define temporary impulses of human fanatical idealism, this was the basis of social change and not material conditions as Marx proposed.

It also reminds me of Plato and the 'philosopher kings' which I believe influenced Hegel, it's that stuff in Laws, Hegel and later in Gentile that became the basis for fascism.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

As I said, a coward.

[gilhyle]

I found that he depends on semantics a lot of the time, which annoys the hell out of me. I've tried reading various of his writtings, the only one I really "liked" was The Science of Logic.


Goddam ! Im fulll of envy for anyone who can say they 'like' the Science of Logic. Its a virtuoso performance, I greatly admired the concentration of the man who wrote it, I learnt from things I still hardly understood even after I learnt them, but I couldnt say I 'liked' it.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Gil:


Goddam ! Im fulll of envy for anyone who can say they 'like' the Science of Logic. Its a virtuoso performance, I greatly admired the concentration of the man who wrote it, I learnt from things I still hardly understood even after I learnt them, but I couldnt say I 'liked' it.

Just as I am full of suspicion for anyone who has anything positive to say about this literary waste of space (other than it burns well), or that logical incompetent, Hegel (other than he had the decency to die -- alas 45 years too late).

And, I rather think Comrade Red would tell a different story today --his comment above was written 3 years ago.

[jacobin1949]

Could someone please recommend a book giving a general overview and introduction to Hegel from a a left interpretation?

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Perhaps the best Marxist introduction is Herbert Marcuse's 'Reason and Revolution', but easily the best introduction to Hegel is Frederick Beiser's 'Hegel':

http://www.amazon.com/Reason-Revolution-Hegel-Social-Theory/dp/157392718X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1201310274&sr=1-1

http://www.amazon.com/Hegel-Routledge-Philosophers-Frederick-Beiser/dp/0415312086/ref=sr_oe_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1201310352&sr=1-1

But, since Hegel badly screwed up, my advice is don't bother.

[DJFreiheit]

Anybody read Hegel, what problems do you find in his system.

Considering how important this is for Marxism, I think it neccessary everybody know where in fact Marx is coming from.

I have never read Hegel. Is it crucial for a Revolutionary to read Hegel. I have been involved with the Marxist movement for ages and have not seen it necessary to stop everything and pick up Hegel to be 'enlightened'.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

DJF: Avoid Hegel at all costs.

You can be an excellent revolutionary without reading a page of his work.

[ComradeRed]

I have never read Hegel. Is it crucial for a Revolutionary to read Hegel. So how exactly do you know that it is "crucial" for a revolutionary to read Hegel if you yourself have not read him? You can't know from experience, so...

You're guessing!

Reading Hegel is irrelevant to being a "revolutionary" or not. It's not a litmus test.

The justification for it is that you'll understand "change" or "the logic of change", but if that were the case why not study differential calculus! Unlike dialectics, you actually can reproduce results and get correct answers.

Plus you get to model reality with accuracy.

More than we can say about dialectics sadly enough...

[gilhyle]

You can be an excellent revolutionary without reading a page of his work.

THis much of Rosa's view I agree with. Baiser's is a good book, but not particularly left wing. Nor should it be.

Richard Norman's Hegel's Phenomenology is quite good. I know someone who found Terry Pinkard's German Philosophy 1760-1860 quite good and while its far from perfect, I thgouth it was very reasonable and placed Hegel quite nicely in context.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

I think you mean Beiser.

Anyway, those books (about Hegel) are themselves a total waste of paper -- about as much use as if someone were to write a commentary on Martian telephone directories.

On second thoughts, even less...

[DJFreiheit]

So how exactly do you know that it is "crucial" for a revolutionary to read Hegel if you yourself have not read him? You can't know from experience, so...

You're guessing!

..

I asked a question. Is it crucial to read Hegel? I didnt put a question mark but I think Rosa my question.

What you seem to be saying is I havent read it so should I give up? Is that what your saying?

[ComradeRed]

What you seem to be saying is I havent read it so should I give up? Is that what your saying? The very opposite, actually.

I'm saying don't bother reading Hegel!

Most people use it as a "purity test"...or worse as a way to "prove" some idea as "correct".

"Oh you haven't read Hegel? So of course you couldn't understand how ingenius/correct/infallible this idea is!"

Hegel is not "required reading" for revolutionaries or scientists...or anyone for that matter.

All dialectics really allows you to do is put words together in an algorithmic manner that sound intelligent.

"Ah, by the interpenetration of the negation of the negation, we see Spirit manifests itself as Being for this very instance of...blah blah blah"

There is a difference between sounding like you know your shit and actually knowing your shit!

Dialectics is a tool for the former.

So if you want to be pretentious, read Hegel. But it is by no means what makes one a "serious revolutionary".

That was my entire point. Since you haven't read Hegel, you wouldn't know one way or the other. So asserting that "serious revolutionaries read Hegel" would be a guess.

[bezdomni]

I doubt even most revolutionaries who use dialectical materialism in their theoretical work (Chairman Prachanda, for example) have read Hegel.

Hegel is a relic. You confuse the required reading for a philosopher to required reading for a revolutionary.

I assume your logic is that since Marx was inspired by Hegel, that must mean in order to understand Marx you have to understand Hegel. I disagree. If you had to understand *any* of Marx's direct influences before you understood Marx himself, I would definitely say it is Feuerbach over Hegel whose method is more important to understand.

At any rate, ComradeRed is right. The only *real* reason to study Hegel is to be pretentious.

[bloody_capitalist_sham]

I don't understand why Hegel was so popular with Marx and Marxists.

I do not know much about Hegel, but 1. He was religious 2. he held that the Strongest states were sanction by God to do whatever they want 3. the prussian state was the best state ever and allowed the best form of freedom 4. Hegel was a nationalist.

It's just weird, because we are ultimately secular, anti-empire, internationalist and generally see states as a necessary evil and ultimately anti-state.

how did Marx get his ideas of freedom from Hegel? Because Hegel's freedom seems messed up.

[Sky]

In his lectures, Hegel was the first to portray the process of history as a gradual movement toward absolute truth and each philosophical system as a determinate stage in that process. Bourgeois philosophy since Hegel has not been able to assimilate the real achievements in the field of logic. Hegelianism developed rather along the lines of the cultivation of the formal and mystical tendencies in Hegelian philosophy. Hegel’s philosophy, critically reworked from a materialist position, is one the theoretical sources of Marxist-Leninist philosophy—dialectical materialism. In this regard, Hegel’s works to this day remain the best school for dialectical thought, as the teachings of Marx, Engels, and Lenin demonstrate.

Hegel gives to the universal schema of the world spirit’s creative activity the name absolute idea, and the “science of logic” is defined as the scientific theoretical self-consciousness of the absolute idea. The absolute idea is revealed in its universality in the form of a system of categories, beginning with the most general and meager of determinations—being, nonbeing, immediate existence, quality, quantity—and ending with concrete, manifoldly determined concepts such as actuality, chemism, organism, and knowledge.

In “Phenomenology of the Mind”, Hegel develops the basic principles of his philosophical conception. The spiritual culture of humanity was first presented here in its lawlike development as the gradual realization of the creative force of “world reason.” Expressing itself in cultural forms that successively replace one another, the superpersonal spirit simultaneously gains knowledge of itself as the creator of these forms. The spiritual development of the individual reproduces, in abbreviated form, the stages of the attainment of self-knowledge by the “world spirit,” beginning with the act of naming objects perceived by the senses and ending with “absolute knowledge,” that is, knowledge of those forms and laws that direct the whole process of spiritual development from within—the development of science, morality, religion, art, and legal and political systems. Absolute knowledge, which crows the phenomenological history of the spirit, is nothing more than logic. Thus, the culminating chapter of the "Phenomenology of Mind" introduces a program for the critical reorganization of logic as science, a program that was realized by Hegel in his later works.

In his logic, Hegel deifies real human thought which he investigates as an aspect of universal, logical forms and laws, revealed through the entire process of history, Declaring thought to be subject, that is, the sole creator of all spiritual wealth developed in the course of history and interpreting thought as an eternal, timeless schema of creative activity in general, Hegel brings the concept of the idea close to the concept of god. But unlike the theistic god, the idea takes on consciousness, will, and individually only in man, while outside and prior to man it is realized as an internal necessity in conformity with law.

Using the dialectical method which he created, Hegel critically reinterprets all spheres of contemporary culture—science, morals, aesthetics, and so on. In the course of this he discovers everywhere an intense dialectic, a process of perpetual negation of every newly attained state of mind by the next state, which meanwhile has been ripening in its depths. The future ripens inside the present as concrete, immanent contradictions whose determinateness presupposes and defines the mode of its resolution. A sharply critical analysis of the condition of contemporary science and its concepts is interwoven in Hegel with critical reproduction and philosophical justification of a number of the dogmas and prejudices of the consciousness of his own time. This contradiction permeates not only the logic but also other parts of the Hegelian system—namely, his philosophy of nature and philosophy of mind, which constitute the second and third parts of his “Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences”.

Hegel's philosophy of mind is further developed in "Philosophy of Right", and in the posthumous lectures on the philosophy of history, aesthetics, and on the philosophy of religion, and on the history of philosophy. Thus, in his philosophy of nature, Hegel, critically analyzing the mechanistic views of 18th century science, expresses many ideas that anticipate the subsequent development of thought in the natural sciences (for example, the idea of the reciprocal relation of time and space and the mutual transitions of their determinations and the idea of the “immanent purposiveness” characteristic of a living organism.) But at the same time, Hegel denies to nature a dialectical development. Since he views the past only from the standpoint of those dialectical collisions that led to the maturation of the present, that is, of the contemporary world, which is uncritically conceived as the crown and goal of the process, Hegel completes his philosophy of history with an idealized portrayal of the Prussian constitutional monarchy, his philosophy of right with an idealized portrayal of the bourgeois consciousness of law and right and philosophy of religion with an apologia for Protestantism.

According to the Hegelian schema, mind first awakens to self-consciousness within man in the form of word, speech, and language. Instruments of labor, material culture, and civilization appear as later, derivative forms of embodiment of the same creative force of mind, of the “concept”. The point of departure for this development is thus seen in the capacity of man (as the “finite mind”) to know himself through the assimilation of all that wealth of images that hitherto has been contained in mind as involuntarily arising inner states of which men were not conscious.

The category of contradiction as the unity of mutually exclusive opposites which at the same time mutually presupposes each other (polar concepts) occupies a central position in the Hegelian dialectic. Contradiction is here understood as the “motor”, the inner impulse of the development of mind in general. The movement ascends from the “abstract to the concrete”, to a result even fuller, more manifoldly differentiated within itself, and therefore closer to the truth. It is not enough, according to Hegel, to understand contradiction only as an antimony, an aporia, that is, as a logically unresolved contradiction: the contradiction must be taken together with its resolution as part of a deeper and more concrete understanding, where the initial antimony is simultaneously realized and disappears.

[gilhyle]

THe purpose of reading Hegel is to develop a capacity to to criticise the dominant philosophical ideologies of our time which act as an obstacle to clear revolutionary thinking. Does it work well ? Not really. Is it better than nothing ? Yes. Are there many honest and earnest revolutionaries who retain deep weaknesses as revolutionaries because they retain the philosophical perspectives which our capitalist society makes appear self evident...yes. To them reading Hegel seems pretentious, whereas it is just pathetic. Pathetic because the revolutionary movement is so weak and must scrounge around for any resource it can find.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Thanks for that Sky -- unfortunatley for the mysterions (who believe this Hegelian guff, or even worse, its inverted form in 'materialist dialectics'), I have demolished Hegel's core arguments here:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/Outline_of_Hegel's_errors_01.htm (http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/Outline_of_Hegel's_errors_01.htm)


And in more detail here:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/page%2008_02.htm#What-Are-Dialectical-Contradictions (http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/page%2008_02.htm#What-Are-Dialectical-Contradictions)

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Gil:


THe purpose of reading Hegel is to develop a capacity to to criticise the dominant philosophical ideologies of our time which act as an obstacle to clear revolutionary thinking. Does it work well ? Not really. Is it better than nothing ? Yes. Are there many honest and earnest revolutionaries who retain deep weaknesses as revolutionaries because they retain the philosophical perspectives which our capitalist society makes appear self evident...yes. To them reading Hegel seems pretentious, whereas it is just pathetic. Pathetic because the revolutionary movement is so weak and must scrounge around for any resource it can find.


Too bad he tried to criticise the confused by means of the incomprehensible then, isn't it?

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

BCS:



how did Marx get his ideas of freedom from Hegel? Because Hegel's freedom seems messed up.


They were really drawn from Rousseau and Kant -- Hegel just mystified everything.

[Vanguard1917]

I doubt even most revolutionaries who use dialectical materialism in their theoretical work (Chairman Prachanda, for example) have read Hegel.

Hegel is a relic. You confuse the required reading for a philosopher to required reading for a revolutionary.

I assume your logic is that since Marx was inspired by Hegel, that must mean in order to understand Marx you have to understand Hegel. I disagree. If you had to understand *any* of Marx's direct influences before you understood Marx himself, I would definitely say it is Feuerbach over Hegel whose method is more important to understand.

At any rate, ComradeRed is right. The only *real* reason to study Hegel is to be pretentious.

There are far better reasons to study Hegel - one of the main sources of Marxism - than to be 'pretentious'. Let's not try to pass off philistine intellectual laziness for anything else.

'It is impossible to fully grasp Marx's Capital, and especially its first chapter, if you have not studied through and understood the whole of Hegel's Logic.'
- Lenin

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

VG1917:



one of the main sources of Marxism


Not so, as I have demonstrated here many times.

You need to pay attention.

And Lenin admitted that he himself did not understand parts of Hegel's 'Logic', so that must mean he did not understand Das Kapital!

Now you would know this if you bothered to elevate yourself from that pit of self-inflicted ignorance you currently inhabit:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/page%2009_01.htm (http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/page%2009_01.htm)


On this see Volume 38 of Lenin's Collective Works, pages 108, 117, 229:

http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/cw/volume38.htm

[bezdomni]

I think that was one of the times where Lenin was wrong. Yeah, maybe you'll notice how Marx was inspired by Hegel's dialectics if you're more familiar with his system...but I don't think you *need* Hegel to seriously understand Capital or anything written by Marx or Engels, for that matter.

If people want to study Hegel, they ought to study Hegel. However, I have little interest in reading anything more by Hegel than the scarce amount that I have already read.

I don't think it's intellectual philistinism to not want to intensively study Hegel, because you can get a perfectly strong understanding of Hegel's thinking without directly reading very much of his original works.

[ComradeRed]

There are far better reasons to study Hegel - one of the main sources of Marxism - than to be 'pretentious'. Let's not try to pass off philistine intellectual laziness for anything else. And yet you have not given a valid reason to study Hegel.

You have given baseless assertions. That is all I suspect you will give, aside from appeals to authority:


'It is impossible to fully grasp Marx's Capital, and especially its first chapter, if you have not studied through and understood the whole of Hegel's Logic.'
- Lenin Assume for contradiction this is true.

Lenin himself admitted he did not understand the whole of Hegel's Logic.

Therefore Lenin didn't understand all of Marx's Capital, which means he would be in no position to assert this proposition. It follows that this is a false proposition.

Oh well, appealing to authority seemed like a good idea didn't it? Perhaps a logical argument would work better next time...

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

SP, what exactly is the influence of Hegel on Marx's Kapital (over and above his merely 'coquetting' with a few examples of the former's jargon)?

Marx is far more Aristotelian than he is anything else, and the influence on him of Hegel by the time he wrote his masterpiece amounts merely to 'coquetting'.

Big deal...

[gilhyle]

Lenin himself admitted he did not understand the whole of Hegel's Logic.

Therefore Lenin didn't understand all of Marx's Capital, which means he would be in no position to assert this proposition. It follows that this is a false proposition.

Oh well, appealing to authority seemed like a good idea didn't it? Perhaps a logical argument would work better next time...

Reflect on your own argument for a moment. I suspect in your more measured moments you know yourself that this chop logic is a silly argument that you have posted simply for the sake of argument. Certainly the quality of many of your other posts would suggest that.

Your comment, Comrade Red, leads me to a more general observation which isnt really directed at you or at least you alone.

The tones of vitriol and oneupmanship that come from the anti-Hegel camp on this forum have a parrallel only in the discussions on Stalin - where at least they are understandable.

Does anyone here seriously think that Lukacs or Duanyeskaya or Lenin studied Hegel to be pretentious.... I can really see Lenin sitting there during WW1 thinking 'I want people to think Im clever, now let me see who can I read so people will admire how smart I am.....' I think not - and the people in the anti-Hegel camp dont think so either. So STOP SAYING THIS CRAP.

Its one thing to think someone else is wrong - fine. Its a very different thing to consider one's own view as so self-evident as to conclude that you might as well substitute chastisement for argument. Equally (and this I think is the case in Comrade Red's argument above) throwing in school yard type rhetorical arguments is just a waste of space.

Philosophy is difficult at the best of time (and often in my view not worth the effort) But if people are going to post in the philosophy forum the only way to do it is in a deliberate and calm fashion. The style is bad enough in Rosa's case - because it hides and distorts some quite interesting arguments, but if it spreads to the whole anti-hegel side, it really makes the whole process pointless. Sky attempts a reasoned argument above....and got no reasoned responses. What is the good of that ?

If you have an emotional reaction to Hegel of finding him annoying, suppress it ! It doesn't help. OK let it burst out now and then when you have a bad day.

People on all sides should, in my opinion, should try to do the hard thing - present arguments with clarity, precision and brevity, without links to outside websites and with the minimum of derision and hectoring.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

gil:



Does anyone here seriously think that Lukacs or Duanyeskaya or Lenin studied Hegel to be pretentious.... I can really see Lenin sitting there during WW1 thinking 'I want people to think Im clever, now let me see who can I read so people will admire how smart I am.....' I think not - and the people in the anti-Hegel camp dont think so either.

No, they were all petty-bourgeois theorists, educated in the thought-forms of the ruling class, and so felt it quite 'normal' to accept such ruling-class theories as valid. Even though they criticised these theories -- they were enmeshed in the same tradition, and accepted the same world-view: that there was a rational order to reality, below the surface, and accessible to thought alone (and thus way beyond the material gaze of the working class).

And so are you, as Marx said you would be:


The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e. the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force. The class which has the means of material production at its disposal, has control at the same time over the means of mental production, so that thereby, generally speaking, the ideas of those who lack the means of mental production are subject to it. The ruling ideas are nothing more than the ideal expression of the dominant material relationships, the dominant material relationships grasped as ideas; hence of the relationships which make the one class the ruling one, therefore, the ideas of its dominance.

So, no, neither Red, nor myself will stop saying such things; we will continue to expose your intellectual class treachery.

[gilhyle]

Dont worry Rosa, I wasn't even dreaming that you could change your style of writing - as good as that would be both for the board and the presentation of your own ideas. At this stage your style is almost endearing - the problem is if it spreads to others.

But maybe even you might just wonder about your approach when you draw the conclusion, as you just have, that Lenin was a petit bourgeois traitor to the working class. :cool:

[BurnTheOliveTree]

The most striking thing about Hegel is that he is stunningly dull. Even Plato's philosopher-king fascism is more exciting than Hegel and his synthesis and spirits.

-Alex

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Gil:



Dont worry Rosa, I wasn't even dreaming that you could change your style of writing - as good as that would be both for the board and the presentation of your own ideas. At this stage your style is almost endearing - the problem is if it spreads to others.



Yes, we can't have anyone else here showing such awfull disrespect for the work of ruling-class hacks, to which theories you have sold your radical soul.

And I am sorry I can't write page after page of incomprehensible guff of the sort you find in Hegel, and which you prefer, but as a working class woman, I prefer the language of my class.

If that makes me an enemy of yours, I will take that as a compliment.



But maybe even you might just wonder about your approach when you draw the conclusion, as you just have, that Lenin was a petit bourgeois traitor to the working class.


Now, you had to add the word 'traitor' here didn't you, to make this example of low grade abuse and distortion work. Nothing I have said implies I think Lenin was a traitor -- just mistaken, and for good materialist reasons (his class origin).

Well, you tell me: what class did Lenin come from?

And, didn't Marx tell us that social being determines consciousness?

Now, if such great revolutionaries can fall for the sort of ruling-class guff you find in Hegel, an intellectual ninnow like you stands no chance.

Unless, of course, I can help rescue you.

But, in your case, I think I'd rather see you continuing to wallow in the class-compromised mire of your choice...

[black magick hustla]

To be honest, I don't think "he reading" hegel has anything to do with his class. I am sure it had more to do with the fact that while reading Marx he stumbled with Hegel.

I was discussing dialectics with somoene and he said something pretty interesting. That probably Marx without Hegel would probably have ended up like a liberal like all the other utopian socialists, including Proudhon.

Those "socialists" didnt visualize society as being changed by class struggle, and the concept of class struggle itself those have a "dialectical" tinge to it.

I dont think you have to use dialectical materialism to understand marxism. Science, materialism, and logic owes some to Aristotle and Aristotle himself had a lot of things wrong. You dont have to know Aristotle to be a good scientist, logician or materialist, and we can probably say the same about Hegel and its bastard son dialectical materialism, that later developed to the "materialist conception of history".

However I do acknowledge that Marxism does owe things to dialectics, but it doesnt needs dialectics itself.

Seriously, when Maoists are so obsessed with dialectical materialisn, I think it is a good idea to stay a bit far from it.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Marmot:



To be honest, I don't think "he reading" hegel has anything to do with his class. I am sure it had more to do with the fact that while reading Marx he stumbled with Hegel.




Hegel's work would not have been written had Hegel not been of a certain class; and Marx would not have read it had he been born a peasant. The same goes for Engels (who, in fact was raised in the same religion as Hegel -- more on this below), Plekhanov (the real culprit here, who did more to impose Hegel on Marxism than anyone else) and Lenin (who caught a serious dose of Hegelism from Plekhanov).

Now, Hegel was brought up in Swabia in the pietist branch of the Lutheran religion. So was Engels (although he was not a Swabian). Pietism was heavily influenced by Jakob Boehme, the leading Hermeticist in modern history. Swabia is traditionally also the heart of German mysticism.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermeticism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermeticism)


http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jakob_B%C3%B6hme&oldid=188171205 (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jakob_B%C3%B6hme&oldid=188171205)


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pietism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pietism)

http://www.exlibris.org/nonconform/engdis/behmenists.html (http://www.exlibris.org/nonconform/engdis/behmenists.html)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swabia#Famous_Swabians (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swabia#Famous_Swabians)

http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/en/magee.htm (http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/en/magee.htm)

http://books.google.com/books?id=NFIOpySKxw0C&pg=PA62&lpg=PA62&dq=swabia+and+german+mysticism&source=web&ots=KaHOBNr6W8&sig=Us3i5sogjpDjUE8toD8AfaOsgRM


Now, anyone without the right class origins would not have been steeped in such ruling-class mysticism/ideology.



I was discussing dialectics with somoene and he said something pretty interesting. That probably Marx without Hegel would probably have ended up like a liberal like all the other utopian socialists, including Proudhon.


How can anyone possibly know this?


Science, materialism, and logic owes some to Aristotle and Aristotle himself had a lot of things wrong. You dont have to know Aristotle to be a good scientist, logician or materialist, and we can probably say the same about Hegel and its bastard son dialectical materialism, that later developed to the "materialist conception of history".


In fact, Marx derived his historical materialism from the Scottish school of Historical Materialists (and so did Hegel -- he simply mystified their ideas), his socialism from the French Socialists, and his economics fro Smith (one of the Scottish Historical Materialists) and Ricardo. The rest he obtained from the struggles of German workers, and others.


Meek, R. (1967a), Economics And Ideology And Other Essays (Chapman & Hall).

--------, (1967b), 'The Scottish Contribution To Marxist Sociology', In Meek (1967a), pp.34-50.


Moreover, Aristotle was a model of clarity compared with Hegel, and Marx's Das Kapital is far more Aristotelian than it is Hegelian.


On Aristotle and Marx:

McCarthy, G. (1992) (ed.), Marx And Aristotle (Rowman & Littlefield).


Meikle, S. (1985), Essentialism In The Thought of Karl Marx (Open Court).

http://www-econ.stanford.edu/academics/Honors_Theses/Theses_2003/Chau.pdf (http://www-econ.stanford.edu/academics/Honors_Theses/Theses_2003/Chau.pdf)


So, it is entirely possible that Marx would have developed more or less the same had Hegel died in infancy, and had Marx never read a page of German Idealist philosophy. But, once more, it is impossible to say.



Those "socialists" didnt visualize society as being changed by class struggle, and the concept of class struggle itself those have a "dialectical" tinge to it.


The class struggle owes nothing the dialectics, and Marx's idea of the struggle of classes did not come from Hegel -- but from workers in struggle themselves. Proof here:

Draper, H. (1977), Karl Marx's Theory Of Revolution, Volume One: State And Bureaucracy (Monthly Review Press); Chapters Six and Seven.



However I do acknowledge that Marxism does owe things to dialectics,


Yes, it owes it nothing but confusion.