Aufhebung; supersession, sublation = "dialectical progression"?

  1. Lyev
    Lyev
    Firstly - this is unrelated to the actual discussion that I wanna bring up - I was hoping, in lieu of some particularly heated/complex discussion in philosophy involving The You Know Who of 'anti-dialectics', that we could get some good discussion going in this sub-forum again. It seems activity in here has died a bit, especially since users like Random Precision and Led Zeppelin don't post anymore. I also heard a while ago there would be a short introductory essay on the dialectical method (Marxist, Hegelian or otherwise) that would be stickied in philosophy or something.

    Anyway, on to the topic at hand, whilst trying to be very open-minded about 'dialectical materialism', I have been reading through Craig B. Matarrese's Starting with Hegel, which, so far, has been very informative. I was also reading Peter Singer's introduction to Hegel, published by OUP, but when I got to the part about dialectics, Singer understood this method as only thesis-antithesis-synthesis, which, whilst being an interesting model for analysing capitalism and such, is not the Hegelian dialectic, as far as I know.

    What is closer to the Hegelian method, and bearing in mind that Marx, at least by the time he writes Capital, was not a Hegelian, is what Matarrese describes in his book, I think. But I wanted to check it with you guys first. As I understand, in a simple and brief manner, when Hegel examines in the Phenomenology of Mind 'modes of consciousness' (consciousness, to self-consciousness, to reason, to spirit, then finally to religion), we can see pretty easily how Marx extracts the "rational kernel" here, and applies this to modes of production (slave, feudal, capitalist, communist). However, I want to verify with users here, Mataresse writes, as regards supersession, or Aufhebung:
    [T]o say that there are supersessions is to say that there are dialectical progressions through which one interpretation of self, knowledge, or life generally, will give way to another, that the later interpretation is superior because it resolves tensions inherent in the prior stage, or because it better satisfies the criteria established earlier, or because it proves to be a more satisfying or stable interpretation to inhabit and explore than the previous one (The Phenomenology of Spirit, The Philosophy of History)
    My understanding of the materialist conception of history is much better now that I have read a bit more about Hegel. I read a Cyril Smith essay a while ago that talked about the oft-misunderstood quote, "religion is the opium of the masses". He argues that, where Marx says a few sentences previous that religion is "the heart of a heartless world", this quote does not in fact mean religion induces working class people into a haze-like slumber to distract them from class struggle etc. - it really means that Marx wants a supersession to take place within religion. As Smith himself says, "we have to uncover those aspects of a way of life which gave rise to religion — and then revolutionise those aspects. Religion was ‘the heart of a heartless world’, so the issue was to establish a world with heart. Instead of an illusory solution, we must, in practice, find a real one." (On a side note, as you can glean quite nicely from the Smith paper, which is here, there is often a false dichotomy created between Marx the 'materialist' and Hegel the 'idealist' - in some aspects, all philosophers are idealists).

    On a final note, the concept of alienation, self-estrangement, as espoused by Marx, was once explained to me through Hegel's initial exposition of the idea - roughly put, I think it is basically that humankind is alienated from God, but when we die we are re-united with him, which is represented by Hegel's final supersession, his highest mode of consciousness, which is religion. This is similar to Marx's idea of alienation, where the proletarian is depressed by the boredom and normalcy of capitalism, but also feels immensely disenchanted with not owning any means of production, and by the way that her past labour rules over her through the form of concrete capital: when the bourgeoisie are expropriated (for Hegel, when we go to heaven), we are re-united back with our true-self, so to speak, and happiness and fulfillment is achieved once more.

    Now, sorry for the rambling nature of my post, I was just full of ideas today, and am in a bit of a rush - I just basically wanted to put this all through you folks for a discussion, to check if I have anything wrong, or maybe even aid someone else in understanding the Marx-Hegel relationship a bit better. Thanks a lot.