Dialectical Logic in Plato’s Plato’s Parmenides, Hegel’s Hegel’s Logic, and Marx’s Marx’s Critique of Political Economy Leon Trotsky once contended that the “Dialectic training of the mind” was “as necessary to a revolutionary fighter as finger exercises to a pianist.”1 Regardless of one’s appraisal of the man, his observation was incontestably correct. To be a revolutionary in our modern times is to be a Marxist, and to be the latter is to adhere to Marx’s dialectical method. This method. This method, by its very nature, cannot be unconsciously absorbed: it must be consciously striven for and then put into practice. The essential path to beginning b eginning this process of “training” training” is the study of works of 2 dialectical logic. Of course, not all such works are equal or accessible. For example, ex ample, to fully understand Marx’s dialectics, a study of the works of He gel is necessary; but starting with Hegel is notoriously difficult. Nevertheless, one piece of writing which is generally acc essible and, moreover, an exemplar, is Plato’s dialogue dialogue Parmenides. It should be recalled that, as Hegel’s system is an organic integration and summation of all previous philosophy, any previous work could be said to be necessary for an understanding of his thought. Certainly this touches the very heart of the man’s philosophy, for he had he had already noted in 1807, in his famous preface to the Phenomenology, that, The more the ordinary mind takes the opposition between true and false to be fixed, the more is it accustomed to expect either agreement a greement or contradiction with a given philosophical system, and only to see reason for the one or the other in any explanatory statement concerning such a system. It does not conceive the diversity of philosophical systems as the progressive evolution of truth; rather, it sees only contradiction in that variety.3 In Hegel’s perspective there perspective there is only one Truth, one Philosophy and, therefore, all philosophical systems are merely abstract i.e. one-sided aspects in the development of philosophy.4 To underline this truth and explain himself h imself more fully, Hegel moved from a seemingly abstract example to a more concrete one, by making a brilliant analogy with a plant: The bud disappears when the blossom breaks through, and we might say sa y that the former is refuted by the latter; in the same way when the fruit comes, the blossom may be explained to be a false form of the plant’s existence, for the fruit appears as its true nature 1
Leon Trotsky, In Defense of Marxism (New York: Pathfinder Press, 1981), 54. “But theoretical thinking is an innate quality only as regards natural capacity. This natural capacity must be developed, improved, and for its improvement there is as yet no other means than the study of previous philosophy.” Frederick Engels, Dialectics of Nature (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1966), 42-42. 3 G.W.F. Hegel, The Phenomenology of Mind , tran. J.B. Baillie (New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1967), 68. 4 “Human k nowledge nowledge is not (or does not follow) a straight line, but a curve, which endlessly approximates a series of circles, a spiral. Any fragment, segment, section of this curve can be transformed (transformed one-sidedly) into an independent, complete, straight line, which then (if one does not see the wood for the trees) leads into the quagmire, into clerical obscurantism (where it is anchored by by the class interests of the ruling classes). Rectilinearity and onesidedness, woodenness and petrification, subjectivism and subjective blindness — blindness — voilà voilà the epistemological roots of idealism. And clerical obscurantism (= philosophical idealism), of course, has epistemological roots, it is not groundless; it is a sterile flower undoubtedly, undoubtedly, but a sterile flower that grows on the living tree of living, fertile, genuine, powerful, omnipotent, objective, absolute human knowledge.” V.I. Lenin, “On the Question of Dialectics,” in V.I. Lenin, Collected Works, Volume 38: Philosophical Notebooks (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1976), 357. 2
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in place of the blossom. These stages are n ot merely differentiated; they supplant one another as being incompatible with one another. ano ther. But the ceaseless activity of their own inherent nature makes them at the same time moments of an organic unity, where they not merely do not contradict one another, but where one is as necessary as the other; and this equal necessity of all moments constitutes alone and thereb y the life of the whole. But contradiction as between philosophical systems is not wont to be conceived in this way; on the other hand, the mind perceiving the contradiction does not commonly know how to relieve it or keep it free from its one-sidedness, and to recognise in what seems conflicting and inherently antagonistic the presence of mutually necessary mom ents.5 Hegel here kept repeating over and over again, in different forms, the principle he later expressed in the proposition, “the truth is concrete.” concrete.”6 Just as the different stages of a plant constitute its total existence viz. that is, its very truth, likewise a ll philosophies are mere moments in the necessary, general progress of human reason. Hence, all things are processes which find their truth in movement. Hegel summarised this in the following statement: For the real subject-matter is not exhausted in its purpose, but in working the matter out; nor is the mere result attained the concrete whole itself, but the result along with the process of arriving at it. The purpose by itself is a lifeless lifeless universal, just as the general drift is a mere activity in a certain direction, which is s till without its concrete realization; and the naked result is the corpse of o f the system which has left its guiding tendency ten dency behind it.7 To understand the result, one must understand the beginning and the process linking the two. In this respect, then, to move forward, one must go backwards. In other words, since the truth is concrete, then to grasp anything an ything in its truth means to apprehend it historically, in its motion.8 This historical sweep is the transition from the simple to the complex o r, more specifically, the movement from the abstract to the concrete, the dialectical method first elucidated by Hegel.9 5
Hegel, Phenomenology, 68. “For the truth is concrete; that is, while it gives a bond and principle of unity, it also possesses an internal source of development. Truth, then, is only possible as a universe or totality of thought; and the freedom of the whole, as well as the necessity of the several sub-divisions, which it implies, are only possible when these are discriminated and defined.” G.W.F. Hegel, Hegel’s Hegel, Hegel’s Logic: Being Part One of the Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences (1830) , tran. William Wallace (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985), 19-20. 7 Hegel, Phenomenology, 69. 8 “It was the exceptional historical sense underlying Hegel’s manner of reasoning which distinguished it from that of all other philosophers. However abstract and idealist the form employed, yet his evolution of ideas runs always parallel with the evolution of universal histor y, and the latter was indeed supposed to be only the proof of the former. Although this reversed the actual relation and stood it on its head, yet the real content was invariably incorporated in his philosophy, especially since Hegel – Hegel – unlike unlike his followers – followers – did did not rely on ignorance, but was one of the most erudite thinkers of all time. He was the first to try to demonstrate that there is an evolution, an intrinsic coherence in history…This history… This monumental conception of history pervades the Phänomenologies, Asthetik and Geschichte der Philosophie, and the material is everywhere set forth historically, in a definite historical context, even if in an abstract distorted manner.” manner. ” Frederick Engels, “Karl Marx, ‘A Contribution to the Critique of Political Critique of Political Economy’ Part One, Franz Duncker, Berlin, 1859,” in Karl Marx, A Contribution to the Critique Economy (New York: International Publishers, 1989), 224. 9 Jason Devine, “On the “Philosophy” of “Dialectical Materialism”,” accessed 9 January 2018, http://links.org .au/node/4667. 6
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However, not all contributions to the construction of Hegel’s system are system are equal. Certainly Hegel himself highlighted specific philosophers and writings over others.10 Thus he wrote in his preface to the Phenomenology, that “the “the Parmenides of Plato” was “perhaps the greatest literary 11 product of ancient dialectic.” Hegel had previously made a similar statement in his Lectures on the History of Philosophy: “Plato, in one of his dialogues…accords dialogues…accords the chief part to Parmenides, and puts in his mouth the most lofty loft y dialectic that ever was given.”12 Finally, he went so far as to assert that “The fully worked-out worked-out and genuine dialectic is, however, contained in the Parmenides – that – that most famous masterpiece of Platonic dialectic.”13 This is undoubtedly the highest of praise coming from the founder of modern dialectic.14 Such statements, then, should command the attention of all Marxists, and especially those of the latter who want to deepen their study Hegel and dialectics. Yet this philosophical glorification does not say much as to what it was, specifically, in Plato’s Plato’s philosophy and his Parmenides, that so captivated Hegel’s attention. There are many connections between both philosophers and I can in no way exhaust them all in this essay.15 Therefore, I intend here only to review some of the linkages between Plato’s dialogue and Hegel’s Logic, in the realms of structure and methodology, and, more importantly, how they relate relate to Marx’s critique of political economy.16 I will show that while it has been long recognised that the source of Marx’s dialectic is in Hegel’s philosophy, philosophy, one of the key ke y origins of latter’s dialectic latter’s dialectic method, and of the shape it took in his Science of Logic, lies within the 10
For example, that Hegel held Heraclitus in higher esteem than most philosophers is shown in his statement that “there is no proposition of Heraclitus which I have not adopted in my Logic.” See, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Lectures on the History of Philosophy, Philosophy, Volume 1: Greek Philosophy to Plato Plato , trans. E.S. Haldane and Frances H. Simson (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1995), 279. 11 Hegel, Phenomenology, 129. 12 Philosophy, Volume 1 , 250. Hegel, Lectures on the History of Philosophy, 13 Philosophy, Volume 2: Plato and the Platonists Platonists , trans. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Lectures on the History of Philosophy, E.S. Haldane and Frances H. Simson (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1995), 56. 14 “The mystification which dialectic suffers in Hegel’s hands, by no means prevents him from being the first to present its general form of working in a comprehensive and conscious manner .” manner .” Karl Marx, Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, Volume I Book One: The Process of Production of Capital (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1983), 29. 15 Hegel’s critique of Kant’s Kant’s Thing-in-itself, in his Logic, is rooted in Plato’s Plato’s analysis of Being, as contained in his dialogue Parmenides. There Plato argued that to speak of non-being means to understand something of non-being: “Then I will begin again, and ask: If one is not, what are the consequences? In the first place, as would appear, there is a knowledge of it, or the t he very meaning of the words, ‘if one is not,’ would not be known.” See, Plato, “Parmenides,” in The Republic and Other Works, tran. B. Jowett (New York: Anchor Books, 1973), 415. Compare embraced even Mind and God) expresses the object when this with Hegel: “The Thing-in-itself Thing-in-itself (and under ‘thing’ is embraced even we leave out of sight all that consciousness makes of it, all its emotional aspects, and all specific thoughts of it. It is easy to see what is left – left – utter utter abstraction, total emptiness, only described desc ribed still as an ‘other -world’ – the the negative of every image, feeling, and definite thought. Nor does it require much penetration to see that this caput mortuum is still only a product of thought, such as accrues when thought is carried on to abstraction unalloyed: that it is the work of the empty ‘Ego’, which makes an object out of this empty self -identity self -identity of its own. The negative characteristic which this abstract identity receives as an object is is also enumerated among the categories of Kant, and is no less familiar than the empty identity aforesaid. Hence one can only read with surprise the perpetual remark that we do not know the Thing-in-itself. On the contrary there is nothing we can know so easily. ” Hegel, Hegel’s Hegel, Hegel’s Logic, Logic, 72. 16 “For the method is nothing noth ing else than the structure of the whole in its pure and essential form.” Hegel, Phenomenology, 106.
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Parmenides, and, further, that this was taken up by Marx in his analysis of the commodity. To be more exact: Hegel paralleled Plato and later Marx paralleled Hegel.
In Hegel’s view, the “development “development of philosophic science as science, and, further, the progress from the Socratic point of view to the scientific, begins with with Plato and is completed by Aristotle. They of all others deserve to be called teachers of the human race. rac e.””17 Plato was, hence, a milestone in the development of human cognition. As Hegel declared elsewhere: Besides, the dialectic is not a new thing in philosophy. Among the Ancients, Plato is called the inventor of the dialectic, and that is quite correct in that it is in the Platonic philosophy that dialectic first occurs in a form which is freely freely scientific, and hence also 18 objective. This assertion seemingly contradicts Hegel’s characterisation of Zeno: “What “What specially characterizes Zeno is the dialectic which, properly speaking, begins with him.” him.”19 Notwithstanding this, such a contradiction is only apparent and not substantive. Hegel’s point is that while Zeno was the founder found er of dialectic in Greek philosophy, it was Plato who actually raised it to a level of science. How exactly did he achieve this? According to Hegel, we must regard it as an infinite step forward that the forms of thought have been freed from the material in which they are submerged in self-conscious intuition, figurate conception, and in our desiring de siring and willing, or rather in ideational desiring and willing – willing – and there is no human desiring d esiring or willing without ideation – ideation – and and that these universalities have been brought into prominence for their own sake and made objects of contemplation as was done by Plato and after him especially by Aristotle; this constitutes the beginning of the intelligent apprehension of them.20 It is only with Plato that the scientific study of tho ught itself, i.e. the categories, notions, etc. is first taken up and freed from all sensuous representations and figurate thinking viz. in the form of concrete objects, geometrical shapes, etc. This, for Hegel, is true dialectic.21 Plato’s role in the
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Philosophy, Volume 2 , 1. Hegel, Lectures on the History of Philosophy, G. W. F. Hegel, The Encyclopaedia Logic: Part I of the Encyclopaedia of Philosophical Sciences with the Zusätze, trans. T. F. Geraets, W. A. Suchting, and H. S. Harris (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., 1991), 129. 19 Philosophy, Volume 1 , 261. Hegel, Lectures on the History of Philosophy, 20 G.W. F. Hegel, Hegel’s Hegel, Hegel’s Science of Logic, Logic , tran. A.V. Miller (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1969), 33; 33; “The “The philosophic culture of Plato, like the general culture of hi s time, was not yet ripe for reall y scientific work; the Idea was still too fresh and new; it was only in Aristotle that it attained to a systematic scientific form of representation. ” Philosophy, Volume 2 , 17. Hegel, Lectures on the History of Philosophy, 21 “We have already remarked by way of preparation that the Notion of true dialectic is to show forth the necessary movement of pure Notions, without thereby resolving these into nothing; for the result, simply expressed, is that they are this movement, and the universal is just the unity of these opposite Notions.” Ibid., 49; “ Now although the mind is not conscious of this power of logic at the beginning of its study, it none the less receives within itself through such study the power which leads it into all truth. The system of logic is the realm of shadows, the world of simple essentialities freed from all sensuous concreteness. The study of this science, to dwell and labour in this shadowy realm, is the absolute culture and discipline of consciousness. In logic, consciousness is busy with something remote from sensuous intuitions and aims, from feelings, from the merely imagined world of figurate conception. Considered from its negative aspect, this business consists in holding off the contingency of ordinary 18
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development of philosophy, of human reason, then, is that he started the process p rocess of the purification of thought from all sensuous entanglements. However, since he stood at the beginning, Plato’s dialogues do not all consistently achieve this pure form of conceptual thinking. Indeed, it is precisely only in the Parmenides that this occurs.22 Anyone who reads Hegel’s Hegel’s Logic (the larger or the shorter) and then compares it with Plato’s Plato’s Parmenides will readily see that the latter provided the blueprint for the former. Ergo, it supplies a key to grasping Hegel’s dialectic. Hegel’s dialectic. This should be no n o surprise as Hegel explicitly patterned his system of philosophy philosophy on Plato’s and even stated that the Parmenides covered the realm of dialectical logic within the latter. The following is h ow Hegel described Plato’s system: Now if we go from knowledge to its content, in which the Idea becomes sundered, and thereby organizes itself more completely into a scientific system, this content, according to Plato, begins to fall into three parts which we distinguish as the logical, natural, and mental philosophy. The logical Philosophy the ancients called dialectic, and its addition to philosophy is by the ancient writers on the subject ascribed to Plato. This is not a dialectic such as we met with in the Sophists, which merely brings one’s ideas altogether into confusion, for this first branch of Platonic philosophy is the d ialectic which moves in pure Notions – Notions – the the movement of the speculatively logical, with which several dialogues, and particularly that of Parmenides, occupy themselves. The second, according to Plato, is a kind of natural philosophy, the principles p rinciples of which are more especially propounded in the Timæus. The third is the philosophy of the mind – mind – an an ethical philosophy – philosophy – and and its representation is essentially that of a perfect a perfect state in the Republic…Hence Republic…Hence if the Parmenides be taken along with the Republic and the Timæus, the three together constitute the whole Platonic system of philosophy divided in to its three parts or sections.23 In this quote Hegel clearly asserted that Plato’s philosophy Plato’s philosophy was shaped by a tripartite division. This is, of course, the same basic division in Hegel’s system viz. Logic-Nature-Spirit/Mind. Logic-Nature-Spirit/Mind. In the latter’s conception, Parmenides is exactly Plato’s Logic. Conversely, therefore, we can see that Hegel’s Logic is his Parmenides. In light of such mirroring, and grasping the historical nature of the dialectic, one must study Plato’s philosophy in order to understand Hegel’s philosophy, and, more specifically, Plato’s Parmenides in order to understand Hegel’s Logic. Plato’s Parmenides, generally considered his most difficult dialogue, is a concrete whole which can be divided into two. The whole story is a recounting of a fictitious meeting between a
thinking and the arbitrary selection of particular grounds – grounds – or or their opposites – opposites – as as valid.” valid.” Hegel, Hegel’s Hegel, Hegel’s Science of Logic, 58-59. 22 “Plato is often esteemed on account of his myths; he is supposed to have evinced by their means greater genius than other philosophers were capable of. It is contended here that the myths of Plato are superior to the abstract form of expression, and Plato’s Plato’s method of representation is certainly a wonderful one. On closer examination we find that it is partly the impossibility of expressing himself after the manner of pure thought that makes Plato put his meaning so, and also such methods of expression are only used by him in introducing a subject. When he comes to the matter in point, Plato expresses himself otherwise, as we see in the Parmenides, where simple thought determinations are Philosophy, Volume 1 , 87-88. used without imagery.” imagery.” Hegel, Lectures on the History of Philosophy, 23 Philosophy, Volume 2 , 48-49. Hegel, Lectures on the History of Philosophy,
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young Socrates and the aging Parmenides, along with his student Zeno, on the occasion of the latter two visiting Athens. In the first part of the dialogue, after hearing Zeno recite his writings, in which he sought to defend the philosophy of Parmenides, Socrates challenged Zeno and put forth a theory of Forms. In response, Parmenides engaged in a number o off arguments which undercut Socrates’ theory, and to which he was unable to defend against. With this exchange, the first section comes to a close.24 While the second part of the dialogue is not formally delineated, it begins after the above discussion and its tone changes quite drastically. First, Parmenides praises S ocrates’ ocrates’ passion and desire for philosophy, but argues that he is still young and requires more training. Specifically he advises that “there is an art which is called b y the vulgar idle talking, and which is often imagined to be useless; in that you must train a nd exercise yourself, now that you are young, or truth will elude your grasp.” grasp.”25 This “art, “art,”” which requires training, is exactly the dialectic and, in the mouth of Parmenides, Plato proceeds to give the first, consciously explicit detailing of the dialectical method in history: if you want to be trained more thoroughly, thorou ghly, you must not only hypothesize, if i f each thing is, and examine the consequences consequenc es of that hypothesis; you must also hypothesize, if the same thing is not...take as an example ex ample this hypothesis that Zeno entertained: if many are, what must the consequences be both for the many themselves in relation to themselves and in relation to the one, and for the one in relation to itself and in relation to the many? man y? And, in turn, on the hypothesis, if many are not, you must again examine what the consequences will be both for the one o ne and for the many in relation to themselves and in relation to each other...And the same method applies to unlike, to motion, to rest, to generation, to destruction and to being itself and to not- being…And, being…And, in a word, concerning whatever you might ever h ypothesize in relation to itself and in relation to each of the others…and others…and in relation to several of them and to all of them in the same way; and, in turn, you must examine the others, both in relation to themselves and in relation to whatever other thing you select on each occasion, whether what you hypothesize you hypothesize as being or not being. All this th is you must do if, after completing your training, you are to achieve a full view of the truth.26 Here we see the rudiments of the dialectic method: to fully consider a thesis means to look at all of its implications and, hence, its opposite and all of its consequences, both in itself and in its relations. The drive here, in moving through greater distinctions via opposites, is clearly the imperative to move beyond an abstract understanding and reach a comprehensive, concrete outlook, viz. to grasp a thing in its totality. This is undoubtedly one of the difficulties of dialectical logic, but there is no other way to reach truthful cognition.27 24
Plato, “Parmenides,” in Complete Works, eds. John M. Cooper and D. S. Hutchinson (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1997), 369. 25 Plato, “Parmenides,” 379. 26 Plato, “Parmenides,” 370-371. 27 “Dialectical logic demands that we should go further. Firstly, if we are to have a true knowledge of an object we must look at and examine all its i ts facets, its connections and ‘mediacies’. ‘mediacies’ . That is something we cannot ever hope to achieve completely, but the rule of comprehensiveness is a safeguard against mistakes and rigidity. Secondly,
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Consequently, it is fully understandable to read Hegel’s comment comment in response to Parmenides’ proposed Parmenides’ proposed dialectical method that, “The marvellous fact that meets us in thought when we take determinations such as these by themselves, is that each one is turned round into the opposite of itself .” .”28 In other words, the concepts, or o r thought determinations, are taken as inherently contradictory, as including their own op posite which they are constantly flowing into.29 Hegel went onto describe this method in terms which fully apply to his own Logic: Plato thus lays great stress on the dialectical point of view, which is not the point po int of view of the merely external, but is a living point p oint of view whose content is formed of pure thoughts only, whose movement consists in their making themselves the other of themselves, and thus showing that only their unit y is what is truly justified.30 When Hegel spoke of a “point of view” which was “merely external” he was referring to the dialectic of the earlier schools of Greek philosophy. The external or subjective dialectic is one of of reasoning back and forth, unsettling what seems solid. Perfect examples here are a number of Socratic dialogues where Plato has Socrates disrupt pe ople’s common notions. Yet the dialectic pursued here is introduced externally and has no necessary, immanent course: one starting point of attack is as good as another. an other. The higher dialectic is objective or internal-external, for thought follows the material under investigation as it inherently moves itself.31 The further result of the two dialectics is that the first is primarily negative and ends in a nullity. That is to say, each successive thesis or proposition abolishes the preceding one; the conclusion, therefore, is as abstract as the beginning. The true dialectic however shows how each opposite oppo site is necessarily united and develops organically; the movement move ment here is from the abstract to the concrete.32 Plato’s dialectical logic requires that an object should be taken in development, in change, in ‘self -movement’ (as movement’ (as Hegel sometimes puts it). This is not immediately obvious in respect of such an object as a tumbler, but it, too, is in flux, and this holds especially true for its purpose, use and connection with the surrounding world. Thirdly, a full ‘definition’ of ‘definition’ of an object must include the whole of human experience, both as a criterion of truth and a practical indicator of its connection with human wants. Fourthly, d ialectical ialectical logic holds that ‘truth ‘ truth is always concrete, never abstract’, as the late Plekhanov liked to say after Hegel.” V.I. Lenin, “Once Again On The Trade Unions, The Current Situation and the Mistakes of Trotsky and Bukharin,” in V.I. Lenin, Collected Works, Volume 32: December 1920-August 1921 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1973), 94. 28 Philosophy, Volume 2 , 57-58. Hegel, Lectures on the History of Philosophy, 29 “For Heraclitus says: ‘Everything is in a state of flux; nothing subsists nor does it ever remain the same’.” Hegel, Lectures on the History of Philosophy, Philosophy, Volume 1 , 283. 30 Philosophy, Volume 2 , 58. Hegel, Lectures on the History of Philosophy, 31 “Dialectic is either (a) external dialectic, in which this movement is different from the comprehension of the movement, or (b) not a movement of our intelligence only, but what proceeds from the nature of the thing itself, i.e. from the pure Notion of the content. The former is a manner of regarding objects in such a way that reasons are revealed and new light thrown, by means of which all that was supposed to be firmly fixed, is made to totter; there may be reasons which are altogether external too, and we shall speak further of this dialectic when dealing with the Sophists. The other dialectic, however, is the immanent contemplation of the object; it is taken for itself, without previous hypothesis, idea or obligation, not under any outward conditions, laws or causes; we have to put ourselves right into the thing, to consider the object in itself, and to take it in the determinations which it has. In regarding it thus, it shows from itself that it contains opposed determinations, and thus breaks up; this dialectic we more Volume 1 , 264-265. especially find in the ancients.” ancients. ” Hegel, Lectures on the History of Philosophy, Volume 32 “…the “…the Notion of true dialectic is to show forth the necessary movement of pure Notions, without thereby resolving these into nothing; for the result, simply expressed, is that they are this movement, and the universal is just the unity of these opposite Notions….The Notions… .The universal is hence determined as that which resolves and has resolved the contradictions in itself, and hence it is the concrete in itself; thus this sublation of contradiction is the affirmative.
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Parmenides is the one work where wh ere he reached this second, higher dialectic and it is precisely how Hegel understood his own exposition of dialectical logic.33
The rest of the second half of the dialogue is taken up with Parmenides P armenides giving an example of the application of the dialectical method through a discussion with Aristotle. Specifically, Parmenides takes his own philosophy and inquires “about the one itself” and considers “what “what the consequences must be, if it is one or if it is not one.”34 This is the heart of Parmenides and to one who is a newcomer to dialectics, d ialectics, it must seem like a rollercoaster in its 35 blistering transitions. Since there is no need to cover every twist in Plato’s dialectic, some examples will suffice to give the reader an idea of the essence of this dialogue. As always though, a deeper understanding requires directly studying a work and not resting content with a commentary, regardless of how limited or expansive in scop e. Initially Parmenides argues that if the one is, it canno t be many, and therefore it can cannot be a part or a whole. For a part is part of a whole and a whole is composed of parts, and so if one were either it would be many. From this Parmenides goes on to deduce that not having any parts, the one has no beginning, middle, or end. Further, since these are limits, and it does not have them, he asserts thus: “So the one is unlimited if it has neither neither beginning nor end.” end.”36 Dialectic in this higher sense is the really Platonic; as does not conclude with a negative result, for it demonstrates the union of opposites which have speculative it annulled themselves.” Hegel, Lectures on the History of Philosophy, Volume 2, 49-52. 33 “I could not pretend that the method which I f ollow ollow in this system of logic – logic – or or rather which this system in its own self follows – follows – is is not capable of greater completeness, of much elaboration in detail; but at the same time I know that it is the only true method. This is self-evident simply from the fact that it is not something distinct from its object and content; for it is the inwardness of the content, the dialectic which it possesses within itself, which is the mainspring of its advance. It is clear that no expositions can be accepted as scientifically valid which do not pursue the course of this method and do not conform to its simple rhythm, for this is the course of the subject matter itself.” Hegel, Hegel’s Hegel, Hegel’s Science of Logic, Logic , 54. 34 Plato, “Parmenides,” 371. 35 The primary difficulty in thinking dialectically lies in the struggle to think in pure abstractions without referral to some figurate concept or sensuous form: for example, a rose, a house, or even a triangle. Thus Hegel wrote in the introduction to his Science of Logic : “It “It is in this dialectic as it is here understood, that is, in the grasping of opposites in their unity or of the positive in the negative, that speculative thought consists. It is the most important aspect of dialectic, but for thinking which is as yet unpractised and unfree it is the most difficult. Such thinking, if it is still engaged in breaking itself of the habit of employing sensuously concrete terms and of ratiocination, must first practise abstract thinking, hold fast Notions in t heir determinateness and learn to cognize by means of them.” them. ” See, Hegel, Hegel’s Hegel, Hegel’s Science of Logic, Logic, 56-57. Or, as Hegel noted in his last lectures on logic: “Yet as a subject matter it is nonetheless difficult. Unlike botany, physics, or minerology, logic has nothing to do with sensory intuition. The activity of tasting or feeling is sensory, while thinking soars above of any sensory object. With the onset of thinking, all mere seeing and hearing must pass away. In thinking we surrender our firm hold on all the representations of sensory objects with which we are familiar. All such representations must be put aside as we take up the pure element of thinking…The thinking…The subject matter of logic, however, is still more abstract than that of geometry, and is indeed known for its difficulty. We are not used to moving about in such rarified stratospheres and must acclimate ourselves to them. We must hold on tight and persist as we steer our poor vessel off into the vicinity of such abstractions. What is involved here is the strain of negation, of putting all sensation off to the side and of keeping our own bright ideas to ourselves. In doing so we must truly strain. ” Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Lectures on Logic: Berlin, 1831, tran. Clark Butler (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2008), 1-2. What else is Hegel describing, but a lack of training in dialectical reasoning? This is, consequently, also the reason why the first chapter of Marx’s Capital is the most difficult, and, further, proves Lenin’s contention that a lack of awareness of Hegel’s Logic prevents all Marxists from fully understanding Marx. But this will be discussed in greater detail below. 36 Plato, “Parmenides,” 372.
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Later on Parmenides points out that if one o ne is, it must have being, and so he distinguishes between one and being. Therefore he observes that “‘is’ signifies something other than ‘one’,” and that “whenever someone, being brief, says sa ys ‘one is’” that it would “simply mean that one partakes of 37 being.” Setting down such a principle, Parmenides proceeds: “Let’s again say what the consequences will be, if one is. Consider whether this hypothesis must not signify that the one is such as to have parts.”38 This is, of course, directly contrary to what he had previously deduced and Ar istotle istotle rightly asks “How so?” Parmenides so?” Parmenides then replies: In this way: if we state the ‘is’ of the one that is, and the ‘one’ of that which is one, and if being and oneness are not the same, but both belong to that same thing that we hypothesized, namely, the one that is, must it not itself, since it is one being, b e a whole, and the parts of this whole be oneness and being?39 To this Aristotle readily agrees and so Parmenides asks “Shall we call each of these two parts a part only, or must the part be called part of the whole?”40 Finding his interlocutor’s assent, Parmenides concludes that “Therefore whatever is one both is a whole and has a part.”41 From this he d raws raws out further contraries of the “one” such as such as in having parts it must have limits, and having limits it must have a beginning, middle, and end, etc.42 Numerous others examples could be presented, but it must be recognised that the work is bursting with sparkling instances of dialectical transitions. One simply cannot read this dialogue and not agree with Hegel’s veneration of it. In drawing the dialogue to a close, Plato simultaneously summarised the total development and displayed the epitome of dialectical reasoning: “Let us then say this – and and also that, as it seems, whether one is or is not, it and the others both are and are not, and both appear and do not appear appea r all things in all ways, both in relation to themselves and in relation to each 43 other.” This concrete statement points to the fact that there is no t merely a dialectic of ideas, but that reality itself is dialectical. dialectical. The categories flow into each other, pass into their opposite, and so do the phenomena for which they represent. Hence, the concept of being is bounded by non-being, and existence itself is bounded by non-existence. Yet, this specific perspective was not novel. It had already been enunciated by Heraclitus who wrote that, “We “We step and do not step 44 into the same rivers; we are and are not.” not.” He was the first Greek philosopher to explicitly stress the dialectical structure of all reality. Therefore, when Hegel stated that he had adopted all of Heraclitus’ propositions in his own Logic, he could also have said as much for Plato. Hegel’s commentary on the latter is absolutely crucial:
37
Ibid., 376. Ibid., 376 39 Ibid, 376. 40 Ibid., 376. 41 Ibid., 376. 42 Ibid., 378. 43 Ibid., 397. 44 Translation with a Heraclitus, “Fragment 49a,” in T.M. Robinson, Heraclitus, Fragments: A Text and Translation Commentary (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2003), 35. 38
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That is, he grasped the Absolute as the unity of Being and non-being – non-being – in in Becoming, as Heraclitus says – says – or or of the one and the many, &c. He further now took into the objective dialectic of Heraclitus the Eleatic dialectic, which is the ex ternal endeavour of the subject to show forth contradiction, so that in place of an external changing of things, their inward transition in themselves, i.e. in their Ideas, or, as the y are here, in their categories, has come to pass out of and through themselves…The previous philosophies thus do not disappear because refuted by Plato, being absorbed in him.45 Here Hegel clearly argued that Plato’s philosoph y was essentially was essentially a historical, totalising, dialectical system i.e. one which was just like his own. However, since Plato was at the beginning of scientific philosophy, the development of his system was not carried out with the same clarity of consciousness as in Hegel’s case. case. Thus Plato, frequently fell back into the external, negative dialectic, and relied on myths as a starting point of his investigation.46 Since it is only in the Parmenides that Plato reaches the zenith z enith of dialectic, this dialogue is a microcosm of his philosophy philosophy in the same way that Hegel’s Logic is a microcosm of his entire system. This conceptual whole moves from the ab stract to the concrete and encompasses encompa sses the flow of opposites into each other. Yet what is the exact mechanism of this process? Or, in other words, what are the building blocks of the system? Plato’s Parmenides deals with the dialectical interaction between categories or, as Hegel said above, the “dialectic “dialectic which moves in pure 47 Notions – Notions – the the movement of the speculatively logical.” Yet these categories, these notions, are not presented on their own viz. as bare words with no syntax. Rather, they are united and move through a vast linguistic structure. More specifically, Parmenides progresses though a diversity of propositions, judgements, and syllogisms which move through opposition i.e. the dialectic.48 Accordingly, Plato starts with the abstract proposition “the one is,” and proceeds and proceeds to produce, as was shown above, opposing propositions, judgmen ts, and syllogisms.49 This is precisely the concrete whole.
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Philosophy, Volume 2 , 54. Hegel, Lectures on the History of Philosophy, “We certainly do not find in Plato a full consciousness that this is the nature of dialectic, but we find dialectic itself present; that is, we find absolute existence thus recognized in pure Notions, and the representation of the movement of these Notions. What makes the study of the Platonic dialectic difficult is the development and the manifestation of the universal out of ordinary conceptions. ” Ibid., 49-50. 49-50. 47 Ibid., 48-49. 48 “We are far from accepting, in our ordinary conception of things, quite abstract determinations such as the one, Being, non-being, appearance, rest, movement, &c., as Ideas; but these universals are taken by Plato as Ideas, and this Dialogue thus really contains the pure Platonic doctrine of Ideas. He shows of the one that when it is as well as when it is not, whether like itself or not like itself, both in movement and rest, origination and decay, it both is and is not; or the unity as well as all these pure Ideas both are and are not, the one is one as much as it is many. In the proposition proposition ‘the one is,’ it is also implied that ‘the one is not one but many;’ and, conversely, ‘the many is’ also indicates that ‘the many is not many, but one.’ They one.’ They show themselves dialectically and are really the identity with their ‘other;’ and this is the truth. An example is given in Becoming: in Becoming Being and non-being are in inseparable unity, and yet they are also present there as distinguished; for Becoming only exists because the one passes into the other.” other.” Ibid., 59-60. 59-60. 49 “After removing from the One the various determinations of whole and parts, of being-within-itself, of being-inanother, etc., of shape, time, etc., he reaches the result that being does not belong to the One, for being belongs to any particular something only in one of these modes. Plato next deals with the proposition: the One is, and we should refer to Plato himself to see how, starting from this proposition, he accomplishes the transition to the non46
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The movement of dialectical logic can occur in no other way. For, according to Hegel, “ propositions are thoughts which, in order to be pure, must be brought forward as such.” such.”50 However, propositions, including those in the form o f judgements, are unable to adequately adequatel y express dialectical logic. Hegel discussed this matter extensively in his Science of Logic, with regards to his proposition that being is nothing: Another contributory reason for the repugnance to the proposition about being and nothing must be mentioned; this is that the result of considering bein g and nothing, as expressed in the statement: being and nothing are one and the same, is incomplete. The emphasis is laid chiefly on their being one and the same, as in judgments generally, g enerally, where it is the predicate that first states what the subject is. Consequently, t he sense seems to be that the difference is denied, although at the same time it appears app ears directly in the proposition; for this enunciates both determinations, being and nothing, and contains them as distinguished… Now in so far as the proposition: being and nothing are the same, asserts the identity of these determinations, but, in fact, equally contains them both as distinguished, the proposition is self-contradictory and cancels itself out. Bearing this in mind and looking at the proposition p roposition more closely, we find that it has a mov ement which involves the spontaneous vanishing of the proposition itself. But in thus vanishing, there takes place in it that which is to constitute its own peculiar content, namely, becoming. The proposition thus contains the result, it is this in its own self. But the fact to which we must pay attention here is the defect that the result is not itself expressed in the proposition; it is an external reflection which discerns discerns it therein. In this connection we must, at the outset, make this general observation, namely, th at the proposition in the form of a judgment is not suited to express speculative truths…Judgment truths…Judgment is an identical relation between subject and predicate; in it we abstract from the fact that the subject has a number of determinatenesses other than that of the predicate, and also that the predicate is more extensive than the subject. Now if the content is speculative, the non-identical aspect of subject and predicate is also an a n essential moment, but in the judgment this is not expressed … To help express the speculative truth, the d eficiency is made good in the th e first place by adding the contrary proposition: being and no thing are not the same, which is also enunciated as above. But thus there arises the further defect that these propositions are not connected, and therefore exhibit their content only in the form of an antinomy whereas their content refers to one and the s ame thing, and the determinations which are expressed in the two propositions are supposed to be in complete union – union – a a union which can only be stated as an unrest of of incompatibles, as a movement. The commonest
being of the One. He does it by comparing the two determinations of t he proposition put forward: the One is…it contains the One and being, being, and ‘the One is’ contains more than when we only say: the One. It is through their being different that the moment of negation contained in the proposition is demonstrated.” Hegel, Hegel’s S cience cience of Logic, 100-101. 50 Philosophy, Volume 2 , 19-20. Hegel, Lectures on the History of Philosophy,
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injustice done to a speculative content is to make it one-sided, that is, to give prominence only to one of the propositions into which it can be resolved. 51 Propositions, more so as judgements, are the nec essary form in which the categories of reason appear. However, because the judgement, as the equation of subject and predicate, highlights unity over division, it is unable to express what Hegel called the speculative truth.52 He referred to the latter as “absolute knowledge,” that is to “know “know opposition in unity, and unity in 53 opposition.” opposition.” In order to remedy this, recourse must be b e had to counter propositions and judgements, but this merely replicates the same problem of abstract one-sidedness. To truly address this insufficiency the opposing sides must be sublated into a syllogism. Despite this, the progression cannot end and must continue in order to overcome the eventual one-sidedness of any specific syllogism.54 The essence of the matter, then, is movement. The truth is concrete, but the concrete is a process.55 Hence truth can only be grasped as an ongoing process. As Engels wrote long ago: All social philosophy, as long as it still propounds a few p rinciples as its final conclusion, as long as it continues to administer Morison’s pills, remains very imperfect; it is not the bare conclusions of which we are in such need, but rather study; the conclusions are nothing without the reasoning that has led up to them; this we have known since Hegel; and the conclusions are worse than useless if they are final in themselves, if they are not turned into premises for further deductions.56 The dialectic is continuous, and yet to focus only on movement would be to miss each stage, viz. to fall into one-sidedness. For the process is exactly mad e up of stages: one must continuously sublate the other. Further, in dialectical logic the result of each stage is a conceptual co nceptual definition.
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Hegel, Hegel’s Hegel, Hegel’s Science of Logic, Logic , 90-91. rational apprehends the unity of the determinations in their opposition, the “The speculative or positively rational affirmative that is contained in their dissolution and in their transition. (1) The dialectic has a positive result, because it has a determinate content , or because its result is truly not empty, abstract nothing , but the negation of certain determinations, which are contained in the result precisely because it is not an immediate nothing , but a result. (2) Hence this rational [result], although it is something-thought and something-abstract, is at the same time somethingconcrete, because it is not simple, formal unity, but a unity of distinct determinations . For this reason philosophy does not deal with mere abstractions or formal thoughts at all, but only with concrete thoughts.” Hegel, The Encyclopaedia Logic, 131. 53 Philosophy, Volume 3: Medieval and Modern Modern Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Lectures on the History of Philosophy, Philosophy, trans. E.S. Haldane and Frances H. Simson (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1995), 551. 54 “The dialectic…is the immanent transcending, transcending, in which the one-sidedness and restrictedness of the determinations of the understanding displays itself as what it is, i.e., as their negation. That is what everything finite is: its own sublation. Hence, the dialectical constitutes the moving soul of scientific progression, and it is the principle through which alone immanent coherence and necessity enter into the content of science, just as all genuine, nonexternal elevation above the finite is to be found in this principle.” principle. ” Hegel, The Encyclopaedia Logic , 128. 55 By now it should be noted that the statement stat ement “the truth is concrete,” is precisely a judgement and, therefore, is still abstract . Inherently, then, it can only ever express an aspect of of the dialectic. To quote Hegel: “Since “Since the Idea is (a) process, the expression of the the Absolute as ‘the ‘ the unity of the finite and the infinite, infini te, of thinking and being, etc.’ is etc.’ is false (as we have often said); for ‘unity’ expresses ‘unity’ expresses an abstract, quietly persisting identity.” Ibid., 290. 56 Frederick Engels, “A review of Past and Present, by Thomas Car lyle, lyle, London, 1843,” 1843, ” accessed 5 January 5 January 2018, https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/df-jahrbucher/carlyle.htm. 52
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The implication is that a single definition of an ything is impossible.57 To truly define something would mean to grasp the thing in its entirety: in its genesis, development, and passing awa y, viz. as previously stated, as a moving concrete totalit y. A definition is precisely a proposition or judgement. This is why judgements must proceed towards syllogisms, which is a necessary transition from the abstract to the concrete.58 To quote the Soviet Marxist E.V. Ilyenkov more fully: The concreteness of a concept lies, according ac cording to Hegel, in the unity un ity of definitions, their meaningful cohesion – cohesion – the the only means of revealing the content of a concept. Out of context, an individual verbal definition is abstract and abstract only. Immersed into the context of a scientific theoretical discourse, any abstract definition becomes concrete. The genuine sense, genuine content of each abstract definition taken separately is revealed through its links with other definitions of the same kind, through a concrete unity of abstract definitions. The concrete essence of a problem is therefore always expressed through unfolding all the necessary definitions of the object in their mutual connections rather than through an abstract ‘definition’. That is why a concept, according ac cording to Hegel, does not exist ex ist as a separate word, term, or symbol. It exists only in the process of unfolding in a proposition, in a syllogism expressing connectedness of separate definitions, and ultimately only in a system of propositions and syllogisms, only in an integral, integral, well-developed theory. If a concept is pulled out of this connection, what remains of it is mere verbal integument, a linguistic symbol. The content of the concept, its meaning, remains outside it-in series of other
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“The concretisation of the general definition of Logic presented above must obviously consist in disclosing the concepts composing it, above all the concept of thought (thinking). Here again a purely dialectical difficulty arises, namely, that to define this concept fully, i.e. concretely, also means to ‘write’ Logic, because a full description cannot by any means be given by a ‘definition’ but only by ‘developing the essence of the matter’.” E.V. Ilyenkov, Dialectical Logic: Essays Essays on Its History and Theory (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1977), 9. 58 “ But what is thought? It goes without saying, Hegel replied (and one again has to agree with him), that the sole satisfactory answer can only be an exposition of the heart of the matter, i.e. a concretely developed theory, a science of thought , a ‘science of logic’, and not an ordinary definition. (Compare Engels’ view in Anti-Duhring: ‘Our definition of life is naturally very inadequate....All definitions are of little value. In order to gain an exhaustive knowledge of what life is, we should have to go through all the forms in which it appears, from the lowest to the highest.’ And later: ‘To science definitions are worthless because always inadequate. The only real definition is the development of the thing itself, but this is no longer a definition.’” Ibid., 165-166. 165-166. This is the very reason why Hegel famously began his preface to the Phenomenology with the observation that a preface to a work of philosophy, where truth must take a systematic form, is quite incorrect: “ In the case of a philosophical work it seems not only superfluous, but, in view of the nature of philosophy, even inappropriate and misleading to begin, as writers usually do in a preface, by explaining the end the author had in mind, the circumstances which gave rise to the work, and the relation in which the writer takes it to stand to other treatises on the same subject, written by his predecessors or his contemporaries. For whatever it might be suitable to state about philosophy in a preface – say, say, an historical sketch of the main drift and point of view, t he general content and results, a string of desultory assertions and assurances about the truth – truth – this this cannot be accepted as the form and manner in which to expound philosophical truth. ” Hegel, Phenomenology, 67.
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definitions, for a word taken separately is only capable of designating an object, naming it, it is only capable of serving as a sign, symbol, marker, or symptom.59 Here Ilyenkov has perfectly described, or rather explained, the development of Plato’s Parmenides, Hegel’s Logic, and, as I will show below, below, Marx’s analysis of the commodity via the dialectical transitions of propositions, judgements, and syllogisms. Here each moment necessarily “refutes” or “supplants” the previous one, the “pure notions” or abstract definitions pass into their opposites, and all are eventually subsumed and combined into a totality, a concrete whole. In Hegel’s perspective, this perspective, this is rooted in the very nature of human cognition. Thus he stated that “Thinking is, in general, the apprehension and bringing together of the manifold into unity. The manifold as such belongs to externality in general, to Feeling and Sensuous Intuition.” Intuition.”60 This unity is achieved in the first place by b y means abstraction: “Thinking “Thinking is Abstraction in so far as intelligence, starting with concrete intuitions, neglects one of the manifold determinations, selects another, and gives to it the simple form of Thought.” Thought.”61 Hegel therefore describes the activity of abstraction as “the “the negative side of Thinking.” Thinking.”62 This initial unity is, consequently, an abstract unity, and so thought must move onwards: The concrete is the unity of diverse determinations and principles; these, in order to be perfected, in order to come definitely before the consciousness, must first first of all be presented separately. Thereby they of course acquire an aspect of one-sidedness in comparison with the higher principle which follows: this, nevertheless, does not annihilate them, nor even leave them where they were, but takes them up into itself as moments.63 The abstract, negative process of unification via division thus prepares the way for the concrete, diverse, and positive unification. But this is not a mere temporal shift between division and unity, for both are always indissolubly united. Hegel ha d argued that thinking is unifying via abstraction. But the simplest statement, the judgement, is itself an act of di vision. Here we have dialectics right at the very beginning, in the most basic propositions viz., the one is, the one is not many; or, in the case of Hegel, being is nothing or the rose is red.64 The dialectics of human 59
E.V. Ilyenkov, The Dialectics of the Abstract and the Concrete in Marx’s Capital (Moscow: Capital (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1982), 26-27. 60 G.W.F. Hegel, The Philosophical Propaedeutic , tran. A.V. Miller (Oxford: Basil Blackwood Ltd., 1986), 74. 61 Ibid., 75. 62 Ibid., 75. 63 Philosophy, Volume 2 , 13-14. Hegel, Lectures on the History of Philosophy, 64 “If we take the simplest of sensory judgments – judgments – for for example, the rose is red – red – what what lies before consciousness is in appearance totally sensory. Yet the is in this judgment is already something of a different and non-sensory nature. There is nothing sensory about being, it is already something quite different. Further, the rose and what is red, as we find them before us in sensation, are one, while it is I who introduce difference or division between them. What lies ready at hand is simple and undivided. It is I who differentiate and divide – I I am the source of judging [urteilen] and of the act of dividing [ ein Teilen]. This judgment belongs to me as to the one who apprehends [what is simple by introducing division]. But what is more, if I say ‘red’, ‘red’ , the predicate expresses a universal characteristic that at once belongs to blood and various other objects. Yet what I have before me is only a singular re d, this determinate red thing. Yet this same red also assumes the character of universality which at once belongs to me…But one is no more able to single out color in general in contrast to any singular color than to refer to the animal in general as opposed
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cognition, then, are such that it is always uniting and dividing, both over time and in every instance; though Hegel was correct to posit that the dominant trend is towards unification.65 Following Hegel, Marx also held that the concrete was a unity of diverse aspects. In his economic notebooks of the late 1850s, known as the Grundrisse, Marx briefly discussed his dialectical method in regards to political economy: It seems to be correct to begin with the real and the concrete, with the real precondition, thus to begin, in economics, with e.g. the population, which is the foundation and the subject of the entire social act of production. However, on closer examination this proves false. The population is an abstraction if I leave out, for example, the classes of which it is composed. These classes in turn are an empt y phrase if I am not familiar with the elements on which they rest. E.g. wage lab our, capital, etc. These latter in turn presuppose exchange, division of labour, prices, etc. For example, capital is nothing without wage labour, without value, money, mone y, price etc. Thus, if I were to begin be gin with the population, this would be a chaotic conception [Vorstellung] of the whole, and I would then, by means of further determination, move analytically towards ever more simple concepts [ Begriff Begriff ], ], from the imagined concrete towards ever thinner abstractions until I had arrived at the simplest determinations. From there the journe y would have to be retraced until I had finally arrived at the popu lation again, but this time not as the chaotic ch aotic conception of a whole, but as a rich totality of many determinations and relations. The former is the path historically followed by economics at the time of its origins. The economists of the seventeenth century, e.g., alwa ys begin with the living whole, with population, nation, state, several states, etc.; but they always conclude by discovering through analysis a small number of determinant, abstract, general relations such as division of labour, money, value, etc. As soon as these individual moments had been more or less firmly established and abstracted, there began the economic systems, which ascended from the simple relations, such as labour, division of labour, need, exchange value, to the level of the state, exchange between nations and the world market. The latter is obviously the scientifically correct method. The concrete is con crete because it is the concentration of many determinations, hence unity of the diverse. It appears in the process of thinking, therefore, as a process of concentration, as a result, not as a point of departure, even though it is the point of departure in reality and hence also the point of departure for observation [ Anschauung Anschauung] and conception. Along the first path the full conception was evaporated to yield an abstract determination; along the second, the abstract determinations lead towards a reproduction of the concrete b y way of thought. In this way Hegel fell into the illusion of conceiving the real as the product of o f thought concentrating itself, probing its own depths, and unfolding itself out of itself, by itself,
to referring to this dog or this elephant. The elephant in general, the dog in general, the species does not objectively , Lectures on Logic, exist. The genus is something still more general, which once onc e again falls to me as subject.” Hegel , 2. 65 “Analysis and synthesis are (and have always been) just as indissoluble internal opposites of the process of Concrete , 165. thinking as deduction and induction. ” Ilyenkov, Dialectics of the Abstract and the Concrete
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whereas the method of rising from the abstract to the concrete is only the way in which thought appropriates the concrete, reproduces it as the concrete in the mind.66 Marx, in this extract, portrayed the historical development o f the science of political economy as a movement from the concrete to the abstract, and yet he stated that only the reverse movement was “obviously “obviously the scientifically correct method.” method.” Why? Marx pointed out that the object of study is “the real and the concrete,” concrete,” viz. that which “retains its autonomous existence outside the head.” As such it stands as the “ point of departure in reality and hence also the point of departure for observation and conception,” conception,” i.e. study, investigation. Therefore we must move from the concrete to the abstract in order to fully full y understand the different aspects or determinations, and their relations. Nonetheless, what is real does not ex ist in abstract, one-sided separation: in Hegel’s example, the red rose; or in Marx’s, the actual population of a specific country. countr y. The true theoretical, scientifically valid representation of objective reality can only o ccur, then, by means of the counter movement from the abstract to the concrete i.e. the reproduction in human cognition of the real concrete.67 It is significant that Marx emphasised that, while the concrete is the beginning of study, it only appears in thought as a result . Thus he distinguished between the real concrete and the ideal concrete, and this is the basis for his critical comments on Hegel. Yet it is certainly not the case that Hegel misunderstood that distinction, for he expressly cautioned th at, it
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Karl Marx, Grundrisse: Foundations of the Critique of Political Economy , tran. Martin Nicolaus (New York: Vintage Books, 1973), 100-101. 67 “The reduction of the concrete fullness of reality to its abridged (abstract) expression in consciousness is, selfobviously, a prerequisite and a condition without which no special theoretical research can either proceed or even begin. Moreover, this reduction is not only a prerequisite or historical condition of t heoretical assimilation of the world but also an organic element of the process itself of constructing a system of scientific definitions, that is, of the mind’s synthesising activity…In activity… In other words, one can say that the ascent from the concrete to the abstract and the ascent from the abstract to the concrete, are two mutually assuming forms of theoretical assimilation of the world, of abstract thinking. Each of them is reali sed only through its opposite and in unity with it. And still why did Marx, taking all this into account, define the ascent from the abstract to the concrete as the only possible and scientifically correct mode of theoretical assimilation (reflection) of the world? The reason is that dialectics, as distinct from eclecticism, does not reason on the ‘on-the-one-hand, ‘on -the-one-hand, on-the-other-hand’ on-the-other-hand’ principle but always points out the determining aspect, that element in the unity of opposites which is in the given instance the leading or determining one. That is an axiom of dialectics. The specific and characteristic feature of theoretical assimilation (as distinct from mere empirical familiarity with facts) is that each separate abstraction is formed within the general movement of research towards a fuller and more comprehensive, that is, concrete, conception of the object. Each separate generalisation (according to the formula ‘from the concrete to the abstract’) has a meaning only on condition that it is a step on the way to concrete comprehension of reality, along the way of ascending from an abstract abstract reflection of the object in thought to its increasingly concrete expression in the concept….The abstract from this standpoint proves to be merely a means of the theoretical process rather than its goal, while each separate act of generalisation (that is, of the reduction of the concrete to the abstract) emerges as a subordinate, disappearing moment of the overall movement. In the language ‘a disappearing moment’ is one that has no significance by itself, divorced from the other moments - it is only significant in connection with these, in living interaction with them, in transition…Precisely because Marx was a dialectician, he did not restrict himself to a mere statement of the fact that in theoretical thought both movement from the concrete to the abstract and from the abstract to the concrete take place, but singled out first of all that form of the movement of thought which in the given instance proves to be the principal and dominant one, determining the weight and significance of the ot her, the opposite one. Such is the for m of ascent from the abstract to the concrete in special theoretical studies. It is therefore a specific form of theoretical Abstract and the Concrete , 137-139. thought.” thought.” Ilyenkov, Dialectics of the Abstract
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must not be understood as though this unity un ity was first added to the manifold of external ex ternal objects by Thinking, and the linking was only introduced externally. On the contrary the unity belongs equally to the Object [Objekt ] and, with its determinations, constitutes the proper nature thereof.68 Rather Hegel’s mistake lay in immediately identifying both in the form of t he Absolute Idea or God. As Marx wrote: “the movement of the categories appears as the real act of production,” but, this is only “correct in so far as the concrete co ncrete totality is a totality of thoughts, concrete in thought, in fact a product of thinking and comprehending.”69 However, to see the concrete as a product was not true in the sense that it was “a product of the concept which thinks and generates itself outside or above obser vation vation and conception.”70 Here we see the essential distinction between the Marxian and Hegelian understanding of the concrete. For Marx the ideal concrete is an active reflection of the real concrete, “a product…of produ ct…of the working-up working-up of observation and conception into 71 concepts.” While for Hegel the real concrete is a passive reflection of the ideal concrete viz. the world is God’s creation.72 In other words, in Hegel’s Hegel’s view, thought resolves its own contradictions i.e. it moves itself. But, for Marx, thought onl y moves because of human activity, a ctivity, i.e. the real basis of cognition. Hegel’s mature system of philosophy begins with logic and he starts his Science of Logic with the category of Being: “ Being, pure being, without without any further determination.”73 In presenting Being i.e. in defining Being, Hegel wrote that it “is “is pure indeterminateness and emptiness.” emptiness.”74 As the successive categories of the Logic are the different aspects of God or the Absolute, so “Being” is the earliest, initial definition of the latter.75 Consequently, Hegel’s Logic is simultaneously the unfolding, the development of his d ialectical logic, of God himself, and of the essence of the history of philosophy. philosoph y.76 As I noted above, Hegel then transitions to the proposition that “ Nothing is, therefore, the same determination, or rather absence of 68
Hegel, Philosophical Propaedeutic , 75. Marx, Grundrisse, 101. 70 Ibid., 101. 71 Ibid., 101. 72 Marx repeated this idea in the afterword to the second German edition of Capital (1873): (1873): “My “My dialectic method is not only different from the Hegelian, but is its direct opposite. To Hegel, the life process of the human brain, i.e., the process of think ing, ing, which, under the name of ‘the Idea,’ he Idea,’ he even transforms into an independent subject, is the demiurgos of the real world, and the real world is only the external, phenomenal form of ‘the Idea.’ With Idea.’ With me, on the contrary, the ideal is nothing else than the material world reflected by the human mind, and translated into forms of thought.” thought.” Marx, Capital, 29. 73 Logic, 82. Hegel, Hegel’s Hegel, Hegel’s Science of Logic 74 Ibid., 82. 75 “If being is enunciated as a predicate of the Absolute, then we have as its first definition: ‘The Absolute is being’. This is the definition that is (in thought) absolutely initial, the most abstract and the poorest. It is the definition given by the Eleatics, but at the same time it is the familiar [assertion] that God is is the essential sum of all realities .” Hegel, The Encyclopaedia Logic , 137. 76 “We find the various stages of the logical Idea in the history of philosophy in the shape of a succession of emerging philosophical systems, each of which has a particular definition of the Absolute as its foundation. Just as the unfolding of the logical Idea proves to be an advance from the abstract to the concrete, so the earliest systems in the history of philosophy are the most abstract and therefore at the same time the poorest. But the relationship of the earlier to the later philosophical systems is in general the same as the relationship of the earlier to the later stages of the logical Idea; that is to say, the earlier systems are contained sublated within the later ones. ” Ibid., 138. 69
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determination, and thus altogether the same as, pure being,” and, further, that “Pure Being and pure nothing are, therefore, the same.” same.”77 From this Hegel concluded that it is equally true that they are not undistinguished from each other, that, on the contrary, they are not the same, that they are absolutely distinct, and yet that they are unseparated and inseparable and that each immediately vanishes in its opposite. Their truth is, therefore, this movement of the immediate vanishing of the o ne into the other: becoming, a movement in which both are distinguished, but by a difference which has equally immediately resolved itself.78 This motion, this ascent from the abstract to the co ncrete, is then replicated over and over as the Logic progresses viz. a dialectical transition between categories by means of successively opposed propositions, judgements, and syllogisms: Being, Essence, Notion, and their various sub-divisions of Quality, Quantity, Measure, Reflection, Appearance, Actuality, Subject, Object, and The Idea. Interestingly, although Hegel’s Logic moves in this manner, it is only o nly later that he directly deals with the basic structure. That is to say, his discussion only takes place in the third division of logic, the Notion. The latter is divided between three sections and the first, Subjectivity, consists of three chapters: the Notion, the Jud gement, and the Syllogism. Therefore in speaking of these three, Hegel returns to the beginning. For what was w as implicit at the start, becomes explicit only later on. In going forward, Hegel thus moves backwards. But, more importantly, it is exactly these three sections which Marx especially paralleled in his analysis of the value-form, i.e. of the development of the commodity. Before developing this argument further, some general points must be made. The importance of Hegel for the development of Marx’s thought has long been known and commented upon. This is especially true in re gards to his critique of political economy. In fact, it was Engels who first publicly explained the con nection between the two thinkers when he wrote in 1859 that Marx was and is the only one who could undertake the work of extracting from the Hegelian logic the nucleus containing Hegel’s He gel’s real discoveries in this field, and of establishing the dialectical method, divested of its idealist wrappings, in the simple form in which it becomes the only correct mode of conceptual evolution. The working out of the method which underlies Marx’s critique of political economy is, we think, a result hardly less significant than the basic materialist conception.79 Marx himself also commented on his debt to Hegel when he wrote in 1873 that he had
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Hegel, Hegel’s Hegel, Hegel’s Science of Logic, Logic , 82. Ibid., 83. 79 Engels, “Karl Marx, ‘A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy’,” 224Economy’,” 224-225; 225; “After “After allowance has been made for all this, there still remains Hegelian dialectics. It is the merit of Marx that, in contrast to the ‘ peevish, arrogant, mediocre Epigonoi who now talk large in Germany’, he was the first to have brought to the fore again the forgotten dialectical method, its connection with Hegelian dialectics and its distinction from the latter, and at the same time to have applied this method in Capital to the facts of an empirical science, political economy.” economy. ” Engels, Dialectics of Nature, 47-48. 78
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criticized the mystificatory side of the Hegelian dialectic nearly thirty years ago, at a time when it was still the fashion. But just when I was working at the first volume of Capital, the ill-humored, arrogant and mediocre epigones who now talk large in educated German circles began to take pleasure in treating Hegel in the same way as the good Moses Mendelssohn treated treated Spinoza in Lessing’s time, namely as a ‘dead dog’. I therefore th erefore 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 mode of expression peculiar to him. The mystification mystification which the dialectic suffers in Hegel’s hands b y no means prevents him from being the first to present its general forms of motion in a comprehensive and conscious manner. With him it is standing on its head. It must be inverted, in order to discover the rational kernel within the mystical shell.80 It should not be lost sight of the fact the while Marx emphasised that his “dialectic “ dialectic method is not He gel was the first only different from the Hegelian, but is its direct opposite,” opposite,” he also noted that Hegel to present present the dialectic’s “general “general forms of motion.” motion.” This obviously refers to the laws and categories of dialectics, along with the movement from the abstract to the concrete. All this Marx and Engels took over from Hegel i.e. the “nucleus” of his system. s ystem. The difference between the two methods being, certainly, certainly, what Engels referred to as the “materialist conception of 81 history.” Finally, Marx essentially repeated these points in 1875, in an unpublished unp ublished footnote to the second volume of Capital: In a review of the first volume of this work, Dr. Dü hring notes that my loyal adherence to the framework of Hegelian logic goes so far that I even discover Hegelian figures of the syllogism in the forms of circulation. My relationship to Hegel’s dialectic is very simple. Hegel is my teacher and the clever minded epigone-babble which believes it has eliminated this eminent thinker is simply ridiculous to me. However, I hav e taken the liberty of acting critical towards my teacher, stripping his dialectic of its mysticism and thereby changing it fundamentally. etc etc.82
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Political Economy, Volume One , tran. Ben Fowkes (New York: Vintage Books, Karl Marx , Capital: A Critique of Political 1977), 102-103. 81 Engels, “Karl Marx, ‘A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy’,” 220. 82 “In einer Recension des ersten Bandes dieses Werks bemerkt Dr. Dühring, daß meine treue Anhänglichkeit an das Skelett der hegelschen Logik so weit geht, daß ich sogar in den Cirkulationsformen Hegelsche Schlußfiguren entdecke. Mein Verhältniß zu Hegel's Dialektik ist sehr einfach. Hegel ist mein Lehrer u. das klugthuende Epigonen-Geschwätz, das diesen eminenten Denker beseitigt zu haben meint, ist mir einfach lächerlich. Ich habe mir jedoch die Freiheit genommen, mich zu meinem Lehrer kritisch zu verhalten, seine Dialektik ihres Mysticismus zu entkleiden u. sie dadurch wesentlich zu verändern. etc etc” Karl Marx, “Marx -Engels-Gesamtausgabe (MEGA) II/11: “Das Kapital,” 2. Band Manuskripte 18681868 -81,” accessed 9 January 2018, http://telota.bbaw.de/mega/. Marx http://telota.bbaw.de/mega/. Marx had previously commented on his method in connection with Dühring in a letter to his friend Dr. Kugelmann (1868): “By the way, half intentionally and half from lack of insight, he has perpetrated some frauds. He knows very well that my method of argument is not Hegelian, since I am a materialist, Hegel an idealist. Hegel’s dialectic is basis of all dialectic, but only after the disposal of its mystical form, and precisely this differentiates my method.” See, Karl Marx, Marx, “Marx “Marx to Kugelmann, Kugelmann, March 6,” in 6,” in Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Letters Engels, Letters on ‘Capital’ , tran. Andrew Drummond (London: New Park Publications, 1983), 126. He had used a similar phrasing in Capital. There he wrote that “Hegelian ‘contradiction’…is the source of all dialectics.” See, Marx, Capital: A Critique of Political Economy , 744.
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The first thing that strikes one in reading the above quotations is the repetition of basic themes in regards to the Marx-Hegel relationship: Hegel is the teacher, Marx the student. Hegel pioneered modern dialectic, but in a mystical, m ystical, idealist form. Marx critically appropriated it and transformed it into a scientific method by understanding it mate rialistically and historically.83 It is very apparent, then, that Marx was quite clear about where he stood in relation to Hegel. The second thing which sticks out is his reference to discovering “Hegelian figures of the syllogism in the forms of circulation.” Here Marx drew an equivalence equivalence between the movement of the Syllogism in Hegel’s Logic and the development of circulation as presented in his critique. Though Marx did not specify the exact nature of the correspondence, he did discuss the matter more explicitly in previous years, as will be seen below. The connection between Hegel’s Logic and Marx’s Capital was also asserted by Lenin in his notebooks on Hegel. While Wh ile working his way through the third division, the Notion, specifically the three chapters of Subjectivity, Lenin remarked that that “Hegel’s analysis of syllogisms (E. — — B. B — .— A., A., Eins; Besonderes; Allgemeines, B. — — E. E —A., .—A., etc.) recalls Marx’s 84 imitation of Hegel in Chapter I.” I.” Here Lenin was referring to the three terms of the syllogism, Individual, Particular, and Universal: I-P-U. Shortly below he made a small note to himself: “ NB: Umkehren: Marx applied Hegel’s dialectics in its rational form to political economy.”85 “Umkehren” Umkehren” means “to be inverted.” Thus far Lenin had not said anything that Marx and Engels themselves had not already expressed. Yet, beside that note, Lenin made a larger, more specific comment: Just as the simple form of value, the individual act of exchange of one given commodity for another, already includes in an underdeveloped form all the main contradictions of capitalism, – capitalism, – so so the simplest generalisation, the first and simplest formation of notions (judgements, syllogisms, etc.) already denotes denotes man’s ever deeper cognition of the objective connection of the world. Here is where one should look for the true meaning, significance and role of Hegel’s Logic. This NB. 86 Lenin’s main focus here was on the importance of Hegel’s work for the developmen t of cognition. That is to say, that the latter’s treatment is a general summing up of the history of human thinking.87 Yet Lenin also drew a parallel between the basic act of commodity exchange
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“Hegel’s dialectics “Hegel’s dialectics is upside down because be cause it is supposed to be the ‘self -development of thought,’ of thought,’ of which the dialectics of facts therefore is only a reflection, whereas really the dialectics in our heads is only the reflection of the actual development going on in the world of nature and of human history in obedience to dialectical forms.” Frederick Frederick Engels, “Engels to C. Schmidt, November 1, 1 , 1891,” 1891,” in Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Selected Correspondence (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1965), 439. 84 V.I. Lenin, “Conspectus of Hegel’s book The Science of Logic,” in V.I. Lenin, Collected Works, Volume 38: Philosophical Notebooks (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1976), 178. 85 Ibid., 178. 86 Ibid., 179. 87 “The concept (cognition) reveals the essence (the law of causality, identity, difference, etc) in Being (in immediate phenomena) — such such is actually the general course of all human cognition (of all science) in general. Such is the course also of natural science and political economy [and history]. Insofar Hegel’s dialectic is a generalisation of the history of thought. To trace this more concretely and in greater detail in the history of the separate sciences seems an extraordinarily rewarding task. In logic, the history of thought must, by and large, coincide with
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and the earliest forms of reasoning viz. judgements, in terms of a development from the simple to the complex. The implication of Lenin’s comments, whether he was aware of it o r not, is that just as the form of value progress into higher forms, so judgements progress into syllogisms. In another section of his notebooks Lenin again connected Hegel and Marx. He wrote that “The “The beginning – beginning – the the most sim ple, ordinary, mass, immediate ‘Being’: the single commodity (‘Sein’ in (‘Sein’ in political economy). The anal ysis of it as a social relation. A double analysis, deductive and inductive – inductive – logical logical and historical (forms of value).” value).”88 Lenin directly maintained that both Hegel and Marx start with the barest categor y and, therefore, that the commodity plays pla ys the role of “Being” in Capital. Lenin thus made an even more explicit equation between the two thinkers than he had previously suggested. This thought could have occurred to him in the course of his studies, or he could have had Engels’ well-known well-known 1891 letter to Conrad Schmidt in mind, where Engels gave the latter advice in regards to studying Hegel. Engels, near ne ar the end of his letter, wrote that “If “If you compare development from commodity to capital in Marx with development from Being to Essence in Hegel you will get quite a good parallel: here the concrete development which results from facts; there the abstract construction.” construction.”89 Lenin may have been thinking of this, but even if he did not, it does not truly matter. More importantly is that that both Engels and Lenin drew a parallel between process of development of the commodity and the basic categories of dialectical logic. Lenin’s final comments on the parallel between Marx and Hegel appear in his fragment, “On the Question of Dialectics.” This was written in 19 15 and was clearly intended to sum to sum up his thinking. First, Lenin reiterated his point about how Marx began his critique of political economy: In his Capital, Marx first analyses the simplest, most ordinary and fundamental, most common and everyday relation of bourgeois (commodity) society, a relation encountered billions of times, viz., the exchange of commodities. In this very simple phenomenon (in this ‘c ‘cell’ of ell’ of bourgeois society) analysis reveals all the contradictions (or the germs of all contradictions) of modern society. The subsequent expo sition shows us the development (both growth and movement) movement) of these contradictions and of this society in the Σ of its individual parts, from its beginning to its end.90 This commentary provides a superbly clear picture of the movement from the abstract to the concrete. In fact, once could replace Marx with Hegel, and commodity with Being, and Lenin’s overview would still be true. Immediately after writing the above, Lenin went on to posit a deeper connection by arguing that Such must also be the method of exposition (i.e., study) of dialectics in general (for with Marx the dialectics of bourgeois society is only a particular case of dialectics). To begin with what is the simplest, most ordinary, common, etc., with any proposition: the leaves the laws of thinking.” thinking.” V.I. Lenin, “Plan of Hegel’s Dialectics (Logic),” in V.I. Lenin, Collected Works, Volume 38: Philosophical Notebooks (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1976), 316. 88 Ibid., 318. 89 Engels, Engels, “Engels to C. Schmidt,” 439. 90 V.I. Lenin, “On the Question of Dialectics,” 358-359. Dialectics,” 358-359.
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of a tree are green; John is a man: Fido is a dog, etc. Here already we have dialectics (as Hegel’s genius recognised): the individual is the universal…Consequently, the opposites (the individual is opposed to the universal) are identical: the individual exists only in the connection that leads to the universal. The universal exists only in the individual and through the individual. Every individual is (in one way or another) a universal. Every universal is (a fragment, or an aspect, or the essence of) an individual. Every universal un iversal only approximately embraces all the individual objects. Ever y individual enters incompletely into the universal, etc., etc.91 Although Lenin was speaking of Marx’s Capital, his main point is exactly what I have been arguing thus far in regards to Plato’s Parmenides and Hegel’s Logic viz. that the systematic development begins with the most basic proposition, and which already includes dialectics. Therefore, while Lenin only made a few comments on how Marx specifically imitated or mirrored Hegel, he was quite clear in asserting tha t Capital and Logic shared the same general structure. Ergo, he quite rightly remarked elsewhere in his notebooks that “If “If Marx did not leave behind him a ‘ Logic Logic’ (with a capital letter), he did leave the logic of Capital.”92 Within this symmetry one could argue that Hegel’s Logic is his Capital and Marx’s Capital is his Logic. This exactly parallels what I said above viz. Plato’s Parmenides is his Logic and Hegel’s Logic is his Parmenides. Hegel paralleled Plato and Marx paralleled Hegel. Hence Capital is Marx’s Parmenides. Marxists, then, can only endorse Lenin’s famous aphorism that It is impossible completely to understand Marx’s Capital, and especially its first chapter, without having thoroughly studied and understood the whole of Hegel’s Logic. Consequently, half a century later none of o f the Marxists understood Marx!!93 Without having a grasp of Marx’s dialectical method and an understanding of the structure and structure and method of Hegel’s Logic, it is indeed impossible to fully comprehend Ma rx’s critique of political economy and, above all, his analysis of the commodity and the developments of the value-form. Before Marx wrote the first volume of Capital he had written his shorter work, A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy , which was published in 1859. The year before he gave Engels an update on his progress: By the way, things are developing nicely. For instance, I have thrown over the whole doctrine of profit as it has existed up to now. In the method of of treatment the fact by mere accident I again glanced through through Hegel’s Hegel’s Logic has been of great service to me Freiligrath found some volumes of Hegel which originally belonged to Bakunin and sent them to me as a present.94 According to Marx, Hegel’s Logic directly served as an intellectual source and , specifically, in regards to method . Although he mentioned this fact in relation to the “doctrine of profit,” Marx’s 91
Ibid., 359. Lenin, “Plan of Hegel’s Dialectics,” 317. Dialectics,” 317. 93 Lenin, “Conspectus of Hegel’s book,” 180. 94 Karl Marx, “M “Marx to Engels, January 14, 1858,” in Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Selected Correspondence (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1965), 100. 92
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dialectical method clearly permeates his entire work. The Contribution was a major study focusing on an analysis of the commodity commod ity and its development into money. This T his book was directly carried over into Capital. As Marx stated in the forward to the first edition: The work, the first volume of which I now submit to the public, forms the continuation of my ‘Zur Kritik der Politischen Oekonomie’…The Oekonomie’…The substance of that earlier work is summarised in the first three chapters of this volume. This is done no t merely for the sake of connexion and completeness. The Th e presentation of the subject-matter is improved.95 Therefore the Contribution did not just precede the larger work in time, but served as its literal prelude. While Marx condensed the former into the first three chapters of the latter, latter, he expanded his section on the commodity i.e. the first chapter, compared to the earlier incarnation. This is a clear sign of the importance he held h eld for his analysis of the commodity. And yet, despite being more fully worked out, the new section on the commodity was even more abstract and dialectical than before. As Engels remarked in reading the draft in mid-1867: mid-1867: “Compared with the earlier presentation (Duncker), progress in the acuteness of dialectical development is very considerable.”96 Therefore he proffered the following advice to Marx: You have made the great error of not making your train of thou ght in this more abstract development more accessible, by means of more small sub-sections and separate headings. You should have dealt with this section in the style of Hegel's Encyclopaedia, with short paragraphs, emphasising every dialectical transformation with a special heading and, where possible, having all digressions and mere illustrations in different script. The thing would then have looked somewhat pedantic, but a very broad class of reader would have found it easier to understand.97 In response, Marx wrote days later: As for the exposition of the form of value, I have followed your advice and also not followed it in order to behave dialectically h ere as well. That is: I have 1. written an appendix in which I present the same question as simply as possible and as pedantically as possible, and 2. divided every statement of the argument into §§ etc., with separate headings, as you suggested. Then in the in the introduction I tell the ‘non‘nondialectical’ dialectical’ reader that he should skip over pages x-y and read the appendix instead. We are not concerned only with philistines here, but youth etc. thirsty for knowledge. Besides, the question is too decisive in the context of the whole book.98 Marx obviously recognised that the first chapter was absolutely important for two related reasons: first, that it theoretically formed the basis of his entire critique, and since most readers would be unused to dialectical reasoning (Hegelianism having passed its heyday), it would 95
Marx , Capital, 18. Frederick Engels, “Engels to Marx, June 16,” in Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Letters Engels, Letters on ‘Capital’ , tran. Andrew Drummond (London: New Park Publications, 1983), 104. 97 Ibid., 103-104. 98 Karl Marx, “Marx “Marx to Engels, Engels, June 22,” in 22,” in Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Letters Engels, Letters on ‘Capital’ , tran. Andrew Drummond (London: New Park Publications, 1983), 105. 96
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present the largest obstacle to popular comprehension.99 He therefore replicated his analysis of the development of the form of o f value twice over: the first was a more extensive ex tensive treatment, as featured in chapter one, and the second was in a simpler and more pedagogically presented form included as an appendix.100 The title of this was “The ValueValue-Form,” and it did, did, in fact, exactly 101 parallel Hegel’s Encyclopedia, both in form and intention. Indeed, Hegel wrote that the “vocation” of his short book was to serve “as a textbook” for students of his dialectical logic, by presenting the latter in outline.102 Any comparison of both texts tex ts will immediately show that Marx clearly heeded Engels’ suggestion. Consequently, the appendix is the best introduction to Marx’s dialectical analysis and a key source for studying the Hegelian roots of his methodology. In later editions, the appendix was removed b y being assimilated into a re-written first chapter.103 Yet the dialectical movement remained. It should now be very obvious that Marx, in view of all his efforts spent on presenting the initial chapter, considered it to be absolutely decisive for an understanding of his whole critique of political econom y.104
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“Every beginning is difficult, holds in all sciences. To understand the first chapter, especially the section that contains the analysis of commodities, will, therefore, present the greatest difficulty. ” Marx, Capital, 18. 100 The first English-language translation of the original first chapter of Capital was published in the US 1972, by the American Healyite organisation, the Workers’ League (today known as the Socialist Equality Party). See, Karl Marx, Capital First Edition: First English Translation of the First Edition of Capital, Volume One, Chapter One, The Commodity, trans. Axel Davidson (New York: Labor Publications, 1972). The first English-language translation of the appendix appeared the following year. See, Karl Marx, The Forms of Value: The First English Translation of the Appendix of the Value-Form, Vol. 1, First Edition of Capital , trans. Axel Davidson (New York: Labor Publications, 1973). Both of these were later republished in England in a collection which also included Marx’s “Results of the Immediate Process of Production” and “Marginal Notes on Wagner.” This was produced by the publishing house of Gerry Healy’s Workers’ Revolutionary Party and appeared during Healy’s gro wing mania for so-called so-called “dialectical materialism.” See, materialism.” See, Karl Marx, Value: Studies by Marx , trans. Albert Dragstedt (London: New Park Publications, 1976). The height of Healy’s absurdity is seen in his laughable pamphlet on dialectics which purported to be primarily a “study” of Lenin’s notebook s and where he wrote inter alia , “In “In this process of cognition we now have the combined use of three important sciences i.e. Dialectics, Dialectical Logic, and the Theory of Knowledge of Historical Materialism. These must be understood as the component parts of the process of cognition as a whole.” whole. ” See, Gerry Healy, Studies in Dialectical Materialism (London: Workers Revolutionary Party: 1982), 3. And yet Lenin had expressly written that “In Capital, Marx applied to a single science logic, dialectics and the theory of knowledge of materialism [three words are not needed: it is one and the same thing] which has taken everything valuable in Hegel and developed it further.” Ergo, there is not three sciences, but one method viz. Marx’s dialectical method. See, Lenin, “Plan of Hegel’s Dialectics,” 317. 101 Karl Marx, “The ValueValue -Form,” Capital and Class 4 (Spring, 1978): 134-150. 102 Hegel, The Encyclopaedia Logic, 4. 103 Marx, Capital, 22. 104 As opposed to Marx, the late Louis Althusser advised skipping the first chapter. This absurd suggestion flowed from Althusser’s basic psychoanalytic approach to texts. In fact, the whole basis of the infamous Althusserian reading of Capital was premised on not reading what Marx actually wrote. Rather it was based upon reading into it what is not present in the author’s own words, in the manner of Freud’s pseudo-scientific reading of the unconsciousness. This, in turn, was rooted in Althusser’s complete lack of understanding Marx’s method. To grasp Marx’s work it must be, must be, obviously, approached as a developing totality. Any aspect taken outside this context is, by definition, one-sided, abstract, and hence will be contradictory when placed in relation to any other aspect. Instead of moving from the abstract to the concrete, Althusser sought to resolve these contradictions by chalking them up to the limitations of Marx’s writing: “All that a simple literal reading sees in the arguments is the continuity of the text. A ‘ symptomatic’ reading symptomatic’ reading is necessary to make these lacunae perceptible, and to identify behind the spoken words the discourse of the silence, which, emerging in the verbal discourse, induces these blanks in it, blanks which are failures in its rigour, or the outer limits of its effort: its absence, once these limits are reached, but in a space which it has opened .” See, .” See, Louis Althusser and Etienne Balibar, Reading Capital, trans. Ben Brewster (London: Verso,
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2009), 95. Althusser was famously averse to Marxist dialectics and Hegel’s influence. Therefore it is no surprise that he would utterly misunderstand Ilyenkov. This is clearly seen in his lumping Ilyenkov with the “School of Della Volpe in Italy (Della Volpe, Colletti, Pietranera, Rossi, etc.),” and in an in an absolutely laughable comment in this regard: “As for the studies of Il’ienkov, Della Volpe, Colletti, Pietranera, etc., they are indeed the works of philosophers who have read Capital and pose it directly the essential question – question – erudite, erudite, rigorous and profound works, conscious of the fundamental relation linking Marxist philosophy with the understanding of Capital. But, as we shall see, the conception they put forward of Marxist philosophy is often debatable.” See, Ibid., 83, 84. And yet, as Andrey Maidansky has pointed out the “Philosophers of Della Volpe school expressly wanted to develop a nonHegelian version of Marxist philosophy. Such a position is extremely difficult to reconcile with Ilyenkov’s Hegelian stance, which, far from abandoning dialectics, strives to make it the main tool of a reformed Marxism. So, both the Della Volpe school and Ilyenkov moved away from the Diamat, but, unfortunately, they went in different directions, these two critical currents of Marxist philosophy being mutually exclusive.” See, Andrey Maidansky, “The Dialectical Logic Logic of Evald Ilyenkov and Western European Marxism,” accessed 11 January 2018, http://www.academia.edu/ 5469071/The_Dialectical_Logic_of_Evald_ Ilyenkov_and_Western_European_Marxism. However, initially the “Italian philosophers G. Della Volpe, L. Colletti and and G. Pietranera wished to get to know other works of Ilyenkov and to enter into correspondence with the author,” and Colletti even wrote the forward to the Italian translation of Ilyenkov’s first book in 1961. See, 1961. See, Ibid. It is quite obvious from the total absence of any citations of Ilyenkov’s work in Reading Capital that: 1. Althusser never actually read Ilyenkov and 2. He assumed that Ilyenkov’s views were synonymous with the Della Volpe School, since the first foreign translation of his first book was thanks thanks to their efforts. When we come Althusser’s “advice” he begins by correctly noting that hardest part of reading Capital volume one is precisely its first chapter. He went on to write that “I therefore give the following advice: put the whole of part one aside for the time being and begin your reading with Part Two : ‘The Transformation of Money into Capital’. In my opinion it is impossible to begin (even to begin) to understand Part I until you have read and re-read the whole of Volume One, starting with Part II. This advice is more than advice: it is a recommendation that, notwithstanding all the respect I owe my readers, I am prepared to present as an imperative…If you begin Volume One at the beginning, i.e. with Part I, either you do not understand it, and give up; or you think you understand it, but that is even more serious, for there is every chance that you will have understood something quite different from what there was to be understood.” Louis Althusser, “Preface to Capital Essays , trans. Ben Brewster (New York: Volume One,” in Louis Althusser, Louis Althusser, Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays Monthly Review Press: 2001), 52. According to Althusser there are only two responses to starting at the first chapter of Capital: you will not understand it and you either 1. give up or 2. you persist in your ignorance. One could, of course, skip the beginning as Althusser suggested, or one could read what Marx or Engels explicitly wrote. For Marx, the first chapter was the most important and that was because the whole basis of the development of commodities, exchange, and capitalism was concrete human activity. The basic theory in Marx’s critique of political economy is, hence, the labour theory of value. Yet Althusser argued that the “heart” of Capital volume 1 was “the theory of surplus-value, which proletarians will understand without any difficulty, because it is quite simply the scientific theory of something they experience every day: class exploitation. ” See, Ibid., 52. This is quite wrong. If the first volume of Capital had a heart it would be the labour theory of value. No wonder Althusser ridiculously asserted that: ‘Marx’s ‘labour theory of value’ which all bourgeois ‘economists’ and ideologists have used against him in their scornful condemnations, is intelligible, but only as a special case of a theory which Marx and Engels called the ‘law of value ’ or the law of the distribution of the available labour power between the various branches of production, a distribution indispensable to the reproduction of the conditions conditions of production. ‘Every child’ could understand it, says Marx in 1868, in terms which thus deny the inevitable ‘difficult beginning’ of every science. On the nature of this law I refer the reader to Marx’s letters to Kugelmann on 6 March and 11 July 1868, among other texts.” See, See, Ibid, 58-59. Here Althusser was, sadly, again wrong. The labour theory of value is not explained by the law of value; rather the latter is explained by the former. In fact, Marx plainly wrote in his July 11, 1868 letter to Kugelmann that the basis of every society is precisely its productive activity, that this holds for every human society regardless of time period, and, ergo, if humans do not produce their means of living, they would be unable to live for any appreciable time: “Every “Ev ery child knows a nation which ceased to work, I will not say for a year, but for a few weeks, would die. Every child knows, too, that the mass of products corresponding to the different needs require different and quantitatively determined masses of the total labour of society. That this necessity of distributing of social labour in definite proportions cannot be done away with by the particular form of social production, but can only change the form it assumes, is self evident. No natural laws can be done away with. What can change, in changing historical circumstances, is the form in which these laws operate. And the form in which this proportional distribution of labour operates, in the state of society where the interconnection of social labour is manifested in the
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Marx paralleled Hegel in a number of wa ys. First, Marx’s analysis in Capital moves from the abstract to the concrete, just like Hegel’s Logic. Second, there is Engels’ assertion that the development of the commodity towards capital p arallels the transition from Being to Essence. He did not provide any further details, but I would argue that it is quite clear that the section on the commodity parallels the first section of the Logic, i.e. Being. Specifically, Marx’s analysis follows the latter’s three subdivisions of Quality, Quantity, and Measure. The commodity is first viewed qualitatively and quantitatively.105 After those alternating aspects have been interrogated Marx then establishes the actual measure of commod ities in their abstract quality as values.106 The second division of Logic is that of Essence. As Hegel wrote, “Essence shines [or is reflected into itself] and determines itself. But its determinations are a unity…They are therefore conc rete Relations. They ar e determinations of Reflection.”107 So, while Essence exists as a concrete unity of different moments, it persists. It is, therefore, the realm of self-determination i.e. selfmovement. This is, of course, mirrored in Marx’s subsequent investigation of the genesis genesis of capital, as a self-expanding value which takes the alternate forms of commodities and mon ey, and yet continues to exist.108 private exchange of the individual products of labour, is precisely the exchange value of these products.” See, Karl Marx, Letters to Dr. Kugelmann (London: Martin Lawrence, n.d.), 73-74. Unsurprisingly, Lenin once wrote of this letter that in it “Marx…very clearly expounds his conception of the so -called ‘labour’ theory of value.” See, V.I. Lenin “Preface to the Russian Translation of Marx’s Letters to Kugelmann.” in Ibid., 12. Considering Althusser’s un-Marxist symptomatic reading and his running run ning counter to Marx’s own statements, it must be admitted: either Althusser honestly could not understand what Marx wrote or he lacked intellectual integrity like his spiritual forefather Georgi Plekhanov, who likewise ignored what Marx explicitly wrote, feeling he was a better Marxist than Marx. Finally, Althusser proposed Althusser proposed the following exact schema of “reading” Capital: “1. Leave Part I (Commodities and Money) deliberately on one side in a first reading. 2. Begin reading Volume One with its Part II (The Transformation of Money into Capital). 3. Read carefully Parts II, III (The Production of Absolute Surplus-Value) and IV (The Production of Relative Surplus-Value). 4. Leave Part V (The Production of Relative and Absolute Surplus-Value) on one side. 5. Read carefully Parts VI (Wages), VII (The Accumulation of Capital) and VIII (The So-called Primitive Accumulation). 6. Finally, begin to read Part I (Commodities and Money) with infinite caution, knowing that it will always be extremely difficult to understand, even after several readings of the other Parts, without the help of a certain number of deeper explanations.” See Althusser, “ Preface to Capital,” Capital,” 56-57. Althusser blamed the difficulty of chapter one on the survivals of Hegelianism. However, as alr eady noted, Marx and Engels themselves felt the first chapter was the most difficult because, in general, it was the first chapter and all beginnings are difficult i.e. precisely because they are novel. But, more specifically, they felt the first chapter would present a challenge for those with no practise in dialectical thinking. So for them, the difficulty of the first chapter can only be transitory, a stage in the process of learning. This is why Marx, after distinguishing the first chapter as the hardest part part of the book, stated: “I pre-suppose, pre -suppose, of course, a reader who is willing to learn something new and therefore to think for himself.” See, Marx, Capital, 19. That is, a reader who critically reflects on the material at hand, and not on their preconceptions. their preconceptions. Such is the only active “reading” which Marx assumed. 105 “Every useful thing, as iron, paper, &c., may be looked at from the two points of view of quality and quantity. It is an assemblage of many properties, and may therefore be of use in various v arious ways… Exchange value, at first sight, presents itself as a quantitative relation, as the proporti on in which values in use of one sort are exchanged for those of another sort, a relation constantly changing with time and place.” Marx, Capital, 43-44. 106 “Now we know the substance of value. It is labour . We know the measure of its magnitude . It is labour-time. The form, which stamps value as exchange-value, remains to be analysed. But before this we need to develop the characteristics we have already f ound ound somewhat more fully.” Marx, fully.” Marx, Capital: A Critique of Political Economy , 131. 107 Hegel, Philosophical Propaedeutic , 81. 108 “The value originally advanced, therefore, not only remains intact while in circulation, but adds to itself a surplus-value or expands itself. It is this movement that converts it into capital …If now we take in turn each of the two different forms which self-expanding value successively assumes in the course of its life, we then arrive at these two propositions: Capital is money: Capital is commodities. In truth, however, value is here the active factor in a
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Engels, in his review of A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, gave the first explicit explanation of the “method which u nderlies Marx’s critique of political economy.”109 The following is how he detailed Marx’s dialectical method of analysing the commodity: With this method we begin with the first and simplest relation which is historically, actually available, thus in this context with the first economic relation to be found. We analyse this relation. The fact that it is a relation already implies that it has two aspects which are related to each other. Each of these aspects is examined separately; this reveals the nature of their mutual behaviour, their reciprocal action. Contradictions will emerge demanding a solution. But since we are a re not examining an abstract mental process that takes place solely in our mind, but an actual event which really took place at some time or other, or which is still taking place, these contradictions will hav e arisen in practice and have probably been solved. s olved. We shall trace the mode of this solution and find that it has been effected by establishing a new relation, whose two contradictory aspects we shall then have to set forth, and so on.110 This basic outline should call to mind that given by Plato in the Parmenides. True, the latter was primarily conceived as a tool for studying thoughts, while the former was understood as not merely applying to human cognition, but, b ut, more importantly, also to the movement of all material 111 reality. Still, the basic structure remains: the holistic comprehension of a thing as a concrete process, viz. the analysis of its various contradictory sides, its dialectical transition via opposites, the drive to understand the unfolding totality, etc.112 Marx applied this method through the whole process, in which, while constantly assuming the form in turn of money and commodities, it at the same time changes in magnitude, differentiates itself by throwing off surplus-value from itself; the original value, in other words, expands spontaneously. For the movement, in the course of which it adds surplus-value, is its own movement, its expansion, therefore, is automatic expansion. Because it is value, it has acquired the occult quality of being able to add value to itself. It brings forth li ving offspring, or, at the least, lays golden eggs… eggs …In simple circulation, C-M-C, the value of commodities attained at the most a form independent of their use-values, i.e., the form of money; but that same value now in the circulation M-C-M, or the circulation of capital, suddenly presents itself as an independent substance, endowed with a motion of its own, passing through a life-process of its own, in which money and commodities are mere forms which it assumes and casts off in turn. Nay, more: instead of simply representing the relations of commodities, it enters now, so to say, into private relations with itself. It differentiates itself as original value from itself as surplus-value.” surplus-value.” Marx, Marx, Capital, 149, 152-153. 109 Engels, “Karl Marx, ‘A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy’,” 225. 110 Ibid., 225-226. This also follows Hegel’s dialectic of opposites moving between immediate and mediate, as seen both within and between the divisions of his Logic. See, He gel, Hegel’s gel, Hegel’s Science of Logic, Logic , 836-837. 111 “Hence the possessor of money or commodities actually turns into a capitalist only where the minimum sum advanced for production greatly exceeds the known medieval maximum. Here, as in natural science, is shown the correctness of the law discovered by Hegel, in his Logic, that at a certain point merely quantitative differences pass over by a dialectical inversion into qualitative distinctions.” Marx, Capital: A Critique of Political Economy , 423. 112 The first chapter of Clausewitz’s famous work On War opens with the following paragraph: “We propose to consider first the single elements of our subject, then each branch or part, and, last of all, the whole, in all its relations – relations – therefore therefore to advance from the simple to the complex.” See, Carl von Clausew itz, On War , ed. Anatol Rapoport and tran. J.J. Graham (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1968), 101. This is an excellent, masterful description of the method applied by Hegel in his Phenomenology of Spirit and and in his later works. This is, as we have seen, what wh at Marx termed the “method of rising from the abstract to the concrete.” Despite this similarity between the method of Clausewitz and Hegel, Lenin was incorrect when he stated in 1915 that the for mer’s “thinking was stimulated by Hegel.” See, V.I. Lenin “The Collapse of the Second International,” in V.I. Lenin,
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of Capital, just as Hegel applied this through the whole of his Logic. This is why the first chapter of the former book not only onl y parallels Being, but also already Essence as well. As noted above, this sphere concerns mutual relations within a whole. For example, in the course of investigating the two poles of the simple expression of value, i.e. the basic value-form, Marx wrote that The relative value-form of a commodity, the linen for example, expresses its valueexistence as something wholly different from its substance and properties, as the quality of being comparable with a coat for example; this expression itself therefore indicates that it conceals a social relation. With the equivalent form the reverse is true. The Collected Works, Volume 21: August 1914-December 1915 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1975), 219. More than one scholar has shown that there is no direct evidence that Clausewitz ever read, met, or reflected on Hegel. See, Lorne William Bentley, “Clausewitz and German Idealism: The Influence of G.W.F. Hegel on ‘On War’,” (M.A. Thesis, US Army Command and General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, 1988), 5-6. In fact, as Lenin noted in his own Notebook on Clausewitz, the latter had been taught by a Kantian professor. See, V.I. Lenin, “Lenin’s Notebook on Clausewitz,” eds. and trans. Donald E. Davis and Walter S.G. Kohn, in Soviet Armed Forces Review Annual, Volume 1, ed., David R. Jones (Florida: Academic International Press, 1977), 194. Along with Kant, Clausewitz also read Fichte and Schelling. See, Bentley, “Clausewitz and German Idealism,” 4. Thus, it appears that Clausewitz took a similar route to the dialectic, like Hegel, though primarily in the realm of war. Within Clausewitz’s work , theory is abstract and therefore timeless; or rather the conceptualisation of the pure principles of war is timeless. This is shown in his assertion that the efforts of opposing forces must be strained and will be strained or pushed to the extreme. This condition would lend itself for the opponents to aim for a single massive blow. However, as Clausewitz argues, this is almost impossible. Hence, war or military struggle in reality is a succession of battles, a movement of episodes; each molding the next. See, Clausewitz, On War , 102-107. Thus, in practice, the theoretical conception must be adjusted by reality. In other words, timelessness must give way to history i.e. the abstract gives way to the concrete. These terms can be correlated. The simple is timeless, the complex is historical: simple/abstract/timeless – simple/abstract/timeless – complex/concrete/historical. complex/concrete/historical. The progression of actual episodes alters both the conduct of war and its conception; that is, it modifies the application of the principles in the sense of how the latter are understood and the context of the application. One might say that the essential point is reciprocity, but that could still be conceived in a simple, abstract, timeless manner: an unending movement, what Hegel call ed a “spurious infinity,” or a “tedious alternation.” See Hegel, Hegel’s Hegel, Hegel’s Science of Logic, Logic , 139, 142. We might term this the interminable alternation of yin and yang viz. not a spiral. See, Jason Devine, “‘Dialectical Materialism,’ Ideology and Revisionism,” Revisionism,” accessed 18 January 2018, http://links.org.au/dialectical-materialism-ideology-revisionism. For while the basic point is that both warring parties act and react, and vice versa , they are rarely equal and reciprocity is rarely equal. There are moments of dominance. The real key is in terms of human agency. As Marx said “Men make their own history, but they do not make it just as they please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under circumstances directly encountered, given and transmitted from the past.” See Karl Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte Bonaparte (New York: International Publishers, 1987), 15. But, can this apply to the dialectic of Hegel’s Hegel’s concepts? No, it cannot, for the basic reason that Hegel’s concepts lac k actual agency and are pre-determined. pre-determined. Thus, Hegel’s systematic conceptualization of the dialectic is ultimately timeless and this points to its crucial weakness. For the dialectical method is an attempt to mirror the concreteness of reality. Dialectical theory strives to be complex, concrete, and historical. It seeks to follow the mechanism of successive moments negating each other. Clausewitz spoke of reality modifying theory. Thus dialectical thought strives to be self-modifying by having the historical movement consciously included within it. In a general sense dialectical logic is profoundly historical and yet with Hegel it could and did take a timeless, atemporal character. His dialectic was not consistently historical. One reason this occurred was because as dialectical cognition aims to mirror reality, Hegel mistook the reflection for the real thing and, in doing so, cut the connection between theory and reality. This was undoubtedly due to his idealism viz. his commitment to God; the latter being a profoundly ahistorical conception. In viewing God as the Alpha and Omega, Hegel inherently placed ideas i.e. theory, above reality and hence cast a distorted hue over his conception of the dialectic. True dialectical logic must submit to reality and thus be materialist. It must recognise the temporal and existential primacy of concrete reality, of the actual historical process. Thus, as the young Marx and later Engels noted, the principles were not faulty, not deficient, rather Hegel was unable to consistently apply his own method. Hence Marx’s point that Hegel’s method was upside down. Feuerbach later placed it upright, but in the process took out history, and it was Marx himself w ho re-historicised the dialectic as I have argued elsewhere.
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equivalent form consists precisely in this, that the material commodity itself, the coat for instance, expresses value just as it is in everyday life, and is therefore endowed with the form of value by nature itself. Admittedly, this holds good onl y within the value-relation, in which the commodity linen is related to th e commodity coat as its equivalent.113 In the above Marx explained how both poles mutually determine each other. To this he added a footnote: “Determinations of reflection of this kind are altogether very curious. For instance, one man is king only because other men stand in the relation of subjects to him. They, on the other hand, imagine that they are subjects because he is a king.”114 Since both sides of a relation shape each other, therefore the relationship, as a concrete totality, is self-determining. The relationship changes as its sides change and vice versa. This is precisely what Marx tracks in the first chapter of Capital. Similarly, Marx’s analysis of the development of the value-form value-form parallels the first three chapters of the first section, Subjectivity, of the third division of Hegel’s Logic, Notion. More specifically, Hegel’s tripartite transition of Notion-Judgement-Syllogism Notion -Judgement-Syllogism is paralleled by Marx as Commodity-Forms of Value-Circulation. However, I say parallel and not mirror because M arx does not exactly replicate Hegel. Thus, while wh ile the Notion has the three moments of Individual, Particular, and Universal, the commodity has only two i.e. use-value and exchange-value. In like manner, the specific development of the value-form parallels the Judgement, but not in every single instance presented by Hegel. Finally, Finally, as hinted at in Marx’s unpublished footnote, the formulas for circulation parallel certain of the forms of the Syllogism. In the words of Hegel, the “universal Notion…contains Notion…contains the three moments: universality, 115 particularity and individuality.” The Notion, as such, is a concrete unity of these three.116 Nevertheless, this union is at first undifferentiated undifferentiated and immediate and, so, breaks up.117 Marx starts with a single commodity and discusses its two aspects or moments, use -value and exchange-value. He then traces them to the dual character of labour being abstract and concrete. Therefore he established the basis for the two-fold character of commodities. In other words, he specifically located the reason, the material foundation, for the contradictory development of the exchange process, the value-form. Now, whereas Hegel just asserted that the Notion is selfmoving, and could not truly explain why that was so, Marx did the opposite. For example, Hegel asserted that the Concept as such does not abide within itself, itself, without development…on development…on the contrary, being the infinite form, the Concept is totally active. It It is the punctum saliens of all vitality, so to speak, and for that reason it d istinguishes itself from itself. This sundering of the Concept into the distinction of its moments that is posited by its own activity is the
113
Ibid., 149. Ibid., 149. 115 Hegel, Hegel’s Hegel, Hegel’s Science of Logic, Logic , 600. 116 Depending on the translation, Hegel’s Begriff is is translated as either Notion or Concept. 117 Hegel, Hegel’s Hegel, Hegel’s Logic, Logic, 228-229. 114
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judgment , the significance of which must accordingly be conceived of as the particularisation of the Concept.118
The first matter to consider is that this “sundering” of the Notion is paralleled in the commodity viz. it is a unity of two moments m oments which then become sundered in the exchange relationship. As Marx wrote in the Grundrisse: The simple fact that the commodity exists ex ists doubly, in one aspect as a specific product whose natural form of existence ideally contains (latently contains) its exchange value, and in the other aspect as manifest exchange value (money), in which all connection with the natural form of the product is stripped awa y again – again – this this double, differentiated existence must develop into a difference, and the difference into antithesis and contradiction. The same contradiction between the th e particular nature of the commodity as product and its general nature as exchange value, which created the necessity of positing it doubly, as this particular commodity on one side and as money on the other – other – this this contradiction between the commodity’s particular natural qualities and its general social qualities.119 Here the internal division of the single commodity becomes an external division between two commodities.120 The commodity is, then, then, Marx’s initial proposition and the transition to exchange is the move towards a counter-proposition. In Hegel we move from the Notion to Judgement, and in Marx we move mov e from the commodity to the basic, or simple form of exchange. While it appears that this development is a result of Marx’s analysis, in fact the latter is merely merely a faithful reproduction of the actual historical process. Therefore, Marx mirrors the latter, but not Hegel. To quote Engels: If we examine the various aspects of the commodity, that is of the fully evolved commodity and not as it at first slowly emerges in the spontaneous barter of two primitive communities, it presents itself itself to us from two angles, that of use-value and of exchange-value…After exchange-value…After use-value use-value and exchange-value have been expounded, the commodity as a direct unity of the two is described as it enters the exchange process.121
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Hegel, The Encyclopaedia Logic, 245. Marx, Grundrisse, 147. Hegel says of the determinations of reflection: “(1) The first determination is the essential unity with itself: Identity…(2) The [second] determination is Difference, of things which are indifferent to one another but distinguished through some determinate being or other…(3) As the determination of Opposition, as positive and negative, in which the determination of one is posited only by means of the deter minateness of another, and each of these determinatenesses is only in so far as the other is but at the same time is only in so far as it is not the other. ” See, Hegel, Philosophical Propaedeutic , 82. 120 “A close scrutiny of the expression of the value of A in terms of B, contained in the equation expressing the value relation of A to B, has shown us that, within that relation, the bodily form of A figures only as a use value, the bodily form of B only as the form or aspect of value. T he opposition or contrast existing internally in each commodity between use value and value, is, therefore, made evident externally by two commodities being placed in such relation to each other, that the commodity whose value it is sought to express, figures directly as a mere usevalue, while the commodity in which that value is to be expressed, figures directly as mere exchange-value. Hence the elementary form of value of a commodity is the elementary form in which the contrast contained in that commodity, between use-value use- value and value, becomes apparent.” Marx, Capital, 67. 121 Engels, “Karl Marx, ‘A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy’,” 226. 119
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The second issue is that Engels’ comments hint comments hint at the basic difference between Marx’s Marx’s and and Hegel’s method: the distinction between the between the materialist and idealist outlooks. For Hegel the Notion moves itself, it divides itself through “its own activity,” and this is because it “dwells “dwells within the things themselves, it is that through which the y are what they are, and to comprehend an ob- ject ject means therefore to become conscious of its concept.”122 In other words, the Notion is the soul of all, thus it is self-moving, i.e. it is God . This is the very basis of Hegel’s Hegel’s dialectic. Contrariwise, the premise of Marx’s dialectic is human activity, and in the first place, place, labour. Therefore, unlike Hegel’s Notion, the Notion, the division of the commodity, and its contradictory development are not the result of the commodity itself, but because of the organisation o rganisation of the human labour at its basis. The product of the latter is exchanged and hence is a commodity, but it has that trait “merely “merely by virtue of the thing, the product being linked with a relation between two persons or communities, the relation between producer and consumer, who at this stage are no longer united in the same person.”123 Indeed, to attribute to the commodity itself its contradictory development is to fall precisely into the fetishism where relations between people appear as relations between things. As Marx argued in Capital: The mystical character of commodities does not originate, therefore, in their use-value. Just as little does it proceed from the nature of the determining factors of value…A commodity is therefore a mysterious thing, simply because in it the social character of men’s labour appears to them as an objective o bjective character stamped upon the product of that labour; because the relation of the producers to the sum total of their own labour is presented to them as a social relation, existing not between themselves, but between the products of their labour.124 Since humans engage in labour l abour as privately-organised units (individuals, families, companies, etc.), so they must then exchange their products. This is why we have commodities and, later, the more complex forms of value, including money and capital.125 The dialectics of commerce are therefore an extension, or a reflection, of the dialectics of production. Marx, in the preface to the first edition of Capital, observed that “the body, “the body, as an organic whole, is more easy of study than are the cells of that body.” body.”126 Still, to understand the growth of the whole, one must start with the cell and, “in “in bourgeois society, the commodity-form of the product of labour – labour – or or value-form of the commodity – commodity – is is the economic cell-form.” cell-form.”127 Yet, in the “analysis analysis of economic forms…neither forms…neither microscopes nor nor chemical reagents are of use,” and so the 122
Hegel, The Encyclopaedia Logic, 245. Engels, “Karl Marx, ‘A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy’,” 226. 124 Marx, Capital, 76-77. 125 “As a general genera l rule, articles of utility become commodities, only because they are products of the labour of private individuals or groups of individuals who carry on their work independently of each other… Since the producers do not come into social contact with each other until they exchange their products, the specific social character of each producer’s labour does not show itself except in the act of exchange.” Ibid., 77 -78; “From the contradiction between the general character of value and its material existence in a particular commodity, etc. – these these general characteristics are the same as later appear in money – money – arises arises the category of money.” Karl Marx, “Marx to Engels, April, 2, 1858,” in Marx and Engels, Selected Correspondence , 105. 126 Marx, Capital, 19. 127 Ibid., 19. 123
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“force of abstraction must replace both.” both.”128 This is the major reason why so many have found the first chapter of Capital so terribly difficult to understand: a lack of awaren ess of the dialectical method. For even in this regard Marx has paralleled Hegel. The latter wrote concerning the section on the Judgement that “Logic “Logic abstracts from all empirical content and considers only that content which is posited by the the form of the relation itself.” 129 In the same way, in tracing the development of the value-form, Marx abstracts from the “empirical content” of content” of commodities, viz. their specific use-values, use-values, in order to “consider only” the content of the exchange relationship. At every stage of this analysis Marx is moving from the abstract to the concrete, but, as a materialist, his logical presentation is an abbreviated presentation of the actual actual historical 130 development. The Notion having sundered its immediate unity becomes the Judgement viz. a mediated combination of two of the three terms: The judgment is usually taken in a subjective sense, as an operation and a form, which occurs only in thinking that is conscious of itself . But this distinction is not yet present in the logical [realm]; [here] the judgment is to be taken as entirely universal: everything is a judgment . -That is, everything is a singular which which is inwardly a universality or inner nature, in other words, a universal that is made singular; universality and singularity distinguish themselves [from each other] within it, but at the same time they a re identical.131 First, Hegel viewed his method as merely the conscious following of the actual dialectic of the object, thus the movement of the Judgement is not simply logical reasoning, but the a ctual nature of reality. We could say that if everything ever ything is indeed a judgement then, of course, so is the exchange relationship. However, following Marx’s, Engels’, and Lenin’s materialist reading of Hegel, the logical judgement is rather a theo retical abbreviation in human cognition of a common material activity. This is why Marx’s analysis so closely pa rallels Hegel’s. Second, in 128
Ibid., 19. Hegel, Philosophical Propaedeutic , 68. 130 “Even after the determination of the method, the critique of economics could still be arranged in two ways – historically or logically. Since in the course of history, as in its literary reflection, the evolution proceeds by and large from the simplest to the more complex relations, the historical development of political economy constituted a natural clue, which the critique could take as a point of departure, and then the economic categories would appear on the whole in the same order as in the logical exposition. This form seems to have the advantage of greater lucidity, for it traces the actual development, but in fact it would thus become, at most, more popular. History moves often in leaps and bounds and in a zigzag line, and as this would have to be followed throughout, it would mean not only that a considerable amount of material of slight importance would have to be included, but also that the train of thought would frequently have to be interrupted; it would, moreover, be impossible to write the history of economy without that of bourgeois society, and the task would thus become immense, because of the absence of all preliminary studies. The logical method of approach was therefore the only suitable one. This, however, is indeed nothing but the historical method, only stripped of the historical form and diverting chance occurrences. The point where this history begins must also be the starting point of the train of thought, and its further progress will be simply the reflection, in abstract and theoretically consistent form, of the historical course. Though the reflection is corrected, it is corrected in accordance with laws provided by the actual historical course, since each factor can be examined at the stage of development where it reaches its full maturity, its classical form. ” Engels, “Karl Marx, ‘A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy’,” 225. Economy’,” 225. 131 Hegel, The Encyclopaedia Logic, 245-246. 129
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regards to the relation between the two terms, the latter specifically wrote that “Of two determinations related to one another, the less inclusive n arrower one is the Subject, the other is the Predicate, and the connection between between them, the ‘is’, is the Copula.”132 An example of this is the proposition which Hegel frequently used as an example: “The rose is red.” This can be rephrased in more abstract terms as “The subject is the predicate,” or even more so, so, “The individual is the universal.” This is referred to by Hegel as the “Positive Judgement.”133 This form can be seen in the “Simple, Isolated, or Accidental Form of Value:” “ x commodity A = y commodity B.”134 The relation of subject and predicate p redicate is one of an equalization of both terms; both are treated as identical, but this identity rests upon their being distinguished. This is the same with the first form of value: the equal sign i s the two commodities’ commodities’ copula and, in the act of exchange they are equated, or identified as both being commodities.135 However, just as in the Judgement, this identification is premised on both commodities being different, being distinguished as such.136 It must be recognised that just as Marx does do es not exactly mirror, and hence model, the Notion in his analysis of the commodity, i.e. the Notion has three moments and the commodity has two aspects, so he does not no t exactly mirror the Judgement in his treatment of the value-form. Indeed, Hegel made a distinction between four types of judgement and further divided them into twelve sub-forms. 137 Yet Marx only put forth four forms of value: the Simple, Isolated, or Accidental Form of Value, the Total or Expanded Form of Value, the General Form of Value, and the Money Form, although altho ugh these latter two are essentially the same.138 It should also be pointed out that just as in the Judgement the left side is always narrower than the right side, side, the same relationship can be seen in the two poles of the expression of value, i.e. the relative valueform and equivalent form. However, this chan ges with the development of forms, or rather of the relationship between the terms. The initial form of value thus follows the Positive Judgement.139 The second form, the Total or Expanded form, parallels what Hegel He gel termed the “Disjunctive Judgement,” Judgement,” viz. the 132
Hegel, Philosophical Propaedeutic , 68. Hegel, Hegel’s Hegel, Hegel’s Science of Logic, Logic , 631-632. 134 Marx, Capital: A Critique of Political Economy , 139. 135 “This relation is a relation of equalisation (Gleichsetzung). The basis of the expression ‘20 yards of linen = 1 coat’ is coat’ is in fact: linen = coat , which expressed in words simply means: ‘ the commodity-type “coat” is of the same nature (ist gleicher Natur) , , the same substance as the “linen,” a type of commodity different from it’ .” Marx, “The Value-Form,” Value-Form,” 136. 136 “On the other hand, these two forms are mutually excluding or opposed extremes , i.e. poles, of the same expression of value. They are always distributed amongst amongst different commodities, which the expression of value relates to one another. For example, I cannot express the t he value of linen in linen. ‘ 20 yards of linen = 20 yards of linen’ is linen’ is not an expression of value but simply expresses a definite quantity of the object of use, linen. The value of linen can thus only be expressed in another commodity (in andrer Ware), i.e. only relatively.” Ibid., .” Ibid., 135. 137 These are specifically: A. The Judgement of Existence: (a) The Positive Judgment (b) The Negative Judgment (c) The Infinite Judgment; B. The Judgment of Reflection: (a) The Singular Judgment (b) The Particular Judgment (c) The Universal Judgment; C. The Judgment of Necessity: (a) The Categorical Judgment (b) The Hypothetical Judgment (c) The Disjunctive Judgment; D. The Judgment of the Notion: (a) The Assertoric Judgment (b) The Logic, 20-21. Problematic Judgment (c) The Apodetic Judgment. See, Hegel, Hegel’s Science of Logic 138 Marx, Capital: A Critique of Political Economy , 5-6. 139 If in the simple form of value one commodity is exchanged for another commodity, how can it approximate the Positive Judgement i.e., “the individual is the universal,” other than being the first form of judgement, if both sides 133
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proposition “A is either B or C.” C.”140 In this case, different predicates are related to a universal subject, still, still, “According to their Particularization and in respect to the subject, however, they exclude each other .” .”141 An example of this is “Color is either blue or yellow or red or green.”142 Another way of stating this is that the universal is the particular. Marx first presents the second form of value as follows: “ z commodity A = u commodity B or = v commodity C or = w commodity D or = x commodity E or = etc.”143 Thus the value of single commodity can be expressed in any particular commodity. This why Marx now refers to the “expanded relative value-form” value-form” and the “particular equivalentequivalent-form.”144 These facts would seem to contradict the paralleling I have argued for, as it appears that we are dealing with a proposition that the individual is the particular. However, Marx referred to the indiv idual commodity in the exchange relation as “expanded” viz. it could could be exchanged with any other commodity commodity and hence was actually universal. Thus, he wrote that The expanded relative value form is, however, nothing but the sum of the elementary relative expressions or equations of the first kind, such as: 20 yards of linen = 1 coat 20 yards of linen = 10 lbs of tea, etc. Each of these implies the corresponding inverted equation, 1 coat = 20 yards of linen 10 lbs of tea = 20 yards of linen, etc. In fact, when a person exchanges his linen for many other commodities, and thus expresses its value in a series of other commodities, it necessarily follows, that the various owners of the latter exchange them for the linen, and consequently express the value of their various commodities in one an d the same third commodity, the linen.145 Marx pointed out that the above series implied a converse relation, and which is easily seen when the same series is reversed. This is precisely the third form of value i.e. the General Form: 1 Coat 10 lbs of tea 40 lbs of coffee
= 20 yards of linen146
of the value equation are actually individuals? This is because in the first value-form, commodity A (the individual) counts as a use-value, as a specific object. On the other hand, commodity B (the universal) counts as value, as a general social characteristic. As Marx states: “A close scrutiny of the expression of the value of A in terms of B, contained in the equation expressing the value-relation of A to B, has shown us that, within that relation, the bodily form of A figures only as a use-value, use- value, the bodily form of B only as the form or aspect of value.” See Marx, Capital, 67. 140 Hegel, Hegel’s Hegel, Hegel’s Science of Logic, Logic , 653. 141 Hegel, Philosophical Propaedeutic , 112. 142 Hegel, Lectures on Logic, 189. 143 Marx, Capital: A Critique of Political Economy , 154. 144 Marx, “The ValueValue-Form,” 145. 145 Marx, Capital, 70. 146 Ibid., 70.
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1 quarter of corn 2 ounces of gold ½ a ton of iron x Commodity A, etc.
In Marx’s words: “All “All commodities now express their value (1) in an elementary form, because in a single commodity; (2) with unity, because in one and the same commodity. This form of value is elementary and the same for all, therefore general.” general.”147 The single commodity is, ergo, the universal equivalent. This is a parallel of He gel’s “Universal Judgement,” in which the “Subject is a taking together of all the individuals of a kind.”148 Two examples of this which Hegel gave in his lectures were “All “All men are mortal,” mortal,” and “All metals are conductors of 149 electricity.” Finally, as I stated above, the fourth form of value, the Money Form, is not essentially different from the General Form. As Marx explained, in moving through the first three forms, “the changes are fundamental.”150 However, between the third and fourth form “there is no difference…except that, in the latter, gold has assumed the equivalent form in the place of linen.”151 The Syllogism is the combining of the Notion and the Judgement, and, as such, is a mediated immediacy of the three moments of Individual, Particular, and Universal.152 To be more exact, exact, with “the Judgement two moments…are directly connected with each other; the Syllogism contains their mediation or ground. In it two determinations are linked together by a third which is their unity.”153 With the syllogism, then, we reach a more concrete stage in the development of Logic and the Absolute Idea i.e. God. Just as Hegel has argued that everything was a judgement, so he also stated that Everything is a Syllogism. Everything is a notion, the existence of which is the differentiation of its members or functions, so that the universal nature of the Notion 147
Ibid., 70. Hegel, Philosophical Propaedeutic , 70. 149 Hegel, The Encyclopaedia Logic, 253; “Universality, as it appears in the subject of the universal judgment, j udgment, is the external universality of reflection, allness; ‘all’ means all individuals, and in it the individual remains unchanged. This universality is, therefore, only a taking together of of independently existing individuals; it is the community of a property which only belongs to them in comparison…Now a closer examination of the universal judgment now now before us, reveals that the subject, which, as previously remarked, contains the true universali ty as presupposed , now also contains it as posited in in it. All men expresses first, the genus man, secondly this genus as sundered into individuals, but so that the individuals are at the same time extended to the universality of the genus; conversely, the universality through this connexion with individuality is just as completely determined as the individuality; thus the posited universality universality has been equated with the presupposed .” .” Hegel, Hegel’s Hegel, Hegel’s Science of Logic, Logic , 647-648. 150 Marx, Capital, 75. 151 Ibid., 75. 152 “We have found the syllogism to be the restoration of the Notion in the judgment, and consequently the unity and truth of both. The Notion as such holds its moments sublated in unity; in the judgment this unity is internal or, what self-subsistent extremes. In is the same thing, external; and the moments, although related, are posited as self-subsistent the syllogism the Notion determinations are like the extremes of the judgment, and at the same time their determinate unity is posited.” Hegel, Hegel’s Hegel, Hegel’s Science of Logic, Logic , 664. 153 Hegel, Philosophical Propaedeutic , 72. 148
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gives itself external reality by means of particularity, and thereby, and as a negative reflection-into-self, makes itself an individual. Or, conversely: the actual thing is an individual, which by means of particularity rises to universality and makes i tself identical with itself.154 The relations between the three moments change ch ange in the succeeding figures of the syllogism. The first figure of the latter is abbreviated as “ I-P-U ” and so is the general schema of the determinate syllogism. Individuality unites with universality through particularity; the individual is not universal immediately, but through the medium of particularity; and conversely the universal similarly is not immediately individual but descends to individuality through particularity.155 It should be no surprise that, since everything ever ything can be viewed as an instance of the syllogism, is a colour: Hegel can provide the most common examples. For example, “This rose is red: Red is a 156 Therefore, this rose is a coloured object.” object.” In terms of the figure this statement can be presented in a condensed format: I is P: P is U: Therefore, I is U. The Individual is a Universal by means of a Particular viz. I-P-U. From this figure Hegel went onto to deduce various further figures of the syllogism. Hegel once remarked that with the “approach” of the first figure of the syllogism “we “we are 157 at once seized with a feeling of boredom.” boredom.” In a similar vein he remarked elsewhere that it “would be superfluous and pedantic to enter into the whole detail of formalistic syllogising on every occasion.” occasion.”158 Here we meet with the dry formalism of formal logic. Notwithstanding such an occurrence, Hegel emphasised that the various forms of the syllogism reassert themselves continually in our cognition. For instance, when someone hears the creaking of a cart in the street as he wakes on a winter’s winter’s morning and is led by that th at to the conclusion that it must have frozen quite hard, he is performing here the operation of syllogising, s yllogising, and we repeat this operation every da y in the most varied and complicated ways. wa ys.159
154
Hegel, Hegel’s Hegel, Hegel’s Logic, Logic, 244-245. Hegel, Hegel’s Hegel, Hegel’s Science of Logic, Logic , 667. 156 Hegel, Hegel’s Hegel, Hegel’s Logic, Logic, 247; “The “The therefore appears as the conclusion that has taken place in the subject, a conclusion deduced from subjective insight into the relationship between the two immediate premises. As subjective reflection enunciates the two relations of the middle term to the extremes as particular and indeed immediate judgments or propositions, the conclusion as the mediated relation is also, of course, a therefore is the expression of the fact that it is the mediated one. But particular proposition, and the consequently or therefore this therefore is not to be regarded as an external determination in this proposition, as if it had its ground and seat only in subjective reflection; on the contrary, it is grounded in the nature of the extremes themselves proposition only for the purpose of, and by means of, whose relation again is expressed as a mere judgment or or proposition abstractive reflection, but whose true relation is posited as the middle term. That therefore I is U is is a judgment, is a merely subjective circumstance; the very meaning of the syllogism is that this is not merely a judgment, that is, not a relation effected by the mere copula or the empty is, but one effected by the determinate middle term which is pregnant with content.” content.” Hegel’s Science of Logic, 668-669. 157 Ibid., 669. 158 Hegel, The Encyclopaedia Logic, 260. 159 Ibid., 260. 155
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All humans, then, are syllogising creatures. But this ability is not inbo rn, not innate: it is learnt over time. Still, most people do not consciously do this, let alone directly study logic.160 Indeed, Hegel was quick to point out that “drawing correct conclusions no more depends on a previous study of logic than adequate digestion, respiration, etc., requires a preliminary study of anatomy and physiology.” physiology.”161 Accordingly, it takes a conscious, cons cious, critical attitude to see dialectics within the 162 basic structures of formal logic. This is precisely the approach taken by Plato, Hegel, and Marx: an intentionally logical analysis by means dialectical transitions of propositions, judgements, and syllogisms. Aside from this general point, Marx’s formulas of circulation parallel circulation parallel the figures of the syllogism as presented in Hegel’s He gel’s Logic. Just as Hegel passed from the Judgement to the Syllogism, so in Marx the simple forms of exchange d evelop into increasingly more complex ones. Yet it cannot be forgotten that both transitions are a reflection of pre-existing material processes. Again, we are not dealing with an exact mirroring between Hegel and Marx. On the one hand, Hegel distinguished between three main types of syllogism and ten sub-forms.163 As these are traversed, each figure is found de fective and so gives way to ever more logically consistent forms. On the other hand, Marx posited only two basic formulas: The simplest form of the circulation of commodities is C-M-C, the transformation of commodities into money, and the change of the money back again into commodities; or selling in order to buy. But alongside of this form we find another specifically different form: M-C-M, the transformation of money into commodities, and the change of commodities back again into money; mone y; or buying in order to sell.164 Consequently, he related these two formulas to on ly two figures of the syllogism found in Hegel. In his Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy he observed that The first C is a particular commodity which is compared with money as the universal commodity, whereas in the second phase money as the universal commodity is compa red with an individual commodity. The formula C-M-C can therefore be reduced to the 160
“As I mentioned several times, the process of mastering or learning the world of objects and phenomena created by people during the history of society is one in which the individual develops distinctly human abiliti es and functions. It would be a gross error, however, to regard this process as the result of conscious activity, or as the effect of ‘intentionality’ in ‘intentionality’ in the sense that Husserl and others understand this. Learning takes place through the subject’s subject’s very relationships with the word, and these do not depend either upon the subject or his conscious awareness, but are determined by the specific historical and social conditions in which he lives, and the way his life takes shape within them.” them.” A.N. Leont’ev, “On the Biological and Social Aspects of Human Development: The Training of Auditory Ability,” in A Handbook of Contemporary Soviet Psychology, eds. Michael Cole and Irving Maltzman (New York: Basic Books, Inc., Publishers, 1969), 440. 161 Ibid., 260. 162 “What is ‘familiarly known’ is not properly known, just for the reason that it is ‘familiar”. When engaged in the process of knowing, it is the commonest form of self-deception, and a deception of other people as well, to assume something to be familiar, and give assent to it on that very account.” Hegel, Phenomenology, 92. 163 A. The Syllogism of Existence: (a) First Figure of the Syllogism (b) The Second Figure P-I-U (c) The Third Figure I-U-P (d) The Fourth Figure U-U-U; B. The Syllogism of Reflection: (a) The Syllogism of Allness (b) The Syllogism of Induction (c) The Syllogism of Analogy; C. The Syllogism of Necessity: (a) The Categorical Syllogism (b) The Hypothetical Syllogism (c) The Disjunctive Syllogism. See, Hegel, Hegel’s Science of Logic, Logic , 21. 164 Marx, Capital, 146.
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abstract logical syllogism P-U-I, where particularity forms the first extreme, universality characterises the common middle term and individuality signifies the final ex treme.165 P-U-I is the third figure under the Qualitative Syllogism, or the S yllogism of Existence. Here we see the “Individual connected with the Particular through the Universal”166 There is no need to give an exam ple from Hegel, as Marx’s comment above should be quite clear. Marx’s earlier discussion of the second formula, M-C-M, as found in the Grundrisse, referred to it in the expanded form of M-C-C-M. It is there that he described the latter as a syllogism: But before this process, on which commerce rests and wh ich therefore, owing to its extension, forms a chief phenomenon of circulation, is possible at all, the circular path Money – Commodity Commodity – Commodity Commodity – Money Money must be recognized as a particular form of circulation. This form is specifically different from that in which money appears as a mere medium of exchange for commodities; as the middle term; as a minor premise of the syllogism.167 Money as capital no longer plays the role of a simple medium of exchange: as such it is no longer the middle term and a minor premise. Now it is the major premise and, as such, one of the extremes of the syllogism. More specifically, money, as the u niversal equivalent is exchanged for single unique commodity, labour-power, and the result is an increased amount of value, a particular form of money, viz. capital. This gives us the figure of syllogism U-IU-I-P. In Marx’s words: Value therefore now becomes value in process, money in process, and, as such, s uch, capital… Buying in order to sell, or, more accurately, accu rately, buying in order to sell dearer, M-C-M, appears certainly to be a form peculiar to one o ne kind of capital alone, namely, n amely, merchants’ capital. But industrial capital too is money, that is ch anged into commodities, and by b y the 168 sale of these commodities, is re-converted into more mone y. And further, In order to be able to extract ex tract value from the consumption of a commodity, our friend, Moneybags, must be so lucky as to find, within the sphere of circulation, in the market, a commodity, whose use-value possesses the peculiar property of being a source of value, whose actual consumption, therefore, is itself an embodiment of labou r, and,
165
Marx, Contribution to the Critique , 94. Hegel, Philosophical Propaedeutic , 114; “The universal, which in the first conclusion was specified through individuality, passes over into the second figure and there now occupies the place that belonged to the immediate subject. In the second figure it is concluded with the particular. By this conclusion therefore the universal is explicitly put as particular – particular – and and is now made to mediate between the two extremes, the places of which are occupied by the two others (the particular and the individual). This is the third figure of the syllogism: (3) P-U- I.” Hegel, Hegel’s Hegel, Hegel’s Logic, Logic, 249-250. 167 Marx, Grundrisse, 202. 168 Marx, Capital, 153. 166
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consequently, a creation of value. The possessor of money does find on the market such a special commodity in capacity for labour or labour-power.169 U-I-P is actually the second second figure of the Qualitative Syllogism. S yllogism. Here the “mediation, that is of Particularity and Universality, must therefore be brought about through the moment of Individuality.”170 Interestingly, in advancing from the formula for the circulation of commodities to the formula for the circulation of capital, Marx transitioned from the third figure of the Qualitative Syllogism to its second figure. In moving forward, he also went backwards. Consequently, when Marx spoke of discovering the “Hegelian “Hegelian figures of the syllogism in the forms of circulation,” circulation,” this obviously cannot be taken to mean every single figure as found in Hegel’s Logic. Human beings do not learn passively; p assively; rather they must engage in activity. Ultimately, the educational process must become self-directed. For this an individual must reflect on the goal, means, and process of learning; in other words, a self-conscious and critical attitude must permeate throughout. When it comes to learning Marxism, revolutionaries cannot settle for pure rumination, but must also engage in practise. Nevertheless, practise. Nevertheless, comprehending Marx’s dialectical method cannot be achieved achiev ed merely by engaging in practical revolutionary activity, for it also involves theoretical activity proper viz. scientific theorisation. The initial path to this is, as Engels emphasised long ago, the study of the history of philosophy. Consequently, in seekin g to grasp the dialectical method of Marx and his application of it, we have need of studying the history of dialectical logic. Moreover, to achieve this, we must take a self-critical approach. That is, the Marxist method must itself be comprehended dialectically, as a process. In order to comprehend the dialectical logic o f Marx, it is essential to study the method of Hegel. To advance this understanding, one source we can return to is Plato’s Parmenides. This is because, as I have shown, this dialogue was a key source for the development of Hegel’s thinking. Certainly, Hegel’s Logic is plainly modelled on that piece of o f writing. To investigate into the different ways in which Hegel correlates and diverges from Plato in this matter would not only furnish one with concrete facts from the history of philosophy, but, more importantly, exercise the mind in the handling of concepts in their dialectical transitions. Further, one would view two similar, but different examples of the application of dialectical logic. In an attempt to aid the dialectical comprehension of Marx’s method, I have sought to present the relations between Plato and Hegel as a foundation for understanding the relations between Hegel and Marx. Hegel paralleled Plato and Marx paralleled Hegel: this process traversed both the general and the particular. What must be emphasised in this regard, is that with the continuity of dialectical logic, there were always breaks. Marx did not mirror Hegel, but paralleled him. He did, however, mirror the actual historical process. This is because Hegel’s Hegel’s 169
Ibid., 164. Hegel, Philosophical Propaedeutic , 114; “Through the immediate syllogism I-P-U, the Individual is mediated (through a Particular) with the Universal, and in this conclusion put as a universal. It follows that the individual subject, becoming itself a universal, serves to unite the two extremes, and to form their ground of intermediation. This gives the second figure of the syllogism, (2) U-I-P. It expresses the truth of the first; it shows in other words that the intermediation has taken place in the individual, and is thus something contingent. ” Hegel, Hegel’s Hegel, Hegel’s Logic, Logic, 249. 170
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philosophy presented a summary of the latter, but in a distorted reflection, like “through “through a glass, darkly.” darkly.” As As Marx never ceased pointing out, his method originated in Hegel, but the methods were not the same. Indeed, Hegel argued that reality could only be truly understood post factum.171 While Marx’s critique of political economy, above all, was intend ed to serve as a tool in the class struggle of the proletariat to overthrow capitalism and create a new world. To conclude, Engels once remarked that “It is impossible, of course, course, to dispense with 172 Hegel.” Hegel.” No matter what, we cannot get away from Hegel. Instead of fruitlessly trying to run away from him we should follow the example ex ample of Lenin, model his approach, and turn to a critical Marxist investigation of Hegel. Certainly the rich and diverse results of Lenin’s work have continued to inspire Marxists. Ergo, if if one implication of Lenin’s notebooks on Hegel is that Marxists should study Hegel, then the admiration of the latter for Plato’s Parmenides should likewise inspire Marxists to study that work. Until capitalism-imperialism is destroyed, or humanity perishes under that system, ever new ge nerations of revolutionaries will have recourse to studying Marx’s dialectal logic. In that sense, we will not be able to analyse Lenin’s Lenin’s notebooks notebooks on Hegel enough, or Marx’s Marx’s Capital enough, or Hegel’s Hegel’s Logic enough. They will have to be continuously returned to.
171
“Only one word more concerning the desire to teach the world what it ought to be. For such a purpose philosophy at least always comes too late. Philosophy, as the thought of the world, does not appear until reality has completed its formative process, and made itself ready. History thus corroborates the teaching of the conception that only in the maturity of reality does the ideal appear as counterpart to the real, apprehends the real world in its substance, and shapes it into an intellectual kingdom. When philosophy paints its grey in grey, one for m of life has become old, and by means of grey it cannot be rejuvenated, but only known. The owl of Minerva, takes its flight only when the shades of night are gathering.” gathering. ” G.W.F. Hegel, Philosophy of Right , ed. S.W. Dyde (New York: Dover Publications, 2005), xxi. 172 Engels, “Engels to C. Schmidt,” 437.
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