[Xmca-l] Re: Hegel on Action
Alfredo Jornet Gil
a.j.gil@iped.uio.no
Sun Jul 23 23:42:01 PDT 2017
This is such a valuable thread! It will be available in the xmca webpages for literary reference to anyone, but we really should be finding better ways to store and make this type of threads stand out for future reference.
Alfredo
________________________________________
From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu> on behalf of Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net>
Sent: 19 July 2017 07:47
To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Hegel on Action
Funnily enough, Marx was only taking Hegel's own advice:
"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 form 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."
Andy
------------------------------------------------------------
Andy Blunden
http://home.mira.net/~andy
http://www.brill.com/products/book/origins-collective-decision-making
On 19/07/2017 2:53 PM, Lplarry wrote:
>
> Andy
>
> This insight that Hegel anticipated social processes
> through logical analysis while Marx focused on making
> intelligible reconstructed phenomena on the basis of
> already observed social processes, seems to be radically
> different starting places.
>
> Anticipation and reconstruction generating profound
> relational reflections.
>
> From these two differing starting places (two different
> historical presents) your reflection that both share a
> deep affinity by arriving at the same realization:
>
> (history is intelligible)
>
> Opens up this approach to historicity for our learning
> community.
>
> Sent from my Windows 10 phone
>
> *From: *Andy Blunden <mailto:ablunden@mira.net>
> *Sent: *July 18, 2017 7:16 PM
> *To: *David Kellogg <mailto:dkellogg60@gmail.com>;
> eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> <mailto:xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
> *Subject: *[Xmca-l] Re: Hegel on Action
>
> So far as I can see there are two references to the aphorism
>
> in Marx/Engels. Firstly in the famous 1873 Afterword to
>
> Capital by Marx and then echoed by Engels in his 1886
>
> "Ludwig Feuerbach." As I said, in so far as a metaphor like
>
> this can be right or wrong, I would say it is correct. My
>
> problem is that in many many discussions I have had with
>
> people identifying themselves as Marxists, this aphorism has
>
> functioned as a *barrier *to understanding Hegel and his
>
> relation to Marx, something I have had to fight my through
>
> before being able to have a fruitful discussion about the
>
> issue. Because people are generally locked in to a dichotomy
>
> between concepts and the material world (notwithstanding
>
> declarations to the contrary), the aphorism is interpreted
>
> to mean that Hegel thought that thought determines being and
>
> Marx thought that being determines thought, just as you
>
> observe, David. Again, it is not that this aphorism is
>
> wrong, and really thought determines being. Of course not.
>
> The problem is, I think, that it pushes a natural scientific
>
> point of view in which the social world goes about its
>
> business according to Laws of History and ideas simply
>
> reflect that process. A corollary of this is that people are
>
> passive expressions of their social conditions and have no
>
> responsibility for their thoughts. In the words of "Theses
>
> on Feuerbach" - "The materialist doctrine that men are
>
> products of circumstances and upbringing, and that,
>
> therefore, changed men are products of changed circumstances
>
> and changed upbringing, forgets that it is men who change
>
> circumstances and that the educator must himself be
>
> educated. Hence this doctrine is bound to divide society
>
> into two parts, one of which is superior to society."
>
> Altogether, I prefer to start an interpretation of Hegel
>
> either with a blank sheet or from reading Hegel himself, not
>
> hearsay.
>
> Here are some things I could say about the Hegel-Marx
>
> relation which may lend weight to the aphorism:
>
> * Hegel wrote at a time when there was no reason to
>
> believe (and no-one did believe) that the working class
>
> was an agent in history, capable of leading social
>
> reform. Indeed in early 19th century the working class
>
> did not exist as a class at all. Marx wrote in the wake
>
> of huge social movements of the working class which,
>
> during his youth, had overthrown the French government.
>
> He had every reason to believe that the working class
>
> would make history, not (as Hegel and Owen had thought)
>
> the educated elite.
>
> * Hegel wrote philosophy and worked in a university;
>
> Marx wrote in fairly accessible language on politics and
>
> social issues, intended for mostly self-educated workers.
>
> * Hegel believed that he could anticipate social
>
> processes by logical analysis; Marx understood that the
>
> logical critique could be reconstructed only on the
>
> basis of already-observed social processes, making what
>
> was already happening intelligible. But both end up at
>
> the same point, namely that history is intelligible.
>
> But at a philosophical level, the two writers came to *very
>
> similar conclusions*, not opposite conclusions. Politically,
>
> they were as different as the philosophy professor and the
>
> communist agitator. They lived in different times.
>
> Andy
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Andy Blunden
>
> http://home.mira.net/~andy
>
> http://www.brill.com/products/book/origins-collective-decision-making
>
>
> On 19/07/2017 8:50 AM, David Kellogg wrote:
>
> > Well, I'm a little bit torn. On the one hand, my heart is
>
> > with Haydi; it really does seem to me that the "aphorism"
>
> > is useful in understanding that marginal note of Lenin's.
>
> > And that marginal note of Lenin's appears in Chapter Two
>
> > of Thinking and Speech, so it's useful in understanding
>
> > Chapter Two of Thinking and Speech. Chapter SEVEN of
>
> > Thinking and Speech is really an empirical elaboration of
>
> > Vygotsky's critique of Piagetian neo-Kantianism in Chapter
>
> > Two, and so it's useful there too. I think Andy more or
>
> > less acknowledges this when he says that the quote is a
>
> > one off.
>
> >
>
> > I also agree with the general tenor of Haydi's jeremiad
>
> > against an aristocracy of philosophers who are perfectly
>
> > willing to recognize their own contribution to the
>
> > dialectic between theory and practice but who howl about
>
> > empiricism when it comes to recognizing the immense
>
> > contributions made by practitioners. This seems to me a
>
> > violation of both the spirit and the letter of the
>
> > dialectic, and sociogenetically it seems to me to turn the
>
> > relationship between philosophy and social practices
>
> > entirely on its head.
>
> >
>
> > That said, I think Andy has a point. I'm at a workshop
>
> > now, and don't have the library handy, but if I remember
>
> > correctly then Marx didn't actually create the aphorism
>
> > about standing Hegel on his head. The right-Hegelian
>
> > critics of Marx did. What Marx said, responding to the
>
> > criticism, was that he had FOUND Hegel standing on his
>
> > head, and put him on his feet again. The problem is that
>
> > this apposite remark, made in a polemical context, has
>
> > been conflated with the famous quotation from Economic and
>
> > Political Manuscripts to the effect that it is not
>
> > mankind's consciousness which determines his being, but
>
> > rather his social being that determines his consciousness.
>
> > If we assume that this is directed against Hegel, we get
>
> > Hegel entirely wrong: it is precisely with the
>
> > phylogenesis and ontogenesis of consciousness that we find
>
> > Hegel and Marx on exactly the same page.
>
> >
>
> >
>
> > David Kellogg
>
> > Macquarie University
>
> >
>
> > "The Great Globe and All Who It Inherit:
>
> > Narrative and Dialogue in Story-telling with
>
> > Vygotsky, Halliday, and Shakespeare"
>
> >
>
> > Free Chapters Downloadable at:
>
> >
>
> >
> https://www.sensepublishers.com/media/2096-the-great-globe-and-all-who-it-inherit.pdf
>
> >
>
> > Recent Article: Thinking of feeling: Hasan, Vygotsky, and
>
> > Some Ruminations on the Development of Narrative in Korean
>
> > Children
>
> >
>
> > Free E-print Downloadable at:
>
> >
>
> > http://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/8Vaq4HpJMi55DzsAyFCf/full
>
> >
>
> >
>
> > On Mon, Jul 17, 2017 at 10:26 AM, Andy Blunden
>
> > <ablunden@mira.net <mailto:ablunden@mira.net>> wrote:
>
> >
>
> > That remark by Lenin is his only comment on a passage
>
> > of a hundred pages or so of the Science of Logic, the
>
> > passage where in his own idealistic way Hegel is
>
> > discussing effectively the Party question. It is
>
> > extremely obscure and I gather it went over Lenin's
>
> > head. Nonetheless, Lenin's notes were where I got
>
> > started on Hegel and marked the beginning of the
>
> > return of Marxists to a study of Hegel in the 20th
>
> > century. Not Lukacs, not Korsch or Horkheimer, but
> Lenin.
>
> >
>
> > As to Marx's remark in the Afterword to Capital and
>
> > Engels reference to it in "Ludwig Feuerbach" I always
>
> > liked it and repeated it to others, too. But it did
>
> > function as a kind of explanation of why I didn't
>
> > study Hegel and believed that it was good enough to
>
> > just read Marx. Once I got started reading Hegel I did
>
> > not find the aphorism useful. It was kind of obvious
>
> > that I had to penetrate the hard shell of logical
>
> > rigmarole to get what I wanted. But how?? The idea of
>
> > standing it on its head gave me no guidance at all. So
>
> > I try to dissuade people who might want to tackle
>
> > Hegel to not use this aphorism as a guide.
>
> >
>
> > Andy
>
> >
>
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
>
> > On 17/07/2017 7:18 AM, David Kellogg wrote:
>
> >
>
> > In the Philosophical Notebooks, Lenin notes that
>
> > the Aristotelian syllogism still has a whiff of
>
> > Platonism about it.
>
> >
>
> > Precious metals don't rust.
>
> > Gold is a precious metal.
>
> > Therefore gold doesn't rust.
>
> >
>
> > I gather that what he means is that in the
>
> > syllogism it is concrete, sensuous experience with
>
> > a particular metal which comes dead last. But when
>
> > we look at human experience as historical
>
> > activity, we notice that it comes first: that it
>
> > is thousands of years of experience with a
>
> > particular metal, from the ancient Egyptians and
>
> > their obsession with uncorruptibility onward,
>
> > which leads to the valuation of gold and its
>
> > exaptation as money, and then generalization to
>
> > silver. Lenin says that in its idealist form the
>
> > syllogism is a game: it is this which must be
>
> > "turned on its head" to see how the concept arises.
>
> >
>
> > ....
>
> >
>
> > If Marx's remark to that effect was not helpful or
>
> > clarifying, why do you think Vygotsky and Luria
>
> > (not to mention Lenin) were so taken with it?
>
> >
>
> > David Kellogg
>
> > Macquarie University
>
> >
>
> >
>
> > On Mon, Jul 17, 2017 at 12:01 AM, Andy Blunden
>
> > <ablunden@mira.net <mailto:ablunden@mira.net>
>
> > <mailto:ablunden@mira.net
>
> > <mailto:ablunden@mira.net>>> wrote:
>
> >
>
> > I meant specifically that the aphorism about
> Hegel
>
> > having to be turned on his head is not useful.
>
> >
>
> > Andy
>
> >
>
> >
>
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
>
> > Andy Blunden
>
> > http://home.mira.net/~andy
>
> > <http://home.mira.net/%7Eandy>
>
> > <http://home.mira.net/%7Eandy>
>
> >
> http://www.brill.com/products/book/origins-collective-decision-making
>
> >
> <http://www.brill.com/products/book/origins-collective-decision-making>
>
> >
>
> >
> <http://www.brill.com/products/book/origins-collective-decision-making
>
> >
> <http://www.brill.com/products/book/origins-collective-decision-making>>
>
> >
>
> >
>
> >
>
> >
>
> >
>
> >
>
> > --
>
> >
>
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