Marxist Philosophy: Materialism and the Critique of Hegel
The Philosophical Divide: Materialism Versus Idealism
According to Marx’s theory, the basic problem of philosophy is the contradiction between two opposing philosophies: materialism and idealism. The problem that arises is the question of the relationship between the material and the spiritual, between being and thinking.
Under the general heading of materialism are located all those philosophers who think that matter comes first and that consciousness is the product of a highly complex development of matter, specifically the human brain. All human mental activity has a clear physiological basis, and the whole of reality can be explained in terms of matter in motion. Materialism asserts that only corporeal substances exist.
Throughout the history of philosophy, different types of materialism have emerged. In the eighteenth century, many materialists, including the Encyclopedists, gained prominence. Idealist systems in Germany, from Kant to Hegel, rejected materialism, but after Hegel’s death, with the development of the natural sciences, a new materialism re-emerged. Marx’s materialism was particularly influenced by Feuerbach. As a philosophical theory, materialism opposes idealism, which posits that matter is a product of the mind or spirit, and spiritualism, which considers it impossible to reduce spirit to matter.
Marx and Engels’ Critique of Hegelian Idealism
Hegel, whose mature expression of philosophy and interpretation of reality, and the theoretical and ideological culmination of the Christian world (which would later collapse into the bourgeois world), decisively influenced the thinking of Marx and Engels.
Hegel’s Philosophy: Nature, Spirit, and Absolute Reason
Hegel’s thesis seeks to establish internal unity and connection between two concepts: nature, characteristic of Greek philosophy, and spirit, a contribution of Christianity. The world and God are now included within a single process that is the natural and human history of the world. To achieve this unity, Hegel eliminates the separation Kant had established between understanding and reason.
Hegel thinks of the entire world as an evolving internal law whose driving force is the Absolute Spirit. In Hegel’s philosophy, an absolute rational sense is imposed because the absolute, the starting point, is reason. Everything else is phenomena of reason, manifestations of it. By contrast, reason is conceived by Hegel as a dynamic power, full of possibilities, that unfolds in time. Reason is conceived as more than mere reasoning.
Reason, then, is the germ of reality. The real is rational, and the rational is real because there is no real position that does not have its rationale, just as there is no rational position that is not, or has not been, or will not be realized in the future. To justify and defend the central dogmas of Christianity, Hegelian idealism asserts:
Key Tenets of Hegelian Idealism
- An ontological thesis: Reality is Reason, Idea, Spirit.
- An epistemological thesis (inseparable from the above): The Idea or Spirit originates as different forms of reality.
- Reality is a rational system; the true is the Absolute, the Spirit.
Marx’s Criticisms of Hegel
- Regarding the essence or being of man, Hegel posits it as reason or mind. However, for Marx and Engels, the human essence is defined by work.
- In terms of history, Hegel sees it as governed by the Spirit, which is the subject of history and the gradual development towards the realization of freedom. However, for Marx, the motor of history is the struggle between productive forces and relations of production.
- For Marx, Hegel’s philosophy and wisdom consist of mere theory or speculation.
- Hegel posits that the social structure and political life of man in the social order are fully rational, as they are the mode of production of each particular moment, outlining social relations and an ideology that justifies the current system.
However, Marx also identifies in Hegel:
- A philosophy that is radically historical-teleological, whose principal vector is the dialectic as a process of history and method of knowledge.
- The concept and sense of alienation.