HEgel_to_marx.md 2.3 KB
hegel died 5 years before Marx arrived in Berlin When reading Hegel, Marx wasn't initially impressed
Marx began to read Law, he found it theoretical and abstract. This caused him to want to study philosophy, which lead him back to Hegel.
Reluctantly, he turned to the philosophy of Hegel, and understood this as a means of bridging the gap between theory and practice. How does it work vs how it should work. Hegel had an interest of this.
Joined the Doctor's Club of Young Hegelian Philosophers, and decided to change his degree. Wrote his dissertation on the difference between: Democritian and Epucirean philosophy. Atomism: how the world is made up of what we recognize as atoms. Material, as opposed to Ideas.
Realized we have to understand how things come into being materially - explored that with his doctoral work.
First page of his paper:
"Philosophy will continually shout at her opponents: the cry of Epicurus. Impiety does not consist in destroying the Gods of the crowd, but rather in ascribing to the Gods, the ideas of the crowd."
Criticism of religion.
From Hegel, the chief idea that influenced Marx was the notion that history was the total negation / changing / undoing / movement from one state to another.
Through the Exercise of Freedom and Rational Thinking.
The world we live in is not in a permanent state - evolving / developing / changing. Existence is historical - this excited Marx about Hegel. Reality is a historical process, and this process develops and changes according to what can be called Dialectical Movement. Something comes into being but it challenges something, these come into tension and contradiction and that generates changes that are ongoing.
Action and Reaction - movement within history as human beings interact with each other and their environment.
Hegel thinks this movement is happening in a certain direction - world is becoming more rational.
Marx wasn't talking about that, but he thought this movement has the potential to move ever so much towards a more free society. History can become freer and freer for human ebings to be abl eto influence the world they live in.
Until this is established, our experience of teh world will be full of contradictions and alienation.
Until we progress, either in Hegel's case to fully rational existence, or in Marx's case a fully free existence, we'll have