Tony Burns

The Hegel-Marx connection

Acknowledgements Notes on the Contributors Introduction: An Historical Survey of the Hegel-Marx Connection I.Fraser & T Burns Hegel and Marx: Reflections on the Narrative T.Carver Hegels Legacy J.McCarney Marx and Scientific Method: A Non-Metaphysical View T.Burns From the Critique of Hegel to the Critique of Capital C.Arthur Marxs Doctoral Dissertation: The Development of an Hegelian Thesis G.Browning Hegel and Marx on Needs: The Making of a Monster I.Fraser Interconstitutivity, Recht and Social Relations of Production A.Chitty The End of History in Hegel and Marx H.Williams Hegel and Marx on International Relations D.Boucher Bibliography Index

Capitalism, modernity and the nation state: A critique of Hannes Lacher

This article is a critique of the views of Hannes Lacher, and in particular those expounded in his Beyond Globalization: Capitalism, Territoriality and the International Relations of Modernity (2006), which was intended as a contribution to the historical materialist approach to international relations. Three core issues are addressed: namely (1) Lacher’s understanding of historical materialism; (2) his understanding of the connection between capitalism and the nation state; and (3) his view of the relationship between the capitalism and ‘modernity’. In all three cases, I argue that Lacher’s views differ significantly from those of Marx and Marxism.

What is Politics? Robinson Crusoe, Deep Ecology and Immanuel Kant

This article considers the nature of politics. Robinson Crusoe is used to show that even the broadest understanding of politics found in the literature is inadequate, for the situation of Crusoe on his island is a political situation even though he is completely alone. An analogy is drawn between the deep ecological understanding of politics and the moral philosophy of Immanuel Kant. For Kantian ethics, also, is built on the idea of a solitary individual who is at least existentially isolated. It is concluded that what makes any situation political is the fact that in it some policy is required.

Hegel, Identity Politics and the Problem of Slavery

Abstract This article examines the relevance of Hegel’s philosophy and political thought, and especially his views on slavery, for contemporary identity politics. It offers an account of Hegel’s metaphysical beliefs and explores the relevance of those beliefs for our understanding of his views on ‘the self’. It is suggested that for Hegel all individual selves are comprised of two component elements, one of which possesses the quality of universality and the other that of particularity. The particular self, or the particular component of an individual self, is a social construction. It is this dimension of the self that provides all individuals with their determinate social identity. The article applies this insight to a reading of the well‐known ‘master–slave’ section of Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit, which presents Hegel’s understanding of the role that slavery has for the development of self‐consciousness. The article considers two interpretations of Hegel’s views on slavery. One of these considers slavery to be a socio‐historical phenomenon, a social institution associated with a particular type of society. The other thinks of ‘slavery’, using the term in a quite different sense, as being a necessary condition for the development of self‐consciousness in all societies everywhere. As such, slavery is an ahistorical or supra‐historical phenomenon that could never be transcended. The article concludes by suggesting that a modified version of this second interpretation of Hegel’s views on slavery in the Phenomenology has provided a source of theoretical inspiration for an anarchist critique of social institutions that was developed by a number of French social theorists and philosophers in the twentieth century.

The purloined Hegel: semiology in the thought of Saussure and Derrida

This paper explores the thought of Hegel, Saussure and Derrida regarding the nature of the linguistic sign. It argues that Derrida is right to maintain that Hegel is an influence on Saussure. However, Derrida misrepresents both Hegel and Saussure by interpreting them as falling within the Platonic rather than the Aristotelian philosophical tradition.

Materialism in Ancient Greek Philosophy and in the Writings of the Young Marx

What is the young Marxs attitude towards questions of psychology? More precisely, what is his attitude towards the human mind and its relationship to the body? To deal adequately with this issue requires a consideration of the relationship between Marx and Feuerbach. It also requires some discussion of the thought of Aristotle. For the views of Feuerbach and the young Marx are (in some respects) not at all original. Rather, they represent a continuation of a long tradition which derives ultimately from ancient Greek philosophy, and especially from the philosophy of Aristotle. As is well known, Aristotles thought with respect to questions of psychology are mostly presented, by way of a critique of the doctrines of the other philosophers of his day, in his De Anima. W.H. Walsh has made the perceptive observation that Aristotles views might be seen as an attempt to develop a third approach which avoids the pitfalls usually associated with the idealism of Plato, on the one hand, and the materialism of Democritus on the other. It might be argued that there is an analogy between the situation in which Aristotle found himself in relation to the idealists and materialists of his own day and that which confronted Marx in the very early 1840s. For, like Aristotle, Marx also might be seen as attempting to develop such a third approach. The difference is simply that, in the case of Marx, the idealism in question is that of Hegel rather than that of Plato, and the materialism is the ‘mechanical materialism’ of the eighteenth century rather than that of Democritus. This obvious parallel might well explain why Marx took such a great interest in Aristotles De Anima both during and shortly after doing the preparatory work for his doctoral dissertation – the subject matter of which, of course, is precisely the materialist philosophy of the ancient Greek atomists Democritus and Epicurus.

The theoretical underpinnings of Chicago sociology in the 1920s and 30s

This paper looks at the work of the Chicago School in the 1920s and 1930s from the standpoint of the debate between positivism and its critics within the discipline of sociology. It is argued that, despite appearances to the contrary, Chicago sociology at this time is based on a rejection of the principles of positivism. It is an attempt to apply the principles of interpretative understanding to the practical problems of empirical research.

Introduction: An Historical Survey of the Hegel-Marx Connection

‘To conjoin ... the names Hegel and Marx... is not so much to express a relationship as to raise a problem — one of the most challenging problems in the history of thought.’1 Without doubt, this ‘problem’ of connecting Hegel and Marx has been recurrent within Marxist discourse from the end of the nineteenth century to the present. By delineating the main lines of the historical development of this connection this Introduction contextualises the more detailed contributions that follow. What will be discovered is that the nature of Marx’s comments on Hegel’s philosophy has left an ambiguous legacy. One pervasive theme, though, is the interpretation of Hegel’s idealist philosophy as being shrouded in mysticism. Marx’s main contribution, according to this view, was to demystify Hegel’s thought through a more materialist, dialectical approach. At the same time, however, there have been those who have sought to rupture this Hegel-Marx connection and purge Hegelianism from Marxism altogether. Appropriate and expunge have therefore been the two main responses to Hegel’s influence on Marxism, as we shall see. To comprehend these developments fully, we need to return to the origins of the connection with Marx’s early involvement with the Young Hegelians. After elucidating Marx’s own comments on Hegel’s importance to Marxism, the trajectory of the connection through the main Marxist thinkers can be established. The final section illustrates recent developments of the connection, to which the current contributions are then related.

Hegel and Natural Law Theory

This paper examines Hegels attitude towards natural law theory. Commentators disagree on this. Some say that Hegel is hostile to natural law theory and that he is a legal positivist. Others say that he is in fact, a natural law theorist in the conventional sense. The paper argues that both of these interpretations are incorrect. It takes the view that Hegel is a natural law theorist, but not in the conventional sense. Like certain of the medieval scholastics, he subscribes to what is by current standards, an unconventional type of natural law theory, which derives ultimately from Aristotle.

Hegel and global politics: communitarianism or cosmopolitanism?

This article discusses Hegel’s views on global politics by relating them to the ‘communitarianism versus cosmopolitanism’ debate. I distinguish between three different theoretical positions and three different readings of Hegel, which I associate with the notions of ‘communitarianism’, ‘strong cosmopolitanism’ and ‘weak cosmopolitanism’, respectively. Contrary to a commonly held view that Hegel is not a cosmopolitan thinker at all, in any sense of the term, I argue that he is best thought of as a weak cosmopolitan thinker rather than a communitarian or a strong cosmopolitan advocate of the idea of a world-state. In passing, the article refers to the relationship which exists between Hegel’s ideas and those of three twentieth-century theorists who might be associated with these theoretical positions and these different readings of Hegel, namely, Carl Schmitt, Alexandre Kojève and Jürgen Habermas. The article also refers to the methodological problems which are confronted by readers of Hegel’s writings who wish to apply his ideas to the problems of global politics today. Here I refer to a distinction which I have made elsewhere between different kinds of reading, namely the interpretation, appropriation and the reconstruction of texts, which is especially relevant for readers of the works of Hegel.