Hegel In Marx: Accounts And Misinterpretations

8 Pages 1897 Words

rom the past. The problem Marx identifies with Hegel’s starting point is that it is a form of idealism whereby everything is contained within thought, it is purely metaphysical, but man is not a purely metaphysical being, he is a natural human being (M 154). Since man is a natural being, he necessarily has the powers which are included for all natural life, which essentially for Marx, means that man is a being of action (M 154). For Marx, it is impossible for this action to occur within Hegel’s consciousness. Furthermore, the essence of Hegel’s man is self-consciousness; meaning that the estrangement of man is his estrangement from self-consciousness, which is not a real estrangement at all (M 151). The real estrangement of man takes place within the real world and not within the mind. Man can only become real through his use of the natural power of nature while he is a part of the corporeal world (M 153).

Since Marx begins his dialectic with materiality, man is always a sensuous, objective being, a human natural being, a being for himself (M 155). Marx interprets Hegel’s absolute truth which drives man through the world as self-consciousness, keeps all things within the external world as mere objects of thought within the consciousness. Furthermore, Marx sees Hegel’s externality as something that shouldn’t be subjective or believed to be assimilated by the mind. This is appare...