Lecture 1: (cont)
Of course, the rationale for adopting the
term 'critical Theory' to designate Marx’s projects as a whole is already present in the fact
that Marx’s early manuscripts begin from a critique of contemporary political
economy. To this we can add the well-known fact that several of his works,
including the Grundrisse and Kapital, have critique of political
economy in their subtitle. But more than that, as we will see, Marx’s
theoretical revolution is bound up with a fundamental critique of the
philosophical tradition. In this respect, initially he seems merely to be
following Feuerbach, his older contemporary, who became famous for an
iconoclastic work The Essence of
Christianity in 1841 that also
espoused a critique of the Christian religion and spoke of the abolition of
philosophy. However, for Feuerbach, this means the abandonment of idealist
philosophy, its replacement by a philosophy of man, which repudiated
abstraction and theological notions of alienation in favour sensuous
naturalism. Feuerbach ascribes to philosophy the historico/cultural task of
educating humanity to an awareness of its own alienated natural ‘species
powers’ that the dominant Christian culture had allocated to God. But in all
this, the stress falls one-sidedly on consciousness and subjectivity. The
Idealist tradition of which Feuerbach is so critical takes its theoretical
revenge in the residual dualism that still mars his formulation of the
contemporary task of philosophy: active subjectivity/passive objectivity. Marx,
on the other hand, wants to ‘overcome philosophy through its realisation’. In
his alternative, critique is not a subjective judgement but the expression of
the immanent movement of history, of the objective contradictions of bourgeois
society itself. In other words, critique here is part of the immanent movement
of history and society itself, both the expression and register of the crisis
of his contemporary society.
Lecture 2: Historico- conceptual Background (cont)
1. This link between the idea of critique
and the recognition of crisis is no accident. From the very beginning of
philosophy, the concept of critique had been tied to, and viewed as, an element
within a context of crisis. The Greek term krino
means to cut, to select, to judge: by extension, to measure, to quarrel and to
fight. The key idea is an irrevocable decision aimed at determining the outcome
of a crisis. This etymology has relevance for the employment of the concept in
later times in a variety of contexts from the medical, where it refers to the
critical phase in an illness, in the battle between life and death; in politics
where it referred either to the enforcement of a legal decision or a decisive
battle; it also has theological reference in the idea of the last judgement as
the end of time and the final decision of god as a definitive reckoning. In the
18th century, critique takes a scientific form and emancipates itself from the
practical disciplines as well as from an objective crisis context still tied to
a narrative of salvation. It becomes a subjective faculty synonymous with
reason designating penetrating judgement and good taste. Thus Kant will happily
embrace the idea of Kritik for his
whole philosophy in so far as it abandons the naivety and metaphysical dogmas
of the philosophical tradition and turns the energy of criticism back on the
presuppositions of thinking itself. Again, the emphasis here is very much on
the need for philosophical self-reflexivity.
2. Freed from a theological narrative of sin and redemption, late 18th century bourgeois society was able to reinterpret world history as a story not of crisis but of linear progress. However, the 19th century economy soon reinserted the consciousness of crisis back into history in the shape of the bourgeois economy. For example one can find descriptions of an economic crisis on Wall St in 1857 that are very similar to those found in commentaries on the GFC. However, with this new crisis there is not transcendent theological judgement but an immanent development: there is no Archimedean point or supra-mundane locus from which pure knowledge can take its stand outside of itself. Crisis has become truly historical and begins to encompass civilisation as a whole. Critique must now be guided by a practical interest in deciding the process of crisis in a favourable direction. For Marx, from this point on, the human judge is a participant in the crisis. This means that history is now conceived as a self-critical process. However, the objective complexity of the totality of social relations resists all merely subjective efforts to resolve the crisis by cognitive or contemplative acts alone. If critique is going to have a determining role in the resolution of such crisis it can no longer be identified with a purely contemplative standpoint; it must be rethought as a form of practical intervention. Subjective critique must give way to praxis, or as Marx will put it, a collective material judgement by associated collective social actors.
3. Missing from the brief historical narrative of critique just outlined is the philosophy of Hegel. Hegel’s philosophy plays a crucial role in determining the trajectory of the Marxian concept of critique both positively and negatively. While Hegel is perhaps the most astute contemporary observer of the world historical crisis that shaped the bourgeois social world at the end of the 18th century, he is also a Christian thinker. He views the narrative of divine redemption as a metaphor for the interpretation of world history as crisis complex. On this reading, a higher spiritual perspective gained from the present allows us to reinterpret every manifestation of evil as a negation that is transcended within a more encompassing positive totality. In this way the crisis complex is relativised within a more comprehensive narrative. Thus Hegel transposes the theological myth of redemption into the dialogical logic of world history as crisis redeemed. However, in this reading, Hegel’s central concept of spirit (Geist) (which is a synthesis of the divine and human and the subject of the narrative) retains the contemplative stance of Christian myth. Hegel understands his philosophy as speculative reason (Vernunft) on the old model of contemplative theoria: this contemplation occurs in the present understood as the end of history: as recollection it is never itself subject to the crisis, or really delivered up to it, but resolves the crisis by means of its already attained higher wisdom. It is worthwhile pointing out that the concept of speculation also comes from the Greek specto—to look at or scrutinise. It has a chequered history in classical and Christian thought where is sometimes approximated the Greek notion of theoria without losing the mystical connotations associated with the mirror as against the real. Our finite knowledge of god compared to that which we will have in meeting him face to face in death. In any case, Hegel wants to preserve the older positive meaning of theoria without losing the mystical connotations found in the Christian vision of it as both divinely inspired but partial. As the philosophical reflection of absolute wisdom, Hegel’s philosophy recalls immanently the torturous course of real history of which it is the subject and product without abandoning his ultimate transcendent viewpoint as memory. From this angle, Hegel’s concessions to history are ultimately only an appearance. For him, philosophy remains superior to the crisis because it comprehends itself as totalising synthesis rather than as a judgement issued from within a life and death struggle. Hegel contemplative reserve resides in a determination to preserve philosophical restraint, to remain beyond the battle. For him, philosophy can only look back at the achievements of spirit and translate them into a retrospective wisdom; as he famously puts it, philosophy is the owl of Minerva who can take to the wing only at dusk when a form of life has grown old. According to this conception, philosophy has no mandate for the future; it would break its contract with reason if it succumbed to subjectivity and offered to teach the world how it should be or entered the fray as action. It is on this basis that Marx will formulate is early critique of Hegel. In its totalising aspiration the Hegelian system achieved a perfect synthesis but, in so doing, has closed itself off from the real social world that remains unreconciled and is characterised by extreme social contradictions.
Marx’s Critique of Hegel and its Contribution to Critical Theory
2. Freed from a theological narrative of sin and redemption, late 18th century bourgeois society was able to reinterpret world history as a story not of crisis but of linear progress. However, the 19th century economy soon reinserted the consciousness of crisis back into history in the shape of the bourgeois economy. For example one can find descriptions of an economic crisis on Wall St in 1857 that are very similar to those found in commentaries on the GFC. However, with this new crisis there is not transcendent theological judgement but an immanent development: there is no Archimedean point or supra-mundane locus from which pure knowledge can take its stand outside of itself. Crisis has become truly historical and begins to encompass civilisation as a whole. Critique must now be guided by a practical interest in deciding the process of crisis in a favourable direction. For Marx, from this point on, the human judge is a participant in the crisis. This means that history is now conceived as a self-critical process. However, the objective complexity of the totality of social relations resists all merely subjective efforts to resolve the crisis by cognitive or contemplative acts alone. If critique is going to have a determining role in the resolution of such crisis it can no longer be identified with a purely contemplative standpoint; it must be rethought as a form of practical intervention. Subjective critique must give way to praxis, or as Marx will put it, a collective material judgement by associated collective social actors.
3. Missing from the brief historical narrative of critique just outlined is the philosophy of Hegel. Hegel’s philosophy plays a crucial role in determining the trajectory of the Marxian concept of critique both positively and negatively. While Hegel is perhaps the most astute contemporary observer of the world historical crisis that shaped the bourgeois social world at the end of the 18th century, he is also a Christian thinker. He views the narrative of divine redemption as a metaphor for the interpretation of world history as crisis complex. On this reading, a higher spiritual perspective gained from the present allows us to reinterpret every manifestation of evil as a negation that is transcended within a more encompassing positive totality. In this way the crisis complex is relativised within a more comprehensive narrative. Thus Hegel transposes the theological myth of redemption into the dialogical logic of world history as crisis redeemed. However, in this reading, Hegel’s central concept of spirit (Geist) (which is a synthesis of the divine and human and the subject of the narrative) retains the contemplative stance of Christian myth. Hegel understands his philosophy as speculative reason (Vernunft) on the old model of contemplative theoria: this contemplation occurs in the present understood as the end of history: as recollection it is never itself subject to the crisis, or really delivered up to it, but resolves the crisis by means of its already attained higher wisdom. It is worthwhile pointing out that the concept of speculation also comes from the Greek specto—to look at or scrutinise. It has a chequered history in classical and Christian thought where is sometimes approximated the Greek notion of theoria without losing the mystical connotations associated with the mirror as against the real. Our finite knowledge of god compared to that which we will have in meeting him face to face in death. In any case, Hegel wants to preserve the older positive meaning of theoria without losing the mystical connotations found in the Christian vision of it as both divinely inspired but partial. As the philosophical reflection of absolute wisdom, Hegel’s philosophy recalls immanently the torturous course of real history of which it is the subject and product without abandoning his ultimate transcendent viewpoint as memory. From this angle, Hegel’s concessions to history are ultimately only an appearance. For him, philosophy remains superior to the crisis because it comprehends itself as totalising synthesis rather than as a judgement issued from within a life and death struggle. Hegel contemplative reserve resides in a determination to preserve philosophical restraint, to remain beyond the battle. For him, philosophy can only look back at the achievements of spirit and translate them into a retrospective wisdom; as he famously puts it, philosophy is the owl of Minerva who can take to the wing only at dusk when a form of life has grown old. According to this conception, philosophy has no mandate for the future; it would break its contract with reason if it succumbed to subjectivity and offered to teach the world how it should be or entered the fray as action. It is on this basis that Marx will formulate is early critique of Hegel. In its totalising aspiration the Hegelian system achieved a perfect synthesis but, in so doing, has closed itself off from the real social world that remains unreconciled and is characterised by extreme social contradictions.
Marx’s Critique of Hegel and its Contribution to Critical Theory
4. Before we pursue the meaning of this critique of Hegel’s idealist abstraction and follow its consequences, we should dwell for a moment on Marx’s debt to the Hegelian dialectic. Of course I won’t pretend to address this question in all its complications, which could consume a course all on its own. Here I only want to underline some basic and less controversial points. Marx takes over as his point of departure the categories of Hegel’s account of objective spirit. We have seen how Hegel reinterprets spiritual meaning as a narrative of world history where each successive crisis complex issues in a higher, more evolved constellation of symbolic meanings, mores and institutional structures that finally culminates in his contemporary world as the realisation of reason and freedom. In this conception, history itself, viewed as the totality of spiritual actions, constantly produces and then renovates morality (Sittlichkeit). These objectively realised values serve as the immanent measure of its concrete institutional attainments. Marx takes over from Hegel this idea of an immanent measure to judge that only a determinant negation of the existing bourgeois order will allow the anticipated reconciliation of reason and reality. But, like Hegel, he does not view this critique of the contemporary bourgeois order as a merely subjective judgement. The principle of immanence demands that only the dialectic of the objective historical dynamics--the concrete contesting social classes—transform his subjective, critical judgement into an actual objective one. In other words, Marx must demonstrate that his own critical impulses are not merely subjective whims but express the objective tendencies of real social actors within the contemporary bourgeois world facing economic/social crisis.
5. This train of thought directs Marx’s own investigations towards the analysis of contemporary bourgeois industrialisation and especially to the social labour on which it depended. This is why Marx can acknowledge that Hegel had discovered the role of social labour in the historical production of humanity but had failed to recognise that alienation was not the ontological condition of all such labour. According to Marx, Hegel had understood the labour of human self-constitution on the model of a spiritual process of appropriation/objectification, for which alienation was constitutive. In what does this alienation consist? For the idealist Hegel, work, by its very nature as objective activity, constrains the radical self-sufficiency and freedom of spirit and is therefore alienating. By contrast, for the materialist Marx, work expresses the natural context of man as a finite being reliant upon an ongoing and inescapable metabolic exchange with nature. Nor was the crisis of this alienated condition to be resolved by purely philosophical means. Marx refuses to allow alienation to be overcome by a mere interpretative or contemplative act. As we have seen, Marx undertook to comprehend the crisis materialistically by focusing more concretely on the specific dialectic of social labour within bourgeois society. As he sees things, political economy had already developed the categories of the latter, it understands the economy as a system but had not yet recognised its historical and completely contingent character. To make good the failure to recognise its own historicity, Marx insists that a critique of political economy must expose the categories of political economy to critical review from a standpoint beyond that of political economy itself, i.e. from a standpoint that does not take these categories for granted, from the standpoint of the philosophical category of alienation, but also as one where the associated practical intention of the theory is overcoming the crisis.
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