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The End of Philosophy, the Origin of "Ideology": Karl Marx and the Crisis of the Young Hegelians
- GenresHistory
305 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1987
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
December 21, 2022
A good overview/analysis of Marx's path from the struggle between his father's Enlightenment ethics and Marx's own troubled romanticism to "German Ideology" and "Communist Manifesto", via Hegelianism. A kind of book that actually tries to explain why stuff was written.
In particular, Mah argues that the whole stream of Marx's texts from 1841 to 1846 is but a series of battles with the contradictions between Marx's Hegelianism and the surrounding reality. A critique of Hegel's horizon of constitutional monarchy, a critique of politics in general, then finally a critique of philosophy as ideology.
One significant issue with the text is its non-problematization of "German Ideology", whose chapter 1, "Feurbach", has generated a lot of philological controversy recently. Namely, it is argued that the chapter was artificially assembled by Ryazanov and colleagues in the 1920s. The problem is that Mah relies on "German Ideology" quite a lot. In his view, in "GI", Marx has completely abandoned philosophy, working out an "antiphilosophical" view, based on self-evident, emphatically common-sensical materialist principles. Thus "GI" is the end result of the battle with Marx's own Hegelianism.
Does Mah's interpretation fall with "GI"'s chapter 1 being "factitiously constructed"? I think at least partly the answer is no. Marx indeed said in the famous "Preface" that with Engels they "decided to set forth together our conception as opposed to the ideological one of German philosophy, in fact to settle accounts with our former philosophical conscience ". It is clear they wanted to walk away from philosophy, it is clear that Hegelian youth haunted them, and it is clear that their criticism of philosophy was based on the notion of ideology. In this sense, Mah's account seems accurate. What to make of his insistence that Marx's solution to the crisis of young hegelianism was common-sense-based empiricism which he (Mah) proves by pointing to "GI"? One answer is to look into other works from the same period (mentioned in the Preface, again), another - to entertain an idea that Marx at the time was simply not so interested in a complete, "philosophical" defense of his newly found anti-philosophy. In fact, Mah's own account of Marx's rapidly changing identities (poetry, law, philosophy, journalism, politics and economics) suggests that. We, today, subconsciously want final, timeless, teachable revelations reading Marx's works, Marx at that tumultuous time - not so much. At the same time, a reading emphasizing Marx's newfound pragmatism (noted by Mah) - that "one could verify the validity of one's views by carrying them out in practice" - is completely in line with that more playful attitude, too.
Also good were the very brief, yet very informative, clarifications on how the concept of ideology was evolving from the times of Young Hegelians to the 20th century.
While a good overview, it is still incomplete when it comes to understanding the role of Marx's immersion in political economy in mid-1840s, as Mah himself notes: "I have not dealt with his ideas about the political economy except as they relate to that crisis [the crisis of Young Hegelian theory in Prussia]."
In particular, Mah argues that the whole stream of Marx's texts from 1841 to 1846 is but a series of battles with the contradictions between Marx's Hegelianism and the surrounding reality. A critique of Hegel's horizon of constitutional monarchy, a critique of politics in general, then finally a critique of philosophy as ideology.
One significant issue with the text is its non-problematization of "German Ideology", whose chapter 1, "Feurbach", has generated a lot of philological controversy recently. Namely, it is argued that the chapter was artificially assembled by Ryazanov and colleagues in the 1920s. The problem is that Mah relies on "German Ideology" quite a lot. In his view, in "GI", Marx has completely abandoned philosophy, working out an "antiphilosophical" view, based on self-evident, emphatically common-sensical materialist principles. Thus "GI" is the end result of the battle with Marx's own Hegelianism.
Does Mah's interpretation fall with "GI"'s chapter 1 being "factitiously constructed"? I think at least partly the answer is no. Marx indeed said in the famous "Preface" that with Engels they "decided to set forth together our conception as opposed to the ideological one of German philosophy, in fact to settle accounts with our former philosophical conscience ". It is clear they wanted to walk away from philosophy, it is clear that Hegelian youth haunted them, and it is clear that their criticism of philosophy was based on the notion of ideology. In this sense, Mah's account seems accurate. What to make of his insistence that Marx's solution to the crisis of young hegelianism was common-sense-based empiricism which he (Mah) proves by pointing to "GI"? One answer is to look into other works from the same period (mentioned in the Preface, again), another - to entertain an idea that Marx at the time was simply not so interested in a complete, "philosophical" defense of his newly found anti-philosophy. In fact, Mah's own account of Marx's rapidly changing identities (poetry, law, philosophy, journalism, politics and economics) suggests that. We, today, subconsciously want final, timeless, teachable revelations reading Marx's works, Marx at that tumultuous time - not so much. At the same time, a reading emphasizing Marx's newfound pragmatism (noted by Mah) - that "one could verify the validity of one's views by carrying them out in practice" - is completely in line with that more playful attitude, too.
Also good were the very brief, yet very informative, clarifications on how the concept of ideology was evolving from the times of Young Hegelians to the 20th century.
While a good overview, it is still incomplete when it comes to understanding the role of Marx's immersion in political economy in mid-1840s, as Mah himself notes: "I have not dealt with his ideas about the political economy except as they relate to that crisis [the crisis of Young Hegelian theory in Prussia]."
May 5, 2015
nothing
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews