Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right in Philosophy

May 03, 2016 Tyler rated it really liked it

Shelves: philosophy, marx-and-friends

Marx first begins to stand Hegel's system "on its feet" in this critique, which takes up most of the book and gives readers a first glimpse of the methodology Marx would hone to perfection twenty years later in his unsurpassed analysis of capitalism. That in the later magnum opus Marx's intellectual career found its highest expression explains why he left this critique unfinished - something he had wanted to edit into a treatise before his thinking and writing outran the subject of this book. Bu Marx first begins to stand Hegel's system "on its feet" in this critique, which takes up most of the book and gives readers a first glimpse of the methodology Marx would hone to perfection twenty years later in his unsurpassed analysis of capitalism. That in the later magnum opus Marx's intellectual career found its highest expression explains why he left this critique unfinished - something he had wanted to edit into a treatise before his thinking and writing outran the subject of this book. But this work, discovered only in 1922, has become a crucial record of Marx's development of dialectical materialism, and that's what makes it so interesting.

Marx had gotten so far as to prepare an 11-page introduction to the critique when the course of events changed, and those pages are provided at the end of the text. In it Marx criticizes civil society in Germany, including religious institutions, advocates the complete dismantling of the political structure and identifies the proletariat as the only effective agent for such a change. The development of Marx's thoughts in the little time between the writing of the manuscript and his short introduction is striking.

These two parts are prefaced by an outstanding introduction by Joseph O'Malley, whose lucid contribution stands out as the third part to this book. In the 56 pages that precede Marx's work, O'Malley gives readers as thorough a review of the context in which Marx wrote as one could ask for, explaining how Hegel influenced Marx's thinking, why Hegel's description of the ideal State became Marx's point of departure, what Marx was trying to do with his new method of criticism, and how Feuerbach's influence on Marx found its way into this work.

Marx's critique stresses the distinction Hegel makes between civil and political society, traces this dualism back to the Middle Ages and looks at the effect of property relations on Hegel's proposal. Where Hegel, for example, would argue that guaranteed private property (even for every citizen) was the key to a civil society on which to build a political state, Marx argues the opposite - that private property, due to its basis in civil society, meant that no part of civil society could act impartially in the political sphere. Property rights, which for Hegel overcame the dualism between civil and political life, for Marx reinforced the contradiction between the two spheres.

In its unedited form, Marx's reasoning drags out toward the end, where he dwells upon Hegel's political state in more detail than necessary. If he had edited the work for publication Marx would have condensed a lot of what both he and Hegel were talking about. But the methodology - the dialectical reasoning and the historical materialism - are there to be seen. With a little help from Mr. O'Malley (okay, a good deal of it!) I was able to trace the inception of an entirely new form of scientific reasoning within these pages.
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May 31, 2007 Joe rated it it was amazing

Shelves: marxism, commentary, political-thought, review-comment, hegel

Comment:

This book contains the most acute criticism of Hegel by Marx. This work, which was never published in his lifetime, dates from the early 1840's. There is some question as to precisely when. But our editor, Joseph O'Malley, thinks the best evidence points to March-August of '43. The Critique itself has rarely been translated, but the 'Introduction' to the work has been reprinted innumerable times; it contains the famous characterization of Religion as 'the opium of the people'. Both the C ...more

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