Western Philosophy The "Expurgation of Hegelianis" As well as having been embraced by the Prussian Monarchy as a kind of official creed, Hegel left behind him a movement which inspired powerful revolutionary criticism of the very official society which had sanctified him. The ten years after Hegel's death were the apogee of Hegelianism. His students, who had lived under the master's spell during his lifetime, went out and popularised his teachings and translated them into the language of politics or much more correctly, translated politics into the language of Hegelianism. !n "#$", the establishment deliberatively moved to %e&punge the dragon's seed of Hegelian pantheism% from the minds of Prussian youth. A newlyappointed Minister for 'ulture mobilised (riedrich )chelling to come to *erlin and do the +ob. (riedrich )chelling was the second, and in "#$", the only living representative of 'lassical ,erman Philosophy. The former Professor of Philosopher at -ena after (ichte's dismissal for heresy, who as a youth had been a close friend of Hegel, had both encouraged Hegel and enlisted his support in his struggle against (ichte. Although pushed into the philosophical background by the great , . ( Hegel, he had also out-lived Hegel. /Ask anybody in *erlin today on what field the battle for dominion over ,erman public opinion in politics and religion, that is, over ,ermany itself, is being fought, and if he has any idea of the power of the mind over the world he will reply that this battlefield is the 0niversity, in particular 1ecture Hall 2o. 3, where )chelling is giving his lectures on the Philosophy of 4evelation. (or at the moment all the separate oppositions which contend with Hegel's philosophy for this dominion are obscured, blurred and pushed into the background by the one opposition of )chelling5 all the attackers who stand outside philosophy, )tahl, Hengstenberg, 2eander, are making way for a fighter who is e&pected to give battle to the uncon6uered on his own ground. And the battle is indeed peculiar enough. Two old friends of younger days, room mates at the T7bingen theological seminary, are after forty years meeting each other again face to face as opponents5 one of them ten years dead but more alive than ever in his pupils5 the other, as the latter say, intellectually dead for three decades, but now suddenly claiming for himself the full power and authority of life. Anybody who is sufficiently %impartial% to profess himself e6ually alien to both, that is, to be no Hegelian, for surely nobody can as yet declare himself on the side of )chelling after the few words he has said anybody then, who possesses this vaunted advantage of %impartiality% will see in the declaration of Hegel's death pronounced by )chelling's appearance in *erlin, the vengeance of the gods for the declaration of )chelling's death which Hegel himself pronounced in his time8. /An imposing, colourful audience has assembled to witness the battle. At the front the notables of the 0niversity, the leading lights of science, men everyone of whom has created a trend of his own5 for them the seats nearest to the rostrum have been reserved, and behind them, +umbled together as chance brought them to the hall, representatives of all walks of life, nations, and religious beliefs. !n the midst of high spirited youths there sits here and there a greybreaded staff officer and ne&t to him perhaps, 6uite unembarrassed, a volunteer who in any other society would not know what to do for reverence towards such a highranking superior. 9ld doctors and ecclesiastics, the +ubilee of whose matriculation can soon be celebrated feel the longforgotten student haunting their minds again and are back in college. -udaism and !slam want to see what 'hristian revelation is all about: ,erman, (rench, ;nglish, Hungarian, Polish, 4ussian, modern ,reek and Turkish, one can hear them all spoken together, then the signal for silence sounds and )chelling mounts the rostrum. /A man of middle stature, with white hair and lightblue, bright eyes, whose e&pression is gay rather than imposing and, combined with a certain fullness of figure, indicates more the +ovial familyman than the thinker of genius, a harsh but strong voice, )wabian*avarian accent, that is )chelling's outward appearance8. <;ngels, Schelling on Hegel, =ecember "#$"> The audience also included the 4ussian anarchist, Mikhail *akunin, and )?ren @ierkegaard, who was to be the founder of ;&istentialism. )chelling's proposition was that Hegel had confused %essence% and %e&istence%, and what was re6uired was a return to a philosophy of existence. @ierkegaard ridiculed Hegel for %reconstructing% history in retrospect, %but history has to be lived forwards, not backwards%. (or his part, ;ngels insisted that the youth and all enemies of the autocracy must rally to the defence of Hegel. He characterised )chelling's proposition as a %philosophy of revelation%, or %positivism% Aas opposed to the %negative% standpoint of 4easonB. )chelling did not, as it turned out, win much support for his position, but the young =anish theologian @ierkegaard, declaring the bankruptcy of 4eason, can be seen as the founder of ;&istentialism, which is continued through (riedrich 2ietCsche, ;dmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger and through Heidegger is a significant component of today's philosophical cloudscape. ;&istentialism appears to pick up from )chelling's denunciation of Hegel's focus on ;ssence, and substitutes for Hegel's study of the ;ssential genesis of notions an analysis of Being. Arthur )chopenhauer, who had taught at the 0niversity of *erlin for D$ semesters, and had spoken regularly to an empty lecture hall, ne&t door and at the same hour when Hegel lectured to a large and evergrowing audience. !n May "#DE he had renounced his career to live as a recluse. !n "#$$, an obscure *erlin bookseller accepted the manuscript of )chopenhauer's oft re+ected The World as Will and Idea without remuneration and this book the founding work of Foluntarism, in the style of 'lassical ,erman philosophy but passionately hostile to its spirit gained )chopenhauer worldwide recognition and caused 2ietCsche to speak of )chopenhauer as his %great teacher%. !n *ritain, -ohn )tuart Mill and in (rance Auguste 'omte came forward as the proponents of Positivism. Positivism is a difficult thing to characterise, because like any ideology, it is intimately connected with the fate not of any given proposition or thesis, but with the fate of a social entity and rises and falls and transforms itself according to the fate of the social movement it reflects. Positivism is that current in epistemology which seeks to speak for science5 it re+ects %speculation% and sees the task of philosophical knowledge as summing up and e&pressing the positive knowledge gathered by the sciences. !n the first phase of its development, first place was given to sociology5 in this it e&pressed a belief in the liberating power of science and the urgent need for science to replace religion and all forms of nonscientific %metaphysical% or religious speculation, and conse6uently the need for a scientific conception of society, based on the rational analysis of the data of the senses. Mikhail Ale&androvich *akunin had studied Hegel in Moscow but had emigrated in "#$G to +oin the Houng Hegelians in *erlin. His later career would see *akunin fighting in the 4evolution of "#$# in Prague and =resden, returning to 4ussia, e&iled to )iberia, +oining the (irst !nternational but finally e&pelled in "#ID and founding the 2arodnik and Anarchist movements in 4ussia the most e&treme of bourgeois radicals, advocating immediate insurrection and the smashing of all states. ;arlier in "#$", 1udwig (euerbach had published his Essence of Christianity: /with one blow it pulverised the contradiction, in that without circumlocutions it placed materialism on the throne again. 2ature e&ists independently of all philosophy ... the spell was broken5 the %system% was e&ploded and cast aside ... one must have e&perienced the liberating effect of this book to get an idea of it. ;nthusiasm was general ... but a philosophy is not disposed of by the mere assertion that it is false... it had to be %sublated% in its own sense, ... the new content which had been won through it had to be saved ...8 <;ngels' Ludwig euer!ach and the End of Classical "er#an $hilosophy>. !n almost a moment, following the sacking of @aiser .ilhelm (riedrich's 'ulture Minister in "#$", sprung ;&istentialism, Foluntarism, Anarchism, Positivism and MaterialismJ ;ngels said of )chelling's "#$" speech: %!t will be our business to follow the course of his <)chelling's> thinking and to shield the great man's <Hegel's> grave from abuse. .e are not afraid to fight. 2othing more desirable could have happened to us than for a time to be 'The 'hurch 9ppressed'. There the minds part. .hat is not genuine is proved in the fire, what is false we shall not miss in our ranks. The opponents must grant us that youth has never before flocked to our colours in such numbers, that the thought which dominates us has never before unfolded itself so richly, that courage, conviction, talent have never been so much on our side as now. Hence we shall rise confidently against the new enemy5 in the end, one will be found among us who will prove that the sword of enthusiasm is +ust as good as the sword of genius. %1et )chelling see whether he can muster a school. Many only +oin him now because they are opposed to Hegel and accept with gratitude anybody who attacks him ...% <Schelling on Hegel, =ecember "#$"> !n 9ctober "#$K, ;ngels published his %utlines of a Criti&ue of $olitical Econo#y, which caught the attention of @arl Mar& and the DKyearolds struck up a correspondence. ... *y "#$#, the year of publication of the Co##unist 'anifesto, ;urope was ablaCe with 4evolution. (or the first time, the proletariat came on to the political scene as a force for itself. The 4evolution was defeated, with the -unkers gaining control in ,ermany and the Army in (rance. *ut throughout the following period, the working class remained the chief threat to bourgeois society. The (irst !nternational was founded in "#3K, with the Trades 'ouncils in *ritain and the rapid rise of the ,erman )ocial =emocratic Party and the Paris 'ommune holding state power for a short period in "#I". The emergence of labour as a conscious social force puts a final end to the classical period of bourgeois epistemology. The e&plosion of "#$" anticipates this e&plosion and the irreversible seachange which follows. %2ature% has spoken. (or bourgeois philosophy prior to this time, the labouring masses Aor what the postmoderns call the /subaltern8 the /congregation8 who get spoken of and to, but have themselves no right to speakB were like 2ature, something Lbeyond sensationM, the unconscious. Irrationalism & Positivism The period of development of bourgeois philosophy from the "#$Gs to the "#3Gs is the period in which the tendencies and forces of a new epoch of development are formed. The period of e&pansion of capitalism which followed the defeat of the 'ommune in "#I" up to the e&haustion of the period of colonial e&pansion and the opening of the period of !mperialism at the turn of the century, marks the ne&t specific period in the development of bourgeois ideology. (rom the "#$Gs, it is no longer possible for bourgeois ideology to be developed in the form of a %secular religion%, but ideology is worked out in conflict within specific, separate domains of en6uiry, principally: political economy, psychology, natural science and sociology. The figures who launch the initial attack on Hegel, (euerbach and )chelling, did not gather around them a substantial and lasting following. -ohn )tuart Mill and Auguste 'omte were already well known by the end of the "#KGs, and as it turns out, the principal figures of the first period immediately following "#$" are Mill, 'omte and later Herbert )pencer APositivistsB, )?ren @ierkegaard and Arthur )chopenhauer Athe precursors to ;&istentialismB, the Anarchist Mikhail *akunin and 'ommunists @arl Mar& and (rederick ;ngels. Politically speaking, these figures cover as wide a field as it is possible to imagine. .ithout blurring the differences between Anarchism and 'ommunism and the class basis of these political differences, it is not sensible to comprehend either Mar&ism or Anarchism as part of the organism of bourgeois ideology. They will be considered separately elsewhere. The others philosophically speaking divide clearly into two camps. =espite the mutual hostility which is a professional prere6uisite and despite the political diversity within each camp, we have on the one hand, the %sociologists% 'omte, Mill and )pencer, and on the other hand, the %psychologists% @ierkegaard and )chopenhauer. The Huan !ondition The young 1udwig (euerbach e&pressed the common ;ssence of the downfall of Hegelianism, and he has to be credited with the fact that he launched his attack on Hegel while Hegel was still flavour of the decade: %Modern philosophy has realised and negated the divine being who is separated and distinguished from sensation, the world, and man. *ut it realised and negated this divine being only in thought, in reason, and indeed in that reason that is also separated and distinguished from sensation, the world, and man. 2amely, modern philosophy has proved only the divinity of mind5 it recognised only mind, and indeed the abstract mind, as the divine and absolute being.% <s."#, $rinciples of $hilosophy of the uture, published D years after The Essence of Christianity, in "#$K> .hen 'omte, for instance, says: %The 0niverse is to be studied not for its own sake, but for the sake of ... Humanity. To study it in any other spirit would not only be immoral, but also highly irrational. (or, as statements of pure ob+ective truth, our scientific theories can never be really satisfactory ... !t is for social feeling to determine these limits5 outside which our knowledge will always remain imperfect as well as useless ... the intellect would, under Positivism, accept its proper position of subordination to the heart%, there is a significant debt to Hegel, but he also is definitively calling for an end to %metaphysics%, and when @ierkegaard says: %science, fully as much as poetry and art, assumes a #ood ... an error in modulation is +ust as disturbing as an error in the e&position of thought% we can recognise something of the same thought. The problem is that 'omte's solution Awhich was probably the dominant oneB led to a further shattering of the unity of human labour, with ",GG" %specialists% beavering away in their own little area. Thus, the great synthesis which Hegel achieved, albeit idealistically, was lost on the very people who most needed it. (euerbach opened the first, historical section of $hilosophy of the uture with: %The task of the modern era was the realisation and humanisation of ,od the transformation and dissolution of theology into anthropology.% And he shows that this begins with Protestantism. ;veryone was saying that the human agency did not +ustexpress something Asuch as The Absolute !deaB, this human %agency% was itself the issue, man was not +ust an %agent%. This was already implicit in the highly political way in which the Houng Hegelians were promoting philosophy, and the establishment knew itJ @ierkegaard is on about sin5 he wants to not +ust o!serve sin, e&plain it, call it an illness it must be denounced, and denouncing sin meant real pain and suffering. He is against %scientific ob+ectivity%, of dispassionately looking at sin as something neutral, ob+ective. His whole thing about #oods is a knife aimed at the whole basis of 1ogic, %4ationalism% Ain the degraded sense of the wordB and (!solute Idea. )chopenhauer wanted to place the human, sub+ective .ill at the centre of the system, not an o!)ective thought for# but a very sub+ective, human, suffering, painful .ill: %every stronger or heterogeneous affection of these senseorgans is painful, in other words, is against the .ill5 ... to make them data for the understanding, <they must> reach the higher degree at which they stir the will, that is to say, e&cite pain or pleasure, though more often pain.% And (euerbach is going in a direction which has some point of contact with this: %The new philosophy regards and considers being as it is for us, not only as thinking but as really e&isting beings5 thus, it regards being as an ob+ect of being, as an ob+ect of itself. *eing as an ob+ect of being and only this being is being and deserves the name of being is the being of the senses, perception, feeling, and love. *eing is thus a secret of perception, of feeling, and of love.% <s.KK, $rinciples of $hilosophy of the uture> "ier#egaard and Schopenhauer @ierkegaard and )chopenhauer are united, if in little else, in their abiding hatred of Hegel. The ob+ect of @ierkegaard's attention is sin. !n his definitive attack on Hegel, The Concept of *read, he points out that %science, fully as much as poetry and art, assumes a #ood ... an error in modulation is +ust as disturbing as an error in the e&position of thought%. ... %but the correct mood <for consideration of sin> is the stouthearted opposition of seriousness. The mood of psychology is the dread corresponding to its discovery, and in its dread it delineates sin, while again and again it is alarmed by the sketch it produces. .hen sin is treated in such a way it becomes the stronger ... As soon as sin is talked about as a sickness, an abnormality, a poison, a disharmony, then the concept too is falsified. )in does not properly belong in any science. !t is the theme with which the ser#on deals, ...% @ierkegaard goes on to say that ;thics is also not the correct science to deal with sin as %;thics is after all an ideal science, ... ;thics bring ideality into reality5 on the other hand its movement is not designed to raise reality up into ideality.% )o it is only %dogmatics%, i.e. 'hristian dogma, which is capable of dealing with sin: %.hile psychology is fathoming the real possibility of sin, dogmatics e&plains original sin, which is the ideal possibility of sin%. <e&cerpts from The Concept of *read, )?ren @ierkegaard, "#$$> (or Hegel %All that is rational is real, and all that is real is rational%. 9utraged by the corrupt and sinful character of the 'hurch and society of his day, @ierkegaard it is not content to e&plain or deplore it. !t must be denounced: %The new ethics presupposes dogmatics and along with that original sin, and by this it now e&plains the sin of the individual, while at the same time it presents ideality as a tas+, not however by a movement from above down, but fro# !elow up.% )chopenhauer on the other hand builds a system of the type of 'lassical ,erman Philosophy, but with the Will at the centre: %The process through which and in which the body e&ists, are nothing but the phenomenal appearance of the .ill, ... the parts of the body must correspond completely to the chief demands and desires by which the .ill manifests itself5 ... Teeth, gullet, and intestinal canal are ob+ectified hunger5 the genitals are ob+ectified se&ual impulse.% )chopenhauer's philosophy is thus given the name of Foluntarism, seeking to resolve the scepticism of @ant by identifying the thinginitself with .ill Arather than ;go as with (ichte or 2ature as in the earlier )chellingB. )chopenhauer's position is, like (ichte, that of sub+ective idealism: %what other kind of e&istence or reality could we attribute to the rest of the material worldN (rom what source could we take the elements out of which we construct such a worldN *esides the will and the representation, there is absolutely nothing known or conceivable for us.% <from The World as Will and ,epresentation, Arthur )chopenhauer, "#"O P "#$$> )chopenhauer has made an important progression from @ant in that he has recognised the identity between human needs and sensuous representation: %every stronger or heterogeneous affection of these senseorgans is painful, in other words, is against the .ill5 ... to make them data for the understanding, <they must> reach the higher degree at which they stir the will, that is to say, e&cite pain or pleasure, though more often pain.% The pessimistic tenor of )chopenhauer's philosophy is brought out particularly sharply: e&perience is %pleasure, though more often pain%J *ut the dualism of the sub+ectob+ect relation is resolved by totally subordinating the material world to the individual .ill, resolving the dualism in favour of the sub+ect, for whom the outer world is +ust so much %pleasure, though more often pain%J However, within of the secular religious mentality of classical epistemology, this sub+ective idealism is invariably reactionary in its political implications because it belittles the creative function of labour and promotes the unrestricted action of the rulers. The resistance of 2ature to the .ill is %pain% which must be overcome by greater force. Thus both )chopenhauer and @ierkegaard re+ect what they see as Hegel's %rationalism%, in favour of a turn inward to (aith, in the case of @ierkegaard, and .ill in the case of )chopenhauer. !n both cases the value of @nowledge is deliberatively discounted in favour of eeling, 4eason in favour of Will Abe it =ivine or humanB, ;&perience in favour of Suffering. *oth these tendencies have inspired and attracted the political 4ight, and there is certainly nothing progressive or optimistic about them. *oth were religious but nonconformist, @ierkegaard a devout 1utheran at war with the established 'hurch, )chopenhauer a respectable ,erman bourgeois, with a somewhat /2ew Age8 interest in Hinduism. !t is easy to say that their philosophy was a negative, pessimistic response to the rise of the proletariat, but why and how is such a reaction e&pressed in such epistemologyN And why at this timeN And also, there is a grain of truth: the doctrine of absolute rationality is itself a form of secular religion, as shown by 1udwig (euerbach in his "#$" Essence of Christianity. 2ote that )chopenhauer was not an opponent of science. !n fact, prior to his philosophical writing, he was himself active in natural science Aespecially in the popular business of analysing sensationsB. Pragmatism as well as ;&istentialism owes a debt to Foluntarism and for e&le in the form of the 9perationalism of Percy *ridgman, gets along with natural science 6uite as well as empiricism or better. The name of %!rrationalism% which we can attach to ;&istentialism and Foluntarism and to a certain e&tent also Pragmatism, should not be taken as a ter# of a!use. !rrationalism comes forward to point out the limitations and failures of reason and e&perience, and it has its grain of truth. !ote and $ill The period following the e&purgation of Hegelianism in ,ermany has -ohn )tuart Mill the leading figure of philosophy in *ritain and Auguste 'omte in (rance. *oth were great synthesisers and reflected the scientific optimism of the bourgeoisie of their time, taking their inspiration from @ant and Hume, seemingly unmoved by either Hegelianism or its condemnation in ,ermany. ;ach, however, respond to the changed social conditions of ;urope by the promotion of ;thics. Mills' ;thics is that of 0tilitarianism. -eremy *entham, renowned for his theories of prison reform, should properly be given credit as originator of 0tilitarianism, but it was Mills was systematically elaborated the theory and did so in con+unction with political economy and his theoretical work on the foundations of the *ritish political system. 'omte coined the term %Positivism%, by which he understood the %third phase% of development of human society after theology and metaphysics, in which e&planations were in terms of essences, final causes, and other abstractions. The modern positive stage, is distinguished by an awareness of the limitations of human knowledge. @nowledge, he held, could only be relative to man's nature as a species and to his social and historical situation. Absolute e&planations were therefore better abandoned for the more sensible discovery of laws based on the observable relations between phenomena. )ociology would reduce social facts to laws and synthesise the whole of human knowledge. 'omte was no democrat however. His notion of social organisation imitated the hierarchy and discipline of the 'atholic church. (rom various ;nlightenment philosophers he adopted the notion of historical progress, and from )aint)imon he drew the need for a basic and unifying %sociology% to e&plain e&isting social organisations and guide social planning for a better future. 1ike Mill, he held that the underlying principles of society are individual egoism, encouraged by the division of labour, and the combination of efforts and the maintenance of social cohesion by means of government and the state. However, 'omte re+ected democracy, emphasising hierarchy and obedience, and like )aint )imon, he held that the ideal government would be made up of an intellectual elite, utilising a kind of humanist religion in order to secure social cohesion. *oth men assisted in promoting women's suffrage in the wake of the tragic death of the love of their life, and both were advocates of reform of various kinds within their own country. !n philosophy, both emphasise the rational analysis of the data of perception and give priority to social development. !n these two %progressive% bourgeois gentlemen, we see in classic form the national characteristics of *ritish and (rench philosophy: Mill, an ethic based on the laws of the political economy of laisse- faire capitalism, 'omte, an ethic of the benign dictatorship of 4eason based on laws of sociohistorical formation of knowledge and belief. % &e' Period of Essential (e)elopent =ecember "#$" marks a discontinuity of spectacular sharpness in ,erman philosophy. -ust as in ;instein's physics there can be no simultaneity of events separated in space, so also, in the broader ;uropean scene, the rupture of "#$" is manifested in an array of changes, reflecting a common underlying process of transformation, which in turn has its social spectacle in the 4evolutions of "#$#. !n the period prior to "#$", ;uropean civilisation was working out socialhistorical problems in a domain of thinking which had been separated out from the whole, concrete life of society, the Theory of @nowledge, an abstraction made possible by the highly developed division of labour, and in particular the e&ploitation of wage labour. ! have characterised this struggle as an alienated formulation of the struggle to understand the relation of human labour and human needs. *ut this by no means takes away form the fact that real con6uests were made in the Theory of @nowledge. Human society was long, long ago shattered by the social division of labour, and the transcendence of this rupture is a long drawn out historical struggle. The mystical character of the process follows from the limitations imposed on professional thinkers under conditions where the real contact with 2ature, real production and the real satisfaction of natural human needs is unspoken and unconscious because the producing class itself is silent. .ell, it is not silent but it is not heard. The period of transformation of bourgeois ideology we are looking at is the period, in *ritain, from the publication of the $eople.s Charter in "#K# which continued up to the final 'hartist demonstrations in "#$#, the same year which saw the popular uprising in Paris in (ebruary, bringing down the -uly Monarchy, the rioting in Fienna which led to the fall of Metternich and the emancipation of the peasantry, the nationalist uprisings in Hungary, the movement for representative government in ,ermany and the publication of the Co##unist 'anifesto, and leads up to the founding of the (irst !nternational and The American 'ivil .ar in "#3K and the Paris 'ommune in "#I". The uprisings and revolutions of "#$# are all defeated but all in one way or another see many of their ob+ectives achieved during the period of relative stability and prosperity which followed. The theory of knowledge has already gone as far as it can go in the "#$$ Manuscripts of @arl Mar&. *ut the bourgeoisie has already declared for the e&purgation of Hegel and young Mar&'s investigations have arrived at the founding of the 'ommunist 1eague and publication of the Co##unist 'anifesto calling for the overthrow of all e&isting social conditions. Meanwhile mechanics has attained a fairly high level of development, but science generally is however still at an embryonic level insofar as it relates to the human condition. The %rigin of Species is not to be published until "#EO, while the science of psychology is still embroiled in mysticism. HelmholtC formulates the law of conservation of energy in "#$I and his work on nerve signals and body heat during the "#EGs cut the ground away from vitalism. The sciences of anthropology and sociology begin from this period. !n other words, speculation about the human condition had taken bourgeois society as far as it could, it was now necessary to begin the positive en6uiry and work out the details. !n a sense, one must give 'omte his due: in declaring the end of the period of metaphysical speculation and the beginning of the period of natural scientific investigation with sociology at the centre, he stated with fair accuracy e&actly what was taking place. Hegel himself had e&pressed the same idea in his Lectures on the $hilosophy of History: Ana&agoras was the first to enunciate the doctrine that 0nderstanding generally, or 4eason, governs the world. !t is not intelligence as selfconscious 4eason, not a )pirit as such that is meant5 and we must clearly distinguish these from each other. The movement of the solar system takes place according to unchangeable laws. These laws are 4eason, implicit in the phenomena in 6uestion. *ut neither the sun nor the planets, which revolve around it according to these laws, can be said to have any consciousness of them. A thought of this kind that 2ature is an embodiment of 4eason5 that it is unchangeably subordinate to universal laws, appears nowise striking or strange to us. .e are accustomed to such conceptions, and find nothing e&traordinary in them. And ! have mentioned this e&traordinary occurrence, partly to show how history teaches, that ideas of this kind, which may seem trivial to us, have not always been in the world5 that on the contrary, such a thought makes an epoch in the annals of human intelligence. Aristotle says of Ana&agoras, as the originator of the thought in 6uestion, that he appeared as a sober man among the drunken. )ocrates adopted the doctrine from Ana&agoras, and it forthwith became the ruling idea in Philosophy, e&cept in the school of ;picurus, who ascribed all events to chance. %! was delighted with the sentiment,% Plato makes )ocrates say %and hoped ! had found a teacher who would show me 2ature in harmony with 4eason, who would demonstrate in each particular phenomenon its specific aim, and in the whole, the grand ob+ect of the 0niverse. ! would not have surrendered this hope for a great deal. *ut how very much was ! disappointed, when, having Cealously applied myself to the writings of Ana&agoras, ! found that he adduces only e&ternal causes, such as Atmosphere, ;ther, .ater, and the like.% !t is evident that the defect which )ocrates complains of respecting Ana&agoras's doctrine, does not concern the principle itself, but the shortcoming of the propounder in applying it to 2ature in the concrete. 2ature is not deduced from that principle: the latter remains in fact a mere abstraction, inasmuch as the former is not comprehended and e&hibited as a development of it an organisation produced by and from 4eason. ! wish, at the very outset, to call your attention to the important difference between a conception, a principle, a truth limited to an a!stract form and its determinate application, and concrete development. <$hilosophy of History, !ntroduction> The problem is that the Theory of @nowledge has been left as %unfinished business%. .hat is more, ;uropean society is undergoing a further leap in the social division of labour, and the pursuit of the natural sciences will be manifested in a division of labour in the production of ideas which further e&acerbates the problem. *ritish political economy and (rench social theory have the elements of the puCCle, but they cannot put it all together. The ,erman bourgeoisie has suffered humiliating defeat at the hands of the -unkers, and ,erman !dealism has been debunked. This time marks the beginning of a new epoch of essential development of bourgeois ideology. /ature has spo+en. !n searching for an understanding of the human condition, one side, which ! will call Irrationalis#, wants to turn away, to turn inward, re+ecting the value of knowledge in favour of (aith or .ill5 the other side,$ositivis# seeks an ethic of knowledge based on the accumulation of the positive knowledge of the sciences. An Historic Split The essential reason for this rupture in bourgeois ideology is the birth of a selfconscious workers' movement. (oremost among those who gave voice to this new historic force is @arl Mar&. Mar&'s theory developed on the basis of bourgeois society and the whole history of bourgeois thought5 it was not an transcription of the thoughts of proletarians and nor did it base itself on a non e&istent %proletarian culture%. !t is nevertheless the theoretical e&pression of the social interests and historical destiny of the new social force to which bourgeois society had given birth. !t is the independent historic destiny of the working class which gives to Mar&ism its essential character. Try as it may, bourgeois ideology can no longer represent the %whole people%. The split within bourgeois ideology comes from the fact that it has recoiled from monism and returned to one or another form of scepticism. However, the proletariat e&ists only as a part of bourgeois society. Any ideology which expresses its fate, must also share its fate. 4evolutionary socialist ideology has its own essential path of development, different and distinct from that of bourgeois ideology. However, the two intersect and mutually affect one another. .ithout for a moment suggesting that Mar&ism develops in some pure and independent way, isolated from the development of bourgeois culture, it is still necessary to recognise two distinct organisms bourgeois and revolutionarysocialist ideology. %narchis and !ounis 4evolutionary socialist ideology also developed in a struggle. *oth theoretical anarchism and modern socialism sprung from the dissolution of the Houng Hegelians and drew upon the whole of bourgeois culture. The struggle between Anarchism A*akunin, Proudhon, and othersB and 'ommunism AMar& and ;ngelsB was the principal a&is of development of the workers' movement throughout the ne&t two generations including the (irst !nternational, the Paris 'ommune and the 4ussian 4evolution. Andy Blunden, 1998. Further reading Q Principles of the Philosophy of the (uture , 1udwig (euerbach "#$K Q Attack on Hegel , by (riedrich )chelling, "#$" Q )chelling R Hegel , ;ngels "#$" Q The 'oncept of =read , )?ren @ierkegaard "#$$ Q Mar&Ms "#$$ Manuscripts Q Theses on (euerbach , Mar& "#$E Q ,od R the )tate , *akunin "#ID Q /1udwig (euerbach8 , ;ngels "##G Value_of_Knowledge | Hegel-by-HyperText