CHAPTER 1 0

Marx 's Distinction between General and

Determinate Abstractions
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hough it has attracted little attention from commentators, the dis

tinction between general and determinate abstractions is fundamental to
Marx's conception of scientific knowledge. 1 It plays an important role in
his critique of idealism in the Paris Manuscripts and the German Ideology; it
structures Marx's masterwork, Capital; and Marx relies on it heavily in
making specific criticisms of previous political economists . This chapter
will consider the distinction in terms of three issues: the limited value of
general abstractions; some paralogisms involving general and determinate
abstractions that occur in political economy; and the distinction between
these two types of abstractions as it is made in the German Ideology.
THE SCANT SC IENTIFIC VAL UE OF GENERAL
ABSTRACTIONS

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One almost universal failing among political economists (Marx excepts

only the aristocrat Sir James Steuart and the early Physiocrats) is
naturalization oJ the capitalist mode oJ production. This fundamental flaw
previous political economy is the first issue Marx addresses in the
drisse introduction. To uncover the source of this defect, Marx makes,
pivotal distinction between two types of abstractions. He makes
distinction based on reflections about the procedure of many
economists, notably John Stuart Mill, who begin with a discussion of the , ' ,
universal conditions of productiQn,2 in which generalizations about pro
duction are put forth as immutable natural laws governing all human
societies. This leads Marx to some thoughts about the scientific status of
such generalizations . He writes, "Production in general is an abstraction, but
a rational [verstandige] abstraction, insofar as it actually brings out and
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fixes what is common, and therefore spares us the repetition. 3 Here is the
first type of abstraction, what I call general abstractions. The limitations to
the usefulness of such abstractions are summarized at the end of the first
section of the Grundrisse introduction.

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MARX'S MATURE METHODOLOGICAL WRITINGS

Common to all stages of production, there are determinations

which are fixed by thought as general, but the so-called general
conditions of all production are nothing other than these abstract
moments with which no actual historical stage of production is
grasped.4
General abstractions provide at best a rough and ready substrate for
scientific theory; by themselves they produce no scientific understanding.
Real scientific understanding requires a second type of abstraction,
which I call determinate abstractions. The problem with general abstractions
is that, in their generality, they describe one object as well as the next, and
do not allow the scientific thinker to touch on the specific difference of the
object under scrutiny. Since science deals with understanding the actual,
and since the actual is always determinate, general abstractions are in
principle inadequate for scientific explanation. Marx leds us to such
observations when he writes of material production.
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If it is to comprehend an actual object, such as any human material

production, science cannot content itself with the pla: itudes offere by
general abstractions. Rather, it must develop determmate abstractIOns
appropriate to the specificities of its actual object.6
POLITICAL ECONOMIC PARALOGISMS INVOLVING
GENERAL AND DETERMINATE ABSTRACTIONS
W ith the distinction between general and determinate abstractions in
hand, we can review the flaw of classical political economy mentioned
above. Classical political economists naturalize specifically capitalist
economic relations not by using general abstractions but by misusing
them. The political economists fall prey to paralogistic reasoning, or
category mistakes, when they slip determinate abstractions into the place
of general abstractions. When they subsume the entire sphere of produc
tion under the logic of general abstractions, the political economists

GENERA L AND DETERMINA TE ABSTRA CTIONS

123

naturalize, or dehistoricize, this sphere. When subsumed under the logic

of general abstractions, the categories of production appear immutable.
By imagining that general abstractions can scientifically determine the
sphere of production, the political economists prepare themselves for a
paralogistic fallacy concerning production. Such is Marx's point in the
following:
Production is m uch more see, e.g. , Mill to be presented in
distinction from distribution, etc . , as gripped in eternal laws of
nature, independent from history, at which opportunity then,
bourgeois relations are quite surreptitiously shoved under as
irreversible natural laws of society in the abstract. 7

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Marx's expression " quite surreptitiously shoved under" makes it plain

that he interprets the logic of the political economists as paralogistic, or
involving a category mistake. The political economists commit a double
error: on the one hand, limiting production to the logic of general
abstractions; on the other hand, limiting distribution to the logic of
determinate abstractions. Actually, both logics must be applied in order
to attain a proper understanding of either production or distribution.
Marx gives an example of what it means paralogistically to introduce
determinate ( here, bourgeois) categories of production under cover of the
logic of general abstractions.
For example. No production [would be] possible without an
instrument of production, even if this instrument were only the
hand. No [production would be] possible without past, heaped
up labor, even if this labor is only the dexterity which is gathered
together and concentrated in the hand of the savage through
repeated practice. C apital is among other things also [an] in
strument of production, also past, obj ectified labor. Thus capital
is a universal, eternal natural relation, i . e . , if I j ust leave aside
that which is specific, what first makes "instrument of produc
tion," "heaped-up labor ," into capital.8

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Here Marx puts the argument of the political economists in almost

syllogistic form in order to bring the paralogism to prominence. The
logical flaw in this argumentation consists in substituting the determinate
abstraction capital , for the general abstraction instrument ofproduction. Since
this paralogism makes up one-third of the Trinitarian Formula (the other

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MARX'S MA TURE METHODOLOGICAL WRITINGS

two-thirds involve the categories of landed property and wage-labor) , we

might say that where Kant criticizes the three great paralogisms of pure
reason, Marx unveils the three great paralogisms of bourgeois political
economy.
GENERAL AND DETERMINATE ABSTRACT IONS IN "THE
GERMAN IDEOLOGY"

e have seen how Marx hones the distinction between general abstrac

:lOns ad determinate abstractions in order to sever the paralogistic (and

Ideologlcal) connections between the logics of the two different types. But
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Marx did not first develop this distinction in the Grundrisse, and he did not
first apply it in the criticism of bourgeois political economy. Marx seems
to have the same distinction in mind in the "Feuerbach" section of the
German Ideology, where he uses it to criticize speculative method.9 I quote
arx at lengh here, ecause this text provides such a st'riking anticipa
tIOn of the pomts elUCidated on the basis of the Grundrisse section.

Therefore, where speculation stops, with actual life, there actual

positive science, the presentation of the practical activation, the
practical process of development of me begins. The phrases
about consciousness stop; actual knowledge must step into their
place. With the presentation of actuality, self-sufficient philo
sophy loses its medium of existence. At best, a summing up of
the most general results which allow themselves to be abstracted
from the observation of the historical development of men can
step into its place. On their own [for sich] separated from actual
history, these abstractions have no value whatsoever. They can
only serve to facilitate the ordering of historical material, to
indicate the sequence of its individual layers. But they in no way
give, as does philosophy, a recipe or schema, according to which
the historical epochs can be trimmed into order. On the con
trary, the difficulty first begins there, where one gives oneself
over to the observation and ordering of the material, be it of a
past epoch or of the present, to the actual presentation. The
setting aside of these difficulties is conditioned by presupposi
tions which in no way can be given here, but first give them
selves . from the study of the actual life process and the action of
the individuals of each epoch. l O
Marx's point here is the same as in the Grundrisse introduction. . General
abstractions can be dangerously misleading, for although they are not

GENERAL AND DETERMINA TE ABSTRA CTIONS

125

totally devoid of scientifi c worth, they cannot properly describe any actual
obj ect, any social-historical actuality.
Marx's view that speculative method cannot do science within the logic
of general abstractions may be labeled his "scientific" critique of German
ideology. We have seen how Marx applies this critique to bourgeois
political economy's effort to put forth a science of production within the
logical framework of general abstractions. The s cientific criticism of
speculative method is, however, only one side of Marx's total critique; the
other critical use of the distinction between general and determinate
abstractions may be termed "philosophical. "
The lengthy quotation cited above i s immediately followed b y this
statement: "We take out here a few of these abstractions, which we use
over and against the ideology and will explicate through historical
examples . " 1 1 I mmediately after this transitional sentence is the section
entitled "History," 1 2 sometimes taken as a veritable gospel of Marx' s and
Engel's "historical materialism ," which begins with a statement quoted
earlier.
With the presuppositionless Germans we must begin by stating
the first presupposition of all human existence, thus also of all
history, namely, the presupposition that men must be in a
position to live in other to "make history." 13

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There follows a list of further presuppositions, each of which has the status
of general abstraction. 14
From all of this we can draw two important points. The first concerns
the label "philosophical. " By presenting this table of material presuppositions of history, Marx intends a philosophical critique of " presupposi-, '
tionless" absolute idealism. Here Marx argues for materialism
naturalism over and against an idealism that makes no explicit
systematic recognition of the natural or material presuppositions of
tory. This philosophical argument has its logical side too, and resem
Marx's brief critique of bourgeois political economy's presentation
distribution. 1 5 Against bourgeois political economy's subsumption of . '
distribution wholly under determinate abstractions, Marx argues for the
necessity of using both determinate abstractions and general abstractions.
Distribution, like production, is characterized by certain general abstrac
tions. Against the German ideologists , Marx is making the same logical
argument, but with respect to history rather than economic distribution. 1 6
Speculative method seeks t o present a science o f history within the
categorial framework of a single logic; Marx maintains that this is philoso
phically and scientifi cally unsound. 1 7

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MARX'S MA TURE METHOD OLO GICAL WRITINGS

The second point to be drawn from the argumentative setting of the

famous " History" subsection of the "Feuerbach" chapter should balance
the frequent overestimation of that subsection. 1 8 In the first point, we saw
that this subsection makes a philosophical critique of absolute idealism
from the viewpoint of materialism. Furthermore, we saw a powerful
logical critique that has far-reaching ramifications for Marx's scientific
methodology. But this is the extent of the significance of this subsection.
I n particular, the subsection does not provide real, positive scientific
knowledge. The "presuppositions" set forth in this subsection cannot be
taken as constituting real scientific knowledge, because they all fall within
the logic of general abstractions. Marx explains at length that general
abstractions, taken independently of determinate abstractions, have little
scientific worth. 1 9
Since real science begins only at the nexus of the two logics of abstrac
tions, any notion that this renowned subsection pres,ents us with a
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"science of history, 20 or even a thumbnail sketch of such a "science,"
rests on the most serious misunderstanding of Marx's concept of s cience. 2 1
Moreover, given Marx's description of the monumental task involved in
working out the d eterminate abstractions for a science of a single histori
cal period , the notion of a completely general "science of history" must
appear absurd to Marx for at least practicaLreasons?2
SUMMARY
The presentation of a real science for Marx requires the use of both logics
of abstraction to explain any actual object. Absolute idealism' s principled
rejection of this tenet proves its scientific inadequacy. Likewise, bourgeois
political economy errs when it employs one logic to understand produc
tion and another to understand distribution.
If it is to deal with actual objects , science must have a place in its
architectonic for both general and determinate abstractions. Marx explic
itly notes the demand this places on his s cience of capitalist society. At the
end of the method s ection of the Grundrisse, he j ots down one of his many
notations for that s cience:
So to make the division in manifest fashion that: ( I ) the general,
abstract determinations, which thusly pertain more or less to all
forms of society, but in the sense set forth above. (2) The
catgories which ake up the inner articulation of bourgeois
society, and on which the fundamental classes are founded.' 23
Marx did not act ua lly I'
"ollow thl's pa rt'ICU I ar pIan "
lor orderm
' g the two

GENERAL AND DETERMINA TE ABSTRA CTIONS

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logical types of abstractions in Capital. There he presents the two types of

abstractions pairwise, which has the advantage of avoiding any miscon
ceptions that the one type can describe any actual object without the
other. But the requirement that both types of abstractions be presented in
an orderly manner within the science is self-consciously recognized in this
Grundrisse text.
The proper use of these two logics, namely, avoiding their paralogistic
misuses, presupposes that one can distinguish abstractions of the one
logical type from those of the other. Here we must remember what we
learned concerning Marx's criticism that empiricism pays scant attention
to the content of its abstractions. Logical nearsightedness is the sort of
error we would expect from bourgeois political economy's empiricist
methods. Nonetheless, even a logically sensitive mind may find it difficult
to determine the logical type of a category.
A case in point appears in the discussion of the category of labor in
general in the method section of the Grundrisse introduction. Marx's turbid
ruminations about labor can be cleared up by looking ahead to the way he
handles this question in Capital, where he more clearly delineates the
distinction between general and determinate abstractions of labor. But in
the Grundrisse, Marx formulates the problem in murky ways:
Labor seems a completely simple category. Also the presentation
of it in this universality as labor as such is old as the hills.
Nonetheless, grasped economically in this simplicity, "labor" is
just as modern a category as the relations which produce this
simple abstraction.24

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The simplest abstraction, therefore, which modern economics

sets at the peak, and which expresses an ancient relation, valid
for all forms of society, appears in this abstraction practically
true, however, only as [a] category of the most modern society.25
With qualifiers such as "economically in this simplicity ," "in this abstrac
tion practically true," and with the scare quotes he places around
"labor," Marx is struggling to say, I think, that labor is not a single,
simple category, but actually two categories . The first, which may be
called the abstract categoy oflabor, "expresses an ancient relation, valid for
all forms of society. " Clearly, it is a general abstraction, discussed at some
length in the fifth chapter of Capital's fi rst volume, " Labor Process and
Process of Valorization, " where Marx summarizes it as follows:

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MARX'S MA TURE METHODOLO GICAL WRITINGS

The labor process as we have presented it in its simple and

abstract moments, is purposive activity toward the production of
use-values; appropration of the natural for human needs; univer
sal condition of the material exchange [Stoifwechsels] between
man and nature; eternal natural condition of human life and
therefore independent of every form of this life, or better yet,
equally common to all its forms of society. 26
The second category that Marx's aforementioned qualifiers try to
distinguish may be called the concept of abstract labor, a determinate
abstraction. It appears in the first chapter of Capital, where abstract labor
is characterized as the "value-constituting substance. "27 Marx clearly
distinguishes this determinate concept of abstract labor from the abstract
concept of labor, to set off his labor theory of value from the classical
theory. Marx calls this distinction "the pivotal point [Sprngpunkt] around
which the understanding of political economy turns. "28 The classical
labor theory of value fails to make this distinction and thereby falls into a
paralogistic naturalization of the determinate concept of abstract labor. 29
The most demanding point of all is that Marx's concept of scientific
knowledge requires us to ascertain which are the determinate abstractions
appropriate for a particular object of study and how to order them
properly among themselves, moving from the abstract to the concrete.
Determinate abstractions must also be related in an orderly fashion to the
general abstractions. The creation of the general abstractions is often a
matter of common sense, as the list in the German ideology indicates, and
seems trivial in comparison to specifying and properly ordering the
determinate abs tractions.
Finally, we can see a direct relationship between Marx's distinction
between general and determinate abstractions and his reinstatement of
epistemology. Marx's distinction is tailored to a naturalistic position.
Marx uses general abstractions in his science of capitalist society in order
to call attention to the natural presuppositions of capitalist society. Indeed,
the tenability of naturalism, and, in particular, naturalist epistemology
would seem to require a distinction such as that between general and
determinate abstractions. Otherwise it is difficult to see how one can
maintain the epistemological reflection on the non identity of the way of
thought with actuality.3D
Evidence of the distinction between general and determinate abstrac
tions appears in the Paris Manuscripts, where we find some of Marx's most
explicit formulations of a naturalistic position. The following passage
criticizes Hegel for collapsing the two types of abstractions into one
another.

GENERAL AND DETERMINA TE ABSTRA CTIONS

129

The appropriation of the alienated obj ective being [ Wesen] , or

the supersession of obj ectivity in the determinateness of
alienation .
has for Hegel likewise, or even primarily, the
connotation of superseding objectivifY, because what is offensive
and alienating is not the determinate character of the obj ect, but
its objective character for self-consciousness.31
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Hegel fails to hold the determinate abstraction alienation apart from the
general abstraction objectivify. Why Hegel confuses objectivity with aliena
tion is, for Marx, of a piece with his refusal to leave anything standing
over against thought, as with the dismissal of epistemology.

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