S. D. V. Stephens

notes / Critical Theory / week 2: The Origins of Hegelian Marxism

4 Consciousness and Reification

Recapitulation: alienation and reification

The Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts (EPM) were written by the young Marx, aged 24 or 25, in Paris in 1844. They lay unpublished until David Ryazanov (ree-ah-ZAH-nof; /rʲɪɐˈzanəf/), director of the Marx-Engels Institute in Moscow, found them; they appeared in the original German in 1932. (Ryazanov did not survive Stalin: he was executed in 1938.) The manuscripts speak of “alienation,” and nine years earlier Georg Lukács (LOO-kahch; /ˈlukaːtʃ/) had written of “reification” in “Reification and the Consciousness of the Proletariat” (1923), reading Marx as a Hegelian before the most Hegelian of Marx’s texts was known. It was, in that sense, a clairvoyant interpretation.

Lukács’s argument was that the commodity form is at once objective, the structure of the economy, and subjective, the structure of consciousness. Reification, from the Latin res (“thing”), in German Verdinglichung (fair-DING-likh-oong; /fɛɐ̯ˈdɪŋlɪçʊŋ/), names the general problem that the “economy” itself becomes a thing: a second nature that seems to run by its own laws.

When the manuscripts appeared, one young philosopher saw at once that they vindicated this reading: they showed that Marx the economist was also a Hegelian philosopher. That philosopher was Herbert Marcuse (mar-KOO-zeh; /maʁˈkuːzə/), and his essay “The Foundation of Historical Materialism” (1932) is today’s reading.

Herbert Marcuse (1898–1979)

Life and work

Marcuse was born in Berlin in 1898 and served in the army during the First World War. In the 1920s he studied literature and philosophy, first in Berlin and then in Freiburg. In 1928 he returned to Freiburg to write a habilitation (the second dissertation a German academic needs in order to teach) with Martin Heidegger (HY-deg-er; /ˈhaɪ̯dɛɡɐ/); it became Hegel’s (HAY-gel; /ˈheːɡl̩/) Ontology and the Theory of Historicity (1932). In 1933 Heidegger embraced Nazism, and that same year Marcuse joined the Institute. He went with it to Geneva and then, in 1934, to New York (he became an American citizen in 1940); during the war he worked for the Office of Strategic Services. Afterwards he taught political theory at Columbia, Harvard, Brandeis and the University of California, San Diego. He came to be called the “father” and even the “guru” of the New Left, labels he disavowed. He died in 1979, during a visit to Germany.

Publications

  • Reason and Revolution: An Introduction to the Dialectical Thinking of Hegel and Marx (1941)
  • Eros and Civilization (1955)
  • One-Dimensional Man (1964)
  • An Essay on Liberation (1969), which we read in week 9

Marcuse on the manuscripts of 1844

What the essay does

Marcuse’s review first appeared in 1932 in the journal Die Gesellschaft (dee geh-ZELL-shahft; /diː ɡəˈzɛlʃaft/) (“Society”) under the title “New Sources on the Foundation of Historical Materialism.” Its target is a particular picture of Marxism: Marxism as economism, as an objectivistic and ahistorical science of economic laws.

Look closely at Marx’s description of alienated labor, Marcuse says, and you discover that it is not merely an economic matter. What Marx describes is the alienation of man: the devaluation of life, the perversion and loss of human reality. Marx himself runs the terms together: alienated labor is alienated man, estranged labor is estranged life. (Quotation 1.)

So the familiar thesis that Marx moved from a philosophical foundation to an economic one is wrong. Marx’s whole critique of political economy grew on a philosophical basis and out of a philosophical dispute, with Hegel, and its philosophical concepts are not leftovers to be discarded later, nor a disguise to be stripped off. Even a provisional account of Marx’s concept of labor leads beyond the economic sphere, into a dimension whose subject is “human existence in its totality.” (Quotation 2.)

That phrase tells us something about where Marcuse was coming from. Is this an existential, even Heideggerian, reading of Marx? Marcuse had gone to Heidegger looking for a philosophy of concrete human existence. In Marx he found what he had been looking for.

Two further themes stand out in the essay:

  • Marx’s idea of the emancipation of the senses: in the EPM, alienation damages not only our work but our seeing, hearing, feeling; a free humanity would have free senses.
  • The place of sensuous reality, nature, and human suffering. Marx speaks of a human “essence.” Is there one, and can a materialist say so?

The lessons of the manuscripts for Western Marxism

Marcuse calls the publication of the manuscripts “a crucial event in the history of Marxist studies,” and Professor Gordon draws out what it meant for the tradition we are following:

  • Philosophy persists. Marxism does not dissolve into economics. And it can be pursued outside the party, as a non-aligned Marxian orientation.
  • It affirms a “real humanism”: the goal is human self-realization, human flourishing.
  • It carries an enduring pathos of utopia and the demand for a comprehensive method. Because capitalist society calls into question not only economic facts but the entire “existence” of man and “human reality,” the revolution it calls for must be total and radical, unconditionally excluding any partial upheaval or “evolution.” The justification for revolution does not lie behind the concepts of alienation and estrangement; it is that alienation. Those who would separate philosophy, economics and revolutionary practice reproduce the very reification Marx fought against. (Quotation 3.)

Introducing the Institute for Social Research

The Institute was founded in 1923, in association with the University of Frankfurt. Its first director was Carl Grünberg (GREWN-bairk; /ˈɡʁyːnbɛʁk/), whose project was an Archive for the History of Socialism and the Labor Movement. Its second director was Max Horkheimer (HORK-hy-mer; /ˈhɔʁkhaɪ̯mɐ/), and with him “critical theory” officially begins. That is next time.

Handout outline (Professor Gordon)

I. Recapitulation: alienation and reification

  • A. The discovery of the Paris Manuscripts
    • written by young Marx (age 24–25) in Paris 1844; unpublished during his lifetime
    • “Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts” (EPM)
    • discovery by David Ryazanov (director, Marx-Engels Institute, Moscow): executed 1938
    • publication of the Paris Manuscripts in original German (1932)
    • “alienation” in the Paris Manuscripts and “reification” in Lukács’s essay
  • B. Lukács’s essay, “Reification and the Consciousness of the Proletariat” (1923)
    • Lukács and the rebirth of “Hegelian” Marxism: a clairvoyant interpretation
    • the commodity form as objective (economy) and subjective (consciousness)
    • reification: from the Latin re (thing); in German, Verdinglichung
    • the general problem that the “economy” becomes reified
    • Herbert Marcuse and the vindication of Marx as a Hegelian philosopher
    • Marcuse, “The Foundation of Historical Materialism” (1932)

II. Herbert Marcuse (1898–1979): an introduction

  • A. Life and work
    • 1898 born in Berlin; military service in war
    • 1920s: studies literature and philosophy, first in Berlin, then Freiburg
    • 1928: return to Freiburg, habilitation with Heidegger: Hegels Ontologie und die Theorie der Geschichtlichkeit (HAY-gels on-toh-loh-GEE oont dee tay-oh-REE dair geh-SHIKHT-likh-kite; /ˈheːɡl̩s ɔntoloˈɡiː ʊnt diː teoˈʁiː deːɐ̯ ɡəˈʃɪçtlɪçkaɪ̯t/) (1932)
    • 1933: Heidegger embraces Nazism; Marcuse joins Institute that same year
    • move to Geneva, then in 1940 to the States; wartime work with OSS
    • teaches political theory (Columbia, Harvard, Brandeis, UC San Diego)
    • nicknamed “the father [and “guru”] of the New Left” (disavows this)
    • 1979 dies during visit to Germany
  • B. Publications
    • Reason and Revolution: An Introduction to the Dialectical Thinking of Hegel and Marx (1941)
    • Eros and Civilization (1955)
    • One-Dimensional Man (1964)
    • An Essay on Liberation (1969)

III. Marcuse on the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844

  • A. The general significance of Marcuse’s essay
    • “Neue Quellen zur Grundlegung des Historischen Materialismus (NOY-eh KVEL-en tsoor GROONT-lay-goong dess hiss-TOH-ri-shen mah-tay-ree-ah-LISS-moos; /ˈnɔɪ̯ə ˈkvɛlən tsuːɐ̯ ˈɡʁʊntˌleːɡʊŋ dɛs hɪsˈtoːʁɪʃn̩ mateʁi̯aˈlɪsmʊs/),” in Die Gesellschaft (1932)
    • against Marxism as economism or as objectivistic and ahistorical science [quote 1]
    • an “existential” or Heideggerian reading of Marx?
    • alienation and reification as general problems of “human existence in its totality” [quote 2]
    • Marx’s idea of the “emancipation of the senses” in the EPM
    • the place of sensuous reality, nature, and human suffering: an “essence” of humanity?
  • B. The lessons of the EPM in the history of Western Marxism
    • “a crucial event in the history of Marxist studies”
    • the persistence of philosophy, a non-aligned (extra-party) Marxian orientation
    • an affirmation of “real humanism”: human self-realization or human flourishing
    • the enduring pathos of utopia and the demand for a comprehensive method [quote 3]

IV. Introducing the Institute for Social Research

  • founded in 1923; in association with the University of Frankfurt
  • first director, Carl Grünberg, Archive for the History of Socialism and the Labor Movement
  • second director, Max Horkheimer: the official beginning of “critical theory” (next lecture)

On the back: three passages from Marcuse, “New Sources on the Foundation of Historical Materialism” (1932), with Professor Gordon’s emphasis.