File spoon-archives/bhaskar.archive/bhaskar_2000/bhaskar.0010, message 5


Date: Sun, 1 Oct 2000 22:12:11 +0100
From: Mervyn Hartwig <mh-AT-jaspere.demon.co.uk>
Subject: Re: BHA: Hegel, dialectics, Stalin, etc


Hi Phil, Hans

Phil wrote:
>And wasn't it
>Lenin's return to Hegel that made the first proletarian revolution possible.
Holy mother of Marx, Phil, no! You could perhaps *argue* that it was a
necessary *condition*, but you would be stretching it, because while the
Bolsheviks very probably wouldn't have made a revolution without Lenin,
Lenin might very well have acted just as decisively without the return
to Hegel... But you philosophers should read more history. There were
many necessary (social - or 'material'!) conditions of possiblity other
than Lenin!

>You say that "critical realism shouldn't fall back into a pre-Althusserian
>paradigm".  I'm afraid you'll have to explain that one to me. 
Could Hans be referring to the *social* production of knowledge by means
of knoweldge, rather than by Great Individuals?

Mervyn



Phil Walden <phillwalden-AT-email.msn.com> writes
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Hans Puehretmayer <hans.puehretmayer-AT-univie.ac.at>
>To: bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu <bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu>
>Date: 28 September 2000 09:50
>Subject: Re: BHA: Hegel, dialectics, Stalin, etc
>
>
>Hi Hans!
>
>Why does Hegel get the blame for philosophical Stalinism?  I don't follow
>you.  It seems just as wrong as blaming Marx for Stalinism.  And wasn't it
>Lenin's return to Hegel that made the first proletarian revolution possible

>.
>Hegel's relation to Stalinism seems to be the opposite of what you state.
>Of course every text *can* be interpreted in a variety of ways, but some of
>these ways are simply perverse (in my opinion).
>
>On the question of "speculative-mysticist Lukacsianism", again I can't see
>why Hegel gets the blame for the speculative-mystical elements in Lukacs's
>thought.  Lukacs's construction of the proletariat as the subject-object of
>history is not the same as Hegel's dialectical philosophical subject, in my
>opinion, because Hegel locates his subject much more concretely within
>historical relations, so Hegel's schema is much less teleological than
>Lukacs's schema.  Of course Lukacs was trying to cheer up the troops when he
>wrote *History and Class Consciousness* but I think his method suffered as a
>result.
>
>You say that "critical realism shouldn't fall back into a pre-Althusserian
>paradigm".  I'm afraid you'll have to explain that one to me.  Althusser
>worked extensively on Hegel for his dissertation, so it seems he did not
>share your negative attitude towards Hegel as a thinker.  Of course,
>famously, Althusser's work lacks dialectics but that seems to me to be a
>problem for Althusser and not for Hegel.
>
>Warm regards,
>Phil
>
>Hans wrote:
>>Hi Phil!
>>
>>one could also say: without Hegel there would have been no philosophical
>>Stalinism, no speculative-mysticist Lukcsianism, etc.
>>I think, critical realism shouldn't fall back into a prae-Althusserian
>>paradigm.
>>
>>Hans
>>
>>Phil Walden wrote:
>>>
>>> Hi Nuala, Mervyn, Gary, and listers
>>>
>>> Nuala, without Hegel there would have been no Marxism.  No dialectical
>>> philosophy.  None of his work on the status of modern culture.  None of
>his
>>> work on the relation of science to the humanities.  None of his work on
>the
>>> role of the state.  None of his work on how we are to understand history.
>>> None of his work on what are the possibilities for modern art.  In fact,
>now
>>> you have made me think about it more, wouldn't there have been another
>Dark
>>> Ages?  I should actually not have been talking about retardation, but
>about
>>> history being thrown back centuries.  But I suppose someone (who?) might
>>> have followed Kant's lead on dialectics, so it might not have spelled the
>>> end of humanity.
>>>
>>> Mervyn, there are Great Men (and Women) in history and Hegel was one of
>>> them.  Hegel's category of the world-historical individual was applied to
>>> figures from the past who had radically changed the course of history.
>>> Speaking from the present, I would apply that category to Hegel in
>spades.
>>> But the category is not meant to be applied to figures from the present,
>and
>>> that is what is wrong with FEW.  The connection between present and past
>has
>>> been severed in FEW, and some abstract speculations about human potential
>>> are supposed to plug the gap.  But the truth is concrete, as someone once
>>> said.
>>>     I don't believe my approach to Hegel is idealist, because his ideas
>are
>>> an immense material force in contemporary society, and their absence
>would
>>> have radically altered the course of history.  Dialectics allows for the
>>> material power of ideas as well as the material power of nature, so I
>don't
>>> think I am being anti-materialist.
>>>     Who is the individualist?  For me, to take account of and point up
>>> Hegel's contribution to thought is to care for the collective interests
>of
>>> humanity.  To say that Hegel was only one person and therefore to vaunt
>him
>>> is substitutionism, is frankly to introduce bourgeois liberal
>egalitarianism
>>> into the argument.  I am surprised at you Mervyn.
>>>
>>> Gary, you insist on claiming that Hegel made a self-serving choice about
>his
>>> relations with the Prussian State, but you provide no evidence.  But I
>have
>>> evidence that he acted in the interests of humanity as a whole - it is in
>>> the Terry Pinkard biography to which I referred.  There was no 'trahison'
>>> about Hegel.
>>>     I do think a large part of system is precision in the use of
>concepts.
>>> Hegel had it and Kierkegaard didn't.  I also think your claim that
>>> Kierkegaard attempted to produce "an absolutely independent body of
>thought"
>>> is strange.  For one thing, what body of thought can be absolutely
>>> independent?  Surely where Hegel scores and Kierkegaard doesn't, is that
>the
>>> former tackled the burning questions of philosophy left over by his
>>> predecessors whereas the latter was such an avoider of difficult and
>>> pressing issues that he topped off his quirky efforts at philosophy with
>a
>>> flight into mysticism.  (Though I do concede that he was progressive in
>>> relation to the Danish church).  If you are right and Kierkegaard was a
>>> system-builder, then every philosopher is a system-builder and the term
>>> loses all meaning.  I see no systematic connection between the different
>>> phases of Kierkegaard's philosophy (aesthetic, ethical, and religious).
>The
>>> "leap of faith" that Kierkegaard requires of the reader in his religious
>>> phase does not seem to follow from anything he has said before.
>>>     I am sure you are right that Adorno was influenced by Kierkegaard but
>I
>>> suspect the influence was malign.  At one point in Negative Dialectics
>>> Adorno says philosophy is clowning and that piece of nonsense strikes me
>as
>>> eminently Kierkegaardian.  But Adorno generally rose above postmodern
>irony
>>> and indifference.  Can the same be said of Kierkegaard?  On your point
>about
>>> aesthetics I plead ignorance.  An elaboration from you on how Adorno's
>>> 'truth content' is influenced by Kierkegaard's subjective definition of
>>> truth would be very welcome.
>>>     Who are the Gang of Three?
>>>
>>> Warm regards,
>>> Phil
>>>
>>>      --- from list bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>     --- from list bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
>>
>
>
>
>
>     --- from list bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---

-- 
Mervyn Hartwig
13 Spenser Road
Herne Hill
London SE24 ONS
United Kingdom
Tel: 020 7 737 2892
Email: mh-AT-jaspere.demon.co.uk


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