Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

Plan of Hegel’s Dialectics (Logic)

Written: 1915
Source: Lenin’s Collected Works, 4th Edition, Moscow, 1976, Volume 38, pp. 315-318
Publisher: Progress Publishers
First Published: 1930 in Lenin Miscellany XII. Published according to the manuscript.
Translated: Clemence Dutt
Edited: Stewart Smith
Original Transcription & Markup: Andy Blunden & R. Cymbala (2003)
Re-Marked up & Proofread by: Kevin Goins (2008)
Public Domain: Lenin Internet Archive (2003). You may freely copy, distribute, display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet Archive” as your source.

Plan of Hegel’s Dialectics (Logic)-contained in a notebook directly following the conspectus of Georges Noel's book Hegel's Logic and a list of “writings on Hegelianism”; written in 1915.
 
Note that this document has undergone special formating to ensure that Lenin’s sidenotes fit on the page, marking as best as possible where they were located in the original manuscript.

 

PLAN OF HEGEL’S DIALECTICS
(LOGIC)

[CONTENTS OF THE SMALL LOGIC (ENCYCLOPAEDIA)]
    1. The Doctrine of Being.
      1. Quality
        1. Being;
        2. Determinate Being;
        3. Being-for-self.
      2. Quantity
        1. Pure Quantity;
        2. Magnitude (Quantum);
        3. Degree.
      3. Measure
    2. The Doctrine of Essence.
      1. Essence as Ground of Existence.
        1. Identity—Difference—Ground;
        2. Existence;
        3. The Thing.
      2. Appearance.
        1. The World of Appearance;
        2. Content and Form;
        3. Relation.
      3. Actuality.
        1. Relationship of Substantiality;
        2. Relationship of Causality;
        3. Reciprocal Action.
    3. The Doctrine of the Notion.
      1. The Subjective Notion;
        1. The Notion;
        2. The Judgement;
        3. The Syllogism.
      2. The Object.
        1. Mechanism;
        2. Chemism;
        3. Teleology.
      3. The Idea.
        1. Life;
        2. Cognition;
        3. The Absolute Idea.
 

The concept (cognition) reveals the es-
sence (the law of causality, identity,
difference, etc) in Being (in immediate
phenomena)—such is actually the gen-
eral course of all human cogni-
tion (of all science) in general. Such
is the course also of natural sci-
ence and political economy
[and history]. Insofar Hegel’s dialectic is
a generalisation of the history of thought.
To trace this more concretely and in
greater detail in the history of the sep-
arate sciences seems an extraordinarily
rewarding task. In logic, the history
of thought must, by and large, coin-
cide with the laws of thinking.

 

It is stikingly evident that Hegel some-
times passes from the abstract to the con-
crete (Sein[1] (abstract)—Dasein[2] (con-
crete)—Fürsichsein[3]) and sometimes the
other way round (the Subjective Notion—
the Object—Truth (the Absolute Idea)).
Is not this inconsistency of an ideal-
ist (what Marx called the “Ideenmystik”[4]
in Hegel?) Or are there deeper reasons?
(e.g., Being = Nothing—the idea of Be-

coming, of development). First of all im-
pressions flash by, then Something emerges,
—afterwards the concepts of quality #
(the determination of the thing or the phe-
nomenon) and quantity are developed. After
that study and reflection direct thought to

abstract
“Sein” only
   as a mo-
ment in
πάντα ρεϊ[5]

cognition of identity—of difference—of
Ground—of the Essence versus the Pheno-
menon—of causality, etc. All these mo-
ments (steps, stages, processes) of cognition
move in the direction from the subject
to the object, being tested in practice and
arriving through this test at truth (= the
Absolute Idea).

# Quality and sensation (Empfindung)
are one and the same, says Feuerbach. The
very first and most familiar to us is sen-
sation, and in it these is inevitably also
quality....

 

If Marx did not leave behind him a
“Logic” (with a capital letter), he did leave
the logic of Capital, and this ought to be
utilised to the full in this question. In
Capital, Marx applied to a single science
logic, dialectics and the theory of knowl-
edge of materialism [three words are not
needed: it is one and the same thing]
which has taken everything valuable in
Hegel and developed it further.

Note: ** Mehrwert = 'surplus-value' [-Ed.]
 

The history of capitalism and the anal-
ysis of the concepts summing it up.

 

The beginning—the most simple, ordi-
nary, mass, immediate “Being”: the single
commodity (“Sein” in political economy).
The analysis of it as a social relation.
A double analysis, deductive and inductive
—logical and historical (forms of value).

Testing by facts or by practice respec-
tively, is to be found here in each step
of the analysis.

 

Cf. Concerning the quesiton of Essence versus Appearance

— price and value
— demand and supply versus Wert
              (= krystallisierte Arbeit[6])
—wages and the price of labour power.

 

Notes

[1] Being—Ed.

[2] Determinate Being—Ed.

[3] Being-for-self—Ed.

[4] mysticism of ideas—Ed.

[5] everything flows—Ed.

[6] value (= crystallised Labor)—Ed.

 

Works Index   |   Volume 38  |  Collected Works   |   L.I.A. Index
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