Philosophic Dialogue
Hegel's Dialectic of the True and Good
by Russell Rockwell
Contemporary Marxist theory is still trying to grapple
with the place of nature, practice and reason within Hegel’s dialectic. The
issue resonates because giving revolutionary action a direction remains a
perspective as long as freedom from capital’s domination eludes us. The
variety of approaches can be seen in the theorists’ treatment of Hegel’s
dual concepts, the Idea of the True and the Idea of the Good.
These concepts emerge, in tension, in the chapter on
"The Idea of Cognition," almost at the apex of the dialectical
progression through Hegel’s SCIENCE OF LOGIC, immediately before the final
chapter, "The Absolute Idea." The Idea of the True and the Idea of the
Good anticipate the clash of opposites in the Absolute Idea, building throughout
the "history" of conflicts coursing throughout the entire LOGIC.
Three figures who stand out as contemporary commentators
on Hegel’s dialectic, including on the Idea of the True and the Idea of the
Good, are worth discussing: Herbert Marcuse, V.I. Lenin, and Raya Dunayevskaya.
THREE VIEWS
1941 saw the publication of Marcuse’s REASON AND
REVOLUTION: HEGEL AND THE RISE OF SOCIAL THEORY(1). This was the first work by a
Marxist to analyze the full range of Hegel’s works. REASON AND REVOLUTION was
also the first work in English to analyze Marx’s early 1844
ECONOMIC-PHILOSOPHIC MANUSCRIPTS (the "humanist essays") after decades
of burial in the archives. The manuscripts included "Critique of Hegel’s
Dialectic and Philosophy as a Whole," a discussion of all of Hegel’s
principal philosophic texts. (Hegel’s SCIENCE OF LOGIC followed the
PHENOMENOLOGY OF MIND, Hegel’s first major work, widely recognized for its
originality and genius. The LOGIC, in turn, was followed by Hegel’s
elaboration of his whole system in the ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE PHILOSOPHICAL
SCIENCES, where the LOGIC was incorporated as the first of three books, the
remaining two being the PHILOSOPHY OF NATURE and the PHILOSOPHY OF MIND).
While many have analyzed REASON AND REVOLUTION’s
interpretations of the social relevance of Hegel’s categories, this has not
been the case with Marcuse’s "other Hegel book," HEGEL’S ONTOLOGY
AND THE THEORY OF HISTORICITY(2). It was written in 1932, a decade earlier than
REASON AND REVOLUTION. For example, Douglas Kellner maintained that the work
was, "probably of primary interest today to Hegel scholars" suggesting
its limited relevance for Marxist or critical social theory generally(3).
Lenin is the next pertinent figure here. Even to this
day he is not generally recognized for his philosophic achievements. Yet in
1914, almost two decades prior to Marcuse’s HEGEL’S ONTOLOGY, he recorded a
detailed study of the entirety of Hegel’s SCIENCE OF LOGIC, including a
primary focus on the dialectic of the Idea of the True and the Idea of the Good.
Finally Dunayevskaya argued that Hegel’s
categories--including the Idea of the True and the Idea of the Good in the Logic
(as well as in the ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE PHILOSOPHICAL SCIENCES)--retain the
social relevance with which Hegel originally intended them. To her,
revolutionary social theory will develop only under the impact of a continuous
return to Hegel’s texts in the context of new social developments, a view
strengthened in her last writings in the 1980s.
Each of these three took a long, hard look at that
section of the SCIENCE OF LOGIC where the Idea of the True and the Idea of the
Good are found, and drew different conclusions.
WHAT HEGEL RE-CREATED--AND CREATED
What were the Idea of the True and the Idea of the Good
in Hegel’s hands? In the subsection of the SCIENCE OF LOGIC(4) on the Idea of
the True (pp. 783-818), Hegel explicates something he calls "the
theoretical Idea." The subsection is essentially an outline of scientific,
abstract reasoning. It includes subdivisions on analytic and synthetic
cognition, on theorems, and on their proofs. Hegel remarked that "In the
theoretical Idea the subjective Notion, as the universal that lacks any
determination of its own, stands opposed to the objective world from which it
takes to itself a determinate content and filling" (p. 818).
In contrast, the Idea of the Good (pp. 818-823)
corresponds to the practical Idea, "the urge [of the practical Idea] to
realize itself, the end that wills by means of itself to give itself objectivity
and to realize itself in the objective world" (p. 818).
To Marcuse, the Idea of the True and the Idea of the
Good are historical concepts, which Hegel himself rooted in the history of
philosophy. He wrote in HEGEL’S ONTOLOGY:
With the concept of the "good," Socrates
is said to aim at a determination of "essence" or
"substance," "qua that which is in-and for-itself, qua what
preserves itself, substance has been defined as purpose (telos) and more
precisely as the true, the good..." Thus the "good" is
understood as the "universal, which has determined itself in
itself..." ...the philosophers of nature had sought to define it as one
or more self-sufficient substance. Hegel views it as Socratic
"one-sidedness" that he applied this concept of the good to the
moral sphere alone, whereby "subsequently all followers of moral idle
talk and popular philosophy declared him their patron saint..." But
"the good that is purpose in-and for-itself...is also a principle of
the philosophy of nature..." (p. 170, emphasis added).
In other words, a prior unity of the ideas of the true
and the good existed in Socratic philosophy. This is the implied historical,
philosophical reference point for the Logic where Hegel analyzed the modern
separation of the two.
But there is an intention at the core of Hegelian
philosophy to re-conceptualize their dialectical unity, or "identity,"
at a higher level and more concretely than was ever possible in the time of
Socrates. The aim is to unite theory (of the possibility of a society free of
social domination) with practice (those active social impulses for this freedom
already present in the existing social order). Hegel’s criticism of
Socrates’ "supporters" showed the depth to which Hegel intended to
take his own investigations.
While Marcuse drew attention to that criticism, he
omitted an equally important theme Hegel developed. In his HISTORY OF
PHILOSOPHY(5) Hegel made a lengthy and detailed analysis of the
"personality" of Socrates (pp. 389-448), particularly the relationship
of this personality to the philosophic universality that unfolds with, and
indeed within, this personality.
In short, with this discussion of the history of
philosophy, Hegel seemed to suggest that the "identity" of
individuality (personality) and universality was implicitly realized in the life
of Socrates, that is, for ONE individual in respect to a particular, that is,
historically conditioned society. Our age holds within it the POTENTIAL for this
unity of personality and universality to be explicitly posed as a goal and
realized throughout society as a whole.
LOSING HEGEL’S SOCIAL DIALECTIC
Marcuse omitted this social outlook emanating from
Hegel, in his treatment of the Idea of the True and the Idea of the Good. That
omission in HEGEL’S ONTOLOGY is clearly reflected later in Marcuse’s
dismissive conclusions, in REASON AND REVOLUTION, of the social relevance of
Hegel’s analysis of the constellation of the theoretical, practical and
absolute ideas.
Perhaps it should be no surprise also in REASON AND
REVOLUTION that Marcuse concludes that Hegel’s dialectic of the Absolute Idea
ultimately implies the subsumption of individuals by the universal. The Absolute
Idea in that case reflects a "knowing subject" that must comprehend
all objects so that "their independent objectivity is overcome" (p.
163).
In REASON AND REVOLUTION Marcuse clearly seemed to have
the right words to describe the Absolute Idea, as in itself dialectical (and as
such containing opposition within itself), but he characterized this opposition
as merely a "dynamic," leaving aside the SPECIFIC opposites in
conflict, the dialectic of the Idea of the True and the Idea of the Good. Hence
for Marcuse the question was how the Absolute Idea as a unity turned into, or
made the transition to, its opposite (into nature) in Hegel’s system (p. 166).
To the contrary, here is how Hegel described the
dialectic of the Idea of the True and the Idea of the Good in the chapter on the
Absolute Idea in the SCIENCE OF LOGIC:
[The Absolute Idea] contains within itself the
highest degree of opposition...possesses personality... but which, none the
less is not exclusive individuality, but explicitly UNIVERSALITY and
COGNITION...(p. 824).
Thus not only is opposition retained in the Absolute
Idea; the Absolute Idea, which is opposite to a synthesis or the subsumption of
practice by theory, contains the highest opposition. And what is this opposition
now? It is a unity of the opposites, personality and universality.
"Personality" certainly suggests the widest
possible diversity of expression. At the same time, Hegel’s concept of the
"conclusion" of logical thinking--Absolute Idea--contains within it
both this diversity and universality. The Absolute Idea is a unity of identity
and difference. In social terms, capitalism itself is a unity of difference and
identity, what Marx, in the GRUNDRISSE(6), called a situation of personal
freedom in a context of objective dependence (p. 158). OVERCOMING capitalism
entails abolition of the BLIND conditioning of the individual by the universal.
Marcuse emphasized how hard it is to explicate, in
Hegel’s dialectic, the actual transition from the Logic to nature.
Dunayevskaya noted as much, however adding that Marcuse did not pursue an
analysis of Hegel’s actual categories as he further developed them, even
though Hegel explicitly stressed the necessity to do so in the last paragraph of
the LOGIC.
Dunayevskaya leveled a similar critique with her
analysis of Lenin’s PHILOSOPHIC NOTEBOOKS(7). In these she demonstrated that
Lenin, in his analysis of the Idea of the Good, concluded that within Hegel’s
dialectic, "cognition not only reflects the objective world but creates
it." Yet even after such a profound summary, Lenin argued that Marxists may
best interpret Hegel’s thought in terms of its direct relationship to
practice. Hence Lenin explicitly advised that it was not necessary to follow
Hegel categorically beyond the (first) dialectical transition from the LOGIC to
the PHILOSOPHY OF NATURE, that is, on to the (second) transition from nature to
mind as well.
POLITICS DEEPENED
The lengthiest chapter in Marcuse’s REASON AND
REVOLUTION, except one, is on the SCIENCE OF LOGIC. The single longer chapter is
on Hegel’s "political writings," especially the PHILOSOPHY OF RIGHT,
which Hegel published after completion of the PHILOSOPHY OF MIND. Marcuse’s
rationale for closely analyzing the PHILOSOPHY OF RIGHT in lieu of a discussion
of the PHILOSOPHY OF MIND (other than the later publication date of the former
work) is his conclusion that the PHILOSOPHY OF RIGHT represents the development
of the SOCIALLY RELEVANT categories that were originally laid out in Objective
Mind, the section of the PHILOSOPHY OF MIND immediately preceding the concluding
Absolute Mind section(8).
Remarkably, however, not far into REASON AND
REVOLUTION’s chapter on Hegel’s political writings, especially the
PHILOSOPHY OF RIGHT, Marcuse seemed to say there is a need to delve into the
purely rational aspects of the dialectic in the absolute, where the
"ultimate truth" resides:
Some of the gravest misunderstandings that obscure
the PHILOSOPHY OF RIGHT can be removed simply by considering the place of
the work in Hegel’s system. It does not treat with the whole cultural
world, for the realm of right is just part of the realm of mind, namely,
that part which Hegel denotes as objective mind. It does not, in short,
expound or deal with the cultural realities of art, religion and philosophy,
which embody the ultimate truth for Hegel....Even Hegel’s most emphatic
deification of the state cannot cancel his definite subordination of the
objective to the absolute mind, of the political to the philosophical truth
(p. 178).
Even after showing that work needs to be done in
unfolding the dialectic of freedom beyond the realm of politics, Marcuse left it
at that. As shown in the recently published THE POWER OF NEGATIVITY, almost as
if picking up the challenge, as early as 1953 Dunayevskaya quoted from the final
syllogism of PHILOSOPHY OF MIND where Hegel wrote that the "nature of the
fact...causes the movement and development. Yet this same movement is equally
the action of cognition." Where Hegel concluded that, "The eternal
Idea in full fruition of its essence, eternally sets itself to work, engenders
and enjoys itself as Absolute Mind," Dunayevskaya concluded, "We have
entered the new society" (p. 30).
Lenin concluded from Hegel’s section on the Idea of
the Good that "cognition not only reflects the objective world but creates
it," and Marcuse indicated that for Hegel, right up to the end of the
ENCYCLOPEDIA, the dialectical negation (in thought as well as in practice) of
the "objective world" was both possible and necessary for actual
freedom. However, because she alone tied together the principal strands of
Hegel’s dialectic relevant for overcoming today’s oppressive social reality,
Dunayevskaya is the most important among the three interpreters of Hegel’s
dialectic considered here.
From the SCIENCE OF LOGIC she traced the dialectic of
the Idea of the True and the Idea of the Good to the "highest
opposition," as universality and personality in the Absolute Idea and, from
that text, to the final syllogisms of PHILOSOPHY OF MIND where she believed a
crucial conceptualization of the society that overcomes capitalism can be found.
Notes
1. Herbert Marcuse, REASON AND REVOLUTION: HEGEL AND THE
RISE OF SOCIAL THEORY. Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Books, 1989.
2. Herbert Marcuse, HEGEL’S ONTOLOGY AND THE THEORY OF
HISTORICITY, trans. Seyla Benhabib. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1987.
3. Douglas Kellner, HERBERT MARCUSE AND THE CRISIS OF
MARXISM 4. G.W.F. Hegel, Science of Logic, trans. A.V. Miller. London and New
York: George Allen & Unwin, 1969.
5. G.W.F. Hegel, LECTURES OF THE HISOTRY OF PHILOSOPHY,
Volume I. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1995.
6. Karl Marx. GRUNDRISSE. New York: Vintage, 1973.
7. Raya Dunayevskaya, THE POWER OF NEGATIVITY: SELECTED
WRITINGS ON THE DIALECTIC IN HEGEL AND MARX, eds. P. Hudis and K. Anderson. New
York, NY: Lexington Books, 2002.
8. G.W.F. Hegel, PHILOSOPHY OF MIND, trans. William
Wallace. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971, pp. 241-291.
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