Hegelian Continuities in Marx

Abstract

Any assessment of the continuity between Hegel and Marx must divide into two parts: Speculative Philosophy and Methodology. In this essay I deal with Marx's First Appropriation of Hegel, the years 1836–1850. Marx perceived Hegel as a Speculative Idealist, or affirmed that Idea was the pneumatic force in the universe. Reading Hegel from this perspective led Marx to misunderstand Hegel, particularly The Philosophy of Right. Marx's misreading of Hegel is encapsulated in his 1843 text ‘Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of State’ in which Marx mistakenly characterizes Hegel's theory of state as an objectification of the Idea. But Marx's erroneous evaluation of Hegelian philosophy did not mean that he rejected Hegelian methodology. as a difference exists between philosophy and methodology, which is not logic. Marx appropriated the methodology of The Science of Logic, specifically Book Two, ‘The Doctrine of Essence’ and used this methodology as the explanatory paradigm by which to interpret social formations. The Hegelian modes of Totality, Form-Content and Organicism were the ground, the analytical devices through which Marx interpreted a social system.