[lbo-talk] Atheism

[Michael Pugliese]

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1886/ludwig-feuerbach/ch01.htm
Frederick Engels
Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy
Part 1: Hegel
> ...With all philosophers it is precisely the “system” which is 
> perishable; and for the simple reason that it springs from an 
> imperishable desire of the human mind — the desire to overcome all 
> contradictions. But if all contradictions are once and for all disposed 
> of, we shall have arrived at so-called absolute truth — world history 
> will be at an end. And yet it has to continue, although there is nothing 
> left for it to do — hence, a new, insoluble contradiction. As soon as we 
> have once realized — and in the long run no one has helped us to realize 
> it more than Hegel himself — that the task of philosophy thus stated 
> means nothing but the task that a single philosopher should accomplish 
> that which can only be accomplished by the entire human race in its 
> progressive development — as soon as we realize that, there is an end to 
> all philosophy in the hitherto accepted sense of the word. One leaves 
> alone “absolute truth”, which is unattainable along this path or by any 
> single individual; instead, one pursues attainable relative truths along 
> the path of the positive sciences, and the summation of their results by 
> means of dialectical thinking. At any rate, with Hegel philosophy comes 
> to an end; on the one hand, because in his system he summed up its whole 
> development in the most splendid fashion; and on the other hand, because, 
> even though unconsciously, he showed us the way out of the labyrinth of 
> systems to real positive knowledge of the world.