Ted answered my post with quite a few interesting remarks. I will try to answer and make clear, were – from my point of view – the differences are. So I will follow his line of argument, not mine.
>The sixth thesis is consistent with the third.
I would not say, that the 6th Feuerbach thesis is consistent with the 3rd, because the prominent part of the 6th thesis is wrong, whereas the 3rd thesis outlines not only an important critique of the attempt to give the political strategy of enlightenment a materialist philosophical foundation, but can be seen – in the original marxian formulation – as a true statement. The marxian formulation leaves open the meaning of the term "umwaelzende Praxis" and does not identify the "coincidation of the changing of the circumstances and of human activity" with "revolutionary practice" – as the Engels formulation does. Engels formulation is clearly not true: Not only in the course of the (proletarian) revolution people change their behavior together with the circumstances: In labor we change the "circumstances" of our life, and quite often we change the methods of labor during our work, and so "changing of the circumstances and of the human activity " coincides without revolution.
> It's also consistent with Marx's particular conception of
>human "species-being."
>That term designates the specifically human "essence," the
>potential to become beings who
>"determine their kno
wing, willing, and acting in a universal
>way." (Hegel, Philosophy of Right, § 187)
Discussing Hegel in translation is tricky. The § 187 is part of
the introduction of the Chapter on "civil society" in
the "Philosophy of right", the chapter dealing with the
bourgeois division of labor, with the system of justice and
public authority. The content is restricted to bourgeois
society, including a few premodern institutions
("corporations"). The translation used is not exact, because
the english word "universal" has quite different
background, compared to the german "allgemein".
"universal" bears the meaning of a one, allincluding
relationship – whereas "allgemein" does not. "general" would
be a better. Compare the common language in
logic and mathematics, "general recursive function" ore the
use in Marx Capital "General form of value".
There is no one big "whole" in Hegels philosophy.
The corrected translation makes clear, that the "potential" you spoke about is an every day necessity for a person in modern, capitalist society:
"Individuals in their capacity as citizens in this state ["this state" refers to § 183, "Not- und Verstandesstaat"] are private persons whose end is their own interest. This end is mediated through the general public which thus appears as a means to its realisation. Consequently, individuals can attain their ends only in so far as they themselves determine their knowing, willing, and acting in a general way and make themselv es links in this chain of social connections."
You quoted parts of the "German Ideology". In these parts - in contrast to the text of Hegel - in the in german text not only the word "universell" /(en. "universal"), but even interesting derivatives like "universeller"/ more universal/ – and "universellste"/ most universal/ - have actually been used by Marx and/ore Engels – trough it by no means clear, what a superlative degree of "universal" could mean in plain german.
But it is clear, that the direct relationship you see between Hegels text and the text of the "German Ideology" does only exist in the english translation.
>The sixth thesis makes this a "relational" essence, i.e. an
>essence that requires a specific set of social
>relations - "communist" relations - for its existence. These
>relations and the human essence that both
>constitutes and is constituted by them are themselves the
>product of an internally related set of
>historically precedent relations understood as "stages in the
>development of the human mind," i.e. as
>stages in an "educational" process through which human
>"species-being" - the human "in itself" -
>becomes actual - "for itself."
If we use Hegelian language, every essence is relational: that's the function of essence in Hegels logic. The core of your argument is the thesis, that special – "communist" – relations are required for the existence of the "human essence" of the 6th thesis. Here=2 0are different points to be made.
1) If you identify the specific "human essence" of the 6th thesis with "the potential to become beings who 'determine their knowing, willing, and acting in a universal way.' (Hegel, Philosophy of Right, § 187)", then this identification is not consistent with Hegels text, not only because the difference "general"/"universal". Hegel saw sucb a "potential" as given, as a normal thing in bourgeois society, quite independent of any "communist relations". And we could add quite a lot of statements of Marx about how members of bourgeois society have to use their freedom to show that he too took such an ability to "determine their knowing, willing, and acting in a general way" as given in capitalist society.
2) You are right, I think, that Marx in the 6th thesis tried to link the "reality of human essence" to what he calls in the 10th thesis "human society ore socialized humanity" – your "communist relations". The wording of the 6th shows really, I think, the link to the old Paris manuscript discourse about the contradiction of "beeing" and "essence", to be solved only with the "realization" of "human essence". But you are not right in identifying this with the concept of communism from the "German Ideology" onwards. The "Theses on Feuerbach" are not free from a concept of history, whose outspoken truth would be the end of history at all: human essence – alienation – abolition of alienation and real ization of human essence. (In more religious terms: paradise – paradise lost – salvation.) This idea of communism had to be abounded to build a more realistic concept of history, that starts with taking the individuals seriously.
>The meaning of "behaviour" here derives from the
>ontological idea found in the sixth thesis of being
>as "activities" in "internal relations." It's as "internal
>relations" in this ontological sense, that "the
>relations of individuals under all circumstances can only be
>their mutual behaviour," i.e. their mutual
>'activities" where all "being" including human "being" is
>"activity" in "internal relations."
> Following this ontological claim, Marx goes on to claim
>that ...
Did Marx made "ontological claims"? As late as with the "Anti-Dühring" he accepted the idea of Engels, that nothing will be left of philosophy, except formal logic, dialectics and theory of knowledge. We do not exactly know, what was in his mind about these topics. He never wrote the "dialectics" he sometimes spoke about, the short notes on Hegel in his later writing, the short extract out of Hegels logic give a mixed result. And especially coming from Hegel we know, that there is no special "dialectics", at least not in Hegel. But "ontological claims" in Marx? May this be as it is, I do not share the hope, that Alfred North Whiteheads fight with the consequences of the quite restricted and not so elaborated concept of mathematical logi c of the "Principia mathematica", resulting in he invention of "internal relations" and so on, could help in understanding Hegel, Marx ore could explain parts of "life, the universe and everything". I like to use more controllable concepts in theory.
Sebastian
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