THE EARLY WRITINGS I837-I844 Bcois npoaantov' (The profane man is not the one who destroys the gods of the multitude but the one who foists the multitude 's doctrines onto the gods Philosophy makes no secret of it. The proclamation of Prometheus-ania hoyo tois ravtas exdaipo 0cois'(in a word, I detest all the Gods)-is her own profession, her own slogan against all the gods of he d earth who do not recognize man's self-consciousness as the highest divinity. There shall be none otner de But to the pitiful cowards who rejoice over the apparently worsening socia position of philosophy she repeats what Prometheus said to the servant of the gods, Hermes: tiis aiis iatpeias tiveuuivy Sparpaciav, gapds eriotao', oik av anhataru'eyo' (Understand this well, I would not change my evil plight for your servility. Prometheus is the foremost saint and martyr in the philosopher's calendar From the notes to the dissertation As regards Hegel, too, it is pure ignorance on the part of his followers when they explain this or that aspect of his system as a compromise or something of the sort, i. e. when they pass a moral judgement on it. They forget that almost no time ago, as can plainly be shown them out of their own writings, they were fervent adherents to all aspects of his one-sidedness It is conceivable that a philosopher should be guilty of this or that inconsis- tency because of this or that compromise; he may himself be conscious of it. But what he is not conscious of is that in the last analysis this apparent compromise is made possible by the deficiency of his principles or an inadequate grasp of them. So if a philosopher really has compromised it is the job of his followers to use the inner core of his thought to illuminate his own superficial expressions of it. In this way, what is a progress in conscience is also a progress in knowledge This does not invlove putting the conscience of a philosopher under suspicion, but rather construing the essential characteristics of his views, giving them a definite form and meaning, and thus at the same time going beyond them Moreover, I consider this unphilosophical evolution of a large part of the Hegelian school as a phenomenon that will always accompany a transition from discipline to freedom. It is a psychological law that once the theoretical intellect has achieved free- dom within itself it turns into practical energy and, emerging from the shadow kingdom of Amenthes as will, directs itself against the exterior reality of the world. But it is important from the philosophical point of view to elaborate on these pages because from the precise manner of this transition we can draw conclusions as to the immanent characteristics and historical character of a
the early writings 1837–1844 | 17 θεο´v προσα´ πτων’. (The profane man is not the one who destroys the gods of the multitude but the one who foists the multitude’s doctrines onto the gods.) Philosophy makes no secret of it. The proclamation of Prometheus—‘α< πλô λ¾γ} τοÌv πα´ νταv χθα¬ρω θεοËv’ (in a word, I detest all the Gods)—is her own profession, her own slogan against all the gods of heaven and earth who do not recognize man’s self-consciousness as the highest divinity. There shall be none other beside it. But to the pitiful cowards who rejoice over the apparently worsening social position of philosophy she repeats what Prometheus said to the servant of the gods, Hermes: ‘τv σv λατρε¬αv τνµν δυαπραζ¬αν, σαφév π¬στασ’, οÌκ α/ ν α$ λλα´ ζαιµ' γÞ’. (Understand this well, I would not change my evil plight for your servility.) Prometheus is the foremost saint and martyr in the philosopher’s calendar. From the Notes to the Dissertation . . . As regards Hegel, too, it is pure ignorance on the part of his followers when they explain this or that aspect of his system as a compromise or something of the sort, i.e. when they pass a moral judgement on it. They forget that almost no time ago, as can plainly be shown them out of their own writings, they were fervent adherents to all aspects of his one-sidedness . . . It is conceivable that a philosopher should be guilty of this or that inconsistency because of this or that compromise; he may himself be conscious of it. But what he is not conscious of is that in the last analysis this apparent compromise is made possible by the deficiency of his principles or an inadequate grasp of them. So if a philosopher really has compromised it is the job of his followers to use the inner core of his thought to illuminate his own superficial expressions of it. In this way, what is a progress in conscience is also a progress in knowledge. This does not invlove putting the conscience of a philosopher under suspicion, but rather construing the essential characteristics of his views, giving them a definite form and meaning, and thus at the same time going beyond them. Moreover, I consider this unphilosophical evolution of a large part of the Hegelian school as a phenomenon that will always accompany a transition from discipline to freedom. It is a psychological law that once the theoretical intellect has achieved freedom within itself it turns into practical energy and, emerging from the shadow kingdom of Amenthes as will, directs itself against the exterior reality of the world. (But it is important from the philosophical point of view to elaborate on these pages because from the precise manner of this transition we can draw conclusions as to the immanent characteristics and historical character of a
KARL MARX: SELECTED WRITINGS philosophy. We see here its curriculum vitae reduced, so to speak, to its sim- olest expression, its quintessence. But the praxis of philosophy is itself theor etical. It is the sort of critique that measures individual existing things by their essence and particular realities by the Idea. But this immediate realization of philosophy is fraught with contradictions in its innermost essence and it is its essence that appears in the phenomena and imprints its seal on them. So long as philosophy as will goes forth against the world of appearances, the system is degraded to an abstract totality, i. e. it has become one side of the world with another side over against it. Its relation to the world is one of reflection. Being inspired with the desire to realize itself, there is a tension between it and other things. Its inner self-sufficiency and perfection are des- royed. What was an inner light becomes a consuming flame that turns out- wards. As a consequence, the world's becoming philosophical coincides with hilosophy 's becoming worldly, the realization of philosophy coincides with its disappearance, the exterior battles of philosophy are against its own inner deficiencies; in the struggle it acquires precisely those defects against which it is fighting, and so only eliminates them by making them its own. Philosophy's opposite and enemy is always the same as philosophy itself, but with the factors reversed In the end this duality of the philosophical mind pro oduces two schools com pletely opposed to one another, one of which, the liberal party as we may loosely call it, lays most emphasis on nd principle while the other holds fast to what are not concepts to the real. This second school is positive philosophy. The activity of the first takes the form of a cri- tique, i. e. philosophy turning itself against the exterior world; the activity of the latter is an attempt to philosophize, i. e. philosophical introspection. The sec ond school sees the deficiency as immanent to philosophy, whereas the first sees it as a deficiency of the world that it is trying to make philosophical. Each of these parties does exactly what the other aims at and what it does not itself intend. But the first, in spite of its inner contradictions, is in general aware of its principle and aim. In the second, the inversion, the craziness, so to speak, is manifested in all its purity. As regards content, it is only the liberal party, because it is the party of the concept, which makes any real progress, whereas positive philosophy is only capable of requirements and tendencies whose form contradicts their meaning Just as in philosophy there are turning-points which in themselves develop to concreteness, gather its abstract principles into a totality, and so break off the unilinear process, so are there also moments in which philosophy turns its eyes towards the outside world, no longer merely comprehends but, as a practical being, spins intrigues with the world without intermediary. It comes forth from the shadowy kingdom of Amenthes and throws itself on the breast
18 | karl marx: selected writings philosophy. We see here its curriculum vitae reduced, so to speak, to its simplest expression, its quintessence.) But the praxis of philosophy is itself theoretical. It is the sort of critique that measures individual existing things by their essence and particular realities by the Idea. But this immediate realization of philosophy is fraught with contradictions in its innermost essence and it is its essence that appears in the phenomena and imprints its seal on them. So long as philosophy as will goes forth against the world of appearances, the system is degraded to an abstract totality, i.e. it has become one side of the world with another side over against it. Its relation to the world is one of reflection. Being inspired with the desire to realize itself, there is a tension between it and other things. Its inner self-sufficiency and perfection are destroyed. What was an inner light becomes a consuming flame that turns outwards. As a consequence, the world’s becoming philosophical coincides with philosophy’s becoming worldly, the realization of philosophy coincides with its disappearance, the exterior battles of philosophy are against its own inner deficiencies; in the struggle it acquires precisely those defects against which it is fighting, and so only eliminates them by making them its own. Philosophy’s opposite and enemy is always the same as philosophy itself, but with the factors reversed. In the end this duality of the philosophical mind produces two schools completely opposed to one another, one of which, the liberal party as we may loosely call it, lays most emphasis on philosophy as a concept and principle, while the other holds fast to what are not concepts, to the real. This second school is positive philosophy. The activity of the first takes the form of a critique, i.e. philosophy turning itself against the exterior world; the activity of the latter is an attempt to philosophize, i.e. philosophical introspection. The second school sees the deficiency as immanent to philosophy, whereas the first sees it as a deficiency of the world that it is trying to make philosophical. Each of these parties does exactly what the other aims at and what it does not itself intend. But the first, in spite of its inner contradictions, is in general aware of its principle and aim. In the second, the inversion, the craziness, so to speak, is manifested in all its purity. As regards content, it is only the liberal party, because it is the party of the concept, which makes any real progress, whereas positive philosophy is only capable of requirements and tendencies whose form contradicts their meaning . . . . . . Just as in philosophy there are turning-points which in themselves develop to concreteness, gather its abstract principles into a totality, and so break off the unilinear process, so are there also moments in which philosophy turns its eyes towards the outside world, no longer merely comprehends but, as a practical being, spins intrigues with the world without intermediary. It comes forth from the shadowy kingdom of Amenthes and throws itself on the breast
THE EARLY WRITINGS I837-I844 of the worldly sirens. It is the shrovetide of philosophy. Let her dress up like a dog as the Cynic does, put on the robes of a priest like the Alexandrine, or the fragrant spring garment of the Epicurean. It is essential for philosophy at this stage to put on actors'masks. Just as in the story of the creation of mankind Deucalion threw stones behind him, so philosophy casts its eyes backwards (the bones of its mother are bright eyes), when its heart becomes strong enough to create a world; but like Prometheus, who stole fire from heaven and began to build houses and settle on the earth, so philosophy, which has evolved so as to impinge on the world turns itself against the world that it finds. So now the Hegelian philosophy Philosophy has isolated itself so as to become a comolete and total world and the nature of this totality is conditioned by philosophy's own development as is also the form that is taken by its transition to a practical relationship to reality. Thus there is a rift running through the totality of the world, and indeed this rift has been widened as far as possible in that intellectual existence has become free and attained to the richness of the universal. The heart -beat has become in a concrete manner in itself the distinction which the whole organism is. The rift in the world is not causal if its two sides are totalities. So the world that is opposed by a philosophy that is complete in itself is one that is rent asunder. Therefore, the activity of this philosophy appears too to be rent asun der and contradictory; its objective universality returns into the subjective forms of the individual minds in which it has its life. Normal harps will sound beneath any hand; those of aeolus only when the storm strikes them. But we should not let ourselves be misled by the storm that follows a great, a world hilosophy Someone who does not appreciate this historical necessity must consequently deny that man could continue to live at all after a total philosophy, or else treat the dialectic of quantity as such as the highest category of conscious minds, and claim with some of our misguided Hegelians that mediocrity is the usual form in which absolute mind appears; but a mediocrity that gives itself out to be the normal appearance of the absolute has itself degenerated into boundlessness namely a boundless pretension. Without this necessity it is impossible to under stand how after Aristotle a Zeno, an Epicurus, even a Sextus Empiricus, how after Hegel the efforts of later philosophers, which are for the most part unmitigatedly deficient, could attain to the light of day. In such times half-formed spirits have the opposite view to rea commanders They believe that they can make good their losses by reducing and dividing their forces and make a peace treaty with real needs, whereas Themistocles when Athens was threatened with destruction, persuaded the athenians to quit their city completely and found a new athens on another element, the sea. Nor should we forget that the period that follows such catastrophes is an iron one, happy if it is marked by titanic struggles, lamentable if it is like the centuries
the early writings 1837–1844 | 19 of the worldly sirens. It is the shrovetide of philosophy. Let her dress up like a dog as the Cynic does, put on the robes of a priest like the Alexandrine, or the fragrant spring garment of the Epicurean. It is essential for philosophy at this stage to put on actors’ masks. Just as in the story of the creation of mankind Deucalion threw stones behind him, so philosophy casts its eyes backwards (the bones of its mother are bright eyes), when its heart becomes strong enough to create a world; but like Prometheus, who stole fire from heaven and began to build houses and settle on the earth, so philosophy, which has evolved so as to impinge on the world, turns itself against the world that it finds. So now the Hegelian philosophy. Philosophy has isolated itself so as to become a comolete and total world, and the nature of this totality is conditioned by philosophy’s own development as is also the form that is taken by its transition to a practical relationship to reality. Thus there is a rift running through the totality of the world, and indeed this rift has been widened as far as possible in that intellectual existence has become free and attained to the richness of the universal. The heart-beat has become in a concrete manner in itself the distinction which the whole organism is. The rift in the world is not causal if its two sides are totalities. So the world that is opposed by a philosophy that is complete in itself is one that is rent asunder. Therefore, the activity of this philosophy appears too to be rent asunder and contradictory; its objective universality returns into the subjective forms of the individual minds in which it has its life. Normal harps will sound beneath any hand; those of Aeolus only when the storm strikes them. But we should not let ourselves be misled by the storm that follows a great, a worldphilosophy. Someone who does not appreciate this historical necessity must consequently deny that man could continue to live at all after a total philosophy, or else treat the dialectic of quantity as such as the highest category of conscious minds, and claim with some of our misguided Hegelians that mediocrity is the usual form in which absolute mind appears; but a mediocrity that gives itself out to be the normal appearance of the absolute has itself degenerated into boundlessness, namely a boundless pretension. Without this necessity it is impossible to understand how after Aristotle a Zeno, an Epicurus, even a Sextus Empiricus, how after Hegel the efforts of later philosophers, which are for the most part unmitigatedly deficient, could attain to the light of day. In such times half-formed spirits have the opposite view to real commanders. They believe that they can make good their losses by reducing and dividing their forces and make a peace treaty with real needs, whereas Themistocles, when Athens was threatened with destruction, persuaded the Athenians to quit their city completely and found a new Athens on another element, the sea. Nor should we forget that the period that follows such catastrophes is an iron one, happy if it is marked by titanic struggles, lamentable if it is like the centuries
KARL MARX: SELECTED WRITINGS that limp behind the great periods of art and busy themselves with imitating in wax, plaster, and copper what sprang from Carrara marble like Pallas Athene from the head of Zeus, father of the gods. But those periods are titanic that follow a total philosophy and its subjective forms of development, for the division that forms its unity is gigantic. Thus the Stoic, Epicurean, and Sceptic hilosophies are followed by rome. They are unhappy and iron for their gods are dead and the new goddess has as yet only the obscure form of fate, of pure light or of pure darkness. She still lacks the colours of the day. The root of the unhappiness, however, is that the soul of the period, the spiritual Monas, being sated with itself, shapes itself ideally on all sides in isolation and cannot recog- nize any reality that has come to fruition without it. Thus the happy aspect of this unhappy time lies in the subjective manner, the modality in which phil sophy as subjective consciousness conceives its relation to reality Thus, for example, the Stoic, and Epicurean philosophies were the happiness of their time; thus the night-butterfly, when the universal sun has sunk, seeks the lamplight of a private person BIBLIOGRAPHY ORIGINAL MEGA I(i)1, pp. 8 ff, 63 ff. 131 ff. PRESENT TRANSLATION K Marx, Early Texts, pp. 12 ff. OTHER TRANSLATIONS The body of the thesis is translated in N. Livergood, Marx's Philosophy of Action, the Hague, 1967. There are extracts from the important digressions in: Writings of the Young Marx, ed Easton and Guddat, pp 51 ff. K Marx, F. Engels, Collected Works, Vol. l, New York,1975,pp.25-106and504-9 COMMENTARIES C. Bailey, 'Karl Marx and Greek Atomism, Classical Quarterly, Vol 22, 1928 M. De Golyer,The Greek Account of the Marxian Matrix in G. McCarthy, ed. Marx and Aristotle: Nineteenth Century German Social Theory and Classica/ Antiquity, Savage Md.,1992 P. Fenves, ' Marx's Doctoral Thesis on Two greek Atomists and the post-Kantian Interpretations, Journal of the History of Ideas, vol. 47, 1986
20 | karl marx: selected writings that limp behind the great periods of art and busy themselves with imitating in wax, plaster, and copper what sprang from Carrara marble like Pallas Athene from the head of Zeus, father of the gods. But those periods are titanic that follow a total philosophy and its subjective forms of development, for the division that forms its unity is gigantic. Thus the Stoic, Epicurean, and Sceptic philosophies are followed by Rome. They are unhappy and iron for their gods are dead and the new goddess has as yet only the obscure form of fate, of pure light or of pure darkness. She still lacks the colours of the day. The root of the unhappiness, however, is that the soul of the period, the spiritual Monas, being sated with itself, shapes itself ideally on all sides in isolation and cannot recognize any reality that has come to fruition without it. Thus the happy aspect of this unhappy time lies in the subjective manner, the modality in which philosophy as subjective consciousness conceives its relation to reality. Thus, for example, the Stoic, and Epicurean philosophies were the happiness of their time; thus the night-butterfly, when the universal sun has sunk, seeks the lamplight of a private person . . . BIBLIOGRAPHY ORIGINAL MEGA I (i) 1, pp. 8 ff., 63 ff., 131 ff. PRESENT TRANSLATION K. Marx, Early Texts, pp. 12 ff. OTHER TRANSLATIONS The body of the thesis is translated in N. Livergood, Marx’s Philosophy of Action, The Hague, 1967. There are extracts from the important digressions in: Writings of the Young Marx, ed. Easton and Guddat, pp. 51 ff. K. Marx, F. Engels, Collected Works, Vol. 1, New York, 1975, pp. 25–106 and 504–9. COMMENTARIES C. Bailey, ‘Karl Marx and Greek Atomism’, Classical Quarterly, Vol. 22, 1928. M. De Golyer, ‘The Greek Account of the Marxian Matrix’, in G. McCarthy, ed., Marx and Aristotle: Nineteenth Century German Social Theory and Classical Antiquity, Savage, Md., 1992. P. Fenves, ‘Marx’s Doctoral Thesis on Two Greek Atomists and the Post-Kantian Interpretations’, Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 47, 1986
THE EARLY WRITINGS I837-I844 N. Livergood, Introduction to work cited above G. McCarthy, Marx and the Ancients: Classical Ethics, Social Justice and Nineteenth Century Political Economy, Savage, Md. 1990, pp 21 ff D. McLellan, Marx before Marxism, Harmondsworth 1972, pp 74 ff. H Mins, 'Marxs Doctrinal Dissertation Science and Society, 1948 J. Pike, From Aristotle to Marx, Aldershot, 1998, Ch 3 G Teeple, The Doctoral Dissertation of Karl Marx History of Political Thought, Spring 1990
the early writings 1837–1844 | 21 N. Livergood, Introduction to work cited above. G. McCarthy, Marx and the Ancients: Classical Ethics, Social Justice and Nineteenth Century Political Economy, Savage, Md., 1990, pp. 21 ff. D. McLellan, Marx before Marxism, Harmondsworth, 1972, pp. 74 ff. H. Mins, ‘Marx’s Doctrinal Dissertation’, Science and Society, 1948. J. Pike, From Aristotle to Marx, Aldershot, 1998, Ch. 3. G. Teeple, ‘The Doctoral Dissertation of Karl Marx’, History of Political Thought, Spring 1990