Hegel's Spirit and Marx's Philosophy of Action
Historical Materialism and "Turning Hegel on His Head"
Apr 24, 2009
Karl Marx (1818-1883) has been an extremely influential philosopher, historian, sociologist and political thinker who has redefined many social and political issues and is regarded as the founder of communism.
Marx based his doctoral thesis on the ancient Greek materialistic philosophers Democritus and Epicurus and defined himself as a historical materialistic. Like Hegel, he agreed that history has a major influence on thoughts and philosophies, but he disagreed with his predecessor’s “idealism.”
Philosophical Ideals and Action in the Real Material World
Philosophers, according to Marx, have mostly analyzed and interpreted the world yet lacked the initiative to change the world, so Marx proposed a “philosophy of action.”
A philosophy should not be merely based on theoretical or abstract concepts, but it should be acted out and meant to bring about social, even revolutionary, change.
Hegel’s World Spirit and Marx’s Materialism
Marx claims that Hegel was wrong in assuming that the “World Spirit” created material realities and circumstances. In fact, Marx turned “Hegel on his head” since he believed it was the other way around, that it was material circumstances that shaped ideas and thought.
Material circumstances influence and keep shaping our thoughts during any given period of history and they consequently create the changes and impel history to move forward.
Therefore, economic factors have always played a major role in every time period and have defined the Zeitgeist, the spirit of the times, including politics, philosophy, and religion.
The Influence of Material Conditions on Ancient Greek Philosophy
What one thinks and how one acts depends on economic factors, according to Marx. Therefore it was no sheer coincidence that the ancient Greek philosophers came up with their philosophies at the time they did.
The main reason was that the Greek had slaves who would work for them and as a result many of the elite did not have to worry about economic matters or basic amenities.
Since there was no need to work for a living, they had time to think and reflect about nature and the world around them. Without the necessary materialistic aid of the slaves, there could have been no philosophy, as simple workers or farmers would have no time for leisure or for thinking about deep philosophical issues.
As can be seen, material, economic, and social conditions propel history to move forward and are the building blocks or base of society.
Marx calls all political institutions, laws, religion, art, philosophy and science the “superstructure” of society. This superstructure is then the mirror image of society, what Marx defines as “materialistic dialectic,” which stands in direct opposition to Hegel’s “idealistic dialectic,” where thoughts and ideas are said to shape the material world.
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