The only similarity between Marx and Kierkegaard – beyond disagreeing with Hegel – is they both find Hegel to be apathetic. As Kierkegaard summarized in Either/Or, and as Marx exemplifies in his many writings, either one is to resign themselves to inaction for the greater good or one commits to action regardless of the consequences. Hegel, they argue, commits himself to the former. He resigns himself to universal ethics, acting on the greater good at the expense of the individual. Here, Kierkegaard and Marx swerve away from Hegel. Kierkegaard believes the faithful must act as an individual in a relationship with God. Marx believes that the individual, acting in concert with other like-minded individuals, is key to enacting the Bloody Revolution and working towards the worker's paradise. Hegel's disregard for the individual is the source of Marx's and Kierkegaard's disenchantment with Hegel's philosophy.
Kierkegaard suggests that Hegel, at his core, does not understand that the nature of man, or at the very least the nature of faith, which is in a constant state of moral uncertainty. He illustrates the state of man with various analogies on Abraham's sacrifice of Issac in “Fear and Trembling,” suggesting that Abraham should either be considered a murder because he would have killed his son, or a man of faith because of he obeyed God unwaveringly. Kierkegaard wirtes, “I return, however, to Abraham. Before the result, either Abraham was every minute a murderer, or we are confronted by a paradox which is higher than all mediation” (Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling, 51). He makes the claim that while the ethical is universal, the individual who has a personal relationship with God takes on a higher importance than one would with Gies...
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...im, nor explain or rationalize God's will while in the faith. Whereas Marx finds Hegel's frustratingly apathetic towards the worker's struggle. Hegel's disregard for the physical being and objective nature is the cause of Marx's disenchantment with Hegel. Marx also recognizes the need for the individual as a utility to begin the Bloody Revolution. Without the individual, the secular Giest has no ground to stand upon.
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Kierkegaard, Soren. Fear and Trembling . Denmark: 1863. 102. Print.
The German Ideology starts off by illustrating the critique of the German idealists, while presenting Marx and Engels' alternative: materialistic view of history. According to Marx, the main reason for political and economical retrogression of Germany is its obsession with Hegel's view on history as a chain of phases or manifestations of World Spirit or Absolute Mind. It's possible to trace Marx's critique in three different perspectives. Initially, he directed his critique towards the very nature of Hegelian system, by stating its "contemplative" aspect. Secondly, he presented detailed analysis of discrepancies, regarding logical categories and religious conceptions, which rose between the Young and Old Hegelians. According to old Hegelians, the history was simply chronology of ideas, and the reason Germany was flourishing ,only because it was constructed on the best ideas. In the meantime, Young Hegelians adopted dialectics...
Nietzsche's master-slave morality describes the way in which moral norms shifted through the through eras, from pre-scocratic times to the modern age founded upon Christian and Jewish beliefs. During pre-socratic times, value was dominated and enacted by the master class, who saw themselves and what they did as good. Value was defined along their terms of good- what was good for the master class was itself good. This notion of value was designed along the lines of nobility and purity, which included traits such as courage, beauty, strong-will and happiness. The master-class said yes to existence, and their values affirmed their belief system, which, due to their position of control, created their disposition as elite and influenced the norms for morality at their time. Since the master-class viewed themselves as good, they distinguished themselves from the weaker individuals, those not in power, as bad. The weaker individuals, in pre-socratic times known as plebeians, according to the master-class, were weaker for various reasons. Be it due to their unhappiness, victimization to unfortunate circumstances, weak-will or a lack of courage, pride, or a combination of any of these despicable or non virtuous values. According to the master-class, adherence to these weak values initiated a form of fear within the plebeian, which created a lack of self worth and a lack of freedom or self-consciousness, deemed as slavery.
Using phrases such as" innocent and childlike fantasies," Karl Marx unambiguously attacks the Hegelian philosophy preponderant during his time, citing in its concept of history an irrevocable divorce with reality. For Marx, history is exactly what it seems to be: a succession of human events in which ideas such as the division of labor, production, and revolution replace their immaterial Hegelian counterparts, if even such counterparts exist. In fact, Marx accuses the token historian of ignoring the fundamental aspects of actual human activity while instead concentrating upon non-actualized ideas at best and imaginary metaphysical concepts at worst.
Kung, Hans. The Incarnation of God: An Introduction to Hegel's Theological Thought As Prolegomena to a Future Christology. T&T Clark, 2001. hard cover.
Marx, Karl, and Friedrich Engels. The Communist Manifesto. Trans. Paul M. Sweeny. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1998.
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In 1848, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels pamphlet titled The Communist Manifesto displaying their opinions on economics and socialism for the public’s enjoyment. Little did they know their ideas would still be influential today.
Marx, Karl, and Friedrich Engels. The Communist Manifesto. 1st Signic Classic print. ed. New York, NY: Signic Classic, 1998.
Marx, Karl and Friedrich Engels. "The Communist Manifesto." The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. Ed. Vincent B. Leitch. New York: Norton, 2001. 769-773.
Among those Hegel influenced were theologians and religious people because of his emphasis on the importance of God in his teachings. (Boston U) Hegel was supported by German scientists and theologians because he promoted the vitality of these two areas of studies. His opponents were those who did not believe in God or religious motives in philosophy like Kant with Agnostic Phenomenalism and Schelling with Objective Idealism that prompted Nietzsche and Marx to find their ideologies. Georg wrote many political works critiquing different European governments explaining how the morals and motives for doing certain things are corrupt and twisted. His more famous works came later, like the Jena Writings. Included in these writings was the Philosophy of Right. In this piece, Hegel talks about Natural Law and how the true meaning of Natural Law is hindered by the materialistic world. He claims that the physical world alters the perception of the actual truth. He advocated the traditional rationalist approach to the Natural Law. His underlying message is that the community must move beyond the false reality the state entraps them in to find what is real and what is good. (UTM) Hegel believed that if one were
Marx saw religion as an evil that existed in society and that it brought down all the people that believed in that religion. Marx said that, ?It [religion] is the opium of the people,?[1] and in saying this, Marx meant that religion was contagious on society. Once the society had a taste for the religion, they became totally engulfed it in, and then they do not want to get out of that way of live because they see it as a good way to live. Then even if people wanted to get out of the religion it was hard to get out because the whole society had already been infected by the ?opium.?
Before it can become clear how Marx turned Hegel on his head, an understanding of the theories of Hegel must be acquired. The study of the philosophy of history is a long and complicated one as many philosophers and historians have found multiple ways to define their field and to study the historical processes the world underwent. One of the most prominent and important figures of the philosophical study of history is the famed German writer, philosopher, and political theorist Friedrich Hegel. What separates Hegel from other theorists of the philosophy of history is his idea that the movement of history occurs in dynamic terms and shifts in historical epochs demonstrating a shift in direction in terms of ideas, and the way people approach the world around them. Hegel outlines his ideas about the philosophical approach to history in his writings Elements of the Philosophy of Right and Lecture on the Philosophy of History. Hegel writes that history is defined by a Geist, or Spirit which guides and defines it progress. Hegel states that “the essence of Spirit is freedom. All will readily assent to the doctrine that Spirit, among other properties, is also endowed with Freedom; but philosophy teaches that all qualities of Spirit exist only through freedom; that all are but means for attaining freedom; that all seek and produce this and this alone. It is a result of speculative philosophy, that Freedom is the sole truth of Sprit.” (815 Cahn) What Hegel is referring to in this quote is that Geist, or Spirit, is similar to the culture of the people and is constantly reworking itself and evolving to suit the needs of society and the ever-advancing pace of progress, technology, and change. Thus for Hegel the study of history is a study of ...
Hegel's claim that self-consciousness realizes itself in ethical life is set up with the understanding that un-reactive immersion in the social community is no longer possible for modern human beings in his own time. In Hegel's view, ethical life is created within the culture and practices of the social community of an individual. “Ethical life is a system of norms and mores belonging to a social body, made up of spheres of social interaction and interdependence in which all individuals are embedded.” (Philosophy of Right, III: Ethical Life.) More importantly, the individual must follow that ethical life, and therefore contribute to the society himself. Ethical life is a stage of self consciousness towards which the individual of Hegel’s time is seen by Hegel to be living within, and to be constructing throughout his life. Hegel would claim that the moral individual would not try to dissociate from this, for his own benefit. He argues that reason is manifested in the benefit of the individual rather than of the social.
Marx, Karl and Friedrich Engels. "The Communist Manifesto." The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. Ed. Vincent B. Leitch. New York: Norton, 2001. 769-773.