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According to Engels ‘the great basic question of all philosophy concerns the relation of thinking and being’ (U, p. 247).’ The answers which philosophers have given to this question split them into ‘two great camps’, materialists and

idealists (LF, p. 250). The former asserted the primacy of matter whilst the latter asserted the primacy of mind. In the light of this distinction it has been customary to assign Hegel to the idealist camp and Marx and Engels to the materialist camp. Notwithstanding the fact that this distinction has dominated discussions on the relationship between Hegel and Mars, it will be argued here that Engels’ formulation is a source of much confusion; that it not only distorts the history of philosophy by forcing philosophers into two camps, but it is not even supported by a close reading of Engels’ own texts. Instead, it will be argued that Engels did not intend his remarks to be taken so literally, and that efforts to commit Hegel and Marx respectively to idealist and materialist camps obscures the extent to which Marx and Engels’ revolutionary concept of truth has its origins in

Hegel.? Only by demonstrating the exaggerated nature of Engels’ formulation of the ‘great basic question’, therefore, can the revolutionary character of the Hegelian-Marxist doctrine of truth be fully appreciated.

A cursory glance at Engels’ Ludwig Feuerbach and theEndof Classical German

Philosophy will reveal that a simple division between materialism and idealism cannot be sustained. Immediately after his reference to the ‘two camps’ he describes the Hegelian system as ‘materialism idealistically turned upside down in method and content’ (LF, p. 250) and takes Feuerbach to task because he ‘Lumps together materialism that is a general world outlook resting on a definite conception of the relation between matter and mind’ with the ‘shallow vulgarised form’ of eighteenth-century materialism and that preached in the 1850s by Biichner, Vogt and Moleschott (LF, p. 251). Nowhere does Engels present idealism as a doctrine that is easily identified for instant refutation. For example, if one were to be labelled an idealist because one acknowledges the contribution of the cognitive faculties in the acquisition of knowledge, then everyone would be an idealist:

The influences of the external world upon man express themselves in his brain, are reflected therein as feelings, impulses, volitions-in short as ‘ideal tendencies’. and in this form become ‘ideal powers’. If, then, a man is deemed an idealist because he follows ‘ideal tendencies’ and admits that ‘ideal powers’ havean influence over him, then every person who is at all normally developed is a born idealist, and how, in that case, can there still be any materialists? (LF, pp. 255-6)

According to the clear-cut distinction between the materialist and idealist camps,

*Department of Philosophy, University of Manchester, Faculty of Arts, Manchester Ml3 9PL. U.K.

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any rejection of vulgar forms of materialism should entail a rejection of materialism itself. and likewise a recognition of what is correct in Hegel’s idealism should be read as a defence of idealism as such. It is manifestly obvious that nothing of this sort is in Engels’ mind.

.Nevertheless, Engels’ formulation of the ‘two camps’ metaphor has had a

significant effect on Marxism. It has been taken as a general theoc. focusing equally on materialist and idealist ways of doing philosophy, and has been presented as an assertion of an ideological opposition between two trends- Hegelian idealism and Marxist materialism-and as a proclamation of war between them. Yet such antagonism is absent from Engels’ remarks on Hegel. Perhaps we should remember that Engels, a trained soldier, was inclined to militarise his metaphors. What was probably meant as a metaphor was taken over by his supporters in a literal sense. His ‘two camps’ became two opposed military camps, with no common ground between them. Prokopcqk. in Truth and Reality in Marx and Hegei, has assessed Engels’ account of the materialist-idealist distinction, and concludes that:

Engels’ formulation of the ‘great basic question of all philosophy’ has indeed made an enormous career in Marxism. For a few generations ofMarxists it amounted toa total theory of philosophy: it served as a touchstone to distinguish between enemies and allies, and it was used as a battle cry to unite all the materialists of the modern epoch against idealists of all shades throughout the ages.’

If this distinction can be overcome, or dispensed with in its more rigid

formulation, then greater links of continuity between Hegel and llfarx can be identified, since Hegel would not then be so easily polarised into an idealistic opponent of the materialist Marx.

Notwithstanding his condemnation of Hegel’s idealism, there is much in Hegel that Engels accepts. Although never explicitly worked out, the ILlarx-Engels doctrine of truth bears the clear stamp ofits Hegelian origins. How Engels saw in Hegel a rejection of the classical correspondence theory of truth in favour of practice as the source and criterion of truth can be seen in the following extract:

Truth, the cognition of which is the business of philosophy, was in the hands of Hegel no longer an aggregate of finished statements, which, once discovered, had merely to be learned by heart. Truth lay now in the process ofcognition itself, in the long historical development of science, which mounts from the lower to ever higher levels of knowledge without ever reachin,, 0 by discovering so-called absolute truth,

a point at which it can proceed no further, where it would have nothing more to do than to fold up its hands and gaze with wonder at the absolute truth to u-hrch it has attained. And what holds good for the realm of philosophical knowledge holds good also for that of every other kind of knowledge, and also for practical action. Just as knowledge is unable to reach a compiete conclusion in a perfect, ideal condition of humanity, so is history unable to do so; a perfect society. a perfect ‘state’ are things which can exist only in imagination. (LF, p. 330)

The extent to which Engels appreciates Hegel’s account of the process-like character of truth is obvious in this passage. But in order to appreciate its revolutionary nature it is necessary to see how Hegel develops it, by means ofhis

Hegelian-Marxist Millenarianism 273

dialectical-phenomenological method, out of, yet in opposition to, the classical

theory of truth. According to the classical theory of truth, held by Aristotle, Locke and many

twentieth-century empiricists, includin, 0 Russell. a judgement is true if there is some conformity between it and reality. Over and above this esponents of the classical theory exhibit two deep convictions: first, that the truth is something achievable, and secondly, that it should be the primary objective of all intellectual pursuits and that the pursuit of truth is the proper and defining characteristic of philosophic inquiry. The elevated language employed by Hegel, uhenever he speaks of the truth as an object of philosophical inquiry, indicates his commitment to these two convictions. Hegel’s dissatisfaction with the classical theory is obviously not based on objections to its prescriptive element. The problem with the classical theory, according to Hegel, was that it does not tell us anything about the way that conformity between the judgement and its object is to be achieved. As Wittgenstein has pointed out, the correlation betueen a proposition and the situation depicted by it can only occur within a system of mediations.

To appreciate Hegel’s approach to the problem of achieving a correlation between proposition and situation it will be helpful if we consider the following question. Is conformity attained by reality shaping cognition or is it attained in the activity of shaping reality in accordance with some proposition? There is an enormous difference between these two questions. The first refers to unconcealment and discovery whilst the latter is clearly a case of involvement. We can bring out this contrast if we imagine the absurd consequences of thinking of Hitler as the discoverer of World War II and Newton as the creator of universal gravity. The model of truth which is appropriate to Hegel’s approach has elements of both unconcealment and creativity. For Hegel, truth is modified by, even created by, the means of approaching it.’ However we label the end result of Hegel’s system, whether it is the absolute, God or spirit, the truth is always interchangeable with it. Moreover, the truth is presupposed at the outset of the Hegelian endeavour. We can see this in Hegel’s references to the image of a circle. Thus in the Science of Logic the truth is known, but hidden from us by its own light, and in the Phenomenology ‘what is bekannt is not yet erkannt only because it is bekannt’, and in The Encycfopaedia he contrasts commonsense notions of truth with philosophical truth as follows:

Common fancy puts the absolute far away in a world beyond. The absolute is rather directly before us, so present that so long as we think, we must, though with express consciousness of it, always carry it with us and always use it. (Enz. I. 24. zu)

In other words, the truth is always within reach but attained only by working through the system of shapes of consciousness, wherein each stage manifests its truth at various stages of completeness.

Throughout Hegel’s texts we find a number of characterisations of truth: it is depicted variously as a whole, appearin, 0 only in the form of a system, in a Bacchanalian revel, and as the cancellation of opposites. Important as each of these insights may be, their meanings are text-related and do not provide inroads into Hegel’s general concept of truth. The only way to approach Hegel’s

David Lamb

formulation of truth is by grasping. as Hegel does, the onesidedness of the classical theory of truth as a correspondence between subject and object, and taking it more seriously than its original exponents, developing out of it a far richer concept. Thus in the Philosop/r~, of Righr Hegel appears to embrace the classical theory when he says that ‘In philosophy truth means that the concept corresponds with reality’ (PR, 21 addition). But this has to be qualified by an appreciation of what Hegel means by ‘correspondence’, for this is where Hegel and the classical theory part company. According to Hegel, ‘correspondence’ involves a relationship between different sorts of entities than the entities associated with the classical theory, and furthermore this correspondence is achieved in a different manner. In TheEncyclopaedia the contrast is developed as follows:

We must however in the first place understand clearly what we mean by truth. In common life truth means theagreement ofan object with our conception of it. M’s thus presuppose an object to which our conception must conform. In the philosophical sense of the word, on the other hand, truth may be described, in general abstract terms, as the agreement of a thought-content with itself. The meaning is quite different from the one given above. (Enz. I. 24. zu)

These remarks become clear once we see that Hegel is, in fact, challenging the main metaphysical presuppositions of the classical theory-its presupposition that reality exists prior to, and independent of, our knowledge of it, and that this knowledge becomes truer the more accurately it mirrors reality. This presupposition, argues Hegel in the Introduction to the Phenomeno/ogy, exhibits an external relationship between knowledge (cognition) and what is known (the absolute), where cognition is portrayed as an instrument or medium on one side, ever failing to grasp the absolute truth which lies on the other side. As Hegel shows, the assumption of an external relationship between cognition and truth lies at the heart of Kant’s critical philosophy and is rejected for its circularity, which is expressed by Hegel in terms of the absurdity of seeking to know before

one can know, of wanting to learn how to suim before entering the water (Enz.I.10). Hegel’s point is that one must have some access to knowledge and truth before one can examine the ability of the cognitive faculties to deliver it.

According to Hegel objective reality is bound up with conceptual knowledge. Under Hegel’s influence objective reality was conceived as a posited being. His successors may have differed over how this positing was achieved, but the essential pattern was that objects encountered by the subject were in fact the subject’s own creation. And if they appeared otherwise, that is independent, this merely meant that the subject was still alienated from its objects, still lacking full selfconsciousness. This position is adopted in Marx’s criticism of contemplative materialism in the first of his Theses on Feuerbach. where he sees sensuality itself

as concept-laden.

The chief defect of all hitherto existing materialism-that of Feuerbach included-is that the thing (Gegensmnrle), reality. sensuousness, is concerned only in the form of the object (ObieX-f) or of contemplation (Anrchauung), but not as human xen.xmu acriviry, pracrice, not subjectively. Hence it happened that the acrive side, in contradistinction to materialism, was developed by idealism-but

Hegelian-Marxirr Millenarianism 27j

only abstractly, since, of course, idealism does nor know real, sensuous activity as such. (P, p. 283)’

As Marx indicated in the second Theser on Feuerbach, the gulf between the subject and object of cognition is closed only by praxis: ‘In practice man must prove the truth, that is, the reality and power, the this-sidedness of his thinking’ (TF, p. 283). The extent to which Hegel departs from the classical theory of truth can be seen in his distinction between truth and correctness in the Enc),clopaedia.

In common life the terms rrufh and correctness are often treated as synonymous: we speak of the truth of a content, when LVC are only thinking of its correctness. Correctness. generally speakin,, 0 concerns only the formal coincidence between our conception and its content. whatever the constitution ofthis content may be. Truth. on the contrap. lies in the coincidence of the object with itself, that is. with its notion. (Enz.I.172.zu).

The traditional subject-predicate proposition, or ‘qualitative judgement’, like, for example, ‘This rose is red’ actually expresses an untruth. By virtue of the copula ‘is’, the subject and predicate are supposed to correspond with the object and its properties respectively. Insofar as it does this the proposition is correct.

But this is not complete correspondence between concept and object. On its own terms correspondence, accordin g to the classical theory, is unattainable. As a concrete thing a rose may be red, but it must necessarily possess other qualities which are not contained in the predicate ‘red’. Moreover, the predicate ‘red’ may apply to many other things than the rose. The subject and predicate correspond at one point, but do not completely cover each other:

The predicate on its part is an abstract universal, and does not apply to the rose alone. There are other flowers and other objects which are red too.The subject and predicate in the immediate judgement touch,as it were, only in a single point, but do not cover each other. The case is different with the notional judgement. (Enz.I.172.z~)

Correctness expresses a loose and external relationship, an agreement between some aspects of an object and our representation of it. But the concept we have of an object is something presupposed which serves as a further criterion or standard of correctness for the object. For example:

In pronouncing an action to be good, we frame a notional judgement. Here, as we at once perceive, there is a closer and more intimate relation than in the immediate judgement. The predicate in the latter is some abstract quality which may or may not be applied to the subject. In the judgement of the notion the predicate is, as it were, the soul of the subject, by which the subject, as the body of this soul, is characterised through and through. (Enz.I.24.zu)

Nevertheless, philosophical or conceptual truth is not merely the harmony of the object with its representation. It is the harmony of the object with its concept. That is to say, an object is only a true object of its kind if it corresponds with its concept. Hegel finds support for this thesis in ordinary usage:

David Lamb

The deeper and philosophical meaning of truth can be panially traced even in the ordinary usage of language. Thus we speak of a true friend; by which we mean a friend whose manner of conduct accords with the notion of friendship, (Enz.I.Zl.zu)

How this theory of truth differs from the classical one can be seen in an Hegelian

formulation of the proposition ‘This person is sick’. This proposition may be

correct, but it is not true in Hegel’s sense. since a sick person does not conform to the concept of a person. A true person is one who is free from sickness. Ordinary usage supports this account; a person may describe symptoms of sickness with references to ‘not feeling myself today’ or ‘I’m not really myself today’. and so on. Once we look beneath the formal correspondence between concept and object, predicate and subject, we find that conceptual truth is found in the concept that consciousness has of both the object and the concept of the object. Thus with ‘This action is evil’, the truth does not lie in thecorrespondence between the term ‘evil’ and the act, but between the act and the conception ofa true act. Objects are true members of their species, when their reality corresponds to their concepts. Thus in the Philosophy of Right Hegel points out how under Roman law ‘there could be no definition of “man”, since “slave” could not be brought under it-the very status of slave indeed is an outrage on the concept of man’ (PR, p. 2).

In the arts and morality. objects are true when they are uhat they should be, according to their concept. Says Hegel:

In the same way we speak ofa true work of’art. Untrue in this sense means thesamc as bad. or self-discordant. In this sense a bad state is an untrue state; and evil and untruth may be said to consist in the contradiction subsisting between the function or notion and the existence of the object. Of such a bad object we form the correct representation. but the import of such representation is inherrnrly false. (Enz. I. 23.

zu)

A true work of art is not merely a mirror of reality; it is a work which measures up to the standards of artistic requirements. Ordinary usage supports this point: a real pianist is not the opposite of a dummy pianist, but one who measures up to the concept of excellence in music. Likewise, in morality, a bad man is one who does not act in accord with his concept or vocation. Thus:

A bad man is an untrue man, a man who does not behave as his notion or 111s vocation requires. Nothing can however subsist, if it be wholly devoid of identity between the notion and reality. Even bad and untrue things ha\e their being, in so far as their reality still, somehow conforms to their notion. Whatever is thoroughly bad or contrary to the notion, is for that very reason on the way to ruin. (Enz. I. 213.

zu)

Evil and untruth, in this respect, reveal an inconsistency between the object and its concept. But perfect identity is found only in God. All finite things have some untruth, that is, they fail to match their concepts because their existence does not square perfectly with the concepts appropriate to them. The prescriptive component in this account of truth is apparent. Finite things which fail to match their concepts must struggle to do so or perish. The species sunives but its members must die. Nothing can exist in a state which is totally devoid of some

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correspondence between concept and object. Whilst bad things may correspond to a concept of badness, there is no such thing as a state of badness wherein there is no connection with a concept. That would be complete disintegration. Thus death is distinguished from disease in terms of the ultimate disparity between concept and object: ‘In disease. merely this or that function of life is checked or negatived: in death, as we ordinarily say, body and soul part. i.e. subject and predicate utterly diverge’ (Enz. I. 173. zu).

Truth and correctness can be distinguished by saying that ‘whereas correctness reveals the conformity of our representation of an object and the object itself, truth consists in the conformity of the object to its o\~‘R concept’.’ Says Hegel:

Truth in the deeper sense consists in the identity between objectivity and the notion. It is in thisdeepersenseoftruth thatwespeakofa truestate.orofa trueworkofart. These objects are true, ifthey are as they ought to be, i.e.. if their reality corresponds to their notion. (Enz. I. 213. zu)

But the mere showing a disparity between an object and its concept is not enough to reveal its untruth. Truth does not depend on the fortuitous appearance of objects that just happen to correspond with their concepts. This is especially so since Hegel tells us that objects in the sphere of the finite never fully match up with their concepts. There is more to truth, in Hegel’s sense, than a mere reflection of mirroring of the relationship between concept and object. The concept of an object entails a value judgement; its truth is a value that ought to be realised. To know an object’s true state is to know what it ought to be. Whilst the search for correctness is simply a matter of attempting to represent objects in the most adequate manner, the quest for truth has its standard of measurement in the concept. This movement towards truth, towards the reconciliation between concept and object, is the goal of the Hegelian venture.

For Hegel, the movement towards truth consists ultimately in agents shaping objects according to standards of reason. This is the practical aspect of Hegel’s theory of truth which was developed in Marxism. Engels, for example, was clearly aware of the richness of Hegel’s theory of truth in contrast with the classical theory when, in Ludrvig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy, he rescues Hegel’s statement that ‘All that is real is rational, and all that is rational is real’ from the conservative interpretation. As he says:

But according to Hegel certainly not everything that exists is also real without further qualification. For Hegel the attribute of reality belongs only to that which at the same time is necessary: ‘In the course of its development reality proves to be necessary’. A particular governmental measure-Hegel himselfcites the example of ‘a certain tax regulation’-is therefore for him by no means real without qualification. That which is necessary, however, proves itself in the last resort to be rational; and applied to the Prussian state of that time, the Hegelian proposition, therefore means: This state is rational and corresponds to reason in so far as it is necessary; and if it nevertheless appears to us to be evil, but still, in spite of its evil character, continues to exist, then the evil character of the government is justified and explained by the corresponding evil character of its subjects. The Prussians of that day had the government that they deserved. (LX, p. 239)

David Lamb

One of Engels’ points here is that the ‘reality’ of a state of affairs must conform to the necessity of the concept. Reality is not merely the way things happen to be. .A state of affairs is real only if it conforms to certain standards of rationality. .A political state is real only if it conforms to criteria derived from the concept of a state. As Engels recognised, not every state of affairs has reality. The Roman Republic was real, but in 1789:

the French Xlonarchy had become so unreal, that is to say. so robbed of all necessity, so irrational, that it had to be destroyed by the Great Revolution, of which Hegel always speaks with the greatest enthusiasm. In this case, therefore, the monarchy was the unreal and the revolution the real. And so in the course of development. all that was previously real becomes unreal. loses its necessity, its right to existence. its rationality (LX, p, 239)

The foregoing remarks express the dynamism, and what Engels saw as the revolutionary content, of Hegel’s dialectics. The absolute correspondence of subject and object cannot be arrested; history is the great destroyer of rationality. ‘All that exists’. says Engels, ‘deserves to perish.’ This is ‘the true significance and revolutionary character of the Hegelian philosophy’. for it deals a ‘deathblow to the finality of all products of human thought and action’ (LF, pp. 239-40). The truth, which is reached by means of the dialectical method, was not to be found in

some absolute statement. Whilst truth lies in the process ofascending from lower to higher forms ofcognition, its completion is not a state ofrest in an aggregate of finished dogmatic statements which can be learned by heart. The truth, to paraphrase Hegel, is not issued like a newly minted coin; it lies in the process of development. And this process is infinite; that is, it is bound up with the process of historical development, and the philosophy which reflects upon it will never reach a point from which it can proceed no further. ‘Each stage is necessary’says Engels, ‘and therefore justified for the time and conditions to which it owes its origin. But in the face of new higher conditions, which gradually develop in its own womb, it loses its vitality and justification’ (LF, p. 240).

In both human knowledge and human history a perfect state can only exist in imagination. At the level of dialectic, philosophy recognises that certain states and levels of knowledge are justified only for their time and circumstances. ‘For dialectic’, says Engels, ‘nothing is final, absolute, sacred. It reveals the transitory nature of everything; nothing can endure before it except the uninterruped process of becoming and passing away, of endless ascendancy from the lower to the higher’ (LF, p. 240)

There is, according to Engels, a conservative side to Hegel’s account of truth. Hegel recognises that ‘definite stages of knowlege are justified for their time and circumstances; but only so far. The conservatism of this mode of outlook is relative; its revolutionary character is absolute-the only absolute dialectical philosophy admits’ (LF, p. 240). The problem that Engels saw was that the openendedness of dia!ectic conflicts with Hegel’s account of absolute truth. Another way of expressing this is to draw attention to the tension between system and method in Hegel. According to Engels, the conservative interpretation of Hegel’s philosophy rests on a confusion between his dialectical method and his metaphysical system. Whilst the method of dialectical criticism records progress

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and development ofhistory, the system projects a metapysical demand for a goal. Yielding to pressure of tradition Hegel felt that he had to produce a system with an end. so he ended with absolute truth. As Engels says: a system ‘must conclude with some sort of absolute truth’, and Hegel’s does so ‘just because he has to bring his system to a termination at some point or another’ (LF, p. 241). The result is an uneasy tension betvveen the method. which eschews dogmatism. and the dogmatism of the absolute which is required by the system.

It might be objected. against Engels. that Hegel’s metaphors of circles. and his

account of infinity, actually su,, DOest the possibility of a dialectical relationship between the end and the beginning of the system; that the end of the Science of Logic is a return to the beginning. Nevertheless, this does not escape Engels’ charge of dogmatism:

But at the end of the whole philosophy a similar return to the beginning is possible in only one way. Namely by conceiving of the end of history as follows: mankind arrives at the cognition of this selfsame Absolute idea, and declares that this cognition of the Absolute idea is reached in Hegelian philosophy. In this way. however, the whole dogmatic content of the Hegelian system is declared to be absolute truth, in contradiction to his dialectical method, which dissolves all dogmatism. Thus the revolutionary side is smothered beneath the overgrowth of the conservative side. And what applies to philosophical cognition applies also to historical practice. (LF, p. 241)

The system’s requirement for an ‘end’ is dismissed by Engels as an insignificant local matter which should not be allowed to detract anything from the revolutionary nature of the dialectic. What matters most, then, is the method.

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. (f.F, p. 243)

In this way the perfect, contradiction-free, system is tied to the end of the world. To recognise this is to abandon philosophy as the pursuit of an immutable and external truth. No-one realised this more perfectly than Hegel, says Engels:

The task of philosophy thus stated means nothing but the task that a single philosopher should accomplish that which can be accomplished only by the entire human race in its progressive development-as soon as we realise that there is an end to 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 ofthe positive sciences, and the summation of their results by means of dialetical thinking. (LF, p. 243)

Ultimately, the revolutionary content of Hegel’s dialectical method breaks out of his conservative system.

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; on the other hand,

280 David Lamb

because even though unconsciously. he showed us the ~+a! out of the lab) pnth of systems to real knowledge of the world. (LF, p. 2-l;)

In Hegel’s terms, the totality and infinity of absolute knowledge is nothing more than the recognition by spirit, after a long but finite process of education, that all the determination in the universe are but spirit’s own determinations.

That is to say, spirit is true substance. Despite Engels’ criticism of the dogmatic closure and subsequent praise for the openendedness of dialectic, neither IMarx nor Engels ruled out the possiblity of an end to history, or an ultimate truth. They simply posited a different one. using Hegel’s concept of truth, which became one of their essential philosophical tools.

Although Marx never explicitly formulated his concept of truth, ia Hegelian heritage is clear, once we consider his rejection ofthe classical definition of truth. As we have seen, according to the classical theory, truth depends on there being some reality prior to, and independent of mind, the reality of which appears to mind as something pre-given, something that mind must follow in order to gain truth. As it stands this definition is contemplative and reflective. resting on observational metaphors, and its passive depiction of the subject-object relationship excludes practical activity. Marx rejected this theory of truth indirectly, by rejecting the formulation of the subject-object relation on which the basic presuppositions of the classical definition of truth were identified. Against the passive formulation of the subject-object relationship Marx held, in the Thrses on Feuerbuch, that the object should be conceived as ‘human sensuous activity, practice’. In this way Marx effects a switch of metaphors. from the passive a priori forms of sensibility, or categories of understanding, to the metaphor of a human hand which creates. But this is not creation e.~ nihilo.

Creation must be out of something. This helps to ensure that the subject does not dominate the object, since it cannot create at will. Because man is obliged to 1iv.e in an environment with others, his creations, his sensuous needs, are mediated by available resources, skills and levels of knowledge. Just as the object is not an independent pre-given entity, the human subject is not given a once and for all fixed set of cognitive faculties bestowed by nature. The cognitive faculties are the result of a long process of self-creation within and through technical activity. Thus developing Hegel’s concept of truth, Marx is able to resolve the subject-object distinction without recourse to pragmatism, whereby practice and utility are the only relevant indicators of truth. Instead, he adopts an Hegelian approach to the human subject, which he sees through social and historical totalities. Thus, for Marx, both subject and object are interpenetrating processes, mediated in history, in knowledge-producing activity, tvhich enables human needs to overcome nature’s resistance.

Given the Hegelian background to Marx’s formulation of the problem of truth, why has the classical definition dominated most Marxist discussions on the subject? According to Prokopczyk the answer is simple: there is a superficial similarity between IIegel and the classical theory of truth which has led commentators into interpretations of the dialectical method as something compatible with the classical theory of correspondence. But Hegel only adopted the classical theory in order to expose its inherent onesidedness. However, his formulation of truth in terms of the correspondence of subject and object was

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carried into Marxism without his further distinction between rrurh and

correcmess. Moreover, little effort has been made by Marxist theorists to separate the two concepts of truth. Prokopczyk offers a reason why:

Being in fact a blend oftwo different doctrines, the dominant Marxist conception of truth could. as it did. conveniently perform two different functions. It could resort to so-called objective reality. with its objectively necessary, inviolable natural laws, as the ultimate and irrevocable guarantee of a given statement. But it could as well call for a most radical reshaping of reality, on th e ground of justifications which abandon the phraseology of objective reality and its necessary laws and resort to such ultimate reasons for reshaping as revindication ofthedignity of man. retumof the human individual to the true species life of man. sense of justice of the oppressed, level of class-consciousness. organizational maturity of the working class, and so on (or in the extreme cases with no justification at all).’

Despite Marx’s repeated criticism of Hegei, the latter’s concept of truth re- emerges throughout his writings, and ultimately even the attainment of absolute truth is taken over by Marx who tied it to a final practical act. For Marx’s revolution was to take the human race out of the kingdom of necessity into the realm of freedom; from pre-history to real history, wherein man. acting in accord with the concept of his species, would for the first time be the conscious creator of history. As Prokopczyk observes: ‘when in the workers’ anthem “The Internationale”, they sing “ ‘tis the final conflict”, they give Marxism a most surprising certificate of its Hegelian origins’.”

University of Manchester David Lamb

NOTES

1. The texts of Hegel, Marx and Engels are abbreviated as follows: Enz. I: The Logic of

Hegel, W. Wallace (Oxford: OUP, 1972 edn); PR: Hegel’s Philosophy of Righr, trans. Sir Malcolm Knox (Oxford: Clarendon, 19.57); LF: Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of

Classical German Philosophy, F. Engels, in Mars and Engels: Basic Writings on Politics

and Philosophy, ed. L.S. Feuer (London: Fontana, 1971); TF: Theses on Feuerbach,

K. Marx, in Feuer, Marx and Engels.

2. See LF and TF.

3. Czeslaw Prokopczyk, Truth and Reality in Marx and Hegel, A Reassessment

(Amherst: University of Mass. Press, 1980), p. 34. 4. In this sense the BBC’s top forty best-selling record list not only uncovers reality, it

helps to create it. 5. Prokopczyk, Truth and Realiry, p. 76. 6. See ibid., p. 93: ‘Why is it that, in spite of the original presence of this understanding

of truth, rooted in Hegel and so different from the classical concept of truth, it is exactly the classical definition of truth that has been dominant in all subsequent Marxism?’

7. Ibid., p. 94. 8. Ibid., p.98.