Professional Documents
Culture Documents
.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of
content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms
of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.
University of Pennsylvania Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to
Journal of the History of Ideas.
http://www.jstor.org
433
Copyright 1986 by JOURNALOF THE HISTORYOF IDEAS, INC.
434
PETER FENVES
perceived, the six notebooks written in preparationfor his Thesis and the
fragments of the Thesis itself constitute one of the first analyses of the
concept of science as it oscillates between Hegel's logic and Kant's critique
of metaphysics. The missing word in the letter to Lassalle-the key to
his Thesis-may be found in the drama Marx creates among the German
philosophers as they wear the masks of the ancient Greek atomists.
In the introduction to his Thesis Marx delineates two forms of scientific inquiry and identifies them with the two most important Greek
atomists. The outcome of the atomists' struggle will determine the function of contradiction and the nature of science. Democritus is presented
as a physicist who is concerned only with the empirical laws that govern
matter. Epicurus, on the other hand, denies necessity, accepts chance
when he introduces the atoms' swerve (clinamen), and in the most extreme
case actually denies disjunctive judgment; his refusal to respect the law
of noncontradiction demonstrates that he shows nothing but "contempt
for the positive sciences" (Thesis, 273; 41). Now Marx, far from simply
allowing Democritus the title of "scientist" by default, awards the title
to the one who presents contradiction rather than determination: "Epicurus objectifies the contradiction in the concept of the atom between
essence and existence. He thus gives us the science of atomism" (Thesis,
289; 58). The implication is clear. Science is not the investigation of
material conditions and the determination of specific laws which govern
matter; rather, it is Hegel's Wissenschaftder Logik, which presents the
most extreme contradiction in a category as it passes over into an opposite,
more concrete category. The struggle over the essence of science then
carries into Marx's subtle presentation of the atomists as a confrontation
between Germany's two greatest thinkers. Democritus occupies Kant's
place while Epicurus appears as a proto-Hegel:
Once againEpicurusstandsdirectlyopposedto Democritus.Chance,for him,
is an actualitywhichhas only the valueof possibility.Abstractpossibility,however,is the directantipodeof realpossibility.The latteris restrictedwithinsharp
limits [Grenze],as is the understanding[ Verstand];the formeris unbounded,
as is phantasy.Real possibilityseeks to explainthe necessityand realityof its
object;abstractpossibilityis not interestedin the objectwhichis explained,but
in the subjectwho explains.(Thesis,276; 44)
Abstract possibility, in the process of destroying all determination, reveals
the subject in its self-positing activity. Whereas real possibility is limited
to the objects of knowledge and thus to the synthesis of sensuous intuition
by the understanding, abstract possibility is concerned only with objects
of thought which, in principle, go beyond the limits (Grenze) of Democritus's researches and Kant's critiques. No sensual circumstances
condition thought. With scarcely any original sources Marx establishes
an opposition between the two atomists' theories of time in order to
present the difference between Kant's limited Erkenntnis and Hegel's
435
436
PETER FENVES
a shortcut and simply demonstrate the differences between the two atomists; one can then infer the extent of historical development that
separates Epicurus from his predecessor. Fortunately, Marx's Notebooks
offer his actual exposition of the historical themes, and they attest to the
difficulty he faced in presenting a coherent history of Greek philosophy
and society. After examining the two historical scenarios which he elaborated, one might begin to question the motive for placing Democritus
at the center of the Thesis: the reason may have less to do with the lack
of space than with the inherent difficulty of presenting the history of a
society which is deduced from the concept of the atom.
Marx begins to analyze Epicurus's atomic theory by identifying various "contradictions"that surface in Epicurus's work. The opening premise, the premise which is never dropped in the course of the dissertation,
is that Epicurus is "the philosopher of representation" (der Philosoph
der Vorstellung), who reduces all real conditions to subjective representations (Notebook, 31; 410). Representation and atomism always occur
together because the consciousness of atomism betrays an "atomistic
consciousness" which is free only insofar as its freedom is merely imagined: "This freedom of representation is therefore but an assumed, immediate, imagined one, which in its true form is atomism" (Notebook,
38; 414). By fixing the "shape of consciousness" that posits atomism,
Marx is responding both to the Hegelian exigency and, more importantly,
to the conception of atomism as a proto-monadology. Ludwig Feuerbach
(1804-1872), following the lead of Hegel, had explored the relationship
between Epicurus and Leibniz in his Darstellung, Entwicklung und Kritik
der Leibniz'schenPhilosophie(1837).4 The resemblancebetween the Leibnizian monad and the Epicurean atom allows Marx to discover the
strength of atomism and then to uncover its concept amidst its various
expressions. He sees that the atom/monad, far from serving as an ex4 See Sdmmtliche Werke(Stuttgart, 1959), IV, 54-57. Cf. G. W. F. Hegel, Siimmtliche
Werke, ed. H. Glockner (Stuttgart, 1959), XIX, 455-56 (hereafter Werke). Marx, as his
early notebooks attest, was fascinated by Leibniz's philosophy; see Marx-Engels Gesammtausgabe (Berlin, 1976), Ab. IV, Bd. I, 183-212, esp. 197-98. It may seem strange
to link Leibniz, who perhaps more than any other philosopher relied upon teleology (the
principle of sufficient reason), and Epicurus, who seems so strongly to deny teleological
explanations. But Marx, I think, adopts the formula "atom = monad," when he notices
that Epicurus at one point must introduce teleology (Notebook, 34; 412) and, more
importantly, when he notices that both philosophers confound sensation with understanding in order to preserve an autonomous agent. Marx is most interested in the
moments when Epicurus abandons any suggestion of a Leibnizian monadology in order
to foster a more perfect autonomy: (1) the abandonment of sufficient reason in the
clinamen and (2) the dismissal of non-contradictionin the Epicureantheory of the heavens.
Cf. Marx's final comments on Max Stirner's Der Einzige und sein Eigentum (1844): the
entire work, he affirms, is merely an application of Leibniz's principle of the indiscernability of individuals to human society (MEW, III, 428). Some of Marx's fury against
Stirner may be due to a belated self-recognition.
437
438
PETER FENVES
(Notebook, 41; 415). Epicurus clears the way for absolute idealism
through the cancellation of empirical conditions. According to Hegel's
reading of post-Aristotelian philosophy, the skeptics, through their various "tropes" and verbal tricks, prepare the way for true philosophy,
that is, for idealism, because they systematically undermine all conviction
in the actuality of the material world. The propaedeutic for a philosophy
that radically questions the universal validity of the senses and thus
prepares the way for the Aufhebung of matter in spirit remains a radical
skepticism.7Epicurus is here playing the same role for Marx. As empirical
science, insofar as it rests upon the postulate of objective conditions,
becomes an impediment, so Epicurus's atomism violates the very essence
of the empirical scientist's search for objective grounds. The clinamen
cancels the possibility of determinism, and not surprisingly it reveals the
very principle of atomism: "Only from the clinamen does the individual
motion emerge, the relation has its determination as the determination
of the self and no other" (Notebook, 42-44; 416). Now Marx can both
swerve away from Hegel's depiction of Epicurus as an empiricist or protophysicist and present the true, though implicit, concept of the atom: pure
being-for-self (Fiirsichsein), which realizes itself in the swerving from the
straight line. It is through this concept and its realization that Marx will
attempt to present the history of atomism. If he can succeed, if history
can be deduced from the concept, then the identity of being and thoughtthe dialectical synthesis which supersedes the nonteleological, empirical
sciences-stands confirmed. Marx's Thesis is, in the strictest sense of the
word, an experiment which tests the validity of Hegel's central philosophical claim.
Once Marx finishes writing out and commenting upon the major
Epicurean fragments compiled by Gassendi, he begins to infer the history
of Greek society. His guiding conviction is that the concept of the atom
(pure being-for-self) and its realization (the spontaneous swerving) provide an adequate set of theoretical formulations for the elaboration of
actual historical development. After a few preliminary formulations of
history which repeat many of the Young Hegelians' themes, Marx initiates
his particular study through the identification of the atom with man, but
not just any man, for the atom becomes the concept implicit in the
sophoi-the Greek sages.8 "If we study [the sophos] we shall find that
See the last section of the second volume of Vorlesungeniiber der Geschichte der
Philosophie (Werke, VIII, esp. 552-54), which reiterates the "Introduction" to the Phenomenologyof Spirit. Cf. also the young Hegel's attack upon Schulze in "Verhaltnis des
Skepticismus zur Philosophie" (Werke, I, 215-77). Two writers as diverse as Colletti and
Kaufmann agree upon the necessity of this skeptical moment in Hegel. See Marxism and
Hegel, trans. L. Garner (London, 1973), 68-85; Walter Kaufmann, Hegel: A Reinterpretation (South Bend, Ind., 1978), 63-73.
8 Hegel made the same identification in his introduction to the post-Aristotelians
(Werke, XVIII, 425). In general Marx's history contains nothing that could not be found
7
439
440
PETER FENVES
and he tries to end the Notebook with a recapitulation that can find a
place for Aristotle: "the same form that saw the gods even in the burning
heat, the same which drank the poison cup, the same which as the God
of Aristotle, enjoys the greatest blessedness, theory" (Notebook, 90; 441).
The guiding thread of his analysis is lost, since in order to save his
conceptual Leitmotif he loses his most important theme: actual historical
development. All we find is "the same."
About a year later Marx attempted another extended derivation of
history from the "logic" of the atom. In the sixth Notebook the complicated business of passing from Anaxagoras to Aristotle is bypassed, and
the latter philosopher enters history as the one who embraces the universal
in the particular,who becomes the "total philosopher" and thus becomes,
to use Marx's strange expression, a "concretized" atom.9After Aristotle,
the "atom" who has become actual, philosophy falls into diremption,
swerving away from the straight line: "As in the history of philosophy
there are nodal points which raise philosophy in itself to concretion,
apprehend abstract principles in a totality, and thus swerve [abbrechen]
from rectilinear progress [i.e., the clinamen], so also there are moments
when philosophy must turns its eye to the external world, no longer
apprehend it but as a practical person weave, as it were, its intrigues
with the world.. ." (Notebook, 214; 491). The sophos who is actualized
leads to the clinamen both in the logic of Fiirsichsein and in the history
of Greek society. Marx thus, in the most derivative part of his dissertation,
follows Hegel, Bruno Bauer (1809-1882), and Karl Koppen (1808-1863)
in describing the post-Aristotelian philosophers who swerved from Hegel
as the precursorsof the Roman world.?1When Marx returns to the Greek
world, he translates the clinamen into the Hegelian term Umschlag (inversion, sudden transformation)and insists that through the study of the
particular Umschlag one can deduce what came before (Notebook, 218;
493). Yet he does not begin to present the history from the oldest sophos
to Epicurus and the Skeptics by means of the concept of the atom and
its realization in the clinamen. Rather, he turns once again to another
topic (Christianity and Plato) without having accomplished the "reasoning back." In Marx's Thesis proper Democritus appears as a substitute
for the actual presentation of Greek historical development. Marx only
needs to show the vast space hidden in the "micrological differences"
between the two atomists; and by accentuating the differences, he can
indicate without further demonstration that the developmentof the con9 The particular that embodies the universal is alternatively the "individual" or the
concretized (because particularized) atom.
10See Hegel's Vorlesungeniiber die Philosophie der Geschichte (Werke, XI, 406-09).
Hegel explains the reception of Epicureanism with great emphasis on the social and
economic issues of the Roman Republic in decline; he casts the decay which he once
attributed to Christianity in his early "theological" writings onto the post-Aristotelian
philosophers.
441
442
PETER FENVES
The turning away from the other-as-self constitutes, for Marx as well as
for Hegel, the repulsion of pure being-for-self.Marx illustrates his analysis
by replacing "atom" with "man" and, more surprisingly, with "myself."
Repulsion then corresponds to two moments of human (or spiritual)
interaction. On the one hand "man first ceases to be a product of nature"
and assumes the form of "abstract individuality" (Thesis, 284; 52); on
the other hand repulsion returns the atom (man) to materiality, for "when
I comport myself to myself as to an immediate-other,my comportmentis
a material one. It is the highest externality which can be thought" (Thesis,
284; 52). Thus, the detour through "the other" heralds the return of
matter, not the supersession of existence and the appearance of essence.
Attraction never arrives, the speculative reconciliation (Vers6hnung) cannot be found. A material object-dependent and conditioned existencereturns once again.
Marx's reluctance to invoke attraction, his concentration on the consequences of atomism rather than on its overcoming, and his refusal to
supersede the concept of the atom may indicate that he, possibly unwittingly, is responding to Adolf Trendelenburg'sLogische Untersuchungen
(1840), the first major confrontation with Hegel's "dialectical logic."
Trendelenburg's work may be read, in many ways, as Aristotle's reply
to Hegel because of its insistence upon the individuality of judgment and
upon the presence of content in logical judgments independent of logic
itself. What is of particular importance for Marx's Thesis is the example
Trendelenburg chooses to illustrate the abuses logic suffers in Hegel's
hands: he attacks the being-for-self section of Hegel's Encyclopedia (par.
96) in precisely the section developed to the philosophy of atomism.
Hegel's presentation,he asserts, depends upon a serious misunderstanding
in which "logical negation is transferredinto real opposition."13Attrac13
Adolf Trendelenburg, Logische Untersuchungen(3rd ed.; Leipzig, 1870), 50. According to Bruno Bauer, Marx considered writing a Hegelian critique of it (see MarxEngels Gesammtausgabe,Abt. 3, Bd. I, Text, 354 and 361). He also copied large portions
of Trendelenburg's edition of Aristotle's De Anima (and at times corrected the Berlin
professor's Greek). Cf. Mario Rossi, La Scuola hegeliana e il giovane Marx (Rome, 1963),
56-63 and 284-88; also Lucio Colletti, Tramonto dell'ideologia (Bari, 1980), 104-15.
443
whereas Democritus
existence" (Thesis, 285; 53), he is saying not that Epicurus purified the
atom of its material aspect but quite the opposite. Because the later
atomist conceived of the atom as self-consciousness and thus abstracted
from material conditions, he explicated what was merely implicit in
Democritus: the concept of the atom always leads to materiality and the
highest possible externality. The contradiction between essence and existence, between thought and being, cannot be overcome in the negation
of the negation, "the speculative par excellence."
In his first Notebook Marx played with a number of contradictions
he found in Epicurus's writings, but for his Thesis he settled upon one
pervasive contradiction that dominates Epicurus's mature atomism. By
For an accurate assessment of the problem of logical versus real contradiction, see Michael
Wolff, Der Bergriff des Widerpruchs-EineStudie zur Dialektik Kants und Hegels. (Konigstein, 1981). Just a short time later, Kierkegaard invoked Trendelenburg'scritique as
a demonstration of Hegel's inability to reduce "existence" to logic; see Concluding Unscientific Postscript,trans. D. F. Swanson and Walter Lowrie (Princeton, 1941), 99-100.
Trendelenburg'swork was the principal source for almost all the attacks that were directed
against Hegel's logic throughout the nineteenth century; see, for example, Paul Barth,
Die GeschichtsphilosophieHegel's und der Hegelianer bis auf Marx und Hartmann
(Leipzig, 1890), 6-15; this volume, incidentally, was the first analysis of Marx's philosophy
from a German academic, and it attracted the attention of the young economist Conrad
Schmidt (1865-1932), as his letters to Engels show; and Eduard Bernstein, under the
influence of Schmidt, disseminated many of Barth's conclusions in his various proposals
for the revision of Marxism.
14 Marx's characterization of the social contract as
repulsion matches his rather onesided treatment of it in "Zur Judenfrage" and the Grundrisse,but it is difficult to see
how friendship is an example of repulsion.
444
PETER FENVES
Marx draws attention to Leibniz's monads when considering the quality of shape
(Thesis, 288-89; 56-57). He probably has Kant in mind when he formulated the contradiction as a (Kantian sounding) antinomy: "if it is considered an antinomy that bodies
perceptible merely through reason (Vernunft) are given spatial qualities, so is it a greater
antinomy that spatial qualities themselves can only be perceived through the understanding [Verstand]" (Thesis, 291; 59-60). It is difficult to deny that Kant in the guise of
Democritus is the object of this comment, even if it shows a certain unfamiliarity with
the role Kant assigns to the understanding in perception.
16 Once
again Marx refuses to invoke attraction even when Hegel (in explicit confrontation with Kant's "analogies of experience") sees weight/gravitation as the negation
of the negation (repulsion); see Science of Logic, 178-84.
445
446
PETER FENVES
find various contradictory explanations for the same event, a step which
ultimately leads, as Marx shows, to the destruction of the unity and
determinatenessof matter: "The multitude of explanations should at the
same time supersede [aufheben] the unity of the object" (Thesis, 301; 69).
Aristotle's explanation of the meteors still harbored notions that could
be dangerous to the monad's identity, so it must be discarded. Epicurus
struggled against reason itself: "he fights the eternal law and reason in
the heavenly system" (Thesis, 302; 70). Like his arch-enemy Plutarch,
whom Marx considers an atomistic philosopher because of his adherence
to atomized individuality after death (Notebook, 118; 454),17 Epicurus
abandoned Verstandand annihilated matter, when he found himself confronted with another real entity. That the two antagonists, Plutarch and
Epicurus, should mirror each other, the former invoking superstition,
the latter leaving a residue of superstition in his theory of the meteors,
should not be surprising, since both desired above all the maintenance
of personal identity. The consequence of maintaining the identity of the
subject is the annihilation of the identity of the object: atomism, therefore,
cannot be universalized, because once it perfects itself, nature falls into
mere arbitrariness,devoid of all determining laws. Marx now sounds the
monad's knell:
The atom is matterin the form of independence,of individuality,as it were,
of weight.But the heavenlybodiesarethe supremerealization
the representative
of weight.In them all antinomiesbetweenmatterand form, conceptand existence,whichconstitutethe developmentof the atom are solved[gelist];in them
are actualized.... Theheavenlybodiesare thereall the requireddeterminations
In
themmatterhas receivedindividualityin itself.
the
atoms
become
actual.
fore
(Thesis,302; 70)
The heavenly bodies, under the traditional (Aristotelian) interpretation,
are Epicurean atoms, but the atomist refuses to accept it. Marx identifies
the last and most telling clinamen: Epicurus swerves from his own theory
precisely when it is confirmed in the meteors. He literally does not see
the truth (in the Hegelian sense) of his concept: "Here Epicurus must
therefore have glimpsed the highest existence of his principle.... But
when he comes upon the reality of his nature . . ., then his one and only
desire is to pull it down into earthly transience. He turns vehemently
against those who worship an independent nature containing in itself the
quality of individuality. This is his greatest contradiction" (Thesis, 30203; 70-71).
17
Marx presents his first analysis of social classes when he classifies Plutarch as the
member of the "third class," that is, as an atomistic philosopher who is unaware of his
own principle. Insofar as he is a "philistine" (a word Marx and Engels later use as a
synonym for "bourgeois"), Plutarch needs the recognition of other philistines; thus,
externality and materiality impinge on his very being, making it impossible for him to
apprehend true universality (Notebook, 120-22; 455-57).
447
448
PETER FENVES
449
Hegel and Aristotle, he returnsto the notion of the clinamen, the deviation
or Umschlag, which allows one to "reason back towards the immanent
determination and the universal historical character of a philosophy"
(Thesis, 326; 85. Cf. Notebook, 219; 493). We can now see the effects of
the ambiguity in the word befeinden. Marx can compare the post-Aristotelians with the post-Hegelians because Epicurus's struggle with matter
resembles the Young Hegelians' struggle to liberate "the world from unphilosophy" (Thesis, 328; 86). According to the requirement of Marx's
history, in both cases the "total philosophy" which embraced both being
and thought becomes, during the course of its development, a totally
abstract philosophy-purely in thought-and so a total diremption of
being from thought takes place; the two Hegelian schools are two opposing responses to that diremption (as, Marx would probably say, the
Epicureans and the Stoics responded to Aristotle). The "liberal" party
(the Young Hegelians) measures reality by the demands of thought, while
the conservative party (the Old Hegelians) measures thought by the
demands of reality: "The second side knows that the lack [Mangel] is
immanent in philosophy, while the first understands it as a lack of the
world which has to be made philosophical" (Thesis, 330; 86). The solution
demands die Verwircklichungder Philosophiejust as the contradiction of
atomism demanded the "realization" of the atom. But Marx cannot yet
express what this realization would entail. He did not, as he will later,
distinguish between the intellectualization of phenomena and the practical
projection of the human world onto nature. It is the similarity between
the intellectualization and the humanization of phenomena that makes
not only Epicurus's but also Hegel's step so attractive. Whereas the first
is only a projection in thought, the second is a projection both in thought
(through final causation) and in reality (through efficient and material
causation). So it is little wonder that Marx takes over Bruno Bauer's
suggestion and insists that praxis must now be theoretical because the
notion of a praxis which is not the affirmation and demonstration of the
intelligibility of phenomena would be meaningless. Just as the Verwechslung holds Epicurus captive and then also Hegel, it prevents Marx from
conceiving of history as anything other than the development of thought
as it externalizes itself in nature. Thus, Marx deduces the breakup of the
Hegelian school: historical development, in other words, is merely the
development of the concept in its self-exteriorization.
Atomism's contradiction, we must remember, is always between existence and essence, matter and form, being and thought. But in the
Thesis Marx cannot decide whether there is a contradiction in the concept
of the atom as a universal explanation for all phenomena or whether the
contradiction resided in the atom itself, that is, in matter. Two years
later, in the Critique of Hegel's "Philosophyof Right," Marx abandoned
the latter notion and along with it the attempt to deduce real history
from the development of a logical category. Possibly in response to his
450
PETER FENVES
89; the German is in MEW, I, 293 (hereafter Critique). Cf. Lucio Colletti, Intervista
Politico-filosofica(Bari, 1975), 70-71.
451
civil society and the political state demands the determination of its
historical conditions and the active participation in the cancellation of
those very conditions.
Marx retains one central and decisive feature of the dissertation. Just
as he praised Epicurus for raising the contradiction of atomism to its
highest expression, he welcomes the most extreme development of the
new contradiction under consideration (between the state and civil society), and he finds its highest development in the representative constitution: "It is the unconcealed contradiction" (Critique, 279; 76). As in
the Thesis, moreover, the resolution of the contradiction demands a
universal which is at the same time particular.21Marx now proposes a
"true democracy" which is the universal in the particular and the form
endowed with content (Critique, 231-32; 30-31); but as Marx indicates
in a thoroughly Hegelian manner, the resolution of the contradiction is
not simply a goal to be reached but the sich aufhebende moment itself.
The particularized universal cannot simply be a project but must also be
already present, already at work. Will it be surprising that Marx's first
announcement of the resolution repeats the paths that led to the final
section of the Thesis?There is one difference: the "contradiction" which
must be resolved is no longer between being and thought, so the universal
can assume particularity without the embarrassmentof leaving a residue
of the gods in the annihilation of matter and the supersession of human
Verstand.
Although one should not underestimate the intricacies of Marx's "A
Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right: An Introduction,"22we might locate its center in the theme that first appeared
in the famous note to the Thesis:the breakup of the Hegelian school and
the "actualization of philosophy" that it entails. But the repetition of the
footnote would be in vain, if Marx had not altered the contradiction
under consideration and thus shifted the site of the conflict. His swerve
towards the social world and his concentration upon the contradiction
between German philosophy (thought) and the level of German material
wealth (being) indicate that he conceived of the intellectualization of
phenomena as the human, sensuous projection of needs and demands
upon the material world. The lack (Mangel) diagnosed in the dissertation
no longer appears as a lack in general but as an historically conditioned
and hence very specific lack: "Germany as the deficiency [Mangel] of
the political present constituted as an individual system" (Intro, 387-88;
139). Now Marx insists that the representation of universality by a particular class ignites a partial, merely political revolution which expresses
21 The
ancient gods in the meteors are the figures for this particularized universal
(Thesis, 304; 72, and Notebook, 123; 457).
22
1 am using Professor O'Malley's translation and the MEW edition (Bd. I) (hereafter
Intro).
452
PETER FENVES
the contradiction but which cannot resolve it. For the effective resolution
of the contradiction, representation (both political and dramatic) is not
enough. Returning to the theme of his first Notebook, Marx indicates
that representation is itself merely the most acute symptom of fragmentation and hence of the atomism and atomization which must itself be
resolved. Although the proletariat is first mentioned only as a participant
in one of the many fragmented struggles within Germany (Intro, 389;
141), it appears later not only as a particular group but also as a class
which is universal: the particularized universal whose immanent movement is the resolution of the contradiction between the state and civil
society. But Marx does not say that this concrete universal, this universal
which has taken on form, resolves the contradiction. Rather, he says that
it dissolves the contradiction: "This dissolution [Auflosung]of a society
existing as a particular class is the proletariat" (Intro, 390; 142). The
path of the dissertation leads to another dissolution, but a dissolution
that does not supersede the natural sciences in Hegel's Science of Logic.
Whether this dissolution can be formulatedwithout recourse to a Hegelian
notion of science is a consideration which Marx defers to later writings
and a problem which he bequeaths to the movements that formed around
his work.23
The Johns Hopkins University.
would like to thank Professors Schlomo Avineri and George A. Kelly for their
23I
assistance and their patience in reading earlier drafts of this paper.