逃离黑格尔主义：回应（一）

        本篇文章由我翻译，全文共16页，本篇为节选的第一部分约8页内容，原文为英文并附于末尾，红色标注为原文附带的注释，蓝色标注为我添加的补充和注释。文章中引用部分若已有汉译本，则一概使用汉译本的翻译，并补充标注汉译本的引用文献。由于专栏编辑器中不能设置斜体，我用加粗来代替斜体。为了方便，我会在正文中加入页码，表示方法如【502】。

逃离黑格尔主义：回应*

 【502】

        限于篇幅，我在这里跳过预备内容，直接对个别评论进行回应，并在合适的时候再重新引入这些预备内容。

        在所有批判文章中，Paul Diesing基本上完全没有理解我的观点。Diesing反而首先将所谓我的“思维方式”("ways of thinking")与他自己的区分开来，并在接下来的绝大部分篇幅里详细地阐述了后者。他得出的结论是，这两种“思维方式”是完全互斥的，以至于“在它们之间做出的任何妥协都是不可能的”(378)——除非我从他在文末提出的建议中意识到这一点。

        然而，我并没有在《逃离黑格尔》一文中阐述我的“思维方式”。我只是提供了一种对黑格尔主义哲学的解读并对其进行了批判（实际上，我只是对在其他地方发展起来的这些解读和批判进行了总结），紧接着，在我看来是高度矛盾的，分析了它与马克思政治经济学发展之间的关联，尤其是与价值、货币和资本理论之间的关联。我的解读很可能是片面的、误导性的或完全错误的，而我的批判则由于这些或那些原因，可能是不合理的。但要想证明这一点就只能进入具体的讨论之中，假定其中的错误存在于我对马克思和黑格尔的解读之中，并将我的解读与它的对象即黑格尔主义哲学和马克思主义政治经济学中与之相联系的部分进行比较。尽管也确实存在着“读者回应”式批判以及其他文学领域的方式，但这一论证规则不仅适用于对理论文本的分析，还适用于其他任何旨在获取知识的实践中——或者说是从广义上说的任何“科学”实践中。如果并非如此的话，我们就仅仅只是在“交换意见”，相互竞争的不同解读最多也只能像画展中的画作一样并排摆放【503】而不存在任何共同的基础来评判它们，甚至没有任何理由来分析它们之间的差别。(1)

        无论如何，Diesing没有提出任何论据来支持他针对我对黑格尔的解读所提出来的所谓反对意见。实际上，他基本上没有在这方面做出任何解释，以至于人们不禁要问，他和我的分歧到底在哪里。我从他的开篇中看到，主要的争议点在于，黑格尔的“辩证法”究竟是一种“非常坏的思维方式”，正如我解读的那样，还是一种“非常好的思维方式”，就像他认为的那样。当然，黑格尔的“辩证法”是一种“坏的思维方式”并非我的解读——尽管如果我的解读确实是正确的话，基于我在批判中给出的理由，我肯定不会推荐它。

        如果Diesing不同意我所得出的结论，那么他就应该代表他们这些反对者针对我所提出来的理由进行反驳。我对黑格尔的“辩证法”大体上是如何通过概念矛盾的“自我扬弃”的内在过程运作的的解读（见Rosenthal, 1999, 289-91; 以及更进一步的阐述，见Rosenthal, 1998, ch. 8）实际上并无不寻常之处。这一解读基于黑格尔自己的方法论文本，因此既不会让绝大多数黑格尔学者感到惊讶，也不会冒犯他们。但我与黑格尔学术圈主流观点的不同之处在于，我认为黑格尔的叙述实际上并没有遵循像他自己所说的方法论原则。黑格尔所承诺的内在的“概念辩证法”("dialectic of concepts")在他的叙述中并未实现。相反，黑格尔自诩的概念规定“推导”一直依赖于目的论原则和对满足这些原则的——无论是逻辑的、自然的、法律的还是诸如此类的——预先给定的形式反复无常的寻求，或者至少在保留了内在表象的情况下，倒错地运用了所谓的“三段论”的术语中的歧义。

        我对这种黑格尔主义论证的分析——如果你愿意的话，也可以叫它“辩证法”——为我拒绝这种似是而非的论证提供了依据。在《逃离》(2)一文中，我只是以总结的方式陈述了这些依据，并将读者引向《神话》(3)一书，在这本书中，我以更多的例子为基础，详尽地阐述了这些依据。在《逃离》一文中，我对黑格尔主义论证的讨论实际上只是我对马克思是如何使用黑格尔主义论证的这一问题的初步分析，这是我的主要研究顺序。尽管如此，如果有人想要为黑格尔辩护，使其免受我对其的具体指控，那么他就至少应当解决这些指控。在这一点上，Diesing确实说过，“罗斯塔尔将这种普遍—特殊—个别的辩证法称为‘目的论’”，他接着说道，“我不清楚他在说什么”。然而，他是在讲述了一个他自己列举的有关于政策制定与实施的故事之后写下的这几句话【504】——仿佛我一直在讨论Diesing而不是黑格尔一样！

        更不用说，对黑格尔“辩证法”的性质、意义以及，我认为最重要的，有效性的辩论，必须以在黑格尔身上找到的“辩证法”的证据作为根本标准。值得注意的是，在英语世界的马克思主义讨论中，实际上反而是那些自封的黑格尔马克思主义者在一直违反这一显而易见的原则，他们的“黑格尔主义”似乎很大程度上都是从二手文献和其他黑格尔马克思主义者中挑拣出来的。因此，例如，在研讨会上，Michael Williams指责我忽视了“文献”。但他唯一一次对黑格尔的引用却仅仅只是转引Tony Smith针对我对黑格尔的解读所提出的反例，而Smith引用的却是未经修订的英译版中的黑格尔文本，可能会令他们感到遗憾的是，他们所引用的那些能够支撑他们解读的关键文本恰好是错误的。[1] 具有代表性地，Williams甚至指责我将黑格尔的哲学“还原为”“绝对唯心主义”，并把这一表述放进了引号里，仿佛是我创造了这一观点一样。然而“绝对唯心主义”正是黑格尔他自己最常用来表明自己哲学立场的表述。[2]

        Diesing所公开宣称的“黑格尔主义”对黑格尔本人毫无尊敬之心，这一点从他的评论以及他对“东西辩证法”("dialectic of things")和“思维辩证法”("dialectic of thinking")的区分就能清楚地看出来。黑格尔的唯心主义除了证明现实——“东西”领域(the domain of "things")——不仅由思想统治，而且“没有任何东西”("nothing")独立于思想以外，还能包含些什么？Diesing甚至认为逻辑学某种程度上与黑格尔主义“辩证法”无关(376)：这种否定甚至与他自称对《法哲学原理》中所展现出来的“方法”的钦佩完全矛盾。而事实上，《法哲学原理》只不过是对《哲学科学百科全书》第三部第二节的阐述，其出发点——并非如Diesing所认为的那样，是“自由意志”("free will")和“不自由的东西”("unfree things")，而是法权(right)概念——应当从体系先前的发展中得出，当然，这一体系开始于逻辑学的基本规定。按照黑格尔本人的说法，他在这里所遵循的方法同样明确地是逻辑学中所阐述的方法。“这里同样以逻辑学中所阐明了的方法为前提。根据这种方法，”他写道，“在科学中，概念是从它本身发展起来的，这种发展纯粹是【505】概念规定内在的前进运动和产物。”(Ph. R., §31) [3] (4)

        Diesing对我对马克思在《政治经济学批判大纲》中对资本范畴的推导的分析的反驳与我的分析或推导也完全无关，这一点我将留给读者来证明。在这里，Diesing又一次仅仅只是用一个完全无关的叙述来取代我的分析，并向读者保证，在所讨论的段落中，马克思实际上是在“描述一个辩证的历史过程”，其中的叙述应当是历史的概要。但是，在Diesing引用的文本及其上下文中，马克思正在“做”这件事的证据在哪里？马克思明确地表示，他正在分析货币范畴，并尝试表明，货币是由于其“内在的本质”——而非偶然的历史因素——而“必须转变为”资本。我们可以就这种论证是否取得成功进行讨论。但如果根本不承认马克思曾经尝试进行过这样的论证，那就根本不可能就这一问题进行讨论。

        在讨论其他反对意见之前，我只想提请读者注意一下Diesing在他语境下的指控，即我正在“寻找某种逻辑论证”(377)，“当然”我并没能找到，因为“这（指的应该是马克思的文本）并非论证，而是对辩证过程的历史描述”。它“将逻辑论证和经验研究完全区分开来”，这里写的应该就是我的“思维方式”的特征。Diesing继续写道：“他的辩证法的概念是康德的；他想要一个非经验的演绎过程。”(376)这显然也是在写我。（对于哲学史的学生而言，Diesing在这里所说的“康德辩证法”显然是不恰当的。）Diesing甚至写了“罗森塔尔的逻辑论证概念”，仿佛是我——而不是柏拉图或亚里士多德——有幸发现了有效论证的标准。

        如果我的个人偏好——即所谓我“想要”的东西——在这里有任何意义的话，我也可以做出回答，我当然不反对经验研究，也不反对使用经验研究的成果。我没有在后者和逻辑分析之间做出任何选择，尽管这两者当然是有区别的。然而，在面对什么是论证以及在我看来这些论证具有理论意义的地方，我确实有兴趣确定它们是正确的还是错误的。我希望大多数从事理论研究的人都能够拥有这种兴趣。

        【506】在《逃离》一文中，我试图证明马克思对货币必然“转变为”货币资本的论证是错误的，这一必然性本身也是错误的，而且在某种程度上反映了黑格尔主义对他的影响。我真的没有想到，会有人怀疑这是论证。读者可以在我引用的文本中找到那些独特的逻辑标志：“由于”(als)、“因此”(daher)、“出于这一原因”(deswegen)、“从而”(also)。不能认出这些段落是论证，就如同不能认出“你好”是问候或“出去！”是命令一样。

        无论何种情形，说一位理论家做出了一个论证，就只不过是在说他/她在试图证明他/她的理论中所包含的命题。对马克思来说，认为他没有做出正确的论证，肯定比认为他没有做出任何论证更好一些。当然，黑格尔也是如此。（“命题”[Satz]这一术语对于黑格尔而言是一个具有丰富内涵的词，他拒绝命题形式，因为它无法“表达”真理。尽管如此，整体话语——真理应当在其中得到表达——即使在黑格尔这里，也依然是由命题组成的。）黑格尔“辩证法”的具体特征就是所谓独特的证明原则，当然这绝不是一种对证明的回避！黑格尔反复提到他对概念的“演绎”(Deduktion)和“推导”(Ableitung)，正因这些概念都是推导得来的，而非被视为理所当然的，所以在这里对特定主体的哲学阐述应当是存在的。“在哲学的认识中，”黑格尔写道，“概念的必然性是主要的事情；生成运动的过程，作为结果来说，是概念的证明和演绎。”(Ph. R., §2R)(5)我已经指出过，黑格尔的证明方法实际上并不像他所认为的那样在原则上是统一的，而且，他在实际阐述过程中所典型地运用的那种论证方法，要么是内在但似是而非的，要么可能是有效但并非内在的。以上批判为黑格尔带来的更多的是肯定，而非不容反对者置疑的所谓钦佩。

        Tony Smith比起Diesing花了更大的力气来刻画我的分析。但不幸的是，他尽管表面上赞同了我的观点，但对我的刻画在很大程度上也是错误的，甚至往往是纯粹的虚构。例如，我并没有在任何地方主张“黑格尔主义主题”在且仅在《资本论》中的“唯一一个地方”发挥作用(489)。我甚至没有提及过《资本论》中“黑格尔主义主题”。相反，我关注的是，更确切地说，我希望关注的是黑格尔主义特有的或独特的“公式”：例如，“实在的普遍性”或语法公式，根据这些公式，“特殊”就是“一般[或普遍]的表现形式”。我将这些“公式”系统性地与黑格尔主义的论证方式区分开来。我的观点是，前者虽然不是后者，【507】但在马克思经济学的发展中，更具体地说，在他的价值理论的发展中，前者依旧扮演了重要的角色。我认为之所以如此，是因为尽管在黑格尔的用法中，它们具有着形而上学的含义，但它们恰好“完美地适合于”把握住马克思价值理论主要对象的现象结构：即“价值形式”，或者更通俗地说，货币。

        马克思的价值理论绝不仅限于《资本论》中的“唯一一个地方”，当然，马克思对以上所讨论的公式的应用也绝不仅限于《资本论》中的“唯一一个地方”。相反，价值理论是马克思整个经济理论的基石。马克思所分析的所有后续经济形式（价格、工资、利润、地租、利息等等）都只是更加具体的（黑格尔主义者则可能会说，“进一步发展了的”）“价值形式”。由于货币仍然恰好是它们的实体，因此它们当然必须反映出后者的本体论特征，并因此为马克思提供了充分的机会来利用他有关于黑格尔主义公式的知识。这一点在马克思对《资本论》第二卷中资本流通形式的分析中表现得尤为明显。然而，也并不出乎意料，在《资本论》的所有章节中，有关价值形式的那部分，即第一卷第一章第三节，对黑格尔主义公式的使用最为明显。我不知道马克思在这里是否，就像Smith所说的那样，是“故意”地使用了典型的黑格尔主义公式——我只知道他确实使用了。[4]

        Smith继续写道：“按照罗森塔尔的说法，黑格尔的思想在某种程度上将抽象歪曲地(perversely)置于活生生的人类主体之上，这与货币，一种‘现实的抽象’，歪曲地统治了资本主义中的社会个体极其相似。”(489-90)我不清楚这到底是怎么“按照我的说法”得出来的。这一批判可能为批判黑格尔提供了一个依据，但它并非我的依据。“活生生的人类存在”有可能是借用了马克思早期在1844手稿中对黑格尔的“人道主义”批判——但我对这一问题没有说过一个字。我指责的黑格尔的“歪曲”("perversions")仅仅只是逻辑上的歪曲，但这一点并没有被他注意到。如果你愿意的话，这些“歪曲”中的一种——因马克思继费尔巴哈之后将之称为“主谓倒装”("subject-predicate reversal")而闻名，即将既存事物视为一般规定性的特征而非反之亦然——就很适合于把握住那些“歪曲的”（我遵循马克思的说法，将其称为“颠倒的”("inverted")）经济价值现象。[5]在商品—货币体系中——正如之前已经指出的那样，就是在马克思在分析中所明确假设的那种货币体系中——作为货币的货币，尽管其由实物组成，实际上就是商品本身的一般经济“本质”的特征，即它们的价值。货币是交换体系赋予后者的实在形式【508】：与其说货币“具有价值”，不如说价值具有货币（形式）。无论如何，正如读者能够找到的那样，在我的论述中所讨论的与价值抽象具有“颠倒”关系的特殊并非特殊的人类主体，而是特殊的商品。[6]

        Smith针对我的分析详细阐述了三个所谓的批判。然而，如前所述，其中的第一点不需要过多讨论就可以直接跳过。显而易见，在提及他之前的描述时，他写道：“罗森塔尔并非第一个断言黑格尔逻辑学中的最终范畴反映了由马克思所充分描述的资本统治的人。”(491)我不清楚Smith到底是如何理解“黑格尔逻辑学中的最终范畴”的这一表述的——他反复重复这一表述，仿佛应当重视它一样。他并没有告诉我们“黑格尔逻辑学中的最终范畴”到底是认知(cognition)、意愿(volition)还是绝对理念(absolute idea)(6)——我猜这并不是他想指的东西。但，无论如何，我根本没有做出过Smith所认为的任何断言，因此我也就不可能是第一个做出如此断言的人， Smith认为这一断言站不住脚的理由也就完全不用在意了。

        其次，Smith指责我在对黑格尔自己的论证（或“方法论”）中不恰当地假设“黑格尔的”普遍性、特殊性和个别性“范畴”“所指的就是类、种和个体的传统范畴”。这一指控则仅仅得到了我在对金属和锌之间关系的“讨论”中的暗示的支撑。实际上，我根本没有“讨论”这一关系，而只是把它当作一个例子，来阐述马克思所屈服的那种黑格尔主义逻辑谬误。我们暂时回到这个例子的意义上。无论如何，Smith向我们保证，“黑格尔明确地、一贯地以及不断地否认世界可以用静态的形式分类”如类、种和个体“来充分地理解”。或许的确如此。但事实却是黑格尔本人正是在类、种和样本的意义上使用了对普遍性、特殊性和个别性的区分。值得注意的是，Smith在回应一篇引用了黑格尔文本的文章时否定了这一点【509】，而这篇文章的引用中包含了这样一段关于太阳系的文本：“在物质世界中，是类、同时又是单个客体及其机械过程的个别普遍性的，正是中心体。”(S.L., II, 423/722)(7)如果黑格尔将“类”和“普遍性”当作可相互替代的词，并进而将它们与“单个客体”对照，那么我们还需要什么证据来证明在这一用法中普遍（和普遍性）确实具有与类(genus)（和一般性(generality)(8)）一样的含义？这一用法在黑格尔的叙述中十分常见，而且实际上在《自然科学》中也十分泛滥——这并不奇怪，因为自然研究就是从这样的分类体系中衍生出来的领域——其中类(genera)或类(kinds)(Gattungen)(9)被明确地写为“普遍”，并与作为“特殊”的物种(Arten)相区别，等等。“在其自在地存在着的普遍性内，”黑格尔写道，“类(Gattung)把自己特殊化为种(Arten)……”(En. N., §368)[7]Smith的明显疏忽再次指出了证据基础的问题，即我的黑格尔主义反对者们支持的所谓“黑格尔主义”只不过是建立在空中楼阁之上。它看起来就像一种没有黑格尔的“黑格尔主义”。

        然而，我还是对使用类、种和样本的术语来对黑格尔的用法作一个全面一般的说明持谨慎态度，因为尽管这些术语有着明显的逻辑学词源，但它们带有太多的自然科学分类体系的含义。因此，它们会使人联想到客体的经验给定性，即个体或“单纯性”（它指的是尚未分类的个体）、特殊——种和类可以从中“通过抽象”（即，从它们的独特特征或“特殊性”中）得到区分。这种生物学的含义在黑格尔所使用的德语同义词中(Gattung, Art, Individuum)表现得更加突出：正如之前提到过的，不出所料地大多出现在黑格尔讨论有机自然的章节中，偶尔也会出现在这些章节之外（例如上文引用的那段对机械系统的讨论中）。在他对个别性的使用中，黑格尔实际上系统性地借鉴了他自己所说的“自然”个体的含义，其自己独特的特征与“概念的个别性”形成了反差(见Rosenthal, 1998, 102-3 and ch. 9, passim)。但我在黑格尔对一般性、特定性和个别性的讨论中所发现的混淆，绝不建立在对特定自然类属和个体的参照之上。

        

        注释：

        * 所有对黑格尔的引用都来自Hegel, 1969，即《黑格尔全集》的Suhrkamp版。英文译文则是我翻译的。单行本的缩写如下：En. L.: 《哲学科学全书纲要》，第一部：《逻辑学》；En. N.: 《哲学科学全书纲要》，第二部：《自然科学》；En. S.: 《哲学科学全书纲要》，第三部：《精神哲学》；Ph. R.: 《法哲学原理》；S. L.:《逻辑学》。一般而言，我会标记出自哪个段落。段落标注之后的"R"代表黑格尔的“说明”（通常相对于正文缩进），而"A"则代表所谓的“附释”。因此可以很容易地找到翻译版中的相应段落。由于《逻辑学》没有遵循这种排版方式，因此我同时引用了英文版的Hegel, 1970中的页码，在德文版页码后添加斜线和数字表示。

        [1] Williams所提出的结论在原文中实际上只是一个从句。“一方面，哲学的发展实归功于经验科学，”黑格尔写道——然后继续写道：“另一方面，哲学赋予科学内容以最基本的形式：思维的自由（思维的先验因素）和必然性的保证” (En. L., §3)（黑格尔，贺麟译，《小逻辑》，上海人民出版社，第69页，译文有改动，同时参照了北京大学出版社版的《哲学科学全书纲要》。该句是由罗森塔尔从德文翻译为英文的，与现在通行的英文版略有区别；中文版与英文版也略有区别）。

        [2] 见En. L., §45A：“这种对于事物的看法，同样也是唯心主义，但有别于批判哲学的那种主观唯心主义，而应称为绝对唯心主义。”（黑格尔标注的重点）（黑格尔，贺麟译，《小逻辑》，上海人民出版社，第133-4页，译文有改动，同时参照了人民出版社版的《哲学全书》第一部分。同上，罗森塔尔、英文版与中文版的翻译都略有区别。据说这些附释中的一部分是后来附会上去的，而我对黑格尔和黑格尔哲学史毫无了解，所以我并不清楚这段附释是否出自黑格尔之手或者是否符合黑格尔的本意，而且整本《小逻辑》中仅有的两个“绝对唯心主义”均出现在附释中，另一个出现在第160段的附释中，请读者留意。）

        [3] （黑格尔，范扬、张企泰译，《法哲学原理》，商务印书馆，第46页。罗森塔尔的翻译以及英文版在语序上与中文版略有不同）在同一段中，黑格尔写了一句话，这句话显然与Diesing逻辑学仅仅只是为了提供“可用于经验的思想运动”的主张相矛盾：“这个进程，既不因为有各种情况存在，于是得到保证而发生，也不由于普遍物应用于从别处接受来的素材而发生。”

        [4] 更详细地，见Rosenthal, 1998, ch. 11；以及关于马克思对连接特殊与普遍的特定句法公式的使用，Rosenthal, 1998, ch. 14.

        [5] 尽管Smith提到的黑格尔的“歪曲”表明了他间接地暗指了这一点，但实际上，我并没有在《逃离》中对其进行讨论，而是在Rosenthal, 1998, chs. 12 and 14中对其进行了讨论。

        [6] Smith再次虚构了我的观点，他写道：“罗森塔尔提出了这一事实，黑格尔的辩证法包括了回溯性解释，揭示了其与理论‘前进’（或‘内在’）运动内在地相矛盾。”(494n)我没在任何地方说过“回溯性解释”，Smith也没有解释我讨论中的什么内容值得用这一称呼以及为什么。据我猜测，他看到了我所说的目的论论证。但黑格尔的目的论论证中的问题以及它们与黑格尔阐述中内在性的主张相矛盾的原因，并非是它们在“向前”或“向后”——直白地说，我认为隐喻术语对逻辑分析并没有多少用——而是它们建立在简单的要求之上：例如，“概念”中的“特殊性的环节”必须获得一个独立的化身，等等。

        [7] （黑格尔，薛华译，《哲学科学全书纲要》1830年版，北京大学出版社，第263页，译文有改动）另见§§368-375, passim，还有En.L., §24A2以及En.L., §221A.

        

        译者注：

        (1) 作者所阐述的是一种学术化的争论方式，读者能够从这样的争论中获取到更多的知识，而不只是看到了双方的立场。

        (2) 即《逃离黑格尔》(“The Escape from Hegel”)一文，我正在对这篇论文进行翻译。

        (3) 即《辩证法的神话：对马克思与黑格尔关系的再解读》(“The Myth of Dialectics：Reinterpreting the Marx-Hegel Relation”)一书，我曾对该书的第13章进行过翻译，未来可能会继续对该书的部分其他章节进行翻译。

        (4) 该段中的“逻辑学”在原文中均为斜体且首字母大写的“Logic”，我不清楚这里各处表示的究竟是黑格尔的“《逻辑学》”这本书还是对黑格尔“逻辑学”方法的强调，我更倾向于后者。但问题出在这段最后对《法哲学原理》的引用中，根据罗森塔尔的翻译，句中的“Logic”依然是首字母大写且斜体的，但在英文版中，“logic”一词并未大写且也不是斜体，也就是说既没有强调，指的也不是《逻辑学》这本书；中文版中同样将这个词翻译为“逻辑学”，并没有添加书名号，也没有强调；德文版中为“Logik”，同样没有斜体（德文中名词的首字母都要大写），因此这句引用中的斜体“Logic”要么表示的是罗森塔尔自己添加的强调，要么就是翻译失误或印刷错误。我在这里暂且认为罗森塔尔是在强调新黑格尔马克思主义者对黑格尔的无知，所以将其翻译为“逻辑学”。请注意，尽管罗森塔尔的表述可能存在着一些问题，但黑格尔在这里所说的在《法哲学原理》中所使用的“逻辑学”方法当然指的是他在《逻辑学》中所阐述的那种方法，罗森塔尔在这里所表达的意思没有任何问题。

        (5) 黑格尔，邓安庆译，《法哲学原理》，《黑格尔著作集》第七卷，人民出版社，第20页，译文有改动。

        (6) 这三个词的中文参考自先刚译《大逻辑》。

        (7) 黑格尔，《逻辑学》下，商务印书馆，第408页，译文有改动。

        (8) “一般性”与“普遍性”的区别请参见我在《逃离黑格尔》中补充的注释。

        (9) 拜不同学科之间的壁垒所赐，同一词的翻译在不同学科中常常不一样，这里的英文“genera”和德文“Gattungen”均为生物学中“界门纲目科属种”中的“属”的复数形式，但在黑格尔文本中则常常被翻译为“类”，“kinds”则是作为“genera”的同义词放在这里并列的。普遍性(universality)、特殊性(particularity)、个别性(individuality)[类(genera)、种(species)、个体(individual)]在生物学中的对应就是属、物种和生物个体，比如猫属、猫种、我家的那只白猫。

REFERENCES

 

        Diesing, Paul. 2000. "Comments on Rosenthal's 'The Escape from Hegel'." Science & Society, 64:3 (Fall), 374-378.

        Giannotti, Jose Arthur. 2000-2001. "John Rosenthal's Myth." Science & Society, 64:4 (Winter), 497-501.

        Hegel, G. W. F. 1969-. Werke in zwanzig Bünden. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.

        ----. 1970. The Science of Logic. London: Allen & Unwin.

        Marx, Karl. 1973. Grundrisse. Middlesex: Penguin.

        MEW. Marx-Engels Werke. 1956-. Berlin: Dietz Verlag.

        Rosenthal, John. 1998. The Myth of Dialectics: Re-Interpreting the Marx-Hegel Relation. New York: St. Martin's.

        ----. 1999. "The Escape from Hegel." Science & Society, 63:3 (Fall), 283-309.

        Smith, Tony. 2000-2001. "On Rosenthal's 'Escape from Hegel'." Science & Society, 64:4 (Winter), 489-496.

        Turchetto, Maria. 2000. "The Historicity of Marx's Categories." Science & Society, 64:3 (Fall), 365-374.

        Williams, Michael. 2000. "No Escape from the ' Post-Hegelian' Dialectic." Science & Society, 64:3 (Fall), 357-365.

THE ESCAPE FROM HEGELIANS: REJOINDER*

 

        Given space limitations, I will dispense with preliminaries and immediately launch into my responses to the individual comments, "bundling" them where it seems appropriate.

        Of all the contributions, Paul Diesing's gives the least sign of engagement with what I actually wrote. Instead, Diesing sets out by distinguishing my alleged "way of thinking" from his own and devotes the greater part of his comments to elaborating upon the latter. He concludes that these two "ways of thinking" are so incompatible that "any dialogue between them would seem to be impossible" (378) - unless, I gather from his closing suggestion, I manage to gain self-awareness about mine.

        I was not, however, in "The Escape from Hegel" expounding my "way of thinking." I was offering an interpretation and critique of Hegelian philosophy (in fact summarizing an interpretation and critique developed at greater length elsewhere) and analyzing its, to my mind highly ambivalent, relevance to the development of Marx's political economy and, more specifically, the theories of value, money and capital. My interpretation might well be partial or misleading or just plain wrong and my criticism, for these or other reasons, unjustified. Why not? But the way to demonstrate this would be to enter into the details of the discussion and, supposing it is in the interpretive aspects that the problem is supposed to lie, to compare them against their intended objects: viz. Hegelian philosophy and the relevant parts of Marxian political economy. "Reader response" criticism and other fashions of the literary academy notwithstanding, the rules of evidence apply to the analysis of theoretical texts as much as to any other practice oriented to achieving knowledge - or what could be broadly designated any "scientific" practice. If they did not, we would be reduced merely to "trading assurances" and competing interpretations could at best be juxtaposed to one another, like paintings in an exhibition, without there being any common basis upon which to adjudicate among them or even indeed any reason to consider their differences.

        In any case, Diesing provides no evidence in support of his supposed disagreement with my interpretation of Hegel. Indeed, he so little engages the details of this interpretation that one is left wondering just wherein the disagreement is supposed to lie. I gather from his opening remarks that the principal point of contention is whether Hegelian "dialectic" is "a very bad way of thinking/' as allegedly according to my interpretation, or "a very good way of thinking," as according to him. It is not, of course, my interpretation that Hegelian "dialectic" is a "bad way of thinking" - though if my interpretation is correct, then for the reasons laid out in my critique, I would surely not recommend it.

        If Diesing disagrees with my conclusions in this regard, he ought to have addressed the grounds I offer on their behalf. My actual interpretation of how the Hegelian "dialectic" is supposed in principle to operate, viz. through an immanent process of "self-sublating" conceptual oppositions (see Rosenthal, 1999, 289-91; and, in greater detail, Rosenthal, 1998, eh. 8), is in fact unexceptional. It is based on Hegel's own methodological remarks and would neither surprise nor cause offence to the overwhelming majority of Hegel scholars. Where I part ways from the mainstream of Hegel scholarship, however, is in suggesting that Hegel's exposition does not in practice obey the methodological canon which he says it should in principle. The promised immanent "dialectic of concepts" fails to materialize. Instead, Hegel's self-styled "derivation" of conceptual determinations persistently relies upon teleological principles and a capricious casting about for pre-given forms - whether logical, natural, legal or what have you - supposed to satisfy them or, where it at least retains the appearance of immanence, paralogically exploits ambiguities built into the terms of the so-called "syllogism."

        My analyses of characteristically Hegelian argumentation - "dialectics," if you wish - lay out my grounds for rejecting such argumentation as specious. In "Escape," I state these grounds merely in summary fashion, referring readers to The Myth, where they are elaborated in detail and on the basis of numerous examples. In "Escape," the discussion of Hegelian argumentation is in fact just preliminary matter to an analysis specifically of Marx's use of the same, which was my main order of business. Nonetheless, anyone wishing to defend Hegel from the specific charges I make against him ought at least to have addressed those charges. At one point, Diesing does remark, "Rosenthal calls this universal-particular-individual dialectic ' teleological '," and he continues, "I do not know what he means." He says this, however, after narrating a story about policy-making and implementation of his own devising - as if all along I'd been writing about Diesing rather than Hegel!

        It should go without saying that debate on the character and significance and, most importantly as far as I am concerned, validity of Hegelian "dialectics" must take as its ultimate standard the evidence of "dialectics" to be found in Hegel. It is remarkable how persistently this obvious principle is violated in the Anglophone Marxist discussions and indeed precisely by self-styled Hegelian Marxists, whose "Hegelianism" seems for the most part to be culled from secondary sources and other Hegelian Marxists. Thus, for example, in his contribution to the symposium Michael Williams takes me to task for ignoring "the literature." But the only citation of Hegel which he offers byway of counter-example to my Hegel interpretation (362) is from Tony Smith, who in turn cites it unmodified from an English-language translation, which - regrettably for the Williams-Smith line - is faulty in precisely those respects crucial to their construal of it. [1] Symptomatically, Williams even accuses me of "reducing" Hegel's philosophy to "absolute idealism" and puts the expression in quotes as if I had coined it. But "absolute idealism" is, of course, just the expression with which Hegel himself most often designated his philosophical standpoint. [2]

        Just how little regard Diesing's avowed "Hegelianism" has for Hegel is clear right from the outset of his comments and his distinguishing of a "dialectic of things" from a "dialectic of thinking." What else is Hegel's idealism supposed to consist in but a demonstration that reality - the domain of "things" - is not only thought-governed, but literally "nothing" independent of thought? Diesing even goes so far as to dismiss the Logic as somehow irrelevant to an assessment of Hegelian "dialectics" (376): a dismissal which is especially difficult to harmonize with his professed admiration for the "method" displayed in the Philosophy of Right. The latter is in fact just an elaboration of part 3, section 2 of the Philosophical Encyclopedia whose point of departure - not, as Diesing suggests, the "free will" and "unfree things," but the concept of right - is supposed to be derived as result from the previous development of the system starting, of course, from the basic determinations of the Logic. The method followed is likewise supposed expressly, according to Hegel himself, to be laid out in the Logic. "The method," he writes, "whereby in science the concept develops itself from itself and is only an immanent progression and engendering of its determinations ... is here presupposed from the Logic" (Ph. R., §31). [3]

        I will leave it for the reader to confirm just how little Diesing's putative refutation of my analysis of Marx's Grundrisse deduction of the concept of capital has to do either with my analysis or that deduction. Here again, Diesing's procedure is simply to substitute a wholly unrelated narrative and to assure the reader that in the passage in question Marx is in fact "describing a dialectical historical process," of which the narrative is supposed to be a resume. But where is the evidence in the passage cited or the surrounding text that Marx is "doing" this? Marx clearly indicates that he is analyzing the concept of money and attempting to show that for a reason "inherent to its nature" - not on account of contingent historical causes - money "must become" capital. We can argue over whether this demonstration is successful or not. But no debate can take place on the matter at all without at least the acknowledgment that the attempt at such a demonstration is made.

        Before moving on, I want only to draw attention to Diesing's charge in this context that I am "looking for some sort of logical argument" (377), which "of course" I have not been able to find, since "it [presumably, the Marx passage] isn't an argument, but a historical description of a dialectical process." This is supposed to be characteristic of my "way of thinking," which "makes a sharp distinction between logical argumentation and empirical research." Apparently writing of me, Diesing remarks: "His conception of the dialectic is Kantian; he wants a non-empirical deductive process" (376). (The inappropriateness of Diesing's talk of a "Kantian dialectic" in this connection will be obvious to students of the history of philosophy.) Diesing even writes of "Rosenthal's conception of logical argument," as if I had the honor - as opposed, say, to Plato or Aristotle - of having discovered the norms of valid inference.

        If my personal preferences - what I am alleged to "want" - are of any interest here, I surely am not opposed to empirical research, nor to using the findings thereof. I have nowhere suggested that there is any choice to be made between the latter and logical analysis, although there is, of course, a distinction. However, when dealing with what are arguments and where these arguments seem to me of theoretical significance, I do have an interest in establishing whether they are valid or fallacious. I hope this is an interest that will be shared by most others who are engaged in theoretical inquiry.

        In "Escape," I tried to show that Marx's argument concerning the necessity of money "becoming" money-capital is fallacious and indeed fallacious in a manner which reflects its Hegelian inspiration. It truly did not occur to me that one could doubt that it is an argument at all. The reader will be able to confirm the presence in the passage I cited of what are customary logical markers: "since" (als), "therefore" (daher), "for this reason" (deswegen), "thus" (also). To fail to recognize the passage as an argument is somewhat akin to failing to recognize "hello" as a greeting or "get out!" as a command.

        In any event, to say that a theorist has made an argument is no more than to say that s/he has attempted to demonstrate the propositions of which his or her theory consists. To suggest that Marx has not done this is surely less flattering to him than to say that in some instance he has failed. The same, of course, holds for Hegel. (The term "proposition" [Satz] is a loaded one for Hegel, who rejected the propositional form as inadequate to the "expression" of truth. Nonetheless, the whole discourse in which truth is supposed to gain expression even in Hegel consists, needless to say, of propositions.) What is specifically characteristic of Hegelian "dialectics" is an allegedly unique canon of proof, most certainly not an eschewal of proof! Hegel continually refers to his "deduction" (Deduktion) and his "derivation" (Ableitung) of concepts and it is precisely in the fact that these concepts have been derived, rather than taken for granted, that the specificity of the philosophical exposition of a subject matter is supposed to lie. "In philosophical cognition," Hegel writes, "the necessity of a concept is the main issue and the course by which it emerges as result, is its proof and deduction" (Ph. R., §2R). I have suggested that Hegel's proof procedure is not as unitary in practice as he suggests it ought to be in principle and, furthermore, that the argumentational strategies he characteristically employs in the actual course of his exposition are either immanent, but specious or perhaps valid, but not immanent. Such criticism surely does Hegel more honor than a professed admiration which sees no arguments at all.

        Tony Smith makes greater effort to characterize my analysis than Diesing. Unfortunately, however, his characterizations, even when apparently sympathetic, are for the most part mischaracterizations and often even pure inventions. I have not, for instance, anywhere claimed that "Hegelian themes" play a role in "one and only one place" in Capital (489). I have not even written about "Hegelian themes" in Capital. Rather, I have written, more precisely I hope, of characteristically or distinctively Hegelian "formulae": such as, for instance, that of "real universality" or the syntactical formula according to which some "particular" is the "form of appearance of the [or a] universal." I systematically distinguish these "formulae" from Hegelian patterns of argumentation. My claim is that the former, though not the latter, play an important role in the development of Marx's economics and, more specifically, of his value theory. I suggest that they do so because, though of metaphysical significance in Hegel's usage, they happen to be "perfectly suited" to grasping the phenomenal structure of the primary object of Marx's value theory: namely, the "value-form" or, more colloquially, money.

        Inasmuch as Marx's theory of value is by no means limited to any "one place" in Capital, neither, of course, is Marx's employment of the formulae in question. On the contrary, the theory of value is the basis of Marx's entire economic theory. All the subsequent economic forms that Marx analyzes (price, wages, profit, land-rent, interest, etc.) are just so many more specific (the Hegelians would probably say, "further developed") "forms of value." Inasmuch as money remains their very substance, they must, of course, reflect the ontological peculiarities of the latter and hence they provide Marx ample occasion to draw upon his stock of Hegelian formulations. This is especially conspicuously the case, for instance, in Marx's analysis of the forms of the capital circuit in Volume 2 of Capital Not surprisingly, however, the use of Hegelian formulae is most conspicuous of all in that part of Capital especially devoted to the value-form: viz. Vol. 1, Ch. 1, section 3. I do not know if Marx there "deliberately," as Smith puts it, makes use of typically Hegelian formulae - I just know that he does. [4]

        Smith goes on to write: "According to Rosenthal, Hegel's thought perversely grants abstractions priority over flesh and blood human subjects in a way that exactly parallels the way money, a 'real abstraction,' perversely dominates social agents in capitalism" (489-90). I am not sure how this is supposed to be "according to me." The accusation may well provide a reason for criticizing Hegel, but it does not figure among my reasons. The "flesh and blood human beings" are presumably a loan from Marx's early "humanist" critique of Hegel in the 1844 Manuscripts - but I say nothing about them. The "perversions" of which I accuse Hegel are, less dramatically, just logical perversions. One of these "perversions" - what Marx, following Feuerbach, famously called the "subject-predicate reversal," i.e., the treatment of existing things as the attributes of general determinants rather than vice-versa - turns out to be appropriate for grasping the "perverted," if you wish (following Marx, I actually say "inverted"), phenomena of economic value. [5] In a system of commodity-money - which, as noted, is the sort of monetary system clearly assumed in Marx's analysis - money as money, though consisting of physical objects, is in fact an attribute of the general economic "essence" of commodities as such, viz. their value. Money is the real form assigned the latter by the exchange system: money does not so much "have value" as value has (the) money (-form). In any case, as readers will be able to confirm, the particulars whose "inverted" relation to the value abstraction was at issue in my treatment were not particular human subjects, but particular commodities. [6]

        Smith elaborates upon three alleged criticisms of my analysis. In light of the foregoing, however, the first of these points can be passed over without comment. Apparently with reference to his earlier characterization, he writes: "Rosenthal is hardly the first to assert that the culminating categories of Hegel's Logic mirror the domination of capital so compellingly described by Marx" (491). I am not sure what exactly Smith understands by the expression "the culminating categories of Hegel's Logic1 - an expression he repeats as if importance were meant to be attached to it. He does not tell us and literally the "culminating categories of Hegel's Logic' are cognition, volition, and the absolute idea - which I do not imagine are what he has in mind. But, in any case, as I simply do not assert what is here attributed to me, I cannot have been the first to do so and Smith's reasons for finding the position untenable are irrelevant.

        Second, Smith accuses me in my critique of Hegel's own argumentation (or "methodology") of inappropriately supposing that "Hegel's categories" of universality, particularity, and individuality "map the traditional categories of genus, species, and individual." This allegation is supported merely by an allusion to my "discussion" of the relationship between metal and zinc. In fact, I do not "discuss" this relationship at all, but use it as an example in order to clarify a characteristically Hegelian logical fallacy to which Marx succumbs. I will return to the significance of the example momentarily. In any case, Smith assures us that "Hegel explicitly, consistently, and repeatedly denied that the world can be adequately comprehended in terms of static formal classifications" such as genus, species, and individual. Perhaps. But the fact is that Hegel himself uses the distinction of universality, particularity, and individuality precisely in the senses of genus, species, and specimen. It is remarkable that Smith would deny this in responding to an article that cites Hegel saying, for instance, with reference to the solar system: "In the material world it is the central body that is the genus, but it is the individual universality of the single objects and their mechanical process" (S.L., II, 423/722). If Hegel uses "genus" and "universality" as substitutes, and contrasts them, furthermore, to "the single objects," what more evidence does one need that in such usage universal (and universality) indeed carries the same connotation as genus (and generality)} This usage is common in Hegel's exposition and in fact rampant throughout the Philosophy of Nature - unsurprisingly, since the study of nature is the domain from which such classificatory systems are derived - where genera or kinds (Gattungen) are explicitly written of as "universais" and distinguished from their species (Arten) as their "particulars," and so on. "In its implicit universality," Hegel writes, "the kind [Gattung] particularizes itself in species [Arten]. . . ." (En. N., §368). [7] Smith's apparent oversight again raises the question of the evidentiary basis on which the supposed "Hegelianism" of my Hegelian opponents is meant to lie. It seems to be a "Hegelianism" without Hegel.

        I would, however, be cautious about employing the language of genus, species and specimen to give a completely general account of Hegelian usage, only because, despite the obvious logical etymology of these terms, they too heavily bear the connotation of the classificatory systems of the specifically natural sciences. Hence, they suggest the empirical givenness of objects, viz. individuals or "bare" (which is to say, unclassified) particulars, from which "by abstraction" (viz. from their unique features or "particularities") sorts and genera are distinguished. The especially biologistic connotation is even more salient with the Germanic equivalents (Gattung, Art, Individuum) which Hegel uses: as noted, unexceptionally, in those sections where he is discussing organic nature, but also at times, so to say, "out of area" (e.g., as cited above, in the discussion of mechanical systems) . In his use of individuality, Hegel in fact systematically draws on the connotation of what he himself calls the "natural" individual, whose own sui generis character is negatively contrasted to the "individuality of the concept" (see Rosenthal, 1998, 102-3 and ch. 9, passim). But the confusions that I identify in Hegel's treatment of logical relations of generality, specificity and individuality in no way depend upon reference to specifically natural kinds and individuals.

        

        * All citations from Hegel are to Hegel, 1969 - the Suhrkamp edition of Hegel's Works. The translations are mine. Individual volumes are abbreviated as follows: En.L.: The Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences, Part I: Science of Logic; En.N.: The Encyclopedia . . . , Part II: Philosophy of Nature, En.S.: The Encyclopedia . . . , Part HI: Philosophy of Spirit, Ph.R.: The Philosophy of Right, S.L.: The Science of Logic. In general, I have cited paragraph numbers. An WR" following these numbers stands for Hegel's explanatory "remark" (typically indented from the main paragraph) and an "A" for a so-called "addition." The equivalent passages in translation can thus be easily found. As this system is not followed in the Science of Logic, I have cited page numbers, followed by a slash and then page numbers for Hegel, 1970, an English edition.

        1 What Williams presents as a conclusion is in fact in the original passage a subordinate clause. "While philosophy owes its development to the empirical sciences," Hegel writes - and then continues: "it gives their contents the most essential form of the freedom (that is to say, the a priori character) of thought and the preservation of necessity" (En.L., §3).

        2 See En.L., §45A: "This conception is likewise to be described as idealism, although, in contrast to the subjective idealism of the critical philosophy, as absolute idealism1 (Hegel's emphasis).

        3 In the same paragraph Hegel writes, in a remark that clearly contravenes Diesing's assertion that the Logic is merely meant to provide "movements of thought that could be used empirically": "The progression does not occur through the assurance that different relations are given and then through the application of the universal to such material which has been taken from elsewhere."

        4 At greater length, see Rosenthal, 1998, eh. 11; and on Marx's use specifically of the syntactical formula relating particular to universal, Rosenthal, 1998, eh. 14.

        5 Though Smith's reference to Hegel's "perversions" suggest he is obliquely alluding to this matter, in fact I do not discuss it in "Escape," but rather in Rosenthal, 1998, chs. 12 and 14.

        6 In yet another invention, Smith writes that "Rosenthal presents the fact that Hegelian dialectics includes retrospective justifications as a damning revelation that inherently contradicts the 'forwards' (or 'immanent') movement of the theory" (494n). I nowhere say anything about "retrospective justifications" and Smith does not explain what in my discussion deserves this appellation and why. Presumably, he has in mind what I refer to as teleological argumentation. But the problem with Hegel's teleological arguments and the reason they indeed contradict the claims for the immanence of Hegel's exposition, is not they go "forward" or "backward" - metaphorical language which, frankly, I do not find of much use for the purpose of logical analysis - but rather that they rely on simple stipulates: e.g., that the "moment of particularity" in "the concept" must gain an independent embodiment, etc., etc.

        7 See also §§368-375, passim, as well as En.L., §24A2, and En.L., §221A.