论罗森塔尔对黑格尔的“逃离”

交流会

 

马克思、黑格尔与辩证法：研讨会（第二部分）

编者按：针对罗森塔尔的论文《逃离黑格尔》的讨论的第一部分发表于2000年秋季刊。以下是另外的两篇评论，以及罗森塔尔对所有评论者的回复。

 

论罗森塔尔对黑格尔的“逃离”

 

【489】

        在现在这个充满剥削和不平衡发展、数十亿人生活在水深火热中的世界中，如何正确理解黑格尔与马克思之间的理论联系似乎只是一件微不足道的小事。然而，马克思的《资本论》仍然是理解产生这一痛苦的社会制度所需的最重要的文本。因此，如何正确解读这一著作的问题依然十分重要。而这一问题迟早会让我们审视黑格尔/马克思之间的关系。

        在最近一篇发表在《科学与社会》的文章中(Rosenthal, 1999)，约翰·罗森塔尔强有力地论证了，黑格尔主义主题在且仅在《资本论》中唯一的一个地方发挥了作用。按照罗森塔尔的观点，马克思对货币与普通商品(ordinary commodities)之间关系的描述刻意呼应了黑格尔的唯心主义体系中普遍与有限东西之间的关系。而马克思发现黑格尔思想的这一方面是有用的这一事实也根本就不是黑格尔的功劳。按照罗森塔尔的说法，黑格尔的思想将抽象歪曲地置于活生生的人类主体之上，【490】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。除此之外，罗森塔尔坚持认为，马克思在《资本论》中放弃了他早期的黑格尔主义实验。具体地说，在《资本论》中找不到像黑格尔主义辩证法那样建立在恶劣的双关语与无效推理之上的“方法论”。

        为了证明这一命题的合理性，罗森塔尔在两条主要战线上展开了攻击。首先，他希望说服读者，黑格尔对“普遍性”、“特殊性”以及“个别性”等关键术语的使用存在着无法挽回的错误。罗森塔尔抱怨道，黑格尔的术语“普遍性”存在着系统性的歧义，有些时候指向相对更具包容性的含义，而另一些时候则指向包罗万象的含义。在黑格尔的著作中，术语“特殊性”的含义在相对独特性（“单纯的”特殊性）的含义和相对更确定性（“特定性”）的含义之间相互变换。以及概念“个别性”的含义在绝对唯一性（再一次的，单纯的特殊性）的含义和完全确定的体系（“总体”）的含义之间跳跃。有了这样的滑变，任何东西都可以从任何东西中发展出来。或者，更恰当地说，与所谓辩证“逻辑”的辩护者们的主张相反，我们无法从任何东西中得到任何东西。

        罗森塔尔的另一个行动是对马克思在《政治经济学批判大纲》从“货币”推导出“资本”的尝试进行扩展讨论，《政治经济学批判大纲》作为马克思的一部早期著作，确实采用了来源于黑格尔主义辩证方法的主题。这一实验显而易见的失败，以及这一实验并未在《资本论》中重复的这一事实，按照罗森塔尔的说法，证实了马克思明确地打破了黑格尔主义辩证法。根据罗森塔尔的说法，马克思在《政治经济学批判大纲》中尝试通过作为价值的一般等价形式的货币概念与所有特定数额的货币的界限之间的矛盾来解释资本的存在。但是，如果说一笔特定数额的货币与货币概念“相矛盾”，就等同于说特殊仅仅凭借其作为特殊就与它的类相矛盾。对于罗森塔尔来说，这就像说锌因为其是金属的一个特殊种而与金属类“相矛盾”一样荒谬。此外，货币本身流通所需的社会关系显然与界定资本主义——一个历史性的特定生产方式——的社会关系相当不同。货币本身的流通可能是其作为资本流通的必要条件，但非资本主义生产方式中货币的存在表明，前者并非后者的充分条件。在马克思成熟的著作中，他放弃了所有这些谬论。相反，他仅仅只是将资本主义利润视为给定条件，接着就其可能性的必要条件提出了康德式的问题。

        罗森塔尔的叙述有许多值得赞同的地方。他清楚地认识到，马克思的价值理论与其说是一个相对价格理论，不如说它是一个关于货币——价值的根本形式——如何统治【491】资本主义社会生活的理论。他对价值形式重要性的坚持正确地强调了马克思的价值理论完全不同于其他所有将货币简化为单纯的计价物、从而将资本主义简化为一种物物交换形式的方法。但在罗森塔尔的解读中也存在着许多问题。我在这里简要地指出三个地方：1)黑格尔的《逻辑学》与资本之间的所谓相同性；2)黑格尔体系性著作中的方法论；以及3)《政治经济学批判大纲》与《资本论》之间的关系。[1]

         

        一、货币：黑格尔的马克思主义中心

        罗森塔尔并不是第一个断言黑格尔逻辑学中的最终范畴(the culminating categories)反映了由马克思所充分描述的资本统治的人。马克思本人也持有相同的观点。[2]然而，尽管存在着这种令人印象深刻的理论来源，这一观点依然是难以成立的。在黑格尔逻辑学的终极(At the culmination of Hegel's Logic)，我们可以找到这样一个定义了一种特定的本体论结构，即复杂总体的范畴，复杂总体中的相互存在差异的不同要素和方面和谐地共存于一个动态整体中。但马克思在两个意义深远的方面上表明了资本领域并不存在这一结构。资本建立在对雇佣劳动者的剥削之上，因此资本与劳动之间的阶级对立必然处于其核心。其次，尽管资本仅仅只是对象化劳动，但资本呈现为一种位于雇佣劳动者之上且超越雇佣劳动者的外力形式，使他们屈服于价值增殖的要求。换句话说，劳动者共有的社会权力必然以资本权力的形式扭曲地表现出来。一种本质上以对立和异化为主要特征的生产方式，并没有这样一种与黑格尔逻辑学的结论中的范畴相一致的结构。在资本主义中，差异于统一整体中的和谐共存并不存在；存在的只是对雇佣劳动的支配，即资本的“他者”。黑格尔在他的著作中一直在批判这种结构。他最大的失败就是没能理解资本主义正是这种结构的体现。

        黑格尔本人确实相信资本主义体现了他的逻辑学的最终范畴。他认为，资本主义市场使个人与特定群体得以在经济领域中最大程度地繁荣发展，而国家则确保了个人与群体利益与整个社会的普遍利益相一致。然而，他在这件事上的看法大错特错。将使社会的普遍利益与不同【492】群体和个人的繁荣发展相一致的社会秩序的制度化需要社会主义。在这种意义上，黑格尔的逻辑学，就像资本主义时代其他伟大的艺术作品一样，包含了一个超越资本主义的乌托邦环节。罗森塔尔的解读掩盖了这一乌托邦环节。

         

        二、普遍性、特殊性、个别性

        罗森塔尔对“金属”与“锌”之间关系的讨论表明了，对于他而言，黑格尔对普遍性、特殊性以及个别性的划分就是对类、种和个体的传统划分。当这种形式的划分应用到黑格尔的许多主张上时，确实会显得很荒谬。但黑格尔明确地、一贯地以及不断地否认世界可以用静态的形式分类来充分地理解。黑格尔的用词确实晦涩难懂，但其是为了理解一些完全不同的东西。

        类、种和个体的形式逻辑隐含性地假设了世界由一些固定实体组成，且这些固定实体之间存在的只是一些外部关系，它们有时拥有一些共同特征，有时则没有。对于黑格尔来说，这一框架是理解世界的必要组成部分。但一旦我们离开了相对简单的机械体系，世界的要素就只有在它们与其他元素的内在和动态关系中、在各种各样复杂的和动态的总体中才是它们自身(Oilman, 1971; 1993)。而任何给定的总体之所以是它们自身，也只是由于它们在更复杂的整体中与其它总体之间存在着内在和动态关系。这使得世界极其复杂。黑格尔对术语“普遍性”、“特殊性”和“个别性”的使用，也许就是西方哲学史中理解这种复杂性的最大尝试。对这一点进行嘲笑非常简单，因为当它被翻译为形式和静态分类体系的简化框架时，它不具有任何实际意义。但这并不算是对黑格尔的“逃离”；这只是在避开他。

        黑格尔用术语“普遍性”来指代复杂总体中的统一原则，例如，人类主体相对于她或他的构成要素和方面的统一性。只要这种统一性涵盖了所有构成人的不同环节，它就是包罗万象的。但只要人类主体是她或他自身在一个更复杂的总体（比如说，社会）中的一个环节，她或他就仅仅只是相对更具包容性的。一个给定的总体本身就是特殊的，因为相对于同一层次的其它总体而言，它是独特的，因此人类主体相对于其他人就是一个单纯的特殊。然而，这一总体也有一些比其更具体的特殊环节，比如人类主体由血管系统、认知处理系统等等所组成。最后，一个复杂总体包含个别【493】要素，比如人体可以被划分为个别器官。但它也与其他人一样，本身是一个个别总体。罗森塔尔认为这一歧义是有害的，但我们可以将之视为一次严肃的尝试，来理解构成这一世界的复杂性的差异中的统一性(unity-in-difference)的各种形式。

        这和马克思有什么关系呢？考察一下资本的流通。首先，我们要有货币资本来投资。接着货币资本投资在商品（生产资料和劳动力）上。在生产过程结束时，我们得到了新商品的库存。如果它们是以利润为目的而出售的话，从出售中得到的货币就会多于最初投入的货币，从而积累资本，并启动新的一轮流通。在这一G-W-(P)-W-G’的流通中，资本在哪里？仅仅说资本是一个以货币资本、生产资本以及商品资本作为其种的属是不够的。“资本”是一个持续发生的过程中的统一性原则，而这一过程构成了一个复杂且动态的总体。除了在流通中呈现出来的特殊形式之外，资本并没有独立的存在，然而这些特殊形式之所以是资本，也仅仅只是因为它们统一于同一个复杂且动态的整体中。正如我们需要范畴来划分这一过程中的不同环节一样，我们也需要一个范畴来把握这一过程的统一性。因此“资本”既是一个普遍，[3]一个差异中的统一性，又是一个相对于其他生产方式而言的特殊。黑格尔的逻辑学正是用来把握这种复杂性的。

        当然，世界的复杂性很难证明这样一种任何东西都可以从其他任何东西中得出的方法论是合理的。但辩证方法真的比其他理解世界的方式更武断吗？对于黑格尔来说，对复杂总体以及构成它的内在关系的充分理解不可能一次完成。体系辩证理论从对给定总体的简单且抽象的理解开始，然后继续一步步地对同一总体进行更复杂和具体的概念化。这排除了引入新的随机主题的可能性。只有当一些新的规定被补充以理解眼前的对象领域时，向新理论层次的过渡才是合理的。因此，不同抽象层次之间的突然跳跃也就被排除在外了。此外，只要规定的先行发展使我们对给定总体在具体性和复杂性上的理解更进一步，它就为理论的早期阶段提供了回溯性解释。在这一意义上，【494】该方法使我们能够确定，理论的出发点并不仅仅是一组随意的假设。[4]

        更不用说，任何方法都能或多或少地被随意运用。但辩证方法并没有内在地比其他方法更能导致理论的任意性。恰恰相反。辩证方法就是被用来对所考虑的对象领域的本质特征以最全面的方式进行最大限度的考察的。

         

        三、《政治经济学批判大纲》是一个错误的起点吗？

        在以下这点上，我明确地赞同罗森塔尔的观点：从普遍存在于不同历史时期的货币概念中推导出资本，一种历史性的特定社会形式，的尝试，应当被彻底否定。但不同于罗森塔尔的观点，这一尝试并非黑格尔主义所关心的问题。对于黑格尔来说，“哲学就是被把握在思想中的它的时代” (Hegel, 1967, 11)(1)黑格尔明确地认为，他的社会哲学中所推导出来的范畴都仅仅适用于现代。同样的，这一尝试也并非马克思在《政治经济学批判大纲》中所关心的问题。

        在《政治经济学批判大纲》的导言中，马克思指出，在他的方法论中，他“从关于整体的一个混沌的表象着手”，接着

        “从表现中的具体达到越来越稀薄的抽象，直到我达到一些最简单的规定。于是行程又得从那里回过头来，直到我最后又回到[具体]，但是这回[具体]已不是关于整体的一个混沌的表象，而是一个具有许多规定和关系的丰富的总体了……具体之所以是具体，因为它是许多规定的综合，因而是多样性的统一。”(Marx, 1973, 100-101.)(2)

        因此，马克思在《政治经济学批判大纲》中的出发点并非某些超历史的抽象，而是“整体”的“最简单的规定”，即一个历史性的给定总体。

        这里所讨论总体就是资本主义。把资本主义当作一个整体来考虑的最简单和最抽象方式，就是从普遍商品生产(generalized commodity production)的角度来考虑。生产商品的劳动是由私人来承担的，【495】而且这些劳动可能也可能不会被证明是一种社会耗费。这种劳动的社会必要性只有通过成功的交换才能得到确立。如果成功的交换依赖于每个交换者都需要由对方生产的特定商品，那么交换就只能是有限的和偶然发生的。因此普遍的商品交换(Generalized commodity exchange)就需要一种代表了普遍可交换性(general exchangeability)的一般商品(universal commodity)。这种一般商品就是货币（Marx, 1973, 147等处）(3)。这里涉及到的货币概念并非一个普遍存在于各种各样生产方式的超历史概念。而是普遍商品生产所需的货币的历史性的特定形式。因此，正如罗森塔尔所认为的那样，在这之后从货币范畴到资本的推导过程并非从一个超历史概念到一个历史性的特定社会形式的跳跃。这是从一个较抽象层次到另一个更明确阶段的运动，在这一抽象层次中隐含了在资本主义下，货币就是一般商品。

        更仔细地看一下罗森塔尔本人所引用的这段文本，就能够证实这一解读：

        “作为价值而独立化的价值——或者说财富的一般形式——除了量上的变动，除了自身的增大外，不可能有其他的运动……一定的货币额……对于使货币恰恰不再成为货币的一定消费来说，可能完全够用。但是货币作为一般财富的代表，就不会是这样了……作为一定量的数额，作为有限的数额，货币只是一般财富的有限的代表……因此，作为财富，作为财富的一般形式，作为起价值作用的价值而被固定下来的货币，是一种不断要超出自己的量的界限的驱动力。”(Marx, 1973, 270)(4)

        不同于罗森塔尔的观点，这里论证的并非是一种越出（超历史的）货币概念所固有的任何确定界限的内在驱动力。马克思在这一论证中的出发点是给定的历史事实，即价值已经“独立化”，也就是说，货币已经成为目的本身，“财富的一般形式，起价值作用的价值”。这是将资本主义这一复杂总体概念化的相对简单和抽象的方式，因为货币的这一形式只存在于普遍商品生产中，也就是说，只存在于资本主义中。马克思认为，如果我们预设了一种价值已经“独立化”的生产方式，那么经济秩序就是建立在积累货币的驱动力之上，且这一驱动力没有内在的限度。这里的过渡并非是从超历史的货币概念到历史性的特定生产方式即资本主义的过渡。相反，这一过渡是从相对简单和抽象的资本主义概念（作为一个价值已经“独立化”的社会秩序）到更加复杂和具体的同一复杂总体的概念（作为一个积累的无尽动力已占主导地位的社会秩序）的过渡。

【496】

        《政治经济学批判大纲》中从“普遍商品生产”到“作为一般商品的货币”再到“资本”的概念体系性序列与《资本论》中的序列相同。对从一个抽象层次到下一个抽象层次的过渡的论证本质上也是相同的。《资本论》也与《政治经济学批判大纲》一样，是一次在思想上重构资本主义本质规定的尝试，系统性地从最简单、最抽象的规定抵达越来越复杂和具体的规定(Smith, 1990, 1998)。无论马克思如何否定黑格尔主义社会理论的实质主张，都无法回避他是在黑格尔的体系辩证法中找到这种理论范式的这一事实。

 

Tony Smith

 

哲学系

爱荷华州立大学

443 Catt Hall

Ames, IA 50014

tonys@iastate.edu

 

注释：

        1. 本次辩论所涉及到的其他问题在Smith, 1999中有详细讨论。

        2. 有关马克思对黑格尔的解读的进一步讨论，可见Smith, 1990, Chapter 1。

        3. 如上所述，资本终究仍然是黑格尔主义意义上的“单调的”普遍性，因为它是一种凌驾于个人之上的力量，而非一种使个人和群体在作为一个整体的社会中繁荣发展的原则。黑格尔本人用“本质”这一术语来指代这种单调的普遍性。

        4. 罗森塔尔提出了这一事实，即黑格尔的辩证法包括了回溯性解释，揭示了其与理论的“前进”（或“内在”）运动内在地相矛盾。但他并没有为将这两者视为矛盾而非相互补充提供任何理由。他似乎也没有意识到，回溯性解释的重要性在黑格尔的文本中是老生常谈的（见Hartmann, 1972; Pinkard, 1985; Arthur, 1998）。

 

译者注：

        (1) 黑格尔，邓安庆译，《法哲学原理》，《黑格尔著作集》第7卷，人民出版社，第13页。

        (2) 《马克思恩格斯全集》中文第二版第30卷第41-2页。

        (3) 《马克思恩格斯全集》中文第二版第30卷第96页。

        (4) 《马克思恩格斯全集》第二版第30卷第227-8页，译文有改动。

REFERENCES

 

        Arthur, Chris. 1998. "Systematic Dialectic/ Science & Society, 62:3 (Fall).

        Hartmann, Klaus. 1972. "Hegel: A Non-Metaphysical View." In Hegel, ed. A. Maclntyre. New York: Doubleday Anchor.

        Hegel, G. W. F. 1967. The Philosophy of Right. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.

        Marx, Karl. 1973. The Grundrisse. New York: Vintage.

        Oilman, Berteli. 1971. Alienation: Marx's Concept of Man in Capitalist Society. New York: Cambridge University Press.

        ——. 1993. Dialectical Investigations. New York: Routledge.

        Pinkard, Terry. 1985. "The Logic of Hegel's Logic." In Hegel, ed. M. Inwood. New York: Oxford University Press.

        Rosenthal, John. 1999. "The Escape from Hegel." Science àf Society, 63:3 (Fall).

        Smith, Tony. 1990. The Logic ofMarxs Capital. Albany, New York: State University of New York Press.

        ——. 1998. "Value Theory and Dialectics." Science äf Society, 62:3 (Fall).

        ——. 1999. "The Relevance of Systematic Dialectics to Marxian Thought." Historical Materialism, Fall.

COMMUNICATIONS

 

MARX. HEGEL AND DIALECTICS:

A SYMPOSIUM (PART TWO)

 

Editor's Note: Part one of this discussion, which refers to John Rosenthal's "The Escape from Hegel" (Fall 1999), appeared in the Fall 2000 issue. Following are two more comments, and Rosenthal's reply to all of the commentators.

 

ON ROSENTHAL'S "ESCAPE" FROM HEGEL

 

        In a world where exploitation and uneven development condemn billions to suffering, the proper understanding of the intellectual relationship between Hegel and Marx appears a small matter indeed. Marx's Capital, however, remains the single most important text for comprehending the system that inflicts this suffering. The question of the proper reading of this work thus remains important. Sooner or later this brings us to the Hegel/Marx question.

        In a recent article in Science &Society (Rosenthal, 1999) , John Rosenthal forcefully argues that there is one and only one place where Hegelian themes play a role in Capital. In Rosenthal's view, Marx's description of the relationship between money and ordinary commodities deliberately echoes the relationship between universais and finite things in Hegel's system of idealism. The fact that Marx found this aspect of Hegel's thought useful is not at all to Hegel's credit. 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. Apart from this, Rosenthal insists, Marx abandons in Capital his earlier experiments with Hegelian motifs. In specific, nothing like Hegelian dialectics can be found, a "methodology" based on bad puns and spurious reasoning.

        In order to justify this thesis Rosenthal attacks on two main fronts. First, he hopes to convince the reader that Hegel's use of the key terms "universality," "particularity," and "individuality" is irredeemably flawed. Rosenthal complains that Hegel's term "universality" is systematically ambiguous, sometimes referring to the relatively more inclusive, on other occasions to the all-inclusive. The sense of the term "particularity" shifts in Hegel's writings between what is relatively unique ("bare" particularity) and what is relatively more determinate ("specificity"). And the notion of "individuality" jumps between the absolutely unique (bare particularity again) and the fully determinate system ("totality"). With such slippage just about anything can be made to follow from just about anything else. Or, better, nothing can really be made to follow from anything else, contrary to claims made by defenders of so-called dialectical "logic."

        Rosenthal's other move is to present an extended discussion of Marx's attempt to derive "capital" from "money" in the Grundrisse, an earlier work that does employ themes taken from Hegel's dialectical method. The transparent failure of this experiment, and the fact that it is not repeated in Capital, supposedly confirms the proposition that Marx unequivocally broke from Hegelian dialectics. According to Rosenthal, Marx attempted to explain the existence of capital in the Grundrisse by reference to the contradiction between the concept of money as the general equivalent form of value and the limit of all particular sums of money. But to say that a particular sum of money "contradicts" the concept of money is to say that the particular contradicts its genus simply by being particular. For Rosenthal, this is as ludicrous as saying that zinc "contradicts" the genus metal because it is a particular sort of metal. Further, the social relations required for the circulation of money as such are obviously quite different from the social relations that define capitalism as a historically specific mode of production. The circulation of money as such may be a necessary condition for its circulation as capital, but the presence of money in non-capitalist modes of production shows that it is hardly a sufficient condition. In his mature work Marx abandons all such nonsense. Instead he simply accepts capitalist profit as a given, and then asks the Kantian question regarding the necessary conditions of its possibility.

        There is much to agree with in Rosenthal's account. He clearly recognizes that Marx's value theory is not so much a theory of relative prices as it is a theory of how money, the ultimate form of value, dominates social life in capitalism. His insistence on the importance of the value form correctly stresses how Marx's theory profoundly differs from all approaches that reduce money to a mere numeraire, thereby reducing capitalism to a form of barter. But there is also much to question in Rosenthal's reading. I shall comment briefly on three matters here: 1) the alleged homology between Hegel's Logic and capital; 2) the methodology found in Hegel's systematic works; and 3) the relationship between the Grundrisse and Capital.1

         

        1. Money: The Marxian Locus of Hegel

        Rosenthal is hardly the firsto assert that the culminating categories of Hegel's Logic mirror the domination of capital so compellingly described by Marx. Marx himself held this view.2 Despite this impressive pedigree, however, this position cannot be sustained. At the culmination of Hegel's Logic we find categories that define a specific sort of ontological structure, that of complex totalities whose different elements and dimensions are harmoniously reconciled together in a dynamic whole. But Marx established that the realm of capital does not have this structure in two profound respects. Capital rests on the exploitation of wage laborers, and so a class antagonism between capital and labor necessarily lies at its heart. Second, although capital is nothing but objectified labor, capital insanely takes on the form of an alien force standing above and beyond wage laborers, subjecting them to the imperatives of valorization. In other words, the collective social powers of working men and women necessarily appear in the distorted form of powers of capital. A mode of production essentially categorized by antagonism and alienation does not have a structure homologous with the categories at the conclusion of Hegel's Logic. In capitalism there is no harmonious reconciliation of differences within an overarching unity; there is instead the subjugation of wage labor, the "other" of capital. Hegel consistently critiques this sort of structure throughout his writings. His great failure was to not comprehend that capitalism exemplifies this sort of structure.

        Hegel himself did believe that capitalism exemplifies the culminating categories of his Logic. He thought that capitalist markets allow individuals and particular groups to flourish to the greatest extent possible in the economic realm, with the state ensuring that individual and group interests cohere with the general good of the community as a whole. He was horribly wrong about this. The institutionalization of a social order in which the universal good of the community is reconciled with the flourishing of different groups and individuals demands socialism. In this manner Hegel's Logic, like the greatest works of art in the capitalist epoch, includes a Utopian moment pointing beyond capitalism. Rosenthal's reading suppresses this Utopian moment.

         

        2. Universal, Particular, Individual

        Rosenthal's discussion of the relationship between "metal" and "zinc" shows that for him Hegel's categories of universality, particularity, and individuality are supposed to map the traditional categories of genus, species, and individual. Many of Hegel's claims are indeed absurd when applied to this formal scheme of classification. But Hegel explicitly, consistently, and repeatedly denied that the world could be adequately comprehended solely in terms of static formal classifications. Hegel's vocabulary, as obscure as it is, aims to comprehend something quite different.

        The formal logic of genus, species, and individual implicitly assumes that the world consists of fixed entities standing in external relations to other fixed entities, sometimes sharing features in common, sometimes not. For Hegel, this framework is a necessary part of comprehending the world. But once we leave relatively simple mechanical systems behind, the elements of the world are what they are only in so far as they are internally and dynamically related to other elements within various complex and dynamic totalities (Oilman, 1971; 1993). And any given totality is what it is only because of the internal and dynamic relations through which it is connected with other totalities within yet more complex wholes. This makes the world a very complicated place. Hegel's usage of the terms "universal," "particular," and "individual" is perhaps the greatest attempt in the history of Western philosophy to comprehend this complexity. It is easy enough to mock this on the grounds that it doesn't make any sense when translated into the simplistic framework of formal and static classificatory systems. But this doesn't count as "escaping" from Hegel; it counts as avoiding him.

        The term "universal" is used by Hegel to refer to the principle of unity in a complex totality, for example, the unity of a human subject vis-à-vis her or his constitutive elements and dimensions. In so far as this unity encompasses all of the different moments that make up a person, it is all-inclusive. But in so far as a human subject is herself or himself a moment within a yet more complex totality (society, say), she or he is only relatively more inclusive. A given totality is itself particular in the sense of being unique vis-à-vis other totalities on the same level, as one human subject is a bare particular compared to others. Yet this totality also has particular moments that are specific to it, as the human subject is made up of a vascular system, a cognitive processing system, and so on. Finally, a complex totality includes individual elements, as individual organs can be distinguished within the human body. But it is also itself an individual totality alongside others. What Rosenthal dismisses as pernicious ambiguity thus can be seen as a serious attempt to comprehend the various forms of unity-in-difference making up the world's complexity.

        What does any of this have to do with Marx? Consider the circuit of capital. First we have money capital to be invested. It is then invested in commodities (means of production, labor power). At the conclusion of the production process we have new commodities in inventory. If they are sold for a profit, the money from the sale exceeds the initial money invested, allowing capital to be accumulated and a new circuit to commence. Where is capital in this M - C - (P) - C - M' circuit? It is not enough to say that capital is a genus with money capital, production capital, and commodity capital as its species. "Capital" is the principle of unity in an ongoing process that makes up a complex and dynamic totality. It has no separate existence apart from the particular forms it takes on in the circuit, and yet those particular forms are what they are only because they are united together in a single complex and dynamic whole. Just as we need categories to distinguish the different moments of this process, so too we need a category to capture the unity of this process. "Capital" is thus at once a universal,3 a unity-in-difference, and a particular vis-à-v is other modes of production. Hegel's Logic is designed to capture precisely this sort of this complexity.

        Of course the complexity of the world hardly justifies a methodology in which anything can be made to follow from anything else. But is dialectical method really more arbitrary than other ways of comprehending the world? For Hegel, the comprehension of a complex totality and the internal relations that make it up cannot be adequately completed in one take. Systematic dialectical theories begin with a simple and abstract comprehension of a given totality, and then proceed in a step-by-step fashion to ever more complex and concrete conceptualizations of the same totality. This rules out introducing new topics randomly. A transition to a new theoretical level can only be justified if it adds some new determination to the comprehension of the object realm at hand. Abrupt jumps among different levels of abstraction are thus also ruled out. Further, in so far as the linear progression of determinations brings us closer to a comprehension of the given totality in its concreteness and complexity, this provides a retrospective justification for the earlier stages of the theory. In this manner the method allows us to establish that the starting point of the theory was not merely a set of arbitrary assumptions.4

        Needless to say, any method can be employed more or less intelligently. But there is nothing inherent in dialectical method leading to greater theoretical arbitrariness than other approaches. Just the opposite. Dialectical method is explicitly designed to maximize the chances that the essential features of the object realm under consideration are taken into account in the most comprehensive manner possible.

         

        3. Was the Grundrisse a False Start?

        On one point I unequivocally agree with Rosenthal: the attempt to derive capital, a historically specific social form, from a concept of money common to various historical periods ought to be vehemently rejected. Pace Rosenthal, however, this is not a Hegelian project. For Hegel, "philosophy is its time apprehended in thoughts" (Hegel, 1967, 11). Hegel unequivocally insisted that the categories derived in his social philosophy apply to the modern age only. And this was not Marx's project in the Grundrisse either.

        In the introduction to the Grundrisse Marx states that in his methodology he "begins with a chaotic conception of the whole" and then moves

        analytically towards ever more simple concepts, from the imagined concrete towards ever thinner abstractions until Ihad arrived at the simplest determinations. From there the journey would have to be retraced until I had finally arrived at [the concrete], but this time not as the chaotic conception of a whole, but as a rich determination of many determinations and relations. . . . The concrete is concrete because it is the concentration of many determinations, hence unity of the diverse. (Marx, 1973, 100-101.)

        Marx's beginning point in the Grundrisse is therefore not some transhistorical abstraction, but the "simplest determination" of a "whole," that is, a historically given totality.

        The totality in question here is capitalism. The simplest and most abstract manner of conceiving capitalism as a whole is in terms of generalized commodity production. Commodity producing labor is privately undertaken, and may or may not prove to be socially wasted. The social necessity of this labor can only be established through successful exchange. If successful exchange depended upon each of the exchanging partners needing the particular commodity produced by the other, exchange would be limited and sporadic. Generalized commodity exchange thus requires a universal commodity representing general exchangeability. This universal commodity is money (Marx, 1973, 147, passim). The relevant notion of money here is not a transhistorical concept common to a great variety of modes of production. It is the historically specific form of money required by generalized commodity production. The subsequent derivation of capital from this category of money thus is not a jump from a transhistorical notion to a historically specific social form, as Rosenthal believes. It is a move from a level of abstraction in which it is merely implicit that a world where money is the universal commodity is a capitalist world, to a stage where this is explicit.

        A closer look at the very passage Rosenthal himself cites verifies this reading:

        Value, having become independent as such - or the general form of wealth – is capable of no other motion than a quantitative one; to increase itself... A determinate sum of money . . . can entirely suffice for a determinate consumption, wherein it ceases to be money. But as a representative of general wealth it cannot do so. ... Adhered to as wealth, as the general form of wealth, as value which counts as value, it is thus the constant drive to go beyond its quantitative limit. (Marx, 1973, 270.)

        Pace Rosenthal, the argument here is not that there is an immanent drive to go beyond any determinate limit inherent in the (transhistorical) concept of money. Marx's starting point in this argument is the given historical fact that value "has become independent as such," that is, money has become an end-in-itself, "the general form of wealth, value which counts as value." This is a relatively simple and abstract way of conceptualizing the complex totality that is capitalism, for this form of money is found only in generalized commodity production, that is, only in capitalism. Marx argues that if we presuppose a mode of production in which value has "become independent as such," then the economic order is based on a drive to accumulate money with no inherent limit. The transition here is not from a transhistorical concept of money to the historically specific mode of production that is capitalism. The transition is instead from a relatively simple and abstract categorization of capitalism (as a social order in which value "has become independent as such") to a more complex and concrete categorization of the same complex totality (as a social order in which the endless drive to accumulate holds sway).

        The systematic ordering of categories in the Grundrisse proceeding from "generalized commodity production" through "money as universal commodity" to "capital" is the same as the ordering found in Capital And the arguments used to justify the transition from one level of abstraction to the next are essentially the same as well. Capital, no less than the Grundrisse, is an attempt to reconstruct in thought the essential determinations ofcapitalism, moving systematically from its simplest and most abstract determinations to progressively more complex and concrete determinations (Smith, 1990, 1998). However much Marx rejected the substantive claims of Hegelian social theory, there is just no getting around the fact that he found the paradigm for this sort of theory in Hegel's systematic dialectics.

 

Tony Smith

 

Department of Philosophy

Iowa State University

443 Catt Hall

Ames, IA 50014

tonys@iastate.edu

        1 Other issues in this debate are discussed in detail in Smith, 1999.

        2 An extensive discussion of Marx's interpretation of Hegel is found in Smith, 1990, Chapter 1.

        3 As argued above, capital ultimately remains a "false" universal in the Hegelian sense of the term, since it is a force lording over individuals rather than a principle allowing individuals and groups to flourish within the community as a whole. Hegel himself used the term "essence" to refer to this sort of false universal.

        4 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. But he provides no reason whatsoever to regard the two as contradictory rather than complementary. He also appears to be unaware of the fact that the importance of retrospective justification is a commonplace in the literature on Hegel (see Hartmann, 1972; Pinkard, 1985; Arthur, 1998).