对罗森塔尔“逃离黑格尔”的评论

Comments on Rosenthal's "The Escape from Hegel"

Author(s): Paul Diesing

Source: Science & Society, Vol. 64, No. 3 (Fall, 2000), pp. 374-378

对罗森塔尔“逃离黑格尔”的评论

 

【374】

        在过去的两个世纪里，对黑格尔和马克思的各种解读层出不穷。特别是在过去的三十年中，解读马克思的方式的数量与日俱增。每种解读都部分地或在一开始基于解读者的思维方式、视角和关注点。这又反过来得到了其他具有相同思维方式的解读者的支持和确认。这种确认是相互的，具有相同思维方式的人们组成了一个学派，或者说是一个由志同道合的解读者组成的“影子学院”，他们确信自己的思维方式显然是正确的，而其他人的思维方式是错误的、肤浅的或愚蠢的。

        罗森塔尔在他的文章中将黑格尔的辩证法解读为一种非常坏的思维方式，一种生产十足谬论的不合逻辑的神秘化方法。马克思陷入了这种思维方式，并写下了大量蠢话，但他设法逐渐地逃离了这种思维方式，转而进入了另一种更好的、康德的思维方式。

        我对黑格尔—马克思辩证法的解读与此完全不同。我认为辩证法是一种非常好的思维方式，而且是马克思取得重大成就的基础。我想总结一下我对黑格尔—马克思辩证法的观点，并将其与罗森塔尔的观点相比较（更完整的阐述，见Diesing, 1999）。

        辩证法有两个对立的方面。其一就是黑格尔所称的“辩证法本身”("the dialectic it has in it")，也就是经济与其他社会制度的动力——供给与需求、资本与劳动、男性与女性、个体与社会等等，以及它们的相互关系。动力包括人们所做出或可能做出的对立、冲突、支持、主导权的转移、崩溃以及修复。这些动力在社会中产生持续的变革。第二个方面则是研究者试图理解并描述第一辩证法时的思维。因此【375】研究者的辩证法同样也有两个方面，一个是试探性探索的研究过程，而另一个则是对结果的体系化叙述。

        研究者的试探性探索是一组帮助定位其本质的可能行动，即部分地产生混乱、周期性、背离甚至是杂乱材料、表象的底层结构。当然，研究者和记录者也在一定程度上通过他们的期望和各自的敏锐感觉来塑造表象。我在这里列举一个可能的研究行动的例子：如果材料具有短周期性，那么就要寻找在两个对立者之间主导与从属的交替。接着尝试看看这个主导要素是如何使它的对立者开始运动并使它自己开始衰落的。接着寻找长期的背景要素。周期性的变革暗示了其他背景要素的存在。

        研究过程在试探性探索与材料之间来回切换，Mavroudeas (1999, 322)对这一点进行了很好地总结：“抽象辩证发展与具体历史现实之间存在着连续的辩证振荡(oscillation)，这一辩证振荡是通过一种连续的螺旋过程，且每一次都在更加复杂的层次上（假设有更多的规定的话）将以上两者联系起来的。”

        在哲学家绘制出预设的社会结构之后，就有必要以这样一种方式来呈现出这一结构，以表明各部分之间的相互联系。黑格尔从一组简单、抽象的对立者出发，描述它们，接着引入另一组对立者，且后者是前者经验内容的一部分，以此类推。《法哲学原理》就是从抽象的自由意志与不自由的物出发的，后者——通过，例如，在其上进行的劳动——转变为私有财产。人们通过私有财产来贯彻自己的意志。但人们也必须有能力通过赠与或出售来自由支配自己的私有财产，这就要求其他人与订立合约的存在。订立合约反过来需要法律与法律体系。最终，整个复杂结构得到了呈现。

        这一结果可能会被误解为一个草率的演绎过程，就像罗森塔尔所误解的那样。奥尔曼(Oliman, 1979, 177)(1)对辩证法的叙述方面进行了总结：“马克思的目的在于将他解释中的要素结合在一起，因为它们在现实中是相互关联的，并且是以一种似乎属于演绎体系的方式相互关联的。……[马克思评论道：]‘呈现在我们面前的就好像是一个先验的结构’。(2)”

        但这并非一个先验的演绎过程，它既是逻辑的又是描述性的：它解释了当代社会复杂的相互影响，有的人可能会将之称为多元决定。这一表述表明了各种过程之间的相互联系；例如它可以表明，与农业地区相比（截止1820年），城市中的青少年在独立与非独立之间的矛盾行为是如何在大量岗位需求与商业机会下而被推向独立的。数据显示，人们在城市中具有更强的独立性，例如核心家庭(3)，而在农村地区则具有更强的依赖性，例如父权制家庭。【376】它可以反映。它还可以表明社会的短期时间维度：停滞的旧制度、不断增长的财富、贫困与失业、农业工业化与农奴解放（这些例子全都来自于黑格尔）。

        相反，罗森塔尔的思维方式将逻辑论证与经验研究完全区分开来。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。例如，他断言：“我在这里提出的是，这条规律可以……进行先验论证” (306)；“马克思应当被看作经济科学领域的康德……马克思的论证最好理解为康德意义上的‘先验’论证”(303)。因此，他将关注点放在了黑格尔的逻辑学上，因为它就是黑格尔辩证法最清晰的例证。我将逻辑学视为一种优秀的试探性探索，一组可用于经验的思想运动。我赞同d'Hondt (1988)(4)的观点，他注意到逻辑学将社会变革的动力变成了一场概念的枯燥舞蹈：它“将生命转变为纯思的灰烬”。

        当罗森塔尔将他的逻辑论证概念应用于黑格尔上时，他找到了随意的神秘化与双关语。他从马克思这里发现，马克思还没有逃离黑格尔的影响。

        例如，罗森塔尔将注意力放在马克思的断言上：“我们在货币上已经看到，作为价值而独立化的价值……除了量上的变动，除了自身的增大外，不可能有其他的运动。”(296)他将其视为论证的结论，并说明这一论证是多么似是而非。马克思没能证明货币在量上应当是无限的(297)。假设存在着这样一种驱动力，为什么它在逻辑上不是趋向减少而非递增的(299)？如何才能从货币概念中“推导出”资本概念？

        但马克思是在描述一个辩证的历史过程。最初，特定的物品只是简单地交换。后来，当交换越来越复杂时，货币——贝壳或碎金属块——备用来衡量交易物品的价值。价值是所有具有可交换性的商品所共有的普遍，而这一普遍使它们具有可交换性；但不同的商品具有不同的价值。货币就像是衡量价值的标准度量衡，所以它必须是中立的、可计量的。当价值逐渐具有可度量性时，人们就能够按照等价交换的原则交换各种具有不同价值的物品了，或是能够接受用贝壳补足差价。

        后来，城镇中的一些人专门从事交换；他们整日进行买卖。要做到这一点，他们当然需要大量的货币来便利他们的长期交换。货币数量持续发生变化。现在，货币量，价值，已经独立化；商人可以将其看作一个独立实体，并能够看着它发生变化。当然，这种变化只是数量上的变化：货币量变得更多或更少。现在，商人会试图【377】推动哪种变化呢？逐渐减少的货币量会对未来的交换造成麻烦，而逐渐增加的货币量则会便利交换。所以商人会试图增加他们的货币量。但随着货币数量的扩张，交换也会扩张并多样化，商人就必须雇佣职员并支付工资。于是，增加货币——现在变成了利润——就成为了商人的紧要目标。货币已经转变为了资本，其可以用来雇佣其他人并赚取更多的货币。对于一个为存款支付利息并将其以更高利率贷出的银行家来说，他的主要目的就变成了增加货币供给。这位银行家将全部精力放在了货币上，放在了赚取货币上。

        今天同样的动力也依然存在。企业的利润必须越来越多，否则企业股票的价值就会下降，带宽成本将变得越来越高，科研将会削减，杠杆收购或其他的麻烦将会发生。随着企业为了生存而规模越来越大，企业的资产价值也永无止境地增长。因此，几个世纪以来，增加货币的压力与日俱增。同时，货币也不再是贝壳或金币，而变成了数据库中的数字。

        罗森塔尔正在寻找某种逻辑论证来证明货币应当扩张，而且货币可以推导出资本。当然，他并没能找到；这并非论证，而是对辩证过程的历史描述。因此，他将马克思的“一派胡言”、似是而非且神秘化的论证归咎于黑格尔。

        另一个例子：罗森塔尔对黑格尔最喜欢的普遍—特殊—个别辩证法进行调侃(292-4)。罗森塔尔将此视为一种演绎；而我相信黑格尔是在对一个非常常见的社会过程进行抽象，并指出它的动力作为未来研究的指引。现在我们思考一个案例：政策制定与执行。假设你是一名政治学家。由行政部门制定和决策的政策是一般性的；它适用于一整套实例。但要想成为现实，它就必须在某个地方实施。普遍建立在特殊之上，反之亦然。《谢尔曼反托拉斯法》制定了禁止企业合谋的政策，因为它阻碍了自由竞争；但当里根政府悄无声息地停止实施时，这一政策就暂时消失了。每一次实施都是特殊的，因此不同于其他所有实施。实际上，它可能与政策制定者最初的抽象意图相当不同(Pressman and Wildavsky, 1973)。但每一次实施都提供了一个可以模仿的案例，并根据不同情形而有所改变。如果整个一系列实施都围绕着一组与政策的适用性相关的复杂条件——且其他条件被排除在外——而逐渐融合，那么该政策就被确立为具体的规定性。这就是个别性，且在美国的政策制定中极少发生。更多的时候【378】，由于实施流程的多变性，政策变得模糊不定；没有人知道下一次它会如何实施。普遍已经消失，被特殊所毁灭，“政策”成为高薪律师的战场。或者变成一种象征性的伪装，就像20世纪70年代美国国家环境保护局的政策一样，这个机构假装正在实施自己的政策，以避免遭到环保主义者的起诉。

        罗森塔尔将这种普遍—特殊—个别辩证法称为“目的论的”。我不清楚他在说什么。政策当然是要被实施的；如果不被实施，它就不会存在。（这是目的论吗？）任何实施都必须考虑到政策制定者没有考虑到的特殊情况，因此特殊性确实背离了概念。但任何实施都是由政策确认的，并因此从属于它。反过来，政策的实际含义只有在它的实施中才变得清晰；这项在华盛顿的政策在奥克兰(292)开始“在它的另一种存在中认识它自己”。也就是说，政策制定者会找出他们的既定政策在实践中会产生什么结果。罗森塔尔(292)认为，“如果这没有多大意义的话”，人们“也不应当对此感到沮丧”。

        以上总结的两种思维方式是完全互斥的，以至于在它们之间做出任何沟通都是不可能的。沟通的一个先决条件是自己意识到自己的思维方式背后所预设的东西，以及这些预设如何与相对立的预设形成对立。在这之后，人们必须试着学会如何换另一种方式思考。

 

Paul Diesing

 

380 Springdale Drive

Bradenton, FL 34210-3023

 

        译者注：

        (1) 柏尔特·奥尔曼，美国马克思主义哲学家，也是一位与许多学派有过接触的辩证法学者（但并非体系辩证法或所谓的“新辩证法”学者，至少克里斯多夫·阿瑟并非将其视作体系辩证法学者）。奥尔曼的主要著作包括《异化：马克思关于资本主义社会中的人的概念》（有中译本）、《辩证法探究》和《辩证法的舞蹈：马克思方法的步骤》（有中译本），另有曾德华著的研究性著作《奥尔曼对马克思辩证方法的解读》。

        (2) 《马克思恩格斯全集》中文第二版第44卷第22页。

        (3) 即现代社会中常见的、由一对夫妇及其子女组成的小家庭，这一家庭结构形式区别于多偶制家庭以及大家庭。

        (4) 雅克·董特，法国著名哲学家，也是著名的黑格尔研究学者，著作包括《黑格尔传》（有中译本）等。

 

REFERENCES

 

        d'Hondt, Jacques. 1988. Hegel in His Time. Peterborough, Ontario: Broadview Press.

        Diesing, Paul. 1999. Hegel's Dialectical Political Economy: A Contemporary Application. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press.

        Mavroudeas, Stavros. 1999. "Regulation Theory: The Road from Creative Marxism to Postmodern Disintegration." Science & Society, 63:3 (Fall), 310-337.

        Oilman, Berteli. 1979. The Social and Sexual Revolution. Boston, Massachusetts: South End Press.

        Pressman, Jeffrey, and Aaron Wildavsky. 1973. Implementation: How Great Expectations in Washington Are Dashed in Oakland. Berkeley, California: University of California Press.

        Rosenthal, John. 1999. "The Escape From Hegel." Science àf Society, 63:3 (Fall), 283-309.

Comments on Rosenthal's "The Escape from Hegel"

 

        Interpretations of Hegel and Marx have multiplied steadily in the last two centuries. In particular, interpretations of Marx have proliferated in the last three decades. Each interpretation is based partly, or initially, on a reader's way of thinking, perspective, focus of attention. These in turn are supported and confirmed by other readers who think the same way. The confirmation is mutual, and those who think the same way form a school, or "invisible college" of like-minded interpreters, convinced that their way of thinking is obviously correct and others are wrong, superficial, or silly.

        In his article Rosenthal interprets Hegel's dialectic as a bad way of thinking, a method of illogical mystification producing utter nonsense. Marx got entrapped in this way of thinking and produced a lot of foolishness, but managed gradually to escape from it into a better, Kantian way.

        My interpretation of the Hegel-Marx dialectic is very different. I believe the dialectic is a good way of thinking and is the basis for Marx's major achievements. I wish to summarize my view of Hegel-Marx dialectic and contrast it with Rosenthal's (see Diesing, 1999, for a more complete account).

        There are two opposite aspects of the dialectic. The first is what Hegel calls "the dialectic it has in it," the dynamics of the economy and other social institutions - supply and demand, capital and labor, masculine and feminine, individuality and community, etc., and their interrelations. Dynamics include tensions, conflicts, supports, shifts of domination, breakdowns, and repairs which people make or could make. These dynamics produce continual changes in a society. The second aspect is the researcher's thinking in trying to understand and then describe the first dialectic. Thus the researcher's dialectic also has two aspects, a heuristic research process and a systematic presentation of the results.

        The researcher's heuristic is a set of possible moves to help locate the essence, the underlying structure that partly produces the messy, cyclical, diverging, even chaotic data, the appearance. Of course researchers and journalists also shape the appearance somewhat by their expectations and varied sensitivities. An example of possible research moves: if the data are short-run cyclical, look for alternations of domination and submission between two opposites. Then try to see how the dominating factor activates its opposite and produces its own downfall. Then look for long-run contextual factors. Changes in the cycles suggest other contextual factors.

        The research process moves between heuristics and data in a way that Mavroudeas (1999, 322) has summarized nicely: "There is a continuous dialectical oscillation between abstract dialectical development and concrete historical reality, relating them through a continuous spiral pattern, each time at more complex levels (assuming more determinations)."

        After the philosopher has worked out the presumed structure of the society, it is necessary to present this structure in such a way as to show the interconnections among the parts. Hegel begins with a simple, abstract pair of opposites, describes them, then brings in another pair that is part of the empirical context of the first pair, and so on. The Philosophy of Right begins with abstract free will and not-free things, which become property, for instance by performing labor on them. One uses property to carry out one's decisions. But one must also be able to get free of one's property, by gift or sale, and that requires other people and contracts. Contracts in turn require a legal enforcement process, which requires laws and a legal system. Eventually the whole complex structure is laid out.

        The result can be misinterpreted as a sloppy deductive process, as Rosenthal does. Oilman (1979, 177) summarizes the presentation aspect of the dialectic: "Marx's goal is to bring together the elements of his explanation as they are related in the real world and in such a manner that they seem to belong to a deductive system. . . . [Marx comments:] 'It may appear as if we had before us a mere a priori construction.'"

        But it is not an a priori deductive process. It is both logical and descriptive: it brings out the complex mutual influences of a contemporary society, the overdeterminations, one might say. The description shows the interconnections among various processes; for instance it can show how teenagers' ambivalent moves between dependence and independence are nudged toward independence in cities by the context of available jobs and business opportunities, in contrast with farming areas (as of 1820). The data will show more independence of various kinds in cities, such as nuclear families, and more dependence in farming areas, such as patriarchal families. It can also show the short-term temporal dimensions of society: stagnant old institutions, increasing wealth and poverty and unemployment, the industrialization of agriculture and freeing of serfs. (The examples are all from Hegel.)

        Rosenthal's way of thinking, in contrast, makes a sharp distinction between logical argumentation and empirical research. His conception of the dialectic is Kantian; he wants a non-empirical deductive process. For example, he asserts: "What I am proposing here is that this law can be demonstrated transcendentally . . ." (306); "Marx should be regarded as the Kant of economic science . . . Marx's arguments are best understood as 'transcendental arguments in the Kantian sense'" (303). Consequently he focuses on Hegel's Lógicas the clearest example of Hegel's dialectic. I regard the Logic as an advanced heuristic, a whole series of movements of thought that could be used empirically. I agree with d'Hondt (1988) who observed that the Logic changed the dynamic of social change into an arid dance of concepts: it "transformed life into the ashes of pure thought."

        When Rosenthal applies his conception of logical argument to Hegel he finds capricious mystification and pun-making. He finds that in Marx, too, in places where Marx had not yet escaped from Hegel's influence.

        For example, Rosenthal focuses on Marx's assertion: "We have seen, in the case of money, how value, having become independent as such ... is capable of no other motion than a quantitative one: to increase itself (296). He treats this as the conclusion of an argument, and shows how wildly specious the argument is. Marx doesn't prove that money ought to be quantitatively unlimited (297). And supposing there were such a drive, why couldn't it logically move toward diminishing rather than increasing itself? (299). And how can one "derive" the concept of capital from the concept of money?

        But Marx is describing a dialectical historical process. Originally particular goods were simply exchanged. Later, when exchanges got more complex, money - clamshells or pieces of metal - was used to measure the value of objects being exchanged. Value was the universal shared by all exchangeable commodities, making them exchangeable; but different commodities could have different values. Money was like a yardstick for measuring value, so it had to be neutral, quantitative. When value gradually became measurable, one could exchange various objects of different value that added up to equal values, or could receive clamshells to make up the difference.

        Later some people in towns became specialists in exchange; they bought and sold all day long. To do this they of course needed a stock of money to facilitate their constant exchanges. The stock varied in size continually. Now the stock, value, had become independent; the grocer could see it as a separate entity, and could watch it change. Of course the changes were quantitative: the stock got bigger and smaller. Now, what sort of change would the grocer try to help along? A diminishing stock would make trouble for future exchanges, and an increasing stock would facilitate exchanges. So the grocer would try to increase the stock. But as the stock of money expanded, exchanges could be expanded and diversified, and assistants had to be hired and paid. Now the goal of increasing money, now profit, would become urgent to the merchant. Money had become capital, the stock that could be used to hire people and make more money. And for a banker, who paid interest on deposits and loaned them for usury, the main purpose was to increase the money supply. The banker's whole focus was on money, that is on making money.

        The same dynamic continues today. Corporate profits must get ever larger, or corporate stock value will decline, loans will become more costly, research will be cut back, and a leveraged buyout or other trouble will occur. The asset value of corporations increases endlessly as corporations get ever larger in order to survive. Thus over the centuries the pressure to increase one's money has intensified. Also money is no longer clamshells or gold coins, but numbers in a data bank.

        Rosenthal is looking for some sort of logical argument to prove that money ought to expand, and that money implies capital. Of course he can't find it; it isn't an argument, but a historical description of a dialectical process. So he blames Hegel for Marx's "utter nonsense," his specious and mystifying argument.

        Another example: Rosenthal pokes fun at Hegel's favorite universalparticular-individual dialectic (292-4). Rosenthal treats this as a deduction; I believe Hegel was abstracting a very common social process and bringing out its dynamics, as a guide for future research. Now think of an instance: policy-making and implementation. Pretend you're a political scientist. A policy, as constructed and decided by an executive branch, is general; it applies to a whole set of instances. But to be actual it must be implemented somewhere. The universal depends on the particular, and vice versa. The Sherman Antitrust Act established a policy forbidding business collusion, because this inhibits free competition; but when the Reagan administration quietly stopped enforcement, the policy disappeared temporarily. Each implementation is particular, and thus different from all others. Indeed, it may be quite different from the original abstract intentions of the policymakers (Pressman and Wildavsky, 1973). But each implementation also provides an example which can be imitated, with changes adapted to different circumstances. If a whole series of implementations gradually coalesces around a complex set of conditions that are deemed relevant to the applicability of the policy, and other conditions are excluded, then the policy has become established as specifically determinate. That's individuality, which rarely happens in U. S. policymaking. More often a policy becomes vague and shifting because of the wide variety of implementation procedures; nobody knows how it will work in the next case. The universal has vanished, destroyed by the particulars, and the "policy" becomes a battleground for high-paid lawyers. Or it becomes a symbolic pretense, as with EPA policies of the early 1970s, which pretended to be implemented to avoid lawsuits by environmentalists.

        Rosenthal calls this universal-particular-individual dialectic "teleological." I don't know what he means. A policy is intended to be implemented, of course; without implementation it doesn't exist. (Is that teleology?) And any implementation must take account of particular circumstances that policymakers didn't have in mind, so particularity does diverge from the concept. But any implementation is justified by the policy, and so is subordinate to it. Conversely, the actual meaning of the policy becomes clear only in its implementations; the policy, in Washington, comes to "know itself in its other being," in Oakland (292). That is, the policymakers find out what their intended policy comes to in practice. One "should not be dismayed if this does not make much sense" to Rosenthal (292).

        The two ways of thinking summarized above are so incompatible that any dialog between them would seem to be impossible. One precondition for dialog would be a self-awareness of the assumptions underlying one's own way of thinking, and how they contrast with opposite assumptions. After that, one must try to learn to think the other way as well.

 

Paul Diesing

 

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Bradenton, FL 34210-3023