From Hegel to Marx and Back – Two Sketches of a Normative
Ontology of the Human Life-Form
Heikki Ikäheimo
UNSW Australia, Sydney
h.ikaheimo@unsw.edu.au
One of the strands of the most recent debates on Marx concerns his
relationship, and possible philosophical debt, to Hegel, and the recently
intensively discussed Hegelian theme of recognition is one of the angles from
which Marx has been interpreted.1 My aims in this paper are twofold. First, I
wish to lay out what I think are the main elements of Hegel’s concept of
recognition, and spell out how it relates to another, even more fundamental
concept in Hegel’s Philosophy of Spirit, namely the concept of ‘concrete
freedom’. Secondly, I aim to provide a clear picture of how exactly the concept,
or concepts of recognition, as well as the Hegelian concept of concrete
freedom figure in what is probably the most prominent text for a reading of
Marx from this point of view, namely the Comments on James Mill written in
Paris in 1844 (Comments from here on). Here I wish to clarify what exactly of
Hegel’s conception is present and what remains absent in Marx’s Comments.
Eventually, my aim is not merely scholarly, but also systematic since I believe
an idea that both the old Hegel and the young Marx shared, namely that of a
normative ontology of the human life-form—in which the concepts of
recognition and concrete freedom are central—is something worth a serious
philosophical scrutiny and perhaps even rehabilitation. In this presentation
however, rather than trying to defend or develop this idea further, I will
concentrate merely on reconstructing the two articulations of it by Hegel and
Marx.
1. The Hegelian foundations
The starting point for uncovering the Hegelian background of Marx’s
Comments is Hegel’s idea of “spirit” (Geist) and its “essence” (Wesen). Part of
1
See also Brudney, Chitty, Quante, Schmidt am Busch et al. …
1
what Marx provides in his text is a reformulation of Hegel’s normative
essentialism on spirit in apparently more naturalist terms that should avoid
what Marx sees as the rejectable metaphysical ballast of Hegel’s thought. The
best short translation for what the term ‘spirit’ stands for in Hegel is, I believe,
‘the human life-form’, or to use a more exact expression, ‘the life-form of
human persons’.2
In the introduction to Philosophy of Spirit Hegel talks of spirit as the
“essence of man/the human” (Mensch), and “freedom” as the “essence of
spirit”. 3 In both cases Hegel means ‘essence’ in the normative Aristotelian
sense in which something can realize its essence to different degrees, and the
more it realizes it the better and “truer” it is. A good friend (an example Hegel
uses elsewhere) is a “true” friend in the sense of realizing the essence or
“concept” of friendship, or acting in ways that are consistent with whatever it
is that being a friend essentially consists of. In saying that “spirit” has an
essence Hegel is of course saying something much more ambitious than this
everyday normative essentialism to which we all are at least implicitly
committed; what he is saying is that all of the essential structures or relations
distinctive of the spiritual realm, in contrast to the merely natural realm, have,
when looked at from a high enough level of abstraction, the same essence. By
saying that this essence of all distinctively spiritual structures or relations is
freedom, Hegel is saying that for these phenomena to realize their essence is
for them to realize or instantiate freedom. By saying the essence of man/the
human is spirit, Hegel is simply saying that it is these phenomena, structures
and relations that distinguish humans as not-merely-natural beings from ‘mere
animals’. Translated in contemporary philosophical terms, Hegel is speaking of
personhood, and saying that humans are distinguished from the rest of what
there is by being—potentially or actually—persons. Being ‘spiritual’, or in
My talk of normative essentialism, spirit and personhood is strongly influenced by Pirmin
Stekeler-Weithofer on the one hand, and by Michael Quante on the other hand. Though my
conceptualization of recognition differs from that of Axel Honneth, and though I pursue a
universalist anthropological line of argument on recognition that Honneth has distanced
himself from (see Ikäheimo 2014, chapter 6), my debt to Honneth’s work on recognition
should be clear.
3 See ENZ3, §382, EW, 3-5, and Ikäheimo 2014, chapter 4.1.
2
2
other words being persons, is a potentiality in humans that they can actualize to
various degrees, and the degree that they actualize or realize spirituality or
personhood is essentially the degree of their freedom.
But what exactly does Hegel mean by ‘freedom’ here? He makes clear
that he is not talking about freedom in the “abstract” sense of freedom from
determination, but rather in the “concrete” sense of freedom in relation to
what necessarily determines one.4 The idea of freedom from determination by
something whose determination is essential to what one is is simply nonsense,
and thus the only real freedom with regard to such essential determinants—
such as internal and external nature, social institutions, and other humans—is
freedom ‘in relation to’ or ‘with regard to’ them.5
Hegel conceives of the structure of concrete freedom with the concept
of “absolute negativity”, “negation of negation”6 or “double negation”7, where
the first ‘negation’ means differentiation or distinction from something that
determines one as one’s opposite, and the second negation the overcoming of
its alienness or hostility to one. Another formula for concrete freedom is
“unity of unity and difference”,8 and metaphorically Hegel characterizes it as
“being with oneself in otherness”, and more exactly as “being conscious of
oneself in otherness”.9 In consciousness objects are distinguished from, and
determine the subject, and overcoming the alienness or hostility of the objects
is the coming about of concrete freedom with regard to them, or
“consciousness of oneself” in them.
Hegel uses the term ‘recognition’ (Anerkennung) in a philosophical sense
about relations that humans have to each other on the one hand, and to social
EW, 14.
If something does not determine one essentially or necessarily, and if its quality of determination
is harmful, then a possible solution is liberation from it or in other words “abstract freedom”
from it.
6 E3, §382.
7 Hegel 2010, 531.
8 The second order unity (or Identität) referred by the first term in this formulation is not
simply co-existence but a relation that determines both the exact nature of the first order
unity and of the difference.
9 On the difference between the two latter formulations, see Ikäheimo 2011. In short:
“consciousness” or intentionality is essential to the way in which humans can be concretely
free to a much greater degree than mere animals.
4
5
3
institutions on the other hand. Let us call the first sense of recognition
(borrowing Ludwig Siep) the ‘horizontal’ sense or direction of recognition and
the second the ‘vertical’ sense or direction. The most famous passage in
Hegel’s ouvre where he discusses recognition, or uses the term in a systematical
sense, is the chapter ‘Self-consciousness’ in the 1807 Phenomenology of Spirit. But
the true role and full significance of recognition is only revealed in Hegel’s
mature Philosophy of Subjective Spirit in which he similarly discusses
recognition in a chapter titled ‘Self-consciousness’, only this time not
constrained by the aim and method of an introduction to philosophy but
simply as part of a philosophy of the human person. To clarify what
‘recognition’ means in this text, we need to make the following conceptual
distinctions, in addition to the just mentioned distinction between the
horizontal and vertical senses or directions of recognition,.
(A) First, as to horizontal recognition between persons, we need to
distinguish between ‘institutionally mediated’ and ‘purely intersubjective’
senses of recognition. 10 A natural way to read the recognition-relationship
between the illustrative figures of the master and bondsman that Hegel uses in
the Self-consciousness-chapter is to read it in the purely intersubjective register,
which means, not mediated by social institutions. After all, Hegel is describing,
at least at the beginning of the story, extremely primitive forms of
intersubjectivity between desire-driven animals and the development of their
intentionalities through a collision between them. 11 What he is basically
discussing is the birth of human sociality or social forms, and hence
presupposing social institutions as given that would mediate the relation seems
out of the question. Nevertheless, some interpreters have in fact read the story
also in the institutional register, 12 and of course talking of masters and
bondsmen or slaves does suggest such a reading, as slavery in the real world is
For a closer reading of Hegel’s text from the point of view of these and a few other central
distinctions, see Ikäheimo 2014, chapter 4.
11 See E3, §429-431.
12 See Honneth xxxx, and Redding xxxx.
10
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an institution. 13 To read the recognition-relation of the master and slave or
bondsman as an institutionally mediated one means reading the master and
slave as recognizing each other as bearers of institutionally defined positions
or roles, and thus as bearers of ‘deontic powers’ (to borrow John Searle) of
which the positions of a master and a slave thought so consist of. It seems to
me that Hegel was content to leave room for both readings (however awkward
as this may be in terms of the architectonic of the Philosophy of Spirit as a
whole).
(b) Secondly, we need to be more exact on what exactly recognition in
the purely intersubjective, i.e. not-institutionally mediated sense is in the text.
Here we need to distinguish between two senses, or if you want two
dimensions of recognition, and somewhat less explicitly a third one. The first
dimension is a ‘deontological’ one of the bondsman recognizing the master as
his master in the sense of authority on the rules or norms of co-existence and
thus of the bondsman’s actions.14 On the other hand, the simple fact that to
be put in practice any rule needs to be applied in the concrete case and
circumstance at hand, and that this requires interpretation, means that also the
slave in fact has some minimal ‘technical’ authority in the relationship. In
executing the master’s commands the slave determines their exact content in
the given case. And as Hegel puts it, the master must “command reasonably”15
to a degree that enables executing his commands in reality, and though Hegel
does not say this explicitly, part of what this clearly means is that the master
must recognize the slave as having technical authority to interpret them and
thus
give
them
exact
content.
The second dimension of purely intersubjective recognition operative
in Hegel’s text is an ‘axiological’ one of both the bondsman and the master
caring for the other’s well-being. As Hegel writes, the master must “keep the
There are of course many different kinds of slavery, or slavery-like institutions or
institutionalized norm-systems, such as the indenture of America in … which was basically
temporally limited contractual slavery … Hegel’s discussion is intentionally abstract enough
to leave room for a variety of such details. Also, his way of using sometimes ‘slave’ (Sklav),
sometimes ‘bondsman’ (Knecht) serves the same purpose of avoiding misplaced concreteness.
14 E3, §435.
15 GK, 343: “Whoever wants to command must do so reasonably, for only he who
commands reasonably will be obeyed.”
13
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bondsman alive”, and thus be at least minimally concerned for his life and
well-being, for otherwise he has no slave and is no master. 16 On the other
hand, the whole point of slavery is of course that the slave or bondsman
provides through his work for the master’s needs. Would the slave fail to do
so, he would suffer himself, and thus he has very good reason to be concerned
for the master’s well-being.
The third dimension of recognition operative in the story is, though in
a rational reconstruction fairly obvious, somewhat less explicit in the text. This
is the ‘contributive’ dimension of the master valuing the slave or bondsman as
contributing to his ends or well-being. Using something as means to an end
that one values of course implies valuing the means, in this case the slave or
bondsman, instrumentally. And in fact the presence of the second dimension
of purely intersubjective recognition, concern for the other’s well-being,
follows logically from the presence of this third dimension: the master is only
concerned for the slave’s well-being insofar as he regards the slave as
instrumentally valuable for his own well-being.
(C) This takes us to the next distinction, one which is essential for
understanding exactly how relations of recognition realize or actualize
concrete freedom and thus the human essence according to Hegel. This is the
distinction between ‘conditional’ and ‘unconditional’ forms or modes of purely
intersubjective recognition, and it applies on all of the three dimensions just
presented.
On the deontological dimension there is, on the one hand, the
conditional mode of taking the other as an authority on one out of prudential
reasons, that is, in so far as this is necessary for survival (as in the slave’s case
whom the master can kill at will), or insofar as this is otherwise useful for one
(as in the master’s case who wants to see his commands executed skilfully by
the slave). On the other hand, there is the unconditional mode of taking
someone as having authority on one without such conditioning through selfinterest, which is what we might call ‘respect’.
16
E3, §434.
6
In the axiological dimension the distinction is between, on the one
hand, conditional or instrumental concern for the other’s well-being that both
the master and the slave have for each other, and, on the other hand, the
unconditional or intrinsic mode in which both care about their own lives and
well-being, or in other words ‘love’ (and thus in the self-directed case ‘selflove’).
Finally, on the contributive dimension there is an analogical distinction
between the master’s instrumental valuing of the slave as a contributor to his
ends or well-being, and a non-instrumental or non-instrumentalizing mode of
valuing someone as a contributor. The latter is what we call ‘gratitude’.17
How is all of this then related to the concept of concrete freedom
which is the more general conceptual background of Hegel’s thinking on
recognition? Hegel describes in the final sub-chapter of ‘Self-consciousness’,
titled ‘General self-consciousness’ (Allgemeine Selbstbewusstsein), the structure of
fulfilled mutual recognition as a structure in which each subject knows “one’s
self in the other”, or, which means here the same, in which each subject is
“absolutely independent”, and yet “does not differentiate itself from the
other”. 18 What he is talking about is concrete freedom as the unity of
difference and unity of persons, or mutual consciousness of oneself in the
independent other person or persons. Hegel gives scant detail on how exactly
this relates to recognition in general, or to the directions, dimensions and
modes of recognition at work in his text in particular. He also says nothing
explicit about vertical recognition in ‘General self-consciousness’, though it
clearly must be seen as implicitly present there since what he is describing is
the recognitive basic structure of concretely free social life which for him of
involves institutions (the topic of his Philosophy of Objective Spirit), and thus
This distinction is hinted at in the following passage from Hegel’s lectures: “The
instrument [i.e. the slave or servant] also serves the master willingly however, being implicitly
free self-consciousness, and the servant's will therefore has to be made favourably inclined
toward the master, who has to care for him as a living being, take care of him as an implicitly
free will. By this means, the servant is brought into the community of providing, so that he
also has a purpose, counts, is to be honoured, is a member of the family.” (GK, 343)
18 #436.
17
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vertical relations between individuals and institutions. 19 The normative or
evaluative principle of concrete freedom clearly applies both in horizontal and
vertical relations, both of which can realize concrete freedom to various
degrees.
Importantly, realizations of concrete freedom can be less than perfect
in two opposite ways, corresponding to the two moments of concrete freedom,
unity and difference. This is to say that there can be either not enough
difference or independence, or alternatively not enough unity between the
relata. Hegel’s ‘master’ exemplifies an almost complete lack of independence
of norms from the subject, or in other words a unity without appropriate
difference (which is therefore also an inappropriate unity): the norms
governing the master-bondsman-relationship are almost completely dependent
on the master (except for the bondsman’s ‘technical’ authority to interpret
them) and to the extent that they are, the master is actually not a normgoverned being. The bondsman on the contrary exemplifies a radical alienness
or hostility of the norms whereby one’s life is governed or determined, or in
other words inappropriate difference without appropriate unity (which is
therefore also an inappropriate difference). Both of these figures exemplify
thus deficiencies of concrete freedom in relation to norms and thus deficient
realizations of spirituality or personhood, and the opposite qualities of their
respective deficiencies are mutually complementary.
What does concrete freedom in the vertical relation to social norms and
institutions (consisting of social norms)20 then consist of? In answering this
question it is important to see the connection of the vertical direction of
recognition to the horizontal. Concrete freedom in vertical relations consist,
first, of being governed by norms that one takes to have independence from
oneself, and this implies recognizing other persons horizontally as having
Ref. …
Hegel hints at the vertical direction in his discussion of the tyrant Pisistratus (xx) as
standing ‘above’ and thus vertically related to the Athenians who we related to each other
horizontally. I am talking of institutions here as constellations of social norms which
determine institutional roles consisting of deontic powers (rights, duties etc.) and which
hence only exist insofar as there are persons in these roles. Since even language and thus
language-based thinking are activities governed by social norms, it should be clear that the
relationship of persons to social norms and institutions is not external.
19
20
8
authority on the norms and thus on oneself. This is the moment of difference,
or of being determined by something other to oneself, namely (vertically)
norms or institutions, and (horizontally) other persons. Secondly, concrete
freedom in vertical relations involves finding the norms to be in
correspondence with what one finds rational, and/or conducive to one’s wellbeing, and/or embodying also one’s own authority. This, again, is internally
connected to horizontal relations to the others who have or share authority on
the norms, in the sense of confidence that they have concern also for one’s life
or well-being and/or that they recognize one as sharing authority with them.
This is the moment of unity, or of being conscious of oneself in the otherness
that determines one, which is to say (vertically) in the norms and institutions,
and (horizontally) in the other persons as co-authorities of those norms and
institutions.
But note now something important. Based on what I have said so far,
concrete freedom in social life is still compatible with merely conditional
recognition between individuals in the sense of mutual attribution of authority
merely out of fear or prudential considerations, with mutual merely instrumental
or prudential concern for the well-being of others, and with mutual merely
instrumental valuing of the other as useful for oneself, or in other words
mutual ‘instrumentalization’. Such a picture of social life and acceptance or
recognition of social norms and institutions, based solely on mutual fear,
mutual self-interest and mutual instrumentalization seems like an ugly
(Hobbesian) caricature of the ‘ethical’ unity or Sittlichkeit whose structure
Hegel is describing in ‘General self-consciousness’, one which is supposed to
be the fulfilment of concrete freedom and thus the normative essence of
human being. Surely this cannot be what Hegel meant, or not at least all of it.
(Note that ‘symmetry’ of recognition does not solve this problem.) We can
now see why it is so important to distinguish between the conditional and the
unconditional modes of purely intersubjective horizontal recognition. It is purely
intersubjective recognition in the unconditional mode—respect, love and
9
gratitude21—that actualize(s) concrete freedom in horizontal relations to the
fullest extent.
In knowing that one is the object of any of the unconditional attitudes
of recognition one experiences oneself as related to independent other
subjects whose intentionality however “affirms” 22 one so that one can be
“fully” “conscious of oneself”23 in them and thus reconciled with them. Why
is it the unconditional attitudes that realize or actualize concrete freedom and
thus ‘spirit’ “fully”, or to the fullest extent, and in what ways does it make
sense to say that this amounts to actualization of personhood, as I have
suggested? The reason is that unlike conditional attitudes of recognition, the
unconditional attitudes mirror the attitudes of self-recognition that full-fledged
psychological persons have towards themselves: it is constitutive of flourishing
or full-fledged psychological personhood to be concerned of one’s own wellbeing not merely instrumentally but intrinsically, to take one’s judgments and
will to have an unconditional claim to authoritativeness, and to conceive of
oneself, not as a mere instrument, but a free contributor to shared life with
others. In knowing that one is the object of such attitudes of unconditional
recognition by another subject one can experience oneself as “fully” “affirmed”
by his intentionality, and in this sense be “fully” “conscious of oneself” in an
independent other. Formulated more generally, unconditional attitudes of
recognition maximally realize the specifically human capacity for collective
autonomy, including the norm-governed activities of linguistic discourse and
language-based thinking, and they enable humans maximally to grasp each
other as fully independent other persons that are irreducible to one’s own
practical perspective, and thus themselves in a motivationally effective way as
singular persons among many, and yet so that they experience themselves and
Hegel explicitly mentions in ‘General Self-consciousness’ only “love” of these. But he does
also mention “friendship” which typically contains respect and gratitude as well. See E3,
§436: “This form of consciousness constitutes not only the substance of all the essential
spirituality of the family, the native country, the state, but also of all virtues, - of love,
friendship, valour, honour, fame.”
22 E3, §436: “Universal self-consciousness is the affirmative knowing [affirmative Wissen] of
one's self in the other self.”
23 §436: “master who confronted the bondsman was not yet fully free, for he was not fully
conscious of himself in the other”.
21
10
the others as united in reason, interests and motivation. One can therefore call
the unconditional purely intersubjective attitudes of recognition also “fully
personifying” attitudes in that they maximally realize personhood, or in
Hegel’s terminology “(subjective) spirit”.
It is also such fully free ethical “unity of unity and difference” in
horizontal relations, defined by full mutual personification that forms the
intersubjective foundation of a freely and rationally authorized institutional
order that maximally reflects the authority, interests and well-being of those
whose life it governs. In other words, there is a close connection between
concrete freedom in horizontal relations on the one hand, and concrete
freedom in vertical relations to the social institutions or the society as a whole
on the other hand. Knowing that my fellow members of society do not accept
the institutional structures of our shared life merely out of fear for others
(including me), or otherwise for merely prudential reasons (perhaps because
they believe the institutions are a useful tool for exploiting others), but that
they obey them also, at least to some degree, out of genuine respect for others
(including me) and/or genuine non-instrumental concern for the well-being of
others and/or grateful appreciation for their contributions, is essential for my
capacity to have trust and to feel at home in the shared social world, and thus
to be concretely free in it.
2. Recognition and concrete freedom in Marx’s Comments on James
Mill
In his critical discussion of Hegel in (the third manuscript of the) Paris
Manuscripts Marx shows no acknowledgement of these themes in Hegel, yet
they are present (as an ‘unconscious Hegelianism’, partly received through
Feuerbach who himself was astonishingly unconscious of what he got from
Hegel) in the Comments on James Mill. In what follows, I will explicate which of
the senses of recognition distinguished above are present in Marx’s discussion
of capitalism and communism in the Comments, and say a few words on how
11
recognition-relations distinctive of communism, as Marx conceives of them,
relate to the concept of concrete freedom.
Recognition in capitalism
Let us first take a look at how, or in which senses recognition is present in the
alienated conditions of capitalism according to Marx in the Comment. At least
five interrelated senses can be discerned.
(1) First of all, in capitalism individuals relate to each other, and
recognize each other as “property-owners”, 24 which is to say bearers of
property and thus the right to property—or in other words as “persons”.25 As
I have already used the term ‘personhood’ in discussing Hegel, and done so in
senses of the term other than Marx’s, this requires some clarification. In short,
we need to distinguish between three different senses of ‘personhood’— the
institutional, the psychological, and the intersubjective.26 Marx uses the term in what I
call the institutional sense in which to be a person is to be a bearer of some basic
rights and other deontic powers in an institutional system, paradigmatically the
right to life and property. (‘Legal personhood’ is the more often used term for
this.) Recognition between individuals as property-owners—the capitalist
owning the means of production, the worker only his own labour force—is,
following the distinctions that I made in the previous section, institutionally
mediated recognition of the other as a bearer of rights and other institutionally
defined deontic powers defining of personhood in this institutional sense. The
institutional sense in which Marx exclusively speaks of personhood in the
Comments, and which is also what Hegel means by “personhood” in the section
‘Abstract Right’ of his Philosophy of Right, is not to be confused with
personhood in the psychological sense which consists of psychological
capacities distinguishing human persons from simpler animals, and which on
Hegel’s account is genetically and constitutively dependent on intersubjective
recognition. It is also not to be confused with personhood in the
ÖpM, 196; CW3, 217.
ÖpM, 201; CW3, 221.
26 See Ikäheimo 2014, chapters 2 and 7.
24
25
12
intersubjective sense which consists of the status or significances in light of
which individuals see each other when they have attitudes of (unconditional)
purely intersubjective recognition towards each other.
(2) The second, closely related, sense of recognition present in Marx’s
description of capitalism is what he calls “economic recognition”: 27 it is
recognition of the other as a contract-partner in giving and taking money as
credit, and in particular as having the capacity to pay back (which in capitalism
is in Marx’s view perversely elevated into a moral virtue). 28
(3) Though Marx does not discuss this explicitly, it is clear that both of
the just mentioned forms of horizontal, institutionally mediated recognition
also imply vertical (upwards) recognition, by the individuals, of the institutional
system that upholds the rights, duties and other deontic powers at stake, or in
other words of the state. (More metaphorically speaking the ‘downwards’
‘recognition’ of individuals as persons in this sense by the state is of course
also involved here.)
(4) Fourthly, the institutional order of private ownership and
contractual relations is accompanied in capitalism by the conditional mode of
the axiological dimension of the purely intersubjective horizontal recognition,
or in other words by instrumental concern for the well-being of others. For
the worker to be able to satisfy his own needs which are an unconditional
concern for him, he needs to offer the capitalist something the capitalist wants
or needs, which is to say his own labour force. The capitalist, on his part, is
concerned of delivering something to the market that consumers need for
satisfying their needs. Each is thus unconditionally or intrinsically concerned
for his or her own needs and well-being, and conditionally or instrumentally
concerned for the needs of other members of the society, since responding to
them is instrumental for satisfying those of oneself. As Marx puts it, “what
gives your need of my article it’s value, worth and effect for me is solely your object,
the equivalent of my object.”29 In other words, your needs have an “effect” on
ÖPM, 450; CW3, 215-6: ”economic appreciation...” in the translation.
Ref…
29 ÖpM, 205; CW3, 226.
27
28
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me, or ‘move’ me only insofar as I can by utilizing them (by satisfying them
with my work or “object”, or by paying a price for your “object” that you do
not want to or cannot refuse) satisfy my own needs.
(5) Fifthly and finally, the just mentioned instrumental concern for the
satisfaction of the needs or well-being of others is clearly a consequence of the
fact that individuals value each other as useful or necessary for their own life
or well-being, just as Hegel’s master values the slave. Hence, also the
instrumental mode of the contributive dimension of purely intersubjective
conditional recognition is a necessary element of human relations in capitalism.
Recognition in communism
Marx’s description of the non-alienated conditions of communism which
realize the “species-essence” (Gattungswesen) of humanity is extremely short and
sketchy, but he says enough for us to be able to reconstruct the recognitive
basic elements. According to Marx, human relations in communism are
characterized by two, and only two, forms of recognition.
(1) Firstly, in contrast to conditions of ownership, production and
consumption organized in capitalist terms where individuals as workers,
capitalists and consumers only (afford to) care about each other’s well-being
instrumentally and thus conditionally, in communism human life is reproduced
by work done in order to satisfy the needs of others, and motivated, at least in
part, by non-instrumental or unconditional concern for their well-being. 30
What is at stake is hence the unconditional mode of the axiological dimension
of purely intersubjective recognition, or in other words love.
(2) Secondly, working freely and, at least partly, out of altruistic motives
to satisfy the needs of others, or in other words contributing to their wellbeing freely and at least partly motivated by love triggers in the beneficiaries a
moral response, an attitude of a particular kind that Marx somewhat
CW3, 228 (etsi kohtia muualta). Unconditional concern for others as motive is not the only
important subjective feature of non-alienated work. Realizing the workers’ individual
capacities is another: “the specific nature of my individuality […] would be affirmed in my
labour […]” (idem).
30
14
misleadingly calls in the last page of the manuscript “love”.
31
Marx’s
conceptual mistake is easy to correct by noting that love, as I have suggested,
is in his picture actually the motive for producing, and thus reproducing
human life, and that the response to free and loving contributions is, more
exactly, gratitude.
A general way in which Marx refers to the difference between recognition in
capitalism and recognition in communism is by saying that whereas in capitalism humans
recognize each other as “persons”, in communism they recognize each other as “humans”. 32
What does this mean? It is closely related to Marx’s talk of “mediation” (Vermittlung), and
more exactly of two ‘bad’ forms of mediation in human relations characteristic of capitalism,
and one ‘good’ form characteristic of communism. The bad forms of mediations are, firstly,
mediation by the “alien mediator” of money 33 and more generally the market as an
institution with its rules or norms of exchange between individuals as “persons”. 34 The
second bad form of mediation is mediation by self-interest. Marx expresses the latter
mediation by talking of the “object” or in other words of the property or “products” of the
other as my primary aim mediating or conditioning my concern for the other’s need for my
property or products. 35
The good form of mediation characteristic of communism is one in which where
“man himself’ – and more exactly “as man”36 – is “the mediator of man”?37 First of all, he
means by it the absence of the two bad forms of mediation through money and more
generally norms and institutions on the one hand, and through self-interest on the other
hand. But secondly, and more positively, he is operating with the idea found already in Hegel
(but one which Marx probably got from Feuerbach, who in his part probably got it from
ÖpM, 207; CW3 228: “I […] would know myself to be confirmed both in your thought
and your love.”
32 Idem. See also CW3, 213: “[…]not human relationship[…]”; “Since men engaged in
exchange do not relate to each other as men […]”. The German word is “Mensch”, which
the English translators translate either as “human” or “man”, depending on the context.
33 CW3, 212.
34 "To the economist, production, consumption and, as the mediator of both, exchange or
distribution, are separate activities." (221)
35 "exchange is necessarily mediated by the object which each side produces and possesses";
"[o]ur respective products, therefore, are the means, the mediator, the instrument, the
acknowledged power of our mutual needs." (CW3, 226). The two bad mediations are united
in the following formulation: "In credit, the man himself, instead of metal or paper, has
become the mediator of exchange, not however as a man, but as the mode of existence of
capital and interest." (CW3, 215)
36 "In credit, the man himself, instead of metal or paper, has become the mediator of
exchange, not however as a man, but as the mode of existence of capital and interest." (CW3,
215, emphasis H.I.)
37 See the previous footnote.
31
15
Hegel, though he never acknowledging the source38), namely the idea of consciousness or
knowledge of oneself in the other. On the one hand, as Marx puts it, an individual as
producer “knows” himself “confirmed (bestätigt) in the thought and love” 39 of other
individuals as beneficiaries of his work. On the other hand, as a beneficiary of the work of
another an individual is conscious of the other, a worker or producer as a “completion of
[his, the beneficiary’s] own essential nature and as a necessary part” of herself. In other
words, as a producer I am conscious of myself in you in the sense of confirmed by your
gratitude towards me, and as the beneficiary you are conscious of yourself in me in the sense
of confirmed by my love towards you and thus by my loving contributions to your wellbeing. (And the other way around, to the extent that both of us are both contributors and
beneficiaries.) This, knowledge or consciousness of oneself confirmed, or affirmed by the
unconditional recognitive intentionality of the other is what Hegel calls in the first sentence
of the chapter ‘General self-consciousness’ (mutual) “affirmative knowing (affirmative Wissen)
of one’s self in the other self” and that he identifies with universal self-consciousness, or in
other words with concrete freedom in interhuman relations.
In brief, Marx’s short description of non-alienated social life, in fact, whether
or not Marx was conscious of this (and probably he wasn’t) operates with the
(or Hegel’s) concept of concrete freedom as “self-consciousness in otherness”,
and it is exactly horizontal relations exemplifying unconditional purely
intersubjective recognition and thus concrete freedom that for Marx actualize
the “species essence”. –This all looks now very much like a rephrasing of
Hegel’s normative essentialism on spirit and humanity.
See §36 of his Philosophy of the Future (published in 1843), where Feuerbach criticizes the
“old philosophy” and thus Hegel of holding that “I am abstract, a merely thinking being to
which the body does not belong”. Assuming that Feuerbach read and understood Hegel’s
Philosophy of Subjective Spirit, including the Anthropology where hegel extensively
discusses the essential embodiment of the human mind, and the Self-consciousness-chapter
where he discusses the intersubjective mediation of the structure of consciousness or
intentionality defining human persons, Feuerbach could not have made such claims in good
faith. (There is evidence that Feuerbach at least attended Hegel’s lecture on “Philosophy of
Spirit – Or Anthropology and Psychology” in 1825 [ks. JP:n lahettama pdf, kysy lahde]. A
friendlier hypothesis is that Feuerbach did not fully comprehend what he read (and heard)
from Hegel, yet it left impressions on him which he later developed on his own, forgetting
their origin.
39 “I would have been for you the mediator between you and the species, and therefore
would become recognized and felt by yourself as a completion of your own essential nature
and as a necessary part of yourself, and consequently would know myself to be confirmed
both in your thought and your love. (CW3, 228)
38
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3. What is missing from Hegel’s model in Marx?
Yet, it is clearly only a partial rephrasing since as we can already see, Marx’s
picture of such “truly human relations” lacks important ingredients of Hegel’s
conception of relations that actualize the essence. I will end by drawing
attention to these conspicuous lacunae in Marx’s model. Firstly, what is
completely
lacking
from
Hegel’s
three-dimensional
conception
of
intersubjective recognition in Marx, is the deontological dimension. This is a
serious deficiency since one of the least controversial distinctive features of the
life-form of human persons (in distinction to ‘merely animal’ life-forms) is that
it is governed by social norms. And where there are social norms, there are
authorities of those norms and thus recognitive attitudes and relations towards
or between those having or sharing authority. Hegel has very good reasons to
treat this deontological complex of issues as one of the central dimensions of
his account of the distinctive constitutive features of the human life-form in
the master-slave-story. In failing to give the deontological dimension a positive
constitutive role in unalienated social life that actualizes the species essence,
Marx in contrast clearly fails to conceptualize that essence adequately.
The second element of Hegel’s ontological model of the life-form of
human persons lacking in Marx’s conception of the species essence is a
specification of the first one: this is institutionalized norms and thus (if you
want) ‘institutions proper’. If one takes seriously an idea that Hegel expresses
very clearly in his Philosophy of Subjective Spirit, namely that all of the
distinctively "spiritual” and thus in our terms ‘person-making’ processes,
activities or practices depend on and are embedded in a habitualized “second
natural” background, 40 and if one thinks of institutionalized norms or
institutions proper as an essential constituent of this background, freeing
interaction from the debilitating burden of constant reflection and negotiation
of every norm constitutive of or regulating the interaction, then again Marx
has clearly failed to account for an essential element of the human life-form.
40
See E3, §409-410 and elsewhere, as well as Lumsden…, Testa…
17
That already language involves institutionalized norms, and that hence
language-based thought and thereby all specifically human action is dependent
on institutionalization shows how grave a deficiency this is for an attempt to
account for this life-form.
For those such as myself who are in principle in sympathy with the idea
of a normative ontology of the human life-form—conceived in terms of the
concepts of recognition and concrete freedom—the way to go from here is to
return to the fuller Hegelian account. Its clear advantage is that it does not
deem institutions and the deontological dimension in general as a realm of
alienation by definition, but allows one to think of more or less alienated, or
more or less concretely free relations to social norms and institutions, and thus
of better and worse ways of being determined by these essential determinants
of us. None of this necessarily requires subscribing to the institutional details
of Hegel’s state—something which should be attractive for those by default
sympathetic to the romantic intersubjectivism of the young Marx and
suspicious of the alleged heavy institutionalism of Hegel—but it does mean
taking norms and institutions seriously. As to the details, the concept or
principle of concrete freedom, in terms of which both Hegel and Marx think
of the normative essence (or if you don’t like that term, ideal) of humanity,
does not by itself tell us whether the institution of private property is ideal for
realizing concrete freedom (as Hegel thought), or whether some form of
communal property does this better (as Marx thought), or whether, all things
considered, some kind of mixture or uneasy compromise of both is what we
should aim at.
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