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| Re-examining the Basis of Philosophy from the Perspective of Modernity: Focusing on Hegel, Marx, and Habermas |
| Zhu Yuyang |
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Abstract Modernity is a narrative paradigm that delineates the key characters of the modern world. Diagnosing the problems of modernity is a crucial topic in philosophy. Only by examining the basis of philosophy can we clarify the rationales and divergences behind different discourses on modernity. Hegel, Marx, and Habermas proposed three distinct schemes of modernity: the scheme of self-consciousness, the scheme of material practice, and the scheme of intersubjectivity.
In the First Philosophy of Spirit (1803-1804), Hegel introduces the concept of consciousness and attempts to establish a modern ethical order where self-consciousness and universal consciousness coexist and reinforce each other, leading to the compatibility of the individual and the community. The intermediary structure of consciousness serves as Hegel’s means to reconcile the relationship between subject and object, particular and universal, and individual and others. The greater the universality of self-consciousness, the more compatibility there will be with others, and the more likely a unified social normative structure can be achieved. Hegel identifies language, work, and family as three progressive stages in which self-consciousness and universal consciousness are formed and transformed. Accordingly, the development of social ethical norms, ranging from natural family relations to the public sphere, becomes possible. However, Hegel’s sequence aims at rational and absolute consciousness and dismisses direct and empirical human activities. This is refuted by Feuerbach and others.
Unlike Hegel, who derives the constitutive power of social order from the three stages of consciousness in language, labor, and family, Marx formulates in German Ideology the theory of historical materialism based on the three factors of “productivity, social conditions, and consciousness”, where productivity plays a decisive role in shaping the social order. Without access to Hegel’s Jena manuscripts, Marx discovers the central role of labor in the practice of material production and social relations. Marx also recognizes that Hegel’s category of labor is draped under the cloak of idealism. His rejection of Hegel’s concept of self-consciousness is a crucial theoretical impetus for establishing the foundation of material practice. On the one hand, Marx praises Feuerbach for reducing Hegel’s concept of self-consciousness to the sensual person. On the other hand, Marx further transforms Feuerbach’s naturalistic interpretation of humans into a practical and realistic determination of human activities. By restoring the basic status of material practice, Marx demonstrates that the concept of consciousness is not a constant but a variable that can only emerge under the historical material premise. This refutes Hegel’s understanding of self-consciousness as a given conceptual structure.
In Labor and Interaction, Habermas develops the intermediary structure of Hegel’s concept of consciousness and transforms the interactive relationship based on the language medium into the conditions of social order, where interaction is regarded as superior to labor. This involves two aspects. First, according to Habermas, the Hegelian knowing subject undergoes a movement of detranscendentalization and enters social space. Second, by distinguishing between labor and interaction, Habermas criticizes the instrumentalization of Marx’s labor theory. However, this approach of interpretation not only deviates from Hegel’s context but also encounters another theoretical difficulty when Habermas criticizes Marx’s concept of labor for lacking interaction. Communicative interaction denies any given pragmatic premise and cannot transcend the premise of the lifeworld. Although these three theories differ from each other, they open a dialogue with each other from the perspective of modernity, which is instructive for us to comprehend the multiple possibilities of modernity approaches.
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Published: 04 September 2023
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