CHAPTER SEVEN

FROM THE aOSED HORIZON OF HEGEL'S 'WORLD SPIRIT' TO

PREDICATING THE IMPERATIVE OF SOCIALIST EMANCIPATION

7.1 Individualistic conceptions ofknfiWledge and social interaction

7.1.1
THE relationship between consciousness and reality, and between individual
and totalizing consciousnes., proved to be an intractable problem to philosophers for centuries. Knowledge obtained on the basis of merely individual experience has always been considered rather problematical by philosophy, just as
in the field of art and literature the artist's aim was never confined to registering
the immediate impressions of particular individuals. Paradoxically, though, the
true object of knowledge - that which is concealed behind deceptive appearance -

had to remain elusive, from Plato's 'forms' to the Kantian 'thing in

itself, so long as the problem could not be formulated in terms of 'social

consciousness': an inherently historical concept. The great difficulty consisted
in perceiving 'universal validity' in the actual, spatia-temporally limited expe-

rience of particular human beings. This necessarily appeared an unsolvable

dilemma so long as 'the universal' was thought of as an ideal opposed to the
actuality of lived experience.
The introduction of the idea of a historically developing social consciousness,
no matter under what name, cut effectively through the Gordian knot of this
paradox. For now 'universality' was conceived as inherent in, and not as opposed

to, dynamically evolving particularity, Thus, the specific historical identity of,
for instance, a particular work of art, could be recognized to be not the negation
of 'universality' but, on the contrary, its realization: a far cry from Plato's

conception of art as the ontologically and epistemologically inferior 'copy of the

copy', For the work of art could achieve universality only and precisely in so far
as it succeeded in grasping - by the means at the disposal of the artist in his
unique medium of activity - the spatio-temporally specific characteristics of
actual experience as significant moments of sociallhistorical development. The

dialectical unity of the particular and the universal was, thus, conceived as
'continuity in discontinuity' and 'discontinuity in continuity': an approach

diametrically opposed to 'noumenal forms' and statically permanent metaphysical 'essences', Thus, histoty and permanence, as well as individual and social
consciousness, appeared as inseparably interrelated in a dialectical conception.

Significantly, this awareness of both the historical and the collective dimension of consciousness came to the fore with an age of immense social turmoil:

the French Revolution and the Napoleonic wars, which co-involved the whole
of Europe -

and not only Europe -

in a series of violent confrontations and

realignments, More crumbled then within the space of a mere few years than
in centuries beforehand, With such elemental upheavals, the floodgates to an
:l01

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30,

incomparably more dynamic social development had swung wide open, and
thinkers like Hegel took notice of this, even if in an abstract, speculative form.
However, even the Hegelian philosophy - which represented the peak in
the development of bourgeois historical consciousness - could not overcome
the limitations of its horizon, namely the 'standpoint of political economy'

(Marx). In facr, Hegel's concept of the 'List der Vernunft' (the cunning of Reason)
displayed in a graphic form both the fundamental achievements and the structurallimitations of this approach. On the one hand, it emphatically underlined
the objectivity of historical trends, since it was said to prevail over against the

limited and self-centred plans of particular individuals, overruling the subjective

bias necessarily inherent in the individual wills. On the other hand, though, it
hypostatized the fact of social interaction as a mythical supra-individual entity.
Indeed, it was the latter that mysteriously assumed charge of hisrory, supetimposing its own' design' on the world of real individuals, making them act out
in an unconscious way its 'destiny', its 'Theodicaea', in the spirit of an ultimately
theological teleology.
But even if we remove the mythical hypostatization from the Hegelian
scheme, this structure of thought cannot account for actual historical transfor-

mations, since it lacks the concept of a genuine col/ective agency. What is hypostatized (not only by Hegel bur by many other philosophers as well) in the form
of the supra-individual construct - be it the cunning of 'Reason', the Odyssey
of the 'World Spirit', the 'hidden hand' of the 'commercial spirit', or indeed the
'vicissitudes of consciousness' in general - is but the unconscious totalization
of atomistic individual interactions within the framework of the capitalist
market. And since the true agency of history - social groups and classes, as

opposed to isolated individuals - cannot be grasped by such philosophy, in that

the tensions and inner contradictions of the way in which 'pre-history' unfolds

would have to be laid bare for that, a maze of individual conflicts must be
substituted for the class antagonisms which display the hallmarks of the prevailing system of domination.

It is this substitution of mythically inflated individual conflictuality for ideologically inadmissible -

social contradictions which produces the impene-

trable opacity of the historical totality, generating thus in its turn the 'World
Spirit' (or its conceptual equivalent in the systems of other philosophers) so as
to be able to superimpose order on the mysteries of atomistic individual inter-

action. For while the unfolding of history under the impact of social antagonisms
is not only intelligible in terms of successive systems of domination, but also demonstrates the necessary disintegration, sooner or later, of any particular system
of domination - which is precisely what is apriori inadmissible from the
ideological standpoint of political economy - the hypothesis according to
which aromistic individual interactions produce a coherent historical totaliza-

tion, rather than utter chaos, is a completely arbitrary postulate. Indeed, a great
thinker like Hegel cannot leave matters at such a level of intellectual inconsistency. He introduces the concept of 'world historical individuals' - Napoleon,
for instance, as mentioned before - through whose agency the 'World Spirit'
implements its design in the world of temporal changes and historical transformations. Thus an ingenious philosophical solution is found by displacing the
original mystery (that of atomistic individual interactions resulting in an his-

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torical order) by two other mysteries - one supra-individual: the 'World Spirit',
and the other individual in a very special, elitistic way, namely the World Spirit's
mysteriously chosen agent: the 'world historical individual' - while preserving
the internal consistency of the individualistic approach, in [Otal conformity [0
the standpoint of political economy.
7,1.2
IT is important to stress here that the same determinations which produce the
idea of a Robinson Crusoe - both in fiction and in political economy, as Marx
pointed Out in the Grundyiss< - are also responsible for all such individualistic
conceptualizations of knowledge and social interaction, from the Cartesian 'ego'
and Hobbes' epistemology as well as social philosophy to the Kantian and
Hegelian systems and their 20th century counterpartS, notwithstanding the
time and circumstances that separate them from one another. The fact that
atomistically isolated individuality is an artificial construct; that the real individual is unceremoniously subsumed under his class from the first moment of
groping for consciousness; that he is enmeshed in the network of social determinations not only because of his own class allegiances, but also on account of
the prevailing reciprocity of class confrontations in virtue of which the individual
is in fact subject to a twofold class dependency; - all this is peripheral or irrelevant (belonging to the ontologically inferior 'phenomenal/empirical world', or,
in Sartre >s words, to the merely 'subjective experience of an historic man'51) ifconflict
is perceived as emanating from the individuals' essential constitution, and not
from the historically specific and transcendable conditions of their social existence.
Once, however, this atomistic/individualistic view of the nature of social conflict
becomes the premiss of philosophy, history itself is either made intelligible in
the way we have seen in Kant and Hegel- that is ultimately with the help of
a theological teleology - or it is assigned an intensely problematical and ontologically secondary status, as with Heidegger and the 'pre-marxisant' Sartre.
Indeed, over the last two centuries of bourgeois philosophical development
we can only witness an involution in this respect. For the nearer we get to our
own eimes, the more radical becomes the dismissal of even the possibility of a
social consciousness engaged in accual totalization of experience in a socially
coherent and meaningful way. Kant still tried to connect the limited individuals
with the most comprehensive category to which they belonged, namely hurnanity. By the time we reach the 'atheistic existentialism' of Being and NothingneJS,
attempts like this are dismissed not on account of their philosophical shortcomings but in principle, as hopelessly misconceived in even trying to address themselves to such issues. To quote Sartre:
But if God is characterized as radical absence, the effort to realize humanity as ours
is forever renewed and forever resullJ in failure. Thus the humanistic 'Us' - the Usobject -

is proposed to each individual consciousness as an ideal impossible to attain

although everyone keeps the illusion of being able

to

succeed in it by progressively

enlarging the circle of communities to which he does belong. This humanistic 'Us'
remains an empty concept, a pure indication of a possible extension of the ordinary
usage of the 'Us', Each time that we use the 'Us' in this sense (to designate suffering

humanity, sinful humanity,

to

determine an objective historical meaning by considering

man as an object which is developing its potentia/iti,s) we limit ouratlves to indicating

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307

a certain concrete experience to be undergone in the presence of the absolute Third;

that is, of God. Thus the limiting-concept of humanity (as the totality of the Us-object) and the limiting concept of God imply one another and are correlative. 51

To be sure, the problem of totalization is insoluble - both at tbe level of

consciousness and at that of concrete material practices - without an adequate
grasp of mediation. Equally, it is fairly obvious tbat such mediation is missing not
only from Kant - wbodirectly connects each individual, taken in isolation, witb
tbe generic category of Humanity by means of an abstract moral postulate - but
also from nearly all otber versions of individualistic pbilosopby. But tbis is not
what Sartre is concerned ahout. On tbe contrary, he curdy dismisses tbe very
idea of mediation as an illusion, togerher with the possibility of tealizing positive
human potentialities tbrough objective bistorical development.
And yet, 'bumanity as ours' does indeed exist in an alienated form and practically asserts itself as world bistory tbrough the inescapable realities of tbe world
market and the division of labour on a world scale. N or does the concept of
mankind developing its objective potentialities imply in the least the formulation of an impossible ideal, viewed from the illusory standpoint of the' absolute
Third', God. All that is required in order to make sense of 'humanity as ours'
is, instead, to grasp the disconcerting reality of the material and ideal structures
of domination in the dynamic process of their objective unfolding and potential
dissolution, nor from tbe standpoint of the 'absolute Tbird' but from that of a
self-developing collective subject.
Naturally, tbe author of Being and Nothingness cannot opt for a similar line of
solution, in view of his extreme stance with regard to the nature of confuct,
founded according to Sartce on the 'ontological solitude of the For-itself: an
idea that carries implications diametrically opposed to assigning positive potentialities to a collective subject. Hence Hegel's half-hearted attempts at facing
the dilemma of historical totalization within an individualistic social horizon attempts which, nevertheless. resulted in his greatest achievements, intellectually belying tbe limitations of their ideological half-heactedness - must be
philosophically undone and dismissed as naive' epistemological and ontological
optimism':
In the first place Hegel appears to us to be gwlty of an epistemological optimism.
It seems to him that the truth of self~consdousness can appear; that is, that an
objective agreement can be realized between consdousnesses - by authority of the
Other's recognition of me and my recognition of the Other. ... But there is in Hegel
another and more fundamental form of optimism. This may be called an ontological
optimism. For Hegel indeed truth is the truth of the Whole. And he places himself
at the vantage point of truth - i.e., of the Whole - to consider the problem of the
Other.... individual consciousnesses are moments in the whole, moments which by
themselves are unselbJtaendig (dependent), and the whole is a mediator between
~onsdousnesses. Hence is derived an ontological optimism parallel to the epistemological optimism: plurality can and must be surpassed toward the totality.
[By contrast}. .. the sole poine of departure is the interiority of the cogito .... No
logical or epistemo1ogical optimism can cover the JcamJal of the plurality of consciousnesses. If Hegel believed that it could, this is because he never grasped the
nature of that particular dimension of being which is self~consciousness. (For Jeven
if we could succeed in making the Other's existence share in the apodictic certainty
of the cogito - j,e., of my own exiltence - we Ihould not thereby 'surpass' the

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other toward an inter-monad totality. So long as consciousnesses exist, the separation

and conflict of consciousnesses will remain; ... B Conflict is the original meaning of
being-for-others,54

It goes without saying, if the only tocalization we can envisage is one that aims
at establishing an 'inter-monad totality', thete can be no hope fot SUCCesS.
Characteristically, however, Sartre blocks the road even to the possibility of
success by dismissing mediation - and the key importance of the concept of the
whole as its necessary frame of reference - as nothing more than an optimistic
oncological illusion, and as such totally devoid of a real (HeideggerfSartrean)
ontological foundation. The only conceivable 'authencic' agency compatible
with this 'non-optimistic' oncology is and temains the acomistically isolated
individual. The idea of a collective subject as the potential totalizer is turned
down not on account of practical considerations but, again, as a matter of
ontological impossibility:
The oppressed class can, in fact, affirm itself as a We-subject only in relation to the
oppressing class .... But the experience of the 'We' remains on the ground of individnal
psychology and remains a simple symbol of the longed-for unity of transcendences ....
the subjectivities remain out of reach and radically separated. ...We should hope in
vain for a human 'we' in which the intersubjective totality would obtain consciousness of itself as a unified subjectivity. Such an ideal could be only a dream produced
by a passage to the limit and to the absolute on the basis of fragmentary, strictly
psychological experiences. ... 1t is therefore useless for humanity to seek to get out of this
dilemma: one must either transcend the Other or allow oneself to be transcended by
him. The essence of the relation between consciousnesses is not the Milsein (beingwith); it is conflict. n

Thus, in view of the alleged ontological necessity of conflict arising OUt of the
essential constItution of atomistic individuality - the existentialist version of
Hobbes' bellum omnium contra omnes - there can be no way out of the vicious
circle of domination and subordination. It is this self-imposed ontological
straitjacket that keeps Same from realizing his aim when he tries fifteen years
later to come to terms with the tangible issues of real histoty in his Critique of
Dialectical Rearon. One cannot underline enough the total honesty of his commitment to look in the Critique for a solution radically different in its social
perspective from that of Being and Nothingness, nor indeed the great importance
of the problems he struggles with. It is all the more significant, therefore, that
his inability to abandon the atomistic ontological pteconceptions of his earlier
work makes him go more and more around in circles the nearer he gets to the
threshold of the task he sets himself: that of understanding real histoty. Instead,
Sarcre fails to complete more than the 'preliminaty' volume, in which he ends
up reiterating on nearly all major issues his former ontological position, against
the original intentions, in the context of what he himself can only describe as
the 'formal structures of history'.

7.J.3
to the whole tradition of 'possessive individualism',' the concept of class
interest is conspicuous in it by its absence. This is well in keeping with its model

AS

of conflict as emanating from abstract individuals who fight for interests strictly
of their own as self-orienredfself-seeking - and thereby necessarily isolated individuals. Once, however, interest and conflict are defined in such atomistic

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309

tenns, the admissible kinds of action and social change implicitly follow, Since
the problem of totalization is conceptualized from the point of view of a system
of social metabolism already more or less firmly established: that of a commodity
society,s7 rational action can only be what firs well within the horizons of such
a society. By contrast, what is totally inadmissible - indeed: a conceptual taboo
-

is to envisage an effective alternative to the prevailing system of .rational'

social metabolism.
This is what makes intelligible the ideology of building the conflict theory
of'possessive individualism' on the shoulders of the abstract individual, conceptually obliterating the harsh reality of class interests. For no separate individual,
nor some more or less haphazard aggregate of 'sovereign' individuals, could
conceivably represent a viable alternative to an established social order. At the
same time, conversely, any particular set of class interests of necessity can only be

articulated as an alternative [0 the one which it tries to oppose. Thus, picturing

the abstract individual subject as the originator and bearer of conflict corresponds
to the - however unconscious - need to idealise the prevailing system of
social/economic intercourse and to rule out any alternative to it. For the individuals in conflict, pursuing their drives and appetites, reciprocally affect one
another) limiting at the same time the successful realization of any particular

self-seeking strategy" Their interchanges and clashes result in an ultimate

'equilibrium' within the framework of this model of atomistic/parallellogrammatic individual interaction.No wonder, therefore, that the equilibrium-seeking

bourgeois conceptualizations of the social process - which take the 'dynamic

equilibrium' of self-propelling commodity production for granted as the necessary horizon of social life in general - cling to their atomistic/individualistic
model of explanation. Equally, no wonder rhat within the framework of such a
model no coherent theory of totalization can be formulated even by the greatest
figures of this tradition.

7.2 The problem o/'totalization' in

HISTORY AND CLASS CONSCIOUSNESS

7.2,1
BETWEEN March 1919 and Christmas 1922, as a critical reflection over his
own philosophical past and over the various intellectual and political forces
which contributed to the defeat of the Hungarian Council Republic, Lukacs
produced a powerful critique of the development of bourgeois thought in History

and Class Consciousness: a work which in this respect remains unsurpassed even
roday. Insisting that the method of philosophy cannot be 'authentically totalizing' if it remains contemplative,59 this is how he summed up his position on
some of the key issues:
The individual can never become the measure of all things. For when the individual
confronts objective reality he is faced by a complex of ready-made and unalterable
objects which allow him only the subjective responses of recognition or rejection.
Only the class can relate [Q the whole of reality in a practical revolutionary way. ...
And the class, too, can only manage it when it can see through the reified objectivity
of the given world to the process that is also its own fate. For the individual, reification
and hence determinism (determinism being the idea that things ilre necessarily