Robert C. Tucker - The Marx-Engels Reader (Chapter 1.3: "To Make The World Philosophical") lyrics

To Make the World Philosophical KARL MARX Marx's doctoral dissertation, "The Difference Between the Democritean and Epicurean Philosophies of Nature," written between 1839 and 1841, is chiefly of interest for the following excerpts arguing that after a great world philosophy-Aristotle's in antiquity and Hegel's now-the system's disciples feel an imperious urge to make the world "philosophical." What this would mean Marx hinted in the dissertation's foreword, where he saluted Prometheus' revolt against the gods as a proclamation of "human self-consciousness as the highest divinity." To transform the world in the image of Hegelian philosophy would mean to make of man in existential reality the divinity that, as Marx saw it, Hegel had a1ready made him in thought. " The last two paragraphs of the selection are taken from Marx's preparatory material for the dissertation, "Notebooks on Epicurean Philosophy." * * * Also in relation to Hegel it is mere ignorance on the part of his pupils, when they explain one or the other determination of his system by his desire for accommodation and the like, hence, in one word, explain it in terms of morality. They forget that only a short time ago they were enthusiastic about all his idiosyncrasies [Einseitigkeiten] , as can be clearly demonstrated from their writings. If they were really so affected by the ready-made science they acquired that they gave themselves up to it in naive uncritical trust, then how unscrupulous is their attempt to reproach the Master for a hidden intention behind his insight! The Master, to whom the science was not something received, but something in the process of becoming, to whose uttermost periphery his own intellectual heart's blood was pulsating! On the contrary, they rendered themselves suspect of not having been serious before. And now they oppose their own former condition, and ascribe it to Hegel, forgetting however that his relation to his system was immediate, substantial, while theirs is only a reflected one. * * * It is a psychological law that the theoretical mind, once liberated in itself, turns into practical energy, and, leaving the shadowy empire of Amenthes as will, turns itself against the reality of the world existing without it. ( From a philosophical point of view, however, it is important to specify these aspects better, since from the specific manner of this turn we can reason back towards the immanent determination and the universal historic character of a philosophy. We see here, as it were, its curriculum vitae 1 narrowed down to its subjective point.) But the practice of philosophy is itself theoretical. It's the critique that measures the individual existence by the essence, the particular reality by the Idea. But this immediate realization of philosophy is in its deepest essence afflicted with con­ tradictions, and this its essence takes form in the appearance and imprints its seal upon it. When philosophy turns itself as will against the world of appearance, then the system is lowered to an abstract totality, that is, it has become one aspect of the world which opposes another one. Its relationship to the world is that of reflection. Inspired by the urge to realise itself, it enters into tension against the other. The inner self-contentment and completeness has been broken. What was inner light has become consuming flame turning outwards. The result is that as the world becomes philosophical, philosophy also becomes worldly, that its realisation is also its loss, that what it struggles against on the outside is its own inner deficiency, that in the very struggle it falls precisely into those defects which it fights as defects in the opposite camp, and that it can only overcome these defects by falling into them. That which opposes it and that which it fights is always the same as itself, only with factors inverted. This is the one side, when we consider this matter purely objec­ tively as immediate realisation of philosophy. However, it has also a subjective; aspect, which is merely another form of it. This is the relationship of the philosophical system which is realised to its intel-­ lectual carriers, to the individual self-consciousnesses in which its progress appears. This relationship results in what confronts the world in the realisation of philosophy itself, namely, in the fact that these individual self-consciousnesses always carry a double-edged demand, one edge turned against the world, the other against philosophy itself. Indeed, what in the thing itself appears as a relationship inverted in itself, appears in these self-consciousnesses as a double one, a demand and an action contradicting each other. Their liberation of the world from the philosophy that held them in fetters as a particular system. * * * * * * As in the history of philosophy there are nodal points which raise philosophy in itself to concretion, apprehend abstract principles in a totality, and thus break off the rectilinear process, so also there are moments when philosophy turns its eyes to the external world, and no longer apprehends it, but, as a practical person, weaves, as it were, intrigues with the world, emerges from the transparent kingdom of Amenthes and throws itself on the breast of the worldly Siren. That is the carnival of philosophy, whether it disguises itself as a dog like the Cynic, in priestly vestments like the Alexandrian, or in fragrant spring array like the Epicurean. It is essential that philosophy should then wear character masks. As Deucalion, according to the legend, cast stones behind him in creating human beings, so philosophy casts its regard behind it (the bones of its mother are luminous eyes) when its heart is set on creating a world; but as Prometheus, having stolen fire from heaven, begins to build houses and to settle upon the earth, so philosophy, expanded to be the whole world, turns against the world of appearance. The same now with the philosophy of Hegel. While philosophy has sealed itself off to form a consummate, total world, the determination of this totality is conditioned by the general development of philosophy, just as that development is the condition of the form in which philosophy turns into a practical relationship towards reality; thus the totality of the world in general is divided within itself, and this division is carried to the extreme, for spiritual existence has been freed, has been enriched to universality, the heart-beat has become in itself the differentiation in the concrete form which is the whole organism. The division of the world is total only when its aspects are totalities. The world confronting a philosophy total in itself is therefore a world torn apart. This philosophy's activity therefore also appears torn apart and contradictory; its objective universality is turned back into the subjective forms of individual consciousness in which it has life. But one must not let oneself be misled by this storm which follows a great philosophy, a world philosophy. Ordinary harps play under any fingers, Aeolian harps only when struck by the storm. * * * Footnotes: * For a fuller statement of this interpretation, see Robert C. Tucker, Philosophy and Myth in Karl Marx, pp. 75-80. 1. Course of life.