[OPE-L] R: [OPE-L] Roberto Fineschi

From: Roberto Fineschi (strack@ALICE.IT)
Date: Sat Dec 02 2006 - 04:57:10 EST


Paul,

thanks for your question. I'll try to give you an outline (as short as
possible) of my book on the subject.
First, I make a strong distinction between Marx's reading of Hegel and
Hegel himself. IMO most (not every, of course) Marxism have not been
able to go beyond Marx's reading, causing many misunderstandings:
conclusions based on the same works reached radically conflicting
conclusions. But the problem probably lays in Marx's reading itself.
This is a crucial point in Marx's definition of his own method, which is
always and strictly connected with how he makes sense of Hegel.
So I've tried to reconstruct philologically what Marx means when he says
"dialectic" and "Hegel" throughout his works. So, while when he was
young he maintained that Hegel, dialectic and spiritualism were one and
the same thing, later, writing the Grundrisse, he thought that
spiritualism and dialectic could be separated and that he could define
his method as dialectical avoiding the spiritualistic implications he
believed this methodology had in Hegel's philosophy. Dialectic is the
scientific proper method if with it we re-create the world in thought,
not if we think, this way, thought creates the world.
Then, I try to show how that spiritualistic interpretation of Hegel was
the background in which Marx intellectually grew (Feuerbach's and Bruno
Bauer's works) and that his interpretation of Hegel was a sort of mix of
their views on Hegel.
So, I try to show how the recent Hegel-Forschung (Fulda, Henrich, Nuzzo
and many others) substantially has denied that Hegel's philosophy should
be read that way: he was not a spiritualist, he had a clear idea of the
"inversion" problem, alienation is not a crucial category in Hegel's
philosophy, he, first, made strong criticisms against the subjective
idealism à la Fichte and others. Marx, while criticizing Hegel, repeats,
sometimes literally, many points Hegel himself made against Fichte. 
In the second part I explicitly deal with the concept of alienation,
whether Marx drops it or not. IMO the textual evidence shows he didn't
but that the theoretical pattern in which the concept was set changed:
we have no more an anthropology of the Gattungswesen, but a historical
process in which the concept of human nature itself develops and
changes; so alienation in the present is not to compare with an
extra-historical Gattungswesen, but with the concept of human being
resulting from the historical process. So, a contradiction of this
society with itself. Even if, IMO, Marx sometimes seems to maintain an
ambiguous position on that.
In the third part, finally, I try to show how Marx's theory of Capital
is dialectically outlined, and that he follows Hegel's idea of the
Übersichhinausgehen. I focus on some crucial categories such as
contradiction-opposition, essence-phenomenon-appearance [Wesen,
Erscheinung, Schein], process, becoming-become [werdend-geworden]. And
that this does not imply spiritualism (as it didn't in Hegel). 
To make an analysis of the relationship of Marx to Hegel pointing on the
content, we have, imo, to go beyond Marx's comprehension and look at how
they tried to find different solutions to similar problems.
I did it too long and probably not clear, sorry.

To your second question: no, not yet. But these manuscripts should
appear soon (MEGA-Band II/11).

That's all, I think. Best.
Roberto

PS. Excuse my improbable English.




>-----Messaggio originale-----
>Da: OPE-L [mailto:OPE-L@SUS.CSUCHICO.EDU] Per conto di Paul Zarembka
>Inviato: venerdì 1 dicembre 2006 18.56
>A: OPE-L@SUS.CSUCHICO.EDU
>Oggetto: Re: [OPE-L] Roberto Fineschi
>
>Roberto,
>
>I don't read Italian, so could you indicate the substance of your work
on
>the relationship of Hegel to Marx?
>
>Also, do you have knowledge of Marx's work on schemes of reproduction
late
>in life but which has not yet appeared in MEGA?
>
>Thanks and welcome to the list, Paul


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