Subject: [OPE-L:1630] Re: Re: Re: Althusser and Hegel
From: C. J. Arthur (cjarthur@pavilion.co.uk)
Date: Tue Nov 02 1999 - 12:40:38 EST
>C. J. Arthur wrote:
>
>> Re: Althusser & Hegel.
>> Those debating on this thread appear not to know that Althusser did indeed
>> make a serious study of Hegel, writing a dissertation on him that was
>> published not too long ago by Verso. There are several astonishing things
>> about this. First it is an excellent book on Hegel, especially considering
>> its early date. Second how come after making such a serious study he was so
>> crudely dismissive of hegel later. Third - throughout this work Althusser
>> wrote explicitly as a humanist Marxist. Thus the later anti-huanism is a
>> self-criticism.
>> Comradely Chris Arthur
>
>_______________
>
>Chris, I have not seen Althusser's book on Hegel. Can you give me
>the details. Of
>course, i knew that Althusser was knowledgeable about Hegel. And
>he did not dismiss
>Hegel completely. He gave Hegel credit for Marx's central idea of
>'history without
>a subject'. Cheers, ajit sinha
>
>>
L. Althusser *The Spectre of Hegel* ed. F. matheron, Verso (london and NY) 1997
The catchpenny title is of course Verso's. It contains early stuff by LA;
and ch.2 - by far the largest - is the Hegel thing whose proper title is
'On Content in the Thought of G. W. F. Hegel'. It was written as an MA
dissertation in 1947.
At 133 pp, practically a doctorate I would have thought!
My only complaint is that (like Engels) he says " Hegel starts from
nothing" - which is simply false, he starts from "Being"; although in some
deeper sense there is an insight here. For the first "concrete concept" is
"Becoming" which is glossed in the final result as "Absolute Negativity"
which I think is the beginning and end of Hegel.
Of course "Nothing' was all the rage then among the sub-Heideggerians,
Sartre, Hyppolite et al.
P. S. Please note that I have a new Email address,
<cjarthur@waitrose.com>
but the old one will also run until next summer. (To be doubly sure load both!)
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