Albert David Singer

Karl Marx was born in Prussia on May of 1818 to a middle class Jewish family. As an adult, Marx attended school in Berlin where he discovered the philosophy of G.W.F. Hegel. Hegel’s main concept was the idea of dialect, which can be explained as the process of logical argumentation and refutation. Marx was greatly influenced by Hegel, which is shown in Marx’s belief that history evolves through a series of predictable conflicts (A+E Television Networks, LLC. 2013). Marx also believed social divisions and civil unrest were due to the increase in industrialization and the widening gap between rich and poor.

This assessment of turning objects and persons into something of value is a fragmented yet archetypical manifestation of Marx’s greater philosophical works. The literary criticism that implements Marx’s theories of socialism and dialectics is the basis on interpreting literary works.

Marx embraced Hegel's belief that the driving force of historical change was the dialectic. This refers to a process of development in which interaction between two opposing forces leads to a further stage. Conflict between a thesis and its opposing force, an antithesis, leads to a higher level, a synthesis, which, in turn, constitutes a new thesis. However, while Hegel explained dialectical change in terms of ideas or the 'world spirit', Marx gave the concept a materialist interpretation. Perceiving history as a series of economic stages of society, most of which contain two main classes, Marx explained historical change by reference to the class conflict within each economic system that eventually led to the collapse of each class society.

Marx’s proposition about the role of philosophers in ‘changing the world’ is one of his most oft quoted lines yet it was written early in his personal intellectual and philosophical development. It is the 11th note in his Thesis on Feuerbach (1888) and seemingly expresses Marx at his most revolutionary if by ‘revolutionary’ we mean allotting a degree of importance to the role of conscious in human action in radically transforming socio-political structures. These early notes give us an in-sight into Marx’s initial ideas that would then come to be more roundly expressed in The German Ideology (1932) and, critically, The Communist Manifesto (1848). Marx was perhaps at his most ‘revolutionary’ in his youth because, at other times, he seemingly rejects the idea that intellectual interpretations and human actions are the principle factors in transforming society. For example, in the Communist Manifesto he writes, “[…] the theoretical conclusions of the Communists are in no way based on ideas or principles that have been invented, or discovered, by this or that would-be universal reformer. They merely express, in general terms, actual relations springing from an existing class struggle, from a historical movement going on under our very eyes” (1848, p. 50).

Explain the master-servant dialectic in G.W.F. Hegel (1770-1831). How does this relate to his theory of self-consciousness more generally? Do you agree that human relations are as Hegel describes them in the master-slave dialectic? Why or why not? Explain.

Hegel a man who happened to be a professor at the University of Berlin till his death in 1831. Karl Marx was not a huge fan of Hegel at first, but later on when he became a part of Young Hegelians, a bunch of students whom of which include Bruno Bauer and Ludwig Feuerbach two students that criticized the political and religious buildings that existed within that period of time. In the year, Karl Marx was starting to become more politically zealous, around that time Karl was secretly engaged to Jenny von Westphalen, she was a very sought after woman from a family that was highly respected in Trier, all of these actions right next to Marx’s increasing radicalism caused his father to drown in anxiety. All of this got his father to try and take some type of action, his father decided to send Karl a series of letter that held a few concerns that his father had considered to be his sons “demons” he also warned Karl for his recklessness with him not taking marriage as seriously as he should have, especially since his soon to be wife came from a family with such a high social ranking. Despite his father’s warnings Karl did not settle down, after he received his doctorate from the University of Jena in 1841 his radical politics prevented him from pursuing a teaching job after that he started to do work as a journalist, and in 1842 Karl

Marx was concerned about relationships between individuals, predominately men, and their access to power; whether this was in the form of scarce resources such as fuel, food and jobs. Marx believed that separate individuals form a class only if they come together as a group in a common interest to battle against the opposing class. In order to do this he believed they would need to develop ‘class consciousness’.

Marx’s entire theory stated in The German Ideology borrows from his own teacher, Hegel, who he himself argued that consciousness is a continual process called the “dialectic between oppositions” (thesis and antithesis). This is familiar to us due to the “Hegelian Philosophy”. For Marx however the process is instead economic and is amid those with money and

Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit (1807) provides master slave dialectic that reflects his ideas on history course up to when he was writing his work. Hegel’s dialectic takes an analysis form of self-consciousness and its working. “This pure concept of recognition, that is, the pure concept of the doubling of self-consciousness in its unity, is itself now up for examination in terms of how its process appears for self-consciousness” (Hegel 185). Hegel describes way in which self can become conscious of itself by presence and recognition of itself by an-other. Hegel’s exposition reveals how the process of

freedom. Offering an opposing analysis to Hegel’s pure thoughts, Marx a materialist, saw ideas and perceptions as the result of material social, economical and historical conditions. Marx analyzed the basis of all history to understand civil society. Property was at the basis of Marx’s argument and how the state developed. In critiquing Hegel, Marx thought reality created the mind. People’s ideas and ideologies were conditioned by the historical formation of powers or production and relations to production (Notes, PE 100: 3/17/15). This is the formation of his distinction between the relationship of the economy and politics. He believed the economy consisted of the forces of production; relations of production, and division of labor are the dominating forces in the state. He thought the material base, which is the economy, determined the “superstructure”, which included culture, ideology, and religion. He placed an importance on the relationship between the base (modes of production) and superstructure because the ruling class controls society’s material power as well as “its ruling intellectual power” (Marx, 163). The role of consciousness played a different angle in Marx’s view as he stated, “it is not consciousness that determines life, but life that determines consciousness” (Marx, 36-37). The formation of consciousness is strongly determined by the class structure of society. In further, the ruling class in society dominates consciousness, who are the bourgeoisie.

Hegel was born in 1770, in Stuttgart, a city in the south of Germany. He is known as a famous modern professional philosopher. The influence of his ideas, his philosophy and his works are still profound and studied. Throughout his philosophical working life, the ideas of Freedom, Reason and Progress always inspired him. However, at some points, his ideas are famously hard to be understood fully and rightly, for example, the notion of “God” in his works. In Hegel’s thinking, which is known as the matured thinking, the notion of “God” is the expression of the rational truths. He also mentioned the notions of Reason or Mind as equal to “God”. So, what does the notion of “God” really mean and why does Hegel choose the notion of “God”. This paper

Master-slave dialectic is a process of negotiation and mutual interdependence. Hegel believes that the consciousness for-the-Master is not an independent but a dependent on slave. According to Hegel, both master and slave recognize their own existence only in relation of the other. Among the many implications of the master-slave dialectic, then, is the idea of there being mutual dependence between master and slave rather than a blanket opposition of dominance to subordination. The slave ironically shares in the master's power because the master defines himself only in opposition to the slave; that is, the master needs the slave in order to legitimate his comparative

George Orwell, author of many essays and books, such as “such, such were joys” and “a nice cup of tea.” it seems that George Orwell had a very simple style and his writings mostly contains collections of essays, normally on politics and the government, but sometimes when he does not write essays he writes amazing stories, still about politics. Orwell is most likely known for winning the Prometheus Hall of Fame Award for his most well known book “The Animal Farm.” this work of satirical fiction is amazing in showing anyone who wanted to inform themselves about the dangers and logical outcome of Communism during World War II.

His ideas can be interpreted and reformulated according to the new philosophical apparatus. Wilhelm Windelband, for instance, advises us to capitalise Hegel's philosophy, even if we don’t agree about the validity of the whole system. He expresses the hope that “the as yet untouched treasures of the Hegelian philosophy may speedily be explored. And the explorer will be wise if he not merely follows the continuous march of the main argument, but makes it his special business to examine those pregnant germs of thought which he will there find scattered in such abundant measure” . In the case of Marx, Hegel's influence is much stronger. Although he renounces, from the outset, at the project of a unitary system, he is not content to adopt only some few isolated results but grounds his critical apparatus by including substantial speculative methodological elements. We intend to elucidate, in the following, of which type the relationship between the two dialectical models is: opposition, complementarity or

Karl Marx emphasized the distribution of resources determines how social reality and existence are structured and experienced. He viewed society as a struggle between capitalists and workers, known as class conflict. The bourgeoisie, the owners of the means of production, exploited the proletariat, the oppressed class not owning the means of production, by giving them wages less than the value they produced. Marx as well as his associate, Fredrick Engels argued that the proletariat should rise and revolt against the bourgeoisie. Marx also emphasized the importance of the dialectical process of social change. Dialectic is the theory of resolving conflict and argument. Dialectic is the thesis, or original idea versus the antithesis, or opposing idea ultimately ending in a new idea that combines both the thesis and antithesis forming a synthesis. Dialectical materialism, rising-up against capitalism, was the most extreme form of social dialectic. Marx believed the only reasonable synthesis was to overthrow capitalism in favor of communism. One of the fall backs to this synthesis was the false consciousness, where members of a specific class reflect themselves as “I” and “me” versus “we” and “our”. Until the proletariat change their views of “I am being oppressed by my boss!”, to “We are being opposed by our boss!” there would be no revolution.