Transcript Reading: Rousseau, Hegel, Marx

Welcome back. I’ve been asked by the director that once I finish covering Kant and the period from 1600 to 1800, to give you a brief overview of what happened afterward, particularly in the 19th and 20th centuries. He didn’t ask for the 21st century, but we’ll focus on the 19th and 20th to give you an idea of what took place after Kant.

The first thing we need to mention is that, following Hume and Rousseau, there emerged a perspective that picked up on Hume’s view—that humans are not primarily rational animals, but rather emotional animals led by feelings. Hume thought he was showing what happens if you rely too much on reason. He believed that if you depend on reason alone, you would end up with his conclusions, which he found ridiculous. He thought no ordinary human being would believe that all they know are colors, tastes, smells, and sounds inside their minds, with no access to a real world, no certainty about the self, no knowledge of a self-existent being that brought everything into existence, no reliability in science, and only a sympathy-based ethic like “do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” If you’re satisfied with that, Hume implies, you’re a fool. The real Hume comes out every once in a while to tell us what he really thinks. For instance, when it comes to the proof of God based on design in the world, he sarcastically asks, “Has there ever been anyone so stupid that the world didn’t look designed?” But then he argues that this appearance is deceptive. Ultimately, Hume thinks humans are mainly driven by feelings, not reason.

Hume and Rousseau, along with many poets and artists, helped shape a movement called Romanticism, which came into its own in the early 19th century. Romanticism emphasized feelings, spontaneity, and being in the moment. The movement rejected carefully planned or ordered approaches to life—gardens, for instance, no longer had to be perfectly manicured; a wild jungle, with rotting trees and untamed growth, was seen as beautiful. Similarly, Romantic art and music began to focus more on stirring emotions rather than adhering to form or structure. While great art can do both, the new emphasis was clearly on passion and feeling, while the methodical, rational approach (like Kant’s) was often ridiculed.

You might ask how all this affects the sciences. Did scientists react to Hume’s arguments or Romanticism? The answer is that science largely went its own way, paying little attention to these philosophical developments. Scientists continued their work, grounded in the belief that they were studying real physical objects in a real world, governed by predictable laws. They didn’t buy into Hume’s claim that the world consists only of colors, tastes, smells, and sounds. They believed in a real, objective world, where heavenly bodies followed predictable orbits, and mathematical laws could describe their movements.

This led to an interesting shift: science gained in public prestige, while philosophy lost prestige. Science was seen as advancing human knowledge, while philosophy struggled with increasingly abstract and seemingly unsolvable problems.

Three figures who greatly influenced the 19th century were Marx, Darwin, and Freud—two of them scientists, and only one a philosopher. I’ll say a bit about each and their influence. The philosophical scene in the 19th century began with attacks on Kant, which is not surprising. But even after Kant, philosophers couldn’t shake the notion that what enters our minds are just sensory properties. Locke had said this long ago, and philosophers still operated as though it were true, instead of recognizing that what is given to us in experience are things, events, people, and relations—not just sensory properties. It’s incredible how long this misconception persisted.

Now, let’s talk about one of the key philosophers of this period: Hegel. Hegel was born in the 18th century but lived into the 19th century, dying in 1831. He was a philosopher who tried to "fix" Kant, much like Spinoza tried to fix Descartes. Hegel proposed a form of pantheism, where everything is part of one great reality. You could call this reality "mind," "nature," or even "God," but it’s all one. Hegel liked to call it "Geist," or "mind" in German. He believed that our individual minds are part of this greater mind, and that the great mind is coming to know itself through the development of creatures with increasing rationality. In his view, God is coming to know himself through us, humans being the highest point in the universe, but the universe itself is God.

Hegel also introduced the idea of dialectical development, meaning that all reality progresses through a process of contradiction and resolution. He argued that this great "Geist" or mind goes through a series of developments, each stage containing contradictions that are resolved at the next stage, leading to higher forms of rationality. This dialectical process is how reality unfolds, according to Hegel.

And mind develops in a dialectical way. Dialectical means that something exists—a thesis, a state of affairs—which then provokes its opposite, the antithesis. This conflict between the thesis and antithesis creates a synthesis. The synthesis isn't just a simple combination of the two but something new, produced by their conflict. This is the process of dialectical development.

Hegel believed this is how all reality works. Traditional logic—developed by Aristotle, refined in the Middle Ages, and further advanced by people like Leibniz—can’t be fully correct because reality, according to Hegel, is dynamic. Reality is always moving, always developing. Everything that exists provokes something else to become real, and their conflict produces something new, which then becomes the next thesis. This continuous cycle of thesis-antithesis-synthesis is happening everywhere, in all things.

Hegel thought that even our logic should be dialectical. Everything is in a state of becoming; nothing is static. Our logic should not rely on fixed categories. Instead, it should reflect the idea that everything, including beliefs, provokes its opposite, and through that conflict, a new idea or belief emerges. For Hegel, being (existence) provokes the idea of something’s nature (antithesis), and this conflict produces a further understanding or synthesis.

This is a strange concept for most of us. Hegel argues that something can simply be (exist) without having any particular characteristics, and it only develops those characteristics through conflict. It’s all happening within a grand mind—a universal mind of which our minds are a part.

For me, trying to grapple with Hegel’s ideas felt like trying to nail a custard pie to the wall. Anything you claim, he would say, is only true for the moment, because it’s already in the process of becoming something else. He even does this with the concepts of true and false, which makes things even more slippery—like trying to nail the custard pie again. How can something be both true and false in the same sense, at the same time? Yet, this is what Hegel argues. He denies the law of non-contradiction, which states that something cannot both be and not be at the same time. But Hegel claims that’s precisely what happens.

He also argues that being and nothing are the same thing, and the synthesis of the two leads to becoming—yet another baffling claim. This rejection of basic logic makes Hegel’s philosophy difficult to grasp, and it leads to confusion, especially in trying to apply it to everyday understanding.

Hegel’s philosophy is essentially pantheistic, meaning that everything is part of one divine, self-existent reality. This reality doesn’t create things out of nothing; it creates them out of itself. Everything is a part of this divine reality, including contradictions and paradoxes. Pantheists, including Hegel, have always struggled with logic. They tend to want to deny basic logical principles like non-contradiction. Hegel wasn’t the first to do this—medieval philosopher Nicholas of Cusa had similar ideas, as did some 20th-century philosophers.

One way Hegel tried to justify his rejection of traditional logic was by pointing to paradoxes in logic, like those raised by Zeno. Zeno argued that sense perception is deceptive and that rational reasoning shows us the truth. One of Zeno’s paradoxes, for example, involves an arrow being shot at a target. Zeno argues that the arrow must first travel halfway to the target, then halfway of the remaining distance, and so on infinitely. Therefore, he concludes, the arrow will never actually reach the target because there’s always another halfway point to cross.

Hegel uses these kinds of paradoxes to claim that traditional logic is flawed. But the flaw really lies in Zeno’s assumption that space is made up of infinite points, which don’t have dimensions. In reality, space is a continuum, and the arrow can reach the target.

Now, why am I mentioning Hegel and Zeno, especially when these ideas seem strange or even silly? The reason is that Karl Marx took Hegel’s ideas and adapted them into his own theory of dialectical materialism. Where Hegel believed in the dialectical development of mind or spirit, Marx believed in the dialectical development of matter. Marx’s version argues that matter, not mind, is the self-existent reality that undergoes dialectical development.

In Marx’s view, what is fundamental is matter and its innate law of development. This development leads to the creation of everything in the universe, from subatomic particles to stars and galaxies, and eventually to humans. Marx argues that humans are not primarily minds but physical beings, and what we call "mind" is merely a word for the activities of the brain.

Marx’s theory rejects Hegel’s idealism but keeps the idea of dialectical development. For Marx, the dialectic applies to material things—matter is in a constant state of development. And while this isn’t exactly Romanticism, Marx’s ideas became highly influential in the mid to late 19th century, though they stood apart from other intellectual movements of the time.

Where Romantic poets were focused on emotion, nature, and spontaneity, Marx was concerned with material conditions, real people, and the circumstances of poverty. His work was anything but Romantic. He focused on the gritty reality of human life and tried to explain how these material conditions could be changed for the better.

While poets like Wordsworth were celebrating the beauty of nature and rejecting reason, Marx was concerned with how human labor and material conditions shaped societies. Romanticism might have dominated literature, music, and art, but Marx’s materialism would become a major force in shaping political thought.

So, while Hegel and Marx are products of the 19th century, they represent very different strands of thought. Hegel, with his dialectical idealism, and Marx, with his dialectical materialism, both believed in the idea of development through conflict. But where Hegel focused on the development of mind and spirit, Marx focused on the development of matter and material conditions.

We’ll stop here for now, and next time, we’ll continue our discussion by looking more closely at Marx and his impact, as well as other developments in philosophy and science during this period.

How do you think that message lands for someone living in a slum who’s told by the local factory owner, “You can have this job, but you’ll need to work 10 hours a day, seven days a week, and bring your kids along to work for nothing. Take it or leave it, next person will.” That’s what grabs Marx’s attention.

Now, here's more from the poet:

A presence that disturbs me with the joy of elevated thought,
A sense sublime of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And round the ocean in the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man,
A motion and a spirit that impels
All thinking things, all objects of thought,
And rolls through all things.

The pantheistic mind—the divine that flows through everything. And we sit here, contemplating it, because we’re rich and don’t have to work, Marx would say. So, let’s turn to Karl Marx and his thesis: humans are beings who work for a living. He got that right. But to say that this is humanity’s essential nature—that’s not something I’m going to agree with. That’s not a Christian view of human nature.

Marx determines that all other aspects of life—our social structures, institutions, everything—are shaped by our work and what we do for a living.

He holds to a dialectical view of development: everything is dynamic, always changing, always in conflict (thesis versus antithesis), resulting in a new synthesis. He applies this to physical matter and humans, assuming that even thought is dynamic. He buys into Hegel’s rejection of traditional logic—that things don’t have to be clear-cut, either “this” or “not this.” And once you reject logic, well, you open the gates to say whatever you want. Hegel applied this to mind; Marx applies it to material conditions. This provides the philosophical groundwork for Marx’s theory of communism.

The question Marx sets before philosophy is: how do we correct the injustice of poverty? The rich don’t want to talk about it; they don’t want you thinking about it. But what do we see here in Europe? Marx, a German who later lived in England, observed this: the wealthy control all the wealth—they own the land, the means of producing food, the factories, and the mines. The majority of humanity lives in poverty, working for the wealthy, even if they’re paid—it’s just wage slavery.

According to Marx, this was all inevitable, part of the natural dialectical progression. It started with the feudal system. The lord of the manor owned the land and offered protection to the farmers in exchange for a portion of their crops and labor. This arrangement was almost a given. Imagine an untouched landscape: Farmer A claims a piece of land, Farmer B claims another, and so on. The amount of land each farmer claims depends on how much labor—typically family members—they can muster to work the land.

What happens when there’s a crop failure due to drought or locusts? Let’s say Farmers B and C won’t make it through the winter—they can’t produce enough to feed their families. There’s no charity to turn to, so they must find a way to survive. Who do they turn to? The farmer who still has enough food to make it through, Farmer A. The only thing B and C can offer in return is their land. So, B sells his land to A in exchange for enough food to survive. Similarly, C sells his land to Farmer D. Now, A and D own more land, and B and C become laborers on what was once their land.

This process happens again and again. Soon, there are fewer landowners, and more people working for them. This is how the nobility came to control vast estates, with the peasants or serfs working the land. The rich landowners had enough wealth to maintain small armies, offering protection in exchange for labor. This pattern happened throughout Europe, creating a concentration of wealth and land ownership.

According to Marx, this development was inevitable. As wealth concentrated, a middle class eventually emerged. In Europe, particularly, the nobility were defined as those who didn’t need to labor with their hands. They might write music, novels, or philosophy, or manage their estates, but they didn’t do physical work. Aristotle even suggested that physical labor dulls the mind, which is why the nobles considered themselves the natural leaders and the serfs their followers.

Marx's theory, then, reflects the dynamic progression of history, rooted in material conditions and shaped by labor.

After all, didn’t Aristotle phrase it even more bluntly? He said that some people, from birth, are naturally cut out to be leaders and owners, while others are destined to be slaves. According to Aristotle, people are born with either a leader mentality or a slave mentality. The slaves need the leaders because only the leaders know what to do in any given situation, and the leaders need the servants or slaves to do the physical work and execute the plans they’ve made. One class becomes the planners, the other the workers. Marx takes this over but believes it was inevitable that a middle class would arise. These are the people who engage in trade—gathering products in one place, transporting them, and selling them where they can’t be produced. Some of them own mines, ship the ore, and sell it elsewhere. They become wealthy through trade, and soon it's not just the nobles who have wealth but also the middle class, while the serfs and workers remain impoverished. They're at the bottom, and despite being the majority, they stay poor.

Marx asks, “Can’t you see this is unjust? What’s wrong with all of you? Why don’t you care?” Despite the spread of Christianity throughout Europe and North America, people don’t seem to care that the greatest concentration of wealth is with those who do the least. The middle class, who work for their living, accumulate wealth, yet they too don’t seem to care about the workers. Marx uses the term workers for the peasants and serfs.

“How can you tell me that’s right?” Marx questions. “How can you say it's morally good to ignore the workers and leave them in poverty?” He introduces a radical new idea into public discourse: the wealthy have created laws that favor themselves, making it easier for them to become wealthier while keeping the workers poorer.

Marx’s infamous solution? The workers should unite, form an army, and overthrow the wealthy—what he calls the proletariat—though I'll use the term "wealthy" here. Marx argues that the wealthy have created laws to protect their wealth, taxing the workers and keeping them impoverished. Since the wealthy will never willingly give up their riches to help the poor, Marx says the only solution is for the workers to band together, overthrow the ruling class, and take their wealth by force.

And then? Marx envisions a classless society. After the workers overthrow the wealthy and seize their assets, they must establish a communist society where the wealth belongs to everyone. In this vision, no single person owns anything because Marx believes that the root cause of inequality and exploitation is the desire for private property.

Now, let me clarify two concepts quickly: socialism and communism.

Socialism is a political theory that argues the government should own the means of production—the things necessary for people to survive. For example, the government should own all the farms, hospitals, railroads, and airlines. The government produces what people need to live and sells it at the lowest possible price, ensuring everyone gets the same price. However, under socialism, private property still exists. People can own things like bookstores, boutiques, bowling alleys, homes, cars, and clothes. The government’s role is limited to owning and producing necessities like food, healthcare, and transportation to keep them affordable.

Communism, on the other hand, views private property as the root of all evil. In a communist society, no one owns anything. The government owns everything—the clothes you wear, the food on your table, the house you live in—and it controls the distribution of work and resources. The government takes work from people where it's needed and distributes what individuals need to survive, following the principle: “from each according to his ability, to each according to his need.”

Marx’s movement, along with his close associate Engels, who financially supported him, begins with their writings as they promote this radical ideology—a counter-gospel to Christianity.