Hegel For Social Movements

Hegel for Social Movements by Andy Blunden is an introduction to the reading of Hegel for social change activists, focusing a non-metaphysical reading of the Logic and the Philosophy of Right.

It has been nearly two centuries since Marx famously turned Hegel on his head in order to repurpose dialectics as a revolutionary way of thinking about the internal contradictions of our social relations. Despite critiques from post-structuralists, post-colonialists, and others, there has been a resurgence of dialectical thought among political theorists as of late. This resurgence has coincided with a rise in the mention of words like class warfare, socialism, and communism among the general public on the streets of Seattle in 1999, in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, in the actions of the Greek anarchists and the Spanish indignados, and in the rallying cry of "we are the 99%" of the Occupy Movement, and in academia. This book explores how it is that dialectical thought might respond to the critiques brought forth by those on the left who are critical of Marxism’s universalizing and authoritarian legacy. Brian C. Lovato singles out Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe as the key interlocutors in this ongoing conversation between Marxism and post-structuralism. Laclau and Mouffe argue that Marxist theory is inherently authoritarian, cannot escape a class-reductionist theory of revolutionary subjectivity, and is bound by a closed Hegelian ontology. Lovato argues the opposite by turning to two heterodox Marxist thinkers, Raya Dunayevskaya and C. L. R. James, in order to construct a radically democratic, dynamic, and open conceptualization of dialectical thought. In doing so, he advances a vision of Marxist theory that might serve as a resource to scholars and activists committed not only to combatting capitalism, but also to fighting against colonialism, patriarchy, white supremacy, and heteronormativity. The writings of Dunayevskaya and James allow for Marxism to become relevant again in these tumultuous early years of the 21st century.

Marx and Hegel on the Dialectic of the Individual and the Social is a detailed investigation of the major works of Hegel and the young Marx with exploring how the concept of the individual is positioned within their ontologies and how this positioning is reflected in their related political views. Instead of contrasting a Marxist understanding of the individual with that of a liberal thinker, Sevgi Dogan chooses to take Hegel’s theory of the state as representative of the modern state, which Marx criticizes. The decision to be in opposition to Hegel rather than some other liberal thinkers is important for two reasons. First, since Marx has developed many of his early ideas in critical interaction with Hegel, this comparative approach enables the book to present a more thorough and well-grounded exposition of Marx’s arguments. Second, since Hegel himself has also criticized the concepts of liberal ideology in many respects, differentiating Marx’s arguments from those of Hegel’s enables the book to underline how and why Hegel’s critique of liberal ideology falls short of actually empowering individuals in the way that Marx’s account does.

A critical review of Cultural-Historical Activity Theory, the psychology originating from Lev Vygotsky (1896-1934). Tracing its roots in Goethe, Hegel and Marx, the author builds a concept of activity transcending the division between individual and social domains in human sciences.

Andy Blunden’s Hegel Marx & Vygotsky, Essays in Social Philosophy uses a series of essays to demonstrate how the cultural psychology of Lev Vygotsky and the Soviet Activity Theorists can be used to renew Hegelian Marxism as an interdisciplinary science.

The Recurrence of the End Times: Voegelin, Hegel, and the Stop-History Movements explores the deep connection between modern political ideologies and the secular eschatological hopes and dreams of a post-Christian society. Focusing primarily upon the thought of 20th century German émigré political scientist Eric Voegelin, the book argues that we cannot understand the globalized world in which we live unless we appreciate the lasting influence of the various "End of History" speculators—specifically, G.W.F Hegel, Alexandre Kojève, and Francis Fukuyama. Through a Voegelinian lens, he dissects the relationship between these three thinkers, also claiming that while Voegelin may have misunderstood Hegel, his critiques of the Hegelian approach to history offer fresh and important perspectives on the contemporary world. This makes a forceful argument that the idea of history as a teleological path, leading toward some goal—whether perfect harmony between nations, a technocratic utopia, a return to some romanticized idyllic “state of nature,” or what Kojève and Fukuyama called the “universal and homogenous State”—has vast, and perverse, implications for the trajectory of American foreign and domestic policy.

The theory of justice is one of the most intensely debated areas of contemporary philosophy. Most theories of justice, however, have only attained their high level of justification at great cost. By focusing on purely normative, abstract principles, they become detached from the sphere that constitutes their “field of application” - namely, social reality. Axel Honneth proposes a different approach. He seeks to derive the currently definitive criteria of social justice directly from the normative claims that have developed within Western liberal democratic societies. These criteria and these claims together make up what he terms “democratic ethical life”: a system of morally legitimate norms that are not only legally anchored, but also institutionally established. Honneth justifies this far-reaching endeavour by demonstrating that all essential spheres of action in Western societies share a single feature, as they all claim to realize a specific aspect of individual freedom. In the spirit of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right and guided by the theory of recognition, Honneth shows how principles of individual freedom are generated which constitute the standard of justice in various concrete social spheres: personal relationships, economic activity in the market, and the political public sphere. Honneth seeks thereby to realize a very ambitious aim: to renew the theory of justice as an analysis of society.

This book shows how an understanding of the nature and role of insanity in Hegel's writing provides intriguing new points of access to many of the central themes of his larger philosophic project. Berthold-Bond situates Hegel's theory of madness within the history of psychiatric practice during the great reform period at the turn of the eighteenth century, and shows how Hegel developed a middle path between the stridently opposed camps of "empirical" and "romantic" medicine, and of "somatic" and "psychical" practitioners. A key point of the book is to show that Hegel does not conceive of madness and health as strictly opposing states, but as kindred phenomena sharing many of the same underlying mental structures and strategies, so that the ontologies of insanity and rationality involve a mutually illuminating, mirroring relation. Hegel's theory is tested against the critiques of the institution of psychiatry and the very concept of madness by such influential twentieth-century authors as Michel Foucault and Thomas Szasz, and defended as offering a genuinely reconciling position in the contemporary debate between the "social labeling" and "medical" models of mental illness.

Hegel's "highway of despair," introduced in his Phenomenology of Spirit, is the tortured path traveled by "natural consciousness" on its way to freedom. Despair, the passionate residue of Hegelian critique, also indicates fugitive opportunities for freedom and preserves the principle of hope against all hope. Analyzing the works of an eclectic cast of thinkers, Robyn Marasco considers the dynamism of despair as a critical passion, reckoning with the forms of historical life forged along Hegel's highway. The Highway of Despair follows Theodor Adorno, Georges Bataille, and Frantz Fanon as they each read, resist, and reconfigure a strand of thought in Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit. Confronting the twentieth-century collapse of a certain revolutionary dialectic, these thinkers struggle to revalue critical philosophy and recast Left Hegelianism within the contexts of genocidal racism, world war, and colonial domination. Each thinker also re-centers the role of passion in critique. Arguing against more recent trends in critical theory that promise an escape from despair, Marasco shows how passion frustrates the resolutions of reason and faith. Embracing the extremism of what Marx, in the spirit of Hegel, called the "ruthless critique of everything existing," she affirms the contemporary purchase of radical critical theory, resulting in a passionate approach to political thought.