The Inevitability of Speculation. Investigations into the Systematic Claim of Hegelian Idealism and its ‘Materialist Reading’

Abstract

Marxism understood its relationship to Hegel’s speculative idealism – following respective programmatical formulas in Marx, Engels, and Lenin – as the procedure of its materialistic “reversal” (“Umkehrung,” or “Umstülpung”). Taking, however, the complex structure of speculative idealism seriously the question arises as to how such a “reversal” is systematically and methodologically possible at all, going beyond a mere metaphor. Among the philosophically most ambitious projects intending to clarify this question and its theoretical and practical implications is the German Marxist philosopher Hans Heinz Holz’ (1927-2011). By taking Hegel’s speculative philosophy and its systematic framework – and, along with it, the entire pre-Hegelian tradition of speculative metaphysics – as seriously as, both from part of the Marxist tradition and of non-Marxist philosophy, hardly anyone does, he puts forward that Marxism ultimately remains structurally dependent on speculative idealism and, accordingly, should be understood as its “materialistic reading.”

It is the aim of the present paper to outline and – from a Hegelian position– critically discuss the program of this “materialistic reading.” By so doing the paper points to the relevance of this subject not only for Marxism but – as its particular focus – for interpretations of Hegel’s philosophy that are interested both in its strong systematic claims and in its metaphysical function in terms of our practical-political orientation in the world.

Hegel; Absolute Idea; Metaphysics; Materialism.