For the next 12 weeks, I will post a weekly mini-series on the manuscript Theses on Feuerbach (1845) by Karl Marx. To keep it quick and digestible, I will review only one thesis per post. I planned on Thesis 1 for this post, but I’m deferring that for the second week because my writeup on background ended up being quite long by itself.
I am a layperson, so I welcome any discussion, especially (but not only) if you have expertise and can fill in the gaps. I don’t pretend to be an expert on this.
The manuscript, being only a couple of pages long, is full of insight. It is a worthwhile read, no matter if you have read zero theory or if you have read Das Kapital cover-to-cover.
The relation between Marx and Feuerbach
Since this is the first post, I will briefly explain how Karl Marx relates to Ludwig Feuerbach, at least in Marx’s view.
The Theses are certainly critical of Feuerbach, but by no means do they indicate that Marx held a negative opinion of Feuerbach.
Rather, Marx believed that:[1]
Feuerbach is the only one who has a serious, critical attitude to the Hegelian dialectic and who has made genuine discoveries in this field. He is in fact the true conqueror of the old philosophy. The extent of his achievement, and the unpretentious simplicity with which he, Feuerbach, gives it to the world, stand in striking contrast to the opposite attitude [of the others].
Feuerbach’s contribution can be thought of as the fullest expression of what Mao called mechanical materialism.[2] I think this is a bit stronger than how Marx perceived Feuerbach, but it’s not necessarily incorrect.
The left-wing Young Hegelians, Feuerbach included, had an issue with Hegel: the dialectic of Hegel had a conservative aspect which, evidently, allowed a reactionary interpretation of his dialectic. It became clear that either Hegel’s ideas had to be abandoned by the left, or they had to be corrected. Feuerbach, for his part, attempted to refute the Hegelian dialectic.
Marx decides that Feuerbach succeeded in demonstrating the issue with the Hegelian dialectic, and even extending that theory; but, Marx says, Feuerbach failed to fully refute it, of course because Marx still believed that in Hegel lies a rational kernel[3] which needs to be taken seriously. Feuerbach argued that the core of Hegel’s dialectic, the negation of the negation, instead of refuting religion, proves (incorrectly) its truth.
Feuerbach’s contribution to philosophy, for our purposes here, can be summed up as the refutation of religion.
Marx fully endorsed the refutation of religion from a theoretical perspective. Such a refutation would be required (eventually) for true human emancipation:[4]
It is, therefore, the task of history, once the other-world of truth has vanished, to establish the truth of this world. It is the immediate task of philosophy, which is in the service of history, to unmask self-estrangement in its unholy forms once the holy form of human self-estrangement has been unmasked. Thus, the criticism of Heaven turns into the criticism of Earth, the criticism of religion into the criticism of law, and the criticism of theology into the criticism of politics.
Self-estrangement, as far as I understand, is a fancy Hegelian term which one might equate with alienation. I won’t attempt a complete Hegelian definition here since I would do a poor job of it, but I think it suffices here to read the above as Marx saying that human emancipation requires genuine understanding of reality and of humanity, by humanity; that countless obstacles prevent realization of this, including religion (the “holy form”) but also secular aspects of life (the “unholy form”), such as… class society. Refutation of all these forms of mystification is necessary, so refutation of religion alone leaves the work incomplete. As we will see, Marx understands religion as necessarily arising on the secular basis, and therefore religion cannot be entirely refuted in isolation from its secular basis.
The purpose, then, of Marx’s Theses on Feuerbach, is to understand what limits Feuerbach’s philosophy and prevented Feuerbach from progressing beyond mere religious criticism and toward a more revolutionary criticism of bourgeois society in all of its aspects.
Hell yes!
