Kommentar zu Hegel und Marx, Chapter 12
The First Thesis and the Transition to the Idea
The first thesis is systematically the most important:
“The chief defect of all previous materialism (that of Feuerbach included) is that the thing, reality, sensuousness, is conceived only in the form of the object or of contemplation, but not as sensuous human activity, practice, not subjectively. Hence, in contradistinction to materialism, the active side was developed abstractly by idealism […].” (MEW 3, 5; the passage quoted is Marx’s own text from the notebook, not the version Engels edited in 1888)
The expression “form of the object” points to a specific location. In Hegel’s Doctrine of the Concept, objectivity follows the subjective concept (worked out in Der subjektive Begriff) — the world as an ordered whole, treated under the headings of mechanism, chemism, and teleology. This stage proves incomplete, since it presupposes a thinking that first determines it as objectivity. The transition to the Idea accomplishes exactly what Marx demands here: the Idea is no longer a finished object of contemplation but the movement in which subject and object interpenetrate — unfolded as the Idea of life, of cognition, and of willing.
Marx’s “sensuous human activity” is the unity of cognition and willing: not first observing and then acting, but both as moments of a single enactment. What Hegel develops as the Idea of cognition and willing, Marx concretizes as social practice. The terminology diverges; the structure does not.
Marx half admits this himself. Idealism, he says, developed the active side — “but only abstractly.” That is not a rejection but the charge of not having pushed something far enough — the charge of an heir, not an opponent. And what he is criticizing is Feuerbach, who falls back behind Hegel: Feuerbach had wanted to replace Hegel’s thinking of mediation with a philosophy of immediate intuition, and in doing so had regressed behind critical philosophy.
The Third Thesis and Reciprocal Action
“The materialist doctrine concerning the changing of circumstances and upbringing forgets that circumstances are changed by men and that the educator must himself be educated. […] The coincidence of the changing of circumstances and of human activity or self-change can be conceived and rationally understood only as revolutionary practice.” (MEW 3, 5f.)
The opponent here is a mechanical materialism that treats human beings as products of their circumstances and thereby forgets that circumstances are themselves made by human beings. Anyone who thinks this way must split society into two parts, one of which stands above it — the educators, who are themselves not educated. Marx shows that this split follows from the error in thinking.
The coincidence of the changing of circumstances and self-change is the structure that Hegel develops in the Doctrine of Essence as reciprocal action (Die Wirklichkeit): two sides that constitute one another mutually, without either one-sidedly determining the other. Marx calls the conscious appropriation of this structure revolutionary practice. The name is new; the determination is not.
The Remaining Theses
The second thesis shifts the question of whether thinking possesses objective truth from theory into practice: it is there that the human being must prove the reality and this-sidedness of his thought. This sounds directed against Hegel, and it is not. That cognition must prove itself in willing, and that there is no unreachable beyond to thought, was developed against Kant — and by Hegel. Marx shifts the accent onto the site of proof. What becomes of this shift when it is expanded into a general theory of truth is treated in Part V.
The sixth thesis is the most famous: the human essence is not an abstraction inherent in the isolated individual but, “in its reality, […] the ensemble of social relations” (MEW 3, 6). Against Feuerbach’s mute generic universality, this is correct. Against Hegel it would be correct only if Hegel had determined the essence of the human being abstractly — and this is precisely what he does not do. In the Philosophy of Right, the person is actual as a member of the family, of civil society, and of the state; the essence lies in ethical relations and nowhere else. Marx’s formula is a translation of Sittlichkeit into the language of social science. What he adds is found in the seventh thesis: that these relations are historically changeable, and that even the abstract individual whom Feuerbach analyzes belongs to a determinate form of society. This is a historicization that is present in Hegel in outline but not carried through.
The eighth thesis states that all mysteries which lead theory toward mysticism find their rational solution in human practice and in the comprehension of this practice. The addition should be noted: not practice alone, but practice together with its comprehension.
The eleventh thesis, finally — that philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways, whereas the point is to change it — is usually read as a dismissal of philosophy. Taken as a dismissal, it cancels itself, since it is itself a theoretical statement about the relation of theory and practice. Read as a demand for the practical Idea, it enacts a transition that Hegel himself develops in the Doctrine of the Concept: from theoretical to practical cognition (Erkennen und Wollen). What Marx adds is the charge that philosophy up to now has stopped short at interpretation. The charge hits Hegel’s application. Hegel had developed the practical Idea and had not carried it through in the Philosophy of Right.
What the Theses Show
The logical structure of the theses is thoroughly Hegelian throughout: the active side against contemplative materialism, the reciprocal determination of circumstances and self-change, the concrete essence against the abstract genus, the unity of theory and practice. What Marx adds is the emphasis on practice as the site of proof, the historicization of social relations, and the political turn.
What he does not do is give an account of this. He understands himself as a materialist opposed to idealism, while his materialism presupposes the very logic he attributes to idealism. For the history of its reception, this matters more than any single thesis.
The Remaining Theses, Read in Sequence
What holds for the first thesis holds for the others as well — and so regularly that it forms a pattern.
Thesis 2 declares the question of truth to be practical: “Man must prove the truth, i.e., the reality and power, the this-sidedness of his thinking, in practice.” This sounds anti-Hegelian. But Hegel had shown in the practical Idea that cognition must prove itself in willing, and the this-sidedness of thought is exactly what he develops against Kant. What Marx adds is the emphasis, not the thought.
Thesis 6 is the most famous: the human essence is, “in its reality, […] the ensemble of the social relations.” This is anti-Feuerbachian — directed against the abstract genus. It is not anti-Hegelian: Hegel had shown in the Philosophy of Right that the person is actual only as a member of family, civil society, and state.
Thesis 8 demands the “rational solution” of mysteries in practice. This hits Feuerbach, who dissolves religion theoretically rather than sublating it practically. Hegel had determined the absolute Idea as the unity of the theoretical and the practical Idea; here too Marx shifts the accent.
Thesis 11 is usually read as a break with philosophy: “The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it.”
It can also be read as a consequence. If cognition must prove itself in practice, then changing the world is the criterion of truth. The charge then hits Hegel’s application, not his logic: he had developed the practical Idea and had not applied it consistently in the Philosophy of Right.
What the Sequence Yields
The same thing holds in all five cases: the thought is present in Hegel; the emphasis is new. Marx criticizes Feuerbach with arguments he found in Hegel — and directs them, at the same time, against Hegel’s own application.
This is neither a refutation nor a mere continuation, but both at once: a critique from within, one that takes its standard from the very place where it applies it.