- I mentioned that I was, among other things, slowly working my way through Karl Barth's anthropology, which is volume III.2 of his _Church Dogmatics_. Earlier I quoted the book on Nietzsche. The following, an abridgement of sorts from pages 382-390, is about materialism and Marxism. Barth writes:-=-=-=-=-We cannot accept the reactions in which the attempt has been made to set over against the abstract dualism of the Greek and traditional Christian conception [of body and soul] a no less abstract monistic materialism.On this view, the real is only what is corporeal, spatial, physical and material. What cannot be brought under this denominator is either mere appearance, imagination, illusion, an irrelevant by-product or "epiphenomenon" of corporeal causes and conditions.This, then, is the materialist counter-attack. It is historically quite understandable. It does not rest primarily on scientific considerations, but on a certain kind of honesty and sobriety (recognizably antithetical to the Greek and traditional Christian view) in face of the actual course of individual and social life.The Christian Church is forced by this opponent to investigate more seriously the tenability of the abstract dualism of its own conception, since on its side too the connection of soul abd body is continually asserted but cannot really be exhibited within the framework of its conception. Indeed, the contrary thesis cannot be simply or finally denied, for rather disquietingly the biblical picture of man, and especially the resurrection hope of the NT, forces us to think along the lines to which materialism now points in one-sided but complementary opposition.Yet it is obvious that we must also contradict materialism with our statement that man is wholly and simultaneously soul and body.Man is also, and indeed wholly and utterly, body. This is what we must be told by materialism if we have not learned it elsewhere. But there is no sense in trying to seek and find man only in his body and its functions.We obviously do not see man if we will not see that, as he is wholly his body, he is also wholly his soul, which is the subject, the life of this body of his.Because materialism will not see this, it is unacceptable, and we have to ask whether it is not even more guilty of the very illusionism with which it charges the Greek and traditional early Christian conception, since the latter does not deny or suppress the problem of corporeality even though it cannot do justice to it, whereas that of the soul is completely eliminated under the hard fists of the materialists.As an example of the specifically modern form in which materialism appears, and in which in the middle and the end of last century [it is now 1948] it evoked as much enthusiastic applause on the one side as anxious shock or angry rejection on the other, we take the conception in which it was introduced by the Jena zoologist, Ernst Haeckel, in his book Die Weltrathsel, which first appeared in 1899 and was later very widely publicized.A similar Bible of modern materialism, Kraft und Stoff, had already been written in 1855 by a tutor at Tubingen, Ludwig Buchner, who was dismissed because of it. In the same year Karl Vogt had published his work Kohlerglaube und Wissenschaft. In the middle of the 19th century, Jakob Moleschott, another German tutor, had also emerged as a champion of similar views and was disciplined in consequence. During the forty years between these men and Haeckel, the philosophy of L. Feuerbach was at work on the frontiers of materialism. And in the work of his old age, Der alte und der neue Glaube (1872), D. F. Strauss finally broke with absolute Idealism and crossed over with flags flying into the camp of this very different system. The vote of Haeckel was the last and the most massive and impressive word in the matter.His exposition is as follows. What is called 'soul' is a natural phenomenon. Psychology is thus a branch of physiology. The basis of all spiritual events in both man and beast is 'psychoplasm', an egg-white carbonic compound...[etc., etc.]The materialism of the middle and later 19th century was only in a very qualified sense the result of modern natural science.There can be no doubt, of course, that the natural science of the 19th century, which was so much more thorough-going than ever before, had a general tendency in this direction, the public being specially aware of it in the bearing of its doctors; and that conclusions, such as those which Buchner, Vogt, Moleschott and finally Haeckel proposed, found an immense number of exponents and prophets among the clerus minor of the world of culture with its contemporary interest in natural science. But it is also true that the leading and famous investigators and teachers in natural science, however much they might be inclined to think along similar lines, displayed strikingly little inclination in general for the conclusions of those who precipitated strife or for the proclamation of a dogmatic materialism. Nor was this because they were hampered by the powers of the state, society and the Church and could not summon up courage, but clearly because of the obvious insight so appropriate to the laboratory that, though these conclusions might seem to be suggested by their science, they could not be drawn by it. The step from affirming that human consciousness is a function of the brain to affirming that it is _only_ a function of the brain, from stating that the soul is materially conditioned to stating that it is materially _constituted_, and therefore to materialistic monism, requires another justification than natural science can provide. Haeckel's 'psychoplasm' has never actually been seen by mortal eye.It is also the case--and Haeckel himself deplored it loudly--that at this time some of those who bore names most prominent in natural science held publicly aloof from the systematizing and dogmatizing of materialism, although in their earlier years they had apparently or genuinely favored it. Haeckel declared, with firmness and friendliness, that their position was explicable only by a psychological metamorphosis caused by the advancing predominance of age. But when they adopted this position these men had no intention of confessing the spiritualism and dualism of the Early Church, as this had been passed on to them through the decades. Their aim was rather to indicate the reservations which must be made, if science is to be true to itself, against a leap which might perhaps appear to be a close consequence from it, but which can in no case be claimed as what it is usually called a 'finding' of science.But the modern materialism which particularly interests us cannot be dismissed in this way. It had and has the power, not of true science, but of a comprehensive view of the world.It seems to be a fact that human reality represents itself to the naïve consideration of most men of all ages in a form which is far closer to the materialistic picture than to that of Christian dualism. And there can be no doubt that, as a result of rapid social progress since the 17th century, from 1830 at the very latest, a form of life began to distinguish itself which must and did speak with primitive weight in favor of a materialistic anthropology. The general rationalization of human life in the sense of this progress which had begun in the 18th century, very clearly and decisively involved in the practice of the 19th its subjection to economics, its commercialization, industrialization and mechanization, and therefore its obvious materialization.At the beginning of the century, the Idealists, e.g., Schleiermacher as a moralist [or, certainly, Hegel himself], had still visualized the powerful onslaught and victory of spirit over nature and matter. But the real picture which soon presented itself to all strata of the civilized nations except the dreaming philosophers, poets and, unfortunately, theologians, was very different.The first railways began to rattle across Europe, the fist steamships to cross the Atlantic, the first electric telephones to operate, the first forerunners of the modern photograph to immortalize the physical countenance of man as he is. There began a direction of enormous interest on the part of a noteworthy proportion of the Western intelligentsia towards technics with its promise of substantial rewards. There began the corresponding mass movement of town and country into the factories, forges and mines.The figure of the human robot, who neither asks nor is asked about his soul and therefore cannot ask about that of others, who by an anonymous center of power is made, moved, regulated, used and then discarded and replaced from an anonymous center--this materialistic human figure was now arising.The real foundation of modern materialism, and the explanation of the validity and expansion which it has enjoyed in and in spite of its scientific weakness, are not to be found in the researches and results of biology and physiology, but in the rise of this form of humanity.This is where what is called 'historical materialism' comes in.It is certainly one of the historical limits of Marxism that it has bound itself so closely with the dogma of ostensibly scientific materialism. But we quite misunderstand it if we take it to be grounded on this, or adopt the view of older theological polemics that it is one of its evil moral fruits. The very opposite is the case, namely, that ostensibly scientific materialism, at any rate in the 19th century, acquired weight only as it was discovered, appropriated and employed by historical materialism. Over against it, historical materialism is a construction with its own origin.It is now clear why the pseudo-scientific materialism of the 19th century, which now concerns us, should acquire so much weight and currency. Marxism as such needs no such doctrine. For Marxism, speculations along the lines of Feuerbach and Haeckel could only be one middle-class ideology with others. And these middle-class materialists for their part could be notoriously unconcerned with working-class affairs and movements. D. F. Strauss being a fairly bigoted devourer of Socialists.Yet the fact remains that Marxism could use this doctrine. It allied itself with it to form what began to be called the "Marxist view of the world". Were not body and soul related to each other in the doctrine of these materialists as economic development to the accompanying ideological phenomena in Marxist doctrine?There thus arose the equation, practically sacrosanct even today to orthodox socialism, that Marxism is science, i.e., natural science, i.e., the natural philosophy of the cult of Haeckel. There thus arose the mass emotion which first gave to the materialism of the cult of Haeckel its distinctive popularity.But we must go deeper and say that it lives on that which in historical materialism is not merely a compelling construction but genuinely historical. It lives on the factual existence of that soulless figure of man so forcefully revealed in the 19th century.Obviously it was and is a congeniality in error which caused Marx to ally himself with this doctrine of human nature. Obviously it is a curse lying on this matter, which will one day avenge itself, that the most determined, consistent and orthodox representatives of the Marxism based on this alliance take on more and more of the spirit, or lack of spirit, of that robot man.
- It is interesting that it is implied that David Strauss was an absolute idealist in his early work (i.e. The Life of Jesus), when it is said that he only broke with it in his later work. There seems to be an echo of Rudolf Haym’s book on Hegel in the idea that the era of railways and steam engines soon made Hegel’s age seem out of date. Haym was one of those influenced by Feuerbach (amongst others). In passing, the German Eiweiss (literally egg-white) means protein.Stephen CowleySent: Thursday, November 15, 2018 7:22 PMSubject: [hegel] materialismI mentioned that I was, among other things, slowly working my way through Karl Barth's anthropology, which is volume III.2 of his _Church Dogmatics_. Earlier I quoted the book on Nietzsche. The following, an abridgement of sorts from pages 382-390, is about materialism and Marxism. Barth writes:-=-=-=-=-We cannot accept the reactions in which the attempt has been made to set over against the abstract dualism of the Greek and traditional Christian conception [of body and soul] a no less abstract monistic materialism..On this view, the real is only what is corporeal, spatial, physical and material. What cannot be brought under this denominator is either mere appearance, imagination, illusion, an irrelevant by-product or "epiphenomenon" of corporeal causes and conditions.This, then, is the materialist counter-attack. It is historically quite understandable. It does not rest primarily on scientific considerations, but on a certain kind of honesty and sobriety (recognizably antithetical to the Greek and traditional Christian view) in face of the actual course of individual and social life.The Christian Church is forced by this opponent to investigate more seriously the tenability of the abstract dualism of its own conception, since on its side too the connection of soul abd body is continually asserted but cannot really be exhibited within the framework of its conception. Indeed, the contrary thesis cannot be simply or finally denied, for rather disquietingly the biblical picture of man, and especially the resurrection hope of the NT, forces us to think along the lines to which materialism now points in one-sided but complementary opposition.Yet it is obvious that we must also contradict materialism with our statement that man is wholly and simultaneously soul and body.Man is also, and indeed wholly and utterly, body. This is what we must be told by materialism if we have not learned it elsewhere. But there is no sense in trying to seek and find man only in his body and its functions.We obviously do not see man if we will not see that, as he is wholly his body, he is also wholly his soul, which is the subject, the life of this body of his.Because materialism will not see this, it is unacceptable, and we have to ask whether it is not even more guilty of the very illusionism with which it charges the Greek and traditional early Christian conception, since the latter does not deny or suppress the problem of corporeality even though it cannot do justice to it, whereas that of the soul is completely eliminated under the hard fists of the materialists.As an example of the specifically modern form in which materialism appears, and in which in the middle and the end of last century [it is now 1948] it evoked as much enthusiastic applause on the one side as anxious shock or angry rejection on the other, we take the conception in which it was introduced by the Jena zoologist, Ernst Haeckel, in his book Die Weltrathsel, which first appeared in 1899 and was later very widely publicized.A similar Bible of modern materialism, Kraft und Stoff, had already been written in 1855 by a tutor at Tubingen, Ludwig Buchner, who was dismissed because of it. In the same year Karl Vogt had published his work Kohlerglaube und Wissenschaft. In the middle of the 19th century, Jakob Moleschott, another German tutor, had also emerged as a champion of similar views and was disciplined in consequence. During the forty years between these men and Haeckel, the philosophy of L. Feuerbach was at work on the frontiers of materialism. And in the work of his old age, Der alte und der neue Glaube (1872), D. F. Strauss finally broke with absolute Idealism and crossed over with flags flying into the camp of this very different system. The vote of Haeckel was the last and the most massive and impressive word in the matter.His exposition is as follows. What is called 'soul' is a natural phenomenon. Psychology is thus a branch of physiology. The basis of all spiritual events in both man and beast is 'psychoplasm', an egg-white carbonic compound...[etc., etc.]The materialism of the middle and later 19th century was only in a very qualified sense the result of modern natural science.There can be no doubt, of course, that the natural science of the 19th century, which was so much more thorough-going than ever before, had a general tendency in this direction, the public being specially aware of it in the bearing of its doctors; and that conclusions, such as those which Buchner, Vogt, Moleschott and finally Haeckel proposed, found an immense number of exponents and prophets among the clerus minor of the world of culture with its contemporary interest in natural science. But it is also true that the leading and famous investigators and teachers in natural science, however much they might be inclined to think along similar lines, displayed strikingly little inclination in general for the conclusions of those who precipitated strife or for the proclamation of a dogmatic materialism. Nor was this because they were hampered by the powers of the state, society and the Church and could not summon up courage, but clearly because of the obvious insight so appropriate to the laboratory that, though these conclusions might seem to be suggested by their science, they could not be drawn by it. The step from affirming that human consciousness is a function of the brain to affirming that it is _only_ a function of the brain, from stating that the soul is materially conditioned to stating that it is materially _constituted_, and therefore to materialistic monism, requires another justification than natural science can provide. Haeckel's 'psychoplasm' has never actually been seen by mortal eye.It is also the case--and Haeckel himself deplored it loudly--that at this time some of those who bore names most prominent in natural science held publicly aloof from the systematizing and dogmatizing of materialism, although in their earlier years they had apparently or genuinely favored it. Haeckel declared, with firmness and friendliness, that their position was explicable only by a psychological metamorphosis caused by the advancing predominance of age. But when they adopted this position these men had no intention of confessing the spiritualism and dualism of the Early Church, as this had been passed on to them through the decades. Their aim was rather to indicate the reservations which must be made, if science is to be true to itself, against a leap which might perhaps appear to be a close consequence from it, but which can in no case be claimed as what it is usually called a 'finding' of science.But the modern materialism which particularly interests us cannot be dismissed in this way. It had and has the power, not of true science, but of a comprehensive view of the world.It seems to be a fact that human reality represents itself to the naïve consideration of most men of all ages in a form which is far closer to the materialistic picture than to that of Christian dualism. And there can be no doubt that, as a result of rapid social progress since the 17th century, from 1830 at the very latest, a form of life began to distinguish itself which must and did speak with primitive weight in favor of a materialistic anthropology. The general rationalization of human life in the sense of this progress which had begun in the 18th century, very clearly and decisively involved in the practice of the 19th its subjection to economics, its commercialization, industrialization and mechanization, and therefore its obvious materialization.At the beginning of the century, the Idealists, e.g., Schleiermacher as a moralist [or, certainly, Hegel himself], had still visualized the powerful onslaught and victory of spirit over nature and matter. But the real picture which soon presented itself to all strata of the civilized nations except the dreaming philosophers, poets and, unfortunately, theologians, was very different.The first railways began to rattle across Europe, the fist steamships to cross the Atlantic, the first electric telephones to operate, the first forerunners of the modern photograph to immortalize the physical countenance of man as he is. There began a direction of enormous interest on the part of a noteworthy proportion of the Western intelligentsia towards technics with its promise of substantial rewards. There began the corresponding mass movement of town and country into the factories, forges and mines.The figure of the human robot, who neither asks nor is asked about his soul and therefore cannot ask about that of others, who by an anonymous center of power is made, moved, regulated, used and then discarded and replaced from an anonymous center--this materialistic human figure was now arising.The real foundation of modern materialism, and the explanation of the validity and expansion which it has enjoyed in and in spite of its scientific weakness, are not to be found in the researches and results of biology and physiology, but in the rise of this form of humanity.This is where what is called 'historical materialism' comes in.It is certainly one of the historical limits of Marxism that it has bound itself so closely with the dogma of ostensibly scientific materialism. But we quite misunderstand it if we take it to be grounded on this, or adopt the view of older theological polemics that it is one of its evil moral fruits. The very opposite is the case, namely, that ostensibly scientific materialism, at any rate in the 19th century, acquired weight only as it was discovered, appropriated and employed by historical materialism. Over against it, historical materialism is a construction with its own origin.It is now clear why the pseudo-scientific materialism of the 19th century, which now concerns us, should acquire so much weight and currency. Marxism as such needs no such doctrine. For Marxism, speculations along the lines of Feuerbach and Haeckel could only be one middle-class ideology with others. And these middle-class materialists for their part could be notoriously unconcerned with working-class affairs and movements. D. F. Strauss being a fairly bigoted devourer of Socialists.Yet the fact remains that Marxism could use this doctrine. It allied itself with it to form what began to be called the "Marxist view of the world". Were not body and soul related to each other in the doctrine of these materialists as economic development to the accompanying ideological phenomena in Marxist doctrine?There thus arose the equation, practically sacrosanct even today to orthodox socialism, that Marxism is science, i.e., natural science, i.e., the natural philosophy of the cult of Haeckel. There thus arose the mass emotion which first gave to the materialism of the cult of Haeckel its distinctive popularity.But we must go deeper and say that it lives on that which in historical materialism is not merely a compelling construction but genuinely historical. It lives on the factual existence of that soulless figure of man so forcefully revealed in the 19th century.Obviously it was and is a congeniality in error which caused Marx to ally himself with this doctrine of human nature. Obviously it is a curse lying on this matter, which will one day avenge itself, that the most determined, consistent and orthodox representatives of the Marxism based on this alliance take on more and more of the spirit, or lack of spirit, of that robot man.
Certainly, Stephen, Hegel became, almost immediately the day after he died,--out of date.
I recall sitting in the shot-gun seat of the van at work reading the introduction to Hegel's Aesthetics. The driver was our computer operator. Usually people at work don't ask me about what I am reading. But as a computer operator I guess he felt qualified to do so. I said I was reading Hegel's Aesthetics. He looked at me funny--to say: what in the world is aesthetics? So I said there was architecture, sculpture, painting, music, and poetry. Oh, ok, he knew what those things were.
So he asked me what about something or other that was an art having to do with the computer. I explained that the work I was reading was from about 1830. He looked at me like I was crazy. Why would anyone read a book that was almost 200 years old?--such was implied in his look.
Fortunately he never asked me again about what I was reading. But we tend to lose sight of the fact that almost anyone today would consider reading a book from 200 years ago simply crazy--especially if they have some sort of little degree in computer operating or anything of that sort.
John
- The confidence of contemporary schooling and the hubris of being computer literate! But there is always a season for the old!Srivats
Certainly, Stephen, Hegel became, almost immediately the day after he died,--out of date.
I recall sitting in the shot-gun seat of the van at work reading the introduction to Hegel's Aesthetics. The driver was our computer operator. Usually people at work don't ask me about what I am reading. But as a computer operator I guess he felt qualified to do so. I said I was reading Hegel's Aesthetics. He looked at me funny--to say: what in the world is aesthetics? So I said there was architecture, sculpture, painting, music, and poetry. Oh, ok, he knew what those things were.
So he asked me what about something or other that was an art having to do with the computer. I explained that the work I was reading was from about 1830. He looked at me like I was crazy. Why would anyone read a book that was almost 200 years old?--such was implied in his look.
Fortunately he never asked me again about what I was reading. But we tend to lose sight of the fact that almost anyone today would consider reading a book from 200 years ago simply crazy--especially if they have some sort of little degree in computer operating or anything of that sort.
John
--R Srivatsan
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