The Oxford Handbook of German Philosophy in the Nineteenth Century

by Michael N Forster

  8.4 HUMAN RECOGNITION

  Marx’s species metaphysics encompasses an account of recognition that has both a social-ontological and an ethical function (Quante 2011). In a first step, I shall now develop the role of recognition as a critical standard of assessment, before then, in a second step, designating it as the core of Marx’s ethical counter-project.

  8.4.1 Recognition as Critical Background

  In the Excerpts, Marx works on the assumption that money is the estranged objectification of the species being. In virtue of this reification (i.e. the transfer of properties from the activity to the product) ‘man regards his will, his activity and his relation to other men as a power independent of him and them’ (Excerpts, 212). Marx at once formulates the positive side of the contrast: ‘instead of man himself being the mediator for man’ (Excerpts, 212). Furthermore he transfers the Feuerbachian critique of religion to economic circumstances under conditions of division of labour, private property, and wage labour. In so doing, he provides the following analysis of estranged recognition under these conditions (Excerpts, 212, 225–7): A and B independently produce P1 and P2, exchange their products directly and for their own respective consummation. Since at the outset the situation is symmetrical, Marx takes up and illustrates A’s perspective: A produces P1 with the intention not to consume P1 himself, but to exchange it for P2; he wants to purchase P2 to satisfy his own need and he wants B to exchange P2 for P1. In this situation, A believes that B needs P1 and that B will hand P2 over to him if B obtains P1 from A. Consequently, A gives P1 to B precisely with the intention of retrieving P2 for the satisfaction of his own needs. In the second step, A swaps with B, although B’s need for P1 is not the goal of A’s action. The fact that B needs P1 is what A believes, but it is not his volition. In this exchange, A recognizes B only as the owner of P2 and not as a being with a justified need for P1. The fact that B needs P1 is not a motive for A to give P1 to B. A’s sole motive is rather to purchase P2 for the satisfaction of his own need. A produced P1—in anticipation of the exchange—solely with the intention of using it as a means to the satisfaction of his own need for P2. The fact that B has a need for P1 is still a necessary precondition assumed by A for the realization of that intention, but it does not let B’s neediness become the motive for A’s production.

  Marx goes on to analyse the situation as follows: there is no immediate relationship between P2 and A, because P2 belongs to B and can only be obtained by A through exchange. P1 is a production by the owner A for the owner B, and not a production by the human species being A for the human species being B. The species being of the human being would only be realized if both made the other’s neediness the goal of their respective production. Then the interaction between A and B, who mutually realize their essence through the satisfaction of the other’s need for the sake of that neediness, would have been an objectification of the human essence. Here, Marx draws on the following Feuerbachian premise: If A has a need for x, then x is part of A’s essence. Thus if A needs something B produces, then B’s production is part of the realization of A’s essence. The human species being is only realized through social interaction at the level of material reproduction, which is, however, not attained in the exchange situation, as there is as yet no mutual recognition of the other’s neediness as a goal of production and exchange.

  On the basis of his objectification model, Marx quashes the objection that in exchange (or in other forms of collective action) something could be objectified that is irreducible to the intentions of the agents involved. This point is directed against Hegel’s interpretation of Adam Smith’s metaphor of the ‘invisible hand’ and amounts to the view that within Marx’s objectification model collective action must be reducible to the intentions of the individual agents.

  The form that is realized in the medium of exchange is inadequate to the human species being, even though the constitutive neediness exists here, too. As neediness it is an expression of the human species being, but in the estranged state of exchange this bond of essence is perverted by instrumentalization and heteronomy: if A produces P1 with the goal of getting P2, then P1 is not the actual goal of A’s activity (which is why A becomes estranged in this activity). And B, B’s activity and neediness are only further means employed by A to get P2. There is an interleaving between the intentions and actions of A and B that can factually function only if A and B participate in the human species being, that is, if they cannot realize their own essence without the other. But, thereby, A and B are aiming only at their individual utility, which they want to realize as extensively and as easily as possible. Therefore, Marx holds, the structure of this form of cooperation implies that A and B want to overreach one another. What looks like cooperation for mutual benefit is actually an instrumentalization of the other for the purpose of attaining one’s own advantage.

  In the exchange, A and B recognize one another as private owners of their respective products, so that B is free not to exchange his product for A’s. This is why A’s strategy can only be successful if B factually recognizes the power of P1 by consenting to the exchange, because he needs P1 for the satisfaction of his need. As this recognition in the exchange occurs on both sides, the strategy of mutual overreaching is a struggle for recognition: A struggles for B’s recognition of A’s product (and vice versa). Here, Marx is employing the Hegelian figure of the struggle for recognition in order to analyse the estranged–estranging interaction between A and B. In doing so, he not only grasps the perspectives of those involved, but also reconstructs the overall structure of the interaction. This struggle for recognition is a symmetric relation for whose function it is irrelevant which of the two protagonists holds the upper hand (or whether they exchange equivalents, which is also a possible outcome). What is structurally characteristic according to Marx is the indirectness of the social interaction that comes about through the products to be exchanged and, as their source, through A’s and B’s respective acts of production. Without neediness there would be no exchange, but B’s neediness is not A’s motive for producing and giving away P1; the only motive is the goal of obtaining P2 for the satisfaction of his own need. If C, who also needs P1 but has no product to offer, were to ask A for P1 just because he (i.e. C) has the respective need, then this would be a breach of the rules. Marx analyses the psychic consequences of C’s request under the conditions that A and C orient themselves to the grammar of private property. C has to come down and cannot act as an equal, independent and free supplier or demander. He cannot for himself fulfil the norms he recognizes. A will see C’s request as an infringement and as an impertinence because he is being asked to forgo the pursuit of his personal interest, which is the primary motive of his production. Actually, as Marx puts it in anticipation of his own ethical conception, the dignity of a human being lies in the fact that neediness is recognized for its own sake and that the other’s neediness becomes an immediate motive for interaction. Under the circumstances of private property and exchange it is, however, perverted into its opposite. Dignity lies precisely in the independence of being an owner and a market player, and the moral achievement lies in not being ‘pulled over the barrel’ by an exchange partner because of one’s own neediness, that is, not making oneself subservient to one’s own needs. Marx emphasizes this aspect in an explicit allusion to Hegel’s concept of recognition. The social relationship between lordship and slavery counts as a first, rough manifestation of this self-relationship and is characterized by the constellation that the two functions of being means and end are distributed unilaterally to A and B as social roles. Marx wants to show that the abolition of slavery within a legal order is only the sublation of a form of appearance of this contradictory self-relationship, and by no means a resolution of the contradiction itself. For within the legal framework of exchange, the conflict-laden roles of master and slave are only internalized into the respective self-relationships of A and B, but they are not abolished. Blatant slavery is refined, but essentially preserve
d in the legal circumstances of private property, wage labour, and exchange.

  For Marx, the seeming sublation of social injustice through the development of private property and law (as well as morality, the state, etc.) is only an ‘ideological’ sublation that does not reach to the core or the origin of the actual contradiction, which Marx interprets as estrangement. Internalization can thus not be a sublation in the sense of an ethically adequate self-distancing and (partial) self-instrumentalization, the stabilization of which requires ethics, morality, law, political institutions, and media of cultural self-interpretation such as art, religion or philosophy (where this is ultimately Hegel’s reply). Instead, Marx has to call for a sublation of this self-estrangement in the immediate activity of A and B as well as in their direct interaction. As we shall see, this forms the core of the positive counter-utopia Marx sketches subsequent to this analysis of estranged circumstances.

  8.4.2 Recognition as a Positive Counter Project

  Many passages in the Manuscripts can be read as an ethical argument if one understands the emphasis on nature and the essentialism regarding the species being along the lines of an Aristotelian ethics that centres on the realization of an essence (Wood 1981). However, this reading does not capture the full extent of Marx’s position. To determine the basic ethical categories adequately, one must have recourse to the concept of recognition. This becomes plainest in view of the famous passage from the end of the Excerpts (pp. 227f.), in which Marx sketches a utopian counter project. In a succeeding interaction, A helps B to realize B’s species being, is recognized by B as this mediator, and knows that B recognizes him as such. A thereby objectifies his own species being in B’s recognition and makes it the object of his consciousness. A helps B to realize B’s individuality, so that A can realize his individual essence and his species being in this activity. This holds on condition that B really appreciates A’s product and provides the recognition A anticipates. Under the further condition that the interaction is one of symmetric mutuality, B also realizes his human essence.

  In analysing this structure of recognition, Marx contrasts the succeeding constellation with the one explicated before, which centres on an exchange action under conditions of private property and market. His counter-proposal encompasses the ontological thesis that a single individual cannot realize its species being, but is dependent on the constitutive contribution of an other or all others. This ontological bond of unity is realized in a non-estranged co-production: A knows and senses B to be a necessary part of his (i.e. A’s) own essence. This realization of an essence requires not only a causal connection but, with regard to the level of (self-)interpretation, also the proper attitude of those involved in social cooperation: recognition of the other as a human being and creature of needs as well as bearer of one’s own needs, and of love as an expression of the recognition that the other makes the realization of one’s own species being possible through his activity. A’s and B’s acts of production and consumption are necessary elements of the adequate realization of the species being, which Marx characterizes solely negatively as the absence of means-end-perversion and mediation by private property, market, and wage labour. Thus in addition to the ontological dimension of mutual dependence as moments of the objectual species being that realizes itself in production, the implicitly ethical norm of the adequate individual perspective is found in this ontological dimension as well as in the proper attitude towards the needs of others. At the same time, the symmetry requirement can be referred to as the basis of the intersubjective validity of these claims, which is grounded in the ontological interconnection between individuals in respect of their species nature. Hence there is an ethical theory inscribed in Marx’s species metaphysics: the proper ethical consciousness of the individuals is necessary for an adequate realization of their species being.

  8.5 THE MATERIALISTIC PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY

  This overall conception with its action-theoretic and epistemological assumptions includes a philosophy of history: historical materialism (Cohen 2001). For Marx, the question of the necessary origin of estrangement, which is left open in the account of estrangement, must be answered in such a way that it evades Stirner’s accusation of being metaphysical.

  Marx develops the outlines of his philosophy of history in the first chapter of the German Ideology (of which we will, for stylistic reasons, treat him as the sole author). He stresses that any theory of history must takes its cue from cooperating human beings and social interaction. He identifies three essential elements of historical development: the productive force, the circumstances in society, and consciousness. Marx holds that at any given moment of its development every society is characterized by a specific historical form of development with regard to these three basic elements and through a specific form of societal self-interpretation and self-organization (in legal, moral, political, or religious, that is, in ideological forms). Here, production refers to two social situations, namely the individuals’ self-preservation by means of labour and the reproduction of the species. In Marx’s view this account of history differs from the idealist account in that human consciousness is regarded neither as the first, nor as the primary factor, nor even as one that is independent from other factors. However, it remains relevant even in the materialist model of history, although it is a phenomenon influenced by the physical makeup of the human being and his environment as well as being socially mediated.

  To make it plausible why this consciousness can become a motor of historical change, Marx emphasizes the relevance of a fundamental fact: ‘the division of labour’ (Ideology, 51). Marx takes the circumstances in civil society based on the division of labour—in connection with private property—to be one of the most important factors in explaining the estrangement of the human being. He points to a qualitative difference in the process of advancing the division of labour, which explains why the human consciousness becomes a causally relevant factor of social change. Once the separation of material and intellectual labour is completed, the consciousness that is hived off in this way must be taken into account by the theory as a third, though non-autonomous item in the explanation of historical change. Which causal role consciousness takes in the course of history depends on the specific constellation of productive force and the given circumstances in society. Whereas this claim does not determine the precise causal role of consciousness, it does delimit its scope. The primordial division of labour that stems from the biological constitution of the human being explains why consciousness can take itself to be autonomous.

  According to Marx’s concept of history, historical events are human actions that bring forth something new in the sense of a change in the overall constellation of civil society beyond the change of generations; and the coming about of these actions can be explained with reference to the three elements he identifies. Marx develops an empirically informed philosophy of history that is adjusted to historical and scientifically ascertainable facts, and which is compatible with his account of estrangement and his metaphysics of the species being (Cohen 2001).

  In developing the outline of his account of history, Marx is also concerned with answering the question of the necessary origin of estrangement. To close this explanatory gap in his account of estrangement he invokes anthropological and biological aspects that are at any rate contingent and empirically testable. But does he succeed in evading Stirner’s critique? In the context of his dissociation from the idealist philosophy of history, by way of replying to Stirner’s fundamental critique Marx explains that every deep philosophical problem dissolves into an empirical fact. However, since he is interested in evidence for the necessity of estrangement, he cannot pay attention to all aspects of Stirner’s critique. So Marx is reliant on rejecting this critique offensively by attacking its premises. This is why, first, he applies himself to the proof that Stirner’s reconstruction of history is itself adherent to idealistic philosophy of history. In extensive analyses, Marx tries to show that Stirner cannot a
dequately account for empirical facts in his philosophy of history. Stirner’s theory thus falls under his own and Marx’s criticism. Second, Marx takes up objections that Feuerbach and Hess already put forth against Stirner’s critique of the paternalism of substantialist thought: Stirner’s I is, so the objection goes, a philosophical construct that does not do justice to the empirically describable human being. Thus Marx rejects the norm implicit in Stirner’s critique and points out that this norm—as a philosophical construction—is not only empirically implausible but also generates paternalistic effects.

  Marx’s conception of history can explain why consciousness can become an independent factor and take itself to be autonomous. The resulting beliefs guide human action and, Marx holds, lead to the formation of social institutions in which mediation between these ideological self-interpretations and the real social preconditions is intended. The Marxian critique of morality, law, and state as central mediating institutions is understandable within this account of history and against the background of his metaphysics of the species being. In his positive utopia of the immediate recognition of individuals and in the explication of the account of recognition as a critical standard for the division of labour and exchange, Marx tends to view every (self-)interpretation of human individuals, in which they are thought of as occupants of social roles, as undue particularization and negation of the human individual in its totality and individual uniqueness, and as a symptom of estrangement. Consequently, Marx must understand all institutions and media of interpretation, in which these particularizations (functions, social roles, etc.) are objectified as phenomena of estrangement that need to be overcome. The utopia of immediate, dialogical recognition thus matches his account of history, his account of estrangement, and his critique of morality, law, and the state.