Marx starts his philosophical with Hegel and departs from it. There are however some parts in the marx construct which come directly from Hegel. The notion of Alienation comes directly from Hegel. Alienation is a synonym of objectivation, it is the negation that brings to the next step in the development of the Begriff. For Hegel this is a notion of logic/metaphysics. He takes this idea of alienation from Rousseau, though in him it only means to give power to authority in order to legitimate. The people however still maintain the full sovereignty in Rousseau. This is a very specific political view of alienation that is neither positive or negative; the only way people can be free is via political institutions, and so it is instead necessary.
In Hegel it is possible to trace an evolution between his early theological writings, and his post phenomenology writings; here alienation is a necessary negation which, and so is necessary for the further step, the negation of the negation, it is a becoming other than oneself. The turning of the blossom into a bud in a tree is an alienation in a tree, however it is still necessary. And so it is not really negative.
Feuerbach restricts the scope of alienation by applying it to the religious sphere, and the relation between man and god. And he gave this word a distinctly negative meaning. Feuerbach’s position on alienation is hegelian, in that all are empirical subjects, but human beings are also together with the empirical subjects, humanity – the generic subject (Gattungswesen). In order to recognise that you are not an empirical x but also a human being, you have to distinguish for your self what this is. This is the neutral and necessary notion of alienation. I see humanity in general as something different from me. This otherness remains an otherness, so once I have distinguished in order to recognise it, I attribute it to something other than me, which in Feuerbach is God. So God becomes the subject of those attributes which are human and are then attributed to something external. ”The secret of theology is anthropology”; God is a projection of man, and so alienation is something fixed and absolutely negative. The philosophy of the future as Feuerbach calls it, needs to overcome this alienation, and erase God. We need to understand that the very subsistence of God is nothing but a way of understand oneself, of humanity generally.
The young Marx is really a feuerbachian, and in our text he distances himself to Feuerbach by saying that he is not bold enough. Marx expands alienation, and says that it is not just a question of religion, politics and social fabric is also a question of alienation. He takes the negative notion of alienation and generalises it. The task of philosophy is to overcome alienation, but since alienation pervades throughout all our concepts, we have to overcome this by conceiving the task of thinking differently. Philosophy has to change reality to make alienation impossible.
The way in which Marx became aware of having to go deeper in the changing social relations, comes from this preface. Basically he admits that the only serious for thought, is to do political economy. To stop spending time on philosophy. (Marx is apparently inspired by ”David Riccardo” or something like that).
The whole theory of value is the definition of value as what is produced by labour through time, so the time of its production. This value of the production is subdivided and only some of it comes back to the producer in the form of salary. The other is the theory of surplus value which goes to the owner of the machines. The Surplus value is further subdivided in order to pay for different things, but which does not go to the producer.
But the problem lies in alienation. The value is alienated. If someone produces something of the value of 10, then only 1 is left and the rest is alienated. However, the worker cannot realise by their own that this is the case. So the problem manages to hide from us.
The notion of alienation then travels from Roussaeu to Marx where it changes between becoming strict and generalised.
There are multiple terms to refer to Alienation of the authors, however, all of them are used synonymously.
Economy in Marx is no longer consistent. In late Marx, everything rests on his definition of value (and a fortiori the definition of society into classes).
The paradox is that Marx has to be judged regarding something that economists consider satisfactory (?). So the most consistent Marx is the Marx in transition, the Marx still holding Hegelian values but still critiquing some of it.
The entire project of Kant’s first critique is based on a concept of Science that gives knowledge of science which cannot be denied, of which Newton was the highest representative. But in the 20:th century, physics and natural sciences no longer see Newton as their highest goal. Cassirer tries to put Kant and quantum physics (or relativity maybe) together somehow I have no idea what he is talking about atm.
Somehow there is the same relation in Marx. He developed something based on a fundament that is no longer relevant, but there is still an internal coherence which somehow remains. One of those elements, which is anticipated by Hegel, in a book from 1970s Paul Ricoeur introduced the expression le maitre de sustance (the master of suspicion) meaning that thinkers who casted doubt on the validity of the tradition of history introduced an element of alienation. Marx, Freud and Nietzsche introduced the idea that if someone thinks ”the truth” is good, then this must be questioned. In each case you must cast doubt on truth according to the hermeneutic of suspicion. Hegel anticipates this in that he gives a huge amount of attention to negativity, objectivation, ”the dark side of things”. In the end he doesn’t want to remain there but he devotes much time to the negation. This is what the hermeneutic of suspicion ends up in. Which presents an element of reversal somehow (what?).
The report of Schlick on the circle of Vienna, comments on how metaphysics becomes a kind of end of the discussion. Metaphysics became a buzzword of someone who is talking about things that make no sense.