RE: AUT: Re: hegelian stuff

["Adrian Wilding" <adrianwilding@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

One addendum to Chris and Harry?s cogent responses. The translation a
couple of years ago of Althusser?s early writings, entitled The Spectre
of Hegel, showed that ironically enough Althusser himself undergoes
something like that ?epistemological break? (the ?dumping? of
Hegelianism) that he had wrongly attributed to Marx. In Capital & Class
no. 67 I traced the break to the final part of Althusser?s doctoral
thesis where he talks about the ?disintegration of Hegelianism which
has?thrust us back into transcendentalism? and thus validated
structuralism avant la lettre. Contrast this poor conclusion with the
first part of that same doctorial thesis which is wonderful
left-Hegelian stuff, arguing that the Hegel of the Philosophy of Right
is a conservative aberration whereas Hegel?s true politics lies in the
revolutionary anti-statism of the Phenomenology. There, surprisingly,
Althusser also argues against just those caricatures of Hegel (as
pan-logist, absolute idealist, historical determinist, dialectical
reductionist) which he will himself propound in his later ? more
familiar ? work, For Marx, Reading Capital, etc. It is a bizarre shift,
and one that mystifies me, but an interesting caveat to this discussion.

Adrian



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