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NEWS & LETTERS, Jun-Jul 2008, Freedom, necessity, and post-capitalist society
This essay argues that it is virtually impossible to discern the meaning, especially the societal relevance, of Philosophy of Mind's final paragraphs, without the more detailed account of the identical concepts Hegel provided in his Introduction to the work. Dunayevskaya discussed precisely these concepts in her May 20, 1953, letter, later identifying this discussion as central to the "philosophic moment" of her development of Marxist-Humanism.
NEWS & LETTERS, Jun-Jul 2008, Freedom, necessity, and post-capitalist society
produces itself," that is, "Mind Absolute." Dunayevskaya's 1953 letter notes the final paragraph (#386) of Hegel's Introduction where he characterizes the very identification of these three stages (freedom, necessity, and the unity of the two) as a veritable process of liberation, in Hegel's own words, "finding a world presupposed before us, generating a world as our own creation, and gaining freedom from it and in it." Dunayevskaya's 1953 letter, moving from Hegel's Introduction through Philosophy of Mind's concluding syllogisms, discerned the movement to post-capitalist society in the work's final three paragraphs. This essay argues that those three paragraphs spell out a dialectic of necessity and freedom that parallels the movement in the work's Introduction: (1) the logical system as the starting point (Subjective), nature as the middle term (or "finding a world presupposed before us"); (2) Nature as the starting point (or presupposition) (Objective), with Mind the "mediating agent in the process" (or "generating a world as our own creation"); and (3) Self-knowing reason as the middle term (Absolute), mediating subjective and objective (or "gaining freedom from [the world] and in [the world])."
NEWS & LETTERS, Jun-Jul 2008, Freedom, necessity, and post-capitalist society
necessity and external expediency ends; it [the realm of freedom] lies by its very nature beyond the sphere of material production proper...Freedom, in this sphere [material production proper], can consist only in this, that socialized man, the associated producers, govern the human metabolism with nature in a rational way, bringing it under their collective control instead of being dominated by it as a blind power; accomplishing it with the least expenditure of energy and in conditions most appropriate for their human nature. But this always remains a realm of necessity. The true realm of freedom, the development of human powers as an end in itself, begins beyond it [labor in material production, realm of necessity], though it can only flourish with this realm of necessity as its basis. The reduction of the working day is the basic prerequisite.[9] The full Marxist-Humanist implications of the Capital, Volume III, passages only become apparent when we see that Marx provides a "social translation" of the concepts Hegel depicted in the Subdivision to the Introduction to Hegel's Philosophy of Mind: finding a world presupposed before us (domination as if by a blind power where freedom is abstracted from necessity); generating a world as our own creation (dialectic of freedom and necessity, collective control of nature, least expenditure of energy in material production); and, concretization of freedom as from and in nature and material production (establishing working and living conditions most appropriate for human nature, reduction of the working day--creation of the realm of freedom, and "free activity," on the basis of the humanized, liberated realm of necessity).
CONCLUSION
The key concepts necessity and freedom, the dialectic of what is and what can be, are developed in the Hegelian-Marxian dialectic of capitalist and post-capitalist society. Here, for the first time and in terms of this social relevance, we have explored Dunayevskaya's philosophic moment through the lens of the theoretic relationship of Philosophy of Mind's "Introduction" to the work's final three syllogisms. The most urgent theoretic task is to continue to work out today's relationships of necessity and freedom--inadequately examined concepts in sections of Marx's Capital, and in critical but neglected post-Capital works, like Critique of the Gotha Program. NOTES: 1. This letter appears in Raya Dunayevskaya, The Power of Negativity (Lexington Books), pp. 24-30. 2. See Dunayevskaya's "Presentation on the Dialectics of Organization and Philosophy," pp. 3-13 in The Power of Negativity. 3. See Dunayevskaya's "Presentation on the Dialectics of Organization and Philosophy," p. 8, and, "Not by Practice Alone," p. 282, both included in The Power of Negativity. 4. See Karl Marx, Capital, Vol. III, Tr. by David Fernbach (Vintage Books), pp. 958-959. 5. See Karl Marx, Capital, Vol. I., Tr. by Ben Fowkes (Vintage Books), p. 133. 6. See Raya Dunayevskaya, The Power of Negativity, p. 25. 7. See the English translation of this essay in Erich Fromm (Ed.), Marx's Concept of Man (Continuum), p. 195 8. See Raya Dunayevskaya, The Power of Negativity, p. 25. 9. See Karl Marx, Capital, Vol. III, Tr. by David Fernbach. pp. 958-959. Emphases added. Return to top Home l News & Letters Newspaper l Back issues l News and Letters Committees l Dialogues l Raya Dunayevskaya l Contact us l Search l RSS
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NEWS & LETTERS, Jun-Jul 2008, Freedom, necessity, and post-capitalist society