Marx\u27s dialectic: Structure and history

In this work, I characterize Marx\u27s idea of the dialectic in terms of the criticisms he offers of Hegel and of the political economists. I show how Marx\u27s dialectical thinking is central to his economics and how Marx\u27s idea of the dialectic nonetheless differs from Hegel\u27s both as a structural framework for inquiry and as an historical content. I consider works like Marx\u27s Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts and The German Ideology as important stages in the development of Marx\u27s dialectic, which only emerges fully in his economic writings. Marx\u27s notion of science, I conclude, cannot be equated with either that of Hegel or with that of the political economists. Marx\u27s science unites an empirical account of economic processes with a systematic logic that provides a reasonable basis for inferences regarding systematic historical tendencies. As systematic, Marx\u27s science seeks to divulge the relations and presuppositions of economic processes by grasping them as mediated. Because this method is grounded in history, the objects grasped are real processes which are causally effective and at the same time subject to the will of organized, historical persons and social movements. Treatments of Marx\u27s writings which have highlighted only their empirical or systematic-logical dimensions have tended to obscure aspects of Marx\u27s contributions to both philosophy and science. In particular, influential readings of Marx have under-appreciated the critical-ethical dimensions of Marx\u27s economics, and what they might mean for political theory and for philosophy of science, generally. Recovering the uniqueness of Marx\u27s dialectic would mark an advance in the understanding of Marx\u27s work and in several of its applications