Selected Writings
on the
Semiotics of Modernity

by Andy Blunden

Published by Erythrós Press and Media LLC,
PO Box 291994 Kettering, OH 45429-0994, USA.

CC-SA (Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0)
2012 by the author, Andy Blunden

Andy Blunden (1945-)
1. Psychology, 2. Semiotics, 3. Marxism, 4. Concepts, Political Science, Welfare.

Table of Contents

The social and political landscape of the 21st Century (2003)

Commodification
Fear and uncertainty
Duty and Virtue
Tweedle-Dum & Tweedle-Dee
Cultural politics
Public and Private Space
The New World Order
The disaggregation of the labour force
Ethical bankruptcy
Fundamentalism and Right-wing Populism
The left

Forms of Radical Subjectivity (2003)

Spontaneous Movements
Secret Society
Social Movement
Mutual Aid Association
Paris Commune
Political Party
Soviet Government
The Front
National Liberation Fronts
Civil Rights Movement
Mass Social and Protest Movements
Identity Politics
Alliance Politics

Alliance Politics (2003)

The Ethical Basis of Alliance Politics
Social stratification and the ‘Loose ethos̱
Agency

Solidarity, Recognition, Subjectivity and Mediation (2004)

The Single Self-consciousness
Unmediated contact between Subjects
Surplus Labour
Enslavement (or colonisation)
Differentiation of a Subject
Trade
External Relations
Mediating subjects
Solidarity
History of Solidarity
Commodification
Humanity
Why am I Saying all this?
Recognition
Mediation
Subjectivity and Agency

Welfare Dependency (2004)

Pre-capitalist society
Wage Labour
Domestic Labour
Public Assistance
Universal and Targeted Benefits
Dependency as a Personality Trait
Building Capacity vs. Philanthropy
The Ideology of Self-Help

Social Solidarity (2004)

Redistribution
Recognition
Deconstruction
Subjectivity again
Welfare, Rights and Solidarity
Development
Conclusion
A Postscript
Postscript 2: Can measurement of “social capital” be improved then?

19 Theses on the politics of scare-mongering (2004)

False Heroes and Villains (2005)

John Howard
The Right-wing Populist Narrative
An Alternative Left-Wing Narrative

Fear, Anxiety and the Cult of Safety (2005)

On Method (2005)

The Conjuncture
Word Meaning
Ethical politics
Justice
Difference
Historical Analysis

Modernity, the Individual and the foundations of CHAT (2006)

Social Theory and Psychology
Cultural-Historical Activity Theory
The Subject
Vygotsky

Missing Mediation in Pragmatic Interpretations of Hegel (2007)

Gestalt
Recognition
Pragmatism and Mediation
George Herbert Mead
Donald Winnicott
Axel Honneth

Vygotsky’s Idea of Gestalt and its Origins (2008)

Goethe (1749-1832)
Hegel (1770-1831)
Marx (1818-1883)
Lev Vygotsky (1896-1934)
Social Situation of Development
Central Neoformations and Lines of Development
Development and Gestalt
Zone of Proximal Development
Conclusion

Foreword to Hegel’s Logic (2008)

1. The Young Hegel and what drove him
2. The Phenomenology and ‘formations of consciousness’
3. The Subject Matter of the Logic
4. The three divisions of the Logic: Being, Essence & Notion
5. The Doctrine of Being, or Ontology
6. The Doctrine of Essence: Mediation or the Truth of Being
7. The Subject: Universal, Particular and Individual
8. Subject, Object and Idea
9. The Subject and culture: logic and ontology
10. Critique of the Hegelian dialectic

An Interdisciplinary Concept of Activity (2008)

Introduction
The General Conception of “Activity”
The Premises of a Science
The “unit of analysis”
What is “an activity”?
Vygotsky’s Concept of Activity
Meshcheryakov’s Work
Leontyev’s Anatomy and Taxonomy of Activity
AN Leontyev’s Concept of ‘An Activity’
Leontyev’s Theory of Activity and Marx’s Political Economy
Groups as a Model of Sociality
Yrjö Engström’s model
Towards a Unit of Analysis for Activity Theory
Ethics
Marx’s Critique of Political Economy and Activity Theory
Towards a Taxonomy of Activity

Reading “Capital” (2009)

The Semiotics of Martyrdom (2009)

The Martyr as Icon
The Martyr as Symbol
Human needs and Justice
Figures of Authority
The Martyr as Index
Who is the Interpretant?
The Martyr as Drum Major
Conclusion

Collaborative Projects (2009)

Ethics and Collaboration (2009)

Social Science and Ethics
Collaboration with Strangers
The Ethics of Collaboration

Collaborative Projects and Identity (2009)

Collaborative Projects and Agency (2009)

Emancipatory science (2009)

Conclusion
Cultural Psychology and Critical Theory
Science and Survival

Vygotsky on ‘True Concepts’ (2011)

Scientific Concepts
The Concepts of Social Science
The Method for Investigating Concepts
True Concepts and Spontaneous Concepts
The Concept and its Definition
Concepts and word meaning
Concepts and Problem-Situations
The Development of Concepts
Conscious Awareness
Definitions
Concepts are Part of a System
Generalisation
Conclusion

Concepts and Activity (2011)

Concepts and Activity Theory
Concepts and Predicaments
True, Scientific and Everyday Concepts in Social Life.
Concepts and Material Culture.
Dialogical and Cultural Theory
Conclusion

Concepts (2011)

Current Research in the Light of Hegel and Vygotsky
What Is a Concept?
Objectification and Reification
Abstract Generality
Self-realisation and Sustainability

References

The social and political landscape of the 21st Century (2003)

The political landscape of the twenty-first century is completely different from the terrain of the 19th and 20th centuries upon which the socialist and other progressive social movements worked out their political strategies. The spaces through which to build governments-in-waiting to conquer public political power and lead a social transformation, or for pressure groups and social movements to eradicate racism, sexism, poverty and injustice incrementally, or for social and political alliances to be built to achieve common objectives by protest and propaganda are becoming increasingly restricted. Few any longer believe that the most compelling injustices and forms of suffering of the modern world can be resolved by these means alone. Nevertheless, despite everything, the world clearly stands at a higher cultural level than ever before, suffering and injustice that has existed in the past is no longer necessary, and their continued existence is intolerable, – the opportunity must exist to address the manifold outrages that affront and alarm popular consciousness.

The division of the world into haves and have-nots is hardly new. Poverty (or wealth) continues to be located in faraway lands or on the other side of the tracks – in ghettoes (or gated villages) that people do not visit. But what is new is the interconnectedness of our lives: the poor work for the same employer, watch the same TV news and buy the same hamburgers as the average, professional or middle-class citizen of Europe or North America. This poverty (and wealth) now constitutes an outrage to popular consciousness in a way that it has never before.

The reverse is true also. The poor no longer, if they ever did, accept their lot, but labouring long hours in sweatshops producing stuff they desire but cannot afford, watching days of the lives of the better-off on TV, and their exclusion from the fruits of modernity is a constant outrage. Any wonder then, that the well-meaning better-off citizens of the “global village” live in gated villages, in a world which resembles not a sharing community, but rather a “global walled village.”

Whereas in the past class divisions could draw a degree of legitimacy from traditional conceptions of their inevitability, perceived bonds of mutual benefit, “respect for one’s betters,” and religious and moral homogeneity, people no longer accept the necessity of having a different station in life, just as people are more conscious than ever of how different is the lot of others and how fragile is their own.

The world market has drawn everyone into a single, universal life, but at the very same time has destroyed almost every ideal through which a shared life could be given meaning and stability.

Foremost among those ideal elements which bind society and mediate its conflicts are the states and their national governments. Few heads of state are today held in any degree of respect, let alone awe, and no-one sees their head of state as representing themselves. Most bureaucracies and police-military machines are in actuality or at least in public perception corrupt and illegitimate, despite the fact that their ability to police and terrorise their citizens is greater than ever. This situation is accentuated by the fact that there is only one state, that of the U.S., which truly rules. Anti-monopoly laws evidently don’t apply to states. If the state is the “march of God in the world” (as Hegel says in the Philosophy of Right), then this is a very lonely God, because it represents no-one.

National governments on the other hand are close to losing any capacity to productively regulate and intervene in the lives of their citizens other than by steering a course on the tides and currents of the world market. The welfare state can redistribute consumer goods, but it cannot cure alienation.

These processes have been under way for more than a century, but the collapse of the Soviet Bloc, the ubiquity of media and computer and information technology, the successive waves of export of productive capacity – from Britain and the U.S. to Japan to Korea to China ... and the movement of whole peoples into the cities and into the industrialised countries, all these factors combine to bring a new quality to the domination of the world market.

Negri and Hardt go so far as to talk of this mass movement of peoples around the world eroding the concept of “the people” of nation-states, and bringing into being a global “multitude”:

“Is it possible to imagine U.S. agriculture and service industries without Mexican migrant labour, or Arab oil without Palestinians and Pakistanis? Moreover, where would the great innovative sectors of immaterial production, from design to fashion, and from electronics to science in Europe, the United States, and Asia, be without the “illegal labor” of the great masses, mobilized toward the radiant horizons of capitalist wealth and freedom?” (Empire: 398)

These economic and social conditions have led to a political impasse for the left. The social crisis (poverty and inequality, war, refugees, fragmentation, ...), and an ethical crisis (multiculturalism, new technology, corporate fraud, ...) which must be recognised by everyone, have merged, making instrumental politics of the old kind increasingly ineffective. Appeals to values and ideals previously associated with progressive politics seem bound to fail; no social agent capable of offering political and moral leadership for radical social change is visible even on the horizon; consensus on any progressive political program of action seems to be hopelessly out of reach. Political and ethical progress can only be made through ethical politics, that is, through political practice which aims to bring about political change by challenging ethical and moral precepts underlying public life, rather than taking this ethical and moral substratum as a given, to which political activity can only adapt or respond.

The entire world has been unified under capital, but this very unification takes the form of infinite fragmentation, both cultural and functional. This is the “geology” underlying the political landscape. A number of features of this underlying “geology” are worth mentioning.

Commodification

Commodification has invaded working relationships, family relationships and even relationships of governance. This has led to the destruction of traditional roles and values, the weakening of conceptions of duty and ethical bearing. Commodification, which is the cause of the impoverishment of the majority of the world, still remains the main feature of most liberal solutions to the world crisis – from privatising employment services through to greenhouse gas coupons and the WTO programs. It is also the source of the crisis for communitarianism of all kinds, the dominance of “material” values in a world where “non-material” values are what people are looking for.

The most significant cultural gains of the bourgeois epoch – from national liberation to women’s emancipation, social welfare and mobility, universal public education, the overcoming of religious and racial prejudice – originate from the combination of this process of commodification with the resistance offered to forms of exploitation, made obsolete by the progress of commodification. That is, by people asserting their equal value as human beings. No-one proposes a return to pre-bourgeois traditional modes of trade or to the bureaucratic state-regulated modes of the twentieth century.

However, the commodity relation, that of customer to service-provider, which is everywhere supplanting the array of former traditional-hierarchical, master-servant and bureaucratic relationships, is ultimately restricted and mutually alienating.

Kant tells us that we must always treat another person as an end and never as mere means (Metaphysical Elements of Ethics, Kant 1780). The relation of exchange of commodities at their value, is one in which each uses the other as a means to their own end. This relation is by definition mutual (symmetrical), but it is a relationship of mutual instrumentalism, of mutual manipulation, and so must still fall short of a genuinely human relationship. What I mean by a “genuinely human relationship,” is expressed in Agnes Heller’s formulation of the “golden rule”: “I do unto you what I expect you to do unto me. (Luke 6:31) What I do unto you and what you do unto me should be decided by you and me.” (Beyond Justice: 253) but with the additional determination that “what we do,” is “decided by you and me.”

An example of this process can be seen in the higher education “industry.” Corporatism, by casting the student as a “customer” purchasing knowledge from the academy, has broken down the hierarchical and bureaucratic teacher-centred and elitist notions of learning. But the “customer focus” notions which have replaced them is a nonsense hardly worthy of critique. However, the best academics respond not with a call for a return to the former hierarchical teacher-centred relationship, but rather with a move forward to collaborative learning. It is on this notion of collaboration which I rely in critique of the commodity relationship.

As Alasdair MacIntyre points out, the manager and the therapist are characters of modern society, whose very essence is to “treat people as a means”:

“The manager represents in his character the obliteration of the distinction between manipulative and non-manipulative social relations: the therapist represents the same obliteration in the sphere of personal life. The manager treats ends as given, as outside his scope; his concern is with technique, with effectiveness ... Neither manager nor therapist, in their roles as manager and therapist, do or are able to engage in moral debate. They are seen by themselves and by those who see them with the same eyes as their own, as uncontested figures, who purport to restrict themselves to the realms in which rational agreement is possible – that is, of course from their point of view to the realm of fact, the realm of means, the realm of measurable effectiveness.” (MacIntyre, After Virtue: 30)

Commodification has undermined these character-types. Primarily through the spread of commodification and people’s assertion of their equal value as human beings, modernity has attained a high cultural level (people have more choice), but it has also created a situation which cries out for genuine human collaboration to supplant the relationship of buying and selling, of “mutual use.”

For centuries since a civil society first inserted itself between the family on the one hand and political life and statecraft on the other, these two traditional domains remained important sites for the production and defence of human values and the satisfaction of human needs, needs which could not be sustained by the economy. The destruction of the family and the attenuation of the role played by the state can be welcomed insofar as these have always been the sites of oppression, exploitation and reaction. But even though the displacement of values from the domestic and political sphere into economics has been effective in promoting and meeting individual human needs, this has proven to be largely illusory because the cost in community and ethical life undermines what has been achieved. There is no escape from or point of support against those forces which dominate the world economy.

Intellectual property in science, loss of public space, fast food which causes obesity, cheque-book journalism are among the growing array of affronts to popular moral consciousness to which commodification has given rise.

Commodification drives the endless elaboration of the division of labour. The resulting destruction of the integrity and coherence of humanity at the individual level, displacing its integration to the level of the world market, is not matched by cultural and political norms and universally recognised icons to match the ever-growing power of the market. In itself, division of labour is hardly a social ill. On the contrary. It is simply that the loss of coherence, immediacy and self-sufficiency which results from the division of labour has to be compensated by engagement at a higher social level if it is not simply to lead to loss of community and ultimately of self-determination.

There is no joy in realising oneself as part of a larger whole, if that larger whole (the world market) has no recognisable human identity nor (for many) gives any recognition in return.

Fear and uncertainty

The terrorism currently the subject of public hysteria is but the latest demon to occupy the public space of post-modernity, alongside y2k, “muggers,” serial rapists, paedophiles, carbon monoxide and AIDS. Fear and uncertainty also characterises economic fortunes which are computed three months in arrears with the only consensus about what may happen next being that we don’t know; new viruses, food allergies, forms of pollution and environmental catastrophes join the prospect of intercontinental nuclear war as images of Armageddon. Life was surely more unpredictable and prone to catastrophe in earlier days, but the “reflexive citizens of modernity” are all too able to imagine the disasters which threaten their tranquillity and their reflexive social action generates the complexity which ensures that economic and social processes are formally unpredictable.

This uncertainty is one of the main drivers for ethical politics. Instrumental politics is impossible when you don’t know where the world is going; no-one today believes the politician who claims to have the “sure solution,” but it is still possible to “do the right thing.”

The ease with which scapegoating and scaremongering can muddy the political waters poses one of the most difficult challenges to progressive politics. People prefer the fear of a named enemy to relieve the anxiety of maladies whose cause is indeterminate. It is far easier to imagine a global catastrophe than a satisfactory solution to the world’s problems.

Ethical politics addresses these problems because it addresses itself to the values of security and equity rather than being driven by the politics of fear and insecurity.

Duty and Virtue

Terms like “duty,” “virtue,” “good,” “ethics,” “morals” are foreign to the discourse in many parts of the Left, especially the Marxist left, at least until recent times. This is a deplorable situation. And the use and misuse of the terminology of ethical discourse is hardly better in the mainstream.

The idea of virtue has been largely narrowed to that of excellence, which is of course handsomely rewarded. The dominance of liberal over communitarian social values, multiculturalism, commodification and the destruction of tradition and the relativism left in the wake of identity politics, have created a situation where it is “politically incorrect” to suggest that there could exist an objective or socially meaningful definition of virtue beyond the recognition of excellence. Every desire is valued solely according to the cost of gratifying it.

The culture of libertarian autonomy allows that the community may place bounds on what you may do – indeed laws regulating behaviour continue to proliferate – but to enquire into what you should be, into what you should desire to do, is an unwarranted intrusion into personal space tantamount to “thought police.” And yet, the translation of values into the form of money means that values are depersonalised. By means of payment, the community bestows value on anything which is sufficiently desired. The tabloid papers, with journalists like Andrew Bolt, who whip up hatred and spread lies for no better reason than to sell a couple of hundred more copies of their paper, are exemplars of the negative effects of this tendency. Fine journalists still exist in abundance but it is rare that they enjoy pride of place in the mass circulation media.

Despite the proliferation of laws and regulations, an ethics of duty cannot ultimately provide the basis for society-wide integration. By “ethics of duty” is meant an ethical theory or policy centred on the prescription of what one should and shouldn’t do, while an “ethics of virtue” is an ethical theory or program which focuses on what it means to be a “good person,” of fostering the good person. An ethics of virtue looks at the conditions which lead people desire to do this or that in the first place, rather than simply prescribing what desires may or may not be acted upon. In modern times, especially under the influence of utilitarianism, ethics has been predominantly one of duty. Concepts of virtue continue, but are largely marginalised.

Over and above this, neo-liberalism now marginalises even an ethics of duty in favour of an exclusive focus on the ethics of right. As a result, negative is prioritised over positive freedom, what you are allowed to do, over what you are able to do.

It is rightly said that good intentions pave the way to hell, and a fundamentalist hell at that. An ethical policy based exclusively upon an ethics of virtue as opposed to an ethics of duty is just as unviable as an ethics of duty alone. But nowadays, any kind of ethics of virtue seems to be excluded, because of the fact that the doctrine of individual autonomy makes such a suggestion “politically incorrect.” (I use this term “politically incorrect” to indicate that in a given political environment certain actions or speech acts are excluded. The term, originally coined by the left by way of self-mockery, has been largely co-opted by the right to contest the derogation of the expression of certain of their own views, but I continue to use it because it aptly points to the problematic character of the exclusion of certain speech acts in the current environment.)

The complexity of postmodern society is such that it is inconceivable that a better world can be approached by the further elaboration of duty, of laws and regulations, outside the fostering of social values which ensure that what people desire to do is socially beneficial, or at least not harmful. It is undeniable that the elaboration of rights, as opposed to duties or virtues, is the fundamental level of ethical life, but it is equally inconceivable that a good life can be reached by rights alone. But these questions cannot be answered as isolated theoretical exercises: how can people live a good life? That is the question.

“Education not regulation” is the well-known aphorism which expresses the same basic thought on this matter, except that it is not just a question of people learning about what may be the consequences of their actions, but of creating conditions where their desires orient others as well as themselves to socially productive, or at least not harmful, activity. The same idea is expressed in the thesis that rhinoceros poaching cannot be eradicated by park rangers so long as some people are willing to pay high prices for rhino-horn while others are too poor to worry about the consequences. Or that bullying in schools and workplaces cannot be eradicated by penalties rather than by “changing the culture.”

Ethical politics seeks to go to the underlying causes of political problems, rather than playing a game in which the cards are stacked against us.

Tweedle-Dum & Tweedle-Dee

With politics conducted with 24-hour media coverage and scientific opinion measurement by professional spin-doctors, voters are presented with tweedle-dum tweedle-dee choices, both of which lack any vision more profound than that of a bean counter. Only minor parties which are neither in-between or extremes, but offer an ethical alternative, can make any impact on the media-massaged electoral swell.

The success of the Victorian Greens in the November 30th election exemplified this trend; their policy platform was limited and gave minimal prominence to environmental issues; they attracted support almost exclusively on the basis of a clear stand for social justice.

All the mainstream political parties, but the social-democratic parties above all, are inextricably bound up and even merge with the state and its bureaucracy. They no longer represent social bases outside the state, but are rightly perceived as being simply wings of the “political class.” (Most Labor MPs today have never earned a living outside of the electoral party industry.)

In countries where there are a large number of parties in the parliamentary arena, rather than the two-party system, the situation is of course different, but the dynamic is essentially the same: mainstream vote-chasing is dominated by populism, deceit and the logic of mass-media communication which leaves little real choice in the party of government.

Cultural politics

Cultural politics therefore becomes increasingly a more significant avenue for political activity.

In the absence of a credible icon of national and social cohesion, pop-culture is the foremost vehicle for universality, but pop-culture is a corporate product, magnifying and reflecting itself in a profitable spiral. Ever since youth cultures began to see themselves as a vehicle for social change in the 1950s, every new fad has made the passage from nihilism to commodity in rapid progression, despite every effort by the artists involved to resist this passage. Style can never be genuinely subversive. Life-style criticism which resists commodification is marginalised. Cultural politics has to orient itself towards daily, mainstream life.

Aspirational politics has been the subject of much attention. A recent US survey found that 39% of American voters believed either that they were in the top 1% of income earners, or that they would be eventually. This observation serves to emphasise some of the difficulties facing the politics of redistribution. Ethical politics addresses itself directly to aspirations, rather than choosing between manipulating aspirations or crushing them.

Public and Private Space

Public (communal) space is either degraded or privatised, while private (domestic) space is saturated by public (corporate) content.

The private space of immediate human relationship in the family home, may be reviled as the historic site of the oppression of women, abuse of children and so on, but it is only within such spaces that the cultured, critical human being, able to stand against the stream of public life, can be raised. This space is now saturated by television, advertising, marketing and bureaucratic intrusion. The TV set may take more of a role in raising the kids than their working parents.

On the other hand, the public spaces provided by the streets, market places, public schools, universities and meeting halls, in which the independent-minded individual has a forum in which to give voice to dissenting views and find a hearing, are also disappearing as they become private property or eroded by the intrusion of the market, crime or simple decay.

This reciprocal invasion of public and private space amplifies the feeling of powerlessness which grips everyone.

In a world where anything is possible nothing can ever be achieved.

The New World Order

The advent of the New World Order with the collapse of the USSR has accelerated all the processes of modernity, terminating the compromises of the post-World War Two period, which had retarded them. This has led immediately to the perceived impossibility and undesirability of the social-democratic project, the welfare-public enterprise state, etc. Conditions still vary widely from country to country. However, the widespread bankruptcy of social-democracy and the welfare state is not just an ideological construct, it is real. The Blair-Giddens critique of welfare is as valid as it is reactionary; welfare is dependency.

The shopping mall which is owned by a retail giant is no more alien to the community than the dilapidated local council-run high street, the government unemployment department no more helpful or sympathetic to its unemployed clients than the staff at a private placement agency. Islands of public enterprise such as the ABC exist, staunchly defended in “holding operations,” protected from the diktat of the market by public ownership, but nationalisation cannot inspire us with the prospect of returning entities to “public” control when government itself is alien.

The social democratic project depends on the thesis that state-owned public property is a viable transitional form towards the abolition of private ownership of the means of production, of capitalism, or at least a viable moderation of its defects. This conception depends on two theses: (i) that the state can be an effective means for the community to control the conditions of their own lives, and (ii) that individuals recognise themselves as members of the community and see the state as an extension and representative of them as members of the community. Neither thesis applies.

As a practical project for addressing economic crisis and inequality, workers’ control, employee participation and its variants are a dead end, but nevertheless, despite everything, an employee is far more likely and able to identify with their own firm, even though it be the private property of someone else, in which they have negligible say in running, than to identify with a government for which they have one vote every 3 or 4 years.

On reflection, it is hardly surprising that an implementation of “democracy” which was designed for property-owners and after the emergence of the organised working class on to the political arena, adapted as a façade, does not make for a viable instrument of proletarian participatory democracy.

In any case, a century of social democracy has left people more alienated and disempowered and the gap between rich and poor wider than ever, despite the significant social reforms that have been achieved.

Nevertheless, even in countries most under the heel of neo-liberal economic policy, there exist public (i.e., government or municipal) organisations – schools, radio stations, hospitals, etc. – which despite everything are still non-market and nominally community property, and which are sustained by the communitarian or critical ethos of their employees, and which continue to provide latitude for resisting neo-liberalism in a hundred ways. Defence of these oases is of course vital. But there cannot be an illusion that such public spaces can be strategically expanded to revitalise social democracy.

It is not really a question of whether workers’ control is possible but that the right of capital to dictate ought to be contested. The young activists of the anti-corporate movement are contesting the right of capital to subsume the world in its net, but rarely does workers’ control figure in their programs for large corporations.

The move by the anti-WTO protests to take the state out of centre-stage and turn their fire upon the corporations makes a great deal of sense, but it still suffers largely from the defect that it approaches the corporations in the capacity of consumers and as objects of corporate productive activity, that is, from the outside. There are significant exceptions from this tendency, such as the organising drive supported by youthful employees of MacDonalds and the labour activists who have piggy-backed on to the anti-corporate protests to organise sweatshop workers exploited by high profile “brands.” But it is the exception rather than the rule, that the anti-corporate actions originate among producers rather than consumers. By and large, the anti-corporate movement throws bricks, from the outside, at the some of the greatest achievements of modernity, which is after all what these giant corporations are.

Looking for a way forward here, a way forward which seeks to reconquer control of productive life rather than alienate it, leads to other aspects of the current crisis.

The disaggregation of the labour force

In the developed capitalist countries the labour force is fragmented into multitudinous layers of supervisors, technical workers, specialists, contract workers, part-timers, sub-contractors and “wired workers” who increasingly organise their own work or that of others. Gone are the serried ranks of organised workers who formed a coherent and concentrated force for progressive politics a century ago. The bottom ranks of the proletariat which once occupied the inner suburbs of the metropolitan cities, are now mostly to be found thousands of miles away in the enterprise zones of Asia and Latin America, while that section of the most exploited which lives in the metropolis is generally marginalised.

This long-drawn out transformation of working relations is in fact the process which is lies at the root of the whole change which has taken place in the political and social terrain. The factory system began with a radical rupture between head and hand, between theoretical and practical reason, but it has continued over the 125 years since the arrival of Taylorism to shatter the human form into a million tiny bits, each human function becoming first an instrument, then a profession and finally an independent industry, which relates to other human functions not by collaboration or cooperation, but by exchange of values. Without a unifying ideal, division of labour is dehumanising; the only unifying ideal cementing the world division of labour is money.

The root of the alienation which affects all of social life lies here in work relationships and a way forward must include a strategy for employees. The trade unions remain the only voice of the working class, but not only is their membership declining but the unions are finding it increasingly difficult to organise the expanding new industries. The unions have successfully organised the great public sector industries such as health and education, which are now their core territory in fact, but the new technology areas, franchises, call centres and so on are still largely unorganised. If the unions are to be part of the solution, so to speak, then these new industries have to be unionised. As a concomitant of the challenges facing union organisation, the unions have been reduced to consolidating the position of their members as wage-slaves, endeavouring, usually unsuccessfully, to sharpen the divide between work and leisure, and relying more and more on a declining state and its relationship with the bureaucratic caste to defend the economic interests of members.

Ethical bankruptcy

“Ethics” has been reduced to consideration of arcane problems of reproductive technology or the niceties of corporate behaviour. Members of Parliament get a “conscience vote” over stem-cell research, but not about state support for gambling, launching a war or deciding the level of foreign aid. No-one believes the “values” inscribed in the corporate mission statement because everyone knows that the profit motive is the only real ethic known to corporate capitalism. Who is responsible for corporate behaviour? Not the base employees, who must do as they are told or be sacked, nor the managers whose obligation is to shareholders who in turn, if they have any say at all, are governed by “economic forces.”

All the professions – journalists, politicians, the clergy, entrepreneurs – are increasingly perceived as untrustworthy; there is no trust in authority and disbelief in public information is widespread.

Only hard cash commands trust.

Accountability, one of the watchwords of “really existing democracy,” only serves to emphasise the deception endemic in postmodern society. Politicians must lie when almost every word they utter is recorded and broadcast to millions. How can the political and social elite behave ethically? Only by stepping totally outside their assigned roles, that is to say, outside the ethos of their chosen profession. It is hardly tenable that politicians were more honest in the times when “snake oil salesman” was a real occupation rather than a metaphor. Modern society has set standards but is unable to fulfil them.

The replacement of locality and kin by the virtual community of broadcast humbug and internet noise opens possibilities which cannot be fulfilled while destroying what can no longer be maintained. Postmodern society, which has developed the world division of labour to undreamt of degrees, lacks any spiritual cement. People cry out for an ethical life but modern commercial, multicultural life can offer no standard for an ethical life – it must be constructed anew. Or pulled from the Pandora’s box of ancient history.

Fundamentalism and Right-wing Populism

The above conditions pertain in the metropolis and among the more privileged. In those quarters which have not yet attained the postmodern condition, or rather who suffer its inverse, the underbelly of postmodern development, most reject modernism not so much for its economic exploitation and its inequality, as for its immorality. We recoil at Islamic law, terrorism, suicide bombing, child-soldiery, sectarian and internecine warfare, but these were not the first choice of the people fighting to liberate themselves from the domination of Euro-American capital. Their first choice was Pan-Arabism and various forms of state-led development to make their own way to modernism. But imperialism could not tolerate this choice and forced them to either find a place within the imperialist system as sources of cheap labour and raw materials or reject modernism entirely.

The fundamentalist Christians in the U.S. (where the word “fundamentalism” originated) and the conservative/communitarian and right-wing populist movements in rural areas of Australia, basically express the same reaction to modernism.

No progress is possible in the “West” without a reconciliation with the “East,” between “North” and “South,” city and countryside.

The left

On the other hand, the left-wing socialist parties have lost all ideals, and assemble their members to protest at staged media moments on the plane of alliance politics, offering no noticeable resistance and absolutely no alternative in the face of too many atrocities to even list, far less defeat, and has, to a large extent, been reduced to a band of professional protesters engaged in specialised activity unrelated to daily life. This public activity is however only a means of sustaining sects which only fail to emulate the horrors of Pol Pot, Stalin and Mao by virtue of being small and lacking in prestige.

The Left must face the fact that a completely new way of doing progressive politics, is not only necessary – it is emerging.

There is good reason to believe that if progressive people can orient themselves in this new terrain, then the radical social transformation to which so many aspire can be achieved. Despite the cultural and political fragmentation, the widespread prejudice as to the equal moral worth of all human beings, resulting from the worldwide division of labour, constitutes the embryo of a new universal consciousness.

Forms of Radical Subjectivity

MARX insisted against Hegel that new ideas first arise as forms of activity, before being reflected in the mind of the theorist as an idea.[1] When a new form of activity becomes self-conscious, becoming its own theorist, then we have a social movement.

Marx saw communism as the striving of the working class[2], no longer blind, becoming self-conscious, and ultimately able to shape its own destiny. So one of his central concerns was how social movements arise under conditions of bourgeois society.

Broadly speaking, social movements, or subjects, form when people collaborate together in a project of some kind. The mode of association through which people cooperate towards the common end supplies the concrete material on which we reflect in trying to gain an understanding of the real direction of striving. Such reflections include to formulation of utopian images expressing in an abstract fashion, the common end. These utopian abstractions are generally mistaken for an objectively valid better world waiting to be realised[3], the end itself being seen as the explanation for the means adopted for its achievement. The experience of struggle produces more and more concrete forms of association and allows more and more concrete forms of the socialist ideal to be formulated, guiding the struggle against injustice.

As Hegel[4] showed, there is however no absolute opposition, and no absolute priority between means and ends. In tracing the history of the forms of association through which critique of capitalism has been manifested, we trace also the history of the idea of socialism. As a social group becomes self-conscious, the form of association is not only the object, but also the subject of cognition.

The feeling of injustice which stimulates people to struggle, reflects a contradiction between norms which have become rational at a given stage of development of production relations and the actuality of those relations. But this contradiction may be sensed in different ways, either in terms of new opportunities for exploitation or for new ways of struggling against exploitation.

Forms of subjectivity succeed one another throughout history, reflecting changes in the labour process itself, changes which are reflected both in forms of radical subjectivity and in modes of capital accumulation, critiquing the existing relations with equal and opposite force.

Spontaneous Movements

IN 1830 France was hit by a recession, causing widespread unemployment and hunger; an invasion of Algeria organized to divert attention failed and on May 29 masses of angry workers came into the streets, and to their own surprise, took control of Paris. Their spokesmen were liberal-democrats, and a deal was done. But when the king dissolved parliament on July 26, the proletariat of Paris set up barricades again, the soldiers refused move against them, and the King was forced to abdicate. These were the first mass actions of the working class of France in its own right, without having been summoned to arms by any faction of the elite. Having no leadership, the workers were as much surprised as anyone else by their success in seizing control of the capital. In a pattern that would be repeated over and again for the following 40 years, the result of these Spontaneous Movements was not a workers’ government, but only a shift in power among the ruling elite, now tipping power from the landowners to the bourgeoisie, who were better placed to suppress the revolution.

Amongst the throng on the streets of Paris in those Glorious Days was the young law student, Auguste Blanqui. Blanqui circulated a “Call to Arms,"[5] basically a proclamation conscripting the working population of Paris into the ranks of a revolutionary army with a plan for the seizure of state power. Later, he described the ethos of the spontaneous workers’ uprising in the following terms[6]:

“The army has over the people only two great advantages: the breech-loading rifle and organisation. This last especially is immense, irresistible. Fortunately one can deprive him of this advantage, and in this case ascendancy passes to the side of the insurrection.

“... Superior to the adversary in devotion, they are much more still in intelligence. They have the upper hand over him morally and even physically, by conviction, strength, fertility of resources, promptness of body and spirit, they have both the head and the heart. No trooper in the world is the equal of these elite men.

“So why do they fail to vanquish? They lack the unity and coherence which, by them all contributing to the same goal, fosters all those qualities which isolation renders impotent. They lack organisation. Without it, they haven’t got a chance. Organisation is victory; dispersion is death. ...

“Each barricade has its particular group, more or less numerous, but always isolated. Whether it numbers ten or one hundred men, it does not maintain any communication with the other positions. Often there is not even a leader to direct the defence, and if there is, his influence is next to nil. The fighters can do whatever comes into their head” (Blanqui 1866).

Secret Society

Blanqui’s response to this lack of organisation and leadership (self-consciousness) was the creation of a Secret Society, in this case the “Society of the Seasons,” which assumed the role of a general staff for a reserve army waiting only to be mobilised. The aims of the movement left no room for discussion: “... it goes without saying, that the revolution must effectively work against the tyranny of the capital, and reconstitute society on the basis of justice.” (ibid.) Blanqui was a living icon of workers’ revolution, but spent most of his life in jail!

Nowadays we call secret societies “affinity groups”: small groups of like-minded people who trust one another and are able to act as autonomous subjects within a larger movement. They are essential to the life of any social movement.

Meanwhile, workers’ societies and trade unions had grown directly out of the “companies” of the late mediaeval period, with a gradual change in their character corresponding to the changes in the labour process accompanying the subsumption of their labour under capital, and Combination Laws in France and Britain dating back into the 18th century testified to the militant character of these associations. Facing repression on one side and the introduction of machinery on the other, these groups were no longer defenders of privileged trade monopolies, but militant secret societies, drawing upon the practices of the religious sects of the Middle Ages. But when these organisations were thrown into battle, the results were much as described by Blanqui.

Drawing from these sources, the Chartist Movement emerged in Britain during the 1830s, with demands focussed on political democracy. The Chartist Movement was similar to the movement in France, being made up of secret societies, more or less formal and generally locally based, within a larger population sharing the same feeling of injustice. It was one of these Secret Societies, the Communist League, which recruited Marx and Engels to communism, and commissioned them to write their program in June 1847.

Engels’ first draft, “The Communist Confession of Faith"[7] was constructed on the model of the catechism used by the old secret societies. Engels had a glimmer of this genre being outmoded, and drafted “The Principles of Communism,"[8] which however, still read much as declaration of faith, which a new member would recite to prove themself fit to defend and propagate the esoteric knowledge of the sect.

Social Movement

After working alone in Paris for a month, Marx produced the “Manifesto of the Communist Party"[9], which made a complete break with the consciousness of the communist sect. Twice the Manifesto declares, in the opening lines: that the “Communists should openly, in the face of the whole world, publish their views” and in the concluding lines: “disdain to conceal their views and aims.” The whole tone of the Manifesto is new: it is the voice of a social movement, proudly announcing its existence and declaring its aims to the world.

Marx also published the following month: “The Demands of the Communists in Germany,"[10] a democratic program which precisely captured the aims of the Opposition in Germany at the time, and was repeatedly reproduced in newspapers and leaflets across Europe throughout 1848 Revolution. But the Manifesto was not this kind of agitational document. It was a program addressed to a class coming to consciousness of itself, containing a number of ambiguous, even contradictory formulations capturing the conundrums which the movement would have to resolve over generations to come as it fulfilled its historic mission.

Although entitled “Manifesto of the Communist Party,” there was no Party in the modern sense. “Party” referred to a social movement, and would have been understood in that way at the time. Lenin later adopted this name for the sections of the Comintern, but the “Communist Party” which spoke to the world through the Manifesto, was a social movement in the embryonic stage of its development. The aim of the Manifesto was to create, in the symbolic register, a sign under which that movement could organise and come to consciousness of itself in its entire international and historic dimensions. But it was not yet an actuality.

By 1848, the Chartists had made real economic and democratic gains in Britain and the masses were expecting to be able to organise publicly. On the Continent, communism had gained in numbers and experience, but in terms of political rights, had hardly advanced since the 1830s, and the defeat of the uprisings of 1848 would plunge Europe into a period of reaction.

The Manifesto had created a vision which was to be fulfilled only in 1864 with the formation of the First International in London. The General Council of the International was a mixture of English Trades Council organisers, many of them former Chartists, and exiled members of the various European revolutionary sects.[11] Marx was living in London, and was invited to join its General Council as the representative of Germany.

Mutual Aid Association

The International was a vast international workers’ mutual aid association. Membership was by affiliation of your organisation (an exception was made for Marx), which might be a British trade union with 60,000 members, a workers’ educational society or the striking workers at a Belgian factory, who joined when the International delivered support and drifted away after returning to work.

The International was neither, or perhaps both a political party agitating around policy questions on every aspect of social life, and a trades council, organising strikes and supporting members irrespective of their political views. Its membership was always indeterminate, but undoubtedly included the entire range of political views from conservatism to anarchism! Even the politics of General Council members was often at odds with the International’s stated policies.

The International was the ideal vehicle for the formation of a self-conscious international working class. A mutual aid organisation, oriented around the practical needs of the workers, hostile to divisions within the class, whilst a hotbed of ideological disputation within its own ranks. The International created the actual, tangible vehicle for class consciousness, doing in the practical register what the Manifesto had done in the symbolic register. The very word “solidarity” was a creation of the International (imported from the French solidarité) as was “socialisation,” and “collectivism” and “internationalism.” The International regularly held meetings in public and published letters and notices in the daily newspapers. The International was both an outrage to the bourgeoisie and a part of the daily life of workers supporting each other across continents. When members of the International were hauled before the courts charged with membership of a secret society, they could honestly declare their innocence on the basis that the International was not secret! and were generally acquitted on this charge. The internal operations of the International were worked out earlier by the Democratic Association and the Universal League basically mimicking those of the British Trades Councils, adopted from the trade unions, in turn modelled on the late-Mediaeval companies, with highly formalised meeting procedures, delegation and majority voting.

Italian revolutionaries, Spanish republicans, English trade unionists with no political agenda at all, Polish nationalists, Blanquists and Bakuninist anarchists, millennialist sects all had their own idea of what the International was. But no longer were they isolated; radical literature of every imaginable creed and language circulated around the slums and factories in every part of Europe, all bearing the name of the International.

Paris Commune

In 1871, with Paris surrounded by the Prussian Army, workers of Paris seized power through their municipal government, the Paris Commune. For two months the organised workers of Paris exercised state power. The division between executive and legislative power was abolished, all officers of the Commune at whatever grade were subject to recall by popular will at any time. The world was to witness the first ever example of a social movement in power: the most thorough-going democracy ever, before it was drowned in blood by reactionary forces acting under protection of the Prussian Army. Isolated from the rest of France, the Commune had no opportunity to ‘scale up’ its program beyond the limits of Paris, but their vision was for every urban centre to follow the lead of Paris by establishing itself as a self-governing, working class power supported by the people of the surrounding countryside. Marx took this as an indication of the form the workers’ movement could take in exercising political power at national and international level.[12] The press accused the International of having fomented the Commune; members of the International did participate, but the leadership of the Commune generally came from followers of Proudhon, Bakunin and Blanqui (Blanqui himself was in prison at the time).

As it happened, following the defeat of the Commune, reaction set in and the influx into the International of refugees from the Commune and from countries newly drawn into the orbit of capitalism, alongside the gentrification of some of the British delegates, created political problems which the amorphous ranks of the International could not absorb. The International fell into crisis and was for all intents and purposes dissolved. The health of the International was directly dependent on the maturity, experience and homogeneity of the component sections. It was not equipped to remedy these ills.

Political Party

But once the economy and worker militancy revived in the 1880s, the way was open for a Second International to emerge. Initiated by Marx’s supporters to continue the work of the First International, the Second International was based national Social-Democratic political parties organised around programs as governments-in-waiting, able to contest Parliamentary elections (when possible) as well as organise economic and political struggles of the working masses. If the workers’ movement was to assume leadership of the whole people, as Marx had prefigured, then it would have to be organised on a national basis, however internationalist its policy.

The rapid success of Social Democracy soon pushed the various liberal and conservative, protectionist and free-trade parties of the bourgeoisie into the same corner, as social-democracy emerged on to the official political scene as the authentic opposition. It was an era of “class against class.”

This sharp class division, which is implicit in the structure of Marx’s Capital, only reflected how things were done in the industry of the time, which we would today associate with the sweatshops in enterprise zones in Asia – workers are literally locked inside the factory for long hours, paid barely enough to live, and fined for underproduction or minor infractions. The definition of productivity under these conditions was to have as few “unproductive” supervisors and overseers as possible and make the workers work as long and as hard as possible.

Naturally, under such conditions, leaders of the workers’ movement, such as Karl Kautsky, anticipated the ever-increasing size of the proletariat, its ever-growing militancy and organisation, alongside the continued concentration of capital in the hands of great corporations and the eradication of petty-capital, inevitably leading to a polarisation which would place the social democrats in a position to form a government and implement the socialist program with overwhelming numbers on their side.[13]

“We consider the breakdown of the present social system to be unavoidable, because we know that the economic evolution inevitably brings on conditions that will compel the exploited classes to rise against this system of private ownership. We know that this system multiplies the number and the strength of the exploited, and diminishes the number and strength of the exploiting, classes, and that it will finally lead to such unbearable conditions for the mass of the population that they will have no choice but to go down into degradation or to overthrow the system of private property” (Kautsky 1892).

When Engels was interviewed by Le Figaro in 1893[14], he expressed the same sentiment.

Not only would economic forces fashion the modern working class and compel it to make revolution, there was no need for the working class to seek alliances with other non-proletarian parties or classes.[15]

“If there is one thing that will rob us of the confidence of all the honest elements among the masses and that will gain us the contempt of all strata of the proletariat ready and willing to fight, that will bar the road to our progress, then it is participation by Social Democracy in any bloc policy” (Kautsky 1909).

At this point, it is fair to say that social democracy was a social movement which included a government-in-waiting, rather than seeing the social movement as somehow subordinated or secondary to the Party. The most successful social democratic parties, like the German SPD, were the head and heart of a vast social movement which provided education, entertainment, social security, police and legal services to their members and produced great art and literature. It would be wrong to see them as ruling over, dictating to or parasitic off the social movement, because they were the most perfect expression of the social movement. To use a Hegelian expression, the Party was the concept of the movement.

BUT IN 1883, the same year that Marx died, Frederick Taylor had carried out his first exercise in “scientific management” at Bethlehem Steel.[16] Taylor redefined what could be meant by “productive labour.” Taylor taught that about 25% of employees in large-scale industry ought to be engaged in the “science” of work: observing, measuring, supervising and directing the work of others. Taylor turned on its head the idea universally held by capitalists at the time that only those who actually work with their hands can be counted as productive workers. Taylor enumerated seventeen different roles in a manufacturing workshop that were formerly performed by a single “gang-boss” or the “productive” workers themselves. He proposed that a specific department be established for each of these functions, employing one or a number of functional bosses. Most of these new positions were filled by promotion from the shop-floor, and participation in the new form of management brought wage increases of at least 30%, financed by productivity levels up to ten times what they had been previously. The pay of every worker would be set individually according to their level of productivity and responsibility.

The result of this revolution in real political economy was fragmentation of the working class which spelt the death knell for Kautsky’s program of passivity. It wasn’t a question of the anticipated disappearance of petit-bourgeois layers between the proletariat and big bourgeoisie (though this was a problem too) but the fragmentation of the working class itself into numerous, relatively distinct, strata, particularly as these new strata often shared to some degree their boss’s social standpoint.

A further change was also overtaking the composition of the working class towards the end of the 19th century, this time on the international plane. The introduction of modern manufacturing plant into countries, such as Russia, where there had not already grown up an indigenous bourgeoisie and proletariat, and where the peasantry remained the majority of the people. Also, in countries like Italy where capitalism was endemic, but with large, backward agricultural sectors, leaving the working class in a permanent structural minority. So the other aspect of Kautsky’s program – refusing all blocs, and relying solely on the proletariat – also became untenable. The proletariat would not be pushed into leading the nation to socialism by the action of economic forces alone and could not do so solely by relying on their own ranks.

Matters were further complicated with the rise of Fordism in the United States. The truism that the lower the wages you paid, the longer the hours your workers worked and the higher the price you charged for your product, the bigger would be your profits, was turned inside out by Ford who deliberately paid his workers more, gave them shorter hours and sold his cars for less. His highly profitable revolution transformed the world, and also transformed the character and composition of the working class. Fordism created a solid core of the organised working class which enjoyed access to cheap commodities and were not interested in political change.

These changes meant the end of uncritical majoritarianism. No longer could it be taken for granted that the majority constituted the oppressed masses, all sharing the same interests as against a minority of exploiters. Women, or the labouring masses of the East, for example, had presented problems of outreach, but not programmatic challenges. Now, the social basis of this outlook, and the forms of organisation that went with them, was gone.

These changes in the labour process and social conditions transformed social democracy itself. The Party of Kautsky ceased to be part of a social movement, and was institutionalised in the bourgeois democratic government of Germany, a fate which had already befallen many leaders of the First International in Britain, and would characterise later 20th century Social Democracy generally.

Soviet Government

The Russian Social Democratic Labour Party differed somewhat from its partners, as a result of working under conditions of illegality, within a young working class surrounded by a mass of peasantry. But when, on the eve of the Revolution, Lenin proclaimed the “April Theses,"[17] we see a classical social democratic vision, a direct expression of the ideals which inspired the Paris Commune. But unlike the Paris Commune, the Soviet Republic was not overthrown after two months. But right or wrong, from fairly early on, it ceased to be a social movement as its leaders took up administrative positions in the Soviet government.

The socialist ideal had been awoken in a proletariat reduced to a common low level and disciplined in the factory system, confident that capitalism would only swell the ranks of the exploited, confident that only solidarity could secure a better future. But the world had changed. We will mention three Marxists who between them identified three important changes in the form of subjectivity being imposed on the communist movement, as a result of these changes in the labour process.

Lenin had a somewhat “algebraic” formula, throughout the years leading up to the October 1917 Revolution, for the relationship between the future dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry, loosely talking about a “the revolutionary-democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry,"[18] or “an alliance between the workers and the working and exploited peasants"[19] or but once the Revolution happened, he described it as a “dictatorship of the proletariat which led the peasantry behind it."[20] By expropriating the landlords, bearing the greatest sacrifices in the Civil War and providing industrial products which the peasants needed, the workers made it worthwhile for the peasantry to support the Revolution. That is, Lenin proposed that the revolution be based on a class alliance in which one class played the leading role due to its unique position in being able to resolve the problems of the entire nation. This was in line with the general formula which Marx had outlined as early as 1844[21] but posed in conditions not anticipated by Marx.

Rosa Luxemburg was the first to warn of Kautsky’s error in waiting for economic forces to prepare the conditions for socialism. Proletarian self-consciousness was not fully formed in the economic or sectoral struggle, but required political-ideological formation and that this had to be a specific element of the socialist programme. Luxemburg shared Kautsky’s conviction that the working class would make the revolution alone, but challenged Lenin’s conception of a party able to represent and direct the class struggle on its behalf, constantly emphasising the self-organising capacity of the working class on the one hand and political and ideological direction of the social democratic party on the other.[22]

“... the task of social democracy does not consist in the technical preparation and direction of mass strikes, but, first and foremost, in the political leadership of the whole movement.

“The social democrats are the most enlightened, most class-conscious vanguard of the proletariat. They cannot and dare not wait, in a fatalist fashion, with folded arms for the advent of the ‘revolutionary situation’, to wait for that which in every spontaneous peoples’ movement, falls from the clouds. On the contrary, they must now, as always, hasten the development of things and endeavour to accelerate events.” (Luxemburg 1906)

Antonio Gramsci was the first to theorise the new political landscape, adapting the concept of hegemony to grasp the way in which politics was structured in this epoch. Like Luxemburg, Gramsci rejected Kautsky’s politics of class representation for a politics of class formation. Gramsci welcomed the Russian Revolution in 1917 as a break from the determinist conception of history which meant waiting for the pre-conditions for socialism to mature within the framework of capitalism. At the same time Gramsci criticised Luxemburg for underestimating the depth of the defences of bourgeois society, likening it to the trenches of contemporary warfare, against which a frontal assault was foolhardy. Engels had made this same point in the above-mentioned 1893 interview.

In his understanding of the concept of hegemony, Gramsci recognised that the entry of the broad masses into political life of the nation required specifically political and ideological struggle to win them over and integrate them. Specific mechanisms were required to extend and concretise the class alliances first elaborated in Lenin’s policy of a class alliance between the working class and the peasantry.

“The proletariat can become the leading and the dominant class to the extent that it succeeds in creating a system of class alliances which allows it to mobilize the majority of the working population against capitalism and the bourgeois state. ...

“The metalworker, the joiner, the building-worker, etc., must not only think as proletarians, and no longer as metal-worker, joiner, building-worker, etc.; they must also take a further step. They must think as workers who are members of a class which aims to lead the peasants and intellectuals. Of a class which can win and build socialism only if it is aided and followed by the great majority of these social strata. If this is not achieved, the proletariat does not become the leading class; and these strata (which in Italy represent the majority of the population), remaining under bourgeois leadership, enable the State to resist the proletarian assault and wear it down."[23] (Gramsci 1926)

The concept of hegemony is essentially as proposed by Lenin and indeed just what it meant in ancient Greece: one class plays the role of hegemon, wielding overall power, in exchange for the absolute support of other powers, and achieves this by delivering to the other powers a share of the proceeds of power. What Gramsci proposed was a counter-hegemony led by a proletariat which addressed itself to the problems of sections of the population currently in the camp of the bourgeoisie.

The Front

Thus the 1930s saw the prominence of a new type of social movement, corresponding to a new definition of ‘we’ and a new mode of association, the Front. The Front took for granted that one or two or more political parties were actively promoting and directing the activity of the social movement, and competing for allegiance, but cooperating on the basis of agreements made between the party leaders.

There were competing concepts of the Front, but let us take Trotsky’s definition of the “United Front” which is based on a public agreement between the leaders[24]:

“No common platform with the Social Democracy, or with the leaders of the German trade unions, no common publications, banners, placards! March separately, but strike together! Agree only how to strike, whom to strike, and when to strike! Such an agreement can be concluded even with the devil himself, with his grandmother, and even with Noske and Grezesinsky. On one condition, not to bind one’s hands.” (Trotsky, 1931)

But this ideal was very rarely achieved. By contrast, the Comintern’s later Popular Front policy was aimed at uniting everyone to the right of the Communist Party but to the Left of Fascism, based on a secret pact between the leaders. Trotsky criticised this policy in the following terms[25]:

“The political alliance between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, whose interests on basic questions in the present epoch diverge at an angle of 180 degrees, as a general rule is capable only of paralysing the revolutionary force of the proletariat.” (Trotsky, 1938)

As a result of anti-communist repression, it later became common practice for the Party to submerge its identity altogether in the Front. The Front was then not so much a means for broadening the social movement but of gathering a periphery around the Party. The Front was a failed attempt to respond to the problems of social movements following the changes that had taken place in the labour process and the resulting social composition of the working masses, a failure which flowed directly from the degeneration of the Soviet Union which spread to every country through its impact on the parties of the Comintern.

A SECOND PHASE of development of social movements began with the Post World War Two settlement. The USSR had suffered immeasurably, but the Red Army was in occupation of half of Europe and pro-Moscow partisan groups threatening revolution in other countries. The US on the other hand had overwhelming military, industrial and financial power, but the prospect of the troops coming home posed real problems and Western Europe was on the brink. Both sides were anxious for a deal. Roosevelt and Stalin divided up the world between them and Marshall Aid money and the Bretton Woods arrangements were used to underwrite Keynesian policies of public enterprise, low unemployment and comprehensive state Welfare. This settlement had the effect of enlisting the Communist Parties in the cause of peace, of destroying working class mutualism by mediating welfare through the state, institutionalising the social democratic parties as part of the system and broadly speaking satisfying the most pressing demands of the organised working class in Europe and America. Although the process was far from seamless, the result was a demobilisation of the workers movement. This was an historic compromise.

But what took place next was the revolt of those excluded from this compromise: the people of the former colonies, African Americans and women.

National Liberation Fronts

The post-war conjunction put the USSR in the leadership of many national liberation movements striving for modernisation and national self-determination. National “Popular Fronts” embracing all those who were being excluded from the spoils of empire, whole peoples, all the classes of a given nation, together, albeit led by the international party of the proletariat. As the Red Army had occupied Eastern Europe, they set up bogus parties to represent the interests of non-proletarian classes, and then formed “Popular Front” governments with them, in line with doctrine. But now they no longer bothered with the charade. These national liberation movements prefigured the “new” social movements – cross-class, popular movements in pursuit of an idea, an idea of self-determination and recognition. The leadership were mostly trained in Moscow, but these movements were not “puppets” and as soon as the opportunity arose, National Liberation Fronts pursued the interests of their own national base, not necessarily the foreign policy priorities of Moscow.

In China, efforts towards a National Front to fight the Japanese had failed, but after the war, national liberation took the form of a war against the Kuo Min Tang in which the Chinese Communist Party, whose cadre were drawn from the urban intelligentsia and working class, led a peasant army. Elsewhere the Communist Party played the “leading role” in National Liberation Fronts, with much the same composition. In some countries however, such as Indonesia, the Communist Party did not initially play this role, but the basic social formation was the same, that of a “Front” uniting all social classes in pursuit of national liberation. Especially after the Cuban Revolution in 1959, the military leadership in the countryside played the dominant role, whatever its class affiliation. India was a prophetic exception, gaining its independence without a Party-led Front.

The Front is a hybrid formation, the effort to encompass the idea of divergent aspirations within a Party-like framework, but the Front also served to wall off the leadership from the movement, rather than to embrace it. Government is a different task from leading a social movement, which involves balancing the interests of conflicting and even hostile forces; the task of leadership towards a shared end turns into the task of administering compromise arrangements. Almost invariably, once the Party or Front becomes the government, the social movement has been demobilised.

These movements had a powerful influence in the West, especially in the US, witnessing a revolution in its former colony a mere 150 km from the Florida Keys. The immortal words of Martin Luther King cannot be surpassed in expressing the impact of this movement on Blacks in the US:

“We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed ... We have waited for more than 300 years for our constitutional and God-given rights. The nations of Asia and Africa are moving with jet-like speed toward gaining political independence, but we still creep at horse-and-buggy pace towards gaining a cup of coffee at a lunch counter. Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say, ‘Wait’. But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate-filled policemen curse, kick and even kill your black brothers and sisters; when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six-year-old daughter why she can’t go to the public amusement park ... There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into the abyss of despair ...

“Oppressed people cannot remain oppressed forever. The yearning for freedom eventually manifests itself and that is what has happened to the American Negro. Something within has reminded him of his birthright and freedom, and something without has reminded him that it can be gained. Consciously or unconsciously, he has been caught up by the Zeitgeist, and with his black brothers of Africa and his brown and yellow brothers of the Asia, South America and Caribbean, the United States Negro is moving with a sense of great urgency toward the promised land of racial justice.” (King 1963)[26]

Civil Rights Movement

US Blacks were responding to many of the same factors which had fuelled the National Liberation Movements, but also, the National Liberation Movements were a direct inspiration. Tactically, the Civil Rights Movement emulated Gandhi. The leadership of the Civil Rights Movement was similar to a Front but differed in important respects: the leadership had no aspirations to government and were an integral part of the mass movement.

Mass Social and Protest Movements

Thousands of young Americans, white students, were politicized in the Civil Rights struggle, and carried this over to the Student Protest, Peace and Anti-Nuclear and Anti-War Movements, with open and fluid, informal organisational structures. But the impact of the Civil Rights Movement on women was succinctly expressed by Kate Millett,:

“The study of racism has convinced us that a truly political state of affairs operates between the races to perpetuate a series of oppressive circumstances. The subordinated group has inadequate redress through existing political institutions, and is deterred thereby from organising into conventional political struggle and opposition.

“Quite in the same manner, a disinterested examination of our system of sexual relationship must point out that the situation between the sexes now, and throughout history, is a case of that phenomenon .... Through this system a most ingenious form of ‘interior colonisation’ has been achieved. It is one which tends moreover to be sturdier than any form of segregation, and more rigorous than class stratification, more uniform, certainly more enduring. However muted its present appearance may be, sexual dominion obtains nevertheless as perhaps the most pervasive ideology of our culture and provides its most fundamental concept of power.” (Millett 1969)[27]

The failure of the Left to respond to these questions when they were raised by women led to a rupture. Almost all the founders of the Women’s Liberation Movement had been Marxists; the break did not set up a new party, but a social movement which was outside the control of any political party. The political parties competed with one another to influence it and to gain sustenance from it. And having no aspirations to government, the women’s movement did not generate political parties. The women’s movement was motivated by the same sense of justice denied that had motivated male and female workers in the 19th century, but an important transformation had been effected in the conception of “we,” the form of identity out of which the collective is fashioned.

From the workers districts in 1830 up to the national liberation struggles, the agent was a whole community of oppressed people; “we” were the overwhelming majority, and we lived and worked together in common conditions of oppression. The enemy was the privileged elite who lived in leafy suburbs across town, perhaps supported by foreign powers.

US Blacks rightly saw that they were in the same position: they suffered from “interior colonisation,” to use Kate Millett’s phrase. Their circumstances were such however that the transformation of society that was needed for emancipation was the removal of an unwarranted and unfair discrimination. US Blacks shared community, but their community was a construct of US racism; they were a minority and their aims was not government but normalisation. There was a huge overlap with labour movement issues, because African Americans were a core section of the organised working class in America.

Women are 51% of the population, evenly spread across all classes. Women are not a minority, but they were a minority in the sense of being left out. The women’s movement created a sense of camaraderie amongst women who shared only common experiences of injustice and their femininity. And it drew the line between exploiter and exploited right through communities and even through the intimate relations between men and women.

The women’s movement was in every sense a mass movement, but identification with the movement meant asserting an identity based on a personal attribute, femininity. Gender discrimination is a vestige of a long-gone natural division of labour which was now an anomaly. Reflecting the abstract character of the reality of modern life, such a form of identity amounts to a fragmentation of the self into inessential attributes beneath which is a nobody. This form of identity undermines uncritical majoritarianism because emancipation entails the recognition of difference, whereas majoritarianism hinges on an uncritical assertion of commonality, as against a minority of exploiters or deserters.

The powerful moral force attached to being part of the majority had been inverted. The idea that the interests of the majority were always catered for, and that the natural claimants to injustice were the minority was hitherto inconceivable. However, the post-World War Two settlement was seen to deal with the grievances of the majority, and passed over other groups who now stepped forward and demanded justice. No longer would it be possible to put a question to the vote and determine the majority will. This quintessentially emancipatory practice was now the quintessentially oppressive practice, the purest expression of oppression, oppression of the minority by the majority.

Identity Politics

The trajectory set in motion by, in a sense, counter-claims to feminism, took us from the sense of female identity and community to minority rights and the politics of difference. And once an individual counts themselves as part of something according to the possession of an admittedly inessential attribute, then the logic of Identity Politics is in place. On the one hand, an individual is subjected to forms of discrimination according to a socially constructed stigma based on an inessential attribute, and on the other hand, granted recognition and inclusion by virtue of this or that attribute. There is no end to the inessential attributes of a person which can be the basis of a claim for justice and recognition. Once the Women’s Liberation Movement passed its first phase of growth, black women, working class women, gay women, women in the Third World, etc., raised the accusation that the women’s movement itself was oppressively subsuming them into a majoritarian movement which overlooked their particular interests as being this or that kind of women. Every new claim for recognition of difference divided the movement at the same time as it expanded the domain of mutual tolerance and respect.

The perception of identity by attributes leads to a fragmented world view: social classes are reduced to attributes (wealth, occupation, etc.), the union movement is seen as the identity claims of male blue-collar employees.

This world view is also expressed in the management practices of the Toyota-ist corporate restructures of the 1990s and beyond: the corporation is broken down into its smallest components, each managed by teams of shopfloor employees, meeting the demands of an exhaustively researched market, every niche individually catered for with the emphasis everywhere on difference, distinctiveness, uniqueness, recoiling in horror from Fordist conformity.

Since the source of the oppressive relation was a socially constructed stigma, there was no “general stumbling block” (allgemeinen Anstoßes)[28], power and oppression was everywhere in everyday life:

“The analysis made in terms of power must not assume that the sovereignty of the state, the form of the law, or the overall unity of a domination are given at the outset; rather, these are only the terminal forms power takes ... power must be understood in the first instance as the multiplicity of force relations immanent in the sphere in which they operate and which constitute their own organisation. ... Power relations are both intentional and non-subjective. There is no power that is exercised without a series of aims and objectives. But this does not mean that it results from the choice or decision of an individual subject. ... Where there is power, there is resistance and yet, or rather consequently, this resistance s never in a position of exteriority in relation to power. ... the strictly relational character of power relationships ... resistance depends upon a multiplicity of points of resistance ... present everywhere in the power network. Hence there is no locus of great Refusal, no soul of revolt, source of all rebellions, or pure law of the revolutionary. Instead there is a plurality of resistances"[29] (Foucault 1976).

This is insightful. But with this view of power, combined with the unlimited possibilities for the constitution of identity, identity politics gradually negated itself and effected a more or less complete demobilisation of the social movements by the 1990s. The only kinds of organising which could cope with this level of disintegration were subscription-based professional lobby groups and internet-based chat groups.

The politics of difference eventually led to the politics of indifference.

None of this negates the fact that Identity Politics made changes in the social understanding of power, identity and individual freedom, inscribed in law and custom, without which human emancipation would be impossible. That it also generated serious problems for collective action is a fact, but the gains of identity politics, and those of the labour movement, have to be mutually sublated and preserved.

Alliance Politics

At the very end of the millennium, the protests at Seattle saw the emergence of a new kind of social movement which began to point to a way out of the mess: Alliance Politics.

In Alliance politics, a number of groups, constituted in essentially disparate ways according to employment, identity, political persuasion or whatever, come together to carry out a single, sharply delineated action, usually against a symbolic target. Trotsky’s maxim quoted above is the rule: “No common publications, banners, placards! March separately, but strike together! Agree only how to strike, whom to strike, and when to strike!” Every decision is agreed on a strictly consensus basis between the participating groups. Consensus decision-making is obligatory, because the alliance has nothing to offer its participating groups except each other, so a group which doesn’t agree will simply withdraw. The scope of matters to be decided jointly is strictly limited to the technical details necessary to execute the action. There is absolutely no common vision and no on-going program. Everyone is against the IMF (or whatever) for different reasons and their interest is furthered by the action for different reasons.

There are obvious limitations on a social movement which lacks any common ideal, but like the International Workingmen’s Association, what it does have is a shared ethic of decision-making, mutual aid, respect for the opinions of others and a few “general stumbling blocks.”

A shared practical ideal goes a long way in substituting for an abstract image of an imagined better world in the future.

* * *

I HAVE presented this narrative as if it were a single thread so that the logical connection between each successive form of subjectivity can be grasped, the way each form of subjectivity at a certain point runs into internal contradictions which it cannot overcome. A new form of subjectivity comes along, sooner or later, which is able to overcome the difficulty which brought down the previous form of subjectivity, while in some way carrying forward the project of the previous form. But in reading this narrative, several things need to be kept in mind.

The process is constantly re-started and recapitulated as new populations are drawn into modernity, or new issues arise or in the event of a movement being thrown back. As each form of subjectivity is transcended, it is sublated and retained within the dominant mode. Thus above narrative represents an eternal present (to use Hegel’s phrase[30]). The anatomy of the current configuration of social movements manifests the subsumption of all the forms of radical subjectivity characterising this history, one into another. Alliances are made up of communities, secret societies (“affinity groups”), mutual aid associations and trade unions, political parties, Fronts, “new” social movements and participants in identity politics. Most movements now take action to create affinity groups where they do not already exist, they organise projects for people to engage in mutual aid and develop concrete bonds. Parties actively seek to engage opposing parties in joint ventures. All these forms of subjectivity interact and transform one into another in the life of the various alliances concatenated together in the political life of modernity, alongside the professional lobby groups, parliamentary parties and spin doctors of the establishment.

Contemporary social movements must square the circle, bringing into harmony majority rule and minority rights. If and when they do so on a mass scale, they will have reached their goal: the formation of a counter-hegemony for social justice.

Alliance Politics (2003)

The radical politics of today operates on the terrain of alliance politics; this is the terrain which determines what actions are possible and what are not.

The anti-WTO protests are archetypical examples of alliance politics: a number of diverse organisations and individuals on their peripheries cooperate for several months to come together for a day or two to protest against a symbol of global capitalism, and then afterwards go their own way.

The participants do not call upon the WTO to do this or that (other than perhaps to disband), since the alliance does not have any consensus as to what the WTO ought to do. And in any case the alliance does not aspire to supplant the WTO or to engage with it. The symbolic target simply functions to represent what everyone is against, but by no means establishes anything that everyone is for.

Where different participating groups collaborate in organising the event, very strict protocols apply regulating the collaboration. Discussions are for the purpose of achieving the basic practical goals of the protest, who will be where when, or for providing relevant information. Selection of demands and slogans is carried out collectively where possible, though this is often not possible. On the radical wing of the alliance logic pushes demands to the left to such an extent that mutually irreconcilable demands are put, functioning more as an expression of ethical principles than elements of an agreed program.

The events are generally triumphs of organisation (at least until a change of plan is required). The whole is so much greater than the sum of the parts, let alone any of the parts taken separately, that any idea of it being a front for one or another of the participating currents is nonsense and anyone silly enough to pose as leader is bound to make an idiot of themselves. Consensus decision-making prevails throughout and all forms of hidden agenda, egotism or manipulation are verboten.

The more typical manifestation of alliance politics though is where a campaign is initiated to effect some change in the law or stop some local government initiative or whatever. The range of possibilities offered by the terrain of alliance politics is vast and far from exhausted. If the “gatekeepers” of local communities, for example, organisers of voluntary organisations and so on, were to devote only a small proportion of their energies to maintaining their network, then the potential to draw on the network for the purpose of alliance politics when needed would be enormous.

The only mistake, however, would be to cast such alliances as “movements” or worse still to try to organise them into a “front” or a “party.” People are busy enough defending the local nature reserve or eradicating some disability or whatever, without dealing with someone trying to convert them to the new religion.

But of course people will try. All the participants in an alliance have their political beliefs and their own critique of contemporary society, whether or not they belong to a party or some social movement, so to exclude people from an alliance on the basis of their political affiliation undermines the whole basis for alliance politics. Unfortunately, the left-wing socialist parties more often than not so misunderstand the terrain of alliance politics and their participation can be so destructive that they are increasingly likely to be excluded from alliances.

The mechanics of bringing autonomist “caravans” together with membership parties poses real challenges. Since autonomists do not generally recognise relations of delegation or representation, their organising meetings are always open, and naturally form the common organising forums with others, who belonging to parties or movements, are able to caucus outside of open meetings. The autonomists can react by defending themselves by setting rules of debate before anyone else join in and thereafter ruling out of order all attempts to discuss the decision-making rules.

On the other hand, it is hard for some to accept that it does not follow that just because you are all discussing in the same room together and in the same project, it is necessary that what is under discussion is a collective action. Within a given action, participants in an alliance will independently do different things. What is done together, must be decided together, but not everything is done together. If everything was to be done together, then there would be no alliance politics.

The socialists have largely misrecognised the rise of alliance politics as a resurrection of social movements after a few decades of quiet or “retreat”; that is, they see the period of identity politics which came out of the social movements as a “down-turn,” and the negation of identity politics into alliance politics as an “up-turn.” Since the social movements of the 1960s were largely misrecognised as fronts which parties had to subvert or lead, their apparent reappearance in the 1990s and 2000s means that many left socialist parties see the succession of alliances as movements that they have a duty to split and co-opt.

Alex Callinicos exemplifies this view:

“This is, as they said in 1968, only a beginning. Anti-capitalism is most widely diffused internationally as a mood. Its development into a movement is quite variable – most advanced in the US and France, much more patchy elsewhere. Ultimate success will depend upon what happened briefly in Seattle – the coming together of organized workers and anti-globalization activists – becoming a sustained movement. And that in turn will require anti-capitalism, still as a diffuse ideology defined primarily by what it is against – neo-liberal policies and multinational corporations, developing into a much more coherent socialist consciousness. All this is ABC for revolutionary Marxists. The fact remains that this is the greatest opening for the left since the 1960s.” (Alex Callinicos, The Anti-Capitalist Movement and the Revolutionary Left, 2001)

and Ahmed Shawki:

“The new radicalization may be in the early stages of its development, but it represents a growing rejection of what capital has done in the last period. It is emerging, however, against an international background of retreat and decline by organized labor and the left, reformist and revolutionary. The balance of class forces shifted decisively in favor of the employers from the 1970s through the 1990s. Rebuilding the forces of organized labor, the left, and, in particular, the revolutionary left, is key to generalizing and building today’s radicalization. But an understanding of the period of downturn, or retreat, allows us to understand better what we need to overcome and helps to explain some of the dynamics of today’s movement.” (Perspectives for Socialists. Between Things Ended and Things Begun, Ahmed Shawki, June/July 2001)

The way these alliance campaigns happen today differs from the “fronts” of some decades or more ago. Those fronts would usually be initiated by a political party which sought both to further its own objectives and to extend its influence, setting up relationships with those joining the front, hopefully recruiting them. Work in the Front was party work, and while internal party work still had a distinct existence aside from work in the fronts, the two domains of activity were closely interconnected and mutually supporting.

The relationship also differs from that of the political parties and the social movements of the 1960s, where the participants were united by a very specific ideal. Big campaigns like the opposition to the Springbok tour in New Zealand, for example, manifested the kind of diversity of today’s alliances, but whatever the diversity of the participants, all could formulate the rationale for their participation on much the same basis, in support of the unifying ideal, the objectification of which was sought.

The relationship between left political parties and the social movements was always complex of course. The social movements provided a genuine and essential opportunity for political currents to contribute to the debate over tactics and strategy and compete for leadership while their members collaborated in pursuit of the ideal. The left parties also faced the problem of social movements competing for the loyalty and energies of their members, which would otherwise be engaged in “party work.” Alliance politics poses similar but different challenges. Insofar as it is distinct from participating in alliances at all, “party work” has become quite separate, even antagonistic and irrelevant to any form of politics.

The point is: the ‘80s and ‘90s were not a “downturn” but a change in the terrain, albeit terrain in which the gulf between the politics of equality and redistributive justice and the politics of recognition and representation opened to its widest.

Political organisations participating in an alliance ought to know that attempts to “take over” alliances or manipulate them cannot succeed, and they shouldn’t try. This does not prevent alliance campaigns from functioning as a recruiting ground. Indeed, they are near to being the only recruiting ground available for political parties.

The Ethical Basis of Alliance Politics

Every member of an alliance is motivated by some universal principle; the point about an alliance is that the participants are not motivated by the same, shared ideal, and any attempt to impose some shared ideal has the danger of destroying the alliance.

So even though the collective activity is intentional (i.e., is not based on what or where you are, but is voluntary, for a given shared purpose), the object of the intention is rarely universal (as in “Network for Peace”), usually particular (“Anti-X-freeway Campaign”) and typically individual (S11). In the absence of universal principles flowing from the intention of the alliance, ethical principles governing activity, and relations between participants have to be negotiated on the basis of no universal agreement. This situation is similar to the position of the citizens of a multicultural society, where there exists no universally accepted moral code from which appropriate behaviour can be deduced.

In fact, the principles governing relations within an alliance constitute an ethical precept which is able to be generalised, since they do not draw on any external principle other than the need to collaborate. It is not possible for the rules and regulations of a political party, social movement or front to be generalised to everyone because not everyone accepts the objectives and principles expressed by the party or social movement. But it is possible to generalise the organising principles of an alliance.

Thus alliance politics performs an historic function within modernity, that of giving real social form to ethical principles which pass the Kantian test of being universalisable (“Act according to a maxim which can be adopted at the same time as a universal law.” – Introduction to the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant 1785). This is despite the extremely serious defect that no alliance has any agreement whatsoever about the kind of society which ought to be.

The social movements which transformed the modern world in the 1960s and ‘70s were formed around universal principles and were therefore social movements properly so called, the particular expressions of universal principles. The social movements were for transformation of society rather than its overthrow. In Hegelian terms, once having achieved existence as a thing-for-itself, their concept was subsumed within the dominant concept of society by effecting the objective development of that dominant concept. They changed the world by winning support for the principle they advocated and concretising it by pursuing the implications of the principle within each and every aspect of social life until they ceased to exist as movements, becoming instead simply aspects of universal social life itself, institutionalised in the form of a myriad of laws, institutions and moral norms. But they achieved this objectification by modifying the dominant culture, not overthrowing it.

But this is not the only way in which a notion (social movement) becomes objectified; a notion which confronts the dominant notion of society as its opposite, which aims at the destruction of the very essence and foundations of the dominant ideal of modernity (I have in mind here the overthrow of capital), must itself become the universal subject before it can embark on the process of objectification by concretising itself, “absorbing” other notions.

Hegel described the process of objectification this way:

“The onward movement of the notion is no longer either a transition into, or a reflection on something else, but Development. For in the notion, the elements distinguished are without more ado at the same time declared to be identical with one another and with the whole, and the specific character of each is a free being of the whole notion.” (The Shorter Logic, §161)

A social movement, therefore, which aims to really change the modern world, to really go to the heart of the problem, must be able to merge with an ethic capable of universalisation, to be able to redefine the global field.

“The Notion is the principle of freedom, the power of substance self-realised. It is a systematic whole, in which each of its constituent functions is the very total which the notion is, and is put as indissolubly one with it. Thus in its self-identity it has original and complete determinateness. (The Shorter Logic, §160)

At the same time, the diversity of cultures and spheres of activity which characterises modernity emphatically needs to be retained and developed, rather than brought under the domination of any new, overarching ethos. The only rival to economics as a means of integrating and regulating a world in which this diversity can genuinely flourish, is the ethos being worked out in the minutiae of alliance politics, that kind of moral common sense which develops out of collaborating with strangers and with people whose beliefs are different from one’s own. So when we talk about “universalisation” here, we do not mean it in the sense of “totalisation,” but exactly in the sense in which it develops in alliance politics, articulating between divers ideological, functional and cultural domains of activity.

The point with alliance politics is that its “ideal,” or rather its objective, since it has no “ideal” at all, is wholly external to the ethic governing the collaborative activity. In its purest form, alliance politics may equally be engaged in stopping a WTO meeting, producing a pamphlet against the War on Iraq, launching a terrorist raid, publishing an advertising brochure or selling Kentucky fried chicken. The farmer who joins a protest against the WTO aspires to quite a different vision than the young anarchist who is in favour of globalisation, albeit from below. The only thing which needs to be agreed is the practical action to be executed.

And that is its great strength.

For alliance politics to reach its full potential, all the participants have to keep to themselves the ideals which separate them from the others, to be open to the idea that the ideal which they hold dear to themselves may not offer a solution to every problem nor answer to everyone’s prayers.

If it weren’t for those ideals, why would anyone do anything at all? So it is generally only that aspect of an ideal which interferes with collaboration with others sharing the same objective, which “offends” other people, which people should be asked to keep out of alliance politics, and it is particularly the claim of any idea to universalisation which must be handled with care. Of course, the activity people engage in will mobilise their entire personality, political ideals included, but alliance work does not require theoretical agreement, only practical agreement. If you need to convince someone of the merits of some practical proposal rather than another, it is no good mobilising theoretical arguments which rest on concepts which are not shared. You have to appeal to “common sense” so to speak.

Even though the organisations entering into an alliance, formally do so on the basis that they remain external to the alliance, that they make no commitment to modify themselves by entering into a relationship with the other participants, it is inevitable that in such a situation, the participants cannot remain unchanged by alliance politics. In particular, as remarked above, the tendency for “party work” to become more and more remote from politics, must take a toll on the parties. It is inconceivable that there will be a significant dying out among the participating parties, but there most certainly will be both decomposition and recomposition. Thus inevitably, the number of independent bodies participating in alliances will grow, and the polarisation will be manifested on more and more poles, but as a result, may lessen, and the form of alliance politics will change.

And it has to change. Political activity cannot be sustained on the basis of serial protest. The more abstract the goal, the broader the alliance and the easier the consensus – but the less the commitment. One cannot help but make the comparison with how bourgeois society organises itself, on the basis of money, the abstract of all social value. But money is not a nothing, it represents the ideal value of society, albeit the unintentional ideal value. What alliance politics promises is an intentional ideal, but one which it is unable to formulate.

But such a development presupposes the negation of alliance politics. A ‘movement’ which is united only by what it shares in common is no movement at all. In Hegel’s words:

“For the sake both of cognition and of our practical conduct, it is of the utmost importance that the real universal should not be confused with what is merely held in common. ...

“The distinction referred to above between what is merely in common, and what is truly universal, is strikingly expressed by Rousseau in his famous Contrat social, when he says that the laws of a state must spring from the universal will, but need not on that account be the will of all. ... The general will is the notion of the will: and the laws are the special clauses of this will and based upon the notion of it.” (Shorter Logic §163)

The socialists of the workers’ movement of the late 19th/early 20th century had a notion and were able to deduce from that notion the laws of a socialist state, but apart from brief episodes, they were not able to conquer power, they were not able to overcome and transcend bourgeois society, or where they did, they missed the notion of their own movement.

If alliance politics is to become a genuine movement, a genuine universal, which is to embrace the whole of society, how is this to happen? To propose that alliance politics should first negate itself, and make itself into a Front, or a social movement or a party, is an absurdity. Doubtless, alliance politics is the terrain upon which new movements, new ideals, new parties, may arise, but alliances cannot be transformed today into parties, without turning back the clock of history, without regressing.

That the way these alliances work is an innovation, and defines the character of the current political terrain, does not take away from the fact that there are real problems in the methods of decision-making and organisation at the moment. The large assemblies of the anti-WTO and anti-detention centre campaigns are sometimes totally incapable of making a decision when posed with a dilemma, and the result is invariably that decisions are made “informally”; that is, in a way which contradicts the decision-making procedures which are formally agreed, usually by a small sub-group of experienced activists. To claim that the negotiation of ethical norms in the collaboration taking place in alliances is the likely birthplace of a new political creature, essentially recognises that these norms are problematic and even dysfunctional as things stand at the moment. At the moment, the dominant organisational principles are not the creation of current or recent campaigns, but are generally the received wisdom from earlier periods of activism.

As Naomi Klein observed in her recent collection of essays (Fences and Windows), while alliances regularly manage the perfect coordination of the beginning of a protest, just getting a consensus on when a protest is to end is often simply impossible, far less how to react to unexpected turns of events, or what is to happen next.

In the chapter called What’s Next?, Klein gives an accurate exposition of the error of trying to transform the anti-WTO alliances into a party or movement:

“So how do you extract coherence from a movement filled with anarchists, ...? Maybe, as with the internet, the best approach is to learn to surf the structures that are emerging organically. Perhaps what is needed is not a single political party but better links among the affinity groups; perhaps rather than moving towards more centralisation, what is needed is further radical decentralisation.

“When critics say that the protesters lack vision, they are really objecting to a lack of an overarching revolutionary philosophy ... that they all agree on. That is absolutely true, and for this we should be extraordinarily thankful. At the moment, the anti-corporate movement, the anti-corporate street activists are ringed by would-be leaders, eager for the opportunity to enlist activists as foot soldiers for their particular vision. ...

“It is to this young movement’s credit that it has as yet fended off all these agendas and has rejected everyone’s generously donated manifesto, holding out for an acceptably democratic, representative process to take its resistance to the next stage. Perhaps its true challenge is not finding a vision but rather resisting the urge to settle on one too quickly. If it succeeds in warding off the teams of visionaries-in-waiting, there will be some short-term public relations problems. Serial protesting will turn some people off ... before it signs on to anyone’s ten-point plan, it deserves the chance to see if, out of its chaotic network of hubs and spokes, something new, something entirely its own, can emerge.” (Fences and Windows)

Later Klein suggests that “democracy” may constitute the one unifying value shared by all components of the “movement of movements,” despite the observation that they manifest a chronic inability to evolve any practicable form of democracy for themselves. This is an important observation, but it needs further thought, because the suggestion is still pointing towards a shared political ideal while the evidence is that the basis for this does not exist.

Democracy is a problematic ideal: it means recognition, for everyone is to be consulted and given due recognition in decisions; autonomy, whether in the form of individual autonomy or of the self-determination of communities and peoples; community since democracy is the form of political subjectivity which constitutes the community; equality because everyone has an equal say and their interests are spoken for.

Freedom, the other grand unifying ideal, is also problematic: it means both the negative freedom of autonomy including the self-determination of communities, and the positive freedom which underwrites equality; the freedom to be which constitutes recognition, and the freedom to do which constitutes autonomy.

While it is “politically incorrect” to introduce into the business of alliance politics a dispute over ideals, since such discussion always bring about disunity and disorganisation, there is room for discussion and disputation about ethics, about ethical rules and norms, and to some extent even values, since these are the legitimate ground upon which collaboration is based. This legitimacy extends beyond the domain of alliance politics as such.

And in fact, the real target of the mass alliance political protests is not the giant capitalist corporations – which in fact alliances are powerless to stop – but rather the ethical foundations upon which these corporations rest, and the struggles of resistance against these corporations may be the site from which a new ethic may emerge.

Social stratification and the ‘Loose ethos’

In her General Ethics, Agnes Heller holds that the formation of independent functional “spheres” in modern society, replacing the traditional division of labour, is a healthy process in itself provided that “practical reason” can form the basis of a “loose ethic” binding civil society:

“... I have stressed the desirability of both the moral division of Sittlichkeit among the spheres (with the primacy of practical reason as a ‘loose ethos’) and the plurality of the moral norms of life.” (p. 158, General Ethics)

By “practical reason,” or “conscience,” Heller means the capacity of individuals to distinguish between good and bad and choose good before bad. Heller distinguishes between the “totalitarianism of a dominant morality or ideal, such as in traditional society, Stalinism or fundamentalism, and the healthy effect of the kind of “loose ethos” which may develop:

“... the modern imperatives of practical reason must be universal enough and general enough not to interfere with the relative independence of inner-spheric norms and rules. If they interfere with this independence, fundamentalism will be the result, and this in turn will represent a violation of the value of freedom, the value which, in the end, modern practical reason finally stands for. ...” (General Ethics, p 163)

The kind of ‘loose ethos’ that Heller talks of, which emerges through the testing and challenging of the norms prevailing within the different “spheres,” is close to what is proposed here as emerging through the collaboration of people pursuing different ideals or vocations, who continue to challenge the norms of their own sphere of activity from the standpoint of a general or universal ethos.

“Let me emphasise once again that it is not a regressive development that the all-encompassing ‘dense’ ethos of society has disappeared. But an all-encompassing loose ethos rooted in the universal values of freedom and life must still develop and grow beyond its present emaciated form. A loose ethos such as this would not revoke the division of Sittlichkeit (“ethical life”) among the spheres, and it would not hamper the coexistence and mutual recognition of diverse forms of life with their unique concrete systems of Sittlichkeit. A loose ethos such as this could be supported, reinforced and kept alive by the attitude of morality, by the individual’s practical relationship to the fundamental norms. The term ‘individual’ stands here for both for the ‘individual person’ and the ‘individual form of life’ of the community. If this were the situation, then the process of the division of Sittlichkeit along the lines of spheric differentiation could unqualifiedly be called a process of emancipation and progression. (General Ethics: 165)

The position supported in this article is that such a ‘loose ethos’ can be constructed by pursuing the diversity of progressive and emancipatory struggles in all the various spheres of social practice, by means of ethical politics. It is my contention that it is the commodification of all aspects of life, characteristic of modernity, which both generates the independent “spheres,” and the basis for this shared “loose ethos”; what Heller refers to as its “emaciated form” reflects the fact that the relation of commodity exchange has yet created only the potentiality but not yet the actuality of genuinely human collaboration.

Agency

This succession in the form of collectivity down the decades raises the question of agency. If one can imagine a mythical moment in the past when production was carried out in the manner described by Adam Smith while all the remnants of aristocratic privilege had already been eliminated, then we would have had a situation where the practical reproduction of material life lay with the exploited and the theoretical, political, social and moral leadership lay in the hands of the exploiters – an absolute polarity of subject and object. Here the contradiction of agency would have been posed as sharply as possible, and this contradiction made the class struggle the central axis of progressive politics. One has only to look at how the productive process itself has changed, to see how the struggle for an agency of radical political change has developed, and become ever more complex.

It is no longer possible to propose that any limited social strata can capture the intellectual and moral leadership of society, if one leaves aside the category of “not-capital,” which embraces the overwhelming majority of the population, notwithstanding pension schemes, share ownership and whatever.

There is no compelling reason to insist that social transformation and a reconstruction of society must be carried out on any narrower basis than that upon which the relations of production are themselves reproduced in modern bourgeois society, excluding capital itself.

Ethical politics posits the unity of political struggle and social life.

* * *

We briefly discussed above the internal dynamics of alliance politics, the inevitability of the modification and proliferation of subjects participating in alliances, and the necessary transformation of its forms in connection with its changing content. No new ideal can enter the world and become a genuine subject with its actualisation. This means it becoming a cause on the political or social field and finding its own reflection in each and every branch of social life, and entering that stage of its development called reciprocity, wherein it is, as they say, a cause of itself.

As things stand at the moment, even the broadest arena of action of alliance politics tends to be the territory of professional activists, more or less isolated from the mass, from the “multitude” in fact.

Ethical politics offers a way out of this ghetto.

Solidarity, Recognition, Subjectivity and Mediation (2004)

Without mediation, recognition between two subjects is inconceivable. Let me explain.

The Single Self-consciousness

Modern social theory begins with the individual, individuals who communicate with each other and make social contracts. The usual response to this absurdity is to say “No, no, it’s the community!” followed by the socialisation of individuals into the community. But this is wrong too. We must begin with the smallest part of society in which all the phenomena of society are found, and following Hegel we call this a Subject.

When Hegel talks in The Phenomenology about self-consciousness, what I will call for short a Subject, he is not talking just about mental things; for Hegel a Subject means a whole system of activity which includes artefacts, rituals, social practices and structures as well as ideas, emotions and culture.

We can refer to those aspects of a Subject which take on the status of being things-in-the-world as objectifications – tools and artefacts of all kinds, laws, goods and the property relations relating to them. If I mention property relations in the same breath as the things and goods themselves, in contradistinction to mental phenomena, then that simply emphasises the overall unity of Subjectivity as a process, a process in which there is a constant movement of internalisation and externalisation, of people accommodating themselves to externally-given things and practices, naturalising them, and of people putting their own powers into the world in the form of artefacts and cultural products of all kinds.

Before we can understand the idea of two Subjects coming into contact with one another, we have to come to grips with how a Subject comes into being in the first place. Now it turns out that there can’t be true Subjectivity in the absence of other Subjects, that the relation between two Subjects is part of the life-cycle of Subjectivity, but the fact remains that we have to begin with an undifferentiated Subject which distinguishes itself from Nature or objectivity.

Now a Subject that doesn’t know about any other Subject can hardly qualify as a self-consciousness at all, can it? But let’s see what we could mean by a single Subject. What comes face-to-face in Hegel’s Master-Slave dialectic are two subjects, which are described in the preceding section of the Encyclopedia, “Soul,” which Hegel says is the subject matter of anthropology.

Imagine an isolated tribe in some time past long ago. All the people go about their business according to certain traditional patterns of life; there is no individuality, no surplus product to sustain an aristocracy, no trade with neighbouring people, no division of labour – or at least if there is a division of labour, it is seen as “natural,” such as that between men and women, children and adults, and so on, as part of a single cycle of life.

There is no individualism in this society, because everyone sees around them the artefacts and products and the life activity indistinguishable from their own labour, objectifications of an undifferentiated single pattern of life. Now these are human beings, and they make tools and have a spoken language and rituals and make a distinction between human and nature, so if I talk about lack of self-consciousness, then this is relative not absolute. But whether you think that such a state of affairs is a real historical thing or not doesn’t matter. You can take this as a thought experiment, if you like.

Unmediated contact between Subjects

What happens when this Subject comes in contact with another? Neither will recognise the other as human beings, they will see the other in the same category as wild animals, part of Nature, outside society, with a spirit for sure, but the trees and animals have spirit as well; there certainly will be no recognition of property rights. Contact with another people would be like a cyclone. According to Hegel, either one people will devour the other or vice versa, or failing that the two parties will withdraw from each other and continue to live in mutual isolation again. But either way there’s no recognition.

Surplus Labour

The underlying key to the development which can take place from here is surplus. If the people are able to create more than they need for the sustenance of their own lives, then there is an opening for culture, for division of labour, for division between mental and manual labour, ... and conquest.

If people can create things that have no other significance for them other than mental or spiritual needs, if some people can be assigned tasks which are not directly meeting the material needs of the community, but “theoretical” tasks, then we have the possibility for the development of Subjectivity as such. This takes the form of specifically mental or spiritual activity, people whose role and meaning is spiritual and things whose significance is spiritual, not just natural.

This allows the differentiation of a subject into individual, universal and particular to take place, as the culture takes on a life of its own so to speak and at the same time social hierarchies in which different individuals have a particular place within a system of life.

But let us look at how this development opens the possibility of a relation to an other Subject. I will take this under two aspects: enslavement and trade.

Enslavement (or colonisation)

A mode of production which creates a surplus opens the possibility that instead of devouring the strangers, you can enslave them, and it is this scenario which corresponds to the most direct reading of the master-slave dialectic. But it is important to recognise that what happens here is the destruction of the Other Subject. True, their body is preserved, but their whole culture, language, property, family, and everything is taken away; the colonised person is subsumed into the triumphant Subject.

Now this differs from the practice of marrying foreigners into the tribe, only because it creates a division between Subjects as dependent and independent, but it is still part of a single Subject. The enslaved or colonised people are made part of the dominant culture; they are given the shit jobs and they have no control over the surplus they create, but that is a place within a single Subject.

Differentiation of a Subject

But what takes place then within this single Subject, by a process of differentiation, is where recognition comes about. The direct contact between two self-consciousnesses failed; there was no recognition of the conquered by the conqueror.

But within the relationships of a single Subject, a single culture, the slave reproduces the culture and material forms of the dominant Subject by their own activity; their consciousness is therefore a dominated self-consciousness; they see themselves in a product which is the idea of the master; their material objectification is the ideal objectification of the master. On the other hand, the master relates to their own objectification not immediately, as an undifferentiated objectification of their own life activity, but mediated through the activity of another, the slave, as the activity of the slave.

Thus, the distinction which has arisen here is a mediated one. Insofar as the consciousness of the colonised and the coloniser have distinguished themselves from one another, it is mediated by the labour process of the colonised in the service of the culture of the coloniser. Recognition, not symmetrical recognition, but recognition nonetheless, comes about because the coloniser and the colonised are each respectively the theoretical and practical aspects of one and the same system of activity. This is what’s called a “thick ethos.”

Thus the relation between the two self-consciousnesses is possible only because it is a mediated consciousness, and the labour of the colonised person, under the rule of the coloniser, reproducing the colonial culture, is the mediating element. Without this mediation, the slave can never master the culture of the colonialist. But we can still see that the consciousness of the colonised is a kind of false consciousness, because it is the coloniser’s consciousness. Conversely, so long as the coloniser sees only the reproduction of their own Subjectivity in the activity of the slave, they remain “ego-centric,” and fail to recognise the slave as an Other at all. More and more the activity of the coloniser becomes simply that of the slave-driver or overseer; the culture of the coloniser is that of the overseer – also a kind of false consciousness.

What we have here is what Hegel called the “Unhappy Consciousness,” because although the master culture has won recognition from the colonised subject, it has not won recognition from an equal, from a subject like itself but only that of a dominated subject. Consequently, this relation is not basis for self-respect or self-esteem, which can only be gained from seeing the respect and esteem in which one is held in the eyes of an equal.

Now I'm talking about Subjectivity in terms of a culture or people because I think it’s easier to visualise Subjectivity as a whole system of thinking and activity in this way. But you need all the time to know that I'm talking just as much about gender-relations, or race relations, or the development of a child into an adult culture or simply the relationship between any two adult human beings.

Trade

Now let’s return to the scenario of peace. Let’s suppose that a people has produced a surplus, and out there in the forest, there are other are other peoples producing a surplus. Let’s suppose that these people have been living in mutual indifference to one another, treating each other as foreigners not worthy of relating to as other human beings ... but these others produce a surplus, they have a culture, and they have something to bargain with. Clearly, another option presents itself, that of trade. You have the option of trading your social surplus for exotic goods.

External Relations

What unfolds here is a quite different relationship. It is essentially the relation of a Subject to another Subject. After any number of attempts at robbery and deception, if these don’t prove fruitful, sooner or later, one enters into a certain kind of relationship with that other. One must both respect the other as a human being like oneself who you cannot rob, and so be prepared to trade with them honestly, and one must value and esteem them as producers of an exotic product which you want to incorporate into your own culture and way of life, something that they produce which you need; and conversely.

This is pre-eminently the relation between two mutually free and equal Subjects, who both accept each other as free human beings, able to accept or refuse a given trade, and as equals, people whose labour is as useful as one’s own. This commodity relation is the elemental relation of bourgeois society, that between legally free and equal human beings, but human beings that are external to one another, foreigners who one can make use of but one cannot enslave.

This relation is mediated by the market. It is the basis for mutual respect and esteem but it is a not-fully human relation. It is the basis for rights, but is an external relation, in which the objectification of one Subject becomes the mirror in which another Subject measures the value of their own objectification. If they produce nothing of use to me they do not exist in my eyes; conversely, if I produce nothing of use to them, then I do not exist for them, I am not esteemed, I am not worthy of esteem. If I can rob them or enslave them, I offer them no respect. Conversely, if I produce something of use to them, but they only want to rob me of it, then they offer me no respect; unless I can force them to deal with me honestly and pay for it, than I am not worthy of respect. Self-respect and self-esteem thus arise through a specific kind of mediation with another Subject – trade. This is what’s called a “thin ethos.”

Mediating subjects

Thus in these two instances of the development of Subjectivity – enslavement and trade – we see how failure of recognition, manifested by war and peace, can be overcome by two different forms of appropriation of the objectification of the other. In one case, an independent producer demanding respect and esteem emerges out of a single way of life in the person of producers without rights in a culture of overseers; in other case, independent producers earn respect and esteem from one another and establish a single system of activity through exchange in the culture of the merchant.

In each case, there is no direct contact between self-consciousness; there is mediation. Without mediation, there is no recognition, just war and peace. The development of Subjectivity which takes place through this mediation involves the differentiation between subject and object in self-consciousness. The master-subject relates to its object via the objective activity of the slave and to its own subjectivity via the activity of the overseer; conversely, the slave-subject relates to its object via the subjectivity of the master in the forms of the activity of the slave driver.

So we have three processes by which a subject may differentiate itself: the division between a subject and its objectivity mediated by the life activity of the subject, the differentiation of universal, particular and individual mediating each other, and the two processes of mediation between subjects, supervision and trade.

Solidarity

But modern society is characterised not only by the merging of these two processes of mediation, but by third process which I call solidarity.

Respect and esteem are the aspects of relationships in which subjects relate to each other externally. Self-respect and self-esteem grow from the weak bonds operative in the world market. They are compatible with an atomised society which lacks any social solidarity.

Solidarity, which entered the language in 1848, 17 years after Hegel’s death, is a relation characteristic in its proper sense only of modernity, in which a person is willing to take a risk to help a complete stranger. This relation is in contrast to the competition between workers, which is the natural condition of exchange of labour.

The importance of solidarity is that it forms the basis for trust. The relation between individuals who must participate in a single system of activity, who are part of a single subject is both cognitive and emotive, the rational expectation of the cooperation of others, which we call trust. So in order to create the basis for the strengthening of a new radical subjectivity, we have to achieve trust. Trust in business is based on honesty; trust in struggle is based on solidarity. So the fundamental relation which underpins the relation between radical subjects, which is the basis for the formation of new social ties, is solidarity.

Trust and solidarity are relationships which are underpinned by certain virtues. Just like children are encouraged to keep pets or to go on adventures in the mountains or play team sports, this is basic stuff; to acquire certain virtues, one must go through the relevant life-experiences. Solidarity is the relation which was necessary for the survival of the working class. It is the relation which is being eradicated by the conditions of modernity. It is the basic pre-condition not only for social progress, but for any kind of viable urban life today, outside of a fortified village. Nothing could better serve the interests of social progress today than to figure out how to reverse the decline in solidarity.

History of Solidarity

August Blanqui described the attitudes of the young communist students and workers who put up the barricades in revolutionary Paris in the 1830s thus:

“Nothing is known of what is happening elsewhere and they do not trouble themselves further. ... They listen peaceably to the cannons and the gunfire, while drinking at the wine bar. As for sending relief to the positions under attack, there is not even the thought of it. ‘If each one defends his post, and all will be well,’ say the strongest. ... with such a system, defeat is certain.”

The word solidarité was invented in this time to indicate the quality which was needed, the virtue which working class people had to acquire to survive in the modern world which was emerging. The International Workingmen’s Association was created as a “mutual aid society” with the sole aim of fostering solidarity. The International sent money, printed leaflets, conducted agitation, banned imports, etc., in support of workers engaged in fights in countries all over Europe. Its essence was help coming out of the blue from people you'd never heard of. The International could never form itself into a party or develop a program, it was just an amorphous, ever-changing loose association of workers extending solidarity to one another. Jane Jacobs from her 1961 classic The Death and Life of Great American Cities, described the necessary conditions for the development of urban life:

“In real life, only from the ordinary adults of the city sidewalks do children learn – if they learn at all – the first fundamental of successful city life: people must take a modicum of public responsibility for each other even if they have no ties to each other. This is a lesson nobody learns by being told. It is learned from the experience of having other people without ties of kinship or close friendship or formal responsibility to you take a modicum of public responsibility for you. ... This is instruction in city living that people hired to look after children cannot teach, because the essence of this responsibility is that you do it without being hired.” (p. 93-4)

This emphasises that solidarity is an attitude one extends to complete strangers, people with whom you have no material relations, neither relations of trade or employment nor relations of blood or friendship. The virtue which is fostered by the relation of solidarity and upon which solidarity relies, I call humanity, and humanity is acquired on the basis of formative experiences, as a child, growing up in urban neighbourhoods, where strangers look out for you; as an adult, by finding yourself the recipient of solidarity action from strangers.

In the nineteenth century it was possible to organise around an ideal; the formative process of the working class was in fact the substantiation of an ideal; call it the ideal of socialism or the ideal of solidarity or whatever, but the process of formation of the working class as a subject, as an organised entity capable of expressing its own views, of acting as a player on the stage of history.

Commodification

The fundamental reason for the crisis of solidarity we experience today is the process of commodification which has penetrated into every aspect of our lives, which has brought many more people a measure of self-respect and self-esteem, but by shattering the person-to-person relationship into commerce or contractual relationship of external exchange between strangers, has atomised us. The world of our ideals is as fragmented and atomised as our world of work. Assembling people behind great ideals is no longer able to engender solidarity because the ideals themselves are atomised; we end up trading ideals in a political market.

We need to get closer to the roots of solidarity to work out how to build the kind of solidarity which is possible and necessary in the modern world. A new subjectivity emerges out of a single system of activity.

But at the beginning of the 21st century we cannot look to a single Subject to build the necessary social bonds. The atomisation which has affected the world of ideals is not just a “bad thing.” It corresponds to world in which individuality has developed to an enormous degree. Humanity requires an ethos, a deeply-held shared conviction about the right way to behave towards people coming from somewhere else, an ethic of solidarity.

Humanity

Such an ethic, the ethic of solidarity, has to be built out of many, many different “single systems of activity” struggles in fact, as part of a declared political orientation, and actively promoted in public life. The single system of activity which constitutes the new emergent subjectivity is of course the worldwide division of labour, globalised humanity.

Solidarity means this: you are engaged in a struggle; I place myself alongside you. I ask nothing in return and my support is unconditional. What can I do to help you? The project we are then engaged in together constitutes the single system of activity in which a subjectivity develops.

Solidarity is not charity. If I'm downtrodden and I'm not fighting back, then I've lost my subjectivity. If you step in to rescue me then you subsume me under your subjectivity, I become dependent on you. But if I'm struggling then that fight is an objective expression of my subjectivity, and when you express solidarity you strengthen my subjectivity while enlarging your own.

In this context, the solidarity cannot be accompanied by recruitment forms; the purpose of solidarity is to strengthen the subject which is struggling, not to subsume them into another subject.

This is a variation on the maxim which I have promoted in For Ethical Politics: “what we do shall be decided by you and me.” You're involved in a struggle; I come along and say “How can I help?” At first you may be grateful for the offer of assistance, a donation to the collection, firewood for the brazier or a delivery sent back to its destination; but you may be reluctant to accept me on the picket line; you don’t fully trust me. It’s your picket line. If you say “no violence,” then I don’t even have the right to discuss that policy with you. Solidarity means, if you are struggling, I participate in your struggle on your conditions.

But what transpires from this relationship? Once I've spent a night or two with you on the picket line, maybe copped a bit of abuse and shared the disappointments that come along, it begins to become my project as well, and you say, “Well, what do you think we should do next?” “What we do shall be decided by you and me.” To take the step to collaboration, trust is needed. New trust between strangers comes out of participating together in a common project. So the qualification is that before I can expect that we will decide together what we do, first off, “you decide what I can do to help you.”

I think the quality that is recognised in solidarity and the virtue which is built in offering solidarity is humanity. Self-confidence, self-respect and self-esteem are all very well, but without common humanity it amounts to naught. I think that close attention to these systems of mediation which develop trust and solidarity is necessary to develop the quality of humanity.

On the other hand, I think it is important to distinguish calls for more “community” from what I am proposing as solidarity. Community is a form of conformism, and one which rests on ties of particularism, on a “thick ethos,” which can stifle the development of the individual subject; solidarity on the other hand, reaches across social distance, and promotes the growth of subjectivity.

Why am I Saying all this?

What the speakers at this seminar are trying to figure out is an ethical foundation for the Left, for progressive social struggle. Everyone has their own critique of modern society; the problem is how to relate to those who have a different critique, how can we progress together, despite having such radically different demands? We could ask “How should we evaluate the claims of another subject?” But putting a value on another’s claim is an external relation; it is the basis for “trading ideas,” but it is not a relation of solidarity and not a relation which can be the basis for trust and the strengthening of subjectivity. This is our task: the inclusion of ourselves with the other in a single system of activity, a new radical subject, but a radical subject in which the critique of all the individual subjects within it are strengthened, not subsumed or stifled by conformity.

So the question we have to ask ourselves in relation to another subject is this: Is there a basis for offering solidarity? If there is: How can I help you? That’s being human. Later comes trust and collaboration.

Finally, I just want to clarify some of the key concepts in today’s seminar: Recognition, Mediation and Subjectivity.

Recognition

Recognition is a word which is used frequently in Hegel’s earliest work, the System of Ethical Life, and in his mature works appears only in the section of the Phenomenology on the emergence of self-consciousness. Recognition is part of the process of emergence of self-consciousness indicating a relation to an other like oneself, and the relation to oneself as another. Hegel discusses recognition in the master-slave dialectic in terms of the differentiation of a single self-consciousness, and in terms of having rights. This was how Hegel saw the process of building modern nations. Hegel sees love in terms of the Family, and Rights arise only in relationships which go beyond the family. So far as rights go, Hegel is almost exclusively concerned with property rights: to be a person is to be a property-owner, property of course in the most general sense. Inside the family, recognition means “being a member;” outside the family, recognition means “having rights,” especially property rights, of having your subjectivity recognised in an object which exists for others. That is, for Hegel the concept of recognition always pre-supposes a kind of mediation. While Recognition has this rather ephemeral role in Hegel’s work, mediation is the soul and substance of his system, its Spirit.

Mediation

Mediation means bridging, it means a third thing which constitutes the connection between two other things. For example, two people cannot speak to each other until they find some common language; try as they might there will never be a unqualified meeting of two minds. The best you can do is immerse yourselves in a single system of activity.

We live in a world where everything is so mediated that there is a crying out for immediacy. Most people can’t even produce the simplest of their own needs; every aspect of our personality is mediated by the labour of others. But every attempt to bring people closer together, only has the effect of pushing people further apart. Automobiles lead to suburbs, telephones and computers lead to people not knowing their neighbours, television leads to people entertaining themselves at home.

People want to deny mediation. People want to talk about intersubjectivity as if direct person-to-person contact were really possible. The best thing, the only thing really, that we can do to make contact with other people is to do things together. That thing we do together is a third subject and needs to be understood as such. People almost never exchange products (barter); exchange is always mediated by the activity of merchants (money). More and more people don’t talk to each other, conversation is mediated by telecom workers. Attempts to deny the essential role of mediating subjects will more likely reduce mediation to trading ideas, or on the other hand, to take-over and domination.

Mediation generally means some system of activity which will become itself a subject. So for example, when people started trading with one another, the activity of trading led to the growth of a class of merchants. Enslaving people led to a class of overseers. There is a whole movement here: every human function gets objectified, first in the specific forms of activity corresponding to that human function, then in the form of artefacts, tools and so on, and then dealing with the relevant artefacts and social activities, people occupying a niche in the functional division of labour, and generally to one degree or another introducing words into the language, laws and rights, political demands etc., etc., and organisations representing the specific interests of that industry or class.

So mediation is intimately connected with subjectivity and with the growth in the division of labour; the development of mediation is the development of human culture and communication. Any approach to thinking about intersubjectivity which is not centred on mediation must miss the point. Mediation is the well-spring of subjectivity. In solidarity it is the struggle of the recipient of solidarity which is the mediating activity, not the offering of solidarity.

Subjectivity and Agency

A subject differs from a thing because it exists not just in someone else’s eyes but in its own; a subject is not only desired, produced, perceived, and so on, but desires, produces and perceives. A subject is a system of activity which has reached a certain level of development in the relation between individual, universal and particular. Even if every wage-worker knows themself to be a member of the working class, that does not make the working class a subject; the working class has to be able to speak and think as such, as a class, a subject. The working class is a subject, an agent of history, an independent player, on the stage of history, but it is not the subject of history.

We are asked the question: “Who is going to make history?,” “Who is the subject of history?” The problem is that the way the world has developed, the idea of a singular subject – like a world party – taking control and running history, has become increasingly untenable and down-right unattractive. Never mind the working class – any subject becoming the single historical agent, looks both unattractive and untenable.

What we have is a multiplicity of subjects, all making history as best they can. What existed at the material, individual level, is now reproduced at the ideal, political and cultural level, multiculturalism, modernity. But insofar as we have a subject for history, a single system of activity determining the course of events, then that entity is capital. Capital is personified in companies (plural). So abandonment of the struggle to build a subject of history worthy of making history means abandoning the making of history to Bill Gates and his like. But these guys are not the subject of history either. They are subjects, but they are splashing around in the surf like anyone else; they've just got bigger paddles. History doesn’t have a subject. And we actually like the idea that there are many different views of the world, many different dramas being played out on overlapping stages.

Humanity is not reproduced by a single corporation, but nor is it reproduced by 6 billion independent producers. The labour process is mediated by a myriad of relationships of, on the one hand, direction – where a capitalist overseer directs the labour process, and on the other hand, exchange, of course, under conditions of massive inequality.

Solidarity, trust and collaboration do offer a practical way forward for people under these conditions. The only way forward in fact. And what lies at the end of the road is not a world government, so to speak, but a kind of broad church united by basic ethical principles of solidarity, trust and collaboration. Humanity would therefore be its own subject to the extent that we can transcend the relations of exchange of value, and abolish capital. The expansion of rights, giving access to the political process to more and more people, at the same time further isolates people. Solidarity is not a relationship of rights. It brings people together. It does not presuppose collectivism or sacrifice of individuality; solidarity actually supports individuality. Without struggle of course, there can be no solidarity, so there has to be a struggle. Just as the rule of capital bases itself on the ethos of equal exchange, socialism bases itself on the ethos of solidarity. It will be solidarity which binds the working class together, not agreement on theory.

Welfare Dependency (2004)

In Arena No. 69, Philip Mendes offers a useful critique of the neo-liberal, structuralist and Third Way castings of the notion of “welfare dependency,” leading up to the posing of possible practical measures to tackle the problem of “welfare dependency.” If I understand Philip correctly, he proposes the institution of a means-tested income security payment with additional payments for participation in “a range of social, cultural, educational, environmental, community and caring activities” plus the transfer of control of welfare services to “local communities with extensive consumer participation and/or control.”

These are very deep-seated issues and it would be quite unfair to criticise Philip for suggesting what could be taken as a re-badged work-for-the-dole scheme with a proposal for control of welfare services by “local communities” and “consumers,” which is somewhat problematic. “Dependency” is an historically-constructed notion and working out a critique of the existing range of welfare policies requires a deconstruction of the whole notion of dependency itself.

“Does the concept of welfare dependency truly exist?” Philip asks, describing it as “an indeterminate psychological concept (which) cannot be tested in the real world,” pointing to the absence of available paying work and the reality of social and economic exclusion. But approaches to the problem “dependency” must go to how it is constructed both as a concept, and as a psychological, moral and social condition, issues which cannot be resolved by the ontological problem of its existence or not. It is not just that relations of dependence are structurally imposed, but one and the same relation of “dependency” may be enjoyed as a powerful and respected social position, according to its political-ethical evaluation. Dependency is not just something to be cured.

Nancy Fraser’s 1997 book Justice Interruptus contains her article, co-authored with Linda Gordon, tracing the genealogy of the word “dependency.” Much of what I have to say below draws on insights provided by this article, though I also depart from Nancy Fraser’s analysis at times.

Over a period of two hundred years the meaning of “dependency” has moved from the honourable social condition of the overwhelming majority of the population, to a highly stigmatised personality disorder. From beginning to end of the long history of “dependency,” however, the word has contained a curious contradiction.

In pre-modern times, “dependency” meant being part of a social unit (estate, family, empire) which was headed by someone else. Dependents (such as servants, retainers and peasants in an feudal estate, wives and children) were “dependent” in the sense that they had no legal status in society at large, and were “represented” there by their “master.” But in actuality (in retrospect, if you like), the “master” was “dependent” on everyone else in the unit for their material existence.

The young, single mother is today the icon of “dependency,” and yet it is not she who is dependent in any material sense, but the children she looks after. If she did not accept legal responsibility for the child, then she would not need welfare payments. But she raises her children, generally under incredibly difficult conditions, while the father and the state, who are both also responsible for the support of the child, are free-riding on her efforts – “depending” on her in fact – to do what they will not.

The stigma of “dependency” seems to rub off on the people who do the supporting. Being “independent,” on the other hand, is a socio-legal relation enjoyed by people who are supported by the labour of others. But let us follow how the notion of “dependency” has changed over time.

Pre-capitalist society

The earliest definition of the verb ‘to depend on’ in the Oxford English Dictionary is consistent with the usage of the word in Hegel’s Phenomenology; in the section entitled Independence and Dependence of Self-Consciousness, more widely known as “The Master-Slave Dialectic.” To ‘depend on’ meant “to be connected with in a relation of subordination;” sub-ordination = lower in a status order. From the sixteenth century a ‘dependent’ was one “who depends on another for support, position, etc.; a retainer, attendant, subordinate, servant.”

The points to note about the concept of ‘dependency’ at this time, in pre-capitalist England, are:

- The concept was not differentiated into separate socio-legal, economic and psychological usages, but rather reflected the fusion of various forms of hierarchy in a society in which these forms of subordination were themselves fused and ubiquitous;

- The condition of ‘dependency’ was perfectly respectable and covered the vast majority of people, excluding only the top layer of the nobility on one side, and vagabonds and foreigners on the other. Everyone was subordinate to someone else but did not thereby incur individual stigma;

The term ‘independence’ was at first only applied to aggregate entities, not to individuals, ‘independence’ coming to be used in relation to churches or nations in the seventeenth century. By the eighteenth century, an individual could be said to have an ‘independency’, meaning an ownership of property that made it possible to live without laboring. ‘Dependency’ by contrast, was characteristic of the condition of the majority, of wage labourers as much as serfs, of men as well as women. Dependency, therefore, was a normal, as opposed to a deviant, condition, a social relation, not an individual trait. According to Nancy Fraser:

“Neither English nor U.S. dictionaries report any pejorative uses of ('dependency’) before the early twentieth century. In fact, some leading pre-industrial definitions were explicitly positive, implying trusting, relying on, counting on another, the predecessors of today’s ‘dependable’.

“Nevertheless, ‘dependency’ did mean status inferiority and legal coverture, being part of a unit headed by someone else who had legal standing. ... ‘Dependency’ ... meant being on a lower rung in a long social ladder.” (p. 125)

That is, the notions of independence and dependence have their origins in a hierarchical society in which one subject has subjugated other subjects. Although it is true to say that dependence was the condition of the vast majority and carried no special stigma, it was always a condition of subjugation.

Wage Labour

To be outside this system of relations, such as was the case for those driven off their land during the Enclosures, was the worst of all possible fates. These paupers and vagabonds were the human dust out of which the modern wage-labourer was fashioned.

While wage-labour did enter the relations within the landed estates, more significantly, wage labour grew from this “human dust” being sucked into the factories and the formerly independent craftspeople who lost their modest “independence” and were brought down to the condition of factory workers. (In 1776 Adam Smith refers to “an independent workman such as a weaver or shoemaker.”) In general, ‘dependent’ peasantry and servants were not in the front ranks of formation of the modern working class; this was a process which was led by the formerly independent tradespeople – outside of the feudal structure based on land-ownership, and had its substance in that “human dust.”

The rise of capitalism made socio-legal or political subordination transparent as a form of subordination, and these meanings of ‘dependency’ were differentiated from economic dependence, just as within society itself economic activity was differentiated from the family and the state. At the same time as the socio-legal, political and economic meanings of the word began to be differentiated from one another, ‘dependency’ also first came to be used in reference to a character trait and the moral and psychological meanings of ‘dependency’ first emerged.

Capitalism did not of course abolish subordination of women by men and nor did it abolish colonialism. On the contrary. Legal coverture of women, that is the ‘representation’ of married women by their husbands, and the subordination of the colonies, meant that ‘dependency’ now took on an association with the normal condition appropriate to women, slaves and ‘natives.’

With the delegitimation of socio-legal subordination, workers organised themselves in order to overthrow this condition of ‘dependency,’ – suitable for wives, servants or ‘natives,’ but not for white male workers – and won civil and electoral rights. In turn, and over a period of more than a century, abolitionism, feminism, and unionism abolished slavery and much of the legal disabilities of women, and brought about a concept of citizenship which rested on the notion of socio-legal independence.

Thus, the distinctively modern relation of wage-labour became “respectable,” and recognised as a form of “independence,” through the battles which constituted the organised working class as a subject. Though “dependent” for a job on the owners of the means of production, and subordinated to their employer during the working day, workers distinguished themselves from servants and colonial peoples by incorporating themselves into a new subject, and this historical fact was objectified in the extension of legal and political rights to proletarians, the legal recognition of the trades unions and so on. It was by means of this achievement that the “workers” marked themselves off from the paupers, slaves, servants and ‘natives.’

The idea that although being a member of the retinue of a feudal noble was a form of ‘dependency,’ while being a wage-worker was not a form of dependency was therefore not merely the re-branding of a form of dependency – a real change in social relations had been achieved. Famously, wage-slavery differed from slavery by giving the worker the freedom to starve; “freedom” to sell their labour to the highest bidder, and was presaged on separation from one’s means of production. That is to say, the worker did not begin from a base of dependency within a feudal estate, but rather from “independence,” that is to say, from being outside the relations which guaranteed rights, both material and political, to the peasant or servant, subsumed within the personality of a feudal lord.

Nancy Fraser claims that:

“the language of wage labour denied workers’ dependence on their employers, thereby veiling their status as subordinates in a unit headed by someone else. There was a sense, then, in which the economic dependency of the white workingman was spirited away through linguistic sleight of hand.” (Fraser 1997: 130)

However, I think it is important when looking at the genealogy of a word to recognise the extent to which changes in meaning reflect real changes in relationships, over and above changes in the way one and the same relationship is evaluated. Wage-labour is a different relationship from being a servant, not just a redefinition of the same relationship; and being a member of the organised working class is materially different from being an isolated labourer, related to other workers only by way of competition. (Through the process of economic restructuring (out-sourcing, commercialisation, franchising, etc.), even this form of “economic” subordination is being replaced by the one mode of subordination fundamental to capitalism – that of capital accumulation.)

The colonised nations, ‘dependent’ in most cases in the old territorial sense of dependency, until after World War Two, did not throw off the mantle of dependency, i.e., legal and political subjugation, by linguistic sleight of hand, but arms in hand in the national liberation struggles of 1945-75. The racist discourse, through which the territorial meaning of dependency became intertwined with the new moral/psychological meanings, casting dependency as a suitable condition for ‘natives,’ could only be exposed as oppressive and deceptive by such a liberation struggle.

Domestic Labour

With the separation of economic dependency – now the honourable condition of wage-labour – from socio-legal dependency, still appropriate for paupers, slaves and ‘natives,’ came a new kind of ‘dependent,’ invented in the twentieth century, the ‘housewife.’ Even while socio-legal forms of subjugation of women were being battered down by the suffragettes in the early twentieth century, new forms of economic subjugation were being put in place through the collaboration of trade unions, the courts and employers, and institutionalised in the Harvester Decision, the gender division of labour and female rates of pay. Domestic labour was institutionalised within a new form of patriarchal subjugation. Continuing the pre-industrial assumption that fathers headed households and ‘represented’ the other members of the household, the now-unsustainable socio-legal forms of ‘dependency’ were replaced by new forms of economic subordination. While wage-labour was deemed a form of independence, domestic labour was a form of dependency, moreover one deemed appropriate for women.

Thus, with the overthrow of the class connotation of dependency, and any association with employment, ‘dependency’ now took on a distinctively female connotation, not sustainable in its original socio-legal or political forms, but instituted in economic form. The feminisation of ‘dependency,’ now economic in appearance, accentuated the stigmatisation of dependency already tied up in the racist connotation of dependency.

Fraser shows that the differentiation of “dependency” into different “registers” – socio-legal, political and economic, facilitated the shifts in semantic impact. Economic hierarchy as exercised in the employment relationship, was made acceptable in the nineteenth century – an invisible kind of “voluntary” subordination, not subsumed under the relation of “dependency.” Once political and socio-legal dependency had been formally abolished, it appeared that the only barrier to a person’s independence could be moral/psychological, a new register of “dependency.”

Fraser’s point: that the worker remains economically subordinated by virtue of private ownership of the means of production in what is now a “respectable” status no longer subsumed under the notion of dependency – while the remaining forms of dependency have been racialised, feminised and – stigmatised.

Further, the aura of “independence” for white male workers was built on consent in the economic subjugation of women. Employers backed up the idea by excluding women from well-paid jobs and governments introduced the category of “dependent” for wage-earners to claim tax deductions for “supporting” a wife – a regime which, by a whole range of economic, legal and moral measures, replaced legal coverture with new forms of “dependency,” that is, subjugation.

Public Assistance

The next shift in the semantic power of “dependency” is associated with the rise of the welfare state. Ironically, “welfare dependency” was a term introduced by Progressive reformers precisely in order to remove the stigma of pauperism; but it was the stigma of pauperism that stuck to the status of dependency.

In Australia, old age pensions were introduced in the wake of the depression of the 1890s, and further benefits for the deserving poor flowed over the next 60 years. In the U.S., it was the New Deal in the wake of the 1930s Depression which introduced these “respectable” benefits. Old age, sickness, unemployment benefits and so on, aggravated the stigma attached to “welfare dependency” in direct proportion to the way they made other benefits “respectable.” By setting up accounting fictions to create the appearance that people who received old age, veterans’ or unemployment benefits were only getting back what they had put in, they created the two-track benefit system. Those who were deemed not to have “contributed” were paid out of general revenue, and subject to means tests, moral supervision and all kinds stigmatising humiliations on top of a miserly level of benefit; workers suffering temporary periods of unemployment, veterans and old age pensioners were deemed not to be receiving “public assistance,” but simply receiving their “just deserts.”

US Blacks and women were deliberately excluded from these “first-track” schemes, just as in Australia, indigenous people were excluded, while today’s “self-funded retirees” live off the profits of extracted by capital from those still in work, and yet enjoy the honourable status of being deemed to be ‘independent.’ For selected groups however, the stigma of “welfare dependence” is added with correspondingly greater intensity to the insult of poverty.

The period of the rise of the welfare state corresponded to the institutionalisation of the organised working class movement. The early trade unions were just as much “friendly societies” as they were “class struggle” organisations; the “strike fund” was an account alongside the “distress fund,” and the construction of working class consciousness was just as much tied to the protection of members in their times of need as it was to solidarity on the picket line. The objectification of workers’ “mutual aid” in the welfare state meant that these functions were secured as rights, at the same time as separating them from voluntary class struggle associations. So long as people enjoyed these benefits as universal rights attached to citizenship, like public education, then this is hardly problematic, but this is not always the case.

It is easy to see how, in this situation, working class organisations could become complicit in the exclusionary and discriminatory implementation of this regime.

The point is this: the very formation of the working class was bound up in systems of mutual aid; a hundred years ago the workers’ movement succeeded in institutionalising these programs as universal rights and benefits provided by the state; the side effect of this institutionalisation, in which workers’ mutual aid was now mediated by the capitalist state, was the subjective and objective gutting of the working class as a class for itself. All answers to the problem of “dependency” have to begin from this historic problem.

Universal and Targeted Benefits

Every opportunity for a claimant to qualify as “deserving” adds stigma to another person thereby deemed “undeserving.” The point about universal entitlement as opposed to targeted assistance based on either need or desert, is two-fold; from the social-psychological point of view it removes, for some, the stigma associated with singling out a group deemed to be in need and/or lacking in desert, thus intensifying the stigma for those deemed “undeserving.” Further, from the point of view of distributive justice, universal benefits ensure that no-one slips through the net.

However, so long as wage-labour is ubiquitous, there is little reason to work other than to earn a living, so universal benefits have a tendency to become very expensive. The other problem with universalist provision is that although it avoids exposing groups to exploitation and stigmatisation, it does not prevent free-riding – not so much the iconic dole-bludger, but the men who free-ride on the care-giving of women, and the capitalist who can free-ride on the backs of underpaid workers. The only answer to this is to change the behaviour of those who free-ride. It cannot be fixed by any system of payments.

Thus, even universalist provision of welfare as of right, does not prevent exploitation and stigmatisation so long as a real hierarchy of subordination exists in society; universal welfare can actually underwrite exploitation. Also however, provision of welfare as of right relies on citizenship as the form of subjectivity by means of which a person relates to the benefits they receive from the state. State-provided benefits are only as secure and meaningful as is citizen control over the state. People who cannot exercise political pressure on the state, and cannot see the state as really an expression of their own subjectivity, are not only going to feel excluded, they are going to be excluded.

Dependency as a Personality Trait

The idea that welfare may create ‘habits of dependency’ date back to the Depression of the 1930s. In the 1950s psychiatrists began to diagnose ‘dependence’ as a medical disorder, specifically as form of immaturity among women, particularly among single mothers. These psychological themes are now ubiquitous.

Colette Dowling’s 1981 The Cinderella Complex, talked of “women’s hidden fear of independence” and the “wish to be saved.” Melody Beattie’s Co-Dependency No More set off an avalanche of books blaming carers for the dependency of those they care for, casting it as a form of addiction just like “drug dependency,” ascribed invariably to women and rubbing off in a stigma attached to all the feminised caring professions. In 1980, the American Psychiatric Association officially listed ‘Dependent Personality Disorder’ (DPD) “apparently common and diagnosed more frequently in females.”

In this environment, efforts by pressure groups to establish welfare benefits as rights are pushing uphill to say the least. All the arguments now are about ‘incentives’: Do child benefits encourage women to have more out-of-wedlock children? Do they discourage them from accepting jobs? Can reducing or withholding benefits serve as a stick to encourage recipients to stay in school keep their children in school, get married? ‘Dependency’ is now a synonym for poverty, with moral/psychological dependency now widely accepted as a personality disorder, whether taken as the cause or the effect of poverty. The relations of subordination hidden within the discourse of dependency has disappeared from view.

“Drug dependency” is not what it appears either. It is rather uncommon to hear ‘dependency’ used in relation to medication, tobacco or alcohol. “Dependency” is used mostly in relation to illegal drugs; that is, the stigmatised condition which is marked as dependency is the relation of subordination, in this case the subordination that the addict is exposed to by the illegalisation of their need. Any wonder that use of such drugs is sustained by the formation of a counter-culture in which use of the drug is normalised.

Likewise, in a certain sense welfare is an instrument used in combination with policing in order to dissuade people from earning a living by crime. Whether we like the idea or not, it is part and parcel of the suppression of ways of earning a living which the state deems socially undesirable.

Building Capacity vs. Philanthropy

Welfare discourse has moved on to some extent from victim-blaming and overt psychologising and individualisation of “dependency,” even if such improvements haven’t yet penetrated some of the offices in Parliament House. Among the more sophisticated experts in poverty, the talk is about “capacity building.”

The idea here is that welfare-dependency cannot be overcome by philanthropy, i.e., by bridging the deficit in wealth, but only by assisting people in building the “assets” that they need in order to lift themselves out of dependency. Without skills (called “human capital”) and social connections or networks of trust (called “social capital’) people have no way of earning a living.

In this discourse, rather than governments providing education and training, grants and infrastructure, the responsibility for “capacity building” is handed over to capital (a.k.a. “the community”), who are encouraged to fulfil their social responsibilities by entering “partnerships” with people to build “social capital.” A central concept for this exercise is “social enterprise,” which means helping people start up small businesses, employ people in their neighbourhood and provide services, usually back into the same community. This is a kind of “import substitution” which has the by-product of facilitating the accumulation of small-scale capital. The result is a kind of privatisation of welfare which has the effect of subsuming under capital relationships which, to their detriment, have been outside of capital.

The linking of these two concepts, “capacity building” and “social enterprise,” results from the conception that the “real” economy is in the private sector and government cannot act in this arena. The state itself is cast in a kind of relation of dependency in relation to the “real” economy, with its own services cast as costs relative to the services of the private sector deemed as products. The state it is argued must hand over responsibility for capacity building to those qualified to play in the economy. Government intervention is therefore to be mediated by private companies (or charities) rather than bureaucracies – a kind of “franchising” of government activity.

The key word here is “inclusion.” “Dependency” denotes being outside of capital; “independence” is achieved by being subsumed under capital, either as employee or as small-scale capitalist. Capacity building involves assisting “entrepreneurship” and “investing in human capital,” to facilitate “inclusion” under capital.

The problem is that it is the action of capital which separates people from their means of livelihood in the first place. Still, it is better to be employed and exploited than to be unemployed and marginalised. But isn’t there something deeply problematic about transforming whatever relations of trust and collaboration exist within a community into relationships of domination (i.e., employment relations)? Both the small-scale capitalist and their semi-marginalised employees remain in a position of total powerlessness in the face of “market forces.” The formation of companies is one possible step towards self-determination, but it is by no means the only one, let alone the best one for poor communities.

There is an implied interpretation of ‘dependency’ here which holds that getting things off government is dependence, while engaging in a business relationship with a private company is being independent, and what people need is the capacity to do business. But the kind of “independence” people get this way is just in proportion to their economic muscle; what is left out of the picture altogether is the political and socio-legal muscle that people have or don’t have.

Independence is far more about empowerment on the social, legal and political domains than it is about capacity on the productive plane or moral/psychological causes. In fact, dependence is more often associated with being productive than with not being productive, and with being responsible rather than irresponsible. Historically, being excluded is usually a precursor to being subordinated, and subordination is the essential condition which underlies dependence.

What is nasty about being a “welfare dependent” is that you are subordinated to others – bureaucrats, philanthropists, police, landlords. No welfare claimant is going to complain about the benefits they receive; it is the subordination that goes along with getting the benefit which is the problem, and the stigmatisation associated with that subordination. No doubt, a company turning up and offering work in a small community would be welcome. But if the relationship is just a charade, and benefits which belong to the community as of right are being channelled via a company and offered as a private favour, this is a slender basis for overcoming “dependency.” So long as the differential power between the giver and the receiver of benefits is there – and passing benefits via a company hardly addresses that differential – then subordination is the likely result, even if it is a benign subordination.

To overcome subordination, what is needed is self-determination. Self-determination is not an individual question; no individual can attain self-determination except by means of participation in a social subject – be it a company, a social movement or administrative agency. The difference between ‘dependency’ and ‘independence’ is the difference between subjugation or participation in a social subject which expresses one’s own subjectivity through some particular organisational link.

The only answer to dependence, welfare dependence or any other kind of subordination, is getting organised.

The Ideology of Self-Help

One of the most pervasive ideological prejudices which support the neo-liberal analysis of ‘dependency’ and their policies for ‘welfare reform’ is the thesis that “self-esteem” flows from “helping yourself.” In this ‘theory,’ which is a perversion of the aesthetics of labour and pragmatist social psychology, a person sees an image of their own worth in the value of what they have acquired for themselves by their own efforts. Thus the billionaire is the happiest person imaginable, and the welfare claimant, who has been given what they have without any effort on their part, totally lacking in self-esteem. What welfare claimants need, therefore, is a chance to develop self-esteem by working for their dole.

This is an outrageous lie! The origin of self-esteem is the perception of oneself through the eyes of another who esteems you, above all because you have met their needs through your labour, not because you have helped yourself.

The caveat has to be added, admittedly, that providing for the needs of your family or contributing to the needs of any larger institution, by whatever means, is indeed a source of self-esteem, but this is equally well met by stock market swindling, welfare benefits or crime. What the unemployed person needs, if they are not raising a family or busy with voluntary work, is not a means of acquiring a fortune, but simply some way of making themself useful to someone else, something which work-for-the-dole is not likely to provide so long as it is the hurdle through which you must jump to qualify for your pittance.

Further, the origin of virtue is the enjoyment of values intrinsic to social practices, rather than their external rewards. Once a person finds themself doing something only for the reward they are given for it, rather than the value intrinsic in the practice itself, then their life has lost all meaning. That this is the condition of millions of wage-workers and celebrities alike is no comfort. If someone does “community work” simply as the hurdle which they have to jump to get their entitlement, then it is hard to see what good will flow from this.

All institutions have systems of reward and punishment to support the practices which they constitute, inclusive of allowing people to earn a living by furthering their activities. This is the mortar that binds social subjects together. But it is the enjoyment of the essential mission of a social subject which lifts human beings from subsistence and creates a basis for social solidarity. Reward and punishment, far from alleviating the stigma of dependency, are its usual accompaniment.

So, I think the role of the Left should not just be to promote more universal and ‘participatory’ welfare schemes, but to agitate and work for poor and excluded people to get organised, whether as residents, members of an ethnic group, unpaid carers, or whatever, but to get organised and fight for inclusion on terms that they can dictate, or at least negotiate, themselves.

And this is not some far-left political dogma. Beth Doherty, co-editor of Eureka Street, reviewing Tony Vinson’s recent report on poverty, identified communities able to overcome disadvantage as:

“those communities that function better, those that have a sense of control over their destiny and strong community leadership” (Eureka Street April 2004, p18)

We can agree with that.

Social Solidarity (2004)

The term “social capital” arises in the context of discussions of public policy in relation to poor neighbourhoods and regions. The very posing of this issue already incorporates a number of implicit assumptions.

Firstly, taking it as given that some problem of justice exists, it is still undetermined whether the problem is correctly understood as one of poverty, that is to say one of distribution, rather than a problem of politics, and which is cause and which effect.

Secondly, the posing of the issue as one of public policy slides over the question of whether the issue is properly the responsibility of public policy or that of the people of the neighbourhood itself, or some other subject, either singly or dialogically.

Thirdly, the designation of a geographical entity as the victim either presupposes that the people living there are the subjects of a claim as residents, or conversely objectifies a construct of public policy which may cut across existing relevant subjectivity.

Fourthly, if “social capital” is to be a solution, as we have seen, this leaves open which of 4 or 5 definitions of “social capital” ought to be the basis of public policy.

I am going to leave aside the issues involved in whole nations which suffer from poverty and underdevelopment, and concentrate for the moment on neighbourhoods and regions whose borders are indeterminate and whose citizens may have freedom of movement into and out of the relevant area. Whole countries, with defined borders and governments, pose the same range of problems, but in different form and emphasis.

It would be a mistake to adopt an “essentialist” attitude towards distressed neighbourhoods. That is to say, to presuppose that there is something inherent in a neighbourhood which makes the people in it poor and lacking in social solidarity.

A neighbourhood is made poor by some combination of social arrangements. In some cases poor people go there to live and leave when their position improves and they get the chance to live elsewhere (“neighbourhood sorting”); in other cases, cultural and political processes and events have consigned to economic stagnation a whole area of the country together with the people with their “roots” in the region (“place effects”).

In the former case, what may appear to be a “poor area” might more accurately be described in some ways as a temporary haven or “halfway house” for people who are poor, until such time as their situation improves. To the extent that this is the case, improving conditions in a poor area could actually have a negative impact on the people who use it (“gentrification”); they would have to find somewhere else where rents were low and short-term accommodation available.

But in either case, everyone needs to live in an area where there is trust; no problem can be solved unless people sharing the same patch of ground extend a basic degree of solidarity and trust to one another, including strangers. Even people who are only living in an area temporarily need hosts and rely on the self-determination of those who regard themselves as permanent residents.

With some qualification, it is possible to define the resolution of injustice affecting people living in a neighbourhood or region as the achievement of self-determination. The qualifications have to do with the fact that the concept of self-determination only makes sense if a group of people define themselves as “custodians” of the neighbourhood. Otherwise, people may commit themselves to other projects, not related to residency, which directly or indirectly contribute to resolution of injustices affecting people living in an area. The responsibility of those who want to do something to help is just that: to help. Only the efforts of groups of people defining themselves around projects which directly or indirectly contribute to the resolution of injustices affecting people living, working or passing through the area can build social solidarity.

I focus on the question of “injustice” rather than “poverty” or “need,” because neither the form of the injustice nor the nature of the remedy can be presumed.

Hiring people to do the job is not effective. Professionals hired to do a job can do the job perfectly well, but they cannot generate social solidarity as a by-product of the work that they do. But this does not prevent money and hired labour being put at the disposal of people who do what they are doing out of commitment.

This turns the usual relationship upside down; voluntary work is usually based on volunteers supporting full-time, paid organisers. I am not suggesting that public money should just be handed over to voluntary organisations, but simply to recognise the benefit that can flow from utilising opportunities to strengthen local initiatives, rather than attaching volunteers to a paid bureaucracy.

For example, areas with run-down, dilapidated infrastructure are always going to find it very difficult to overcome stigmatisation as a depressed area. The job of outside central authorities to redistribute funds, so that a poor area can have the same leafy streets and quality services as a wealthy area, requires bringing political pressure to bear; so does forcing road authorities to pay respect to the needs of residents and limiting pollution and noise from factories. The action of vocal NIMBY groups can contribute to overcoming poverty just as well as charity shops, and they help a neighbourhood become a “Thing.”

In short, the needs of people living in an area, not only in terms of survival, but in terms of overcoming the injustices affecting them because of where they live, ought not to be prejudged from outside. My thesis is that the principal need of a community is to attain self-determination, and a principal need of any individual is to be an active part of some collective(s) through which they can exercise their self-determination.

The conclusion from the review of “social capital” theories is that Jane Jacobs has identified the crucial entities that people living in a neighbourhood need, only that it is misnamed as “social capital.” She called it “self-government;” I will call it “self-determination.” This does mean “control over events of interest to others” (James Coleman’s concept), but while for Coleman the question of subjectivity is presupposed, for me subjectivity is the very heart of the question. It does mean that governments and others interested in development of an area need a much wider focus which includes the informal social networks relevant to an area as a central focus of strategy, but it also means straightforward issues of distribution. Insofar as “social capital” theories are a cover under which regions may be denied investment in infrastructure or local government resources at a level which other regions enjoy, then this is absolutely unacceptable.

Being born on the wrong side of the tracks is much like being born black, female or homosexual. In themselves, there’s nothing wrong with being black, female or homosexual, or all three, far from it, and nor is there anything wrong with being born in the Western suburbs of Sydney, Newcastle or Soweto.

The problem is two-fold. In the first place, it is the social structures which stigmatise such categories and assign them to roles on the bottom of the heap; in the second place, it is the political-economic structures which ensure that there is always someone the bottom of the heap.

As is well-known, the injustices which originate from the class structure of society and from the status order of society (gender division of labour, racial discrimination, despised sexualities) have proved extremely difficult and complex to resolve, even independently of their “mapping” onto the geographical domain. They have also been the subject of a vast literature of social theory, moral philosophy and political science, independently of any consideration of spatial differentiation of groups. And yet, the spatial differentiation of the same groups would not seem to pose problems of an entirely different order. It is certainly no easier to change one’s skin-colour or gender than to move house.

Let us briefly review some of the issues which have come out of debates outside of the domain of regional development, which are relevant to the issues of injustices exercised against people on the wrong side of the tracks.

Redistribution

Poverty by no means exhausts the nature of the lot of someone who, lacking the means of their own labour must sell their labour on the market, and thereby open themselves to exploitation. It is difficult to see how the working class could make any progress towards emancipation other than by combining together for the purpose of increasing wages and improving working conditions, even while remaining wage-workers.

Historically, the wages struggle has involved combining together people whose conditions of life place them in mutual competition with each other, who otherwise only combine under the direction of their employer. Nevertheless, a powerful workers movement developed in Europe and America in the nineteenth century and brought about a vast improvement in the conditions of life of the proletariat.

This success in redistribution began with “mutual aid” orchestrated by trade union activists and the First International. Its founding principle was “solidarity.” The efforts of workers to get better wages and conditions have never ceased to be met with cries that their claims were unfair and unsustainable, but this has of course turned out to be untrue.

It makes sense then, that just demands on the part of people living in a depressed region for money, infrastructure, industrial plant, environmental benefits and so on, ought to be taken seriously and acceded to. If 50 large businesses were moved from central Sydney to Newcastle, and if funding for Sydney roads and parks were diverted to improving the infrastructure in Newcastle, can anyone doubt that life in Newcastle would improve and that the rate of unemployment there would go down, despite all the problems of shortages of appropriate skills, etc., etc.?

Now the working class only achieved the gains that it did achieve by combining and above all by creating solidarity between otherwise atomised individuals. Any suggestion that Newcastle doesn’t need investment and infrastructure, but “social capital,” should be treated with contempt.

Thus, to rectify maldistribution, a neighbourhood must develop a social movement which is capable of bringing pressure to bear. Otherwise, attempts by agencies to correct maldistribution of resources will more likely be defeated by the efforts of those who benefit from the existing distribution of resources.

Recognition

Class-oppression does not exhaust the means by which people are subjected to poverty and other kinds of injustice. Women and Gays are found evenly across all social classes, and yet suffer injustice, economic insecurity and dependency, and are stigmatised and abused by reason of their gender or sexuality. It is the same with those who are born on the wrong side of the tracks.

Affirmative strategies have a place therefore: “celebrating femininity,” “gay pride,” or “black is beautiful” have their geographical counterparts in “Tidy Towns” across the world. However, it must be said that these strategies have some serious problems and as a strategy for regional development they are no less problematic. This kind of affirmative strategy is useful possibly for “consciousness raising,” for the initial gathering of people together, mutually affirming their pride in where they are, its inherent values, and building up the determination to do something about the injustices they face.

However, all sorts of measures aimed at improving a location can have negative effects if the underlying causes are not addressed. For example, all manner of “targeted welfare” crushes subjectivity and exacerbates stigmatisation, and since it does not address the underlying cause, creates a bottomless pit which only further stigmatises the recipients.

Further, measures to improve infrastructure and so on, any measures at all which improve an area, run the risk of simply driving out the former residents and, through a process of “gentrification,” handing it over to new people moving in. (“Slum clearance” would be the greatest disaster which could befall a poor community, robbing them of what little they did have.)

Thus, the issue is always the welfare of the people themselves, not their location. If people have the power to control their own lives, then they might choose to stay, improve the area they live in and build a community there, rather than move out.

Making an area somewhere to be proud of goes much further than improving infrastructure; it involves the struggle for recognition of the social groups living there.

Deconstruction

Let’s make a metaphor with the issue of women living in a location in the division of labour as unpaid child-carers; think of “women’s work” as a neighbourhood, and women as people living there, some by choice, some against their will. What options are available to women in this space?

One option is increased child benefits for stay-at-home mothers, thus making life better in the ghetto, a measure welcomed and immediately benefiting people stuck there. It also has the effect of marginally enhancing the status of child-carers, but it is hardly likely to enhance the attractiveness of being a stay-at-home parent sufficiently to encourage men to give up their paid work and become househusbands. It actually emphasises a woman’s role as unpaid child-carer, trapping her in that role, since it is a disincentive to going out to get paid work, stigmatises the mother as a welfare recipient and relieves the male of responsibility for contributing to the upbringing of his own children. This is the kind of affirmative strategy which has immediate appeal but fails to solve the problem, and correspond to all those kinds of public policy strategies that are based around providing services to “areas of special need.” Good and necessary up to a point, but unable to resolve the underlying problems.

Another strategy is to commercialise child-care, thus moving the job into the market and giving women the choice of doing the same work for a wage, or doing a different job while their own kids are cared for in a childcare centre. This is probably more effective in giving women a choice, but it runs into a couple of problems. So long as child-care is stigmatised as “women’s work,” then it remains low-paid and women move out of their homes into low-paid jobs doing “women’s work.” There is no way out of this trap until the gender division of labour is broken down. Once women are recognised capable of the same kind of work as men, then women can command wages equal to their male partners and make working for a wage worth putting the kids into child-care. Meanwhile, with child-care no longer stigmatised as “women’s work” she is more likely to be left a fair share of domestic duties and child-care centres are treated as seriously as other service. In other words, the “location” – “women’s work” – has to be deconstructed altogether, and “woman” no longer a socially constructed location.

What this corresponds to in the geographical analogue, is that the boundaries of the neighbourhood have to be broken down. That is to say any kind of person might want to live there, and living there is always a matter of choice. The neighbourhood is dissociated from the kind of people who live there.

However, childrearing is an important social function. It ought not to be an occupation which is denigrated and no-one should be forced to go into the professional by reason of their gender, but whoever is there needs to do the job well. If women choose not to be child-raisers, then that has to be a matter of choice, not because they have to go out to work and “can’t afford children.” If we want the next generation to be raised well, then social arrangements have to be made to make it a worthwhile profession.

Likewise, dealing with the social problems in a poor area is a vital social task for the whole country. Some people live in a neighbourhood only because they can’t afford to live anywhere else. If improvements force people to move out, then everyone has a problem. Someone has to take on the role of custodians of the neighbourhood, and it has to be made a worthwhile and honourable profession worth sticking around for.

Now, just as I would question that commercialisation of child-care can ever provide the full range of things that children need, I also question whether paid social workers and security guards can provide everything that a neighbourhood needs. Like kids, streets need love, even if from amateurs. And it’s everyone’s problem.

Making “women’s work” everyone’s responsibility, means getting men to take on that work and that generally means a fight for those stuck with “women’s work” not so much to change themselves or get better recognition for what they do (these too) but to get other people to accept their responsibility.

Society at large is free-riding on the backs of people living in “poor neighbourhoods” who are bearing the brunt’s of society’s problems, problems arising from inequality, from social change, from immigration and even just raising the next generation of workers. A big part of what these people need to do is to spread the pain and get the wider community to start picking up their share of responsibility for these problems.

Subjectivity again

The contradiction is this. The working class and women had to constitute themselves as a subject for the purposes of abolishing themselves as social constructs. Both began as atomised sets of people Despite being as atomised as it is possible to be, women had to constitute themselves as a subject in order, eventually, to deconstruct gender as an ordering principle in society, beyond defending their special needs biologically tied to their feminine physiology. A complex task. Let us see how this pans out when translated back into turf.

In order to solve any of its problems, the people of a neighbourhood have to constitute themselves as a subject; their aim is above all though to deconstruct their borders, to reconstruct the neighbourhood in terms of what is essentially distinctive about it, give its current residents the option to live somewhere else if they want to, and make it attractive enough to make others want to move in, without making it too expensive for its present occupants to have to leave. On top of that, they have to bring together a group of people who like the area for what it really is and are prepared to put themselves out to defend its interests.

None of this can detract however from the warning that a construct of public policy is not necessarily a “neighbourhood,” and if by neighbourhood I mean a Thing (to use Jane Jacob’s expression), then there may be no such thing around at all. Social movements are not constituted objectively. Women suffered under patriarchy for thousands of years before the modern women’s movement appeared. A slum can remain a slum for many generations, and unless it has a stable population it is likely to remain a slum, because the people living there are only there because they don’t have any better option. The last thing they are going to do is identify themselves with a slum.

Consequently, any sign of the slightest tendency to take care of a neighbourhood or region or speak for it, or for someone to try to mark it with their own cultural symbols, needs to be paid attention to. Any pocket of stable population needs to be allowed to feel at home. For the rest, it is far better to deal with the poverty and give people a chance to move out.

Welfare, Rights and Solidarity

One of the issues to be resolved in developing policies to benefit regions and neighbourhoods afflicted by poverty and atomisation is the attitude to be taken towards the notion of ‘welfare’. Giving people something for nothing, it is said, creates a ‘culture of dependency’.

This is a neo-liberal myth. The problem is never dependency (something which never worries wealthy capitalists and self-funded retirees, who are utterly dependent on productive workers for their income), but of subordination.

Nevertheless, if your intention is not to subordinate someone (or a group of people), but to help them achieve self-determination, then the important distinction is the subjectivity supported by the act of giving aid.

- Means-tested aid given to the “needy” stigmatises the receiver, destroying their subjectivity and subsuming it into that of the donor;

- Conditional aid given to the “deserving” aligns the subjectivity of the recipient to that of the donor, while giving it respect;

- Universal aid given as of right respects the autonomy of both the donor and recipient, but permits free-riding and exploitation and may weaken social bonds;

- Hired help – the most common form of aid – strengthens the subjectivity of the receiver and may reduce the donor to the status of dependency;

- Aid given in exchange for services – equally common – promotes autonomy, engenders self-respect and self-esteem, but does not help those who have little to give in exchange, and exacerbates inequality;

- Aid given in solidarity, by the donor’s voluntary subordination to the receiver, strengthens the subjectivity of the receiver while creating a new social bond.

The Neo-liberal myth is that making aid conditional upon the recipient working for it, ensures that the recipient will enjoy self-esteem as a result of “earning” the aid themself, and that because aid is thereby made conditional, undeserving people will not receive it until they knuckle down and fulfil the conditions, and thus avoiding the ‘culture of dependency’.

If this means providing jobs, then there is no argument from any quarter is there? However, if the work is meaningless, done by welfare recipients as a compulsory duty, then the recipient may be helping themself, but they are not contributing to society, and they do so not by their own will, but according to that of “donor.” Neo-liberal rhetoric about forcing people to contribute to the community before receiving aid, sounds great, but usually ignores what it is that is preventing the claimant from contributing. There can be no pretence of contractual reciprocity between a welfare claimant and the state, even if the claimant is a whole region. Neo-liberal ideology rests on psychologistic caricatures like the “dole bludger.” Where we are dealing with whole regions, then such constructions are obviously untenable. Regions are not poor because they are as selfish as neo-liberal theorists. They are made poor, and made powerless. The only point is that assistance needs to be given in a way that does not produce subordination, but strengthens the subjectivity of the recipient. This means that aid must be given in solidarity.

There are a whole range of problems which are born by individuals and groups, which are only born by those people by force of circumstances or a feeling of social responsibility: combating street crime, raising children, making up for deficits in provision of health and education facilities, or advocating for neighbourhood issues, for example. Anyone who takes on those problems should be given solidarity, not just as a volunteer helper, but as a professional, and above all, it should be ensured that they succeed.

In particular, if people demand infrastructure or other measures of “redistribution” for their place, then acceding to the request is not just “welfare,” but a measure which supports the subjectivity which made the claim. If the claim is just, it should be acceded to.

Development

It was pointed out above, that the focus on subjectivity points to a contradiction: a place which initially lacks subjectivity must be assisted in gaining it, so as take control of its own fate; but once having gained self-determination, the ultimate objective is to abolish itself as a “needy” place. This means that in the course of development quite different tasks must present themselves.

1. Gaining subjectivity

To start with, there is a place where a lot of people suffering injustice are concentrated. The “place” may be in great measure a construct of external processes, inclusive of “neighbourhood sorting” mechanisms which have made the place a haven for poor people, but one which also exacerbates the effects of poverty by compounding them with lack of access to helpful contacts, poor infrastructure, a bad reputation and all the negative effects of being surrounded by other poor people. It may also be the result of historical processes, such as the concentration of certain kinds of industry which has fostered a supporting demography, but when the industry declines, has left the area high and dry. Here, the former vitality of the area may leave behind a strong subjectivity, but one which is severely injured by the removal of its raison d'être.

The task here is to identify, encourage and assist what elements of subjectivity exist, and it is likely that outside help will be needed. An element of “celebrating” the virtues of the place, reasons for being proud to belong to it, will be present in this stage – otherwise, why would people participate?

The next stage is the strengthening of this new subject, under conditions where individuals have to be encouraged to identify themselves with it. So, it is necessary for the new local subjectivity to assist individuals in solving problems. Only self-confident and competent individuals can manage the expression of neighbourhood subjectivity; they have to be found, strengthened and given good reason to lend their talent to resolving the neighbourhood’s problems. That is, they need solidarity; but in their relation to people facing difficulties, their relation may be more of a “welfare” role, since it is precisely the objective at this stage to strengthen the giving subject, i.e., the “local committee.” On the other hand, outside help needs to subordinate itself to this “local committee,” giving solidarity not welfare.

This phase of development of a neighbourhood is a self-related phase, and the objective is only that neighbourhood representatives can attain self-sufficiency; that is to say, to be able to do enough for the people in the area to justify their existence. Achieving stability of population is a target here.

2. Relation to Other

Once having justified its existence, and established reasons for being proud of who they are, a new subjectivity must turn to others to rectify injustice. This first stage will be to demand aid, redistribution of needed resources that they have hitherto been denied. The skills they will develop at this stage will be the skills of advocacy as much as anything, skills already developed at an individual and local level in the first stage, but now turned to external, large corporate bodies, to advocate on behalf of their area. Here pride in the area passes over to outrage at the injustices affecting the area.

This phase necessarily poses the effective utilisation of aid which is won. Managing new infrastructure and working in new jobs, develops new skills. Thus a new transformation of the subject must take place. To a certain extent this not only prepares people to work anywhere, it will also demand the importation of new skills. Thus mobility of population starts to become an objective.

3. Deconstruction

From promoting the special values of the place, the issue gradually becomes the possibility of any of its individuals being able to move into any other place where they can do even better, and the place becoming just like any other, that is to say, not in need of any “special” treatment, but able to offer the same range of things any area can offer. Having been successful in reconstructing themselves, a town will want to expand its borders and become a real player in a larger entity.

Conclusion

I have not here developed a theory for tackling poverty. What I have proposed is this: rather than being conceived of as a deficit in resources, poverty should be conceived of as a deficit in subjectivity, i.e., in collective self-consciousness. Rather than being conceived of as a problem of economics, poverty should be conceived of as a problem of politics.

Thus, instead of trying to extend economics into social policy by conceiving of the social relations in a group of people as an embryonic form of economic resource or wealth, we should rather extend the politics of social movements into economics by conceiving of the resources of a group of people as an embryonic form of social movement.

The body of theory for this task is relatively well-established. I contend though that the concepts set out in part one of this work is the most appropriate starting point for a social theory capable of informing the struggle to eliminate poverty.

A Postscript

That is my conclusion, but what do we make of (1) the body of empirical data showing that measurement of social capital a lá Robert Putnam is a predictor of the capacity of a group of people to overcome adversity? (2) If “building social capital” is an effective approach to helping a community overcome poverty and marginalisation, why does it not remain a valid approach to social policy? (3) Is it not possible that “social capital” could be inserted into a group of people in order to assist them in overcoming poverty, without such a group of people developing any collective self-consciousness? (4) Is not “social capital” already a sufficiently clear concept that it is better to refine the measurement of “social capital” rather than “changing horses in midstream,” so to speak, and adopting a new concept?

I would respond to these questions by asking the reader whether they would not accept from the outset that there is broad consensus that “social capital” is a problematic and unclear concept, and that so long as it is widely recognised that “social capital” is composed of both “good” and “bad” “social capital,” then any proposal for “building” it is on shaky ground.

If my thesis holds up, that the capacity of an arbitrary group of people to overcome adversity is dependent on their capacity to develop social solidarity, and ultimately a “collective self-consciousness,” then it clearly follows that this will be reflected in measurements of “social capital.” In the event of there being a multiplicity of such collectivities then no “collective self-consciousness” would result only because it existed in such abundance at a finer grain.

A major difference resulting from a change in conception is that my proposal immediately suggests practical approaches to rectifying the problem of poverty in any given instance. On the other hand, it seems fairly unclear exactly what is involved in “building social capital.”

In the case of the projects reported by Tony Vinson in his recent report “Community Adversity Resilience” the project workers seem to have gone about their task as if they were charged with building a social movement. That is, it appears more like they utilised a concept of “collective self-consciousness” to guide their work and not a concept of “social capital.”

A concept which tells us how to bring a thing into being is surely superior to a concept of a metaphysical entity underlying a set of measurements.

I understand a thing if I know how to bring it into being out of its conditions.

Postscript 2: Can measurement of “social capital” be improved then?

Given that Robert Putnam has a 92% correlation of his SQ index with the answer to “Can most people be trusted?” it is difficult to see how the measurement of what he is measuring could be improved. But is “sociability” the best gauge of the capacity of an arbitrary population to take control of its own destiny?

The current OECD recommendation for definition of “social capital” is “networks, together with shared norms, values and understandings which facilitate cooperation within or among groups.” The question is whether we can recommend a further determination of this definition to facilitate measurement of the capacity of a group of people to form the kinds of subjectivity which can deal with social change threatening their economic viability as a group.

There are two halves to this definition: “networks, shared norms, values and understandings” which may or may not facilitate the second half of the definition, “cooperation within or among groups.”

I think the important thing to recognise is that “shared norms, values and understandings” are phenomena which are less and less likely to be found across groups other than homogeneous ethnic groups in modern, urban societies. This means two things.

Firstly, if the OECD definition reflects empirical experience, that the existence of these entities facilitates an effective response to change, then practical intervention should be focussed on those groupings where such “shared norms, values and understandings” exist, i.e., in various communities of value.

Secondly however, it means that we must increasingly look towards those social relations which facilitate cooperation within or among groups which use networks, but do not depend on the existence of “shared norms, values and understandings.” This issue was one of the focuses of my book For Ethical Politics.

Concretely, this is a question which needs to be tackled with empirical research. However, there are two kinds of social behaviour that I would look to. In the first place, there are measures of compliance with norms of reciprocity in interactions in the kind of “thin ethos” characteristic of modernity. For example, frequency of non-compliance with road laws, tax evasion, vandalism, and so forth.

In the second place, I would look to measures which one would expect to illicit a positive response from only a small fraction of a population, that crucial minority that will actually set up the first “local committee,” and I would deliberatively measure to determine the existence of that small minority.

The difficulty with determining the existence of such a group is that it is not only necessary that they should be prepared to take an organising initiative, but that the same people are trusted by others in the population. If there are 50 activists in a neighbourhood, but all of them are despised by everyone else, then this is nothing to be welcomed. Consequently, I think the number of people within the population who have been elected to office of some kind should be considered as an important datum.

A further point. “Shared norms, values and understandings” may exist within communities of value, (the so-called “thick ethos” characteristic of religious communities, employees of the same company, and so on) but such an ethos is well-known to have the potential to prove a barrier to combining with other communities of value. This is the problem of the need for a “balance” between “bridging” and “bonding” “social capital,” that is, the degree to which a community is marked by boundaries of difference within itself. A community which is divided between two traditionally hostile religious groupings may or may not prove resilient, but this will depend in some measure on how the leaderships of the two communities are prepared to work together and the extent to which the behaviour of the shepherds may guide that of their flock. I would say impossible to determine by “objective” measurement, but resolvable only by subjective intervention.

Further. A group which is not internally divided, but has sharp boundaries around itself it likely to face challenges in overcoming its isolation from the outside world which it has to “lobby.” This involves the problem of the so-called “radius of association.”

It seems to me that the idea of summing a number of factors into a quantity, all parts of which contribute equally to a total “social capital” is not sustainable. There is no reason to go this way. It is better to measure separate factors and not attempt to sum them, even if this undermines the production of neat tables of data. Information is for using, and information about the specific characteristics of an area is more useful than a “score.”

Membership of “thick” ethnic or religious groups tells us a lot in terms of the best methods of approach to assisting a community overcome challenges, and suggests definite practical steps. It should not be “added” to, for example, compliance with traffic laws or participation in national political life.

Having visited the home of a stranger in another city within the past 12 months, for example, would give a measure of radius of association. A measure of “radius of association” gives specific practical information about challenges facing a community and should not be added to frequency of church attendance, for example.

Broadly speaking I think it would be far more useful to have a series of data like this about an area in need of assistance than a total score.

19 Theses on the politics of scare-mongering (2004)

1. Any analysis of the politics of scare-mongering must rest on consideration of the general structure of anxiety, risk-aversion and risk-seeking in a society, as well as the institutional structures implicated in scare-mongering.

2. Scare-mongering is not the exclusive property of any of political camp, but is used by all parties, social movements, lobby groups, professional and special interest organisations.

3. Life is neither more nor less risky today than at any other time; no-one could ever pay attention to all the dangers and potential gambles life presents; the point is not the quantity of risk, but the structure of risk, risk perception (selection of risks) and response to risk (blame).

- Life-expectancy has increased and infant mortality reduced in all countries, this is the most objective refutation of the idea that modern life is more risky than in the past;

- In the developed world, exposure to the dangers of war, mass unemployment, political extremism and natural disasters has dramatically declined by comparison with previous generations;

- On the other hand, uncertainty about personal relationships, ethical and moral norms and the continuity of family and employment relations has increased.

- People are more conscious of the possibility of man-made catastrophes such as nuclear war and accidents, global warming and pollution, but here in Australia, we are also aware of how natural disasters have been manufactured by past generations.

4. Perception of risk and risk attribution reflect ethical and moral sentiment which are objectified in social institutions generating, advertising and coping with risks.

- Advertising a threat is usually a coded way of expressing moral outrage;

- A group of people may object to exposure to a risk as unjust because they have done nothing to deserve it or have not participated in deciding on the risk, or because those who do deserve it or have made the risky decision, are escaping exposure; a risk can be unfairly distributed;

- A risk is particularly objectionable if it is imposed by someone who profits by exposing others to the risk – exploitation. If the same risk were perceived as having natural origin (increasingly unlikely today) it would not be found objectionable;

- A group or institution may exaggerate a threat to cover up or substitute for a wrong it has itself done to someone, implicating others in the misery affecting victims of their own action or neglect (guilt);

- the attribution of natural disasters to human misbehaviour expresses moral disapproval of the behaviour in question – “homosexuality causes AIDS” – stigmatisation;

- Refusal to believe in accidents of nature, and preferring to search for a responsible authority (blaming paediatric doctors for sick babies, governments for not anticipating a natural disaster) is partly due to the belief that these professionals are self-seeking and not to be trusted, and partly also the conviction that anything, including health and safety, can be purchased or provided as a public service; any accident is therefore the result of some kind of swindle or professional incompetence. Whereas in the past, misfortune was due to sin, nowadays, virtue is earning enough to buy what you want on the market;

- Victim-blaming and attribution of human failings to nature express a desire to avoid conflict. These are not socially approved attitudes nowadays.

That a risk is given attention because of the ethical/moral standpoint of the subject, does not contradict the fact that a risk normally has an objective basis.

5. The nature/culture division is determined differently by different cultures, but generally speaking culture, and therefore the scope for blame and responsibility is very broad today:

- There is little belief in “accidents” or a natural world beyond human control, so misfortune must be someone’s fault and consequently a moral outrage;

- Where blame is placed depends on ethical expectations and moral sentiments.

6. Human beings are by nature somewhat over-intrepid (we drive cars, eat fatty food, marry and have children); risk-aversion is above all an expression of moral revulsion and political enmity.

- People normally ignore rare threats, so the advertising of a far-flung danger is invariably an expression of a moral disposition.

7. Scares campaigns are effective if they are presented to the public with skill and are:

- aligned with a relevant moral sentiment,

- backed by a recognized, relevant authority,

- given a human face, be it a sympathetic victim or a heinous perpetrator.

The most powerful image possible combines all the above with both the threatening activity and its result in a single visual field.

8. Scares can be dispelled by sufficiently skilful and resolute action:

- making the implicit moral/ethical message explicit, and specifically negating it, if possible finding an alternative moral reading of the phenomenon;

- exposing the authority as bogus, self-interested, untrustworthy, and preferably involved in a cover-up of the real cause for concern;

- transforming the perception of the “human face” – (“that nurse was actually the ambassador’s wife,” “actually the Iraqis treated me very well”) and if possible finding a better, countervailing “human face”;

- using superior, disinterested, informed and trusted authority to rationally critique the alleged facts point by point.

However, the most difficult problem is the underlying conditions which predispose people to believe certain kinds of scares which align with their moral sentiments and specific insecurities. This can only be dealt with by changing social practices.
9. People who have access to the world only through the TV (or otherwise through a restricted channel), are more likely to be afraid of something than people who are practically exposed to the relevant risk and are consequently familiar with it. This observation does point to a vulnerability in modern society as much of our personal communication is supplanted by the mass media.

- society is overall much more tolerant of difference than a generation ago, partly due to the proliferation of mass media, but some people have little exposure to some other kinds of people, other than through TV, and consequently are vulnerable to scare campaigns about issues which actually rarely affect them;

10. The means of public communication have a great role to play in transmitting scare campaigns, but equally in debunking scares. The media is an arena of struggle over risk as much as any other institution or any other part of society; consequently it would be wrong to single out the media (as a whole) in blame for scare campaigns – different social forces are at work within it.

- The media is of course generally expressive of certain social interests, and will therefore tend to transmit the relevant scares.

11. In a “post-materialist” society, distribution of bads overtakes the distribution of goods as the central problem of distributive justice.

- It is rational for people who have escaped from the struggle for survival to be sensitive to dangers that would be ignored by people who struggle just to exist.
- The same people might also choose risk-taking activities for pleasure, something unthinkable for someone who risks their life daily in the struggle for existence.

- Having no voice in the distribution of risks in society is the principle axis of injustice. People are tolerant of risks they choose themselves on the basis of reasonable information.

- This observation still leaves open which risks will get attention and who will be blamed.

12. The level of risk-seeking and risk-aversion is normative – the lifestyle of dominant cultural groups setting a standard for others whose lifestyle would normally be associated with a different level of risk-taking.

- In a society where there is little risk-taking, exposure to any risk appears as an injustice in the same way as poverty appears as injustice in a society of generalised affluence.

- Conversely, those who are exposed to manifestly less risk than the social norm could (a) seek more risk, (b) exaggerate the riskiness of their own life-style, (c) disbelieve the riskiness of others’ lives (d) adopt a stance of moral superiority.

13. Shared perception of risk is a means of social control and cooperation, just as much is a shared conception of the good. Those who engage in risky behaviour are social deviants.

14. The poor are rational to be interested in low-probability/high-reward practices (gambling) and relatively indifferent to risks (it couldn’t get any worse); those better off are rational to be averse to low-probability disasters (and take out insurance) and relatively uninterested in gambles.

15. Institutions draw attention to threats at their own level, and relevant to their own domain of responsibility;

- MacCarthyism operated within an environment of communitarianism and conformism, and identified a threat to the whole community (communist takeover), tending to reinforce conformity;

- The Nuclear Disarmament Movement warned of the prospect of nuclear war, the Environmental Movement warns of a range of global catastrophes, and the ultra-left socialists warned of the economic collapse of capitalism. These claims signified the negative side of the utopian visions of social movements.

- It is interesting that the Civil Rights Movement and the Women’s Liberation Movement have no such “fears” associated with them, perhaps because their claim was directed against manifest and existent oppression, and no “imminent threat” was needed to make the point.

- the paedophilia, medical and crime scares of recent times operate within a society in which social ties have been reduced to the minimum, identifying threats to the individual and close-family, tending to increase isolation and fragmentation.

16. Institutions have to be able to protect agents and decision-makers from blame, to avoid paralysing defensive action. The trend toward privatisation of public responsibility, promotes litigation and public liability insurance, adding to ever-expanding regulations which are paralysing institutions. The two possible responses are:

- closing ranks and covering up, protecting individuals and wearing the heat at institutional level, or

- delegation of responsibility downwards to individuals, prompting risk aversion by the vulnerable individuals and insurance.

The latter response is normal in Australia today.

17. Institutions and groups advertise dangers which affect their own interests, at the expense of larger dangers which affect other groups, but not themselves. Women’s groups exaggerate the dangers of breast implants, rape, domestic violence; charities highlight the dangers of gambling, poverty, exploitative employers; employer groups demand the need for instant dismissal, deregulation, etc. This mirrors the fact that institutions by definition promote goods specific to their social role.

18. To the extent that people and groups identify themselves as victims, they perceive all risks as involuntary and unjust, willingly embrace scare campaigns which reinforce their status as victims, and seek compensation and recognition for the harm they suffer.

- The claim to be recognised as victims is an increasingly common mode of the politics of recognition;

- To the extent that people see themselves as architects of their own destiny – risk comes in the same package as benefit and is their own business, not a matter of injustice.

19. When you choose your institutions and social practices, you choose your goods and your choose your risks. A risk-free society is a society free of ideals and a conception of the good.

False Heroes and Villains (2005)

Have you ever read a novel or seen a play or a movie in which there is more than one villain? Do you know of a fairy-tale, traditional legend or myth in which there is more than one villain? The Devil of course has his minions and hirelings, but no decent narrative has more than one villain. Imagine Superman fighting on two fronts, or Faust making a pact with two different Devils.

According to Vladimir Propp, the seven archetypal characters of any traditional fairy tale include, in addition to the villain, the false hero. The villain struggles with the hero and tries to thwart the hero’s efforts to achieve his goal, classically to wed the princess. The false hero, or usurper, claims to be the hero, often seeking and reacting like a real hero, for example by trying to marry the princess. The villain has to be defeated, the false-hero has to be exposed. The villain’s motivations are utterly evil and beyond redemption, the false-hero has character weaknesses, even vices, but is not self-evidently evil.

Iago, Richard III and maybe Hamlet’s uncle Claudius are among the few out-and-out villains in Shakespeare’s plays; most of his characters are complex personalities led into tragedy by their fallibility. Even Shakespeare’s heroes are never just heroes; Shakespeare builds his tragedies through the medium of such “false heroes” as Othello, Anthony and Brutus. But characters never “turn out” to be villains, or become villains, or are partly villains; a villain is a manifest evil, and the complexity of a well-written plot derives from how the characters deal with that.

The point is that the Left will only be understood if we can present our analysis in a coherent and convincing narrative, and the evidence from thousands of years of story-telling is that you can’t have two villains, but you can have a villain and a false hero.

The polemical stance involved in dealing with a subject as a false hero is quite different from dealing with a subject as a villain. So the Left needs to make a decision to either:

1. attack Neo-liberalism as the real enemy and expose the social conservatives and fundamentalists as “false heroes,” or

2. attack social conservatism as the real enemy and expose the neo-liberals as “false heroes.”

I see social conservatism as essentially a reaction to the erosion of traditional relationships by capitalism, and therefore it is neo-liberalism which is the real enemy. The extreme wings of social conservatism, Islamic and Christian Fundamentalism, claim to defend their respective forms of life against the impact of modernity, but each in their own way manifestly fail.

There is much in the social conservative agenda which is antithetical to the Left – homophobia, patriarchy, cultural apartheid, religious dogmatism and so on – but as I see it, in today’s conditions, the significant support which such old-world attitudes get does not originate from the few old men who directly benefit from them, but rather on the basis of defending a viable and meaningful way of life.

If on the other hand, we were in a situation where the destruction of an oppressive traditional institution was the principal historical task, then one could take the converse option: criticising neo-liberalism as a false-hero, perhaps for destroying the oppressive institutions, while reinstating the same power relations in a new form. But that is not where we are today.

The present conjuncture is characterised by the collapse of social cohesion; it is not generally the case that people are suffering because they are trapped within an oppressive system of social relations, but more generally because they are denied a place in any robust and extended system of social relations. The over-zealous assertion of traditional relations is therefore to be understood as reactionary in the literal sense of the word. It is an effort to withstand the neo-liberal onslaught. Success by the Left in overcoming the neo-liberal project would be unlikely to entrench socially dominant groups. It is more likely that it would be a neo-liberal triumph which would benefit the most privileged groups in a traditional society.

But those layers who are most disadvantaged by traditional relations are the very people who are being recruited to social conservatism and its fundamentalist troopers. Because it is they who face losing everything.

John Howard

How is Howard getting away with this?

The conservative side of politics has long relied on the aura of those “born to rule.” A business leader is a natural candidate for the CEO of Australia Incorporated, and no-one challenges the thesis that government means the management of the national business.

But since the final failure of macroeconomic policy in the Reagan-Thatcher era, the corporate mentality itself has been completely transformed. In the neo-liberal ethos, not only should government at all levels stay out of business, but so should business. Everything that isn’t “core business” is out-sourced, and ultimately like with Nike, even core business is outsourced; via one-line budgets, work teams, outsourcing and franchising, every relationship of collaboration is broken and replaced with a commercial relationship. Car builders no longer build cars, they just purchase and assemble components.

When this ethos penetrates government it has perverse effects. The “national business” provides a few residual services, but as a business it can have no place for the reproduction of human life. Just as capital consumes human life which is reproduced externally, when government is run along the same lines, then for example, like corporate profit, a budget surplus contributes to consumption of the social fabric. Neo-liberal governments become consumers of the community rather than its representative.

Howard presents himself as the archetypical socially conservative businessman. However, the socially conservative businessman was never in the past a neo-liberal. The old-style conservative business leader was accustomed to command, and his style of management was autocratic; when transferred to the sphere of government this meant that he favoured a strong civil service, meritocracy and paternalism.

Howard is an icon of this kind of social conservatism, but he is also a neo-liberal. But the social base for neo-liberalism is actually very small. This may be one of the reasons that the devastating impact of neo-liberalism on social cohesion is kept one of the best-kept secrets of social science. But have the words of the Communist Manifesto ever been more apt?

“All fixed, fast-frozen relations, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions, are swept away ... All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, ...”

It remains a public secret that Howard and his neo-liberal policies are responsible for destroying community and creating pessimism, fear and insecurity, lending credence to reactionary social policies and religious fundamentalism. And the Left is failing to break this silence.

The Right-wing Populist Narrative

The right-wing populist narrative which Howard and company rely on to keep the Left in its place follows the advice we have proposed, that is, of casting a villain and a false-hero. In foreign policy, Terrorists are the villains; those who jump up and down about the Geneva Conventions, the United Nations and telling the truth are false-heroes who are undermining the war effort. In domestic policy likewise. Child-molesters, dole-bludgers and lazy workers are the villains; the civil rights and welfare lobby are the false heroes. And so on.

This narrative works very well. It has succeeded in creating an amalgam of the hard-working people, including “battlers,” managers and businesspeople on one side, as opposed to an amalgam of an idle and privileged do-gooder elite including the entire social justice community, academics and bureaucrats. A remarkable manoeuvre!

It is much easier to run a polemic against a legitimate political opponent by painting them as an obstructor, a procrastinator, a dupe, a softy, etc., etc., than to paint them as a villain. Think of it from the third person point of view. If the listener is at all sympathetic to the target of your polemic, and you ascribe evil motives to them, then you have lost the listener. On the other hand, if you cast the target as well-meaning, but misguided or irresolute, the listener can be more receptive. It is no use ascribing evil to your listener; evil has to be located in an outsider.

The most successful alliance on the left has always been the intelligentsia and the organised working class. The neo-liberals have succeeded in breaking this alliance, weakening the organised working class and isolating the progressive intelligentsia, at the same time appointing themselves Dracula in charge of the blood bank.

An Alternative Left-Wing Narrative

The proposition is that our polemics need to be based on a polemic which goes something like this: by unrelenting commercialism, the economic rationalists are destroying Australian agriculture and industry, trashing the public education and health services, creating economic insecurity and inequality, undermining the family and community. The conservatives claim to be opposing these processes, upholding family values, calling for curfews on unruly youth, giving more powers to the police, and so on, but this is only treating the symptom not the disease, etc., etc.

This is a very different narrative from one which begins from the fact that both the socially repressive agenda and the socially destructive agenda emanate from the same prime ministerial office. But even though John Howard is only one person, he is representing two quite distinct social bases.

It is tempting to treat social conservatism and neo-liberalism as “twin evils,” if not as one and the same thing, but to engage in polemics which accept the identity of social conservatism and neo-liberalism, actually reinforces the amalgam of the two social bases, when the one thing we really need to do is to separate them and set them against one another.

We have to patiently explain to those who support social conservatives, exactly how neo-liberal policies are destroying family and community. Central to such an explanation I believe is the notion of commodification, or what may be better referred to as “commercialism.” Commercialism replaces an ethic of virtue and duty with the ethic of the market. It transforms the family into a contractual arrangement; learning becomes purchase of a certificate; private medicine sells “cures” for non-existent illnesses rather than keeping people well; food producers manufacture sweet-tasting poisons instead of food; culture is reduced to a feel-good vehicle for advertisements; a person’s worth is just whatever they have to sell; career means a big salary, corporate mumbo-jumbo, putting the kids in childcare and being able to purchase useless and expensive consumer goods.

The argument we have with social conservatives and religious fundamentalists is the failure of their leaders and policies to resolve what we agree are the real evils of modern society.

The argument we have with neo-liberals is that they are the cause of the problems in modern society.

Fear, Anxiety and the Cult of Safety (2005)

A teenager is killed by an express train after forcing her way through a closed safety gate (the pedestrian underpass was closed due to crime fears) and her parents demand an end to express trains through the Bentleigh crossing; when a young man dives into shallow water in the Murray River rendering himself a quadriplegic, Berrigan Council is ordered to pay $5.6m being responsible for the log he had jumped from, and respond by fencing off swimming holes; as parents chauffeur their increasingly unfit and obese kids to school rather than expose them to the dangers of our suburban streets, the resulting traffic hazard leads some truly innovative schools to introduce the “walking school bus.”

Stories like these, in which people respond to relatively far-fetched dangers with exaggerated demands for safety, are characteristic of our times, and a determining feature of social and political life. They are also grist for the mill of works like Frank Furedi’s “Culture of Fear” or Robert Hughes’ “Culture of Complaint,” which ridicule “victim claims.” However, it is impossible to draw a line between the above problematic responses and the recent struggle of asbestos victims’ groups to hold James Hardy to account or even the efforts of the “stolen generation” to gain recognition and compensation, struggles which have challenged existing power elites just as did the great liberation struggles of the post-World War Two period, if not rising to the same magnificent heights.

However, an underlying anxiety, expressed in the cult of safety, is more often expressed today in a vulnerability to irrational fears, rather than in emancipatory social movements.

The politics of fear dominates today’s landscape, but it is hardly new: fear was a political weapon in Ancient Rome, just as it was in the days when “witchhunt” was not a metaphor. We do live in a period of heightened generalised anxiety, but such periods have covered much of human history. What is peculiar about today is not fear and the political use of fear, but the kind of things which people are afraid of, who they blame, and how they respond. It is the peculiar pattern of evil, responsibility and remedy which constitutes an ethos or Zeitgeist.

Perhaps some light could be shed on the character of modern-day fears and the cult of safety by contrasting it with the scares of the recent past.

The late-40s/1950s, were very “communitarian” years, it was the period in which the welfare state and great public enterprises were built, the rise of the national liberation movements, leading to the beginnings of the peace movement and the civil rights movement.

The great scare campaign of these years was MacCarthyism. MacCarthyism identified a threat to the whole community, a threat to the institutions which kept people safe; it’s effect was to reinforce conformism. The national liberation and nuclear disarmament movements also tried to minimise, on the one hand, national divisions, on the other, political differences, with Communists marching shoulder-to-shoulder with churchpeople. Thus, in the struggle over the direction of public enterprise, the dominant objects of fear were threats to the whole community, fears which reinforced conformity.

The late ‘60s/early ‘70s, was a period of sharp divisions in which the women’s liberation and other social movements grew out of the victorious national liberation and civil rights movements. People knew who their enemies were: bureaucrats, racists, men, on one side, and radicals, blacks, feminists on the other, renegotiating hegemonic power relations, sometimes knowingly at great personal risk.

The fears of the late ‘70s and ‘80s were messianic fears – the great environmental disasters highlighted originally by the Club of Rome, and later by the Green movement or the economic disasters of an uncontrolled union movement, currency or welfare state. These were the fears over which macro-economic policy was contested, eventually leading to the abandonment of regulation and macro-economic policy, and massively accelerated economic growth and environmental destruction. These bogeys hardened divisions, but actually functioned to consolidate voluntary associations.

Despite everything that Ulrich Beck wrote about these fears, the prospect of global catastrophe never generated the kind of generalised, unfocussed anxiety we see today. What did arise out of this period was the conception that nothing was outside human intervention. The British Medical Journal expressed it well in its June 2001 issue: there is no such thing as an accident, only “preventable injury.”

There is plenty of room for argument in how I have sketched this periodisation, but the point I want to make is just this: not only are fears expressive of the ethos of the time, but the attribution and response is such as to reinforce that ethos. It is to this cycle of fear, attribution and remedy, which may unwittingly reinforce the very ground of the anxiety itself, to which our attention must be directed.

The first point about today’s fears is that they are threats to us individually – to our bodies, our children and personal security. Just like the paedophiles and drug-peddlers stalking suburban streets, terrorists (“the free-marketeers of war” – Arundhati Roy) threaten to strike randomly, against even the most innocent family. The occupation of Iraq of course only makes it worse.

The source of anxiety and the target of blame are not the same thing though. Our responses to fear accentuate the very fragmentation and retreat from sociability which underlies this anxiety.

Just as it is people who have least contact with foreigners who are the most xenophobic, it is for example, children who play indoors are most vulnerable to malevolent strangers, people who are ignorant of foreign affairs who are most afraid of terrorism, people who commit themselves to huge mortgages who feel most financially insecure.

Experts qualified in the field know that the dangers threatening the children of suburbia cannot be met by isolating kids. Children who are self-confident, assertive and worldly are safe against sexual predators, just as children who are trained to be responsible and pay attention to adult directions are the least likely to jump safety fences or jay-walk. These are not the typical responses however. The response to the dangers of the outdoors which characterise our times is to isolate children and rely less and less on the child’s own awareness and sense of responsibility. This makes the problems worse.

The question is: what is underlying cause of today’s heightened generalised anxiety? I think it is above all else, the insecurity of employment and career. This insecurity at work originates in the micro-economic reform and global restructuring of capitalism beginning in the late 1980s, involving privatisation, out-sourcing, casual employment, deregulation and in short, the commodification of all human relations, economic, domestic and political, including the conception of government as a kind of business. It is commodification which is the prime source of anxiety and key to understanding the ethos of this period, affecting every aspect of life without exception, even though it is rarely the target of fear, and is frequently the chosen remedy!

These processes have undermined or destroyed the safety nets which protected people in the post-war decades, the fabric which people saw as threatened by the bogeys of that time. Increasingly, the only safety net a person has is their own bank account.

This can be illustrated with the reaction to the introduction of University fees. Students tend to believe that if they have paid their fees, then they ought to be given their degree. The idea that passing their exams is their own responsibility is increasingly unacceptable to students. If they are failed, then they have been swindled.

Commodification of a relation pushes responsibility out to the supplier. When you buy a service, then you absolve yourself of personal responsibility for it. The process of corporatisation, out-sourcing and privatisation acts in exactly this way. Likewise, deregulation makes it “worth your while” to act in a certain way, rather than criminal to act otherwise.

Further, we live in a period when authorities and institutions in general are not trusted. Institutions know they will be the targets of blame by people who are injured or otherwise suffer through their dealings with the institution; but they do not have the option of “closing ranks” as no scandal is more readily believed than a “cover-up.” Consequently, all institutions now devolve responsibility outwards and downwards. Base-level supervisors are responsible for the health and safety of employees, teachers are responsible for the health and safety of students, etc..

Likewise, professionals tend to be blamed for less than satisfactory outcomes of their services: paediatricians are held responsible for birth-defects, and so on. Knowing that you will not be supported by the institution, the only rational response is to take out insurance. The cost of insurance is calculated mathematically and passed on to the customer in the price of the service.

Through these and similar processes, safety has been privatised, accumulated and distributed according to the laws of political economy, and social consciousness aligns itself to this new terrain. However, no bond other than that of mutual manipulation binds the buyer and seller; each is vulnerable to the calculation of the other. The decline in full-time employment and “standard hours” is a typical manifestation of the extension of the commodity relation and increased uncertainty and vulnerability results, even as wealth and convenience are increased.

Frank Furedi’s books ridicule the weakness of subjectivity manifested in this culture of fear, the vacuum of personal responsibility or any sense of self-determination. The great emancipation movements of the past have given way to claims for compensation by self-help groups of invalids and drug-dependants. Furedi fails to distinguish, however, subjects struggling as best they can under adverse conditions, from “victim” claims which reinforce existing forms of domination.

The vulnerability to scare-campaigns is exasperating, but subjectivity can only emerge by drawing on the concepts of suffering which are legitimated by the dominant culture. The emancipatory claims of yesteryear are just as ineffective as out-dated scare campaigns.

The archetypal form of suffering today is to be swindled. A swindle is the failure of the customer-service provider relation; as more and more all relations are structured and understood in this way, people become vulnerable to this kind of everyday, actual suffering. In response, the victim takes out insurance, or sues the service provider, extending the commodification process, reinforcing the commercial ethos which is the root cause of the anxiety. Any scapegoat may be seized upon, however, to relieve this anxiety – the target of blame is frequently selected by displaced feelings of shame rather than any rational analysis.

Commodification can solve social problems, but only by moving them into the domain of capital, with the consequent atrophy of subjectivity, and the adoption of forms of subjectivity which reinforce the domination of capital.

The problem with commodification is that it reduces self-reliance and the sense of responsibility in the subject. Ferudi says: “The process of individuation and the weakening of relations of trust contribute to an intense sense of isolation. The attempts by society to artificially compensate for this isolation by self-help groups, help-lines and professional counselling does little to resolve the problem. Such initiatives seek to reconcile people to their experience of estrangement. They represent an accommodation to powerlessness.” But this is like denouncing trade unions for not abolishing the wages system. What accommodation is achieved is a measure of the success of the emergent subject. Today’s self-help group may be tomorrow’s social movement.

The threats people fear today are generally real, and very often the blaming response is effective in dealing with specific threats – fewer children will be hit by express trains or injured in swimming holes. The overall effect though, is to heighten vulnerability and reinforce existing forms of subordination.

The chief thing is to find responses to these dangers which increase social solidarity and challenge existing forms of subordination, rather than responses which extend the process of commodification, erode social solidarity and reinforce existing forms of domination.

On Method (2005)

In brief, I am a Hegelian Marxist with a “Pragmatist twist.”

I am first and foremost a Marxist; that is, I am a communist and I regard Karl Marx as the most important thinker of our epoch; works such as “Comments on James Mill,” “The 1844 Manuscripts,” “Theses on Feuerbach,” “The Communist Manifesto,” “The 18[th] Brumaire” and “Capital” I read as a critique of political economy, with the emphasis on “critique.” Marx was still subject, however, to the “progressive,” scientific ethos of his time, and his writings have to be appropriated critically. I regard Marx’s aim to constitute the working class as the subject of history, as untenable since the advent of Taylorism.

Reading Marx with a “Hegelian” slant, I also appropriate Hegel through a Marxist reading, looking to “the real individuals, their activity and the material conditions under which they live” rather than any historical telos or Geist. I use Hegelian concepts such as aufheben, essential development, the Subject-Object relation, etc., as central tools of analysis.

In general, my approach to writers of the past is always guided by a Hegelian notions of Zeitgeist and aufheben: no writer who was significant in their time is ever obsolete, since, when their own disputes are overtaken by other disputes, their contribution is sublated into the basis of whatever follows. This is what I mean by “essential development,” and which can be likened to a process of “collective problem solving.” I use a differentiated concept of Zeitgeist: “world history” is a prospect, not a premise of human development. I reject in principle the possibility of an “identical subject-object.” A pragmatic theory of subjectivity rooted in forms of cooperative activity is necessary to conceptualise a multiplicity of subjectivities.

When I say “Pragmatist,” I refer to the social psychology of Lev Vygotsky, especially his linguistics, and the activity theory of A N Leontyev’s psychology. This school overcomes the subjectivist individualism of American Pragmatism, but itself is subject to Soviet conditions in which the critical moments of human development are suppressed.

Being strongly “cognitivist” in character, the Vygotsky School misses the “irrational” in psychology. Despite its ubiquitous influence, I do not regard Freudian theory as tenable, so in the absence of any adequate, empirically verified psychology with sufficient scope, I find it necessary to be somewhat eclectic in psychology.

A central element of my approach is the construction of a new concept of the Subject, neither liberal nor communitarian, for which I articulate Hegel’s Individual-Universal-Particular with the psychoanalytic notion of “hysteria” (as described by Dianne Showalter) and Charles Sanders’ Peirce’s classification of signs, interpreted as social relations.

My approach to ethics begins from Agnes Heller’s critique of Kant and Habermas, but I appropriate Heller from the above Marx-Hegelian/Pragmatist position. Alasdair MacIntyre’s argument against modernity fails to offer any way forward, but I appropriate his Thomist notions of virtue and meaning in my conception of the historical situation of the subject.

I regard as a central social issue of today, the destruction of the social fabric, in the sense in which it is understood in the literature on “social capital.” This literature is hopelessly positivistic and metaphysical, so it is necessary to supplant the notion of a ‘form of capital’ with the notion of “subjectivity” or “self-determination,” to appropriate the insights of these investigations.

I see Nancy Fraser’s “dual perspectivalism” as providing new insights into modern subjectivity, but the distinction between expressions of subjectivity which need to be accommodated and objectifications which need to be critiqued, and the meaning of “parity of participation.” need clarification.

The Conjuncture

The growth of the world market, the commodification of all social relations especially since the 1980s, the ubiquity of global communication, travel and migration and the normalisation of universal suffrage, have brought about a widespread, universalist consensus in favour of the equal moral worth of all human beings. This provides an unequivocal basis for modern conceptions of justice. At the same time, the entire social fabric is being destroyed.

Efforts to grasp this theoretically have tended to misfire because the conception of the person as a sovereign subject is wrongly taken to be a fact, or at least a norm, rather than the possible outcome of a still-unfinished, long drawn out historical process. More powerless and marginalised than ever before, the modern person is only halfway to being a sovereign subject – no longer the closed in member of an ancient community, but not yet the sovereign individual of a utopian future. Subjectivity is partially differentiated, neither individuated nor socially integrated.

Conceptions of justice founded on the conception of the sovereign individual under conditions where such a subject does not and cannot exist, founder chiefly on the conception of subjectivity. Lacking an adequate concept of the subject, subjectivity representing accommodation to objectifications of the past, may be confused with subjectivity assimilating new forms of practice and association, and social movements can be confused with abstract general categories such as “voters.” Nevertheless, modernity has already created a universalist conception of justice, which attaches rights to persons, not subjects.

Word Meaning

As a heuristic device for critique of theory, I use “word-meaning” as the unit of analysis in Vygotsky’s sense. Words have their own genealogy, and so too does social thought; but only the union of thought and word provides a meaningful subject of analysis.

Words have meaning within a particular “expert discourse,” i.e., formal discourse within some kind of institution. Here meaning is given by its connections to other words internal to the specific discourse, and validated by practices proper to its institutions, be it scientific, theological, juridical or whatever. But a word only takes on a social meaning when it is validated for general use, carrying the weight of whatever institution has validated it.

But only a social movement can give reality to a word. Social movements demonstrate that a word has real meaning, motivating social action and forming the focus for practices. Social movements have their own genealogy, which may intersect with word meaning.

The unit of analysis for social movements is the social subject, its forms of organisation, decision-making, social composition and self-consciousness.

But words have meaning and social movements exist only in so far as they are performed by individuals. Thus ultimately words have meaning only insofar as they participate in the activity of individuals and social significance only insofar as they are performed by individuals in connection with social movements. But social movements cannot validate the meaning of words in the same way as an expert discourse, where concepts are subject to specialised processes abstracted from personal and political pressures. A word is effective for individuals and social movements only to the extent that it carries this weight. Nevertheless, I reject the structuralist notion that individuals count for nothing in history. I value Pierre Bourdieu’s analysis of the constraints and creative possibilities of an individual in some class location.

The point is to trace how these three aspects of reality intersect with one another: institutions, social movements and individuals.

The transformation of relations of production (here giving significance to the “organisational” aspect of the relations of production, not just technology) as well as personal life (the raising of children, sex, career, etc.) form an ever-present substrate of social and political life. How something happens may depend on all sorts of processes, but when and where it happens is usually ultimately traceable to these “subterranean” changes, never for a moment denying the reciprocal relation between consciousness and practical life; there can be no sharp line between “base” and “superstructure,” social relations and “forces of production.”

The unit of analysis for understanding individuals is not simply the interpersonal relation, nor the individual activity, but collaborative activity. Person-to-person relations are always mediated, so the understanding of person-to-person relations always revolves around the form of mediation, whether collaborative activity, common ideals, solidarity, exchange or whatever. Thus capitalism is approached from the analysis of the commodity relation, in contrast to collaborative labour as such, and capital is taken as a social relation. Objectifications such as the market or the state also mediate person-to-person relations.

By “objectification” I mean both material objects invested with social meaning, and specific forms of activity, which are no longer performed directly as the expression of a subject, having been determined by past conflicts, but subsequently become the site of a new subjectivity. Objectification differs from “reification,” because the object is not “natural” but depends on subjective activity for its continued existence; objectification differs from “materialisation” because its content is human subjective activity not inert matter; objectification differs from “externalisation” because what was “internal” is modified in the subject-object activity; “alienation” is a special case of objectification because the subject finds the objectification “alien” and failing to meet its needs.

Jean-Paul Sartre (in his Critique of Dialectical Reason) makes a rigid dichotomy between “white-hot” revolutionary subjectivity (the fused group), and the “practico-inert” institution, with nothing in between. But subjectivity is a relation in which objectivity is always present, and a process of the assimilation of the object.

Ethical politics

Ethical politics arises in a specific conjuncture in the development of modernity, in which corporate restructure is completing the destruction of the social fabric on which capitalism has lived since its inception. This conjunction is bringing to light what are in fact epochal tasks.

I rely on the periodisation of modernity set out in For Ethical Politics, in which the current juncture begins with the 1980s corporate restructure marked by privatisation and commodification of all social relations, the collapse of “really existing socialism,” and post- “identity politics” in the sense of the completion of the demobilisation of social movements through the process of particularisation, and the onset of “alliance politics.”

The relations of command which exist within large capitalist enterprises and bureaucratic apparatuses are now secondary in importance to market relations. There is a certain sense in which society has returned to a stage of private labour with which Marx was concerned in his earliest work. Thus the centre of attention comes to be the “micro-politics” and “micro-economics” existing in person-to-person relations. Instead of hypostatising entities which actually exist in the relation of person to person, I see the task to be explaining what various concepts and policies mean in terms of person-to-person relationships.

The destruction of social fabric (the decline in social trust, break-down of the family, litigiousness, destruction of job security, etc.) makes any conception of the good life unattainable. The result is the ‘death of the subject’, or the reduction of subjectivity to, on the one hand, the consciousness of isolated, powerless individuals, and on the other immensely powerful corporate subjects lacking personality. The critique of objectifications corresponds to the practical reconstruction of social subjectivity.

The commodity relation is the foremost focus of our attention, as the root cause and essence of all our current difficulties. Forms of collaboration which can transcend the commodity relation are needed, to make a reality of the myth of the sovereign individual subject.

Our approach to the subject recognises that the modern subject differs from the ancient subject because individual, universal and particular have become differentiated from one another (and here I use the Hegelian concept of Subject), and that corresponding to this, the three registers of word meaning (i.e., the Peircean signs: icon, index and symbol) have also become differentiated from one another. Reconstruction of subjectivity, and the social fabric, therefore, cannot be achieved by efforts to bring these three registers back into identity, as this would correspond to nothing but an attempt to return to pre-modern times. The concept of the subject here is an on-going project.

Justice

Beginning from the generalised notion of the equal moral worth of all human beings, arising from conditions of the world market, I modify Heller’s rendering of the Kantian imperative as: “What we do is decided by us.” This differs from a proceduralist definition in that “us” begs the question of participation in forms of effective collaboration, something altogether denied to masses of people, whose participation in the division of labour, if any at all, is limited to the market.

I promote the value of “solidarity” which means “I support what you do.” However, solidarity is not ethically prescribed; I can choose whether or not I wish to support what you do. I therefore translate the precept of the equal moral worth of all human beings as: “The right of every person to participate in self-governing forms of life of their own choosing.” This right extends to individuals who can be deemed not to have freely chosen their subjectivity, institutionalised in the rights of the child and the anathema attached to practices such as female circumcision.

The universalism arising from modern conditions has a long history, beginning from ancient obligations to outsiders, and cannot be deduced from solidarity, but constitutes is precondition.

Difference

Identifying the main social problem of our time as destruction of the social fabric means that our attention is centred on the notion of “solidarity.” Solidarity is a relation in which one subject affirms and lends its active support to another subject, which is a “stranger” to it. I see solidarity (with strangers) as a third stage of social integration: (1) assimilation (“you are no different from me, but you fail to meet the standards of this society”) (2) accommodation (“you are different from me, I tolerate you, but I give you no support”) (3) solidarity (“I support what you do”). Most current thinking on difference concerns only ‘conversation’ and misses forms of social collaboration which are the basis for solidarity.

Historical Analysis

I take it for granted that, in investigating any concept or phenomenon, tracing its genealogy and history, identifying crucial points of intersection and being able to periodise the thing, in different registers according to how a word is used, the rise and fall of social movements, changes in forms of capitalist organisation, and so on, and the interconnections between the historical trajectories on different registers, always sheds light on the meaning of something and its present dynamics. What did different writers mean by something, what use did they make of a word or concept, what movements influenced a word and its usage, and so on. Formal critique of a concept has its place within such an historical articulation.

Modernity, the Individual and the foundations of CHAT (2006)

Two recent articles published in Mind, Culture and Activity (Billett, 2006: 53 and Stetsenko, 2005: 70), have touched on the issue of the need for psychology in general, or Cultural-Historical Activity Theory in particular, to better reflect the capacity of individuals to exercise genuine agency alongside larger social forces. Stetsenko for example aims to reveal:

(a) individual and collective processes as being interrelated and co-evolving levels of activity, and (b) the practical relevance of human subjectivity alongside the human relevance of material practices. (Stetsenko, 2005: 70)

These writers observe, and rightly, that whilst the internalisation of norms and discourses by individuals is well described by psychology in general, and Cultural-Historical Activity Theory in particular, the way in which individuals modify and create social rules, institutions and ideology, and thereby exercise a degree of self-determination, is less well understood. Failing a more critical appropriation of the concepts of cultural and social formations involved in the constitution of consciousness, psychology risks erring in the direction of objectivism, casting individuals as creatures of the culture and institutions within which they live, minimising the way in which people create their own lives, inclusive of the culture and social formations which condition them.

The accusation of objectivism cannot be levelled at some other trends in psychology such as cognitivism, for whom the individual is taken for granted as a free agent. But Cultural-Historical Activity Theory has long since demonstrated the inadequacy of such individualism in science.

Dorothy Holland (Holland et al, 2001: 14) expresses the contradiction at work here as that of culturalism versus constructivism; that is, on one hand, psychologies which see the individual as a passive carrier of dominant cultural values and ideology, and on the other hand, psychologies which see the individual as capable of freely negotiating subject positions and theoretical paradigms from among the myriad of narratives made available in a modern society, constructing for themselves their own biography.

This contradiction is also found in sociological and historical theories between liberal individualism (including mainstream economic theory and liberal political theory for example) and various forms of structuralism and post-structuralism, and in ethical theory in the dispute between liberalism and communitarianism, and so on.

As suggested by Dorothy Holland et al, what is needed is a “third position” which avoids the one-sided extremes expressed on each side of these contradictions. But what this means for the foundations of Cultural-Historical Activity Theory is not immediately clear. Most literature of early decades when the foundations of the theory were laid down, reads as strongly communitarian and objectivist. But as a psychology, rather than a sociology or political theory, CHAT self-evidently theorises the individual psyche, and not social formations, ideologies and institutions. The charge of “objectivism” can hardly be sustained in relation to CHAT. Probably the only psychology which against which a charge of objectivism could be sustained would be behaviourism, which rejects the existence of consciousness altogether.

The pioneers of CHAT participated in a strongly communitarian ethos, in the young USSR and in the Progressive Movement in the US. The kind of progressive communitarianism of these writers is sharply at odds with the spirit of postmodernity, which emphasise two contradictory elements: on the one hand, extreme individualism, to the point of pathological narcissism, and on the other hand, a fatalistic anomie and alienation, in which the individual perceives the institutions of society as inhuman, alien and all-powerful.

The identity of the individual with vast and powerful social movements can no longer be taken for granted. In fact, it no longer exists. And this is the problem.

The observation that CHAT still lives within the ethos of progressive communitarianism neither casts doubt over the validity of its theory nor suggests that its ethos is outmoded. But it does suggest a reason why CHAT is challenged by the way postmodern capitalism is unfolding. The fault is not however so much with how psychology conceives of the individual, as how the social sciences conceive of culture and society, and whether psychology appropriates concepts from these sciences uncritically.

It has long been a truism of orthodox Marxism that it is a mistake to theorise society and history in terms of the laws of individual behaviour. (e.g., “life of the individual organism is subject to quite different laws from those of the social life.” Kautsky, 1902: 340) History, economy and society, it is said, obey social and historical laws, not the laws of the individual psyche. This never prevented the founders of CHAT, however, from theorising the individual psyche in terms of society. But what is left out of this dichotomy is culture. Fashioned out of what is given by nature, culture is subject to objective constraints. Among such constraints are the “rules” which are manifested in the behaviour of institutions such as the market, the state, technological innovation, and so on, as well as the objective constraints imposed on the human body, which is as much a cultural product as our domestic animals and our clothes, fashioned from the material provided by nature to fit in with other artefacts in a definite form of life.

Social Theory and Psychology

The dichotomy implied in the ban on the theorisation of society (economics, class struggle, discourse, etc.) in psychological terms forgets that a social law must also of necessity also equally be a law of individual action. And Marx himself demonstrated this in founding his critique of political economy on the commodity, that is to say, on the relation of exchange between just two subjects. Provided social theory is not based on an individualist, idealist or culturalist theory of psychology, but on the psychology of cultural-historical activity, there is no barrier in principle to bridging the gap between psychology and social theory by renovating the foundations, not of psychology, but of social theory. Instead of revising the foundations of CHAT in order to upgrade the notion of individual agency in social formations, the problem then becomes extending the foundations of CHAT so as to better theorise culture and social formations, not solely as context and resource, but also as manifestations of the psyche.

What plagues all attempts to resolve this problem is the persistent dichotomy between the individual on one side and society (subsuming both culture and activity) on the other. This dichotomy, so long as it is maintained, blocks all possibility of solution to the problem: “It is particularly important to guard against understanding human activity as a relationship that exists between man and an opposing society.” (Leontyev, 1978, §3.2)

One form of the dichotomy is the idea of two “levels” or “domains” of activity. A well-argued form of this dichotomy is that of Habermas (Habermas, 1987) and others: on the one hand, activity in the public sphere, in which the actors are institutions and other social formations, governed by laws, rules and social expectations; on the other hand, individual activity, manifested for example in the ever-shrinking private sphere. While a dichotomy between private and public domain has merit, it cannot provide a foundation to resolve the problem before us, because it leaves out the cultural landscape which conditions the relations between public and private spheres.

Another form of the dichotomy is that formulated by Agnes Heller (Heller, 1988: 164) and Robert Putnam (Putnam, 1993: 175, Putnam, 2000: 21) among others, between the “thick ethos” which pervades and regulates the activity within institutions, and the “thin ethos” which extends across the entire society, regulating interactions between strangers.

A practical-critical appropriation of social and cultural theory can best be effected by relying on “intermediate concepts,” such the system of wage determination, the legal system, corporate structure, mode of regulation, etc., without supposing that these institutions are somehow determined without mediation by grand ensembles such as the “mode of production.” Such an approach is adopted by regulation theory (Boyer, 1990) which theorises capitalism in terms of finite entities whose dynamics can be revealed through Activity Theory, rather than being deduced from a grand synthesis.

While the temptation to theorise individual agency in terms of interactions between social and individual levels or domains is strong, it is quite mistaken. What is at issue here is what is known as the “unit of analysis,” a unit of analysis which encompasses both individual and social.

Cultural-Historical Activity Theory

CHAT is founded on a trichotomy. Several suggestions can be found for such a basic trichotomy. For example, A N Leontyev mentions the subject-activity-object relation (Leontyev 1977: 181), and Vygotsky mentions the stimulus-psychological tool-response relation (LSV CW, v. 3.: 86), or “sign” or “sign-stimuli” in lieu of “psychological tool.” In the American tradition, C S Peirce has object-sign-interpretant (CSP CP, volume 5: 484). To resolve the problem before us, the basic unit of analysis (or trichotomy) must be the subject. The subject-object relation is unquestionably of fundamental concern, and may be the subject of a further article, but it is necessary to begin with the subject itself.

The Hegelian roots of this conception will be examined shortly, but in CHAT terminology, the trichotomy is: (a) the individual, i.e., the single, mortal human psyche, (b) culture, i.e., the mass of objects or artefacts which are inherited from the past, buildings, languages, crops, laws, libraries, technology, etc., etc., material entities which only spring into life when they are used by individuals, and (c) society, that is the particular, continuing corporate activities in which individuals use culture in collaborative activities or conflict, and are taken up by one individual as another leaves off. Each of these three aspects of human life can be the subject of sciences in their own right. Psychology is concerned with the individual psyche, natural science and the arts with culture, and the social sciences with society. As CHAT has amply demonstrated, the individual psyche can only be understood as an aspect of this larger, fundamental unit of analysis, the subject. The same is true of the study of social institutions like business enterprises, states, markets, social movements and so on, as much as it is also true of the study of language, art, technology, nature, etc., etc. The problem which is posed then is to reframe the study of the social and cultural aspects of mind based on the subject as the common unit of analysis.

The following feature of this approach should be noted. The three moments mentioned above can in no way be conceived as distinct “levels” or “spheres” of activity. I am not suggesting for (a) a private sphere of personal activity or an internal world of feelings and beliefs, or for (b) a sphere of cultural activity, pursing science, literature and art, alongside (c) a public sphere or domain of institutions, movements, classes and so forth. On the contrary, every single activity, action, relation or thought is simultaneously partaking of all three moments. That is what is meant by a unit of analysis. If I say that the tree outside my window is a ficus, no-one would take this to mean that “tree” and “ficus” exist side by side with this individual tree. Nor is “subject” a synonym for “individual,” as it is in most social theory, but rather a dynamic relation between an individual, culture and activity.

The individual human psyche formed as a person grows up and is shaped by culture and society; society evolves through conquest, trade, migration of peoples, class struggles, shaped by technical innovation, concentration of capital, religion, etc., etc., and the culture created by people in the various historical forms of their association is accumulated and passed on, modified or lost in its own specific ways. Different concepts are required to theorise each of these processes. But in no case do we have anything other than individual human beings using artefacts inherited from the past (or newly created) to collaborate and compete with other human beings in specific social formations, i.e., subjects.

The task at hand is not to introduce a new individual “level” alongside the cultural-historical “level,” but rather to abolish all objectivist, structuralist and reified conceptions of society by renovating them along the lines that they are the activity of individual human beings utilising artefacts as a means of collaborating with (or fighting) one another.

Modernity is characterised by the carrying through of the commodification of social relations, culture and activity to an exhaustive degree. This fragmentation of the social fabric has led to the demise of social movements, the loss of legitimacy of states, and the destruction of social cohesion and community. The result is that, on one hand, those institutions which are supported by capital take on an aura of supernatural powers governing social life, but expressing the ideals, aspirations and identity of no-one, and on the other hand, a pathological narcissism – anomic individuals guided only by the pursuit of pleasure, celebrity and the accumulation of goods, living in fear of catastrophe in a world of unknown dangers and alien powers. In this context, “agency” has been transformed into a parody; postmodern writers talk of agency mainly in terms of niche markets and free trade.

Such a condition cannot and should not be imported into psychology, but rather the task is critique of modernity. Such a critique means that the notion of “subject” must not be understood in the Kantian sense as a transcendental individual, but nor can it be understood simply in the form of “collective subjects,” the corporate actors which populate international politics and social struggles, or the “subject position” known to poststructuralism. This kind of dichotomy of subjects – individual subjects on one hand and social subjects on the other – is exactly the kind of approach which needs to be transcended. What is left out in each case is the mediating role of material culture.

Leontyev refers to a “doubling” of subjective meanings resulting from the elaboration of the division of labour and in particular the exploitation of wage labour:

(Shared meaning) disintegrates along with the disintegration of the original relationships between individuals and the material conditions and means of production, along with the emergence of the social division of labour and private property. The result is that socially evolved meanings begin to live a kind of double life in the consciousness of individuals. (Leontyev, 1977: 197)

On the one hand, changes in social practice, in particular the destruction of relations of cooperation, mean that systems of activity do not correspond to the meaning attached to them by individuals, as explained by Leontyev above. But also, shared cultural products – laws, social myths, cities, etc. – may be at odds with the systems of activity they encompass, as well as the conceptions of the individuals living them out.

(The) real duality of the existence of meanings for the subject ... lies in the fact that meanings present themselves to the subject both in their independent existence – as objects of his consciousness – and at the same time as the means and ‘mechanism’ of comprehension. (Leontyev, 1977: 195)

Three distinct contradictions are involved here. Social practices may be at odds with both the subjective conceptions of individuals and the cultural norms which formerly and supposedly govern them. The contradiction between meanings sedimented in cultural forms such as language and laws, and meanings implicit in evolving social practices is a powerful lever of social change, manifested as contradictions in the psychology of individuals.

The Subject

By subject, I understand a self-conscious system of activity. A subject is therefore the identity of agency (or moral responsibility, the capacity to do something), “cogito” (knowledge or understanding) and self-consciousness (or identity). Agency, cogito and self-consciousness are however never in absolute identity; the identity of agency, cogito and self-consciousness is a process, never complete or fully adequate at an given point.

The individual person is a limiting case of a subject, but in general, the individual-as-subject can only be the end point of a long drawn out, still unfinished historical process. This trichotomy constitutes the definition of subject, and allows the development of subjectivity to be traced through the independent development, reciprocal transformation, intersection, relative unity and contradictions between its three components. As such this definition bridges the sciences of ethics, sociology, political science, psychology, and so forth. The theoretical understanding of the subject and its development requires an analytical conception which makes it possible to understand just how moral capacity, understanding and identity develop. Lev Vygotsky and A N Leontyev are the foremost pioneers in the theorisation of the subject from the standpoint of psychology, particularly learning; there are some more recent Marxists whose ideas offer suggestions for a new approach of the understanding of social formations as well. But first let us look at the approach of Hegel.

Hegel was surely the first person to theorise the subject from the standpoint of cultural-historical activity. In his first systematic work, The System of Ethical Life (Hegel, 1979), written before he developed the notion of Geist (Spirit or Mind), Hegel describes the development of a subject in terms of the made (as opposed to pre-supposed) unity of Concept (i.e., language, culture, social institutions, etc.) and Intuition (i.e., practical activity, sensuous experience, etc.), a unity he called Idea (Idee). Successively, Concept is subsumed under Intuition and Intuition is subsumed under the Concept, leading to a more and more adequate unity. This process can be understood to reflect the development of a modern state, or of an individual person or institution of some kind. This dialectical approach of defining the object of investigation as the identity of two originally separate processes which intersect, is the same dialectic which makes its appearance in Vygotsky’s famous Thinking and Speech:

Up to a certain point, speech and thinking develop along different lines and independently of one another. At a certain point, the two lines cross: thinking becomes verbal and speech intellectual. (LSV CW, v. 1.: 112)

Hegel’s explanation of how this development takes place is surprisingly materialistic, given the idealistic form of Hegel’s exposition and his self-definition as an “idealist.” According to Hegel, the three processes by which individuals appropriate and create culture and history are (a) labour, including the making and use of tools, (b) language and the use of words (the “tools of Reason”), and (c) the raising of children. This triad is mentioned but not fully elaborated. In this early work, there is also developed a trichotomy which reaches its most perfected, and admittedly obtuse, form in the section of the Science of Logic on Subjectivity (Hegel, 1969, pp. 599ff).

Here Hegel defines the subject as the identity of three moments, each of which mediates the other two: Individual (meaning for example a single, finite, mortal individual psyche), Particular (meaning for example the continuing activity of individuals in definite, continuing forms of social practice) and Universal (meaning for example the eternal and universal products of culture mobilised in activity and mediating the activity of individuals). This notion can be utilised to achieve a radicalisation of notions of social subjectivity, not just at the individual level as already achieved by CHAT, but also in relation to culture and society.

This notion of Subjectivity is transcended in the Logic in the relation Subject-Object-Idea, but is given its clearest expression in the structure of the Encyclopedia of Philosophical Sciences in terms of the following trichotomy.

Hegel theorises Geist as the unfolding (rather than made) unity of Subjective Spirit, Objective Spirit and Absolute Spirit. By Subjective Spirit can be understood “habitus” in the meaning given to this term by Pierre Bourdieu (Bourdieu, 1984: 101), that is, the “intuitive” understanding of people acquired in day-to-day life, including life within the great institutions of society. Objective Spirit can be understood as the totality of the institutions, laws, practices and associations of the wider society, which are reflected in the understanding of those who live within them, but have an objective existence independent of the consciousness of any individual, including family, economic and political life. Under Absolute Spirit, Hegel includes Art, Religion and Philosophy, those universal and binding products of society which transcend interpersonal and institutional relations.

It would be a mistake to take Hegel’s analytical distinction to refer to three domains of activity. For Hegel the individuals participating in the various social institutions described as Objective Spirit, for example, can do so only insofar as those institutions are appropriated in Subjective Spirit, and in the way they do so they create and give expression to Absolute Spirit.

In the words of A N Leontyev:

Despite all its diversity, all its special features the activity of the human individual is a system that obeys the system of relations of society. Outside these relations human activity does not exist. How it exists is determined by the forms and means of material and spiritual communication that are generated by the development of production and that cannot be realised except in the activity of specific individuals. (Leontyev, 1977: 182)

Hegel’s system made it possible to theorise the reification of subjective, objective and absolute spirit into separate domains, and indeed that reification made it possible for Hegel to theorise them. But his meaning is that all three moments are identified in Spirit. For example, people objectively participating in a certain discourse or form of activity is something quite different from a subjective understanding of that activity. Those participating in it may or may not have a particular subjective conception of what they are doing. That is the difference between objective and subjective spirit.

Hegel wrote a long time ago, at the dawn of modernity. I do not propose that his system or method be resuscitated today. However, I think the designation of Hegel as the first cultural-historical activity theorist has some merit, and his writings provide a wealth of forms for the current task. From the various formulations to be found in Hegel’s works, I propose to render the conception of the subject as the unity of the Individual, Particular and Universal as follows.

A subject has three components: (a) The individual, simply understood as a mortal individual human spirit or psyche, with whatever capacity for moral responsibility, whatever knowledge, beliefs and ideology they hold and with a certain identity or self-consciousness; (b) The ensemble of social relations and activities, including both collaborative and conflictual relations, both production relations and the entire range of activities, whether in the private domain, the economy, the arts or whatever, and (c) the Universal, material products of culture, inclusive of language, the means of production, technology and science, the land, buildings, and so on. The human body itself or hexis, though mortal with the human individual whose body it is, I subsume under material culture, since it is a cultural product and mediates between the psyche and activity. The problem of nature vs. nurture can only be resolved by empirical investigation.

This conception has been abstracted from various formulations to be found in Hegel’s work, as a unit of analysis adequate to the task before us.

What is important about Hegel’s Individual-Particular-Universal trichotomy is that it is a universal relation, more or less the same relation as Peirce’s Qualisign-Sinnisign-Logosign. In some instance the “Individual” might be an individual psyche, in another the individual human organism, in another an artefact or social formation. It depends on the object of study, the problem to be solved. It represents the basic structure of a “unit of analysis” or notion.

The individual is a concrete abstraction; the individual human psyche is absolutely confined to one organism separate from all others. And yet, the entirety of human history is present in it. Every time I use the English language and choose either an Anglo-Saxon or a Latin word, I continue the battle of Hastings. No one system of activity exhausts the individual psyche. Stephen Billett’s (Billett, 2006: 55) point that individuals bring all the past experiences into any institution in which they participate is making this point, but what Stephen overlooks is that the same fact, which he construes as proving something about individuals, equally demonstrates that systems of activity interpenetrate and are only relatively independent one another (c.f. Leontyev’s notion of “personal meaning” Leontyev, 1978, §5), and that every artefact belongs to a larger culture and is materially connected to every other artefact. The unique experience that every individual brings into a particular interaction is equally evidence of the heterogeneity and indivisibility of society and culture, and of itself proves nothing about “individual agency.”

The particular, on the other hand, is always a relative abstraction. You can’t draw a line between one system of activity and another or isolate it from the larger systems of activity of which it is a part. But whereas the individual psyche is trapped within its body, one and the same system of activity is instantiated in different individuals from one moment to another. The particular (for example some institution) is not really an existing thing at all, because its existence rests on individuals using culture in a particular way. Discourse theory takes the first (sceptical) step in understanding the conditionality of institutions, but overlooks the sedimented activity deposited in material culture which gives dogmatic force to the existence of institutions as material things. Naïve understanding, on the other hand, mistakes institutions for material things because it fails to recognise that the artefacts which give it material existence may be subject to a different interpretation. Structuralism forgets that institutions gain their force thanks to the praxis of the individuals involved, and cannot be deduced from some totalising abstraction existing apart from individual actors.

You can no more have an idea in the head of a dead person than find life in a language which no person can interpret. And yet it is the universal which mediates all human activity. Culturalism overestimates the independence of the Universal in governing social life, because for all sorts of reasons the practical activities which gave life to an element of culture may cease and what was a powerful ideal become nothing but a dead lump of matter or an “empty word.” Constructivism overestimates the element of free will in the use of culture because it forgets that the universal is not only ideal but also material. Culture imposes itself on those who would disregard it by the hard force of dead matter.

To show that this or that current of theory takes a one-sided standpoint is not to discount its achievements. Rather, this observation facilitates the appropriation of the insights of the various schools of social theory.

Vygotsky

Let us turn to the work of the founders of Cultural-Historical Activity Theory. In his critique of the Stimulus-Reaction notion of behaviour, Vygotsky proposed the inclusion of a mediating link, a “psychological tool,” between the stimulus and response as the crucial building block of consciousness. A N Leontyev characterised this idea in the following terms:

The crux of Vygotsky’s idea is that only the tripartite schema which cannot be further decomposed can be the minimal unit of analysis which preserves the basic properties of the mental functions. (LSV CW, v. 3.: 24.)

The “psychological tool” is also both stimulus and reaction, obedient to the laws of nature, but something which is constructed, a product of cultural activity:

Artificial acts are natural as well. They can, without remainder, to the very end, be decomposed and reduced to natural ones, just like any machine (or technical tool) can, without remainder, be decomposed into a system of natural forces and processes. What is artificial is the combination (construction) and direction, the substitution and utilisation of these natural processes. (LSV CW, v. 3.: 85-6.)

Like any artefact, the nervous system so constructed is a social product, which makes its appearance only in and through the collaboration of the individual with others within some kind of social practice.

(E)ach higher form of behaviour enters the scene twice in its development – first as a collective form of behaviour, as an inter-psychological function, then as an intra-psychological function, as a certain way of behaving. (LSV CW, v. 3.: 95.)

And:

the operation of using a sign, ... stands at the beginning of the development of each of the higher mental functions, initially has, of necessity, a character of external activity. At first, as a rule, the sign is an external auxiliary stimulus, an external means of autostimulation. This is due to two factors: first, to the origin of this operation from a group form of behaviour that always belongs to the sphere of external activity, and, second, to the primitive laws of the individual sphere of behaviour, which in its development has still not separated from external activity ... (LSV CW, v. 6.: 11)

Once, however, the process of internalisation is complete, the distinction between the artefact, which may begin its life as an objective, material thing outside consciousness, albeit a thing endowed with social significance, has become integrated into the psyche itself, and cannot be said to be something other than the psyche. The same can be said of the activity of consciousness in relation to other people and an artefact; this activity ceases to be something that the psyche does, but rather is the psyche itself. In Leontyev’s words: “Man’s activity is the substance of his consciousness,” or as Johann Fichte put it: “The self is pure activity.” (Fichte, 2000: 4)

Lev Vygotsky’s key idea about the construction of consciousness is based on how we learn; learning takes place through the collaboration of the novice with an adult member of the culture using some artefact to allow the novice to complete some operation they need to become a full and able member of the society. That artefact may be a sign or any other kind of useful thing provided by society for the achievement of social ends, or a role-model (an index, symbol or icon, Peirce’s terms). The child learns to coordinate their own activity using the artefact, and then gradually internalises that activity so that the use of a objective thing, spoken word, etc., may no longer be necessary, but is taken over by internal functions within their own body.

The essential components of this learning action are the individual child, the artefact and the “representative” of society. As the learning proceeds, the material thing, the artefact, is transformed into a kind of node within the psyche, a “psychological tool.” At this point, the child acts like any adult member of the society (skipping over here the long drawn out process of transformation that takes place during the process of internalisation or appropriation) so that the distinction between the material and mental aspects of the element of culture is secondary and relative; the artefact is an “ideal” or “universal.” The outcome is not the insertion of the ideal into some kind of mental substance, but rather the restructuring of the nervous system with the individual coordinating their activity by means of the ideal, which remains an element of material culture. When we talk of activity then, we are talking of the coordination of the activity of two or more individuals in some kind of social practice by means of socially constructed signs. This includes the coordination by the individual of their own body so as to act in relation to the entire society and its culture, irrespective of the immediate presence of any other person. In the limiting case of such activity then, the person acts in relation to their own body as a cultural product. In play, for example, the child can turn any object into a prop for the purpose of activities that they do not yet have the ability to carry out in reality.

The unit of analysis for a subject as conceived of by Vygotsky is therefore an individual person, an element of culture and an activity or material practice. In the process of development, these elements which begin as distinct components of psychic activity, become identified in the subject, as a single unit of behaviour. So Vygotsky’s conception of subjectivity is consonant with the idea proposed here as a conception of the subject.

Vygotsky worked in the early Soviet Union; it was taken for granted, apparently, that “growing up” entailed becoming a competent and morally responsible citizen of the Soviet Union. Whatever private criticisms they harboured, in their scientific work the founders of CHAT conceived of culture and society as integral and relatively unproblematic entities, capable of representing the aspirations of every individual. The adult person would be an individual member of the state (or the workers’ movement in the case of a capitalist country), in much the way that Aristotle conceived of the subject as a citizen of the polis. But the situation is entirely different in postmodern capitalist society. There is no identification of the person with the state or with society as a whole or even a class; the adults who interact with a child “belong” to a society or culture but do not “represent” it. The endpoint of development is an anomic individual who does not see in any institution a representation of their own identity and aspirations.

A N Leontyev was blessed with living much longer than his comrade Lev Vygotsky, and his activity theory represents a real development of the ideas generally associated with the name of Vygotsky. Leontyev’s activity theory is not in contradiction to Vygotsky’s ideas however and nor does his activity theory supersede Vygotsky ideas. In a strong sense, Leontyev’s approach complements that of Vygotsky. As mentioned above, a subject is defined as a “self-conscious system of activity,” and while this idea is consistent with Hegel’s conception of the subject, it is Leontyev that has given us modern explication of this idea in the science of psychology.

Once we acknowledge the common structure of external, practical activity and internal, mental activity we can understand the exchange of elements that constantly takes place between them, we can understand that certain mental actions may become part of the structure of direct practical, material activity and, conversely, external-motor operations may serve the performance of mental action in the structure of purely cognitive activity. (Leontyev, 1977: 184)

Leontyev (Leontyev, 1978) shows us how systems of activity develop according to their own dynamics, particularly in the elaboration of the division of labour, and how this process generates ever new “systems of activity” along with the artefacts which come into being as a result of their special meaning in a specific system of activity and correspondingly in concepts or thought-forms.

(C)oncepts are the result of a process of assimilation of “ready-made,” historically evolved meanings, and this process takes place in the child’s activity during its intercourse with the people around it. In learning to perform certain actions, the child masters the corresponding operations, which are, in fact, in a compressed, idealised form, represented in meaning. (Leontyev, 1977: 194)

Leontyev focuses on the object-relatedness of the activity of a subject, including motives and more immediate goals, fundamental to the emergence of the subject itself.

(A)ctivity is a process of intertraffic between opposite poles, subject and object. ...

The basic, constituent feature of activity is that it has an object. In fact, the very concept of activity (doing, Tätigkeit) implies the concept of the object of activity. (Leontyev, 1977: 181-182)

These ideas bring into focus the social processes of change and development which lie somewhat in the background in Vygotsky’s analysis of learning, for which the division of labour figures as a given, “represented” to the novice learner through her interaction with an adult member of society. Conversely, in Leontyev’s approach material culture moves somewhat into the background relative to the practical activity.

For example when Leontyev says:

(A) problem that is always a stumbling block in the analysis of consciousness. ... is the problem of the specific nature of the functioning of knowledge, concepts, conceptual models, etc., in the system of social relations, in the social consciousness, on the one hand, and, on the other, in the individual’s activity that realises his social relations, in the individual consciousness. (Leontyev, 1977: 194)

it is altogether unclear exactly what is meant by “social consciousness” as opposed to “individual consciousness.” The contradiction between meanings implicit in social practice on the one hand, and on the other hand, meanings embodied in material culture is elided.

To be sure, both Vygotsky and Leontyev are concerned with sign- or artefact-mediated, objected-oriented activity. It is just a difference in emphasis. Taken together, these two bodies of theory constitute the foundations of CHAT and are fully consonant with the Hegelian ideas sketched above. But instead of the concept of an extramundane Geist animating human history, following Marx, Vygotsky and Leontyev and their comrades and successors have given us a “pragmatic” interpretation which does away with the need for any extramundane and totalising spirit.

It was mentioned above that the unit of analysis required for the solution of the problem of subjectivity is not the interaction between two domains or spheres of activity. But it should be mentioned at this point that such a concept of interacting systems of activity is a perfectly valid idea, provided the interaction is conceived with an appropriate moment of mediation. Leontyev’s ideas are particularly rich in facilitating the theorisation of such interactions.

To return to the point. The problem of understanding how individuals appropriate and practically critique the social formations of which they are a part depends on the use of an appropriate “unit of analysis,” or in Hegelian terms, “notion.” It was argued that the appropriate unit of analysis is the subject, understood as a self-conscious system of activity, necessarily embodying a relative unity of agency, cogito and self-consciousness, with individual, particular and universal moments. Such a unit of analysis is not the property of psychology alone, but equally facilitates understanding how cultural objects and social formations change through the activity of individuals.

Stetsenko argued (Stetsenko, 2005:. 73) that Marx’s dichotomy between material production and the “superstructure” ought to figure in the unit of analysis relevant to solution of this problem. In what was argued above, these two domains of activity are subsumed under “activity.” Leontyev also makes this distinction between production and communication very prominent in his approach, but for Leontyev also, both are subsumed under activity. Obviously in implementation of any analysis of individual agency a finer grain of analysis is needed beyond subsuming the entirety of social institutions under “activity” and the entirety of culture, whether in the arts, commerce or production, under “culture.” I argue nonetheless that the fundamental unit of analysis is the subject, that is, psyche-activity-culture.

But even beyond this, the dichotomy of “material production” on one side and “intersubjective exchanges” on the other is misconceived. Marx’s basic insight that the production and reproduction of life is the starting point for a scientific conception of society and history remains unchallenged, but since the advent of Taylorism, Fordism and Toyotism and so on, in the more than a century since Marx’s death, have abolished a number of formerly stable distinctions. It is no longer possible to draw a line between productive labour and the supervision of labour, between production and commerce, and so on. Leontyev mentions the same observation:

In the present age, when the integration and interpenetration of (mental and practical) forms of human activity is taking place before our eyes, when the historic opposition between them is being steadily and increasingly erased ... (Leontyev, 1977: 184)

Further, after exploring the relations between production, distribution and exchange in the Grundrisse (MECW, v. 28.: 17), and the famous Preface to the Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (MECW, v. 29.: 261), Marx finally chose to begin Capital (MECW, v. 35: 45) not with production, but with the commodity relation as the fundamental unit of analysis of bourgeois society, the point where he began in 1844 (MECW, v. 1: 211).

The various institutions which populate the world should not be seen as necessarily determined by the capitalist mode of production. Regulation theory shows how in each country, in each epoch, capitalist accumulation is regulated by particular institutions, and the psychology of those living within them is determined not by a capitalist totality, but by these particular institutions (“objective spirit” in Hegel’s terminology), which exist only through a certain constellation of cultural material and people oriented to their existence, subject to crisis and transformation, each according to their own dynamics.

Complementary to the great social institutions governing the life of individuals in modern society is what Pierre Bourdieu (Bourdieu, 1984: 101) called “habitus” (“subjective spirit” in Hegel’s terminology), the practical dispositions through which people understand and assert their place and membership of the myriad of “class fractions.” Although generally regarded as an extreme “objectivist,” Bourdieu has given us a rich source of conceptions of the practical activity and cultural resources through which people shape their own body and construct their consciousness.

Cultural criticism (where Vygotsky began from) is the other important component of the problem of individual agency. Those theorists who see postmodernism as an all-pervasive commodity aesthetics (“the cultural logic of late capitalism”) in which no subversive position is possible, contribute to the mystification of agency. On the other hand, those theorists who see postmodern culture as an “arena of struggle,” the location of “culture wars,” offer an avenue for the critical appropriation of cultural theory.

In each case, the relevant social forms can be critically appropriated in a conception of the subject in which psyche, artefacts and social relations are coordinated.

To return to psychology, the immediate impact of the suggested approach is that it obliges a critical conception of the cultural and social formations which figure in the constitution of consciousness. For example, if an individual participates in some form of social practice, mediated by certain artefacts, the artefacts and the institution are not given objects, but entities instantiated by the psychology of the individuals concerned, within the constraints imposed by nature. We understand that the artefact is a material thing whose meaning is established only in and through the activity of individuals in social practice using the artefact, and we understand that the institution is constituted only by a discourse governing the collaborative (or competing) activity of individuals oriented to that discourse/institution. In every case it can be determined exactly how and to what extent an individual is capable of exercising genuine practical freedom in transforming institutions and discourses. If a social formation is accepted as a given, material entity (for example a state) then exercise of individual agency in relation to that entity is impossible. Once we accept that the power and ideology of the state exists only in and through individuals acting in line with that power and ideology, the state enters our analysis as open to transformation by the action of individuals. Likewise, once we accept that an artefact has significance only to the extent that individuals use the artefact in a given way, that artefact ceases to be an objectively given fact, but becomes open to criticism.

This approach opens the way to a solution of the problem of individual agency. Among the outcomes of such an approach is the realisation that an individual cannot, at least in history up till now, be a subject, a sovereign power in their own right. Subjectivity can be exercised only in concert with others, in definite social relations. Such relations can be understood only through the concept of subject, as a self-conscious system of activity, in which agency, cogito and self-consciousness relatively coincide, through the mediation of the individual psyche, artefacts and definite social relations.

Missing Mediation in Pragmatic Interpretations of Hegel (2007)

We should remind ourselves just how antique Hegel is. To give just one illustration, although the historical constructivist par excellence, Hegel never knew Darwin, and positively rejected Lamarck’s theory of evolution, holding that ‘Man has not developed himself out of the animal, nor the animal out of the plant; each is at a single stroke what it is.’ (quoted in Houlgate 2005: 173) And in Nature, including the nature of the human organism, ‘there happens nothing new under the sun.’ (Hegel 1831: §60) So there is good reason to seek a ‘non-metaphysical’ interpretation of Hegel’s notion of ‘Spirit’ which will allow us to appropriate Hegel’s considerable insights without committing us to an extramundane Spirit.

But Hegel’s idea of a Spirit animating human history is not as alien to our thinking today as one might think. Following Herder (1774) in particular, Hegel wanted to understand why and how a people had one history rather than another. What was the source of the specific culture and institutions of each people? And why those rather than any other? (Hegel 1804 and 1795) Anyone who wants to understand social change and cultural difference today has to be concerned with these same questions, and Hegel’s ideas on how the spirit of the times and the spirit of a people is constructed are very rich.

Gestalt

Hegel’s idea of a Gestalt, or ‘shape of consciousness’ (Hegel 1807) is the key. A Gestalt is simultaneously a certain way of thinking, a certain way of life or social system if you like, and a certain material culture.[31] Spirit is the coincidence or identity of these three things, and nothing outside of that. So ‘Spirit’ is the ‘nature of human beings en masse’ (Hegel 1821: 163) as he said. Looked at in this way, surely it is not too difficult to read Hegel in such a way that Spirit is not presupposed,[32] but is purely and simply the coincidence of thinking, social practice and material culture. Such a reading I would call a non-metaphysical conception of Spirit; i.e., a ‘pragmatic’ reading of Hegel, a reading which opens Hegel up for an appropriation of his prodigious insights, without the unwanted baggage of an extramundane, Hermetic or Pantheistic Spirit.

It is the concept of ‘recognition’ which is invariably used as the basis for a ‘narrowly pragmatic’ appropriation of Hegel’s notion of Spirit.[33]

Recognition

The concept of ‘recognition’ was first used by Hegel’s predecessor, Fichte (1796), to make a pragmatic critique of Kant: individuals learn that they are free beings when they are recognised as a free being by someone who is already free, summoning them to exercise their freedom and respect the other’s property rights. The Young Hegel continued this pragmatic use of ‘recognition’, but in reverse; according to Hegel, Fichte had deduced the state from the individual, but what was required was to approach the nature of the individual from the nature of the whole community. (Hegel 1817) ‘It is in the kind that the individual animal has its notion’, said Hegel (1830: 41). But the relation of the mentality of an individual person to that of the community of which they are a part differs from that of an individual organism to its species, because spirit is ‘self-construing’ – the environmental niche or object to which the individual or group is oriented is its own product, its own material culture. If the role of this material culture is erased from the relation between individuals, there can be no ‘self-construing’ Spirit.

Up until 1805, Hegel gradually expanded the scope of the concept of ‘recognition’, but by 1805 it had lost its original focus and meaning. ‘Recognition’ no longer referred to a confrontation between two mutually alien subjects, but for example, to an individual’s experience of seeing their product circulate in the market or an individual experiencing protection under the rule of law (Hegel 1806: 120). So from 1807, Hegel limited the scope of recognition and gave it its paradigmatic exposition in the master-servant narrative of The Phenomenology (Hegel 1807).

It is a misreading of this rendering of ‘recognition’, sometimes combined with the expanded scope of ‘recognition’ in the earlier works, which provides the basis for what I will call a narrow pragmatic reading of Hegel, commonly referred to as ‘intersubjectivity’, as opposed to a broad pragmatic reading, which I defend here.

Pragmatism and Mediation

The aim of pragmatism is to do away with recourse to abstractions or universals deemed to have some kind of objective existence independently of the activity of human beings. The distinction between ‘broad’ and ‘narrow’ pragmatism is as follows: –

Narrow pragmatism wants to explain everything solely by means of essentially unmediated interactions between individuals. This would reduce social life and history to a gigantic chain reaction, a discrete series of events without any kind of continuity binding them together other than the individuals themselves. The idea that meaning is renegotiated anew in the interaction between individuals overlooks both the fact that meaning is already vested in culturally inherited artefacts, and that as material things, relations inhering in artefacts transcend the intentions of the individual using it. This narrow pragmatism corresponds to the spirit of liberalism which was given its canonical expression by Johann Fichte (1796).

Broad pragmatism, on the other hand, understands that all interactions are mediated. Mediation between subjects depends on the prior existence of a material culture which is subject to interpretation and use in common projects or conflicts. Without this shared culture, inherited and modified by each generation, no human life is possible. It is this role of material culture which is systematically ignored by liberalism in general and narrow pragmatism in particular.

For Hegel, every relation is mediated. At the very beginning of the Science of Logic (Hegel 1816: 68) he says: ‘there is nothing, nothing in Heaven, or in Nature or in Mind or anywhere else which does not equally contain both immediacy and mediation’. This is absolutely fundamental to what Hegel has to teach us. Even the concept of ‘Being’ is mediated by all the social development that went into making possible the first philosophical reflections of Thales and Parmenides at the beginning of the history of philosophy.

This question of mediation takes us to Hegel’s social and ethical ideas and his vision of modern society. According to Hegel, modernity is a society in which there is no single mandated form of life, and yet people exercise their freedom as individuals thanks to being part of a state. This contrasts with traditional communities, such as Hegel believed existed in ancient Greece, where a single form of life was mandated and an individual was simply an individual instance of their city-state. According to Hegel, modernity presupposes the sublation of many formerly independent communities and the negation of a multiplicity of notions of the good, and ways of seeing things and ways of life into the construction of a common form of ethical life.

The problem is in understanding how such a process can occur, because mutually foreign subjects, with no common language or culture, no trading relations, no shared ethos or religion or law, cannot interact. They are each to the other a wild force of Nature; war to the death or mutual indifference are the only alternatives. Except under certain conditions to be outlined below, unmediated intersubjectivity is an impossibility.

And this is not just a question of cultural origins or pre-history. Exactly the same problem arises whenever new social movements, new natural scientific paradigms, and so on, come on to the scene. Interaction is possible only thanks to mediation. Recognition is about mutually alien subjects or communities or social movements, finding within themselves the resources to interact with one another. This is possible only by the subjects splitting in two.

In his 1803 ‘System of Ethical Life’, (1979) Hegel begins with the origins of consciousness in the separation of needs and the means of their satisfaction. Instead of what is given by Nature being immediately consumed, a gap opens up between consumption and production, and this gap is mediated by labour. Labour itself generates new needs, needs met by new products. Nature is thus supplemented by a ‘second nature’ in the form of an artificial environment; along with the separation of consumption and production comes a division of labour, the possibility of supervision of labour – the differentiation of theory and practice, and most importantly a surplus product.

A self-contained community which produces no surplus, or anything of use to anyone else, which is unable to utilise the labor of others, when confronted by an outsider can only fight to the death. No mystical Kojèvean ‘drive to domination’ is needed here. In the absence of mediation, outsiders are more dangerous than a horde of locusts.

But if a community is able to produce a surplus and is able to supervise their own labour, then they are candidates for conquest and exploitation or they can exploit others. Along with being able to defend themselves in a fight to the death and repel the attack of others, these are the pre-conditions for recognition. These capacities presuppose the self-differentiation of the subject into two, into needs and the means of their satisfaction, into subject and object. If the conquered subject can be incorporated into a system of needs and labour within the life-project of another subject, then the first step towards modernity can be taken.

In order to live in interaction with other subjects, a subject must be able to reproduce itself internally and defend itself against outside attack, either alone or together with others, and receive from other subjects a material affirmation of the validity of its way of life. Such recognition is paradigmatically granted by another subject like itself, but more generally is granted by a subject acting on behalf of a collectivity of subjects by way of inclusion into a family of equals.[34] Such inclusion constitutes recognition and normally provides a multiplicity of forms of mediation not otherwise available.

To reiterate, if there is no shared system of law, language, labour and culture to mediate interactions and no ‘third party’ to mediate, then subjects nevertheless can interact by splitting in two, with the needs of one mediating between the other’s needs and the means of their satisfaction, whilst the labour of the other mediates between the first’s needs and their satisfaction. In other words, the subjects both differentiate into subject-objects, so as to be incorporated into a single project or system of needs and labour, a circumstance, of course, in which one is subordinated into the project of the other, dominant, subjectivity. (Hegel 1807: §§178-196) But as Hegel showed in the Phenomenology, such initial subordination to another form of life proves to be the first step towards modernity.

George Herbert Mead

Two writers will now be considered, to whom others (Honneth, 1996) have turned in search of a foundation in practical social psychology, for a pragmatic reading of Hegel. Firstly, George Herbert Mead. Mead was a part of the Progressive Movement in the United States, close to the American Pragmatists, John Dewey and Charles Sanders Peirce. Mead did no experimental work. But he certainly had brilliant insights, a systematic approach and clearly understood Hegel.

According to Mead (1934), people use symbols to communicate; a ‘significant symbol’ is one which brings about the same effect in another person as it would in oneself. This use of signs is possible because their meaning is public and shared within a whole community. The individual has internalised the practices and institutions of their community and the attitude they take towards others, constitutes social practices both for the self and for the whole community or group.

The paradigmatic symbol for Mead was the gesture; the gesture originates from the initial movements towards some action, what Mead calls adopting an ‘attitude’ and the capacity of the taking of that attitude to generate an appropriate response from another individual. (Mead 1934: 35)

The way Mead dealt with the problem of the formation of self-consciousness, that is, the ability to look at oneself from outside, and take the standpoint of another, parallels Hegel’s solution of this problem. Mead split the self in two, into a ‘I’ and a ‘Me’, in which the ‘I’ is the subject, which is doing something, and observes the ‘Me’ which is the object, which has done something. (Mead 1934: 228) The ‘I’ gets to know about the ‘Me’ mediately, through others, by seeing others taking an attitude to the self and being able to place oneself in the position of the other, and thus to observe oneself, as an object, from the standpoint of the general community.

So by understanding thinking in terms of the use of publicly available, culturally produced and defined artefacts, and by understanding the constitution of self-consciousness, mediately through the splitting of the self into subject and object, Mead made a passably good pragmatic reading of Hegel’s concept of recognition. However, once Mead’s following in the school of Symbolic Interactionism petered out in the 1960s,[35] those who have used Mead’s work in more recent times transformed his theory into one of ‘intersubjectivity’, in which interactions are unmediated interactions between already constituted individual subjects, who, to use Mead’s own metaphor (Mead 1934: 120), like prisoners in neighbouring cells, contrive somehow to send messages to one another. The opening that Mead gave to this interpretation was his choice as paradigmatic artefact, the gesture. The gesture can be taken as a private product, and subsumed into the individual person. In truth, Mead’s conception of mediation, like Hegel’s, was very much of the use of a shared, public, material culture.

But the spirit of the times is stronger than any individual, especially when they're dead. Without its own organised school of empirical critical research and practice, Mead’s original insights became the property only of specialists in the history of science. But also, as we shall see, Symbolic Interactionism was overtaken in the 1960s by another, kindred current of social psychology.

Donald Winnicott

Another writer who has contributed to a pragmatic interpretation of Hegel is Donald Winnicott. Winnicott’s contribution is special because he came from the tradition of psychoanalysis, which had relied on innate drives rather than cultural-historical construction. Winnicott (1971) described how mother and infant begin tied up in a single system of activity, a single subjectivity, with no separate needs. The relation between the two individuals is mediated by the mother’s breast; the mother must learn how to offer her breast to the child in such a way that it seems to the child that the breast is its own creation. But the two must separate, the mother recovering her own life, and the child becoming a free agent. The mother’s breast, or another ‘transitional object’ such as a teddy-bear or security blanket, mediates this process of diremption. The ‘transitional object’ is an emotion-laden object, which the child holds until it is able to be by itself.

The point here is that this ‘transitional object’ mediates between what will become two self-conscious subjects. In the beginning, they have no means of mediating their relation, not because they are foreign to one another, but because they are undifferentiated. The formation of self-consciousness here also requires a mediating artefact, again it involves delayed gratification and the formation of a system of needs, this time by differentiation rather than merging.

The paradigmatic artefact for Winnicott was the mother’s breast. Again, this choice of a paradigmatic artefact for the exposition of the formation of self-consciousness leaves Winnicott open to a mistaken, ‘intersubjective’ interpretation, in which the mediating artefact, the mother’s breast, being a part of her body, can be subsumed into her personality. Just as with Mead, for Winnicott also, the formation of self-consciousness demands the use of a mediating artefact, but when taken up in recent times to ground a pragmatic interpretation of Hegel, the centrality of the mediating artefact is overlooked and the relation modelled instead on the liberal conception of ‘intersubjectivity’.

In each case, the mediating element is an artefact, but as it happens, paradigmatically a body part. In this context, although could never have grasped this, the human body is rightly considered an artefact, a material product fashioned by human labour and passed on through human history – the body itself, not just uses of the body such as gestures or breast feeding. But beyond the ‘paradigmatic’ artefact; in the case of Mead – mediation between individuals is achieved by ‘significant symbols’, and these significant symbols include writing and all forms of language as well as unconscious gestures. In the case of Winnicott’s ‘object relations theory’ – any kind of artefact can mediate as a ‘transitional object’.

In the ‘System of Ethical Life’, Hegel (1979: 102ff) specifies three types of paradigmatic activity through which the universal is constructed: (1) the use of tools or ‘means of production’, (2) the use of words – ‘the tools of Reason’, and (3) the raising of children. Thus for Hegel, the specific kind of interactions which go to the construction of human society and consciousness involve at least three kinds of mediating artefacts: tools, symbols and the next generation.

Note that Hegel does not conceive of this process as paradigmatically communication; both instrumental action and communicative action are grouped with reproductive action as activities through which Mind is constructed, and the mediating elements through which individuals transform particular activities into universal forms include the entirety of material culture.

Self-consciousness pre-supposes consciousness – the consciousness of a community and its members whose activity is directed at objects, unaware of itself as having one among many possible points of view. The development of self-consciousness presupposes both the capacity of the subject to sustain itself and to produce something of use to others, to have needs which belong to other subjects, and to be able divide within itself and, so to speak, supervise its own activity (Hegel 1807).

It is evident that despite the impenetrability of Hegel’s exposition and the antiquity of his conception, his system is richer than any of the interpretations just mentioned.

Axel Honneth

In constructing his theory of recognition, Axel Honneth (1996) has misconstrued both Mead and Winnicott in the spirit of liberalism. Honneth (2007) set out to develop Habermas’s (1998) discourse ethics into an ethics of desert, based on individuals’ need for recognition, and using a psychology of intersubjectivity. Honneth has appropriated Winnicott’s analysis of weaning and Mead’s I/Me relation via a notion of recognition appropriated from Hegel. However, because Honneth has erased the mediating element in each case, the result is simply to assimilate some good ideas to a narrow pragmatism.

Honneth renders Winnicott’s model of successful weaning as the first ‘species’ of recognition. Honneth is stretching the concept of ‘recognition’ to cover a supposed ‘love’ relation. Perhaps we could better use Winnicott’s conception of weaning as the paradigmatic process of diremption by means of which a new subject differentiates itself from another and establishes its independence. But neither appropriation can succeed without highlighting the central role of the transitional object – an emotion-laden thing which functions as a symbol of the former subjectivity, emotionally reinterpreted in the process of transition to self-determination. Because Honneth regards this process as a species of ‘recognition’, and so essentially unmediated, he skates over Winnicott’s claim in relation to the transitional objects and sees no opportunity for incorporating the idea of emotion-laden objects in his understanding of love, recognition or diremption. How can you appropriate ‘object relations theory’ without the ‘transitional object'?

Likewise with Mead. By focussing on the ‘I/Me’ relation, Honneth can pass over mediation only because the limiting case of an other’s mediation of a person’s relation to themself is easily mistaken as a dyadic relation between two unitary selves. Likewise, Mead’s paradigmatic significant symbol, the gesture, is easily subsumed into the activity of an individual, eliding its public and cultural meaning. But Mead without mediation is senseless. Nevertheless, this misreading of Mead is in line with many present-day misreadings of Mead (Engström 1987).

But Honneth does not stop there; Honneth uses this model of unmediated transactions between individuals as a paradigm for the construction and enjoyment of rights in a society governed by the rule of law. But this is utterly misconceived. The rule of law is nothing if not the mediation of relations between legal subjects. Individuals do not negotiate between the two of them the laws to which their interactions will be subject. Individuals are born or naturalised into a society whose laws are already in place. Recognition here simply means that they are recognised as a member of the given community. Honneth appropriates not Mead’s general social psychology, but specifically his theory of the self, in support of a concept of recognition as constructive of self-respect through the enjoyment of rights. But the whole point of rights is that the law is ‘blind’ not ‘personal’. Doubtless the idea that the enjoyment of rights, that is to say, inclusion within a community in which citizens enjoy rights and have consented to the norms regulating life within the community, is fundamental to the development of self-respect, but this process is not contingently but essentially mediated and is utterly incomprehensible within a universe constituted by individuals abstracted from the material culture mediating their interactions, the universe of ‘intersubjectivity’.

Having misconstrued Mead and Winnicott in terms of ‘intersubjectivity’, Honneth also misconstrues Hegel, in the spirit of Kant. His appropriation of Hegel’s idea of recognition is complex; he draws both on the over-extended conception of recognition immediately preceding the Phenomenology and the incidental references to recognition in the mature Philosophy of Right. Here Honneth hopes to construct a theory of the distribution of goods in a community by recognition of what a person deserves for their contribution to the community. This, Honneth claims, engenders self-esteem and builds social-solidarity.

Much could be said about this position which is riddled with contradictions, but it is sufficient to observe that the granting of rewards in recognition of contributions to the community is an explicitly mediated process. Not only that, if the process is to be subsumed as a species of recognition, then both the community and the individual must be constituted as subjects. Thus the model of intersubjectivity is over-reached in two ways: firstly, the relation is mediated in its very essence, and secondly one of the parties is a collective subject which begs the whole question of intersubjectivity: for Honneth, it is individual persons not corporate entities who are subjects.

This brings us to Honneth’s reading of Hegel. For Hegel, the participants in recognition relations are essentially subjects and for Hegel a subject is not an individual.[36] The point is how an individual is to become a self-conscious subject, so the presumption that recognition is ‘intersubjectivity’, that is, a relation between individuals, misconstrues everything. Reading Hegel as a tale about individuals coming together to recognise each other and negotiate relations of mutual esteem, etc., etc., is to miss everything that Hegel was about and to impute to him the kind of liberalism that his whole work was directed against.

But Hegel’s conception of subjectivity has something to offer social psychology, something which Mead was well aware of; he offers the prospect of overcoming the gulf separating our understanding of individual psyche and social structure. Hegel’s notion of formations of consciousness manifested in social formations begs for a broadly pragmatic appropriation. Honneth however simply presumes that psychology, and a purely speculative psychology at that, can capture social movements by ‘switching planes’ (Honneth 2007: 345) from individual psyche to social movements and institutions, understood as a large number of people with the same feeling of disrespect or low self-esteem (Honneth 1996: 162).

One final observation: when Hegel said that everything is mediated, he also said that everything is immediate. Social movements and institutions are only constituted by immediate interactions; ideals do not exist in some nether world. But the way universals exist in and through relations between individuals can only be understood by paying attention to how these interpersonal relations are mediated and how an individual’s knowledge of universals is mediated both by the collaboration with other individuals and the material culture that individuals use in their collaboration with each other.

The only current of social psychology which has developed this legacy of Hegel and the early American Pragmatists is the school of Lev Vygotsky, who received their Hegel via Marx in the Soviet Union of the 1920s. They may have also had the benefit of a visit by John Dewey in 1928 (Prawat 2001). It is Vygotsky’s following in Cultural-Historical Activity Theory (CHAT for short), which offers the really fruitful opportunity to ground a pragmatic reading of Hegel on a real, living school of practical social psychology.

The basic insight of CHAT is that even though the human animal is just a network of stimulus-response reactions, the nervous system allows us to introduce in between a stimulus and a response, what Vygotsky called a ‘psychological tool’ (Vygotsky 1934: v3, 86). So the single stimulus-response link now has a mediating link. Just as even the most elaborate machine still obeys the laws of physics, this modified nervous system is an artefact, it is constructed.

‘Psychological tools’ originate from collaborative use of objects in the environment. Human beings do not live in a natural environment, we live in a ‘second nature’ made up of artefacts accumulated over generations, and we are oriented to live in this constructed ecological niche. The objects in this artificial environment are given meaning through the collaborative activity of human beings, in which artefacts are used in specific ways. Formally, this is the same as Mead’s idea, but crucially, although Vygotsky more or less agreed with Mead on gestures, for Vygotsky, the gesture was not the paradigmatic artefact. For Vygotsky activity is emphatically mediated by the entirety of material culture, symbolic culture as well the means of production, and the human body. He ascribed no difference in principle for psychology between tools and signs.

Also, as a living, practical scientific current, CHAT has not simply relied on an abstract conception of internalisation, but has systematically traced the series of transformations which an artefact undergoes through its use in the form of an external material object, such as an aide memoire, through to an internal ‘psychological tool’ in the form of a modified nervous system.

From the mid-1930s to the mid-1960s the American and Soviet schools worked in isolation from one another. Whereas Mead’s psychology had been dispersed and under the pressure of the spirit of the times, ceased in fact to be a significant influence in a practical social psychology which was now dominated by theories of ‘intersubjectivity’, Vygotsky’s legacy had had the benefit of systematic testing and critique, albeit in isolation, and a whole series of figures have further developed Vygotsky’s original ideas.

Now that it is a worldwide current, modernist prejudices which had affected the Soviet school have been subject to critique from the social movements in the West, much to the benefit of social psychology. On the other hand, the conditions of its existence have largely meant that its own origins in Marx and Hegel and its commitment to social transformation have to some extent been suppressed.

This conjuncture offers great opportunities for a fruitful re-connection of Hegel with practical social psychological research.

Vygotsky’s Idea of Gestalt and its Origins (2008)

A notion of Gestalt is essential to Vygotsky’s psychology and his theory of development, but his idea of Gestalt was not derived from Koffka and Köhler. In the 1920s, Vygotsky did engage in a critique of Gestalt psychology, which presented itself at the time as the left-wing of psychology, with its critique of the dominant associationist psychology. And Vygotsky did appropriate concepts of structural psychology from this critique, but his view was much larger. As he put it:

“having smashed atomism, (Gestalt psychology) replaced the atom by the independent and isolated molecule.” (Preface to Koffka, 1934, in Vygotsky 1997: 230)

What Vygotsky meant by this criticism was that the Gestalt should not be seen simply as a formation of the psyche, but must include the individual psyche within the whole system of social interactions which constitutes the individual as a person. This larger concept of Gestalt had made its way into Vygotsky’s thinking, from its origins with Goethe more than a century earlier, but by an entirely different route.

‘Gestalt’ is an untranslatable German word that has been imported into other languages. The normal meaning of Gestalt in German is ‘figure’ as in ‘what a fine figure of a man’, referring to the overall dynamic configuration of a living thing, sometimes translated as ‘formation’ (as in ‘social formation’) or ‘form’ or ‘shape’, which cannot be expressed simply in terms of its constituent parts. But in other languages ‘Gestalt’ is used only in the sense given to the word by Gestalt Psychology, as an integral structure or indivisible whole. (OED 1989)

Goethe (1749-1832)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was already an acclaimed poet before Immanuel Kant had made his name with The Critique of Pure Reason in 1787; he towered over the world of Hegel and Schopenhauer and even after his death, oversaw the education of German-speakers from Marx and Wundt to Freud and Jung and had a huge impact in Russia as well. In the context of development, Goethe explained Gestalt as follows:

“The Germans have a word for the complex of existence presented by a physical organism: Gestalt. With this expression they exclude what is changeable and assume that an interrelated whole is identified, defined, and fixed in character.

“But if we look at all these Gestalten, especially the organic ones, we will discover that nothing in them is permanent, nothing is at rest or defined – everything is in a flux of continual motion. This is why German frequently and fittingly makes use of the word Bildung[37] to describe the end product and what is in process of production as well.

“Thus in setting forth a morphology we should not speak of Gestalt, or if we use the term we should at least do so only in reference to the idea, the concept, or to an empirical element held fast for a mere moment of time.” (The purpose is set forth, 1817, Goethe 1996)

So, Gestalt is a transitory, developing form, whilst the real whole is the whole process of development; to know something meant to comprehend its whole process of development. Goethe insisted that forms could be perceived by human beings, because human thought was part of the same whole which generated those forms. But it was the idea that human beings perceived a whole Gestalt, independently of and prior to the parts, which was taken up at first by Kant, in his aesthetics, and much later by Christian von Ehrenfels, and what later became Gestalt psychology.

Whilst the impact of sensations as a source of knowledge of the objective world seemed clear enough, since antiquity philosophers had been troubled by the source of conceptual knowledge (Robinson 1995). Kant, for example, had proposed a separate faculty of reason with access to the logical categories, working side by side with a faculty of intuition accessing the data of sensation (Kant 2007). Late 19th century scientists wanted to resolve these problems by finding the source of concepts, or at least form, in sensation itself. In his influential Analysis of Sensations, Ernst Mach went so far as to hypothesise additional sense organs which could acquire visual or auditory forms, alongside “elements” like colour, pitch and so on (Mach 1914). Drawing on Goethe’s idea, von Ehrenfels proposed that the whole form of a thing could be represented to consciousness, not just separately and alongside its elements, but prior to its elements (Anderson 1980). The Gestaltists, such as Köhler, insisted that mind itself had to have Gestalt properties in order to apprehend the Gestalt properties of phenomena (Herrnstein 1965), but nonetheless, for Gestalt Psychology the problem remained within the framework of an external object stimulating the senses of an individual organism. In the meantime, the problem of the source of conceptual knowledge had been quietly reduced to that of perception of form implicit in sensuous stimuli. The idea of a whole which is prior to its parts did lay the basis for a structural conception of consciousness, and a theory of development which involved structural transformations, but the problems of perception remained the only domain where Gestalt Psychology had made real progress.

But Goethe’s insistence that forms could be perceived by human beings, because human thought was part of the same whole which generated those forms, was part of a very profound approach to science which went further than problems of perception.

In a thoroughgoing rejection of metaphysics, he insisted that living things, human beings included, must be known by their deeds. Goethe vigorously denied that the truth of a phenomenon could be some non-phenomenal formula, essence, principle or hypothetical mechanism, ‘vibration’ or force ‘behind’ phenomena. Thus, Goethe set himself against the dominant Newtonian method of seeking an explanation of natural phenomena in hidden laws and forces, in themselves inaccessible to perception, though inferred with the aid of mathematics. At the same time, in opposition to naïve Empiricism, he understood that all perceptions were ‘theory laden’. In his words:

“The ultimate goal would be: to grasp that everything in the realm of fact is already theory. ... Let us not seek for something behind the phenomena – they themselves are the theory.” (Maxims and Reflections, Goethe 1996)

So what was necessary was to hold off so far as possible from making hypotheses, whilst expanding so far as possible the field of phenomena, and then using intuitive perception (Anschauung[38]), to find within the field of phenomena, the simple, archetypal form, the Urphänomenon[39], which united all of the phenomena. Such a form would unify the domain of phenomena not by means of an abstract general ‘pseudo-concept’, that is, a common attribute shared by all, but as a genuinely generative principle, simultaneously conceptual and phenomenal:

“The Urphänomenon is not to be regarded as a basic theorem leading to a variety of consequences, but rather as a basic manifestation enveloping the specifications of form for the beholder.” (Letter to von Buttel, 3 May 1827, Goethe 1996)

Goethe successfully applied this idea in his founding of the science of morphology, in which the Urphänomenon is known as the cell (or germ-cell), but it must be granted that Goethe did not fully work out this idea as an approach to science in general. Nonetheless, his claim that phenomena could be understood only by means of a simple prototypical phenomenon which captures the properties of the whole process of development, was to be taken up by Hegel, Marx and Vygotsky, each in turn giving it a more definite worked-out formulation.

Hegel (1770-1831)

In the late 18th century, a number of philosophers, including Kant and Herder (Herder 2004) as well as Hegel, were interested in the conditions which went into the formation of the national character or ‘spirit of a nation’. Herder’s ideas became important in the development of cultural anthropology in the 19th century and helped shaped ideas of people like Franz Boas (Foley 1997: 193). Hegel’s early investigations did not lead him to a developed study of national difference, but they did provide the basis for a psychology which approached the individual as a product of society, rather than seeing society as an aggregate of individuals.

In his 1802/3 manuscript, System of Ethical Life (Hegel 1979), Hegel proposed a solution to the problem of the source of conceptual knowledge. Hegel proposed that knowledge was reconstructed by individuals through the practical use of artefacts which had been fashioned as objectifications of the inherited knowledge of a community. This would explain how practical, sensuous perception already included forms of conceptual knowledge and how thinking and perception developed along with social and cultural change. The paradigmatic activities which Hegel saw as constructing the universal ‘spirit’ of a community were: the labour process, using tools and means of production; communication, using words and other symbols; and the raising of children to be future bearers of the culture. The consciousness entailed in these activities, the artefacts being used and the collaborative forms of activity formed a single whole, i.e., a Gestalt. Each aspect of this trichotomy constituted the others: consciousness was the individual’s orientation to use of the artefact, the artefact was what it was only in and through its use in some particular activity through which it was (re-)created, and an activity was constituted by people’s motives or ideals and the artefacts they used to construct it.

As Daniel Robinson so aptly put it:

“(Hegel) and Beethoven were born in the same year. One set Goethe to music, the other to philosophy.” (Robinson 1995: 287)

This conception of a whole which is prior to its individual parts is possible only thanks to the transcendence of the thought-matter dichotomy. Hegel’s idea of a Gestalt, sometimes translated as ‘configuration’ or ‘shape of consciousness’ (Gestalt des Bewußtseins), which was simultaneously a social formation or ‘way of life’ (including both labour processes and superstructure), a ‘way of thinking’ or spiritual culture/ideology of a community, and a material culture, including spoken words and human body forms as well as means of production, land, etc.

In order to reproduce itself and continue to develop, communities have to raise their children into the use of the culture. The following excerpt from the Preface to the 1807 Phenomenology of Spirit shows how Hegel saw the individual appropriating the culture of his or her community:

“The particular individual, so far as content is concerned, has also to go through the stages through which the general mind has passed, but as shapes (Gestalten) once assumed by mind and now laid aside, as stages of a road which has been worked over and levelled out. Hence it is that, in the case of various kinds of knowledge, we find that what in former days occupied the energies of men of mature mental ability sinks to the level of information, exercises, and even pastimes, for children; and in this educational progress we can see the history of the world’s culture delineated in faint outline. This bygone mode of existence has already become an acquired possession of the general mind, which constitutes the substance of the individual, and, by thus appearing externally to him, furnishes his inorganic nature. In this respect culture or development of mind (Bildung), regarded from the side of the individual, consists in his acquiring what lies at his hand ready for him, in making its inorganic nature organic to himself, and taking possession of it for himself. Looked at, however, from the side of universal mind qua general spiritual substance, culture means nothing else than that this substance gives itself its own self-consciousness, brings about its own inherent process and its own reflection into self.” (Hegel 1807/1910)

Hegel did not and could not, at the turn of the 19th century, solve the problem of exactly how individuals learn, and the notion of history as progress of spirit in his work is a matter of considerably dispute, but he set the terms in which the problem of individual learning could be solved. None of the Gestalt psychologists ever acknowledged a debt to Hegel (Robinson 1995: 353), but Marx was quite explicit in what he owed to Hegel.

Marx (1818-1883)

In his appropriation of Hegel’s philosophy, Karl Marx made a number of important modifications relevant to the question of how the idea of Gestalt was received in the twentieth century. (Marx 1996: 19) “Gestalt” is a common word in German, and in the contexts in which it appears in Marx’s writing it is usually translated as ‘form’ or ‘shape’ (as in value in the ‘shape’ of a commodity) or ‘formation’ (as in ‘social formation’). Like Hegel, Marx always treated consciousness as the relation of the individual to its environment, not as a form distinct from its content. Marx differed with Hegel over the terms in which the whole formation (Gestalt) had to be understood. In his own words:

“The premises from which we begin are ... the real individuals, their activity and the material conditions under which they live, both those which they find already existing and those produced by their activity.” (The German Ideology, Marx 1976: 31)

So for Marx the developing whole which Hegel took to be an aggregate of ‘thought-forms’, Marx took to be activity: “the real individuals, their activity and the material conditions.”

“All social life is essentially practical. All mysteries which lead theory to mysticism find their rational solution in human practice and in the comprehension of this practice.” (Theses on Feuerbach §8, Marx 1976: 5)

Marx makes practical human activity the key category. A Gestalt is not primarily a thought-form, but a system of social practices, inclusive of the individuals enacting them and their conditions of their existence, and he makes the material production of people’s needs the archetypal activity, determinant in relation to the spiritual life of the community in general:

“In the social production of their existence, men inevitably enter into definite relations, which are independent of their will, namely relations of production appropriate to a given stage in the development of their material forces of production. The totality of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation, on which arises a legal and political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness. The mode of production of material life conditions the general process of social, political and intellectual life. It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but their social existence that determines their consciousness.” (Preface to the Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, Marx 1987: 263)

As the productive forces of society develop, the system of relations in which these forces are activated become an actual fetter on production and impede development, so they have to be overthrown. Thus, Marx makes the struggle of people to emancipate themselves from the very system of relations whereby their needs are met, the motor force of development.

“At a certain stage of development, the material productive forces of society come into conflict with the existing relations of production or – this merely expresses the same thing in legal terms – with the property relations within the framework of which they have operated hitherto. From forms of development of the productive forces these relations turn into their fetters. Then begins an era of social revolution. The changes in the economic foundation lead sooner or later to the transformation of the whole immense superstructure.” (Preface to the Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, Marx 1987: 263)

Like Hegel, Marx saw individual psychology as a moment of the social formation (Gestalt) of which it is a part, but not the ‘unit of analysis’ or concept from which an understanding of a social formation could be understood.

Lev Vygotsky (1896-1934)

Almost everything about how Vygotsky appropriated the ideas of Goethe, Hegel, and Marx flowed from his situation in the early years of the Soviet Union, an environment saturated with Marxism and with a mandate to work towards fostering a new, higher type of human being, ‘socialist man’.

This situation made it possible for Vygotsky to draw on the insights of Marx and Hegel which had been lost as a result of the analytical kind of science preferred by the dominant positivist ideology of the late 19th/early 20th century. Like Marx, Vygotsky conceived of the Gestalt, not just as a brain structure or scheme of perception, but as a system of social relationships and activity, which included the person in the social situation through which the person’s needs are met. In constructing a psychology, Vygotsky’s focus moved to the sphere of activity of a single individual, in contrast to Marx’s focus on whole social formations. But both Marx and Vygotsky took social practice, individual consciousness and material culture to mutually constitute one another, as part of a Gestalt. This structural approach contrasts with methodological individualism, characterised by mind/matter and individual/society dichotomies. The conception of mind as a Gestalt in which practices, culture and thinking mutual constitute one another, does not mean that sociology and psychology become identical; the oppositions are not abolished but mediated.

The child is the child of the existing social formation, but not simply and immediately so, for the relation is mediated through the family and other institutions. Equally, the whole is not conceived as something which exists side by side with individuals, or on another ‘level’, but exists only in and through individuals.

What is characteristic of the Gestalt is that it is practical activity, consciousness and material conditions are taken together, mutually constituting each other as part of a whole.

Social Situation of Development

A key concept that Vygotsky presented in his unfinished work on child development, “The Problem of Age” (published in English for the first time in the Collected Works, Vygotsky 1998) is the social situation of development. In his view, the social situation in which the child finds herself constitutes a predicament, a predicament from which the child can only emancipate herself by making a development. (An “Uh-oh!” moment, rather than an “Ah-ha!” moment, perhaps?)

The social situation is made up of the child’s adult carers and all the material conditions surrounding her. Self-evidently, this situation is a microcosm of the whole society, inasmuch as all the expectations, practices, customs, social conditions and so on of the larger society flow through any such group. Every child of course is in a different situation and no two are just alike; in understanding the social situation of development as a Gestalt, there is no implication that the situation is a whole in the sense of being self-sufficient, isolated or independent from the rest of the society or indeed the world.

There are two things which are important to grasp about this concept however. Firstly, it is only in and through the cultural and material conditions and the adults with whom the child interacts that the larger society penetrates the child’s life and development, and this social situation constitutes, with the child, a sovereign and viable form of life, within the norms acquired from the larger society.

Secondly, the ‘social situation of development’ is the concept through which the researcher grasps the dynamics of the child’s development. By grasping the situation as a predicament rather than simply as an inventory of attributes (number in family, sibling position, parents’ education and employment, etc., etc.), the researcher gains an insight into exactly how the social situation conditions the child’s development.

The child’s social situation of development is defined as a predicament because it is constituted as a kind of trap from which the child can only emancipate herself by a qualitative transformation of her own psychological structure and (what amounts to the same thing) the structure of her relationship with those who are providing for her needs. Development means transforming the mode of psychological functioning and transcending the social situation of development. Overcoming the barriers and developing the new formation constitutes an escape from the social situation of development. This self-emancipation is only possible if the child manifests a drive which transcends the limits of her situation; absent this drive, and there can be no development.

For any social group, reproduction of its culture and institutions down the generations is an imperative. Historical experience ensures that the norms to which a child is subject are to some degree rational with respect to the developmental capacities of a child of the given age, and all societies to some degree build age-level expectations into their institutional practices (Rogoff 2003), with the children of a society motivated to conform to these yardsticks. So the social situation of development is a product of these culturally and historically inherited expectations which the adults bring with them.

At the same time, the fact of development of infants into adult citizens can be made intelligible only by the fact that, beginning with birth itself, individuals strive to emancipate themselves from barriers to their self-determination, barriers which bar them from full participation within the horizons of their own expectations. Although this drive takes on uniquely human forms that are culturally constructed, it is reasonable to presume the existence of a drive of this kind even in a newborn child. That is to say, at any stage in development, the child will normally strive to overcome barriers which frustrates their control over their own conditions of existence insofar as they are capable of perceiving them.

In any given social situation of development, the child is required to behave in a certain way for which some psychological function is key. Once such a key psychological function has developed beyond a certain limit, the child finds that she has outgrown the social situation of development and the role she plays in that situation. This faces the child with a new kind of predicament: she does not yet have the capacity to adopt a different role, nor in fact can she even conceive of such a role, but she finds her present position a continual insult and offence. (Bozhovich 2004) The result is a period of crisis where by an exercise of will, at whatever stage of its development, the child refuses the role in the only way open to her and thereby creates conditions for a new social situation of development in which her needs can be met in a way, freed of the former constraint and free of the threats suffered during the transitional period of crisis, thus opening up a new period of stable development. The period of crisis is often conflictful for both the child and her carers; the child can have no clearly formed aim in its ‘rebellion’ against the confinement of her activity within oppressive bounds; her carers have to construct a new concept of the child and accommodate themselves and the child to a new set of relationships. If the adult carers fail to make an appropriate adjustment, then there may be a developmental pathology.

The child starts life with very little of what she needs to become a fully participating citizen of the society into which she has been born. Each of the Gestalten through which the child and her social situation passes constitutes a viable form of life, and at each step along the way different psychological functions develop in response to the social situation of development, building on what has been constructed in previous phases of development and each with different psychological functions playing a central role.

Through the concept of the social situation of development, in which the relations by which the child’s needs are met are equally the bonds enslaving them, Vygotsky grasped the social life of the child as a concept, as a Gestalt. In just the same way Marx grasped capitalism as specific set of relations (wage labour and capital) characteristic of a definite social formation.

Vygotsky used the Russian word, novo-obrazovaniye[40], usually translated as ‘neoformation’, to refer to a unique mode of socio-psychological functioning (memory, motor control, perception, etc.). He conceives of the entire social and psychological functioning of the child in terms of the numerous ‘neoformations’ which make up the Gestalt. Each neoformation has its own path of development, each interacting with the others, and undergoing qualitative changes at different stages in the child’s development. The dynamics of development of the whole is understood through the distinct and interconnected development of the neoformations. What is important to understand however is that, with the child together with the social situation constituting a Gestalt, each novo-obrazovaniye, is simultaneously a psychological function and a mode of behaviour, embedded in the participation of a child in its social situation of development.

The child’s mental and physical life entails numerous neoformations which are increasingly differentiated from one another and gain increasing independence from each other in the course of development and their development of a diversity of needs and modes of activity.

Paradigmatically, the social situation of development is unitary in the sense that it is made up of a group of individuals (the child’s carers) who collaborate in the raising of the child, using shared artefacts such as language and resources the child needs, according to norms and practices characteristic of the social group of which they are a part. Although beginning as an organism which is only marginally social, the child quickly becomes an active part of the project into which they are being raised. Things are never as simple as this of course. All the adults participating in the child’s upbringing have different expectations and hopes and bring different opportunities and pressures to bear on the child. As the child’s horizons broaden, such as when the child attends school, the internal differentiation of the social situation of development will become extensive, but even in the very first moments that mother and father lay eyes on the infant, they react differently. So the social situation of development and the child’s character is differentiated and internally contradictory from the very beginning.

The social situation of the child’s development is one of a multitude of intersecting projects going on in the world. All of these activities, together with shared language(s), norms and customs, and so on, are transmitted into the child’s experience and the development of their personality via the adults meeting the child’s needs.

The general schema of development from newborn to adult is that the child begins life physically, biologically, psychologically, materially, socially and culturally dependent on their immediate system of support, and in that sense they are an undifferentiated and subordinate part of the Gestalt constituted by the social situation of development. Equally, the child’s psychological structure and social interaction begins as an undifferentiated whole, and in passing through a series of Gestalten, undergoes a series of transformations in which a certain psychological function and mode of activity differentiates itself and gives rise to a new formation, a ‘neoformation’. This process continues up to adulthood, when, if the process of development has been successfully completed, the person is now fully socialized and qualifies as a free agent operating within the norms of the culture, capable of a large number of distinct modes of activity. As the child’s horizons expand, the Gestalt expands from the immediate family circle to the nation state. Only as a physically, biologically, psychologically, materially, socially and culturally independent citizen does she become a fully integrated member of the social group, whose consciousness constitutes and is constituted by the social practices of the whole. Internally, this process of socialization corresponds to the successive differentiation of psychological functions, and successive levels of emancipation, articulated within the individual’s overall psychological structure or personality.

Central Neoformations and Lines of Development

As noted above, each stable period of development takes place within a social situation of development, created by the child’s forceful breaking of the former situation together with the carers’ adjustment of their relationships with the child. According to Vygotsky, each period begins with a still immature central neoformation, made possible by the new social situation of development, but not yet fully differentiated and still bearing the hallmarks of the former relationships. Strengthening under the influence of activities enabled by the social situation, the central neoformation begins to reorganise other psychological functions, which gradually realign themselves around the central neoformation in the leading developmental role. Subsequently, in the latter phase of an age period, the central neoformation begins to come into conflict with the social situation of development. Having opened up new possibilities, the central neoformation discloses possibilities beyond the confines of the social situation of development and a period of crisis begins.

The above process Vygotsky called the ‘central line of development’. There are other, peripheral, lines of development unfolding at the same time which are secondary at this stage in that they do not contribute to the building up and resolution of the specific predicament which characterizes this period of development. In subsequent periods of development, the line of development which was at a certain stage central, continues, but is no longer central, and plays a peripheral role. Likewise, a line of development which was formerly in the background, may step forward into the central role.

So during the stable periods of development it is the gradual growth of the central neoformation which ultimately creates the predicament which forces the child to transform itself. During crisis periods on the other hand, it is the transformation of relationships and the mode of the child’s activity which drives the changes in all the psychological functions and their rearrangement in a new structure.

Development and Gestalt

Vygotsky was formulating a completely new vision of the structure of the human personality, a structure for which there were few satisfactory existing concepts, but there can be no doubt that he drew on Marx’s conception of the forms of movement of social formations. Marx remarked:

“There is in every social formation a particular branch of production which determines the position and importance of all the others, and the relations obtaining in this branch accordingly determine the relations of all other branches as well. It is as though light of a particular hue were cast upon everything, tingeing all other colours and modifying their specific features.” (Marx 1986: 43)

It was this same conception of the development of a complex whole or Gestalt which characterised Vygotsky’s conception of personality and a person’s relation to their social situation. Just as Marx and Hegel had conceived of history in terms of periods of gradual change punctuated by periods of crisis and transformation, Vygotsky conceived of child development in the same way. Talking of these developmental crises, Vygotsky noted:

“The age levels represent the integral, dynamic formation, the structure, which defines the role and relative significance of each partial line of development. At each given age period, development occurs in such a way that separate aspects of the child’s personality change and as a result of this, there is a reconstruction of the personality as a whole – in development (i.e., the critical periods) there is just exactly a reverse dependence: the child’s personality changes as a whole in its internal structure and the movement of each of its parts is determined by the laws of change of this whole.” (Vygotsky 1998: 196)

In the early phase of stable periods of development, development consists in consolidating the immature central neoformation characteristic of this period; in the later phase, development consists in preparing the child for a new social situation transcending the bounds of the central neoformation. During critical periods, development consists in facilitating a total rearrangement of the relationships and modes of activity under conditions when the child is not yet ready but is nonetheless striving to break through.

Zone of Proximal Development

Vygotsky understands the child’s psychological functioning as a Gestalt which (1) includes both the internal life of the child and their behaviour in interaction with those around them, and (2) passes through a series of qualitatively distinct phases, in each of which the child occupies a distinct social position and exhibits a structurally distinct mode of behaviour, separated by critical periods of more or less rapid change.

From this standpoint, Vygotsky’s well-known concept of the ‘zone of proximal development’ takes on very clear outlines. Its significance for Vygotsky is exclusively in terms of development, that is to say, in relation to how the activities in which the child may be engaged contribute to preparing and resolving the ‘predicament’ which defines the child’s phase of development. All other learning is secondary in relation to development. Further, the intervention of the adults in the child’s social situation is indispensable since the child cannot interact with a vacuum. Transformation of the child’s mode of behaviour entails the adults acting in relation to the child in a way to which the child is not yet fully capable of responding, because it entails acting as if the child had already completed the passage to a new stable phase of development. The adults’ behaviour then will not be simply reactive but is directed towards the adults’ cultural expectations of the child’s development.

On the other side, the child may respond according to the characteristics of the next and higher stage of their development, with the adults’ assistance, and there can be no doubt that such a ‘rehearsal’ of behaviour of a new and higher mode, prepares the child for abandoning their former identity and taking on the new mode of behaviour.

But this relation is only relevant to development if the activity in which the child is being coached corresponds to the leading neoformation for their ‘age level’. Otherwise, they may learn, but such learning will not contribute to their development, will not contribute to the child emancipating themselves from the social position in which they have hitherto been located so as to enter a new phase of development, a new mode of interaction and a new social situation of development.

Conclusion

Just as Goethe’s scientific ideas have been generally dismissed as quaint and misconceived, and the influence of these ideas on Hegel and Marx overlooked, so has the significance of this current of thought leading from Goethe via Hegel and Marx to Vygotsky been overlooked and misunderstood. The understanding of Gestalt which can be recovered from these writers may offer a new and powerful insight into Vygotsky’s understanding of development and a re-examination of his most well-known ideas in the light of this insight, and a profoundly new approach to the relation between the various human sciences.

Foreword to Hegel’s Logic (2008)

1. The Young Hegel and what drove him

Germany was fragmented and socially and economically backward

In order to understand what Hegel was doing in his Logic, we should first look at the circumstances of his life and the situation in Germany at the time.

Hegel was born in Stuttgart in 1770, just 620 km from Paris. So he was 18 at the time of the storming of the Bastille and his earliest writing, an essay on the prospects for advancing the Enlightenment by launching a “folk religion,” were penned while a seminary student in 1793, shortly before Robespierre launched his own manufactured religion of the “Supreme Being.” This project fell flat and Robespierre was himself sent to the guillotine shortly afterwards. Mainly under the influence of his friend, the poet Hölderin, Hegel abandoned his youthful disdain for the Christian religion and came to the conviction that, for all its faults, it was Christianity which had ultimately opened the way for the Enlightenment and modernity.

He completed his first published book, the Phenomenology of Spirit, in Jena, just as the town was occupied by his hero Napoleon Bonaparte – “The World Spirit on horseback” in Hegel’s words. Napoleon was born the same year as Hegel, but died in 1821 shortly after the publication of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right, which culminates in the section on World History where Hegel describes the role of world-historic heroes, “living instruments of the world mind.” Napoleon introduced the code civile into Germany, and smashed up its feudal structures. But the first uprisings of the French proletariat against the misery of bourgeois development in France, all took place after Hegel’s death, in the 1830s.

The industrial revolution in Britain roughly coincides with Hegel’s lifetime, 1770-1830, but the Chartist Uprisings also took place in the 1830s shortly after Hegel’s death. So Hegel saw the revolutionary impact of capitalism and the misery it brought with it, but he never knew a movement of the oppressed, a modern social movement. Also, some of the most brilliant women of the first wave of feminism were amongst his circle of friends, and included his mother and sister, but Hegel himself never accepted the claims of feminism. In fact, he had a dreadfully misogynist, essentialist position on women.

Germany did not have a state. Until 1815, Germany was part of what was still called the Holy Roman Empire, which stretched from Nice up the French border to Calais, across to Gdansk, bordering the Russian Empire down through Prague to Rome. It was made up of a patchwork of over 300 small principalities, some Catholic some Protestant, each with their own class structure and traditions and with no solidarity between each other or from their own subjects. England to the North, Revolutionary France to the West, Imperial Russia to the East and Austria-Hungary to the South. The armies of these great powers marched back and forth across Germany, pushing the German princes around as pawns in a power game in which the Germans had no say whatsoever. None of the princes of these little states could count on their citizens to take up arms in their defence. Germany was helpless alongside its powerful neighbors, and wallowed in social and economic backwardness as Revolutionary France made history with its armies and its politicians, and the English built an empire with their money and their new inventions, whilst Germany remained spectators in history. But this was the Germany of Goethe, and Schiller and Beethoven.

Hegel drew the conclusion that the German Revolution would have to be made with philosophy rather than with guns and mobs. And it was only relatively late in life (aged 28 in fact) that Hegel resolved to become a professor of philosophy and build his own system. It was the fate of his own country, the problem of modernization and freedom for his native Germany, which was his goal.

The Holy Roman Empire was brought to a close in 1815, just as the last volume of the Science of Logic went to press. And at the Congress of Vienna, in the aftermath of Napoleon’s eventual military defeat, the German Federation was created with just 38 components. This situation suited Hegel, and generally speaking, the most creative period of Hegel’s life was the period of the Napoleonic Wars, 1804-1815.

We should also remember that Hegel never knew Darwin. The Origin of Species was published almost thirty years after he died. But he was familiar with the theory of Lamarck, and he positively rejected the idea that human beings had evolved out of animals. He knew of Lyell’s theory of geological formation and accepted that the continents were products of a process of formation. But he insisted that there was change but no development in Nature. He actually knew nothing of the pre-history humanity and as surprising as it may seem for the historical thinker par excellence, he claimed that:

“even if the earth was once in a state where it had no living things but only the chemical process, and so on, yet the moment the lightning of life strikes into matter, at once there is present a determinate, complete creature, as Minerva fully armed springs forth from the head of Jupiter.... Man has not developed himself out of the animal, nor the animal out of the plant; each is at a single stroke what it is.”

At the time, natural science offered no rational explanation for the appearance organic life out of inorganic life or of the origins of the human form, language and human history. It is to Hegel’s credit that he did not try to resolve the problem of what he knew little about by appealing to what no-one knew absolutely anything about. He relied almost entirely on the intelligibility of human life as it could be observed: no foundation myths or appeals to a natural order beyond human society or appeals to Eternal Reason or Laws of Nature. In that sense, Hegel’s is a supremely rational philosophy.

His misogyny and racism, which led him to exclude women and the peoples of uncivilized nations from being creators of culture, derived from his blindness to the fact of the cultural construction of the human form itself. Although this is a limitation in his philosophy, it is one which is very easy to correct for given all that we know today, 200 years later, and has had little impact on his Logic.

Hegel was a modernist opponent of liberalism

Hegel presents a contradictory figure. He was an enthusiastic proponent of the Enlightenment, indeed before his career as a professor of philosophy took off, he was briefly a newspaper editor and then for seven years, headmaster of a high school in Nuremberg and more or less dedicated to the ideal of Bildung – a German word usually translated as ‘education’, but carrying a much stronger connotation of personal development and acquisition of culture. So he saw himself much as a foot soldier for the Enlightenment. But it was the combination of witnessing what Kant in particular, but also Fichte and Schelling, achieved as proponents of philosophical systems and as university professors, and the increasing awareness of the unsatisfactory nature of the systems of these, his predecessors in German philosophy, which impelled him to construct a philosophical system of his own.

The Enlightenment essentially entailed the expansion of individual freedom, but unlike other proponents of the Enlightenment Hegel was not a liberal. Hegel did not identify freedom with the freedom of individuals from constraint, rooted in an individualist conception of the subject. Now it is true that Hegel’s communitarianism was to an extent sustained by an unwarranted idealization of the ancient Greek polis, somewhat of a fashion of the time. But more importantly, it was his experience of life in Germany which led him to a far deeper conception of freedom.

At best, an individual only has the power of the whole community of which they are a part. A citizen of a nation like Germany, which had no state, has no freedom.

So in order to understand Hegel we have to let go of the conception of the state as an instrument of oppression or as a limitation on individual freedom, and see the sense in which the state is also an instrument of its citizens and a protector of their freedom. Hegel did not know of the idea of the state as an instrument of class rule, and he conducted a life-long struggle against all those theories which promoted a liberal, or ‘negative’ idea of freedom. For him, the state occupied the space that it occupied for the people of Vietnam and other nations which emerged from the national liberation struggles of the post-World War Two period: that of a social movement. What he describes in his Philosophy of Right, for example, is not of course a social movement, but a state, complete with hereditary monarchy and a public service, but at the deepest level, the level which we find in the Logic, his philosophy is the philosophy of a social movement, of a people who has organised itself around a common cause as a social movement, or at least as a ‘project’.

But Hegel wasn’t simply a communitarian; he was deeply concerned with individuality and how the self-determination of an individual person could be realised in and through the acquisition of the culture of the whole community. His central concern was what later came to be called ‘social solidarity’, but his was a far deeper and more nuanced conception than that of Durkheim, for example. What Durkheim called ‘organic’ rather than ‘mechanical’ social solidarity was for Hegel only the first moment in the development of that kind of social solidarity in which individuality could flourish.

The real limitation on Hegel’s conception of a social movement is that, as remarked above, he never saw nor ever conceived of, a social movement of the oppressed. He saw no reason to believe that the ‘rabble’ could liberate themselves. Modern theories of self-emancipation are all presaged on the formation of collective self-consciousness and the state is the material expression of collective self-consciousness par excellence. Hegel well understood that the agency of individual human beings can only be constituted in and through social movements and the institutions such movements create. One could go further than that. Hegel was deeply concerned with the role of individuals in bringing about social change, but the conception of the individual which he developed was a radical break from those which had gone before. Even being a world-historical figure did not necessarily mean that you were conscious of what you were doing or that others would be grateful for what you achieved.

But it was this concern to find a route to modernity for Germany which led Hegel to an investigation of the source of the differing spirit of peoples and the fate of each nation. Hegel did not invent this study. Before him Kant and in particular Johann Gottfried Herder, who coined the terms Volksgeist and Zeitgeist, had made investigations into the problem. By studying the history of a people, Hegel hoped to discover why one people would make revolution or build an empire, while another people would wallow in disunity and slavery.

Now this study of the “psychology of peoples” itself led to a dead end. Modern nations are not subjects in that sense, and Hegel, whose interest was in the fostering of both social solidarity and individuality, realised this. At best the concept could be useful in characterization of an ancient city state or of an isolated community perhaps, or to explain particular aspects of the character of different nations. In today’s context such a project would be seen as reactionary, firstly because it tends to erase differences of class, gender and so on within a people, and secondly because it reeks of a kind of “cultural racism.”

But remember firstly that the question was posed from the point of view of the excluded, in this case, the German people who were being ridden roughshod over by the European powers and denied a say over their own affairs; it does make a difference when the question is asked from below, so to speak.

But secondly, it asks a legitimate question, and it was a first step towards understanding the specific nature of modern social life and its relation to the psychology of the individuals who constitute a society. And it was a radical break from trying to understand the problem of freedom through the study of eternal categories of Reason.

The “Spirit of a people” was rooted in historical form of life

Hegel’s early work, particularly the 1802-03 work, “System of Ethical Life,” is particularly important because in it we see Hegel working out his conception of spirit in terms of practical daily life. Taking the lead of his predecessors Kant and Fichte, and Descartes for that matter, he aimed to make no presuppositions, but instead of turning inwards to the contemplation of ‘clear ideas’, or making appeals to some type of mathematical reasoning, which actually take the validity of Reason for granted, he took as his given datum, ordinary, living people creating and reproducing themselves and their society.

Now it is true that this kind of consideration is absent from his later works, including first and foremost the Logic, which moves entirely in the domain of abstractions and thought forms, but there is no reason to suppose that he abandoned this view of the construction of consciousness through labour. Philosophy in general and logic in particular has to stand on its own ground and cannot appeal to other domains for its proof. But we should not misunderstand. What Hegel’s early investigations led him to was not a kind of social psychology, to do with how people acquire an idea, but a radically new conception of what an idea is.

Somewhere between the writing of “System of Ethical Life” and the next version of his system sometimes called the “Philosophy of Spirit,” dated 1805-06, an important change took place in his idea of spirit. Whereas up till this time he had been interested in the spirit of a times or the spirit of this or that people, and looked for its origins in the day-to-day activity of people, following the pressure which comes to bear on every builder of a philosophical system, he began to talk about “Spirit” as such. So instead of having the spirit of this or that people rooted in an historical form of life, forged through the experience of victory or defeat at war, through the raising of crops or the hunting of animals, we had Spirit. Spirit manifested in the activity of a people, grew as that people fulfilled their destiny, and then moved on to another people. Spirit came and went, entered into the affairs of a nation, and would leave it again. So without any change in the conception of spirit itself, spirit became something that pre-existed the form of life in which it was instantiated. And it was one and the same spirit which found a different form at a different time in a different people.

This move greatly facilitated the construction of a systematic philosophy. All German professors of philosophy have to have a system. It’s part of the job description, and by this time, Hegel had his sights on becoming a professor of philosophy. But it moved his philosophy into a more theistic area. At the same time, it is a move which for our secular times, is rather easily reversible. You don’t need to have a conception of spirit as pre-existing human life and manifesting itself in human activity, to use the concept of spirit.

The other implication of this conception of Spirit was that it really emphasized the unitary character of spirit; everyone shares in the culture of a people, its language, its forms of production and distribution, its institutions and its religion. It is this shared character of spirit as Hegel conceived it, which comes to the fore, rather than a concern with distinctions and difference. But the point is: should we proceed like Fichte, beginning from the individual, and from the individual deduce the nature of the state, the society, or should we on the contrary, begin with a conception of the state, a conception which rests on the collaborative activity of individuals, and from there deduce the nature of the individual persons. Surely Hegel was entirely correct. We all share, even if unequally, in the language, the science, the art, the productive forces, the political social institutions which are produced in our society; we constitute and modify them in our own activity. We all have our own unique take on that culture, but it remains a cooperative and shared cultural life. The same approach can bring a magnifying glass to bear on the consciousness of different classes, subcultures or natural groupings within society, but at whatever level, we have to be able to deal with individuals constituting a shared form of life and themselves as a part of that.

Zeitgeist remains a widely accepted, if problematic, concept of Spirit

There is some basis for associating Hegel with notions of progress and a ‘cultural evolution’ in which all the people of the world are subsumed into a single narrative. But postmodernism itself is probably the most outrageous example. The point is that Hegel worked out an approach which can illuminate the individual psyche and its structure at one and the same time as studying the dynamics of national institutions, politics, movements in art and philosophy and so on. If we take concepts like “Gen X” or “baby boomers” then it’s problematic to suppose that such a collective consciousness or personality exists. Lumping together entire cohorts of people born in a certain decade as if they shared common goals is arrant nonsense. And the same goes for any abstract collective like ‘white collar employees’ or ‘suburbia’ which have no collective self-consciousness at all.

This brings us to the essential problem here, the ‘problem of the individual’. Nowadays we commonly hear people talking about ‘two levels’, the level of the individual and the level of society, of institutions and social forces. On one hand, we have individuals with ideas and consciousness and personalities of their own, able to decide what they do from one moment to the next, and on the other hand, we have impersonal social forces, such as the economy governed by the invisible hand of the market, politics governed by public opinion, the few powerful individuals who control the large institutions of society, and social and historical forces and laws. Sociology is in one department of the university, whilst psychology in another, and the conceptual apparatus we need to understand human beings is split into at least two incommensurable sets of concepts. But it is just the same individual human beings whether acting as a member of an institution, as an economic agent making market decisions, or acting out social roles such as their family responsibilities.

What Hegel’s concept of spirit gives us is a set of concepts, all interconnected with one another in his Logic, which deal throughout with human beings en masse. “Spirit is the nature of human beings en masse,” said Hegel, and the study of spirit is nothing other than the study of the activity of human beings en masse. Just one qualification: once a people stops questioning its institutions and beliefs, then Spirit leaves them.

Spirit is a word people don’t like to hear too much these days. It summons up notions of extramundane substances. But it is undeniably real, and to present Hegel’s Logic simply as a philosophy without presuppositions, deleting any reference to “spirit” would be kidding ourselves. Hegel without spirit would be like economics without reference to the “market.”

Spirit is the “nature of human beings en masse.”

So “spirit is human beings en masse.” But it is easy to miss some of what this entails. It is well known that a person left to grow up on their own, without contact with others, will not grow up to be a human being in any real sense. But this is only the half of it. If you dropped a million people into the jungle together, but without the benefit of the material culture built up by preceding generations, the result would be even worse. When we are talking about human beings en masse, then we are talking not only about so many human beings, and the forms of organisation and cooperation that they are involved in, but also the material culture that they have inherited and created and use together. This includes language, both spoken and written, means of production from factories and mines through to crops, and domestic animals and soils which are as much a product of human culture as are our own bodies and our basic needs. Language is part of material culture, whether written or spoken, and language is not only necessary for communication between individuals, but individuals use language to coordinate their own activity.

For Hegel, all these objects of material culture are thought-objects. It is true that they entail “externality”: a word cannot be spoken in a vacuum, a building cannot be erected without the help of gravity. But a word is what it is only in connection with its use by human beings and the same is true of a chair or a key or a rosary.

One of the difficulties that Hegel had to overcome was the problem of dualism. Descartes operated with a mind-matter dualism, and Kant’s philosophy got around mind-matter dualism at the cost of introducing a host of other such dichotomies and it was the need to overcome these dichotomies in Kant’s philosophy which was one of the main drivers for Kant’s critics, such as Fichte and Schelling and Hegel. For Hegel, it was all thought. We will presently come to how Hegel arrived at difference from this abstract beginning, but the idea of thought, of Spirit, shaping the world, served as a foundation upon which to build a philosophical system. So Hegel was an idealist, but what can be called an objective idealist. That is, thought was not for Hegel simply something subjective or inward. It is thinking, the activity of the human mind, but the content of that thinking is objective, it is given from outside the individual, it is the individual’s ‘second nature’. The objects around us and which are the content of our perception and thoughts are the objectifications of the thought of other people, or ourselves. We live in a world not of matter, but of thought objects, which are, like all objects, also material things. But what makes a key a key is not its shape or its substance, but the fact that there’s a lock somewhere that it fits.

One of the most popular approaches to modernizing Hegel today is what is known as ‘intersubjectivity’. ‘Intersubjectivity’ begins from the same observation that “spirit is human beings en masse,” but reduces human activity to momentary, unmediated communicative actions between individuals; the human body is simply taken for granted, subsumed as part of the acting ‘subject’, language is comprehended as simply the performance of individuals without taking account of the objective existence of a common language prior to its performance by any individual – the entirety of material culture – technology, land, domestic animals and the material relations involved in the reproduction of the species – are simply ignored. An interpretation of human life which ignores reproduction of the species, the forces of production and the entirety of material culture self-evidently fails to capture the notion of human beings en masse. This was not Hegel’s idea. In his effort to understand spirit, these ‘thought objects’, which we may prefer to think of as ‘material culture’, are very much included in the picture.

Some interpretations of Hegel take as their point of departure the master-servant relation, §§178-196 of the Phenomenology. Very broadly speaking, those Hegelians who take this relation as their essential Hegel and those who take the Logic as their essential Hegel form two almost mutually exclusive schools of thought. What is special about the master-servant relation is that it is an apparently unmediated relation lacking any third point to mediate the relation. On the other hand, the Logic, along with the entirety of Hegel’s works, is all about mediation. It is really impossible to read the Logic from the standpoint of unmediated relations, and in fact, outside of that one passage of about 19 paragraphs, it is impossible to read any of Hegel’s work without making central the relation of mediation. And in any case, the master-servant relation is about how two subjects still somehow manage to mediate their relation even when there is no third party or common language or law to mediate the relation for them.

2. The Phenomenology and ‘formations of consciousness’

Kant’s Philosophy fragmented human beings

Another approach to understanding Hegel is to look at his work in the context of the development of German philosophy, in particular his critique of Kant.

Kant was born in 1724, and published “Religion within the limits of Reason” at the age of 70, at about the same time as the young Hegel was writing his speculations on the construction of a folk religion at the seminary in Tübingen and Robespierre was doing it his way; Kant died at about the time Hegel completed his draft “System of Ethical Life.”

Kant was a huge figure. Hegel and all his young philosopher friends were Kantians. But Kant’s system posed as many problems as it solved; to be a Kantian at that time was to be a participant in the project which Kant had initiated, the development of a philosophical system suitable to express the aims of the Enlightenment; and that meant critique of Kantianism. We need to look at just a couple of aspects of Kant’s philosophy which will help us understand Hegel’s approach.

“I freely admit,” said Kant, “it was David Hume’s remark that first, many years ago, interrupted my dogmatic slumber and gave a completely different direction to my enquiries in the field of speculative philosophy.” Hume’s “Treatise on Human Nature” had been published while Kant was still very young, following a line of empiricists and their rationalist critics, whose concern was how knowledge and ideas originated from sensation. Hume was a skeptic; he demonstrated that causality could not be deduced from sensation. One could witness the fact that one event always followed another, but this did not prove that the first was the cause of the second, and that the second necessarily followed from the first. This skepticism shocked Kant. If this were true, then there could be no science. In an effort to rescue the possibility of science, Kant set about constructing his critical philosophy, a kind of ‘third way’ between dogmatism and skepticism, whose aim was to determine the limits of knowledge, to draw a line between what was knowable and what was not knowable. This investigation led to a number of conclusions.

Hegel’s critique of Kant is so extensive, penetrating all of his mature works, only a few points can be mentioned here.

The Subject

The most important issue is Kant’s concept of the subject which was intended to solve problems such as the Cartesian dichotomy between mind and matter and the homunculus paradox – the idea of a subject like a little man inside the head that observes our perceptions and puts them all together and makes ideas. This idea which persists to this day, leads of course to an infinite regress, for the homunculus needs a little man inside his head as well. Kant’s solution was the transcendental subject:

‘By this “I,” or “He,” or “It,” who or which thinks, nothing more is represented than a transcendental subject of thought = x, which is cognized only by means of the thoughts that are its predicates.’ (Critique of Pure Reason)

So the subject for Kant was a nothing, like a point which is defined as the intersection between two lines – it is determinate and you know just where it is, but it has no width or properties of its own. This device allowed Kant to avoid the contradictions which had plagued earlier philosophers, but it led to a new range of problems. What Kant had done was to escape the problems of the subject’s interaction with the material world by in effect placing the subject behind and outside culture and history. He had created an eternal changeless subject which could be analyzed by the methods of philosophy, without any empirical content, at the cost of reducing the subject to a nothing.

Hegel’s proposal is to place the subject back into culture and history: the subject would be a product and part of culture and history, rather than standing outside of experience.

Dichotomy

Now, one of the consequences of Kant’s transcendental subject was the resolution of the problem he inherited from the rationalist-empiricist debate: there were two kinds of knowledge, knowledge derived from two distinct sources which had to be combined somehow. On the one hand we had sensation, or what was called Intuition, which was the immediate basis for experience, the beginning of all knowledge, and on the other hand, we had Reason or Concept. Reason was needed to process the data of experience and acquire the categories through which sense could be made of experience. So we had two faculties: the faculty of reason and the faculty of intuition, and through reason we could acquire knowledge of the categories, of time and space, logic and so on.

One of the other implications, an essential part of how Kant resolved the contradiction he had inherited from the empiricists and rationalists, was that the world was divided in two: on our side was the world of appearances, in which we have constructed some meaningful image with our capacity for reason out of the stream of data from intuition. On the other side, beyond and behind appearances, lies the thing-in-itself, about which we can know nothing.

Kant demonstrated that certain kinds of entity, transcendent ideas, are essentially unknowable, the kinds of things which had tortured the minds of mediaeval philosophers and tended to reinforce the position of skepticism, using his “antimonies of reason.” Here Kant took just four claims, such as that the world has no beginning or that matter is infinitely divisible, and from each deduced the opposite claim, that the world had a beginning, or that the matter is not infinitely divisible, and by this method he claimed to show that certain kinds of question are just silly questions, and should not be asked. Apart from that, he believed that sciences such as logic, mathematics and geometry can be developed through pure reason rather than belonging solely to the domain of appearances.

Hegel’s response to these antimonies of reason was to praise Kant for his discovery but ask why limit it to these four? Any abstract claim if subject to sceptical criticism can be transformed into its opposite. What Kant had claimed solely for transcendent ideas, Hegel claimed applied to all concepts. But instead of concluding that since transcendent ideas were internally contradictory therefore they were illegitimate and should not be admitted to thought, on the contrary said Hegel, this essential contradictoriness was a feature of all concepts, and winding up in contradiction was not the fault of the subjective action of thought upon an object, but was inherent in the object, the concept itself, and only thanks to this internal contradictoriness did a concept have reality and depth.

Hegel Replaced Kant’s transcendental individual subject with cultural-historical subject

One of the most important thing to be gained from a study of Hegel, and of his Logic in particular, is to understand Hegel’s concept of ‘subject’. We cannot do justice to Hegel’s concept of subject without traversing the Logic until we arrive at the concept of subject by the route that Hegel wishes to take us. After that we can put a little flesh on Hegel’s very sophisticated conception of the subject.

Most writers interpret Hegel by importing into their reading of Hegel Kant’s concept of subject. This is wrong. Now it is true that on occasion, especially when he is commenting on Kant, Hegel does use the word ‘subject’ in the Kantian sense, that is to say, as meaning an individual, an individual adult citizen, to be a little more precise. This is invariably the sense in which the Kantian subject is used today, and the same sense is usually, rather kaleidoscopically, read into Hegel. Normally, Hegel simply uses the word ‘person’ to convey this meaning. For Hegel, ‘subject’ is not a philosophical synonym for ‘person’. It is really important to remember this.

The word subject went through some transformations since the Romans translated Aristotle, particularly with Descartes, but the core idea that Kant has imparted with the word is the coincidence of three things: the cogito of Descartes, the bearer of ideas and knowledge, the idea of self-determining agent who bears moral responsibility for their actions, and identity or self-consciousness. All three of these entities coincide in the Kantian subject, and Hegel is true to this concept, but it is not an individual person.

The individual is just a single atom of the whole entity constituted by the collective activity of the community as a whole. Of course, nothing other than an individual human being can think or bear moral responsibility for actions, but they cannot do so as isolated atoms; the content of our thinking is thought-objects which are constituted by the activity of the entire community and past generations. And our actions are vain and meaningless except insofar as they take on significance through the relation of the individual to the whole community. The point is, how to elaborate this idea of thought and moral responsibility as collective activities, and at the same time develop the conception of individuality which constitutes the essence of modern society.

In the “System of Ethical Life,” Hegel approached the question of labour not so much from the standpoint of how individuals acquire knowledge, as how the universal, that is, a culture, is constructed. At the basic level, people work with plants, and then animals, and then machinery, and in doing so produce crops, herds and means of production which are passed on to future generations. Likewise, in using words the language is maintained and developed and passed on to future generations, and finally, in abstracting the knowledge of culture and imparting it to a new generation in the raising of children, people are constructing and maintaining their ‘second nature’, the universals which are the content of all thought. When an individual thinks, they think with universals actively maintained by and meaningful only within their community.

So to provide an adequate concept of the subject, Hegel has to let go of the idea of an individual locus of experience, with access to universal principles of Reason existing in some fictional hyperspace on one side, and on the other side, unknowable things-in-themselves. The content of experience is thought objects which have been constructed by collective activity, and in which conceptual knowledge has been objectified. The categories and concepts by means of which sensuous experience is interpreted are acquired by means of the same sensuous experience, because the categories are objective thought forms much the same as the finite things and events given in intuition.

What is left then of Kant’s thing-in-itself? Hegel was not alone in finding the notion of the unknowable thing-in-itself unsatisfactory. The thing-in-itself has no determinate content; insofar as it were to have some content then it would cease to be in-itself. But nevertheless, the thing-in-itself is the source and origin of everything that is not subjective in appearances. Now this may make perfect logical sense, but so did Hume’s skepticism. Hegel characterised this position as subjective idealism.

Kant sundered reality into appearance and things-in-themselves, knowledge into the faculties of intuition and reason, religious truth into ‘religion within the limits of reason’ and faith – this represented a fragmented human being, a human being sundered in two by a whole series of dichotomies. Perhaps this expressed very well the spirit of the times, but for Hegel as for other critics of Kant, this was a problem. Somehow or other, these dichotomies had to be resolved and the continuity of human experience reconstituted.

The Idea is adequate unity of
Concept and Intuition

So let’s look at how Hegel solved this problem of human beings having two faculties and two kinds of knowledge, Concept and Intuition, which have to be stuck together somehow. Hegel spells out a solution in the “System of Ethical Life.” The structure of this work is an alternation between the Concept being subsumed under Intuition and Intuition being subsumed under the Concept. Hegel did not eradicate the contradiction between Concept and Intuition, but traced the process of mutual subsumption which does not merely extract knowledge from the outside world, but creates objective thought forms.

We perceive, describe, act upon and understand the world using our words, artefacts, institutions and so on, subsuming intuition under concept, whilst in practical activity, communication and experience generally we sensuously interact with thought-objects, subsuming concept under intuition, for example. We have a view about how the world should be – either ethically or theoretically, but on the contrary we find from experience that it is otherwise. The world is continuously at odds with how it should be and things continuously turn out other than we intended. The development of the individual person as well as the whole of history is the story of the resolution of this conflict.

When we use a tool, we sense it as an object, and using it constrains us to act with it in a certain way. It is a norm of labour. it might be a sledge hammer or a tack hammer or a claw hammer, and we have to use it in a certain way, and experience it. The tool is the product of reflection and continuous modification in the past, it is an objectification of that thought, so when we use it, we sensuously, intuitively apprehend a concept.

But things are never quite satisfactory. We feel a need. Our needs are never given directly from nature, there is always a gap, a gap between need and its satisfaction, and that delayed gratification is overcome, negated by labour. Without a gap between needs and their satisfaction there is no labour, activity perhaps but not labour. Labour itself generates new needs, needs met by new products. Thus intuition is subsumed under the concept. In the process the universal is being constructed. Nature is supplemented by a ‘second nature’ in the form of an artificial environment; along with the separation of consumption and production comes a division of labour, the possibility of supervision of labour – the differentiation of theory and practice, and a surplus product.

Schelling dealt with the problem of the two incommensurable faculties in Kant by simply inventing a third and declaring it to be the unity of the other two, and then speculating on its nature: did it represent aesthetic sense or was it Nature? But Hegel accepted that there are indeed two distinct entities here, and tries to understand the relation between them. Rather than eradicating the contradiction with a philosophical gesture, he makes the resolution of the contradiction the work of history, the labour of millennia in developing crops and herds, the arts, literature, science, new technologies, new institutions, new laws, new forms of association, and so on and so forth.

Hegel called the unity of Concept and Intuition, the Idea. But at any given moment, the Concept and Intuition are not in unity. So what does this mean? Hegel’s central concept here is not a supreme, absolute kind of “master signifier,” but a deficient, internally riven, incomplete, broken concept; every move it makes to try to rectify this internal contradiction only generates new contradictions, new problems. Rather than the final outcome of a never ending historical process, the Idea is a process.

Likewise, identity is a cultural product, which develops with the resolution of problems in the historical development of society. Hegel conceives of a starting point, not a ‘state of nature’ such as Rousseau and Hobbes presumed, of isolated individuals who need to be brought together to form a society, but rather as a community in which individuals do not differentiate themselves from society.

Consciousness always and only existed in and through individuals, but consciousness of oneself as an agent and creator of knowledge, and as a part of an historical process of knowledge, is the product of historical development. The opening up of a gap between the consciousness of an individual and the norms and practices of the community as a whole is a contradiction which is central to the kind of relations in which the Logic makes sense. The development of individuality is tied up with the development of culture as a whole, without which individuality cannot be sustained.

That material comes from the 1802-03 system. In the 1805-06 system sometimes called the “Philosophy of Spirit,” some of this material is omitted; instead Hegel puts a lot of emphasis on the concept of recognition, he pushes the concept beyond its limits in fact in an effort to find a solution to the problem of individuality and rights within a modern society.

At the same time, the conception of a unitary Spirit as something pre-existing society and manifesting itself in human activity replaces the former idea of Volksgeist and Zeitgeist actually constructed by human labour. But it’s still a Deist, non-interventionist God. The shift is a subtle one, and the same logical structure is still there.

This brings us to the final stage of introducing Hegel’s mature philosophy as set out in the Logic, and that is the Phenomenology.

A formation of consciousness is rules of inference in a way of life or project

The Phenomenology is an important work as it is in this work that Hegel draws the connection between normal, non-philosophical human life and his mature philosophical system, which begins with the Logic. It is also the connecting link between his early work and his mature work. It is part of his mature work in the sense that it represents the completion of the series of transformations which he went through in his early work, but it is a terrible book in many ways. It is almost unreadable.

The Science of Logic is a very difficult read, it is true, and some passages are quite opaque, but at least it is structured, in fact it’s probably one of the most structured works ever written, and this structure makes the work much easier to penetrate. The structure of the Phenomenology, on the other hand, is arcane. It was written in a rush to meet the publisher’s deadlines while all of Hegel’s other published works were the product of many years of careful preparation. Even the Preface to the Phenomenology is different. The Preface is undoubtedly one of the best and clearest expositions of his philosophy to be found, because it was written at greater leisure, after having completed the main work. Apparently, at the time of his death, 25 years later, Hegel was working on a second edition of the Phenomenology, and was planning only relatively minor revisions. So the Phenomenology represents a part of his mature work, but it is not a part of his Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences, as such. It is a preface to his system, the path from ordinary consciousness to philosophy.

It would take us far too far afield to get into the content of the Phenomenology, but to understand the subject matter of the Logic, we have to understand what the subject matter of the Phenomenology is. Hegel says it is about consciousness. It tells the story of the journey of consciousness three times; the first time is the story of thinking as it develops down through history, through a series of distinct stages; then he tells the same story again but this time instead of systems of thinking, we have social formations; and then the story is told again a third time from the standpoint of thought which understands itself to be that process and its outcome, genuinely philosophical thought that knows that it is the thought of an age.

The object whose development is being described is the same object, but from its subjective, objective and absolute perspectives. This object, whose change and development through history is described Hegel calls a Gestalt, sometimes translated as “formation” or “configuration of consciousness.”

Gestalt is one of those German words like Schadenfreude, which cannot be translated but is simply imported into other languages. The normal meaning of Gestalt in German is ‘figure’ as in “what a fine figure of a man,” referring to the overall dynamic configuration of a living thing. Goethe gave it the meaning in which is used in Gestalt Psychology, as an integral structure or indivisible whole, which is prior to its parts.

Alongside Napoleon, Goethe would be the great figure in Hegel’s life, and it could be argued that with Kant and Aristotle, Goethe was his greatest philosophical inspiration. Given that Goethe, although younger than Kant, achieved fame before Kant and was an influence on him, then Goethe’s importance is clear. The admiration was not reciprocated however. Goethe quite reasonably thought that Hegel had a serious communication problem and he never managed to understand what Hegel was talking about. But Hegel certainly took from Goethe. Although the concept of Gestalt that we find in the Phenomenology is very different from the concept of Gestalt we find in Goethe, taken together with the importance Goethe gave to Bildung and the relentless struggle Goethe engaged in for a holistic science, against the analytical, positivistic science associated with admiration of Isaac Newton, Goethe’s interest in morphology (a word he invented) and the concept of Urphänomenon, we can see the stamp of Goethe on the conception of the Phenomenology. Urphänomenon is a word is unique to Goethe; the prefix ‘ur-’ means ‘proto-’, or ‘archetypal'; and it comes close to the ‘abstract notion’ in Hegel’s Logic.

For Hegel a Gestalt is a “formation of consciousness” understood as the dissonant unity of a way of thought, a way of life and a certain constellation of material culture. ‘Dissonant’ because at any given moment in the history of any given people these elements are not identical. There are laws requiring that people should act in a particular way, but people don’t act in quite that way, fashions become out of date, there are bad laws, and so on. People think of themselves as doing a certain kind of thing, but objectively they may be doing something quite new that they just hadn’t noticed, and so on and so forth. So we have culture and practical activity and subjective thought all aspects of a single whole or figure, that is Gestalt, but always moving, always with internal contradictions.

And even there we are talking about ideal forms, to which the course of actual history conforms more or less. This question of the relation between the reality of a thing and the idea of the thing, is something Hegel deals with at length in the Logic. For Hegel, reality and the notion are just stages in the development of a thing. Nature and social life are lawful in some sense or other and to deny that would be nonsense. The purpose of science is to discover that which is lawful, that which is intelligible in its object. So the Phenomenology is concerned with the necessary forms of development of formations of consciousness. So although he is not talking about real consciousness in the sense of being concerned with what any given individual thought at some given moment, he is concerned with consciousness, but with consciousness as something which is intelligible, and objectively necessary.

With that qualification, Hegel is talking about consciousness, something which is empirically given. He starts with ordinary common, unphilosophical consciousness, and he takes the reader through a series of stages leading up to absolute knowledge, or the philosophical consciousness exhibited in the exposition of the Encyclopedia of Philosophical Sciences.

To recap, what constitutes a Gestalt is a way of thinking which includes the meaning attached to different institutions and artefacts, including words and symbols, a way of life, or social formation, that is, a form of practical activity, including the social institutions, and forms of practical activity whether in production, communication, family life, government or whatever, and thirdly, a constellation of material culture including the language, art, means of production, land, food and so on. Each of these aspects constitutes the others and mediates between them.

There is no mind/matter dichotomy here. Actually, at no time in his life did Hegel ever show any interest in the usual problems of epistemology, the limits on the validity of knowledge, and ontology Hegel subsumed under his Logic. All those dichotomies which had tortured the minds of earlier generations of philosophers he just bypassed. He was just not all that interested in the question of whether and to what extent a thought-object corresponds to a object outside of and independent of thought, or using this correspondence as the measure of truth. For Hegel, subject and object always exist in a certain, mutually constituting, more or less adequate, relation to one another, and the question is the truth of the subject-object taken together, that is to say, the capacity of the subject-object, or the entire formation of consciousness, to withstand sceptical criticism. Under the impact of sceptical attack the subject and object will both change. The object changes because it is constituted by the subject, and vice versa.

And this brings us to some remarks on the main theme of the Phenomenology. The dynamic in the Phenomenology, the driver which pushes it on from one Gestalt to another is precisely this vulnerability to sceptical attack, and to be exact, sceptical attack from within, in its own terms. With this work Hegel introduced the novel device of ‘immanent critique’. Instead of putting up a thesis and then standing to the side and pitting counter-arguments against it, testing it from a standpoint outside the object – the Gestalt – under examination, he enters into the Gestalt, adopts its way of thinking, and subjects it to a plausible internal self-criticism, and in this way demonstrates how every one of the Gestalten at a certain point fails to withstand sceptical critique and collapses. Some new Gestalt which is proof against this line of reasoning and can withstand the type of attack which the previous Gestalt could not, is then able to develop. And so it goes on.

The way Hegel organised the Phenomenology was based on the thesis that in any formation of consciousness there would be an agreed final arbiter of truth, some standard against which sceptical attacks against any element of the whole would ultimately come up against. So each main stage in the Phenomenology is associated with a criterion of truth which characterizes it, and more than a thousand years of history is represented in the passage through the series of such schemes.

It is not necessary to go the whole way with Hegel on this. It is also not necessary to confine ourselves to the grand historical stage on which this drama is played out. The fact is that in any project or concept, just one of the Urphänomena, to use Goethe’s expression, or forms of social practice which make up a Gestalt, not the entire historical form of life, just one project, exhibits the same basic features of a Gestalt. In any project or form of social practice claims are tested against the rationale of that project. This is how the Phenomenology has to be read.

We have formations of consciousness, which entail a certain line of thinking, a certain set of practices which instantiate the project and correspond to the line of thinking – the self-consciousness of participants, the objectives and world view it entails – and the artefacts around which the project is organised, from specialized language, gestures and so on, to collective property, technology and so on belonging to the project and so on. Within each project there are basic criteria and associated practices through which claims are tested, which underpin sceptical challenges to the project. Whether this works on the grand historical scale that Hegel claimed for it, is an open question, but that is one of those “in the last instance” questions mean very little. But in the course of presenting a kind of history of civilization and history of philosophy combined, Hegel has presented a profound approach to the understanding of human life, tied up in this notion of Gestalt in which he took his lead from Goethe.

Logic concerns the pure essentialities of
the development of consciousness

So this brings us to the point where we can pose the question of the subject matter of the Logic. Hegel says that the Logic concerns the pure essentialities underlying the truth of the Gestalten which are the subject matter of the Phenomenology.

“It is in this way that I have tried to expound consciousness in the Phenomenology of Spirit. Consciousness is spirit as a concrete knowing, a knowing too, in which externality is involved; but the development of this object, like the development of all natural and spiritual life, rests solely on the nature of the pure essentialities which constitute the content of logic.” (Introduction to the Science of Logic §10)

In short, Hegel’s Logic bears the same relation to the projects, social practices and concepts of a formation of consciousness in the Phenomenology as ordinary Formal Logic (or logical calculus), bears to a set of propositions contained in a theory. It is this question of the subject matter of the Logic which is the topic for the next lecture.

3. The Subject Matter of the Logic

The Logic is the Logic of Formations of Consciousness

Before making a start with the Logic itself we should clarify what the Logic is about, partly because Hegel is not exactly crystal clear on the matter himself, seemingly providing contradictory suggestions on the question, and secondly because without knowing what it is that Hegel is talking about, we can still read the Logic as a work of literature, but not as a work of science.

Look at how Hegel defines the subject matter of the Logic in the section of the Science of Logic entitled “With What must Science Begin?,” dealing with the beginning of the system of philosophy, following on from the Preface to the system, that is, the Phenomenology:

“The beginning is logical in that it is to be made in the element of thought that is free and for itself, in pure knowing. It is mediated because pure knowing is the ultimate, absolute truth of consciousness. The phenomenology of spirit is the science of consciousness, and consciousness has for result the Notion of science, i.e. pure knowing. Logic, then, has for its presupposition the science of manifested spirit, which contains and demonstrates the necessity, and so the truth, of the standpoint occupied by pure knowing and of its mediation. In this science of manifested spirit the beginning is made from empirical, sensuous consciousness and this is immediate knowledge in the strict sense of the word; in that work there is discussed the significance of this immediate knowledge. Other forms of consciousness such as belief in divine truths, inner experience, knowledge through inner revelation, etc., are very ill-fitted to be quoted as examples of immediate knowledge as a little reflection will show. In the work just mentioned (i.e., The Phenomenology of Spirit) immediate consciousness is also the first and that which is immediate in the science itself, and therefore the presupposition; but in logic, the presupposition is that which has proved itself to be the result of that phenomenological consideration – the Idea as pure knowledge.” (Science of Logic §93)

The first thing to note here: despite claims to the contrary from many of his interpreters, but also with support from Hegel himself at times, the Logic does not begin without presuppositions. The presupposition for the Logic is the development of philosophical consciousness – “the Idea as pure knowledge.” This is a really crucial point. Without people capable of philosophical thought, you can’t have a logic. See how distant this is from Kant’s reliance on the existence of a Pure Reason to which all individuals have access. See how different is Hegel’s idea from the idea of a Logic which stands outside and separate from its object, and is ‘applied’ to the object.

Secondly, and related to the point above: “the Logic is the truth of the Phenomenology.” That is, Hegel has taken us through the immanent development of consciousness, it’s own internal movement, and in the end consciousness negates itself, and consequently passes over into something else, which is its truth. In this case, consciousness develops up to the point of absolute knowing, where it comes to know itself as a necessary process of development, as the work of Spirit, we might say, and consequently, its truth is the pure essentialities of manifest spirit, the Logic. Putting it another way, the Logic is what turns out to be the essential phenomenology. We will come across this type of transition later, in the Logic itself.

Thirdly, what we find here is the explanation for a maxim that we will come back to again: the claim that “there is nothing, nothing in Heaven, or in Nature or in Mind or anywhere else which does not equally contain both immediacy and mediation.” (Science of Logic §92) The Logic, even the very first concept of the Logic, Being, the immediate, is mediated. As we have seen in the Phenomenology, the beginning of philosophy is mediated by the long drawn out process through which consciousness eventually arrives at philosophy, or at least at philosophy in its Hegelian form, “absolute knowledge.” But two different processes are entailed, on the one hand, the derivation or proof of the simple concept from which the Logic will begin, which lies outside the Logic, and on the other hand, the exposition of the internal development of that concept itself which is the content of the Logic.

Fourthly, we see that manifested spirit, of which the Logic is the truth, is a science which refers to an empirical content, manifested spirit, or consciousness. Like any other science, Hegel’s Logic must have an empirical domain in which its claims can be exhibited and tested. The Phenomenology presents this empirical domain. That the narrative presented in the Phenomenology is an idealised or notional narrative does not take away from this fact; all sciences have as their object idealised or necessary (as opposed to contingent) forms of movement. In this sense what the Logic has to deal with is not only mediated, through the development of a science, but also immediate, in that it is given in experience.

Finally, to repeat the qualification made above. The empirical domain in which the subject matter of the Logic is to be validated is consciousness, consciousness in the extended meaning which Hegel gives to it, inclusive of thinking, social practice and culture. Hegel explains the idea of a Gestalt by means of a grand historical narrative, but there is no reason or value in restricting the concept of Gestalt to entire social formations or historical epochs. In fact, such an interpretation cannot withstand criticism, because at no time in human history to date has the entire world been embraced in a single social formation. And Hegel would not say any differently. Even in his mature system with its theory of world history, he never proposed that the whole world constitutes a single configuration or shape of consciousness. The Weltgeist, or “World Spirit” actually moves around an animates developments in different countries at different times. But the domain of international relations he describes as a ‘state of nature’, that is to say, a field of mutually alien subjects not sharing a common culture or system of social practices.

So we take the Gestalten, which make up the object domain over which the Logic is validated, to be the concepts or ‘projects’ or the self-conscious systems of social practice that make up a whole formation of consciousness.

The Logic is the foundation for a
presuppositionless philosophy

Now the opposite thesis, that the Logic is the foundation for a presuppositionless philosophy, will be defended.

Hegel expends a lot of energy emphasizing that philosophy cannot set off from arbitrary presuppositions or axioms. Any finite science is only a part of philosophy and therefore has a beginning and consequently, finds the content of is subject matter given to it from elsewhere. But philosophy cannot enjoy such a luxury; it forms a circle. It is self-construing, and must generate its own beginning. Let’s look at this passage:

“Philosophy, if it would be a science, cannot borrow its method from a subordinate science like mathematics, any more than it can remain satisfied with categorical assurances of inner intuition, or employ arguments based on grounds adduced by external reflection. On the contrary, it can be only the nature of the content itself which spontaneously develops itself in a scientific method of knowing, since it is at the same time the reflection of the content itself which first posits and generates its determinate character. The understanding determines, and holds the determinations fixed; reason is negative and dialectical, because it resolves the determinations of the understanding into nothing; it is positive because it generates the universal and comprehends the particular therein.” (Science of Logic, With What Must Science Begin?, §§8-9)

“It can be only the nature of the content itself” which determines the character of the science, namely, the Gestalten given in the Phenomenology. But no science simply abstracts its principles from empirical observation. It is still necessary to posit the principles which underlie appearances, and in the case of the Phenomenology, we know already Hegel’s idea of the underlying dynamics at work in the Gestalten is internal sceptical critique of the Gestalt’s ultimate conception of truth.

Whether and to what extent formations of consciousness really pass away as the result of sceptical critique is something that could be called into question. But for example, when Galileo formulated the laws determining the speed at which objects rolled down an inclined plane, the laws he came up with did not correspond to the actuality in which a multiplicity of processes were at work which would remain unknown to physical science for some time. But Galileo got to the essence of the process and his discovery stands today as well as it did 400 years ago. The same is true of the Logic. It is not empirically abstracted from observation of Gestalten, but is developed according to its own method, which in turn rests on the idea of immanent critique. The usefulness or otherwise of the science which results is for us to judge.

So the Logic must be developed by beginning with an empty concept – just thought, not thought of something else already given, just thought – and then allowing the content to develop through the process of immanent critique, critique which at each step, draws only on the concepts derived previously and drawing in nothing from outside.

This method Hegel calls dialectic. Dialectic is negative because its sceptical critique undermines and destroys the given shape of consciousness, by showing it to be self-destructive. But Hegel claims that dialectic is not only negative but also positive in that it not only negates the original proposition, showing a given concept to be “untrue,” but it also brings forward a new concept which constitutes the truth of what had gone before. Thus there is a sense in which we can agree that the Logic is to be a presuppositionless science. All that is required is to determine a concept from which to begin which can be asserted, without making any presupposition and importing nothing extraneous that does not arise from the method itself.

So in a sense the claim that the Logic is an internally generated, presuppositionless science which deals only with the relations between concepts, turns out to be the same as the claim that the Logic deals with the pure essentialities of the manifested spirit exhibited in the Phenomenology, because of Hegel’s rather idealistic claim that it is the action of sceptical criticism of the ultimate criterion of truth which generates the destruction of one formation of consciousness and its eventual replacement by another. But when we recall what Hegel means by ‘formation of consciousness’, the accusation of ‘idealism’ is not as damning as may it may be thought to be at first.

The Logic studies the inner contradictions within concepts

Now at this point it is fair to ask what it means to say that a concept is internally contradictory or that it can shown to be ‘untrue’. Surely, in the context of logic, it is only propositions which can be true or untrue. Take a concept, ‘prosperity’ for example; how can we say that ‘prosperity’ is true or untrue, how can very the concept itself be tested against a reality?

The way Hegel deals with this depends on the following explanation that Hegel offers in connection with the concept of ‘Being’: “Being itself and the special sub-categories of it which follow, as well as those of logic in general, may be looked upon as definitions of the Absolute, or metaphysical definitions of God.” (Shorter Logic §84) Think of it this way: take any concept and put it in place of x in the proposition “x is the absolute.” So in the above example, we say: “Prosperity is the absolute.” Now that’s a proposition which can be subjected to criticism and tested against reality. This is what Hegel means by the critique of a concept. So to say that a concept is untrue simply means that it is relative and not absolute, it has its limits, it is true only up to a certain point, it is not ‘absolute’.

Also, it is one thing to grasp what is meant by the truth of a concept, but what is meant by the truth of a social practice or project? Well, the object is a Gestalt, which is the unity of a way of thinking, a way of life and a cultural constellation, so whichever aspect of the Gestalt you have in mind, the question can be reframed as whether the given shape of consciousness is self-identical. It is an open question what may cause a shape of consciousness, or project, to become internally unsustainable, but it is reasonable to suggest that it means that what people are doing corresponds to what they think they are doing and how they represent what are doing. The untruth, or dissonance between a concept and the representations and social practices which correspond to it, is no more on one side than another. A social practice is untrue if the activity does not correspond to its self-consciousness and self-representation. So if we have a maxim like “Prosperity is absolute,” then the truth of this shape of consciousness is tested out in the reality of a form of life organised around the God of Prosperity. Even in this example we can see that a vast field for social critique opens up around the concept, as soon as it is treated as something concrete in this way.

So a first approximation to the form of movement represented in the Logic is that Hegel puts up a judgment or a maxim, such as in the form of “x is absolute,” and then understanding that the claim in question is not an abstract set of words, but corresponds to some concrete form of life, he subjects it to critique. Nevertheless, corresponding to the basic idea of the Phenomenology, which depends on the thesis that social life is intelligible, the critique of each concept is executed logically.

But first let us clear up some possible misconceptions. When we're talking about critique of a concept, ‘Being’ for example, we are not talking about the ‘thought of being’, or ‘Being’ as a subjective thought form filed away in a brain cell, and what happens to you when you think of Being, or some such thing; we would be talking about ‘Being’ as the essential character of a formation of consciousness. Critique of Being then means critique of the viability and vulnerability to sceptical attack, of a certain condition of existence. The brilliance of Hegel’s discovery here is that he is indeed able to reproduce the character of formations of consciousness through an exposition which is entirely comprehensible as a logical critique of a series of claims for a concept as absolute truth. It’s a kind of two part harmony, simultaneously logical and social critique.

Avatars

Another observation. The translation of Hegel is complicated by the fact that in German all nouns bear capital initial letters, whereas in English and other European languages, the initial capital is reserved for proper names. But when Hegel is translated into English it is common for many of the abstract nouns to retain their initial capital, having the effect of endowing the abstract entities with personality. And Hegel does treat abstractions as if they were personae. It is comparable to the use of proper nouns for political parties or social groups when discussing public opinion, social climate and so on. Given that there is nothing ungrammatical when it is written in German, there was never any need for Hegel to justify the practice. It is quite consistent with Hegel’s philosophy, although it is not possible to fully justify this until we have come to the Subjective Logic in our study of the Logic. But if we were to ask ourselves what are these entities are which populate the pages of the Logic: Actuality, Notion, Necessity, Concept, etc., etc., then the answer is that they are formations of human consciousness nothing else; they are not actually personages, but the pure essentialities of personages. There is no Cartesian extensionless hyperspace in which concepts can exist; they occupy the same space in which human beings live.

The alternative ways of reading Hegel would be either to presume that Hegel was deifying abstractions in a quasi-religious sense (which does have a certain amount of truth in it) or that the practice of talking about abstractions as if they were human subjects was thoughtless or simply playfulness (which is not justified).

The problem of “Moving Concepts”

Just as a great deal of misunderstanding arises from reading Hegel through the kaleidoscopic lens of a Kantian subject, so also a great deal of mischief arises from reading the Logic through the kaleidoscopic lens of a Cartesian thought-space. The usual “Introduction to Hegel” includes an exposition of Hegel’s Logic as a presuppositionless philosophy; often presuppositionless to the extent that not even spirit or consciousness is presupposed. This is, as we have seen, in direct contradiction to what Hegel says in a number of key texts, about the connection between Phenomenology and Logic. Writers can believe that this claim is defensible because they do not see that anything need be presupposed in the existence of concepts, and believe that a concept can exist independently of being thought of by someone. But where do concepts exist? For that we can only fall back on Descartes, to some extensionless thought-space inhabited by thought forms.

Typically the first 3 or 4 categories of the Logic are elaborated (few writers ever go further than the first 3 or 4 categories, other than by just listing them) by claiming that if the reader thinks of a certain concept – so here we are talking about a subjective act of summoning up these thought forms out of their extensionless hyperspace into the awareness of a living human being – and then contemplates them, then the concept “slides into,” or “disappears into” or thought (of an individual thinker presumably) “leads itself to” or “becomes” or is “led by its own intrinsic necessity” to contemplate another concept. So we get a mixture of concepts which move and, without any distinction, the subjective attention of a thinking person moving from one concept to another.

And all this without any consideration as to what language the thinker knows and whether in thinking of ‘Being’ they are an English speaker, or whether the thinker in question has ever studied philosophy, or whether they may have been a student of Husserl or Heidegger or Sartre and be familiar with a concept of ‘Being’ quite different from what a student of Hegel might be prompted to think. And then we are asked to believe that the thinker in beginning to contemplate the word “Being,” B-E-I-N-G, will be led, by necessity through the 204 concepts which constitute the Science of Logic, of necessity. If Kant is accused of putting too much store in the reliability of Pure Reason, he had nothing on this. It is unlikely that anyone who has had the first two transitions in Hegel’s Logic demonstrated to them for the first time, could get further than the third on their own, simply reliant on “pure reason.”

And in what space do these moving concepts move? A puzzling question for even a philosophically trained person, but to talk about how a concept moves without settling how it can have a location in the first place is nonsensical. Maybe what is meant by concepts moving is that they change ‘shape’, but it still remains to explain what would be meant by the ‘shape’ of a concept. And yet almost every book on the Logic will tell you that concepts move, with generally very little explanation as to what is to be understood by a concept and the space in which it exists, to be able to justify such a claim.

Now it is more plausible to say that the attention of a thinker will move from one concept to another. That is at least a plausible claim and certainly, if we think of something long enough and critically enough, we will tend to be led to think of something else, and this kind of movement at least comes close to the kind of movement Hegel is talking about. But this is not acceptable for science, and certainly not for philosophy. We are talking about a philosophical system worked out in the wake of criticism of Descartes and Hume and Kant and Fichte. If we are gong to take the self-reported stream of consciousness of individuals as the object for science, then we can’t call it Logic and it will probably have a great deal of trouble standing up to scrutiny as a branch of psychology too. Stream of consciousness is not the object of Hegel’s Logic.

So to reiterate, Logic is the study of the pure essentialities of shapes of consciousness, or Gestalten, the objects which were in turn the subject matter of the Phenomenology. These Gestalten are the unity of a way of thinking (or ideology), a way of life (or project or social practice) and a constellation of culture (i.e., language, means of production, etc.). Hegel’s Logic stands in the same relation to the social practices or projects of a formation of consciousness as formal logic stands to the propositions of a formal theory.

The presuppositions of the Logic are human beings who have come to absolute knowing, that is to say, to Hegelian philosophy, understanding that they are products of and participants in the whole spiritual journey of human kind to self-knowledge, and that the truth of that journey lies in the pure essentialities of manifest spirit. The Logic is able to present itself in the form of a self-construing method of logical critique, because this historical development of shapes of consciousness is intelligible and can be explicated in its essentialities, by means of what would be in the context, reasonable arguments.

On this basis it is now possible to see why the Logic has an important place in the development of Hegel’s philosophical system as a whole, and equally a place in the development of each of the sciences. For each science, together with its object, has developed as a part of the unfolding of those same formations of consciousness. The sciences are themselves projects, or formations of consciousness and if it is valid, the Logic ought to give us guidance on the trajectory of each of the sciences under the impact of scientific skepticism.

This brings us to a few remarks on the scope and usefulness of the Logic.

The Logic concerns real situations,
not mathematical abstractions

What is the difference between Hegel’s Logic and the kind of logic which figures in mathematics or to take a less cut-and-dry contrast, the kind of logic implicit in the rules of evidence used in court proceedings?

Hegel’s Logic differs from the kind of logic known to positivism and most other forms of philosophical discourse in exactly the way Hegel’s understanding of concepts differs from the narrow, formal logical, mathematical conception of concept, which is closely tied to set theory and depends on the attributes of a thing rather than the thing itself.

In a court of law, the point is to first discover whether a particular factual claim is true, and in very general terms, participants will endeavor to establish an agreed or compelling basis in fact, and call upon logic to be able to determine whether a given conclusion can be drawn from those facts. Mathematics is similar, but is not troubled by the need for agreed facts, which is the job of particular sciences, being concerned only with the rules governing consistent sequences of symbolic propositions within a theory beginning from an arbitrary collection of axioms.

The point is that each of these sciences (jurisprudence and mathematics) constitute a Gestalt. They are methods of arriving at truth which recognise certain criteria for reasonable belief, and the scope of questions which may be asked and answers given. As a result of historical and cultural change, and changes in the ethos of the societies of which they are a part, as well as the special, historically articulated institutions of which they are a part (legal practice, universities, and so on), these criteria will change and be subject to revision and concretization. It is this process of change which is the subject of Hegel’s Logic. So there is a strong sense in which Hegel’s logic is a meta-theory in relation to jurisprudence, mathematics, formal logic, natural science, or any other formalized procedure for determining the truth.

Secondly, formal or mathematical logic takes for granted the validity of putting outside of itself the facts and axioms which it uses. Formal thinking, that is to say, thinking with forms abstracted from their content, is able to do this, because like Kant, it operates with a transcendental subject in this sense. For formal thought, an entity is an x with attributes; in Aristotlean terms this x is called the ‘subject’, to which various predicates can be attributed. For modern formal thought, there is nothing left when attributes have been stripped away and logic operates simply with the dichotomous, Boolean logic of ‘has/has not’ any given attribute. But on the contrary Hegel’s logic is concerned with the concept itself, what it essentially is, and the method of considering an object from the point of view of its contingent attributes is just one, limited Gestalt, which is valid up to a certain point, but beyond that point it is untrue and bankrupt.

So finally, it can be seen from the above that the Logic is a meta-theory of science in the sense that it is concerned with the logic entailed in how sciences change what they take to be given without presupposition and what kind of questions and answers they admit.

This passage from the Science of Logic expresses something of this kind which is important about the Logic:

“It is only after profounder acquaintance with the other sciences that logic ceases to be for subjective spirit a merely abstract universal and reveals itself as the universal which embraces within itself the wealth of the particular – just as the same proverb, in the mouth of a youth who understands it quite well, does not possess the wide range of meaning which it has in the mind of a man with the experience of a lifetime behind him, for who, the meaning is expressed in all its power. Thus the value of logic is only apprehended when it is preceded by experience of the sciences; it then displays itself to mind as the universal truth, not as a particular knowledge alongside other matters and realities, but as the essential being of all these latter.” (Science of Logic §71)

Or, as he put in the Introduction to the Philosophy of Right: “In this treatise we take for granted the scientific procedure of philosophy, which has been set forth in the philosophic logic.” (§2ad.)

Also, it is not just science. The Logic deals with the Logic underlying the trajectory of any project or social practice that is in some way organised around a shared conception of truth and shared aims, and that’s a very wide domain.

Very broadly speaking, Hegel’s logic differs from formal logic in that it deals with genuinely complex situations, situations which cannot be circumscribed, situations where the constitution of the situation itself is part of the problem, where it is impossible to draw a line between problem and solution, between the object of study and the subject of study, in other words, all genuinely human problems, as opposed to abstract, analytically impoverished, formal, in-group problems.

4. The three divisions of the Logic: Being, Essence & Notion

After this long preamble, let us now turn to the Logic itself, but rather than simply start from the beginning and working line by line through to the end, it is best to read Hegel by beginning with the whole triadic structure of the book, and then moving inwards to follow the logical argument step by step only once the overall structure is clear.

The Logic is made up of three sections: The Doctrine of Being, the Doctrine of Essence and the Doctrine of the Notion. Let’s start with Being.

Being is the concept in-itself, not yet conscious of itself

Firstly, where necessary we should put out of our minds for the moment, any preconceptions we may have about the meaning of the concept of ‘Being’, and any other of the concepts we will come to in turn, which we may have learnt from the Phenomenologists or Existentialists. The subject matter of these theories is quite different from that of Hegel’s Logic and it can be very confusing if you try to follow Hegel’s argument with the concepts of Phenomenology or Existentialism in mind. It is another one of those kaleidoscopic lenses which just cause confusion.

In the days when Hegel became a professor, professors of philosophy were required to present a Logic, a Metaphysics and a Philosophy of Nature. ‘Ontology’, the study of Being, theories about the kinds of thing which can exist and the nature of existence, normally falls under Metaphysics. The series of lectures that Hegel developed for his Ontology became what we now know as his ‘Doctrine of Being’, the first part of the Logic. This illustrates the observation that Hegel replaced Ontology with Logic.

From what we have already said we know that Hegel sees that the Logic arises as the truth of the Phenomenology, and that the Logic expresses the pure essentialities of the phenomenology, that is, the truth of manifest spirit. Further, we know that for the Logic he is looking for a concept which presupposes nothing outside of itself, a concept which imports no content from outside, rests upon no axioms. One can’t help but be reminded of Descartes’s search for a proposition whose truth and certainty rests on nothing else, and is in that same sense, presuppositionless. But Hegel’s solution is different because he has already, in the Phenomenology, elaborated the nature of consciousness, so he does look for his starting point in inward, personal contemplation, but rather in the nature of manifest spirit.

The outcome of Hegel’s search for a starting point for his philosophy is Ontology, but instead of beginning with a list of the various kinds of things can be deemed to be, he conducted a logical critique of the concept of Being itself, and with a dialectical unfolding of the contents of the concept of Being.

I should mention here as aside that all Hegel’s major works have the same structure: he identifies the simple concept or notion which marks the unconditioned starting point for the given science, and then he applies the method, the model for which is given in the Logic, in order to elaborate what is implicit in the given concept; he develops “the peculiar internal development of the thing itself.”

In the case of the Philosophy of Nature, he begins from the concept of space, and claims to unfold the philosophy of Nature through critique of the concept of Space; the Philosophy of Right, likewise, has the form of a logical critique of the concept of Right; Right itself arises as the truth of the Subjective Spirit, which is the first part of the Philosophy of Spirit and his claim is that Spirit is the truth of Nature, and appears in the form of Soul. The science of the Soul for Hegel is anthropology. This is how Hegel conceives of philosophy as a “circle of circles.”

So, the Logic begins with a critique of Being, what is contained in the concept of ‘Being’. The Logic is really the study of concepts; so, the Concept is the truth of Being, whilst Being is the Concept still ‘in itself’. The Third Book of the Logic is the Doctrine of the Notion (or Concept which is same thing), that is, the Concept for itself. But in the Doctrine of Being, the Concept is still just ‘in itself’.

This concept of ‘in itself’ is derived from Kantian philosophy, meaning what the thing is independently of and prior to our knowledge of it. Now we are talking about shapes of consciousness, so we mean the concept under conditions where the shape of conscious has not yet unfolded and become conscious of itself. The “yet” implies of course that should the shape of conscious which is “in itself” further develop, then it may become self-conscious. But it is not yet self-conscious.

So we have something possibly contradictory here. A shape of consciousness which is not consciousness of itself, but may become so. So we must have here an observer perspective, because if we are talking about a shape of consciousness which is not self-conscious, then the only terms we have in order to describe it are observer terms.

But what does it amount to? It is an idea or a form of social practice or a project which cannot yet even be described as emergent. People are acting in a certain way, but they are not conscious of acting in any such particular way. So we have for example, people who have been kicked off their land and have found a living by selling their labour by the hour, but they still think of themselves as peasants, who unfortunately have fallen on hard times perhaps, but they have no concept of themselves as proletarians, for example.

So this is what Being is, and we will see presently that Hegel is able to demonstrate the nature of Being by a critique of the concept of Being.

If there is to be some thing amidst the infinite coming and going, the chaos of existence, the simplest actual thing that can be is a Quality, something that persists amidst change. And if we ask what it is that changes while it remains of the same quality, what changes when the thing still remains what it is, then this is what we call Quantity. But a thing cannot indefinitely undergo quantitative change and remain still what it is, retain the same quality; at some point, a quantitative change amounts to a change in Quality, and this Quantitative change which amounts to a Qualitative change, the unity of Quality and Quantity, we call the Measure of the thing.

Thus there are three grades of Being: Quality, Quantity and Measure. We apply these categories to things that we regard as objects, the business of the positivist sociologist, the observer. Even a participant in a not yet emergent social change or sociological category, has to play the role of sociologist to be conscious of it.

So unlike with Kant, the thing-in-itself is not existent in some yonder, beyond the limits of knowledge, but rather is something which is not yet self-conscious. There is no hard line between appearance and the thing-in-itself. What is in-itself today, may make an appearance tomorrow. What the empirical sociologist describes today, may speak for itself tomorrow. Like what Betty Friedan called “the problem that has no name.”

So that’s Being, existence which is in itself, not yet self-conscious. In the next lecture we will demonstrate how Hegel goes about demonstrating the dynamic of a movement in itself through critique of the concept of Being.

Essence is reflection

Next we come to the Doctrine of Essence. Essence for Hegel is not quite what it means for other people. When feminists talk about “essentialism” for example, meaning believing that women differ from men because of what is in their biological nature, or when the ancient philosophers debated what was the “essence” of this or that thing as opposed to what was contingent or inessential. For Hegel, Essence is this process of “peeling the layers off the onion,” of searching for what is behind appearance, of probing reality, but in no way did Hegel think that there was some fixed end point to that process; Essence is just that process of probing the in-itself and bringing to light was is behind.

Essence is reflection. So if we have something going on in the world, maybe or maybe not, some emergent project, some emergent new form of social practice, or some new thought that is doing the rounds, maybe not yet corresponding to any apparent change in social practice, some new art form, some detectable change in fashion, then this may come to light in terms of meaningless observations, measurement of quantity and quality, but people try to make sense of it, people reflect on it. And this is what we're interested in.

When people reflect on things, they do so only with the aid of what they already know. So reflection is a good term. It is new Being, reflected in the mirror of old concepts. It’s like what Marx was talking about in the “Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte”:

“The tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living. And just as they seem to be occupied with revolutionizing themselves and things, creating something that did not exist before, precisely in such epochs of revolutionary crisis they anxiously conjure up the spirits of the past to their service, borrowing from them names, battle slogans, and costumes in order to present this new scene in world history in time-honoured disguise and borrowed language.” (18th Brumaire, I)

So Essence is a whole process, which begins with the simplest kind of reflection on quantitative and qualitative changes, the discovery of difference and eventually leads up to a new concept, an adequate concept befitting a unique form of social practice. The final emergence of the new concept is a kind of leap; it can’t be given by any kind of formula because the notion arises out of this process of reflecting what is new in an old mirror. But Hegel outlines the Logical stages through which the genesis of a new concept can go, broadly a series of counterposed propositions, a contradictory struggle of Fors and Againsts, an ‘on the one hand and on the other hand’. In the course of its genesis, the new phenomenon, if such it proves to be, penetrates and sheds light on everything else, every other aspect of life, summoning it up for an opinion on the matter.

The grades of Essence are as follows.

Firstly, we have Reflection, or Reflection into Self. The process of Reflection is described as the dialectic of Matter and Form. This means that at first a quantitative-qualitative change which oversteps the boundary of Measure and announces itself as a new Thing; the question is: is this a new Form of the same material or a completely new kind of material? Are the daily demonstrations in Belgrade just expressions of discontent or is this an organised campaign in preparation for a coup?

At bottom, Form and Matter are the same thing. As a form of self-consciousness this is the dilemma as to whether you are just doing the same old thing in a new way, or whether this is a new thing showing itself in the shape of an old thing. The idea of a matter is a substrate that underlines different forms; wherever you propose a different kind of matter, it can be reduced to the same old matter in a different form. “Matter” is just an abstraction.

The second division of Essence is Appearance. Appearance is the dialectic of Form and Content. This can be seen as the struggle of the new content to find a form adequate to itself; it is manifested in the succession of a whole series of forms, each bringing forward new content and ultimately proving to be inadequate to its content.

The third division of Essence is Actuality, which is the dialectic of Cause and Effect. The entity arises as the effect of something, but then it is also in its turn, the cause of things. Each effect is also a cause, just as much as every cause is also an effect. As the cause-effect chain extends out everywhere in all directions until it feeds back on itself, this culminates in the notion of Reciprocity, that everything together forms a complex of mutually causing effects all inseparable from one another. Simple propositions turn out to have ramifications when they come under criticism, simple proposals become concretized and a new concept becomes actualized. But still remains a form of reflection, and even the infinite network of cause and effect, and the increasing adequacy of form and content, do not yet constitute a notion of what it is.

This is the process of a new type of self-consciousness struggling to find itself, so to speak, still testing out all the old categories, trying to find a fit. The process of genesis is always the struggle between opposing propositions, like Empiricism and Rationalism, two opposite currents in the history of philosophy, but although their struggle is characteristic of just certain periods of history, it never goes away; to this very day a new problem in science will find itself rationalist and its empiricist proponents. The struggle between Empiricism and Rationalism was overtaken by the struggle between Dogmatism and Skepticism, which moves into the limelight. That’s the nature of Essence: a series of oppositions which persist, but as one moves into the limelight it pushes others to the side. It is the genesis of a Notion out of its abstract Being; it is the truth of Being; it is what is essential in the coming-and-going of Being, Being stripped of what is inessential.

The Notion is the concept conscious of itself

The third part of the Logic is the Doctrine of the Notion. Notion is a translation of the German word Begriff which is also translated as ‘concept’.

As an aside, we should take notice of how Hegel uses the word ‘abstract’. By ‘abstract’ Hegel means undeveloped, lacking in connections with other things, poor in content, formal and so on, as opposed to ‘concrete’, which means mature, developed, having many nuances and connections with other concepts, rich in content. He does not use the words abstract and concrete to indicate something like the difference between mental and material, or any such thing.

The Doctrine of the Notion begins with an abstract notion, and the process of the Notion is that it gets more and more concrete.

Think of the Notion as a new idea, like at some point in 1968, somewhere in the US, a woman reflecting on the relation between the position of women and the position of Black people, coined the word ‘sexism’. This was a new idea, in everything that had gone before since people like Mary Wollstonecraft talked about the impact of gender roles on women in the 18th century, this idea had been in gestation, but it hadn’t quite crystallized. Or take Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity; when Einstein proposed it in 1905, it was a complete break from anything that had been talked of before, but it also resolved a heap of problems that physicists had been facing up till then. So these are examples of an abstract Notion: projects, simple ideas that correspond to a new shape of consciousness, a new form of social practice along with its representations and self-consciousness.

There is not a gradual shaping of this new abstract Notion in Essence; it comes as a complete break. It is like the judgment of Solomon, settling the argument with something that really seems to come from left field. It is a breakthrough which launches a new science, out of the confusion that preceded it.

The Notion is the unity of Being and Essence, because it makes sense of the original observations, the facts of the matter, as well as all the disputes and alternative explanations. In that sense it is a negation of the negation, and immediate perception is reconstructed on the basis of the new conception.

The Notion is also the truth of Essence, in that it is what emerges as the final conclusion which settles the series of disputes which make up Essence. The Notion, the concept of the thing, comes closer to what would normally be meant by the ‘essence of a thing'; Hegel uses the word ‘essence’ for the whole process, and the truth of that process, of ‘essence’, he calls the Notion.

Being and Essence, which are together what Hegel calls ‘The Objective Logic’, make up the genesis of the ‘Subjective Logic’, which is the Doctrine of the Notion.

The first section of the Notion is Subjectivity, or the Subject. And here for the first time we get a glimpse of Hegel’s conception of the subject: it is not an individual person in any sense at all, but a simple element of consciousness arising from social practices which implicate the whole community, reflected in language, the whole social division of labour and so on.

In a sense, for Hegel, there is only one concept. But that one concept, the Absolute Idea, is only the outcome of a whole, long-drawn-out historical process, a process in which different individual concepts are posited at first as abstract notions, and then enter into a process of concretization in which they merge with everything else, take on all the implications of their own existence. The Absolute Idea, which is the final product, is the result of the mutual concretization of all the abstract notions, the objectification of each one on every other. In this conception, issues come up about Hegel having a master narrative, about totalising everything, and of practicing a kind of philosophical colonialism. To get Hegel’s whole system, then you do have to push this idea through to the extreme so you get the Absolute Idea externalizing itself as Nature and Spirit proving to be the truth of Nature and so on, all of which is a kind of philosophical theology. But we can get all we need out of Hegel’s Logic without swallowing the Absolute Idea; the Absolute Idea can be taken as a kind of hypothetical end point, a kind of Utopia which can be used as a signpost, but should not be taken as something real.

The first section of the Notion, the Subject, is very complex and very important. Think of it for the moment in terms of the pure essentialities of a single unit or ‘molecule’ of a shape of consciousness.

The structure of the Subject is Individual-Universal-Particular, which are referred to as moments of the Notion. That is, the subject entails a specific, all-sided relation between the consciousness of finite, mortal individuals, the particular forms of on-going activity and social relations entailed in the relevant social practice, and the universal, eternal products through which the Subject is represented.

The divisions of the Subject are the Notion, the Judgment (which is a connection between two moments) and the Syllogism (in which a judgment is mediated by one of the three moments).

The process of the Doctrine of the Notion is the abstract notion becoming more and more concrete. This process of concretization takes place through objectification of subjectivity, that is, through the subject-object relation. The first thing to grasp about the Object, which is the second division of the Doctrine of the Notion, is that the Object may be other Subjects, Subjects which are Objects in relation to the Subject or Subjects which have become thoroughly objectified. Objectification is not limited to the construction of material objects or texts; it’s a bit like ‘mainstreaming’, or being institutionalized. The process of development of the Subject is a striving to transform the Object according to its own image, but in the process the Subject itself is changed and in the process of objectification becomes a part of the living whole of the community.

The subject-object relation goes through three stages, the mechanical relation in which the subject and object are indifferent to one another and impact one another externally, the chemical relation, in which there is an affinity between subject and object, and the object presents itself as processes rather than things. The third division of the Object is Teleology, where the subject-object relation becomes a life process in which each is to the other both a means and an end.

The unity of Subject and Object, the third and last grade of the Doctrine of the Notion, is the Idea. The Idea can be understood as the whole community as an intelligible whole, it is the summation of the pure essentialities of a complete historical form of life. It is the logical representation of Spirit, or of the development and life of an entire community, in the form of a concrete concept.

Again, it is not necessary to swallow this idea whole. If you don’t accept that a community, at any stage in history whatsoever, can be encompassed in the single concept, then this doesn’t invalidate the whole of the Logic, of which the Absolute Idea is the end point.

So that in brief summary is the series of concepts making up the Logic. To complete this initial review, let us make a couple of points of overview before we start going through these concepts one step at a time.

Being and Essence constitute the genesis of the Notion

The first point to consider is the difference between the two “Volumes” of the Logic: Objective Logic – Being and Essence, and the Subjective Logic. The Objective Logic is the genesis of the Subjective Logic, genesis in the sense of being the process leading to the birth of the Notion. So the Objective Logic logically precedes the Subjective Logic, it is the objective (i.e., not self-conscious) process which precedes the emergence of the Notion as a self-conscious abstract notion, its pre-history. On the other hand, the Subjective Logic is the process of development of the Subject itself, that is, its successive concretization, beginning from the first simple, undeveloped embryo of a new science or social movement or whatever.

So we should take note here of what each of the two “volumes” correspond to in Hegel’s conception of science and history. Let us take the Philosophy of Right as an example. The concept of Right is here the Notion of the science, corresponding to the starting point of the Subjective Logic, and it is from the Notion of the science, namely, Right, that the science makes its beginning. The Philosophy of Right then corresponds to the Doctrine of the Notion. Hegel makes the key distinction by saying that in the Philosophy of Right, he is concerned with “the peculiar internal development” of Right, and this means that he “must develop the idea (of Right), which is the reason of an object, out of the conception.” So the Philosophy of Right is not constructed as a history of right, either positive or idealised; once the concept of Right has come into the world and implanted itself as the resolution of a range of pre-existing conflicts and conditions, then its future course is an unfolding of what is to be found in the conception itself.

The three books of the Logic each constitute a distinct science – Ontology, the science of Being; Essence, the science of Reflection; and the science of the Concept. Each begins with a simple, abstract concept and unfolds the content from that conception.

This unfolding of what is in a conception, is quite distinct from the process of genesis which led up to the creative leap in which the conception is born. Once the situation has produced a conception, it is relatively unimportant how it came about. So this is a very important corrective to the conception of Hegel as an historical thinker. Hegel did not commit the genetic fallacy. It is possible to understand the various conflicting forces which lay behind a thing coming into being, but the scientific study of the thing itself means to grasp it as a concept (which a study of its historical origins contributes to but is not equal to) and then to determine what follows from, or unfolds from the concept.

So the starting point of a science is the Notion which forms the subject of the science, not Being. This is worth mentioning because there is a widespread fallacy about the relation between Marx’s Capital and Hegel’s Logic. Some writers have put Capital up against the Logic and in an effort to match them, and start by equating the commodity relation with Being, on the basis that the commodity relation is the “simplest relation” or on the basis that the commodity relation is immediate. But the first thing to be done in a science, according to Hegel (and Marx followed Hegel in this), is to form a Notion of the subject, the simplest possible relation whose unfolding produces the relevant science. In the case of Capital, this abstract notion, the germ of capital, is the commodity relation. In the case of the Philosophy of Right, it was the relation of Abstract Right, that is private property. The problem of the origins of value or of the commodity relation is a different question, and Marx demonstrates his familiarity with the Doctrine of Essence in the third section of Chapter One, where the money-form is shown to emerge out of a series of relations constituting historically articulated resolutions of the problem of realizing an expanded division of labour.

Both the Objective Logic and the Subjective Logic begin from a kind of simplicity. In the case of the Objective Logic, the simple starting point is unreflective immediacy, which immediately gives way to a new immediacy; in the case of the Subjective Logic, the simple starting point is an idea, an abstract concept, a relation which is the outcome of a long process of gestation and remains from beginning to end the subject of the science. The science is not mindless of externalities, and in trying to understand the necessity of the thing, the writer will be mindful of all the relevant events, relations and so on, but these relations go to forming a more and more concrete conception of the thing. In the case of studying the history of emergence of a thing, the point is to learn from the mistakes and conflicts and false starts of the past in order to arrive at a simple and clear concept of the thing which is to form the starting point of the science. This will entail, probably, sifting through a mass of documentary material and critically working over it to arrive at the simply starting point from which it can all be reconstructed.

Each division has a distinct form of movement or development

Each of the three books of the Logic constitute a self-standing science, beginning with an abstract concept, and unfolding what is contained in that notion. The three sciences are the science of being, the science of reflection and the science of the concept. Each of these three sciences manifest a distinct form of movement.

In Being, the form of movement is seriality. That is, a concept passes away and has no more validity, it is then replaced by another, which in turn passes away. It’s just one damn thing after another, a transition from one to the next to the next.

In Essence, in the passage from one relation to another, the former relation does not pass away but remains, although pushed to the background, so the form of movement is diversity.

In the Notion, the movement is development, with each new relation incorporated into the concept and all the former relations merged with it.

Hegel puts it this way in the Shorter Logic:

“The onward movement of the notion is no longer either a transition into, or a reflection on something else, but Development. For in the notion, the elements distinguished are without more ado at the same time declared to be identical with one another and with the whole, and the specific character of each is a free being of the whole notion.

“Transition into something else is the dialectical process within the range of Being: reflection (bringing something else into light), in the range of Essence. The movement of the Notion is development: by which that only is explicit which is already implicitly present.” (Shorter Logic §161)

In each Book, there are different forms of reference between the opposites. Hegel describes the difference between Essence and Being thus:

“In the sphere of Essence one category does not pass into another, but refers to another merely. In Being, the forms of reference is purely due to our reflection on what takes place: but it is the special and proper characteristic of Essence. In the sphere of Being, when somewhat becomes another, the somewhat has vanished. Not so in Essence: here there is no real other, but only diversity, reference of the one to its other. The transition of Essence is therefore at the same time no transition: for in the passage of different into different, the different does not vanish: the different terms remain in their relation. ...

“In the sphere of Being the reference of one term to another is only implicit; in Essence on the contrary it is explicit. And this in general is the distinction between the forms of Being and Essence: in Being everything is immediate, in Essence everything is relative.” (Shorter Logic §111n)

5. The Doctrine of Being, or Ontology

“Being is the Absolute” marks the beginning of Philosophy

Pure Being for Hegel is the pure essentiality expressing the internal dynamics of a shape of consciousness which is as yet quite unself-conscious, unaware of itself. To grasp this as an object in order to determine its internal dynamics, Hegel must enter into it so as to be able to execute an immanent critique. But how can he do this if Pure Being represents such a shape of consciousness, standing at the very beginning of the development of self-consciousness? The history of philosophy provides the key to this kind of critique.

Philosophy is a part of a formation of consciousness which produces concepts which are responsive to logical critique as well as expressing a conception of the Absolute proper to the given shape of consciousness. So the history of philosophy manifests just the series of concepts which he required for the Logic. However, history is subject to contingencies and externalities and even if a social formation exactly corresponded to this pure essentiality, no real philosopher is going to be able to perfectly express the spirit of their times. But Logic is not an empirical science. Provided we are clear on the object we are considering, we can conduct a kind of thought experiment to determine a series of categories corresponding to an idealised history of philosophy.

This paragraph from the Doctrine of Being in the Shorter Logic is relevant to us here:

“In the history of philosophy the different stages of the logical idea assume the shape of successive systems, each based on a particular definition of the Absolute. As the logical Idea is seen to unfold itself in a process from the abstract to the concrete, so in the history of philosophy the earliest systems are the most abstract, and thus at the same time the poorest. The relation too of the earlier to the later systems of philosophy is much like the relation of the corresponding stages of the logical Idea: in other words, the earlier are preserved in the later: but subordinated and submerged. This is the true meaning of a much misunderstood phenomenon in the history of philosophy – the refutation of one system by another, of an earlier by a later. Most commonly the refutation is taken in a purely negative sense to mean that the system refuted has ceased to count for anything, has been set aside and done for. Were it so, the history of philosophy would be, of all studies, most saddening, displaying, as it does, the refutation of every system which time has brought forth. Now although it may be admitted that every philosophy has been refuted, it must be in an equal degree maintained that no philosophy has been refuted. And that in two ways. For first, every philosophy that deserves the name always embodies the Idea: and secondly, every system represents one particular factor or particular stage in the evolution of the Idea. The refutation of a philosophy, therefore, only means that its barriers are crossed, and its special principle reduced to a factor in the completer principle that follows.

“Thus the history of philosophy, in its true meaning, deals not with a past, but with an eternal and veritable present: and, in its results, resembles not a museum of the aberrations of the human intellect, but a Pantheon of godlike figures. These figures of gods are the various stages of the Idea, as they come forward one after another in dialectical development.

“To the historian of philosophy it belongs to point out more precisely how far the gradual evolution of his theme coincides with, or swerves from, the dialectical unfolding of the pure logical Idea. It is sufficient to mention here, that logic begins where the proper history of philosophy begins. Philosophy began in the Eleatic school, especially with Parmenides. Parmenides, who conceives the absolute as Being, says that ‘Being alone is and Nothing is not’. Such was the true starting point of philosophy, which is always knowledge by thought: and here for the first time we find pure thought seized and made an object to itself.” (Shorter Logic §86n)

Now of course we cannot have the same understanding of Being as did Parmenides, and that is not really the point. We can determine the concept of Pure Being precisely in the sense necessary to make the starting point of philosophy, a concept which requires a thinker capable of philosophical thought, to think rigorously the first concept of philosophy which is utterly abstract in the sense that it contains nothing introduced from outside.

So what Hegel needs is not so much a real history as an idealised history. But in the same sense as any science sets out to determine the necessary movement, logic goes hand in hand with empirical observation and thought experiment, as Hegel explained in the foregoing quote.

Being, Nothing and Determinate Being

The concept of Pure Being we need, then, is that concept which expresses that something is, without any qualification, without attributing any quality, any here and now, just “pure being,” not to be anything, just to be. So in the terms of philosophy we are looking for the conception of the Absolute as just Being, not being anything in particular, just Being. A capacity for philosophical thought is required for this concept, because it is the ultimate abstraction, and the capacity for abstraction presupposes a certain development of society, so in that sense there is a presupposition. But the concept which forms the beginning of the Logic, and consequently, forms the subject matter of the Logic, is the concept of being utterly indeterminate

After having demonstrated that a beginning can not be made by the thought of anything, be that intuition or God or certainty or whatever, Hegel explains:

“The foregoing shows quite clearly the reason why the beginning cannot be made with anything concrete, anything containing a relation within itself. For such presupposes an internal process of mediation and transition of which the concrete, now become simple, would be the result. But the beginning ought not itself to be already a first and an other; for anything which is in its own self a first and an other implies that an advance has already been made. Consequently, that which constitutes the beginning, the beginning itself, is to be taken as something unanalyzable, taken in its simple, unfilled immediacy, and therefore as being, as the completely empty being.” (Science of Logic §114)

So the Logic begins with the claim that “Being is Absolute.” But one can no sooner consider this claim, and clarify just what is meant by this concept, Being, namely that it is utterly without determination, and that one is asked to think an empty concept, than we are driven to the realization that Being is Nothing. This is the first and classic example of this process of sceptical critique. If Being is the Absolute, then the Absolute is Nothing.

Hegel claims that philosophy proper began with Parmenides. Thales, who was alive about 140 years before Parmenides, could be claim that honor, but the very early philosophers of that time were still tied up with conceptions which are still not scientific, ideas about the priority of Earth, Fire, Water or Air, and so on. But philosophy proper began with Parmenides. According to Parmenides (c. 500 BCE):

“’thought, and that on account of which thought is, are the same. For not without that which is, in which it expresses itself, wilt thou find Thought, seeing that it is nothing and will be nothing outside of that which is.’ (and Hegel comments) That is the main point. Thought produces itself, and what is produced is a Thought. Thought is thus identical with Being, for there is nothing beside Being, this great affirmation.” (History of Philosophy, D1)

And according to Hegel, Being passes over to Nothing. Hegel associates the claim that God is Nothing with Buddhism. In his history of philosophy he can’t really pin a philosophy of Nothing on Pythagorus, for whom the Absolute was the One, or any Greek philosopher of the appropriate time. So the history of Greek philosophy did not quite follow the sequence suggested in the Doctrine of Being.

However, if the truth of Being is Nothing, and as Heraclitus showed Nothing is something, then the destruction of Being has led in fact to something, and this insight can be summed up in the maxim: “Everything is Becoming” or “Becoming is Absolute”: Here is how Hegel describes Heraclitus, drawing on the reports of Aristotle:

“For Heraclitus says: ‘Everything is in a state of flux; nothing subsists nor does it ever remain the same’. And Plato further says of Heraclitus: ‘He compares things to the current of a river: no one can go twice into the same stream’, for it flows on and other water is disturbed. Aristotle tells us that his successors even said ‘it could not once be entered’, for it changed directly; what is, is not again. Aristotle goes on to say that Heraclitus declares that ‘there is only one that remains, and from out of this all else is formed; all except this one is not enduring’. This universal principle is better characterized as Becoming, the truth of Being.” (History of Philosophy, D1)

But if Becoming is absolute, something must be becoming, so everything is a determinate being, not some abstraction or just a flow, but a determinate being, or “Determinate Being is Absolute,” or: “Everything is some thing.”

“Being is being, and nothing is nothing, only in their contradistinction from each other; but in their truth, in their unity, they have vanished as these determinations and are now something else. Being and nothing are the same; but just because they are the same they are no longer being and nothing, but now have a different significance. In becoming they were coming-to-be and ceasing-to-be; in determinate being, a differently determined unity, they are again differently determined moments.” (Science of Logic §187)

So here we have the succession of the first four concepts of the Logic: Being, Nothing, Becoming, Determinate Being. Determinate Being (or Being something) turns out to be Quality, and Quality constitutes the first main subdivision of the Doctrine of Being.

I will not continue the theme of naming the different philosophers which Hegel associates with the different categories of the Logic, because the connection gets more and more tenuous as the narrative goes on. Really, Hegel has abstracted the logic from a study of a large number of projects, or concepts, and the real history of philosophy bears only a distant relation to the course of the Logic from here on.

Quality, Quantity and Measure

These first moments of the Logic: Being, Nothing, Becoming and Determinate Being belong to the category of Quality:

“Quality may be described as the determinate mode immediate and identical with Being – as distinguished from Quantity (to come afterwards), which, although a mode of Being, is no longer immediately identical with Being, but a mode indifferent and external to it. A something is what it is in virtue of its quality, and losing its quality it ceases to be what it is.” (Shorter Logic §90n)

So what we have to do with here is the dialectic of Quantity and Quality, which involves the Limit and takes us to the category of Measure.

Everything is in perpetual change; but through all this change don’t we also have constancy? or is this constancy an illusion? Hegel says that an existent thing is first of all a Quality. If that Quality of a thing changes, then the thing is no longer the same, a ‘qualitative’ change has taken place.

The Limit is the first conception of this boundary between something being what it is or not. “Through the limit something is what it is, and in the limit it has its quality,” (Science of Logic §246) but this limit is the principle of the thing, which it therefore shares with the other thing, the negation of the negation of the limit. So through the limit they share, two things show themselves to be in principle one and the same.

Things can change, and yet we say that they remain what they are, just more or less of what they were before and remain so. This aspect of a thing which can change, but does not thereby constitute a change in its substratum, we call Quantity. So for example, if we are considering whether or not something is a fish, we might consider all sorts of predicates which can be attributed to the thing, such as size, shape, colour, weight, location and so on, and no matter how things may vary, they would not cause us to deny or confirm that we have a fish; it would just be a large fish, or a round fish, or whatever. All these attributes are then Quantities. On the other hand, there may be predicates which can be attributed to the thing such that if they are changed then this will cause us to deny that we have a fish; it Qualities like having scales, gills, a backbone, and so on, are not things which a animal can have more or less of; take away a fish’s gills and they would not be the same kind of animal.

Now there are limits to this distinction between Quantity and Quality. We find that if we vary the size of something, or the degree of its adaptation to breathing air, beyond a certain point, then what was formally seen as solely a variation in Quantity and not touching the very nature of the thing itself, become transformed into Qualitative changes, and this is the famous transformation of Quantity into Quality.

Measure is defined as the unity of Quantity and Quality: something remains what it is up to a certain Measure, but beyond that Quantity becomes Quality; that is the measure of thing.

For example a social practice of some kind may come to notice, for example, universities have observed over a period of time that more and more students do more and more paid employment. Surely beyond a certain point being a (full-time) university student loses the meaning it used to have and universities have to start redesigning their courses, their campus services, their arrangements for contact with staff and so on. But some Measure is needed before a decision is made to radically reconceive the idea of the university. The limit is key. How can a ‘student’, as opposed to a ‘worker doing part-time study’, be defined? What should be counted? These questions of measure have to be answered before we can start to think about whether something needs to be done and what.

Without going into the vast passages on natural science and mathematics in this part of the Logic, there are a couple of critiques which have eternal relevance.

The first of these is Hegel’s critique of the Newtonian concept of force. He points out that the discovery of so-called new forces, was nothing more than a reduction of the reality of a thing to that of another thing as if this solved some problem. This is what Hegel calls something ‘having its being in another’. Like for example explaining the rise in the population of the cities by reference to the attractive force of the cities. This explains nothing. He also critiques the popular notion of attraction and repulsion; these are simply forms of motion constituted by acceleration towards a point, and to define a force – and centrifugal force is the classic example for this, universally recognised as an illusion – to explain away that acceleration, is a non-resolution of the problem.

A modern day example of this positivistic pseudo-science would be Francis Fukuyama’s discovery of a ‘drive to recognition’, supposedly located in the human soul which drives people to do all sorts of things in search of ‘recognition’. All the Freudian inventions come under the same rubric.

In the sphere of Being it’s just
one damn thing after another

So, in summary, the Doctrine of Being can only go as far as sorting objects according to their attributes. This is because in the Doctrine of Being we have an observer perspective, there is no self-consciousness in the formation of the object. Attributes are inessential however; subjects may take or leave attributes and still be what they were. As far as we can go is Measure; that is to say, for any given object, we have its measure, between this and that size, this or that colour, to be found in the following parts of the world, and so on and so forth. This is the measure of things and it is as far as we can go with Being. To go beyond this requires some reflection: what are the essential features as opposed to the inessential features? what is real and what is only apparent? what is in the eye of the beholder and what is genuinely objective? In the Doctrine of Being, prior to and independently of reflection, we cannot answer these questions. This is the stuff of opinion polls, sociological surveys and pseudo-scientific quantitative research. Science which never gets to the essence of the thing, science which is never able to grasp the thing immanently, in its own terms.

That is why in the sphere of Being, it’s always just one damn thing after another. You can take an opinion poll every day, and all you get is the Government’s approval rating for today, the next day, the next day, and so on. Just one damn thing after another. To get any more than that, you have to have some theory about what is going on, and that is not given in your “observations,” in your Qualities and Quantities.

Working in the sphere of Being, the point is lack of reflection, we strive to be objective and to not introduce our preconceptions into measurements. But of course that is always asking the impossible, Quantities and Qualities are always theory-laden, and that takes us to the Doctrine of Essence.

In terms of shapes of consciousness, in the sphere of Being we are talking about social practices and forms of representation and lines of thought which are happening, but they are happening under obsolete headings or under yet-to-be-coined names, so to speak. People are just trying to manage their lives, and have no thought of the nature of full-time university study or the reasons for its demise.

6. The Doctrine of Essence: Mediation or the Truth of Being

Identity, difference, diversity, opposition,
contradiction and ground

Hegel says that the Doctrine of Essence is the most difficult part of the Logic; it could be argued that in fact the Third Book is more difficult, but the Second Book is the most enjoyable and everyone will be able to relate this part of the Logic to real issues in social life. You will also find that the relations found here are recapitulated at a later stage.

Essence is about a new shape of consciousness or form of social practice becoming self-conscious. It is all about those phases in the emergence of a social movement when people have not yet quite figured out who they are, still searching for identity. What is given in the sphere of Being is just as it is, but with more and more reflection, diversity comes to light, contradictory explanations present themselves, responses to the situation repeatedly prove unrealistic or self-defeating, and shown to have been based on wrong conceptions of the situation. Essence is to do with the whole range of logical forms that are tested out during this complex and contradictory process of an emergent form of social practice arriving at an adequate conception of itself.

The very first moments of Essence, called the moments of Reflection, are maxims which express those first glimpses of the self-consciousness of a social practice.

The first moment of reflection is Identity:

“The maxim of Identity, reads: Everything is identical with itself, A = A: and negatively, A cannot at the same time be A and Not-A.” (Shorter Logic §115)

This is like when a group of people come together for the first time, and you will often hear people say things like: “We're all here for the same reason,” or “We all know why we're here,” and amongst those who study group dynamics this is sometimes called the stage of Politeness, because everyone is at pains to avoid difference and celebrate identity. It can be likened to the first stages of the Women’s Movement when women emphasised the idea that all women suffered from the same problems, and obliterated differences of class, ethnicity and so on.

But this maxim is not only easily subject to critique, but in any emergent formation of consciousness, it invariably is subject to critique. As part of the very celebration of identity, people celebrate the Diversity of people who have been brought together under the same measure. Hegel observes:

“Maxim of Diversity: To ask ‘How Identity comes to Difference’ assumes that Identity as mere abstract Identity is something of itself, and Difference also something else equally independent ... Diversity has, like Identity, been transformed into a maxim: ‘Everything is various or different’: or ‘There are no two things completely like each other.” (Shorter Logic §116n)

So the essential identity of the group is expressed in their diversity, but the essence of this diversity invariably turns out to be Difference. “We are such a diverse group, all interested in the same problem, and we will all be able to contribute in our own way,” people might say.

But this is wishful thinking. Essential difference means Opposition. This is reminiscent of that phase in the Women’s Movement which underlay the emergence of so-called Third Wave feminism, that not only are women diverse and different, but some women have interests opposed to those of other women. This is also associated with the stage when differences in an emergent social movement begin to take on the form of opposing groups and perspectives.

Essential opposition arises from the bringing together of the opposition with the original identity – not just ships in different oceans, but Contradiction. If we are all fighting for the same thing, but we have opposite claims, then this has to be resolved. Contradiction is different from opposing views on a matter because the opposite poles of contradiction are incompatible, and a power struggle must ensue.

Essential contradiction is Ground, and Hegel explains:

“The maxim of Ground runs thus: Everything has its Sufficient Ground: that is, the true essentiality of any thing is not the predication of it as identical with itself, or as different (various), or merely positive, or merely negative, but as having its Being in an other, which, being the self-same, is its essence.” (Shorter Logic §121)

Contradiction must be resolved if the project is to continue towards a concept of itself, and both sides of the contradiction, must bring forward the Grounds of their position and argue their case. In this way the essential Ground of the contradiction itself can be brought to light, both theses be affirmed, and forms the basis for a provisional self-definition of the Thing. This is the really productive phase of Essence.

One of the truisms of this kind of work is that as a campaign grows it not only passes through these various stages, which have been categorized differently by different theorists, but every meeting, or every time a new person joins, the whole process has to be recapitulated, at least in a telescoped form. The same is true of how we should read Hegel’s Logic. The processes are elaborated in the Logic one after the other, but in the development of a formation of consciousness, all these processes are continuing one inside the other, compounding each other, rather than just succeeding one after another.

Another point about Reflection which is worth recalling at this point. When a social formation reflects on itself, we have what is newly emergent in the sphere of Being reflected in the categories and ideas of an earlier moment. That is why the result is contradictory, and because the process is continuing, compounding itself, these contradictions, and the continual movement from identity to essential identity, from diversity to essential diversity, from difference to essential difference and from contradiction to the essence of contradiction which is ground, this process is continuous.

The Thing: dialectic of Matter and Form

These are the moments of Reflection, the basic form of reflection which generates the contradictions to be resolved in the process of Essence and the formation of a new Concept. The first stage of Essence, Reflection is also called the Thing, which is the dialectic of Matter and Form.

The Thing is the first step at self-definition as a distinct entity with various properties. According to a trend of the times, self-subsistent qualities were referred to as ‘Matters’, and this provides the opportunity for Hegel to present a critique of the positivistic practice of discovering new Matters. Let us not go back further than phlogiston, the matter of heat, after which we had electrical and magnetic flux, ether that carried light waves, and so on. This process of inventing Matters to continue the pretence of having explained some phenomenon ought not to be just dismissed; ‘discovery’ of a matter may be a legitimate step in the understanding of a phenomenon. We have a continual procession of genes which explain human behaviour, newly discovered diseases with unknown etiology which explain social problems, an unending series of subatomic particles which rationalize practices in the domain of experimental physics. The point Hegel is making here is that saying that heat is caused by the loss of phlogiston or that the increase in suicide is due to the spread of depression explain nothing. But the naming of a new syndrome or new matter or whatever, is a step towards the development of an adequate concept of the thing. Further reflection on supposed differences located in different Matters, will eventually resolve into a practical distinction.

From here, Hegel enters into a critique of the notion of Matter itself.

“Matter, being the immediate unity of existence with itself, is also indifferent towards specific character. Hence the numerous diverse matters coalesce into the one Matter, or into existence under the reflective characteristic of identity. In contrast to this one Matter these distinct properties and their external relation which they have to one another in the thing, constitute the Form – the reflective category of difference, but a difference which exists and is a totality.

“This one featureless Matter is also the same as the Thing-in-itself was.” (Shorter Logic §128)

In other words, the logic of the discovery of Matters is that at various points, Matters are resolved into Forms of one and the same Matter, and this process continues to the point where everything is just a form of one and the same abstract, indifferent Matter, just like the Thing-in-Itself of Kantian philosophy, beyond and outside experience, just a blank substratum of existence. Matter is a philosophical abstraction representing everything that is outside of and independent of thought, just like the Thing-in-itself; it can explain nothing because it is a nothing.

This brings us to the Kantian Philosophy which Hegel identifies with Appearance.

Appearance: dialectic of Content and Form

The second Division of the Doctrine of Essence is Appearance, which is the dialectic of Form and Content. The claim of Kantianism is that Appearance is absolutely separated from the Thing-in-Itself. Hegel’s aim is to refute this and show how the Thing-in-Itself is given in Appearance, there is a continual movement from the Thing-in-Itself into Appearance and no hard and fast line between appearance and the thing-in-itself.

“The Essence must appear or shine forth. Its shining or reflection in it is the suspension and translation of it to immediacy, which, while as reflection-into-self it is matter or subsistence, is also form, reflection-on-something-else, a subsistence which sets itself aside. To show or shine is the characteristic by which essence is distinguished from Being – by which it is essence; and it is this show which, when it is developed, shows itself, and is Appearance. Essence accordingly is not something beyond or behind appearance, but – just because it is the essence which exists – the existence is Appearance.” (Shorter Logic §131)

The point is that Appearance is objective too, just as much as the content of Reflection is objective, and Hegel says that Kant’s mistake was to put Appearance solely on the subjective side. But Existence and Appearance are stages in the self-determination of a shape of consciousness.

Appearance for Hegel is the domain of laws; so, in the flux of things, as they enter Essence as reflected Beings, as a continual flux of Existence (the first division of Appearance), Appearance is what remains stable in that flux. So Appearance is the correlation or the relation of essential Existence. This is not just a subjective process.

Hegel describes Appearance as dialectic of Form and Content, the transformation of form into content and vice versa, the repulsion of form by content, and the search of a content for its adequate form, and so on.

“Form and content are a pair of terms frequently employed by the reflective understanding, especially with a habit of looking on the content as the essential and independent, the form on the contrary as the unessential and dependent.” (Shorter Logic §133n)

Every content must have a form, every form must have a content, but form and content may be at odds with one another. Like a campaign against the harmful effects of drugs which takes the form of a ‘war’. So it is certainly wrong to say that form is indifferent to its content or that content is indifferent to form. When a content and its form come into conflict with one another, then we can see their reciprocal revulsion. Like a person who is appointed to the wrong job – a kind of explosion can result. In order for the content to show itself, it has to find a form in which it is adequately expressed, for it is form that appears; but neither is less essential than the other. The search of a content for an adequate form, the struggle for a content to realize itself in an appropriate form, brings us to Actuality.

What we are looking at here is a new project or form of social practice finding a form in which it can be conscious of itself. A content must exist in some form, so if we are looking at an emergent social practice that is only beginning to reflect on itself, and for which there is as yet no adequate concept, then so long as an adequate form has not been found for it, the relevant shape of consciousness will be mistaken for something else, that is, be expressed in a false form, and as a result, will be distorted and misunderstood. If we are dealing with a reality, the content will shed an inadequate form, and go on shedding forms, until a form adequate to the content is arrived at. The content then appears. The way Hegel looks at this is that the Content has found its true Form. The skeptic could say that the content which lies behind the form at any given moment is unknown and inaccessible. But content without a form is meaningless; the dialectic of content and form is a process, and content shows itself in form. When we see that the content is itself active, and that the relation between form and content is not an arbitrary or subjective one, but that the content ultimately shows itself in some form, then the line between existence and appearance is broken down. Existence passes into Appearance and Content passes into Form, continuously.

The content is accessible only through the form in which it is manifested. Appearance is the correlation of form and content, because at any given moment, content and form are not identical. This is the analysis which Hegel makes of what is called law. The formulation of a law indicates on the one hand that we haven’t got to the content, but on the other hand, we can describe the way the content is manifested. That’s why the dialectic of form and content is described as the ‘world of appearances’.

Actuality: dialectic of Cause and Effect, Reciprocity

The third and last division of Essence is Actuality. Actuality is the dialectic of Cause and Effect, and its subdivisions are Substance, Causality and Reciprocity. In this stage, the emergent shape of consciousness is still yet to find an adequate Notion of itself, but is becoming more and more concrete, implicating every aspect of social life. In this section of the Logic, Hegel uses the opportunity to make a critique of a range of misconceptions to do with Freedom and Necessity, Blind Necessity, Free Will, the maxim that “Anything is possible,” Causality and so on.

In Actuality, Essence and Existence have become identical and this identity is immediate; every aspect of Being has been incorporated in Reflection, and is part of the picture, so to speak. All the myriad of things and events around us, everything which is existent, is intelligible. So Hegel argues against the counterposing of the Ideal and the Actual. He conceives of Actuality, not as senseless and unintelligible, and the opposite of the ideal, but on the contrary, everything that is actual, must in that measure be rational, that is to say, intelligible. This conception of the world of indefinitely complex seeming contingencies, as nevertheless intelligible, is summed up in the maxim “All that is real is rational; all that is rational is real.” The converse of this maxim is the dictum: “All that exists deserves to perish,” (Goethe, Faust) for not everything that exists is rational, and those elements of reality which have no basis in Reason, he says, sooner or later pass will away. He calls this conception: infinitely intelligible reality – Substance, and he associates Substance with Spinoza.

This myriad of relations manifested in Actuality as Substance, is made sense of by the relation of Cause and Effect, which according to Hegel is a limited point of view, which science must transcend. In Hegel’s view, to say that something is caused by something else, is to say that is has its being in another, and therefore fails to capture the Notion of the thing itself, because the question of its existence has been simply moved to something else, its cause and its conditions.

An emergent social movement concretizes itself through all of its actions having some effect in the world, and ricocheting back on itself, and through the reactions of others, the emergent movement gets a more objective understanding of itself.

The relation of Causality sets up an infinite regress, and the chain of cause to effect, which in turn becomes cause, etc., etc., which eventually bends back on itself. There seems to be no proper starting point, everything is the cause of everything else and the effect of something else. This conclusion, that a certain set of circumstances do not have any one of those circumstances as the cause of the others, but all together constitute a reciprocal relation of causation, is called Reciprocity. It is often regarded as the end of the investigation. If poverty is the cause of unemployment, urban decay, poor health and dysfunctional schools, each of which is in turn the cause of unemployable workers, bringing up unruly children in a decaying neighbourhood, endlessly extending the cycle of disadvantage, then there is nothing more to be said. To finger any one point in this complex as the cause would be foolish; so says Reciprocity. Hegel exemplifies this with the question of the nature of the Spartans:

“To make, for example, the manners of the Spartans the cause of their constitution and their constitution conversely the cause of their manners, may no doubt be in a way correct. But, as we have comprehended neither the manners nor the constitution of the nation, the result of such reflections can never be final or satisfactory. The satisfactory point will be reached only when these two, as well as all other, special aspects of Spartan life and Spartan history are seen to be founded in this notion.” (Shorter Logic §156n)

This failure of Reciprocity leads us to the doorstep of the Notion. Only by grasping Actuality and the infinite network of cause and effect under an adequate Notion of what is going on, can the basis for a real science be created. Otherwise we remain mired in the conundrums of Reciprocity.

Let’s look at how Hegel deals with the notion of Free Will.

“When more narrowly examined, free choice is seen to be a contradiction, to this extent, that its form and content stand in antithesis. The matter of choice is given, and known as a content dependent not on the will itself, but on outward circumstances. In reference to such a given content, freedom lies only in the form of choosing, which, as it is only a freedom in form, may consequently be regarded as freedom only in supposition. On an ultimate analysis it will be seen that the same outwardness of circumstances, on which is founded the content that the will finds to its hand, can alone account for the will giving its decision for the one and not the other of the two alternatives.” (Shorter Logic §145n)

The narrow view of free will, associated with this stage in the development of the idea, is that of making a decision between this or that option, but misses the question of where the options come from and the supposedly free will was left only the task of figuring out which of the given options is the better. So Free Will turns out to be an illusion, but only because of the limited terms, that is of decision theory, in which it is conceived.

This brings us to the notion of “freedom and necessity.” The following observation presages Hegel’s views on the State.

“A good man is aware that the tenor of his conduct is essentially obligatory and necessary. But this consciousness is so far from making any abatement from his freedom, that without it, real and reasonable freedom could not be distinguished from arbitrary choice – a freedom which has no reality and is merely potential. A criminal, when punished, may look upon his punishment as a restriction of his freedom. Really the punishment is not a foreign constraint to which he is subjected, but the manifestation of his own act. In short, man is most independent when he knows himself to be determined by the absolute idea throughout.” (Shorter Logic §158n)

Which leads to the famous aphorism about Freedom and Necessity, that Freedom is the understanding of Necessity, or that “Freedom is the truth of Necessity.”

Freedom in fact essentially depends on Necessity. The truth of Substance is the Notion, Freedom concrete and positive. In a realm of arbitrariness and irrational contingency, there could be no freedom.

“Necessity indeed, qua necessity, is far from being freedom: yet freedom presupposes necessity, and contains it as an unsubstantial element in itself. (Shorter Logic §158n)

Development is the struggle of opposites
which do not disappear

Before completing this section, we should reflect on the form of movement in Essence. What we see throughout Essence is pairs of opposing determinations: Matter and Form, Form and Content, Existence and Essence, Positive and Negative, Likeness and Unlikeness, Whole and Parts, Inward and Outward, Possibility and Contingency, Freedom and Necessity, Cause and Effect, only some of which we have touched on here. The successive concretization of the growing self-consciousness of a project takes place through this succession of opposing determinations. In each case the opposition between them is made relative, as the counterposing of the opposite determinations leads to a deeper conception which comprehends the opposition within its new terms. So the opposing determinations do not disappear, but continue and in specific circumstances may come to the fore again. But in the process of Essence, we see a succession of polar oppositions, and as each opposition is sublated, their opposition is relativized and pushed into the background by new axes of polarization.

7. The Subject: Universal, Particular and Individual

The subject is neither and individual nor a group
but a relation

The category of Subjectivity makes its appearance here as a logical category, specifically, the first division of the Notion. Subjectivity is a relation, and a relation which entails the consciousness of human beings. The Subject is the living being which is aware of that Subjectivity; that could be a person, aware of their own subjectivity, or it could be group of people, who share a conception and constitute it together. But rather than ‘group’, we should say a relation amongst people, since there should be no implication in the notion of subjectivity that people see themselves as a group or are, through the relevant subjectivity, seen by others as a group. The word ‘subject’ connotes an entity rather than a relation or activity. So we should reserve the word ‘subject’ for when that subjectivity is referred to itself and constitutes itself as a self-conscious entity. The word ‘subjectivity’, which is the word used by Hegel here in the Logic, then has the broader meaning, in connection with a shape of consciousness, which goes to constitute the mind of one or many human beings, but does not necessarily have the meaning of one or a group of human beings.

With these qualifications, the word ‘Subject’ can be used where perhaps it is more precise to use the word ‘subjectivity’, which is consistent with Hegel’s usage, with Subject carrying the connotation of a subjectivity being personage of some kind, an active agent in the development of a shape of consciousness. This understanding of the notion of ‘subject’ carries the structuralist understanding, in which a person can be the carrier of a shape of consciousness, without necessarily knowing themselves to be such a carrier. But to the extent that the Subject has self-consciousness, and to some extent shares in ‘absolute knowledge’, that is to say, the philosophical insight that the universal is an historically formed shape of consciousness in which they are a participant, and their subjectivity has its subsistence in that universal, does the Subject transcend this kind of unconscious agency. These are the distinctions which are dealt with in the Phenomenology.

This conception contrasts with Kant’s usage in which a transcendental, individual subject uses their personal access to Reason and Experience to actively produce their own consciousness. Hegel’s insight into the cultural and historical location of shapes of consciousness, transcends this individualism.

The abstract notion, or subject, is the first concept of the Doctrine of the Notion, which develops up to the Idea, the concrete whole of a form of social life. This first abstract concept which constitutes the starting point for a science is of crucial significance for Hegel. Finding the correct starting point and then allowing the concept to unfold itself by the method of immanent critique, demonstrating what lies within that simple concept constitutes the method of science; and the Logic forms the model for this method. In this case, the abstract notion or subject, which has arisen out of everything that has gone before, forms the starting point of the science of the Idea.

In that sense, just as the molecule is the ‘unit of analysis’ for chemistry, and the single cell the ‘unit of analysis’ for biology, the subject is the ‘unit of analysis’ for the study of formations of consciousness, that is to say, the simplest thing which demonstrates all the properties of the whole, the basic thought-object which constitutes the building block of social life.

As we have seen, the development leading up to the emergence of the Notion does not have the form of a transcendental subject which simply takes on attributes or a small concept which gets bigger and bigger. The Abstract Notion is itself the germ or prototype or Urphänomenon or embryo of a developed, concrete relation. What went before created the conditions of possibility of the notion, and asked the question, so to speak, but the positing of the Notion is a sharp break, something new. Prior to the emergence of the Notion we see every imaginable combination of other pre-existing notions in ultimately failed attempts to reflect what was emergent in Being. Like the judgment of Solomon, or a Declaration of Independence or the Magna Carta, the Notion emerges out of the throng of disputation and lays the basis for further development.

“It might perhaps seem that, in order to state the Notion of an object, the logical element were presupposed and that therefore this could not in turn have something else for its presupposition, nor be deduced; just as in geometry logical propositions as applied to magnitude and employed in that science, are premised in the form of axioms, determinations of cognition that have not been and cannot be deduced. Now although it is true that the Notion is to be regarded, not merely as a subjective presupposition but as the absolute foundation, yet it can be so only in so far as it has made itself the foundation. Abstract immediacy is no doubt a first; yet in so far as it is abstract it is, on the contrary mediated, and therefore if it is to be grasped in its truth its foundation must first be sought. Hence this foundation, though indeed an immediate, must have made itself immediate through the sublation of mediation.” (Science of Logic §1279)

A Notion has from the very beginning three moments, Individual, Universal and Particular. Think of when a new word (Universal) is coined which becomes known to an (Individual) person who now coordinates their (Particular) activity with others having in mind the new word. The same kind of visualization works for the new judicial precedent, or programmatic declaration that initiates a social movement, a project of some kind, a new technical invention, and so on.

In the beginning these breakthroughs are abstract in the sense that they are untested, their implications are yet to unfold and even those participating through their action in the new relation may not be fully committed to the new idea, which might disappear tomorrow. The new abstract Notion takes its place amidst other competing Notions, and only by merging with those other notions can an abstract, new Notion concretize itself.

The subject is the truth of being and essence

Hegel says:

“Thus the Notion is the truth of Being and Essence, inasmuch as the shining or show of self-reflection is itself at the same time independent immediacy, and this being of a different actuality is immediately only a shining or show on itself.” (Shorter Logic §159)

After the whole series of failed projects, chimeras, false dawns and disappointments which constitute the pre-history of a thing, the various efforts of an emergent form of social practice to understand itself and find a form in which its content can be fruitfully developed, eventually this self-same material, the material of reflection, gives birth to something that does not pass away, something permanent, something which does not flee at the first sign of enemy fire or disintegrate in internal dissension, but actually absorbs fire and grows stronger from internal debate. But its material is gathered from reflection, so in that sense it is the truth of Essence.

The Notion is the truth of Being in a double sense, since Essence is already the truth of Being. But also, as the reflected form of Being which does not pass away and proves to be persistent, it is in that sense the truth of Being, it’s what Being turned out to be.

The Notion is both immediate and mediated. It is mediated because it is the outcome of a protracted process of reflection and is itself a form of reflection, but it is also given sensuously and immediately.

So this takes us back to the conception first formulated by Hegel in his early 1802-03 manuscripts, System of Ethical Life, of the Idea as the unity of Intuition and Concept. The new Notion is perceived in the same way as any other thing, sensuously. Given that we live (predominantly) in a ‘second nature’ made up of artefacts, every thing in this world interconnects with other things, finds its use in relation to other things and through the cooperative activity of people using elements of the culture, all of them given to us immediately, in Intuition or sensation. At the same time, as we have seen, the Notion is a product of thought and exists only insofar as it is meaningful. The claim that the Idea is the unity of Intuition and Concept is reproduced in the claim that the Notion is the unity of Being and Essence.

Subjectivity throws Being into a new light. It is not that what was only sensuous perception becomes conceptual, Being is always theory laden. There is no such thing as Pure Being, that is, immediacy which is not also at the same time mediated. But Subjectivity throws Being into a new light. Being is the same but not the same. Likewise, the contradictory series of determinations in Essence is made sense of from the standpoint of Subjectivity, which has sublated all the contradiction that led up to its emergence.

The Doctrine of the Notion is made up of Subject, Object and Idea. The Idea is the unity of Subject and Object, the process in which the objectification or institutionalization of the Subject continues to drive the development of the active and living subject. This development of the Subject itself, the inner development of the subject which continues within and alongside its objectification, has the form of the movement towards an all-round developed relation between individual, universal and particular. For the moment, we will just be concerned with the inner development of the Subject, or Notion; later we will turn to the development of the Subject-Object relation.

The concept is the identity of the
individual, universal and particular

Hegel’s exposition of the three moments of the Notion and their relations is obscure in the extreme. Let us take look first at the Universal Notion:

“The universal ... is that simplicity which, because it is the Notion, no less possesses within itself the richest content. First, therefore, it is the simple relation to itself; it is only within itself. Secondly, however, this identity is within itself absolute mediation, but it is not something mediated.” (Science of Logic §1327)

The universal is given to us by a word or symbol or tool or body shape or whatever which represents the Notion – “in free equality with itself in its specific character” (Shorter Logic §163). It is simple and immediate because in it as such there is no relation, no activity entailed in it, without particularity and without individuality. But the entire content is implicit, in that as part of a language or other culturally constructed system of meanings or its potential connection with other universal forms in some particular system of activity, in which it shows itself to be meaningful, in fact, the very carrier of meaning. It is absolute mediation as on its own it is just a dead thing, like a word from the language of a long lost civilization, and the mediation is entirely within itself; it is what it is independently of its use or presentation by any person, but as such it is a nothing. Take a word out of its language and the context of its use by people and it is nothing, but the meaning is still there, implicitly; it is like the unknown lock which can be opened by a key found on the road. As Universal Notion, it is eternal, it is that which is instantiated in every particular.

The Universal Notion is not to be understood as a contingent attribute uniting an otherwise arbitrary set of objects, as in set theory, but as a self-subsistent genus.

Hegel likened the first, abstract Universal, Particular and Individual Notions to the first moments of reflection:

“Universality, particularity, and individuality are, taken in the abstract, the same as identity, difference, and ground. But the universal is the self-identical, with the express qualification, that it simultaneously contains the particular and the individual. Again, the particular is the different or the specific character, but with the qualification that it is in itself universal and is as an individual. Similarly the individual must be understood to be a subject or substratum, which involves the genus and species in itself and possesses a substantial existence.” (Shorter Logic §164)

In the simplest formal terms, the universal is a unique genus or quality, the particular is the specification of the genus with any number of qualifications up to the point of limiting the category to a single instance, and the individual is just one concrete instance. But Hegel does a great deal with this relationship.

In the above, he points out that the universal “contains” the particular and individual, i.e., a concrete universal cannot have an existence separate from its instantiation in particular individuals; that in successive instantiations, while the universal is always just as it is, the particular is always different and in fact it is the specific difference which makes it a particular; that the particular is always nothing other than individuals, not something side by side with individuals; the individual is individual in the sense of the ancient conception of a substratum to which indefinitely many predicates inhere; and the individual is ground, because it is the only substratum in which the universal can be manifested and developed. The category of Ground is given in the maxim “Everything has its sufficient ground.” If we ask how the Particular is a Particular of a given Universal, then the ground ultimately lies in the Individual.

As an intermediary between the formal syllogistic relation and the meaning of these relations in terms of formations of consciousness it is useful to take the Universal, Particular and Individual as designating a social movement or formal organisation, as an example of a self-constituting universal, a social practice performed by individuals organised around an ideal. The principle is the Universal, the Particular is the different groups and activities expressing the principle in different times and places and the Individual is the individual people executing these activities, belonging to different social groups constituting the movement and thinking with the relevant universal conceptions.

In these terms the Universal is the word or name or shapes by which the movement is recognised and represented, the banner around which people rally. The Particular is the different instantiations of the movement, the branches, groups, events and so forth only in and through which can a movement be said to exist; and the Individual, a person participating in the movement through the various particular instantiations of it. In this realization of the idea, the movement is the Notion, and as such it must have a name or some kind of representation or definition (Universal), there must be Particular groups adhering to this name or principle, and those Particular groups must have Individual members or adherents who know themselves to be adhering to a Particular group instantiating the given Universal.

For example, an advocate of the principle of solidarity, for example, a writer perhaps, who purely and simply expounds the idea of solidarity without seeing the need to actually set up groups, campaigns, unions and so forth or the make the effort to mobilise and win over individuals to the idea, can be said to take as their motto: “The Universal is Absolute.”

On the other hand, the frenetic, full-time activist who sets up campaigns, self-help groups, parties and so on, without bothering about how each of these endeavours furthers the now long-forgotten reason for it all, can be said to take as their maxim: “The Particular is Absolute.”

And finally, the advocate of People Power and public opinion, and has no confidence in ideology or parties and institutions, can be said to take as their rule: “The Individual is Absolute.”

Every movement has these characters in their ranks and their role is almost obligatory. All of these claims have an element of truth. But if followed one-sidedly obviously they lead nowhere, because they are all abstract; but they are the three essential modes of existence of an idea.

The second section of Subjectivity presents a series of Judgments in which one of the moments are joined to the subject in a Judgment which comes successively closer to a Notion of it. The third section of Subjectivity presents a series of Syllogisms, in which a Judgment is mediated by one of the moments, which express the Subject more or less defectively, but get closer and closer to the Notion. There are about 12 Judgments and 10 Syllogisms, and we will only touch here on the most prominent points in the development.

The Judgments reproduce at a higher level the categories of Being and Essence, and are the Qualitative Judgment, the Judgment of Reflection, the Judgment of Necessity and the Judgment of Notion. Each of the Judgments expresses only partially what it is that brings something under the Notion, each Judgment is a successively more concrete characterization of the subject as it becomes clear. This process of judgments is the registering in self-consciousness of the process unfolding in the Objective Logic and therefore recapitulates the categories of Essence in the form of more and more adequate notions, but at this stage, still notions which are one-sided and deficient.

(a) In the Qualitative Judgment, the subject is ascribed a single quality, the relevant social practice is said to be good or bad, or novel or whatever. Hegel presents a logical critique of any such judgment, hinging around the point that equating an individual with a particular is faulty.

(b) In the Judgment of Reflection, the subject is given in connection with other things, so that it is not just seen has having some quality, but as having a place in a system of social practice, connected with other practices, of being useful for something, or whatever.

(c) In the Judgment of Necessity is the subject is taken under its genus, rather than just as sharing with others a contingent property but belonging to some living whole.

(d) In the Judgment of the Notion, these three judgments are brought together. Hegel gives the following example:

“This (the immediate individuality) house (the genus), being so and so constituted (particularity), is good or bad. This is the Apodeictic judgment. All things are a genus (i.e. have a meaning and purpose) in an individual actuality of a particular constitution. And they are finite, because the particular in them may and also may not conform to the universal.” (Shorter Logic §179)

This most developed Judgment has risen to a concreteness where individual, universal and particular are brought together in characterizing the thing. In the case of each of these judgments, which are after all just making one judgment in relation to some form of social practice, Hegel demonstrates the deficiency of the Judgment, its limitations. This demonstrates the action of sceptical critique as an existing formation of consciousness which is not yet fully conscious of itself, tries to define itself: no it’s not this or that quality, or just this or that connection with other things, and it may be this kind of thing, but that doesn’t exhaust what it is, and so on. All these deficient judgments are reflected in one-sided forms of practice, that are still guided by conceptions reflecting the fact that the specific character of the relevant social practice has not been fully grasped, or in taking up a social position which obstructs the development of the notion. For example, people acting in relation to the thing taking account of just one attribute (that the event was amateurish, for example) or in terms of its relation to other social practices (that it was unofficial, for example), but eventually the individual, particular and universal aspects of the thing are brought together with a recognition of the thing (that this is a spontaneous protest by new recruits, for example).

Each moment mediates between the other two

The next level of development of the Subject involves bringing all three moments, individual, universal and particular, into proper relation, and Hegel calls these three-way relations Syllogisms. The form taken by these Syllogisms is that of a judgment mediated by one of the three moments of the Notion. As with the judgments, each of these syllogisms is deficient in some way and open to criticism. Only when all the different possible combinations are brought together and concentrated in a single syllogism which gives weight to every aspect of the relation between Individual, Particular and Universal, may the conception “capture the notion.”

Like the Judgments, the Syllogisms also reproduce the categories of Essence: the Qualitative (or Immediate) Syllogism, the Syllogism of Reflection and the Syllogism of Necessity. Each Syllogism unites the Universal, Individual or Particular Notion, with a Judgment.

The first Immediate Syllogism is the determinate syllogism (I-P-U), in which the Individual is brought under a Universal by virtue of coming under a Particular. This is the most straight forward and immediate of syllogisms. The deficiency arises from the fact that the individual’s relation to the Universal may be fortuitous, as the individual is only participating in the Universal by virtue of one Particular.

“He’s got such a nice way with people; he'd make a good politician.”

The second Immediate Syllogism is the Qualitative syllogism (P-I-U), in which a particular is subsumed under the Universal only because one of its individuals are under the Universal. This is an obviously incomplete claim as other individuals are excluded from consideration. There are altogether four such Qualitative Syllogisms.

“I'd never let an Indian doctor operate on me; look at that Dr. Patel.”

Hegel says that the Qualitative Syllogisms deal with Particularity abstractly, whereas the Syllogism of Reflection extends this abstractness to encompass all Individuals. So we have the syllogism of allness (also I-P-U), that an individual which is under a particularity comes under the universal because all individuals under that particularity come under the universal. The deficit is that the major premise (that all such individuals comes under the universal) depends on the conclusion, namely that the individual in question comes under the particular.

“You can’t tell me you're a footballer! You're only 5'6” and no footballer is that short!”

The second Syllogism of Reflection is the syllogism of induction (U-I-P), deduces the universal from the particular, because all the particular individuals come under the universal, the deficit of which is that the particular is never complete, and does not cover all possible individuals.

“There’s more and more crime nowadays; you hear about a murder almost everyday on TV.”

The third Syllogism of Reflection is the syllogism of analogy (I-U-P), lifts an individual to the status of a universal and deduces from a particularity of one individual to another similar, but the similarity may not be such as to justify the analogy.

“Vietnam has proved that a small country defending its territory can defeat the USA; it’s only a matter of time in Iraq.”

In each Syllogism of Reflection, an effort was made to make a generalization based on incomplete information, leading to unsafe conclusions. The next and third category of Syllogism are the Syllogisms of Necessity, in which this limitation is to be overcome.

The first Syllogism of Necessity is the categorical syllogism (I-U-P), and here instead of an arbitrary character of an individual, which may or may not unite it with another individual, being taken up, the genus which concretely unites it with other individuals is the middle term. The deficit of this syllogism is that even though particularity of an individual is deduced from its genus, without having a Notion of the genus the syllogism is still open to error.

“He’s a professor of neuroscience; he must know what consciousness is.”

The second Syllogism of Necessity is the hypothetical syllogism, A implies B, A is, therefore B is. But in this B has its existence in B and the conditions which made A necessary are not necessarily the same conditions which make B follow from A. The deficit in the syllogism is therefore that the necessity of B must be known in itself, not mediately through A.

“The fuel gauge says we're half full; we can’t have run out of petrol.”

And so on. We can all recognise these one-sided lines of argument; in every case they fail because they have not yet grasped the relevant notion, but it is only in and through such deficient judgments that which prove in practice to be deficient, that the notion consolidates itself and becomes a fact, not the outcome of a line of argument, but an objective fact.

Hegel presents the Subject as a critique of formal logic

We should remind ourselves at this point of the basic thesis of the Phenomenology: that formations of consciousness have to re-examine their basic rationale whenever their way of life is called into question. So in this section, Hegel has looked at how a range of seemingly justified statements may fail the test of logical examination. All the syllogisms he examines are deficient, but nonetheless, we see a positive outcome, in the form of a developed notion.

The same thing happens in the sphere of social practice; every judgment mentioned earlier, including the syllogistic judgments, is a proposition which is meaningful only if it is expressed in practical activity. So the formal logical critique mirrors a practical critique, manifested in incremental change to forms of activity as well as subjective consciousness.

The concretization of the Concept takes place through objectification and further development which happens through the development of both subject and object together, and the sublation of relatively abstract notions by more and more concrete notions, that incorporate into themselves a wider and wider sphere of social life. This subject-object development, where a formation of consciousness develops through the embedding of a new concept into every aspect of life is called the Idea.

It can be helpful in understanding this part of Hegel’s Logic to take a voluntary organisation as the relevant social practice or concept, with the policies and principles written into the organisation’s constitution and rules and the leadership body responsible for carriage of these principles understood as the Universal, the various occupational, geographical or whatever branches or sections of the organisation taken as the Particular, and the members, whether rank-and-file or officials, as Individual. This is a valid concretization of the idea of a Subject in the sense considered in the Logic, suffering only from the deficit of being overly formal and mechanical. With this analogy, which is somewhat more than an analogy, the notions, judgments and syllogisms of the section on Subjectivity, render themselves as typical of the forms of consciousness encountered within such formal organisations.

Lenin’s insistence in 1901 that to be a member of the Party an individual had to participate in one of the Party’s branches or activities is rational in this light. One-sided claims like an organisation is only as good as its members, forgetting the necessary mediating role of branch and national leadership are seen to be partial truths. On the other hand, the idea that individual members might have a say in the appointment of district officials certainly deserved more consideration than it received at the time. Or the idea that an individual delegate should represent their own branch or electorate when participating in debates on national policy. A mature organisation which has undergone the complete development of Subjectivity which Hegel envisages here must fully develop the mediating role of branches and sections in the relation between the leadership and membership; national leaders must take a close interest in representing the views and interests of ordinary members in relation to the particular interests of branch officials, and local officials are diligent and well-informed in conveying national policies and issues to the membership, and so on and so forth. Each of these demands for the development of a mature social formation can be expressed in the form of the criticism of a Syllogism. Full development means that every imaginable form of mediation between Individual, Particular and Universal is developed. As a result, the thinking of individuals participating in such a formation of consciousness, thinking formed and expressed through participation in relevant organisations and relations, may be mature and rounded and avoid one-sidedness, such as particularism, elitism, dogmatism, activism and so on.

8. Subject, Object and Idea

The Subject Develops from Abstract to Concrete

The three books of the Logic are laid out in a logical sequence, and they describe a process of development, but the realized process of development does not take the form of a temporal succession of these categories. The categories of Being which come into being and pass away, continue to come and go indefinitely. The succession of oppositions which overtake one another in Essence continue to generate polar opposite pairs of determinations. As these unfold, a new form of social practice develops self-consciousness, with a succession of new qualities, new entities, new relations, both incidental and necessary, registered in thoughts and purposive activity and representations, and judged and people may draw from these experiences a more concrete understanding of the new social practice as it develops. So in terms of time, all these relations are happening at the same time, although there is a logical dependence of the later categories on the former.

The development described in the Doctrine of the Notion is the development of a Concept.

In the first place, what is described is what is necessary in the development, as opposed to what is contingent or accidental or as the result of some caprice, so the logical process differs from the historical process in that respect.

Secondly, the subject domain of the Logic is shapes of consciousness, or more precisely, of the elements of shapes of consciousness, which are concepts. But a concept is to be understood, in the same way as a shape of consciousness, as a regular system of activity which is organised around some conception which may be understood by the participants as a entity of some kind, that is, it is reified. Self-consciousness here implies that people involved in that system of activity bring together the forms of activity, their individual understanding of what they are doing and the representation of the activity into a consistent stable relationship. The series of judgments and syllogisms represent the moves towards the formation of that stable and mature relationship, and it is that consistent, worked-out relationship which brings about a stable reification.

Finally, in tracing the development of these relationships within a formation of consciousness, three different aspects are always involved: the relations and collaborative activity of people which is integrated into the formation of consciousness, the consciousness of the individual people involved and the representations – words, symbols, artefacts and so on – used in the collaboration.

So this means that the process is exhibited in subjective thoughts (insofar as they follow what is necessary), social movements (or projects, self-conscious systems of practice sharing a conception of what it is people are doing) and the representations or systems of cultural artefacts, and the Logic is open to interpretation in each of these domains.

Sublation

The relation between the earlier and the later relations in the Logic is that of sublation, Aufhebung; Hegel uses the term ‘sublation’ throughout the Logic, including the relation in which one determination passes into another in the sphere of Being, the relation in which one opposition is overtaken by another in the sphere of Essence, and the way in which, in the Doctrine of the Notion, successive determinations are taken up by the subject.

Aufhebung means to take something beyond its own limits and ‘negating’ it, that is to say, by maintaining what was necessary in the former relation while terminating that which is no longer tenable. This expresses the basic organizing principle of the Logic. It’s like when something is done away with because it is outmoded, but its real meaning is carried on in a new form.

The form of sublation which subjectivity undergoes is a process of objectification, on top of which there is a continuous reassertion of subject and object in new forms which have the effect of sublating the distinctions between different subjects into higher or more robust forms of internal relation.

This is related to an aspect of Hegelian thought which can be confusing. Hegel talks about a process and its ‘truth’ as more or less the same thing, so he will talk about something which obviously doesn’t have the attributes which would be expected of the thing. To the non-Hegelian this seems to be flying in the face of plain facts.

For Hegel, there is ultimately only one concept, the Idea, which we can understand as the whole of the social life of a community, and the specific concepts relating to this or that special activity, are ultimately just aspects or special moments of the totality.

But first, let us follow the subject-object relation in terms of how Hegel outlines the structure of the Object.

Objectification:
Mechanism, Chemism, Teleology (Means and Ends)

Subject-Object is a relation; subject and object are not different kinds of thing, but simply that the subject stands in relation to other subjects as to an object. So the subject-object relation is the relation between a system of social practice and others which are relatively foreign to it, lie outside of it. But the normal situation is that means of mediation between subjects do exist in a community, and we are not dealing with a confrontation of the kind of the master-servant narrative, in which no means of mediation exists.

Hegel looks at three grades of subject-object relation: Mechanism, Chemism and Teleology. You can visualize these relations in terms of relations between projects, social movements and institutions, such as a town plan, feminism, legal system and science, or different ethnic communities within a multicultural society, and so on, as well as concepts like computer communication, therapy, childhood, or whatever, a relation between one project (the subject) which is new, “abstract,” and others which are already institutionalized and constitute the existing social context.

Firstly, Mechanism. This is how Hegel describes Mechanism:

“As objectivity is the totality of the Notion withdrawn into its unity, an immediate is thereby posited that is in and for itself this totality ... In so far as it has the Notion immanent in it, it contains the difference of the Notion, but on account of the objective totality, the differentiated moments are complete and self-subsistent objects which consequently, even in their relation, stand to one another only as self-subsistent things and remain external to one another in every combination. This is what constitutes the character of mechanism, namely, that whatever relation obtains between the things combined, this relation is one extraneous to them that does not concern their nature at all, and even if it is accompanied by a semblance of unity it remains nothing more than composition, mixture, aggregation and the like. Spiritual mechanism also, like material, consists in this, that the things related in the spirit remain external to one another and to spirit itself. A mechanical style of thinking, a mechanical memory, habit, a mechanical way of acting, signify that the peculiar pervasion and presence of spirit is lacking in what spirit apprehends or does.” (Science of Logic §1543)

This brings to mind a multicultural society in which the ‘ethnic mosaic’ metaphor applies, that is, a collection of self-sufficient communities mutually indifferent to one another, which may interact, but in the way of external impact on one another, in which neither community modifies its own nature, just adjusts its activity to accommodate or resist the impact of another community; or sciences, each of which is pursuing its own research program, perhaps using the findings of another as instruments in their own work, but remaining separate branches of science; or a social movement that regards all other movements as irrelevant to themselves, that turn up to protest against something and happen to find other social movements there as well, and may go so far as agreeing the date and place of the protest, but no further.

Hegel follows the development of Mechanism through the concept of mechanical objects to mechanical processes to systems of mechanical relations, particularly where one object creates a centre around which others revolve. He likens Mechanism to systems of government in which the components are united mechanically, and traces the development of relations between individuals (I), organisations (P) and the state (U) using the idea of Syllogisms, an approach he uses again in the Philosophy of Right.

The second section of Objectivity is Chemism, where the subject and object have an affinity to one another based in the own nature of each. So here the subject and object are not wholly external to one another, but recognise a relation within themselves, like social movements that recognise that both are fighting a common enemy, and in making common cause strengthen that affinity and even merge. Again Hegel follows the development from Chemical Object to Chemical process, and uses the Syllogisms developed earlier to trace the relation between Individual, Universal and Particular through which these processes develop, gradually dealing with the one-sidedness of the Subjective Syllogisms.

Hegel wants to derive the notions of the Physics, Chemistry and Biology of his times logically and is preparing the basis for his Philosophy of Nature in this section, but its usefulness in this respect is questionable. There is a fine line between intelligibility and rationality which Hegel often transgresses. But he does sketch out a plausible, escalating series of categories through which a subject objectifies itself, and ideas drawn from the natural sciences serve nicely for this purpose: a subject is abstract at the beginning and finds the outer world foreign and indifferent to it, and in that sense is a concept in-itself. Then through the discovery of affinities it develops relations with all the other subjects in the community, and there is a certain amount of the melting-pot under way.

Hegel did not have at his disposal a viable natural scientific theory to explain the appearance of teleology in the natural world of plants and animals, but the teleology was undeniably real. Kant had recognised this problem as well and concluded that it went beyond the valid limits of knowledge to conclude from the appearance of the teleological character of the organic world that there was a Designer or Final Cause behind it or to otherwise to explain it. Hegel’s aim was to demonstrate that the emergence of teleological relations was logically necessary. But he was opposed to any theory of evolution, whether inheritance of acquired characteristics or survival of the fittest, to do this job.

Hegel held that in Nature there was no development in time, but this does not exclude relations of logical priority in Nature.

“The more the teleological principle was linked with the concept of an extramundane intelligence and to that extent was favoured by piety, the more it seemed to depart from the true investigation of nature, which aims at cognising the properties of nature not as extraneous, but as immanent determinatenesses and accepts only such cognition as a valid comprehension. As end is the Notion itself in its Existence, it may seem strange that the cognition of objects from their Notion appears rather as an unjustified trespass into a heterogeneous element, whereas mechanism, for which the determinateness of an object is a determinateness posited in it externally and by another object, is held to be a more immanent point of view than teleology.” (Science of Logic §1595)

Hegel concludes that End emerges as the truth of Mechanism and Chemism, that a Notion strives to objectify itself.

“End ... is the concrete universal, which possesses in its own self the moment of particularity and externality and is therefore active and the urge to repel itself from itself. The Notion, as End, is of course an objective judgment in which one determination, the subject, namely the concrete Notion, is self-determined, while the other is not merely a predicate but external objectivity. But the end relation is not for that reason a reflective judging that considers external objects only according to a unity, as though an intelligence had given this unity for the convenience of our cognitive faculty; on the contrary it is the absolute truth that judges objectively and determines external objectivity absolutely. Thus the End relation is more than judgment; it is the syllogism of the self-subsistent free Notion that unites itself with itself through objectivity.” (Science of Logic §1599)

So here the subject finds in the object, in other subjects, its own End, or as it is sometimes said, the Subject finds its own essence outside of itself. Thus the development here is one in which the Subject is to become in and for itself through the process of mutual transformation of object and subject, which is the basis for the Idea.

The process of Teleology is the dialectic of Means and Ends. We have two maxims: on the one hand, “the end justifies the means,” and on the other, “the movement is everything the end nothing.” Both these maxims are limited and one-sided. The subject strives to realize its End, at first by inadequate means, and the Realised End expresses the disharmony between the Means and the Subjective End; this leads to a reconception of the End and determination of a new Means more adequate to the End. Finally, there can be no contradiction between the Means and Realised End, ultimately the Subject realises that the Means and End are identical.

This leads to the final section of the Logic, which is The Idea, the dialectic of Life and Cognition.

The Idea is the unity of Life and Cognition

With this final section of the Logic, we see the return of the original idea that Hegel presented in the System of Ethical Life: the Idea as a process in which the contradiction between sensation and reason is overcome through a long drawn-out process of differentiation and re-integration, objectification and internalisation, with a continual interchange between means and ends.

So the Idea is a dialectic of Life and Cognition, it is both a learning process and a life process. Truth is the correspondence of Subject and Object, but both subject and object have been conceived of as part of a single process of development.

In the section on Life, Hegel discusses the relationship of Individual and Genus: the Genus can live only in and through the finite mortal individuals which realize it, and conversely the individual finds its truth in its Genus.

“That is to say, the process of the genus, in which the single individuals sublate in one another their indifferent immediate existence and in this negative unity expire, has further for the other side of its product the realised genus, which has posited itself identical with the Notion. In the genus process, the separated individualities of individual life perish; the negative identity in which the genus returns into itself, while it is on the one hand the process of generating individuality, is on the other hand the sublating of it, and is thus the genus coming together with itself, the universality of the Idea in process of becoming for itself. “ (Science of Logic §1676)

The category of Life leads to the category of Cognition: “Life is the immediate Idea, or the Idea as its Notion not yet realised in its own self. In its judgment, the Idea is cognition in general.” (Science of Logic §1677) The section on Cognition, Hegel takes as the Idea of the True and the Idea of the Good, and the unity of the True and the Good is the Absolute Idea. In the section on the True, Hegel deals with the relation between Analytical Cognition and Synthetic Cognition, and Definitions and the Division of subject matter in a science.

Hegel sees Cognition as a Syllogism in which the first two terms are Analytical and Synthetic Cognition, but even this formulation shows itself to be defective:

“Similarly, (the unity of analytic and synthetic cognition) finds propositions and laws, and proves their necessity, but not as a necessity of the subject matter in and for itself, that is, not from the Notion, but as a necessity of the cognition that works on given determinations, on the differences of the phenomenal aspect of the subject matter, and cognises for itself the proposition as a unity and relationship, or cognises the ground of phenomena from the phenomena themselves.” (Science of Logic §1721)

Likewise Hegel requires that the definition of the concepts in a science and the division of the subject matter in a science be determined immanently from the Notion of the science, not arbitrarily or subjectively introduced from without.

The final concept of the Logic is the Absolute Idea which appears as the unity of the Theoretical Idea and the Practical Idea, that is, the identity of a practical form of life with its own self-understanding, a concrete identity arrived at through the long-drawn out process described. The chapter on the Absolute Idea, like the final chapter of the Phenomenology, and like the “Twelve Days of Christmas,” is a recapitulation of the whole structure leading up to itself, emphasizing the idea of concreteness as sublation.

And in a final unbelievable leap of Hermetic magic, the truth of the Idea is Nature:

“The Idea, namely, in positing itself as absolute unity of the pure Notion and its reality and thus contracting itself into the immediacy of being, is the totality in this form – nature. The Idea, namely, in positing itself as absolute unity of the pure Notion and its reality and thus contracting itself into the immediacy of being, is the totality in this form – nature.” (Science of Logic §1817)

Hegel’s critique of the individual/society dichotomy

So what we have seen is that Hegel presented a critique of all aspects of social life by an exposition of the logic of formations of consciousness, which does not take the individual person as its unit of analysis but rather a concept. A concept is understood, not as some extramundane entity but a practical relation among people mediated by ‘thought objects’, i.e., artefacts.

If we understand that human beings live in an environment of thought-objects constructed by their own purposive activity, and that thinking, insofar as it is correct, reflects the objective relations between these thought-objects, then this would seem to be a viable approach to science, and the basis for a genuinely self-construing method of science.

Looked at with the benefit of 200 years of hindsight, the philosophy has its problems, this is undeniable, but recent currents of philosophy, such as “post-humanism,” which pride themselves in having “deconstructed the subject,” invariably make the target of their critique a Kantian or Cartesian individual subject, overlooking Hegel’s solution of this problem, often by dismissing Hegel on the basis of side-issues without confronting his achievement in overcoming the aporias in Kant’s notion of the subject or the Cartesian dichotomy. And Hegel built a philosophy which overcame the contradictions inherent in Kantian individualism without the sacrifice of an ethical theory, without the sacrifice of a concept of genuine individuality, whilst retaining a strong concept of Freedom.

In the Logic, Hegel resolves the individual / society dichotomy as a problem in social science by means of the Individual / Universal / Particular relation. This is not the same issue as the problem of how a subject conceives of itself in relation to the whole community. That is a problem of the historical development of consciousness, which is dealt with in the Phenomenology. But the Logic does suggest a solution to this problem as well. We see that Subjectivity is a multiplicity of processes and relations in which individuals collaborate with one another in particular forms of social practice organised around different universals. This approach is far more fruitful than setting up two poles – the individual and ‘society’ (whatever that means) – and then trying to draw some connection between them. By taking the concept, in the sense described already, as his ‘unit of analysis’, rather than the individual person, Hegel has produced a powerful and nuanced conception of the human being. Note how far also he has come from the initial investigations into the psychology of peoples; this is something radically different.

This approach allows us to see that the individual may have a whole variety of different conceptions of truth and their capacity to verify their own truth, reflected in the multitude of conceptions of the Absolute outlined in the Logic. So the relation of the individual to society which is developed in the Logic is, on the one hand, the relation between a person and the state, and the various mediating forms of association, developed in the Philosophy of Right, and on the other hand, the very decentered, shifting view of subjectivity constructed through participation in a multiplicity of self-conscious projects, or systems of social practice.

Spirit and Substance and Subject

Hegel’s philosophy is certainly very strange and difficult to grasp. But we need to remember that his ideas were developed in response to specific and difficult problems in philosophy which were demanding resolution at that time. The problems at issue were chiefly those that arose from Kant’s attempts to rescue science from an impossible relativism. So we should not lightly condemn Hegel, but rather give him credit for having produced a science, although a science with some important difficulties. We should take him at his word when he says that Spirit is the nature of human beings en masse. All human communities construct their social environment, both in the sense of physically constructing the artefacts which they use in the collaborating together, and in the sense that, in the social world at least, things are what they are only because they are so construed. The idea of spirit needs to be taken seriously. It may seem odd to say, as Hegel does, that everything is thought, but it is no more viable to say that everything is matter and if you want to use a dichotomy of thought and matter instead things get even worse.

No-one else has produced anything that can rival his Logic; and he left no room for imitators. It should be taken seriously.

9. The Subject and culture: logic and ontology

Hegel has overcome the mind-matter dichotomy with Logic

One of the problems which Hegel deals with in the Logic is the problem of the Cartesian dichotomy between the mental and the material and the various dichotomies which Kant generated in his effort to overcome the Cartesian dichotomy, especially the dichotomy between appearance and thing-in-itself and the dichotomy between sensation and concept.

These dichotomies suggested by Descartes and Kant have considerable support in our ordinary everyday intuitive conceptions of the world. In general people do suffer from the Cartesian illusion of having access to thought objects which are in some sense mirror images of real objects, with a mental world which is something quite distinct from the material world it reflects. The intuitive power of this idea is undeniable. But carefully thought through it just doesn’t hold up. Likewise, the idea that we live in a world of appearances constructed by ourselves out of processes which are in principle inaccessible to thought and walled off from appearances, but which impart the regularity and necessity from which we fashion appearances. The idea that we apply reason, to which our minds have direct access, to the material of sense perception also seems a very reasonable solution to the problems presented by Descartes. But again this conception does not stand up to criticism, and there is a widespread conviction that there is something fundamentally wrong with any dichotomy, that is to say any conception which sorts the world into two kinds of thing with a sharp line between them with no mediation or common root.

However implausible Hegel’s ideas are in places we need to keep in mind that he does overcome the limitations of these intuitively very appealing systems of thought.

So far as it is possible to generalize in this matter, where Hegel comes across a dichotomy, he accepts that the dichotomy is real, refuses abstract declarations which either abolish the dichotomy or arbitrarily subsume it under a third, and studies the dialectical relation between the two concepts, and the form of mediation, a relation which is different in each case.

Dichotomy

Just in terms of numbers, how does Hegel respond to di-chotomy? In a sense he does replace di-chotomy with oneness in that he begins each of his major works with a single concept, be that Being or Space or Right, and unfolds out of that single concept all the distinctions which are implicit within it, through a process of differentiation or diremption. So each dichotomy comes into play already with it roots in an earlier unified conception, and rather than having to be stitched back together or brought into relation, that relation is already implicit in the original conception.

In another sense is replaces di-chotomy with tri-chotomy and there is a lot to be gained by a comparison Hegel’s work with that of Charles Sanders Peirce who was a strong advocate of trichotomy.

‘Trichotomy’ is literally to cut in three, and that is not exactly what Hegel does. He does not sort the world into three kinds of thing. The number three comes up quite a lot in Hegel, but it is the trichotomy contained in the three moments of the subject: Individual, Particular and Universal, which are of significance here. Does this triplet, which is the basis for all those syllogisms, which Hegel uses to elaborate the relations between various groups of concepts, really constitute a trichotomy, or on the other hand, does it succeed in allowing the subject matter to develop its own distinctions whilst retaining the unity and integrity of the original subject matter?

Let’s consider some object, say the Cussonia tree at Melbourne University. “Tree” is a universal, but the specification of the variety and genus of the plant, its location in a university and the name of the university, all particularize the thought down to an individual tree, and even if the plant does not exist and is a figment of the imagination, you know the tree through all those particularities.

The words “Cussonia,” “tree,” “Melbourne” and “University” which are inscribed on the page belong to the English language and as words are universals; they exist materially only as marks on paper, vibrations in the air, an unlimited variety of material forms, but are what they are independently of the particular material form or the individual existence or otherwise of this particular instantiation of them.

Finally, the momentary thought which exists as you contemplate the words is an individual thought. All of these moments are valid categories of thought, and none of them depend on whether the tree exists.

But the same categories encompass the tree itself. The careful breeding of this variety in Zimbabwe, its transportation to Melbourne and its planting and maintenance by the University, constitute the practical activities which produced that tree, as part of the culture and history which produced that tree in that place and no other. The particularity mentioned above as moments of a thought-object pure and simple, arises from the practical activity which constitute that particularity. It is always activity and relations between people that constitutes particularity.

Words summon up universals which are perfectly real and material. “Tree” for example would continue to exist even when the last tree has been cut down, although some particularity would have to be involved at some stage. Likewise, “university.”

And the tree itself is an individuality as is the thought of it.

So really it doesn’t matter whether you are referring to material objects in their capacity as material things existing outside of and independently of consciousness, or you insist on referring to objects whose sole existence is as thought objects, or the more usual case of material things which are endowed with meaning through their production and use in human life, and the transformation of entities from thoughts to objectifications and back to thoughts again, these categories are unaffected and work just as well. Hegel has finessed the whole ontological problem of material objects versus thought objects, and the epistemological problem posed by gaining knowledge of things-in-themselves. Everything that matters to us passes through consciousness, at least at the time it matters to us. Our concepts constitute our relation to the world, and our thoughts are true only insofar as they reproduce what is objective.

Logic does not depend on a psychology; subjective thought corresponds to logic only insofar as the content of thought is objective. Hegel uses a conceptual framework which allows him to focus precisely on what is invariant in the transformations between thought-object and material object.

Pragmatic Interpretations of the Logic

I have presented a reading of Hegel’s Logic, in which he is understood to be talking, not about extramundane forms pre-existing human society, but rather the logic of formations of consciousness. This view does not on its own resolve all possible questions that could be raised about the ontological status of the categories of the Logic itself. Hegel’s claim is that they are self-construing; at any given point in defining the concepts of the Logic, only concepts already defined are drawn upon.

Hegel does not place the categories of the Logic into some ontological category of meta-theory separate from and above the categories which are the substance of consciousness. But there is room for such an interpretation and most so-called orthodox Hegelians today make just such an interpretation, and like Stephen Houlgate, rely upon some kind of meta-space in which the categories of Logic exist, separate from and prior to the activity of human beings.

There are ‘intersubjective’ interpretations of Hegel, such as that of Robert Williams, but at least since the 1960s, all such ‘intersubjective’ readings of Hegel rest on supposedly unmediated relations between human beings. It is as if, in an effort to distance themselves as far as possible from Marx, not only are means of production excluded from consideration, but the entirety of material culture as well.

And of course the French interpretations have been so dominated by the master-servant narrative, that Hegel’s developed thought as found in the Logic is often ignored. Aside from the very many excellent appropriations of Hegel which owe their approach to Hegel to the Marxist current of thinking, the most interesting appropriation of Hegel may be that of the American Pragmatists, Peirce, Dewey and Mead.

Much of the wisdom about organizing and protest strategies today originated with John Dewey who studied Hegel in the 1880s, and became a leader of the Progressive Movement in the US; his ideas on group dynamics, group problem-solving and conflict resolution informed the neighbourhood organizers of the 1930s, ‘40s and ‘50s and via the Peace Movement of the ‘50s and ‘60s, reached the anti-corporate, environmental, anti-war movements and so on, as well as the self-help movement of the ‘70s and reaching the business management theory in the ‘80s.

Dewey abandoned Hegelianism, but Hegel left his imprint on Dewey’s thought not only in the developmental approach to scientific and social problems but in the philosophical foundations of the Pragmatic philosophy itself. In his theories of social psychology, George Herbert Mead is much clearer in his Hegelian foundations, but Mead never acknowledged his debt to Hegel.

One of the main problems in this theory is that the Pragmatists took as the paradigmatic artefact the gesture. The gesture offers very limited scope for the development of a theory of consciousness really able to modernize Hegel’s conception of a formation of consciousness. Although objective, like the spoken word, the gesture is tied to the presence of the agent, and blurs the distinction between the individual agent and the objective culture of the society; cultural production is like writing on water, limiting the conception of ‘second nature’ to the cultivation of habits.

Charles Sanders Peirce’s concept of semiosis, sign activity, has much in common with Hegel’s concept of Spirit. For Peirce, signs are active in nature just as much as in culture and thought and may offer an alternative to Hegel’s problematic Philosophy of Nature. Peirce’s trichotomy of signs according to the manner in which they indicate the object, namely icon, symbol and index has no equivalent in Hegel, although Peirce’s trichotomy: qualisign, sinisign and legisign, corresponds to Hegel’s moments of particular, individual and universal. Peirce’s basic conception of the world is semiosis, that is to say, signaling or communication, and just like with Hegel’s thought, Peirce’s semiosis is an objective process in which individual thinkers participate. According to Peirce, the individual is a “concentrated group.”

Peirce expressed antipathy towards Hegel, but one gets the impression that it was that kind of animosity which included the respect of one thinker towards another with whom he shared a great deal, including the fact that both were pathologically poor communicators. Both thinkers invented their own lexicon and constructed entire systems of idiosyncratic concepts; so mutually interrogating the writings of these two writers is challenging. Nonetheless, Peirce is a useful supplement to Hegel.

If we are going to appropriate Hegel for today, we don’t actually need a psychology, but do need at least a plausible meta-psychology which allows us to be clear about the ontological questions raised by an interpretation of Hegel.

Vygotsky

The School of psychology initiated by Vygotsky and A N Leontyev in the Soviet Union of the 1920s owes a great deal to Hegel. The key concepts for Vygotsky and Leontyev were artefact and collaborative activity, which together constitute what Hegel would have called a formation of consciousness. The idea is that people learn to control their own body and their relationship to their environment by collaborating with others in the use of artefact, an external stimulus. Through the use of artefacts, which are the bearers of cultural norms, people learn to do without the external stimuli and to do on their own what they could formerly only do with assistance. The artefact is replaced by an internal stimuli, or ‘psychological tool’. The process of internalizing the use of the artefact is a protracted process of transformation, which is of interest only to the developmental psychologist. Consequently, the mind-matter dichotomy is irrelevant in this psychology, in which every object of thought is both ideal and material, but unlike behaviourism, the psyche is regarded as perfectly real and a valid object of scientific investigation.

Vygotsky’s most well-known work, Thinking and Speech (1934), deals with the development of thinking with concepts from infancy up to adolescence. According to Vygotsky, it is not until adolescence that children begin to use real concepts, in the Hegelian sense, as opposed to one of about ten transitional forms of conception that precedes the true concept.

The Logic offers a rational conception of
emergent social consciousness

Nowadays, the human sciences are extremely fragmented; not only is research divided into sociology, political science, anthropology, psychology, law, history, linguistics, philosophy, criminology, etc., etc. On top of this we have fragmentation separating the different currents of thinking: positivists, behaviorists, functionalists, structuralists, Marxists, poststructuralists, deconstructionists and so on. This situation poses severe problems for those who want to solve social problems, rather than just build an academic career for themselves. There is an urgent need for an approach which is based on critical appropriation so that different insights can be integrated and an approach which is holistic and not hampered by the individual vs. social dichotomy or focused only on certain kinds of interaction. While no substitute for practical investigation of particulars, Hegel’s Logic may offer a useful approach to integration and appropriation in a terminally fragmented scientific landscape.

The Logic is particularly well suited to the study of emergent social movements and projects. Whenever you are dealing with a group of people organised around an idea or a social project or enterprise of some kind, then Hegel’s Logic is your operations manual. No community development worker, social justice activist, voluntary group organizer, political activist or academic with an overview of their subject matter should be without it.

The various writers who have developed theories of group dynamics all scratch around the edges of Hegel’s Logic. It is a useful exercise to compare theories of group dynamics with Hegel’s Logic because they give insights into the Logic which would otherwise be lost in Hegel’s arcane exposition. But in terms of a well developed, coherent and comprehensive theory, you can’t go past the Logic.

Jean-Paul Sartre is someone who should be mentioned for his effort to produce something like a pragmatic reading of Hegel in his Critique of Dialectical Reason. Sartre makes no effort to emulate the structure of Hegel’s Logic or suggest any correspondence between his own categories and Hegel’s, but the parallels are clear enough. Sartre presumes that as soon as the white heat of struggle fades from the activity of a fused group, the objectified residue of the fused group is an institution which is irrevocably dead, an object and not a subject. This exaggeration is one-sided. Critique was a useful exercise, and it would be a worthwhile exercise to try to reproduce the effort in the light of what has been learnt in the 48 years since Sartre tried it in 1960.

History and Development

The following passage in the Introduction to the Philosophy of Right explains why the history of right plays no part in the work to follow:

“The science of right is a part of philosophy. Hence it must develop the idea, which is the reason of an object, out of the conception. It is the same thing to say that it must regard the peculiar internal development of the thing itself. Since it is a part (of philosophy), it has a definite beginning, which is the result and truth of what goes before, and this, that goes before, constitutes its so-called proof. Hence the origin of the conception of right falls outside of the science of right.” (Introduction to the Philosophy of Right §2)

and he adds:

“In philosophic knowledge the necessity of a conception is the main thing, and the process, by which it, as a result, has come into being is the proof and deduction. After the content is seen to be necessary independently, the second point is to look about for that which corresponds to it in existing ideas and modes of speech.” (Introduction to the Philosophy of Right §2)

Recapitulating what this paragraph says: The science of right must be developed out of the concept of right; bringing to light logically what is implicit in the concept of right. In this way the writer finds the distinctions which are natural to the subject matter, with the relations between all the concepts emerging from the subject matter itself, rather than being imposed arbitrarily from outside.

In the Logic, it is the Objective Logic which gives the “pre-history” of a concept, and we can see that the function of studying this pre-history is to arrive at clarity about the essence of the subject matter, to be able to present a simple definition which can be seen as the final result of that history. So any science has two distinct parts, and only the second is a genuinely scientific treatment, the first part being just an historical justification for the starting point of the science.

As Marx summarized this in the section known as “Method of Political Economy” in The Grundrisse:

“Along the first path (the Objective Logic) the full conception was evaporated to yield an abstract determination; along the second (the Subjective Logic), the abstract determinations lead towards a reproduction of the concrete by way of thought. In this way Hegel fell into the illusion of conceiving the real as the product of thought concentrating itself, probing its own depths, and unfolding itself out of itself, by itself, whereas the method of rising from the abstract to the concrete is only the way in which thought appropriates the concrete, reproduces it as the concrete in the mind. But this is by no means the process by which the concrete itself comes into being. For example, the simplest economic category, say e.g. exchange value, presupposes population, moreover a population producing in specific relations; as well as a certain kind of family, or commune, or state, etc. It can never exist other than as an abstract, one-sided relation within an already given, concrete, living whole.” (Grundrisse, Marx 1857, p. 100)

Gaining clarity about that one concept (for example, the commodity relation) which forms the starting point for a science is a long drawn out process of appropriating the prehistory of a science; but once the correct starting point is finally arrived at, the science can be unfolded out of that concept. This kind of process is actually repeated every time a science runs into some crisis and has to be reinvented, so it turns out that the distinction between the Subjective Logic and the Objective Logic is relative.

So the scientific study of some form of social practice is distinct from the study of its history. But this still leaves the question of the developmental approach, that is to say, the conviction that every concept in a science must be understood as a process, a process whose movement is one of the forms of movement exhibited by Hegel in the various parts of the Logic. The opposite simply cannot withstand Hegel’s critique. Development is, after all, practical, objective critique.

Everything is both immediate and mediated

In summary, the contradictory answer to what seemed to be two different avenues for acquiring knowledge, reason and intuition, is that we acquire concepts the same way we acquire the data of sense perception; concepts have been ‘built into’ our environment by our predecessors, and in using and perceiving these objects and acquiring a sensuous understanding of their nature and interconnection with other objects we acquire conceptual knowledge. But precisely because reason is in the world in this sense, reason comes with bumps and scratches and like an old house, and is constantly in need of refurbishment.

Hegel’s use of the structure of the Syllogism: Individual, Particular and Universal, as the basic coordinates for understanding thought objects, has the benefit that the same structure works for thought objects at whatever stage of objectification or internalisation they may be at, and the consequently the Logic sheds light on the dynamics of formations of consciousness, whether looked at in terms of ways of life, ways of thinking or constellations of culture.

10. Critique of the Hegelian dialectic

The Spirit became a total process, pre-existing its manifestation

As mentioned above, at an early stage in his development Hegel abandoned a genuinely scientific approach in which spirit was the product of human activity, and instead introduced the idea of a spirit which pre-existed human society and manifested itself human life. Although this move is easily reversed, the resulting religious flavour penetrated deeply into the entire system. This is what Marx was getting at when he said: “History does nothing,” (Holy Family, §6.2a)

An example of this quasi-religious flavor in Hegel is the development of the Concept described in the Logic, concretizing itself until every concept merges with every other and all differences have been transcended in the Absolute Idea. Now this idea is quite adequate in indicating the form and direction of the process of concretization and objectification, but it would be an obvious mistake to take too seriously the reality of the Absolute Idea. As Feuerbach put it, this is “is the negation of theology from the standpoint of theology.” (Philosophy of the Future, §21)

Hegel shared with Goethe a hostility to the positivism of the natural science of his times, which was associated, rather unjustly, with the name of Isaac Newton. Although each of them left a legacy of considerable value for natural science, it is fair to say that both of them were mistaken in some matters as regards Nature.

Hegel held that “there is nothing new under the Sun in Nature.” Now this proposition can be justified: even the physicists who theorise about the Big Bang assume that they can determine the laws of physics applicable at that time on the basis of a logical deduction from what they perceive now. Neither modern day physicists nor Hegel suggest that nothing changes in Nature; obviously this is not the case. Hegel knew that the continents were the products of a process of geological development, but he thought that human beings appeared on new continents, complete with a characteristic physiology, as if springing from the ground.

Hegel shared an idea which is still very common today that the development of the human form can be sharply divided into two stages, firstly the natural process, which Hegel took to be more or less as per the Old Testament, and secondly the cultural process. Hegel did not see any overlap or interpenetration between nature and culture in the human form and uncritically accepted the nature / culture dichotomy. Consequently he took the relations between the sexes and between the peoples of different countries to be more or less given by Nature, rather than being a product of culture. This produced a distortion in his Logic because, as can be seen in the latter parts of the section on the Idea, he had to prepare in the Logic the basis for a logical derivation of these relations in his Philosophy of Nature, that is, differences pre-existing culture and history. In the absence of any theory to explain the cultural development of the human form itself, he ‘essentialized’ these differences. Obviously this has led to distortions in the Logic as well as huge blind-spots in his social and political theory.

Conversely, in his critique of Hegel in the “1844 Manuscripts,” Marx makes a much of the fact that Hegel gives no recognition for human beings as natural beings, with needs that have their source in nature, at all. And as if that were not enough, he places the human being who is furthest removed from Nature, the philosopher, at the pinnacle of the whole process. In a sense the strength of Hegel’s philosophy is that he makes human life absolutely a product of Mind, but there is a real price to pay for this.

Although Hegel rejected evolution in the sphere of Nature, he can aptly be called a cultural evolutionist. That is, he sees history as a kind of “survival of the fittest” in the domain of cultural development and history. This view of history has serious negative consequences in the understanding of cultural difference as manifested in interactions between contemporaneous cultural groups in the modern world. The way Hegel makes one grade of social practice “the truth of” another generates a clear moral hierarchy among forms of social practice. The problem here is not that one social practice is superior to another; it is always possible to make comparisons in the relative development of specific, finite modes of social practice. The problem comes when entire social formations are compared, as is the case in the Phenomenology, but the Logic, being concerned with ‘projects’ or concepts is not open to this criticism. If one wants to overcome the distortions of ‘cultural evolutionism’, which are by no means limited to Hegel, then Hegel provided a first rate conceptual apparatus for doing so.

Although Hegel certainly did see history as a world process, he never saw the world as a single system so to speak, in the same way that he saw a state as a single system. He saw the domain of international relations as ‘the animal kingdom of the spirit world’, that is, a domain in which the different agents, nation-states, act in relation to one another with no mediating system of law or regulation. He was a skeptic in international law. Although the World Spirit was responsible for the development of Chinese Culture, Indian Culture and so on, as well as European culture, the Spirit moved around from place to place, and when it left a people, that people fell into stagnation and their part in history was over for the time being, at least as agents and creators in history. So the relation of a European culture to the culture it found in say, Australia, was the relation between modern society and an historically earlier and less developed form of the same spirit. So, this is classic cultural evolutionism and needs to be negated. But this aspect of his thinking has not left any serious residue in his Logic.

One of the main deficits of Hegel’s philosophy arises from the fact that the only social movements he knew were states and emergent states. He never knew a labour movement or a women’s movement, or an anti-racist movement. Apart from states, he knew only the Enlightenment modernizing movements, religious movements of various kinds, and the institutionalization of new social practices, whether developments in technology, the economy, movements in art and literature, changes in fashion and shifts in social attitudes. The emergence of social movements which have a conscious aim to change social practices and mobilise the victims of those social practices which need to be changed, is something he might have learnt a great deal from, but the kind of relations and problems that are involved in such movements he was never able to take into account.

This fact is interesting in the light of the fact that Hegel became convinced that poverty was endemic in capitalism, and that the market would inevitably function to exacerbate poverty and inequality, and generate the kind of social problems associated with economic injustice. It remained one of the few unresolved contradictions, loose threads, in his system.

Nevertheless, his Logic provides excellent material for tackling these problems.

Hegel made history conform to the Logic,
rather than vice versa

One of the problems with Hegel’s system becomes evident when we turn to his works on history and the history of philosophy. Despite clear claims to the contrary in the Logic, Hegel succumbs all too often and too easily to the temptation to fiddle with historical facts and the stated views of his protagonists, to make them fit into a pre-existing schema. It is always the danger of any powerful ideological system, that it tends to consume rather than foster its environment.

Even in the early stages of the Logic we found that the succession of early Greek philosophers, even as Hegel knew them, did not fit into the schema suggested by the logic. While he is meticulous with his critique of Kant, he is very blasé with his critique of Fichte, for example. He turned out to be an unreliable historian of ideas, even though the philosophy of history which he wrote does not justify these distortions. But this is a warning for us. A knowledge of the Logic, which provides us with a lens of a certain hue when we follow events around us, can inadvertently lead us to distort what we see. But this is a danger inherent in any theory and Hegel would be the first to warn us of this and what is more, explain to us in detail how that distortion works.

One obvious case of this may be the Philosophy of Right, where Hegel claims to arrive at a constitutional monarchy by a process of logic. All that is real may well be rational, but many would say that he went too far in ascribing logical necessity to constitutional monarchy. Intelligibility easily slips over into rationality.

Marx made innovations:
activity, alienation, abstraction, production

Marx was a lot closer to Hegel in philosophy than is commonly realised. The sketch of the origins of conceptual thought in labour presented in the System of Ethical Life would easily be mistaken for Marx or Engels, rather than Hegel. But even though Marx and Hegel’s lives overlapped, in a strong sense Marx belongs to a different era. Whereas Hegel never knew a movement of the oppressed, one such movement, the labour movement, was Marx’s principal inspiration. So when Marx says:

“History does nothing, it “possesses no immense wealth,” it “wages no battles.” It is man, real, living man who does all that ... history is nothing but the activity of man pursuing his aims.” (The Holy Family, Part 6, 2a)

he is denouncing this deification of History as well as all ‘iron laws of history’ in the shaping of history. It is certainly a condemnation of system building of the type that Hegel dedicated himself to from the Philosophy of Spirit of 1805-06 onwards. It can also be understood as a call to take Hegel back to his original thesis of spirit as the nature of human beings en masse.

Consider this well-known line from the German Ideology:

“The premises from which we begin are not arbitrary ones, not dogmas, but real premises from which abstraction can only be made in the imagination. They are the real individuals, their activity and the material conditions under which they live, both those which they find already existing and those produced by their activity. These premises can thus be verified in a purely empirical way.” (German Ideology, Part I, §1a)

This is a precise statement of the kind of interpretation of spirit advocated here, a pragmatic interpretation of Hegel’s logical syllogism: real individuals, their activity and the material conditions, i.e., the Individual, Particular and Universal.

The Theses on Feuerbach spell out an interpretation of Hegel in which real individuals, their activity and the material conditions have been put in the place of Spirit. And it should be remembered that in these theses, Marx supports Hegel against Feuerbach.

The famous excerpt from the Grundrisse on the “Method of Political Economy” concerning the relation of abstract and concrete is also pure Hegel, as is the structure of Capital, beginning with the Commodity, the cell of capitalist relations, and then self-consciously unfolding from the concept of commodity, the contradictions of capitalist society. Pure Hegel.

There are also a couple of elements of Marx which are not to be found in Hegel, but which seem so Hegelian that many people think they come from Hegel.

Firstly, alienation. Alienation, as the experience of one’s own labour becoming the property of a hostile and exploiting class, is a discovery of Marx, not Hegel. A present day Hegelian, like Derrida, would see all production as objectification and give no special position to the exploitation of wage labour.

Secondly, the idea of abstraction as an objective process, namely the money relation, is a discovery of Marx, not Hegel.

Thirdly, although it is seen that Hegel’s original insight utilised a kind of anthropology of labour, Hegel never went on to emphasise the production and reproduction of material life as having an privileged position in the formation of Mind, and this insight is a discovery of Marx. Hegel’s idea of sceptical logical critique of the criteria of knowledge, as found in the Phenomenology, goes to the other extreme. This is probably a fine case of the truth being somewhere in the middle.

Fourthly, although Hegel’s advocacy of the state needs to be understood in the context of the viewpoint of a people without a state, that is, the state as a social movement, this certainly was not Marx’s view. Marx did base himself squarely and consistently on social movements as the vehicle of emancipation, and was hostile, not only to Hegel’s constitutional monarchy, but states in general, although it has to be said, he never worked out an alternative in any definite shape.

But these differences should not obscure the huge debt that Marx owed to Hegel. Altogether, of all Hegel’s works, it is the Logic which is the least tainted by the defects in Hegel’s philosophy and the most to offer for contemporary appropriation. Or as Lenin put it:

“in this most idealistic of Hegel’s works there is the least idealism and the most materialism. ‘Contradictory’, but a fact!” (Lenin CW, Volume 38)

Nature is intelligible, but it is also
independent of human activity

Finally, the question of a ‘dialectics of nature’. According to Hegel at the conclusion of the Logic, “The Idea, in positing itself as absolute unity of the pure Notion and its reality and thus contracting itself into the immediacy of being, is the totality in this form – nature.” (Science of Logic §1817)

But Hegel’s idea is that the Logic exists in nature as its intelligibility, not its forms of movement as such. It is through a labour process and the study of nature that spirit manifests itself in the form of consciousness. People who talk about a dialectics of nature, usually have in mind just the categories of Being – quality, quantity and measure and perhaps the moments of reflection. It is hard to disagree with the claim that movement, opposition, reflection and so on, exist in nature, that is, that nature moves, changes, reflects in the sense of leaving meaningful traces, and so on. Such a claim is similar to Peirce’s conception of semiosis as a natural process. But to go beyond this, for example, to talk about the dialectic of form and content, or any of the categories of Subjectivity, is stretching the point too far; these are obviously categories of thought.

The later categories of the Idea, like Chemism, or Living Individual and Life, certainly begin to look like categories of Nature, but here we have a movement from thought to nature, not the other way around.

So the idea of a dialectics of nature represents a big misunderstanding and actually has acted as a barrier to popular understanding of dialectics, not a help.

An Interdisciplinary Concept of Activity (2008)

Introduction

Vasily Davydov was right when he said that activity is an ‘interdisciplinary’ concept:

“I always argue that the problem of activity and the concept of activity are interdisciplinary by nature. There should be specified philosophical, sociological, culturological, psychological and physiological aspects here. That is why the issue of activity is not necessarily connected with psychology as a profession. It is connected at present because in the course of our history activity turned out to be the thing on which our prominent psychologists focused their attention as early as in the Soviet Union days. Things just turned out this way.” (Davydov, 1999: 50, emphasis added)

And surely Marx meant it in that way when he used the word ‘activity’ in the Theses on Feuerbach, taking activity together with ‘circumstances’ as the subject matter of science:

“The coincidence of the changing of circumstances and of human activity (Tätigkeit) or self-change can be conceived and rationally understood only as revolutionary practice.” (Theses on Feuerbach, 3)

and:

“All social life is essentially practical. All mysteries which lead theory to mysticism find their rational solution in human practice and in the comprehension of this practice.” (Theses on Feuerbach, 8)

In The German Ideology, written at about the same time, Marx defined the “real premises” for science as follows, again linking activity with its material conditions:

“The premises from which we begin are not arbitrary ones, not dogmas, but real premises from which abstraction can only be made in the imagination. They are the real individuals, their activity and the material conditions under which they live, both those which they find already existing and those produced by their activity. These premises can thus be verified in a purely empirical way.” (The German Ideology, §1a)

Because of the ‘historical accident’ referred to by Davydov, the concept of ‘activity’ came to be linked specifically to psychology. Despite the efforts of CHAT (Cultural-Historical Activity Theory) researchers, the concept as it has been developed is inadequate beyond the domain of psychology, and is inadequate for grasping the connection between psychology and the wider social life of a community. This inadequacy will be demonstrated below, and an alternative offered which would render the concept of activity more useful.

The General Conception of “Activity”

The idea of ‘Activity Theory’ is associated with the name of AN Leontyev, so before going into his analysis, let us begin with his definition of activity:

“(T)he main question is what these processes are that mediate the influences of the objective world reflected in the human brain. The basic answer to this question lies in acknowledging that these processes are those that realise a person’s actual life in the objective world by which he is surrounded, his social being in all the richness and variety of its forms. In other words, these processes are his activity.

“This proposition requires the further definition that by activity we mean not the dynamics of the nervous, physiological processes that realise this activity. A distinction must be drawn between the dynamics and structure of mental processes and the language that describes them, on the one hand, and the dynamics and structure of the subject’s activity and the language describing them, on the other.

“Thus in dealing with the problem of how consciousness is determined we are confronted with the following alternative, either to accept the view implied in the ‘axiom of immediacy’, i.e., proceed from the ‘object-subject’ pattern (or the ‘stimulus-response’ pattern, which is the same thing), or to proceed from a pattern which includes a third, connecting link – the activity of the subject (and, correspondingly, its means and mode of appearance), a link which mediates their interconnections, that is to say, to proceed from the ‘subject-activity-object’ pattern. ... consciousness is determined by being, which, in the words of Marx, is nothing else but the process of the actual life of people.” (Leontyev AN, 1977)

So activity is the “actual life” of people, clarified with the qualification that it is what is mediating between a person’s consciousness and how they change themselves and the world; it is what they are doing (Tätigkeit). So broadly, it is purposive activity, rather than the autonomous physiological processes which realise this activity. Calling upon the Kantian concepts of subject and object, Leontyev defines activity as what mediates between the two. In fact, his definition of activity is comprehensible only in terms of already given concepts of subject and object, or as part of a redefinition of the subject-object relation in which each of the three terms are mutually constitutive.

But for Leontyev, activity is a category which includes the activity of animals, and in this sense his concept of ‘subject’ differs from that of Kant. The subject-activity-object relationship exists wherever a living thing, as ‘subject’, has a need which lies outside of itself, satisfaction of which is the object of the subject’s activity, stimulated by the object:

“A basic or, as is sometimes said, a constituting characteristic of activity is its objectivity. Properly, the concept of its object (Gegenständ) is already implicitly contained in the very concept of activity. The expression ‘objectless activity’ is devoid of any meaning. Activity may seem objectless, but scientific investigation of activity necessarily requires discovering its object. Thus, the object of activity is twofold: first, in its independent existence as subordinating to itself and transforming the activity of the subject; second, as an image of the object, as a product of its property of psychological reflection that is realized as an activity of the subject and cannot exist otherwise.” (Leontyev AN, 1978)

For AN Leontyev, human activity is just a special case of the more general category of this natural, object-oriented activity.

“Further evolution of behavior and the psyche of animals may be adequately understood specifically as a history of the development of the objective content of activity. At every new stage there appeared an ever more complete subordination of effect or processes of activity to objective connections and relations of the properties of the objects with which the animals interacted.” (AN Leontyev 1978)

What distinguishes specifically human activity is that human needs are themselves products of human activity, i.e., artefacts. Although artefacts are the means of pursuing and forming an image of its object, this is a matter of secondary significance for Leontyev; it is needs that play the definitive role.

This is Leontyev’s general conception of object-oriented activity. Not limited to human life, activity is so ubiquitous that it cannot be seen as any specific relation. Activity is neither object nor method of research, but rather is a general conception of the nature of the underlying reality, what is called the ‘premises’ of a science.

The Premises of a Science

The ‘premises’ of a science are the conception the researcher has of the ultimate reality underlying the field of phenomena with which she is concerned. Analytical science generally locates itself somewhere between naïve realism (a natural world, existing independently of human activity, and obedient to natural laws), and Kantian scepticism (a subjective domain of appearances, manifesting a thing-in-itself beyond perception). For Hegel, the premises were Spirit (Geist), which he described as “the nature of human beings en masse,” but which he conceived of as pure thought. For CS Peirce, everything was semiosis – sign activity.

But for Marx, the “real premises” were “the real individuals, their activity and the material conditions under which they live,” and this conception is shared by CHAT. ‘Activity’ is to be taken as an interdisciplinary concept, because for Marxists it is part of the premises for all science, including even the natural sciences.

To be clear, there cannot really be any question of a ‘science of activity’ since this would amount to a science of everything. In investigating the basis for an ‘interdisciplinary’ concept of activity, the aim is (1) to construct a richer definition of activity as premises for both psychological and sociological sciences, and (2) offer a clear conception of those problems lying on the boundary between psychology and sociology. In summary, if we are to formulate an interdisciplinary concept of activity, then we must:

(1) take the individuals and the material conditions, i.e., the constellation of material artefacts, along with activity, as our premises.

(2) form a clear conception of the essential problem of the interconnection of social life and individual consciousness.

Central to both problems is the conception of what constitutes ‘an activity’, that is, of what constitutes a unit of social life, from the standpoint of activity.

The “unit of analysis”

Central to formulating the foundations of any science is the idea of ‘unit of analysis’, as it is called in the CHAT tradition, following Vygotsky. This is the requirement to form a clear conception of the class of problems to be investigated, by getting to the root of it, so to speak. It is what Marx meant when he referred to the commodity relation as the ‘cell’.

“But in bourgeois society, the commodity-form of the product of labour – or value-form of the commodity – is the economic cell-form.” (Marx, Preface to first edition of Capital, 1867)

Note that Marx derived the whole range of phenomena of capitalism from the commodity relation, despite the fact that exchange of commodities is a relatively rare occurrence in developed capitalism: invariably commodities are purchased and sold. Marx derived money as a special limiting case of commodity; but if instead, he had begun with money, then he would have been quite unable to disclose the ‘mystery’ of capital, because, by starting with such a developed conception as ‘money’, he would have missed the very processes of differentiation and development which make the relations of capital comprehensible. Exchange of commodities is the most primitive relation which, when further developed, unfolds into purchase and sale, contract, the market, the accumulation of capital, wage-labour, exploitation, credit, interest and so on and so forth.

It is the same idea as what Hegel called the Notion or conception of a thing, as he explained in relation to the foundations of the science of right (in German, Recht = right or law):

“The science of right ... must develop the idea, which is the reason of an object, out of the conception. It is the same thing to say that it must regard the peculiar internal development of the thing itself.” (Hegel 1821, §2)

But in the “Philosophy of Right,” Hegel dealt not just with right or law, with the entire range of problems which arise in the creation of a modern nation-state, on the basis that all the social and political phenomena of the modern nation state grow out of the notion of private property, which he calls ‘abstract right’ – the cell or unit of analysis for what Hegel called ‘objective spirit’.

Marx and Hegel spent considerable labour to identify, not the most typical or the simplest unit of the complex they were studying, but the most primitive relation, the relation which once it comes into being, sets in train the series of developments which produces the whole complex. Exchange of commodities or the recognition of private property are each a kind of ‘virus’ which, once established, spreads and replicates itself and transforms the whole organism.

What is “an activity"?

The definition of a ‘unit of analysis’ allows a science to be elaborated rationally (as opposed to empirically), and sheds light of a particular kind on the class of problems which prompted it. The type of problems relevant to an interdisciplinary conception of activity include: the impact of economic and social conditions, cultural difference, schooling practices, social norms and institutions, etc., on psychological problems such as learning, anti-social behaviour and so on, and the source of changes in Zeitgeist, problems of political communication, mass movements and so on. These are typical problems which span psychology and sociology, and on which these considerations should shed some light. This is what ought to be expected of an interdisciplinary theory of activity.

An interdisciplinary science of activity requires a conception of “an activity,” that is to say, a unit of analysis which represents just one component of the totality of social life. How can we analyse activity, the social life of human beings? What is a ‘unit’ of social life? And what are the types of activity and according to what criteria do we differentiate them? Unless we can determine the elements and types of activity from the definition we make of an activity, then we will obliged to categorise activity according to arbitrary and extraneous criteria. This would lead to an uncritical and empiricist description of society.

Although activity forms an underlying reality for all the sciences, it has only been Marxist psychology and Marxist political economy which have explicitly taken up the concept, avoiding both naïve realism and idealist relativism. But these two sciences which have emerged from common origins are quite foreign to one another at any but the most superficial level. A minimal requirement for an interdisciplinary science of activity would be that one and the same conception of ‘an activity’ should be consistent with both cultural-historical psychology and Marx’s critique of political economy.

In line with what Marx had to say on this topic, and what is in any case self-evident, activity has to be taken together with the real human beings active in that activity, and the actual constellation of material culture constituted by that activity. Amongst other things, this excludes the possibility of beginning with hypothetical situations belonging to a mythological past or imputing to nature relations and laws which are to be later rediscovered in human activity: it means beginning with human beings of the kind we find before us today, and whose propensities we wish to disclose.

The indispensable characteristics of the unit of analysis are:

(1) It is the conception of a singular, indivisible thing (not a collection or combination), but it may be a particular kind of some genus of thing (such word meaning, commodity relation, private property, conditioned reflex).

If it is collection or combination, this simply means that we have not started at the real beginning, having already uncritically accepted as given, component concepts and relations. As a particular, it may be or not be (for example a relation may be one of fair exchange or one of duty, a reflex conditioned or unconditional) and this particularisation points to a process of genesis, an inner movement and tension.

(2) It exhibits the essential properties of a class of more developed phenomena.

The point is discovering which thing exhibits the essential properties of a class of phenomena which is of interest. The discovery of the cell is always the outcome of a search for the essential relation behind a persistent series of unresolved problems. As a cell, it is not a typical relation, but rather the most primitive of its type, a prototype. The unit of analysis poses the key problems which can be examined without presuppositions.

(3) It is itself an existent phenomenon (not a principle or axiom or hypothetical force or such like non-observable), in Goethe’s term, an Urphänomenon.

A science can only base itself on something real and empirically given. An existent thing can be captured as a concept because it is the starting point both for a real development and for the development of understanding. For example, if we understand a child’s “social situation of development” simply as a collection of factors capable of influencing the prospects for a child’s development we have nothing. On the other hand, when we grasp the situation as a predicament, a trap from which the child must emancipate herself, then we have what is both a concept and an existent reality. Vygotsky’s (1997: 318) discussion of Pavlov’s study of salivation in dogs confirms that Vygotsky used this same conception of ‘unit of analysis’.

The interdisciplinary concept of activity described earlier is unsuitable as a ‘unit of analysis’. ‘Activity’ is inherently indeterminate, because it is everything. A “unit of analysis’ on the other hand, is determinate, as simple and determinate as it is possible to be. ‘Activity’ is not a singular thing but a quasi-infinite class of things, a substance. It is a conception of the ultimate reality for a science. It is suitable as a ‘real premise’. But as a unit of analysis for a science we need some determinate genus of activity.

Let us first review of the directions of LS Vygotsky, A Meshcheryakov, AN Leontyev and Yrjö Engström in seeking to analyse activity.

Vygotsky’s Concept of Activity

Although Activity Theory is associated with the name of AN Leontyev rather than Vygotsky, Vygotsky also used a concept of activity. The key aspects of Vygotsky’s concept of activity are summed up in the scenario in which a novice is trying to do something, and an adept assists the novice complete the action by offering them an artefact. This scenario is represented in the ‘double stimulation’ experiment. (Vygotsky 1930)

Vygotsky always focused his scientific work on interactions between individuals, rather than using representations of societal phenomena and institutions abstracted from their constitution in specific forms of activity, but this does not detract from the significance of his work in understanding societal activities. After all, societal institutions exist only in and through individual actions and interactions between individuals.

In the double-stimulation relationship, two people collaborate in the project of one by using an artefact introduced by the other. The artefact is a cultural-historical product. The artefact is used by the person to achieve their own goals. In this scenario, all the essential elements of a notion of activity are encapsulated because the artefact is a product of the entire history of society, in which other people have sought to achieve similar goals, and the other carries the knowledge of how to use it. So this is not just a localised relationship between two individuals, but is a cultural-historical formation.

Meshcheryakov’s Work

Alexander Meshcheryakov (1979) developed an important variation on Vygotsky’s conception of learning through collaboration with another person from his work in the education of deaf-blind children. In Meshcheryakov’s scenario, the teacher manually helps the novice complete a task, and then gradually withdraws that assistance, in such a way that the novice is able to take over the teacher’s actions and complete the task autonomously.

This idea naturally leads to a theory of gestures, perceived by another as initial movements towards some action, and a theory of language as an extension of the use of gestures in the process of collaborative activity, a theory shared with the pragmatists such as G H Mead (Mead 1934). It also leads to an understanding of the body and its use as a kind of artefact.

The scenario has value as a conception of the simplest possible unit of activity. But the education of deaf-blind children hinges on direct physical contact between teacher and pupil. As a result, an important aspect of social life is omitted, namely that artefacts generally continue to intervene in the collaboration of people even remotely from the creator of the artefact in time and space. Also, like Vygotsky’s scenario, being focussed on educational activity, the relationship between the individuals involved is essentially asymmetrical.

Neither Meshcheryakov nor Vygotsky went on from these ideas of interpersonal collaboration to develop an approach to understanding societal phenomena on a broader scale however.

Leontyev’s Anatomy and Taxonomy of Activity

Leontyev never claimed to have identified a ‘unit of analysis’ for activity, and always used the word “unit” in inverted commas (AA Leontyev 2006), but he did construct an anatomy of activity as follows (AN Leontyev 1978):

Each Activity is defined by its motive, which is an independently existing situation which constitutes the fulfillment of some objective need. The object has a dual existence in the objective means of satisfaction of the need, and the image the individual constructs of it and which serves as the motivation for the individual to act towards it. The individual’s needs are both produced and satisfied by activities.

Activities are realised by individual Actions which are controlled by the individual and are each oriented towards a goal. An activity is realised by many actions pursuant to different goals, but while the goals differ from the motive of the activity, the activity has no other existence separately from the actions through which it is realised. A goal, such as “Go to point A,” must be kept in the individual’s mind if they are to take the appropriate action, but the goal does not provide its own inherent motive. Further, it is not assumed that the individual have an objectively true conception of the motive of the activity to which their action contributes; all that is necessary is that for one reason or another they pursue an appropriate goal, and the divers goals pursued by different individuals objectively add up to furtherance of the activity. On the other hand, this means that there can be no immanent definition of an activity on the basis of its constituent goals. So what constitutes ‘an activity’ can only be determined from an observer standpoint, outside of activity.

Operations are the means by which actions are realised according to conditions, and may not be consciously or purposively selected or controlled. Actions become ‘internalised’ in being transformed into operations, that is, they become ‘second nature’.

The archetypal activity is a collective hunt by a tribal group, in which different individuals cooperate through a traditional division of labour, pursuing different goals (beating or trapping) which contribute to realisation of the social product, which is then distributed according to social norms and rules, so that the needs and expectations of each individual are met. The actions are carried out using socially developed skills which are ‘second nature’ to the individuals, of which they are only conscious when something ‘goes wrong’. For example, the blind person who ‘feels’ their way along the street with a white stick, feels with the end of their stick, just as they would if it were their finger, until the stick breaks or something.

The concepts of operation and action form the basis for a psychology, and it is not my intention to critique these concepts. The question is the only adequacy of Leontyev’s notion of ‘an activity’, as a connecting link between his psychology and the phenomena of broader social life.

AN Leontyev’s Concept of ‘An Activity’

Leontyev’s idea is that in the social field there are various activities; each of these activities is deemed to be meeting some human need, by way of performing some function within the community’s construction of those needs. There are types of activity according to different types of need. An individual is motivated to participate in these activities, although their conception of what need is being met by the activity is socially constructed and distinct from the ‘real’ motive (i.e., function). The individual participates via a social division of labour by working towards some socially assigned goal and is rewarded by having their needs met according to socially determined norms of distribution, but it is the apprehended motive of the activity which motivates the individual to adopt the goal and pursue it.

This story is all about needs; it sheds light on what an individual may construe as a need and the goals they may pursue and how their psychological functioning is modified by the actions and operations carried out in pursuit of goals. Given the social production of needs and the means of their fulfilment and the idea of transformation of actions into operations with the internalisation of actions and tool-use, and the objectification of actions generating new needs, we have the basis for a psychology. The question, however, is whether this notion of activity links psychology into an adequate concept of social life.

A problem lies in the definition of activity in terms of its motive. Leontyev is quite emphatic:

“... we always must deal with specific activities, each of which answers a definite need of the subject (i.e., the individual), is directed toward an object of this need, is extinguished as a result of its satisfaction, and is produced again, perhaps in other, altogether changed conditions.

“Separate concrete types of activity may differ among themselves according to various characteristics: according to their form, according to the methods of carrying them out, according to their emotional intensity, according to their time and space requirements, according to their physiological mechanisms, etc. The main thing that distinguishes one activity from another, however, is the difference of their objects. It is exactly the object of an activity that gives it a determined direction. According to the terminology I have proposed, the object of an activity is its true motive. It is understood that the motive may be either material or ideal, either present in perception or exclusively in the imagination or in thought. The main thing is that behind activity there should always be a need, that it should always answer one need or another.” (Leontyev AN 1978)

This conception is dependent on an uncritical vision of society as a division of labour rationally planned or culturally evolved to meet the social needs of its citizens. How is an individual to be assured that an activity in which they are participating is motivated to meet their needs? Such a conception is compatible only with the image of a primitive tribal society or the myth of the socialist state. It is most certainly not compatible with bourgeois society or at any rate, with Marx’s vision of bourgeois society as set out in Capital and elsewhere. But the starting point for a science cannot be some other world, whether of the primeval past or the utopian future. The starting point for science must be, as Marx insisted, the “real activity of individuals” which can be “verified in a purely empirical way.”

Leontyev’s Theory of Activity and Marx’s Political Economy

AN Leontyev’s activity theory and Marx’s political economy are not compatible.

Marx repeatedly insists that the object of all labour subsumed under capital is the expansion of capital, but in activity theory, the object of an activity is always the meeting of a human need. The idea that the object of the market and capital accumulation is the satisfaction of human needs is precisely what Marx was arguing against. For example:

“To the extent that his money has been converted into the elements of the labour process and the whole labour process itself appears merely as the consumption of the labour capacity bought by the money, the labour process itself appears as a transformation that money passes through by being exchanged not for an available use value but for a process which is its own process. The labour process is as it were incorporated in it, subsumed under it. Yet, the purpose of the exchange of money for the labour capacity was by no means use value; it was the transformation of money into capital. Value, become independent in money, was to maintain, increase itself in this exchange, assume a self-sufficient character, and the money owner was to become a capitalist precisely by representing value dominant over circulation and asserting itself as subject within it. What was at stake here was exchange value, not use value. Value asserts itself as exchange value only if the use value created in the labour process, the product of actual labour, is itself a repository of exchange value, i.e. a commodity. For the money that was being turned into capital, therefore, it was a matter of the production of a commodity, not a mere use value. The use value was important only in so far as it was a necessary condition, a material substratum of exchange value. What was involved, in fact, was the production of exchange value, its preservation and its increase.” (MECW v. 30 p. 66)

and

“a schoolmaster is a productive labourer when, in addition to belabouring the heads of his scholars, he works like a horse to enrich the school proprietor. That the latter has laid out his capital in a teaching factory, instead of in a sausage factory, does not alter the relation.” (Capital, v. 1, Ch. 16)

Leontyev’s conception of activity as being made up of “units” each answering to a definite need of individual citizens suggests a theory of history in which social relations evolve somewhat like an ecological system. Leontyev’s theory is a kind of functionalism.

The unit of the social life of capital is the company, not a functional branch of industry. For Marx, capital is a ‘quasi-subject’. Capital is an activity which sets goals and actions for individuals and underlies representations people form of the motives of their actions, and its units are units of capital, companies. But capital cannot be understood as “answering a definite need of the individual, and directed toward an object of this need.” Of course, capital produces use-values, and the advocates of the market take that as the beginning and end of the matter, but according to Marx the object of labor in bourgeois society is the production of exchange value and the accumulation of surplus value. The production of use-values is a means to an end, not the object, not the object itself.

The structure of capital, divided into units according to ownership, that is companies (in the broad sense), internally structures activity by means of a flow of funds downwards supporting the confluent command structure. All labour subsumed under capital can be divided into units and analysed easily according to the understanding of capital as a form of activity. Human needs are an entirely secondary matter here. Other organisations modelled on capitalist enterprises function internally in the same way, and it cannot be presumed that the formal aims of the organisation (e.g. a public service) is the effective object of all actions in the organisation as every nodal point in the distribution of funds creates new (bureaucratic) interests.

In “Development of the Mind,” Leontyev (1981) talks about the problems for his theory arising from the contradiction between use value and exchange value, but he only goes so far as to point to distortions that the market introduces into cultural evolution. He points out that a doctor must desire that his patients are ill, because it is by curing their illness that he earns a living. He points out that norms of distribution may lead to unfair remuneration for some participants in the social labour. He talks about the psychological effect of alienation. But he does not see these observations as calling into question the fundamental idea that the object of an activity (including wage labour) is the meeting of an objective need of the individual. At the psychological level, this does not seem to pose a problem: a wage labourer indeed pursues a goal useful to the employer with the idea that her own needs will be met as a by-product in distribution of the social product and doubtless also believes that her work meets a social need, not just the profit of the employer. This ambiguity is seen by Marx as follows:

“If we consider the process of production from the point of view of the simple labour-process, the worker is related to the means of production, not in their quality as capital, but as being the mere means and material of his own purposeful productive activity... But it is different as soon as we view the production process as a process of valorization... It is no longer the worker who employs the means of production, but the means of production which employ the worker. Instead of being consumed by him as the material elements of his productive activity, they consume him as the ferment necessary to their own life process, and the life-process of capital consists solely in its own motion as self-valorizing value.” (Marx Capital v.1, pp. Ch. 11)

That people manage to live despite capitalism is not simply because their needs are met as a by-product of capital accumulation. Were social life to be totally subsumed under capital, then not only would the social conditions for human life be destroyed but the natural conditions for human life would be quickly extinguished as well. But it is surely self-evident that a psychology which is to shed light on the mentality of modern capitalist society must recognise that this society is a capitalist society, not contingently, but essentially.

So as a theory of psychology Leontyev’s activity theory still works, just so long as the content of ‘activity’ is not taken too seriously. But what then would be the point of an activity theory?

Groups as a Model of Sociality

A further problem with Leontyev’s model is that it is based on the Kantian conception of the individual subject, whilst the activities in which individuals participate remain objective functions or structures. A solution which has been adopted by many writers, both Marxist and non-Marxist, is to put in the position of the individual subject “an individual or group.” That is, the problem of the social character of human agency is resolved by the supposition that a group may act in the same way as an individual, but without considering any additional problems about how a ‘group’ is constituted or what is meant for an individual by ‘group membership’.

For example, Lektorsky says:

“Activity cannot exist without a subject. But the initial form of a subject is no ego, but a subject of collective activity (e.g., a group, a community, a team). The individual subjective world, individual consciousness, ego are not something given (as philosophers in the 17th and 18th centuries thought), but the result of the development and transformations of collective activity or practice.” (Lektorsky 1999: 107)

There is no doubt that social subjects of this kind exist and the concept of corporate or collective subject has an important role in cultural and historical analysis. However, group membership is only a limited mode of subjectivity. Still more limited is ‘membership’ of abstract general groups such as race or gender. For example, my activity might be in part determined by my interest in art deco, something I share with millions of others, but I do not thereby belong to a group of art deco lovers.

But more importantly, the posing of group membership solves nothing in relation to problem of the sociality of individual action. In fact, the existence of social groups and how they are constituted by individuals is an additional problem for activity theory over and above the societal character of activity, as well as the problem of how a group acts, when in reality actions are only ever executed by individuals. Rather than being a solution to the problem of membership of society, the idea of membership of group simply sets up an infinite regress much like the homunculus sets up an infinite regress in the other direction. The concept of group membership is also a very poor representation of sociality in relation to modern society. Membership of a team or committee is a relatively marginal part of social life.

For example, when Marx said:

“But also when I am active scientifically, etc. – an activity which I can seldom perform in direct community with others – then my activity is social, because I perform it as a man. Not only is the material of my activity given to me as a social product (as is even the language in which the thinker is active): my own existence is social activity, and therefore that which I make of myself, I make of myself for society and with the consciousness of myself as a social being.” (Marx, Ec. & Phil. Man., 1844)

Thus, Marx specifically excluded being a member of some ‘group’ from the essential meaning of activity.

This ‘lumpy’ conception of subjectivity, as either an individual subject or a collective subject, misses the point. How an individual thinks and acts to one degree or another as part of a group (other than an entire cultural-historical formation) is a question which needs to be answered, not presupposed by activity theory. Activity theory needs to shed light on identity, interpersonal relationships such as solidarity, loyalty, friendship and so on, ethical commitment, respect for law, pursuit of science rather than superstition, ability to cooperate with others, the acquisition of cultural competences and so on, relations such as that which Marx has in mind in the above quote, and which Vygotsky has in mind in his conception of activity as represented in the double-stimulation experiment, the kind of relations with others which arise from and are constituted in activity. Born into society, and pursuing culturally-historically produced ends with culturally-historically produced means, the individual is participating in cultural-historical activity, not as a Kantian ‘individual subject’, but as a ‘social subject’, without any implication of being a ‘member of a group’.

Yrjö Engström’s model

Yrjö Engström tackled a lot of the problems in Leontyev’s model with his comprehensive and very impressive schema. Engström starts with the natural model of the activity of social creatures, in which an individual’s relationship to their environment is mediated by their community. This makes in fact a three-way relationship of mutual mediation, as the community’s relationship with its environment is mediated by individuals and the individuals’ relationship with their community is mediated by the environment.

The specifically human form of life then develops through the mediation of each of these three relationships:

- The individuals’ relationship with their environment opens up as the direct relationship with nature is mediated by emergent tool use and tool making underlying a system of production mediating between needs and their satisfaction.

- The relationship of the entire community to the means satisfying its needs opens up with the direct relationship being replaced by a division of labour with a system of distribution of the products of labour.

- The direct relationship of the individual to the group gives way to the emergence of larger and more complex communities and social relationships mediated by norms, rules and traditions, including the exchange of products on the market.

The combination of production, distribution and exchange are then mediated by a system of social consumption of the products of labour. Thus, we have Engström’s famous expanding triangle of triangles. The relationship between the (Kantian, individual) subject and its object (the means of satisfying the subject’s needs) is now subject to multiple lines of mediation. Each implementation of this schema produces an outcome which is a changed relationship of all the factors, and each of the mediating links contains contradictions, the mediation of which generate further lines of development.

Altogether, Engström’s model represents relationships between individual (subject), object, outcome, community, environment, social rules, instruments of production, division of labour, production, distribution, exchange and consumption. Engström calls this the “unit of analysis” for activity theory on the basis that it is the smallest unit which includes all the properties of the whole. But this is a misunderstanding of the meaning of “unit of analysis.”

Even if we assume that production, distribution, exchange and consumption are derivative rather than essential concepts, and we take “outcome” as a reproduction of the object, we are still left with 7 distinct concepts – subject, object, community, environment, social rules, instruments of production and division of labour – which have to be derived before we have the so-called “unit of analysis.” But if the ultimate reality we are dealing with is activity, then every one of these concepts is derivative of the concept of activity. For example, “subject” is one of the 7 concepts which are presupposed in the conception of activity; but what is the nature of the subject? An answer this one question alone would be an outcome of a theory of activity, and cannot be its presupposition. And how is a “community” constituted if not by activity?

The idea of pairs or triplets of concepts which are mutually constitutive, being a differentiated unity, has a long pedigree, but a set of seven mutually constitutive concepts is not really tenable, and Engström surely doesn’t mean it that way. And if we include community and division of labour, why not include the church and the state and any number other components of social life? If we include norms and rules, why not include money? Why are these 7 entities more essential than others? And why do we include division of labour but not collaboration?

Engström’s claim rests on the idea of the initial natural relationship of individual-community-environment ‘expanding’ through the intervention of mediating elements. This would make activity the coincidence of three processes: tool-making, law-making and labour organisation. So activity is derivative from these concepts. It is a plausible conception, similar to the schema Hegel derived from the idea of the differentiation of production and consumption, and used to theorise the emergence of Spirit in his 1802-03 system, but it is entirely speculative. It has no empirical content. The only unity tying the set of concepts together as whole is the thesis that at some time in the past things happened this way. Such a speculation cannot be the premise for a science or its starting point.

To make a start with a science we have to have a concept of what it is that we are investigating and the possibility of observing it. But here at the very least we have 7 entities, whose conceptions are posited as preliminary to the science of activity.

Engström’s ‘expanding triangle’ is not a “unit of analysis,” it is a schema. It is an impressive schema of social life, but in the sense that Goethe, Hegel, Marx and Vygotsky envisaged a conception which would function as the foundation of a science, this is just not it.

Engström has given us an elegant general schema for social life, but he has not given us a conception of any of those parts or of activity itself.

Towards a Unit of Analysis for Activity Theory

Societal phenomena, such as states, markets, institutions of various kinds, political life, Zeitgeist and so on, exist only in and through the actions and experiences of individuals and the artefacts that they use, and which carry with them shared or overlapping meanings. In the foregoing review of efforts to form a conception of activity, it seems that attempts to incorporate ‘supra-individual’ aspects of society such as social division of labour, norms and rules, systems of production and distribution, and so on, fail to provide the basis for a unit of analysis. The fact is that these societal phenomena exist for the individual only through (1) the use of artefacts which originate and carry meaning from outside the immediate setting of their use, and (2) the regularity of experiences of interaction with other individuals. Consequently, I conclude that a unit of analysis for the study of activity must be based on ideas like that of Vygotsky and Meshcheryakov cited earlier, which take the collaborative actions of two individuals, with one using an artefact introduced by the other, as the basis for understanding activity. Notions of social norms, division of labour, markets, and so on, must therefore be derived from their foundation in the artefact-mediated collaboration of individuals.

These studies were limited to pair-wise collaboration, but the presence of an artefact is always implicitly the presence of a third or more parties to the collaboration, so it seems that the essentials of multi-sided collaboration (as in group dynamics) are contained in two-sided collaboration so long as it remains the case that the artefact mediating the interaction between the two parties comes from outside.

Collaboration always implies that the individuals involved share a common object or project. According to the OED, a project is “a planned or proposed undertaking; a scheme, a proposal; a purpose, an objective. In business, science, etc., a collaborative enterprise, frequently involving research or design, that is carefully planned to achieve a particular aim.” (OED online September 2008) In recent Hegel interpretation (Pinkard 1994) the word ‘project’ has been used as an interpretation of what Hegel called a ‘formation of consciousness’, that is, a self-conscious historical form of social practice. ‘Project’ carries the connotation of being extended in time beyond the actions of participants and through historical time, and of being a bearer of meaning, identity, values and ethical convictions.

In the two cases we have considered, the relation to the project is asymmetrical between the two collaborators, but the commitment to the shared project is integral to the concept and the project itself is part of the relationship.

The notion of project needs must include conflict as well as cooperation. That is, the relationship in which one person endeavours to prevent the other from doing something is just as essential as the situation in which both strive for the same outcome. Likewise, collaboration implies that the participants argue over what should be done and how. Simple cooperation, in which conflict is avoided, perhaps by means of a division of labour or the adherence to well-defined norms and rules of behaviour, fails to capture the nature of the collaboration in either Meshcheryakov or Vygotsky’s conception. On the other hand, a conflict always has a shared situation as its outcome, which is indicative of a notion of its irreducible co-production. Were it not the case that both parties will have to share the outcome, there would be no basis for conflict. The outcome is always the resultant of two independent wills, and contains moments of both conflict and cooperation. In general, we can see cooperation (pursuing the same end using a division of labour, whether natural or artificial) and conflict (uncompromising pursuit of mutually exclusive states of affairs) are special, limiting cases of collaboration.

Both Vygotsky and Meshcheryakov’s scenarios concern the relation between an adept and a novice. There is no reason to limit the relationship in this way however. Nonetheless, these concepts highlight the fact that in entering into collaboration, people will not only assist each other, but also change each other and learn from each other and Vygotsky and Meshcheryakov’s studies of exactly how this happens remain valid irrespective of whether or not the people involved are adepts or novices and in what respect. In the view of these writers, education is certainly not something that the teacher does to the student; the teacher and student work together towards a shared goal, and no progress can be made at all until such a shared project can be found.

An important special limiting case of collaboration, is solidarity, in which one subject voluntarily subordinates themself to the other’s ends. This contrasts with community, in which the shared end is a given rather than voluntarily adopted.

An irreducible part of collaboration is the project itself, a project which finds its raison d'être in social life as well as its means. Jürgen Habermas considers neither the object for which people communicate with one another nor the means they use to communicate with one another, essential to the study of ‘communicative action’. We cannot share this opinion. While the concept of ‘group’ is inadequate as a means of introducing social bonds into activity theory, in the notion of collaboration, the social bonds are inherent in the concept itself, for it is the commitment to the common project, whether it be cooperative or conflictual, that not only creates the social bond, but also gives the social bond its specific character. So rather than a concept of simply ‘collaboration’, which leaves out the objective and character of the collaboration, we should use a concept of ‘project collaboration’, that is, individuals (or ‘subjects’ in the more general sense) collaborating in some project. That the individuals use artefacts in their participation is inherent in the concept of activity itself, even if that is solely the individuals’ own bodies.

Ethics

The notion of collaboration not only provides a starting point for science, but is also clearly normative, and provides a starting point for ethics. As we have already noted, individuals participate in project collaboration in a number of quite distinct ways; they may strive to achieve the project or they may strive to frustrate the project, and there is nothing inherently unethical in conflict. While individuals may participate in a project in order to further its values and practices, they may alternatively, participate in the project with only the aim of receiving side-benefits which are external to the project, rather than those inherent in the project itself. This is a distinction which Alasdair MacIntyre (1988) makes, as for example, when sports stars play only for the high monetary rewards rather than to further the practice of the sport in its own right. Individuals may make decisions collectively, or either party may take a leading role in defining the project, or one may simply follow the lead of the other, or even participate solely in solidarity with the other. There are normative questions in all these modifications of the paradigmatic collaborative relationships.

The idea of collaboration is already important in social service industries. Doctor and patient collaborate in restoring the patient’s well-being, an architect and the building-owner collaborate in a building project. Every instance of collaboration in a project has characteristic problems – the doctor may regard herself as expert and fail to share decision-making with the patient, the architect may see the building as a monument to their art rather than a home for the owner, and so on.

It may be noted as an aside here that the Activity Theory has hitherto taken division of labour as the norm, so the possibility of taking a critical attitude towards ‘doctor-as-expert’ is excluded. Division of labour is a special, limiting case of collaboration, but the reverse is not true. If division of labour is built into the foundation, then collaboration is excluded as a basic mode of activity. It also undermines the possibility of taking a critical attitude towards liberal notions of the separation of public and private spheres.

Collaboration is well-established as a paradigm in creative arts and in the sciences, where cross-media, cross-disciplinary and cross-sectoral collaboration is regarded of particular creative value. The ethics of collaboration is in distinct contrast to liberalism, which bases itself on the notion of contract and the dichotomy of private and public spheres, and for which the notion of collaboration is alien.

Although there are a myriad of forms and deformations of collaboration, the concept of ‘project collaboration’ has a normative core expressed in the dictum: “What we do is decided by us.” (Blunden 2003)

This maxim differs from the Biblical maxim: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” (Luke 6:31) because it cannot be presumed that others have the same expectations as we do.

It also goes further than the Kantian maxim: “Always treat another person as an end and never as a mere means.” (Kant 1780) (which in any case is already in conflict with the commodity relation, something that seems to have simply been ignored over the 200 years since Kant wrote the maxim.)

It differs from Habermas’s maxim: “only those norms can claim to be valid that meet (or could meet) with the approval of all affected in their capacity as participants in a practical discourse” (Habermas 1992) because Habermas takes practical discourse, i.e., discussing ethical principles, as the paradigmatic project while at the same time, casting far too wide a scope for those deemed participants.

It differs from Agnes Heller’s maxim: “I do unto you what I expect you to do unto me. What I do unto you and what you do unto me should be decided by you and me” (Heller 1986: 253) because Heller not only fails to allow for legitimate differences in the expectations of parties, and omits the we-perspective.

The notion of project-collaboration allows us to transcend the limitations of all these perspectives in the formulation of a collaborative ethics applicable to people’s social life. The idea of collaboration, at its limits, extends from two individuals passing each other on a narrow pathway, to caring for the climate and atmosphere together with any other person in the world. The significance of the various ‘subject positions’ arises out of the notion of project-collaboration itself.

The point of these quite cursory remarks is only to draw attention to the richness of the concept of ‘project collaboration’, which can provide a starting point for ethics as well as science of activity.

Marx’s Critique of Political Economy and Activity Theory

It is now possible to establish the relationship between activity theory and Marx’s critique of political economy. Whereas project collaboration is the prototypical, genuinely human relationship, capital springs from the relationship of exchange of labour, for which the norm is: “You scratch my back and I'll scratch yours.” It is especially clear in Marx’s very early work, “Comment on James Mill,” how Marx sees the relationship of exchange of the products of labour as an essentially manipulative and corrupting relationship. This relationship has nonetheless come to be the dominant relationship in bourgeois society. Capital rests on a quite particular (de)formation of the relationship of project collaboration, in which each subject pursues their own end, but regards the other’s labour instrumentally, simply as a means to their own end, and pursues their project by means of exchange of equivalents.

The commodity relation leads to an abstract general logic in which the projects pursued by different subjects relate to each other only externally or quantitatively, rather than by concrete universal logic, which characterises project collaboration. The division of labour which results from the subsumption of collaborative projects under capital, puts abstract general relationships in the dominant position, and these abstract general relationships penetrate deeper and deeper into consciousness, with the results being concentration of capital and fragmentation of social bonds, as Marx demonstrated in Capital and other works, such as The Communist Manifesto.

So in this view, activity theory and Marx’s critique of political economy have compatible conceptions of social life and methodological principles. But what of the conclusions to be drawn about the nature of social life? Marx’s critique of political economy points to the outcome of the growth of a specific kind of activity, namely production for exchange, leading to a labour process more and more subsumed under capital, although never completely subsumed under capital.

The normal situation today is that collaboration is subsumed under the market, where workers collaborate inside capitalist enterprises, whilst exchange is subsumed under collaboration, when some or all of the participants either earn a living or contribute monetarily while contributing to a collaborative project, as well as cases where there is project collaboration on one hand or the market on the other hand, dominating in different domains of social life, more or less interacting with one another across boundaries. In any real situation, both types of relationship are present and contribute to the psychology of the participants. Although project collaboration is the norm of social life amongst human beings, modern capitalism is seeing an expansion of the market and its penetration of more and more spheres of activity. Nonetheless, exchange of commodities remains a special, limiting case of project collaboration.

On the other hand, Vygotsky’s concept of ‘double-stimulation’ and Meshcharyakov’s concept of task completion and so on, are also seen to be special cases of the more general concept of project collaboration.

Project collaboration constitutes a unit of analysis for activity theory. We should now return to the question raised earlier of a taxonomy of activity.

Towards a Taxonomy of Activity

At first we see that project collaboration constitutes the basic unit, the molecule of social life, presenting us a picture of millions and millions of transitory relations of conflict and cooperation between people with certain ends, in a certain division of power enjoying internal and externals benefits, and using certain artefacts to mediate their collaborative activity. Such projects appear and disappear, and are reproduced in new forms at different times and places, whilst every person is engaged in a multiplicity of such relationships at any given time. How ought we to move from this picture of unmediated and apparently chaotic activity? How can this microscopic unit of analysis for activity underpin a view of social life as a whole?

Hegel tells us that:

“(Division of a subject matter) requires a principle or ground of division so constituted that the division based upon it embraces the whole extent of the region designated by the definition in general. But, in division, there is the further requirement that the principle of it must be borrowed from the nature of the object in question. If this condition be satisfied, the division is natural and not merely artificial, that is to say, arbitrary.” (Hegel, Shorter Logic, §230n)

So categorisation of the different types of activity and their scope has to be derived from the notion of project collaboration itself, its normative core and the differences which can be unfolded out of that core, as anticipated above. We have already seen that the distinction between capital and social life outside of capital flows from the notion of project collaboration. Within that, different companies constitute units of capital as indicated by the management structure erected on the basis of ownership of capital, and outside of capital, other nodes arising on the basis of collaboration whether natural or voluntary. Aside from the taxonomy that flows from different forms of the collaborative relationship, further distinctions follow from the articulation of projects over various periods of time from momentary to historical. Social movements, nations, religious communities all constitute themselves as projects.

An even finer grain of analysis of social life is given by concepts, realised in and through activity, and concepts provide a rational basis for an approach to working out types and categories of activity. When concepts first appear, they constitute projects, but in time, they become objectified and merge into the fabric of social life, the language and culture generally. Once a concept has become objectified, it ceases to have an independent life, but participates as an aspect of all subsequent projects. Some concepts however, not yet objectified, retain vitality, and constitute living, self-conscious projects.

In any case, this approach does not move towards a “lumpy” conception of subjectivity, with ‘individual subjects’ and ‘collective subjects’ at play. Here subjectivity is constituted by participation in a multiplicity of different projects and activity organised around a multiplicity of different more or less independent concepts.

Reading “Capital” (2009)

There are a number of ways in which people have read Capital.

(1a) According to one reading, Marx was (amongst other things) an economist and Capital is a book about economics. Marx recognised that the political economists of the period of the rise of capitalism (Adam Smith, Ricardo) wanted to develop a genuinely scientific theory of the workings of capitalism while later economists (J S Mill, Malthus) were merely apologists, whose theories deliberately obscured the truth about capitalism so as to cover up the fact of exploitation and disarm the workers. So Marx developed the work of the early political economists, and produced a sound body of scientific knowledge, in contrast to modern economic science which is both unscientific and ideological. The cornerstone of Marx’s theory in this reading is “Marx’s labour theory of value,” and any attack on the LTV is an attack on the working class and an attack on Marx. In this reading, “critique” means exposing the ideological character of all economics beyond the early period of Smith and Ricardo, and cleansing these early works of their weaknesses and illusions.

(1b) In a variation on (1a), Marx produced not the only valid theory of economics, but one among many, and taken together with modern approaches and mathematical methods, is a valuable component part of economic science, with its strengths particularly in crisis theory, long term trends, and in providing a point from which sceptical criticism can be mounted against monetarism, neo-liberal economics and so on. Such readings make up the majority reception of Marx. Marx’s 1865 lecture “Value, Price and Profit,” where he discusses the underlying causes of movements in wages and prices over the preceding decades is a classic and convincing instance of the effectiveness of Capital as a work of practical economic theory.

(2) According to Harry Cleaver and others, Capital is not a book about economics at all – why would Marx want to give advice to the capitalists? – but rather is about the class struggle. Not just in 1865, but as early as 1847, Marx was giving talks to workers, debunking the wages fund theory, confirming the legitimacy of the fight for higher wages. Capital shows, for example, the importance of fighting for shorter working hours. In this reading, Capital is actually useless for the capitalists, but is a science of the class struggle under capitalism. Cleaver claims that despite a century of efforts, “Marxist economics” has failed to provide a useful theory of economics, for either business or government.

Marx confirms that the concept of value is similar to the ancient concept of ‘natural price’, and that other things being equal, prices should gravitate to their value. But fundamentally, value is not an approximation to price, but a measure of the distribution of the social labour, and prices may deviate from the norm for even historic periods of time. The organic composition of capital, an important category in Capital, measures the proportion of past, dead labour to living labour, something irrelevant to business or capitalist government; the rate of surplus value is a measure of exploitation but nothing to do with profit or even the distribution of household incomes. But this does not alter the fact that a theory which aims to inform the class struggle, needs a practical, realistic theory of prices, wages, employment and so on, and at the very least must not deceive in its description of the economy.

(3) According to others, Capital is neither a manual of economics nor a manual for the class struggle, but rather a critique of political economy, that is, a critique of the body of ideas which describe the institutions and behaviours characteristics of bourgeois society. Political economy is the most refined and precise expression of the socially valid categories of bourgeois society, and is interesting only insofar as it is indeed socially valid. Critiquing it means bringing out the ‘real meaning’ of its categories, getting behind the appearance to the essence of the matter, by demonstrating that what appear to be eternal, necessary and rational relations, relations inscribed in well-established social practices and institutions, are in fact historically bounded, and actually quite crazy ideas which are open to change. Further, the critique of these institutions is located within the struggle to overthrow them. Critique means exploring the basis of the social validity of these concepts and uncovering the internal contradictions in them, to search for possible ways out of them.

The difference between (2) and (3) is that in Harry Cleaver’s reading there is no need to reconstruct the whole concrete reality of life in bourgeois society (prices, interest rates and so on) in terms of the concepts of Capital, since the aim is solely class struggle and not political economy as such. It is not that Capital inhabits an alternate universe, but rather that Marx is interested in a different range of problems than the capitalists.

On the other hand, even though wages, prices and profit are not the starting point for Marx, the aim is nonetheless to reconstruct these concepts in terms of value. A critique would not be a critique of political economy if it went only to life in bourgeois society (the object of political economy) and not political economy itself, the subject of bourgeois society and the object of the critique. The subject and object of political economy are not identical, but they mutually constitute one another; critique means penetrating a form of life by examining its intellectual forms.

There is both a (3a) Humanist (e.g. Cyril Smith) or (3b) Structuralist (e.g. Louis Althusser or Moishe Postone) version of reading Marx’s Capital as a critique, according to whether writer believes with Marx that “men make their own history, but ... under circumstances existing already given and transmitted from the past,” or on the contrary takes capital as a totalizing identical subject-object absolutely subsuming the consciousness and activity of everyone in modern society.

(4) For many, whether Capital is a critique of or a contribution to political economy, or both, it is not the conclusions Marx arrived at in 1867 which are important – after all, political economy has changed radically since Capital was written – but rather it is the method of Marx’s study. Marx’s method now needs to be emulated in today’s new situation. This reading would include Geoff Pilling and Tony Smith, but may produce radically different results, according to the degree to which the writer sees Marx as having produced a more or less “effective procedure” such what Tony Smith calls the “systematic progression of socioeconomic categories,” or, as others would say that Marx’s critique was immanent, growing out of the practical conflicts within bourgeois society itself: – whereas Hegel’s aim had been to reconcile these contradictions, Marx’s aim was to sharpen them.

I will argue that although the above readings are by no means “equally valid,” Marx’s own writing, both in Capital itself and his private correspondence, lends some credibility to each of these views.

I will propose a reading which demonstrates that a critique of political economy (in Cyril Smith’s terms) asks the question: what is it about bourgeois society that gives rise to this kind of thinking and activity? This entails re-establishing what is socially valid in bourgeois society and the sources and limits of that validity. How else can we explain the fact that Marx was incessantly questioning Engels about how capitalists performed their calculations, what exactly they meant by this or that term, exactly how did they organise the various kinds of wage payment, credit and so on? So such a critique must re-establish socially valid concepts, but on a foundation which transcends the limits of bourgeois society. It must also separate genuine science from self-serving “Just-so stories,” which contribute nothing to understanding the necessary and lawful character of social relations but serve only to obscure their exploitative nature or put one or another class in a better light.

But what results from such a critique, rather than being an economic science, is closer to what Harry Cleaver wants, in that it renders life in bourgeois society transparent in terms of social practice, and contributes to working class consciousness by bringing class interests to light from behind the veil of hourly wages, interest on capital, and so on. It is also not entirely useless for understanding that struggle as it unfolds in the form of capitalist crises, and if correct, such a reading does provide an understanding of Marx’s “method” – not as some kind of effective procedure, but as an immanent critique of its object, and therefore a useful guide to continuing his work today.

Shortly after Marx’s death, Jevon’s theory of marginal utility gained wide popularity and according to Engels:

“(The poor state of political economy in England) is the fault of (Marx), to a great extent; he has taught people to see the dangerous consequences of classical economy; they find that no science at all, on this field at least, is the safe side of the question. And they have so well succeeded in blinding the ordinary philistine, that there are at the present moment four people in London, calling themselves ‘Socialist’ who claim to have refuted our author completely by opposing to his theory that of – Stanley Jevons!” (Engels to Danielson, 15 October 1888)

So this brings us to the question of when is a theory just ideology and apologia, class interests masquerading as science, and how do we know when there is science beneath the shell of ideology.

The first theory of the origin of surplus value was Merchantilism, which claimed that profit arose in the sphere of exchange, that is, merchants created wealth by selling things at more than they paid for them. Unsurprisingly, the founders of Merchantilism were traders involved with the East India Company. Next came the Physiocrats who claimed that the soil was the sole source of value. In eighteenth century France, this theory made abundant sense, especially for landowners: the peasants produced more than they needed for their own subsistence, and the rest of the economy operated by circulating that surplus. Unsurprisingly again, the founder of Physiocracy, Quesnay, was himself a landowner. Nowadays, the idea that capital is the source of value, institutionalised in the going rate of interest on savings, appears to be an irrefutable fact; no-one who wants to get rich works. So, we can understand how the idea of “socially necessary labour” as the substance of value, and surplus value arising from the exploitation of wage-labour have a clear ideological function in the formation of the proletariat as a class for itself. Conversely, attacks on the labour theory of value will be seen as attacks on the workers movement. In other words, all theories of the measure of value and source of surplus value have directly reflected a particular class standpoint.

Marx’s British followers reacted to the Marginalist attacks on Marx accordingly, and a theory Jevons had about sun spots being the cause of the business cycle provided a fine opportunity to subject him and his theories to ridicule. The marginal theory is after all little more than a development of the supply-and-demand theory which Marx shows to be relevant only to short-term surface phenomena, and unable to explain, for example, why a car is worth more than a diamond. But historians of economic theory talk about the Marginalist Revolution because in the 1860s Jevons, Manger and Walras introduced quite new methods which transformed economic theory and we have to ask whether it is feasible to dismiss the whole of modern economic theory as a ‘variation on supply-and-demand’ even though it has its roots in this idea. However imperfectly, modern macroeconomics deals with economic wholes. Can we rest on the claim that everything after Ricardo was ideology? The only writer I know who has taken a genuinely critical stance towards modern economic theory is Luc Boltanski and his collaborator Eve Chiapello. These writers have made a deep critique of the management literature of the 1980s especially, relating it to the demands of the movements of 1968. Boltanski shows that radical criticism of capitalism is often reflected in subsequent changes in the practices of the ruling class, something by no means limited to the generation of ‘68.

Transparently ‘political’ issues are to be found all through the pages of Capital which bristles with ethical language. For example, the concept of necessary and surplus labour, surplus labour being labour performed over and above what the worker is paid for their sustenance, and appropriated without payment. For example, the proof, taken over from Smith, that other things being equal, the labour market will force wages down to the socially necessary minimum level needed to keep them alive and raise the next generation of workers, and that workers can gain wage rises by industrial action, without losing the value of their pay rise through inflation, but on the contrary increasing the workers’ share of the total product.

The idea of dividing up capital between constant (goods and services purchased off other capitalists and consumed in production) and variable (wages) and surplus value (lumping rent, interest and corporate largesse in with profits) and then measuring this over the cycle of turnover of capital rather than per annum, just makes no sense within the business of profit-making, but makes abundant sense from the standpoint of the workers.

In other words, I think there is plenty of evidence that Harry Cleaver’s claim that Capital is about the class struggle is well made. All the main categories in Capital are about social relations: labour time, value, exploitation, while categories like price, profit and in fact anything relevant to the running of an individual firm are secondary, phenomenal forms of the manifestation of the essential human relations involved.

This conclusion would settle the matter if bourgeois economics were purely and simply apologia.. That is, if the claim that capital is the source of new value, that workers are paid the full value of their labour in their weekly wage packet, and that employees’ wage levels determine the selling price of a product, were nothing more nor less than fairy tales aimed at covering up the reality of economic life. Some may be, but this is clearly not the case without qualification: these are ideas used to manage bourgeois society. Political Economy is how capitalists behave and think, and in general how non-capitalists think as well. It is the thinking which actually runs the businesses, the banks and the governments. It is in the minutiae of capitalist management that the meaning of the categories of political economy are really revealed. Almost invariably, attempts at fundamental justifications of economic science are, in my experience, ideology from beginning to end, and this is reflected in the inability of economists to do more than predict and control relatively short-term effects. But this does not alter the fact that the objects and practices of bourgeois society appear before people as objective facts.

It is now widely and rightly believed that economists don’t know what’s going on. Virtually no-one saw the October 2008 Global Financial Crisis coming even days before it broke out. But on the other hand, capitalism hasn’t collapsed yet, and compared to the 1958 Great Leap Forward in China, in which millions of people died of starvation or the miracles of ‘planned economy’ in North Korea, it is silly to deny the capacity of the bourgeois to manage a world system of the production and reproduction of material life, something which they have done with some success, at least since the end of World War Two, though no-one can claim with any degree of certainty that their success will last any longer than the close of business tomorrow.

But coping in practice does not at all guarantee being able to capture that in theory. As the saying goes: “you don’t have to be a horse to judge a horse.”

The concepts of Political Economy embody the forms of activity which are socially valid in capitalism, and in that precise sense they are valid and confront individuals as objective forms of practice, which you ignore at your own risk. But that does not prove the fact that ‘priests of the bourgeoisie’, these ‘learned scribes’ are able to systematise the forms of thought and practices of bourgeois society, or even that these forms lend themselves to the formation of an internally consistent theory. There is nothing to force us to believe that the thought forms of bourgeois society are free of internal contradiction and fallacy. On the contrary. It is the job of critique to strip of the ideological covering to expose such internal contradictions, aporias and fallacies, and without dismissing them as apologia, bring out the social basis for the various theories through a study of their historical development.

From Engels’ Outlines of a Critique of Political Economy of 1843 up till Marx’s 1859 “A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy,” Marx and Engels titled their work critique. And the meaning of “critique” is made clear in Marx’s 1844 “Introduction to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right,” for which “the criticism of religion is the prerequisite of all criticism,” most particularly the views outlined there in terms of a critique of religion are to be taken as a model for the critique of capitalism.

“The foundation of irreligious criticism is: Man makes religion, religion does not make man. ... This state and this society produce religion, which is an inverted consciousness of the world, because they are an inverted world. Religion is the general theory of this world, ... The struggle against religion is, therefore, indirectly the struggle against that world whose spiritual aroma is religion.”

Political economy is the system of thought forms within which people live by producing and exchanging commodities, and Capital demonstrated this – the whole universe of sweat-shops, insurance companies, industrial corporations, multimillionaires, famines and wars flows from commodity production. Within such a world, in the main, the concepts of political economy are valid to the extent that they are connected with practice rather than apologetic “Just So” myths. The struggle against capitalism is therefore the struggle against that world of a particular kind of inverted consciousness, one in which social relations between people take the form of relations between things.

But in a letter to Kugelmann on 28 December 1862, Marx says of the soon-to-be-published book: “It is a sequel to Part I, but will appear on its own under the title, Capital, with A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy as merely the subtitle.” Marx worked hard to get the book noticed and criticised by the professional economists of his day, and clearly wanted to engage them in debate.

In the letter to Kugelmann of 11 July 1868, he says:

“... it shows the depth of degradation reached by these priests of the bourgeoisie: while workers and even manufacturers and merchants have understood my book and made sense of it, these ‘learned scribes’ (!) complain that I make excessive demands on their comprehension.”

And while he was most interested in getting it to workers, criticising Lassalle for not working harder to encourage workers to read it, he certainly aimed at taking his fight into the recognised scientific circles. He believed (and with good reason) that his work engaged in a meaningful way with mainstream economic theory; it did not live in a parallel universe. Marx complained that he was being met with a conspiracy of silence, but history shows that Capital did get the recognition it deserved, and Capital haunts bourgeois economics to this day, like the ghost of its dead father.

The point is that prices, profits, rents and so on are, in Marx’s scheme of things, merely surface appearances, like the froth and bubbles on the surface of the ocean, the forms of which tell us little about the main business of tidal shifts and melting ice-packs. Marx begins with the concept of bourgeois society and moves to more and more concrete concepts, that is to say, he reconstructs the concrete, the appearances, in scientific terms. In such an approach the effect of a drought in Australia on mortgage rates in the US, and so on, belong somewhere in Volume XX. They are not excluded, but it is the dynamics of class relations which are fundamental and central.

So in summary, Capital remains an unfinished work and it seems unlikely that the job of finishing it to the point where it could provide a superior tool for management of government or corporate economic affairs will ever be completed, were it to remain the work of an isolated individual. Basically it is a practical task. With the partial exception of Boltanski, the theoretical work of critiquing political economy seems to have died with Marx. So far as I know, none of the “Marxist Economists” have critiqued the theory of marginal utility beyond denouncing it as an ideological apology aimed at discrediting Marx and demobilizing the workers’ movement (all of which may well be true, by the way). There have been a plethora of new economic forms of activity since 1883. Marx never knew Taylorism, which completely transformed work practices, the social division of labour and the composition of the working class. He never knew Fordism, which completely transformed the form of exploitation, the concept of a living wage, and the nature of working-class communities; he never knew the welfare state with its system of universal state-provided benefits, or Toyota-ism and its appropriation of worker cooperation for the benefit of capital, or the practices of franchising, out-sourcing, the practice of part-time working, and the export of manufacture to non-union industrial zones in far-off countries, or the inflow of economic migrants to the former colonial centres. All these represent transformations in political economy, not anticipated in Capital.

Just one example: in Marx’s day, workers were basically locked in a large building to work under their own supervision for as long as the capitalist could force them to using the weapon of keeping wages at near-starvation level. This way of thinking is directly reflected in the categories of Capital because that’s how capital worked. But this is no longer the case in the countries where capital predominates.

So those who read Capital to learn Marx’s “method” have a point. Even some very fundamental features of Capital may no longer be relevant. And what is more, it is fair to suppose that later development in the activity of capital must, in some sense at least, come closer to the essence, the truth of bourgeois society. The critic does not create thought out of thought; theory can only reveal what is already present in social practice. In the Grundrisse, Marx said:

“... Hegel fell into the illusion of conceiving the real as the product of thought concentrating itself, probing its own depths, and unfolding itself out of itself, by itself, ... in the theoretical method, too, the subject, society, must always be kept in mind as the presupposition.”

So the job of Marx’s continuers begins with the latest developments in bourgeois society most especially insofar as the concrete sheds light on the categories of current economic theory and vice versa. It seems likely that such a continuing critique would continue to use the concept of value at its foundation, if we are to be true to Marx.

In the letter to Kugelmann quoted above, in responding to a bourgeois critic of Capital, he observes:

“The chatter about the need to prove the concept of value arises only from complete ignorance both of the subject under discussion and of the method of science. Every child knows that any nation that stopped working, not for a year, but let us say, just for a few weeks, would perish. And every child knows, too, that the amounts of products corresponding to the differing amounts of needs demand differing and quantitatively determined amounts of society’s aggregate labour. It is self-evident that this necessity of the distribution of social labour in specific proportions is certainly not abolished by the specific form of social production; it can only change its form of manifestation. Natural laws cannot be abolished at all. The only thing that can change, under historically differing conditions, is the form in which those laws assert themselves. And the form in which this proportional distribution of labour asserts itself in a state of society in which the interconnection of social labour expresses itself as the private exchange of the individual products of labour, is precisely the exchange value of these products. ...

“On the other hand, as you correctly believe, the history of the theory of course demonstrates that the understanding of the value relation has always been the same, clearer or less clear, hedged with illusions or scientifically more precise. Since the reasoning process itself arises from the existing conditions and is itself a natural process, really comprehending thinking can always only be the same, and can vary only gradually, in accordance with the maturity of development, hence also the maturity of the organ that does the thinking. Anything else is drivel.”

So what is involved is the transhistorical necessity of every society making some arrangement or other for the distribution of the social labour and its products. This is what is contained in the concept of value. Implicit in the concept of value is the notion of the intrinsic equality of human beings. In an emphatically world economy in which capital based, for example, in the US, is manufacturing in India and drastically underpaying labour, we have an instance of price being less than value for long periods of time. But once ‘the great mass of the produce of labour takes the form of commodities (and) consequently, the dominant relation between man and man, is that of owners of commodities’, there is a necessary tendency towards the equalisation of wages, which nonetheless may take centuries of war and revolution to exert itself.

There are dozens of such problems that arise as a result of changes in the political economy of modern life, the solution of which are presupposed in a continuation of Marx’s work.

The Semiotics of Martyrdom (2009)

“(In) epochs of revolutionary crisis (people) anxiously conjure up the spirits of the past to their service, borrowing from them names, battle slogans, and costumes in order to present this new scene in world history in time-honoured disguise and borrowed language. Thus Luther put on the mask of the Apostle Paul, the Revolution of 1789-1814 draped itself alternately in the guise of the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire ...” (Marx 1852)

This is how Marx introduced his analysis of the 1848 Revolution in France, “The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonapartre,” the definitive work in which Marx described the formation of political subjects.

Marx used a dramaturgical metaphor in which individual figures – ‘historical personages’ – don the costumes of a hero from the past or from mythology. Others, who share the same attitudes and aspirations identify with the historical allusion, and recognise the actor as speaking for them. The “world-historic personage” together with the supporting group then play their role in a drama in which the players improvise on a known script as the narrative unfolds. Marx is pointing to political subjects in the form of some prominent person acting as a corporate individual, to speak on behalf of a group which is thereby constituted as a political agent.

This semiotic aspect of Marx’s political thinking is frequently overlooked with an emphasis on Marx’s ideas about the economic conditions for the formation of social subjects. The semiotic process of formation of social agencies allows for a wide variety of conditions of life to contribute to group formation, mediated through the literature and national mythology of the time.

Marx used this metaphor to ridicule the various non-proletarian players, and in reference to the proletariat and the coming revolution he stipulated:

“The social revolution of the nineteenth century cannot take its poetry from the past but only from the future. It cannot begin with itself before it has stripped away all superstition about the past.”

The oppressed cannot take their imagery from the past, but how are the oppressed to become subjects in their own right, rather than making up the cannon fodder for “world-historic personages” from the privileged elite? How can the voiceless find their own voice? Marx insisted that communism grows through practical criticism of existing social conditions, not from building castles in the sky, so the “poetry of the future” must be generated by those who suffer and resist these social conditions. Thus, for the oppressed masses it is their martyrs and other heroes of the class struggle who must take the place of the personages and their mythological alter egos. Martyrdom is the only vehicle open to the oppressed which is able to summon up consciousness of existing wrongs and emergent ideals which are not yet legitimated.

Because Marx never formulated a theory of semiotics, we will use Charles Sanders Peirce’s semiotics to review the conditions which determine whether a martyr will die in vain, or on the contrary, be remembered as the stimulus for a new social movement taking up critique of existing social conditions on a mass scale.

People function as signs for ideas. According to Peirce there are three ways in which a sign is connected with the object it refers to: the icon which represents its object physical resemblance, such as the archetypal victim of an injustice; the symbol, which represents the object by convention, that is, in the theoretical or expert register; the index represents the object by physical connection, that is, other people who recognise the martyr as a fellow-sufferer of the condition validated by an expert and say “Me, too!” A sign points to an object for an interpretant or target audience. A sign without an interpretant is meaningless.

* * *

What circumstances determined that Clarrie O’shea’s[41] imprisonment would trigger a general strike and destroy the “penal powers,” while Craig Johnson[42] would serve out his time with very little to show for it? How did Cindy Sheehan[43] stimulate a resurgence of the anti-war movement where others had failed?

Under what conditions does a victim become a martyr, someone whose suffering under the normal and lawful social arrangements is so widely and acutely felt to be an injustice that it triggers a social movement which destroys those arrangements?

To begin with, there has to be a real possibility[44] for a social movement, even if one does not yet exist. And the social arrangement in question must already be to some extent “unreal.” But a martyr does not weigh up her chances before doing what she has to do. For the martyr, the law is unreal and deserves to perish[45] ..., but this may prove to be just subjective. How can the martyr’s view prove to be the reality?

Three things are necessary.

The Martyr as Icon

FIRSTLY, the subject must present to the world as someone that people can recognise and identify with. “There but for the grace of God go I.” People have to be able to see themselves (or a loved one) in the person of the martyr, and want to, almost enjoy, seeing themselves in the martyr. The martyr must be an attractive person, someone in whom people identify what is best in themselves. It is however the moral character of the subject which is most important in determining their role as a martyr. It helps to be personally attractive, but it’s necessary to be a saint. When Malcolm X declared “Black is beautiful” he had the character to carry it off.

When we talk of the subject being sympathetic and attractive, it is the act of martyrdom which is at issue, not the subject’s entire character as such. And the act of martyrdom transforms the subject’s personality which is afterwards viewed only through the lens of their martyrdom. It is not the character of Rosa Parks[46] which is really at issue: isn’t it clear that she was a strong and courageous woman with a powerful sense of injustice, that in Montgomery in 1955, she should refuse to give up her seat on the bus when ordered to do so? Every Black person in the country must have wanted to do that. Claudette Colvin had done the same thing only 9 months earlier, but 15 years old and pregnant, the NAACP hesitated to make her the face of their campaign.

Now Ronald Ryan[47] was not someone who could be called “attractive”; a small-time criminal, imprisoned for shop-breaking and weapons offences, but with no previous history of violence before his attempted escape; he was the icon of the kind of person who ought to be rehabilitated, not hung, as, despite a huge protest, he was.

It is interesting to recall that only a few years before Ryan shot a warder while escaping, Kevin Simmonds[48] had become a public hero. Simmonds had escaped, broke into another prison and bashed a warder to death, and then eluded police for 37 days. In the process, a fan club, anonymous wall-posters, marriage proposals and sympathetic tabloid headlines followed his exploits, and he was eventually convicted of manslaughter rather than murder by a sympathetic jury. Simmonds is remembered as ‘good looking and charismatic’. Everyone (except screws) loves an escapee. Simmonds and his accomplice were subsequently (and somewhat unsurprisingly) treated with brutality by prison warders till Simmonds eventually took his own life, but their case was central to the prison reforms of the 1970s.

It is obvious enough that a young, reasonably attractive, former air hostess, like Cornelia Rau[49], kidnapped and incarcerated by immigration officials, is more likely to trigger outrage against arbitrary detention powers of the Department of Immigration than the thousands of middle eastern families who languished in detention. The lack of sympathy that Australians tend to feel towards poor people arriving on our shores in leaky boats is legendary. Perhaps the ease with which antipathy overrides sympathy in such cases is a displaced feeling of guilt? Australians are after all, an entire nation of poor people who arrived in leaky boats and subsequently did quite well. One must be mindful of such perverse responses to suffering. Contrast the warm welcome given to Bosnian refugees flown in on government aircraft in May 1999, with the mistreatment of Afghani and Iraqi refugees fleeing the Taliban and Saddam Hussein to see how governments can manage perceptions; with a cynical and reactionary government in power, opportunities for a negative reaction are everywhere. Kay Nesbit[50], tragically disfigured by a shotgun blast when she innocently answered the door, survived with an awfully disfigured face to become a relentless advocate for victims of crime. Her case demonstrated that looks are not everything; Kay is an effective martyr despite her disfigurement, rather than because of it.

And it’s not just the subject’s character, but who they are, their “story.” Craig Johnson is a handsome enough fellow, even charismatic, but a “run through” which scared a bunch of female office staff out of their wits is just something not very many people can see themselves doing or could empathise with, and the union had not prepared people to be able to empathise. On the contrary. Kevin Simmonds (in 1959) got more sympathy for bashing a screw to death, than Johnson did (in 2002) for scaring some office workers.

Heather Osland[51] served out 91/2 years in prison for murdering her husband. But it was her only means of escape after 131/2 years being beaten and terrorised. Many people could easily sympathise with Heather’s act, and Heather remains an exemplary advocate for abused women. Probably the reason that she was not successful in getting justice for herself until 91/2 years after her imprisonment, was that her husband had so hurt her. After those years in prison and time to collect her wits, her friends and her strength, she has become a fine icon and symbol for battered wives who fight back, and will eventually get the law and her own sentence overturned.

Clearly it is not a question of violence or non-violence; like almost all military heroes, martyrs can be violent, so long as people can empathise with their violent act, and it can be seen as proportional to the injustice met, appropriate to the context, and expressing a legitimate feeling.

It is for similar reasons that it is always a dangerous thing to go on hunger strike. Self-harm does not generate sympathy if it is not understandable; life has to be understood to have become unbearable. A hunger strike says “Life is unbearable and I would rather die,” but there has to be the conditions for the unbearability of life to be recognisable.

Bobby Sands[52] was a hero to Irish republicans for whom he was in every way an icon, and he not only led a large group of hunger-strikers in H-block, but inspired many others to follow him in other ways. But Margaret Thatcher was unmoved by the prospect of Irish republican prisoners dying in British prisons. Perhaps most Tory voters already saw the IRA as fanatics, and a hunger strike could not make them change their minds in just 6 months. Altogether 10 Irish hunger strikers starved to death. Although it is doubtful how many British voters were persuaded, it is clear that the hunger strikers galvanised Irish republicans for a protracted fight to the death which ultimately led to success for their movement. The Irish hunger strikers were true martyrs for the republican cause; they inspired others to fight, and probably knew that they would die without reprieve from Margaret Thatcher.

Martyrdom may be a call to arms, rather than a cry for help, depending on who is the audience or interpretant. But whether the martyr wants to prove that an injustice is being done, or rally force against injustice, he has to be prepared for the possibility that there will be no eleventh hour reprieve. It took more than 30 years from when the first young Spanish conscripts applied for recognition as conscientious objectors (insumisos) in 1971 until the law was eventually repealed in 2003 when more than 50% of all conscripts were conscientious objectors. Over 1,000 insumisos had been imprisoned over that period. But in the end they won, and it is unlikely that Spain will ever again consider military conscription.

On the subject of self-harm, the same kind of rules that apply to ‘cruel and unusual punishment’ also apply to self-inflicted punishment. If you're going on hunger strike, then having your lips sewn together (like the asylum-seekers in Australia in February 2000) is actually the least of your problems; it is symbolic. But what kind of signal does it send to someone who does not already sympathise with you? It says “I am a really crazy person.” The psychological damage done by these detention centres was an outrage and most educated people understood this; the lip-sewing did catch media attention, but it did not necessarily generate public sympathy, even though it very effectively spurred on the refugees’ supporters to fight even harder.

It is important here to note that the issue of the presentation of an attractive image of the martyr is not a question simply of the role of the media and their needs. The media is just one, albeit important, arena of struggle in society; relations within the media do not belong to a different world from relations in other institutions of capitalist society. The role of the martyr as icon is a universal human relation, not a property of the mass media. The mass media were not sympathetic to conscientious objectors in 1966 Australia, but the image of young schoolteacher, Bill White[53], being dragged from his classroom by a policeman for refusing to fight in a war was really hard to hold in the “violent protestor” frame. One of the differences made by modern electronic media is that the subject themself usually has the opportunity, and indeed obligation, to tell their own story to the mass of the population.

The Martyr as Symbol

SECONDLY there has to be a narrative (theory, discourse, etc.) into which the subject can be inserted, which makes sense of the subject’s suffering and in which everyone can see an explanation of their own suffering or potential suffering or injustice.

And a narrative is context-dependent. It is easier to martyr oneself fighting anti-worker laws if you have a Minister for Labour who is a notorious union-basher. Immigration officials failing an economic migrant from Silesia on the dictation test might have seemed plausible, but it made a mockery of the idea to try to cast Egon Kisch[54] as an illiterate. This explains why many illustrious dissidents from the Soviet bloc countries totally lost their way when they came to the West; without a police apparatus trying to stop them saying what they said, what they said didn’t make a lot of sense.

The narrative underpinning the subject’s claim generally has to be already legitimate or on the verge of acceptance, or at least be a new version of an already legitimated story of suffering. So for example, there are doubtless many fathers grieving for their lost soldier-children, but it is hardly a surprise that it is a grieving mother (Cindy Sheehan) who succeeded in breaking through, for the narrative of the grieving mother is so well-established, while that of the grieving father is still relatively novel. Given this, Terry Hicks[55] did exceptionally well in the slightly different role of the father standing up against the injustice done to his son by an evil foreign power with the collusion of his own cowardly government.

When the gay US politician, Harvey Milk, was assassinated, the lenient sentence passed on his assassin sparked the White Night Riots and gave national impetus to the “outing” movement. Over and above homophobic moral panic, several competing narratives were at work here. The narrative of vigilante-ism is widely promoted in movies from Superman and Zorro to Falling Down and Taxi driver, and provides a narrative to exonerate violent crime. In this case the defence used a medical explanation (junk food upset the assassin’s state of mind). But the history of assassination of reformist political leaders in the US made his assassination and the official succour given the assassin instantly understood and believed. In a sense the assassination proved Harvey Milk’s case: gays could not go on hiding from homophobic hatred any longer.

The problem of competing narratives is what Irving Goffman[56] and George Lakoff[57] call “framing.” Successful framing is very dependent on the context in which a person first hears of the event; it is almost impossible to get people to change the frame once an event has been perceived in a certain frame.

The availability of the relevant narrative is the primary objective condition for martyrdom, objective in the sense that it does not normally emanate from the subject themself; it exists independently, in the broader society, but in the symbolic register – the mythology, theology or expert discourse of the day. After centuries of abusing children, it was not until 1985 that the idea of priests sexually abusing children became sufficiently believable for a priest to be convicted in court, and a further 17 years passed before the narrative of priest-abuses-child became so plausible that those claiming to have been abused were more or less automatically believed. There is a fine line between moral panic and educating the public.

It is not sufficient that everyone has to be able to say “That person is just like me,” or my loved one or a well-known folk hero, – it is also necessary that the explanation of their suffering is something which is known to be true, and/or is vouched for by the appropriate institutions – law courts, scientific institutes, churches as appropriate, and in addition to such institutions, the story-tellers of society, the script-writers, novelists, journalists, etc. This raises two issues: (1) the clarity with which the subject is identified in the given story or theory, and (2) the extent to which the story itself receives acceptance.

(1) The circumstances surrounding the suffering of the subject should not be open to multiple interpretations or muddied by suggestions that things are not as they seem. For example, David Irving, the “holocaust denier,” aims to make himself a martyr for the cause of anti-Semitism by first making himself a martyr for free speech. But these are too incompatible narratives. The subject’s image and their act of martyrdom has to either fit into an already-existing mould, or the work has to be done to demonstrate the validity of fitting the subject into the validating paradigm. The shocking case of “C” who was not only gang raped but shared around by several groups of Lebanese youths in Sydney was a vehicle for increasing penalties and legislating the new crime of “aggravated sexual assault in company” (something several football teams seem to have got away with since). But let us be thankful that C did not want to take up a career in right-wing politics and sought only justice. Not only did she bravely face her tormentors in court, but went on TV and presented as an exceptional character, who would always be believed. A lesser person in such a situation could have been belittled by innuendo. Opponents will always try to introduce counter-narratives to muddy the water; in this circumstance, the subject’s moral character is everything.

When Clarrie O’shea refused to hand over the union books to the courts, he was carrying out the orders of his union membership and acting in concert with all the left unions who had prepared the ground for a confrontation for months in advance. The meaning of his act and the implications of his jailing were therefore immediately and well understood by every unionist in the country. People who were off-sick phoned in to say they were on strike, such was the clarity of the response.

(2) The validity of the narrative is determined by two things; (A) it has to fit into one of the accepted “paradigms of suffering,” and (B) it has to be validated by the appropriate ‘clergy’: figures with the authority to speak on the relevant kind of suffering.

Human needs and Justice

(A) The “paradigm of suffering,” is the set of relations and narrative which determines that the suffering subject suffers wrongly. For example, the honest person silenced by a morally weak repressive authority, the wife or child of the violent father, the abandoned child, the visionary who is not believed, the innovator whose idea is stolen by the powerful, the victim of industrial poisons and “cover-up” of the facts, the free spirit crushed by unfeeling authority, etc. These are universal stories of unjust suffering. The subject has to fit into some such narrative, rather than trying to create one.

A paradigm of suffering has several components. (a) A “paradigm of need,” for example, recognition that being stateless means suffering in a specific way is necessary make sense of why a stateless Palestinian deserves our support; (b) A “paradigm of justice” is needed to show that the subject’s deprivation is unjust. For example, lack of money or education or life-experience is always understood to underlie suffering, but for the subject to be a martyr and not just a suffering person, there must be injustice implied in the deprivation, excessive inequality or a failure to receive what was deserved. So for example, an injured volunteer fire-fighter asked to pay their own medical expenses has been treated unjustly, but a youth injured while driving a speeding car might not be able to make the same claim; being paid less than the median wage is tough, but not unjust, but a female being less than a male worker doing the same job is unjust; childbirth is painful but not unjust, but to miss out on a benefit for missing work the day you give birth is unjust.

In order to translate unjust suffering into a social movement, there has to be (c) an ethic of responsibility. An ethic of responsibility is the broad social ethos which determines which direction people look for blame when something bad happens. For example, when the city is flooded people might blame the government, various authorities or institutions (the weather bureau, the water authority, etc), or contrariwise, the victim (for failing to heed warnings, for failing to take out insurance or just for moaning about it), or big business (for environmental damage). The ethic of responsibility is deep-seated, but not uniform and homogenous, and changing the ethic of responsibility may be the main aim of a social movement. For example, victims of medical malpractice may want to place blame on inadequate regulation or infrastructure, but the finger of blame tends to be pointed at the individual doctor until the work is done to shift the issue into the narrative of social responsibility. The work has to be done in the casting of the martyr and in the symbolic register to change the ethic of responsibility.

Nowadays if someone is made redundant from their job, people would not automatically look to the government as the party responsible for the suffering. Unless it could be shown that some form of discrimination was involved, it would normally be the victim who was blamed. The ethic of responsibility is a direct expression of the Zeitgeist, and yet changing it may be the very thing that a social movement wants to achieve. Changing the Zeitgeist is hard work.

(d) Finally, a subject’s claim of injustice pre-supposes some explanatory or causal model. Nowadays, there is a strongly medicalised explanatory model of suffering. A rape victim has suffered not because of damage to her marriageability, or an insult to her human dignity, but because of psychological trauma. Soldiers in all the wars of the past century have had to prove the existence of a “syndrome” variously called “shell shock” or “Gulf War Syndrome” to make the suffering of participating in modern warfare believable.

It should be noted as well, that the trauma the martyr has suffered also serves as a plausible explanation for their tireless political activity and uncompromising attitude, which might otherwise be perceived as fanatical.

Figures of Authority

(B) To validate the martyr ‘s sacrifice, they need the support of the “appropriate clergy,” the institutional representatives who are socially legitimated to pronounce on certain kinds of facts. For example, an asylum seeker denounced as an “illegal” needs a QC to verify that seeking asylum breaks no law, and a politician on the government side to verify the beastliness of the regime they are seeking asylum from. The battle has to be fought and won in the “symbolic register,” and this means in the relevant social institutions, not just amongst the public.

Journalists, movie-makers, novelists, etc., the “official story-tellers,” can go a long way towards substituting for such “expert verification” however.

But unless popular culture is already in support, or at least open to the idea, the subject needs some authority to legitimate their complaint of unjust suffering – both the suffering and its injustice. Even when the claim of injustice is new and cannot be proved in law, a believable expert argument is needed to validate the claim.

The best martyr is themself an authority capable of validating their claim, and can tell the story of their suffering in their own voice and be believed. In that instance, the martyr can be said to be both icon and symbol of the principle they uphold.

The greatest martyrs of our times have been such symbols-and-icons, icons of the fight against an old world and symbols of a better world to come. Nelson Mandela for example, led the anti-apartheid struggle for 20 years from inside prison walls. Not only was his suffering a standing call to arms to get him released, and to risk death in doing so, but he and his comrades articulated why apartheid was wrong and how a non-racial society could be built. Che Guevara, not only died at the hands of hirelings of neo-colonialism, courageously fighting neo-colonialism, but he explained with great authority why and how neo-colonialism had to be destroyed. The Reverend Martin Luther King’s voice still rings out to this day, more than 40 years after his assassin tried to silence it. The combined icon-and-symbol is certainly the most powerful subject for martyrdom. Cindy Sheehan has turned out to be an exceptionally eloquent speaker, touring the US non-stop for months on end addressing meetings, appearing on TV, passionately and relentlessly advocating her cause. No spin doctor or spokesperson could ever have achieved the same result by speaking on her behalf. The very face of a grieving mother, when she speaks the word of antimilitarism surpasses what any orator can do.

Generally speaking, the relevant narrative, with its paradigm of suffering, ethic of responsibility and explanatory model cannot be created in toto, ex nihilo; most components of the requisite narrative, at least, must be available. Here the media does play a significant part. It is the work of professional communicators – actors, journalists, writers, storytellers, and so on – in conjunction with the various experts – academics, political leaders, the clergy, and so on – to make this narrative available and place it in the consciousness of the general public.

It may be the case that the role of the subject is precisely to introduce a new understanding, a new discourse. This is a chicken-and-egg situation. It is given that the subject suffers under the existing normal social arrangements, which are not seen as unjust. But the subject is seen to suffer unjustly. The social movement which challenges those social arrangements only comes into being as a result of the subject’s actions, but the elements must be present already to some degree.

Let us put together the conditions needed for an act of martyrdom to lead to the formation of a powerful social movement.

(a) Vladimir Propp[58] defined the seven archetypal characters to be found in any traditional story, such as the villain, the hero, and so on. A conclusion which can be drawn from his observations is that, to be comprehensible, a story can have only one villain. There can be a hero (a.k.a. martyr), those who help the hero, and the hero’s objective or loved one, and on the other side apart from the villain himself, you can have a false hero, but not a second villain. The false hero, or usurper, claims to be the hero and may act like a real hero, but whereas the villain has to be defeated, the false-hero only has to be exposed, emphasizing the hero’s message by contrast; whereas the villain’s motivations are evil and he is the target of loathing, the false-hero has character weaknesses, even vices, but is not evil; he has to change his mind, or be neutralised, but he is not the target. So it is important for the subject, if she is to become a martyr and a hero, rather than a soon-forgotten victim or false-hero, to show to the world in the most unambiguous terms, who is responsible for the injustice done to them, the party against which all must concentrate their anger. If there are many villains, then either they are all involved in a conspiracy with the one principal villain, or more likely, they are parties which have been misled by the villain.

Martin Luther King could easily have identified multiple villains – white racists, indifferent white liberals, cowardly blacks, “Uncle Toms” – but he concentrated his condemnation on the white racists and appealed to all the others to come around and do the right thing.

(b) Having selected our hero (martyr) and villain, and assigned other subject positions appropriately, we have to decide on a basic paradigm of justice: on what universal principle of justice can this claim be validated? Either Julius and Ethel Rosenberg[59] were spies who gave information needed by the Soviets to build nuclear weapons and were war-heroes for the Soviet Union, or they were framed and are victims of McCarthyism. They are martyrs either way, but whether they were martyrs for fairness in the US judicial system or martyrs of the Cold War between the USSR and the USA implies quite different appeals to justice corresponding to different interpretants.

(c) The explanatory model has to be in place. Bernie Banton[60] and the other asbestos victims transformed themselves from victims into heroes though their campaign for compensation from James Hardy. But they could not have done this without the scientific community confirming that exposure to asbestos causes a deadly disease of the lungs. Asbestos has been known to kill people since antiquity, but it took pressure to get the scientific study done. Nonetheless, without the science asbestos would never be banned.

(d) These elements must be combined into a compelling drama of good versus evil and triumph over adversity after a long and heroic struggle.

This brings us to the final element which is necessary for a martyr to bring the world into line with their idea of justice and reality. Firstly, the subject must be a suitable icon of suffering; secondly, the universal significance of their suffering must be validated as a symbol of injustice.

The Martyr as Index

THIRDLY, you cannot be a martyr for a cause if you are the only one who cares, if you fail to rally others to your side. The martyr must have a group or a significant number of others who can definitively prove the validity of the martyr’s claim by saying “Me too!” However sympathetic the martyr and however believable their story, unless there are others who verify that it is not fiction, then the claim is not real.

The people who raise their hands, verifying the martyr’s case and prepared to do something about it, are the index of the principle in question. Such people will ideally themselves become heroes of the same kind to the same cause, and to the extent that this is the case, then you have a social movement which will grow and grow.

For Gandhi to throw British imperialism out of India, there had to be not only public sympathy for the cause of independence but others who were prepared also to lay their lives on the line. Gandhi’s role was to unify that movement, give it a single goal and make it confident of victory. As it happens, he found many martyrs like himself capable of making a movement to carry on that struggle till victory.

The question might be asked: if authorities jail and murder opponents in order to repress a social movement, how much repression can be borne until the rate at which new fighters and new martyrs are generated, is overtaken by the destruction and intimidation of enough people to crush the social movement altogether? Is it a necessary law that repression only pours oil on the fire? Clearly not. The swift, brutal repression of the Left in Indonesia in 1965, in which several million leftists and their families were murdered, was so total that political opposition was eliminated for a whole generation. Sudisman[61] was an exemplary icon and symbol for the struggle of Indonesian socialism, but hardly anyone in Indonesia knows his name today. Another modern example is the murder of the Black Panther leadership, which had the effect of reducing a sophisticated and progressive social movement to a current of indiscriminate gang violence. The total repression exercised under Fascist and Stalinist regimes, did manage to make martyrdom foolish for more than a generation.

It’s not like that in democratic countries. But for example, wholesale expulsions can be enough to quell student activism in a University, and ruthless sackings is often an effective way for a firm to prevent their employees from unionising. So there has to be the potential for a social movement that is capable of withstanding repression and fighting back. Sometimes caution is the better part of valour ... but at some point, as Rosa Parks said: “I'm tired of giving in.”

Also, it is by no means sure that martyrdom is the best form of heroism. Gough Whitlam[62] would have done better as the Labor hero who triumphed over attempts to remove him, than as a Labor martyr whose sacking opened the way to 8 years of Liberal rule and left him remembered by many as an irresponsible prime minister. The idea that “the bad guy always wins” is a lethal prejudice with which there should never be any compromise. There is but a fine line between victim and martyr.

Further, it is not always obvious who “owns” a martyr. For example, when the right-wing appropriated Simpson[63] and his donkey for the cause of nationalism, they were evidently unaware that Simpson had been a Wobbly, a pacifist and a fervent internationalist. Nationalism feeds on the martyrdom of the soldiers it sends to their death, and, if the life of those dead soldiers is to be made sense of and celebrated, they become martyrs for nationalism. Simpson may have been a Wobbly, but he wasn’t going to build the OBU in the Dardenelles.

But how is that people like John Howard, who deny any connection with Australian history when it comes to genocide against the original owners of the land, want to claim ownership of martyrs who created Australia’s liberal democratic traditions in the teeth of opposition from Howard’s predecessors. How many people would know that Fred Hollows[64], that icon of medical philanthropy, was a New Zealand Communist?

A social movement or institution is going to be able to claim “ownership” of a martyr if it shares the icons and symbols of the subject. The Church can claim Mary McKillop[65] even though the Church were her principal tormentors, and governments usually succeed in claiming military heroes, even Simpson.

The martyr who is icon, symbol and by virtue of leading the social movement, also the index of the cause, is the most powerful representation of an idea of justice.

Who is the Interpretant?

According to Peirce, a sign indicates an object for someone else. This “someone else” is the interpretant, or “target audience,” and there is no such thing as a sign abstracted from its interpretant. There must be people in the interpretant community who can sympathise with the martyr. The symbol must be part of a theory or narrative which is known and believed by the interpretant community. The cadre which constitutes the index of the claim must be connected with the interpretant community.

The question of interpretant has been touched upon in several points already, because it is really impossible to discuss the relations of icon, symbol and index without having the interpretant in mind. That’s like the propaganda movies the Vietnamese produced in the 1970s: they had a great story to tell and a willing audience in the West, but they only ever addressed themselves to loyal Communists, with unfortunately comic effect in the West.

There are three main kinds of interpretant: (1) Supporters who need to be inspired and (2) potential supporters who need to be won over, or (3) potential opponents who need to be neutralised. Quite different characters and narratives are required in each case.

The Martyr as Drum Major

Timing is everything. The continuation of injustice must be unbearable. But the suffering of the subject beats the drum to which the social movement marches, and the rhythm has to be such that the movement can keep pace. A social movement can spring up very rapidly if the relevant narrative is widely available and believed, but otherwise it can take time. The role of the martyr is to crystallise the narrative by helping people cast themselves in the operative role by acting out and personalising the role of the suffering subject.

The H-block hunger strikers began their hunger strike at intervals designed to bring about a new death from starvation every week; in the end it was 10 deaths over 20 weeks. The Thatcher government resorted to deception to persuade the last hunger striker to pull back, mistakenly thinking that they had won, thus deflating the momentum of the campaign.

Did the first conscientious objectors in Spain know that it would take 30 years and 1,000 martyrs to stop conscription? Today’s suicide bombers do know that they will die and so will many who come after them before justice is found, but the hunger striker hopes that things may come to a head before they die.

Many struggles are won only by many acts of martyrdom. Great injustices take the sacrifice of many martyrs before they are put right. But we should all take this lesson from Bobby Sands: maybe one dying of hunger per week is too intense, too fast for the public, but the martyr and their supporters must calculate the pace at which public support can be won over, how long the suffering can be protracted and have a strategy which works over the dimension of time.

Don’t Overdo it! The scope for martyrdom in a country where politicians care about out-voting their opponents is broader than it is under regimes which normally out-shoot their political opponents. Oppressive regimes and occupying armies are not bothered by martyrs as such – only by the force of a mass of people who are prepared to die to obtain justice.

This is largely the role of a martyr living under an oppressive regime: to call upon others to be ready to die, to fight and not fear death. The subject’s suffering is a shared suffering. Here “expert discourse” (the founding ideas of a new nation, religious testament, inspirational utopian expositions) is not to prove that injustice has been done. People already know that, but to demonstrate that martyrdom is glorious and preferable to tolerating continued injustice.

In democratic countries, there is plenty that is worth dying for; but until someone is prepared to kill you in order to take away these freedoms, this question does not arise in reality. Any would-be hero who brings upon themselves a degree and kind of suffering which is theirs by choice, cannot inspire mass resistance. The subject’s suffering must be seen to arise from aspirations and values shared with the masses, which most certainly include staying alive. Until the very existence of the society itself is called into question, voluntarily going to one’s death in a cause is wrong.

The greater threat to free speech is still empty halls rather than police raids. To voluntarily choose death in such circumstances would be to enter a narrative which is seen as fit only for foreigners and religious freaks. The Army is participating in the illegal occupation of Iraq, continuing centuries of exploitation of the Arab peoples by Europeans; people are dying in Iraq resisting that occupation; Iraqis would be entitled to ask: why we do not lay down our lives to help them? So long as we do not, aren’t we complicit in the war?

But the semiotics of martyrdom determine that if the subject suffers only because they have chosen to (rather than by simply doing what is right), then their self-imposed suffering must be proportional, in relation to what others can be asked to endure. There is a reciprocal relation: martyrdom calls forth the movement which later makes martyrdom understandable. People could understand you refusing to pay a fine or disclose your source, and doing a few day’s jail for it, but to set up a fortress and resist arrest arms in hand, would move you into the psychiatric register.

Conscription provides the opportunity to create martyrs whose suffering is in proportion to that of the citizens on the imperialist side of an unjust war. The young teacher who refuses military service and is dragged off to prison for the duration is every mother’s son and is doing just what every young person ought to do in that situation. At a certain point, “going underground” and risking long prison terms is called for. But the same young person who goes into hiding to play “urban guerrilla” suffers from delusions, not injustice. Ulricke Meinhof and Andreas Baader[66] actually enjoyed a stunning level of popularity in Germany, but this was a romantic support, and never support which could be translated into “urban guerrilla warfare"!

There is a danger that the practice of becoming a suicide bomber, if it has not already, may move from being a heroic response to foreign occupation to becoming an irrational response to anomie and hopelessness. It is unlikely that very young suicide bombers have any more understanding of what they are doing than do child soldiers drafted into pointless conflicts in sub-Saharan Africa.

Conclusion

“Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past.” (Marx 1852)

Among the conditions under which people make history are the various components of the Zeitgeist – the available narratives, the dominant paradigms of suffering and paradigms of justice, the dominant explanatory models and the ethic of responsibility – which to a great extent determine what ideas can be expressed and understood. But wherever there is even one person who interprets the situation differently and insists on doing what is right, then there is some possibility of a social movement, even if at first only a minority. There are always internal contradictions within the Zeitgeist which open the way for plausible dissent.

Collaborative Projects (2009)

“The self becomes a project, not as a fully formed ‘thing’, something that is constructed in the processes of mutual recognition in social life. The affirmation of themselves as independent agents ...” (Pinkard 1996)

To resolve the impasse at which Cultural-Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) has arrived, I propose a new unit of activity to represent the whole of which actions are a part. So in Leontyev’s three levels of activity, with operations and (joint artefact-mediated) actions, we are to introduce a new unit for ‘an activity’. To introduce this proposal we must first of all explain the concepts of ‘project’ and ‘collaboration’.

For ‘project’, the Oxford English Dictionary has:

“A planned or proposed undertaking; a scheme, a proposal; a purpose, an objective; a collaborative enterprise, ... planned to achieve a particular aim. An exercise in which students study a topic, either independently or in collaboration, over an extended period” (OED Online).

This is consistent with what is meant here, but we need further explanation to determine a dialectical conception which is suitable for the pivotal role it needs to play in the development of CHAT.

For collaboration, the Oxford English Dictionary has simply: “United labour, co-operation; esp. in literary, artistic, or scientific work” (OED Online). This is not quite sufficient, because we shall make a distinction between collaboration and cooperation and the concept needs more explanation.

These two concepts are closely connected with one another; projects are essentially collaborative[67] and collaboration is possible only with some project. Consequently, from time to time we may refer to collaboration and projects separately, whilst retaining the understanding that the two are essentially inseparable. Likewise actions are always artefact-mediated and are essentially other-related, but we may from time to time refer to actions without the qualifications that actions are essentially joint and mediated by artefacts.

A project is an on-going, interconnected aggregate of actions[68], and contains nothing that is not contained in the constitutive actions, but is at the same time something more than the sum of its actions. A project is directed to some aim, but at the same time, a project is also not equated with its aim; on the contrary, the aim is implicit in the actions of which it is composed alone, and has no other existence; the participants may be quite mistaken in what they take to be the ultimate effect of the project. What this means is that the project has a concept, but every participant may have a different take on that concept (a personal meaning). For example, Christianity. Doubtless every Christian has a different concept of Christianity, incorporating different aspects of its history and culture. But these are not simply individual fragments, but all are interconnected in the social life of Christians. The concept ‘Christianity’ has many nuances; it is a concrete concept with a meaning which has accrued connotations and contradictions over the centuries. And Christianity is nothing other than this project. This is a very complex and concrete example. Alternatively, the project may be a planned fundraising party, with a finite time-scale and few accrued nuances of meaning. Nonetheless, the group collaborating in organizing the fundraiser will have a range of differing ideas about the event, and will argue and struggle over all the steps of preparation and staging until the event becomes an actuality, despite all the disagreements along the way. Nonetheless despite the fact that a project is made up of a myriad of actions there is a concept of the project, a living concept. There will nonetheless be differences and contradictions contained within the concept, but these contradictions and differences are coherent and belong to the concept. It is a matter of judgment how adequate a particular action may be and there are objective criteria.

All those things which may be more usually thought of as attributes of a person – their nationality, their profession, their hobbies – insofar as they contribute to the person’s identity are to be taken here as projects in which the person is a participant.

A project is not only actions but artefacts. These artefacts are implied in the notion of action and all the artefacts mediating the actions of which the project is composed are understood as subsumed in the project as well. Among the artefacts included in a project are the words naming it, the language(s) used and any symbols representing it, and all the tools, land, buildings, documents and so on supporting the projects. So there are a mass of material artefacts entailed in any project, but they are not just a mass of unorganized material, but on the contrary are all coherently deployed in a constellation determined and grasped in the concept of the project.

CHAT is a project, and I am a participant in this project and my psychological functioning is in great part determined by this project because of my participation in it. When I say that CHAT is a project, that includes all the people involved, everything they have written and the myriad of actions other than writing which have an impact on the furtherance of CHAT, such as travel, conversations, donations, research, etc. So for example, the psychological impact on me of reactions to this book would depend on the reception of those reactions within CHAT.

When we survey the open-ended totality of actions which make up the ‘context’ of an action, then we will have to interrogate the relation between two actions. The relevant issue for psychology is: of what common project are the actions a part (there may be more than one) and how do the actions relate to joint furtherance of the project. This is not an open-ended totality. There are definite normative criteria against which the relevance of an action or artefact or individual person can be determined – the project and its concept.

‘Project’ differs from ‘object-oriented activity’ because collaboration in a project is essentially active, whilst object-oriented activity is essentially passive, a response to the stimuli given by the object, a species of reflex. In “Theses on Feuerbach,” Marx made a great deal of the idea of activity as active and not passive. For example, when he says: “The materialist doctrine that men are products of circumstances and upbringing, and that, therefore, changed men are products of changed circumstances and changed upbringing, forgets that it is men who change circumstances ...” this is precisely his point: human beings are active subjects, they change the circumstances of their lives, they do not just passively respond to their environment. So ‘project’ does not give us an objectivist, functional/structural vision of the fabric of society, but on the contrary, a living, active view of society as a cloth which is constantly being stitched and embroidered by human activity, a myriad of intersecting and overlapping projects, a billion personal Bildungsromans.

Like participation in a project, collaboration encompasses both cooperation and conflict[69], and is essentially both. The collaborators have a shared interest in the outcome of the project, but they may disagree not only on the best means of getting there and fight over the means to be used, but they may also fundamentally disagree over the nature of the end. In fact, disputes over means usually resolve, to some degree, into disputes over ends. A project may break down and the collaborators may cease collaborating and go their separate ways. But insofar as they remain collaborators, then they share the outcome, and in that sense will come to a practical agreement in the end; the end resolves the conflict. Concretely, the role of conflict in projects can only be resolved by empirical investigation.

So when we say ‘joint activity’ then the claim here is that we put instead ‘collaboration’. ‘Joint’ carries no particular normative content. Collaboration on the other hand is rich in content, both normative and descriptive. Normatively, collaborators consult with one another and reach consensus on actions. Of course, this is not always the case; sometimes consultation is not necessary, sometimes agreement is not necessary, sometimes what is needed is just clarity on what needs to be discussed and what can be left well alone. Again, the concrete role of discussion and consensus in collaboration can only be resolved by investigation, but normatively, everything is up for discussion and everything should be agreed. Collaboration is a process of convergence both cognitively and in action. In the normative case, power relations are not posed; the collaborators do everything by consensus and without strategic action, because they have, in principle, a common will. But what is the case is often far from what is normative, and this disjunction between the actual and the normative is always psychologically significant.

There are a number of different relations between two people when mediated by a project in which they are collaborators, and these relations have profound ethical and psychological significance. Projects mediate relations between people. Although in CHAT it is common to talk about artefacts mediating relations between people, but artefacts cannot do anything; an artefact can be used in a common project, but it is only the common project which mediates.

There are a number of modes of collaboration which function in the theory as limit cases of collaboration.

In families and in bureaucratic organizations, collaboration may take the form of (1) management or (2) division of labor.

(1) Management, or hierarchical cooperation: one subject takes full ethical and cognitive responsibility for the project – ‘owns’ the project – and directs the actions of the others who do not question orders. This is the master-servant relation taken by Hegel as the first form of modern society, and it remains the norm inside capitalist and public service enterprises. The entire organization acts as the corporate subject in a project, with actions directed according to some system of line management. As Agnes Heller (1986) says: “equality means treating equals equally and unequals unequally.” The person at the top of the hierarchy is not an equal to a subordinate, and they are not treated equally, and this inequality is not taken to be unfair. In certain circumstances it is entirely rational to hand authority to just one party, and the very act of passing the helm to someone else and following their directions is a positive act of collaboration. Clearly this relationship has profound psychological consequences.

The methodology used here is that we take meritocratic and traditional hierarchy as a mode of collaboration, in particular as a limiting case in which the initiative has gone entirely to one pole of the relationship. It is not that we want to study only projects which are collaborative, but rather that we want to study all projects through the lens of collaboration. So, working together but not according to a particular norm of collaboration, is a limiting case of collaboration. The concept of ‘collaboration’ provides us with a compass for the exploration of relationships with the concept of ‘project’ acting as the pole of attraction.

(2) Division of labor is ubiquitous in modern society, representing the collaboration of all the operatives within a capitalist or public service enterprise and all the productive workers in an economy. But division of labor also operates in some traditional relationships, for example, with women attending to women’s business and the men attending to men’s business.

Division of labor includes (3) Cooperation, where a project begins by dividing up the activity so that individuals or subgroups may separately carry out actions under their own initiative towards a shared objective. In (2) and (3), relations may be egalitarian and consensual, but there is no mutual critique. As soon as participants make suggestions on each others’ work, for example, then that is collaboration in the normative sense.

(4) Exchange of commodities is a variety of collaboration in which the parties have separate, even mutually hostile projects, but are willing to exchange money or goods in order to instrumentalize the other parties for their own project. Under this heading, the notion of (5) ‘external rewards’ (MacIntyre 1988) is relevant. For example, an Olympic athlete is formally participating in a project to raise the level of athletic performance in their sport, perfecting control over their own mind and body, but the prevalence of performance-enhancing drugs suggests that many competitors are in it for fame and glory, not art for art’s sake. To those who participate in good faith, the sport gives internal rewards of a deeper kind. The days when people took up political office for the good of the country rather than money, power and fame seem to have gone. Also, in many projects, such as scientific or artistic projects, the question of attribution becomes a powerful factor in the psychology of participants. One person may do all the work, while another receives attribution and along with attribution the kudos which accompanies successful projects.

There are a myriad of such relations of ‘jointness’. For example, when a service provider does some service for a customer, the customer is quite often deeply involved in specifying and controlling the project: collaboration is subsumed under exchange. This is especially the case with health services and building projects, for example. And on the other hand, we can have conflict over an outcome where people are collaborators despite themselves. For example, rivals in a competition succeed in improving the standard of achievement by trying to prevent each other from winning.

We will deal with these issues in greater depth below. The point is that when we refer to ‘joint’ activity, we have to have a normative concept of what corresponds to ‘jointness’ and be able to draw on science with respect to deviations from the norms of collaboration. It is the fact that there are norms of collaboration that prevents ‘collaboration’ from indicating an open-ended totality. It by no means suggests that relationships which differ from the norm of collaboration are ipso facto wrong or deficient on that account.

By taking collaborative project as a unit of analysis for activity (along with operation and action), we take normative collaboration, to be the norm against which actual relations are measured. We take as the norm that collaborators participate for the internal rewards, that is, the shared aim of the project and desist from strategic action and free-riding. But we do not presume that there is no conflict or free-riding. On occasion there is no other means of furthering a project than to mobilize some others by offering external rewards, and very often free-loaders contribute despite themselves. Conflict is normal in project collaboration; so is division of labor, but neither are mandated.

So we see that the notion of ‘jointness’ covers a wide range of psychologically significant differences in the nature of collaboration. But we have a norm, and norms relevant to specific situations, and psychological problems need to be informed by specific science concerned with these different modes of collaboration.

One of the problems with the notion of ‘an activity’ is that in Leontyev’s concept, the identity of the activity, according to a supposed societal need, was ill-defined. In Cole’s concept, ‘the activity’ is the essentially unbounded context. This is not the case with ‘collaborative project’. A person could be engaged in innumerable projects and the projects could be relatively ill-defined. But in principle, a project is well-defined, bounded and finite. Instead of thinking of a person as a hook for so many attributes, think of all the projects in which the person is engaged. What you have then is so many threads into the social context in relation to which everything the social environment can be objectively assessed in terms of their relationship to the project. It makes sense then to take each relevant such project as a unit for psychological analysis.

Let us recall the three characteristics we determined for a unit of analysis: (1) It is the conception of a singular, indivisible thing; (2) It exhibits the essential properties of a class of more developed phenomena; (3) It is itself an existent phenomenon. Collaborative project satisfies these criteria. Projects may be vast enterprises, like a nation-state. Projects may be very small or very large. One could argue that a ‘joint mediated action’ is the archetypal project, and on this basis that ‘purposeful joint mediated action’ should be the unit. We do retain ‘joint artefact-mediated action’ as a unit, but recognizing that actions have motivational sources which implicate the larger social context, we propose ‘project’ as a unit, with ‘joint artefact-mediated action’ as both a limiting case and an underlying level of activity.[70] Projects outlive actions, and are normally on-going; people join and leave a project, and this is a sense in which a project is essentially different from its constituent actions. Projects also nest one within another, so that a large project like a nation-state is the sum of millions of personal projects. All that is required is that someone works with at last one other towards an end.

And a project is by no means abstract or imaginary. It is a finite existent, observable entity. Actions are purposive, and when we interrogate an action, we will always ultimately disclose that there is a project which is providing the motivation. It was Leontyev’s original aim to disclose the teleological or motivating forces underlying the actions of an individual, which he rightly saw as having social roots and branches. The notion of ‘project’ serves this need, and it is not necessary to equivocate about a person being ‘aware’ of the object of the activity. For example, if a weaver is working for a capitalist, he is lending his efforts to another person’s project in order to further his own project; that is the relation. Perhaps he genuinely wants to see his boss grow richer, and perhaps the project also allows him to further perfect the art of weaving? All these problems are entailed in the relationship between collaborators in a project. Who owns the project? Who is committed to the internal rewards of the project, and who is pursuing only external rewards?

Social life at first sight appears an incoherent mass of actions. How do we stitch this incoherent mass of actions together into a coherent picture? How do we unravel the tangled mass of interconnections? Leontyev said, in effect: start with the needs of the society for its reproduction and work back, fitting all the actions into the object that motivate them. But starting with an abstract and hypothetical set of societal needs and working back to the concrete and given reality is problematic. Since the object of the enquiry is to shed light on people’s motivation, we must start with a concept of people’s motivation. We should start with the understanding that human beings pursue projects, and in and through the pursuit of these projects they form social bonds. It is true that in the end, the needs of the society to reproduce itself must be met. But this is by no means absolute. People change circumstances. But people also draw their aims and aspirations, their identity and understanding of the world around them. But it is only by their active participation in the world, by joining projects, that they gain an identity for themselves and a place in social life. If we want to understand people, then we have to begin with the real individuals, their activity and the material conditions under which they live. The notion of ‘project’ makes this possible.

This means that activity remains the substance of social life for Activity Theory, but we now have a unit of social life, the project. A project is activity, it is not anything different from activity; it is made up of actions; it is an activity. But we have given a coherent meaning to ‘an activity’. A project is not an objectivist conception, imposed on society from outside, but arises from and is driven by and therefore subject to immanent critique.

To take an example, when Luria and his colleagues visited Uzbekistan and conducted psychological tests, their project was scientific research. Scientific research is a project which was quite foreign to the Uzbek peasants. This is the fundamental reason why the actions of Luria and his colleagues were misconstrued by the Uzbeks and the responses of the Uzbeks were misconstrued by the researchers. Cole was finally successful in creating an environment for research into learning by creating a project – Fifth Dimension – in which his own project as well as that of the kids, their parents, funding bodies and the university could integrate into their own project as collaborators, even if negotiations were not uniformly successful. Cole cut through a billion factors which could be counted as part of the context of learning and identified the problem as one of making a common project. How can we collaborate in the same project so that we can all achieve our ends?

In fact, more generally, collaboration is a means of conceiving of social bonds. If we say that this person and that person share a social bond, we might imagine joining the two persons together with glue. On the other hand, if we say they ‘worked together’, that is, that they are or have been collaborators in this or that project, in this or that mode of collaboration, then we get a fairly precise picture of the nature of the social bond in question. It is collaboration of some kind which forges social bonds.

This concept is true to the example of Vygotsky and Meshcheryakov, in believing that an individual can form an image of an entire world through their immediate interactions with those around them, without the help of the arbitrary conceptions of the totality entailed in structural/functional models of the world. We form an image of the world by concrete and personal involvement in the activity of the world, using the artefacts produced in the world and participating in projects great and small, which contribute to sustaining the social life of humanity.

The notion of project may not be the unit of choice for a study of world history or financial markets, but even in these contexts so remote from problems of psychology, ‘project’ does make sense. What we need is a concept of activity which can provide a way of conceiving of a person’s participation in the world insofar as it affects their psychological functioning. The notions of collaboration and project do that.

When Marx remarks that “Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past” (Marx 1979: 103), then the notion of project offers a viable way of building a social theory which is consistent with Marx’s dictum.

* * *

In the remaining chapters we will go a little further into the notions of collaboration and project. If the claims of this work succeed, then it would follow that CHAT can benefit from further study of the specific range of problems entailed in collaborative projects, because, in fact, these problems are everywhere.

In Chapter 29 we will look at the ethical implications of the notion of collaboration as a norm and fundamental principle for ethics. In Chapter 30, we will look at the implications for political economy, and how collaboration allows us to discern a multiplicity of shades in the economic life of a society, not just buying and selling. In Chapter 31, we shall review several taxonomies of collaborative projects which suggest directions for further research. In Chapter 32, we shall review the problem of identity formation in the light of the notions of project and collaboration. It is after all projects which give meaning to our lives. In Chapter 33, we will investigate the problem of agency: how individuals and groups become agents in a world dominated by structural imperatives by engaging in collaborative projects.

These chapters are simply short essays illustrating how the idea of ‘collaborative project’ as a unit of activity provides avenues of investigation in a wide range of fields in that area where problems of social theory and problems of psychology intersect.

Finally, by way of conclusion, in Chapter 34, we will show how these concepts may contribute to the creation of an approach to emancipatory science and concluding in Chapter 35 with some comments on the urgency of the need to address these problems in science generally.

Ethics and Collaboration (2009)

“The fiction of a general deliberative assembly in which the united people expressed their will belongs to the early history of democratic theory; today our guiding model has to be that of a medium of loosely associated, multiple foci of opinion formation and dissemination which affect one another in free and spontaneous processes of communication.” (Benhabib 1996)

Social Science and Ethics

In the tradition of abstract-empirical science, ethics and science are incommensurable and must be kept separate lest we confuse ‘Is’ and ‘Ought’. The only place for ethics is to put boundaries around the activities of scientists to ensure that they don’t violate the rights of others in their pursuit of knowledge. But in the tradition of romantic or emancipatory science, things are not so clear-cut. Goethe, Hegel, Marx and Vygotsky did not develop separate ethical and scientific theories; their ideas were simultaneously ethical and scientific. And there are good reasons for this.

Any scientific project carries within it a commitment to certain ethical norms and precepts. For example, liberal economic theory bases its science on the presumption (norm) of individuals who act as mutually independent, self-interested, rational agents. The fact that agents are neither individual, independent, self-interested nor rational registers as a ‘distortion’ of the market, and as something which needs to be fixed. While making an atomistic society the norm for science, economists make policy recommendations which have the effect of atomizing society. The norm of the independent rational economic agent orients both the science and the ethics. To take another example, behavioural psychology is based on the ethical principle that interactions with other people aim to predict and control their behavior. The activity of behavioural psychologists serves to promote just such strategic action.

A human science which does not make its ethical commitments explicit is only deceiving itself.

But further than this, all social theorists know that social formations operate according to ethical norms, and these norms simply form part of the data. The ethics of the scientific project is taken to be something separate from the data. But modernity supports a ‘thin ethos’ (Heller 1988) for public discourse governing interactions between citizens who do not necessarily share particular, possibly sectional belief systems, in which people have to be able to justify their action by reason-giving argument (Rawls 1993). In any society governed by the rule of law, with secular courts in which parties are obliged to argue their case by giving reasons, ethical arguments become in themselves social forces, which social theory must therefore explore in their own terms. Scientific projects are subject to these same ethical principles. Discourse ethics (Habermas 2001), to take an example, has gained important insights into the dynamics of the public sphere by its study of what it is possible to argue without falling into performative contradictions (i.e. arguments which contradict themselves by being uttered) or dogmatism (i.e., arguing without giving reasons). But in fact, Habermas and Rawls fail in their project precisely because they do not take collaboration as the norm for interactions between individuals and have either a ‘lumpy’ conception of the social fabric as composed of individuals and groups or an outright liberal conception. If we bring to bear a conception of society as fundamentally made up of projects, and take collaborative projects as the fundamental relation in society, rather than liberal individualism, then we can determine some important ethical principles. So long as we live in a society in which rational argument and reason-giving still carries weight, then ethical insights are simultaneously political and sociological insights.

Collaboration with Strangers

The idea of ‘collaboration’ and ‘project’ as basic notions for social theory allows us to examine ethical principles that are relevant, not just to participants in an explicitly acknowledged collaborative project, but to interaction with others in general.

The Christian religion has inscribed in its principles the Golden Rule: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” (Luke 6:31). Muslims have, from the Hadith (“Sayings of the Prophet”): “None of you truly believes until he desires for his brother what he desires for himself.” This ancient principle transcends religious barriers.[71]

As part of the Enlightenment project, seeking to place religion on a rational basis, Kant generalized the Golden Rule as the Principle of Universalisability: “Act according to a maxim which can be adopted at the same time as a universal law” (Kant 1785). This principle is widely recognized to be applicable in modern conditions.

Reflecting on the ethics of modernity in the 1980s, Habermas discerned an element of dogmatism in the Golden Rule. The Golden Rule presumes that you can decide how another person ought to be treated, viz., in the same way you want to be treated. By the 1980s, the illegitimacy of the presumption that other people’s needs were the same as yours had become widely recognized; empathy has to be transcended with an actual enquiry into the other person’s needs. Habermas reformulated the Golden Rule in these terms:

“only those norms can claim to be valid that meet (or could meet) with the approval of all affected in their capacity as participants in a practical discourse"[72] (Habermas 1992).

Seyla Benhabib and Agnes Heller are among those Critical Theorists who find this formulation inadequate. Concretely, who is affected? Is it adequate to address others only insofar as they participate in a discussion about ethics? Agnes Heller reformulated the Golden Rule this way:

“What I do unto you and what I expect you to do unto me should be decided by you and me” (Heller 1986).

The problem with all such reformulations of the Golden Rule is similar to the problem we had with Mike Cole’s notion of ‘context’. Habermas’s formulation has an inadequate conception of what mediates the relation with others, so on the one hand he specifies ‘all those affected’ and on the other hand, he wants to regard the other as a participant in a discussion of moral philosophy. Seyla Benhabib questions the demand for universalism, and demands that ethics be oriented to a concrete other, not a generalized or abstract other. Taking up Benhabib’s suggestion, and taking collaborative projects to be the essential, concrete practical relation between people, we formulate the Golden Rule in this way:

“What we do, is decided by you and me.”

That is, by default, I take another person to be a collaborator in the project which is implicated in the moral problem raised between us, and that includes those who are participants by virtue of being or claiming to be affected. The aim is seek consensus on what we do, that is, taking us to be joint participants in the action. If no such shared project is conceivable, then the supposed moral problem is void. But also, I know that a range of different collaborative relations are normative in different circumstances. What kind of collaborators are we? Whose project is this? These questions have to be answered concretely. The point is to struggle to identify a viable ‘we-perspective’. It is the absence of any ‘we-perspective’ in liberalism that is its most serious problem.

In fact, Kant’s Principle of Universalisability is also flawed. It makes no sense to utter a principle and suppose it to have universal applicability, because for a principle to be universal, it must apply irrespective of the project with which you and another are practically engaged. Ultimately a principle is just words, a species of artefact, and unless it is uttered from some determinate subject position to another person, with respect to some determinate project with which you are collaborating with the other person, it is senseless. That is why moral principles always turn out to be relative, conditional and often very slippery. When people utter a universal ethical claim, the only way it can be made coherent is that they implicitly address themselves to the state. So in effect they seek to engage the state as a collaborator in a project to promote an ethical claim. But the state is by no means always the best collaborator in an ethical project.

So we see that it is important to keep the concept of project collaboration as the unit of analysis in our practical relations even with strangers, not just our immediate collaborators.

The Ethics of Collaboration

Concretely, the ethics of collaboration depends on the specific modes of collaboration in which people are engaged. That’s the whole point! We will only come to a general taxonomy of collaboration in Chapter 31. At this point we will merely look at some very general issues related to the ethics of collaborative projects.

The whole period of modernity has been characterized by division of labor which was governed by traditional, hierarchical modes of collaboration and cooperation gradually giving way to division of labor governed by exchange of commodities. Substantial sections of social life still lie outside the market, but still, the marketization of social life continues apace. What is worth noting for the moment is the rising trend for forms of division of labor formerly governed purely by hierarchical command, traditional, bureaucratic or meritocratic, to give way to normative modes of collaboration. Let us take a few examples.

In the Health Services in Australia, since the 1980s, nurses and doctors have been trained to establish collaborative relationships with patients, in which the patient is encouraged to take a leading role in directing their own treatment.[73] This very welcome development originated from agitation by patient rights groups, especially the women’s health movement (Lewin & Olesen 1985), but also the disability action groups and the self-help movement still mobilize people suffering from various, especially rare, illnesses (Borkman 1999) so as to actively intervene in treatment of their conditions. From the mid-1980s in Australia, the bureaucracy itself embraced this ethos from the top down; in their medical training health professionals are trained in the use of collaborative relationships as the optimum approach to healing. Collaboration promotes the health of the patient because collaboration is the route from dependency to communicatively mediated self-determination, which is essential to well-being.

Of course, in some circumstances some patients insist on their dependency and demand that the medical professional take charge, and this applies to all collaborative projects; insofar as this is the patient’s wish, it is a form of collaboration. Consultation and consensus may be the norm, but a patient who knows they are in no condition to weigh things up and make a rational judgment on the evidence, neither wants nor expects to be consulted.

In education, since the 1980s there has been a rising tide in favor of collaborative learning. Prior to the 1970s only a minority of progressive schools encouraged students’ autonomy; elsewhere schooling was organized almost exclusively along the traditional and meritocratic models of hierarchical authority, which included a teacher-pupil relationship which was completely one-sided: “I teach, you learn.”

In the 1980s, the ethos of corporate restructure began to make serious inroads into the beginnings of a collaborative approach to teaching and learning. According to the now-dominant neo-liberal conception of learning, the pupil-teacher relationship is that of customer-service provider. “The customer is always right,” so the pupil knows what they need to learn, and the responsibility of the teacher is to deliver the knowledge. Then the teacher is evaluated by the students; satisfied, uncritical students who pass exams give positive evaluations. If a student has paid for their qualification, there is no sense in challenging them and certainly not in failing them in their exams. These three modes of collaboration used in education – hierarchical command, commodity exchange and collaboration – represent the three major modes of social organization. Cultural Historical Activity Theorists have been the leaders and main theorists of collaborative learning (See Lee & Smagorinsky 2000; John-Steiner & Mahn 1996), as were their predecessors in the Progressive Movement.

In ‘project delivery’, we now frequently see, for example, architects and building contractors endeavoring to engage their clients in collaborative arrangements. These transactions can be very fraught because in the last instance the relationship remains one of purchase and sale and when the customer is not happy or legally binding standards are not met, matters may end up in court with recriminations and severe penalties. But a close involvement of the client in specifying design aspects is the only way to get a satisfactory result. The various entities responsible for design and construction are engaged in a collaborative project whether they like it or not. The law does not handle these relationships with ease. The law prefers to reduce every collaborative relationship to a contract, which is essentially a relationship of exchange: this is what you must do and this is what I must do.

Collaboration is well-established as a paradigm in creative arts and in the sciences, where cross-media, cross-disciplinary and cross-sectoral collaboration is regarded of particular creative value, and manufacturers go to great lengths to engage their market in design of products.

But all these relationships are fraught because the overall social, political and legal framework is hostile to collaboration. In any of the cases just mentioned, collaborative relationships sometimes break down. An architect may want to use a client’s new home as a show piece of design rather than following the client’s specifications; a doctor may fail to convince a patient of what is in their best instance and impose their view, or give up trying. So it is not only the benefits of working within a collaborative project which has psychological implications, but also the failure of collaboration. Breakdowns in collaboration can have profound negative impact on people who may feel betrayed and violated.

Other ethical problems that arise in collaborative projects include the problem of external rewards, which includes the kudos entailed in taking credit for a collaborative project, as well as pursuing a career for monetary gains alone. In fact, the majority of labor in a capitalist society is carried out in exactly this way: for external rewards, viz., wages and profits.[74] It is unfortunate that many Marxists have accepted a narrative about division of labor and exchange of commodities being tied up with the origins of the species. Isn’t it more likely that separate groups already collaborating within their own communities, came together in order to exchange surplus products? That is, that collaboration is prior to exchange? But that is all speculation. The fact remains that it is participation in collaborative projects which creates social bonds, gives meaning to people’s lives and teaches us how we ought to behave with others. Exchange of commodities does reach out and create new relationships between peoples that were formerly foreign to one another, and it can lead to collaboration. But the narrative which is more significant today is about the marketization of activities which were formerly part of collaborative projects, resulting in the atomization of communities.

Throughout, it is important to note that failures or shortcomings in collaboration have psychological implications only because collaboration is normative, even while the norms are contested. This is a powerful reason why science and ethics cannot be separated. The point of these quite cursory remarks is to draw attention to the richness of the concept of ‘project collaboration’. It is the fact that collaboration has a normative core for human beings that makes it so rich as a foundation for human science.

Collaborative Projects and Identity (2009)

“Getting accustomed to the spirit of the epoch, to those great currents which permeate the world, is the only criterion here ... not simply to listen to, but to create the music of revolution.” (Vygotsky 1926)

According to Dorothy Holland (2007: 102), the term ‘identity’, with the sense is has nowadays, entered psychology only in the 1950s thanks to Erik Erikson. Prior to this time, essentially the same concept was referred to as the ‘self’. Holland contrasts Eriksonian vs. Meadian identity, according to whether a single overarching identity (Erikson) or multiple identities manifested in different cultural contexts (G. H. Mead) is suggested. Mead’s approach is consistent with the whole tradition of thought with which we are concerned here, and indeed the concept of identity or self we have in mind is what Holland would call ‘Meadian’.

There is broad agreement today that identity-formation is a key problem for society and central for an individual’s psychological health. But the theories devised to describe and explain the process of identity-formation vary in the kind of explanation they give. Identity is the answer a person gives themselves to the question: “Who am I?” after they have dispensed with all those contingent attributes such as name, date of birth, etc., and have to determine a concept of themselves. All individuals, even ants, hang on to life when faced with death, but if asked “Why should you live?” how do you answer? How this idea should be further explained differs from one theorist to the next. Before turning to what Activity Theory can tell us about identity formation with the notions of collaboration and project, we should mention Leontyev’s approach.

Although Vygotsky studied self-consciousness, self-image and class-consciousness, identity was never singled out as a problem among the Soviet psychologists. Leontyev did write about personality though, as did others. For Leontyev, the notion of personality joins the continuity, uniqueness, stability and integrity of the psyche with the concept of character. Leontyev (1978) says that personality is formed through the person’s activity, and he is at pains to say activity not actions or operations. So, in Leontyev’s view, it is through the orientation of the person to social needs that a person forms a personality, and within the limitation of his own theory as already discussed, this seems a fruitful approach, but he has little to say beyond this about exactly what features of activities form personality and how. Given that Leontyev never formed a concept of the unit of activity, and given further the objectivist character of his understanding of activity, as a response to socially formed stimuli rather than an active process, it is difficult to see how Leontyev could form a conception of identity-formation.

Anna Sfard (2005) says that an identity is a story told about a person, both those told by a person to themself and to others, and those told by others. As with Holland, this leads to a ‘Meadian’ concept of identity, with identity being multifaceted and contradictory. Sfard is at pains to distinguish this idea from identity being something behind or manifested in narratives: it is the narratives themselves, something in the world. Sfard also usefully distinguishes between stories which are projected into the future and those that tell of the past. This conception is especially compatible with the idea of projects as the activity in which narratives are realized and implanted.

Jean-Paul Sartre sees identity in terms of an individual having a ‘fundamental project’ which specifies the way in which the individual subject understands themself and defines themself as this, rather than another, individual.

“For we mean to say that man primarily exists – that man is, before all else, something which propels itself towards a future and is aware that it is doing so. Man is, indeed, a project which possesses a subjective life, instead of being a kind of moss, or a fungus or a cauliflower. Before that projection of the self nothing exists” (Sartre 1989).

All projects in which the individual participates are from his or her point view a part of the subject’s ‘fundamental project’. For Sartre, the notion of identity formation is tied up with the discovery of a symbol of the person’s being and the desire to realize that symbol which is their ‘fundamental project’. But for Sartre, the conception of the fundamental project is understood as quintessentially an inner process, and so is hardly consistent with Activity Theory.

Althusser, as the structuralist par excellence, altogether denies the active side of which Marx spoke in “Theses on Feuerbach,” and ‘subject’ for Althusser (1971) means to be subjected. Ideology is the ‘lived’ relation between human beings and their world, or a reflected form of this unconscious relation, and ideology constitutes individuals as subjects. To be a subject for Althusser is therefore to be a prisoner of the dominant way of thinking. Identity formation is merely the recruitment (interpellation) of a person into a social position which they recognize to be their own. The association of identity-formation with being summoned to a social position is a view which can be encompassed within Activity Theory, but Althusser’s view is altogether too objectivist.

For Foucault, the individual is immersed in discourses which offer subject positions, or roles which can be adopted and played out within a range of narratives available in the culture. There is much about discourse theory which is consistent with Activity Theory, but it suffers from over-emphasis on language at the cost of other types of material culture, glossing over the materiality of culture, a materiality which transcends linguistic construction. Although Foucault’s philosophy has proved to be a powerful weapon in the hands of social activists, both for polemical purposes and as an instrument for real social change, his own works seem to deny this potential. Nowhere do we see how a discourse is created or modified. But “changed men are products of changed circumstances and changed upbringing, (and) it is men who change circumstances” (Marx 1975g). Foucault sees the insertion of a person into a social position in a narrative as something that is done to them, rather than being in any sense an act of creativity or resistance by the individual. This is one-sided and not believable, and places the activist in an excessively privileged position. A post-structuralist feminist like Judith Butler, for example, sees that:

“The subject is constituted through an exclusion and differentiation, perhaps a repression, that is subsequently concealed, ... the autonomous subject can maintain the illusion of its autonomy insofar as it covers over the break out of which it is constituted” (Butler 1995:45-46).

What this means in effect is that contingent attributes of a person, such as gender, skin-color, etc,. are made into markers of identity by social conventions, and the behavior of other people towards them places a person into one of a narrow range of possible subject positions whether they want it or not, and they get used to their situation. Such binary exclusions, according to Butler, constitute the subject. The element of truth in this is that we do live in a society in which people identify both themselves and others through contingent attributes, and as atomized individuals in a shredded social fabric. In a sense, people are a bundle of contingent attributes with nothing underneath. Deconstruction is a project which uses critique to undermine this kind of imposed binary categorization. These considerations are real enough, people are sensitive to difference, but contingent attributes are not what is essential in identity-formation. And if there is nothing underneath such imposed subjectivity, if autonomy is just an illusion, perhaps it is unwise to deconstruct?

Dorothy Holland (2007) noted the importance of participation in ‘an activity’ for the construction of identity, but she never spelt out what, in her view, constitutes ‘an activity’. However, she defines ‘figured world’, which is the key concept of her work, as follows:

“The idea of figured worlds as a horizon of meaning for Meadian identities is related to studies of framing processes, drawing on Goffman’s frame analysis, and sociological studies of social movements. ... Wertsch ... deploys “genre” and “sociocultural setting” (cultural, historical, and institutional setting), which together approximate the intent of figured world (A narrative genre of activity in situ).”

The combination of a genre of semiotic activity in a cultural-historical setting is a powerful approach to the conception for the narrative context of mediated identity-formation (see also Holland 1998), closely related also to Bourdieu’s idea of field.

Sartre’s conception of a ‘fundamental project’ at the centre of identity-formation is an attractive approach, but Sartre’s idea of looking into the depths of his soul for the source of this project is hardly compatible with the Activity Theory approach. People either join projects or put them together with other people, but it is through their interaction with other people that identity is formed in the Activity Theory approach. The point of adopting the idea of project as the unit of activity was to identify the sources of motivation. Projects are teleological, they aim at something, they are motivated. Insofar as people make some level of commitment to a project, the project provides a person with reasons for their activity, their aims, and at the same time something larger than themselves. They allow a person to discover who they are and give sense and meaning to their activity. They give to people an identity.

Projects have an objective existence: real people, their activity and the material conditions in which they live. When people join a project, their personality adapts itself to the new system of activity and artefacts and most of all their sense of identity joins itself to the aim of the project and its means of achieving it. Concretely this happens through collaboration, interactions between individuals mediated by participation in the project.

But projects have a life of their own, just like human beings: they grow and develop and give birth to offspring. A project is a living thing, but what is alive in it is the human beings who participate in it. Projects do not have some other existence, in ‘society’ or in structures; projects exist only in the people’s activity and the artefacts they use. At the same time, the artefacts which are included as part of the project they are mediating are material objects, and include artefacts which, unlike the spoken word, do not disappear into nothingness once uttered. In this specific sense, projects are material things that exist independently of people’s will and outlive their participants. This contrasts with the notion of ‘discourse’ which carries the implication that projects are free creations of the mind.

‘Project’, as a unit of activity, emphasizes the active side. Activity Theory understands that a project, and the conditions for its existence, are in the first place objective to any individual. An individual can lend their efforts to a project, fight against it, take a free ride on it, or occasionally initiate it.

It is also possible that a person may be recruited or condemned to a subject position which entails participation in a project which oppresses them, pushes them into a mold they do not fit. They may be subsumed into someone else’s project. No doubt there is a sense in which projects have a life of their own, like moral panics. Projects are ‘intersubjective’ in the original sense of the word, i.e., neither objective nor subjective (with respect to an individual) but ‘between’ individuals. The idea of ‘project’ as a unit of activity does not in itself resolve the problems of subjectivity raised by Existentialism, Structuralism and Poststructuralism, but given that Activity Theory rests on a very substantial current of psychological science, with a real base in experimental science, the concept of project as a unit of activity offers the possibility for genuinely scientific investigation of identity formation.

In Chapter 8, Hegel’s categories of the subject-object relation were reviewed. Hegel described in effect the stages through which a subject’s identity may change through interaction with other projects, beginning with mutual indifference, through mutual instrumentalization up to a merging into a new shared identity. Use of the idea of project as a unit of activity opens up the whole of Hegel’s system for appropriation in dealing with problems like that of identity formation.

Also, the taxonomy of collaboration dealt with in the previous chapter is equally the taxonomy of the internal dynamics of projects, and consequently, the structure of identity.

These observations simply go to the point that the adoption of ‘project’ as a unit of analysis for activity opens up fruitful possible lines of enquiry for a wide range of problems in that domain where the meaning of an individual’s actions and the nature of some societal phenomenon mutually implicate one another, what I have referred to as the hermeneutic circle of activity.

The question as to whether identity is something imposed and passively absorbed, or on the contrary actively adopted and constructed, is closely connected to the question of agency, to which we now move.

Collaborative Projects and Agency (2009)

“History does nothing, it ‘possesses no immense wealth’, it ‘wages no battles’. It is man, real, living man who does all that, who possesses and fights; history is nothing but the activity of man pursuing his aims.” (Marx 1846)

At a time when people are more and more conscious of how their lives are determined by global events and processes utterly out of their reach, economic and social changes have led individuals to crave assurance that they are in control of their own lives and have a say in the affairs of their country. This contradiction has focused attention on the ‘problem of individual agency’, that is, what sense can be found in notions like being in control of one’s own life or having a say in the world or having an effect on history. Is ‘individual agency’ in any sense a coherent concept?

Lévi-Strauss (1962) once said that “as one passes to histories of progressively greater ‘power’ ... the historian loses in information what he gains in comprehension,” i.e., the greater the distance from which one looks at a society, the more one is ready to see individual agency as illusory, and describe social change in terms of quasi-natural processes for which structural-functional explanations seem more satisfactory than ascribing events and social changes to the agency of any individual. But when we are describing our own life-world, objectivist explanations are surely unsatisfactory.

Among the difficulties which confront us in trying to make sense of the idea of individual agency is (1) the conception which follows from the above contradiction, that we have on the one hand, individuals who make choices about their own actions, and on the other hand, societal structures obedient to social and historical processes which are as objective as the movements of the heavens. In this case, individual agency is like arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. (2) Since both the form and the content of an individual’s thinking is determined by social and cultural factors, giving the individual both their ends and their means of pursuing them, the individual is nothing more than a carrier of social and historical phenomena. Movies like “The Matrix” and “The Truman Show” express these anxieties.

Confronting the situation in his native Germany at the close of the eighteenth century, Hegel regretted that theorists had neglected the simple truth that “freedom is possible only when a people is legally united within a state” (1999: 220), and Hegel devoted much of his life to promoting the idea of the state as a manifestation of the freedom of its citizens, rather than as a limitation on that freedom. When a people suffering under a foreign power or in a condition of lawlessness such as we have in the rising number of failed states around the world today, join together to found their own sovereign state, then surely this is a simple demonstration of the form and content of agency, namely self-determination, recognition and sovereignty. Even though nation-states, like individuals, live in a world beyond their control, we don’t question their sovereignty because they control their own internal affairs according to their own laws, and they participate as an equal in the affairs of the rest of the world.

But liberals were not the only people who disagreed with Hegel. Marx ridiculed the idea of working class people, who were excluded from political life, being able to see the state as an expression of their own freedom. Although Marx was an enthusiastic supporter of the Paris Commune, he does not seem to have supported the idea of a ‘workers state’ on a wider scope than a single city, where there was a realistic opportunity for any citizen to directly and personally intervene in the life of the Commune. Marx reported approvingly the idea among members of the Commune for the cities of France to each form themselves into self-governing Communes led by the organized workers, break up the centralized state-machine and restore the unity of the nation with a constitution based on the Communes. These were merely speculations as the Commune got no further than the walls of Paris, but the point is that self-determination, whether individual or national, has to be mediated by some form of association, in which individuals have real participation; otherwise, self-determination is simply self-deception.

So, if we interpret ‘agency’ as self-determination in the same sense in which nation-states exercise self-determination, of being recognized as a subject in one’s own right, being in control of your own mind and body and having an equal say in the world around you, then this is something which is meaningful and attainable for individuals. However, we cannot adopt a cheap solution which shrinks the world to the individual’s immediate sphere of activity, because this does not deal with the fact that language, custom, law and ideology all have their origin in the wider sphere of activity, not to mention invading foreign armies, climate change and American cultural imperialism. Self-determination is meaningless if it does not include the capacity to critically respond to societal forces.

After 50 years of working towards a definition of the meaning of ‘well-being’, Amartya Sen (2002: 258) arrived at the notion of ‘critical voice'[75] as the only reliable measure and source of an individual’s well-being. Measurement of someone’s level of functioning[76] was not enough to reflect someone’s well-being because self-determination was essential to well-being and flourishing. Sen introduced the idea that having an equal voice in society as a more truthful notion of equality and well-being than one based on functioning. But reflecting on the fact that even educated Indian women in some parts of the country would participate in the abortion of female foetuses made it clear that having a voice was not enough, one had to have a critical voice. This meant that people needed both a voice in the affairs of their country and enough knowledge of life beyond their own immediate milieu to be able to critically appropriate their own culture, in order to be truly free and equal. Sen’s opinion is especially significant in that he has travelled a long road from welfare economics and the causes of famine to reach these conclusions. But how can we interpret the notion of ‘critical voice’ and how can it be made open to scientific investigation? The notion of ‘collaborative project’ in the context of activity theory is very useful in making sense of self-determination as exercise of critical voice.

The notion which was described above as a ‘lumpy’ conception of subjectivity makes a relevant point of contrast here as well. At first sight, being a member of a group which is represented in government may seem to qualify at least in part for having a critical voice. But in fact being part of a group tells us nothing of whether an individual has a say in the group or whether the group has any real say in the wider community, and with or without a say, whether the one expresses the self-consciousness of the other. Being a voter in a geographical electorate along with 80,000 others, confers no say in the affairs of the country whatsoever. One person’s vote can never change the result and consequently confers no social power; the voter has no voice in deciding the issues to be discussed or how they are discussed, and secret ballots ensure that voting is strictly individual and not collaborative. Unless you are very wealthy, the only practical ways a private person can influence an elected government are via lobby groups and social movements. Only if a group is formed around some concept through which the individual can work, only, in other words, to the extent that the individual participates in a collaborative project can he or she have a voice in the wider community.

But how do we understand the qualification ‘critical'? Surely to have a critical voice means participating in a project in which there is both cooperation and conflict amongst many voices in pursuit of the common aim. To be critical in respect to one’s own culture and ideology, if it means anything at all, means to be challenged by views coming from outside your own culture and ideology, perhaps from other countries; an individual is never absolutely barred from access to a critical viewpoint, and through collaboration is able to attain a critical voice in relation to their situation. A ‘project’ in which no dissenting voices can be heard, is unlikely to produce critical positions. But in a genuinely collaborative project, which concretizes its concept of itself through mutual criticism, a critical voice may manifest itself.

So for self-determination, one needs to be a part of collaborative projects. A collaborative project is a social subject in fact. Collaborative projects mean communicatively mediated self-determination. Collaborative projects are the very manifestation and measure of the self-determination of their participants.

The individual/society dichotomy can only be overcome by forms of activity which mediate between the wider culture in which laws are made, the literature of the world circulates and armies are raised and deployed, and the immediate day-to-day life of individual human beings. We can only conceive of such a bridge in terms of a concept, a concept for-itself. This is what a project is.

This is not to deny that it may be legitimate to talk of social structures in terms of quasi-natural laws. But if we are to find any sense in the notion of individual self-determination, then it can only be by means of individuals participating in projects which do have the capacity to change these structures. The feeling of helplessness in the face of geopolitical forces and structures is a direct outgrowth of the promotion of individualist ideology and the undermining of the conditions for active participation in social life. You don’t need to raise an army or build a political party to change the way things are done; just be part of a project which introduces a new word or concept.

Emancipatory science (2009)

“Romantic scholars ... do not follow the path of reductionism .... want neither to split living reality into its elementary components nor to represent the wealth of life’s concrete events in abstract models that lose the properties of the phenomena themselves.” (Luria)

This book is an immanent critique of Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT), following the arguments raised within CHAT against positions defended within CHAT, and endeavoring in each case to disclose the underlying source of the contradiction, and with the benefit of hindsight, identify the most satisfactory resolution. This is the method that Aristotle used, at the end of the period of the flowering of Greek philosophy. Goethe applied it in the form of self-criticism and a life-long struggle to develop himself. Hegel used it in “The Phenomenology” and then made it into a systematic method in the “Logic,” as a method for building all the sciences from their founding premises. Marx applied it to political economy in order to disclose the dynamics of bourgeois society and Vygotsky applied it to Behaviorism and European psychology in general.

In subjecting a current of thought to immanent critique, the critic places themself within that school of thought. This replicates the normal method by which a science develops. Writers rarely subject those who are morally or intellectually distant from themselves to serious criticism, or listen to criticism that comes from afar; critical dialogue is the very thing which constitutes an intellectual pursuit as a project and binds it together with common aims. Even when a current is shown to have arrived at an impasse, critique reveals a solution which answers to the problems addressed by the current. So by subjecting CHAT to immanent critique my aim is to collaborate with those who have gone before and with those who currently work in the traditions of CHAT, hoping to overcome the most important contradictions and further our shared project.

One of the characteristics of CHAT and its predecessors in German thought is the continuous attention given to scientific method and in particular what Vygotsky called the unit of analysis; under one name or another, all the writers considered here have pondered the problem and given their own view on it. This on-going dialogue over the central problem of method is one of the characteristics constituting CHAT as a project. Because of this practice, we are all able to communicate with one another, even whilst there have been sharp differences between us. That is the nature of a collaborative project.

But CHAT is also part of larger projects: the human sciences, including medicine, psychiatry, linguistics, literary criticism, etc., and we need to be able to communicate with other currents within the larger project of science. And for communication it is not enough to able to speak the same language; there has to be also shared concern with common problems and shared concepts. There may be an interest in each other’s theoretical frameworks, but the existing fragmentation of all the academic disciplines is evidence that this is not enough. Only the catharsis brought about by the failure of the scientific project may create the conditions for a reassessment. A scientific practice which has proved successful in generating academic positions but has proved utterly ineffective in stemming the destruction of the biosphere may be due for critical self-examination. Goethe knew that he could not stem the tide of positivism in his own times, but the world can survive only so much abstract-empirical science. Perhaps now is the time to take up Goethe’s banner once again?

The central concepts of CHAT are activity and culture. In themselves, these are very general concepts, and not at all specialized concerns. Activity simply means people doing something, with a distinction between activity, which is purposive, as against the autonomous and unconscious processes of the body through which activity is realized, and with the understanding that activity is always pursuit of social ends by social means. Culture simply means a constellation of artefacts, that is, the material products of human activity of all kinds which people use in their activity with one another. But these concepts have accrued rich layers of meaning through their use in the work of CHAT, and others do not share these same layers of meaning. So the problem of mutual appropriation between CHAT and other sciences, requires attention to clarification of the meaning of these concepts.

Mutual appropriation between scientific disciplines is not the norm. But there are times when a sweeping critique makes such an impact in one branch of enquiry, that its effects become widespread. Changes in the Zeitgeist flow through all domains of thought and new directions taken by one science may be taken up by others. There is great scope today for reflection on the idea of emancipatory science. CHAT theorists are far from alone in their wish that their science should free people rather than enslave them, and in dissatisfaction with the mainstream tradition of abstract empirical science, but it is CHAT which has kept the essential ideas of emancipatory science alive for a century. However, it is suggested that certain contradictions which have arisen within CHAT’s concept of activity need to be resolved before we can expect to be able to appropriate (and not simply import) insights from the social sciences, and before we can expect our work to be useful to others trained in different traditions of science.

We all know how CHAT grew up as a school of thought under the inspiration of Marx and most serious works in this tradition will include some direct reference to Marx, continuously sustaining the connection with this much-misrepresented icon of revolutionary socialism. We all know that CHAT has incorporated ideas from Hegel, but since the master-servant has dialectic swamped almost all other readings of Hegel in recent decades, few are aware of the way Hegel was read by earlier generations of CHAT. And almost no-one seems to be aware of the origins of the key ideas in Goethe.

Goethe’s approach to science was largely drowned by the rising tide of analytical science, so Vygotsky and Luria were probably among very few scientists who carried a flame for Romantic science into the 1970s. But the tide turned a long time ago and the kind of concerns which Goethe expressed a century ago, about the uncontrolled side-effects of an exclusively analytical, quantitative style of science would now be widely shared.

The first expression of these ideas by Vygotsky was his rejection of the way behaviorists treated experimental subjects like objects; they excluded verbal communication between the subject and the researcher from the data of psychological research and denied the relevance of the subjects’ consciousness; the aim of their science was the prediction and control of behavior, essentially dehumanizing those who were to be the subjects of their science. Vygotsky on the contrary insisted on the centrality of the collaborative relationship between the subject and researcher and the necessity of regarding the subject’s consciousness as the key determinant of their behavior, and the subject’s speech as the most developed mode of their behavior. As with the psychoanalysts, talking was an essential part of the practice of psychology.

One of the manifestations of the failure to grasp phenomena as Gestalten is the elevation of distinctions to dichotomies. Foremost amongst dichotomies which have plagued psychology is the mind/body dualism. Vygotsky was brilliantly able to overcome this dualism, and drawing on the philosophical tradition of Goethe, Hegel and Marx, he was successful in overcoming a number of other dualisms. In experimental procedures, Vygotsky and his colleagues were able to break new ground by using experimental scenarios based on collaborative relationships with the experimental subjects. Luria’s ideographical methodology, where the focus was exclusively on the whole person, was another strand of CHAT’s commitment to Romantic science. In our own times, support for an approach to science like this is reflected in criticism of randomized, double-blind trials, the promotion of self-help groups as a legitimate style of knowing, the promotion of collaborative relationships in health and education, the promotion of the study and care of Nature as something in which everyone should participate, losing trust in specialists. This commitment to ‘emancipatory science’ is something which needs to be renewed today.

But the most powerful concept in Goethe’s approach to science was the Urphänomen. The Urphänomen is an empirically given thing, the simplest possible unit of a complex phenomenon which still has all the essential properties of the whole. As such it functions as an empirically given explanatory principle for the complex whole. This remarkable idea functions as the key methodological principle for Hegel, Marx and Vygotsky. It is the way in which it is possible to see the whole in every part, and therefore the key means for understanding a complex process as a whole, rather than dismembering it in the manner of analytical science. But the idea of the Urphänomen is not on its own sufficient to be able to understand a process as a Gestalt.

Although Vygotsky had not actually read Hegel, he turned out to be possibly the foremost Hegel interpreter of his times. (See the section “Vygotsky’s Hegelianism” in Chapter 14 above) Vygotsky himself, and the whole current of Cultural Historical Activity Theory was a product of the Russian Revolution. In the wake of the Revolution Hegel was in the air. Lenin had made a study of Hegel and made it clear that political leaders and scientists should read Hegel’s Logic if they were to understand Marx. Vygotsky read Marx, Engels, Plekhanov and Lukács, and during the 1920s he worked with, amongst others, Kurt Lewin, John Dewey and Deborin, all of whom were familiar with Hegel and in this environment Vygotsky was able to develop an approach to psychology which reflected such a profound understanding of Hegel, it is difficult to believe that he had not studied Hegel personally. But this is the point about collaborative projects. Vygotsky was better able to appropriate Hegel through his collaboration in a scientific project, saturated by the ethos of the Revolution, than he could have by private study.

Hegel had taken an entire social formation – which he called a ‘formation of consciousness’ – as his object of study, a Gestalt. Every subject within a formation of consciousness was a unit of that whole, interconnected with every other subject; but Hegel conceived of the subject as a concept, not as an individual, and a concept has three moments: the individual, the universal and the particular. Hegel transformed Goethe’s idea into philosophical terms. The Urphänomen had become an abstract concept, understood as part of an entire formation of consciousness. Though expressed in arcane logical terms in Hegel’s exposition, what this essentially means is that a concept exists only through the particular activity of individuals with each other, organized around universal representations of the concept (i.e., artefacts which are part of the general culture).

Hegel made mind/matter dichotomies and problems of epistemology objects of critique, and felt no need to have his own version of such systems. He saw that any society operated with a range of artefacts that were products of their own labor, and this same range of artefacts was represented in their knowledge, so there was not a lot to be gained by trying to draw some line between the ‘thought-objects’ created by labor and knowledge of these ‘thought-objects’ produced by activity with them. As the practical activity of a social formation changes, so the artefacts they produce, and people’s knowledge of those artefacts change. In this way, the idea of mediation dispensed with the problem of dichotomy.

Each of the different sciences in Hegel’s “Encyclopaedia” begins with a simple concept, such as ‘Being’ or ‘Reflection’ or ‘Right’ and the science is developed by interrogating what is in that concept. This meant that the entire science is developed as a ‘formation of consciousness’ in which every concept is genetically interconnected with every other. Hegel thus provided a model for the development of any science, albeit on an absolutely idealist foundation.

What is emancipatory about this approach to science is that the content is grasped as a whole, consistent with an ethical approach to all human beings as subjects in their own right. Further, the science begins from one Urphänomen whose nature and origins can be easily grasped, and which implicitly contains everything. There is therefore no recourse to dogmatic claims about ‘laws of nature’ or ‘the origins of man’ and so on. “All mysteries which lead theory to mysticism find their rational solution in human practice and in the comprehension of this practice.”

Marx’s was the emancipatory science par excellence: the raison d'être for Marx’s work was the liberation of humanity. This meant that his published work was very much directed towards a broad public where it would have an effect: “theory becomes a material force as soon as it has gripped the masses” (Marx 1975c: 182), so we generally have to turn to manuscripts which were not published in his lifetime to learn about his methodology. But he makes it clear in the original preface to “Capital” that he uses the idea of Urphänomen as the foundation of his critique of bourgeois society. He criticizes Hegel for believing that the development of a science was the “product of thought concentrating itself” whereas, he says, the method of rising from the abstract to the concrete “is by no means the process by which the concrete itself comes into being” and “the subject, society, must always be kept in mind as the presupposition” (1986a: 38). This meant that an idea arises as a form of activity before it “appears in the head ... as a product of a thinking head.” This takes the idea of immanent critique a step further, for it is the activity of human beings, even as it develops in the business of daily life, which is creating the real abstractions which are later to be reflected in the head of the theorist.

In his appropriation of Hegel, Marx introduced the idea of ‘activity’ as a philosophical category, making the substances of his philosophy “the real individuals, their activity and the material conditions under which they live, both those which they find already existing and those produced by their activity” (1975i: 31) from which it was possible to appropriate Hegel’s philosophy as a genuinely humanistic method of science. This allowed Marx to develop an approach which ruthlessly did away with all forms of metaphysics. “History does nothing,” he said, pointing out that “It is man, real, living man who does all that” (1975f: 93). It was precisely this refusal of the use of abstractions at the fundamental level which allowed Marx to develop a unique approach to the understanding of social formations as Gestalten.

It should be noted that just because he took as his premises “the real individuals, their activity and the material conditions under which they live,” this did not mean that he set off from individuals as the atomistic components of a society. On the contrary, in his analysis of bourgeois society, he set off from the empirically given archetypal relationship, the commodity, which characterized the whole of bourgeois society. Further, Marx correctly identified the commodity relationship as the most typical of bourgeois society, he did not claim this as a transhistorical truth or universal relationship.

Vygotsky’s argument with Behaviorism had led him to the conclusion that conversation between the researcher and the subject had to be central to the research data. He further recognized that speech was the most highly developed mode of human activity, and he therefore concentrated attention on the relationship between speaking and thinking to gain the key insights for a science of consciousness. He expressed this in the aphorism that the word is a microcosm of consciousness. His study of child development led him to the conclusion that there was pre-intellectual speech and pre-lingual intelligence; at a certain point, the two trajectories intersect, and speech becomes intelligent and intelligence becomes verbal. Speech modifies thinking and behavior, as children use language at first expressively, then indicatively and communicatively, but then to issue commands to themselves and narrate their own actions. He summed up his study of thinking and speech with the claim that the meaningful word is the unit of analysis for this study. However, he did not claim that word meaning was a unit of analysis for all the phenomena of behavior and consciousness. Close study of his work led to the conclusion that Vygotsky took the ‘joint artefact-mediated action’ as the unit of analysis for the study of consciousness. This is important, because it marks Vygotsky off from, for example, recent philosophy which goes beyond the study of language-use as the microcosm of human life to claim that language is the sole determinant of human behavior. But this is not the case.

One important thing about Vygotsky’s methodology is that his concern to focus scientific work on the simple and empirically given was not limited to the idea of Urphänomen or ‘unit of analysis’ but characterized his approach more broadly. It was absolutely central to the work of Vygotsky and his colleagues that the individual human psyche was a moment of the whole social formation (Gestalt), and could not be made sense of except through the understanding of a person in the context of their social practice. Nonetheless, Vygotsky consistently refused to introduce into his scientific work abstractions to represent societal phenomena and generally avoided reliance on speculative narratives about the past to explain the way things are today. “Each person is to some degree a measure of the society, or rather class, to which he belongs, for the whole totality of social relationships is reflected in him” (Vygotsky 1997b:317). Rather, Vygotsky represented how societal products, such as language, ideology and institutions, enter the psyche, not as abstractions, but through interactions with other people (adults already part of the wider culture) mediated with the use of artefacts (which are drawn from the wider culture). He had a very concrete conception of action. Only those empirically given entities – behavior, other people and things – entered into his reasoning, not invisible ‘objective’ motives or other abstractions used to represent societal forms of activity. Just as a word was a microcosm of a culture, every artefact conveys hard information about the wider world and every individual is a microcosm of the entire society of which they are a part, a fact of significance not only for the researcher, but also for the growing child with whom the adult interacts.

Later on, Vygotsky was subject to criticism by Leontyev for failing to represent the social sources of the motivation for people’s activity. Experimental scenarios in which people sort colored blocks hardly shed light on the motivation of people’s significant life activities.

In his unfinished studies of child development, Vygotsky made a definition of ‘social situation of development’ which gave us a clue to how Vygotsky would approach the more general problem of representing societal phenomena in the development of the individual’s psyche. Vygotsky captured a child’s social situation of development as a predicament, represented in a contradiction between the mode of satisfaction of a child’s needs on the one hand (including social expectations on the child at its stage of development) and the actual mode of perception and psychological functioning of the child. At a certain point, the specific mode by means of which their needs are met becomes an ‘offence’ and the child wants to escape from this mode of interaction in which it is trapped, but they are not yet able to function at the higher level which is needed to operate outside this mode of interaction: thus the predicament, and the predicament is the driving force for the child’s development and transformation of their mode of interaction with adults. Likewise, the formation of a concept of an action-in-context is required to represent the motivations animating a person in their activity in society. The situation cannot be represented in abstracto.

The key criticism that Leontyev made of Vygotsky’s psychology was that because of division of labor, the goal of a person’s action was not generally the same as the motive of the social activity of which it is a part. So long as goals and motives were at odds with one another, analysis of their actions could not fully reveal their psychology. The same goes for the formation of concepts: that a set of blocks are all red-squares, hardly represents the full depth of word meaning in the spoken language, with its myriad of interconnections and shades of meaning. So Leontyev developed an activity-based representation of social life, a view which went a long way towards an activity reading of Hegel’s Spirit. Artefacts are objectifications of human powers, which in turn mediate activity. Marx insisted that concepts were formed in social activity before they came to be reflected in someone’s head and incorporated in theory. So it would seem that a theory which could grasp the creation of concepts in activity, rather than in the head, was a useful avenue to take.

With a three-level anatomy of activity – operations, actions and activities – Leontyev aimed to develop a notion of activity which had psychological, interpersonal and societal aspects to it. This looks like an interdisciplinary concept of activity. But Activity Theory never fulfilled this potential, and there are reasons for this failure.

One of the problems with Leontyev’s approach was that he used a false historicism. The whole problem of the phylogenetic origins of consciousness is always an intriguing one. Leontyev developed a painstaking study of non-human life-forms with the idea that in some way this would shed light on human consciousness. But, for all this labors, this is unlikely; the opposite is rather the case, that is, that a better understanding of human consciousness will shed light on the consciousness of non-human life-forms. The tendency to seek an explanation for what is immediately given in entities beyond our horizons, characterized other parts of his work as well. He supposed that the motivation of the activity in which a person was involved could be represented as an objective societal object. This meant firstly taking ‘society’ as a subject which could have needs and motives, distinct from that of the classes, groups, individuals, etc., of which a society is composed. It also meant that the theorist takes a “God’s eye view” from which such needs can be determined. Thirdly, it implied that human motivation in all its grades, can be theorized as a passive response to stimuli.

On all these counts, Leontyev was wrong. But he was quite right in his claim that Vygotsky’s psychology needed support from an activity theory which could deal with the motivation for social action and its sources in social life. Also needed was an activity-representation of concepts in the institutions and social movements of the wider society. Leontyev’s diagnosis was correct, but his remedy left room for improvement. The strength of Vygotsky’s method was his insistence on grounding his work on the empirically-given actions of human individuals, just as Marx had done. “History does nothing,” and nor do the abstract, objectivist conceptions which Leontyev invented to provide motivation for human action.

Also, the representation of human motivation in terms of fulfillment of needs is inadequate. Granted, Leontyev holds that human needs are the product of human activity, not simply natural drives. But this acknowledgement of the cultural-historical origin of a need in social production, does not bear on the nature of human motivation as such. Human beings are not (always) led by the nose; we project our aims forward. It may be a tautology, but it needs to be said: activity is active.

What is not emancipatory about Leontyev’s approach is firstly the ascription of the ultimate motivating forces to remote abstract entities, motivations which are supposed to be objective. This is a form of functionalism which denies the autonomy of human individuals. In addition to this, the conception of motivation as essentially passive, a response to an objective stimulus, also denies the capacity of human beings to create and change their own material conditions. These concessions to functionalism arose because Leontyev did not have clear concept of his subject matter, not a concept in the exact sense which Goethe, Hegel, Marx and Vygotsky had all insisted upon. Once he felt free to invent objectivist abstractions to overcome the difficulties of forming a concrete conception of societal phenomena, the approach of emancipatory science was inevitably abandoned.

So the problem remains. How can we represent the source of the motivation of human actions? How can we represent the objective existence of concepts in forms of activity, prior to their reflection in consciousness? How can we represent the social context of human action in such a way that the cognition of actions and artefacts can be theorized? The long-standing interest of philosophers and psychologists in child development is because personality and consciousness comes into being as a child grows into adulthood. A more modern form of this problem is cross-cultural phenomena: how can people understand each other across cultural boundaries, and thereby gain a concept of something? In Leontyev’s system based on objective societal needs, it is impossible even to represent such a problem, let alone solve it. It was this problem which was the impulse for the particular contribution of Michael Cole which we need to mention.

Mike Cole confronted the problem of context in his work 40 years ago, studying difficulties children had learning mathematics in school in Liberia. Cole was able to demonstrate that in their daily life, children displayed the normal level of ability in all those base-level cognitive skills which we associate with facility for mathematics, and yet the children just did not seem to get it when mathematics was presented to them in the context of formal schooling.

Even though children left school with no significant skill in mathematics, schooling did have an impact on their thinking. Another study showed that exposure to the kind of relationships and interactions characteristic of schools and other institutions in Western bureaucratic societies did allow women to improve their ability in dealing with these institutions and apply this knowledge in raising their children, and it was this second generation which benefited. What this implied was that it was the location of teaching within the context of the highly structured and formalized system of schooling which made incomprehensible the same content which was transparent to the children when it appeared in day-to-day activities in their own lives.

Clearly then, Vygotsky’s ‘joint artefact-mediated action’ did not contain all that was essential in human consciousness and behavior. The context was an essential element of the microcosm of activity, and if actions and/or artefacts are taken out of their social context and dropped into an alien context, they do not make sense and are incomprehensible to people trying to appropriate them.

In his research efforts to resolve this problem, Cole took up Vygotsky’s belief that the researcher had to engage in a collaborative relationship with the research subject. In the case of learning, this meant, rather than ‘observing’ people teaching and learning, his researchers had to roll up their sleeves and try to help children learn. This was the only possible foundation for a fruitful research environment. Further than this, Cole discovered that all the progressive education initiatives which he could trace in the US had failed. The source of these failures, he diagnosed, was the inability of the initiatives to gain support, not only from teachers and pupils, but from all the parties involved in the provision and support of schooling in the community.

What this meant, in summary, was that learning could only effectively take place in the context of all the relevant people being committed to the school and its work as a shared collaborative project. This discovery was in fact not just a pragmatic observation but contains the essential philosophical insight which is implicated in the original problem of the sources of motivation, or to put in Cole’s terms, in the context of learning.

The problem is that ‘context’ is an open-ended totality. How do we conceive of this totality? Cole has a diagram (credited to Bronfenbrenner) in his book (1996: 133) showing the learner in the center of a series of concentric rings: lesson, classroom organization, school organization, community organization, in order to represent an approach to analyzing this totality as ‘that which surrounds’. But this is a description which seems only to represent the infinite regress posed in trying to solve this problem. Cole also includes an approach to context as ‘that which weaves together’ which is perhaps a richer and more fruitful metaphor for context. Cole has investigated a number of writers in search of a way of conceiving of the act-in-context. But none of these metaphors and visual images gave us concepts of the act in its context, or allowed us to conceive of a definite unity of the two in one and the same concept, rather than the act on one hand added to the context on the other.

Vygotsky came up against the same problem in child development. How to represent the ‘context’ into which a child grows up. Of course, in order to fully understand even a single grain of sand it is ultimately necessary to understand the entire universe. But this is not the point, is it? How can we represent the child in its social situation as a concept or unit through which we can theorize their development? Vygotsky theorized this social situation in a concept which captured the relation between their needs and the means of their satisfaction in the form of a definite concept: a predicament. We need something similar for cross-cultural learning. In fact, we need a concept through which we can represent the intelligibility of actions in which mediating culture cannot be taken for granted. Leontyev had a point when he talked of the goals of an individual’s action being the personal meaning of a societal object. This insight needs to be retained. In theorizing a person’s motivation, the teleology of action, we theorize at the same time their cognition. We tend not to understand something in which we have no interest. So the learning process is inextricably bound up with motivation, and cross-cultural learning entails people sharing aims in an appropriate way.

The concepts proposed to resolve these problems are ‘collaboration’ and ‘project’. These mutually constituting concepts represent individual actions within on-going societal processes and the motivations underlying people’s actions and relationships.

‘Project’ is a concept which is sometimes preferred by Hegel scholars to represent ‘formations of consciousness’. A project can be a single thread in the fabric of society, and does not have the connotation of being an entire ‘social formation’. It is somewhat similar to the notion of ‘community of practice’, but rather than suggesting a closed system of self-reproducing actions, ‘project’ carries connotations of projecting itself forward to some ideal – a different concept of object than Leontyev’s needs. It also implies that the individual and their acts are saturated with the ideal towards which the project is directed. But consistent with the conceptions of both Marx and Hegel, the ideal is not an objectively valid, better world waiting to be realized, but rather is immanent in the activity itself, and is ultimately objectified in a residue which becomes an integral part of the life of the whole. A project is inclusive of all the cultural artefacts which mediate its activity, and is sustained by definite forms of collaboration.

Collaboration is a rich concept which expresses the jointness of actions, but in collaboration the action is always conceived of as directed towards a shared end. There is a normative concept of collaboration which implies cooperation towards the common end, combined with conflict over the means of attaining the end, with cooperation and conflict sustaining one another and merging. Another important distinction is that although collaboration is a normative concept, it contains within it a range of limiting modes of collaboration, namely, division of labor, mutual instrumentation through exchange, and hierarchical command. Different modes of collaboration are also differentiated by attribution. All these different modes of collaboration have significant psychological implications precisely because collaboration is a normative concept, and people have expectations: about being consulted, about sharing objectives, about solidarity, about privacy, and so forth, which means that deviations from the norm, and from expectations, will have a psychological impact.

The suggestion is that instead of looking at the classroom or the market place as different contexts in which measurement skills are mobilized, or looking at the classroom and the school ecologically, as an environment, we could look at the relevant projects. If a teacher relocated themselves into the market place, but still spoke to the children in the manner of a school teacher, we would not expect much progress. The point is: what project does the child see the actions as part of? The child has to figure this out to make sense of the actions and mobilize its own intellect to carry out the actions required of them. There is in fact a style of schooling in which children choose a project, usually a relatively complex and protracted project in which the child already has an interest, and then the teacher helps them complete the project and in one or another way, works the curriculum material the child will need to know for adult life, into solving the problems that arise in the course of the project.

But Cole identified deeper problems. It is not enough that the child has to integrate the learning material into a meaningful project for themselves, this has also to be a meaningful project for the teacher, the school and the supporting institutions. So this remains a difficult social problem to be resolved, but perhaps the concept of project can be of use here. This concept of project is not just suggested as a cover for promoting a specific style of pedagogy. These concepts are meant in the first instance as a means of conceptualizing the place of individual actions in wider social life.

One of the aims of this work was to open up the potential for activity as an interdisciplinary concept[77], which could facilitate the representation of societal entities, as well as individual behavior and interactions. We have called on the concept of hermeneutic circle to indicate the specific type of problem which can be illuminated by this concept of activity. In the hermeneutic circle, an action is meaningful only in relation to the project it is furthering, whilst the project is comprehensible only through the actions of which it is composed. So the aim of the project is immanent in the actions, rather than in some imagined future state of affairs. This was Marx’s conception of communism: “Communism is for us not a state of affairs which is to be established, an ideal to which reality (will) have to adjust itself. We call communism the real movement which abolishes the present state of things. The conditions of this movement result from the premises now in existence” (1975i: 49). This is how all projects need to be understood; this is how Marx understood activity.

The functional method in sociology rests on the idea that every institution in society has some regulatory function: “What is the state for? It is for maintaining law and order. What is marriage for? It is for raising children,” etc., etc. Ultimately, this method is not scientific, but is nonetheless an example of how teleology is used in social science. Teleology also arises in nature: creatures strive to stay alive and questions like “Why does a peacock have such colorful feathers?” are meaningful questions that can be answered functionally on the presumption that natural selection takes care of the underlying mechanism. The question is: in what sense can we talk of the teleology in projects, and how do they give motivation to people in their actions, or is it the other way around, that projects are purpose-driven because the actions of which they are a part are purposive? There is no simple answer to these questions; projects do work towards ends and people do strive for something. Individual ends are certainly derived and fulfilled in social life, and institutional ends exist only insofar as they are pursued by individual people. But the notion of project gives us a tool with which to interrogate people and their associations and look for their meaning, just as people seek meaning in the same way. ‘Project’ is a suitable unit for the study of sociological problems, especially where what is at issue is the very constitution of social entities (rather than being limited to interactions between existing societal entities) and the ability of institutions to mobilize people (rather than just taking people as given members of a collective).

The rich content of the notion of collaboration also brings to light more complex relationships. The notions of hierarchy, command, division of labor, cooperation, exchange, service, attribution, exploitation, dependence, solidarity, and more can all be studied in the context of just two individuals working together in a common project. And yet almost all the mysteries of social science as well as a good part of psychology are contained in this archetypal unit: two people working together in a common project.

Conclusion

“(The Frankfurt School was founded around) ... the question of the connection between the economic life of society, the psychical development of individuals, and the changes in the realm of culture.” (Horkheimer 1931)

Disputes over the unit of analysis have marked the development of CHAT since the revival of Vygotsky’s work in the 1960s. But there has not been any fruitful resolution, because no-one had enquired into the origins and genesis of this concept before Vygotsky. This work has now been done, and the meaning and significance of the idea of unit of analysis has been settled. That does not settle the question of finding a unit of analysis suitable for further development of the CHAT, but we have made a proposal, namely, that ‘collaborative project’ is an interdisciplinary concept of activity. This may not be the end of it, and that is as it should be. But the proposal has to be responded to.

This work has also demonstrated the essential unity of the diverse currents of thinking and practice which have evolved out of Vygotsky’s original work. We have pointed to what we regard as errors, but the work of all the strands of CHAT and some more can be seen to contribute towards a common standpoint which is amenable to interdisciplinary work.

CHAT is already an emancipatory science. It is committed to the ethos of self-emancipation. It does not seek to control people, test them or predict their behavior, but rather to join people in striving for their own goals. CHAT respects the integrity of the human subject, and does not seek to divide human beings up either by organs or by attributes. Its aim is not to judge but to realize.

By including the concept of collaborative project in its theoretical ‘tool-kit’ and devote some resources to the study of collaborative projects, CHAT can take further steps towards clarifying and strengthening the ethical basis of the human sciences. Just as we eschew metaphysical entities in solving the problems of psychology, we also eschew metaphysics in the solution of problems of ethics. We seek collaboration with others, and resolve ethical problems on the basis of these concrete relations of collaboration.

CHAT has withstood the pressure of analytical, abstract-empirical science for a long time, rising as it does from the traditions of Goethe, Hegel and Marx. We are skeptical about neuroscientific rationalizations of current prejudices about the nature of the psyche, and we are also skeptical about theories of structuralism and poststructuralism which belittle the possibilities for human beings to fashion the conditions of their own lives. The notions of collaboration and project are consonant with our aims, and will allow us to develop a humanism which retains clarity about the social sources of human psychology.

CHAT is already involved in education, the treatment of all kinds of psychopathology and rehabilitation as well as being involved in sociological projects like work organization, resolving planning issues and so forth. The stripping of the residue of metaphysics from the concept of activity will allow us to broaden our interdisciplinary work and we can expect opportunities to more fruitfully appropriate insights from other disciplines into our own work as a result.

CHAT aims at the self-determination of human beings. We cannot do this with concepts which fail to capture the essential nature of human activity as being tied up with the projection of our ideals, however mistaken they may be from time to time. But self-determination is never that of being an island. Self-determination, or sovereignty, is about participation in the self-determination of oneself and others, together as equals, through collaborative projects.

Cultural Psychology and Critical Theory

Critical Theorists such as Max Horkheimer, Jürgen Habermas and Axel Honneth have all agreed on the need to appropriate practical theories of psychology to underpin their social theory, in particular, a social psychology and a developmental psychology. Accordingly, such thinkers as Freud, Piaget, Kohlberg, Hartmann, Winnicott and Mead, have been targets of appropriation.

According to Max Horkheimer, the Frankfurt School was founded around “the question of the connection between the economic life of society, the psychical development of individuals, and the changes in the realm of culture” (Horkheimer 1982: 11, my emphasis).

To this end, Horkheimer proposed an interdisciplinary research program which would include survey methods adapted from American social research. Circumstances prevented the project of bringing such a range of specialists into a single collaborative effort, and Critical Theory has since appropriated the psychological research of others.

Horkheimer defined the question this way:

“(W)hich connections can be demonstrated between the economic role of a specific social group in a specific era in specific countries, the transformation of the psychic structure of its individual members, and the ideas and institutions as a whole that influence them and that they created?” (Horkheimer 1993: 12)

Outlining a variety of tasks that require psychological research, Horkheimer remarks:

“Psychology no longer has to do with human beings as such. Rather, it must differentiate within each epoch the total spiritual powers available within individuals – the strivings at the root of their physical and intellectual efforts, and the spiritual factors that enrich the social and individual life process – from those relatively static psychic characteristics of individuals, groups, classes, races, and nations that are determined by the overall social structure: in short, from their character.

“... Historical transformations are drenched with the mental and the intellectual; individuals in their groups and within various conditioned social antagonisms are mental entities, and history thus needs psychology” (Horkheimer 1993a: 119/127)

This is surely nothing less than a call for a Cultural-Historical Psychology. But how was this program implemented by later members of the Frankfurt School?

In Habermas’s appropriation of Piaget and Honneth’s appropriation of Winnicott and Mead, the reasoning seems to include the following idea: Take a theory which has (or had) a real basis in psychological research; substitute for the individual subject, a social formation of some kind; thus we have a social theory, with an empirically verified basis in psychology. This move cannot be justified. Scientific theories can provide a source of inspiration, but they cannot be extended outside their own domain of research by metaphor. This is pre-scientific speculation. In the case of efforts to appropriate Piaget, all we have is a series of biologically programmed stages of the cognitive development of mid-20th century, middle-class European children and a now-discredited theory of the underlying processes. The only use they have for social and historical development is as possible metaphors.

According to Thomas McCarthy:

“Habermas’s explication of the key notions of a developmental logic and of levels or stages of learning are adapted from the Piaget tradition in cognitive psychology. The idea underlying ontogenetic studies of this type is that the various abilities of the adult subject are the result of an integration of maturational and learning processes. ... Social evolution can then be thought of as a bidimensional learning process, the stages of which can be described structurally according to a developmental logic. ...

“Habermas’s explication of the key notion of a developmental logic and of levels or stages of learning are adapted from the Piaget tradition in cognitive psychology” (McCarthy 1978: 246-7).

Nice idea, but the fact is that psychological development does not replicate the stages of cultural development, just as ontogenetic development does not replicate phylogenetic development or vice versa. Piaget’s own efforts to introduce these stages into historical development also failed. The positing of the identity of stages of development in these different domains is called the “biogenetic hypothesis” (Vygotsky 1997b) and it is a fallacy.

“The fundamental hypothesis of genetic epistemology is that there is a parallelism between the progress made in the logical and rational organization of knowledge and the corresponding formative psychological processes” (Piaget 1968).

This simply doesn’t hold up. Each line of development has to be theorized in its own right, including the interconnection between development on the microgenetic, ontogenetic, cultural-historical and phylogenetic planes.

Ontogenetic development rests on the fact that an infant is a completely helpless organism utterly reliant on the support and direction of its carers, whereas the adults of both our hominid ancestors and our hunter-gatherer predecessors were supremely competent individuals capable of surviving in the wild alone and unaided, and could reproduce their entire culture from their own resources. In other words, two structurally distinct processes of development are posed, each of which can be understood only by different methods, and exhibit at a basic level a quite different ‘logic’. Consequently, absolutely no conclusions can be drawn from the structure of ontogenetic development for the structure of cultural-historical development, other than those based on the actual relations between the two processes, as opposed to transposition of ideas from one domain to the other.

So when Thomas McCarthy says:

“... social evolution can be comprehended as a learning process, not in the sense of behavioristic psychology ... but in the sense of cognitive developmental psychology (i.e., Piaget). Central to this approach is the notion of a developmental logic that incorporates a distinction between formally characterized levels of learning and the learning processes that are possible at each level” (McCarthy 1978: 246)

we are using an unsupportable metaphor borrowed from Piaget to take a culturally bound, Kantian theory of child psychology as a schema of historical development.

The conception of history as a kind of learning process is not ruled out, only there is no basis for grounding such a conception on a metaphor, let alone one based on Piagetian cognitive psychology. However, it seems self-evident that a theory of cognitive psychology which dealt with the relationship between social knowledge (cultural artefacts, child-rearing practices, technology, languages, institutions, etc.) and the learning processes of the individuals who act out these processes, would be well placed to ground such a concept without recourse to metaphor. And this is exactly what is provided by CHAT.

This attempt at a biogenetic metaphor hardly represents the high-point of Habermas’s work, but the theory of communicative action plays the central role in his theory. For Habermas, the lifeworld constitutes a resource or background to communicative action:

“Participants draw from this lifeworld not just consensual patterns of interpretation (the background knowledge from which propositional contents are fed), but also normatively reliable patterns of social relations (the tacitly presupposed solidarities on which illocutionary acts are based) and the competencies acquired in socialization processes (the background of the speaker’s intentions). ... the rational potential of speech is interwoven with the resources of any particular given lifeworld.” (Habermas 1987b: 314/326; my bold)

When concretely investigated, the role of cultural ‘resources’ is seen to be far deeper than Habermas’s metaphors imply. Further, a concrete consideration of the process of growing up in a lifeworld unpacks the notion of socialization to disclose the fact that individuals re-invent, appropriate and to a greater or lesser extent, reconstruct and transform the lifeworld, in the process of making themselves. Such a notion is self-evidently beyond the horizon of ‘genetic structuralism’, but ought to be of great interest to an emancipatory social theory.

What is missed by the intersubjective standpoint, whether in Mead or Habermas, or in any of the philosophical systems derived from the Kojèvean master-slave dialectic is that intersubjectivity is always a mediated process. This notion cannot be adequately grasped with the notions of ‘resource’ and ‘background’. Individuals do not stand apart from and use culture. This question was dealt with earlier, suffice it to note that Critical Theory seems to have been captured by the atomistic master-slave vision of social life.

Habermas claims that there are three functions of language: communicating facts about the world, communicating facts about our subjective state and interacting with others. But in his work, Vygotsky (1987) shows that these communicative functions arise only at a certain point in the development of language, and by no means exhaust the function of language in the human psyche. Is it possible to build a theory of communicative action without consideration of the ontogenesis of language-use? But more importantly, what the theory of communicative action omits is that discourse depends on people having something to talk about, on there being some common project in which they either collaborate or struggle against one another (See Chapter 29 above).

In the Introduction to “Theory and Practice” Habermas claims: “It is certainly meaningful to conceive social systems as entities which solve objectively posed problems by means of supra-subjective learning processes” (Habermas, 1974: 12). It seems to me that there is a clear opening here for Cultural Psychology, rather than relying on metaphors and out-dated theories of learning.

Moving on to Axel Honneth’s “Struggle for Recognition”:

“I attempt to develop, on the basis of Hegel’s model of a ‘struggle for recognition’, the foundations for a social theory with a normative content. ... The systematic reconstruction of the Hegelian line of argumentation ... leads to a distinction between three forms of recognition” (Honneth 1996: 1).

That is, we are to have a model which is instantiated in three forms, each of which exist in quite different domains of social action: infancy, personal development and political action. This project constitutes another exercise in pre-scientific metaphors connecting relations in distinct levels of activity.

Broadly, what Honneth does in “The Struggle for Recognition” is to demonstrate that a schema of recognition fits Winnicott’s description of the process of personal development which an infant goes through in gaining independence from the support of its mother (to which Honneth adds nothing). He then shows that the same general schema also fits Mead’s concept of the development of self-consciousness through the development of successful interpersonal relations with other people (which Mead modeled on Hegel’s Phenomenology). He then further proposes that the same schema of recognition can be stretched to describe the successful formation of a citizen through the gaining of key elements of social status in society. Thus, he claims, his schema of recognition has a global scope, describing the requirements for and the process of successful personal development at the three key levels of social action.

But this fails to substantiate a true concept of recognition, for what we have is an abstract comparison of a general philosophical schema with three more or less defensible notions in different domains of research. Whether or not one accepts a thesis that these three processes follow the same ‘logic’ (along the lines of a biogenetic hypothesis) is neither here nor there. What is actually required is a notion which unifies the three so-called ‘levels’ of social existence concretely. The only psychology we can draw upon for this is CHAT.

Honneth treats social movements and labor struggles as phenomena of ‘mass psychology’, but he fails to distinguish between a mass of people having the same psychological condition (such as lack of recognition) and an organized group of people making a collective claim (such as recognition) and participating in a shared project – the difference between a movement ‘in itself’ and a movement ‘for itself’. In other words, what he lacks is a genuine theory of cultural psychology, and substitutes for this lack with abstract speculation.

The point about CHAT is that is a theory with a very substantial empirical base in how individuals appropriate or fail to appropriate or challenge the culture in which they participate. The question of bridging a gap between the individual and the social does not arise for Cultural Psychology because that gap is precisely its home territory – it is the bridge.

Mead engaged in some brilliant speculation but did not do any empirical work in psychology, and never published his work, but his students collected his lecture notes and other unpublished work and published them; they went on to found a school of psychology called Symbolic Interactionism, a tendency which does continue to this day. Mead was one of Vygotsky’s sources in the 1920s and ‘30s, and Symbolic Interactionism is one of the contributing currents to Cultural Psychology as it grew up in the US. If we are going to appropriate Mead’s speculations in the 1930s, then it is hard to understand why you would overlook a fully developed school of psychology, with broader theoretical foundations and an on-going practical research practice, which had already appropriated Mead, and continues up to the present day, unless one is simply trying to avoid the taint of Marxism.

Isn’t it time for Critical Theory to take off the blinkers, stop playing with metaphors and look to a living current of psychological research which continues to grow in strength and significance to this day? Can’t we implement Horkheimer’s original program? Isn’t it time to take a break from Freud, Winnicott and Mead and take an interest instead in a really existing program of psychological research which has emancipatory interest inscribed in its foundations, and is growing almost unnoticed, with its aficionados, not in the departments of Social Theory and Philosophy, but teaching in your local elementary schools.

Science and Survival

Whether the concept of activity developed here through a critique of Cultural Historical Activity Theory is taken up and proves useful in other disciplines only time will tell. But we must make a beginning. The fact is that as things currently stand there are as many mutually independent theories as there are academic posts in the average university. Every new writer produces a new theory. That is just as it should be. Original and creative thinking is not according to a template. But we do have a problem.

The global economic crises and uncontrolled climate change taking place at the time of writing are as extreme a demonstration of the failure of our institutions to grasp problems as a whole, as Gestalten, as it is possible to imagine. It would not be drawing too long a bow to say that the destruction of the natural and economic conditions for life on Earth as a direct outcome of the planned and scientific development of these resources is the result of fragmentary and blinkered methods of work which cannot see the forest for the trees. Our political institutions, our research and education institutions and our entire economic system are geared towards isolating every issue from every other issue and trying to resolve each one at a time without any means of grasping each problem as a whole, let alone grasping the whole of which every problem is but a part.

Now had the reader started reading from here, they would be forgiven for heaving a sigh of boredom at this point, for how often have we been read these lessons, of the blind man holding the elephant’s tail and so forth? The point is, of course, exactly how is one to grasp the whole? Although this book was written within a specific current of thought, Cultural Historical Activity Theory, almost the entire content concerns problems of scientific method which are equally applicable to any scientific discipline. We have shown how the researcher must proceed in an effort to grasp problems as a whole. Most of the observations we have made with respect to psychology and related disciplines can be extended directly to any of the human sciences.

The problem of the fragmentation of the sciences between a thousand and one disciplines unable to effectively communicate with one another, is the same as the problem of each science being unable to grasp the problem which defines their subject area as a whole. It’s macrocosm and microcosm. The analytical, abstract-empirical methods of scientific thinking, and the corresponding hierarchical, compartmentalizing and competitive methods of organization of the sciences, leads to a social consciousness which is atomistic, destructive and narcissistic. Such methods are structurally incapable of grasping and proceeding from the whole.

Many serious minds are endeavoring to solve these problems at the global level. The ‘science’ is relatively straightforward, at least each bit of the science taken on its own is well enough understood. But at the time of writing, the consensus seems to be that there is little chance of actually forestalling catastrophe. Science can describe the crisis, but cannot resolve it. Because the whole, that is, human activity taken together with the natural and artificial conditions for human life and the state of consciousness of the six billion people involved in this problem, cannot be grasped in its full complexity by any one person or any one theory.

But if in each discipline we are able to identify the nature of the specific problem as a whole, then we can make progress. We can all learn to speak a common language.

There is an increasing interest in transdisciplinary work, and this is essential. But there is a danger that transdisciplinary scientific work could become just another discipline, leaving existing disciplines just as they are. That is may be unavoidable. But it is necessary to make a beginning with the critique and transformation of each branch of science (human and natural), from inside each discipline. So long as there is an effort in each of the disciplines to critically review their concepts with a view to breaking from abstract-empirical methods in favor of the kind of approaches we have described as emancipatory science, then interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary work takes on more significance.

But we cannot continue as we have been. Goethe was right. With the very conditions for human life under threat, surely it is time to change.

I ask the reader to accept this work as a contribution to the collaborative project of Cultural Historical Activity Theory, and I hope that those from other disciplines will find it useful in their own reflections, too.

Vygotsky on ‘True Concepts’ (2011)

While Chapter 5 of “Thinking and Speech,” Vygotsky’s most famous work, focuses on research into the genesis of concepts in children prior to the formation of true concepts, Chapter 6 centres on the research of one of his students, Josephina Shif, into the formation of true concepts in school-age children. This chapter is a rich and complex study of concepts which covers almost the entire range of problems of concepts and their acquisition.

In line with his approach to other problems, Vygotsky did not set out to study all kinds of concept, with all the interminable problems which would arise in differentiating types of concept across such a vast and diverse domain. Rather, Vygotsky focussed on one type of concept, confident that clear results from the study of just one, well-chosen category of concept would resolve the main problems affecting the study of concepts in general.

Scientific Concepts

Cognitive Psychology took the concept of the “common object” (Murphy 2004) as its prototypical concept, but isn’t it obvious that the concept of “cat” or “pencil” fails to manifest the whole range of problems of concept formation as indicated for example in the Introduction: concepts such as “mammal,” “atom,” “the Virgin Mary,” “ambush,” “differential” and so on.

By taking concepts of common objects as their prototype, cognitive psychology inevitably arrived at the pseudoconcept (described in the previous chapter) as the typical concept, and was incapable of even formulating the problem of the formation of a true concept.

Vygotsky took as his prototype of the true concept the scientific concept, such as acquired by an adolescent at school – the “purest type of nonspontaneous concept” (LSVCW v.1: 177). The scientific concept is a pure example of a true concept because, in the first place, it cannot be formed by the subject through immediate personal experience of the object. Vygotsky frequently quotes the passage from Marx’s Capital: “If the form in which a thing is manifested and its essence were in direct correspondence, science would be unnecessary” (MECW, v.37: 804). Scientific concepts can only be acquired by instruction in science, or in the case of those already aficionados of science, from acquaintance with the scientific literature (postponing for the moment, consideration of those rare moments when a new scientific concept is created).

But this is true also of the concepts of the Christian Church or professional magicians, or other institutions. Why are scientific concepts regarded by Vygotsky as the purest type of nonspontaneous concept? The scientific concept has developed over history so as to distance itself more and more from all traces of appearance and immediate perception, and integrated all its concepts more and more into a single system. Science has increasingly purged itself of cultural prejudice and sectional interests, imperfectly perhaps, but in its essence, in its tendency, science is universal. A certain style of science may be characteristic of a certain culture, but in essence science is universal. A scientific concept is the pure product of an institution, namely the scientific establishment. But science is unlike any other institution. Science is based on no faith, admits of no axioms, no revelations, no “clear ideas” or given datum, other than the ontological principle of the independent existence of a material world and the epistemological principle of the knowability of that material world.

This is not to say that scientific concepts are in some universal sense objectively true. Of course not. Rather, they are the product of a real institution at some particular historical juncture and are always subject to revision. But even though science remains subject to cultural prejudice and conditions, science is not conditional upon adherence to any particular faith or disposition. The point is that more than any other type of concept they are not only products of an institution and independent of immediate personal experience of a relevant object, but exist only within an entire system of interconnected concepts, outside of which they are meaningless, and presuppose no appeal to moral values or any other kind of intuition or authority. So the scientific concept, more than any other, is a “nonspontaneous” concept. For the novice it is simply book learning. For these reasons, Vygotsky regarded the scientific concept as the paradigm of the true or nonspontaneous concept.

The Concepts of Social Science

Further to this, Vygotsky selected social science concepts alone for research, rather than natural scientific concepts, which, if you were looking for “pure” scientific concepts, would have appeared to be the obvious choice. Vygotsky chose social science concepts because these were most easily made the subject of psychological investigation and facilitated comparison and interaction with spontaneous (or everyday) concepts. But these are not the only reasons.

Piaget had chosen the concepts of elementary physics and the spontaneous or “naïve” concepts which are supplanted by a knowledge of scientific physics. But there is no hard line between naïve physics and scientific physics, as was discussed earlier when we considered the work of conceptual change research. Simple concepts of momentum, conservation of matter and so on, can be confirmed in immediate experience, without reliance on book learning. But it is “book learning” which is essential to the scientific concept and which is most distinct from everyday knowledge. Likewise with mathematics. The elementary concepts of counting and measurement can be acquired by instruction in practical tasks, through the development of the child’s spontaneous preconcepts.

The social sciences are not like this. They are connected with everyday experience only with the greatest difficulty and after considerable learning, as part of a whole system of concepts, which is exactly what characterises scientific concepts. In the Soviet Union of the 1920s/1930s, the concepts of social science were “class struggle, exploitation, the Paris Commune, bourgeois, capitalist, landowner, or kulak” (LSVCW v.1: 215 & 228). Living today, in times when the concepts of orthodox Marxism are no longer self-evidently concepts of social science, it is abundantly clear that such concepts can only be acquired by means of instruction, that they presuppose a certain level of psychological development and that they are meaningful only within an entire system of concepts. No suspicion can linger that absolute objective truth is being claimed for scientific concepts. In addition to this, children have everyday concepts of all the topics covered in the social sciences, even though the basis for a ‘true’ concept is outside the range of their personal experience, and a child’s naïve understanding of “capitalist” may be observed even while they have learnt the scientific definition of “capitalist” perfectly well at school. So, such concepts lend themselves particularly well to psychological research.

By scientific concept I mean a concept which can only be acquired by instruction, beginning with a verbal definition, and that such concepts are essentially not given in individual experience. So it must be clear that such concepts cannot be acquired along the path blazed by the child’s complexes, pseudoconcepts and potential concepts, all of which are concrete concepts which arise from the child’s everyday personal experience without any conscious effort or awareness.

The Method for Investigating Concepts

The method used by Shif for the study of the development of both scientific concepts and everyday concepts in school-age children was to present the child with sentences to complete using causal (... because ...) and adversative (... although ... ) clauses. In each case, the sentences were chosen from the child’s own speech in everyday life or from classroom lessons. In this way, researchers could be sure that the child was both familiar with the concepts and with the relevant causal or adversative relations. Even at a time when a child is perfectly well able to use causal and adversative clauses in their own spontaneous speech and understand such sentences when used by others, they may be stumped when asked to complete a sentence like: “Kolya fell off his bicycle because ... .” They cannot consciously identify the need to find a prior cause of the event in question. Instead the child will tend to continue the narrative flow of speech with “... he hurt himself” or “... he was taken to hospital.” According to Vygotsky, it is about two years after a child learns to freely use causal clauses in action that fluency with spontaneous use of adversative clauses is achieved. But completing a sentence like “Katya ate her dinner although ...” will still prove impossible for another couple of years.

By observing whether a child was able to correctly use a concept in a causal or adversative statement, provided that the child was already using the relevant relation in conversation, Shif was able to determine whether a child had mastered the concept and was able to use it voluntarily, with conscious awareness, in their speech. Such a determination is meaningful only to the extent that the child was already able to understand and use causal or adversative relation in spontaneous conversation.

I will return to this research presently, but for the moment it is worth noting how this contrasts with the methods used by Cognitive Psychology which invariably focused on instant responses. The sentence completion tasks oblige the child to reflect on the concept and bring out the extent to which they are consciously aware of and understand the meaning of the concept in question, rather than seeking a superficial response. Further, this research begins where categorisation tasks leave off, by investigating concepts as loci of material inference.

True Concepts and Spontaneous Concepts

In their fullest development, there is no significant difference between the concepts of everyday life and true concepts. The distinction lies only in the origin and course of development of a concept. The kinds of concept we are dealing with here are concepts at one or another point in their development towards the mature concepts of an educated and worldly adult. The complex character of mature concepts is best revealed by understanding the various forms of concept which arise in the course of their development. At the same time, it should be emphasised that any of these forms of concept will figure in the activity of an adult citizen; our thinking is never completely purged of potential concepts, preconcepts and pseudoconcepts.

As mentioned above, the scientific concept offers the purest example of a true concept. But all other concepts which are consciously acquired through deliberate instruction in some institution where the concept is part of a whole system of concepts, reflecting the social practices of the institution in question, must be regarded as true concepts. Nonetheless, I will continue Vygotsky’s practice of taking the concepts of Marxist social science as the paradigm of a true concept, and refer to them as ‘scientific concepts’. This has the added advantage of relieving us of having to deal with logical positivist or analytical definitions of concepts which are to be found in natural science. Vygotsky was a Marxist, and he brought the same understanding of the concepts of social science as he brought to psychology. In a strong sense, the pseudoconcept belongs to formal logic, analytical philosophy and Set Theory, whilst the true concept and its development belongs to dialectical logic.

Vygotsky made very clear his commitment to dialectical logic both by his frequent citing of philosophical works by Engels and Lenin, in particular Lenin’s Annotations on Hegel’s Logic, and explicitly, for example when he says:

When applied in the domain of life experience, even the concepts of the adult and adolescent frequently fail to rise higher than the level of the pseudoconcept. They may possess all the features of the concept from the perspective of formal logic, but from the perspective of dialectical logic they are nothing more than general representations, nothing more than complexes (LSVCW, v. 1: 160).

Part II of this book, dealing with Hegel, may function as an introduction to dialectical logic. Dialectical logic is in fact nothing more than the art of dealing with concepts, that is, true concepts, rather than simplified, impoverished pseudoconcepts. This author conducted a 3-day workshop in May 2011 with research staff, in which Socratic dialogue was used to explore concepts such as Poverty, Justice, Absolute and Relative, Cause and Effect, Dependence and Independence and so on. With an educated, philosophically sophisticated group like this it was possible to bring out the complex structure of mature concepts without any appeal to “laws of dialectics” or references to Hegel, but simply by immanent critique of the concepts taken one at a time. From the study of concrete concepts like these, one could abstract the principles known as dialectical logic. By contrast, as a school teacher, I have had occasion to teach elementary Set Theory, a surrogate for formal logic. This is an altogether different matter, with concepts such as round-black or large-square, like those used in the ‘double stimulation’ experiment described in the previous chapter, functioning as subject matter. Dialectical logic is the art of handling real concepts, as opposed to formal logic, which is the rules governing the categorisation of common objects according to yes/no attributes. Because dialectical logic was a well-known idea in the Soviet Union of 1920s and 30s, Vygotsky was able to illustrate the contrast between pseudoconcepts and true concepts.

The Concept and its Definition

One of the most difficult questions in the study of concepts is that of the relation of a concept to its definition, and it is this relation which marks perhaps the clearest distinction between spontaneous concepts and scientific concepts. In the case of everyday concepts, the definition lies only at the end of a protracted process of development. In the case of scientific concepts, development begins with learning the verbal definition. For example,

The child formulates Archimedes’ law better than he formulates his definition of what a brother is. This obviously reflects the different developmental paths that have led to the formation of these concepts. The child has learned the concept of ‘Archimedes law’ differently than he has learned the concept of ‘brother’. The child knew what a brother was, and passed through many stages in the development of this knowledge, before he learned to define the word ‘brother’ (if he ever had the occasion to learn this). The development of the concept, ‘brother’, did not begin with a teacher’s explanation or with a scientific formulation. This concept is saturated with the child’s own rich personal experience. It had already passed through a significant part of its developmental course and had exhausted much of the purely empirical content it contains before the child encountered it in definition. Of course, this was not the case with the concept that underlies Archimedes’ law (LSVCW, v. 1: 178).

It is a well-established fact that people are generally unable to define words which they use with ease in everyday conversation. This is characteristic of spontaneous concepts. On the one hand, to produce a verbal definition of a concept that a child is quite fluent in using requires a capacity for intellectual introspection not normally attained until adolescence. On the other hand, a child’s first acquaintance with a scientific concept will be learning a verbal definition of the concept in school. After learning the definition and successfully committing it to memory, and being able to reproduce it on demand, the child will generally still be quite unable to apply the concept in any concrete situation.[78] Vygotsky illustrates the naïve nature of the child’s understanding of scientific concepts in the following observation:

Student: “Serfs were peasants who were the property of the landowners.”

Adult: “What was the life of the landowners like under serfdom?”

Student: “Very good. They were all rich. They had ten story houses, many rooms, and were all well-dressed. They had electricity” (LSVCW v. 1: 218).

It will take a long time for the student to develop a realistic and concrete understanding of the relation between the classes in pre-Revolutionary Russia, if they ever do so, but they learn the definition of serfdom in a single afternoon at school. And indeed, an understanding of life in pre-Revolutionary Russia would be impossible without such concepts, and given that personal experience of that world is ruled out, it is only through concepts that such an understanding may be attained.

From this it should be clear that a concept differs from its definition, the definition constituting just one possible realisation of the concept. In the case of the scientific concept, the definition lies at the beginning of development; in the case of the spontaneous concept, the definition arises only towards the end. In both cases, the concept does not stay as it was when it is first learnt, but develops.

Concepts and word meaning

It is not possible to know a concept without the use of words, so it is important to clarify the relation between concepts and that most famous of Vygotsky’s ideas, word meaning – the unit of analysis for the study of verbal thinking. A word is a sign for a concept (LSVCW v.1: 26, v.4: 172, v. 5: 48, 132). (In saying this, Vygotsky also makes it clear enough precisely what he meant by ‘word’). Meaning is an act of both speech and thinking. Word meaning is an act of indicating a concept to another person or oneself. The sense in which a concept is evoked is accomplished through all the expressive capabilities of language, gesture and context.

Vygotsky said that the concept is represented psychologically as word meaning (LSVCW v. 1: 169-170). But the important thing is that just as word meanings develop, concepts develop, both ontogenetically in the development of a child and historically in the etymology of a word. Note that Vygotsky is not saying that a child’s understanding of the meaning of a word develops, or that the word has a meaning which the child gradually comes to know. Rather, he is saying that word meaning is a “complex and true act of thinking” (LSVCW, v.1: 169) which develops, and the psychological form of the concept which is indicated by the word meaning is itself also developing. A word does not itself have any meaning. People make meaning and use the word for the action of meaning-making. So that is why Vygotsky says that the concept is represented psychologically by word meaning. The concept is in the first place something that exists objectively, albeit implicitly. It exists in the activities of human beings and the social properties of the artefacts they use. These artefacts include of course words, and words are more or less suitable for expressing one or another meaning, according to the practice of a given language community. But word meaning is not simply objective, but as an action, word meaning is both subjective and objective. It is through word meaning that concepts are manifested for the person psychologically. A child’s concepts, which differ from the concepts of the adult community, are more idiosyncratic and still imperfectly socialised. The concepts of the adult community, which are true concepts, are truly functions of the entire language community. The child’s concepts on the other hand are more personal and underdeveloped. The child’s concepts appear coincidentally with the child’s first use of words, as described in the previous chapter. Adult concepts begin to emerge to the degree that the adolescent begins to participate in the affairs of the world at large.

This is how Vygotsky resolved the problem of whether concepts should be regarded as mental images, or some other kind of internal representation, on the one hand, or on the other hand, should be regarded as something “out there” in the world, something objective. A concept is evoked by an individual action, which is a more or less developed form of generalisation, manifested in word meaning, which more or less corresponds to the word meanings of adult speech, which through the actions of many individuals, sustain all the various institutions of the community.

Concepts and Problem-Situations

Concepts arise within some specific social practice in the form of a problem, and a solution (Vygotsky CW, v.1 123, 127; 1994: 257-8). In some social situations it would be more true to say that the discovery of a solution gives rise to the identification of the problem. But a concept always, in one way or another, names a problem-solution relation, a situation, and only arises in the course of an effort to solve a problem. Such problems can only arise within some definite system of social practices. In the case of true concepts, a new word (or new usage of an old word) enters into the discourse of the relevant social practice or institution and may subsequently make its way into the language and participate in restructuring the social practices of the larger community and everyday life.

A child’s concepts also arise only in the context of the child’s efforts to solve some problem, and it was this understanding which was behind the design of the ‘double stimulation’ experiment. Ach had also designed his version of the experiment on the understanding that the formation of a concept depends on the child’s effort to solve some problem, rather than by passive association. Sakharov and Vygotsky modified the experiment so that the child could express their efforts at solving the problem practically, in the selection and arrangement of blocks and could use the word as part of the problem-solving exercise.

There is no experimental support here for the old idea that the concept arises through associative processes, through the reinforcement of the associative connections that correspond to the features common to several objects and through the weakening of the connections that correspond to the features with respect to which these objects differ.

Ach’s experiments show that concept formation always has a productive rather than reproductive character. They show that the concept arises and is formed in a complex operation that is directed toward the resolution of some task (LSVCW v. 1:123-124).

In the case of the child’s concept, the problem is always one arising within the social situation in which the child’s needs are being met in immediate collaboration with their parents or carers, that is, more or less within the self-enclosed circle of the child’s system of protection and support. If such a system of care is lacking then this is a pathological situation and concept formation will be distorted.

The true concept, however, has arisen in some situation quite remote from the individual in time and space and is brought into the present situation by cultural means, through the social fabric of the larger society. Only to the extent that the individual is engaged in the problems of the community and the various projects making up that community, does the opportunity to acquire a true concept arise. This includes practices functionally created for the induction of people into an institution or institutionalised social practice, such as formal schooling or apprenticeship in some profession.

The tasks that are posed for the maturing adolescent by the social environment – tasks that are associated with his entry into the cultural, professional, and social life of the adult world – are an essential functional factor in the formation of concepts. Repeatedly, this factor points to the mutually conditioned nature, the organic integration, and the internal unity of content and form in the development of thinking (LSVCW v. 1: 132).

The difference is that the solution to the problem which has been posed for the adolescent is not to be discovered by the adolescent himself, but has to be transmitted to him from those who have confronted the situation previously and created the concept which encapsulates the problem and its solution. I will deal with the question of the cultural creation of true concepts in the next chapter, but a fine illustration of the origin of concepts in problems confronted earlier within a definite social practice was given in Chapter 3 when I reviewed the various distinctions in the understanding of word meaning known to linguistics. Each of the seven distinctions listed originated in a dispute within the linguistics community. In each case the dispute was settled at the conclusion of a protracted academic debate amongst linguists by the formation of two opposite, mutually constituting concepts. The conditions for the creation of these concepts simply do not exist for the person who comes across the relevant problem at some point in their professional life. They have to be introduced to the concepts by means of instruction of some kind in which the word acts as an indispensable carrier of the wisdom of the past, around which an understanding of the concept can be organised, connecting up the concept with the whole array of concepts entailed in the relevant discipline or activity.

A child forms a pseudoconcept in order to solve some problem, solved by identifying a category of objects being referred to by adults. An adolescent who is being inducted into some profession, learns to identify a certain class of problem and the appropriate approach to resolving the problem. In both cases, it is the stimulus to solve the problem which opens the way to the formation of the concept. It should be noted however that while the problem situation constitutes a pre-condition for concept formation, it should not be seen as the basic mechanism of concept formation (LSVCW v. 1: 132) which is to be found in instruction. True concepts cannot arise spontaneously in response to some class of problem-situation. At the same time, direct instruction in a concept is impossible, and can only lead to the memorisation of a form of words.

The teacher who attempts to use (direct instruction) achieves nothing but a mindless learning of words, an empty verbalism that simulates or imitates the presence of concepts in the child. Under these conditions, the child learns not the concept but the word, and this word is taken over by the child through memory rather than thought (LSVCW v. 1: 170).

Scientific concepts have a different relation to their object than do complexes.

the birth of the scientific concept begins not with an immediate encounter with things but with a mediated relationship to the object. With the spontaneous concept, the child moves from the thing to the concept. With the scientific concept, he is forced to follow the opposite path – from the concept to the thing (LSVCW v. 1: 219).

The person who knows a scientific concept must make an effort to discover the object represented by the concept, which is not given immediately. Despite being familiar with the definition of the concept and its relation to other concepts, we may still be quite at sea in understanding the object being referred to, like a young medical graduate entering their first internship at a hospital. The child’s complex, on the other hand, is abstracted immediately from their perception of the object, with the aid of the word.

Every stage in the development of concepts corresponds to different kinds of generalisation. We have seen this in the development of the child’s concepts in the previous chapter. The true concept introduces entirely different kinds of generalisation which in general do not depend on the perceptual or other attributes of objects or events whatsoever. Concepts indicate objects according to their significance in various human projects, which may not be connected with any attribute of objects indicated by the concept. Lakoff’s discussion of the meaning of the word “fake” discussed in the first chapter is a good illustration of this fact. True concepts are first and foremost units of social life manifested in the actions of individuals. They reflect objects only in a mediated way, through how the object figures in social life. Understanding of the object in accordance with a true concept is mediated by the person’s participation in society.

The Development of Concepts

A concept begins with a word, but “when a child first learns a new word, the development of its meaning is not completed but has only begun” (LSVCW v. 1: 170). This applies both to the spontaneous concepts of the child and to the scientific concept of the adolescent. But the development of the spontaneous concept and the development of the scientific concept take place in opposite directions:

The development of scientific concepts begins with the verbal definition. As part of an organized system, this verbal definition descends to the concrete; it descends to the phenomena which the concept represents. In contrast, the everyday concept tends to develop outside any definite system; it tends to move upwards toward abstraction and generalization (LSVCW, v.1: 168).

The experiments of Josephina Shif demonstrated that even though a child may be perfectly familiar with the concept of ‘brother’, they are unable to provide a satisfactory verbal definition of the word, complete causal or adversative sentences, solve problems like the ‘brother’s brother’, and, in general, are unable to use the concept in an abstract context, for a long time. By the time a child is able to solve the ‘brother’s brother’ the concept they have of brother is no longer a spontaneous concept, but has been modified under the influence of structural changes in their thinking, such as schooling.

Conversely, an adolescent who has learnt perfectly well the concept of dative case in German may be quite unable to apply the concept in German conversation, just as the medical student makes elementary mistakes in diagnosis despite their familiarity with the diagnostic manual, which they manifested in their examinations. The scientific concept is acquired in the form of a verbal definition, that is to say, as an abstract definition. But a person needs to work correctly with the concept in concrete situations, recognise when it is appropriate and when it is out of place, and know how far to take a relation when confronted with a real situation – this takes time. A scientific concept may be altogether out of place in an everyday situation, as when a psychology student diagnoses their friends and family with all sorts of psychiatric disorders or a chemistry student tries to utilise their scientific knowledge in the kitchen.

This is the most striking difference between the scientific concept and the spontaneous concept: one begins with an abstract verbalism and only over time becomes realistic and concrete; the other begins in real interaction with its object and only later can the concept be applied correctly in other contexts or in the solution of abstract problems.

Shif’s experiment showed that the scientific concept develops faster than the spontaneous concept in that a school-age child who freely uses a concept like ‘brother’ or ‘bourgeois’ but could not complete a sentence with a causal or adversative clause, acquired this ability more quickly and easily in the case of the scientific concept. This may seem surprising, as the child is far more at ease with the spontaneous concept which they have used in concrete situations from a young age, whilst the scientific concept they learnt only last week. But the point is that the child is consciously aware of the scientific concept (such as ‘ideal type’ or ‘surplus value’), as a thought form distinct from the object it represents and which they have acquired with great effort. On the other hand, in the case of the spontaneous concept, the child is not really aware of the difference between the thought form and the object, having acquired the concept without any conscious effort, and the intellectual introspection required to operate consciously with the concept (for example completing a causal sentence) is still beyond his or her reach. This ability will appear only over time, if at all, and does not arise spontaneously but has to be acquired through some kind of instruction.

A spontaneous concept can develop towards greater degrees of generalisation, more precise abstraction of attributes and grouping of objects in accordance with more objective attributes matching with ever greater precision the categories of objects indicated in adult speech. The child learns eventually to apply concepts in situations more and more remote from the situation in which the concept originated, gradually freeing themself from the concrete context. The final stage in Towsey and Macdonald’s replication of Sakharov’s experiment was the subject’s ability to use a word learnt in the experiment with blocks to categorise candles. This freedom from concrete context, is as far as the child can go with the development of concepts.

The child’s concept can match but cannot spontaneously transcend the kind of categorisation procedure represented mathematically by Set Theory. Nor can spontaneous concepts form themselves into a system. For the child, concepts of different levels of generality exist side by side, with the concept of ‘flower’ standing side by side with the concept of ‘rose’. The child can correctly use the concept of flower, inclusive of rose as well as other types of flower, but cannot solve logical problems depending on the fact that a rose is a flower.

In fact, spontaneous concepts develop beyond the bounds of pseudoconcepts only by structural interaction with the development of true concepts acquired through instruction of some kind.

From what has been said, it might appear that spontaneous and true concepts are two entirely different kinds of formation, but this is not the case.

These two types of concepts are not encapsulated or isolated in the child’s consciousness. They are not separated from one another by an impenetrable wall nor do they flow in two isolated channels. They interact continually. This will inevitably lead to a situation where generalizations with a comparatively complex structure – such as scientific concepts – elicit changes in the structure of spontaneous concepts. Whether we refer to the development of spontaneous concepts or scientific ones, we are dealing with the development of a unified process of concept formation (LSVCW v. 1: 177).

Although spontaneous and nonspontaneous concepts are different in their relation to the object, and constitute two different kinds of concept, both function within a unified formation of consciousness (i.e., mind). There is mutual interdependence between spontaneous and nonspontaneous concepts, in the determination of a person’s actions.

Both types of concept develop within a unified structure, and consequently, gains made in the acquisition of one type of concept cannot but influence the development of all other concepts. Qualitative developments in the use of concepts are transferred from one kind of concept to another through structural changes in consciousness.

It is self-evident that scientific concepts cannot be acquired without the support of a child’s spontaneous concepts. Everyday concepts and word meanings provide the only foundation upon which the verbal explanation of a scientific concept can be grasped. But in any case, scientific concepts cannot be grasped until spontaneous concepts have developed within the child’s sphere of activity to the point where pseudoconcepts are fully developed and the child has developed preconcepts and potential concepts across a range of relevant subject matter. Scientific concepts are built on this foundation. Otherwise, nonspontaneous concepts will be nothing more than a kind of naïve dogma and verbalism.

But the interaction between spontaneous and nonspontaneous concepts also takes place in the other direction, with book learning accelerating growth in understanding of everyday concepts. This was graphically demonstrated by Shif’s experiments. When young school-age children were given the test with “because” sentences, they were able to correctly complete sentences based on lesson material with scientific concepts earlier than they were able to do so with concepts taken from everyday life, but two years later, their ability with spontaneous concepts had caught up to their ability with scientific concepts. At the same age-levels, their ability with “although” sentences with scientific concepts lagged behind their ability with “because” statements. At the older age-level, however, ability with “although’ lagged only slightly behind their ability with causal relations in the case of scientific concepts, whilst in the case of spontaneous concepts, it was greatly improved, but still lagged substantially behind that with causal relations.

The implication of this is that instruction in scientific concepts, which the child meets in the form of abstract, verbal definitions, as part of a system of related concepts, makes the solution of abstract problems such as the sentence-completion relatively easy. Little more than regurgitation of classroom speech is required. But this ability to move from concept to concept according to an understanding of causal and adversative relationships, acquired with relative ease in the context of book learning, is then transferred to spontaneous concepts. A couple of years after answering that prices rose ... because of a shortage in supply, they are able to answer that Kolya fell off his bicycle ... because he was careless.

As was mentioned earlier, the development of scientific concepts depends on the adolescent’s concept moving from the pages of a book or a verbal definition, to the activity of the adolescent in a concrete situation. This means that the highest development of a scientific concept is dependent on the level of development of everyday concepts. How often do we hear that X is a very learned fellow, but lacks practical common sense, but while Y did not do well at school she has good common sense. The lack of ‘common sense’ is generally a symptom of insufficiently concrete thinking. A person who already has a good, practical capacity to handle complex situations intelligently, if they are able to integrate scientific knowledge into their activity, will attain the highest level of application of scientific concepts. This kind of concrete thinking cannot be attained via book learning alone.

Vygotsky calls ‘actual concepts’ the concepts which arise in the course of the person’s real life development in contrast to the concepts identified in experimental work such as Sakharov’s. The concepts of the mature adult are ‘actual’, in contrast to the abstract idealised of newly learnt scientific concepts, which have not left the classroom and are untouched by experience, and in contrast to the child’s spontaneous concepts, which have not left the home and are unaffected by contact with the wider world. The knowledge of the worldly and educated adult is reflective of actual concepts in another sense. In general, all our concepts owe their origin both to education and everyday life, and in reference to the real activity of mature adults (not their opinions about matters which are in fact outside of their experience), all concepts are of this nature and we cannot talk of two kinds of concept. That is, all our actual concepts owe their origin to both instruction and life experience, and in their structure demonstrate traces of both origins. ‘Actual’ means concepts which reflect a concrete understanding.

Conscious Awareness

The most marked difference between the true concept, including the social science concepts acquired via book-learning at school, and spontaneous concepts – pseudoconcepts and potential concepts – acquired effortlessly by the child in the course of everyday life, is that the true concept is marked by conscious awareness (Russian: osoznanie). Vygotsky offers the following simple explanation of the meaning of ‘conscious awareness’:

I tie a knot. I do it consciously. I cannot, however, say precisely how I have done it. My action, which is conscious, turns out to be lacking in conscious awareness because my attention is directed toward the act of tying, not on how I carry out that act. Consciousness always represents some piece of reality. The object of my consciousness in this example is the tying of the knot, that is, the knot and what I do with it. However, the actions that I carry out in tying the knot – what I am doing – is not the object of my consciousness. However, it can become the object of consciousness when there is conscious awareness. Conscious awareness is an act of consciousness whose object is the activity of consciousness itself (LSVCW, v.1: 190).

Conscious awareness is a feature not just of concepts, but of all psychological functions. In general, conscious awareness of a psychological function is attained only with a high level of development of the function. It stands to reason, that you must first be able to ride a bicycle before you can be aware of your pedalling, and the same is true of attention, memory and perception. Conscious awareness of a function is a precondition to voluntary control and thus mastery of the function.

On the other hand, true concepts are only acquired with conscious effort, so they are characterised by conscious awareness from the beginning. In this aspect true concepts differ sharply from spontaneous concepts, including the pre-concepts which are acquired in pre-school or early school years. Spontaneous concepts are acquired without conscious effort, and therefore without conscious awareness or the possibility of voluntary control.

It should be noted that lack of conscious awareness is quite different from Freud’s concept of the Unconscious. In the example cited above, I am perfectly aware that I am tying a knot, but my attention is on the tying of the knot, not the separate operations which make up this action. Likewise with memory, at first the child is not aware of the act of memory required to recall something, they just know it or don’t know it. But at a certain point, the child learns to remember things by applying conscious effort to recalling where he was yesterday or remembering where he might have left his socks, or committing a telephone message to memory.

In this context, we should observe that what someone thinks they are doing with a concept or how they might define it, is not at all the same thing as how they actually use the concept. Complete mastery of a concept, and conscious awareness of its application in this or that context or mode of activity, is something which is attained only after considerable time and effort. In general, an educated adult will have only a vague notion of how they use a concept that is not within their area of professional expertise. But this is not to say that they use a concept ‘unconsciously’. The verbal introspection which is required to make an object of their own intellectual activity is an acquired skill, which is built on conscious awareness, but is not exhausted by conscious awareness.

Conscious awareness is therefore not a factor characterising a child’s entire psychological functioning, but is an advanced step towards volitional use and mastery of a given psychological function. According to Vygotsky, “when the child reaches school age, they have comparatively mature forms of attention and memory at their disposal. He has what he must now gain conscious awareness of and master” (LSVCW v.1: 189). Conscious awareness of concepts may follow on after a child has gained mastery of attention and memory.

Of course a child can remember and knows whether they remember or not, but knowing how to memorise is a skill which arises only later, with effort and the use of technique. A child can attend to something ... until they are distracted, but attending to something beyond the time in which it holds their interest is an achievement of the school-age child, and the discipline of formal schooling. Conscious awareness in respect to concepts means a capacity for verbal introspection, or meaningful perception of one’s own thinking. Vygotsky explained it this way:

It is well known that the most important change in external perception during (the transition from infancy to early childhood) is that the child makes the transition from nonverbal and therefore nonmeaningful perception to meaningful and verbal object perception. The same can be said of introspection at the beginning of the school age. The child makes the transition from nonverbal to verbal introspection. He develops internal meaningful perception of his own mental processes (LSVCW v.1: 190).

This much is surely clear: that the school child who learns a scientific concept in class and then does exercises with it, has conscious awareness of the concept, and the young child who as yet does not clearly distinguish between an object and its name cannot have conscious awareness of their concepts. Since an 8-year-old does know that carelessness could cause Kolya to fall off his bicycle, why is he quite unable to complete the sentence: “Kolya fell off his bicycle because ...” and suggests instead “... he broke his arm"? He is not consciously aware of using the concept of causality or the material inferences entailed in the concept of carelessness, when he says in spontaneous conversation that “Kolya fell off his bicycle because he was careless,” even though he knows this as a fact. If asked about it, he cannot analyse his comments down to the component concepts, just as he could not describe the actions by means of which he ties his shoelaces without turning his attention to these operations.

It is commonly held that conscious awareness marks the beginner stage of a psychological function, not mastery of it. Consider the case of a child speaking their native language and a child who is learning the language at school. The native speaker uses perfect grammar and is immediately aware of the foreigner’s mistakes, but may be unable to distinguish (to use an example from English) between “we're” and “where” or realise that “go” and “went” have the same meaning. The child learning the language at school passes through three stages in the learning of each function. For example, in using the verb “to go” they have to make a conscious effort to remember the different forms of the word used in each tense and consciously choose each word as they speak, but they will be unaware of any mistake or idiosyncrasy in their speech. Next, the child attains “epilinguistic awareness.” Now, the learner has become conscious, without being told, of having used a wrong word, and is able to correct their own mistakes, but still with conscious effort. Finally, typically about 18 months later in children learning a new language, the child reaches “metaconsciousness” of the function in question when the correct form of the verb is chosen with ease and without reflection. The sense in which Vygotsky is using “conscious awareness” applies to both “epilinguistic awareness” and “metaconsciousness,” since metaconsciousness can be transformed instantly into epilinguistic awareness if, for example, something makes the speaker aware of having made a mistake. The earlier stages, including the effortful stage from which conscious awareness arises is also conscious awareness, since it is a necessary part of the process of development of metaconsciousness, or conscious awareness and mastery. The native speaker, on the other hand, might never be aware of the norms they are using.

Vygotsky criticised the claim of the Swiss child psychologist Édouard Claparède (1873-1940), who developed the view that lack of conscious awareness was characteristic only of imperfect use of a given psychological function. Claparède claimed that the more we use a given relationship, the lower the level of our conscious awareness of it. We are consciously aware only to the extent that we are unable to accommodate or adapt, as when we trip over the kerb while walking along the footpath. The more extensively a relationship is used in our spontaneous behaviour, the more difficult it is for us to be consciously aware of it. Claparède further claimed that to become consciously aware of an operation, it must be transferred from the plane of action to the plane of language; it must be recreated in the imagination such that it can be expressed in words. The problem, according to Vygotsky, was how one could become consciously aware of a psychological function at all. Only if conscious awareness has been prepared earlier by the meaningful perception of the function in question, could conscious awareness and attention be triggered by some problem. Meaningful perception can only be built on functions already acquired.

Children respond to actions earlier than to differentiated objects, but they give meaning to or comprehend the object earlier than the action. The action develops in the child earlier than autonomous perception. However, meaningful perception leads the development of meaningful action by an entire age grade (LSVCW v.1: 184).

By meaningful perception Vygotsky refers to the child’s use of words to guide their perception of the perceptual field, and in the same way, children use words as commands to themselves, to guide their actions in solving problems and overcoming difficulties. But even the pre-linguistic infant perceives. The infant perceives holistically, and this is called autonomous perception, just as its bodily functions are called ‘autonomous’, in that they are regulated without conscious control. The child learns to use words to isolate various objects and analyse the situation, and in this way develops meaningful perception. This explains how it is that a small child can understand the situation depicted a painting, but cannot enumerate the objects depicted. What applies to perception of external images also applies to perception of their own mental activity.

Learning written speech is an important route to conscious awareness of concepts. Writing is an extremely abstract task, lacking an interlocutor and lacking the stimulus to speech which is provided by a dialogical situation, the writer must formulate the situation in their imagination, formulate the thought in words, also without speaking, and then identify the silent words one at a time and spell them out. By attending to words and word meanings in this way, a child learns to develop conscious awareness of concepts. Learning a foreign language, under conditions when the person already has a developed system of meanings in their native language, but is obliged to make these meanings conscious for the purpose of learning how to express them in another language, is also a route to the acquisition of conscious awareness of concepts. A child raised in a multilingual home where there is an opportunity to learn two or more languages spontaneously, without effort, does not automatically receive this benefit. They are in a particularly good position to study language and develop conscious awareness of their concepts, but this does not flow automatically from being raised as a polyglot.

Instruction in a foreign language, learning to write and the study of one’s own language all work together, interacting to foster conscious awareness (LSVCW v.1: 179). The development of conscious awareness of the concepts of everyday life in this way, interacts with instruction in true concepts, fostering the development of a more concrete understanding of scientific concepts.

Definitions

Vygotsky discussed the child’s ability to give definitions of words signifying concepts with which the child was already familiar. As mentioned at the beginning of the previous chapter, the method of investigating concepts by means of asking the subject to give a definition of a concept sheds a problematic light on the subject’s thinking. It tests the level of the subject’s verbal development and/or their formal education. Giving definitions is an abstract task in which the concept is torn from its natural connections, a task which hinges entirely on the use of words. Particularly for the child, however, the concept is linked with practical-sensuous material, and children generally take as the definition of something what it does or what can be done with it. Such functional meanings are the foundation of potential concepts.

For true concepts, on the other hand, the concept is essentially divorced from sensuous material. But an adolescent who uses a word as a true concept, when asked to define it, is apt (like cognitive psychologists) to define it as a complex (LSVCW v.1: 161). In general, when asked to define a concept which they use correctly, a person sinks to a more primitive level than they exhibit in the practical use of a concept in its natural setting. At any stage of development, a definition is always narrower in scope than the concept itself. Vygotsky saw the definition of a concept as a demonstration of what he called the ‘law of concept equivalence’. That is, that a concept (as opposed to a complex) can be expressed in an infinite number of ways in terms of other concepts connected with it (LSVCW v.1: 158). For example, the number 1 is also the difference between consecutive numbers or the ratio of a number with itself, as well as the first natural number, and so on (LSVCW v.1: 227).[79] To give a definition is to give verbal expression to the connection of a concept with other concepts, as part of a whole system of concepts. Any single definition therefore simultaneously narrows the concept, whilst at the same time, expressing its connection with a larger system of concepts.

Only within a system can the concept acquire conscious awareness and a voluntary nature. Conscious awareness and the presence of a system are synonyms when we are speaking of concepts, just as spontaneity, lack of conscious awareness, and the absence of a system are three different words for designating the nature of the child’s concept (italics in original, LSVCW v.1: 191).

Concepts are Part of a System

Another important characteristic of true concepts of all kinds is that they are part of a system of concepts. The only systematicity found in spontaneous concepts, is that which is inherent in the child’s immediate system of support and practical actions. But this systematicity is merely implicit in the culturally and historically determined form of life, and is external to the concept.

The development of scientific concepts begins with the verbal definition. As part of an organized system, this verbal definition descends to the concrete; it descends to the phenomena which the concept represents. In contrast, the everyday concept tends to develop outside any definite system; it tends to move upwards toward abstraction and generalization (LSVCW, v.1: 168).

The primary means of connection of a concept into a system of concepts is relations of generality. For example, the true concept of ‘rose’ is connected to the true concept of ‘flower’ by the fact that a rose is a flower, and to ‘camellia’ by the fact that a camellia is also a flower. This relation is made possible by the fact that ‘flower’ is a generalisation of the various kinds of flower, and the concept of ‘rose’ includes within it this relation to its genera. To be clear, there is no suggestion here that a category such as ‘flower’ denotes the presence of any kind of common attribute of the members of the category. Carburettor and fan belt are both automotive components, but have no particular attribute in common. Bicycle and toboggan are both vehicles, but also have little in common. Moriarty and the butler are both suspects, but have nothing in common.

This systematicity of true concepts follows from the fact that true concepts arise from problem/solution relations, which can only arise within some definite system of social practice and can only arise in the course of deliberate problem-solving activity. There can be no contradictions without a system and no problem other than within some system of practice or institution. Therefore, since true concepts arise and are sustained within some given project, institution or system of social practice, they constitute a system with some kind of logic.

Consequently, thinking in true concepts implies sensitivity to contradiction. Although it is not the case that logical thinking is only possible with true concepts, complexive thinking is tolerant of contradiction. Certain limited kinds of logical thinking are perfectly possible with pseudoconcepts, and pre-concepts are certainly amenable to rational problem-solving. But in general, pseudo-conceptual thought does not recognise contradiction, because every concept is a concrete thought form which is related to its object, not to other concepts. Conversely, true concepts are in the first place related to other concepts, and only mediately to the concrete object, event or situation which is their object.

For thinking in complexes, ‘rose’ sits side by side with ‘flower’, and the statement that “A rose is a flower” is like “x = 7” for someone who does not know algebra. Each is a pseudoconcept and is determined by a concrete image of the objects it designates in adult speech. There is no relation between ‘rose’ and ‘flower’ other than the logic of practical intelligence. Once concepts take on the significance of points or orders in a constellation of organisms either in a Linnaean or a Darwinian taxonomy, then the relation of the person to the concept and the object is changed. Now the person confronts a whole system of concepts of natural objects, and he or she must learn how to place an organism’s concept within this constellation. The concept-system has intervened between the subject and object, and with it, it has brought meaning, system and the potential for reasoning and therefore contradiction.

A scientific system of nature arises for the child only thanks to instruction, be that at home or at school. More limited systemic concepts can arise where the child’s own field of activity presents an element of systematicity. For example, if a child is raised in a home where he has the opportunity to disassemble and reassemble automobiles, or build model aeroplanes, it follows that potential concepts can be formed which contain already the rudiments of system. Even a spoon contains implicitly the entire culture of eating at an appointed time, at a table with cutlery. One good reason that Vygotsky chose scientific concepts as the paradigm of the true concept, is that scientific concepts, especially the concepts of social science, cannot arise spontaneously from the normal conditions of a child’s life, and are thus truly nonspontaneous.

Conscious awareness presupposes being able to define a concept in terms of other concepts, and therefore the existence of a system of concepts. The ability to reason logically with concepts arises from the fact that all systems of concepts have arisen from traditions of practice concerned with the solution of some class of real problem. The relation between a carburettor and a fan belt is, in the first place, the logic of the interaction between the various components in an automobile. Behind that ‘embodied logic’, the relation between the various concepts representing automotive parts, is the problem-solving work of automotive engineers down the decades, how overheating was solved, how air was blended with fuel, and so on. In learning, not only to identify these objects by their sensuous attributes, but in learning about them, as parts of a system, the child enters into the whole world of automotive engineering. Mutatis mutandi, the same would go for a child raised within a hunter-gatherer community. Likewise, it is one thing to identify organisms by their sensuously given features, but science is quite another thing. A scientific classification presupposes entering into the problems which have confronted naturalists down the years, and how this or that feature came to be used to differentiate a species or order of organism in order to overcome some definite problem. So again, by acquiring true concepts, an adolescent does not enter into Set Theory but rather learns the logic of practice, at least insofar as it is reflected in the profession or school subjects that he or she is instructed in.

the motive force that determines the beginning of this process and sets in action the maturational mechanism of behavior impelling it forward along the path of further development is located not inside but outside the adolescent. The tasks that are posed for the maturing adolescent by the social environment – tasks that are associated with his entry into the cultural, professional, and social life of the adult world – are an essential functional factor in the formation of concepts. Repeatedly, this factor points to the mutually conditioned nature, the organic integration, and the internal unity of content and form in the development of thinking (LSVCW v.1: 132).

Generalisation

At any stage of its development, the concept is an act of generalization. The most important finding of all research in this field is that the concept – represented psychologically as word meaning – develops. The essence of the development of the concept lies in the transition from one structure of generalization to another. Any word meaning, at any age, is a generalization. However, word meaning develops. When the child first learns a new word, the development of its meaning is not completed but has only begun. From the outset, the word is a generalization of the most elementary type. In accordance with the degree of his development, the child moves from elementary generalizations to higher forms of generalization. This process is completed with the formation of true concepts (LSVCW v.1: 169-70).

This paragraph sums up much of what Vygotsky has to tell us about concepts: concepts are activities, not the passive result of exposure to sensuous stimuli. Words are indispensable tools of generalisation and the psychological form of generalisation is word meaning, which is itself an action, not simply a property of the word. Concepts, and therefore word meaning, are always developing, moving through various forms of generalisation.

In childhood, development primarily takes the form of mastering more and more developed forms of generalisation, as outlined in the previous chapter. However, the conventional generality of a concept does not necessarily correspond to the level of generality at which it is being used. This is exhibited in the way a child uses ‘rose’ and ‘flower’ at the same level of generality, even though the properties of the individual objects named would demonstrate that ‘rose’ is a subset of ‘flower’, this is not reflected in an appropriate relation between the concepts.

During childhood, a number of factors guide the direction of acts of generalisation. First and foremost among these is the use of words by adults in collaboration with the child, so that the child uses words to pick out objects so as to match the adults’ word-use. But, nonetheless, the child only develops their word meaning in the course of solving problems which arise within their social situation, not by simply memorising what they are told. This line of development culminates in pseudoconcepts, which resemble in structure the abstract general concepts known to cognitive psychology, in that they indicate a collection of concrete objects. Complexes, as they first appear in the child’s actions, do not necessarily represent the abstraction of attributes common to the objects indicated, since the ability to isolate attributes and generalise according to these attributes, develops only gradually. By the time a child has perfected their ability to abstract and isolate the attributes of objects, they are ready to form pre-concepts, by transforming these abstractions into simple concepts. But this comes after, not before, the formation of pseudoconcepts.

The other source of concepts is the child’s practical intelligence which predates the child’s first words but is developed through the use of words, which create the possibility of meaningful perception and meaningful actions. The child’s interaction with the material world around them allows them to form potential concepts, which are spontaneous concepts reflecting their own practical activity and interaction with the world around them. Potential concepts are a limited source of generalisation according to the richness of the experience open to the child.

The kind of generalisation which is afforded by true concepts is of a different order, in that it is not possible for the child to make this kind of generalisation from their own sensuous or practical interaction with objects. Instruction and collaboration with a teacher or other aficionado is essential. Here generalisation does not arise as a result of development of the concept, but is there from the beginning: generalisation precedes concrete perception. The true concept represents the distilled wisdom of the past and comes to the learner via the word, as a form of generalisation, which the child is able only later to connect to the concrete objects and situations it has as its object.

Instruction must take different forms according to the type of generalisation and word meaning the child needs to acquire. A child cannot be taught about a pharaoh or Avogadro’s Number by the same methods as they are taught to recognise a rose or a camellia. The kind of generalisation required has always to be kept in mind.

But the most important thing to remember about generalisation, a point which Vygotsky makes time and again, is that every generalisation makes a concept richer, not poorer.

In contrast to what is taught by formal logic, the essence of the concept or generalization lies not in the impoverishment but in the enrichment of the reality that it represents, in the enrichment of what is given in immediate sensual perception and contemplation. However, this enrichment of the immediate perception of reality by generalization can only occur if complex connections, dependencies, and relationships are established between the objects that are represented in concepts and the rest of reality. By its very nature, each concept presupposes the presence of a certain system of concepts. Outside such a system, it cannot exist (LSVCW v.1: 224).

Conclusion

Vygotsky has approached an understanding of concepts by tracing their development, mainly in ontogeny. What makes his finding complex, is that there are several intertwining lines of development and several ideal types of concept, and every real, mature concept realises traces of each of these lines of development and the ideal types corresponding to them. Through his observation of children and his experimental work, Vygotsky has given us the processes of development of each component of conceptual activity. What we have as a result is not just a range of different theories about the nature of concepts, or conflicting hypotheses, or an empirical mixture of various kinds of behaviour: we have an understanding of the complex structure of a concept, whose separate roots can be traced and understood.

Although the pseudoconcept is the characteristic product of childhood, more generally it is the kind of concept we have of something when we have neither practical experience with something nor any knowledge of it as part of a system of concepts. So pseudoconcepts are with us for life. Further, so long as we have only an abstract concept of an object, acquired through instruction, and defined in terms of its connection with other concepts, we remain in a position where we would not recognise the object if we bumped into it in the street. Only thanks to merging with our spontaneously developed, pseudoconceptual thinking can we learn to recognise the object and begin to merge our abstract ideological knowledge of an object with concrete experience of it.

Likewise, our first experience with system is through our practical interaction with the objects we meet in our everyday life, in which systematic relations are built into the objects themselves, and these objects are grasped with what Vygotsky calls potential concepts. They are ‘potential’ because like true concepts they are part of a system, but rather than the system of social life and institutions of the wider human society, it is the system of their own immediate practical activity. And potential concepts are spontaneous, and not used with conscious awareness.

Both pseudoconcepts and potential concepts are forms of activity which not only the higher animals but even machines can attain. Pseudoconcepts and potential concepts are acquired by habit, spontaneously and without conscious awareness, but true concepts can only be acquired with conscious effort and awareness. This is true because true concepts are part of a system of concepts, which stands between the subject and object, and in principle are independent of the sensuously given properties of the object which is given to the subject.

One of the greatest barriers to a scientific understanding of concepts in psychology is the fixed belief that a true concept is something like a Set and that formal logic specifies exhaustively the only rules for handling concepts. In Vygotsky’s words:

(T)raditional psychology acted like a slave in following the description of the process of concept formation assumed by formal logic, ... In the traditional view, the concept is the aggregate of these common features, features isolated from a series of similar objects.

It is difficult to imagine a more distorted representation of the actual course of concept development. Psychologists have long noted that the formation of the adolescent’s concepts never takes the logical path depicted by this traditional scheme and our experiments clearly support this position (LSVCW v.1: 162).

Dialectical logic is nothing more or less than the art of handling concepts, real concepts as opposed to impoverished, pseudo-concepts. This prejudice which also makes analytical science the slave to formal logic acts as a barrier to the development of all science, which is after all about nothing other than concepts. If the nature of concepts can be clarified by studying their nature directly, in the psychology of concepts, then maybe something can be done for the development of science as a whole?

One final step to understanding Vygotsky’s theory of concept remains. The whole process of development of concepts hinges around words and word meanings and the use of words in the general community, and true to his commitment to the genetic method, Vygotsky has traced this whole process of development through word meaning. But:

As the relationships of generality change with each new structure of generalization in the process of development, they elicit changes in all the operations of thinking accessible to the child. In particular, the long established independence of the word from the remembered thought increases with the development of relationships of generality and concept equivalence.

The young child is completely reliant on the literal expression of the meaning that he learns. To a great extent, the school child already reproduces complex meaningful content independently of the particular verbal expression where he learned it. As relationships of generality develop, there is an increase in the concept’s independence from the word. Meaning becomes increasingly independent of the form in which it is expressed. In general terms, there is an increasing freedom of the operations of meaning from their verbal expression (LSVCW v.1: 228).

In the next and final chapter of “Thinking and Speech” Vygotsky makes clear that verbal thinking is not the terminus of the intellect, but:

Thought is not only mediated externally by signs. It is mediated internally by meanings. The crux of the matter is that the immediate communication of consciousness is impossible not only physically but psychologically. The communication of consciousness can be accomplished only indirectly, through a mediated path. This path consists in the internal mediation of thought first by meanings and then by words. Therefore, thought is never the direct equivalent of word meanings. Meaning mediates thought in its path to verbal expression. The path from thought to word is indirect and internally mediated.

We must now take the final step in the analysis of the internal plane of verbal thinking. Thought is not the last of these planes. It is not born of other thoughts. Thought has its origins in the motivating sphere of consciousness, a sphere that includes our inclinations and needs, our interests and impulses, and our affect and emotion. The affective and volitional tendency stands behind thought (LSVCW v.1: 282).

Vygotsky traced external speech on its journey inwards through egocentric speech to inner speech to thought, to reveal the structure of verbal thinking. At the same time, he found the source of concepts outside the child, in its collaboration with adults and in the community at large. Actual thought then is on an even deeper plane, but his analysis also points to the source of concepts in the wider domain of social life, which also provides the person’s motivations.

In the next chapter I will very briefly present what we have learnt from Vygotsky about this question. In part the importance of this is the widely held view that Vygotsky never tackled this question at all, that this problem was addressed for the first time only by AN Leontyev and his Activity Theory.

Concepts and Activity (2011)

Words play the key role in the formation of human life in general and concepts in particular, but Vygotsky is at pains to emphasise that:

In speech ... the thought is partitioned into separate words. Thought (however,) is always something whole, something with significantly greater extent and volume than the individual word. Over the course of several minutes, an orator frequently develops the same thought. This thought is contained in his mind as a whole. ... What is contained simultaneously in thought unfolds sequentially in speech (LSVCW v.1: 281).

This is true of concepts. In particular,

A true and complex understanding of another’s thought becomes possible only when we discover its real, affective-volitional basis. ... Stanislavskii teaches that behind each of a character’s lines there stands a desire that is directed toward the realization of a definite volitional task. ...

Understanding the words of others also requires understanding their thoughts. And even this is incomplete without understanding their motives or why they expressed their thoughts. In precisely this sense we complete the psychological analysis of any expression only when we reveal the most secret internal plane of verbal thinking – its motivation (LSVCW v.1: 282-3).

So, to understand thought, and therefore concepts, we have to go behind speaking and thinking to the plane from which thought is motivated, “toward the realization of a definite volitional task.” But the life-tasks which confront people are not invented by the individual. Like the cognitive content of concepts, the affective and volitional content is also drawn from outside the individual, through collaboration in the various projects in which an individual produces and reproduces their life and that of others.

Even though our “inclination and needs, our interests and impulses, ...” reside deep within the psyche they do not originate in biological drives, but on the contrary, like all human psychological functions, are complex structural formations, mediating attention, memory, will, perception, .... fashioned and manifested through collaboration with others in furtherance of “volitional tasks.” The tasks, whose realisation motivate our activity, have their origin in the institutions of the wider society in which we participate.

The impelling force which determines the start of any process or initiates any evolving mechanism of behavior and propels it forward along the path of further development, is not to be found inside, but outside the adolescent and, in this sense, the problems thrown up in front of the maturing adolescent by the society around him, which are connected with the process of growing into the cultural, professional and social life of adults, are extremely important functional aspects which continually depend on the reciprocal conditionality and the organic coherence and internal unity of form and content in the development of thinking (Vygotsky, 1930: 213).

Concepts and Activity Theory

‘Activity Theory’ is usually taken to refer to the work of A N Leontyev (2009) and others such as Yrjö Engeström (2011), who developed his work, but not to include Vygotsky. Though he never used any name other than “Psychology” to characterise his work, Vygotsky was really the originator of Activity Theory. Admittedly, Vygotsky’s writings on the original creation of concepts, as opposed to their acquisition by individuals, would make an extremely small volume. We have had to largely extrapolate from what he said about the necessity of true concepts in adult life, the circumstances in which all concepts are acquired, and his theory of child development. The point is that word meaning is to be understood not as a linguist would have it, as the property of a word, but as an action, and actions find their ultimate rationale not in Spirit or biology or language-games, but in activity.

Word meaning is the action of using a word meaningfully. Every word has been invested with certain affordances through its use over many years by others within the language community of which we are a part. But by using a word in a particular context, we give the word a unique meaning. Meaning has its internal aspect, connecting thought and word, and its external aspect connecting us with other people. Like all actions, it is both subjective and objective. Word meaning is an artefact-mediated action in the strict sense of the term as used in Activity Theory (Blunden 2010). Word meaning is not just any action, because a word functions as the sign for a concept. Gestures, body language, tools, clothing, and the array of other artefacts which we use to convey meaning and interact with others, do not have the same power to signify concepts as does a word. “The meaningful word is the microcosm of human consciousness” (LSVCW v.1: 285).

But language-use cannot constitute an activity by itself. Speech, including written speech, if it is to be meaningful, must be directed towards the realisation of some volitional task, which in turn can only be meaningful only to the extent to which it furthers some project or resolves some problem arising in social practice, ultimately beyond language-use.

Vygotsky does not identify thinking with inner speech. Inner speech is a “plane of consciousness” which is to some extent open to observation, since we can observe its formation in childhood and it is intelligible via introspection. Inner speech is “pure meaning,” “idiomatic,” “almost without words” and “predicative” (LSVCW v.1: 275, 280).

Via word meaning, words function as a connecting link between thinking and behaviour, such as speech. Word meaning is the psychological form taken by concepts, since a word functions as a sign for a concept, and the concept is a unit of thought. But as Vygotsky pointed out, when a concept is completely assimilated in thought, it becomes independent of the particular signs used to indicate it, just as a true concept can be defined in an infinite number of ways.

Thus, the processes connecting thought and words are extremely complex and dynamic. Equally, the relation between actual word-use in the course of social interaction, and the concepts for which the words are signs, is extremely complex and dynamic. But concepts are activities which transcend the immediate context in which words are used, just as the actions by means of which any project is realised are meaningful only in the light of the project being realised. A house is built by a bewildering variety of disparate actions and interactions, which nonetheless make sense as part of the completion of the house. The relation between any activity and the component actions through which it is realised is complex, and so is the relation between word meaning and concept. A concept is only really understood when we can identify its source, and the relation of all the actions by means of which it is realised will make sense.

We can observe the development of word meaning, a unit of thinking, and “psychologically, the development of concepts and the development of word meaning are one and the same process” (LSVCW v.1: 180), remembering that “thought is always something whole” (LSVCW v.1: 281), we can surmise that concepts are units of thought. The relation between a word meaning and a concept is the same as that between an action and an activity.

The unit (or aggregate of units that comprise the content of the thinking during the transitional age), the simplest action with which the intellect of the adolescent operates, is, of course, not a representation, but a concept (LSVCW v.5: 50).

Concepts and Predicaments

Concepts always arise from some kind of predicament, sometimes indicated by the problem (e.g. sexism) and sometimes by the solution (e.g. freeway). A concept arises along with a word coined for it, at some cultural and historical conjuncture, within some social practice, in which the problem suddenly becomes the focus of action. Men have behaved for millennia in a way we now characterise with the concept of ‘sexism’, but it was only in 1968, in the wake of the civil rights struggle, under conditions when the paternalistic institutions which had justified this behaviour were becoming unviable, that the problem was named, and became a focus for the women’s liberation movement. ‘Freeway’ originated in the US in the 1930s, together with the promotion of the automobile, the growth of the dormitory suburbs they serviced and the cheap labour provided by the Depression. Once a word has been coined and passed into the language, it may long outlive the particular circumstances which necessitated the coining of a word. Sometimes, changing circumstances mean that the word falls out of currency and the concept is lost or relegated to the history books. Sometimes, in the process of migrating out of the social situation in which it arose, the concept mutates and along with that mutation, word meanings change, often by analogy or metaphor with a former problem, or as Vygotsky observed, by isolating one contingent attribute of the object or situation named. Words and concepts each have their own trajectory.

This view, in which concepts arise from predicaments, is the basis of Vygotsky’s Activity Theory and is elaborated most fully in his work on child development (LSVCW v.5: 187-206).

The word ‘predicament’ is particularly apt to express this idea. ‘Predicament’ originates from the word ‘predicate’, something which can be said of a subject, the Latin version of the Greek, ‘kategoria'[80]. ‘Predicament’ implies a ‘double bind’ of some kind, a ‘Catch 22’. That is, the problem presents itself as a contradiction, and as such has to be grasped by a concept. For example, I have little money; but that may not be a problem because I may not need money. The concept of ‘poverty’ however transcends the conditions of wants and needs, of disempowerment, isolation, social norms of consumption, availability of welfare or support, etc., and captures the situation as a contradiction between means and ends. It would require a whole essay to explain and define ‘poverty’. ‘Low income’, for example, is just an abstract general[81] concept and not a true concept because it does not capture what is problematic. A family may have a low income, but if their needs are small and they are well supported within an extended family or community, their low income is not a predicament. But poverty is a predicament. ‘Predicaments’ give rise to concepts because they are contradictions and demand an innovation in the relevant system of social practice. This innovation is manifested in the introduction of a new word, or the investment of new meaning in an old word and a modification in the normative practices of that institution. In that sense the institution is ‘composed of’ concepts. If there is no relevant system of social practice, no institution or social movement for which such a problem could arise and express itself, then no contradiction arises. Without a modern women’s movement and the social and technical conditions which made that possible, there could be no problem to be named ‘sexism’. In a country with no urban planning authority and automobile industry, there could be no project to build ‘freeways’.

Slightly more generally, the word ‘situation'[82] includes both predicaments and their states of becoming and resolution. ‘Situation’ is a word which captures in the most general way what is named by a concept. Conversely, true concepts are the most satisfactory and scientific way of understanding situations. When we can only describe a conjuncture in terms of various measures and contingent attributes, as is often the case, then we are forming only an abstract general concept of the conjuncture or event or whatever. This would not be a true concept, but is nonetheless necessary at certain stages of understanding a situation (LSVCW v.5: 198, 293).

When a situation or predicament arises historically, and a word is coined for the situation, very often the response to the predicament also entails the creation of an artefact as well as a related system of practice in order to resolve the situation. In the case of “freeway,” we not only created the concept of “freeway,” we built material freeways from concrete and bitumen, and we also instituted laws and regulations to entrench the practice. Once the word “sexism” was created a whole literature on the topic was created and a range of anti-discrimination laws put into legislation, as well as instituting a range of social practices to oppose it. The creation of artefacts realising a concept, including technology, images, regulations, laws and literature, secures the place of a concept in our lives. This way, a concept will never be completely forgotten or misconstrued, and some stability is given to the meaning of the concept. The continued use of material realisations of a concept in social practices, institutionalises the concept and consolidates it.

A concept arises in some culturally and historically formed system of practice, some institution in the most general sense of the term, and a word, acting as a sign for the concept, passes into the language. Concepts arise for individuals also when confronted with situations.

Where these situations arise within a child’s system of activity, the child may form a complex in the course of resolving their situation. But an adult or adolescent confronting problems which arise within institutions and the social practices of the wider community, will be able to call upon the wisdom of the past, the corporate knowledge of the institution, which is organised around the word denoting the relevant situation, a sign for a true concept. This is part of their professional knowledge and ideology, part of the means by which institutions and traditional social practices are maintained.

The concept of predicament or situation plays a key role also in Vygotsky’s theory of child development, with his concept of ‘social situation of development’. According to Vygotsky, each stage in the development of a child is characterised by a situation in which the child plays a certain role and their needs are met by a corresponding specific system of activity. This system of support and the expectations placed on the child are represented by the concept of a child of the given age in the given community (infant, toddler, schoolchild, problem child, little prince, etc.). But at a certain point in the child’s development, they outgrow this role, and the system by means by which their needs are being met becomes simply an affront to them. Their role then becomes an actual barrier to fulfilment of their real needs. Healthy development can only be achieved by an overthrow of this system of activity and an escape from the predicament in which the former system of support had placed the child. The child must take on a new role, and its carers must respond by recognising this new role and entering into a new system of support for the child’s new needs.

To grasp this situation, we have to form a true concept of the child in its stage of development and circumstances, not in terms of various contingent factors (age, sibling rank, social class and parental income, etc.) but as a concept (LSVCW v.5: 293). This requires us to grasp the child as being in a situation, a situation which has arisen from one predicament and becomes at a certain point, another predicament. The child must be grasped as a true concept. Vygotsky’s analysis of child development is a model for understanding every aspect of social life and its development.

True, Scientific and Everyday Concepts in Social Life.

If we understand the content of thinking to be not simply the external data that comprise the subject thinking at any given moment, but the actual content, we will see how, in the process of the child’s development, it constantly moves inward, becomes an organic component part of the personality itself and of separate systems of its behavior. Convictions, interests, world view, ethical norms and rules of behavior, inclinations, ideals, certain patterns of thought – all of this is initially external and becomes internal specifically because as the adolescent develops, in conjunction with his maturation and the change in his environment, he is confronted by the task of mastering new content, and strong stimuli are created that nudge him along the path of developing the formal mechanisms of his thinking as well.

The new content, which confronts the adolescent with a series of problems, leads to new forms of activity, to new forms of combining elementary functions, and to new forms of thinking. ... Together with the transition to thinking in concepts, the adolescent is confronted by a world of objective, societal consciousness, a world of societal ideology (LSVCW v.5: 42).

All the concepts which the adolescent comes across have their origins in institutions of some kind. Scientific concepts are one, particularly ‘pure’ example of true concepts, but every branch of industry and technology, every branch of the state, churches and social movements, sports, and so on, create concepts. Concepts originate in some problem in social life. In the course of their development institutions come up against problems which, if the institution is to survive, they have to overcome. Each of these institutions adds a concrete concept to the life of the community as a whole, as well as a series of concepts flowing from their further development. Insofar as these institutions interact with the wider society, the words, which are bearers of these concepts, enter into the language.

It is one thing to form a general conception of what is meant by the ‘Big Bang’ but quite another to understand this term in the context in which it arose in making sense of measurements of cosmological radiation. Likewise, we all know what is meant by ‘war’ but how many of us know this concretely, as active participants? Through language, the words which function as signs for a concept disperse much more widely than the systems of social practice to which they are native, and long after a social practice may have disappeared, the words it coined may continue to carry the concepts which were created by that social practice, albeit in a modified form. It is evident that outside of participation in the forms of social practice to which the concept in question is indigenous, only a superficial, abstract knowledge of a concept can be acquired. Under these circumstances, people may not form true concepts of the situations they come to know by hearsay, so to speak. More likely, people form an abstract general concept of it. But everyday life is not something other than the social practices of the various institutions in society. Rather, everyday life is a kind of mosaic, melting pot or organic combination of these institutions, all interpenetrating and modifying each other, as Hegel described in the section on Objectivity.

Even participation in the relevant form of practice need not be sufficient to acquire a true concept of a practice or the situation to which it is responding. An employee performing relatively routine tasks – ‘abstract labour’ in the Marxist sense of this term – may have good practical knowledge of the process, but lack a developed understanding of the larger context, and so may develop only a potential concept of it. Equally, someone performing a supervisory role may well understand the place of an activity within the larger scheme of things, but without experience and competence in the practical tasks entailed, may have a true, but abstract and undeveloped concept of it.

A concept may ‘migrate’ from the institution where it originated and find a place in everyday life, as part of the lingua franca. In the process, such a concept may shed the very sharp constraints which created the predicament which gave birth to it, but nonetheless remain a true concept. In everyday life, we are generally able to use such concepts appropriately and can if necessary provide a definition for them. There is no sharp line between scientific (or other true concepts) and everyday concepts, just as none of the institutions of modern society are sealed off from everyday life by an impenetrable wall.

In our complex society, marked by a highly developed division of labour, a genuinely concrete understanding of a true concept may be distributed knowledge, not well understood by any individual.

Concepts and Material Culture.

Alexander Meshcheryakov (1923-1974) was a student of Vygotsky’s colleague A. R. Luria, who, in 1960, assumed leadership of a school for deaf-blind children. Those who had developed Activity Theory had criticised Vygotsky’s theory for being unable to account for the source of motivation in social life, and it must be granted that Vygotsky had not taken up this problem at any length. Meshcheryakov (2009) was able to respond in practice to criticisms of Vygotsky’s concept of activity.

A child who is deaf and blind from infancy will generally not develop a fully human consciousness without scientific intervention. This work gave Meshcheryakov’s staff the opportunity to bring consciousness into being where it did not previously exist. In Meshcheryakov’s practice, the teacher manually helped the deaf-blind child complete a task using an artefact taken from the cultural life of society, and then gradually withdrew that assistance, in such a way that the novice was able to take over the teacher’s actions and complete the task autonomously using the artefact.

In using a spoon to eat, the child does not just satisfy its immediate need for nourishment, but by mastering practical-sensuous actions with the spoon, forms an internal image which contributes to a reconstruction of the whole universe of social conventions and practices with which the spoon, its shape and its presence at dinner time is associated. Meshcheryakov takes us through the process whereby his students learnt, step by step, the skills of self-care, play and communicating with others, learnt the lay-out of their home, their neighbourhood and the activities which went on in the various buildings, learnt a daily timetable, a calendar, the important national holidays and their meaning, learnt to grow and prepare food, learnt to travel by public transport and explored the country and so on and so forth. In other words, the children learnt to reconstruct in their own consciousness and activity the entire sweep of the culture of their society. The key to Meshcheryakov’s approach is the shared use of an artefact to meet the child’s needs:

A kind of vicious circle develops: in order to know how to act with the tool the child has to know it, and in order to know the tool it is essential that the child act with it. The vicious circle is broken when the adult begins to teach the child to act with the tool in the process of satisfying its needs. This instruction is only possible in the form of joint object action shared between the adult and the child (Meshcheryakov 2009: 239).

By means of finite interactions with people and artefacts which are part of a definite cultural-historical society, the child gradually learns the ways of this society and very soon develops their own will, their own life-goals, and goes on to become a full and equal member of the society. The key insight to be taken from this is that interaction between two individuals is not in itself sufficient to reconstruct the social life of the community, that is, to appropriate true concepts. True concepts can be acquired through a person collaborating with another person only thanks to the collaborative use of an artefact, usually, but by no means only, words.

The fact that archaeologists are able to reconstruct in their minds almost the entire life-world of a long-dead ancient society by the study of artefacts recovered from the soil, is evidence enough of the fact that artefacts and not just words are bearers of concepts. The activities which characterise almost any institution depend on the use of artefacts provided through an elaborate division of labour. Such activities cannot exist without these artefacts, and in turn leave their mark on the artefacts.

The reason why, in his short working life, Vygotsky did not elaborate a theory of activity of the kind developed by A. N. Leontyev and others is two-fold. Firstly, Vygotsky was concerned to retain the focus of his research on well-defined, empirically observable human behaviour and to not rely on any kind of abstraction. Indeed, those who developed an Activity Theory had to create some conception of an activity or a system of activity, and invariably fell into using some kind of abstraction (See Blunden 2010). On the other hand, the artefact-mediated action of two people collaborating is a clearly circumscribed, well-defined research object. Secondly, as demonstrated by Meshcheryakov, Vygotsky was able, in principle, to unfold the whole of social life, from analysis of the collaborative use of an artefact to complete some task. The artefact bears the stamp of the whole social organism which had given birth to it and at the same time enables and constrains the actions for which it can be used, according to the expectations and practices of the source culture.

The problem of the role of artefacts in the development of concepts is also two-fold. Vygotsky insisted on the categorisation of artefact-use in terms of tools and symbols (or ‘psychological tools’).

The invention and use of signs as auxiliary devices for solving any psychological problem confronting man ... is, from the psychological aspect, at one point analogous to the invention and use of tools. As such an essential trait of the two concepts being compared, we consider the role of these devices in behavior to be analogous to the role of the tool in a work operation, or, what is the same, the instrumental function of the sign (LSVCW v.4: 60).

But on the other hand:

The tool serves for conveying man’s activity to the object of his activity, it is directed outward, it must result in one change or another in the object. The sign changes nothing in the object of the psychological operation, it is a means of psychological action on behavior, one’s own or another’s, a means of internal activity directed toward mastering man himself; the sign is directed inward. These activities are so different that even the nature of the devices used cannot be one and the same in both cases. ... Mastery of nature and mastery of behavior are mutually connected because when man changes nature he changes the nature of man himself (LSVCW v.4: 62).

Though:

The use of auxiliary devices, the transition to mediated activity radically reconstructs the whole mental operation just as the use of a tool modifies the natural activity of the organs, and it broadens immeasurably the system of activity of mental functions. We designate both taken together by the term higher mental function, or higher behavior (LSVCW v.4: 63).

Thus we see that Vygotsky recognised two distinct ways in which artefacts are used to mediate actions, and therefore two distinct roles played by artefacts in the formation of concepts: tools and signs. At the beginning of the development of a child’s practical intelligence, the child does not clearly distinguish between objects, the adults who assist them in using the objects, and the objects’ names. So at the very beginning of the child’s development, tool-use and symbol-use are merged, but according to Vygotsky, tool-use and symbol-use have divergent lines of development.

The qualification I would make here is that while there is a clear conceptual distinction between using an artefact to control one’s own or someone else’s mind, and using an artefact to control material objects, I don’t believe that either the devices used for these actions or even the actions themselves can be so clearly delineated. We live in a time when the same keyboard can be used to control a machine or to ask for assistance from someone else. The following series of cultural means of opening a door: crow-bar, handle, key, swipe card, PIN code, password and a smile to the doorkeeper – does not admit of any neat division between tool and symbol. But this does not take away from the clear conceptual distinction between the impact of tools in the development of activities, and the impact of signs in the development of mind.

Dialogical and Cultural Theory

Over and above the fact that Vygotsky was able to develop a substantial body of psychological research, Vygotsky’s work stands in sharp contrast to that of a number of others who may at first sight seem to share a great deal with Vygotsky. I have in mind among others Mikhail Bakhtin, Ludwig Wittgenstein, George Herbert Mead, Robert. R. Williams, Axel Honneth and Robert Brandom. Like Vygotsky, all these writers see every individual’s mind as developing only through interaction with other individuals. However, two aspects of Vygotsky’s work are responsible for the fact that he has been able to develop a theory of concepts: artefact-mediation and collaboration in shared tasks.

Unlike Vygotsky, these writers either minimise or entirely overlook the fact that there can be no interaction between one individual’s mind and another without the use of words, symbols or other kind of material artefacts, and that these artefacts are provided by a culture already existing independently of the interacting subjects.

The crux of the matter is that the immediate communication of consciousness is impossible not only physically but psychologically (LSVCW, v.1: 282).

In fact, nothing can come of interaction between two subjects lacking any means of mediating their interaction, other than a fight to the death or mutual retreat. Even interactions which lead only to the subjugation of the one by the other are possible only because one has needs which can be met by the labour of the other, the minimal means of mediation.

The role of artefacts in the interaction between subjects may be elided by subsuming the production of words, gestures and practical actions into the subject itself. Mead, for example, takes the gesture as the archetypal communicative device, and sees the gesture as simply an action, overlooking the fact that a person can only wave if they have an arm, and cannot speak without an already-existing common language. If symbol-production is reduced to the actions of the subject, then the cultural determination of meaning is elided. The inclusion of the artefact in the analysis of interaction, introduces the whole community into the research scenario without taking the focus away from interaction between two individuals.

The other specific quality of Vygotsky’s approach which makes it uniquely able to give insight into human action is that the normative relationship between subjects of interaction is always taken to be collaboration in the completion of some task or project, rather than just a communicative task. People have to have a reason to talk to each other and something to talk about as well as a means of talking to each other. Again, the “volitional task” supplies a mediating element to the interaction between two individuals. It is within this relationship of working towards a shared objective that communicative partners use words. I believe that it is these two qualities of Vygotsky’s work: the focus on the collaborative use of artefacts and the collaboration in a shared task, which allowed Vygotsky to give us an adequate theory of concepts. Dialogic and interactionist approaches cannot account for the creation and development of concepts, which are essentially societal products, and generally such dialogical theories do not attempt to account for concepts.

Conclusion

Vygotsky has brought us to the brink of an answer to our question: what is a concept? Using his genetic method, Vygotsky has traced the development of the intellect, from an infant uttering its first words, through an adolescent learning to use true concepts as they are inducted into the cultural life of their community, to adults whose concepts have lost their dependence on words and merge into the indivisible whole of a human mind.

At the same time, Vygotsky has shown how our concepts are shaped by participation in the life of a real community, in whose words, material culture and social practices, the resolution of all the contradictions which have arisen in the evolution of the life of that community are sublated. Thus Vygotsky has shown us what it is which is represented by a concept, namely situations which have arisen in social practice and found their resolution in the further development of that social practice, and transmitted via words and their meanings.

Psychologically, the development of concepts and the development of word meaning are one and the same process (LSVCW v.1: 180).

Vygotsky has given us a complete analysis, explanation and description of word meaning, but a word meaning is not a concept. In the mature adult, “any concept can be represented through other concepts in an infinite number of ways” (LSVCW v.1: 226). Thus, the relation between word meaning and concept is much like the relation between an action and an activity, between an individual and the universal. No single image or definition can represent a concept. The concept is given only by an infinity of such definitions. A city cannot be represented by its name, or its location on a map or a photograph of its main street. A concept is not simpler than a city. We do need to name it and know where to find it and what its most famous feature looks like, but exploring it is a lifetime’s work.

On the other hand, the situation is much the same in social life, where activities are instantiated only by an infinite variety of individual actions. Vygotsky did not spell out an approach to understanding social life, a task which was tackled by the Activity Theorists. But unlike thought, social life is empirically given to us, if only we have a method, and know where and how to begin. Vygotsky gave us an approach, and demonstrated his method of analysis by units in his study of thinking and speech. With some help from Hegel, I believe I can now complete this task, and explain what a concept is.

Concepts (2011)

Current Research in the Light of Hegel and Vygotsky

Possibly the most striking feature of Vygotsky’s study of concepts is that he took concepts to be processes of development. As products, they are inaccessible to research because the human mind is an indivisible whole. Only by tracing the multiple lines of development that contribute to concept formation can we grasp what a concept is. And this was Hegel’s special gift as well. Rather than taking concepts as things, which inevitably reduces them to sets, he took concepts to be processes of development.

Among the research projects I touched on, those of the Conceptual Change movement and Nancy Nersessian’s work stand out as fruitful lines of research, because they focus on processes of change and development, rather than the final products of development. The work of Activity Theorists like Yrjö Engeström, who studies the formation of concepts resulting from organisational change is another fruitful line of research on concept formation. Other present-day Vygotsky scholars working in educational psychology are also shedding light on concept formation.

Even the work of cognitive psychology, which has focussed on the recognition of common objects is useful insofar as recognition is a process of development, namely microgenesis. In connection with certain kinds of activity, an understanding of cognitive microgenesis is invaluable, even if it falls short of a psychology of concepts.

So before moving to answer our question, it should be observed that I have tried to follow a narrative which is reflective of the outcome we have arrived at. First, a review of the concept of concept in the various disciplines as it is found today brought before us the fact that we have a problem. Our philosophical-historical review brought out the fact that this problem has been with us for more than 300 years, and traced the real historical process of solution of this problem. This still leaves much research to be done, but I hope that by presenting the problem that a concept of concept is meant to solve, and tracing the real process of its solution in the history of science and philosophy, we are now in a position to answer the question.

What Is a Concept?

The answer to our question requires us to describe what a concept is in terms of its being a form of thinking and acting, and at the same time, what it is which is represented by a concept.

In answering the first question, Vygotsky has told us that the human mind is an indivisible whole, and even though concepts are the units of thought, we cannot think of the mind as being an additive sum of mutually exclusive concepts. Rather, concepts may be imputed to the mind on the basis of the production of word meanings and other actions. Word meanings are the form in which concepts are realised by the psyche, but we cannot equate concepts with word meanings, since words are only signs for concepts, and it would be an all too obvious mistake to identify an object with its sign.

Though at first a child or adolescent cannot separate a concept from the word through which it was acquired, a concept becomes independent of the word in the course of its development. At the same time, there are an infinite number of ways any concept can be defined, because a true concept is always part of a system of concepts and has meaning only in relation to all the other concepts which form the system of concepts of which it is a part. So a concept cannot be adequately represented by any one image or definition, and conversely, a concept can be realised in any number of different actions or definitions.

In stating that the human mind is an indivisible whole I am not making any particular claim about the human brain. All the psychological functions which Vygotsky called the ‘higher psychological functions’, including not only concept formation and speech, but attention, memory, representation, judgment and so on, are artefact-mediated mental formations which are constituted in structural combinations of all the elementary psychological functions with which we are born. So the brain may well be differentiated and divisible, but the mind is not.

How then should we investigate concepts as individual mental processes? The principal research method has to be based, as Vygotsky showed, on word meaning, but all domains of intellectual activity, including music and the arts in general, and physical pursuits whether sports or work-activity will also shed light on concepts. But we must always remember that word meanings are only the realisation of a concept, not a concept in itself. The human mind is an indivisible whole.

A concept is the sum of all the meanings it produces, but these meanings have to be taken in the context in which they are produced. A concept may be realised in quite different meanings according to whether a person has to give an instant definition, recognise an object, use the concept to complete a categorisation task, write an extended essay on the concept, evoke the concept in an intellectual action of some other kind or is simply mistaken. A concept may be realised in different meanings by members of a jury making a decision on a person’s guilt or innocence, a parent offering loving guidance, a mentor seeking to understand, or a political leader considering social policy. In short, it is only possible to say what a concept is, even in terms of its realisation in word meanings, in the context of the activity in which the concept is to be realised. A word is meaningful only within the context of the relevant project. One and the same concept will be realised differently in different projects.

Let us turn to what it is that we have a concept of.

Somewhere, sometime, a problem arose within some institution or social formation which presented itself as a predicament, and this situation was grasped as a new concept. In this precise context what is represented in the concept is transparently clear. ‘Freeway’ may have appeared as a great solution to the problem at the time, but freeways as the instrument for replacing community with suburbia took some time to unfold. ‘Freeway’ as the ideal of a project was concretised, and turned out to be quite other than it seemed at the beginning. ‘Freeway’ is also the ideal in a negative sense for all those who fought against freeways during the 1960s and ‘70s. To the extent that the campaign against freeways succeeded in modifying the project of freeway-building, it also changed the concept of ‘freeway’.

There is a sense in which this meaning of ‘concept’, as the solution to a predicament, is the real meaning of the word. But the concept exists and is understood differently from different standpoints. Vygotsky tells us also that individuals grasp a concept when it arises as the solution to some problem in their life. So for example, a suburban resident or car driver understands the meaning of ‘freeway’ without the sharp edges it had in the original context in which it arose, and without the nuances it accrued, but in terms of their own projects – getting to work, having a nice environment in which to raise their kids, keeping in touch with friends, etc. But nonetheless, the meaning the word ‘freeway’ has for a suburban resident or car driver anywhere is in a fairly direct sense derivative of the concept of freeway as an extended project.

In fact, every concept is a family of concepts, because the original social context passes and the context takes on a life in other contexts and other projects. But viewed from the standpoint of other projects, the concept is only a shadow of its original self. Concepts exist only within whole systems of concepts. A concept is indigenous to one particular system of concepts, but still exists in other systems of concepts according to its practical relation to other projects. A ‘freeway’ might be discussed in the context of finding one’s way home, situating a restaurant, choosing an automobile, ... What we have here is an infinite variety of particular concepts, each of them representing a particular solution to a particular problem. At more and more remote cognitive distance from the object, the contradiction which is at the heart of the concept becomes more and more indistinct. But altogether, a concept could not exist and certainly could never make its way into the general everyday life of a community, other than by means of particular manifestations of the concept in all the various projects which make up social life.

Where I have referred to ‘system of concepts’ above, what is meant is a project. A project, such as represented by ‘freeway’ brings along with it a range of subordinate concepts, such as ‘on ramp’, ‘lane’, ‘flyover’, ‘verge’ and so on, but also absorbs all the other concepts of the language in a modified form, from the point of view of ‘freeway’.

The apparent dualism of a concept, as a unit of mind and what the concept represents in the world, is overcome because it turns out that a concept is the self-consciousness of a real project. So there is no dualism. It can be seen that any community is made up of a tangle of projects, each of them being the subject of a concept in the sense of a representation of the situation from which the project originated, and concretises in the process of the realisation of its ideal. Every project is motivated by some ideal realised as the negation of some problem. Every project has its ‘particularism’, a point of view from which all the other various concepts can be evaluated, and integrated into a whole.

So I have dealt with individual actions (word meanings) and particular projects, which are activities, made up of artefact-mediated actions including word-meaning, and finally I come to the universal.

By universal, I refer to the words and other artefacts which give unity to all the individual actions and particular projects as evocations of one and the same concept. Vygotsky correctly observed that in its psychological development a concept becomes independent of the word with which it was learnt. However, because a project can only exist and realise a concept by means of collaboration between people, the word can never be dispensed with. Words change, get translated into different languages and so on, but never without some modification of the concept. Word as signs for concepts are essential for the existence of a concept.

It should be clear from the above that a concept not only represents its object, but along with the activity it mobilises, it equally constitutes and even produces the object. In fact, the functions of representing, constituting and producing are inseparable.

As Hegel explained, every concept exists as individual, particular and universal. These three moments of the concept are never completely in accord. There is always a measure of dissonance between them, and this is manifested in the dynamics of the concept. What an individual means when they use the word is never quite the same as the meaning produced in any other context.

Objectification and Reification

When a new concept is created, corresponding to an innovation in social practice, a new word is invariably coined (or a new use of an old word) as an objectification of the new concept. Very often, it is not only a word but a useful object which is created as an instrument of and a focus for the new social practice. Here, the distinction between tool- and symbol-artefacts is useful. In the 1930s, the word ‘freeway’ was invented to describe a solution to traffic problems. The idea was also objectified in regulations, signage, town planning documents and engineering designs – symbolic artefacts which are essential to the objectification of the new idea and its consolidation in social practice. But also, and most importantly, freeways were built in bitumen and concrete. At this point, it is actually secondary whether people refer to these structures as ‘freeways’, provided social practices are changed in the intended way. Objectification as a tool is the most stable kind of objectification which a concept can acquire. Tools cross the language barrier, and afford activities even in advance of the concept.

When the sign for a concept is taken as the sign for a class of artefact, we talk of the objectification of the concept, and all the words used to consolidate the naming of artefacts by the word are part of that objectification. Even when people no longer use freeways for the purposes for which they were designed, those concrete structures would still be there and we might still call them ‘freeways’. Under these conditions, it makes abundant sense to take the relevant concept to be the concept of the object named, and simply accept that the concept is the ideal form of a category of objects. A concept can be taken as a category of objects just so long as the activities which constitute these objects as such continue to be practiced. The idea of the artefact as an instantiation of the concept is inculcated in people’s minds. Participation in the relevant social practice is dependent on understanding the artefact as not just an objectification, but as an instantiation of the relevant concept. Participation in everyday life carries with it ontological commitments.

The same goes for new discoveries in natural science. A certain procedure may bring to light some aspect of practice which is most simply and directly expressed by saying that such and such a category of object exists, in Nature, independently of human activity and has such and such properties. Again this makes abundant sense, and for 99% of scientific practice cannot be faulted. It is only when one comes to notions like sub-atomic particles and speeds approximating the speed of light or masses comparable to the mass of the entire Earth, that problems arise with this point of view in natural science.

I see this as taking a naturalistic ontological stance in relation to the concept, and such a stance is entirely appropriate for most projects. But it is not appropriate for a critical approach to the study of concepts. The ontological stance to be taken with respect to concepts, has to be appropriate to the relevant project, and it is not appropriate for our project to naïvely accept a concept as naming a category of objects, as if the social practices constituting the object as an instantiation of the concept could be left out of account and taken as given. The study of concepts is therefore a critical activity, because it brings to light exactly how some object or situation comes to be brought under a concept, analysing the social practices by which an object is constituted, and the words by which an object is represented and associated with other social practices.

The word ‘reification’ is often reserved for taking an ontological stance in relation to a concept which takes some object or state of affairs to be an independently existing instance of the concept, without sufficient basis. We may not treat a concept as if it named an independently existing object or attribute, when it would be more correct to take it as naming a process or a role within some system of practice, outside of which it would not exist as such. For example, Anna Sfard (2008: 301) says that ‘learning disability’ is the reification of a condition which someone may be facing at a certain time in certain conditions, but the concept carries the implication that ‘learning disability’ is a timeless, discourse-independent attribute of a person. Likewise, feminists point out that gender is a reification of the place of a person in social practice, and not the culturally invariant character of a human being that it is taken to be. Such usage of the word ‘reification’ calls into question not only the concept, but the social practices which construe it. On the other hand, whatever we think of freeways, it is unlikely that we would describe the designation of a broad highway cutting through the countryside without intersecting other roads as ‘reification’.

One of the most important forms of objectification is the creation of texts, by which I mean everything from government regulation to advertising, literature and everyday speech. But every kind of objectification gives permanence and substance to a concept. When we take our idea of the good life and erect a building in line with that ideal, people will be living with that idea of the good life for long after. Ideas of learning are objectified in the design of schools and classrooms, and long after teachers have learnt better and are trying to teach differently, they are constrained by the concept of learning of their parents’ generation, objectified in bricks, mortar and timber when the school was built.

But as I explained in connection with the work of Alexander Meshcheryakov with deaf-blind children, it is only thanks to such objectification that human communities pass on their wisdom generation after generation. Here we see concepts as implicit in the relevant artefact, as affordances or potentialities and constraints which are built into them along with the physical relation they have to other artefacts (such as with keys and locks, or suburbs and freeways).

It is also usual to use the word ‘objectification’ to refer to projects which have become so stable, usually thanks to being built into legislation, literature and landscape, that they have become institutions. The concept is then deemed to name the relevant social practice itself, rather than the artefacts underpinning the institution. In this case, it is the artefacts supporting the objectification (such as signage, uniforms, buildings, rules and regulations) which tend to get taken for granted. Concepts are always combinations of artefacts and activities, but in one case or another, it is the artefact or the activity which is reified as the exclusive focus of the concept.

Abstract Generality

I have insisted that a concept is not a bundle of attributes or features. Now I have to qualify this insistence. Essentially a concept is not a catalogue of features which are used to categorise things. But at certain junctures in certain projects, the concept must be realised in just this form, which I call ‘abstract generality’. This is particularly the case when we are dealing with bureaucratic or legal decisions which have to take into account texts and practices which already take a concept to be determined by certain attributes. A jury in a murder case has to know exactly the legal criteria for ‘murder’ in order to make a decision. An election requires every voter to make a decision and cast a vote as a supporter of this candidate or that. A concrete conception of the relevant decision may be appropriate for analysis and commentary, but bureaucratic processes usually oblige us to apply abstract general criteria. Abstract general concepts are not geared up for discussion about the matter. These bureaucratic principles penetrate our entire life in these times. In a strong sense then, many concepts can be defined as abstract general conceptions, and in order to see beyond the abstract general conception it is necessary to take a critical stance in relation to the relevant bureaucratic institutions and practices which constitute the concepts.

Likewise, representations are in essence not concepts, but in very many circumstances, it is precisely a representation, often a very stereotypical representation, which guides people’s actions. Again, it is not so much that a concept is or is not a representation, but that a concept may be realised as a representation in certain conditions. For example, when you first meet someone and as yet have no real knowledge of the person, you begin with a representation of them. Or, if you are trying to find your way in a town, you rely on visual images as signposts. But a concept is like a city, and is not exhausted by a few images. But insofar as much of social life depends on popular conceptions which may never go beyond recognition of situations, representationalism exercises considerable reality in our lives, even if as a theory of mind it does not stand scrutiny.

The important thing here is to recognise the distinction between an actual concept, which is invariably deep and complex, and the myriad of realisations of the concept which are produced under different circumstances. An actual concept will take a lifetime to explore.

Self-realisation and Sustainability

A concept is the nearest thing human beings have to eternal life. To realise a concept and nurse it into the world is the best we can do. A concept means a change in social practice. Isn’t everything that happens in history, and goes on to become more than a footnote, marked by the launching of a new concept? And creating a concept is something any one of us can do. But not every concept survives its birth, and outlives the day funding is withdrawn or its founder dies. A concept has to put roots down in fertile soil if it is to realise itself. This is the challenge for those of us who want to make a difference: work out how to make something which is but a twinkle in your eye into a sustainable project that outlives its creators because it meets a real social need. As such, people will go on talking about it for a long time to come, and their lives will have been changed as a result.

This is why it is worth knowing what makes a concept.

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Notes

1. Marx, MECW vol. 28, pp. 38ff.

2. Marx, MECW vol. 5, p. 49.

3. Marx, MECW vol. 3, p. 296.

4. Hegel, G.W.F., Shorter Logic §206ff.

5. Blanqui, A., Ecrits sur la révolution, presenté et annoté par A. Munster. Ed. Galilee, Paris 1977, translated by Mitch Abidor.

6. Blanqui, A., “Instruction pour une prise d'armes.” L'Éternité per les astres, hypthèse astronomique et autres textes, Société encyclopédique français, Editions de la Tête de Feuilles. 1972, transl. Andy Blunden.

7. Engels, MECW vol. 6 p. 96.

8. Engels, MECW vol. 6 p. 341.

9. Marx, MECW vol. 6 p. 477.

10. Marx, MECW vol. 7 p. 7.

11. Stekloff, G. M., History of The First International, 1928.

12. Marx, MECW vol. 22, p. 311, “Third Address on the Paris Commune.”

13. Kautsky, K., The Class Struggle, 1892.

14. Engels, MECW vol. 27, p. 543.

15. Kautsky, K., Road to Power, 1909.

16. Taylor, F., The Principles of Scientific Management, Scientific Management, 1911.

17. Lenin, Collected Works, vol. 24, p. 19.

18. Lenin, Collected Works, vol. 9, pp. 77ff, in “Two Tactics of Social Democracy in the Democratic Revolution,” 1905.

19. Lenin, Collected Works, vol. 26, p. 333., “Alliance Between the Workers and Exploited Peasants,” November 18 1917.

20. See Lenin, “Speech to Tenth All-Russian Conference of the R.C.P,” 26 May 1921, Collected Works vol. 32, p. 399.

21. Marx, “Introduction to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right,” MECW vol. 3, p. 184.

22. Luxemburg, R., “The Mass Strike,” The Mass Strike, the Political Party and the Trade Unions, 1906.

23. Gramsci, A., “Some Aspects of the Southern Question,” 1926, Selections from Political Writings (1921-1926) with additional texts by other Italian Communist leaders, 1978.

24. Trotsky, L., “For a Workers’ United Front Against Fascism,” December 8, 1931, Bulletin of the Opposition, No. 27, March 1932

25. Trotsky, L., “The Lessons of Spain,” January 1938, Socialist Appeal.

26. King, M. L., Letter from Birmingham Jail, 1963.

27. Millett, K., Sexual Politics, 1969.

28. Marx, MECW vol. 3, p. 184ff,

29. Foucault, M. History of Sexuality Volume I, 1976.

30. Hegel, G. W. F., Lectures on the History of Philosophy, Introduction, 1805-6, trans. E S Haldane, 1892-6.

31. Commonly a Gestalt is described as a unity of a social formation and its way of thinking, omitting the third element, the corresponding material culture. However, the importance of the material culture is made abundantly clear in the earlier ‘System of Ethical Life’ and there is no reason to suppose that anything had changed in Hegel’s thinking in this respect between 1804 and 1807.

32. It is only from 1805-6 that Hegel presents ‘Spirit’ as something that pre-exists history and is ‘manifested’ in history; up until 1803-4, ‘Spirit’ or ‘Idea’ is a product of human activity itself and an outcome of history, not its presupposition, and Hegel never completely abandons this stance.

33. Apart from the work of Axel Honneth considered here, Robert R. Williams is possibly the most consistent example of those who advocate this approach.

34. ‘Recognition’ or Anerkennen in German, at the time was used in international law in the sense of recognising a state’s claim to sovereignty, thus including them in the family of nation-states. In English, the term originates from 14th century Scottish law meaning the recovery of land alienated by an estate: re-co-gnate, or ‘brought (back) into the family’.

35. A Society and a Journal for Symbolic Interactionism (SI) continues to this day, but in the judgment of this writer the tendency is no longer a pole of attraction or focus of the work of its adherents, and moreover SI is exclusively of interest to sociologists and not psychologists. Yrgö Engström (1987) agreed with this assessment in his review of currents of social psychology.

36. The practice of using the word ‘subject’ in the Kantian sense which is more or less equivalent to what Hegel calls ‘person’ but presuming that Hegel shares Kant’s concept of ‘subject’ and reading Hegel accordingly, is now a widespread, especially amongst Critical Theorists. See the Philosophy of Right (Hegel 1821) for Hegel’s explanation of the difference, and the Science of Logic (Hegel 1816) for an exhaustive exposition of Hegel’s mature view of the subject.

37. Bildung is another uniquely German word meaning the process of acquiring the culture of one’s times, becoming a cultured person. Originally, Bildung referred only to the shaping, forming, cultivating of objects, but took on the meaning of ‘education’ in the 18th century; Goethe is renowned for his Bildungsroman, novels narrating the personal development of the central character, and it became a central concept for Herder, Hegel, Schiller and &c.

38. Anschauung is usually translated as ‘intuition’. The verb schauen means to see or view as in Weltanschauung = worldview, and entered philosophy when Meister Eckhart translated the Latin contemplatio, the activity of contemplating something, especially the divine. Kant however took Anschauung to be exclusively sensory, rejecting the possibility of intellectual intuition, so the senses were the only source of form or shape.

39. Urphänomenon is unique to Goethe; the prefix ‘ur’ means primitive, original or earliest, and is usually translated as ‘archetypal’. Phänomenon means phenomenon, that is appearance. Is represented as ‘abstract notion’ in Hegel’s Logic, exemplified by the ‘commodity relation’ in Marx’s critique of political economy, and ‘word meaning’ in Vygotsky.

40. Novo-obrazovaniye is usually rendered as ‘neoformation’. novo- means new; obraz means ‘picture’ (as does the German Bild) and obrazovaniye or ‘picturing’, is usually translated as ‘education’, but seems to have a similar meaning to the German Bildung. So according to its etymology, novo-obrazovaniye means a new ‘accomplishment’ or unique mode of social functioning.

41. Clarrie O’shea was the Victorian Secretary of the Tramways Union who on 15 May 1969 who was jailed for refusing to pay a fine imposed under anti-union laws. A general strike got under way and 48 hours later an anonymous donor paid the fine, but the laws were never again used and later repealed.

42. Craig Johnson was jailed for 9 months in 2001 for a “walk through” by union officials of the offices of a labour hire firm in Melbourne. The campaign to release him was ineffective, and he served out his time.

43. Cindy Sheehan’s son was killed in action in Iraq in 2004 and Cindy became a tireless anti-war campaigner, attracting national attention across the US.

44. Hegel’s Logic, §147.

45. Hegel’s Logic, §24n(2)

46. Rosa Parks, at age 42, in Alabama on 1 December 1955, “tired of giving in,” refused to give up her seat on the bus to a white passenger. Several people had done this before, but Rosa Parks’ action stimulated the Montgomery bus boycott and she became the icon of resistance to racial segregation.

47. Ronald Ryan, a petty criminal who killed a guard during a prison escape, and the last person to be legally executed in Australia in 1967. His hanging set off widespread protests leading to the abolition of the death penalty not long afterwards.

48. Kevin Simmonds, with Leslie Newcombe escaped from Long Bay gaol. Simmonds committed suicide in 1966.

49. Cornelia Rau, German citizen and Australian permanent resident, unlawfully detained for 10 months in 2004-05 under the Australia’s mandatory detention program. Her case initiated a government inquiry which expanded to investigate over 200 other cases of suspected unlawful detention by the Australian government, leading ultimately to a change in the law.

50. Kay Nesbit was cruelly disfigured when shot in the face by a man who was subsequently released after 7 years in prison. Kay remains a tireless advocate for victims of crime.

51. Heather Osland, in 1991, conspired with her son to kill her abusive husband. She was sentenced to 141/2 years and the government refused a plea for mercy. Her story remains a test case for the continuing struggle to get the ‘battered woman syndrome’ recognised as a defence in murder trials.

52. Bobby Sands, IRA prisoner who lead a hunger strike beginning on 1 March 1981, protesting the removal of Special Category Status. On 9 April, he was elected to Parliament representing Fermanagh and South Tyrone in a by-election. He died of starvation on 5 May 1981.

53. Bill White refused a notice to attend an army induction centre in Sydney in July 1966, having applied for exemption as a conscientious objector. He was arrest while teaching, in front of his class. The photograph of his arrest became iconic.

54. Egon Kisch was a Czechoslovakian Jewish writer and official for the Comintern, a noted anti-fascist and widely respected investigative journalist and renowned intellectual. Ham-fisted attempts by the Australian government to exclude him from visiting Australia for a conference in 1934, by giving him a dictation test in Gaelic, exposed the government to ridicule.

55. Terry Hicks’ son, David was sold to US force in Afghanistan for $1000 in December 2001, and imprisoned in Guantanamo as a terrorist. Terry campaigned tirelessly in both Australia and the US, until the failure of the Australian government to secure his release became an election issue, when David was allowed to plead guilty in a charade of a military trial and returned home.

56. Goffman, Erving. Frame Analysis: An essay on the organization of experience.

57. Lakoff, George, Moral Politics: How Liberals and Conservatives Think, 2002.

58. Vladimir Propp, Morphology of the Folk Tale.

59. Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were members of the CPUSA tried and executed for passing atom bomb secrets to the USSR in 1953.

60. Bernie Banton was an employee of James Hardie who like most of his colleagues, died of asbestosis. He was the face of the campaign to get James Hardie to accept responsibility and pay compensation. He was publicly thanked in Kevin’s Rudd’s victory speech after the election which saw the end of the Howard government.

61. Pledoi Sudisman was a member of the Central Committee of the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) who was not summarily executed but put on trial after the massacre of the PKI

62. Gough Whitlam, Prime Minister of Australia, overthrown in a constitutional coup in 1975. Rather than endorsing moves towards a general strike, waited for an election in which he was trounced, thus legitimizing the coup.

63. John (Jack) Simpson Kirkpatrick was a stretcher bearer at Gallipoli Campaign in 1915. He used a donkey to carry wounded soldiers to safety. He continued this work for three and a half weeks, often under fire, until he was killed, becoming part of the “Anzac legend.” But Simpson was a member of the Industrial Workers of the World, an internationalist, socialist and pacifist, belying the legend he is incorporated in.

64. Fred Hollows, renowned ophthalmic surgeon who restored sight to thousands of poor and indigenous people, and initiated the charity which continues his work today. Also a member of the Australian Communist Party.

65. Mary McKillop was an Australian nun who founded a school and women’s refuge and an order of nuns which continued this work across the country. She was excommunicated for insubordination, but has recently been beatified.

66. Ulrike Meinhof and Andreas Baader, leaders of the Baader-Meinhof Gang, a.k.a the Red Army Faction, carried out urban guerilla action from the late 1960s to 1998, implicated in 34 deaths. They both died in suspicious circumstances with in prison in 1976 and 1977 respectively.

67. Solo projects are conceivable as a limiting case, but such efforts invariably turn out to be part of larger projects involving others, or at the very least look to others for appreciation or support.

68. Actions are always mediated by artefacts, and those artefacts which mediate actions which are part of the project are taken to be part of the project as well.

69. The place of conflict in collaborative projects is a complex issue. Clearly there is conflict and conflict; conflict can be destructive as well constructive; sometimes people’s lives have led them to such a degree of agreement that no conflict is needed. But the point is that conflict is in principle part of collaboration.

70. ‘Operation’ is also a joint mediated action, but one which has been internalized by a person, so in a sense ‘joint artefact-mediated action’ is the one unit, extended inwards to operations and outwards to projects.

71. This author has seen versions of the Golden Rule from Bahá'í, Buddhism, Confucianism, Hinduism, Islam, Jainism, Judaism, Native American and African tradition, Sikhism, Taoism and Zaroastianism.

72. In philosophy, ‘practical’ refers to actions, so ‘practical philosophy’ means ethics, and ‘practical discourse’ means a conversation aimed at reaching an unforced consensus about proper conduct.

73. In the U.S., “Patient Centered Care” system, the patient is supposed to be consulted about the care plan, but the insurance company always has the final say and the system is designed to serve their interests.

74. This is not to suggest that doing a job you don’t enjoy is evil, but simply that in the best of all possible worlds, people would be able to live doing what they believed in and would believe in what they do.

75. In this book, Sen refers to ‘voice’ and ‘critical agency’. I am conflating these two ideas.

76. Sen reasoned that wealth and income fail to reflect well-being as many factors mediate between wealth and a person’s ‘functioning’, such as gender, education, health, location, nationality. Functioning takes account of all such factors to reflect how well a person is able to function, but even this was not sufficient ...

77. The reason that I have stayed with the notion of ‘interdisciplinary’ rather than the increasingly popular ‘transdisciplinary’ is because the aim is to penetrate work going on within a number of different silos, and it is my aspiration that work currently fragmented by academic silos might be transformed. There is a danger that transdisciplinary work could become trapped itself in a silo marked by a specific kind of work distinct from any existing tradition of research. Nonetheless, those practicing transdisciplinary research, more than anyone, should find this concept of use.

78. Doubtless a teacher would make use of any opportunity to build on any relevant experience that the child already has, but in the case of the pure scientific concept this is no such experience. What is described here is an ideal type of development.

79. The concepts of a system of scientific concepts have a hierarchy, so that not every relation between concepts may function as a definition in the narrow sense. Definition is a special case of the connection between concepts.

80. Kategoria is still used in rhetoric, to mean an accusation, which must be responded to with an apologeia.

81. I use “abstract general concept” in the sense given to it by Hegel, which is not quite the same as pseudoconcept in the sense given to it by Vygotsky. An abstract general concept is a concept defined in terms of contingent attributes, like a Set whose elements are defined by some formula. But an abstract general concept is not a concrete representation. A pseudoconcept represents a concrete collection of objects, selected according to attributes, but not subject to a verbal definition. An abstract general concept more closely resembles a pre-concept in its mental form, but corresponds to a pseudoconcept in its scope.

82. ‘Situation’ entered the English language from the French, its Latin origin being situs = site, meaning the location of something in relation to its surroundings. It took on the connotation referred to here in the mid-19th century in relation to financial crises.