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From Strauss to Hegel: Why Hegel's Ideas Captured the Hearts and Minds of Young Men "Learning from the Life and Thought Background of Marx Engels" (8)
In the article above, we took a quick look at the lives of Marx and Engels in chronological order, but in this series, "Learning from the Life and Thought Background of Marx and Engels," we will look at the lives and thought of the two men in more detail.
I will now refer to the book by Tristram Hunt.'TheEngels, The Man Marx Called General."This is a biography of Engels called.
What makes this book excellent is that it explains in an easy-to-understand manner which ideas influenced Engels and how his writings were produced from them.
It is very easy to understand the flow of history because you can learn along with the historical background of the time and the ideas that were popular at the time. It is easy to understand how the ideas of Engels and Marx were developed. The book also gives me a road map of what to read next to learn more about Marx and Engels. I appreciated this.
And this book made me realize how much Engels had influenced Marx's writings. It is quite amazing.
Although this book is a biography of Engels, it also goes into great detail about Marx. It was such a great biography that I thought I could learn more about Marx by reading this book than by reading a biography or commentary on Marx.
We may use other Marx biographies to supplement some of Marx's life and interesting episodes, but basically we will focus on this book and take a closer look at the lives of Marx and Engels.
For other reference books, see the following articles"List of 12 recommended Marx biographies--to learn more about the life and thought of Marx Engels."Please refer to this page for a summary.
So let's get started.
From Strauss to Hegel - the golden route of radical youth of the time
Previous ArticleStrauss, "The Life of Jesus" - The Young Men's Denial of Christianity and the Flow to Atheism: "Learning from the Life and Thought Background of Marx Engels" (7)introduced Strauss' "The Life of Jesus" in
This work thoroughly analyzes the life of Jesus empirically without miracles. The famous scene of the resurrection of Lazarus, for example, is also explained by saying that Lazarus did not die in the first place, and that Jesus only made it seem as if he brought Lazarus back to life from a state of suspended animation. The many healings of illnesses are also not miracles, but are demonstrably possible.
It is written from the standpoint that Jesus is not a superhuman being who performs miracles, but is only a human being like us. This position is in direct opposition to Christian doctrine.
The mid-19th century also saw the development of science and technology,Scientific.The trend was beginning to develop that if it could not be proven, it could not be accepted as fact. Strauss, too, examined the life of Jesus from precisely such a standpoint.
Engels was tremendously shocked by this book. The book caused him to leave Christianity altogether, and from there he turned to Hegelian thought.
Behind the jokes, Engels seemed relieved that his spiritual journey had reached its conclusion. After losing one faith, he quickly moved on to another. The psychological void left after the collapse of his Christian beliefs was filled by an equally compelling ideology. Strauss, after all, turned out to be only a stepping stone.
I am on the brink of becoming a Hegelian. Of course, I don't know if I will yet, but Strauss has illuminated the path to Hegel for me, so it is very possible.
The purpose of Strauss's criticism of the Bible was never to show that Christianity itself was false. Rather, he sought to show that its doctrines were no longer sufficient for the new age of science and learning.
Strauss' ambition was to take his readers to the next post-Christian stage in their spiritual development. This was Hegelian philosophy.
I am about to study Hegel over a glass of Bohle," was Engels' wise way of going through the works of Europe's most esoteric, mysterious, and lucid philosopher.
But it turned out to be worth the struggle. For Hegel's writings later pushed Engels down the road to socialism. In later years, Marx's reinterpretation of Hegel's dialectic would loom large over communist ideology, but at this stage of Engels' self-taught life, it was Hegel's pure philosophy that was of greatest interest.
Chikuma Shobo, Tristram Hunt, translated by Erika Togo, Engels: The Man Called General by Marx, P61-62
Some line breaks have been made.
What was Hegel's philosophy that fascinated young men?
At the heart of Hegel's philosophical system was an interpretation of history that consisted of realizing or unfolding the "mind" or "spirit" (the notoriously untranslatable "geist" [English ghost, also meaning "ghost" in German]). The interpretation of history consisted in the realization or unfolding of the "mind" or "spirit" (the notoriously untranslatable "geist," which also means "ghost" in German).
The spirit, or self-conscious reason, is permanently in motion, and it is the only thing that is truly real in the world. Its unfolding is the story of human history.
Engels was immediately attracted to this new idea of a rational and orderly development of the past that Hegel had developed in his "Philosophy of History. Hegel's Philosophy of History is a transcription of his lectures given at Berlin University from 1812 to 1823, transcribed by students who attended them after his death. Engels later wrote: "What distinguishes Hegel's thinking from the methods of all other philosophers is the extraordinary sense of history that underlies it.
What has driven the history of the "spirit" has been the concrete realization of the idea of freedom in human affairs, and the attainment of that freedom has been the absolute and ultimate goal of the "spirit. In short, the course of history is to see the organic growth of freedom and reason in civilization in a purposive manner, which ultimately culminates in the realization of the "spirit. In Hegel's words, "The history of the world is nothing but the progress of the consciousness of freedom. At every stage, even when it seemed capricious and hopeless, it was moving in that direction. For even behind the chaos and disorder of human affairs, shrewd and cunning reason was steadily at work.
Some line breaks have been made.
Chikuma Shobo, Tristram Hunt, translated by Erika Togo, Engels: The Man Called General by Marx, P62-63
Hegel's view of history had a different impact on the youth than the previous Christian view of history.
Human reason and philosophy constitute the history of the world. It may seem capricious and hopeless, but in fact it is constantly advancing.
Until then, in the Christian world, God had defined history. Now, human reason and philosophy have come to define the world.
Engels on a New Faith - From Christianity to Hegelian Thought
After months of doubt and confusion, Engels came to espouse the new Hegelian creed with a passion that was uniquely his own. In a classic literary column in Gutkow's Telegraph, entitled "Landscape" (1840), Engels likened his enjoyment of the refreshing splashes and dazzling sun on a voyage across the North Sea to "the idyll of God, the last philosopher [Hegel] says, and the greatest masterpiece of nineteenth century thought, which I have only begun to understand He likened it to "that I had experienced the same happy thrill, as if a refreshing sea breeze had blown down upon me from the clear sky."
Engels found fleeting solace in a new God, a nature full of life. As Gareth Stedman Jones states, Hegel provided "a safe and restful place to replace the frightening contours that his Wuppertal faith had drawn.
Chikuma Shobo, Tristram Hunt, translated by Erika Togo, Engels: The Man Called General by Marx, P64
Some line breaks have been made.
Atheism is often thought of as if one does not believe in anything, but in fact there is a different pattern.
As this example of Engels shows, atheism is not about believing in nothing, but it is also about denying traditional Christian beliefs and committing oneself to a new creed.
In a sense, one might say that he did not become an agnostics, but rather that he changed his denomination from Christianity to another faith.
Like Engels, there were many young people who rejected the Christian worldview and became committed to Hegel's ideas in this way. One of them was Marx. I will talk about Marx in a later article, but the similarities between Engels and Marx existed in these areas as well.
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