11 Flashcards by Nathanael Kent Rondario

____ central idea was that all phenomena, from consciousness to political institutions, are aspects of a single ____ (by which he means “mind” or “idea”) that over the course of time
is reintegrating these aspects into
itself.

Georg Hegel, Spirit

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This process of reintegration
is what Hegel calls the “____”,
and it is one that we (who are all
aspects of Spirit) understand as
“_____.”

Dialectic, Spirit

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Hegel is therefore a
_____, for he believes that all
things are aspects of a single thing,
and an ____, for he believes that
reality is ultimately something
that is not material (in this case
Spirit).

Monist, Idealist

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_____ was born in 1770 in
Stuttgart, Germany, and studied
theology at Tübingen where he
met and became friends with the
poet Friedrich Hölderlin and the
philosopher Friedrich Schelling. was forced to leave Jena when
Napoleon’s troops occupied the
town, and just managed to rescue
his major work, ______, which catapulted him to a dominant position in German
philosophy.

Georg Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit

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For ____, the basic ways in which
thought works, and the basic
structures of consciousness, are a
____—that is, they exist prior to
(and so are not are not derived from)
experience.

Immanuel Kant, Priori

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Likewise,
it seems plausible to claim that
the structures of thought are not
____—that the kind of activity
that thinking is, and what mental
faculties it relies on (memory,
perception, understanding, and so
on), has always been the same for
everyone throughout history.

Historical

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Hegel’s _____ shows how opposites find resolution. A state of ____, for example, generates a need for
freedom—but once freedom has been achieved there
can only be anarchy until an element of tyranny is
combined with freedom, creating the _____

Dialectic, Tyranny, Synthesis Law

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However, Kant
continues, this a priori framework
means that the world as it appears they are “_____“—meaning
that they are always subject to
change. The notion of dialectic is central
to what Hegel calls his _____ of the development
of things.

Dialectical, Immanent (internal) Account

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Fourth, that this process happens
entirely from “within” the notion
itself. This fourth requirement
reveals the core of Hegel’s logic—
namely that every notion, or
“____”, contains within itself a
contradiction, or “____”, which
is only resolved by the emergence
of a newer, richer notion, called a
“____”, from the original notion
itself.

Thesis, Antithesis, Synthesis

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An example of this logical
progression appears at the
beginning of Hegel’s ____, where he introduces the
most general and all-inclusive
notion of “____”—meaning
anything that in any sense could be
said to be. He then shows that this
concept contains a contradiction—
namely, that it requires the opposite
concept of “____” or “_____” for it to be fully understood

Science of Logic, Pure Being, Nothingness, Not Being

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In the case of “being”
and “not-being”, the concept that
resolves them is “____.” When
we say that something “_____”,
we mean that it moves from a state
of not-being to a state of being—so
it turns out that the concept of
“____” that we started off with
was not really a single concept at
all, but merely one aspect of the
three-part notion of “____.”

Becoming, Becomes, Being, Becoming

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All ideas, according
to Hegel, are interconnected in this
way, and the process of revealing
those connections is what Hegel
calls his “_______.”

Dialectical Method

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In Hegel’s view, a synthesis emerging from an ____of thesis and antithesis itself
becomes a new thesis, which generates its own _____—which finally gives birth
to another _____. This dialectical
process is one in which Spirit comes to
ever more accurate understandings of itself—culminating in the philosophy of Hegel, in which it achieves complete understanding

Antagonism , Antithesis, Synthesis

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Since it is a dialectical
process, it must in some sense
contain both a particular sense of
direction and an end point. Hegel
calls this end point “_____”—and by this he means a
future stage of consciousness
which no longer even belongs to
individuals, but which instead
belongs to reality as a whole.

Absolute Spirit

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At this point in its development,
knowledge is complete—as it must
be, according to Hegel, since Spirit
encompasses, through dialectical
“____” (nature as a living whole)
to that which has “____” (the whole of nature now
revealed as always having been,
when properly understood, Spirit).

Only Life, Existence as Spirit

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____, according to
Hegel, perfectly embodied the ____
(____) and was able, through
his actions, to move history into the
next stage of its development

Napoleon Bonaparte, Zeitgeist, Spirit of the Age

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Furthermore, Spirit
grasps this knowledge as nothing
other than its own completed
essence—the full assimilation of
all forms of “____” that were
always parts of itself, however
unknowingly

Otherness

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As Hegel writes in ____, “____ is a conscious,
self-mediating process—[it is]
Spirit emptied out into time.”

The Phenomenology of Spirit, History

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According to Hegel, what we
ordinarily call “___” or “____”
is also Spirit. “____ is to be
regarded as a system of stages,” he
writes, “one arising necessarily from
the other and being the proximate
truth of the stage from which it
results.”

Nature, The World, Nature

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Later stages of
_____, however, are no
longer those of individuals, but are
those of social or political groups—
and so the dialectic continues,
refining itself until it reaches the
stage of Absolute Spirit.

Consciousness

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At the time Hegel was writing,
there was a dominant philosophical
view that there are two kinds of
entities in the world—____ and
____—
these latter being something like
pictures or images of the things.

Things that exist in the Physical World, Thoughts about these things

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For Hegel, the illusion of difference and
separation between these two
apparent “____” is shown as such
when both thought and nature are
revealed as aspects of Spirit. This
illusion is overcome in Absolute
Spirit, when we see that there is
only one reality—that of ___,
which knows and reflects on
itself, and is both thought and
what is thought about.

Worlds, Spirit

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” Thus, Hegel
writes, “The True is the Whole.
But the Whole is nothing other
than the ___ consummating
itself through its development.”
____ is Spirit—both thought
and what is known by thought—
and undergoes a process of
historical development.

Essence, Reality

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_____ had reached its end
point in the Prussian state, according
to Hegel. However, there was a strong
feeling in favor of a united Germany, as
personified by the figure of Germania.

German History

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____ opened the first chapter of his most famous work, _____, with the claim that all historical change comes about as the result of an ongoing conflict between dominant (upper) and subordinate (lower) social classes, and that the roots of this conflict lie in ____.

Karl Marx, The Communist Manifesto, Economics

It was conflicts between these _____, he claimed, that caused ______.

Classes, Revolutionary Change

Marx wrote ____ with the German philosopher ____, whom he had met when they were both studying academic philosophy in Germany during the late 1830s.

The Manifesto, Friedrich Engels

The Manifesto seeks to explain the values and political plans of ____—a new belief system put forward by a small and relatively new group of radical German socialists. The Manifesto claims that society had simplified into two classes in direct conflict: the ____ (the capital-owning class) and the ____ (the working class).

Communism, Bourgeoisie, Proletariat

The word “bourgeoisie” is derived from the French word ____, or ____: a property owning tradesman who had risen above the general populace to own and run his own business.

Burgeis, Burgher

Marx writes, the bourgeoisie had “substituted naked, shameless, direct, brutal ____.” Charters that had once protected people’s freedom had been cast aside for one “unconscionable freedom—____.”

Exploitation, Free Trade

The only solution, according to Marx, was for all the instruments of economic production (such as land, raw materials, tools, and factories) to become ____, so that every member of society could work according to their capacities, and consume according to their needs.

Common Property

Marx insists that the process is not a journey of spiritual development, but of real historical change. Marx claims that the final, conflict-free state that lies at the end of the process is not the spiritual bliss that Hegel predicted, but the ____, where everyone works harmoniously toward the good of a greater whole.

Perfect Society

____ is a record of these class struggles and displacements

History

Marx agrees with Smith that this system of exchange led people to specialize in their labor, but he points out that this new specialization (or “job”) had also come to ____ them

Define

According to Marx, there have been four major stages in human history, which he sees as based on four different forms of property ownership:

Original tribal system of common property Ancient communal and state system of ownership The feudal or estate system of property The modern system of capitalist production

Each of these stages represents a different form of economic system, or “____”, and the transitions between them are marked in history by stormy political events, such as wars and revolutions, as one ruling class is displaced by another

Mode of Production

_____ popularized the idea that through understanding the system of property ownership in any one society, in any particular era, we can acquire the key to understanding its ____.

The Communist Manifesto, Social Relations

Marx also believes that an analysis of the economic basis of any society allows us to see that as its system of property alters, so too do its “____”—such as its politics, laws, art, religions, and philosophies

Superstructures

The wealthy ____ enjoyed the luxuries of life in the late 18th and 19th centuries, while the ____ in their companies and on their estates endured terrible poverty

Bourgeoisie, Workers

But where Hegel saw the ____ as determined by an Absolute Spirit developing over time, Marx sees it as defined by the social and economic ____ of an era. These define the ideas or “____” of individuals and societies.

Zeitgeist, Relations, Consciousness

In Marx’s view, people do not make a stamp on their era, molding it into a particular shape; the ___ defines the ___.

Era, People

____ saw the formalization of specialized skills into paid employment. People then formed into groups, or classes, made up of those with similar socio-economic status.

The Industrial Revolution

The answer for Marx lies not only in the end of religion, but in _____.

Total Social and Political Change

The Communist Manifesto argues that the ____ is not merely exploitative, but also inherently financially unstable, leading to the recurrence of increasingly severe commercial crises, the growing poverty of the workforce, and the emergence of the ____ as the one genuinely revolutionary class.

Capitalist System, Proletariat

Marx predicted that as ____ improved, it would lead to increasing _____, alienating more and more people from the ____.

Technology, Unemployment, Means of Production

Following the rules of the dialectic, this conflict would result in a _____ to establish a new, ____.

Violent Revolution, Classless Society

Marx thought this perfect society would not require government, but only ____, and this would be carried out by the leaders of the revolution: the communist “___” (by which he means those who adhered to the cause, rather than any specific organization).

Administration, Party

Within this new kind of state (which Marx called the “_____) people would enjoy genuine democracy and social ownership of wealth. Shortly after this final change in the mode of production to a perfect society, Marx predicted, ____ as it had previously been understood would come to an end, because there would be no good reason for political dissent or criminality.

Dictatorship of the Proletariat, Political Power

_____ swept through Europe just after the publication of The Communist Manifesto. These included the February Revolution of 1848 in Paris

Socialist-inspired revolutions

The brilliance of Marx’s theories has been proved wrong in ____: the extent of ____ in Stalinist Russia, in Mao Zedong’s China, and in Pol Pot’s Cambodia, has widely discredited his political and historical theories.

Practice, Repression

____ of the 20th century promoted themselves as utopias. They produced a proliferation of paintings and statues glorifying the achievements of their happy, newly liberated citizens.

Marxist States

Third, Marx rarely discussed the possibility that new threats to liberty might emerge after a successful revolution; he assumed that ___ was the only real cause of criminality.

Poverty

____, the most famous revolutionary thinker of the 19th century was born in the German city of Trier.

Karl Marx

Living in England from 1842 to 1844, the German philosopher ____ had seen, first-hand, the devastating effects of ____ on workers and their children.

Friedrich Engels, Industrialization

The ____, or ____, he said, knowingly causes the workers’ “life of toil and wretchedness... but takes no further trouble in the matter.” He claimed the____ was turning a blind eye to their part in the early deaths of their workers, when it was within their power to change things, so he accused them of “____”.

Bourgeoisie, Capitalist Class, Bourgeoisie, Social Murder

In the 1840s, ___ was seen as the workshop of the world; it enjoyed a unique position at the center of the ___.

England, Industrial Revolution

_____ had driven down prices, so handcrafted work, which was more expensive, was less in demand; ____ moved to the cities only to endure harsh conditions and financial insecurity.

Industrialization, Workers

In Engels’ first book, _____ he described the appalling way of life of the workers, or proletariat, in Manchester, London, Dublin, and Edinburgh, and found similar situations in all these cities.

The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844

The ____ were worked to the point of exhaustion, wearing cheap clothing that gave no protection against accidents or the climate.

Proletariat

_____ in England during the 1840s endured social deprivation, crippling financial instability, and terrible sickness due to the effects of ____.

Working Class Families, Industrial Capitalism

Political theorist and philosopher ____ was born in Germany in 1820.

Friedrich Engels

Marx argued that communism solves a problem that bedevils capitalism—____

The Organization of Work

In the ____, Marx developed the notion of “_____,” the separation of human beings from their true nature and potential for fulfillment. Marx saw various kinds of ____ as inevitable in capitalist labor markets.

Manuscripts, Alienated Labor, Alienation

Marx believed that ___ has the potential to be one of the most fulfilling of all human activities.

Work

Capitalism and private property make labor into a ____. This ____workers from what they produce, from their work, from their human identity, and from their fellow humans. ____ abolishes private property and brings the end of alienation. ____ is the riddle of history solved.

Commodity, Alienates, Communism, Communism

Under a ____, according to Marx, the worker becomes disconnected from the products that he creates the moment they are handed over to his employer. This causes the worker to lose his self-identity.

Capitalist System

Under capitalism, the existence of private property separates society into ____—who own productive resources, such as factories and machines—and ____—who possess nothing except for their labor.

Capitalists, Workers

____ becomes a commodity to be bought and sold, and workers are hired by capitalists to produce goods that are then sold for profit.

Labor

Marx said that workers also suffer from alienation through the very act of ___. Under capitalism, workers’ activity does not arise out of their inherent creativity, but from the ____ of working for someone else.

Working, Practical Necessity

The worker becomes someone else’s subject. His labor is no longer his ___ and his activity is no longer spontaneous and creative, but directed by another who treats him as a mere ____.

Own, Tool of Production

____ is the positive transcendence of private property as human self-estrangement.

Communism

The worker’s alienation from the fruits of his labor and from the activity of working estranges him from his human identity—what Marx calls his “____”. This is because human identity is rooted in people’s ability to transform the raw material of nature into objects.

Species-being

Workers in capitalist systems lose the connection with this basic identity—____ makes productive activity a means to an end, rather than the way in which an individual’s fundamental identity is embodied and played out. ____ is what makes up life, and once this becomes alien to the worker, the worker loses the sense of his human self.

Economic Necessity, Activity

Since the ____ estranges people from their own essential identity, they become estranged from each other’s identity too. The worker is placed into a relationship of confrontation with the ___, who owns the fruits of the work and who controls the worker’s labor activity for his own enrichment.

Labor Market, Capitalist

Marx believed that ____ lay at the root of the alienation of the worker. The division of society into ____capitalists and ____ workers is what leads to the alienation of workers.

Private Property, Property-Owning, Propertyless

An aspect of the system of private property is exchange and the “_____” .

Division of Labor

For Marx, ____ resolves the tension caused by the alienation of the worker by ____ private property, and finally solves the riddle thrown out by capitalism.

Communism, Abolishing

Marx believed that historical developments are determined by “____”—or ____—factors. Human beings have material needs and possess the ability to ____ to satisfy them

Material, Economic, Produce Goods

Production of these goods can be organized in different ways, each of which gives rise to different kinds of social and political arrangements, which in turn lead to particular beliefs and ideologies. Marx believed that material economic factors were the fundamental ____, and therefore the ____, of ____.

Determinant, Motor, History

____ —a particular way of organizing production—is a response to the material needs of human beings. It arose as older feudal forms of production died out. As the forces of production develop under capitalism, the suffering of workers becomes obvious, and history moves inevitably toward ____ and the ushering in of communism to replace it.

Capitalism, Revolution

One challenge in assessing Marx’s legacy is separating what he really meant from what was done in his name, particularly since communist ideology was used to justify ____ and _____ in many places and at different times.

Totalitarianism, Oppression

Between 1830 and 1842, the French philosopher ____ had suggested that it was possible, and even necessary, to make a scientific study of society. ____ agreed that an objective, methodical approach was overdue and was among the first to tackle the subject. And where Comte saw science as the means of achieving social change, Marx pointed to the inevitability of ____.

Auguste Comte, Karl Marx, Political Action

"_____,” as this approach to historical development came to be known, provided an explanation for the transition from feudal to modern capitalist society, brought about by new methods of economic production.

Historical Materialism

Under ____, the nobles had controlled the means of agricultural production, as owners of the land that the peasants or serfs worked. With ____ a new class, the bourgeoisie, emerged as owners of a new means of production

Feudalism, The Machine Age

Five historical epochs were identified by Marx:

Primitive Communism Slave Society Feudalism Capitalism Communism

The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of ____.

Class Struggles

It is the _____ of material necessities, Marx argued, that determines the social structure of capitalist society: ________.

Method of Production, The Classes of Capital and Labor

____ obtain their wealth from the ____ value of goods produced, in the factories they own, by the labor of the workers. The _____, on the other hand, own almost nothing, and in order to survive have to sell their ____ to the bourgeoisie.

Capitalists, Surplus, Proletariat, Labor

In addition, the unskilled nature of the work in factories and mills contributes to a feeling of ____ and ____ from the process of production, which is aggravated by the threat of _____ when production ____ demand

Dehumanization, Alienation, Unemployment, Exceed

Over time, however, oppression fosters a ____ in the proletariat—a realization that together the working class can organize a movement for its _____.

Class-consciousness, Collective Good

The inherent _____ of capitalism tends to prevent such a development among the bourgeoisie, and _____ leads to more and more frequent economic crises.

Self-Interest, Constant Competition

Durkheim acknowledged that industry had shaped modern society, but argued that it was ____ itself, rather than capitalism, that was at the root of ____.

Industrialization, Social Problems

Regarded as one of the “founding fathers” of social science, ____ was also an influential economist, political philosopher, and historian. He was born in Trier, Germany, and at his lawyer father’s insistence, he studied law, rather than the philosophy and literature he was interested in, at the University of Bonn, and later at Berlin.

Karl Marx

11 Flashcards

(93 cards)