Sean Sayers

This article sheds important new light on the philosophical assumptions about human nature in Marx's account of alienation. The key to understanding these lies in Hegel's philosophy. This paper explains Hegel's account of the role of labour in human development and shows how it underlies Marx's theory. The paper focuses particularly on Hegel's Aesthetics and demonstrates that this work contains crucial but hitherto neglected material on this topic. It then goes on to discuss how Marx's views differ from Hegel's, and to criticise Arendt.

It is clear that Freud's theories have had a profound and revolutionary impact on ideas about human nature and human rationality. However, the precise nature of that impact is less clear. It is often said that psychoanalysis reveals the irrational forces at the root of even the most apparently rational forms of thought and activity; and that, in so doing, it undermines ideas about human rationality which have dominated western thought. That is undoubtedly true. However, it is only one aspect of the truth. For the implications of psychoanalysis are more complex and far‐reaching than this currently fashionable view suggests.