Tom Rockmore

If Marx is to survive as a source of unparalleled insight into the modern world, he needs to be recovered. This article will begin to address some of the difficulties which arise in recovering Marx, above all the need to free Marx from Marxism. Marx has always been studied through Marxism, hence in a way which profoundly distorts his philosophical ideas. If we remove this Marxist 'filter', we see a rather different, more philosophical, and more philosophically-interesting thinker, Hegel's most important student, a full member of German idealism, who comes closer than anyone else to grasping the nature of the modern industrial world. Key Words: capitalism • Engels • Hegel • Lukács • Marx • Marxism.

In this book—the first large-scale survey of the complex relationship between Hegel’s idealism and Anglo-American analytic philosophy—Tom Rockmore argues that analytic philosophy has consistently misread and misappropriated Hegel. According to Rockmore, the first generation of British analytic philosophers to engage Hegel possessed a limited understanding of his philosophy and of idealism. Succeeding generations continued to misinterpret him, and recent analytic thinkers have turned Hegel into a pragmatist by ignoring his idealism. Rockmore explains why this has happened, defends Hegel’s idealism, and points out the ways that Hegel is a key figure for analytic concerns, focusing in particular on the fact that he and analytic philosophers both share an interest in the problem of knowledge.

Il sera question ici d’examiner le constructivisme hégélien, relativement au problème épistémologique. Le constructivisme, comme concept mathématique, est basé sur la construction de l’objet et remonte à l’antiquité grecque. Le constructivisme philosophique, par contre, est un concept moderne qui applique cette stratégie mathématique au problème de la connaissance. La forme hégélienne, omniprésente dans ses écrits, ne semble jamais avoir reçu l’attention qu’elle mérite. Elle se laisse pourtant examiner par rapport au constructivisme de Kant, parfois étudié sous le terme de révolution copernicienne. J’esquisserai donc la façon dont Hegel transforme une approche a priori et apodictique en procédé a posteriori et faillible. Le constructivisme hégélien offre ainsi des possibilités encore peu connues mais prometteuses pour le débat épistémologique.