by Charles Brown
CB: Theses 11 can also be number 1, as the theme through all others.
11
Philosophers have hitherto only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it.
CB : Feuerbach and Hegel interpreted , proposed theoretical understandings of , the human world without proposing adequate methods of change . Hegel seems to think that the Idea is self-changing .
Hegel’s practice is behavior, activity _ in accord_ with the Idea ( Customs-Culture/ Words-Language) . Marx’s practice is to change the Idea/Customs/ Society /the Human World. Marx seeks to do this by having his philosophy grip masses and become a material force .
1
The main defect of all hitherto-existing materialism — that of Feuerbach included — is that the Object [der Gegenstand], actuality, sensuousness, are conceived only in the form of the object [Objekts], or of contemplation [Anschauung], but not as human sensuous activity, practice [Praxis], not subjectively. Hence it happened that the active side, in opposition to materialism, was developed by idealism — but only abstractly, since, of course, idealism does not know real, sensuous activity as such. Feuerbach wants sensuous objects [Objekte], differentiated from thought-objects, but he does not conceive human activity itself as objective [gegenständliche] activity. In The Essence of Christianity [Das Wesen des Christenthums], he therefore regards the theoretical attitude as the only genuinely human attitude, while practice [Praxis] is conceived and defined only in its dirty-Jewish form of appearance [Erscheinungsform][1]. Hence he does not grasp the significance of ‘revolutionary’, of ‘practical-critical’, activity.
CB: This is Marx’s materialist , Hegelian dialectic . This is Marx turning Hegel off of his head onto his feet ( since Hegel is a hominin , a habitually bipedal primate -smiles) Hegel’s practice is solely subjective-theoretical; Marx takes it out of the solely subjective making it combined objective-subjective.
Note this is _philosophers’_ practice ; philosophers’ practice is writing ! Mental/ Manual labor -activity , aimed at changing social consciousness. Philosophers’ main practice is in relation to the whole of society , all other people.
Theoreticians of biology-physics-chemistry-astronomy are philosophers who aim at changing humans’ relationship to non-human , objective reality - mastering objective necessity. Science is discovering necessary connections in a phenomenon.
Marxist Theoreticians of human history-society aim at changing human society.
2
The question whether objective truth can be attributed to human thinking is not a question of theory but is a practical question. Man must prove the truth, i.e., the reality and power, the this-sidedness [Diesseitigkeit] of his thinking, in practice. The dispute over the reality or non-reality of thinking which is isolated from practice is a purely scholastic question.
CB: Practice tests theory by determining whether humans can change the world in accord with their interpretation-theory of the world ; does the theory allow humans to master necessity ? Allow us to Change the human or non-human world ?
3
The materialist doctrine that men (sic) 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 and that the educator must himself be educated. Hence this doctrine is bound to divide society into two parts, one of which is superior to society. The coincidence of the changing of circumstances and of human activity or self-change [Selbstveränderung] can be conceived and rationally understood only as revolutionary practice.
CB: UPBRINGING, first and directly , in circumstances that impact upbringing -brain training . To change women and men , must change upbringing primarily. Self-changing/liberated women are necessary to change upbringing and women and men
The educator is brought up especially by her or his mother . Fundamental Consciousness (walking , eating, sleeping, language) is primarily made by mothers , family , teachers and peers .
Yes , human society has Secular Mother _Superiors_ .
Feuerbach’s philosophy of love likely has rational kernels of species-being philosophy that Marx and Engels missed .
4
Feuerbach starts off from the fact of religious self-estrangement [Selbstentfremdung], of the duplication of the world into a religious, imaginary world, and a secular [weltliche] one.
CB: The secular world (objective reality ) is also conceived by humans in Words /Symbolic Signs/ Imagination . This is Marshall Sahlins’s point in _Culture and Practical Reason _ .
Religion’s cultural function ( guide to behavior-activity-practice) is described by Marx as follows: “ Religion is the general theory of this world, its encyclopaedic compendium, its logic in popular form, its spiritual point d’honneur, its enthusiasm, its moral sanction, its solemn complement, and its universal basis of consolation and justification. It is the fantastic realization of the human essence since the human essence has not acquired any true reality.
CB: Actually, the human essence ( unique human characteristics, Differentia specifica of genus homo ) has acquired true reality for 2.5 million years starting with homo habilis, the Old Stone Age , Stone tools designed based on symbolic communication and thinking - with Homo habilis having a bigger brain than Australopithecus.
Marx : The struggle against religion is, therefore, indirectly the struggle against that world whose spiritual aroma is religion.
CB: Gods / imaginary immortal individual beings are symbolic representations of Dead Generations. Religion is the symbolic legacy of dead generations to living generations. It is Ancestor Veneration personified as Ancestor Worship in the transition from classless Stone Age Society to class divided Citified Society.
Marx : His work consists in resolving the religious world into its secular basis. He overlooks the fact that after completing this work, the chief thing still remains to be done. For the fact that the secular basis lifts off from itself and establishes itself in the clouds as an independent realm can only be explained by the inner strife and intrinsic contradictoriness of this secular basis. The latter must itself be understood in its contradiction and then, by the removal of the contradiction, revolutionised. Thus, for instance, once the earthly family is discovered to be the secret of the holy family, the former must itself be annihilated [vernichtet] theoretically and practically.
CB: Yes , it is Marx’s “own” class struggle that gives rise to religion / Gods as the first ruling class’s grand deception of slaves at the origin of the male supremacist family , private property and the state . Rulers being identified with Gods.
The earthly family must be sublated - overcoming male supremacy and preserving Mother Wit and much Caring Labor.
5
Feuerbach, not satisfied with abstract thinking, wants sensuous contemplation [Anschauung]; but he does not conceive sensuousness as practical, human-sensuous activity.
CB : yes contemplation of what the individual’s senses comprehend , experiential -empirical thinking or brain function ; simultaneously contemplating and practicing.
However , critically , for humans abstract thinking ( memories of the individual’s past experience,_and_ words which share past generations’ and other living individuals’ experiences with the individual human’s brain ) merges with and guides practical-concrete individual sensuous activity. Only humans have this abstract thinking , word -thinking , word brain function.
6
Feuerbach resolves the essence of religion into the essence of man [menschliche Wesen = ‘human nature’]. But the essence of man is no abstraction inherent in each single individual. In reality, it is the ensemble of the social relations. Feuerbach, who does not enter upon a criticism of this real essence is hence obliged:
1. To abstract from the historical process and to define the religious sentiment regarded by itself, and to presuppose an abstract — isolated - human individual.
2. The essence therefore can by him only be regarded as ‘species’, as an inner ‘dumb’ generality which unites many individuals only in a natural way.
CB: Actually , the human essence, human unique nature _is_ culture-custom , of which religion is a major part ( the other being all language and secular custom-culture). And culture and language _are_ abstractions _taught_ ( not inborn) to each individual. And culture-custom-language _are_ the ensemble of social relations , including social relations with both living and dead through language and culture; most of language and culture being passed on from dead generations.
Humans individuals are theoretically ( but not practically ) isolated under capitalism ( many sided alienation from others)
Language / culture / symbolic communication is the human natural-species unity of many individuals . It is hardly a dumb generality , but the essence of intelligence. Social intelligence is the highest Darwinian species intelligence- most fit intelligence. It gives humans a LaMarkian-like adaptive mechanism, which is non - random , unlike random genetic mutation adaptations. Cultural adaptations are caused by the adaptive problem that they solve .
7
Feuerbach consequently does not see that the ‘religious sentiment’ is itself a social product, and that the abstract individual that he analyses belongs in reality to a particular social form.
CB: Agree
8
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.
CB : However , not all religion is mysticism . There are objective-scientific truths , rational kernels in the Bible , for example . These are practical- rational theories inherited from dead generations through Words ; words can outlast people and things they represent , BECAUSE SYMBOLIC SIGNS ARE _NOT_ WHAT THEY REPRESENT . They prove their rationality in practice.
9
The highest point reached by contemplative [anschauende] materialism, that is, materialism which does not comprehend sensuousness as practical activity, is the contemplation of single individuals and of civil society [bürgerlichen Gesellschaft].
CB: To the extent contemplative materialism thinkers stand on the shoulders of dead generations ( like Isaac Newton stood on the shoulders of giants of past scientists) , they are not contemplating as single individuals.
10
The standpoint of the old materialism is civil society; the standpoint of the new is human society or social humanity.
CB : no comment
11
Philosophers have hitherto only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it.
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1. “Dirty-Jewish” — according to Marhsall Berman, this is an allusion to the Jewish God of the Old Testament, who had to ‘get his hands dirty’ making the world, tied up with a symbolic contrast between the Christian God of the Word, and the God of the Deed, symbolising practical life. See The Significance of the Creation in Judaism, Essence of Christianity 1841
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