Marx and Hegel

This chapter argues that the intellectual relationship between Marx and Hegel is characterized by Marx’s threefold inheritance of Hegel’s philosophical legacy. First, through the critique of Hegel’s philosophy of right, Marx put forward the critique of civil society as the task of thinking. Then, through the comparative reading of Hegel’s Philosophy and political economy, Marx acquired the perspective for carrying out his critique of civil society, that is, to analyze the historical character of civil society through investigating the relations of labor division in it. Finally, through the critique of social domination within capitalist society, especially the intertwinement of the reification of social relations and the standpoint of “the understanding,” Marx realized that Hegel’s dialectic is precisely the method to carry out the project of critique of political economy. Based on this, the chapter also explains why Hegel’s philosophy was criticized by Marx as ideological.