Abstract

With respect to "beginnings," Marxism-Leninism shares with Hegel the opinion that 1) man is a product of an historical process and hence has no fixed nature; 2) knowledge and its object are changeable, but there is an "absolute standpoint" created by change itself from which a view of the whole is obtainable. There is disagreement about the nature of the object known and hence also about the nature of the absolute standpoint. This study repeats the customary objection that Hegel begins with thinking, whereas he ought to have begun with primitive human activity. Accordingly, Hegel ends with speculation whereas Marxism-Leninism issues in praxis. The best part of the study appears to be the discussion of the relation in Hegel between sensibility and thought, and therewith the relation between the beginning of the Logik and of the Phänomenologie.—H. C.