Abstract

The goal which Hegel set for philosophy was the comprehension of the life of the universal Mind, till a point was reached where the real would itself be comprehended as the rational. This ambiguous goal was to result in the scattering of his philosophical heirs, some of them becoming idealists and others realists. The latter adapted the following singular programme : to cause philosophy to descend from heaven to earth. PM here recapitulates the story of this lineage, starting with the figure of Cieskowski, tracing it through the figures of Hess and then Feuerbach. Marx’s decision to take the actual development of social relations, as the object of his philosophy, resulted in the programme which he named as « historical materialism » and led to Capital.