P R O L E G O M E N A T O A N Y F U T U R E M AT E R I A L I S M

Series Editors
Slavoj Žižek
Adrian Johnston
Todd McGowan

diaeresis
PROLEGOMENA
TO ANY FUTURE
M AT E R I A L I S M
Volume Two: A Weak Nature Alone

Adrian Johnston

Northwestern University Press

Evanston, Illinois
Northwestern University Press
www.nupress.northwestern.edu

Copyright © 2019 by Northwestern University Press.

Published 2019. All rights reserved.

Printed in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Johnston, Adrian, 1974– author.

Title: Prolegomena to any future materialism. Volume two, A weak nature
alone / Adrian Johnston.
Other titles: Weak nature alone | Diaeresis.
Description: Evanston, Illinois : Northwestern University Press, 2019. | Series:
Diaeresis | Includes bibliographical references.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019017341 | ISBN 9780810140622 (paper text : alk.
paper) | ISBN 9780810140639 (cloth text : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780810140646
(e-book)
Subjects: LCSH: Materialism. | Philosophy of nature. | Hegel, Georg Wilhelm
Friedrich, 1770–1831. | Marx, Karl, 1818–1883. | Lacan, Jacques, 1901–
1981. | McDowell, John, 1942–
Classification: LCC B1809.M3 J642 2019 | DDC 146.3—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019017341
 For Sabrina—

thanks to whose arrival our world before became incomplete

But Epimetheus was not very wise, and he absentmindedly used
up all the powers and abilities on the nonreasoning animals; he
was left with the human race, completely unequipped. While he
was floundering about at a loss, Prometheus arrived to inspect
the distribution and saw that while the other animals were well
provided with everything, the human race was naked, unshod,
unbedded, and unarmed, and it was already the day on which
all of them, human beings included, were destined to emerge
from the earth into the light.
— Plato

If we attempted to consider without prejudice the equivocal

conduct of Providence relative to mankind and to all sentient
beings, we should find that very far from resembling a tender
and careful mother, it rather resembles those unnatural moth-
ers who, forgetting the unfortunate fruits of their illicit amours,
abandon their children as soon as they are born; and who,
pleased to have conceived them, expose them without mercy to
the caprices of fate.
— Baron d’Holbach

Nature’s hand abandons him, and it is his own business to assert

the humanity which she planned and disclosed in him. As soon,
that is to say, as both the opposite fundamental impulses are ac-
tive in him, they both lose their sanction, and the opposition of
two necessities gives rise to freedom.
— Friedrich Schiller
 Contents

Preface
Tales of the Endangered Dead: Historical Essays in an Underground
Current of Naturalism xi

Acknowledgments xxi

Introduction
Not-So-Strange Bedfellows: From Hegel and Marx to Lacan
and McDowell 3

Part 1. The Voiding of Weak Nature: The Transcendental

Materialist Kernels of Hegel’s Philosophy of Nature

1 Revivifying Hegel: Breathing New Life into Naturphilosophie 15

2 From Bern to Jena: The Oldest Agenda of Hegelianism 23

3 The Self-Subversion of Modern Science: Scientific Reason and

the Phenomenology of Spirit 30

4 Real Genesis: From the Natural to the Logical, and Back Again 44

5 The Dialectics of Impotent Nature: Substance and Subject in

the System of the Mature Hegel 52

Part 2. From Scientific Socialism to Socialist Science:

The Dialectics of Nature Then and Now

6 The Specter of Engels: The Obscured History of Marxism’s

Philosophies of Science 73

7 This Is Orthodox Marxism: The Shared Materialist Weltanschauung

of Marx and Engels 85

8 The Three Fathers of Naturdialektik: Engels, Dietzgen, Lenin 96

9 Breaking and Bridging: Althusserian Syntheses of Historical and

Dialectical Materialisms 137

10 Western Marxism’s Self-Critique: Lukács’s Final Ontological Verdict 154

 Part 3. Negativity Mystical and Material: Privative Causality
from Pico della Mirandola to Lacan

11 The Privation of Science: Lacking Causes 187

12 There Is Absence, and Then There Are Absences: Back to Kant,

Forward to Lacan, and Onward 196

13 The Night of the Living World: The Missing Link of the Anorganic 207

14 Split Brain, Split Subject: Critically Approaching a Possible Lacanian

Neuro-Psychoanalysis 222

15 The Myth of the Non-Given: The Positive Genesis of the Negative 245

Part 4. Second Natures in Dappled Worlds: Neo-Hegelianism and

the Philosophy of Science in the Analytic Tradition

16 Lacan with McDowell: The Unresolved Problem of Naturalism 259

17 From the Subjectivity of Transcendental Idealism to the Objectivity

of Absolute Idealism: Returning to Kant and Hegel 262

18 Between Bald Naturalism and Rampant Platonism: Relaxing into

McDowell’s Third Way 267

19 More Is Less: Psychoanalysis, Science, and the Decompletion of

First Nature 271

20 Piebald Naturalism: Freedom in Cartwright’s Image of Nature 282

Notes 293

Works Cited 335

Index 373
 Preface
Tales of the Endangered Dead: Historical Essays
in an Underground Current of Naturalism

My trilogy Prolegomena to Any Future Materialism aims to forge a thor-

oughly materialist yet anti-reductive theory of subjectivity that does not
simply collapse subjects into physical, chemical, or biological matter. In
its second volume here, A Weak Nature Alone, I focus on the philosophy
of nature required for such a theory. This volume is guided by a funda-
mental question: How must nature be rethought so that human minds
and freedom do not appear to be either impossible or inexplicable within
it? Asked differently: How must the natural world itself be structured so
that sapient subjects in all their distinctive peculiarities emerged from
and continue to exist within this world? The ontology of nature that I will
unfurl and defend throughout what follows is one in which non-natural
human subjects can be seen to arise in immanent, bottom-up fashions
from nature itself.
The Prolegomena trilogy as a whole is guided by what I call “tran-
scendental materialism.” This position is intended as a modified version
of dialectical materialism. A preliminary sense of what it involves can
be conveyed through contrasting it with naturalistic materialisms, radi-
cally historicist forms of historical materialism, and classical dialectical
materialism as per Friedrich Engels. Unlike naturalistic materialisms,
transcendental materialism is opposed to epistemological or ontological
reductions or eliminations of minded and like-minded subjects in favor
of the non-human nature dealt with by the natural sciences. Unlike radi-
cally historicist forms of historical materialism, it maintains that there are
both natural and denaturalized dimensions informing human existence
that make humans’ histories possible (i.e., are transcendental vis-à-vis
these histories) without these dimensions themselves being purely his-
torical configurations. And, unlike classical dialectical materialism as per
Engels, it eschews both the all-is-one unity of holistic monism as well as
the everything-in-flux picture of a sort of process metaphysics. Transcen-
dental materialism reenvisions the material real as a fragmentary, disuni-
fied nature that ultimately generates out of itself human beings rebelling
against this very nature and rendering it even more conflict-ridden.
In the title and subtitle of this preface, I bring together references

xi
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to a trio of somewhat strange bedfellows: Robert Brandom, Walter Ben-

jamin, and Louis Althusser. In so doing, I already introduce a central
feature of the present book, namely, its assembling of a motley crew of
protagonists drawn from a number of historical periods and theoretical
orientations (especially Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, Immanuel Kant,
F. W. J. Schelling, G. W. F. Hegel, Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Joseph
Dietzgen, V. I. Lenin, Nikolai Bukharin, Georg Lukács, Sigmund Freud,
Jacques Lacan, Louis Althusser, Wilfrid Sellars, Alain Badiou, François
Ansermet, Pierre Magistretti, John McDowell, and Nancy Cartwright).
Herein, a (seemingly) heterogeneous ensemble of spheres are made
to cross-resonate with each other, such as philosophy, psychoanalysis,
science, and politics; Soviet and Western Marxisms; Lacanianism and
neurobiology; and the continental and analytic philosophical traditions.
Both through these prefatory remarks and in the main body of the book
as a whole, I aspire to demonstrate convincingly that, so to speak, there is
method to my madness, that a coherent, continuous thread of thoughts
is operative in and through what likely appears, at first glance, to be a
ragtag, grab-bag assortment of incommensurable characters and diver-
gent paths.1
Returning to the triad of figures referred to by this preface’s title
and subtitle, and beginning with Brandom, the methodology of his book
Tales of the Mighty Dead (2002) is particularly relevant to my endeavors in
what follows. Brandom’s approach, which is avowedly inspired by Hegel,
involves making a case for a contemporary systematic philosophical posi-
tion (i.e., his “inferentialism”) on the basis of precedents to be found
scattered throughout the past four centuries of the history of Western
philosophy.2 As in the tradition of common law, prior topical instances of
the use of concepts relevant to a current concern ought to be examined
for what light they throw on this concern.3
Furthermore, Brandom rightly indicates that, when a new philo-
sophical stance’s backward glance is willing and able to conduct a thor-
ough and unbiased survey of the historical record, when its hindsight
truly is 20/20, odd, unexpected intellectual lineages will come into view.
Brandom’s 2002 tome weaves a historical narrative in which Baruch
Spinoza, G. W. Leibniz, Kant, Hegel, Gottlob Frege, Martin Heidegger,
and Sellars are claimed to form a single anticipatory line foreshadowing
Brandomian inferentialism— with this Whig-historical pantheon of “the
mighty dead” admittedly seeming to be quite eclectic from the vantage
point of more conventional understandings of philosophical history.4
Brandom speaks of “the sort of rationality that consists in retrospectively
picking out an expressively progressive trajectory through past applica-
tions of a concept, so as to determine a norm one can understand as
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governing the whole process and so project into the future.”5 Going into
more detail regarding this form of reason(ing), he elaborates:

Rationality . . . is secured by rationally reconstructing the tradition of

its applications according to a certain model— by offering a selective,
cumulative, expressively progressive genealogy of it. At each stage in
its development, it is insofar as one takes the tradition to be rational, by
a Whiggish rewriting of its history, that one makes the tradition be and
have been rational. A certain sort of rationality . . . consists in a commit-
ment to understanding the tradition that gives one words to speak by
exhibiting it in this form. This is reason’s march through history. In this
way, as Hegel puts it, contingency is given the form of necessity. That
is, judgments that show up first as adventitious products of accidental
circumstances . . . are exhibited as correct applications of a conceptual
norm retrospectively discerned as already implicit in previous judg-
ments . . . Telling a story of this sort — finding a norm by making a
tradition, giving it a genealogy — is a form of rationality as systematic
history.6

As Brandom tries to do for inferentialism in exactly this manner in

his 2002 book, so too do I strive to accomplish for my position in the
same manner in the present work. That is to say, and in Brandom’s own
terms, I attempt in what ensues “retrospectively” to “discern” and “make
explicit” — Brandom, in good Hegelian fashion, emphasizes that mak-
ing explicit has transformative effects upon that which thereby transi-
tions from being “in itself” (an sich) to being also “for itself” (an und
für sich)7 — a “systematic history”8 of the ontology of transcendental ma-
terialism, namely, a “progressive trajectory” of concepts, evidence, and
arguments that can and should come to be viewed as pointing toward this
variant of materialism.
This “Whiggish” narrative of mine, a trajectory originating in the
early nineteenth century, runs from Hegel’s Naturphilosophie, through
the historical and dialectical materialisms of Marx, Engels, Lenin, and
their myriad offspring (especially Lukács and Althusser), and onward
via Freudian-Lacanian psychoanalysis, affective neuroscience, and recent
neo-Hegelian analytic philosophy (among other sources). Moreover,
transcendental materialism as a “system,” on the one hand, retroactively
creates a two-centuries-old tradition where none was (to be seen) before;
and, on the other hand, it is itself created in turn by this same tradition
as “history” insofar as the latter “gives” me “words to speak” as a tran-
scendental materialist. Again like Brandom, I intend these tales to be not
merely exercises in deliberately anachronistic intellectual history for its
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own sake, but instead, to be facilitators of transcendental materialism, as

a theoretical orientation, effectively and productively “projecting into
the future.”9
Resonating with the Brandom of Tales of the Mighty Dead, Slavoj
Žižek, with the retroactive temporality of Freudian Nachträglichkeit and
Lacanian après-coup in mind, invokes certain advents of novelty precisely
as acts/events that “create their own pasts”10 (and, of course, Hegel’s
philosophy is a reference shared between Brandom and Žižek, although
their renditions of Hegel differ dramatically). Žižek’s aesthetic examples
of this temporal dynamic are especially relevant here in tandem with
Brandom’s Hegel-inspired “systematic history.” A radically new artistic
work or genre, once it emerges, not only alters its surrounding contem-
poraneous art world. It also makes visible a previously invisible chain of
interconnected historical predecessors bound together by their discern-
ible shared prognostication, albeit one that is discernible exclusively with
the benefit of a certain hindsight, of this revolutionary newness. In short,
such innovation changes the past as well as the present of its field. As just
seen, Brandom likewise suggests that the surfacing of novel philosophical
apparatuses transforms (pictures of) the history of philosophy, creating
previously unseen lines of affiliation and descent.
I would put forward two friendly Hegelian supplements to Bran-
dom’s and Žižek’s similar proposals. First, it should be underscored that
the sort of present newness that both Brandom and Žižek discuss, with
their shared stresses on retroaction, is itself made possible in turn by the
very historical past it itself makes (or, at least, makes explicit in retro-
spect). Second, I want further to emphasize the apparently heterodox,
eclectic quality of the historical pasts that are retroactively created by in-
ventive presents à la Brandomian and Žižekian perspectives. In particular,
an assertion from a famous paragraph (§32) of the deservedly celebrated
preface to the Phenomenology of Spirit, the paragraph in which Hegel
speaks of “tarrying with the negative,” is worth recalling here: “the life of
Spirit . . . wins its truth only when, in utter dismemberment [absoluten Zer-
rissenheit], it finds itself.”11 In line with this 1807 assertion, I am tempted to
propose that a Hegelian litmus test of both the inventiveness and strength
of any contemporary philosophical system ought to involve it being able
to (re)find itself in the midst of historical dispersal (as “utter dismem-
berment”), to recollect itself in the guise of a previously un(fore)seen
set of predecessors, to recover itself in the form of an idiosyncratic
ancestry that is visible exclusively with the benefit of its own hindsight.
Now, whereas Brandom refers to “the mighty dead,” I speak, in
this preface’s title, of “the endangered dead” instead. With this change
of adjective, I gesture specifically at Walter Benjamin. In the sixth of his
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unsurpassably magisterial “Theses on the Philosophy of History,” he de-

clares that “even the dead will not be safe from the enemy if he wins. And
this enemy has not ceased to be victorious.”12 With Benjamin’s Marxist
version of “history is written by the victors,” the partisans of the revolu-
tionary Left who are contemporaneous with, and victims of, each of this
Left’s repeated defeats over the centuries by the forces of the bourgeois
“enemy” (i.e., “Antichrist”)13 are not the sole casualties in these defeats.
The dead of the Left’s intellectual and political history, including those
of its past military losses (such as in 1848 and 1871), are buried and re-
buried again and again with each setback and rout at the hands of the
Right; they thereby remain firmly imprisoned within the unmarked tomb
of historical oblivion, of socio-symbolic nonexistence. Along these same
lines, Benjamin justifiably worries and warns that these dead, if they are
reinterred enough times, might be permanently lost to all memory and
recollection, disappearing forever into a black hole of irreversible forget-
ting and undetectable silence: “every image of the past that is not recog-
nized by the present as one of its own concerns threatens to disappear
irretrievably.”14
However, Benjamin, even when facing up to and ruminating on
the depressingly grim real possibilities of socio-symbolic “second deaths”
(as Lacan might put it)15 of the revolutionary Left’s already-dead (i.e.,
annihilations from all historical records without potential future resur-
rections and reinscriptions), refuses to treat this prospect as a foregone
conclusion. That is to say, he does not fall into a fatalistic certainty and
corresponding hopeless despair that the powers of bourgeois conserva-
tism and reaction (not to mention outright fascism) definitely will suc-
ceed, come what may, in permanently obliterating any and every trace
of radical leftism’s invaluable past. Of a piece with the larger theoretical,
practical, and affective balancing act that is conducted throughout
the “Theses on the Philosophy of History” as a whole, Benjamin steers
between, on one side, the Scylla of dangerously complacent or hubris-
tic overconfidence exhibited among Marxists by true believers in both
economism as well as Stalinism and, on another side, the Charybdis of a
crushingly disheartening defeatism that resigns itself to the inevitability
of the triumph of capitalism or worse16 (as subsequently on prominent
display in, for instance, Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno’s 1947
Dialectic of Enlightenment, in which optimistic utopian certainty about the
communist future is inverted into bleak pessimistic dystopianism without,
for all that, renouncing certainty itself).17 In rejecting the “strong mes-
sianism” of both rightist (such as Second International economism, early-
twentieth-century currents of German social democracy, and the like)
and leftist (such as the institutional and intellectual terrorism of Stalinist
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diamat as per Joseph Stalin’s 1938 Dialectical and Historical Materialism)

deviations within the Marxist tradition itself, deviations in which social
history is said by various (pseudo-)secular prophets to be ruled by the
predictable inevitabilities of the iron laws of necessity guaranteeing the
coming of the revolutionary Messiah, Benjamin still struggles to hold
onto a heavily qualified, severely tempered optimism in terms of a “weak
messianic power.”18 According to the latter, future redemption by Revo-
lution remains a contingent possibility to come, rather than being either
the guaranteed necessity of strong-messianic utopianism or the equally
guaranteed impossibility of both defeatist dystopianism as well as various
forms of simple anti-Marxism.
Benjamin’s “Theses on the Philosophy of History” repudiates all
speciously Marxist caricatures of historical materialism as a supposedly
hard science of the mechanics of a history of preordained, fated necessi-
ties and inevitabilities (i.e., “scientific socialism”— to be clear, this Engels,
unlike the one of Naturdialektik, is not the one I wish to revive). As a
self-identifying Marxist historical materialist, Benjamin implicitly reaf-
firms, against Marx and Engels’s claims of predictive power on behalf
of historical materialism, Hegel’s denial that philosophy/theory enjoys
powers of foresight as regards the future (most [in]famously articulated
by Hegel in the renowned preface to the 1821 Elements of the Philosophy of
Right).19 Hegel’s “Owl of Minerva” becomes, in the ninth of the “Theses
on the Philosophy of History,” Benjamin’s “angel of history” (envisioned
with reference to Paul Klee’s print Angelus Novus) whose “face is turned
toward the past” while the violent wind of time “irresistibly propels him
into the future to which his back is turned.”20 Benjamin, in renouncing
the false comforts afforded by delusional necessitarian dogmas about the
historical-to-come (including the relief of pessimistic resignation pur-
chased by abandoning all hope of eventual momentous change), con-
fronts in one fell swoop the future possibilities of everything from the
worst (the feared lasting victories of capitalism and fascism) to the best
(the true dawn of fully free, radically egalitarian classless societies).
Of course, for a German-speaking Jewish Marxist intellectual on
the European continent during the 1930s, the sociohistorical and geo-
political circumstances surrounding the “Theses on the Philosophy of
History” are the darkest of dark times indeed. First, Benjamin has to
confront the twentieth century’s defiance of Marx’s nineteenth-century
predictions about leftist revolutions erupting first and foremost in the
most advanced capitalist countries (as does any intellectually honest
twentieth-century Marxist). But he is also witness to the simultaneous
rise of Nazi-led fascism in the heart of Europe and the betrayal of Lenin’s
Bolshevik Revolution in the Russia-centered world of “really existing so-
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cialism” (with these two discouraging developments converging in the

1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact between Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin).
So, with all the justification in the world, the “Theses on the Philosophy
of History” hardly paints a rosy picture of revolutionary leftism’s historical
prospects. Yet, at the same time, Benjamin, bravely resisting the under-
standable temptations of fatalistic certainty in his horrific context, sees
fit to conclude his 1940 text with the cautiously optimistic affirmation
that “every second of time” is “the strait gate through which the Messiah
might enter.”21
Returning to the topic of the “endangered dead,” one should re-
call that, as I noted a short while ago, Benjamin stresses the precarious
position of the memories and ghosts of the Left’s past, the deceased and
departed who may or may not completely vanish forever, depending on
the open, contingent, and unpredictable vicissitudes of future historical
twists and turns (“every image of the past that is not recognized by the
present as one of its own concerns threatens to disappear irretrievably”;
“even the dead will not be safe from the enemy if he wins”). But Benjamin-
ian historical materialism, despite this embattled, jeopardized situation of
the leftist tradition, is still endowed with a weak (albeit not nonexistent)
power of “retroactive force” that “will constantly call in question every
victory, past and present, of the rulers” (as Benjamin’s fourth thesis has
it).22 Relatedly, the seventh of the “Theses on the Philosophy of History”
declares that “a historical materialist . . . regards it as his task to brush
history against the grain.”23 Such brushing also amounts to “fanning the
spark of hope in the past.”24 Without historical materialism’s awry (i.e.,
“against the grain”) outlook (as askew relative to the hegemonic histories
narrated from the one-sided, slanted perspectives of capitalism’s victori-
ous class rulers), these smoldering embers, which are always in danger of
being overlooked and extinguished, cannot even be identified, let alone
fanned.
In the spirit of Benjamin’s “Theses on the Philosophy of History,”
I too see it as one of my tasks in this second volume of Prolegomena to
Any Future Materialism to “brush history against the grain” in a gesture
of “fanning the spark of hope in the past.” In my case, this threatened
historical past consists of a pantheon of certain mighty but endangered
dead, including the Hegel of his Philosophy of Nature, the Engels of Natur-
dialektik, the Marxist autodidact and militant materialist Dietzgen, the
multiple partisans (some remembered, some obscured) of Soviet dialecti-
cal materialism, the later self-critical Lukács of his unfinished Ontology of
Social Being, and a still largely unrecognized quasi-naturalist Lacan. Even
among historians of German idealism and post-Hegelian continental phi-
losophers, Hegel’s Naturphilosophie is generally neglected or disavowed.
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Even among the majority of Marxists, the Engelsian “dialectics of nature”

and its Soviet permutations, when not passed over in total silence, are dis-
owned as bankrupt old embarrassments. (Western Marxism, starting with
the young Lukács,25 began interring Naturdialektik long before the burial
of everything communist and Soviet under the rubble of the smashed
Berlin Wall and the “wreckage upon wreckage” of the sky-high “pile of
debris” accumulating in the era of neoliberalism.)26 Even among Laca-
nians, Lacan’s serious and sophisticated engagements with the natural
sciences and conceptions of nature are, for the most part, persistently
scotomized and unacknowledged. What is more, both within the circles
of professional academic philosophy as well as various popular cultural
milieus, Marxism and psychoanalysis alike continue to suffer steadily sus-
tained marginalization and dismissal. But, in Benjamin’s words, I herein
handle these various figures and traditions as “chips of messianic time.”27
However, during roughly the past decade, it has become wildly
trendy among continental philosophers and their fellow travelers in the
theoretical humanities to pledge allegiance to “materialism.” Nowadays,
so many authors and orientations with dissimilar (and often incompat-
ible) outlooks self-identify as “materialists” that, predictably, the label has
lost almost all meaning through widespread overuse. Likewise, there is
nothing controversial or provocative today about me or anyone else em-
bracing this label. Of course, both here and elsewhere, I take great pains
to specify precisely and distinguish sharply transcendental materialism
in relation to other variants of (purported) materialism that form parts
of the landscape of contemporary continental metaphysics and political
theory.
Yet, among continentalists (and by sharp contrast with analytic phi-
losophers), naturalism has been and very much continues to remain not
so much distasteful as utterly taboo. From the late eighteenth century
through the present, subjective idealists, (neo-)romantics, Christian and
atheist existentialists, phenomenologists transcendental and existential,
Western Marxists, structuralists and post-structuralists — almost all have
rallied, despite their many differences big and small, around the com-
mon cause of anti-naturalism, which can be defined as theoretical and
normative hostility toward the empirical, experimental sciences of nature
and any materialisms closely connected with them. Žižek opens his book
The Ticklish Subject (1999) with a paraphrasing of the first lines of the
Communist Manifesto: “A spectre is haunting Western academia, the spec-
tre of the Cartesian subject. All academic powers have entered into a
holy alliance to exorcize this spectre.”28 I likewise would propose that the
specter of naturalist materialism haunts continental philosophy, a specter
indeed making for oddly broad coalitions among this materialism’s other-
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wise quite variegated enemies (combining Marx’s, Engels’s, Žižek’s, and

my observations, a trinity of not-unrelated ghosts troubles the recent past
and present: communism, cogito, and nature). Having told this tale of an
anti-naturalist bent as old as continental philosophy itself in more detail
on a prior occasion,29 I will not rehash it here. Suffice it for now to note
this still-prevailing tendency and, as one of its consequences, the fact that,
whereas materialism can be (and presently is) fashionable in continen-
talist circles, the same most definitely cannot be said about naturalism.
This brings me to the subtitle of this preface, with its deliberate
echo of “The Underground Current of the Materialism of the Encoun-
ter” of the later Althusser. Crossing lines between continental and ana-
lytic philosophy as well as within the former itself, I herein bring to light
an “underground current of naturalism” in post-Kantian philosophy
running from Hegel through today, with transcendental materialism ret-
roactively rendering this current visible as the latter’s further develop-
ment. To resort for the time being to a compact formulation that this
book subsequently will unpack and clarify, transcendental materialism
integrally involves a dialectical naturalism, namely, a Naturphilosophie of
a self-denaturalizing nature as itself a necessary condition for anthropo-
genesis.30 Overall, the Prolegomena trilogy strives to develop a thoroughly
materialist-as-(quasi-)naturalist, and yet anti-reductive, theory of sub-
jectivity at the intersection of philosophy, psychoanalysis, and the life
sciences. This second volume focuses on the ontology of nature required
for such a theory, positing the ontological presuppositions of denatural-
ized subjects.
Turning to Alain Badiou, one of Althusser’s students, a material-
ist resurrection of the “Idea of Communism” should involve, among
other things, a revivified and updated dialectics of nature,31 as well as a
twenty-first-century critique of political economy. Badiou’s own version
of this resurrection deliberately sidelines both the natural sciences and
economic considerations. By ironic and unfortunate contrast with Marx,
Engels, and Lenin, much of Western Marxism from the early twentieth
century to the present day has been and remains blind to both econom-
ics and science (the latter two arguably being the twin disciplinary pillars
of nineteenth-century historical and dialectical materialism[s]). With re-
gard to my focus on the natural sciences in relation to materialist philos-
ophy, I am tempted to say to Marxists and non-Marxists alike that, para-
phrasing Horkheimer on fascism and capitalism, whoever is not prepared
to talk about naturalism also should remain silent about materialism.32
In analytic philosophical circles, materialism often is equated with
reductive physicalism. In continental philosophical circles, the very term
“materialism” is coming close to being made utterly meaningless through
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overuses in which any connection to things material is either too loose

to discern or is nonexistent altogether. My transcendental materialism
generally, and the naturalistic ontology of A Weak Nature Alone specifically,
navigates between these extremes of narrowness and breadth. It does so
thanks to its unique anti-reductive yet naturalistic materialism. Against re-
ductive physicalism, I offer a philosophical reinterpretation of the natural
sciences in which nature itself, rather than rendering denaturalized sub-
jects impossible or illusory, makes possible the real genesis and develop-
ment of such subjects. Against decouplings of materialism from refer-
ences to things physical, I argue that positions which neglect or dismiss
naturalistic dimensions and concerns cannot qualify as truly materialist.
As I stated at the start of this preface, the philosophical project of
this second volume of the Prolegomena to Any Future Materialism is ani-
mated by the fundamental question: how must nature be conceptual-
ized insofar as it happens to have eventuated in, and continues to con-
tain the structures and dynamics peculiar to, full-fledged subjectivity?
My main contention is that images of nature as akin to either a gigantic
machine or a cosmic organism in which each and every entity and event
is governed by unbreakable universal laws preclude satisfying explana-
tions of the emergence of human subjects with their spontaneous and
self-determining capacities. Such explanations demand, instead, what
I put forward under the heading of “dialectical naturalism,” namely, a
materialism of a self-denaturalizing nature that radically alters itself in
and through its human offspring.
 Acknowledgments

This book took shape gradually over the course of nearly ten years. Dur-
ing that time, I had the great fortune to be able to discuss its contents
with many insightful and inspiring conversation partners from whom
I have learned a significant amount. A far from exhaustive list of members
of this general intellect includes Deepika Bahri, Kelly Becker, Fred Beiser,
Benjamin Berger, Rick Boothby, Graham Bounds, Richard Boyd, Tom
Brockelman, Nathan Brown, Michael O’Neill Burns, Lorenzo Chiesa, Jon
Cogburn, Joan Copjec, Tristam Dammin, Dan Danner, Arne De Boever,
Jan De Vos, Jaime Denison, Vasiliki Dimoula, Andrew Dobbyn, Mladen
Dolar, Robb Eason, Tom Eyers, Kyle Fetter, Karl Fotovat, Zachary Luke
Fraser, Fabio Gironi, Russell Goodman, Nathan Gorelick, Peter Gratton,
Timothy M. Hackett, Martin Hägglund, Peter Hallward, Agon Hamza,
Davis Hankins, Graham Harman, Ryan Anthony Hatch, Tyler Haulotte,
Aaron Hodges, Dominiek Hoens, Rhea Ienni, Tom Johnston, Jess Keiser,
Lydia Kerr, Todd Kesselman, Peter Klepec, Marcel Lebow, Rob Lehman,
Paul Livingston, Jorge Lizarzaburu Zeballos, Catherine Malabou, Suhail
Malik, Mark McCullagh, Todd McGowan, Tracy McNulty, Andrew Mitch-
ell, Raoul Moati, Tiffany Montoya, Lenny Moss, Boštjan Nedoh, Benjamin
Norris, Dorothea Olkowski, Giorgio Papadopulos, Knox Peden, Gerardo
Roberto Flores Peña, Geoffrey Pfeifer, Ed Pluth, John Protevi, Bradley Ra-
mos, Frances Restuccia, Matthew Rigilano, Idris Robinson, Jeremi Roth,
Frank Ruda, Jesse Schwebach, Neelam Sethi, Mike Shim, Gino Signoracci,
Kristian Simcox, Mishka Sinha, Brian Smith, John Taber, Tzuchien Tho,
Philippe Van Haute, Stephen Watson, Drew Westen, Jordan Whelchel,
Kathryn Wichelns, Cindy Willett, Slavoj Žižek, and Alenka Zupančič.
Furthermore, I am especially thankful to three of my indispensable
regular interlocutors, Bruno Bosteels, Ray Brassier, and Markus Gabriel,
for having generously served as reviewers of this book. They took an enor-
mous amount of time and trouble to read through the lengthy manu-
script carefully. Their thoughtful suggestions have proven invaluable to
me in the process of revising it for publication. I hope this final version
does some measure of justice to the sterling quality of their feedback.
I also owe a lot of gratitude to the people involved with specific in-

xxi
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AC K NO W LE DGME NT S

stitutions and occasions that provided me with opportunities to bounce

this book’s proposals off various audiences. I am thinking in particular
of the Center for the Study of Psychoanalysis and Culture at the State
University of New York at Buffalo; the Department of Comparative Lit-
erature and the Psychoanalytic Studies Program at Emory University; the
Departments of Philosophy at Duquesne University, Loyola University
Baltimore, the New School for Social Research, the University of Colo-
rado at Denver, the University of Memphis, and the University of Notre
Dame; the Dialectical Thinking in the Humanities Seminar of the Ma-
hindra Humanities Center at Harvard University; the Graduate Center
of the City University of New York; the Institute of Philosophy at the
University of Ljubljana; the KW Institute for Contemporary Art in Berlin;
the MaMa Multimedia Institute in Zagreb; the Peter Behrens School of
Arts of the Hochschule Düsseldorf; the Psychoanalysis Reading Group,
the Theory Reading Group, and multiple humanities departments at
Cornell University; Verso Books; the WHAP!: West Hollywood Lecture
Series cosponsored by the California Institute of the Arts and the City of
West Hollywood; and the Working Group on Contemporary Materialism.
I could not have written this book without the exchanges generated by
these organizations and events. Everyone involved with them, organizers
and participants alike, has my most heartfelt thanks.
Additionally, I am appreciative of the supportive environment for
my research provided by my colleagues and students in the Department
of Philosophy at the University of New Mexico. I was able to teach semi-
nars there in which I got to explore the various lines of argumentation
running throughout this book. I am particularly grateful to the passion-
ate and engaged students I have thoroughly enjoyed working with on the
authors and ideas covered herein.
Earlier drafts of portions of this book have previously appeared
in print in a number of venues. To be precise: “The Voiding of Weak
Nature: The Transcendental Materialist Kernels of Hegel’s Naturphiloso-
phie,” Graduate Faculty Philosophy Journal 33, no. 1 (spring 2012): 103–57;
“Transcendentalism in Hegel’s Wake: A Reply to Timothy M. Hackett and
Benjamin Berger,” special issue: “Schelling: Powers of the Idea,” edited by
Benjamin Berger, Pli: The Warwick Journal of Philosophy 26 (fall 2014): 204–
37; “From Scientific Socialism to Socialist Science: Naturdialektik Then
and Now,” in The Idea of Communism 2: The New York Conference, edited by
Slavoj Žižek, 103– 36 (London: Verso, 2013); “Holding Lenin Together:
Hegelianism and Dialectical Materialism — A Historical Excursus,” spe-
cial issue: “Hegel(’s) Today,” edited by Agon Hamza and Frank Ruda,
Crisis and Critique 4, no. 1 (2017): 161– 93; “Repeating Engels: Renewing
the Cause of the Materialist Wager for the Twenty-First Century,” special
 xxiii
AC K NO W L EDGME NT S

issue: “animal.machine.sovereign,” Theory @ Buffalo 15 (2011): 141–82;

“Marx’s Bones: Breaking with Althusser,” in The Concept in Crisis: Reading
Capital Now, edited by Nick Nesbitt, 189– 215 (Durham, N.C.: Duke Uni-
versity Press, 2017); “Lacking Causes: Privative Causality from Locke and
Kant to Lacan and Deacon,” Speculations: A Journal of Speculative Realism 6
(December 2015): 19– 60; “Reflections of a Rotten Nature: Hegel, Lacan,
and Material Negativity,” special issue: “Science and Thought,” edited
by Frank Ruda and Jan Voelker, Filozofski Vestnik 33, no. 2 (2012): 23– 52;
“Reflections of a Rotten Nature: Hegel, Lacan, and Material Negativity,”
in Genealogies of Speculation: Materialism and Subjectivity since Structuralism,
edited by Armen Avanessian and Suhail Malik, 41–69 (London: Blooms-
bury, 2016); “Drive between Brain and Subject: An Immanent Critique
of Lacanian Neuro-Psychoanalysis,” special issue: “Spindel Supplement:
Freudian Future(s),” Southern Journal of Philosophy 51 (September 2013):
48– 84; “Philosophy and Psychoanalysis,” in The Routledge Handbook of
Psychoanalysis in the Social Sciences and Humanities, edited by Anthony El-
liott and Jeffrey Prager, 278–99 (New York: Routledge, 2016); and “Sec-
ond Natures in Dappled Worlds: John McDowell, Nancy Cartwright, and
Hegelian-Lacanian Materialism,” in Umbr(a): The Worst, edited by Mat-
thew Rigilano and Kyle Fetter, 71– 91 (Buffalo: Center for the Study of
Psychoanalysis and Culture, State University of New York at Buffalo, 2011).
I would like to thank the editors and publishers of these volumes and
issues for allowing modified versions of this material to appear here. I also
thank the editors, reviewers, and readers of these earlier drafts for their
comments and criticisms informing my overhauling of these texts in the
process of preparing this book.
Furthermore, my acquisitions editor at Northwestern University
Press, Trevor Perri, deserves special recognition for his substantial efforts
to help bring this book into existence. Trevor’s support was crucial in
enabling me to publish this project in the form I felt most fitting. I am
deeply grateful for all his efforts on my behalf. Similarly, I am delighted
once again to be in the expert hands of my wonderful production editor
at Northwestern University Press, Anne Gendler. Thanks to Anne’s com-
bination of keen attention to details and kind patience, collaborating
with her is a pure joy.
Finally, my family, as always, has my indescribably profound appre-
ciation and love.
P R O L E G O M E N A T O A N Y F U T U R E M AT E R I A L I S M
Introduction

Not-So-Strange Bedfellows:
From Hegel and Marx to Lacan
and McDowell

The main body of this second volume of Prolegomena to Any Future Mate-
rialism is divided into four parts of five chapters each. Part 1 is devoted to
Hegel. More precisely, it makes Hegel’s usually ignored or maligned phi-
losophy of nature— which even many committed Hegelians disavow— the
red thread of a re-traversal of the full arc of his intellectual itinerary, from
1796 (with the fragment entitled “The Earliest System-Program of Ger-
man Idealism”) until his death in 1831. Transcendental materialism, with
its anti-reductive theory of subjectivity as immanently transcendent(al)
vis-à-vis physical, chemical, and organic nature, requires a certain natural-
ist ontology. To be exact, this materialist account of the subject rests upon
a dialectical naturalism of nature itself as self-denaturalizing. In light of
a reading of Hegelian “absolute idealism” as (despite this somewhat mis-
leading label) involving a robustly realist affirmation of a carefully quali-
fied version of materialist naturalism, part 1 lays claim to Hegel as the
forefather of transcendental materialism. In particular, a combination
of Hegel’s related conceptual motifs of “the weakness of nature” (die
Ohnmacht der Natur) and substance-also-as-subject yields both a historical
and a philosophical set of precedents and cornerstones for my own con-
temporary theoretical position.
Part 1 ends with a gesture of bridging the (apparent) rift between
Hegelianism and Marxism by problematizing the fashions in which Marx
and his followers tend to characterize Hegel’s idealism as opposed to
their materialism(s). In part 2, I turn attention to the Marxist tradition.
Specifically, and on the basis of my transcendental materialist concerns
with a dialectical naturalist ontology, I closely track throughout these five
chapters considerations of nature, the natural sciences, and Naturdialektik
by Marx, Engels, Dietzgen, Lenin, Lukács, and Althusser, among others.
Of course, in this simultaneously theoretical and practical tradition, these
issues with regard to naturalism cluster around the border between his-
torical and dialectical materialism. Historically, they proved to be highly
divisive for Marxists, provoking heated debates and sharp splits between

3
4
I N T R O D UCT I O N

different figures and orientations: most notably, the rift between Western
and Soviet Marxisms, with the young Lukács turning the Engels of natu-
ralist dialectical materialism into one of the main bones of contention
between Marxists in the East and West. Revisiting this neglected history
promises to raise (again) in contemporarily underexplored fashions core
philosophical issues that concern materialism tout court.
Chapters 6, 7, and 8, taken together, set out to accomplish a number
of things. To begin with, they challenge Western Marxist caricatures of
Engels, particularly those deriding his attempts to outline a dialectics of
nature that posits the presuppositions (as Hegel would put it) of Marx’s
historical materialism. In so doing, these chapters close the (seeming)
gap between Marx and Engels, thereby also revealing in Marx’s writings
moments of dialectical materialist-type concerns and sympathies toward
the natural sciences. Furthermore, I here take up Lenin’s and the Soviets’
interdisciplinary furtherances of Engelsian-style dialectical materialism
in philosophy and the sciences. Due both to the East-West split between
Marxist camps going back to the 1920s as well as to the collapse of “really
existing socialism” at the end of the 1980s (not to mention the disaster
of Lysenkoism under Stalin), the fruits of the Bolsheviks’ Engels-inspired
labors have been largely lost to the living memory of Europe-linked intel-
lectual trends.
Chapters 9 and 10 shift back from the East of the Soviet Union to
the West of the European continent. Both chapters take up pivotal Euro-
pean Marxist thinkers, specifically Althusser and Lukács— thinkers who
might seem antithetical to any reactivation, however heterodox, of the
legacy of dialectical materialism tracing back to Engels. With regard to
Lukács, his self-critical turn, involving a pronounced repudiation of his
History and Class Consciousness (1923) and related texts— continentalists
and Western critical theorists all too frequently limit their appreciation
of Lukács to his youthful 1923 tour de force— cries out for appropriation
in the service of a philosophically revitalized Marxian-Engelsian mate-
rialism. With regard to Althusser, his volatile ambivalences and abrupt
changes of mind make his serviceability for my purposes less obvious. But,
as I will argue, he too indeed can and should be recognized as helping to
mediate between Marxist traditions and my transcendental materialism.
Chapter 9 is devoted to Althusser’s oeuvre. Of course, the canon-
ized image of Althusser dates mainly to 1965, the year of the publication
of both For Marx and Reading Capital. The overriding emphasis in this
version of Althusserianism is on the thesis of the alleged Bachelardian-
style “epistemological break” of 1845 in Marx’s intellectual itinerary, in
which Marx purportedly repudiates any notion of humanity’s “species-
being” (Gattungswesen) whatsoever in a historical materialist settling of
 5
N O T- S O - S T R A N G E BE DFE LLOWS

accounts with Ludwig Feuerbach in particular. However, by situating the

Althusser of 1965 in relation to the much wider span of his corpus, from
his early studies of Hegel of the 1940s to his final preoccupation with an
“aleatory materialism of the encounter” in the 1980s, I claim to reveal a
hitherto-unknown Althusser (or Althussers) who elaborates a dialectical
materialist (quasi-)naturalism of a self-denaturalizing nature generally, as
well as a self-denaturalizing human nature specifically. This overlooked
trajectory within Althusser’s corpus, one informed by biology and psycho-
analysis (both to be taken up in parts 3 and 4) in addition to Marxism, sets
certain precedents for my own efforts to forge a dialectical naturalism as
a foundational component of transcendental materialism.
Chapter 10, on Lukács, begins at the beginning with the young phi-
losopher in the early 1920s. This Lukács, along with Karl Korsch and
his contemporaneous work Marxism and Philosophy, contributes to estab-
lishing a divide between Western-European and Eastern-Soviet Marxists
partly because of what the latter perceive as his insufficiently critical en-
gagement with pre-Marxian German idealism. But Lukács’s pointed dis-
paraging of Engels’s Naturdialektik, in which Lukács plays off historical
against dialectical materialism to the detriment of the latter, is an equally
condemnable deviation in the eyes of the Leninist Bolsheviks of the time.
However, in ways that I am convinced cannot be dismissively reduced
to politically expedient kowtowing to the authority of Moscow, the later
Lukács, as is well known, becomes profoundly self-critical of his early work
as epitomized by History and Class Consciousness. His mature oeuvre cul-
minates in the unfinished massive project on the Ontology of Social Being.
This neglected final endeavor, in which Lukács toils to lay the partly nat-
uralistic ontological foundations of both dialectical and historical ma-
terialism, contains invaluable buried treasures for both contemporary
leftist theory as well as ongoing conversations regarding continental
metaphysics today. As will be seen, there is a profound intellectual kin-
ship between Lukács’s Ontology of Social Being and my Prolegomena to Any
Future Materialism.
In part 3, I shift attention from Marxism to psychoanalysis. Accord-
ing to transcendental materialism’s Whiggish-Brandomian writing of its
own idiosyncratic pre-history, German idealist Naturphilosophie and Marx-
ist Naturdialektik are developed further by Freud implicitly and by Lacan,
at times, explicitly. To be more precise, psychoanalysis, along with the
dialectical naturalism and historical/dialectical materialism of Hegelian-
ism and Marxism respectively, pursues, within the history of philosophy in
modern Europe, a non-reductive materialism that includes within itself a
theory of subjectivity. On the European continent of the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries, this pursuit is a distinctive undercurrent weaving
6
I N T R O D UCT I O N

together, in my reading, Hegelian, Marxian, and Freudian-Lacanian ori-

entations. It runs against the grain of two other intellectual currents that
are themselves diametrically opposed to each other: on the one hand, an-
timaterialist stances, from Kantianism and German romanticism through
existentialisms, phenomenologies, structuralisms, post-structuralisms,
and so on (with these stances representing the vast bulk of what is con-
sidered to be “continental philosophy” and its offshoots); and on the
other hand, reductive materialisms à la Gustav Fechner, Karl Vogt, Jacob
Moleschott, Ludwig Büchner, and their ilk, with such nineteenth-century
movements as psycho-physicalism being no different in kind from, for in-
stance, eighteenth-century French materialism (or, for that matter, from
twentieth and twenty-first-century positions along the lines of elimina-
tive materialism). Following in the footsteps of Hegel, Marx, and others,
Freud and Lacan navigate between the polar-opposite extremes of ideal-
isms and contemplative materialisms (to borrow Marx’s language).
Admittedly, Freud, with his background in medicine and neurol-
ogy, as well as his educational indebtedness to Ernst Brücke in particular,
might appear to be more closely aligned with contemplative material-
ism (as involving specifically, in this instance, nineteenth-century psycho-
physicalism and positivism). Without being able to do justice to the mul-
tiple big questions surrounding the topic of Freud’s relations with various
things biological, suffice it to say that, even starting with an early work
such as the 1895 Project for a Scientific Psychology, there is little to no tex-
tual evidence supporting any reading of Freud as a thoroughly reductive
or eliminative materialist/naturalist. He consistently strives to acknowl-
edge and trace the complex interweaving of natural soma and more-than-
natural psyche in spontaneously dialectical fashions. Although Freud, so
to speak, represses explicit references to both German idealist Naturphi-
losophie and Marxist Naturdialektik, there nonetheless are implicit returns
of these repressed references throughout his body of work. Furthermore,
starting in the 1930s and 1940s, such pioneers as Wilhelm Reich and Otto
Fenichel lay the foundations for an overt rapprochement between Freud-
ianism and dialectical materialism,1 foundations built upon by various
successors (including members of the Frankfurt school).
Of course, Jacques Lacan, by contrast with Freud, is broadly and
deeply engaged explicitly with Western philosophy generally and post-
Kantian European philosophy/theory especially. More specifically, invo-
cations of and reflections upon Hegel and Marx (admittedly of varying
degrees of accuracy) can be found throughout Lacan’s teachings and
writings. He even goes so far as, at certain moments, to self-identify as
a dialectical materialist.2 Moreover, there is, in addition to the Frank-
furt school’s Freudo-Marxism, the more recent Lacano-Marxism of Alain
 7
N O T- S O - S T R A N G E BE DFE LLOWS

Badiou, Slavoj Žižek, and me, among others. This Lacano-Marxism in-
volves dialectical materialist elaborations of the Lacanian theoretical
framework. One of the upshots of these elaborations is exegetical and
argumentative confirmation to the effect that Lacan’s self-identifications
as a dialectical materialist are indeed sincere and accurate, to be taken
quite seriously.
Taking Lacan seriously in this manner, and doing so in conjunc-
tion with the reinterpretations of Hegelianism and Marxism carried out
in parts 1 and 2 respectively, I seek in part 3 to anchor Lacanianism in
the dialectical naturalism of transcendental materialism. Obviously, this
requires, among other things, further establishing and exploring con-
nections between, on the one hand, Lacanian metapsychology and, on
the other hand, both German idealist philosophy (with its dialectics and
negativities) as well as the natural sciences and their implications (as
per a dialectical materialism not lacking a Naturdialektik). What is more,
these establishments and explorations, as will become evident, bring me
into direct disagreement with a family of anti-naturalist Lacanianisms. At
various moments in part 3, I will challenge and problematize these sorts
of still-dominant construals of Lacan and his legacy.
Chapter 11 begins paving the way toward my transcendental-
materialist-as-dialectical-naturalist Lacanianism by selectively examining
some of what philosophy and science have to contribute to psychoanalysis
in terms of conceptions of objective, non-epiphenomenal negativities,
conceptions that are crucial for both psychoanalysis (with its stress on
real conflicts, disharmonies, and the like) and transcendental material-
ism (with its idea of weak nature first and foremost). Starting with John
Locke and Kant, modern philosophy occasionally entertains ideas about
“privative causality,” namely, the causal power of absences, deprivations,
lacks, and so on (Kant’s contributions to these speculations, and Lacan’s
remarks on this particular Kant, will be the focus of chapter 12). Very re-
cently, the biological anthropologist Terrence Deacon subtly reactivates
the concept of privative causality in his “absentialism,” namely, his theo-
retical incorporation of conceptions of causally efficacious absences into
the worldviews of the natural sciences. This chapter leads into my sub-
sequent materialist considerations, in part 3, of Kantian, Lacanian, and
post-Lacanian versions of different kinds of negativities through a critical
assessment of Deacon’s efforts.
As I just mentioned in the preceding paragraph, chapter 12 takes
up Kant’s critical-epistemological typology of four varieties of the nega-
tive and Lacan’s selective appropriations of this typology. Lacan, reject-
ing many core aspects of Kantian transcendental idealism, utilizes the
nihil negativum of the Critique of Pure Reason in particular so as to articu-
8
I N T R O D UCT I O N

late the rapport between the material Real and Symbolic subjectivity. My
glosses on the Lacanian nihil negativum foreshadow the rest of part 3
by highlighting connections between this Lacanianized Kantian concept
and Lacan’s accounts of embodiment (including, importantly, the bodies
of concern to biology). Moreover, this chapter’s combined recourse to
Kant and Lacan enables me to illustrate some of the distinctions that are
problematically disregarded and obscured in Deacon’s absentialism (as
dealt with in chapter 11).
Chapters 13 and 14 are closely tied to each other. Chapter 13 reveals
Lacan’s own overlooked naturalist commitments (particularly in and
around the accounts of the mirror stage). Chapter 14 then illustrates, on
the basis of Lacan’s partly naturalist dialectical materialism as delineated
by me in the preceding chapter (and elsewhere),3 what a contemporary
transcendental materialist Lacanian neuro-psychoanalysis might look
like— with this chapter mapping the idea of weak nature onto the human
central nervous system. A premise shared between chapters 13 and 14 is
that, despite Lacan’s somewhat deserved reputation as an adamant anti-
naturalist, his teachings, when read carefully to the letter, ought not to be
construed as categorically hostile to any and every possible interfacing of
psychoanalysis and biology.
As regards chapter 13 in particular, I strive therein to bring to light
Lacan’s realist and materialist depictions of the negativities manifest in
some of his central concepts (such as the “body-in-pieces” and the mir-
ror stage). Passing through a delineation of the organic à la Lacan and
also what I call the “anorganic,” I show how anorganicity, as a more-
than-organic transcendence that is nonetheless immanent to the organic,
simultaneously conjoins and disjoins the natural kingdoms of animal
organisms and the spiritual/minded jurisdictions of human subjects. If
the latter are “the night of the world” (Hegel), the darkness of this nega-
tivity is made possible by a pre/nonhuman “night of the living world” that
is internal to inhuman nature itself. “Anorganicity” is defined by me as
a disruption of organicity arising from within its own (dis)organization
(with this concept playing a pivotal role in the subsequent fourteenth
chapter). At stake here is a dialectical-speculative negation of the organic
that, nevertheless, is not simply a reversion to the inorganic. Accord-
ing to Lacan as following in Freud’s footsteps, the hybrid constellations
of affective emotions and libidinal motivations that make the immature
subject-to-be dependent on the mediations of external identifications for
the very sustenance of its biological life are provoked by the state of infan-
tile helplessness, which is itself a brute (and brutal) biological fact. This
initial bodily state is anorganic in my exact sense, in that Lacan qualifies
it, as will be seen, as an “intra-organic discordance,” “an original organic
 9
N O T- S O - S T R A N G E BE DFE LLOWS

chaos” situated “at the very heart of the organism.” Chapter 13 demon-
strates how, on this precise basis, psychoanalysis promises an immanent
critique of modern science (evolutionary biology especially) through
which the scientific edifice can be transformed significantly rather than
indefensibly neglected or untenably dismissed.
Chapter 14 proceeds to develop further, at the intersection of
Lacanian psychoanalysis and neurobiology, the idea of weak nature’s
anorganicity as paradigmatically embodied in human beings. In recent
years, several authors, including myself, have begun unfolding the rami-
fications of reinterpreting Lacan’s corpus on the basis of questions con-
cerning naturalism, materialism, realism, and the position of psychoanal-
ysis with respect to the sciences of today. In this chapter, I focus primarily
on the efforts of the analyst François Ansermet and the neuroscientist
Pierre Magistretti to forge a specifically Lacanian variant of neuro-
psychoanalysis (as distinct from better-known Anglo-American variants
relying upon non-Lacanian analytic orientations). Taking up Ansermet
and Magistretti’s interlinked theories of drive (Trieb) and autonomous
subjectivity, I develop an immanent critique of their project. Doing so
in a manner that is intended to acknowledge and preserve this neuro-
psychoanalytic duo’s significant insights and contributions, I aim to bring
into sharper relief the specific set of necessary as well as sufficient condi-
tions for what Ansermet, Magistretti, and me are all commonly pursuing:
an account of the genesis of denaturalized subjects out of embodied li-
bidinal economies, which is itself situated within the framework of a non-
reductive, quasi-naturalist materialism synthesizing resources drawn from
psychoanalysis, neurobiology, and philosophy. One of the contentions of
my sympathetic critique of Ansermet and Magistretti is that they remain
at the level of necessary conditions without reaching that of sufficient
conditions (the latter being the concern of the third and final volume of
my Prolegomena to Any Future Materialism).
On the basis of chapters 11 through 14 (and hence, within over-
laps between philosophy, psychoanalysis, and science), chapter 15 brings
part 3 to a close by contrasting my conception of materialist negativity
developed in this part with other, contemporaneous pseudo-materialist
negativities. Herein, I distinguish between two basic, fundamental con-
ceptions of the sorts of negativity associated with subjectivity throughout
modern European philosophy up to the present: on the one hand, a
mystical vision in which the unexplained explainer of a mysterious noth-
ingness is appealed to as a ground-zero given; and on the other hand, a
materialist idea according to which the real privative causes of absences
and antagonisms are internally generated out of precisely specifiable
natural and human historical processes involving accumulations of mul-
10
I N T R O D UCT I O N

titudes of concrete elements and features. Arguing against the former

conception as complacently resting upon the dogma of a “myth of the
non-given” (borrowing a phrase from Wilfrid Sellars so as to refer to
the notion of the factical givenness of negativity, with negativity as itself
non-givenness), I plead for the latter conception and sketch a dialectical-
speculative “more is less” dynamic in which surpluses of positivity im-
manently give rise to negativities. This dynamic is an essential part of a
non-reductive materialism that includes within itself lacks and conflicts
as causally efficacious factors (and is therefore relevant to, for instance,
Deacon’s absentialism as sketched in chapters 11 and 12). I flesh out these
lines of thought by referring back to my reinterpretations of the transi-
tion from the organic to the anthropological in Hegel (as per part 1), as
well as the mirror stage as an account of ego- and subject-formation in
Lacan (as per chapter 13).
Part 4 transitions from Lacanian psychoanalysis to contemporary
Anglo-American neo-Hegelianism— and, in so doing, brings things full
circle by returning to Hegel (the focus of part 1). Although this transition
might seem like an abrupt non sequitur, chapter 16 seeks to dispel such
an appearance. Specifically, it explains how John McDowell’s “naturalism
of second nature” — this specific position is what makes McDowell my
favored representative among analytic neo-Hegelians— dovetails signifi-
cantly with Lacan’s underappreciated quasi-naturalist dialectical material-
ism (the latter being delineated in part 3). In chapter 16, I set the stage
for the rest of part 4 by outlining why and how McDowellian naturalism
is an invaluable point of reference for transcendental materialism, allow-
ing the latter to sharpen itself through comparisons and contrasts with
the former.
Chapters 17 and 18 elaborate what, for me, are the key features
of McDowell’s philosophy. In chapter 17, I reconstruct McDowell’s rela-
tions with German idealism, especially his manner of re-traversing the
historical and philosophical path from Kantian subjective idealism to
Hegelian absolute idealism. In chapter 18, I examine how his German
idealism-inspired denial of the reality of nonconceptual perceptual con-
tent (an epistemological thesis that is perhaps the best-known feature of
McDowellian philosophy) motivates and supports his proposals to ren-
der second nature immanent to first nature. In both chapters, I also play
off McDowell’s commitments to Hegelian absolute idealism against his
lingering, inconsistent commitments to Kantian subjective idealism. The
latter sometimes prompt McDowell regrettably to refrain from conse-
quently exploring and embracing the ontological/metaphysical dimen-
sions and implications of his innovative quasi-naturalism.
Chapters 19 and 20 shift into me laying out my own proposals in re-
 11
N O T- S O - S T R A N G E BE DFE LLOWS

sponse to McDowell’s naturalism of second nature— and, in the process,

bringing into the discussion Nancy Cartwright’s highly relevant work in
the philosophy of science. Chapter 19 situates McDowell (along with his
frequent sparring partner Robert Pippin, another leading representative
of Anglo-American neo-Hegelianism) at the intersection of psychoanal-
ysis, science, and philosophy that shapes the entirety of the present book.
In this chapter, I maintain that McDowell, Pippin, and those of like mind
share in common, despite certain internal differences, questionable ideas
about the naturalism of the natural sciences. Specifically, I contend that
the reductive and eliminative scientisms to which McDowell, Pippin, and
others are rightly opposed can and should be intra-scientifically, rather
than extra-scientifically, undone. From an angle combining the perspec-
tives covered in the first three parts of this book (i.e., Hegelian Naturphi-
losophie, Marxian dialectical materialism, and Lacanian metapsychology),
the sciences of nature can and should be enlisted in the struggle to re-
place the strong nature (as mechanistic, deterministic, etc.) of reductive
and eliminative naturalisms with the weak nature of a quasi-naturalism
(such as the dialectical naturalism of transcendental materialism). This
entails reconceptualizing McDowell’s “second nature” as ultimately made
possible not by the addition (as a “second” added to a “first”) of some-
thing to a first nature erroneously assumed to enjoy ironclad causal clo-
sure, but instead, by the subtraction from first nature of what is attributed
to it by just such an objectionable assumption.
As the next chapter goes on to show, Cartwright’s realist empiricism
regarding a “dappled world” furnishes me with the analytic philosophy
of science corresponding to the moves I suggest making with respect to
McDowell in chapter 19. In the twentieth and final chapter of this sec-
ond volume of my Prolegomena to Any Future Materialism, I foreground
the resources provided to me by Cartwright. Furthermore, I employ her
Hume-indebted recasting of the sciences’ causal laws in order to set up
the transition to the projected third volume of this trilogy (Substance Also
as Subject). I foreshadow, at the end of chapter 20, the theory of subjectiv-
ity that is central to the third volume of Prolegomena to Any Future Material-
ism. Overall, the Prolegomena trilogy as a whole strives to develop a thor-
oughly materialist yet anti-reductive account of subjects at the crossroads
of philosophy, psychoanalysis, and the life sciences. This second volume
(A Weak Nature Alone) focuses on the ontology of nature demanded by
such an account. This ontology of nature, as an anti-reductive naturalism,
can be conceived of as establishing the necessary conditions for transcen-
dental materialism’s theory of the subject. The forthcoming third volume
will proceed to elaborate the sufficient conditions (over and above the
necessary ones) for this same theory.
Part 1

The Voiding of Weak Nature:

The Transcendental Materialist
Kernels of Hegel’s Philosophy
of Nature
1

Revivifying Hegel: Breathing New

Life into Naturphilosophie

Not many of Hegel’s commentators and critics bother to refer directly to

his philosophy of nature (Naturphilosophie) as elaborated primarily in the
second volume of the Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences.1 And among
even this minority, only some are sympathetic to the Hegelian engage-
ment with nature and the natural sciences. In short, the Hegel of the
Philosophy of Nature has very few defenders. However, this small but vocal
contingent of defenders indeed complains (quite rightly, in my view)
about the unfairness and indefensibility of the post-Popperian tendency
to ignore what Hegel has to say regarding nature and its investigation by
empirical approaches and experimental methods.2
Of course, such things as Hegel’s advocacy of Johann Wolfgang von
Goethe’s theory of color (contrary to Isaac Newton’s optics), and what
appears to be his pre-Darwinian categorical rejection of the possibility
of natural evolution, have turned into embarrassments for those of his
successors who wish to present an intellectually respectable portrait of
this philosopher to the uninitiated and unconverted. Quite predictably,
several of Hegel’s speculative gambles taken on certain determinate con-
tents of the natural sciences of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth
centuries have not proven to be winning bets over the longer haul of the
history of ideas. Nevertheless, these scattered blemishes on the record of
the Hegelian philosophy of nature should not, strictly on their own, be
enough to justify and prompt its abandonment in toto. In the absence of
solid arguments to the contrary, nothing should stop a charitable inter-
preter of Hegel from sifting through the text of the Philosophy of Nature
and related works with the aim of salvaging and rebuilding what is of
lasting value and legitimacy, both theoretical and empirical, to be found
therein.3
However, on both sides of the analytic-continental divide, deep-
running currents generally prevailing in the unfolding of philosophy
after Hegel have conspired to push Hegelian Naturphilosophie into dis-
repute and obscurity. Instances of Hegel’s having been on the wrong side
of the history of the sciences, such as the above-mentioned pro-Goethe
and anti-evolution positions, are taken as symptomatic of an overreaching

15
16
T H E V O I DI NG OF WE AK NAT URE

philosophical hubris pretending to be able to legislate in an a priori man-

ner over the a posteriori sciences of the natural world. This oft-purported
pomposity makes Hegel’s misjudgments and errors concerning some of
the empirical components of his Philosophy of Nature into damning pieces
of evidence indicting the fundamental soundness of the whole of this
sector of his system (if not his system altogether, especially for those who
view its “absolute idealism” as an absurd metaphysics of a transcendent,
Godlike mega-Mind pulling the strings of finite natural and human reali-
ties dangling puppetlike in a logically determined Below). The Anglo-
American analytic and continental European philosophical traditions of
the twentieth century share, in addition to an obsession with language
(à la the plethora of permutations of the “linguistic turn”), antimeta-
physical proclivities that not infrequently manifest themselves in varied
rejections of and polemics against what Hegel is seen as representing in
the Western philosophical past.
The present phase of Hegel’s reception in the English-speaking
world remains largely under the shadow cast by Charles Taylor’s bulky
1975 study of the panoramic sweep of his thought. Taylor works at maneu-
vering his and Hegel’s readers into confronting a forced choice between
either a Hegel with a ridiculously puffed-up and overly ambitious meta-
physics of “cosmic” Spirit, or a Hegel shorn of this philosophically un-
tenable mysticism of divine universal Geist (i.e., a historicized Hegelian-
ism disburdened of Hegel’s more difficult and provocative transhistorical
commitments at the levels of ontology and epistemology).4 With these
supposedly being the only two alternatives, such contemporary giants of
Anglo-American scholarship on German idealism as Robert Pippin5 and
Allen Wood,6 accepting (with differing degrees of implicitness and explic-
itness) the constraining binary coordinates laid down by Taylor’s inter-
pretation, repudiate the overblown metaphysical/onto-theological Hegel
(as portrayed by Taylor) and exclusively embrace, as ostensibly the sole
alternative, the deflated quasi-Kantian, sociohistorical Hegel who is ac-
ceptable to the tastes of analytic philosophers of language and American
pragmatists, with their post-metaphysical palettes. What is more, the
chapter devoted to the Philosophy of Nature in Taylor’s Hegel is the short-
est of the twenty composing the book, counting a mere twelve pages out
of almost six hundred; therein, Taylor writes it off as “derivative” (vis-à-vis
Schelling and German romanticism)7 and, in places, “disastrous.”8 Pip-
pin goes so far as to deem the second volume of the Encyclopedia to be a
wholly unrewarding and completely unimportant part of Hegel’s philo-
sophical system that is best left in the dustbin of intellectual history even
by diehard Hegelians.9 With friends like these, Hegel, who did indeed
write the Philosophy of Nature as the middle third of his encyclopedic ap-
paratus,10 certainly does not need enemies.
 17
R EV I V I F Y I NG HE GE L

On the continental side of Hegel’s reception, the backlash against

construals (of varying degrees of inaccuracy) of Hegelian absolute
idealism begins, as is well known, during Hegel’s lifetime with Schelling’s
attacks ensuing soon after the 1807 Phenomenology of Spirit wounds the
latter and institutes a break between these two former friends and collab-
orators. Starting with Schelling, a long line of Hegelian discontents forms,
a line reading like a “who’s who” of the last two centuries of European
philosophy: Søren Kierkegaard, Arthur Schopenhauer, Marx, Friedrich
Nietzsche, Freud, and on through the rest of the twentieth century up to
such figures as Gilles Deleuze and Jacques Derrida. Of course, twentieth-
century Marxist theory in Europe remains, in line with its nineteenth-
century original sources, self-consciously (albeit ambivalently) indebted
to Hegelian dialectics. Engels and Dietzgen are inspired by the Philosophy
of Nature as well as by much of the rest of Hegel’s philosophy. But, starting
with the early Lukács, Hegel’s philosophy of nature— which, incidentally,
ought not to be confused with the Schellingian strains responsible for the
prevailing bad reputation of German idealist Naturphilosophie as repeat-
edly derided by Freud,11 among many others12 — gets tacitly rubbished,
along with the pointed trashing of the Engelsian “dialectics of nature.”
Similarly, Béatrice Longuenesse, driven into the depths of Hegelianism
thanks to Althusser and French controversies bearing upon the Hegel-
Marx rapport,13 blames the Engels of the unfinished Dialectics of Nature,
in the opening paragraph of her Hegel’s Critique of Metaphysics, for helping
to discredit Hegel’s philosophy as a whole,14 a philosophy she ties quite
tightly to Kant’s antirealist transcendental idealism (as does Pippin eight
years later in his enormously influential, and hotly contested, 1989 study
Hegel’s Idealism: The Satisfactions of Self-Consciousness). So-called “Western
Marxism” and its offshoots come to accept the young Lukács’s condem-
natory verdict without question as the decisive last word on any and every
Naturdialektik.15 The European continent of the twentieth century, with
its virulent allergic reactions to modernity’s empirical and experimental
sciences of nature across vast swathes of both the political (including the
far Right) and philosophical spectrums (not only Western Marxism, but
also phenomenology, existentialism, select currents of structuralism and
post-structuralism, etc.), is a cold, inhospitable place for the Hegel of the
Philosophy of Nature, however much welcoming recognition is accorded to
other Hegels.
My transcendental materialist (as also dialectical naturalist) revival
of a realist Hegel generally and his Naturphilosophie specifically, pursued
in the following four chapters of part 1, bases itself upon certain cross-
resonances between core components of Hegel’s dialectical-speculative
system. First and foremost, there is the renowned statement from the
preface to the Phenomenology of Spirit describing “the True, not only as
18
T H E V O I DI NG OF WE AK NAT URE

Substance, but equally as Subject” (“das Wahre nicht als Substanz, sondern
ebensosehr als Subjekt”).16 I have reflected at length upon the historical
and contemporary theoretical implications of this statement on other oc-
casions.17 Nonetheless, given the importance of substance-also-as-subject
for my reconstruction of Hegelian philosophy in the present context,
some additional remarks about it are appropriate.
The 1807 Phenomenology of Spirit, the first of Hegel’s major works,
marks the beginning of his mature philosophical system properly speak-
ing. As H. S. Harris highlights, not only is there a remarkable stability
exhibited by the ideas and texts of Hegel’s maturity from 1807 until his
death in 1831,18 but the positions spelled out in the Phenomenology’s pref-
ace consistently hold good for the system unfolding thereafter.19 Hence,
one can reasonably conclude that substance-also-as-subject is something
that is enduringly relevant to and operative within the Hegelian frame-
work after 1807.20
Harris additionally proposes that, for Hegel, materialisms, with
their efforts (starting with the ancient Greek atomists) to make self-
moving objective matter the principle of subjective mind too, at least
enjoy the virtue of being “on the road to the recognition of substance
as subject.”21 (Ernst Bloch similarly notes that Hegel-the-absolute-idealist
values atomistic materialism thanks to its affirmation of a self-standing
but fully knowable external world.)22 A passage in Hegel’s 1801 Differenz-
schrift indeed validates Harris’s assertion here.23 Similarly, Terry Pinkard
construes the Hegelian rapprochement between substance and subject
as symptomatic of foundational philosophical commitments to natural-
ism24 (albeit a naturalism distinct from that of Schellingian Naturphilo-
sophie, with the latter’s Spinozistic tendency to dissolve subject into sub-
stance without remainder, into an intellectually intuited “night in which
all cows are black”).25 By Hegel’s lights, systematically explaining, rather
than brusquely explaining away, both subjective and objective Geist (i.e.,
“subject”) within the parameters of a real-philosophical metaphysics of
Natur (i.e., “substance”) requires what would amount to a radically non-
reductive (quasi-)naturalist materialism. Along these lines — here I re-
sort to the correlative converse of Bernard Mabille’s accurate observa-
tion that “for Hegel, there is no elevation of the inferior without lowering of the
superior”26 — there is, at least when it comes to rendering the subjects of
Spirit as generated by and immanent to the substances of Nature, no low-
ering of the superior (spiritual subjectivity) without an elevation of the
inferior (natural substantiality).27
Hegel is careful to preserve a difference between substance and sub-
ject, to maintain the irreducibility of each to the other.28 This emphasis is
crucial considering the fact that lamentably commonplace caricatures of
 19
R EV I V I F Y I NG HE GE L

Hegel depict him as a theosophical spirit monist for whom substance as

the totality of being is reducible to subject as mind/(self-)consciousness
writ large. To take just one (prominent) example among many, Mar-
tin Heidegger repeatedly identifies Hegel as an idealist in the standard
modern philosophical sense (i.e., a subjectivist thinker opposed to ma-
terialisms, naturalisms, and realisms)29 and insistently misreads the Phe-
nomenology’s preface as speaking of substance as being or equaling sub-
ject (instead of substance also being subject).30 Against this, Hegelian
substantiality and subjectivity are irreducible to each other. Moreover, in
a simultaneously materialist, naturalist, and realist manner, I (along with
certain others)31 see the substance of Natur as enjoying existence prior to
and independent of the subject of Geist.
Insofar as the conception of substance-also-as-subject remains cen-
tral to Hegel’s later system, itself embodied in an Encyclopedia whose
middle third is constituted by a Naturphilosophie, there must be, and in-
deed is, a connection between this 1807 conception and the Hegelian
philosophy of nature (especially as the latter relates to its succeeding
Geistesphilosophie as the final third of the Encyclopedia). A helpful gloss on
Hegel’s Naturphilosophie in general by Pinkard provides me with a means
to introduce my understanding of the link between substance-also-as-
subject and nature within Hegelianism:

Naturphilosophie studies the “Idea” of nature, that is, the overall concep-
tion of nature that must be in play in order for the space of reasons to
realize itself in practice and which is nonetheless also consistent with
the findings of the natural sciences. The overall goal of the Naturphilo-
sophie is to show that nature ultimately fails to give an account of itself,
or, to put it more prosaically, the possibility of a completely naturalistic
account of the practices of the natural sciences (that is, the practices of
giving scientific accounts of nature) requires that a non-naturalistic
(but nonetheless non-dualist) conception of Geist be brought into play
to make good on the aims and claims of those practices.32

Pinkard’s entire treatment of Hegel’s system in his 2002 survey of Ger-

man philosophy shows him to be thoroughly in thrall to the anachronistic
Brandomian version of Hegel as an inferentialist and social-rationality
pragmatist avant la lettre.33 The talk of “the space of reasons” as well as
of “accounts” and “practices” testifies to the Brandomianism that colors
these just-quoted remarks.
The primary distortion that Brandomization introduces into
Pinkard’s treatment here of the Hegelian philosophy of nature is the
reduction of the “Idea” (as in “the ‘Idea’ of nature”) to the ideational,
20
T H E V O I DI NG OF WE AK NAT URE

namely, to categories and concepts as per Kantian-style subjective (rather

than absolute) idealism (a distortion making incomprehensible Hegel’s
identity-in-difference between Logik and Realphilosophie and his natural
Real’s extra-categorial, more-than-ideational status). By “Idea” (Idee),
Hegel refers to structures and dynamics that cut across the divide between
minded subjectivity and worldly objectivity. Hegel’s Idea is always already
incarnated in the pre/nonsubjective Real, in objective, extra-mental
being(s), in addition to manifesting itself sometimes in and through the
categorial and conceptual contents/moments of (self-)conscious think-
ing too.34 All of this is to say that, by conflating the Hegelian Idee with sub-
jective idealist cognitions, the Brandomian Pinkard, however intention-
ally or not, excessively and unjustifiably downplays the ontological stakes
of Hegel’s Naturphilosophie in favor of epistemological issues.35 Contrary to
Pinkard, the Hegelian Idea of nature would be mind-independent Natur
an sich (nature in itself) as endowed with forms and functions that can
be known by minded and like-minded subjects as (among other things)
epistemological agents with their “ideas” as mental categories and con-
cepts mirroring (when things go right) the forms and functions of the
objective Real.36
These objections of mine aside, the above block quotation makes
three interwoven points that are essential for my own purposes. First,
Pinkard underscores — this goes against Hegel’s undeserved bad repu-
tation for allegedly riding roughshod over anything and everything
empirical37 — that Hegelian Naturphilosophie requires of itself responsive-
ness to and compatibility with the theories and practices of the natural
sciences. I would add that the same requirement holds for any truly ma-
terialist materialism as well.
Second, Hegel’s metaphysics of nature crucially involves con-
templating Natur specifically insofar as it has eventuated in Geist, and
retroactively (re)thinking natural substance with the Owl of Minerva’s
benefit of hindsight furnished by the fact that this (self-sundering, auto-
dialecticizing) substance just so happens to have produced out of itself
denaturalized, reflective/reflexive subjectivities.38 This entails asking and
answering the pivotal question: what must nature be, given that subjects
are both possibilities and actualities immanently arising from it? With
Hegel rejecting both metaphysical realisms and ontological dualisms, this
question becomes unavoidable for systematic, encyclopedic philosophy.
Third, Pinkard highlights, in a tacitly materialist-naturalist manner,
that the internal limitations to the explanatory powers of both the natural
sciences and, consequently, Naturphilosophie too must be established in
and through the natural sciences themselves. Through a via negativa con-
structed by a philosophy of nature, these intra-scientifically delineated
 21
R EV I V I F Y I NG HE GE L

limitations indirectly indicate the need for anti-reductive, more-than-

scientific (yet still science-compatible) explanations of spiritual subjec-
tivity in excess of garden-variety scientistic naturalisms. This implicitly
echoes the immanent (instead of external) dialectical-speculative critique
of certain natural scientific efforts to get to grips with both life in general
and sapient life in particular, a critique that was pioneered by Hegel in
the Phenomenology of Spirit (specifically, the discussion of “Observing Rea-
son” therein). Moreover, with Pinkard’s highlighting of nature’s inabil-
ity on its own either to explain itself (as an sich but not an und für sich)
or to explain its explanations of itself proffered in and through human
explainers (for instance, natural scientists), there are resonances with
Hegel’s notion-motif of “the weakness of nature” (die Ohnmacht der Na-
tur). As will soon be seen below, this weakness (or impotence) of natural
substance, manifesting itself in a number of guises, serves as the ultimate
necessary (albeit not necessarily sufficient) condition for the contingent
coming-to-be of denaturalized/self-denaturalizing subjects.
In addition to the weakness of natural substance being a neces-
sary condition for the nature-immanent genesis of more-than-natural
subjectivity— this thesis already makes Hegel a significant forefather of
transcendental materialism — Hegel’s Naturphilosophie contains stipula-
tions to the effect that sapient human animals represent an immanent
transcendence, an internal exception, to the rest of material-natural exis-
tence (as do organisms in general with respect to inorganic nature).39
With the emergences both of the organic from the inorganic and the
minded from the organic, there is, for Hegel, discontinuity-in-continuity,
namely, an inner break of Befreiung (liberation) that grants a degree of
self-sufficiency and free-standingness to these emergent structures and
dynamics.40
Herbert Marcuse, in his admittedly Lebensphilosophie-inspired and
Heidegger-supervised dissertation of 1932, manages nicely to bring out
these dialectical-speculative aspects of transcendence-in-immanence and
discontinuity-in-continuity that are interwoven with Hegel’s discussions
of life both nonhuman and human.41 In particular, Marcuse’s comments
in this vein zoom in on the position of Hegelian Leben (life) between the
historical and the ahistorical. He claims that “life, as historical, carries
within itself the possibility of its own ahistoricity,”42 to which he later adds
that “the ‘absolute’ and intrinsically ahistorical being . . . emerges in and
out of history!”43 In this reconstruction of Hegel, internally disharmoni-
ous creaturely existence,44 especially that of conflicted human animals,45
restlessly strives to overcome itself, to move beyond its dissatisfactions
and deficiencies.46 In so doing, such life, in and through self-conscious
organisms specifically, historically eventuates thereafter in transhistorical
22
T H E V O I DI NG OF WE AK NAT URE

configurations and phenomena. For Hegel, these transhistorical con-

figurations and phenomena are certain facets of Geist— including the
coming-to-self-consciousness, in and through the “logical” thinking of
the philosopher, of the categories and concepts that equally structure
both the natural and spiritual Reals.47
In sum, all of the following elements are already to be found in
Hegel’s philosophical system: philosophical sensitivity to the empirical,
experimental sciences of nature; reverse-engineering the “Idea” of
natural substance out of spiritual subjects; narrating the natural sciences’
spontaneously delineated self-limitations as intra-scientific allowances of
room for entities and events exceeding these sciences’ circumscribed
ontological regions; the weakness of nature, the impotence of this Subs-
tanz, as a necessary condition of possibility for the coming-to-be of full-
fledged subjectivity; and this subjectivity’s genesis as immanent to natural
substance and, moreover, as generating a form of subjectivity that is tan-
tamount to a subsequent transcendence-in-immanence. Furthermore,
these elements firmly establish Hegel as the true grandfather of both dia-
lectical and transcendental materialisms. They will be the guiding threads
of the next four chapters of this first part.
2

From Bern to Jena: The Oldest

Agenda of Hegelianism

The heterodox Hegel that I will be portraying throughout the rest of this
part is both a realist and a materialist who readily acknowledges and re-
spects various modes and instances of radically irreducible contingency.1
Regarding the chronological sequence of Hegel’s writings, I will begin in
this chapter with some pre-Phenomenology pieces (drawn mostly from the
Jena period [1801– 07]), turn my attention thereafter to the Phenomenol-
ogy itself (chapter 3), and finally come (in chapters 4 and 5) to the later
Heidelberg- and Berlin-era Encyclopedia and related texts. (I will address
the 1812–16 Science of Logic in connection with the Encyclopedia Logic.) The
Hegel who will emerge from this reexamination is the arch-ancestor of
transcendental materialism.
In a 1796 fragment fittingly entitled “The Earliest System-Program
of German Idealism,” the young Hegel, while a Hofmeister in Bern, reflects
upon some of the philosophical ramifications of the French Revolution
bequeathed to Kant and his successors. These reflections will become
lifelong foci of Hegel’s thought.2 Not only do I side with those who iden-
tify Hegel as the author of this 1796 fragment,3 but I would contend that
even if Schelling or someone else was its author, its agenda nonetheless
profoundly shaped Hegel’s subsequent development.4 Quickly jumping
from the politics of practical philosophy to the (meta)physics of theo-
retical philosophy, Hegel announces therein:

Since the whole of metaphysics falls for the future within moral theory . . .
this ethics will be nothing less than a complete system of all ideas or
of all practical postulates (which is the same thing). The first idea
is, of course, the presentation of myself as an absolutely free entity.
Along with the free, self-conscious essence, there stands forth— out of
nothing — an entire world, the one true and thinkable creation out of
nothing. — Here I shall descend into the realms of physics; the question
is this: how must a world be constituted for a moral entity? I would like
to give wings once more to our backward physics, that advances labori-
ously by experiments.5

23
24
T H E V O I DI NG OF WE AK NAT URE

He immediately proceeds to add:

Thus, if philosophy supplies the ideas, and experience the data, we may
at last come to have in essentials the physics that I look forward to for
later times. It does not appear that our present-day physics can satisfy a
creative spirit such as ours is or ought to be.6

In Hegel’s reading, the practical elevation of freedom to historical center

stage in the France of 1789 is a political event— this revolt brings to an
explosive, spectacular climax the implications flowing from the spiritual
revolution originating in the sixteenth-century German-speaking world
(i.e., the Protestant Reformation with its individualism) — that is theo-
retically mirrored in the philosophies of Kant and Fichte (with these
philosophies being interpreted here as founded upon a new emphasis on
the absolute primacy of thoroughgoing subjective autonomy).7 Roughly
contemporaneous with the beginnings of Schelling’s post-Kantian ven-
tures in Naturphilosophie, Hegel calls for a rethinking of the nature of
natural science on the basis of this fresh conception of the inviolable
practical and theoretical privileges to be accorded to free subjectivity.
This heralded project is not only one red thread of a dialectical endeavor
to transform simultaneously and in tandem ideas of Nature and Spirit,8
but also a core component of transcendental materialism as I conceive it.
When Žižek asks, “What ontology does freedom imply?,”9 this de-
serves to be heard as an echo of a question that Hegel (as quoted above)
raises at the outset of his philosophical career: “How must a world be
constituted for a moral entity?” (Wie muß eine Welt für ein moralisches Wesen
beschaffen sein?).10 What is more, Hegel’s employment of the word “phys-
ics” (Physik),11 in line with its standard usage at the time, refers to the post-
Galilean, post-Baconian natural sciences as epitomized by Newtonian me-
chanics. Hence, the Hegel of 1796 already foreshadows his 1807 substance
with subject— as also does the Hegel of the Frankfurt-period “The Spirit
of Christianity and Its Fate”12 (1798– 1800) and the Jena-period Faith and
Knowledge 13 (1802)— namely, a rendering immanent of spiritual subjec-
tivity to natural objectivity such that the significance and status of “mate-
rialism” and “naturalism” as science-shaped philosophical positions are
fundamentally altered in the process.14
With regard to what evolves into Hegel’s vision of nature as an auto-
sundering, self-shattering substance, Gérard Lebrun identifies as one of
the goals of Hegelianism “a revision of its [nature’s] ontological status.”15
Lebrun’s explanation of this, which I think is correct, is that “human
nature,” as embedded from start to finish within the lone plane of mate-
rial nature (as “absolute” as without an Elsewhere), is a fragment of a
 25
F R O M B ERN T O JE NA

pre/nonhuman nature that has exceeded and broken with itself by inter-
nally giving rise to logics of “denaturalization.”16 This could be character-
ized as analogous to Kant’s “Copernican revolution” as described in the
“Preface to the Second Edition” of the Critique of Pure Reason.17 That is
to say, instead of asking what spiritual subjectivity must be like in order
to fit in with natural substance, Hegel, Žižek, and I invert the question
(without, for all that, simply reverting to an idealism of equal vulgarity
with reductive or eliminative materialism): what must natural substance
be like in order to generate, accommodate, and contain within itself spiri-
tual subjectivity?
Before taking up these themes in the Phenomenology of Spirit on the
way to Hegel’s mature philosophical system of the Heidelberg and Berlin
periods, it would be appropriate to briefly underline a few textual high-
lights from the Jena years prior to the Phenomenology. During this time
of his alliance with Schelling, Hegel associates a slogan with Schelling’s
identity philosophy which the latter adopts approvingly:18 “the Absolute
itself is the identity of identity and non-identity” (Das Absolute selbst aber ist
darum die Identität der Identität und der Nichtidentität);19 or, as Hegel puts it
in 1800, a year before his Differenzschrift, this living reality is “the union of
union and non-union” (die Verbindung der Verbindung und der Nichtverbin-
dung).20 He unwaveringly holds to what these phrases designate even long
after, and despite, the split with Schelling provoked by the Phenomenol-
ogy’s renowned denigration of Schellingian Identitätsphilosophie as noth-
ing more than a vacuous Spinozistic “night in which all cows are black.”21
One popular but inaccurate textbook portrayal of Hegel is as a
thinker enamored of universal organic holism, mesmerized by grandi-
ose visions of a divine totality. Sticking just to his Jena writings for the
time being, at the exact moment when Hegel arrives at his formulation
of absolute identity also taken up by Schelling, he cautions, “The claims
of separation [Trennung] must be admitted just as much as those of iden-
tity . . . Philosophy must give the separation [Trennen] into subject and
object its due.”22 Suffice it to note for now, a wholeheartedly organicist
philosopher would not be able to do real justice to the rights of “sepa-
ration” (as difference, non-identity, disunion, etc.) as advocated by the
Hegel of the Differenzschrift.23
I say all of this in anticipation of soon advancing in detail my in-
terpretation according to which Hegel’s philosophy, especially its Na-
turphilosophie, is committed to, among other things, a strong version of
what nowadays is labeled “emergentism” as a theoretical paradigm in the
sciences of nature.24 Compactly phrased in Hegelese, “separation” (Tren-
nung) is a discontinuity immanently arising out of continuity in a strong-
emergentist fashion avant la lettre. In other words, the subject separat-
26
T H E V O I DI NG OF WE AK NAT URE

ing from substance, achieving self-relating independence thereby (i.e.,

rupturing whatever presupposed unified identity that substance enjoyed
with itself, if it ever did), is a splitting off from the substantial objectivity
of nature generated within this very same natural substance itself.25 Such
would be the axiomatic claim of the Hegel who is a major forerunner of
transcendental materialism.
Another commonplace caricature of Hegel, one that might be
conjured up by certain skeptics of a science-compatible materialist re-
cuperation of Hegelianism today, is that of the wacky spiritualist mystic
enthralled by a radically antirealist absolutism of cosmic Spirit, a sub-
jectivist solipsism writ large as the God of universal Mind. This carica-
ture is underwritten by a crude, erroneous conflation of Hegel’s absolute
idealism with a Kantian-style subjective idealism that he never tires of
harshly criticizing right up until his death. Regardless of the misleading
label, Hegelian “idealism” involves an objective realism and, relatedly, a
materialism of the subjective as much as an idealism of the objective (the
latter amounting to an assertion of the in-principle infinite openness of
the object-world to minded knowing).26 Prior to the Phenomenology, in and
after which Hegel’s immanent-critical demolitions of subjective idealism
are glaringly and undeniably apparent, he already warns multiple times
against his audience hearing his use of words like “idea” and “conscious-
ness” as tantamount to hoisting the flag of a Kantian or Fichtean brand
of idealist subjectivism.27
One of Žižek’s favorite passages in the whole of the Hegelian oeuvre,
the one famously describing human beings as “the night of the world”
(die Nacht der Welt), is located in the 1805–06 Jenaer Realphilosophie.28 The
subject as this night, a motif that Žižek traces from the Cartesian cogito
to the Lacanian “barred S” ($), is identified by Hegel with “the inte-
rior of nature” (das Innere der Natur). This is already to hint, as becomes
evident in Hegel’s later works, that, as Lacan would phrase it, there is
something in nature more than nature itself. (In the subsection on “Psy-
chology” in the Philosophy of Mind, Hegel redeploys this Jena-era image,
describing human “intelligence” as, in certain respects, resembling a
“night-like mine or pit” [nächtlichen Schacht],29 or a “blank night” [einfa-
chen Nacht].)30 Hegel here insinuates that nature, rather than being the
placid organic evenness of a uniform totality that is undisturbed by any
destabilizing imbalances, is perturbed from within itself, and contains in
its material immanence an unevenness introduced by points of lopsided,
violent withdrawal and condensation, whirlpools coming to demarcate
spiraling orbits of enclosed self-relating kinetics. These internally gener-
ated and subsisting loci, as ravenous black holes of inwardizing gravity,
are symptoms of, as it were, naturally unnatural negativity. The potency
 27
F R O M B ERN T O JE NA

of denaturalizing, potentially subject-forming negativity arises out of a

zero-level feebleness of nature as nature’s lack of steely-strong bonds of
unbreakable, seamless, and monistic integration/cohesion. As the young
Althusser eloquently remarks in 1947 (on the occasion of the publication
of Alexandre Kojève’s lectures on the Phenomenology) with respect to the
above passage, “Night is not, in Hegel, the blind peace of darkness . . . It
is, by the grace of man, the birth of Light.”31 He continues:

Hegel saw in man a sick animal who neither dies nor recovers, but
stubbornly insists on living on in a nature terrified of him. The animal
kingdom reabsorbs its monsters, the economy its crises: man alone is a
triumphant error who makes his aberration the law of the world. At the
level of nature, man is an absurdity, a gap in being, an “empty nothing,”
a “Night.”32

Hegelian nature is constitutively unable to abort, reabsorb, or rein back

in the human monsters that it gives birth to as a matter of contingency;
it is too powerless to triumph over these unruly, rebellious creatures who
are its own (by-)products, embodying insistent powers of disruptive, un-
chained negativity.33 Or, as Catherine Malabou expresses this same line
of thought in her admirable unpacking of “habit” (die Gewohnheit) in
Hegel’s later systematic philosophical anthropology of subjective spirit,
“what is exemplary about man is less human-ness than his status as an
insistent accident.”34
Althusser’s association of die Nacht der Welt (the night of the world)
with sickness, both in the quotation above and elsewhere,35 is quite fortu-
itous.36 In the unfinished manuscripts of his 1803– 04 System of Speculative
Philosophy, Hegel, approximately two years before his well-known descrip-
tion of the night of the world, pinpoints organic illness as the catalyst
spurring the transition from natural animality to spiritual humanity.37 A
few commentators, including Althusser’s colleague Jean Hyppolite, have
noted this Jena-period treatment of Krankheit.38 Tying this 1803– 04 mo-
ment to threads I have already laid out, Hegel appears to be suggest-
ing that an accidental weakening of animal nature (i.e., the falling-ill of
organisms) is preparatory to and prompts the surfacing of human more-
than-nature (i.e., the “spirituality” of mindedness and like-mindedness).
Similarly, he later, in the Philosophy of Nature, suggests that there is an in-
herent defectiveness in the life of the human animal (im Leben ist selbst der
Mangel), a dysfunctionality that itself is emblematic of humans’ “higher
natures”39 (perhaps subtly echoing the Kant who maintains that “in a
being that has reason and a will, if the proper end of nature were its
preservation, its welfare, in a word its happiness, then nature would have hit
28
T H E V O I DI NG OF WE AK NAT URE

upon a very bad arrangement in selecting the reason of the creature to

carry out this purpose”).40 One of the upshots of this is that spiritual free-
dom is, in psychoanalytic terms, the ultimate secondary gain from illness.
In this Hegel’s wake, it can be maintained that the accidental and
contingent specifically as epitomized in embodied human subjects is able
to declare its independence from and achieve a type of victory over the
sheer, mere givenness of nature thanks to a certain degree of anarchy
reigning within the latter, an absence of ironclad self-consistency and
governing wholeness. The non-All, not-One status of the Otherless barred
Real (to phrase this in a mixture of Lacanian and Badiouian parlance)
of natural substance, as material being pervaded and perturbed by the
differentiating, splitting powers of the negative, is the material condi-
tion of possibility for the immanent genesis of spiritual subjectivity, the
ontological groundless ground before and behind the existence of sub-
jects. In short, what ultimately permits substance to become subject is
the disorganized fragility of the former, a lack of coordination inherent
to it. That is to say, humans are what they are partly by virtue of being
the children of frail and neglectful parents whose authority is easily and
often defied, offspring largely abandoned to their own devices with little
guidance and no supervision.41 Similarly, humans are in relation to nature
what the artificial intelligence “singularity,” if and when it happens, will
be in relation to humans.
Immediately before poetically pronouncing subjectivity to be a hor-
rifying abyssal vortex of midnight madness, Hegel lends further weight
to this just-articulated gloss on the Jenaer Realphilosophie. The 1803– 04
First Philosophy of Spirit and the 1804 lectures on Natural Law both de-
pict subjective autonomy as a stubborn point of contraction.42 This sub-
ject of contraction is a particular part, a local disequilibrium run amok,
that comes to sever itself from the disequilibrium of the universal whole
within which it first took shape as an inner disturbance. Once again, as in
“The Earliest System-Program of German Idealism” of 1796, the process
of self-sundering substance becoming subject is sketched well in advance
of the Phenomenology.
Furthermore, in both the First Philosophy of Spirit and the lectures
on Natural Law, Hegel provides similar additional foreshadowings of his
soon-to-follow 1805– 06 portrait of free subjectivity as the night of the
world. These two texts, anticipating an aspect of the renowned “lord-
ship and bondage” dialectic of the 1807 Phenomenology,43 each maintain
that the negativity which establishes the autonomous subject in its willful
isolated particularity is closely associated with death literally as well as
figuratively.44 This association, one regularly reiterated by Hegel, lends
significant support to Žižek’s guiding program to demonstrate the philo-
 29
F R O M B ERN T O JE NA

sophical thesis that the subject of German idealism is fundamentally

equivalent to the Freudian-Lacanian death drive. The basic gist of this
thesis is that a restless, unsettling Real (i.e., the Todestrieb) within human
nature more than human nature itself (to paraphrase the Lacan of the
eleventh seminar once again) gives rise to a denaturalized and denatu-
ralizing indifference to and immanent transcendence of body, environ-
ment, and the ensemble of biological pressures stemming from organic
life.45 The living human being accedes to becoming a subject proper if
and when (and only for so long as) he or she taps into this strange natural
power of denaturalization that allows for a disregard, sometimes serene
and at times brutal, of such things as well-being, homeostasis, and even
survival itself.
3

The Self-Subversion of Modern

Science: Scientific Reason and
the Phenomenology of Spirit

Having traced, in the preceding chapter, the pre-1807 foreshadowings of

the substance-also-as-subject line from the Phenomenology’s preface, I now
want to examine the topics of natural science, naturalism, and material-
ism in the Phenomenology itself. The fifth chapter (“The Certainty and
Truth of Reason”), which opens the section on “Reason,” is the pivotal
locus within this first of Hegel’s major works in connection with my moti-
vations and program. In particular, the part of this chapter on “Observing
Reason” is of special importance for me.
With this stretch of the Phenomenology being devoted to the modern
natural sciences, it has been, and continues to be, largely neglected by
commentators, especially when compared to the scholarly attention gen-
erously lavished on the two sections before the section on “Reason” (i.e.,
“Consciousness” and “Self-Consciousness”), as well as the sections after
(starting with “Spirit”)— and this in line with the still-predominant aver-
sion to Naturphilosophie as a whole that holds sway among the majority of
Hegel’s readers and critics.1 As I hope to show in what follows, the sec-
tion on “Reason” is not only of interest to anyone seeking to reconstruct
Hegel’s philosophy of nature; it is a key hinge in the dialectical unfurling
of the Phenomenology in its global integrity and imposing completeness.2
“Reason” is the third section of the Phenomenology. As is very well
known, sections one and two are driven along by a dialectic that privi-
leges, first, the pole of objectivity (i.e., for “consciousness,” truth is pre-
sumed to reside on the side of the object) and then, second, the opposed
pole of subjectivity (i.e., for “self-consciousness,” truth is presumed to re-
side on the side of the subject). Reason is entered into from the position
of the figure of “unhappy consciousness,” with this transition being one
of those in this philosophical narrative reflecting a known historical de-
velopment. (As any minimally attentive reader of the Phenomenology read-
ily can ascertain, Hegel frequently deviates from the linear sequences of
factual recorded history, sometimes favoring “logical” over chronological
orderings of his material.)3 The historical development in question is

30
 31
T H E S EL F -S UBV E RS I O N O F MO DE RN S CIENCE

the shift from a medieval Catholic outlook (i.e., unhappy consciousness)

born within the decay of the ancient Roman world to the universe of
modern science, a worldview (Weltanschauung) founded early in the sev-
enteenth century by Francis Bacon and Galileo Galilei.
To this day, religious faith and scientific knowledge often strike
the lazy eye as being irreconcilably at loggerheads as a black-and-white
either/or choice with regard to “understanding” (Verstand) in Hegel’s
exact technical sense of the word.4 But, with his characteristic penchant
for subverting what initially appear to be diametrically opposed, mutually
exclusive stances, Hegel uncovers the threads of continuity that bind the
nature studied by the secular sciences to the all-embracing, unchanging
God of the theology espoused by unhappy consciousness.
The mutating, restless consciousness of the Phenomenology, the pro-
tagonist of this long odyssey, morphs into the figure christened “rea-
son” when it becomes aware of itself as the mediating “middle term”
between universality and particularity. To be more precise, the dialec-
tical movement from medieval religion to modern science consists of
two intertwined transformations. First, consciousness, as the protagonist
of the Phenomenology, comes to see itself as the mediator that joins the
anonymous “view from nowhere” of the universal (earlier incarnated in
the deity of premodern Christianity) with the particular as constellations
of empirical entities and events5 (the upshot here being that Baconian
scientific method retains monotheism’s old God’s-eye perspective in a
new, sublimated guise). And second, belief in the created world being
governed by a rational and benevolent creator spawns an axiomatic con-
viction in the natural world being ruled by regular, knowable patterns
of ordering causal laws (this conviction is prominently on display in the
writings of Galileo and Descartes and crops up strikingly in the twentieth
century when Albert Einstein insists that “God does not play dice”).6 Ad-
ditionally, as Hegel later acknowledges in his Berlin-era lectures on reli-
gion, Judaism as well as Christianity makes a crucial contribution to what
becomes modern secular science: the “disenchantment” of law-bound
nature carried out by the sciences can be viewed as a secularized version
of Judaism’s earlier gesture of starkly separating the finite immanence
of the mundane material world from the infinite transcendence of the
otherworldly divine.7
In the aftermath of the internally induced self-implosions of object-
centered consciousness and subject-centered self-consciousness, reason,
in unconscious recognition of the fatal one-sidedness of its predecessors
(i.e., consciousness and self-consciousness as per the first two sections of
the Phenomenology), spontaneously embraces, and this for the first time
in the Phenomenology, a prototype of Hegelian absolute idealism. This is
32
T H E V O I DI NG OF WE AK NAT URE

one of several pivotal premonitory “moments of clarity” in the Phenom-

enology, a brief flashing up within non/pre-speculative consciousness of
what eventually will be realized and comprehended in its fullness “in-
and-for-itself” (an und für sich)8 by the “absolute knowing” of specula-
tive philosophical consciousness. It is the initial surfacing, for the sub-
jectivity of non/pre-speculative consciousness, of the metaphysics that
is affirmed by Hegel in his speculative philosophical consciousness (i.e.,
absolute idealism). As such, the moment he names “reason,” and espe-
cially “observing reason,” is of enormous significance for his philosophy
in its entirety.
Whereas self-consciousness, as the basic configuration of conscious-
ness immediately prior to reason, treats the surrounding objective world
as an alien Other — it is worth remembering that unhappy conscious-
ness, the last instantiation of self-consciousness, is an outgrowth of the
figures of “Stoicism” and “skepticism”— reason becomes convinced that
its subjectivity and the world’s objectivity are capable of attaining a union-
in-reconciliation by its pinpointing of structural isomorphisms in which
subjective concepts reflect objective beings and vice versa.9 In this vein,
Hegel states, “Reason is the certainty of consciousness that it is all reality;
thus does idealism express its Notion.”10 However, this is not the lopsided
subjective idealism of Kant and Fichte, an idealism that is subsumable
under the heading of the previous section of the Phenomenology (“Self-
Consciousness”).11
Rather, reason, in its spontaneous absolute idealism, obscurely feels
itself compelled to strike a balance between the preponderance of the
object posited by consciousness and the opposed preponderance of the
subject posited by self-consciousness. This balance is achieved by reason
positing a mirroring equivalence between subjective and objective config-
urations, namely, an absolute idealism of the subject-object in which the
subject embodies objective structures (unlike in Kantian-style subjective
idealism) as much as the object embodies subjective ones. The “it” in the
statement “Reason is the certainty of consciousness that it is all reality”
is not the conscious self as an isolated mind confronting an external
world from which it is divorced and different-in-kind. Instead, this “it” is
composed of the ingredients common to the (potentially) synchronized
formations and parallel processes of both subjectivity and objectivity, in-
gredients making possible an awareness that the isomorphisms between
subject and object are permutations expressive of a neither-subjective-
nor-objective logic.12 This strange logic (what eventually turns out to be
that of the “Absolute Idea”) is what “is all reality” (alle Realität zu sein),13
and not Spirit as individual (self-)conscious mindedness in its ideality
cosmically (and comically) writ large. Similarly, Hegel, when further de-
 33
T H E S EL F -S UBV E RS I O N O F MO DE RN S CIENCE

scribing reason observant of nature a few pages later in the Phenomenol-

ogy, maintains with regard to this rationality that “the Notion . . . has
destroyed within itself [an sich] the indifferent subsistence of sensuous
reality [das gleichgültige Bestehen der sinnlichen Wirklichkeit].”14 This obvi-
ously is not to say that self-sufficient objective being (i.e., “the indiffer-
ent subsistence of sensuous reality”) is destroyed,15 but merely that, for
cognizing, concept-mongering subjectivity, the indifference of its Others
is overcome “within itself” (with Hegel promptly underscoring that “the
Notion” [der Begriff ] here is, as per absolute idealism, objective as well as
subjective).16
Of course, in itself, the absolute idealism of reason is not yet this
same idealism “for itself,” namely, as firmly grasped by absolute knowing
at the end of the journey recounted in the Phenomenology. A couple of
features of this difference warrant notice before I proceed further. To
begin with, Hegel emphasizes that at this stage, reason abruptly “asserts”
(versichert) as a “certainty” (Gewissheit) that solid bonds of trustworthy
structural isomorphisms unite subjectivity and objectivity; that is to say,
reason has yet to prove the truth of its assertion to this effect.17 For in-
stance, in the absence of the knowledge of speculative philosophical con-
sciousness, the modern scientist’s belief in the through-and-through in-
telligible rationality of the objective world-to-be-known is just as much an
article of faith as the Christian believer’s confidence in the supposedly in-
violable authority of an omnipotent and omniscient creator. Additionally,
the speculative philosophical consciousness that already has traversed the
phenomenological “Stations of the Cross” on the “way of despair”18 lead-
ing from non/pre-speculative philosophical consciousness up to itself is
aware of the historical situatedness and limiting contextual boundaries
of modern secular scientific rationality. By contrast, this rationality, like
all of the figures and shapes of consciousness prior to the conclusion of
the Phenomenology, tends to be, on its own, oblivious of and blind to its
historicity, and unconscious of everything this history entails.19 Indeed,
the sciences, both formal as well as empirical/experimental ones, exhibit
strong tendencies to lapse into a default ahistoricism about themselves,
an amnesia that is eventually overcome via the recollecting brought about
by the hindsight of absolute knowing, by systematic philosophy as a true
“Science” (Wissenschaft).20
Hence, at the start of the “Reason” section of the Phenomenology,
conscious subjectivity-as-reason sets in motion a movement, one quite fa-
miliar to aficionados of Hegelian thinking, in which this subjectivity con-
fidently steps outside itself into the objects facing it in order to find itself
within these its Others.21 For the modern scientist, these objects are the
things and phenomena of physical nature. So as to avoid a likely and all-
34
T H E V O I DI NG OF WE AK NAT URE

too-widespread misunderstanding, rational subjectivity’s negating of the

foreign alterity of asubjective objects, as per Hegel’s absolute idealism,
most definitely does not amount to the freestanding objectivity prized by
realisms and materialisms being absorbed by and dissolved into the know-
ing subject.22 This is not the notorious case of an insatiable, monad-like
mega-Mind devouring and digesting the entire expanse of nonmental
being without asubjective, extra-mental leftovers remaining.
In fact, the falsity of this appraisal of Hegelian “idealism” ought to
be appreciated once one realizes that, in the context presently under
consideration, Hegel is describing the activity of seventeenth- and
eighteenth-century natural scientists with their instinctively naive realist
leanings. Hence, Hegelian (observing) reason represents, among other
things, this natural-scientific naive realism. Moreover, what subjectivity-as-
reason cancels out in its investigative incursions into objects is not their
objectivity (as mind-independent existences), but instead, their alterity
as fundamental difference-in-kind vis-à-vis the categorial and conceptual
structures that are (also) operative on the side of the knowing subject.
Put differently, unknowable Otherness on the side of the object gives
way to the recognition of discernible structural parallelisms between the
“logics” at work in the twin realities of both subjects and objects— and
this without subject-separate objectivity ontologically vanishing without
a trace into a solipsism of spiritual subjectivity. Referring back to the
Jena-era, Hegel-coined Schellingian slogan casting the Absolute as the
identity of identity and difference, Hegelian absolute idealism, implicitly
springing up with the figure/shape of reason “certain of itself” (i.e., post-
Baconian, post-Galilean modern secular scientific rationality), not only
establishes the identity of subject and object, but, simultaneously and in
a non-one-sided fashion, maintains their difference too.
This is the juncture at which Hegel begins his discussion of the
empirical and experimental sciences of modernity under the heading
“Observing Reason.” Immediately prior to this subsection of the Phenom-
enology, he makes a few ambivalent remarks about Kant’s transcendental
unity of apperception that might not be crystal-clear at first glance to
some readers (comments arguably echoed in part later in the Science of
Logic when he famously speaks of this Kantian unity as “one of the pro-
foundest and truest insights to be found in the Critique of Pure Reason”).23
The essential gist of this waving at Kant amounts to a comparing and
contrasting of Kant’s subjective transcendental idealism with the abso-
lute idealism that is half-consciously adopted as a matter of course by the
reason being described in this specific phase of the Phenomenology. On
the positive hand, Kant’s “Transcendental Deduction” demonstrates that,
when it comes to knowledge, reciprocal unifications, mutually reflecting
 35
T H E S EL F -S UBV E RS I O N O F MO DE RN S CIENCE

syntheses brought about under the aegis of categories and concepts, are
necessary conditions of possibility for knowledge at the dual, mirroring
levels of both subject and object. On the negative hand — and this is
an objection tirelessly raised by Hegel in his drawn-out, lifelong settling
of accounts with Kantianism— Kant allegedly spoils his epistemology by
confining, very much in line with his subjectivism, what he calls “knowl-
edge” to the subject’s apprehension of objects as mere phenomena di-
vorced from real being. Therefore, according to the Kantian critical sys-
tem, to know means to have a true grip on false appearances— with this,
in Hegel’s estimation, being a sad excuse for an epistemology, a poor,
unsatisfying definition of knowledge as pseudo-knowledge.24
In contrasting the subjectivism of transcendental idealism with
reason’s absolute idealism, Hegel mentions again the rational subject’s
certainty of being able to make good on its assertion that nothing to be
found in the objective domains of actual existence is essentially foreign to
it, namely, the alterity of an Otherness, an “X” as je ne sais quoi, ungrasp-
able by the cognitive powers of conceptualizing activity. By sharp contrast
with Kantianism’s strict division between knowable phenomenal objects-
as-appearances and unknowable (yet “thinkable”) noumenal things-in-
themselves, everything in reality is, in principle, open to the possibility
of being truly known in its actual, self-standing independence by think-
ing subjectivity (which is not the same as saying that everything is actu-
ally thus-known by an exhaustively all-encompassing, omniscient Geist).
The Critique of Pure Reason limits itself to asserting the certainty that the
knowing subject is a spontaneous agent who is responsible for constitut-
ing the objects of its knowledge. In Hegel’s eyes, this is a “profound and
true insight,” although one terribly distorted by Kant in being chained to
an untenable antirealist subjectivism that can be shown through dialec-
tics to undermine itself. The consciousness of modern secular scientific
reason sets about laboring to prove this Kantian assertion to itself, albeit
in a sense unintended by and at odds with Kant’s understanding of his
critical-transcendental turn.25
This is one of those moments in the Phenomenology in which his-
torical chronology is disregarded in favor of “logical” order. As is obvi-
ous, Bacon, Galileo, Descartes, and Newton historically come before the
Kant of the first Critique. In Hegel’s 1807 narrative, insofar as dialectical
progress transpires if and only if a resolution bound up with a singular
determinate impasse happens to arise, this progress need not unfold ex-
clusively in a linear manner, as does “history” according to the standard
meaning of the word. As more logical than chronological, the march
of Hegelian dialectics is one in which solutions can and do sometimes
precede in historical time the deadlocks which they overcome through
36
T H E V O I DI NG OF WE AK NAT URE

sublation (Aufhebung), as when an answer pops up before its correspond-

ing question is asked.
How does the observing reason of the modern sciences already step
beyond (i.e., overcome as sublate) Kantianism prior to the historical gen-
esis of the latter? How does it begin providing an absolute idealist coun-
terbalance to the one-sidedness of transcendental idealism’s subjectivism
while preserving what is insightful in the “Transcendental Deduction”
by raising Kant’s unity of apperception to the dignity of its Notion? The
part on “Observing Reason” opens with Hegel distinguishing between
“consciousness” as per the first section of the Phenomenology and “reason”
as per this third section. He considers this distinction important to draw
because of the superficial resemblance between the two. Both conscious-
ness and reason direct their attention at objectivity; both of these figures/
shapes of the subject of the Phenomenology grant a certain priority to ob-
jects. But this is not an instance of a simple and straightforward return
to an earlier moment. Indeed, no stage of the Phenomenology is such an
instance— and this because, for Hegelian dialectical thought overall, it
is philosophically axiomatic that repetition is never pure, perfect rep-
etition because returns and reiterations always and inevitably introduce
differences, deviations, driftings, and so on. Reversing a cliché, perhaps
it could be said in this context that the more things remain the same, the
more they change.
The cardinal contrast that distinguishes consciousness from reason
is this: the former assumes a passive, receptive disposition vis-à-vis the
object, whereas the latter takes up an active, engaged relation to its ob-
jects. The spontaneous activity of reason, as epitomized by the sciences of
modernity, compels nature to speak and reveal her secrets, and employs
special methods, devices, technologies, and languages (such as mathe-
matics) to extract answers from interrogated entities and events in the
physical world. (Kant himself, in the preface to the B-version of the first
Critique, already underscores this with reference to natural science as
ushered onto the stage of the history of ideas by Bacon and Galileo.)26
The natural scientist is confident in his ability, through the right kinds
of activities, to wrest responses from a material universe whose lips are
now powerless to remain sealed, unable to resist the advances of scien-
tific rationality so as to preserve itself in the darkness of mute, sealed-off
mystery. Through the tortured (and torturing) procedures of experi-
mentation, observing reason forces its way into nature.27 Moreover, un-
like sense-certainty and perception, both of which aim (in vain) at the
unique, here-and-now particularity of their alien sensuous objects as the
presupposed truth-target to be hit, observation by reason is preoccupied
with what is universal(izable) in sensuous particulars (as in the goal of
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the scientist to distill the laws of nature through the practice of scientific
method).28
But the observing reason of the modern sciences (in the seven-
teenth and eighteenth centuries) is fated to experience dissatisfaction.
Hegel observes: “But even if Reason digs into the very entrails of things
and opens every vein in them so that it may gush forth to meet itself, it
will not attain this joy; it must have completed itself inwardly before it
can experience the consummation of itself.”29 This is the inaugural ex-
plicit heralding of reason’s eventual dialectical undoing, its immanently
generated self-subversion à la “determinate negation.”30 The crescendo
of this internally triggered implosion manifests itself in the well-known
phrenological infinite judgment “Spirit is a bone,”31 phrenology being
the last of a series of failed efforts by scientific reasoning to understand
itself in the inadequate terms of non-dialectical materialisms and natu-
ralisms. The discussion of phrenology32 is preceded in Hegel’s text by
discussions of such scientific or scientistic perspectives as those involved
with mechanics, physics, chemistry, handwriting analysis, associationist
psychology,33 and physiognomy.34 Of course, right before the early nine-
teenth century, post-Baconian, post-Galilean modern science engen-
dered the Enlightenment-era mechanistic materialism of eighteenth-
century France, a historical sequence accurately reflected in this stretch
of the Phenomenology. That said, how does Hegel get from the start of the
part on “Observing Reason” to this auto-deconstructing culmination of
scientific rationality in its self-induced phrenological collapse?
The rational subject of scientific observation, with its tacit absolute
idealism in which the more it knows about objects the more it knows
about itself, is of a piece with, and cut from the same cloth as, its deployed
discourses and domains. Furthermore, given that observing reason is a
possibility condition for scientific knowledge, any systematic science, as
thorough and complete, must include a scientific account of the subject
of science, of the observing consciousness that is responsible for its ob-
servations and their interpretations. By its own lights, science is required
to furnish a scientific explanation of the scientific observer (i.e., the liv-
ing human subject as a theoretically and practically active agent).35 This
is precisely what leads to the natural sciences dialectically doing violence
to themselves at their own hands,36 de/incompleting themselves through
inadvertent immanent critique.37 How so?
Observing reason eventually develops out of itself, based on the
inner workings of its scientific endeavors, a fundamental distinction
between the organic and the inorganic. It divides nature into these two
basic categories as part of its classifying, ordering activities.38 But, insofar
as its conceptualizations continue to be dictated by the un-dialectical,
38
T H E V O I DI NG OF WE AK NAT URE

non-speculative understanding, natural scientific rationality necessarily

cannot do justice to the notion of life which it itself produces when aban-
doned to its own pursuits.39 The idea of the organic comes to exceed and
place in check the explanatory powers of the (observing) reason from
which it originates.
According to Hegel, the concept of organic life is one that only the
reason of the dialectical-speculative philosopher can think adequately
and fully: “Life . . . can be grasped only speculatively.”40 In the Phenom-
enology, at the start of the section on “Self-Consciousness” as well as in
the chapter on “Observing Reason,” Hegel suggests this by highlight-
ing structural isomorphisms between desiring organic life and the spir-
itual shapes at stake in phenomenology.41 A strictly positivist, neither-
dialectical-nor-speculative approach to the living is condemned to end up
unproductively regressing back to the previously superseded standpoints
of “perception” and “the understanding” (as per chapters 2 and 3 of the
Phenomenology).42
In advance of the Philosophy of Nature, Hegel, as arguably a strong
emergentist avant la lettre, already is alerting readers to the claim that
organics cannot be boiled down to mechanics and physics.43 Overall,
Hegel’s anti-reductionist vision of the ensemble of the natural sciences
entails granting the different levels and sublevels constituting the phi-
losophies of nature and spirit (at least relative) autonomy with regard
to one another. Life’s irreducibility to things nonliving would be a spe-
cial instance of this general irreducible self-standingness that is operative
throughout the strata of both Natur and Geist.44
Like Schelling, Hegel draws ample inspiration from Kant’s theori-
zation of the idea of life in the Critique of the Power of Judgment.45 In fact,
consistent with a persistent modus operandi steering his extended en-
gagements with Kantianism, Hegel (along with Schelling) ontologizes
the Kantian concept of the organic as per the third Critique, a concept
that Kant leaves in the ontological limbo of the critical-regulative “as if”
(als ob).46 Hegel’s post-Kantian conception of organic life exhibits several
features that are characteristic of real material being over and above the
restricted status of a pale, de-ontologized representation that is confined
to the shadow theater of the thinking subject’s mind alone. Prior to a
summary of these features, it is worth noting that the Phenomenology’s
discussion of observing reason moves from charting the intra-scientific
emergence and escape from mechanics and physics of the idea of organic
life in general to narrating the advent of the concept of human life (as
active, conscious, free-willed agency) in particular. The latter prompts
observing reason’s botched attempts to formulate, in the woefully defi-
cient language of the understanding and its mechanistic materialisms, a
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T H E S EL F -S UBV E RS I O N O F MO DE RN S CIENCE

natural scientific account of itself in its very subjectivity. The three-part

sequence of psychology, physiognomy, and phrenology results from ob-
serving reason’s observation of itself— a reflexive turn it requires of itself
(in order to live up to its own standards of scientificity), but by which it
subverts itself, pushing itself into carrying out an auto-undermining self-
sublation.
The first flaw Hegel diagnoses as fatal to the efforts of the modern
sciences to handle life generally and human life specifically has to do
with their strictly descriptive nature. As he correctly indicates, moder-
nity’s scientificity foregoes the “ought” of prescription and restricts itself
exclusively to the “is” of description. Put in fitting Aristotelian parlance,
questions concerning final causality (“Why?”) are ruled out as unscien-
tific, with only the “How?” questions of efficient causality being viewed as
valid and legitimate explanatory concerns for the sciences. (For example,
Newtonian physics strives to explain how gravity works, but not why there
is gravity in the first place.) For reasons very different from those that
prompt Leibniz before him similarly to complain of the absence of final
causality in secular science, Hegel argues that this circumscribed descrip-
tion of efficient causes alone renders modern science (as epitomized by
Newtonian mechanical physics) deeply and inherently unsatisfying, at
least when it comes to grasping life and subjectivity appropriately. His
argument is that living creatures, which are animated by desires and the
like, are perpetually self-surpassing beings. Rather than being “inert” (as
are the nonliving materials studied by mechanics and physics), these en-
tities actually live their lives teleologically, with their concrete cognition
and comportment continually being shaped and steered by aims, ends,
and goals, namely, final causes. Efficient causality alone might suffice for
mere matter in motion. But, for living organisms that really are in and
for themselves teleologically future-oriented, this teleology-free form of
description (in this instance, scientistic mechanical materialism) leaves
out of its picture an essential dimension of the real being of living beings
making them what they were, are, and will be.47
Any discussion of Hegel and matters biological inevitably calls to
mind the awkward issue of Hegel’s “Darwin problem,” namely, his ap-
parent categorical repudiation-in-advance of anything along the lines
of natural evolution. I feel obligated to devote a few paragraphs to ad-
dressing this issue before proceeding further. To cut a long story short,48
I interpret Hegel’s Naturphilosophie such that his seemingly unqualified
pre-Darwinian denials of the very possibility of evolution (as per the likes
of Jean-Baptiste Lamarck) are to be understood as expressions of his far
from illegitimate efforts to walk a fine line between, on one side, premod-
ern and nonscientific hylozoism, pantheism, and vitalism (à la Aristotle,
40
T H E V O I DI NG OF WE AK NAT URE

Spinoza, and Schelling) and, on the other side, modern scientific atom-
ism, determinism, and mechanism (à la Newton, Pierre-Simon Laplace,
and Kant, among others). In his Philosophy of Nature, Hegel’s Vernunft-level
finessing of the continuities and discontinuities between the physical, the
chemical, and the organic are motivated by profound dissatisfactions with
both sides of this opposition.
In Hegel’s assessment, hylozoism-pantheism-vitalism deludedly sees
subjectivity everywhere while atomism-determinism-mechanism, in its
blindness, sees it nowhere (at least nowhere within nature itself). Worded
in a Leninist fashion, both of these forms of one-sidedness are worse to
Hegelian dialectical-speculative reason. Contrary to misconceptions com-
monly held by both defenders and critics alike of Hegelianism, Hegel nei-
ther lopsidedly projects onto nature as a universal whole the logics and
relationships peculiar to organics nor, correlatively, denies that Verstand-
style mechanical and physical objects and processes really do exist and
operate in nature-in-itself in non/pre-organic ways.49
From my perspective, Hegel’s ruling out of the reality of evolution-
ary trajectories in nature is based on the following syllogistic reasoning.
First, early-nineteenth-century standards of scientificity for the natural
sciences remain dominated by eighteenth-century atomism-determinism-
mechanism. Second, this atomism-determinism-mechanism either denies
the actual existence of the structures and dynamics that are proper to
organic life generally and human life specifically, or (as illustrated in the
chapter on “Observing Reason” in the Phenomenology) it is utterly power-
less to explain them properly in its own terms. Therefore, third, an early-
nineteenth-century natural science as a science of evolutionary changes
in nature either denies the actual existence of the structures and dynam-
ics proper to organic life generally and human life specifically (treating
everything as reducible to lifeless matter), or it is utterly powerless to ex-
plain them properly in its own terms (implicitly or explicitly positing an
unexplained, miraculous leap from lifeless matter to living organisms).
Either way, such an evolutionary “science” would be doomed, from its in-
ception, to immediately refute and defeat itself before it could get going
anywhere at all. Its scientistic as ideological-metaphysical commitments
to atomism-determinism-mechanism always-already analytically abort its
supposed object, life, before this object can even be born and begin to
“evolve.”
If I am right that this is Hegel’s reasoning, then a reenvisioning
of nature that satisfactorily threads the needle between the Scylla of
hylozoism-pantheism-vitalism and the Charybdis of atomism-determinism-
mechanism, a reenvisioning to which Hegel himself substantially contrib-
utes in the Philosophy of Nature, indeed would allow for ideas of evolution
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in senses different from the confused notions of it that Hegel harshly

condemns, not without good reasons. Hegel admittedly entertains what
presently, with the benefit of post-Darwinian hindsight, look to be in-
defensible views regarding natural history. Both in this case and others,
I am anything but a brittle all-or-nothing dogmatic defender of Hegel
and German idealism. What is more, considering Hegel’s acute awareness
of the historical conditioning of his (and any) Naturphilosophie due to its
reliance upon the historically unfolding natural sciences (not to men-
tion humanity’s history coming to affect nature itself),50 Hegel himself
would not be an orthodox, to-the-letter-of-the-text Hegelian were he to
have lived to witness the rise of Darwinism, among many other post-1831
developments.51
That said, Hegel advocates the reality of a natural history in a very
crucial and precise way. For him, human beings, including their spiri-
tual als geistige existences both as singular subjects and trans-generational
collectives, are outgrowths of nature still continuing to be internal to
it. Hence, human history in fact is natural history, the history written
by and reciprocally overwriting in turn a self-denaturalizing nature. To
think otherwise is erroneously to make of Hegel’s Natur-und-Geist pair a
dichotomy of the sub-rational understanding.
Finally, although Hegel, like Schelling, ontologizes Kant’s idea of
life by treating it as constitutive rather than regulative, he does not, un-
like Schelling (or at least, certain Schellings),52 thereby tip over into a
full-blown vitalist panpsychism of nature as a cosmic creature or mega-
Subject. For Hegel, there really are mindless physical mechanisms that
are devoid of organic- and mental-style features. Moreover, organisms
and minds, in Hegel’s view, emerge out of pre/nonorganic grounds that
are governed by efficient, but not final, causes.53 Thus, these emergences,
including those associated with human mindedness and like-mindedness,
are anything but the expressions of an eternally preexistent teleology
that always already guarantees in advance the natural genesis of life and
thought. In other words— and this is contrary to a pervasive and persis-
tent misinterpretation putting Hegelianism at odds with Darwinism (and
much else in the natural sciences)— Hegel does not presuppose or posit
a final cause or causes that dictate the teleological necessity of nature
eventuating in sentience and sapience.54
Refocusing again on the Phenomenology, Hegel sees in observing
reason an overriding preference for analytically decomposing the wholes
of its objects of inquiry into fixed, stable parts. When applied to life,
the outcome, as assessed from Hegel’s Kant-inspired standpoint on these
matters, is a travesty in which the living is reduced to the dead (with
phrenology, the chapter on “Observing Reason” concludes by dwelling
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T H E V O I DI NG OF WE AK NAT URE

on a skull). Ontologically following in Kant’s critical-epistemological foot-

steps, Hegel conceives of organic lives as intrinsically involving dynamic
processes that are teleologically self-organized in coherent wholes which
are greater than the sum of their inherently interrelated parts as organs
(and hence are resistant to analytic decomposition).55 The observing gaze
of modern scientific reason mortifies and petrifies organisms when it
falls upon them, boiling down living unities, with their irreducible inner
integrities, to lifeless jumbled aggregates of inanimate mechanical bits
and pieces that are externally juxtaposed with each other side-by-side.56
As Hegel has it, organisms enjoy the enclosure of an auto-reflexivity
and partial self-sufficiency vis-à-vis their physical environments and mate-
rial surroundings.57 This means that nonhuman life exhibits a proto-
freedom, a Hegelian genuine/non-spurious “infinity” as an autonomous
relation-to-self, which precedes and anticipates the full-fledged freedom
of human life.58 As will be even more apparent in the Encyclopedia, Hegel
acknowledges that the living arise out of the nonliving while also insisting
that life is irreducible, both epistemologically and ontologically, to non-
life.59 Therefore, my identification of him as a grandfather of the anti-
reductionist paradigm of strong emergentism in the recent life sciences
is hardly without its justifications.60
Herein, I will not delve into the details of Hegel’s account of the
comedy of errors of observing reason’s farcical, ham-fisted stabs at get-
ting to grips with itself through psychology, physiognomy, and phre-
nology. Instead, I want to bring this chapter on the Phenomenology to a
close by putting under the magnifying glass a remark that occurs just
before Hegel’s turn to the moment when scientific reason begins trying
to account for itself as sapient human life. For those defenders of Hegel
who nonetheless accept the truth of the Darwin-event, this statement is
bound to provoke a feeling of shame: “organic Nature has no history”
(die organische Natur hat keine Geschichte).61 A short while ago, I already
indicated why such remarks by Hegel62 should not be a source of embar-
rassment for Hegelians after the advent of Darwinism. Moreover, Hegel
would insist — and this insistence in no way precludes accepting evolu-
tionary theories— on distinguishing between history (Geschichte) proper,
as specifically human/spiritual, and the “natural history” containing evo-
lution as one set of its trajectories.
This aside, I intend to add the twist of a supplementary interpretive
caveat to this just-quoted claim by Hegel, one that is entirely consistent
with Hegel’s position as outlined by me thus far: organic nature has no
history . . . save for (spiritual) history itself as self-denaturalized nature-
become-second-nature. If, for Hegel, historical second nature (as more-
than-material Geist) immanently emerges out of natural first nature (as
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material Natur), then, one could say in Hegelian style, the distinction
between nonhistorical Nature and historical Spirit is a distinction that is
internal to Nature itself.63
To be more precise, insofar as natural substance is vulnerable to sun-
dering itself in ways so that it accidentally, contingently engenders human
subjects (and living organisms as an ontological class unto themselves),
then spiritual history (geistige Geschichte) is an identity-in-difference with
respect to the kingdom of nature. Spiritual history, which is history strictly
speaking for Hegel, can be depicted as self-historicized nature as the
procession of more-than-natural historical subjects springing up and
out of the matter of not-entirely-historical natural substance (which is,
again, a substance prone to denaturalizing itself). I contend that this
reading is fundamentally faithful to a program that Hegel already em-
braces during his early years in Bern and carries forward through the
Phenomenology while in Jena (and onward into his mature philosophical
system from there). What is more, I am convinced that close scrutiny of
Hegel’s post-Phenomenology works in light of the preceding sketch of his
youthful efforts, which I will undertake in the next two chapters, justifies
my recruiting of Hegel as a towering philosophical forerunner of tran-
scendental materialism.
4

Real Genesis: From the Natural

to the Logical, and Back Again

Any thorough assessment of Hegel’s mature philosophical system cannot

avoid a reckoning with that heart and soul of his thinking which he iden-
tifies as “Logic” (Logik). My struggle to revivify his oft-rubbished Natur-
philosophie requires that I address the manners in which Hegel concludes
the different textual elaborations of his systematic Logic. These multiple
articulations all end with descriptions of the leap from the Logic to the
philosophy of nature. Related to this, the question of whether Hegel’s
Realphilosophie is really “real” in the sense of being truly realist and mate-
rialist, rather than being (as so often charged) macro-solipsist as spiritual-
ist, can and should be answered on the basis of a close, careful reading of
the concluding paragraphs of the various versions of his Logic.
I wish to get underway at this juncture with an analysis of the fi-
nal paragraph of Hegel’s 1804– 05 Logic and Metaphysics, which is itself a
component of the Jena System. Therein, Hegel wraps up his sketch of the
“Absolute Spirit” (der absolute Geist) of the “Metaphysics of Subjectivity”
(Metaphysik der Subjektivität) thus:

The idea of spirit [Die Idee des Geistes], or spirit that intuits itself in
other[ness] as itself, is immediately again spirit connecting with itself as
absolute spirit. In other words, it is absolute spirit as infinity and, for its
self-cognizing (or the becoming itself out of its other[ness]), the other
of itself. It is nature; the simple absolute spirit connecting with itself is
ether [Äther], absolute matter [die absolute Materie]. Spirit, having found
itself in its other, is self-enclosed and living nature [selbst geschlossene und
lebendige Natur]. As spirit that is at the same time connecting with itself,
nature is other[ness], spirit as infinite, and the coming to be of absolute
spirit. Nature is the first moment of self-realizing spirit [Sie ist das erste
Moment des sich realisierenden Geistes].1

Especially in light of its very last sentence, this paragraph undeniably

stipulates that lone natural substance (as actual, objective materiality) is
the sole initial ground (i.e., “the first moment”) that precedes the genesis
within and out of itself of transcendent (as auto-reflective/reflexive) spiri-

44
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R EAL GE N E S I S

tual subjectivity in its more-than-natural independence (i.e., “Spirit . . .

is self-enclosed and living nature”). Spirit emerges from Nature and
goes on to enjoy a self-determining freedom relative to this material
ground — and this while nonetheless continuing to remain immanent
to physical, substantial being (albeit in the form of a peculiar second
nature as a transcendence-in-immanence). Prior to the Encyclopedia, the
young Hegel begins outlining the contours of a “liberation struggle” (Be-
freiungskampf ),2 a war waged internal to conflicted, contingency-ridden
weak nature and eventuating in the breaking-out of subjectivity as a sepa-
rate trajectory of natural denaturalization. This battle of Geist with Natur
is fought out not only on the plane of theoretical knowledge, but also on
the soil of practical activity (as Hegel’s proto-Marxist musings on work,
the processes of human labor, convey quite clearly).3
Already during the phase of the Jena System, the term “idea” (Idee),
as employed in the block quotation above, is defined in line with absolute
(and not subjective) idealism. That is to say, in this time of collaboration
with Schelling, the Hegelian Idea is an instance of the identity of identity
and difference; more precisely, the (absolute) Idea encompasses both
itself and its other (i.e., the non-idea as pre-ideal/extra-ideational).4 In
the passage quoted by me in the preceding paragraph, Hegel associates
the Idea in this sense with infinity (as he also does in the sixth thesis of
the twelve Latin Habilitationsthesen opening his 1801 “Philosophical Dis-
sertation on the Orbits of the Planets”).5
What is more, Hegel’s Spinoza-derived speculations on the infinite,
which come to the fore while he is in Jena and thereafter remain central
to his mature philosophical outlook,6 provide the paradigmatic example
epitomizing what he and Schelling have in mind as regards the identity
of identity and difference. Spinoza discerns a mutual exclusivity between
two concepts that are usually (and inconsistently) both predicated of
God at once: infinitude and transcendence. From Spinoza’s perspective,
the very idea of infinity entails that anything infinite cannot be situated
over and above (i.e., in transcendence of) things finite. If the infinite
were to be transcendent (as separate and distinct) from the finite, then it
would not genuinely be infinite because the finite would remain outside
it. In other words, equating the infinite with the transcendent entails self-
contradictorily rendering the infinite itself finite by limiting it through
the move of placing the realm of the finite in a domain external to the
thus-circumscribed domain of the infinite. This amounts to de-infinitizing
the infinite, namely, rendering it less than infinite insofar as it is not all-
encompassing in being bounded/demarcated through a Verstand-variety
either/or binary opposition to the finite, which is itself misplaced on a
nether side beyond the (specious/spurious) “infinite.” According to the
46
T H E V O I DI NG OF WE AK NAT URE

speculative, Vernunft-level logic of the Hegelian-Schellingian Absolute of

the Jena years — a logic that overcomes the strictures of bivalence that
prevent the understanding from being able to conceive infinity in its
true essence— the genuine infinite is the identity of the infinite and the
finite (just as, for Spinoza, the only authentically infinite God is an im-
manent, rather than a transcendent, one). Put differently, the infinite
encompasses itself and its other(s).7
Earlier in the 1804– 05 Logic and Metaphysics, Hegel addresses the
topic of infinity. Cognizant of standing in the shadow of Spinoza, he
argues:

Genuine infinity . . . is not a series that always has its completion in

some other yet always has this other outside itself. Rather, the other is in
the determinate itself; it is a contradiction, absolute on its own account:
and this is the true essence of the determinacy. In other words, [it is]
not [the case] that a term of the antithesis is on its own account, but
that it only is within its opposite or that only the absolute antithesis is,
while the opposite, since it only is within its opposite, annihilates itself
therein, and annihilates this other as much as itself. The absolute an-
tithesis, infinity, is this absolute reflection into itself of the determinate
that is an other than itself (that is, not an other in general against which
it would be indifferent on its own account, but its immediate contrary),
and as that, it is itself. This alone is the true nature of the finite: that it
is infinite, that it sublates itself in its being. The determinate has as such
no other essence than this absolute unrest: not to be what it is [Das
Bestimmte hat als solches kein anderes Wesen als diese absolute Unruhe, nicht
zu sein, was es ist].8

The disquieting “unrest” or restlessness of which Hegel speaks is a power

of negativity that flows in two directions simultaneously: as described in
this quotation, moving from the finite to the infinite via the self-sublation
of finitude (i.e., the Spinozistic becoming-infinite of the finite); 9 and,
as described in countless fashions elsewhere, moving from the infinite
to the finite via the self-sublation of infinitude (i.e., the post-Spinozistic
[because allegedly unexplained by Spinoza]10 becoming-finite of the in-
finite, in the manner of substance becoming subject).11 The Hegelian
infinite is infinite only (and paradoxically) insofar as it is also finite as
not-entirely-infinite; the same holds for the finite, as testified to in the re-
marks quoted immediately above. Hegel’s speculative treatment of infin-
ity can be seen as of a piece with his dialectical ontology, an ontology that
is neither metaphysically realist nor nominalist and in which universality
(like the infinite) and particularity (like the finite) pass over into each
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other through and within the real being(s) of neither-wholly-universal-

nor-completely-particular individuality/singularity (Einzelheit).12
Returning to the closing paragraph of the 1804–05 Logic and Meta-
physics, Spirit as infinite Idea in its absoluteness preserves Nature (i.e.,
Spirit’s Other) in its independent difference while nonetheless overcom-
ing this alterity. Spirit, as per absolute idealism, is the accomplishment of
this overcoming (Aufhebung) in that it arrives at self-conscious recogni-
tion of the structural isomorphisms between the interrelated, parallel-yet-
distinct logics of, on the one hand, the objectivity of natural substance,
and, on the other hand, itself as the subject of spirituality/mind. Geist
arises from Natur. It thereafter eventually achieves a comprehension in
which Nature remains self-standing/sufficient without, for all that, being
insurmountably alien, and left as a foreign, enigmatic “X,” a mysterious,
unfathomable depth.13
I turn now to the conclusion of Hegel’s Science of Logic. To cut right
to the chase, here, quoted at length, is the final paragraph of that hulk-
ing tome:

The idea [die Idee] . . . in positing itself as absolute unity of the pure
Notion [des reinen Begriffs] and its reality and thus contracting itself into
the immediacy of being, is the totality in this form— nature. But this de-
termination has not issued from a process of becoming, nor is it a transition
[Diese Bestimmung ist aber nicht ein Gewordensein und Übergang] . . . On
the contrary, the pure Idea in which the determinateness or reality of
the Notion is itself raised into Notion, is an absolute liberation [absolute
Befreiung] for which there is no longer any immediate determination
that is not equally posited [gesetzt] and itself Notion; in this freedom,
therefore, no transition [Übergang] takes place; the simple being to
which the Idea determines itself remains perfectly transparent to it and
is the Notion that, in its determination, abides with itself. The passage
is therefore to be understood here rather in this manner, that the Idea
freely releases [frei entläßt] itself in its absolute self-assurance and inner
poise. By reason of this freedom, the form of its determinateness is also
utterly free — the externality of space and time existing absolutely on its
own account without the moment of subjectivity [die absolute für sich
selbst ohne Subjektivität seiende Äußerlichkeit des Raums und der Zeit]. In
so far as this externality presents itself only in the abstract immediacy
of being and is apprehended from the standpoint of consciousness, it
exists as mere objectivity and external life [äußerliches Leben]; but in the
Idea it remains essentially and actually [an und für sich] the totality of
the Notion, and science in the relationship to nature of divine cogni-
tion. But in this next resolve of the pure Idea to determine itself as
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T H E V O I DI NG OF WE AK NAT URE

external Idea, it thereby only posits for itself the mediation out of which
the Notion ascends as a free Existence that has withdrawn into itself
from externality, that completes its self-liberation in the science of spirit,
and that finds the supreme Notion of itself in the science of logic as the
self-comprehending pure Notion.14

Several facets of this paragraph warrant highlighting. To begin with,

Hegel is palpably at pains to stress that the shift from Logik to Realphiloso-
phie, with Naturphilosophie being the indispensable first half of the latter, is
not a “process of becoming” (Gewordensein) or a “transition” (Übergang).
That is to say, the move from the logical to the natural is not the se-
quential movement of a linear development that unfolds over the course
of time.15 In fact, if anything, plenty of evidence scattered throughout
Hegel’s corpus testifies to the contrary: whereas the “Absolute Idea” as
“pure Notion” is crowned with a sort of atemporal logical priority over
Nature, brute Nature, in its freestanding, objective existence (i.e., lacking
all spiritual subjectivity, including that of the realized ideational/notional
für sich), enjoys a chronological-genetic priority over Spirit.16 Hegel is not
in the business of telling tall theological tales of cosmic creation ex nihilo,
that is, stories about the mysterious emanation of concretely embodied
Natur und Geist from the misty, ethereal vapors of a metaphysical God.17
In connection with the preceding, Hegel undeniably grants in this
passage that Nature, in its given determinate existence, retains its self-
sufficient status as a reality unto itself apart from any and every subject.
Again, he straightforwardly speaks of “the externality of space and time ex-
isting absolutely on its own account without the moment of subjectivity”
and “mere objectivity and external life.” Although natural substance be-
comes spiritual subjectivity, the former, in its ontological independence,
preexists the latter.18
One additional note sounded at the end of the Science of Logic cries
out to be noticed. Therein, by way of a reminder, Hegel specifies that
“the Idea freely releases itself in its absolute self-assurance and inner poise.
By reason of this freedom, the form of its determinateness is also utterly
free.” The insistence on the abiding, uncompromised independence of
objective space, time, and life (i.e., the incarnations of “determinateness”
as “utterly free”) immediately follows. How should these lines be read?
Before advancing my own interpretation of the relation between
Logik and Naturphilosophie in the mature Hegel’s encyclopedic system,
I ought briefly to mention the varied interpretations put forward by
others of this hinge within the architectonics of the Hegelian philo-
sophical framework. First of all, a basic division can be identified between,
on the one hand, those who foreground the identity between the logical
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R EAL GE N E S I S

Idea and real Nature19 and, on the other hand, those who foreground
the difference between them.20 This division can be seen as symptomatic
of that fact that, for Hegel, an identity of identity and difference holds
between Idea and Nature (as per the programmatic slogan from the 1801
Differenzschrift).21 But, what exactly does it mean to say that there is an
identity-in-difference between logical Idee and real Natur?
I can begin to answer this line of questioning by turning to an astute
observation by Stephen Houlgate. With regard to the manner in which
Hegel closes his Science of Logic, Houlgate states:

His conclusion at the end of the Logic is that being is in fact never any-
thing less than nature. For Hegel, being does not progress in time from
indeterminacy through infinity to nature but is always spatio-temporal,
natural being. What the Logic describes is thus not some imagined
temporal or historical process whereby nature emerges but rather the
actual logical necessity, or rationality, by virtue of which being proves to
be nothing less than nature. This rationality, or “logos,” within being is
always at work requiring that there be something, finitude, infinity, and
nature.22

Houlgate crucially proposes that Hegelian Logik culminates in the critical-

as-nondogmatic (by virtue of the philosophical motivations of logical ar-
gumentation) establishment of a fundamentally naturalistic Realphiloso-
phie, namely, a post-Kantian (quasi-)naturalism.23
Conforming to Hegel’s repeated recourse to the figure of the circle
in characterizing both the overall arc as well as embedded sub-arcs of sys-
tematic, encyclopedic philosophy as science,24 the Logic, at its utmost end,
returns (i.e., circles back) to its very beginning.25 With this in view, Houl-
gate accurately maintains that the mere, sheer Being initiating the logi-
cal (but not chronological) unfolding of the dialectically-speculatively
interconnected network of cross-resonating categories that constitute the
singular Concept (der Begriff ) with a capital “C” turns out to be the imme-
diacy of Nature as the Real (with the Concept thereby turning out to be
die Idee in coming to be identified with the more-than-logical Real). How-
ever, this is Natur specifically as knowable by category- and concept-using
Geist, thanks to asubjective natural objectivity now being infused with the
categorial forms that have been crystallized in and through Logik.
My reading of the concluding paragraph of the Science of Logic re-
lies on the motif of the Idea’s “freedom.” What does Hegel intend by
this type of talk? Absolute Spirit is “infinite” specifically in the Hegelian
sense of being autonomously self-relating, spinning on the axis of its own
free determination of itself (whereas whatever is finite is heteronomous,
50
T H E V O I DI NG OF WE AK NAT URE

determined from outside of itself by an Other or others around which

it orbits as a satellite). That is to say, absolute Spirit is not infinite in
terms of spatiotemporal orders of magnitude (for Hegel, construals of
infinity in relation to units of space and time count as instances of non/
pre-philosophical picture-thinking, as bad/spurious infinities).26 In quali-
fying self-unfolded Geist as infinite in this exact sense, Hegel indicates
that it does not simply encompass and digest without remainder non-
logical, extra-spiritual being(s), such as the things of Natur.
Returning once more to the exact wording of the Science of Logic,
maximally actualized, concept-mongering subjectivity, in “freely releas-
ing” itself from natural substance, also and at the same time leaves Nature
as objective reality to the liberty of revolving around its own, subject-free
center(s) of gravity. However, the absolute idealist subject has in prin-
ciple won unrestricted epistemological access to the external worlds of
the natural and the material in their subsisting, enduring ontological
independence from it.27 Substantial Natur is always, as a matter of logical
principle, open to the infinite-as-indefinite expansions (never exhaus-
tively completed in actuality) of categorial and conceptual knowing by
Geist of this non/pre/extra-spiritual Natur.28
The Encyclopedia Logic’s final paragraph and its accompanying
Zusatz lend support to my reconstruction of the ending of the Science
of Logic. Hegel once again emphasizes that his idealist Logic does not
deprive Nature of its freestanding objective status, but, on the contrary,
“releases” it unto its liberated self (as its auto-sufficiency).29 In addition
to echoing the Science of Logic’s stipulations that the shift from logic to
the real philosophy of nature is not a temporal development, Hegel adds
several more specifications in the Encyclopedia. Therein, he lays down
a narrative according to which, in the beginning (Anfang), Nature is a
substance sundering itself into itself and Spirit as its Other.30 As I have
already argued, for Hegel, natural, material substance precedes spiritual,
more-than-material subjectivity in time, enjoying a diachronic-genetic (al-
though not logical) priority.
Likewise, in the Zusatz to section 244 of the Encyclopedia Logic,
Nature is unambiguously posited as the actual and properly conceived
beginning. This Zusatz goes so far as to suggest, through its italicizations,
that Nature fundamentally is the “is” of “being.”31 In place of what I am
tempted to label the “false start” of the mature Hegelian logics with pure
Being in its abstraction (i.e., the initial felix culpa leading through noth-
ing to becoming and the flowering wealth of ever-more-concrete deter-
minations), the backward glance of the philosophical consciousness (i.e.,
der absolute Geist) having reached the climactic peak of the encyclopedic
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R EAL GE N E S I S

system can see and recognize its true ground of departure as really being
Nature (albeit Nature now “as Idea,” namely, as knowable, as not irre-
trievably withdrawn and essentially alien to sapient, ideational actors).
In the same vein, this Zusatz makes two interrelated claims. First, the
intra-ideationally unified, coherent Idea for itself (as thoroughly realized
Spirit) is the torsion of an immanent reflective/reflexive twist of Nature
(“Considered according to this unity that it has with itself, the Idea that
is for itself is intuiting and the intuiting Idea is Nature”).32 Second, this
internal (self-)contorting of Nature introduces a fissure or split between
the two sides of itself both as immediate being and as this same being’s
estranged spiritual Other as the mediating negativity of thinking, each
side having been expelled into externality vis-à-vis the other33 (“But as in-
tuiting, the Idea is posited in the one-sided determination of immediacy
or negation, through external reflection”).34
Section 244 of the Encyclopedia Logic also indicates a number of other
connected things. To begin with, the self-sundering of Natur into itself
and Geist animates a trajectory along which Spirit, in its Befreiungskampf
(liberation struggle), strives and strains to release itself, in its proto-forms,
from its material grounds. Then, if and when nascent, germinal spiritual
subjectivity achieves autonomy for itself by establishing auto-determining,
self-relating dynamics through its conceptually mediated activities (as a
transcendent-while-immanent kinetics), this liberation of itself is simul-
taneously a freeing of its Other, a liberation of natural substance that is
co-emergent with the emergence of this free subject. Moreover, Hegel
seems to stipulate that none of this is to be taken and dismissed as a mat-
ter of mere appearances (as hinted by his use of “scheinen”).35 In other
words, this self-division of natural substance into Natur and Geist has a
genuine ontological weight such that neither dimension of the division
can be written off lightly as epiphenomenal.
Right before his death, Hegel, in his 1831 Lectures on Logic, pro-
vides one more articulation of the rapport between his logical framework
and Naturphilosophie.36 Therein, being turns out to be nature.37 Further-
more, the intra-logical genesis of the distinction between spiritual Self
and natural Other is a genetic outgrowth of the real genesis of Spirit
out of Nature. In terms of real genesis, in which Nature (unlike the con-
cept of logic) actually “passes over” (überzugehen) into finite and infinite
Spirit(s), the natural self-subversively denaturalizes itself, lifts itself up by
its own bootstraps, and thereby splits off a part of itself as Geist 38 (“nature
itself . . . is its own rise up beyond itself into spirit”).39 Such are Hegel’s
last remaining pronouncements on the complex relations between the
logical and the real.
5

The Dialectics of Impotent

Nature: Substance and Subject in
the System of the Mature Hegel

At the end of the 1831 Berlin Lectures on Logic, Hegel observes, “Nature . . .
bears upon itself the mark of its own self-nullification.”1 In the Encyclope-
dia, when addressing the transition from the philosophy of nature to the
philosophy of spirit, he similarly underlines Nature’s tendency toward
being auto-negating and self-sundering/sublating, prone to dividing
itself into itself and its Other as Spirit.2 I read the just-quoted 1831 remark
as related to what Hegel again and again, in previous works, designates
as the “impotence” or “weakness” (Ohnmacht) of nature.3 Additionally,
this lack of power at the level of the natural has everything to do with the
role of contingency in the Hegelian system. Hence, before zooming in
on the concept-theme of weak nature in Hegel’s oeuvre, I must pause
in order to briefly address his relationship to the contingent.
Thoroughly surveying the place of contingency in Hegelian philos-
ophy would be a sizable endeavor unto itself (one I undertake in the third
chapter of A New German Idealism).4 What is more, given the popular cari-
cature of Hegel as a totalizing thinker who dictates the imprisonment of
all reality in a cramped, cold cage of a priori logical-metaphysical neces-
sity, queries regarding the status of the contingent in his thought touch
upon principal fault lines of tension running through the entire history
of the complicated interpretive reception of Hegelianism. Suffice it to
say that, however debatable, I am not alone in granting contingency an
absolutely crucial core standing within the sprawling Hegelian system.
So as not to risk losing focus, I will dwell almost exclusively on the
contingent as it features in those portions of Hegel’s apparatus that are di-
rectly relevant to my endeavor to resurrect his Naturphilosophie. Returning
to the section of the Phenomenology of Spirit on “Reason” is a good way to
start. As I explained earlier with regard to this section, Hegel, sticking to
his hands-off phenomenological procedure of letting the nonphilosophi-
cal figures/shapes of consciousness spontaneously unfurl themselves and
deploy their resources without the philosopher’s external interference,5
narratively “re-collects” what happens as the worldview of modern secu-

52
 53
T H E DI A L ECT I CS OF I MP O T E NT NAT URE

lar science, left to its own devices, internally gives rise out of itself to the
concept of life. This concept exceeds the confines of Baconian-Galilean
scientificity. Given Hegel’s functionalist conception of the organic based
on an ontologization of Kant’s teleological treatment of life, the physics-
centered mechanistic outlook of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century
science is precluded from being able to provide a satisfactory account
of the living.
Another important facet of the Phenomenology’s testimony concern-
ing the inadequacy of bump-and-grind corpuscular/mechanical materi-
alism with regard to the phenomena characteristic of organic life has to
do with contingency. Obviously, the notion of noncontingent law (as laws
of efficient causality) is utterly central to the natural sciences of moder-
nity.6 Succinctly stated, for Hegel, neither human nor nonhuman forms
of life can be captured as conforming to the rigid regularity of the cause-
and-effect patterns that purportedly control the mechanical and physical
realms of inorganic nature. In the drama of the Phenomenology, a contribut-
ing factor to the intra-scientific, self-wrought ruin of scientific definitions/
theorizations of life (as per seventeenth- and eighteenth-century criteria
for scientificity) is reason’s repeated attempt to reduce the dynamics of
the living to instantiations of necessary laws.7 Observing reason seeks in
vain for fixed, law-like relations between the inner and outer features of
organisms, as well as between organisms and their surrounding environ-
ments.8 The swarm of contingencies affecting these relations spoils from
the start all efforts to discern reliable necessities therein.9
Furthermore, observing reason falls into being a ridiculous par-
ody of itself when it pushes its pursuit of the lawfully necessary into the
domains of the human. From Locke-and-Hume-inspired associationist
psychologies to physiognomy and phrenology, Hegel-the-philosophical-
onlooker bears witness to the absurd, laughable twists and turns by which
science-style modern reason ties itself up into pretzel-like knots in its
struggles to slap the shackles of causal laws onto the living agency of
autonomous human subjectivity. Apart from the subject’s self-legislating
rational freedom, its baseline volitional nature is already capable of ca-
pricious whims and fancies that are able to defy and bring to naught the
superimposition of any and every scientistic rule upon it.10
The time has finally come to turn to the Realphilosophie of the Encyclo-
pedia. In that work’s two volumes on Natur and Geist, Hegel, substantiating
my glosses on the closings of the multiple versions of the Logik, reminds
his audience that he is neither antirealist nor antimaterialist. Skeptics
who doubt this likely would point to statements such as, “An out-and-out
Other [durchaus Anderes] simply does not exist for mind”11 (a statement
made in the Zusatz to the opening paragraph of the Philosophy of Mind).
54
T H E V O I DI NG OF WE AK NAT URE

However, my earlier explications of Hegelian idealism indicate that “out-

and-out” Otherness is not equivalent to or coextensive with asubjective
alterity at all. Although Hegel’s post-Kantian absolute idealism rules out
anything akin to noumenal things-in-themselves forever stubbornly sub-
sisting as essentially unknowable “X’s,” this epistemological accessibility
and openness of mind’s Others does not actually eliminate their onto-
logical Otherness as existing on their own independently of mental me-
diation.12
What is more, in the same real-philosophical context of the Ency-
clopedia, Hegel issues a number of pronouncements that glaringly fly in
the face of the portrait of him as a monistic idealist preaching a macro-
solipsism of an immaterial Mind of cosmic, God-like proportions from
which lesser natural and human realities emanate as lowly residual epi-
phenomena. In the Philosophy of Nature, he maintains, “This idealism
which recognizes the Idea throughout the whole of Nature is at the same
time realism”13 (and this because structures and dynamics isomorphic to
those at work in thinking Geist are really and autonomously at play in Na-
tur). Then, at the outset of the Philosophy of Mind, he insists several times
that the natural is the “presupposition” (Voraussetzung) of free human
mindedness, that is, it is the temporally antecedent material ground of
being for all beings,14 including human beings.15 In the language of the
Phenomenology of Spirit, there is no (self-)positing of spiritual subject that
does not also presuppose natural substance.16 Additionally, even though
mind, in Hegel’s encyclopedic telling, secures for itself a self-determining
autonomy with regard to heteronomous nature (including the biological
body of the minded person), Hegel is careful to add the nuance that this
is a peculiar kind of transcendence which remains immanent to the em-
bodied beings of the physical world.17 These stipulations help make the
case against any association of Hegelianism with spiritualist mysticisms or
subjective idealisms very solid indeed.
Prior to laying out my appropriation of the Hegelian concept-theme
of weak nature, a few words of warning about Hegel’s relations with the
sciences of modernity are requisite. To begin with, Hegel is not interested
in philosophically annexing the territories of the a posteriori sciences, ag-
gressively usurping for the glory of the a priori their proper explanatory
jurisdictions. He is not motivated by an intellectually hubristic, grandiose,
and ultimately doomed project to defend the crumbling throne of an ag-
ing, premodern philosophy as the queen of the sciences.18 For instance,
he is averse to what he sees as excessive philosophical interference with
the sciences in Schelling’s Naturphilosophie.19
In the preface to the Phenomenology as well as in the Encyclopedia
Logic,20 Hegel distinguishes between “truth” (Wahrheit) strictly speaking
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T H E DI A L ECT I CS OF I MP O T E NT NAT URE

and mere “correctness” as the correspondence between a given proposi-

tion and a factual state of affairs.21 In line with his dictum in this same
preface that “the True is the whole” (Das Wahre ist das Ganze),22 Hegel
is concerned with accurately and illuminatingly situating the sciences
within their broader non/extra-scientific contexts, holistically placing
them in wider horizons that include historical, social, cultural, political,
economic, and religious features too. He seeks to comprehend the many
mutual cross-resonances that ripple across the tangled, braided expanses
formed by these overlapping, intertwined, non-isolable domains.
This definitely does not involve a priori legislative interference by
philosophy with the passing of verdicts of correctness or incorrectness on
a posteriori scientific propositions that have been arrived at via empirical
observations and experiments (i.e., verdicts regarding correspondence
as the rightness or wrongness of fit between words and things). Hegel
has no intention of whimsically indulging himself in such presumptuous
armchair meddling. Rather, for him, the sciences, like any other figure/
shape of consciousness described in the Phenomenology, become self-
subvertingly false (in the sense of untrue as one-sided) when they attempt
to elevate their partial worldview(s) to being the truth of the whole.23
Though valid for producing correct claims within a restricted range of
particular regions, modern science tips over into invalidity when it over-
reaches itself by stretching to cover everything under the sun.24 Nonethe-
less, this dialectical implosion into untenable lopsidedness leaves intact,
within their appropriate and narrowly well-defined registers, the veridi-
cal correspondences already established as scientifically correct within
the circumscribed spheres of the sciences themselves.25 As H. S. Harris
remarks, “The scientific Understanding misunderstands itself, but not
the world.”26
Of course, scientists then and now sometimes wander off into spon-
taneous speculations of their own regarding the more-than-scientific di-
mensions surrounding their scientific activities. This fact alone would
justify someone like Hegel stepping in and insisting that these amateur
forays into areas of philosophical interest and concern should be ren-
dered truly consequent and systematic by full-blooded speculative think-
ing as reason. That said, Hegel goes a step further along this line of
argumentation. As is already implicit in the Phenomenology’s character-
izations of observing reason, the Philosophy of Nature quite persuasively
alleges that “physics” (i.e., the natural sciences) contains much more
metaphysics than it suspects or acknowledges.27 In Hegel’s estimation,
even the most unsophisticated, flat-footed, naive common sense is, unbe-
known to itself, suffused by the mediation of highly intricate and complex
logical and metaphysical networks. In opposition to a crude empiricism
56
T H E V O I DI NG OF WE AK NAT URE

appealing to raw sensory givens, pure percepts undiluted by concepts, as

the supposed alpha-and-omega authorities underwriting the truths of the
sciences, Hegel, in a Zusatz to §246 (in the introduction to the Philosophy
of Nature), wryly remarks, “if physics were based solely on perceptions,
and perceptions were nothing more than the evidence of the senses, then
the psychical act would consist only in seeing, hearing, smelling, etc., and
animals, too, would in this way be physicists.”28
The same moment (§246) in the Encyclopedia contains an insis-
tence that philosophy is, in certain ways, dependent upon the a poste-
riori sciences of nature— thereby proposing the exact opposite of what
many critics of Hegelian Naturphilosophie allege it proposes. Hegel states:
“Not only must philosophy be in agreement with our empirical knowl-
edge of Nature, but the origin and formation of the Philosophy of Nature
presupposes and is conditioned by empirical physics” (die Entstehung
und Bildung der philosophischen Wissenschaft hat die empirische Physik zur
Voraussetzung und Bedingung).29 A posteriori knowledges make possible
and remain sublated within dialectical-speculative “absolute knowing,”30
as various commentators rightly have protested against hostile misrepre-
sentations of Hegel as an intellectually arrogant and irresponsible pre-
Kantian rationalist speculator.31
Moreover, I favor Willem DeVries’s rendition according to which
Hegel’s mature encyclopedic system is stratified into a plethora of de-
grees of a posteriori empirical sensitivity and a priori theoretical stability,
with these strata themselves being reciprocally co-conditioning.32 I also
favor Brigitte Falkenburg’s stipulation according to which Hegel’s philos-
ophy of nature, in its respect for the natural sciences as its conditions of
possibility, deliberately leaves the a posteriori−a priori link underdeter-
mined, thereby maintaining philosophical-theoretical openness and re-
sponsiveness to the unpredictable, case-by-case peculiarities of scientific-
empirical materials.33 At this juncture, the important upshot is that a
Hegelian approach to Naturphilosophie is far from requiring or entailing
a presumptuous disregard for philosophy’s nonphilosophical conditions
(such as the findings of the sciences).34
Turning now to the topic of weak nature, a number of scholars have
already glossed Hegel’s Ohnmacht der Natur.35 Synthesizing these various
accounts in light of my transcendental materialist rendition of Hegel, the
“weakness of nature” can be seen to designate a series of closely inter-
related characterizations of the natural. First of all, Nature is, in the Hege-
lian encyclopedic system, the ontological-as-real/material beginning of
what happens to result in Spirit. However, as only a beginning, Natur is
“weak” in the sense of being substance-not-yet-also-as-subject, namely, an
unreflective, dumb there-ness, a mere in-itselfness without for-itselfness.36
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T H E DI A L ECT I CS OF I MP O T E NT NAT URE

Additionally, Nature is, for Hegel, the givenness of a brute, raw fac-
ticity. That is to say, the natural is “without why” (ohne Warum); it is an ul-
timate, spade-turning “Es ist so” that is devoid of reasons and, prior to the
emergence of sapient mindedness and like-mindedness, constitutively
unable to give and ask for reasons. As the basis of Geist, Natur is a baseless
base.37 This deficiency, Nature’s incapacity to rationally ground itself or
be grounded, is another form of Hegelian weakness/impotence.38
Relatedly, Hegel associates Nature with the modal category of
contingency, the modality to which facticity is tied.39 In its primordial,
ground-zero facticity, Natur ultimately is contingent as groundless (ohne
Warum). Natural realms, especially those of the inorganic, allow for a
great deal of blind chance and aimless enchaining, being inclined and
exposed to the accidental, the meaningless, and the random.
Furthermore, the universals represented by logical- as-proto-
ontological categories and concepts are instantiated in and by Natur 40 (as
well as in and by Geist).41 However, they are instantiated only weakly.42 In
other words, individual/singular (einzelne) entities and events in Nature,
in their particularity (Besonderheit), fail flawlessly to embody the universal
(allgemeine) categories of logic and the concepts both of the philosophy
of nature as well as of the natural sciences. Put differently, the interfering
static of contingent particular factors and variables makes it such that the
ideal models of Logik, Naturphilosophie, and the natural sciences are not
perfectly mirrored by the actual, factual objects and processes of Natur
an sich. Contingency here amounts to Nature’s ontological weakness with
regard to ideated categories and concepts, its inability to incarnate pure
forms in their unqualified universality and abstract, elegant simplicity.43
Hegel directly connects such ontological weakness (due to facticity
and contingency) to epistemological impotence. Die Ohnmacht der Natur
gives rise to “die Ohnmacht der Vernunft” (“the weakness of reason”).44 To
be more precise, Hegel claims that the indefinite proliferation of unpre-
dictable particularities in the guises of anomalies, deviations, and excep-
tions to rules means that neither the philosophy of nature nor the natural
sciences can be brought to a state of unsurpassably perfect completion.45
That is to say, the impotence of Nature-in-itself at the level of ontology, in
the form of its indefinite contingent proliferations wanting in predictable
rhymes or reasons, results in the weakness of Nature-for-itself at the level
of epistemology: the inability of both scientific Verstand as well as philo-
sophical Vernunft once and for all to grasp definitively and exhaustively
everything that was, is, and will be under the natural sun.46
Therefore, in Hegel’s view, the understanding and reason can,
should, and must leave room for the sub-rational or irrational, given
the real absence of rationality in certain strata of being itself.47 Along
58
T H E V O I DI NG OF WE AK NAT URE

these lines, Emmanuel Renault argues that the enduring disunity of

the various branches and sub-branches of the natural sciences ought to
be, for a Hegelian, interpreted as insight into Nature’s real disunity, its
self-sundering into a plurality of irreducible emergent levels and layers,
rather than ignorance of a yet-to-be-known total(izing) unity.48 In a sense,
Hegel’s solution to the empiricist David Hume’s epistemological problem
of induction for the thinking of nature by subjects is to claim that this is
also an ontological problem for the being of nature in and of itself. The
ontological problem of nature’s impotence/weakness in fact generates
the (apparent) epistemological problem of induction.
Although Hegel is often perceived as a thinker for whom organic
systems and processes provide the master models for all of reality, he in-
deed vehemently rejects panpsychist/vitalist overextensions of the struc-
tures and dynamics of living beings to cover Nature as a whole. What
is more, he prioritizes antagonism and conflict over cohesion and har-
mony, including in Nature generally and organisms especially.49 Whereas
the organicism of panpsychisms and vitalisms foregrounds synthesis and
holism, Hegel refuses to move from organics to musings about a “great
chain of Being.”50
In this vein, Hegelian Nature develops under impetuses produced
by intra-natural tensions and clashes.51 For Hegel, spiritual cognition itself
is originally born out of intra-organic flaws and frictions.52 The fragile,
transitory human soul (Seele) of Hegel’s philosophical anthropology —
which marks the transition from the kingdom of animal organisms at
the end of Naturphilosophie to the regions of the human at the start
of Geistesphilosophie 53 — refracts within itself the disunity of the larger
swathes of Nature.54 With such a soul as the (sublated) foundation of
humanity’s distinctive modes of mindedness and like-mindedness, “it
is,” as Pinkard proposes, “the very nature of a self-conscious agent to
be potentially at odds with its own nature.”55 As the late (and avowedly
anti-Hegelian) Schelling declares, “everything that is dominated by one
principle is powerful and healthy [stark und gesund]; on the other hand,
what is dominated by two is already weak and sick [schwach und krank].”56
Hence, Hegelian Natur is “weak and sick” insofar as it is shot through
with a plurality of sometimes disparate and colliding forces and factors.
Furthermore, Hegel’s depictions of natural substance desubstantial-
ize, as it were, this presumed substantiality.57 Whereas Hegel repeatedly
speaks of “weak nature,” one might say that many traditional naturalisms
and materialisms, by sharp contrast, presuppose or posit what fairly could
be called “strong nature.” For example, Spinozism, Newtonian mechani-
cal physics, eighteenth-century French materialism, nineteenth-century
psycho-physicalism, social Darwinism, eliminative materialism, genetic
 59
T H E DI A L ECT I CS OF I MP O T E NT NAT URE

determinisms, evolutionary psychology, epiphenomenalisms, and myriad

related orientations both past and present— despite whatever differences
there are between them— all implicitly or explicitly subscribe to the be-
lief in something along the lines of what Laplace’s demon represents.
They all share a common article of faith anchored in an image of Nature
as a single, self-consistent sovereign power, a unified causal nexus that
eternally governs everything in existence with the unwavering iron fist
of inviolable laws.
In hybrid Lacanian and Badiouian parlance, such standard natu-
ralist materialisms are invested in fantasies of Nature as an avatar of the
(nonexistent) big Other, the One-All. Thus, they amount to disguised re-
deployments of monotheistic religion, despite their apparent secularism
or atheism. Risking a step further in this vein, I would claim that garden-
variety materialist naturalisms are already (tacitly) supernaturalisms inso-
far as they impute Laplacian demon-type superpowers of universal deter-
mination and authority to Nature, making “Nature” a mere renaming of
God. By comparison with the deity-like substantiality as the strength of
the substance assumed or asserted by various non-Hegelian monisms,
Hegel’s natural substance is relatively insubstantial as weakened in being
suffused and (self-)disrupted by a proliferating multitude of discrepant
structures and dynamics generated by and generating in turn a plethora
of real-natural dialectics.58
The notion of plasticity, whose centrality to Hegelian thinking has
come to be widely appreciated thanks to Catherine Malabou’s ground-
breaking labors, arguably is another manifestation of die Ohnmacht der
Natur in the immediately preceding sense of Hegel’s desubstantializa-
tion of substance. Malabou, in her direct engagements with Hegel, tends
to focus on the “Philosophy of Subjective Spirit” as the surfacing of the
properly human-spiritual out of Nature at the start of the Philosophy of
Mind. Others likewise tightly tether Hegelian plasticity to humans in their
denaturalized and denaturalizing distinctiveness from everything else in
existence.59
By way of a friendly supplement to Malabou and others, I would sug-
gest that, for Hegel, the emergence of the human, including its plasticity,
at the beginning of Geistesphilosophie is ontologically made possible by
plastic deformations and (re)formations that are already operative within
the pre-subjective Nature (especially that of nonhuman life forms) of
Naturphilosophie. For example, in the discussion of “the animal organism”
in the last stretch of the Philosophy of Nature, Hegel links human “habit”
(die Gewohnheit), which subsequently features prominently in the “an-
thropology” opening the Philosophy of Mind,60 with a susceptibility, a sort
of fragility, to becoming internally unbalanced and asymmetrical that
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already dwells within prehuman animality.61 The weakness as malleability

and permeability of Hegelian Nature-in-itself leaves it vulnerable to being
worked and reworked by sentient and sapient agents which transform this
material. Once such (self-)denaturalizing human labor emerges and gets
underway, Hegel’s Nature is too weak to rein it back in under the reduc-
tive causal governance of the non-spiritual realms of physics, mechanics,
chemistry, and prehuman organics.62 Yet, at the same time, the “from” of
human freedom from prehuman natural determination must be under-
stood not only in the sense of difference (i.e., the separateness and inde-
pendence of Geist from Natur), but also in the sense of identity (i.e., the
rootedness in and indebtedness of Geist to Natur).63
The final connotation of Hegel’s refrain-like phrase “die Ohnmacht
der Natur” that I wish to underscore before moving on has to do with his
pronounced anti-romanticism.64 Particularly as regards romanticizations
of Nature, a well-known biographical episode perfectly encapsulates this.
In 1796, on an excursion through the Swiss Alps during a journey from
Bern to Geneva, a youthful Hegel, by marked contrast with his fellow
hikers, reacts to “the masses of rock and ice” with a shoulder-shrugging
“Es ist so” (“It is so”).65 However, those who recount this unimpressed re-
action to an instance of Nature’s mathematical sublimity usually fail to
mention an immediately subsequent detail: Hegel’s marveling (his “in-
tense captivation”) at the flows of water encountered in the mountains,
spectacles he takes to be natural phenomena exhibiting the identity-in-
difference of becoming as truly, really dialectical insofar as these restless
flowing movements always change and yet always remain the same too.66
Perhaps not without an associative resonance with “weak nature,” Hegel
appreciates not natural entities displaying material substantiality as inert,
solid stasis (such as mountains), but instead, natural events manifest-
ing a no-less-material insubstantiality as dynamic, fluid kinesis (such as
streams).67
Hegel’s mature texts contain echoes of his 1796 “Es ist so.”68 Nature,
at least as inorganic, is thoroughly disenchanted for Hegel in his full
acceptance of the modern scientific worldview, with its de-theologizing
separation of Nature from final causes, theodicies, teleologies, and the
like.69 On this issue, as on others, Hegel’s philosophy involves defending
and extending the consequences of scientific modernity and the Enlight-
enment against the rearguard critiques of its reactionary foes, including
Leibniz, F. H. Jacobi, and various of the Pietists and romantics. Hegelian
Natur, particularly below the threshold of the organic, displays a cold in-
difference to humanity’s plans and purposes, although offering no con-
trasting plans and purposes of its own.70
However, at the same time, this Nature is partially vulnerable to
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being appropriated by and bent to humans’ agendas and intentions.

Here, Natur is doubly weak: it is stripped of its purported God-like attri-
butes and powers by disenchanting de-divinization, and it is also exposed
to manipulations of its blindness, fragility, and plasticity by minded and
like-minded agents with their different aims, ends, and goals. What is
more, the ultimate ontological condition of possibility for natural, mate-
rial substance morphing into denaturalized, more-than-material subjec-
tivity is nature’s own impotence/weakness (Ohnmacht).71
In the Phenomenology’s preface, Hegel states: “Reason [Vernunft]
is . . . misunderstood when reflection [Reflexion] is excluded from the
True, and is not grasped as a positive moment of the Absolute [als posi-
tives Moment des Absoluten].”72 In line with his post-Spinozistic logic of the
infinite, Hegel is basically saying that the sentient and sapient subject is a
self-reflective doubling/folding of substance back upon itself, a reflexive
contorting twist that is internal to substantiality (and not outside it, as
the paradigmatic early-modern dichotomy between the external-to-each-
other couplet of subjective mind and objective world has it). 73 If sub-
stantial being is, at its genetic base, natural materiality, then (self-)aware
cognizing subjectivity is the exceptional point at which being begins to
think (itself), with this spiritual subject being simultaneously identical
to and different from (its) living substance.74
This red thread of Hegelian absolute idealism is pivotal for my tran-
scendental materialism insofar as the latter hinges on a theory of the
immanent physical genesis of the thereafter irreducibly denaturalized
autonomous subject who is free from exhaustive heteronomous deter-
mination by what is, all the same, its original rock-bottom ontological
and ontogenetic grounds. Parts of natural substance become spiritual
subjects. The absolute, as initially material being (and as “absolute” to
the extent that there is no elsewhere above and beyond it), comes to be
sentient and, eventually, sapient too.
Thus, absolute idealism, with its idealism of the objective, also cor-
relatively suggests a parallel materialism of the subjective, in that the
more-than-material thinking subject is an instance of the thinking of
material being (in both senses of the genitive). Thanks to the structural
isomorphisms that I regard as integral ingredients of Hegel’s realist ab-
solute idealism, subjects can recognize the structures of their cognized
categories and concepts mirrored in their objects. Furthermore, this
mirroring reciprocally radiates in the other direction at the same time too.
From the vantage point of the Absolute, objects likewise hypothetically
could recognize the structures of their inner logics and configurations
reflected in their subjects. The objective as well as the subjective can say
“You resemble me!” in response to its non-absolute Other. In this way, an
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objective materialized realization of the subject corresponds to a subjec-

tive dematerialized idealization of the object (the latter being the much
more familiar side of this coin for Hegel’s casual readers). The Hegelian
idealism of the object is the recto whose verso is a materialism of the
subject.
Equipped with this comprehension of Hegelianism, I want to return
once again to the second and third volumes of the Encyclopedia. When,
in the Philosophy of Nature, Hegel characterizes Nature as weak/impotent,
this is, among other things, a way of emphasizing that the powers of
the contingent reign in the realms of the natural.75 I read “Natur” as a
Hegelian name for primordial actual being (i.e., the factical Ur-Real)
in the form of the sole initial ground-as-groundless-ground (Grund-als-
Ungrund). And my contention here is that Nature’s chaotic contingency
is the necessary-but-not-sufficient material-ontological condition of possi-
bility for Spirit, even in its freest, highest forms.76
Related to his association of Nature’s impotence with the potency
of contingency, Hegel adds that Nature is shot through with antagonisms
and conflicts. The Philosophy of Nature equates the natural with “unresolved
contradiction” (der unaufgelöste Widerspruch).77 Powers of negativity dwell
within nature as originally a lone One at odds with itself, a material plane
of immanence that is pervaded by cacophonous disharmony and violent
clashes.
For Hegel, the possibility of human beings as self- determining
spiritual subjects is tethered to the lack of potent necessities as would
be sustained by strife-free internal self-integration on the part of Natur.
The brute ontological given of Nature’s contingency-ridden being is the
ground-zero facticity on the basis of which Spirit itself comes to life and
takes shape.78 As Hegel elegantly puts it in his 1827 Lectures on the Philos-
ophy of Religion, “Spiritual oneness comes forth out of severed being.”79
In light of my transcendental materialist focus on the topic of
human subjectivity, zooming in on this topic with sharper, finer-grained
resolution is necessary. First of all, in the subsection of the Philosophy
of Nature on “The Animal Organism,” Hegel, speaking of “the human
organism” in advance of the human-centric Philosophy of Mind, claims in
a Zusatz that “it is only in and from this type that we can ascertain and
explain the meaning of the undeveloped organism.”80 Connoisseurs of
Marx almost certainly will recall the lines from the Grundrisse’s 1857 in-
troduction asserting (with reference to comparative analyses of political
economies) that “human anatomy contains a key to the anatomy of the
ape. The intimations of higher development among the subordinate
animal species, however, can be understood only after the higher de-
velopment is already known”81 (whether Marx is aware of it or not, this as-
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sertion implicitly invokes Hegel’s Owl of Minerva). What Hegel says here
in terms of the connections between human and nonhuman organisms
holds at a larger-scale level for his presentations of the rapport between
the logical, the real, and their geneses. Only from the lofty logical heights
of the fully realized ideational consciousness of completed systematic
philosophy can the genetically prior entities and events, the temporally
antecedent movements and combinations, leading up to this pinnacle—
these include natural beings as the initial moments of this whole proces-
sual trajectory— be firmly and appropriately grasped. Furthermore, this
shared Hegelian-Marxian proposition can be read as licensing a retro-
jection, an after-the-fact discernment of anticipations and precursors, of
select traits of human subjectivity back into its preexisting, enabling bases
(i.e., its nonhuman natural origins).
With the option of this retrojective move in mind, I would like to
provide readers with a reminder of Hegel’s well-known intra-historical/
spiritual narratives of the emergence of radically autonomous subjects.
To be extremely brief, in the Phenomenology of Spirit (with the tableau of
ancient Greek Sittlichkeit laid out through an appropriation of Sophocles’s
Antigone),82 the Philosophy of Right (with its core contrast between Sittlich-
keit and Moralität), and the Lectures on the History of Philosophy (with its
retelling of the trial and death of Socrates along lines resembling the Phe-
nomenology’s earlier rendition of Antigone),83 Hegel weaves and reweaves
a narrative in which the genuine infinity of autonomous subjectivity, in
its self-reflective/reflexive cutting-off of itself from its background so-
ciohistorical whole, comes to light for itself (für sich) only if and when
this whole from which it sunders itself via individuation begins to break
down and disintegrate.84 Disruptions and malfunctionings of objective
spirit are necessary (although not necessarily sufficient) conditions for
individuals to be hurled into their thus-opened abysses of freedom. Only
when objective spirit (as substantial Sittlichkeit) is weak, when it is not too
strong and its sun is setting, is there the potential for the coming-to-be-
for-itself of the nocturnal void of cogito-like subjectivity (as subjective
Moralität).85
I maintain that this structural dynamic operative between the sub-
stance of Sittlichkeit and the subject of Moralität is not just intra-spiritual,
namely, specific exclusively to Geistesphilosophie. It recapitulates and re-
flects a process simultaneously conjoining and disjoining Natur and
Geist.86 The emergence of second nature (as the subjectivity of Geist) from
first nature (as the substantiality of Natur) is repeated in modified form
within second nature itself (in the mode of spiritual crises and collapses
at the level of Sittlichkeit catalyzing the birth of individualities who are
contracted into the enclosures of their autonomous self-relations at the
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level of Moralität). The logic of the weakness/impotence of Nature is re-

fracted in different guises within the logic of the weakness/impotence of
objective spirit. Just as weak/impotent Nature gives birth to Spirit gener-
ally, weak/impotent objective spirit gives birth to an und für sich subjec-
tive spirit.87 Playing with the happy accident of a fortuitous homophony,
Hegel indeed is a forerunner of Ernst Haeckel.88
Early in the Philosophy of Nature, Hegel echoes the chorus’s “Ode
to Man” in Antigone.89 In so doing, he portrays human reason as a reflec-
tive power of negativity that is immanent to being, material nature’s own
self-transforming/disrupting inflection, torsion, curving, or bending.
The “cunning of his [man’s] reason” of which Hegel speaks is an inner
permutation of the natural (dis)order itself, one of its own distinctive
swerves.90 What is more, Hegel’s employment of the phrase “cunning
of . . . reason,” as in the (in)famous phrase List der Vernunft, is important.
Within the dimension of the spiritual history of humanity, the cunning
of reason can be interpreted as a higher-order, self-relating process, with
its own internally driving logical necessity, that arises in a bottom-up way
from a concatenated multitude of underlying contingent forces and fac-
tors. Similarly, the thriving plethora of contingencies of the baseless on-
tological base of weak nature permit, through their anarchic interplay,
the emergent bubbling-up of aggressively assertive and stubborn loci that
become the centers of gravity for swirling vortices of self-relating kinetics
(including those counting as autonomous subjects).
More precisely, Hegel, with his extrapolations from Sophocles, sug-
gests that human beings are portions of nature playing off portions of
their own natures (through habits, tools, and other artifices meticulously
cataloged in the Philosophy of Mind) and portions of their surrounding
natural environs against each other. They thereby take advantage of the
wiggle room provided by nature’s insufficient strength (as the necessitat-
ing power of intra-natural rules and regulations extinguishing contin-
gency in advance) so as to carve out some breathing space for themselves
as free agents. As the cliché has it, they fight fire with fire (or indeed,
with water). During this same moment in the Philosophy of Nature, Hegel
also significantly qualifies the degree to which, at least in the spheres of
practical activity, human subjects, as still themselves internal foldings of
the nature upon which they work, can assert themselves against nature
as their self-othering Other (“Nature herself, however, in her univer-
sal aspect, he [man] cannot overcome in this way, nor can he turn her
to his own purposes”).91 Whether attainable or not at the theoretical-
epistemological level, absolute (over and above relative) autonomy at the
practical-ontological level is out of reach.
Later on in the Philosophy of Nature, Hegel anticipates, among other
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things, his above-mentioned discussion of habit in the “Anthropology”

subsection of the Philosophy of Mind.92 In this context, he associates habit
with “asymmetry”/“inequality” (Ungleichheit).93 This characteristic, defin-
ing asymmetry/imbalance which distinguishes willful human life forms
from others is allowed for by virtue of an undergirding absence of an
overridingly strong natural-cosmic symmetry/balance. Dialectically put,
the deficit of the minus of Nature’s weakness, as already being in states
of disequilibrium, enables the excess of the plus of Spirit’s potent sponta-
neous capacities for further disequilibriating creations and destructions.
An additional caveat is essential: Nature’s weakness as a conflicted
contingency holds between the folds of nature (as per, for instance,
Hegel’s division of his Naturphilosophie into mechanics, physics, and or-
ganics), as well as within the specifically organic layers and tiers in which
flesh-and-blood human beings (initially) are embedded. If, as I have
purported, Hegel is a strong emergentist avant la lettre, not only is he
not completely under the spell of a German-romantic kind of universal
(w)holism, but he requires, as integral to his cherished philosophy of free
subjectivity, the effective existence of discontinuities within and between
nature’s multiple dimensions. The swerves of the contingent within
nature, as its weakness/impotence, help make possible the breaks and
ruptures that engender the foundations of human freedom. In Lacanian-
Žižekian parlance, no big Other of a global natural economy lords it over
Hegelian Natur with a vise-like grip of exhaustively integrating necessity,
a smothering, stifling hand throttling in advance the possible rising-up
of autonomous subjects.
Another cautionary note must be sounded here before I proceed to
a few final remarks. My Hegel-indebted transcendental materialist theory
of subjectivity is by no means committed to a vulgar, uncomplicated te-
leology. To be more exact, I do not endorse just-so stories according to
which the immanent genesis of human subjects out of material nature is
a foregone conclusion, an inevitability destined from time immemorial to
come to fruition sooner or later. There is no regressing back behind the
Darwin-event. I accept and affirm that the emergence of human beings,
with their distinguishing peculiarities, is itself an absolutely contingent
development in the physical universe.
Moreover, I would go further and submit that Hegel is not the crude
teleological thinker he all too frequently is made out to be. To take the
example of the Phenomenology of Spirit, which, as Hegel’s first magnum
opus, sets the stage for much of the rest of his later philosophizing, it ap-
pears therein that a deep, irresistible current of progress functions as an
undertow carrying the figures of nonphilosophical consciousness along
a preordained pathway leading to the telos of philosophical “Absolute
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Knowing.” Moreover, this odyssey seems to be laid out in a particular

order of stages and phases forming a fixed, necessary sequence through
which consciousness is condemned to journey under the prearranged
schedule of an already-established logical/metaphysical itinerary.
But the case can be made that, for Hegel, nothing guarantees in
advance that progress will occur. Any progress is an after-the-fact effect
that can be discerned only retroactively (and whose temporally anteced-
ent causes are contingencies). Any necessity, as the preface to the Philos-
ophy of Right spells out with pointed frankness, can be seen solely by the
Owl of Minerva.94 Stated with greater precision, in the Phenomenology,
a dialectically self-generated deadlock or impasse afflicting a shape of
consciousness does not contain within itself the promise of the fated
actual arrival of a progressive step beyond as a resolution or exit. The
immanent critiques of themselves that these shapes produce, as deter-
minate negations in the technical Hegelian sense, merely outline what
a resolution/exit could be if— and this “if” arguably is a matter of con-
ditional contingency rather than teleological necessity— a new figure of
consciousness, one fulfilling what is demanded in terms of a resolution/
exit, happens to come along in the future course of time. The dialectical
self-subversions of consciousness, through their immanent determinate
negations of themselves, just sketch the rough contours of what a possible
solution to the problems they create for themselves would have to look
like if such a solution comes along unpredictably one fine day. In other
words, the thus-generated foreshadowings of subsequent progress, in the
guise of approximate criteria for what would count as moving forward
past specific cul-de-sacs, do not have the authoritative power to assure,
as a matter of a simplistic teleology, the popping-up in factual reality of
realized escapes from these quagmires. Whether or not consciousness
remains stuck is, ultimately, a matter of chance, and is left up to the ca-
price of the contingent.
I believe that the same considerations with regard to teleology in
the Phenomenology can be brought to bear on Hegel’s Naturphilosophie.
That is to say, for each locality of weak-as-not-whole nature, as for each
shape of consciousness, nothing guarantees that anything of a higher
order of complexity inevitably will congeal out of and in relation to a
specific regional configuration of nature. Hence, with reference to the
Realphilosophie of the Encyclopedia, I contend that the emergence of the
organic out of both the mechanical and the physical, as well as the emer-
gence of human life out of the organic, are contingencies, ontologically
speaking. Hegel’s talk of these emergences as instances of “progress”
need not be construed as symptomatic of a nowadays unpalatable onto-
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theological teleology of an unsophisticated sort. Instead, whether natural-

philosophical functionalist criteria for progression to higher forms really
are fulfilled by actually existing beings is up to chance. But, if things of
this type indeed do occur, then these criteria enable such occurrences to
be theoretically recognized, registered, and known in their proper speci-
ficity, if only after the fact.
The phrase “after the fact” brings up retroaction, something cen-
tral to the standpoint and approach of Hegel’s distinctive philosophical
framework. Of course, the first reference likely to come to the mind of
a reader minimally familiar with the Hegelian oeuvre is the rightly cele-
brated preface to 1821’s Elements of the Philosophy of Right, with its Owl of
Minerva.95 However, I would argue that Hegel’s restricting of the phi-
losopher’s wisdom to a hindsight-without-foresight holds not only for
the mature Rechtsphilosophie, but for each and every component of his
philosophical system. Hegel admits as much regarding both phenom-
enology (with its narrator as the “we” of absolute knowing’s philosophical
consciousness casting its recollective glance back over the terrain it al-
ready has traversed) and logic (with Hegel articulating Logik from the
standpoint of one who already has passed through all the speculative-
dialectical moments delineated as the interlinked categories of this intel-
lectual apparatus). The overall organization of the sections and chapters
of Philosophy of Mind reveals the same. With regard to the Philosophy of
Nature, my thesis here is that this component of Hegel’s Encyclopedia is
constructed from a position after the fact of the genesis of human sub-
jects (indeed, of the myriad forms of Spirit), with the benefit of hind-
sight of this emergent set of dimensions. (Z. A. Jordan similarly claims
with regard to Marx’s [qualified] naturalism that Marx reverse-engineers
nature out of humanity so as to explain the rise of the human out of the
natural.)96
To be more precise, the fundamental question to be asked and
answered from the perspective of the Hegel of the Realphilosophie as
Naturphilosophie is: what must the Real of Nature-in-itself have been, and
continue to be, given that it just so happens to have eventuated in minded
and like-minded theoretical and practical agents? Heeding the episte-
mological strictures of Kantian critique, Hegel, as a post-Kantian (rather
than a pre-Kantian), begins with and from sapient subjectivity. But, in
light of the objections to Kantian (and Fichtean) subjective idealism he
shares with Hölderlin and Schelling,97 Hegel cannot remain within the
confines of this mere beginning. Instead, in line with a thoroughly imma-
nent critique of Kantianism, he obeys a speculative imperative to ground
this subjectivity in an even more fundamental, primordial, pre-subjective
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beginning: the factically-there, contingency-ridden Real of material, spa-

tiotemporal nature as categorically and conceptually formed in and of
itself in its mind-independent objectivity.
The first sentence of the last paragraph of the Phenomenology of Spirit
employs the theologically laden word “kenosis.”98 A traditional Christian
definition of “kenosis” uses this concept-term to designate the act of crea-
tion in which the infinite immaterial God of transcendence empties Him-
self out into the immanence of the hence-created finitude of material
being(s). The entire rereading of Hegel I have furnished here in part 1
indicates that Hegelian kenosis is the inverse of this Christian definition
of the word. The delineation of the real-philosophical becoming-subject
of substance, as perhaps “the oldest agenda of Hegelianism” (as I entitled
it earlier with reference to the 1796 “Earliest System-Program of German
Idealism”), is a reverse kenosis, namely, genesis from the ground up of a
transcendence-in-immanence. The material substance of a weak nature
alone empties itself out into the void-like negativity of more-than-material
subjectivity as “the night of the world.”
Hegel links the historical genesis of modern secular science in the
seventeenth century to Judeo-Christianity. From Christianity, science
takes its assumption of a stable, unchanging order governing the uni-
verse with its timeless laws. From Judaism, it takes the de-divinization of
thereby-banalized physical reality. One of the guiding programs of tran-
scendental materialism is to execute sublations of science’s sublations of
Judaism and Christianity (a sublation of sublation in line with the logic
of a Hegelian dialectical “negation of negation”). Carrying out this task
would facilitate a transition from merely secular science, which is still bur-
dened with the residues and remainders of its religious/theological past,
to a truly atheistic scientific paradigm. The sciences will become authenti-
cally atheist if and only if each and every lingering investment in a Nature
with a capital “N,” another big Other surreptitiously substituting for the
prescientific Gods of Judaism and Christianity, is worked through and put
in its proper place. Against a secularized Christianity, the legislating One-
All, with its avatars and emissaries, must be exorcized. Against a secular-
ized Judaism, the reduction of material being to the amassed, atomized
aggregate of a flat, mechanical, quantifiable finitude must be dispelled.
At the end of Faith and Knowledge (1802), Hegel trumpets a “specula-
tive Good Friday in place of the historic Good Friday,” vehemently insist-
ing that “Good Friday must be speculatively re-established in the whole
truth and harshness of its God-forsakenness [der ganzen Wahrheit und Härte
seiner Gottlosigkeit].”99 Depending on whether or not one is convinced by
my version of Hegel, either a renewed appreciation of Hegel’s speculative
death of God100 is overdue or a second speculative Good Friday, with no
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Easter Sunday to follow, is to be enacted. This is not the Calvary in which

the death of God-cum-Christ leaves behind the Holy Spirit. This is the
Golgotha in which the disappearance of God-cum-Nature leaves behind
a human spirit (Geist) abandoned to itself.101
What monotheistic fundamentalists find profoundly disturb-
ing about biological science in particular is its promotion of logics of
bottom-up emergence with no need whatsoever for positing any top-down
impositions descending from a paternal transcendence. These mono-
theists are right to feel threatened. In this connection, Hegel should scare
the hell out of them too.102
In The German Ideology, Marx and Engels proclaim: “In direct con-
trast to German philosophy which descends from heaven to earth, here
it is a matter of ascending from earth to heaven” (Ganz im Gegensatz zur
deutschen Philosophie, welche vom Himmel auf die Erde herabsteigt, wird hier
von der Erde zum Himmel gestiegen).103 With Hegel as the paragon of this
“German philosophy,” my reverse-kenotic reinterpretation mandates re-
stating this proclamation as: “In direct fidelity to German philosophy,
here it is a matter of ascending from earth to heaven.” If my materi-
alist, (quasi-)naturalist, and realist rendition of Hegelian philosophy is
basically sound, this obviously has repercussions for the conception of
the rapport between Hegelianism and Marxism. Marx’s best-known pro-
nouncement as regards Hegel’s philosophy is most probably his insis-
tence, in the first volume of Capital, on the imperative “to discover the ra-
tional kernel within the mystical shell.”104 The “rational kernel” is much,
much bigger in relation to the “mystical shell” than Marx concedes or
recognizes.105 If I am correct, then this thin surface might even have been
cracked or shattered from the beginning. Either way, the time has come
to cease being preoccupied with this uninteresting old husk and to start
honestly reckoning with the real Hegel.
Part 2

From Scientific Socialism to

Socialist Science: The Dialectics
of Nature Then and Now
6

The Specter of Engels: The

Obscured History of Marxism’s
Philosophies of Science

Harvard University’s Marxist biologists Richard Levins and Richard

Lewontin dedicate their book The Dialectical Biologist (1985) “to Freder-
ick Engels, who got it wrong a lot of the time but who got it right where
it counted.” In the English, French, and German-speaking worlds of the
Western Marxisms of the mid-twentieth century up through the present,
the viewpoint expressed in this dedication is an unfashionable rarity. The
Engels acknowledged by Levins and Lewontin— the Engels who is the au-
thor of the trilogy Dialectics of Nature, Anti-Dühring, and Ludwig Feuerbach
and the Outcome of Classical German Philosophy, a writer who fiercely advo-
cates a dialectical extension of historical materialism into the jurisdictions
of the natural sciences— is the object of either total neglect or brusque
dismissals, especially within the permutations of “critical theory” linked
to the Frankfurt school, as well as phenomenological and existentialist
revisions of Marxist theory. Relatedly, although sympathetic engagement
with Hegel’s philosophy in general does not constitute a real distinction
between Eastern and Western Marxisms, the proper name “Engels,” as
standing first and foremost for a Hegel-inspired Naturdialektik, indeed
does constitute precisely this distinction.1
Levins and Lewontin, in their refusal to treat this Engels as the
deadest “dead dog” of them all, implicitly urge a rescue operation in
the contemporary conjuncture resembling the one that Marx claims to
perform on behalf of Hegel.2 That is to say, the task called for here is one
of saving the “rational kernel” located at the heart of Engelsian Natur-
dialektik. Fully and properly appreciating the stakes of “repeating Engels”
today requires, to begin with, the background of a historical narrative
that recounts Engels’s varying fates in the unfurling of Marxism, and
especially his place in the eventual parting of ways between Soviet and
Western Marxisms. What follows will involve, in part, my retelling of this
stretch of intellectual and political history.
In Levins’s brief autobiographical essay with the somewhat self-
congratulatory title “Living the 11th Thesis,” he credits the texts of the

73
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British Marxist scientists of the 1930s and 1940s (mentioning J. B. S. Hal-

dane, J. D. Bernal, and Joseph Needham) with having initiated him into
dialectical materialism.3 The initiators of Levins into a Marxist worldview
were themselves radicalized partly thanks to a significant event in 1931:
the surprise appearance of a Soviet delegation, led by Nikolai Bukharin,
at the Second International Congress of the History of Science and Tech-
nology being held in London.4 The papers given by this group of phi-
losophers and scientists from the East were translated into English and
published in a volume entitled Science at the Crossroads only days after
their oral delivery. They vehemently make the case for the explanatory
power and intellectual superiority of dialectical materialism à la Marx and
Engels in relation to, among other fields, physics, biology, mathematics,
agriculture, and the history of the sciences.
Although, by certain accounts, Boris Hessen’s presentation of a his-
torical materialist explanation of the genesis of Newton’s physics made
the strongest impression on the British audience at this 1931 conference,5
the biologist Boris Zavadovsky’s paper concerning “The ‘Physical’ and
‘Biological’ in the Process of Organic Evolution” is the most topical of
the Soviets’ essays in light of my purposes herein.6 Of course, the revolu-
tionary upheavals in physics in the opening decades of the twentieth cen-
tury were an integral part of the background against which not only this
London gathering, but the entire post-Engels controversy about a dialec-
tics of nature among various Marxisms in the early twentieth century, was
set. Already in 1908, Lenin saw the necessity of combating the scientistic
idealisms that were exploiting and feeding off these scientific crises, and
he devoted substantial portions of Materialism and Empirio-Criticism to this
new front in the old war between materialism and idealism.7 Much later
in the century but still in the same vein, Sebastiano Timpanaro alleges
that physics (particularly the physics of the extremely small) is compara-
tively more vulnerable and prone to idealist (mis)appropriations than
biology, the latter tending to be quite stubbornly materialist in his estima-
tion.8 I will revisit this claim by Timpanaro subsequently.
Before I say more about Zavadovsky’s contribution specifically, a
Bukharin-headed collection of papers roughly contemporaneous with
the London gathering, whose English translation is entitled Marxism and
Modern Thought, deserves discussion here. Two essays in particular from
this volume warrant attention in the present context: Y. M. Uranovsky’s
“Marxism and Natural Science”9 and V. L. Komarov’s “Marx and Engels
on Biology.”10 The former piece is the more important of the two for my
purposes.
Uranovsky begins by condemning neglect or denials of the natural
(scientific) grounds of historical materialism as anti- or pseudo-Marxist11
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(echoing, among others, Georgi Plekhanov, the father of Russian Marx-

ism).12 By implication, this obviously brands the young Georg Lukács and
many of his Western-Marxist heirs as deviators from true Marxism. Ura-
novsky’s contention, which was entirely in line with the Soviet orthodoxy
of the 1920s and 1930s, is that Engelsian Naturdialektik is an integral com-
ponent of Marxism as itself a whole composed of both dialectical and
historical materialisms.13 Moreover, echoing various moments in Marx’s
oeuvre (as well as Hegel’s corpus too, although Uranovsky is avowedly
deaf to any such Hegelian resonances),14 he states that “man is himself
a part of nature. Man is historical nature and nature is natural history.”15
Humanity with its history is immanent to a historicized nature.16
Additionally, in a foreshadowing of the dialectical naturalist ontology
of transcendental materialism and its theory of subjectivity, Uranovsky
maintains that human beings embody a nature-immanent overcoming
of nature itself, a natural process of denaturalization, leading to social
mediations as transcendences-in-immanence with regard to pre- and non-
human nature(s).17 Alfred Schmidt, interpreting “Marx’s materialism”
as based on a foundational naturalist ontology, later similarly observes
that “Marx’s materialism is directed towards its own supersession. Marx
and Engels were fully in accord here”18 — with such self-superseding mat-
ter arguably being equivalent to self-denaturalizing nature.19 In the es-
say immediately following Uranovsky’s (and immediately preceding Ko-
marov’s) in Marxism and Modern Thought, the physicist Sergey Ivanovich
Vavilov, brother of the famed geneticist and Lysenko/Stalin victim Niko-
lai Vavilov, likewise describes the sociohistorical development of scien-
tific knowledge and technological know-how as a peculiar set of trajecto-
ries internal to and growing out of the bigger arc of natural history writ
large.20
Uranovsky’s text proceeds to emphasize the agreement between
Marx and Engels on issues related to Naturdialektik and science. This em-
phasis tacitly counters the tendency of Western Marxists to try to drive
a wedge between the good Marx’s non-naturalistic historical material-
ism and the bad Engels’s naturalistic dialectical materialism. Like Engels,
Marx repudiates mechanistic (as non-dialectical) materialist renditions
of the natural sciences.21 What is more, Marx and Engels are both in-
fluenced by the Naturphilosophie tradition of German idealism.22 In this
same vein, and very much like Hegel in particular, Marx is said, by Ura-
novsky, to engage in a delicate interfacing of the scientific-empirical (as
per natural science) and the philosophical-theoretical (as per philosophy
of nature).23
Similarly, Uranovsky pushes back against accusations according to
which Engelsian dialectical materialism dogmatically superimposes a pri-
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ori “dialectical laws” as abstract logical formalizations upon the contents

of the a posteriori experimental sciences.24 For him, Engels’s Naturdialek-
tik is conditioned by, dependent upon, and responsive to the empirical
results of science.25 Hence, Engelsianism-Leninism insists that dialectical
materialism “therefore changes its appearance with every big discovery in
science.”26 Finally, like Marx, Engels, and a number of like-minded others
with respect to Darwin particularly,27 Uranovsky continues to believe that
the life sciences specifically remain the newest, most avant-garde sector
of the natural sciences.28 Biology is the prioritized battlefield for dialecti-
cal materialism as struggling to navigate, like Hegelian Naturphilosophie,
between the twin extremes of vitalism and mechanism.29
Komarov’s paper adds two points relevant to this discussion. First, in
the course of a consideration of science generally and biology especially,
he appeals to the Hegel for whom scientific necessities (such as causes
and laws) are themselves contingent as lacking any meta-necessity that
they be just so and not otherwise.30 Second, Komarov declares that “there
are revolutions in Nature”31 — with natural history, including evolution
itself, involving “revolution” as sudden, leap-like transitions, as per the
Hegelian dialectics of quantity and quality, in addition to “evolution” as
gradual, smooth developments.
So, what about Zavadovsky in London in 1931 (who, greatly to his
credit, eventually fell foul of Trofim Denisovich Lysenko)?32 Arguably,
Zavadovsky’s dialectical materialist handling of the rapport between phys-
ics and biology focuses primarily on dialectics. As was the case for Marx
and Engels with respect to their materialist intellectual ancestors, Zava-
dovsky’s targeted adversary in this context is non-dialectical as mechani-
cal and reductive materialism.33 Tacitly gesturing at the Hegelian (and
Schellingian) speculative notion that insists on an ontology in which each
and every identity is one of both identity and difference, Zavadovsky aims
at striking a balance between physics and biology in which the latter is
both continuous and discontinuous with the former.34
On the side of continuity, the physical is a necessary condition for
the biological, with organic creatures immanently arising on the basis of
inorganic matter.35 But, on the complementary flip side of discontinuity,
the materialist acknowledgment of this necessary condition does not and
should not license buying into a one-sided, flat monism in which every-
thing can, at least in principle, be boiled down to whatever present-best
physics hypothesizes regarding the purportedly smallest constituents of
the physical world. In Zavadovsky’s treatment of the relationship between
these two natural scientific disciplines, biological things cannot be cap-
tured at the level of a physics that is taken to supply all the sufficient
causes for biology. This is despite organisms’ ontological indebtedness
to inorganic physical things as their necessary causes.36
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Zavadovsky, following in the footsteps of Engels, characterizes dia-

lectical materialism as an evolutionary (w)holism that, while emphasiz-
ing the ubiquitous universal interconnectedness of entities and events,
nonetheless is not reductively homogenizing for all that.37 Echoing mo-
ments in Lenin’s reading of Hegel’s Science of Logic,38 Zavadovsky’s text de-
picts the emergence of the organic as a “leap” out of the inorganic. The
biological thereby achieves, to employ suitable Marxist phrasing here, a
“relative autonomy” in relation to the physical.39
Zavadovsky utilizes the same manner of configuring the physics-
biology rapport to argue against falling into the trap of mechanically
projecting and transposing Darwinian biology onto social structures and
dynamics.40 In his eyes, recognizing the importance and irreducible inde-
pendence of the realms of the biological is not tantamount to betraying
Marxism through a slide into crude, malevolent social Darwinism. How-
ever, Darwinism itself, properly understood, cannot be brushed aside as
just another vulgar materialism.41
Contrary to the fears of some, including some Marxists past and
present, a dialectical materialism encompassing the life sciences by no
means automatically entails a lapse into philosophically and ideologically
indefensible scientisms. Overall, Zavadovsky and his ilk, even though con-
signed to historical obscurity by a willful amnesia operating both within
and beyond Marxist circles, are the progenitors not only of such self-
consciously radical scientists as Levins and Lewontin (as well as Steven
Rose), but also of today’s well-known paradigms of emergentism in the
life sciences, with their now-familiar talk of “tipping points” and “phase
transitions.”42 Illuminated in this way, Zavadovsky’s stance43 is emblem-
atic of the Marxist thesis according to which the empirical, experimental
sciences spontaneously point toward dialectical materialist conclusions.44
The natural scientists of today are, at a minimum, at least as unconsciously
inclined in the direction of dialectical materialism as were those of the
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Zavadovsky is himself the offspring of Engels as the grandfather
of Naturdialektik (with Hegel as its great-grandfather).45 Any informed
consideration of a dialectics of nature must begin with an examination
of Engels and his reception. To this end, I would now like to zero in on
Timpanaro’s investigations into the vicissitudes of Engelsianism, given
both my agreement with many of his arguments as well as the fact that
his narration of this history helpfully sets the stage for my subsequent
discussion of what is at stake philosophically, politically, and scientifically
in repeating Engels in the early twenty-first century.
Assessing the state of European Marxism in the 1960s and 1970s,
Timpanaro, at the outset of On Materialism (1970), judges that its division
into the two camps of the Frankfurt school and Althusserianism presents
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Western radical leftists with a false choice. This is because both alter-
natives allegedly share the same unacceptable restriction on the scope
of Marxism as a whole precisely as regards the sciences of modernity.46
Timpanaro strenuously opposes what he takes to be Althusser’s theore-
ticist formalism, with its “Platonizing disdain” for the historical and the
empirical.47 His main objection is that Althusser’s mid-1960s structuraliza-
tion of Marxism relies upon a false dilemma: “In my opinion, one should
not concede to Althusser that his Théorie is the true alternative to ‘lived
experience,’ to Erlebnis in the vitalist and immediatist sense. Between
the one and the other there lies experimental science.”48 Further on,
speaking of the purportedly sophistical French structuralists as a group,
he adds, “They have sought to blur together under the pejorative label
of ‘empirical’ both ‘lived experience’ in the irrationalist sense and the
‘experimental.’”49
Timpanaro is absolutely correct to protest against what I am
tempted to label, playing with the title of a renowned 1951 essay by
W. V. O. Quine, the dogma of two empiricisms. The empiricism of the
experimental natural sciences is dramatically different in myriad onto-
logical, epistemological, and methodological ways from the “empiricism”
of such idealist and romanticist movements as Bergsonism and phenom-
enology. Furthermore, during the twentieth century particularly, natural
scientific theory and practice, including the life sciences, became increas-
ingly divorced from and at odds with the phenomenological intuitions
of midsized, human-scale experience. Hence, aligning empirical experi-
mentation along the axis of phenomenology in the disputes between
phenomenology and structuralism is unwarranted. The modern sciences
of nature do not neatly map onto the coordinates of this philosophical
battlefield of mid-century France.
As for the other extreme of Theodor Adorno and company, Tim-
panaro warns of a post-Marxist regression back into idealism via critiques
of modern science.50 While granting that the labor-driven sociohistorical
denaturalization of nature within humanity has gone very far indeed,
Timpanaro nonetheless maintains that biological first nature is not ne-
gated by and absorbed without remainder into more-than-biological sec-
ond nature.51 Similarly, he stresses differences in the rhythms of change at
the admittedly distinct levels of natural and social histories.52 Timpanaro
seeks to bypass two complementary sorts of one-sidedness: “to reduce
man to what is specific about him with respect to other animals is just as
one-sided as to reduce him (as vulgar materialists do) to what he has in
common with them.”53
In addition to this denunciation of one-sidedness, Timpanaro re-
jects an anti-naturalist line of argumentation that was advanced in the
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Western Marxist tradition starting with Lukács. In Timpanaro’s view, “To

maintain that, since the ‘biological’ is always presented to us as mediated
by the ‘social,’ the ‘biological’ is nothing and the ‘social’ is everything,
would once again be idealist sophistry.”54 The young Lukács and his fol-
lowers arguably maintained precisely this. But obviously, just because a
knowledge of digestion is a product of socially mediated science does not
mean that humans cannot metabolize their food unless and until they
understand the physiology of this organic operation.55
In another swipe at the “Frankfurt jugglers,”56 Timpanaro chal-
lenges their tendency to treat the sciences as subsumable entirely under
the heading of the superstructural. Indeed, the discourse of Adorno and
his fellow Frankfurters indulges in a careless, journalistic sandwiching
together of science and scientism. Ironically, this mimics the reactionary
Heideggerianism that Adorno himself adamantly assaults.57 Motivated by
valid worries concerning the multifarious consequences of the sciences
in industrial and postindustrial societies, Marxists of the Frankfurt school
court the danger of reducing these scientific disciplines in their entirety
to their ideological and political uses and abuses under capitalism.58 From
Timpanaro’s perspective, given that superstructural forms include such
context-relative phenomena as religions and prevailing modes of ephem-
eral, transitory “common sense,” putting the sciences on this same level
invalidly and indefensibly relativizes these fields and their results.59
Timpanaro’s road bypassing the fork between the Paris of Althusser
and the Frankfurt of Adorno begins by returning to Engels as the divi-
sive figure featuring centrally in the origins of the split between Western
and Soviet Marxisms. He justifiably identifies Western Marxism, despite
its internal splits, as united in a shared antipathy to ostensibly “vulgar”
materialism.60 The key symptom of this is nothing other than “a charac-
teristic common to a great deal of contemporary Western Marxism: anti-
Engelsism.”61 Timpanaro remarks that the repudiation of this Engels also
entails a rubbishing of the Lenin of Materialism and Empirio-Criticism.62
By Timpanaro’s lights, this aversion to crude materialisms, rather than
prompting Marxists in the West after Lukács to defend dialectical ma-
terialism, leads them to fall into a disavowed idealism.63 This idealism
often disguises itself, when it does bother to dirty its hands dealing with
the natural sciences, through an excessive emphasis on science exclu-
sively as human sociohistorical praxis.64 Along these lines, Timpanaro
urges, “pseudo-materialism must be fought with a scientifically founded
materialism, and not with a return to antediluvian forms of voluntaristic
spiritualism.”65
Timpanaro portrays Engels as the scapegoat of choice for Marxists
in the West when they are anxious to preserve Marx’s innocence and
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infallibility by exculpating and exonerating him in the face of problems

plaguing the subsequent history of Marxism.66 I would maintain that
Timpanaro’s assessment of Marxism in the 1970s remains pertinent up
to the present day. In relation to this, I will later argue that Engels, at least
as much as Marx, is not straightforwardly and categorically guilty of any
of the crudenesses with which his scapegoaters saddle him. But, for the
time being, I want to remark upon a few more features of Timpanaro’s
On Materialism before proceeding further.
To begin with, Timpanaro is not a stodgy conservative calling for a
return to old dogmas in reaction to the parade of more recent fashions in
the complex developments of Marxism after Marx. He sensibly confesses
to recognizing worthwhile aspects to the stagings of encounters between
Marxist thought and other theoretical orientations. Moreover, he goes on
to plead for the need to strike a balance between the perilous extremes of
equally hasty embraces or shunnings of new intellectual trends.67 My ver-
sion of a path navigating between these poles is to reinscribe (albeit with
appropriate modifications and updates) Engelsian Naturdialektik within
the framework of the life sciences of the early twenty-first century. I will
go on to do so already armed with a heterodox materialist and realist
interpretation of Hegelian Naturphilosophie.
Timpanaro offers a number of rebuttals to the criticisms of Engels
that have typically been voiced by Marxists of an anti-Engels bent. First
of all, he makes a very bold claim by turning the tables a full 180 degrees
on those who seek to divide Marx and Engels from each other so as to
transform the latter into the isolated culprit who is solely responsible for
anything and everything associated with the genuine or apparent prob-
lems plaguing Marxism. According to Timpanaro’s claim, Engels may
even exhibit certain intellectual virtues to a higher degree than Marx.
He suggests that Engels, with his extensions of Marx’s historical materi-
alism beyond the spheres of political economy alone, evinces a superior
breadth of vision as compared with Marx.68 In other words, Engels displays
a wider-ranging erudition and greater interdisciplinary capabilities.69
On the heels of this, Timpanaro contends that the differences
between Marx’s historical materialist critique of political economy
and Engels’s dialectical materialist Naturdialektik are not, as per anti-
Engelsianism, symptomatic of Engels distorting and betraying Marx.70 In-
stead, both he and Helena Sheehan depict the works of Marx and Engels
as reflecting a division of labor negotiated between the two of them, with
Marx focusing on political economy and Engels elaborating the much-
needed all-encompassing worldview that provides the ultimate under-
lying justifications for historical materialism itself (as Z. A. Jordan aptly
puts it in Hegelian terms, Engels sees dialectical materialism as positing
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the presuppositions of Marx’s historical materialism).71 Timpanaro and

Sheehan both mobilize a wealth of evidence testifying to Marx’s endorse-
ment of Engels’s forays into the natural sciences, including these two col-
laborators’ well-documented working habits while together in London,
their copious correspondence, Marx’s explicit approval of Anti-Dühring,
and Marx’s own writings on mathematics.72
Another anti-Engelsian tactic for driving a wedge between the co-
founders of Marxism entails reference to Hegel. Specifically, this tactic
resorts to contrasting an Engels who is supposedly culpable of regressing
back to a classical Hegelian formalism with a Marx whose more advanced
and sophisticated materialism breaks with Hegel’s idealistic dialectics.
But, as Timpanaro shows, textual evidence from the Engels in question
bears witness to profound agreement between him and Marx with regard
to questions concerning how to work through their ambivalent relations
with Hegel.73
Yet another line of attack resorted to by Marxists hostile to Engels
and his dialectics of nature, the last line to be addressed before I move
on, is one sadly mirroring an all too familiar anti-Marxist canard (in-
deed, anti-Engelsianism unites its Marxist partisans with anti-Marxists).74
This commonplace refrain mindlessly writes off Marxism in its multifac-
eted entirety by equating it wholesale with Stalinism. According to this
popular mantra, Stalin’s totalitarian Soviet Union was the inevitable and
consequent outcome of Marx’s ideas. The reality of Soviet state terror
purportedly reveals, with the benefit of twentieth-century historical hind-
sight, the unrealistic and disaster-prone nineteenth-century utopianism
of communism’s champions.
The opponents of a dialectical materialism affiliated with the
natural sciences sometimes might be tempted to conjure up the ghost
of Stalin’s favored “barefoot scientist,” the notorious Ukrainian agrono-
mist T. D. Lysenko.75 Lysenko represents for Soviet science what Stalin
represents for “really existing socialism” as a whole, namely, a terrify-
ing nosedive into rigid dogmatism, superficial polemics, cynical institu-
tional maneuvering, and paranoia-driven purges. The Stalinist distinction
between bourgeois and proletarian science (which would be rejected by
Marx himself) and Lysenkoism’s misguided denunciation of genetics as
nothing more than Western ideology were more than just intellectually
stultifying constraints on the sciences and scientists in the Soviet Union
of the time. These politically overdetermined coordinates were frighten-
ing matters of literal life and death.
Just as the figure of Stalin serves anticommunists as ostensibly a
reduction-to-the-absurdly-horrific of Marxism in its entirety, so too does
Lysenko serve anti-Engelsians in rationalizing their rejection of every
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conceivable dialectical materialist philosophy of nature and science.76

Timpanaro points out the lack of strong connections between Stalin’s
philosophical writings, on the one hand, and Marxism’s science-linked
materialisms from Engels through the non-Lysenkoist scientists and
philosophers of science in the East on the other.77 Likewise, Levins and
Lewontin seek to thwart the maneuver of exploiting the figure of Lysenko
so as to forbid as politically dangerous and intellectually catastrophic any
mixing of Marxism and science.78
For a plethora of good reasons, no self-respecting Marxist accepts
as valid and compelling the stale anti-Marxist argument that uses Stalin-
ism to condemn Marxism altogether. Any Marxist who turns around and
exploits Lysenkoism, as a corresponding scientistic subvariant of Stalin-
ism, to deploy the exact same type of argument against dialectical mate-
rialist appropriations of the natural sciences should be ashamed. Marx-
ist thinkers at the dawn of the twenty-first century ought to stop saying
they are sorry for the tragedy of Lysenkoism. Before doing this, some
contemporary Marxists will first have to learn and appreciate the his-
torical truth that they have been standing in the shadows of this (un-
conscious) guilt for quite a while already. Dialectical materialism, with
its (quasi-)naturalism, is not merely threatened with burial beneath the
rubble of Stalinist regimes.79 It effectively has been buried for decades
under such debris and is in desperate need of disinterment.
My rallying cry for a return to Engels is motivated partly by the
hunch, and the hope, that uncovering these obscured grains of the past
might equip fighting leftists in the here-and-now with powerful new arms
in the war against a globalized late capitalism that is fundamentally reliant
upon the natural sciences both economically and ideologically. I strongly
suspect that turning science into a Trojan horse, one already conveniently
situated at the beating heart of biopolitical, techno-scientific capitalism,
is a much more promising strategy for the Left than sticking exclusively
to cultural ideology critique or hurling objections against the high walls
of scientific fortresses from positions outside them. As every Hegelian
knows, the only critiques really worth making are immanent ones.
In the early twenty-first century, converting the sciences to dialec-
tical materialism, and raising them to the dignity of their notions, is an
urgent imperative under the shadows of the simultaneously threaten-
ing and promising risks situated in such socially central spheres as ecol-
ogy, genetics, health, and agriculture. The anticlerical fighting spirit of
eighteenth-century French materialism must be revived, this time in the
fight against a new church: that of capitalism’s flashy, gadget-bejeweled
techno-scientism. I believe this option to be advisable on the tactical and
strategic grounds of hard-nosed political and propagandistic practice as
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integral to a Gramscian “war of position.”80 Additionally, this is a matter

of recognizing that much of what is revealed by today’s sciences ultimately
testifies in favor of Marxian-Engelsian dialectical materialism. Drawing
out this testimony requires philosophical-theoretical interventions.81
For the sciences as for all other disciplines, objectivity and neutral-
ity are not synonymous. With this Marxist insight into the partisanship
of truths in view, the radical Left can and should have confidence that,
beneath both intra- and nonscientific layers of ideologically distorted
and distorting scientisms, the empirical and experimental sciences are
not incorrigibly complicit with prevailing status quo ideologies, the irra-
tional rationalizing of fully administered worlds, and the machinations
of biopower. Instead, the sciences are ripe for joining in movements of
history straining against the barriers and currents of the capitalist era,
an era in which they nonetheless have matured rapidly over the past two
centuries.82 In reviving the Engelsian project of theorizing the sciences
through the lenses of dialectical materialism, capitalism can be shown to
be irrational not only in terms of its demand for alienating submission
to the contradiction-plagued anarchy of markets, but also in the strictest
philosophical and scientific senses.
In his book Living in the End Times (2010), Slavoj Žižek proclaims
that “a resuscitation of the ‘critique of political economy’ is the sine qua
non of contemporary communist politics.”83 As he rightly maintains, most
Marxists in the West for the past several decades have left the core of the
mature Marx’s thought by the wayside (he accuses Badiou of this too).84
Many of these theorists limit Marxism to functioning as a matrix solely
for ideology critique at the level of the study of cultures. In traditional
Marxist terms, infrastructure falls away and superstructures become the
only objects of theoretical interest. I would supplement Žižek’s procla-
mation about the necessary condition for the contemporary renewal of
communism with a declaration of my own: the indispensable basis for
early-twenty-first-century Marxist materialism is a revival of a dialectics of
nature that is nurtured by cutting-edge science and is capable of combat-
ing the practical and ideological complicity of scientists and scientisms
with a globalized late capitalism that is ever more reliant on them.85
The criticisms of science used by Marxists in the West to rational-
ize leaving Naturdialektik by the historical wayside are simultaneously too
critical and not critical enough. On the side of being too critical, such
Marxists, with an all-or-nothing purist absolutism, construe the embed-
dedness in capitalism of the empirical and experimental sciences of mo-
dernity as wholly and completely compromising these fields to the very
core. On the side of being not critical enough, such Western Marxists fail
to take up the struggle against ideological scientisms on the battlefield
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of the sciences themselves, conceding too much ground to their oppo-

nents in advance.86 In The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State,
Engels, who considers the modern sciences to be the crowning achieve-
ments of human civilization, declares as a dialectician that “everything
civilization brings forth is double-edged, double-tongued, divided against
itself, contradictory.”87 The radical Left of the twenty-first century must
seize and ruthlessly deploy the contradictions of contemporary science
and its extra-scientific entanglements, remembering with confidence that
these scientific swords too can slice in multiple directions.
Lenin’s 1922 article “On the Significance of Militant Materialism,”
with its expression of his faith in the spontaneous materialist leanings of
science, argues for the importance of recruiting natural scientists to be
radicalized public representatives of atheistic dialectical materialism.88 As
regards this forcefully proposed program, he maintains that failing to re-
cruit these types of intellectuals would be not merely to miss an opportu-
nity. It would be, for communist militants, a self-defeating abandonment
of these knowledge-workers to the fate of becoming infrastructural, if not
also superstructural, agents of capitalism who are formidably endowed
with potent intellectual firepower and sociocultural prestige. Abandoned
to their own devices without proper philosophical education, guidance,
and orientation— I see this as being true of scientists today as well as in
Lenin’s time— they are prone to lapsing into and lending their support
to ideologies and scientisms that are uncritically caught up in the spiritual
cobwebs and chains enveloping stagnant conjunctures.89
I wish to reissue Lenin’s 1922 call for “a kind of ‘Society of Material-
ist Friends of Hegelian Dialectics,’” one including, as Lenin insists, con-
verted scientists and the fruits of their endeavors as digested by Marxian-
Engelsian materialism.90 Capitalism’s scientific laborers must be allowed
and encouraged to enlist in the ranks of its other intellectual and manual
gravediggers. The Left stands to lose a great deal by ignoring or shunning
such cross-disciplinary cooperation and solidarity. Timpanaro insightfully
remarks that the “daily experience of the degradation of science from
an instrument of liberation to one of oppression . . . gives rise to the
(one-sided and mistaken) reduction of science to ideology.”91 Leftists
desperately need to learn to resist this understandable, but nonetheless
misleading, antiscientific impulse. The hour is overdue for awakening
some of the mighty dead and for beginning again with Engels, that dear,
invaluable comrade of Marx.
7

This Is Orthodox Marxism:

The Shared Materialist
Weltanschauung of Marx
and Engels

At the end of the introduction to Alfred Schmidt’s study The Concept

of Nature in Marx (1962), he observes that “considerable difficulties are
involved in the attempt to delineate the concept of nature in dialecti-
cal materialism. There is no systematic Marxist theory of nature of such
a kind as to be conscious of its own speculative implications.”1 Helena
Sheehan similarly remarks that “Engels’s work . . . remained largely pro-
grammatic,”2 his science-related labors cut short by the urgency of editing
and publishing the mountain of crucial manuscript material left behind
by Marx after his death in 1883. Lucien Sève likewise depicts Engels’s
dialectics of nature as an “unfinished” program.3 And, in resonance with
my earlier suggestion hinting at the promise and timeliness of extracting
the “rational kernel” from Engelsian Naturdialektik, Timpanaro admits
that “the salvaging of the worthwhile themes in Engels’s philosophy still
remains an open question.”4 I intend to attempt such a rescue operation
here.
Unsurprisingly, this endeavor to resuscitate Engels today must begin
with another return to Marx. The guiding thread I seek to highlight in
this pursuit traces back, within the Marxist tradition, to the first of Marx’s
renowned eleven “Theses on Feuerbach,” which famously declares:

The chief defect of all hitherto existing materialism (that of Feuer-

bach’s included) is that the thing [der Gegenstand], reality [die Wirklich-
keit], sensuousness [Sinnlichkeit], is conceived only in the form of the
object or of contemplation [Objekts oder der Anschauung], but not as
sensuous human activity [sinnlich menschliche Tätigkeit], practice [Praxis],
not subjectively [subjektiv]. Hence, in contradistinction to materialism,
the active side was developed abstractly by idealism— which, of course,
does not know real, sensuous activity as such. Feuerbach wants sensu-
ous objects, really distinct from the thought objects, but he does not

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conceive human activity itself as objective activity. Hence, in The Essence

of Christianity, he regards the theoretical attitude as the only genuinely
human attitude, while practice is conceived and fixed only in its dirty-
juridical manifestation. Hence he does not grasp the significance of
“revolutionary,” of “practical-critical,” activity.5

This thesis can be construed as, among other things, warning that ma-
terialisms that fail to contain within themselves a satisfying account of
subjective agency as the dynamic processes of praxis (i.e., an “active side”
epitomized by the nature-immanent subject-object dialectic of labor and
everything to which this gives rise)6 lend further support to mystifying,
obfuscating idealisms, despite the apparent opposition of materialism to
idealism. Marx christens such failed theories “contemplative material-
ism,” with this phrase covering all pre-Marxist materialisms up through
Feuerbach’s. Marx would be sad to see that such materialism has contin-
ued to enjoy a vibrant post-Marxist life in numerous quarters up to the
present.
Marx’s “contemplation” (Anschauung) refers to the activity of the
materialist as a theoretical contemplator of an objectified nature (includ-
ing a rigidified human nature) to which he, in his intellectual reflections,
remains oddly and inexplicably external. In contemplative materialisms,
subjectivity in general and this theory’s contemplating subject in par-
ticular are left out of these materialisms’ pictures of the reified material
world to which any and every subject presumably nonetheless belongs.7
This omission feeds a dissatisfaction that is prone to drive people back
into the arms of idealisms because the latter, for all their shortcomings,
at least offer a place for mobile subjective activity over and above frozen
objective passivity.8
Related to this, one should bear in mind that, in 1844 as well as
afterward, Marx identifies deliberative, self-reflective consciousness —
this identification is one of several features of Marx’s thought which
contradicts the misleading textbook image of him as a thoroughgoing
determinist9 — as a key feature that distinguishes human beings, with
their peculiar “species-being” (Gattungswesen) as laboring social crea-
tures, from other animals.10 Transposing these aspects of Marxism into
the registers of other philosophical conceptions of subjectivity, it would
be fair to say that any materialist theory of the subject that is unwilling
or unable to encompass non-reductive, non-eliminative (in Marx’s lan-
guage, non-contemplative) accounts of consciousness, self-consciousness,
and autonomy unwittingly continues to encourage as a reaction the rejec-
tion of materialism in favor of dualisms, spiritualisms, and other sickening
flavors of antimaterialism. This is tantamount to the objective, de facto
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aiding and abetting of idealism. The very concept of the epiphenomenal

that is essential to reductive and eliminative materialisms is idealist rather
than, as it is standardly taken to be, materialist. Materialisms that resort to
epiphenomena are dualisms (albeit in bad faith) and, hence, idealisms.
Or, as Marx himself already states in 1843, “Abstract spiritualism is abstract
materialism; abstract materialism is the abstract spiritualism of matter.”11
Marx and Engels both consider the advent of Darwinian evolution-
ary theory to be of momentous import for their own bodies of ideas.12 Ad-
mittedly, this new paradigm comes laden with a multitude of ideological
risks and traps. Most obviously, there are the projections of nineteenth-
century British industrial capitalist social relations onto the domains of
organic nature,13 as well as, of course, everything awful associated with
“social Darwinism.”
And yet, Darwinism significantly dovetails with Marxism through its
historicization of nature itself.14 Thus, Engels’s dialectical materialist as-
sessments of the Darwinian life sciences (especially his pivotal unfinished
essay of 1876, “The Part Played by Labour in the Transition from Ape to
Man”) can defensibly be interpreted as furnishing Marx’s historical ma-
terialist analyses of labor-centered human societies with a more expan-
sive, overarching framework that is mandatory precisely on materialist
grounds.15 However, fully understanding and appreciating this requires
some more remarks on Marx.
Any proposed rapprochement of Marxism and the life sciences
must take a position with respect to the vexed topic of “human nature”
in Marxist thought. This is especially so in the lingering aftermath of the
mid-1960s Althusserian reading of the post-1845 Marx as, basically, a struc-
turalist antihumanist avant la lettre (with, of course, 1845 allegedly mark-
ing a Bachelardian-style “epistemological break” that inaugurates Marxist
“science” proper).16 Positing the continued presence of a certain notion
of humanity’s essence originating in Marx’s pre-1845 writings in Marx’s
texts from 1845 onwards still might be somewhat controversial in mixed
Marxist company. However, this is the claim I wish to make.
The 1844 Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts are a good and
obvious place from which to start in justifying my position. In the sec-
tion therein entitled “Critique of Hegel’s Dialectic and General Philos-
ophy,” Marx, as elsewhere throughout his work,17 insists on humanity’s
immanence to “objective” being as physical nature, on the human being
as “real, corporeal man [wirkliche, leibliche . . . Mensch], his feet firmly
planted on the solid earth [wohlgerundeten Erde].”18 Moreover, at this same
moment, he underscores that this anti-idealist thesis as regards material
immanence includes the kinetic becoming (i.e., subjective activity as verb-
like labor and related practices) as well as the static being (i.e., objective
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passivity as noun-like congealed “nature”) of human beings.19 Marx’s stip-

ulation clearly anticipates the “Theses on Feuerbach” of one year later.
This resonance of the 1844 Manuscripts with, in particular, the first
of the “Theses on Feuerbach” is further intensified by what Marx pro-
ceeds to state promptly in the wake of the statements from the Manuscripts
that I just cited: “Here we see how consistent naturalism or humanism
[durchgeführte Naturalismus oder Humanismus] differs both from idealism
and materialism and is at the same time their unifying truth. We also see
that only naturalism is capable of comprehending the process of world
history.”20 He then goes on to emphasize at length humanity’s ultimate,
unsurpassable rootedness in nature as material, objective, physical, real,
and so on.21 In this quoted observation, Marx arguably refers to his novel
variant of materialism as “consistent naturalism or humanism.” The “ma-
terialism” of the version of the materialism-versus-idealism opposition to
be surpassed is what he labels the following year, in his criticisms of Feuer-
bach’s philosophy, as “contemplative materialism.” Marx is not calling for
an abandonment of anti-idealist materialism, only of Feuerbachian and
pre-Feuerbachian old variants.22
The implied inconsistency of pre-Marxist materialisms, as the fun-
damental contradiction undermining them from within, is their unwill-
ingness or inability to include the “active side” (to quote from the first
thesis of 1845 once more) of subjective cognition and comportment
within the objective dimension of the nature which these monistic ma-
terialisms simultaneously put forward as the sole plane of true existence
admitting of no transcendent exceptions. This omission of subjectivity
from objectivity tacitly and inadvertently renders the subject exactly such
a transcendent exception (as it is overtly and intentionally in antimate-
rialist idealisms). By contrast, what makes Marx’s historical materialism
“consistent” (as in, again, “consistent naturalism or humanism”) is its
dogged striving to think human beings’ intellectual and manual activi-
ties as material through and through in their origins, ends, and effects.
In connection with my underlying motivation to rehabilitate Engel-
sian Naturdialektik, one line in the prior quotation from the Economic and
Philosophical Manuscripts is especially striking: “only naturalism is capable
of comprehending the process of world history.” How does this asser-
tion fit in with my endeavors? To start with, in an earlier section of this
1844 text entitled “Private Property and Communism,” Marx directly ad-
dresses the relations between the natural and human sciences in a man-
ner that clarifies his choice of the term “naturalism” for his innovative,
non-contemplative materialism.23 He prophesies that “natural science will
lose its abstractly material, or rather idealist, orientation and become the
basis of a human science.”24 Marx equates an “abstractly material orienta-
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tion” with idealism as its apparent opposite. This is because pre-Marxist

materialisms are implicitly idealist. Like explicit idealism, they exempt
subjectivity from inclusion within material objectivity, silently treating
subjectivity as a second-order immaterial transcendence. Furthermore,
the early Marx anticipates that the sciences of nature, after transitioning
somehow from the worldview of the old contemplative to the new post-
contemplative materialism, will be ready and able to provide accounts of
human beings and their realities that are entirely free of any and every
supernaturalism.
Along these lines at the same point in the 1844 Manuscripts, Marx
asserts, “The idea of one basis for life and another for science is from the
very outset a lie.”25 He continues by predicting that “natural science will
in time subsume the science of man just as the science of man will sub-
sume natural science: there will be one science.”26 This envisioned inter-
disciplinary synthesis is a properly dialectical one in which both mate-
rial nature (à la the natural sciences) and denaturalized sociohistorical
humanity (à la the human sciences) are mutually transformed in being
folded into each other under the imperatives of a finally consistent ma-
terialism.
Then and now, non-dialectical unifications of the natural sciences
as well as of the natural and human sciences tend to be reductive or
eliminative, transforming (or simply writing off) human subjectivity in
the gesture of collapsing it into inhuman objectivity. That is to say, un-
like Marx’s materialism,27 these pre- or anti-Marxist (as also pre- or anti-
Hegelian) materialisms are one-sided in that they try to change concep-
tions of humanity in rendering human beings immanent to the world of
physical nature while, at the same time, failing or refusing reciprocally to
change their conceptions of this world in the midst of these attempts. In
each and every such reductive or eliminative case, the inevitable result is
a denial, in whatever guise, of the effective existence in reality of things
associated with non-natural social and subjective phenomena. With ref-
erence to Hegel’s dialectics of the concrete and the abstract and Marx’s
motif of “real abstraction,”28 one of several significant claims agreed upon
between Hegel and Marx is that any outlook requiring the wholesale
dismissal of certain phenomena as mere epiphenomena is, at best, theo-
retically bankrupt. A truly comprehensive fundamental ontology must
acknowledge that even the most epiphenomenal of appearances still is
not just nothing, or simply pure nothingness.
Against Western Marxism’s prevailing anti-Engelsianism, one of my
theses in this context is that Engels’s ensuing struggles to elaborate a
dialectical materialism interfacing with modernity’s sciences of nature is
more than just consistent and compatible with orthodox Marxism. This
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project is a vital requirement for Marx and Engels’s joint forging of an

unprecedented materialist theoretical scaffolding that draws upon the
resources of Hegelian speculative dialectics in particular. As part of a di-
vision of labor freeing up Marx after 1845 primarily to pursue reflections
regarding ongoing world events as well as the all-consuming construction
of his monumental critique of political economy, Engels takes up the
task called for in the 1844 Manuscripts with respect to the three-way inter-
section of (1) materialism past and present, (2) the natural and human
sciences, and (3) the philosophy of Hegel. I would go even further and
assert that Engels’s science-informed dialectical materialism provides an
indispensable foundation for the entirety of the post-1844 Marx’s his-
torical materialism as focused on socioeconomic forces and factors.29
In fact, the core works of the mature Marx’s historical materialist
critique of political economy provide ample evidence of his continued
reliance upon a certain naturalism as an ontological basis for a materialist
account of the immanent geneses of humans and their histories. In his in-
troductory framing of the Grundrisse notebooks, he speaks of a “natural-
istic materialism” (naturalistischen Materialismus)30 and insists upon “the
point of departure obviously from the natural characteristic” (Der Aus-
gangspunkt natürlich von der Naturbestimmtheit).31 That is to say, Marx’s over-
arching materialism, in these 1857– 58 drafts for the subsequent project of
Das Kapital, ultimately rests upon a naturalistic ground (i.e., a dialectical
materialism avant la lettre). For Marx as well as for Engels, the structures
and dynamics that are of concern to historical materialism originally arise
from “nature” as a prehuman objectivity.
Indeed, at this very same introductory moment in the Grundrisse,
Marx defines “Natur” as “meaning everything objective, including
society” (darunter alles Gegenständliche, also die Gesellschaft eingeschlossen).32
Similarly, in the 1867 “Preface to the First Edition” of the first volume of
Capital, he stipulates that, from his “standpoint” (i.e., historical material-
ism), “the development of the economic formation of society is viewed as
a process of natural history” (die Entwicklung der ökonomischen Gesellschafts-
formation als einen naturgeschichtlichen Prozeß).33 There is a cross-resonance
here (whether intended or not by Marx) with the Hegel for whom the
distinction between Nature and Spirit is itself an internal development of
a spontaneously self-denaturalizing Natur. For Marx as well as for Hegel,
nature is dialectically self-transformative insofar as humanity’s history is
an immanent permutation of nature’s history.
In this same vein, Marx, as he does already in 1844, problematizes
any and every strict partitioning of the human from the natural. For
instance, in the introduction to the Grundrisse, he invokes “the identity
[der Einheit] of the subject, humanity, and of the object, nature.”34 How-
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ever, in this same 1857 introduction, Marx also makes an unmistakable

allusion to the Hegelian-Schellingian identity of identity and difference,
speaking of “the members of a totality, distinctions [Unterschiede] within
a unity [einer Einheit].”35 Hence, I would suggest that the identity estab-
lished in and through Marx’s unification (Vereinigung) of nature and hu-
manity is a Vernunft-type dialectical-speculative one. In other words, this
is not a Verstand-type neither-dialectical-nor-speculative identification in
which one term, losing all its distinguishing differences, simply is col-
lapsed without remainder into an identity/unity with the other term, the
latter being unchanged by its absorption of the former. Therefore, in the
spirit of Hegelian Aufhebung, Marx cancels all absolute separations and
polarizations of nature and humanity, natural and human histories, while
simultaneously and nonetheless preserving specific distinctions between
these dimensions.36
The very young Marx, in his doctoral dissertation on Democritus
and Epicurus, declares that “in hearing nature hears itself, in smelling
it smells itself, in seeing it sees itself. Human sensuousness [Sinnlichkeit]
is therefore the medium in which natural processes are reflected as in
a focus and ignited into the light of appearance [Erscheinung].”37 This
declaration is echoed in the older Marx’s critique of political economy.
A poetic moment in the Grundrisse proposes that “labour is the living,
form-giving fire; it is the transitoriness of things, their temporality [die Ver-
gänglichkeit der Dinge, ihre Zeitlichkeit], as their formation by living time.”38
This line resonates with the entire chapter on time in Marx’s dissertation,
the very chapter from which the quotation at the start of this paragraph
comes, and, in particular, his declaration therein that “time . . . is the
fire of essence [das Feuer des Wesens], eternally consuming appearance
[die Erscheinung], and stamping it with dependence and non-essence.”39
The speculative dialectics of Hegelian absolute idealism sometimes
characterize the subject’s reflection on the object as the object’s reflec-
tion on itself. Through subjectivity, objectivity transitions from being an
sich (in itself) to becoming an und für sich (in and for itself). Marx’s
naturalism-underpinned historical materialism likewise characterizes
human labor as nature laboring on itself. The laboring subject is equated
by Marx with the temporal transience of the labored-upon object. Like-
wise, the first volume of Capital contains statements such as “man . . . con-
fronts the materials of nature as a force of nature”40 and “labour-power
itself is, above all else, the material of nature transposed into a human
organism.”41 These statements clearly and undeniably recall the line from
the youthful Marx’s dissertation quoted by me a moment ago.42
So as to further preempt any dogmatic Althusserian-style objections
to what I am putting forward here, it must be noted that both the Grund-
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risse and Das Kapital contain numerous appeals to humanity’s abiding

nature/essence as the Gattungswesen of a zoon politikon, or the “species-
being” of a “political animal.”43 Similarly, Marx, in the first volume of
Capital, insists several times upon the transhistorical necessity of labor.44
The third volume of Capital contains echoes of all of this.45 Human labor-
ing activity, in Marxian dialectics, is the transhistorical catalyst of history
itself.
Finally, and before ending this chapter with a concluding synopsis
of my reading of Marx, I cannot resist highlighting what I would maintain
are Marxian precursors of transcendental materialism. In the final para-
graphs of the introduction to the Grundrisse, Marx turns to examples of
art and mythology generally and that of the ancient Greeks in particular.
He notes: “the difficulty lies not in understanding that the Greek arts
and epic are bound up with certain forms of social development. The
difficulty is that they still afford us artistic pleasure and that in a certain
respect they count as a norm and as an unattainable model.”46 In an in-
version of what one might expect from Marx, who is usually assumed by
most readers to be a habitual historicizer of all things without exception,
the problem here for him is not grounding ancient Greece’s aesthetic
productions in their specific socioeconomic context of origin. Instead,
his concern is with explaining how and why such historically determinate
productions come to achieve a transhistorical status cutting across an
indefinite number of subsequent contexts. (Greek mathematical discov-
eries bring out the same thing in terms of truth that the Greek arts do
as regards beauty.) In short, Marx really is interested in the immanent
historical geneses of history-transcending constellations.47
Two other foreshadowings of transcendental materialism crop up in
the first volume of Capital. While discussing the topic of money as a means
of circulation, Marx observes: “there develops a whole network of social
connections of natural origin [gesellschaftlicher Naturzusammenhänge],
entirely beyond the control of human agents.”48 I wish to draw attention
to two aspects of this observation. First, although the “network of social
connections” requires the discipline of historical materialism as sepa-
rate and distinct from the sciences of nature in order to be analyzed—
relations between persons are irreducible to relations between (natural)
things— this human sociality is nonetheless “of natural origin.” Second,
the thus-begat sociality takes on a life of its own, becoming (relatively)
autonomous with respect to its material and individual grounds and nec-
essary conditions of possibility.
Summarizing my overall interpretation of Marx’s texts taken as a
whole, there is yet another trace of Hegel to be found in the historical
materialist critique of political economy. Marx, again following in Hegel’s
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footsteps (however knowingly or not), speculates that a certain natural

deficit is requisite for setting in motion and prodding along human socio-
historical development. More precisely, he identifies a scarcity of natural
resources as the key to driving humans beyond their initial status quo
states of existence and modes of life.49
A certain conception of the activity of labor obviously lies at the
rock-bottom basis of the historical materialism of Marx throughout his
intellectual itinerary. According to a materialist rendition of the dialecti-
cal interactions between subject and object, laboring praxis is the catalytic
source of the immanent genesis of denaturalized history out of nature
itself, the very origin of history as history proper. Put differently, human
subjectivity, as fully an inner part of the physical universe, sets in mo-
tion trajectories of transformation by working upon and over its environ-
ments of surrounding objects (at first naturally given things, but, soon
after these trajectories are launched, an additional teeming plethora, an
ever-increasing swarm, of fabricated entities). In this internal torsion of
a lone, Otherless nature that, as Hegel would put it, is not only substance
but also subject, a single plane of material being comes self-reflexively to
alter itself by giving rise to laboring subjects working in, on, and through
material objects (themselves included).50
Marx, as his employment of the term Gattungswesen (“species-
being”) indicates, is not entirely averse to positing something in the vein
of what is usually dubbed “human nature.” Instead of construing this as
the residue of an immature humanism that was decisively left behind
by Marx starting in 1845, I propose that this construal is mistaken pre-
cisely due to its failure to appreciate just how philosophically sophisti-
cated the young Marx’s conception of human nature as a “species-being”
really is. To be more exact, in Marx’s dialectical materialism— although
Marx does not use this phrase subsequently coined by both Dietzgen51
and Karl Kautsky52 in 1887, his materialism, even quite early on, arguably
is wholly dialectical already — both nature and human nature are self-
denaturalizing natures. How so?
Marx has a minimalist definition of human nature, but a definition
of this nevertheless. For him, the species-being of humanity consists of
two basic features. As he repeatedly maintains, from his youthful writings
to his mature masterpieces, sociality and labor constitute the two essen-
tial core components, the transhistorical lowest common denominators,
of all humans in all times and places.53 In the Grundrisse, Marx, deliber-
ately recalling Aristotle (whom he crowns, in the first volume of Capital,
“the greatest thinker of antiquity”),54 identifies the human being, in his
Gattungswesen, as a “zoon politikon.” This peculiar being is an organism
straddling the line between the natural and the non/more-than-natural.
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He is an animal with needs (zoon) who is thrown at birth into a polis as a

matrix of social relations within which he will take shape as a subject and
work throughout life to meet his needs (politikon).55 But how does this
definition of human nature amount to a dialectical one— more precisely,
to a vision of a self-denaturalizing nature?
In the context of discussing the relations between the natural and
human sciences in the 1844 Manuscripts, Marx somewhat enigmatically
proposes that “history itself is a real [wirklicher] part of natural history and
of nature’s becoming man.”56 According to any consistently materialist
position, human beings start off, in pre- and early history, as completely
immanent to nature, as active subjects who are, at root, ontologically
no different in kind from the objective natural world of physical struc-
tures and dynamics in which they initially find themselves. Additionally,
“natural history,” instead of a supernatural creative power, just so hap-
pens contingently to have eventuated in humans as animals with needs
to meet and a species-being that leads to the pursuit of satisfying those
needs via socially mediated labor. What is more, human beings, com-
pelled by pressing vital requirements and guided by deliberative reflec-
tions, naturally enter into both practical struggles with the surrounding
environs of material objects and interactions among themselves. In so
doing, human beings, on the basis of their nature as Gattungswesen, set
in motion a subject-object process in which oscillating movements of re-
ciprocal influences that flow back and forth between the dimensions of
subjectivity and objectivity result in the ongoing mutual transformations
of both dimensions in tandem. Praxis as labor is the motor mechanism
of this dialectical dance between subjects and objects. The activities of
laboring arise from nature, but subsequently give rise to history per se as
denaturalized.57 Hence, as Marx phrases it, this history, emerging from
a self-denaturalizing (human) nature, “is a real part of natural history.”
Social labor remains a pivotal component of Marx’s thought
after 1844. Furthermore, a rigorously materialist as non-supernaturalist
account of social labor and its history demands, at least in the theoretical
background, an explanation of the immanent genesis out of nature of the
more-than-natural— with human history as an outgrowth of natural his-
tory, a dialectical discontinuous continuation as a qualitative leap of the
more-than-natural out of the natural. This explanation is precisely what
Marx and Engels see Darwinism as providing once Darwin comes on the
historical scene in 1859.
Given both the meta-theoretical materialist supplements needed
by Marx’s historical materialism as well as Marx and Engels’s division of
intellectual tasks between each other, Engels’s subsequent engagements
with biology and evolutionary theory can be presented as efforts to work
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out a quasi-naturalistic dialectical materialism that is required by the

Marxist critique of political economy.58 A dialectical materialist theory of
human subjectivity both singular and social that is informed by the life
sciences is the strongest candidate for being what the young Marx fore-
shadows as the “one science” of “consistent naturalism or humanism.”
Historical materialism, in order to be thoroughly materialist, cannot do
without the ambitious interdisciplinary worldview of dialectical material-
ism à la Engels and his like-minded successors. Contrary to the Lukács
who, in answering the question “What is orthodox Marxism?” condemns
Engels’s dialectics of nature as a heretical deviation, this exact side of
Engelsianism is orthodox Marxism.
8

The Three Fathers of

Naturdialektik: Engels,
Dietzgen, Lenin

In the introduction to his Dialectics of Nature, Engels historically situates

philosophy and science with respect to each other. He maintains that
the early modern sciences of the seventeenth and eighteenth centu-
ries, although empirically ahead of ancient Greek philosophy, nonethe-
less lag theoretically behind this chronologically much earlier form of
thought.1 The Greeks arrived at their insights through rational intuition,
whereas post-Baconian, post-Galilean science achieves similar discover-
ies through a more reliable and trustworthy method of careful empirical
investigation.2
Under the heading of “ancient Greek philosophy,” Engels has in
mind an ontological vision along the lines of a Heraclitean flux doc-
trine, a metaphysical picture of phusis (nature) as a ceaseless flow of in-
terpenetrating liquid kinetics.3 He interprets the modern sciences as fi-
nally having come around to substantiating this old process metaphysics
after many intervening centuries.4 Engels’s favoring of images of seamless
wholeness is on display here (as elsewhere).5 His inordinate privileging
of motifs of unity (as continuity, interconnectedness, holism, relatedness,
totality, and so on) arguably is the primary flaw of his dialectical material-
ism, since it is an objectionable form of one-sidedness.6
With regard to philosophy, both Anti-Dühring and Ludwig Feuerbach
and the Outcome of Classical German Philosophy shift attention from the an-
cient Greeks to Hegel as the chronologically proximate philosophical
source of inspiration for historical and dialectical materialism. In Anti-
Dühring, Engels identifies Hegel’s pre-Darwinian categorical rejection of
notions of evolution as the Achilles’s heel of his Naturphilosophie. 7 For
both Marx and Engels, Darwinian evolutionary theory was a scientific
event which shattered for good the idea of nature as ahistorical, as noth-
ing more than an endless, eternal repetition of the same recurring cycles.
Darwin’s historicization of nature, which was then so new and open to
future potential paths of advance,8 enticed Marx and Engels to imagine
the possibility of a single systematic unification of the human and natural

96
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T H E T H R EE FAT HE RS OF NAT URDI ALE K TIK

sciences on a solidly materialist basis (as opposed to Hegel’s allegedly

idealist as spiritualist systematization).9 Moreover, Engels points to Dar-
win as providing the most convincing evidence of all for the thesis that
nature in itself is objectively dialectical.10 He also observes that Marxist
dialectics in general — and this would include its Naturdialektik— is not
a teleology of the necessary11 ( just as Darwinian evolution is contingent
and non-teleological).
Anti-Dühring and Ludwig Feuerbach contain the usual Marxist ob-
jections to and polemics against Hegelian idealism.12 However, these
negative refrains are tempered by several acknowledgments of Hegel’s
significant intellectual achievements. (Relatedly, in Engels’s blistering
condemnations of the later Schelling of the 1840s Berlin period, he
staunchly defends Hegel against this Schelling’s anti-Hegelian tirades as
well as against Feuerbach.)13 For the Engels of Anti-Dühring, the (appar-
ent) anti-evolutionism of the Hegelian philosophy of nature should not
be construed as detracting from or eclipsing entirely its many other in-
valuable features.14
In Engels’s assessment, Hegel’s approach to nature supposedly
through a metaphysical purism of a priori concepts is the “mystical shell”
of his Naturphilosophie that can be cast aside as a dry, lifeless husk.15 But
the primacy granted to movement, to restless dynamics and processes, in
Hegel’s thinking is, in Engels’s eyes, the truly momentous and progressive
side of Hegelian philosophy. This is despite, in the Engelsian account,
Hegel’s revolutionary elevation of mobile negativity being contradictorily
shackled to the stasis of a frozen framework of idealist dogmatism.16
The post-Hegelian way forward, as Engels sees it, is to reverse
Hegel’s privileging of philosophy over science. Engels recommends grant-
ing science pride of place over philosophy, with science retaining from
philosophy its theoretical tools of formal logic and dialectics.17 Further-
more, Engels suggests that this also entails the gesture of abandoning the
presumed access to absolute philosophical truth. One must rest content
instead with the infinite pursuit of inexhaustible relative scientific truths
that approximate ever more closely to reality in itself.18
Joseph Dietzgen expresses similar views, albeit in a somewhat
more confused and unsystematic fashion than Engels (this is due to his
being a theoretical autodidact, a tanner by trade who, perhaps more
than anyone, fits Jacques Rancière’s representation of philosophy’s poor
cobbler).19 Dietzgen’s version of science-informed dialectical materialism,
to a much greater extent than Engels’s, is glaringly marked by strong Ba-
conian and Hobbesian empiricist hues in the field of epistemology. Like
Thomas Hobbes in particular, Dietzgen seeks to combine the epistemol-
ogy of empiricism with an ontology that blends materialism, monism,
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and nominalism, although he ends up closer to a Spinozistic dual-aspect,

as distinct from a Hobbesian flat, ontology.20 Neither Engels nor Dietz-
gen seems to notice just how problematic redeployments of empiricist-
style epistemologies are in the wake of Hegel and the dialectics of his to
which they appeal. That said, Dietzgen’s philosophical reflections, like
those of Engels, stress the fundamental oneness of being as rooted in its
monistic material nature,21 the real universality of flux and change,22 and
the relativity and approximate character of all truths as extracted from
empirical facts.23
Discounting Anton Pannekoek’s gross overestimation of Dietzgen’s
philosophical abilities24 — Plekhanov rightly stresses Marx and Engels’s
philosophical superiority over Dietzgen25 — the overlaps between Dietz-
gen and Engels’s variants of dialectical materialism highlight the short-
comings of their positions. They both severely underestimate the extent
to which the a posteriori, experimental sciences of nature necessarily
depend upon the support provided by undergirding metaphysical foun-
dations (something already brought out very clearly by the Hegel of the
Phenomenology of Spirit and Philosophy of Nature). Dietzgen especially re-
mains at a pre-Hegelian stage with his invocations of brute, raw sensory-
perceptual givens as factual states of affairs that are disclosed to the mind
directly by the extra-mental world. He sometimes flirts with lapsing into
a naive realist correspondence theory of truth.
Engels claims that Naturdialektik is not about projecting or superim-
posing formal, philosophically prefabricated conceptual templates onto
the objective-as-nonsubjective real of nature in itself.26 He insists that dia-
lectical materialism discovers dialectical structures and processes that are
already independently there in nature.27 Yet, he forgets, or does not con-
sider it worth mentioning, that Hegel presents his manner of proceeding
in every work from the Phenomenology onward in exactly this way. When
Lucien Sève trumpets Engels as the true secularizer of Hegelian Natur-
dialektik 28 and underscores the objective realism of Engels’s dialectics of
nature,29 he too exhibits an obliviousness regarding the methods and
contents of Hegel’s absolute idealism (as including an objective realism
with respect to a “real world” that is said to be dialectical in and of itself).
What is worse, Engels’s tendency to speak loosely of there being dia-
lectical “laws” governing nature courts the danger of a regression to a
pre-Hegelian formalism that relies upon a non-dialectical, Verstand-level
distinction between the forms of laws and the contents of the entities and
events ruled thereby.30
However, I come to praise Engels and Dietzgen, not to bury them.
The protracted backlash against Engelsian Naturdialektik has tried for
long enough to perform this premature burial once and for all. Marx’s
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historical materialism, as centered on the praxis-driven dialectics of labor-

ing social subjects and objects both natural and artificial, requires supple-
mentation by a dialectical materialist account of the immanent natural
genesis of this active human subjectivity.31 I want to zero in on how Engels
and, with less rigor, Dietzgen furnish precisely this. They do so primarily
by bringing into play the then-available resources of biological renditions
of human beings.
A few comments on the interlinked histories of the sciences and
materialism, particularly as relevant to and understood by Engels, are
helpful as preliminaries at this juncture. Anti-Dühring echoes Marx’s first
thesis on Feuerbach in disclosing the vulnerability of historically earlier
types of materialism to idealism— both to idealist objections and to itself
slipping inadvertently into insidious, disavowed styles of idealism.32 But
Engels does not wag his finger at these earlier materialisms as being the
products of intellectual laziness or willful blindness on the part of their
partisans. Instead, consistent with the historical sensibilities of Marxist
materialism, he explains that the nineteenth-century advent of crucial
developments in the life sciences makes possible the transition from non-
dialectical to dialectical materialism.
To be more precise, Engels argues that philosophical material-
ism can, does, and must change in tandem with advances in the natural
sciences.33 This argument is of a piece with his inversion of the purported
Hegelian prioritization of philosophy over science. The anticlerical mech-
anistic materialism of eighteenth-century France— a politically engaged
materialism that was, before Feuerbach, the historically nearest predeces-
sor of the subsequent materialist outlook of Marx and Engels34 — remains
mechanistic, Engels proposes, because the natural sciences, at that stage
of their development, were grounded on the mechanics of Newtonian
physics as the most advanced of the sciences at the time. Hence, the
French materialists could not help but be mechanistic in their fight
against idealist spiritualisms. This was necessarily and appropriately so in
light of these thinkers’ historical situation both intellectually and politi-
cally.35 Likewise, Dietzgen’s continual references to the human brain as
an object of more-than-mechanistic science, and as the material basis of
Geist, hint at the crucial importance of the young discipline of biology for
his dialectical materialism.36 Engels too emphatically points to the brain.37
Dietzgen, despite his enthusiasm for the life sciences in connection
with Marxist materialism, is well aware of the need to guide these sciences
along the narrow path between mechanistic materialism and outright
idealism.38 He blames linguistic limitations for the long-entrenched (but
nevertheless surpassable) deadlock between a lopsided materialism of in-
ert, dense matter and an equally lopsided idealism of ideational energies
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and dematerialized spirits.39 Consonant with the Marx of the “Theses on

Feuerbach,” Dietzgen contends that the sole materialist way to jump off
this seesaw between one-sided sides is to build a new materialism. This
materialism would be neither contemplative nor mechanistic and would
integrate within itself in a non-reductive manner the “active side” of sub-
jects with their theoretical and practical activities.
Dietzgen’s distinctions between, on the one hand, “matter,” and,
on the other hand, “force” and/or “mind” are proposed as Hegelian/
Schellingian-style dialectical identities of identities and differences.40 Im-
plicitly translating the Marxist logic of the social dialectics of infrastruc-
ture and superstructure into the terms of the mind-body problem, he
speaks of the relative (rather than absolute) difference of the mental
from the material (evoking the “relative autonomy” of the superstructural
in relation to the infrastructural).41 Near the conclusion of The Nature of
Human Brain-Work as well as in The Positive Outcome of Philosophy, he in-
sightfully signals that a dialectical materialist supersession (i.e., an Auf-
hebung) of the impasse between non-dialectical materialism and (equally
non-dialectical) idealism brings about not only a becoming-natural of
the spiritual, but simultaneously, a reciprocal becoming-spiritual of
the natural.42 In other words, a materialism that is also a non-reductive
naturalism — such is dialectical materialism strictly speaking for both
Engels43 and Dietzgen— must transform conceptions of nature in paral-
lel with altering ideas about subjectivity in its naturalization of the latter.
For any dialectically sensitive position, rendering denaturalized, more-
than-material subjects fully immanent to material nature changes prior
images of both the subjective and the natural at one and the same time.
Like Engels, Dietzgen fails to discern just how much of this Hegel had
already foreshadowed in his underappreciated Realphilosophie. More-
over, although Dietzgen is somewhat sketchy about philosophical details,
I think he is absolutely correct as regards the basic criteria stipulating
what a robust and defensible dialectical materialism has to include.
Engels, drawing on his research into the life sciences, labors to con-
struct a much more detailed picture of a non-reductive (quasi-)naturalist
theory of subjectivity that is consistent with dialectical materialism. How-
ever, in all three of his books dealing with Naturdialektik, he issues sum-
mary statements revealing him to be on the same page as Dietzgen. In
the introduction to Dialectics of Nature, he provides a synopsis of what is
arguably the most important chapter of the whole book, the essay entitled
“The Part Played by Labour in the Transition from Ape to Man.” Tac-
itly relying upon one of his three Hegel-derived dialectical “laws”— this
would be the one positing the occurrence of leap-like transitions between
quantities and qualities— Engels describes the emergence of human out
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of natural history as the internal production of a discontinuity (i.e., the

leap into human history) out of a preceding continuity (i.e., the natural
history from which human history originally springs).44
Engels speaks in Hegelian fashion of “that mammal in which nature
attains consciousness of itself— man.”45 In Ludwig Feuerbach, and in reso-
nance with Marx’s recognition of the sapient sentience of human be-
ings as a distinctive feature setting them apart from other animals and
the rest of the natural universe,46 he distinguishes nature from human-
ity as unconsciousness from consciousness47 (thereby also echoing the
Schellingian-Hegelian idea of nature as “petrified intelligence”). The
evolutionary step from nonhuman primates to humans, which is itself
embedded in the lengthy contingent sequences of continually transform-
ing natural and animal forms, is said to make “the gulf between man and
monkey an unbridgeable one.”48 Once again, the speculative identity of
identity (as the continuity of natural evolution) and difference (as the
discontinuity of an evolutionarily generated break with nature) proves to
be an integral aspect of Naturdialektik.
In Anti-Dühring, Engels momentarily places stress on the imma-
nence of humanity to evolving, historicized nature. He does so seemingly
for reasons of a primarily epistemological sort. In this context, Engels
clearly assumes that the preceding 250 years of the march of the modern
sciences represents the progressive consolidation of an ever-firmer ratio-
nal grip on empirical, physical reality. On the basis of this assumption, he
claims, unwittingly recapitulating Hegel’s absolute idealism (with its ob-
jective realism), that the ultimate condition of possibility explaining the
evident isomorphisms between the concepts of minded subjects and the
objects of the asubjective world is the real ontological immanence of the
former to the latter. Epistemological problems of the access of subjectivity
to objectivity are less puzzling for a dialectical materialism that system-
atically combines the science of human society (i.e., Marx’s historical
materialism) with that of historicized nature (i.e., Darwinian biology),
insofar as it does not dualistically posit a matter-transcendent mind that
then has to be somehow reconnected with its extra-mental Other.49 Put
in yet more Hegelian phrasing, for Engels (as for Dietzgen), the distinc-
tion between human thinking and natural being is a distinction that is
internal to natural being itself.
Attention now can be shifted to the text of Dialectics of Nature, spe-
cifically “The Part Played by Labour in the Transition from Ape to Man.”
This 1876 essay, I would maintain, is the closest Engels comes to supplying
Marx’s historical materialism with its required dialectical-but-naturalistic
account, consistent with Darwinism, of human beings as laboring social
creatures. Its opening paragraph states:
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Labour is the source of all wealth, the economists assert. It is this—

next to nature, which supplies it with the material that it converts into
wealth. But it is also infinitely more than this. It is the primary basic
condition for all human existence, and this to such an extent that, in a
sense, we have to say that labour created man himself.50

In fact, labor, given the Marxist conception of humanity’s “species-being,”

initially is itself no more than a phenomenon of the natural world. Human
species-being, as one variety of animal life among many others, physically
dictates that humans, like all other animals, struggle with their natural
material surroundings in order to sustain themselves as living beings.
This is an instance of nature as a not-Whole non-One, shot through with
inner antagonisms and tensions, wrestling with itself — and this in that
the human beings who wrestle with nature are themselves immanent to
nature, are parts of it. Alfred Schmidt nicely brings out how these natural-
ist points are crucial for Marx himself:51 “Nature becomes dialectical by
producing men as transforming, consciously acting Subjects confronting
nature itself as forces of nature”;52 “Labour-power . . . acts on the mate-
rials of nature which are outside man; it is therefore through nature
that nature is transformed”;53 and “The different economic formations of
society which have succeeded each other historically have been so many
modes of nature’s self-mediation.”54
A further speculative twist to be appreciated in the preceding block
quotation is the reversal that Engels brings about between agent and
action. Intuitive notions of agency (here, the laboring subject) and activ-
ity (here, this subject’s labor) usually portray agency as enjoying ontologi-
cal priority over activity. In this non-dialectical ordering of precedence,
the relation of influence is a one-way street, with an already-there agent
(again, the laboring subject) determining and producing a correspond-
ing action (again, the subject’s labor). From this perspective, actions do
not correlatively-but-inversely determine and produce agents. By sharp
contrast, for both Marx and Engels, reciprocal interactions between sub-
jects and objects, mediated by practices as actions that mutually modify
both these poles in parallel, are the rule. Thus, in the perpetually on-
going activity of laboring, humans continually change themselves at the
same time as they alter their others (i.e., the enveloping environs of exter-
nal beings and happenings). Hence, labor generates its subject (“labour
created man himself”) as much as its subject generates it. In other words,
the human being is, by nature (as per the species-being), the simulta-
neous subject-object of labor.
Drawing on the fresh stores of ammunition from Darwinian biology
available to him, Engels alights upon the human hand, with its opposable
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thumb, as a naturally evolved physical feature of human anatomy with

enormous significance. He situates this relatively small bodily append-
age at the nexus of the dialectical interactions through which natural
history immanently sunders itself by giving rise to human subject-objects
of labor who themselves, through their nature-prompted actions, trigger
the explosive emergence of denaturalized social history. At one point,
Engels asserts that “the hand is not only the organ of labour, it is also the
product of labour.”55 Darwinian evolution’s precise modes of historicizing
nature itself permit plugging into the apparatus of Marxist materialism
what could be called “bio-plasticity.” This bio-plasticity is a pivotal com-
ponent of a specifically materialist dialectics of human beings as self-
transformative subject-objects.56
Furthermore, such plasticity, as biological, resolves what was a ten-
sion for early Bolshevik reflections on the topic of human nature. As
Raymond Bauer explains, Soviet enthusiasm for the plasticity posited
by Freudian psychoanalysis with regard to the psychical apparatus was
tempered by the sense that such a posit sat uneasily side-by-side with a
bio-materialism that assumes the life sciences to suggest a rigid fixity to
humanity’s species-being.57 Relatedly, Loren Graham, in his recent study
of the Lysenko affair and ongoing Russian nationalist attempts to retroac-
tively (and anachronistically) vindicate Lysenko’s views through appeals
to the cutting-edge field of epigenetics, carefully preserves a distinction
between theses about the inheritance of acquired characteristics and
Lysenkoism. Graham thereby allows for an epigenetic bio-plasticity that
in no way would license rehabilitating Lysenko himself.58
Adding speech to labor, Engels proceeds to describe a complex
ensemble of entangled, interpenetrating factors that are responsible for
the ascent out of natural matter of the more-than-natural structures and
phenomena that are of concern to Marx’s historical materialism. With
the hypothesis in the background that the human brain’s evolution was
driven forward by hand-directed labor, he elaborates:

The reaction on labour and speech of the development of the brain

and its attendant senses, of the increasing clarity of consciousness,
power of abstraction and of judgement, gave an ever-renewed impulse
to the further development of both labour and speech. This further
development did not reach its conclusion when man finally became dis-
tinct from the monkey, but, on the whole, continued to make powerful
progress, varying in degree and direction among different peoples
and at different times, and here and there even interrupted by a local
or temporary regression. This further development has been strongly
urged forward, on the one hand, and has been guided along more defi-
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nite directions on the other hand, owing to a new element which came
into play with the appearance of fully-fledged man, viz. society.59

Engels goes on to contend that these evolutionarily sparked revolutions

(as nature-immanent ruptures with nature) understandably prompt the
advent of idealist worldviews throughout humanity:

By the co-operation of hands, organs of speech, and brain, not only in

each individual, but also in society, human beings became capable of
executing more and more complicated operations, and of setting them-
selves, and achieving, higher and higher aims. With each generation,
labour itself became different, more perfect, more diversified. Agricul-
ture was added to hunting and cattle-breeding, then spinning, weaving,
metal-working, pottery, and navigation. Along with trade and industry,
there appeared finally art and science.60

He continues:

From tribes there developed nations and states. Law and politics arose,
and with them the fantastic reflection of human things in the human
mind: religion. In the face of all these creations, which appeared in the
first place to be products of the mind, and which seemed to dominate
human society, the more modest productions of the working hand re-
treated into the background, the more so since the mind that plans the
labour process already at a very early stage of development of society
(e.g. already in the simple family), was able to have the labour that had
been planned carried out by other hands than its own. All merit for the
swift advance of civilisation was ascribed to the mind, to the develop-
ment and activity of the brain. Men became accustomed to explain
their actions from their thoughts, instead of from their needs— (which
in any case are reflected and come to consciousness in the mind)— and
so there arose in the course of time that idealistic outlook on the world
which, especially since the decline of the ancient world, has dominated
men’s minds. It still rules them to such a degree that even the most
materialistic natural scientists of the Darwinian school are still unable to
form any clear idea of the origin of man, because under this ideological
influence they do not recognise the part that has been played therein
by labour.61

I want to highlight a few facets of this multifaceted description of how

the very material history of the factual natural genesis of denaturalized
humanity ironically sets the stage for its own occlusion by preparing the
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triumph of antimaterialist fictions as religions, spiritualisms, and so on.

In the elongated movement from natural to human history via manual
labor (in the literal sense of “manual”), this labor engaged in by social
beings triggers a cascade of ever more intricate divisions of labor in which
a split between manual and intellectual labor eventually opens up in so-
cieties. In short, manual labor produces out of itself the divide between
itself and intellectual labor. What is more, the intellectual labor thereby
produced erases the memory of its material historical origins and, in so
doing, propagates ideologies that come to color the consciousness of in-
tellectual and manual laborers alike for countless generations thereafter.
Philosophers and non-philosophers both end up being vulnerable to the
seductions of idealism, to misconstruing themselves and their societies as
marching on their heads.
Before jumping forward from Engels to his handful of avowed heirs
in the life sciences, I wish briefly to underscore another note sounded
in Dialectics of Nature. Therein, Engels, well before everything from the
ecological green thinking of the past several decades to certain realist
trends in contemporary continental philosophy, foregrounds the greater-
than-human dimensions of physical being as material nature. He muses
about the inevitable extinction of humanity in its entirety, the life of the
human species being equally as mortal in relation to the history of the
universe as the life of an individual organism.62 Engels also presciently
warns: “Let us not  .  .  . flatter ourselves overmuch on account of our
human conquest over nature. For each such conquest takes its revenge
on us.”63 Long before today’s “speculative realisms” and “new material-
isms,” Engels, Dietzgen, Plekhanov, Lenin, Pannekoek, Timpanaro, and
others vehemently defend the realist views that are being revived pres-
ently with little or no reference to the long-established Marxist tradition.64
In light of this, what is the nature of Engels’s legacy, transmitted via
the British and Soviet scientists and philosophers of science of the first
three decades of the twentieth century, as it stands nowadays in the life
sciences? In The Dialectical Biologist, the book that Levins and Lewontin
dedicate to Engels, they endorse Engelsian Naturdialektik generally and
the sorts of speculations spelled out in “The Part Played by Labour in the
Transition from Ape to Man” specifically.65 They affirm Engels’s insistence
that human and nonhuman animals alike are organisms participating in
a subject-object dialectic with their environments.66 Levins and Lewontin
(and Steven Rose too) repeatedly emphasize first, that organisms and
environments are not truly separable from each other; and second, that
organisms are not just passively determined by their environments but act
to determine their environments in turn.67 These biologists concur with
Engels that “human society arises out of animal social organization, but
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as it arises, it transforms the significance of adaptations and creates new

needs.”68 Consciously following in Engels’s footsteps, they seek to culti-
vate a balanced appreciation of the mixed continuities and discontinui-
ties between humans and the rest of (animal) nature.69 This balance, by
their Engelsian lights, once again compels recourse to a dialectical mate-
rialism that steers between, on the one hand, mechanistic and reductive
materialism, and, on the other hand, all sorts of idealisms.70 Moreover,
whereas Engels places the human hand at the intersection between criss-
crossing subjective and objective processes, Levins and Lewontin, for the
same fundamental reasons, foreground the plastic cerebral cortex as the
embodiment that epitomizes humans’ status as hybrid subject-objects.71
However, although it is Levins and Lewontin who dedicate a book to
Engels, Rose is more faithful to orthodox Engelsian dialectical material-
ism insofar as this doctrine favors images of ultimate wholeness when all
is said and done. To be more exact, Rose’s book Lifelines: Biology beyond
Determinism appears to be philosophically inconsistent in its wavering
between embracing strong emergentist models (with their anti-reductive
and anti-determinist upshots) and bluntly endorsing the monistic one-
ness and self-consistency of material being as an ontologically seamless
totality. Rose repeatedly qualifies his commitment to explanatory diversity
(for instance, the irreducibility of organic-biological to inorganic-physical
explanations) as strictly epistemological, coupling this epistemology of
irreducible plurality with an ontology of unity. He declares: “Our world
may be— is, I would claim— an ontological unity, but to understand it we
need the epistemological diversity that the different levels of explanation
offer.”72 He later reiterates that “we require epistemological diversity in
order to understand the ontological unity of our world”73 and that “we
live in a material world which is an ontological unity, but which we ap-
proach with epistemological diversity.”74
Yet, given other of Rose’s assertions, it seems he needs the irre-
ducibility of emergent phenomena to be a matter of real being and not
just scientific thinking, to be ontological in addition to epistemological.
(Žižek correctly criticizes Douglas Hofstadter for a similar inconsistent
oscillation between epistemological and ontological depictions of emer-
gent phenomena in the latter’s 2007 book I Am a Strange Loop.)75 That
is to say, Rose’s world has to be really diverse instead of unified, namely,
a de-totalized not-Whole rather than a cosmic One-All. Indulging in the
problematic equivocation between freedom and mere indeterminacy,76
Rose speculates that nature, especially at its organic levels, is so complex
and overdetermined that, merely in its self-standing objective existence,
it defies all determinist hypotheses put forward by reductionist biolo-
gists.77 Underscoring his ontologizing of what he elsewhere inconsistently
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treats as strictly epistemological, he states, “indeterminacy is not merely

a matter of ignorance, or lack of adequate technology; it is inherent in
the nature of life itself.”78
A further source of tension with Rose’s prevailing Engelsian
(w)holism is generated by his astute diagnoses of images of Nature with
a capital “N” as ideological illusions with no basis in the life sciences.79
(These images of what supposedly would be balanced and harmonious
on its own were it not for humans are precious to environmentalists and
an accompanying horde of entrepreneurs, advertisers, and their con-
sumers.) Lewontin makes the same critical observations.80 Rose does not
clarify how and why his periodically proclaimed faith that the natural
world ultimately is a smooth monistic unity is not symptomatic of a linger-
ing, undiagnosed attachment on his part to exactly the same rudimentary
vision of nature held to by eco-ideologues. But, instead of chastising Rose
for a lack of theoretical rigor, I intend to trace his vacillations back to ten-
sions that were already internal to Engels’s materialist dialectics of nature
and to put these tensions to work in the service of laying the foundations
for a new, post-Engelsian Naturdialektik.
The second chapter of Dialectics of Nature, entitled “Dialectics,” be-
gins with the Engels of notoriety who has been much criticized by anti-
Engelsian Western Marxists for promoting an arid a priori Hegelian for-
malism of a pre-Marxist kind that is fancifully projected onto a nature
beyond history. Admittedly, there is something to these criticisms in rela-
tion to charges regarding the instrumental, methodical formalization of
Hegel’s philosophy in this context. However, what these same criticisms
overlook is the possibility of an immanent instead of an external critique
of Engelsian dialectics.
The first sentence (actually, sentence fragment) of Engels’s chap-
ter devoted to dialectics— he opens it with a parenthesis— reads: “(The
general nature of dialectics to be developed as the science of inter-
connections, in contrast to metaphysics).”81 Obviously, Engels one-sidedly
subsumes his post-Hegelian conceptual toolkit under the heading of
unity by defining dialectics as “the science of interconnections.” He then
infamously lists his “three dialectical laws”: (1) “the law of the transforma-
tion of quantity into quality and vice versa,” (2) “the law of the interpen-
etration of opposites,” and (3) “the law of the negation of the negation”82
(with Stalin’s diamat infamously eliding this third law from the organon
of official dialectical materialism).
What Engels apparently fails to realize, under the influence of his
lopsided organicist monism, is that the first of his three laws of dialectics
in particular is double-edged, with one of its edges directly cutting against
his (w)holistic overemphasis on unity, integration, connectedness, and so
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on. Hegel’s dialectics of quantity and quality,83 adopted as a principle or

rule by Engels (and also utilized by Marx in Das Kapital in reference to
nature84 as well as to socioeconomic history,85 with this utilization further
indicating Marx’s agreement with Engels’s materialist dialectics), is the
original conceptualization of the structures and dynamics that are inte-
gral to the much more recent life-scientific paradigm of emergentism.
In light of Hegelian speculative reason’s handling of continuity and dis-
continuity, the discontinuities catalyzed by and operative within the inter-
actions between quantitative and qualitative dimensions must be granted
their place as well. I interpret some of Levins and Lewontin’s ideas as
moving more in this direction.86
Unlike Rose, Levins and Lewontin unambiguously and unwaver-
ingly adhere to an ontologized strong-emergentist schema in which dia-
lectical processes resembling those of Hegelian quantity and quality give
rise to relatively autonomous levels and layers of embodied being that
are irreducible to the other material strata from which they arose. For
my purposes, certain of Levins and Lewontin’s specifications of their anti-
reductionist dialectics of nature are of special significance. First of all, in
both The Dialectical Biologist and Biology Under the Influence (their two coau-
thored collections of essays), they repeatedly speak of “weak constraints”
as regards the concrete localizations of living organisms within intricate
intersections of multiple regions of relations, entities, and influences.87
On one of these occasions, they explain:

Biological objects . . . are intermediate in size and . . . internally func-

tionally heterogeneous. As a consequence their behavior cannot be
determined from a knowledge of only a small number of properties, as
one can specify the orbit of a planet from the planet’s distance from the
sun, its mass, and its velocity, without being concerned about what it is
made of. Biological objects are at the nexus of a very large number of
individually weak forces. Although there are indeed interactions among
these forces (and the interactions are often of the essence), it is also the
case that there are very large numbers of subsystems of causal pathways
that are essentially independent of one another, so that their effects on
an organism appear as random with respect to one another.88

The counterbalance against the Engelsian privileging of interconnected-

ness is obvious here. But, I perceive a further step than can and should be
taken at this point. I can introduce this additional move thus:

Take the United States federal tax code as an example of a symbolic

system. This code is a body of technical legal stipulations so massive that
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no single person, not even the most knowledgeable tax expert, has a
complete understanding of the entire network of laws and how these
laws fit together with one another. Moreover, year after year, succes-
sive legislative sessions of Congress change the code, adding, subtract-
ing, and modifying laws. Of course, this means that the creation of
ever-more loopholes in the tax code is a foregone conclusion, since
those altering this body of laws cannot know in advance what unfore-
seen possibilities will arise from the structural interactions between
the already-less-than-fully-understood prior set of existing laws and the
changes (as additions, subtractions, and modifications) made to these
laws. Firms dealing with accounting and tax advice make their money
by discovering and exploiting the loopholes in the body of laws forming
the entirety of the U.S. federal tax code.89

As I have suggested elsewhere,90 this example of tax law as a symbolic

system arguably holds, at least by analogy (if not by homology or isomor-
phism), for “the nexus of a very large number of individually weak forces”
within which Levins and Lewontin situate biological beings (i.e., it holds
for real as well as symbolic systems, for natural as well as non-natural struc-
tures and dynamics). If, plausibly, the weakness of the multiple forces
and causes which Levins and Lewontin describe functions as per my il-
lustration of symbolic systems surpassing a certain threshold of complex-
ity, then, however rarely, the weak shackles of these relations sometimes
come undone and fall to the ground thanks to their own clashes with
each other, their disharmonies and incompatibilities.
Weak overdetermination à la Levins and Lewontin leads (or even
perhaps leaps) out of itself to under- or in-determination. This would be
the case however occasional and exceptional might be these loophole-
like short circuits that immanently transpire within natural materialities,
these zones of anomie opened by a self-sundering substance as necessary-
but-not-sufficient conditions of possibility for the autonomy of denatural-
ized more-than-materialities (such as the subjective agents of sociohistori-
cal change not forever doomed to alienated servitude to whatever counts
as the purportedly “natural” status quo). This is a big step along the road
from dialectical to transcendental materialism, a transition entailing the
sublation of the former by the latter. Marx’s historical materialism, with its
presuppositions regarding human species-being, requires this transcen-
dental materialist supplement. Although transcendental materialism is
deeply indebted to Engels’s dialectical materialism, Engels does not quite
manage, in his admirable efforts toward this goal, to outfit Marxism with a
systematic quasi-naturalist materialism that dovetails with and firmly but-
tresses Marx’s historical materialist critique of political economy.
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Even more significantly, Levins and Lewontin stipulate an implicit

modification to Engels’s third law of dialectics (i.e., the law of the nega-
tion of the negation). Engels harnesses the Hegelian concept of determi-
nate negation in the service of a picture of the material Real as a tightly
woven tapestry of thoroughly intertwined threads. By contrast, Levins
and Lewontin put forward a notion of determinate negation that intro-
duces discontinuities rather than establishing and sustaining continuities.
They contend: “Nothing is more central to a dialectical understanding of
nature than the realization that the conditions necessary for the coming
into being of some state of the world may be destroyed by the very state of
nature to which they gave rise.”91 More so than Engels’s formalization of
dialectics as an instrumental method, Levins and Lewontin’s characteriza-
tion of Naturdialektik clearly involves generalizing specifically from Marx’s
Hegel-inspired dialectical analyses of sociohistorical development as pro-
pelled forward by the negative energy of class struggles (culminating, of
course, in communism destroying capitalism after capitalism has made
possible and given rise to communism). For Marx, “human anatomy con-
tains a key to the anatomy of the ape.” Likewise, for Levins and Lewontin,
historical dialectics contain a key to the logics of natural dialectics. What
Engels articulates gropingly in his discussion of the transition from apes
to humans, his scientist offspring crystallize with greater lucidity.
This newer, post-Engelsian dialectics of nature tacitly relies upon a
meta-dialectical dialecticization of dialectics.92 More precisely, in addition
to the indeterminate negations of Verstand and the determinate nega-
tions of Vernunft, Levins and Lewontin hint at a third type of negation,
which is itself a permutation of Hegelian determinate negation as dia-
lectical. This third variety I might depict as the non-dialectical side of
determinate negation, with this depiction entailing a meta-dialectics of
the dialectical and the non-dialectical that is internal to determinate ne-
gation. As I indicate in part 1 of this book and elsewhere,93 Hegelian dia-
lectical speculation preserves within itself non-dialectical, sub-speculative
moments and dimensions.
But between Engels himself, on the one hand, and his recent and
contemporary interpreters/inheritors (such as Levins and Lewontin),
on the other hand, there lies a now almost entirely neglected and for-
gotten tradition of (post-)Engelsian Naturdialektik: the Russian and then
Soviet furtherances of dialectical materialist philosophies of nature and
the natural sciences, starting in the late nineteenth century with some
of Plekhanov’s contributions. I have dealt with dialectical materialism à
la Mao Zedong, the other major non-Western strand of this orientation,
in the first volume of Prolegomena to Any Future Materialism.94 That noted,
I cannot proceed from here to Althusser and Lukács (the subjects of
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chapters 9 and 10, respectively) without trying to do some historical and

theoretical justice to the dialectical materialism of non-Western Marxism.
The present chapter’s title refers to “The Three Fathers of Natur-
dialektik,” with its subtitle listing Lenin as the last of the three. Indeed,
on my reading, Lenin’s philosophical interventions with respect to both
materialism and dialectics represent the most decisive developments for a
dialectics of nature within the Russian/Soviet context. This is because of
both these interventions’ intellectual qualities as well as the canonization
of Lenin, including of such works as Materialism and Empirio-Criticism, in
the Soviet Union. However, in addition to Plekhanov and Lenin, I will,
in the remainder of chapter 8 here, discuss a range of other relevant fig-
ures, including, most notably, Bukharin and Stalin.
My critical examination of Georgi Plekhanov will focus on a rela-
tively early text in conjunction with a later one: “For the Sixtieth An-
niversary of Hegel’s Death” (1891) and Fundamental Problems of Marxism
(1908; the latter being Plekhanov’s last substantial theoretical work). The
extended essay of 1891 enables me to situate Plekhanov’s perspectives on
historical and dialectical materialism in relation to the Hegelian, Marx-
ian, and Engelsian ground that I have already covered in part 1 and the
preceding stretch of part 2 up to this juncture. Plekhanov’s 1908 summa-
tion of the philosophical foundations of Marxism permits an enhanced
appreciation of these perspectives from the vantage point of the end of
his career.
Neither Plekhanov’s political radicalism nor his qualified Hegelian-
ism emerged ex nihilo within nineteenth-century Russia. As Guy Planty-
Bonjour carefully documents in his study Hegel and Philosophical Thought
in Russia, 1830–1917 (1974), such forerunners as Vissarion Belinsky, Alek-
sandr Herzen, Nikolai Stankevich, Timofei Granovsky, and Mikhail
Bakunin paved the way for much of what is involved in Plekhanov’s Marx-
ist syntheses of Hegelianism with materialism. In addition to these do-
mestic predecessors as well as the profound foreign influence of Marx,
Plekhanov is deeply indebted to Engels. In fact, Plekhanov’s quite En-
gelsian rendition of dialectical materialism is the key link connecting
Engels’s and Lenin’s similar philosophical positions. This is so despite
the political rift that opened between Plekhanov and Lenin in the early
1900s, as well as Lenin’s complaints about Plekhanov’s allegedly inade-
quate appreciation of Hegel and Hegelian dialectics. One finds in the
philosophical writings of Plekhanov a quasi-Hegelian materialism antici-
pating what later arises in and through the combination of Lenin’s Mate-
rialism and Empirio-Criticism with his Philosophical Notebooks.
Near the beginning of “For the Sixtieth Anniversary of Hegel’s
Death,” Plekhanov remarks that “the most consistent materialist will
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not refuse to admit that each particular philosophical system is no more

than the intellectual expression of its time.”95 Of course, this is an obvi-
ous endorsement of the Hegel who, in the deservedly renowned preface
to Elements of the Philosophy of Right (1821), asserts that “each individual
is . . . a child of his time.”96 Plekhanov considers this to be a proto-Marxian
historical materialist thesis, given historical materialism’s emphases on
superstructural phenomena, up to and including philosophy itself, as
emerging from and remaining grounded by their time-and-place-specific
infrastructural bases. However, he proceeds, later in “For the Sixtieth
Anniversary of Hegel’s Death,” to play off historical materialism against
a feature of Hegel’s 1821 preface that is closely related to this “child of
his time,” namely, the famous Owl of Minerva. Following Engels espe-
cially, Plekhanov protests that post-Hegelian historical materialism, un-
like Hegelian philosophy and contrary to Hegel’s assertions embodied by
the Owl of Minerva, enjoys a foresight with predictive power as regards
the future of social history.97
Plekhanov (as does Lenin) takes over from Engels the narrative
about the history of philosophy being organized around the battle lines
between the “two great camps” of idealism and materialism. He also
knowingly inherits Engels’s ambivalence about Hegel, an ambivalence
manifest in placements of Hegel’s philosophy as straddling the contested
border between idealist and materialist territories. Like Engels, Plekha-
nov repeatedly deploys variations on Marx’s distinction between “the ra-
tional kernel” and “the mystical shell” within Hegelianism.98 Echoing
Ludwig Feuerbach and the Outcome of Classical German Philosophy in par-
ticular,99 he asserts that “as long as Hegel remains true to the dialectical
method, he is a highly progressive thinker”100 and that “the dialectical
method is the most powerful scientific weapon bequeathed by German
idealism to its successor, modern materialism.”101 Once “freed from its
mystic wrappings,”102 the Hegelian dialectic, in and through historical
and dialectical materialism, can and does realize its revolutionary po-
tential. Both Engels and Plekhanov equate, as regards Hegel’s philos-
ophy, dialectics with this philosophy’s rational kernel and its purported
idealism with its mystical shell.
Plekhanov, while paying Hegel the backhanded compliment of
being the most systematic of idealists, nonetheless contends that, despite
Hegel’s impressive systematicity, his idealism still remains plagued by
inconsistencies.103 In Plekhanov’s view, these inconsistencies are symp-
tomatic of that fact that “materialism is the truth of idealism.”104 However,
this leads him to an immanent critique of Hegel according to which
Hegel’s alleged idealist inconsistencies are such as to bring about this
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idealism’s auto-dialectical, self-sublating transformation into Marxian

materialism.105
A few other features of Plekhanov’s materialist evaluations of Hegel
in “For the Sixtieth Anniversary of Hegel’s Death” warrant notice. First of
all, Plekhanov displays an acute awareness of the significant difference,
often overlooked by Hegel’s critics, between subjective and objective/
absolute idealisms (so too does the Lenin of the Philosophical Notebooks,
as will be observed below shortly). He stresses that the idealism of Hegel
is not, by contrast with that of Kant, subjectivist.106 Likewise, and in rela-
tion to the infamous “Doppelsatz” from the preface to the 1821 Elements
of the Philosophy of Right— this is the notorious thesis according to which
“what is rational is actual; and what is actual is rational” (was vernüftig ist,
das ist wiklich; und was wirklich ist, das ist vernünftig)107 — Plekhanov praises
Hegel for rendering die Vernunft (reason) immanent to die Wirklichkeit
(actuality/reality). This realism of reason proposes that human history,
as well as material nature, are knowable thanks to being objectively struc-
tured in rational ways in and of themselves.108
Additionally, this Plekhanov of 1891 endorses certain features of
the historical and economic dimensions of Hegel’s Geistesphilosophie. He
approvingly highlights the recognition by Hegel of the problems and
challenges posed by the “rabble” (Pöbel).109 Moreover, he maintains that
Hegel’s recourses to economics (i.e., “political economy”) help open up
paths toward historical materialism proper. Plekhanov here foreshadows
the Lukács of The Young Hegel (1938).
Two points in “For the Sixtieth Anniversary of Hegel’s Death” re-
cur in Plekhanov’s Fundamental Problems of Marxism. First, both texts
credit Hegel— “For the Sixtieth Anniversary of Hegel’s Death” also cred-
its Schelling with this — with forging a compatibilist resolution of the
freedom-determinism antinomy as subsequently taken up by Engels in
particular.110 (I have dealt with Engels’s pseudo-Hegelian compatibilism
elsewhere.)111 Second, Plekhanov, in both 1891 and 1908, contrasts Hege-
lian models of historical development with the gradualisms associated,
within turn-of-the-century Marxism, with the Second International and
Menshevism. Basing himself on the Hegelian logical dialectics of quality
and quantity (as does Engels before him and Lenin after him), Plekhanov
reasonably argues that, for Hegel, there is revolution as sudden and
abrupt leaps, as well as evolution in the form of slow and steady progress.112
(Incidentally, this argument of Plekhanov’s indicates that he is not quite
so guilty of the total neglect of Hegel’s logical dialectics with which Lenin
sometimes charges him.)113 In the notes on Fundamental Problems of Marx-
ism taken by Lenin, he places an “NB” (nota bene) next to Plekhanov’s
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stressing of the revolutionary in addition to the evolutionary.114 Planty-

Bonjour, speaking of Plekhanov and Lenin,115 suggests that “the opposi-
tion between the two men is more political than philosophical.”116
Fundamental Problems of Marxism also maintains that the combi-
nation of Hegel with Feuerbach is the key to understanding Marx and
Engels.117 For Plekhanov, Feuerbach’s prioritization of being over think-
ing in his critique of Hegel’s allegedly idealist privileging of thought is
a crucial precondition for Marxist post-Hegelian materialism.118 Relat-
edly, in Plekhanov’s notes on Engels’s Ludwig Feuerbach and the Outcome of
Classical German Philosophy, he appeals to the histories of prehuman and
pre-organic nature so as to argue, long before Quentin Meillassoux, that
“idealism says: without a subject there is no object. The history of the earth
shows that the object existed long before the subject appeared, i.e., long before
any organism appeared which had any perceptible degree of conscious-
ness.”119 In Plekhanov’s assessment, the Feuerbachian criticism of Hegel
for prioritizing thinking over being is fully justified. He adds to this a
reiteration of the old charge of teleology according to which Hegelian
“Universal Spirit” dictates that reality conform to a theodicy. Plekhanov
contrasts this to a non-teleological “modern dialectical materialism.”120
However, both implicitly and explicitly, this same Plekhanov of
1908 continues to praise Hegel despite objections raised to his absolute
idealism. Hegelian dialectics permits a proper appreciation and grasp of
the complex reciprocal interactions and immanent antagonistic negativi-
ties within societies between their infrastructures and superstructures.121
Additionally, Hegel’s dialectical philosophy facilitates navigating between
the opposed one-sided extremes of theories of history emphasizing the
agency of either “great men” or anonymous structures.122 Furthermore,
Plekhanov characterizes Kantianisms as “the principal bulwark in the
struggle against materialism.”123 Hence, Hegel’s devastating critiques of
Kant can and should be enlisted in the service of the struggle for material-
ism.124 Finally, Fundamental Problems of Marxism voices historical materialist
approval of Hegel’s acknowledgment (at the end of the introduction to
his lectures on the Philosophy of History)125 of the importance of geographi-
cal forces and factors in the contingent, factical basis of the trajectories
of human history.126
Consistent with Planty-Bonjour’s above-quoted assertion of the
philosophical proximity, despite political distance, between Plekhanov
and Lenin, I would contend that the former’s Engelsian synthesis of
Hegelian absolute idealism with Marxian historical materialism is the
direct Russian forerunner of Leninist dialectical materialism.127 Standard
Soviet wisdom came to have it that Lenin’s materialism is to be found in
the 1908 Materialism and Empirio-Criticism and his dialectics in the Philo-
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sophical Notebooks of 1914.128 Indeed, texts by Lenin directly addressing

philosophical concerns from 1913 onward reveal that the Soviet construal
of his dialectical materialism is not inaccurate.
However, a number of non-Soviet Marxists/leftists have challenged
the official Soviet equation according to which Lenin’s dialectical mate-
rialist philosophy equals Materialism and Empirio-Criticism plus the Philo-
sophical Notebooks. I have already drawn attention to the fact that one of
Western Marxism’s trademark tactics is to play off a good Marx against a
bad Engels (with these maneuvers often resembling the psychoanalytic
defense mechanism of “splitting” in Kleinian object-relations theory).
In line with this tactical template, many Western Marxists likewise sepa-
rate a bad Materialism and Empirio-Criticism (guilty of the crudeness of
Engelsian-Plekhanovite materialism and naturalism) from a good Philo-
sophical Notebooks (perceived as closer to the [quasi- or pseudo-]Hege-
lianisms of theoretical currents on the European continent of the twen-
tieth century). Regarding the Lenin of Materialism and Empirio-Criticism,
Helena Sheehan remarks, “Not surprisingly, most of the authors hostile
to Engels are equally hostile to Lenin and speak of him in the very same
terms.”129
Planty-Bonjour detects tensions between Lenin’s key philosophical
texts of 1908 and 1914.130 Other non/anti-Soviet authors go further. The
Merleau-Ponty of Adventures of the Dialectic issues an early-Lukács-inspired
condemnation of Materialism and Empirio-Criticism.131 (The later Lukács,
in his 1947 Existentialism or Marxism? already objects to the narrative ac-
cording to which Lenin’s emphases on materialism eclipse dialectics in
his thinking132 — and this in addition to his public damning of Merleau-
Ponty following the publication, in 1955, of Adventures of the Dialectic.)133
Henri Lefebvre advocates abandoning Materialism and Empirio-Criticism
in favor of the Philosophical Notebooks alone.134 Michael Löwy tries to stress
the philosophical as well as political differences between Plekhanov and
a later Lenin who is said to have left behind the allegedly “stupid mate-
rialism” of 1908 under the beneficial influence of “intelligent” dialecti-
cal idealism.135 More recently, Stathis Kouvelakis echoes some of Löwy’s
assertions along these lines.136 Raya Dunayevskaya and her student Kevin
Anderson devote gallons of ink to driving a wedge repeatedly between
a supposedly deplorable, vulgar Materialism and Empirio-Criticism and a
laudable, sophisticated Philosophical Notebooks.137 Relatedly, McKenzie
Wark quite recently tries to resurrect one of the targets of Lenin’s criti-
cism in 1908, Alexander Bogdanov, as an alternative to the materialism
of Materialism and Empirio-Criticism.138 An author less invested in these
disputes, the historian David Joravsky, speaks of “a greater emphasis on
dialectics” in Lenin’s notes on Hegel’s Science of Logic “than one can find
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in Materialism and Empirio-criticism.”139 Gustav Wetter similarly judges that

“Lenin’s Philosophical Notebooks . . . represent an advance, philosophically
speaking, on his Materialism and Empirio-Criticism and show how thor-
oughly he had grasped the nature of dialectic.”140
Lefebvre, Löwy, Kouvelakis, Dunayevskaya, Anderson, and others,
in playing off the Philosophical Notebooks against Materialism and Empirio-
Criticism, presuppose that the absolute idealism of Hegelian dialectical-
speculative philosophy is antirealist and anti-naturalist. They also posit
that 1914 marks a sharp break in Lenin’s philosophical itinerary. The
whole of part 1 above already goes a long way toward fundamentally
undermining the picture of Hegelian thought presupposed by Lefebvre
and company. With regard to the positing of the Philosophical Notebooks
as a sharp, abrupt rupture with Lenin’s pre-1914 philosophical positions,
I can begin by referring to Dominique Lecourt, one of Althusser’s stu-
dents. After glossing Lecourt’s work on this topic, I will then add further
criticisms of attempts to quarantine Materialism and Empirio-Criticism in
relation to the Philosophical Notebooks and associated later texts by Lenin.
Lecourt, in his 1973 study A Crisis and Its Stakes: An Essay on the
Position of Lenin in Philosophy (published in Althusser’s Théorie series put
out by the François Maspero publishing house), adamantly opposes the
by-then commonplace splitting of Lenin into crude materialist (1908)
and subtle dialectician (1914).141 In Lecourt’s reading of Lenin’s philo-
sophical writings, the primacy/priority of being over thinking, a thesis
central to Materialism and Empirio-Criticism,142 remains the ultimate load-
bearing tenet of Lenin’s materialist philosophy throughout the entire
rest of his career.143 According to Lecourt, a key aspect of Hegel valued
by Lenin in 1914 and afterward (and valued as well by Engels)144 is the
sustained, multipronged assault on the antirealist subjectivism of Kant’s
transcendental idealism.145 That is to say, Lenin, in the Philosophical Note-
books and elsewhere, is interested in a specifically materialist harnessing
of the Hegelian problematization of Kantian subjectivist anti-realism.146
By Lecourt’s lights, scientific “crises” of the sort motivating Lenin’s 1908
philosophical intervention — as is well known, Materialism and Empirio-
Criticism is a response to the overthrow of Newtonian physics and idealist
attempts to capitalize philosophically on this scientific upheaval— are the
underlying root catalysts for Lenin’s recourse to Hegelian dialectics.147
Relatedly, Lecourt maintains that dialectics always and invariably remains
subordinated to materialism in Leninist dialectical materialism.148
Incidentally, a younger, more traditionally Marxist Henri Lefebvre
(1957) even goes so far as to defend Lenin’s “reflection theory,” one of the
elements of Materialism and Empirio-Criticism most despised by those pit-
ting the Philosophical Notebooks against this 1908 treatise. In Lefebvre’s in-
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terpretation, the thesis that thinking “reflects” being is an essential axiom

for materialism as involving anti-dualist immanentism, an immanentism
according to which thinking is internal to and a moment of being.149 The
later Lukács offers an equally positive interpretation of Marxist-Leninist
reflection.150 Lefebvre’s then-comrade, the French Communist Party phi-
losopher Roger Garaudy, contemporaneously (1956) offers the same de-
fense of Leninist reflection.151 A similar point is already alluded to, also
in the French Marxist context, by Trân Duc Thao (1951) with regard
to dialectical materialism generally.152 The Lefebvre of 1957 also antici-
pates certain of Lecourt’s points, especially those pertaining to the anti-
subjectivist objectivity of the dialectics of Hegel’s absolute idealism as a
foreshadowing of full-fledged materialism.153
Lecourt’s arguments against those who divide Lenin’s philosophical
works by setting the Philosophical Notebooks against Materialism and Empirio-
Criticism so as to dismiss the latter can and should be supplemented by
additional observations. To begin with, whereas the post-1914 Lenin had
Materialism and Empirio-Criticism widely distributed in official published
form, he never saw fit to publish the Philosophical Notebooks. This is not at
all to say that what the later Lenin did publish disavows or shows no ties
to the content of his 1914 commentary on Hegel’s Science of Logic.
Instead, Lenin’s published philosophy-related writings both con-
temporaneous with and subsequent to the Philosophical Notebooks fuse the
Engelsian-Plekhanovite, science-shaped materialism of Materialism and
Empirio-Criticism with Hegelian dialectics. This runs contrary to the claims
of Löwy, Dunayevskaya, and associates who, as noted above, contend that
a break occurs resulting in 1908’s materialism being jettisoned altogether
in favor of 1914’s dialectics. I think the textual evidence suggests other-
wise. As Lenin himself indicates, the position he defends is called “dia-
lectical materialism” with good reason.154
Lenin, like Marx, Engels, and Plekhanov before him, knowingly
takes over and absorbs elements of pre-Marxian materialism.155 For all
four of these militant materialists, although philosophical materialisms
from the ancient Greek atomists through Feuerbach problematically are
lacking in historical and dialectical sensibilities, these materialisms none-
theless are crucial precursors making possible what eventually arises in
the mid-to-late nineteenth century as historical/dialectical materialism
proper. Moreover— this again contests the thesis of a 1914 rupture with
the materialism of 1908— the later Lenin encourages his comrades to im-
merse themselves in a close study of Plekhanov’s philosophical writings.156
I turn now to some of Lenin’s texts themselves. My focus in what
follows will be on facets of what could be called a “dialectical natural-
ism” that is operative within Lenin’s materialist philosophy. I have already
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dealt with Materialism and Empirio-Criticism along similar lines in the pre-
ceding first volume of my Prolegomena to Any Future Materialism.157 Here, I
will offer selective interpretations of four particular texts by Lenin: “The
Three Sources and Three Component Parts of Marxism” (1913), “Conspec-
tus of Hegel’s Book The Science of Logic” (1914), “On the Question of Dia-
lectics” (1915), and “On the Significance of Militant Materialism” (1922).
As is well known, the triad referred to in the title “The Three Sources
and Three Component Parts of Marxism” is none other than “German
philosophy, English political economy, and French socialism.”158 This es-
say, roughly contemporaneous with the Philosophical Notebooks, promptly
goes on to insist that the philosophical core of Marxism is a materialism
indebted to its historical predecessors (including the mechanical ma-
terialists of eighteenth-century France).159 For this Lenin, Marx’s main
philosophical accomplishment is the synthesis of pre-Marxian material-
ism with Hegel-inspired dialectics.160 What is more, this 1913 essay contin-
ues to invoke the motif of the two opposed, struggling camps of idealism
and materialism as enunciated by Engels, Plekhanov, and Materialism and
Empirio-Criticism.161 Herein, Lenin associates idealism with religion and
materialism with science.162 Hence, a mere year before the Philosophical
Notebooks, Lenin continues to insist that Marxist philosophy is, first and
foremost, a materialism informed by natural science.
But what about the Philosophical Notebooks of 1914? As I have already
indicated, my gloss upon this incredibly rich set of reflections on and
responses to Hegel by Lenin will be highly selective. Given my precise
purposes in the current context, I am particularly interested in the place
of naturalism in Lenin’s serious materialist engagement with the specula-
tive dialectics of the Science of Logic.
However, before turning to the naturalist dimensions of the dialec-
tical materialism characterizing the Philosophical Notebooks, I once again
feel compelled to highlight some additional details further undermining
the thesis of Dunayevskaya and others positing a 1914 break by Lenin
with his pre-1914 philosophical positions (as espoused primarily in Ma-
terialism and Empirio-Criticism). Those maintaining the existence of this
purported rupture consider Lenin in 1908 as too wedded to ostensibly
“bad” as crude/vulgar Engelsian and Plekhanovite ideas. As I noted a
short while ago, partisans of this supposed break rely upon contentious
assumptions about discontinuities between Hegel, on the one hand, and
both Engels and Plekhanov, on the other hand. In my prior treatments
of Hegel, Engels, and Plekhanov in this book, I have already profoundly
challenged much of what is involved in these assumptions.
What is more, Dunayevskaya and her ilk, in holding up Lenin’s
Philosophical Notebooks as amounting to a purported split with his prior
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Engelsian and Plekhanovite commitments, tend to ignore the obvious

continuities and overlaps between how Engels, Plekhanov, and Lenin
all critically yet sympathetically read Hegel. That is to say, Lenin’s ap-
preciations of Hegelian dialectics in 1914 partly echo those already ar-
ticulated by these two Marxist predecessors of his. Examples along these
lines in the Philosophical Notebooks include Lenin’s approval of Hegel’s
emphasis on immanent self-development;163 his endorsement of absolute
idealism’s critique of Kant’s antirealist subjectivism specifically and sub-
jective idealisms generally;164 his praise of the Hegelian dialectic for its
multidimensional fluidity and nimble dynamism;165 his agreement with
Hegel’s criticism according to which Kant, in his excessive “tenderness
for things,”166 refuses to recognize the ontological objectivity of kinetic
contradictions within real beings in themselves;167 his reiteration that
comprehending Marx requires comprehending Hegel;168 and his credit-
ing Hegel with anticipating and making possible historical materialism.169
Insofar as the Hegel of the Philosophical Notebooks bears multiple resem-
blances to the Hegel of Engels and Plekhanov, this Lenin does anything
but cleanly and completely separate himself here from the Engelsian and
Plekhanovite influences shaping his thinking prior to 1914.
Lenin, immediately before turning to Hegel’s treatment of the cate-
gory of appearance in “The Doctrine of Essence,” declares, “Continua-
tion of the work of Hegel and Marx must consist in the dialectical elabo-
ration of the history of human thought, science and technique.”170 As in
1908, so too in 1914: science remains a crucial component of Leninist
materialism, which seeks, following in Engels’s footsteps, to dialecticize
(the study of) nature as well as the domains of humanity’s ideas and ac-
tivities. Similarly, this Lenin of 1914 audibly echoes the Engels of Dialec-
tics of Nature, for better or worse, when he writes of “not things, but the
laws of their movement, materialistically.”171 Lenin’s naturalism begins
to emerge even more explicitly later in the Philosophical Notebooks with
his exclamation, “Down with Gott, there remains Natur.”172 What is left
after sweeping away narratives about transcendent, top-down divine crea-
tion ex nihilo— a little earlier in the Philosophical Notebooks, Lenin insists
that all emergences are out of something instead of nothing173 — is im-
manent, bottom-up genesis starting from the brute givenness of mere,
sheer natural being(s) ultimately prior to all sentience and sapience.174
Lenin’s agreement with Engels and Plekhanov’s praise for the ro-
bust realism of Hegelian absolute idealism already involves Lenin repeat-
edly recognizing that, for Hegel, logical categories are as much a mat-
ter of objective-natural being as of subjective-human thinking.175 What
is more, the Philosophical Notebooks, despite their focus on the Science of
Logic, make a number of references to Hegel’s Naturphilosophie as repre-
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sented in the second volume of the Encyclopedia. On a single page, Lenin

emphasizes the “closeness to materialism” of this philosophy of nature, as
well as the general Hegelian conception of substance as per the move-
ment from substantiality to subjectivity.176 And, despite Lenin’s reserva-
tions regarding what he sees as the antimaterialist aspects of the Hegelian
narrative of the passing over from Logik to Naturphilosophie— Lenin even
derides (“Ha-ha!”) what he takes to be Hegel’s account of the transi-
tion from the logical Idea to real-philosophical Nature177 — Hegel’s Logic-
concluding identification of the Idea with Nature strikes Lenin as a ges-
ture that “brings one within a hand’s grasp of materialism.”178
Additionally, the Philosophical Notebooks express an appreciation
for the opposition of a speculative dialectics that is “full of content and
concrete”179 to empty “formalism.”180 Admittedly, this perhaps repre-
sents an implicit criticism of an Engels who sometimes lapses into for-
malizing generalizations about the purportedly universal “laws of dialec-
tics.” Nonetheless, this Lenin of 1914 does not, for all that, abandon the
science-informed naturalism of Engelsian dialectical materialism (and
behind that, Hegelian Naturphilosophie). Although Lenin turns Hegel’s
anti-Schellingian denunciations of pseudo-mathematical formalisms in
the Philosophy of Nature against him,181 he, like Hegel, denounces only ab-
stractly formalized Naturphilosophie, not Naturphilosophie altogether.
Materialism and Empirio-Criticism recurrently insists, in a good
naturalist-materialist manner, that the human central nervous system is
the highly organized matter forming the necessary natural basis for con-
sciousness, mindedness, and so on.182 This 1908 insistence subsequently
is echoed in 1914 by a proposed inversion of what Lenin takes Hegel’s
views to be: “Should be inverted: concepts are the highest product of the
brain, the highest product of matter.”183 I will put aside questions regard-
ing the accuracy of Lenin’s construal of Hegel here. That said, Lenin, in
both 1908 and 1914, avoids lapsing into crudely reductive materialism by
adding to his neurobiological naturalism (as per his emphasis on the cen-
trality of the central nervous system) what amounts to a greater emphasis
on the dialectics of real abstractions. How so?
At one point, the Philosophical Notebooks sharply contrast Kantian
and Hegelian abstractions in favor of the latter.184 Soon after, Lenin re-
marks in relation to Hegel’s introductory framing of the Science of Logic:

Is not the thought here that semblance also is objective, for it contains
one of the aspects of the objective world? Not only Wesen, but Schein, too,
is objective. There is a difference between the subjective and the objec-
tive, BUT IT, TOO, HAS ITS LIMITS.185
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A subsequent passage from the Philosophical Notebooks reinforces this:

The thought of the ideal passing into the real is profound: very impor-
tant for history. But also in the personal life of man it is clear that this
contains much truth. Against vulgar materialism. NB. The difference
of the ideal from the material is also not unconditional, not über-
schwenglich.186

Through implicit recourse to the Hegelian-Schellingian dialectical-

speculative motif of the identity of identity and difference,187 Lenin iden-
tifies nature as precisely the substantial identity between the different di-
mensions of, on the one hand, ideal subjectivity (als Schein) as “abstract,”
“phenomenon,” and “moment,” and, on the other hand, real objectivity
(als Wesen) as “concrete,” “essence,” and “relation.”188 Very much in line
with Hegel’s interrelated substance-also-as-subject thesis and his Natur-
philosophie, the Philosophical Notebooks posits a substantial natural being
that sunders itself into itself as objective nature and its intimate other as
subjective more-than-nature.
Furthermore — this would be his dialectics of real abstractions —
Lenin hypothesizes that substance-generated subjects can and do really
react back upon their generative substance. For “vulgar materialism,”
appearances are mere appearances, with a one-way trajectory of causality
running from a material real to an epiphenomenal ideal. For dialectical
materialism, by contrast, appearances are themselves actual beings too,
with a two-way dynamic of reciprocal influences flowing back and forth
between objective realities and subjective idealities. For instance, brain-
mind relations, by the lights of Lenin’s dialectical materialism, are such
that, although the mind (as ideal subject) has as a necessary condition
for its very existence the being of the brain (as real object), the former
can and does affect and shape the latter.
Thanks to 1914’s immersion in the work of Hegel, dialectical themes
and notions are obviously quite prominent in Lenin’s notes on the Science
of Logic.189 However, these themes and notions are hardly new. Prior to the
Philosophical Notebooks, Lenin in Materialism and Empirio-Criticism (1) op-
poses “vulgar materialism” in the name of properly dialectical material-
ism,190 (2) insists on the irreducible, full-fledged ontological status of the
ideal as well as the real,191 and (3) advocates dialecticizing the natural
sciences, rather than trusting them to their own non-dialectical devices. 192
Lenin’s materialism in 1908 is already dialectical (as is Engels’s in, for ex-
ample, Ludwig Feuerbach and the Outcome of Classical German Philosophy,193
from which Lenin draws so much inspiration).
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Correlatively, Lenin’s dialectic in 1914 is still materialist. Although

materialism is to the fore in Materialism and Empirio-Criticism and dialectic
is to the fore in the Philosophical Notebooks, this amounts to a difference of
emphasis rather than a shift of position. Before, during, and after both
1908 and 1914, Lenin remains an Engels-inspired dialectical materialist.
No fundamental rupture, including a sharp break with Engelsian
Naturdialektik, is inaugurated by the Philosophical Notebooks. The thesis of
a 1914 about-face, which is popular among Western Marxists, does not
hold water. If the contrasting Eastern/Soviet thesis, according to which
Lenin’s dialectical materialism equals Materialism and Empirio- Criticism
plus the Philosophical Notebooks, needs correcting, its flaw is that it risks
misleadingly suggesting that there is no dialectics in the first work and
no materialism in the second work. Of course, this (perhaps inadvertent)
suggestion sets the stage for and plays into the hands of Dunayevskaya
and company, whose disparagement of Lenin’s 1908 materialism and cele-
bration of his 1914 dialectics leads to a “dialectical materialism” that is
materialist in name only, being really devoid of any traces of materialism
(as itself involving both naturalism and realism).
At this juncture, I can succinctly address as a pair two of Lenin’s
post-1914 texts, namely, “On the Question of Dialectics” (1915) and “On
the Significance of Militant Materialism” (1922). The first of these essays
contains audible echoes of the Philosophical Notebooks, coming only a
year after the latter. In 1915, Lenin continues to both stress the ubiquity
of dialectics (as struggles between opposites)194 in an inherently, objec-
tively dialectical nature-in-itself as well as in and between human beings;195
and to advance a dialectics that gives pride of place, against gradualness,
to “leaps” (à la Hegel’s dialectics of quantity and quality)196 and, against
harmony, to discord.197
Along related lines, “On the Question of Dialectics” attributes the
materialist universalization of Hegelian dialectics to Marx himself, claim-
ing that “with Marx the dialectics of bourgeois society is only a particular
case of dialectics.”198 Of course, this is tantamount, in line with Plekhanov,
to crediting Marx, apart from Engels, with forging a dialectical material-
ism (implicitly including a potential Naturdialektik) as the general theory
of which historical materialism, as deployed in the capitalist-era critique
of political economy, is a special instance or application.199 In “On the
Significance of Militant Materialism,” Lenin hints again at this same cred-
iting.200
Lastly, Lenin, in this 1915 piece, declares that “philosophical
idealism is only nonsense from the standpoint of crude, simple, meta-
physical materialism.”201 Essentially, this amounts to a reminder of the
central thrust of the first of Marx’s eleven “Theses on Feuerbach,” with
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Thesis One’s distinction between contemplative (as ahistorical, crude,

eliminative, mechanical, metaphysical, reductive, simple, vulgar, etc.) and
non-contemplative (i.e., historical and/or dialectical) materialisms. Both
Marx and Lenin lambast contemplative materialisms without, for all that,
ultimately endorsing those idealisms that contest such flawed, limited
materialisms. Although these idealisms’ basic resistance is correct, these
idealisms themselves are not. Put in Lenin’s own phrasing, when it comes
to idealism or contemplative materialism, “both are worse!”
“On the Significance of Militant Materialism” of 1922, one of
Lenin’s final pronouncements on matters philosophical, seems further
to vindicate my preceding assertions about a consistent dialectical mate-
rialist stance running from Materialism and Empirio-Criticism through the
Philosophical Notebooks and beyond (indeed, up through the last years of
Lenin’s life). As in both Materialism and Empirio-Criticism and 1913’s “The
Three Sources and Three Component Parts of Marxism,” the Lenin of
1922 once again invokes the conflict between science and religion, with
the Engelsian-Plekhanovite motif of the perennial war between the “two
camps” of materialism and idealism palpable in the background. For this
Lenin still, staunch materialism necessarily entails “militant atheism.”202
Moreover, “On the Significance of Militant Materialism” manifestly
returns to the main topic of central concern to the Lenin of Material-
ism and Empirio-Criticism: the rapport between the natural sciences and
philosophy, especially cases in which scientific crises and upheavals are
exploitatively capitalized on by idealisms in their perpetual campaigns
against materialisms. As in 1908, so too in 1922: Lenin warns that rapid
advances in and radical transformations of the natural sciences threaten
to inspire idealist philosophical efforts to undermine materialist views,
including the spontaneous materialism of practicing natural scientists
themselves.203 In the later Lenin’s evaluation, both science and material-
ism need philosophical support in order to stand up to and fend off reac-
tionary idealist/spiritualist misappropriations of scientific revolutions.204
Lenin associates the militant materialism providing this vital support
“under the banner of Marxism” (as per the title of the journal whose
intellectual and ideological mission is being addressed in “On the Signifi-
cance of Militant Materialism”) with a “Society of Materialist Friends of
Hegelian Dialectics.”205 But again, instead of 1908’s materialism or 1914’s
dialectics, Leninism, in 1908, 1914, and 1922, sticks to dialectics and/with
materialism, no more, no less.
I come now to the tragic figure of Nikolai Bukharin. In particular,
my concern will be with him at the very height of his tragedy, namely,
with his Philosophical Arabesques, a 1937 text written in a prison cell by
an already-condemned man awaiting execution. Bukharin, writing to his
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wife Anna Larina, says about Philosophical Arabesques that “the most im-
portant thing is that the philosophical work not be lost. I worked on it
for a long time and put a great deal into it; it is a very mature work in
comparison to my earlier writings, and, in contrast to them, dialectical
from beginning to end.”206
The self-assessment contained in Bukharin’s just-quoted remarks
about Philosophical Arabesques arguably is quite accurate. Specifically,
his prior theoretical magnum opus, Historical Materialism (1921), is in-
deed far from thoroughly dialectical. In fact, this earlier work presents
a rather non-dialectical codification of historical materialism that brings
the Bukharin of this period into association with a “mechanist” faction
of Soviet philosophy that was opposed to Abram Moiseyevich Deborin
and his followers. The Deborinites championed their version of Hegel as
the key to all the philosophical issues of concern in the Soviet context of
the 1920s.207 In relation to the mechanist-Deborinite split, Bukharin’s His-
torical Materialism indeed puts forward a mechanistic rendition of Marx-
ist materialism as a thoroughgoing determinism of iron laws of causal-
ity completely governing nonhuman nature and human social history
alike.208
The Bukharin of 1937’s Philosophical Arabesques clearly is a thinker
of significantly greater dialectical finesse than the 1920s fellow traveler
of the anti-Deborinite mechanists. Although I reject dividing the earlier
(circa 1908) from the later (ca. 1914) Lenin, I affirm just such a divi-
sion between the earlier (ca. 1921) and the later (ca. 1937) Bukharin. My
treatment of Philosophical Arabesques first will highlight the continuities
between Lenin’s dialectical materialism and Bukharin’s final theoretical
positions. I will then underscore the conceptual innovations introduced
by Bukharin on the eve of his execution.
To begin with the topic of realist materialism (i.e., the top prior-
ity of Lenin in 1908), Philosophical Arabesques emphasizes repeatedly that
life, sentience, and sapience are all later emergent phenomena preceded
by an already long-existent Real of inorganic, nonconscious nature-in-
itself.209 Similarly, the naturalist dimension of Leninist dialectical materi-
alism shines through in Bukharin’s prison treatise. Lenin’s anti-idealist,
neurobiological emphasis on the brain as the material seat of subjectivity
is echoed by Philosophical Arabesques.210
Moreover, Bukharin observes, with regard to the difference between
subjectivity and objectivity, that “this opposition to realité arose historically
when nature created and singled out from itself a new quality, the human
being, the subject, the historico-social subject.”211 In other words, natural
history immanently generates out of itself, in a dialectical dynamic involv-
ing the Hegelian logic of quantity and quality, the distinction between ob-
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jective nature and subjective history/society.212 One of Bukharin’s descrip-

tions of this process even audibly anticipates contemporary talk about the
“anthropocene,” with Bukharin speaking of “the ‘anthropozoic period’
of the planet earth.”213 In line with my prior readings of Hegel, Marx,
Engels, and Lenin, Bukharin’s natural substance, like that of Hegel and
others, is self-sundering as partially auto-denaturalizing. I say “partially”
here because Bukharin, in line with Engelsian-Leninist (qualified) natu-
ralism, is careful to stipulate that sociohistorical mediations, although
profoundly transforming human nature and humanity’s relations with
nonhuman nature, never bring about total denaturalization as an exhaus-
tive liquidation of anything and everything natural.214
In a chapter of Philosophical Arabesques devoted to the topic of “Tele-
ology,” Bukharin provides additional clarifications in connection with
what I just underlined. He states therein:

In humanity, nature undergoes a bifurcation; the subject, which has

arisen historically, stands counterposed to the object. The object is
transformed into matter, into the object of knowledge and of practi-
cal mastering. A human being, however, represents a contradiction, a
dialectical contradiction; he or she is at one and the same time both an
“anti-member” . . . that is, a subject counterposed to nature, and a part
of this nature, incapable of being torn out of this universal, all-natural,
dialectical relationship. When Hegel introduced his trinomial division
into mechanism, “chemism,” and teleology, he in essence used idealist
language to formulate (that is, if we read him materialistically, as Lenin
advised) the historical stages of development, of real development.215

Giving Hegel less materialist credit than I do, Bukharin ends in this
passage with a qualified endorsement of the fundamental categories
(i.e., “mechanism, ‘chemism,’ and teleology”) of Hegel’s strong-
emergentist Naturphilosophie construed as stages of natural history, of a
nature exhibiting a historical series of categorial emergences.216 Putting
aside for the moment Bukharin’s relations with Hegel and Lenin’s
(quasi-)Hegelianism, the rest of the above quotation essentially suggests a
dialectical convergence of identities and differences between the natural
and the human. On the next page of the same chapter of Philosophical
Arabesques, Bukharin adds:

Dialectical materialism does not treat human beings as machines; it

does not deny special qualities, does not deny goals, just as it does not
deny reason. But dialectical materialism views these special qualities as
a link in the chain of natural necessity; it views human beings in their
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contradictory duality as antagonists of nature and as part of nature, as

both subject and object, while viewing the specific teleological principle
as an aspect of the principle of necessity.217

As evidence elsewhere in this 1937 manuscript corroborates,218 Bukharin’s

invocations of “necessity” here are of a piece with an endorsement of
Engels’s purportedly Hegelian compatibilism according to which, as
Bukharin himself puts it (in connection with an appeal to Bacon’s New
Organon),219 “freedom is cognized necessity.”220 Plekhanov too, before
Bukharin, already reaffirmed this same Engelsian compatibilism.221 Ad-
ditionally, Bukharin’s “principle of necessity” resonates with the theme of
causal lawfulness that is so central to his earlier, 1920s version of Marxist
materialism.
In addition to repeating Engels’s pseudo-Hegelian compatibilism,
Bukharin also repeats a somewhat serious mistake made by Engels. The
latter at one point regrettably equates materialism with nominalism.222
He thereby regresses to a Hobbesian ontology. Indeed, Engels refers to
the British empiricists Bacon, Hobbes, and Locke as inspirations for the
eighteenth-century French materialism which itself in turn inspired Marx
and himself too.223 Philosophical Arabesques likewise mentions a connection
between Marxism and nominalism.224
However, Bukharin, fortunately but inconsistently, also upholds
the anti-nominalist doctrine of real abstractions advanced by both Marx
and Lenin. Two echoes of Lenin’s version of this doctrine can be heard
in Bukharin’s 1937 text: one, “theory is also a force when it seizes hold
of the masses”;225 and two, “the subjective cannot be treated as merely
subjective.”226 These two statements can be rephrased respectively as fol-
lows: one, the ideality of conceptual abstractions is non-epiphenomenal
as causally efficacious in reality; and two, the realm of the ideal is not
simply unreal. For a nominalist ontology, the only true existents are the
perceptible immediacies of concrete spatiotemporal particulars as irre-
ducibly unique “X’s,” as absolutely individuated singularities. Any catego-
rial and conceptual generalities over and above such “X’s” are dismissed
as mere names, as inefficacious, sterile linguistic constructs and conven-
tions lacking any real ontological status or weight. For dialectical (as well
as transcendental)227 materialism, categorial and conceptual generalities
are far from epiphenomenal, instead being endowed with actual causal
efficacy vis-à-vis nominalism’s particulars.
Picking back up the thread of the continuities between Lenin’s dia-
lectical materialism and the late Bukharin, several more links between
these two Bolsheviks surface in Philosophical Arabesques. In line with the
Engelsian-Plekhanovite-Leninist motif of the recurrent struggles between
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religious idealism and atheistic materialism, Bukharin speaks of sweeping

away religion and its “dualist fetters.”228 He also endorses Lenin’s account
according to which, first, dialectical materialism is the general theory
behind Marx’s historical materialism as an application of this theory to
social formations;229 and second, Marx’s dialectical materialism is itself
a synthesis of mechanistic materialism with dialectical idealism.230 The
Lukács of The Destruction of Reason (1954) echoes this rendition of Marx’s
dialectical materialism.231
I turn now to briefly observing the overlaps between Lenin and
Bukharin specifically with regard to Hegel. An appreciation of Lenin’s
Philosophical Notebooks is largely responsible for Bukharin’s belated con-
version from a more mechanistic to a more dialectical materialism.232 Ac-
cordingly, endorsements and reiterations of this Lenin (and, implicitly
behind him, Plekhanov) abound throughout Philosophical Arabesques: the
realist-objective (i.e., anti-subjectivist) side of Hegelian absolute idealism
places it in close proximity to materialism;233 the speculative dialectics of
absolute idealism must be taken as ontological and not merely epistemo-
logical;234 various aspects of Hegel’s corpus distinguish him as a proto-
historical-materialist;235 and, in line with a long-standing tradition among
Russian Hegelians and Marxists, there is celebration of the dialectical
dynamics of quantities and qualities, with their “leaps,” as crystallizing
“the algebra of revolution.”236
But what, if any, are the novel contributions made to the tradition
of dialectical materialism by Philosophical Arabesques? I discern several in
this text. To begin with, Bukharin tempers the apparent ahistoricism of
Engels’s laws of Naturdialektik by stipulating that these laws are historical,
albeit on the longer time-scale of natural history.237 Hence, these laws
seem ahistorical only relative to the comparatively shorter time-scales of
human history.
Bukharin also addresses Hegel’s Naturphilosophie directly. He faults
Hegel for allegedly having regressed back before Kant into a premodern
vision of nature as ahistorical.238 Bukharin charges that, in Hegel’s phi-
losophy of nature, idealism (as conservative and reactionary) sadly wins
out over dialectics (as progressive and revolutionary).239 The entirety of
part 1 of the present volume testifies to and supports my fundamental dis-
agreement with Bukharin’s characterization of Hegelian Naturphilosophie.
Admittedly, Bukharin is right to suggest that ongoing scientific de-
velopments from Hegel’s time onward demand a revision and reworking
of multiple components of Hegel’s original philosophy of nature. I agree
that transforming Naturphilosophie in response to the sciences is an im-
portant process of recurrent theoretical labor for dialectical materialism.
But Bukharin is wrong to suggest that Hegel himself would be unready,
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unwilling, or unable to carry out such transformations were he to be con-

fronted with these scientific developments.
With regard to the natural sciences, Philosophical Arabesques makes
a couple of points worth noting. First of all, Bukharin denounces as “stu-
pid, obtuse, and narrow-minded” the gesture of reducing the sciences to
being social constructions through and through.240 Of course, there are
plenty of non-Marxist permutations of this maneuver. However, he un-
derstandably is concerned with its Marxist variants, according to which,
on the basis of an economistic assumption about the one-way determina-
tion of superstructure by infrastructure, the sciences are superstructural
outgrowths of the economic base. Therefore, they are peculiar to given
social formations and, moreover, are likely entangled with the ideolo-
gies permeating superstructural phenomena. Precisely as a materialist,
Bukharin cannot stomach the anti-naturalism and antirealism of such a
pseudo-Marxist philosophy of science.
Also regarding the empirical, experimental sciences of nature,
Philosophical Arabesques ventures a tentative prediction about further de-
velopments. Bukharin muses that one can acknowledge the unforesee-
able shifting claims and findings to come of the sciences without, for all
that, succumbing to an antirealist skepticism about the entirety of their
contents past and present. That is to say, just because the sciences have
changed and will change does not mean that each and every determinate
result put forward by them is doomed to total nullification sooner or later
in the future.241 For Bukharin, dialectical materialism proper must shun
such anti-naturalist epistemological pessimism as speciously justifying the
deliberate neglect of the sciences.
Finally, Philosophical Arabesques contains an important warning
about the abuses of dialectics, a warning with which Hegel would agree
(even if Bukharin is unaware of this agreement). Bukharin cautions that
dialectics cannot and should not be carelessly generalized into an un-
qualified “theory of everything,” namely, a circumscribed set of universal
laws that are equally applicable to even the smallest, most commonplace
things under the sun. He gives as examples of the latter buttons, knives,
forks, and steel ingots, ridiculing the notion of a “dialectic of buttons,”
for instance.242
Bukharin’s essential point is that dialectics, accurately understood,
does not dialecticize everything without reserve or remainder. In other
words, dialectics itself recognizes differences between the dialectical and
the non-dialectical, admitting the existence of the latter (for Hegel, such
non-dialectical dimensions as Verstand and mechanical physics are in-
deed realities to be recognized as such). Earlier in this chapter, I invoke
a meta-dialectics with the same basic perspective on dialectics in mind.
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The Bukharin of 1937 ought to be recognized as already having perspicu-

ously discerned the need for a meta-dialectical balancing between the
dialectical and the non-dialectical.
Immediately on the heels of Philosophical Arabesques, Stalin pub-
lished in 1938, just months after having executed Bukharin, his codifica-
tion of Marxist philosophy. Stalin’s Dialectical and Historical Materialism,
which articulates his diamat, was promptly imposed as official doctrine
within the Soviet spheres of “really existing socialism.” Just as Stalin’s liq-
uidation of Bukharin was one of the incarnations of a terrifying political
Thermidor, so too was the succession of Philosophical Arabesques by Dia-
lectical and Historical Materialism a manifestation of a philosophical Ther-
midor.
Stalin’s elimination of Engels’s dialectical law of the negation of the
negation is a theoretical symptom of the practical fact of the entrench-
ment of the Stalinist bureaucratic state apparatus.243 This dictatorship,
as a postrevolutionary “negation” of the tsarist state, refuses to contem-
plate the possibility of itself being “negated” in turn by further revolu-
tionary developments. Stalin, in his last major philosophical statement
(on the topic of language and linguistics) from the early 1950s, similarly
adds caveats to the Hegelian-Engelsian dialectics of quantity and quality.
Implicitly at odds with Lenin’s and Bukharin’s emphatic Bolshevik cele-
brations of the “leaps” of Hegel’s speculative-logical “algebra of revolu-
tion,” Stalin argues against cumulative quantitative changes that always
sooner or later catalyze leap-like “explosions.” More specifically, he sug-
gests that, in terms of social transformations in classless societies (with the
Soviet Union by 1950 having largely achieved, according to Stalinist pro-
paganda, the dissolution of classes), the continuity of evolutions rather
than the discontinuity of revolutions will be the rule.244 Once again, the
message is clear: there will be no future explosive revolutionary negations
of the status quo in the Soviet Union; Stalinism is here to stay.
However, as per the cliché “even a broken clock is right at least twice
a day,” Stalin’s rendition of Marxist materialism is not entirely without
its (admittedly unoriginal) merits as select concurrences with the prior
philosophical efforts of Engels, Plekhanov, and Lenin. To begin with,
Stalin’s 1924 lectures on The Foundations of Leninism stress the importance
of theory against anti-intellectualism, spontaneism, and the like. In con-
nection with this, these lectures indicate that theoretical concepts can
and do function as real abstractions by galvanizing and guiding mass-scale
sociopolitical projects.245 Stalin’s 1938 Dialectical and Historical Materialism
likewise implicitly relies at points on the notion of real abstractions.246
Other features of diamat also echo the dialectical materialism of
Stalin’s predecessors: both natural and human histories are indeed punc-
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tuated by sudden revolutions in addition to gradual evolutions;247 the

matter of Natur exists prior to and independently of the Geist of human-
ity;248 Marxism, with its materialism, involves a Hegel-inspired scientific
realism;249 and, against mechanistic economism and related deviations,
superstructures react back upon infrastructures250 (an anti-deterministic
thesis that has been central to Western Marxists from Lukács and Gramsci
onward). Evidently, Stalin even resisted Lysenko’s attempted tethering
of the sciences to classes, rebutting that mathematics and Darwinism, in
their scientific universality, are independent of class bases.251 This anti-
Lysenkoist point is also central to Stalin’s later rebuking of the linguist
Nicolai Marr’s thesis that languages are components of specific social
superstructures.252
Yet, even these philosophical virtues borrowed by Stalin from his
Marxist predecessors manage to be perverted by him into political vices.
In particular, the theories of real abstractions and the downward cau-
sation of superstructure vis-à-vis infrastructure are pressed into the ser-
vice of rationalizing a voluntarism, one in tension with core aspects of
historical materialism, of top-down governance by the enlightened con-
sciousnesses of the Party and its Leader.253 In general, Stalinist diamat
somehow manages the lamentable feat of a non-dialectical, contradictory
sandwiching together of a teleological determinism (as per the combined
laws of nature and history inexorably progressing toward specific ends)
with a spiritualistic voluntarism (as per exceptional individuals, “great
men,” playing guiding roles in various processes). I neither pretend nor
would be inclined to try to sort out the muddle of conflicting theoretical
elements that were forced together under the ferocious pressure of Sta-
lin’s unprincipled political opportunism.
As I noted a short while ago, the deletion of the negation of the
negation and the limitation of the dialectics of quantity and quality are
two hallmark philosophical features of the Stalinist Thermidor. Two other
such features, the first of which I refer to immediately above, surface in
Dialectical and Historical Materialism: one, the necessary, inevitable prog-
ress of natural and social developments over the course of historical time
in an inexorable “onward and upward movement”;254 and two, the asso-
ciation of dialectics with a perspective according to which, starting with
nature-in-itself, material realities are envisioned as continuously evolv-
ing organic wholes of thoroughly interconnected parts.255 The Stalinist
(per)version of dialectical materialism promotes the necessities of strong
Nature and strong History as, taken together, a teleological big Other
or One-All (to resort to a hybrid of Lacanian and Badiouian phrasings).
By sharp contrast, transcendental materialism puts forward the contin-
gencies of weak nature and weak history as, taken together, an aleatory
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barred Other or not-One/non-All. This difference comes down to that

between totalizing organicist (w)holism and its negation.
I want at this juncture to leave Stalin behind and circumnavigate
back to Marx and Lenin so as to bring the present chapter to a fitting
close. With regard to Marx and Lenin, Planty-Bonjour acknowledges that
both are committed to an ultimately naturalist basis for historical and
dialectical materialism.256 However, he expresses some worries and res-
ervations about this naturalism. In his book The Categories of Dialectical
Materialism, Planty-Bonjour remarks:

Although human activity explains the dialectical bond between man

and nature, it says nothing about the origins of nature. It is too easy to
say that Marx did not take the question up. Do we not find in Marx the
famous text on the rejection of the idea of creation? And it is precisely
there that he takes an openly naturalist position to defend and justify
the ontological primacy of material being, in order to invalidate a re-
course to God the creator.257

Several things ought to be said in response to these comments. To begin

with, insofar as Marxist materialism insists upon the chronological as well
as ontological priority of being over thinking, it would not and could not
have any intention of trying to account for the origin of nature via human
praxis. For Marx, as both a materialist and an admirer of Darwin, any at-
tempt along these lines would be an idealist inversion of reality, since, in
fact, humanity emerges from nature and not vice versa. The human and
humanizing dialectics of laboring arise out of a physical, chemical, and
organic nature as a relatively recent development in evolutionary history.
There is a close link between materialism and naturalism, including
for Marxist materialism(s). Furthermore, naturalist materialism is inti-
mately associated with atheism too. To state the obvious, as a materialist,
one must exclude the possibility of an immaterial, transcendent cause for
real existence (such as a monotheistic God). And, as a naturalist material-
ist, one also must exclude the possibility of humans creating nature (and
insist instead upon the opposite). Hence, Marx and his followers are com-
pelled to deny that either divine or anthropomorphic agency constitutes
“the origins of nature,” as Planty-Bonjour puts it in the above quotation.
Planty-Bonjour’s observation that Marx “says nothing” about these
origins, regardless of his intentions, should not be counted as a critical
point. My argument here is that Marx, aware of Engels’s efforts with re-
gard to Naturdialektik, assumes, like Engels, that the problem of “the ori-
gins of nature” is best left to empirical, experimental science. To usurp
such a posteriori science through an a priori armchair adjudication of
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this problem, even if such armchair adjudication is performed by some-

one identified or self-identifying as a materialist, would be tantamount
to a methodological relapse into an idealism that pretends to be able to
reconstruct all of reality, nature included, from within the concepts of
a thinking that is detached from the percepts of being(s).
Marx, Engels, Lenin, and their dialectical materialist progeny, given
their appreciation of the natural sciences and the histories of these dis-
ciplines, are well aware of the incomplete, in-progress status of scientific
investigations into, among other matters, the initial, primordial genesis of
nature at all (with this issue continuing to be far from fully resolved by to-
day’s sciences). However, dialectical materialists would rather gamble on
having faith in the potential of scientific explanations for this and other
puzzles, than impatiently and preemptively explain things away through
hasty recourse to the illusory dogmatic certainties of religious and other
non-naturalist notions. Marx and his dialectical materialist comrades
deliberately leave open the question of the origins of nature precisely
because, as materialists, they understand it as primarily the jurisdiction
of the sciences, sciences for which the genesis of the physical universe
(or universes) indeed remains an open question.258
Planty-Bonjour’s study of Russian Hegelianism up to and including
Lenin’s readings of Hegel similarly voices misgivings about the natural-
ism of Leninist dialectical materialism. Planty-Bonjour recognizes that
“for Lenin, the first foundation is the becoming of nature.”259 Not long
after this acknowledgment, he characterizes Lenin’s Hegel-inspired pos-
iting of an anthropogenetic gradual “detachment from nature” as “au-
dacious” for a materialist, insinuating that this audacity might represent
a backsliding into outright idealism.260 Planty-Bonjour’s reaction can be
rephrased as a question: how, if at all, can one formulate a thoroughly
materialist account of the immanent natural emergence of (self-)denatu-
ralizing human beings out of prehuman nature? Of course, this is a key
question for transcendental materialism with its dialectical naturalism.
Planty-Bonjour evidently assumes that Hegel’s manner of asking
and answering this query is thoroughly idealist as antirealist and anti-
materialist. Additionally, Planty-Bonjour’s perplexed response to Lenin’s
invocation of a real-dialectical liberation from nature is quite strange,
given the former’s knowledge of the history of dialectical materialism.
One of the red threads of Hegelian origins running through the mate-
rialist musings of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Bukharin, and various others is
the conception according to which praxis, as human laboring broadly
construed, indeed involves a nature-triggered and nature-immanent “de-
tachment from nature.”
But, perhaps Planty-Bonjour’s critical point is that traditional dia-
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lectical materialism fails to elaborate a satisfactorily detailed account of

prehuman nature at the level of a sort of Naturphilosophie that provides a
required but missing theoretical foundation for both dialectical and his-
torical materialism. If this is in fact his claim, I am partially sympathetic
to it. Less sympathetically, I try to show, throughout the whole of part 2
here, that various Marxist figures, especially when appropriately situated
in relation to a certain Hegel, already furnish much of what is requisite
for such a general theory of nature. More sympathetically, I admittedly
have to engage in a great deal of exegetically charitable reconstruction
work in order to extract and (re)assemble a cohesive model of nature
in itself from the texts of Marx and friends. I also might be in agree-
ment with Planty-Bonjour in judging that Marxist materialists (such as
Engels and Lenin at certain moments and Stalin unwaveringly) some-
times have recourse to an image of nature as a “strong” totality that is a
deterministic and lawful organic whole. This image of nature is one in
relation to which, as per Planty-Bonjour’s criticism, it is truly difficult to
conceive of any actual real “detachment” in monistic-materialist, rather
than dualistic-idealist, terms.
Before concluding this chapter, I should pause to clarify the posi-
tioning of transcendental materialism with respect to the monism-dualism
distinction I just mentioned. On the one hand, as a (quasi-)naturalistic
materialist, I lean toward a monism in which the physical universe before
and apart from any and every sentient being is the lone ultimate base
of all other existences. On the other hand, as a (quasi-)naturalistic ma-
terialist who is simultaneously opposed to all homogenizing ontologies
(whether reductive, eliminative, etc.), I seek to preserve much of what
motivates the intuitions behind dualisms, namely, manifest structural and
phenomenal distinctions between different, irreducible-to-each-other
levels of reality (physical, chemical, biological, human, sociohistorical,
individual-subjective, etc.).
On combined Hegelian and Marxian grounds, I advance what could
be characterized as an emergent dualism, one in which the flat imma-
nence of a physical universe gives rise out of itself to more-than-physical
layers of being. The sorts of dualisms I reject are those with metaphysical
realist inclinations that propose eternal, non-emergent level-distinctions,
timeless structural dichotomies between, for instance, nature and culture
or body and mind. Like such dualists, I believe that there are real and
irreducible differences between natural and non-natural (as denatural-
ized) strata. But, like anti-dualistic monists, I reject visions of being as
always already partitioned into neat and clean divisions between abso-
lutely separate ontological dimensions.
Moving toward a conclusion now, I can say that transcendental ma-
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terialism’s main philosophical contribution to the tradition of dialecti-

cal materialism is nothing other than its idea of “weak nature” at stake
across the entire arc of this second volume of my Prolegomena to Any Future
Materialism. This idea, I maintain, uniquely enables the formulation of
what Planty-Bonjour worries Lenin wants but cannot have: a nature-based
materialism that allows and accounts for “detachment from nature.” In
this respect, I leave it open whether transcendental materialism, with its
dialectical naturalism, amounts to positing the presuppositions of dia-
lectical materialism or represents a movement of surpassing it. Maybe,
considering Hegel’s Aufhebung, this is a false dilemma.
Alain Badiou, in the preface to Logics of Worlds, articulates his now-
famous distinction between the materialist dialectic and “democratic ma-
terialism.”261 The latter admits the existence of tangible physical bodies
and culturally relative languages, and nothing more. Badiou’s distinction
elegantly captures some fundamental features of the historical situation
of late capitalist societies at the end of the twentieth and the beginning
of the twenty-first centuries. In connection with my efforts to wed today’s
life sciences to a certain Marxist materialism, I see current ideological
scientisms which are parasitizing biology and its branches — these phe-
nomena include developments subsumable under the heading of “bio-
politics,” intellectually bankrupt sociobiology and its myriad academic
offshoots, media-popularized genetic determinisms, and pharmaceu-
tical industry disinformation — as engaged in the activity of painting a
capital-complicit portrait of human nature that can and should be com-
bated mercilessly. This combat should be conducted by philosophy and
political theorizing as armed with life-scientific resources for contesting
such scientistic caricatures and idols.
Of course, Badiou does not ally his materialist dialectic with
biology so as to delegitimize democratic materialism according to its own
ostensibly-but-fraudulently scientific standards. This would be to employ
a Trojan-horse tactic of immanent critique. However, although I differ
tactically with Badiou, my tactics are guided, in part, by his perceptive
diagnosis of the prevailing ideological zeitgeist as democratically mate-
rialist.
To be more precise, the scientistic renditions of human nature
against which I believe a post-Engelsian materialism to be the best bet
are arguably permutations of democratic materialism, a subvariant of
it that I might label “capitalist biologism.” For this biologism, there are
only mechanical exchanges between wholly freestanding inner essences
and external existences. Quite recently, Badiou similarly speaks of “capi-
talist anthropology,” with its human “animals-in-front-of-the-market,” as
a synonym of democratic materialism.262 This ideology has a long history,
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clearly flowing from, among other points of origin, Hobbes, Adam Smith,
and company. Contemporary capitalist biologism, as I conceive it, makes
unsubstantiated appeals to the life sciences so as to depict human be-
ings as non-dialectical juxtapositions of, on the one hand, “nature” as a
necessary bundle of innate urges (the “bodies” of Badiouian democratic
materialism, viewed as selfish gene machines programmed by evolution-
ary pressures), and, on the other hand, “nurture” as contingent clusters
of fungible objects (the “languages” of democratic materialism, this time
as shifting bundles of commodities and commodified relationships).
In an unsatisfying ideological fudge of the distinction between free-
dom and determinism, people are seen as propelled by an irresistible
genetic destiny into proliferating networks of socially constructed choices
between competing goods and services. For the capitalist biologist, the
life of humanity is reduced to an ongoing negotiation between the two
lone independent parties of fixed instincts and fluid providers of their
satisfactions. There are only these economies, contracts, and transactions
(what Lacan labels “the service of goods”).263 The sciences are supposed
to substantiate this bleak and boring picture . . . and either to medicate or
to kill those who cannot or will not accommodatingly make peace with it.
Overall, and following on the heels of the immediately preceding,
I see four primary ways in which transcendental materialism is construc-
tive and useful for Marxism. One, my repetition of a gesture first boldly
performed by Engels and Lenin (i.e., recruiting the natural sciences to
the side of Marxist materialism) turns the life sciences, which are them-
selves in a preeminent cultural and institutional position in the Western
world today, from supporting to contesting the Hobbesian-Smithian por-
trait of “human nature.” Along with this, these sciences lend further sup-
port to Marx and Engels’s load-bearing materialist hypotheses regarding
the species-being of humanity.
Two, transcendental materialism’s meta-dialectics of nature helps
to debunk, both philosophically and scientifically, contemporary scien-
tistic ideologies (such as those related to what Rose labels “neurogenetic
determinism”)264 that falsely naturalize status quo social relations and
forms of subjection, as ideology in various sociohistorical guises typically
tries to do. On the active front of a live intellectual war of position, this
updated materialism strives to unmask bio-scientism’s specious rational-
izations for a mind-boggling array of infrastructural and superstructural
features of late capitalism.
Three, transcendental materialism pursues what I see as the valu-
able goal of thoroughly immunizing Marxist materialism from the threats
of three intellectual and ideological dangers: covert idealisms (à la post-
Lukácsian antipathy to the natural sciences in Western Marxism), overt
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idealisms (if only by association with the dubious company of conscious

or unconscious neo-Kantians or the theologically inclined), and non-
dialectical materialisms (to take a handful of examples, what Badiou dubs
democratic materialism, what I describe as capitalist biologism, Rose’s
neurogenetic determinism, and similar manifestations omnipresent in
the zeitgeist).
Four, despite carrying out this immunization, my position allows for
outlining a contemporary materialism that is fully compatible with the
core of Marx and Engels’s shared worldview, as well as striking a delicate
balance between affirming freedom and admitting determinism. In this
balance, optimism about revolutionary subjective agency and realism re-
garding objective material conditions and constraints can be varyingly
combined in manners that are sensitive to shifting concrete conjunctures.
This combination thereby allows for a tactically and strategically sober
conviction that avoids deviating in the directions of either wild-eyed Pan-
glossianism or dull-eyed resignation.
9

Breaking and Bridging:

Althusserian Syntheses of
Historical and Dialectical
Materialisms

At first glance, Louis Althusser appears to be an unsuitable ally for my

transcendental materialist recuperation of Engelsian-inspired dialectical
materialism. In fact, given that Althusser’s best-known and most widely
read works remain Reading Capital and For Marx, an initial impression in
light of these two landmark 1965 volumes might perceive him to be an
outright enemy in relation to my endeavors. Pictures of Althusser nar-
rowly based upon Reading Capital and For Marx are obviously focused
on his quasi-structuralist antihumanism, with its central thesis regarding
the alleged Bachelardian-style “epistemological break” in Marx’s corpus,
namely, the purported “rupture” of 1845 (specifically with Feuerbachian
humanism) inaugurated that year by Marx with The German Ideology and
the eleven “Theses on Feuerbach.”
Given the fact that I am preoccupied with nature-immanent anthro-
pogenesis and a (heavily qualified) conception of human nature, is not
Althusserian theory yet another variant of Western Marxism which I must
oppose and overcome in the course of my version of repeating Engels?
As I intend to demonstrate below, such views of Althusser are superficial,
limited, and, when all is said and done, indefensible. In this chapter,
I hope to reveal the still insufficiently appreciated sides of Althusser’s
oeuvre, from his 1940s studies of Hegel to his critical reconsiderations
of Marxism generally and Marxist materialism in particular in the 1970s
and 1980s. I will show that this corpus provides additional anticipations
of and resources for my transcendental materialist codicils to the Marx-
ist tradition.
By the late 1970s, Althusser himself had become less than whole-
heartedly committed to the contents of Reading Capital and For Marx. He
develops, with regard to them, a self-critical ambivalence producing a
proliferation of caveats, hesitations, qualifications, and reservations.1 Tak-
ing license from Althusser’s own ambivalence, one can and should, with

137
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respect to the Althusser of 1965, repeat in relation to him the maneuver

he sometimes describes Reading Capital in particular as performing vis-
a-vis Marx. Specifically, Althusser’s backward glance subsequently recasts
his and his students’ labors in 1965 as attempting to furnish (and as at-
tempted by some of Althusser’s later struggles, too) the mature Marx’s
historical materialist critique of political economy with an explicit philos-
ophy that is implicit within but nonetheless conspicuously absent from
Marx’s post-1845 corpus.2
In what follows, I plan to do the same with regard to Althusser’s
works about Marx’s “Works of the Break.”3 That is to say, my goal herein
is to sketch the contours of a philosophical position that arguably is
required by but nevertheless is palpably missing from many strains of
Althusserianism. Whether what results from these gestures of mine is di-
gestible by (and not toxic to) the classic Althusser of Reading Capital and
For Marx will have to be seen.
Notwithstanding both Althusser’s tricky relations with(in) the
French Communist Party as well as his entirely appropriate disgust with
Stalinism generally and Stalin’s diamat particularly,4 he recurrently sings
the praises of “dialectical materialism.” He sometimes even speaks favor-
ably of versions of it tracing back to the Eastern-loved, Western-despised
Engels of the dialectics of nature.5 In this same vein, he also insists upon
nature-in-itself as being objectively dialectical.6
I think it safe to observe that, although Althusser is certainly no
proponent of orthodox Soviet diamat, there is ample textual evidence
that he nevertheless remained steadfastly convinced during much of his
career that the phrase “dialectical materialism” is a not unsuitable la-
bel for Marx’s (non-)philosophy7 (or at least, Althusser’s own creative
reconstruction of this philosophy). For instance, his seminal essay “On
the Materialist Dialectic: On the Unevenness of Origins” (1963) in For
Marx christens this materialism “Theory” with a capital T. 8 Similarly,
Étienne Balibar proposes that Althusser’s corpus culminates, during its
final phase, in a preoccupation with (re)constructing a Marxist philo-
sophical materialism that, in acknowledging “the reality of thought,” would
satisfy the requirements of the “Theses on Feuerbach,” especially Thesis
One.9 This would be a materialism that is both non-contemplative and
non-reductive.
Althusser, throughout his writings, tends quite consistently to de-
scribe historical materialism as a “science” (i.e., the science of history
discovered by Marx starting in 1845, whose scientificity allegedly is equal
to that enjoyed by mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, etc.)10 and
dialectical materialism as the “philosophy” called for by this science as
its crucial philosophical accompaniment and foundation.11 In multiple
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texts, Althusser describes the philosophy of dialectical materialism as lag-

ging behind the science of historical materialism, and he stresses the
theoretical and practical urgency of strenuous efforts aimed at getting
dialectical materialism up to speed.12 However, in the combined lights of
Althusser’s self-criticisms of the 1970s and 1980s (including his repudia-
tion of the idea that there is or could be a truly scientific “science of his-
tory”)13 and, especially, his regrets of the 1980s with regard to the topic
of dialectical materialism,14 what, if anything, does Althusser bequeath to
posterity specifically in terms of a distinctive philosophical legacy? Across
the span of Althusser’s works, does he at one or more moments succeed
in articulating something on the order of Marx’s philosophy, a Marxist
philosophy, “a philosophy for Marxism,”15 a materialist dialectic, or a dia-
lectical materialism?
My answer to the immediately prior question is affirmative, albeit
with accompanying riders to the effect that, as with Marx for Althusser, so
too with Althusser for me. This Althusserian philosophy, which, following
most of Althusser himself (prior to the 1980s), I will continue to refer to
as “dialectical materialism,” is more implicit than explicit in Althusser’s
texts. Moreover, in my eyes, Althusserian dialectical materialism subsists
latently between the lines of what Althusser manifestly states about it at
least as much as it consists in these manifest lines themselves.
I will take the liberties that a psychoanalytically informed and
Marxist-materialist16 interpretive approach affords, liberties that indis-
pensably underpin the exegesis of Marx’s magnum opus in Reading Capital
itself.17 They will allow me to reassemble an Althusserian dialectical ma-
terialism on the basis of an arc of his texts from the early 1960s through
the 1980s, including the inconsistencies, lacunae, and shifts within and
between these myriad pieces drawn from different periods of Althusser’s
thinking. In short, I will try to read Althusser as he reads Marx (and as
Lacan reads Freud) — to raise a body of theory, with it or against it, to
the dignity of its philosophical notion. This will be my specific “return
to Althusser” in light of my transcendental materialist revisitation of the
Marxist tradition.
The best way to begin my reassembling of an Althusserian dialecti-
cal materialism is to straightforwardly highlight certain of Althusser’s the-
ses with regard to both materialism and dialectics. For starters, Althusser,
on a number of occasions in both the 1960s and 1970s, sees fit to em-
phasize that, in a truly materialist dialectical materialism, its “material-
ism” component is primary and its “dialectical” component is secondary.
There is an unevenness of weight or priority, an imbalance favoring the
side of materialism.18 In one of the texts in which this is stressed (Elements
of Self-Criticism in 1974), he also equates the “dialectical-materialist” with
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the “non-speculative and non-positivist.”19 I take this equation to express

an insistence that dialectical materialism must strive to navigate care-
fully between, on one side, nonmaterialist dialectics (i.e., “speculation” as
idealist armchair philosophizing that is disconnected, in its hermetically
sealed study, from the sciences) and, on the other side, non-dialectical
materialism (i.e., “positivism” as adhesion to those aspects of the “sponta-
neous philosophies of the scientists” that involve mechanism, reduction-
ism, and the like).
As I underscored above, Althusser regularly distinguishes between
historical and dialectical materialisms as science and philosophy respec-
tively. A frequent Althusserian refrain has it that epistemological breaks
in the sciences— Althusser’s preferred examples of Thales, Galileo, and
Marx indicate that for him, “science” (like the German term Wissenschaft)
includes bodies of knowledge dealing with the formal, the natural, and
the sociohistorical — are conditions of possibility for subsequent emer-
gences of corresponding new philosophies.20 In his renowned 1967 lec-
ture course on Philosophy and the Spontaneous Philosophy of the Scientists,
he goes so far as to claim that “the relation between philosophy and the
sciences constitutes the specific determination of philosophy”21 and even
that “outside of its relationship to the sciences, philosophy would not exist.”22
Before proceeding further, I should put my cards squarely on the
table at this relatively early stage in my exegesis of Althusser. For both
Marx and Engels, the “Darwin-event” (to misappropriate the former Al-
thusser student Badiou’s language) provided a key scientific resource,
inspiration, and justification for their then-novel materialism.23 Darwin’s
earth-shattering historicization of nature, his epoch-making subversion of
the traditionally rigid distinction between the natural and the historical,
promised, in Marx’s and Engels’s eyes, to significantly buttress and help
advance historical and dialectical materialism. This noted, the rest of
what unfolds below will be devoted to extracting from Althusser’s writings
a theoretical apparatus responding to the contention that philosophy as
dialectical materialism still lags behind not only historical materialism as
the science of history à la Marx, but the science of natural history as per
Darwin and his scientific descendants. In this vein, I think it is no accident
that the later Althusser explicitly situates Darwin as a major figure in the
subterranean philosophical tradition of the “underground current” of
the “aleatory materialism of the encounter.”24
Although this just-declared agenda of mine might sound to some
like an implausible stretch in relation to Althusser, this is not the case.
First of all, Althusser himself unambiguously identifies the life sciences
as genuinely scientific in the strictest of senses.25 In this, he tacitly takes
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some distance from the mid-twentieth-century neo-rationalism of French

epistemology and history of science (such as that associated with Alex-
andre Koyré)26 in which a Galilean-Cartesian overemphasis on formaliza-
tion privileges mathematics and physics as the epitomes of scientificity
(and correlatively tends to downplay or disqualify biology as a science).27
Elsewhere, Althusser observes, in the context of taking a swipe at Paul
Ricoeur’s Freud and Philosophy: An Essay on Interpretation (1965), that re-
course to biology is integral to Freud’s forging of a distinctively anti-
hermeneutical theory of the unconscious (an anti-hermeneutics brought
out by Lacan’s “return to Freud” and dovetailing with Althusser’s version
of a genuinely Marxian approach to ideology).28 Relatedly, Althusser bap-
tizes Freud as a dialectical materialist.29
Finally, and most importantly for my specific purposes, there is
the 1967 essay vigorously defending Reading Capital and For Marx, “The
Humanist Controversy.” This essay identifies Engelsian-style Naturdialek-
tik as invaluable and irreplaceable for combating anthropocentric ideal-
isms of a wholly antinatural human subjectivity.30 In tandem with this
identification, it also foregrounds the (post-)Darwinian life sciences as
stationed on the front lines of an ideological war against antimaterialist
“spiritualism” and the like.31 Along the same lines, Althusser, in Philosophy
and the Spontaneous Philosophy of the Scientists (also of 1967), contrasts the
tendencies of post-Newtonian physics to facilitate idealist and spiritualist
hijackings of science (something hammered home at length in Lenin’s
1908 Materialism and Empirio-Criticism)32 with the absolutely central role
of a militantly materialist position for biology and biologists.33
Of course, any discussion of science in connection with Althusser
cannot pass over in silence Althusser’s multiple reflections on the re-
lations between the scientific and the ideological. Especially in a con-
temporary theoretical context colored by intense anxieties about the
life sciences and their scientistic offshoots — “biopolitics”/“biopower”
à la Foucault and Agamben,34 as well as “democratic materialism” à la
Badiou, are the most familiar recent expressions of these philosophical
and political worries— I would be particularly remiss not to address these
issues in the course of reconstructing an Althusserian Naturdialektik. Al-
thusser himself readily admits that the sciences, including Marx’s his-
torical materialism as the science of history, are constantly threatened
with the prospects of contamination, exploitation, and misdirection by
dominant ideologies. In Althusser’s avowedly Lenin-inspired view, a cor-
rectly formulated dialectical materialism is desperately needed as “a true
guide” steering the sciences clear of these ideological/epistemological
obstacles.35
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As regards Althusser on the science-ideology rapport, I will proceed

here from science in general to biology in particular. To begin with, and
on the basis of Althusser’s justified thesis that all sciences contain within
their very bases nonempirical and ideological elements, he maintains
that sciences emerge from, although they then break with, ideologies.36
Indeed, the very distinction between the scientific and the ideological is
visible only retroactively, after the fact of the emergence of the science in
question.37 Moreover, a science’s breaking with ideologies is a perpetually,
indefinitely repeated gesture/process; any science again and again has to
push away ideological reencroachments.38
However, at the same time, Althusser rightly avoids reducing science
as science in toto to ideology. Despite the ceaselessly ongoing entangle-
ments of the scientific with the ideological, there is a real difference-in-
kind between science and ideology. In this vein, Althusser proposes that
the sciences cannot be neatly situated within the classic Marxist social-
topographical distinction between infrastructure and superstructure.39
In terms of the life sciences specifically, Althusser, faithful to his
anti-Stalinism, has nothing but harshly condemnatory words for the in-
tellectual and political disaster in the Soviet Union centered on the fig-
ure of Trofim Lysenko.40 Althusser categorically rubbishes anything re-
sembling the politically dictated Lysenkoist pseudo-distinction between
bourgeois and proletarian sciences. Obviously, his dismissal of Lysenko’s
Stalinist Michurianism as charlatanism, as a scientistic ideological impos-
ture, is solid evidence to the effect that he does not conflate biology with
biologism.
That said with regard to Lysenkoism, Althusser, immediately after
insisting upon an Engels-inspired dialectics of nature as essential to a
materialist position within philosophy in “The Humanist Controversy,”
launches into a detailed discussion of evolutionary theorizations and pa-
leontological findings with reference to Engels’s “The Part Played by La-
bour in the Transition from Ape to Man.”41 Althusser’s main concern is to
warn that these life-scientific “Recent Discoveries” of the mid-twentieth
century promising to demystify and delineate the natural-historical gen-
esis of human history as distinct from natural history are double-edged
swords to be handled very carefully. On the one hand, Marxism should
endorse such biological research insofar as it indeed further reinforces
an anti-anthropocentric, (quasi-)naturalist dialectical materialism in
which life is made even more difficult for idealist and spiritualist ideolo-
gies that are hostile to historical materialism.42 But, on the other hand,
certain (pseudo-)Marxist uses (or rather, abuses) of these same “Recent
Discoveries” allegedly reintroduce into Marxism Althusser’s much-hated
archenemy: humanism.
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Althusser charges that evolutionary and paleontological data re-

garding the rise of Homo sapiens in all his distinctiveness can and do get
pressed into the service of privileging the young Marx’s characteriza-
tion of humans as social laboring creatures.43 As is well known, Althusser
goes to great lengths to disqualify the pre-1845 Marx as not yet properly
Marxist, as a Feuerbachian humanist rather than a historical material-
ist as antihumanist avant la lettre.44 For this Althusser, “social labor” is a
dangerous phrase. First, it places emphasis on the noun “labor” as the
trans-historical praxis of humanity’s invariant species-being. This species-
being itself tends thereby to be cast in the role of the Ur-Subject, the
ever-selfsame Prime Mover, inaugurating and forever underlying human
history as a necessarily recurring set of patterns that involve an alienat-
ing self-objectification which is both religious and secular.45 Althusser
frequently lambasts “alienation” as a speciously Marxist and really Feuer-
bachian notion.46
Second, society is downgraded in the phrase “social labor” to the
secondary status of the adjective “social.” Sociality refers here to the his-
torically unspecific notion of collective group life in general, like that of
an animal pack— and this instead of the exact(ing) historical materialist
concepts of specific, varying combinatories of infrastructural and super-
structural elements in different times and places.47 These are combina-
tories within which labor is always already “labour-process, the structure of
the social conditions of the labour-process, labour-power (not labour),
value of labour-power (not of labour), concrete labour, abstract labour,
utilization of labour-power, quantity of labour, and so on.”48
A number of Althusser’s observations and assertions from this
section of “The Humanist Controversy” warrant closer examination.
Speaking of the “borderline problem” (problème-frontière) of the relations
between the life sciences and historical materialism, he states:

It must still be demonstrated that the borderline in question clearly is

the one that runs between ecological and biological laws on the one
hand and, on the other, the social laws of history that make human
history properly so called what it is — and that it is not a borderline
internal to the prehistorical realm, that is, one which is still subject to
bio-ecological rather than social laws. On this point, the question is far
from being closed.49

Here Althusser highlights the uncertain status of the evolutionary and

paleontological “Recent Discoveries” latched onto by various Marxists as
life-scientific confirmations of the Marx of the 1844 Manuscripts and the
Engels of the Dialectics of Nature. Nonetheless, he both acknowledges that
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in fact there truly is a “borderline” ( frontière) between natural and human

histories, and he recognizes that pinpointing this genetic juncture is im-
portant for Marxist materialisms.
Furthermore, despite Althusser’s above-mentioned objections to
the notion-phrase “social labor,” he goes on to remark in “The Humanist
Controversy” that “the novelty of Marx’s discovery is not unrelated to [pas
sans rapport avec] what an expression like ‘social labour’ can mean for
us, retrospectively [après coup], and on condition that it is subjected to
a radical critique [critiquer radicalement].”50 My sense is that this retro-
spection as regards the Marx of 1844 would include and be informed by
Marx’s post-1844 historical materialism and its elaboration by the subse-
quent Marxist tradition, as well as by an interfacing of dialectical mate-
rialism’s Naturdialektik with ongoing work in the life sciences. Radically
critiquing “social labor” à la the Manuscripts hence would involve retro-
actively modifying the two concept-terms in this compound phrase with
the benefit of retrospective hindsight.
Althusser appears to be suggesting that, thus modified, the idea
of humans as socially laboring animals perhaps could serve as a valid
link between and further vindication of both dialectical and historical
materialisms, a link and vindication furnished by the natural sciences
themselves. My intervention here with respect to Althusser’s corpus is
an attempt to capitalize on just this kind of suggestion. Moreover, the
remaining portions of this chapter will seek to outline in greater detail
exactly what an Althusser-inspired bio-materialism of human being might
look like.
One final passage from the section of “The Humanist Controversy”
currently under consideration is important for my present purposes.
Althusser declares:

I do not— I repeat — mean . . . that the problem of the origins of the

human species is not a scientific problem, or that it is not of some
interest to historical materialism. A materialist, scientific theory of
human palaeontology certainly does matter to historical materialism,
because it does away with a whole set of alibis for the spiritualist ideolo-
gies of history that are constantly being opposed to historical material-
ism. But historical materialism managed to emerge without benefit of
the scientific basis provided by the findings of modern human palaeon-
tology (it was barely ten years ago that . . .) and Capital was conceived
some time before the Dialectics of Nature, that is to say, before Engels’s
celebrated text on the difference between man and the apes. If his-
torical materialism could manage without the palaeontologists, that is
because its object is autonomous with respect to the findings of human
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palaeontology, and, as such, can be treated in perfectly independent

form.51

These declarations concede the scientificity of biological investigations

into human beings and their place in natural, evolutionary history. Maybe
inadvertently, they also concede that “problems of origin” are not all to
be dismissed as idealist/antimaterialist, as Althusser sometimes recom-
mends on other occasions.52 Yet, Althusser’s remarks relegate the rele-
vance of these investigations for Marxism to the restricted spheres of anti-
idealist ideology critique. His main argument in favor of this relegation
is the chronological fact of the anteriority of the discovery of historical
materialism to both Darwin’s 1859 On the Origin of Species and Engels’s
1876 “The Part Played by Labour in the Transition from Ape to Man.”
At this specific point, I feel compelled to mount an immanent cri-
tique of Althusser’s (mis)handling of the life sciences. The argument
for historical materialism’s autonomy vis-à-vis biology based on linear
historical time alone is lame because, to put it in language Althusser
himself would use, the synchronic “order of reasons” of theoretically
systematized content is not to be mistaken as being the same as the dia-
chronic, historical unfolding of the order of presentation of the theory
in question. Althusser defends dialectical materialism as the appropriate
philosophy springing from historical materialism as the science of history.
He likewise pleads for the pressing need to advance dialectical material-
ism as a philosophical “guide” that is essential for ensuring that historical
materialism stays on an unerringly materialist course. Althusser’s own
completely justified criticisms of the immature Lukács’s idealist devia-
tions in History and Class Consciousness 53 (1923) indicate that a historical
materialism divorced from Naturdialektik easily ceases to be genuinely
materialist in sinking back into the old spiritualist fogs of anti-naturalism
and antirealism. Admittedly, the original surfacing of Marxist historical
materialism predates the advents of both Darwinian evolutionary theory
and the not-unrelated Engelsian dialectics of nature. But, at the logical
(rather than chronological) level of philosophy/theory, historical mate-
rialism, as materialism, ultimately cannot do without the priceless bases
supplied exclusively by the two dovetailing sources of natural science and
Naturdialektik.
At the same time, I by no means intend categorically to deny the
“autonomy” of historical materialism asserted by Althusser in the preced-
ing 1967 passage. However, whereas he seems on this occasion to con-
sider its autonomous status to be absolute in (non-)relation to biology
and the dialectics of nature, I instead lean toward the thesis that this
status is relative. To be more precise, what I mean by the relativity of this
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autonomy is that, for historical materialism to entail the irreducibility of

socio-structural forces and factors to evolutionary, ecological, anatomical,
and physiological determinants in a nonetheless uncompromisingly ma-
terialist manner, this materialism necessarily requires the supplement
of a science-supported Naturdialektik. Such a dialectics of nature would
aim to pinpoint, with the indispensable guidance of the natural sciences,
the precise material conditions of possibility within natural history
for the nature-immanent real geneses of more-than-natural/denatural-
ized human history. In order for the structures and dynamics of the social
histories of concern to historical materialism to be, at least in some ways,
independent of the structures and dynamics of nonhuman history (i.e.,
nature and its perpetually ongoing kinetics), it must be shown that (and
how) the latter allow for the autonomy of the former.54
Additionally, this dialectical materialist supplementary demonstra-
tion is crucial so as, in line with the first of Marx’s “Theses on Feuer-
bach,” to establish historical materialism as different-in-kind from pre-
Marxian “contemplative” materialisms. The contemplative quality of
the latter involves their inability, from within their own philosophical/
theoretical confines, to account for their very surfacings and existences
as philosophies/theories in which, as it were, material nature thinks and
conceptualizes (as well as acts and labors upon)55 itself. Althusser himself
denounces any and every contemplative stance as essentially idealist.56
Parallel with this, he insists that Marxist historical materialism must ex-
plain from within itself its own possibility and actuality.57
Returning to Althusser’s previously-quoted admission in “The
Humanist Controversy” regarding the potential for a legitimate Marxist
recuperation of the early Marx’s conception of social labor, I believe that
the set-up work performed in the preceding several paragraphs enables
me now to propose just such a recuperation. This operation of extracting,
as it were, the rational kernel within the mystical shell of the 1844 Manu-
scripts is one whose legitimacy is even greater given the past half-century’s
advances in the life sciences over and above the mid-twentieth-century
“Recent Discoveries” to which Althusser referred in 1967. I have in mind
here such life-scientific developments as punctuated equilibrium, epi-
genetics, neuroplasticity, mirror neurons, affective neuroscience, and
neuro-psychoanalysis.58
So, in exactly what does my version of a heterodox Althusserian ret-
roactive recuperation of the early Marx’s social labor consist? Starting in
the works of his youth, Marx, instead of moving toward an eventual whole-
sale liquidation of the very notion of human nature, tends to hold to a
certain definition of this nature, albeit, crucially, one that is extremely
bare-bones. Relatedly, I would suggest, contrary to Althusser,59 that Marx’s
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less frequent employment of the term Gattungswesen (species-being) after

1845 is due to an abandonment specifically of a Feuerbachian contempla-
tive materialist conception of human nature, rather than a rejection of
any conception whatsoever resembling that of so-called “human nature.”
Contrary to the hypothesized 1845 epistemological break, Marx,
from the 1844 Manuscripts through Capital and onward, maintains a con-
sistently austere characterization of human beings throughout their his-
tory as socially laboring animals.60 However, despite the evident tensions
with the classic Althusser of Reading Capital and For Marx, I am convinced
that Marx’s minimalist rendition of human nature as social labor can
and should, following some of Althusser’s own post-1965 suggestions, be
synthesized with Althusserianism. Such a synthesis promises to fulfill two
Althusserian desiderata: first, a reinforcement of the scientificity of his-
torical materialism as the science of history; and second, an advancement
of the philosophy of dialectical materialism, with its Naturdialektik and
conditioning by the natural sciences, in a way that constructs a bridge
between dialectical and historical materialisms, a bridge securing the ma-
terialist credentials of historical materialism.
Marx’s minimalist rendition of human nature as social laboring en-
tails that this nature is auto-effacing, namely, a self-denaturalizing nature
that is inherently inclined toward the predominance of nurture over
nature. The two words constituting the phrase “social labor” refer to two
distinct yet overlapping fundamental dimensions of relations that are
always already affecting the “nature” of each and every human being:
first, relations with other human beings (“social”), and second, relations
with nonhuman objects and processes in the material world (“labor”).
Both Marxist materialism61 and Freudian-Lacanian psychoanalysis under-
score how humans are inserted even before birth and are thrown by
birth into sociohistorical matrices of mediation that are decisive for their
very being.62 Human nature primordially is open from the very begin-
ning to these two fundamental dimensions of relations (i.e., sociality and
laboring).
Therefore, humanity’s first nature is a peculiar essenceless essence,
a natureless nature as an underdetermined and underdetermining first
nature that determines its own overwriting and colonization by second
natures. The latter are configurations taking shape in and through each
and every human creature’s unavoidable entanglements with material,
intersubjective, and trans-subjective milieus.63 At one point in 1847’s The
Poverty of Philosophy, Marx declares that “all history is nothing but a con-
tinuous transformation of human nature [la nature humaine].”64 Two
years after the 1845 settling of accounts with Feuerbach, Marx’s post-
contemplative materialism continues to retain the category of “human
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nature” (whether as the French nature humaine or the German Gattungs-

wesen), albeit one “continuously transformed” by history.
Before I proceed to unpack further the implications of Marxian
social labor as (re)interpreted within the framework of a dialectical ma-
terialism informed by the life sciences (as well as psychoanalysis), a not
insignificant consequence of the immediately preceding for the Althusser
of Reading Capital, For Marx, and related texts should be identified and
explained. My gloss on human nature à la Marx problematizes Althusser’s
fashions of distinguishing between humanism and antihumanism. From
an Althusserian perspective, I could be said to be proposing that Marx-
ism puts forward an antihumanist humanism (signaling an instance of
a dialectical-speculative convergence of opposites similarly explored by
Badiou through his side-by-side reflections on the humanist Sartre and
the antihumanist Foucault).65 Marxism does so insofar as it humanisti-
cally hypothesizes a human first nature that, anti-humanistically, always
already spontaneously sublates itself into historical-structural second
natures. Additionally, this situates Marx within a strain of the humanist
tradition evidently unrecognized by Althusser but to be found in black
and white within the founding document of Renaissance humanism,
namely, Pico della Mirandola’s 1486 oration “On the Dignity of Man.”
Therein, Pico della Mirandola, as foregrounded by Lucio Colletti and
Giorgio Agamben, celebrates the uniqueness of humanity as springing
from nothing other than its natural lack of a well-fleshed-out first nature.66
Althusser is adamant that the topic of species-being as Gattungswesen
is the very crux of the divide that he identifies as separating Marx from
Feuerbach starting in 1845.67 And, despite Althusser’s on balance more
negative than positive ambivalence toward Hegel, he still maintains that
a primary reason for the shortcomings of Feuerbach’s materialist philos-
ophy in the mature Marx’s eyes is this philosophy’s failure to retain cer-
tain cardinal features of Hegelianism, especially Hegelian philosophy’s
insistence on the centrality of movements of historical mediation.68 In
The German Ideology, Marx and Engels convey this critical assessment with
the indictment that “as far as Feuerbach is a materialist he does not deal
with history, and as far as he considers history he is not a materialist.”69
Referring to the well-known Engelsian-Leninist account of Marx’s “three
sources” (i.e., British liberal economics, French revolutionary politics, and
German idealist philosophy), Althusser, implicitly following the line laid
down by Marx himself in Thesis One, insists that any authentic materialism
must incorporate within itself German philosophy (i.e., Kantian and post-
Kantian idealisms) in order to achieve a thoroughly materialist standing.
In Althusser’s assessment of the Feuerbach-Marx split, the salutary,
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inoculating dose of Hegelian “absolute idealism” is the very thing that

vaccinates Marx’s historical materialism against anti-materialist idealism.70
The absence of this vaccine in Feuerbach’s system is precisely what makes
it contemplative, as asserted in the “Theses on Feuerbach.” This system,
like every other pre-Marxian (mechanistic) materialism as neither his-
torical nor dialectical, surreptitiously relies for the formulation of its the-
orizations upon a disembodied, God’s-eye “view from nowhere.” Hence,
every contemplative materialism, up to and including Feuerbach’s, in-
advertently regresses back into the crudest idealism, namely, spiritualist
dualism as centered upon an immaterial, mental-subjective perspective.71
A number of Althusser’s overarching propositions about philosophy
are visible in the background of this specific assessment by him of the
Feuerbach-Marx rupture. Every idealism contains within itself elements
of materialism and vice versa, there being no such philosophical position
as either pure idealism or pure materialism.72 Any philosophical position,
whether idealist, materialist, or whatever else, rests upon posited theses
which, as theses, are what they are in being diametrically opposed to
corresponding antitheses, with every thesis also being an antithesis (for
another thesis).73 In order for a philosophical position with its theses to
successfully advance and defend itself, it must take over and somehow
assimilate within itself the antitheses of its polar-opposite philosophical
enemy.74 In general, philosophy in its entirety is a massive, sprawling
Kampfplatz (Kant’s term favored by Althusser) of interminable conflicts
between irreconcilable warring factions (with “class struggle in theory”
being “determinative in the last instance” for these conflicts).75
If, first, Althusser is right that the subject matter of species-being is
the pivot between Feuerbach and Marx; and if, second, I am right about
Marx’s human nature as social laboring, then what Marx accomplishes
starting in 1845 is the forging of a partly Hegel-inspired reconceptual-
ization of humanity’s species-being as immediately mediated, naturally
(self-)denaturalizing, invariantly varying, and trans-historically historical.
(This is a reconceptualization articulated in such key works as The Ger-
man Ideology, the first volume of Capital, and “Critique of the Gotha Pro-
gramme.”)76 Althusser himself paraphrases this very Marx in his 1975 In-
troduction to Philosophy for Non-Philosophers:

Is not man himself also a natural product — his force, the force of
muscles or brain? So, one can say, in the end, that in the laboring pro-
cess, a part of nature (man), utilizing forces or parts of transformed
nature (energy, tools), transforms another part of nature (raw mate-
rial): which would tend to prove that nature transforms itself.77
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Moreover, from Althusser’s perspective, “nature transforms itself” so radi-

cally that its transformations (i.e., second natures, the denaturalized/
more-than-natural, etc.) come to be, for human beings as simultaneously
both the subjects and objects of these transformations, more founda-
tional than what precedes and generates these same transformations (i.e.,
first nature, the pre/nonhuman natural, etc.).
In “Theory, Theoretical Practice, and Theoretical Formation”
(1965), Althusser speaks of “all the real practices upon which scientific
practice is founded and to which it is related,” including “the practice of
the transformation of nature, or economic practice.”78 He immediately
adds, with regard to “economic practice,” that it “puts man in relation
to nature, which is the material condition of his biological and social
existence.”79 It is crucial to register that the biological as well as the
social are here rendered ontologically-materially dependent for their
very existence not upon brute, raw material nature alone, but instead,
upon this nature as “metabolized” (Marx) and reworked by “economic
practice” (i.e., social laboring) as “the practice of the transformation of
nature” (i.e., human second nature as social infrastructure specifically).
Human nature is nature’s self-transformation in which, through a
dialectical reversal, second nature becomes first nature.
Althusser also pointedly emphasizes this reversal while discussing
Jacques Lacan’s thinking in the second part of a two-part seminar on
“Psychoanalysis and the Human Sciences” given in the 1963– 64 aca-
demic year.80 Althusser certainly is correct that the “inversion of . . . de-
termination”81 which he accurately discerns in Marx (i.e., the reversal of
dominance/precedence between first and second natures in a material-
ist ontology that includes within its framework human beings) also is to
be found in Lacan. However, he passes over in silence Lacan’s careful
establishment of the biological possibility conditions for this mediation
and overwriting of biology by culture.82 If the cultural (whether as social
structures à la Marx or the big Others of symbolic orders à la Lacan) is a
“condition of possibility,”83 a sort of historical materialist transcendental,
for the transformation of the biology of the human organism, then a
dialectical materialist meta-transcendental supplement at the level of the
biological itself is mandatory. This is so at least if one desires, as Althusser
does, to avoid lapsing into an idealism of culture, a spiritualist dualism
in which the socio-symbolic always already exists as inexplicably, mysteri-
ously different-in-kind from material nature (i.e., a macro-subjectivism
with culture as the res cogitans collectively transcending the res extensa
of natural matter). Without taking this additional supplementary step,
Althusser himself risks just such a lapse.84 Here, in a reversal of psycho-
analysis purportedly requiring Althusserian materialism as an undergird-
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ing theoretical basis (as Althusser asserts in his 1966 “Three Notes on the
Theory of Discourses”),85 it is, instead, Althusser who requires a Lacanian
materialism in order to secure a solid materialist standing for himself.
Lacan’s own combinations of psychoanalytic and life-scientific ele-
ments point precisely in the direction of the kind of dialectical material-
ism which Althusser senses that he needs and wants (with Lacan explicitly
self-identifying as a dialectical materialist).86 Several times, Althusser in-
deed invokes the protracted infantile Hilflosigkeit (helplessness) that is
central to both Freud and Lacan.87 He rightly sees in the biological fact
of this anatomical and physiological condition distinctive of the human
species the (pre)determinant of social labor as itself humanity’s species-
being. Indeed, intersubjective and trans-subjective sociality, as well as the
laboring practices inextricably intertwined with such sociality, are the in-
escapable destinies of beings who are thrown at birth into utter and com-
plete dependence upon significant others as nurturing caretakers. These
thus-thrown beings remain thereafter, for the rest of their lives, reliant
upon broader and deeper networks of cooperatively working conspecifics
(with the entire species’s permanent, insurmountable dependence upon
material nature).88
In Introduction to Philosophy for Non-Philosophers (1975), Althusser pre-
sciently anticipates possible future life-scientific reinforcements of the
Lacanian metapsychology that is presently under discussion.89 Such re-
inforcements are requisite if the psychoanalytic and historical materialist
prioritization of cultural second nature over biological first nature is to
be, as Althusser and Lacan both mean it to be, a properly materialist ges-
ture as supported by a dialectical materialism with a Naturdialektik exhib-
ited in and through the natural sciences themselves. That is to say, such
realities and phenomena as prolonged pre-maturational helplessness and
the myriad hypothesized effects of this condition demand explanatory
anchoring in evolutionary theories of natural history, the biology of the
human organism generally, and human neurobiology especially.
In particular, if the psychoanalytic and historical materialist thesis
of childhood helplessness resulting in social labor becoming the imme-
diately mediated (non-)essence of the human being is to be accounted
for in an exhaustively materialist manner, then, as Althusser insightfully
appreciates in 1975, one must hope for and await the natural sciences to
eventually arrive on their own at evidence and theories of human nature
as involving an endogenous openness and receptivity to exogenous ac-
culturations, mediations, overwritings, socializations, and so on. Along
with Catherine Malabou, I would claim that Althusser’s expectations
along these lines have indeed been fulfilled by developments in biology
over the course of the past several decades. A dialectical materialism of
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human self-denaturalizing nature arising from these biological advances

promises to ground historical materialism as materialism by providing
an account of the natural history as well as the natural-organic structures
and dynamics that make possible the nature-immanent denaturalizations
of both the phylogeny of human social history and the ontogeny of idio-
syncratic subject formation. Human histories and subjects thereby are no
longer left to hover magically over an enigmatic gap between themselves
and nonhuman natural matters.
At the same time, for such a dialectical materialism to be appropri-
ately dialectical, it and the sciences out of which it forges its theories must
not be mechanistic, reductive, eliminative, epiphenomenalist, or the like.
Althusser’s acute awareness of exactly this comes through loud and clear
in the fourth session of the seminar on Philosophy and the Spontaneous
Philosophy of the Scientists. Taking the opportunity afforded by the Nobel
laureate Jacques Monod’s contemporaneous inaugural lecture at the Col-
lège de France (published in Le Monde on November 30, 1967), Althusser
glimpses in the figure of Monod, not without good reasons,90 a spon-
taneously dialectical materialist biology. In this biology, objectively real
“emergences” in nature resembling the dialectics of quality and quantity
in Hegel’s Logik 91 hint at a biological explanation for the appearance and
subsequent autonomy of the irreducibly non/more-than-biological social
and historical entities and happenings that are of concern to historical
materialism.92 Notwithstanding Althusser’s various criticisms of Monod’s
text and the multiple mutual misunderstandings between the two men,93
an emergentist biology accounting for the bio-materially immanent gen-
esis and subsequent irreducibility of the sociohistorical is equally valuable
and pivotal for Althusser and Monod alike.94
In closing, I readily would concede that there is much to the thesis
of Marx’s epistemological break, with Althusser thereby brilliantly captur-
ing many key aspects of historical materialism. However, if there is also
something to my reworking of Marx’s pre-1845 equation of the species-
being of human nature with social laboring, then an ambivalent revisita-
tion of Althusser’s (in)famous thesis, one simultaneously for and against
it, becomes possible and, in fact, imperative. Specifically, the apparent
fading of the species-being (Gattungswesen) of the 1844 Manuscripts start-
ing in 1845 is the effect not of the actual falling-away of a concept but,
rather, of the Real designated by this concept self-sublating by passing
over into its sociohistorical determinations. (Admittedly, reading Marx
in this way is somewhat in tension with the emphasis in Reading Capital
on strictly holding apart the objective being of real structures and phe-
nomena from the subjective thinking of conceptually knowing said struc-
tures and phenomena.)95 Put differently, Marx’s “break” with humanity’s
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species-being is made possible by this very same Gattungswesen. These

assertions of mine also help to explain the recurrent invocations of both
naturalism and human essence/nature in such post-1845 contexts as the
Grundrisse and Das Kapital,96 invocations that are otherwise glaringly
problematic for an unqualified version of the Althusserian thesis of the
1845 rupture as neat, clean, and absolute.
Entirely consistent with the Hegelian-Marxian dialectics of continu-
ity and discontinuity, one could claim with respect to Althusser in 1965
that, on the one hand, a discontinuity indeed punctuates Marx’s intel-
lectual itinerary starting in 1845 but that, on the other hand, this discon-
tinuity is based upon a sort of speculative identity-in-difference between
indeterminate human nature as social labor in the abstract (1844) and
this same nature as self-denaturalizing and auto-propelling of itself into
sociohistorical determinations (1845 and after). Such a movement from
1844 to 1845 and beyond would be consistent with Marx’s avowedly Hege-
lian methodological procedure of moving from the abstract to the con-
crete.97 A dialectical materialist Naturdialektik, one appropriately tethered
to a biology of ruptures in which there are revolutions as well as evolu-
tions, has been lurking in the shadows for fifty-plus years now. In the
(unconscious, latent) spirit if not also the (conscious, manifest) letter of
Althusser’s corpus, perhaps it is time to finally bring it to light and realize
this dream.
10

Western Marxism’s Self-Critique:

Lukács’s Final Ontological Verdict

In a 1988 lecture, Étienne Balibar claims that, within the Marxist tradition,
Althusser’s intellectual itinerary most resembles that of Georg Lukács.1
As Balibar observes, both Lukács and Althusser became self-critical of
their early major works: respectively, History and Class Consciousness (1923)
and Reading Capital and For Marx (1965). These relatively youthful works
stubbornly remain to this very day Lukács’s and Althusser’s best-known
and most celebrated books despite both authors’ auto-critiques of them.
Moreover, by Balibar’s lights, Lukács and Althusser, in their self-
critical turns, share a common enemy: the Merleau-Ponty of Adventures of
the Dialectic (1955).2 Yves Vargas concurs with Balibar on this point, adding
that a symptomatic feature of this Merleau-Ponty is his rejection of dialec-
tical materialism with its Naturdialektik.3 Neither the mature Lukács nor
the mature Althusser is anywhere close to comfortable with existential
Marxism’s science-phobic anti-naturalism.4
As Balibar indicates, Althusser undoubtedly was familiar with the
French Communist Party’s (PCF’s) prompt and harsh condemnation of
Adventures of the Dialectic as expressed by some of its leading intellectu-
als in the 1956 collection Misadventues of Anti-Marxism: The Misfortunes of
Mr. Merleau-Ponty, which was published by the PCF’s own press (Éditions
Sociales) and contained an open letter by Lukács.5 Therein, Merleau-
Ponty is repeatedly charged with antirealism and antimaterialism, namely,
with anti-Marxist idealism. Merleau-Ponty’s trashing of the naturalism
of Engels and the Soviets is treated as the key sign of this idealism.6 Al-
thusser, like the later Lukács and Althusser’s fellow intellectuals of the
PCF, cannot tolerate the deliberate avoidance of philosophical engage-
ment with the sciences, including the natural sciences, on the part of
existential-phenomenological Marxism.7
Considering the preceding, Balibar’s parallel between Lukács and
Althusser can be encapsulated thus: although Lukács’s and Althusser’s
most (in)famous writings, from 1923 and 1965 respectively, both entail
rejections of a dialectical materialist naturalism of self-denaturalizing
human nature, each of these two Marxist thinkers, in their self-criticisms,
subsequently comes to accept precisely such a naturalism. In the present

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chapter, I intend to detail this naturalism’s centrality to the post-1923

Lukács. Doing so will require narrating Lukács’s evolution from History
and Class Consciousness to the works of his maturity, which culminate in his
massive, unfinished Ontology of Social Being. My version of this narrative
will proceed through Lukács’s direct and indirect self-criticisms of History
and Class Consciousness and on to his mature ontological reckonings with
Hegel and Marx as per his final-but-incomplete Ontology.
However, before proceeding to this narrative, I must mention one
of the young Lukács’s significant Marxist contemporaries: Karl Korsch.
Korsch’s 1923 Philosophy and Marxism is associated with Lukacs’s History
and Class Consciousness of the same year primarily because both texts
were lumped together and jointly condemned as idealist deviations by
the Bolshevik authorities via Grigory Zinoviev’s denunciations of these
two publications at the Fifth Congress of the Communist International
in 1924. Korsch flirts with the pseudo-Marxist tendency to sweepingly
dismiss the established sciences as “bourgeois.”8 With regard to dialec-
tical materialism, he maintains that Marx and Engels prioritize dialec-
tics over materialism.9 Connected with this, Korsch also writes off those
Marxists who make statements about realities beyond the mediations of
subjective consciousness as guilty of relapsing into the non-dialectical
“naive realism” of vulgar “common sense.”10 He even tries to downplay
Engels’s naturalism.11 Overall, one could say that Korsch’s intervention
saves Marx’s real abstractions from mechanistic economism in the name
of a non-reductive materialism (in which superstructural phenomena are
far from being epiphenomenal)12 at the exorbitantly high price of impos-
ing upon Marxism a subjectivist antirealism. Along with the later Lukács
himself, I would contend that the Soviets were right to discern a sizable
amount of overlap between Korsch’s Philosophy and Marxism and Lukács’s
History and Class Consciousness.
Having already outlined the features of History and Class Conscious-
ness relevant to my concerns, I will get underway now with references
to “Tailism and the Dialectic,” Lukács’s 1925/1926 defense of his 1923
magnum opus. “Tailism and the Dialectic” is an exculpation of himself,
one that he never published during his lifetime, in response to the Soviet
condemnations of 1924. Although composed only a couple of years after
History and Class Consciousness, this defense, rather than entirely sticking
to the old lines of what it defends, arguably introduces some new features
of Lukács’s evolving post-1923 views. I would even contend that certain
of his defenses of History and Class Consciousness already foreshadow what
later blossoms in connection with the mature Lukács’s self-critical repu-
diations of his renowned 1923 book.
Of course, the anti-Engelsianism of History and Class Consciousness
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was the cardinal sin of this work in the eyes of Zinoviev and the Comin-
tern. In terms of this pivotal matter of Naturdialektik, Lukács’s 1925/1926
defense of his 1923 text moves from, on the one hand, the unambigu-
ous rejection of Engels’s dialectics of nature in the name of historical
materialism in History and Class Consciousness to, on the other hand, a
more ambiguous assessment of the rapport between Marxist materialism
and the natural sciences in this defense itself. One initially encounters
in Lukács’s 1925/1926 manuscript a reiteration of a thesis that is funda-
mental to his 1923 version of historical materialism: “Our consciousness
of nature, in other words our knowledge of nature, is determined by
our social being.”13 Here, “Tailism and the Dialectic” seems faithfully
to echo the antirealist and anti-naturalist notes of History and Class Con-
sciousness that drew the Soviets’ ire. It appears that, as in 1923, so too in
1925/1926: historical materialism is tantamount to a radical social con-
structionism in which nature itself is nothing more than a phenomenon
constituted solely in and through the sociohistorical mediations of non-
natural human infrastructures and superstructures.
But Lukács promptly nuances things in “Tailism and the Dialectic.”
I would maintain that these nuances are absent in History and Class Con-
sciousness itself. In his defense of the latter, he makes certain important
concessions:

Self-evidently society arose from nature. Self-evidently nature and its laws
existed before society (that is to say before humans). Self-evidently the
dialectic could not possibly be effective as an objective principle of develop-
ment of society, if it were not already effective as a principle of develop-
ment of nature before society, if it did not already objectively exist. From
that, however, follows neither that social development could produce
no new, equally objective forms of movement, dialectical moments, nor
that the dialectical moments in the development of nature would be
knowable without the mediation of these new social dialectical forms.14

Only reductive materialists would deny what Lukács asserts in the sec-
ond half of this passage. As for this passage’s first three sentences, these
claims, despite their repeatedly stressed “self-evidence,” are difficult, if
not impossible, to admit within the confines of Lukács’s 1923 rendition
of historical materialism. As the post-1925/1926 Lukács himself comes to
confess, these self-evident truths indeed are inadmissible for his historical
materialism of 1923— and so much the worse for it. Moreover, the late
Lukács’s Ontology of Social Being seeks to establish a dialectical material-
ism that not only admits, but incorporates as essential, these very truths.
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“Tailism and the Dialectic” goes on to express a qualified endorse-

ment of the natural sciences. Lukács states:

It would not only be a narrow and inflexible conception, but also a

dualistic one that did not consider our real relationship to nature, the
material basis of our knowledge of nature, by starting out from our
exchange of matter with nature, and did not consider this exchange
of matter with nature in its double determination, as much as an inter-
action with nature — which exists independently from humans— as well
as simultaneously determined by the economic structure of society at
any one time. I repeat: every Marxist with correct instincts would adopt
this standpoint in talking about the astronomy of the Egyptians, or the
physics of Aristotle. Does modern natural science adopt a special place,
then? Is this dialectical double determination not valid for it too?15

He immediately adds:

Of course, if we answer this question with a “no,” we have to say no in

a dialectical way. This means that we must always be clear that modern
natural science does indeed adopt a special place in the history of
human knowledge of nature. And that it is in no way appropriate, in-
deed it would clearly be a false relativism, if we treated it mechanically,
in the same way as the knowledge of nature of past epochs.16

Finally, this leads Lukács to conclude:

That the modern natural sciences are a product of capitalist develop-

ment does not mean that they are something “subjective.” For a start,
capitalist society is itself an “objective” thing; second, it makes possible
an adequate, objective, systematic knowledge of nature— in previously
unsuspected ways. Indeed, such an adequate, objective and systematic
knowledge of nature is, to a much greater degree and in a far broader
arena, etc., than for earlier forms of society, a condition of existence
for capitalism. Capitalism does not only make this knowledge possible,
but it makes it possible because it is a necessity for it. So, the fact that
modern natural science is a product of capitalist society takes nothing
away from its objectivity. Indeed, a thorough and concrete analysis of
the relationship of this science to its material basis, to the exchange of
matter between capitalist society and nature, could point out why the
modes of knowledge of previous societies, modes that were infused by
mythological forms, had to be liquidated, and why a natural science
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that was in a qualitatively higher degree objective could arise only on

the basis of capitalism.17

Lukács’s reasoning qualifies 1923’s unqualified social constructionist re-

jections of realism and naturalism in the name of historical materialism.
Like Marx,18 the Lukács of “Tailism and the Dialectic” both acknowledges
the natural sciences’ historical indebtedness to capitalism as a socioeco-
nomic system and simultaneously insists that this indebtedness in no way
compromises the non-relative “objectivity” of these sciences19 (this line of
thought recurs in the Ontology). Indeed, the third of the three preceding
block quotations argues very much in the same spirit as Marx’s declara-
tion that “human anatomy contains a key to the anatomy of the ape,” with
capitalist science containing a key not only to precapitalist societies, but
to prehuman nature itself.
Soon after 1925/1926, Lukács ceases to defend History and Class Con-
sciousness.20 He sharply breaks with the socio-subjective anti-objectivism
of 1923.21 Of course, there are Lukács’s explicit self-criticisms of History
and Class Consciousness.22 But I would propose that the vast bulk of these
self-criticisms to be found in his post-1926 corpus are indirect or implicit.
The indirect ones come to light particularly in the guise of Lukács’s af-
firmations of Engelsian-style dialectical materialism. The implicit ones,
to which I turn now, involve Lukács explicitly criticizing romantic, neo-
Kantian, phenomenological, and existential currents both within and
beyond Marxism. Some of these criticisms, I would maintain, should be
heard as implicitly self-critical on Lukács’s part.
The central thesis of Lukács’s The Young Hegel (1938) is that Hegel’s
early period, culminating in the Phenomenology of Spirit, is underpinned
by a proto-Marxian appreciation of the foundational status of political
economy for human Spirit. Lukács’s economically minded Hegel stands
in tacit but stark contrast to various romanticized, Kantianized, and ex-
istentialized versions of this pivotal philosopher. (Incidentally, the Buda-
pest school of Lukács’s students, in the context of critiquing their teach-
er’s final ontological efforts, try to drive a wedge between the economic
Hegel of The Young Hegel and the Hegel of the Naturphilosophie who is
so central to the Ontology of Social Being.)23 However, Lukács elaborates
his pointed objections to romanticism, neo-Kantianism, phenomenology,
and existentialism at length in two closely related works: Existentialism or
Marxism? (1947) and The Destruction of Reason (1954).
After 1938, Hegel remains a focus for the later Lukács. Existential-
ism or Marxism? celebrates the suppleness and fluidity of Hegel’s non-
dogmatic dialectics of both Natur and Geist.24 In so doing, Lukács calls to
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mind the Engels of Ludwig Feuerbach and the Outcome of Classical German
Philosophy.
Then, The Destruction of Reason goes on to foreground approvingly
a number of features of Hegelianism. Unsurprisingly, Hegel is presented
therein as embodying the apex of the historical evolution of dialecti-
cal thinking.25 Additionally, this Lukács is particularly enthusiastic about
the anti-Kantianism that is integral to Hegelianism, particularly Hegel’s
nature-philosophical realism in which space and time are extra-logical ob-
jectivities.26 Lukács charges that “irrationalisms” such as neo-Kantianism,
phenomenology, and existentialism are committed to denying such ob-
jectivities.27 Like Lenin before him, the Lukács of 1954 perceives Hegel,
with his assaults upon Kantian subjective idealism,28 as perhaps the most
significant forerunner of dialectical materialism. In fact, The Destruction
of Reason depicts dialectical materialism as the consequent furtherance
of the true core of Hegelianism.29
Existentialism or Marxism? and The Destruction of Reason share in com-
mon a number of tenets in addition to their overlapping interpretations
of Hegel. To begin with, they jointly affirm the Engelsian-Leninist thesis
that one must choose between idealism and materialism, namely, that
there is no viable compromise, synthesis, or third way between these two
opposed positions.30 In this vein, Lukács praises Engels’s Anti-Dühring
and Ludwig Feuerbach as well as Lenin’s Materialism and Empirio-Criticism.31
Existentialism or Marxism? insists upon dialectical materialism as being es-
sential to socialism and antithetical to capitalism.32 Likewise, The Destruc-
tion of Reason unreservedly embraces Naturdialektik.33
In line with Engels specifically, this Lukács of the 1940s and 1950s
emphasizes the centrality of science generally and of biology in particular
for both historical and dialectical materialism.34 But neither Engels nor
Lukács champions a reductionistic scientism. Existentialism or Marxism?
insists that Marxist materialism indeed preserves places for spontane-
ous, automonous subjects, enjoying an Engelsian “margin of liberty,”
that are irreducible to pre- or nonsubjective bases.35 And although The
Destruction of Reason asserts that subjective dialectics arise from objective
dialectics36 — subjects emerge from societies (as per historical material-
ism) and societies emerge from nature (as per dialectical materialism)—
these are emergences in the sense of a strong emergentism. Moreover,
Lukács expressly stipulates that Darwinism requires supplementation and
tempering by historical materialism.37 Neither Marx, Engels, nor Lukács
naively calls for an uncritical embrace of Darwin’s (or any other scien-
tist’s) findings and theories that is unqualified by Marxism’s critical sen-
sibilities and considerations.
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The Destruction of Reason, a much longer and more historically

sweeping work than Existentialism or Marxism?, tells the story of the rise
and persistence of modern “irrationalism.” Lukács’s narrative starts with
the later Schelling, although Blaise Pascal, F. H. Jacobi, and the romantics
are also identified as contributing to the establishment of an irrationalist
orientation in philosophical modernity.38 Correspondingly, Hegel is pre-
sented as the valiant foe of Pietism, romanticism, and Schellingianism.39
However, it should be noted that the earlier Schelling’s Naturphilosophie
is esteemed by Lukács as exhibiting dialectical materialist intuitions avant
la lettre.40 Yet, Lukács also claims that Schelling opposes any notion of
evolution, allegedly unlike Hegel, with the latter’s dialectical-speculative
transitions from Natur to Geist.41
I will not try to retell here Lukács’s tale of modern irrationalism
in its voluminous entirety. The Destruction of Reason concerns me specifi-
cally as manifesting Lukács’s self-critical transition from being the au-
thor of History and Class Consciousness to becoming the architect of the
Ontology of Social Being. I believe that Lukács’s unforgiving treatments of
such contemporaneous twentieth-century figures as Heidegger, Sartre,
and Merleau-Ponty contain indirect self-criticisms too. These treatments
occur in Existentialism or Marxism? as well as The Destruction of Reason. But
before detailing Lukács’s critiques of existentialism as themselves also
partly self-critiques of History and Class Consciousness, I must address cer-
tain negative reactions to this Lukács coming from some of his readers.
Admittedly and unfortunately, one finds in The Destruction of Reason
occasional endorsements of Lysenko’s Michurian biology42 — and thus
of an infamous aspect of Stalinism. This alone already seems to make
it easy to dismiss Lukács’s 1954 book as cravenly and opportunistically
Stalinist. Indeed, Merleau-Ponty, among others, issued precisely such a
dismissal.43 Even the later Althusser succumbed to this same repudia-
tion.44 Tom Rockmore condemns The Destruction of Reason as thoroughly
Stalinist in toto,45 with Mark Poster trashing Existentialism or Marxism? for
similar reasons.46 Along with this, Rockmore explicitly expresses a strong
preference for History and Class Consciousness, alleging that this 1923 book
is Lukács’s best work and remains far superior to everything Lukács pro-
duced thereafter.47 Likewise, Lucien Goldmann’s well-known study com-
paring Lukács and Heidegger implicitly expresses the same preference as
Rockmore, with Goldmann more or less completely ignoring everything
after History and Class Consciousness.
The Lukács of History and Class Consciousness indeed is beloved by
Western Marxists. The Marxism of such Marxists usually involves simul-
taneous adherence to aspects of post-Kantian continental philosophy,
especially features of phenomenology and existentialism (and, in the
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case of Althusserianism, structuralism). I would contend that the early

Lukács’s status as a darling of Western Marxism is due not only to his op-
position to mechanistic economism, but also to his oppositions to realism
and naturalism. Like the phenomenologists and existentialists, the young
Lukács inherits these oppositions from Kant’s “Copernican revolution.”
For those who want out of Marxism nothing more than cultural analyses
and critiques of ideology without Marxism’s traditional economic and
scientific baggage, History and Class Consciousness exhibits various appeal-
ing features.
Hence, it should come as no surprise that many Western Marx-
ists are put off by the post-1923 Lukács’s harsh attacks on the likes of
Heidegger, Sartre, and Merleau-Ponty. Tarring and feathering the later
Lukács as a Stalinist permits them to disregard these attacks as empty
ideological polemics, rather than substantial philosophical arguments.
What is more, the charge of Stalinism brings with it the suggestion that
Lukács’s repudiation of History and Class Consciousness is not an intellec-
tually sincere gesture of deeply considered and felt reservations, but is
instead politically expedient kowtowing that was coerced out of him by
the enormous pressure of Moscow’s authority. From this perspective, the
only “real” Lukács is the author of History and Class Consciousness. Every-
thing after 1923 is the inauthenticity of compromise, accommodation,
and betrayal. For Western Marxism, just as there are a good Marx versus a
bad Engels and a good Lenin (Philosophical Notebooks) versus a bad Lenin
(Materialism and Empirio-Criticism), so too is there a good Lukács (1923)
versus a bad Lukács (post-1923).
I will address these issues again later, since they recur in terms of
the polarized reactions to the Ontology of Social Being. For now, it suffices
for me to make a few brief comments before turning to the substance of
the critiques of phenomenological existentialism in both Existentialism or
Marxism? and The Destruction of Reason. First of all, indictments of the later
Lukács as Stalinist give Stalin undeserved credit. Stalin did not invent the
realist and (quasi-)naturalist dialectical materialism that was embraced
by the mature Lukács, to the dismay of some Western Marxists. Instead,
Stalin merely took over, and perverted to fit his own practical ends, these
aspects of dialectical materialism from such predecessors as Marx, Engels,
and Lenin. Therefore, much of what is derided as “Stalinist” in the older
Lukács’s writings is, in fact, reflective of aspects of classical Marxism-
Engelsianism-Leninism that were abandoned by many twentieth-century
leftist intellectuals on the European continent.
Furthermore, Agnes Heller, a student of Lukács who was personally
close to him, assures readers that Lukács’s self-critical repudiation of His-
tory and Class Consciousness is indeed a matter of heartfelt philosophical
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conviction.48 Heller offers this reassurance despite herself having misgiv-

ings about this repudiation and clearly preferring the orientation associ-
ated with Lukács’s early work of 1923. She is one of the members of “the
Budapest school,” a group of Lukács’s students, who voice reservations
about the Ontology (especially its redeployment of an Engels-style dialec-
tics of nature). Incidentally, the Ontology itself and related texts repeat-
edly disparage Stalinism in unambiguous terms.49
I will address Lukács’s denunciations of Heidegger in Existential-
ism or Marxism? and The Destruction of Reason when I turn to the Ontol-
ogy of Social Being. In the latter project, Lukács reiterates his 1947 and
1954 charges against Heideggerianism. However, the positive upshots of
Lukács’s critique of Heidegger’s ontology really come into sharp focus
only once Lukács contrasts phenomenological ontology with Marxist on-
tology in his last endeavor.
Lukács’s objections to Sartre, especially in Existentialism or Marxism?,
are most revelatory of the philosophical reasons for his move away from
History and Class Consciousness. I concur with Ferenc Tökei’s claim that
Lukács’s critique of Sartre specifically is also a self-critique of his 1923 tour
de force.50 Two indictments of Sartre’s existentialism, including the later
existential (quasi-)Marxism of the Critique of Dialectical Reason, from Exis-
tentialism or Marxism? are particularly relevant here. First, Sartre indefen-
sibly denies the historicity of nature, reserving a properly historical status
exclusively for human-as-non-natural structures and dynamics.51 Second,
Sartre staunchly refuses to countenance any explanations of natural an-
thropogenesis, namely, of the emergence of the human out of a pre-
human nature.52 Of course, such denials and refusals are to be found in
Lukács’s History and Class Consciousness too.53
Yet, I also agree with Nicolas Tertulian’s suggestion that the later
Sartre and the later Lukács are not so far apart as the latter seems to be-
lieve.54 I would maintain that convergences between these two can already
be discerned before the Critique of Dialectical Reason and the Ontology of
Social Being. Of course, the pre-Marxist Sartre of “Materialism and Revo-
lution” (1946) could not be more antagonistic toward dialectical mate-
rialism and Naturdialektik.55 Obviously, those of these early antagonisms
that persist within the work of the more Marxist Sartre of the 1960s are
anathema to the mature Lukács.56
Still, Sartre makes two observations in “Materialism and Revolution”
that dovetail with the dialectical materialism of the post-1923 Lukács. To
begin with, Sartre’s 1946 essay contrasts Hegelian Naturphilosophie with the
natural sciences to the benefit of the former. Casting the natural sciences
as incorrigibly reductionist, Sartre approvingly emphasizes Hegel’s anti-
reductionism in which life is irreducible to matter and consciousness is
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irreducible to life.57 Although Sartre’s conflation of the scientific with

the reductive has become ever more contentious and debatable from
the 1940s to today, the anti-reductionism of Hegel’s Naturphilosophie is
something that is equally valued by Sartre, Lukács, and me. Furthermore,
“Materialism and Revolution” also contains the assertion that natural
necessities are themselves ultimately contingent.58 This too is a very Hege-
lian thesis. Given the Hegelianism of the later Lukács, it is a thesis that
I am convinced he accepts as well.
As for Sartre around 1960, there are significant convergences, as
Tertulian and Mark Poster indicate, between this Sartre and the older
Lukács.59 Apart from issues concerning the dialectics of nature, Sartre,
like Lukács, denounces the rigid dogmatism of Stalinist materialism (as
mechanistic, reductive, etc.);60 insists on an ultimately Hegel-inspired
compatibilism that reconciles human freedom with the more determin-
istic aspects of Marxist social theory;61 condemns as intellectually bank-
rupt any and every pseudo-Marxist economism;62 advances a stratified
ontology in which different disciplines can and should contribute to and
collaborate in doing justice to each and every stratum;63 and emphasizes
the distinctively teleological nature of human beings as laboring agents.64
Lukács’s Ontology of Social Being shares these features with Sartre’s Critique
of Dialectical Reason.
But what about Naturdialektik as a bone of contention between
Lukács and Sartre? Even after Sartre undergoes his conversion to a
qualified Marxism, there remain serious differences between him and
Lukács with regard to dialectical materialism generally and the dialectics
of nature in particular. Nevertheless, certain later-Sartrean caveats regard-
ing Naturdialektik to be found in both the Critique of Dialectical Reason as
well as Sartre’s 1962 exchanges (Marxism and Existentialism: Controversy
about the Dialectic) with Roger Garaudy, Jean Hyppolite, Jean-Pierre Vigier,
and J. Orcel resonate with facets of later-Lukácsian ontology.
The Critique of Dialectical Reason makes a key concession to
Engelsian-style dialectical materialism. Therein, Sartre admits the imma-
nence of human history to nature.65 Even if there remains on Sartre’s
part a stubborn refusal to fully historicize pre/nonhuman nature in ways
that are responsive to Darwinian evolutionary biology, he at least grants
the Hegelian-Marxian thesis according to which nature itself becomes
non-naturally historical in and through the human history generated by
and persisting within it. Sartre adds, in line with Marx’s theory of labor,
that material nature, after being worked up by laboring humans, reacts
back upon these laborers, with these natural (as material) objectivities
reciprocally modifying historical subjectivities.
During the 1962 public debate in which Sartre defended various
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aspects of his Critique of Dialectical Reason, he argued against Stalinist-type

versions of naturalized Marxian-Engelsian materialism and Naturdialektik.
Despite Sartre’s seemingly unqualified critical references to “dialectical
materialism” and “the dialectics of nature,” I would maintain that these
arguments of his apply solely to things like Stalin’s Dialectical and Historical
Materialism and crudely ideological Soviet agitprop (including the French
Communist Party’s channeling of Moscow-dictated content, which is what
Sartre had immediately in view). That is to say, the quasi-naturalist dialec-
tical materialism of Lukács and the sources upon which he draws, such
as Marx, Engels, and Lenin, is left largely unscathed by Sartre’s objec-
tions. What is more, the later Lukács would even concur with some of
what Sartre states along these lines. However, this same Lukács worries
that Sartre fails to qualify what thereby function as blanket dismissals of
dialectical materialism altogether.66
In the course of defending the Critique of Dialectical Reason, Sartre
signals his adherence to a radical immanentism that nonetheless pre-
serves within itself a vehemently anti-reductive stratification of different
ontological dimensions.67 Whether Sartre realizes it or not, this dovetails
perfectly with the non-Stalinist dialectical materialism of Marx, Engels,
and Lenin. For all of these figures, sentient and sapient subjectivity is
immanent-yet-irreducible to physical, chemical, and organic being.
At one point during Sartre’s 1962 exchanges with Garaudy and
others, he asserts that Naturdialektik totalizes nature.68 Sartre is not with-
out some justification for this assertion. Engels, the primary inventor of
the dialectics of nature, indeed indulges himself in visions of a natural
One-All, of Nature as a sort of cosmic organism. Yet, it would be wrong to
conclude from this that any and every version of the dialectics of nature
necessarily must result in such a totalization.
In this same context, Sartre insists that nature is, in fact, not totaliz-
able.69 Interestingly for readers of Badiou, for whom Sartre is an avowedly
formative influence, Sartre’s discussion here includes a denial of the ap-
plicability of the trans-finite to nature.70 That noted, Sartre proceeds to
stipulate that if there is anything to the association of the dialectical with
the natural, then one has to speak of many, rather than one, dialectics of
nature.71 Put differently, if nature is dialectical, then it (in)consists of a
non-totalizable plurality of dialectical processes.72 Finally, this Sartre also
stipulates that scientists, not philosophers, must be the ones to determine
if and how nature is dialectical.73 In other words, questions of Naturdia-
lektik are not purely a priori. However, the later Sartre himself does not
go further in terms of rethinking nature and naturalism than these few
programmatic, open-ended gestures.74
Hegel, Marx, Engels, and Lenin would agree with many of the just-
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summarized claims by the later Sartre. All four maintain anti-reductionism

while simultaneously holding to immanentism. Certain of Engels’s ten-
dencies aside, cases could be made that at least Hegel, Marx, and Lenin
are not unreserved “totalizers” in the Sartrean sense. Moreover, starting
with Hegel himself, the related traditions of Naturphilosophie and Natur-
dialektik really do grant the empirical, experimental sciences of nature the
leading role in conditioning dialectical speculations about natural mat-
ters. The later Lukács, too, assembles an ontology that is largely faithful
to his predecessors’ commitments along these lines.
Lukács’s Ontology of Social Being has enjoyed a limited but starkly
polarized reception. His readers either love or hate the Ontology. I would
allege that those Marxists who detest this last work do so because the
later Lukács, by sharp contrast with the author of History and Class Con-
sciousness, situates himself in the lineage of such Marxist classics as Anti-
Dühring, Dialectics of Nature, Ludwig Feuerbach and the Outcome of Classical
German Philosophy, and Materialism and Empirio-Criticism. In other words,
those averse to this Engelsian-Leninist tradition rightly are put off by
Lukács’s Ontology.75
The best-known expression of an allergy to the quasi-naturalist dia-
lectical materialism of the Ontology of Social Being, of a preference for
the early (1923) over the late (post-1923) Lukács, comes from a group of
his own students, namely, the “Budapest school.” Ferenc Fehér, Agnes
Heller, György Márkus, and Mihály Vajda, in their critical “Notes on
Lukács’ Ontology,” make clear that their main bone of contention with
the master has to do with his embrace of the dialectics of nature.76 These
students react by endorsing the rejection of Naturdialektik in History and
Class Consciousness.77 They urge Lukács to recall his own youthful mobili-
zation of historical materialism against dialectical materialism.78
Likewise, Josiane Boulad Ayoub fears that the later Lukács can-
not affirm, as Ayoub vehemently does, the non-epiphenomenal status of
human consciousness and freedom within the parameters of his science-
informed ontological framework.79 This fear reflects the problematic as-
sumption that the scientific is essentially and invariably mechanistic, re-
ductive, or eliminative.80 Seyla Benhabib, expressing the sensibilities of
postwar continental philosophy’s broad and widespread antirealist “lin-
guistic turn,” questions the very need for an ontology generally and a
naturalistic ontology in particular.81 In this vein, she lends her support to
the critique of Lukács by the student-members of the Budapest school.82
Between History and Class Consciousness and the Ontology of Social
Being, the biggest change in Lukács’s stance is indeed his relationship to
Naturdialektik.83 Ferenc Lendvai goes so far as to depict the Ontology as a
massive self-critique on Lukács’s part of the anti-naturalism of his preco-
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cious 1923 book.84 Moreover, this Lukács not only breaks with his past self,
but he also breaks with many of his philosophical contemporaries of the
1970s. To be precise, he is at odds with those swept up in the antirealist,
anti-naturalist currents of postmodernism and post-structuralism. Espe-
cially in this “post-” intellectual context, Lukács’s Ontology cannot but
stand out as a more classical meditation on the natural, the historical,
and their relations.85
Agnes Heller proffers a loaded description of Lukács’s quasi-
naturalist, dialectical materialist ontology as a gamble on naive realism.86
Relatedly, Lucien Goldmann speaks of a “gambling element” in Lukács’s
thought.87 Such characterizations are neither innocent nor fair.
Lukács, like Lenin before him, adopts and redeploys Hegel’s imma-
nent critique of Kantian transcendental idealism as subjectivist, namely,
as antimaterialist, anti-naturalist, and antirealist. Therefore, Lukács’s
later dialectical ontology cannot defensibly be characterized as dogmatic
in the sense of pre/non-critical. Hegel and Lukács are far from epistemo-
logically complacent and credulous in their unwavering consciousness of
standing under Kant’s long shadow. Their post-critical arguments against
critical idealism, as philosophical arguments, do not leave realism hang-
ing uncertainly in the balance of a capricious wager or bet. Contrary to
Heller particularly, Lukács’s Leninist recourse to Hegel’s sophisticated
immanent criticisms of Kantian transcendental-as-subjective idealism
renders the realism of the Ontology of Social Being neither a gamble nor
naive. Likewise, when Barbara Tuchanska depicts the later Lukács as pro-
Aristotle and anti-Kant,88 this depiction must be qualified: Lukács’s Aris-
totelianism is that of Hegel, namely, a post-Kantian variety.
Ferenc Lendvai paints the mature Lukács as a Galilean scientific
realist.89 This is fairer than portraying him simply as a naive realist. But
it still misleadingly suggests that the Ontology of Social Being involves a re-
gression back behind Kant’s critical Copernican revolution. Moreover, if
the later Lukács’s realism is that of Galileo, the early Lukács’s historical
materialist interrogation of scientific objectivity is reminiscent of Cardi-
nal Roberto Bellarmino.
But what about the other pole of the reception of the Ontology of
Social Being, namely, those responding positively to it? Lendvai overall is
favorably disposed to the later Lukács, as are Miklós Almasi, Reinhard
Mocek, Jacques Pollak-Lederer, and Ferenc Tökei. However, Ernest Joós
and Tertulian offer the most detailed defenses of the Ontology. The for-
mer’s book Lukács’s Last Autocriticism: The Ontology (1983), despite its vari-
ous scholarly and philosophical shortcomings, productively highlights
multiple facets of the project consuming Lukács at the end of his life.
Tertulian provides some perspectives that are useful for framing a
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more positive engagement with the late Lukács. Two of Tertulian’s obser-
vations are particularly relevant in the present context. First, the Ontology
of Social Being, given its size and ambition, arguably is Lukács’s definitive
philosophical statement, and his real magnum opus.90 Second, fans of
History and Class Consciousness debatably tend to minimize or ignore the
Ontology 91— when they do not simply trash it altogether. But the Ontology
and related texts contain ample amounts of philosophical argumentation
and historical erudition. They are not so easy to dismiss.
Lukács composed the Ontology of Social Being with an acute aware-
ness that, in the intellectual circles of postwar Europe especially, his later
turn to the ontological could not help but bring up the subject of Hei-
degger’s philosophy. The lengthy introduction to the Ontology testifies to
the acuteness of this awareness. From early on, starting with the period
of Being and Time (1927), Heidegger can justly be characterized as trying,
among other things, to overturn Kantian critique’s attempted outlawing
of traditional ontology as the discourse of being as being. Indeed, the
older Lukács shares with Heidegger the agenda of undoing Kantian re-
pressions of ontology with epistemology.92
And yet Lukács, by the time he wrote the Ontology of Social Being,
had long been virulently hostile to Heidegger. For example, both Exis-
tentialism or Marxism? and The Destruction of Reason pass damning judg-
ments upon Heidegger’s existential phenomenology. Applying Marxist
historical materialism to a thinker who avoids such materialism on prin-
ciple, Lukács derides Heideggerianism’s poetry about nothingness as the
unwitting death throes of a capitalist world caught up in the turmoil of
the first half of the twentieth century.93
Relatedly, the introduction to the Ontology of Social Being maintains
that the opening moments of Hegel’s Logik permit one to discern the
problems plaguing Heidegger’s association of Being with Nothing(ness).94
This Lukács likewise mocks existentialism (including Nietzscheanism)
generally as “religious atheism”95 (i.e., idealist-mystical spirituality in
which God is replaced by Being, Nothing, Will, Power, or some other
pseudo-secular ineffability or Other) and Heideggerianism specifically
as “secular theology,” a theology of the Nothing.96 As even Goldmann
admits, Lukács rejects (ultimately on Hegelian logical grounds over and
above good materialist reasons) Heidegger’s “ontological difference” as
involving too sharp a distinction between the ontological and the ontic.97
Lukács’s derision of the secular theology of the Nothing rests upon this
rejection, given that the difference/distinction between Being and be-
ings is what underpins and licenses Heideggerian talk about the Nothing.
The Ontology of Social Being adds to the criticisms of existentialism
and Heideggerianism that have already been deployed by Lukács in prior
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works. In terms of these additions, there are two main complaints di-
rected against Heidegger. First, Heidegger’s neo-romantic, neo-Luddite
attitude toward science and technology is lambasted. Lukács bemoans
Heidegger’s unqualified anti-naturalism.98
At the same time, the Ontology, as committed to a stringently anti-
reductive dialectical materialism, is careful to stipulate that its natural-
ism is one in which nature alone is insufficient, although necessary, for
explaining social being.99 Tertulian focuses on Lukács’s and Heidegger’s
opposed attitudes to Darwin(ism) as approving and disapproving, respec-
tively.100 Goldmann contrasts Heidegger’s negative and Lukács’s positive
dispositions toward things scientific. He also asserts that Lukács allows for
philosophical criticisms of the sciences, albeit insisting that these must be
immanent rather than external.101
The second of the main complaints against Heideggerianism that
I want to foreground here from the Ontology has to do with historical di-
mensions. Lukács alleges that Heidegger, despite all his talk about time
and history, constructs an existential-phenomenological ontology that is
much too timeless and ahistorical judged by the standards of historical
materialism.102 For instance, das Man, rather than being acknowledged as
a philosophical reflection of the human alienation specific to the deni-
zens of modern industrial-capitalist societies, is presented as a kind of
eternal character-type.
There is indeed nothing remotely resembling a historical materi-
alist critique of political economy to be found in Heidegger’s oeuvre.103
Consequently, Heidegger freely rides roughshod over the myriad fac-
tual details of history both philosophical and extra-philosophical with
backward-looking anachronisms (especially typical Germanic romanti-
cizations of ancient Greece) and sweeping grand narratives (such as the
story about the onto-theological forgetting of Being from Plato onward).
Moreover, in Lukács’s Prolegomena to the Ontology of Social Being (written
after the Ontology itself), he specifies that the historicity central to being
in his own ontological account essentially amounts to temporal irre-
versibility.104 Lukács’s association of the historical with the irreversible is
bound up with his appreciation, following Marx and Engels themselves,
of Darwin’s epoch-making gesture of historicizing nature in this precise
sense. Historicity-as-irreversibility is part of the later Lukács’s reintegra-
tion of nature within Marxist materialism.
The Lukács of the Ontology of Social Being goes so far as to lament
that there is no true, real ontology in his present, save for that of Nico-
lai Hartmann.105 This is nothing less than a complete cancellation of all
the credit extended to Heidegger for a twentieth-century return to on-
tology after Kant. Lukács prefers to extend this credit instead to Hart-
mann, whose philosophy, by comparison with Heidegger’s, has never re-
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ceived a significant amount of serious attention. The Ontology pointedly

recognizes Hartmann, rather than Heidegger, as the anti-neo-Kantian
forerunner who reopens the ontological paths that this final Lukácsian
project pursues.106
What is it about Hartmann’s ontology that so appeals to Lukács?
Several of its features attract the latter’s approving gaze. In the chapter
devoted to Hartmann in the Ontology of Social Being, Lukács emphasizes
Hartmann’s qualified naturalism. Already in the preceding chapter of the
Ontology, German idealist Naturphilosophie (à la Schelling and Hegel) is
extolled for its treatment of the chemical and biological levels of nature
as mediations between the physical and human levels of being.107 Lukács
sees Hartmann as carrying forward this sort of Schellingian-Hegelian ap-
proach. Accordingly, he lauds Hartmann’s ontology of nature as the best
and most striking feature of Hartmannian philosophy.108 Lukács simi-
larly endorses Hartmann’s non-reductive grounding of social on natural
being,109 a gesture repeated by the Ontology.
However, Lukács harbors one major misgiving about Hartmann’s
ontology: the absence therein of any genetic dimensions and analyses
whatsoever.110 That is to say, Hartmann offers no explanations of the gene-
ses of his basic ontological categories out of each other. Questions regard-
ing whether and how the organic temporally unfurls out of the inorganic
and the human historically unfolds out of the organic are left unasked
and unanswered. This risks amounting to the silent, surreptitious for-
warding of a formalist idealism as a metaphysical realism in which the
pure forms of an eternal ontological-categorial order always already pre-
exist any and every ontic-real entities and events. Relatedly, the Ontology
justifiably argues that an immanent, this-worldly account of bottom-up
anthropogenesis from nature and natural history, such as that furnished
by dialectical materialism, is crucial to combating the top-down creation
narratives of an idealist-as-metaphysical-realist sort relied upon by myriad
religions.111 By implication, an ontological avoidance of the genetic (as
both phylogeny and ontogeny), whether by Hartmann or anyone else,
at least tacitly abandons the terrain to idealisms. For Lukács’s Marxist-
Engelsian-Leninist ontology, such ceding of ground is tantamount to
treason in the zero-sum war between materialism and idealism.
Fundamentally, what Lukács appreciates most about Hartmann’s
ontology is its anti-reductive stratification of being into nested, categorial
spheres of existences.112 Incidentally, a similar ontological vision already
can be found in Émile Boutroux’s 1874 The Contingency of the Laws of
Nature.113 That noted, this essential, core feature of Hartmannian philos-
ophy leads me to now sketch the fundamentals of the later-Lukácsian idea
of ontology properly conceived.
Lukács begins the Ontology of Social Being by observing that the topic
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designated by the title of his project tends to be submitted either to mo-

nist reductions (in which social being is dissolved into natural being)
or dualist idealisms (in which social being is posited as different-in-kind
and disconnected from natural being).114 Soon after this observation, he
stipulates that inorganic nature constitutes the rock-bottom zero level
of a not-physicalist-as-reductionist universal ontology.115 Faithfully follow-
ing in Marx’s footsteps, Lukács’s Ontology is as much opposed to vulgar
mechanistic materialism as to any and every idealism.116
For both Marx and Lukács, a key task is to preserve the distinction
between the natural and the social in an uncompromisingly materialist
manner.117 Put in fitting Hegelian terms, what is called for here by the or-
thodox Marxist Lukács is an identity of identity and difference118 between,
on the one hand, the biological and the social and, on the other hand,
the physical.119 That is to say, both the continuities and discontinuities
between emergent strata, as irreducible and relatively autonomous, must
be discerned.120 The late Lukács’s basic desideratum remains a Marxist
ontology that is simultaneously anti-reductive and materialist with equal
degrees of uncompromising intensity.121
Still in the introduction to the Ontology of Social Being, Lukács claims
that the ontology of pre/nonhuman nature is ontologically founda-
tional for Marx himself.122 Against prevailing Western Marxist tenden-
cies, he maintains that Marx self-consciously requires for his materialism
an undergirding Naturdialektik.123 Well after Stalin’s death in 1953 and
the subsequent passing of the pressures of Stalinism, the mature Lukács
holds to the Leninist thesis that Marx’s historical materialism presup-
poses dialectical materialism with its “materialist ontology of nature.”124
Dialectical materialism is said by him to be already implicit in Marx even
apart from Engels,125 with Lukács insisting, against other European Marx-
ists, on the indispensability of Engels’s contributions.126 In the Prolegomena
to the Ontology of Social Being, Lukács describes the dialectics of natural
history as providing the pre-history for the dialectics of social history.127
There is a point of convergence between Lukács’s criticisms of Hei-
degger and of Hartmann. He faults both of them for assembling insuf-
ficiently genetic ontologies, namely, theories of being(s) that lack sat-
isfactory sets of temporal-historical features. Neither Heidegger’s nor
Hartmann’s ontology incorporates the framework of Marx and Engels’s
historical and dialectical materialisms. Of course, Heidegger is often cred-
ited with the twentieth-century renewal of ontology, and Lukács credits
Hartmann instead with being the true champion of a new ontology. Given
Lukács’s common criticism of them both, the implication is that, for him,
the key condition for the renewal of ontology in the twentieth century
is its becoming Marxist as historically/dialectically materialist.128 For this
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Lukács, ontology itself is not inherently idealist and need not be left to
languish as a prisoner of metaphysical realisms or phenomenologies.129
But what is the importance of a Marxist ontology, both for Lukács
himself and in general? Lukács, from the 1920s until his death, remained
steadfastly committed to the Leninist notion that, so to speak, theory
(here, ontology/philosophy) matters.130 The Prolegomena to the Ontology
of Social Being subsequently makes explicit that he considers Marxism to
be a condition for the renewal of ontology131 and vice versa.132
Any talk of connecting Marxism with ontology cannot but hint at
the idea of deriving politics from ontology. Yet, in an interview from the
same period as the Ontology, Lukács cautions that there can be no direct,
immediate derivation of the political from the ontological.133 This is not
to say that there is no relationship between them. An ontology indeed
nudges in certain political directions. But one cannot simply read off a
specific politics, with its detailed practical programs and organizations,
from fundamental ontological categories and arguments.
Having surveyed the polarized reception of the Ontology of Social
Being as well as Lukács’s placement of it vis-à-vis Heidegger and Hartmann
in particular, I feel it now appropriate to dive into delineating the core
components of late-Lukácsian ontology. This delineation will include ad-
dressing the mature Lukács’s perspectives on philosophical anthropol-
ogy, dialectical materialism, Hegel, Marx, naturalism, and the philosophy
of science. Then, at the end of this chapter, I will specify in what ways my
dialectical naturalist transcendental materialism picks up where the final
Lukács leaves off with his last, unfinished endeavor.
The late Lukács signals a methodological principle that resonates
implicitly (and I would claim, inadvertently) with such figures as the
classical Fichte of the mid-1790s and the early Heidegger of the ana-
lytic of Dasein. Despite the myriad non-negligible differences between
Fichte, Heidegger, and Lukács, they arguably share an insistence that an
ontology beyond subjectivity must proceed from the inside out. Even a
non-subjectivist (including a materialist) ontology, if it is not to regress
back behind Kant and thereby lapse into being pre-critically dogmatic
(i.e., epistemologically indefensible), has to be generated starting from
and out of subjectivity (or, in the early Heidegger’s case, Dasein). This
post-critical procedural necessity that is requisite for non-dogmatism
and epistemological defensibility shows up in the Ontology of Social Being
with Lukács’s assertion that the human species (Gattung) is the central
Ur-concern of philosophy.134
Moreover, for both Hegel and Marx, an absolute ontology (Hegel)
or non-contemplative materialism (Marx), precisely in order to be abso-
lute or non-contemplative, has to include within itself an account not only
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of subjects in general, but also of the very subject generating the ontology
or materialism in question. The later Lukács likely would recoil from my
suggestions of any proximity to the likes of Fichte and Heidegger, with him
perceiving himself instead as following in Hegel’s and Marx’s footsteps as
regards methodologically proceeding so as to be nondogmatic, epistemo-
logically responsible, and absolute/non-contemplative. Additionally, and
again in line with Hegel and Marx, this methodological procedure by no
means ontologically implies or entails a genetic-as-temporal/historical
priority of the human subject or species. Methodologically proceeding
starting from subjectivity is entirely compatible with ontologically affirm-
ing subjectivity’s secondary status (in terms of dependency and genesis)
vis-à-vis the grounds of pre/nonsubjective being(s).
With regard to Lukács’s above-noted employment of the Feuerba-
chian term Gattung that was also utilized by Marx, his reading of Marx’s
1844 Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts prompted his turn away from
History and Class Consciousness’s opposition to Naturdialektik and toward
the naturalism featured in the Ontology of Social Being.135 Implicitly against
the Althusserianism associated with 1965’s Reading Capital and For Marx,
Lukács maintains, correctly in my view, that there is no abrupt break that
sharply separates the 1844 Manuscripts from the rest of Marx’s subsequent
corpus.136 Additionally, the Ontology is positioned as inspired by the Manu-
scripts’ vision of a single science (als Wissenschaft) integrating the natural
and human sciences.137
The Ontology of Social Being adopts a Marxian characterization of
humans as, by nature, socially laboring beings.138 For Lukács, as for me,
this suggests a dialectically naturalist philosophical anthropology in
which human nature is self-denaturalizing, a nature inclined to the domi-
nance of nurture over itself. But before getting to Lukács’s focus on Marx
and a philosophical anthropology of humans as socially laboring beings,
I should lay out some of the most basic and foundational elements of
late-Lukácsian ontology.
On the basis of Hegel’s critique of Kant’s subjective idealism, Lukács
insists upon the priority of being over consciousness, with the former
both preexisting and continuing to exist independently of the latter.139
He likewise upholds, as regards human beings, the ontological prior-
ity of (natural) body over (more-than-natural) consciousness.140 In line
with Hartmann, Lukács identifies three fundamental categorial strata of
being: inorganic nature, organic nature, and society.141 But the Ontology of
Social Being goes beyond Hartmannian static ontology by adding a genetic
emergentism.142 Specifically, organic emerges out of inorganic nature,
and the social emerges out of the natural.
What is more, Lukács’s emergentism is a strong variety, being not
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only anti-reductive, but also positing instances of downward causation.

On the one hand, he acknowledges that later-emerging ontological levels
are dependent on earlier, previously existing ones. Hence, organic nature
is dependent for its being upon inorganic nature, and society in turn is
dependent upon both inorganic and organic nature for its being. Re-
latedly, the organic never fully separates from or purifies itself of the
inorganic, and the social never fully separates from or purifies itself of
the natural.143 On the other hand, Lukács nonetheless insists upon the
relative autonomy of posterior emergent categories vis-à-vis prior ones.
Hence, the organic is irreducible to the inorganic, and the social is irre-
ducible to the natural.144
Lukács is careful to emphasize that his ontology grants no special
privileges to any one ontological category over others. He is particularly
at pains to stress that the posterior is in no way ontologically inferior to
the prior, namely, that later-emergent strata are somehow less real than
preexistent strata. In Lukács’s Ontology, there are no hierarchies of status
or weight ordering the relations between ontological layers.145
Likewise, and again following in Hartmann’s footsteps, Lukács
warns against analogical category mistakes in ontology, a type of error
of which reductions represent instances. These would be cases of trying
to employ one ontological categorial stratum as the master-model for all
other strata. In reductions, later emergent levels are forced to resemble
earlier levels (for instance, physicalisms in which everything boils down
to inorganic nature). Other category mistakes might attempt to utilize a
posterior emergent level as the universal template even for prior levels
(to take two examples, vitalisms as drawing analogies between organic
nature and being as a whole, as well as panpsychisms doing the same with
human mindedness and like-mindedness). From Lukács’s perspective,
all such gestures run roughshod over the indissoluble stratifications of
being, thereby doing profound injustices that distort at least some cat-
egorial strata. Additionally, Lukács suggests that these sorts of category
mistakes can and do reflect ideological influences.146
Lukács’s vehement opposition to all epiphenomenalisms147 obvi-
ously is of an intimate piece with the preceding. Furthermore, this op-
position is reinforced by the embrace of Marx’s doctrine of real abstrac-
tions in the Ontology of Social Being.148 In terms of anti-epiphenomenalist
strong emergentism, this Marxist doctrine implies a dynamics of down-
ward causation, with real abstractions as socio-subjective phenomena en-
joying causal efficacy in relation to things, including even natural entities
and events.149
The emergentism that Lukács injects into Hartmann’s stratified on-
tology involves the geneses of categories out of each other. The Ontology
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depicts these genetic dimensions of ontological categories as properly

historical. Furthermore, Lukács identifies the essence of the historical as
irreversibility. One upshot of this, a Lukácsian ontological thesis, is that
the emergences of both organic out of inorganic nature as well as society
out of nature are, as historical, irreversible.150 And social history is just as
irreversible as time itself.151
Emergent categories, so long as they continue to exist, are never
reabsorbed back into that out of which they emerged.152 Hence, Lukács,
in the Prolegomena to the Ontology of Social Being, characterizes his ontol-
ogy as combining stratification with irreversibility.153 This same Lukács
self-critically avers that Marx’s manner of embedding human in natural
history in the 1844 Manuscripts reveals the fundamental mistakenness of
the anti-naturalist rendition of historical materialism that is central to
Lukács’s own History and Class Consciousness of 1923.154
The later Lukács treats all the categories of being as historical, not
only the stratum of the social. He historicizes nature as well as society.
Indeed, this is what makes Darwin in particular so incredibly important
to Marx, Engels, and Lukács alike.155 Darwinian evolutionary theory is tan-
tamount to the revolutionary historicization of pre/nonhuman nature
itself.156 As Lukács observes, Darwin is ontologically crucial for Marx
and Engels— and this despite both potential and actual Hobbesian- and
Malthusian-style misuses of his biological ideas.157 The Prolegomena to the
Ontology of Social Being even contains the claim that the young Marx, start-
ing with his dissertation on ancient Greek atomism, moves toward a his-
toricized conception of nature.158 In light of this claim, Marx and Engels
would already be primed to respond enthusiastically to the eventual 1859
appearance of The Origin of Species.
In line with both German idealist Naturphilosophie and dialectical
materialist Naturdialektik, Lukács insists upon the irreducibility of organic
to inorganic nature.159 However, what most preoccupies him, as signaled
by the very title of his final project, is the relation between the natural
and the social. For Lukács, second nature amounts to a properly Hege-
lian sublation of first nature.160 With society as emerging out of nature,
there come to be multiple strands of both continuities and discontinui-
ties that simultaneously identify/conjoin and differentiate/disjoin these
two fundamental ontological categories. Following in the footsteps of
Marx’s balancing act between contemplative materialisms and idealisms,
Lukács plays off the continuities between the natural and the human
against idealisms and correlatively plays off the discontinuities against
contemplative materialisms.
Contrary to idealisms, including pseudo-Marxist ones in which his-
torical materialism is divorced from the realism and quasi-naturalism of
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dialectical materialism, the late Lukács emphasizes the general ground-

ing and dependence of the social on the natural.161 Although inorganic
nature is part of the ontological foundation for society, organic nature is
the ontological stratum immediately below that of society. Consequently,
the Ontology underscores the comparatively greater influence of the bio-
logical on the social.
Lukács provides a number of examples of the enduring influence
of nature on society. At the level of infrastructure according to historical
materialism, the Ontology of Social Being highlights two instances of the un-
breakable tethering of the social (here as the economic) to the natural.
First, Lukács maintains that divisions of labor, as central to any and every
socioeconomic system, arise from and continue to be parasitic upon
biological differences between individual human organisms (with these
differences becoming, over the course of social history, ever more socially
sublated, although never eliminated altogether).162 Second, the Ontol-
ogy asserts that exchange-values never detach fully from use-values, with
the economy permanently and insurmountably underpinned by mate-
rial production and its tangible goods.163 At the level of superstructure,
Lukács proposes that even the highest of high-cultural achievements
remain tied, however indirectly and through intermediary links, to the
bases furnished by human biological forces and factors.164
At the same time, and contrary to contemplative materialisms,
Lukács also stresses the detachment and independence of the social in
relation to the natural, thanks to the temporally elongated leap of anthro-
pogenesis.165 For the Ontology of Social Being in its profound Hegelianism,
anthropogenesis is a historically protracted struggle for liberation (Be-
freiungskampf ) in which, through powers of downward causation, society
acts upon and transforms nature.166 Thereby, human beings, primarily
through the activities and processes of laboring, attain ever-greater de-
grees of relative, but never absolute, autonomy as freedom from natural
conditions and constraints. This distinction between relative and abso-
lute autonomy is crucial for Lukács. He repeatedly emphasizes that no
complete transcendence or liquidation of the natural by the social is ever
possible.167
Lukács offers no explicit engagement with the Freudian tradition
in the Ontology of Social Being. Nonetheless, Lukácsian dialectical materi-
alism tacitly converges with psychoanalysis thanks to a cluster of observa-
tions made in the Ontology. These observations concern pivotal sites and
mechanisms through which the natural and the social encounter and
interpenetrate each other within singular human organisms. By implica-
tion, psychoanalytic accounts of ontogeny — incidentally, the Lukács of
the Ontology makes phylogeny recapitulate ontogeny, rather than vice
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versa (as per Haeckel)168 — equip Marxism with explanatory resources that
are invaluable for a dialectical materialist philosophical anthropology.169
But what are the specific psychoanalysis-related observations made
by Lukács in the Ontology of Social Being? To begin with, he alights upon
the biological fact of humans’ distinctively prolonged pre-maturational
helplessness after birth as fateful for an anthropogenesis in which humans
are by their nature inclined to the social sublation of this very nature.170
Lukács insightfully adds to this, with the benefit of his historical mate-
rialist sensibilities, that increasing social complexity over the course of
human history results in the corresponding prolongation of the period
of pre-maturational helplessness. This greater complexity means that
human children have to learn more before they are ready to navigate
their socialized environments.171
Relatedly, this social complexity, as it historically increases, cor-
relatively generates ever more potential and actual conflicts within and
between social components and subcomponents. For Lukács, education
broadly construed means that human beings are socially mediated as
soon as they are born.172 Through upbringing (Erziehung) and formation
(Bildung), maturing children internalize not only social mediators, but
also social conflicts. As does psychoanalysis, Lukácsian dialectical mate-
rialism proposes that subjective consciousness takes shape around and
remains profoundly structured by such fault lines of conflict.173
Finally, there is the matter of sexuality. The Lukács of the Ontology
of Social Being pinpoints sexual reproduction as a central hinge between
the natural and the social.174 Subsequently in the Ontology, he writes more
broadly of the fleshly person’s bodily requirements and motivations. In
psychoanalytic terms, these would constitute the field of sexuality beyond
the narrow sphere of literal biological reproduction. That said, Lukács
brings to the fore a sort of dialectical coincidence of (apparent) opposites
in which the biological individual’s most basic and brute bodily needs
and urges, as seemingly what are most distant from the orders of denatu-
ralized social structures and dynamics, are precisely the loci of maximal
socialization within the embodied human being, in which social media-
tion is most present and palpable.175 I would suggest that this evident
convergence between the “low and base physics” of the sexual and the
“high and refined metaphysics” of the socio-subjective is at the very core
of psychoanalysis too.
At this juncture, three of Lukács’s caveats with regard to his care-
fully qualified dialectical materialist naturalism must be noted. First, with
the ontological and genetic-historical priority of natural over human
being, pre- and nonhuman nature was, is, and will be absolutely indiffer-
ent to sociality and subjectivity.176 As per the priority of being over think-
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ing, pre- and nonhuman nature likewise is utterly non-sapient and, apart
from animal organisms, non-sentient too.177 Whereas social beings are
never entirely separate from the mediations of subjects, natural beings
can be and are separate from such mediations.178 Late-Lukácsian ontol-
ogy repudiates panpsychism as well as antirealist subjectivism or social
constructionism.179
The second non-negligible caveat essential to appreciate here is
that, in good Darwinian fashion, Lukács denies that there is any teleo-
logical necessity which governs and guarantees the emergences of or-
ganic out of inorganic nature and of society out of nature. Admittedly,
Lukács contends that any non-contemplative materialist ontology must
grant a place to teleology. Insofar as sociality and subjectivity are non-
reductively included in such an ontology, teleological phenomena (such
as human social laboring) have to be admitted as really existent. Lukács
says the same about ontologically recognizing certain forms of human-
subjective negativity too.180
Nonetheless, pre- and nonhuman nature unfolds and persists in
the complete absence of and disregard for all teleologies. Consequently,
there is no natural (meta-)teleology dictating as inevitable the emergence
of specifically human teleologies. In other words, anthropogenesis is, as
an originally natural event (or set of events), thoroughly contingent. Just
because, as per Marx’s Grundrisse, the anatomy of the human is the key
to the anatomy of the primate, this does not mean that the genesis of the
human out of the primate is a preordained outcome.181 Indeed, Lukács
describes anthropogenesis as “factual,” namely, as historically acciden-
tal.182 He correspondingly portrays humans as contingent syntheses-in-
tension of natural and social facets.183
The third and final major qualification attaching to Lukács’s dia-
lectical materialist naturalism which I feel is important to note is its anti-
deterministic character. Lukács categorically rejects the association of
Marxism with any sort of determinism, Spinozistic or otherwise.184 He
adduces a number of reasons for this rejection. First of all, Marx’s theory
of real abstractions, especially as situated in relation to the ontological
strata of the Ontology of Social Being, brings with it twin anti-deterministic
entailments: one, social and subjective superstructures (such as ideas
and institutions) are irreducible to and not directly determined by their
economic or natural bases; and two, such superstructures come to exert
reciprocal determining influences on their bases.185 Societies and sub-
jects enjoy, in Lukács’s eyes, non-epiphenomenal (relative) autonomy
and causal efficacy.
Secondly, Lukács portrays Marx’s account of anthropogenesis and
the ensuing arc of human history as humanity’s movement from a state of
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predominant heteronomy in the face of nature to states of comparatively

ever-greater autonomy thanks to increasing social powers over nature.186
As the natural barriers hindering human freedom gradually recede under
the counterpressure of social laboring, the modality of natural necessity
gives way more and more to that of social contingency (as a range of so-
cially available options for individual and collective conduct).187 Likewise,
the Ontology posits that the historical developments of different forms of
human praxes engender different forms of potentials and powers for free
(self-)determination.188
Like the later Sartre of the Critique of Dialectical Reason, but without
manifestly recognizing this likeness, the later Lukács too aims at an anti-
deterministic compatibilism wherein spontaneous, self-conscious subjects
are reconciled with the pre-, non-, and trans-subjective constellations and
movements of both historical and dialectical materialism. Lukács’s insis-
tence that individuals matter within Marxist ontology appeals to Engels’s
“subjective factor,” namely, the thesis that persons’ conscious intentions
and purposes contribute meaningfully to sociohistorical processes.189 Ad-
ditionally, the Prolegomena to the Ontology of Social Being contains an au-
dible (but unacknowledged) echo of the Sartrean motif of “condemna-
tion to freedom.” Therein, Lukács posits that humans are “responding
beings” who are compelled to respond specifically in the form of choices
and decisions to situations and options presented by the contingencies
and variables of ever-more-complex social modes of existence.190
Three main features of the later Lukács’s theorizing remain for me
to cover before I close this chapter by pinpointing exactly how my tran-
scendental materialist dialectical naturalism picks up where the Ontology
of Social Being leaves off: (1) Lukács’s ontological interpretation of Hegel,
(2) his ontological interpretation of Marx, and (3) his philosophy of the
natural sciences. This last stretch of my coverage of the mature Lukács
will make even more evident the parallels between his work and my labors
in the present book. At the same time, this manner of concluding the
current chapter leads to my final assessment of how and why I depart in
certain fashions from this Lukács.
I have already mentioned Lukács’s Leninist redeployment of
Hegel’s immanent critique of Kant’s subjectivist transcendental idealism
and his related endorsement of the robustly realist side of Hegel’s
non/post-subjectivist absolute idealism. Likewise, Lukács underlines that
the Hegelian Concept is ontological (as the Idea in its immanence to the
Real of the Realphilosophie) as well as logical.191 He also praises Hegel’s
overcoming of the Kantian thing in itself.192 His observation that, for
Marx, pre- and nonsubjective beings always already are formed in and
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of themselves193 should be seen as implicitly revealing another of Marx’s

debts to Hegel.
Relatedly, Lukács explicitly acknowledges several other aspects of
Hegelianism as indispensable precursors of Marxism. Hegel’s ontologiza-
tion of Kant’s epistemological dialectics makes contradiction central to
ontology, a centrality also featuring in historical and dialectical material-
ism.194 Furthermore, the Ontology reaffirms Hegel’s ontological vision of
substance-also-as-subject.195 This vision is linked to a metamorphosis in
the history of philosophy of the distinction between idealism and mate-
rialism, a Hegelian change paving the way for Marx’s transubstantiation
of the very idea of what materialism is and can be.196
An entire chapter of the Ontology of Social Being is devoted to Hegel.
Early on in the Hegel chapter, Lukács asks, “Given the omnipotence of
nature [der Allmacht der Natur], how could man and society ever have de-
parted from it?”197 He immediately goes on to stipulate that a conception
of nature as too homogeneous and unitary (in my terms, too “strong”
as causally closed and self-consistent) thwarts the possibility of answer-
ing this just-posed question.198 Lukacs’s reflections here can readily be
identified as pointing to the significance of the Hegelian impotence/
weakness of nature (die Ohnmacht der Natur) for an anti-reductive, non-
contemplative ontology of substance-also-as-subject.
As Lukács appreciates in connection with Hegel’s Realphilosophie,
if non-epiphenomenal self-conscious subjects enjoying actual autonomy
are posited to really exist, then it must be presupposed (and then pos-
ited in turn at the level of a philosophy of nature) that nature itself is
weak rather than strong. Indeed, the Ontology of Social Being promptly
proceeds to refer to Hegel’s Naturphilosophie, arguing with approval that
Hegel establishes nature as the ultimate ontological base of all dialectical
geneses.199 Lukács is adamant that Marxism requires this Hegelian ontol-
ogy of nature, which brings with it the Naturdialektik forming the heart of
dialectical materialism as itself the basis of Marxist materialism.200
Before shifting attention to the portions of the Ontology dealing
with Marx and labor, one additional facet of Lukács’s multifaceted as-
sessment of Hegel is worth spotlighting. A couple of times in The Young
Hegel, Lukács brings to the fore the Hegelian thematic of historical emer-
gences of the transhistorical.201 Lukács’s Marxist philosophy of the natural
sciences takes the findings and discoveries of these disciplines to be cases
in point of this Hegelian thematic. What is more, this thematic is a central
concern of transcendental materialism.
The discussions of Marx and labor in the Ontology of Social Being
go hand-in-hand. In these, Lukács is concerned with fleshing out a
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philosophical anthropology of humans as socially laboring beings. Fol-

lowing in Marx’s footsteps, he upholds the unique aspects of distinc-
tively human labor, particularly as teleological thanks to its guidance
by cognitive-conceptual deliberation and planning.202 By virtue of the
reciprocal modifications of laboring subjectivity and labored-upon ob-
jectivity that are initiated and perpetuated by teleologically oriented la-
boring activities, human laborers (partially) denaturalize not only their
objective surroundings, but also themselves in the process.203 Labor is
humanizing to the extent that, in laboring, humans produce not only
the products of labor, but also themselves as properly human.204 This
labor-induced humanization consists of the ontological emergence of
the categorial subject-object distinction via anthropogenesis205 and a non-
epiphenomenal reworking of biology and its requirements (especially
human needs in their plasticity).206
In addition to Marx, the Engels specifically of the 1876 essay “The
Part Played by Labour in the Transition from Ape to Man” is invoked by
the Ontology. Lukács acknowledges the Engelsianism of his account of
anthropogenesis as arising from and through labor.207 Moreover, Hegel’s
conception of objective spirit/mind is in the background in terms of the
notion of there being concrete materializations of mindedness and like-
mindedness in the external world.
Along these lines, Lukács portrays the Marxian-Engelsian theory
of labor as involving human subjectivity becoming non-epiphenomenal
precisely through turning itself inside out by remaking objectivity in its
own image.208 Labor, via its externalizations, concretizations, and mate-
rializations, endows anthropogenetic leaps with sustained momentum
and enduring existence.209 Additionally, and as does Engels, Lukács sees
language functioning like labor insofar as the former also externalizes,
objectifies, and renders human thinking as sociohistorically lasting.
Language hence further buttresses anthropogenetic trajectories and re-
inforces the non-epiphenomenality of subjects’ consciousnesses.210
The last thing I will remark upon before turning to the mature
Lukács’s philosophy of the natural sciences is a subtle link in his ontol-
ogy between (what he takes to be) a Hegelian compatibilism and the
Marxian-Engelsian account of laboring. In the Prolegomena to the Ontology
of Social Being, Lukács presents labor as developing possibilities already
contained within nature that nature itself would never bring to light on
its own without human activity.211 Therefore, laboring, despite being a
denaturalizing dynamic, nevertheless internally works with, rather than
externally against, nature; labor uses nature’s inner potentials in ways that
nature itself, without labor, would not and could not.
At one point, the Ontology invokes a common Marxist misunder-
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standing of Hegel’s compatibilism. Lukács repeats the mantra according

to which Hegelian freedom is known necessity. More precisely, this knowl-
edge amounts to Geist both theoretically and practically (through scien-
tific savoir and technological savoir-faire respectively) positing its natural
presuppositions, as Hegel himself would phrase it.212 Lukács’s traditional
Marxist rendition of Hegelian compatibilism clearly dovetails with his as-
sertion about labor as denaturalizing nature by grasping and mobilizing
various of nature’s own possibilities and potentials.
Finally, I come to the late Lukács’s philosophy of natural science,
the last topic I will address before concluding this chapter with a sketch of
what I see remaining to be done after the Ontology of Social Being. By such
stark contrast with the youthful author of History and Class Consciousness,
the mature Lukács is at pains to stress the philosophical and political im-
portance for Marxism of a critical appropriation of the natural sciences.213
Somewhat unfairly to Hegel, he credits Marx with correcting Hegel’s pur-
portedly traditional assertion of the queenly sovereignty of philosophy
over other fields of knowledge. According to this Lukács, one of Marx’s
many achievements is to have justly inverted Hegel’s prioritization of phi-
losophy over the empirical disciplines.214
But what does the final Lukács value about the natural sciences es-
pecially? In the Prolegomena to the Ontology of Social Being, he foregrounds
these sciences’ de-anthropomorphizing dimensions.215 Guided by meth-
odologies designed to screen out all-too-human interferences that other-
wise stand in the way of encountering the inhuman realities of asubjective
nature, these disciplines orient themselves by standards of objective truth
that cut through and across ideologies.216 Once again in line with Marx,
Lukács also insists that capitalism should be sincerely thanked for histori-
cally sparking and fostering the advances of modernity’s empirical, ex-
perimental sciences of nature.217 This would be yet another way in which
capitalism functions as a sociohistorical possibility condition for its own
critical surpassing. In this instance, capital-catalyzed knowledge prepares
the ground for the ontology of Marxist dialectical materialism.
With Althusser in the background here, the relationship between
science and ideology is a topic casting its shadow over the Lukács pres-
ently under discussion. With regard to this issue, the Ontology opposes any
standard historical materialist reduction of the natural sciences either
to infrastructure or to superstructure.218 Nonetheless, Lukács does not
deny that infrastructural and superstructural forces profoundly shape
the sciences. In particular, he readily admits that science is influenced
by ideology.
Yet, Lukács tacitly diagnoses certain commonplace genetic falla-
cies in Marxism. Specifically, he argues that science can and does pro-
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duce objectively true knowledge even when ideological factors play a role
in such production.219 In the Prolegomena to the Ontology of Social Being,
Lukács goes further: ideology sometimes even helps lead the sciences
to genuine, valid discoveries.220 For example, the ideologically inflected
imaginations of working natural scientists contribute to the formulation
of hypotheses or the design of experiments that result in authentic scien-
tific breakthroughs.
Despite the voluminousness of the Ontology of Social Being, its many
pages contain little by way of sustained reckonings with the particular
contents of the empirical, experimental sciences of nature (perhaps be-
cause of the unfinished status of the Ontology).221 This Lukács repeatedly
underscores in a programmatic fashion the urgency of Marxist material-
ism engaging with the natural sciences generally. But he does not fully
follow through with executing this program himself. Complaints such as
those of Barbara Tuchanska, who charges that Lukács fails to explain the
leap-like emergence of the social out of the natural,222 are understandable
in this light. The lack of scientific details in Lukács’s emergentism leaves
him vulnerable to such complaints.
Lukács affirms, as do I, the indispensability of Hegel’s weakness of
nature for an anti-reductive, non-contemplative, and quasi-naturalist on-
tology of substance-also-as-subject (or, in Lukács’s terms, of nature-also-
as-society). Yet, as regards this matter too, he again neglects the data and
implications of the natural sciences. He fails to interface the Hegelian
Ohnmacht der Natur with the present-best sciences generally and the life
sciences in particular. By exploring the scientific (and particularly bio-
logical) preconditions for the subjectification and socialization of the
human organism, I move toward making good on this explanatory obli-
gation that is left unfulfilled by Lukács.
With Engels in mind, Lukács maintains the irreducible significance
of the subjective-as-individual factor in human social history.223 Lukács’s
ontology rests upon the foundations provided by his three main cate-
gories of inorganic nature, organic nature, and society. However, this
third and last ontological-categorial stratum evidently includes within
itself subjects-as-individuals distinct from the societies with which they
nonetheless remain inextricably intertwined.
The Ontology indeed concludes in favor of the reality of human
individuation.224 But Lukács does not explicitly advance theoretical argu-
mentation that justifies and supports this conclusion. The conditions and
mechanisms behind individuation are not brought to light. This specific
darkness can be illuminated through resources untouched by Lukács,
namely, those furnished by psychoanalysis. Unlike the later Lukács, the
later Sartre signals an awareness of this promise of illumination when he
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reaches out to psychoanalysis as an “auxiliary discipline” that is vital for

the renewal of Marxism.225 However, unlike Lukács, Sartre conspicuously
fails to mention any of the natural sciences as such auxiliary disciplines.
Sartre’s name brings up another problematic that haunts the Ontol-
ogy of Social Being. For Hegel as well as Sartre, subjectivity is, if nothing
else, certainly not to be equated with individuality. According to both the
Hegelian and Sartrean philosophies, the subject proper involves a uni-
versal, cogito-like negativity that is irreducible to the individual as an “I,”
“me,” “self,” “person,” and the like. Where a subjectivity that is irreduc-
ible as much to individuality as to sociality might fit, if anywhere, in the
Ontology is unclear at best.
The final Lukács offers a powerful critique of and attractive alter-
native to those Western Marxisms that he himself, with History and Class
Consciousness, originally helped to spawn. Whatever the inadequacies of
his Ontology, it cries out for the serious attention of all those today who
associate themselves with Marxism and materialism. It definitely does not
deserve the neglect and obscurity to which it has been quietly abandoned
over the course of the past several decades. In closing this chapter, I do
not so much leave the late Lukács behind as carry him forward.
Part 3

Negativity Mystical and Material:

Privative Causality from Pico della
Mirandola to Lacan
11

The Privation of Science:

Lacking Causes

Whereas part 2 of this book focuses on Marxism at the intersection of ma-

terialist philosophy and natural science, part 3 shifts attention to psycho-
analysis as situated at the same intersection. Freudian and Lacanian
analysis share with both German idealist Naturphilosophie and Marxist
historical/dialectical materialism a combination of, on the one hand,
investments in science-informed (quasi-)naturalism and, on the other
hand, commitments to robustly anti-reductive accounts of denaturalized
subjects. This red thread of what could be called “dialectical natural-
ism” arguably connects Hegelianism, Marxism, Freudianism, and Lacan-
ianism. It distinguishes them from other traditions and orientations tied
to the European continent from the late eighteenth century through the
present. Moreover, transcendental materialism both helps retroactively to
render this dialectical naturalist thread (more) visible and strives further
to bring out its theoretical implications.
The dialectical dimensions of this naturalism essential to tran-
scendental materialism are composed of nature-immanent negativities.
Psychoanalysis as developed by Freud and Lacan indeed posits certain
natural negatives as central to anthropogenesis and subject formation,
starting with the deficiency of prolonged pre-maturational helplessness
and the discord of unharmonized id-level drive tendencies. Hence, Hege-
lianism, Marxism, Freudianism, and Lacanianism share a reliance upon
the notion of non-epiphenomenal, causally efficacious negativities as im-
manent yet irreducible to material nature(s). Part 3 aims to delineate
a theory of such negativities at the crossroads of philosophy (Kant and
Hegel), science (biology), and psychoanalysis (Lacan). In a moment,
the present chapter will get this delineation underway by pushing off
from John Locke’s musing about “privative causality” treated as a late-
seventeenth-century foreshadowing of the issue of objectively real nega-
tivity.
From Alexandre Koyré in the mid-twentieth century to Quentin
Meillassoux today, French neo-rationalist epistemology and philosophy
of science indefensibly tends to ignore Baconian empiricism, with the
latter’s emphasis on methodical observation and experimentation as

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essential to scientificity in the modern sense. This neo-rationalism re-

lies upon a distorting appropriation of the Galilean distinction between
primary and secondary qualities.1 The very phrasing of this distinction
legible in Galileo’s text “The Assayer” (1623) is to be found in another
canonical work of the early modern period: the British empiricist John
Locke’s hulking tome An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690).
Locke takes up the matter of primary and secondary qualities in chapter 8
(“Some Further Considerations Concerning Our Simple Ideas of Sensa-
tion”) of “Book Two” (“Of Ideas”).2
Interestingly, Locke’s handling of these different discerned quali-
ties of perceptible bodies is immediately preceded by his discussion of an-
other distinction, namely, that between two types of causes, “positive” and
“privative.”3 In both his pre-critical essay “Attempt to Introduce the Con-
cept of Negative Magnitudes into Philosophy” (1763) and the Critique of
Pure Reason, Kant later covers similar terrain with greater technical preci-
sion and exactitude.4 Locke distinguishes between two possible categories
of origins or sources in the objective world for the subjective mind’s ideas:
presences and absences. In terms of what he dubs “simple ideas of sensa-
tion” (i.e., basic percepts of consciousness),5 coldness and darkness count
as two straightforward illustrations of these kinds of ideas. As contents of
a subject’s sentient awareness, the ideas of coldness and darkness are, as
are all sensations for Locke, effects generated in the mind by the extra-
mental world. However, in instances of perceptual representations such
as the two considered as examples here, a question that can be asked is
whether certain sorts of simple ideas of sensation are actually caused by
the presence or absence of a given entity or event in mind-independent
objective being. Are the ideas of coldness and darkness triggered by the
presence of really-existing, non-ideational coldness and darkness (i.e.,
positive causes), or are they merely the mental correlates of the absences
of heat and light (i.e., privative causes)?
Locke tries to remain noncommittal about the ontological reality of
privative causes over the short course of the six paragraphs treating them
as distinct from positive causes. Kant too subsequently wavers, confessing
that “it is often difficult to decide whether certain negations of nature
are merely lacks [Mängel] arising from the absence of a ground, or de-
privations resulting from the real opposition [Realentgegensetzung] of two
positive grounds.”6 On this occasion, Locke is being uncharacteristically
consistent. At the outset of An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, he
announces his intention to restrict himself exclusively to epistemology,
thereby avoiding forays into the realms of ontology.7 But, in both Locke’s
case as well as that of the Kantian transcendental idealism that Locke
helps to inspire, the gesture of restricting theoretical philosophy to epis-
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temology must, in the very act of its performance, simultaneously violate

this its own restriction. It must either overtly posit or covertly presuppose
a corresponding ontology supporting even empiricist and critical theo-
ries of knowledge that are ostensibly agnostic about being as it is in and
of itself beyond knowing.8
Locke, without contradicting his inconsistently maintained ontolog-
ical agnosticism, admits the possibility in principle of objective privations
(i.e., absences, lacks, etc.) being real causes of simple ideas of sensation
as positive contents in the minds of subjects as conscious epistemological
agents.9 Similarly, he allows for the meaningfulness of “negative names”
designating privations as themselves given facts of experience known to
minded awareness.10 But Locke quickly moves on to consideration of the
distinction between primary and secondary qualities, leaving behind that
between positive and privative causes in a state of uncertainty, indetermi-
nateness, and irresolution.
Kant, at the end of the second section of his “Attempt to Intro-
duce the Concept of Negative Magnitudes into Philosophy,” evinces a
modest hesitancy reflecting his cautious philosophical temperament. He
observes that:

The negative and positive causality of different forms of matter . . .

seems to conceal important truths. It is to be hoped that a more fortu-
nate posterity, on whose happy existence we direct our gaze, will one
day discover the universal laws which govern these phenomena, which
for the moment only appear to us under the form of a still ambiguous
harmony.11

My leading aim in this context is to foreground and elucidate the “nega-

tive . . . causality of different forms of matter.” Moreover, I strive to do so
differently than would Kant— and this in three respects: first, by conceiv-
ing of matter in both a realist and materialist fashion that is at odds with
the antirealism of transcendental idealism, with its “material” objects as
mere phenomenal appearances; second, by showing how and why a suf-
ficiently rich account of the negativities of privative causes problematizes
the very notion of “universal laws” in the natural sciences as appealed
to by Kant here and throughout his corpus (and this precisely insofar
as these real absences aid in giving rise to subjects who themselves are
not governed by the “universal laws of nature”); and third, by resolving
the ambiguity of Kant’s “still ambiguous harmony” through revealing
the fundamentally disharmonious structures and dynamics of material
beings.
Leaping ahead from the eighteenth century to the present— I will
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return to Kant subsequently— Terrence Deacon’s book Incomplete Nature:

How Mind Emerged from Matter (2012) is an ambitious attempt to incorpo-
rate privations and negations into the modern worldviews prevailing in
the empirical and experimental sciences. It warrants sustained scrutiny in
this setting. Deacon correctly asserts that modern natural science tends to
ignore or exclude any type of negativity or privation from playing causal
roles in its explanations of the physical universe.12
What Deacon calls his “absentialism”13 reasonably can be identified
as a move in the direction of bridging the gap between, on the one hand,
Bacon and Galileo (i.e., modern science as running from them, through
Newton, and up to the contemporary conjuncture) and, on the other
hand, Locke and Kant specifically with regard to the topic of privative/
negative causes. Deacon does not address Locke’s or Kant’s reflections
on privative/negative causality, and instead fingers Locke as guilty of con-
tributing to the dominance of a mechanistic positivism in the natural
sciences, as opposed to absentialism.14 Deacon’s only other reference to
Locke’s philosophy is a passing mention of this empiricist’s metaphor of
the tabula rasa.15 However, Deacon explicitly invokes Kant’s depiction of
life as per the Critique of the Power of Judgment, indicating the indebtedness
of his absential conception of organisms to Kant.16
My response to Incomplete Nature is mixed. Starting with what in Dea-
con’s book inspires enthusiasm in me, I wholeheartedly endorse his call
for a new scientific Weltanschauung that would overcome the narrowness
of the worldview of modern science that has reigned for the past four
centuries. This narrowness results from an almost exclusive focus on the
efficient causes operative in the material domains covered by the suppos-
edly fundamental and ultimate discipline of the physics of the inorganic.
Phenomena associated with the Aristotelian category of final causality
clearly provide Deacon with exemplars of the absential (non-)entities and
(non-)events he strives to encompass in an expanded and transformed
scientific paradigm. However, by contrast with idealist reactions against
the prohibition of appeals to final causes in the natural sciences of mo-
dernity, Deaconian absentialism admirably struggles to remain firmly ma-
terialist.
Deacon arouses additional sympathy in me by adopting what could
be characterized, borrowing a term from Badiou, as a “subtractive” ap-
proach. With Deacon’s dual allegiances to both (quasi-)naturalist ma-
terialism as well as anti-reductionism/eliminativism, he is pushed into
embracing a variant of emergentism. Given the further factor of his ab-
sentialism, this variant has to be on the strong end of the emergentist
spectrum.17
However, Deacon does not standardly depict emergences as addi-
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tions of positive excesses or surpluses with respect to their preceding

grounds of existence. Instead, he claims that “emergent properties are
not something added, but rather a reflection of something restricted and
hidden via ascent in scale due to constraints propagated from lower-level
dynamical processes.”18 Deacon’s focus throughout Incomplete Nature is
on vectors of constraint generation as the keys to a nonmystical emer-
gentism that is fully compatible with the scientific treatment of nature.
A subtractive emergentism of the absent, rather than a more traditional
additive emergentism of the present, perhaps avoids the very potential
for reduction or elimination because, according to Deacon, “absence has
no components, and so it can’t be reduced or eliminated.”19
In line with a number of other thinkers,20 Deacon rightly decouples
the idea of natural evolution from any notions in the vein of optimi-
zation, perfection, progress, and so on.21 He proceeds to link his non-
teleological, deflated conception of evolutionary sequences with his ab-
sentialist stress on lack and incompleteness: “As scientists and engineers,
we tend to focus on the properties that we discern to be most relevant
to our abstract sense of a given function; but life is only dependent on
excluding those that are least helpful.”22 The demands and pressures of
natural selection require of living creatures only that they survive (not
necessarily flourish, thrive, etc.) up to the point at which they manage to
pass on their genetic material. This minimal evolutionary requirement
of simply lasting long enough to reproduce permits suboptimal beings
that are far from perfection to nevertheless persist in the world. As a
German saying has it, Dumm fickt gut. In connection with this, Deacon’s
absentialism leads him to recommend an evolutionary-theoretic shift of
attention in which, for organisms, what is most vital is the evasion and
fending-off of the lowest (perhaps zero) degrees of (mal)adaptation and
(dys)functionality.
Particularly from a perspective informed by psychoanalysis, another
appealing aspect of Deacon’s stance is his emphasis on the centrality of
conflict in theorizing emergences. Deacon extensively employs versions
of a fundamental distinction between spontaneous (i.e., “orthograde”)
and non-spontaneous (i.e., “contragrade”) dynamic tendencies of mate-
rial systems (be they physical, chemical, or biological) in his account of
different levels of emergent phenomena. More precisely, tensions and
clashes between multiple such tendencies are said to be the triggers for
sudden, abrupt jumps up emergent levels. In fact, according to Deacon,
intra-orthograde conflicts immanently generate contragrade processes.
Insofar as he pictures the physical universe as differentiated into a teem-
ing plethora of uncoordinated, unorchestrated entities and systems with
distinct orthograde dynamics that are not automatically in sync with each
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other, he renders nature “incomplete” by subtracting from it any pre-

sumptively hypothesized foundation or background consisting of har-
mony, integration, totalization, or wholeness.23
Also in connection with psychoanalysis, Lacan in particular has sus-
tained and regular recourse to absences, gaps, holes, lacks, splits, voids,
and the like as integral figures within his metapsychology. Therefore,
Deacon’s absentialist recasting of the sciences perhaps reasonably can be
seen as partly answering a provocative question posed by Lacan: “What
would a science be that included psychoanalysis?”24 I would go so far as to
say that the basic soundness of Lacanian theory, at least for a materialist
unwilling to disregard the sciences, hinges on whether a relation to mate-
rial beings and to real causal efficacy can be attributed to the absent and
the negative in manners that are coherently integrated with the natural
sciences. Hence, Deacon’s absentialist project should be of great interest
to Lacanians.
Before moving on to an expression of the negative side of my am-
bivalent response to Deacon’s Incomplete Nature, a couple of additional
merits of his position deserve recognition. These involve his fine balanc-
ing acts between the scientific and the more-than-scientific as well as the
material and the more-than-material. As regards science, Deacon does
not allow his strong-emergentist anti-reductionism to lead him into dis-
guised, pseudoscientific dualisms. He carefully maintains a dialectical
interplay of continuities and discontinuities between the many distinct
layers and strata of nature as these are reflected in the divisions of labor
between the different branches and subbranches of the natural sciences.25
Deacon advocates against basing theories of life and mind on phys-
ics as the presumably rock-bottom grounding level of explanation for
any and every materialism wedded to the sciences of nature.26 However,
although he conceives of both the organic and the mental as ontologi-
cally as well as epistemologically irreducible to sub-organic disciplinary
dimensions, he is careful to insist that his brand of emergentism does not
conjure up or entail “some disconnection from determinate physics.”27
That is to say, on the one hand (i.e., discontinuity vis-à-vis physics), living
and minded beings exhibit degrees of independence from the material
universe of efficient causes studied by physicists. But, on the other hand
(i.e., continuity vis-à-vis physics), these beings by no means can and do
drastically violate the patterns and regularities that are seen to hold for
the physical Real. Appropriating a distinction from Kant’s deontological
ethics, Deacon’s sentient and sapient organisms always act in conformity
with physics’ “laws of nature,” although they far from always act accord-
ing to intentions that are directly determined or dictated by these “laws.”
As regards matter, Deaconian absentialism, like my transcenden-
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tal materialism, envisions full-fledged subjectivity as the paradigmatic

instance of an immanent natural-material genesis of a denaturalized,
more-than-material transcendence-in-immanence. 28 Deacon intends
to anchor his absentialist emergentism in empirical determinations of
physical being (as per physics, chemistry, biology, etc.). By his lights, the
natural sciences uncover the effective existence of multiple processes of
self-limitation that are internally generated within and between emer-
gent strata of material structures and phenomena. What is more, Deacon
construes such constraints as paradoxical incarnations of what is absent
by virtue of the dynamics of constraining. The apparent paradox is that
any such incarnation is a presence of absence, a Hegelian-style dialecti-
cal convergence of the (seeming) opposites of presence and absence.
As Deacon puts it, “constraints are the present signature of what is ab-
sent.”29 If, therefore, absences are the negations of presences as material
embodiments, then the constraints that Deacon claims are intra-systemic
self-limitations produced within and out of given configurations of mate-
rial bodies are (no-)things “in matter more than matter itself” (to para-
phrase Lacan).
Deacon warns that this “non-material” (what I label as “more-than-
material”) quality of “dynamical constraints,” which are themselves in-
ternal yet irreducible to the physical mediums of their instantiations,
is oddly similar to but nonetheless crucially different from the immate-
rial as posited in Cartesian metaphysics.30 Yet, the relative pertinence of
Descartes to Deaconian absentialism is slightly more complicated and
nuanced than Deacon’s casual reference to him indicates. In the second
of Descartes’s six Meditations on First Philosophy, he slides from a verb-like
cogito (as in “Cogito, ergo sum”) to a noun-like “res cogitans” (i.e., a think-
ing substance envisioned in conformity with a substance metaphysics that
predates Cartesian modernity).31 Put differently, Descartes’s shift to talk-
ing about a “thing that thinks” amounts to replacing a model of subjec-
tivity as an event (or, more accurately, a series of events) with one of it as
an entity. In other words, Descartes begins the “Second Meditation” by
alighting upon a kinetic subject (i.e., the Cogito as a dynamic, event, pro-
cess, verb, etc.) and ends it with the fixed metaphysical objectification of
a static “subject” as a substratum (i.e., the res cogitans as an entity, noun,
thing, substance, etc.).32 In short, the becoming of the cogito comes to
be eclipsed by the being of the res cogitans.
Deacon is doubly distant from the substance metaphysics of Carte-
sian rational psychology insofar as this metaphysics involves not only an
idealist-as-antimaterialist ontological dualism, but also a non-absentialist
emphasis on the presence of immaterial substances. Yet, he is closer to
Descartes than he realizes. More precisely, Deacon’s rooting of subjects
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in an ongoing dynamics of constraining is amenable to being depicted as

a non-idealist, quasi-monist narrative concerning the material surfacing
of cogito-like subjectivity. Such a depiction further underscores the prox-
imity between Deaconian absentialist emergentism and transcendental
materialism.
As for the negative side of my mixed response to Incomplete Nature,
I detect several problems with Deacon’s framework. To begin with, Dea-
con presents his absentialist brand of strong emergentism as adequately
addressing the Chalmers-style “hard problems” that are so central to
debates in Anglo-American analytic philosophy of mind.33 However, it
is far from clear to me whether and how he achieves this. I simply do
not see, anywhere in the pages of Incomplete Nature, direct and thorough
answers to questions about the transition from nonconscious bodies
(whether inorganic or organic) to sentient or sapient mindedness.
Instead, what I do see — and Deacon certainly deserves partial
credit regarding these hard-problem questions — is a careful, painstak-
ing cataloging of many necessary conditions at the levels of the physical,
the chemical, and the biological that at least make possible, even if not
actual, the genesis of sentience and sapience. That is to say, Incomplete
Nature manages to get halfway to a robust, exhaustive reckoning of a
non-reductive, non-eliminative sort with the perennial mind-body mys-
tery. But Deacon’s book nonetheless remains incomplete in a sense other
than that signaled by its title— and this insofar as necessary and sufficient
conditions are not the same things.
In my reading, the incompleting of nature that is knowledgeably
effectuated by Deacon amounts to a detailed delineation of how and
why the physical universe is a place capable in principle of accommodat-
ing within itself entities and events that are irreducible to the mechanics
of the efficient causality of moving bodies alone. As the epigraph to the
fifth chapter (entitled “Emergence”) of Incomplete Nature, taken from
Ilya Prigogine and Isabelle Stengers, has it, “we need an account of the
material world in which it isn’t absurd to claim that it produced us.”34 Yet,
explaining via necessary conditions the non-absurdity of the immanent
natural and material emergence of the denaturalized and more-than-
material is not, by itself, tantamount to plausibly explaining via sufficient
conditions the actual reality of this emergence.
Deacon’s absential incompletenesses of nature constitute some, but
not all, of the set of antecedent conditions that, taken together, are the
sufficient (over and above the merely necessary) conditions for a strongly
emergent and irreducible subject that qualifies as self-determining, as
both autonomous and freestanding. Subjective freedom proper is equiva-
lent neither to the bare absence of sub-subjective natural-causal deter-
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mination nor to intentional states of consciousness in either the philo-

sophical or quotidian senses of the adjective “intentional.” Bluntly put,
the absence of determinism by itself does not automatically equal the
presence of freedom. At most, it amounts to there being mere random-
ness, which is perfectly possible in systems that are totally devoid of any-
thing resembling the sorts of human selves and subjects that Deacon
wishes to embrace in his framework. Similarly, whether in the technical
or everyday sense of intentionality, a creature can be intentional without
thereby also being free as self-determining— and this because its inten-
tions, as either referential aboutnesses or teleological motivations, can
be heteronomously determined by any number of endogenous or exog-
enous variables that are amenable to normal causal analyses. Contrary to
Deacon, simply being able to call before conscious awareness absences
(as states of affairs not present) does not, on its own, establish the effica-
cious existence of actual freedom as realized by the most denaturalized
and self-reflexive dimensions of the subject.
In the rest of part 3, I will strive to stipulate what is missing from
Deacon’s emergentism. For this, I turn to Lacanian psychoanalytic meta-
psychology. But before concluding this chapter, I need to voice another
line of criticism with respect to Deaconian absentialism. My main com-
plaint in this critical vein is that Deacon too hastily lumps together a
disparate assortment of distinct types of non-presences under the termi-
nological big tent of “the absential.” He runs roughshod over important
differences between heterogeneous kinds of absences. And, in the glos-
sary to his book, Deacon defines the term “absential” as “the paradoxical
intrinsic property of existing with respect to something missing, sepa-
rate, and possibly nonexistent.”35 Although the “missing, separate, and
possibly nonexistent” share in common the trait of being non-present
(i.e., not materialized in a physical and spatiotemporal here-and-now),
this alone does not and should not license ignoring the non-negligible
features that distinguish diverse forms of non-presence from one another.
12

There Is Absence, and

Then There Are Absences:
Back to Kant, Forward to
Lacan, and Onward

Returning once more to Kant’s philosophy will assist in distinguishing the

various forms of non-presence that are run together by Deacon under
the heading of “the absential.” Immediately before the “Transcendental
Dialectic” of the Critique of Pure Reason, in the closing pages of “On the
amphiboly of the concepts of reflection through the confusion of the
empirical use of the understanding with the transcendental,” Kant com-
pletes his “Transcendental Analytic” with an analysis of four categories
of “nothing” (Nichts). These four are (1) ens rationis (“Empty concept
without object,” or Leerer Begriff ohne Gegenstand), (2) nihil privativum
(“Empty object of a concept,” or Leerer Gegenstand eines Begriffs), (3) ens
imaginarium (“Empty intuition without an object,” or Leere Anschauung
ohne Gegenstand), and (4) nihil negativum (“Empty object without con-
cept,” or Leerer Gegenstand ohne Begriff ).1
The ens rationis is associated by Kant with the universal negative
(“no x is Φ” [∀x~Φx]) in logical quantification. Kant’s description signals
that the ens rationis, as an “empty concept without object,” is the con-
cept of “nothing” in the sense of a conceptual determination precisely
of the absence or lack of any corresponding object (i.e., no-thing as no
object als Gegenstand, as no Objekt of spatiotemporal phenomenal experi-
ence). In this sense, the prime example of nothing as ens rationis is zero
in mathematics (an idea latched onto as of sweeping import by Deacon
for his absentialism,2 as well as by Lacan and Jacques-Alain Miller in con-
nection with a psychoanalytic conceptualization of subjectivity appeal-
ing to Gottlob Frege’s theory of numbers).3 Kant, with transcendental
idealism’s core distinction between noumenal things-in-themselves and
phenomenal objects-as-appearances, subsumes his noumena under the
heading of the ens rationis. Related to this, the other three categories of
nothing as Nichts are, for Kant, all intra-phenomenal. That is to say, the
category of the ens rationis is able to contain within itself, when specifically

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T H E R E I S A BS E NCE , AND T HE N T HE RE ARE ABSENCES

determined as the concept of the noumenal, a mark or indication of what

presumably lies beyond the limits of possible experience. By contrast, the
remaining three types of nothingness are negations that pertain strictly to
the phenomenal, namely, to configurations and contents that are internal
to limited experience.4
As for the second of the four categories of nothing(ness), the nihil
privativum, this is roughly synonymous with the privative à la Locke. Kant
defines it in a single sentence: “Reality is something; negation is nothing,
namely, a concept of the absence of an object, such as a shadow or cold
(nihil privativum).”5 As its name suggests, the nihil privativum is a priva-
tion relative to a positivity: darkness is a privation of light, while coldness
is a privation of heat. Thus, these sorts of negations are parasitic upon
already-given phenomenal contents (light, heat, etc.).
The third negative category, the ens imaginarium, refers to Kant’s
preceding “Transcendental Aesthetic.” To be specific, this nothingness is
that of the two “pure forms of intuition,” namely, space as “outer sense”
and time as “inner sense.”6 These formal features of spatiotemporal ex-
perience amount to nothing as no-thing (or, more precisely, no object
als Gegenstand oder Objekt) because, as a priori and universal conditions
for all intuited contents, they are distinct from any and every particular
intuited content (i.e., all determinate objects of experience). Simply put,
the forms of intuition are distinct from its contents. Hence, the ens imagi-
narium is identified as “empty intuition without an object.”7
Finally, the fourth negative category, the nihil negativum, is noth-
ing other than any and every self-contradictory concept. Kant’s cho-
sen example is that of “a rectilinear figure with two sides”8 (a problem-
atic example, as Lacan’s commentary on the Kantian nihil negativum
will remark). Another illustration would be the non-concept of a square
circle. Sticking with this second example, the nihil negativum is an “empty
object without concept” insofar as the concept’s self-contradiction annuls
it as a concept (one cannot conceptualize, or pictorially envision, a syn-
thesis of squareness and circularity). And, insofar as a phenomenal object
of experience is, by Kantian definition, a combination of intuitions and
concepts,9 a non-concept entails a non-object, namely, nothing as no-
thing, as the void of an inconceivable and unimaginable (non-)object.
In the paragraph concluding “On the amphiboly of the concepts
of reflection” (and therewith the “Transcendental Analytic” as a whole),
Kant compares and contrasts the four categories of nothing (Nichts) with
each other. He states:

One sees that the thought-entity (No. 1 [ens rationis]) is distinguished

from the non-entity (No. 4 [nihil negativum]) by the fact that the for-
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mer may not be counted among the possibilities because it is a mere

invention [Erdichtung] (although not self-contradictory), whereas the
latter is opposed to possibility because even its concept cancels itself
out [sich selbst aufhebt]. Both, however, are empty concepts. The nihil
privativum (No. 2) and the ens imaginarium (No. 3), on the contrary, are
empty data for concepts [leere Data zu Begriffen]. If light were not given
to the senses, then one would not be able to represent darkness, and if
extended beings were not perceived, one would not be able to repre-
sent space. Negation as well as the mere form of intuition are, without
something real [ohne ein Reales], not objects [keine Objekte].10

The insurmountable difference between the first and fourth categories

upon which Kant insists here is already underlined in the earlier “Attempt
to Introduce the Concept of Negative Magnitudes into Philosophy,” in
which he says, “the nihil negativum cannot be expressed by zero = 0, for
this involves no contradiction.”11 In other words, the ens rationis, an ex-
ample of which in the first Critique is the mathematical concept of zero,
is not self-contradictory, unlike the nihil negativum (examples of which
include two-sided rectilinear figures and square circles).
Arguably, these first and fourth categories, although both concepts
(even if one of them, the nihil negativum, is auto-annulling), represent
two distinct varieties of “emptiness,” one consistent (the ens rationis) and
the other inconsistent as self-contradictory (the nihil negativum). One
can, does, and must calculate with zero as part of the coherent concep-
tualizations of mathematics as a formal science. Likewise, Kant can and
does conceptually construct the philosophical apparatus of his transcen-
dental idealism by partly relying upon the non-self-contradictory notion
of noumena (as “thinkable but not knowable”12 instances of the ens ratio-
nis). Two-sided rectilinear figures and square circles, as neither thinkable
nor knowable within the parameters of Kant’s system, do not lend them-
selves, in Kantian eyes, to comparably productive intellectual labors (al-
though, following Lacan’s indications, non-Euclidean geometries, imagi-
nary numbers, and post-Newtonian physics all furnish potent refutations
of critical philosophy’s pretensions to be itself, in its original eighteenth-
century version, a universally valid, transhistorical epistemology).
In the latter half of the preceding quoted paragraph from the first
Critique, Kant places the second and third categories of nothing(ness),
the nihil privativum and the ens imaginarium respectively, side-by-side. As
regards the ens imaginarium, Kant posits a codependency between the
percepts of intuition and the concepts of the understanding as far as ex-
perience and its objects are concerned. He also posits a codependency
between the pure forms and the object-contents of the faculty of intuition.
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Although, according to the “Transcendental Aesthetic,” space and time

are ideal a priori conditions of possibility for experience, without real
as empirical experiences of determinate spatiotemporal object-contents,
these pure forms of outer and inner sense would remain unexperienced
and, hence, unrepresented. Therefore, according to Kant, just as there
can be no experience of objects without the ideal a priori conditions of
space and time, so too can there be no theoretical representations of
space and time without experiences of spatiotemporal objects.
As for the nihil privativum, this second category of nothing is fore-
shadowed in Kant’s “Attempt to Introduce the Concept of Negative
Magnitudes into Philosophy.”13 The nihil privativum is anticipated in this
1763 essay specifically by this essay’s central distinction between “logi-
cal contradiction” (Widerspruch) and “real opposition” (Opposition).14 In
an anti-Hegelian gesture avant la lettre, the pre-critical Kant rules out
the possibility of contradictions inhering within reality itself. This ex-
clusion subsequently becomes axiomatic for the ostensible proof of the
philosophical superiority of the critical epistemology of transcendental
idealism via the demonstrative power of the “dialectic of pure reason” in
the second half of the Critique of Pure Reason. This is especially evident in
the four “antinomies of pure reason” catalyzed by the “cosmological idea
of reason.” The argumentative force of these antinomies relies on the as-
sumption that the noumenal being of things-in-themselves, whatever else
it might be, is devoid of contradictions. According to this assumption,
insofar as the faculty of reason encounters contradictory antinomies, it
remains out of contact with the ontological Real of das Ding an sich (the
thing in itself), and is stuck shadow-boxing in the theater of enclosed
subjective cognition with the contradictory constructs and by-products
of its own intra-ideational activities.15
Particularly by the time of the first Critique, the adjective “real” in
“real opposition” has to be taken with several grains of salt. Locke the
empiricist, in his characteristically inconsistent, nonsystematic manner,
remains agnostic about the potential extra-mental reality of privative
causes. At least in a Hegelian reading, Kant, as the empiricism-inspired
critical philosopher of transcendental idealism, appears to be an athe-
ist rather than an agnostic on this matter. He presupposes as an axiom
the thesis according to which being an sich is free of antinomies, contra-
dictions, and the like. Systematic consistency seemingly would dictate a
principled ontological agnosticism on Kant’s part with regard to any and
every possible determinate attribute that is potentially predicable of the
noumenal being of things-in-themselves, including that of freedom from
the sorts of deadlocks and impasses manifesting themselves in thought as
logical contradictions or transcendental dialectics.
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That said, within the constraining scaffolding of Kantian tran-

scendental idealism, what is (empirically) “real” (for instance, real op-
position) is not the nonsubjective objectivity of thingly beings in and
of themselves, but instead, the passive reception (in a receptivity that is
subjectively ideal nonetheless) of spatiotemporal objects of experience at
the level of intuition. Obviously, this antirealism is established by Kant in
the “Transcendental Aesthetic” at the very beginning of the first Critique,
with this section’s insistence on the strict ideality of space and time.16
Kant later, in “The Antinomy of Pure Reason,” contends that the ratio-
nal dialectics swirling around the cosmological idea of reason provide
further proof of the exclusively ideal nature of the spatial and the tem-
poral.17 Again, this purported proof rests on the presumption, repeatedly
attacked by Hegel, that being an sich, without subjectivity and its media-
tions, is untouched and unburdened by the negativities of such dialectics.
Additional evidence bearing witness to this dogmatic ontological assump-
tion of Kant’s is to be found in his above-quoted closing remarks about
the four categories of nothing at the end of the first Critique’s “Transcen-
dental Analytic”: only the consistent emptiness of the ens rationis, and
not the inconsistent emptiness of the self-contradictory nihil negativum,
is suitable for a conceptual determination of noumena.
But what happens if one does not accept Kantian transcendental-
ism? What if, whether prompted by Hegelian or other counterarguments,
one repudiates the antirealism of subjective idealism as untenable and
internally self-subverting? In such a scenario, what becomes of Kant’s me-
ticulous analyses of nothing(ness)? Even if one accepts as devastating the
full sweep of Hegel’s critique of Kant, such a critique is far from entail-
ing a wholesale repudiation of the rich resources of Kantian philosophy.
Kant’s reflections on nothing(ness) can and should be extracted from
the limiting frame of transcendental idealism.
In line with my earlier critical engagement with Deacon’s absen-
tialism, I believe that a Kantian-style sensitivity to distinct varieties of the
privative/negative is an essential component of a strong-emergentist
theory of transcendental subjectivity as itself arising from and being
grounded in meta-transcendental layers of pre/nonsubjective substances
(as themselves real materialities). In fundamental solidarity with Hegel and
Deacon, among others, I seek to advance the formulation of such a theory
by linking the genesis of the irreducible subject of transcendentalism to
specific types of negativities. In so doing, I conceive of these negativities
within the space of a philosophical triangle formed by the three corners
of historical/dialectical materialism, realism, and the quasi-naturalism
of a self-denaturalizing nature (as per dialectical naturalism)— that is to
say, outside the enclosure of the subjective idealism of Kant’s antirealist
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transcendentalism. Moreover, I consider philosophical recourse to both

Freudian-Lacanian psychoanalysis and the natural (and especially life)
sciences as disciplinary allies in this endeavor to be indispensable.
I contentiously interpret the full arc of Jacques Lacan’s teachings
from the 1930s to the start of the 1980s as unfolding along the lines of
the triad of dialectical materialism, realism, and quasi-naturalism.18 The
explicit treatments of Kant’s categorizations of the negative by this ver-
sion of Lacan set the stage for my transcendental materialist furtherance
of Deacon’s similar absentialist emergentism. In the third seminar on the
topic of The Psychoses (1955– 56), Lacan mentions Kant on negative magni-
tudes twice: first, to insist on Daniel Paul Schreber’s uses of the German
words Aufhebung (as cancellation) and Unsinn (nonsense) in his Memoirs
of My Nervous Illness as having richer meanings than a Kantian “pure and
simple absence, a privation of sense”;19 and second, to make a few sug-
gestions about the presenting-while-negating gesture of Verneinung (ne-
gation) as per Freud’s 1925 essay “Negation.”20 However, over the course
of three consecutive academic years from 1961 to 1964, Lacan, during
a particularly pivotal period of his intellectual itinerary, returns several
times to Kant’s ideas about the negative. The ninth, tenth, and eleventh
seminars lay out a distinctive Lacanian appropriation of this sector of the
Kantian philosophical apparatus.
Lacan’s most developed and detailed pronouncements on negativ-
ity à la Kant are to be found in his ninth seminar on Identification (1961–
62). Lacan zeros in on the category of the nihil negativum in particular.
To begin with, he observes that Kant’s illustration of an “empty object
without concept” through reference to a two-sided rectilinear figure is
self-undermining. This is because it reveals how the critical philosophy’s
notion of space is tethered to Euclidean and Newtonian assumptions
about it. Rather than being universally a priori features of spatiality tran-
scending the history of ideas, as Kant purports, Euclid’s and Newton’s
perspectives have proven to be historically relative and far from absolute.
The past 250 years have seen mathematical and scientific revolutions de-
throning the worldviews of the formal and empirical disciplines known
to Kant from inside the confines of his era of the late eighteenth century.
Within the expanded parameters of non-Euclidean geometries, two-sided
rectilinear figures are not necessarily instances of Kant’s nihil negativum.21
Related to this, the square root of negative one (i.e., i as an imagi-
nary number), to take another point of reference routinely gestured at by
Lacan, seems to short-circuit the Kantian distinction between the first and
fourth categories of nothing, namely, between the ens rationis (“Empty
concept without object”) and the nihil negativum. As in the ens rationis,
whose examples include zero and noumena, the square root of nega-
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tive one can be consistently cognized and employed in coherent bodies

of concepts. But, as in the nihil negativum, one of whose examples is a
square circle, the combination of negative numbers and the operation
of the square root evidently brings together contradictory conceptual
determinations with no corresponding phenomenal objects of possible
experience. If, for instance, both zero and the square root of negative one
are equally functional and essential features of mathematics, then Kant’s
fashion of distinguishing between the ens rationis and the nihil negativum
is in some trouble.
Many of Lacan’s discussions of Kant during the following academic
year, in his tenth seminar on Anxiety (1962– 63), are centered on driving
home a critique of the Kantian “Transcendental Aesthetic.”22 However,
therein, Lacan indirectly concedes that there might be at least some very
limited legitimacy to Kant’s portrayals of space and time, perhaps solely
as theoretical reflections of the spontaneous phenomenology of the most
superficial sorts of quotidian subjective consciousness. In the tenth semi-
nar, the two pure forms of intuition of the first Critique (i.e., inner sense
as time and outer sense as space) are said to be delegitimized as suppos-
edly eternal and universal. This is because Freud’s momentous discovery
of the unconscious deprives the conscious experiences on which Kant’s
“Transcendental Aesthetic” is based of their foundational, unsurpassable
standing. Worded differently, Lacan’s argument is that Freudian psycho-
analysis, in challenging the traditional presumption of an equivalence
between the mental and the conscious, raises objections to the ostensible
a priori universality of any depiction of space and time that is rooted in a
conception of consciousness wedded to this old, pre-Freudian presump-
tion. Lacan suggests that his turns to topology and other mathematical
resources of more recent vintage than the late eighteenth century are
partly motivated by an intention to forge a non-Kantian transcendental
aesthetic that does justice to the unconscious of psychoanalysis.23
Coming back to the immediately preceding ninth seminar, Lacan,
in the sessions of February 28 and March 28 of 1962, hitches his theory of
the subject specifically to Kant’s nihil negativum as an “empty object with-
out concept.” He goes so far as to allege that this leerer Gegenstand ohne
Begriff is the only one of the first Critique’s categories of nothing(ness)
to enjoy any degree of true cogency.24 Lacan proceeds to rule out both
the ens rationis and the nihil privativum (“Empty object of a concept”) as
worthwhile, particularly in relation to a viable theorization of subjectiv-
ity.25 Lacan’s reason for not even mentioning the ens imaginarium (“Empty
intuition without an object”) likely is this category’s direct reliance upon
the account of the spatiotemporal faculty of intuition as per the Kantian
“Transcendental Aesthetic” that has been problematized and subverted
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by psychoanalysis. Despite rejecting three out of four of Kant’s negative

categories, Lacan complains that Kant underutilizes them in his philo-
sophical corpus as a whole.26
If Lacanian subjectivity can be associated neither with the ens ratio-
nis nor the nihil privativum, this means that it resembles neither the self-
consistency of coherently cognizable concepts like zero and noumena
(i.e., the ens rationis) nor the simple contrasting absences of phenomena
like darkness complementing light and coldness complementing heat
(i.e., the nihil privativum). Moreover, Lacan’s refusal even to deign to
mention the ens imaginarium indicates his repudiation of recourse to a
Kantian-style form-content distinction. That is to say, the Lacanian sub-
ject is not merely the formal apparatus of a transcendental matrix within
which elements are configured.
Additionally, it should be noted that Lacan recurrently employs the
phrase “leerer Gegenstand ohne Begriff ” (“empty object of a concept”) when
referring to Kant’s nihil negativum. Insofar as he brings his conception
of subjectivity into connection with this particular Kantian category of
negativity, his preference for speaking of an “empty object without con-
cept” probably is motivated by a desire to highlight several facets of the
subject-as-$, especially the sides of it he subsumes under the designation
“subject of enunciation” as different from what is labeled the correspond-
ing “subject of the utterance.”27 First, the split parlêtre (speaking being)
is itself self-contradictory (as is the nihil negativum). Second, this peculiar
(non-)being’s self-contradiction arises from it, on the one hand, inevi-
tably objectifying itself (i.e., becoming an object through passing into
utterances, identifications, etc.) and, on the other hand, simultaneously
being unable to pour itself without remainder entirely into these same
objectifications (as the kinetic subject of enunciation that is intrinsically
irreducible to the static subject of the utterance despite the interminable,
oscillating dialectic in which the former constitutes and is constituted
in turn by the latter). Third, as thereby resisting exhaustive decantation
into the forms and contents of Imaginary-Symbolic reality, including the
“objects” and “concepts” that together make up the utterance side of the
barred subject ($), the cogito-like subjectivity of the subject of enuncia-
tion subsists and insists as an “empty object without concept.” As in the
case of Kant’s nihil negativum, this subject’s emptiness and conceptless-
ness are consequences of a self-contradiction. What is more, this self-
contradiction is situated at the very structural core of subjectivity as $, as
inherently divided and self-subverting (and this in ways uncannily resem-
bling how Kant portrays transcendental subjectivity in the Critique of Pure
Reason, especially “The Paralogisms of Pure Reason” therein).28
In the February 28, 1962 session of the ninth seminar, Lacan also
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points back to his fourth seminar on The Object Relation (1956– 57). For
those familiar with his teachings, it might not be surprising that he does
so in the context of parsing Kant’s four-part categorization of varieties of
nothing(ness). In this earlier annual seminar from the mid-1950s, Lacan
introduces a tripartite schema of negatives on the basis of his register
theory. More precisely, in recasting Freud’s ideas with regard to castra-
tion, he distinguishes between “privation” (as Real, an incarnate non-
presence dwelling in material being in itself), “castration” (as Symbolic,
a deficit created in reality by the interventions of sociolinguistic media-
tors), and “frustration” (as Imaginary, a representational confusion of
Real privation and/or Symbolic castration as deprivations and obstacles
gratuitously imposed from without — to the extent that the Imaginary
misrecognizes the Real as the Symbolic and vice versa, frustration re-
acts to privation as castration and to castration as privation).29 Lacan’s
subsequent redeployment of this triangle of negativity during his 1962
musings involves comparing and contrasting it with Kant’s square of noth-
ings (similarly, in the eleventh seminar, he pairs Kant on the negative
with Freud and himself on the castration complex and the phallus).30
Lacan concludes from this exercise that the triad of privation-castration-
frustration itself arises from a sort of Ur-privation. He identifies the latter
as related to the void of a leerer Gegenstand ohne Begriff, the nihil negativum
of a (proto-)subject underlying this trinity of lacks.31
Deciphering the riddle presented by this Ur-privation brought by
Lacan into connection with Kant’s empty object without concept requires
rejecting how Jacques-Alain Miller and some of his followers understand
the significance of Kantianism for Lacanianism. In a collection entitled
Lakant (2003), Miller et al. latch onto the fact that Kant’s transcendental
idealism entails an anti-naturalism. Kant, at the level of his theoretical
philosophy, objects to all realist and materialist ontologies as problematic
on critical epistemological grounds. At the level of his practical philos-
ophy, Kant upholds the effective existence of an autonomous rational
agency that is transcendently different-in-kind from the heteronomous
nature of the human animal, with its creaturely “pathological inclina-
tions.” Miller and company allege that Lacan adopts the anti-naturalist
dualisms of Kant’s transcendental idealism, purportedly re-mobilizing
them against the multifarious encroachments of biology and its branches
into psychoanalytic metapsychology and analysts’ consulting rooms. They
talk about continuing a supposedly Lacanian struggle against naturalism,
inspired by Kant, in a contemporary analytic showdown with the neuro-
sciences.32 In general, Millerianism has degenerated into a mystical, neo-
Luddite hyper-nominalism appealing to a partial, distorted version of
Lacan’s register of the Real.33
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I have moved against readings of Lacan as a straightforward, die-

hard anti-naturalist (such as this Millerian one) on a host of other occa-
sions. Without getting bogged down in rehashing those arguments, I will
show momentarily how the primal negativity of a leerer Gegenstand ohne
Begriff as invoked by Lacan in his ninth seminar can be apprehended ad-
equately only via references to a sizable series of quasi-naturalist moments
that are scattered throughout his corpus. For the time being, I will forego
taking the additional step of driving nails into the coffin of any interpre-
tation of Lacan’s intellectual edifice as resting upon a transcendental
idealist philosophical foundation (as I do elsewhere).34
In relation to Deacon’s tendency to lump together various distinct
types of non-presences as being all equally “absential,” the Lacanian trin-
ity of privation, castration, and frustration helps bring out the distinctions
that are smoothed over by Deaconian absentialism. By treating everything
non-present (i.e., not materially embodied in the here-and-now) as ab-
sent à la absentialism, Deacon runs together the past and the future, the
possible and the impossible, the imaginable and the unimaginable, and
so on. Obviously, the realm of the non-present is much vaster than that
of the present and contains myriad species and subspecies of different
absences. As for Lacan’s triad of privation, castration, and frustration, it
can be mapped onto his more basic dyad distinguishing between the Real
and reality (with the latter co-constituted on the basis of the two other
registers of the Imaginary and the Symbolic). Doing so places privation
on one side, that of the Real, and both castration (as Symbolic) and frus-
tration (as Imaginary) on the other side, that of reality.
In light of my preceding engagements with Kant and Deacon es-
pecially, I wish to focus in what follows on absences in the Real instead
of absences in reality. The latter would be lacks or negatives as easily
representable non-presences (such as episodic memories of the past or
anticipatory fantasies of the future, with both of these kinds of repre-
sentations picturing logically possible states of affairs imaginable by the
human mind). By contrast, the former (i.e., absences in the Real) resist
or defy capture in the forms and contents of familiar, readily graspable
representations (examples of which would include not only square circles
and any number of superficial paradoxes, but also, from a psychoanalytic
perspective, one’s own mortality as well as sexual difference).
One of the conflations that the absentialism of Deacon’s Incomplete
Nature is guilty of is the blurring of the fundamental division between
representable and unrepresentable absences as non-presences, namely,
between absences in reality and those in the Real. In the ensuing chapter,
I will zoom in on privation and the primordial Ur-privation of a nihil nega-
tivum (i.e., the barred as self-contradictory [proto-]subject as an empty
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object without concept), with both being tied to the register of the Real.
And, adopting a recommendation by Žižek, the Real is to be conceived
herein as refracting within itself Lacan’s three registers, resulting in a
Real Real, a Symbolic Real, and an Imaginary Real.35 With reference to
the former Chinese leader Jiang Zemin’s doctrine of the “Three Repre-
sents,” one might be tempted to speak of a Lacanian-Žižekian theory of
the “Three Non-Represents.”
Deacon, taking advantage of the latitude afforded by the breadth
of his category of the absential, allows himself the liberty of addressing
such tantalizing topics as epiphenomenalism36 and “concrete abstrac-
tion”37 (aka real abstraction). Both of these topics involve representable
absences within the registers of reality. In addition, Deacon muses about
every other type of (non-)thing associated with the not-present, from
physical constraints to the number zero (some of which involve Real ab-
sences over and above those of Imaginary-Symbolic reality). Setting aside
the category of representable non-presences in reality, the rest of part 3
will concentrate on putting forward a Lacan-inspired and scientifically
compatible quasi-naturalist sketch of materially real absences with causal
power but without an unproblematic relationship to direct representa-
tion.
13

The Night of the Living

World: The Missing Link of
the Anorganic

Jacques Lacan, despite his reputation as an avid anti-naturalist, has no

qualms whatsoever about leaning upon certain ideas of nature as compo-
nents of his theoretical apparatus.1 Although adamantly opposed to the
introduction of a crudely reductive biologism as a grounding paradigm
for psychoanalysis, he is not, for all that, categorically dismissive of the
life sciences. Indeed, both Freud and Lacan are opposed to any situation
of mutual neglect between psychoanalysis and the sciences.2 Once in a
while, Lacan even permits himself, like Freud, to voice hopes of eventual
biological corroborations of psychoanalytic theories.3
To take just one illustration of Lacan’s qualified naturalism, his con-
cept of “need” (besoin), as per the need-demand-desire triad, is bound
up with the biological facticity of protracted infantile helplessness, an
anatomical and physiological “fact” of immense import for psychical on-
togeny in the eyes of both Freud and Lacan.4 Need arises immediately
from the very start of the human organism’s existence as a bodily being.
It is the contingent original base of the Lacanian libidinal economy, a
crucial impetus propelling the newborn child into the combined arms
of Imaginary others and Symbolic Others. Only thereby, thanks to help-
less neediness as a natural condition of possibility, is the transition to
the complex dialectical mediations of demand and desire prompted.
Even though Imaginary-Symbolic imprinting and overwriting partially
denaturalize need— Lacan’s talk of “denaturalization” automatically im-
plies the prior existence of certain natural things as origins or sources5 —
the resulting denaturalized subjectivity ($) remains, to phrase this in a
Lacanian style, “not without” (pas sans) a rapport with nature in the guise
of its bio-material body. Or, in alternate phrasing, the never successfully
denaturalized subject is stuck perpetually struggling with stubbornly in-
digestible bits and fragments of an incompletely and unevenly domesti-
cated corpo-Real.6
Later I will highlight the numerous instances in which Lacan uti-

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lizes the notion of the organic in its biological sense. I will argue that
Lacan’s references to this notion — these cluster around his embellish-
ments on the mirror stage — suggest the concept of a non-organicity
that would be different from the merely inorganic as dealt with by the
physics and chemistry of the nonliving. On the basis of this reading of
Lacan, I distinguish between the inorganic and the “anorganic,” with the
latter being a Hegelian-type negation of the organic as itself, according
to Hegel’s Philosophy of Nature, a “negation” as a sublation (Aufhebung)
of the inorganic.7
In terms of the Hegelian Realphilosophie of Natur and Geist, I would
contend that Lacanian anorganicity furnishes a link missing between
the end of the Philosophy of Nature, with its “Organics” culminating with
the animal organism, and the beginning of the Philosophy of Spirit, with
its “Anthropology” starting with the soul of human nature in its most
rudimentary states. Prior to his mature Encyclopedia of the Philosophical
Sciences, Hegel, in his 1805–06 Jenaer Realphilosophie, famously describes
humans as “the night of the world,” as horrifying monstrosities embody-
ing the nocturnal abyss of a midnight madness that eclipses the familiar
faces of nature.8 I will show how anorganicity, as a more-than-organic
transcendence that is nonetheless immanent to the organic, simultane-
ously conjoins and disjoins, on the one hand, the natural kingdoms of
animal organisms and, on the other hand, the spiritual/minded regions
of human subjects. If the latter are “the night of the world,” unnatural
perversions of nature, then the darkness of this negativity is made pos-
sible by a pre/nonhuman “night of the living world” that is internal to
inhuman (and impotent) nature itself. All of this is partially motivated by
the preceding sympathetic immanent critique of Deacon’s absentialism.
It is meant to help further develop a post-Kantian realist and materialist
account of causally efficacious negativities that interface with a thereby
altered and expanded ensemble of natural sciences.
Lacan’s 1949 écrit on the mirror stage is perhaps the single best-
known and most widely read piece of his extensive oeuvre. The lengthy
entry in the Encyclopédie française on “The Family Complexes in the For-
mation of the Individual” — this 1938 essay provides the best available
indications of the contents of Lacan’s original presentation of the mir-
ror stage at the International Psychoanalytic Association conference in
Marienbad in 1936, the text of which is regrettably lost— already aims to
get back behind the reflective surfaces of the moment of identification
with the gestalt of the imago. Therein, Lacan refers to the “libidinal con-
ditions” that underlie the onset of the mirror stage properly speaking.9
A few pages later, he points to “the vital insufficiency of man at his ori-
gins”10 (specifically, the human being’s ontogenetic origins). The canoni-
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cal 1949 framing of this stage explicitly connects these two points in “The
Family Complexes” by describing a “libidinal dynamism” that has to do
with the infant’s “motor impotence and nursling dependence.”11
In 1948’s “Aggressiveness in Psychoanalysis,” another key text as re-
gards the mirror stage, Lacan offers formulations pertaining to biology
and the organic that are consistent with both “The Family Complexes”
and “The Mirror Stage.” As he explains:

What I have called the “mirror stage” is of interest because it manifests

the affective dynamism by which the subject primordially identifies with
the visual gestalt of his own body. In comparison with the still very pro-
found lack of coordination of his own motor functioning, that gestalt is
an ideal unity, a salutary imago. Its value is heightened by all the early
distress resulting from the child’s intra-organic and relational discor-
dance during the first six months of life, when he bears the neurologi-
cal and humoral signs of a physiological prematurity at birth.12

Between this écrit and that on the mirror stage, the adjectives “affective”
and “libidinal” alternately modify, in 1948 and 1949 respectively, the “dy-
namism” that serves as a precondition for the advent of this founding
event of ego-level identification, with all its denaturalizing consequences
(as “a gestalt” with “formative effects on an organism”)13 for the future vi-
cissitudes of the human creature. Almost certainly, Lacan considers these
adjectives to be roughly equivalent insofar as the dynamizing push of the
young subject-to-be into the seductive pull of the mirror’s virtual reality
is a force generated by the combined powers of the libidinal and the af-
fective. Certain emotions motivate the child to invest itself in the “gestalt”
of “an ideal unity, a salutary imago.” Furthermore, Lacan undeniably situ-
ates this dual catalytic configuration of the affective and the libidinal as
an effect or outgrowth of ontogenetically primordial biological factors.
Subsequent moments within “Aggressiveness in Psychoanalysis” un-
derscore the ground-zero status of such bio-material conditions. Lacan
adds:

A specific satisfaction, based on the integration of an original organic

chaos [un désarroi organique original], corresponds to the Urbild of this
formation, alienating as it may be due to its function of rendering for-
eign. This satisfaction must be conceived of in the dimension of a vital
dehiscence constitutive of man and makes unthinkable the idea of an
environment that is preformed for him; it is a “negative” libido that
enables the Heraclitean notion of Discord — which the Ephesian held
to be prior to harmony — to shine once more.14
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This is reiterated in the mirror stage écrit:

In man . . . this relationship to nature is altered by a certain dehiscence

at the very heart of the organism, a primordial Discord betrayed by the
signs of malaise and motor uncoordination of the neonatal months.
The objective notions of the anatomical incompleteness of the pyra-
midal tracts and of certain humoral residues of the maternal organism
in the newborn confirm my view that we find in man a veritable specific
prematurity of birth.15

Lacan, well before Deacon, posits an “objective incompleteness” as a pri-

mary absential Urgrund (ultimate ground) of ontogenetic subject forma-
tion. In terms of anatomy, physiology, and neurology, the biology of the
newborn human “organism”— this “original,” “primordial” foundation
of bio-material facticity is, as Lacan puts it in 1949, “prior to . . . social
determination,”16 “prior to . . . social dialectic” as “an organic inadequacy
of his [man’s] natural reality”17 — involves pre-maturational helplessness.
The newborn’s discombobulated dependence is precisely a lack of ana-
tomical, physiological, and neurological maturation sufficient for it to
survive without the sustained, substantial assistance of significantly older
people. In “On a Question Prior to Any Possible Treatment of Psychosis,”
the “specific prematurity of birth in man” is directly equated by Lacan
with the baby’s “fragmented body,” a natural reality throwing the young
child into the mirror stage and its “counter-natural features” (contre-
nature).18 Much later, Lacan, in his twenty-fourth seminar, again utilizes
the phrase “contre-nature.”19 Likewise, in his 1958 écrit “The Direction of
the Treatment and the Principles of Its Power,” he speaks of “antiphusis.”20
One should note the self-subverting character of a nature that aids and
abets its own effacement by “counter-nature,” namely, a natural auto-
denaturalization that is peculiar to the (species-)being of humanity.
The hybrid constellations of emotions and motivations that make
the immature subject-to-be interested in and receptive to the mediations
of external identifications are provoked by the state of helplessness,
which is itself a brute (and brutal) biological fact. And this initial bodily
state is anorganic in my precise sense, in that Lacan qualifies it as an
“intra-organic discordance,” “an original organic chaos” that is situated
“at the very heart of the organism.” In Lacan’s first foray into the English
language, the 1951 paper “Some Reflections on the Ego” presenting the
mirror stage to the members of the British Psycho-Analytical Society, he
similarly underlines an “organic disturbance and discord.”21
What is at stake here is an immanent negation of the organic that
nevertheless is not simply a reversion to the inorganic. This would be a
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disruption of organicity arising from within its own (dis)organization.

The human organism’s preliminary default lack of organic organization
is a privative cause, one with ontological standing as both real and mate-
rial, that is necessary for helping to set in motion the trajectory running
from natural substance to more-than-natural subjectivity. At one point
in “The Freudian Thing” (1955), Lacan’s realist materialism and quali-
fied naturalism surface when he describes the distinguishing anorganicity
of the human organism as “the congenital gap presented by man’s real
being in his natural relations.”22 Consistent with my concept of the anor-
ganic, Lacan, at the same moment in this écrit when he affirms a material-
ist quasi-naturalism, simultaneously breaks with the scientistic worldview
of organicism that generally holds sway in biology and its branches by
deriding “the organism’s pseudo-totality.”23 He repeatedly warns against
picturing humans, their bodies included, as sums or wholes (akin to Ar-
istotelian souls).24
In the first sentence of the last paragraph of “Aggressiveness in
Psychoanalysis,” Lacan speaks of a “formidable crack” in the human
being that “goes right to the very depths of his being.”25 In 1952, he again
talks about “the original chaos of all the motor and affective functions of
the first six months after birth,” “a profound insufficiency,” and “a crack,
an original tearing, a dereliction.”26 And, in a 1955 session of his second
seminar, the mirror stage is grounded in humans’ biological inclination
toward a transcendence of their biology by virtue of a “biological gap”
that is internal and inherent to their very being.27 Near the close of this
session, Lacan unfurls a thread of continuity between Freud’s radical revi-
sion of psychoanalytic drive theory in the 1920 Beyond the Pleasure Principle
(in which ferocious clashes originating within the id between Eros and
the death drive split human beings right down to their bare bones and
raw flesh) and the riven bio-material roots of human subjectivity.28
From the mid-1930s through the mid-1950s, Lacan tended to des-
ignate much of what is summarized in the preceding with the phrase
“body-in-pieces” (corps morcelé).29 However, Lacan does not restrict this
phrase’s significance to that of a label for an exclusively phenomenologi-
cal description of the newborn’s experience of his or her lived embodi-
ment. Admittedly, a phenomenology of embodied emotions and moti-
vations is part of what Lacan’s ontogenetic narratives associate with the
anatomical, physiological, and neurological pre-maturation of newborns.
Yet, his metapsychological theories of the interlinked emergences of ego
and subject ultimately rest on the objective grounds of bio-material (i.e.,
non-phenomenological) bases.
A striking indication of the pre/non-phenomenal bio-material
grounding of Lacanian ontogeny is to be found in black and white within
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the pages of the renowned 1949 mirror stage écrit itself.30 Therein, Lacan
connects the body-in-pieces to “the cerebral cortex” of “the central ner-
vous system,” depicting this brain region as what “psychosurgical op-
erations will lead us to regard as the intra-organic mirror”31 (with this
amounting to a prediction of the eventual discovery, almost fifty years
later, of the serendipitously christened “mirror neurons”).32 That is to
say, Lacan does not limit himself to an analytic phenomenology that is
divorced from, or even opposed to, biology and its branches. Instead, he
ambitiously contests the spontaneous organicist picture-thinking of the
life sciences on their own scientific terrain, with his corps morcelé incarnat-
ing an intra-scientific critique of pseudoscientific imaginings of fictitious
syntheses and totalities.
The themes I am subsuming under the heading of the anorganic
persist into Lacan’s work of the late 1950s and 1960s. Two essays in the
Écrits, “Remarks on Daniel Lagache’s Presentation: ‘Psychoanalysis and
Personality Structure’” (1960) and “On My Antecedents” (1966), contain
contents relevant to the present discussion. In his response to Lagache,
Lacan walks a fine line between the natural and the non-natural:

It is . . . worth recalling that, from the outset, Freud did not attribute the
slightest reality as a differentiated apparatus in the organism to any of the
systems in either of his topographies. For people forget to draw there-
from the corollary that, by the same token, he forbade us to force any of
these systems back into the fantasized reality of any sort of “totality” of
the organism. In short, the structure of which I am speaking has noth-
ing to do with the idea of the “structure of the organism,” as supported
by the most soundly based facts in Gestalt theory. Not that structure, in
the strict sense of the term, does not take advantage of gaps in the or-
ganic Gestalt to submit it to itself. But on the basis of their conjunctions,
whether they prove to be based on fission or fissures, a heterogeneity
between two orders appears, which we will be less tempted to mask if we
grasp its principle.33

Lacan’s familiar anti-naturalist refrains are obviously audible at the start

of this quotation in his interpretive insistence on the independence of
Freud’s topographies vis-à-vis the anatomy and physiology of the human
body as a piece of nature falling within the explanatory jurisdiction of the
natural sciences. Lacan portrays his own notion of “structure” as testify-
ing to an all-too-rare fidelity to this Freud in particular.
However, in the preceding quotation, Lacan’s position is much
more subtle and nuanced than that of a straightforward, unqualified
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anti-naturalism. This delicately maintained stance pivots around the mat-

ter of how to conceive of the theme of the organic in relation to real
human organisms. Lacan here prohibits interfacing components of ana-
lytic metapsychology specifically with “the fantasized reality of any sort of
‘totality’ of the organism.” Lacan worries more about scientism (i.e., the
imagined One-Alls of organicism) than science (i.e., the actual biology
of flesh-and-blood human animals) in terms of the potential perils posed
to the theory and practice of psychoanalysis.
As we have just seen, Lacan vehemently underscores that “the
structure of which I am speaking has nothing to do with the idea of the
‘structure of the organism.’” Here, the etymology of the word “organism”
should be recalled. Insofar as it originally signifies “organization,” the
phrase “structure of the organism” arguably is a pleonasm that is synony-
mous with “‘totality’ of the organism.” Hence, Lacan’s denial of meta-
psychological ties to the natural body targets precisely this body as non-
morcelé, as totalized or structured in the sense of organically organized,
namely, as envisioned under the influence of organicism’s lopsided em-
phases on balance, harmony, wholeness, and the like. Organicists would
count among those whom Lacan, in his contemporaneous écrit “Guid-
ing Remarks for a Convention on Female Sexuality,” curtly dismisses in
their implicit claims for themselves of “a messianic access to decisive
chemisms,” with “decisive chemisms” partly alluding to the eighteenth-
century motif of “elective affinities.”34 His later 1970s-era reflections on
the nonexistent rapport sexuel (as an elective affinity between the sexes)
similarly are extrapolated into an indictment of visions of Nature with a
capital “N” as a yin-yang-style cosmic dance of complementary pairs that
mirror fantasies about masculinity and femininity.35
Lacan then, still in the preceding quotation from his response to
Lagache, appeals to the fragmented body-in-pieces as a biological condi-
tion of possibility for denaturalizing/more-than-natural structure getting
a grip on the anorganic “first nature” of the human organism (i.e., for
the signifiers of the big Other overwriting the real bodily being of the
parlêtre-to-be). In his contemporaneous eighth seminar on Transference
(1960–61), Lacan echoes this claim, indicating that the combined mate-
rial and phenomenal features of the body-in-pieces establish necessary
conditions for ego and subject formation36 — and this in resonance with
intuitions long ago articulated by Schelling and Hegel.37 Without the ab-
sences and lacks built into the bio-material foundations of human nature
in the form of the newborn’s helpless anorganic body, nothing would mo-
tivate an exit from what would be an initial state of blissful, self-enclosed
idiocy, an infantile paradise of perfectly and completely satisfying oceanic
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oneness. The newborn’s body is inclined to open up to the impressions

and intrusions of mediations imposed by O/others thanks to natural defi-
cits that Lacan connects to the body-in-pieces.
The final sentence of the above block quotation from the Lagache
écrit deploys a dialectical/speculative conjunction of continuity (i.e., “con-
junctions”) and discontinuity (i.e., “heterogeneity”). The “two orders”
to which Lacan refers are those of the endogenous body, as natural but
anorganic, and exogenous structure, as non-natural but relying upon ex-
ploitable anorganic spots of receptive weakness in the child’s living flesh.
The dual dimensions of phusis and antiphusis collide at loci of paradoxical
connection-in-disconnection which Lacan, in his later teachings, some-
times struggles to illustrate through recourse to select figures drawn from
topology and knot theory.38 These dimensions are enabled to meet up
by and in the absential clearing of incomplete (human) nature, namely,
through the anorganic cracks of negativities (whether the materials of a
deficiently functional organism or the phenomena of negative affects)
that pervade the barred corpo-Real of the body-in-pieces.
Turning to “On My Antecedents,” which was written by Lacan spe-
cifically for the publication of the Écrits, he therein revisits much of the
psychoanalytic landscape surveyed here. His remarks in these veins are
worth quoting in full. Addressing the mirror stage (i.e., “this phase”)
as irreducible to “Gestalt theory and phenomenology,”39 he elaborates:

Must this phase be reduced to a biological crisis? The dynamic of this

phase, as I outline it, is based on diachronic effects: the delayed coordi-
nation of the nervous system [retard de la coordination nerveuse] related
to man’s prematurity at birth, and the formal anticipation of its reso-
lution.
But to presume the existence of a harmony that is contradicted by
many facts of ethology is tantamount to dupery.
It masks the crux of a function of lack [manque] with the question of
the place that this function can assume in a causal chain. Now, far from
imagining eliminating it from it, I currently consider such a function to
be the very origin of causalist noesis, which goes so far as to mistake it
for its crossing into reality [passage au réel].
But to consider it effective due to its imaginary discordance is to still
leave too much room for the presumption of birth.
This function involves a more critical lack, its cover being the secret
to the subject’s jubilation.40

Although Lacan wishes to avoid reducing the psychoanalytic account of

psychical ontogeny to its material underpinnings at the level of biology
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and its branches, his anti-reductionism is far from pushing him to the
opposite extreme pole of an idealist or dualist denial of the relevance of
these fields for psychoanalytic theories of emergent egos and subjects.
The first two sentences quoted above make this abundantly clear. Further-
more, the ethology that Lacan has in mind in the third sentence of this
passage is that of the human animal in particular. The life sciences them-
selves problematize and invalidate the assumptions and suppositions of
organicism as a nonscientific constellation of images and ideas frequently
accompanying these same sciences. Lacan’s critique of organicist picture-
thinking in biology is immanent and intra-scientific, rather than external
and antiscientific.
The second half of the preceding block quotation is especially in-
teresting with respect to the topic of absences in relation to the natural
sciences as productively explored by Deacon. Here, Lacan seems to be
confronting science insofar as it does not (yet) include psychoanalysis.
Like Deacon after him, his main complaint in this confrontation ap-
pears to be the “presentist” (i.e., anti-absentialist) metaphysical bias of
the modern sciences (i.e., their “causalist noesis,” how they think the
fundamental, science-grounding concept of causality). Lacan diagnoses
these sciences’ constitutive blindness to fissures, gaps, lacks, negativities,
and so on. At best, these empirical, experimental disciplines manage to
register the tangible effects present in the material Real (“to mistake it
[the crux of a function of lack] for its crossing into reality”) of what both
Lacan and Deacon recognize as causally efficacious non-presences.
Post-Baconian, post-Galilean scientificity, with its questionable a pri-
ori positivist presentism, tends to demand “eliminating” the “function
of lack.” Opposing this, Lacan tears aside the veils of a pseudoscientific
organicism that tacitly leans on nonempirical presentist presumptions
“contradicted by many facts of ethology.” He does so by assigning to a
precise biological materialization of manque-comme-cause (i.e., the absence
of sufficient harmony and maturation that is intrinsic to the anorganic
bodily being of the newborn child) a crucial load-bearing position in the
analytic architecture of his theoretical apparatus. As realist, materialist,
and quasi-naturalist, this manque-comme-cause is also manque-comme-être (to
modify Lacan’s manque-à-être).
The last two sentences of the quotation above further reinforce my
reading of Lacan. The sixth sentence undeniably warns against reducing
the model of the body-in-pieces from the mirror stage to being merely a
phenomenological description of newborns’ experiences of negative af-
fects and the intentions they motivate. Twentieth-century phenomenol-
ogy proceeds from Husserlian resistance to the sweeping expansions of
the rapidly advancing natural sciences and continues with Heideggerian
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rubbishing and bemoaning of their relevance. Lacan’s rejection of biolo-

gistic reductionism by no means drives him into the company of such
phenomenological or existentialist neo-romantics.
In fact, Lacan insists that limiting the body-in-pieces to being a non-
biological experience of embodiment that is separate and distinct from
the biological body implicitly concedes to the latter a wholeness and unity
that the very biology of the human organism indicates it does not enjoy.
Finding disharmony solely within the sphere of the subjective states de-
scribed by phenomenology strongly hints at a presupposition to the effect
that the objective material Real in and of itself is harmonious (i.e., “the
presumption of birth” as an assumption that the newborn’s biological
body, by ostensible contrast with its fragmented embodied experience, is
at least an organic-as-organized organism). In this context, Lacan’s obser-
vations insinuate that, as regards modern science, phenomenology and
its offshoots are simultaneously too radical (in their anti-naturalist turn-
ings away from the sciences) and not radical enough (in these turnings
away, conceding “too much” to the fields thus abandoned). Psychoanal-
ysis, on the other hand, promises the initiation of the pursuit of an imma-
nent critique of modern science through which this amazingly powerful
edifice can be transformed significantly without, for all that, being inde-
fensibly neglected or untenably dismissed.
In the seventh and final sentence of the prior quotation from “On
My Antecedents,” the “more critical lack” to which Lacan refers is that
of the bio-material Real of the body-in-pieces prior to any and every phe-
nomenal experience of emotions or motivations. Admittedly, not all of
the affects included in Lacan’s narrations of the mirror stage are nega-
tive. The primary positive feeling manifest in this stage is the “jubilation”
expressed by the joyful, playful quality of the infant’s “Aha-Erlebnis” (“a-ha
experience”) moment of recognizing its reflection.41 In 1966, Lacan em-
phasizes that this upsurge of enthusiasm is symptomatic of the eclipsing
and obfuscation (i.e., “its cover”) of the body-in-pieces as a barred corpo-
Real by the “mirages” and “phantoms” of the register of the Imaginary.42
In my language, preferences for the fictions of organic harmony bear
indirect witness to aversions to the facts of anorganic disharmony.
Throughout this chapter, I have illuminated a consistent red thread
of interrelated thoughts that run uninterrupted through Lacan’s teach-
ings from the 1930s to the 1970s. I can begin bringing my anorganicist
interpretation of Lacan’s mirror stage to a close with a final reference to
the famous écrit on this stage. Therein, he states:

These reflections lead me to recognize in the spatial capture manifested

by the mirror stage, the effect in man, even prior to this social dialectic,
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of an organic inadequacy of his natural reality— assuming we can give

some meaning to the word “nature.”43

Lacan’s hesitations with regard to talking about “nature” have to do with

his awareness of just how overloaded this word is with phantasmatic and
propagandistic baggage. The Imaginary projections of a conflict-averse
organicism place every appeal to anything “natural” under the threat
of immediate misappropriation by those dreaming of unreal onenesses,
namely, those having faith in nonexistent big Others that would not be
barred.
Very much in line with this early concern about Imaginary organi-
cism, the Lacan of the 1970s characterizes nature as “not one” (pas une).44
In terms of the human organism, this not-oneness amounts to an affirma-
tion of its anorganicity. During the same period, he similarly urges recon-
ceptualizing the very notion of “nature” as strangely unnatural insofar as
this reconception markedly deviates from long-standing traditional imag-
inings regarding nature.45 In jarring dissonance with the pleasant, sooth-
ing associations with which (w)holistic fantasizings dress up all things
said to be natural, the late Lacan, in a 1977 session of his twenty-fourth
seminar, depicts nature as a “rottenness” (pourriture) out of which oozes
culture as antiphusis.46 The exemplar of this wounded nature from which
denaturalizations “bubble forth” (bouillonner)47 is nothing other than
human nature as materialized by the incomplete body-in-pieces that was
first theorized by Lacan in the 1930s.
At the start of this chapter, I claimed that Lacan’s anorganic barred
corpo-Real of the body-in-pieces provides a link that is perhaps missing
between the Hegelian philosophies of nature and of spirit/mind (Geist).
I asserted that it would be both possible and productive to insert my an-
organicist recasting of a certain Lacan back into Hegel’s Realphilosophie.
Fortuitously, Lacan himself, in his 1955 écrit “Variations on the Standard
Treatment,” hints at this. Elaborating on the “experiences” transpiring in
the mirror stage (including those of a kind already described in Hegel’s
Phenomenology of Spirit in connection with the “master/slave dialectic”),48
he maintains:

But if these experiences — which can be seen in animals too at many

moments in their instinctual cycles, and especially in the preliminary
displays of the reproductive cycle, with all the lures and aberrations
these experiences involve — in fact open onto this signification in order
to durably structure the human subject, it is because they receive this
signification from the tension stemming from the impotence [impuis-
sance] proper to the prematurity of birth, by which naturalists char-
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acterize the specificity of man’s anatomical development— a fact that

helps us grasp the dehiscence from natural harmony, required by Hegel
to serve as the fruitful illness [la maladie féconde], life’s happy fault, in
which man, distinguishing himself from his essence, discovers his exis-
tence.49

Considering Lacan’s indebtedness to the Kojèvian version of the Phenom-

enology of Spirit and his explicit mention of the dialectic between master
and slave on the same page of the Écrits, he probably is thinking here
of the portions of the Phenomenology’s section on “Self-Consciousness”
which precede the subsection addressing “lordship and bondage” proper.
Hegel, in the opening pages of this section, portrays natural desiring life
as plagued by monotonous dissatisfactions and futile struggles.50
Moreover, Lacan’s choice of the noun “impuissance” serendipitously
echoes Hegel’s motif of the impotence (Ohnmacht) of nature. For both
authors, a natural clearing is held open for the arising of more-than-
natural transcendences-in-immanence thanks to material nature’s “weak-
ness” (Hegel) and “rottenness” (Lacan)— with this Hegelian-Lacanian
theme anticipating important aspects of nature’s “incompleteness” à la
Deacon. At the end of the above quotation, Lacan’s allusion to Sartrean
existentialism indicates that, from a Lacanian perspective, there indeed
is an essence that precedes existence (to contradict Sartre).51 But this es-
sential (and yet absential) nature is not all that natural in any standard
naturalist, positivist, or presentist senses (the senses that Sartre presumes
as regards any talk of essences in conjunction with the natural sciences).
In fact, this nature is pervaded by negativities that are both materially
real and experientially palpable. These negativities drive the initially bio-
logical being beyond a biology that it finds unbearable.
So, how does an anorganicist reinterpretation of Lacan centered on
the mirror stage link up with the three interrelated ideas of (1) the Kantian
nihil negativum as an empty object without concept, (2) Ur-privation, and
(3) absences in the Real? The concept-term “privation,” as it functions in
Lacan’s analysis of the castration complex, is trickier than it might appear
at first glance. It shelters within itself some of the slippery dialectics of
the register of the Real (in this case, convergences and reversals between
plenitude and deprivation, fullness and incompleteness).52 Sticking for
the moment to the crudely literal Freudian example, biologically female
human organisms, in the (material) Real, are not “missing” a penis or
anything else; they simply are as they are. With regard to the dimension
of the Lacanian Real pictured as the presupposed plenum of asubjective
incarnate being, there are no absences or lacks. Instead, with respect to
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the matters at issue in the psychoanalytic castration complex, there are,

from this angle, just vaginas and penises. The vagina is not the absence
of a penis, since trying to situate these organs vis-à-vis each other in this
way is, according to Lacan’s register theory, a category mistake in which
a comparison between proverbial apples and oranges is subreptionally
transformed into a binary opposition between having and not having,
one and zero, plus and minus, and so on.53
But, of course, Freud and Lacan both consider the committing
of this category mistake, in which penises and vaginas go from being
apples and oranges to becoming presences and absences, to be a near-
inevitability during ontogenetic subject formation as taking shape
within still-reigning phallocentric symbolic orders. In Lacan’s rendering
of the castration complex, the inscription of lacks in the Real by the
Symbolic— it is only through symbolization that something can be said to
be missing, strictly speaking54 — establishes the very distinction between
privation and castration per se. As regards a biological female, privation
would be the fact that having a vagina entails not having a penis (as the
Spinozistic-Hegelian ontological principle has it, omnis determinatio est ne-
gatio, or “all determination is negation”).55 This privation is transubstanti-
ated into castration proper if and only if such determination-as-negation
is symbolized as itself a non-determination, namely, as an absence relative
to a specific corresponding presence (in elementary formal-logical terms,
when a difference between A and B is reinscribed as a contradiction
between A and not-A). According to Lacan, “castration” is intrinsically
Symbolic — for him, it is always “symbolic castration” — both for these
reasons, as well as because the castration complex epitomizes the more
general existential ordeal of the living human creature being subjected
to the overriding and overwriting dictates of the big Other as symbolic
order with its overdetermining significations.56
The central ambiguity of Lacanian privation not to be missed is
that, consistent with the dialectical character of the register of the Real
to which it belongs, privation simultaneously is and is not an absence,
lack, and the like. On the one hand, the material Real, including that of
various and sundry human organs, merely is what it is in its raw, dumb
facticity.57 The lone type of negativity attributable to this Real is the basic,
fundamental ontological constraint making it such that each and every
determinate being is what it is by not being the infinity of anything and
everything else. On the other hand, the castrating symbolization of priva-
tion as a Real lack, as an absence in the Real, is not dismissible as an ex
nihilo projection of categories and concepts onto an ontological-material
blank slate as featureless and flat. That is to say, the efficacy of symbolic
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castration partially depends upon determinations in the Real as provid-

ing it with already existing hooks on which to hang its signifiers (such as
the visible physical discrepancies between the male and female genita-
lia).58 Such hooks are privations as Real proto-absences, potentially iden-
tifiable lacks in excess of the Symbolic that names them as such. What
endows these symbolizations of deficits with a surplus of heft and sting
is the preexistence of a Real that is not so full as to be invulnerable to
having holes punched in it by signifiers of castration (or all signifiers as
symbolically castrating).
I equate Lacan’s primordial Ur-privation, as distinct from but re-
lated to the privation of the Lacanian castration complex, with the mul-
tiple bio-material negativities embodied by the barred corpo-Real of the
body-in-pieces, which is itself the paradigmatic materialization of nature
as impotent, not-one, rotten, and incomplete. The immature body-in-
pieces, in its helpless neediness, is the primal locus of those “natural”
lacks that launch this living being into fateful trajectories of denatural-
izing vicissitudes,59 including passage through the castration complex.
Furthermore, for Lacan, this Ur-privation counts as a realist and materi-
alist instance of the Kantian category of the nihil negativum. Due to the
unstable epistemological and ontological dialectics of Real privation, the
proto-absences inscribed in the flesh, blood, and bones of the newborn
defy consistent, non-dialectical conceptualization. In other words, they
would have to qualify as “without concept” (ohne Begriff ) by Kant’s (pre-
Hegelian) criteria of bona fide conceptuality. And, as an embodiment
of Real dialectics that is inconceivable within both the limits of the phe-
nomenology of transcendental idealism as well as the framework of pre-
sentist/non-absentialist natural science, the negativity of absences in the
Real would be foreclosed from consideration by Kant and most scientists
as an “empty object” (leerer Gegenstand).
Put differently, Kantian epistemology and the spontaneous in-
tuitions of modern scientists would pass over as an inconsistent, self-
contradictory concept resulting in the ineffective, inconsequent noth-
ingness of a non-object what Lacan, similarly to Hegel before him and
Deacon after him, insists upon as the very foundation of a theory of sub-
jectivity. Additionally, and by contrast with the undifferentiated expanse
of Deacon’s catch-all notion of the absential, Lacan’s absentialism brings
together while distinguishing between a Real Real (i.e., Ur-privation), a
Symbolic Real (i.e., ohne Begriff, with “concept” as non-dialectical and self-
consistent), and an Imaginary Real (i.e., leerer Gegenstand as experienced
emptiness/nullity). The Real Urgrund als Ungrund of Lacanianism is a
corporeal negativity (as Real) covered over by the spatiotemporal experi-
ence of consciousness (as Imaginary) and representable solely through
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ideational-linguistic contortions and contradictions (as Symbolic). Ad-

equately thinking this in a realist, materialist, and quasi-naturalist fashion
that is compatible with the sciences requires nothing less than a sophisti-
cated ontological reactivation of privative causality as this notion emerges
in early modernity.
14

Split Brain, Split Subject:

Critically Approaching a Possible
Lacanian Neuro-Psychoanalysis

Joseph LeDoux, in his book Synaptic Self (2002), remarks that “different
brain systems . . . can be but are not always in sync.”1 This might at first
seem like a banal observation. However, it is symptomatic of a profound
paradigm shift in our thinking about the human brain. Admittedly, the
brain is, by definition, an organ in an organism. Organicism, as a set
of images and notions that automatically accompany talk of organs and
organisms in biological discourses, privileges motifs of harmony, unity,
and wholeness.
By contrast, LeDoux suggests that conceiving of the central nervous
system along exclusively organicist lines risks leading to serious distor-
tions and oversights. More precisely, highlighting the coordinated syn-
chronization of the brain as an organ in an organism correspondingly
heightens the danger of obscuring the multiple ways in which this mate-
rial seat of the subject is nonorganic as disorganized and out of sync with
itself. The anorganic brain is permeated by intra-neurological conflicts,
discrepancies, incompatibilities, and the like.2
The life sciences, in order to do justice to the weird sorts of subjects
that humans are, must supplement their spontaneous organicism with
the notion that (phrased in Lacanian fashion) there is something in the
organic more than the organic itself. In other words, a non-organicity
is immanent to the most complex forms of the organic. This is by vir-
tue of the reality that, above certain thresholds, complexity of various
sorts (be it biological, computational, institutional, social, or whatever)
tends to generate within its given domain(s) inner antagonisms, bugs,
glitches, loopholes, short-circuits, and tensions (a fact to which any ex-
perienced computer programmer, tax lawyer, or government bureaucrat
would readily testify).3 Beyond these thresholds of complexity, more is
less; more complexity equals less functionality. Arguably, as suggested by
psychoanalysis and some neuroscientific thinkers, the human organism,
with its incredibly elaborate central nervous system, is organically hard-
wired to misfire along lines that subvert this being’s straightforward status

222
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as a mere organism in the sense of a self-integrated totality of parts that

are peacefully cooperating according to the governing master plan of a
whole that is smoothly consistent within itself.
However, this complexity-induced category of the nonorganic is not
simply equivalent to the inorganic. Expressed in Hegelian style, the non-
organicity of interest to me, assuming the organic to be an Aufhebung-
type “negation” of the inorganic, is a sublating negation of this negation,
namely, the complex organism’s auto-disruption of the organic part-whole
organization of itself as a living system. I refer to this non-organicity that
is distinct from the inorganic as the “anorganic.” The anorganic, as dif-
ferent from the inorganic, designates breakdowns of organic structures
and dynamics that are catalyzed in and by non-Whole/not-One living
systems themselves.
LeDoux is far from alone in stressing the importance of paying at-
tention to the anorganic disorganization of the central nervous system
in addition to its organic organization. The cognitive scientist Keith E.
Stanovich, in his book The Robot’s Rebellion (2004), similarly emphasizes
the lack of thoroughgoing integration among the human brain’s many
individual components and subcomponents. In Stanovich’s estimation,
any sophisticated living system resulting from evolution is bound to be
riddled with kinks and conflicts. In this vein, Stanovich goes so far as to
claim that “sometimes a person may have a brain that is, in an important
sense, at war with itself.”4
Given the actual absence of top-down design guidance, the evolu-
tionary criterion of clearing the relatively low bar of passing on genetic
material is hardly a recipe for engendering optimally functional com-
plex organisms. Even if hobbled by an array of dysfunctions triggered
by less-than-complete orchestration within and between its organs, with
these body parts being outgrowths of disparate periods and influences
of stratified, non-unified evolutionary history, so long as an organism
can muddle its way into eventually copulating, that suffices for evolution
alone.5 A German saying succinctly conveys this stumbling-into-sex base
requirement: Dumm fickt gut.
Francisco Varela and his collaborators put forward evolutionary-
theoretic theses along the same lines as Stanovich and me.6 And, follow-
ing in the footsteps of Varela, LeDoux, and Stanovich, among others, the
neuroscientist David Linden and the psychologist Gary Marcus, in 2007
and 2008 books respectively, both depict the human brain as a “kludge,”
namely, a suboptimal, hodgepodge device that is slapped together under
pressure out of whatever disparate materials happen to be available. They
each contend that a number of humanity’s distinctive features are the
surprising fruits of this “kludginess.”7
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Lacan would not be opposed to such trajectories of science-inspired

speculation. As seen, he addresses the corps morcelé and the brain side-by-
side in the same contexts.8 This alone prompts me to make the move of
positing a cerveau morcelé (brain-in-pieces) as a crucial biological fact with
respect to analytic metapsychology.9 Select trajectories of contemporary
neuroscientific thinking are coming to suggest such a concept on the
basis of intra-scientific considerations. Additionally, as the neuroscientist
Jean-Pierre Changeux explains, the human brain itself, like the rest of
the newborn’s body, is distinctively premature, with this genetically dic-
tated prematurity leaving the plastic brain to be substantially shaped and
reshaped by epigenetic variables.10
As I put it elsewhere, paraphrasing Badiou, “there is, within each
human being, no Brain, only some brains.”11 I advance this assertion in
conjunction with two of Antonio Damasio’s claims: one, “evolution is not
the Great Chain of Being,”12 and two, “the brain is a system of systems.”13
These two theses are closely related insofar as the aleatory, meandering
processes of a multitude of non-teleological, uncoordinated evolutionary
dynamics14 almost inevitably must result in a kludge-like brain.15 Current
neurobiological research programs are starting to reveal that the Brain
with a capital “B,” as the supposed sum total of cerebral components
and operations, is nothing more than a fiction of a fully organic mate-
rial substrate of thinking and feeling subjectivity, a fantasy-construct that
smoothes over the fragmentary anorganicity of this organ of organs.16
Lacan already warns against attributing the imagined unities of sums/
totalities resembling Aristotelian souls (or von Uexküllian “worlds” as
harmonious symbioses between Innenwelten and Umwelten)17 to what is
involved with human beings, their physical bodies included.18
I have a further motive for mentioning Damasio in this setting. His
book Self Comes to Mind (2010) raises a number of issues that are directly
related to the preceding discussion, as well as vital for the formulation
of a possible Lacanian neuro-psychoanalytic theory of drive. Therein,
Damasio states:

If nature can be regarded as indifferent, careless, and unconscionable,

then human consciousness creates the possibility of questioning na-
ture’s ways. The emergence of human consciousness is associated with
evolutionary developments in brain, behavior, and mind that ultimately
lead to the creation of culture, a radical novelty in the sweep of natural
history. The appearance of neurons, with its attending diversification
of behavior and paving of the way into minds, constitutes a momentous
event in the grand trajectory. But the appearance of conscious brains
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eventually capable of self-reflection is the next momentous event. It is

the opening of the way into a rebellious, albeit imperfect response to
the dictates of a careless nature.19

He proceeds in the immediately following pages to characterize this

“self,” which is generated out of reflexive and recursive mental capaci-
ties, as a “rebel” that is responsible for “the biological revolution called
culture.”20 Damasio, unlike many enthralled by the life sciences, obviously
repudiates reductive or eliminative types of naturalist materialism.21 One
might even be tempted to detect quasi-Badiouian echoes herein, with
Damasio’s talk of “events” of “radical novelty” as “revolutions” allowed
for by the self-subverting natural structures of material beings who are
free of unifying guidance and coordination.
Furthermore, Damasio draws attention to a volatile fault line that
has been deposited within the architecture of the human central nervous
system by “careless nature.” He zeroes in on the brain stem and cerebral
cortex.22 Looked at from an evolutionary perspective, these two regions
of the brain could not be further apart. They embody a chasm of chro-
nology between the relatively old (brain stem) and the relatively new
(cerebral cortex), a temporal gap or time lag that is literally incarnated
in the stuff of the central nervous system. Additionally, the primate cere-
bral cortex differs from what is to be found in other mammals, whereas
the brain stem is a lowest common denominator across a sizable swathe
of animal species.
The present version of the human brain sandwiches together a
motley assortment of components that reflect the sculpting powers of
different, unsynchronized evolutionary eras and pressures.23 This collage-
like, sedimentary juxtaposition of distinct temporal-historical layers and
strata, with these levels sometimes entering into conflict with one an-
other, cannot but remind those familiar with Freudian psychoanalysis
of Freud’s famous description of the conflicted, temporally elongated
psyche as resembling an image of Rome in which, as in a type of virtual,
computer-generated hologram, all of this city’s separate and successive
past phases and states are represented as co-present, simultaneously exist-
ing together condensed into the same space.24
Damasio begins by describing the kludgy mismatch between the
ancient reptilian brain stem and the relatively recent primate cerebral
cortex as a “big problem” posed by evolution.25 He then explains:

Notwithstanding the anatomical and functional expansion of the cere-

bral cortex, the functions of the brain stem were not duplicated in the
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cortical structures. The consequence of this economic division of roles

is a fatal and complete interdependence of brain stem and cortex. They
are forced to cooperate with each other.26

Damasio’s wording emphasizes that the parceling-out of life’s labors

between these two neuroanatomical regions is an awkward, fraught
arrangement. The brain stem crucially sustains the whole organism (in-
cluding the cortex) to which it belongs, while outsourcing many tasks es-
sential to life regulation to the cerebral cortex. What is more, the cortex
comes to exert reciprocal modulating mediations back on the brain stem
as its grounding base/trunk.
In highly distributed primate and human brain functioning, the
primitive brain stem and the advanced cortex are utterly codependent.
Yet they are, in many anatomical and physiological respects, different
in kind. Their architectures and operations dramatically set them apart
from each other. Hence, Damasio concludes:

The brain-stem-cortex mismatch is likely to have imposed limitations on

the development of cognitive abilities in general and on our conscious-
ness in particular. Intriguingly, as cognition changes under pressures
such as the digital revolution, the mismatch may have a lot to say about
the way the human mind evolves. In my formulation the brain stem will
remain a provider of the fundamental aspects of consciousness, because
it is the first and indispensable provider of primordial feelings. In-
creased cognitive demands have made the interplay between the cortex
and brain stem a bit rough and brutal, or, to put it in kinder words, they
have made the access to the wellspring of feeling more difficult. Some-
thing may yet have to give.27

Damasio, as does LeDoux,28 evinces his faith that evolution, like a slow-
moving but ultimately benevolent divinity, can and will iron out these
kinds of wrinkles in the human central nervous system.29 This betrays
a lingering investment in the pseudo-secular visions of a scientistic or-
ganicism that is problematized by the exact types of intra-evolutionary
and intra-cerebral disharmonies under discussion here. Furthermore, it
is seemingly blind to the possibility, directly implied by kludge models as
well as by the central place of conflict in psychoanalytic thinking, that an
evolutionary overcoming of the anorganic brain-in-pieces would be tanta-
mount to an undermining of the very humanity of human beings. If the
human brain’s incomplete internal harmonization gives rise to various
fundamental features of minded human subjectivity, then evolving past
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the brain-in-pieces might not be an extension of humanity’s evolution. In-

stead, it might amount to an unprecedented sort of dehumanization, an
evolutionary liquidation of precisely what makes human beings human.30
An additional detail of Damasio’s account of intra-cerebral discord
calls for attention. He identifies the thalamus as a go-between bridging
the divide between, on the one hand, the primarily emotional and moti-
vational (i.e., nonrepresentational) brain stem, and, on the other hand,
the mainly cognitive (i.e., representational) cerebral cortex:31

This is where the thalamus came to the rescue, as the enabler of an ac-
commodation. The thalamus accomplishes a dissemination of signals
from the brain stem to a widespread territory of the cortical mantle. In
turn, the hugely expanded cerebral cortex, both directly and with the
assistance of subcortical nuclei such as those in amygdalae and basal
ganglia, funnels signals to the small-scale brain stem. Maybe in the end
the thalamus is best described as the marriage broker of the oddest
couple.32

Tempted by the last sentence of this quotation, a Lacanian might recom-

mend comparing the separate regions of the brain stem and the cerebral
cortex to the discrepancy between the two positions of sexual difference
à la Lacan. Thereby, the upshot would be, in connection with Lacan’s fa-
mous statement “il n’y a pas de rapport sexuel” (“there is no sexual relation-
ship”), that, in certain instances, il n’y a pas de rapport intra-cérébral (there is
no intra-cerebral relationship). This would be an axiomatic formulation
of the weak nature of the anorganic barred corpo-Real specifically at the
level of the human central nervous system.
That said, the thalamus indeed appears to be, both structurally and
functionally, an intermediary relay station between the brain stem and
the cerebral cortex. It facilitates the two-way flows of mutual influences
back-and-forth between Damasio’s “oddest couple.” As regards these
particular features of neuroanatomy and neurophysiology, the links to
Lacanianism go farther and deeper than playful associations with one
of Lacan’s best-known one-liners. The Lacanian psychoanalyst François
Ansermet and the neuroscientist Pierre Magistretti, in their book The
Enigmas of Pleasure (2010), zoom in on a brain region closely related to
the thalamus: a part of the cerebral cortex known as the “insular cortex.”
This book’s fourth chapter is entitled “The ‘Island’ of the Drive,” with
the word “insula” being Latin for “island.”33 With respect to Freudian-
Lacanian drive theory, Ansermet and Magistretti’s fundamental thesis is
that a mismatch between the brain stem and the insular cortex lies at the
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neurobiological basis of what psychoanalysis conceives of as the uniquely

human drive (Trieb, pulsion) as distinct from animal instinct (Instinkt,
instinct).
In a moment, I will begin laying out a careful reconstruction of
Ansermet and Magistretti’s efforts to forge a Lacanian variant of neuro-
psychoanalysis, with a focus on their contributions to theorizing the
drives. Insofar as Trieb is a “fundamental concept of psychoanalysis,”34 any
neuro-psychoanalysis must accommodate it within its theoretical archi-
tecture. In tandem with this, I will refer to my own earlier work on drive
theory as well as the non-Lacanian neuro-psychoanalysis championed
first and foremost by Mark Solms. After this reconstruction of Lacanian
neuro-psychoanalysis à la Ansermet and Magistretti, I will address the
relationship between Trieb and subjectivity in Freudian-Lacanian psycho-
analysis. In so doing, I will critically assess both the productivity and limi-
tations of the efforts of Ansermet and Magistretti to articulate a neuro-
psychoanalytic “biology of freedom” (the title of the English translation
of their 2004 book À chacun son cerveau). By diagnosing a number of far-
from-minor philosophical shortcomings afflicting Ansermet and Magis-
tretti’s reflections, I hope to outline what would be required, building on
their very helpful contributions, for the completion of a rigorous, system-
atic theory of the denaturalized, more-than-organic subject nourished by
the combined intellectual resources of philosophy, psychoanalysis, and
neurobiology.
In my 2005 book Time Driven, I recast each and every drive as inher-
ently divided, internally conflicted, and self-sabotaging. Armed with many
of the insights of Lacanian thought, I return to Freud’s metapsychologi-
cal definition of Trieb. According to Freud, anything qualifying as a drive
is a borderline entity that straddles the divide between soma and psyche
and consists of four interrelated constituents: source (Quelle), pressure
(Drang), aim (Ziel), and object (Objekt). I argue that these four dimen-
sions line up on two antagonistic axes: an “axis of iteration” (source-
pressure) and an “axis of alteration” (aim-object).
Maintaining that the split within the very structure of a drive is
temporal, I depict the axis of iteration as a non/sub-representational
movement that demands pure, unadulterated repetition, the eternal
return of the same. This insistence on repetition is routed through the
mediating matrices of the axis of alteration, with its shifting concatena-
tions of representations (i.e., images and signifiers) in which differences,
however minimal, are inevitable and ineliminable. Hence, for intrinsic
structural reasons, drives not only are thwarted by conflict among them-
selves, but individual drives are self-thwarting, since the very attempt at
representational repetition made by the axis of alteration at the behest
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of its corresponding axis of iteration itself generates repetition-defying

difference. As regards the Lacanian distinction between drive and de-
sire, my Hegelian move at the level of the metapsychology of drive is
to propose that this distinction is internal to (the Freudian) Trieb itself,
with Lacanian pulsion corresponding to the axis of iteration and désir to
the axis of alteration. Each and every drive is torn between the negation
and affirmation of time, and is fueled along indefinitely by this temporal
tension between the dual somatic and psychical contraption of its four ill-
fitted components. This quadripartite contraption is the Lacanian “mon-
tage of the drive.”35
Related to the preceding, I claim that the notion of the death drive
(Todestrieb), in its various scattered expressions throughout Freud’s later
writings, is really a quasi-concept, an inconsistent jumble of phenomena
loosely resembling each other (and occasionally even being incompat-
ible with one another). I deny that Freud himself presents readers with
a clear and consistent metapsychological account of the Todestrieb. That
is to say, the “death drive” names a set of unresolved problems instead
of a polished, finalized conceptual solution. However, when Freud says
that the Todestrieb is not a drive unto itself by contrast with other drives
and is, rather, a designation for a lowest common denominator shared
by all drives, I take this very seriously. In conjunction with a substantial
amount of other textual evidence and supporting argumentation on my
part, this Freudian avowal licenses my reading of the death drive in Freud
as a name for the split afflicting drives in general.36
Jonathan Lear’s Happiness, Death, and the Remainder of Life proposes
something similar. Therein, Lear contends that the Todestrieb is not a
positive feature or entity of the libidinal economy. Although Freud often
hypostatizes it as such, Lear’s thesis, with which I agree, is that the death
drive is better thought of as a dysfunctionality plaguing the pleasure prin-
ciple, namely, a negativity as the lack of an unwaveringly optimized and
successful libidinal economy.37
Furthermore, Damasio’s “oddest couple” of brain stem and cere-
bral cortex, which is held together by the “marriage brokering” of the
thalamus, looks like a leading candidate for the neurobiological ground
of the splitting of the drive along the lines of the two incongruous axes of
iteration and alteration. The drive’s source and pressure (i.e., the axis
of iteration), involving a repetitive somatic “demand for work,” would
correspond mainly with the motivational and emotional brain stem. The
drive’s aims and objects (i.e., the axis of alteration), which involve shift-
ing successions of differing representational images and signifiers, would
correspond with the cognitive cortex. Put in Lacanian locution, the ce-
rebral cortex, via the thalamus, is the conduit for the phenomena and
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structures of Imaginary-Symbolic reality to affect and mediate the bodily

Real embodied first and foremost by the brain stem.
Resonating with my rendition of drives as “perpetual frustration
machines,”38 Ansermet and Magistretti characterize the brain as a “failure
machine” (machine à rater), doing so precisely in the context of discuss-
ing drive.39 The very title of the book in which they explore the neuro-
biological foundations of the drive-centered libidinal economy, The
Enigmas of Pleasure, refers to the mysterious, opaque “beyond” of the
pleasure principle that troubled the later Freud and compelled him to
run through a series of inconsistent speculations about a death drive (or
drives).40 Reasonably assuming that a drive is rooted in the body of the
human (an)organism, they ask, “How can it be that what functions for
the body’s physiological regulations finds itself being so dysfunctional in
psychical life?”41
Of course, as is well known, Freudian drives arise from and take
shape around such rudimentary vital activities as eating, defecating, and
copulating. Ansermet and Magistretti rightly wonder about how and why
these basic functions of organic life, which are apparently unproblematic
for other animals wallowing in their gratifications, get derailed and be-
come sources of agitation, displeasure, and suffering in minded subjects.
Although Freud never secured a biological explanation for the existence
of things “beyond the pleasure principle,” Ansermet and Magistretti
aspire to fulfill Freud’s hopes that such scientific vindication for drive
theory (and psychoanalysis generally) will arrive eventually.42
Ansermet and Magistretti translate the traditional psychoanalytic
distinction between drive and instinct into more contemporary life-
scientific language. They state that “instinct is a behavior issuing from
the genetic program, whereas drive is precisely the product of the insuf-
ficiency of genetic determination.”43 Ansermet and Magistretti’s previous
coauthored book, À chacun son cerveau, spends a lot of time emphasizing
recent biology’s intra-scientific delegitimization of scientistic determin-
isms that appeal to fixed genetic codes and evolutionarily hard-wired neu-
ral programs. For them, the steadily increasing importance of neuroplas-
ticity and epigenetics in biological accounts of human beings amounts
to the advancement of a paradoxical scientific case for the irreducibility
of human nature and subjectivity to standard scientific approaches and
explanations.44 Accordingly, they describe humans as “genetically deter-
mined not to be genetically determined.”45 Later, I will spell out why
Ansermet and Magistretti’s neuro-psychoanalytic mobilizations of neu-
roplasticity and epigenetics do not succeed at establishing a full-blown
“biology of freedom.” For now, additional exegetical labor is needed with
respect to their brand of Lacanian neuro-psychoanalysis.
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The concept-term “trace,” defined as the neural-somatic inscrip-

tion of subjective-psychical experience, plays a pivotal role in Ansermet
and Magistretti’s theorizations.46 Thanks to the brain’s endogenous epi-
genetic plasticity, it is exposed to being shaped and reshaped at the syn-
aptic level by exogenous influences emanating from the denaturalized
and denaturalizing phenomena and structures of experiential fields as
Imaginary-Symbolic realities as conceived of by Lacan. Alluding to the
Freudian Trieb, Ansermet and Magistretti depict synaptic traces as mate-
rializing the tension-ridden intersection between soma and psyche.47 Ad-
ditionally, they invoke Malabou’s rendition of plasticity as a convergence
of the (ostensible) opposites of, on the one hand, flexibility, fluidity, mal-
leability, and volatility and, on the other hand, fixity, solidity, rigidity, and
stability.48 For Ansermet and Magistretti, traces, which are formed at the
intersection of body and mind, are plastic in the precise Malabouian
sense. Furthermore, in their fusion of neurobiology and psychoanalysis,
these authors maintain that this plasticity holds both within and between
the somatic and the psychical.49
Thus far, the plasticity of the body, chiefly as the neuroplasticity of
the central nervous system, seems to be the dominant preoccupation of
Ansermet and Magistretti’s musings. They devote a great deal of effort
to stressing how the human brain is a system of synaptic networks open
to more-than-natural inscriptions marking the impacts of subjectively
registered images and words on the biophysical substance of the under-
lying living being. However, these images, words, and the complex, cross-
resonating networks of memories and representations they combine to
constitute and reconstitute repeatedly are plastic too.
Throughout their works, Ansermet and Magistretti associate the
plasticity of psychical traces with processes of “retranscription” and “re-
consolidation,” the latter being the neurobiological confirmation of the
psychoanalytic former. Retranscription, according to Ansermet and Mag-
istretti, is consistent with Freud’s models of mnemic traces according
to which these mental marks are retained and reworked through multi-
directional dynamics flowing between past, present, and future.50 This duo
makes two claims: first, that the traces laid down at the crossroads of soma
and psyche obey the twisted temporal logics of Freudian Nachträglichkeit
and Lacanian après-coup; and second, that cutting-edge neurobiology, with
its account of reconsolidation, testifies to the truth of these psychoanalytic
hypotheses regarding the plasticity of memory over time.
Taking a step further, Ansermet and Magistretti explain that one of
the counterintuitive implications of retranscription, according to neuro-
psychoanalysis, is that the mnemic mechanisms for retaining the past are
simultaneously conditions of possibility and impossibility for such reten-
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tions. On the one hand, only through such traces are prior experiences
retained. But on the other hand, the repeated retroactive retranscrip-
tions of these traces liquidate any past as such in itself, introducing the
distances of differences as lost time is recontextualized again and again.
The sole temporal-historical continuity available to the subject of mem-
ory is one whose establishment necessarily also creates discontinuities.51
Ansermet and Magistretti take their concept of reconsolidation,
which is closely related to retranscription, from the neurobiologist Cris-
tina Alberini.52 However, they propose renaming this aspect of the neuro-
biological functioning of memory “deconsolidation.” This recommended
terminological change is meant to indicate their psychoanalytic emphasis
on discontinuity over continuity. The deferred action of retranscription
brings to bear on mnemic systems the effects of psychical subjectivity as
itself a locus of the very experiences that leave plastic somatic-psychical
traces behind in the brain-psyche. Thus, reconsolidation is equally a de-
consolidation in which more-than-biological agencies inject changes into
plastic biological grounds.53
Returning to the topic of drive theory, Ansermet and Magistretti
portray Trieb as a plastic coupling of somatic states with psychical fan-
tasies.54 Put in the Freudian vocabulary of Time Driven, a drive is a pair-
ing of a corporeal axis of iteration (source-pressure) with a represen-
tational axis of alteration (aim-object), with the push-and-pull between
iteration and alteration being itself the plasticity of drive per se in its
(dis)integrated (mal)functioning.55 Furthermore, given that Ansermet
and Magistretti distinguish between Trieb and Instinkt with reference to
the notion of genetic determination— an instinct is programmed by evo-
lution and genetics, while a drive is not— drives have to be “educated” in
and through experience, namely, they have to be taught what aims and
objects to pursue by surrounding material and social milieus.
Following Freud and Lacan, Ansermet and Magistretti note that
the prolonged period of pre-maturational helplessness in human beings
destines them to the predominance of nurture over nature. Hilflosigkeit as
a biological state of development of human infants lends support to the
theme of humans as preprogrammed to be reprogrammed (as in genetic
indeterminism, namely, a coded absence of coding).56 The Vorstellungen/
signifiers of the drives’ aims and objects bear witness to the enveloping
influences of intersubjective Imaginary others and trans-subjective Sym-
bolic Others. These denaturalizing influences exploit openings of pos-
sible implantation as gaps built into the “natural” (an)organic body of
the living subject-to-be.57
Ansermet and Magistretti emphatically draw attention to the fact
that the mediating role of the insular cortex is specific to primates alone
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among the members of the animal kingdom.58 Obviously, this underscor-

ing of the primate-specific role of the insular cortex is bound up with
the standard psychoanalytic move of distinguishing human drives from
animal instincts. In terms of the anatomy and physiology of the brain,
the addition of insular mediation disrupts what otherwise would be the
automatic reflexive regulation of life’s vital functions by the brain stem
alone. The insular cortex does this by routing the tasks for maintain-
ing organic homeostasis through matrices of representations and re-
representations, namely, the signifier-like Vorstellungen (inscribed in the
posterior insula) and Vorstellungsrepräsentanzen (inscribed in the anterior
insula) of sensory-perceptual phenomena and sociolinguistic structures.59
Moreover, the insular cortex’s webs of mentalizations weave together in-
teroceptive and exteroceptive sources of input, with the plasticity of this
brain region allowing for both the retention and reworking of its repre-
sentational contents.60
To be more exact, Ansermet and Magistretti identify the posterior
insular cortex as registering representations of the body’s internal mi-
lieu via interoceptive pathways. These representations (Vorstellungen) are
then re-represented (i.e., redoubled as Vorstellungsrepräsentanzen) in the
anterior insular cortex. The latter, through its receptivity to input coming
from the body’s external surroundings via exteroceptive pathways, trans-
forms the representations of the endogenous that it duplicates from the
posterior insular cortex by combining them with representations of the
exogenous. This activity of synthesis turns internal representations into
internal-external re-representations.61
Therefore, the anterior insular cortex is the true “island of the
drive” because it is the neurological site at which the denaturalizing
forces and factors of experiential, cultural, linguistic, social, and other
environments enter the distributed and interconnected cognitive, emo-
tional, and motivational systems of the brain. Specifically through the an-
terior insular cortex, these forces and factors entwine themselves with and
overwrite the nonrepresentational, unthinking mechanisms of the brain
stem. In line with Lacanianism, Ansermet and Magistretti foreground the
mediating role of language as itself “beyond biology.”62 Additionally, they
observe that the anterior insular cortex is especially deserving of the title
“island of the drive” since it (along with the anterior cingulate cortex)
is unique to human beings, distinguishing them even from their closest
primate relatives.63
Meshing with my emphasis on the idea of the anorganic, Anser-
met and Magistretti are careful to insist on the discontinuities between
interoceptive representations and hybrid interoceptive-exteroceptive re-
representations.64 The latter mark the intrusion of denaturalizing me-
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diators that literally bed down in the flesh of the living being they thus
colonize. With Ansermet and Magistretti’s positing of an insurmountable
gap between these mediators and the organism they mediate,65 they link
the anorganicity of the human central nervous system to the dysfunction-
ality of the psyche’s libidinal economy. In other words, they demystify
the enigma of the beyond of the pleasure principle by pinpointing the
intra-biological bases for conflicts between the biological and the more-
than-biological. The brain naturally destined for denaturalization, this
anorganic organ, is programmed for (partial) reprogramming by being
genetically determined not to be (wholly) genetically determined. More-
over, this brain is fated to be a “failure machine” for a minded subject
who is prone to painful symptoms and psychopathological sufferings by
nature, nurture, and an awkward, unconsummated marriage between
the two.
Considering Ansermet and Magistretti’s thesis that uniquely human
drives are products of this anorganicity at the intersection of soma and
psyche, their proposals resonate with my theory of the self-subverting split
Trieb. This resonance is amplified further by their remarking upon the
temporal essence of the Hebbian plasticity that so markedly affects the
representational scaffoldings of the embodied libidinal economy.66 Ad-
ditionally, Ansermet and Magistretti, like Jonathan Lear and me, manage
to account for the malfunctioning of the pleasure principle without hy-
postatizing this as a dark, mysterious countercurrent (i.e., Todestrieb) ma-
neuvering in the nocturnal depths of the primordial, seething id. They
explicitly stipulate that the pleasure principle’s beyond is its immanent
(self-)blockage, rather than being a transcendent power.67
Yet, Ansermet and Magistretti’s neuro-psychoanalytic treatments
of drive and memory trigger in me a nagging worry. With phenomena
such as the de/re-consolidations of synaptic traces in plastic neural net-
works in view, Ansermet and Magistretti stress that “we never use the
same brain twice.”68 While agreeing with this as truthfully accurate in
strict neuroscientific terms, I nonetheless want to raise concerns about
the (over)emphasis they place on the side of a more nominalist ontology
that is primarily tied to neuroanatomy and neurophysiology.
Both drive and memory involve repetition. But if the brain is dis-
solved in an ever-changing Heraclitean flux in which differences rule
supreme, how do Ansermet and Magistretti account for the repetitions
exhibited by libidinal and mnemic mechanisms? Asked another way, what
explains a plethora of facts evident in multiple fields (psychoanalysis,
philosophy, cognitive science, etc.) indicating that central nervous sys-
tems give rise to and support recurrences and reiterations of the “same”
thoughts, feelings, and actions— and this despite the differences within
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the brains of single subjects over time as well as across the synchronous
and diachronous diversities of multiple individuals’ brains? Psychoanal-
ysis both theoretical and clinical cannot do without references to repeti-
tions for the sake of privileging the differences that are discernible in
connection with neurobiology and an accompanying spontaneous nomi-
nalism.
Before proceeding to detailed criticisms of Ansermet and Magis-
tretti’s more ambitious philosophical speculations, the non- Lacanian
neuro-psychoanalytic framework of Mark Solms and Oliver Turnbull’s
book The Brain and the Inner World (2002) warrants a few comments.
Therein, Solms and Turnbull maintain that there is a firm neural basis
for the distinction between energies and representations that is so crucial
to Freud’s metapsychology.69 This distinction is a prominent feature of
Freudian drive theory, with the drive’s source and pressure being associ-
ated with the energetic and its aims and objects with the representational.
Solms and Turnbull present the emotional-motivational “SEEKING
system” as underlying “the neurobiology of ‘libidinal drive.’”70 The first
connection between Freudian Trieb and neurobiological SEEKING they
establish has to do with Freud’s insistence on the “objectless” status of
drives. A drive, by contrast with an instinct, does not come hard-wired
with an innate inclination toward a predetermined type of object as its
natural telos.71 The same arguably could be said about the SEEKING
system.72
Solms and Turnbull take their taxonomy of affective neural sys-
tems from the neuroscientist Jaak Panksepp’s comparative cross-species
investigations into the emotional brain.73 One of the problems with this
is that Panksepp intends his taxonomy to cover mammalian brains in
general.74 By contrast, Antonio Damasio, with his focus on the circuit
between the brain stem, thalamus, and cerebral cortex, zeroes in on the
primate brain. Ansermet and Magistretti, with their focus on the frictions
within and between the brain stem and the multidimensional insular cor-
tex, target features specific to human beings. In this regard, Solms and
Turnbull’s talk of the “animal” and “organism” is telling.75 Their reliance
on Panksepp, however helpful and productive, risks re-naturalizing Trieb,
namely, reducing it to animal Instinkt.
This problem noted, there is nonetheless significant overlap
between the Lacanian and non-Lacanian neuro-psychoanalytic delinea-
tions of drive put forward by Ansermet-Magistretti and Solms-Turnbull,
respectively. Ansermet and Magistretti likewise uphold the importance
of objectlessness in any account of drive. Yet, unlike Solms and Turn-
bull, they stress displeasure instead of pleasure, arguing that the absence
of genetically determined instinctual object-choices dooms the drive-
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centered libidinal economies of human beings to inevitable dissatis-

faction and disappointments.76 Whereas Solms and Turnbull pursue a
neuro-psychoanalytic understanding of the organic pleasure principle,
Ansermet and Magistretti aim to build a neuro-psychoanalytic model of
anorganic drive on the foundations of Freud’s later metapsychology in-
corporating what lies “beyond the pleasure principle.”
Solms and Turnbull examine a neuroanatomical and neurophysi-
ological juxtaposition between that which is nonrepresentational (i.e.,
the emotional-motivational SEEKING system) and that which is repre-
sentational (i.e., memory systems as cognitive in addition to emotional
and motivational). This division lines up in parallel with those proposed
by Damasio, Ansermet, and Magistretti between brain stem and corti-
ces (whether cerebral or insular). For all five of these authors, the types
of motive forces elucidated by psychoanalysis are highly distributed in
the human brain, and correspond to complex circuits wiring together a
dappled ensemble of diverse systems and subsystems that are affected by
both endogenous and exogenous inputs. Such neural circuits, in their
hyper-complexity amplified further by their location at the intersection
of numerous biological and more-than-biological lines of influence, are
anorganic as features of a kludgy, malfunction-plagued corpo-Real (of
which the hodgepodge, collage-like Trieb as split between axes of iteration
and alteration is a prime example).
As Solms and Turnbull indicate, the widely spread-out neural ar-
chitecture of drive makes it such that, in humans especially, even suppos-
edly base-level impulses and urges are modulated and nudged around
by higher-order cognitive functions.77 Put in the parlance of Freudian
metapsychology, the SEEKING system on its own resembles the source
and pressure of drives (minus their aims and objects). Consistent with
Freud’s linkage of the nature of infantile helplessness with the nurture of
the helpful significant Other (i.e., the adult caretaker as Nebenmensch),78
Solms and Turnbull assign a major role to sociolinguistic direction in
teaching the SEEKING system of the developing child’s brain what it can
and should need and want.79 Lacan’s two triads of alterity Real, Symbolic,
and Imaginary as well as need, demand, and desire provide much more
nuanced accounts of the processes operative in these developments.
Solms and Turnbull, alluding to the realities of epigenetics and neu-
roplasticity, refer several times to “blanks” built into the arrangements
and workings of the apparatus of the central nervous system. 80 These
blanks are their equivalent to what Ansermet and Magistretti repeatedly
characterize as genetic indeterminism,81 namely, preprogramming for re-
programming, natural determination not to be naturally determined (or,
as another advocate of a Lacanian neuro-psychoanalysis, Gérard Pom-
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mier, puts it, “innate that it not be innate”).82 The question of whether
such indeterminism, as claimed by Ansermet and Magistretti, is tanta-
mount to a “biology of freedom” is what I will now turn to addressing.
In The Enigmas of Pleasure, Ansermet and Magistretti gesture at
a connection between their account of drive and a theory of autono-
mous subjectivity.83 A number of other authors likewise seize on intra-
bodily and/or intra-mental antagonisms as the very groundless ground
of human freedom.84 But this way of articulating the link between drive
and subject is too quick and easy.
Ansermet, in a 2002 essay, already reveals his desire to paint a neuro-
psychoanalytic portrait of subjective freedom. Therein, he touches upon
the now-familiar theme of humans as being “genetically determined not
to be genetically determined,”85 with the purported consequence that
“the subject hence would find itself determined by the default of its deter-
mination.”86 Natural genetic openness to more-than-natural epigenetic
modifications is expressed most strikingly by the plasticity of the human
central nervous system.87
Ansermet’s thesis in his 2002 text is that the psychical subject’s
autonomy results from its plastic brain being individuated to the point
of utter uniqueness by the confluence of disparate variables colliding
with and within this lump of folded, wrinkly matter. The argument is
twofold: one, neuroplasticity allows for and makes inevitable the genesis
of a hybrid, idiosyncratic brain-psyche; and two, such plasticity-facilitated
singularization is equivalent to freedom.88 Ansermet underscores this
argument when he asserts that “the subject remains the exception to the
universal that carries him.”89 As he subsequently reiterates this assertion
in collaboration with Magistretti, “the individual can be considered to be
biologically determined to be free, that is, to constitute an exception to
the universal that carries him.”90
This tendency to conflate uniqueness with autonomy is reflected
in the two different titles of Ansermet’s first book with Magistretti: the
French original, À chacun son cerveau (To each his own brain), and the
English translation, Biology of Freedom. The original French title empha-
sizes the irreducible particularity of individuals’ brains. The English title
substituting for it already hints that Ansermet and Magistretti consider
this particularity to be itself an embodied realization of autonomy. In-
deed, the contents of the book amply confirm this suspicion. Therein, the
two-part equation of neuroplasticity with individuation and individuation
with freedom is affirmed many times.91
More recently, Magistretti and Ansermet, in a 2010 collection of
papers, assign even greater importance to idiosyncrasy. This edited col-
lection is subtitled An Encounter around Singularity (Une rencontre autour de
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la singularité). In their editors’ introduction, they unfurl a lengthy chain

of equivalences: epigenetics equals plasticity equals contingency equals
singularity equals unpredictability equals autonomy . . .92 Magistretti and
Ansermet seem to believe that undermining vulgar scientistic determin-
isms is itself already tantamount to establishing a “biology of freedom.”
What, precisely, is objectionable about Ansermet and Magistretti’s
claims to have advanced a theory of subjective freedom at the intersec-
tion of Freudian-Lacanian psychoanalysis and current neurobiology? The
most fundamental philosophical problem plaguing these claims is that
full-fledged autonomy is much more than a matter of mere contingency,
singularity, or unpredictability. The freedom of subjects is not simply syn-
onymous with indeterminism arising from idiosyncrasy or randomness.
Nevertheless, Ansermet and Magistretti sometimes talk as though this
were so.93
That it is not so can readily be grasped by taking note of the unprob-
lematic compatibility between nominalism and determinism as ontologi-
cal positions. One could easily affirm a world of nothing but contingently
individuated unique particulars while, at the same time, consistently de-
nying the existence of anything on the order of autonomous subjectivity
proper. Furthermore, even if the failure of the predictive power cher-
ished by the modern sciences is ascribed to ontology rather than episte-
mology, bare chance or arbitrariness is not sufficient for an ascription of
autonomy in any robust, meaningful sense.
Admittedly, undermining the deterministic picture of nature sup-
porting mechanistic, reductive, and eliminative materialisms is a nec-
essary condition for a viable quasi-naturalist and materialist theory of
the autonomous subject (in this particular context, a Lacanian neuro-
psychoanalytic biology of freedom). Yet it is a necessary but not sufficient
condition for such a theory. By contrast with Ansermet and Magistretti,
the transcendental materialism of my Prolegomena to Any Future Material-
ism aims to address both categories of conditions: sufficient (in the third
volume to come) as well as necessary (in this second volume here).
To go into greater critical detail, I want to start by zooming in on the
interlinked topics of epigenetics and neuroplasticity. Much of Ansermet
and Magistretti’s presentation of these related biological facts is accurate
and insightful. Epigenetics indeed reveals a genetic indeterminism as
hard-wiring by nature for rewiring by nurture. And the neuroplasticity of
the human central nervous system is a profoundly important incarnation
of such indeterminism as genetic preprogramming for epigenetic and
contextual reprogramming.
The additional biological fact of humans’ extended period of pre-
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maturational helplessness has the consequence that significant portions

of brain development occur outside the womb. Many of the brain’s neural
networks, instead of congealing into place in utero in ways that thereby
would be determined primarily by innate codes and instructions, are
generated and assembled during infancy and childhood through learn-
ing experiences molded by multifaceted matrices of external mediation.
Combined with the physical weakness and uncoordination also entailed
by human helplessness, the genetically dictated pre-maturation of the
human brain, in which much of maturation is left up to epigenetic dic-
tates following birth, means that human nature is naturally destined for
denaturalization.94
Playing devil’s advocate against Ansermet and Magistretti for the
moment, I will show how one could concede all of these points regarding
epigenetics and neuroplasticity without dropping the stance of a hard-
nosed determinism that rules out the effective existence of the freedom
of truly autonomous subjects. One way to illustrate this is through refer-
ence to Lacan’s teachings and the distinction between ontogeny and phy-
logeny. Breaking with Freud’s intermittent reliance on this distinction,
Lacan consistently and categorically forbids recourse to phylogenetic
speculations. In Lacan’s eyes, musings about the evolutionary emergence
of humanity from nonhuman animality and the creation of language out
of a prehistoric, nonlinguistic muteness are, at a minimum, epistemologi-
cally out-of-bounds.95 In both metapsychological theory and clinical prac-
tice, Lacanian psychoanalysis arguably limits itself to considering only
select facets of ontogenetic subject formation.
Ansermet and Magistretti, tacitly in line with their allegiance to
Lacanianism, remain silent about evolution and phylogeny despite their
invocations of genetics à la the post-Darwinian life sciences. A deter-
mined determinist could readily take advantage of this avoidance. For
instance, if, as many partisans of a certain evolutionary worldview assert,
language, culture, and the like are really outgrowths of a natural history
with its selection mechanisms, then epigenetic modifications of the plas-
tic brain are nothing more than expressions of a second-order natural
determinism, mere epiphenomena of a never-actually-denaturalized hu-
manity. In order to combat such opponents brandishing a reductive nat-
uralistic determinism with more than just unconvincing foot-stamping
and fist-banging, Lacanianism has to defy Lacan’s ban on phylogenetic
investigations, especially if it is invested in cross-breeding psychoanalysis
and neurobiology.96 Lacanians must bring themselves to recognize the
momentous revolution that bears Darwin’s name and, in so doing, begin
seriously reckoning with the implications of evolutionary theory. By fail-
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ing to do this while simultaneously courting the life sciences, Ansermet

and Magistretti leave the door wide open to advocates of the determinism
of crude evolutionary psychologies.
To be clear, like Lacan, Ansermet, and Magistretti, I am entirely un-
sympathetic to the scientistic vulgarities of the pan-naturalisms preached
by evolutionary psychologists and their ilk. I too consider the non-
dialectical materialisms of these ideologues to be intellectually bankrupt.
However, different sorts of intellectual bankruptcy loom in the absence
of compelling intra-scientific refutations of these pseudoscientific oppo-
nents’ specious claims: idealist dogmatisms, subjective idealisms, and re-
active repudiations of materialism and the sciences.
Ansermet and Magistretti, as well as Lacan, are all avowedly com-
mitted to a materialist outlook that is indebted to modern science.97 But
such a commitment is severely compromised or totally betrayed by either
sealed lips or a sharp tongue in response to the Darwin-event and its
myriad consequences. My guiding conviction is that the sole nondogmatic
and non-idealist route beyond the vulgar materialist beliefs of scientistic
ideologies passes through, rather than bypasses, the life sciences, includ-
ing the phylogenetic reflections of an evolutionary thinking that encom-
passes natural history and human history’s situation within it. A Lacanian
neuro-psychoanalysis leading to a biology of freedom must possess em-
pirically and philosophically rigorous arguments that counter biologistic
determinisms on both the ontogenetic and phylogenetic levels. Anser-
met and Magistretti’s exclusively ontogenetic sketches of subjectivity rely
on an untenable equating of autonomy with idiosyncrasy, indeterminacy,
and unpredictability. Their neglect of phylogenetic issues further weak-
ens their case.
In addition to ignoring the challenges posed by naturalist deter-
minisms that appeal to evolutionary determinants, Ansermet and Ma-
gistretti similarly overlook the possible objections that could be posed
by advocates of sociocultural determinisms. They seemingly take it for
granted that if the subject of psychoanalytic metapsychology can be
shown scientifically to arise out of the biological body by virtue of more-
than-biological mediators that are irreducible to the bio-materiality fall-
ing within the explanatory jurisdiction of the natural sciences, then this
subject is proven to be not only real, but really free. In other words, An-
sermet and Magistretti appear simply to assume that a subject constituted
by non-natural structures and phenomena is autonomous. This, in turn,
indicates an assumed synonymy between determinism and naturalism, as
though all determinists are naturalists.
Various sorts of sociohistorical constructionists readily would retort
that the non-natural mediators that override evolutionary-genetic pro-
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gramming, instead of carving out liberated zones for free subjectivity,

subject the living body in the sense of subjection as heteronomization.
The human organism is thereby placed under the controlling authority
of external regimes of discipline, education, normalization, and so on.
Representatives of such non-naturalist determinisms include not only un-
sophisticated pseudo-Marxists, but also those enamored of Nietzschean
and Foucauldian historical narratives. Likewise, various professed adher-
ents to the views of Freud and Lacan often portray ontogenetic subject
formation as a process wherein the young subject-to-be is marked and cast
by family romances and the signifiers of big Others.
Furthermore, many of those sympathetic to psychoanalysis tend to
believe in a determinism of the unconscious or id in which human be-
ings are pictured as the unknowing puppets and playthings of asubjec-
tive schemes transpiring behind the curtains of intra-psychical defense
mechanisms. By contrast, I consider construals of Freudian-Lacanian
psychoanalysis as straightforwardly and essentially deterministic to be er-
roneous.98 And I strongly suspect that Ansermet and Magistretti silently
presuppose this without feeling obliged to argue for it. However, explicit
arguments against non-naturalist determinisms, including analytic ones,
are mandatory as part of the kind of theoretical apparatus that Ansermet
and Magistretti’s texts seek to establish.
Another remaining determinist hitch not removed by Ansermet
and Magistretti has to do with the two-way dialectic of mutual influ-
ences between brain and experience via plasticity. This co-constituting
loop is central to Ansermet and Magistretti’s proposals about neuro-
psychoanalytic subjectivity. They evince a tendency to hastily equate the
real dialectics of neuroplasticity with freedom in the fullest, most robust
of senses. But even if, as is unlikely, the oscillating, bidirectional move-
ments between brain and experience are always perfectly balanced, one
might ask questions such as: What gets the ball of this dialectic rolling to
begin with? Does the central nervous system remain the “prime mover”
of this process? Is it still, as a classical Marxist might phrase it, “determi-
native in the last instance?”
If experience ultimately is a secondary secretion of the brain, then
it is easily imaginable that the loop made possible by neuroplasticity is a
closed one of an auto-affection that is entirely determined by the mate-
rial base of a human nature, itself laid down by evolution and genet-
ics. Ansermet and Magistretti would have to elaborate and defend an
ontology of strong emergentism in which more-than-material subjectiv-
ity (what they associate with “experience”) both achieves a self-relating,
non-epiphenomenal independence vis-à-vis its material grounds and also
comes to exert a power of downward causation on these grounds. This
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philosophical framework required by but lacking in Ansermet and Ma-

gistretti’s work would have to be fleshed out at phylogenetic as well as
ontogenetic levels.
Stepping back for a moment to survey the larger philosophical land-
scape in which the preceding issues are situated, another reference to
analytic philosophy of mind is pertinent here: David Chalmers’s famous
labeling of the enigma of the relationship between matter and conscious-
ness as “the hard problem.” Lacanianism, with its concept of the sub-
ject as distinct from the ego, leans toward highlighting the importance
of structures of (unconscious) sapience that are irreducible to the phe-
nomena of experiential awareness alone. Hence, along with Ansermet
and Magistretti, I am interested in more than merely the phenomenal
qualia of conscious sentience. Nonetheless, if one enlarges Chalmers’s
hard problem so as to include the mystery of the genesis of sapience over
and above sentience, any ostensible biology of freedom cannot credibly
avoid confronting and working through these problems. Ansermet and
Magistretti have yet to face such challenges head-on so as to tackle them
satisfactorily. Unless and until they do so, their claims to have forged a
neuro-psychoanalytic theory of autonomous subjectivity will remain phil-
osophically suspect.
From Plato to the present, an overwhelming majority of philoso-
phers have rejected the idea that freedom amounts simply to doing what
one wants. Human autonomy cannot be, for a number of compelling rea-
sons, just behaving at the behest of one’s desires, automatically acting out
one’s shifting bundles of impulses and urges. Against this background,
Ansermet and Magistretti’s equation of denaturalized drive with subjec-
tive freedom sounds as though it makes the mistake of allowing for the
conflation of autonomy proper with wanton hedonism.99 They owe read-
ers a finer-grained account of the rapport between drive and subject in
which the gesture of this conflation is thwarted and replaced by a more
philosophically and psychoanalytically satisfactory theory of driven-yet-
autonomous subjectivity.
Ansermet and Magistretti deserve a great deal of credit for their
daring and insightful ongoing explorations of the still little-charted terri-
tories at the intersections of neurobiology and Lacanian psychoanalysis. I
readily acknowledge that they have made substantial headway in elucidat-
ing several of the necessary conditions for a biologically informed account
of free subjects. But, despite the many outstanding merits of Ansermet
and Magistretti’s contributions, I consider their efforts toward a neuro-
psychoanalysis of autonomy to fall short in two basic respects. First, there
are other necessary conditions for subjective freedom apart from the
ones that Ansermet and Magistretti touch upon. These are conditions of
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a general ontological type underlying the specific properties of human

organisms latched onto by this Lacanian neuro-psychoanalytic pair. Sec-
ond, necessary conditions are not sufficient conditions. This means here
that Ansermet and Magistretti pinpoint certain variables in the absence
of which strict determinism perhaps would reign without, for all that, ac-
tually delivering a theory of really existing autonomy per se.
What are the other necessary conditions for subjective autonomy
not dealt with by Ansermet and Magistretti? I suspect they and I share
the core conviction that an equivalence between physical matter and the
ground-zero of being is ontologically axiomatic for a materialism that
is properly allied with the natural sciences. That said, any materialist of
this stripe who continues to affirm the existence of subjects irreducible,
yet still immanent, to the domains covered by physics, chemistry, and
biology must offer a two-tiered enumeration of necessary conditions that
explains (1) how the material universe is arranged such that it is possible
for life and sentience to arise out of it, and (2) how the kingdom of sen-
tient living organisms functions such that it is possible for sapience and
autonomy to emerge and achieve a self-relating independence endowed
with powers of downward causation on both organic and inorganic mat-
ter. A materialist ontology, in the course of enumerating these necessary
conditions for free human beings, almost certainly will be forced to revisit
questions and controversies having to do with the cohesiveness (or lack
thereof) of the myriad sciences and relations between different varieties
of causality. In an even more abstract, albeit indispensable, philosophical
register, the distinctions and dialectics between continuity and discon-
tinuity, unity and multiplicity, parts and wholes, and similar perennial
problems will be in play over the course of striving for the formulation
of a biology of freedom.
Furthermore, what are the sufficient conditions that are absent
from Ansermet and Magistretti’s reflections? A phylogenetic account of
the genesis of languages that is compatible with evolutionary theory must
be added to Lacanian narratives of ontogenetic language acquisition. An
examination is requisite of the link between, on the one hand, specific
aspects of syntax and semantics and, on the other hand, the reflexive and
recursive capacities displayed by minded subjects conscious and uncon-
scious. These are but a few of the ingredients that would have to be in-
volved with thoroughly spelling out the sufficient, over and above the nec-
essary, conditions for a materialism of autonomy. This calls for a massively
interdisciplinary endeavor that would deploy the resources of numerous
branches of both continental and analytic philosophy, Freudian-Lacanian
psychoanalysis, the multiple domains of the neurosciences, linguistics,
and Marxism, among other bodies of knowledge.
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Eric Kandel, in both his 2000 speech accepting the Nobel Prize in
Physiology or Medicine for his discoveries regarding the biology of mem-
ory as well as elsewhere, emphatically maintains that one of the key intel-
lectual tasks for the twenty-first century will be accomplishing a synthesis
of psychoanalysis and neurobiology.100 Observing that “psychoanalysis
enters the twenty-first century with its influence in decline,” he laments
that “this decline is regrettable, since psychoanalysis still represents the
most coherent and intellectually satisfying view of the mind.”101 The sad
irony is that the waning of psychoanalysis corresponds to the waxing of
biological research programs that are recognized by few scientists or ana-
lysts as largely complementing and vindicating Freudian and Lacanian
tenets. Most people both inside and outside the worlds of academia see
these advances in the life sciences as threatening Freud and Lacan, for
better or worse.
The truth arguably is the exact opposite. Freud’s and Lacan’s ex-
pectations of future biological buttressing of the psychoanalytic edifice
rapidly are being met.102 If the twenty-first century is to fulfill the hopes
of Kandel and those of like minds, then it will have to be the century of
the new paradigm of the anorganic, of the barred corpo-Real of bodies
and brains in pieces. This is precisely what I designate with the phrase
“weak nature.”
15

The Myth of the Non-Given:

The Positive Genesis of
the Negative

Despite my solidarity with many facets of Lacan’s thinking, I consider his

accounts of the emergences of ego and subject to suffer from a major
shortcoming: their exclusively ontogenetic status. Lacan, wavering
between epistemological and ontological justifications, strictly prohibits
phylogenetic hypotheses and investigations as illegitimate, at least within
the limits of psychoanalysis proper as he conceives it. This highly conten-
tious circumscription of the scope of psychoanalytic thought leads Lacan
into having direct recourse to biblical references. In line with his ban
on raising queries regarding the historical origins of language and con-
nected social structures, he permits himself an affirmation of the state-
ment “In the beginning was the Word.”1 He overtly portrays the advent
of the symbolic order, a creative genesis obfuscated and mystified by the
Lacanian law against all things phylogenetic, as the descent of the “Holy
Spirit” down into the world.2 For any atheist materialist, Lacan included,3
this should be deeply troubling.4
Jacques-Alain Miller relatedly proclaims that “nothingness enters
reality through language.”5 Such a thesis does not actually fit Lacan him-
self overall, especially considering the latter’s realist and materialist ab-
sentialism that is manifest in core concepts like the body-in-pieces and
Ur-privation. However, Miller’s proclamation indeed is able to prop itself
up against select sides of Lacan’s teachings. What Miller and the version
of Lacan he relies on represent is, I contend, a dogma that is particu-
larly widespread in continental European philosophy/theory, infected as
these intellectual traditions have been and still remain with various ide-
alist, romanticist, and negative theological tendencies both avowed and
disavowed. Modifying a turn of phrase from Wilfrid Sellars’s landmark
1956 essay “Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind,” I consider the most
suitable label for this dogma “the myth of the non-given.”
This myth lurks at the basis of each and every appeal to an unex-
plained factical givenness of the non-given as absence, lack, negativity,
and so on. With regard to a theory of subjectivity, its supporting back-

245
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ground presence is borne witness to by peremptory invocations of an

irreducible, unanalyzable Nothingness as the primordial privative cause
of the subject (or even as the subject itself). No matter how seemingly
sophisticated and intricate the jargonistic gesticulating, these invocations
boil down to vulgar foot-stamping and fist-banging.
As regards the myth of the non-given in relation to certain theories
of subjectivity, a bond of complicity was established between them at the
dawn of Renaissance humanism with its founding document, Pico della
Mirandola’s 1486 oration “On the Dignity of Man.” Therein, Pico della Mi-
randola describes human beings, as distinct from all other creatures and
creations, as specially endowed by God with a strange, peculiarly nature-
less nature, an inner absence of form unlike that to be found anywhere
else in the abundant, overflowing fullness of the rest of the formed world.
Through top-down divine fiat alone, an abyssal groundlessness of pure
negativity becomes the metaphysical spark of humans in their crown-of-
creation dignity. A rock-bottom emptiness of otherworldly provenance is
the negative Ur-cause of humanity’s distinctiveness.6
Jumping ahead to the past century, ostensibly irreligious minds con-
tinued to propagate, without critical modifications, permutations of Pico
della Mirandola’s mythical, theological story of uniquely human voided-
ness. In the continental Europe of the past hundred years generally and
in France particularly, atheists and non-atheists, humanists and antihu-
manists, and partisans of a range of other apparently incompatible theo-
retical orientations have faithfully reproduced this narrative with vary-
ing degrees of self-awareness. Even when decoupled from the Christian
framework of “On the Dignity of Man,” assertions of an ex nihilo, always-
already-there absence, lack, nothingness, void, and so on at the heart of
subjectivity perpetuate the religious vices of dogmatism, mystification,
and obscurantism. Through dependence on the myth of the non-given,
those putting forward these assertions either rest on positings of a priori
metaphysical unexplained explainers, or they capriciously balk at think-
ing their way through to the underlying foundations of their positions.
Lacan and Lacanians, insofar as they staunchly refuse to contem-
plate the lengthier stretches of human and natural histories that anyone
with sound scientific sensibilities presumes gave rise to contemporary
humanity, evince belief in a mythical givenness of negativity (as itself
non-givenness). Apart from idealist and anti-naturalist variants of Lacan-
ianism, even in the most sympathetic materialist, quasi-naturalist reading
of Lacan, he continues to be guilty of investment in this myth. Within his
purely ontogenetic picture, the infant’s corps morcelé is referred to as if it
were the ultimate givenness of a ground-zero origin that is incapable of
further explanation— save for ahistorical, idealist talk about big Others
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as eternally preexisting, phylogenetically inexplicable symbolic orders

into which conception and birth throw children.7 The pre-maturationally
helpless body-in-pieces of ontogeny, severed from its natural connec-
tions with phylogenetic and evolutionary histories, darkens into being
an opaque bedrock of false, fictional absoluteness.
The myth of the non-given hides itself poorly in the cracks and gaps
of this thus-absolutized body-in-pieces. If these absential specters are not
to be exorcized completely after being flushed out of these nooks and
crannies within bodies, what is to be done with them? How are they to be
properly situated? To be crystal clear, I do not intend to overturn Lacan’s
rich dissections of embodiment. Instead, I merely aim to demonstrate
that his reflections on these matters are indefensibly incomplete and in
need of substantial supplementary supports of sorts with which he likely
would not be comfortable.
Other figures who are guilty of providing philosophical cover for
a mysticism of negativity are not hard to identify. Apart from Lacan, his
existentialist contemporaries Heidegger, with his unfathomable send-
ings and ecstatic clearings of Being, and Sartre, with his unnaturally es-
senceless existences, are obvious examples. Flashing forward to today,
Alain Badiou and Giorgio Agamben are two living philosophers who are
influenced by these predecessors and, under such influences, are em-
bellishing upon the myth of the non-given. Slavoj Žižek too sometimes
flirts with the danger of continued fidelity to the idol of this mysterious
Nothingness.8
Agamben’s human being is a “man without content,” a de-
essentialized openness whose always-second “nature” is continually sub-
jected to ongoing constructions and reconstructions putting to work its
unworkable, inexhaustible potentialities (with Agamben explicitly relying
on Pico della Mirandola).9 Similarly, Badiou’s human being is a “voided
animal” to be thought by a new “inhumanism” that combines Sartre’s
humanism and the antihumanism of Lacan, Althusser, and Foucault.
Badiou equally praises these four French forerunners of his for their un-
flinching opposition to “a bad Darwin.” He has yet to indicate whether,
for him, there is such a thing as a “good Darwin” and, if so, what he
would look like and what relevance, if any, he would have for Badiouian
philosophy. Unlike all other animals, Badiou’s voided animal cannot be
addressed by naturalism, and purportedly calls instead for anti-naturalist
(one might be tempted to say “supernaturalist”) treatments.10
Apart from Kant and Hegel as its twin fountainheads, the vast bulk
of what has come to be known as “continental philosophy” springs from
the (un)holy trinity of Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud (à la Ricoeur’s three
great “masters of suspicion”).11 The almost blanket neglect of Darwin by
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these philosophical orientations is symptomatic of a swarm of intellectual

and ideological problems plaguing various strains of continental philos-
ophy and its offshoots. Ironically, Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud, unlike
so many of their self-proclaimed successors, do not downplay or ignore
Darwin’s immense significance.
Along with Hegel, the figure of Darwin marks a fork of fundamental
divergence between the continental and analytic traditions. Whereas the
majority of continental philosophers of the past century underestimate
the far-reaching radicality of the Darwinian revolution, a sizable num-
ber of analytic philosophers tend to overestimate it. I have reservations
about hyperbole in Daniel Dennett’s trumpeting of Darwinian evolution-
ary theory as a “universal acid.”12 Nevertheless, I readily acknowledge
the incredible potency and magnitude of the Darwin-event. My wager is
that dispelling the myth of the non-given while nonetheless preserving
its insistence on an intimate rapport between subjectivity and negativity
demands evolutionary-phylogenetic explanations of the natural emer-
gences of the more-than-natural negativities inherent in existent subjects.
For any philosophical or psychoanalytic system that is reconciled with
the natural sciences and allied with (historical/dialectical) materialism,
a rapprochement with Darwin’s ideas is requisite.
With respect to Lacan, a nonmystical, thoroughly materialist
account of the historical genesis of the ontogenetic ground-zero of the
bio-material body-in-pieces needs the help of Darwin and his evolutionary-
theoretic heirs. Without accepting such assistance, Lacanianism leaves
itself divided from within by an unsustainable self-contradiction in which
it is split between ontogenetic atheism and phylogenetic theism. On this
matter, a choice formally configured as a Badiouian “point” (i.e., a deci-
sion between two irreconcilable alternatives with no third way available)
thrusts itself forward.13 In the terms of the heavy-handed American cul-
ture wars’ bumper-sticker sloganeering, this is a choice between the Jesus
fish and the Darwin amphibian.
In relation to the concocted controversies surrounding evolution in
America’s absurd culture wars, David Linden lays out an elegantly simple
and utterly devastating argument against the anti-Darwinian proponents
of so-called “intelligent design.”14 In his book The Accidental Mind (2007),
he represents the human central nervous system as a “kludge.”15 Linden
stresses that the human brain is, in fact, unintelligently designed. It is the
contingent by-product of countless uncoordinated evolutionary accidents
in which, again and again, the relatively newer is tossed into an intricate
but sloppy mix with the comparatively older.16
The human central nervous system is “Exhibit A” for those of Amer-
ica’s culture warriors who still to this day desire to re-prosecute the 1925
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Scopes trial. The anti-evolution advocates of intelligent design rest their

case on the move of emphasizing the complexity of organic beings. They
maintain that such complexity is inexplicable on the basis of the blind,
random mechanisms proposed by Darwinian models of evolutionary
processes. They believe Darwin and his followers to be fatally unable to
answer questions as to how highly functional and seamlessly organized
organisms could arise from the unguided chaos of a physical universe of
contingencies without teleologies. The human brain would be the pin-
nacle of such stunning sophistication in the natural world. Its networked
assemblies of astronomical numbers of neurons and synapses come to-
gether to generate and sustain seemingly miraculous mindedness and
everything this brings with it.
Linden’s concise neuroscientific refutation of intelligent design
consists of an additional move beyond just establishing the anorganic
“kludginess” of the anatomy and physiology of the central nervous sys-
tem. This by itself would already be enough, since a demonstrable lack
of functionality, organization, and so on is sufficient to cast reasonable
doubts on the claim that an intelligent designer intentionally built a mar-
velously elaborate and synchronized material seat suited for his human
subjects. The further step Linden takes in driving home his critique is to
assert, on the basis of ample supporting evidence, that the brain is en-
dowed with its fantastic mind-making powers celebrated by proponents
and critics of evolution alike specifically by virtue of its kludginess result-
ing from an absence of intelligent design.17
In Linden’s hands, the kludge model of the central nervous system
elevates the deficit of overarching harmony in that system to the ontologi-
cal status of a real privative cause. This perspicuous line of argumenta-
tion transforms the example of the human brain into a Trojan horse in
relation to advocates of intelligent design. Linden turns the star piece
of evidence appealed to in their case into the very thing refuting it most
decisively. This hints at an implication of even greater radicality: the ab-
sence of God is the ultimate negative Ur-cause in a physical universe that
internally produces and contains human beings and their subjectivities.18
The key principle behind the anorganicity of weak nature, with
kludginess being one of its manifestations, can be stated through an in-
version of a cliché: more is less. For instance, the kludgy body-in-pieces
is not a materialization of the factical (non-)givenness of a mysterious
Void. The myth of the non-given proceeds on the basis of a less-is-more
logic, with the “less” of a primal Nothingness giving rise to the “more”
of really existing subjects. By contrast, my anorganic approach, substi-
tuting for this type of myth a nonmystical, physical version of negativ-
ity, proceeds on the basis of a more-is-less logic. The “more” of a con-
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tingent, non-teleological accumulation of material bits and pieces gives

rise to the “less” of discrepancies and discordances within and between
these fragments. According to the more-is-less principle of anorganicism,
surpluses of positivity, as unplanned, uncoordinated agglomerations of
mute, idiotic entities and events, tip over into deficits of negativity. With
the increasing complexity of organic systems, as with all systems, comes
a proportional increase in the number of bugs and loopholes that are
immanently generated within and through systemic complexity itself. In
Lacanian parlance, both Symbolic and Real systems can and do succumb
to (self-)barring.19
Lacan’s crucial concepts of the body-in-pieces and Ur-privation,
once plugged into the theoretical framework of transcendental material-
ism and its anorganicism, go from being dogmatically asserted givens that
are always already there out of thin air to becoming psychoanalytic and
philosophical touchstones that are anchored in solid, science-consistent
materialist thinking. Likewise, as regards the threshold between Naturphi-
losophie and Geistesphilosophie in the more-than-logical Realphilosophie of
Hegel’s Encyclopedia, the dialectical dynamics of anorganicism permit one
to speculate that the movement from animal to human organisms tran-
spires when growth in the natural complexity of the animal organism
crosses a certain tipping point. Past this point, animal organicism as har-
monious organization short-circuits itself in acquiring a critical mass of
inner incompatibilities between its parts, thereby igniting the bursting-
forth of anorganic structures and phenomena. The “more” of animal
complexity leads to the “less” of the negativities lying at the base of
human being as minded/spiritual humanity. The plus of positive natural
additions transitions to the minus of negative denaturalizing subtractions.
The French biologist and Nobel laureate Jacques Monod, in his
book Chance and Necessity (1970), provides an indispensable refutation of
a widespread misconstrual of evolution in biology. Therein, he incisively
observes that “evolution is not a property of living beings, since it stems from
the very imperfections of the conservative mechanism which indeed con-
stitutes their unique privilege.”20 Evolution does not unfold as a smooth,
continuous succession of fluid flowerings in which unbroken sequences
of clockwork living spheres blossom one out of another with placid bal-
anced beauty, as imagined in the fantasies of organicist (w)holism. In-
stead, evolutionary changes happen if and when any number of things
go terribly wrong for organisms in relation to their bottom-line strivings
to perpetuate themselves as individuals and species.
Hence, Monod justifiably concludes that evolution is antithetical
to life— he undoes the standard equivocation between evolutionary and
living processes— insofar as occurrences of evolution are moments when
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life as it is gets brutally disorganized and truncated. He also later states

that “the accelerating pace of cultural evolution was to split completely
away from that of the genome.”21 However, the antinatural revolution of
the immanent material genesis of Geist out of Natur is nevertheless a tra-
jectory that is internal to evolution in Monod’s broadened sense. What
is more, a precise parallel can be drawn between Hegel’s treatment of
war as a spiritual event with Monod’s treatment of evolution as a natural
event. For Hegel, periods of pleasing tranquility (i.e., peaceful “happi-
ness”) are historical “blank pages” of sociocultural “stagnation” that are
punctuated by bracing, make-or-break episodes of disruption in the form
of violent conflagrations.22 For Monod, evolution is to life what war is to
peace for Hegel.
If human beings are animal organisms “sick unto death,” this fateful
derailment of the natural into the more-than-natural occurs by virtue of
the real dialectical dynamics of the anorganic as the self-induced sicken-
ing of nature itself, a nature already weak and rotten on its own prior to
its further de/incompleting of itself through belching out humanity. Ava-
tars of the myth of the non-given perform the gesture of adding a super-
natural Nothing so as to explain away this enigmatic denaturalized tran-
scendence that is nonetheless puzzlingly immanent to the natural world.
An advocate of transcendental materialist anorganicism risks the step of
subtracting from the natural world what these worshippers of a mystical
negativity presumptively attribute to it so that they then feel compelled
to have faith in a rigid, brittle anti-naturalism that is threatened by the
advances of the natural sciences. Interfacing the anorganic logic of the
more-is-less principle with the life sciences and evolutionary theory is the
key to a material rather than a mystical negativity, and is itself a corner-
stone of a viable, defensible, non-reductive and absential materialism.
I would go even further and assert that transcendental material-
ism’s atheistic “weak nature alone” indeed is better able to capture and
preserve the miraculous qualities of the very existences of human sub-
jectivities than anti-naturalist mysticisms and spiritualisms can. The in-
auguration of empirical, experimental modern science by Bacon and
Galileo is often depicted as bringing about a Schillerian-Weberian “dis-
enchantment,” namely, the erasing from the picture of earthly existence
of all things supernatural and the “enchantment” they purportedly sus-
tain. From this angle, the profane scientific liquidation of everything
held sacred by various religious dogmas brings about a general cultural
crisis of purposelessness and valuelessness, allegedly throwing out the
baby of “meaning” with the bathwater of superstition. From Kant’s time,
with the German Pietists and romantics,23 to the present, the landscape
of European philosophy has remained continually well-populated with
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advocates pleading for an antiscientific “reenchantment” of the world as

a much-needed counter-thrust against a spiritual wasteland of nihilism
whose steady expansion is said to be driven by the natural sciences, their
technologies, and their pervasive influences on societies.
Of course, Freud allies himself with the worldview of secular
science.24 Similarly, Lacan asserts that the seventeenth-century advent
of scientific modernity was a pivotal historical condition of possibility
for Freud’s later founding of psychoanalysis.25 However, both Freud and
Lacan would refuse as a false dilemma the loaded alternative between
either disenchantment or (re)enchantment— although, admittedly, the
psychoanalytic experience integrally involves passing through aspects as-
sociated with disenchantment and nihilism. Transcendental materialism
likewise refuses this forced choice still brandished by backward-looking,
idealistic neo-romantics and neo-Luddites who are either consciously or
unconsciously religious.
In the history of post-Kantian European philosophy, Heidegger is a
massively influential recent representative of the neo-romantic line trac-
ing back to the Protestantism of the dying Holy Roman Empire. During a
July 9, 1964 session of his Zollikon Seminars on Freud, Heidegger, echoing
Nietzsche,26 emphatically utters a statement repeated many times both
before and after him: “Science is the new religion.”27 Obviously, coming
from Heidegger and countless others, this now-commonplace statement
is intended as a critical insight. Rather than externally challenging it as
inaccurate— which it is— I want to turn the tables and propose reinter-
preting it instead as a noncritical observation. More precisely, science is
“religious” not in the standard old sense negatively meant by Heidegger
and others, but rather, only in the sense of not being automatically equiv-
alent to nihilistic disenchantment as the ostensible opposite of suppos-
edly “enchanting” religiosity.
The early-twentieth-century theologian G. K. Chesterton (one of
Žižek’s favorite writers) creatively addresses these same issues around the
science-religion rapport. In his Christian apologetic Orthodoxy (1908) he
maintains: “The whole secret of mysticism is this: that man can under-
stand everything by the help of what he does not understand. The mor-
bid logician seeks to make everything lucid, and succeeds in making
everything mysterious. The mystic allows one thing to be mysterious,
and everything else becomes lucid.”28 As the rest of Orthodoxy makes
evident, the distinction in this quotation between the “mystic” and the
“morbid logician” is a terminological variation on the clash between the
(re)enchantment of idealist religion and the disenchantment of material-
ist science, respectively.29 The dialectical finesse of Chesterton’s move, as
a fully immanent critique of the scientific worldview, must not be missed.
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He judges science to fail by what he takes to be its own gold standard

(i.e., “lucidity” as rigorous, rational transparency) insofar as it allegedly
generates more “mystery” than it debunks.
From my transcendental materialist position, I wish to execute a
maneuver in response to Chesterton that I will link up with Freud mo-
mentarily. Obviously, one can and should externally critique, on both
epistemological and ontological grounds, the legitimacy and defensibility
of the “one thing” posited by Chesterton’s mystic as the alpha-and-omega
axiomatic truth of Christian monotheistic spiritualism.30 This perhaps
deserves to be met with the comment that anyone who cannot make
“everything else . . . lucid” after being permitted to posit something on
the order of God suffers from a variety of stupidity so severe that the En-
glish language lacks a name for it. But Chesterton’s formulation of his
immanent critique of science can itself also be immanently critiqued in
turn. How so?
If enchantment in the guises of awe-inspiring sublimity and won-
drous creations is what is desired, as it is in Chesterton’s mysticism, then,
according to Chesterton’s own immanent critique of science (insofar as
it “succeeds in making everything mysterious”), is not science in a way
more enchanting than the most mystical of religions? Therefore, is not
the scientific worldview a better “religion” (i.e., a “new religion” in a dif-
ferent sense than that intended by Heidegger and company) than all pre-
vious religions? If scientific rationality renders everything incredible by
refusing the religious maneuver of enshrining a single mysterious axiom,
then does this not bear witness against the charge that such rationality
leads straight to outright disenchantment?
Furthermore, with Christianity, even the “one thing” allowed “to be
mysterious” is not in the least bit unfamiliar (i.e., “mysterious”) to hum-
drum quotidian consciousness: an image of a (mega-)subject that is
clearly modeled on the intentional agency of human subjectivity. Ches-
terton might have benefited from spending some time with Feuerbach.
Just how miraculous really are the miracles performed by an anthropo-
morphic God compared with the most typical occurrences in the physical
universe as depicted by the natural sciences? Or, to take the instance of
an individual human birth, how mind-bogglingly amazing is the divinely
preordained incarnation of one soul in one body by comparison with
this same event seen as the outcome of the infinitely improbable chance
meeting, not arranged by any top-down guidance whatsoever, of a single
sperm and a single egg? For any religion resembling Chesterton’s, a liv-
ing person, for example, represents part of God’s plan for creation as a
whole, as a manageable total organization ruled by reasonable, sensible
final causes in which each and every thing has its proper assigned posi-
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tion and role. By contrast, for the sciences as parsed by transcendental

materialism, a living person is a staggeringly unlikely uniqueness that
nonetheless “miraculously” has come to be despite the overall statistical
odds against this.
Viewed from vantage points furnished by such diverse fields as quan-
tum physics and evolutionary theory, the anthropomorphizing picture-
thinking of theologies is far from being imaginative enough to encom-
pass much of creation. The fashions in which this limited, constrained
cogitation struggles to come to grips with the this-worldly predictably
tosses whatever it is faced with into a one-and-only monochromatic abyss
of divinity. As Chesterton himself says, his mystic “can understand every-
thing” by always boringly dissolving all of reality into the dark night of
his one God without feeling the slightest twinge of awe or wonder in
response to what he thereby makes vanish. The pre-Cantorian infinite
of religions is not infinite enough. The miraculousness of their miracles
pales side-by-side with the mere fact of the spatiotemporal existence of
any matter at all. Scientific truths indeed are far stranger than religious
fictions. Wonder is as much the effect of science as the cause of philos-
ophy, while being a source of disturbance and trouble for religion.
To refer back to the (re)enchantment-versus-disenchantment di-
chotomy, science according to transcendental materialism does not in-
evitably result in nihilistic disenchantment, although the “enchantment”
of incarnate existence it can bring about is not the same as that associ-
ated with religion hitherto. This materialism is neither disenchanting nor
(re)enchanting as these alternatives are defined by those who typically
tend to invoke them. Moreover, another reference to the first of Marx’s
“Theses on Feuerbach” is appropriate at this juncture. Marx convinc-
ingly illuminates how contemplative materialism, through its failure or
refusal to account for everything that resists being boiled down to the
efficient causes of purely natural matter-in-motion, fuels a dissatisfaction
that propels people into embracing antimaterialist idealisms. By Marx’s
own admission, idealisms have the appealing virtue, by sharp contrast
with contemplative materialisms, of preserving room in their ontologies
for subjectivity, its practices, and the trans-individual historical-linguistic
matrices of mediation with which acting subjects are inextricably inter-
twined. Transcendental materialism takes this invaluable lesson to heart,
avoiding reductionists’ and eliminativists’ fatal mistake of writing off and
leaving behind what inevitably become unexplained leftovers feeding ide-
alist reactions against the understandably perceived poverty of materialist
perspectives. Hence, transcendental materialism seeks to advance a non-
reductive, non-eliminative account of more-than-material structures and
phenomena that are formulated nevertheless in the strictest of material-
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ist terms, with no surreptitious spiritualist cheating whatsoever. This is in

addition to its portrait of the sciences outstripping religions as measured
by the religious yardsticks of sublimity as incredibleness, mysteriousness,
wondrousness, and the like.
Freud’s very short essay “On Transience” (1916) is highly relevant
in this context.31 Therein, Freud addresses a piece of quotidian psychopa-
thology, interpreting neurotic sadness or withdrawal in the face of objects
of beauty or love because of these objects’ transience. Certain neurot-
ics’ preemptive defensive mourning for or recoil from future losses can
come to spoil their current enjoyment of the transient things in question.
Freud’s description of this neurotic response, in tying it to a stubborn
investment in the idea of immortality, hints that it is another illustration
of the profound links between neurosis and religion.32
Freud speaks to this everyday snippet of not-so-secular neurosis by
inverting its evaluation of transience as entailing a “loss in . . . worth.”33
As per my transcendental materialist treatment of the scientific worldview
with which Freud aligns psychoanalysis, his reinterpretation of transience
as augmenting rather than diminishing value applies equally well to the
science-revealed accidents, contingencies, finitudes, fragilities, improb-
abilities, rarities, and vulnerabilities that mark life in general and human
life in particular. These sources of purportedly disenchanting (and de-
pressing) nihilism are thereby transubstantiated into exhilarating cata-
lysts of awestruck appreciation and amazement. Through its combination
of philosophy and psychoanalysis, transcendental materialism not only
rebuts the accusation that science devalues life, but it counter-offensively
accuses science’s religious adversaries of not being able to esteem life
nearly enough.
Part 4

Second Natures in Dappled

Worlds: Neo-Hegelianism and
the Philosophy of Science in the
Analytic Tradition
16

Lacan with McDowell:

The Unresolved Problem
of Naturalism

In this fourth and final part of the book, I pivot from Lacanian psycho-
analysis to Anglo-American neo-Hegelianism. My wager here is that a
Lacanian encounter with the reflections on naturalism recently devel-
oped within the analytic philosophical tradition by John McDowell prom-
ises to be enormously productive. I maintain that Lacan-the-psychoanalyst
and McDowell-the-philosopher each have a lot to offer and learn from
the other.
This turn to McDowell in light of a heterodox quasi-naturalist ren-
dering of Lacan is not an arbitrary, capricious exercise in comparing and
contrasting wildly different figures. Uncharacteristically for a twentieth-
century French thinker, Lacan carries on a sustained conversation with
analytic philosophy. He is familiar with much of the tradition forming
McDowell’s philosophical background. Furthermore, Kant and Hegel
are absolutely central points of reference for both of them. Just as Lacan
bridges the analytic-continental gap from the continental side, so too
does McDowell bridge it from the analytic side (mentioning, for instance,
the Marx of the 1844 Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts and the post-
Heideggerian hermeneutics of Hans-Georg Gadamer).1
Hegel’s philosophy has been one of the key bones of contention
between the Anglo-American and European intellectual traditions from
the early twentieth century up through today. Hegel remains recognized
by continental thinkers as a towering, lively interlocutor with whom it
is still urgently mandatory to reckon again and again. By contrast, the
discussions and debates of the analytic philosophers originate in, among
other gestures, a vehement repudiation of the speculative excesses of
nineteenth-century British Hegelianism. There are, of course, exceptions
to this thumbnail sketch.
In his seminal text “Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind”
(1956), Wilfrid Sellars famously launches his devastating assault on the
empiricist “Myth of the Given.” This myth is an epistemological article
of faith purporting that knowledge is grounded on the brute, simple

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presence of raw, unmediated sensory-perceptual contents that are caus-

ally delivered prior to any conceptual parsings. Sellars, as an analytic
philosopher, does not refrain from identifying Hegel, “that great foe of
‘immediacy,’”2 as a significant predecessor. McDowell echoes this praise.3
Sellars even has a hypothetical, imagined skeptic refer to his (Sel-
lars’s) exposition as a set of “Meditations Hegeliènnes.”4 As Sellars obvi-
ously is aware, the first chapter of Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit (“Sense-
Certainty”) is nothing other than a brutally succinct liquidation of what is
designated under the heading “The Myth of the Given.” It is thus that the
vast arc of the Hegelian endeavor truly begins. This is also why McDowell
is able to characterize his book Mind and World as “a prolegomena to a
reading of the Phenomenology.”5
McDowell and his University of Pittsburgh colleague Robert Bran-
dom are both heirs of the Sellarsian legacy (with Sellars himself having
taught at Pittsburgh from 1963 until his death in 1989). They are also
leading representatives of an Anglo-American philosophy that is inter-
ested in initiating dialogues across the analytic-continental divide. Self-
consciously walking in Sellars’s footsteps, Brandom likewise appeals to
Hegel as a monumental historical champion of socio-symbolic mediation
over anything and everything immediate.6
The Pittsburgh neo-Hegelians have attracted the sustained notice
of the preeminent Hegel scholar Robert Pippin (as well as Terry Pinkard,
whose views are similar in many ways to Pippin’s). I will address later the
continuing back-and-forth between McDowell and Pippin, especially as
centered around the question of naturalism in relation to Hegelian phi-
losophy. Moreover, insofar as I am interested here mainly in the problem
of naturalism, McDowell will be the author on whom I focus. Brandomian
neo-pragmatist semantic inferentialism, with its roots in Richard Rorty’s
brand of pragmatism as well as various currents of analytic philosophy
of language, has less to say about the topic of nature as it is treated in
McDowell’s writings.
McDowell’s magnum opus Mind and World, originally delivered as
lectures in 1991 and first published in book form in 1994, is deservedly
a contemporary classic of Anglo-American analytic philosophy. His pro-
vocative yet subtle finessings of the notion of nature are situated primarily
in the second half of that text, and my reflections will concentrate on that
segment of his arguments. In addition, I will draw on relevant subsequent
material collected in the volumes Mind, Value, and Reality (1998) and Hav-
ing the World in View (2009).
On the basis of working through McDowell’s ideas and the relevant
portions of his exchanges with Pippin, I intend to advance two interre-
lated assertions. On the one hand, McDowell furnishes Lacan with an
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invaluable quasi-naturalist theoretical framework that the latter antici-

pated and alluded to, but did not develop before his death in 1981. On
the other hand, this same McDowell, like Lacan himself at a number of
junctures, hesitates to go to the consequent ontological end of his mus-
ings with regard to naturalism, and refrains from a radical reenvisioning
of nature as the material ground of beings.
With the preceding two claims in mind, I want to provide a few
preliminary glimpses into what an unreservedly ontologized version of
a hybrid Lacanian-McDowellian quasi-naturalism might look like. I fre-
quently have recourse to scientific topics such as neuroplasticity, mirror
neurons, and epigenetics so as to complicate typical (mis)representations
of “nature” that anchor assessments of naturalism in philosophical and
psychoanalytic delineations of theories of the subject. However, rather
than deploying below this tactic of justifying the ontologization of some-
thing along the lines of Lacanian-McDowellian quasi-naturalism on the
basis of recent advances in the natural sciences, I aim to add here a new
buttress that further fortifies the edifice-under-construction of transcen-
dental materialism, with its dialectical naturalism. This supplemental sup-
port is drawn not from the empirical, experimental sciences, but instead
from the problematizations of notions of scientific law achieved by Nancy
Cartwright’s philosophy of science.
An additional explanation for selecting McDowell as a seemingly
odd interlocutor in this setting deserves articulation. I feel ambivalent
toward McDowell’s “naturalism of second nature”7 in recognizing it as a
philosophical position in relation to which my own modified version of
naturalism is quite proximate and yet, at the same time, as predicating
itself on assumptions about the rapport between science and philosophy
from which I profoundly dissent. Such a combination of sympathy and
disagreement often signals that one has stumbled upon a theoretical con-
specific who promises to be an extremely productive dialogue partner.
These mixed feelings indicate to me that McDowell is particularly well-
suited to serve as an invaluable foil for transcendental materialism.
17

From the Subjectivity of

Transcendental Idealism to the
Objectivity of Absolute Idealism:
Returning to Kant and Hegel

The first half of Mind and World (1994) is the portion of McDowell’s mas-
terpiece which has attracted the most attention from this book’s reader-
ship. For analytic philosophers and analytically inclined phenomenologi-
cal types, the primarily epistemological examinations of “experience”
(in Kant’s sense) in the first through third lectures appear to be of the
greatest interest. Therein, McDowell advances what has come to be the
hotly contested thesis that there is no such thing as nonconceptual per-
ceptual content, namely, sense-data of the real world that are unmedi-
ated by non-sensory ideational-linguistic structures.1 (Interestingly, the
later, more Hegelian Nikolai Bukharin already denies the existence for
human subjects of percepts enjoying pre/nonconceptual immediacy.)2
Although this thesis on its own is not what concerns me, a quick summary
of its justifications and implications is requisite insofar as McDowell’s
subsequent rendition of nature flows directly from his assessment of the
balance between the conceptual and the perceptual in the experiential
lives of human subjects.
One of McDowell’s professed goals is to quell a “philosophical dis-
comfort” that lingers in the wake of Sellars’s debunking of empiricism’s
Myth of the Given.3 McDowell wholeheartedly endorses the central gist of
the position staked out by Sellars in “Empiricism and the Philosophy of
Mind.”4 However, in McDowell’s persuasive account, the recoil from the
untenably vulgar naive realism of the empiricist’s appeal to concrete sen-
sory immediacy risks becoming an overreaction resulting in the espousal
of an extreme antirealist “coherentism.” The latter position is the diamet-
rical opposite of any realist empiricism in which knowledge amounts to a
somehow adequate correlation between nonconceptual data regarding
the “real world,” registered at the purely perceptual level, and concep-
tualizations of the data thus registered. This coherentism is a subjective
idealism according to which internal consistency between cognized con-

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T O THE O B JE CT I V I T Y OF ABS OLUT E I DEALISM

ceptual contents in the web of a minded or like-minded network, and not

correspondence between ideas and asubjective things, is what establishes
and counts as knowledge.
In Mind and World, the philosophy of Donald Davidson is singled
out as the epitome of the coherentist reaction to the Myth of the Given.
In McDowell’s view, whereas the notion of givenness is fatally problematic
for the reasons that Hegel, Sellars, and he himself provide, coherentism
is perhaps equally dissatisfying. It verges on a solipsistic idealism that does
away with any sense of getting a handle on an objective reality of actual,
factual states of affairs. Coherentism arouses a reasonable realist unease
by conveying an image of mental life as “frictionless spinning in a void.”
McDowell sets himself the task early on in Mind and World of putting a
stop to the “intolerable oscillation” between realist empiricism and anti-
realist coherentism.5
But what third way, if any, is available? McDowell maintains that the
alternative, or at least a precursor of it, has already been formulated in
the history of philosophy. Kant, if correctly interpreted, allegedly paves
the starting way of a path that navigates between the twin dead ends
of empiricism and coherentism.6 Specifically, McDowell recurs to the
“original Kantian thought . . . that empirical knowledge results from a
co-operation between receptivity and spontaneity.”7 Like Kant, he aligns
the perceptual with passive receptivity and the conceptual with active
spontaneity. McDowell reminds his audience that experience in Kant’s
theoretical philosophy is an admixture of the percepts of intuition and
the concepts of the understanding.
In a paper entitled “The Logical Form of an Intuition,” McDowell
even goes so far as to advance a reading of Kant in which the “pure forms
of intuition” presented in the “Transcendental Aesthetic” always already
are constituted through the implicitly mediating operations of the syn-
thetic activity of the understanding as per the “Transcendental Deduc-
tion” with its “transcendental unity of apperception.”8 McDowell’s hybrid,
Kantian-type rendition of experience claims to resolve the discomforts
of the unsatisfying vacillations between empiricism and coherentism by
asserting that human beings distinctively register the real world so that
these registrations are immediately mediate. Passive perceptual receptiv-
ity is always already shot through with the influences of active conceptual
spontaneity.9 The radicality of this post-Sellarsian stance is underscored
in such statements by McDowell as, “We must not suppose that receptiv-
ity makes an even notionally separable contribution to its co-operation
with spontaneity.”10
McDowell, in several of the essays collected in the volume Having
the World in View (2009), addresses the historically pivotal Kant-Hegel
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S EC O ND NAT URE S I N DAP P LE D WO RLDS

relationship. Although avowing a Kantian inspiration for his take on the

inseparable perceptual and conceptual co-constitution of sapient expe-
rience, he finds Kantian transcendental idealism to be ultimately unsat-
isfactory for very Hegelian reasons. As Brandom rightly is at pains to
stress, Hegel’s absolute idealism, in which the objective is knowable by
the subjective thanks to structural isomorphisms between these identical-
but-different dimensions of “the Absolute,” is anything but antirealist.11
Accusations against Hegel of antirealism usually testify to the fact that the
accuser lacks a comprehension of the fundamental distinction between
subjective and absolute idealism.
McDowell highlights Hegel’s fashions of holding onto objectivity
so as to avoid falling back into that dreaded frictionless spinning in a
void. This is by contrast with Kant, who McDowell faults for failing to
preserve sufficient distance between himself and the antirealism of a
Berkeleyesque subjective idealism. Despite the first Critique’s “Refutation
of Idealism,”12 its emphasis on the receptivity of intuition, its positing of
the “thinkable” (but not knowable) thing-in-itself, and its protestations
declaring the compatibility between empirical realism and transcenden-
tal idealism,13 McDowell fingers Kant’s insistence on the strict ideality
of space and time as the two pure forms of intuition14 as responsible
for irreparably spoiling his attempts to soothe the discomfort generated
by the apparently antirealist flavor of transcendental idealism.15 George
Berkeley, too, reassures readers through several arguments that his ideal-
ist ontology of spiritual substances does not demand abandoning com-
mon sense or scientific-realist perspectives.16
Robert Pippin comments that “McDowell’s position is overall more
Kantian and concentrates only on the Hegelian account of the way con-
ceptual activity shapes perceptual knowledge and intentional action.”17
This risks being misleading. McDowell finds Kantian transcendental
idealism to be fundamentally flawed due to its subjectivism. This is no
minor complaint coming from him, given his profound realist dissatisfac-
tion with anything resembling the antirealist Davidsonian coherentism
rejected in Mind and World, including both Kant’s subjective idealism and
Brandom’s inferentialism.18
Contrary to Pippin, McDowell is interested in Hegel not just for the
purpose of emphasizing the pervasive, thoroughgoing conceptual media-
tion of perceptual content. Indeed, McDowell does not need Hegel for
this since, in “The Logical Form of an Intuition,” he credits the Kant of
the “Transcendental Deduction” with already denying the percepts of in-
tuition any freestanding status vis-à-vis the concepts of the understanding.
Pippin eclipses from sight what McDowell really gets from Hegel: post-
Kantian-critique arguments against antirealist subjective idealism and
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for realist objective/absolute idealism.19 McDowell approves of Hegel’s

repeated staging of the self-subverting, auto-deconstructing dynamics
that plague the subject-object, mind-world dualisms on which Kant bases
transcendental idealism. As early as Mind and World, he adamantly insists
that his own account of experience, although indebted to Kant, is not
idealist as antirealist.20
In several respects, Pippin’s Hegel looks much more like Brandom’s
than McDowell’s.21 I disagree with Paul Redding’s assessment that the
reactivation of Hegelian absolute idealism by Brandomian inferential-
ism in the wake of Pippin’s interpretations is more “ambitious” than that
carried out by McDowell.22 Related to this, Pippin brings Hegel into the
middle of his arguments with McDowell regarding the topic of nature
and McDowell’s “relaxed naturalism.”23 Within the context of these argu-
ments, Pippin underscores the non-naturalness of Geist,24 although this
strikes the eye as somewhat out of sync with his depictions elsewhere of
Spirit as immanently emergent from nature.25 In the course of question-
ably dismissing McDowell’s concerns with the matter of nature as non-
Hegelian,26 Pippin remarks in passing with regard to Hegel, “There is, of
course, a Philosophy of Nature in his Encyclopedia, but as anyone who has
slogged through it knows, there is a lot there that seems to turn no other
wheel elsewhere in what Hegel says, and very little in the Philosophy of
Spirit seems to depend on it or refer back to it.”27
I cannot speak for McDowell. But speaking for myself, I can say that,
as someone “who has slogged through” Hegel’s Philosophy of Nature, I am
convinced that this second volume of the three-volume Encyclopedia turns
more than a few wheels in the larger Hegelian system. The entirety of part
1 of the present volume serves as an extended demonstration of precisely
this. Moreover, in the third volume of the Encyclopedia (the Philosophy of
Spirit), the bulk of its first section on “Subjective Mind,” especially the
“Anthropology” therein, is devoted to narrating the dialectical genesis of
properly human subjectivity out of nature as the latter is depicted in the
concluding moments of the Philosophy of Nature, which Pippin dismisses.28
Stephen Houlgate, in an article on Hegel and McDowell, appropriately
brings to the fore this stretch of the Encyclopedia as relevant to McDowell’s
concerns, although it is neglected by McDowell himself.29
In his disputes with McDowell, Pippin’s gesture of writing off
Hegel’s realism and related naturalism epitomizes the deflationary read-
ings that have been popular in Anglo-American Hegel scholarship under
Charles Taylor’s shadow. Even though Pippin knows better, he, along
with Brandom and Pinkard, sometimes talks as though Hegel were just a
neo-Rortian social rationality pragmatist avant la lettre.30 Such deflation-
ism implicitly appeals to a distinction between the subjects of social mind
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S EC O ND NAT URE S I N DAP P LE D WO RLDS

and the objects of the natural world to which Hegel staunchly refuses to
help himself on the basis of several insights grounding his entire system.31
I strongly suspect that McDowell would have to concur on these points,
given both his affirmation of Hegel’s idealism contra Kant’s as well as his
own distinctive (quasi-)naturalist agenda.32 It is to the latter that I now
turn.
18

Between Bald Naturalism and

Rampant Platonism: Relaxing
into McDowell’s Third Way

John McDowell eases into the topic of naturalism on the basis of his pri-
marily epistemological reflections regarding experience as an indissoluble
blending of percepts and concepts. Mind and World, following Kant, posits
that the perceptual is aligned with the heteronomy of passive receptivity,
and the conceptual is aligned with the autonomy of active spontaneity.
Moreover, insofar as perception is associated with the determinism of a
natural “first nature” and conception is associated with the freedom of
a denaturalized second nature, McDowell, in maintaining the saturating
immanence of conceptual activity to perceptual passivity, also asserts that
first nature is permeated by second nature. Therefore, first nature is not
what typical, orthodox variants of naturalism have taken it to be.
The introductory remarks to Mind and World contain the claim that
“nature includes second nature.”1 This succinctly foreshadows much of
what is at stake in the fourth through sixth lectures of this text. For the
sort of opponent whom McDowell christens the “bald naturalist,” first
nature cannot and does not contain within itself second nature as Mc-
Dowell characterizes it. Bald naturalism, a position defined by McDowell
so as to encompass various kinds of reductionism, eliminativism, and re-
lated stances, is committed to viewing nature as a realm of unbreakable
laws of efficient causality that govern with steely necessity the mechanical
bump-and-grind interactions of matter in motion.2 Hence, nature in this
view excludes from itself the sort of autonomous spontaneity that McDow-
ell equates with second nature.
Right from the start, McDowell endorses a version of the Sellar-
sian distinction between the normative “logical space of reasons” (as the
very space of second nature) and the natural domain of causal laws as
the proper explanatory territory of the “hard” sciences.3 Already in his
epistemological treatment of conceptually saturated experience in the
first half of Mind and World, he underscores that the first-nature causal
impingements of a mythical empiricist Given on the five physical senses
of the body cannot feature in, cannot leap across the gap into, the pro-

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cesses of second-nature rationality. Sensory impingements need to be

always already rational (i.e., mediated by concepts) in order to be effec-
tive components in the cognitive dynamics and networks of knowledge.4
This is the reasons-versus-causes issue.
McDowell proceeds to propose that human beings initially depart
from total immersion in first nature. This first nature presumably would
involve pure perceptual sentience minus conceptual sapience. Humans
come to exit this initial state in being “initiated,” through the “ethi-
cal upbringing” of an Aristotelian-Hegelian Bildung generally and the
acquisition-through-social-learning of natural languages specifically, into
a rational second nature. This second nature allegedly is “sui generis.”5
McDowell, speaking in the soothing tones of the later-Wittgensteinian
therapeutic approach he practices so adeptly, reassures his audience that
“it is not philosophically threatening to suppose there is insight in the
thought that reason is not natural, in the only sense of ‘natural’ counte-
nanced by bald naturalism.”6
In the second half of Mind and World, McDowell relies extensively
on a contrast between humans and nonhuman animals so as to sharpen
the contours of his picture of the second nature that is said to be peculiar
to humanity. Unlike the “perceptual sensitivity” of sentient animals, the
sentience of human beings is suffused by sapience. Second-nature human
sapience is not merely added onto, or simply plopped on top of, an under-
lying base of first-nature animal sentience that remains unaltered by this
addition of rationality to animality.7 Human sentience (as perceptual), in
being penetrated and permeated by the mediation of sapience (as con-
ceptual), becomes different-in-kind from the sentience of other animals.8
Thus, animals enjoy a perceptual “environment” while humans experi-
ence a conceptual(ized) “world.”9 “World-views,” frameworks unique to
humans as rational animals, conceptually mediate even the most appar-
ently immediate sensory-perceptual contents of experience.10 McDowell
argues that sidestepping the ping-ponging between empiricism and co-
herentism leads one to adopt this quasi-naturalist position.11
Assuming this dialectical interpenetration of first and second
natures, the hybrid denaturalized “nature” of humans is not lawful, as is
the nature of bald naturalism.12 For McDowell, self-reflective spontaneity
is engendered by and within the logical-linguistic space of conceptually
articulated reasons. Autonomous subjectivity is an instance of a strange
transcendence-in-immanence, with second nature achieving indepen-
dence from first nature without thereby amounting to another ontologi-
cal plane “spookily” hovering above first nature.13 McDowell is anxious
to dispel erroneous impressions to the effect that his quasi-naturalism is
tantamount to a mysterious “supernaturalism.”14
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B ET W E EN BALD NAT URALI S M AND RAMPANT PLATONISM

Focusing briefly on McDowell’s further specifications regarding his

comparisons and contrasts between humans and animals will assist with
conveying a preliminary sense of the notion of the supernatural that wor-
ries him at this juncture. McDowell claims that “exercises of spontaneity
belong to our way of actualizing ourselves as animals.”15 In this same vein,
he later adds, “Our Bildung actualizes some of the potentialities we are
born with; we do not have to suppose it introduces a non-animal ingredi-
ent into our constitution.”16 McDowell obviously has no intention of lend-
ing support to a Cartesian-style ontological dualism of mind and body.
Descartes inherits his dualistic image of human beings from the
Socrates of Plato’s Phaedo.17 McDowell consequently links what he labels
“supernaturalism,” in terms of its origins in the Western philosophical
tradition, with a Platonism influenced by Pythagoreanism. He differenti-
ates between “rampant Platonism,” as a rabidly anti-naturalist and meta-
physical realist tendency, and his “naturalized Platonism.”18
McDowell’s naturalized Platonism, unlike rampant Platonism, ad-
mits that second nature is constrained by first nature. First nature sets an
outer bandwidth of possible permutations and potentialities for second
nature.19 Additionally, McDowell cautions that an emphasis on the differ-
ences between humans and animals is entirely compatible with simul-
taneously granting that quite a few similarities are to be found between
rational and nonrational animality.20
McDowellian second nature is not Platonically transcendent.21 In-
stead, McDowell sees it as the blossoming of capacities that are embedded
within the weird animality of human animals. According to the “relaxed
naturalism”22 of McDowell’s naturalized Platonism, human nature is para-
doxically auto-denaturalizing.
McDowell’s reference to Marx’s Economic and Philosophical Manu-
scripts is significant in this respect.23 The 1844 imputation to humans
of a laboring and social nature by Marx means that this nature is self-
transformative. The socially mediated activity of labor sets in historical
motion a dialectical interchange of reciprocal modifications between
human subjects and material objects. This interchange dissolves any
“nature” as a fixed essence that is cemented in place by the dictates of
preexistent causal laws ruling the physical universe from its inception
onward.24 The later Marx of Capital likewise seems to foreshadow McDow-
ell’s naturalism of second nature.25
McDowell depicts the reason of the rational animal as introducing
a reflexive rupture that breaks with the first nature within which other
animals remain trapped.26 As he expresses this, “reason . . . is part of our
nature . . . The concept of nature figures here, without incoherence,
in two quite different ways: as ‘mere’ nature, and as something whose
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realization involves transcending that.”27 Put differently, it is an essential

aspect of uniquely human nature to go beyond first nature, and perhaps
even to transgress its own (second) nature. Human nature thereby is a
perpetual work-in-progress, an indefinite movement of reworking and
modifying itself. If this strange, self-transcending nature can be said in
any way to remain the same, it would be solely in the sense of plus ça
change. Hegel’s shadow looms large over all of this, as McDowell gladly
acknowledges.28
In Hegelian vocabulary, what McDowell is after is a balanced syn-
thesis of the natural, moral (as in Moralität), and ethical (as in Sittlich-
keit) dimensions of three-dimensional human being. In conjunction with
McDowell’s general account of naturalism, this comes out most clearly
through his declared effort to combine Aristotle on second nature
(aligned with Sittlichkeit) with Kant on freedom (aligned with Moralität).29
In chapter 3, book 3, of the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle’s discussion of
“deliberation” provides an opening for precisely such a move.30 Aristotle
suggests that a free, groundless reflection is brought into play when the
normally reliable and often subconscious phronesis/savoir-faire of habitu-
ated ethical character is confronted with unusual circumstances that defy
quick and easy automatic adjudication by the cultivated virtues.
McDowell is acutely conscious of the philosophical and historical
challenges involved in attempting to interface the Aristotelian and
Kantian practical philosophies.31 He is also aware of the additional chal-
lenges posed to this endeavor by a contemporary context that includes
scientific and science-inspired considerations that were not faced by his
esteemed philosophical predecessors from centuries past. The time has
arrived to begin better situating McDowell’s philosophy in relation to a
tangled knot of interrelated issues pertaining to naturalism, materialism,
and the sciences.
19

More Is Less: Psychoanalysis,

Science, and the Decompletion
of First Nature

I turn now to the task of examining the rapport between McDowell’s

relaxed, Platonic (quasi-)naturalism of second nature1 and the sciences.
McDowell challenges the still-prevailing default assumption that any and
every naturalism inevitably must accept the authority of the rendition
of nature promoted by bald naturalism. He begins this challenge thus:

It would be a cheat, a merely verbal manoeuvre, to object that natural-

ism about nature cannot be open to question. If we can rethink our
conception of nature so as to make room for spontaneity, even though
we deny that spontaneity is capturable by the resources of bald natural-
ism, we shall by the same token be rethinking our conception of what it
takes for a position to deserve to be called “naturalism.”2

McDowell immediately goes on to say:

The rethinking requires a different conception of actualizations of

our nature. We need to bring responsiveness to meaning back into the
operations of our natural sentient capacities as such, even while we
insist that responsiveness to meaning cannot be captured in naturalistic
terms, so long as “naturalistic” is glossed in terms of the realm of law.3

He also forcefully and eloquently reiterates these assertions in texts after

Mind and World,4 maintaining, in an exchange with Pippin, that “what
is natural need not be equated with what is explicable by the natural
sciences. Second nature is nature too,”5 and that “there is nothing obliga-
tory about equating nature with the domain of natural-scientific intel-
ligibility.”6
So as to calm and reassure likely naturalist objectors to his con-
testation of the traditional hegemony of the nature of bald naturalism,
McDowell observes that his vision of a naturalized second nature by no
means calls for an overthrow of the natural sciences. He maintains that

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nature as a kingdom of causal laws separate from the logical- linguistic

space of conceptual rationality can and should be retained.7 He con-
cedes to the bald naturalist that there indeed is a disenchanted realm of
meaningless laws as efficient-without-final causes. But, McDowell warns,
this realm should not be equated with nature altogether.8 Doing so gives
rise to many of the philosophical problems that he diagnoses and treats
in Mind and World.
McDowell, in an essay addressing Donald Davidson’s “anomalous
monism,” recommends leaving “objective reality” to natural science
while simultaneously refusing to abandon the insistence on the natural-
scientific inexplicability of an autonomous rational subjectivity that is
nevertheless embedded within this same objective reality.9 Similarly, with
respect to Davidson on “events,” McDowell describes events as happen-
ings immanent to the world of the physical and yet being, at the same
time, at least partially inexplicable in the discourse of physics alone. 10
These qualifications both admit the nature of the natural sciences to be
law-governed in a very standard modern sense, as well as purport second-
nature strata and subjectivities to be refractory to any mode of scientific
explanation.
McDowell assumes that the first three lectures of Mind and World
succeed in showing, at the epistemological level, how rendering active
conceptual spontaneity exhaustively immanent to passive perceptual re-
ceptivity is the only viable route beyond the profoundly unsatisfying os-
cillation between empiricism and coherentism. If this is so, then, with
the perceptual as first nature and the conceptual as second nature, this
requires a radically transformed philosophical notion of first nature cor-
responding to how human subjects’ first natures are themselves radically
transformed by the genesis of second nature. Insofar as this second nature
is associated with freedom, the deterministic picture of lawful nature that
is justifiably imputed by McDowell to bald naturalism simply will not do.
In the tenor of his invocations of Marx, he goes so far as to allege that
bald naturalism, as “a naturalism that constricts the idea of nature,”11 is
backed up not by rigorous philosophical argumentation, but instead by
scientistic “ideological” biases. These biases questionably fetishize select
images of the natural sciences and persist as widespread articles of faith
that are held to uncritically by various sides in debates about naturalism.12
Departing from ontological concerns having to do with philo-
sophical materialism and realism in relation to the sciences (being
different from the Kant-inspired, post-Sellarsian epistemological con-
siderations regarding perceptual experience that primarily motivate Mc-
Dowell), I have made similar arguments regarding naturalism. McDowell
indeed allows that a focus on perceptual experience need not be the lone
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entrance into what he presents as his relaxed naturalism.13 I have argued

that naturalizing human beings is not, as per the assumptions of positions
resembling bald naturalism, a non-dialectical, one-way street leading to
the result of a reduction of subjectivity to natural substance as already
envisioned in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century science.
Admittedly, certain conceptions of subjectivity are dramatically
changed in being submitted to naturalization. But, in a reciprocal dia-
lectical twist, prior conceptions of nature, including modernity’s ideas
about material substance, must be significantly altered in tandem so as
to do justice to the strangeness of the structures and phenomena that
are constitutive of and exhibited by human subjects.14 On these counts,
McDowell and I are on the same page.
However, McDowell and I part company precisely along the line of
demarcation distinguishing epistemology from ontology. In the fourth
lecture of Mind and World, he evinces hesitation around the matter of
ontologizing his naturalism of second nature.15 Faithful to the epistemo-
logical motivations driving McDowell’s reconsideration of perceptual ex-
perience in the first three lectures, he cordons off his quasi-naturalism
in the indeterminate, grey ontological limbo of being a doctrine to be
embraced only insofar as his epistemology of experience requires it.16 In
a treatment of Daniel Dennett elsewhere, McDowell urges that analytic
philosophers of mind, who are usually fixated on such things as the on-
tologies at stake in the stubborn mind-body problem, should be aware at
the same time of the epistemological presuppositions and ramifications
of their proposals.17
In good Hegelian spirit, I can begin laying out my bones of conten-
tion with McDowell through an immanent critical assessment of him.
He insists that ontology must be accompanied by epistemology. But, as
various moments of his own project exhibit, the inverse is at least equally
true: epistemology must be, nay, cannot avoid being, accompanied by
ontology. What is more, the insistence on the unavoidability of ontology
for epistemology is at the heart of Hegel’s recurrent problematizations
of Kant’s critical philosophy.
McDowell repeats these problematizations. He thereby signals his
approval of Hegel’s absolute idealism with its anti-subjectivism. McDow-
ell’s desire to retain a vivid realist hue in his epistemology, thereby gen-
erating the world-gripping “external friction”18 that is missing from anti-
empiricist coherentism, pushes him away from Kant and into the arms of
Hegel. Yet, I sympathize with Andrew Bowie when he complains that Mc-
Dowell, with his restricted references mainly to the Phenomenology of Spirit,
has thus far refrained from providing a sufficiently detailed account of his
relations with Hegel’s systematic absolute idealism as a whole.19
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McDowell, minus an ontologization of his quasi-naturalism, is in

danger of sliding back into the idealist subjectivism that he discerns and
dismisses in Kant’s transcendental idealism (as well as its reverberations
in Davidsonian coherentism, Brandomian inferentialism, and the like).
Additionally, when looked at in light of his appeals to Marx, McDowell’s
blurring of the distinction between the theoretical and the practical,
in which theoretical-conceptual reason is always-already practical too,
strongly implies that second-nature, rational-sapient subjectivity is far
from being merely epiphenomenal.20
Similarly, McDowell’s disputes with Pippin, particularly as revolving
around the related themes of the natural and the social, indirectly suggest
that, by his own lights, he cannot refrain from in some sense ontologizing
his modified naturalism, of ascribing real being to the second natures
of subjectivities. Whereas Pippin has come to share Brandom’s tenden-
cies to lopsidedly depict Hegel as a social rationality pragmatist with pro-
nounced antirealist leanings, McDowell casts doubts on Pippin’s overrid-
ing emphases on sociality alone in Hegelian thought (specifically in terms
of the functions of “recognition” [Anerkennung] therein)21 in conjunction
with stressing the non-coherentist, non-inferentialist realism entailed by
the objective side of Hegel’s absolute idealism. Pippin responds by draw-
ing attention to McDowell’s vacillations between epistemology and ontol-
ogy with regard to his naturalism. He recommends that McDowell restrict
this naturalism to a modest, post-Kantian de-ontologized epistemological
framework that outlines praxis-level conditions of discursive-explanatory
adequacy.22
In response to McDowell’s vacillations, I want to push him in the
opposite direction. Contrary to Pippin, I urge going all the way to the
end with an immodestly ambitious (post-)Hegelian realism that is gener-
ated precisely through the gesture of ontologizing the relaxed Platonic
naturalism of second nature. Richard Bernstein approvingly contrasts
McDowell’s “domesticated Hegelianism” with “wild” versions.23 By con-
trast, I am committed to a view of Hegel according to which Bernstein’s
phrase for McDowell’s version is oxymoronic, and the only true version
of Hegelianism proper would be a wild one. My nudging of McDowell is
delivered in the form of an immanent critique. I believe this gesture to
be a consequent extension of McDowell’s project, despite his reservations
about pursuing this course himself.
Christoph Halbig argues that McDowell’s theory of second nature
generates at least as many problems as it solves.24 Halbig maintains that a
reconceived nature, rather than a novel take on perceptual experience,
is indeed McDowell’s “master idea.”25 However, admittedly with some
justification, Halbig complains that this new vision of nature, for all its
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importance, remains strikingly underdeveloped and sparsely articulated

in the McDowellian project.26 He blames this lack of full fleshing-out
on the tension between McDowell’s dual, but allegedly incompatible,
allegiances to Hegel and the later Wittgenstein.27 Halbig correctly ob-
serves that McDowell’s idealism, like Hegel’s, is anything but antirealist.28
McDowell, if he wishes to remain consistently faithful to this Hegelian
realism, cannot, as he often does, retreat into the minimalist modesty
of quite non-Hegelian Wittgensteinianism when convenient. Instances
of recourse to such a maneuver must be deemed lapses in philosophical
consistency when judged by McDowell’s own Hegelian criteria— hence
the immanence of my critique.
McDowell and Pippin, despite their disagreements, share a doubtful
assumption. They both presume that a theoretical naturalism informed
by the natural sciences, however qualified and nuanced this naturalism
might be, inevitably and necessarily is “bald” or, at a minimum, severely
thinning (i.e., mechanistic, reductive, eliminative, etc.). This assump-
tion is based on outdated, obsolete, and grossly distorted pictures of the
natural sciences, particularly the life sciences as they stand today. In re-
sponse to McDowell, Graham Macdonald suggests something similar with
regard to biology as perhaps different-in-kind from physics and chemis-
try,29 thus echoing the central structural aspects of Hegel’s Naturphiloso-
phie. Neither Newtonianism nor the duo of the Churchlands accurately
reflect the spontaneous philosophical naturalism that has accompanied,
even sometimes without the explicit awareness of the scientists them-
selves, recent advances in fields such as the neurosciences, genetics, and
evolutionary theory. I can sum up this line of counter-argumentation
against both McDowell and Pippin by declaring that a contemporary nat-
uralism nourished by a range of recent scientific discoveries is bald only
in the same sense as Bertrand Russell’s “present King of France.”
Pippin conjectures that many of McDowell’s proponents of bald
naturalism would be willing and able to accept the McDowellian vision of
second nature as bound up with socio-symbolic education and training.30
In so doing, Pippin denies the supposed incompatibility between bald
and relaxed naturalisms that is relied upon in the second half of Mind
and World. He goes on to observe that “given the unbelievable variety in
human culture, it seems safe to say that first nature radically underdeter-
mines, even while it conditions, any second nature.”31
In intervening into the McDowell-Pippin debate about naturalism,
the move I recommend making is fundamentally quite simple, hopefully
in the manner of elegant simplicity. I philosophically interpret an array
of natural scientific findings as indicating that the real material being
of human beings (i.e., their first nature) really is, in and of itself, “radi-
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cally underdetermining,” as Pippin himself puts it without intending for

his words to be ontologized as part of a Naturphilosophie. Strikingly, in
addition to growing bodies of scientific and philosophical literature sup-
porting this move of mine, Francisco Varela and his collaborators speak
of literal “underdetermination” in elaborating a biologically based and
phenomenologically informed version of cognitive science.32
McDowell’s ubiquitous use of the phrase “second nature” implies
adding something to first nature, namely, the addition of something more
(“second”) to something else coming before it logically or chronologi-
cally.33 For me, the subjective spontaneity that McDowell wishes to defend
without lapsing into the supernaturalism of a rampant Platonism is better
theorized on the basis of subtracting something from first nature. This
alternative subtractive maneuver entirely avoids the risk of any appear-
ance of positing supernatural entities as “X’s” over and above first nature.
McDowell, with his post-Sellarsian, non-dialectical distinction
between the realm of causal laws (i.e., first nature) and the logical space
of reasons (i.e., second nature), retains the picture of first nature as a
totalitarian regime of ironclad, unbreakable laws of efficient causality
that are investigated by the natural sciences. I propose subtracting from
first nature what this picture attributes to it. Many of the lengths to which
McDowell must go in clarifying his (quasi-)naturalism of second nature
are perhaps unnecessary. These branches of speculation can be pruned
by an Ockham’s razor wielded by the alternate approach I am pleading
for here.
Continuing in the mode of an immanent critique, McDowell’s Witt-
gensteinian therapeutic sensibilities and methods can be turned against
him in this setting. McDowell, in the first half of Mind and World, for-
mulates his epistemology of perceptual experience motivated by the de-
sire to soothe away the “philosophical discomfort” provoked by what he
identifies as the false either/or choice between realist empiricism and
antirealist coherentism. Since the rest of his project, including his natu-
ralism, follows from and is justified by this, it can plausibly be asserted
that McDowell, perhaps like all thinkers, decides upon zero-level, foun-
dational axioms and intuitions through considerations weighing degrees
of “discomfort” (as dissatisfaction, puzzlement, uneasiness, and the like).
Consequently, in terms of McDowellian methodology, if a philosophical
move arouses more intellectual agitation than it settles (all other things
being equal), it should not be made. At least for me, putting forward sec-
ond nature as a scientifically inexplicable and sui generis phenomenon
of indeterminate ontological status is a maneuver leaving me with the
unsettling feeling that it provokes more discomfort than it ameliorates.
Here I agree with a pro-Hegelian, anti-dualist “slogan” voiced by
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Brandom: “A dualism is a distinction drawn in such a way as to render

unintelligible crucial relations between the distinguished items.”34 Due
to the unintelligibility of the relations between first and second natures
in McDowell’s thought, he is in danger of seeming to be anti-Hegelian
and pro-dualist, namely, supernaturalist in the very sense that he struggles
to fend off. I also concur with Brandom when he objects to McDowell’s
tendency to fall back on the Wittgensteinian “therapeutic dimension”
of his endeavors as a tactic for shirking the responsibility for answering
questions arising from a number of “hard problems” surrounding his
project.35 This tendency is particularly inadmissible for a Hegelian abso-
lute idealist with an acute awareness, at least on other occasions, of the
ineliminable entanglements of epistemological and ontological dimen-
sions in philosophy.
As a Hegelian with a soft spot for the hard sciences, I am much
less discomforted by hypothesizing that denaturalized subjectivities can
and do arise in explicable fashions from the brains, bodies, and environ-
ments (both natural and non-natural) that are studied by, among other
disciplines, the life sciences. As Houlgate indicates by trying to draw the
attention of McDowell and McDowell’s readers to Hegel’s philosophy
of “subjective spirit” (following immediately on the heels of the Philos-
ophy of Nature at the start of the Philosophy of Spirit), Hegel strives might-
ily to demystify the emergence of second out of first nature, of Spirit-
as-subjectivity out of Nature-as-substance.36 Hegel is content neither to
leave spiritual subjects ontologically fuzzy nor to claim dogmatically that
such subjects are in principle sui generis and forever inexplicable vis-à-vis
natural materialities.
On the more scientific (as distinct from the Hegelian) side, I ad-
here to what strikes me as the reasonable starting assumption that the
physical constitution of human anatomy furnishes the necessary, and
sometimes even sufficient, conditions for the effective existence of the
sorts of subjects that McDowell philosophizes about under the heading
of “second nature.” This can take the form of a slogan: no first-nature
brain, no second-nature subject. This does not assert either “if first-nature
brain alone, then second-nature subject” or “second-nature subject =
first-nature brain.” In the sixth and final lecture of Mind and World, Mc-
Dowell maintains that there is no need for scientific accounts of second
nature.37 I would add to this nothing more than a small qualification: un-
less one wants to shut down for good the possibility of any resurfacing of
supernatural appearances (with a concerned Hegelian wide eye to philos-
ophy and science as “moments” of larger complex structures including
social, cultural, political, and religious moments too).
To head off a likely misunderstanding at this point, I am not baldly
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advocating a reduction or elimination of McDowellian second-nature

subjectivity. Instead, substituting my subtractive gesture of decompleting
first nature for McDowell’s additive one of completing— he and his fol-
lowers would say “reenchanting”38 — it with second nature lets me affirm
with McDowell the effective existence of autonomous subjects as loci of
self-legislating conceptual spontaneity without flirting with the enigmas
and riddles of the supernatural. As McDowell perhaps fears, reenchant-
ment still sounds to my ears like repackaged supernaturalism.
McDowell insinuates, and (neo-)romantics wail, that the disenchant-
ment of the natural world has gone too far since the advent of modern
science in the early seventeenth century. A reenchantment of nature is
advanced as a well-overdue remedy for the nihilism of a reality flattened
out by the bulldozers of the post-Enlightenment secular sciences run
amok. But, if Lacan is right about the onto-theological articles of meta-
physical faith of apparently atheistic materialism (akin to bald natural-
ism)39 as well as a post-Freudian “triumph of religion” in which spiritual-
ist illusions enjoy a vibrant future alongside (and partly thanks to) the
sciences of modernity,40 then a true scientific secularism has yet to arrive
on the historical scene with anything close to full force.
Lacan’s claims aside, even if modern science has made inroads into
disenchanting and desacralizing a number of things, it is far from having
completely dislodged and destroyed the representatives of the enchanted
and the sacred that have long been present on the world stage. Moreover,
whereas religious and spiritualist worldviews have been around continu-
ously for eons up through today, the worldview ushered in by Bacon and
Galileo is, by comparison, a mere four centuries young; it is a blink-of-
an-eye blip relative to the deeply entrenched reign of obscurantist magic
and mystery. Urging that reenchantment deserves to be given a try is
analogous to suggesting to the American voting public that they should
finally bring themselves to consider electing a white Christian male as
their president. The worn-out Weberian tale of post-Enlightenment secu-
lar scientific disenchantment has become ever more unrepresentative
and one-sided, failing to reflect the past several decades of momentous
developments in the sciences.
With respect to pure mathematics, Alain Badiou makes his readers
exquisitely sensitive to the missed opportunities resulting from the loos-
ening of the historically tight tie between philosophy and mathematics
from Plato to Kant. Starting with German idealism and romanticism in
the late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries, philosophical specu-
lation in the continental European tradition (with a few exceptions) falls
into a willful mathematical illiteracy, ignoring, in this peeling away, the
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reality-shattering upheavals that soon ensued in mathematics as a revo-

lution associated with the proper name “Georg Cantor.” Badiou admir-
ably demonstrates that contemporary philosophy has everything to gain
(and nothing to lose) from buckling down to some long-overdue catch-
up work on almost two centuries’ worth of groundbreaking mathematical
thought. In this spirit of Badiou’s philosophy (but against its letter, inso-
far as he and I are at loggerheads about the place of the life sciences),41 I
seek to diagnose a widespread scientific illiteracy that afflicts many philos-
ophers and allied theorists in the humanities, an ignorance lulling them
into complacently and repetitively chanting inaccurate or false mantras
about disenchantment.
In reaction to talk of reenchantment, I am tempted to cry out “Give
disenchantment a chance!” (as Ray Brassier does in his 2007 book Nihil
Unbound: Enlightenment and Extinction).42 But this would not be an entirely
accurate reflection of my views in that “disenchantment” risks connoting
the reductionism of all-too-typical naturalisms. I share with McDowell a
commitment to shoring up the position of the subject of freedom. Yet,
unlike McDowell, I am confident that this can be accomplished without
a flicker of (re)enchantment and on the basis of the very sciences he
suspects of being incorrigibly complicit with far-from-enchanting bald
naturalism.
Furthermore, this subtractive gesture of mine (i.e., the decomple-
tion of first nature) is intimately linked with my above-mentioned theo-
retical interpretation of contemporary biology and its offshoots. In addi-
tion to my “no first-nature brain, no second-nature subject” axiom/
intuition, I also push off from the thesis that, to paraphrase Winston
Churchill, the sciences of modernity, of a “disenchanted” nature, are the
worst platforms for speculating about human subjectivities, except for all
those others that have been utilized from time to time. However, in my
Hegelian dialectical-phenomenological reading, the life-scientific rendi-
tion of human beings that is coming together at present utterly under-
mines bald naturalism and lends crucial empirical, experimental (i.e.,
non-supernatural) support to a naturalism along the lines of McDowell’s
naturalized Platonism or my transcendental materialism.
What neither McDowell nor Pippin countenance is the possibility
that the ideology of bald naturalism, as a scientism, is nowadays being
falsified by the same sciences that are misleadingly idolized by reduc-
tive and eliminative naturalist ideologues. Arguably, these sciences are
in the midst of decompleting themselves, intra-scientifically tracing the
epistemological and ontological boundaries of scientific jurisdictions of
covered entities, events, and explanations. These are promising develop-
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ments ignored by those philosophers, like McDowell, Pippin, and count-

less others, who feel the need philosophically to bring a nonscientific
limiting check externally to bear on the sciences.
For example, epigenetics can quite plausibly be understood as an
intra-genetic theory of how significantly more things than just genes play
essential regulatory roles in genotype-phenotype configurations.43 This
can be finessed as a simple yet powerful example of a science perform-
ing a Gödelian-style jujitsu trick of determining itself to be (in Lacanese)
“not all” (pas tout), incomplete with respect to interpenetrating fields and
structures that mediate its own domains and prompt it to surpass itself
in demarcating its self-defined borders between itself and its “extimate”
others (to borrow again from Lacan the neologism “extimité,” designat-
ing an intimate exteriority, an inner foreignness).44 One of the significant
lessons of the chapter on “Observing Reason” in Hegel’s Phenomenology of
Spirit is that the baldly naturalistic modern sciences, left to their own de-
vices, eventually give rise immanently out of themselves to notions— life
is the paradigmatic one here— which they thereafter cannot recapture
within the confines of their prior worldviews. With regard to the sciences,
McDowell and Pippin do not think to practice Hegel’s phenomenological
procedure of stepping back in a hands-off manner, letting these figures/
shapes of consciousness unfold their resources (or, as Hegel also portrays
it, do violence to themselves at their own hands)45 while “looking on,”
and philosophically narrating (“re-collecting” as Erinnerung) the dialec-
tical results.46 In a related vein, Stephen Houlgate comments at length
on the absence of phenomenological ways of proceeding in Brandom’s
heterodox inferentialist Hegelianism.47
McDowell’s Hegel is an anti-foundationalist.48 But, as an anti-
foundationalist who also is an objective realist as an absolute idealist with
a Naturphilosophie, Hegel holds out the alluring philosophical possibility
to his readers of ontologically (and not just epistemologically) reimagin-
ing first nature so that the presuppositions underpinning the McDowell-
Pippin altercations about science-informed naturalism simply fall away.
Robert Stern, in an article on McDowell and Hegel, casts McDowell’s
naturalism as a more moderate and reasonable version of Hegel’s philos-
ophy of nature (which, by contrast, is implied to be immoderate and un-
reasonable).49 Similarly, Jay Bernstein lambasts McDowell for restricting
his reflections on nature to philosophy and epistemology narrowly con-
ceived. Bernstein indicts McDowell for neglecting the wider contextual
horizons with which naturalist ideologies are interconnected insofar as
he fails to furnish a historically conscious critique of political economy.50
I nonetheless predictably dissent from Bernstein’s Adornian retelling of
the Weberian tale about disenchantment. As I argued earlier, this type of
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snapshot of the sciences is jaw-droppingly non-dialectical, which is some-

thing surprising for a critical-theoretical perspective based in Marxism.
But Stern, later in the same aforementioned article, praises Hegel’s
philosophical immodesty as opposed to McDowell’s modesty in terms of
the latter’s cautious approach of refraining from musings on the historical,
religious, political, and other facets of his epistemologically oriented con-
siderations. Stern does not appear to register the tension between his as-
sertions.51 Akin to Stern’s second line of thought here, Houlgate inveighs
against Pippin’s excessively Kantianized (quasi-)Hegelianism,52 a Kant-
ianism going back to his book Hegel’s Idealism (1989) and foreshadowed by
Béatrice Longuenesse’s study Hegel and the Critique of Metaphysics (1981).53
Houlgate thereby contests the post-Taylor portrait of a nonrealist, socio-
historical constructionist Hegel which McDowell falls short of fully and
decisively repudiating despite his own objective realist-as-absolute idealist
penchants. In one of his early reactions to Pippin, McDowell retreats into
a deflated pseudo-Hegelianism, arguing that he too, like Pippin’s social
rationality pragmatist Hegel, can and does “leave nature behind.”54 I wish
to confront both McDowell and Pippin with an appropriately Sadean
rallying cry: “Gentlemen, one more effort if you would be Hegelians!”
20

Piebald Naturalism: Freedom in

Cartwright’s Image of Nature

The stage is now set for productive engagement with Nancy Cartwright’s
contributions to the philosophy of science, which are highly pertinent
to the controversies I have dealt with primarily in connection with Mc-
Dowell and Pippin. Cartwright’s 1999 book The Dappled World: A Study
in the Boundaries of Science— the title is taken from Gerard Manley Hop-
kins’s poem “Pied Beauty”— reenvisions the sciences as interrelated disci-
plines, as well as reenvisioning the objective world they pinpoint. Her new
worldview of the “dappled world” thoroughly demolishes various dogmas
about the scientific, the naturalistic, and their rapport. These dogmas
underpin much of what is said by McDowell, Pippin, and a horde of
others. Conducting a tour of Cartwright’s ideas will enable me to return
to the topic of a transcendental materialist Naturphilosophie that is capable
of doing justice to radically free, denaturalized subjectivity without corre-
spondingly doing any degree of injustice to the empirical, experimental
sciences of modernity.
McDowell’s post-Sellarsian epistemology of perceptual experience
is a sort of attenuated empiricism.1 This empiricist phoenix rises from the
ashes of those of its predecessors relying upon the exploded Myth of the
Given. Cartwright self-identifies as an empiricist, albeit, like McDowell,
as a realist (rather than an idealist or skeptical) one.
Cartwright’s 1999 book tackles both physics as the epitome of the
natural sciences and economics as a paradigmatic social science. My
present agenda compels me to focus more on her test cases drawn from
physics. One of Cartwright’s fundamental conclusions is that any realist
empiricist who looks closely and honestly at the actual (not to mention
historical) state and achievements of the sciences within and between
themselves will be pushed toward subscribing to the worldview of the
“dappled world”2 (a worldview that is arguably already to be discerned
in Lukács’s Ontology of Social Being).3 Hopkins’s phrase refers to objective
reality as a hodgepodge “patchwork” of relatively or absolutely autono-
mous regional domains of beings and happenings. This is by contrast with
an image of the world as a unified field of forces and phenomena that is
grounded upon and governed by a single set of universally valid physical

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laws. The non-dappled world obviously resembles the picture of nature

at the base of bald naturalism as characterized by McDowell.
On the very first page of The Dappled World, Cartwright declares,
“The disorder of nature is apparent. We need good arguments to back
the universal rule of law.”4 She then sets about making the case that any
such “good arguments” are lacking and that superior arguments testify in
favor of an anti-fundamentalist “local realism.”5 “Fundamentalism” here
designates faith in the possibility of reducing everything to a single set of
universal physical laws. Cartwright thinks that even the most wide-ranging
cause-and-effect connections fall short of being universal,6 although she
does not thereby commit herself to denying that these connections are
“true” in the standard scientific sense.7
Additionally, and perhaps unintentionally echoing the Hegel of the
Phenomenology of Spirit,8 Cartwright indicts universalism for driving itself
into the vacuity of a near-empty general unity that is powerless to account
for the vast majority of the rich, multifaceted manifestations that are
readily apparent in observed reality.9 Cartwright’s local realism refuses to
accept the oft-assumed equivalence between scientific realism and funda-
mentalist universalism.10 As regards the multiple branches of the sciences,
she rightly notes that “there is no system, no fixed relations among them”
and “there is no universal cover of law.”11 Her fellow traveler John Dupré
likewise declares that “the disunity of science is not merely an unfortu-
nate consequence of our limited computational or other cognitive capac-
ities, but rather reflects accurately the underlying ontological complexity
of the world, the disorder of things.”12
The notion that the entire sprawling spectrum of the multiple
natural sciences reduces down in the end to whatever present-best phys-
ics alone posits in the form of its sole bundle of fundamental laws is a
matter of unproven (and, at least practically, if not in principle, unprov-
able) faith, not established fact. Hence, for a strict empiricist, the diverse
empirical sciences provide no solid empirical grounds for concluding
that the ostensibly objective realities they investigate are ultimately bound
together into a seamless, homogeneous whole, a monochromatic totality,
that is exhaustively organized by the force(s) of a coherent, solitary en-
semble of basic causal rules.13 What is more, for a realist who registers the
fact of this non-unified disciplinary diversity within a wider perspective
informed by knowledge of the history of the sciences, the sheer weight
of all the available evidence tilts the balance heavily toward the dappled
worldview and against the flat uniformity of fundamentalist universalism.
As Cartwright expresses this, “the claims to knowledge we can defend by
our impressive scientific successes do not argue for a unified world of
universal order, but rather for a dappled world of mottled objects.”14 Her
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empiricist local realism commits her to a stance that she labels “meta-
physical nomological pluralism.”15 Dupré similarly speaks of a “promiscu-
ous realism”16 and cautions that “scientific pluralism . . . depends in no
way on an antirealist perspective.”17
Cartwright’s setting of her sights on physics as a scientific target-
object of reflection for her philosophy of science is well-chosen. This
is the natural science that is most foundational for the reductionist ap-
peals of fundamentalist universalism. In her eyes, the textbook narrative
about the dethroning of Newtonian physics in the early twentieth century
by the quantum and Einsteinian revolutions, based as this narrative is
on a fundamentalist-universalist dogma (i.e., belief in the non-dappled
world), is terribly misleading. According to Cartwright, the fact that pre-
quantum, pre-Einsteinian physics continues to serve as an indispensable
explanatory apparatus for practical, applied physical disciplines in the
post-Newtonian era— Newton’s mechanical physics provides precise, pre-
dictive accounts of the behavior of the midsized material objects handled
by the human senses in the course of engineering projects of multitu-
dinous sorts— should not be dismissed hastily as an instance of a false,
obsolete blueprint that nevertheless retains its use-value despite having
been deprived of all real truth-value. Instead of being a useful-but-untrue
heuristic device, Newtonian physics, Cartwright alleges, retains validity
alongside its supposed quantum and Einsteinian usurpers. Rather than
classical physics being falsified outright by these subsequent develop-
ments, Newton’s mechanics correctly describes really-there levels of ob-
jective reality (i.e., entities and events in-between the very small [quan-
tum] and the very big [Einsteinian]) that are irreducible to an ultimate
layer of ostensibly foundational grounding/governing constituents.
The midsized entities and events that are accurately depicted
in classical, pre-quantum mechanics enjoy an objective, ontological
autonomy vis-à-vis smaller-scale (i.e., atomic and subatomic) regions
of being.18 This brings to mind the theoretical notion of emergence. It
is no accident that, at one point, Cartwright turns to the life sciences
and rightly remarks that “reductionism has long been out of fashion in
biology, and now emergentism is again a real possibility.”19 (She also con-
tends that law-like patterns in biological domains are, ultimately, contin-
gent historical emergences20 and hints at her amenability to downward
causation.)21 Although Cartwright has her reservations about the notion
of emergence,22 this just-quoted line serves up a pertinent reminder to
the effect that the life sciences no longer lend anything close to their un-
equivocal support to bald naturalism as depicted by McDowell. However,
fully appreciating the justifications behind Cartwright’s heretical claims
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about physics requires a more detailed understanding of her recasting of

the very idea of law in the sciences.
In particular, Cartwright’s innovative concept of the “nomological
machine” is indispensable for an adequate assessment of her unortho-
dox philosophy of science. She segues into the formulation of this con-
cept through considerations concerning ceteris paribus (“with other things
being the same” or “with all other things being equal or held constant”)
caveats in the sciences.23 With regard to physics, Cartwright observes that
its models of applicability are very narrow and limited, and are far from
universal in their scope of application.24 This is because scientific experi-
ments need to set up arrays of tightly constraining “shielding” envelopes
so as to isolate specific phenomena and protect them from confusing,
disorienting contamination by a swarming multitude of unpredictably
variable real-world conditions. These conditions would compromise or
disrupt the ceteris paribus “closure” that is demanded by the methods of
scientific practice and its requirements for arriving at acceptable expla-
nations.25
As Cartwright states in conformity with her refusal to erroneously
conflate realism with fundamentalist universalism, “predictive closure
among a set of properties does not imply descriptive completeness.”26
Furthermore, nature appears non-dappled only under the exceptional ar-
tificial circumstances that have been arranged in advance by scientific ex-
perimental apparatuses of extremely constricted (i.e., shielded) range.27
Standard physics, due to its typically unacknowledged dependence on
such elaborate contrivances, engages in duplicity and dishonesty to the
extent that it self-presents as validating the image of the non-dappled
world. Scientists promoting a pseudoscientific scientism (as fundamental-
ist universalism, bald naturalism, and so on) must rely on ruses (such as
circumscribed models and shielding arrangements) that are essential to,
yet more often than not disavowed by, the experimental sciences. Allud-
ing to the title of her book How the Laws of Physics Lie (1983), Cartwright
hurls the accusation that “from the point of view of empiricism, physics
regularly cheats.”28
Clément Rosset, in his book Anti-Nature (1973), foreshadows some
of Cartwright’s proposals with his anti-naturalist “artificialism” of thor-
oughly contingent, radically aleatory materialities. Rosset’s position op-
poses itself to those naturalisms that continue to suffer from lingering
onto-theological illnesses diagnosed by Nietzsche and Lacan, among
others.29 This artificialism performs a counterintuitive, 180-degree about-
face according to which the fabricated laws of artifice are the model for
the laws attributed to nature (and not vice versa).30
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S EC O ND NAT URE S I N DAP P LE D WO RLDS

Likewise, Cartwright states: “for the most part, the laws of phys-
ics are true only of what we make. The social constructivists tend to be
scornful of the ‘true’ part.”31 Cartwright’s realism leaves her utterly un-
sympathetic to the illegitimate drawing of antirealist (what she here waves
at with the phrase “social constructivist”) conclusions on the basis of af-
firming the contrived, fabricated nature (or anti-nature) of experimental
scientific praxis. Although artificial, the causal laws that are extracted
from, rather than preceding-as-producing, experiments and their ex-
perimentally mediated phenomena are nonetheless true as real patterns
that inhere in objective, mind-independent reality.32 The Cartwrightian
idea of the nomological machine has been hovering in the wings of this
discussion for a while. It can now be defined explicitly with brevity and
straightforwardness.
Cartwright’s dappled world is a fragmented, heterogeneous uni-
verse without underlying, unifying fundamental laws. This universe is
indigenously populated by a detotalized jumble of a plethora of nomo-
logical machines, some involving humans and many not. Inverting a tra-
ditional view, Cartwright contends that nomological machines, as kludge-
like assemblages (what she also labels “motley assemblies”)33 of mixed
constituents, generate fundamental laws, and not the other way around.34
She articulates this with a strange “rarely” (which appears in place of the
“never” to be expected at this point) in her assertion that “it is rarely
laws . . . that are fundamental.”35
Nomological machines, in order to operate effectively, need some
form of shielding (whether supplied by people or nonhuman variables),
such as the sort of shielding relied upon by experimental setups that
require the closed status of ceteris paribus conditions.36 A scientific ex-
periment is a paradigmatic example of a Cartwrightian nomological ma-
chine,37 although this is not to deny the existence of nomological ma-
chines that are wholly independent from humans and their activities.
The laws thus generated are as “transitory” as the fragile, impermanent
machines giving rise to them.38
As a corollary to this, Cartwright stipulates, “We get no regularities
without a nomological machine to generate them.”39 Attuned Marxist
ears will be pleased to hear that she includes “socio-economic machines”
among those myriad nomological machines that are responsible for pro-
ducing and reproducing the regularities of the modern scientific (and
capitalist) world. Pausing to think of the economic, political, and institu-
tional conditions of possibility for the actual pursuits of flesh-and-blood
scientists suffices to clarify what Cartwright has in mind here. She herself
mentions the field of “political economy.”40 Yet, Cartwright’s refusal of the
cheap and easy social constructionist option entails that acknowledging
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the political-economic possibility conditions for the empirical, experi-

mental sciences of modernity is by no means tantamount to indefensibly
equating the entirety of science with the “false consciousness” of unreal
capitalist ideological scientisms.41
Cartwright denies that there are in objective reality “regularities
‘all the way down.’”42 She condemns hard-nosed determinism as a dog-
matic metaphysical doctrine that is clung to on the basis of an irrational
faith that is aggressively blind to a wealth of facts glaringly visible to an
empirically responsive and responsible gaze. This determinism would be
that of bald naturalism’s elimination of autonomous subjectivity in re-
ducing human mindedness both individual and collective to a presumed
rock-bottom foundation of lawful efficient-causal mechanisms.43 By con-
trast, Cartwright’s dappled world is one of “ceteris paribus laws all the way
down.”44
Hume’s shadow falls over much of Cartwright’s avowedly empiricist
endeavors in the philosophy of science. Of special relevance in this con-
text is the Humean blurring of the boundaries between, on the one side,
the natural sciences, and, on the other side, the human sciences (i.e., the
social sciences and the humanities). Taking physics as exemplary of the
former side and economics of the latter, Cartwright maintains that phys-
ics and economics are not different-in-kind from one another, as is often
assumed.45 This is entirely in step with a position that Hume arrives at via
his analyses of the concept of causality.
Hume’s position comes out most clearly in his provocatively non-
traditional treatment of the topic of human freedom. He takes his lead
from Locke’s characteristically clumsy pawing of the same topic in An Es-
say Concerning Human Understanding. Therein, as regards “liberty,” Locke
swivels the philosophical crosshairs from internal to external conditions
for it (while immediately proceeding to lapse back into a preoccupation
with the inner psychology of freedom).46 Hume insists upon a strictly ex-
ternal characterization of liberty. For him, the degree to which a person
is free is precisely proportional to the degree to which he or she is not
constrained from without by surrounding barriers, hindrances, impedi-
ments, obstacles, and the like.47
In Hume’s view, the obsession with internal subjective machin-
ery orchestrating much of the traditional free-will-versus-determinism
debate— the term “will” is symptomatic of this obsession— is rendered
thoroughly obsolete by his empiricist account of causality. This account,
mobilizing the problem of induction, replaces laws as “necessary connec-
tions” between causes and effects with probabilistic patterns of regular as-
sociations between things and occurrences. With this replacement, what
before seemed to be a sharp, crisp contrast between an external-objective
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realm of inviolable laws of a slavish nature and an internal-subjective

kingdom of the voluntary self-determination of autonomous non/super-
nature disappears.
According to Hume, introspection reveals no more and no less
regularity than extrospection. The dual successions of outer and in-
ner events are equally regular or non-regular, depending on whether
the consequences of the Humean analysis of causality for the sense of
regularity are seen from a glass-half-full or a glass-half-empty perspec-
tive. In Hume’s view, unbiased observation shows that both intra- and
intersubjective courses of occurrences (i.e., psychological and social
sequences) are, in principle, as repetitive and predictable (or as non-
repetitive and non-predictable) as nonsubjective ones (i.e., natural as
nonhuman sequences).48 Cartwright’s empiricist denial of a difference-
in-kind between physics and economics resembles, without being a mere
repetition of, Hume’s employment of the related issues of causality and
freedom to weaken and destabilize the partitions between different dis-
ciplinary perspectives.
Admittedly, several non-negligible philosophical discrepancies
separate the stances of Hume and Cartwright. But exploring these is not
my interest in this context. Instead, I want to advance and defend the fol-
lowing proposal: the autonomous as the reflexively self-legislating subject
of German idealism at the heart of McDowell’s relaxed Platonic natural-
ism of second nature is a special sort of Cartwrightian nomological ma-
chine, namely, what perhaps could be dubbed a “logological machine.”
The redoubling of the term “logos” in “logological” signals the reflexive
second nature of auto-determining subjectivity.
Cartwright’s analyses of the concept of law, like Hume’s analyses of
the concept of causality, blur the boundaries between the natural and
human sciences. Related to this, she allows for a diverse, kaleidoscopic
grab-bag of heterogeneous components as providing the ingredients for
creating nomological machines broadly defined. This bag contains not
only matter in motion as per the physical sciences, but also elements
drawn from cultures, histories, languages, and so on. This allowance on
Cartwright’s part licenses and underwrites my proposal to consider the
constituents of second-nature upbringing/formation (Bildung) as com-
ing together in certain instances, along and combined with constituents
from first nature (i.e., human brains and bodies, among other things), to
form logological machines as peculiar varieties of nomological machines.
My modified appropriation of Cartwright’s work renders superfluous any-
thing like Roger Penrose’s quantum-physicalist stab at a solution to the
“hard problem” (as per the legendary flop that is his 1989 book The Em-
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peror’s New Mind). One does not need to go this far down, to the weird
worlds of quantum realities, to find the wiggle room of indetermination
and queer temporal torsions permitting and foreshadowing minded sub-
jectivity.49
McDowell often restricts himself to offering a generally cautious
Wittgensteinian therapeutic epistemology, according to which there is
nothing requiring the default assumption of bald naturalism that nature
altogether is an unfree realm of causal laws. By contrast, Cartwright boldly
forwards a rich ontology in which there is something, indeed quite a lot
in fact, that is both scientifically and philosophically pushing toward the
verdict that bald naturalist assumptions about nature are actually false as
ideological-scientistic myths that distort true reality as it is in and for itself.
For Cartwright’s philosophy of science, as for Hegelian Naturphilosophie,
McDowell does not go far enough when he rests content with showing the
mere non-mandatory standing of bald naturalism’s nature as a picture of
nature in general. Given McDowell’s professed Hegelianism, he cannot
stop this short even by his own lights.
Furthermore, Cartwright would see McDowell as gravely erring in
conceding that the image of nature as an enchained domain of inviolable
laws of efficient causality is valid at least within the narrower confines
of empirical, experimental scientific praxis. This already is to concede
too much. Cartwright’s metaphysical pluralism of nomological machines
upends the very idea of natural law that McDowell, Pippin, and so many
others take for granted in the background as unproblematic (or at least
unproblematic when this idea is not extended beyond its purportedly
proper scientific spheres).
Cartwright’s philosophical and scientific overthrow of the idea of
fundamental laws grounding bald naturalism, in conjunction with my
move of extending the concept of the nomological machine to cover
subjectivity, lays the first programmatic bricks of a road to an ontologized,
realist variant of McDowell’s quasi-naturalism of second nature. This vari-
ant, unlike McDowell’s own, is open to being informed, without being
threatened, by the natural sciences, as well as being fortified against the
intellectually dangerous risks of appearing to grant any room whatsoever
for supernaturalist dualisms. Neither heteronomously regulated by the
non-dappled world of bald naturalism’s fundamentalist universalism nor
frictionlessly spinning in the void of arbitrary caprice and chance, the
self-legislating subjects of logological machines, like those of Hegel and
McDowell’s neo-Hegelianism, are immanently transcendent inhabitants
of a dappled world. This world, or rather worldview, is the best portrait of
an enriched, but not enchanted, nature as a detotalized, self-sundering,
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and piebald (instead of just plain bald) expanse of motley clusters of

patchwork substances with their wonder-inducing, Frankenstein-like
beauty.
At the end of the fourth lecture in Mind and World, McDowell pro-
vides his audience with a condensed statement of the largest ambitions
aspired to by his attenuated naturalism. In resonance with the Sellarsian
program to steer along the fault lines between what Sellars designates
as the “manifest and scientific images” of human beings,50 McDowell
announces that “my proposal is that we should try to reconcile reason
and nature.”51 (Incidentally, Cartwright, in a 2016 essay, suggests that her
dappled world helps reconcile Sellars’s two images.)52 He proceeds to
herald the possibility that “we could achieve a firm hold on a naturalism
of second nature, a hold that could not be shaken by any temptation to
lapse back into ordinary philosophical worries about how to place minds
in the world.”53 Yet, he speaks of this possibility not as “a bit of construc-
tive philosophy of the sort Rorty aims to supersede” (i.e., an ontology or
metaphysics beyond the conservative limits of epistemological-linguistic
criticism), but, instead, as the promise of philosophical peace and quiet
sought after by Wittgenstein-inspired therapeutics.54
Through an immanent critique of McDowell’s project in conjunc-
tion with other select sources of inspiration, I believe that I have offered
“a bit of constructive philosophy” that achieves some of the main aims
of Mind and World while circumventing its above-identified pitfalls. Chris-
toph Halbig complains that “McDowell’s relaxed naturalism is vexed with
structural problems which call for a solution in terms of constructive phi-
losophy,” and that “there is a problem of nature which even McDowell’s
relaxed naturalism has not laid to rest and which is still in need of a
solution which . . . only constructive philosophy can provide— a solution
which McDowell still owes us.”55 Betraying the Wittgensteinian letter in
favor of the Hegelian spirit of McDowellian philosophy, I have tried to
provide such a solution left owed as an outstanding debt by McDowell
himself. I thereby attempt to furnish the “heavy-duty metaphysics” that
Graham Macdonald, like Halbig, sees as required by McDowell’s quasi-
naturalism but which, nonetheless, is deliberately left unsupplied by Mc-
Dowell due to his quietistic, antimetaphysical tendencies.56 I think my
dialectical approach to these problems empowers one to begin getting a
solid realist grip on “how to place minds in the world.” This is thanks to
an “image” of the sciences and their worlds that was largely unavailable
to Sellars (as well as to Hegel) and is entirely overlooked by McDowell
and others.
My approach is nothing other than what I have called an “existential-
transcendental materialism of a weak nature alone.”57 In this approach,
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a non-unified multitude of natural materialities is the primordial exis-

tence in relation to which all essences are internally arising outgrowths
that nevertheless come to acquire a transcendent-while-immanent, more-
than-natural autonomy. Hegel, Marx, Engels, and Lacan, among others,
are this approach’s forefathers. In a manner that crucially illuminates
the wider, cross-resonating vistas of the social, political, economic, and
religious stakes of the current conjuncture within which philosophy, as
always, is situated, a Hegelian-style observation of today’s natural sciences
brings to light nothing less than a new, liberating vision of humanity that
fulfills the theoretical hopes of Hegel’s true leftist heirs.
 Notes

Preface

1. Brandom 2002b, 16.

2. Ibid., 12, 14– 16.
3. Ibid., 13.
4. Ibid., 12–17.
5. Ibid., 13.
6. Ibid., 14.
7. Brandom 2002b, 15; Bencivenga 2000, 52.
8. Brandom 2002b, 15– 16.
9. Ibid., 17.
10. Žižek 2002, 192; Žižek 2000, 121– 22; Žižek 2008, 312–13; Žižek 2009a,
150; Žižek 2010, 28– 29; Žižek 2012, 209– 11, 218– 19, 223, 649; Žižek 2014b, 140–
42, 146; Žižek 2014a, 187– 88; Žižek and Daly 2004, 136.
11. Hegel W 3: 36; Hegel 1977c, 19.
12. Benjamin 1969, 255.
13. Ibid.
14. Ibid.
15. Lacan SVII, 260, 294– 95.
16. Benjamin 1969, 253– 54, 258– 62, 264.
17. Horkheimer and Adorno 2002, xi–xii, xiv–xv, 3–4, 7, 65–66, 68, 201–
2, 232.
18. Benjamin 1969, 254.
19. Hegel 1991a, 21– 23.
20. Benjamin 1969, 257– 58.
21. Ibid., 264.
22. Ibid., 255.
23. Ibid., 256– 57.
24. Ibid., 255.
25. Lukács 1971b, 6– 7, 10, 24; Lukács 1971c, 88–90, 104, 128, 181; Lukács
1971d, 234; Lukács 1972a, 136, 139– 42; Lukács 1972b, 144– 45; Lukács 2000,
100, 102.
26. Benjamin 1969, 257– 58.
27. Ibid., 263.
28. Žižek 1999, 1.
29. Johnston 2013d.

293
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NO TE S T O PAGE S X I X –1 8

30. Johnston 2018a, 162– 208; Johnston 2019.

31. Johnston 2011b, 141– 82.
32. Planty-Bonjour 1967, 2; Geras 1983, 96–97.

Introduction

1. Reich 1972, 15– 16, 20– 21, 40– 41; Fenichel 1967, 290–91, 297–98, 302–
4, 306, 311.
2. Lacan 2006f, 194; Lacan 1990b, 111; Lacan SXVIII, 28; Lacan 2001d, 494;
Johnston 2014a, 65– 107; Johnston 2016, 278– 99.
3. Johnston 2014a, 65– 107.

Chapter 1

1. Bouton and Vieillard-Baron 2009, 7; Marmasse 2009, 215.

2. Beiser 2002, 506, 508–9; Beiser 2005, 107–9; Houlgate 1998, xi–xii; Houl-
gate 2005, 106; Lacroix 1997, 12– 13; Petry 1970, 21, 114– 15; Pinkard 2002, 267;
Quante 2011, 91– 92; Renault 2005, 196– 222; Stone 2005, xi–xiii.
3. Hyppolite 1974, 243–45; H. S. Harris 1983, xi; Bouton and Vieillard-
Baron 2009, 8–9.
4. Taylor 1975, 27, 39– 40, 44– 45, 537– 71.
5. Pippin 1989, 3– 6, 259– 60; Pippin 2005a, 47–49.
6. Wood 1990, xiii, 5– 8.
7. Taylor 1975, 351– 52.
8. Ibid., 354.
9. Pippin 2005b, 189.
10. Bowman 2013, 255– 56.
11. Freud SE 7: 283; SE 13: 76; SE 15: 20; SE 19: 215.
12. Petry 1970, 79– 82, 115.
13. Longuenesse 2007, xiii.
14. Ibid., 3.
15. Gramsci 1996, Fourth Notebook, §<7> (149– 50), §<41> (189– 90);
Gramsci 2007, Eighth Notebook, §<177> (337– 38); Horkheimer and Adorno
2002, xi–xii, xiv– xv, 3– 4, 7, 65– 66, 68, 201– 2, 232; Merleau-Ponty 1973, 32, 62–
65, 67, 74, 86, 165, 231; Merleau-Ponty 1964, 125–27; Sartre et al. 1962, 1, 6–11,
15–16, 23–24, 26; Schmidt 2014, 166–67; Marcuse 1971, 115, 118–21; Goldmann
1977, 91, 111–12.
16. Hegel W 3: 23; Hegel 1977c, 10.
17. Johnston 2014a, 23– 49; Johnston 2018c, 13–14, 33–34, 61.
18. H. S. Harris 1972, 390.
19. H. S. Harris 1997a, 32.
20. Marcuse 1987, 48– 49; Bloch 1970b, 93; Rotenstreich 1974, 98; Düsing
1976, 228–32; Henrich 1982b, 205; Werner Marx 1975, xxi–xxii, 48; Siep 2000,
21; Rosen 2014, 72, 78, 242, 263, 392.
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NO TE S TO PAGE S 1 8 –2 3

21. H. S. Harris 1997a, 87.

22. Bloch 1977, 221.
23. Hegel 1977a, 177.
24. Pinkard 2012, 7.
25. Hegel 1977c, 9; Hegel 1969, 76; Hegel 1970, Zusatz prior to §245 (1),
§246 (10); Hyppolite 1974, 7, 29– 30, 42, 242– 45, 542, 577– 78, 582–85; Rotens-
treich 1974, 76; Düsing 1976, 147, 153, 292; Henrich 1982a, 152– 53; Henrich
2003, 289; Breidbach 1982, 141, 212, 234, 249; Falkenburg 1987, 92–93; Bonsie-
pen 1977, 458, 460; H. S. Harris 1997a, 302, 321; H. S. Harris 1997b, 736–38, 767;
Franks 2005, 193; Quante 2011, 62; Förster 2012, 297.
26. Mabille 1999, 308.
27. Hegel 1977c, 355.
28. Rotenstreich 1974, 27.
29. Heidegger 2015, 9– 10, 15, 21, 27, 29– 30, 32.
30. Ibid., 10, 47.
31. Falkenburg 1987, 141, 144, 151–52; Stern 1990, 115– 17; Stern 2009,
69, 179–80, 196–97; Marmasse 2008, 258–59, 392– 93, 408, 414–15; Quante 2011,
136–37.
32. Pinkard 2002, 268.
33. Ibid., 213– 304.
34. Hegel 1986c, §§129–32 (104); Hegel 1986d, §66 (119); Hegel 1969,
755–60, 826–27; Hegel 1991b, §§213– 15 (286– 91); Hegel 2008, §§235– 36 (227);
H. S. Harris 1983, 566; H. S. Harris 1997a, 81, 490; Inwood 1992, 123–28; Horst-
mann 2004, 205–6; Wallace 2005, 93– 94, 244– 45; Quante 2011, 45, 57, 84.
35. Kreines 2015, 3, 5, 204.
36. Fulda 1965, 259; Düsing 1976, 294, 297; Stern 1990, 118; Marmasse
2008, 367.
37. Bouton and Vieillard-Baron 2009, 9; Bourgeois 2009, 17– 18; Marmasse
2009, 222.
38. Stekeler-Weithofer 2016a, 63.
39. Breidbach 1982, 258; Harris 1997a, 60; Renault 2001, 60–61.
40. Hegel W 9: §270 (104), §279 (130); Hegel 1970, §270 (81), §279 (102);
Kreines 2015, 102.
41. Marcuse 1987, 229.
42. Ibid., 227.
43. Ibid., 295.
44. Ibid., 217.
45. Kervégan 2007, 385.
46. Marcuse 1987, 253.
47. Hegel 1969, 586.

Chapter 2

1. Marcuse 1987, 97, 102; Althusser 1997, 170; Hyppolite 1997, 174– 75;
Lukács 1976, 394; Henrich 2010, 160, 165; Doz 1987, 151; Lardic 1989a, 28; Lardic
296
NO TE S T O PAGE S 2 3 –2 6

1989b, 63; Malabou 2005, 73–74, 160– 64, 183; Mabille 1999, 95–96; Bencivenga
2000, 72; Renault 2001, 60, 69, 179– 80, 196– 97; Lebrun 2004, 25–72; Burbidge
2007, 16– 17, 41– 43, 47; Marmasse 2008, 139, 142, 146– 47, 347, 368, 410– 11,
416–18; Marmasse 2009, 222; Pinkard 2012, 18–19, 38, 119–20; Rosen 2014, 302.
2. Hegel 1956, 447.
3. Pöggeler 1982, 239– 43, 245– 46, 258; Pöggeler 1984, 126–43; H. S. Har-
ris 1972, 249–57; H. S. Harris 1983, 15– 16, 78– 79, 82, 89, 557–58; H. S. Harris
1997a, 20.
4. Henrich 1982b, 188; Bienenstock 1992, 147; Vaysse 1994, 126–27; Bon-
siepen 1997, 272– 73, 281; Bowman 2013, 38, 227, 229–30, 247–48, 257–58.
5. Hegel 2002b, 110.
6. Ibid.
7. Hegel 1956, 416–17, 422– 23, 435, 441– 43, 446–47, 449; Hegel 2008, §53
(53–54); Johnston 2014a, 308– 10.
8. Greene 1972, 46.
9. Žižek 2009b, 82.
10. Hegel W 1: 234; Wieland 1975, 245, 260–61.
11. Hegel W 1: 234.
12. Hegel 1975a, 266, 273.
13. Hegel 1977b, 169.
14. Quante 2011, 140.
15. Lebrun 1972, 146.
16. Ibid., 145– 46.
17. Kant 1998, Bxvi– xvii (110– 11).
18. Schelling 1984, 136, 143.
19. Hegel W 2: 96; Hegel 1977a, 156.
20. Hegel W 1: 422; Hegel 2002c, 154.
21. Hegel 1977c, 9.
22. Hegel W 2: 96; Hegel 1977a, 156.
23. Marcuse 1987, 22; Düsing 1976, 54–55; H. S. Harris 1997a, 539; Kreines
2008, 65–66; Stern 2009, 64.
24. Hegel 1969, 370; Hegel 1970, §248 (18), §249 (20, 22), §251 (25); Hyp-
polite 1974, 566, 601– 2; Kimmerle 1970, 279; Elder 1980, 42; Breidbach 1982,
250, 327; Falkenburg 1987, 227; DeVries 1988, 42–46; Wolff 1992, 74, 133, 147,
154; Quante 2004, 181–83, 185; Renault 2001, 202; Mills 2002, 58; Wallace 2005,
72; Westphal 2008, 305; Pinkard 2012, 30, 191– 92; Bowman 2013, 5, 222–23; Testa
2013, 25, 33; Grier 2013, 226, 228.
25. Hegel 1970, §252 (25– 6).
26. Hegel 1969, 154–55; Marcuse 1987, 60–61; Rotenstreich 1974, 76; H. S.
Harris 1983, 566; H. S. Harris 1997a, 81, 490; Westphal 1989, x, 1, 7, 100– 104,
140–45; Stern 1990, 107; Stern 2009, 75; Maker 1998, 3–5, 14–15; Bourgeois 2000,
122; Beiser 2002, 578; Franks 2005, 386; Wallace 2005, 53– 54, 114–15; Stone 2005,
22; Houlgate 2006b, 429; Quante 2011, 23; Sedgwick 2012, 125; Bowman 2013,
14–15, 18, 125, 215–16, 219; Testa 2013, 21, 33; Rosen 2014, 144, 303; Kreines
2015, 36, 232; Stekeler-Weithofer 2016a, 67; Heuer 2016a, 93.
27. Schelling and Hegel 2002, 211–13, 215–16; Hegel 2002e, 229; Hegel
1977b, 59; Hegel 1979b, 209– 10, 224– 25.
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28. Hegel 1987, 172; Johnston 2008, 178– 210.

29. Hegel W 10: §453 (260); Hegel 1971, §453 (204).
30. Hegel W 10: §454 (261); Hegel 1971, §454 (205).
31. Althusser 1997, 170.
32. Ibid.
33. Johnston 2011a, 159– 79.
34. Malabou 2005, 73.
35. Althusser 2003e, 250.
36. Johnston 2015a, 217– 61.
37. Hegel 1986b, 179.
38. Hyppolite 1969, 160– 61; Hyppolite 1974, 251; Kimmerle 1970, 197–98;
Breidbach 1982, 326; H. S. Harris 1983, 101, 113, 450, 460, 467, 506; H. S. Harris
1997a, 500, 521, 524.
39. Hegel W 9: §359 (472); Hegel 1970, §359 (387–88).
40. Kant 1996, 50– 51.
41. Johnston 2011a, 159– 79; Johnston 2015a, 217–61.
42. Hegel 1979b, 227– 28; Hegel 1975b, 131.
43. Hegel 1977c, 113– 18.
44. Hegel 1979b, 227– 28; Hegel 1975b, 91.
45. Johnston 2008, 125– 27, 180– 94.

Chapter 3

1. Taylor 1975, 161– 62; Solomon 1983, 401– 2; Quante 2011, 91–92.
2. Hegel 1977c, 50; Marcuse 1987, 229; H. S. Harris 1997a, 117, 266, 585;
H. S. Harris 1997b, 79.
3. Marcuse 1987, 248– 49.
4. Hegel 1977c, 2.
5. Pinkard 1996, 81.
6. Hegel 1977c, 139.
7. Hegel 1962, 184– 89; Hegel 1988, 364– 65.
8. Hegel 1977c, 10– 12, 15.
9. Hegel 1977c, 139– 41; DeVries 1988, 110, 114–15, 175, 177–78, 196–97,
200; Quante 2011, 31– 32, 43– 44, 93, 133, 147.
10. Hegel 1977c, 140.
11. Ibid., 142– 45.
12. Bloch 1977, 189– 90; Neuhouser 2000, 133; Quante 2004, 142–43.
13. Hegel W 3: 179.
14. Hegel W 3: 192; Hegel 1977c, 151.
15. Pippin 2011, 27.
16. Hegel W 3: 192– 93; Hegel 1977c, 151.
17. Hegel W 3: 180; Hegel 1977c, 141.
18. Hegel 1977c, 49.
19. Ibid., 141– 42.
20. Ibid., 14, 50– 51, 56.
21. Ibid., 144.
298
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22. Breidbach 1982, 298; Falkenburg 1987, 141, 144, 151–52; Stern 1990,
115– 17; Stern 2009, 55– 56; Marmasse 2008, 258– 59, 414– 15, 392– 93; Quante
2011, 136–37.
23. Hegel 1969, 584.
24. Hegel 1977c, 144– 45; Hegel 1969, 45–47; Marcuse 1987, 145–47.
25. Hegel 1977c, 145.
26. Kant 1998, Bxii– xiv (108– 9).
27. Hegel 1977c, 145– 47.
28. Hegel 1977c, 139, 147– 49, 154; Hegel 1955b, 175–77.
29. Hegel 1977c, 146.
30. Ibid., 13– 14, 36.
31. Ibid., 208.
32. Ibid., 196– 210.
33. Ibid., 180– 85.
34. Ibid., 187– 95.
35. Ibid., 146– 47, 152– 53.
36. Ibid., 15, 51– 52.
37. Johnston 2011a, 159– 79; Johnston 2013b, 39– 58; Johnston 2014a,
139–64.
38. Hegel 1977c, 154, 157.
39. H. S. Harris 1997a, 556.
40. Hegel 1970, §337 (274).
41. Hegel 1977c, 104– 8, 157.
42. Ibid., 168– 69.
43. Pinkard 1996, 85; Dahlstrom 1998, 178.
44. Houlgate 2005, 119– 20, 164.
45. Kant 2000, §§64– 65 (242– 47).
46. Marcuse 1987, 125, 139–40; Düsing 1976, 264; Breidbach 1982, 169;
DeVries 1988, 9; Quante 2004, 184; Bonsiepen 1997, 193; Brandner 2002, 58;
Wallace 2005, 73– 75, 80– 81, 83; Marmasse 2008, 257; Kreines 2008, 56– 57, 62;
Sedgwick 2012, 62, 96, 126; Bowman 2013, 38, 103– 4, 229–30, 247–48, 257–58;
Kreines 2015, 77, 91; Achella 2016, 196.
47. Hegel 1977c, 151, 168; Hegel 1970, §245 (5– 6); Wetter 1958, 380;
Pinkard 1996, 84– 85; Stekeler-Weithofer 2016a, 63–64.
48. Falkenburg 1987, 129; Harris 1997a, 487; E. Harris 1998, 189–208.
49. Hegel 1970, §276 (93), §365 (406); Elder 1980, 52; Mabille 1999, 46;
Renault 2001, 61, 64– 65, 196; Kreines 2008, 57, 61.
50. Marcuse 2000, 314.
51. H. S. Harris 1997b, 759, 782; Pinkard 2012, 21, 27, 119– 20; Förster
2012, 308.
52. Schelling 1988, 30– 31, 33– 35, 50– 51; Schelling 2010, 68– 71, 92;
Schelling 1969a, §6 (104); Schelling 1969b, §63 (83– 84); Schelling 2012, 199–
203; Schelling 1966, 134, 142; Schelling 1994, 208.
53. Kreines 2015, 22– 23, 262– 63.
54. H. S. Harris 1997a, 445, 504; Marmasse 2008, 410– 11; Pinkard 2012,
191, 194; Rosen 2014, 40.
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55. Siep 2000, 21.

56. Hegel 1977c, 159– 60, 162, 166.
57. Ibid., 168, 170.
58. Marmasse 2008, 291.
59. Breidbach 1982, 212, 234, 249, 258.
60. Greene 1972, ix, 11– 12, 46, 141.
61. Hegel W 3: 225; Hegel 1977c, 178.
62. Hegel 1970, §249 (20– 22), §339 (283– 84).
63. Kimmerle 1970, 75; H. S. Harris 1983, 480; H. S. Harris 1997b, 562.

Chapter 4

1. Hegel 1982, 188– 89; Hegel 1986a, 185.

2. Greene 1972, 48– 49, 53– 54, 114, 121, 133, 155–56.
3. Hegel 1979a, 103– 4, 106– 7; Hegel 1979b, 230–31, 246–49; Hegel 1977c,
115–18; Hegel 1969, 746– 47.
4. Hegel 1977a, 112; Hegel 1977b, 59– 60, 113.
5. Hegel 2002d, 171.
6. Schelling and Hegel 2002, 214–16; Hegel 2002e, 231; Hegel 1977a, 90,
95–96, 158–59; Hegel 1977b, 107–8, 112– 13; Hegel 1955b, 257–60; Düsing 1976,
93, 134–35; Macherey 1990, 11– 12, 17, 20– 21, 31; Wolff 2010, 141; Beiser 2005,
59, 91–93; Wallace 2005, 96.
7. Marcuse 2000, 138– 39.
8. Hegel 1982, 32– 33; Hegel 1986a, 35.
9. Hegel 1969, 149, 153– 54, 443; Henrich 1982a, 157– 63, 165– 66, 168, 170;
Bowman 2013, 238.
10. Hegel 1955b, 263– 64, 268– 69, 285, 287– 89; Hyppolite 1974, 153;
Pinkard 2002, 258; Kreines 2015, 120, 176– 78, 190–91; Johnston 2014a, 23–64.
11. Hegel 1986a, 85.
12. Hegel 2002g, 284– 85; Hegel 1986a, 80, 108, 175; Hegel 1977c, 1;
Hegel 1969, 603, 619– 20; Hegel 1991b, §24 (56– 57), §163 (239– 40); Hegel
1970, §247 (14); Hegel 2008, 11; Bloch 1970b, 90– 94; Henrich 1982b, 202; Wal-
lace 2005, 254.
13. H. S. Harris 1983, 560; Pinkard 2002, 278; Quante 2011, 136.
14. Hegel W 6: 573; Hegel 1969, 843– 44.
15. Pinkard 2012, 36.
16. DeVries 1988, 33.
17. Hyppolite 1974, 565, 602; Hyppolite 1997, 64.
18. Bloch 1977, 219; Vaysse 1998, 11; Bouton 2009, 101.
19. Marcuse 1987, 185– 86; Wallace 2005, 269; Quante 2011, 127.
20. Breidbach 1982, 298; Falkenburg 1987, 110, 141, 144, 151–52; Mar-
masse 2008, 136.
21. Hegel 1970, Zusatz prior to §245 (3); Hyppolite 1974, 602; Stern 1990,
116; Wahsner 2016, 13– 14.
22. Houlgate 2006b, 438.
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NO TE S T O PAGE S 4 9 –5 4

23. Franks 2005, 388– 89.

24. Hegel 2002f, 249; Hegel 1986d, §86 (122); Hegel 1969, 71–72, 838–42;
Hegel 1991b, §15 (39); Hegel 1971, §574 (313); Hegel 2008, §§235–36 (227).
25. Hegel 1969, 71.
26. Hegel 1969, 137– 54; Hegel 1991b, §§93–95 (149–52).
27. Bonsiepen 1997, 485; H. S. Harris 1997b, 681, 744–45; Rosen 2014, 392.
28. Hegel 1977b, 76– 77; Hegel 1969, 588.
29. Hegel W 8: §244 (393); Hegel 1991b, §244 (307).
30. Hegel W 8: §244 (393); Hegel 1991b, §244 (307); Hegel 1969, 118.
31. Hegel W 8: §244 (393); Hegel 1991b, §244 (307).
32. Hegel W 8: §244 (393); Hegel 1991b, §244 (307).
33. H. S. Harris 1983, 239, 559.
34. Hegel W 8: §244 (393); Hegel 1991b, §244 (307).
35. Hegel W 8: §244 (393); Hegel 1991b, §244 (307).
36. Hegel 2001, §244 (226); Hegel 2008, §244 (233).
37. Buchdahl 1973, 12; Houlgate 2005, 107.
38. Bonsiepen 1997, 528– 29.
39. Hegel 2008, §244 (233).

Chapter 5

1. Hegel 2008, §244 (233).

2. Hegel 1970, §376 (444); Hegel 1971, §381 (13–14), §388 (29), §389 (30–
31); Lacroix 1997, 61; Bourgeois 2000, 106; Houlgate 2005, 180.
3. Hegel 1969, 607–8; Hegel W 9: §250 (34–36), §314 (217), §368 (501–2,
510); Hegel 1970, §250 (23–24), §314 (175), §320 (216), §370 (416, 423); Hegel
W 12: 88–89, 106; Hegel 1956, 65, 80.
4. Johnston 2018c, 74– 128.
5. Hegel 1977c, 15– 17, 31– 33, 35– 36, 49– 56.
6. Pinkard 1996, 82.
7. Hyppolite 1974, 240– 41.
8. Hegel 1977c, 159– 60, 165, 172.
9. Renault 2001, 180; Quante 2004, 110.
10. Hegel 1977c, 181–82, 184– 85, 187– 94, 203– 10; Findlay 1984, 92–93;
Pinkard 1996, 84– 87.
11. Hegel W 10: §377 (10); Hegel 1971, §377 (1).
12. Mabille 1999, 292; Kreines 2015, 257– 58.
13. Hegel 1970, §353 (358).
14. Ibid., §261 (44).
15. Hegel W 10: §381 (17), §384 (29– 30); Hegel 1971, §381 (8), §384 (18).
16. Marcuse 1987, 313– 14; H. S. Harris 1983, 38–40, 63–64, 77, 87, 267–69,
304, 307–8; H. S. Harris 1997a, 538; H. S. Harris 1997b, 127, 598, 746–47; Frank
1992, 228–29; Bonsiepen 1997, 272–73; Bencivenga 2000, 89; Wallace 2005, 255;
Marmasse 2008, 379, 401–3, 408, 413, 415; Testa 2013, 27–29; Rosen 2014, 72,
242, 263.
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NO TE S TO PAGE S 5 4 –5 8

17. Hegel 1971, §392 (38); Houlgate 2005, 168–69.

18. Rosenkranz 1971, 155, 201, 214; H. S. Harris 1997a, 549.
19. Renault 2001, 114– 15.
20. Hegel 1991b, §24 (60).
21. Hegel W 3: 40– 42; Hegel 1977c, 22– 24.
22. Hegel W 3: 24; Hegel 1977c, 11.
23. Hegel 1977c, 23.
24. Hegel 1970, §326 (235); Hyppolite 1974, 255; Pinkard 2002, 257;
Pinkard 2012, 19–20; Wandschneider 2012, 21– 22; Rosen 2014, 454–55.
25. Quante 2011, 147.
26. H. S. Harris 1997a, 265.
27. Hegel 1970, Zusatz prior to §245 (3), §246 (7, 10); Bouton 2009, 100;
Kreines 2015, 3–4, 195.
28. Hegel 1970, §246 (7).
29. Hegel W 9: §246 (15); Hegel 1970, §246 (6).
30. Hegel 1969, 34; Hegel 1991b, §9 (33), §12 (37).
31. Hyppolite 1974, 43– 44, 226; Hyppolite 1997, 65; Buchdahl 1973, 15–
17; Breidbach 1982, 358, 361; Berthold-Bond 1995, 18; H. S. Harris 1997a, 169,
558–59; Marmasse 2008, 187– 88, 411, 415– 16.
32. DeVries 1988, 14, 20, 31, 33– 34.
33. Falkenburg 1987, 229– 30.
34. Hegel 1970, Zusatz prior to §245 (4), §245 (4–5), §246 (9).
35. Koyré 1971b, 213; Wetter 1958, 10; Buchdahl 1973, 16– 17; Henrich
2010, 168; Lardic 1989b, 94–95; Lacroix 1997, 42–61; Mabille 1999, 31; Marmasse
2008, 31; Kreines 2008, 60; Pinkard 2012, 22–23; Bowman 2013, 36, 102–3, 134–
35, 143, 145, 148–50, 153, 156, 181– 82, 241; Kreines 2015, 226, 236.
36. Hegel 1970, §310 (160– 61); Marcuse 1987, 50, 54, 59.
37. Barbagallo 2016, 137.
38. Hegel 1969, 478; Marmasse 2008, 369– 70, 409.
39. Hyppolite 1974, 245; Breidbach 1982, 269; Mabille 1999, 29, 31, 355;
Marmasse 2008, 31; Kreines 2015, 261.
40. Hegel 1970, §246 (9– 13); Buchdahl 1973, 20.
41. Hegel 1969, 33, 36– 37, 586; Hegel 1991b, §81 (128–29); Hegel 2008,
§65 (64), §82 (75), §112 (130).
42. Boutroux 1929, 41.
43. Hegel 1970, §250 (22– 24), §370 (416– 19, 423); Bouton 2009, 83;
Kreines 2015, 94.
44. Düsing 1976, 58.
45. Hegel 1970, §268 (62).
46. Renault 2001, 59– 60; Kreines 2015, 262.
47. Falkenburg 1987, 151; Marmasse 2008, 416–18; Kreines 2015, 230, 234,
237, 258; Stekeler-Weithofer 2016b, 93; Achella 2016, 198.
48. Renault 2001, 63– 64.
49. Hegel 1969, 439–40; Hegel 1970, §248 (17); Wolff 1992, 45, 66; Mar-
masse 2008, 248, 267– 68, 272– 73, 412– 13.
50. H. S. Harris 1997a, 539; Pinkard 2012, 191.
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51. Marmasse 2008, 270.

52. H. S. Harris 1997a, 500.
53. H. S. Harris 1983, 288; Wolff 1992, 45; Wenning 2013, 109.
54. Marmasse 2008, 131– 32, 412; Bourgeois 2009, 23–24, 27–28.
55. Pinkard 2012, 58, 60, 89, 105.
56. Schelling 1985, 158; Schelling 2007, 106.
57. Wolff 1992, 89; Kreines 2008, 59– 60; Kreines 2015, 25, 191– 92, 213–14.
58. Johnston 2013b, 13– 38.
59. Wolff 1992, 45; Pinkard 2012, 99; Howard 2013, 73.
60. Hegel 1971, §§409– 10 (139– 47).
61. Hegel 1970, §355 (376).
62. Johnston 2011a, 159– 79; Bourgeois 2009, 15; Pinkard 2012, 20–21.
63. Neuhouser 2000, 168; Rand 2007, 383, 389; Kreines 2015, 251.
64. Koyré 1971a, 150; Bonsiepen 1997, 520.
65. Rosenkranz 1971, 44.
66. Ibid.
67. Bourgeois 2009, 30.
68. Hegel W 9: §268 (81), §341 (364– 65); Hegel 1970, §268 (62), §341
(297–98); H. S. Harris 1997b, 527; Marmasse 2008, 252.
69. Rosen 2014, 40; Kreines 2015, 99.
70. Pinkard 2012, 191.
71. Lacroix 1997, 61; Mabille 1999, 60; Pinkard 2012, 7, 95.
72. Hegel W 3: 25; Hegel 1977c, 11– 12.
73. Hegel 1977c, 488– 90; Hegel 1969, 404.
74. Hegel 1969, 762; Koyré 1971c, 245; Marcuse 1987, 113, 118–19, 165,
167; Marcuse 2000, 143; Houlgate 2006b, 154; Rosen 2014, 26, 392.
75. Hegel 1970, §250 (23– 24), §370 (416, 423); DeVries 1988, 187– 89; La-
croix 1997, 55.
76. Barbagallo 2016, 111.
77. Hegel W 9: §248 (28); Hegel 1970, §248 (17).
78. Hegel W 12: 106; Hegel 1956, 80.
79. Hegel 1988, 214.
80. Hegel 1970, §352 (357).
81. Marx 1973, 105.
82. Hegel 1977c, 267– 89.
83. Hegel 1955a, 425– 48.
84. H. S. Harris 1972, 237– 38; H. S. Harris 1997b, 579; Stern 1990, 46.
85. Hegel 1991a, §138 (166– 67); Hegel 1956, 69.
86. Kimmerle 1970, 75; H. S. Harris 1972, 234, 274, 279; H. S. Harris 1997b,
20, 22.
87. Johnston 2008, 111– 14; Johnston 2015a, 217–61.
88. Hegel 1977c, 2.
89. Sophocles 1991, lines 368– 411 (174– 75); Hegel 1970, §245 (5).
90. Kimmerle 1970, 220.
91. Hegel 1970, §245 (5).
92. Hegel W 9: §355 (458); Hegel 1970, §355 (376).
 303
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93. Hegel W 9: §355 (459); Hegel 1970, §355 (376).

94. Hegel 1991a, 23.
95. Ibid., 21– 23.
96. Jordan 1967, 31.
97. Hölderlin 1972, 515– 16; Hegel 2002b, 110–12; Schelling 1988, 10–11,
30, 53–55; Schelling 1969c, 116, 118– 21, 128–29; Schelling 2012, 141– 225; Schulz
1955, 304–6; Heuer 2016b, 207– 8.
98. Hegel 1977c, 492.
99. Hegel W 2: 432; Hegel 1977b, 191.
100. Hegel 1977b, 190– 91.
101. Peperzak 1960, 111; Kervégan 2007, 395.
102. Bauer 1999, 178– 84; Peperzak 1960, 182–85; Toews 1980, 23, 42, 97;
H. S. Harris 1983, 393; H. S. Harris 1997b, 678; Rosen 2014, 26–27.
103. Marx and Engels 1953, 22; Marx and Engels 1998, 42.
104. Marx 1976a, 103.
105. Marx 1975a, 80, 186; Marx 1975b, 379– 400; Marx and Engels 1975,
72–76, 99, 106– 7; Bloch 1977, 430– 31, 433, 435– 39; H. S. Harris 1972, 399; H. S.
Harris 1983, 283; Wolff 1992, 69.

Chapter 6

1. Graham 1972, 29– 30, 41.

2. Marx 1976a, 103.
3. Levins 2007, 367.
4. Sheehan 1993, 206– 9, 305– 8, 338, 383– 85.
5. Hessen 1971, 149– 212; Sheehan 1993, 208–9; Rose 1997, 50–51.
6. Abir-Am 1993, 155.
7. Lenin 1972, 309–14, 318, 340, 342, 372, 376–78, 434; Lenin 1971b, 664;
Sheehan 1993, 120– 22, 132– 41.
8. Timpanaro 1980, 37– 40.
9. Uranovsky 1935, 136– 74.
10. Komarov 1935, 190– 234.
11. Uranovsky 1935, 138.
12. Plekhanov 1969a, 22.
13. Uranovsky 1935, 139, 144, 149; Lefebvre 1957, 155– 56; Planty-Bonjour
1967, 79, 91, 98.
14. Uranovsky 1935, 141.
15. Ibid.
16. Ibid., 144, 146– 47.
17. Ibid., 142– 43, 154.
18. Schmidt 2014, 134.
19. Jordan 1967, 154.
20. Vavilov 1935, 175.
21. Uranovsky 1935, 148.
22. Uranovsky 1935, 150– 51, 154; Wetter 1958, 405–6.
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23. Uranovsky 1935, 153.

24. Uranovsky 1935, 153; Bukharin 2005, 337.
25. Uranovsky 1935, 154.
26. Ibid., 153.
27. Lenin 1976a, 169; Bukharin 2005, 141– 42, 196; Wetter 1958, 392; Žižek
2012, 909, 914–15.
28. Uranovsky 1935, 160– 61, 164– 67.
29. Ibid., 161– 62.
30. Komarov 1935, 209– 10.
31. Ibid., 229.
32. Birstein 2001, 251, 255, 259.
33. Bauer 1959, 94; Planty-Bonjour 1967, 127.
34. Zavadovsky 1971, 74; Graham 1972, 173.
35. Zavadovsky 1971, 75.
36. Ibid.
37. Ibid.
38. Lenin 1976a, 123.
39. Zavadovsky 1971, 75– 76.
40. Zavadovsky 1971, 77; Timpanaro 1980, 241.
41. Timpanaro 1980, 85; Sève 1998, 95.
42. Bloch 1970c, 113, 117– 21, 123; Bloch 1977, 210.
43. Zavadovsky 1971, 80.
44. Engels 1940a, 6– 7, 13– 14; Engels 1959, 19– 22; Engels 1941, 25– 27;
Lenin 1971b, 664– 66; Timpanaro 1980, 64; Sève 1998, 72, 110, 142.
45. Sève 1998, 45, 53.
46. Timpanaro 1980, 7, 209, 232.
47. Timpanaro 1980, 53– 54, 58– 59, 65, 170– 71, 177, 188, 192; Sheehan
1993, 12, 14, 145.
48. Timpanaro 1980, 65.
49. Ibid., 186.
50. Ibid., 44– 45.
51. Ibid., 16, 216– 17.
52. Ibid., 43.
53. Ibid., 16.
54. Ibid., 45.
55. Geras 1983, 114– 16.
56. Timpanaro 1980, 232.
57. Adorno 2003, 26– 30, 40– 41, 88– 89.
58. Horkheimer and Adorno 2002, xi–xii, xiv–xv, 3–4, 7, 65–66, 68, 201–
2, 232.
59. Timpanaro 1980, 47– 48.
60. Ibid., 29, 32, 73.
61. Ibid., 73.
62. Ibid., 233.
63. Ibid., 129.
64. Ibid., 35– 36, 56.
65. Timpanaro 1980, 15; Sheehan 1993, 53–54, 64, 141.
 305
NO TE S TO PAGE S 8 0 –8 7

66. Timpanaro 1980, 32, 43, 73– 74, 76; Thompson 1978, 69–70.
67. Timpanaro 1980, 128– 29.
68. Ibid., 68– 69.
69. Thompson 1978, 69– 70.
70. Wetter 1958, 40, 50, 549–50; Schmidt 2014, 19, 51, 55–57, 167–68; Jor-
dan 1967, xii, 64, 152, 154– 55, 157, 161– 63, 167.
71. Jordan 1967, 152, 333– 34.
72. Marx 1867a; Marx 1870; Engels 1876; Marx 1975b, 355; Marx 1976a,
423; Uranovsky 1935, 138– 39; Joravsky 1961, 6; Graham 1972, 28; Timpanaro
1980, 77, 83, 90; Sheehan 1993, 52, 54, 59– 60, 63.
73. Timpanaro 1980, 89.
74. Lefebvre 1957, 127– 28; Liedman 1997, 264.
75. Sheehan 1993, 220– 28.
76. Sartre 1962, 221.
77. Timpanaro 1980, 33; Stalin 1940, 7– 11, 15–17, 20–21.
78. Levins and Lewontin 1985f, 163– 96.
79. Michael-Matsas 2007, 117.
80. Gramsci 2007, Sixth Notebook, §<138> (109), §<155> (117), Seventh
Notebook, §<16> (168– 69).
81. Sève 1998, 140.
82. Sohn-Rethel 1978, 135.
83. Žižek 2010, 185.
84. Žižek 2010, 182– 85; Johnston 2009a, 129–34.
85. Pannekoek 2003, 79; Graham 1972, 27, 31–32, 430–31, 434–35.
86. Timpanaro 1980, 63.
87. Engels 1985, 97.
88. Timpanaro 1980, 12, 15.
89. Lenin 1971b, 660– 67; Caveing 1955, 28– 29.
90. Lenin 1971b, 665.
91. Timpanaro 1980, 258.

Chapter 7

1. Schmidt 2014, 17.

2. Sheehan 1993, 47.
3. Sève 1998, 80.
4. Timpanaro 1980, 93.
5. Marx 1981b, 5; Marx 1977a, 156.
6. Schmidt 2014, 16, 61.
7. Thao 1986, 171.
8. Jordan 1967, 40– 42, 50–51; Timpanaro 1980, 65; Macherey 2008, 40–47,
53–55, 73, 163; Labica 2014, 39, 48.
9. Graham 1972, 30– 31.
10. Marx 1975b, 328– 29, 389– 90; Marx and Engels 1998, 36– 37; Marx
1976a, 284, 1022.
11. Marx 1975a, 155.
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12. Marx 1976a, 461; Marx 1861; Marx 1867b; Engels 1859; Engels 1883;
Planty-Bonjour 1967, 103; Thompson 1978, 197; Sheehan 1993, 23.
13. Engels 1975, 61.
14. Timpanaro 1980, 51– 52, 181, 191– 92, 195, 211; Freitas Branco
1997, 277.
15. Schmidt 2014, 21, 99; Bloch 1970a, 86– 88; Timpanaro 1980, 205; Geras
1983, 108; Labica 2014, 122.
16. Althusser 2005a, 13; Althusser 2005b, 28, 32–38; Althusser 2005c, 47;
Althusser 2005g, 244; Althusser 2009a, 48– 49; Althusser 2009b, 99.
17. Marx 1975b, 325– 32; Marx 1973, 85, 110– 11, 400, 540; Marx 1976a, 92,
283–87; Marx 1981a, 958– 59, 1023; Marx 1977b, 581–82.
18. Marx 1962a, 649; Marx 1975b, 389.
19. Marx 1975b, 389.
20. Marx 1962a, 650; Marx 1975b, 389.
21. Marx 1975b, 389– 90; Uchida 1988, 115, 126.
22. Schmidt 2014, 114– 15.
23. Ibid., 20.
24. Marx 1975b, 355.
25. Ibid.
26. Ibid.
27. Jordan 1967, 61.
28. Marx 1975a, 161; Marx 1973, 85, 88, 100–102, 104–5, 142–46, 157, 164,
331, 449–50, 831– 32; Marx 1970, 30– 31; Marx 1976a, 739, 909; Marx 1978, 185;
Marx 1981a, 275, 596– 97, 603; Korsch 1970, 72– 73, 76–83, 86–89, 94–97; Sohn-
Rethel 1978, 57, 67– 68, 71, 74– 75, 201, 203; Pannekoek 2003, 137; Mandel 1971,
47; Balibar 2007, 36, 47, 60.
29. Caveing 1955, 11– 12, 16, 23, 27– 8; Rodrigo 2014, 43–44, 48.
30. Marx 1967, 29; Marx 1973, 109.
31. Marx 1967, 30; Marx 1973, 110.
32. Marx 1967, 31; Marx 1973, 110.
33. Marx 1962b, xxi; Marx 1976a, 92.
34. Marx 1967, 7; Marx 1973, 85.
35. Marx 1967, 20; Marx 1973, 99.
36. Plekhanov 1969a, 38; Bukharin 2005, 112.
37. Marx 2014, 35; Marx 2006, 135.
38. Marx 1967, 266; Marx 1973, 361.
39. Marx 2014, 35; Marx 2006, 133.
40. Marx 1976a, 283.
41. Ibid., 323.
42. Caveing 1955, 17– 18, 22, 28.
43. Marx 1973, 243, 320, 325, 398, 462–63, 496–97; Marx 1976a, 444, 447,
527, 760, 1068; Geras 1983, 90.
44. Marx 1976a, 133, 290, 998.
45. Marx 1981a, 949– 50, 954– 55, 1016, 1023.
46. Marx 1973, 111.
47. Johnston 2017, 276– 77; Johnston 2019.
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48. Marx 1962b, 96; Marx 1976a, 207.

49. Marx 1976a, 649.
50. Lefebvre 2009, 136.
51. Dietzgen 1887.
52. Kautsky 1887/1888.
53. Marx 1975b, 326–31, 350; Marx and Engels 1998, 29–30; Marx 1976b,
19–20, 33; Marx 1970, 20– 22; Marx 1973, 84, 243, 323, 496; Marx 1976a, 1021– 22,
1053, 1068; Rodrigo 2014, 53– 54.
54. Marx 1976a, 532; Althusser 2014b, 184.
55. Marx 1973, 496.
56. Marx 1962a, 604; Marx 1975b, 355.
57. Plekhanov 1969a, 113, 115– 17.
58. Lefebvre 1957, 138.

Chapter 8

1. Engels 1940a, 6– 7.
2. Ibid., 13–14.
3. Engels 1940a, 6– 7; Engels 1975, 45.
4. Engels 1940a, 6– 7, 24– 25.
5. Engels 1959, 65.
6. Wetter 1958, 52; Badiou 1975, 21, 26, 30–33, 35–36, 42–43, 48, 61–62,
65, 77–78, 80–81.
7. Engels 1959, 17– 18.
8. Ibid., 106.
9. Ibid., 39, 41.
10. Ibid., 36.
11. Ibid., 185.
12. Engels 1941, 24.
13. Engels 1841/1842.
14. Engels 1959, 18; Sève 1998, 49– 50, 52, 54–56.
15. Engels 1941, 43– 44.
16. Engels 1959, 37– 39; Engels 1941, 11– 13.
17. Engels 1959, 40.
18. Engels 1959, 56– 57; Engels 1941, 14– 15.
19. Rancière 2004, 19, 23, 35, 51.
20. Dietzgen 1928a, 76–79, 81, 85–86, 88–89, 94–98, 100–101, 117–19, 143.
21. Ibid., 88, 96, 99, 107.
22. Ibid., 102.
23. Ibid., 153– 54.
24. Pannekoek 2003, 91– 100, 110– 11, 121, 138, 160.
25. Plekhanov 1969a, 22.
26. Timpanaro 1980, 35– 36, 56, 80– 81.
27. Engels 1940b, 26– 27; Engels 1959, 19, 36.
28. Sève 1998, 68, 71, 76.
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29. Ibid., 152, 161, 164, 174– 76.

30. Engels 1940b, 26– 27; Engels 1959, 193–96.
31. Engels 1975, 72.
32. Engels 1959, 190– 91.
33. Engels 1941, 25– 26; Engels 1975, 48– 53.
34. Marx and Engels 1975, 154– 66.
35. Engels 1941, 26– 27.
36. Dietzgen 1928a, 84– 86, 88, 99– 100, 132.
37. Engels 1941, 50, 52– 53, 56.
38. Dietzgen 1928a, 121, 140.
39. Dietzgen 1928b, 362– 63.
40. Dietzgen 1928a, 135– 38.
41. Dietzgen 1928b, 359, 364.
42. Dietzgen 1928a, 173– 74; Dietzgen 1928b, 330.
43. Liedman 1997, 271.
44. Engels 1940a, 17– 18.
45. Ibid., 17.
46. Marx 1976a, 284, 1022.
47. Engels 1941, 48– 50.
48. Engels 1940a, 17.
49. Engels 1959, 55; Sève 1998, 52, 73– 76, 151, 154.
50. Engels 1940c, 279.
51. Schmidt 2014, 61, 76– 80.
52. Ibid., 61.
53. Ibid., 78.
54. Ibid., 79.
55. Engels 1940c, 281.
56. Thao 1986, 154.
57. Bauer 1959, 80– 82.
58. Graham 2016, 14, 98– 100, 111, 138– 39, 143.
59. Engels 1940c, 285.
60. Ibid., 288– 89.
61. Ibid., 289.
62. Engels 1940a, 18.
63. Engels 1940c, 291– 92.
64. Dietzgen 1928a, 87, 92, 95, 112; Plekhanov 1969a, 30– 31, 45, 83, 90;
Lenin 1972, 18–19, 38, 45–46, 68– 69, 95, 139, 142–45, 152–53, 177–78, 195, 203,
205, 216, 305, 310– 14, 420, 426; Pannekoek 2003, 109–10; Timpanaro 1980, 18,
36, 38–39.
65. Levins and Lewontin 1985b, 69– 70.
66. Engels 1940c, 289– 90; Levins and Lewontin 1985h, 274.
67. Levins and Lewontin 1985c, 89, 99; Levins and Lewontin 1985d, 111;
Lewontin 2007, 231; Rose 1997, 18, 140– 43, 171, 244–45, 279, 306–8.
68. Levins and Lewontin 1985a, 46.
69. Levins and Lewontin 1985e, 133.
70. Ibid., 133, 135– 36.
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NO TE S TO PAGE S 1 0 6 –1 1 3

71. Ibid., 137.

72. Rose 1997, 95.
73. Ibid., 296.
74. Ibid., 304.
75. Hofstadter 2007, 35, 42–43, 46–48, 50, 173–76, 180–82, 188, 196, 202–5,
277, 279, 291–97, 300, 315, 362–63; Žižek 2012, 716–17, 721–22, 726–27, 729–36.
76. Timpanaro 1980, 40.
77. Rose 1997, 6– 7, 245, 309.
78. Ibid., 15.
79. Ibid., 228, 246, 307.
80. Lewontin 2007, 232– 33.
81. Engels 1940b, 26.
82. Ibid.
83. Hegel 1969, 336, 369– 70; Hegel 1991b, §108 (171); Hegel 2008, §109
(125–26).
84. Marx 1976a, 423.
85. Marx 1981a, 482, 486, 499– 500.
86. Levins and Lewontin 1985g, 254; Levins and Lewontin 1985h, 288.
87. Levins and Lewontin 1985e, 140; Lewontin and Levins 2007a, 16;
Lewontin and Levins 2007d, 53.
88. Lewontin and Levins 2007b, 28.
89. Johnston 2008, 170.
90. Ibid., 170– 71.
91. Lewontin and Levins 2007c, 31.
92. Badiou 1975, 81; Badiou 1985, 84; Badiou 2003, 122– 23; Timpanaro
1980, 90–91; Sève 1998, 199; Johnston 2009a, xxii.
93. Johnston 2018c, xiv– xxxiii.
94. Johnston 2013b, 23– 28.
95. Plekhanov 1974a, 457.
96. Hegel 1991a, 21.
97. Plekhanov 1974a, 475, 478– 79.
98. Wetter 1958, 397.
99. Engels 1941, 11– 13, 24.
100. Plekhanov 1974a, 477.
101. Ibid.
102. Ibid., 478.
103. Ibid., 463.
104. Ibid., 468.
105. Ibid., 468.
106. Ibid., 473.
107. Hegel W 7: 24; Hegel 1991a, 20.
108. Plekhanov 1974a, 482.
109. Plekhanov 1974a, 471– 72; Hegel 2002a, 99; Hegel 1979a, 170– 71;
Hegel 1991a, §§244– 46 (266– 68), §248 (269); Hegel 1999, 255–56.
110. Engels 1959, 157, 390–93; Plekhanov 1974a, 476–77; Plekhanov 1969a,
90–92, 143–44, 146.
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111. Johnston 2018c, 95– 102.

112. Plekhanov 1974a, 480; Plekhanov 1969a, 45.
113. Lenin 1976b, 357, 360.
114. Lenin 1976c, 404.
115. Planty-Bonjour 1974, 272– 73.
116. Ibid., 273.
117. Plekhanov 1969a, 25.
118. Feuerbach 2012, 168; Plekhanov 1969a, 28, 30–31, 45, 83.
119. Plekhanov 1974b, 519.
120. Plekhanov 1969a, 110.
121. Plekhanov 1969a, 52, 64, 71; Plekhanov 1974b, 488–89.
122. Plekhanov 1969a, 149; Plekhanov 1974b, 525.
123. Plekhanov 1969a, 90, 97.
124. Plekhanov 1974b, 512– 14.
125. Hegel 1956, 79– 102.
126. Plekhanov 1969a, 49.
127. Jordan 1967, 208.
128. Bukharin 2005, 307, 328, 337, 372; Planty-Bonjour 1967, 29, 79, 91, 98.
129. Sheehan 1993, 141.
130. Planty-Bonjour 1974, 317.
131. Merleau-Ponty 1973, 59– 65, 67.
132. Lukács 1961, 251– 52.
133. Lukács 1956, 158– 59.
134. Lefebvre 1971, 229.
135. Löwy 1973a, 132– 33, 139– 40, 142; Löwy 1973b, 151, 153–54.
136. Kouvelakis 2007, 173– 75, 187– 89.
137. Dunayevskaya 1973, 95– 120, 204; Dunayevskaya 2002, 50, 69, 105, 167,
214–15, 217, 251; Anderson 1995, 4, 14, 23, 40, 42, 58–60, 64–65, 78–81, 95, 102–
3, 174–75; Anderson 2007, 125– 27.
138. Wark 2015, 17– 20, 24, 26, 46.
139. Joravsky 1961, 20.
140. Wetter 1958, 130– 31.
141. Lecourt 1973, 14– 15.
142. Lenin 1972, 38– 39, 50– 51, 78– 79, 86, 106, 167–68, 220, 270–72.
143. Lecourt 1973, 31– 33; Pannekoek 2003, 109–10; Graham 1972, 402.
144. Engels 1975, 14.
145. Lecourt 1973, 51, 55, 57– 58, 61– 62, 65–67.
146. Wetter 1958, 121; Fraser 1998, 176.
147. Lecourt 1973, 98– 102, 107.
148. Ibid., 48.
149. Lefebvre 1957, 130.
150. Lukács 1978c, 27.
151. Garaudy 1956, 50, 60.
152. Thao 1986, 172.
153. Lefebvre 1957, 181, 183– 85.
154. Lenin 1972, 284.
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155. Pannekoek 2003, 129.

156. Lenin 1971a, 27; Lenin 1975b, 658; Lenin 1971b, 660; Lenin 1922.
157. Johnston 2013b, 13– 38.
158. Lenin 1975a, 641.
159. Ibid., 641– 42.
160. Ibid., 641.
161. Sheehan 1993, 126– 29.
162. Lenin 1975a, 641.
163. Lenin 1976a, 89.
164. Ibid., 91– 93, 130, 168, 175, 183, 194, 196–97, 207.
165. Ibid., 100, 110, 141, 224.
166. Hegel 1969, 237; Hegel 1991b, §48 (92); Hegel 1955b, 451.
167. Lenin 1976a, 135– 36, 228.
168. Ibid., 180, 211, 213.
169. Ibid., 189– 91.
170. Ibid., 147.
171. Ibid., 94.
172. Ibid., 155.
173. Ibid., 133.
174. Ibid., 171.
175. Ibid., 91– 93, 130, 175, 183, 196– 99, 201, 222.
176. Ibid., 158.
177. Ibid., 174, 186.
178. Ibid., 233.
179. Ibid., 232.
180. Ibid., 229.
181. Ibid., 183.
182. Lenin 1972, 38– 39, 43, 50– 51, 61, 95, 238, 269–70.
183. Lenin 1976a, 167.
184. Ibid., 92.
185. Ibid., 98.
186. Ibid., 114.
187. Ibid., 184.
188. Ibid., 208.
189. Graham 1972, 48– 49.
190. Lenin 1972, 40– 41, 285– 86, 288– 89, 291, 277–78.
191. Ibid., 238, 290, 292– 93, 393– 94.
192. Ibid., 372.
193. Engels 1941, 25– 27, 48– 50; Wetter 1958, 300; Jordan 1967, 160.
194. Lenin 1976a, 222; Wetter 1958, 120; Graham 1972, 58–59.
195. Lenin 1976b, 357– 58, 360.
196. Lenin 1976a, 123.
197. Lenin 1976b, 358, 360.
198. Ibid., 359.
199. Jordan 1967, 359, 370.
200. Lenin 1971b, 665.
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201. Lenin 1976b, 361.

202. Lenin 1971b, 661– 62; Joravsky 1961, 36.
203. Lenin 1971b, 664–66; Caveing 1955, 28–29; Wetter 1958, 256; Sheehan
1993, 120–22, 132– 35, 137.
204. Lenin 1971b, 664– 66.
205. Ibid., 660– 62, 665.
206. Bukharin 2005, 17.
207. Wetter 1958, 142, 175.
208. Bukharin 1969, 19– 52, 229.
209. Bukharin 2005, 48, 60, 135, 241– 43, 245.
210. Ibid., 140, 143.
211. Ibid., 59.
212. Ibid., 143.
213. Ibid., 244.
214. Ibid., 101.
215. Ibid., 184.
216. Thao 1986, 138.
217. Bukharin 2005, 185.
218. Ibid., 116– 17.
219. Ibid., 117.
220. Ibid., 116.
221. Plekhanov 1974a, 476– 77; Plekhanov 1969a, 90–92; Plekhanov 1969b,
143–44, 146.
222. Engels 1975, 10.
223. Ibid., 12.
224. Bukharin 2005, 87.
225. Ibid., 37.
226. Ibid., 74.
227. Johnston 2014a, 57– 61, 65– 66, 73– 78, 85, 96–97, 100–102, 123–24.
228. Bukharin 2005, 220– 21.
229. Ibid., 337.
230. Ibid., 328.
231. Lukács 1981, 196.
232. Bukharin 2005, 325, 372.
233. Ibid., 57, 261, 304.
234. Ibid., 308– 9.
235. Ibid., 114– 16.
236. Ibid., 348.
237. Ibid., 60.
238. Ibid., 134– 35.
239. Ibid., 134– 35.
240. Ibid., 217– 18.
241. Ibid., 281.
242. Ibid., 337.
243. Wetter 1958, 311.
244. Stalin 1972a, 27.
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245. Stalin 1975, 19– 23.

246. Stalin 1940, 22– 23, 43– 44.
247. Ibid., 8– 9, 11– 13.
248. Ibid., 15– 16, 20.
249. Stalin 1975, 20– 21; Stalin 1940, 17.
250. Stalin 1940, 22– 23, 43– 44.
251. Pollock 2006, 56– 57, 59, 134.
252. Stalin 1972a, 5– 9, 25; Stalin 1972b, 33– 35; Pollock 2006, 104–35.
253. Wetter 1958, 216– 17, 219– 20.
254. Stalin 1940, 8– 9, 11– 13.
255. Ibid., 7– 8.
256. Planty-Bonjour 1967, 96; Planty-Bonjour 1974, 288.
257. Planty-Bonjour 1967, 96.
258. Johnston 2014b, 222– 24.
259. Planty-Bonjour 1974, 288.
260. Ibid., 310.
261. Badiou 2009, 1– 9.
262. Badiou 2016, 134– 36.
263. Lacan SVII, 303, 313– 15, 318.
264. Rose 1997, 272– 99.

Chapter 9

1. Althusser 1976a, 67– 68, 71– 72; Althusser 1976b, 106, 129–32, 141, 146–
50; Althusser 1976c, 172, 187; Althusser 2006b, 3; Althusser 2006f, 257–58.
2. Althusser 2009b, 160– 61; Althusser 1990d, 243; Althusser 2006c, 45; Al-
thusser 2006e, 209– 11.
3. Althusser 2005b, 34– 36, 39; Althusser 2009a, 32– 33, 42; Althusser
2009b, 80.
4. Althusser 2003d, 188–89; Althusser 1994a, 346–47, 353– 56; Althusser
1990d, 262– 64; Althusser 1990e, 276– 77; Althusser 2014a, 379– 81; Althusser
1977, 30–31; Althusser 1978, 91, 96; Althusser 2006e, 217, 242; Althusser 2006f,
253–55.
5. Althusser 1995c, 368– 69, 378– 79; Althusser 2003e, 281– 82; Althusser
1990b, 60; Althusser 1990c, 117; Althusser 1995b, 303; Althusser 1990d, 246–47;
Althusser 1993, 16, 25; Sève 1997, 116.
6. Althusser 1995c, 379.
7. Althusser 1990d, 264– 65; Althusser 2006f, 259; Elliott 2009, 73, 312; Var-
gas 2008, 148, 153, 169– 70, 172; Ípola 2012, 27– 29.
8. Althusser 2005f, 162, 167– 68.
9. Balibar 1993, 109– 11.
10. Althusser 1998b, 24; Althusser 2006h, 165–71, 174, 179–80.
11. Althusser 2005b, 33– 34; Althusser 2005f, 166– 67; Althusser 1998c,
49– 50; Althusser 1990a, 11– 13; Althusser 2003d, 206; Althusser 1995b, 301– 2;
Althusser 2016, 84, 199; Lewis 2005, 167, 171; Ípola 2012, 40; Bosteels 2011, 53.
314
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12. Althusser 1995c, 361–62; Althusser 2009b, 84; Althusser 1990a, 7–8, 18–
19; Althusser 2003a, 15; Althusser 2003d, 168–70, 172–74, 181; Althusser 2003e,
229–30; Althusser 2005a, 14; Althusser 1990d, 246– 47, 261; Elliott 2009, 56; Lewis
2005, 167.
13. Althusser 2014a, 373– 74; Althusser 2006f, 264.
14. Althusser 2006f, 253– 55; Althusser 1994b, 582; Althusser 2006g, 291.
15. Althusser 2006f, 258– 59.
16. Althusser 2006e, 221.
17. Althusser 2009a, 16, 20, 22, 25–31, 57; Althusser 2009b, 112, 114; Al-
thusser 1996e, 170– 71; Althusser 1998d, 263– 64.
18. Althusser 1990a, 9; Althusser 1976a, 54; Althusser 1976b, 179.
19. Althusser 1976b, 115.
20. Althusser 2006a, 25– 26; Althusser 2009b, 205; Althusser 2005a, 14;
Althusser 1990a, 10; Althusser 1995a, 257– 60; Althusser 1995b, 301, 306, 318,
323–24; Althusser 2003d, 172– 74; Althusser 2003e, 229–30; Althusser 2001a, 4;
Althusser 2001b, 22; Althusser 2001c, 45– 46; Althusser 2007, 166–68; Althusser
2014b, 15– 16; Althusser 2014a, 132– 33, 327; Althusser 2006f, 266– 67; Bosteels
2011, 51–52.
21. Althusser 1990c, 108.
22. Ibid., 109.
23. Marx 1861; Marx 1867b; Engels 1859; Engels 1883; Engels 1941, 25–27.
24. Althusser 2006d, 194– 96; Malabou 2015, 47–60.
25. Althusser 2006h, 165, 179; Althusser 1996d, 97.
26. Koyré 1958, 3– 4, 99, 278.
27. Balibar 1991a, 24; Bourdin 2008, 199.
28. Althusser 2003c, 134– 35, 154; Althusser 2003d, 206.
29. Althusser 1996d, 107.
30. Althusser 2003e, 281– 82.
31. Ibid., 283.
32. Althusser 1990c, 111.
33. Ibid., 134.
34. Foucault 2003, 239– 63; Foucault 1990, 135– 59; Agamben 1998, 3– 7,
87, 111, 119, 187.
35. Althusser 1990a, 12– 13; Althusser 1990c, 88.
36. Althusser 2006a, 30.
37. Althusser 2003e, 268.
38. Ibid., 270.
39. Althusser 2014a, 172– 73.
40. Althusser 2005b, 22; Althusser 1976a, 78– 79; Althusser 1976b, 120;
Althusser 1976d, 9– 19; Althusser 2014a, 366; Althusser 2016, 424.
41. Althusser 2003e, 284– 92, 294, 304.
42. Ibid., 281– 82, 284– 85, 291– 92.
43. Ibid., 286, 294.
44. Althusser 2005b, 31, 35– 38; Althusser 2005c, 45–48; Althusser 2005d,
65– 66, 68– 69, 83– 86; Althusser 2005e, 155– 56, 160; Althusser 2005g, 223– 27,
 315
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229–31, 243; Althusser 2005a, 11; Althusser 2003e, 253; Althusser 2007, 176–80;
Althusser 1976a, 66, 98.
45. Althusser 2003e, 288– 89, 294.
46. Althusser 2009a, 17; Althusser 2005e, 155–56; Althusser 2005g, 225–
27; Althusser 2005a, 10; Althusser 2003c, 89; Althusser 2003e, 241–42; Althusser
2001d, 81; Althusser 2001e, 110– 11; Althusser 1976a, 67, 98.
47. Althusser 2005g, 229; Althusser 1976b, 109.
48. Althusser 2003e, 289– 90.
49. Althusser 1995d, 507; Althusser 2003e, 285–86.
50. Althusser 1995d, 509– 10; Althusser 2003e, 287–88.
51. Althusser 2003e, 291.
52. Althusser 2005f, 198, 214; Althusser 1996c, 41; Althusser 2007, 173,
184; Althusser 1976b, 135; Althusser 2014a, 64–67, 71–72; Althusser 2006d, 169–
71, 188–90; Althusser 2006e, 217– 18; Althusser 2006f, 272– 73; Althusser 2006g,
290–91.
53. Althusser 2005b, 30– 31; Althusser 2001b, 25–26; Althusser 2001d, 81–
83; Althusser 1976a, 70; Althusser 1976b, 115; Althusser 1976c, 186.
54. Johnston 2015b, 141– 70.
55. Althusser 2014a, 184– 85.
56. Althusser 1976a, 57.
57. Althusser 1976b, 156.
58. Johnston 2015b, 141– 70.
59. Althusser 2005g, 223– 29.
60. Marx 1975b, 326–31, 350; Marx and Engels 1998, 36–37; Marx 1976b,
19– 20, 33– 34; Marx 1970, 20– 22; Marx 1973, 84, 243, 323, 496; Marx 1976a,
1021–22, 1053, 1068.
61. Marx 1970, 20– 21; Marx 1973, 496.
62. Johnston 2015a, 217– 61.
63. Macherey 2008, 148, 171.
64. Marx 1847, 144; Marx 1956, 147.
65. Badiou 2007, 165– 78.
66. Pico della Mirandola 1998, 4– 5; Colletti 1979, 234, 238– 41, 243– 46;
Agamben 2004, 29– 30; Johnston 2014a, 159– 60.
67. Althusser 2003c, 137; Althusser 2003e, 263–65.
68. Althusser 2003c, 88– 89; Althusser 2003e, 234, 241– 42; Althusser 1976a,
54, 56.
69. Marx and Engels 1998, 47; Labica 2014, 44.
70. Althusser 1995c, 378; Althusser 2003c, 88–89.
71. Althusser 1995c, 376–77; Althusser 2003c, 103–4, 149; Althusser 2003e,
237–42.
72. Althusser 1976a, 61; Althusser 1976b, 144– 46; Althusser 2014a, 96, 323–
25; Althusser 2006e, 218, 222; Althusser 2006f, 268–70.
73. Althusser 2014a, 321; Althusser 2006e, 223; Althusser 2006f, 267–68.
74. Althusser 2014a, 95– 96, 324– 25, 342; Althusser 2006e, 223– 24;
Althusser 2006f, 269– 70; Bosteels 2011, 47– 48.
316
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75. Althusser 1976a, 37–38, 58, 72; Althusser 1976b, 142–44, 150; Althusser
1990d, 261; Althusser 2014a, 50–51, 322– 23, 326–27, 359, 383; Althusser 2006f,
270–71.
76. Marx and Engels 1998, 37; Marx 1976a, 133, 310; Marx 1974, 341.
77. Althusser 2014a, 184– 85.
78. Althusser 1990a, 8.
79. Ibid., 8– 9.
80. Althusser 1996a, 91.
81. Ibid.
82. Johnston 2005, xxxvi– xxxviii, 293–99, 335–37, 340–41; Johnston 2008,
270– 73; Johnston 2011a, 159– 79; Johnston 2013b, 13– 77, 175– 78; Johnston
2014a, 65–107.
83. Althusser 1996a, 91.
84. Althusser 1996b, 22– 23; Althusser 1996c, 52– 53, 57–58, 68; Althusser
2014b, 192–93.
85. Althusser 2003b, 38–41, 43–46, 53–68, 80–82; Althusser 1998a, 711–12.
86. Johnston 2014a, 65– 107.
87. Johnston 2015a, 217– 61; Mandel 1970, 669; Fenichel 1967, 303–4.
88. Althusser 2014a, 82– 83; Althusser 2006f, 284.
89. Althusser 2014a, 296– 97, 303.
90. Monod 1971, xi, 42–44, 87, 94–98, 112–19, 128–30, 145–46, 148, 154,
162–63.
91. Althusser 1994a, 346– 47, 353– 56.
92. Althusser 1990c, 147– 49, 152– 56.
93. Althusser 1990c, 150– 56, 160, 162– 64; Althusser and Monod 1967–69;
Monod 1971, 37, 39– 40, 79, 110– 11, 169, 179– 80; Lewis 2005, 193–94; Turchetto
2009, 61–79; Tirard 2012, 75– 88.
94. Vargas 2008, 166– 69.
95. Althusser 2009a, 42– 46, 49– 51, 60; Althusser 2009b, 95–96, 130, 210.
96. Marx 1973, 85, 92, 109– 11, 243, 320, 325, 398, 400, 462– 63, 496– 97,
540; Marx 1976a, 207, 283, 323, 447, 461.
97. Marx 1973, 88, 100– 102, 104– 6.

Chapter 10

1. Balibar 1991b, 100.

2. Ibid., 102.
3. Vargas 2008, 152.
4. Lukács 1986, 632.
5. Balibar 1991b, 102.
6. Garaudy 1956, 10, 22– 28, 45– 46, 48– 49, 67; Desanti 1956, 109, 118– 20;
Lukács 1956, 158– 59.
7. Caveing 1955, 11, 22; Lewis 2005, 176– 77.
8. Korsch 1970, 69.
9. Ibid., 76– 77, 90.
 317
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10. Ibid., 86– 89.

11. Ibid., 92.
12. Ibid., 73, 77, 78– 83.
13. Lukács 2000, 100.
14. Ibid., 102.
15. Ibid., 113.
16. Ibid., 113– 14.
17. Ibid., 115.
18. Marx 1976a, 508, 554– 55; Marx 1978, 241, 281; Marx 1981a, 511.
19. Gramsci 1996, Fourth Notebook, §<7> (150); Marcuse 1971, 152;
Althusser 2016, 425– 26.
20. Goldmann 1977, 111– 12.
21. Lukács 1976, 475.
22. Lukács 1956, 158– 59; Lukács 1971a, ix– xxxix; Lukács 1986, 713–14.
23. Fehér, Heller, Márkus, and Vajda 1983, 141.
24. Lukács 1961, 259– 60.
25. Lukács 1981, 133.
26. Ibid., 19, 21, 236– 37.
27. Ibid., 238.
28. Ibid., 551, 559.
29. Ibid., 547.
30. Lukács 1961, 72; Lukács 1981, 322.
31. Lukács 1981, 6– 7, 110, 322– 23.
32. Lukács 1961, 17.
33. Lukács 1981, 572.
34. Lukács 1961, 142, 172; Lukács 1981, 110– 11.
35. Lukács 1961, 142; Chryssis 2005, 108.
36. Lukács 1981, 247.
37. Ibid., 359.
38. Ibid., 114.
39. Ibid., 554– 55, 568.
40. Ibid., 142, 145, 170– 71, 221, 553.
41. Ibid., 159– 60.
42. Ibid., 26, 103, 111.
43. Desanti 1956, 110; Tertulian 1988, 249; Aronowitz 2011, 55.
44. Althusser 2016, 175.
45. Rockmore 1984, 63.
46. Poster 1975, 122– 23, 125.
47. Rockmore 1984, 63.
48. Heller 1983, 177.
49. Lukács 1984a, 112–13, 184, 237, 266, 271, 308–10; Lukács 1984b, 514,
516, 577, 583, 662–64, 687–89; Lukács 1986, 151, 200, 279, 284, 299, 481–82, 499,
548, 551, 566, 599– 600, 636, 689– 92, 722– 23; Lukács 1983a, 125.
50. Tökei 1979, 1383– 84.
51. Lukács 1961, 142; Caveing 1955, 10, 29; Garaudy 1960, 32, 36, 39– 40,
62, 76, 110.
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52. Lukács 1961, 172; Garaudy 1960, 38, 60, 70, 72–73.
53. Tökei 1979, 1383.
54. Tertulian 1988, 266– 67.
55. Sartre 1962, 200– 202, 204– 8, 214, 234–37, 248, 250–51.
56. Sartre 1968, 22–23, 28– 31, 33– 34, 43– 45, 47–50, 53, 55–57, 75, 87, 91,
93, 95–97, 99–104, 124– 26, 128– 30, 150– 52, 174–75; Sartre 2004, 27, 29; Sartre
et al. 1962, 6–11, 15– 16, 23– 26; Poster 1975, 129, 267, 270–72.
57. Sartre 1962, 210.
58. Ibid., 233.
59. Poster 1975, 302.
60. Sartre 1968, 22– 23, 28– 29, 33, 48– 49, 125–26, 128–30.
61. Sartre 1968, 41, 43– 44, 47, 76– 77, 80, 87, 104; Sartre 2004, 35, 70–71.
62. Sartre 1968, 41– 43, 75, 101– 3.
63. Sartre 1968, 60– 67, 108– 9, 111, 135, 140, 148–49, 150–52, 174; Sartre
2004, 58.
64. Sartre 1968, 91, 93, 96– 97, 150– 52, 174–75.
65. Sartre 2004, 71.
66. Lukács 1986, 151; Lukács 1984a, 38.
67. Sartre et al. 1962, 4.
68. Ibid., 16.
69. Ibid., 17– 18.
70. Ibid., 19– 20.
71. Ibid., 20.
72. Sartre 2004, 37.
73. Sartre et al. 1962, 12, 26.
74. Poster 1975, 133, 273.
75. Ślęczka 1983, 28– 29.
76. Joós 1983, 50– 51, 59, 65.
77. Fehér, Heller, Márkus, and Vajda 1983, 133.
78. Goldmann 1977, 13; Ślęczka 1983, 30–31.
79. Ayoub 1983, 281.
80. Joós 1983, 49.
81. Benhabib 1987, 89– 90.
82. Ibid.
83. Mocek 1990, 549.
84. Lendvai 1990, 528.
85. Joós 1983, 42, 63; Benseler 1987, 262.
86. Heller 1983, 182– 83.
87. Goldmann 1977, 109.
88. Tuchanska 1991, 11.
89. Lendvai 1990, 538.
90. Tertulian 1988, 248– 49.
91. Ibid., 268.
92. Lukács 1984b, 326, 339; Lendvai 1990, 529.
93. Lukács 1961, 90.
94. Lukács 1984b, 382.
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NO TE S TO PAGE S 1 6 7 –1 7 2

95. Lukács 1986, 655.

96. Lukács 1984b, 388–89, 400, 423; Lukács 1984a, 171; Chryssis 2005, 104.
97. Goldmann 1977, 16.
98. Lukács 1984b, 378– 79.
99. Lukács 1984b, 378– 79; Lukács 1986, 146– 47.
100. Tertulian 1988, 269.
101. Goldmann 1977, 32.
102. Lukács 1984b, 383; Almasi 1987, 212.
103. Lukács 1981, 319, 501, 503; Lukács 1984a, 64– 65; Aronowitz 2011,
63–64.
104. Lukács 1984a, 86– 87, 94– 95.
105. Lukács 1986, 390.
106. Joós 1983, 44– 45, 47, 50, 66; Tertulian 2003, 663–98.
107. Lukács 1984b, 410.
108. Ibid., 434.
109. Ibid., 451.
110. Lukács 1986, 392– 93; Tertulian 1988, 263.
111. Lukács 1986, 566.
112. Hartmann 1953, 4– 5, 9, 19– 20, 23– 26, 29–31, 34–36, 40–43, 50, 55–
56, 59–60, 68–69, 76–79, 87– 91, 98, 101– 2, 109, 126, 132, 136– 37, 140; Joós 1983,
52; Tertulian 1988, 256.
113. Boutroux 1929, 132– 34, 137– 40.
114. Lukács 1984b, 325.
115. Lukács 1984b, 327; Joós 1983, 13– 14, 49.
116. Lukács 1984b, 365–66; Lukács 1978c, 67–68; Lukács 1986, 303; Lukács
1984a, 143–44.
117. Lukács 1978c, 20– 21, 135– 36.
118. Lukács 1986, 698.
119. Lukács 1984b, 365.
120. Lukács 1978c, i, 50; Lukács 1983b, 137.
121. Joós 1983, 52– 53.
122. Lukács 1984b, 395.
123. Lukács 1984b, 395– 96; Lukács 1986, 151; Tökei 1979, 1383.
124. Lukács 1978b, 10.
125. Lukács 1978b, 10; Lukács 1984a, 276– 77; Lukács 1983a, 128; Tökei
1979, 1385; Pollak-Lederer 2014, 51.
126. Lukács 1984a, 111– 12.
127. Ibid., 214.
128. Lukács 1986, 724; Mocek 1990, 544, 550.
129. Mocek 1990, 544.
130. Joós 1983, 41.
131. Lukács 1984a, 34.
132. Ibid., 112.
133. Lukács 1983a, 125.
134. Lukács 1986, 470– 71.
135. Heller 1983, 177– 78, 184; Sheehan 1993, 277.
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136. Lukács 1984a, 108– 9.

137. Lukács 1978b, 5.
138. Lukács 1986, 158– 59.
139. Lukács 1978b, 31.
140. Lukács 1978c, 105– 6.
141. Lukács 1984a, 8– 9; Tökei 1979, 1383–84; Lendvai 1990, 531.
142. Lukács 1978b, 99– 100.
143. Lukács 1983b, 137– 38.
144. Lukács 1986, 128– 29, 145– 46.
145. Lukács 1986, 208; Lukács 1984a, 246; Lukács 1983b, 137; Joós 1983, 52.
146. Lukács 1984a, 14, 26, 74– 75.
147. Lukács 1978a, 71; Lukács 1986, 176– 77, 577–78; Joós 1983, 71–72.
148. Lukács 1978b, 40; Lukács 1986, 257, 319–20, 323–24, 337, 563; Lukács
1984a, 224–25.
149. Lukács 1986, 421– 42, 426.
150. Lukács 1986, 644; Lukács 1984a, 276–77.
151. Lukács 1986, 721– 72.
152. Lukács 1978c, 2– 3; Lukács 1986, 361; Lukács 1984a, 76, 100, 102–3.
153. Lukács 1984a, 106– 7.
154. Ibid., 276.
155. Lukács 1984b, 339.
156. Lukács 1978b, 110; Lukács 1984a, 212–13.
157. Lukács 1986, 393– 94.
158. Lukács 1984a, 160– 61.
159. Ibid., 182.
160. Lukács 1986, 206.
161. Lukács 1978b, 8– 9, 45; Lukács 1986, 155– 56, 204– 5; Lukács 1984a,
87–88.
162. Lukács 1986, 120.
163. Ibid., 123– 24, 149.
164. Lukács 1984a, 262.
165. Ibid., 46, 52, 169, 261– 62.
166. Lukács 1986, 127, 129, 149.
167. Lukács 1978c, 34, 46, 103– 4; Lukács 1986, 128, 513–14, 532; Lukács
1984a, 43, 200–201, 214; Lukács 1983b, 137– 38, 144.
168. Lukács 1986, 207.
169. Johnston 2015a, 217– 61.
170. Lukács 1978b, 87– 88; Lukács 1984a, 88, 176–77, 264; Johnston 2015a,
217–61.
171. Lukács 1986, 242.
172. Ibid., 133– 34.
173. Ibid., 247.
174. Ibid., 150.
175. Ibid., 641.
176. Lukács 1986, 458– 59; Lukács 1984a, 198, 212; Tertulian 1988, 255–56.
177. Lukács 1984a, 283.
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178. Lukács 1986, 327.

179. Almasi 1987, 211.
180. Lukács 1986, 235.
181. Lukács 1978b, 7–8; Lukács 1978c, ii– iv, 3–4, 9–10; Lukács 1986, 147–
48; Lukács 1984a, 287.
182. Lukács 1986, 685.
183. Lukács 1986, 294– 95; Lukács 1984a, 13.
184. Lukács 1986, 726; Lukács 1984a, 178– 79; Tertulian 1988, 259–60.
185. Lukács 1986, 426– 27.
186. Marx 1981a, 958– 59; Lukács 1986, 340– 41, 685; Lukács 1983a, 129.
187. Lukács 1978b, 99– 100; Lukács 1986, 726; Lukács 1984a, 156–60.
188. Lukács 1986, 312– 13, 335.
189. Engels 1941, 48– 50; Lukács 1986, 448, 533, 637– 38, 652; Almasi
1987, 215.
190. Lukács 1984a, 56; Almasi 1987, 216.
191. Lukács 1986, 204.
192. Lukács 1984a, 93.
193. Ibid., 211.
194. Lukács 1976, 399.
195. Lukács 1978b, 71.
196. Lukács 1984a, 93, 300– 301.
197. Lukács 1984b, 471; Lukács 1978a, 5.
198. Lukács 1978a, 6– 7.
199. Ibid., 9.
200. Lukács 1978a, 61– 62, 113.
201. Lukács 1976, 467, 511.
202. Lukács 1986, 250, 256.
203. Ibid., 157.
204. Lukács 1984a, 182– 83.
205. Ibid., 261.
206. Lukács 1986, 249– 50; Lukács 1984a, 199; Fraser 1998, 152.
207. Lukács 1978c, 1; Lukács 1984a, 14– 15, 40; Tertulian 1988, 256.
208. Lukács 1978c, 22– 24, 38– 39, 42– 45; Tertulian 1988, 256–57.
209. Lukács 1978c, 35.
210. Lukács 1978c, 102; Lukács 1986, 176– 77.
211. Lukács 1984a, 166– 67, 281– 83.
212. Lukács 1978c, 12– 13.
213. Lukács 1984a, 27.
214. Lukács 1986, 390– 91.
215. Lukács 1984a, 28– 29.
216. Lukács 1986, 629.
217. Lukács 1984a, 29– 30.
218. Lukács 1986, 487– 88.
219. Ibid., 489, 493.
220. Lukács 1984a, 71, 299.
221. Lendvai 1990, 528– 29.
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222. Tuchanska 1991, 8– 10.

223. Tökei 1979, 1385.
224. Lukács 1986, 726.
225. Sartre 1968, 60– 65.

Chapter 11

1. Galileo 1957, 274– 78; Koyré 1958, 99, 278; Meillassoux 2008, 1– 3, 8, 13;
Wegener 2004, 76; Tomšič 2015, 73, 183– 84.
2. Locke 1959, 168– 71.
3. Ibid., 166– 68.
4. Kant 2002, 217, 221, 236; Kant 1998, A290/B346–A292/B349 (382–83).
5. Locke 1959, 148– 50.
6. Kant 1968a, 813; Kant 2002, 236.
7. Locke 1959, 25– 33.
8. Johnston 2011b, 155– 56.
9. Locke 1959, 167.
10. Ibid., 167– 68.
11. Kant 2002, 226.
12. Deacon 2012, 2– 3.
13. Ibid., 3.
14. Ibid., 149.
15. Ibid., 124.
16. Kant 2000, §§64– 65 (242– 47); Deacon 2012, 302.
17. Deacon 2012, 138.
18. Ibid., 203.
19. Ibid., 204.
20. Maturana and Varela 1987, 115, 117; Varela, Thompson, and Rosch
1991, 195–96, 205; Stanovich 2004, xii, 12– 13, 15–16, 20–22, 25, 28, 53, 60, 66–
67, 82–84, 122, 142, 186– 87, 247.
21. Deacon 2012, 86.
22. Ibid., 425.
23. Ibid., 223– 24, 237, 275– 76, 472– 73, 549, 551.
24. Lacan 2001c, 187; Lacan SXI, 7; Johnston 2013b, 39–58.
25. Deacon 2012, 155.
26. Ibid., 138, 237, 289– 90.
27. Ibid., 480.
28. Ibid., 484.
29. Ibid., 484.
30. Ibid., 484.
31. Descartes 1993, 17– 24.
32. Kant 1998, A341/B399– A405/B432 (411–58).
33. Deacon 2012, 6– 8.
34. Deacon 2012, 143; Prigogine and Stengers 1979, 278.
35. Deacon 2012, 547.
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Chapter 12

1. Kant 1968b, A290/B346– A292/B349 (306– 7); Kant 1998, A290/

B346–A292/B349 (382– 83).
2. Deacon 2012, 8– 13.
3. Lacan SXI, 226; Lacan SXII, 6/9/65; Lacan SXIII, 4/20/66, 6/8/66;
Lacan SXVI, 48–49, 56– 61; Miller 1977/1978, 24– 34; Johnston 2005, 110–17.
4. Kant 1998, A290– 91/B347 (382).
5. Ibid., A291/B347 (382).
6. Ibid., A22– 41/B37– 58 (157– 84).
7. Ibid., A291/B347 (382).
8. Ibid., A291/B348 (382).
9. Ibid., A92– 93/B124– 26 (223– 24), A103– 4 (231), B137–38 (249–50).
10. Kant 1968b, A292/B348– 49 (307); Kant 1998, A292/B348–49 (383).
11. Kant 2002, 212.
12. Kant 1998, Bxxvi– xxvii (115– 16), A248– 49 (347), A284– 85/B340–41
(378–79).
13. Kant 2002, 217.
14. Kant 1968a, 783– 84; Kant 2002, 211– 12.
15. Kant 1998, A405– 567/B432– 595 (444– 550).
16. Ibid., A27– 28/B43– 44 (160), A35– 36/B52– 53 (164– 65), B69– 71
(190–91).
17. Ibid., A506– 7/B534– 35 (519).
18. Johnston 2008, 270–73; Johnston 2009a, 119–24; Johnston 2013b, 13–
58; Johnston 2014a, 111– 38; Johnston 2011a, 163– 76; Johnston 2013a, 251–69;
Johnston 2016, 278– 99.
19. Lacan SIII, 122.
20. Ibid., 155– 56.
21. Lacan SIX, 2/28/62.
22. Lacan SX, 86– 87.
23. Ibid., 86– 87, 282– 83.
24. Lacan SIX, 2/28/62.
25. Ibid., 3/28/62.
26. Ibid., 3/28/62.
27. Lacan SXI, 139– 40.
28. Johnston 2005, 79– 119.
29. Lacan SIV, 25– 58; Johnston 2013e.
30. Lacan SXI, 252– 53.
31. Lacan SIX, 2/28/62.
32. Alemán 2003, 18; Miller 2003, 29.
33. Floury 2010, 47– 55; Leguil 2012, 11– 12, 22–23, 36–37, 39, 43, 58, 110–
11, 114, 117–18, 144, 318; Laurent 2014, xi, xv, 32, 104, 115–16, 125–26.
34. Johnston 2008, 269– 87; Johnston 2014a, 65–107.
35. Žižek 2001, 80– 83; Žižek 2004, 102– 3; Žižek and Daly 2004, 69–70.
36. Deacon 2012, 2, 481– 83.
37. Ibid., 197– 203.
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Chapter 13

1. Lacan 2006j, 514; Lacan SXXI, 5/21/74; Lacan SXXIII, 4; Lacan SXXIV,
4/19/77, 5/17/77.
2. Pellé 2015, 69.
3. Lacan 1953, 13– 15; Lacan 2006d, 78; Lacan 2006e, 92.
4. Freud SE 1: 318; Freud SE 20: 154– 55, 167; Freud SE 21: 17– 19, 30;
Lacan 2001a, 33– 35; Lacan 2006d, 76, 78; Lacan 2006e, 92; Lacan SVI, 27– 30;
Lacan SVIII, 364.
5. Lacan 2006m, 616; Lacan SIV, 254; Johnston 2008, 176.
6. Johnston 2005, xxxvii, 262– 71, 340– 41; Johnston 2008, xxiii, 60, 63–66,
80–81, 113, 286; Johnston 2013c, 172– 84.
7. Hegel 1970, §336 (270– 72), §337 (273– 77), §350 (351–52).
8. Hegel 1987, 172.
9. Lacan 2001a, 41.
10. Ibid., 44.
11. Lacan 2006d, 76.
12. Lacan 1966b, 113; Lacan 2006e, 92.
13. Lacan 2006d, 77.
14. Lacan 1966b, 116; Lacan 2006e, 94.
15. Lacan 2006d, 78.
16. Ibid., 76.
17. Ibid., 77.
18. Lacan 1966d, 552; Lacan 2006i, 461.
19. Lacan SXXIV, 4/19/77.
20. Lacan 2006j, 514.
21. Lacan 1953, 15.
22. Lacan 2006h, 346.
23. Ibid.
24. Lacan SX, 218– 19; Lacan SXII, 3/10/65; Lacan SXIV, 6/7/67; Lacan
SXX, 109–10; Lacan SXXI, 11/20/73; Lacan 1990a, 6; Lacan 2006a, 83–84.
25. Lacan 2006e, 101.
26. Lacan 2007a, 46.
27. Lacan SII, 322– 23.
28. Ibid., 326.
29. Lacan 2001a, 33–35, 41–42; Lacan 1953, 13, 15; Lacan 2006c, 55; Lacan
2006d, 76, 78; Lacan 2006e, 92; Lacan 2006i, 461; Lacan SVI, 159.
30. Johnston 2011a, 164– 70.
31. Lacan 2006d, 78.
32. Rizzolatti and Sinigaglia 2008, xi– xii; Johnston 2011a, 164–70.
33. Lacan 2006k, 545.
34. Lacan 2006m, 611.
35. Lacan SVIII, 92–93; Lacan SXVII, 33; Lacan SXVIII, 65–71; Lacan SXIX,
3/3/72; Lacan SXX, 41– 43.
36. Lacan SVIII, 348.
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NO TE S TO PAGE S 2 1 3 –2 2 4

37. Johnston 2008, 212– 13.

38. Johnston 2013b, 56– 57; Ansermet 2002, 382.
39. Lacan 2006c, 55.
40. Lacan 1966a, 69– 70; Lacan 2006c, 55.
41. Lacan 2006d, 75– 76.
42. Ibid., 76– 77.
43. Lacan 2006d, 77.
44. Lacan SXXIII [Fr.], 12.
45. Lacan SXXI, 5/21/74; Lacan SXXIV, 5/17/77.
46. Lacan SXXIV, 5/17/77.
47. Ibid.
48. Lacan 2006g, 286.
49. Lacan 1966c, 345; Lacan 2006g, 286.
50. Hegel 1977c, 104– 11.
51. Sartre 1948, 27– 28, 42– 43.
52. Johnston 2008, 145– 77.
53. Johnston 2005, 371– 72.
54. Lacan 2006b, 16– 17.
55. Spinoza 2002, 892.
56. Lacan 2006l, 578– 81; Lacan 2006m, 616.
57. Lacan SI, 147.
58. Lacan SIV, 199– 230; Lacan SIX, 6/20/62; Lacan SXVII, 124–30.
59. Seifert 2008, 145, 174.

Chapter 14

1. LeDoux 2002, 31.

2. LeDoux 1996, 105; Johnston 2013c, 175– 77.
3. Johnston 2008, 170– 71.
4. Stanovich 2004, 53.
5. Stanovich 2004, xii, 12– 13, 15– 16, 20– 22, 25, 28, 53, 60, 66–67, 82–84,
122, 142, 186–87, 247; Johnston 2011a, 168– 69.
6. Maturana and Varela 1987, 115, 117; Varela, Thompson, and Rosch 1991,
195–96, 205; Johnston 2011a, 162– 63.
7. Linden 2007, 2– 3, 5– 7, 21– 24, 26, 235– 46; Marcus 2008, 6– 16, 161–63;
Johnston 2013c, 175– 77.
8. Lacan 2006d, 78; Lacan 1953, 13; Lacan 2006e, 92.
9. Johnston 2013c, 175– 77.
10. Changeux 2004, 189, 208– 9; Johnston 2018b, 60.
11. Johnston 2013c, 175– 77.
12. Damasio 1994, 185.
13. Damasio 1999, 331.
14. Changeux 2008, 78.
15. Thao 1986, 151.
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NO TE S T O PAGE S 2 2 4 –2 3 2

16. Johnston 2013c, 175– 77.

17. Uexküll 1926, xv– xvi, 126, 129, 172, 174– 76, 306– 10; Uexküll 1957,
5–80.
18. Lacan SX, 218– 19; Lacan SXII, 3/10/65; Lacan SXIV, 6/7/67; Lacan
SXX, 109–10; Lacan SXXI, 11/20/73; Lacan 1990a, 6; Lacan 2006a, 83–84.
19. Damasio 2010, 287.
20. Ibid., 288– 89, 291– 92.
21. Damasio 2010, 271– 72; Johnston 2014a, 56–57.
22. Damasio 2010, 250– 51.
23. LeDoux 2002, 322– 23; Stanovich 2004, 60, 122, 186–87; Linden 2007,
6, 21–22, 26; Marcus 2008, 12–14, 161; Johnston 2011a, 168–70; Johnston 2013c,
175–77.
24. Freud SE 21: 69– 71.
25. Damasio 2010, 250.
26. Ibid.
27. Damasio 2010, 251.
28. LeDoux 2002, 322– 23.
29. Damasio 2010, 250– 51.
30. Johnston 2013c, 173– 78.
31. Damasio 2010, 250.
32. Ibid., 251.
33. Ansermet and Magistretti 2010, 39– 57.
34. Lacan SXI, 12, 161– 62.
35. Ibid., 163, 169.
36. Johnston 2005, xxvii– xxxviii, 333– 41, 343–47.
37. Lear 2000, 80– 81, 84– 85; Johnston 2011a, 159–60.
38. Johnston 2005, xxxi.
39. Ansermet and Magistretti 2010, 92.
40. Ibid., 7– 10.
41. Ibid., 14.
42. Ibid., 36.
43. Ibid., 15.
44. Ansermet and Magistretti 2007, xvi, 70.
45. Ibid., 8.
46. Magistretti and Ansermet 2010b, 17.
47. Ansermet and Magistretti 2007, 84.
48. Ibid., xvi.
49. Ansermet and Magistretti 2007, xiii– xvi, xvii, 6–7; Pellé 2015, 58, 100.
50. Johnston 2005, 5– 22, 218– 27.
51. Ansermet and Magistretti 2007, 45–46, 88– 89, 109– 11, 115– 18, 175;
Ansermet and Magistretti 2010, 179.
52. Alberini 2010, 31– 32, 37– 38.
53. Magistretti and Ansermet 2010a, 10– 11; Magistretti and Ansermet
2010b, 18–19.
54. Ansermet and Magistretti 2007, 140– 41, 151–52, 156.
55. Johnston 2014a, 274– 94.
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56. Johnston 2005, 205, 262; Johnston 2008, xxiii, 176, 203– 9, 213, 279;
Pellé 2015, 98–99.
57. Ansermet and Magistretti 2007, 168; Magistretti and Ansermet 2010b,
23–25; Johnston 2018b, 67– 72.
58. Ansermet and Magistretti 2010, 47– 48.
59. Ibid., 49– 50.
60. Ibid., 48– 49.
61. Ibid., 51.
62. Ibid., 168– 69.
63. Ibid., 52– 53.
64. Ibid., 51.
65. Ibid., 153.
66. Ibid., 154.
67. Ibid., 24.
68. Ansermet and Magistretti 2007, 185; Ansermet and Magistretti
2010, 157.
69. Solms and Turnbull 2002, 34.
70. Solms and Turnbull 2002, 115, 117; Johnston 2013c, 186–87.
71. Freud SE 7: 147– 48; Freud SE 14: 122– 23, 132.
72. Solms and Turnbull 2002, 118– 19; Panksepp and Biven 2012, xv, 95– 97.
73. Solms and Turnbull 2002, 112– 33, 277– 78; Panksepp 1998, 47, 52–54.
74. Panksepp 1998, 4, 10, 43, 47, 50– 51, 56, 77, 79, 122–23, 325–30.
75. Solms and Turnbull 2002, 118– 19.
76. Ansermet and Magistretti 2010, 132.
77. Solms and Turnbull 2002, 120.
78. Freud SE 1: 318, 331.
79. Solms and Turnbull 2002, 122– 23.
80. Ibid., 133– 34, 277– 78.
81. Ansermet 2002, 383; Magistretti and Ansermet 2010a, 11.
82. Pommier 2004, 27.
83. Ansermet and Magistretti 2010, 54– 55.
84. Boutroux 1929, 125; Pommier 2004, 378, 401; Stanovich 2004, 13, 28,
67, 82–84; Pellé 2015, 122, 133, 166.
85. Ansermet 2002, 378.
86. Ibid., 383.
87. Pellé 2015, 43– 46.
88. Ansermet 2002, 376– 77.
89. Ibid., 383.
90. Ansermet and Magistretti 2007, 10.
91. Ibid., xvi, 10, 211, 215– 16, 229– 30.
92. Magistretti and Ansermet 2010a, 7, 12.
93. Ansermet and Magistretti 2007, 181– 83, 185; Magistretti and Ansermet
2010b, 28.
94. Johnston 2008, 176; Pellé 2015, 98– 99.
95. Lacan SIV, 41– 58; Johnston 2011a, 170– 76; Johnston 2013b, 59–77.
96. Johnston 2013b, 59– 77.
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97. Ibid., 3– 58.

98. Johnston 2008, 102.
99. Lacan SVII, 14; Frankfurt 1971, 5– 20.
100. Kandel 2000; Kandel 2005a, 38.
101. Kandel 2005b, 64.
102. Johnston 2011a, 164– 70.

Chapter 15

1. Lacan SVII, 213– 14; Lacan SVIII, 4; Lacan 2001b, 135; Lacan 2007b, 60.
2. Lacan SIV, 48.
3. Lacan SX, 308– 9; Lacan SXVI, 280– 81; Lacan SXVII, 119.
4. Johnston 2013b, 59– 77.
5. Miller 1991, 32.
6. Pico della Mirandola 1998, 4– 7, 10– 11; Rosset 2004, 42.
7. Johnston 2013b, 59– 77.
8. Johnston 2008, 186– 90; Johnston 2014a, 139–83.
9. Agamben 1999, 65– 72; Agamben 2004, 16, 21–22, 26, 29–30; Agamben
2011, 245–46, 251.
10. Badiou 2007, 174– 77; Badiou 2009, 114; Johnston 2013b, 81–107.
11. Ricoeur 2004a, 97; Ricoeur 2004b, 143–47.
12. Dennett 1995, 61– 84, 521.
13. Badiou 2009, 399– 401, 403– 24.
14. Linden 2007, 235– 46.
15. Ibid., 6.
16. Linden 2007, 2– 3, 5– 7, 21– 24, 26, 245–46; Johnston 2013c, 175–77.
17. Linden 2007, 245– 46.
18. Johnston 2011a, 175– 76.
19. Johnston 2008, 167– 77.
20. Monod 1971, 116.
21. Ibid., 162.
22. Hegel 1991a, §324 (361); Hegel 1956, 26–27.
23. Jacobi 2009, 583.
24. Freud SE 22: 158– 82.
25. Lacan 2006n, 712; Lacan SXI, 47, 231; Johnston 2005, 61– 71; Johnston
2013b, 39–58.
26. Nietzsche 1974, §300 (240– 41); Nietzsche 1989a, §14 (21– 22), §206
(125–26); Nietzsche 1989b, §23 (145– 48), §24 (151–53), §25 (153–55).
27. Heidegger 2001, 18.
28. Chesterton 1995, 33.
29. Ibid., 32– 33, 55– 56, 65– 66.
30. Ibid., 33.
31. Freud SE 14: 303– 7.
32. Freud SE 9: 115– 27.
33. Freud SE 14: 305– 6.
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Chapter 16

1. McDowell 1994, 36, 81, 115–19, 126, 155, 182, 184; R. J. Bernstein 2002,
9, 18.
2. Sellars 1997, 14.
3. McDowell 2009k, 198.
4. Sellars 1997, 45.
5. McDowell 1994, ix.
6. Brandom 1994, 92– 93, 698; Brandom 2000, 22, 32– 35, 47; Brandom
2002b, 186, 202–3, 205– 6, 209.
7. McDowell 1994, 86.

Chapter 17

1. McDowell 1994, 9– 10, 12– 13, 64, 69– 70, 87, 98; McDowell 2009a, viii;
McDowell 2009b, 5– 6; McDowell 2009g, 124.
2. Bukharin 2005, 42– 45, 52, 96– 97.
3. McDowell 1994, xvii.
4. Ibid., 7, 20– 21.
5. Ibid., xvii, 14– 16, 23, 67– 68.
6. Sedgwick 1997, 22.
7. McDowell 1994, 9.
8. McDowell 2009c, 23– 43.
9. McDowell 1994, 9– 13, 18, 24, 46, 66– 67, 98.
10. Ibid., 41.
11. Brandom 2002b, 181, 198– 99, 208; Brandom 2009, 97– 98, 100– 101,
104–5; Houlgate 2009, 35, 44.
12. Kant 1998, B274– 79 (326– 29).
13. Ibid., A370 (426).
14. Ibid., A27– 28/B44 (160), A353– 56/B52 (164), A43/B60 (168), B73
(192).
15. McDowell 2009e, 74– 75, 77– 82, 84; McDowell 2009f, 102– 3; McDowell
2009h, 141; McDowell 2009i, 152– 53; McDowell 2009k, 189, 194, 197.
16. Berkeley 1982, §§33– 41 (35– 38), §§50-52 (42–43).
17. Pippin 2011, 70.
18. McDowell 2009d, 65; McDowell 2009e, 89; McDowell 2009f, 91, 107;
McDowell 2002, 275; Houlgate 2009, 42– 43.
19. Wright 2002a, 147; Wright 2002b, 161, 171.
20. McDowell 1994, 28– 29, 34, 39; McDowell 2009g, 119.
21. Pippin 2005b, 195.
22. Redding 2007, 12– 13, 15.
23. McDowell 1994, 89.
24. Pippin 2005b, 201– 3.
25. Pippin 2008, 14, 112– 14, 142, 193– 94.
26. Pippin 2005b, 189– 90.
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27. Ibid., 189.

28. Greene 1972, viii–ix, xi, 11–12, 36, 39–40, 48–49, 53–56, 96–97, 114,
133, 136, 138–39, 141, 145– 49, 152– 56, 168– 69.
29. Houlgate 2006a, 242.
30. Jameson 2010, 10– 11.
31. Beiser 2005, 6, 55– 57, 68– 72, 80, 105– 12; Houlgate 2005, 106– 9, 164,
169, 179–80.
32. Halbig 2006, 233– 35, 240.

Chapter 18

1. McDowell 1994, xx.

2. Thornton 2004, 245.
3. McDowell 1994, xix– xx, 75– 77.
4. McDowell 1994, 34; McDowell 2009b, 7.
5. McDowell 1994, xx, 84, 87– 88, 95, 125–26, 155, 183, 186–87; McDowell
1998a, 184–85; McDowell 2000, 7; McDowell 2009j, 168–69.
6. McDowell 1994, xxiii.
7. Brandom 2002a, 93.
8. McDowell 1994, 64, 69– 70; McDowell 2009a, viii.
9. McDowell 1994, 116.
10. McDowell 1994, 29– 30, 32– 34; McDowell 2009b, 7.
11. McDowell 1994, 70, 76– 77, 87– 88, 98; McDowell 2009g, 124.
12. McDowell 1994, 74.
13. Sedgwick 1997, 25.
14. McDowell 1994, 78, 83– 84, 88.
15. Ibid., 78.
16. Ibid., 88.
17. Plato 1997a, 96a– 115a (83– 97).
18. McDowell 1994, 92.
19. McDowell 1994, 109– 10; McDowell 1998a, 171, 190.
20. McDowell 2009h, 133; McDowell 2009l, 271–72.
21. McDowell 1994, 115.
22. Ibid., 89.
23. Ibid., 117– 19.
24. Marx 1975b, 327– 30, 347.
25. Marx 1981a, 999.
26. McDowell 1998a, 172, 188– 89.
27. Ibid., 173.
28. McDowell 1994, 111.
29. McDowell 1994, 85, 91, 103– 4; McDowell 1998a, 197.
30. Aristotle 1999, lines 1112a– 1113a (34– 36); Johnston 2009c, 74–76.
31. McDowell 1994, 108– 9.
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Chapter 19

1. McDowell 1994, 88, 91, 109– 10, 115, 178; McDowell 2007, 370.
2. McDowell 1994, 77.
3. Ibid.
4. McDowell 1998a, 192– 93; McDowell 2009k, 186–88.
5. McDowell 2009k, 186.
6. Ibid., 188.
7. McDowell 1994, 78, 97.
8. McDowell 1994, 109; R. J. Bernstein 2002, 23.
9. McDowell 1998b, 338.
10. Ibid., 339.
11. McDowell 1994, 85.
12. McDowell 1994, 78, 89; McDowell 2009k, 187.
13. McDowell 1994, 89.
14. Johnston 2008, 241; Johnston 2014a, 113–15.
15. Halbig 2006, 229– 30.
16. McDowell 1994, 75– 76.
17. McDowell 1998c, 344.
18. McDowell 1994, 11.
19. Bowie 1996, 541, 549– 50.
20. McDowell 1998a, 170– 71.
21. McDowell 2009i, 160– 65; McDowell 2009j, 179– 84; McDowell 2009k,
200.
22. Pippin 2007, 412– 13.
23. R. J. Bernstein 2002, 10.
24. Halbig 2006, 230.
25. Ibid., 222.
26. Ibid., 222, 226– 27.
27. Ibid., 223, 235– 37.
28. Ibid., 224.
29. Macdonald 2006, 222, 225, 230– 31.
30. Pippin 2005b, 197.
31. Ibid., 202.
32. Varela, Thompson, and Rosch 1991, 196.
33. Halbig 2006, 239.
34. Brandom 2009, 98.
35. Brandom 2002a, 104.
36. Houlgate 2006a, 242.
37. McDowell 1994, 123– 24.
38. McDowell 1994, 74, 88, 97; Rand 2007, 397.
39. Lacan SXVII, 66; Johnston 2013b, 13– 38.
40. Lacan 2013, 53– 85; Johnston 2013b, 13– 38.
41. Johnston 2013b, 81– 107.
42. Brassier 2007, xi; Johnston 2009b, 107– 9.
43. Moss 2004, 52– 54, 77.
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44. Lacan SVII, 139; Lacan SXVI, 224– 25, 249.

45. Hegel 1977c, 15, 51– 52.
46. Ibid., 15– 17, 31– 33, 35– 36, 51– 54.
47. Houlgate 2009, 29– 47.
48. McDowell 2009i, 184.
49. Stern 1999, 250.
50. J. M. Bernstein 2002, 219– 20.
51. Stern 1999, 260– 64.
52. Houlgate 2006a, 258.
53. Longuenesse 2007, 7– 8, 14– 17, 145– 46.
54. McDowell 2002, 274, 277.

Chapter 20

1. Houlgate 2006a, 254– 55.

2. Cartwright 1999, 1, 9, 12, 23, 57, 105, 110, 137; Cartwright 2016, 45.
3. Lukács 1978b, 103.
4. Cartwright 1999, 1.
5. Cartwright 1999, 23, 34; Cartwright 2016, 47.
6. Cartwright 1999, 29.
7. Ibid., 48.
8. Hegel 1977c, 90– 91.
9. Cartwright 1999, 95.
10. Ibid., 24, 37.
11. Ibid., 6.
12. Dupré 1993, 7.
13. Ibid., 184, 193, 201, 203.
14. Cartwright 1999, 10.
15. Cartwright 1999, 31; Cartwright 2016, 26.
16. Dupré 1993, 6– 7, 262.
17. Ibid., 131.
18. Cartwright 1999, 2– 3, 216– 18, 223, 228, 230–33.
19. Ibid., 25.
20. Cartwright 2016, 28.
21. Ibid., 31– 32, 50.
22. Cartwright 1999, 32– 33.
23. Ibid., 33.
24. Cartwright 1999, 4, 7, 9, 188; Cartwright 2016, 33–36.
25. Cartwright 1999, 57– 58, 73; Dupré 1993, 187.
26. Cartwright 1999, 33.
27. Ibid., 86, 102, 122, 124, 158.
28. Ibid., 153.
29. Rosset 2004, 32– 35, 83– 84, 310– 11; Nietzsche 1974, §109 (168–69).
30. Rosset 2004, 58– 60, 62.
31. Cartwright 1999, 47.
 333
NO TE S TO PAGE S 2 8 6 –2 9 0

32. Cartwright 2016, 33, 36.

33. Ibid., 39, 44.
34. Cartwright 1999, 49, 52, 57, 59, 77, 122, 128–29, 134–35, 148–49, 173;
Cartwright 2016, 47.
35. Cartwright 1999, 139.
36. Cartwright 1999, 57– 58, 73, 139; Cartwright 2016, 48.
37. Cartwright 1999, 88.
38. Cartwright 1999, 121; Cartwright 2016, 47–48.
39. Cartwright 1999, 89.
40. Cartwright 2016, 27.
41. Cartwright 1999, 124.
42. Ibid., 138.
43. Ibid., 114– 15.
44. Ibid., 176.
45. Ibid., 151.
46. Locke 1959, 315– 39.
47. Hume 1993, 62– 63.
48. Hume 1993, 56–57, 65, 68; Hume 1985, 447–65; Johnston 2013b, 206–7.
49. Cartwright 2016, 48– 49.
50. Sellars 1963, 2– 4, 6, 17– 18, 20, 36– 37, 39–40.
51. McDowell 1994, 86.
52. Cartwright 2016, 26.
53. McDowell 1994, 86.
54. Ibid., 95.
55. Halbig 2006, 237.
56. Macdonald 2006, 232– 33.
57. Johnston 2013b, 5, 32– 38, 50– 51, 75, 91, 104; Johnston 2014a, 160.
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There are three sets of abbreviations I use when citing certain works. Citations
of Hegel’s Werke in zwanzig Bänden are formatted as W, followed by the volume
number and the page number (e.g., Hegel W 1: 234). All citations of Freud, in
reference to the Standard Edition, are formatted as SE, followed by the volume
number and the page number (e.g., Freud SE 21: 154). The abbreviation system
for Lacan’s seminars is a little more complicated. All seminars are abbreviated S,
followed by the Roman numeral of the volume number. For those seminars avail-
able in English (seminars 1, 2, 3, 7, 8, 10, 11, 17, 20, and 23), I simply give the
page numbers of the volumes as published by W. W. Norton and, more recently,
Polity (e.g., Lacan SXI, 256). In a few instances, I refer to the original French
editions of these translated seminars; when I do so, I indicate this in brackets as
[Fr.]. For those seminars published in French in book form but not translated
into English (seminars 4, 6, 16, and 18), the listed page numbers refer to the
French editions published by Éditions du Seuil and, more recently, Éditions de
la Martinière (e.g., Lacan SXVI, 52). As for the rest of the seminars, the dates of
the seminar sessions (month/day/year) are listed in place of page numbers (e.g.,
Lacan SXV, 12/6/67).

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 Index
absentialism, 7, 190– 95, 196, 200, 205– 6,
208, 210, 220
Adorno, Theodor, xv, 78, 79
Agamben, Giorgio, 141, 148, 247
Alberini, Cristina, 232
alienation, 83, 143, 168, 209
Almasi, Miklós, 166
Althusser, Louis, xii, xiii, xix, 4– 5, 78,
116, 137–53, 154, 160, 247; Hegel
and, 17, 27, 137, 148; humanism and,
142, 148; Marxism and, 77– 78, 87,
137–46; science and, 140– 45, 150– 51,
181
works: Elements of Self-Criticism, 139– 40;
For Marx, 4, 137– 38, 141, 147, 154,
172; “The Humanist Controversy,”
141, 142–46; Introduction to Philosophy
for Non-Philosophers, 149, 151; Philos-
ophy and the Spontaneous Philosophy of
the Scientists, 140, 141, 152; Reading
Capital, 4, 137–38, 141, 147, 152, 154,
172; “Theory, Theoretical Practice,
and Theoretical Formation,” 150;
“Three Notes on the Theory of Dis-
courses,” 151
Anderson, Kevin, 115– 16
animals, vii, 56, 78, 86, 101, 105, 217, 230;
McDowell on, 268– 69
anorganicity, 8, 208, 210– 12, 214, 215,
217, 218; human brain and, 222– 24,
234; more-is-less principle of, 249– 50,
251
Ansermet, François, and Pierre Magistretti,
9, 227–28, 230–43
anthropogenesis, xix, 132, 137, 162, 169,
175, 176–78, 180
Aristotle, 39, 93, 157, 211, 268, 270; Lukács
and, 166; soul and, 211, 224
atheism, xviii, 59, 68, 84, 123, 127, 131,
199, 245– 46, 248, 251, 278; “religious
atheism,” 167
Ayoub, Josiane Boulad, 165
Bacon, Francis, 24, 31, 35, 36, 97, 126, 190,
251, 278
Badiou, Alain, xix, 6– 7, 83, 134– 35, 136,
140, 148, 190, 224, 247; mathematics
and, 278– 79; Sartre and, 164
Bakunin, Mikhail, 111
Balibar, Étienne, 138, 154
Bauer, Raymond, 103
Belinsky, Vissarion, 111
Bellarmino, Roberto, 166
Benhabib, Seyla, 165
Benjamin, Walter, xii, xiv– xviii
Bergsonism, 78
Berkeley, George, 264
Bernstein, Jay, 280
Bernstein, Richard, 274
biologism, 142, 207; capitalist, 134– 35
biology. See Darwinian evolutionary theory;
human brain; science
“biology of freedom,” 228, 230, 237– 38,
240, 242– 43
bio-materialism, 103, 144
biopolitics, 134, 141
Bloch, Ernst, 18
Bogdanov, Alexander, 115
Boutroux, Émile, 169
Bowie, Andrew, 273
Brandom, Robert, xii– xiv, 19, 260, 264– 65,
274, 280; on dualism, 277
Brassier, Ray, 279
Brücke, Ernst, 6
Büchner, Ludwig, 6
Bukharin, Nikolai, 74, 123– 29, 262
373
374
I N DE X
Cantor, Georg, 254, 279
Cartwright, Nancy, 11, 261, 282– 90
causality, 53, 121, 124, 188– 89, 192; final,
39, 41, 60, 190; Hume and, 288; priva-
tive, 7, 9, 187, 188– 90, 197, 199, 211,
221, 246
Chalmers, David, 194, 242
Changeux, Jean-Pierre, 224
Chesterton, G. K., 252– 54
Christianity, 31, 68– 69, 248, 252– 54
Churchill, Winston, 279
coherentism, 262– 64, 268, 272, 273– 74,
276
Colletti, Lucio, 148
compatibilism, 113, 126, 163, 178, 180– 81
contemplative materialism, 6, 86, 88, 89,
123, 147, 149, 174, 175
contingency, xiii
Damasio, Antonio, 224– 27, 229, 235, 236
Darwinian evolutionary theory: Althusser
and, 140, 142– 45, 151; American
culture war against, 248– 49; analytic
philosophers and, 248; Badiou and,
247; Deacon and, 191; Hegel and 15,
39–42, 160; human brain and, 223–
27; Lacan and, 239, 248; Lukács and,
159, 168, 174, 177; Marx and Engels
and, 76–77, 87, 94– 95, 96– 97, 101– 3,
104, 131, 140, 143, 168, 174; Monod
on, 250–51; neglect by continental
philosophers of, 246– 47; Sartre and,
163; social Darwinism, 58, 77, 87
Davidson, Donald, 263, 264, 272
Deacon, Terrence, 7, 10, 190– 95, 200,
205–6, 208, 210, 215, 218, 220
Deborinites, 124
Deleuze, Gilles, 17
democratic materialism, 134– 35, 136
Dennett, Daniel, 248, 273
Derrida, Jacques, 17
Descartes, René, 31, 35, 193, 269
determinism, 11, 40, 58– 59, 86, 124, 135,
136, 195, 267, 287; Lukács and, 177–
78; neurobiology and, 237– 41, 243;
Rose on, 106– 7; sociocultural, 240– 41
DeVries, Willem, 56
dialectical materialism, xi, xiii, xvii, xix,
3–5, 74, 82, 174; Althusser and, 5,
138–44, 147, 151– 52; coinage of term,
93; Dietzgen and, 97– 98, 100; Engels
and Marx and, 74, 75– 77, 80, 83, 87,
89– 90, 93, 95, 96, 98– 100, 106, 120,
127, 144, 155, 158, 164, 170, 179, 181;
Freudianism and, 6; Hegel and, 159;
Lacan and, 6– 7, 10, 151, 201; Lenin
and other Soviets on, 84, 110– 35, 164;
Lukács and, 161, 163, 164, 165– 66,
168, 175– 77, 178; Merleau-Ponty and,
154; nature in, 85; Sartre and, 162– 64;
Stalin and, 161
dialectical naturalism, xix, xx, 3, 5, 7, 11,
117, 132, 134, 178, 187, 200, 261
dialectics of nature, xix, 4, 74, 83, 108,
110– 11, 135, 145– 46, 163– 65; Engels
and, xviii, 17, 73, 77, 81, 85, 95– 96, 98,
100, 105, 107, 119, 138, 142, 144, 156,
162, 164; Lukács and, 156, 162, 163,
165– 66, 170, 174; Sartre and, 163– 64
Dietzgen, Joseph, xvii, 17, 93, 97– 98, 99–
100, 105
disenchantment, 32, 60– 61, 251– 54,
278– 81
drive theory, 29, 211, 227– 37, 242; instinct
and, 228, 230, 232– 33, 235
Dunayevskaya, Raya, 115– 16, 117, 118– 19,
122
Dupré, John, 283– 84
Einstein, Albert, 31
emergentism, 25, 38, 42, 65, 77, 106,
108, 124, 125, 159; Cartwright and,
284; Deacon and, 190– 95; emergent
dualism, 133; Lukács and, 172– 74, 182
empiricism, xviii, 11, 15– 16, 17, 20, 22, 31,
55– 56, 96, 268, 272, 276; Cartwright
and, 287– 88; Dietzgen and, 97– 98;
neglect of, 187– 88; McDowell and,
282; Sellars and, 259– 60, 262– 63; two
forms of, 78
Engels, Friedrich, xi, xiii, 73– 84, 85, 87–
90, 94– 95, 96– 112, 131– 32, 135– 36,
137, 140, 165; Althusser and, 138; on
ancient Greek philosophy, 96; cari-
catures and current reputation of, 4,
73; Hegel and, 17, 73, 81, 96– 97, 107,
110, 112, 116, 126; law of the negation
of the negation, 107, 129; Lukács on,
5, 95, 155– 56, 158, 159, 170, 180, 182;
Naturdialektik of, xvi, xvii, xviii– xix, 5,

I N DE X
73, 75–77, 80, 83, 85, 88, 97, 98, 105,
107–10, 127, 131, 141; nominalism
and, 126; Plekhanov and, 111– 12; as
scapegoat for Marx, 79– 80, 115, 118,
161; Stalin and, 107, 129; wholeness
imagery in, 96
works: Anti-Dühring, 73, 81, 96, 97,
99, 159, 165; Communist Manifesto
(with Marx), xviii; Dialectics of Nature,
17, 73, 96, 100, 105, 107, 119, 144,
165; The German Ideology (with Marx),
69, 137, 148, 149; Ludwig Feuerbach,
73, 96, 97, 101, 112, 114, 159, 165; The
Origin of the Family, Private Property,
and the State, 84; “The Part Played by
Labour in the Transition from Ape to
Man,” 87, 101–5, 110, 142, 144– 45,
180
epigenetics, 103, 146, 224, 230– 31, 236– 39,
261, 280
epiphenomenalism, 51, 54, 59, 87, 89, 121,
126, 152, 155, 173, 206
Euclid, 201
evolution. See Darwinian evolutionary
theory
existentialism, xviii, 17, 73, 218; Lukács
and, 154, 158–62, 167– 68
Falkenburg, Brigitte, 56
Fechner, Gustav, 6
Fehér, Ferenc, 165
Fenichel, Otto, 6
Feuerbach, Ludwig, 5, 85– 86, 88, 97, 99,
114, 121, 137, 143, 147– 49, 172, 253
Fichte, Johann Gottlieb, 24, 26, 32, 67,
171–72
Foucault, Michel, 141, 148, 241, 247
Frankfurt school, 6, 73, 77– 79
Frege, Gottlob, xii, 196
French Communist Party (PCF), 138, 154,
164
French Revolution, 23– 24
Freud, Sigmund, xiv, 5– 6, 8, 17, 103, 187,
239, 244, 247–48; Althusser and, 141;
on castration, 204; drives in, 29, 211,
228–30, 231, 235; helplessness in, 151,
207; Lacan and, 141, 202, 204, 211,
212; metapsychology of, 235– 36; on
the psyche, 225; Ricoeur and, 141;
unconscious and, 202
375
works: Beyond the Pleasure Principle,
211, 230, 236; “Negation,” 201; “On
Transience,” 255; Project for a Scientific
Psychology, 6
Gadamer, Hans-Georg, 259
Galilei, Galileo, 24, 31, 35, 36, 140, 166,
188, 190, 251, 278
Garaudy, Roger, 117, 163, 164
German idealism, xvii, 5, 6, 7, 29, 278,
288; Hegel and, 16, 17, 32; Marx and
Engels and, 75; McDowell and, 10
German romanticism, 6, 16, 65, 168, 251,
278
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 15
Goldmann, Lucien, 160, 166, 167, 168
Graham, Loren, 103
Gramsci, Antonio, 83, 130
Granovsky, Timofei, 111
Haeckel, Ernst, 64, 176
Halbig, Christoph, 274– 75, 290
Harris, H. S., 18, 55
Hartmann, Nicolai, 168– 69, 170, 172– 73
Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, xiv, 3– 8,
10, 15– 69, 76, 96– 97, 110, 127– 28,
183, 208, 213, 247– 48, 259, 280– 81;
absolute idealism of, 3, 10, 16– 17, 20,
26, 31– 36, 45, 47, 50, 54, 61, 91, 97,
98, 112– 14, 116– 17, 119, 127, 149,
178, 264– 65, 273– 74; absolute ontol-
ogy in, 171– 72; anti-romanticism of,
60; caricatures and current reputation
of, 15–17, 25– 26, 40, 52, 54, 259– 60,
265; contingency in, xii, 23, 28, 45, 52,
57, 62, 65; Deborinites and, 124; dia-
lectical speculation in, 8, 17, 21, 38,
40, 56, 110, 112, 114; evolution and,
15, 39– 42; on foresight, xvi; on human
nature, 24– 29; “Idea” in, 19– 20, 22,
45, 47– 49, 54, 120; on the infinite,
44– 47, 49– 50, 61; liberation struggle
(Befreiungskampf ) in, 45, 51; Logic in,
44– 51, 67; Nature in, 24, 42– 51, 52,
56– 63, 66, 75, 90, 266; Naturphilosophie
of, xiii, xvii, xix, 3, 15, 17, 19– 21, 24,
25, 30, 39, 41, 44, 48, 50– 52, 56– 59,
65– 67, 76, 80, 96, 97, 119– 20, 121,
125, 127, 158, 162– 63, 165, 169, 179,
217, 250, 275, 280, 289; night imagery
376
I N DE X
in, 26–28, 208; on organic life, 29, 38–
42; on organic nature, 42– 43, 53; Owl
of Minerva in, xvi, 20, 63, 66, 67, 112;
on phrenology, 37, 39, 42, 53; plas-
ticity in, 59–60; quantity and quality
dialectics in, 76, 107– 8, 113, 122, 127,
129, 152; Realphilosophie of, 20, 44, 48,
49, 53–54, 66, 100, 217, 250; on rea-
son and consciousness, 30– 34, 36– 38,
41–42, 52–53, 57, 61, 64, 66, 113; on
religion, 31, 68– 69; separation in, 25–
26; Sittlichkeit and Moralität contrast in,
63, 270; soul in, 58; Spirit in, 44– 45,
47, 49–51, 52, 56, 62, 64, 65, 114, 277;
substance-also-as-subject and, 3, 17–
19, 24–26, 28, 30, 56, 121, 179, 182;
on war, 251; on “weakness of nature,”
3, 21, 52, 56–65, 179, 182, 218. See also
natural sciences
works: The Difference Between Fichte’s
and Schelling’s System of Philosophy, 18,
25; “The Earliest System-Program of
German Idealism,” 23– 24, 28, 68; Ele-
ments of the Philosophy of Right, 63, 66,
67, 112, 113; Encyclopedia of the Philo-
sophical Sciences, 15, 19, 23, 42, 50– 51,
52, 53–54, 66, 67, 208, 265; Faith and
Knowledge, 24, 68; First Philosophy of
Spirit, 28; Jenaer Realphilosophie, 26, 28,
208; Lectures on the History of Philos-
ophy, 63, 114; Lectures on Logic, 51, 52;
Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion, 62;
Logic and Metaphysics, 44– 47; Natural
Law, 28; Phenomenology of Spirit, 17– 18,
19, 21, 25, 28, 30– 43, 52– 55, 61, 63,
65–66, 68, 98, 158, 217– 18, 260, 273,
280, 283; “Philosophical Disserta-
tion on the Orbits of the Planets,” 45;
Philosophy of Mind, 26, 53, 54, 59, 62,
64–65, 67, 208; Philosophy of Nature,
xvii, 15–17, 27, 38, 40– 41, 54, 55– 56,
59, 62, 64–65, 67, 98, 120, 208, 265,
277; Philosophy of Spirit, 208, 265, 277;
Science of Logic, 34, 47– 51, 54– 55, 77,
119, 120, 167; “The Spirit of Christian-
ity and Its Fate,” 24; System of Specula-
tive Philosophy, 27
Heidegger, Martin, xii, 21, 79, 215– 16, 247;
on Hegel, 19; Kant and, 167; Lukács
and, 160, 162, 167– 69, 170, 171– 72;
religion and, 252, 253
Heller, Agnes, 161– 62, 165, 166
helplessness (in infants), 232, 238– 39;
Freud and, 151, 207; Lacan and, 151,
207, 210, 246– 47
Heraclitus, 96, 209, 234
Herzen, Aleksandr, 111
Hessen, Boris, 74
historical materialism, xi, xiii, xvi– xvii, xix,
3– 5, 74– 75, 112, 174– 75; Althusser
and, 138– 41, 143– 47, 152; Engels and
Marx and, 73, 75, 80– 81, 88, 90, 91,
92– 93, 94– 95, 99, 101, 103, 109, 138,
144, 149, 170; Hegel and, 119; Lukács
and, 156, 158– 59, 165, 167, 168, 175–
76, 178
Hitler, Adolf, xvii
Hobbes, Thomas, 97– 98, 126, 135, 174
Hofstadter, Douglas, 106
Holbach, Paul-Henri Thiry, Baron d’, vii
Hopkins, Gerard Manley, 282
Horkheimer, Max, xv, xix
Houlgate, Stephen, 49, 265, 277, 280– 81
human brain, 222– 28, 229– 41, 244, 248–
49, 277
humanism, 88, 93, 95, 137, 142– 43, 148,
246– 47
Hume, David, 11, 53, 58, 287– 88
Husserl, Edmund, 215
Hyppolite, Jean, 27, 163
immanentism, 117, 164, 165
individualism, 182– 83
inferentialism, xii– xiii, 274
infinity, 44– 47, 254
irrationalism, 57, 78, 83, 160
Jacobi, F. H., 60, 160
Jiang Zemin, 206
Joós, Ernest, 166
Joravsky, David, 115– 16
Jordan, Z. A., 67, 80
Judaism, 31, 68
Kandel, Eric, 244
Kant, Immanuel, xii, 7– 8, 23, 24, 40, 171,
192, 204, 247, 259, 263– 65; on causal-
ity, 188, 189, 190; Hegel and, 34– 35,

I N DE X
38, 42, 53, 67, 114, 119, 127, 166, 172,
178–79, 200; on nature, 27– 28; on
nothing (Nichts), 196– 204, 218, 220;
subjective idealism of, 10, 26, 32, 67,
113, 159, 172; transcendental idealism
of, 7, 17, 34–36, 116, 148, 166, 178,
188, 189, 196, 198, 200, 204, 264– 65,
274
works: Critique of the Power of Judgment,
38, 190; Critique of Pure Reason, 7, 25,
34, 36, 188, 196, 198– 200, 202, 203,
264
Kautsky, Karl, 93
kenosis, 68
Kierkegaard, Søren, 17
Klee, Paul, xvi
Kojève, Alexandre, 27, 218
Komarov, V. L., 74, 76
Korsch, Karl, 5, 155
Kouvelakis, Stathis, 115– 16
Koyré, Alexandre, 141, 187
labor: Althusser and, 143, 144; Hegel and,
45, 60; intellectual vs. manual, 105;
Lukács and, 172, 175, 179– 81; in
Marxism, 78, 86– 88, 91– 92, 103– 5,
143, 163, 179–80; “social labor,” 143,
144, 146–49, 151, 172, 177, 178, 180,
269
Lacan, Jacques, xiv, xv, xvii– xviii, 5– 10,
29, 187, 192, 196, 198, 201– 21,
239– 40, 242, 244, 245– 48, 250, 252,
285; Althusser on, 150; counter-
nature in, 210; drives and, 229; on
economics, 135; embodiment and,
8, 247; Freud and, 141, 202, 204,
211, 212; helplessness in, 151, 207,
210, 246– 47; Kant and, 7– 8, 201– 4;
McDowell and, 259– 61; metapsychol-
ogy of, 151, 211, 213; mirror stage
in, 8, 10, 208– 10, 212, 214, 216– 18;
nature and, 26, 207, 211– 13, 217– 18,
220; need-demand-desire triad in,
207; privation-castration-frustration
triad in, 204, 206, 218– 20; the Real,
Imaginary, and Symbolic registers in,
203– 6, 207, 217, 218– 21, 230, 231,
232, 236, 245, 250; sexual difference
in, 227
377
works: “Aggressiveness in Psychoanal-
ysis,” 209, 211; “The Direction of the
Treatment and the Principles of Its
Power,” 210; “The Family Complexes
in the Formation of the Individual,”
208– 9; “The Freudian Thing,” 211;
“Guiding Remarks for a Conven-
tion on Female Sexuality,” 213; “The
Mirror Stage as Formative of the
I Function as Revealed in Psycho-
analytic Experience,” 208, 210, 212,
216– 17; “On My Antecedents,” 212,
214– 16; “On a Question Prior to Any
Possible Treatment of Psychosis,”
210; “Remarks on Daniel Lagache’s
Presentation,” 212, 213– 14; Seminars,
201– 5, 210, 211, 213, 217; “Some
Reflections on the Ego,” 210; “Varia-
tions on the Standard Treatment,”
217– 18
Lacano-Marxism, 6– 7
Lamarck, Jean-Baptiste, 39
Laplace, Pierre-Simon, 40, 59
Lear, Jonathan, 229, 234
Lebrun, Gérard, 24– 25
Lecourt, Dominique, 116, 117
LeDoux, Joseph, 222, 223, 226
Lefebvre, Henri, 115– 17
leftism, xv, xvii, 83– 84
Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm, xii, 39, 60
Lendvai, Ferenc, 165, 166
Lenin, Vladimir, xiii, xvi, xix, 4, 74, 105,
114– 23, 131– 32; anti-nominalist doc-
trine of, 126; Engels and, 112, 118– 19,
121– 22; Hegel and, 77, 113, 115, 116,
119– 21, 132; Marx and, 118, 119, 122;
Plekhanov and, 113– 14, 115, 117,
118– 19; religion and, 118, 123
works: “Conspectus of Hegel’s Book
The Science of Logic,” 115, 117, 118,
119, 121; Materialism and Empirio-
Criticism, 74, 79, 111, 114– 18, 120,
121– 23, 141, 159, 161, 165; “On the
Question of Dialectics,” 118, 122; “On
the Significance of Militant Material-
ism,” 84, 118, 122– 23; Philosophical
Notebooks, 113, 114– 23, 127, 161; “The
Three Sources and Three Component
Parts of Marxism,” 118, 123
378
I N DE X
Levins, Richard, 73– 74, 77, 82, 105– 6,
108–10
Lewontin, Richard, 73, 77, 82, 105– 6, 107,
108–10
Linden, David, 223, 248– 49
Locke, John, 7, 53, 126, 187– 90, 197, 199,
287
Longuenesse, Béatrice, 17, 281
Löwy, Michael, 115– 16, 117
Lukács, Georg, xiii, xvii, 4, 5, 79, 154–
83; autonomy in, 170, 173, 175, 178;
Budapest school of, 158, 162, 165; on
capitalism, 157– 58, 181; Engels and,
5, 95, 155–56, 158, 159, 170, 180, 182;
Hegel and, 17, 158– 59, 160, 166, 172,
175, 178–81; Lenin and, 115, 166;
Marx(ism) and, 75, 117, 127, 130,
170–72, 173, 174, 181; nature in, 156–
59, 169, 172, 174– 76, 179, 182; science
and, 159, 165, 168, 172, 181– 82; sexu-
ality in, 176; Stalinism and, 161– 62
works: The Destruction of Reason, 127,
158–61, 167; Existentialism or Marx-
ism?, 158–61, 167; History and Class
Consciousness, 4, 5, 145, 154, 155– 56,
158, 160–61, 165– 67, 172, 174, 183;
Ontology of Social Being, xvii, 5, 155,
156, 158, 160– 61, 165– 83, 282; Prole-
gomena to the Ontology of Social Being,
168, 170–71, 174, 178, 180, 181– 82;
“Tailism and the Dialectic,” 155– 58;
The Young Hegel, 113, 158, 179
Lysenko, Trofim, 4, 75, 76, 81– 82, 103,
130; Michurian biology of, 142, 160
Mabille, Bernard, 18
Macdonald, Graham, 275, 290
Magistretti, Pierre. See Ansermet, François
Malabou, Catherine, 27, 59, 151, 231
Mao Zedong, 110
Marcus, Gary, 223
Marcuse, Herbert, 21
Márkus, György, 165
Marr, Nicolai, 130
Marx, Karl, xiii, xvi, xviii– xix, 4– 5, 67, 75,
83, 85–95, 131– 33, 135– 36, 138, 140,
143–44, 170, 247– 48; Engels and,
4, 79–81, 83, 85, 87, 90, 96– 97, 108;
Hegel and, 17, 73, 81, 89, 91, 92– 93,
110, 112, 117, 149, 178– 79; on human
nature and “species-being” (Gattungs-
wesen), 4, 86, 92– 94, 102, 109, 110,
135, 143, 146– 49, 152– 53; on nature,
90– 91, 102, 174; “real abstractions”
doctrine of, 89, 120– 21, 126, 129– 30,
155, 173, 177
works: Capital, 69, 90, 91– 92, 93, 108,
139, 144, 147, 149, 153, 269; Com-
munist Manifesto (with Engels), xviii;
“Critique of the Gotha Programme,”
149; Economic and Philosophical Manu-
scripts, 87– 89, 90, 94, 144, 146– 47,
152, 172, 174, 259, 269; The German
Ideology (with Engels), 69, 137, 148,
149; Grundrisse der Kritik der Poli-
tischen Ökonomie, 62– 63, 90– 93, 153,
177; The Poverty of Philosophy, 147;
“Theses on Feuerbach,” 85– 86, 88,
99, 100, 122– 23, 137, 138, 146, 148–
49, 254
Marxism, xv– xvi, xviii, xix, 73– 84, 86– 90,
95, 100, 114, 118; Darwinism and, 87;
Hegelianism and, 3– 4, 17, 90; human
nature in, 87– 88, 105; nominalism
and, 126; science and, 128, 130, 131–
32, 154; Stalin and, 129– 30; Western
vs. Soviet, 4, 5, 73, 79
Marxism and Modern Thought (ed. Bukharin
et al.), 74– 75
materialism: Dietzgen and, 99– 100; Engels
and, 99; French Enlightenment and,
126; Hegel and, 18, 53, 76; idealism
vs., 6, 85– 87, 88– 89, 112– 13, 149, 159,
169; Lacan and, 151, 211, 215; Lenin
and, 117, 118– 20; Marxist, 131, 135,
159, 170– 71, 179; non-reductive, 5, 9–
10, 155, 251; realist, 124, 211; recent
trend of, xviii– xx, 4; reductive (“vul-
gar”), 6, 25, 76, 78, 87, 89, 120– 21,
123, 170; science and, 243
McDowell, John, 10– 11, 259– 81, 288– 89;
Hegel and, 259, 263– 66, 270, 273,
277, 280, 289; Kant and, 263– 64, 266,
267, 270, 273– 74; Marx and, 259,
269, 272, 274; naturalism in, 262,
265, 266, 267– 70, 271– 80, 282– 83,
284, 289– 90
works: Having the World in View, 260,
263– 64; “The Logical Form of an In-
tuition,” 263– 64; Mind and World, 260,

I N DE X
262–65, 267, 271– 73, 275, 276, 277,
290; Mind, Value, and Reality, 260
Meillassoux, Quentin, 114, 187
Menshevism, 113
Merleau-Ponty, Maurice, 115, 154, 160
Miller, Jacques-Alain, 196, 204– 5, 245
mind-body problem, 100, 194, 269, 273
Mocek, Reinhard, 166
Moleschott, Jacob, 6
Monod, Jacques, 152, 250
naturalism, xviii–xix, 3, 100, 275; Cart-
wright and, 283, 284, 287, 289; Hegel
and, 18, 49–50, 260; Lacan and, 204;
Lenin and, 118, 119, 124, 131; Marx
and, 88–91, 95, 131; McDowell and,
10–11, 260– 61, 267– 80; Rose and, 107
naturalist materialism, xi, xviii, xx, 18, 58–
59, 61, 90, 138–54, 225
natural sciences, 11, 131– 32, 144, 146,
251–52, 275; antipathy to, 135, 251–
52; Engels and, 99, 131; Hegel and,
15, 22, 24, 30, 33– 34, 36– 42, 53, 54–
58; Kant and, 189; Lenin and, 118,
121, 123; Lukács and, 157– 58, 179,
181–82; Marx and, 88– 99, 158; Sartre
and, 162–63
negation of the negation, 68, 107, 129,
130, 223
negativity, 8, 9–10, 26– 27, 28, 46, 97;
Freud’s “Negation,” 201; Heidegger
and, 247; Kant’s negative categories,
196–204; Lacan and, 201, 246; Lukács
and, 177; in mathematics, 201– 2;
nature and, 62; in psychoanalysis, 187.
See also non-given
neo-Hegelianism, 10– 11, 259– 60, 289
Newton, Isaac, 15, 24, 35, 39, 40, 58, 74,
99, 116, 190, 201, 284
Nietzsche, Friedrich, 17, 167, 241, 247– 48,
252, 285
nominalism, 98, 126, 204, 235, 238
non-given, myth of, 245– 51
nurture over nature, 135, 147, 172, 232,
234, 238
ontogeny and phylogeny, 152, 169, 175– 76,
239–43; Lacan and, 245, 247, 248
ontology, 168–80, 188– 89, 243; McDowell
and, 273–74
379
Orcel, Jean, 163
organicism, 222– 23, 226, 250
otherness: Hegel and, 34, 35, 44, 54, 61,
64; in Lacan, 217, 219
Panksepp, Jaak, 235
Pannekoek, Anton, 98, 105
Pascal, Blaise, 160
Penrose, Roger, 288– 89
phenomenology, 17, 38, 67, 78, 159, 160–
61, 171, 214, 215– 16
physics, 53, 74, 76– 77, 138, 141, 176, 190,
192– 93, 198, 208, 272, 275; Aristotle
and, 157; Cartwright and, 282– 90;
Hegel and, 23– 24, 37, 38, 55, 56, 60,
65, 128; Newtonian, 39, 58, 74, 99,
116, 141, 284; quantum, 254, 284,
288– 89
Pico della Mirandola, Giovanni, 148, 246
Pinkard, Terry, 18, 19– 21, 58, 260
Pippin, Robert, 11, 16, 17, 260, 264– 65,
271, 274– 76, 279– 81, 282, 289
Planty-Bonjour, Guy, 111, 114, 115, 131– 34
plasticity: in Hegel, 59– 60; in Marxism,
103; in neurobiology, 224, 230– 31,
233, 234, 236– 38, 241
Plato, 168, 242, 269
Plekhanov, Georgi, 75, 98, 105, 110, 115,
118, 122, 127; Hegel and, 111– 14
Pollak-Lederer, Jacques, 166
Pommier, Gérard, 236– 37
Poster, Mark, 160, 163
primary and secondary qualities, 188, 189
privation, 205– 6
privative causality. See causality
psychoanalysis, 7– 9, 187, 222, 235, 243–
44; Lukács and, 175– 76, 182; Sartre
and, 182– 83. See also Freud, Sigmund;
Lacan, Jacques
Quine, W. V. O., 78
Rancière, Jacques, 97
rationality: Brandom on, xii– xiii; Hegel
and, 33, 37– 38, 49, 57, 265
Redding, Paul, 265
Reich, Wilhelm, 6
religion, 252– 55, 278; Hegel and, 31, 68–
69; Heidegger and, 252, 253; Lacan
and, 245, 278; Lenin and, 118, 123;
380
I N DE X
Lukács and, 169; Marx and, 131– 32;
neurosis and, 255; transcendental ma-
terialism and, 68, 252, 255
Renault, Emmanuel, 58
representation, 205– 6
Ricoeur, Paul, 141, 247
Rockmore, Tom, 160
Rorty, Richard, 260, 290
Rose, Steven, 77, 105, 106, 135– 36
Rosset, Clément, 285
Russell, Bertrand, 275
Sartre, Jean-Paul, 148, 160, 162– 64, 178,
182–83, 218, 247
Schelling, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph, 16,
17, 18, 23, 38, 40, 41, 45– 46, 58, 113,
213; Engels and, 97; identity philos-
ophy of, 25, 45, 91, 121; Lukács and,
160; Naturphilosophie of, 54
Schiller, Friedrich, 251
Schmidt, Alfred, 75, 85, 102
Schopenhauer, Arthur, 17
Schreber, Daniel Paul, 201
science: Althusser and, 140–45, 150–51,
181; Chesterton on, 252–54; Deacon
on, 190–95; Freud and, 252; Heidegger
and, 168, 252; Lacan and, 201, 207–8,
211–16, 224, 240; Lukács and, 159,
165, 168, 172, 181–82; Marxism and,
128, 130, 131–32, 154, 155; McDowell
and, 271–72 psychoanalysis and, 207,
242; recent developments in, 146, 151–
52, 204, 224, 230, 275–76, 278–80. See
also natural sciences; physics
scientific realism, 130, 283
Second International Congress of the
History of Science and Technology,
74, 113
Sellars, Wilfrid, xii, 10, 259– 60, 262– 63,
267, 290
Sève, Lucien, 85, 98
Sheehan, Helena, 80– 81, 85, 115
Smith, Adam, 135
Socrates, 63, 64, 269
Solms, Mark, 228, 235– 36
Sophocles, 63
Spinoza, Baruch, xii, 18, 40, 45– 46, 58, 98
Stalin, Joseph (and Stalinism), xvi, xvii,
75, 81–82, 107, 129– 31, 133, 160, 164,
170; Althusser and, 138
Stankevich, Nikolai, 111
Stanovich, Keith E., 223
Stern, Robert, 280– 81
structuralism and post-structuralism, 6, 17,
78, 161, 166
subjectivity, 5, 11, 40, 61, 62, 91, 99, 164,
193, 273; autonomous, 9, 53, 63,
237– 38, 240, 242– 43, 268, 272; in Buk-
harin, 124– 25, 126; Engels’s “subjec-
tive factor,” 178; in Hegel, 18– 22, 24,
33– 34, 45, 65; in Kant, 35; in Lacan,
203, 207; in Lukács, 172, 176– 77, 180;
in Marx, 88– 89, 93; negativity and, 9,
220, 245– 46; Real and Symbolic, 8;
spiritual, 24– 25, 28
Taylor, Charles, 16, 265, 281
Tertulian, Nicolas, 162, 163, 166– 67, 168
Thao, Trân Duc, 117
Timpanaro, Sebastiano, 74, 77– 82, 84, 85
Tökei, Ferenc, 162, 166
transcendental idealism. See under Kant,
Immanuel
transcendental materialism, xi, xiii– xiv,
xix, 61, 65, 130– 31, 133– 34, 187,
192– 93, 238, 251; Engels and, 109;
Hegel as forefather of, 3, 17, 21, 22,
23, 24, 26, 43; Lacan and, 8, 250;
Lukács and, 178, 179; Marxist uses
of, 135– 36; monism-dualism distinc-
tion and, 133; ontology of, xiii, 3, 75;
religion and, 68, 252, 255; science
and, 254– 55
Tuchanska, Barbara, 166, 182
Turnbull, Oliver, 235– 36
Uexküll, Jakob von, 224
Uranovsky, Y. M., 74– 76
Vajda, Mihály, 165
Varela, Francisco, 223, 276
Vargas, Yves, 154
Vavilov, Nikolai, 75
Vavilov, Sergey, 75
Vigier, Jean-Pierre, 163
Vogt, Karl, 6
Wark, McKenzie, 115
weak nature concept, 7, 11, 130, 134, 244,
249, 251, 290; in Hegel, 3, 21, 52, 56–

I N DE X
65, 179, 182, 218; human central ner-
vous system and, 8; vs. strong nature,
58–59
Weber, Max, 251, 278, 280
Wetter, Gustav, 116
Wittgenstein, Ludwig, therapeutic ap-
proach of, 268, 275, 276, 277, 289, 290
Wood, Allen, 16
381
Zavadovsky, Boris, 74, 76– 77
Zinoviev, Grigory, 155– 56
Žižek, Slavoj, xiv, xviii– xix, 7, 24, 25, 28,
247; Chesterton and, 252; Hegel and,
26; on Hofstadter, 106; Lacan and,
206
works: Living in the End Times, 83; The
Ticklish Subject, xviii