From Enlightenment to Romanticism

Positivism and Marxism

In the 19th century, positivism referred to the belief that the development of scientific knowledge adheres to a universal logic, and therefore, the advancement of the natural sciences would render social life more rational. This conviction in the "positivity" and affirmative nature of scientific knowledge as a solution to all philosophical questions was represented by thinkers such as Auguste Comte (1798—1857), John Stuart Mill (1806—1873), and Herbert Spencer (1820—1903). For example, Mill reasoned that both matter and spirit (or consciousness) are equally real, yet their reality is not primary. Instead, the primary experience is sensation, which seeks material for itself in the external world and seeks opportunities for extension within consciousness. Thus, in Mill's system, there are essentially no substances; only processes exist. Consequently, Mill inclined towards utilitarianism, a doctrine whose origins lie with Jeremy Bentham (1748—1832). According to the utilitarians, what is good is that which increases the overall well-being in society.

The distinction between the position of utilitarians and that of Kant is often illustrated by the thought experiment of the trolley problem devised by Philippa Foot in 1967. A trolley hurtles down the tracks with no brakes, about to strike five people. One can only switch the tracks, diverting the trolley to a path where it will kill just one person. The utilitarian would assert that, of course, the death of one person is preferable to that of five, while a follower of Kant would argue that one cannot treat another person merely as a means to an end, even if it results in saving five lives. However, one can envision a scenario in which a Kantian switches the tracks based on the public use of reason according to the laws of a given state, say, in a state where the death penalty is enacted, thus presenting a constant risk of executing an innocent person; likewise, a utilitarian might refrain from switching the tracks if they consider that there is insufficient information about any of the six individuals, leading them to believe there are no grounds for making a decision.

Historically, utilitarians were often statists and republicans, and it was indisputable for them that citizens contribute to the state and engage in the common good, thus, one ought to save the five citizens. Spencer modified Mill’s perspective by asserting that substances do exist, not as some immutable being, but rather as entities that utilize something else. For instance, Spencer cleverly responded to the well-known paradox of which came first, the chicken or the egg, stating that it is undoubtedly the egg, as the chicken merely serves as the apparatus through which the egg produces another egg. An egg grows into a chicken solely for the purpose of laying eggs, thus the egg ought to be recognized as the substance, while the chicken represents not even a collection of properties but merely a moment of the realization of this substance, a moment that becomes irrelevant once a new egg emerges; the chicken is no longer needed. Partially, Spencer inherits the Hegelian concept of the "cunning of reason," where history uses individuals for its own ends, regardless of their personal positions. However, while Hegel's reason possesses the ability to set goals, Spencer posits only a primal form of substance.

Spencer's reasoning was primarily aimed at supporting Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, preemptively addressing readers' inquiries about why nature continuously evolves, ruthlessly discarding previous forms while validating present forms only as temporary. Interestingly, it was Spencer, rather than Darwin, who first introduced the term "adapt" to the environment, originally phrased as "becoming the most fit" for it. Furthermore, it was Spencer, in complementing and expanding upon Comte's work, who began to use the term "society" in its modern sense, not in the meaning of "civil community," "fellow citizens," or "a circle of interacting individuals," but as "all people in a country who participate, even minimally, in production and politics." Spencer reasoned that all individuals produce something, whether it be growing grain or making furniture. The state can compel exchange, for instance, to require peasants to deliver grain in exchange for furniture. However, the state cannot enforce the division of labor, such as ensuring that peasants distribute responsibilities in a manner that maximizes grain production through rational labor allocation. This task can only be accomplished by society, which is the manner in which individuals communicate, rationally negotiate, and collectively optimize their labor efforts. Society represents an organization of individuals in which it is shameful not to work, yet this shame arises because other members of society have already taken care of labor distribution, and if one shirks their work, they let everyone down. It is worth noting that for Spencer, society is impossible without affections such as shame or enthusiasm, and work is not merely a means of survival but also a way to manage these affections, inspiring one to work passionately and to rest with a sense of duty fulfilled.

Marxism emerged as an alternative to positivism. Karl Marx (1818—1883, with several works co-authored with Friedrich Engels) first addressed the relationship between matter and value. Marx rejected the overly simplistic materialism of his predecessors, referring to his own materialism as "dialectical," a term borrowed in the Hegelian sense. According to Marx, matter is capable of development and traverses contradictions. In contrast to Hegel, for whom the primary contradiction is that between "I in itself" and "I for itself," or between state and decision (or resolution), Marx's contradiction lies between opposites, with resolution consisting of their overcoming—in other words, revolution. Thus, while Hegel ultimately posits that practice is validated by theory, since any practical resolution is merely an extremity, and the moment of overcoming contradiction emerges as a theoretical vision of the situation by the Absolute Spirit, regarded as the situation viewed through the lens of the Absolute Idea, for Marx, on the contrary, theory is validated by practice, specifically by how contradiction has been resolved in practice. As Marx himself stated: "Philosophers have hitherto only interpreted the world in various ways; the point, however, is to change it." Where Hegel derives meaning from the resolution of contradiction, Marx derives value. The same principle applies to Marx's economic theory; for instance, he refers to value (in German, as in other European languages, "value" and "worth" are the same word) as "crystallized labor power," while contradictions in production are only resolved through the overcoming of the power of capital, which seeks to become the criterion of profit, thereby dictating the behavior of labor power and exacerbating exploitation.