The Problem of Subsumption in Kant, Hegel Andmarx
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View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Kingston University Research Repository The Problem of Subsumption in Kant, Hegel and Marx ANDRÉS SÁENZ DE SICILIA This thesis is being submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of The Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy, Kingston University, for the award of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. April 2016 Abstract This thesis explores the concept of subsumption in the work of Immanuel Kant, G.W.F. Hegel and Karl Marx in order to construct a distinct theoretical problem resting on the articulation of conceptual and social relations. Each of these authors develops a ‘logic’ within which subsumptive relations are operative: Transcendental logic, dialectical logic and finally Marx’s ‘logic of the body politic’; these are investigated in turn. The thesis opens with a close reading of subsumption in Kant’s philosophy, arguing that it is here that the concept first attains its modern or critical sense. This critical sense distinguishes it from the classical notion of subsumption (as a formal or purely logical relation) and gives rise to a novel philosophical account of how synthetic subsumption acts unite heterogeneous elements within a compositional totality. In Hegel’s philosophy this account takes on a series of new determinations, as social, historical and developmental aspects to subsumption are introduced. Nonetheless, Hegel’s concept of subsumption remains within the ambit of a ‘closed’ idealist discourse, just as Kant’s does. The second section of the thesis explores how this closure is thrown into crisis by Marx’s materialist attack on philosophy as a self-sufficient branch of knowledge, altering the stakes of conceptual relations as such, and therefore subsumption. Drawing on the work of Mexican-Ecuadoran philosopher Bolívar Echeverría, Marx’s materialism is reconstructed as a theory of social reproduction, encompassing the practical process of social life in its entirety. This then provides the basis for an analysis of subsumption in its specifically capitalist form, which, the thesis argues, must be thought as operative at three levels of social activity: exchange, production and reproduction, each with their own distinct but interconnected logics of power and resistance. Grasping these three dimensions in their unity, the thesis finally outlines an original framework for comprehending capitalist domination in its concrete specificity. In order to do so it goes beyond Marx’s own theory of (formal and real) subsumption as well as interpretations of it that reinstate theoretical closure to historical contingency (for example in the work of Negri and Adorno). Instead, a dynamic theory of capitalist subsumption is proposed in order to register the diverse mechanisms of control through which capitalist power shapes the course of social reproduction and historical development. Acknowledgements Many thanks to: Daniela Sáenz De Sicilia, Jane Hackett, Enrique Sáenz De Sicilia, Pia Panetta, Peter Osborne, Peter Hallward, Howard Caygill, Matthew Charles, Eric Alliez, Etienne Balibar, Catherine Malabou, Stella Sandford, Iain Campbell, Lucie Mercier, Stephen Howard, George Tomlinson, Stefano Pippa, Hammam Aldouri, Maria Chehondaskih, all other students at the CRMEP, Sandro Brito Rojas, Ed Luker, Adam Green, Kerem Nisancioglu, Patrick Murray, Gilbert Skillman, Stewart Martin, Massimiliano Tomba, Chris Arthur, Rob Lucas, Anthony Iles, Carlos Oliva Mendoza, Diana Fuentes, Jorge Veraza, Andrés Barreda, Enrique Dussel, John Kraniauskas, Chris O’Kane, Melanie Waha, Jonathan Gray, Sam Leon, Bella Eacott, Will Davies, Koos Couvee, Dan Glass, Amica Dall, Anna Kontopoulou and all those with whom I read Capital at the Red Lion. Special thanks to the kind librarians of the Sala Jaime García Terrés at the Biblioteca de México, Mexico City. The research undertaken for the thesis was generously funded by a three year studentship from Kingston University and a six month postgraduate research fellowship from the Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores, Mexico. Contents Introduction: Logics of Composition ................................................................. 1 1. The Invention of a ‘Critical’ Concept of Subsumption .................................. Kant: Subsumption and Synthesis ............................................................. 12 Hegel’s Critique of Subsumption ............................................................. 41 2. Materialism, Social Form, Reproduction .................................................... 68 3. Capitalist Subsumption: Abstraction in Action ......................................... 124 4. From Schema to Dynamic ............................................................................ 187 Conclusion .......................................................................................................... 253 Bibliography ...................................................................................................... 264 Introduction: Logics of Composition This thesis focuses on the concept of ‘subsumption’ as the site of a central problematic in the encounter between modern philosophy and critical social theory. It traces the development of the concept and shifting context of its application in the work of Kant, Hegel and above all Marx, in order to explore the theoretical and political issues that emerge at the nexus of logic and social being. However, this thesis does not propose a new interpretation of the concept per se nor offer a detailed historical reconstruction of its transmission and modification (although interpretive and critical-historical aspects are central to the arguments I make). Rather, it attempts to construct a strong framework within which to explore the social implications of conceptual relations and conceptual implications of social relations by establishing the continuities and discontinuities, consistencies and contradictions in the use of subsumption, both across and within the theories in question. It is, perhaps, the proposed consistencies that are most fundamental and original in this thesis, insofar as they enable the construction of a unique ‘problem’ of subsumption inaugurated by Kant and that reaches a climax (although not ‘completion’) in Marx’s critique of political economy. I take seriously the idea that between the transcendental, dialectical and socio-economic contexts in which subsumption is employed there exists a necessary inner connection, a problematic conceptual core which informs (whether explicitly or implicitly) the sense of every relation that can be described as subsumptive. More, then, than a simply genealogical succession of scenarios in which the concept has been used, or a solely analogical function taken on by the concept when used outside of an immediate logical context, there is a shared conceptual basis from which we can approach idea such as Kant’s claim that ‘we can only understand and communicate to others what we ourselves can produce’ or Marx’s assertion that ‘capital does indeed exist from the outset as One or Unity as opposed to the workers as many’.1 The key to the comprehension of such diverse statements lies in a ‘critical’ conception of subsumption that refers to the productive and oppressive dimensions of conceptually organised ‘systems-in- 1 Immanuel Kant, letter to Jacob Sigismund Beck, July 1, 1794, in Correspondence, translated by Arnulf Zweig, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999, p. 482; Karl Marx, Grundrisse: Foundations of the Critique of Political Economy (Rough Draft) [1857-8], translated by Martin Nicolaus, London and New York: Penguin, 1993, p. 590. 1 process’ and a dynamic articulation of concepts such abstraction, composition, form and totality. Developing an account of this ‘critical’ concept of subsumption requires a far more expansive and deeper engagement with its conditions, structure and effects than is normally afforded to it. Adequately grasping these is hindered by the fact that the scope of subsumption appears at first sight to be both too vast conceptually and too narrow textually. Conceptually, subsumption immediately connects to a huge range of problems and ideas within philosophy (almost all logic, epistemology and ontology invokes an idea of subsumption taken in its broadest sense, as a mode of classification, inclusion or identification, even where the term itself is not invoked directly) but also to other disciplinary regions (law, art history, informatics, etc.). Whilst textually, none of the authors in question, nor by and large the traditions they have inspired, recognise subsumption as a concept central to their theories or as a distinct philosophical ‘problem’ worthy of sustained engagement (as they do, for example, proximate concepts such as abstraction, contradiction or alienation). This difficulty perhaps explains why no in-depth study dedicated to subsumption has as yet been published and why, where it is discussed, there is a sharp disjunction between the term’s employment as a strictly philosophical concept and its employment as a technical Marxist concept. The connection between these two aspects, a small number of exceptions notwithstanding, has by and large been treated as a superficial one, of primarily philological interest and incidental to the systemic significance and functioning of Kant, Hegel and Marx’s thought. At the same time, much contemporary philosophy and critical theory has actively problematized the political dimension of logical/ontological