Home | Philosophy

ALIENATION AND ESTRANGEMENT IN HEGEL’S
By: Dr. Tamela Ice

I

Until recently, Marx’s interpretation of Hegel’s concept of ‘alienation’ has been the starting point for others (e.g., sociologists, psychologists, theologians, and existentialists) who have appropriated and redefined the term. David A. Duquette claims “there are some important misinterpretations of Hegel by Marx on the subject of alienation … Marx’s reading of Hegel is “significantly deficient.” Moreover, the tendency has been to use Marx’s interpretation in evaluating Hegel’s social philosophy and, from this perspective, criticize Hegel’s resolution to alienation in his epistemology (i.e., in Phenomenology of Spirit). The conflation of Hegel’s social philosophy and epistemology reveals an apparent paradox, resulting in a hasty dismissal of Hegel’s resolution. Renewed interest in Hegel’s understanding of alienation in Phenomenology of Spirit points to misunderstandings of Hegel that arise from equating ‘alienation’ with ‘estrangement,’ and a failure to see Hegel’s distinction between positive and negative alienation. In this paper, I will provide some of the more general definitions of ‘alienation.’ I will briefly note criticisms of Hegel’s resolution that result from these definitions. Next, I will explicate David Duquette’s and Philip Kain’s analysis of the terms ‘alienation’ and ‘estrangement.’ I will explicate Kain’s argument that these terms should be understood as distinct, and his explanation of alienation in Hegel. Finally, I will consider whether Kain’s explanation adequately resolves the criticisms of Hegel with regard to Phenomenology of Spirit.

II

Irving Horwitz says that for Hegel, alienation is “the separation of the object of cognition from the man of consciousness, the philosopher.” Horowitz understands ‘alienation’ as a synonym for ‘separation.’ Alienation is a psychological mode of experience, psychological estrangement “from objects in the world … from other people … [and] from ideas about the world held by other people.” According to Horowitz, Hegel’s resolution to alienation is “through philosophical understanding, an embrace of the rational world.” The important points in Horowitz’s account are his equation of ‘alienation’ and ‘estrangement,’ and his understanding of alienation as a matter of consciousness.

Halim Barakat claims that (at the time of his writing) conceptions of ‘alienation’ can be traced to three sources. First, ‘alienation’ is defined in Hegelian-Marxian terms of powerlessness. Alienation is a result of being controlled by one’s own creations and tools. Second, ‘alienation’ is understood in Durkheim’s concept of the “disintegration or breakdown in systems of social regulations and control.” Finally, the existentialists understand the term ‘alienation’ as “man’s experience of anxiety, restlessness, aloneness, despair and nothingness in the face of unlimited possibilities and under the burden of having to reject the past and constantly make a fresh start.” According to Barakat, these conceptions of ‘alienation’ are limited in four ways. The tendency is to use one concept rather than drawing on all three. That is, there is no agreement on the definition of ‘alienation.’ The three sources for understanding ‘alienation’ make no clear distinction between social and psychological alienation. Barakat says that few clearly distinguish between “sources of alienation, alienation proper, and consequences of alienation.” Finally, few distinguish between “general alienation (i.e., alienation from society or the world at large) and specific alienation (i.e., alienation from a specific social organization).” Barakat’s understanding of Hegel is deficient. As will be revealed later, on Kain’s reading, Hegel’s conception of ‘alienation’ is much broader than simply a sense of powerlessness. Moreover, Hegel makes the distinctions Barakat mentions. Barakat draws on all three conceptions of ‘alienation.’ However, this is misleading with regard to Hegel (and the existentialists) in that Hegel does not reject history, and social and psychological alienation are not always related for Hegel.

In A Dictionary of Philosophy, we find ‘alienation’ defined as “(a) a process of estrangement or isolation from a natural or social context; (b) the condition arising as a result of such a process; [and] (c) the subjective experience of being in such an experience.” According to this source, ‘alienation’ is understood as negative, “something undesirable or unwelcome.”
According to The Oxford Companion to Philosophy, ‘alienation’ is “a psychological or social evil, characterized by one or another type of harmful separation, disruption or fragmentation, which sunders things that belong together.” According to this source:
People are alienated from the political process when they feel separated from it and powerless in relation to it; this is alienation because in a democratic society you belong in the political process, and as a citizen it ought to belong to you. Reflection on your beliefs, values, or social order can also alienate you from them. It can undermine your attachment to them, cause you to feel separated from them, no longer identified with them, yet without furnishing anything to take their place; they are yours faute de mieux [for want of anything better], but no longer truly yours: they are yours, but you are alienated from them.

This general definition equates ‘alienation’ with ‘separation.’ Again, as will be revealed later, this does not provide an adequate understanding of Hegel’s conception of ‘alienation’ in Phenomenology of Spirit. On this definition, a reading of Hegel results in confusion and failure to recognize his distinctions and levels of alienation. The implication that social and psychological alienation are inextricably bound leads to problems for Hegel’s resolution to alienation in Phenomenology of Spirit, which is concerned with consciousness.

A Dictionary of Philosophy and The Oxford Companion to Philosophy claim that the term ‘alienation’ “gained currency through Marxian theory.” According to the former source, drawing on Marx, ‘alienation’ became an “expression of political, personal or general discontent.” Hegel used the concept of ‘alienation’ “in his account of the history of the absolute mind or consciousness, which posits difference within itself and then does its best to overcome this self-alienation to regain unity.” Hegel also used ‘alienation’ with regard to human activity, “whose products, be they material objects or social institutions, or cultural achievements, become separate from their origin.” Resolution is achieved by gaining full knowledge of the object.

The Oxford Companion to Philosophy gets to the heart of the current criticisms of traditional definitions of ‘alienation’ for Hegel in Phenomenology of Spirit. This source says:
Marx derived the terms Entausserung [alienation] and Entfremdung [estrangement] from Hegel, who used them to portray the ‘unhappy consciousness’ of the Roman world and the Christian Middle Ages, when individuals under the Roman Empire deprived of the harmonious social and political life prevailing in pagan antiquity, turned inward and directed their aspirations toward a transcendent Deity and his other-worldly kingdom. For Hegel, the unhappy consciousness is divided against itself, separated from its ‘essence,’ which it has placed in a ‘beyond.’

This understanding of ‘alienation’ for Hegel is misleading. First, the equation of ‘alienation’ and ‘estrangement’ is problematic. Second, the implication is that alienation is caused solely by external forces. These are the two key issues addressed by Kain and Duquette in their criticism of a Marxian reading of Hegel.

This source goes on to say that “the German verbs entaussen and entfremdung are reflexive and in both Hegel and Marx alienation is always fundamentally self – alienation.” Moreover, “to be alienated is to be separated from one’s own essence or nature; it is to be forced to lead a life in which that nature has no opportunity to be fulfilled or actualized.” This is not Hegel’s position. Finally, alienation is “a matter of whether your life objectively actualizes your nature, especially (for both Marx and Hegel) your life with others as a social being on the basis of a determinate course of historical development … alienation, so conceived, can … have historical consequences, and can even be a lever for social change.”

Insofar as these definitions may seem tedious, they are understood by Duquette and Kain as the most common understanding of ‘alienation’ for Hegel. Common features in these definitions are the issues Duquette and Kain address in their attempt to clarify Hegel’s conception of ‘alienation’ in Phenomenology of Spirit. Duquette and Kain object to is reading Hegel through a Marxian lens, equating ‘alienation’ with ‘estrangement,’ a failure to recognize Hegel’s distinction between levels of alienation, and how Hegel deals with psychological and social alienation in very different ways. Both suggest that on their interpretation, confusions and hasty criticisms of Hegel are unwarranted. I will look at Duquette’s argument first.

III

Duquette is responding to C. J Arthur’s comparison of Marx and Hegel, and the influence of Phenomenology of Spirit. According to Arthur, Marx claims that ‘Hegel’s strength is precisely that he gives full recognition to the problem of estrangement. His weakness is that, in spite of the wealth of social and historical material treated, he considers it ultimately as a problem of consciousness.’ Duquette’s main point of contention is Arthur’s translation of Hegel’s Entausserung as ‘alienation’ rather than ‘externalization.’ Duquette says that Entuasserung is ambiguous and “carries the sense of ‘posited as objective,’ it also connotes relinquishment, such that an objectivity is set up from which the subject is estranged.” Enfremdung is not ambiguous, and clearly, according to Duquette, means ‘estrangement.’ The confusion concerns Hegel’s use of these terms.

Duquette notes that one problem with Arthur’s (and Marx’s) interpretation of Hegel’s use of these terms is that ‘alienation’ (Entausserung) for Hegel does not always mean relinquishment or ‘estrangment’ (Enfremdung). For Arthur and Marx, ‘alienation’ has a negative connotation. For Hegel, ‘alienation’ has a “positive meaning for self-consciousness since it involves the positing of spirit as objective and then recognizing this objectivity as spirit’s own achievement. Thus, the necessity of self-alienation which leads to a ‘positing through negating.’”

Duquette’s dissatisfaction with Marx’s reading of Hegel (and those who follow Marx) is the propensity “to take the concept of self-consciousness in Hegel’s Phenomenology as a basically psychological phenomenon, supporting the conclusion that Hegel as idealist must either reject or underplay the role of independent external reality in his view of historical development.” Hegel’s project in Phenomenology is unclear if we fail to see that, for Hegel, self-consciousness “is not merely a mental state for Hegel but a relation in the world.” Moreover, the failure to distinguish ‘alienation’ and ‘estrangement’ results in a failure to understand that, again for Hegel, estrangement is overcome by alienation – thus, the positive connotation and necessity of ‘alienation.’ Thus, for Duquette, the claims that Hegel failed to adequately resolve the issue of alienation rests on a misunderstanding of Hegel’s use of terms and his project.

Duquette provides some understanding of the need to distinguish between ‘alienation’ and ‘estrangement’ in Hegel, as well as the need to read Hegel through Hegel rather than Marx. However, Kain provides a more detailed account of Hegel’s use of these terms, and his distinction between positive and negative alienation.

IV

For Kain, confusions about Hegel’s project and his resolution to alienation arise from the general definitions of ‘alienation’ and a failure to adequately understand the concepts of ‘alienation’ and ‘estrangement’ and the relationship between these terms in Hegel. Kain’s working definition of terms is as follows:
[F]or Hegel alienation means a surrender by a subject, a giving up of essential being. What is given up may take the form of an external, independent object – but it need not always do so. When it does, it may result in estrangement. Here the object turns against the subject as a hostile, objective power with an independent life of its own. Any case of estrangement presupposes alienation. But, for Hegel, all cases of alienation by no means result in estrangement.

Kain keeps the idea of alienation as surrender by a subject. But, he clearly distinguishes between ‘alienation’ and ‘estrangement.’ Moreover, Kain agrees with Duquette that ‘alienation’ plays a positive role. He goes further than Duquette is suggesting that ‘estrangement’ also plays a positive role. Both are “necessary for the development of culture.” The relationship between ‘alienation’ and ‘estrangement’ is explained by Kain as “ first … alienation implies a development from particularity to universality; secondly, in the course of this development estrangement is produced and recognition lost; and finally, recognition is achieved and … estrangement overcome.” Here, Kain elaborates on Duquette’s contention that alienation overcomes estrangement. Kain goes on to investigate ‘estrangement.’

The positive role of estrangement, as necessary for the development of culture, is a temporary role. Kain says that in the end ‘estrangement’ is “negative, undesirable, and must be overcome.” Recall that this is the claim made of alienation in our general definitions. Kain points out that ‘estrangement’ is discussed for the first time in Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit in the section entitled “Legal Status.” This corresponds to Hegel’s discussion of Imperial Rome. Hegel’s concept of ‘estrangement’ is developed in “Spirit in Self-Estrangement” and overcome in “Revealed Religion” and “Absolute Knowledge.” On Kain’s reading, ‘estrangement’ “means that the individual is confronted by an independent, hostile power which has an objective life of its own, that the individual has no awareness of this power actually being the result of its own alienation, and that it lacks any control over this power.”

‘Alienation’ is first discussed with regard to “Unhappy Consciousness,” and reappears in “Spirit as Self-Estrangement,” continuing in various forms throughout Phenomenology of Spirit. While estrangement plays a temporary positive role, alienation can be negative in that it can lead to estrangement. Alienation can also overcome estrangement, or prevent it. With regard to preventing estrangement, alienation can be positive “in the sense that there is a surrender without a loss of essential being; it simply does not lead to estrangement.”

Alienation as a negative force can be a surrender, or relinquishment, which “results in an independent external object … while it leads to universality, [it] may also lead to estrangement.” Estrangement occurs because self-consciousness surrenders its essential being.

Alienation overcomes estrangement when self-consciousness realizes that what is perceived as an independent object outside itself is in actuality a part of itself – unity between consciousness and the (perceived) external object is achieved because “both are thought-constituted.” However, Kain notes, it is not only estrangement that is overcome, but alienation as well. For Hegel, “the effect of alienation is both that alienation occurs and on the other hand is cancelled.” Thus, alienation, for Hegel, has two effects.
The negative effect is that self-consciousness establishes itself as object, however, at this point it does not appear as an external object, independent of the self (which would lead to estrangement), because the second, positive effect of this alienation is that self-consciousness recognizes the object as itself, as the result of its own alienation. The sort of alienation that leads to externalization and objectification, the same sort which can lead to estrangement, is canceled. The result instead, the positive significance of this alienation, is that it has established an object which is no longer outside itself.

Thus far, Kain has explained alienation as a negative force, and alienation as first negative, then ultimately positive. Kain goes on to explain alienation as purely positive.

Hegel discusses positive alienation in the section “Revealed Religion.” Hegel says ‘Spirit is knowledge of itself in a state of alienation of self … Since this latter consciously gives itself up, it is preserved and maintained in thus relinquishing … itself … The power of spirit lies rather in remaining one with itself when giving up itself.’ In this case, self-consciousness does not perceive an object outside and independent of itself. The alienation is positive in that self-consciousness is its own object. According to Kain, “[e]strangement and alienation which leads to estrangement are overcome by positive alienation. Thus alienation which leads to universality ultimately ends not in estrangment but in positive alienation.”

If we accept Kain’s distinction between three levels, or kinds of alienation, is it sufficient to refute criticisms of Hegel’s resolution to alienation in Phenomenology of Spirit? I will conclude by considering some of the criticisms of Hegel in light of Kain’s explanation.

V

Simone de Beauvoir appropriates what she understands to be Hegel’s use of ‘alienation’ in the section “Lordship and Bondage.” Beauvoir uses the terms ‘alienation’ and ‘estrangement’ synonymously, and does not acknowledge the positive and negative aspects of alienation. Moreover, Beauvoir criticizes Hegel’s inadequate treatment of alienation as both a matter of consciousness and a social concern. Kain points out that ‘alienation’ appears once in the section on “Lordship and Bondage,” and ‘estrangement’ does not appear at all in this section. Estrangement makes a first appearance at the level of Spirit. In this section, Hegel is explaining individual self-consciousness. The interaction between alienation and estrangement appears when Hegel is discussing “the consciousness of the whole world, a culture, a society – when this world becomes split and self-opposed.” Thus, Beauvoir’s claim that Hegel fails to reconcile psychological and social alienation is unwarranted with regard to the section she addresses. In this section, Hegel has not moved to the attempt at resolution, he is merely explaining how alienation occurs.

In Phenomenology of Spirit, Hegel’s project is to offer a description f the development of consciousness and culture and the role alienation and estrangement play in that development. It is in Hegel’s Philosophy of Right that we get a clear idea of how alienation and estrangement work at the social level. For Hegel, “there is no estrangement at all at the levels of civil society and the state.” Hegel thinks that, at the time of his writing, estrangement at the social level had been overcome. Thus, to talk about ‘alienation’ and ‘estrangement’ as the same, and apply these to the social level is a misreading of Hegel.
Alienation does occur in civil society and the state. For Hegel, at the level of civil society, alienation is positive and the kind of alienation which leads to universality while preventing estrangement. Kain disagrees with Hegel on this point. For Kain, the alienation that leads to estrangement is present in civil society. It is at the level of the state that Hegel finally eliminates the kind of alienation that leads to estrangement. Universality, which is unconscious and implicit in civil society, becomes explicit and conscious in the state. According to Kain, “[r]econciliation occurs because we find rationality in the actual world … Estrangement does not exist in the Philosophy of Right because the individual in confronting his world confronts himself.”

Whether we agree with Hegel or not, on Kain’s interpretation we can see that Hegel does distinguish between alienation as purely a matter of consciousness and alienation in civil society. The problem with criticisms of Hegel’s reconciliation seems to turn on a misunderstanding of Hegel’s distinction between ‘alienation’ and ‘estrangement.’

Kain agrees with Duquette that Marx misreads Hegel. However, Kain does not think Marx fails to distinguish between ‘alienation’ and ‘estrangement.’ Recall that Marx criticizes Hegel for making estrangement a matter of consciousness. For Marx, “consciousness alone … will not bring about reconciliation.” Marx claims that estrangement is overcome by human activity and changes in the interactions between people. For Marx, alienation always leads to estrangement. Kain’s criticism of Marx is not that he fails to distinguish between the concepts of ‘alienation’ and ‘estrangement,’ but that he rejects the notion of positive alienation.

It is not problematic to read Marx’s understanding of ‘alienation’ on his own terms. The confusion arises when an attempt is made to adequately interpret Hegel from the Marxian perspective. Moreover, criticisms of Hegel’s social philosopher in terms of Phenomenology of Spirit are erroneous. If we keep in mind that Hegel’s project in Phenomenology of Spirit is the development of consciousness and the development and relationship between alienation and estrangement to the development of culture, then it does not seem that alienation as a matter for consciousness, in the development of consciousness, is as problematic for Hegel’s social philosophy as critics claim. If we understand how Hegel uses the terms ‘alienation’ and ‘estrangement,’ as well as his specific project in various works, we can offer a critique of Hegel rather than a reading of Hegel. For Hegel, alienation and estrangement are much broader concepts than general definitions suggest. Moreover, an attempt to read Hegel through the understanding of concepts as expressed by others results in confusion and misunderstanding of Hegel, insofar as his use of alienation as strictly a matter of consciousness depends on understanding alienation only in the positive sense.

Article Source: http://journal.ilovephilosophy.com

Please Rate this Article

 

# of Ratings = 1 | Rating = 3/5

Click the XML Icon Above to Receive Philosophy Articles Via RSS!
Additional Articles From - Home | Philosophy
Sign Up as an Author.
Submit Articles
Member Login
Top Authors
Most Popular Articles
Submission Guidelines
Ezine Notifications
Article RSS Feeds
New Stuff
Forum
Link to Us
Contact Us

Powered by Article Dashboard