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The Cunning of Reason in Hegel and Marx

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2009

Robert C. Tucker
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Extract

According to Hegel, universal history is the realization of the Idea of Reason in a succession of National Spirits. These are manifested in the deeds of heroes, or world-historical individuals, such as Alexander the Great, Caesar, and Napoleon. However, the Idea of Reason does not work itself out in history in a manner which would seem reasonable on the surface. It is not actualized in this or that of its stages as a consequence of men consciously adopting it as their ideal and striving to translate it into reality through their mode of life and conduct. It is not, as it were, through the imitation of Reason that Reason is realized in history. How, then, does this take place?

Hegel's answer to this question is contained in his doctrine of the Cunning of Reason. Briefly, he holds that history fulfills its ulterior rational designs in an indirect and sly manner. It does so by calling into play the irrational element in human nature, the passions. So Hegel writes: “Two elements, therefore, enter into our investigation: first, the Idea, secondly, the complex of human passions; the one the warp, the other the woof of the vast tapestry of world history.” By “passion” he means those all-consuming emotions of the individual person which are self-regarding in nature. In discussing the question, he writes: “I mean here nothing more than human activity resulting from private interest, from special or, if you will, self-seeking designs—with this qualification: that the whole energy of will and character is devoted to the attainment of one aim and that other interests or possible aims, indeed everything else, is sacrificed to this aim.”

Type
Research Article
Information
The Review of Politics , Volume 18 , Issue 3 , July 1956 , pp. 269 - 295
Copyright
Copyright © University of Notre Dame 1956

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References

* This and following quotations from Hegel, unless otherwise stated, arc taken from his Reason in History: A General Introduction to the Philosophy of History (New York, 1953).Google Scholar

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3 Machiavelli, Niccolo, The Prince (New York, 1952), pp. 92, 93, 97.Google Scholar Cassirer writes that Hegel became “the first eulogist of Machiavelli,” and quotes his description of The Prince as “a highly magnificent and true conception of a genuine political genius of the greatest and noblest mind.” Machiavelli espoused the idea of the unification of Italy under a single crown. To Hegel, the problem of Germany's unification seemed parallel to this. Hence, as Cassirer says, Hegel, “dreamed of becoming a second Machiavelli—the Machiavelli of his own time” (The Myth of the State, [New Haven, 1946], p. 122).Google Scholar

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7 Ibid., pp. 474, 478.

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11 Ibid., p. 232.

12 Marx, Karl and Engels, Friedrich, The German Ideology (New York, 1939), p. 26.Google Scholar Marx left explicit testimony to show that he was familiar with this Hegelian concept, and that it had made a firm impression on his mind. In a footnote to the passage in Capital where he explains that the worker's tool makes objects subservient to his aims, Marx quotes from Hegel's Encyclopedia as follows: “Reason is as cunning as she is powerful. The cunning of reason is mainly shown by the indirect activity through which, making objects act and react one against the other in accordance with their own nature, she is able, without direct interference in this process, nevertheless to guide things towards her own ends” (Capital, p. 171).Google Scholar

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15 Ibid., p. 653.

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20 Ibid.

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* The occasion for Engels' essay was a request from the editors of the journal Neue Zeit to write a critical review of Starcke's book on Feuerbach.

22 Ibid., pp. 335, 345–46.

23 Late in life Marx was given a questionnaire which required him to state inter alia “the vice you detest most.” He replied to the question with one word: “Servility” (Carr, E. H., Karl Marx: A Study in Fanaticism. London, 1934, p. 7).Google Scholar

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29 Owen, Robert, A New View of Society and Other Writings (London, 1927), pp. 40, 73.Google Scholar

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