Karl Marx and Wilhelm Dilthey on the
socio-historical conceptualization of the mind
Thomas Teo
York University
Published as: Teo, T.
(2001). Karl Marx and Wilhelm Dilthey on the socio-historical conceptualization
of the mind. In C. Green, M. Shore, and T. Teo (Eds.). The transformation of
psychology: Influences of 19th-century philosophy, technology and natural
science (pp. 195-218). Washington, DC: APA.
This web-based version is based on
the final pre-publication manuscript that is not identical with the published
version. For access to published version please contact your library or contact
author.
Address: Thomas Teo, Department of
Psychology, History and Theory of Psychology, York University, 4700 Keele
Street, Toronto, Ontario, M3J 1P3, Canada. Electronic mail may be sent via
Internet to tteo@yorku.ca.
Abstract
This paper focuses on scientific alternatives to experimental psychology by analyzing the conceptualization of the socio-cultural mind as outlined by Marx and Dilthey and suggesting that psychology’s move to natural science was premature. Commonalties and differences between Karl Marx’s (1818-1883) and Wilhelm Dilthey’s (1833-1911) conceptualizations of the mind are discussed. While both agreed upon the socio-historical character of the mind and its embeddedness in human life activity, these thinkers did not agree upon the concepts of society, history, and action. Similarly, whereas both shared a basic methodological perspective their concrete methods differed in important respects.
Contemporary psychologists study concepts such as memory,
perception, consciousness, belief, intention, reasoning, language, and so on,
in order to understand the mind. They assume more or less implicitly that these
functions or domains belong to an individual, that they change over the
lifespan, and that they indicate certain central tendencies within or between
populations that can be assessed in descriptive and inferential ways. Seldom do
psychologists realize that they base their theories and research practices
regarding the mind on an individualistic as well as on an individual concept of
the mind.[1]
The assumption of an individual mind is not surprising and
has its historical-philosophical roots. When Descartes (1596-1650) used his
widely known cogito (I think) argument
on which to base knowledge (Descartes, 1637,1641/1996), cogitamus (we think) never entered his foundational
reflections. On the contrary, he was skeptical of the cogitamus, viewing it as a source of bias while not seeing the
dependence of the cogito on the cogitamus. Kant (1724-1804) suggested the cogito, the "Ego" as thinking being, to be the
subject matter of rational psychology (Kant, 1781/1982) (see Tolman, this
volume). And although he used concepts such as community in his epistemological writings, they were not
essential in his knowledge-theoretical reflections (Kant, 1781/1982).
Within the Western philosophical tradition it is not
surprising that philosophy and psychology have accumulated a vast literature on
the mind-body problem, yet there is only
a marginal reflection on the mind-culture or mind-history question.
Although philosophers have reflected upon external influences on the
individual's thinking processes, as suggested, for example, in F. Bacon s
(1561-1626) (1965) concept of idola,
this influence was often defined as negative and thus did not result in a
cultural-historical or socio-historical conceptualization of the mind. Vico
(1668-1744) and Herder (1744-1803) formulated ideas that are relevant to a
social, historical, and cultural conceptualization of the mind, but the first
Western philosopher who systematically elaborated a socio-historical
understanding of the mind[2]
was Hegel (1770-1831).
Hegel (1830/1992) discriminated among the subjective,
objective and absolute mind.[3]
The subjective mind refers to an
individual mind and encompasses sensation, habit, consciousness, perception,
reason, desire, memory, imagination, and so on. The objective mind is the mind of a social community or era and is
expressed in law, morality and ethics. The absolute mind, an infinite entity, is expressed in art, religion
and philosophy (see Tolman, this volume). But Hegel also connected the
subjective and objective mind by arguing that no individual "can leap
beyond his time" as "the mind of the time is also his mind"[4] (Hegel,
1817/1986a, p. 111).
Critics might argue that Hegel's idealism, according to
which the mind was understood as the self-becoming of the Absolute, and his
lack of interest in the detailed mechanisms of the relationship between the
subjective and objective mind, are not helpful to psychology. However, it must
be understood that Hegel's challenge of the empirical individual as the core of
a philosophy of the mind has been the stimulus for the socio-historical
conceptualization of the mind in 19th-century German philosophical psychology.
Out of the Hegelian challenge have emerged two historically
significant, often considered opposing research programs, one founded by Karl
Marx (1818-1883) and the other by Wilhelm Dilthey (1833-1911). Although both
rejected the idea of an absolute mind, the concept of an objective mind has
played an important role in both of their conceptualizations of the mind.
Moreover, both were ambivalent towards Hegel. Marx (1867/1962) admitted to
being a pupil of Hegel whose dialectics he argued stood on its head, and he
considered it his goal to untie Hegel's dialectics in order "to discover
the rational kernel in the mystical shell" (Marx, p. 27)[5].
Dilthey (1977), who wrote a biography of the young Hegel (see Dilthey, 1959),
used a similar argument in refuting the claim that the Idea provokes historical facts: "This is like
assuming that the picture in a mirror is the source of the movement of a person
one observes moving in the mirror" (p. 173).[6]
Marx s conceptualization of the mind has indeed influenced
psychology in the 20th century. He inspired the Soviet philosophical
psychologist Sergej Rubinstein (1889-1960), the cultural-historical school with
its mastermind Lev Vygotsky (1896-1934), the French psychologists Georges
Politzer (1903-1942), Klaus Holzkamp (1927-1995) and various forms of critical
psychology. Followers of the Frankfurt School merged his theories, albeit not his psychological writings, with
psychoanalysis and developed a field of research called Freudian-Marxism.[7]
Dilthey's psychological writings have challenged attempts to
capture psychological phenomena of the mind through natural-scientific
experimentation. Dilthey (1957) calls upon Wilhelm Wundt (1832-1920) as a
witness, who, too, realized that experimental psychology is limited to basic
psychological processes, and that the study of mental life requires more than
causal explanations (see, pp. 166-167). He has had a significant influence on
20th-century psychology in the form of the geisteswissenschaftliche
Psychologie of Eduard Spranger (1882-1963),
as well as on Karl Jaspers (1883-1969), Edmund Husserl (1859-1938) and his
phenomenological psychology, and on Hans-Georg Gadamer's (born 1900)
hermeneutics. In North America his ideas influenced Gordon Allport (1897-1967)
and his spirit lives on in various forms of humanistic psychology.[8]
Marx did not discuss Dilthey. However, Dilthey, who was 15
years younger than Marx, analyzed Marx s economic but not his philosophical or
psychological writings.[9]
In a review of 1878, Dilthey (1974) argued that Marx s theory of value "stands
in unsolvable contradiction to the real facts" (p. 186). According to Marx
(1867/1962; 1898/1962), value is the crystallization of societal labor, the
magnitude of which depends on the amount of labor necessary for the production
of the product, while the amount of labor is measured by the time involved.
Dilthey criticized Marx - from a psychological point of view - for not taking
the needs of individuals into account
when determining the value of a commodity. However, he commended Marx s
reconstruction of the concentration of capital. This analysis, Dilthey (1974)
claimed, was "executed in an extraordinarily brilliant way" (p. 187).
Orthodox Marxist scholarship described Dilthey, who was politically a liberal,
less favorably and denounced him as a member of late bourgeois philosophy, as
irrational, as not understanding the nature of historical laws, and as denying
objectivity (Buhr, 1988).
It is the intent of this contribution to demonstrate that
both thinkers have more commonalities in their socio-historical understandings
of the mind than previously thought. Both were more interested in the
historically and socially mediated content
of the mind than in its processes,
and they both viewed the mind as embedded in human life-activity.
Notwithstanding these similarities, they differed in their notions of society,
history, and action. The chapter outlines Marx's and Dilthey's
conceptualization of the nature of the mind and methodologies for studying it -
neglected in mainstream psychology but theoretically a historical alternative
to German experimental psychology. Too, I hope that it becomes clear that their
conceptualization of the mind, although similar in intention, is different from
Wundt's and other forms of Völkerpsychologie, which Wundt promoted for the nature of higher
thought processes, in opposition to experimental psychology that focuses on
basic mental processes (see also Danziger, this volume; Teo, 1999).
Karl Marx
There are difficulties in discussing Marx's ideas on the
mind. First, as the object of intense academic research in former socialist
countries, a vast literature has been accumulated. However, within Marxism as a
state doctrine, socialist countries were seen as the logical and necessary
outcome of his thoughts. Second, Marx never wrote a book or an essay on
psychology in the narrow sense. He did not intend to develop a psychology, as
he was primarily interested in philosophy, political economy, and politics.
Philosophy s goal is -- as Marx expressed in his famous last thesis on
Feuerbach -- not to "interpret the world … but to change it"
(Marx, 1888/1958, p. 7). He wanted to "overturn all circumstances in which
the human is a degraded, a subjugated, a forsaken, a contemptible being" (Marx,
1844/1956b, p. 385). Third, in his mature writings, Marx no longer participated
in discussions on the mind and psychologists are not mentioned in his writings.[10]
Marx used the term psychology in his earlier writings on
several occasions. For example, in an article on censorship he suggested that
in Prussian criminal suits, judge, prosecutor, and defense counsel are unified
in one person. According to Marx (1843/1956) this unification "contradicts
all laws of psychology" (p. 24). Beyond using the word psychology, he also
laid out a theoretical framework in which the socio-historical quality of the
mind was identified as its basic feature. The mind, according to Marx and
Engels (1932/1958), "is from the beginning a societal product and remains
one" (p. 31). The mind of a single individual is not just the mind of a
single person, as the mind is "in connection with the whole of society and
part of the whole of society" (p. 167).
The connection of the mind with society finds its equivalent
in behavior: "Even when I am active as a scientist, an activity that I
seldom perform in immediate community with others, I am societal, because I am
active as a human being. Not only the material of my activity is given to me as
a societal product, as is the language in which the intellectual is active, but
also my own existence is societal activity" (Marx, 1932/1968, p. 538).
Consequently, Marx urged philosophers to study concrete individuals who live in
concrete historical societies and not to reflect on the abstract individual
beyond history and society. He criticized Feuerbach for doing exactly that and
for not realizing that the "religious mind is a societal product and that
the abstract individual he analyzes belongs to a particular form of
society" (Marx, 1888/1958, p.7).
Marx s socio-historical concept of the mind must be
understood within the context of his view on human nature, which again was
characterized by its societal dimension: "The essence of specific
personalities is not their beards, their blood, their abstract physical
features, but their social quality" (Marx, 1844/1956b, p. 222). As Marx
(1888/1958) pointed out in the famous 6th thesis on Feuerbach: "But the
human essence is not an abstract idea inherent in each specific individual. In
its reality it is the ensemble of societal relations" (p. 6). Although
these theses were, according to Engels (1888/1958), "written down in a
hurry, absolutely not intended for publication" (p. 547), and thus provide
room for speculation and interpretation, this statment did not suggest that
humans are solely societal relations.
Marx's term societal relations referred to the essence
of human beings. Thus, the idea of the relevance of societal relations was not
in contradiction to the notion that humans are also natural beings. In contrast
to certain readings of Marx, the natural is not in contradiction to the
societal in his theory. He repeatedly emphasized the natural dimension of
humans in the Economic-Philosophical Manuscripts (Marx, 1932/1968). Already in 1860 Marx (1964) stated
that Darwin s book on natural selection was "the natural-historical
foundation for our view" (p. 131). The difference between Marx and Engels,
who highly regarded the evolutionary aspect of Darwin s theory that coheres
well with dialectical materialism, and Darwin is, that, as Engels (1966)
pointed out, "humans produce" (p. 170) while animals may collect.
Thus "it is impossible to transfer laws of animal societies at once to
human ones" (p. 170).
In the Economic-Philosophical Manuscripts, (Marx, 1932/1968) which are famous for Marx's
discussion of social-psychological topics such as alienation and exploitation,
he pointed out that humans are societal and historical beings and thus
"history is the true natural history of the human being" (p. 579).[11]
He emphasized that "the formation of the five senses is the work of the
whole preceding world history" (pp. 541-542). Consequently the meaning of
sensory objects changes according to socio-historical contexts and according to
one's own position in these contexts. Using the example of food, he pointed out
that "for starving humans the human form of food does not exist, but only
its abstract being as food" (p. 542).
Marx implicitly used the concept of the objective mind when
he reflected upon the human mind. He moved, however, according to his
philosophy with its emphasis on productive activity (labor), from an objective mind understood by Hegel as law, morality
and ethics, to viewing the objective mind as
industry. Accordingly, one should be able -- in the objectified products of
human labor -- to understand the nature of humans: "One sees how the
history of industry and the developing objective existence of industry is the
open book of human nature, of … human psychology" (Marx, 1932/1968,
p. 542). In the course of this argument, Marx expressed one of the first
criticisms of the content of modern psychology: "A psychology, for which
this book, the sensuously most tangible and
accessible part of history, is closed, cannot become a real science with a
genuine content" (p. 543). Not only Marx but also Dilthey desired a
psychology with an authentic content.
The socio-historical dimension
of the mind (consciousness [Bewußtsein]) was discussed extensively in The
German Ideology (Marx & Engels,
1932/1958).[12]
According to Marx's materialist position he rejected the idea that the mind was
ever pure. On the contrary: "The mind is apriori afflicted with the curse
of being burdened with matter, which makes its appearance in the form of
agitated layers of air, sounds, in short of language. Language is as old as
consciousness … and develops from the need, the necessity of interaction
with other humans" (p. 30). Even more radical than connecting the mind
with matter is the idea that the mind changes and develops historically, with
production (labor) being the carrier of this development. As suggested within
the perspective of a materialist conception of history (see pp. 61-65), Marx
(1859/1961) identified a progression of societal formations from an Asiatic,
classical, feudal to a modern bourgeois mode of production (p. 9).
Modes of production are power-laden as productive humans not
only affect nature but also other human beings. They develop relations with
other humans and production takes place under these societal relations. Forms
of interaction [Vekehrsformen][13]
appear differently at different historical times. However, since primitive
communism these relations have appeared in the form of class struggles between
exploiters and exploited people. Participants in production relations might be
unaware of this structural power and how it is connected with the mind. Marx
did not use the term unconsciousness but the idea is clear: "The ideas of
the ruling class are in each epoch the ruling ideas" and "the ruling
ideas are nothing but the ideal expression of the ruling material
relations" (Marx & Engels, 1932/1958, p. 46). Thus, "morality,
religion, metaphysics, all the rest of ideology and their corresponding forms
of the mind, thus no longer retain the appearance of independence" (pp.
26-27).[14]
Haug (1984) and other Marxist scholars have emphasized that
Marx used the metaphor of a camera obscura
to describe ideology or false consciousness.[15]
It is not plausible, however, to assume that Marx had a fully developed concept
of false consciousness and used a metaphor for describing it. Applying a
critical analysis that begins with real presuppositions, it makes more sense to
suggest that Marx knew about optical phenomena such as optical illusions, the
invertive function of the eye, and quasi-technological applications such as the
camera obscura, and that he
modeled the mind (consciousness) accordingly. These understandings led Marx to
the conclusion that our mind has distorted views of the world (as in optical
illusions), and that our mind works upside down (as in the camera
obscura).[16]
This argument is supported by the fact that optical issues formed a reoccurring
topic in his writings.
In an article published in 1844 for the Deutsch-Französische
Jahrbücher Marx (1844/1956a) criticized
Bruno Bauer and radical democrats for the fact that political life appears in
their writings as a means, while life in bourgeois society is proposed as an
end. Marx thought it a puzzle "why in the mind of the political
emancipators … the end appears as means, and the means as end. This
optical illusion of their mind … is … a psychological, a
theoretical puzzle" (p. 367). Marx and Engels (1932/1958) used the image
of the camera obscura in The
German Ideology to describe the workings of
the mind. Moreover, they identified the causes for the invertive function of
the mind: "If in all ideology humans and their relations appear upside
down as in a camera obscura, this phenomenon arises just as much from the
historical life-process as the inversion of objects on the retina does from the
immediate physical process" (p. 26).
A similar image reappeared in the first book of Capital (Marx, 1867/1962) on the fetish-character of the
commodity. For example, in religion products of the mind appear as independent
objects with life: Angels, products of the mind according to Marx, seem to
watch over us. A commodity seems to have a mystical character, too, when
societal relations among human beings appear in capitalism as relations between
commodities. Marx compared this phenomenon with the sensation of an object on
the optical nerve, which is not represented as a "subjective stimulus of
the optical nerve itself, but as an objective form of a thing outside of the
eye" (p. 86).
As indicated above, it was important to Marx to connect the
socio-historical mind with power, and in consequence, with the real life
processes, the material activities, the labor, and practice of humans. Such an
idea seems trivial but an examination of the psychology of his time, when
cognitive processes were disconnected from real life activities, demonstrates
its significance. Ideas and conceptions of the mind are interwoven with the
material activity of human beings: "Imagination, thinking, the mental
interaction of humans, appear here as the direct outcome of their material
behavior. The same applies to mental productions as represented in the language
of politics, laws, morality, religion, metaphysics, and so on of a people"
(Marx & Engels, 1932/1958, p. 26). It was evident for Marx and Engels
(1932/1958) that human beings are the producers of their ideas, "but real
active humans, as they are determined by a particular development of their
productive forces" (p. 26). Thus, "the mind can never be anything
else than conscious existence, and the existence of humans is their real
life-process" (p. 26).
This conceptualization of the mind led to the famous
statement: "Life is not determined by the mind, but the mind by life"
(Marx & Engels, 1932/1958, 3, p. 27). This central idea can also be found
in the Manifesto of the Communist Party
of 1848: Ideas of freedom, education, right "are results of bourgeois
production and property relations" (Marx & Engels, 1848/1959, p. 477),
while the content of the law can be found in the life conditions of the ruling
class; and probably most clearly in 1859: "The totality of these
production relations forms the economic structure of society, the real basis on
which is built a legal and political superstructure, and which corresponds with
certain societal forms of the mind. … It is not the mind of humans that
determines their being, but on the contrary it is the societal being of humans
that determines their mind" (Marx, 1859/1961, pp. 8-9).
However, out of this expressed determinism arises an
explicit problem: If objective relations of a given society determine the mind,
then how is it possible to think further ahead? Although Marx had no doubts
about the ideological and materialist quality of the mind, he also believed
that the mind could be developed further than the Zeitgeist. With regard to certain issues "the mind
sometimes appears to be further advanced than its concurrent empirical
relations, so that in the struggles of a later epoch one can rely on the
authority of theoreticians of a previous time" (Marx & Engels, 1932/1958,
p. 73).
Wilhelm Dilthey
It may be arduous to discuss Marx, but it is even more
challenging to review Dilthey. He has provided a wealth of psychological ideas
(see Dilthey, 1976; Rickman, 1988; Harrington, 2000) that can hardly be pressed
into a single paper. In addition, in his later writings, after assimilating
some of Brentano s thoughts on psychology, the role attributed to psychology as
the core science of the Geisteswissenschaften [human sciences or mental sciences] changed. Thus, his earlier thoughts
should be reinterpreted in the light of his later ones.[17]
Marx understood the mind as societal, as historical, as part
of the human life process, and as a topic that must be studied in connection
with power, as expressed in production relations, classes, and economic
formations. Whereas Dilthey shared with Marx the assumption about the social
and historical character of the mind he did not agree with a materialist view
of socio-historical development. Dilthey (1883/1959) was more than skeptical
towards theories of historical progress: "The philosophy of history has
never been able to derive directly with sufficient determination a general law
of this progress from the historical-social reality" (p. 110). According
to Dilthey (1957), we "cannot deduce" historical (or personal)
development (see, p. 224). Dilthey s (1883/1959) important distinction between
the metaphysical and the modern-scientific mind is not part of a developmental
logic. And although he did not share the specifics of Marx's analysis of structural
power, he included domination (and
dependence) in addition to community
as the central external factor that constitutes the external organization of
society (Dilthey, 1883/1959, p. 68). However, he suggested a more descriptive
understanding of classes, as the "similarity of economic property
relations … connects individuals to a class that feels united and
confronts its interests with those of other classes" (p. 69).
Dilthey (1957) argued that mental life is influenced by the
objective mind, a very important concept for him: "Language, myth,
religious custom, ethos, law, and external organization are products of the
whole mind [Gesamtgeist] in which human consciousness has become objective, to
use a Hegelian term" (p. 180). He conceptualized the term more broadly
than Marx s industry and products of labor and maintained that the objective
mind can be found in all expressions and effects that humanity has left for the
succeeding generations. However, as Marx suggested looking at the products of
labor in order to understand the mind, Dilthey (1957) believed that one must
look at the "creations" of humankind, "in order to gain a deeper
and more complete understanding" (p. 180). In external objects which
represent the uniform character of human creations "psychology has its
strong, stable material, which allows a true analysis of human mental
life" (p. 226). While Marx provided clear statements on how the objective
mind determines the subjective mind, Dilthey (1957) was more cautious in
arguing that "the mental constitution of a whole epoch can [italics added] be represented in a single
individual" (p. 236). It is a blessing and the basis of hermeneutics, that
"historical consciousness allows modern persons to represent in themselves
the whole past of humanity" (p. 317).
Dilthey (1958) valued the significance of individual persons
as much as the objective mind: "The objective mind and the strength of the
individual determine together the mental world" (p. 213). Consequently, it
is not surprising that Dilthey (1957) included the concept of genius in his
reflections: "In the works of geniuses we can study the energetic effects
of specific forms of mental activities" (p. 180). It was no contradiction
for him to suggest that the individual is central in determining history and
that the individual is, at the same time, determined by history. Dilthey
(1883/1959) pointed out that "the human as a history- and
society-preceding fact is a fiction" (p. 31), a statement that is
reminiscent to Marx's sixth thesis on Feuerbach.
The socio-historical character of the psychological subject matter was expressed several times: "The human being as an object of a sound analytical science is the individual as part of society" (Dilthey, 1883/1959, pp. 31-32). "The individual is a point of intersection of a multitude of systems that become more finely specialized in the course of the development of culture" (p. 51). Thus, studying historical change is significant for understanding mental life, and "the original tie between psychological forces is dissolved through the work of history" (p. 352). For example, emotions become more complex with the development of art. Increasing differences between individuals are primarily "determined through division of labor and socio-political differentiation" (Dilthey, 1957, p. 237).
Dilthey's socio-historical understanding of the mind was not in contradiction to the idea that human beings are natural beings. Like Marx he emphasized that humans are not only influenced by nature but also influence nature (Dilthey, 1883/1959, p. 17-18). However, his focus was not biology but combining the study of psychology with history and the objective with the subjective mind. Dilthey (1957) was well aware of the scope and originality of this attempt. It is a demanding "task to build a bridge between existing psychology and the view of the historical world" (p. 237). Such a goal can only be realized step by step through an inclusion of the "study of historical products" (p. 237) in psychological research. Knowledge of the nature of the human mind is based on the study of the products and lives of the historical mind: "Only this historical self-consciousness of the mind enables us gradually to obtain a scientific and systematic reflection of the human being" (Dilthey, 1959, p. 528].
Marx suggested that history should be the natural science of
human beings. Dilthey (1957) echoed that "man cannot learn what he is
through meditation about himself, nor through psychological experiments, but
only through history" (p. 180). This idea was so crucial that he repeated
this argument on several occasions: "What man is, can only be told by his
history" (Dilthey, 1960, p. 226). "Man recognizes himself only in
history, never through introspection" (Dilthey, 1958, p. 279). Given the
significance of history for understanding humans it is not surprising that
Dilthey suggested that "all Geisteswissenschaften are based on the study
of past history" (Dilthey, 1958, p. 278) (on the preeminence of history in
the 19th century see Shore and Danziger, this volume).
Dilthey used three labels for psychology: (a) content
psychology [Realpsychologie]; (b) descriptive psychology (or analytical
psychology); and (c) structural psychology. The distinction between form and
content is a significant philosophical distinction. Dilthey based his argument
in his Habilitationsschrift of 1864,
entitled Essay on an Analysis of Moral Consciousness (Dilthey, 1962, p. 1-55), on this distinction. He
identified psychology as a formal discipline and suggested that the focus on
forms and processes of mental life prevented an examination of the content of
the mind: "The psychological laws are pure formal laws; they do not
concern the content of the human mind, but its formal conduct and
behavior" (Dilthey, 1962, p. 43) -- a situation that was unsatisfactory to
Dilthey. In a manuscript of 1865/1866 Dilthey (1977) argued that
"psychological contents are not explained by advancing processes and their
laws" (p. 6). As "every experience contains a content" (Dilthey,
1958, p. 19) an authentic content psychology includes the totality of mental
life. For example, the search for the extension of one's self should be
considered a content of emotional life (Dilthey, 1957, p. 156). In his Draft
for the Descriptive Psychology (around
1880), Dilthey (1977) still teaching in Breslau (1871-1882), argued:
"However, if man contemplates the meaning of his life, it is the very
content through which meaning is formed" (p. 182).
In 1882 Dilthey accepted a professorship at Berlin, a chair
held earlier by Hegel (from 1818 to 1831). His famous Ideas on a Descriptive
and Analytical Psychology (Dilthey, 1957,
pp. 139-240) were published during this period (in 1894). He promoted the
concept of a descriptive psychology as an alternative to the explanatory experimental
psychology of his time. Descriptive psychology should focus on the depiction of
the parts and connections of mental life as they are experienced in their
totality. The idea that the mind is socio-historical was a general framework
and important fact for Dilthey, but beyond this general framework Dilthey
sought to understand mental life in all its detail and totality. Thus, in
contrast to Marx, Dilthey provided an extensive elaboration on the subjective
mind.
Dilthey (1957) suggested that intelligence is only one part of mental life. The other parts
were instinctual and emotional life, which he considered the center of mental life,
and acts of volition (p. 180).
These three parts -- based on a traditional philosophical-psychological
distinction -- are always interconnected. However, it is possible in a process
of scientific abstraction to distinguish them. It was very important to Dilthey
to point out that mental life is more than intellectuality: "It is common
to oppose thinking, feeling, and desiring as three separate concepts, as if
feeling and desiring contain no thinking. That is wrong" (Dilthey, 1990,
p. 354). And although Dilthey was interested in the structure of the subjective
mind, he always emphasized its connection with the objective mind: The
subjective and the objective are connected as "the internal psychological
connection is determined by the position of a life-unit within a milieu. The
life-unit is in interaction with the external world" (Dilthey, 1957, p.
212). For example, acts of volition (internal and subjective) and culture
(external and objective) are interconnected, and thus psychology should
"study the nature, laws, and connection of our acts of volition by looking
at the external organization of society, the economic, and legal order"
(Dilthey, 1957, p. 190).
Dilthey used the term structural psychology [Strukturpsychologie] explicitly in an unpublished
manuscript (Dilthey, 1962, p. 317). However, already in his Ideas on
a Descriptive and Analytical Psychology
Dilthey (1957) emphasized the significance of the concept of structure: "A
life-unit is determined by and determines the milieu in which it lives. This
leads to an organization of internal states. I label this organization the
structure of mental life" (p. 200). According to Dilthey, it would be the
task of a descriptive psychology to study this structure and the knots that
bind the psychological strings to the totality of life. The concept of
structure has theoretical implications: "Mental life does not grow from
its parts; it is not built from elements; it is not a composite, not a result
of interacting atoms of sensation or emotion: it is originally and at all times
an overarching unity" (Dilthey, 1957, p. 211). Challenging a psychology
that focused on these elements, Dilthey (1957) put forth the notion of the
"Gestalt of mental life" (p. 220), a term he already used in the
1860s when refering to the "Gestalt of our mental life as an unexplained
synthesis of these mental functions" (Dilthey, 1990, p. 27).
The concept of a "mental connective structure"
which contains a "stable system of relations of its parts" (Dilthey,
1958, p. 324) represents an alternative to the concepts of natural-scientific
psychology. All our experiences are connected and in experiencing the structural
connection we accomplish the "totality of life" (Dilthey, 1962, p.
317). As the mental structure aims at life's riches, satisfactions, and
happiness, the mental structure also has a teleological character (Dilthey,
1957, p. 207). The unity and totality of the mind and the person distinguishes
mental life from the physical world and explains Dilthey's respect for art. In
literature, in the writings of Augustin, Pascal, or Lichtenberg we detect,
according to Dilthey, an intuitive understanding of the whole connection.
However, a descriptive psychology would have to clarify these ideas in a
general way (see Dilthey, 1957, p. 153).
Dilthey also linked the concept of structure to the concept
of development, and emphasized, for example, that each biological age has its
own normative right. Developmental research should include the study of bodily
development, the influences of the physical environment and the surrounding
mental world. All "these conditions influence the connective structure of
mental life" (Dilthey, 1957, p. 214). Even further, "development is
only possible where a connective structure exists" (p. 218). Each
biography is situated in a connective structure which is "organized from
the inside and connected to a unity" (Dilthey, 1958, p. 325).
Dilthey related mental processes to life-activities, not in
the sense of labor as a first need (Marx) but in a wider sense. In his
inaugural lecture in Basel in 1867 he stated that the "purpose of humans
is to act" (Dilthey, 1957, p. 27). But Dilthey, who included in his
reflections on the mind the whole human being with his or her cognition
(intellectuality), emotion, and motivation (volition), saw action as only one
expression of life, "only one part of our essence" (Dilthey, 1958, p.
206). The problem with action, or behavior for that matter, as a potential core
category of psychology is that it does not allow the "complete portrayal
of our inner life" (p. 206). This can only be accomplished through the
concept of experience [Erlebnis] in the sense of a subject's meaningful
encounter with the natural, cultural, historical, and human world.
It is justifiable to conclude that there are similar threads
within the psychological writings of Marx and Dilthey. Both agreed on the
socio-historical nature of the mind, but they differed in their understanding
of society, history, and action. A similar constellation can be found with
regard to methodologies and methods for studying the mind. Both Marx and
Dilthey shared a general approach to the problem, which is non-experimental but
rather philosophical and historical, but they differed with regard to the
status of the human sciences. Their general methodology may be subsumed under
the category of a philosophical-abstractive version of science, which differed
from a natural-scientific one -- the two basic modes of performing science[18]
in 19th-century Germany.
For example, Fichte (1762-1814) and Hegel promoted a
philosophical version of science. For Fichte (1794/1972) "a science has a
systematic form; all its sentences are connected through a single principle,
and unify in this principle to a whole" (p. 31); "a science must be
one, a totality" (p. 33); "a science should be a building; its main
purpose is stability" (p. 35). There was no doubt for Fichte that
"philosophy is a science" (p. 31) and that "the essence of
science is the quality of its content" (p. 32). For Hegel (1807/1986b)
"the true form [Gestalt], in which truth exists, can only be its scientific
system" (p. 14). His dictum that "truth is the whole" (p. 24)
contrasts sharply with an experimental version of science that focuses only on
parts and moments and not on totality. These philosophical ideas were the core
targets of experimental psychologists and recently of postmodernists. However,
with the rejection of such a model of science, the possibilities were not
explored sufficiently.
Marx and Dilthey endorsed a philosophical-abstractive
version of science, different from classical German philosophy but shaped by
its spirit. However, Marx (1867/1962), who maintained a
philosophical-abstractive version of science himself, admired the natural
sciences and criticized the methods and content of traditional philosophy (p.
27). For example, the first chapter of Capital (Marx, 1867/1962) is a masterpiece in philosophical abstraction; it is
not a natural-scientific text. However, a monistic view of science allowed him
to interpret processes of capitalist economy and historical development as a
"natural-scientific law" (p. 15). Dilthey, in contrast, attempted to
establish the foundation for the Geisteswissenschaften and a methodology that would do justice to their
very subject matters, which meant not to imitate the natural-scientific one.
Although he was skeptical of philosophical systems, he demanded from science
that research maintain a philosophical intention. In his hermeneutic writings
he became skeptical of psychology as the basic science for the Geisteswissenschaften and suggested that all Geisteswissenschaften are related to understanding and interpretation (see
Dilthey, 1958, p. 205).
Karl Marx
Marx (1932/1968) projected a monistic view of science:
"The natural science will later subsume the human science as the human
science will subsume the natural science: There will be one science" (p.
544). In The German Ideology Marx and
Engels (1932/1958) wrote[19]:
"We accept only one single science, the science of history. History can be
viewed from two sides and divided into the history of nature and the history of
humans. Both sides cannot be separated" (p. 18). He also used
natural-scientific metaphors for describing his methods. For example, Marx
(1859/1961) argued that "the anatomy of bourgeois society must be pursued
in political economy" (p. 8).
Marx and Engels
(1932/1958) criticized traditional German philosophy for starting with what
humans imagine and then arriving at real humans. In contrast he suggested a
methodology in which one begins with active humans in order to understand their
ideas and imaginations. To the real presuppositions of human existence and
history (pp. 28-30) belongs first of all the fact that humans must be able to
live. They eat, drink, and require clothing and shelter. Another presupposition
is that a satisfaction of a need leads to new needs. At a certain point in
history humans do not just find their means of living, they produce them. Thus,
the history of humankind must be studied in relation to the history of
production. Finally, procreation is a necessary presupposition of historical
development. In short, he suggested that in order to study the mind one must
study the preconditions that make the mind possible. For scientists of the mind
this means that they must reflect upon and study the preconditions that make
the mind possible before they enter into experimentation.
For the analysis of political economy Marx (1939/1983)
offered a method that can be described as a move from the abstract to the
concrete (pp. 34-42). Moreover, he intended this method as a general
methodology for the scientific mind. According to this method, the starting
point for knowledge is the concrete, which appears in terms of sensible
objects. In the process of knowledge acquisition one must identify the essence
of these objects, represented in abstract concepts. This is not the end of the
scientific process. After the scientific mind has developed abstract concepts,
it must move from the abstract to a new form of the concrete. This form of the
concrete maintains the abstract concepts but at the same time reproduces
mentally the objects in totality. Marx has used this method in his analyses of
economy and more recently Holzkamp (1973) has successfully applied this method
to psychology.
Abstraction and analysis played a very important role in
Marx's thinking and is an essential part of philosophical-abstractive science.
In the preface of the first book of Capital
(Marx, 1867/1962) Marx made the comparison: "Neither microscope nor
chemical reagents serve for the analysis of economical forms. The power of
abstraction must replace both" (p. 12). Dilthey (1883/1959), too,
emphasized abstraction and analysis (analytical psychology) and argued, for
example, that psychology depends on "identifying general characteristics
developed by psychological individuals … through a process of abstraction" (p. 30). Of course,
traditional psychology has widely neglected a discussion of the quality of
abstraction in the process of discovery and justification.
Marx was open to a variety of methods to access the lives of
people. He also used what psychologists might call concrete empirical methods.
He designed a "questionnaire for workers" based on a request from the
French journal editor of La Revue Socialiste. The questionnaire contained 100 questions including: "In which
trade do you work?" "List the [employees ] sex and age;"
"Is the work completely or mainly manual or based on machines?"
"Report, based on your own experiences, accidents which caused injuries or
the death of workers;" "How many holidays do you have during the
year?" "Report on fluctuations in [your] salary, as far back as you
can remember;" "What is the general physical, mental, and moral
constitution of workers in your occupation?" (Marx, 1880/1962).[20]
Wilhelm Dilthey
Dilthey's (1883/1959) psychological and methodological
writings must be understood within the context of his attempt to establish an
"epistemological foundation for the Geisteswissenschaften" (p. 116).
Dilthey sought to develop a critique of historical reason in the same manner as
Kant developed a critique of pure reason for the natural sciences (see Dilthey,
1958, p. 278). Epistemological positions as outlined by A. Comte (1798-1857)
and J. S. Mill (1806-1873) were unsatisfactory to Dilthey (1883/1959), as they
assimilated history into the concepts and methods of the natural sciences. In
contrast, he suggested that the anchor for the Geisteswissenschaften is the
analysis of human experience, the facts of consciousness, and the mind. The
most basic and central human sciences are those that study life-units which
"constitute society and history" (i.e., humans) (p. 28).
Not surprisingly, psychology is deemed the "first and
most elementary among the disciplines of the mind" (Dilthey, 1883/1959, p.
33). Psychology and anthropology (in the Kantian sense; see Tolman, this
volume) study psycho-physical life-units while including the whole of history
and all life-experiences as their research material. Both disciplines are the
"foundation of all knowledge of historical life, as well as of all rules
of guidance and development of society" (Dilthey, 1883/1959, p. 32). But
in contrast to Kant, Locke (1632-1704), or Hume (1711-1776), Dilthey -- in
accordance with his view on human nature -- did not limit his reflections to
the epistemological subject. Rather, he focused on the total subject whose
psychological essence includes, besides intelligence, emotion and volition.
Dilthey justified philosophically a dualistic view of
science encompassing the natural sciences [Naturwissenschaften] and human sciences
[Geisteswissenschaften]. The latter include history, political science, law,
political economy, theology, literature, and art. More generally, Geisteswissenschaften refer to sciences that "have the
historical-social reality as their subject matter" (Dilthey, 1883/1959, p.
4). The topic of these Geisteswissenschaften is "the historical-social reality as far as
this reality has been conserved historically in the consciousness of
humankind" (Dilthey, 1883/1959, p. 24). Dilthey himself was not completely
content with the term Geisteswissenschaften, which he borrowed from Schiel, who translated Mill
s On the Logic of the Moral Sciences.
The term Geisteswissenschaft
"expresses highly imperfectly the subject matter of this study"
(Dilthey, 1883/1959, p. 5).[21]
Dilthey was concerned once more that a focus on the mental (Geist) would draw
attention away from the emotional and the motivational: "A theory that
describes and analyzes social-historical facts, cannot ignore the totality of
human nature and limit itself to the mental" (Dilthey, 1883/1959, p. 6).
Dilthey (1883/1959) was cautious about his scientific
dualism. On the one hand he emphasized that natural and mental processes are
incomparable (p. 11) and that the "total experience of the mental
world" (p. 9) justifies the concept of the Geisteswissenschaften, which cannot be executed according to the empirical
study of nature. Thus, Hegel, Schleiermacher, and Schelling are more relevant
for his epistemological reflections than Comte, Mill, or H. Spencer (1820-1903)
(see Dilthey, 1883/1959). On the other hand he emphasized that mental life is
only one part of the psycho-physical life-unit and put forth the notion of the
"relative independence of the Geisteswissenschaften" (Dilthey,
1883/1959, p. 17).
Based on the distinction between natural and human sciences
and the intention of a psychological foundation for the Geisteswissenschaften, Dilthey composed his Ideas on a
Descriptive and Analytical Psychology (see
Dilthey, 1957). He objected that explanatory psychology (Herbart, Spencer,
Taine) was not able to study the mind sufficiently, as causal explanations used
in the natural sciences cannot be applied to the mental world. While
explanatory (natural-scientific) psychology builds on basic processes such as
association or apperception, descriptive psychology separates description and
analysis from the explanatory hypothesis. In descriptive psychology "the
complete reality of mental life must be used for description and preferably
analysis, and this description and analysis must have the highest achievable
degree of certainty" (Dilthey, 1957, p. 168). In order to achieve this
goal, descriptive psychology must begin with the developed mental life and not
with "elementary processes" (p. 169). Ebbinghaus (1850-1909) (1896)
challenged Dilthey s critique of natural-scientific psychology and suggested
that all problems can be handled within explanatory psychology.
Dilthey (1957) considered understanding [Verstehen] to be
the most appropriate "method"[22]
for psychology, simply summarized in the basic dictum: "We explain nature,
but we understand mental life" (p. 144). However, he did not exclude other
methods of psychology and acknowledged besides understanding a variety of
approaches to psychology, including introspection, comparative methods,
experimentation, and the study of abnormal psychology (see Dilthey, 1957, p.
199). Based on his view of the human mind, according to which the objective
mind (expressed in the life style, interaction, customs, laws, state, religion,
art, and science of a culture) and subjective mind are interconnected, he
emphasized the study of the products of mental life as a "very important
complement" (p. 199) in the canon of psychological methods.
Even more significantly, Dilthey suggested that understanding
is only possible because of the objective mind: "Each single
life-expression [Lebensäußerung] represents something common in the
realm of this objective mind. Each word, each sentence, each gesture, or each
act of politeness, each work of art, and each historical act can only be
understood because a commonness [Gemeinsamkeit] connects expression with
understanding" (Dilthey, 1958, p. 146). Even the work of "the genius
represents common ideas, the mental life [Gemütsleben], and the ideal of a
time and an environment" (Dilthey, 1958, p. 208). From the world of the
objective mind human beings receive nourishment "beginning in early
childhood" (Dilthey, 1958, p. 208). Consequently, "we can only
understand an individual completely, as close as we may be, by getting to know
how this individual came to be" (Dilthey, 1957, p. 213). The "description of the individual
psycho-physical life-unit is realized in biography" (Dilthey, 1883/1959,
p. 33).
Dilthey became rather confident about the nature of truth
and the outcome of research in the geisteswissenschaftlichen context. With regard to metaphysics he suggested
that "mental life is in permanent evolution, unpredictable in its further
development, at every point historically relative and limited. Thus, it is impossible
to connect the latest concepts of these various scientific disciplines in an
objective and final way" (Dilthey, 1883/1959, p. 404). However, with
regard to psychology, Dilthey believed that an objective knowledge of the
processes that constitute the mental life of humankind is possible. It would
lead to an "objective science of the mental world" (Dilthey, 1990, p.
157).
Thus, Dilthey was not only interested in singularity. On the
contrary, he tried to understand the relationship between generality
(uniformity) and particularity (singularity), significant for any understanding
of mental life. As the mental totality of each human being is particular, it is
the "most obvious problem to formulate laws, i.e., uniformities of
behavior" (Dilthey, 1977, p. 195). He tried to analyze and understand the
particular while aiming for general principles. This can be done because
"the particular arises on the basis of all these uniformities"
(Dilthey, 1957, p. 270). He did not envision a purely idiographic description
and understanding of the individual but intended an understanding of
generalized individuals. His desire for general results can be understood by
his emphasis of the notion of an objective mind.
Dilthey s desire for generality can also be seen in his suggestion
to develop types. Particular and individual expressions are not random but can
be subsumed under a type as "certain basic forms, which we call -- for the
time being -- types, reoccur in the play of variations" (Dilthey, 1957, p.
270). Types are not metaphysical constructions as "humankind contains a
system of order just as the objective mind contains an order, which is
organized according to types. This system of order leads from the regularity
and the structure of the generalized human to types, through which
understanding construes individuals" (Dilthey, 1958, p. 213). The focus on
types "and what is subsumed under this type" (Dilthey, 1962, p. 318)
is not arbitrary. It is an essential part of Dilthey s psychology and
philosophy. This typological intention can be identified easily in his
philosophy of worldviews (Dilthey, 1960) and in the fact that the geisteswissenschaftliche psychologist E. Spranger (1924, 1914/1928), a
follower of Dilthey, developed types of both personality and adolescent experience.
Dilthey is perhaps best known for his elaboration of
understanding. This method is important as "the interconnectedness of the
psychological cannot be expressed in concepts" (Dilthey, 1977, p. 164).
Accordingly "totality and its interconnectedness exist only in experience
and in immediate consciousness" (p. 165). Humans experience the totality
of their essence and this totality is "reproduced in understanding"
(Dilthey, 1958, p. 278). Dilthey (1958) distinguished between (a) elementary
forms of understanding, which are ubiquitous in everyday life in the form of
immediate processes (p. 207), and (b) higher forms of understanding should
something contradict our everyday experience (p. 210). In higher forms of
understanding we start with an examination of the problem, the involved
context, and finally reach understanding. An understanding of a person can be
modeled on an understanding of poetry, or an interpretation of literature and
art. From empathy arises the (c) highest form of understanding, in which the
totality of mental life is effective, the re-experiencing [Nacherleben] of
others people's experiences (see Dilthey, 1958, pp. 213-216). It is another
feature of a geisteswissenschaftliche
psychology as "re-experiencing of the psychological world … distinguishes
all mental operations … from the knowledge of nature" (Dilthey,
1977, p. 95). The (d) scientific form of understanding and interpretation leads
to hermeneutics (Dilthey, 1958, p. 217) with the final goal being "to
understand the author better than he has understood himself" (Dilthey,
1957, p. 331). Besides the category of understanding Dilthey developed the
concepts of experience, expression, and meaning (see Dilthey, 1958).
Marx and Dilthey outlined alternative methodologies for the
study of the socio-historically-embedded mind. These methodologies, unknown to
most contemporary psychologists, were not developed with the same institutional
support and vigor as experimental psychology. Their conceptualization of the
mind did not become part of the mainstream of academic psychology and their
ideas survived only at the fringes of the discipline. The dominance of
psychological experimentation at the end of the 19th century, based on a hasty
commitment to one methodology, did not solve the problem of the subject matter
of psychology or the nature of the mind -- it merely excluded methodological
ambiguity. Not surprisingly this exclusion led to a reoccurring dissatisfaction
with the status of psychology in the history of the discipline as expressed in
various crisis-of-psychology discourses. If we take the arguments of Dilthey
and Marx seriously, then it seems logical to suggest - in the service of
knowledge - that an understanding of the mind is limited as long as the
objective dimension of the mind is not recognized. Following such a
conceptualization, psychology requires new methods for studying the mind. The
ideas of Marx and Dilthey, philosopher-psychologists of the 19th century, are
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[1]
The term individualistic connotes here a
justification for the notion of the individual while the term individual suggests a lack of reflection on the concept in
daily research practices.
[2]
The English term mind is imprecise as it
refers to German Geist, Seele, Gemüt, as well as to Bewußtsein (consciousness). The German term Geist, widely used by Hegel, is translated as spirit or as mind.
[3]
Tolman, in this volume, translates Geist
as spirit.
[4]
Mind of the time (spirit of the times) is a translation of Geist der Zeit which means the same as Zeitgeist.
[5] Translations have been provided by the author of this
chapter. In cases of ambiguity the author sought guidance in Kamenka (1983).
[6] Translations have been provided by the author of this
chapter.
[7]
Marx exercised perhaps his greatest influence in psychology via Vygotsky's developmental
concepts (e.g., zone of proximal development). These concepts could be
assimilated and accommodated into mainstream research because the
cultural-historical school followed a natural scientific methodology in line
with Marx's authority.
[8]
Despite their real impact on psychology, Marx and Dilthey are hardly mentioned
in North American history of psychology textbooks. One of the very few
textbooks that recognizes Marx is Robinson (1976). He suggested that Marx
failed to influence the course of psychological scholarship because of his
Hegelianism, and that his non-experimental and sociological approach to the
mind were detrimental to the emerging natural science of psychology. With a
focus on intellectual history, however, I will not discuss why Marx and Dilthey
were without impact on remodeling the psychology of their time.
[9]
This is understandable as many of Marx's writings were published long after his
death (see below).
[10]
Babbage's works (see Green, this volume) cited by the later Marx were non-psychological.
Althusser (1965/1996) classified Marx's writings into early works (1840-1844), works of the break (1845), the transitional works (1845-1857) and the mature works (1857-1883) (p. 35). The mature writings are
non-anthropological and non-psychological. The celebrated Economic-Philosophical
Manuscripts of 1844 (Marx, 1932/1968), the Theses
on Feuerbach of 1845 (Marx, 1888/1958), The
German Ideology of 1845/46 (Marx &
Engels, 1932/1958), all belong accordingly to the "pre-mature" works
in which Marx s psychological thoughts can be found.
[11]
Natural history [Naturgeschichte] has the meaning of natural science.
[12]
The German Ideology was written by Marx
and Engels. However, Engels (1888/1962) himself argued that the "largest
part of the leading central thoughts … belong to Marx" (pp.
291-292). The theory "carries therefore rightly his name" (p. 292).
Consequently, I will attribute the ideas to Marx.
[13]
Marx later used the term production relations (Marx, 1849/1959, p. 408).
[14]
Marx originated the idea that socio-historical formation and class determine
thoughts. This idea has been very influential and has been assimilated by
contemporary radical theory and includes gender, "race," and sexual
preference (see Teo, 1997).
[15]
Haug (1984) pointed out that the camera obscura was a common epistemological
topic in the 19th century. Dilthey (1977) also compared the working of the eye
with a camera obscura (p. 98).
[16]
The idea of confounding reality and appearance can already be found in Plato's
"allegory of the cave" (Plato, 1997).
[17]
Given the space constraints, the discussion of Dilthey s thoughts will be more
systematic than historical.
[18]
The term science is used in its German meaning Wissenschaft, which refers to
the study of the natural sciences as well as the study of art, history, or
religion.
[19]
Crossed out in the original manuscript.
[20]
Marx wrote the original version in English. It has been translated into German
for the Marx and Engels edition. This is the author's re-translation into
English.
[21]
Until the middle of the 1870s Dilthey used the term "moral-political
sciences."
[22]
Rickman (1988) suggests that understanding is not a method. However, Dilthey
(1958) himself suggested that "understanding and interpretation is the
method which accomplishes the human sciences" (p. 205).