Aliénation, Entfremdung – and Alienation. Hegel’s Solidary Displacement of Diderot

Abstract

Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit put alienation high on the philosophical agenda, as was readily recognized by Marx. Relatively well-known is also that Hegel’s concept of alienation was inspired by Goethe’s translation of Diderot’s dialogue Rameau’s Nephew, but the details and the conceptual implications of these details typically escape scholarly attention. Recognizing the basic idea of alienation as not-belonging to or being deprived of something, I emphasize that alienation implies a movement towards the limits of the human being, in which the mental suffering this involves is conditioned by social pathologies. To substantiate this claim, I show how Diderot’s satire implies uncompromising materialist social criticism, but that it does not employ the term ‘aliénation’ but instead reserves it for a kind of frenzy that borders on insanity. My claim is then that, in Goethe’s translation of Diderot’s dialogue, and in his translation of ‘aliénation’ to ‘Entfremdung’, Hegel found a general key for the conceptual critique of the spirit of Modernity. I therefore argue that, in the Phenomenology, Hegel employed alienation in more than one sense, raising madness to the level of a characteristic of Modernity, stressing the detrimental implications for consciousness under such living conditions, emphasizing how alienation works as negation, and, finally, pointing nevertheless to the possibility of embracing social and political reality.

Hegelova Fenomenologija duha je postavila otuđenje u sam centar filozofske agende, kako je Marks uvideo. Relativno je dobro poznato i da je Hegel u ovome bio inspirisan Geteovim prevodom Didroovog dijaloga Ramoov sinovac, ali detalji i pojmovne implikacije ovih detalja najčešće ostaju nerazmotreni. Prepoznajući osnovnu ideju otuđenja kao ne-pripadanja ne čemu, ili lišenosti nečega, u radu naglašavam da otuđenje podrazumeva jedno kretanje ka granicama ljudskog bića, da ono podrazumeva načine na koji socijalne patologije uslovljavaju potencijalne mentalne probleme, i da ovaj problem zahteva društvenu kritiku. Da bih ovo potkrepio, pokazujem da Didroova satira predstavlja beskompromisnu materijalističku druš tvenu kritiku, ali i da ova kritika ne koristi pojam ‘aliénation’, koji ovde ostaje rezervisan za neku vrstu mahnitosti koja se graniči sa ludilom. U tom smislu argumentujem da u Geteovom prevodu Didroovog dijaloga, i posebno u njegovom prevodu ‘aliénation’ kao ‘Entfremdung’, Hegel pronalazi opšti ključ za konceptualnu kritiku duha modernosti. Stoga argumentujem da u Fenomenologiji, Hegelov pojam otuđenja ima više značenja – Hegel ludilo uzdiže do nivoa Modernosti, naglašava negativne implikacije života u ovakvim uslovima po ljudsku svest, objašnjava da otuđenje funkcioniše kao negacija i, naposletku, ukazuje na mogućnost pomirenja sa društvenom i političkom realnošć