Time and again, writers, researchers, modern political theorists, and even self-identified Marxists—including proponents of Academic Marxism and the Frankfurt School, most notably known for Critical Theory—invoke the concept of “Marx’s dialectic” without engaging directly with what Marx himself actually wrote on the subject. Instead, they frequently rely on Engels’s interpretation, treating it as the definitive account. This tendency raises a critical yet often overlooked question: What, in fact, is dialectics according to Marx—as opposed to Hegel?
Hegel and Dialectics
According to Hegel, “dialectic is a constitutive law of thought, and thought, as understanding, negates and contradicts itself. This is one of the essential points of logic”—Hegel, Logic.
In dialectics, thought is inherently self-negating and unfolds through a triadic process—commonly framed in Greek philosophy as thesis, antithesis, and synthesis, and more precisely articulated by Hegel as affirmation, negation, and the negation of the negation. This dynamic interplay constitutes the dialectical movement.
But what, then, is dialectics as understood by Marx?
Marx and Dialectics
In The Poverty of Philosophy, Marx describes the structure of dialectical movement as a process in which every idea or thought divides into internal contradictions and gives rise to syntheses, leading to increasingly abstract categories. He writes:
“But once it has managed to pose itself as a thesis, this thesis, this thought, opposed to itself, splits up into two contradictory thoughts – the positive and the negative, the yes and no. The struggle between these two antagonistic elements… constitutes the dialectical movement… The fusion of these two contradictory thoughts constitutes a new thought, which is the synthesis of them… From the dialectic movement of the simple categories is born the group, so from the dialectic movement of the groups is born the series, and from the dialectic movement of the series is born the entire system.” —Marx
Thus, what constitutes the dialectical movement is the interplay of two contradictory aspects of thought—posing itself, opposing itself, and ultimately composing itself into a new conceptual unity. It is therefore not surprising that Marx critically observed in The Holy Family:
“Hegel very often gives a real presentation, embracing the thing itself, within the speculative presentation. This real development within the speculative development misleads the reader into considering the speculative development as real and the real as speculative.” —Marx
Reality According to Hegel
Karl Marx writes in The Holy Family: “The whole of the Phänomenologie [Phenomenology of Spirit] is intended to prove that self-consciousness is the only reality and all reality.”
In returning to Hegel himself, we find confirmation of Marx’s interpretation. In The Philosophy of Right, Hegel famously states: “What is rational is real, and what is real is rational.” Furthermore, in Phenomenology of Spirit, he suggests that when speaking of reality, it is easy to understand that God is the highest and only reality. In Hegel’s system, reality is fundamentally bound to reason, spirit, and self-consciousness. Thus, for Hegel, material conditions are reduced to mere abstractions of self-consciousness.
Phenomenology According to Marx
Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit is a study of how consciousness appears to itself—a process he calls self-consciousness. As such, the Hegelian phenomenology is concerned with the development of consciousness, knowledge, and logic; it is, in essence, a dialectical phenomenology of the mind.
Marx, however, offers a sharp critique of this idealist approach. In The Holy Family, he writes:
“The Phänomenologie is therefore quite consistent in that it ends by replacing human reality with ‘absolute knowledge’… and is no longer disturbed by any objective world.”—The Holy Family.
For Marx, Hegel’s Phenomenology culminates in a conception of absolute knowledge that ultimately substitutes human, material reality with abstract reason. In this framework, absolute knowledge becomes synonymous with absolute reason, existing solely within the realm of thought. Its mode of being is pure abstraction—thought detached from concrete, material conditions and objective reality. As Marx states:
Hegel substitutes self-consciousness for man, reducing human reality to mere forms of thought. Marx critiques this approach: “Absolute Criticism has learned from Hegel’s Phänomenologie at least the art of converting real objective chains that exist outside me into merely ideal, merely subjective chains, existing merely in me, and thus of converting all external sensuously perceptible struggles into pure struggles of thought.”—The Holy Family
Conclusion
If we aim to examine the relationship between Marx and Hegel, we must begin by investigating how each thinker understands “reality” and their respective methods for gaining knowledge of it. Do they truly employ the same approach? What is the source of knowledge for Hegel, and how does it differ for Marx? Unlike Hegel, whose method is rooted in abstract speculation and philosophical imagination, Marx grounds his analysis in empirical observation, material conditions, and historical facts. The divergence between Marx and Hegel lies not merely in their conclusions, but in the fundamental nature of their analytical methods. Hegel’s dialectical phenomenology proceeds from within—a self-generating logic of Spirit that unfolds through thought alone. Marx’s method, by contrast, begins from without: from the empirical conditions of life—food and shelter, labor and property, family and the state. His materialism is not a modified form of Hegelian idealism; it is a decisive rupture from it.