Social theory - What is the relationship between the French Revolution, the Industrial Revolution and the Age of Reason?

Bethlyn Johnson

Social Theory 400

Mid-Term Exam

HEGEL

What is the relationship between the French Revolution, the Industrial Revolution and the Age of Reason?

According to Hegel’s philosophical view of sociohistorcal events; the French Revolution, the Industrial Revolution and the Age of Reason brought about the emergence of a “modern world”. The three principles of modernity include: self-understanding, revolution, and reason. The French Revolution was a social insurgency, sometimes referred to as a civil war. This revolution brought about social change for the masses by transforming the social structures of a class society. Stratification between the working poor and the aristocracy was enforced by the Feudalistic society. The French Revolution involved restructuring state and societal institutions to correspond with the individuals own interests. It was also a catalyst for the end of Feudalism and created a middle-class society from which individual needs and interests were brought to light. This concept of self-understanding was the first and main principle upon which the modern world was built. The Industrial Revolution continued this process of self-understanding, reason, and revolution.

Centered in England, the Industrial Revolution was an insurrectionary of productive forces for a capitalist economy. This revolution was extremely important because the ways in which individuals in society reproduce themselves for their own needs created a mercantile capitalism. Vast trading networks were created and maintained for individuals to receive goods from far away lands. This, in turn, created a smaller world for individuals; they were now able to experience materials and ideas from a larger sociological sphere. This modern world encouraged a new way of looking at human nature, and in turn, at humanity. The death of Feudalism brought about the end of church rule over political and social ideas. Individuals realize that ideas can transform reality, and they are now prepared to die for the ideas of individuality. In short, reality is revolutionized. The Age of Reason also brought about revelations in veracity.

As maintained by Hegel, the Age of Reason could also be described as the “Age of Science”. The core of Hegel’s philosophy is a structure, the concepts of which – freedom, subject, mind, and notion – are derived from the idea of reason. Reason was thought to work for the good of society. This concept of reason is stated to impose a logical order to reality. The logic and order reason grasps is found within itself, reflectively. Science sought to provide an order of reality of which everything is logical and reason can elicit logic. Before reason and science came into understanding, the church was the enlightened way to knowledge. The social philosophy of the church was being broken away from, a REVOLUTION away from the idea that the Earth was the center of the universe. This view of the universe corresponded with the social formation of Feudalism, but not capitalism. Feudalism is represented by the rule of the church over political and social ideas. With the revolutions of reason and self-understanding, the individual can decide for themselves what is true and what is not. The church’s power of individual ideas and understandings of reality dwindles. The emergence of reason perpetuated the modern world view and assumes man has the power to shape reality corresponding to the truth. Hegel’s notion of reason involves the “material strivings for a free and rational order of life.” (Marcuse, pg. 5) These massive transitions in society and intellectual revelations through the French Revolution, Industrial Revolution, and Age of Reason have given birth to the modern world.

2. Intersubjectivity

Hegel explains intersubjectivity as an idea that there are fundamental principles of experience that are universally shared. Socially, individuals all share something similar. In order to show how society exists within the construction of our Ego, our SELF is social. Kant and Hegel showed that understanding came from within, not externally. Humans define and construct others based on the way they, themselves are. Individuals may experience life differently, but we can assume certain universals will apply to all humans. This intersubjectivity brings humans together in economy, policy, and society. Intersubjectivity is also the duality of subject and object.

4. Substance is Subject

In the subject/object relationship, the individual is able to realize his potential. It is the social context which determines potentiality. The social context is the essence, or substance, of the subject only when substance realizes inherently from social context potential related to reflective past experiences. An individual is unable to step outside the bounds of its social context. Reason recognizes the potential of the individual and inherently recognizes society. This theory of Substance is Subject was a new reality of thinking about the French Revolution for Hegel. He found that reality is dynamic, not static; and that reality is a process that is always changing. For example, Hegel theorized the life of a stone. The stone’s existence holds out against all contradictions and pressures against it (like wind and rain). This theory demonstrates how the subject persists even though external forces may cause obstacles. The stone maintains the process of being a stone. Yet, the stone does not ponder its existence as a stone or wonder “What if I was a plant?” Only human beings have this ability of realization about the life process. Comprehension is how realization is measured, and humans develop an understanding of development. Humans are the only beings compelled toward self-understanding, and therefore, humans are the only true subjects of substance.

7. Realization

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7. Realization

The act of realization is to become aware of, or more importantly, to make something reality. Hegel theorized that only humans are true subjects of substance and able to comprehend life and development. Humans are able to make understanding of chaos, and this understanding is realization. By virtue of realizing life, the individual therefore realizes himself within his social context as real. Realization is an important and necessary tool in understanding society, and how society views itself. The act of Realization is also a theory of negativity. For example, Dialectical thinking or Dialectics are two opposing view points attempting to arrive at a truth. A truth is realized through the negation of questions and the asking of more questions. The questions are the actual truth behind reality, and bring to light the essence of a subject. Consequently, these negations actually bring about the conflict and agreement of the subject. When there is conflict and agreement realizations become apparent. Therefore, realization and reality involve binary opposites which create a harmony and truth.

8. Empiricism vs. Idealism

Hegel theorized that we know what we know from experience. Empiricism is a theory that states experience exists prior to ideas. Empiricism also focuses on observable facts. Therefore, we can say that we know what we know from experience AND observable facts. British Empiricism explains that we know what we know by experiencing what we know. For example, Galileo observed that the earth revolves around the sun. This is therefore an observed experienced fact. The physical eye can prove what the mind’s eye thought to be true. The process of observing is visual, so then Empiricism can also be identified as visual. Problems can arise out of Empiricism because humans view experiences differently (this can be based on previous experiences by the individual).

Idealism contradicts Empiricism by discerning that we have preexisting ideas

prior to experience. This idea of a priori explains that ideas exist before experience. A priori represent innate categories within the individual prior to experience. We are then able to organize these experiences through intuition and understanding. Intuition is the subjective makeup or individual’s subjective psychology. It is through intuition that we are able to understand time and space. We are able to organize chaos, manifoldness, or multiplicity of experience through time, while negating outside distractions. Time is negative because it does not stop or start; there is no beginning or end. Time elicits that any future minute will negate the minute of the past. Categories of understanding differ from intuition in that they show causality, reciprocity, and substance.

Categories are another way of ordering experiences within the human psyche. Individuals are able to understand reality by categorizing experiences out of chaos and over-stimulation.

MARX

Division of Labor

Karl Marx’s view of history is differently constructed than Hegel’s. Marx uses a materialist conception of history in order to understand reality. Marx begins with the fundamental view of labor as meeting mans most basic needs. According to Marx, society is categorized by a division of labor. Society divides itself into groups based on shared interests. The division of labor is a key source of class structure within society, which also reflects the division of labor. Different interests between groups can cause conflict and denotes in essence a class struggle.

The division of labor is categorized by four stages, in which each builds upon the previous stage. The first stage (or act) includes meeting the most primary of human needs – food, water, and shelter. Once these are met, the creation of new needs arise. This is the second stage in which a populations needs must be met through production. If the first stage needs are not met, then society will stay at this primal level. But when needs are met and society can thrive, more needs will arise to build upon new production processes. It is from stage one and stage two that constitute the operational level of division of labor. The third stage denotes the origin of class society and depicts its first form, the family. Families come together (particularly in tribal cultures) in order to gain from one another’s resources. Labor is specialized in that hunter’s hunt, gatherer’s gather, and so on. This division of labor also leads to the fourth stage when producing leads to a surplus for the community. Once an individual has met his own needs and the needs of his family, he may have some left over product that he does not need. This un-needed product is the surplus and can be sold for a profit within society. The fourth stage is also an act when producing transcends from physical to mental, and the production of ideas. Ideology produces ideas about existence and meaning for experiences. Hegel stated that humans need to comprehend, discern or create meaning for development. Similar to Hegel, Marx says that in stage four ideologies become more apparent to provide a meaning to why we produce at all. Ideology produces the arts, religion, and music and diffuses the conflict between classes. Ideology is the basis for the superstructure or production of meaning and understanding.

Three forms of Alienated Labor

Marx theorized that there are three forms of alienated labor. The first occurs when the laborer is alienated from his product. Marx explains that “the more the worker exerts himself, the more powerful becomes the alien objective world . . . the worker puts more of himself into the object; then it no longer belongs to him but to the object.”(Marcuse, pg.276). The worker then becomes poorer the more wealth he is able to produce, and becomes a cheaper commodity the more commodities he can produce. Therefore, the labor the man produces also produces itself. This leads to the product the labor produced becoming an object that is separate from man, and is a power that can exist separate from man. Since the product from the labor has become alienated from man, so too then has the labor that produces the product.

The second form is alienation from labor itself. This is a process that is external to the worker. The more the laborer produces, the more miserable they become. They are unable to attain free will within labor. Work is forced and labor is then “self sacrifice of reparation” (Marcuse, pg. 279). The stronger the external world becomes, the less the worker will need nature. The worker only works as a means of survival, and is alienated from his means of producing. Labor now belongs to someone outside the laborer, and therefore the laborer is alienated from himself.

Alienation of man from his species is the third form of alienated labor. Man makes his life a process of will and consciousness. Since he is a conscious being, man turns his life activity (labor) into a means for existence. Man produces universally, for the good of the self and the whole. Man knows how to produce according to the standard of any species and knows how to apply inherent characteristics to an object. This signifies that man can create according to society and societies needs. Therefore, man is a species being. But the alienation of labor makes this species life of man a means of physical existence. Alienated labor alienates the spiritual nature of man, his human essence, from his body and from nature outside of him. Man begins to produce animalisticly, and man is therefore alienated from his own species existence.

39. What is the labor theory of value?

According to Marx, the labor theory of value explains how labor relates to monetary gain. The amount of labor measured by time is what determines its exchange value. This theory came about with man’s struggle to make labor his own again. The ability to equate labor products with other forms of labor for exchange enhances man’s ability to gain material possessions. Social change is inseparable from Marx’s labor theory of value.

Law of Value

Marx’s law of value states that the producer of the good determines the exchange value, not the individual market value. In the marketplace, what man has to exchange makes him equal on the basis of exchange and as an expression of the individual’s own will. The law of value governs the marketplace. The concepts of political and social equality are derived from the law of value. The individual determines the use-value of goods in the marketplace. This law of value hides the exploitive nature of the labor process with a fuzzy image of freedom in the marketplace.

Surplus Value

Marx, as a social theorist, understood class society through the capitalist structure. Capitalism is denoted by the laborers ability to sell his labor and exchange labor for goods and services. Once the laborer sells his labor, he is owned then by the capitalist production that produces his labor. The individual tries to get the best wage for his labor in order to meet his needs. The product the laborer produces is also owned by the capitalist. The surplus value of a good is a value over and above the labor cost of production. This means that whatever gain is made after production costs are met by the capitalist is surplus, or not needed to meet the needs of the laborer or the capitalist. The capitalist then owns this surplus and can sell it for value. Surplus value only comes from the act of labor, not the productive means it took to make the product (technology). Labor operates as a function to use technology to produce raw materials (the most valued commodity). Value is then transferred to the commodities of products created and labor is the source of surplus value.

WEBER/LENSKI

45. Six presuppositions or conditions necessary for the existence of modern capitalist society:

Rational capital accounts as the norm for all large industrial undertakings that are concerned with distribution for everyday wants. Six presuppositions, or conditions, are necessary for this distribution to take place. First is the appropriation of all physical means of production (such as land, apparatus, machinery, tools, etc.) as disposable property of private industrial enterprises. The means of production for a good becomes property or a commodity itself, in that it can be sold. Institutions in society such as courts or banks are examples of means of production being a commodity itself. In Europe during Feudal times, the monarch would legitimize possession of property through services. In other words, the nobility’s desires were met by the servants working the land the nobility owned and reaped all the benefits from. The servants did not own the property, labor, or means of production; the nobility owned it all.

The second presupposition involves the freedom of the market, which is the absence of irrational limitations on market trading. Limitations made on the market place included: buying or selling only on specific days or at specific times. It is through religion that these limitations are placed upon the market. The combination of limitless trade and Christianity brought about a new market system that had unlimited potential, growth, and development.

The third presupposition states that capitalistic accounting presupposes rational technology. That is, one reduced to calculation to the largest possible degree which implies mechanization. It was through RATIONALIZATION that people could gain market knowledge and were therefore able to predict production. This expanding market could then successfully sell what it had produced.

Fourth, calculable law is presupposed. In order for a capitalistic industrial organization to operate rationally, it must depend on calculable administration and adjudication.

The fifth characteristic of capitalist society is free labor. Rational capitalistic production depends on the notion that every able bodied person is legally able and economically compelled to sell their labor on the market, without restriction. This way, the cost of production can be calculated in advance of production.

The sixth and final necessary presupposition is commercialization of economic life. The general use for commercial instruments represents share rights in enterprise and property ownership. Society has become commercialized.

There is also a follow up to these six characteristics found in speculation. Speculation arises when property takes on the form of transferable, negotiable paper.

Three characteristic factors of Western Capitalism and its causes

Western capitalism produced a rational organization of labor that had not existed previously in history. Prior to this rational organization was a primitive structure involving limits on economic transactions between members of a tribe or clan. The second characteristic is the raising of barriers between internal and external economy, ethics, and the entry of the commercial principle into the internal economy via the organization of labor. Third is the disintegration of economic fixity. Included in this is the entrepreneur organization of labor.

Three significations of the concept of citizenship

The first distinct signification includes social categories or classes that have some communal or economic interest. The class citizen is not unitary because there are greater and lesser citizens, of which entrepreneurs and hand workers belong. Second, citizenship signifies membership within the state in a political sense. The citizen is the holder of certain political rights. Citizen of the state is an unknown concept in many places of the world where “states” are not organized in the same way, such as Islam, India, and China. Finally, in a class sense, citizens are members of a group because of property and culture. They have a certain class standard of living and social prestige. Examples include people who share the same educational background, economic mobility within society, or all live in Massachusetts. In contrast with the Middle Ages, citizen was a class concept but membership in a specific class group made that person a citizen.

49. Two reasons why the class affiliation of citizenship is defined by social existence in the city

In short, the reasons why class affiliation of citizenship is defined by social existence in the city is based on stratification and organization. Stratification is understood within economics, politics, and culture. It is necessary to have this social stratification between groups of people in order to gain subjective meaning. Organization is specific, institutionalized groups of people who share common interests. People of like interests associate with each other. They may create institutional organizations that express their mutual interests. It is the stratification of classes and organization of peoples within a city that constitutes class affiliation.

50. Democracy and militarism

The development of rational and advanced democratic society was based on the defense of their military. The freedom for ideas and institutions in society is dependent on the military power a country/city can exert. Democracy arises out of the rules of the military. The more equipped a military force is in relation to others is the basis for democracy. The laws of a city need to be backed up with force (guns/military power) in order for democracy to arise. Guns and force are used as the equalizer between powerful forces. For example, if everyone has a gun then no one is going to do anything that would elicit the use of force. A city must have a system that controls the people with power/force; and guides them to democratically use force.

DURKHEIM/MAUSS

Conflict beneath the appearance of social solidarity

According to Durkheim, there is an appearance of social solidarity within society based on conflicts and contracts. Beyond this appearance is a functionality that hold society together: pre-contractual solidarity. Pre-contractual solidarity is based upon two characteristics including sentiment and collective conscious. Sentiment is based on emotions or feelings, and is a social substance that binds individuals together. The collective conscious includes levels of knowledge or levels of cognitive recognition. This occurs when people share the same feelings and interests that reflect a similar consensus of collective ideas. This substructure of sentiment and collective conscious exists prior to a society involved in contracts and conflicts. Concrete emotions and ideas are expressed in sentiment, while more abstract ideas are reflective of collective conscious. Sentiment ideas are found in mechanical solidarity. Mechanical solidarity signifies a small, primitive, tribal, or communal society with shared experiences. Collective conscious can be found in organic solidarity where people rely on roles or occupations. Roles carry out functions for society, leading people to have a means of communication in order to linguistically order society. The conflict that arises occurs in the transition from concrete, mechanic, and sentiment; to abstract, organic and collective conscious. Ideas can become more elastic or abstract in a complex society. This shift from shared emotional experiences to differentiation in society leads to conflict in this more specialized society.

Division of labor involves the sharing of functions while specialization signifies dissociation (separation), requiring communication.

The shift from simple societies to more complex societies involves a division of labor. More complex societies have more complex needs, are more specialized, fragmented, and more diverse. Specialization in labor causes a dissociation from others because of the nature of specializing, when ones interests do not correspond to anyone else. In turn, specialization of society dissociates individuals from the binding factors that would at one time bring them together. This differentiation creates greater abstraction within society. The abstraction is an external power that will eventually bring together a more significant integration.

Society as an organism

Society can be said to have many parts that make up a whole. Some of these parts include: labor, specialization, dissociation, and sentiment. Society, in this sense, is similar to an organism. These many parts of society function as a whole for the benefit of society (the organism). According to Durkheim, these functions or social relationships perpetuate the conditions necessary for society to function as a whole. Societies parts only function within the context of society as a whole. Hegel’s dialectic proposed an idea that the sum of parts is greater than the individual parts. Durkheim’s society reflected this idea in that all parts of the division of labor equal the whole of society.

Magical power of money

According to Hubert and Mauss, magically charged items were the early forms of money. Exchanges for goods or services could be accrued through magically charged items. This magic is made up of rituals, representations, and power. The authors consider money essentially a social fact with its value based in its power to purchase goods and services. The measure of confidence a person places on the value of things is also a notion of money. Money is not only value on display, but

it is value that is permanent and non-deteriorating in its value.

Collective awaiting

The notion of collective awaiting is one of the fundamental notions of social life. “No other notion generates both the law within society and economy.” (Collins, pg. 226). Collective awaiting is essential collective thought, the idea that we have to wait upon others for this or that to happen. This act of anticipation forms the societal community in which one individual depends on another.