Bauer. Substance Subject Proletariat. Pathways.

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by  Martin Llowarch Jenkins

Substance, Subject, Proletariat
By
Martin Jenkins
When at Berlin University, Bruno Bauer (1809-1882) was Marx’s tutor. Both would frequent ‘Hippels’ Wine
Bar - once the meeting place of the so-called Doktor Klub and later the ‘Young Hegelians’ - where radical
politics along neo-Hegelian lines were discussed. In 1842 under increased repression from the regime of
Frederick IV, Bauer was dismissed from his teaching post and Marx became a Journalist in the face of few
academic opportunities. Describing themselves as ‘The Free’ (Die Frie), Bauer and his followers remained
firmly in neo-Hegelian territory whereas Marx, reporting on more empirical social, political and economic
matters, began his journey towards Communism. The divergence was to reach fruition in Marx’s
disagreements with and significant criticism of ‘The Free’ in The Holy Family and The German Ideology.
In this paper, I examine the ideas of a leading Young Hegelian Bruno Bauer. This is to shine light on a
rather obscure issue that surfaces in The Holy Family where Marx attacks Bauer for being elitist and
dismissive of the ignorant Mass, Masses.
Substance as Subject
One of the central issues debated by the Young Hegelians was the issue of and the distinction between
Substance and Self-Consciousness. It has its origins in the Absolute Idealism of GWF Hegel. In the Preface
to his Phenomenology of Spirit, Hegel writes thus:
In my view – a view which the developed exposition of the system itself can alone justify
– everything depends on grasping and expressing the ultimate truth not as Substance
but as Subject as well. 1
And a little further on:
The living substance, further, is that being which is truly subject, or, what is the same thing, is
truly realised and actual (wirklich) solely in the process of positing itself, or in mediating with its
own self its transitions from one state or position to the opposite. As subject it is pure and simple
negativity, and just on that account a process of splitting up what is simple and undifferentiated,
a process of duplicating and setting factors in opposition, which [process] in turn is the negation
of this indifferent diversity and of the opposition of factors it entails. True reality is merely this
process of reinstating self-identity, of reflecting into its own self in and from its other, and is
not an original and primal unity as such, not an immediate unity as such. It is the process of its
own becoming, the circle which presupposes its end as its purpose, and has its end for its
beginning; it becomes concrete and actual only by being carried out, and by the end it involves. 2
In other words, the system in the Phenomenology and of Hegel’s Absolute Idealism itself, is of Thought
dialectically overcoming it’s otherness until the substance of the system is understood itself as the Subject of
the system. Thereby the system – be it Logic, Nature, Spirit or History become intelligible to Thought. Rather
like at the end of a journey, one can then reflect on the route taken so Substance becomes known as
conscious Subject. In the terminology, the ‘In-itself’ of Substance has become the ‘For-Itself’ of Thought.
In his The Last Trumpet of the Judgement of Hegel as Atheist and Antichrist (1841) Bruno Bauer
maintained that Hegel’s Philosophy was being interpreted along either Fichtean or Spinozist lines. 3 On the
Spinozist side, the Universal is manifested as immanent Substance found in community, as shared interests
less than individual willing. With David Strauss, the community is the Universal, for Ludwig Feuerbach, it is
the species-being. On both accounts, Self-Consciousness is lacking. On the Fichtean side is Self-
Consciousness. This consists of individual autonomy, a dialectic of will requiring the conscious
understanding and enactments of universal interests having normative status. The end of these normatives
is to socially and politically enhance the freedom and autonomy of the individual citizen. Freedom depends
upon the Self-Conscious awareness of a people orat least, of a Critical Philosopher…..
Bauer and Strauss
In 1835, The Life of Jesus was published. 4 Written by David Strauss, the reality of the miracles of the
New Testament is dismissed. Instead, they are viewed as myths which had developed with the early
Christian communities reflecting the heritage of the hegemonic messianic ideas of the time. So the life of
Jesus was falsely reinterpreted to conform with existing prophesies.
Originally tasked with refuting Strauss’ thesis in the interests of Religious orthodoxy, Bauer agreed the
Strauss had indeed broken with unconvincing theology but, he was not radical enough. Strauss had not
accounted for the creative developments in the New Testament by individual writers as existing ideas were
merely inherited and applied. As such, Strauss had not explained the origin of those ideas, nor had he
accounted for the development and introduction of new ideas in the Synoptic gospels.
As Georgi Plekhavnov states:
The Gospel story was not the mysterious and unconscious creation of the Christian
community, it was the quite conscious creation of individual persons pursuing definite
religious aims. 5
The conscious creation of the individual writer was simultaneously the operation of Reason critiquing the
existing state of affairs and providing prescriptions for the modification of existing reality. Strauss had failed
to take account of this dynamic activity of human consciousness, of the Subjective becoming self-conscious
of it’s age by means of its dialectical intermediation with Objective Substance. Strauss therefore remained
within inert, passive Objective Substance’. Strauss did not account for how the Gospels, as the expression of
individual authors; were also, the expression of the Self-Consciousness of the time. This being on a larger
scale, the development of Geist.
In Hegelian terminology, the Universal inherent in Substance is Subjectively assimilated, so that this
‘Other’ to Subjectivity constitutes its Identity and a moment in its own (Self-Consciousness) historic becoming
or development. Self-Consciousness dialectically develops by this intermediation with Substance. As Hegel
stipulates in the qoute above, ultimate truth is expressed not just by Substance but also by Self-
Consciousness. So any existing ‘truth’ cannot passively be accepted by the thinking Mind, it must be
comprehended. So comprehended, it will either be Rationally justified, so passing the test of Free Thinking.
Or it will be found irrational. 6
The irrational is critiqued so that a superior, more progressive realisation of Reason is actualised. Self-
Consciousness in history at least, thereby becomes aware of its own development in historically critiquing
irrationality as previous instantiations of the once Rational. This is a shared history of the Geist.
If restricted to Substance alone, Self-Consciousness would be impossible. Only with Self-Consciousness
can understanding of the present, the capacity to critique it and knowledge of its own history, would possible.
According to Douglass Mogglich, there is, contra Hegel, no ultimate end or Absolute in the Philosophy of
Bauer, there is only permanent criticism and consequent socio-political modification by Reason as the
perpetually active Absolute or ‘infinite Self-Consciousness. 7
In future published works, Bauer develops Self-Consciousness as found in the New Testament. In his
Critique of the Evangelical History of John (1840), the gospel is described as ‘a work of artistic
creation….whose author used Jesus to express his particlar point of view’. 8 In Critique of the Evangelical
History of the Synoptics (1841/2), the gospels are dismissed as being inspired by God but on a more
Hegelian reading, are the creations of their individual authors’ self-consciousness embodying the interests
and objectives of the early Christian sects to which they belonged. 9 The existence of Jesus is dismissed as
the ‘Christ legend’ was an invention of the early Evangelicals. Note that the emphasis is again upon the
importance of Self-Consciousness, of the transparent understanding of the existing consciousness of the
time and people. A dynamic process always developing dialectically.
Revolutionary Hegelianism

Returning to his Last Trumpet of the Judgement upon Hegel the Atheist and Antichrist (1841) Bauer
ostensibly crticises Hegel’s philosophy as espousing revolutionary Jacobin Republicanism. This was a ruse
to overcome censorship. A reading favourable to reactionary censors of the time actually permitted the
publication of a politically radical reading of Hegel furthering the Left Heglian cause. No longer limited to an
interpretation in which history ended in the Actuality of the Rational and the Rationality of the Actual of the
early 19th century, the Absolute became infinite self-consciousness. The revolutionary kernal was released
from the out of the conservative shell, so to speak.
In short, self-consciousness understands the Objective Substance and so justified, Actuality is Rational.
This does not herald stasis as the road towards Rational Freedom is a dialectical process. As a negative
moment of the Dialectic, Actuality becomes irrational and is estranged from Self-Consciousness.
Dialectically, Self-consciousness critically reshapes this irrational, estranged objectivity/actuality by the
activism of Critical Criticism. The former is overcome, superseded (Aufgehoben) reshaped and incorporated
into a higher level of Self-Consciousness. By this action, the Actual is made Rational again. So Self-
Consciousness recognises Substance:
….not as a given, independent, self-causing and self-sufficient power but, as a mutable
record of historical struggles, the result of subjects’ own deeds. Subjectivity is the principle
and essence of Substancce, of shared comittments and values and of the general interests
that bind the self-legislating individuals and posit them. 10
Self-Consciousness is the critical vehicle of Reason. This is no mediation between consciousness and
material objectivity, the latter is understood and conceptually constituted by the latter. Without Self-
Consciousness, Substance cannot become aware of itself, remaining passive and inert.
All that which falls before the tribunal of Reason ought to perish before Critical Criticism. Religion,
Monarchy, Feudalism and other reactionary practices and institutions of the Prussian states, were to be
attacked by Criticism, most eminently articulated by the Critical Philosophers of Self-Consciousness.
Revolutionary changes, given shape and direction by Criticism, will herald a Republic of rational citizens
expressing not individual particular interests but, the Universal, common, reflexive interest of the Citizen
Republic.
The Holy Family
Kark Marx and Frederick Engels produced The Holy Family: A Critique of Critical Criticism in 1844/5.11
Largely polemical in character, it nevertheless attacked the Philosophy of Bruno Bauer and other Left
Hegelians. There are many lines of attack, many dealing with the underlying Hegelianism. One prevailing
theme is the attitude of the Critical Critics to the ‘Mass’. As seen above, this term can mean Substance. It
can also refer to the ‘Masses’ as in the People.
Marx appears to play on the second meaning of the term. The allegation is that Critical Criticism is elitist
and regards the Mass as an impediment to the progress of Reason. They get in the way of progress. As
Callinicos writes that in the face of incresed state repression:
...by adopting an elitist and anti-democratic attitude. Bauer ……….wrote that
‘it is in the masses and in them alone that one should look for the true enemy
of the Mind. 12.
Michael Landry describes the writings of Bauer and others at this time in the Allegmaine Literature Zeitung
as expressing ‘disgust with the masses for failing to rally behind them’. 13. In a letter to Ludwig
Feuerbach, Marx discusses Bauer and Criticism deliberately resrtricting itself to theoretical abstractions - as
anything beginning from sensuous need does not begin from Self-Consciousness, of its contempt for
anything apart from itself, of how Criticism condemns the Masses from impeding its progress, of
pretentiouslyand declaring the Critic to exist in solitude apart from the Masses and that it is not Criticism
which will go toward the Mass but ‘degenerate mankind’ who will recognise and turn to Criticism,
[p. 356. Vol 3, MECW. 14.
As such, in Ch. VI of The Holy Family, we read of how unlimited is Criticism’s ‘pure Criticism’ of the
‘impure Mass’.
All previous critical attitudes were dissolved in the attitude of of Absolute Critical Wisdom to
absolute massy stupidity. This basic attitude appers as the meaning, the tendency and the
keyword of Criticism’s previous deeds and struggles. 15.
Massy Stupidity. They have ‘the truth’ but do not possess the ‘proof’ of it. The ‘Masses’ are not receptive to
the Critical truths as identified by Criticism. In the terminology, they remain ‘Substance’, inert, passive: Mass.
They are not energised by the insight of Criticism which therefore unilaterally proclaims itself alone as pos
sessing the ‘Self-Consciousness’ of the time. Not only are the Masses not Self-Conscious, Marx acuses
Bauer of valuing them as stupid.
Bauer could maintain that he was using the terminology of Mass/Substance and its relation to Self-
Consciouisness, of Substance failing to become Subject. Even if, Bauer is condemnatory of the Mass, there
exist more substantive criticisms of his Philosophy.
Firstly, Bauer’s whole Hegelian trajectory is misplaced. Hegel offers a goal oriented conception of History.
History reaches its fruition in the Absolute. 16 As Ludwig Feuerbach noted, this conclusion is presupposed in
the very methodology of Hegels Absolute Idealism. It is circular. 17 Likewise Bauer’s model of History is one
in which the latent power of Reason is presupposed as the guiding force of History. So as Marx observes,
this pre-existing schema is something that people must follow, it is realised and brought to consciousness.
History is the task of proving the Truths of this historical scheme. 18 This conception of History appears to
exist independently of human beings; it historically creates and employs human beings wheras in actuality, it
is Human beings who create History. Hence as Marx argues:
History does nothing, it ‘possesses no immense wealth”, “it wages no battles”. It is man, real
living man that does all that, that possesses and fights; ‘history’ is not a person apart, using
man as a means for its own particular aims; history is nothing but the activity of man pursuing
his aims. 19
Bauer and the Critical Critics seek to prescribe Truths for the Masses. This approach is abstract and as so
divorced from sociality, fails to take into account actual material conditions. 20
Secondly, the Masses are not stupid nor lacking Self-Consciousness, they are developing socialistic class
consciousness borne of their actual, lived, social and material conditions. The pretentions of Criticism are
absolutely irrelevant to the Proletariat remaining trapped in abstracton. Contradiction exists not between the
revelations of Reason as precribed and recognised only by Criticism but, in social actuality between
Proletariat and Wealth, Proletariat and Private Property. As Marx writes in The Holy Family:

When socialist writers ascribe this world-historic role to the proletariat, it is not at all, as Critical
Criticism pretends to believe, because they regard the proletarians as gods. Rather the contrary.
Since in the fully-formed proletariat the abstraction of all humanity, even of the semblance of
humanity, is practically complete; since the conditions of life of the proletariat sum up all the
conditions of life of society today in their most inhuman form; since man has lost himself in the
proletariat, yet at the same time has not only gained theoretical consciousness of that loss, but
through urgent, no longer removable, no longer disguisable, absolutely imperative need - the
practical expression of necessity - is driven directly to revolt against this inhumanity, it follows
that the proletariat can and must emancipate itself. But it cannot emancipate itself without
abolishing the conditions of its own life. It cannot abolish the conditions of its own life without
abolishing all the inhuman conditions of life of society today which are summed up in its own
situation. Not in vain does it go through the stern but steeling school of labour. It is not a question
of what this or that proletarian, or even the whole proletariat, at the moment regards as its aim.
It is a question of what the proletariat is, and what, in accordance with this being, it will
historically be compelled to do. Its aim and historical action is visibly and irrevocably
foreshadowed in its own life situation as well as in the whole organization of bourgeois society
today. There is no need to explain here that a large part of the English and French proletariat
is already conscious of its historic task and is constantly working to develop that consciousness
into complete clarity. 21.
In place of Substance is Society. In place of Infinite Self-Consciousness is the class awareness of working
people. In place of the contradiction between the Actual and the Rational is the class contradiction between
Capitalist and Worker.
References
1. GWF Hegel. The Phenomenology of Spirit.
Oxford University Press. 1977. #17.
2. ibid. #18.
3. Douglas Moggach. The Philosophy and Politics of Bruno Bauer.
Cambridge University Press. 2008. p. 64.
Bruno Bauer. Trumpet of the Last Judgement upon Hegel the Atheist and Anti-Christ.
Edwin Mellen Press. 1989.
4. David Strauss. The Life of Jesus.
Polala Press. 2018.
5. Georg Plekhanov. From Idealism to Materialism: Hegel and the Left Hegelians. pp 600-645. Viii.
Selected Philosophical Works. Vol III.
Progress Publishers. 1976.
6. GWF Hegel. Elements of the Philosophy of Right. Preface.
German Idealist Philosophy. Ed. Rudigner Bubner.
Penguin. 1977. p. 303.

The Thinking Mind cannot simply accept existing ethics, Law, the State, it must comprehend it.
Thereby what is rational will gain rational form to then be justified or not, by Free Thinking.
This is the ‘in-itself’ becoming rationally known ‘for-itself’. In other words, the Thinking Subject
finds itself in the Object and the Object is cognised in the Subject. Thinking Thought will thereby
cognise itself as Truth.
7. Moggach. Op cite. p.107.
8. Stan Michael Landry. From Orthodoxy to Atheism: The Intellectual Development of Bruno Bauer.
MA Thesis. Louisiana State University. 2003. p. 45.
digitalcommons.lsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4890&content=gradscholl-theses
9. ibid. p.55.
10. Douglas Moggach. The Subject as Substance: Bruno Bauer’s Critique of Stirner.
The Owl of Minerva 41.1.2. 2009. p.67.
Consciousegoism.6te.net/pdf’s/academia/subject/substance.pdf
11. Karl Marx & Frederick Engels. The Holy Family. A Critique of Critical Criticism.
Foreign Languages Publishing House.
Moscow. 1956.

Also Marx and Engels Collected Works. Vol 3.
12. Alex Callinicos. The Revolutionary Ideas of Karl Marx.
Bookmarks. 1983. p. 25.
13. Landry. Op cite. p.72.
14. Karl Marx & Frederick Engels. Marx Engels Collected Works. Vol 3.
Progress Publishers. Moscow. p. 356.
15. The Holy Family. Op cite. p. 106.
16. “Hegel’s conception of History assumes an abstract or Absolute Spirit which develops in such a way
that mankind is a mere mass bearing it with a varying degree of consciousness or unconsciousness
Within empiric exoteric history, he therfore has a speculative esoteric history develop. The history of
mankind becomes the history of the abstract history of mankind, a spirit beyond all men.”
ibid. p. 115.
17. Ludwig Feuerbach. Towards a Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy.
The Fiery Brook. 2012. ed: Zawar Haniz. pp. 70-76.
18. The Holy Family op cite. p. 106.
“For Herr Bauer, as for Hegel, truth is an automaton that proves itself. Man must follow it.
As in Hegel, the result of real development is nothing but the truth proven, — i.e., brought
to consciousness. Absolute Criticism may therefore ask with the most’ narrow-minded theologian:
“What would be the purpose of history if it; task were not precisely to prove these simplest of all
truths (such as the movement of the earth round the sun)?”
Just as, according to the earlier teleologists, plants exist to be eaten by animals, and animals to
be eaten by men, history exists in order to serve as the act of consumption of theoretical eating
— proving. Man exists so that history may exist, and history exists so that the proof of truths exists.
In thisCritically trivialised form is repeated the speculative wisdom that man exists, and history exists,
so that truth may arrive at self-consciousness”. p. 106.
19. ibid. p.125.
20. “One of the chief pursuits of Absolute Criticism consists in first bringing all questions of the day into
their right setting. For it does not answer the real questions — it substitutes quite different ones.
As it makes everything, it must also first make the “questions of the day”, make them its own
questions, questions of Critical Criticism. If it were a question of the Code Napoléon, it would
provethat it is properly a question of the Pentateuch. Its setting of “questions of the day” is
Criticall distortion and misrepresentation of them. It thus distorted the “Jewish question”, too, in
such a way that it did not need to investigate political emancipation, which is the subject-matter
of that question, but could instead confine itself to a criticism of the Jewish religion and a description
of the Christian-Germanic state.
This method, too, like all Absolute Criticism’s originalities, is the repetition of a speculative
verbal trick. Speculative philosophy, namely, Hegel’s philosophy, had to transpose all questions
from the form of common sense to the form of speculative reason and convert the real question
into a speculative one to be able to answer it. Having distorted my question on my lips and, like the
catechism, put its own question into my mouth, it could, of course, like the catechism, have its ready
answer to all my questions”.
Ibid. p.121.
21. ibid. pp.52/53