9.Dialectical cognition.Iñigo carrera

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DialecticalCognition

The Regulation of Action in itsForm of Reproduction

of Self-Necessitybythought

Juan Iigo Carrera

CICPCENTRO para la INVESTIGACION

como CRITICA PRACfICA(CENTER for RESEARCH as PRACTICAL CRITICISM)


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Dialectical CognitionThe Regulation of Action in its Form of Reproduction. of Self-Necessity by Thought


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Dialectical CognitionThe Regulation of Action in its

Form of Reproductionof Self-Necessity

by thought

Juan Iigo Carrera

CICPCENTRO para la INVESTIGACION

como CRITICA PRACTICA .(CENTER for RESEARCH as PRACTICAL CRITICISM)

?.0- /


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Published by CICP Juan Iigo Carrera 1992A1l rights reserved

CICPCENTRO para la INVESTIGACIONcomo CRITICA PRACTICACasilla de Correo 54171000 Correo CentralBuenos AiresArgentina

ISBN 950-798-001-6Translated byJuan Iigo Carrera and Delia PalenqueTranslation revised by Pablo ArengoOriginal title: El conocimiento dialctico/La regulacin de laaccin en su forma de reproduccin de la propia necesidad por elpensamiento (ISBN 950-798-001-6)

Queda hecho el depsito que marca la ley 11.723Impreso en Argentina/Printed in Argentina


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Content

Presentation ................... .............. ...................... ... ......... .......... vii .Capital s development into conscious revolutionaryaction. Critique 01scientific tbeory ......................... xiiiDialectical cognition; Le., the regulation of action in itsform of reproduction of self-necessity by thought .........1

1. What is it to be done .........................................................12. The concrete subject of action;necessity's developmentuntil it reaches its concrete form of freedom .......... ....... ....113. The concrete form of dialectical cognition process ...... 23

a. From the determination of reality by the processof its ideal reproduction to the formal manifestationof this reproduction as such ................................. 23b. The advance from singular to general: cognitionand recognition .............. ..... .................................... 30c. The general course of the development of thecapacity to consciously personify the necessity ofreal concrete forms .......... ...... .................................. 37d. The exposition of the ideal reproduction of reality.......... ..... .. ................................ ........... .............. .... ..... 41

4. The ideal reproduction of reality concisely seen in itsconcrete unity ..................................................................... 50


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viiPresentation

As soon as we observe the development of social struggLesduring recent ye'ars, we cannot but notice the particular evolutionsuffered by the space available today for scientifically directedaction towards the radical transformation of our present societyinto a consciously regulated one, We are referring to, in otherwords, the conscious revolutionary action whose aim is thesupersessin of capitalism into socialism or communism.Even the most conspicuous worshippers of ideological forms,the philosophers, today are rejoicing in proclairning to the fourwinds, the end of ide%gy, It is about the "exhaustion of utopianenergies", Habermas saysj of the "decline of the grand narrativesof emancipation and progress" Lyotard stresses. After this, there isnothing left for them but to embrace the ragged post-modemconsolation of inconsequential smallness, which is such that noteven they thernselves find satisfactory to cover the public nakedness of their own vacuity.Let us consider those who personify the capital that is whollycollective .property within its national ambit -and therefore, asmuch capital for the whole of the proletariat, and as much privatecapital for theproletariat of the rest of the national ambits, as anyother. Urged by the crisis in .the accumulation process of thiscapital, they see thernselves increasingly forced to break up theirideological mask of representatives of the absolute negation ofcapitalismj that is to say, of socialism or communism. They areonly fit now to resort to democratic apologetics to cover the reallimits of the social process that they incamate: the alienation ofhuman potencies as capital potencies.The late discovery of the ideological nature of Marxism (inother words, of therepresentation, and therefore degeneration, ofthe ideal reproduction of the specific forrns of today's society,advanced by Marx, as a conception of the world, a system ofthought) decimates the ranks of its old partisans. Some of themabandon it just to keep thernselves fashionable, post-modem in


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vithe present-day; but others, to affinn their necessity to personifythe genuine transformation of capitalism into a superior sodalfonn.Then, if there is anything that these concrete fonns of socialstruggle suffice for by themselves, it is to make evident thesubstantial enlargement of the space that presentiy corresponds toconscious revolutionary action. What can express with moreeloquence the advance of the sodal necessity to develop thisaction, but the recognition, precisely from the field of ideologicalalienation itself, of the mere ideological character of theconceptions with which capital attempts to empty the action inquestion of its true contents. In the entire history of capitalism, thesodal demand for consdous revolutionary action has hardlymanifested itself with more clarity and energy than is apparenttoday.We can very well say, then, that the necessity of human actionbased on scientific cognition imposes itself more than ever. And,indeed, as soon as we turn to look at this fonn of action, we see itmanifesting itself in its own potency, revolutionizing again andagain the material conditions of social production; developing inthis revolutionizing society's material productive forces; projectingthese forces beyond the point where they can take fonn in thecapitalist regulation of the social metabolism process.But as soon as we face scientific cognition in itself, insofar as it. is abstractly such, the view changes completely. Popper's selfcomplacent whining has the last word: "although we can neverrationally justify our theories, ... we can at least discuss themrationally". Against such bluntness nothing arises but Feyerabend'sdegraded "everything goes"; if not the mere declamatoryreaWrmation of the possibility of verification of theories inpractice; a declaration that has nothing but its emphasis to concealthe impossibility of its logical foundation. Or, reaching the verylimit of the degradation of scientific cognition, the patheticholding up of its opposite, abstract fantasy, to its true essence;that is, the affinnation of the heuristic character of theories.Sdentific practice thus ends up being scientifically turned into asort of "he says that 1 say that he says", able to flowindefinitelywithout holding in itself more content of reality than this tittletattle itself. Henneneutics: such is the password with which thescientific community gives way to this mass of hollow words lOOt


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ixit expects will be taken as a sign of scientific vitality. Nor is it justa question of gossips concluding one day that they have practicedscience all their life without being aware of it.

Such circumstance should not surprise anybody: with anacceptance nowadays that cannot be more universal, scientificcognition manifests itself, having the construction of theoriesabout real concatenations as its natural necessary. formo Itmanifests itself thus, in general, representing these realconcatenations, that is to say, determination -Le., the affirming ofitse1f by means of self negation, contradiction- by the relations ofmeasure of real concrete forms, based on formal logic. But it alsodoes so, representing determination by the interpenetrating, bythe antagonism (simple or over-determined), by the relativeautonomy, of opposites, based on a more or less specifieddialecticallogic. Strict1y followed, the method itself of this form ofscientific cognition, of theoretical cognition, makes evident byitself the irreducible externality of its product, the idealrepresentation of real concatenations, with respect to theirnecessity. And, with this evidence, the evidence of the equallyirreducible extemality between scientific theoretical cognition andscientific cognition's own generic aim; aim which is the regulationof the real appropriation of matter, the regulation of action, underthe form of ideal appropriation of the necessity of matter.With the careless arrogance needed to judge the more or lessfive thousand miilion years that human life potentially has aheadon earth (not to go any further in this computation) from thenarrow viewpoint of those whom are the product of just the firstthree million years of human history, scientists thernselves hurrynow to declare the impossibility of the ideal reproduction ofreality, of the reproduction of reality by thought, to the point thattaking for granted the ideological determination of all scientificcognition is currently seen as the most unquestionable historicallyconscious criticism of its present general formo And scientiststhernse1ves are the ones who consequently condernn scientificknowledge for all eternity and with no extenuation as that whichcorresponds to its alleged innate limitation, to the field ofexhausted utopas, of emancipatng grand narratives. Even themost blatant apologetic cretinism of capitalism has nothing else toask for: from the lips of its true representatives, the very sarnescientific method declares that we have reached the end 01 its


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xbistory, and that tbe future is already bere. If one had Orwell'sexpressive strength, we could very well say that when one looksfrom sdentist to ideologist, and from ideologist to sdentist, italready is impossible to say which is which.Certainly, the current stress on the deterioration of ideology'simage and the reach of science is not completely alien to thecontemporary development of the CflS1S of generaloverproduction. The immediate advance towards it, andparticularly this crisis itself, norrnally takes concrete forrn in thedecay of apologetic optimism; just as the increase of the tensionwithin scientific cognition that sees itself in this way unavoidablyfaced with its own limits. However, orice the bases of the processof capital accumulation are renewed through crisis, ideologicaloptimism reappears and one's own limitations are condemned tothe field of bad and better forgonen memories. In that whichcorresponds to this reappearance, the double loss of faith is thenneither new nor lasting. .But the magnitude of the current emptiness, put into evidenceby this double self-declaration of bankruptcy, serves for itself andbeyond this circumstance, as expression of the degree of maturityreached by the necessity of a radical transforrnation of the methodof sdentific cognition itself. Yet, this self-declaration is nothing buta pale expression of the necessity, in this same sense, positivelymanifested by the . today's development of the consciousregulation of the sodal metabolism process, and even by thedevelopment itself of the material conditions of this process;positive manifestation . hat oruy emerges, however, in the advanceof the reproduction of these developments by thought.

It is really a question of the development of capital's necessityto annihiate itself into a superior sodal forrn: the consdousregulation of the sodal metabolism process, Le., into communismor sodalism. It is thus spedfically about capital's development intoconscious revolutionary acUon; and, therefore, about thedevelopment of the organicity itself of the revolutionary action ofthe proletariat; about the development of sdentific cognition asthe necessary concrete forrn of radical polltical action.Certainly, critical sdentific theory takes this question as its ownaim. But, even in its versions that like to present themselves as themost radical ones, sdentific theory is not able to go further thanclashing against a string of apparent contradictions. Thus, it has


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xialready become cornmonplace to go around in drcles regardingthe essential concrete forms of the organidty of the revolutionaryaction of the proletariat, to end up pretending that the problem issolved just because it is given an ingenious name:- the economic structure-of sodety determines the political,ideological superstructure, from this, the proletariat'sconsdousness and, therefore, revolutionary action; that is, thenecessary determination of the radical change of economicstructure_ Invoking the supremacy of the structure as tbedeterminant in tbe last instance, the relative autonomy of thesuperstructure, the over-determination of this dialectic, etc., hasno substance other than as a means to skirt the issue.- capitalism carries in itself the necessity of self-annihilatinginto socialism, but there is no possibility for sodalism other thanthrough the proletariat's voluntary action. There is no way todiscover the true relationship between necessity and freedom byrepresenting it as the extemal dialectics of willjulness and fatalism, of activism and passivity, of being revolutionary, reformist orconformist.- general theories arrive at the formulation of certain necessary.laws, but anyone that has to deal with everyday practical mattersknows that there is an abyss between these two. As frequent andwordy as they are, the justifications of the link between tbetbeoretical model, tbe tbeoretical framework and tbe concretepractice cannot do more than resemble what Marx referred to asthe dialectics of "on the one hand ... , on the other hand ... ".- scientific cognition is a c1ass product, but ideology is theabsolute negation of scientific cognition. To appeal to tbesuperiority of proletarian science, to tbe genius of its foundingfatbers, to its bistorical verification, is nothing else but affumingthe most genuinely ideological product of capital: that ideologynecessarily takes the form of scientific method itself.- sdentific cognition appears nowadays having the formulationof theories as its natural formj but it is impossible to demonstratethat theories are true or false prior to actionj and evenafterwards,although it really makes little difference at such point. Therefore,scientific theories are only ways of interpreting the world and, assuch, the . very negation of conscious action. Socialism is theconsciously regulated human social metabolism process, that is tosay, the sodal rnetabolism process that is scientifically regulated.


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xiiConsequently, as much as sdentific cognition is condemned tointerpretation, so is sodalism condemned to impossibility. In fact,critical sdentific theory has not conjured up a name to be liberated from this disgrace: it is uncritical enough not to notice theapparent contradiction involved here.These apparentIy thomy questions are clearly present in thevery evident crisis of theoretical cognition that sees itself ascritical, in particular for Marxism. But they are equally present inthe current crisis of scientific method in general. Such poverty ofsdentific theory is by itself suffident to show that these apparentIyinsoluble enigmas donot concem this or that theory, but sdentifictheory in itself. And that the critique of today's existing sdencedoes not take the form of the construction of a new theory, but inthe overcoming of sdentific theory itself. Therefore, it is not aboutconceiving a new representation 01 reality, condemned by its solecondition of representation to respond to a constructive necessityalien to the real necessity, Le., a logic. The point ls to virtuallyappropriate reality by reproducing its necessity tbrougb tbougbt,the ideal reproduction 01 reality.It is not scientific cognition, the concrete form that theconsdous regulation of the human social metabolism processtakes, that faces the en d of its history. It is rather sdentific theory,the historically specific form of that cognition when it isdeveloped as alienated potency in the human social metabolismprocess autonomously regulated by means of the production ofvalue: just as scientific theory is born where commodityproduction's dornination cleared the way early on, capital's advanee towards its self-annihilation in the consdous regulation ofthe human social metabolism process already shows in thepresent-day, the necessity of the cessation of sdentific theory asthe general form of the appropriation of reality by thought.The development of sdentific cognition as regulation of thetransformation .. of our present society into the one of freelyassodated individuals is, therefore, tbe critique 01 scientiflc tbeory.1 face the generic ' development of the organicity of theproletariat's consdous revolutionary action, unfolding its necessityin the following way:


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Capital's development into conscious revolutionary actionCritique 01 scientific theory1. Dialectical cognition

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l. Dialectical cognition; i.e., the regulation 01 action under itslorm01 reproduction 01 self-necessity by thought: from theirnmediateness of action to the determination of its concretesubject (the development of the necessity into its concrete form offreedom), the concrete forms of the ideal reproduction of reality(the method of dialectical cognition).II. Mathematical cognition; i.e., the cognition 01 the measure 01self-necessity: the determination that negates itself as such (theaffirmation by means of the negation of self-negation) and thelack of a real necessity whose development is to be reproducedideal1y; the concrete form of measuring the magnitude ofquantum, Le., the mathematical process of cognition: from therepresentation of quantity relations as abstractly such Oogic) tothe representation of the measure of real abstract forms by therelations of measure of their concrete forms.l/l. Critical history 01 the lorms 01 mathematical representation;i.e., the development 01 mathematics as a lormally historie processin itself: the emptying of the specificity ofquantitativedetermination in formal logic; the reintroduction of quantitativedetermination as abstract extensiveness; the mutilation of thelogical development of the relation between the unit and themultiplicity until they reach their identity in the number, with thefollowing inversion of the representation of this development asmathematical analysis, abstract algebra and topological relations.

ll. '/be historical determination 01dialectical cognition/V , '/be development 01 matter into genene human being: thedetermination of maner as general historical development, i.e., asuniverse; life: the regulation of the individual metabolism process,the regulation of the simple social metabolism process, fromanimal specificity to generic human being.v. '/be development 01 generic human being into capital; t.e., thealienation 01 human potencies as capital's potencies: the generalregulation of the social metabolism process by means of the idealappropriation of reality; the autonomous regulation system ofsocial metabolism process; the conscious regulation of sodal


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xivmetabolism process.VI. Consciousness as capital 's potency; i.e. , alienatedconsciousness: the development of the cornmodity into mutualindividual independence as a forro of social interdependence; theindividual concrete form of social regulation; the incompatibilityof capital with dialectical cognition as the general form ofscientific cognition.VII. Tbe science of capital insofar as it is purely determined by tbeappropriation of surplus-valuej i.e., tbe resolution of tbecontradiction between capital's necessity to submit all productionand consumption to science and capital's necessity of alienatedconsciousness: the theoretical representation of reality by therelatioos of me asure of real concrete forms; ideology in the forroof scientific cognition method.VIII. Marxism; t.e., tbe degradation of deal reproduction ofreality,in view of be advance of bis reproduction developed by Marx, to aconception of tbe world, a system of tbougbt: its concrete manifestatioos in the reduction of the general cooscious regulation of thesocial metabolism process -socialism or cornmunism- into itsspecific opposite, capitalist autonomous regulation Cand,therefore, the elevation of capitalism to an eternal social form):the cases of the reduction of determination and of its cognition toexternality, of the pi"oblem of the transfonnation of value intoprice of production, of the abolition of private property within anational process of capital accumulation.

III. Scientific cognition as necessary concrete form ofrevolutionary actonIX. Tbe realization of concrete political action: the polticalorganization of the proletariat and the unfolding of scientificcognition.

1 am presentIy working on the development of what is brieflylaid out here. However,the exposition of the forms of dialecticalcognition as specifically such, already suffices by itself as aspearhead for the necessarily collective work in which the idealreproduction of our real necessity takes shape; at the presenttime, the cooscious regulation of the radical traosforroation ofsociety. Hence, the decision to publish the first chapterof thewhole work separately. Such a decision implies taking the risk


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xvarising from the partial character of this first chapter, and, aboyeaH, at the expense of the necessity of preceding it by thispresentation, unavoidably exterior to the reproduction by thoughtofthe real determinations involved.

Juan B. ligo CarreraBuenos Aires, October 1991


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Dialectical cognition;Le., the regulation of action in its forrn ofreproduction of self-necessity

by thought

1. What is it to be done

1

"The philosophers have only interpreted the world in differentwaysj the point is to change it"l We place ourselves, from thevery beginning and beyond any doubt, in the fie1d of action, ofpractice.It is in this fie1d that our first step Hes in answering ourselvesabout our action's concrete formo About, what is it to be done 2.

Th e Spanish word conocimiento means both the process ofappropriating reality by thought and the result of this process. At thesame time, it is the term commonly used conceming the scientificprocedure of that appropriation: conocimiento cientiJu:o. On the contrary,the English word normally used, know/edge, refers directly to the result ofsuch appropriation, keeping almost no traces, i f any, of the othermeaningj which in Spanish is saber. We cannot unfold at this point thehistorical necessity of this reductionism that tends to conceive theappropriation of reality by thought no t as a process, as human action initself, but only as a crystallized resulto To overcome this reduction, we aregoing to use the not so common term cognition, which maintains thetwofold meaning.

1 Marx, Karl, 11th Thesis on Feuerbach. "Die Philosophen baben dieWelt nur verschieden interpretiert; es kmmt drauf an, sie zu verandern."1besen ber Feuerbach, Marx/Engels Ausgewahlte Werke, Dietz Verlag,Berlin, 1985, Vol. 1, p. 200. ([be translations from Gennan were made in

c o o ~ r a t i o n with Carlos Lehmacher).Yes, indeed, to wbose action could we be referring to at this stage,but to . he one that is our ow n in the irnmediateness of our singularity asconcrete subjects. To mine, to the action of the reader that has begun


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2Our transforming action tells us, thus, just by imposing this firststep upon us, that it is not simply itself; that it is itself and at thesame time a different thing: the very question of what 15 it to beright here to critically reproduce the exposed development by him/herself. The unfolding of the necessity of our ow n action has no t shownus, up to no w, another reason for this action, no t being the fact itself ofhaving set us in motion. The necessity of our action must, from this, itsown irnmediateness, unfold then its own reason; that is to say, thedetermination of our singularity as concrete subjects. And, in this way, tocome to account for that irnmediateness itself. We can see right away,that this unfolding is not fit anyway for starting, with no further ado, withthe usual interpretative ponderous chatter about the unity between theoryand practice, about the revolutionary subject, about the subject in generalor any other such topic; ponderous chatter that any self-respectingacademic will surely miss; and without which, the incurable superficialthinker who believes seeing in our necessity of action nothing else but anabstractly compulsive impulse, will surely show up. But not less alien tothe immediateness where we find ourselves than such brainyinterpretations , is the pretension to develop the criticism of theseinterpretations in this same place. Rather, everything that the existence ofsuch interpretations already allows us to say is that, just as the necessityof our action must account for itself in its own unfolding, that necessitymust equally account for, in this same unfolding, the reason why it doesnot present before us the necessity to dive in any of the mentionedrepresentations that are typical; and consequently the necessity of ouraction must account for the necessity itself of these representations. "I f 1was willing at this point to cut of f beforehand all considerations of thatkind [[the considerations specifically in question, arising beca use there isnot an . rnmediate unfolding of the transformation of value into price ofproduction, overlooking that such unfolding presupposes the unfoldingof the determinations inherent to the capital circulation processn, 1 wouldspoil the whole dialectical method of development. On the contrary. Thismethod has the good quality of constantly setting traps for these guys [thenarrow-minded ones and vulgar economistsl, inciting them to theinopportune manifestation of their stupidity." "Wollte ich nu n allederartigen Bedenken vorweg -abschneiden, so wrde ich die ganzedialektische EntwickIungsmethode verderben. Umgekehrt, Diese Methodehat das Gute, daB sie de n Kerls [der SpieBers un d VulgarokonornJbestiindig Palien ste/lt, die sie zur unzeitigen Manifestation ihrer Eseleiprovozieren." Marx, Karl. Letter to F. Engels of July 27, 1867. MarxlEngelsWerke, Vol. 31, Dietz Verlag, Berlin, 1965, p. 313. [original textinterpolated J.I.C.l; [[added clarification J.I .c.n.


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3done. It makes us know that, therefore, it carries ' in itself adetermination that does not reduce to ititself. And this is the mostour transforming action can teH us about itself in itsimmediateness, though we may face it and interrogate it once andagain.To continue forward with the realization of our action as anaction whose regulation pertains to us, as a conscious action,there is nothing left for us but to confront the what is it to be doneitself. In doing so, the what is it to be done shows itself no lesse1usive, in its abstract immediateness, than our action in the onethat is its own. It shows itself to us in such immediateness, as ititself on a par with an other, the necessity of our action. Afterwhich, the what is it to be done has nothing to add about itself,not being through what this necessity of our action can teH usregarding itself. Let us face ourselves, then, with the necessity ofour action. This necessity can ooly point out to us that ourtransforming will is the other one that it carries in itself; the otherone where its own necessity resides. But our transforming willcannot tell us, conceming its own necessity, but rather it is oolyfitting for us to search for this necessity in that which ourtransforming will has of the proletariat's own transforming will.When we face the proletariat's will, it cannot give us immediatereason about itself, either. Rather, it answers us that, being that itsreason is the one that interests us, we must start searching for thisreason in its interior; in its condition of simple c1ass will. But thec1ash against the absence of immediateness with respect to se1fnecessity repeats itself: c1asses limit themselves to teH us that wemust look for theirs, flrst of all, in what they carry in themselvesof the reproduction of the capital accumulation process.

Let us stop for a moment at this point in the development ofour transforming action. Up till now, our action has materializedin the search of the necessity of its concrete forms. As such, it hascome to tell us that it carries in itself, the transforming wiH of theproletariat. But it has equally come to tell us, that the will of theproletariat is not self-sufficient to account for its own necessity,that this necessity transcends it; with which, our transformingaction has told us that, just as the transformation of the worldtakes in itself the proletariat's voluntary action, neither theconcrete forms -and therefore, the proletariat's polticalorganization -, nor the transforming potency of this action, are


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4simply bo m from the said will itself.

I f we want to go on advancing in the realization of ourconscious action there is, thus, no other way left for us now but toconfront the reproduction of the capital accumulation process. But,conceming its own necessity, this reproduction does nothing but topoint us back to its content of the valorization process of capital.When we face this, it shows itself, insofar as simple valuevalorization process, encIosing simple value production process,simple commodity production process. Production that persists inplacing us in front of the production of the social link betweenindependent private producers in a autonomously regulated socialmetabolism system. When we question this system about its ownnecessity it answers that we must start searching for it in itscondition of human social metabolism process, of human life. Buthuman life is not able to display its own necessity either. I tdemands, first of al!, that we should go back to that which it has ofthe metabolism process as such, of the simply natural metabolismprocess. When we do so, this process presents us with its ownnecessity encIosed in its being precisely that, a simple process; thatis to say, in its being simple determined existence. Determinedexistence that, in its turn, forces us, to answer in regards to itsnecessity, to confront that which it carries in itself of pureexistence; of matter as abstractly su ch.

In searching for the necessity of our own action, at the risk ofmutilating such consciousness, we have seen ourselves thusobliged to advance facing particular manifestations of reality bymeans of our thought Each of these manifestations could not tellus about itself, but that it is itself and at the same time some otherself that it carnes within; and, theiefore, that if what we areinterested in is its necessity, we have no other place to start lookingfor it than iri this other self. The course of our advance has onlybeen able, thus, to go back analytically into the interior of our .starting point throughout the connections so defined. Such hasbeen its own necessity. But following this procedure upon reachingmatter as pure existence and confronting it, we do not fmd that itcontains in its interior one other self in which its necessity takesroot. As simply such, matter shows us, thus, that our transformingaction of society embodies it -matter- as its simplest content. Inother words, that such action is a material formo But it shows us, atthe same time, that our consciousness, as simple consciousness of


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5such abstract materiality that has come to be up to now, is stillunable to account for the necessity of even the most general ofthe concrete forms with which we can carry out our action.Having exhausted our possibility for this analytical deepening, weare stiIl far from completing our first step in the field of action infuIl cognition of cause. Nevertheless, such exhaustion is the onlyway open for us that does not carry in itself the immediateannihilation of this first step. And, we can certainly say, theunfolding of half of it.

As abstractly such, .matter does not lirnit itself to show us that itdoes not carry in itself one other self from which its necessityarises. Moreover, it makes evident this simplicity of its ownprecisely because it shows us that it is, by itself and not by another self, the necessity of negating itself as simply such abstractexistence to affirm itself as concrete existence. That which mattertells us directly in its pure simplicity, is that it is immediatenecessity, affirming itself by means of its own negation, ofdeterrnining itself; that it is becoming. And it tells us so, realizingthis necessity that is its own before us: pure existence becomesdeterrnined existence; that existence that we had left behindsearching for the necessity of its being. On reappearing in thisway in front of us now, deterrnined existence does so with thisnecessity of its own already unfolded; that is to say, t does so asconcrete form under which the abstract form realizes its ownnecessity. We find ourselves, then, in the presence of theunfolding of the corresponding moment of the necessity of ouraction. Nothing remains for us but to appropriate this moment inits virtuality, reproducing it by means of our thought3.Far from interrupting itself because of reaching matter in itsabsolute simplicity, as this is pure becorning, the flowing of our

3 However much we sharpen ou r analytical capacity, matter refuses toopen for it a path to the interior of its simplicity of pure existence. It doesnothing but to send us back, in its own negation as simply such to affirmitself by itself as becoming. It takes care, so, of pointing ou t to us thebeing and the nothing as the pure mental abstractions that they are; and,consequently, as completely alien to the cognition of the most simple realabstractions. Which, far froID condenming them to indifference, sets uson the trail of the necessity of such abstractions in the field of theideological forros of the representation of reality.


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6course finds itself renewed. When we now face simplydifferentiated matter whose emergence we have just witnessed, irtells us that, insofar as it is realized necessity, it is the concreteform of simple matter. To add irnmediately, with the eloquencethat is given to it by the fact that it transcends itself into an otherdifferent self in front of us, that, precise\y as such concrete form, itis not the annihilation of the becoming, but necessity, itself, ofdetermining itself by itself. It tells us in this way that it is, becauseof being concrete form of the becoming, necessity of affirmingitself by means of its own negation; and as such, abstract formitself. Natre of concrete forms of matter, that each of them willbe entrusted with making it evident to us, realizing ir for us assoon as we reach it accompanying the development of thenecessity of the irnmediately more abstract fonnfrom which itsprings.

As soon as matter unfolds its pure necessity of determiningitself as differentiated matter, this determination of its own takesconcrete form in the affirming of the becoming itself by means ofits own negation as simply such. ln the development of thisaffirmation, the form whose necessity is realized becomes oneother that, whereas having such necessity as realized inside itself,ir has it as necessity to be realized that is its own. Insofar as it isabstract form, this form does not realize any more its ownnecessity simply by coming out of itself for determining itself asconcrete formo It has this necessity of its own transformed intonecessity of reproducing itself as abstract formo Insofar as concreteforro, it takes in itself its own necessity of developing (becoming),as a condition of its own existence. Matter presents itself to us,thus, determining itself as living matter; and, consequently, thenecessity of our action, unfolding that which it has of purelynatural metabolism process. Thus, it is not trivial what matter tellsus in respect to our necessity itself to account for the necessity ofOUT action: the advancing in the appropriation of the specificvirtuality of the medium is, by itself, the development of thecapacity of the social subject to regulate its metabolism process.But, not because of thal, matter falls short to tell us, with equalstrength, how far we still find ourse\ves from fulfilling suchnecessity. No sooner than we reach matter under its concrete formof purely natural metabolism process, this form shows to us in itsnecessary unrest as abstract formo It happens that this process


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7transcends from being simply such, affirming itself as genericcapacity of developing itself through the production of itsmedium; that is, through transforming the medium from alien toone for itself, by submitting it to its own labouring capacity.Purely natural metabolism process realizes, thus, its necessity bytransforming itself in human social metabolism process. Hence, allthe necessity of our action determined by that process, is sodetermined under the concrete form that is this one's own.

Human social metabolism process goes into motion by itself inour presence. It does so developing itself in its potency for reallyappropriating the medium beyond the reach of its actual capacityto regulate such appropriation on the basis of the appropriation ofits own virtuality. That is, carrying the cooperation among itsmembers beyond their capacity to -mutually recognizing eachother in the development of their respective individualmetabolism processes- directly coordinate these processes asmoments of the social metabolism process. The process inquestion appears to us, thus, determining itself as autonomouslyregulated human social metabolism process. The process in whichsociety assigns its total labouring capacity among the differentconcrete labour modalities by representing the abstract labourembodied in the products of the concrete labours carried out bythe independent private producers, as the capacity of theseproducts to relate among themselves in exchange. That is, wherethe general social relation of the metabolism process thatproduces its own medium becomes commodity; and abstractlabour, in that way represented, becomes the value ofcommodities. The commodity is now the one who carries usforward in search of the necessity of our action. It does so as itgoes on presenting us with its own development as the concreteunit of its natural form, use valu, and its specific social form, itsvalue formo In this development, the exchangeability ofcommodities negates itself as simply such, to affirm itself as directexchangeability ooly of the commodity that all of them detach astheir general equivalent, of money. And, therefore, commodityproduction presents itself realizing its necessity by taking as itsgeneral object the production of this general representative of. value, the production of the general social relation in its concretemanifestation.. Social production as value production transends itself,


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8realizing its necessity in the valorization of value itself, in theproduction of more value by means of value itselfj in thetransforming of money into capital. TIte production of capitalstarts thus to unfold itself before us in the purchasing of labourpower (the commodity whose specific use value lies in itscapacity to produce value) by its value. This is continued throughthe productive consumption of labour power beyond thenecessary time for its own production. To end up with the sale ofthe commodities in which that consumption embodies itself, fortheir valuej return to the money form that yields thecorresponding surplus-value with respect to the capital originallythrown into circulation. As accumulation of means of productionand means of subsistence for the labourers that presents itself toopen its productive metamorphosis, capital tells us how it submitsliving labour to its necessity of self-valorization. To the point ofdetermining as productive, no longer the labour that transforrnsthe medium into means for itself, not even the one that producesvalue, but on1y the labour that produces surplus-value. Thuscapital throws in our face, that it, materialized labour and, assuch, means of human social metabolism process, has takenpossession of the generic potentialities of this process. After whichcapital adds that, whether they like such an alienation of theirgenerically human potencies or not, the bourgeoisie andproletariat cannot but personify rhese potencies which nowbelong to capital itself. As capital is itself the one that producesand reproduces human beings giving them the concrete fonn ofbourgeoisie and proletariat, it goes onby realizing its necessity ofsimple valorization process transcending imo reproduction of thisprocess. Capital rubs in our nose, in this manner, the evidencethat, whatever our necessity to act by radical1y transforming theworld is, this necessity belongs to it, to capital, just as much asany other capital potency. Such necessity cannot be but necessaryconcrete fonn of its existence, however much the realization ofthis necessity is the one of its annihilation.

The simple reproduction of capital advances in thedeterrnination of itself, transfiguring itself into an extended scaleof capital production, into the capital accumulation process.Relative surplus-value (The increase of the rate of surplus valueby means of the reduction of the labour time necessary toproduce abour power) negates itself with this, in its simplicity, to


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9affinn itself as general concrete fonn of this process. As such, itssimple fonn (the increase of the productive capacity of labour inthe spheres that directly or indirectly produce the means ofsubsistence for wage-Iabourers) becomes a double detenninationto the transcendence of the process of capital accumulation fromsimply itself. Double detennination with which it joins the race forthe circumstantial increment of the individual rate of surplus-valuein the spheres alien to the indicated production. Such incrementhas, as its general form, the same one that the increment ofrelative surplus-value has as its concrete form: the circumstantialincrement of the productive capacity of the labour that eachcapital puts individually in action over the social one.Above all, the reproduction of the increment of the productivecapacity of labour has, as its general concrete form, the increasingconcentration of capital mas ses individually put into action.Necessity that clashes against private property of capital. And notjust with particulariyrestricted forms ofthis property, but with itin itself. In its development, that necessity carres in itself thenegation of the property in question as necessary concrete formof capital accumulation, causing it to amrm itself as an absolutelirnit to this accumulation. At the same time, the reproduction ofthe increase of the productive capacity of labour has, as itsequally general concrete form, the subrnitting of all aspects ofproduction to sciencej the reproduction of the simple increase ofrelative surplus value, the same submitting concerningconsumption. From which, exhibiting itself before us in thedeveloping of its general necessity as accumulation process,capital, our specific social relation, tells us that it takes in itself thenecessity of annihilating its historical concrete base, as well as itshistorical reason of existence. Private property in general, as wellas the insufficiency of the development of human capacity toappropriate its own social metabolism process in the integrity ofits virtuality, Le., to consciously regulate it. But, being capital itselfthe one wh shows us such necessity, it tells us, in a no lessforceful manner, .how far i t is from having. transcended in suchannihilation still. Capital tells us, thus, that it carres in itself thisannihilation as a potenCYj and, more specifically still, as a potencythat, just as i t advances in its realization with the development ofcapital accumulation, it renews itself with this development assuch potency.


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10As it advances in the concentration of the scale of individual

capital and the scientific organization of production andconsumption, the capital accumulation process manifests itselfovercoming the narrow base of private property, already in whatthis directly personifies in the bourgeoisie, the generalorganization of the said process. Capital thereby deprives thebourgeoisie of its historical rigbt to exist. At the same time that itdetermines the very proletariat from whose surplus-Iabour it feedsitself, with the mediation of developing it as collective labourer, assuch general personification of its own. Personification that doesnot endose any more in itself any lirnitation to its condition assuch. And that it is, therefore, the most genuine concrete forrn ofthe process of capital accumulation. I t is thus the proletariat whohas in itself the necessity ofpersonifying the annihilation ofcapital. This annihilation is, in itself, that of sodal classes. It is theannihilation of the bourgeoisie, straightwaY no wonder why thebourgeoisie resists with tooth arid nail. But,' in this sameannihilation, the proletariat realizes its own necessity, negatingitself absolutely as such, certainly, to affirrn its potendes as humanpotencies of freely assodated individuals; that is to say, of theconcrete subjects of consciously regulated human socialmetabolism process. No matter how alienated in capital thisrevolutionary potency may be, or better stated, predsely for beingsuch alienated potency, it shows itself thus as the proletariat'sown potency. And, as the point is the general organization of theprocess of capital accumulation, the production of the presentgeneral social relation, as potency that has the polticalrevolutionary action of the proletariat as its general concrete formoWhat is it to be done but to realize it?At last, we have unfolded in front of us the spedfic necessityof our action. This action can recognize itself as the necessaryconcrete forrn of existen ce of matter4. Specifically, of capital

4 "The concrete is concrete because it is the synthesis of multipledeterminations, therefore, the unity of diversity. It appears in thoughtthen, asa process of synthesis, as a result, not as a point of departure,aIthough it is the true point of departure, and, therefore, as well, thepoint of departure of intuition and of representation. In the flfst path [theanalysis], th e sheer representation was condensed to abstractdetermination; in the second one, abstract determinations lead to the


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11potencies that carry in themselves the necessity of capital to affinnitself by means of its own negation, under a fonn that does notreproduce it anymore as a species5. Namely, of annihilating itselfin a superior social form: the conscious control of socialmetabolism process, Le., socialism or cornrnunism6.

2. The concrete subject of action;necessity's development until lt reacheslts concrete forro. of freedomIn pursuit of the necessity of our action, we have foundourselves forced to move along a broad varie'ty of real fonns. Wehave had to go back analytically, from that necessity, toproletariat; from proletariat, to social classes; from social classes,to capital; from capital, to money; from money, to cornmodity;from cornrnodity, to human social metabolism process; from this,to simple living matter; from here, to detennined matter in

general. We leave this determined matter behind, then, to deaLwith simple existence. Movement with which we have donereproduction of the concrete by the path of thought." "Das Konkrete istkonkret, weil es die Zusammenfassung vicier Bestirnmungen ist, alsoEinheit des Mannigfaltigen. 1m Denken erscheint es daher als ProzeB derZusammenfassung, als Resultat, nicht als Ausgangspunkt , obgleich es derwirkliche Ausgangspunkt un d daher auch de r Ausgangspunkt derAnschauung und der Vorstellung ist. 1m ersten Weg wurde die volleVorstellung zu abstrakter Bestirnmung verflchtigtj im zweiten fhren dieabstrakten Bestimmungen zur Reproduktion des Konkreten im Weg desDenkens." Marx, Karl Manuscript edited as Ein/eitung {zu de r"Grundrissen der Kritik der politischen Okonomie"J, Marx/Engels

A u s ~ e w a h l t e Werke, Dietz Verlag, Berlin, 1985, Vol. n, p . 486."Capital is the economic power wholly dominant of bourgeoissociety. It must constitute the departing . point as much as the endingpoint, .. ." "Das Kapital ist die alles beherrschende okonornische Machtder brgerlichen Gesellschaft. Es muB Ausgangspunkt wie Endpunktbilden .. . werden." Marx, Karl Manuscript edited as Ein/eitung ... , op. cit.,Vol. n, p. 493.6 Prom here on, in referring to consciously regulated socialmetabolism process, we will use these two generic namesinterchangeably.


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12nothing but to renew the unrest of transition, in the inversereappearance and overcoming of each of those same forms asthey unfold their particular necessity. However, no matter howabsolute such a displacement may seem, we have not movedeven one iota from our original object. Not in any of its moments,has the ideal reproduction of our real necessity gone through anydetermination that was not placed in the interior of revolutionaryaction in fuIl cognition of cause. The firrnness of our restriction toit is clearly evident due to the very fonn of the transition in whichthis maintenance in itself takes fonn.When we analytically face the real fonn cut out by ourirnmediate perception, it presents to us as being it itself at thesame time as being one other self: its own necessity of existence.It presents to us, thus, as concrete fonn that is such because itcarries in itself its own abstract fonn . Necessity of existence of areal fonn, this abstract fonn can neither be more nor less real thanits concrete one. In its pure reality, one and the other only differbetween them by the modality in which they carry in themselvesthe same real necessity. The real necessity that the abstract onehas as potency that specifies it as such, the concrete one has asactual necessity that correspondingly spedfies it. Abstract form'sreal potentiality is real actuality in the concrete fonn. The secondfonn is the unfolded reality of the flfst one; the first one realized.Potency already developed into act, abstract forrns only confrontour irnmediate perception transfigured inw concrete forrns. In itstum, such perception finds itself completely limited to theexteriority itself of its object. It can scarcely come to cognize itsobject in the irnmediateness of its actual reality; actuality thatincludes, of course, the necessity that lies in it as potentiality to berealized. And what is there to say about our appropriation ofabstract forms, no longer in the virtuality of their reality, but intheir reality itself. Such appropriation gets hold of the abstractforrns only in what, of these abstract fonns, has the concreteforrns that it transforrns in itself. It is abstract fonns' own realitythe one that makes these forrns acquirable by us, insofar as purelysuch abstract forrns, only ideaIly7.

7 A// tbings are fu// of gods, Thales the Milesian. The particularrelationship between real abstract forrns and the modality of humanappropriation of them as such, is the fulcrum of every representation of


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13Upon discovering by means of analysis the necessity ofexistence of the form cut out by our immediate perception we

the nature itself of these real abstract fonns as opposed to the materialityof t.beir concrete fonns, as apure immateriality. Prom tls inversion itnecessarily follows (given that the necessity of concrete fonns truthfullyHes in the abstract forms of them) the immaterial nature of thedetermination .of real concrete forms. And it equally follows that therealization of abstract forms is the transforming ofthem from immateria/ones into material ones. Such representation is historically necessaryincarnation of alienated regulation of the human social metaboHsmprocess. Meanwhile Ccorresponding to the development of this alienatedregulation) human cognition barely reaches the abstract forms of theconcrete real ones most irnmediate to them, the representation we aredealing with takes. shape in prirnitive animismo In this, each real concretefonn presents itself endosing an immaterial fonn that determines it, byits immediateness, in its singularity at frrst, msofar as species afterwards.Inasmuch as that specifically alienated regulation extends its generic base-ideal appropriation of real forms-, the representation of the nature of realabstract forms as immateria/ develops into religious fonns that embracedeterminations of matter increasingly universal. It proceeds so, frompantheism to local monotheism, and then to universal monotheism.Where it comes to embrace with purely religious specificity, asChristianity, the unicity in the diversity of the deterrnination of concreteforms. But even before this, what starts to emerge is the consciousnessthat the ideality of the appropriation process of the abstract forms as suchis the underlying on e in the conception of the immateria/ity of thesefonns. Tirnidly at the beginning, inverted 'in its ow n inversion, posingideas as the representatives, the existence forro, of that immateriality. Upuntil the idealist inversion reaches its irreducible simplicity in Hegel'shands: Hegel puts the ideal reproduction of reality, that is, the 'materialfonn of the process of entire appropriation of abstract forrns as such, inthe place of the materiality of these fonns, as the very immaterialty ofthem. Thereafter, idealist philosophy has nothing new left to say; it hasreached the end of its own development. An end that, even in its veryfonn, carnes in itself its irnmediate overcoming in the reproduction ofreality by thought; and, with this reproduction, the en d of philosophyitself as form of development of social consciousness. Idealist philosophycan only reach its end, thus, when it is no longer enough for theregulation of the social metabolism process to take form in alienatedconsciousness, and it needs to start doing so as free consciousness. Butdearly the thing is no t simply throwing philosophy to the dustbin: withthe convenient professorial retreat, it is still in condition to render capitalexcellent services as plain ideology.

i -r'


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14have hot passed, then, neither realIy nor idealIy, from that form toanother external to it. Nor to a supposed one -Le ., ideallyintroduced- by USj so alien to the real form we face as much asanyone. What we have done has been to ideally penetrate intothe interior of the real form in question. Penetration deepenedafterwards, as many times as the abstract form consequentIydiscovered, has shown to us enclosing in its interior its own .necessity of existence as apure potenCYj that is to say, enclosingin its interior another form of our real object, even more abstractthan itself. TIlis is carried out until we run into an abstract form ofour real object that does not take in itself its own necessity ofexistence as potency to be realized, as abstract form that belongsto it. On the contrary, it is simple necessity of determining itself,of transcending from itself affirming itself in its own negation. TIlissimple real form has, thus, the necessity of its own existence asimmediately actual necessityj it is existen ce in itself. But, insofaras this actual existence of its own is necessity of transcendingfrom itself, suchsimple form is, at the same time, potentialexistence. Potency that it realizes becoming concrete formj that is,realization of the contradiction, of the negation of itself to affirmitself, virtualIy imma.nent to it Affirmation of the simple form bymeans of its negation as such, the concrete form is the realreproduction of the necessity of self-affirming by means of selfnegation. And as such it unfolds in the development of formsincreasingly concrete of our real object. As we follow this realmovement with our thought, we have not left our concreteobject's most abstract form for others alien to it, but we haveidealIy reproduced the metamorphosis in which this abstract formunfolds its necessity. We have followed in this way our real objectin the integrity of the extension of its own development. We havefollowed it, then, up to where it has its concrete actual existence,no longer as realized necessity, but as necessity to be reaHzed. Wehave ideally appropriated, thus, the necessity ofits potenciesinsofar as realconcrete object. And it predsely is the realization ofthese potencies that is in question. Our object shows itself, thus,in the fullness of what it truly is: a subject.Matter is tbe subject. Subject that has, as it simplest form ofexistence, the affirming itself by means of its own negation, the


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15becoming, the necessity of determining itself8. Along itsunfolding, this necessity manifests itselfas the one that in eachsubject's concrete form has its full actual existence only as apower to be. Asthe potency that each of these forms carnes initself. And, therefore, as 'the concrete form of the necessity thatdetermines them, concrete forms, as abstract forms. Abstract formsthat, in their tum, affirm themselves by negating themselves: theyrealize their potency becoming concrete forms.Under its simplest modality, the necessity carried by the

8 Maybe it is already scandalous to those who conceive therepresentation of reality by its relations of measure as the exclusive foonof scientific cognition, that matter has no t presented to us its smallestmicro differences, Le., subatomic partic1es, as its simplest foon. But thesepartic1es are not only concrete forros of specific deterrninations of malter.The cognition of their measure, and even the cognition of themthemselves, is in itself alien to the general unfolding of the necessity ofou r conscious transforming action of social organization. And it is so,even though their cognition by means of the representation ' of theirmeasure relations is nowadays the general condition for the realization ofthe production social process as simple material process. Moreover -withnecessity that we shall see in its du e time- the overcoming, by this lastfoon of cognition, of the limtations to which it is subjected by itscondition .of representation (that is, its transformation into idealreproduction of its object), presupposes the development of thatunfolding. "[By] .. . the atomistic principIe ... in reducing the infinitemultiplicity of the universe to this simple opposition [here atoms and nextto tbem emptiness] and by daring to recognize that one by means of thisone, ... [[to whch is addedll the equally trivial and exterior relationshp ofcomposition, that still must come to reach the appearance of a concreteand of a multiplicity, .. . physics suffers in theroolecules, partic1es, asmuch as political science, that departs from the sole will of individuals,does." "[An) .. . das atomistische Prinzip .. . die unend1icheMannigfaltigkeit der Welt auf diesen einfachen Gegensatz [sich hierAtome und daneben das Leere) zUfckfhrt um sie aus ihm zu erkennensich erkhnt, .. . [[ .. . l das gleich triviale und auBerliche Verhaltnis derZusammensetzung, das noch hinzukommen muB, um zuro Scheine einesKonkfeten und einer Maimigfaltigkeit zu gelangen, ... leidet die Physik inden Moleklen, Partikeln ebensosehr als die Staatswissenschaft, die vondem einzelnen Willen de r Individuen ausgeht." Hegel, G.W.F.Wissenschaft der Logik, Werke in zwanzig Banden, Suhrkamp Verlag,Frankfurt, 1969, Vol. V, B. 1, pp. 184-186. [original text changed in itsorder J.I.c.); [[added links J.I.C.ll . .


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16abstract form is an immediately realizable potency. But this simplemodality affirms itself by means of its own negation in theenclosing, the abstract form, potencies whose realized forms aremutually exclusive .in the same concrete subject; potencies thatexist together with their contraries, determining the same abstractform as such. This abstract form carries in itself the necessity oftaking a determined concrete form as well as the one thatopposes this one. The potencies in question are not found any longer, in this abstract form, as a simple power to be. They arethere as a power to be that is, at the same time, a power not tobe ; as possibility o ~ c o n t i n g e n c y The abstract form necessarydevelops itself, now, not in one concrete form, but in a diversityof them: sorne are the realization of sorne of its potencies, others,of other potencies. This continues until aH the potencies that itkeeps in . ts interior open the way for themselves. Abstract formsnegate thernselves, in this manner, as simply such, affirmingthernselves as genus. Its corresponding concrete forms do thesame thing, metamorphosing thernselves into the differentiatedspecies in which the realization of the necessity of the genus takesformo

As the species is already realized possibility, the determinationof its own possibility is, first of aH, completely alien to iL From itspoint of view, the realization of necessity -causality- takes theform of casualness, of accidentalness. Of the necessity that, at thesame time, is no necessity whatsoever9. At the same time that,negation of negation, each species, considered in itself, presentsitSelf as the absolute materialization of those of the genericpotencies that have particularly deterrnined it lO; and these

9 From this unilateral point of view, the reduction of casualness to itsappearance, abstract accidentalness emptied of all determination, feedsitself. Such a reduction is particularly tempting for the representation ofreal abstract forros by the relations of measure of their concrete forros,which needs to believe in the lack of all necessity immanent to itsobjects. .

10 This appearance provides the basis for the belief in irnrnediatedeterrninationas the unique concrete forro of eXistence of necessity; Le.,deterrninist metaphysics. From which it follows that, where necessityconfronts us as possibility or contingency -and correspondingly ascasualness or accidentalness- thefe is nothing but an insufficientcognition of its deterrnination. To such a conception it all comes down to


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17potencies present themselves as the drcumstances or conditionsof the respective species. But the determination of the realizationof possibility develops, in its turn, negating itself as .alen -therefore casually and apparently immediate- in respect to thespecific concrete formo It does so affirming itself in thedetermination, by this form, of its own necessity as concretemodality of the realiza,tion of possibility. That is, as concrete formthat takes possession of its own conditions and transforms them,by itself, into concrete existences; as lije. Such concrete form is,thus, necessary form of existence of other concrete forms ofmatter that until then, have faced it as potencies alen to it. It has,consequently, the generic form of transforming action thatregulates itself. Action that advances in its real appropriation ofthe conditions that determine it, by previously taking possessionof these conditions in their very virtuality. That is to say,recognizing itself as necessary form of realization of the possibilityat stake: by virtually appropriating fue forms whose possibilities itis capable of being the carrer of, such action can afterwards realIyappropriate these forms, imposing itself as concrete form of theirnecessity of transforming themselves. From subjects external to it,the action we refer to transfigures them in this way into itsobjects. This is, then, the transforming action which cognizes itsown necessity.Where the transforming action which cognizes its ownnecessity takes form, its subject starts by facing its own object asthat which is truIy for itself at that moment: something external toit as .such subject. Hence, under its simplest form, cognitionreaches the necessity of the subject's own-action just insofar asrepresenting the abstract fonn by its concrete forrn already deve1oped,overlooking the transforrnation that mediates between them. In tlstransformation, the necessity that finds itself fully determined aspossibility becomes realized possibilitYi that is to say, a power to be ornot to be that has denied itself as such to affirm itse1f as simplydeterrnined being. This happens either as purely qualitative developmentor as quantitative development (temporal being a typica1 case). "Goddoes not play dice"; in this way Einstein has surnmarized the soinescapable as well as anguishing self-debating of scientific cognitioncentered on the representation of reality by its relations of measure, .between this metaphysics and its apparent opposite, the on e of abstractaccidentalness.


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18this one virtually manifests itself as irnmediate link between themutual neeessity of subjeet and objeet. Consequently, such fonnof eognition do es not go beyond the very exteriority of its objeet.It is detennined, thus, as irnmediate eognition. Cognition, thatbecause of its reaeh, is not capable by itself of reeognizing itselfas such. This immediate eognition transeends itself developinginto the virtual appropriation of the neeessity that goes baek, inthe unfolding of this neeessity, beyond its immediatemanifestation. Irnmediateeognition transeends itself, then, in theeognition by means of thought; in the ideal appropriation ofreality. In advancing beyond the abstraet detenninations of aetion,this cognition becomes a process capable of recognizing itself assuch ideal appropriation; a process conscious of itself. Cognitionacquires, thus, fonn of consciousness .The subject that disposes itself to ideally take possession of thenecessity of its own action does not cease, for that reason, to startby facing the object of this action as something that is eXternal toit, the subject. And, consequently, with this object by itsirnmediate exteriority. Irnmediate exteriority, whose appearancethe subject overcomes upon advancing beyond the abstract formsof its object. But when perfonning this advance it comes up, firstof against the exreriority of the abstraet fonns themselves.From which, the appropriation of the real necessity by thoughthas, as most primitive specific fonn, the ideal setting by itself incausal relation rhe real forms (abstracr and concrete ones) .departing from the way they present themselves to it. That is, themental conceiving of links among real forms on the basis of theirexteriority; and, therefore, independently of their necessity.Cognition becomes, thus, a mental construction with a causalityalien to the real one: the ideal representation of reality. The actionbased on such representation cannot do more than, at best, tocognize its own necessity by the apparent concatenations of thisonej that is to say, in a correspondingly external mode. At worst, .it does not go beyond imagining it in a purely fantastic manner.Hence, the specific limit that the potency of this action has.

The appropriation by thought of the real forms in theirvirtuality overcomes the exteriority of these forms ideallyaccompanying them in the unfolding of their real neeessity. Theway in which it mentalIy reproduces their real concatenations. Irtakes, thus, fonn of ideal reproduction of reality. On idealIy


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19reproducing the necessity of real forrns, the transforrning actionvirtually takes possession of its own necessity in the integrity of it.Thereby its potency does not find a lirnit in the form itself of thistaking of possession: the transforrning action that cognizes its ownnecessity by means of the ideal reproduction oC this one is themost developed concrete form of the becorning, i.eo, of matter,with which we confront. We are referring, more than obviously,to the being generically human in the fullness of its actualdevelopment.

Seen now from the outside, just because it finds itselfcompletely deterrnined as necessary concrete form of matter,human action can transform other forrns of matter into forms foritself; and, therefore, to transform itselfo Insofar as it were alien tosuch deterrnination -in other words, insofar as it were not theincamation of the development of the necessity of matter underthe corresponding concrete forrns- human action would beimpotent to act upon any of the concrete forms into which thatnecessity unfolds itself upon any of the concrete formsof matteroJust as impotent as a pin is when faced with something which hasthe capacity of being broken into pieces only by a sledgehammeroAnd only because it finds itself completely determined asnecessary concrete form of matter, human action necessarilybecomes, in historical evolution, a free action: an action thatcognizes its ow n necessity in the integrity ol" this necessityllo

Of course, where necessity was presenting its concrete form ofcasualness, the human action that realized ir may appear, alwaysfrom an external point of view, with its deterrninations invertedo

11 "Freedom of willis, lhen, nothing but lhe capacity of deciding wilhcognition of causeoTherefore, lhe freerlhe judgment of a human beingwith respect to a detennined matter is, so much greater is lhe necessitywith which lhe content of that judgment is going to be detennined olfreedom] is, 000, necessarily, a produCt of historicaJ developmento""Freiheit des Willens heiBt daher nichts andres als die Hihigkeit, mitSachkenntnis entscheiden zu konneno Je freier also das Urteil einesMenschen in Beziehung auf einen bestimmten Fragepunkt ist, mit destogroBerer Notwendigkeit wird der Inhalt dieses Urteils bestimmt sein; osie IFreiheitl ist o notwendig ein Produkt der geschichtlichen Entwicklungo" Engels, Friedrich Herrn Eugen Dhrings Umwii/zung derWissenschaft ("Anti-Dhring"J, MarxlEngels Ausgewahlte Werke, DietzVerlag, Berlin, 1985, Vol. V, po 1280


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20That is, detennining by itself the existence of the necessity inquestion, and not as the concrete fonn in which this necessityrealizes itself12. E.g., the radical transformation of capitalism intoconscious regulation of social metabolism process has no generalfonn of realizing itself other than the proletariat's voluntary action.But that transfonnation has this action as such fonn insofar as thewill of the proletariat is inhabited by capital's necessity, capital'swill, to annihilate itself in that superior social fonn. Hence, therevolutionary potency of the aforesaid voluntary action. To thosewho restrict their view of the voluntary action of the proletariat tothe immediate concrete fonn of the realization of capitalismtransfonnation, this action appears deprived of aH potency but theone that emerges from the proletariat's will itself. It is not in vainthat, in such exteriority, the possibility of capitalism to annihilateitself presents itself, not as an absolute necessity of this one, butas the absence of such necessity in it; and rather, as the pure andsimple negation of this necessity. Sheltered in this apparent raisingto absoluteness of the potency of the proletariat's voluntaryaction, the actual potency of this action as concrete fonn ofcapital's specific necessity is compeHed to give way to the causalfeebleness of its own concrete fonns, transfigured -with theexclusion of their determinations- into pure abstractions:solidarity, organization, libertarian morale, of the proletariat. And,next to these, the sti11 feebler pseudo-causality of the realization ofabstract eternal human values, of social justice. .Consciously regulated action by means of the reproduction ofreality by thought carries in itself, then, the advancing in the idealunfolding of the necessity of the subject on which it is going tooperate, to the point of being capable of recognizing its ownconcrete fonn -that is to say, to recognize itselfas necessaryconcrete fonn of existence of these potencies of the subject.Historie concrete fonn of regulation of human social metabolism

12 The conversion of the possibility of this inversion into a generalrepresentation of the relation between human action and its objectcorresponds to the development of consciousness when the potencies ofhumanity confront it as potencies that are alen to it. Por the moment, it isoruy fitting for us to point out the existence of the mentioned possibility,and at the same time, the existence of its necessary transition intogeneralized representation.


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21process, capital accumulation tums itself into the concrete objectitself of social production and consumption. Capital becomes,thus, the specific subject of autonomously regulated socialmetabolism process. As such subject, capital is the concrete formof human life under- which all the generic potencies of this lifetransfigure themselves into potencies of the social product. Sothat, the very same concrete human !ife becomes necessarypersonification of capital, capital's own form of existence. But, ifthis inversion reaches its fullness in the accumulation of capital,the commodity originally carries it in itself already as the generalnecessity of independent private producers to produce value,tranSfiguring the production of use values into the vehicle of theproduction of the general social relation. Commodity is, then, thesimplest specific social subject where social metabolism processtakes form in an autonomously regulated general interdependentsystem13. Subject that realizes its necessity as such, transfonningitself into capital, by giving tllis autonomous regulation its finishedform of production of value: its form of valorization of value.Capital has, as its specific historical potency, its transformationinto a consciously regulated social metabolism processj socialtransformation in whose personification capital places theproletariat. In its development, this revolutionary potency ofcapital eliminates, by itself, its opposite, the mere reproduction ofcapitalismo It is, therefore, a simple historical necessity, not apossibility, of capital, insofar as it is determined by this one. Inother words, it is a historical necessity of capital whose realizationcannot be detennined, .in itself, as possibility. But this realizationof capital necessarily materializes itself in the realization of thatpotency that is its oppositej that is to say, it materializes itself ashistorical process. Therefore, the concrete forms of realizingcapital's simple necessity of annihilating itself into a superiorsocial organization has no other immediate form of necessity thanthe one of possibilities of that opposite potency to this simplenecessity. This is, just to begin, the concrete form of the necessityof the temporal quantitative determination of such annihilation14.

13 "... neither 'value' nor 'exchange value' are subjects, rather it isonly a commodity. . .. which is the simplest economic concrete" " . . noson sujetos ni el 'valor' ni el 'valor de cambio', sino que solamente lo esla mercanca . . .que es el concreto econmico ms simple." Marx, Karl


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22Being a historical realization of consciously regulated socialmetabolism process -Le., of the full expression of the transformingaction that cognizes its own necessity-, whose development takesthe concrete form of possibility in the reproduction of itsopposite, the radical transformation of society specifically takesform as immediately such in the proletariat's conscious action

grounded upon the reproduction of reality by thought. Ourrevolutionary action only carries in itself the complete, andtherefore true, cognition of cause -in other words, . t is aconsciously revolutionary action- when, in each time and place, itrecognizes itself as the concrete form in which capital's immanentnecessity of developing material productive forces of society untilabolishing itself is realized15.

Marginal Notes on W a g n e r ~ "l.ehrbuch der Po/itischen Okonomie", editedin El Capital, Fondo de Cultura Econmica, Mxico, 1973, T. 1, pp. 714 Y718.

14 This form of necessity belongs to the determination of ou rhistorica1 social being, as much as it belongs to our natural individualbeing. From the time they are born, all ndividuals take with themselvesthe simple necessity of their own death. Alien in itself to possibility, thisnecessity has no concrete form of realizing itself other than as thepossibility of the development of its opposite, individual life process. Thealienation of the generic human being in capital leaves human personsonly in possession of their abstract individual being and thereby,emptied of the simple capacity to take consciousness of thedeterminations of this abstract individuality. Hence, the consciousness ofthe form of necessity in question does not find itself less determined bysuch alienation with respect to natural human individuality than withrespect to historical social being. Moreover, the development o (consciousness of one's ow n individual determinations by means of theideal reproduction of them has, as an inescapable moment of its own, thedevelopment of equal consciousness regarding one's own genericdeterminations as the former determinations are necessary concreteforms of the latter ones.

15 In that it is self-annihilation, capital only potentially carries thespecific concrete forms of social metabolism process consciouslyregulated as its own absolute negation. Beyond this express on of its ownas pure negativity, capital's potentiality does not reach the concrete formswe are referring to, neither in what they have of simple necessity, nor inwhat they have of possible necessity: these concrete forms are completelyalien to such potentiality. The same happens with commodity's


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3. The concrete forro of dialectical cognitionprocessa. Prom the determination of reality by the process ofits ideal reproduction to the formal manifestation

of this reproduction as such

23

Our ideal appropriation of reality starts by facing the subjectwhose necessity is going to reproduce, by the form of this subjectthat is cognizable to us independently from the participation ofthought in that cognition in itself. This portion of our cognitionpresents itself to us, thus, from the point of view of the idealappropriation of reality, as an irnmediate perception. Where thecapacity of irnmediate perception to virtually appropriate thenecessity of the real subject over which we are going to act ends,the necessity itself of ideal appropriation is born. With which, theconcrete form that is irnmediately appropriable presents itself asthe exteriority of the named subject. Considered as abstractlyindependent moments of the process of appropriation of realityby thought, the product of irnmediate perception is, then, thestarting point of ideal reproduction in itself. To be even moreaccurate, that perception is the starting point of the process ofanalysis that integra es this reproduction; process of analysis that,parting from the exteriority perceived, must advance discoveringby means of thought the moreand more abstract forrtls of thenecessity of the subject concerning it, Then, the reality that ourimmediate perception apprehends is not a form that simplybelongs to the perceived subject and, as such, completely externa!to ourselves. That reality is the unity betweenthe exteriormanifestation of the determinations of this subject and thedeterminations inherent in our capacity of perception, in ourperceptive sense. Nothing is blue simply in itself. The blue is thereal unity between the determinations of certain light, surface,atmospheric state, etc. and the normal functioning of our visual

potentiality. These forms are then, in the same measure, completelynonexistent nowadays. Consequently, the pretension of their cognition isnothing but a miserable discoursing over purely fantastic forms; the oneof their personification, sycophant's hypocrisy.

- ,[


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24system. Reality irnmediately appropriated is as much an attributeof our determination, such that an alteration of this functioningwhile the determinations inherent to the perceived exteriority stayuntouched, is enough for the blue not to be blue. In theirindissoluble unitary development, the analysis and the idealreproduction itself of the subject over which we are going to actconsequentIy need to account for the real determinationsthemselves of our capacity of irnmediate perception concretely inplay with respect to the exterior reality irnmediately perceived ofthat subject. ,The determination of the reality apprehended by our processof irnmediate perception, that emerges from this very process, cango further than the simple unity between the conditions of ourcapacity of perception and the exteriority of the necessity weapproach to reproduce. When facing a concrete form, our processof perceiving it in its immediateness can turn to be, itself,determination of the necessity of this form, upon transforming theone that was originally there. Circumstance that should not horrifyanybody: in the Hrst .place, this perception is the material form ofthe process of cognition that relates itself, in its own materiality,with the materiality of the real form whose necessity is going toideally appropriate that process. In the second place, thecircumstance under consideration does not introduce anycondition to the process of ideal reproduction of reality, otherthan the necessity of accounting for the determination that itgenerates; just in the same way as this process needs to do so 'with the rest of the determinations that pertain to the necessity ofthe affected concrete form whose realization our action is going topersonify. ' The same thing would happen if, in thdr ownmateriality as processes of pure thought, as materially idealdevelopments, the other two moments of the dialectical cognition ,process (the analysis and the unfolding of the ideal reproductionitselO would have the capacity, still to be seen, of generating bythemselves the determination we are referring to.In its turn, the discovering of the abstract forrns of realnecessity by analysis and the ideal reproduction of this necessityin the strict sense have to deal with the determination of ourcapacity itself of realizing them, that arises from the alienation ofour own capacity of consciousness, in capital. Under its simplestform, ' the alienation of human potencies as capital's potencies '


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25necessarily takes shape, with respect to the consciousness itse1f ofthis alienation, as the impossibility to ideal1y reproduce reality. Itis not in vain that this reproduction is, in itself, the negation ofalienated consciousness. Therefrom, the very necessity of the idealrepresentation of reality as general fonu of scientific cognition incapitalism necessity that is so much so, as to decisively imposeitself over the weaker potency to really appropriate matter (and,consequently, for the production of surplus-value, this productionabstractly considered as pure form of organization of the materialprocess of social metabolism), that is capable to support thisrepresentation in comparison with the idear reproduction ofreality. Now then, so generically alienated corisciousness incapital, ours, as much as any other, the corresponding ideologicaIforms have their place in its determination. Ideological formsprecisely embodied in the ideal representation of social formsand, due to the inescapable universal extension of the samenecessity, in the ideal representation of reality in general. But,insofar as the proletariat's own consciousness that carries in itse1fcapital's necessity to develop the consdous regulation of sodalmetabolism process annihilating itself, our consdousness frndsitself specifical1y determined as the very necessity of realizing theideal reproduction of reality. The cons(jousness thus determined,our revolutionary consciousness, is not the simple negation ofalienated consciousness, but the negation of the negation of freeconsdousness. As such,ideological determinations have notmerely vanished from this consciousness of ours. But thepresence in it of these ideological determinations overcomes itself.in the specific determination of the necessity of our consciousnessto account for that presence, ideally reproducing its necessity.This ideal reproduction is, then, a necessary moment of thecognition itself of our own necessity. Such a moment is going totum up every time that the ideological determinations in questionare pertinent to the concrete necessity which we are going toinca mate withour action. Arialysis and the ideal reproduction ofreality in the strict sense hve no way in which to embodythernselves, if it is attempted to leave aside the unfolding of thenecessity of such determinations, to the extent that corresponds to


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26this unfolding16.While the ideal reproduction of a concrete real fonu is underdevelopment, its necessity as such reproduction does not manifestitself immediately -thar is to say, by its very fonu- to the exterior.The immediate perception faces a multitude of concrete realforms; none of which reveal, in that immediateness, that it mayprecisely be the one whose potency corresponds to incamate withour action. The analysis of each concrete real fonu faces, in itstum, the mass of abstract forms enelosed in it; abstract formswhere each one of them is as really present there as the others.The ideal linfolding of the possibility that each real abstract formcarries in itself has to deal, to elose the circuit, with the multitudeof concrete forms in which it takes shape in an equally realrnanner. These multitudes and masses, obviously, do not 'evenleave aside the ideological forms in which the regulation of thesocial metabolism process materializes when it is historicallyfitting for ideal appropriation of reality to have its development inrepresentation. And they equally inelude the purely real formsinherent to immediate perception and the ones of the same typethat the developmenr of the cognition process eventuallygenerates by itself. But, precisely for having no other guide thanthe unfolding of the real necessity -and exeluding from itself,hence, any presupposition- the ideal reproduction of reaJity finds,in the apparent tortuousness of its path, just a formaldetennination. Which is not trivial: from the viewpoint of thecognition process in itself, the development of that reproductionis nothing else but the overcorning of this formal determination.

Inasmuch as the magnitude of this tortuousness leavestruncated the course of the ideal reproduction, at whatever point

16 In the need to believe that there is no forro of appropriation ofreaJity by thought other than it itself, ideal representation sees inideoJogical deterroination an absolute limit to human capacity toconsciously regulate action. It projects thus, to genus, what is of its ow nas species. And it does so with such conviction, that taking for grantedthe insuperable ideological determination of all scientific c

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9.Dialectical cognition.Iñigo carrera

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