2

Marx Seminar, first meeting. March 30, 1960

(The tape commences with the lecture already in progress).

...description as distinguished from the qualitative differences. Now modern
philosophy as it emerged since the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries is. as I
said before. anti-socialistic in this older sense of the word. Man. the individual not a member of society. not even as a potential member of society. is primary. Society is simply derivative from beings who are not as such social beings. Man is -the fundamental phenomenon. therefore. is freedom, not obligation. All obligation is derivative from free acts of previously non-obliged individuals. That's the meaning of the strict - the strict meaning of the doctrine of the social contract. Therefore the fundamental moral phenomenon does not have the character of duties. but of rights. The rights of man in the strict sense are a modern notion. We must here make a distinction as I have made it on a former occasion between various waves of this modern thinking. The first wave is represented most clearly by Hobbes and by Locke and this Hobb-Locklan version of which to say only a few words is the origin of political economy. The second wave embodies politcal economy, but does not create it. Now what is characteristic here? The fundamental phenomenon is self-preservation, the preservation of life and limb. To understand this. one must contrast it with the Thomistic doctrine. According to Thomas there are three kinds of natural inclinations. The first is directed toward self-presentation. The second is directed toward social life. And the third is directed toward cognition. Self-preservation is the lowest and cognition the highest. Now what men like Hobbes and Locke did is. as it were. disregard the two higher or to deny they are natural inclinations and concentrate only on the primary, self-preservation. The reason for that was what one can call "realism." They wanted to have a doctrine which was not in any way [you plan]? or visionary, but solid. Low but solid is. I think, a beautiful formilation due to Winston Churchill. to this doctrine. Low but solid. Not trust such fanciful things as inclination toward society and natural desire for cognition, but self-preservation. That we run-we take cover when someone points a gun at you that is the real stuff. And of the same kind, of course, also food. That is also necessary for self-preservation. And food is almost the same thing as property, as will appear when Mr. Cropsey will take over. This kind of doctrine is. of course. also characterised by an intense simplification. If you have three fundamentally different natural inclinations that gives the complicated doctrine, but if there is only one: great simplification. Therefore it was possible to present the doctine in quasi-mathematical form as Hobbes did openly and Locke in a slightly concealed matter. Now self-preservation. while being the basic phenomenon is not the complete phenomenon as far as the human will is concerned because man, as we all know. is not satisfied with self-preservation a lone. He also wants to be happy. and we have to consider the relation between self-preservaation and happiness in order to begin a possible understanding of Marx.

The view which Hobbes and --(by the way, you can find a chair. I believe. so you don't have to stand: there is a chair) - now Hobbes and Locke admit. of course that man desires happiness and that he's not satisfied with self-preservation. but they say, in our language. happiness is entirely subjective. Someone finds his happiness in eating a special kind of cooked apples and another in readiing novels: others perhaps even in writing novels and so on: infinitely subjective and nothing can be built on that. Self-preservation is the same in all men. Therefore it is objective. Therefore something can be built on that. Happiness cannot be the end of civil society because of its subjectivity. Civil society can only guarantee the conditions of happiness. Without - because without life you cannot be happy.