The End of Philosophy, the Origin of "Ideology": Karl Marx and the Young Hegelians (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 305 theory. Likewise a look at Edward Gibbon, who was much influenced by the Scots, would have added to the discussion. Towards the end of the monograph Hamowy briefly turns to Dugald Stewart. His writings make frequent reference to the theory of spontaneous order. Their popularity in Britain and abroad helped to secure for the theory a place of importance in nineteenth-century philosophical, economic, political, and sociological discourse. Hamowy has reestablished scholarly interest in the theory, but more remains to be done. One wonders, for example, whether the implications of this theory varied with the degree of religious belief among its supporters. Moreover, were there those who simply rejected the idea of spontaneous order? Is there evidence of it at some level in the fictional writings of the day? In these areas and no doubt in others more might have been said about a theory described by the author as "perhaps the most significant sociological contribution" of the Scottish Enlightenment (3). The Journal of the History of PhilosophyMonograph Series provides a forum for the publication of studies "between article length and standard book size" ("8o to 1~o pages"). Ronald Hamowy's contribution clearly adds to our understanding of the Scottish Enlightenment, but an opportunity was missed to develop important ideas more systematically and in more detail. The text and notes total fewer than fifty pages, and there are many long block quotations which, while necessary to the argument, might have been more closely analyzed. Finally, the fifteen-page bibliography of the works of some but not all of the writers discussed is perhaps not entirely necessary. WILLIAM ZACHS Edinburgh University Harold Mah. The End of Philosophy, the Origin of "Ideology":Karl Marx and the Young Hegelians. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1987. Pp. ix + 3o5• $37.5o. Historians and philosophers have always viewed one another with the same admixture of fear and contempt as that between dogs and cats. Territory is everything. The situation becomes even more provocative when the territory to be historically explained is a philosophical school--such as Young Hegelianism. Usually, when historians conduct detailed excursions into this field, the "Hegelianism" in Young Hegelianism vanishes in the recital of events construed as causing its rise or its fall. Professor Mah does take a historical tack, but he nevertheless has not fallen into the abyss of historicism: he has at least taken the philosophy of the school as its moving principle, and has respected the intellectual integrity of those who committed themselves to it. Even beyond this he has made an effort to employ some of the categories of Hegelianism itself to explicate the course of its followers. Professor Mah has set himself a limited goal: to determine the time and place in which the "theory of ideology" can be said to have originated formally. He proposes that this theory, defined as "the nodon that abstract thought legitimizes and/or compensates for particular social and political conditions," first appeared among the Young 306 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 28:2 APRIL 1990 Hegelians, and, in particular, among the "Prussian Young Hegelians"--Bruno Bauer, Arnold Ruge, and Karl Marx. He is, of course, cognizant that such a specific definition and source can be questioned , and the bulk of his work is directed to defending his proposal that the theory of ideology found its birthplace in the minds and emotions of but three Hegelians, with Marx, not unexpectedly, being credited as the prime nurturer of the theory, if not to its maturity, at least through its adolescence. Professor Mah has set up what might appear as a rather thin theoretical framework upon which to shape the historical data that will serve as the empirical proof of his thesis. The first premise is that Bauer, Ruge, and Marx found in Hegelianism the reconciliation of their own personal and professional problems. They suffered, in short, something akin to a religious conversion in their encounter with Hegelianism. But, by the end of the decade in which Hegel died, these true believers in the absolute "sovereignty of philosophy" found themselves confronted by a "hostile social and political reality" which "discredited their views of politics, society, and...