The Drama of the Dialectic: Hegel, Marx, and the Theory of Appropriation

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dc.contributor.advisorMuraca, Barbara
dc.contributor.authorKnowlton Jr, Kenneth
dc.date.accessioned2024-12-19T20:11:38Z
dc.date.available2024-12-19T20:11:38Z
dc.date.issued2024-12-19
dc.description.abstractThis dissertation develops a theory of appropriation through an account of dialectical materialism as a relational ontology. Appropriation is argued as creative-aesthetic activity definitive of the human species-essence through which sociality metabolically transforms. In turn, the universality of appropriation becomes an analytic for designating historical change through the mode of appropriation, where the transhistorical and ontological dimension of appropriation take on a historically specific character. I begin with a critical reconstruction of German Idealism through an account of FWJ Schelling’s critique of GWF Hegel’s Science of Logic. Schelling’s criticism initiates a tendency to misrepresent Hegel’s dialectical logic that extends into 20th century philosophy, a misrepresentation which also transposed itself onto the works of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels. I trace this lineage in Part I, critically responding to it. Part II provides a materialist interpretation of Hegel’s Science of Logic, focusing on essence, necessity, universality, telos, and reason. I demonstrate the relational and anti-representational character of Hegelian dialectics through a systematic account of these categories. Consequently, I draw on Hegel to provide the logico-theoretical structure of the concept of appropriation as constitutive of a dialectical relational ontology. Part III develops appropriation and the mode of appropriation through an engagement with the works of Marx and Engels. I argue that their work is predicated on a dialectical relational ontology fundamental to their political, economic, and historical analysis. I show that the mode of appropriation is constituted by a triadic structure of changing labor-forms, property-forms, and belonging-forms that together elucidate socio-historical transformation.en_US
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/1794/30304
dc.language.isoen_US
dc.publisherUniversity of Oregon
dc.rightsAll Rights Reserved.
dc.subjectAppropriationen_US
dc.subjectDialecticsen_US
dc.subjectHegelen_US
dc.subjectMarxen_US
dc.subjectMaterialismen_US
dc.subjectOntologyen_US
dc.titleThe Drama of the Dialectic: Hegel, Marx, and the Theory of Appropriation
dc.typeElectronic Thesis or Dissertation
thesis.degree.disciplineDepartment of Philosophy
thesis.degree.grantorUniversity of Oregon
thesis.degree.leveldoctoral
thesis.degree.namePh.D.

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