The Marxist Sublation of Hegel
Carlos L. Garrido
Abstract
This article addresses the long-standing question of how Marx and Engels conceived their dialectical method in relation to Hegel’s idealism — a question left open when Marx never completed his planned “outline on dialectics.” Drawing from Marx’s Grundrisse, Capital, and his correspondence, as well as Engels’ Ludwig Feuerbach and Dialectics of Nature, the paper identifies three interrelated metaphors Marx and Engels used to describe their relationship to Hegel’s system: inversion, the rational kernel/mystical shell, and sublation. Through an in-depth textual and philosophical analysis, the article argues that Marxism both preserves and transcends Hegel’s dialectic — turning it “right side up” by grounding dialectical movement in the material processes of nature, labor, and social practice rather than in the self-development of Spirit or Idea. The Marxist dialectic thus sublates Hegel: it cancels his idealist framework while preserving the rational core of dialectical logic as a science of motion and development. The paper further situates this transformation within the historical maturation of capitalism, emphasizing that only under modern conditions could the dialectical method attain a fully materialist form. Engaging with interpreters such as Ilyenkov, Lefebvre, and Lenin, the article demonstrates that dialectical materialism is not a rejection but the historical consummation of Hegelian philosophy — “more Hegelian than Hegelianism” in its commitment to grasping reality as a dynamic, self-developing whole
Keywords
dialectical materialism, Hegelian philosophy, inversion and sublation, Marxist method, rational kernel and mystical shell, Carlos L. Garrido
