Dialectic of Unfolding in Hegel, Marx, and Kosík

e-mail: mt91@nyu.edu

My paper focuses on three important aspects found in Kosík’s book:  the theory of essence; the conception of the character of the concrete; and the conception of dialectic as a process of unfolding. I draw from both Hegel and Marx to supplement Kosík’s arguments, and propose the following scheme of the dialectic of the concrete:  (1) The dialectical unfolding of the social (and economic) concrete is precisely the unfolding of essence in and through the “thing.” (2) The dialectic of unfolding requires conceiving essence both as potentiality and as subject. (3)  This unfolding is the process of essence’s self-concretization, or self-actualization. (4) Essence provides the character (ground and identity) of the concrete. Inspired by Kosík’s analysis of the “character of economics,” I  use this scheme to explain Marx’s theory of structure (“the concrete whole”).