The praxis of philosophy: Nature, reason, and freedom in the young Marx's criticism of Hegelian idealism

My dissertation, entitled The Praxis of Philosophy : Nature, Reason, and Freedom in the Young Marx's Criticism of Hegelian Idealism , is framed historically by the turbulent age sparked by the French Revolution, and philosophically by the tradition of German Idealism from Kant to Hegel. I focus on the relation of philosophy to society in the systematic world-views of G. W. F. Hegel and his most famous follower: Karl Marx. I argue that through an immanent criticism of the logic underlying Hegelian philosophy, Marx arrived at a "worldly philosophy" capable of grasping the dynamic nature of modern society in a manner indebted to German Idealism, though characterized by the distinctly post-idealist insight that reason can be made actual, and is therefore meaningful, only through active engagement with (and against) existing social relations. In political terms, this view is expressed as democracy, what Marx describes as the "self-determination of the people." These ideas are developed in his much ignored pre-socialist writings on philosophy and society: his doctoral dissertation on the Epicurean philosophy of nature (1841), his editorials for the Rheinische Zeitung (1842--43), and his commentary on Hegel's state (1843). These writings all emphasize the necessary unity of theory and practice. Rather than imposing abstractly rational ideas on the world (e.g., Natural Law theory) or passively reconciling rational thought with reality (e.g., Hegel's speculative idealism), as philosophers had done for centuries, Marx insisted on philosophy's active involvement in the determination of worldly reality. In effect, he reconstructed the lofty tower of the mind by abandoning its speculative element and plugging its thought into the activity of the surrounding world. This is what the new age demanded: not the owl of Minerva, but the fire of Prometheus---philosophical praxis.