The German Ideology

Marx and Engels turn to Bruno Bauer. Specifically, they analyze his debate with Feuerbach. Marx and Engels dismiss the importance of Bauer’s intervention, writing that the main debate was between Feuerbach and Stirner. Bauer’s “stale, soured criticism” (105) was forgotten by history. Marx and Engels write that rather than refuting their arguments himself, Bauer confronts Feuerbach with Stirner’s concept of the “unique” and Stirner with Feuerbach’s concept of “man.” Bauer concludes by calling them both dogmatic.

Bauer advanced a theory of infinite self-consciousness that focused on rational autonomy and historical progress. The core concept in Bauer’s work is “self-consciousness,” which he uses to explore larger societal conflicts of the present day. Bauer’s philosophy is derivative of both Hegel and Stirner. In particular, he paraphrases key concepts from Stirner. Bauer reduces idealist philosophy to an “abstraction of abstraction” (109). He believes that a shift in consciousness can transform the world. He argues that an “independent intellectual expression of the existing world” is “the basis of this existing world” (108). He argues that socialism does not adequately address human individualism. Marx and Engels are particularly dismissive of his philosophy.

Bauer attacks Feuerbach for his “sensuousness” (111), or his attention to materialism.