On the contemporary scene there are several writers who argue that, in spite of the fact that "alienation" has Been employed in many different contexts, nevertheless, certain common features may be
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discerned from its various uses, Arnold Kaufmann, for example, asserts: "rTo claim that a person is alienated is to claim that his relation to something else has certain features which result in
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avoidable discontent or loss of satisfaction’," Lewis Feuer, to take another example, declares that "the word ’alienation’ is used to
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describe the subjective tone of self-destructive experience." He" adds, "’Alienation' is used to convey the emotional tone which accompanies any behaviour in which the person is compelled to act
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self-destructively." Finally, Kenneth Kenniston argues that "most usages of ’alienation' share the assumption that some relationship
or connection that once existed, that is ’natural’, desirable, or good, has been lost," Schacht rightly concludes that "while each of these general analyses may be plausible, they are by no means identical,"
In our brief survey of the concept "alienation" it was noted that the term is used in both an active and a passive sense. With the exception of its use in the Judeo-Christian tradition, its use is to describe an undesirable state which must either be transformed radically or accomodated creatively. In the active sense "the individual
experiences something as ’other1 or separated from him," Here he is conscious of the state of his existence and both his thoughts and his feelings tell him that he is either a stranger, or else something or
someone is a stranger to him. In contrast to the active sense, the passive sense of the term "alienation" is seen in the situation "in which the individual is alleged to exist in a condition of separation from something, of which he may be unaware," Schacht provides a perceptive analysis of the difference between the two senses in which
the term "alienation" is used, and points to the problem of achieving a precise and unambiguous definition of the term. He says:
It is possible to speak of an 'alienness* in both cases; but the nature of the alienness is quite different. In the first case, feelings of alienness are involved; certain things are apprehended as separate, or strange, or different, or remote, or indifferent, or incomprehensible, or dis
tasteful, etc., by the individual termed 'alienated*. In the second case, on the other hand, feelings of this sort are not the issue. The alienness in question is rather
the individual’s purportedly factual separation from some thing, which is detected through an objective comparison of his actual state with a conception of what the rele.vant sort of unity or identity would be like. While neither
general use of the term *alienation* is inherently objection able, it is hard to imagine a situation more conducive to confusion than one in which the term is allowed to function in both ways. For if the same terminology may be used in both cases, there will be a tendency to blur this important distinction. 66
As we shall see later, M a r x ’s use of the term "alienation" shares in this ambiguity for he combines the two senses of the term in his analysis of "alienation in its totality" as he sees it in bourgeois capitalism.
From the differing usages of the term "alienation" to characterize a situation of separation, and/or a loss of unity, one is led to ask whether there was an essential state of unity and harmony which was disrupted; and/or whether it is possible to regain or attain that lost unity. Notice that the first question may imply the second, but not necessarily so. In fact, writers who conceive, albeit vaguely, of a primeval unity, do not necessarily envisage a return to such unity. Instead they seek to understand the separation in order to find ways
and means of living creatively with the disharmony and lack of -unity. On the other hand, writers who argue for a struggle for the attainment of unity and end of separation do not necessarily conceive of a lost state of non— alienation.
In relation to man, the question of alienation raises the issue of whether man is separated from his "essence". In other words, in speaking of alienated man, as Marx does, for example, is it being suggested that alienation arises out of a disparity between m an’s "essence" and his "existence"? What is self-alienation, we may ask? These are difficult questions which have not been adequately answered with any notable degree of consistency in the use of the term
"alienation". It is clear from our discussion that popularization of the term does not allow for its clarity and precision of meaning. Rather, inevitably, there occurs a proliferation of different and conflicting meanings which is a serious obstacle to any attempt to understand a particular writer’s usage of the term. In our case, Marx's concept of alienation needs to be stripped of the un-Marxian
over-coating in which it has been dressed in consequence of the popularization of the term. This is not to deny that in comparing and contrasting Marx's use of the concept with those of others we are not aided in the process of understanding Marx. Having shown that
the term lacks precision in its usage, we now move on to Hegel's description of alienation, for it v/as Hegel, more than anybody else that influenced Marx's use of the concept.
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C.
Hegel’s Usage of Alienation,'
It is generally accepted that Marx’s philosophy of praxis is built upon the premise that Hegel’s philosophy marked the culmination
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of the development of Western philosophy, Hegel was seen as the
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m o d e m Aristotle. Speculative philosophy had reached its zenith, and, therefore, according to M a m it must be transcended by realizing it. This meant that the synthesis in thought which Hegel had pursued and achieved must be actualized in reality. For Marx, this actualiza tion and realization of philosophy was to be achieved in the socio economic realm. Let us look briefly at the dilemma which Hegel faced and what he tried to achieve.
Taylor, in his moriimental work on Hegel, attempts to give ,fan idea of the fundamental problems and aspirations which Hegel’s
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philosophy was addressed to,” He suggests
that we can best see these in the light of the yearning of his time to find a \<r&y of life and thought which would unite two powerful aspirations, which were both connected yet opposed. One (of those aspirations} is that unity with nature, other men and himself which man demands as an expressive being; the other is to the radical word autonomy which reached paradigm expression in Kant and Fichte. "JO
Hegel's realization by the early 1800's that "these two aspirations were opposed to each other” led to the further discovery "that freedom required the breaking up of the expressive unity, of the original undivided wholeness within man and communion with other men and nature, which he, like many contemporaries, attributed to an earlier
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age - principally that of ancient Greece. " 1 This fragmenting process was inevitable and necessary "for the full realization of man as
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