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Subsumption in Kant, Hegel and Marx. From the Critique of Reason to the Critique of Society

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Published Dec 2024

Andres Saenz de Sicilia

Author: Andres Saenz de Sicilia
Capital is often depicted as an all-encompassing and abstract social force which seeks to “subsume” all of human life. But what in fact is involved in such “subsumption” and how might it be resisted? Tracing the discourse of subsumption through the work of Kant, Hegel, Marx and the critical Marxist tradition, this book offers a materialist framework for analysing capitalist power. Saenz de Sicilia argues that capitalist subsumption operates at three distinct yet interrelated levels: exchange, production, and reproduction, each characterised by distinct logics of domination and resistance. Conflicts over subsumption at each of these levels lie at the heart of capitalism’s struggle to determine the shapes of human social life.
A major intervention into debates surrounding the historical trajectories of capitalism, Subsumption in Kant, Hegel and Marx: From the Critique of Reason to the Critique of Society systematically refutes the influential thesis that we are now in a stage of “total” capitalist subsumption which leaves no space of refuge or resistance.

Biographical Note

Andrés Saenz de Sicilia, Ph.D. (2016), Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy, Kingston University London, is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Northeastern University London.

Readership

This book is especially relevant for institutes, (academic) libraries, specialists, (post-graduate) students working on Modern European Philosophy (esp. German idealism), Marx & Marxism, critical theory, social and political philosophy, political theory and critical political economy.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments vii
Introduction 1
1 Chapter Outline 7
1 The Invention of a ‘Critical’ Concept of Subsumption 11
1 Kant: Subsumption and Synthesis 11
1.1 Subsumption’s Role within ‘Pure’ Cognition 13
1.2 Subsumption and Empirical Concepts 21
1.3 ‘Reflective’ Judgment and the Faculty of Judging 25
1.4 Subsumption and Aesthetic Judgments 30
1.5 Conclusion 36
2 Hegel’s Critique of Subsumption 38
2.1 A New Derivation 44
2.2 From Pure Concepts to Dialectical Categories 48
2.3 Subsumption’s Place in the Exposition 51
2.4 Conclusion 57
2 Materialism, Social Form and Reproduction 61
1 Critical Beginnings 63
2 The Actuality of Practice 72
3 Theory of Practice and the Practice of Theory 80
4 From Practice to Natural-History 85
4.1 Material Subject: ‘Trans-individuality’ and Social
Constitution 85
4.2 Practical Object: The ‘Mediating Instrumental Field’ 88
4.3 Natural-Historical Being: Practice as Production 91
5 Against Nature 96
6 Reproduction-Development 103
7 Conclusion 110
3 Capitalist Subsumption: Abstraction in Action 112
1 The Conditions of Subsumption: So-Called Original
Accumulation 116
2 Exchange: Subsumption under Value 121
3 Subsumption in Production 135
4 Formal Subsumption under Capital 140

5 Hybrid Forms 146
6 Real Subsumption: The Objective Positing of Capitalist
Command 150
6.1 Cooperation 152
6.2 Division of Labour and Manufacture 155
6.3 Machinery and Large-Scale Industry 160
7 Conclusion 165
4 The Dynamic of Subsumption on a Social Scale 170
1 Historicity and Closure 175
1.1 Negri: ‘Total Subsumption’ 176
1.2 Adorno: Subsumption as ‘Total Administration’ 184
2 Rejecting Periodisation 194
3 Systematic and Reproductive Totality 197
4 Mediating Reproduction and Development 204
5 Subjectivation and Living Labour 212
6 The Generative Dynamic 219
7 Conclusion 226
Conclusion 232
Bibliography 243
Index 255