From Socrates to Sartre EP21 ⟩ “Marx I: The Young Hegelian”

These, the best overview lectures of all time, provide a complete college course in philosophy. Beginners will get clarity and adepts will be revitalized.

Thelma Zeno Lavine’s From Socrates to Sartre: The Philosophic Quest (1978) is the most riveting (her painstaking contortionist elocution), endearing (the eerie, theremin-laced Moog soundtrack, straight from the golden age of PBS), and confrontational (her radical politics and censorship-defying critiques) philosophy lecture series ever produced.

Marx I: The Young Hegelian

Grab your popcorn, comrades—we’re going to Hobbiton. Bring your yeast as well because you’ll want your tasting to be as richly rich as the adventure Thelma will ferment in your imagination: the synoptic biography of the greatest* thinker of the Millennium, Karl Marx.

[*In 1999, the BBC ran a poll-based series, “Greatest ___ of the Millennium.” When the blank was filled as “Thinker,” Karl Marx came out on top. Click this link to see the full list—then ask yourself why Marx alone always comes with such grave warning. There must be some reason for this …]

With this lecture, Lavine finally comes fully home and changes her shoes like Mr. Rogers, and invites us into her private bathroom, deep in the HQ of philosophical explanation, where she does her finest expositing. We are in hyper-excellence territory now, a place so saturated with understanding and clarity that the pastries are baked inside your stomach (in the kitchen behind the bathroom).

Here is the finest overview of Marx’s thought-and-life ever committed to human speech, according to everyone who’s listened to it.

There are many surprises along the way. One is that you will meet someone you’ve never met before—Karl Marx. Yes, Marx himself will present live this week, so bring the questions and complaints you’ve had about the fantasy version of Marx so you can enjoy quality time with the real Marx as he agrees and laughs alongside you.

I think everyone can agree that understanding the striving drive of the greatest person who ever lived is a good idea. So bring your family and even your imaginary friends. Because these placeholders are precisely the voids that Marx’s striving drive yearns to fill.

This outline ought to give you a taste of just how nourishing Lavine’s presentation is:

I. Opening Provocation: What Is the Power of Marxism?
II. Early Life and Formative Influences
A. Trier: Middle-Class Origins, Jewish Enlightenment
B. Berlin University and Intellectual Awakening
III. The Young Hegelians and the Dialectic of Criticism
1. Key Hegelian Ambiguities Exploited by the Young Hegelians
— a. State Absolutism vs. Dialectical Change
— b. Authority vs. Freedom
— c. God as Absolute vs. God as Human
— d. “The real is the rational / the rational is the real”
2. The Three Central Doctrines of the Young Hegelians
— a. Criticism as Weapon
— b. Human Divinity
— c. World Revolution
IV. Feuerbach's Influence (The Great Inversion)
A. Religion as Projection
B. Materialism and Humanism
V. Career Shift: From Philosopher to Revolutionary
A. Journalism and Censorship
B. Paris Years (1843–1845)
VI. The Two Burning Questions in Paris (1844)
Why did the French Revolution fail?
What is the historical role of the Industrial Revolution?
VII. The 1844 Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts
VIII. Marx the Exile: The Refugee Trail Begins

METHOD

Please watch the tiny 27-minute episode before the event. We will then replay a few short clips during the event for debate and discussion. A version with vastly improved audio can be found here:

• Thelma Lavine: From Socrates to Sartre

Summaries, notes, event chatlogs, episode transcripts, timelines, tables, observations, and downloadable PDFs (seek the FSTS Book Vault) of the episodes we cover can be found here:

• THORR (The High Ontology Reading Room)

ABOUT PROFESSOR LAVINE

Dr. Lavine was professor of philosophy and psychology as Wells College, Brooklyn College, the University of Maryland (10 years), George Washington University (20), and George Mason University (13). She received the Outstanding Faculty Member award while at the University of Maryland and the Outstanding Professor award during her time at George Washington University.

She was not only a Dewey scholar, but a committed evangelist for American pragmatism.

View all of our coming episodes here.