The Critique and Transcendence of Hegel’s Dialectic in *Capital*

The Hegelian factor in the dialectic of *Capital* is an unavoidable issue in the study of historical materialism. Whether it is the “embryology” of spirit displayed in the *Phenomenology of Spirit* or the “further path” elucidated in the *Science of Logic*, namely “the matter at hand in and for itself,” both are important foundations of the dialectic in *Capital*. Marx transformed the object of logical investigation of form with content, showing that Hegel’s logic is no longer the dry bones of formal logic but a method infused with the power of spirit as *nous* [1]1 *Nous* (νοῦς) is an ancient Greek term for intellect, reason, or mind, often associated with a purposive, animating principle; in Hegel it is linked to the self-moving, self-actualizing activity of spirit.. So, what is the deep connection between the dialectic of *Capital* and Hegel’s *nous* and *logos*, and what kind of transcendence does it achieve?

《资本论》辩证法中的黑格尔因素可谓是研究唯物史观的一个绕不过去的问题。无论是《精神现象学》中展现的精神的“胚胎学”，还是《逻辑学》中阐释的“更远的”路即“自在自为的事情”，都是《资本论》辩证法的重要基础。马克思转变了有内容的形式的逻辑考察的对象，显示了黑格尔的逻辑不再是形式逻辑的枯骨，而是注入了精神努斯的力量的方法。那么，《资本论》的辩证法与黑格尔的努斯与逻各斯有何深度关联，又进行了何种超越呢？

The Deformative Development of the Commodity and the Embryology of Spirit

商品的变形发育与精神的胚胎学

Under the profound insight of *Capital*, Marx not only revealed the objectification and reification of labor under the capitalist mode of production but also, through the category of “metabolism” [2]2 “Metabolism” (*Stoffwechsel*) is a term Marx borrows from natural science to describe the material exchange between humans and nature through labor, which under capitalism is distorted into a purely abstract, value-driven process., exhibited the dialectical movement and historical transformation of the relationship between humans and nature. Here, it is appropriate to use the development of an embryo to describe this dialectical movement. Just as Aristotle pointed out, “This power of the soul exists in all living things, from the embryo to the fully developed being,” Engels identified Hegel’s *Phenomenology of Spirit* as a “spiritual embryology,” and Marx in *Capital* also repeatedly mentions the “embryo.” This embryo’s self-change and self-growth in the movement of commodity exchange contain two intrinsic meanings of “metabolism.”

在《资本论》的深刻洞察下，马克思不仅揭示了资本主义生产方式下的劳动对象化、物化现象，而且通过“物质变换”这一范畴，展现了人与自然关系的辩证运动和历史性变迁。在此不妨用胚胎的发育来形容这一辩证运动。诚如亚里士多德指出的，“灵魂的这种力量存在于从胚胎到发育充分的事物的所有生命物中”，恩格斯指认黑格尔的精神现象学是一种“精神胚胎学”，马克思在《资本论》中也多次提到“胚胎”。这胚胎在商品交换运动中的自我变化和自我成长，蕴藏着“物质变换”的两个内在要义。

First, the change in the form of matter. “The simple value form is inadequate; it is an embryonic form, which only through a series of form changes matures into the price form.” [3]3 This is a paraphrase of Marx’s argument in *Capital*, Volume I, Chapter 1, Section 3, on the development of the value form. The commodity embryo, under the preaching and transmission of its completed form, namely money as mediator and son [4]4 This is a Christian theological analogy: the “son” (Christ) mediates between God the Father and humanity; here money mediates the transformation of commodities into capital., deforms and develops into the fetish, i.e., capital. Metabolism should originally be the metabolism of nature and the expansive cycle of vitality, but in the commodity economy it can only be the self-valorization of the conceptual fetish, and this valorization movement cannot be separated from abstract formal metabolism. Second, the transformation of the form of matter. This is the second layer of meaning of metabolism, namely the transposition and displacement between use-value and exchange-value, distilling the golden outer shell of money from the commodity. Since “the simple commodity form is the embryonic form of the money form,” [5]5 Marx, *Capital*, Volume I, Chapter 1, Section 3. money is the mature state of the simple commodity; the “embryo” must mature before it can move toward the “fruit” of capital.

首先，物质的形态变化。“简单价值形式是不充分的，是一种胚胎形式，它只有通过一系列的形态变化，才成熟为价格形式。”商品的胚胎，在自己的完成形态即作为中介、圣子的货币的布道传经作用下，变形发育成熟为物神即资本。物质变换本来应是自然界新陈代谢和生命力的扩展循环，但在商品经济中却只能是观念性的物神的自我增殖，且这一增殖运动不能脱离抽象的形式上的物质变换。其次，物质的形式变换。这就是物质变换的第二层含义，即使用价值与交换价值之间移形换位，蒸馏出商品的金外皮货币。由于“简单的商品形式是货币形式的胚胎”，那么货币就是简单商品的成熟状态，“胚胎”成熟才能走向结“果实”的资本。

Therefore, what persists from the natural form change of matter, i.e., its disappearance, is the transformation of the value form of matter. When the value form undergoes quantitative accumulation and reproduction from simple production to expanded production, it passes through the links of the simple, individual, and accidental value form to the relative value form, then to the equivalent form, constituting the totality of the simple value form; then it moves toward the total or expanded value form, the general value form, and the money form, achieving the transposition and inversion of the equations of exchange activity in mutual opposition—that is, the inversion of exchange-value over use-value, the inversion of quantitative change over qualitative change. Deeply hidden within this is a profound dialectical link, which is the logical code of spiritual embryology.

因此，从物质的自然形态变化即消逝中持存下来的，是物质的价值形式变换。当价值形式从简单生产到扩大不断进行量的积累的再生产时，它经历简单的、个别的、偶然的价值形式到相对价值形式，再到等价形式的环节，构成了简单价值形式的总体；进而走向总和的或扩大的价值形式、一般价值形式和货币形式等环节，实现交换活动等式在相互对立中换位、颠倒，即交换价值对使用价值的颠倒，量的变化对质的变化的颠倒，其中深藏着深刻的辩证法环节，这就是精神胚胎学的逻辑密码。

The Unique Mode of Expression in *Capital* and Hegel’s Logic

《资本论》特有表达方式与黑格尔的逻辑学

Marx claimed that in the chapter on the “Theory of Value” in *Capital* he “coquetted with the mode of expression peculiar to Hegel.” [6]6 Marx, *Capital*, Volume I, “Preface to the Second Edition” (1873). What is the mode of expression peculiar to Hegel? Transposition, deformation, inversion, or affirmation, negation, reaffirmation? While clarifying the logical chain of the doctrine of being, the doctrine of essence, and the doctrine of the concept in Hegel’s *Science of Logic*, Marx in the real world unravels the secret of the reification process of the inverted world [7]7 “Inverted world” (*die verkehrte Welt*) is a concept from Hegel’s *Phenomenology of Spirit*, referring to a realm where the apparent order of things is reversed by the underlying essence. attached to the powerful magic of speculative logic. The dialectic of the chapter on the “Theory of Value” not only upholds Hegel’s purpose of making the dry bones of logic come alive but also, through the links of opposition, unity, transformation, displacement, negation, and reflection among interconnected bonds, excavates the secret of “metabolism” in the real contradictions of differentiated identity, which leads to the transposition, deformation, and inversion of humans and things. At the height of the principle of real social-historical reality, it completes the depiction and reflective transcendence of the essence of Hegel’s supersensible “inverted world” (*die verkehrte Welt*). Only at the real social-historical level can the self-sublating dialectic be negative while also being affirmative.

马克思自称在《资本论》“价值理论”章中“卖弄起黑格尔特有的表达方式”。什么是黑格尔特有的表达方式？换位、变形、颠倒，还是肯定、否定、再肯定？马克思在厘清黑格尔《逻辑学》的存在论、本质论、概念论的逻辑链同时，在现实世界中解开被强大的思辨逻辑魔力附着的颠倒世界的物化过程秘密。“价值理论”章的辩证法不仅秉持了黑格尔让逻辑的枯骨活起来的目的，而且通过相互联系的纽带之间的对立、统一、转换，移位、否定、反思等环节，发掘了在差异性同一的现实矛盾中，导致人与物的换位、变形、颠倒等诸过程的“物质变换”之秘密，在现实性的社会—历史的原则高度，完成对黑格尔超感官“颠倒的世界”（die verkehrte Welt）本质描绘和反思超越。只有在现实性的社会—历史层面上，自我扬弃的辩证法在肯定的同时也才能是否定的。

Hegel believed that the objectification of spirit as time is history; Marx believed that metabolism or the objectification of labor as time is value. The inner opposition and inner transformation and inversion of value embody the secret and essence of metabolism. Inner transformation of form, compared to external change of form, is like essence compared to appearance; natural metabolism does not possess the function and links of form transformation, nor does it carry out the mission of transposition and inversion. Only in social metabolism, through the opposing logic of use-value and exchange-value, can the logical chain of argument for the identity of opposites be completed, and then from the reality of contradiction the treasure of power of “reciprocal relations” [8]8 “Reciprocal relations” (*Wechselwirkung*) is a category in Hegel’s *Science of Logic* (Doctrine of Essence), denoting the mutual causation and interdependence of entities. be deeply excavated, elevating the reciprocal relations of reality to the “exchange relations” of the commodity world, thereby establishing a fetishistic society in which the personification of things and the reification of persons are opposed.

黑格尔认为精神对象化为时间就是历史，马克思认为物质变换或劳动对象化为时间就是价值。价值的内在对立和内在变换、颠倒，体现了物质变换的秘密与精髓。内在的形式变换较外部的形态变化而言，正如本质较现象而言，自然的物质变换并不具备形式变换功能和环节，也不执行换位和颠倒使命。只有在社会的物质变换中，通过使用价值和交换价值的对立逻辑，才能完成对矛盾同一性的逻辑论证链，再从矛盾的现实性中深掘出“交互关系”的权力宝藏，把现实性的交互关系上升到商品世界的“交换关系”，建立起使物的人格化和人格的物化相对立的拜物教社会。

*Capital*, in its real reflective activity of sensuous-objectivity, points out that the form of intercourse of “reciprocal relations” in capitalist society is necessarily inverted through metabolism into the exchange form of “exchange relations.” “Being is posited as existence, and this mediation of being is also posited as ground.” [9]9 This is a paraphrase of Hegel’s *Science of Logic*, Doctrine of Essence, on the transition from ground to existence. The differentiated identity of pure being and pure nothing in Hegel’s *Science of Logic* moves, in its own cause and ground, toward capital as absolute power. This change means that the manifestation and transformation of force and force is the unity of pure being and pure nothing, the generation and destruction of things, the mutual transformation of opposites, and the driving force of the process of achieving identity of opposites and their self-sublation in absolute transformation. Therefore, although Marx claimed to “coquette with the mode of expression peculiar to Hegel” in the chapter on the “Theory of Value,” Marx carried out a real positive sublation of Hegel’s dialectic. He not only deepened the logical links of the dialectic into nature and social history but also, on the basis of premise reflection and critique, carried out result reflection and critique. *Capital*, through the content and form of the movement of “metabolism,” reveals the cause and ground of the inverted world, embodying the true insight of the dialectic. This is by no means abstract self-consciousness, but rather finding, in the opposing logic, the fissures and the true cause and ground for breaking through the reified world. The links of being, nothing, and becoming in the “metabolism” of individual things necessarily advance to the links of quality, quantity, and measure in the social-historical “metabolism,” and then establish the abstract subject of self-valorization from appearance, essence, and reality to the concept. The established abstract subject causes matter to undergo form transformation and form change, endowing matters with rich and specific social-historical content, precipitating self-preservation in the process of self-negation, transforming crude empirical objectivity into objectified generative objectivity, and establishing a “value objectivity” that can be precisely calculated, continuously self-reproduced, and self-valorized under specific social-historical conditions. Yet this is also a “ghostly objectivity.” [10]10 “Ghostly objectivity” (*gespenstige Gegenständlichkeit*) is Marx’s term in *Capital* for the abstract, spectral character of value as a social relation. Once the ghost no longer appears, the real social-historical “metabolism” is interrupted, leading to the general crisis of modern capitalist society.

《资本论》在感性—对象性的现实反思活动中指出，资本主义社会“交互关系”的交往形式，经由物质变换颠倒为“交换关系”的交换形式的必然性。“有被建立为存在，而这个有的中介物，也被建立为根据”，黑格尔《逻辑学》纯有、纯无的差异同一性却在自身的原因和根据中，走向了作为绝对权力的资本。这个变化，意味着力与力的表现、转换是对纯有和纯无的统一，也是事物的产生和消灭，对立面的相互转化，以及在绝对转化中达成矛盾同一性及其自我扬弃过程的动力因。因此，尽管马克思自称在“价值理论”章中“卖弄起黑格尔特有的表达方式”，但马克思对黑格尔辩证法进行了现实性的积极扬弃，他把辩证法的逻辑诸环节不仅深入到自然界和社会历史中，也站在前提反思和批判基础上进行结果反思和批判。《资本论》通过“物质变换”运动的内容和形式，揭示颠倒的世界的原因和根据，体现了辩证法的真知灼见，这绝不是抽象的自我意识，而是在对立逻辑中找到破解物化世界的裂隙和真正的原因与根据。单个事物的“物质变换”之有、无、变的环节必然推进到社会历史的“物质变换”之质、量、度的环节中，继而建立起现象、本质、现实，以及从现实到观念的自行增殖的抽象主体。被建立起来的抽象主体使物质发生形式变换和形态变化，使诸物质具有了社会历史的丰富具体的内容，沉淀了自我否定过程中的自我持存，使粗糙的经验对象性蜕变为对象化的生成对象性，建立起在特定的社会历史条件下可精确计算、不断自我繁衍、自我增殖的“价值对象性”。然而这也是“幽灵般的对象性”。一旦幽灵不再现形，现实的社会历史的“物质变换”中断，就会带来资本主义现代社会的普遍危机。

Metabolism: The Manifestation of Force and the Dialectic of Force

物质变换：力的表现与力的辩证法

The theory of metabolism deeply contains Marx’s dialectic’s fundamental transcendence of Hegel. Marx believed that the *nous* spirit of Hegel’s dialectic is not only the concept of vitality, but also that the interaction of force and force does not move toward the unity of self-consciousness and free will, but rather, in alienated self-consciousness, moves toward the collection of reified natural and social forces, i.e., objectified labor. The external manifestation of force appears as the metabolism of nature, society, and capital, while simultaneously containing the irreconcilable opposition and contradiction between concept and reality. In the process of metabolism in a specific society, what truly embodies the dialectic is the driving role of force in the progress of human social history. This is the principle of the dialectical relationship between productive forces and relations of production, which manifests the dialectic of force in the manifestation of force.

物质变换理论深蕴着马克思辩证法对黑格尔的根本超越。马克思认为，黑格尔辩证法的努斯精神，不仅是生命力的概念，而且力与力的相互作用没有走向自我意识与自由意志的一致性，而是在被异化的自我意识中走向被物化的自然力和社会力的集合，即对象化劳动。力的外在表现为自然的、社会的以及资本的物质变换，它同时深蕴着观念与现实的相互对抗、无法调和的矛盾。在特定社会的物质变换过程中，真正体现辩证法的力对人类社会历史的推动作用，这就是生产力与生产关系的辩证关系原理，在力的表现中展现了力的辩证法。

First, the manifestation of force: commodities and money are both forms of capital’s manifestation. The manifestation of force is the diffusion, expansion, and unfolding of force’s independent qualitative matter within itself. Hegel’s dialectic, through the external manifestation of mutually opposing forces in nature—such as attraction–repulsion and centripetal–centrifugal force—unravels the law that mutually opposing forces are actually the whole force existing in its own disappearance. Yet this disappearance obeys the law of conservation of energy, so that force rises from the unconditional universal of perceptual understanding to unconditional universality, becoming the universal medium of interaction and unification between forces. What can unify the force-relations between attributes and modes is the substance of force as a universal medium; this substance of force then, in the mutual operation of its own initiator and initiated, progresses into the subject of force—that is, through the affirmative bond of this unconditional universal medium, force undergoes mutual conversion between forces, becoming unfolded negative force. The manifestation of force as a whole is precisely the concept of force itself; only through the concept of force can one reach the inverted world, the second supersensible world. The concept of force is in fact free will. Yet Marx, through the external formal changes between commodities and money, dissects the secret of the mutual conversion of forces that Hegel’s demonstration of force reveals: it is “material metabolism” [Stoffwechsel] and the system of capital power operating behind it. If the material metabolism of society is the first supersensible world, then the material metabolism of capital is the second supersensible world; only thus is the inverted world of fetishism completed. The internal driving force that prompts the opposing sides of commodities and money to undergo formal change and formal transformation is capital’s insatiable nature; both the substance of force and the subject of force can only be capital as self-cause. In idea, capital is the sole thing that realizes free will, but in reality it is entangled by the paradox of originally opposing forces, constantly erupting into crises.

第一，力的表现：商品、货币都是资本的表现形态。力的表现是力的独立性质料在自身中的扩散、扩展、展开。黑格尔的辩证法通过自然界的引力—斥力、向心力—离心力等相互对立的力的外部表现，解开相互对立的力其实是整体的力在自身的消失中存在的规律。但这一消失遵从能量守恒定律，力就从知觉的知性的无条件的共相上升为无条件的普遍性，成为力与力之间交互作用、相互统一的普遍媒介。能够把属性、样态之间的力的关系相互统一起来的，是作为普遍媒介的力的实体，力的实体又在自身的引发者、被引发者的相互运转中进展为力的主体，即力通过这个无条件共相的普遍媒介的肯定性的纽带作用，发生力与力的相互转换，成为展开了的否定性之力。力在整体上的表现也就是力的概念本身，通过力的概念才能走到颠倒的世界即第二重的超感官世界。力的概念其实就是自由意志。然而马克思却通过商品与货币之间的外部形态变化，剖析了黑格尔力证的力与力的相互转换的秘密是“物质变换”及其背后的资本权力运转体系。如果说社会的物质变换是第一重超感官世界，那么资本的物质变换就是第二重超感官世界，由此才能完成拜物教的颠倒的世界。促使商品、货币对立面双方发生形态变化及其形式变换的内在驱动力是资本的食欲本性，力的实体与力的主体都只能是作为自因的资本。资本在观念中是唯一实现自由意志的东西，但是在现实中却被原初对立的力的悖论纠缠，不断爆发危机

Second, the dialectic of force: taking the essential power of reality as the cause of force. The concept of force lies in the fact that it is itself cause and ground; apart from force itself, there is no other cause or ground. Hence the self is a thing [das Ding], and spirit is a skull. Yet Marx points out in *Capital* that, in the real movement of material metabolism that drives changes in external forms of manifestation, the ground for the occurrence of internal formal transformation—that is, the driving force that causes the two sides of the equation to exchange positions—is the instinctive desire for valorization. Capital’s rentier nature drives extreme differences to form an equation, but the bond of the equation does not realize the “I = we” in the exchange; rather, it uses objectified labor as the real umbilical cord and universal medium linking all differences, achieving essential difference, antagonistic opposition, inverted contradiction, and infinite surplus. It is precisely in infinite surplus that *Capital* unveils the mystery of the fissure in material metabolism. To break through capitalist objectified labor and its systemic blockade of objectified living labor-power and labor time, it is necessary to establish a dialectic with vitality that is simultaneously a dialectic with the power of real reflection and the will to overcome difficulties—not only to revive the use-values of nature, but also to realize the essential power of reality, taking the essential power of the sensuous human being engaged in sensuous activity as the cause and ground for breaking through the inverted world of reification. Whether individual labor power or social productive power, both are founded on this cause and ground. Dialectic is a dialectic that constantly self-reflects and self-revolutions on the basis of the essential power of reality—a materialist dialectic full of life force. The dialectic of *Capital* not only embodies a transcendence of Hegel’s speculative dialectic but also has foundational significance for further liberating and developing social productive forces and stimulating and enhancing social vitality in our own day.

第二，力的辩证法：把现实的本质力量作为力的原因。力的概念在于它本身就是原因和根据，除了力自身之外，没有别的原因和根据了。因此自我是一个事物（das Ding），精神是一块头盖骨。然而马克思在《资本论》中指出，在现实的推动外部表现形态变化的物质变换运动中，内在形式变换发生的根据，即推动等号两端发生换位的动力，就是对价值增殖的本能欲望。资本的食利本性促使极端差异形成等号，但等号的纽带作用没有实现换位中的“我=我们”，而是以对象化劳动作为联系起诸差异性的现实脐带和普遍媒介，实现本质的差异、对抗的对立、颠倒的矛盾、无限的剩余。正是在无限的剩余中，《资本论》揭开了物质变换裂隙的神秘面纱。要突破资本主义对象化劳动，及其对对象化了的活劳动力和劳动时间的体系封锁，就要把具有生命力的辩证法同时建立为具有现实的反思力和攻坚克难的意志力的辩证法，不仅要使自然界的使用价值重生，也要把现实的本质力量实现出来，以进行感性活动的感性的人的本质力量，作为突破物化的颠倒世界的原因和根据。无论是个别性劳动力量，还是社会性生产力量，都建立在这个原因和根据之上。辩证法就是在现实的本质力量基础上不断自我反思、自我革命的辩证法，是充满着生命力量的唯物辩证法。《资本论》的辩证法不仅体现了对黑格尔思辨辩证法的超越，对于我们今天进一步解放和发展社会生产力，激发和增强社会活力也具有重要的奠基性意义。

(This article is a phased result of the National Social Science Fund Later-Stage Project “Research on the Paradigm Innovation of Historical Materialism from the Perspective of Objectification” [23FKSB014].)

（本文系国家社科基金后期资助项目“对象化视域中的唯物史观范式创新研究”（23FKSB014）阶段性成果）

(The author is a professor at the School of Marxism, Ningbo University.)

（作者系宁波大学马克思主义学院教授）

Online editor: Tongxin

网络编辑：同心