Marx's analysis of the commodity results in his conception of Capital as substance in the form of alienation. While Hegel claims that substance can be understood as the realization of freedom, Marx shows this freedom to be alienated labor: abstract labor, which Marx identifies as the capitalist conception of value. The book clarifies why Marx's so-called materialist criticism of Hegel can be conceived of as an immanent criticism of Hegel: Marx's criticism explicates that the realization of freedom in the Philosophy of Right contradicts Hegel's basic point of departure. The adequate...

In The Paradigm of Recognition. Freedom as Overcoming the Fear of Death Paul Cobben defends the position that Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit contains all the building blocks to elaborate a paradigm of recognition which fundamentally criticizes the contemporary versions of Habermas, Rawls and Honneth. In his concept of recognition, the fear of death is the central category to understand the mediation between freedom and nature. Cobben not only systematically reconstructs how this view results from Hegel's criticism of Hume and Kant, but also shows how Hegel's three-part division of...