ABSTRACT
The thought behind the terms as used by Marx derives from any number of philosophers and traditions, but there is no doubt that it was particularly developed by G.W.F. Hegel, and in turn by his critic Ludwig Feuerbach. For the
former, the idealist philosopher of developmental processes, such a ‘movement’ of alienation/externalisation and return or ‘supersession’, through which ‘contradictions’ would be preserved and maintained whilst also transformed and transcended [Aufhebung], was necessary and unregrettable. For the latter, his ‘transformative’ and ‘materialist’ critic, Hegel had merely traced a process through which human attributes were alienated and externalised as the properties of gods or other supposed agencies, thus giving rise to mystified sources and real social structures of highly regrettable power and domination (see also Cowling 2006: 321-2).
