Miki, Materialism and the Specter of Hegel

Marxists have different ways of separating materialism from Hegelian idealism. They might, for example, refer to the independent existence of matter as opposed to ideas. However, dialectical materialism implies a social theory where forces are much more than material. They involve social laws and relations. At this point, the space between Hegelian idealism and Marxist materialism shrinks. I draw on Hegel and Marx to argue that the Japanese philosopher Miki Kiyoshi tried to construct a perspective beyond the opposition between ideas and matter. In the 1920s and 1930s, Miki drew on Marx’s analysis of the commodity to construct a theory that questioned conventional understandings of materialism. He eventually combines this Marxist perspective with Heidegger’s idea of basic experience ( Grunderfahrung ). Perhaps because of the Heideggerian legacy, there are ways in which Miki and certain versions of Marxism develop a theory that are materialist in a more practical sense than most uses of the term.