Considerations on the Dialectics of Myth based on the Thought of José Carlos Mariátegui and Hegel

Abstract

In this essay we intend to show to what extent Mariátegui’s thought contributes to a better understanding and fulfilment of Hegel’s purpose of a concrete realisation of the spirit in the “land of the future”. We proceed in two stages. First, we reconstruct Mariátegui’s specific understanding of myth, while considering its problematic aspects. In doing so, we focus on its material constitution. Then, in a second step, we confront Mariátegui’s concept of myth with Hegel’s exposition of it. We thus try to show how the concept of myth, recovered in this way, has important consequences for the relationship between unity and difference, between the part and the whole. At the culmination of this process, we assess to what extent Mariátegui’s myth defends the Hegelian dialectic against itself and reopens the discussion between the speculative and the negative dialectic with respect to the problems of political practice.