Quotations from Wolfgang Huber

Foreword by Jean-Paul Sartre pp 3-4

... the psychiatrist ... compares the sick who seem similar in their peculiarities, studies the various modes of repression - which are merely forms of appearance - and connects them with one another so that they form nosological units, (1) which he treats as various illnesses and subjects to a classification.

Notes p. 104

(1) Nosology = mechanical description of phenomenal forms (appearances)

p.6

1 Materialist Development of the Contradictions of the Concept of Illness

...

It is a general rule of the dialectic that one must reach a high level of theoretical generalisation in order to be able to solve concrete problems; in this connection theoretical generalisation is simultaneously a pre-requisite and an outcome of practical work. We were therefore concerned from the outset to comprehend symptoms as expressions of the essence of illnesses (1a)

Notes p. 104

(1a) The words 'dialectic' and 'dialectical' are used so frequently in this book for agitational reasons. They are to be understood as a call for the intensive, practice-orientated, mutually complementary study of the hegelian dialectic and of political economy, the sake of producing the conditions under which alone they can be thoroughly applied to the satisfaction of human needs. The realm of the dialectic is the permanent revolution! At the same time the emphasis on the dialectic and the denunciation of ruling science which is infected with the virus of positivism, serves the purpose of a radical critique of that science. That emphasis should be the seed from which the transcending and abolition ( = socialisation) of this science sprouts.

When we are repeatedly questioned about the necessity of studying Hegel, we are forced to point out that one's understanding of Marx must remain superficial unless one has understood the method of the dialectic developed by Hegel and applied by Marx. it is much easier to master that method from hegel's philosophy, than having to recover it for oneself from marxist writings. The classical authors of marxism repeatedly make the same point.

...

Intensive, practice-orientated study of the hegelian dialectic, specially of The Phenomenology of the Spirit, went somewhat as follows in the study groups of SPK: After the collective reading of a section of this work (one patient read aloud, the others read silently) everybody tried to establish a connection between the content of that section and the actual needs of the collective as well as of some given patient, for example acute problems at the place of work, or the actual family situation. This practice arose in the first place out of the fact that most group participants were not used to dealing with scientific texts as such, and out of the socially determined 'education gap' between students on the one hand and workers on the other. Here it transpired that, after they overcame their initial inarticulateness, it was precisely those who according to prevailing preconceptions are on the wrong side of the gap who made the contributions which were most fruitful and best promoted progress, whereas many students stuck at first to attempting academic interpretations and laboured under a compulsion to display their acquired 'knowledge'. In practice-orientated SG, conjointly with the IA and GA, it was possible to work out and dissolve precisely these consumption and authority-orientated fixations. This was made easier by the fact that The Phenomenology of the Spirit in particular contains in every section very rich material for this purpose (eg Master and Slave!)

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