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refutation by future historical experience that socializing the means of
production would greatly advance the technology and productivity of a
cyclically depressed capitalist economy.
If
the rhetorical slogan that
Marxism is scientific socialism represents the acceptance of the scientific
method for socio-economic transformation and excludes the dogmatic
thesis that history is governed by dialectically materialist laws of
inevitable revolutionary progress toward socialism, then the bridge
between Pragmatism and Marxism can be established. Consequently,
Hook's presentation of Marxism as a scientific experiment and his
scathing critique of Dialectical Materialism strengthens the thesis of
compatibility between Pragmatism and Marxism.
A second basis for Hook's proposed reconciliation between Marxism
and Pragmatism was the similarity of their views about the relationship
between knowledge and action. Hook cited Marx's theses on the phi–
losophy of Feuerbach, in which Marx asserted that all previous philoso–
phies had sought to understand the world, while his sought to change
it. This indicated that Marxism, like Pragmatism, rejected a theory of
knowledge in which men were "passive spectators" of the "given"
world. This aspect of Marxism shared the perspective of Pragmatic epis–
temology, according to which knowledge is an instrument for the con–
trol and transformation of the antecedent problematic situation.
Such an interpretation has the additional advantage of not ascribing
to Marx himself the responsibility for the ways in which his theory was
subsequently used as dogma that brooked no heresy in the Leninist,
Trotskyist, Stalinist, or Maoist interpretations. Further, Hook's Marx–
ism did not embrace the normative Marxist view of history as a kind of
monistic science that explained the course of all past history and pro–
vided dialectical laws about the inevitable future development toward
socialism. Thus, in
The Hero in History,
Hook argued against the
claims of historical determinism, in which the actions of great individu–
als are irrelevant because they merely reflect the working out of the
underlying dialectical laws that govern historical structures.
Hook's studies in Marxist thought led him to a period of residence in
the Weimar Republic and, for a short time, in the Soviet Union. His
experiences in these two countries had a lasting impact on his political
philosophy.
In
Germany, Hook observed firsthand the dilemma of a liberal
democracy that offered the protection of civil liberties and electoral par–
ticipation to antidemocratic movements like the National Workers'
Socialist Party. The challenge for a democracy was to adopt procedures
that without undermining its own constitutional institutions, would
