Page - 60 - in Otto Bauer (1881–1938) - Thinker and Politician

60 chapter 2 assumptionswasclosely linkedtoitspoliticalpractice.Thisway, itcouldlegit- imiseSocialDemocracy’scollaborationwithbourgeoisparties.33 Bauer frequently identified philosophical materialism with a specific method: that of investigating phenomena and processes in theirmovement anddevelopment, i.e. in their interrelationship.However, hedidnot thinkof the interrelationshipbetweenphenomenaandprocessesasadialectical con- tradiction.At the timeofAustromarxism’s inception, dialecticalmaterialism wasunderstoodasneitheracharacteristicnoraself-evidentmethodofMarx- ism.EvenBauer,undertheinfluenceofKarlLamprecht,hadanegativestance towards it,whichwascertainlyaidedbyhis faintknowledgeofHegel’sworks. AmongAustromarxists, onlyMaxAdler fully appreciated the significance of Hegel’sphilosophyforMarxist theory,whileothersconsideredit irrelevant. In hisdefenceoftheroleofdialectics inMarxism,Adlerescheweditsontological implicationsandreduced it toamethodof gaining insight into the sphereof consciousness.His critiqueofEngels’s andLenin’snotionsofdialectics resul- ted fromhis ontological and epistemological assumptions – forAdler, being wasmerelyaproductofthought,whilethecritiqueofscientificknowledgewas acritiqueof consciousness.BauerheldHegel’s insights in lowesteem, stress- ing that theHegelian triad of developmentwas a speculative construct that borenorelationshiptoreality ineithernatureorsociety.Consequently,when Bernstein accusedMarxof abandoning the empiricalmethodof inquiry and insteadapplyingHegelianaprioridevelopment schemes tohistorical reality, BauerdefendedMarxagainstBernstein’sclaims. As the aboveaccountmakes abundantly clear, Bauerbelieved thatMarx’s theory contained no philosophy, value theory, or epistemology. From 1904– 16, he demanded that Marxism be complemented with Kantian epistemo- logy. InAustromarxism, thiswasaparticularhobbyhorseofMaxAdler’s, and BauerhighlyvaluedhisattemptstomergeMarxismwithtranscendentalism.34 However,hedidnotcreateanepistemologyofhisown,andsomeofhispassing remarks betray a flawed understanding of the epistemological problems in KantandMarx. In lightofBauer’sowninsights, it isworthnotinghis surpris- ing resultswhenheattempted todefend the scientific character ofMarxism employingamethodof transcendentalcriticalphilosophy.Rather thanrecog- nisingthelawsofsocialdevelopmentformulatedbyMarxasempiricallaws,he conceivedofthemastranscendentalregularitiesthatcouldbeinvestigateddue toapriori conditionsof humanknowledge. Initially, he assumed, alongwith 33 SeePfabigan1977,p.51. 34 SeeBauer1961,pp.228–36.