The Dialectical Sublation by the Consumption of Fashion in View of the Philosophy of History

Abstract

Consumption has contributed to progress in terms of freedom throughout the course of modern times. Strong evidence of this is that women have been emancipated owing, in large part, to their consumption of fashion. Consumption, with which women have long been associated, has freed women from masculine domination, illustrating the mechanism by which Hegelian dialectic operates, with dialectical mediations between wants and means and between consumption and production. This chapter provides theoretical underpinnings for the debate over the dialectical sublation by consumption by discussing the different views put forward by G. W. H. Hegel, Karl Marx, and Georg Simmel concerning topics surrounding the dialectical contrasts between wants and means and between consumption and production, as well as objectification and alienation.