Will, Practice, Matter

Kant's incorporation of Rousseau's concept of General Will into his system, Pure Practical Reason, is an Idea. In other words, his concept of Will is the basis of an Idealist concept of Practice, and a Philosophical principle for changing the world, and not merely interpreting it, which is the function in his system of Theoretical Reason. Thus, this model is problematic for Marx's criticism of Feuerbach in two ways. First, it refutes the implication that Idealism is antithetical to Practice. Second, it illuminates the shortcoming in Marx's own system--a Materialist concept of Will. To the latter, which would consist in one mass of Matter deliberately acting upon another mass of Matter, e. g. Labor, there seems to be no obvious derivation from a concept of mere Matter, even one of dynamically Dialectical Matter. In the absence of such a concept of Will, a Materialist concept of Practice is not nearly as self-evident as Marx seems to take it to be.