Aufheben Cassette

Aufheben is a German word, crucial to Hegelian and Marxist thinking, for which there is no English equivalent. Aufheben can be translated as to sublate, to abolish, to transcend or to supersede or even “to pick up,” “to raise,” “to keep,” “to preserve,” “to end” or “to annul.” Literally and originally, aufheben meant “to pocket,” as when someone pockets your payment but continues to work for you. Something is aufheben when it is superseded by something else. “Supersede” and “transcend” do not carry the same connotation however as “abolish,” in which the old is actually terminated and got rid of by that which supersedes it; “sublation” carries the connotation of “including” the old in the new, but is altogether too platonic and misses the sense of “abolish.”