Marx and Engels describe their intention to reveal that the current German “philosophic heroes” (28) merely restate the popular beliefs of the German middle class. They focus on the Young Hegelians who were influenced by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s argument that ideas and concepts produced the material world. They criticize three philosophers in particular: Ludwig Feuerbach (1804-1872), Bruno Bauer (1809-1882), and Max Stirner (1806-1856). The philosophers singled out each sought to deliver society from the hegemony of its own ideas. Critical reason must bring about change. However, Marx and Engels conclude that the ideas these philosophers put forward simply mirror the “dreamy and muddled German nation” (29).

Marx and Engels differentiate materialist and idealist philosophies. An idealist philosophy believes that religion, concepts, and ideas are the universal principals in the world. In contrast, Marx and Engels begin with a materialist outlook that studies actual material conditions that can be empirically verified. Marx and Engels retort that if ideas produce reality, people seeking social, political, and economic change would only have to fight against “these illusions of consciousness” (35) by seeing the world through a different interpretation.