In the context of philology, The German Ideology

Author: (Japanese) Hiroaki Hirotsu
Publisher:
Publication Date: 2005-01-01
Features: This book is the Chinese translation of the newly edited version of The German Ideology, compiled by the renowned Japanese Marxist philosopher Hiroaki Hirotsu and published in 1974 by Chikuma Shoten in Japan. Because this translation edition adjusted some symbols and abbreviations of the Japanese version, the preface of the Japanese edition has been omitted. Although the original book was titled The German Ideology, it only included the volume titled Feuerbach, which holds special documentary value. The original book consists of two volumes: the Japanese edition and the German edition, which correspond to each other. For the German edition, the original text has been preserved, and only Hirotsu’s footnotes have been translated. For the Japanese edition, it was translated into Chinese based on the excerpted version of The German Ideology. The Chinese translation edition combines the two original volumes, with the Chinese translation placed before the German original. It also includes Hirotsu’s two essays, Problems of the Documentary Studies of The German Ideology and The Formation of Young Marx’s Thought, to help readers understand Hirotsu’s main viewpoints on the documentary studies of The German Ideology. The translator’s notes are arranged as "Translator’s Notes" after the Chinese translation to distinguish them from Hirotsu’s annotations. The symbols and abbreviations used in the Chinese translation edition follow the conventions of previous versions, with differences in font styles for the authors. Distinctions have been removed, and the text within brackets [] has been supplemented based on contextual inference where the manuscript was damaged or incomplete. For the usage of various symbols and abbreviations in the book, please refer to the "Examples of the Chinese Translation Edition’s Notes." This book is the Chinese translation edition of the volume titled Feuerbach from The German Ideology and related essays by Hiroaki Hirotsu, as well as a comparative documentary study in the field of Marxist philosophy in China. Historical materialism is a term we are all very familiar with. However, its historical development and its position in Marxism may not be entirely clear to us. This is mainly because the joint work of Marx and Engels, which is said to have announced the establishment of historical materialism—The German Ideology, volume Feuerbach—remains unfinished and was never published during their lifetime. Later editions, such as the Lyanzonov edition, the Adoratsky edition, the new Russian edition of Bagaturia, and the new German edition, failed to accurately reproduce the documentary context of Marx and Engels’ writing process due to various reasons. Additionally, the bad influence of Soviet dogmatism made it difficult for us to see the true form of historical materialism. The major feature of Hirotsu’s edition lies in its rearrangement according to the original manuscript page numbers, distinguishing the manuscripts of Marx and Engels with different fonts, and faithfully reproducing the revision and editing process of the manuscripts. It can be said that this edition serves as a bridge for us to transcend vulgar interpretations of Marxism and return to genuine Marxism.