History and the Generation of Humanity—A Philosophical Interpretation of Marx's Historical View (Humanities Series of Heilongjiang University)

Author: Guo Yanjun
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-02-01
Features: Preface Whenever human history enters a new era, humans cannot help but look back and reflect on their arduous journey. The purpose is not to enumerate the great and small events, but to summarize experience, transcend history, criticize oneself, and point the direction for the development of humanity in the present and future. This is the unique charm of philosophy and history, the embodiment of humanity's metaphysical thinking nature and complex. Therefore, Hegel said, "Minerva's owl takes off at dusk"; but on the other hand, this reflection is not just to understand the past of humanity, its true purpose lies in the present and future of humanity, that is, through a critical reflection on the past of humanity, to point the direction for the development of humanity in the present and future, hence Marx also called this philosophical reflection the "Gaulish rooster." At this moment when humanity leaps into a new millennium, philosophical reflection on history once again attracts people's attention. Marx believed that the so-called world history is nothing more than the process in which humanity is born through human labor, the process in which nature is generated for humanity. This paper attempts to re-examine the connotation, dynamics, process, and the relationship between humanity and history through the philosophical interpretation of the generation of history and humanity, thereby providing a new understanding and explanation for Marx's historical theory. Although questions such as what history is, the driving force of historical development, the process of historical development, and the relationship between humanity and history have been studied to some extent, primarily or secondarily, in detail or briefly, since the establishment of Western historical philosophy, people have not reached a consensus. However, Marx's historical theory provides us with a brand-new perspective for understanding these issues, that is, to understand the history of humanity from the essence of humanity and its mode of existence. Therefore, it is necessary to first conduct a philosophical interpretation of Marx's historical theory from a philosophical perspective in order to reveal the profound meaning of Marx's philosophical thought of history and lay the foundation for solving the above issues. The necessity of this new interpretation is mainly based on the following reasons: First, since the great discussion on "practice as the sole criterion for testing truth" that began in the early 1980s, the domestic theoretical circles have, through the discussion of issues such as alienation, humanism, subjectivity, and philosophical practice, interpreted Marx's philosophical theory in many ways and basically formed an understanding framework of practical materialism (or philosophical practice). "However, few works have elaborated on this special topic in a sustained and systematic way." Our name for Marx's philosophy has changed from "dialectical materialism and historical materialism" to "practical materialism." In this way, our understanding of Marx's thought has fallen into a contradiction. On the one hand, we highly advocate the practical essence of human subjectivity; on the other hand, we subsume the history of humanity under the laws of the movement of basic social contradictions, making the law a superhuman law and history an impersonal history, which is a distortion of Marx's historical theory. Therefore, whether from the need of the theory itself or from the need of reality, it is necessary to interpret Marx and re-examine Marx's historical theory from a philosophical perspective. Second, against the backdrop of the profound cultural crisis in Western society, the increasing globalization trend of social development has posed severe challenges to the development of the vast third-world countries. What kind of development path should the vast third-world countries choose? Research on this issue, both domestically and internationally, is closely related to the study of Marx's late humanological notes and his theory of Eastern society. However, in the process of studying Marx's late philosophical thought, there are many unsatisfactory aspects. The main point is that Marx's late thought cannot be understood within the framework of his philosophical system, but is instead isolated from its whole based on the needs of the reality, and then analyzed and evaluated according to the needs of the contemporary era, thus leading to various interpretations and the emergence of various "late Marxes." As a result, following the debate between the young Marx and the old Marx, a major debate over the late Marx has emerged. The solution to this problem also depends on the understanding of history in Marx's historical theory and the understanding of the process of human history. Third, the study of philosophy and related issues has become an important field of research in the current philosophical theoretical circles of China and the world. This not only opens up new areas for understanding Marx's philosophical texts but also puts forward new issues for the study of Marx's philosophy, especially the study of his historical theory, because in Marx's view, history is the history of humanity, and it is the process in which humanity is realistically generated through its own activities. Although we have always understood Marx's philosophy within the context of the development of Western philosophy, due to the limitation of perspective, we have paid more attention to its materialist nature, dialectical thought, and its critical analysis of capitalist society, etc., when understanding Marx's philosophy. However, the classical German philosophy, the classical political economy of the United Kingdom, and the utopian socialism of the United Kingdom and France are only the direct sources of Marx's philosophical theory and cannot reveal the full essence of Marx's philosophy. In fact, in the development of Western philosophy since the modern era, the core of its ideological theory lies in the interpretation of the essence of humanity and its mode of existence. Especially in the field of historical philosophy, the development of the historical philosophy thought from Vico to the French Enlightenment thinkers and to the classical German philosophers of history shows Marx a sequence of thought development about the consistency between history and the generation of humanity. Marx constructed his own historical philosophy theory on the basis of critically inheriting this tradition of Western historical philosophy since the modern era. Therefore, with the rise of philosophy, the increasing depth of research on the philosophical thought of the West since the modern era provides us with a new perspective for reinterpreting Marx's texts, enabling us to conduct a philosophical interpretation of Marx's historical theory. At the same time, the deepening development of philosophical research also requires Marxism to respond. However, research that truly explains Marx's historical theory from the essence of humanity and its mode of existence and grasps the historical philosophy theory of different periods of Marx as a whole has not yet emerged, which is one of the important reasons for writing this book. Fourth, this is the need for the study of Marx's historical theory itself. When explaining Marx's historical theory, people are accustomed to a diachronic approach, that is, by analyzing the development of Marx's thought, to explain the thoughts of Marx in different historical periods and their interrelationships, providing a history of the development of Marx's thought. This is closely related to the fact that Marx lacks a systematic and comprehensive work that elaborates on his theoretical system. However, this understanding inevitably focuses more on his mature period. In fact, the early period of Marx's philosophical thought already contained the germs of all his thoughts, and the thoughts of the middle and late periods were both the inevitable result of the internal logical development of the early thoughts and a further enrichment and development of the early thoughts. Therefore, it is not necessary to be limited by time but to pursue the internal logic of the development of Marx's thought and grasp his thought as a whole. In the current process of studying Marx's thought, the debate over the young Marx, the old Marx, and the late Marx in the theoretical circles is due to the key issue that Marx's thought is not regarded as a complete theoretical system but is instead focused on the theory of Marx in different periods and the different discourse systems used by Marx to explain his theory. The key to solving the problem lies in revealing the internal logic of the development of Marx's thought, and the core of this internal logic is Marx's interpretation of the essence of humanity and its mode of existence. In fact, Marx's philosophical thought is not, as traditionally understood, that Marx first inherited the thought of the materialist philosophers of 18th-century France, saved Hegel's dialectics on the basis of criticizing classical German philosophy, and thus established dialectical materialism, while historical materialism was the application and development of dialectical materialism in the field of social history. This traditional understanding model has not truly revealed the essence of Marx's philosophy. The core of Marx's philosophical thought is his historical philosophy theory. Through the analysis of the essence of humanity and its mode of existence, Marx critically inherited the tradition of Western historical philosophy since the modern era and constructed his unique historical philosophy theory. It is precisely within this historical philosophy system that Marx unifies his thoughts of different periods. It is also through this system that Marx not only ended the tradition of speculative historical philosophy but also pioneered the tradition of analytical and critical historical philosophy. However, in the current process of studying Marx's philosophical thought, Marx's historical philosophy system has not received the attention it deserves. First, in domestic research, the study of Marx's philosophical thought is mainly concentrated on two aspects: On the one hand, starting from the early thought of Marx, by understanding the practical essence of humanity and the mode of existence as explained by Marx, attempts are made to construct a new philosophical system of Marx. Regardless of its name, such as practical materialism, philosophical practice, philosophy of the species, or survival philosophy, its theoretical foundation is Marx's metaphysical philosophical thinking about humanity in the early period. On the other hand, starting from Marx's late humanological notes and his thoughts on the development of Eastern society, attempts are made to interpret the traditional understanding of historical materialism in a new way to solve the contradiction between the old Marx and the late Marx. The focus of this is the choice of development path for contemporary Chinese society and the vast third-world countries. Both of these understanding methods fail to regard Marx's historical theory as a whole. The former overly emphasizes the thought of the young Marx, while the latter focuses on the realistic historical significance of the late Marx. Secondly, in terms of the research status abroad, the study of Marx's thought also exists in great differences. Humanistic Marxism mainly starts from the thought of the young Marx, by criticizing the understanding of Marx's philosophy as dialectical materialism and historical materialism, attempts to construct a humanistic Marx philosophy based on the early thought of Marx, and thus turns to the critique of contemporary capitalism. The typical representatives are the social critique theory of the Frankfurt School, such as Horkheimer and Adorno. While scientific Marxism focuses on Marx's critique of capitalist society in his old age, believing that there is an ideological break between the young Marx and the old Marx, and that Marx constructed a scientific theoretical system for critiquing capitalism by abandoning his immature early thought. This school is represented by Althusser, whose famous proposition is "the break in Marx's epistemology." At the same time, some schools in modern Western philosophy also expect to supplement their systems with Marx's philosophy, thus forming many different understandings of Marx's philosophy. However, among these many understandings, few regard Marx's philosophy as a whole and only excerpt different parts of it according to their needs. As a result, they fail to form a comprehensive grasp of Marx's philosophical system. But there is a common point in the research of both domestic and foreign studies, which is that they all pay great attention to Marx's discussion of the essence of humanity and its mode of existence, and take this as the starting point to reconstruct Marx's philosophical system. This tendency, combined with the increasingly in-depth study of philosophy, not only provides us with a new perspective for studying Marx's historical theory but also provides a theoretical basis for critically analyzing the traditional understanding of Marx's philosophy. The traditional understanding of Marx's philosophy is fundamentally flawed in that it denies the existence and value of human existence. In essence, the traditional understanding of Marx's philosophy is based on a natural ontology, which is rooted in the materialism of 18th-century France, and through Ernst Haeckel, Plekhanov, and Lenin, has formed the theoretical basis for explaining Marx's philosophy. This is partly because Engels, in his later years, reinterpreted the materialist thought of the 18th century in order to critique the idealism of Dühring and others, and partly because the early philosophical works of Marx have not been published. This traditional understanding, through an infinite reduction, reduces everything in the real world to natural matter, forming the "material unity of the world." When this way of thinking is applied to the field of social history, it forms what Lenin said, "to divide the economic sector from the various fields of social life, to divide the production relations from all social relations, to take them as the basic original relations that determine the rest of the relations," and to raise them to the level of productivity, thus providing an objective standard for studying social development. However, in this way, Marx's vivid explanation of productivity and production relations in the process of critiquing capitalism becomes a lifeless dogma, and the development of human history becomes a "natural historical process," thus dehumanizing human history. This not only distorts the original intention of Marx's historical philosophy but also obscures the profound connotation of Marx's critical analysis of capitalist society. The core of Marx's philosophical thought is his social historical theory. Marx, as the inheritor and critic of modern Western philosophy, also started his research from the analysis of the essence of humanity and its mode of existence. However, Marx was different from his predecessors in that he did not stop at the abstract understanding of the essence of humanity but linked the essence of humanity to the activities of real people through the critical analysis of classical German philosophy and classical political economy of the United Kingdom. His understanding of history was not just to understand history for history but to see history as the history of human activity through the critical inheritance of speculative historical philosophy, thus establishing a brand-new historical philosophy system. First, in the "Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844," Marx, through the critical analysis of the alienation of labor under capitalist conditions, comprehensively elaborated on the essence of humanity and its mode of existence. Marx pointed out that the essence of humanity is not an abstract entity but is continuously created through the practice of humanity in the relationship between people. It is precisely through human practice that the unity between humanity and nature is achieved. Because human activity is a two-way process, on the one hand, people, through object-oriented activity, give their essence to the external nature, thus making nature possess human attributes and becoming part of the human world; on the other hand, because in the process of naturalization, people externalize their essence to nature, this is also the process of naturalization of people. Therefore, the history of nature and the history of humanity are unified, and the two are unified in the process of real human practice. This is the foundation of Marx's historical philosophy theory. In the following "Theses on Feuerbach" and "The German Ideology," Marx comprehensively elaborated on the essence of history and its internal mechanism of development from a metaphysical height, and initially divided the development of human history, all based on Marx's understanding of the essence of humanity and its mode of existence. Secondly, Marx did not stop at this abstract understanding of human history but always combined it with realistic analysis. In Marx's view, "the general specification determined by thought as a general specification in all production stages exists, but the general conditions of all production are nothing more than these abstract elements, and it is impossible to understand any real historical stage of production with these elements." Therefore, it is necessary to analyze it specifically according to the characteristics of each era. Because history, as the expression of human activity itself, is the result of human activity, the confirmation and demonstration of the power of humanity, can only be specifically analyzed by the specific situation of human society in each era to truly understand and grasp the history of each era. Therefore, in Marx's historical theory, there always exist dual logics: on the one hand, Marx, from the metaphysical level, from the essence of humanity, through the explanation of the relationship between labor, communication, and division of labor, established the three-stage theory of the development of humanity itself; on the other hand, Marx applied his metaphysical analysis of human history to criticize capitalism, thereby revealing the historical development of capitalism in Western Europe, that is, the historical materialism as traditionally understood. However, because the main historical material that Marx was exposed to at that time was that of Western Europe, this specific analysis was limited and only applicable to the history of Western Europe. After Marx came into contact with the historical material of non-Western societies in his late years, this realistic critique turned to an anthropological critique, as seen in Marx's late humanological notes and his theory of Eastern society. However, it should be pointed out that in the process of turning to the critique of political economy and anthropology, Marx did not abandon his metaphysical analysis of the development of human society but always guided it. Therefore, we believe that there is no logical break between the young Marx, the old Marx, and the late Marx, but rather a closely linked unified whole. It is precisely within this unified theoretical system that Marx shows how humanity creates history through its own creative activities and is realistically generated in history, thereby transcending the tradition of speculative historical philosophy and pioneering the tradition of analytical and critical historical philosophy. However, in the elaboration of this book, on the one hand, to distinguish from the habitual diachronic research method, on the other hand, to highlight the revolutionary transformation that Marx achieved in the development of Western historical philosophy, this book uses the internal logic of Marx's historical philosophy as an implicit thread to govern the whole text, and narrates in the form of themes from different themes such as the essence of history, the driving force of history, and the process of history to reveal the inheritance and development of Marx's historical philosophy in the development of Western historical philosophy. And at the end of the book, a chapter is devoted to summarizing Marx's historical philosophy. This book believes that the greatest contribution of Marx to historical philosophy lies in his linking the real activities of humanity with history, pointing out that the development of human history is a dual generation process, on the one hand, history is a generation process for humanity, and on the other hand, humanity is a generation process for history. These two aspects are unified and are unified in the real, creative practice of humanity. And it is precisely in this generation process that the harmony between the regularity and purposefulness of human activity is unified, and the development of human history can be shown as a process of humanity continuously self-transcending. Humanity and history are unified, and the process of historical development is the process in which humanity is realistically generated through its own activities. The formation and development of Western historical philosophy gradually reveal this unity between humanity and history. This book proposes that in Marx's historical theory, there always exist dual logics: on the one hand, the three-stage theory of the development of humanity itself; on the other hand, his specific analysis of human history, that is, the theory of the five successive forms of evolution in Western Europe and the theory of Eastern society. These two levels are unified, but the context of discourse is different. It is precisely in this unified historical theory that Marx shows the generative nature of humanity and history.