Research On Marx’s Thought Of Reification Critique

"The thought of reification critique" is an important part of Marx’s critical theory of capitalism,which helps us to understand more deeply the critical political economy in Marx’s mature period.However,for a long time,the in-depth revelation and interpretation of the theoretical connotation and theoretical significance of "Marx’s thought of reification critique" has not been given due attention and importance.Therefore,it is still a very important theoretical task and a theoretical issue to reorganize and explore "Marx’s thought of reification critique" and to dig out its rich theoretical connotation,so as to accurately grasp the critical character and theoretical significance of the "reification critique" in relation to the critique of capitalism and modern society.Marx’s thought of reification critique has a profound philosophical and historical basis.Marx’s thought of reification critique,as a theory of critique of the phenomenon of "reification",is fundamentally concerned with "the question of how to understand ’thing’ rationally".In the modern philosophy,"thing" is understood as the "subjective thing" mediated and forged by " the self-conscious subject ",while "Thing-in-itself " is suspended outside "subject’s self-center" and becomes Kant’s "Thing-in-itself".It can be said that Kant’s "Thing-in-itself " is the inevitable product of understanding "thing" within the framework of modern philosophy of subjectivity.The deciphering of the mystery of Kant’s "Thing-in-itself" left behind by modern philosophy constitutes one of the major themes of concern for many philosophers after Kant.Kant’s "Thing-in-itself" has a threefold connotation: the source of perceptual cognition,the limits of intellectual cognition,and the guiding principle of practical reason.In the history of philosophy,the deciphering of Kant’s "mystery of Thing-in-itself" has gone through two "adventures",which were unfolded from the standpoints of "discursive reason" and "voluntarism" respectively.The discursive rationality position tends to focus on the first two connotations of "Thing-in-itself",regards "Thing-in-itself" as "objects of discursive rationality’s consciousness",and then tries to dissolve "Thing-in-itself" with "a priori ego","absolute spirit",and "cognitive practice".Although the voluntarist position leads the riddle of "Thing-in-itself" to "human existential activity" and touches on the third connotation,it equates "Thing-in-itself" directly with "the appearance of volitional activity" and ignores the fact that "Thing-in-itself" is precisely the ontology that is hidden behind the appearance of volitional activity.It can be said that these two paths of decipherment are limited to understanding the "Thing-in-itself" as "the phenomenon of consciousness of discursive reason" or "the appearance of existential volitional activity" and other subjectively refracted things,without revealing the "Thing-in-itself" in depth.There is no in-depth revelation of the "Thing-in-itself" behind the "refracted thing of subjectivity",and Kant’s "mystery of Thing-in-itself " is not solved,leaving it in the "obscured and unknown" state.In Marx’s view,Kant’s "Thing-in-itself" is the "Thing-in-itself " behind the "refracted thing of subjectivity" such as the appearance of the activity of the "ontology"-the moral axiom.The "feebleness" characteristic of this " the moral axiom",as a concentrated reflection of the "impassability" of "perceptual and intellectual knowledge and moral behavior boundaries",expresses people’s flinching and compromising attitude in the face of the " reification system of rational laws of capitalist society",and is a philosophical expression of the feeble class position of the German petty bourgeoisie.By transforming the "ontology of the Thing-in-itself",which is guiding will,from Kant’s feeble "moral axiom" to the "social relations of production" based on material labor,reveals the social essence of "things" in his critical examination of the subjective refraction of this "social relations of production"-the phenomenon of capitalist reification,unveiling the social intricacies of "things",namely the exploitative production relations of capitalism,and opening up the thought of reification critique.Thus,Marx’s "practical revolutionary intention" of transforming capitalist relations of production by means of the thought of reification critique transcends the feeble philosophical position of the bourgeoisie and overcomes the Kantian problem of "Thing-in-itself" inherited from modern philosophy.Therefore,as a unique theoretical contribution of Marx’s thought of reification critique,the solution of the Kantian "mystery of Thing-in-itself " inherited from modern philosophy constitutes the philosophical origin and theoretical transformation of Marx’s thought of reification critique.Marx’s thought of reification critique is generated in the theoretical reflection and transcendence of his earlier thought of "alienation critique".Through this reflection and transcendence,Marx realized a deeper understanding and critique of capitalist society.The "alienation critique" was an important theoretical weapon for early Marx to examine capitalism.Marx successively thought about social reality from the perspective of the alienation of the essence of human freewill,criticized "civil society" from the perspective of the alienation of the essence of human interaction relations,and launched a critique of the social reality of capitalism from the perspective of the alienation of the essence of human labor.However,Marx’s early "alienation critique" contained deep theoretical difficulties.The "alienation critique" started from the abstract value suspension of human essence,and used " the genuine state" of human essence as the basis for criticizing "the dehumanizing alienation" of the capitalist society,thus the critique of capitalism was not yet complete.Therefore,the critique of capitalism has not yet completely escaped from the logic of humanistic,and it is difficult to realize the historical analysis of the inner essence of capitalist society.With the development of the historical materialist framework and the deepening of critical political economy thought,Marx in the middle and late periods of his life no longer looked at the alienation of human essence,but penetrated deeply into the reality of capitalist society,and stood on the basis of the "ontology of the social relations of production" to objectively understand and explain the phenomenon of the enslavement of human beings by the objects of their enslavement.He has gradually realized the historical analysis of the essence of the capitalist production relations by critically looking at the "the relationship of things" that enslaves people as the capitalist division of labor and the capitalist production relations.It can be said that the process of philosophical foundation,appearance,establishment and maturation of the thought of reification critique is the process of Marx’s deep penetration into the realities of the capitalist society,and the realization of his profound dissection and internal critique of "the capitalist mode of production and the relations of production and exchange corresponding to it".It is in the process of rationally advancing from the "alienation critique" to the "reification critique" that Marx shifted from the critique of the appearance of capitalist society to the internal critique of the essence of capitalist social relations,thus penetrating into the essence of capitalist society and promoting the deepening of the critique of capitalism and the deepening of the critique of capitalism.Through a critical perspective on the "things" of capitalist society-commodity,money and capital-the inner essence of capitalist social relations is presented,which constitutes the theoretical connotation of Marx’s thought of reification critique.First of all,when two commodities are reduced to "homogeneous and identical abstract labor" and exchanged for the same price,the equivalence of human labor acquires the "commodity value objectivity of labor products equivalence",and commodity exchange becomes an inverted expression of the labor exchange relationship between human beings,and commodities become "phantom-like objectivity" that can "dance upside down".Through his analysis of the historical specificity of "abstract labor as a measure of commodity value",Marx revealed that the commodity,as a historical form of realizing the "social nature of private labor",was given the social historical meaning of capitalist relations of production based on private appropriation,and became the cellular form of capitalist social relations;Secondly,in the physical form of commodity-value relations-money,the labor-exchange relations between human beings,which were originally concealed by commodity exchange,are directly condensed into gold and silver money,which becomes the "general measure of human labor" and holds the exclusive right to dominate social wealth.By restoring the intermediary movement of "gold and silver money becoming the wealth of society in general",Marx reveals that money,as a reflection of commodity-value relations fixed on a particular commodity,is the material crystallization of labor-exchange relations,and thus becomes the inverted expression of the social relations of capitalism;Finally,in the form of the movement of commodity value-capital,the labor-exchange relations between people,which were originally obscured by commodities and money,are once again inverted into capital objects such as the conditions of labor,and the "social regulation of the objectified labor that creates the exchange value" is expressed in the social relations between the capital objects and itself,and the productive forces of labor are inverted into the productive forces of capital objects,i.e.,"capital multiplies itself".By restoring the process of "conversion of capital into money" in the process of circulation and "capital multiplication" in the process of production,Marx reveals that capital does not multiply on its own,but that the multiplication of value is realized in the process of fermentation of the capital object through the continuous employment and absorption of living labor.This reveals that capital is a structural relationship consisting of variable capital-living labor and unchanging capital-dead material elements,and that it is a dominant power relationship between capital and labor.Marx’s thought of reification critique is one of the most vital and contemporary elements of Marx’s system of critique of philosophy and political economy.It has produced profound theoretical effects in the evolution of contemporary Marxist philosophy as well as in the development of contemporary philosophy,and has important contemporary significance for our understanding of the contemporary world.In terms of theoretical effects,Marx’s thought of reification critique has spread and penetrated into the field of contemporary philosophy with its powerful ideological force,producing far-reaching theoretical impact.Marx’s thought of reification critique has been highly valued by later philosophers,who have expanded it in many ways on the basis of fully absorbing the theoretical resources of Marx’s thought of reification critique,the most representative of which are: Lukács’ extension from the critique of relations of production to the critique of productive forces,Hiroshimatsu Shibu’s expansion from the field of economy to the field of social history,and Honneth’s deepening of the dimension of political economy to the dimension of normativity.These extensions fully highlight the deep and wide theoretical effect of Marx’s thought of reification critique and its irreplaceable position in the history of thought.In terms of contemporary significance,the contemporary world is still within the range of the artillery of Marx’s thought of reification critique,and Marx remains an enduring "bull" in the contemporary world.In the face of the deep-seated dilemma of modernity-the "new reification" of landscapes,symbols and data,Marx’s thought of reification critique reveals the unchanging theoretical core of the changing "new forms" of reification-the unjust capitalist relations of production,with a view to enabling everyone to have "equal access to the means of production necessary for the realization of labor" in the construction and search for "new social relations,in which "the power of things enslaves people",and realize the transcendence of modernity.In this regard,Marx’s thought of reification critique has not only not been proved to be outdated,but also demonstrated its significance and value in contemporary times.The theoretical effect and contemporary significance of Marx’s thought of reification critique constitute the key to the in-depth exploration of this thought that we still need today.