A Study On The "Non-identity" Dimension Of Althusser’s Philosophical Thought

Since ancient times,"non-identity" has been ignored by philosophers.In order to solve the fundamental problems of the world,they always adhere to the thinking principle of "oneness" and unswervingly pursue to find the "one" that all people belong to among the changes of all things.Since many philosophers in ancient Greece,they have hoped to use the original world to control the existence and change of all things,and such a tradition of thinking is reflected in philosophy,which makes the pursuit of "identity" become the mainstream and trend.Modern rationalist metaphysics seeks an abstract concept or idea as the cornerstone of their theoretical edifice and also becomes the embodiment of identity philosophy.With the rapid development of science and technology and the continuous enrichment and sublimation of culture in contemporary society,the disadvantages and negative effects of traditional metaphysics are becoming more and more prominent and attracting people’s attention.The changing social structure of the capitalist world makes western Marxist philosophy begin to carry out a profound theoretical reflection on the traditional Enlightenment philosophy.Its theoretical representation is that modern philosophy has changed from the traditional metaphysics’ persistent pursuit of identity to the effort to get rid of it,and actively explores the theory of the generation of "non-identity" in the development of modern society.This transformation of thinking mode,theoretical problem domain and research object presents the "non-identity" turn of Western Marxism.After the turn,the focus of Western Marxism theory is no longer confined to the discussion of pure speculative philosophy,but turns to the micro level of social politics and culture,hoping to understand the concern of human subjectivity through the study of the governing and controlling mechanism of politics and culture in capitalist society.It is rooted in Lukacs’ holistic dialectics with historical dimensions,through Kirsch’s concrete dialectics,to the critical social theory of Frankfurt School represented by Donno,and to Althusser’s combination of structuralism into diversified and differentiated social history analysis,and gradually and clearly presents the "non-identity" thinking representation of Western Marxist philosophy.Although this characteristic of "non-identity" thinking originates from Hegel’s dialectics,it has been completely different from the way of thinking in traditional Western philosophy after Marx’s critical inheritance.More importantly,this "non-identity" is not only reflected in the theoretical characteristics of thinking,more became the theoretical research motivation of western Marxist philosophers after the 1960 s and the value orientation of political practice.Especially after the revival of Nietzsche’s philosophy in France in the 20 th century,through the innovative elucidations and constructions of the traditional Marxist philosophy by Althusser,from Bataille,Foucault,Deleuze to Baudrillard and Derrida,a clear theoretical expression of the mode of thinking on "non-identity" was finally formed.Through the interpretation of Althusser’s philosophical texts,this paper aims to bring the representative philosophical thoughts of Althusser in the early and late periods into the same theme--the dimension of "non-identity"--to analyze and demonstrate the different and consistent place,so as to further understand the ideological correlation of Althusser’s various periods and grasp the content essence of Althusser’s thought as a whole.This paper examines Althusser’s basic stand and ideological characteristics on promoting and developing Marxist theory innovation from a perspective different from that of traditional western philosophy.From the perspective of "non-identity",the main part of this paper reinterprets Althusser’s early thoughts,pluralistic determinism,symptom reading,ideological theory and late accidental encounter materialism.Through the overall combing and analysis of the origin,core,conceptual tool group,theoretical transformation and breakthrough of his philosophy in each stage of thought,it can be seen that: Althusser is to liberate Marxism from the past interpretation of monism and essentialism,to reveal and restore the long-neglected "non-identity" way of thinking of Marxism,and from this philosophical perspective,he has obtained revolutionary insights in many academic fields,so that his theory is still visible in today’s postmodern thoughts of thought.Early Althusser reformed Hegel’s dialectics of closed circle in his "On the Concept of Content in Hegel’s Philosophy",the birthplace of his philosophical thought.This transformation is not only a unique conception before the appearance of structuralism,but also clearly reflects the seed of "non-identity" thought in Althusser’s thought,which opposes monism and identity.In Defense of Marx,he took the lead in criticizing the interpretation of the "inversion" theory,found the structural root difference between Marx’s dialectics and Hegel’s dialectics,and put forward the "pluralistic determinism",which is the mutual determination of various contradictions with various inherent characteristics.The social field in which the contradictions are deeply rooted is a "complex whole" which cannot be reduced to equal quality,single and the same origin.In Reading Das Kapital,Althusser through "symptom reading",potentially distinguished the visible from the invisible,distinguishing the object of reality from the object of cognition,criticized the Hegelian thought process of absorbing and assimilating the identity of the reality process,proposed the concept of "epistemological difference",and used it to explain the problem of "social production" in Marx’s Das Kapital to better approximate the original meaning of Marx’s theory.And Althusser’s famous ideological theory is the realistic connection between "criticism of identity thinking" and "ideological criticism".On the epistemological level,he required to criticize metaphysical identity thinking and get out of the closed system created by this way of thinking.On the functional level,his theory of repressive state machine and ideology state machine became a realistic revelation and criticism of the power of ideology and the power of identity thinking.In Meeting the Undercurrent of Materialism,Althusser in his later years reinterprets historical materialism to a certain extent with his new understanding of Marxism.His discussion on contingency not only runs through the covered aspect of Marx’s thought,but also is in line with his early thinking on structuralism.It has also opened up a path for contemporary post-Marxist thoughts of "difference","contingency" and "uncertainty".Under the perspective of "non-identity",Althusser theoretically defended the original criticality and revolution of Marxist philosophy,activated the theoretical vitality of Marxism under the contemporary background,and provided an important ideological source and theoretical inspiration for the enrichment and development of Marxist philosophy research.