From Philosophy Of Theory To Philosophy Of Praxis

The main problem of this dissertation is revolution of Marxist Philosophy. The discussion of this problem can make our understanding of Marxist Philosophy go deeper, avoid every kinds of misunderstanding and accelerate the development of Marxist Philosophy. So discussing this problem has far-reaching meaning.It is unanimous in the academic field that Marxist Philosophy has made a revolution. How to understand this revolution? From different angle of view, we can get different conclusions. This dissertation chooses the relation between philosophy of theory and philosophy of praxis as the angle of view. We put Marxist Philosophy into the development history of philosophy and investigate it, in order to make the essential of the revolution clear.The relation between philosophy of theory and philosophy of praxis is the chief problem that philosophy faces. Different standpoints of this problem lead to different paths of philosophy. There are two possible standpoints: one standpoint thinks that theory can exist independently from praxis. The other one thinks that theory depends on praxis and is a part of praxis. Corresponding to this two standpoints, there are two paths of philosophy: philosophy of theory and philosophy of praxis. The development history of western philosophy shows a conversion trend from philosophy of theory to philosophy of praxis and the initiator of the conversion is Marx. Marx makes a profound animadversion of philosophy of theory and established the standpoint of philosophy of praxis. So Marxist Philosophy is not philosophy of theory any more, it is latter-day philosophy of praxis. The mainstream of western philosophy belongs to the tradition of philosophy of theory, this tradition can also be called tradition of metaphysics. This tradition comes into being in the period of archaic Greece, develops in the period of latter-day and reaches its resplendence owing to Hegel. Marx is aware of the limitation of philosophy of theory consciously and makes a profound animadversion of it. Through the animadversion of Hegel's philosophy and Feuerbach's philosophy, Marx completes the animadversion of philosophy of theory. Animadverting Hegel's philosophy and Feuerbach's philosophy means to animadverting the entire philosophy of theory. Marx thinks that Hegel's philosophy is the representative of the entire Mentalism and Feuerbach's philosophy is the representative of the entire old Materialism. Mentalism and Materialism make the same mistake because of their abstract character. The only way to conquer the abstract character is establishing the standpoint of philosophy of praxis.How to understand"praxis"is the first problem when investigating philosophy of praxis."Praxis"is the soul of philosophy of praxis. In a way, how to understand"praxis"determines how to understand philosophy of praxis. Marx isn't concerned with the definition of"Praxis", he is concerned with the relation between theory activity and praxis activity, he is also concerned with the meaning of the preferential praxis activity. So Marx hasn't made a definition of"Praxis". In Marxist Philosophy,"Praxis"has a broad sense, it can be considered as human life or the collectivity of human activities, and in other words, it is the real world that people living in. Theory activity itself is a kind of human activity, so it can't exist independently from the real world. So the theory can't be separated from praxis. They have a unitive relation. The theory is affiliated and should be unified to praxis. Based on the opinions of"Praxis", Marx denies that theory is independent or preferential and reverses the relation that is established by philosophy of theory between theory and praxis. The essential of the revolution of Marxist Philosophy is a conversion from philosophy of theory to philosophy of praxis.After making the essential of the revolution of Marxist Philosophy clear, we spread the investigation of this dissertation's main problem through two clues. The first clue is pattern of philosophy. In this aspect, Marxist Philosophy makes the conversion from philosophy of theory to philosophy of praxis. This conversion contains the following contents: Marxist Philosophy makes the conversion of philosophy'object from nonempirical entity to real and geist world, makes the conversion of philosophy'function from explaining the world merely to changing the world with reason, and makes the conversion of philosophy'mission from questing for entity to striving for human liberation. The second clue is mode of thinking. In this aspect, Marx thinks that all things move and change forever. So he makes the conversion from the established mode of thinking to formed mode of thinking. Philosophy of praxis are new pattern of philosophy and new mode of thinking, making this clear, we can understand Marx's philosophy of praxis in deed and accelerate its development.