Theory And Historical Materialism Of Marx's Civil Society Is Created

Marx regarded the civil society as "the original cradle and stage", and tried to "interpret varieties of theoretical products and consciousness form, such as religion, philosophy and morality, to go back to their history on the base of civil society." At the same time, he insisted that the historical materialism fundamentally distinguish from the previous history view in whether to consider the civil society as the actual base of history. All those show that the theory of civil society was a fundamental clue which ran though the formation of Marx's historical materialism.Form the view of the development of Marx's thought, Marx used the concept of civil society in two senses. One is that, during the period from to , Marx meant bourgeois society by civil society. In after , Marx interpreted civil society as "the communicative form conditioned by as well as conditioning the productivity in the all previous historical stages." In , Marx further defined the concept of productive relationship exactly, and systematically described the dialectical movement of productivity and productive relationship. In such a way, the concept of productive relationship, that of communicative form, and that of civil society are synonymous.In this dissertation, I distinguish the narrow and the broad meaning of the concept of civil society according to its development. I believe this distinction is an original idea. The theory of civil society in the narrow sense, which was established in the period of and "Deutsche-Franzoesische Jahrbuecher", constituted the philosophical basis of the theory of civil society. The theory of civil society in the broad sense includes that theory in the narrow sense, but its principal part consisted in the fact that Marx discovered the essential contradiction of civil society through the critique of political economics in the period from to and he, in virtue of the discovery, established the historical materialism. In this dissertation, I would use the concept of civil society in the broad sense. By the way, in , Marx still meant "bourgeois society" by "civil society", but his deep anatomization of varieties of social relationship in civil society went beyond the abstract analysis of civil society, and such anatomization indirectly led to the establishment of historical materialism, so Iascribe the concept of civil society in this work to that one in the broad sense.In my dissertation, following the development of Marx's thoughts which began with and ended in , I systematically explain how Marx linked the theory of civil society to the theory of productive relationship, and how he established his historical materialism. I believe this perspective is an original one in the study of Marxists philosophy's genesis.From to : the preparation of Marx's theory of civil society. Marx criticized and inherited Hegel's principle of the consistency of thoughts and being, so he insisted on the interaction of philosophy and reality, and stressed the objectivity of truth and the grasp of the essence of things. Such a tendency led Marx to break from the self-consciousness philosophy of younger hegelism, at the same time, he began to ponder on the real material relationship and to oppugn the principle of rationality of Hegel's philosophy, which promised the further development of Marx's thoughts.From to : the philosophical foundation and preliminary development of Marx's theory of civil society. In , Marx, on the general base of Feuerbach's philosophy, pointed out that the falsehood of the whole philosophy of Hegel lay in the so-called "reversal of subject and predicate". Through his critique of Hegel's political philosophy, He established the philosophical principle of his theory of civil society, that is, the civil society conditions the state. In the Period of , Marx tried to disclose the duality of civil society and state, and the alienation essence of civil society, and then he explained his thoughts of proletariat revolution.In , Marx turned to critique of political economics of civil society. Marx founded the theory of alienation labor, which showed that private property is the product, result and necessary consequence of alienation labor, and the contradiction between labor and capital, which was embodied in the private property, was the actualized contradiction and the essential contradiction of civil society, and it is this contradiction that constituted the deep base of the contradiction of proletariat and capital class as well as manifested the spontaneous and immanent relationship. In the Manuscript, Marx's exploration of "the puzzle of history" and "the puzzle of knowledge" made great progress, and a genius forecast for the rise of the historical materialism was made. From to : the result of critique ofpolitical economics was refined philosophically. In , Marx pointed out that, "the secular basis lifts off from itself and establishes itself in the clouds as an independent realm". From this, we can see that, Marx had caught a glimpse of the fact that civil society as the economic foundation conditioned the whole superstructure involving ideology and political structure, but he couldn't express it with exact concept. In , Marx said, "civil society is just the communicative form that was conditioned by as well as conditioned the productivity." Here he began to join the concept of civil society with that of productive relationship which remained still in the formation. Based on this, he expounded the fundamental principle of historical materialism.From to : the formal link of the theory of civil society to that of productive relationship, and the subsequent naissance of the historical materialism. In , the concept of productive relationship was established, and Marx expounded the dialectical law of productivity and productive relationship, which symbolized that the theory of civil society as the theory of communicative relationship in formally joined the theory of productive relationship. So the theory of civil society entered into the principle of the dialectical relation of productivity to productive relationship, and formed an essential principle of the historical materialism. In , Marx and Engels discovered the social movement law, which determined the destined end of capitalism society as well as the necessary success of proletariat revolution. Through this discovery, they theoretically prepared path for the proletariat revolutionary struggle. Such a scientific conclusion was the significant consequence from the join of the theory of productive relationship with revolutionary praxis.The foundation and development of Marx's theory of civil society and the consequent establishment of historical materialism couldn't break away from the edification and instruction of the philosophy of Hegel and that of Feuerbach. Because of the general limit of their system, both Hegel and Feuerbach couldn't disclose the essence and historic effect of civil society. The process of the rise and development of Marx's theory of civil society is just that of his going beyond Hegel and Feuerbach. From the fundamental standpoint of materialism, Marx anatomized the structure and elementary contradiction, and regarded the material praxis as the base of all history, and let philosophic speculation end in actual life, in virtue of which the historical materialism was founded.