European And American Scholars On The Interpretation Of Historical Materialism: A Century Track Pursuit

Materialist conception of history, as a social and historical understanding of the world outlook and methodology, is not only closely linked to the social reality of life, but also the most vulnerable to the challenge of contradictions in social reality. In fact, since the birth of Marxism, Materialist conception of history has been confronted with the examination of social reality, has been seeking theoretical development and innovation. With the changes in social reality of the West, Materialist conception of history has gone through an intricate process of development for various reasons. The second international theoreticians and a number of radical leftist intellectuals switched their attention and turned to the materialist conception of history in order to realize the ideal of human emancipation. This led to a variety of "reconstructions" and "restorations" on the materialist conception of history. Their understandings of the materialist conception of history are confined to personal understanding as well as the distinctions derived from the social realities and thus differ from each other. But in a nutshell, their understandings of the materialist conception of history made progress mainly in two orientations: either to view the materialist conception of history as the scientific historical development conception without the activity of subject, or to think of the materialist conception of history as the humanist historical development conception based on people's spiritual activity. Both have departed from the scientific essence of the materialist conception of history ,which is " a science on people in the reality and its historical development"," a school that found the key to understanding all the social history in labor development" and "a historical development conception decided by the development of personal power."This paper attempts to take a retrospect to the European and American scholars' elaboration on the one hundred year's development of the materialist conception of history. Through analyzing the academic track and change course in the interpretation of the materialist conception of history, this paper strives to refine some systematic understandings from the twists and turns in the course of the development and provide inspirations for future development. This paper is composed of three parts involving the preface, the text and the conclusion. The preface, in brief, covers the purpose of this study, its theoretical and historical clues as well as the previous studies. The main parts of the paper range from chapter two to chapter four. Chapter 2 introduces the era from the late 19^th century to the 1930s and 1940s. It focuses on the initial formation of the humanistic and scientific orientation in the interpretation of the materialist conception of history. Chapter Three discussed, in the period from the mid 1940s to the late 1960s, the western Marxist philosophical school's main ideas, which explain the materialist conception of history from the perspective of humanism and scientism. In this chapter, the account for humanism is mainly based on Marxism represented by Frankfurt School and Freud School and involves existentialistic Marxism as well. At the same time, scientific explanation is on the basis of the structuralistic Marxism with Louis Althusser as the representative. Chapter four probes into the opposition between humanism and scientism in the multi-development of Marxism, which appears after the rise of post modernism, that is from the 1960s up to now. Analysis school's interpretation of the materialist conception of history, Habermas's reconstruction of historical materialism and the post Marxist inheritance of the critical spirits of the materialist conception of history are the main points in this chapter. The conclusion part penetrates into the advantages and disadvantages of the humanistic and scientific orientation in the interpretation of the materialist conception of history. What's more, the European and American scholars were not able to realize the reality changes of capitalism in a correct way due to their failure in sensing the essence of the materialist conception of history. Under this guidance, they held the view that the development of capitalism proved the defect in the materialist conception of history. On the contrary, this paper believes that the development of capitalism precisely confirms the materialist conception of history as a scientific truth.Owing to the limitation of my knowledge, this paper can only make a tentative attempt and draw an outline of the one hundred year's development of the materialist conception of history. With many slips and slides, I am ready for your criticism and correction.