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The History And Practice Of Self-motion

Posted on:2011-03-24Degree:DoctorType:Dissertation
Country:ChinaCandidate:D H WangFull Text:PDF
GTID:1116360305453809Subject:Marxist philosophy
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Based on the logic research process of Marx's philosophy in domestic philosophical circle and Marx's classic texts, this dissertation is aimed to make a further in-depth understanding of the substance of Marx's philosophical thinking.Since the reform and opening up, Marx's philosophical research in domestic philosophical circle has gone through several important development stages as follows: from ontology of substance to epistemology, from epistemology to practical point of view, from practical point of view to the final turn of historical materialism after the existential turn. During such turning process, two results of symbolic significance which eventually is settled down are practical materialism and historical materialism. In recent years, Scholars have turned to the research of historical materialism, the reasons of which are as follows: first, historical materialism is the main outcome of Marx's Philosophy; second, scholars are not satisfied with the understanding of historical materialism in accordance with the original idea of the dialectical materialism in the traditional textbooks. Therefore, scholars hope to re-interpret Marx's historical materialism from the idea of practical materialism. However, various perspectives of the explanation for historical materialism from practical materialism seem to have less than satisfactory up to now. I don't want to set out each specific point of view of historical materialism; generally speaking, the main shortcoming of each perspective lies in the understanding of practical materialism. This dissertation argues that the understanding limitations of practical materialism in current academic circle lie in the lack of in-depth interpretation of the objectivity or historicity of practice.This dissertation argues that we can't get a better understanding of the substance of historical materialism if we can't get a good understanding of practical materialism. Of course, we can get a better understanding of the essence of Marx's philosophy if we unite practical materialism and historical materialism. Therefore, the key to understanding the essence of Marxist philosophy and to understanding the essence of historical materialism is to understand the practical issues of practical materialism. Because history is the history of human practice, the unified core of historical materialism and practical materialism is the unity of history and practice. This simple statement is: The formation and development of history is rooted in the formation and development of human practice in its own function. Any kind of practical activities will generate the corresponding historical patterns. The history of alienation is the product of alienated labor. Then how can we understand the practical problems?This dissertation argues that the understanding missing link of the practical problems in current academic circle lies in that scholars only focus on the practical effect of the change in the outside world but they ignore the logical premise of practice in the process of changing the world. The logical premise is as follows: to change world, practice should change human itself. There will be the practice of changing the world only if people themselves or their practice has changed. This is the missing link of practical materialism. If we realize this missing link, philosophical thinking will turn back to practice itself. That is to say the problem of changing the world lies in the change of practice itself or human. If there is no change in practice itself, practical activities of changing world will not exist. Therefore, if we want to discuss practical issues in the real philosophical circle, we should focus on the change of practice itself. This is truly consistent with the intention of Marx's philosophy.In the third section of'Theses on Feuerbach', Marx says,'The materialist doctrine that men are products of circumstances and upbringing, and that, therefore, changed men are products of other circumstances and changed upbringing, forgets that men themselves change circumstances and that the educator himself must be educated. Hence, this doctrine necessarily arrives at dividing society into two parts, of which one is superior to society. The coincidence of the changing of circumstances and of human activity can be conceived and rationally understood only as revolutionizing practice.'This passage is the key to our understanding of the problem. If we only focus on the change of the outside world from practice and ignore the change of practice itself, we will slide from the materialist to idealist unconsciously, the reason of which is the explanation lack of materialism causes of practice or practical subject. Marx points out materialism causes of practice or practical subject: the change of practice or human is rotted in revolutionizing practice. Then, the core problem of Marx's practical materialism is not only how to change outside world, but the more important is how to change practice or human being. Therefore, problem is focused on the change of practice itself.Once we focus on the change of practice itself, the change of practice or the subject of practice will become the course of change itself. Then, problems, such as why practical level will change and why people's practical ability can improve, are due to people's practical activities. Therefore, practical activities perform as a "process of self-movement". If we understand historical materialism from such performance of practice, the essence of human history is the process of self-movement of people's practice. This dissertation argues that on the basis of a good understanding of the movement process of practice, we can make up for the lack of practical materialism and get a better understanding of Marx's historical materialism. In this sense, practical materialism and historical materialism can be united, and we can effectively overcome understanding limitations of historical materialism from the perspective of dialectical materialism in the traditional textbook.As all the problems are focused on the self-movement of practice, this dissertation studies the functions of the self-formation and development of practice, such as how practice becomes the essence of social existence, and how practice can generate social political relations, economic relations and the superstructure. According to this thought, this dissertation makes a further in-depth discussion on why the history of alienation is rooted in alienated labor, and studies the root of alienated labor.This dissertation argues that alienated labor is the product of the development of people's social labor to a specific historical stage, and the fundamental reason of alienated labor is the split between man and nature. With the development of productive forces, the direct natural relationship between man and nature is being broken, and a third factor, which is not only different from human's nature but also differs from the nature of nature, comes into man and nature, and the third factor gradually separates man and nature. The completion of division between man and nature is capitalist private ownership. Capital or pure self-awareness is the completion form of the third factor. Because of this division, people can not develop themselves following their natural instinct. Therefore, the substance of Marx's practical point of view is the elimination of the distortion of the nature of man and nature from pure self-awareness and the capital of these "non-sacred image" in order to achieve reconciliation between man and nature.Hegel is the first one who finds the division between man and nature. Hegel tries to realize the reconciliation between man and nature and he makes it as his most important task of philosophy. However, Hegel doesn't finish his philosophical task. This task is finished by Marx. The major significance of Marx's practical point of view or practical way of thinking is to solve the proposed task of Hegel's philosophy. Marx's opinion of practice completes the task of reconciliation between man and nature, and then the theme of contemporary philosophy should only be to achieve the development of human freedom and emancipation on the basis of reconciliation between man and nature. In this sense, this dissertation argues that we can't fundamentally oppose to'anthropocentrism', and the history of mankind must be people-centered. But if anthropocentrism is built on the idealism or intuitive materialism, it should be opposed. We believe that reasonable form of history should only be anthropocentrism built on the reconciliation between man and nature.
Keywords/Search Tags:Practice, History, practical materialism, historical materialism
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