From Evolution To Historical Materialism

There are undoubtedly a variety of approaches and methods to study the theoretical development and transformation from evolution to historical materialism.This paper elaborates the subject mainly from the horizon of practical philosophy and takes practical philosophy as the method.Salvation and tuqiang was the theme of the times in modern Chinese cociety,and all other issues must give way to this theme and take it as a center.In order to search the road of wealth and power, Yan Fu first introduced evolution from Britain,and reconstruct it according to the practical need of Chinese society, constructing a "natural selection" evolution.His evolution that replaced the traditional concept of heavenly principles in China is a new world view. Its theoretical purport is self-improvement and self-preservation, and its logical structure is merging and separating between heaven and human,and its theoretical tone is gradual evolution.These were abided by Kang Youwei’s "bipolar"evolution,Liang Qichao’s "group power" evolution and Tan Sitong’s "mind power" evolution. After those reformist evolution,the revolutionary democratic evolution arised.The revolutionary made evolution obtain a theoretical character of "revolution" by demonstrating that "revolution" was more conducive to social progress than "reform",and "revolution" was the best ways and means of social progress,and by bringing "revolution" logic into evolution.Their evolutions made the evolution logic of merging and separating between heaven and human that started from Yan Fu become thorough.They argued that Tao of human was completely independent from Tao of heaven,and it had its own unique evolution law.Sun Zhongshan’s theory of "tujia" is typical among the revolutionary democratic evolutions.lt believes that as long as giving full play to people’s subjective ability, rousing oneself to catch up, the backward can surpass the advanced in social events.Taking it as the theoretical basis,Sun Zhongshan argues the history view of people’s livelihood that pays attention to the people’s material life,and he believes that it is equivalent to socialism or communism.After the revolutionary democratic evolution,theory of mutual aid arised. Theory of mutual aid believes that "mutual aid" is the main way of social progress.Due to the particular historical situation of modern China, however, although anarchists in China advocated mutual aid,they didn’t deny and belittle "competition".So,their theory of mutual aid is a evolution that both pays attention to "mutual aid" and "competition".The new culture movement initiated by Chen Duxiu is an enlightenment one that criticizes the traditional ideology and culture taking Confucius as the representative.Although the enlightenment movement didn’t form a new theoretical form of evolution of Chinese style, it promoted evolution to the deepest consciousness.Thus,evolution developed to its limit in China. The primary factor of the transformation from evolution to historical materialism is the need of political practice of modern Chinese society; theoretical factors are those,such as the intrinsic logical isomorphism, the intrinsic theoretical commonality,and historical materialism is more reasonable than evolution.The May4th Movement period is one during which Chinese advanced characters abandoned evolution and reselected the ideological weapon for transformating China.After measuring again and again,Chinese advanced characters,such as Li Dazhao,Chen Duxiu and Mao Zedong,carefully selected a new ideological weapon,namely,Marxism.So,historical materialism replaced evolution and became the main thought current in modern Chinese society.The spreading of historical materialism in China was mainly due to the Chinese Marxists,but the historical contribution of non-Marxists shouldn’t be ignored.Among non-Marxists, Chen Boxian and Hu Hanmin are the most notable.In early period,the theoretical level of the interpretation about historical materialism made by Li Dazhao is undoubtedly the highest,and he preliminarily grasped the spirit trait of Marxist philosophy.Reviewing and reflecting the theoretical development and transformation from evolution to historical materialism,we can see that it had a fundamental theoretical defect,namely,the lack of way of thinking of practical philosophy.But Mao Zedong’s philosophy is the model of practical philosophy,and the successful model of sincization of Marxist philosophy.This will drive Chinese philosophy workers to identity the following conclusion:practical philosophy is the inevitable development trend of contemporary Chinese philosophy,and philosophical innovation should take practical philosoph as the theoretical paradigm.