Marx's View Of Philosophy

As the thesis of this dissertation,"Marx's View of Philosophy" is different from the reflection about Marx's philosophy itself (i.e."View of Marx's Philosophy"), and also different from the reflection about Marxist philosophy itself (i.e."View of Marxist Philosophy"). What the thesis indicated is the answers to a series of meta-philosophical issues (such as the theme, method, function of philosophy, the relationship between philosophy and reality, the social image of philosopher, etc.) by Marx himself. Therefore, the main task of this dissertation is to investigate Marx's reflections of philosophy itself in different phases of his thought, to reveal the basic principles and essential characteristics of his manner of "doing philosophy", to find the intrinsic relationship between the change of his attitude to "philosophy" and his philosophical creative activities, so to provides us a prerequisite and basic entry point to rethink Marx's philosophy and Marxist Philosophy.Marx's view of philosophy is generated by rethinking and transcending the traditional view of philosophy. In the traditional view of philosophy, the mission of philosophy is to grasp the unified and constant principles or standards (namely "absolute truth") behind the complicated and changeable phenomenal world. Because of the transcendence, self-sufficiency, universality and sacredness of absolute truth, the traditional view of philosophy defines the abstract speculation as philosophy's method, defines the epistemological system as philosophy's form; it believes that only philosophy can lay a solid foundation for the entire culture. As the "completer" of traditional philosophy, Hegel made the traditional view of philosophy get the most sufficient and perfect expression, by comprehending the absolute truth as a subjective and dynamic thing. Specifically, Hegel's view of philosophy includes several aspects: philosophy is the cognizing truth, philosophy is the free knowledge, philosophy is the concrete unity, philosophy is the thinking and understanding of spirit of the time. They show that Hegel has rebuilt the essential relationship between philosophy and reality. No doubt, the traditional view of philosophy which was reformed by Hegel constituted an important part of Enlightenment rationality at that time, and Marx was also began to know and understand philosophy from this ideological atmosphere. In his earliest exploration of thought, Marx experienced a shift from the attempt of constructing a system in philosophy of right to "seek ideas from the reality". This shift indicates that the relationship between philosophy and reality is a basic foothold from the beginning of his reflections about philosophy itself.In the rationalistic stage of his view of philosophy, Marx regarded philosophy as the most powerful theoretical weapon of the critique of religion and politics, highlighted the free spirit of philosophy. However, he didn't emphasize the philosophy's critique of the secular world partially, like the other Young Hegelians, what he did is to take philosophy itself as an object of critique, and to put forward the proposition of philosophicalization of the world and realization of the philosophy. Therefore, Marx believed that philosophy is absolutely necessary to go to the public. What he expected is to liberate the nation from the restrictions of religion by philosophy's critique, so as to realize the nation's "free reason". In the subsequent German-French Annals period, Marx further gave a meaning of human emancipation to philosophicalization of the world and realization of the philosophy, and found the proletariat for philosophy as its material forces. But until this time, his understanding of philosophy was still related with the all-embracing universal reason directly, did not really go beyond the Hegelianism.Feuerbach's critique of Hegel's philosophy and the whole modern philosophy provided an opportunity of transition for Marx's view of philosophy. He showed Marx that the new philosophy must think in the way of real "man". Under the influence of Feuerbach, Marx not only recognized the illusory nature of rationalistic content in philosophy, regarded traditional philosophy as a result of the alienation of human nature, but also thought of the combination of new philosophy and natural science in the sense of sublating alienation. Thus, in its humanistic stage, Marx's view of philosophy still has not completely get rid of the unreal transcendental settings. Nevertheless, Marx didn't unreservedly accept Feuerbach's opinions, but definitely put forward the issues of the relationship between philosophy and dialectics and the relationship between philosophy and intervention in reality, which were neglected by Feuerbach.With the establishment of practice viewpoint, Marx's view of philosophy entered its practical materialistic stage. In his opinion, only by means of practice viewpoint to change its way of thinking and to convert its foothold, can philosophy become an ideological part of the practical activities to "change the world". And because of the practice viewpoint restores the people's self-creation in a time dimension, so philosophy gets a historical perspective, namely, a principle or method to investigate all issues from the historical form of the social practice, especially the material productive practice. In this sense, Marx has transformed philosophy into the practical materialistic view of history. Of course, as view of history, philosophy only has a possibility to "change the world". Marx believed that to guide philosophy to the real way to play its revolutionary role, it is necessary to realize the combination of philosophy and political economics, and to make the philosophy's critical spirit and subjective dimension reflect in the investigation of capitalist mode of production. Therefore, we can say that the Critique of Political Economics is the final image for philosophy which is established by Marx.The above three stages show that the logical course of Marx's view of philosophy is a process of transcending and sublating the traditional view of philosophy. By abandoning the absolute truth, objecting the abstract speculation, abolishing the epistemological system and subverting the sacred image, Marx fundamentally broke all sorts of settings of philosophy itself in the traditional view of philosophy. Thus, his view of philosophy is a view of philosophy in contemporary sense. Similarly, the contemporary character of Marx's view of philosophy also reflects in his consistent thoughts of a series of meta-philosophical issues. And these consistent thoughts constitute the basic principles in his view of philosophy:firstly, the foundation of philosophy is social and historical reality; secondly, the theme of philosophy is human emancipation and comprehensive development; thirdly, the function of philosophy is to guide the practice of social reform; fourthly, the image of philosopher is participant and meditator of the reform movement in reality. It's undeniable that many contemporary western philosophers also had transcended the traditional view of philosophy in some aspects. For example, they advocated to limit the function and scope of philosophy, to change the dualistic way of thinking in philosophy, and to eliminate the dogmatism of reason in philosophy, they even made the demand of "the end of philosophy". Therefore, only by comparison with their view of philosophy, can we better grasp the essential characteristics of Marx's view of philosophy:firstly, fundamentally abandon the independent appearance of philosophy, secondly, combine the reconstruction of philosophy and the reconstruction of real world.This dissertation also try to prove that Marx's view of philosophy is closely connected with his philosophical creative activities. In terms of the general "view of philosophy" and "philosophy", there is a mutually conditional winding relationship between the two, and this relationship is also true for Marx:on the one hand, every leap in the development course of Marx's philosophy is marked by the renewals in his view of philosophy; on the other hand, every renewal in Marx's view of philosophy depends on the continuous deepening of his philosophical thought. Critique of religion and politics, alienated labor theory and historical materialism have proved the common development in the interaction of Marx's view of philosophy and his philosophy. As for the viewpoint which denies Marx has realized his view of philosophy, it is because they didn't properly understand the philosophy's opening to the concrete empirical reality. Consequently, based on the theoretical perspective of view of philosophy, Marx's philosophical revolution gets a new way of understanding: firstly, replace the ontological reductionism by historical generativism, break the predeterminate image of man and nature; secondly, replace the closed discourse system by open theoretical horizon, listen to the voice of practice; thirdly, replace the kingdom of speculative reason by people's life-world, explore the real possibility of human emancipation; fourthly, replace the rational critique in thought by social practice in reality, move towards the "practical philosophy"Marx's view of philosophy not only directly affects his own philosophical creative activities, but also inspires and guides the reflections of philosophy itself by Marxists in different times and different nations, thereby opens the Marxist view of philosophy:Compared with Marx, Engels emphasized more on the sense of worldview of philosophy, therefore, he established the thought of promoting philosophy's realization through a combination of philosophy and natural science, to a greater extent retained the direct relation of "philosophy" and universal law; Marxists at the end of19th century and early20th century preferred to regard philosophy as historical dialectics, for example, Luxemburg and Lenin respectively investigated the characteristics dialectics should have; Western Marxists highlighted the sense of ideological critique of philosophy, advocated to take philosophy as a weapon to attack the capitalist system, they believed that philosophy is a part of social reality, the revolutionary tasks and social functions of philosophy are no less than the transformations in the field of economics and politics; Chinese Marxists'view of philosophy has undergone a shift from emphasizing the epistemological sense of philosophy to restoring the ontological sense of philosophy. Furthermore, Marx's view of philosophy also serves as a general theoretical principle, regulates the development of Marxist philosophy:firstly, to overcome dogmatism, open to the problems of each time; secondly, to break the West-centered theory, open to the concrete realities of each country; thirdly, to eliminate the "no-self" state, open to the personal life of philosophers. Especially for the contemporary Marxist philosophical research in China, Marx's view of philosophy has more important significance. It shows us that as long as we combine the technicality and actuality, strengthen the ties with other humanities and social sciences, explore the development way of China, and participate in ideological struggles, the contemporary Marxist philosophical research in china will be able to get out from the predicament of non-reality, create the theoretical achievements worthy of the spirit of the time.