Dialectics And Life

Dialectics is the living soul of Marxism.Criticism is the fundamental characteristic and way of existence of dialectics.Dialectics does not exist without criticism.However,our understanding of dialectics has remained in the logical framework of traditional metaphysics for a long time,which leads to the loss of inherent critical nature in dialectics at philosophy level and forms a set of formalized external rules system.This not only makes dialectics face the fierce criticism of modern western philosophy,but also makes the research of dialectics in our country fall into silence.The reputation and existence legitimacy of dialectics have been seriously questioned.Therefore,it is necessary to clear the formalized understanding of dialectics,make clear the real connotation of dialectics,and highlight the real noumenon of dialectics in order to restore its nature and establish the legal status of dialectics.It has great theoretical and practical significance for understanding dialectics and Marxist theory correctly.The formalization of dialectics harms dialectics itself and philosophy of Marx.The root cause is that it does not get rid of the intellectual way of thinking.Intellectual thinking is established on dualism on the base of separation of subject and object,which has many characteristics,such as formality,abstraction,and externality.It is a limited way to know things.Once it goes beyond the reasonable scope of use and becomes the dominant way of thinking and living without criticism and reflection,it will become the autocratic power of manipulation and control,leading to the one-sided and abstract life of people.Intellectual thinking is based on formal logic which is an instrumental discipline to study the law of thinking out of content of things.Therefore,formalized dialectics will inevitably lead to the empty field of humanism.On the contrary to formal logic,dialectics is the logic of ideological content.It not only admits contradiction,but also believes that the real meaning of life can be revealed only in the unity and opposites of contradiction.The contradictory theory of self-denial is the basis of the inner impulse and initiative of all lives.The life existence of human paradox is the real noumenon of dialectics and the source of its critical nature.Dialectics hits the self-contradiction nature of human life.It is the logical expression of the dialectical nature of life;and the consciousness of human existence and living condition.Dialectics transcends intellectual thinking and it is the connotative logic of life.The real noumenon of Hegel's dialectics and Marx's dialectics is life.What is the difference in their understanding of life? How did Marx surpass Hegel's dialectics? The study of these questions has great significance for breaking the formalization of Marx's dialectics.Hegel held the opinion that history is the speculative logic system of absolute spiritual self-denial and self-development;speculative logic is the dialectical unity of analysis and synthesis in terms of content;the principle of contradiction is the important principle of speculative logic and power source of movement and life.Hegel regarded the logical movement of absolute spirit as life itself,which reveals the process of spiritual reason for self-denial,self-transcending,and self-awakening,and realizes the organic unity of dialectics,logic and ontology.Spirit(thought process)constitutes the real noumenon of his dialectics.Marx criticized Hegel's dialectics: the essence of Hegel's philosophy is the production history of abstract speculative thinking;it is the self-movement of the impersonal idea and the abstract and speculative expression of the historical movement.By summarizing human into spirit,it is the pure consciousness expression and abstract expression of life,which lacks of perceptual reality,the elimination of life existence reality.Marx established a new principle of philosophy: the principle of “perceptual activity”,which replaced Hegel's “thought process” with “production process”;broke through the inherent of philosophy of consciousness,and founded historical materialism.Marx believed that people are realistic people,i.e.people who engage in production activities;production is the direct and realistic life existence of people;and the state of production is the most basic living state of people.Therefore,history is the production history of people,i.e.the dialectical movement process of production.The secret of human is not in Hegel's sprit but in production activities.The production activity is the real noumenon and foundation of dialectics,while the dialectical movement of production labor is the real content of dialectics.The statement of production dialectics found scientific method for understanding realistic life thoroughly,changing people's survival state and seeking the liberation of people;realized the fundamental transformation of philosophy task from explaining the world to change the world;surpassed the abstract understanding of people's life by historical idealism and old materialism;and provided a theoretical premise for criticizing capitalist production.Therefore,Marx replaced Hegel's “thought process” with “production process”,which fundamentally changed the understanding of life noumenon by dialectics.It is the key point for Marx to surpass Hegel's dialectics.The dialectics of production process made Marx discover the biggest reality of the capitalist society: alienated labor.Marx revealed the four characteristics of alienated labor,and pointed out that the essence of alienated labor is the alienation of human life;capitalist private ownership is the root cause of alienated labor;the capitalist production has reached the climax of violating human nature.Thus,philosophy must come down from the heaven to the world,criticize alienation,change the unreasonable production relations in the capitalist society,eliminate alienated labor,make people out of the real life suffering,and realize human liberation.This is the communist thought,which is the internal demand and inevitable result of the dialectical movement of production itself.The liberation of production is also the liberation of people.Communism is the movement process of abolishing capitalist private ownership,and the liberation process of eliminating inhumanity of production and realizing human individuality.As a kind of regulatory concept,it is the ultimate concern for the meaning and value of human life,and the infinite pursuit of freedom.Communism is the comprehensive and free development of human.Human is species-being.The development of species can only be realized through the creation of the individual,and the individual can only be developed through his contribution to the species.According to the view of Marx,history is the development history of each individual;without the full play of individual life potential,there is no human development.Therefore,the value and meaning of exploring and establishing individual life is the real content of dialectics.Hegel held the opinion that individual life is an abstract spiritual movement,which shall be elevated from the free abstract individual rationality to the concrete universal rationality and make the individual sublime in spiritual education.Marx thought that the individual is the existence of society;and the individual and society are the dialectical unity.Communism is the “community of free individuals” which is composed by individuals with comprehensive development.The establishment and comprehensive development of characteristic,independent and free individual are the content and goal of historical dialectics.The dialectics of production process is an experiential philosophy rooted in the whole existence of life.It realizes the true unity of subject and object,affirms that life is the dialectical unity existence of body and spirit.Only when people comprehensive possess their own essence,they are able to achieve liberation of themselves.Both utilitarianism and idealism will break human life into pieces.It is the rational spirit of criticism and reflection for eliminating the ultimacy and absoluteness of everything,making people out of limited existence,improving mental state and experiencing the spirit of freedom;in the meantime,it is also the life attitude of practical reflection for realizing self-criticism and transcendence of thinking mode and life style in production and life,stimulating life motivation and improving life state.In a word,dialectics can highlight the real noumenon only by getting rid of intellectual thinking: human life,and restore its own critical nature.Marx's production dialectics is a theory about freedom,development and liberation of human beings in reality;the practical wisdom of actual performance and concentrative implementation;a theory that can truly answer the fundamental problem of live and work in peace of human being;and the only way of thinking in line with the nature of philosophy and human nature.The study of dialectics shall not focus on the construction of external system,but shall go deep into the internal existence of human life;shall start from the contradiction of relationship among human beings,between human and the world,and improve self-consciousness of human constantly.In this sense,the study of dialectics belongs to the criticism of noumenon level,which is a change of theoretical thinking mode.Where there is life,there will be no end of study on it.