On Marx's Concept Of Sensibility

“Sensibility” is not only a basic concept of Marxist philosophy,but also a key concept of Marxist philosophical revolution.As a fundamental issue related to ontology,epistemology and methodology,“sensibility” is also a practical issue involved in an individual's sensible life.Marx regarded “ sensibility ” as a prerequisite of his philosophy studies and an important issue concerning free and all-around development of humans.Because of all kinds of reasons,however,this concept has been less investigated,or the significance of this concept has been denied,or this concept has been misunderstood in different ways.Generally,research limitations of this concept are mainly reflected in the following three aspects:(1)Marx's concept of sensibility is examined from the epistemological perspective only,thus concealing the ontological and methodological implications of this concept;(2)Marx's concept of sensibility is analyzed from the objective or intuitive perspective only,and described as an objective and phenomenon factor,which erases the fundamental implications of this concept to understanding and grasp of humans 'existence and survival;(3)Marx's concept of sensibility is studied from the philosophical perspective only,which artificially separates Marxist philosophy from Marx's critique of political economics.Meanwhile,based on examination of this concept,the philosophical basis of Marx's critique of political economics is revealed.Marx's discussion on sensibility issues is not groundless but has its prerequisite of ideological history.Marx's understanding of “sensibility” is not based on his subjective imagination but based on other philosophers ' understanding of this concept.From the ancient Greek natural philosophical traditions' exploration of the origin of the sensible world to the ancient Greek metaphysical traditions' contempt on sensibility and emphasis on reason and to the Epicurus philosophy's emphasis on sensible and individual self-awareness,the ancient Greek philosophy witnessed the concept of sensibility from being recognized to being disdained and to being recognized again.Driven by the epistemological transformation of modern philosophy,discussion on the concept of sensibility revolved round its epistemological meaning.From Gassendi's materialistic sensationism,which revives the philosophy of Epicurus,Marx observed the importance of Epicurus sensationism.From Locke's passively intuitive sensationism,which distinguishes primary attribute of things that can arouse humans' sensible feelings from their secondary attribute,Marx became aware ofcertain correlation between humans' sense organs and the external things that can arouse humans' sensible feelings.From Hume's treatise of human nature,which points out the initiative of emotion or passion in sensibility,Marx realize the initiative of sensibility.From Vico's sensible philosophy of history,which emphases on the creativity of sensibility and the truth of history,Marx noticed the importance of humans' sensible and creative activities to humans' history of sensibility.According to German classical philosophy,both Kant's transcendental aesthetic and Hegelianism's emphasis on sense certainty involve discussion on subjectivity construction and initiative of sensibility.However,German classical philosophy regards sensibility more as a kind of reason(or understanding)or a rationalized and abstract sensibility.Therefore,German classical philosophers' explanation of sensibility initiative is confined to reason and abstraction,which does not cast light on the “practical and sensible activity itself”.As the first philosopher getting rid of German classical philosophy,Feuerbach deeply influenced Marx with his philosophy of sensibility.Thus,Feuerbach's understanding of sensibility also constitutes an important prerequisite of Marx's concept of sensibility.Marx's deep understanding of the concept of sensibility was not accomplished in an action but an outcome of Marx's long-term philosophical exploration.In Marx's Doctoral Dissertation,Marx pointed out the ontological significance of sensible perception by studying Epicurus' s attitude towards the sensible world,examined the issue of individuality and freedom of sensible humans by expounding on the principle of deflection in Epicurus philosophy,elucidated the possibility of sensible human activities by revealing the ontological significance of Epicurus' s accidental scope,reflected on historical and generative attributes of sensible humans based on Epicurus' s discussion on the essential correlation between sensibility and time,puts forward the proposition of“world's philosophical orientation”and“universalization of philosophy” by analyzing inner contradiction of self-awareness,and also holds that philosophy,in order to realize self-actualization,must be transformed into a practical force to get involved in reality.During the period of Rhein-Zeitung and Yearbook of Germany and France,Marx gradually observed that philosophy's focus on sensible facts aims at not to explain the world but to change the world,and that the key to solving the myth of social reality lies in the field of sensible materials rather than in the abstract speculative reason.In Manuscript of Economics and Philosophy in1844,Marx put forward the concept of“object-oriented activity”by critically takingin Feuerbach's philosophy of sensibility and Hegel's philosophy of speculative reason.Based on the concept of “ object-oriented activity ”,Marx transformed Hegel's speculative dialectics to bring forth the sensible dialectics which is opposite to speculative dialectics;revealed the internal connection between alienated labor and private property as well as the specific manifestations of sensible alienation through a philosophical review of national economics and proposed the path of sensibility which advocates sublation of the alienated path of sensibility,namely the communist movement in the real world;and expounded on the essential connotation of communism in the real sense through a critical study of crude communism and political communism,making it clear that the communist movement in the real world represents humans' appeal to a sensible life.In The Holy Family,Marx not only critically discussed Hegel speculative philosophy's understanding “ human ”,epistemology and conception of history,but also criticized Feuerbach's abstract understanding of “ human ”;meanwhile,through investigation of the sensible economic facts,Marx expounded on the economic connotation of the sensible object-oriented activity.In the establishment period of historical materialism,Marx criticized his previous philosophical belief more deeply,provided a profound explanation for the concept of sensibility,and integrated his philosophical achievements based on his profound understanding of sensibility into his critique of political economics to realize a great reform in the history of philosophy.In An Outline of Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach,Marx criticized Feuerbach's philosophy in an outline,and clearly put forward the idea of understanding sensibility from the subjective perspective.Marx also pointed out the necessity of comprehending sensibility as “sensible human activity” or practice.By illustrating the reality directivity of “sensible activity(namely practice)” to criticize the real society and transform the sensible world,Marx held that the fundamental goal of his new philosophy is not to explain the world but to change the world.In The Deutsche Ideology,Marx proceeds from the perspective of sensible activity and human existence,sensible activity and nature,sensible activity and history,sensible activity and freedom to comprehensively explicate the concept of sensible activity.In addition,revolving around humans' sensible activity,Marx made use of a purely sensible experiential method to reveal the internal law of historical movement,and clarified the decisive role of economic factors in society and history.Proudhon's political economics,though also apparently recognizing the decisive roleof economic factors in social life,is in essence an ideational theory of economics.Based on a deep understanding of sensibility and the philosophical achievement of sensible activity,Marx conducted a systematic critique of the metaphysical view Proudhon's political economics in Letter from Marx to Pavel Vasilyevich Annenkov and The Poverty of Philosophy,and realized the initial connection between historical materialism and critique of political economics.By underlining the sensibility foundation of the historical movement and the sensible economic reality,as well as a complete liquidation and critique of the metaphysical view of Proudhon's political economics,Marx,on the one hand,transformed the political economics philosophically to differ it from the previous classical political economics.On the other hand,he used political economics to transform philosophy to differ philosophy from the so-called “ independent philosophy”.Based on a profound understanding of sensibility,Marx studied political economics using a philosophical approach or a historical materialistic approach to turn his research of political economics into a critical research(critique of political economics or economic critique of historical materialism)rather than a pure empirical study.In Economic Manuscript of 1857-1858 and Capital,Marx introduced the methodology of his critique of political economics through investigation into the relationship between sensibility and abstraction as well as into the historical significance and abundance of sensible activity.The critique of sensibility critique is in essence internally connected with Marx's critique of political economics.The method from abstract category to concrete sensibility is a scientific method to study political economics.The principle of unity between theoretical logic and sensible history is a narrative principle for the research into political economics.By distinguishing labor duality(specific sensible labor and abstract labor),Marx pointed out that commodity,a labor outcome,also has its duality.Not only does commodity possess the use value,which is generated by the materialization and objectification of the specific sensible labor,and which can satisfy humans' need of specific attributes,but commodity also has the value as a “crystallization of nondiscriminatory human labor ” generated by materialization and objectification of abstract labor.By examining the duality of commodity,Marx pointed out that the value of commodity cannot be reflected in the commodity itself(an entity with value),which can only be reflected in the other entity with value(currency,a commodity for equivalent exchange).Consequently,currency becomes an sensible object-oriented form ofabstract value,and constitutes the philosophical basis for Marx's theory of value form.Marx also studied the capital logic and the commodity exchange logic,thus revealing the essence of the equal exchange between capital and labor(force)as a kind of exploitation,and further pointing out the production logic of surplus value in the capitalist society.With the concept of sensible activity,labor and materialization at the core,Marx further put forward the concept of “living labor” and “materialized labor”.By analyzing the abstract self-proliferation of capitals,Marx unmasked the right of capitals to occupy and dominate labor,and criticized the fully materialized social relationship of the capital world.In light of the above exhaustive summary and analysis of Marx's concept of sensibility in his youth and during the establishment period of historical materialism,and Marx's critique of economics from the perspective of sensibility and historical materialism,it can be found that Marx's understanding of the concept of sensibility constitutes a gradually deepening process.On that basis,this paper attempts to not only explore the critique dimensions behind Marx's concept of sensibility from the negative perspective,but also expound on new traditions of Marxist philosophy reflected by Marx's concept of sensibility from the affirmative perspective.To be specific,the critical dimensions behind Marx's concept of sensibility from the negative perspective are mainly reflected in the following two aspects: 1)Proceeding from the practical and sensible world and the practical and sensible human activity,Marx regarded sensibility as his research object,and conducted a metaphysical critique of reason;2)Through analysis of the internal mechanism and in-depth law behind operation of capitalist economy,Marx discovered that the subjectivity of reason in capitalist economy is replaced by enslavement,and thus criticized fetishism of capitalist economy(commodity fetishism,currency fetishism and capital fetishism).From the affirmative perspective,the new traditions of Marxist philosophy reflected by Marx's concept of sensibility chiefly include: 1)Based on the sensible activity,Marx reformed philosophical ideas by criticizing traditional(rational)philosophical ideas,and his philosophy of sensibility provided a brand-new philosophical path;2)By criticizing the scientificity of critique of Hegel's speculative and rational metaphysics,previous research objects of natural sciences and political economics,Marx concluded that the science of history is a “practical science”,a science about the scientific unity between natural science and humans,and a science about the essence of humans;3)As a representation of the spreading process of the substantivecontent,the sensible historical significance and denial of critique of sensibility dialectics provide Marx with the theoretical tools to combine philosophical critique with critique of political economics.Not only do they lay the practical historical basis for Marxist philosophical critique by examining the internal mechanism and in-depth law of the capitalist society,but they also provide a solid philosophical basis for Marx's critique of political economics and endow Marx's critique of political economics with a profound philosophical connotation based on philosophical achievements obtained through Marx's previous philosophical critique.Marx's discussion on sensibility,in addition to directly influencing his own philosophical exploration and creation,also exerted a far-reaching influence on Marxist theorists and researchers' understanding of sensibility.This paper attempts to expound on the contemporary significance of Marx's concept of sensibility.Engels' s exploration of the epistemological,methodological and historical meaning of the concept of sensibility not only inherited,enriched and developed Marx's ideas on sensibility,but also influenced Marxist scholars and researchers' comprehension of sensibility issues.By interpreting Marx's concept of sensibility and philosophy based on the concept of sensible perception,physical sensibility and sensible ontology,Maurice Merleau-Ponty combined existentialist philosophy and Marxist philosophy to inherit and develop the tradition of existentialist and Marxist philosophy,thus enabling the philosophical tradition to discuss the cultural existence,free existence and historical existence of humans,and also reconstructing the human science research paradigm of Marxist philosophy.Via inheritance of the rational critique tradition of Marxist philosophy,Herbert Marcuse conducted a rational critique of technology in the modern industrialized capitalist society,and expounded on the comprehensive restriction of reason on sensibility.By inheriting and developing Marx's concept of sensibility,Marcuse discussed sensibility emancipation and reform of humans to come up with the concept of “new sensibility'.Additionally,Marcuse conducted the rational and cultural critique of the modern industrialized capitalist society,and expounded on humans' sensibility emancipation to sublate the critical tradition of Marxist philosophy.By expounding on Marxist concept of practice from the perspective of sensibility existentialism and criticizing the sensible world for daily life from the perspective of sensibility alienation,Kosik elucidated a cultural phenomenology of Marxist philosophy.The Marxist philosophical tradition of this phenomenology not only proceeds from humans' sensible and practical activities anduses the phenomenological methods to discuss existence and survival of sensible humans,but also deemed emancipation and reform of sensible humans as a concrete whole for a multi-dimensional critique of the sensible world for daily living.Marxist aesthetics on practice,which proceed from exposition on Marx's concept of sensibility and investigation into ontological(or existential)significance of humans' sensible activity(or practice),argues that Marxist aesthetics is fundamentally aesthetics on practice or,to be exact,“practical,critical and existential aesthetics”.To study Marx's concept of sensibility can not only help facilitate transformation and update of Marxist philosophical research paradigm in China,but also promote reflection on sensible and practical problems of contemporary China and boost the confidence in sticking to the development path with Chinese characteristics.