A Study Of Marx’s Intuitive Thoughts

Throughout Marx’s ideological development process,we can find that intuitive thinking has always played an important role in it and is closely related to practical thinking.It is an eclectic,consistent and ever-evolving thought.Since the emergence of German classical philosophy from the end of the 18 th century to the beginning of the 19 th century,from Kant,through Fichte,Schelling,and then Hegel and Feuerbach,“intuition” has always been an important concept of German classical philosophers.The main theoretical source of Marx’s intuitive thought is the intuitive thought of German classical philosophers,especially Feuerbach’s intuitive thought,to which Marx launched a critical inheritance and transcendence.While criticizing Feuerbach’s intuitive materialism,Marx absorbed the dialectics in Hegel’s philosophy,thus creating practical materialism and historical materialism with distinct dialectics.The term “intuition” can be found in Marx’s early poems and doctoral dissertations.However,the more detailed discussion of “intuition” is mainly found in Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844,The Holy Family,Theses on Feuerbach,The German Ideology,The Communist Manifesto,Preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy,Das Kapital and other works.We can divide these works into three stages according to their background and ideological content:(1)Intuitive thoughts before the formation of Marx’s new world outlook;(2)Intuitive thoughts after the formation of Marx’s practical and historical materialism;(3)Intuitive thinking in political economy in later years.A comprehensive and systematic study of the intuitive thoughts in these three stages can grasp the context and clues of the evolution of Marx’s intuitive thoughts,and grasp its overall appearance.Before the formation of the new world outlook of practical materialism,the intuitive thoughts expressed by Marx in the two works of Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 and The Holy Family mainly reflected the profound influence of Feuerbach’s intuitive materialism on him: Based on the perceptual intuition emphasized by Feuerbach,Marx criticized Hegel’s speculative philosophy and the idealist philosophy of the young Hegelian school.Although Marx’s thought actually went beyond Feuerbach during this period,he always gave high affirmation to Feuerbach’s intuitive materialism.With the formation of practical materialism and historical materialism,the intuitive ideas expressed in the two works Theses on Feuerbach and The German Ideology are mainly expressed in Feuerbach’s intuitive materialism.And the criticism and transcendence of old materialism.In Theses on Feuerbach,which Engels called “the germ of genius containing a new world outlook”,Marx clearly opposed Feuerbach’s intuitive materialism,which reduced sensibility to perceptual intuition,and proposed that sensibility should be reduced to Practical practical materialism not only advocates understanding the entire existing perceptual world based on perceptual activities(practice),but also emphasizes the revolutionary transformation of the existing world,thus proclaiming a new world outlook of practical materialism.In The German Ideology co-authored with Engels,Marx criticized Feuerbach’s perceptual intuition thought at three levels: “ordinary intuition”,“dual intuition” and“advanced philosophical intuition”.He clearly put forward his practical materialism to observe the new vision of the real world and the revolutionary requirements of changing the existing world.At the same time,Marx also expressed the way of thinking of empirical observation of social history,thus creating historical materialism.Empirical observation,as an important link in the study of history in historical materialism,is different from the way in which speculative philosophy studies history.In the understanding of human nature,Hegel chose to start from the spirit,Feuerbach surpassed Hegel and tried to start from the sensibility,while Marx started from the real person.He did not give up,but insisted on Real people and their historical activities are “intuitive”.Especially in the Communist Manifesto,Marx and Engels formally disclosed to the world their“intuitive way”,that is,the way of historical materialism to observe history,and put forward the revolutionary demands of the communist movement.In the Preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy in his later years,it can still be seen that Marx retained a perceptual and intuitive link in the method of political economy he described,which contrasted with abstract thinking.This method of rising from perceptual intuition to abstract thinking,and from abstract thinking to“concrete thinking”,has been fully used in Das Kapital,reflecting the thinking based on rich intuition and rising from abstract thinking to thinking Concrete,the principle of reproducing concrete objects in thought.The development process of Marx’s intuitive thought is clear: starting from the critique of Hegel’s speculative philosophy on the basis of Feuerbach’s perceptual intuition,and developing by criticizing the rational elements that surpass Feuerbach and Hegel and accept their thought,ending with a return to criticism of Hegel’s abstract thinking in his later years.Therefore,the intuitive philosophical method has always been used by Marx,which is a coherent link of his thought,and shows the nature of compatibility with his thought.Although Marx’s intuitive thought has different characteristics and functions in different periods of his thought,no matter in which period,his intuitive thought has important theoretical significance in terms of world outlook,epistemology,methodology and so on.