On Marx's Thought Of Human Essence

The self-understanding of human beings has got a long history. What is human essence? Many philosophers and thinkers have explored its answer for a long time in the thought history. Revolving the question of human being's essence, western thinkers have taken great endeavor to explore its answer, from the questioning human essence and forming its thought seed in ancient Greek, to the comprehensive formation in modern times, and to paying much attention to it in values at contemporary age, the whole history of the theory of human essence in the west has recorded the development course of human self-understanding and given different kinds of answers to the question. Although these answers have their own foundations, they are wrong or one-sided to some extent and most of them have dropped into the historical idealism mire. The related thought of Marx based on historical materialism has surmounted all the views on human essence of old philosophy and really formed the scientific understanding towards it.At first, the essay sorts out the whole history of the theory of human being's essence in the west from ontology, epistemology and axiology these three aspects. Then it put the developing course of Marx's thought of human essence in order. Next it also analyses from the three aspects ontology, epistemology and axiology that the theory of Marx has surpassed all the views on human essence of old philosophy and demonstrates the characteristics of Marx's thought of human essence thoroughly. Finally, the essay explains the practical significance of Marx's thought of human essence.