Marx's Theory On Human Essence And Its Role In The Historical Materialism

The seeking after human essence is a durable topic in the history of philosophy. The realistic practice and social relationship of human was the springboard to Marx and he elucidated the human essence scientifically. His knowledge about human essence was based on historical materialism and eventually a characteristic and scientific theory on human essence was constructed by him. Basing on the classic works of Marxism and the fruitful harvest of research in the academic circle, this paper tries to formulate the Marx's theory on human essence and its role in the historical materialism. This paper is made up of three main parts:The first part clarifies two prepositive problems which should be solved before the discussing of this thesis: One clarifies the criticism, possibility and the meaning of seeking after the human essence; another clarifies the consistency and inherent relationship between the view on human nature and social history.The second part is about the source and the scientific meaning of Marx's theory on human essence. Firstly, the part researches into the source of Marx's theory, the methodology and the defects of the past philosophies; secondly, the part has a discussion around the three classic judgments on human essence of Marx and elucidates the methodology essence of human essence category and the dialectical characteristics of Marx's theory.The third part of this paper discusses the role of Marx's theory in the historical materialism. Human and history are dialectical and unitive, so the article thinks that the theory on human essence and the historical materialism of Marx also are dialectical and unitive. They are the two aspects of a same course, and affect, penetrate and advance each other. For that reason, the role of the former in the latter embodies two aspects: the one aspect, with the course of seeking after human essence, Marx regarded labor as human essence and thought of history as labor history, and it provided crucial foundation and clue for the founding of historical materialism; the another aspect, after the founding of historical materialism, the knowledge about human essence of Marx was primarily guided by his historical materialism; then the knowledge about human essence had farther development and was set up on the foundation of historical materialism with becoming a part of historical materialism. In order to understand the role rightly, we should research into the problem from the two aspects and understand the aspects dialectically, not absolutely and unilaterally.