The Logical Process Of 'History Without A Subject'

Since Marx passed away, the academic circle has unceasingly been flooded with all forms of interpretations on Marx's texts. Louis Althusser's interpretation on Marx is greatly different from others. This is not only because he criticized the trend of humanist thought of Western Marxist philosophy profoundly, and then put forward theory of"Marx's theoretical anti-humanism"; what's more, he further made the category of"History without a Subject"as logical conclusion to the interpretation on Marx. From then on, the traditional interpretation of humanist Marxism regarded as the myth of the only legitimate interpretation has been destroyed, and has given way to Althusser's unique interpretation.Marx devotes his whole life to the study on historical materialism, and historical dialectics appears especially important in Marx's sight of history. Marx's historical dialectics scientifically explains dialectical nature of the developing, historical and social practice. It can be understood from two perspectives: namely the subject perspective and the object perspective of historical dialectics. The attention on the direction and the possibility of historical activities and its development constitutes the subject perspective, and the development of the object which explores and proves the objective laws of social development constitutes the object perspective. These two perspectives are unified in Marx's view, but at different historical periods Marx attaches different importance to them. This was directly reflected on the evolution of contemporary Western Marxist philosophy, and around the issue of historical dialectics there are two completely opposed views: one is the humanist Marxism from young Lukacs to Sartre, the other is scientific Marxism from Althusser to Analytic Marxism. In this theoretical discussion, Althusser's theory is particularly noteworthy, he not only proves that Marx is "theoretical anti-humanism" in an unique way, and makes a logical conclusion of"History without a Subject"; but also puts forward positive theory , which has never been found before on a more professional level compared with humanist Marxist's interpretation on Marx. Therefore, Althusser quickly made great influence on the French New Left and replaced all schools, and completely shaped a younger generation of Marxist.Of course, this is not an article of personal introduction about Althusser's thought; but only expounds Althusser's unique interpretation on Marx's historical dialectics. In so doing, we need to make a detailed presentation on Althusser's background of the times, the effects of multiple theories he accepted and his category of"History without a Subject", but all the work is for better and more comprehensive exposition of Althusser's interpretation on Marx's historical dialectics, namely the logical process of"History without a Subject"as its conclusion. The study on how the logical process of "History without a Subject" forms and how he understands Marx's historical dialectics during the forming process of"History without a Subject, contributes to deeply grasping the true implication of Marx's historical dialectics, and then connects the category of"History without a Subject" with Marx's historical dialectics together, finally gives it a proper position. Reviewing Althusser's unique interpretation on Marx, not only helps to improve the domestic level of study on Marxist philosophy, but also provides resources and power for exploring China's new form of Marxist philosophy. This is the motive of study on Althusser in this paper.