Exploring The Duality Of The Young Marx’s Legal Philosophy

This paper focuses on exploring the duality of the young Marx’s legal philosophy fromDoctoral Thesis to Rheinische Zeitung period, combining with the duality that as the basiccharacteristics of Western Philosophy and Western Legal Philosophy, and then prompts theimportant methodological significance of the duality form of logical thinking and thedifference from Dualism.The young Marx’s philosophy and legal philosophy presupposed "duality", this dependedon the basic characteristics of Western Legal Philosophy and the duality-world of WesternPhilosophy. In (his) Doctoral Thesis, Marx regarded the philosophy as the wills to distinguishwith the phenomenal world. It concluded the dichotomy of essence and phenomenon,objectives and subjectives. He revealed the philosophical views of Epicurus by using thedichotomy and idealist dialectics. During the Rheinische Zeitung period, Marx wrote hisfirst political comment Assessment Prussia Censorship, in which he used the "Jus"(Freedomof the Press Law) profoundly criticized the "Order"(Censorship),and it indicated thecharacteristics of the "ought to be" and "to be" dichotomy. He criticized the hypocrisy of thePrussian state by argumenting the contradiction between the material interests and RationalityJus(ought to be) in Debate on the Act of Forest Theft. The duality of "Jus" and "Law" in thisperiod was clearly revealed in young Marx’s legal philosophy which was not only with astrong color of Hegel, but also affected by the dualism of the Kantian philosophy. As amethod of interpret-understanding and logical application,"the duality" played a vital role inMarx’s legal philosophy--giving him the infinite power to speculate and to criticize. So far, itis necessary to distinguish duality from Dualism to avoid sliding in any version of Dualism,especially traditional Dualism. What is more important, we should not ignore the significanceof the duality because of fear of Dualism or holding an overall negative attitude to Duailsm.The real philosophy what Marx recognized is the philosophy that regarded as a method, so theduality, as a logical method, is the basic of the young Marx’s thought. Therefore, exploringthe duality of the young Marx’s legal philosophy, gives us a wider-angle of vision that helpsus to have a comprehensive understanding of Marx’s legal philosophy.The structure of this paper is generally divided into three parts. The first part mainlyintroduces the basic clue of the duality-world of Western Legal Philosophy, providing ahistorical background for exploring the duality of the young Marx’s legal philosophy; the second part focuses on exploring the duality of the young Marx’s legal philosophy fromDoctoral Thesis to Rheinische Zeitung; the third part emphasizes the importance of theduality and distinction between the duality and dualism.