A Study Of Marx And Engels’ Idea Of The "Realistic Individual"

The question of man,known as the "mystery of the Sphinx",has always been an important topic of study for philosophers both ancient and modern.Marx and Engels also always attached importance to the study of "man",and the relevant research was carried out in all their thoughts.Unlike the old philosophical studies of abstract human beings,Marx and Engels’ understanding of human beings is mainly based on the"realistic individual",and in The German Ideology,they elaborate the idea of "realistic individual" in detail and profoundly.The appearance of Marx and Engels’ idea of the"realistic individual" cannot be separated from his objective historical context,rich theoretical resources and subjective theoretical preparation.The development of capitalism and its real life is its objective historical context,and the relevant thoughts of Hegel,Feuerbach,Steiner and others provide rich ideological resources for it.Starting from the real life of capitalism,Marx and Engels found that with the rapid development of capitalism,the contradiction between the working class and the bourgeoisie has been deepening,and the inherent contradiction of capitalism has been exposed,and the real life of man has always been in a difficult situation.Based on this historical context,Marx and Engels,in The German Ideology,introduced the category of the "real individual" by criticizing the anthropological views of Feuerbach,Steiner,Powell and others.The so-called "real individual" is a person who exists in reality,a person in social history,and a person engaged in material production activities.This category reflects the unity of naturalness and sociality,the unity of materiality and spirituality,the unity of history and reality.The appearance of Marx and Engels’ idea of the"realistic individual" realized a revolutionary critique of traditional anthropological thought,while building the basic framework of Marxist anthropological thought and clarifying the basic position and goal of Marxist anthropological thought.It is the basic academic character of Marxist theorists to constantly promote theoretical innovation.In his subsequent works,although Marx and Engels no longer explicitly discussed the"realistic individual," they still continued their theoretical exploration of the "realistic individual" through other discourses.In the Communist Manifesto,for example,they discussed the issue of the free and comprehensive development of human beings;in Capital,for example,they fundamentally examined the development of the "realistic individual" in capitalist society and conducted a comprehensive and systematic study of the exploitation of human beings and social injustice.These subsequent studies deepened the idea of the "realistic individual".Marx and Engels’ idea of "the realistic individual" is rich in theoretical significance and practical value.As the starting point of historical materialism,the idea of the "real individual" found a theoretical breakthrough for Marx and Engels to criticize capitalism and explore the laws of human historical development.For China’s social construction,this idea guides us to think deeply about the problem of human and social development,and provides an ideological guide for the continuous promotion of socialist modernization and human modernization under the new situation.