What does the object of historical materialism mean?

The word "thing" in Marx's philosophy refers to the mode of production and is a social fact.

What does "thing" mean in "historical materialism"?

In the 1930s, under the guidance of Professor Lasky, a famous British political scientist, Mr. Wu Enyu, our academic predecessor, completed an important doctoral thesis entitled "The Evolution of Marx's Social and Political Thought and the Reference of Speech in the Period of 1840- 1848". Unlike Lasky's other China disciples, Wu Enyu did not engage in the research and practice of political science like Luo Longji and Wang Zaoshi, but thought deeply about a series of Marxist philosophical issues, especially historical materialism. Wu Enyu pointed out that things in historical materialism are not substantive physical existence, but relational modes of production. As a result, he entered a very profound level of Marxist philosophical thinking, which is the first correct logical entrance that the dogmatic traditional philosophical interpretation framework that was being generated at the same time missed in understanding Marxist philosophy. Here, this paper traces back and discusses these important views of Wu Enyu's predecessors on historical materialism more than 70 years ago, in order to get further reflection and thinking in today's academic circles.

First, the identification of Marx's methodology

Dr. Wu Enyu's thesis was written in 1937- 1939. Judging from his basic thoughts and writing, he may not be directly influenced by the traditional interpretation framework of Stalin's dogmatism in the former Soviet Union, nor is he aware of the new intention of western Marxist philosophy, which has become a unique climate in Europe at that time. He claimed: "I just do pure academic research on Marx's theory." To be fair, this seems to be an English-style general Marxist philosophy. This is a foothold to enter Wu Enyu's theoretical framework. In addition, it should be pointed out that although Wu Enyu's paper was written in the late 1930s, and he clearly marked the documents mainly concerned with Marx 1840- 1848, he did not pay attention to the economic philosophy manuscript published by young Marx 1932, so he missed one. At the same time, I also observed that Wu Enyu hardly quoted the texts written by young Marx before 1845, except Holy Family and Letter to Lugar, and the later texts, except German Ideology and Poverty of Philosophy, used more Marx's economic works in the middle and late period, such as

Through reading the full text, we can see that his exposition of Marxist historical materialism mainly focuses on the first three chapters of the paper. Next, let's look at his overall analysis of Marx's methodology in the first chapter of the paper.

First of all, I noticed that Wu Enyu had deeply realized at that time that the reason why Marx's method surpassed bourgeois ideology was precisely because Marx discovered that "the capitalist mode of production is only a form of the development of human economic life, and it is not a static state: it has its past and future". It is precisely because bourgeois economists such as Smith and Ricardo "ignored the special historical nature of capitalist exchange methods;" The exchange mode of mistaken capitalism is the only exchange mode permanently determined by nature for any society and any state. That's right. Facing the reality of capitalist society, these economists (like all bourgeois thinkers since the Enlightenment) regard the mode of production in capitalist society as a natural (natural) form of human existence and an eternal thing. Back to the original source of Marx's book The Poverty of Philosophy, his original words are: "The way economists use their judgments is very strange. They think there are only two systems: one is man-made and the other is natural. The feudal system is artificial and the bourgeois system is natural. " So "there used to be history, but now there is no history (ainsiil y a eu de l 'histoire, maisil n 'y en a plus). The real social historicity constitutes a unique perspective of Marx's methodology, which is a correct characterization.

However, Wu Enyu believes that Marx's methodology is first of all a research method on social phenomena different from natural science methods. "The main feature of Marx's research method is the historical and economic motivation of all phenomena." Unfortunately, this is obviously an inaccurate understanding. The homogeneity of Marx's method and economic determinism is a misinterpretation of the Second International. Possibly, this is related to the specific historical situation in which European Marxist circles blocked the logic of Soviet Marxism and Western Marxism at the same time in 1930s.

Secondly, according to Wu's explanation, Marx's method is the so-called "history" plus "materialism", or directly speaking, it is the "historical analysis method of economic materialism". In this method, Marx "not only explains concepts with materials, but also studies the emergence of concepts with economic motives". Obviously, this is a complex academic environment, and authenticity is intertwined. What needs to be recognized is that the "history" here is no longer the philosophical historicity of Marx, which is different from the ideology of bourgeois economists mentioned by Wu Enyu, but the significance of general social history, and the logic of "history" plus "materialism" is too external and simple, just like dialectics (Hegel) plus "materialism" (Feuerbach) in the traditional interpretation framework. Of course, from the content point of view, the first structural layer that Wu Enyu thinks here is profound, because it is an important change in the materialism principle in Marxist philosophy that he intuitively perceives, and it is not the matter that determines the concept, but the economic motivation that restricts the generation of the concept. It should be said that Wu Enyu's correct understanding lies in his discovery of Marx's transformation from material determinism of general philosophical materialism to social existence restriction of new world outlook, but in his second intention, he made the mistake of popularizing Marx's narrow historical materialism in the second international. In Marx's view, he did point out that the economic motivation in social life determines the nature of social existence (economic and social form) under certain historical conditions, and then restricts the whole conceptual world of mankind. However, where did the economy come from in the primitive tribal life of human beings with no economic motivation at all? At the same time, Wu Enyu also pointed out that in the overall analysis of social life, Marx attributed all kinds of changes in the upper structure of society to economic motives. From the narrow sense of historical materialism, this is right, but the economic foundation and superstructure in the sense of modern economic and social forms have no place, and this judgment will be wrong. This misunderstanding has something to do with our long-term departure from the specific context of Marx's famous Preface to Critique of Political Economy (1859). Marx only described the special operating law of social structure and its changes in economic and social forms, but people summarized it as the general law of the development of the whole human society. Of course, we can't blame this doyen 70 years ago here, but draw some boundaries when entering his specific historical thinking structure to prevent thinking from crossing the line.

Third, Wu Enyu's interpretation of Marx's methodology is based on his profound understanding of the Outline of Feuerbach. In his view, Marx's understanding of reality is different from all previous old metaphysics, because our understanding of object, sensibility and reality can only be based on material practice as perceptual activities. This is also the text basis of "not determined by the concept of matter" in Marx's new philosophy mentioned earlier. Wu Enyu said: "Marx added the concept of' practice' to practical problems, which has nothing to do with traditional metaphysics. Because the contents of metaphysics are all about some abstract categories, such as mind and things. It has no intention of jumping into practical science. " In this sense, Marx's new philosophy is precisely against all metaphysics. Wu Enyu's judgment here is similar to Heidegger's saying that Marx was the first person to subvert metaphysics. Wu Enyu specifically cited an example that approximates the path of logical positivism: unlike metaphysics, which only focuses on independent objects (mind and matter) such as X, Y and Z, Marx is more concerned with changing the world, that is, making independent X, Y and Z become Xa, Ya and Za through practical application (abbreviated as A, applications). This important structural level is of prerequisite significance for understanding the deeper thinking behind. If "metaphysics has no relevant facts, but an abstract system of pure theory", Marx's method focuses on "analyzing facts, analyzing the essence of things and their relationships". Please note that the essence of things and their relationship in this methodological sense are very important. It is also the key entrance to the core structural layer of historical materialism that Wu Enyu understands in the next step.

Second, what is the thing in historical materialism?

In the second chapter, Wu Enyu clearly pointed out that Marx's real "self-sufficiency theory" is historical materialism. Moreover, historical materialism and materialist dialectics are the same thing. Interestingly, he explicitly opposes regarding Marx's philosophy as "a theory containing nature and human society", especially he can't tolerate the view that dialectics is regarded as a "universal law of motion" about the whole world.

Why? The reasoning basis given by Wu Enyu is somewhat unexpected. He said,

We think that Marx's materialism is a philosopher of human society, because its concept of "things" (that is, the concept of production methods) is basically composed of social components. It uses this component that already exists in society to explain the internal structure and activities of society. It says: "xry"-relational body is the basic driving force of social development. Because "XRY" has always existed in this development process, it is always possible to have a relationship with the social development process (that is, the driving force).

This is the first time that Wu Enyu talked about Marx's historical materialism in this book. What is the thing in Marx's historical materialism? I'm afraid this is a question that all scholars who interpreted Marx's historical materialism at that time did not seriously think about and ask. Even today. Therefore, Wu Enyu's identification in the1930s is extremely important. In Wu Enyu's understanding, things in historical materialism are not real substances, but functional and relational modes of production. As we will see later, this is Wu Enyu's English translation of the concept of Produktionsweise used by Marx. Moreover, he also has a specific explanation, that is, the "XRY" relational body. To tell the truth, it is really difficult for us to get into the concrete ideographic layer of its academic interpretation structure at once. To this end, let's go back to the premise components of the previous related ideological construction. When expounding the practical characteristics of Marxist philosophical construction, Wu Enyu once pointed out that the isolated substantive objects in the three metaphysical contexts of X, Y and Z have been transformed into Xa, Ya and Za with certain application, while the intention of ideological construction we are going to enter here has shifted from the practical intention acting on the objects to the relationship between the objects, that is, the regularity in English. This is the actual relationship (raletion, R) between object X and object Y. In Wu Enyu's view, the historical abstraction of this practical relationship is the mode of production. Therefore, the substance in historical materialism is not a substantive substance, but a functional relationship, that is, XRY, that is, the mode of production.

In this regard, Wu Enyu specifically explained:

The word "thing" in Marx's philosophy refers to the mode of production, which is basically a social fact: it includes many components. Metaphysical materialism can be said: "The ultimate or first reason of the universe, reality or ontology is X ('thing' or' mind')." X is a simple, pure and abstract concept. Marx's materialism can only say: "the driving force or decisive factor of the development of human society is' xryrz' (that is,' mode of production')." This is a relational body in which X, Y and Z have a relation R, not a simple thing.