Althusser’s Interpretation of Dialectical Materialism and Its Implications

In order to break through the determinist interpretation of Marxist philosophy by the Second International, the thinking paradigm of “practical philosophy,” which takes the promotion of subjective activism as its goal, has increasingly come to the fore and occupied a dominant position in Western “Marxology.” However, this pan-Hegelianizing approach to exposition, when confronted with the empirical-scientific domain of Marxism, reveals its inherent defects. Against this background, Althusser’s scientistic or structuralist interpretive model of dialectical materialism has played an important corrective role against this tendency.

为突破第二国际对马克思主义哲学的决定论解读，以弘扬主体能动论为鹄的的“实践哲学”的思维范式，在西方“马克思学”中日益凸显并占据主导地位。然而，这种泛黑格尔化的阐述进路在面对马克思主义的实证科学领域时，则暴露出其固有的缺陷。在此背景下，阿尔都塞对唯物辩证法的科学主义或结构主义的解读模式，对这种倾向起到了重要的纠偏作用。

The “inverted” dialectic

“颠倒”了的辩证法

In Althusser’s view, to establish the theoretical specificity of Marx’s dialectical materialism, a theoretical question that urgently needs to be answered is: what is the basis for distinguishing Marx’s dialectical materialism from Hegel’s dialectic? This question must in turn return to Marx’s claim of “inversion” put forward at the end of the “Afterword” to the second edition of *Capital*. There, Marx on the one hand identifies his own dialectic as different from Hegel’s, and indeed as its direct opposite; on the other hand, he emphasizes that Hegel was the first to present the operating system of the dialectic in a concentrated and complete form, but that in Hegel the dialectic stands on its head, and it must be turned right side up, so as to strip away the mystical shell of speculative philosophy while preserving the valuable kernel of the dialectic. From this it follows that the above question can also be reformulated as: what exactly did Marx “invert” when he inverted Hegel’s dialectic?

在阿尔都塞看来，要确立马克思唯物辩证法的理论特质，一个亟待解答的理论问题便是，把唯物辩证法与黑格尔的辩证法区分开来的依据是什么。这一问题又须回到马克思在《资本论》第2版《跋》文末提出的“颠倒”之说。其中，马克思一方面指认自己的辩证法与黑格尔的辩证法不同，而且与之截然相反；另一方面又强调黑格尔第一次集中且完整地论述了辩证法的运行体系，但辩证法在他那里是倒立着的，必须将它倒转过来，以剥去思辨哲学的神秘外壳而保留辩证法的宝贵内核。由此而言，上述问题也可被转换为：马克思对黑格尔辩证法的“颠倒”，究竟颠倒了什么。

The expression “inversion of Hegel’s philosophy” is not easy to understand. As Althusser says, “the term ‘turning upside down’ has only a symbolic meaning, even a metaphorical one, and cannot provide a final answer to the question.” In fact, whether “turning upside down” can fundamentally touch the structure of Hegel’s dialectic, or whether stripping away its idealist shell miraculously transforms it into Marx’s dialectic, is by no means self-evident. Later, Engels, in *Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy*, made a further clarification using the distinction between system and method, which in substance is not much different from Marx’s above figurative expression. If Marx’s critique of Hegel’s dialectic, and even of his entire philosophy, was a philosophical revolution, then simply separating the “mystical shell” from the “rational kernel,” or replacing Hegel’s world of ideas with Marx’s material world so that it “stands on its feet,” such an easy operation involving only a spatial shift or a change of position could not have been his intention, or else it implies that Marx had more to say.

“对黑格尔哲学的颠倒”这一说法并不易理解，如阿尔都塞所言，“‘倒过来’一词只有象征的意义，甚至只是一种比喻，而不能最后解答问题”。实际上，“倒过来”能否从根本上触动黑格尔辩证法的结构，或者说剥去它的唯心主义的外壳是否就奇迹般地变成了马克思的辩证法，这一点并不是昭然若揭的。后来，恩格斯在《路德维希·费尔巴哈与德国古典哲学的终结》中用体系与方法的区分对此作出进一步的澄清，实质上与马克思的上述形象化的表述并无多大不同。如果马克思对黑格尔的辩证法乃至整个哲学的批判是一场哲学革命，那么简单地将“神秘外壳”和“合理内核”相分离，或者用马克思的物质世界置换黑格尔的观念世界以使之“用脚站地”，如此仅涉及空间调换或位置变动的轻而易举之做法必然不是他的本意，或者暗示着马克思尚有未尽之意。

On this basis, Althusser argues that the “shell” of Hegel’s dialectic is not an external component separable from its “kernel,” but rather an internal component residing within it and inseparable from it. If one strips away its outer shell, one is bound to “damage the bones and sinews” and touch the kernel. Hence, Marx’s inversion of Hegel’s philosophy is a fundamental transformation of the mechanism of his dialectic, starting from an investigation of the nature and basic structure of the dialectic. Thus, in Althusser’s view, we cannot be satisfied with endlessly repeating these vague terms, nor persist in scrutinizing these words and hesitating to move forward. Only by concretely investigating the differences in the basic structure or content of Hegel’s dialectic and Marx’s dialectic can we thoroughly and clearly grasp the specificity of dialectical materialism.

基于此，阿尔都塞认为黑格尔辩证法的“外壳”并非与其“内核”可相分离的外在成分，而是居于其中且与之不可分割的内在成分，如若剥去其外核，则势必“伤筋动骨”而触及内核。因而，马克思对黑格尔哲学的颠倒就是从研究辩证法的性质和基本结构出发，对其辩证法机理的根本改造。于是，在阿尔都塞看来，我们不可满足于无休止地重复这些含糊的术语，以至执着于推敲这些字眼而踟蹰不前。唯有切实地探究黑格尔辩证法与马克思辩证法的基本结构或者内涵上的差异，才能透彻明了地把握唯物辩证法的特殊性。

Subjective activity and objective structure

主体活动与客观结构

Through the above analysis, to distinguish Marx’s dialectic from Hegel’s dialectic, or to clarify the unique features of dialectical materialism, we must first clarify the question: “what is the basic structure of the dialectic?” Only by answering this question can we understand how Marx’s transformation of the dialectic surpassed Hegel. In fact, from the terms Althusser proposes, such as “overdetermination” and “structural causality,” it is not difficult to discern a new interpretive model of dialectical materialism intended to replace Hegel’s dialectic. But to identify Marx’s “inversion” of Hegel’s philosophy as merely a difference in the appearance of the two dialectics, based solely on these dizzying terms, misses the opportunity to examine the true inner logic concealed behind this “difference.”

通过上述分析，要区分马克思辩证法与黑格尔辩证法的不同或明晰唯物辩证法的独特之处，则须首先厘清“什么是辩证法的基本结构”这一问题。唯有解答此疑问，才可明白马克思对辩证法的改造何以超越了黑格尔。实际上，从阿尔都塞提出的“过度决定”“结构因果观”等术语中，不难发现一种旨在替代黑格尔辩证法的对于唯物辩证法的新解读模式。但仅从这些令人应接不暇的术语中，将马克思对黑格尔哲学的“颠倒”指陈为两种辩证法在表象上的不同，则错失了考察这一“不同”背后隐匿着的真正的内在逻辑的机会。

In essence, the relationship between subjective activity and objective structure is Althusser’s determination of the basic structure of the dialectic. This assertion is made for the following two reasons. On the one hand, Althusser’s exploration of this question is in fact a response to the relationship between “the change of circumstances” and “human activity and self-change” that Marx raised in the “Theses on Feuerbach.” This relationship in turn depends on two logics that exist in Marx’s theoretical system, which are in internal tension with each other yet mutually complementary. They are, respectively, the activist logic that emphasizes human objective activity and advocates changing the world, and the determinist logic based on modern science. Thus, Althusser’s determination of the basic structure of the dialectic is a manifestation of this dual logic. On the other hand, from the perspective of the intellectual background of the “structuralist” movement, Althusser’s structuralist interpretation of dialectical materialism was a move with the current. From Lévi-Strauss’s critique of Sartre’s philosophy of subjectivity to Foucault’s pronouncement of the “death of man,” structuralism conveys a basic idea: to replace or even dissolve subjectivity with objective structures or symbolic systems, so that social history presents itself as a “process without a subject” as precise as the natural sciences. Accordingly, the relationship between Marx and Hegel’s philosophy is grasped by Althusser as the relationship between subjective activism and structural determinism.

实质上，主体活动与客观结构之间的关系问题是阿尔都塞对于辩证法基本结构的判定。之所以作此断言，出于以下两方面的考量。一方面，阿尔都塞对这一问题的探索实质也在回应马克思在《关于费尔巴哈的提纲》中所提出的“环境的改变”与“人的活动和自我改变”这一关系问题。其又取决存在于马克思理论体系中的两种彼此存在着内在张力而又相辅相成的逻辑。它们分别强调人的对象性活动，以主张改变世界的能动论逻辑，和基于近代科学的决定论逻辑。如此一来，阿尔都塞对辩证法基本结构的这一判定便是对双重逻辑的显明。另一方面，从“结构主义”运动这一思想背景处着眼，阿尔都塞对唯物辩证法的结构论式的阐释便是顺势而为。从施特劳斯对萨特主体性哲学的反拨，到福柯的“人之死”的宣判，结构主义传递的一个基本理念就是，用客观结构或者符号系统置换乃至消解主体性，以使社会历史呈现为一个如自然科学般精确的“无主体的过程”。据此，马克思与黑格尔哲学的关系就被阿尔都塞把握为主体能动论与结构决定论之间的关系。

Dialectical materialism as a scientific form

作为科学形式的唯物辩证法

Althusser treats dialectical materialism as a form of scientific theory, distinguishing it from previous philosophical interpretations of it. This perspective is basically consistent with the theoretical turn in Marx’s academic career. In *The German Ideology*, Marx began to enter the path of “historical science” by settling accounts with German idealist philosophy, and this path is in the same line as his turn toward the political-economic study and critique of capitalist society. Dialectical materialism is Marx’s abstraction or distillation of the method of constructing his social science. For this reason, in the “Introduction” to the *Grundrisse*, Marx’s distinction between the real subject and the object of thought, and his discussion of the scientifically correct method as “rising from the abstract to the concrete,” point to a dialectic that, as a principle and methodology for constructing the object of science, is diametrically opposed to Hegel’s dialectic, thereby elucidating how to construct a determinist scientific object or scientific world from the non-determinist real world. It can be seen that Althusser’s division of the “abstract” (“Generality I”) and the “concrete” (“Generality III”), as well as “theory” (“Generality II”), in his essay “On the Materialist Dialectic,” further reaffirms Marx’s scientific positioning of dialectical materialism.

阿尔都塞将唯物辩证法作为一种科学理论形式而区别于以往对之作出的哲学阐释。这一视域与马克思学术生涯的理论转向是基本吻合的。在《德意志意识形态》中，马克思通过清算德国观念论哲学开始步入“历史科学”之路，并与其走向对于资本主义社会进行科学研究与批判的政治经济学之路是一脉相承的。唯物辩证法则是马克思对其社会科学建构方法的抽绎或提炼。正因如此，在《政治经济学批判导言》中，马克思对实在主体与思维对象的划分，以及关于科学上的正确方法是“从抽象规定到具体再现”的论述等，则是指证了一种与黑格尔辩证法截然相反的作为建构科学对象的原则及方法论的辩证法，以此阐明如何从非决定论的现实世界构建起决定论的科学对象或科学世界。可见，阿尔都塞在《关于唯物辩证法》一文中对“抽象”（“一般甲”）和“具体”（“一般丙”）以及“理论”（“一般乙”）的划分，亦是进一步重申了马克思对唯物辩证法的科学定位。

In Althusser’s view, only by interpreting Marx’s dialectical materialism in terms of “overdetermination” or “structural causality” can a clear line be drawn with the “expressive causality” represented by Hegel. Further, Marx’s dialectic presents itself as a complex, uneven, structured whole. Hegel’s dialectic, by contrast, appears complex and plural, but it has only a plural appearance; the differences it constantly reproduces are merely the externalization or alienation of the absolute idea, and must ultimately return to this inner essence. In this regard, Hegel’s philosophy does not deviate from the trajectory of modern philosophy of subjectivity inaugurated by Descartes; the original single subject has merely evolved, in Hegel’s theoretical edifice, into another kind of total subject (the absolute idea). For this reason, Althusser aims to weaken or abolish the traditional metaphysics that takes “subjectivity” as its standard, and the consequent tendency to interpret Marxist philosophy in a “Hegelian-existentialist” manner, replacing it with a scientistic or structuralist interpretive model.

在阿尔都塞看来，唯有对马克思的唯物辩证法作出一种“过度决定”或者“结构因果观”的解读，才能与以黑格尔为代表的“表现因果观”划清界限。进一步讲，马克思的辩证法呈现为一个复合的、不平衡的、有结构的复杂整体。而黑格尔的辩证法看似复杂多元，但徒具多元的外表，其不断再生产出的差异性不过是绝对观念的外化或异化的产物，终究要回归这一内在本原。就此而论，黑格尔哲学并没有偏离自笛卡尔开启的近代主体性哲学的发展轨迹，原先单一的主体在黑格尔的理论大厦中不过演变为另外一种大全的主体（绝对观念）。为此，阿尔都塞旨在削弱或取消传统的奉“主体性”为圭臬的形而上学，以及由此导致的对马克思主义哲学的“黑格尔主义—存在主义”的阐释趋向，代之以一种科学主义或者结构主义的解读模式。

Althusser transformed Marx’s inversion of Hegelian philosophy into the thorny philosophical problem of subjective activism versus structural determinism, and provided a scientistic interpretive scheme for dialectical materialism, which undoubtedly represents an important advance in the study of Marxist dialectics. Yet its deficiency lies in taking science as the sole appropriate mode of grasping the world, while forgetting that the fundamental purpose of Marx’s critique of political economy was to change the real world. Hence, only by linking the two logics of determinism and activism that coexist in Marx’s texts in an appropriate manner can we arrive at a complete and reasonable interpretation of Marxist theory.

阿尔都塞将马克思对黑格尔哲学的颠倒关系转换为主体能动论和结构决定论这一棘手的哲学问题，并提供了一种对唯物辩证法的科学主义解读方案，无疑是对马克思主义辩证法研究的重要推进。但其缺失在于仅将科学视为唯一适当的把握世界之方式，而遗忘了马克思从事政治经济学批判的根本目的在于改变现实世界。因而，唯有把并存于马克思文本中的决定论和能动论两种逻辑以一种恰当的方式关联起来，才是对马克思主义理论的完整且合理的解释。

Online editor: Zhang Jian

网络编辑：张剑