Historical Specificity and the Path of Concretizing Historical Materialism

When discussing the Sinicization of Marxist philosophy or the path of concretizing historical materialism, one must first clarify how to understand the “concrete.” If at the level of theoretical analysis the “concrete” is only identified as empirical concreteness, then this concretization can only be a process of applying universal theory to specific objects. But if this “concrete,” in addition to containing the content of the specific object, can also include elevating it to the level of the historical concrete by excavating the significance of this specific object in the general historical process, then the above-mentioned concretization process simultaneously possesses the connotation of the “concrete” enriching and developing the “universal.” The dialectical character of the concretization of historical materialism in this dimension is a question we must focus on in the current theoretical context. Canadian scholar Moishe Postone’s interpretation of Marx’s social critique theory from the perspective of historical specificity has considerable influence in academic circles. His dual identity as a philosopher and historian means that, unlike some post-structuralists, he does not directly enter the horizon of concrete specificity to interpret the inner logic of capitalism. Instead, he is committed to placing this “concrete” of capitalism within the theory of historical process for understanding. This enables him, while abandoning abstract universality, to avoid plunging headlong into the interpretive horizon of local experience or concrete specificity, and instead to advance the interpretation of Marx’s critical theory and the analysis of contemporary capitalism as a whole from the unique angle of historical specificity. Although his view of historical specificity still has some theoretical limitations when viewed from the dimension of historical materialism, it is undoubtedly a very meaningful endeavor to deepen our understanding of concreteness or specificity through an in-depth reading of his views.

谈论马克思主义哲学的中国化或者唯物史观的具体化路径问题，首先要搞清楚如何理解“具体”。如果在理论分析的层面上“具体”只被指认为经验具体，那么，这种具体化只可能是普遍性理论在具体对象上的运用过程。而如果这种“具体”在包含具体对象的内容外，还能包括通过对这种具体对象在一般历史过程中的意义的挖掘而使之上升到历史具体的层面，那么，上述具体化过程就同时具有了“具体”对“普遍”的丰富与发展的内涵。唯物史观的具体化在这一维度上所具有的辩证法特性，是我们在当下的理论语境中要重点思考的问题。加拿大学者莫·普殊同从历史特殊性的角度所展开的对马克思社会批判理论的阐释在学界有较大的影响力。哲学家与历史学家的双重身份使他并没有像有的后结构主义者那样，直接走入具体特殊性的视域来解读资本主义的内在逻辑，而是致力于把资本主义这个“具体”放进历史进程理论中来加以理解，从而使他在放弃抽象普遍性的前提下没有一头扎进地方性经验或具体特殊性的解读视域，而是从历史特殊性这一独特的角度来推进对马克思批判理论的解读以及对整个当代资本主义的剖析。虽然他的历史特殊性观点放在唯物史观的维度上看还有一些理论局限性，但不管怎样，通过对其观点的深入解读而在对具体性或特殊性的理论上推进我们的认识，无疑是一项很有意义的事情。

I. Historical Specificity Is a Qualitative Specificity

一、历史特殊性是一种定性的特殊性

In his representative work *Time, Labor, and Social Domination: A Reinterpretation of Marx’s Critical Theory*, Postone repeatedly emphasizes that what Marx studied in his mature works represented by *Capital* is not general commodity relations, but capitalist commodity relations with historical specificity. “Marx moved from a transhistorical starting point to a historically specific one. In Marx’s analysis, the category ‘commodity’ refers not simply to an object, but to a historically specific, ‘objective’ social form of relation—a structural and also structured form of social practice that constitutes a new form of social relation.” His views on capitalism’s abstract domination and essential contradictions are all based on the identification of this historical specificity. In understanding Postone’s historical specificity, we must be careful not to equate it with direct empirical specificity. Postone does not want to direct the object of study directly to the empirical level of capitalist commodity relations, because that would only present the content of general commodity relations, i.e., the exchange of equivalents in the economic dimension, and would not present the abstract domination of capital constructed by capitalist labor that Postone wishes to point out. For him, in pre-capitalist societies, the social relationality of labor was provided by an overt network of social relations; thus, one could say that labor was situated within overt social relations. In capitalist society, however, the social relationality of labor is precisely constructed and provided by capitalist labor itself. “In capitalism, labor itself constitutes a form of social mediation that replaces the above network of relations. This means that the social character of labor is not bestowed by an overt social network; rather, because labor mediates itself, it both constitutes a social structure that replaces the system of overt social relations and endows itself with sociality.” What Postone truly cares about is the abstract structure of domination constructed by capitalist labor and its determining effect on the specific elements at the empirical level, even though the latter often obscures this structure of domination.

普殊同在他的代表作《时间、劳动与社会统治：马克思的批判理论再阐释》中多次强调，马克思在以《资本论》为代表的成熟期著作中所研究的，不是一般性的商品关系，而是具有历史特殊性的资本主义商品关系，“马克思从一个超历史的起点走向了一个历史特定的起点。在马克思的分析中，‘商品’范畴不单指向一个对象，更指向一种历史特殊的、‘客观的’社会关系形式——一种结构性的同时也是被结构了的社会实践形式，它建构了一种全新的社会关系形式。”他有关资本主义的抽象统治及本质矛盾等问题的观点都是建立在对这种历史特殊性的认定之基础上的。在理解普殊同的这种历史特殊性时，我们要注意不要把它与直接的经验特殊性等同起来。普殊同并不想把研究对象直接指向经验层面的资本主义商品关系，因为那只能呈现出一般商品关系的内容，即经济学维度上的等价交换关系，而无法呈现出普殊同希望指出的那种由资本主义劳动所建构的资本的抽象统治关系。对他来说，前资本主义社会中劳动的社会关系性是由公开的社会关系网络所提供的，因此，可以说是劳动处在公开的社会关系之中。而在资本主义社会，劳动的社会关系性恰恰是由资本主义劳动本身所建构和提供的。“在资本主义中，劳动自身构成了一种社会中介，取代了上述关系网络。这意味着，劳动的社会性质并非由公开的社会网络所赋予；相反，由于劳动中介自身，它便既建构了一种社会结构以取代公开的社会关系系统，又为自身赋予了社会性。”普殊同真正关心的是由资本主义劳动所建构的那种抽象统治结构及其对经验层面的具体特殊性要素的决定作用，尽管后者经常把这种统治结构遮蔽起来。

Therefore, the concept of historical specificity is somewhat ambiguous for Postone, as it easily leads to understanding from the perspective of concrete specificity in the historical dimension. In fact, Postone’s line of thought transcends concrete specificity; he attempts to reveal, from the perspective of the human historical process, the historical specificity of the essential structure of domination that constructs the concrete specificity of capitalism. That is to say, his historical specificity is not a category of direct empirical elements that discards the horizon of the human historical process, but rather a grasp of the essential structure of concrete specificity within the horizon of the historical process. On the premise of opposing the abstract universalist approach in so-called traditional Marxism, being able to interpret the reading approach based on specificity so richly fully demonstrates Postone’s profound methodological thinking. The Chinese transliteration of his name, “普殊同” (Pǔ Shū Tóng), has clearly received his approval, for this name indeed captures the profound understanding of the dialectical relationship between universality and specificity in his line of thought.

因此，历史特殊性这一概念对普殊同来说有点模糊，它容易使人从历史学维度上的具体特殊性的角度来加以理解。实际上，普殊同的思路是超越具体特殊性的，他试图展现的是从人类历史进程的角度来看，建构了资本主义具体特殊性的那种本质性的统治结构所具有的历史特殊性。也就是说，他的历史特殊性不是抛开人类历史进程视野的、直接的经验要素性范畴，而是在历史进程视域中对具体特殊性之本质结构的把握。在反对所谓的传统马克思主义中抽象普遍主义思路的前提下，能把基于特殊性的解读思路诠释得如此丰富，这充分体现了普殊同深刻的方法论思考。“普殊同”这个中文译名显然是得到过他本人的认可的，因为这个名字的确抓住了他思路中关于普遍性与特殊性之辩证关系的深刻理解。

In fact, Postone uses the term “qualitative specificity” to provide an auxiliary interpretation of the concept of historical specificity. Besides being a philosopher skilled in the study of Marx’s critical theory, he is also a historian, particularly known for his research on the Nazi genocide of Jews during World War II. In Postone’s view, the Nazi genocide of Jews cannot simply be equated with the Nazis’ killing of other people, because if the latter was for some military or security purpose, then the former was an end in itself. Therefore, “any effective study of the Holocaust must grasp the qualitative specificity of the genocide of European Jews. At the same time, the study of this specificity must be based on viewing Nazism as a movement that, according to its self-understanding, represents a rebellion.” That is to say, specificity must be qualified, and this qualification is achieved by identifying the essential characteristics behind concrete specificity within the historical development process and finding their uniqueness. Postone does not regard the current concrete specificity as an inevitable result of the historical development process, but rather as an accidental, rebellious special phenomenon. Because of this, he also criticizes the practice of overemphasizing historical specificity in Holocaust studies: “From this perspective, many studies appear to overemphasize historical specificity—including those that focus only on German history, culture, and thought, as well as those that focus only on Jewish history and engage in anti-Semitism research from a transhistorical perspective.” In Postone’s eyes, anyone who is confined to the empirical elements of concrete specificity and does not excavate the deep structural essence behind these empirical elements from the perspective of the uniqueness of the historical process is someone who overemphasizes historical specificity. In this sense, the category of historical specificity he discusses must indeed be accurately grasped.

事实上，普殊同用“定性的特殊性”(qualitative specificity)来对历史特殊性概念进行辅助性诠释。他除了是一位擅长于马克思批判理论研究的哲学家之外，还是一位历史学家，尤其以对二战中纳粹屠犹问题的研究而见长。在普殊同看来，纳粹对犹太人的种族灭绝，不能简单地等同于纳粹对其他人的屠杀，因为如果后者是为了某个军事或安全目的的话，那么，前者本身就是目的。因此，“对大屠杀的任何一种有效的研究都要把握住对欧洲犹太人进行种族灭绝这一定性的特殊性。同时，对这种特殊性的研究必须基于把纳粹主义看作是一种运动的基础上，而这种运动，按其自我理解来说，代表着一种叛乱。”也就是说，特殊性必须被定性，而这种定性是通过把具体特殊性背后的本质特征放在历史发展过程中找出其独特性来实现的。普殊同并不把当下的具体特殊性视为历史发展过程的必然结果，而是把它看成是一种偶然性的、背叛性的特殊现象。正因为如此，他还批评了在大屠杀研究中过于强调历史特殊性的做法，“从这一观点看，很多的研究显得过于强调历史特殊性了——包括那些只聚焦于德国的历史、文化和思想的研究，以及那些只专注于犹太人的历史并从超历史性的角度来展开反犹太主义研究的人。”在普殊同的眼里，凡是拘泥于具体特殊性的经验要素而不从历史过程之独特性的角度来挖掘这些经验要素背后的深层结构本质的人，都是过于强调历史特殊性的人。在这一意义上，他讲的历史特殊性范畴的确要加以准确地把握才行。

The reason Postone emphasizes this historical specificity is directly related to his understanding of contemporary capitalism. He not only views the transformation of capitalism from a free-market model to an organized, bureaucratic model as the emergence of an entirely new form of domination, but also explicitly points out that this new form of domination has no connection to European history; it is a social form of life that emerged contingently in Western Europe. He states: “On the contrary, particularly from the present perspective, I believe capitalism should first be understood as a social form of life with historical specificity, whose core is a historically unique form of abstract domination, which is embodied in global historical dynamics. This form of life emerged contingently in Western Europe, but it fundamentally transformed Western Europe, just as it also began to transform and construct the globe. That is, contrary to some already prevalent assumptions, this form of life is not essentially or ontologically Western, but rather it itself reshaped the West.” For Postone, on the one hand, contemporary capitalism is not an accumulation of directly empirical elements, but a new form of domination. On the other hand, it is not the result of the historical development of Western European society, but merely a contingently emerged form of life, whose historical role has been to construct a new form of life.

普殊同之所以要强调这种历史特殊性，是跟他对当代资本主义的认识直接相关的。他不仅把资本主义从自由市场模式向组织化、官僚化模式的转型视为一种全新的统治模式的出现，而且还明确地指出，这种新的统治模式跟欧洲的历史没有关系，它是一种偶然地出现于西欧的社会生活形式。他说道：“相反，特别是从当前的角度来看，我认为资本主义首先应该被理解为一种具有历史特殊性的社会生活形式，其核心是一种历史上独特的抽象统治形式，它在全球历史动态中得到了体现。这种生活形式偶然出现在西欧，但它从根本上改变了西欧，就像它也开始改变并建构了全球一样。也就是说，与一些已经普遍存在的假设相反，这种生活形式并不是本质上或本体论上属于西方社会的，而是它自身重塑了西方。”对普殊同来说，一方面，当代资本主义不是那些直接经验要素的堆积，而是一种新的统治形式。另一方面，它不是西欧社会历史发展的结果，而只是一种偶然出现的生活形式，它在历史上的作用是建构出了一种新的生活形式。

When Postone transfers this understanding of contemporary capitalism to his interpretation of Marx’s critical theory, what he sees is the theoretical significance of Marx’s exposition of large-scale machine industry under capitalism. Postone points out that Marx clearly identified the difference between large-scale machine industry and cooperation and manufacture. If in the latter, capital appropriates the productive capacity of wage labor by virtue of its ownership of the means of production, then in the former, i.e., the mode of production of large-scale machine industry, the productive capacity appropriated by capital has transformed into the general social productive forces based on general intellect. “Marx’s analysis shows that once large-scale industry develops, although private property seems to occupy a central position in the historical origin of capitalism as a process of alienation, it is now structurally no longer central. Under the latter conditions, the social productive capacity of concrete labor appropriated by capital is no longer the productive capacity of the immediate producers, no longer that capacity which initially belonged to the workers and was later taken from them. On the contrary, they become general social productive forces, and their alienated character is inherent in their very process of construction—in fact, they are able to emerge historically precisely because they are constructed in a form distinct from and opposed to the immediate producers.” [3]3 Postone, *Time, Labor, and Social Domination*, p. 134. Because of this, the structure of domination in capitalist large-scale machine industry should no longer be excavated and explored from the perspective of the ownership of the means of production, but should be analyzed at a deeper structural level. This structural level is precisely the abstract structure of domination constructed by capitalist labor, which Postone seeks to interpret from Marx’s theory.

当普殊同把对当代资本主义的这种认识转移到对马克思批判理论的解读中时，他看到的是马克思关于资本主义机器大工业的阐释所具有的理论意义。普殊同指出，马克思清晰地辨识了机器大工业与协作和工场手工业之间的不同。如果说在后者中资本是凭借着对生产资料的所有权而实施着对雇佣劳动生产能力的占有，那么，在前者即机器大工业的生产方式中，资本所占有的生产能力已经转变成了基于一般智力的社会一般生产力。“马克思的分析表明，一旦大工业发展起来之后，尽管私有财产在资本主义的历史起源这一异化过程中似乎处于核心位置，但现在它在结构上已经不再居于核心。在后一种条件下，资本所占有的具体劳动的社会生产能力不再是直接生产者的生产能力，不再是那种一开始属于工人，后来又从他们那里被夺走的能力。相反，它们成了社会一般生产力，它们的异化性质内在于它们的建构过程之中——事实上，它们之所以能够在历史上出现，正是因为它们是以一种区别于并对立于直接生产者的形式被建构起来的。”正因为如此，资本主义机器大工业的统治结构就不应该再从生产资料所有制的角度去挖掘和探讨，而应该到一种更深入的结构性层面之中去加以剖析。这种结构性层面就是普殊同要从马克思的理论中解读出来的、由资本主义劳动所建构的抽象统治结构。

For Postone, this qualitative historical specificity is not a specificity based on the dimension of historical genesis through the movement of internal contradictions, but rather a current social form of life that is significantly different from past historical development processes in the dimension of its essential structure. This specificity is situated within the social-historical process, but its characteristics are neither determined nor influenced by this historical process; on the contrary, it uses its own unique essential structure to proclaim the contingent interruption or rebellion of the aforementioned historical process. At the same time, although his historical specificity takes specificity as its basic characteristic, it does not therefore directly embrace concrete empirical specificity. Instead, it proceeds from a comparative dimension with past social structures of domination to explore its own historical significance at the level of uniqueness. This characterization of historical specificity allows him to escape the methodological limitations exhibited by post-structuralists when they counter abstract essentialist thinking from the perspective of empirically concrete local knowledge, and thus enables him to display more dialectical color in his research on the “concrete.” At the same time, his views on the reinterpretation of Marx’s critical theory actually highlight his theoretical efforts to advance the study of concrete objects within historical materialism, although there are indeed some methodological loopholes in his efforts in this regard.

对普殊同来说，这种定性的历史特殊性不是基于内在矛盾运动的历史发生学维度上的特殊性，而是一种在本质结构维度上与以往的历史发展过程有重要不同的当下的社会生活形式。这种特殊性处在社会历史过程之中，但它的特性并不受这种历史过程的决定和影响，而是反过来，以自身独特的本质结构宣示了上述历史过程的偶然性中断或反叛。同时，他的历史特殊性虽然以特殊为自身的基本特征，但并不因此而直接拥抱具体的经验的特殊性，而是从与过去的社会统治结构对比的维度入手，来探讨其自身在独特性层面上的历史意义。他对历史特殊性的这种定性，使他摆脱了后结构主义者从经验具体的地方性知识的角度来反击抽象本质主义思路时所呈现出来的方法论局限性，并因此而使他在“具体”研究上体现出了较多的辩证法色彩。同时，他在马克思批判理论再阐释上的观点实际上也彰显了他力图推进唯物史观在具体对象研究上的理论努力，尽管他在这方面的努力的确还存在着一些方法论上的漏洞。

II. The Historical Specificity of Capitalist Labor

二、资本主义劳动的历史特殊性

In Postone’s view, Marx, in his mature works represented by *Capital* and its manuscripts, is a model of the successful application of this methodology of historical specificity. When Marx says that capitalist labor constructs its social structure of domination, the labor he refers to is by no means that universal general human labor, but rather the historically specific labor within capitalist society. Although theories based on general human labor, when discussing the production of things, also touch upon the connotation of social relations—and thus, like the labor theory of value in bourgeois political economy, when arriving at views on the development of productive forces, also draw conclusions such as social injustice from the perspective of distribution relations—because their dimension of social relations only refers to an open network of social relations, or merely emphasizes that this labor is not a Robinson Crusoe-style purely individual activity but labor situated within certain social relations, these theories cannot penetrate the inner structural level of capitalist labor to explore issues such as the nature of this labor process and the abstract structure of domination it constructs. In Postone’s view, Marx’s critical theory can achieve this. “Marx’s theory also critiques the nature of capitalist economic growth, the nature and trajectory of the capitalist production process, and its inherent opposition between objectified social general knowledge and living labor. This critique is also directed at the quasi-objective, directional dynamic nature emphasized by capitalist society, and the structure of social universality derived from the opposition between the abstract and concrete dimensions. Fundamentally, this critique is based on Marx’s critical analysis of the dual character of capitalist labor. It is fundamentally different from a critique of capitalism from the perspective of ‘labor’ understood in a transhistorical manner.” [4]4 Postone, *Time, Labor, and Social Domination*, p. 135. That is to say, Marx not only critiques the dimension of things and the dimension of general social relations in capitalist labor, but also, from the perspective of the structure of social universality, critiques the historically specific dimension of social relations of this labor. More importantly, according to Postone’s understanding, this latter dimension of social relations occupies the most fundamental and core position in Marx’s critical theory of capitalism, because it is precisely this abstract social relation constructed by capitalist labor, and the abstract structure of domination based on it, that endows capitalist labor with entirely new connotations in the dual dimensions of things and social relations. This makes the development of capitalist productive forces no longer dependent on the ownership of the means of production, but rather based on large-scale machine industry founded on general intellect; at the same time, it makes capitalist social relations no longer centered on class exploitation based on property ownership, but rather centered on the holistic alienated structure of domination based on abstract labor.

在普殊同看来，马克思在以《资本论》及其手稿为代表的成熟期著作中，是成功运用这种历史特殊性方法论的典范。当马克思说资本主义劳动建构了其社会统治结构时，他所说的劳动绝不是那种普适性的一般人类劳动，而是资本主义社会中的具有历史特殊性的劳动。那些基于一般人类劳动的理论尽管在谈论物的生产时也会涉及社会关系的内涵，因而像资产阶级政治经济学的劳动价值论那样，在得出关于生产力发展的观点时，也会从分配关系的角度得出社会不公正等结论，但由于它们的社会关系维度只是指涉一种公开性的社会关系网络，或者说只是强调了这种劳动不是鲁滨逊式的纯粹个人活动，而是处在一定的社会关系之中的劳动，因此，这些理论是不可能深入资本主义劳动的内在结构层面，去探讨这种劳动过程的性质以及它所建构的抽象统治结构等问题的。而在普殊同看来，马克思的批判理论就能做到这一点。“马克思的理论同样批判了资本主义经济增长的性质、资本主义生产过程的性质和轨迹，及其内在的客观化社会一般知识和活劳动之间的对立。这一批判同样针对着资本主义社会强调的准客观的、具有方向性动力的性质，以及源自抽象维度和具体维度之对立的社会普遍性结构。在根本上，这一批判是以马克思对资本主义劳动的二重性的批判性分析为基础的。它与被超历史地理解的、从‘劳动’的角度出发的资本主义批判截然不同。”也就是说，马克思不仅批判了资本主义劳动的物的维度和一般社会关系维度，而且还从社会普遍性结构的角度批判了这种劳动的历史特殊的社会关系维度。更为重要的是，按照普殊同的理解，这后一种社会关系维度在马克思的资本主义批判理论中恰恰处于最基础的、最核心的地位，因为正是这种由资本主义劳动所建构的抽象社会关系及以此为基础的抽象统治结构，才赋予了资本主义劳动在物和社会关系双重维度上崭新的内涵，使得资本主义的劳动生产力的发展不再依赖于生产资料的所有权，而是建立在以一般智力为基础的机器大工业之上；同时使得资本主义的社会关系不再以基于财产所有权的阶级剥削为核心，而是以基于抽象劳动的整体性的异化统治结构为核心。

It should be said that, if we set aside for the moment Postone’s deviation in grasping Marx’s dialectical relationship between the material dimension and the relations-of-production dimension of the capitalist production process, then, in a certain sense, it can indeed be said that he has grasped the importance of the reproduction of relations of production within the entire capitalist production and reproduction process. In the *Grundrisse* (1857–1858), Marx clearly states: “The result of the production and valorization process is, above all, the reproduction and new production of the relationship of capital and labour itself, of the relationship between capitalist and worker. This social relationship, the relation of production, is in fact the more important result of this process than its material result.” [1]1 Karl Marx, “Introduction to the Grundrisse,” in *Marx-Engels Collected Works*, vol. 28 (New York: International Publishers, 1986), p. 23. Translation slightly modified. It is precisely because the capitalist production process continuously realizes the reproduction of the labour-capital relationship that capital exhibits the mystique of self-valorization. Postone’s emphasis on the dimension of historically specific capitalist social relations manifests, in his interpretation of Marx’s critique of political economy, as an emphasis on the commodity as its foundational and core concept, because, in his view, the value-form of the commodity is the objectified expression of capitalist labour. “Within the framework of Marx’s critique of political economy, the commodity is the essential category that lies at the core of capital; he unfolds this category in order to elucidate the nature of capital and its inner dynamic.” [2]2 Karl Marx, “Results of the Direct Production Process,” in *Marx-Engels Collected Works*, vol. 34 (New York: International Publishers, 1994), p. 426. Translation slightly modified.

应该说，如果暂且不去谈论普殊同在把握马克思关于资本主义生产过程的物的维度和生产关系维度的辩证关系问题上的偏差，那么，在一定意义上可以说，他的确把握住了马克思关于生产关系的再生产在整个资本主义生产与再生产过程中的重要性。在《1857—1858年经济学手稿》中，马克思明确地指出：“生产过程和价值增殖过程的结果，首先表现为资本和劳动的关系本身的，资本家和工人的关系本身的再生产和新生产。这种社会关系，生产关系，实际上是这个过程的比其物质结果更为重要的结果。”正是因为资本主义生产过程不断实现了劳资关系的再生产，资本才会表现出自我增殖的神秘性。普殊同对历史特殊的资本主义社会关系维度的重视，在他所解读的马克思政治经济学批判理论中便表现为对商品作为其基础和核心概念的强调，因为在他看来，商品的价值形式是资本主义劳动的客观化表现。“在马克思的政治经济学批判的框架内，商品是位于资本之核心的本质范畴；他展开这一范畴，意在阐明资本及其内在动力的本质”。

In his interpretation of Marx’s category of the commodity, Postone fully implements the methodological perspective of historical specificity. He completely disagrees with interpretations of Marx’s concept of the commodity from the perspective of general exchange relations, because, in his view, the commodity, as the foundational category of *Capital*, refers to commodity relations under capitalist conditions; it reflects the essential content of the capital relation. This commodity exchange relation differs from the general exchangeability of products; it is a generalized exchangeability. In its eyes, all things are no longer things but have become “objects” for exchange. On a certain level, “Marx’s theory attempts to analyze the structural foundations of a society characterized by the universal exchangeability of products—a society in which all goods, as well as the relations between people and things, are already ‘secular’; that is, unlike many ‘traditional’ societies, all goods are regarded as ‘objects’, and people can theoretically choose among all goods.” [3]3 Postone, *Time, Labor, and Social Domination*, p. 134. Postone points out that bourgeois political economy’s theoretical analyses of commodity value, whether the labour theory of value or the theory of utility equilibrium, have failed to distinguish between these two types of exchange relations. Consequently, they merely treat the capitalist historical specificity of commodity relations as a given background condition, without analyzing the characteristics of this background condition, and thus fail to truly grasp the essential content of capitalist commodity relations. In his view, if one truly grasps this historical specificity of commodity relations, then one can clearly discover that Marx’s category of the commodity points not only to a relationship between things but also to a historically specific form of social relations and a historically specific form of social practice. And Marx’s analysis of the commodity is precisely aimed at revealing the foundation and historical dynamic of this specific form of social practice. “We see that Marx’s analysis of the commodity aims to provide the basis for elucidating the nature of capital—that is, his theory attempts to explain the historical dynamic of capitalist society. I will show that this dynamic is rooted in the dialectic of abstract labour and concrete labour, a dialectic that cannot be grasped by theories focusing solely on market exchange.” [4]4 Postone, *Time, Labor, and Social Domination*, p. 135.

在对马克思商品范畴的解读中，普殊同也充分贯彻了历史特殊性的方法论视域。他完全不同意从一般交换关系的角度对马克思商品概念的解读，因为在他看来，作为《资本论》之基础范畴的商品指的是资本主义条件下的商品关系，它反映的是资本关系的本质内涵。这种商品交换关系不同于一般性的产品可交换性，而是一种普遍化的可交换性。在它的眼里，所有的物都不再是物，而是成了用来交换的“对象”。在某种层面上，“马克思的理论试图分析的是一个以产品的普遍可交换性为特征的社会底层的结构基础——在这个社会中，所有的货物以及人与物的关系，都已经是‘世俗的’；也就是说，不同于许多‘传统的’社会，所有的货物都被视作‘对象’，人们在理论上可以在所有的货物中进行选择。”普殊同指出，资产阶级政治经济学有关商品价值的理论分析，不管是劳动价值论还是效用均衡理论，都没能对上述两种交换关系做出区分，因而它们只是把商品关系的资本主义历史特殊性当作一种当然的背景条件来对待，而没有对这种背景条件的特性做出分析，从而没有真正把握住资本主义商品关系的本质内涵。在他看来，如果真的抓住了商品关系的这种历史特殊性，那么，我们就能清楚地发现，马克思眼里的商品范畴不仅仅指向一种物与物之间的关系，而且还指向历史特殊的社会关系形式和社会实践形式。而马克思对商品的分析就是为了揭示这种特殊的社会实践形式的基础及历史动力的。“我们看到，马克思对商品的分析意在为阐明资本的性质提供基础——也就是说，他的理论试图解释资本主义社会的历史动力。我将说明，这一动力根植于抽象劳动与具体劳动的辩证法，它无法被仅仅关注市场交换的理论所把握”。

Postone’s approach of delving into the inner structural level of the capitalist labour process to explore its abstract domination is clearly quite different from approaches that only start from the perspective of exchange abstraction on this issue. We know that when Sohn-Rethel uses “real abstraction” to develop a phenomenological description of exchange abstraction, he emphasizes the abstraction of labour by the exchange relation, rather than the abstraction process of labour itself. “The exchange relation abstracts labour, or, as we say, it renders labour abstract. The result of this relation is commodity value. Commodity value makes the abstracting exchange relation into a form, and makes the abstracted labour into a substance. In this abstract relational determination of the ‘commodity form’, labour as ‘value substance’ becomes the purely quantitative determining ground of ‘value magnitude’.” [5]5 Alfred Sohn-Rethel, *Geistige und körperliche Arbeit: Zur Epistemologie der abendländischen Geschichte* (Weinheim: VCH, Acta Humaniora, 1989), p. 64. [Translator’s note: The English translation follows the Chinese text’s citation of the German original.] It is precisely the conflation of general exchange relations with the historically specific exchange relations of capitalism, criticized by Postone, that leads Sohn-Rethel to neglect the labour-process foundation of exchange relations, thereby causing him to remain at the dimension of value magnitude in grasping the content of exchange relations and their real abstraction.

普殊同这种深入资本主义劳动过程的内在结构层面来探讨其抽象统治的做法，显然与在此问题上仅从交换抽象的角度来切入的做法有较大的不同。我们知道，当索恩-雷特尔用“现实抽象”来展开对交换抽象的现象学描述时，他强调的是交换关系对劳动的抽象，而不是劳动本身的抽象化过程。“交换关系抽象了劳动，或如我们所说，它将劳动抽象化了。这一关系的结果是商品价值。商品价值使进行着抽象的交换关系变成形式，并使被抽象化了的劳动变成实体。在‘商品形式’的这种抽象的关系规定性中，作为‘价值实体’的劳动变成‘价值量’的纯粹量上的规定根据。”正是被普殊同批评的那种把一般交换关系与资本主义历史特殊的交换关系混同起来的做法，使索恩-雷特尔忽视了交换关系的劳动过程基础，从而使他停留在价值量的维度上来把握交换关系的内涵及其现实抽象性。

In fact, it is not easy to truly attain Postone’s interpretive horizon in analyzing the real abstraction of commodity relations. Even a renowned scholar like Christopher John Arthur, when interpreting the ontological foundation of the capitalist system, finds it difficult to break free from the theoretical level of exchange abstraction and enter the deeper level of labour or the production process. Arthur, on the grounds that the use-value of the commodity is absent in the exchange process, asserts that the “material abstraction” of capitalism is precisely the value abstraction in the exchange process, and has nothing whatsoever to do with the use-value of the commodity. “This foundation is the reality of abstraction in exchange, an abstraction expressed in the equivalence of heterogeneous commodities as values. This ‘material abstraction’ possesses a substantive reality entirely independent of methodological abstractions in theoretical construction. It produces a ‘perverted reality’ where commodities merely exemplify their essence as abstract value, and concrete labour is merely regarded as the material expression of abstract labour.” [6]6 Christopher J. Arthur, *The New Dialectic and Marx’s Capital* (Leiden: Brill, 2002), p. 80. Arthur here clearly separates value determination from value realization, and value form from value content. This is precisely the problem that Postone seeks to resolve by starting from labour abstraction rather than exchange abstraction.

其实，在对商品关系之现实抽象性的分析中要想真正达到普殊同的解读视域是不容易的。即使是像克里斯多夫·约翰·阿瑟这样的著名学者，在解读资本主义体系的本体论基础时，也难以摆脱交换抽象的理论层面并进入更为深入的劳动或生产过程的层面上。阿瑟以商品的使用价值在交换过程中不在场为由，认定资本主义的“物质抽象”就是交换过程中的价值抽象，而跟商品的使用价值完全没有关系。“这个基础就是交换中那种抽象的现实，那种抽象被表达在异质性商品作为价值的等同性中。这种‘物质抽象’具有一种完全独立于理论建构中关于抽象的方法论的实质性现实。它产生了商品仅仅例证其作为价值抽象本质的‘颠倒现实’，并且具体劳动也仅仅被视作抽象劳动的物质表现。”阿瑟在这里显然把价值决定与价值实现、价值形式与价值内容割裂了开来，而这恰恰是普殊同从劳动抽象而不是交换抽象出发所要解决的问题。

III. The Historical Specificity of the Internal Contradictions of Capitalism

三、资本主义内在矛盾的历史特殊性

Postone’s interpretation of Marx’s category of the commodity from the perspective of capitalist commodity relations enables him to also possess a perspective of historical specificity in his understanding of the contradictions of capitalist society. He explicitly opposes interpreting the contradictions of capitalist society from a transhistorical perspective, and opposes understanding the content of these contradictions in terms of general productive forces and relations of production. In Postone’s view, the internal contradictions discussed by Marx in *Capital* and its preparatory manuscripts refer specifically to the specific social contradictions under capitalist conditions. They cannot, as traditional Marxism understands, encompass the general content of productive forces and relations of production applicable to all social formations; rather, they are manifested through the specific forms of expression of productive forces and relations of production under capitalist conditions. Consequently, Postone believes that the internal contradictions of capitalism as understood by Marx actually refer to the duality or opposition, on the dual dimensions of thing and social relation, of those social forms (such as labour, commodities, etc.) constructed by capitalist labour and manifested at the level of the capitalist social formation. He points out: “After turning to historical specificity, Marx began to historicize his earlier transhistorical concepts of social contradiction and immanent historical logic. He now regards them as concepts specific to capitalism, originating from the ‘unstable’ duality of material and social elements—a duality that characterizes the basic social forms of capitalism (such as the commodity and capital). In my analysis of *Capital* I will show how this duality is externalized in Marx and generates a unique historical dialectic.” [7]7 Postone, *Time, Labor, and Social Domination*, p. 137.

普殊同从资本主义商品关系的角度对马克思商品范畴的解读，使他在对资本主义社会矛盾的理解上也具有了历史特殊性的视域。他明确地反对从超历史的角度对资本主义社会矛盾进行解读，反对从一般性的生产力与生产关系的角度来理解这种矛盾的内涵。在普殊同看来，马克思在《资本论》及其手稿中所谈的内在矛盾是专指资本主义条件下的特定的社会矛盾。它不可能像传统马克思主义所理解的那样，包含适用于所有社会形态的笼统的生产力和生产关系的内涵，而是以生产力和生产关系在资本主义条件下的具体表现形式而呈现出来。由此，普殊同认为，马克思所理解的资本主义内在矛盾，其实是指由资本主义劳动所建构的、在资本主义社会形态层面表现出来的那些社会形式(如劳动、商品等)在物和社会关系双重维度上所具有的二重性或对立性。他指出：“在转向历史特殊性之后，马克思开始将他早先关于社会矛盾以及内在历史逻辑的那些超历史的概念加以历史化。现在，他将它们视为资本主义特有的概念，它们来源于‘不稳定的’物质与社会要素的二重性——而这正是资本主义基本社会形式(如商品与资本)所具有的特点。在对《资本论》的分析中我将指出，这种二重性如何在马克思那里被外在化，并造就了一种独特的历史辩证法”。

It is conceivable that, having abandoned the dimension of historical genesis, Postone’s understanding of the contradictions of capitalist society with their historical specificity will inevitably be greatly diminished in its grasp of issues such as the essential connotation of social relations and the contradictory nature of productive forces and social relations. We know that, with regard to social relations, only by placing them at the level of the developmental history of social formations can we grasp the essential element that drives the constant transformation of various social relations, namely, the development of relations of production. This is why historical materialism is able to penetrate to the level of relations of production to grasp the essence of social relations, while other leftist critical theories can only remain at the level of exchange relations or distribution relations to explain the connotation of social relations. Similarly, with regard to the contradictory nature of productive forces and social relations, only by approaching it from the perspective of historical genesis can one truly find the core content of the internal contradiction in which capitalist social relations hinder the development of their productive forces; otherwise, one can only seek so-called duality or opposition from the surface of the capitalist social formation. The duality between material and social elements specific to capitalism that Postone speaks of is precisely this kind of dual opposition at the social surface. Take capitalist labor: Postone sees that it simultaneously possesses the dual dimensions of concrete labor and abstract labor, but he insists that only capitalist society has true abstract labor. He even accuses the view that regards all concrete labor as a universal form of labor as a vague explanation, stating that “this vague explanation has not and cannot help us understand capitalism, because for Marx, abstract labor and value are precisely specific to this social formation. What endows capitalist labor with universality is not merely the platitude that it is a common name for various specific forms of work; rather, it is the social function of labor that endows it with universality.”

可以想象，在脱离了历史发生学维度的前提下，普殊同对具有历史特殊性的资本主义社会矛盾的理解，必然会在社会关系的本质内涵、生产力与社会关系的矛盾性等问题的把握水平上大打折扣。我们知道，就社会关系而言，只有把它放进社会形态发展史的层面，我们才能把握住导致各种社会关系不断变革的本质要素即生产关系的发展。这就是为什么唯物史观能够深入生产关系层面来把握社会关系的本质，而其他左派批判理论只能停留在交换关系或分配关系层面来说明社会关系之内涵的原因。同样，就生产力与社会关系的矛盾性而言，只有从历史发生学的角度切入，才可能真正找到资本主义社会关系阻碍其生产力的发展这一内在矛盾的核心内容，否则的话，就只能从资本主义社会形态的表面去寻找所谓的二重性或对立性了。普殊同所讲的资本主义特有的物质与社会要素之间的二重性，其实就是这种处在社会表层的二重对立性。就拿资本主义劳动来说，普殊同看到了它同时具有具体劳动与抽象劳动的双重维度，但他坚持认为只有资本主义社会才有真正的抽象劳动。他甚至指责把所有的具体劳动都看成是普遍的劳动形式的观点是一种含糊的解释，“这种含糊的阐释未能也不可能有助于我们理解资本主义，因为对马克思来说，抽象劳动与价值正是为这一社会形态所特有的。赋予资本主义劳动以普遍性的不仅仅是以下这样的老生常谈，即它是各种特定工作形式的共同名称；而且，正是劳动的社会功能赋予了它以普遍性”。

Consequently, the focus of the relationship between concrete labor and abstract labor in Postone’s eyes will only concentrate on the opposition between the individuality and particularity of the former and the universality and abstractness of the latter, and it will be impossible, as Marx did, to approach from the perspective of the capitalist social division of labor the question of whether all concrete labor can be exchanged in the form of abstract labor—that is, the question of the internal contradiction between these two forms of labor in the capitalist context. Placed on the commodity as the objectified form of abstract labor, the problem here is: Postone focuses on the opposition between the abstractness of the commodity’s exchange value and the particularity of its use value, but he does not care about the question that Marx was concerned with, namely, whether the use value of the commodity can be converted into exchange value. Therefore, when Postone concludes that “from the perspective of the social totality, the individual’s concrete labor is particular, part of a heterogeneous whole; however, as abstract labor, it is an individualized link of a homogeneous, universal social mediation, which constructs a social totality. This duality of the concrete and the abstract is specific to the capitalist social formation,” he clearly has not grasped the socio-historical foundation behind Marx’s view on the internal contradiction between concrete labor and abstract labor. It should be said that if one does not approach the question of capitalist exchange value from the perspectives of relations of production, social division of labor, etc., it is very easy to think only from the perspective of the magnitude of value and the abstract rule derived therefrom. Even a scholar like Postone, who has already paid attention to penetrating economic phenomena to reach the level of their underlying essential structure, is of no avail, because, from the perspective of historical materialism, only in the dimension of the socio-historical process can one truly grasp the essential structure of a social formation.

这样一来，普殊同眼中的具体劳动与抽象劳动之关系的重点，便只会专注于前者的个别性、特殊性与后者的普遍性、抽象性之间的对立上，而不可能像马克思那样从资本主义社会化分工的角度来探讨具体劳动是否都能以抽象劳动的形式被交换出去的问题，即这两种劳动形式在资本主义语境中的内在矛盾问题。放在作为抽象劳动之客观化形式的商品上，此处的问题便是：普殊同专注于商品交换价值的抽象性与其使用价值的特殊性之间的对立，但并不在意马克思所关心的商品的使用价值是否能转换成交换价值的问题。因此，当普殊同说“从社会整体的视野来看，个人的具体劳动是特殊的，是一个异质性整体的一部分；然而，作为抽象劳动，它是一个均质的、普遍的社会中介的个体化环节，这一中介建构了一种社会整体性。这一具体与抽象的二重性是资本主义社会形态所特有的”这一结论时，他显然没有把握住马克思关于具体劳动与抽象劳动之内在矛盾性观点背后的社会历史基础。应该说，如果不从生产关系、社会化分工等角度入手来谈论资本主义的交换价值问题，那是很容易仅仅从价值量以及由此而生发出的抽象统治性的角度来进行思考的。即使是像普殊同这样已经注意到了要透过经济现象而深入其背后的本质结构层面的学者也无济于事，因为在唯物史观看来，只有在社会历史过程的维度上才能真正把握住一个社会形态的本质结构。

Postone’s view is also reflected in his interpretation of the expository logic of Volume 1 of *Capital*. In his view, the line of exposition in this volume, proceeding from commodity to money to capital, should not, as traditional Marxist views explain, be interpreted as a methodological progression from the abstract to the concrete, but rather as a retrospective process of concept development. “Marx’s exposition has a very unique, reflexive form: its starting point is the commodity, which is established as the fundamental structural center of the social formation, and the validity of the commodity is retrospectively proven again and again in the unfolding process of the exposition: it can be used to explain the developmental trends of capitalism, and it can be used to explain those phenomena that seem to contradict the validity of the initial category.” For Postone, the commodity, as the starting concept of Volume 1 of *Capital*, is already the capitalist commodity, that is, a commodity already situated within universalized exchange relations. Therefore, Marx’s concept of money is merely an external manifestation of the dimension of exchange value of this commodity, i.e., its measurability. It is not money that makes the commodity measurable, but rather the measurability inherent in the commodity that obtains an external manifestation. Postone regards this external manifestation of money as a fuller proof of the value dimension of the commodity, or, in other words, in the concept of money, the validity of the concept of the commodity obtains a better retrospective proof.

普殊同的这种观点在他对《资本论》第1卷阐述逻辑的解读上也有体现。在他看来，马克思在这一卷中所展开的从商品、货币到资本的阐述线索，不应该像传统马克思主义观点所解释的那样，是一种从抽象上升到具体的方法论递进的过程，而应该被解释为一种回溯性的概念发展过程。“马克思的论述有一种非常独特的、反思性的形式：其论述的出发点是商品，它被确立为社会形态的根本结构中心，商品的有效性不断地在论述的展开过程中被回溯性地证明：它能够用来解释资本主义的发展趋势，能够用来解释那些貌似与最初的范畴的有效性相矛盾的现象。”对普殊同来说，作为《资本论》第1卷起始概念的商品就已经是资本主义的商品了，即已经是处在普遍化交换关系之中的商品了。因此，马克思的货币概念只不过是这种商品的交换价值维度即它的可度量性的一种外在表现而已。不是货币使商品成为可度量的东西，而是商品本来就有的可度量性获得了外在表现。普殊同把货币的这种外在表现视为对商品价值维度的更充分的证明，或者说，在货币概念中，商品概念的有效性得到了更好的回溯性证明。

As for Marx’s concept of money, Postone points out that it is also already situated within the universalized commodity exchange relations of capitalism. Therefore, this money necessarily undergoes a “dialectical inversion” based on the accumulation of money. Marx “bases the foundation of this dialectical inversion on the social necessity of accumulating money. This necessity originates from the relations within the circulation process itself, from the fact that when commodity circulation becomes universal, not every purchase arises from its corresponding sale. On the contrary, people must hoard a sum of money as means of consumption and to pay debts. Although, according to the latent logic of the system, people sell in order to buy, selling and buying become separated, and the external value dimension of the commodity—money—becomes a self-sufficient goal of sale.” That is to say, capitalist money is not ordinary money, but a kind of money with self-sufficiency, i.e., the ability to self-expand. Consequently, the concept of money itself cannot support the rich connotation of capitalist money. Thus, the concept of capital appears in Marx’s line of exposition. When Marx emphasizes that capital possesses the capacity for self-expansion and self-movement, he is actually finding an external form that can fully express the rich content of capitalist monetary relations, rather than emphasizing the progressive relationship between pre-capitalist money and the capitalist category of capital.

而对于马克思的货币概念来说，普殊同指出，它也是已经处在资本主义普遍化的商品交换关系之中的。因此，这种货币必然发生一种以积累货币为基础的“辩证法的颠倒”。马克思“将这一辩证法的颠倒的基础，建立在一种积累货币的社会必要性上。这一必要性来源于流通过程本身的关系中，来源于这一事实：当商品流通变得普遍之后，并非每一笔购买都产生于其对应的出售。相反，人们必须贮藏一笔货币作为消费资料以及偿付债务。尽管，依照系统的潜在逻辑，人们是为买而卖的，但是，卖和买变得分离开来，商品的外在的价值维度——货币——成为自足的销售目标。”也就是说，资本主义的货币不是一般的货币，而是一种具有自足性即能够自我增长的货币。这样一来，货币概念本身就不能支撑资本主义货币的丰富内涵了。于是，资本概念便出现在马克思的阐述线索中。当马克思强调资本具有自我增殖和自我运动能力的时候，他实际上是找到了能够把资本主义货币关系的丰富内容完全表现出来的外在形式，而不是为了强调前资本主义的货币与资本主义的资本范畴之间的前后递进关系。

IV. Rethinking the Path of Concretization of Historical Materialism

四、再思唯物史观的具体化路径

Postone, by emphasizing the historical specificity of capitalist commodity relations, interprets the expository logic of Volume 1 of *Capital* as a retrospective process of proof. This approach is obviously much more profound than those contemporary foreign academic scholars who focus on post-structuralist perspectives and strive to launch struggles against universalism from the angle of concrete particularity, because he has, after all, penetrated to the level of the essential structure of capital or monetary relations, i.e., the level of the contradictory structure of capitalist commodity relations. From the perspective of academic profundity, his interpretation also quite accurately captures the following content in Marx’s thought: monetary relations are the completed form of commodity relations, and capital relations are the completed form of both commodity and monetary relations. In fact, it is precisely based on this thought that Marx excavated the specificity of capitalist commodity relations, and further demonstrated that capitalist commodity relations are the highest form of the development of commodity relations under private ownership as a whole.

普殊同因强调资本主义商品关系的历史特殊性而把《资本论》第1卷的阐述逻辑解读为一种回溯性的证明过程，这种做法比起当代国外学界专注于后结构主义视角并致力于从具体特殊性的角度来掀起反抗普遍主义斗争的那些学者来说，显然要深刻得多，因为他毕竟已经深入资本或货币关系的本质结构即资本主义商品关系的矛盾性结构的层面上。从学术深刻性的角度来看，他的这种解读也比较准确地抓住了马克思思想中的如下内容：货币关系是商品关系的完成形式，而资本关系则是货币关系和商品关系的完成形式。事实上，马克思正是基于这种思想而挖掘出资本主义商品关系的特殊性，并进而论证资本主义商品关系是整个私有制商品关系发展的最高形式的。

But the issue here is that when Marx says capital is the completed form of the commodity and money relations, he does not, as Postone claims, intend to prove that the concept of capital is more suitable for expressing the rich connotations of the concept of commodity. Rather, he precisely aims to examine capitalist commodity relations within the process of the historical development of commodity relations, thereby discovering the genuine historical specificity of these commodity relations. The historical specificity of capitalist commodities seen from this perspective must be a historically specific internal contradiction; it cannot remain merely at the level of a specific essential structure, because the specific in the perspective of historical materialism is actually a specific based on commonality. It is in this sense that Marx says in the “Introduction to the Grundrisse”: “The determinations of production in general must be extracted precisely so that, because of the unity (subject is man, object is nature, this is always the same, unity already appears here), the essential difference is not forgotten.” [1]1 Karl Marx, “Introduction to the Grundrisse,” in *Marx-Engels Collected Works*, vol. 28 (New York: International Publishers, 1986), p. 23. Translation slightly modified. By placing specificity within the historical developmental thread of generality and universality, such historical specificity is historical specificity in the sense of historical genesis (materialist philosophy of history), not historical specificity in the sense of historiography. The capitalist commodity relations as understood by Postone are precisely historical specificity in the sense of historiography; they are not themselves the result of the historical development of some general contradiction. On the contrary, they are defined as an object that appears contingently in the historical process. Although his interpretation of this contingently appearing object does not remain at the empirical level but penetrates to the level of its internal structure, the absence of the thread of historical genesis in fact prevents him from obtaining an accurate understanding of this internal structure.

但此处的问题是，当马克思说资本是商品和货币关系的完成形式时，他并不像普殊同所讲的那样，是为了证明资本概念更适合于表达商品概念的丰富内涵，而恰恰是为了把资本主义商品关系放在商品关系之历史发展的过程中来加以考察，从而发现这种商品关系的真正的历史特殊性。从这一视角所看到的资本主义商品的历史特殊性，必然是一种历史特殊的内在矛盾性，而不可能仅仅停留在特殊的本质结构层面上，因为唯物史观视域中的特殊其实是一种基于共同性的特殊。正是在这一意义上，马克思才会在《〈政治经济学批判〉导言》中说：“对生产一般适用的种种规定所以要抽出来，也正是为了不致因为有了统一(主体是人，客体是自然，这总是一样的，这里已经出现了统一)而忘记本质的差别”。把特殊性放进一般性和普遍性的历史发展线索中来加以理解，这样的历史特殊性是历史发生学(唯物主义历史哲学)意义上的历史特殊性，而不是历史学意义上的历史特殊性。普殊同所理解的资本主义商品关系就是历史学意义上的历史特殊性，它本身并不是某种一般矛盾的历史发展过程的结果，相反，它被界定为某种在历史过程中偶然出现的对象。尽管他在对这种偶然出现的对象的解读上并没有停留在经验的层面，而是深入了其内在结构的层面上，但历史发生学线索的缺失使他事实上无法获得对这种内在结构的准确理解。

Once the dimension of historical genesis of contemporary specificity is severed, it becomes impossible to make an accurate judgment about the essential connotation of this specificity. When Postone repeatedly emphasizes the universalized state of exchange value under capitalism, he fails to see that this universalized exchange value is actually not an ultimate theoretical level, because behind it lies precisely the emergence of a labor process oriented toward production for production’s sake. Marx saw this point very accurately. He points out: “As soon as the exchange value of the product universally becomes the decisive purpose, ‘production for production’s sake’ — production as an end in itself — does indeed come into being with capital’s formal subsumption of labor. However, this tendency inherent in the capital relation is realized in an appropriate manner only when the specifically capitalist mode of production develops and, with it, the real subsumption of labor under capital — and this tendency itself becomes a necessary condition, also in a technological sense.” [2]2 Karl Marx, “Results of the Direct Production Process,” in *Marx-Engels Collected Works*, vol. 34 (New York: International Publishers, 1994), p. 426. Translation slightly modified. Just as Marx explains the social-historical basis of the universalization of exchange value from the perspective of the transformation of the labor process, his analysis of commodity relations does not merely see the dominance of abstract value but, from the angle of the social division of labor behind it, discovers the social-historical basis of commodity relations. Therefore, the contradiction between concrete labor and abstract labor inherent in the commodity is, for Marx, not a mechanical opposition between the concreteness and abstractness of labor, but rather reflects the cold social reality that, under conditions of socialized division of labor, every kind of labor must obtain its own existence through exchange relations. The internal contradiction is precisely embodied in this process of labor exchange.

一旦割裂了当下特殊性的历史发生学维度，那就无法对这种特殊性的本质内涵做出准确的判断了。当普殊同一再强调资本主义交换价值的普遍化状态时，他没有看到这种普遍化的交换价值其实并不是一个终极的理论层面，因为它背后恰恰是为生产而生产的劳动过程的出现。马克思对这一点看得很准，他指出：“一旦产品的交换价值普遍地变成了决定性的目的，‘为生产而生产’——作为目的本身的生产——就确实会随着劳动对资本的形式上的从属而发生。然而，只有当特殊资本主义生产方式发展起来以及劳动对资本的实际上的从属随着这种生产方式也发展起来的时候，资本关系所固有的这种趋势才以适当的方式得到实现——而且这种趋势本身会成为必要的条件，在工艺上也是如此。”就像马克思从劳动过程转型的角度来解释交换价值普遍化的社会历史基础一样，他对商品关系的分析也不是只看到抽象价值的统治性，而是从它背后的社会分工的角度来发现商品关系的社会历史基础的。因此，蕴含于商品中的具体劳动与抽象劳动的矛盾性，对马克思来说，并非劳动的具体性与抽象性之间的机械对立，而是反映了社会化分工条件下每一种劳动都必须通过交换关系才能获得其自身的存在这一冷冰冰的社会现实，而内在矛盾就体现在劳动的这种交换过程之中。

Starting from the 1950s, left-wing academic circles in Europe and America have been committed to promoting the concretization of Marx’s philosophy, especially historical materialism. However, this concretization has not been manifested in applying the rich ideas of the dialectic of the abstract and the concrete within historical materialism to the analysis of contemporary concrete objects. Instead, it has simply taken a theoretical path of a wholesale shift from the “abstract” to the “concrete.” In the analysis of the “concrete,” some theorists have indeed made certain contributions. For example, the economist Ernest Mandel, in his analysis of late capitalism, proposed the view of six independent variables such as the rate of surplus value and the turnover time of capital. The philosopher Althusser, on the issue of the reproduction of capitalist relations of production, put forward the view of the priority of relations of production over productive forces on the basis of existing productive forces. However, because they abandoned the theoretical role of the “abstract” dimension, they were unable, in their understanding of the “concrete,” to reach the theoretical height of internal essential contradiction, remaining only at the level of the richness of concrete empirical elements or the dominance of social relations, and thus unable to elevate their research perspective to the study of the laws of development of the “concrete.” At the same time, this made their understanding of the “abstract” increasingly abstract, unable to accurately grasp the theoretical level of Marx’s scientific abstraction, and consequently moving them further and further away from academic interest in the general laws of human history. Overall, Postone also belongs to this theoretical lineage. Although his study of qualitative historical specificity demonstrates strong theoretical speculative power and relevance to reality, in essence he has failed to transcend the overall logic of the above theoretical lineage. It must be said that this is a limitation in his theoretical approach.

从20世纪50年代开始，欧美左派学界就致力于推动马克思哲学尤其是唯物史观的具体化。但这种具体化并没有体现在把唯物史观中关于抽象与具体的辩证法的丰富思想贯彻到对当下具体对象的分析之中，而是简单地走出了一条从“抽象”全盘转向“具体”的理论路径。在对“具体”的分析中有些理论家的确也做出了一些贡献，譬如经济学家厄内斯特·曼德尔在对晚期资本主义的分析中提供了剩余价值率、资本周转时间等六大自主变量的观点，哲学家阿尔都塞在资本主义生产关系再生产问题上提出了在现有生产力基础上生产关系对生产力的优先性的观点。但是，由于他们放弃了“抽象”维度的理论作用，因而既在对“具体”的理解上达不到内在本质矛盾的理论高度，仅停留在具体经验要素的丰富性或社会关系的统治性的层面上，而无法把自己的研究视域提升到对“具体”的发展规律性的研究上来；同时又使他们在对“抽象”的理解上越来越抽象，无法准确把握住马克思所说的科学抽象的理论层面，并进而使他们越来越远离对人类历史一般规律的学术兴趣。从总体上说，普殊同也属于这一理论谱系中的一员。虽然他因对定性的历史特殊性的研究而显示了很强的理论思辨力和现实关照性，但从本质上说，他未能超出上述理论谱系的总体逻辑。不得不说，这是其理论思路中的局限之处。

The concretization of historical materialism in the true sense should be the application of the methodology of historical materialism to the analysis of concrete objects; that is, understanding the concrete object of study within the social-historical process based on the movement of internal contradictions. All scholars who claim that the current concrete object has no relation to the historical development process do so because they have not stood at the level of the movement of internal essential contradictions, but only at the level of the development of social phenomena. For example, when Postone says that capitalist machine-based large-scale industry is a social structure completely different from previous forms of development of productive forces, his perspective is in fact only the mode of production at the technological level, and does not address the mode of production at the level of social relations. If we stand from the perspective of historical materialism, we can clearly discover that the developmental process from handicraft capitalism to capitalist machine-based large-scale industry is precisely the result of the internal contradictory movement between productive forces and relations of production under the conditions of capitalist private ownership. Even in the era of machine-based large-scale industry, what determines the essence of its social relations is still the internal contradiction of the relations of production, not the abstractness of labor seen only from the perspective of the technological mode of production. At the same time, those scholars who claim that traditional Marxist theory only focuses on the general and universal abstract theoretical level do so only because they have failed to conduct an in-depth reading of the thoughts of the classical Marxist writers. A brief examination of the dialectic of the abstract and the concrete in *Capital* and its manuscripts, and its application, will easily lead us to the correct conclusion on this point.

真正意义上的唯物史观的具体化应该是把唯物史观的方法论运用到对具体对象的分析之中，即把具体研究对象放进基于内在矛盾运动的社会历史过程中去理解。所有声称当下现实对象与历史发展过程没有关系的学者，都是因为他们未站到内在本质矛盾运动的层面，而只是站在社会现象发展的层面上来加以思考。譬如，当普殊同说资本主义机器大工业是一种与以往的生产力发展形式完全不同的社会结构时，他的审视角度事实上只是技术层面的生产方式，而没有谈到社会关系层面的生产方式。如果站在唯物史观的角度上看，我们可以清晰地发现从手工业资本主义到资本主义机器大工业的发展历程，恰恰是资本主义私有制条件下的生产力与生产关系之内在矛盾运动的结果。即使是在机器大工业时代，决定其社会关系之本质的，依然是生产关系的内在矛盾性，而不是仅从技术性生产方式的角度所看到的劳动的抽象性。与此同时，那些声称传统马克思主义理论只关注一般性的、普遍性的抽象理论层面的学者，只是因为他们未能对马克思主义经典作家的思想进行深入解读而已。只要对《资本论》及其手稿中的抽象与具体的辩证法思想及其运用稍加考察，我们就不难在这一点上得出正确的结论。

When we place the concrete object within the interpretive perspective of historical materialism, we will discover that the true significance of the “concrete” lies not only in revealing the complexity of its own content, but also in grasping its developmental trend and its impact and role on the entire historical movement from the perspective of the historical genesis of the movement of essential contradictions. Therefore, the study of the “concrete” within the perspective of historical materialism cannot remain at the level of empirical-element research on the concrete object. Instead, it should, on this basis, continue to deepen to the study of the laws of development of the “concrete,” thereby elevating the study of the “concrete” to a higher level. Only at this level can we better understand the counter-effect of the “concrete” on scientific abstraction, and its positive and active role in enriching the understanding of the content of the “abstract.” When we today discuss that the great practice of socialism with Chinese characteristics for a New Era is both a deepening of the understanding of the laws of socialist construction and a deepening of the understanding of the general laws of human history, remembering the above point should be very important. (Notes omitted)

当我们把具体对象放进唯物史观的解读视域中时，我们就会发现“具体”的真正意义不仅在于对其内容本身之复杂性的揭示，而且还在于从本质矛盾运动的历史发生学角度来把握住它的发展趋势及其对整个历史运动的影响和作用。因此，唯物史观视域中的“具体”研究不能停留在对具体对象的经验要素式研究的层次上，而是应当在此基础上继续深化到对“具体”的发展规律的研究，从而把对“具体”的研究提升到一个更高的层次。也只有在这一层面上，我们才能更好地理解“具体”对于科学抽象的反作用，以及对于丰富“抽象”内容之理解的积极的能动作用。当我们今天在谈论新时代中国特色社会主义的伟大实践既是对社会主义建设规律的认识上的深化，又是对人类历史一般规律的认识上的深化时，记住上述这一点应该是非常重要的。（注释略）

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