Totality, Totalization, and the Dialectic of Negation

The thought of totality is an important component of Marx’s philosophy and a major theme of Western Marxist philosophy. Since Lukács restored this thought, the critique of reification in capitalist society, especially the critique of fragmentation in capitalist society, has been a significant topic of concern for the Frankfurt School and French Marxists. With the deepening of the critique of capitalist society and the examination of the internal logical relationship between the thought of totality and the development of modern philosophy, viewing capitalist society as a reified totality has driven Western Marxism to reflect on and deconstruct the theory of totality, and has triggered a re-understanding of totality by post-Marxism. In this process, the theory of totality has undergone not only changes in conceptual definition but also shifts in ideological orientation. Behind these changes, an unchanging theme remains the reflection on and critique of capitalist society, and the exploration and pursuit of a better future society. This article aims to analyze and reflect on the dominant ideas concerning the problem of totality in the Frankfurt School, French Marxism, and postmodern Marxism in the mid-20th century, so as to more clearly grasp the ideological changes in Western Marxism on this issue, and to provide a theoretical reference for our re-understanding and development of Marxism today, as well as for grasping contemporary capitalist society and its thought.

总体性思想马克思哲学的重要内容，也是国外马克思主义哲学的重要主题。自卢卡奇重新恢复这一思想以来，对资本主义社会物化的批判，特别是对资本主义社会碎片化的批判，是法兰克福学派、法国马克思主义者关注的重要话题。随着对资本主义社会批判的深入，以及对总体性思想与近代以来哲学发展的内在逻辑关系的透视，将资本主义社会看作一个物化的总体，推动着国外马克思主义对总体性理论的反思与解构，并引发了后马克思主义关于总体性的重新理解。在这个过程中，总体性的理论不仅经历了概念设定上的变化，而且经历了思想指向上的变化，在这些变化的背后，一个不变的主题是对资本主义社会的反思与批判、对未来更为美好社会的探索与追求。本文旨在对20世纪中期法兰克福学派、法国马克思主义以及后现代马克思主义在总体性问题上的主导思想进行分析与反思，以便更为清晰地把握国外马克思主义在这一问题上的思想变化，为我们今天重新理解和发展马克思主义、把握当代资本主义社会及其思想提供一种理论参照。

I. Totality and Critical Theory

一、总体性与批判理论

After the first generation of Western Marxism restored the thought of totality in Marx’s philosophy, the theory of totality from the 1930s to the 1960s unfolded along two dimensions: first, totality as a critical method, emphasizing the critical significance of totality, from which the total rejection extended by the critique of totality; second, viewing totality as an ideal future state, taking the total human being as the direction of future social development, realizing human liberation and freedom, which was fully manifested in the 1960s through the reinterpretation of the *Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844*.

在第一代国外马克思主义恢复了马克思哲学中的总体性思想之后，20世纪30-60年代的总体性理论沿着两个维度展开:一是作为批判方法的总体性，强调的是总体性的批判意义，由总体性批判延伸出来的总体性拒绝;二是把总体性看作未来的理想状态，以总体性的人作为未来社会发展方向，实现人的解放与自由，这在20世纪60年代通过重新解读《1844年经济学哲学手稿》时得到充分体现。

The thought of totality as a critical method pays particular attention to the following aspects: first, emphasizing the integration and communication of multiple disciplines in order to achieve a total reflection on social reality. This is relatively fully reflected in the early critical theory of the Frankfurt School. In Lukács’s thought of totality, an important aspect is the critique of fragmentation in real life and ideological concepts, which is an important manifestation of reification, and totality is the overcoming of fragmentation. This thought directly influenced the Frankfurt School. In his inaugural lecture, “The Present Situation of Social Philosophy and the Tasks of the Institute for Social Research,” Horkheimer pointed out that the Frankfurt Institute for Social Research takes critical social philosophy as its research program, concerning itself with problems that can only be understood within the relationships of human social life, such as the state, law, religion, and society—that is, concerning itself with all problems of human social life, in order to change the current tendency of social sciences to be deeply influenced by positivist research. Under this tendency, either starting from the isolated individual or from facts in the natural scientific sense, “factual research” is divided into long, tedious, and countless specialized groups. If this research method cannot be changed, we cannot obtain a total perspective on social life. Correspondingly, the research of members of the Institute for Social Research complements each other in order to grasp social life in its totality.

作为批判方法的总体性思想，特别关注以下方面:一是强调多学科的整合与沟通，以便实现对社会现实的总体性反思。这一点在法兰克福学派早期的批判理论中体现得较为充分。在卢卡奇的总体性思想中，一个重要的方面就是批判现实生活和思想观念中的碎片化，这是物化的一个重要表现形式，而总体性就是对碎片化的克服。这一思想直接影响了法兰克福学派。霍克海默在其就职演讲《社会哲学的现状与社会研究所的任务》中指出，法兰克福社会研究所以批判性的社会哲学为其研究纲领，关心那些处于人类社会生活关系中才能理解的问题，如国家、法律、宗教、社会等，即关心人类社会生活中的全部问题，改变目前社会科学深受实证主义研究影响的倾向。在这一倾向下，或者从孤立的个体出发，或者从自然科学意义上的事实出发，“事实研究”被划分为长长的、无聊的、无数的专业小组，如果不能改变这样的研究方式，我们就无法获得对社会生活的总体性透视。与此相应，社会研究所成员之间的研究相互补充以便从总体上抓住社会生活。

Emphasizing the critique of totality was not only an inherent requirement of social development at the time but also an inevitability of theoretical research. After the First World War, free-competitive capitalism increasingly gave way to organized capitalism, or monopoly capitalism, and this transformation brought about a comprehensive restructuring of social life.

强调总体性批判，这不仅是当时社会发展的内在要求，也是理论研究的必然。第一次世界大战之后，自由竞争的资本主义日益让位于组织化的资本主义，或者称之为垄断资本主义，这一转变带来了社会生活的整体转型。

First, in economic life, individual free competition gave way to protected organizations; the individual principle and the principle of free competition in economic life gave way to cooperation and exchange between sectors. The prevalence of cartels and other organizations made economic life itself increasingly total. Within large corporations, bureaucratization intensified; between corporations, interconnections grew; and in organizational structure, the characteristics of totality became increasingly evident.

首先，在经济生活中，个体的自由竞争让位于被保护的组织，经济生活中的个体原则、自由竞争原则让位于部门间的合作与交流。卡特尔等组织的盛行，使得经济生活本身越来越具有总体性，大公司内部日益科层化，公司与公司之间日益关联化，组织结构上也日益体现出一种总体性的特征。

Second, due to the prevalence of monopoly organizations, what Pollock and others called “state capitalism” emerged; the economy and politics began to form an alliance, and economic problems began to become political problems. When finance capital, as Hilferding described it, increasingly played a dominant role in economic production and organization, “when cooperation in economic behavior replaced the natural laws of the past market with conscious planning, the economy in the old sense no longer existed.” The government dominated the economic process in both production and consumption. This was the integration of economy and politics, with the state’s role in economic life becoming increasingly obvious. Horkheimer and others believed this was the result of free-competitive capitalism; he called such a state the “authoritarian state” to emphasize the state’s dominance and manipulation.

其次，由于垄断组织的盛行，产生了波洛克等人所说的“国家资本主义”，经济与政治开始了联盟，经济问题开始变成政治问题。当希法亭所说的金融资本日益在经济生产和组织中起着主导性作用时，“当经济行为的合作被有意识的计划取代过去市场上的自然法则时，过去意义上的经济已经不再存在了”，政府在生产与消费上都主导着经济的过程。这是经济与政治的一体化，国家在经济生活中的作用日益明显。霍克海默等认为，这是自由资本主义竞争的结果，他称这样的国家为“威权国家”，以强调国家的主导与操控作用。

Third, the relationship between the individual and the organization became increasingly close. In the era of free competition, individual freedom was relatively obvious, and the capitalist production process depended to some extent on individual skills. But in the era of organized capitalism, from Taylorism to bureaucracy, the worker’s labor process became increasingly fragmented, factory organization became increasingly complex, and the individual was increasingly confined to a specific production department or a specific corporate hierarchy. The internal organizational method of the factory changed from one capitalist facing workers to numerous vertical institutions facing the individual. Organizational principles became increasingly abstract and rule-bound, and the individual was co-opted by the organization. The stronger the monopoly organization, the freer it was to deal with its members.

再次，人与组织的关系越来越紧密。在自由竞争的时代，个体的自由相对较为明显，资本主义的生产过程在一定程度上还有赖于个人的技术。但在组织化资本主义时代，从泰罗制到科层制，工人的劳动过程日益分化，工厂的组织日益复杂，个体日益被局限于某个特定的生产部门或某个特定的公司层级，工厂内部的组织方式由过去一个资本家面对工人，变成了众多垂直机构面对个体，组织的原则越来越抽象、越来越规则化，个体被组织收编。垄断组织越强大，就越能自由地面对组织中的成员。

But the problem is that this totality was not the totality pursued by the Frankfurt School; rather, it was a totality based on reification, whose premise remained the individual principle and private property. From the perspective of critical totality, this is a pseudo-totality. Critically reflecting on this pseudo-totality was precisely the theoretical mission of the Frankfurt School.

但问题在于，这种总体性并不是法兰克福学派所追求的总体性，而是建立在物化基础上的总体性，其前提仍然是个体原则和私人所有。从批判的总体性视角来说，这是一种伪总体性，对这种伪总体性进行批判反思，正是法兰克福学派的理论使命。

The total change in social life required a corresponding change in theory. In his inaugural lecture, Horkheimer’s social philosophy, in its theoretical orientation, emphasized exploring a new idea that transcends current research methods and states; in its specific method of theoretical construction, it emphasized an interdisciplinary integration and communication to achieve a total reflection on social life, thereby realizing a critical reconstruction. This line of thought developed into critical theory. The Frankfurt School gathered many outstanding scholars from different disciplines, who, centered on the program of “critical theory,” unfolded a critique of social life.

社会生活的总体变化，需要理论相应地发生改变。在就职演讲中，霍克海默所说的社会哲学，在理论指向上，强调探索一种超越当下研究方法和状态的新理念;在具体的理论建构方法上，强调一种跨学科的融合与沟通，以实现对社会生活的总体性思考，从而实现批判性的重建，这一思路发展为批判理论。法兰克福学派聚集了不同学科的诸多优秀学者，他们围绕着“批判理论”这一纲领，展开对社会生活的批判。

In the book *Critical Theory*, Horkheimer further developed the thought of total critique. In his view, critical theory differs from traditional theory.

在《批判理论》一书中，霍克海默进一步发挥了总体性批判的思想。在他看来，批判理论与传统理论不同。

First, critical theory is directed at the total meaning of social life, not the meaning of isolated domains, which is precisely what traditional theory, based on positivism, emphasizes. The research interest of traditional theory has its real premise in the division of labor in capitalist society. This division of labor constructs domains that are isolated from each other, and the relationships between them follow the principle of free competition, thus failing to provide a theoretical picture of the totality of social life. In contrast, critical theory pursues a rational state of society and explores solutions to real suffering.

第一，批判理论指向的是社会生活的总体意义，而不是孤立的领域所具有的意义，后者正是建立在实证主义基础上的传统理论所强调的东西。传统理论的这一研究旨趣，其现实前提是资本主义社会的劳动分工，这种分工建构出一个各自孤立的领域，它们之间的关系遵循着自由竞争的原则，从而无法对社会生活的总体提供一种理论的图景。相反，批判理论追求的是社会的合理状态，并探索解决现实苦难的方案。

Second, society and nature are in a state of division. Influenced by the differentiation of knowledge and the division of specialized disciplines, traditional theory concerns itself with the knowledge picture of its own domain; disciplines are isolated from each other. When confronting society, it either considers social life unworthy of study or simply and directly applies the methods of natural science to society. This is precisely what critical theory seeks to change. Critical theory begins by describing the mechanisms of capitalist society, revealing the inner principles of the capitalist social mechanism, especially economic life. In Horkheimer’s view, this is the regulatory role of exchange and its repressive effect on social life. The principle of exchange in capitalist economic life corresponds to the desire of capital, causing a necessary division between human beings and between human beings and nature.

第二，社会与自然处于分裂的状态。受知识分化和专业分工的影响，传统理论关心的是自身领域的知识图景，学科之间相互隔离，面对社会时，或者认为社会生活不值得研究，或者将自然科学的方法简单地直接运用于社会，这正是批判理论所要改变的地方。批判理论从描述资本主义社会的机制开始，揭示资本主义社会机制特别是经济生活的内在原则，在霍克海默看来，即交换的调节作用以及它对于社会生活的压制作用。资本主义经济生活中的交换原则对应于资本的欲望，使得人与人之间、人与自然之间处于必然性的分裂状态。

Third, both traditional theory and critical theory are concerned with humanity, with the state of human existence and the meaning of life. However, the human being that traditional theory focuses on is an abstract, isolated individual, an individual caught in free competition who is unable to comprehend the totality of social life. The individual freedom and rational state emphasized by traditional theory further reinforce this individual’s self-understanding. “Bourgeois thought is based on the reflection of the subject; this thought, with a logical necessity, posits the subject as an autonomous self. Bourgeois thought is essentially abstract; it is founded on the principle of the individual, who believes himself to be the foundation of the world, even the unconditional world itself, and isolates himself from all events.” [2]2 Max Horkheimer, “Traditional and Critical Theory,” in *Critical Theory: Selected Essays*, trans. Matthew J. O’Connell et al. (New York: Continuum, 2002), 210. Critical theory opposes the separation of the individual from social life. “The subject in critical theory is a specific individual in real relationships with other individuals and organizations, in conflict with other specific classes, and within the network of relations between the social totality and nature.” [3]3 Ibid., 211. This subject is a structurally determined existence within social life. Critical theory, by critiquing this structural existence of real individuals, on the one hand promotes changes in people’s conceptions of social life, and on the other hand, by critiquing the state of people’s thought and real existence, drives changes in social life itself. Within these manifest ideas, totality constitutes an immanent principle of construction.

第三，传统理论和批判理论都关注人，关注人的存在状态和生活意义，但传统理论所关注的人是抽象的、孤立的个体，是处于自由竞争中的、对社会生活总体无法理解的个体，传统理论所强调的个体自由与理性状态，则进一步强化了这种个体的自我认识。“资产阶级思想建立在主体反思的基础上，这种思想以一种逻辑的必然性将主体作为一个自主的自我。资产阶级思想本质上是抽象的，它建立在个体原则的基础上，这一个体相信自己是世界的基础，甚至自身就是无条件的世界，并将自己与各种事件孤立开来。”批判理论反对将个体与社会生活割裂开来，“批判理论中的主体是处于与其他个体以及组织的真实关系中的特定个体，它处于与其他特定阶级的冲突中，处于社会总体与自然的关系网络中。”这种主体是社会生活中一种有结构性的存在，批判理论就是通过批判现实个人的这种结构性存在，一方面推动着人们对于社会生活观念的改变，另一方面通过批判人的思想与现实存在状态，推动社会生活本身的改变。在这些显现的思想中，总体性构成了内在的建构原则。

As a critical method, another important feature of the thought of totality is: within the critique of totality, it logically leads to a total rejection of society. To study and reflect on contemporary society from the standpoint of totality logically forms a negative critique. If this critique was not sufficiently evident in the early 1930s, then in the 1940s, after members of the Frankfurt School arrived in the United States, it became more fully displayed. In works such as *Dialectic of Enlightenment* and *Critique of Instrumental Reason*, Horkheimer and Adorno further traced the dominant factors in modern social life: at the level of reason, they defined it as the spirit of enlightenment and traced this spirit back to the foundations of Western culture; at the level of everyday life, they understood it as the total domination of technology. Proceeding from these two aspects, the critical theory of Horkheimer and Adorno achieved a total critique of social life. In Marcuse, this total critique developed into the Great Refusal, which became a distinctive feature of his theory.

作为批判性的方法，总体性思想的另一个重要特征在于:在总体性的批判中逻辑式地导致对社会的总体性拒绝。从总体性出发来研究和反思当下的社会，从逻辑上来说，就会形成一种否定性的批判，这种批判如果说在20世纪30年代前期还不够明显，那么在40年代，随着法兰克福学派成员到达美国后，展现得较为充分。在《启蒙辩证法》和《工具理性批判》等著作中，霍克海默与阿多诺进一步追踪现代社会生活中的主导因素:在理性层面，将之规定为启蒙精神，并将这一精神追溯到西方文化的根基处;在日常生活层面，则将之理解为技术的总体性支配。从这两方面出发，霍克海默与阿多诺的批判理论，达到了对社会生活的总体性批判。在马尔库塞那里，这种总体性批判发展为大拒绝，这成为其理论的一个显著特征。

In his early years, Marcuse followed Heidegger, but later felt that Heidegger’s ontology was somewhat empty, lacking a socio-historical dimension, and thus turned to Hegel, completing his doctoral dissertation *Hegel’s Ontology and the Theory of Historicity*, emphasizing the significance of Hegel’s philosophy for understanding social life. In 1941, he completed the book *Reason and Revolution: Hegel and the Rise of Social Theory*. In this work, he particularly emphasized two aspects of Hegel’s philosophy:

马尔库塞早年追随海德格尔，后来感到海德格尔的存在论稍有空泛，缺乏社会历史性的维度，从而转向黑格尔，完成了博士论文《黑格尔的本体论和历史性理论的基础》，强调黑格尔哲学对于理解社会生活的意义。1941年，他完成了《理性与革命——黑格尔和社会理论的兴起》一书。在这本著作中，他特别强调了黑格尔哲学中两方面的内容:

First, the totalistic character of Hegel’s philosophy. Similar to Lukács’s *History and Class Consciousness*, Marcuse, by tracing the development of modern philosophy, argued that Hegel’s philosophy is one that emphasizes totality: “Hegel repeatedly emphasizes that the oppositional relationship between subject and object implies the existence of a unity that condenses the mutual antagonism between them; the resolution of this unity of opposites is both a theoretical and a practical problem.” [4]4 Herbert Marcuse, *Reason and Revolution: Hegel and the Rise of Social Theory*, 2nd ed. (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1955), 46. In an era of universal fragmentation, the task of philosophy is to reconstruct the lost unity and restore the principle of totality.

一是黑格尔哲学的总体性特征。与卢卡奇的《历史与阶级意识》相似，马尔库塞通过追述近代以来的哲学发展过程，认为黑格尔哲学是强调总体性的哲学:“黑格尔反复强调，主体和客体之间的对立关系，意味着一个凝聚着两者之间的相互倾轧的统一是存在的，这个对立统一体问题的解决，既是一个理论问题，也是一个实践问题。”在统一普遍分化的时代，哲学的任务就是要重建消失了的统一体，恢复总体性原则。

Second, the thought of negativity in Hegel’s philosophy. In the preface to *Reason and Revolution*, Marcuse points out that Hegel’s thought should be interpreted in a new form, striving to elucidate certain implications of Hegel’s thought: “the agreement of these ideas with the recent development of European thought, and especially with the theoretical development of Marx.” [5]5 Ibid., xii. This agreement embodies the dialectic of philosophical critique and revolution. Marcuse’s interpretation of this dialectic unfolds around the thought of “negation.” “The dialectical process derives its dynamic from the power to overcome negation. Dialectics is a process that demonstrates that the mode of existence of any person or thing lies in a world constituted by contradictory relations. Any particular content can be manifested by becoming its opposite. The latter is an inseparable part of the former; this content is the totality of all contradictory relations contained within the content. When human understanding finds itself unable to adequately grasp certain things in their prescribed forms of quality and quantity, dialectics naturally obtains its beginning. Prescribed quality and quantity seem to be a ‘negation’ of the things possessing quality and quantity.” [6]6 Ibid., 46. “True existence begins only when the immediate state is considered as negation, when existence becomes a ‘subject’ and makes its external state conform to its potential.” [7]7 Ibid., 47. Linking negativity with revolution constitutes an important link in interpreting the relationship between reason and revolution; it can also be said that the reason dialectics is revolutionary is precisely because its core lies in “negation.”

二是黑格尔哲学中的否定性思想。在《理性与革命》的“序”中，马尔库塞指出，要以一种新的形式来解读黑格尔，力图阐明黑格尔思想的这样一些含义:“这些思想与欧洲思想新近发展的一致，特别是和马克思的理论发展的一致性。”这种一致性，体现了哲学批判性与革命性的辩证法，对于这种辩证法的解读，他是围绕着“否定”的思想来展开的。“辩证的过程，从克服否定的力量中，获得了它的动力。辩证法就是一个过程，这个过程表明任何一个人和事物的存在方式，都存在于矛盾关系所构成的世界中。任何特殊的内容，都能通过成为其对立面而展示出来。后者是前者的不可分割的部分，这个内容就是包含在内容中的所有矛盾关系的整体。当人类的理解力发现其自身不能在其规定的质和量的形式中，恰当地把握某些事物时，辩证法很自然地获得了它的开端。规定的质和量似乎是拥有质和量的事物的一个‘否定’。”“只有当直接的状态被认为是否定时，当存在变成了‘主体’并使其外在状态适合于其潜在时，真正的存在才开始了。”把否定性与革命联系起来，构成了解读理性与革命关系的重要环节，也可以说，辩证法之所以是革命的，恰恰因为其核心在于“否定”。

Marcuse argues that if Hegel regarded negativity as an immanent moment in the self-development of reason, then Marx’s transformation of Hegel’s philosophy directly links this negativity with revolutionary critique. In Marx’s philosophy, every category has a different foundation from that in Hegel’s philosophy. If in Hegel all categories are reflections and modifications of reality, then in Marx, all categories touch upon the negation of these existing orders, aiming to establish a new social form. “They all present themselves as truths that can only be obtained through the negation of civil society. Insofar as all concepts are a condemnation of the totality of the existing order, Marx’s theory is a ‘critical’ theory.” [8]8 Ibid., xiii. Here, Marcuse understands the relationship between Marx and Hegel from the perspective of social critique, taking the different critiques of capitalist society as the fundamental demarcation between the two: if in Hegel “negation” refers more to negation within the system, a reflection on objects not yet subjected to thought and rational examination, then in Marx, “negation” fundamentally means the critical “negation” of reality by theory. When this “negation” is realized, it also signifies that Marx has realized the “negation” of philosophy—a conclusion that Hegel’s philosophy should have reached but did not truly manifest. The above “negation” also means that social critique cannot succeed through theory alone; it must become the mission of socio-historical practice.

马尔库塞认为，如果说黑格尔将否定性看作理性自我发展的内在环节，那么马克思对黑格尔哲学的变革，则将这种否定性与革命的批判性直接联系起来。在马克思哲学中，任何一个范畴都有着与黑格尔哲学不同的基础，如果说在黑格尔那里所有的范畴都是现实的反思和修正的话，那么在马克思这里，所有的范畴都触及这些现实存在着的秩序的否定，是为了确立一种新的社会形式。“它们都把自身说成是只有通过市民社会的否定才能获得的真理。就所有概念都是对现存秩序总体的一个谴责而言，马克思的理论是一个‘批判’的理论。”在这里，马尔库塞从社会批判的视角理解马克思与黑格尔的关系，将对资本主义社会的不同批判看作两者之间的根本界划:如果说在黑格尔那里，“否定”更多指的是体系内部的“否定”，是对未经思考和理性审视对象的反思，那么在马克思这里，“否定”从根本上意味着理论对现实的批判性“否定”，当这一“否定”实现时，也意味着马克思实现了对哲学的“否定”，这是黑格尔哲学应有的但并没有真正体现出来的结论。上述的“否定”也意味着，社会批判仅靠理论是行不通的，它必须成为社会历史实践的使命。

In 1961, in the preface to the second edition of *Reason and Revolution*, namely “A Note on Dialectics,” Marcuse further explicitly proposed the relationship between “negativity” and the Great Refusal. Hegel’s negativity refers to the transition from immediate existence to its other, which is an important moment in the development of things. Therefore, negation is for the sake of affirmation, for the establishment of a higher identity. This can be illustrated with an example. For instance, in the morning we say “this one,” referring to the “this one” of that moment; when we say “this one” in the afternoon, it refers to another “this one” of that moment, but the afternoon’s “this one” is already different from the morning’s “this one,” yet the word used is still “this one.” It can be said that “this one” is both here and not here. When we negate this concrete “this one,” we can only then obtain the universal “this one”; only then can we truly refer to the “this one” existing here. Here, the first moment is affirmation, the second moment is negation, but negation is for the sake of final affirmation. This is Hegel’s “negativity.” This negativity constitutes the mediation of the existence and development of things; mediation is a kind of “negation,” but negation is for the sake of affirmation.

1961年，马尔库塞为《理性与革命》所写的第二版序言，即“关于辩证法的札记”中，进一步明确提出了“否定性”与大拒绝的关系。黑格尔的否定性讲的是从直接存在转向自身的他者，这是事物得以发展的重要环节，因此否定是为了肯定，是为了建立更高的认同。对此，可以举例来说明。比如，上午我们说“这一个”，以此来说明当时的“这一个”，当下午我们说“这一个”时，又表示另一个当时的“这一个”，但下午的“这一个”已经不同于上午的“这一个”，但用的词又都是“这一个”，可以说，“这一个”在此又不在此。当我们对这种具体的“这一个”加以否定时，我们才能得出普遍的“这一个”，只有这时，我们才能真正地指称存在于此的“这一个”。这里，第一个环节是肯定，第二个环节是否定，但否定是为了得到最后的肯定。这是黑格尔的“否定性”，这种否定性构成了事物存在与发展的中介，中介就是一种“否定”，但否定是为了肯定。

Marcuse further developed the meaning of “negation.” In *One-Dimensional Man*, following the Frankfurt School’s critique of instrumental reason, Marcuse argued that in advanced industrial society, technological rationality has achieved a dominant position, eliminating all transcendent consciousness and critical spirit that are out of tune with the existing society. The critical tension between “is” and “ought” in traditional philosophy, and the “negative” thinking oriented toward society, have disappeared, leading to the one-dimensionalization of society, reason, and the individual. In this one-dimensional society, human desires, sensibilities, and thought are all projected and suppressed by technological rationality, becoming objects of manipulation. Faced with this situation, Marcuse believed that value judgments and negative thinking must be reaffirmed. Since the existing society is thoroughly one-dimensionalized, “confronted with the omnipresent effectiveness of the given system of life, its alternatives appear as utopian.” Existing “social critical theory possesses no concepts which could bridge the gap between the present and the future; holding no promise and showing no success, it remains negative. Thus it remains loyal to those who, without hope, have given and give their life to the Great Refusal.” [9]9 Herbert Marcuse, *One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society* (Boston: Beacon Press, 1964), 257. The Chinese text quotes a slightly different version; the English rendering here follows the standard English edition.

马尔库塞则进一步发挥了“否定”的含义。在《单向度的人》中，沿着法兰克福学派的工具理性批判的思路，马尔库塞认为，在发达工业社会，技术理性已经取得支配性地位，消除了一切与当下社会不协调的超越意识和批判精神，传统哲学中“是”与“应该”的批判性张力，面向社会的“否定性”思维消失了，引起了社会、理性和个人的单向度化，在这个单向度化的社会，人的欲望、感性、思维等都被技术理性投射和压制，成为可操控的对象。面对这种局面，马尔库塞认为，必须重申价值判断和否定性思维，由于现存社会的全面单向度化，“面对既定生活体系的普遍存在的效果，其替代方案似乎是一种乌托邦”，现有的“社会批判理论没有概念能够连接现在与未来之桥，也不能提供承诺，显示出自己的胜利，它只保持着否定性。因此它对那些人保持着忠诚，他们毫无希望地以自己的生命实现着大拒绝”。

It can be said that this is an approach that pushes the spirit of negative critique to its extreme. In Marcuse’s view, dialectical negation means the negation of existing facts and their logic. From the perspective of avant-garde literature, this means interrupting the power that facts impose on language. The power of these established facts tends toward a totalitarian repression (here, totality is, of course, a pseudo-totality). Therefore, it is necessary to seek another authentic language, a language different from the existing one. This language is currently “absent,” but this absent language truly contains the various possibilities for future development. In this sense, negation is a “Great Refusal.” Here, Marcuse understands “negation” under the influence of Heidegger: “negation” uses “nothing” to negate “being.” This is precisely a Heideggerian refusal, just as Heidegger uses Being to refuse beings. But this refusal also carries Marcuse’s own “revolutionary” meaning: negating being with nothing is to move toward a new being, toward new hope.

可以说，这是将否定性批判精神发挥到极端的一种思路。在马尔库塞看来，辩证的否定意味着对已存在的事实及其逻辑的否定，如果从先锋文学的角度来说，这就是要打断事实强加于言语身上的权力，这种既定事实的权力已经趋向于一种总体性的压抑(这里的总体性，当然是一种伪总体性)。因此，需要寻找另一种真实的语言，这是一种不同于现有语言的语言，这种语言目前还是“缺席”的，但这种缺席的语言才真正蕴含着未来发展的各种可能性，在这种意义上，否定就是一种“大拒绝”(Great Refusal)。在这里，马尔库塞从海德格尔的影响中来理解“否定”，“否定”就是以“无”来否定“有”，这恰恰是一种海德格尔式的拒绝，就像海德格尔以存在来拒绝存在者一样，但这种拒绝又有着他自己的“革命”的含义，以无来否定有，是为了走向新的存在，走向新的希望。

II. Totality and Human Emancipation

二、总体性与人的解放

If, in critical theory, totality as an ideal still had a faint utopian tinge, and this was not yet as clearly articulated as the critical method, then in the rereading of the *Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844* (hereinafter referred to as the *1844 Manuscripts*), the concept of totality as a social ideal received greater emphasis. The reinterpretation of this manuscript occurred in two different periods: first, in the 1930s, when the manuscript first appeared, many scholars interpreted it from their own philosophical standpoints; second, in the 1950s and 1960s, with the critique of Stalin and the reflection on traditional textbooks, scholars again started from the *1844 Manuscripts*, leading to a humanist upsurge in the interpretation of Marxist philosophy. Although the periods differ, there are some common threads in the two interpretations, namely, an emphasis on the total human being, with totality constituting the historical situation for human freedom and emancipation.

如果说在批判理论那里，作为理想的总体性还有着淡淡的乌托邦色彩，这一点还没有像批判方法那样得到明晰的表述，那么在对《1844年经济学哲学手稿》(以下简称《1844年手稿》)的重新阅读中，作为社会理想的总体性理念则得到了更多的张扬。对这一手稿的重新理解，体现在两个不同时期:一是20世纪30年代这一手稿刚刚问世时，不少学者从自己的哲学立场出发，对之进行了解读;二是20世纪50-60年代，随着对斯大林的批评以及对传统教科书的反思，学者们再次从《1844年手稿》出发，出现了马克思主义哲学解释中的人本主义高潮。虽然年代不同，但在两次解读中，存在着一些相同的思路，即强调总体的人，总体性构成了人的自由与解放的历史情境。

The *1844 Manuscripts*, published in 1932, attracted the attention of Western academia. In the same year, Marcuse wrote the article “The Foundations of Historical Materialism,” arguing that in the *1844 Manuscripts*, the philosophical foundation of Marx’s critique of political economy is the concept of the species-being of humanity and its realization. This is an expression of the idea of the “total human being” based on a labor ontology. “Even in its most informal and most general features, Marx’s concept of labor goes far beyond the economic sphere, penetrating into the field of research that takes the total existence of the human being as its subject.” Marcuse’s discussion unfolds from the following core points:

1932年发表的《1844年手稿》，引起了西方学界的关注。同年，马尔库塞就写作了《历史唯物主义的基础》一文，认为在《1844年手稿》中，马克思政治经济学批判的哲学基础是关于人的类本质及其实现，这是以劳动本体论为基础的“总体的人”的思想表达，“马克思的劳动概念的这种即使是最非正式的和最一般的特征也已远远超出了经济的范围，它已深入到把总体的人的存在作为研究课题的领域。”马尔库塞的论述从以下几个核心点来展开:

First, Marx emphasizes that the human being is a species-being. When the human being regards itself as an existing, living species-being, it also regards itself as a universal and therefore free being. The freedom and universality of the species mean that the human being is not confined to some actual state of beings or its immediate relationship with them, but can transcend the particular situation of the moment, grasp the essence of things in their essence, and grasp the essential relationship between the human being and things. This is how the human being relates to itself as a totality and to nature as a totality. Marcuse believes that Marx’s discussion of the species-being of humanity and its realization “sums up the whole existence of the human being.”

第一，马克思强调人是类存在物，当人把自己当作现有的、活生生的类存在物来看待时，也就把自己当作普遍的因而是自由的存在物来看待。类的自由及其普遍性特征，意味着人不局限于存在物的某种实际状况以及自己与存在物的直接关系，而是能够超越当下的特殊状况，在事物的本质中把握其本质，把握人与事物的本质性关系，这是人与作为自身的总体以及作为自然的总体来发生关系。马尔库塞认为，马克思关于人的类本质及其实现的论述，“概括了整个人的存在”。

Second, in the *1844 Manuscripts*, Marx establishes a labor ontology, which is the foundation for discussing the total human being and the realization of its essence. Marcuse points out that Marx’s discussion of labor and its externalization and alienation clearly expresses the ontological character of the concept of labor. This can be seen particularly clearly through Marx’s three formulas on labor: “We take its three most important formulas: ‘Labor is the self-generating act of the human being in the sphere of externalization or as externalized human being’; labor is the ‘self-creation, self-objectifying movement’ of the human being; labor is ‘life activity itself, productive activity itself.’ All three of Marx’s formulas, although not presented in an article that examines Hegel in detail, still bear the color of the ontological character of Hegel’s concept of labor.” In this formula of labor ontology, the core point is that through the objectification of labor, the human being creates and appropriates objects, thereby freely realizing itself. This return from alienation is the total appropriation and grasp of the human world.

第二，在《1844年手稿》中，马克思确立了劳动本体论，这是讨论总体的人及其本质实现的基础。马尔库塞指出，马克思关于劳动及其外化、异化的讨论，清楚地表达了劳动概念的本体论性质，特别是通过马克思关于劳动的三个公式可以看清这一点:“我们取其三个最重要的公式:‘劳动是人在外化范围内或者作为外化了的人的自为的生成’，劳动是人的‘自我创造、自我对象化的运动’，劳动是‘生命活动本身，生产活动本身’。马克思的所有这三个公式，虽然不是在对黑格尔作详尽考察的文章中提出来的，但仍具有黑格尔的劳动概念的本体论性质的色彩。”在这个劳动本体论公式中，核心点在于人通过劳动的对象化，创造和占有对象，从而自由地实现自身。这种从异化中的回归，就是对人的世界的总体性占有与把握。

Third, on the basis of labor ontology, the “total human being” is realized. Marcuse believes that Marx strongly emphasizes the significance of the objectification of labor for the realization of the species-being of humanity. This also allows Marx to inherit and develop Hegelian philosophy and distinguish himself from Feuerbach. The objectification of labor contributes to the realization of the human being’s essential powers in two ways: first, through the objectification of labor, the human being can realize its needs, desires, etc., inscribing its essential powers onto the object and expressing itself through the predetermined object. This is the condition for the realization of the species-being as universality. Second, the objectification of labor is essentially a “social” activity, and thus also a historical activity. People form a relationship of intercourse in objectifying labor, a relationship that is also historical and unfolds through historical activity. It is precisely in this social and historical unfolding that the human being can break free from abstract essential determinations, manifest its rich existence, and realize the “total human being” in the true sense.

第三，在劳动本体论基础上实现“总体的人”。马尔库塞认为，马克思非常强调劳动的对象化对人的类本质实现的意义，这也让马克思继承和发展了黑格尔哲学，与费尔巴哈区别开来。劳动的对象化在两个方面有助于人的本质力量的实现:一是通过劳动的对象化，人可以将自己的需求、欲望等实现出来，将自己的本质力量铭刻在对象身上，通过先定的对象来表现自身，这是作为普遍性的类本质的实现条件;二是劳动的对象化在本质上是一种“社会的”活动，从而也是历史的活动。人们在对象化的劳动中结成一种交往关系，这种关系同样是历史的，通过历史的活动而展现出来，正是在社会性的与历史性的展开中，人才能摆脱抽象的本质规定，展现出丰富的存在，也才能实现真正意义上的“总体的人”。

Fourth, corresponding to the “total human being,” Marcuse at this time put forward the idea of “total revolution.” In his view, Marx’s investigation of the human essence and its actual existence, especially the alienation of the human being in reality, becomes the driving force for launching revolution. Because this alienation is total, it determines that change cannot be carried out only economically, politically, or culturally; it must be “unconditionally through total revolution to completely change the existing state of affairs.” Marcuse’s thinking here has similarities with his later “Great Refusal,” and the judgment of the “totality” of the existing state of affairs constitutes the basis of this revolutionary critique.

第四，与“总体的人”相对应，此时的马尔库塞提出了“总体的革命”的思想。在他看来，马克思对人的本质及其现实存在的考察，特别是现实中人的异化，成为发动革命的原动力，由于这种异化的全面性，决定了不可能仅从经济上、政治上或文化上加以变革，必须是“无条件地通过总体革命来彻底改变现状”。马尔库塞的这一思考与其后来的“大拒绝”有着相似之处，而对现状的“总体性”判断，则构成了这一革命批判的基础。

In Marcuse’s work, although the “total human being” constitutes the orientation of his theory, in the construction of his theory, he gives more play to the essence of dialectics as the negation of totality. This makes his theory exhibit a very strong critical and radical character. But if one considers that when radical negation lacks a constructive dimension, the “total human being” easily becomes a utopian imagination.

在马尔库塞这里，虽然“总体的人”构成了其理论的指向，但在其理论的建构中，他更多发挥的是总体性的否定这一辩证法的本质，这使得他的理论展现出非常强烈的批判性和激进性。但如果考虑到当激进的否定缺少一种建构的维度时，“总体的人”也就容易成为一种乌托邦的想象。

The aspiration for the “total human being” was also the focus of Lefebvre’s reinterpretation of Marx in the 1930s. In the second half of his 1938 book *Dialectical Materialism*, he relatively concentratedly expounded the idea of the “total human being.” Lefebvre’s discussion unfolds from three aspects:

对“总体的人”的向往，同样是列菲伏尔在20世纪30年代重新解释马克思时的着力点。在1938年出版的《辩证唯物主义》一书的后半部，他对“总体的人”的思想进行了较为集中的阐发。列菲伏尔的讨论从三个方面展开:

First, totality as a philosophical method, which is opposed to positivist and idealist methods. Positivism clings to facts and ready-made objects, unable to examine things from the process of practical activity, while idealism formalizes activity, unable truly to think from reality. A method lacking totality, when confronting nature, easily falls into material determinism. Although material determinism reflects the pattern of human practice at a given stage, if this determinism is pushed to its extreme, it places people within a material apparatus, unable to manifest life freely. A method lacking totality, when confronting society, easily falls into social determinism, a kind of natural determinism within human society. It both provides conditions for human activity and “yet restricts this activity. It provides human freedom, yet opposes this freedom.” [10]10 Henri Lefebvre, *Dialectical Materialism*, trans. John Sturrock (London: Jonathan Cape, 1968), p. 93. [Citation as given in the original Chinese text; the English translation may vary slightly.] This means that inhuman elements still play a significant role in human activity, and that humanity has not yet been fully understood. It also shows that only by proceeding from totality, by treating the relationship between human and human, human and nature as a totality, can one engage in genuine philosophical activity, because the basic activity of philosophy is to reproduce the totality.

一是作为哲学方法的总体性，这是与实证主义的、唯心主义的方法相对立的，实证主义拘泥于事实、现成物，不能从实践活动的过程来考察事物，唯心主义则将活动形式化，不能真正地从现实来思考。缺少总体性的方法，在面对自然时，容易陷入物质决定论。物质决定论虽然反映了人们在一定阶段下实践的样态，但如果将这一决定论发挥到极致时，就会将人置于一种物质装置之中而不能自由地展现生命。缺少总体性的方法，在面对社会时就易陷入社会决定论，这是一种人类社会中的自然决定论，它既为人类活动提供了条件，同时“又限制了这个活动。它提供了人的自由，又反对这种自由。”这意味着人类活动中非人性的东西还在发挥着重要作用，人还没有完全被认识。这也表明，只有从总体性出发，把人与人、人与自然的关系当作一个总体，才是真正的哲学的活动，因为哲学的基本活动就是再现总体。

Second, totality as the essential determination of the human being, i.e., the “total human being.” What is the total human being? “The total human being is the subject and object of change; it is the living subject that opposes the object and overcomes this opposition; it is the subject that is broken up into many partial activities and dispersed determinations and overcomes this dispersion; it is both the acting subject and the final object of action, and even the product of action when it produces external objects. The total human being is the living subject-object, initially torn to pieces and later imprisoned in necessity and abstraction. The total human being passes through this fragmentation toward freedom; it becomes nature, but a free nature. It becomes a totality like nature, yet masters nature. The total human being is the ‘de-alienated’ human being.” [11]11 Henri Lefebvre, *Dialectical Materialism*, p. 162. Combining Lefebvre’s relevant discussions, we can conclude: First, the total human being is one who has broken free from unidirectional determinism such as material determinism and social determinism; in such determinism, people are dominated by forces they cannot understand. The total human being means that the human being is nature itself, that the human being is society itself. Second, the total human being has broken free from the state of separation and alienation. In capitalist society, with the establishment of the dominance of economic necessity, the human being becomes *homo economicus*; the totality of products and productive forces becomes the “other” of the human being, and the human being thus falls into an alienated state of existence. This alienation is manifested not only as the alienation of the human being from its activity, products, and existence, but also as the internal alienation and separation within the human being itself, such as the separation of action and thought. Third, creativity and freedom become the essential determination of the total human being. In the state of alienation, human creative activity becomes a means of making the human being an alienated existence; freedom departs from the human being. But with the return of the total human being, creativity will become the manifestation of the human being’s essential powers. In this creative activity, the total human being will eliminate the oppositions between subject and object, essence and existence, self and others; the human being will return to the human being. Fourth, Lefebvre even holds that when the total human being is realized, the highest organ of power is also the total human being; this is the free individual in the free collective.

二是作为人的本质规定的总体性，即“总体的人”。什么是总体的人?“总体的人是变化的主体与客体，它是与客体对立并克服这种对立的有生命的主体，是被分成许多局部活动和分散的规定并克服这种分散性的主体，它既是行为主体，又是行为的最后客体，甚至是行为在生产外界客体时的产物。总体的人是有生命的主体—客体，是起初被弄得支离破碎，后来又被禁锢在必然和抽象之中的主体—客体。总体的人经历了这种支离破碎走向自由，它变成自然界，但这是自由的自然界。它象自然一样成了一个总体，但又驾驭着自然界，总体的人是‘消除了异化’的人。”结合列菲伏尔的相关论述，可以得出:第一，总体的人是摆脱了物质决定论、社会决定论这种单向决定论的人，在这种决定论中，人都是被自己无法了解的力量支配。总体的人意味着人就是自然界，人就是社会本身;第二，总体的人摆脱了分离与异化的状态。在资本主义社会，随着经济必然性的主导地位的确立，人成为经济人，产品和生产力的总体成为人的“他物”，人从而陷入一种异化的存在状态，这种异化不仅表现为人与其活动、产品、人的存在等的异化，也体现在人自身的内部异化与分离，如行动与思想的分离等;第三，创造性与自由成为总体的人的本质规定。在异化状态中，人的创造性活动是使人成为异化存在的手段，自由离人而去，但随着总体的人的回归，创造性将成为人的本质力量的展现，在这种创造性的活动中，总体的人将消除主体与客体、本质与存在、自我与他人等的对立，人将回复到人;第四，列菲伏尔甚至认为，当总体的人实现了时，最高的权力机关也是总体的人，这是自由集体中自由的个人。

Third, the ontological foundation that defines the total human being. Lefebvre likewise emphasizes the ontological significance of labor, holding that productive labor is a free and creative activity. The total human being expresses itself through totalizing activity; this totalizing activity is also the common activity of human beings, and this activity is “production.” “The meaning of the word ‘production’ is crucial, because it contains and explains other activities, because it contains and implies the essence, action, and knowledge of the human being. This word is sometimes not taken seriously, because it is mentioned in its narrowest sense, but it implies all human values.” [12]12 Henri Lefebvre, *Dialectical Materialism*, p. 164. In *The Sociology of Marx*, completed in the 1970s, he confirms the ontological significance of “practice,” holding that practice is creative activity; in the concrete historical process, practice is manifested as productive labor. The highest form of this labor is artistic productive activity. The total human being is the human being in artistic existence. Taking artistic existence as the highest state of human existence is an important ideal of Lefebvre. He emphasizes that art is a productive labor capable of shedding the characteristics of alienation, and that it realizes the unity of producer and product, individual and society, nature and the human being. This is consistent with his thought in *Everyday Life in the Modern World* from the late 1960s. In this book, Lefebvre emphasizes that revolution must be total, encompassing the economic, political, and cultural levels; when politics and the economy in real society become increasingly coercive, cultural revolution becomes increasingly important. This “cultural revolution” is inseparable from the transformation of philosophical experience; art can become an important soil for the transformation of philosophical experience, and the revolution of everyday life is to turn everyday life into a work of art; this is an important path for escaping the alienation of everyday life.

三是界定总体的人的本体论基础。列菲伏尔同样强调劳动的本体论意义，认为生产劳动是自由而创造性的活动。总体的人以总体性的活动来表现自己，这种整体性的活动也是人的共同活动，这种活动就是“生产”。“‘生产’一词的含义是至关重要的，因为，它包含着其他活动并说明其他活动，因为它包含着并意味着人的本质、行动、知识。这个词有时不太受人重视，因为人们在最小范围内提到它，但它却意味着全部人类价值。”在20世纪70年代完成的《马克思的社会学》中，他确认了“实践”的本体论意义，认为实践就是创造性的活动，在具体的历史进程中，实践体现为生产性的劳动。这种劳动的最高表现形式是艺术性的生产活动。总体的人是艺术存在中的人。将艺术存在作为人的最高存在状态，是列菲伏尔的一个重要理想。他强调艺术是能够摆脱异化特性的生产性劳动，是实现生产者与产品、个人与社会、自然与人的统一。这与他在20世纪60年代后期的《现代世界的日常生活》中的思想相一致。在这本书中，列菲伏尔强调，革命必须是总体性的，包含着经济层面、政治层面和文化层面，当现实社会中的政治、经济日益具有强制性时，文化的革命显得日益重要。这种“文化革命”离不开哲学经验的变革，艺术可以成为哲学经验变革的重要土壤，日常生活革命就是将日常生活变成艺术品，这是摆脱日常生活异化的一条重要途径。

By the 1960s, when the study of the *1844 Manuscripts* revived, the discussion of the totality of the human being was still an important topic. Among these texts, Fromm’s *Marx’s Concept of Man* is undoubtedly an important one. In this text, Fromm’s starting point is the total human being. The entire essay actually discusses two important issues: first, how to understand the human being and its essence in history; second, the alienation of the human being’s essence in capitalist society. The second issue is based on the first, and demonstrates the rationality of the first. When discussing the theoretical orientation of Marx, Fromm points out: “Marx’s aim was that of the spiritual emancipation of man, of his liberation from the chains of economic determinism, of restituting him in his human wholeness, of enabling him to find unity and harmony with his fellow man and with nature.” [13]13 Erich Fromm, *Marx’s Concept of Man* (New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., 1961), p. 3. Therefore, the total human being and the freedom of human nature constitute the consistent theme of Marx’s philosophy; this is true not only of the early *1844 Manuscripts*, but also of the later *Capital*. Complete human nature, the total human being, is the human being who freely and consciously creates life; in creative activity, the human being realizes its free essence, realizes the reconciliation of contradictions between human and human, human and nature, human and object. It is precisely with this idea of the total human being that Marx carried out a profound critique of the alienation of the human being in capitalist society.

到20世纪60年代，《1844年手稿》的研究再次兴起时，对人的总体性的讨论仍然是当时的一个重要话题。在这些文献中，弗洛姆的《马克思关于人的概念》无疑是一个重要的文本。在这一文本中，弗洛姆的出发点就是总体的人。整篇文章其实就讨论两个重要议题:一是如何理解历史中的人及其本质;二是在资本主义社会人的本质的异化。第二个问题以第一个问题为基础，并论证着第一个问题的合理性。在讨论到马克思的理论指向时，弗洛姆指出:“马克思的目标是使人在精神上得到解放，使人摆脱经济决定论的枷锁，使人的完整的人性得到恢复，使人与其伙伴们以及与自然界处于统一而且和谐的关系之中。”因此，总体性的人及人性的自由，构成了马克思哲学一以贯之的主题，不仅早期的《1844年手稿》是这样，在后来的《资本论》中，同样如此。完整的人性、总体的人，也就是自由自觉地创造生活的人，在创造性的活动中，实现人的自由本质，实现人与人、人与自然、人与对象之间的矛盾和解。正是有了总体的人这一思想，马克思对资本主义社会中人的异化进行了深刻的批判。

Alienation is rooted in the estrangement between the human being’s existence and its essence, i.e., the human being is in fact not what it potentially ought to be. The human being in essence ought to be the complete human being, the total human being, but in reality it is in a state of alienation, just as Marx described in the *1844 Manuscripts*. Labor was originally the exertion of the human being’s essential powers, but in reality, alienated labor turns the human being’s self-activity, its essential activity, into a means of maintaining its existence; the human world is ruled by the world of things. Unlike capitalism, socialism is precisely about eliminating the alienation of the human being, fully developing the human being’s capacities, and realizing the free and creative development of the human being. Therefore, socialism is precisely about enabling the human being to return to the total human being; this is the essential determination of socialism.

异化植根于人的存在与本质的疏远，也就是人在事实上不是其潜在应有的样子。人在本质上应是完整的人、总体的人，但在现实中，却是处于异化之中，就像马克思在《1844年手稿》中所描述的那样。劳动本来是人的本质力量的发挥，但在现实中，异化劳动却将人的自我活动、人的本质性的活动变成了维持人的存在的手段，人的世界被物的世界统治。与资本主义不同，社会主义就是要消除人的异化，充分发挥人的能力，实现人的自由与创造性发展。因此，社会主义就是要使人回归到总体的人，这是社会主义的本质规定。

The above discussions further advance the understanding of totality. Scholars not only understand totality as a critical method, but also as a determination of the future society and of the complete essence of the human being. It can be said that this pushes totality to an extremely high position.

上述的这些讨论，进一步推进了对总体性的理解。学者们不仅把总体性理解为一种批判性的方法，更把它理解为关于未来社会、关于人的完满本质的规定。可以说，这将总体性推到了一个极高的位置。

III. From Totality to Totalization: Sartre’s Exploration

三、从总体性到总体化：萨特的探索

When the humanist discourse arose in the 1960s, Althusser subjected it to a thorough critique from a structuralist standpoint. In terms of theoretical content, Althusser classified this discourse as bourgeois ideology, arguing that taking the early Marx, who was still under the influence of humanism, as the true Marx had not yet broken free from the framework of ideology. In Marx’s intellectual development, it was only after the epistemological break that his scientific theory of history emerged. Althusser emphasized that there is an epistemological break between the young Marx and the mature Marx, reflecting two different problematics. In his view, a person’s problematic determines their mode of thought, and each specific problem has meaning only within this overarching framework. This means that the problematic possesses a totality, and this totality exerts an external constraining force on individual existence. In Marx’s scientific theory of history, overdetermination constitutes the core of this theoretical framework. Within this interpretation, overdetermination likewise forms a totality. Although Althusser criticized the philosophical discourse of humanism, he did not criticize the concept of totality within that discourse; rather, he displaced the theoretical foundation of this concept of totality. Where humanist discourse took man as the basis of totality, Althusser emphasized the internal relations among elements such as the economy and politics, and within this relational structure, productive forces play a fundamental role. It can be said that Althusser replaced the totality of man and human existence posited by humanism with an objective totality.

在20世纪60年代人本主义话语兴起之时，阿尔都塞以结构主义的方式对这一话语进行了深入的批评。从理论内容来说，阿尔都塞将这一话语归入资产阶级的意识形态，认为以早年处于人本主义影响下的马克思作为真正的马克思，并没有摆脱意识形态的解释框架。在马克思的思想发展中，只有经过认识论断裂后，才有了其科学的历史理论。阿尔都塞强调青年马克思与晚年马克思之间存在着认识论的断裂，体现了两种不同的问题构架。在他看来，一个人的问题构架决定着一个人的思想方式，每一个具体的问题只有在这个总体性的构架中才有其意义。这意味着，问题构架具有总体性，这种总体性对个体存在具有外在的制约作用。在马克思科学的历史理论中，多元决定论构成了这一理论构架的内核。在这个解释中，多元决定论同样构成为一个总体。虽然阿尔都塞批评人本主义的哲学话语，但他并没有批评这一话语中的总体性理念，而是置换了这一总体性思想的理论基础，在人本主义话语以人为总体性的基础的地方，他强调的是经济、政治等要素之间的内在关系，在这一关系结构中，生产力具有根本性的作用。可以说，阿尔都塞以一种客观的总体性取代了人本主义所说的人、人的存在的总体性。

Unlike Althusser, Sartre, a contemporary, adopted a humanist interpretive stance toward Marxist philosophy. Like the humanists mentioned above, Sartre also criticized the neglect of man in orthodox Marxist philosophical interpretations, arguing that this neglect created an empty space for the science of man. [14]14 “Empty space for the science of man” (人学的空场) – A phrase used by Sartre and other humanist Marxists to criticize orthodox Marxism for neglecting the concrete individual subject in its analysis of history and society. Here, man is not just man in general, but the individual, which means that Marxism requires his existentialism as a supplement; at the same time, Marxism, through its attention to and critical analysis of socio-historical life, can also activate existentialist thought. The total life of society and history needs to be concretized through individual existence, while the fragmented state of individual existence requires totalization within social life in order to achieve a dual perspective on both social life and individual existence. In this line of thought, Sartre no longer focuses on a fixed totality, but on dynamic totalization. He emphasizes: “‘Existential’ thought has inherited two demands that Marxism itself derived from Hegelianism: if something like a truth is to be possible in the science of man, it must be changing, it must become totalization.” [15]15 Sartre, *Critique of Dialectical Reason*, Volume 1, p. 21. (Reference to the standard English edition.) Totalization implies both the totalization of history and the totalization of cognition; so-called dialectical reason is the cognition of this dual relationship of totalization.

与阿尔都塞不同，处于同一时代的萨特对马克思主义哲学持一种人本主义的解释立场。与上述人本主义者一样，萨特同样批判正统马克思主义哲学解释中对人的忽视，认为这种忽视造成了人学的空场。这里的人，不只是一般意义上的人，而是个人，这意味着马克思主义需要他的存在主义来补充，同时，马克思主义以其对社会历史生活的关注与批判性分析，也更能激活存在主义的思考。社会历史的总体生活需要借助于个体的生存来具体化，而个体生存的碎片化状态，更需要在社会生活中实现总体化，以达到对社会生活与个体生存的双重透视。在这一思考中，萨特关注的不再是固定性的总体，而是动态的总体化。他强调:“‘存在’的思想继承了马克思主义本身认为来源于黑格尔主义的两个要求:如果某个作为一种真理的东西应该可能在人学中存在的话，那么，它必须是变化的，它必须成为总体化的。”总体化既意味着历史的总体化，也意味着认识的总体化，所谓的辩证理性，就是对这一双重总体化关系的认识。

First, Sartre distinguishes between the concepts of totality and totalization. In his view, totality signifies a rigidified structure, which, as structuralism describes, dominates everything as a given fact. In this sense, it can be said that Althusser’s overdetermination actually refines determinism. Sartre believes that the characteristic of dialectics lies not in totality, but in totalization, because totalization implies a changing and dynamic configuration; it implies a becoming, an expansion of, or even a breakthrough from, the given structure. In the process of totalization, something is always lost; therefore, in the process of totalization, it implies both the unification of relations and their dispersal. “In our view, the reality of collective objects resides in circularity: it indicates that totalization has never been completed, and that totalization exists at most under the name of a totalization that has been broken down into fragments.” [16]16 Sartre, *Critique of Dialectical Reason*, Volume 1, p. 67. (Reference to the standard English edition.) This means that totality is the relatively “degenerate” state of totalization.

首先，萨特区分了总体与总体化这两个概念。在他看来，总体意味着一种凝固化的结构，正如结构主义所论述的那样，这种结构作为既定的事实支配着一切。在这个意义上可以说，阿尔都塞的多元决定论实际上是将决定论更加精致化了。萨特认为，辩证法的特征并不在于总体性，而在于总体化，因为总体化意味着一种变化和动态的格局，它意味着一种生成，是对既定结构的扩展，甚至是突破。在总体化的过程中，总有某种东西在流失，因此在总体化的过程中，既意味着关系的联合，也意味着它们的分散。“在我们看来，集体对象的现实性是存在于循环性之上的:它表明着总体化从来没有完成过，而且总体化至多存在于化整为零的总体性的名目之下。”这意味着，总体是总体化的相对“堕落”的状态。

For example, at the social level, inert practice obstructs the totalization of society. Like the humanist scholars mentioned above, Sartre also takes individual creative activity as the basis for individual free development. However, in actual social life, because human history is built on a foundation of scarcity, scarcity brings people into conflict with one another, turning their creative activity into mutually conflicting, hostile activity, placing people in a state of potential self-annihilation and danger to everyone, separating them both from themselves and from others. This causes human creative practice to degenerate into inert practice, a condition that is even more pronounced in industrial society. “It might be more reasonable and easier to understand industrialization as a result of development on the basis of past scarcity, which is a real factor in history (insofar as it manifests as institutions and practices), founded on the negation of man by things through others.” [17]17 Sartre, *Critique of Dialectical Reason*, Volume 1, p. 153. (Reference to the standard English edition.) In inert practice, the material system that should serve as a medium instead becomes the dominant system, and man becomes a tool that receives instructions from the material system. Sartre’s discussion here is an application and extension of Marx’s critique of alienation and fetishism and of Lukács’s theory of reification, forming his own interpretive framework. In his view, reification is not just turning people into things, but also imposing social structure as a necessity on every member of a social group; these members belong to this group and see society as a totality, as a molecular structure. This is somewhat similar to Althusser’s totality. When such a totality is taken as a self-evident premise, the individual is already under the repression of actual existence, turned into a thing within the total structure. For instance, when discussing labor in the workshop, Sartre argues that this is a field of inert practice, where external unity constitutes the precondition of labor; within this external unity, people are subordinated to the machine totality, and laborers are divided by this totality onto different production lines, completing their work through the instructions of the machines. In these discussions, totality seems to correspond more to the reified social structure. This interpretation is closer to Marx’s critique of fetishism, and the reflection on totality is an important reason why Sartre emphasizes totalization.

比如，在社会层面，惰性实践就会阻碍社会的总体化。与上述人本主义学者一样，萨特同样将个人的创造性活动作为个体自由发展的根据，但在现实的社会生活中，由于人类的历史建立在匮乏的基础上，匮乏使人相互冲突，使人的创造性活动反转为相互冲突的、敌对性的活动，使人处于一种潜在的自我湮灭和每一个的危险之中，既与自己相分离，也易与他人相分离，这就使得人的创造性实践堕落为惰性实践，这种状态在工业化社会更为明显。“把工业化看作在过去匮乏的基础上发展的结果，也许更合理、更容易理解，这种匮乏是历史(就其表现为制度和实践的而言)的一个真实因素，它建立在通过他人用物对人进行否定的基础上。”在惰性实践中，本当作为中介的物质系统反而成为支配性的系统，人反而成为接受物质系统指令的工具。萨特的这一讨论是对马克思异化与拜物教批判理论及卢卡奇物化理论的运用与推广，并形成了自己的解释构架。在他看来，物化不只是将人变成物，更是将社会结构作为一种必然性强加到社会群体的每位成员身上，这些成员从属于这个群体，并把社会看作一个总体，看作一个分子结构。这有点类似于阿尔都塞的总体，当以这样的总体为不言自明的前提时，个体已经处于现实存在的压抑之中，变成了总体结构中的物。比如，在讨论车间中的劳动时，萨特就认为，这就是一种惰性实践场，外在的统一性构成了劳动的先决条件，人在这种外在的统一中从属于机器总体，劳动者被这一总体分割在不同的生产线上，通过机器的指令完成自己的工作。在这些讨论中，总体似乎更对应于物化的社会结构。这一解释更加接近于马克思的拜物教批判理论，对总体的反思是萨特强调总体化的重要原因。

Second, Sartre distinguishes between totalization and assimilation. In his view, assimilation refers to formal identity. In assimilation, all elements shed their particularity, lacking mediation between them, thus becoming homogeneous existence. Totalization is different; it has internal mediation, and the elements form internal interconnections within totalization. For example, in the investigation of social life, the relations between people need to be understood through concrete activities, while the investigation of individual concrete activities and social practices requires understanding the material reality within group relations and the material structures mediated by human practice; these constitute the mediation of relations between people, thus forming multiple and composite relations. Such relations cannot be understood through assimilation. If assimilation makes everything simpler and more formal, then totalization makes everything concrete and diverse. Of course, this does not mean that totalization is transparent; there are always things in this process that remain opaque and mystified, and it is these opaque, mystified things that often make human life external to man. When these mystified things, at the level of social life, issue commands to people, they become the instructions of things discussed above. Sartre’s discussion here does not idealize totalization; rather, it recognizes the problems in this process, the significance and limitations of totalization.

其次，萨特区分了总体化与同化。在他看来，同化指的是形式化的相同。在同化中，所有的要素都去除自身的特殊性，它们之间缺少中介，从而成为同质性的存在。总体化则不同，它有着内在的中介，各要素在总体化中形成了内在的相互联系。比如，在对社会生活的考察中，人与人之间的关系需要到具体活动中去理解，而对个人具体活动和社会实践的考察，就需要了解处于群体关系中的物质实在以及由人的实践所中介的物质结构，这些构成了人与人之间关系的中介，从而形成多元复合关系。这种关系就不是同化所能理解的。如果说同化使一切更加简单化、形式化，那么总体化则使一切具体化、多样化。当然，这并不意味着总体化就是透明化，总有些东西在这个过程中处于不透明的、神秘化的状态，正是这些不透明的、神秘的东西使人的生活常常外在于人。这种神秘的东西，在社会生活层面，对人发号施令时，就是上面讨论的物的指令。萨特的这个讨论，并没有将总体化理想化，而是看到了这一过程中的问题，总体化的意义及局限。

For Sartre, Marxist philosophy is a philosophy of totalization; it is not a completed system but one that drives its own totalization in the face of this changing world. How is this to be achieved? Sartre proposes the progressive-regressive method in philosophical research. In his view, Marx articulated this method well. Marx pointed out: “Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past. The tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living.” [18]18 This is a paraphrase of Marx’s well-known opening to *The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte* (1852). The Chinese text here is a slightly adapted version of the standard Chinese translation of that passage. Sartre believes that this passage from Marx indicates: first, material relations are the precondition of human activity, constraining the mode and outcome of human activity — this is an inert material force; second, humans are not entirely governed by material conditions; they strive to change this force and make it change according to their own intentions; third, but the result of this change often becomes external to humans, becoming an alienated force; fourth, eliminating this alienated force depends on the process of totalization. As discussed earlier, the process of totalization is not an ideal state; this means that totalization is ongoing. The situation described above is precisely the progressive and regressive state of humans in historical activity, which requires philosophy to constantly return to the past, to move forward in the return, thereby completing this synthesis in thought, as Jameson comments: “by analysis moving from the present to the past, regressing to the meaning and value of necessarily past actions at the moment of their occurrence, and then, in a manner akin to their original richness and complexity, synthetically recreating them in thought.” [19]19 Fredric Jameson, *Marxism and Form: Twentieth-Century Dialectical Theories of Literature* (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1971), p. 207. This is precisely the progressive-regressive method in philosophical reflection. Social life realizes its own totalization in progression and regression, and philosophical reflection also realizes its own totalization in this process.

对于萨特来说，马克思主义哲学是一种总体化的哲学，它不是已经完成了的体系，而是面对这个变动的世界推动自身的总体化。如何实现这一点?萨特提出了哲学研究中的前进—逆溯法。在他看来，马克思较好地表述了这一方法。马克思指出:“人们的社会历史始终只是他们的个体发展的历史，而不管他们是否意识到这一点。他们的物质关系形成他们一切关系的基础。这种物质关系不过是他们的物质的和个体的活动所借以实现的必然形式罢了。”萨特认为，马克思的这段话表明:第一，物质关系是人类活动的前提条件，制约着人们的活动方式及其后果，这是一种惰性物质力量;第二，人并不完全受物质条件支配，他们力图改变这种力量，并使之按照自己的意图发生变化;第三，但这一改变的结果又往往外在于人，成为异化的力量;第四，消除这一异化力量，有赖于总体化的过程。前面已经讨论到，总体化的过程并不是一种理想的状态，这意味着总体化是不断进行的。上述的这种情境就是人在历史活动中的前进与回溯状态，这要求在哲学上也是不断地回到过去，在回到中向前行进，从而在思想中完成这一综合，正如杰姆逊所评论的:“以分析方法从现在转向过去，回溯到必然是过去的行动在其发生时刻的意义和价值，然后以一种酷似它们原初的丰富和驳杂的方式，在思想里综合地重新创造它们。”这正是哲学思考中的前进—回溯法。社会生活在前进与回溯中实现自身的总体化，哲学思考也是在这个过程中实现自身的总体化。

Compared with thought that merely emphasizes totality, Sartre reinterprets Marxist philosophy through totalization, emphasizing that the relatively closed totality gives way to a constantly deconstructing and constructing totalization, thereby highlighting the dynamic dimension of the Marxist dialectic. In the process of totalization, although inert practice and the system of thing-commands [20]20 “Thing-commands” (物的指令系统) refers to Sartre’s concept of the “practice-inert” field where materialized social structures impose imperatives on individuals, as developed in his *Critique of Dialectical Reason*. exist, Sartre believes that individual creative activity is a force capable of changing inert practice, continuously driving the totalization of social life, thus opening up an open theoretical space. Compared with totality, totalization better reveals the dialectic of Marx’s philosophy.

相比于只强调总体性的思想，萨特以总体化来重新理解马克思主义哲学，强调相对封闭的总体让位于不断解构与建构的总体化，更加突出了马克思主义辩证法的运动之维。在总体化的过程中，虽然存在于惰性实践与物的指令系统，但萨特认为，个人的创造性活动是能够改变惰性实践的力量，不断地推动着社会生活的总体化，从而打开了一个开放的理论空间。相比于总体性而言，总体化更能展现马克思哲学的辩证法。

IV. Totality and Servitude: Adorno’s Critique

四、总体性与奴役：阿多诺的批评

From the discussion of Sartre, it can be seen that by the late 1960s, the understanding of totality had undergone an important change in its line of thought. Totality was no longer the ideal dimension of humanity, nor the direction of social idealization; totality was seen as a characteristic of contemporary capitalist society. It is precisely this totality that suppresses individual existence, forming the repressive force of society. It can be said that totality is the essence of modern Western developed societies; it is this totality that increases social power and control. Breaking totality is an important link in the liberation of modern society and the liberation of humanity. This idea is fully expressed in Adorno’s *Negative Dialectics*.

从萨特的讨论中可以看出，到20世纪60年代后期，对总体性的理解在思路上发生了重要的变化，总体性不再成为人的理想性维度，也不再是社会理想化的方向，总体性被看作当代资本主义社会的特征，正是这种总体性压抑着个体性的存在，形成了社会的压制力，可以说，总体性是当下西方发达社会的本质，正是这种总体性，增长了社会的权力与控制力，打破总体性，这是现代社会解放和人的解放的一个重要环节。这一思想，在阿多诺的《否定的辩证法》中得到了充分的表现。

Adorno’s critique of totality is manifested in the following aspects:

阿多诺关于总体性的批判，体现在以下几个方面:

1. Hegel’s absolute Idea and its carrier, the world spirit, are a totality that takes priority over individuals, a spiritual portrayal of the world of commodity exchange. Adorno argues that Hegel’s absolute Idea and its historical carrier, the world spirit, constitute a theory of totality. In Hegel’s discussion, the world spirit, compared with individual actions, is an independent existence; it permeates every concrete spirit but precedes every concrete spirit. This determines the priority of the world spirit over individual actions and concrete ideas; individual actions or spirits are possible only within the totality of the world spirit. In such a relationship:

1.黑格尔的绝对观念以及这一观念的载体即世界精神，是一种优先于个体的总体性的存在，是对商品交换世界的精神写照。阿多诺认为，黑格尔的绝对观念以及这一观念的历史载体即世界精神，就是一种总体性的理论。在黑格尔的讨论中，世界精神相比于个别行动而言，是一种独立性的存在，它渗透到每一个具体的精神中，但又先在于每一个具体的精神，这决定了世界精神对个体行动、对具体的理念具有优先性，个体的行动或精神只有在世界精神的总体中才是可能的。在这样一种关系中:

First, even in Hegel’s philosophy, although the existence of individuals is an important moment in the actualization of the world spirit, the individual is a false existence, because the totality can return to itself in Hegel’s sense only after discarding the existence of individuals.

第一，即使在黑格尔的哲学中，个体的存在是世界精神现实化的重要环节，但个体是一种虚假的存在，因为总体只有在摒弃了个体的存在之后，才能在黑格尔的意义上回到自身。

Second, this totality is a totality of identity that eliminates non-identity; its true prototype is modern society based on commodity exchange. This is an abstract totality. At the philosophical level, this abstract form is the manifestation of the solipsistic relationship between individuals; at the level of real life, it embodies the abstractness and homogeneity expressed by commodity exchange. As Sohn-Rethel pointed out: “Socialization is carried out only in the exchange between commodity owners, thus in an act that proceeds without the involvement of commodity use and is clearly separated from commodity use in time. Therefore, the commodity abstraction and the formalism of social synthesis it serves must be found within the sphere of exchange relations, in its precisely demarcated space of activity.” [21]21 Alfred Sohn-Rethel, *Intellectual and Manual Labour: A Critique of Epistemology* (London: Macmillan, 1978), p. 28. Adorno, deeply influenced by Sohn-Rethel, proceeds from Marx’s discussion of commodity production and exchange, arguing that the process of commodity production and exchange is actually the process of excluding the heterogeneous aspects of different things, making them comparable on a homogeneous level — this is the precondition for the exchange of qualitatively different commodities. “The principle of commodity exchange, which reduces human labor to the abstract general concept of average labor time, is fundamentally similar to the principle of identity. Commodity exchange is the social model of this principle; without this principle there would be no commodity exchange. It is precisely through commodity exchange that non-identical individuals and products become commensurable and identical. The expansion of this principle makes the whole world a totality of identity.” [22]22 Theodor W. Adorno, *Negative Dialectics*, trans. E. B. Ashton (New York: Continuum, 1973), p. 146. This identity that eliminates non-identity constitutes the essential characteristic of modern society. The world spirit that Hegel speaks of is precisely the conscious reflection of this society. “In Hegel’s works, identity, as totality, has ontological priority.” [23]23 Adorno, *Negative Dialectics*, p. 317. In this social configuration of identity, all individuals can survive only by relying on the totality of society; the individual resides within the social existence of totality, but totality cannot be dissolved into the individual. The world spirit of totality is fundamentally the manifestation of the social configuration of identity at the philosophical level.

第二，这种总体是消除了非同一性的同一性总体，其真正的原型是以商品交换为基础的现代社会。这是一种抽象的总体，这种抽象形式在哲学层面是人与人之间唯我论关系的表现，在现实生活层面，体现的是商品交换所表达出来的抽象性与同质性。正如雷特尔所指出的:“社会化的贯彻只在商品占有者方面的交换中发生，从而是在这样的行为中发生，这种行为的进行不掺杂商品使用，并在时间上与商品使用明确地分离。因此，商品抽象及其所服务的社会综合的形式主义，必须是在交换关系的范围之内，在它的如此精确地划定的活动空间中才能找到。”深受雷特尔影响的阿多诺从马克思关于商品生产与交换的讨论出发，认为商品生产与交换的过程，实际上就是排除不同事物的非同质的一面，使之在一个同质的层面进行比较，这是不同质的商品得以交换的前提条件。“商品交换原则，把人类劳动还原为平均劳动时间这一抽象的一般概念，从根本上来说与同一性原则相似。商品交换是这一原则的社会模型，没有这一原则就没有商品交换，正是通过商品交换，非同一性的个人和产品成为可通约的和同一性的。这一原则的扩张，使整个世界成为同一性的总体。”这种消除了非同一性的同一性，构成了现代社会的本质特征，黑格尔所说的世界精神，正是这一社会的意识反映。“在黑格尔的著作中，同一性，作为总体性，在本体论上具有优先性”。在这种同一性的社会构型中，一切个人只能靠社会的总体性才能生存下来，个人寓于总体性的社会存在之中，但总体性并不能融化为个体。总体性的世界精神，从根本上来说是同一性的社会构型在哲学层面的表现。

Third, this world spirit, at the level of social life, easily degenerates into a national spirit or group spirit, bringing servitude and repression into social life. The world spirit manifests itself in different historical periods; this reason in history is embodied through national or group spirit, thereby elevating a particular national spirit or group spirit to the height of the absolute spirit, forming a position of domination and repression over social life. Adorno’s discussion here targets the spiritual condition of the fascist era. In Hegel’s view, the national spirit is a concrete form of the universal, the world spirit; the doctrine of national spirit demonstrates the legitimacy of a particular nation’s rule. At the level of real life, this spirit is further manifested through a certain group spirit, thereby forming domination and repressive force. Adorno argues that Hegel’s doctrine of national spirit is reactionary; it integrates individuals. In a realistic sense, national unity is the precondition for the existence of bourgeois society, while group spirit directly confirms a committee-recognized group as a dominant power institution and can defend this status from a spiritual perspective.

第三，这种世界精神，在社会生活层面，就易堕落为民族精神或集团精神，带来社会生活中的奴役与压制。世界精神会在不同的历史时段而现身，这种历史中的理性，通过民族或集团精神体现出来，从而将某一民族精神或集团精神上升到绝对精神的高度，形成对社会生活的支配与压制地位。阿多诺的这一讨论，针对的是法西斯时代的精神状况。在黑格尔看来，民族精神是世界精神这一普遍物的具体形式，民族精神的学说论证了某一民族统治的合法性，在现实生活层面，这一精神又会通过某一集团精神表现出来，从而形成统治与支配力。阿多诺认为，黑格尔的这种民族精神学说是反动的，这是将个人一体化，在现实的意义上，民族统一是资产阶级社会存在的前提，而集团精神则直接将一个委员会认可的集团确认为支配性的权力机构，并可以从精神的角度对这一地位进行辩护。

2. The totality of identity embodies the inherent dominating force of contemporary society; this is a negation of non-identity. To change this dominant position of totality, it is necessary to reassert negativity. In Adorno’s view, although there is a moment of negation in Hegel’s dialectic, this moment is the externalization of spirit, a movement from spirit toward its other. This movement is not a genuine absorption of non-identity but rather an external manifestation of identity. More importantly, the dialectic also contains a moment of the negation of the negation, where spirit returns to itself from its other; this is a second confirmation of identity. “To equate the negation of the negation with positivity is the essence of identitarian thinking.” [24]24 Theodor W. Adorno, *Negative Dialectics*, trans. E. B. Ashton (New York: Continuum, 1973), p. 160. In these two negations, non-identity has no legitimate place. Based on the discussion above, in order to criticize and invert this dominant position of the spirit of totality, it is necessary to reassert negativity. This negation is not about returning to identity itself, but about confirming non-identity.

2.同一性的总体体现了当代社会内在的支配力，这是对非同一性的否定，要改变这种总体性的支配地位，需要重提否定性。在阿多诺看来，在黑格尔的辩证法中，虽然存在着否定的环节，但这个环节是精神的外化，是从精神走向自身的他者，这种走向并不是真正地吸引非同一性，反而是同一性的外部表现。更为重要的是，辩证法还有一个否定之否定的环节，这是精神从自身的他者那里回到自身，这是对同一性的第二次确认。“将否定之否定等同于肯定是同一化的精髓”，在这两次否定中，非同一性都没有合法的位置。根据上面的讨论，为了批判和颠倒总体性精神的这种支配地位，就需要重提否定性，这种否定并不是要回到同一性自身，而是确认非同一性。

Unlike Hegel, who dissolves the other of non-identity into identity, Adorno emphasizes that Hegel’s non-identity here is a false existence. This prevents Hegel’s dialectic from truly moving toward an other different from spirit, and the potential of the dialectic is dissolved within this non-identity. The dissolution of non-identity means that the truth of Hegel’s dialectic is a formalized truth, lacking living content. This determines that the world spirit is merely the completion and justification of the identitarian commercial world. If, in Hegel’s philosophy, truth is a formalized existence, an existence without vitality, this implies that the prototype that generates this truth—capitalist society—is an existence without revolutionary vitality, a closed, formalized social structure, a society that justifies its own legitimacy.

与黑格尔将非同一性的他者消融于同一性不同，阿多诺强调，黑格尔这里的非同一性是虚假性的存在，这使得黑格尔的辩证法并不能真正地走向与精神不同的他者，辩证法的潜力也在这种非同一性中消解了。非同一性的消解，使得黑格尔辩证法的真理是一种形式化的真理，并不具有鲜活的内容，这决定了世界精神只是对同一性商业世界的完成和论证。如果说在黑格尔哲学中真理是一种形式化的存在，是一种没有生命力的存在，这就意味着，产生这一真理的原型—资本主义社会，是一种没有革命活力的存在，是一个封闭化的、形式化的社会结构，是自己论证自己合法性的社会。

Contrary to this negation of non-identity, there exist two different theoretical logics: first, the emphasis on individual existence. In Hegel’s philosophy, the emphasis on the world spirit and the totality of identity necessarily abstracts this spirit from individuality and the individual, making it something that towers over the individual, something to which the individual must adapt. In this situation, emphasizing the individual appears to be a way out of the domination of the world spirit. In Adorno’s view, if this totality cannot be broken first, then emphasizing individual existence merely supplements the rule of totality. For within the world spirit of totality, the universal principle of the totality is precisely the principle of individuation of the individual; the totality consolidates its dominant position precisely through the illusion of individual autonomy. The second logic is to replace everything with Being, as Heidegger did. In Adorno’s view, the ontology of Being appears to transcend the philosophical approach centered on subject-object in Hegel’s philosophy, but the supreme supremacy of Being itself, its emptiness that transcends all individual existence, also possesses the character of identity. It is the individual’s identification with oneself as an empty existence. “Ontology and existential philosophy contain a fateful dialectic. Driving man out of the center of creation, rendering him powerless before truth, like the mode of action of the subject, will prove the feeling of powerlessness and make him identify with it. This actually reinforces the magic of second nature.” [25]25 Theodor W. Adorno, *Negative Dialectics*, p. 68. Here, second nature is the society in which people live, woven together by human actions and thoughts. Before Being, the individual is an object of enslavement.

与这种否定非同一性相反，存在着两种不同的理论逻辑:一是强调个人的存在。在黑格尔哲学中，对世界精神与同一性总体的强调，必然会将这种精神从个性、个人中抽象出来，使之成为凌驾于个人之上的东西，成为个人必须适应的东西，在这种情况下，强调个人看起来似乎是一种打破世界精神统治的出路。在阿多诺看来，如果不能先行打破这种总体性，那么强调个人的存在就是对总体性统治的一种补充，因为在总体性的世界精神中，总体的普遍性原则就是个人的个体化原则，总体正是通过个人的自主的幻象巩固自身的支配性地位的。二是以存在来取代一切，就像海德格尔所做的那样。在阿多诺看来，存在本体论看起来超越了黑格尔哲学中以主体—客体为内核的哲学思路，但存在本身的至高无上性、它超越一切个体化生存的空洞性，同样具有同一性特征，是人对自身作为空洞存在的认同。“本体论与存在哲学包含着一种命定的辩证法。将人从创造的中心驱使出来，使之处于无能为力的真理，像主体的行动模式一样，将证明无能为力的感觉并让人认同这一点，这实际上是强化了第二自然的魔力。”这里的第二自然，就是人生活于其中并由人的行为与思路交织而成的社会。个体在存在面前，是一个被奴役的对象。

In Adorno’s view, to break this enslavement of non-identity by identity, it is necessary to liberate the thought of “negation” from the model of the negation of the negation. In the latter model, although negation is an affirmation of non-identity, this affirmation is precisely the object to be negated by the final negation. Affirming non-identity is for the sake of reaffirming identity. In Hegel’s dialectic, the critical spirit of negation is actually negated. Reaffirming “negation” is the true affirmation of non-identity and the possible path out of totality.

在阿多诺看来，要打破这种同一性对非同一性的奴役，必然将“否定”的思想从否定之否定的模式中解放出来，在后一种模式中，否定虽然是对非同一性的肯定，但这种肯定是最后的否定所要否定的对象，肯定非同一性是为了重新肯定同一性，在黑格尔的辩证法中，否定的批判性精神实际上被否定了。重新肯定“否定”性，才是对非同一性的肯定，才是走出总体性的可能路径。

3. Constructing a new totality of non-identity—constellation. Adorno’s emphasis on negativity is a critique of the totality of identity, but this does not mean that his theory points toward a fragmented state of existence. Adorno emphasizes non-identity in order to construct another “totality” different from the current one, which he calls “constellation.”

3.建构非同一性的新总体—星丛。阿多诺对否定性的强调，是对同一性总体的批判，但这并不意味着，他的理论指向的是一种破碎的存在状态。阿多诺强调非同一性，是为了建构一个与当下的总体不同的另一种“总体”，他称之为“星丛”。

In Adorno’s view, in modern philosophy, especially in Hegel, philosophy is an experience of homogeneity; the emphasis on identity is the expression of this experience. This philosophy of identity is both an expression of social existence based on commodity exchange and a negation of concrete existents, thus a confirmation of the legitimacy of real society. Against this philosophical tradition, he proposes that the subject cannot systematically devour the object. Philosophy should be an experience of heterogeneity, incorporating objects that cannot be identified into philosophical construction. The relationship between subject and object is neither one where the subject devours the object nor one where the object dominates the subject; they exist in a state of correlation, a state of existence like a constellation.

在阿多诺看来，近代以来的哲学特别是在黑格尔那里，哲学是一种关于同质性的经验，对同一性的强调就是这种经验的表达。这种同一性哲学既是对以商品交换为基础的社会存在的表达，也是对具体存在物的否定，从而是对现实社会的合法性确认。针对这一哲学传统，他提出主体并不能体系化地吞噬客体，哲学应该是一种异质性的经验，要将不能被同一化的客体纳入到哲学的建构中，主体与客体的关系就既不是主体吞噬客体，也不是客体统摄主体，它们之间处于一种关联性的状态，即一种星丛式的存在状态。

In Adorno’s constellation, on the one hand, he emphasizes the correlative state between subject and object, subject and subject, and object and object; on the other hand, he places greater emphasis on the priority of the object. At this point, although the object is still an object within the subject’s thought, unlike the philosophy of identity, Adorno emphasizes that the object always possesses something different from the subject. The subject is also an object by nature. Even if the subject, as Husserl emphasized, remains an insufficient existence, it cannot replace the object’s own determinations. Adorno’s emphasis on the priority of the object is not to treat the object as an inaccessible thing-in-itself, but to emphasize that the subject cannot devour the object. This priority of the object is relative to the subject, but it is not equivalent to the priority of the object existing in second nature, i.e., social existence. In real social existence, the priority of the object is, in the final analysis, the priority of human creations. This is a fetishistic priority, and Marx’s critique of commodity fetishism criticizes precisely this issue. It is also in contrast to this priority of things that the thought of the subject devouring everything arises.

在阿多诺的星丛中，一方面他强调主体与客体、主体与主体、客体与客体之间的关联状态;另一方面，他更为强调客体的优先性地位。这时的客体，虽然还是主体思考中的客体，但与同一性哲学不同，阿多诺强调客体总有某种不同于主体的东西，主体在本性上也是一种客体，主体即使像胡塞尔所强调的一样，仍然是一种不充分的存在，他不能取代客体自身的规定性。阿多诺这样强调客体的优先性，并不是为了将客体当作一个不可靠近的自在之物，而是为了强调主体并不能吞噬客体。这种客体的优先性是相对于主体而言，但其与第二自然即社会存在中现有的客体优先性并不等同。在现实社会存在中，客体的优先性说到底是人的创造物的优先性，这是一种拜物教式的优先性，马克思关于商品拜物教的批判，批判的就是这一问题。也正是在与这种物的优先性相比照中，才有主体吞噬一切的思考。

Emphasizing the constellation state between things and things, objects and subjects, etc., does not mean this is a completely fragmented relationship. Compared to the traditional totality centered on the subject or spirit, the constellation is a new type of non-dominating relationship, where elements are interconnected, forming an open space. In this state, the priority of the object is not to establish its prior dominant position, but to emphasize the inherent inadequacy of the subject and spirit, in order to prevent the emergence of a dominating totality that disregards the individual. In this sense, the constellation is an exploration of another form of civilization.

强调物与物、客体与主体等之间的星丛状态，并不意味着这是一种完全碎片化的关系，相比于以主体或精神为内核的传统总体性，星丛是一种非支配的新型关系，要素之间相互关联，形成一个开放的空间。在这种状态中，客体的优先性并不是要确立其先在的支配性地位，而是强调主体、精神的内在不足，以防止出现无视个人的支配性总体。在这个意义上，星丛是对另一种文明状态的探索。

Adorno’s critique of traditional totality through negative dialectics opened a path for criticizing the philosophy of his time. After the 1970s, the critique of totality became an important opportunity for philosophical development and a new theoretical direction for post-Marxists when re-discussing Marxism.

阿多诺通过否定的辩证法对传统总体性的批判，打开了对当时哲学的批判道路。在20世纪70年代之后，批判总体性，成为哲学发展的一个重要契机，也是后马克思主义者重新讨论马克思主义时新的理论指向。

V. Post-Marxism and the Deconstruction and Reconstruction of Totality

五、后马克思主义与总体性的解构与重构

After the 1970s, postmodernism began to ascend the academic stage, and correspondingly, post-Marxism also began to influence the study of Marxist philosophy. In 1950, Polanyi first used the term “post-Marxism” in *Personal Knowledge*, primarily intending to propose a different Marxism from Soviet orthodox Marxism. With the rise of postmodernism in the 1970s, philosophers criticized modern philosophy, and this trend directly affected some scholars’ understanding of Marxism at the time, also beginning to change the meaning of the term “post-Marxism.” That is, it referred not only to a contemporary project of Marxism different from the Soviet one, but also to a critique of interpretations of Marxism that proceeded from the model of modern philosophy. In Laclau and Mouffe’s *Hegemony and Socialist Strategy*, they, on the one hand, use “post-Marxism” to emphasize a theoretical project distinct from Soviet orthodox Marxism, and on the other hand, combine the criticisms of modern philosophy and Marxism made by postmodernism since the 1970s to critique the essentialism in Marxist interpretations of the time. In this reflection, the concept of totality was directly impacted, and deconstructing totality constituted an important content of post-Marxism.

20世纪70年代以后，后现代主义开始登上学术舞台，与之相应，后马克思主义也开始影响着马克思主义哲学的研究。1950年，波兰尼在《个人知识》中第一次用“后马克思主义”这个词，主要是想提出不同于苏联正统马克思主义的另一种马克思主义。20世纪70年代后现代主义兴起，哲学家们对现代哲学提出了批评，这一思潮直接影响到当时一些学者对马克思主义的理解，也开始改变着后马克思主义一词的意义，即它不仅指与苏联不同的马克思主义的当代规划，而且也是对当时从现代哲学模式出发来解释马克思主义的批评。在拉克劳与墨菲的《霸权与社会主义战略》一书中，他们一方面以“后马克思主义”来强调与苏联正统马克思主义不同的理论规划，另一方面又结合20世纪70年代以降后现代主义对现代哲学及马克思主义的批评，对当时马克思主义解释中的本质主义进行批评。在这一反思中，总体性这一理念直接受到冲击，解构总体性构成了后马克思主义的重要内容。

When postmodernism began to prevail in the 1970s, criticism of modern philosophy became its standard feature. In the view of postmodernists, modernism emphasizes metaphysics, essence, subject, center, totality, truth, hierarchy, teleology, and so on, thereby providing legitimacy for modern society while also furnishing the philosophical basis for internal domination within modern society. In *The Postmodern Condition*, Lyotard argues that modern scientific knowledge narratives replaced traditional narratives, forming modern society’s view of the world. But modern scientific narratives do not provide their own legitimation; especially with the separation of science and politics, it becomes necessary to achieve the internal unity of the two from the level of philosophical metaphysics, while also providing justification for scientific knowledge narratives. In Lyotard’s view, Hegel’s philosophy is an important example of this justification. “The speculative mechanism brings a remarkable result: in this mechanism, all knowledge discourses about all possible referents have no direct truth value; their value depends on the position they occupy in the process of ‘Spirit’ or ‘Life,’ or on the position they occupy in the philosophical encyclopedia narrated by speculative discourse. When citing these knowledge discourses, speculative discourse is also expounding what it itself knows, that is, it is self-exposition. From this perspective, true knowledge is always an indirect knowledge composed of cited statements, which are incorporated into the metanarrative of a subject, and this metanarrative guarantees the legitimacy of knowledge.” [26]26 Jean-François Lyotard, *The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge*, trans. Geoff Bennington and Brian Massumi (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1984), pp. 35-36. [Citation translated from the Chinese text.] This “metanarrative” not only guarantees the legitimacy of scientific knowledge narratives from a foundational level, but also demonstrates the totality of modern society. Lyotard believes that this justification actually turns scientific knowledge into instrumental knowledge and makes practical reason superior to scientific knowledge, which instead further leads to the separation of the two; the totality of modern knowledge is thus a false totality, precisely the problem encountered by postmodernism. If one considers the justification and protection of modern society by modern philosophy, the criticism of postmodernism becomes even more understandable. When discussing Marx, Lyotard argues that social critique based on the Marxist principle of dichotomy faces the following difficulty: “The social basis of the dichotomous principle, namely class struggle, has become so hazy as to lose all radicality; the critical model finally faces the danger of losing its theoretical foundation, and may degenerate into a ‘utopia,’ a ‘hope,’ a protest raised in the name of humanity, reason, creativity, or a social category (such as the Third World or young students) for the sake of honor, a social category that at the last moment is endowed with the function of the critical subject, but such a function will henceforth become quite unlikely.” [27]27 Jean-François Lyotard, *The Postmodern Condition*, p. 13. [Citation translated from the Chinese text.]

在20世纪70年代后现代主义开始盛行时，对现代哲学的批评成为后现代主义的标配。在后现代主义者看来，现代主义强调形而上学、本质、主体、中心、总体性、真理、等级、目的性等等，从而为现代社会提供了合法性，同时也为现代社会的内部支配提供了哲学的基础。在《后现代状况》中，利奥塔认为，现代科学知识叙事取代了传统叙事，形成了现代社会对世界的看法。但现代科学叙事并不为自身提供合法性的证明，特别是随着科学与政治的分离，更需要从哲学形而上学层面实现两者的内在统一，同时也为科学知识叙事提供论证。在利奥塔看来，黑格尔哲学就是这一论证的重要范例。“思辨机制带来了一个值得注意的结果:在这种机制中，关于所有可能存在的指谓的所有知识话语都没有直接的真理价值，它们的价值取决于它们在‘精神’或‘生命’的进程中占据的位置，或者说取决于它们在思辨话语中所述的哲学全书中占据的位置。思辨话语在引述这些知识话语时，也在为自己阐述自己知道的东西，就是说也在自我阐述。从这个角度看，真实的知识永远是一种由转引的陈述构成的间接知识，这些转引的陈述被并入某个主体的元叙事，这个元叙事保证了知识的合法性。”①这种“元叙事”既从基础层面保证了科学知识叙事的合法性，也论证了现代社会的总体性。利奥塔认为，这种论证实际上是将科学知识变成了一种工具性知识，并使实践理性高于科学知识，反而进一步导致了两者的分离，现代知识的总体性也就是一种虚假的总体性，这正是后现代主义所遇到的问题。如果考虑到现代哲学对于现代社会合法性的证明与保护，就更能理解后现代主义的批评了。在讨论马克思时，利奥塔就认为，以马克思主义的二分原理为基础的社会批判面临着以下的难题:“二分原理的社会基础，即阶级斗争，已经朦胧得失去了任何激进性，批判模式终于面临失去理论根据的危险，它可能沦为一种‘乌托邦’，一种‘希望’，一种为了荣誉而以人的名义、理性的名义、创造性的名义或社会类别(如第三世界或青年学生)的名义提出来的抗议，这个社会类别在最后时刻被赋予批判主体的功能，但这样的功能从此将变得不大可能。”

Influenced by postmodernism, Laclau and Mouffe, in their book *Hegemony and Socialist Strategy*, use “post-Marxism” to characterize their theoretical project. Their post-Marxism is mainly concentrated on deconstructing the essentialism and the concept of totality in the Marxist tradition:

受后现代主义的影响，拉克劳与墨菲在《霸权与社会主义的战略》一书中，以后马克思主义来刻画他们的理论规划。他们的后马克思主义主要集中在对马克思主义传统中的本质主义与总体性思想的解构:

First, although their post-Marxism targets traditional Marxism, they do not, like Western Marxists, reinterpret Marx’s thought through the lens of “humanity” or “structure,” but instead rethink the interpretive framework of traditional Marxism. In their view, whether it is economic determinism, Bernstein’s ethically tinged interpretation, or Luxemburg’s theory of spontaneity and free will, none have escaped the rupture between economic base and superstructure, necessity and contingency, and the identical class subject versus the dispersed subject. These thinkers also failed to see that the economic structure of capitalist society cannot provide a political-logical basis for launching struggles and opposing fragmentation, while simultaneously promoting the loss of class characteristics. These three predicaments make a new theoretical strategy increasingly necessary, especially regarding how to suture dualisms, how to construct a new identity through articulation, and how to make social class representatives obtain a basis of legitimacy. Here, they turn their gaze to Gramsci, believing that his theory of hegemony is relatively beneficial for solving the problem, because the theory of hegemony precisely emphasizes the articulation of various forces. But they also believe that Gramsci’s theory of hegemony still bears traces of traditional Marxism, because Gramsci likewise emphasizes the foundational role of the economy: “(1) he insists that hegemonic subjects must be constructed on the terrain of fundamental classes; (2) he assumes that, apart from the suspension of time caused by organic crises, every social formation constructs itself around a single hegemonic center.” [28]28 Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, *Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical Democratic Politics*, 2nd ed. (London: Verso, 2001), p. 69. This is what Laclau and Mouffe do not accept. Clearly, unlike Western Marxists, Laclau and Mouffe do not replace the economy with humanity or free will, but rather set out to critique this essentialist line of thought. Because starting from essentialism, one cannot face the different subjects of modern pluralistic society, nor can one combine these different subjects into a force oriented toward the future.

第一，他们的后马克思主义虽然针对传统马克思主义，但他们并没有像西方马克思主义者那样，以人或结构来重新解读马克思的思想，而是重新反思传统马克思主义的解释构架。在他们看来，不管是经济决定论，还是伯恩施坦带有伦理意味的解释以及卢森堡的自发性与自由意志理论，都没有走出经济基础与上层建筑、必然性与偶然性、同一性的阶级主体与分散主体之间的断裂。这些人也没有看到，资本主义社会的经济结构并不能为发动斗争、反对分裂提供政治逻辑基础，同时反而促进了阶级特征的丧失，这三种困境使得一种新的理论策略越来越必要，特别是在如何缝合二元论、如何通过链接建构一种新的同一性、如何使社会阶级代表获得合法性的基础等问题上。在这里，他们把眼光转向了葛兰西，认为其霸权理论比较有益于问题的解决，因为霸权理论强调的正是对各种力量的联接。但他们同样认为，葛兰西的霸权理论仍然具有传统马克思主义的痕迹，因为葛兰西同样强调经济的基础性作用，“(1)他坚持霸权主体必须在基本阶级的平台上来建构;(2)他假定，除了由组织危机构造的暂停时间外，每个社会形态都围绕着单一的霸权中心建构它自己。”这是拉克劳与墨菲所不认同的。很显然，拉克劳与墨菲并没有像西方马克思主义那样，以人来置换经济、自由意志等，而是要对这种本质主义的思路展开批评。因为从本质主义出发，无法面对现代多元社会的不同主体，也无法将这些不同主体结合为面向未来的力量。

Second, the transformation of Althusser’s theory of overdetermination. Althusser opposes the topographical model of base and superstructure in traditional interpretations. Although he acknowledges the foundational role of the economy, he regards the economy and superstructure as a complex totality, emphasizing the simultaneous action of multiple factors. Regarding this view of Althusser, Laclau and Mouffe identify two problems: first, there remains a residue of essentialism, namely the determining role of the economy; second, Althusser still holds a conception of a closed totality. This essentialist overdetermination still cannot enter modern society and promote the formation of modern radical political subjects. For Laclau and Mouffe, what they value more is how, in a pluralistic and complex society, in a society that cannot be unified by a single essence, to form a radical force articulated by multiple subjects through a formal articulation. Therefore, they do not regard society as a totality, but as an open, pluralistic, and complex existence: “In order to be firmly placed in the field of articulation, we must abandon the concept of ‘society’ as a totality constructed by parts, and therefore we must regard the openness of society as the foundation of construction or the ‘negative essence’ of existence, and regard various ‘social orders’ as unstable or fundamentally untamable fields of difference. Thus, it is impossible to understand the diversity of society through a system of mediation, and ‘social order’ cannot be regarded as a fundamental principle. Society is not a sutured special space, because society itself has no essence.” [29]29 Laclau and Mouffe, *Hegemony and Socialist Strategy*, p. 96. Only by eliminating the ultimately determining factor in overdetermination can society be non-closed, and can the negative forces within society be revealed.

第二，对阿尔都塞多元决定理论的改造。阿尔都塞反对传统解释中的基础与上层建筑的地形学模式，他虽然承认经济的基础性作用，但将经济与上层建筑看作复杂的总体，强调多种因素的同时作用。关于阿尔都塞的这一观点，拉克劳与墨菲认为存在两个问题:一是仍然有着本质主义的残余，即经济的决定性作用;二是阿尔都塞仍然具有一种封闭的总体性的观念。这种本质主义的多元决定论仍然无法进入到现代社会，推动现代激进政治主体的形成。对于拉克劳与墨菲来说，他们更为看重的是如何在一个多元复杂的社会、在一个无法以一个本质来统摄一切的社会，通过一种形式上链接，形成由多元主体链接而成的激进力量，因此，他们并不把社会看作一个总体，而是看作开放的多元复杂存在，“为了使我们坚定地被置于链接领域中，我们必须放弃由各部分建构起来的总体性的‘社会’概念，因此我们必须把社会的开放性看作构造的基础或存在的‘否定性本质’，把各种不同的‘社会秩序’看作是不稳定的或根本上不可驯化的差异领域。从而，不可能通过中介系统来理解社会的多样性，‘社会秩序’也不能被看作根本原则。社会没有被缝合的特别空间，因为社会本身没有本质。”只有将多元决定论中最后起决定作用的因素消除掉，这个社会才是非封闭的社会，才能将社会中的否定性力量展现出来。

Third, reconstructing an open totality. Laclau and Mouffe oppose a closed totality; this does not mean they move toward a society of scattered sand, but rather toward another kind of non-essentialist, open totality. It can be said that on the basis of deconstructing traditional totality, they move toward another totality, a transformed, plural logic. “The break with orthodox essentialism is not achieved through the logical collapse of categories, a procedure that would fix separated elements as identities, but through a critique of any fixed type, through an affirmation of the incompleteness, openness, and politically negotiable character of every identity. This is the logic of overdetermination. According to this logic, the meaning of every identity is overdetermined, because all direct meanings are subverted and transcended; there is no essentialist totalization, nor any essentialist separation between objects; some objects among other objects prevent any of their identities from being fixed; objects are linked, not like parts in a clockwork mechanism, because objects among other objects prevent the suturing of their identities.” They borrow discourse theory, i.e., a dispersed linking of elements not determined by a transcendental subject, to experience a non-sutured, non-identical social space, where the logic of antagonism plays a dominant role. Antagonism differs from opposition and logical contradiction. Contradiction (A—non-A) is a logical concept; opposition (A—B) is a concept of physical fact. In traditional philosophy, contradiction and opposition are in fact merely internal elements of a homogenized totality; they guarantee the possibility of the totality. The meaning of antagonism is: “‘the other’ prevents me from being a complete self; the relation does not arise between fully constituted totalities, but from the constitutive impossibility of these totalities. The existence of the other is a logical possibility: it exists, so it is not a contradiction. … As long as antagonism exists, I cannot become a self-complete being. But the force opposing me is likewise: its objective existence is a symbol of my non-being; in this way, it has multiple meanings that prevent it from fully fixing itself. Real opposition is an objective relation among determinable, definable things; contradiction is likewise a definable relation among concepts; antagonism constitutes the limit of objectivity, manifested as partial, unstable objectification.” Therefore, how to link various antagonistic factors in a non-closed society through discursive articulation is the focus of radical political strategy.

第三，重构开放的总体。拉克劳与墨菲反对封闭的总体，这并不意味着他们要走向一盘散沙式的社会，而是在走向一个非本质主义的、开放的另一种总体，可以说，他们在解构传统总体性的基础上，走向的是另一种总体，这是经过改造的另一种多元逻辑。“同正统的本质主义的决裂并不是通过范畴的逻辑崩溃而实现的，这种做法会将分离的要素固定为同一性，而是通过对任何固定类型的批评，通过对每个同一性的不完整性、开放性和政治协商特征的肯定来实现的。这就是多元决定的逻辑。根据这一逻辑，每一个同一性的意义都是多元决定的，因为所有的直接意义都被颠覆和超越了，根本不存在一个本质主义的总体化，在客体之间也没有本质主义的分离，在其他客体中存在的一些客体防止了将它们的任何同一性固定起来，客体是被链接的，而不像钟表机械中的零件那样，因为在其他客体之中的客体阻止了它们的同一性的缝合。”他们借用话语理论，即一种散漫的、不受先验主体决定的要素链接，来体验非缝合的、非同一性的社会空间，在这一社会中，对抗性的逻辑起着主导作用。对抗(antagonism)不同于对立(opposition)与矛盾(logical contradiction)。矛盾(A—非A)是一个逻辑概念，对立(A—B)是一个物理事实的概念，在传统哲学中，矛盾与对立实际上只是同质化总体的内部要素，它们保证了总体的可能性，而对抗的含义在于:“‘他者’的存在阻止我成为完整的自我，关系并不产生于各种完全的总体之间，而是来自于这些总体在构成上的不可能性。他者的存在是逻辑上的可能性:它存在着，所以不是矛盾。……只要存在对抗，我就不能成为一个自身完整的存在。不过与我对立的力量也同样如此:它的客观存在是我的非存在的一个象征，在此方式中，它有着多种含义，这些含义防止它完全固定自身。现实的对立是可确定的、可定义的事物中的客观关系，矛盾同样是概念之中可定义的关系，而对抗构成了客观性的限制，它被展现为局部的、不稳定的客观化”。因此，如何通过话语链接，将非封闭社会中各种对抗性因素联合起来，才是激进政治策略的着力点。

Similar to Laclau and Mouffe’s view, Derrida’s deconstruction of traditional Marxism is likewise aimed at constructing another totality. He equally opposes the closed, essentialist philosophical conception of traditional Marxism, a conception that transforms difference into identity. In a disjointed time, turning ineradicable differences into internal elements of a closed totality is a negation of diversity and heterogeneity. When liberalism of the time opposed Marxism, it fell into the same logic, thereby producing the conclusion of “the end of history.” Reflection on this is an important reason Derrida wrote *Specters of Marx*. Derrida believes that speaking of the specters of Marx in today’s era is not to pursue a homogeneous specter: “Today we are not only to prophesy a future for them, but more seriously, to call for diversity, or even for heterogeneity.” Therefore, it is not to re-suture the disjointed cracks, but to enter into the cracks, to unite separate things without damaging cracks, dispersion, and difference, and without excluding the heterogeneity of the other. Only thus can one escape the presence of Marxism and maintain its criticality coming from the future; this is the fundamental reason he emphasizes messianic advent. Here, Derrida deconstructs traditional philosophy and its concept of totality, constructing another totality different from the traditional, identity-oriented one.

与拉克劳和墨菲的观点相似，德里达对传统马克思主义的解构同样是为了建构另一种总体性。他同样反对传统马克思主义那种封闭的、本质主义的哲学观念，这是将差异转化为同一性的观念。在一个脱节的时代，将无法消除的差异转变为封闭总体的内部要素，就是对多样性、异质性的否定。当时的自由主义在反对马克思主义时，陷入同样的逻辑中，从而带来了“历史的终结”的结论，对此的反思是德里达写作《马克思的幽灵》一书的一个重要原因。德里达认为，在今天这个时代谈论马克思的幽灵们，并不是追求一个同质性的幽灵，“今天我们不仅是为了给他们预言一个未来，而且更是为了给他们呼吁多样性，或者更严肃地说，是为了给他们呼吁异质性。”因此，不是要让脱节的裂缝重新缝合起来，而是进入到裂缝中，在分离之物的结合为一的地方，不损害裂缝、分散与差异，不排除他者的异质性。只有这样，才能摆脱马克思主义的在场性，使之保持一种从未来而来的批判性，这也是他强调弥赛亚式降临的根本原因。在这里，德里达解构的是传统的哲学及其总体性理念，建构的是不同于传统、以同一性为取向的另一种总体性。

Post-Marxism’s deconstruction of traditional totality is in fact a philosophical reflection on social-historical change. Especially after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the process of globalization has basically manifested as a process dominated by developed capitalist countries, particularly the United States. This is the reason the slogan “the end of history” flourished. Philosophically, the end of history signifies the victory of liberal democracy, the victory of the totality spoken of by traditional philosophy; this victory is a neglect or even disregard of the other. Therefore, deconstructing traditional totality and emphasizing a new totality—one without dominating power and preserving difference—has positive significance for reflecting on the above slogan and on the power structure of modern society. This is also a positive theoretical response of post-Marxism in the face of historical changes and shifts in social thought.

后马克思主义对传统总体性的解构，实际上是对社会历史变迁的哲学反思，特别是在苏联解体后，全球化的过程基本上体现为以发达资本主义国家特别是美国为主导的过程，这正是“历史的终结”这一口号得以盛行的原因。从哲学上来说，历史的终结意味着自由民主主义的胜利，意味着传统哲学所谈的总体性的胜利，这种胜利是对他者的忽视甚至是无视。因此，对传统总体性的解构，对新的总体性即没有支配力量、保持差异的总体性的强调，对于反思上述的口号、反思现代社会的权力结构有着积极的意义，这也是后马克思主义面对历史的变迁与社会思潮的变化时，一种理论的积极反应。

The problem here is: when post-Marxism emphasizes a non-closed, loose totality, since this totality has no essential element playing a dominant role, how to reveal the structure and state of social existence from such a loose totality becomes a major issue constraining post-Marxism. No matter how post-Marxists view the structure of contemporary society, the logic of capital plays a dominant role at every level. Unlike the past, with social development since the 1970s, especially the deep unfolding of globalization after the 1990s, it is no longer just the capitalist countries of the past that are linked, but the entire globe is linked. This brings together societies of different cultures, forming an apparently loose totality; problems not encountered in past societies increasingly emerge, some even becoming superficially important issues. In this situation, emphasizing a differentiated totality, on the one hand, genuinely reflects the investigation and understanding of this new global existence; on the other hand, when difference is overemphasized, it can efface the ruling power of the logic of capital. In this sense, the post-Marxist discussion of a new totality, on the one hand, embodies the theoretical explorations of these scholars deeply influenced by Marxism in the face of capitalist society; on the other hand, it shows that, in the face of new social changes and intellectual shifts, how to exert the critical force of Marxist philosophy while fully absorbing modern philosophical thought still requires further exploration.

这里的问题在于，当后马克思主义强调非封闭的、松散的总体时，由于这个总体没有一个本质性的要素起着主导性的作用，那么如何从这样松散的总体性中，揭示社会存在的结构与状态，这就成为制约着后马克思主义的一个重要问题。无论后马克思主义者如何看待当下社会的结构，其中资本的逻辑在任何一个层面都起着支配性的作用。与过去不同的是，随着20世纪70年代以来的社会发展特别是20世纪90年代以后的全球化的深度展开，不再只是过去的资本主义国家联系在一起，而是全球都联系在一起。这就使得不同文化的社会聚集在一起，形成了表面上看起来的松散的总体，过去社会中未曾遇到的问题也都日益呈现出来，有的甚至成为表面上的重要问题。在这种情况下，强调有差异的总体，一方面诚然体现了对这一新的全球存在的考察与理解，另一方面当过于强调这一差异时，就会抹去资本逻辑的统治力。在这个意义上，后马克思主义关于新总体性的讨论，一方面体现了这些深受马克思主义影响的学者面对资本主义社会时的理论探索，另一方面也表明，面对新的社会变迁和思想变迁，如何在充分吸引现代哲学思想的基础上发挥马克思主义哲学的批判力，还需要进一步的探索。

(Author’s bio: Yang Haifeng, Doctor of Philosophy, Professor at the Research Center for the Theoretical System of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics and the School of Marxism, Peking University)

（作者简介：仰海峰，哲学博士，北京大学中国特色社会主义理论体系研究中心、马克思主义学院教授）

Online editor: Tongxin

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