Marx’s Discovery of Man and His Transcendence of the Young Hegelians

Changing the world begins with discovering the world, and discovering the real man became the focus of discussion among the radical youth of the Young Hegelians. Feuerbach, Stirner, and Marx—three students of philosophy at the University of Berlin, faithful followers of Hegel’s philosophy—their inquiry into man triggered a theoretical war that made even the French Revolution seem trivial by comparison (Marx, when describing the history of the Young Hegelians, once said: “It was a revolution beside which the French Revolution was child’s play, a world struggle beside which the struggles of the Diadochi were insignificant.”) [1]1 The Diadochi were the rival generals who fought for control of Alexander the Great’s empire after his death in 323 BCE; Marx uses this reference to emphasize the intensity of the Young Hegelian theoretical struggle. Hegelianism reached its climax and even its end in this controversy, while the new worldview of historical materialism emerged from the chaos. In this debate, each was either called or called himself a materialist, while accusing the others of being idealists. Who, then, was truly a materialist? Who, as claimed, had discovered the real man? Reviewing Marx’s debate with the Young Hegelians helps us understand the emergence of historical materialism and its essential meaning.

改变世界首在发现世界，发现真正的人成为青年黑格尔派一众激进青年的讨论焦点。费尔巴哈、施蒂纳、马克思，三位柏林大学哲学系的学生，黑格尔哲学的忠实信徒，他们对人的追问引发了一场连法国大革命都相形见绌的理论大战（马克思在描述青年黑格尔派的历史时曾说：“这是一次革命，法国革命同它相比只不过是儿戏；这是一次世界斗争，狄亚多希的斗争在它面前简直微不足道。”）［1］，黑格尔主义在这场争论中走向高潮乃至终结，而历史唯物主义的新世界观则在混乱中脱颖而出。在这场争论中，他们都曾被称作或自称作唯物主义者，而指责对方为唯心主义者。究竟谁才是唯物主义者？谁如其所说是他发现了真实的人？回顾马克思与青年黑格尔派的争论，有助于理解历史唯物主义的产生及其要义所在。

I. Feuerbach’s Humanist Reduction of Religion

一、费尔巴哈对宗教的人道主义还原

Among the three, Feuerbach was the oldest and the first to achieve fame. Shortly after completing his doctorate in 1828, he was permanently expelled from his university post for an anonymous essay that violated church doctrine, yet this earned him great renown among educated youth. By the time *The Essence of Christianity* was published in 1841, Feuerbach, living in rural seclusion, had become the undisputed spiritual leader of the Young Hegelians. In this work, he carried out the most thorough reduction of the idealist essence of religious theology, displaying a critical intensity more radical than that of Strauss and Bauer. In his view, Strauss and Bauer only criticized the myth of Jesus or the dogmas of the Bible, whereas he himself “took Christianity in general, that is, the Christian religion, as the object of criticism, and, as a necessary consequence, only Christian philosophy or theology as the object of criticism.” [2]2 David Friedrich Strauss (1808–1874) and Bruno Bauer (1809–1882) were earlier Young Hegelian critics of Christianity; Strauss focused on the mythological nature of the Gospels, Bauer on the self-consciousness of the critic. That is, Feuerbach’s aim was not to criticize some part of the Christian belief system, but to criticize the most general religion, the theological foundation of religion as a whole.

三人中，费尔巴哈年纪最大，也成名最早，他1828年博士毕业后不久就因一篇匿名论文触犯教条而被永远开除大学教职，却也因此在知识青年中赢得赫赫威名。到1841年《基督教的本质》出版时，隐居乡野的费尔巴哈成为青年黑格尔派当之无愧的精神领袖。在此书中，他对宗教神学的唯心主义本质做了最为彻底的还原，展现出比施特劳斯和鲍威尔更加激烈的批判力度。在他看来，施特劳斯和鲍威尔批判的只是耶稣的神话或圣经的教条，而他自己，则“将一般的基督教，就是说，将基督教的宗教作为批判的对象，而作为必然的结果，仅仅将基督教的哲学或神学作为批判的对象。”［2］也就是说，费尔巴哈的目的不是批判基督教信仰体系中的某个部分，而是要对最一般的宗教、对整个宗教的神学基础进行批判。

Feuerbach once summarized his thought as follows: “My first thought was God, the second was reason, and the third and last was man. The subject of God is reason, and the subject of reason is man.” [3]3 The Hippel tavern in Berlin was a famous meeting place for the Young Hegelians, known for its lively debates. This aptly indicates Feuerbach’s philosophical achievement: reducing the secret of religion (theology) to the truth of humanism. What is the secret of religion? Feuerbach says: “The secret of theology is anthropology”; “Man objectifies his own essence, and then makes himself the object of this objectified, transformed into a subject, personal essence. That is the secret of religion.” [4]4 The University of Berlin (now Humboldt University) and the University of Erlangen were key centers of German philosophy in the 19th century. Feuerbach successfully demonstrated that all those qualities attributed to God are actually man’s own attributes. For example, God is considered to possess supreme reason, the most universal love, and the greatest freedom—but are not reason, love, and free will precisely the essence of man? As long as we examine man without faith, materialistically, we find that these qualities are inescapable for man, because, in the final analysis, the capacity for love or rational thought is innate in human beings. In exercising these capacities, people feel their goodness, thus desire to possess them, and then regard them as most deserved. Every individual’s reason, love, and freedom are limited, yet people can imagine a kind of unlimited reason, love, and freedom that transcends their own limits. Why is this so? Because humans are born with consciousness, the consciousness of the species. By virtue of this capacity for species-consciousness, humans are fundamentally distinguished from animals. A caterpillar does not feel distressed that it spends its entire life on a single leaf, but humans are always dissatisfied with limited conditions and proceed to transform them, because humans can be aware of and imagine a perfect, ideal state of existence. A caterpillar deals only with concrete individuals, while humans, in dealing with individuals, also deal with the infinite whole. That is, “man has a double life”; man can take his species, his essence, as an object. [5]5 Ludwig Feuerbach (1804–1872), German philosopher and anthropologist, a key figure in the Young Hegelian movement, known for his critique of religion and his materialist turn. As soon as one thinks or speaks, one is dealing with one’s own essence, exercising the capacity of the species.

费尔巴哈曾这样概括自己的思想：“我的第一个思想是上帝，第二个是理性，第三个也是最后一个是人。神的主体是理性，而理性的主体是人。”［3］这恰当表明了费尔巴哈哲学的功绩：将宗教（神学）的秘密还原为人道主义的真理。宗教的秘密是什么？费尔巴哈说：“神学之秘密是人本学”；“人使他自己的本质对象化，然后，又使自己成为这个对象化了的、转化成为主体、人格的本质的对象。这就是宗教的秘密。”［4］费尔巴哈成功证明了，所有那些被认为是上帝具有的性质，其实都是人类自己的属性。比如说，上帝被认为具有最高理性，最博爱也最自由，而理性、爱和意志自由不正是人类的本质吗？只要我们不带信仰地、唯物主义地来考察人类，我们就会发现，这些性质是人类不能违背的，因为说到底，爱的能力或理性思考的能力，乃是人们生来就有的。人类在运用这些能力时感到它们的美好，因而渴望享有它们，继而把它们看作是最应该得到的。每一个个人的理性、爱和自由都是有限的，但人们却可以想象一种超出自身限度的、无限的理性、爱和自由。何以如此？因为人类天生具有意识，类的意识，凭借这种类意识的能力，人和动物根本地区别开来。毛虫不会为它一生都居于一片树叶而感到沮丧，但人总是会对有限的生活感到不满继而去改造它，因为人能够意识到、想象到一种完善的、完美的生活状况。毛虫只和具体的个体打交道，而人在和个体打交道之时，也和无限的整体打交道。也就是说，“人具有双重的生活”，人可以把自己的类、自己的本质当做对象。［5］只要人们一思维或说话，人们就在和自己的本质打交道，就在运用类的能力。

The secret of religion arises from this: man objectifies his essence. And what is even stranger happens: this objectified human essence is endowed with personality; what were originally mere attributes become subjects, become the highest being called “God.” We cannot trace exactly how this first occurred, but over the long course of human history, the fact that God is the collection of human essence has become increasingly hidden, increasingly forgotten. This phenomenon is “alienation”; the result of alienation is that more and more powerful abilities and beautiful attributes are concentrated in God, while man, in contrast, becomes increasingly passive, insignificant, ugly, and null. In short, “to enrich God, man must become poor; that God may be all, man must be nothing,” [6]6 Max Stirner (1806–1856), German philosopher, a Young Hegelian, author of *The Ego and Its Own* (1844), which critiques Feuerbach and advocates egoistic individualism. man has stored everything that originally belonged to him in God. The best proof of this is that all images of God are enhanced images of man, images of the “superman”; has there ever been a god contrary to human nature? Or a god imagined in the form of an animal? So Feuerbach says: “Consciousness of God is self-consciousness; knowledge of God is self-knowledge. You can know man from his God, and conversely, you can know man’s God from man; the two are the same.” [7]7 *The Essence of Christianity* (1841), Feuerbach’s major work arguing that God is a projection of human essence.

宗教的秘密就产生于此：人把他的本质对象化了。而且更为奇怪的事情发生了，这个对象化了的人类本质被赋予了人格，原本只是属性的东西竟变成了主体，变成了被称为“神”的最高存在者。我们无从考察这一切最初是如何发生的，但是在漫长的人类历史中，神作为人类本质之集合的事实被越来越深地隐藏起来，越来越被遗忘。这种现象便是“异化”，异化的结果乃是上帝的身上凝聚了越来越多强大的能力和美好的属性，而人与之相对就变得越来越消极、渺小、丑陋和虚无。总之，“为了使上帝富有，人就必须赤贫；为了使上帝成为一切，人就成了无”，［6］人把原来属于他的一切保存到上帝那里去了。最能证明这一点的是，所有上帝的形象都是强化版的人的形象，“超人”的形象，何曾见过一个与人的本性相违背的神？又何曾见过一个被想象为动物形象的神？所以，费尔巴哈说：“上帝之意识，就是人之自我意识；上帝之认识，就是人之自我认识。你可以从人的上帝认识人，反过来，也可以从人认识人的上帝；两者都是一样的。”［7］

The mysterious veil of religion, millennia old, was mercilessly torn away; man no longer needed to fear his own weakness. Feuerbach called his philosophy “pathological” or “physiological”; as a physician, he prescribed a saving remedy for humanity in the name of a future philosophy: “To realize and humanize God, that is, to transform theology into anthropology, to dissolve theology into anthropology.” [8]8 *The Ego and Its Own* (1844), Stirner’s principal work, which argues that the individual ego is the sole reality and rejects all universal concepts. It is easy to imagine what a fervent sensation this materialist humanist prescription caused. The younger Engels, in his satirical poem *The Victory of Faith*, called Feuerbach a “majestic giant” and “terrible knight” who “alone equals a host of unbelievers,” “like a terrifying meteor hurled by an evil force, silently sweeping across the earthly sky.” [9]9 *Theses on Feuerbach* (1845), Marx’s short text criticizing Feuerbach’s materialism and outlining his own materialist conception of history. And Strauss, an older atheist who debated Feuerbach, admitted: “Now, and perhaps for some time to come, the entire scholarly world belongs to him. His theory is the truth of this age.” [10]10 Moses Hess (1812–1875), German socialist philosopher and early communist, a friend and collaborator of Marx and Engels. Feuerbach himself was not modest; he proudly declared: “You can only reach truth and freedom through the fire-stream (Feuerbach, literally meaning ‘fire-stream’); there is no other way. Feuerbach is the purgatory of our time.” (It has now been confirmed that this statement was not made by Marx, but by Feuerbach himself.) [11]11 *Wigand’s Vierteljahrsschrift* (Wigand’s Quarterly), a German journal published by Otto Wigand, where Stirner’s response appeared in 1845.

几千年来宗教的神秘面纱被无情摘下，人无需再害怕自己的软弱无力。费尔巴哈把他的哲学称为“病理学的”或“生理学的”，作为医生，他以未来哲学的名义为人类开出了拯救药方：“将上帝现实化和人化，就是说：将神学转变为人类学，将神学溶解为人类学。”［8］不难想象，这个唯物主义的人道主义药方会引起怎样热烈的轰动。作为后辈的恩格斯在反讽诗《信仰的胜利》中把费尔巴哈称作“他本人就相当于一队不信神者”的“威严的大汉”与“可怕的骑士”，“像邪恶力量抛出的一颗惊心动魄的陨星，无声无息地掠过尘世的上空。”［9］而作为无神论前辈并与费尔巴哈发生论战的施特劳斯也承认：“现在，也许还包括未来一段时间，整个学界都是属于他的了。他的理论就是这个时代的真理。”［10］费尔巴哈本人也不客气，他骄傲地宣称：“你们只有通过火流（Feuerbach，字面意思即火流，）才能走向真理和自由，其他的路是没有的。费尔巴哈，这才是我们时代的涤罪所。”（现已确证，这句话并非马克思所说，而是费尔巴哈自己所说。）［11］

II. Stirner’s Re-reduction of Humanism

二、施蒂纳对人道主义的再还原

*The Essence of Christianity* excited the revolutionary educated youth of the time; “they all became Feuerbachians for a while” (Engels’ words). Among those heatedly discussing it was a high school teacher, no longer young but still obscure, Max Stirner. According to the recollections of those in the circle, in the noisy Hippel tavern, the somewhat dull Stirner could even speak eloquently when Feuerbach was mentioned. [12]12 *The German Ideology* (1845–1846), Marx and Engels’ collaborative work critiquing the Young Hegelians and developing historical materialism. Stirner had studied at the University of Berlin and the University of Erlangen around the same time as Feuerbach, but they did not know each other. Stirner’s subsequent devastating critique of Feuerbach would forever link their names in the history of thought; the result of this critique was that, on the road to materialism, Stirner unhesitatingly rushed to the forefront.

《基督教的本质》让当时革命的知识青年感到兴奋，“一时都成为费尔巴哈派了”。（恩格斯语）。在热烈讨论的人群中，也包括了一位已经不再年轻却依旧默默无闻的中学教师麦克斯•施蒂纳。按照圈中人的回忆，在人声鼎沸的希佩尔酒馆里，略显木讷的施蒂纳在说起费尔巴哈时竟也会侃侃而谈。［12］施蒂纳曾与费尔巴哈先后脚在柏林大学和爱尔兰根大学呆过，但却并不相识。而随后施蒂纳对费尔巴哈的致命批判，将两人的名字在思想史上紧紧地拴在一起，这场批判的结果是：在通往唯物主义的道路上，施蒂纳当仁不让地冲在了最前面。

Stirner acutely discovered that Feuerbach, after “dissolving theology into anthropology,” came to a halt; the step he took from theology toward materialism was not as large as he and his supporters imagined. Feuerbach said that the essence of God is man, returning all attributes formerly belonging to God to man, yet he also draped man in the cloak of God—that is, he fashioned a humanity that is like God. This anthropological inversion of theology is in fact a verbal trick, merely transferring the predicates formerly attached to God onto man. Formerly God was rational, benevolent, and sacred; now man too is rational, benevolent, and sacred. For actual individuals, their humble, insignificant, and powerless condition has not changed in the slightest. Stirner hit the nail on the head: “Man has killed God in order to become ‘the sole God on high’”; “Ludwig is dead, but the king remains.” [13]13 Ah Q is the protagonist of Lu Xun’s 1921 novella *The True Story of Ah Q*, a satirical figure known for his “spiritual victories” — rationalizing defeat as moral triumph. The king does not die.

施蒂纳敏锐地发现，费尔巴哈把“神学溶解为人类学”之后就停滞不前了，他从神学迈向唯物主义的那一步并没有他自己以及他的支持者们想象的那么大。费尔巴哈说神的本质是人，把从前属神的性质悉数归还于人，却又让人披上了神的外衣，也就是说，塑造了一个像神一样的人类。这种对神学的人类学颠倒，实则是语辞学的诡计，无非是把从前加诸于神身上的谓词加诸于人身上。从前神是理性、博爱、神圣的，如今人也是理性、博爱、神圣的，对于现实的个人来说，他们卑微渺小的无力状况没有一丝改变。施蒂纳一语中的：“人杀死了神，为的是成为‘高高在上的唯一的神’” ；“路德维希死了，但国王存留着。”［13］国王不死啊。

For Feuerbach, essentialism was the insurmountable limit of his exploration toward materialism. He had correctly pointed out that God “is precisely attributes, qualities, determinations, general determinations,” but then he went on to emphasize that “the negation of the subject is by no means necessarily also the negation of the predicate itself,” because “the predicate has an independent, self-sufficient meaning.” [14]14 “Saint Sancho” is Marx and Engels’s satirical nickname for Max Stirner, derived from his given name (Johann Kaspar Schmidt) and the Spanish novel *Don Quixote*; “Sancho” refers to Sancho Panza, the squire, and the epithet mocks Stirner’s pretensions to sainthood or moral authority. That is to say, God as an imagined subject can be discarded, but those qualities of God cannot be discarded, because they also constitute the fundamental essence of what makes man human.

对于费尔巴哈来说，本质主义是他向唯物主义探索的不可逾越的界限，他已经正确地指出上帝“就是属性、质、规定性，一般的规定性”，但他继而又强调“主词之否定，决不同时必定又是宾词本身之否定，”因为“宾词具有独自的、独立的意义。”［14］也就是说，神作为想象的主体可以被抛弃，但神的那些性质不能抛弃，因为它们也构成了人之为人的基本本质。

Those predicates and the qualities they express possess a noble, inalienable dignity. In the preface to the second edition of *The Essence of Christianity*, Feuerbach felt aggrieved at being accused of atheism and said: “I have only rescued Christianity from the fraud and trickery full of theological contradictions, yet for this I have committed the great crime of sacrilege”; “I have lowered theology to anthropology, which is rather to raise anthropology to theology.” [15]15 The reference to “Don Quixote fighting windmills” alludes to the famous episode in Cervantes’s novel where the protagonist mistakes windmills for giants; Marx and Engels use it to ridicule Stirner’s belief that fighting ideas alone can change reality. The fundamental reason for Feuerbach’s self-defense is: I have never said that the Word of God is nothing. [16]16 The phrase “the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all” is a direct quotation from *The Communist Manifesto* (1848), summarizing the communist vision of freedom. This defense precisely reflects his fundamental difference from Stirner. Stirner pointed out that what actually rules over man is nothing other than words, words as ideas; ideas, like specters, possess man, control man, drive man, and negate man. Now Feuerbach merely replaces the idea of God with the idea of man, and even openly admits that the enslavement by the idea of man is legitimate—this is something Stirner could never tolerate. He indignantly charged: “The fear of man is merely a transformed form of the fear of God. Our atheists are god-fearing people.” [17]17 The bracketed numbers [27], [32], [33] are internal citation markers referring to the same source volume listed in the paragraph. Although Feuerbach revealed that the essence of religion is man, Stirner understood that this essentialist man is, in substance, still religion.

那些宾词及其表述的性质具有高尚的、不可予夺的尊贵价值。在《基督教的本质》第二版序言中，费尔巴哈为自己被指控为无神论者感到委屈，他说：“我只是把基督教从充满神学矛盾的欺诈和诡计中拯救出来而已，却因此犯下了亵渎神圣的大罪”，“我使神学下降到人本学，这倒不如说使人本学上升到神学。”［15］费尔巴哈为自己辩护的根本理由是：我从来没有说过上帝言语是虚无。［16］这个辩护恰恰反映了他和施蒂纳的根本区别。施蒂纳指明，实实在在统治着人的，不是别的，就是言辞，作为观念的言辞，观念像幽灵一样占有着人，控制着人，驱使着人，否定着人。现在费尔巴哈只是把神的观念换成人的观念，竟然就公开承认人之观念的奴役是合法的，这是施蒂纳无论如何不能容忍的。他愤起指控：“对人的敬畏就仅仅是对神的敬畏的一种变化了的形态。我们的无神论者是信神的人们。”［17］虽然费尔巴哈揭示宗教的本质就是人，但施蒂纳明白，这样本质主义的人，究其实质仍是宗教。

In Stirner’s view, the species-essence of man is unreal; it can never be used to describe actual individuals. Such sacred human essences as boundless love, absolute justice, and supreme wisdom are nowhere to be found in any real individual. Thus, Stirner questioned Feuerbach: when he uses the predicates of God to define the essence of man, this leads to a split between essential man and non-essential man, between ideal man and real man, and consequently to a moral split between what ought to be and what actually is. Under this split, living individuals in reality inevitably become something unqualified, substandard, and then worthless, unreal, and something that must be discarded. Stirner provided a powerful example to demonstrate the tyranny of this essentialism in reality: “For thousands of years, have not prisons been filled with those deemed not to conform to the ‘essence of man,’ such as those we call ‘savages’?” [18] What is true human nature? Stirner would never ask such a question, because all commonalities are unreal, and the pursuit of universality necessarily leads to tyranny over the individual. Stirner sought to reduce humanism to actual individuals; the question “What is man?” had already become “Who is man?” The answer is: I am the unique one, “I am my species.” [19] Stirner moved from anti-essentialism to extreme individualism, repeatedly emphasizing that the only real man can only be each concrete, independent individual in reality. To maintain individual freedom, they cannot be ruled by the state, cannot be constrained by law and morality, cannot submit to any enslavement or oppression, and will not yield or sacrifice themselves to any power; they have only one identity: the Unique One (Ego). Only this “I” as the “Unique One” is the true “free man.”

在施蒂纳看来，人的类本质是不真实的，它们从来无法用来描述真实的个人。像广博的爱、绝对的公正、无上的智慧这些神圣的人的本质在任何一个现实的个体身上都找不到。由此，施蒂纳质疑费尔巴哈，当他用上帝的宾词来定义人的本质时，将导致本质之人与非本质之人、理想之人与现实之人的割裂，继而在道德上形成应然之人与实然之人的割裂。在这一割裂状态下，现实中活生生的个体必然成为某种不合格的、不达标的东西，继而成为无价值的、不真实的以及必须舍弃的东西。施蒂纳以一个有力的举证表明了这种本质主义在现实中的暴政：“千百年来，监狱里不是装满了那些被认为不符合‘人类本质’的人吗，比如那些我们所说的‘野蛮人’？”［18］真实的人性是什么？施蒂纳根本不会这样发问，因为所有的共性都是不真的，而对普遍性的追求必然导致对个人的暴政。施蒂纳要把人道主义还原为现实中的个人，“什么是人”的问题已然变成“谁是人”，回答则是：我乃唯一者，“我就是我的类”。［19］施蒂纳从反本质主义走向极端的个人主义，他一再强调，唯一真实的人只能是现实中每一个具体的、独立的个人，为了维持个人的自由，他们不能受国家统治，不能受法律和道德制约，不能服从任何奴役和压迫，不会向任何强权屈服和献身，他们只有一个身份：唯一者（Ego），只有这作为“唯一者”的“我”才是真正的“自由人”。

“My cause is not the cause of God, not the cause of man, nor the cause of truth, goodness, justice, and freedom, etc., but only my own cause; my cause is not universal, but unique, just as I am unique. For me, I am above everything!” [20]

“我的事业不是神的事，不是人的事，也不是真、善、正义和自由的等等，而仅仅只是我自己的事，我的事业并非是普通的，而是唯一的，就如同我是唯一的那样。对我来说，我是高于一切的！”［20］

III. Marx’s Discovery of the Actual Individual and His Transcendence of the Young Hegelians

三、马克思对现实个人的发现和对青年黑格尔派的超越

Although Marx never publicly acknowledged Stirner’s influence on him, he still implicitly mentioned in the *Theses on Feuerbach*, written after reading *The Ego and Its Own*: “In contradistinction to materialism, the active side was developed abstractly by idealism.” [21]

尽管马克思从没有公开承认过施蒂纳对他的影响，但他还是在阅读《唯一者及其所有物》之后所写下的《关于费尔巴哈的提纲》中隐晦地提到：“和唯物主义相反，能动的方面却被唯心主义抽象的发展了。”［21］

Feuerbach’s emphasis on the materialist tendency of sensationalism and empiricism had once won great praise from Marx, Engels, Hess, and others, but now his materialist mask was mercilessly torn off by Stirner. In 1845, in the third issue of *Wigand’s Vierteljahrsschrift*, there appeared an anonymously written essay by Stirner, “Stirner’s Critics,” in which he retaliated against those who criticized him. In it, he commented on Feuerbach as follows: Feuerbach is certainly not a materialist, because when he thinks he is talking about actual man, he is actually far off the mark. Nor is he an idealist, because when he incessantly talks about the essence and idea of man, he actually thinks he is talking about the “essence of sensuous man.” Therefore, he declares that he is neither an idealist nor a materialist, which is quite appropriate. As for Stirner himself? Stirner, speaking in the third person, said: Stirner does not say he is a materialist either, but in Stirner’s exposition, he is a materialist cloaked in idealism. [22] How much Stirner’s comment influenced Marx can be seen from the subtitle of the famous first chapter of *The German Ideology*, “Feuerbach”: “The Opposition of the Materialist and Idealist Outlooks.” However, Marx was absolutely not satisfied with stopping at Stirner’s conclusion, nor did he think Stirner had reached the heights of materialism. In his view, Stirner had gone astray on the road to materialism and was still a “half-baked” materialist. What Marx himself had to accomplish was to truly and materialistically discover the real individual, and to cast both Stirner and the objects of his criticism into the wastebasket of “idealism” and “German ideology.”

费尔巴哈强调感性主义和经验主义的唯物主义倾向曾经让马克思、恩格斯、赫斯等人大加赞赏，但现在他的唯物主义假面被施蒂纳不留情面地摘除了。在1845年《维干德季刊》的第3期上出现了一篇施蒂纳匿名撰写的论文《施蒂纳的批评者》，他以这样的方式回击那些批评他的人，在其中他这样评论费尔巴哈：费尔巴哈肯定不是唯物主义者，因为当他自认为在谈论现实的人时，他其实偏之千里。他也不是唯心主义者，因为当他不停地谈论人的本质和理念时，他其实自认为在谈论“感性的人的本质”。因此，他宣称自己并非唯心主义者，也非唯物主义者，倒是恰如其分的。至于施蒂纳自己呢？施蒂纳以第三者的口吻说到：施蒂纳也没有说他自己是唯物主义者，但在施蒂纳的论述中，他是一个披着唯心主义外衣的唯物主义者。［22］施蒂纳的评论对马克思有多大影响，只要看看《德意志意识形态》著名的第一章《费尔巴哈》的副标题就知道了《唯物主义观点和唯心主义观点的对立》。但是，马克思绝对不满足于停留在施蒂纳的结论上，也不认为施蒂纳达到了唯物主义的高度。在他看来，施蒂纳在通向唯物主义的路上误入歧途，仍然是个“半截子”的唯物主义者。而马克思自己所要完成的，便是真正唯物主义地发现真实的人，并把施蒂纳和他所批评的对象统统甩进“唯心主义”和“德意志意识形态”的故纸堆里去。

1. The abstract unique one. Stirner keenly discovered the illusion of essentialism and humanism, yet turned toward the other extreme, taking the solitary individual, unbound by any social relations, unconstrained by any moral concepts, and capable of controlling all power, as the real human. Marx soon likewise keenly discovered the illusion of the unique one, because the matchless, unique individual Stirner describes is nowhere to be found in reality. Just as universal human nature is an imagined illusion, so too is a solitary, aloof individual an abstract fiction. Marx stated directly: “This Stirnerian ‘I’ is not a ‘corporeal individual,’ but a category constructed according to Hegel’s method, which uses appositives as its supports.” [23] Marx clearly saw that although Stirner opposed his teacher Hegel’s view of the real individual as a means for the self-realization of absolute spirit, he remained a thoroughgoing Hegelian; his greatest transformation of Hegel’s philosophy was to substantialize absolute spirit into the unique one, whose abstractness is no less than that of the assumptions about human nature that humanism and liberalism take as their standard.

1．抽象的唯一者。施蒂纳敏锐地发现了本质主义和人道主义的虚幻，却掉头走向另一个极端，把不受任何社会关系羁绊、不受任何道德观念约束、能够掌控所有权力的孤独的个人当做真实的人。马克思很快也同样敏锐地发现了唯一者的虚幻，因为施蒂纳所描述的那个无可匹敌、独一无二的个人在现实中根本无从找寻。就如同普遍的人性乃是想象的幻象一样，一个孤世傲立的个人也是抽象的虚构。马克思直言：“这个施蒂纳式的‘我’不是‘有形体的个人’，而是按照用同位语作支柱的黑格尔的方法构成的范畴。”［23］马克思清楚地看到，虽然施蒂纳反对他的老师黑格尔把现实的个人视作绝对精神自我实现的手段，但他依然是一个十足的黑格尔主义者，他对黑格尔哲学最大的改造就是把绝对精神实体化为唯一者，它的抽象性一点也不比人道主义和自由主义奉为圭臬的那些人性假设要少。

Stirner attempts to defend and preserve the absolute status of individuality within universal human nature, and treats individuality (Eigenheit, which can be translated into English as ownness or self-possession) and property or ownership (Eigentum) as one and the same. But Marx discovered this to be merely a play on words; the fact is that “I have private property only when I have something to sell, whereas my inherent ownness is something that simply cannot be sold.” [24] Marx already regarded property as a social concept, as a universal phenomenon occurring within dynamic social relations, while Stirner still thought about property on a static level, and therefore believed that every self is wealthy. When Stirner reduces all relations between the unique one and other things to relations of ownership, he also takes individuality (self-ownership) as a self-evident theoretical fulcrum. Marx, however, discovered that individuality is by no means primary; it is formed in the process of the individual’s intercourse with his material environment. These relations of intercourse include friendship, love, occupation, politics, and so on; together they constitute the individual’s individuality. If these relations are stripped away, so-called individuality becomes merely an empty, nihilistic concept. Stirner precisely did this; he was thoroughly versed in Hegel’s phenomenology of spirit and master-slave dialectic, turning all relations into master-slave relations in consciousness: either I possess you, or you dominate me—no third option. Moreover, the establishment or reversal of the master-slave relation need only be accomplished in consciousness. Marx commented on this: “As long as he understands how to possess himself, he is ‘his own’ ‘at any time and under any circumstances.’ Therefore, ownness here has a hypothetical character; it depends on his understanding, on how he understands the slave’s sense of right and wrong.” [25] Stirner’s unique one demands control over his entirely arbitrary, exclusive property or interests; such a unique one completely disregards all other interests, let alone recognizing any universal interest. However, Stirner lacks understanding of the process by which property and interests arise and are realized. In actual history, especially under the social conditions of modern capitalism, all interests arise in mutual intercourse; they are realized in the constant struggle between universal interests and individual interests. Whether you are subjectively egoistic or altruistic, you cannot change the fact that you must engage in mutual intercourse with others. Under these circumstances, endlessly arguing for and preaching egoism is actually meaningless. For example, is a mother’s care for her child selfless, out of love for the child, or egoistic, to satisfy her own maternal instinct? Such disputes will never yield a result, nor will they change the fact that a mother always cares for her child; in other words, they merely produce one more theory for “interpreting the world.” For Marx, a person like the unique one, who can turn all relations that connect with him into relations for himself, and in these for-himself relations be self-satisfied and self-enjoying, is simply nowhere to be found in reality; it can only be a fabricated idol, for those obsessed with Ah Q-style fantasies to worship. [13]13 Ah Q is the protagonist of Lu Xun’s 1921 novella *The True Story of Ah Q*, a satirical figure known for his “spiritual victories” — rationalizing defeat as moral triumph. Marx had already stood on a platform of thought that no member of the Hegelian school had ever reached; looking back from this platform, called historical materialism, Stirner’s so-called “the unique one and his property” is merely another myth of imagined human nature concocted by idealist philosophers.

施蒂纳试图在普遍的人性中捍卫和保留个性的绝对地位，并把个性（Eigenheit，英译可作ownness或self－possession）和财产或所有权(Eigentum)视为一体。但马克思发现这只是语词的把戏，事实是“我只有在有可以出卖的东西的时候才有私有财产，而我固有的独自性却是根本不能出卖的物品。”［24］马克思已经把财产视为社会概念，视为在动态的社会关系中发生的一个普遍现象，而施蒂纳还停留在一个静止的层面来思考财产，所以才会以为每一个自我都是富有的。当施蒂纳把唯一者与它物之间的所有关系都归结为所有权关系的时候，也把个性（自我所有）当做了一个不证自明的理论支点。马克思却发现，个性绝不是第一位的，它是个人在与他的物质环境交往过程中形成的，这些交往关系包括友谊、爱情、职业、政治等等，它们合起来构成了人的个性，如果把这些关系剥除掉，所谓个性也就只是一个空洞、虚无的概念而已。施蒂纳恰恰就这么做了，他熟稔黑格尔的精神现象学和主奴辩证法，他把所有关系都变成意识中的主奴关系，要么我占有你，要么你支配我，非此即彼。而且，主奴关系的确立或颠倒只需在意识中完成即可。马克思为此评论道：“只要他懂得占有自己，他‘在任何时候任何情况下’都是他‘自己的’。因此，独自性在这里便带有假设的性质，它取决于他的理解，取决于他如何理解奴隶的是非之心。”［25］施蒂纳的唯一者要求掌控其完全独断、排他的财产或利益，这样的唯一者完全无视其他一切利益，更不会承认什么普遍利益。但是，施蒂纳对财产和利益的产生与实现的过程缺乏了解。在现实历史中，尤其是现代资本主义的社会条件下，所有的利益都是在相互交往中产生的，都是在普遍利益与个人利益的不断博弈中实现的，不管你主观上是利己主义的还是利他主义的，都无法改变你必须与他人相互交往的事实。在这种情况下，再去喋喋不休地论证和宣扬利己主义其实毫无意义。比方说，母亲对孩子的关怀究竟是无私地出于对孩子的爱，还是利己地为了满足自己母爱的本能？这样的纷争永远不会有结果，也不会改变母亲总是关怀自己孩子的事实，换句话说，无非是为“解释世界”制造多一个理论而已。对于马克思来说，像唯一者那样能够把所有与我发生的关联都变成为我的关系，并且在这种为我关系中自我满足、自我享受的人，在现实中根本找不到，它只能是一个臆造出来的偶像，让那些热衷于阿Q式幻想的人去顶礼膜拜。马克思已经站到了一个任何黑格尔派成员都没有达到的思想平台，从这个被称作历史唯物主义的平台上回看，施蒂纳所谓的“唯一者及其所有物”只是唯心主义的哲学家炮制的又一个人性想象的神话而已。

2. The real individual. For Marx, whether it was Feuerbach seeking real human nature in the human “species” or Stirner in the independent unique one, their descriptions of the human were very crude. Feuerbach emphasized “the relation of human to human,” but lacked the ability to analyze these relations; Stirner opposed the oppression of the real individual by interpersonal relations, but simply discarded these relations without analyzing them. Marx’s approach was completely different. He acknowledged that oppressive social relations are a manifestation of human alienation, but still affirmed that only from social relations can the real individual be found. For the fact is precisely this: “Definite individuals who are productively active in a definite way enter into definite social and political relations,” and the real individual is “the individual who is active, who engages in material production, and who therefore expresses himself actively under definite material limits, presuppositions, and conditions that are not subject to his arbitrary will.” [26]

2．现实的个人。对马克思来说，不管是费尔巴哈试图在人的“类”中，还是施蒂纳在独立的唯一者中去寻找真实的人性，他们对人的描述都是非常粗糙的。费尔巴哈强调“人与人的关系”，但对这些关系却缺乏分析的能力，施蒂纳反对人际关系对真实个人的压迫，但对这些关系只是不做剖析地一弃了之。马克思的做法完全不同，他承认压迫性的社会关系是人的异化的表现，但依然认定，只有从社会关系中才能找到真实的个人。因为事实就是这样的：“以一定的方式进行生产活动的一定的个人，发生一定的社会关系和政治关系”，而现实中的个人，是“从事活动的，进行物质生产的，因而是在一定的物质的、不受他们任意支配的界限、前提和条件下能动地表现自己的。”［26］

The concept of the species that Stirner abandoned was retrieved by Marx, but this “species” is not Feuerbach’s mathematical summation, but a synthesis of various organic, complex social relations. This reconstructed human essence, in Marx’s famous words, is that “the human is the ensemble of social relations.” Each social relation indicates the individual’s relation to another other, and is presented as an attribute of the human. Social relations are not a negation of the self; on the contrary, they are constituent elements of the real self. These relations cannot be simply reduced to egoistic relations of ownership as Stirner would do. For example, “worker” indicates a person’s occupational nature, while behind it lies the condensation of his economic relation with the capitalist. The capitalist uses the worker to make money for him, while the worker uses the capitalist to pay him wages. Although these two kinds of “use” can theoretically be equated as a master-slave relation, in reality, for those who are actually in such a relation, the difference between them is as vast as the distance between heaven and earth.

被施蒂纳所放弃的类的观念又被马克思重新找了回来，但这个“类”不是费尔巴哈的数学式的叠加，而是各种有机的、复杂的社会关系的综合。这个重建的人类本质用马克思的名言来说，就是“人是社会关系的总和”。每一种社会关系表明人与另一个他者的关系，并且作为人的一种属性呈现出来。社会关系不是对自我的否定，恰恰相反，它就是真实自我的组成要素。这些关系是无法像施蒂纳那样简单地还原到利己主义的所有权关系上的，比如工人表明了一个人的职业性质，而背后则是他和资本家经济关系的凝结。资本家利用工人为其赚钱，而工人利用资本家为其发工资，这两种“利用”虽然理论上都可以用主奴关系等同视之，但在现实中，对于真正处于这种关系中的人来说，其差异之大犹如天壤之别。

Stirner emphasized that all altruistic behavior can be explained by egoism, but in the objective world, there is neither an absolutely egoistic nor an absolutely altruistic person; the individual and society, individual interests and universal interests, cannot be absolutely separated in practice either. Humans live in society, producing products and property through labor to sustain their lives; labor necessarily includes links such as division of labor and exchange; division of labor and exchange in turn cause people to form close social relations. This series of phenomena is inseparable and objectively exists in reality; all descriptions of the human must follow this fact, just as Marx said, they are “not dogmas, but real premises that can only be abstracted away in imagination.” [27] Needless to say, the real individual has never been detached and independent; from birth, he is constrained by various economic, political, and moral relations. These relations certainly all appear in the form of ideas in the human mind, but they cannot be changed by conducting a brain-storm or a revolution of the soul. Stirner and other Young Hegelian thinkers were keenly concerned with the phenomena of human alienation in the spheres of religion, politics, and morality, yet never understood that alienation in the political and ideological spheres is merely the result and manifestation of alienation in economic relations.

施蒂纳强调所有利他主义行为都可以用利己主义来解释，但在客观世界中，没有一个绝对利己，也没有一个绝对利他的人，个人与社会、个人利益与普遍利益也不可能在实际中决绝地区分开来。人在社会中生活，以劳动的方式生产出产品和财产以维持自己的生活，劳动中又必然包括分工与交换等环节，分工与交换又使人们结成紧密的社会关系，这一系列现象在现实中是不可割裂、客观存在的，所有对人的描述都得遵循这个事实，就如马克思所说，它们“不是教条，而是一些只有在想象中才能撇开的现实前提。”［27］毋庸赘言，现实的个人从来就不是遗世独立的，他们生来就受各种经济、政治、道德关系的制约，这些关系当然都会以观念的形式出现在人的头脑中，但并不是进行一场头脑风暴或灵魂革命就可以改变的。施蒂纳以及其他青年黑格尔派思想家，热衷于关注人的宗教、政治、道德领域的异化现象，却不曾明白，政治和思想领域的异化其实只是经济关系异化的结果和表现而已。

Stirner was dissatisfied with the transcendental essence that humanism set for the human, and emphasized that the individual is a “creative nothing.” Marx inherited this theory of creativity, yet repeatedly pointed out that human creation and production take place under definite historical conditions. Human history is the history of self-production, and “people have a history precisely because they must produce their own life, and they must do so in a definite manner.” [28] With “a definite manner,” Marx indicates that real individuals are always historical and concrete (Dasein); the conditions of productive forces and living conditions in which they find themselves are what they must inherit, because “a definite mode of production or a definite industrial stage is always combined with a definite mode of co-operation or a definite social stage.” [29] To talk about human creativity in the abstract, setting aside these “definite” existing conditions, is still to engage in metaphysical philosophical thinking, and cannot become a “historical science” that attends to reality. The reason Marx confidently mocked Germany for “never having had a single historian” and declared that he knew “historical science” was that he already possessed the interest in and ability for political economy that his Young Hegelian friends lacked.

施蒂纳不满意人道主义为人设定的先验本质，而强调个人乃是“创造性的无”，马克思继承了这种创造性理论，却一再指出，人的创造和生产是在一定的历史条件下进行的。人的历史，就是自我生产的历史，而“人们之所以有历史，是因为他们必须生产自己的生活，而且是用一定的方式来进行的。”［28］马克思以“一定的方式”表明，现实的个人始终是历史的、具体的（Dasein），他所身处其中的那些生产力状况和生活状况是他必须继承的，因为“一定的生产方式或一定的工业阶段始终是与一定的共同活动的方式或一定的社会阶段联系着的。”［29］抛开这些“一定的”现存状况来空谈人的创造性，那就仍然是形而上的哲学思考，而无法成为关照现实的“历史科学”。马克思之所以自信满满地嘲笑德国“从来没有过一个历史学家”而宣称他知晓“历史科学”，那是因为他已经具备了他那些青年黑格尔派的朋友们所缺乏的政治经济学的兴趣和能力。

3. Free human beings. Stirner reached the heights of the philosophy of existence of the will to power even earlier than Nietzsche; he made clear that freedom exists only in each of my acts of appropriating ownership, and that the freedom which liberals and communists believe in is actually a manifestation of “unfreedom.” Liberalism regards freedom as a right that ought to be granted, but granted freedom is fundamentally an illusion, because right (right) is nothing but an expression of power (power). Communism anticipates a free state of society and calls on people to struggle for this goal, and in this way freedom, as an ideal, becomes a sovereign to which real individuals are required to sacrifice themselves. After Stirner had overthrown all concepts of right (idea) and ideals (ideal), if Marx still wanted to make a breakthrough in the theory of freedom, he found himself in a very awkward and difficult position.

3．自由的人类。施蒂纳比尼采更早就达到了权力意志的生存哲学的高度，他指明自由只存在于我的每一次攫取所有权的行动中，而自由主义者和共产主义者所认为的那种自由其实乃是“不自由”的表现。自由主义把自由认作一种应当赋予的权利，但被赋予的自由根本就是幻象，因为权利（right）无非权力（power）的体现；共产主义期待一个自由的社会状况并号召人们为了这个目标而奋斗，而这样自由作为一种理想就成为要求现实中的个人为之献身的君王。在施蒂纳打倒一切权利观念（idea）和理想（ideal)之后，马克思如果还想在自由理论上有所突破，就处在十分尴尬和困难的境地了。

Dissatisfaction with real unfreedom was common to Marx, Stirner, and all the Young Hegelians, but their understanding of how this unfree state of affairs was caused and how it could be changed differed greatly. Marx discovered that the common failing of Stirner and the others lay in their belief that people’s real shackles existed only in their minds (people are slaves to ideas), and that the key to breaking these shackles lay in completing a spiritual revolution that would tear through the net. Marx commented on this: “Because the holy is something alien, all alien things become holy; because every holy thing is a shackle, a fetter, all shackles and fetters become holy. From this Saint Sancho [referring to Stirner] draws the conclusion that, in his view, all alien things have become a mere illusion, an idea, and the way to get rid of this idea is simply to protest against it and declare that he does not have it.” [30] This long critique can be reduced to two famous mockeries in *The German Ideology*: one is the example in the preface of a good fellow who thinks that by discarding the idea of gravity he can avoid drowning; [31] the other is the image of Stirner repeatedly depicted in the “Saint Max” chapter: Don Quixote fighting windmills. Marx said: “They oppose these phrases with phrases; since they oppose only the phrases of this world, they are by no means opposing the real existing world.” [32]

对现实的不自由的不满是马克思和施蒂纳及所有青年黑格尔派都共有的，但对于这不自由的现状是如何造成的又如何改变，他们的理解差别极大。马克思发现，施蒂纳他们的通病，就在于认为人们的真实枷锁只存在于头脑中（人是观念的奴隶），认为打碎枷锁的关键在于完成一场冲决罗网的精神革命。马克思对此评论道：“因为圣物是某种异物，所以一切异物都变成了圣物；因为每一件圣物都是枷锁、镣铐，所以一切枷锁、镣铐都变成了圣物。由此圣桑乔（指施蒂纳）便得出了这样的结论：在他看来，一切异物都变成了一种假象，一种观念，他摆脱这种观念的方法很简单，就是对这种观念提出抗议并声明他没有这种观念。”［30］这段长长的批评可以简化成《德意志意识形态》里两个著名的嘲笑，一个是序言里的例子：一个好汉以为，抛掉了重力的观念就能避免溺死的危险；［31］另一个是“圣麦克斯”章多次描绘的施蒂纳的形象：与风车战斗的堂•吉诃德。马克思说：“他们只是用词句来反对这些词句；既然他们仅仅反对这个世界的词句，那么他们就绝对不是反对现实的现存世界。”［32］

Marx still adhered to the communist ideal of freedom. Having mastered the weapon of historical materialism, he could already avoid Stirner’s attacks. First, Marx demonstrated through actual historical investigation that enslavement and oppression do not come from consciousness, but are the result of real social relations and economic relations; therefore, the motive force and goal of revolution come not from spirit but from reality. Marx removed the utopian character that previous communist theory had carried: “For the practical materialist, i.e., the communist, the whole question is to revolutionize the existing world, practically to oppose and change existing things.” [33] For Marx, communism is not an idea, an ideal, not a beyond fantasized in our minds, but a real process of change taking place in the real world. Although the freedom of communism has not yet been attained, it can be guaranteed, because it does not depend on the powerless “ought” of moral discourse, but on the iron necessity of the laws of social development derived through the analysis of political economy. Second, under communism, free individuals are realized through the free whole of humanity; “humanity” or “society” is no longer a negation of or threat to the individual. Marx had already shown that the conflict between the individual and society arises from the individual’s inability to control his own conditions of labor, because he lacks the means of labor and thus loses the fruits of his labor. The only way to resolve the conflict is to enable people to fully appropriate their conditions of labor; communism will achieve this by raising productive forces and thereby changing the relations of production. Thus Marx wrote: “Communists neither oppose egoism to self-sacrifice nor self-sacrifice to egoism, nor do they theoretically grasp this opposition in its sentimental form or in its exaggerated ideological form; rather, they reveal its material roots, and with the disappearance of these material roots, this opposition naturally disappears as well.” [34] As for what society would look like once the opposition had disappeared, everyone already knows: in it, the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all.

马克思依然坚持共产主义的自由理想，在掌握了历史唯物主义的武器之后，他已经可以避免施蒂纳的攻击了。其一，马克思以实际的历史考察证明，奴役和压迫不来自意识，而是现实的社会关系和经济关系的结果，那么，革命的动力和目标，也不来自精神而来自现实。马克思把之前共产主义理论所带有的乌托邦的性质给去掉了：“对实践的唯物主义者即共产主义者来说，全部问题都在于使现存世界革命化，实际地反对并改变现存的事物。”［33］在马克思这里，共产主义不是观念、理想，不是我们头脑中幻想的彼岸，而是现实世界中真切发生着的变革过程。共产主义的自由尽管尚未得到，却可以获得保证，因为它不依赖于道德论的无力的“应当”，而是依据通过政治经济学分析得出的社会发展规律的铁一般的规定性。其二，在共产主义状态下，自由的个人是通过整体的自由的人类来实现的，“人类”或“社会”不再是对个人的否定和威胁。马克思已经表明，个人与社会之间的冲突其实是由于个人无法掌握他的劳动条件所造成的，因为他没有劳动资料所以丧失劳动成果。解决冲突的唯一办法是使人全面占有他的劳动条件，共产主义将通过提高生产力并随之改变生产关系来实现这一点。由是马克思写道：“共产主义者既不拿利己主义来反对自我牺牲，也不拿自我牺牲来反对利己主义，理论上既不是从那情感的形式，也不是从那夸张的思想形式去领会这个对立，而是在于揭示这个对立的物质根源，随着物质根源的消失，这种对立自然而然也就消灭。”［34］至于消灭了对立的社会会是什么样子，人们都已清楚：在那里，每个人的自由发展是一切人自由发展的条件。

References:

参考文献：

[1]1 The Diadochi were the rival generals who fought for control of Alexander the Great’s empire after his death in 323 BCE; Marx uses this reference to emphasize the intensity of the Young Hegelian theoretical struggle. *Complete Works of Marx and Engels* (3) [M]. Beijing: People’s Publishing House, 1965: 19.

［1］马克思恩格斯全集（3）［M］．北京：人民出版社，1965：19．

[2]2 David Friedrich Strauss (1808–1874) and Bruno Bauer (1809–1882) were earlier Young Hegelian critics of Christianity; Strauss focused on the mythological nature of the Gospels, Bauer on the self-consciousness of the critic. [4]4 The University of Berlin (now Humboldt University) and the University of Erlangen were key centers of German philosophy in the 19th century. [5]5 Ludwig Feuerbach (1804–1872), German philosopher and anthropologist, a key figure in the Young Hegelian movement, known for his critique of religion and his materialist turn. [6]6 Max Stirner (1806–1856), German philosopher, a Young Hegelian, author of *The Ego and Its Own* (1844), which critiques Feuerbach and advocates egoistic individualism. [7]7 *The Essence of Christianity* (1841), Feuerbach’s major work arguing that God is a projection of human essence. [8]8 *The Ego and Its Own* (1844), Stirner’s principal work, which argues that the individual ego is the sole reality and rejects all universal concepts. [14]14 “Saint Sancho” is Marx and Engels’s satirical nickname for Max Stirner, derived from his given name (Johann Kaspar Schmidt) and the Spanish novel *Don Quixote*; “Sancho” refers to Sancho Panza, the squire, and the epithet mocks Stirner’s pretensions to sainthood or moral authority. [15]15 The reference to “Don Quixote fighting windmills” alludes to the famous episode in Cervantes’s novel where the protagonist mistakes windmills for giants; Marx and Engels use it to ridicule Stirner’s belief that fighting ideas alone can change reality. [16]16 The phrase “the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all” is a direct quotation from *The Communist Manifesto* (1848), summarizing the communist vision of freedom. Feuerbach. *The Essence of Christianity* [M]. Translated by Rong Zhenhua, Beijing: Commercial Press, 1997: 23-24, 5, 63, 30, 58, 42-43, 6, 53, 8-21, 18-19.

［2］［4］［5］［6］［7］［8］［14］［15］［16］费尔巴哈．基督教的本质［M］．荣震华译，北京：商务印书馆，1997：23－24，5，63，30，58，42－43，6，53，8－21，18－19．

[3]3 The Hippel tavern in Berlin was a famous meeting place for the Young Hegelians, known for its lively debates. *Selected Works of Feuerbach’s Philosophy* (Volume 1) [M]. Translated by Rong Zhenhua, Li Jinshan et al., Beijing: Commercial Press, 1984: 247.

［3］费尔巴哈哲学著作选集（上卷）［M］．荣震华、李金山等译，北京：商务印书馆，1984：247．

[9]9 *Theses on Feuerbach* (1845), Marx’s short text criticizing Feuerbach’s materialism and outlining his own materialist conception of history. *Complete Works of Marx and Engels* (41) [M]. Beijing: People’s Publishing House, 1982: 364-365.

［9］马克思恩格斯全集（41）［M］．北京：人民出版社，1982：364－365．

[10]10 Moses Hess (1812–1875), German socialist philosopher and early communist, a friend and collaborator of Marx and Engels. Quoted from Eugene Kamenka. *The Philosophy of Ludwig Feuerbach*, New York, 1969: 15.

［10］转引自Eugene Kamenka．The Philosophy of LudwigFeuerbach,New York,1969：15．

[11]11 *Wigand’s Vierteljahrsschrift* (Wigand’s Quarterly), a German journal published by Otto Wigand, where Stirner’s response appeared in 1845. *Complete Works of Marx and Engels* (1) [M]. Beijing: People’s Publishing House, 1965: 33-34.

［11］马克思恩格斯全集（1）［M］．北京：人民出版社，1965：33－34．

[12]12 *The German Ideology* (1845–1846), Marx and Engels’ collaborative work critiquing the Young Hegelians and developing historical materialism. Henry Mackay. *Max Stirner: His Life and His Work*, California, 2005: 91.

［12］Henry Mackay．Max Stirner:His Life and His Work,California,2005：91．

[13]13 Ah Q is the protagonist of Lu Xun’s 1921 novella *The True Story of Ah Q*, a satirical figure known for his “spiritual victories” — rationalizing defeat as moral triumph. [17]17 The bracketed numbers [27], [32], [33] are internal citation markers referring to the same source volume listed in the paragraph. [19] [20] Stirner. *The Ego and Its Own* [M]. Translated by Jin Haimin, Beijing: Commercial Press, 2007: 169, 192, 203, 200, 5.

［13］［17］［19］［20］施蒂纳．唯一者及其所有物［M］．金海民译，北京：商务印书馆，2007：169，192，203，200，5．

[18] [22] Max Stirner. “Stirner’s Critics” in *The Philosophical Forum*, vol. viii, nos. 2-3-4, spring 1977: 79.

［18］［22］Max Stirner．“Stirner＇s Critics”in The Philosoph-ical Forum,vol．ⅷ,nos2－3－4,spring 1977：79．

[21] [23] [24] [25] [26] [28] [29] [30] [31] [34] *Complete Works of Marx and Engels* (3) [M]. Beijing: People’s Publishing House, 1965: 3, 210, 253-254,

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349, 28-29, 34 marginal note ①, 33, 317, 16, 275.

349，28－29，34边注①，33，317，16，275．

[27][32][33] *Selected Works of Marx and Engels* (1) [M]. Beijing: People’s Publishing House: 1995: 66–67, 66, 75.

［27］［32］［33］马克思恩格斯选集（1）［M］．北京：人民出版社：1995：66－67，66，75．

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