A Profound Understanding of the Philosophical Basis of People-Centeredness

The "Decision of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on Further Deepening Reform Comprehensively to Advance Chinese-Path Modernization" clearly identifies six principles to be followed in further deepening reform comprehensively, namely, "upholding the Party's overall leadership, adhering to a people-centered approach, upholding fundamental principles and breaking new ground, taking institutional building as the main thread, adhering to law-based governance in all respects, and adhering to a systems perspective." The report of the 20th National Congress of the CPC pointed out, "To build a modern socialist country in all respects, we must give full play to the creative wisdom and strength of hundreds of millions of people" and "always breathe the same breath as the people, share their destiny, and be heart to heart with them." Adhering to a people-centered approach fully demonstrates our Party's value stance and its commitment to serving the people. It is a basic strategy for upholding and developing socialism with Chinese characteristics in the New Era. It not only embodies our Party's value ideals and value pursuits but also represents the loyal conviction of Chinese Communists to remain true to their original aspiration and fulfill their founding mission. People-centeredness has a distinct value stance and value orientation, and it is necessary to profoundly understand the value sentiment it contains from a theoretical perspective. People-centeredness contains a triple logic: the generation of value relations, the manifestation of the value subject, and the verification of value practice. It answers the fundamental Marxist question of "for whom and by whom," embodies our Party's commitment to serving the people, and demonstrates the value psychology and value culture of people-centeredness, as well as the process of how it is transformed into socialist values and value beliefs. People-centeredness integrates the concept of sharing into its core values, and incorporates the positive qualities of openness and win-win cooperation into the innovative practice of governance in step with the times. This is also the key to a Marxist party maintaining its advanced nature at all times.

《中共中央关于进一步全面深化改革、推进中国式现代化的决定》明确指出了进一步全面深化改革贯彻的六大原则，即“坚持党的全面领导、坚持以人民为中心、坚持守正创新、坚持以制度建设为主线、坚持全面依法治国、坚持系统观念”。党的二十大报告指出，“全面建设社会主义现代化国家，必须充分发挥亿万人民的创造伟力”“始终同人民同呼吸、共命运、心连心”。坚持以人民为中心充分彰显了我们党的价值立场和为民情怀，是新时代坚持和发展中国特色社会主义的基本方略，不仅体现了我们党的价值理想和价值追求，也是中国共产党人不忘初心、履行使命的忠贞理念。以人民为中心具有鲜明的价值立场和价值取向，需要从学理上深刻领会其蕴含的价值情怀。 以人民为中心内含了价值关系生成、价值主体展现和价值实践验证的三重逻辑，回答了“为了谁、依靠谁”这一马克思主义基本问题，体现了我们党的为民情怀，展现了以人民为中心的价值心理和价值文化，以及如何转化为社会主义价值观念和价值信仰的过程。以人民为中心将共享理念融入其核心价值，将开放、共赢的积极品质与时俱进地融入治国理政的创新实践中，这也是马克思主义政党时刻保持先进性的关键。

The Generation of Value Relations in People-Centeredness

以人民为中心的价值关系生成

"Subject" and "object" have had various different interpretations in the history of philosophy. For example, some believe that only noumenon and substance are the subject; or that, in the final analysis, natural matter is the ultimate or even the sole subject, and humans can only unconditionally acknowledge the objective reality of the external world and follow its necessity. The definition of the subject, after passing through noumenon, substance, and natural matter, has ultimately been located in the human being.

“主体”“客体”在哲学史上曾有过各种不同的释义。如，认为只有本体和基质才是主体；或认为归根结底自然物质才是最终主体甚至是唯一的主体，人只有无条件地承认外部世界的客观实在，遵循其中的必然性。主体的规定在经历了本体、基质、自然物质之后最终定位于人。

The definition of the subject in value relations represents a return to the existential meaning of the subject. In value relations, the human being as subject denotes the relationship and state between humans and things. Humans are both the end and the means. People-centeredness means integrating humans into a unified value entity, with the value implication that human development is the goal and development relies on humans for its realization. The two cannot be separated or merged; they mutually promote and generate each other. The external value of the people's world of "meaning," i.e., their instrumentality, coexists with the intrinsic value of their end-status. Therefore, the people's "species" community [n] is the realization of a balance between "instrumental rationality" and "value rationality" through mutual influence and constraint among the people. People-centeredness, precisely based on the objective fact of the origin of value relations, reveals the real existence of the people as subject and the people as object, and the actual manifestation of the people's subjectivity and the people's objectivity. From the existential perspective of development for the people, development relying on the people, and development achievements shared by the people, it manifests the unified relationship between the instrumental value and the end value of humans.

价值关系中主体的规定是对主体生存论本义的回归。价值关系中人作为主体表示人与事物之间的关系和状态，人既是目的，同时也是手段。以人民为中心就是将人融入价值统一体中，以人的发展为目的、发展依靠人来实现的价值意蕴，不能将二者拆分或合一，二者互融互促、相互生成。人民存在“意义”世界的外在价值即手段性，同时也具有内在价值的目的性，因此，人民的“类”共同体就是人民之间在相互影响与制约中实现着“工具理性”与“价值理性”的平衡。以人民为中心正是基于价值关系本原的客观事实，揭示了人民主体与人民客体的真实存在、人民主体性与人民客体性的现实表现，从发展为了人民、发展依靠人民、发展成果由人民共享的存在论视域显现出人的目的价值与手段价值的统一关系。

The Manifestation of the Value Subject in People-Centeredness

以人民为中心的价值主体展现

People-centeredness is a scientific understanding and reasonable evaluation of humans. People-centeredness affirms the realization of human value. The realization of human value is the fundamental and ultimate goal of human practical activities. All human activities revolve around human value. Any human activity that loses this core value content is unrealistic. It affirms the existence of humans' intrinsic value. Humans not only possess the extrinsic value attribute of satisfying the needs of the human subject but also possess the intrinsic value attribute that does not depend on external means. This is mainly reflected in humans' end-status and subjectivity.

以人民为中心是对人的科学认识与合理评价。以人民为中心肯定了人的价值实现，人的价值实现是人类实践活动的根本目的也是最终目的，所有人类活动都是围绕着人的价值而展开的，失去了这一核心价值内容的人类活动都是不现实的。它肯定了人内在价值的存在，人不仅具有满足人类主体需求的外在价值属性，还具有不依赖于外在手段的内在价值属性，其主要体现在人的目的性与主体性上。

Marx divided humans as subjects into three historical stages: "relations of personal dependence," "personal independence founded on objective dependence," and "free individuality" based on the all-round development of individuals. [n] The stage of relations of personal dependence occurred in early human society, essentially an era without a subject. For humans to become subjects, individuals must first be able to exist independently as subjects. Therefore, in ancient societies of dependency, such individuals could not become true subjects. Although humans had separated from nature, they lacked autonomy and independence in social relations. Individual characteristics were buried under the rule of the collective. In terms of social relations, individuals did not possess the significance of a subject and could only be in a potential stage of subjectivity. With the emergence of private ownership and the division of labor, the commodity economy arose and developed rapidly. The commodity economy requires individuals to act as independent entities, engaging in equivalent exchange based on the principles of equality and fairness, that is, organizing human activities according to the law of value. Humans thus broke away from the community and gained independent significance. When humans separated from nature and became the subject of nature, they could not yet be considered true subjects. Only when humans became subjects in society was their subject status truly established. It is in this sense that the commodity economy historically played its enormous role. Of course, in capitalist society, humans' subject status is alienated. Humans are reified into commodities, becoming slaves of material things, thus causing a series of contradictions and conflicts in capitalist society. Thereafter, under conditions of greatly increased social material wealth, humans begin to become free and self-conscious individuals, and their individuality is fully developed, no longer enslaved by material things. That is to say, the all-round development of humans and individual freedom are based on sufficient material wealth. Only then will humans not compete for material wealth for survival, thereby distorting social relations into combative ones.

马克思把人作为主体分为三个历史阶段，分别为“人的依赖关系”“物的依赖性”和建立在个人全面发展基础上“自由个性”三个阶段。人的依赖关系阶段发生在人类社会的早期，实质是无主体时代。人成为主体首先是个体能够作为主体独立地存在，所以说，在古代依附关系的社会，这样的人不能成为真正的主体。人虽然从自然界中分离出来，但是在社会关系上没有自主独立性，个人的特质被掩埋在群体的统治之下，从社会关系上说个人不具有主体的意义，也只能是主体的潜在阶段。随着私有制的产生及社会分工的出现，商品经济得以产生并迅速发展，商品经济要求个人作为一个独立的个体，本着平等、公平的原则进行等价交换，也就是按照价值规律来组织人类的行为活动，人从共同体中脱离出来具有了独立意义。人在与自然相分离成为自然的主体时还不能称得上真正主体，人在社会中成为主体时，才把人的主体地位真正地确立了下来。正是在这个意义上，商品经济从历史上来说发挥了它的巨大作用。当然，在资本主义社会中，人的主体地位被异化，人被物化在商品中，成为物质的奴隶，因而引起资本主义社会的一系列矛盾与冲突。此后，在社会物质财富极大增加的情况下，人开始成为自由自觉的人，人的个性才完全地发挥出来，不被物质所奴役。也就是说，人的全面发展和个性自由是建立在物质财富充足的基础上，这样人与人之间才不会因生存而进行物质财富的争夺，进而扭曲为斗争性的社会关系。

Socialism provides the economic foundation and institutional guarantee for the manifestation of humans as subjects. People-centeredness is precisely the value support for the full manifestation of humans' subject status. It constructs the free and all-round development of individual human personality from the material foundation and institutional concepts, and integrates this into the social community to ensure the full expression of individuality, i.e., subjectivity. Thus, society provides individuals with ample material resources and free space for development. As individuals, humans can also freely serve society. Integration and unity are achieved between the group and the individual. This is also the third stage where human subjectivity is fully manifested.

社会主义为人的主体展现提供了经济基础和制度保障，以人民为中心正是人的主体地位充分展现的价值依托，它从物质基础与制度理念上构建了人的自由而全面发展的个性，并将其融入社会共同体中以保证个性即主体性的充分发挥。由此，社会为个人提供充足的物质资料和自由的发展空间，人作为个体也可以自由地为社会服务，群体与个体之间实现着融合与统一，这也是人的主体性得到充分展现的第三个阶段。

The Verification of Value Practice in People-Centeredness

以人民为中心的价值实践验证

Human value is the mutual transformation between "what is" and "what ought to be." The people-centered development thinking connects with the practice of socialist construction and acts upon the practice of socialist development. It verifies the practical value and superiority of its thinking from the dimensions of value concepts, value culture, and value ethics.

人的价值是“是”与“应该”之间的互相转化。以人民为中心的发展思想对接社会主义建设的实践、作用于社会主义发展的实践，从价值理念、价值文化、价值伦理上验证着其思想的实践价值及优越性。

The people-centered value stance of the people's character and the value concept of the supremacy of the people's interests fully embody the Party's practical principles from the political, economic, cultural, social, and ecological dimensions. Thus, a beautiful scene of national prosperity and the people living and working in peace and contentment has been formed. Respecting the people's initiative and serving the people's creative practice represent a cultural shift based on the value orientation of the people's character. Respecting and stimulating the people's creativity has become a cultural fashion of the New Era, forming a component of advanced socialist culture and playing a role in inheriting and innovating socialist culture. The characteristic of advanced socialist culture keeping pace with the times is internally manifested in the renewal and accommodation of the people's cultural elements. In terms of value ethics, people-centeredness expands the ethical relationship between people, extending ethical sentiment to the value ethics between nature and humans. Thus, value ethical ideas such as "protecting nature means protecting humanity" and "a sound ecological environment is the most inclusive form of public wellbeing" have been formed, promoting a virtuous cycle between economic development and environmental protection in practice.

以人民为中心的人民性的价值立场及人民利益至上的价值理念，从政治、经济、文化、社会、生态等维度全方位体现了党的实践原则，至此，形成了国家繁荣富强和人民安居乐业的美好景象。尊重人民的首创精神、服务于人民的创造实践，这是基于人民性价值取向的文化转向，尊重与激发人民的创造力成为新时代的文化时尚，从属于社会主义先进文化的构成要件，对社会主义文化起到传承与创新的作用。社会主义先进文化与时俱进的特征，其内显性表现在对人民文化要素的更新和容纳。在价值伦理上，以人民为中心扩展了人与人的伦理关系，将伦理情怀向自然界与人之间的价值伦理延伸，由此，形成了“保护自然就是保护人类”“良好生态环境是最普惠的民生福祉”等人与自然的价值伦理思想，实践上促进经济发展与环境保护的良性循环。

People-centeredness practically regulates the mutual separation and exclusion between human-centeredness and material-centeredness, discarding the two mutually exclusive value orientations of seeing only things but not people or seeing only people but not things. It shifts the focus from various distorted standard value orientations back to the developmental orientation centered on humans, thereby escaping the predicament of capital logic and returning to the value purpose of free and all-round development and the real human being.

以人民为中心从实践上调节了人本和物本之间的相互剥离和排斥，抛弃见物不见人或见人不见物两种相互分离的价值定位，使重心由各种扭曲的本位价值取向回到人的中心性发展定位，从而摆脱资本逻辑的困扰，回归自由全面发展和现实的人的价值旨归。

Faced with the current severe and complex international environment and the arduous and heavy tasks of domestic reform, development, and maintaining stability, our Party has embedded the basic principle of being people-centered into the tasks of high-quality development and comprehensively building a modern socialist country. With a firm people’s standpoint, it comprehensively advances the building of a strong country, closely centering on the people’s interests and rights to promote Chinese-path modernization. Being people-centered embodies the value pursuit of socialism with Chinese characteristics in the New Era. Exploring its internal mechanism of formation and essential laws, and analyzing the different tendencies caused by different reflections and evaluations, is conducive to deepening the profound understanding of the essence of socialism and the Party spirit of the Communist Party of China, highlighting the superiority of the socialist system, thereby achieving a transcendence over the value thinking and value consciousness of the “reified person” and the “abstract person” under the dominance of Western civilization, and firmly enriching and expanding the value consciousness, value belief, and value practice of socialism in the New Era.

面对当前严峻且复杂的国际环境和艰巨繁重的国内改革发展稳定任务，我们党将以人民为中心的基本原则贯穿于高质量发展和全面建设社会主义现代化国家的任务中，以坚定的人民立场全面推进强国建设，紧紧围绕人民利益和权利推进中国式现代化。以人民为中心体现了新时代中国特色社会主义的价值追求，探究其形成的内在机制和本质规律，分析其不同反映与评价所导致的不同倾向，这有利于深化对社会主义本质及中国共产党党性的深刻认识，彰显社会主义制度优越性，从而实现对西方文明主导下“物化的人”和“抽象的人”价值思维与价值意识的超越，坚定、丰富和拓展社会主义在新时代的价值意识、价值信仰和价值实践。

Online editor: Paul

网络编辑：保罗