Marx’s Philosophical Critique Does Not Require “Epistemological” Justification

With the recent research on Marx’s *Capital* and its manuscripts, the problem of epistemology has not waned in the study of Marx’s philosophy but has instead received increasing attention from multiple angles. This is particularly evident in the scholarly interpretations of the section on “The Method of Political Economy” in Marx’s *Economic Manuscripts of 1857–1858*, which even extend to general reflections on the problem of dialectics. Through these interpretive approaches, Marx’s epistemology is regarded as a necessary guarantee for Marx’s philosophy to possess its “rigorous demonstration.” Consequently, analyses such as the “reliability” of the “formal determination” of its object of study are also seen as the starting point of Marx’s philosophical research, and it is even held that a theoretical research path of “knowledge of knowledge,” which is a kind of redundant and layered structure, should be an integral part of Marx’s philosophical studies. But in fact, as Engels mentioned in his “Speech at the Graveside of Karl Marx”: “Marx was before all else a revolutionist.” [1]1 Engels’s speech at Marx’s funeral in 1883, emphasizing Marx’s role as a revolutionary theorist and activist. As a revolutionist, even though Marx had to unfold the core of his thought through concepts, propositions, and logical systems, the ultimate aim of his thought was never to clarify so-called “knowledge of knowledge.” Therefore, he would not be satisfied with, nor would he even acknowledge, the confirmation of some “perceptual life” in a “logically prior” manner, or the theoretical justification of an object of cognition that needs to be grasped before cognition arises. An epistemology of Marx expressed in such terms has already fallen completely into the most thorough idealist barriers, because in it both “perceptual activity” and the “object of cognition” that needs to be pre-justified, by virtue of the logical priority obtained in this “knowledge of knowledge,” become a ready-made system of ideas that regulates (and thus also limits) the unfolding of human cognitive activity as practice, thereby constituting a typical idealist theoretical model in which ideas are prior to cognitive practice.

伴随着近年来对于马克思《资本论》及其手稿的研究，认识论问题不是在马克思哲学研究中式微了，而是日益受到多角度的关注。这一点特别突出地表现在学界对于马克思的《1857—1858年经济学手稿》中有关“政治经济学方法”一节所展开的诸多文本阐释，甚至延伸到对辩证法问题的一般思考。借助于这些阐发路径，马克思的认识论被视为马克思哲学得以具有其“严格性论证”的必要保障，由此，诸如其研究对象的“形式规定”的“可靠性”分析也被视为马克思哲学的研究起点，甚至认为对于“认识的认识”这样一种叠床架屋式的理论研究路径理应成为马克思哲学研究的题中应有之义。但实际上，正如恩格斯《在马克思墓前的讲话》中所提到的那样：“马克思首先是一个革命家。”作为革命家的马克思即便不得不以概念、命题与逻辑体系展开其思想内核，但其思想的最终旨归也从来不会停留在为了澄清所谓“认识的认识”，因此更不会满足于，甚至不会承认以某种“逻辑在先”的方式确认某种“感性生活”以及在认识得以产生之前以理论证成的方式去确认一个需要被把握的认识对象。以诸如此类的表述方式展开的马克思认识论，自身已经完全陷入一种最为彻底的唯心主义藩篱之中，因为在其中无论是“感性活动”抑或需要被预先证成的“认识对象”都凭借在这一“认识的认识”中获得的逻辑在先性，成为规范（同时也就是限定）作为人的实践的认识活动得以展开的既成的观念体系，由此构成了一个观念优先于认识实践的典型的唯心主义理论模式。

Do Not Let Marx’s Philosophy Retreat to “Interpreting the World”

别让马克思哲学退回到“解释世界”

Professor Wu Meng’s definition of the threefold connotation of Marx’s epistemology further confirms my full understanding of the theoretical tendency and its risks implied in the formulation of Marx’s epistemology. [2]2 Wu Meng is a contemporary Chinese scholar of Marxist philosophy; the reference is to his article defining the threefold connotation of Marx’s epistemology. The three layers of logic he justifies as necessarily existing in Marx’s epistemology actually contain two connotations: first, the legitimacy of Marx’s epistemology lies in the fact that the economic phenomena of capitalist society that Marx confronted are themselves an object that needs to be pre-constructed by cognition; second, Marx’s cognitive activity needs to rely on certain mediating concepts and their unique mode of discussion to ensure the rigor of its theoretical unfolding. Therefore, the first task in studying Marx’s philosophy is not, as Marx once did, to directly confront the reality of capitalist society in a specific era, but to study how Marx constructed his object of cognition and how he unfolded his research on that object of study. Furthermore, defining Marx’s epistemology as the knowledge of knowledge may not only cause the object of study of Marx’s philosophy to lose focus but also implies the following two presuppositions.

吴猛教授关于马克思认识论的三重内涵的界定进一步印证了笔者对于马克思认识论之提法所隐含的理论倾向及其风险的全部理解。他证成马克思的认识论必然存在的三层逻辑，其实包含着两层内涵：其一，马克思认识论的合法性在于马克思所面对的资本主义社会的经济现象本身是一个需要被认识预先建构的对象；其二，马克思的认识活动需要借助于某种中介性的概念及其独特的讨论方式才能保证自己的理论展开的严格性。因此，对马克思哲学的研究首先要做的不是如马克思曾经做的那样，在特定时代中去直面其所面对的资本主义社会现实，而是研究马克思如何构筑其认识对象以及如何展开对其研究对象的研究。更进一步说，将马克思认识论界定为对认识的认识，可能带来的问题不仅是让马克思哲学的研究对象失焦，同时还隐含着如下两个预设。

First, Marx’s philosophy needs to pre-structure an object of cognition theoretically (often through ready-made concepts, propositions, and logic) before the cognitive activity unfolds. In other words, when an object cannot become an object by itself, the “historical premise” that brings it into the object loses the specific, generative dimension unique to its historicity and becomes an object grasped “logically prior” by theory. For example, according to this epistemological principle, when we try to understand the category of “labor,” we do not understand it from the specific historical context in which the category of labor emerged, such as the specific relations formed among class, state, population, capital, and the category of labor within a particular social mode of production. Instead, we need to grasp the category of “labor” theoretically as an object of cognition before the cognitive activity unfolds. This logical priority of the labor object is precisely the “theoretical self-consciousness” of the object of cognition that Marx’s epistemology attempts to explain, while the concrete, historical social reality that originally constituted this category of labor is “self-consciously” transformed into the “historical ground” of “labor.” An obvious fact is that this “historical ground,” which is theoretically self-conscious, is here directly transformed into a kind of “metaphysics” (especially when we regard metaphysics as an effort to seek grounds). Thus, an object of cognition entirely devoid of historical content is constructed. The formation of this object of cognition is destined to make Marx’s understanding of economic categories retreat to the abstract grasp inherent in the national economists.

第一，马克思哲学需要在认识活动展开之前用理论的方式（往往是通过既成的概念、命题与逻辑）去先在地架构一个认识对象。换言之，当对象不能仅凭自身成为对象的时候，其被带入对象之中的“历史性前提”就失去了其历史性特有的具体性、生成性维度，而成为一个被理论“逻辑在先”地予以把握的对象。例如，按照这一认识论原则，当我们尝试去理解“劳动”范畴的时候，不是从劳动范畴得以产生的具体历史情境之中，例如特定社会生产方式中的阶级、国家、人口、资本与劳动范畴所形成的特定关系之中来加以理解，而是需要将“劳动”这个范畴在认识活动展开之前、在理论上被把握为一个认识对象，这一劳动对象的逻辑先在性正是马克思认识论所试图说明的对于认识对象的“理论自觉”，而原本构筑了这一劳动范畴的具体的、历史性的社会现实被“自觉”为“劳动”的“历史性根据”。而一个显而易见的事实是，这一被理论自觉到的“历史性根据”在此被直接转为一种“形而上学”（特别是当我们将形而上学视为一种探寻根据之努力的时候更是如此）。由此构筑了一个全无历史性内涵的认识对象。这一认识对象的形成，注定让马克思关于诸经济范畴的理解退回到国民经济学家固有的抽象把握之中。

Second, due to the insistence on elucidating the “rigor” of Marx’s cognitive process, the possibility of the formation of the object of study of Marx’s philosophy is elucidated with “specific form” as the essential point. In other words, Marx’s epistemology pre-constructs its own object of cognition by examining the formal determination of the “mode of givenness” of this object. This interpretive path carries a strong theoretical undertone of Husserlian transcendental phenomenology. [3]3 Edmund Husserl (1859–1938), founder of transcendental phenomenology, which analyzes the structures of consciousness and intentionality. Although it seems to bring a certain “philosophical character” to Marx’s thought, it simultaneously causes Marx’s philosophy to lose the theoretical quality unique to its philosophical attribute, namely, “changing the world.” Just as Husserl’s phenomenology, although attempting to “return to the things themselves” as its theoretical aim, uses intentionality as a “mediation” not only to make consciousness consciousness of an object but, more importantly, to make the “object” itself always be seen as a specific intentional object in a certain specific way (i.e., the formal determination of its mode of givenness). In other words, whether starting from consciousness or from the object of consciousness (i.e., the object constructed by Marx’s epistemology), the “object” thus constructed is trapped within the immanence of consciousness from beginning to end. In this sense, when the study of Marx’s epistemology, on the pretext of ensuring the “rigor” of argumentation, transforms concepts such as “relations of production” and “productive forces” constructed around the concept of material production into specific capitalist “social structures” and “universal shaping forces,” it is carrying out a subjectivist (i.e., immanent to consciousness) reduction of the conceptual system that originally contained all the specific, concrete historical content of Marx’s philosophy. This reduction inevitably causes Marx’s philosophical research to fall into the analysis and interpretation of “non-historical” “modes of givenness” and social structures. As for all the concrete content of the reality of capitalist society in which Marx lived, it is entirely unable to enter the relevant themes of this study of Marx’s epistemology. In this sense, the epistemology of Marx defined as “knowledge of knowledge,” while highlighting the “philosophical character” of Marx’s thought, causes Marx’s philosophy to halt in a non-critical theoretical form, turning a philosophy of “changing the world” once again into a philosophy of “interpreting the world.”

第二，因执着于阐发马克思认识过程的“严格性”，从而以“特定的形式”为要义阐发马克思哲学研究对象得以形成的可能性。换言之，马克思的认识论先在地构筑自身认识对象的方式是考察这一对象的“被给出方式”的形式规定性。这一阐发路径，带有浓重的胡塞尔式的先验现象学的理论底色，虽然看似为马克思的思想带来了某种“哲学性”，但却同时让马克思的哲学失去了其哲学属性所特有的“改造世界”的理论品格。正如胡塞尔的现象学虽试图以“回到事情本身”为其理论旨归，但就其以意向性为“中介”不仅让意识成为关于对象的意识，同时更为重要的是使得“对象”也总是以某种特定的方式（即某种被给出方式的形式性规定）被看作一个特定的意向对象。换言之，不管是从意识出发，抑或从被意识的对象（即被马克思认识论所构造的对象）出发，如此被构筑的“对象”自始至终都被困守于意识内在性之中。从这一意义上说，当马克思认识论研究以所谓保障论证的“严格性”为由将马克思围绕物质生产概念所构筑的“生产关系”和“生产力”等诸概念转变为特定的资本主义“社会结构”与“普遍性形塑力量”之际，也就是将马克思哲学中原本包含着全部特定的具体的历史性内容的概念体系做了一种主观主义（也即意识内在性）的还原。这一还原让马克思的哲学研究不可避免地陷入“非历史性”的诸“给出形式”以及社会结构的分析和阐释之中。至于马克思生活其间的资本主义社会现实的全部具体性内涵则完全无法进入这一马克思认识论研究的相关主题之中。在这一意义上说以“认识的认识”为界定的马克思认识论在彰显马克思思想的“哲学性”的同时，却让马克思的哲学驻足于一种非批判的理论形态之中，让一种“改变世界”的哲学再次沦为“解释世界”的哲学。

The Ontological Attribute of the Philosophical Method of “Changing the World”

“改变世界”的哲学方法论的存在论属性

It is in a relatively strict sense that Marx’s philosophy does not particularly need an epistemology to justify its existence. On the contrary, this work of justification, confined as it is to the theoretical form, may weaken or even obliterate the original theoretical attributes of Marx’s philosophy. For a philosophical form whose theoretical aim is to change the world, the key question it must answer is: “In what sense can the world be changed?” To answer this question, it must be clarified that the object of study of Marx’s philosophy is human society endowed with a specific historicity (capitalist society and the various forms of pre-capitalist society). In this context, not only does this unique historical condition provide Marx with an object to be studied, but, more importantly, as the result of the common activity of human beings, it is also shaped and completed in the course of human practical activity. This constructs a research method fundamentally different from positivism: the latter presupposes a “ready-made existence” external to and opposed to human beings. But the human society that Marx’s philosophy seeks to grasp and understand is a real life that cannot be separated from the actions of human beings themselves. This leads to two inevitable theoretical consequences: first, as an object of human study, it is not external to human beings themselves, and cannot form the binary oppositional mode of cognition characteristic of traditional epistemology; second, human beings’ grasp and understanding of this society and history in turn affect the development and change of its object of study. In other words, the reality of human society is not a “ready-made thing” placed before human beings, but a “becoming thing” that is continuously generated in dependence on human cognition of it. Although Professor Wu Meng, in expounding the necessity of a Marxist epistemology, also highlighted that its cognitive object “cannot exist by itself,” he emphasized that epistemological research must first, in the sense of endowing the cognitive object with a certain theoretical self-consciousness, make the “object” a product of thought that already exists before Marx unfolds his philosophical research.

正是在一种较为严格的意义上说，马克思哲学并不特别需要一种认识论为其证成才得以存在。相反，这一囿于理论形态的证成工作却可能弱化甚至抹杀马克思哲学原有的理论属性。对于一种以改变世界为理论旨归的哲学形态，其理论的关键问题需要回应的是，“世界在何种意义上是可以被改变的？”对这一问题的回答，需要明确的是马克思哲学的研究对象是富有特定历史性的人类社会（资本主义社会以及前资本主义社会的诸形态）。在其中，不仅这一独特的历史性条件为马克思提供了一个有待研究的对象，更为重要的是，它作为人类共同活动的结果，同时也是在人类实践活动中被塑造完成的。由此构筑了一个与实证主义截然不同的研究方法：后者预设了一种外在于人，并与人相对立的“现成存在”。但马克思的哲学试图把握和理解的人类社会却是无法与人自身的行为相剥离的现实生活，由此带来了如下两个必然的理论结果：其一，它作为人的研究对象，却并不外在于人自身，无法形成传统认识论中二元对立式的认识模式；其二，人对这一社会和历史的把握和理解反过来会影响其研究对象的发展与变化，换言之，人类社会现实并不是被放置在人前面的“现成之物”，而是依赖于人对它的认知而不断生成的“生成之物”。尽管吴猛教授在阐发马克思认识论之必要性的时候也曾凸显其认知对象“不能凭自身”而存在，但却强调认识论研究需要首先在赋予认识对象以某种理论自觉的意义上，让“对象”成为马克思展开其哲学研究之前已然存在的一个思维产物。

In contrast, the Marxian philosophical research as understood by the present author will fundamentally discard any pre-existing form of the object. As an object of research that is always in the form of a “becoming thing,” the shaping of the “object” by philosophical research does not occur before the cognition of the object, but rather in the process of human cognition of this object. This research process, in which subject and object merge into one, determines that Marx’s cognition of human society under specific historical conditions is from the very outset an ontological problem. Within this ontological research path, the study of methodological principles in Marx’s philosophy is likewise not neglected; however, what this methodological study highlights is not merely “the rigor of a theoretical practice,” but rather an attempt to manifest, through concepts and categories (objects of thought) in a state of “becoming,” a philosophical possibility for changing the world. In a certain sense, only by grasping the world in which human beings live in an ontological manner can we fundamentally break through the theoretical dilemma faced by a philosophy of changing the world that arises from the subject-object binary opposition in traditional epistemology. This dilemma can be simplified into a problem of the relationship between freedom and necessity. Human beings, possessing free will, themselves construct a socio-historical process that “seems” to have a transcendental structure and therefore possesses a certain tendency toward necessity. But if we understand this “seeming” transcendental structure through an epistemological model that examines objective, necessary laws, what we ultimately obtain will be an “inhuman” social reality. And if we only emphasize the objectivity of this social reality, it will no longer possess the quality of being changeable. Therefore, how to maintain the continuous reconstruction of this necessary structure by human free will (i.e., the changeability of social reality) becomes the unique contribution of Marx’s philosophical methodology.

与之相反，笔者所理解的马克思哲学研究将从根本上摒弃任何先在形式的对象的存在。作为一个始终处于“生成之物”形态的研究对象，哲学研究对“对象”的塑造并不发生在对对象的认识之前，而是在人对这一对象的认识过程之中。这一融合为一的研究过程，决定了马克思对于具体的历史条件下的人类社会的认识从一开始就已然是一个存在论的问题。在这一存在论的研究路径中，同样不会忽视马克思哲学中方法论原则的研究，只是这一方法论研究所凸显的并非仅仅是“一种理论实践的严格性”，而是试图在处于“生成”中的概念、范畴（思维对象），彰显一种改变世界的哲学可能性。在某种意义上说，只有以存在论的方式来把握人生活于其中的世界，才能从根本上破除传统认识论中主客体二元对立带来的改变世界之哲学所存在的理论困境，这一困境可被简化为一种自由与必然的关系问题。拥有自由意志的人自身构筑了一个“好像”具有先验结构，因此带有一定必然性趋向的社会历史进程，但如果我们以一种考察客观的必然的规律的认识论模式来理解这一“好像”的先验结构，最终得到的将是一个“非人”的社会现实。而如果仅强调这一社会现实的客观性，那么它将不再具有一种可改变性。因此，如何保持人的自由意志对于这一必然性结构的不断重构（即社会现实的可改变性），就成为马克思哲学方法论的独特贡献。

In other words, the question that concerned Marx was never simply the cognition of the existing world, but rather, under what conditions the transformation and revolution of the existing world could be achieved. This determines that the methodology of his philosophy cannot merely serve how to accurately grasp the existing world, to logically and accurately reproduce the existing world, thereby achieving a perfect unity of logic and history. Strictly speaking, this is only an expedient measure of this methodology. Marx’s mode of narration constructs a structure that “seems” to be transcendental, yet the formation of this structure depends on the constantly changing relations of each abstract concept constituting this structure within its specific social context. For example, labor, although always a unique mode of human activity, will have entirely different relational configurations with concepts such as capital, commodity, and value in pre-capitalist society, capitalist society, and highly developed capitalist society. It is within the dynamic configurations constructed by these changing concepts that the forms of human society obtain their specific historical expression, and each conceptual category participating in the configuration possesses the crucial significance of altering this schema. If Marx’s theoretical practice is expressed as a unique “power of abstraction,” it can only be a “concrete” and “abstract” that is generated. The realization of this power of abstraction does not require any form of “mediation,” because any form of mental mediation could potentially stifle the generativity of this “concrete” and “abstract.” It is in this sense that there should not exist any Marxist epistemology independent of the study of a specific social reality, with the theme of “cognition of cognition”; all the theoretical presuppositions and problematic it contains can find a more appropriate expression within this ontological horizon.

换言之，马克思所关心的问题从来都不仅仅是单纯的对既存世界的认识，而更多的是在何种条件下，可以实现对既存世界的改造与革命。由此决定了其哲学的方法论不可能仅仅服务于如何准确地把握既存的世界，逻辑的、准确地再现既存世界，从而实现一种逻辑与历史的完美统一，严格说来，这只是这一方法论的权宜之计。马克思的叙述方式是构筑出一个“好像”是先验的结构，而这一结构的形成却是依赖于构成这一结构的每一个抽象概念在其具体的社会情境中不断变化着的诸关系。例如劳动，虽然从来都是人类特有的一种活动方式，但在前资本主义社会与资本主义社会以及极为发达的资本主义社会中，其与诸如资本、商品、价值等概念都会有截然不同的关系构图，而人类社会形态正是在这些变化着的诸概念所构筑的动态构图中获得了具体的历史性表达，而每一个参与构图的概念范畴都具有改变这一图式的关键性意义。马克思的理论实践如果表现为一种独特的“抽象力”，也只能是一种被生成的“具体”与“抽象”。这一抽象力的实现并不需要任何形式的“中介”，因为任何形式的思维中介都有可能扼杀这一“具体”和“抽象”的生成性。正是在这一意义上说，不应存在任何独立于对特定社会现实研究之外的以“认识的认识”为主旨的马克思认识论，其所蕴含的全部理论的预设及其问题意识都可以在这种存在论视域之下得到更为恰当的表达。

(The author is a professor in the Department of Philosophy, School of Humanities, Tsinghua University)

（作者系清华大学人文学院哲学系教授）

Online editor: Huihui

网络编辑：慧慧