The Methodological Shift in Young Marx’s Exploration of Legal Philosophy

The intellectual journey of the young Marx in exploring issues of legal philosophy is a process that moves from legal commentary during the *Rheinische Zeitung* period, through a critique of Hegel’s philosophy of right, to a turn toward the critique of political economy. The closer he came to theoretical maturity, the less Marx directly addressed legal issues, instead unraveling the roots behind law through the critique of political economy. This process and its characteristics are generally recognized by the academic community. However, specifically, why can the question of law not be understood from law itself but must “detour” through the critique of political economy? How did Marx’s materialism and dialectics combine to jointly accomplish the shift from legal philosophy to the critique of political economy? What inspiration can we draw from Marx’s complex intellectual journey? These questions are not self-evident. A popular view holds that during the *Rheinische Zeitung* period, when Marx commented on legal issues such as the law on the theft of wood, he encountered the difficulty of material interests and had to turn from the “copy” to the “original.” This view is not without reason, but it risks oversimplification, especially in failing to deeply consider the shift in Marx’s methodology. In the author’s humble opinion, the transformation of Marx’s legal philosophy thought is a very complex process. From a broad background, the rapid rise of the capitalist mode of production in Western Europe, Marx’s extensive reading of influential historical, economic, political, and classical German philosophical works of the time, and his interactions with Engels and others all directly or indirectly influenced the formation and transformation of Marx’s legal philosophy thought. From the perspective of problem consciousness and the approach to solving problems, Marx’s theoretical exploration went through a process of revealing the conflict between the ideal and the real in Prussian law, to systematically analyzing and critiquing the philosophical model of the ideal law of the time—Hegel’s philosophy of right—and finally finding his own “correct solution” in the critique of political economy; from a methodological perspective, dialectics was always Marx’s main theoretical weapon for analysis and critique. At the same time, corresponding to the above transformation, Marx’s dialectics itself underwent a process from understanding dialectics to negative dialectics, and finally to the formation of his own historical dialectics (i.e., practical dialectics).

青年马克思探索法哲学问题的心路历程，是从《莱茵报》时期的法律评论，经黑格尔法哲学批判，转向政治经济学批判的过程。越是接近理论成熟，马克思越是较少地直接谈法律问题，而是通过政治经济学批判解开法的背后根源。这个过程和特点，学界一般是公认的。不过具体来说，法的问题为何不能从法本身理解而必须“绕道”政治经济学批判？马克思的唯物论与辩证法是如何结合在一起，共同完成从法哲学到政治经济学批判的转换的？我们能从马克思复杂的心路历程中得到什么启发？这些问题却不是不言自明的。流行观点认为：《莱茵报》时期，马克思评林木盗窃法等法律问题时，遇到物质利益的难题，要从“副本”转向“原本”。这种说法不无道理，但有简单化之虞，尤其是未能深入思考马克思方法论的转换。依笔者浅见，马克思法哲学思想的转变是十分复杂的过程。从大背景看，资本主义生产方式在西欧迅速兴起，马克思广泛阅读当时有影响的历史学、经济学、政治学和德国古典哲学，他与恩格斯等人的交往等，对马克思法哲学思想的形成和转变都产生直接或间接作用。从问题意识和解决问题的思路看，马克思的理论探索经历了从揭示普鲁士法律中理想与现实的冲突，到系统分析批判当时理想法的哲学范本——黑格尔法哲学，最后在政治经济学批判中找到了自己的“正解”；从方法论看，辩证法始终是马克思分析和批判的主要理论武器。同时，与上述转变相适应，马克思的辩证法又经历了从知性辩证法到否定辩证法，到最后形成自己的历史辩证法（即实践辩证法）的过程。

I. Empirical Critique Based on Understanding Dialectics

一、基于知性辩证法的经验批判

Marx formed his ideas within the atmosphere of classical German philosophy. As can be seen from his doctoral dissertation, when he interpreted Epicurus and expressed his own ideas through this interpretation, he bore traces of Kantian and Fichtean free will. Of course, the greater influence on Marx was Hegel. The law as Hegel understood it was essentially idea and objective spirit. The idea, realizing itself, becomes abstract right, and as “determinate being” [Dasein] comes into the human world, it gradually deduces categories such as “personality,” “right,” “freedom,” and “legality.” This is the logical process by which a utopian “reason” derives actual law. When this philosophy of right confronts actual society, there inevitably exists a contradiction between reason and reality, between what ought to be and what is. This was also the confusion Marx inevitably encountered and the question he had to consider when he began his critique of legal philosophy.

马克思是在德国古典哲学的氛围中形成自己思想的。从他的博士论文可以看出，他解释伊壁鸠鲁并借助这种解释表达他的思想时，带有康德和费希特自由意志的痕迹。当然，对马克思影响更大的是黑格尔。黑格尔理解的法，本质上是理念和客观精神。理念现实化，成为抽象法，作为“定在”来到人间，它逐步演绎出“人格”“权利”“自由”“合法性”等范畴。这是乌托邦式的“理性”派生出现实法的逻辑过程。这种法哲学面对现实社会时，必然存在理性与现实、应然与实然的矛盾，这也是马克思开始法哲学批判时必然遇到的困惑和要思考的问题。

The young Marx’s research unfolded along the contradiction between theory and reality, between what ought to be and what is. That is, he seized upon the contradiction between the idea of law (derived mainly from Hegel’s philosophy of right) and legal facts, exposing the hypocrisy and irrationality of bourgeois law by analyzing this polarity. On the one hand, the young Marx was deeply influenced by Hegel and even the entire Enlightenment, believing that “the code is the Bible of the people’s freedom” and that law “is the inner life-law of human action itself, the conscious reflection of human life.” Law is consistent with the people’s freedom; this is the “ought” of law. Law “ought” to be rational, “ought” to be just. On the other hand, from the very beginning, Marx differed from previous thinkers who proceeded from concepts; he paid more attention to real life, to how the Prussian government used law as a means for its own profit—it was precisely this dimension that nurtured Marx’s historical materialism. Thus, he keenly noticed the inconsistency between the idea of law and legal judgments. When Marx used the law “as it ought to be” as a standard to critique real problems such as the press censorship law and the law on the theft of wood, he also pondered this universal phenomenon of contradiction. During this period, Marx’s critique and consideration of legal issues generally unfolded by revealing the contradiction between theory and reality, between what ought to be and what is.

青年马克思的研究沿着理论与现实、应然与实然之间的矛盾展开，即抓住法的理念（它主要源自黑格尔法哲学）与法律事实之间的矛盾，通过分析这两极对立来揭露资产阶级法律的虚伪与不合理性。一方面，青年时期的马克思深受黑格尔乃至全部启蒙思想的熏陶，认为“法典就是人民自由的圣经”，法律“是人的行为本身的内在的生命规律，是人的生活的自觉反映”。法律与人民自由是一致的，这个是法律的“应然”。法律“应该”是合乎理性的、“应该”是正义的。另一方面，马克思一开始就不同于以往那些从概念出发的思想家，他更关注现实生活，关注普鲁士政府如何把法律当作为自己牟利的手段——正是这个维度，孕育了马克思唯物史观。这样，他敏锐地注意到法的理念与法律判案之间的不统一。马克思用法律“应该如此”作为标准抨击书报检查制度、林木盗窃法等现实问题时，也思考这种普遍的矛盾现象。这时期马克思的批判和思考法律问题，大致是通过揭示理论与现实、应然与实然的矛盾而展开。

In a satirical poem written during his university years, Marx stated that “Kant and Fichte like to soar in the ether,” while he himself could only truly comprehend “the everyday things encountered in the streets and alleys.” While appreciating Hegel’s philosophy, he also expressed dissatisfaction with its speculative thinking, criticizing the prevalent idea of “a complete opposition between what exists and what ought to be,” and advocating that “when explaining law from a philosophical perspective, the form must necessarily arise from the content; moreover, the form can only be the further development of the content.” During this period, Marx was dissatisfied with his predecessors who, detached from reality, indulged in speculation, and he believed it was necessary to return to reality. This shows a distinct tendency toward materialism. Thus, it can be seen that from his university days, Marx had already begun to contemplate the contradiction between the ideal and the real, between the idea and life.

马克思在大学期间写的讽刺诗里就表示，“康德和费希特喜欢在太空遨游”，而自己只能真正领悟“在街头巷尾遇到的日常事物”。他在欣赏黑格尔哲学的同时也对其玄思表示不满，批评当时流行的“现有的东西和应有的东西之间完全对立”的思想，主张“从哲学上说明法时，形式必然从内容中产生出来；而且，形式只能是内容的进一步的发展”。这个时期的马克思，不满意前人脱离现实沉湎于玄思，认为要回到现实。这有唯物主义的鲜明倾向。由此可见，大学时代的马克思就开始思考理想与现实、理念与生活的矛盾了。

The series of commentaries Marx wrote during his *Rheinische Zeitung* period were case analyses of law oriented toward social reality. The method employed during this time was primarily understanding dialectics, that is, analyzing problems within the contradiction between the “ideal law” and actual law. Marx described his several legal commentaries as two major dramas: one concerning the dispute over freedom of the press in the provincial assembly, and the other concerning its unfreedom in the dispute over wood theft. In Marx’s mind, there was a presupposition of law “as it ought to be,” based on reason, and using this law “as it ought to be” as a basis, he critiqued and questioned how the law of actual society violated this ideal law. For example, when commenting on the Prussian press censorship decree, Marx exposed the self-contradiction of the decree: “The form of legislation contradicts its content… The government, in relation to its own laws, is like an inverted world… The laws promulgated by the government are themselves the direct opposite of that which these laws uphold as their standard.” Marx’s critique of this contradiction and inversion precisely demonstrates that he presupposed a premise in his mind: freedom, justice, conformity with the idea of law. For only by presupposing that law is “originally thus” can we say that reality has deviated from law. This presupposition of “originally thus” still bore traces of Hegel.

马克思在《莱茵报》时期写的系列评论，是面向社会现实的法律案例分析。其间的方法主要是知性辩证法，即在“理想法”与现实法的矛盾中分析问题。马克思把他写的多篇法律评论形容为两场大戏：一场是有关省议会在新闻出版自由问题上的纠纷的，一场是有关它在纠纷问题上的不自由的。马克思心目中有以理性为基础的、法律“应当如此”的预设，并以“应当如此”的法为根据，批判和质疑现实社会的法对这种理想的法的悖逆。例如：评普鲁士书报检查令时，马克思揭露该法令自相矛盾：“立法的形式是同内容相矛盾的……政府对自己的法律来说，就好像是一个颠倒过来的世界……政府所颁布的法律本身就是被这些法律奉为准则的那种东西的直接对立面。”马克思抨击这种矛盾与颠倒，恰恰说明他心目中预设了一个前提：自由、正义、符合法的理念。因为只有预设法律“本来如此”，我们才能说现实背离了法。这个“本来如此”的预设，还带有黑格尔的痕迹。

Marx’s discussion of the right to freedom was also based on the analysis of the contradiction between the ideal and the real, between what ought to be and what is. Freedom is a self-evident premise, the “species-essence of the entire spiritual existence” of man; a person in a state of freedom is a true person, an ideal person. Yet, in fact, this is not the case. The law theoretically recognizes freedom of the press, freedom of publication, freedom of speech, etc., but the strict press censorship system contradicts the spirit of freedom and contradicts the free development of man. In a certain sense, Marx also shared Rousseau’s perplexity: “Man is born free, but everywhere he is in chains.” In view of this, he strongly appealed that only by abolishing the press censorship system could Prussian writers obtain more genuine freedom and have more intellectual wisdom.

马克思讨论自由权时也是基于理想与现实、应然与实然的矛盾分析。自由是不言自明的前提，是人的“全部精神存在的类本质”，自由状态下的人才是真正的人、理想中的人，然而事实上不是这样。法律理论上承认新闻自由、出版自由、言论自由等，但严厉的书报检查制度与自由精神相悖、与人的自由发展相悖。从一定意义上说，马克思也有卢梭式的困惑：“人是生而自由的，但却无往不在枷锁之中。”鉴于此他强烈呼吁，只有废除书报检查制度，普鲁士的作家才会获得更多的真正的自由，才有更多的思想智慧。

In summary, when Marx expressed his legal philosophy thought during the *Rheinische Zeitung* period, he mainly employed the method of contradiction analysis. The tool for analysis and critique was the ideal law, also a rational utopia. This concept of law “as it ought to be” clearly bore traces of Hegel’s “idea.” Marx took the ideal law as a self-evident premise and, based on this, exposed how real life had completely deviated from true law, how actual law and judicial procedures contradicted the ideal law, and therefore should be criticized and condemned. This method of contradiction analysis was still in a state of polarity and roughly belonged to the category of understanding dialectics.

总之，马克思在《莱茵报》时期表达他的法哲学思想，主要运用矛盾分析方法。作为分析批判工具，是理想中的法，也是理性的乌托邦。这种“理应如此”的法律观念有明显的黑格尔“理念”的痕迹。马克思把理想中的法当作不言自明的前提，并以此为根据，揭露现实生活完全背离了真正的法，现实的法律和司法程序与理想中的法相违背，因而应该加以批判和谴责。这种矛盾分析方法还处在两极对立状态，大致属于知性辩证法范畴。

As is well known, “understanding” [Verstand] is an abstraction from sensibility and intuition, elevating intuitive experience into relatively static categories of essence. At this stage, the two sides of a contradiction are still in a state of simple opposition and separation, and have not yet transitioned to the unity of opposites. Hegel said that understanding “insists on fixed determinacies and on the distinctions between them, opposing itself to the other.” [1]1 An allusion to Marx’s Preface to the First German Edition of Capital, Volume One, where he writes that a country “can neither skip over natural phases of development nor remove them by decree. But it can shorten and lessen the birth pangs.” It can be said that the dialectic of understanding transcends the particularity of experience, not merely dealing with matters as they arise, but grasping the universally existing relations of opposition within the object. At this point, the categories of opposition are still abstract; the contradiction it comprehends is still in a state of simple separation and opposition; the unity and transformation of contradiction have not yet been clarified, and the dialectic has not yet developed into a living evolutionary mode of thought. Marx’s critique of legal philosophy during his *Rheinische Zeitung* period [2]2 A term from classical Chinese philosophy, often used to mean an inevitable or predetermined quantity or destiny; here it refers to the historically necessary and determinate character of legal forms. was roughly like this: taking the complete deviation of actual law from the law as it ought to be as the main thread, he dissected the illegality of the laws of the Rhine Province and exposed the hypocrisy of bourgeois law. This is where Marx was profound. However, the dialectic at this stage still risked abstract opposition and had not yet penetrated to the root of the social organism—the historical dialectical movement driven by productive activity.

众所周知，“知性”是对感性和直观的抽象，将直观经验上升为相对静止的本质范畴。这时矛盾双方还处在简单的对立和分离状态，尚未过渡到对立面的统一。黑格尔说，知性“坚持着固定的规定性和各规定性之间彼此的差别。以与对方相对立”。可以说，知性辩证法超越了经验的个别性，不是就事论事，而是把握了对象中普遍存在的对立关系。这时对立范畴还是抽象的，它理解的矛盾还处在简单的分离和对立状态，矛盾的统一和转化尚未澄明，辩证法尚未发展为活生生的发展演化思维。《莱茵报》时期马克思的法哲学批判大致如此：以现实的法完全背离应然的法为主要线索，剖析莱茵省法律的非法，揭露资产阶级法的虚伪性。这是马克思深刻的地方。然而这个阶段的辩证法仍有抽象对立之虞，尚未深入社会有机体的根本——由生产活动推动的历史的辩证运动中。

Of course, when Marx used the dialectic of understanding to critique Prussian law, he was already gestating a line of thought that would break through it: discovering the substance of economic interests from the contradiction between legal theory and reality. For example, in his articles on the debates of the Rhine Province Assembly, Marx took the contradiction between abstract law and case law, customary law and statutory law as a clue, pointing to the issue of economic interests behind legal relations. In the law on the theft of wood, Marx’s view was that the indeterminacy of customary law made it diametrically opposed for the poor and for the rich. For the poor, the rights permitted by customary law were stripped away by statutory law; for the rich, the rights permitted by customary law were fixed by statutory law. The deviation of actual law from the ideal law made Marx realize that one could not rely on categories such as “reason,” “free will,” or “abstract law” to truly solve real legal problems. The problem of law should be sought in civil society. The actual relationship between law, the state, and civil society needed to be re-examined.

当然，马克思运用知性辩证法对普鲁士的法律作批判时，就孕育了突破知性辩证法的思路：从法律理论与现实的矛盾中发现经济利益的实质。例如：在关于莱茵省议论辩论的文章中，马克思以抽象法和判例法、习惯法和成文法的矛盾为线索，指出了法的关系背后的经济利益问题。在林木盗窃法中，马克思的观点是，习惯法的不确定性使得它在贫民那里和在贵族那里截然相反。对穷人来说，习惯法允许的权利被成文法剥夺；对富人来说，习惯法允许的权利被成文法固定下来。现实的法律对理想的法的背离使马克思意识到，不能指望“理性”“自由意志”“抽象法”等范畴真正解决现实的法律问题。法的问题应当到市民社会中去寻找。法、国家、市民社会的现实关系究竟如何，需要重新认识。

However, *how* to re-examine is a more specific and deeper question than *the need* to re-examine. Marx later indeed said that during the *Rheinische Zeitung* period, he “for the first time found himself in the embarrassing position of having to express an opinion on so-called material interests,” [3]3 A paraphrase of Hegel’s famous dictum from the Preface to the Philosophy of Right, as analyzed by Engels in Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy. and that this was “the first occasion for occupying myself with economic questions,” [4]4 Engels’s reformulation of the Hegelian dictum, from the same text. but it was not the whole story. We should examine the development and transformation of Marx’s thought at this stage from a broader perspective.

不过，如何重新认识是比需要重新认识更具体、更深入的问题。马克思后来的确说过，《莱茵报》时期，“第一次遇到要对所谓物质利益发表意见的难事”，不过这是他“研究经济问题的最初动因”，但不是全部。我们应从更广阔的视野考察马克思这个阶段的思想发展和转变。

Viewed against the overall background of Marx’s intellectual transformation, he simultaneously paid attention to a series of issues in history, politics, economics, and so on, with legal philosophy being only one of the themes. After the *Rheinische Zeitung* was banned, Marx went to Kreuznach and began to systematically study Hegel’s legal philosophy and write the *Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right*. In fact, during this period, he also read a large number of works on history, politics, and economic philosophy in order to understand the political changes and economic development of that era. That is to say, the transformation of Marx’s legal philosophical thought was not the result of an isolated study of jurisprudence, but the result of combining law with major issues of history, politics, and economics of the time.

从马克思思想转变的整体背景看，他同时关注了历史学、政治学、经济学等一系列问题，法哲学只是其中的主题之一。《莱茵报》被封后，马克思来到克罗茨纳赫，开始系统研究黑格尔法哲学并撰写《黑格尔法哲学批判》。其实，这期间，他还阅读了大量历史学、政治学和经济学哲学著作，以便理解那个时代的政治变革与经济发展。也就是说，马克思法哲学思想的转变不是孤立的法学研究的结果，而是把法与当时的历史、政治、经济等重大问题结合起来思考的结果。

From the perspective of the shift in themes and problems, Marx mainly criticized and settled accounts with the Hegelian conception of law based on reason, i.e., the law that “ought to be so” which he had both borrowed from and doubted in his early years. This includes three layers of meaning: first, criticizing the idealism and mysticism of Hegel’s legal philosophy—which treats actual law and legal life as the vehicle for the Idea to fulfill its mysterious mission, and treats legal philosophy as another form of logic; second, criticizing Hegel’s despotic statist view and values of the supremacy of royal power; third, criticizing Hegel’s inversion of social relations—taking the state and the monarch as the foundation of civil society.

从主题和问题的转换看，马克思主要是批判和清算黑格尔代表的以理性为基础的法律观，即他早年既借用又怀疑的那种“理应如此”的法。这包括三层含义：一是批判黑格尔法哲学的唯心主义和神秘主义——它把现实的法律和法律生活理解为理念完成自己神秘使命的载体，把法哲学理解为逻辑学的另一种形态；二是批判黑格尔王权至上的专制主义国家观和价值观；三是批判黑格尔对社会关系的颠倒——把国家、君主当作市民社会的基础。

From a methodological perspective, Marx’s method in legal philosophy transcended the early dialectic of understanding and adopted the negative dialectic. The reason for characterizing the method of this period as the negative dialectic is mainly because Hegel’s *Elements of the Philosophy of Right* unfolds according to the negative dialectic, i.e., negating the pure form of the Idea to transition to abstract right; negating abstract right to transition to morality and ethical life; ethical life is also negated step by step, transitioning from the family and civil society to the state, and finally advancing to world history. Marx’s critique of Hegel followed Hegel’s logic and was also a negation of Hegel. It can be said that Marx’s dialectic was a re-inversion of Hegel’s idealist negative dialectic.

从方法论角度说，马克思法哲学方法超越了早期的知性辩证法，采用的是否定辩证法。之所以把这时期的方法归结为否定辩证法，主要是因为黑格尔的《法哲学原理》是按照否定辩证法展开的，即否定理念的纯形式而过渡到抽象法；否定抽象法而过渡到道德和伦理；伦理也被逐级否定，由家庭、市民社会过渡到国家，最后进到世界历史。马克思对黑格尔的批判是顺着黑格尔的逻辑走的，也是对黑格尔的否定。可以说，马克思的辩证法是黑格尔唯心主义的否定辩证法的再颠倒。

II. Critique of Legal Philosophy Based on the Negative Dialectic

二、基于否定辩证法的法哲学批判

The “ought” cannot explain the “is”; what should be questioned is the “ought,” the theoretical model of law as it “ought to be.” Therefore, the conflicts and perplexities encountered during the *Rheinische Zeitung* period prompted Marx to turn his reflection and questioning towards Hegel’s legal philosophy, which was regarded as a model. Hegel’s legal philosophy appears rigorous, profound, and systematic, yet it cannot explain reality. Why is this? This is because what Hegel calls law is not an analysis and sublimation of actual social legal problems, but a logical deduction of the Idea and objective spirit. The Idea is the “subject,” while reality becomes the “predicate.” Legal philosophy is merely a copy of logic, so Marx’s critique consistently targeted the Idea and logic of Hegel’s legal philosophy. This logic is based on a kind of “totality,” and the relationship between the state and civil society is subordinate to this “totality.” Critiquing this “totality” mainly employs the negative dialectic, i.e., critically analyzing the contradictions contained in the categories, and the self-negation, development, and transition of categories driven by contradiction.

“应然”解释不了“实然”，该质疑的是“应然”，是法律“理应如此”的理论模型。所以，《莱茵报》时期遇到的冲突与困惑，促使马克思把反思和质疑的目标转向被人们奉为典范的黑格尔法哲学。黑格尔法哲学看似严谨、深刻和系统，却解释不了现实，原因何在？这是因为，黑格尔所谓的法，并不是对现实社会法律问题的分析和升华，而是对理念和客观精神的逻辑推演。理念是“主词”，现实倒成了“宾词”。法哲学不过是逻辑学的翻版，所以马克思的批判始终针对黑格尔法哲学的理念与逻辑。这种逻辑立足于一种“总体性”的高度，国家和市民社会的关系从属于这一“总体性”。对这个“总体性”作批判，主要运用否定辩证法，即批判地分析范畴所包含的矛盾，以及由矛盾推动的范畴的自我否定、发展、过渡。

Hegel’s legal philosophy begins with the Idea. The Idea obtains “determinate being” [Dasein] through self-negation; the “determinate being” at each stage is negated by the next stage, becoming more concrete at a newer stage. Thus, the Idea, passing through the stages of particularity and individuality, becomes increasingly concrete and substantial; at the stage of state sovereignty (whose personal representative is the monarch), the Idea reaches the highest stage of internal state law—being both universal and concrete and substantial. In Hegel’s view, each form of actual law is like a “body,” and the Idea is like the “soul.” The significance of the individual, the “estates element,” and the state lies in bearing the “soul” of the Idea, enabling it to complete the process from “incarnation” to “ascension.” It is precisely for this reason that Hegel said: “The science of legal philosophy has as its object the Idea of law—the concept of law and its actualization.” [5]5 A quotation from Marx’s “Debates on the Law on Thefts of Wood,” published in the Rheinische Zeitung in 1842. Since the state is the highest purpose and end of law, Hegel also called his legal philosophy *Natural Law and the Science of the State in Outline* (*Naturrecht und Staatswissenschaft im Grundrisse*). This system of legal philosophy, constituted by the deduction of concepts, was precisely the prevalent German conception of law as it “ought to be so,” and it was also the object that Marx needed to systematically analyze and negate.

黑格尔法哲学从理念开始。理念经由自我否定而获得“定在”，每一环节的“定在”被新的环节否定，在更新的环节上具体化。于是，理念经过特殊和个别阶段，越来越具体和充实；在国家主权（其人格代表是国王）阶段，理念达到国内法的最高阶段——既是普遍的，又是具体和充实的。在黑格尔那里，现实法的每一形态好比“肉体”，理念好比“灵魂”。个人、“等级要素”和国家的意义在于承载理念这个“灵魂”，使之完成从“降世”到“升天”的过程。正因为如此，黑格尔说：“法哲学这一门科学以法的理念，即法的概念及其现实化为对象。”由于国家是法的最高目的和归宿，所以黑格尔又把自己的法哲学称为“自然法和国家学纲要”（Naturrecht und Staatswissenschaft im Grundrisse）。这个由概念的演绎构成的法哲学体系，正是当时德国盛行的“理应如此”的法律观念，也是马克思需要系统分析和否定的对象。

In critiquing Hegel’s legal philosophy, Marx was no longer satisfied with the analysis of the opposition between the ideal and the real in two poles, nor was he limited to the dialectical investigation of external, formal contradictions of the understanding. Instead, he penetrated into the dialectical movement between legal philosophy and real life. At this stage, the method Marx used to critique Hegel’s legal philosophy can be broadly summarized as the negative dialectic.

在批判黑格尔法哲学时，马克思不再满足于理想与现实两极对立的分析，不再限于外在形式的知性矛盾的辩证考察，而是深入法哲学与现实生活的辩证运动中。这阶段，马克思批判黑格尔法哲学运用的方法大致可以归结为否定的辩证法。

As is well known, the dialectic of negation originally refers to the dialectic used by Hegel. Hegel’s logic begins with the highest and most abstract concept—"pure being"—and employs the dialectic of negation to unfold his system of thought, wherein each subsequent moment (category) negates the preceding moment (category), transitioning to a more concrete, more complete, and more universal category. His legal philosophy follows the same line of reasoning, proceeding from abstract right to morality and then to ethical life; the stage of ethical life is further divided into the three moments of the family, civil society, and the state; and the law of the state transitions from internal state law to international law and then to world history. The essence of law—reason—is initially merely pure objective spirit; through self-negation it attains "determinate being" [Dasein], i.e., the general principle of law. The stage of ethical life is more concrete than abstract right, yet it remains the general principle of law. Only when reason transitions to civil society does it truly become concrete, acquiring particular determinations. But civil society is empirical and particular; it follows the logic of selfishness and each going its own way, and must be negated once again, transitioning to the state—the personal representative of the state is the monarch. In sum, each category contains its own inherent contradiction, and this contradiction impels the self-negation and transcendence of the concepts at each moment, so that objective spirit continuously negates and elevates itself, completing the developmental process from the abstract to the concrete, from being-in-itself to being-for-itself.

众所周知，否定辩证法原指黑格尔使用的辩证法。黑格尔的逻辑学从最高、最抽象的概念——“纯有”开始，用否定辩证法展开他的思想体系，其中后一个环节（范畴）否定前一环节（范畴），过渡到更具体、更完善、更具有普遍性的范畴。他的法哲学也是这个思路，即从抽象法到道德再到伦理；伦理阶段又分家庭、市民社会与国家三个环节；国家法又是从内部国家制度到国际法再到世界历史的过渡。法的本质——理性，最初只是纯粹的客观精神；它通过自我否定获得“定在”，即法的一般原则；伦理阶段比抽象法具体，但它仍是法的一般原则；理性过渡到市民社会，才真正具体化，有了特殊的规定性。但市民社会是经验的、个别的，它遵循自私和各自为政的逻辑，必须再次否定，过渡到国家——国家的人格代表是君王。总之，每个范畴都包含自身特有的矛盾，这个矛盾促使各环节的概念自我否定和超越，客观精神也就不断地自我否定和自我提升，完成了由抽象到具体、由自在到自为的发展过程。

In his analytical critique of Hegel’s legal philosophy, Marx proceeds by citing, commenting on, and analyzing Hegel’s text passage by passage. Consequently, the line of his critical narrative naturally follows Hegel’s line of reasoning in depth, i.e., it adopts the dialectic of negation. Marx does not repeat and affirm Hegel, but rather criticizes and negates Hegel—one might say he inverts Hegel’s dialectic of negation. Marx appreciates Hegel’s method of contradiction analysis, pointing out: "We see Hegel’s profundity precisely in the fact that he everywhere begins from the opposition of various determinations (such as those existing in our various states) and emphasizes this opposition." [1]1 An allusion to Marx’s Preface to the First German Edition of Capital, Volume One, where he writes that a country “can neither skip over natural phases of development nor remove them by decree. But it can shorten and lessen the birth pangs.” Yet he is dissatisfied with Hegel’s inversion of the relationship between theory and reality, state and civil society, democracy and autocracy. He borrows Hegel’s dialectic but criticizes his idealist conception of history and autocratic statist values—one might say he "turns his spear against his own shield." [2]2 A term from classical Chinese philosophy, often used to mean an inevitable or predetermined quantity or destiny; here it refers to the historically necessary and determinate character of legal forms. This can be seen from the following two aspects.

马克思分析批判黑格尔法哲学，采取的是逐段引证、评述和分析，因此他的批判性叙述思路，自然也循着黑格尔的思路深入，即采取否定辩证法。马克思不是重复和肯定黑格尔，而是批判和否定黑格尔，可谓对黑格尔否定辩证法的倒置。马克思赞赏黑格尔的矛盾分析方法，他指出：“我们看到黑格尔的深刻之处，正是在于他处处都从各种规定（如我们各个邦所存在的那类规定）的对立开始，并且强调这种对立。”但他对黑格尔将理论与现实、国家与市民社会、民主与专制关系颠倒又表示不满。他借用黑格尔辩证法，但批判他的唯心主义历史观和专制国家主义价值观，可谓“以子之矛攻子之盾”。这可从以下两方面看。

First, Hegel’s dialectic of negation is a conceptual dialectic; Marx transforms the relationship in which the Idea determines reality into a relationship in which actual society determines legal principles.

第一，黑格尔的否定辩证法是概念辩证法，马克思把理念决定现实的关系，改造为现实社会决定法律原则的关系。

Hegel’s legal philosophy completes the dialectical transformation of the categories of legal philosophy through the universalization and self-elevation of concepts. But this universalization takes abstract concepts divorced from actual human beings and society as its foundation, treating universal categories such as the state as a mysterious subject external to human beings, and demanding that human beings subordinate themselves to this subject. Marx expresses a different view: Hegel inverts the relationship between actual human beings and universal concepts, as if actual human beings can only objectify themselves through abstract conceptual forms; Hegel does not recognize that the concrete is realized through human beings, but rather that the "moments of the concept" attain some mysterious "determinate being" through successive negation; actual life is not self-determined by human beings, but is determined by concepts that possess originary meaning, with abstract, otherworldly things dominating the family and civil society; the Idea should arise from differentiated actual life, but in Hegel’s hands, the Idea becomes the subject, and concrete things become predicates. "The concrete content, i.e., actual determinations, becomes formal, while completely abstract formal determinations become the concrete content. The substance of the various determinations of the state does not lie in the fact that these determinations are determinations of the state, but in the fact that they can be regarded, in their most abstract form, as logical-metaphysical determinations… It is not logic that is used to demonstrate the state, but the state that is used to demonstrate logic." [3]3 A paraphrase of Hegel’s famous dictum from the Preface to the Philosophy of Right, as analyzed by Engels in Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy. Marx criticizes Hegel for making "the Idea into the subject, while the actual relationship of the family and civil society to the state is understood as the inner imaginary activity of the Idea. The family and civil society are the presuppositions of the state; they are what is truly active; but in speculative thinking, all this is inverted." [4]4 Engels’s reformulation of the Hegelian dictum, from the same text. That is to say, the family and civil society are originally the foundation and necessary conditions of the state, but in Hegel, the condition becomes the conditioned, that which produces other things becomes the determined. Marx’s dialectic of negation is not the self-negation of concepts as in Hegel, but the self-negation of actual social relations and social contradictions; it does not derive reality from logic, but logic from reality. If Hegel turns the condition into the conditioned and that which produces other things into the determined, Marx inverts this, regarding the family and civil society as the foundation and necessary conditions of the state.

黑格尔法哲学通过概念的普遍化和自我提升来完成法哲学范畴的辩证转换，但这个普遍化是以离开现实的人和社会的抽象概念为本，把国家等普遍范畴当作外在于人的神秘主体，并要求人从属于这种主体。马克思表示不同的意见：黑格尔颠倒现实的人与普遍概念的关系，似乎现实的人只能借助抽象的概念形式使自己客体化；黑格尔不承认具体是通过人来实现的，而是“概念的环节”逐级否定而达到某种神秘的“定在”；现实生活不是人自我规定的，而是由具有本原意义的概念规定的，是抽象的、彼岸的东西来支配家庭与市民社会；理念本来应该从有差异的现实生活中产生，但在黑格尔那里，理念成了主词，具体事物成了谓词。“具体的内容即现实的规定成了形式的东西，而完全抽象的形式规定则成了具体的内容。国家的各种规定的实质并不在于这些规定是国家的规定，而在于这些规定在其最抽象的形式中可以被看作逻辑学的形而上学的规定……不是用逻辑来论证国家，而是用国家来论证逻辑。”马克思批评黑格尔把“观念变成了主体，而家庭和市民社会对国家的现实的关系被理解为观念的内在想象活动。家庭和市民社会都是国家的前提，它们才是真正活动着的；而在思辨的思维中这一切却是颠倒的”。也就是说，家庭和市民社会本来是国家的基础和必要条件，但是在黑格尔那里，条件变成了被制约的东西，产生其他东西的东西变成了被规定的东西。马克思的否定辩证法不是黑格尔那种概念的自我否定，而是现实社会关系和社会矛盾的自我否定；不是从逻辑引出现实，而是从现实引出逻辑。如果说黑格尔把条件变成了被制约的东西、产生其他东西的东西变成了被规定的东西，马克思则把它颠倒过来，把家庭和市民社会视为国家的基础和必要条件。

On the basis of analyzing Hegel’s idealist dialectic, Marx advocates that the dialectic return to reality and analyze the contradictions in actual life. He points out: "Personality separated from the human being is, of course, only an abstraction, but the human being is the actual Idea of personality only in his species-being, only as human beings." [5]5 A quotation from Marx’s “Debates on the Law on Thefts of Wood,” published in the Rheinische Zeitung in 1842.

在剖析黑格尔唯心辩证法的基础上，马克思主张辩证法回到现实，剖析实际生活中的矛盾。他指出：“人格脱离了人，当然只是一个抽象，但人也只有在自己的类存在中，只有作为人们，才是人格的现实的观念。”

Second, the purpose of Hegel’s dialectic of negation is to defend the autocratic monarch; Marx uses it to expound a legal philosophy oriented towards democratic values.

第二，黑格尔的否定辩证法目的是为专制君主辩护，马克思则用它来阐述具有民主价值导向的法哲学。

Even according to Hegel’s own logic, his philosophy of the state contains contradictions. On the one hand, the inner logic of the universalizing development of the Idea is: civil society rises to the state, and the state should proceed through the legislative power and the executive power to the princely power. On the other hand, Hegel’s narrative logic proceeds from the princely power, through the executive power, to the legislative power. This apparent confusion is a natural expression of Hegel’s understanding of right—he sacrifices logical consistency to argue for the rationality of monarchy and the individual free will of the king. Marx criticizes Hegel’s logic of "using universality as a pretext to support statism and autocratic monarchy." [6]6 A reference to Marx’s concept of “personal dependence” and “dependence on things” (sachliche Abhängigkeit) in the Grundrisse, describing the form of social relations under capitalism. From the outset, he seizes upon the contradiction in Hegel’s theory of the state: on the one hand, Hegel regards the state as the "external necessity" of the family and civil society, i.e., an external force constraining the people; on the other hand, he regards the state as the "inner necessity" of the latter, i.e., making submission to the state the purpose and value pursued by people in their lives. Hegel believes that the state is indeed external, but the people must obey. The transition of law to a higher state is driven precisely by this contradiction. For the family and civil society, they are in a subordinate, dependent state due to "interests and laws"; only the state represents the universal and final purpose, completing the unity of the particular interests of individuals and the general interest. This inversion of the relationship between existence and value largely determines the nature and purpose of Hegel’s legal philosophy. Compared with Enlightenment thinkers, Hegel’s legal philosophy, based on reason, is more rigorous and profound, but its value orientation is not necessarily more reasonable.

即使按照黑格尔自身的逻辑，他的国家哲学也存在矛盾。一方面，理念普遍化发展的内在逻辑是：市民社会上升为国家，国家应该经立法权、行政权再到王权；另一方面，黑格尔的叙事逻辑却是：从王权开始，经由行政权再到立法权，这种表面的混乱是黑格尔对法权理解的自然体现——为论证君主制以及国王个人自由意志的合理性，牺牲了逻辑上的自洽。马克思批判黑格尔“借口普遍性为国家主义和君主专制站台”的逻辑。他一开始就抓住黑格尔国家理论中的矛盾：一方面把国家看作家庭和市民社会的“外在必然性”，即约束人民的外在力量；另一方面又把国家视为后者的“内在必然性”，即把顺从国家当成了人们生活追求的目的与价值。黑格尔认为，国家确实是外在的，但人民必须服从。法向更高状态过渡，就是通过这种矛盾推动的。对家庭和市民社会来说，它们因“利益和法规”而处于从属的依存状态，国家才代表普遍和最终目的，完成个人特殊利益与整体利益的统一。存在与价值关系的颠倒，大致决定了黑格尔法哲学的性质和目的。与启蒙思想家相比，黑格尔以理性为基础的法哲学更为严谨、深刻，但它的价值导向未必更合理。

Marx transforms the conceptual dialectic of self-negation in Hegel’s legal philosophy into a practical dialectic with the people as the subject and democracy as the goal. If Hegel replaces the Enlightenment thinkers’ construction of natural rights with a deduction of objectively universal concepts, Marx attempts to replace logical construction with actual social life and its historical movement, and to transform Hegel’s conceptual dialectic with a methodology tending towards historical materialism. Only by insisting that law takes the people as its subject and returns to the dialectical movement of society and history can the many contradictions of Hegel’s legal philosophy be resolved. "All other forms of state constitution are definite, particular, specific forms of the state… Only democracy is the true unity of the universal and the particular." [7]7 A quotation from the Communist Manifesto. To be sure, property, contract, marriage, and civil society, like the political state, appear as particular modes of existence, but under the form of the political state, especially in comparison with monarchy, democracy remains the highest form, just as Christianity is the preeminent, transcendent religion.

马克思把黑格尔法哲学中自我否定的概念辩证法，改造为以人民为主体、以民主为目标的实践辩证法。如果说黑格尔用具有客观普遍性的概念演绎代替启蒙思想家关于自然权利的建构，马克思则试图用现实的社会生活及其历史运动取代逻辑建构，用具有历史唯物主义倾向的方法论改造黑格尔的概念辩证法。法只有坚持人民主体，坚持回归社会历史的辩证运动，才能解决黑格尔法哲学的诸多矛盾。“其他一切国家构成都是某种确定的、特定的、特殊的国家形式……只有民主制才是普遍和特殊的真正统一。”诚然，财产、契约、婚姻、市民社会也像政治国家一样表现为特殊的存在方式，但在政治国家形态下，尤其是相对于君主制，民主制仍是最高形式，就像基督教作为卓绝超越的宗教一样。

Of course, since *Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right* is analytical and critical in nature, its narrative mode and dialectical deduction could not avoid being influenced and constrained by Hegelian logic. At this time, Marx’s main goal was to criticize Hegel’s idealism, which negates dialectics; he had not yet systematically explored the dialectical movement of real society, especially the contradictory movement of capitalist relations of production. Although Marx was dissatisfied with Hegel’s system of legal philosophy—logic determining existence, the state standing above civil society, and the defense of monarchy—this upside-down approach, and although he sought to invert the relationship between logic and fact, between social life and the categories of law, how the system of legal philosophy was to be constructed and interpreted still required another transformation: a shift to the critique of political economy, and to the revolutionary practice guided by the corresponding theory.

当然，由于《黑格尔法哲学批判》是分析和批判式的，它的叙事方式和辩证演绎也免不了受黑格尔逻辑的影响和约束。这时，马克思的主要目标是批判黑格尔否定辩证法的唯心主义，还没有系统地探索现实社会的辩证运动，特别是资本主义生产关系的矛盾运动。虽然马克思对黑格尔的法哲学体系——逻辑决定存在、国家高于市民社会、为君主专制辩护——这种头足倒置不满，虽然他力图将逻辑与事实、社会生活与法的范畴关系再颠倒回来，但法哲学体系究竟如何建构、如何阐释，那还得再经历一次转型，转到政治经济学批判，以及在相应理论指导下的革命实践。

III. Reflection on and Transformation of the Path

三、路径的反思与转换

The significance of Marx’s critique of Hegel’s legal philosophy lies in negating the presupposition of law as abstract “reason” and illusory “what ought to be,” negating the treatment of legal issues as theoretical deduction and conceptual play detached from real life, and ultimately negating the basic approach of the entire bourgeois legal philosophy built on Enlightenment rationality. This also means that to reveal the essence and laws of law, one must blaze a new trail and return to the real world—primarily people’s economic life. Hence, Marx states: “Legal relations, as well as forms of state, are to be grasped neither from themselves nor from the so-called general development of the human mind, but rather have their roots in the material conditions of life, the totality of which Hegel, following the example of the English and French of the eighteenth century, summarizes under the name ‘civil society’; the anatomy of civil society, however, is to be sought in political economy.” [1]1 An allusion to Marx’s Preface to the First German Edition of Capital, Volume One, where he writes that a country “can neither skip over natural phases of development nor remove them by decree. But it can shorten and lessen the birth pangs.” In relation to the material conditions of life, legal relations are the result, not the cause; they are the phenomenon, not the essence. Discussing law on its own terms cannot reveal the substance and root of the problem; to reveal the essence and root of law, one must delve into people’s economic life and open the path of critique of political economy. The critique of political economy is also Marx’s critique of the historical form of capitalism; its fundamental methodology is revolutionary, practical dialectics.

马克思批判黑格尔法哲学的意义在于，否定将法预设为抽象的“理性”和虚幻的“应然”，否定把法律问题当作脱离现实生活的理论演绎和概念游戏，直至否定建立在启蒙理性基础上的整个资产阶级法哲学的基本思路。这也意味着，要揭示法的本质与规律，必须另辟蹊径，回到现实世界——主要是人们的经济生活。所以，马克思说：“法的关系正像国家的形式一样，既不能从它们本身来理解，也不能从所谓人类精神的一般发展来理解，相反，它们根源于物质的生活关系，这种物质的生活关系的总和，黑格尔按照18世纪的英国人和法国人的先例，概括为‘市民社会’，而对市民社会的解剖应该到政治经济学中去寻求。”相对于物质生活条件来说，法的关系是结果不是原因，是现象不是本质。就法谈法并不能揭示问题的实质和根源，要揭示法的本质和根源，必须深入人们的经济生活，开启政治经济学批判路径。政治经济学批判也是马克思对资本主义历史形态的批判，其根本的方法论是革命的、实践的辩证法。

To analyze jurisprudence, one must leave jurisprudence behind, advancing through the critique of political economy into revolutionary practice. This path is also related to the purpose of Marx’s scientific research. Marx did not aim to construct a complete and rigorous theory of jurisprudence, nor did he hope to achieve human equality, freedom, human rights, and legality under the existing social system through “good laws and good governance.” Rather, he criticized and negated the existing system and mode of production in order to realize humanity’s ultimate free liberation. Only when production develops and prepares the conditions for human liberation can people achieve liberation; only when people achieve liberation can there be genuine legality. In Marx’s era, the capitalist mode of production was the most advanced and most important mode of production. Therefore, Marx’s primary task was to deeply analyze the essence and laws of motion of capitalist economic relations. Consequently, the resolution of legal questions was not to be achieved through the critique of legal philosophy itself, but through the path of the critique of political economy, through analyzing the dialectical process of the movement of capital. The path of the critique of political economy is also the path of historical dialectics and practical dialectics; it reveals the tortuous process of human liberation by analyzing the contradictory movement of the development and evolution of social practice (primarily productive practice).

要解析法学，就得离开法学，通过政治经济学批判进到革命实践，这一路径还与马克思科学研究的目的有关，马克思不以建构一套完整缜密的法学理论为目标，不指望在现行社会体系下通过“善法良治”来实现人的平等、自由、人权以及合法性，而是批判和否定现存制度和生产方式，以实现人类最后的自由解放。只有生产发展为人的解放准备了条件，人才能获得解放；只有人获得了解放，才有真正的合法性。马克思时代，资本主义生产方式是最先进、最重要的生产方式，所以，马克思首要任务是深入剖析资本主义经济关系的本质和运动规律。于是，法律问题的解答，不是通过法哲学批判本身来解决，而是通过政治经济学批判的路径、通过剖析资本的辩证运动历程来解决。政治经济学批判的路径也是历史辩证法和实践辩证法的路径，它通过剖析社会实践（主要是生产实践）发展演化的矛盾运动来揭示人类解放的曲折过程。

In Marx’s view, legal life arises and exists within people’s mode of economic life, and changes with the development and evolution of the mode of production and way of life. For example: property rights are the most basic legal right. But humanity’s original “property”—land—came from possession, not from legally recognized ownership. “These premises themselves are not the product of labor, but appear as its natural or divine premises.” [2]2 A term from classical Chinese philosophy, often used to mean an inevitable or predetermined quantity or destiny; here it refers to the historically necessary and determinate character of legal forms. During the period of tribal ownership, land belonged to the commune or even to the higher unity—the state. At this time, individuals were still in a state of dependence, without an independent and free personality, and thus without private rights. True private property only began with the emergence of movable property; private property and private law developed from the dissolution of the natural community, and further matured with the emergence of early capitalism. Bourgeois law is actually a way of safeguarding the overall interests of the bourgeoisie, but it is confirmed by the state as a “false community.” Thus, “in private law, the existing property relations are declared to be the result of the general will,” [3]3 A paraphrase of Hegel’s famous dictum from the Preface to the Philosophy of Right, as analyzed by Engels in Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy. creating the illusion that they are “based on individual will, i.e., on the arbitrary disposition of things.” This is the reason Marx identified the class character of bourgeois law.

在马克思看来，法律生活是在人们的经济生活方式中产生和存在的，也随着生产和生活方式的发展演变而变化。例如：财产权是最基本的法权。但人类最初的“财产”——土地，来自占有而不是法律认可的所有权。“这些前提本身并不是劳动的产物，而是表现为劳动的自然的或神授的前提。”部落所有制时期，土地归公社乃至更高的统一体——国家所有。这时个人还处于依附状态，没有独立自由的人格，也就没有私权。真正的私有制是随着动产的出现才开始的，私有制和私法从天然共同体解体的过程中发展起来，并随着早期资本主义的产生而进一步成熟。资产阶级的法其实是维护资产阶级整体利益的方式，但它经由国家这个“虚假共同体”确认，于是“在私法中，现存的所有制关系是作为普遍意志的结果来表达的”，它就给人一种错觉，仿佛是“以个人意志即以对物的任意支配为基础”。这是马克思认定资产阶级法律的阶级属性的原因。

The path of the critique of political economy shows that Marx reversed the approach to constructing legal philosophy that, since the Enlightenment, had been based on reason, natural rights, and free will, and inaugurated a critical path with political economy as its main thread and real practice as its driving force. He did not establish some metaphysical foundation for law, but rather regarded legality as a goal pursued through constant negation and transcendence in historical practice. Marx did not organize legal categories into a logical system of legality, but instead revealed the social basis of inequality and injustice, explored the real path out of human dependence and reified factors, and realized actual legality. He transformed legality in the disciplinary sense of jurisprudence into rationality in the sense of historical process and historical law; he transformed the question of free will and eternal right into the question of human liberation; he transformed the process of reason from “in-itself” to freedom into the history of human society moving from a state of dependence to free individuality, governed by historical laws. From this perspective, there is no need to distinguish between legal philosophy, political economy, sociology, and so on. Human liberation is the common goal; the various disciplines are merely means to achieve human liberation. The question of law is ultimately the question of human liberation, and human liberation cannot be resolved through the deduction of legal-philosophical categories, but through the practical dialectics of the social revolutionary movement. This kind of legal-philosophical research that transcends legal philosophy, this genuine dialectics that leaves behind the analysis of contradictions within legal categories—this is the analytical paradigm of legal philosophy that Marx envisioned.

政治经济学批判路径表明，马克思一反启蒙运动以来以理性、天赋人权、自由意志为基础的法哲学建构路径，开创以政治经济学为主线、以现实实践为动力的批判路径。他不是为法律确立某种形而上学基础，而是把合法性视为在历史实践中，经由不断地否定和超越而追求的目标。马克思不是把法律范畴组织成合法性的逻辑体系，而是揭示不平等、非正义的社会基础，探索走出人的依附状态和物化因素的现实途径，实现现实的合法性。他把法学学科意义上的合法性转换成历史过程、历史规律意义上的合理性，把自由意志和永恒法权问题转换为人的解放问题，把理性从“自在”到自由的过程，转换为历史规律支配下的人类社会由依附状态到自由个性的历史。从这个角度来说，无需区分法哲学、政治经济学、社会学等。人的解放是共同目标，各门学科不过是达到人的解放的手段罢了。法的问题终究是人的解放，而人的解放不是用法哲学范畴演绎能解决的，而是通过社会革命运动的实践辩证法来进行的。这种超离法哲学的法哲学研究，这种离开法律范畴之矛盾辨析的真正的辩证法，才是马克思理想中的法哲学分析范式。

IV. The Economic Clarification of Practical Dialectics

四、实践辩证法的经济学澄明

So, how did Marx resolve the problems of legal philosophy through the critique of political economy? In the Postface to the Second Edition of *Capital*, Marx’s discussion of the relationship between his dialectics and Hegel’s dialectics can enlighten us: “With him it is standing on its head. It must be turned right side up again, if you would discover the rational kernel within the mystical shell.” [4]4 Engels’s reformulation of the Hegelian dictum, from the same text. The French philosopher Althusser explained that Marx’s meaning cannot be understood as simply inverting Hegel’s speculative philosophy to arrive at materialism, nor can it be understood that once Hegel’s dialectics is “stripped of its shell,” it becomes Marx’s dialectics. Marx’s dialectics is opposed to Hegel’s dialectics; it should “be reflected in its specificity and its peculiar structure”; it is “not an inversion of the ‘meaning’ of the dialectic, but a transformation of its structure.” [5]5 A quotation from Marx’s “Debates on the Law on Thefts of Wood,” published in the Rheinische Zeitung in 1842. In Althusser’s view, the difference between Marx’s and Hegel’s dialectics is that their entire structure and line of thought are opposite. In other words, Marx’s dialectics is no longer from concept to concept, but is practical dialectics, the study of the complex contradictory movement of real society. Marx’s method in legal philosophy is the same: it no longer merely inverts the categories of law according to Hegel’s or anyone else’s line of thought, but blazes a new trail, analyzing the dialectical movement of law in concrete history in an entirely new way. This “entirely new way” primarily involves revealing the laws of motion of the capitalist economy through political economy, dissecting the logic of commodities and the phenomenon of reification, and laying the theoretical groundwork for social change through the revelation of economic laws. At the same time, all the problems of legal philosophy—such as freedom, equality, rights, justice, legality—all legal questions will be resolved along with the resolution of economic and social problems. In this sense, Marx transformed theoretical dialectics into practical dialectics.

那么，马克思是如何通过政治经济学批判来解决法哲学问题的呢？在《资本论》第二版跋中，马克思谈及他的辩证法与黑格尔辩证法的关系的一段话，可以给我们启发：“在他那里，辩证法是倒立着的。必须把它倒过来，以便发现神秘外壳中的合理内核。”法国哲学家阿尔都塞解释说，马克思的意思不能理解为把黑格尔的思辨哲学倒过来以便得出唯物主义就行了，也不能理解为黑格尔辩证法一旦被“剥去了外壳”就成了马克思的辩证法了。马克思辩证法与黑格尔辩证法对立，应该“在它的规定性和特有结构中得到反映”，它“不是对辩证法‘含义’的颠倒，而是对辩证法结构的改造”。在阿尔都塞看来，马克思与黑格尔辩证法的差异，是两者整个结构和思路相反。易言之，马克思的辩证法不再是从概念到概念，而是实践辩证法，是研究现实社会的复杂的矛盾运动。马克思的法哲学方法也是这样：它不再是按照黑格尔或其他人的思路，仅仅把法的范畴颠倒一下，而是另辟蹊径，以全新的方式分析具体历史中的法的辩证运动。这个“全新的方式”，主要是通过政治经济学来揭示资本主义经济运动规律，剖析商品逻辑和物化现象，通过经济规律的揭示为社会变革作理论的铺垫。与此同时，法哲学中的全部问题，如：自由、平等、权利、正义、合法性等，一切法律问题将随着经济和社会问题的解决而解决。从这个意义上说，马克思是把理论的辩证法转化为实践的辩证法。

Marx unified the critique of the illegitimacy of the capitalist mode of production with the pursuit of the legitimacy of communism. On the one hand, true legitimacy must be built on the foundation of economic development, presupposing highly developed productive forces and universal intercourse. Without the premises and foundations provided by highly developed production, one cannot escape the narrowness and obscurantist fetters of small-scale production, cannot achieve the independent and free individuality of human beings, cannot establish an emancipated society, and thus there can be no legitimacy. Not only that, but economic development is also a natural and objective process. People can neither skip over nor abolish by decree the natural stages of development; they can only, on the basis of understanding the laws, shorten and lessen the birth pangs. [1]1 An allusion to Marx’s Preface to the First German Edition of Capital, Volume One, where he writes that a country “can neither skip over natural phases of development nor remove them by decree. But it can shorten and lessen the birth pangs.”

马克思把对资本主义生产方式不合法性的批判与对共产主义合法性的追求统一起来。一方面，真正的合法性需要建立在经济发展的基础上，需要以高度发达的生产力和普遍交往为前提。如果没有生产高度发展提供的前提和基础，就不会摆脱小生产的狭隘和蒙昧的束缚，就不会有人的独立自由个性，就无法建立起解放的社会，也就无所谓合法性。不仅如此，经济发展还是一个自然而然的客观过程。人们既不能跳过也不能用法令取消自然的发展阶段，只能在认识规律的基础上缩短和减轻类似分娩的痛苦。

On the other hand, legitimacy is a process of dialectical movement. The history of economy and society is grounded in historical rationality, yet it also sublates this rationality. If Hegel understood the history of the development of law as the history of the transition of freedom and the Idea from the abstract to the concrete, from being “in-itself” to being “for-itself,” then Marx understood it as the history of the development of the state of human freedom based on economic life. It bears certain similarities to Hegel’s logic, namely the tendency toward the perfection and universalization of freedom, but it is not a deduction of concepts; it takes place not in the spiritual world, but in the development of production and in social revolution. Every form of law in history is both legitimate and illegitimate. So-called legitimate means that they were a rational link in the history of social development of each nation, occupying their due place in the process of historical evolution. These laws, as products of the conditions of their era and reflections of economic relations, are the “fixed number” [2]2 A term from classical Chinese philosophy, often used to mean an inevitable or predetermined quantity or destiny; here it refers to the historically necessary and determinate character of legal forms. of history. Conversely, the grounds for the existence of these legal relations and legal categories are necessarily lost in the course of historical development. As Engels analyzed Hegel’s proposition: “Everything that is real is rational; everything that is rational is real.” [3]3 A paraphrase of Hegel’s famous dictum from the Preface to the Philosophy of Right, as analyzed by Engels in Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy. Because reality manifests itself as necessity in the process of its unfolding, the grounds for the rationality of old things are necessarily replaced by new things, and thus the above proposition transforms into another proposition: “Everything that exists deserves to perish.” [4]4 Engels’s reformulation of the Hegelian dictum, from the same text. Therefore, Marx said: “The movement of this world within the framework of its laws is necessarily the constant abolition of laws.” [5]5 A quotation from Marx’s “Debates on the Law on Thefts of Wood,” published in the Rheinische Zeitung in 1842.

另一方面，合法性是一个辩证运动过程。经济和社会的历史，立足于历史合理性，又扬弃这种合理性。如果说黑格尔把法的发展史理解为自由和理念从抽象到具体、从“自在”到“自为”过渡的历史的话，马克思则将其理解为是以经济生活为基础的人类自由状态发展史。它与黑格尔的逻辑有某些相似的地方，即自由的完善和普遍化趋势，但它不是概念的演绎，不是在精神世界，而是在生产发展和社会革命之中。历史上法律的每一形态，都既是合法的又是不合法的。所谓合法，是因为它们是各民族社会发展史上合理的一环，在历史演化过程中有其应有的地位。作为时代条件产物和经济关系反映的这些法，是历史的“定数”。反过来说，这些法律关系和法律范畴存在的根据也必然在历史发展中丧失。正如恩格斯对黑格尔的命题分析的那样，“凡是现实的都是合乎理性的，凡是合乎理性的都是现实的”。由于现实在其展开过程中表现为必然性，旧事物合理性的根据必然被新事物所取代，因此上述命题就变成了另一命题：“凡是现存的，都一定要灭亡。”因此，马克思说：“这个世界在它这些法律的范围内的运动，必然是法律的不断废除。”

Thus we see that fairness, justice, and legitimacy are not some theoretical hypothesis or moral wish, but the result of the development of social history, the result of the elevation of productive forces, the universalization of intercourse, and the expansion of human free individuality. For example: according to the logic of capitalist commodities, exchange of equivalents is fair; the exchange of equal values perfectly embodies the “equality” principle of Enlightenment thinkers. But in Marx’s view, this fairness is also unfair, because exchange of equivalents is based on the capitalist market, this foundation of “dependence on things.” [6]6 A reference to Marx’s concept of “personal dependence” and “dependence on things” (sachliche Abhängigkeit) in the Grundrisse, describing the form of social relations under capitalism. It is precisely this cloak of exchange of equivalents that conceals the unequal fact of labor power becoming a commodity, obscuring capitalism’s greatest unfairness. Relative to small-scale production, the historical rationality of large-scale capitalist industry is beyond doubt; it created astonishing productive forces and social wealth, shaped the world market and the mode of universal intercourse, and destroyed all manner of ancient, closed-door feudal barriers, dragging the whole world into modern industrial civilization. “The bourgeoisie has played a most revolutionary role in history.” [7]7 A quotation from the Communist Manifesto. But the capitalist mode of production is also extremely irrational: the means of production become the means of exploiting the labor of others; production is aimed not at benefiting humanity but at chasing profit; the contradiction between capitalist private ownership and socialized large-scale production, and the economic crises that result from it; and so on. The inherent contradictions of capitalism doomed it from the start to perish, to be replaced by a new social system. Even the socialist principle of distribution according to work is both rational and irrational; it still bears the traces of “bourgeois right,” [8]8 A reference to Marx’s Critique of the Gotha Programme, where he discusses the “narrow horizon of bourgeois right” that remains in the first phase of communist society. and requires further transformation in the course of social development.

于是我们看到，公平、正义、合法性，不是某种理论假设或道德愿望，而是社会历史的发展的结果，是生产力提升、交往普遍化、人的自由个性拓展的结果。例如：按照资本主义商品逻辑，等价交换是公平的，等量的价值互换，完美地体现了启蒙思想家的“平等”原则。但在马克思看来，这种公平也是不公平，因为等价交换建立在资本主义市场这个“物的依赖性”基础上。正是等价交换这件外衣，掩盖了劳动力成为商品的不平等事实，遮蔽了资本主义最大的不公平。相对于小生产，资本主义大工业的历史合理性是毋庸置疑的，它创造了惊人的生产力和社会财富，塑造了世界市场和普遍交往方式，摧毁了各种古老的、闭关锁国的封建藩篱，使全世界卷入现代工业文明。“资产阶级在历史上曾经起过非常革命的作用。”但是资本主义生产方式又是极不合理的，生产资料成为剥夺他人劳动的手段；不是以造福人类为目的而是以追逐利润为目的的生产；资本主义私有制与社会化大生产的矛盾，以及由此带来的经济危机；等等。资本主义固有矛盾从一开始就注定它要灭亡，要被新的社会制度所代替。甚至社会主义的按劳分配，也既是合理的又是不合理的，它还有“资产阶级法权”的痕迹，还需要在社会发展中得到进一步的改造。

The present context is already very different from the context of Marx’s critique of legal philosophy, which determines that we cannot simply apply Marx’s phrases mechanically to guide the construction of the rule of law under socialism with Chinese characteristics. But if we can grasp the essence of Marx’s legal philosophy—that justice and legitimacy are the free emancipation of humanity; that solving the problems of law depends not on theoretical speculation but on the actual transformation of society—then the guiding significance of Marx’s theory and method for the construction of the rule of law under socialism with Chinese characteristics can be truly realized.

当下的语境早已不同于马克思法哲学批判的语境，这决定了我们不可能简单套用马克思的词句来指导中国特色社会主义法治建设。但如果我们能够把握马克思法哲学的精髓——正义、合法性即人的自由解放；解决法的问题不依赖理论思辨，而来自现实的社会改造，那么，马克思的理论及其方法对中国特色社会主义法治建设的指导意义，才真正得以实现。

Online editor: Paul

网络编辑：保罗