Practical Dialectics and the Spirit of Historical Initiative

As a manuscript marking a qualitative change in the philosophical thought of the young Marx, *Theses on Feuerbach* (hereinafter referred to as the *Theses*) is the sign of the birth of Marxist philosophy. In the *Theses*, Marx criticizes all old materialism, including Feuerbach’s humanist-materialist philosophy, elucidates the basic points of the new worldview, constructs a new philosophical framework centered on practice, and opens the door to a revolution in modern philosophy.

作为标志青年马克思哲学思想发生质变的一篇手稿，《关于费尔巴哈的提纲》（以下简称《提纲》）是马克思主义哲学诞生的标志。在《提纲》中，马克思批判了包含费尔巴哈人本学唯物主义在内的一切旧唯物主义，阐明了新世界观的基本要点，建构起以实践为核心的新哲学基本框架，开启了现代哲学的变革之门。

A Paradigm Revolution in Philosophy Centered on Practice

以实践为核心的哲学范式革命

In the *Theses*, Marx, using his critique of Feuerbach as a medium, transforms all old materialism and sublates idealism, establishing “practice” as the core paradigm of the new worldview. The first thesis criticizes the intuitiveness of all old materialism, pointing out that its main defect is that it does not grasp things, reality, and sensuousness as human sensuous activity, but as practice. On the one hand, Marx affirms that Feuerbach wants to study sensuous objects different from thought-objects, but on the other hand, he criticizes Feuerbach for not understanding human activity itself as objective practical activity. In Marx’s view, Feuerbach was correct to replace Hegel’s thought-objects with sensuous material objects; however, because Feuerbach failed to critically absorb the rational content of Hegel’s dialectics, he also failed to go further and replace Hegel’s speculative spiritual movement with human sensuous practical activity. Looking back at Hegel, it is precisely by means of the active activity of abstract thought that he achieves his grasp of world history as a totality in idealist form.

在《提纲》中，马克思以批判费尔巴哈为中介，通过改造一切旧唯物主义和扬弃唯心主义，将“实践”确定为新世界观的核心范式。《提纲》第一条批判了一切旧唯物主义的直观性，指出它们的主要缺点是不把事物、现实、感性当作人的感性活动，而当作实践去理解。马克思一方面肯定了费尔巴哈想要研究跟思想客体不同的感性客体，但同时又批评他没有把人的活动本身理解为客观的实践活动。在马克思看来，费尔巴哈以感性的物质客体取代黑格尔的思想客体是对的，然而由于费尔巴哈未能批判性地吸收黑格尔辩证法的合理内容，所以也就未能进一步用人类感性的实践活动来取代黑格尔的思辨精神运动。反观黑格尔，他正是借助于抽象思维的能动活动来达到他在唯心主义形式下对世界历史的总体性把握。

The introduction of the concept of practice allowed Marx to decisively surpass Feuerbach and sublate Hegel’s philosophy. Feuerbach’s critique of Hegel mainly adopted the methods of subject-predicate inversion and the critique of alienation. He pulled the focus of philosophy back from thought-objects to sensuous objects; this methodological path had a key enlightening significance in the process of the young Marx’s intellectual transformation. However, as Marx’s own theoretical logic evolved and his research in political economy deepened, he gradually discovered that Feuerbach’s subject-predicate inversion only completed a formal deconstruction of the Hegelian system—after stripping away the historical dimension, his so-called sensuous objects degenerated into abstract existences lacking real mediation. This philosophical construction, which remained at the level of sensuous intuition, in essence still did not escape the epistemological framework of old materialism. In contrast, Hegel, within the idealist framework, captured the active essence of practice but degraded it into a tool for the self-deduction of absolute spirit. This speculative logic, which alienates human practice into the cunning of reason, is precisely the metaphysical illusion that Marx strenuously criticized. The originality of Marx’s new worldview lies in the fact that he both absorbed the principle of historical activity from Hegel’s dialectics and re-rooted it in real, social material productive activity, thereby revealing for the first time in the history of philosophy the fundamental significance of practice as the real basis for the dialectical unity of subject and object.

实践概念的提出使得马克思决定性地超越了费尔巴哈，并扬弃了黑格尔哲学。费尔巴哈对黑格尔的批判，主要采取主宾颠倒和异化批判的方法。他将哲学重心从思维客体拉回到感性客体，这一方法论路径在青年马克思思想转变过程中具有关键性启发意义。但随着马克思自身理论逻辑的演进与政治经济学研究的深入，他逐渐发现，费尔巴哈的主宾颠倒仅仅完成了对黑格尔体系的形式解构——其所谓的感性对象在剥离开历史性维度后，沦为缺乏现实中介的抽象存在。这种停留于感性直观层面的哲学建构，本质上仍未跳出旧唯物主义的认识论框架。与之相反，黑格尔在唯心主义框架内捕捉到了实践的能动性本质，却将其降格为绝对精神的自我演绎工具。这种将人类实践异化为理性狡计的思辨逻辑，正是马克思着力批判的形而上学幻象。马克思新世界观的独创性在于，他既汲取了黑格尔辩证法的历史能动性原则，又将其重新植根于现实的社会物质生产活动之中，从而在哲学史上首次揭示了实践作为主客体辩证统一之现实基础的根本意义。

How Is Changing the World Possible: The Dialectics of Practice

改变世界何以可能：实践的辩证法

In the *Theses*, Marx proposes that the philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it. The scientific cognitive function and the practical-critical function of Marx’s new materialism are dialectically unified. Practice is not only the starting point of the new philosophy but also its ultimate destination. Marx intends to emphasize that the world should be interpreted from the revolutionary dimension of changing it, and that scientifically interpreting the world serves to better change it. The question here is: how, on the basis of a scientific grasp of “practice,” can one “change the world”? In a word, practical activity based on the dialectical relationship between subject and object constitutes the social-historical foundation for changing the world.

马克思在《提纲》中提出哲学家们只是用不同的方式解释世界，问题在于改变世界。马克思新唯物主义的科学认知功能和实践批判功能是辩证统一的，实践不仅是新哲学的出发点，也是其最终归宿。马克思意在强调，从改变世界的革命性维度出发解释世界，并且科学地解释世界是为了更好地改变世界。这里的问题是，如何在科学把握“实践”的基础上“改变世界”？一句话，基于主客体辩证关系的实践活动构成了改变世界的社会历史基础。

There have always been two erroneous tendencies in understanding the concept of “practice” in the *Theses*. The first is to understand practice as a purely subjective category, viewing practice as a purely subjective activity that can be detached from external objective conditions. This activity depends only on people’s own ideas and will, and is not constrained by external natural and social conditions. Conversely, the other view understands practice as a purely objective movement, making history a subjectless process. This understanding goes to the other extreme, thereby neglecting the active role of the subject over the object. It should be said that Marx’s concept of practice is neither a purely subjective activity nor an objective process detached from the subject, but a category of mutual interaction and dialectical unity between subject and object. On the one hand, unlike the illusory character of idealism, the object-oriented activity of the practical subject always takes place under concrete, specific historical conditions and is constrained by the existing level of practice; this reflects the passivity of practice itself. On the other hand, unlike the intuitiveness of old materialism, practice is the active relationship of the subject to the object; it possesses the power to transform objective objects and change the world. In Marx’s view, the coincidence of the changing of circumstances and of human activity or self-change can be conceived and rationally understood only as revolutionary practice. That is to say, the relationship between humans and their environment, between subject and object, is a two-way interaction; human practice is the complete manifestation of this two-way interactive relationship.

对《提纲》中“实践”概念的理解，历来存在着两种错误倾向。第一种是把实践理解为单纯的主体性范畴，认为实践是可以脱离外部客观条件的单纯主体活动。这种活动只依赖于人自身的观念和意志，而不受外部自然和社会条件的制约。相反，另一种观点则是把实践理解为单纯的客观运动，历史成为无主体的过程。这种理解走向了另一个极端，从而忽视了主体对客体的能动作用。应当说，马克思的实践概念既非单纯的主体性活动，也非脱离主体的客观过程，而是一个主客体相互作用、辩证统一的范畴。一方面，不同于唯心主义的虚幻性特征，实践主体的对象性活动总是在具体的、特定的历史条件之下进行的，受到既有实践水平的制约，这一点体现了实践本身的受动性；另一方面，不同于旧唯物主义的直观性，实践是主体之于客体的能动关系，它具有改造客观对象和改变世界的力量。在马克思看来，环境的改变和人的活动或自我改变的一致，只能被看作并合理地理解为革命的实践。也就是说，人和环境、主体和客体之间的关系是双向互动的，人的实践就是这种双向互动关系的完整呈现。

The viewpoint of “practice” and the viewpoint that “the essence of man is the ensemble of the social relations” are further elaborated in *The German Ideology*, becoming the premise and foundation of historical materialism. Marx and Engels point out that the opposition between materialism and idealism in the conception of history is concentratedly manifested in whether one proceeds from real individuals or from abstract individuals. Proceeding from real individuals means proceeding from social-historical practice, from the material mode of production, which is the origin and basic form of this practice. In the *Manifesto of the Communist Party*, Marx and Engels elucidate the general laws of the emergence and development of human history, especially the capitalist mode of production, and arrive at the conclusion of the “two inevitables,”[1]1 The “two inevitables” refer to the Marxist conclusion that the capitalist mode of production will inevitably be superseded by communism, and that the proletariat will inevitably triumph over the bourgeoisie. thereby providing a comprehensive and powerful demonstration of scientific communism. As a concrete achievement of applying historical materialism to the critique of political economy, the research theme of *Capital* is the economic laws of motion of the capitalist mode of production. It should be noted that although economic laws of motion, like natural laws of motion, have their objective aspect, economic motion itself is constituted by people’s economic practical activities; the laws of economic motion exist within the totality of human activity under specific historical conditions. In writing *Capital* and criticizing the “eternal natural laws” of the capitalist mode of production, Marx aimed to provide theoretical guidance for the proletarian revolution on the basis of analyzing the historical essence and internal laws of capitalism.

“实践”的观点、“人的本质是一切社会关系的总和”的观点，在《德意志意识形态》中得到了进一步阐发，成为历史唯物主义的前提和基础。马克思和恩格斯指出，历史观上唯物主义同唯心主义的对立集中表现在是从现实的个人出发，还是从抽象的人出发。从现实的个人出发，就是从社会历史实践出发，从这一实践的始源和基础形式的物质生产方式出发。到了《共产党宣言》中，马克思和恩格斯阐明了人类历史特别是资本主义生产方式产生和发展的一般规律，得出了“两个必然”的结论，从而为科学共产主义作出了全面有力的论证。作为唯物史观运用到政治经济学批判的具体化成果，《资本论》的研究主题是资本主义生产方式的经济运动规律。需要注意的是，经济运动规律尽管同自然运动规律一样，有其客观性的一面，但经济运动本身是由人的经济实践活动构成的，经济运动规律就存在于特定历史条件下人的总体性活动之中。马克思写作《资本论》，批判资本主义生产方式的“永恒的自然规律”，就是要在剖析资本主义的历史本质和内在规律的基础上为无产阶级革命提供理论指导。

The Spirit of Historical Initiative: A Contemporary Interpretation of Marx’s View of Practice

历史主动精神：马克思实践观的当代阐释

On the one hand, grasping the laws of historical development is the premise and foundation for promoting the spirit of historical initiative. The cognitive paradigm of old materialism played a positive role in advancing natural scientific research; however, once they entered the realm of social history, they moved toward the idealist conception of history, even denying the existence of objective laws. If natural laws exist as external spontaneous processes prior to humans, then historical laws cannot be separated from human activity; it is precisely human practical activity that constitutes objective historical laws. The premise for promoting the spirit of historical initiative is to scientifically grasp objective historical laws. If one discards historical laws and objective contradictions and only emphasizes subjectivity, one will fall into a voluntarist human teleology, be punished by objective laws, and cause losses to various undertakings.

一方面，把握历史发展规律是发扬历史主动精神的前提和基础。旧唯物主义的认知范式在推进自然科学研究方面起到了积极的作用，然而一旦涉及社会历史领域，它们就走向了唯心史观，甚至是否认客观规律的存在。如果说自然规律是作为先于人存在的外部自发过程，那么历史规律则离不开人的活动，恰恰是人类的实践活动构成了客观的历史规律。发扬历史主动精神的前提是科学把握客观历史规律，如果抛开历史规律和客观矛盾，只强调主体性，就会陷入唯意志主义的人学目的论，受到客观规律的惩罚，使各项事业遭受损失。

On the other hand, carrying forward the spirit of historical initiative is the historical mission of the proletariat to change the world. In contrast to voluntarism, mechanical determinism fails to see the active relationship of the subject toward the object, merely emphasizing objective conditions, and thus slides into the quagmire of fatalism. The significance of Marx’s philosophical revolution lies in his telling us that practice is the dialectical unity of subject and object; only by acting actively on the basis of grasping the thread of historical evolution and conforming to the direction of the times, and by organically combining the spirit of historical initiative with respect for objective laws, can we achieve the dialectical unity of development goals and historical necessity. The presentation of historical laws is not a spontaneous result without a subject; it is deeply rooted in human practical activity and requires the consciousness and initiative of the historical subject. For Marx, the call to “change the world” in the *Theses on Feuerbach* was concretized in the *Communist Manifesto* into the basic program of the communist movement and the struggle tactics of the proletariat. The combination of Marxism with the workers’ movement truly formed a tremendous force for interpreting and changing the world, opening a new epoch in human history.

另一方面，发扬历史主动精神是无产阶级改变世界的历史使命。与唯意志主义相反，机械决定论看不到主体对客体的能动关系，只一味地强调客观条件，从而滑入了宿命论的泥潭。马克思哲学革命的意义在于，他告诉我们实践是主客体的辩证统一运动，只有在把握历史演进脉络与顺应时代潮流走向的基础上积极作为，将历史主动精神与尊重客观规律有机结合，才能达成发展目标与历史必然性的辩证统一。历史规律的呈现不是无主体的自发结果，它深深根植于人类的实践活动，并需要历史主体的自觉与主动。在马克思那里，《提纲》中“改变世界”的号角到了《共产党宣言》中具体化为共产主义运动的基本纲领和无产阶级的斗争策略，马克思主义与工人运动的结合真正形成了解释世界和改变世界的巨大力量，开辟了人类历史的崭新时代。

(This article is a phased result of the National Social Science Fund project “The Latest Developments and Their Evaluation in the Study of *Capital* in Contemporary French Academia” (23CZX009).)

（本文系国家社科基金项目“当代法国学界《资本论》研究的最新进展及其评价研究”（23CZX009）阶段性成果）

(The author is an associate professor at the School of Political Science and Public Administration, Soochow University.)

（作者系苏州大学政治与公共管理学院副教授）

Online editor: Tongxin

网络编辑：同心