The Ontological Construction of Sensation and Its Contemporary Effects: A New Reading of the *Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844*

Marx’s elaboration of sensation in the *Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844* (hereinafter referred to as the *Manuscripts*) is a theoretical viewpoint formed by rebelling against the rationalism represented by Hegel, overcoming the mechanistic and biological understanding of sensation in mechanical materialism, and accepting and transcending Feuerbach’s theory of sensation. In Marx’s view, sensation is perhaps the most irrefutable proof of a living, sensuous being; it not only refers to the five senses, spiritual feelings, and practical feelings, but also, through the evolution of the practical structure of sensation, reflects the history of human existence and development. The theory of sensation is a unique reflection of the young Marx; however, it is often understood and analyzed only within the framework of Feuerbach’s anthropological materialism, more specifically within Feuerbach’s theory of sensation or its mixture with Hegelian dialectics. Thus, Marx’s elaboration of sensation is placed a priori within the problematic of anthropology, obscured by the horizon of metaphysics, dismissed as an immature theoretical product, and consequently severely neglected. It is noteworthy that textual details such as “sensation in its practice directly becomes a theoretician” indicate that the thought on sensation in the *Manuscripts* is first and foremost ontological in nature. Although Marx accepted Feuerbach’s principle of sensuous objectness, he did not take it as the intellectual foundation of sensation; rather, he constructed the practical structure of sensation on the ground of “sensuous activity,” thereby opening up the ontological realm of sensation in the sense of breaking through the basic architecture of metaphysics. It is precisely through historical “generative activity” that sensation can re-establish the fundamental connections among humans, nature, and society that have been forgotten by metaphysics, reveal the world-historical significance of humans as sensuous beings, and use the liberation of sensation to illuminate the historical process of human emancipation. An in-depth analysis of Marx’s theory of sensation not only helps to understand the young Marx’s reflections on actual sensuous life and to grasp the theory of sensuousness that continues in works such as *The German Ideology* and *Capital*, but also aids in a more complete understanding of Marx’s thought’s transcendence of metaphysics.

马克思在《1844年经济学哲学手稿》（以下简称《手稿》）中对感觉的阐发，是反叛以黑格尔为代表的理性主义，克服机械唯物主义对感觉的机械论与生物学理解，接受并超越费尔巴哈感觉论所形成的理论观点。在马克思看来，感觉或许是对有生命的感性存在物最无可辩驳的证明，它不仅指涉五官感觉、精神感觉与实践感觉，还在感觉实践结构的演变中映射着人的生存发展的历史。感觉论是青年马克思的独特思考，然而它往往只是在费尔巴哈的人本学唯物主义，更具体而言是在费尔巴哈的感觉论或其与黑格尔辩证法混合物的意义上，被加以理解和分析。由此，马克思对感觉的阐释被先行地置于人本学问题域中，在形而上学视野的遮蔽下被归为不成熟的理论产物，进而被严重地忽视了。值得注意的是，“感觉在自己的实践中直接成为理论家”等文本细节表明，《手稿》的感觉思想首先是存在论性质的。虽然马克思接受了费尔巴哈的感性对象性原则，但并未将其作为感觉的思想奠基，而是在“感性活动”的地基上构筑了感觉之实践结构，进而在击穿形而上学基本建制的意义上打开了感觉的存在论之境。正是通过历史性的“生成活动”，感觉才得以重新确立被形而上学遗忘的人、自然与社会之间的基本关联，展露人作为感性存在的世界历史意蕴，并以感觉解放透视人类解放的历史进程。深入探析马克思的感觉论，不仅有助于理解青年马克思对现实感性生命的思考，读懂延续在《德意志意识形态》《资本论》等著作中的感性理论，也能帮助我们较为完整地把握马克思思想对形而上学的超越。

I. From Hegel’s Rationalism to Feuerbach’s Theory of Sensation

一、从黑格尔的理性主义到费尔巴哈的感觉论

Since Plato, and even earlier since the poetic wisdom of the Homeric age, the rational spirit externalized in conceptual form, through religious turns and variations and the mediation of Renaissance humanism, has advanced and been exalted as the standard and authority for judging everything, even reaching the extreme of absolute rationalism. The supersensuous world constructed by the rational spirit is regarded as the world in the true sense; in comparison, not only are human sensations, passions, and desires considered low-level pursuits of the rational spirit, but the entire sensuous world is dismissed as a mundane, changeable, and superficial world. It is in this sense that Marcuse denounces the “tyranny of reason,” emphasizing that “the primary goal of humans is the complete satisfaction of all needs, and civilization takes the complete abandonment of this goal as its starting point.” [1]1 Herbert Marcuse, *Eros and Civilization*.

自柏拉图以降，甚至早自荷马时代的诗性智慧以降，外化为概念形态的理性精神，经由宗教化的转向与变体以及文艺复兴人文主义的中介，一路奋进和高扬为判断一切的标准和权威，甚至走向了绝对理性主义的极端。理性精神所构筑的超感性世界被视为真正意义上的世界，与之相较，不仅人的感觉、激情与欲望被视为理性精神的低层次追求，而且整个感性世界都被当作尘世的、易变的、表面的世界。正是在此意义上，马尔库塞痛斥“理性暴政”，强调“人的首要目标是各种需要的完全满足，而文明则是以彻底抛弃这个目标为出发点的”。

Hegel, as “the greatest philosopher produced by Germany since Leibniz,” comprehensively absorbed the rationalist intellectual tradition of previous philosophy, created a rigorous and vast metaphysical system centered on absolute spirit, and pushed the rational spirit to its extreme. In the *Phenomenology of Spirit*, which is the entire birthplace and secret of Hegel’s philosophy, sense-certainty is placed as the starting point of the entire phenomenology, which first of all conceals Hegel’s contempt for the richness of the entire sensuous world and his dissolution of sensuousness itself. In Hegel’s view, sense-certainty is “a kind of immediate knowledge, a knowledge of the immediate or of what is,” which presents in consciousness a complete whole of sensuous objects, not yet subjected to the comprehension and abstraction of the concept. “But in fact, this certainty reveals itself to be the most abstract and poorest truth.” Specifically, sense-certainty can only know that “it is,” and since being itself has not yet acquired any content determination, it can only degenerate into the most abstract, poorest, and most empty category. Hegel emphasizes that sense-certainty has two kinds of “this,” namely, “this” I and “this” object. At the stage of sense-certainty, “this” I has not yet participated in the mutual relationship with the object, and thus can only be limited to the “pure I” without developing itself, thereby remaining in a simple immediacy. However, the immediacy of sense-certainty inherently contains the important moment of moving through mediation and negation toward mediacy; “neither I nor the object is merely immediately present in sense-certainty, but both have at the same time undergone a mediation,” and “this” I and “this” object need to obtain their own certainty through an other.

黑格尔作为“德国自莱布尼茨以来所产生的最伟大的哲学家”，全面吸纳了以往哲学的理性主义思想传统，创造了以绝对精神为核心的严谨而庞大的形而上学体系，将理性精神推向极端。在作为黑格尔哲学的全部诞生地和秘密的《精神现象学》中，感性确定性被置为整个现象学的出发点，首先隐藏着黑格尔对整个感性世界丰富性的轻视与对感性本身的消解。在黑格尔看来，感性确定性是“一种直接的知识，一种对于直接事物或存在着的知识”，它在意识中直接呈现着关于感性对象的完备整体，尚未经过概念的统摄和抽象。“但在事实上，这种确定性暴露出自己是一种最抽象、最贫乏的真理”。具体而言，感性确定性仅仅能够知道“它存在”，而存在本身由于尚未具备任何内容规定而只能沦为最抽象、最贫乏与最虚无的范畴。黑格尔强调，感性确定性存在两种“这一个”，即“这一个”我与“这一个”对象。在感性确定性阶段，“这一个”我尚未参与到与对象的相互关系之中，因而只能限于“纯粹的我”而无法发展自己，进而滞留于一种单纯的直接性。然而，感性确定性的直接性内在蕴含着经由中介与否定而走向间接性的重要环节，“无论我还是对象都不是仅仅直接地出现在感性确定性之内，而是同时都经历了一个中介活动”，“这一个”我和“这一个”对象需要通过他者来获得自身的确定性。

On this basis, Hegel further examines the object and the self in sense-certainty from the dual forms of time and space, i.e., “now” and “here,” and gradually sublates the actual “this.” As for the object of sense-certainty, both “now” and “here” contain the opposition and split between meaning and universality. For example, when we ask “What is now?”, the answer “Now is night” seems to serve as truth, but the moment it is uttered, it portends the fate of being outdated; language cannot express and directly negates the meaning of sensation. In this sense, both “now” and “here” discard what Aristotle calls “matter,” are “preserved as something generally negative” and develop into “universality,” thereby transcending the essence of sense-certainty. Correspondingly, this same dialectic continues and occurs in “this” I, so the truth of sense-certainty lies neither in the object nor in the I. At this point, Hegel successively sublates the truth of the object and the self, and finally posits the whole of sense-certainty as truth. It can be clearly seen that Hegel, through sacred language and metaphysical negative dialectics, gradually elevates the immediate sensuous to universal sensuous universality, thereby completing the sublation of sense-certainty, and on this basis establishes a higher form of consciousness, namely “perception.” In Hegel’s rational system, individual, particular, and sensuous things are killed and suffocated within universality. However, the many sensuous things that can only be meant, not spoken, do not lose their true meaning because they cannot be incorporated into the rational track of the logos; the richness of the sensuous still provides space for us to reflect on and break free from Hegel’s seamless rational system.

在此基础上，黑格尔进一步从时间与空间即“这时”与“这里”的双重形式出发，考察了感性确定性中的对象与自我，并逐步扬弃了实际的“这一个”。就感性确定性的对象而言，无论是“这时”还是“这里”都存在着意谓和共相的对立与分裂。例如，当我们提问“现在是什么？”时，“现在是晚上”的答案看似充当了真理，然而它在被说出的那一刻起就预示着陈旧过时的命运，语言无法言说并且直接否定了感觉的意谓。在此意义上，“这时”与“这里”都抛弃了亚里士多德所言的“质料”，作为“一般否定之物而保持下来”并发展为“共相”，进而超越了感性确定性的本质。与之相应，这种辩证法同样延续和发生在“这一个”我身上，因此，感性确定性的真理性既不在对象之中，也不在我之中。至此，黑格尔先后扬弃了对象和自我的真理性，最后将感性确定性的整体设定为真理。可以显见，黑格尔就这样通过神圣的语言与形而上学的否定辩证法，逐步将直接确定性的感性上升为普遍性的感性共相，从而完成对感性确定性的扬弃，并在此基础上建立了更高层次的意识形式即“知觉”。在黑格尔的理性体系中，个别、特殊与感性的事物在普遍性中被扼杀与窒息。然而，只可意谓、无法言说的诸多感性并不因为无法纳入逻各斯的理性轨道而丧失真正的意义，感性的丰富性仍然为我们反思和脱离黑格尔的严丝合缝的理性体系提供了空间。

In the twenty-eighth principle of the *Principles of the Philosophy of the Future*, Feuerbach launches a specific critique of Hegel’s theory of sense-certainty. Feuerbach keenly sees the contradiction between “this” and “the universal” in the *Phenomenology of Spirit*, emphasizes the fragility of the logically equivalent “this” in actual common sense, and mockingly points out that “if we apply the logical ‘this’ to natural right, then I would directly arrive at a society of ‘common property and common wives’.” [2]2 Ludwig Feuerbach, *Principles of the Philosophy of the Future*, §28. The phrase “common property and common wives” is a polemical reference to the charge of communism, which Feuerbach uses to satirize the abstract universality of Hegelian logic. Thus, Feuerbach advocates for a thorough demarcation between “being in thought” and “being in actuality,” and views the problem of existence, which concerns our life and death, from a “practical standpoint.” In other words, Feuerbach directly negates taking the rational being of speculative philosophy or the God-entity of religious theology as the beginning of philosophy, pointing out that the proof of being in both is merely a deduction at the level of concept and logic, and that the premise of such philosophy is fundamentally “thought without actuality.” Therefore, Feuerbach pulls the sensuous being discarded and rejected by Hegel back into his own philosophy, and takes the sensuousness directed at human bodily existence (sensation, emotion, will, and the body itself) as the true starting point of the new philosophy.

在《未来哲学原理》第二十八条中，费尔巴哈对黑格尔的感性确定性理论展开了专门批判。费尔巴哈敏锐地看到《精神现象学》中“这个”与“一般”之间的矛盾，强调逻辑上等值的“这个”在现实常识中的脆弱性，并嘲讽地指出“如果我们将逻辑上的‘这个’，应用到自然权利中，那么我就直接走到‘共产共妻’的社会了”。由此，费尔巴哈主张彻底划清“思想中的存在”与“实际上的存在”之间的界限，从“实践的立场”看待关涉我们生死的存在问题。换言之，费尔巴哈直接否定了将思辨哲学的理性存在或宗教神学的上帝实体作为哲学开端，指出二者对存在的证明仅仅是概念与逻辑层面的推演，这种哲学的前提在根本上是“没有实在性的思想”。因此，费尔巴哈将被黑格尔抛弃与剔除的感性存在重新拉回了自己的哲学，并将指向人之肉体存在（感觉、情感、意志与肉体本身）的感性，作为新哲学的真正出发点。

The difference between Hegel and Feuerbach in their positioning of the perceptual further reveals the divergence of their philosophical horizons. Specifically, Hegel mainly studies the problem of the perceptual from the perspective of epistemology in the sense of dialectics, pointing out that perceptual certainty can only provide tautological, impoverished knowledge, and that only through the self-negating movement of the concept can it be sublated into a truthful universal and gradually reach absolute knowledge. In contrast, Feuerbach’s theory of sensation emphasizes that the perceptual is directly actual humanity and nature; what people’s senses perceive—humanity and nature—is in essence the origin and foundation of the world. “Only through feeling does an object exist in the true sense—not through thinking itself.” [3]3 Ludwig Feuerbach, *Principles of the Philosophy of the Future*, §32. Feuerbach (1804–1872) was a German materialist philosopher whose critique of Hegelian idealism and emphasis on sensuous, finite being strongly influenced the young Marx. In fact, Feuerbach was not the first thinker to expound philosophical principles on the basis of sensation. Modern empiricist materialism likewise acknowledged that sensation contains a direct relation between humanity and the world, and it demonstrated materialist principles starting from sensation. However, empiricist materialists mainly interpreted sensation in the epistemological sense, rather than focusing on the connection between sensation itself and the world. For example, in his critique of “innate ideas,” Locke emphasized that all knowledge and ideas are acquired a posteriori from experience, and that the human sense organs provide important external experience for understanding the material world. Nevertheless, viewing sensation from an epistemological perspective cannot firmly establish the problem of sensation. As can be seen from Hume’s discussion of sensation, he held that sensation is caused by the external world of objects, yet we cannot verify the knowability of sensation from a philosophical dimension, because insight into the nature of objects already exceeds the scope of human cognition. The defects exposed by empiricism are precisely Feuerbach’s merit, namely, that Feuerbach shifted the focus of interpretation from the cognitive problem of sensation back to sensation itself, and treated epistemology as a proof of the ontology of sensation. In Feuerbach’s view, sensation means immediacy, certainty, actuality, and contains the ultimate truth of things: “In feeling, especially in everyday feeling, the deepest truths are hidden. Therefore love is the true ontological proof that an object exists outside our head—apart from love, apart from feeling in general, there is no other proof of existence.” [4]4 Feuerbach, *Principles of the Philosophy of the Future*, §33.

黑格尔与费尔巴哈在感性定位上的差异，进一步显现了二者哲学视域的分野。具体而言，黑格尔主要从辩证法意义上的认识论来研究感性问题，指出感性确定性只能提供同义反复的贫乏知识，只有经由自我否定的概念运动，才能扬弃为真理性的共相并一步步通达绝对知识。与之相较，费尔巴哈的感觉论强调，感性直接就是现实的人与自然，人们的感官所感受到的人和自然在本质上是世界的本原与基础，“只有通过感觉，一个对象才能在真实的意义之下存在——并不是通过思维本身”。实际上，费尔巴哈并不是首个在感觉基础上阐释哲学原理的思想家。近代的经验论唯物主义同样承认了感觉之中蕴含着人与世界的直接关系，并从感觉之始论证了唯物主义原理。然而，经验论唯物主义者主要在认识论的意义上阐释感觉，而非着重阐述感觉本身与世界的关联。例如，洛克在批判“天赋观念”的过程中，强调一切知识和观念都是后天从经验中获得的，而人的感觉器官为认识物质世界提供了重要的外部经验。不过，从认识论的角度看待感觉并不能牢固地树立感觉问题。从休谟对感觉的讨论中可以看到，他认为感觉是由外在的物体世界引起的，而我们无法从哲学的维度上证实感觉的可知性，因为洞察物体的本性已经超出了人的认知范围。经验论所暴露的缺陷正是费尔巴哈的功绩之处，即费尔巴哈将阐释重心从感觉的认知问题拉回感觉本身，并将认识论作为感觉本体的证明。在费尔巴哈看来，感觉意味着直接性、确定性、现实性，并且蕴含着事物的终极真理，“在感觉里面，尤其是在日常的感觉里面，隐藏了最高深的真理。因此爱就是有一个对象在我们头脑之外存在的，真正的本体论证明——除了爱，除了一般感觉之外，再没有别的对存在的证明了”。

The same theoretical interest links Marx with Feuerbach. In the *Manuscripts*, Marx not only attaches particular importance to sensation but also regards Feuerbach’s theory of sensation as an important theoretical support for the problem of sensation and the perceptual. In Marx’s relevant expositions on sensation, we can not only clearly glimpse the theoretical traces left by Feuerbach but also discover important clues leading to an ontology of sensation.

相同的理论旨趣将马克思与费尔巴哈联系在一起，马克思在《手稿》中不仅格外重视感觉，还将费尔巴哈的感觉论视为感觉与感性问题的重要理论支撑。在马克思对感觉的相关阐释中，我们不仅可以明显瞥见费尔巴哈留下的理论痕迹，而且能够发现通向感觉存在论的重要线索。

II. “The Actual Realization of the Human”: The Objective Relation of Sensation

二、“人的现实的实现”：感觉的对象性关系

In the *Manuscripts*, Marx points out: “All human relations to the world—seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching, thinking, intuiting, feeling, willing, activity, love… these organs in their relation to the object are the actual realization of the human.” [5]5 Karl Marx, *Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844*, “Private Property and Communism.” It can be clearly seen that any kind of sensation, including the five senses, spiritual sensation, and practical sensation, is established on the relation of the sense organs to the object; the appropriation of the object by the sense organs is an important source of human actuality.

在《手稿》中，马克思指出，“人对世界的任何一种人的关系——视觉、听觉、嗅觉、味觉、触觉、思维、直观、情感、愿望、活动、爱……这些器官同对象的关系，是人的现实的实现”。可以显见，包括五官感觉、精神感觉、实践感觉在内的任何一种感觉，都建立在感官同对象的关系之上，感官对对象的占有是人现实性的重要来源。

It must be noted that Feuerbach’s theory of sensation is founded on the principle of perceptual objectivity, which is an important theoretical support for the theory of sensation in the *Manuscripts*. In order to overturn the supersensible world constructed by speculative philosophy starting from infinite being, Feuerbach advocated constructing an entirely new philosophy on the basis of finite perceptual being. The perceptual in its essence calls for and demands objective being; therefore, perceptual beings are themselves objective beings. In Feuerbach’s view, the internal relation in which the perceptual and objectivity mutually determine each other is expressed as follows: on the one hand, as a perceptual being, the human is a finite, passive being who needs to achieve self-confirmation in the pursuit and appropriation of objects in order to express his life; on the other hand, an objective being is actual only as an object of sensation and perceptual intuition: “The being that is the object of being—only this being deserves to be called being—is perceptual being, intuitive being, felt being, loving being.” [6]6 Feuerbach, *Principles of the Philosophy of the Future*, §32. For Feuerbach, the principle of perceptual objectivity marks genuine actuality, truth, and certainty; its profundity lies in revealing the primordial relation between subject and object that has not been covered over by metaphysics. The principle of perceptual objectivity runs through all perceptual determinations, including sensation. In fact, Feuerbach already sought to sublate the dichotomy between “sensation” and “the perceptual” in modern metaphysics, holding that the two are in essence “originally and primordially directly identical,” so that sensation is inherently and naturally linked with perceptual objectivity. Feuerbach points out that seeing, touching, hearing, and other sensations are gradually formed precisely in the perceptual objective relation between the sense organs and nature. Moreover, the objects of sensation include not only “external” things but also the human being himself: “The human becomes an object of his own knowledge only through sensation—he becomes his own object as an object of sensation.” [7]7 Feuerbach, *Principles of the Philosophy of the Future*, §41. In other words, the human sense organs can both perceive external nature and intuit themselves in forming sensations about the human being himself.

需要看到，费尔巴哈的感觉论奠基在感性对象性原则之上，这是《手稿》感觉论的重要理论支援。为了颠覆思辨哲学从无限性存在出发构筑的超感性世界，费尔巴哈主张以有限性的感性为始基建构整个新哲学。感性在其本质中呼唤着、要求着对象性存在，因此感性存在物本身就是对象性存在物。在费尔巴哈看来，感性和对象性相互规定的内在关系表现为：一方面，人作为感性存在是一种有限性的、受动性的存在，需要在追求和占有对象中达到自我确证以表现自己的生命；另一方面，对象性存在物只有作为感觉、感性直观的对象才是现实的存在，“作为存在的对象的那个存在——只有这个存在才配称为存在——就是感性的存在，直观的存在，感觉的存在，爱的存在”。在费尔巴哈那里，感性对象性原则标志着真正的现实性、真理性和确定性，其深刻之处就在于揭示了主体与对象之间未被形而上学掩盖的原初关系。感性对象性原则贯穿于包括感觉在内的一切感性规定。实际上，费尔巴哈本就试图扬弃近代形而上学中“感觉”与“感性”的二分，认为二者在本质上是“初始地并且本源地直接同一的东西”，因此感觉内在而自然地与感性对象性联结在一起。费尔巴哈指出，视觉、触觉、听觉等感觉正是在感官与自然界的感性对象性关系中逐步形成的。此外，感觉的对象不仅包含“外在的”事物，还包括人本身，“人只是通过感觉而成为认识自己的对象——他是作为感觉对象而成为自己的对象”。换言之，人的感官既能够感知外在自然界，也能够在形成关于人本身的感觉中直观自身。

Marx’s theory of sensation accepts Feuerbach’s principle of perceptual objectivity, regarding the objective relation between the sense organs and nature, and between the sense organs and the human being, as the foundation of the existence of sensation. It is precisely because of his firm commitment to Feuerbach’s principle of perceptual objectivity that Marx devotes considerable space in the *Manuscripts* to expounding the objective relation of sensation. In Marx’s view, as a natural being, the human is a “natural, corporeal, perceptual, objective” passive being who needs to define and confirm his life essence through external objects. The objective relation between the human and actual nature, and between the human and actual human beings, is an important foundation for the existence of sensation: “On the one hand, in order to make human sensation human, and on the other hand, to create human sensation corresponding to the entire wealth of human essence and natural essence, the objectification of the human essence is necessary, both theoretically and practically.” [8]8 Marx, *Manuscripts of 1844*, “Private Property and Communism.” For Marx, the importance of the objective relation lies in the fact that only in the objective relation between the human and nature can sensation transcend the instinctual sensation of animals and become “human sensation” and “the humanity of sensation” that manifests the essential attributes of the human; only when the object of sensation becomes a human, social object can the human not lose himself in the object and become an actual, social being; only by taking nature and even the sensations of others as objects of sensation can the human develop and enjoy the richness of sensation. In the objective relation of sensation, the relation between the human and nature transcends the identity of old materialism; the eye, the ear, and other sense organs achieve genuine unity with external nature. The human both posits humanized nature in the process of the objectification of the sense organs, making nature “the human’s inorganic body,” and is posited by nature with the essential determination of sensation: “Human sensation, the humanity of sensation, comes into being only through the existence of its object, through humanized nature.” [9]9 Marx, *Manuscripts of 1844*, “Private Property and Communism.” At the same time, the social relation between human and human can also be achieved through the perceptual objective relation of sensation, that is, in the process of interacting with others, one appropriates the sensations of others through “social organs,” thereby realizing social interaction on the basis of the resonance of sensation.

马克思的感觉论接受了费尔巴哈的感性对象性原则，将感官与自然界、人之间的对象性关系视为感觉存在之基础。正是由于对费尔巴哈感性对象性原则的坚定承诺，马克思在《手稿》中花费了大量笔墨阐述感觉的对象性关系。在马克思看来，人作为一种自然存在物，是“自然的、肉体的、感性的、对象性”的受动性存在物，需要通过外在对象规定与确证自己的生命本质。人与现实的自然界、现实的人之间的对象性关系，是感觉存在的重要基础，“一方面为了使人的感觉成为人的，另一方面为了创造同人的本质和自然界的本质的全部丰富性相适应的人的感觉，无论从理论方面还是从实践方面来说，人的本质的对象化都是必要的”。对于马克思而言，对象性关系的重要性在于，只有在人与自然界之间的对象性关系中，感觉才能超越动物的本能式感觉，成为彰显人本质属性的“人的感觉”“感觉的人性”；只有当感觉对象成为属人的、社会的对象之时，人才不至于在对象中丧失自身，成为现实的、社会的存在物；只有将自然界甚至他人的感觉作为感觉的对象，人才能够发展与享受感觉的丰富性。在感觉的对象性关系中，人与自然界的关系超越了以往旧唯物主义的同一，眼睛、耳朵等感官与外在的自然界之间达到真正的统一，人既在感官对象化的过程中设定人化自然，使自然界成为“人的无机的身体”，也被自然设定感觉的本质规定，“人的感觉、感觉的人性，都是由于它的对象的存在，由于人化的自然界，才产生出来的”。同时，人与人的社会关系也能够通过感觉的感性对象性关系达成，即在同他人交往的过程中通过“社会的器官”来占有他人的感觉，以此在感觉共鸣的基础上实现社会性交往。

On the basis of the sensuous objective relation, Marx further identifies the particularity and sociality of sensation. In Marx’s view, the objective relation of sensation depends on the nature of the object and the nature of the human essential forces corresponding to it; this is an important dimension that determines the unique mode of appropriation of the object and the social attribute of the human essential forces. On the one hand, the nature of the object determines the unique way in which the human sense organs appropriate the object. Although the objective relation makes all objects a confirmation of the human essential forces, humans and objects are mutually determining, homogeneous and isomorphic; any object, because of its unique attributes, requires a special mode of objectification. Marx uses the example of the five senses to illustrate this vividly: the object of the eye is different from the object of the ear, so the eye and the ear, through their unique, actual modes of affirmation, form particular sensory experiences. In this sense, Marx emphasizes the influence of the particularity of the object on the objective relation: “The uniqueness of each essential force is precisely the unique essence of that essential force, and hence also the unique mode of its objectification, the unique mode of its objective, actual, living existence.” On the other hand, the social attribute of the human essential forces makes human sensation different from non-social, wild sensation. Marx stresses, “The human eye enjoys things differently from the crude, non-human eye, the human ear differently from the crude ear.” That is to say, even when facing the same natural object, sensation differs due to differences in the essential forces of the sense organs. What distinguishes the human sense organs from non-human ones is that the former can appropriate “the sensation of other people and spirit”; their shaping of sensory experience has an actual foundation formed by social relations. Here, a sensation distinct from rationalist metaphysics emerges in the *Manuscripts*. Kant regards the faculty of sensibility as “the capacity (receptivity) for receiving representations through the mode in which we are affected by objects,” i.e., the capacity for intuition, while sensory intuition merely prepares the synthesis of the manifold of sensibility by the categories to form knowledge; thus the faculty of sensibility essentially serves the faculty of forming knowledge. Unlike Kant, Marx explicitly points out that sensory experience is shaped by the human capacity for sensation, and that human sensation is precisely determined by the social attributes of human existence. This sensation is not a medium for ascending to the ultimate goal of reason; it is itself a kind of human “enjoyment.”

在感性对象性关系的基础上，马克思进一步指认了感觉的特殊性与社会性。在马克思看来，感觉的对象性关系取决于对象的性质以及与之相适应的人本质力量的性质，这是规定对象的独特占有方式、人本质力量的社会属性的重要维度。一方面，对象的性质决定着人的感官占有对象的独特方式。尽管对象性关系使得一切对象都成为人本质力量的确证，但人和对象是相互规定、同质同构的，任何对象都因其独特属性而要求特殊的对象化方式。马克思以五官感觉为例形象地指出，眼睛的对象不同于耳朵的对象，因此眼睛与耳朵通过独特的、现实的肯定方式，形成特殊的感觉经验。在此意义上，马克思强调了对象的特殊性对对象性关系的影响，“每一种本质力量的独特性，恰好就是这种本质力量的独特的本质，因而也是它的对象化的独特方式，是它的对象性的、现实的、活生生的存在的独特方式”。另一方面，人本质力量的社会属性使得人的感觉不同于非社会的野性感觉。马克思强调，“人的眼睛与野性的、非人的眼睛得到的享受不同，人的耳朵与野性的耳朵得到的享受不同”。也就是说，在面对同样的自然界对象时，感觉也因感官的本质力量差异而有所不同。人的感官超越非人感官的特殊之处在于，前者能够占有“别人的感觉和精神”，其对感性经验的形塑具有由社会关系形成的现实基础。在此，一种区别于理性主义形而上学的感觉在《手稿》中显现出来。康德将感性能力视为“通过我们被对象刺激的方式获得表象的能力”，亦即直观能力，而感性直观只是为范畴综合感性杂多并形成知识做准备，因此感性能力在本质上为形成知识的能力服务。与康德不同，马克思明确指出感性经验由人的感觉能力所塑造，而人的感觉恰恰是由人类生存的社会属性所决定。这种感觉并不是向理性的终极目标跃升的中介，其本身就是一种人的“享受”。

For Marx, sensation is the actual confirmation of the human essential forces; humans affirm themselves in the objective world not only through thought but through all their sensations. In Western rationalist doctrines, abstract thought is an important way for humans to know and affirm themselves. Hegel once pointed out, “‘Know thyself’ … means the cognition of the true essence of the human being, the cognition of the true being that is in and for itself—the cognition that essence itself is spirit.” In contrast, irrational factors such as sensibility and sensation are degraded by rationalism into animalistic manifestations, far from reaching the level of the human essence. Influenced by Feuerbach’s humanist materialism, Marx affirms the importance of sensation for the human being itself. However, this does not mean moving to the other extreme of irrationalism that emphasizes sensibility; rather, it advocates that both reason and sensibility are intrinsic determinations of the “total human being.” Reason highlights human reflectiveness and transcendence, but this does not mean that sensibility is a simple expression of animality. In the *Manuscripts*, Marx focuses on analyzing the “humanity of sensation,” pointing out that sensation likewise manifests the species-being of the human being, i.e., the fundamental attribute that makes humans human. The solution to the riddle of human existence is not only hidden in human abstract thought but also directly manifested in the human sensory dimension and is proven by actual sensory experience.

在马克思那里，感觉是对人本质力量的现实确证，人不仅仅通过思维，还通过全部的感觉在对象性世界中肯定自己。在西方唯理主义学说中，抽象思维是人认识与肯定自己的重要方式，黑格尔曾经指出，“‘认识你自己’……意味着对于人的真实本质的认识，对于自在且自为的真实存在的认识，——认识到本质本身就是精神”。与之相异，感性、感觉等非理性因素被理性主义贬低为动物性表现，远远无法抵达人的本质层面。受费尔巴哈人本学唯物主义的影响，马克思肯定了感觉之于人本身的重要性。然而，这并非走向非理性主义强调感性的另一个极端，而是主张理性与感性都是“总体的人”的内在规定。理性凸显人的反思性与超越性，但这并不意味着感性就是动物性的简单表达。马克思在《手稿》中着重分析了“感觉的人性”，指出感觉同样彰显人的类本质，即人之为人的根本属性。对人的存在之谜的解答不仅仅隐藏在人的抽象思维中，还直接显现在人的感性维度中，并且为现实的感觉经验所证明。

It can be said that Feuerbach, through sensation, seized a theoretical fulcrum completely different from the “cogito,” attempting to use it to pry open and overturn the entire rationalist metaphysics. This laid the sensuous foundation for Marx to launch an ontological revolution through human sensation and to break through the basic framework of modern metaphysics. However, Feuerbach’s philosophical revolution, which intended to rebel against rational speculation, ultimately met with an abortive fate. What is the fundamental error of his theory of sensation? The exploration of this question is also the answer to how Marx’s theory of sensation differs from and surpasses Feuerbach’s.

可以说，费尔巴哈通过感觉抓住了与“我思”完全不同的理论支点，试图以之撬动和颠覆整个理性主义形而上学，这为马克思借助人的感觉发动存在论革命、冲破现代形而上学的基本建制奠定了感性地基。然而，费尔巴哈本欲反叛理性思辨的哲学革命却最终遭遇夭折命运，其感觉论的根本失误何在？对这个问题的探寻，也是对马克思感觉论区别并超越费尔巴哈感觉论的回答。

III. Passivity and Passion: The Sensuous Activity of Sensation’s Appropriation of the Object

三、受动与激情：感觉占有对象的感性活动

The failure of Feuerbach’s theory of sensation fundamentally lies in the fact that “his error is not that he subordinates the sensuous appearance before his eyes to the sensuous fact confirmed by a more precise investigation of the sensuous fact, but that he would ultimately be helpless before the sensuous if he did not use the philosopher’s ‘eyes,’ that is, if he did not observe the sensuous through the philosopher’s ‘spectacles.’” In essence, Feuerbach still stood on the ground of metaphysics, simply treating sensation as a “ready-made thing,” ceasing to question how sensation exists, so that sensation ultimately remained at the “theoretical” level. Where Feuerbach’s theory of sensation stopped and hesitated, Marx took a further step forward, opening up the practical dimension of sensation from the perspective of human passivity (*Leiden*) and passion, allowing the sensuous objective principle of sensation to be penetrated by sensuous activity, thereby opening up an ontological realm that dismantles the basic framework of metaphysics.

费尔巴哈感觉论的失败，从根本上说其错误“不在于他使眼前的东西即感性外观从属于通过对感性事实作比较精确的研究而确认的感性事实，而在于他要是不用哲学家的‘眼睛’，就是说，要是不戴哲学家的‘眼镜’来观察感性，最后会对感性束手无策”。质言之，费尔巴哈仍然是在形而上学的地基上将感觉简单视为“现成之物”，停止了对感觉何以存在的发问，致使感觉最终滞留在“理论”意义上。在费尔巴哈感觉论止步徘徊之处，马克思进一步向前尝试，从人的受动（Leiden）与激情之维开启了感觉的实践向度，使感觉的感性对象性原则为感性活动所穿透，进而打开了瓦解形而上学基本建制的存在论之境。

Marx transformed Feuerbach’s concept of passivity, emphasizing that passivity is not only the limitation imposed by the external world on humans but also contains within itself an open, passionate activity. The term “passivity” originates from Feuerbach, who held that as a sensuous objective being, humans are inevitably subject to limitations from the object, i.e., the “non-I.” This constraint, resulting in “suffering,” is a necessary life experience for humans: “An object, an actual object, presents itself to us only when we encounter something that acts upon us, only when my self-activity—if I proceed from the standpoint of thought—is limited and hindered by the activity of another being.” Passivity is precisely another important principle that Feuerbach derived from the determination of sensuous objectivity. Although Marx in the *Manuscripts* adopts Feuerbach’s term “passivity,” the connotation it expresses clearly goes far beyond Feuerbach. In Marx’s view, as a natural being, “on the one hand, man is a natural being endowed with natural forces and vital powers, an active natural being; these forces exist in him as dispositions and capacities, as drives. On the other hand, as a natural, corporeal, sensuous, objective being, man is a suffering, conditioned and limited being, like animals and plants.” Here, Marx still affirms human passivity in the sense of being a sensuous objective being, i.e., the objects that humans need and desire are not naturally possessed by humans, causing humans to feel passivity due to unsatisfied sensuous needs. However, this does not mean that passivity is a state of resignation or a completely passive condition limited by the object. It is precisely from this state of human passivity that Marx extends a strong activity that pursues the infinite: “Man as an objective, sensuous being is a suffering being, and because he feels his suffering, he is a passionate being. Passion, enthusiasm, is the essential force of man striving for his object.” This passage clarifies the ontological substance that distinguishes and surpasses metaphysics: the essence of the activity of a passive being is revealed in passion. Passion is a unique essential force by which humans, on the basis of conscious passivity, appropriate the object. To put it concretely, although the object I need exists externally and independently of me, and imposes many determinations on me as an indispensable object, I still pursue and appropriate the object with intense passion. This passion, originating from passivity, is precisely the life-activity process in which humans appropriate the object and externalize their own active “dispositions and capacities” onto the object; it essentially manifests a strong activity.

马克思对费尔巴哈的受动概念进行了改造，强调受动不仅是外部世界对人的限制，其本身还蕴含着敞开的、激情的能动性。“受动”这个术语来源于费尔巴哈，他认为人作为感性对象性存在，定然会受到来自对象即“非我”的限制，这种制约性所导致的“痛苦”是人必然形成的生命经验，“一个对象，一个现实的对象，只有当我们遇到一种对我发生作用的东西时，只有当我的自我活动——如果我是从思维的立场出发的话——受到另一个东西的活动的限制，阻碍时，才呈现在我们面前”。受动性正是费尔巴哈从感性对象性规定中引申出的另一个重要原则。尽管马克思在《手稿》中沿用了费尔巴哈的受动性术语，但其所表达的内涵显然已远远超越费尔巴哈。在马克思看来，人作为自然存在物，“一方面具有自然力、生命力，是能动的自然存在物；这些力量作为天赋和才能、作为欲望存在于人身上；另一方面，人作为自然的、肉体的、感性的、对象性的存在物，同植物一样，是受动的、受制约和受限制的存在”。在此，马克思仍然是在感性对象性存在的意义上肯定人自身的受动性，即人所需要和欲求的对象并不天然地为人所占有，这致使人因感性需求无法满足而感到受动。然而，这并不意味着受动性就是逆来顺受，抑或完全受到对象限制的消极状态。马克思正是从人的受动状态中延伸出追求无限的强烈能动性，“人作为对象性的、感性的存在物，是一个受动的存在物，因为它感到自己是受动的，所以是一个有激情的存在物。激情、热情是人强烈追求自己的对象的本质力量”。这段话明晰了区别且超越形而上学的存在论实质，即受动存在物的活动本质在激情中得到开显。激情是人在自觉受动性的基础上占有对象物的一种独一无二的本质力量。具言之，尽管我所需要的对象外在独立于我，并且作为我所不可或缺的对象给我施加诸多规定，但我仍然以炽烈的激情来追求并占有对象。这种始于受动性的激情，正是人占有对象并将自己能动的“天赋和才能”外化在对象身上的生命活动过程，它在本质上彰显了强烈的能动性。

For a long time, people have been accustomed to understanding Marx’s concept of practice as the process by which human beings transform the objective world through subjective initiative, thereby excluding passivity from practice within the opposition between activity and passivity. In fact, the content of the above-mentioned *Manuscripts* precisely shows that passivity and activity are themselves a dialectical unity; passivity not only constitutes the fundamental premise of activity, but itself also contains a passionate activity. In reality, this passionate passivity is the objective activity of sensuous objective beings, i.e., sensuous activity. On this, Marx has already clearly stated: “The domination of the objective essence within me, the sensuous eruption of my essential activity, is passion, and thus passion here becomes the essential activity of my being.” [13]13 Marx, *Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844*, in *Marx-Engels Collected Works*, vol. 3 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1975), p. 336. Translation modified. Marx’s processing of Feuerbach’s concept of passivity is also an important reflection on and transformation of Feuerbach’s principle of sensuous objectivity; that is, Marx is dissatisfied with Feuerbach’s purely intuitive form in the relationship between human beings and objects. The nature of objective beings manifests itself as the interaction between beings, and this is first expressed through sensuous activity. The emergence of sensuous activity means that the subject-object unity revealed by sensuous objectivity is subsumed under the principle of “activity” as a real historical movement. Sensuous activity is distinct both from Feuerbach’s mirror-like intuition and from the “pure activity” of Hegel’s dialectical-idealist conception; it is the real activity through which the sensuous subject objectifies its essential powers, and is the key to opening up a new ontological horizon.

一直以来，人们习惯于将马克思的实践概念理解为人以主观能动性改造客观世界的过程，在能动与受动的对立中将受动排除在实践之外。实际上，上述的《手稿》内容恰恰表明，受动与能动本身就是辩证统一的关系，受动不仅构成能动的根本前提，其本身还蕴含着富有激情的能动性。实际上，这种受动的激情就是感性对象性存在物的对象性活动，即感性活动。对此，马克思已明确表示，“对象性的本质在我身上的统治，我的本质活动的感性爆发，是激情，从而激情在这里就成了我的本质的活动”。马克思对费尔巴哈受动概念的加工，也是对费尔巴哈感性对象性原则的重要反思与改造，即是说，马克思不满于费尔巴哈在人与对象关系上的纯粹直观形式，对象性存在物的性质表现为存在物之间的相互作用，而这首先通过感性活动表现出来。感性活动的出场使得感性对象性所揭示的主客一体关联被统摄于作为现实的历史运动的“活动”原则。感性活动既区别于费尔巴哈镜像式的直观，也扬弃了黑格尔辩证法观念式的“纯粹的活动”，它是感性主体对象化本质力量的现实活动，是开启全新存在论之境的关键。

Sensuous activity’s penetration of the principle of sensuous objectivity places sensation realistically on the foundation of sensuous activity. In the *Manuscripts*, when explaining the formation of sensation, Marx repeatedly mentions the senses’ “appropriation of the object” and “appropriation of the essence,” for example: “All his individual organs … are, through their objective relation, i.e., through their relation to the object, an appropriation of the object, an appropriation of human reality”; “the feelings and spirit of others are also appropriated by myself,” etc. Returning to the second edition of the *Marx-Engels-Gesamtausgabe* (MEGA²), we see that Marx has here clearly distinguished the conceptual differences among *Aneignung* (appropriation), *besitzen* (to possess), and *Haben* (to have), and emphasizes that genuine sensation is the real appropriation (*Aneignung*) of the object, not the possession (*besitzen*) and having (*Haben*) under the conditions of private property. From the context of the use of *Aneignung*, in a broad sense it expresses the objective activity of real human beings “creating or positing objects,” thereby forming an objective relation with objects that I desire but that stubbornly resist me. Only through active sensuous activity in reality can appropriation be achieved; it is completely different from “that appropriation which takes place in consciousness, in pure thought, i.e., in abstraction.” Therefore, the appropriation of sensation actually contains the real logic by which the senses, through sensuous activity, posit essential powers as objects, thereby expressing their own life and forming objective relations. On this, Marx in the *Manuscripts* uses the physiological sensation of “hunger” as an example: “Hunger is a recognized need of my body for an object existing outside my body, indispensable to my body’s replenishment and to the expression of my essence.” A real, objective human being needs natural objects outside himself to satisfy physiological needs; the sensation of hunger impels the human being to appropriate objects outside himself as his own through sensuous activities such as eating and drinking. In this process, nature as food is an object indispensable to the human being, confirming his life-power, while the human being himself also awakens the life of nature, forming the human form of nature. In Marx’s view, sensuous needs such as sensation may not merely be products based on sensuous activity; they directly imply sensuous activity itself. The existence of sensation is precisely the practical process of appropriating nature and objects through sensuous activity.

感性活动对感性对象性原则的洞穿，使得感觉被现实地置于感性活动的地基之上。马克思在《手稿》中阐释感觉的形成时，多次提到感官对“对象的占有”“本质的占有”，例如，“他的个体的一切器官……是通过自己的对象性关系，即通过自己同对象的关系而对对象的占有，对人的现实的占有”“别人的感觉和精神也为我自己所占有”等。回到《马克思恩格斯全集》历史考证版第2版即MEGA2，可知马克思在此已经明确区分了占有（Aneignung）、占有（besitzen）与拥有（Haben）的概念差异，并且强调真正的感觉是对对象的现实占有（Aneignung），而非私有制条件下的占有（besitzen）和拥有（Haben）。从占有（Aneignung）的使用语境上看，它在广义上所表达的就是现实的人“创造或设定对象”的对象性活动，以此与我所欲望但却对我顽强抵抗的对象形成对象性关系。唯有在现实中经由能动的感性活动才能实现占有，其完全不同于“那种在意识中、在纯思维中即在抽象中实现的占有”。因此，感觉的占有实际上蕴含着感官通过感性活动把本质力量设定为对象，以此表现自己的生命，并形成对象性关系的现实逻辑。对此，马克思在《手稿》中通过“饥饿”的生理感觉展开例证，“饥饿是我的身体对某一对象的公认的需要，这个对象存在于我的身体之外，是使我的身体得以充实并使本质得以表现所不可缺少的”。现实的、对象性的人需要自身之外的自然界对象来满足生理需要，饥饿的感觉促使人通过吃喝等感性活动，将我之外的对象占为己有。在此过程中，作为食物的自然界是人不可或缺的、确证人生命力量的对象，而人本身也是对自然界生命的唤醒，形成了自然界的属人形式。在马克思看来，感觉等感性需要或许不仅仅是建基于感性活动的产物，它直接意味着感性活动本身，感觉的存在就是在感性活动中占有自然界、占有对象的实践过程。

It is in this sense that Marx’s interpretation of sensation is not limited to the general sensations formed by the five senses and the body, but profoundly raises the important concept of “practical sensation,” whose emergence already indicates the practical structure inherent in sensation. Through practical sensuous activity, the various oppositions inherent in modern metaphysics between sensation and reason, etc., are dissolved one by one: “Subjectivism and objectivism, spiritualism and materialism, activity and passivity, lose their antithetical character, and hence their existence as such antitheses, only in the social condition.” [14]14 Ibid., p. 306. Marx’s sensuous activity revolutionizes the existing sensuous world: “The ontological orientation of ‘sensuous activity’ or ‘practice’ lies first of all in penetrating the immanence of consciousness, the basic structure of modern metaphysics.” [15]15 Wu Xiaoming, “On the Ontological Orientation of ‘Sensuous Activity’,” *Philosophical Research*, no. 6 (1996), p. 15. The fundamental structure of beings in modern philosophy undergoes a radical change in practice. At the same time, on the basis of analyzing the practical structure of sensation, Marx gradually extends to the generativity and historicity of sensation, indicating that the entire sensuous world, including sensation, is essentially a product of world history. Marx further deepens this thought in *The German Ideology*: “The sensuous world around him is not a thing given directly from all eternity, remaining ever the same, but the product of industry and of the state of society; indeed, it is a historical product, the result of the activity of a whole succession of generations.” [16]16 Marx and Engels, *The German Ideology*, in *Marx-Engels Collected Works*, vol. 5 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1976), p. 39. Thus, the *Manuscripts*’ elucidation of the practical foundation of sensation may, to a certain extent, constitute the theoretical starting point of Marx’s intellectual transformation; it is precisely on the basis of a real investigation of the historical evolution of sensuous existence that Marx created historical materialism.

正是在此意义上，马克思对感觉的阐释并不局限于五官与身体所形成的一般感觉，而是深刻地提出了“实践感觉”这一重要概念，它的出场已然指明感觉内在的实践结构。通过实践着的感觉活动，感觉与理性等现代形而上学固有的种种对立被逐一消解，“主观主义和客观主义，唯灵主义和唯物主义，活动和受动，只是在社会状态中才失去它们彼此间的对立，从而失去它们作为这样的对立面的存在”。马克思的感性活动使得现存的感性世界革命化，“‘感性的活动’或‘实践’的存在论定向首先就在于洞穿意识的内在性这个现代形而上学的基本建制”，近代哲学存在者的基本结构在实践中发生根本改变。同时，在对感觉的实践结构展开分析的基础上，马克思逐步引申出感觉的生成性与历史性，指明包括感觉在内的整个感性世界本质上是世界历史的产物。马克思在《德意志意识形态》中进一步深化了这一思想，“他周围的感性世界决不是某种开天辟地以来就直接存在的、始终如一的东西，而是工业和社会状况的产物，是历史的产物，是世世代代活动的结果”。由此，《手稿》对感觉实践基础的阐发或许在一定程度上构成了马克思思想转变的理论基点，马克思正是基于对感性存在之历史演变的现实考察而创建历史唯物主义的。

The sensuous world in which sensation is situated is the basic reality that metaphysics cannot suspend, and the ontological mechanism of sensation is precisely the exit that breaks through the closed system of metaphysics. Marx’s revelation of the co-position and co-structure of sensation’s existence and practical structure shows that human beings, as sensuous beings, form historical connections with themselves, nature, and society through their own five senses, spiritual sensations, and practical sensations in the self-generating process of sensuous activity, and confirm their essential powers and reveal the value of existence through sensuous objects.

感觉所处的感性世界是形而上学无法悬置的基本现实，而感觉的存在论机制正是冲破形而上学封闭体系的出口。马克思对感觉存在与实践结构同置同构的揭示，表明人作为感性存在正是通过自身的五官感觉、精神感觉、实践感觉，在感性活动的自我生成过程中形成自身与自然、社会的历史联系，并通过感觉对象确证本质力量，解蔽存在价值。

IV. “Industry” and “Human Psychology”: The Contemporary Effects of Sensation as Sensuous Activity

四、“工业”与“人的心理学”：感觉之感性活动的当代效应

To emphasize the historicity of sensation—i.e., the historical process by which sensation is continuously generated through sensuous activity—Marx in the *Manuscripts* ingeniously metaphorizes “the history of industry” as “human psychology”: “The history of industry and the established objective existence of industry are the open book of the essential powers of the human being, the psychology of the human being sensuously presented before us.” [17]17 Marx, *Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844*, p. 302. The “industry” referred to here is not industry in the ordinary sense; “industry is the real historical relation of nature, and hence of natural science, to the human being,” [18]18 Ibid., p. 303. so what it actually signifies is human sensuous activity. At the same time, “psychology” is not the biological science of mental and spiritual phenomena; this term is first used in Feuerbach’s sense, i.e., the real sensations obtained on the basis of reducing religious feelings, fantasies, and other psychological foundations. Thus, the history of sensuous activity is not only the history of manifest “external usefulness,” but also contains the history of the evolution of human essential powers latent within sensation. The thought of sensation in the *Manuscripts* contains a real concern for contemporary problems of sensation, i.e., it elucidates the real logic of peering into the commodified state of sensation through sensuous activity, and of the existential condition of human beings as sensuous beings.

为了强调感觉的历史性，即感觉通过感性活动不断生成的历史过程，马克思在《手稿》中将“工业的历史”巧妙地喻为“人的心理学”，“工业的历史和工业的已经生成的对象性的存在，是一本打开了的关于人的本质力量的书，是感性地摆在我们面前的人的心理学”。此处所说的“工业”并非一般意义上的工业，“工业是自然界对人，因而也是自然科学对人的现实的历史关系”，因此它所意指的实际上是人的感性活动。同时，“心理学”也并非生物意义上关于心理与精神现象的科学，这一术语首先是在费尔巴哈的意义上使用的，即在还原宗教感情、幻想等心理学基础上得到的现实感觉。由此可见，感性活动的历史不只是显性的“外在的有用性”的历史，还蕴含着潜藏在感觉之中的人本质力量演变的历史。《手稿》的感觉思想蕴含着对当代感觉问题的现实关照，即阐明了以感性活动窥探感觉商品化状态，以及作为感性存在的人之生存境遇的现实逻辑。

First, under the private ownership conditions of modern society, human sensation, steeped in egoism, manifests as a strong possessive drive; the dominance of capital and money makes it difficult for people to develop a richness of sensation. In the *Manuscripts*, Marx analyzed the alienation of sensation caused by private property: “All the physical and intellectual senses have been replaced by the simple alienation of all these senses—the sense of having. The human essence had to be reduced to this absolute poverty, so that it could give birth to its inner wealth from within itself.” [19]19 Karl Marx, *Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844*, in *Marx and Engels Collected Works*, vol. 3 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1975), p. 300; translation modified. Here, Marx borrows the concept of “having” from Hess’s theory of economic alienation, clarifying that in a money-worshipping society, human sensation can only be one-sidedly expressed as a strong egoistic “possessive drive” toward objects. In other words, human sensation arises neither from genuine sensuous need nor from a longing for and love of labor, but is reduced under the domination of money to an extreme desire for material wealth, thereby losing the sensuous enjoyment of sensory objects. This phenomenon of sensation is intensifying in modern society. On the one hand, human sensory organs, manipulated by commodities, money, and capital, cannot see things as they truly are; what we can perceive is only the usefulness of the object, not its natural and authentic attributes. Clearly, the senses do not “relate to things practically in a human way,” but rather construct the objective relations of sensation in a thingly manner. [20]20 Ibid., p. 300. Precisely because of this, in the process of objectifying things, people also objectify themselves; the inversion of objectification swallows up the richness of sensation. The sensory organs of modern people, placed within the logic of capitalist modernity, can no longer realistically express the essential powers of the human being, becoming instead mechanical tools for the relentless pursuit of profit. This one-dimensionally developed sensory organ is stripped of its capacity for aesthetic perception and can no longer develop “comprehensive and profound” sensation, just as Marx emphasized: “For an ear that has no sense for music, the most beautiful music has no meaning.” [21]21 Ibid., p. 301. On the other hand, the objects possessed by human sensory organs are no longer that unique, rich nature, but wealth and value cloaked in the quantitative garb of numbers. In the modern society constructed by capital, when human sensory organs enter the realm of objects, they confront quantified, homogenized, abstract money; thus, the senses increasingly lose themselves in this immense nothingness, drowning in the worldly, cold calculations of egoism. As Byung-Chul Han points out, the object of eros is originally that other which the individual cannot conquer in the kingdom of the “self”; yet, “today’s society is increasingly sinking into the hell of the same (Hoelle des Gleichen), unable to produce the experience of eros, because the precondition of eros is the asymmetry and exteriority of the other.” [22]22 Byung-Chul Han, *The Agony of Eros* (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2017), p. 1; translation modified. If the characteristics of sensory objects determine, in a certain sense, the unique way in which the essential powers of the human being are objectified, then today’s flat and homogeneous objects have caused people not to affirm themselves in the world of sensation, but to lose themselves in it.

首先，在现代社会的私有制条件下，人的感觉在利己主义的浸染下表现为强烈的占有欲，资本、货币的支配使人难以形成丰富性的感觉。马克思在《手稿》中曾经分析了私有财产导致的感觉异化，“一切肉体的和精神的感觉都被这一切感觉的单纯异化即拥有的感觉所代替。人的本质只能被归结为这种绝对的贫困，这样它才能够从自身产生出它的内在丰富性”。在此，马克思借用了赫斯经济异化思想中的“拥有”概念，阐明人的感觉在金钱至上的社会中只能片面地表现为对物强烈的利己主义“占有欲”。换言之，人的感觉既非出于真正感性需要，也非源于对劳动的向往和热爱，而是在金钱支配下沦为对物质财富的极端欲望，进而丧失对感官对象的感觉享受。这种感觉现象在现代社会中呈加剧之势。一方面，人的感官受到商品、货币、资本的操控而无法看清事物原貌，我们所能够感受到的只是对象之物的有用性，而非对象的自然与真实属性。可见，感官不是“在实践上按人的方式同物发生关系”，而是以物的方式来构建感觉的对象性关系。正因如此，人在物化对象的过程中，也物化了自己，物化的颠倒吞并了感觉的丰富性。现代人的感官被置于资本现代性逻辑之中，已难以现实地表现人的本质力量，而成为人不断逐利的机械工具。这种单向度发展的感官被剥夺了审美感受能力，已难以发展出“全面而深刻”的感觉，恰如马克思强调的，“对于没有音乐感的耳朵来说，最美的音乐也毫无意义”。另一方面，人的感官所占有的对象不再是那个独特的、丰富的自然界，而是披着量化数字外衣的财富与价值。在资本构筑的现代社会中，当人的感官涉入对象领域之时，其所面对的是量化的、同质化的、抽象的货币，于是感官日益迷失在这巨大的虚无之中，淹没在世俗的、冰冷的利己主义计算之中。正如韩炳哲所指出的，爱欲的对象本是那个个体在“自我”的王国里无法征服的他者，然而，“当今社会越来越陷入同质化的地狱（Hoelle des Gleichen），无法产生爱欲的经验，因为爱欲的前提是作为他者的非对称性和外部性”。如果说感官对象的特性在一定意义上决定了人本质力量对象化的独特方式，那么今天对象的扁平与同质已使人们不是在感觉世界中肯定自己，而是在感觉世界中丧失自己。

Second, the commodification and capitalization of sensation cause the space of human sensuous needs to be occupied by various “pseudo-sensations”; what fills the plump outer garment of sensation is the poverty and absence of people’s real sensation. In the era of industrial capitalism in which Marx lived, the satisfaction of material needs was often placed first, while sensuous needs, limited by the level of historical development, were greatly neglected. The development of neoliberalism has brought the importance of psychopolitics to the fore: “The neoliberal regime uses emotions as resources to create stronger productivity and higher production rates.” [23]23 Byung-Chul Han, *Psychopolitics: Neoliberalism and New Technologies of Power* (London: Verso, 2017), p. 27. Capital has thus turned to anchor human emotional and sensuous factors, incorporating them into its own operational system; the commodified production and consumption of sensation are widely embedded in people’s daily lives. Eva Illouz summarizes the phenomenon of the commodification of emotion as “emotional capitalism”: “Emotions and economic discourses and practices mutually shape each other, producing a movement that I believe is broad and comprehensive in its effects.” [24]24 Eva Illouz, *Cold Intimacies: The Making of Emotional Capitalism* (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2007), p. 5. Emotional and sensuous laborers produce emotional commodities by separating themselves from their own sensations; individuals, through the absence and loss of sensuous activity, undergo a transformation in identity from producers to consumers of sensation—that is, they can possess the various sensations manufactured by others without going through their own sensuous activity. The universalization of the exchange of emotional commodities causes the production of sensation to gradually be ceded to the culture industry; externally generated sensations replace people’s real sensuous needs, becoming the daily constitution of people’s sensuous existence. Today, the production and consumption of sensory commodities are increasingly shifting toward technological digital platforms; the support of digital technology allows sensation to be publicly presented in more diverse commodity forms—live streaming, virtual idols, fan economies, and so on are all circulation spaces for emotional commodities. After the intervention of digital technology, the analysis, monitoring, and storage of sensation become more datafied and transparent; the technological shaping of sensation becomes increasingly frequent and effortless. So, does this accumulation of sensory commodities make our sensation richer? The answer is likely no. Once we look these sensations straight in the eye, we find that the withdrawal of the sensuous activity of sensation leads to the loss of real, particular sensations; externally shaped sensations are, to a certain extent, merely “pseudo-sensations” that match the operational needs of capital, used to enhance the efficiency of capital production. Stiegler, in the sense of a “general organology,” points out the pain of human existence: technological media are external sensory organs of the individual; the iteration of technology itself allows us to access more sensations, yet the more developed technological senses become, the more dulled is the human capacity to form real sensation, making it even more difficult to form the real sensation based on the objective relations of the senses that Marx indicated. [25]25 Bernard Stiegler, *For a New Critique of Political Economy* (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2010), pp. 9–10. In essence, sensation under the manipulation of capital has not only failed to become richer but is instead in a state of “absolute poverty.”

其次，感觉的商品化与资本化使得人的感性需要空间被各种“伪感觉”所占据，充盈在丰满的感觉外衣下的是人真实感觉的匮乏与缺失。在马克思所处的工业资本主义时代，物质需求的满足往往被置于首位，感性需要则受限于历史发展水平而被极大忽视了。新自由主义的发展使得精神政治的重要性凸显出来，“新自由主义政权将情绪用作资源，来创造更强的生产力和更高的生产率”。资本转而锚定人的情感、感觉等感性因素并将其纳入自身的运作体系，感觉的商品化产消广泛嵌入人的日常生活之中。伊娃·易洛思将情感商品化的现象概括为“情感资本主义”，“情感和经济话语及其实践之间彼此形塑，进而产生了一场我认为影响广泛而全面的运动”。情感、感觉劳动者通过与自身感觉的分离来生产情感商品，个体在感性活动的缺席与丧失中实现从感觉的生产者到消费者的身份转变，即无须经由自身的感性活动就能占有他者制造的多种感觉。情感商品交换的普遍化使得感觉的生产逐渐让渡给文化工业，外部生成的感觉代替了人真实的感性需要，成为人感性生存的日常构成。时至今日，感觉商品的产消逐渐转向技术化的数字平台，数字技术的支撑使感觉以更加多元的商品形式公开呈现出来，网络直播、虚拟偶像、粉丝经济等等都是情感商品的流通空间。数字技术介入后，感觉的分析、监控与储存更加数据化与透明化，感觉的技术化塑造变得日益频繁与轻而易举。那么，这种感觉商品的堆积是否使我们的感觉变得愈加丰富？答案恐怕是否定的。一旦我们直视这些感觉就会发现，感觉之感性活动的退场导致了真实、特殊感觉的丧失，外部塑造的感觉在一定程度上只是与资本运作需求相匹配的“伪感觉”，被用以提升资本的生产效率。斯蒂格勒在“一般器官学”（General Organology）的意义上指出人类的生存之痛，技术媒介是个体外部的感觉器官，技术自身的迭代让我们得以接触更多的感觉，然而技术感官越发达，人形成真实感觉的能力就越愚钝，马克思所指出的基于感官对象性关系的真实感觉则更加难以形成。质言之，感觉在资本的操纵下不仅没有进一步丰盈，反而处于“绝对的贫困”状态。

Finally, sensory elements such as sensation, as important dimensions of human existence, contain the futural dimension of human liberation in the development of sensuous activity, and are an important thread in the development of modern civilization. For a long time, general conceptions have tended to regard the level of material development as an important yardstick for measuring modern civilization. However, the material interests pursued and the material achievements formed by modern civilization, while promoting the development of civilization, have also fully exposed their terrifying barbarism. More importantly, the excessive expansion of material interests has, to a certain extent, squeezed the space for human sensuous existence, leading to the absolute suppression of basic human nature and sensuous needs. Marcuse once analyzed the connection between civilization and Eros as a human instinct, pointing out that there is an unavoidable endogenous contradiction between the development of civilization and human freedom. However, Marcuse found the possibility of forming the historical existence of Eros within repressive civilization, namely, by establishing a “new sensibility” to form a new sensuous order of human liberation, “to see, hear, and feel things in a new way,” and ultimately to achieve a non-repressive civilization. This, to a certain extent, continues Marx’s thought on the liberation of the senses. In Marx’s view, although human sensuous needs such as sensation inevitably encounter an alienated situation under private property, sensation will ultimately achieve liberation in the historical movement of sensuous activity and develop to become “comprehensive and profound.” At that time, “these senses and attributes exist subjectively and objectively as human,” and human sensory organs will truly construct nature according to the laws of beauty. As an important foundation of human sensuous existence, the history of sensation is, to a certain extent, a refraction of the history of human existence; the civilization of sensation is an important branch of human civilization. “The essence of modernization is the modernization of people.” This means that modern civilization, in addition to the material civilization constructed by reason, also encompasses the cultural-ethical progress of dimensions such as human sensation, desire, and need. Satisfying and developing human sensuous needs is a trend in the development of modern civilization. The opening of the civilization of sensuous needs such as sensation means that the ought-to-be state of modern civilization in the sensuous dimension manifests as the formation of a multi-dimensional sense of the beauty of nature by human sensory organs in labor activity. As Marx pointed out, people can not only see the commercial value of minerals but also their “beauty and unique character,” forming a “mineralogical sense.” This comprehensive sense will become a civilizational marker of humanity’s departure from the barbaric state toward progress and enlightenment. (Author affiliation: Shanghai Jiao Tong University)

最后，感觉等感性元素作为人之存在的重要维度，在感性活动的发展中蕴含着人类解放的未来性向度，是现代文明发展的重要线索。长期以来，一般性观念倾向于将物质发展水平视为衡量现代文明的重要标尺，然而现代文明所追逐的物质利益与所形成的物质成果，在推动文明发展的同时也充分暴露了其令人恐惧的野蛮性。更为重要的是，物质利益的过度膨胀在一定程度上挤压了人感性生存的空间，导致基本人性与感性需求的绝对压抑。马尔库塞曾经分析了文明与作为人本能的爱欲之间的关联，指出文明发展与人性自由之间存在难以避免的内生矛盾，不过马尔库塞从压抑性文明中找到了形成爱欲之历史性存在的可能，即通过确立“新感性”形成人性解放的新感性秩序，“用一种新的方式去看、去听、去感受事物”，最终实现非压抑性文明。这在一定程度上延续了马克思的感觉解放思想。在马克思看来，虽然属人的感觉等感性需要在私有制下难以避免异化境遇，但感觉终将在感性活动的历史运动中实现解放并发展至“全面而深刻”，届时“这些感觉和特性无论在主体上还是在客体上都成为人的”，人的感官将真正按照美的规律构造自然界。作为人感性存在的重要基础，感觉的历史在一定程度上就是人之历史存在的折射，感觉的文明就是人类文明的重要分支。“现代化的本质是人的现代化”，这意味着现代文明在理性所构筑的物质文明外，同样涵盖人感觉、欲望、需要等维度的精神文明，满足并发展人的感觉需要是现代文明发展的趋势。感觉等感性需要之文明的打开，意味着现代文明在感性维度上的应然之境表现为，人的感官在劳动活动中形成对自然界多维度的美之感觉。正如马克思所指出的，人不仅能看到矿物的商业价值，更能看到矿物的“美和独特性”，形成“矿物学的感觉”，这种全面的感觉将成为人类脱离野蛮状态走向进步与开化的文明标志。（作者单位：上海交通大学）

Online editor: Paul

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