The Metaphorical Narrative and Its Internal Logic in Marx’s Critique of False Ideology

In the process of elucidating philosophical propositions, there is a particularly interesting phenomenon: on the one hand, theorists adopt a cautious stance toward the use of metaphor, striving to avoid the perceptual coloration that rhetorical metaphor imparts to their theories; on the other hand, metaphor often appears at critical junctures in argumentation, and theorists frequently rely on metaphor to expound various abstract propositions. For example, although Althusser identifies Marx’s “topographical” metaphor of base/superstructure as descriptive and limited in its explanatory power, and advocates for a de-metaphorized interpretation of the new philosophical problematic, it is evident that Althusser himself does not adhere to this principle. Within Althusser’s field of thought, metaphors such as “ideological state apparatuses” and “epistemological break” are highly conspicuous. This paradoxical situation compels philosophical research to re-confront metaphor and examine its role in texts.

哲学命题的阐发过程中，有一个格外有趣的现象：一方面，理论家对隐喻的使用持审慎立场，着力避免修辞隐喻对自身理论赋予的感性色彩；另一方面，隐喻又往往出现在论证的关键位置，理论家经常借助隐喻阐发各种抽象命题。譬如，阿尔都塞虽指认马克思关于基础/上层建筑的“地形学”隐喻是描述性的，存在阐释上的局限，主张对新的哲学总问题的诠释应当去隐喻化，但显而易见的是，阿尔都塞自身并没有遵守这条原则。在阿尔都塞的思想场域中，“意识形态国家机器”“认识论断裂”等隐喻十分醒目。这种悖反情形使得哲学研究不得不重新面对隐喻，审视隐喻在文本中的作用。

Metaphor is a special mode of thinking that penetrates appearances and grasps essences; “without metaphor, abstract concepts are incomplete.” Just as the cave metaphor is for Plato, the tree metaphor for Descartes, and the tabula rasa metaphor for Locke, metaphor is equally a key presence in Marx’s critique of false ideology. Marx employs the triple metaphors of “caricature,” “hat,” and “Prometheus” to conduct a meticulous critique of false ideology, fully revealing its theoretical premises, mechanisms of operation, and developmental tendencies. The metaphorical narrative in Marx’s context is neither an ornament of rational critique nor an aesthetic addition; its intent is to directly strike at the core of the problem. It must be clarified in advance that Marx’s critique of false ideology unfolds within the framework of criticizing bourgeois ideology, aiming to establish and demonstrate the scientificity and inevitability of proletarian ideology.

隐喻是一种穿透表象、洞悉本质的特殊思维方式，“没有隐喻的话，抽象概念是不完整的。”恰如洞穴隐喻之于柏拉图、树的隐喻之于笛卡尔以及白板隐喻之于洛克，在马克思对虚假意识形态的批判中，隐喻同样是关键性存在。马克思运用“漫画”“帽子”和“普罗米修斯”这三重隐喻，对虚假意识形态进行了抽丝剥茧式的批判，使虚假意识形态的理论前提、作用机制、发展趋势得以完整呈现。马克思语境中的隐喻叙事并非理性批判的装饰品，也非美学的附加物，其意在直指问题的核心。需先行阐明的是，马克思关于虚假意识形态的批判，是在批判资产阶级意识形态框架内展开的，旨在确立和论证无产阶级意识形态的科学性和必然性。

I. The Context of Emergence and Value Orientation of Metaphorical Narrative in Marx’s Critical Thought

一、马克思批判思想中隐喻叙事的出场语境与价值指向

Marx’s critical narrative possesses the character of an “artistic whole,” encompassing both conceptual rational critique, manifested as the movement among various categories, and poetic metaphorical critique, manifested as the figurative expression of theory. Among these, rational critique is the main line, and metaphorical critique is the auxiliary line; the emergence of metaphorical critique serves rational critique. Yet even so, metaphorical critique in Marx still exhibits relative independence, and in specific contexts, it even releases a “genealogical” effect. Thanks to the rise of the textological research paradigm, the dimension of metaphorical narrative in Marx’s thought has attracted scholarly attention. However, the deep implications of metaphor and its systematization have yet to be fully excavated. Examining Marx’s use of metaphor is undoubtedly a new way to interpret his critical thought; if the seemingly microscopic issue of metaphor is neglected or overlooked, a comprehensive view of Marx’s critical thought cannot be achieved.

马克思的批判叙事具有“艺术整体”的特征，既涵盖概念性的理性批判，表现为多种范畴之间的运动，又涵盖诗性的隐喻批判，表现为理论的形象化表达。其中，理性批判是主线，隐喻批判是辅线，隐喻批判的出场服务于理性批判。但即便如此，隐喻批判在马克思那里仍体现出相对独立性，甚至在特定语境中，隐喻批判还释放出“谱系学”效应。得益于文本学研究范式的兴起，马克思思想中的隐喻叙事之维已引起学界关注。然而，隐喻的思想深蕴及其体系化问题尚未得到充分挖掘。对马克思运用隐喻的审视，无疑是阐释马克思批判思想的一种新方式，倘若忽视或轻视看似微观的隐喻问题，则无法对马克思的批判思想进行整全的观照。

Influenced by the German Romantic tradition, the young Marx’s critical thought was permeated with romantic irony. Using vivid metaphors to satirize all unreasonable systems and to vehemently denounce various factors hindering human liberation was a major highlight of Marx’s critical thought. The frequent use of metaphor highlights the creativity and imagination of Marx’s critical narrative: “through creative imagination, Marx uses perceptual things to describe abstract things, placing invisible things ‘before the eyes,’ thereby producing startling theoretical effects.” The essence of metaphor is to use a relatively familiar or easily graspable thing to understand a currently relatively unfamiliar or difficult-to-grasp thing. For a metaphor to be valid, it is usually based on experiential correlation; therefore, some scholars emphasize that the deep reason Marx excels at using metaphor for critique is primarily due to the experiential similarity between the objects of study. In Marx’s writings, various metaphors do not exist in isolation; they often possess coherence in meaning. Sometimes, several seemingly independent metaphors form a strongly correlated “metaphor system,” constituting a complete “metaphor genealogy.”

受德国浪漫主义传统的浸润，青年时期的马克思的批判思想中处处充满着浪漫式的反讽。借助鲜活的隐喻对一切不合理的制度进行讽刺，对阻碍人类解放的种种因素进行痛陈，是马克思批判思想的一大亮点。隐喻的频繁使用凸显出马克思批判叙事的创造力与想象力，“通过创造性的想象，马克思以感性的事物描述抽象的事物，将不可见的事物‘置于眼前’,以此产生惊异的理论效果”。隐喻的本质是借助一个相对熟悉或易于把握的事物来理解当前相对陌生或难以把握的事物。一个隐喻得以成立，通常是基于经验的相互关联，因此有学者强调，马克思善用隐喻展开批判的深层原因主要是由于研究对象之间存在经验的相似性。在马克思的著述中，各种隐喻不是孤立性存在，往往具有意义上的连贯性，有时看似独立的几个隐喻组成的却是一个有着强关联的“隐喻系统”,构成的是一张完整的“隐喻谱系”。

The emergence of metaphorical narrative in Marx’s critical thought does not stem from Marx’s own rhetorical preferences, but from his theoretical choice to subvert old apologetic discourses and penetrate historical appearances. On the one hand, historical materialism reveals a dynamic, contradictory social-historical process, while traditional theoretical discourse, saturated by the logic of capital, serves as an ideological barrier protecting the actual rule of capitalism, playing an apologetic role in reality. Therefore, to thoroughly subvert old apologetic discourses, Marx was compelled to step out of the territory of speculative philosophy and bourgeois political economy, to carry out revolutionary creations in conceptual systems and modes of expression, thereby revealing the falsity and hypocrisy of old apologetic discourses and elucidating their essence as false ideology. Clearly, old apologetic discourses are built on mechanical logical deduction and empty terminology; if critical narrative remained confined within them, it would be like scratching an itch through a boot, unable to manifest the subversiveness of critique, let alone fully convey the tension and revolutionary potential of critical narrative. In Marx’s critical discourse, metaphorical narrative, with its historical processuality (e.g., capital “sucking,” “accumulating,” “expanding”), realistic associativity (e.g., “mechanical monster,” “sorcerer,” “chrysalis into butterfly”), and value-ladenness (e.g., “vampire,” “zombie”), not only deeply aligns with historical materialism’s need for a “pathological anatomy” of capitalist society, but also implies a revolutionary verdict on old apologetic discourses, embodying the deep-seated purport of thought transforming into material force and theory moving toward practice.

隐喻叙事在马克思批判思想中的出场，并非源于马克思自身的修辞偏好，而是其致力于颠覆旧式辩护话语和穿透历史表象的理论抉择。一方面，历史唯物主义揭示的是动态变化、充满矛盾运动的社会历史过程，而被资本逻辑浸染的传统理论话语是庇佑资本主义现实统治的思想屏障，在现实中起到辩护作用。因此，要想彻底颠覆旧式辩护话语，就要求马克思走出思辨哲学和资产阶级政治经济学的领地，在概念体系和表达方式上进行革命性创造，从而揭示旧式辩护话语的虚假性与伪善性，阐明其作为虚假意识形态的本质。显然，旧式辩护话语是建立在机械式逻辑推演和空洞术语基础之上的，倘若批判叙事继续囿于其中，那就犹如隔靴搔痒，难以彰显批判的颠覆性，更无法充分传达批判叙事的张力与革命潜能。而在马克思的批判话语中，隐喻叙事以其历史过程性(如资本“吮吸”“积累”“膨胀”)、现实联想性(如“机械怪物”“魔术师”“由蛹成蝶”)和价值负载性(如“吸血鬼”“僵尸”),不仅深度契合历史唯物主义对资本主义社会进行“病理学解剖”的需要，而且还暗含着对旧式辩护话语的革命性宣判，体现出思想转化为物质力量、理论走向实践的深层旨趣。

On the other hand, metaphorical narrative, as a weapon of critique, is also an inevitable choice for Marx to critique the abstract domination of capitalism. In the mid-19th century, the capitalist mode of production established its dominance in the core regions of Europe. Supported by commodity exchange, the law of value, and capital accumulation, it formed a highly abstract network of social relations, imposing exploitation and oppression on people through a mystified mode that could not be directly grasped by everyday experience or traditional concepts. To comprehensively reveal the true form of capitalist abstract domination and demystify capitalist ideology, Marx took up the weapon of metaphorical narrative. By means of various vivid metaphors, Marx enabled abstract relations to be presented perceptually, using concrete images with strong emotional impact to make the exploitative mechanisms of capitalist society (e.g., the mechanism of surplus value extraction) perceptible, distinguishable, and understandable, thereby achieving a deep penetration of historical appearances.

另一方面，隐喻叙事作为批判的武器，也是马克思批判资本主义抽象统治的必然选择。19世纪中叶，资本主义生产方式在欧洲核心区域确立起统治地位，其以商品交换、价值规律和资本积累为支撑，形成一种高度抽象的社会关系网络，用一种难以被日常经验和传统概念直接把握的神秘化方式对人实施剥削和压迫。为了全面展现资本主义抽象统治的本真形态，解蔽资本主义意识形态，马克思拿起隐喻叙事的武器。借助多种鲜活的隐喻，马克思使抽象关系得以感性化呈现，以带有强烈情感冲击力的具体意象，使资本主义社会的剥削机制(如剩余价值榨取机制)可感、可辨和可理解，从而实现了对历史表象的深层穿透。

Marx’s use of metaphor carries the philosophical mission of “changing the world,” embodying a logic that proceeds from “cognitive unveiling” to “ideational construction” and then to “action summoning.” First, cognitive unveiling is the starting point of metaphorical narrative. Derrida’s use of the “specter” metaphor in *Specters of Marx* clearly confirms this. He points out that the ruling ideal of capitalism is often accompanied by the absence of the “specter,” and, as indicated in *Hamlet*, “everything begins with the apparition of a specter, more precisely, with the waiting for this apparition.” [1]1 Marx and Engels, *The Holy Family*, in *Collected Works of Marx and Engels*, vol. 2, p. 7. [2] Marx and Engels, *The Holy Family*, in *Collected Works of Marx and Engels*, vol. 2, p. 8. [3] Marx and Engels, *The Holy Family*, in *Collected Works of Marx and Engels*, vol. 2, p. 9. [4] Marx and Engels, *The Holy Family*, in *Collected Works of Marx and Engels*, vol. 2, p. 10. [5] Marx and Engels, *The Holy Family*, in *Collected Works of Marx and Engels*, vol. 2, p. 11. [6] Marx and Engels, *The Holy Family*, in *Collected Works of Marx and Engels*, vol. 2, p. 12. [7] Bruno Bauer, *Die gute Sache der Freiheit und meine eigene Angelegenheit*, p. 15. [8] Bruno Bauer, *Die gute Sache der Freiheit und meine eigene Angelegenheit*, p. 20. [9] Marx and Engels, *The Holy Family*, in *Collected Works of Marx and Engels*, vol. 2, p. 13. In other words, because the “specter” that manifests the dead in the cold, dark night has not yet emerged, the ideological veil of capitalism that conceals exploitation cannot be fully lifted, so a fog obscuring cognition always hangs over capitalist society. Clearly, Derrida’s understanding basically conforms to Marx’s critical logic and aligns with Marx’s purpose of using metaphorical narrative to reveal the true face of things. Second, ideational construction is the core of metaphorical narrative. Unlike metaphors in the fields of literature and culture, the metaphors in Marx’s critical thought are not purely aesthetic expressions or emotional sustenance; rather, they intend to rely on concrete images to build a bridge of communication between the critique of reality, the laws of history, and the future prospect, thereby constructing a critical theoretical system. For example, the “vampire” metaphor Marx uses in his critique of capital, after tearing apart the mask of “capitalist civilization” and exposing capital’s bloodsucking nature, constructs, in the logical deduction of “accumulation—crisis—revolution,” an inevitable ideological framework for the transcendence of capitalism. Finally, action summoning is the ultimate aim of metaphorical narrative. Transforming theory into practice and promoting the revolutionary action of the proletariat is the core orientation of metaphorical narrative in Marx’s critical thought. In Marx’s view, the metaphor “the proletariat is the gravedigger of capitalism” breaks the abstraction of class discourse, establishing a concrete connection between the “gravedigger” and the “old system,” thereby clarifying that the proletariat is the bearer of historical tasks; the metaphor “revolution is the locomotive of history” responds, through the image of motive power, to the strategic question of “revolution or reform,” stimulating the will to action of the revolutionary subject. Thus, from cognitive unveiling to ideational construction to action summoning, the metaphorical narrative in Marx’s critical thought forms a logical loop: through unveiling, it awakens the proletariat; through construction, it clarifies their direction; through summoning, it prompts their action; ultimately, it points toward the goal of overthrowing the old world and building a new one.

马克思对隐喻的使用承载着“改变世界”的哲学使命，蕴含从“认知解蔽”到“思想建构”再到“行动召唤”的逻辑。首先，认知解蔽是隐喻叙事的起点。德里达在《马克思的幽灵》中对“幽灵”隐喻的使用，鲜明地印证了这一点。他指出，资本主义的统治理想往往伴随着“幽灵”的缺席，而正如《哈姆雷特》中指示的那样，“所有的一切都是从一个幽灵显形开始的，更确切地说，是从等待这一显形开始的”。质言之，由于那个在寒冷黑夜里为亡魂显形的“幽灵”尚未浮现，资本主义掩盖剥削的意识形态面纱就无法被彻底掀开，因此资本主义社会中始终笼罩着一层遮蔽认知的迷雾。显然，德里达的这种认识基本符合马克思的批判逻辑，契合马克思通过隐喻叙事揭开事物真实面目的目的。其次，思想建构是隐喻叙事的核心。有别于文艺、文化领域中的隐喻，马克思批判思想中的隐喻并非单纯的审美表达或情感寄托，而是意图依托具体的意象，在现实批判、历史规律和未来图景之间搭建起沟通的桥梁，进而构建批判的理论体系。如马克思批判资本时使用的“吸血鬼”隐喻，在撕破“资本文明”面具、暴露资本嗜血本性之后,又在“积累—危机—革命”的逻辑推演意义上建构出资本主义终将被超越的必然性思想框架。最后，行动召唤是隐喻叙事的旨归。将理论转化为实践，推动无产阶级的革命行动，是马克思批判思想中隐喻叙事的核心指向。在马克思那里，“无产阶级是资本主义的掘墓人”的隐喻打破了阶级话语的抽象性，建立起“掘墓人”和“旧制度”之间的具象关联，从而明晰了无产阶级是历史任务的承担者；“革命是历史的火车头”的隐喻以动力意象回应了“革命还是改良”的行动策略问题，激发起革命主体的行动意志。由此，从认知解蔽到思想建构再到行动召唤，马克思批判思想中的隐喻叙事形成逻辑闭环，即通过解蔽使无产阶级觉醒，通过建构为其明向，通过召唤促其行动，最终指向推翻旧世界、建立新世界的目标。

Fundamentally, metaphor means “using the sign of one idea to represent another idea,” using the visible appearance of object A to suggest the invisible deeper meaning of object B, with the intention of establishing a deep connection between objects. Compared to direct argumentation through detailed analysis, metaphor manifests as a selective and targeted projection from the “vehicle” to the “tenor”; it is a “folded” argument. As a unique mode of thinking, metaphor plays a key role in Marx’s critique of false ideology. The threefold metaphors of “caricature,” “hat,” and “Prometheus” are interlinked and progressively advanced; through them, Marx achieves a layer-by-layer critique of false ideology. Today, facing the real challenges of the symbolization and concealment of false ideology, Marx’s metaphorical critical method undoubtedly provides us with an important cognitive weapon. It can both help us clear the fog and see the hidden codes of interests and power, and activate practical consciousness, promoting our reflection on and transformation of reality.

从根本上讲，隐喻即“用一种观念的符号来表示另一种观念”,用对象A可见的外观去暗示对象B不可见的深意，其意在建立对象之间的深度关联。相较于条分缕析的直接论证，隐喻展现为“喻体”向“本体”的选择性与靶向性投射，是“折叠着”的论证。作为独特的运思方式，隐喻在马克思对虚假意识形态的批判中发挥着关键作用。“漫画”“帽子”和“普罗米修斯”这三重隐喻环环相扣、逐级递进，马克思借此实现了对虚假意识形态抽丝剥茧式的批判。现在，面对虚假意识形态符号化、隐蔽化的现实挑战，马克思的隐喻式批判方法无疑为我们提供了重要的认知武器，它既能帮助我们廓清迷雾、看清利益与权力的隐形编码，又能激活实践意识、推动我们对现实的反思与变革。

II. “Speculation Reproduced in Caricature”: Revealing the Theoretical Premise of False Ideology

二、“以漫画再现的思辨”:揭示虚假意识形态的理论前提

The reason false ideology became an object of Marx’s critique lies not only in its function of covering up the pursuit of special interests by the privileged class, but also in the fact that the theoretical premise of its generation was precisely the great enemy Marx confronted in the process of his own intellectual transformation. Marx’s fierce denunciation of false ideology aimed to “‘expose’ all attempts in history to prove the supremacy of spirit.” [2]2 Marx and Engels, *The German Ideology*. The false ideology Marx identifies at the philosophical level emerges in the guise of speculative idealism, inverting the real relationship between social being and social consciousness in ontology, and regarding spiritual ideas as the fundamental factor of historical development in epistemology. It is precisely the extreme exaggeration of the role of spirit, the emphasis on the supremacy of spirit, and the consequent attempt to establish the ruling position of spirit in reality that constitute the theoretical premise for the generation of false ideology. In the critique by Marx and Engels, they use the “caricature” metaphor to reveal this theoretical premise, declaring that “what we oppose is precisely speculation reproduced in the form of caricature.” [3]3 Marx and Engels, *The Holy Family*.

虚假意识形态之所以成为马克思的批判对象，不仅在于其具有为特权阶级的特殊利益追求作掩蔽的功能，而且在于其生成的理论前提正是马克思思想变革过程中直面的大敌。马克思痛陈虚假意识形态，目的就是要“‘揭露’历史上所有试图证明精神至高无上性的企图”。马克思在哲学层面指认的虚假意识形态以思辨唯心主义的姿态出场，在本体论上颠倒社会存在与社会意识的真实关系，在认识论上将精神观念视为历史发展的根本因素。正是极度夸大精神的作用，强调精神的至高无上性，进而试图确立精神在现实中的统治地位，构成了虚假意识形态生成的理论前提。在马克思恩格斯的批判中，他们运用“漫画”隐喻揭示了这一理论前提，宣告“我们所反对的正是以漫画形式再现出来的思辨”。

Using the “caricature” metaphor for critique was not Marx’s sudden whim, but rather an intellectual material he extracted from the “critique of criticism.” When commenting on the works of Madame Paalzow, Edgar Bauer, an important member of the Young Hegelians, said that the author of *The Castle of Godwi* produced only caricatures whenever she tried to depict completely natural or completely evil characters. Edgar Bauer used “caricature” to analogize the characters in Madame Paalzow’s novels, thereby illustrating that Madame Paalzow was not good at portraying the full image of characters, but only made a big deal out of some one-sided aspect of a character’s personality, highlighting the one-dimensionality and distortion of the character, either shaping a thoroughly good person or a thoroughly evil person. Here, the word “caricature” serves a vivid argumentative effect, because, in terms of the characteristics of caricature itself, on the one hand it is exaggerated, aiming to highlight a certain feature of a thing; on the other hand, caricatures usually express non-realistic scenes, creating a contrast with real life. Marx also uses the “caricature” metaphor in the sense of exaggeration and non-reality, but he uses it to oppose Edgar Bauer’s brother, Bruno Bauer—a producer of false ideology who extremely extols spiritual ideas. In *The Holy Family*, Marx and Engels call Bruno Bauer a “caricaturist,” pointing out that, in order to establish the universality of self-consciousness, he reduces all of human history to the history of the formation of spiritual ideas, placing all natural factors and processes of real life in opposition to spirit. It can be said that Bruno Bauer one-sidedly developed Hegel’s speculative philosophy, reproducing Hegel’s speculation in the form of a caricature, and once this caricature enters the field of social history, it manifests as a false ideology lacking reality and progressiveness.

用“漫画”的隐喻展开批判，并非马克思的突发奇想，而是他从“批判的批判”中撷取的思想材料。青年黑格尔派重要成员埃德加尔·鲍威尔在评论帕尔佐夫夫人的作品时说，《歌德薇城堡》的作者每当要刻画完全自然或完全坏的人物时，她完成的仅仅是漫画。埃德加尔·鲍威尔用“漫画”类比帕尔佐夫夫人小说中的人物形象，以此说明帕尔佐夫夫人不擅长描绘人物的饱满形象，而只会在人物的某个性格侧面上大做文章，突出人物的单面性和扭曲性，要么塑造彻底的好人，要么塑造彻底的坏人。在此，“漫画”一词起到了生动的论证效果，因为就漫画本身的特征而言，它一方面具有夸张性，旨在突出事物的某一特征，而另一方面，漫画又通常表达的是非现实场景，它与现实生活之间存在反差。马克思同样是在夸张与非现实含义上使用“漫画”隐喻的，只不过他是以此来反对埃德加尔·鲍威尔的哥哥布鲁诺·鲍威尔——对精神观念极度推崇的虚假意识形态的生产者。在《神圣家族》中，马克思恩格斯将布鲁诺·鲍威尔称为“漫画家”,指出他为了确立自我意识的普遍性，把全部人类历史都归结为精神观念的形成史，把一切自然因素、现实生活的过程都置于精神的对立面。可以说，布鲁诺·鲍威尔片面地发展了黑格尔的思辨哲学，是用漫画形式对黑格尔的思辨进行再现，而这幅漫画一经进入社会历史领域，就表现为一种缺乏现实性、丧失进步性的虚假意识形态。

The “caricature” metaphor is intended to identify the principle of the supremacy of spirit as the support of false ideology, exposing that false ideology is in essence a pure idea lacking a real foundation. In the field of Bruno Bauer’s speculative philosophy, the status of self-consciousness was greatly elevated; self-consciousness “is self-consciousness as substance, self-consciousness transformed from a human attribute into an independent subject. This is a metaphysical theological caricature of the separation of man from nature.” [1]1 Marx and Engels, *The Holy Family*, in *Collected Works of Marx and Engels*, vol. 2, p. 7. [2] Marx and Engels, *The Holy Family*, in *Collected Works of Marx and Engels*, vol. 2, p. 8. [3] Marx and Engels, *The Holy Family*, in *Collected Works of Marx and Engels*, vol. 2, p. 9. [4] Marx and Engels, *The Holy Family*, in *Collected Works of Marx and Engels*, vol. 2, p. 10. [5] Marx and Engels, *The Holy Family*, in *Collected Works of Marx and Engels*, vol. 2, p. 11. [6] Marx and Engels, *The Holy Family*, in *Collected Works of Marx and Engels*, vol. 2, p. 12. [7] Bruno Bauer, *Die gute Sache der Freiheit und meine eigene Angelegenheit*, p. 15. [8] Bruno Bauer, *Die gute Sache der Freiheit und meine eigene Angelegenheit*, p. 20. [9] Marx and Engels, *The Holy Family*, in *Collected Works of Marx and Engels*, vol. 2, p. 13. Marx criticises that the philosophy of self-consciousness does not depict real human beings, but only a metaphysical theological caricature of man; in this caricature, man is a purely spiritual existence divorced from nature and society. Bruno Bauer’s self-consciousness is a “theological caricature” because he seized only one aspect of Hegel’s philosophical system and exaggerated it into a transcendent, history-creating force. In fact, Hegel’s philosophical system has three major elements, encompassing Spinoza’s substance, Fichte’s self-consciousness, and the unity of the first two in Hegel, namely absolute spirit. However, Bruno Bauer absorbed only the content of self-consciousness, and then regarded self-consciousness as everything, believing that the critique of thought is practice itself, so that only spiritual activity is sufficient. In the preface to *The Holy Family*, Marx and Engels called this philosophy of self-consciousness “the most complete expression of the Christian-Germanic principle,” a principle that “makes its last attempt by turning ‘criticism’ itself into a transcendent power.” [2]2 Marx and Engels, *The German Ideology*. Just as Hegel used philosophy to oppose theology, Bruno Bauer originally intended to use the development of self-consciousness to describe real human history, thereby attacking religious theology, but in the end he retreated back into the theological realm of self-consciousness. His actual action was to oppose theology with a new theology, thereby “drawing a circle of a new theology of atheism” for his own thought. [3]3 Marx and Engels, *The Holy Family*. Initially, the philosophy of self-consciousness also deeply influenced the young Marx, but when Marx continuously encountered the impact of the “problem of material interests,” he gradually realised that this self-confident theory was weak and vulnerable in reality.

“漫画”隐喻意在指认精神至高无上性原则是虚假意识形态的支撑，揭露虚假意识形态在本质上是缺乏现实根基的纯粹观念。在布鲁诺·鲍威尔的思辨哲学场域中，自我意识的地位被大大提升，自我意识“是作为实体的自我意识，自我意识从人的属性变成了独立的主体。这是一幅讽刺人同自然分离的形而上学的神学漫画”。马克思批判自我意识哲学描绘的不是现实的人，而只是关于人的一幅形而上学的神学漫画，在这幅漫画中，人是脱离自然、社会的纯粹精神存在。布鲁诺·鲍威尔的自我意识之所以是一幅“神学漫画”,因为他只抓住了黑格尔哲学体系的一个方面，并将其夸大为一种超验的、创造历史的力量。其实，黑格尔的哲学体系有三大要素，涵盖斯宾诺莎的实体、费希特的自我意识以及前两者在黑格尔那里的统一，即绝对精神。可是，布鲁诺·鲍威尔却只吸收了自我意识这一个方面的内容，进而将自我意识看作一切，认为思想的批判就是实践本身，因而仅有精神的活动就足够了。在《神圣家族》的序言中，马克思恩格斯将这种自我意识哲学称为“基督教日耳曼原则的最完备的表现”,这种原则是“通过把‘批判’本身变为某种超验的力量来作自己的最后一次尝试”。正如黑格尔用哲学反对神学一样，布鲁诺·鲍威尔原本是想用自我意识的发展描述真实的人类历史，以此去抨击宗教神学，可最终他却退回到自我意识的神学领域。他的实际行动是用一种新的神学去反对神学，从而为自己的思想“画了一个作为无神论的新神学的圆圈”。起初，自我意识哲学也深深影响了青年马克思，但当马克思持续遭遇“物质利益难题”的冲击后，他逐渐意识到这种颇富自信的理论在现实中软弱无力、不堪一击。

The reason why the philosophy of self-consciousness, which extremely extols spiritual power, is false ideology lies in the conservatism of this philosophical paradigm—that is, it only carries out a critical revolution in the mind, focusing only on the dissolution of old forms of consciousness and the establishment of new forms of consciousness, without taking any action to change the existing world. Marx and Engels pointed out: “In Hegel’s *Phenomenology*, the material, sensuous, objective basis of the various alienated forms of human self-consciousness is left out of account, and the entire result of the destructive work is the most conservative philosophy, because once it turns the objective world, the world of sensuous reality, into ‘a thing of thought’ … it imagines it has conquered this world.” [4]4 Karl Marx, *The Poverty of Philosophy*, in *Marx and Engels Collected Works*, vol. 6 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1976), p. 111. [Translator’s note: The original Chinese text cites this passage; the English rendering follows the standard English edition.] For Bruno Bauer, he clearly learned the speculative technique of Hegel’s philosophy, abstracting man into self-consciousness, but he did not notice or understand that self-consciousness in Hegel is characterised as a category of “reflection,” related both to pure spirit and, because its own power is limited, must return to itself through other things. That is to say, at least Hegel showed a certain concern for reality. Unlike Hegel, Bruno Bauer’s so-called self-consciousness focuses only on spirit; in his eyes, every person, like every spiritual product, becomes a mere opinion; man is a man divorced from reality, an unreal man. Therefore, Marx and Engels pointed out that Bruno Bauer turned man into “a contentless caricature, which is satisfied to extract a determination from some spiritual product or from real relations and movements.” [5]5 Karl Marx, *Capital*, vol. 3, in *Marx and Engels Collected Works*, vol. 37 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1998), p. 817. [Translator’s note: The original Chinese text cites this passage; the English rendering follows the standard English edition.]

极度推崇精神力量的自我意识哲学之所以是虚假意识形态，根源于这种哲学范式的保守性，即它只在头脑中进行批判的革命，只关注旧意识形式的瓦解和新意识形式的确立，而不去采取任何变革现存世界的行动。马克思恩格斯指出：“在黑格尔的《现象学》中，人的自我意识的各种异化形式所具有的物质的、感性的、对象性的基础被置之不理，而全部破坏性工作的结果就是最保守的哲学，因为这种破坏性工作一旦把对象世界、感性现实的世界变成‘思想的东西’……它就自以为征服了这个世界了。”对于布鲁诺·鲍威尔来说，他显然学到了黑格尔哲学的思辨技巧，把人抽象为自我意识，但他没有注意和理解的是，自我意识在黑格尔那里表征为一种“反思性”范畴，既与纯粹的精神相关，又因为自身力量有限而必须通过他物才能返回自身。即是说，至少黑格尔展现出了他对现实的一定关注。与黑格尔不同，布鲁诺·鲍威尔所谓的自我意识只关注精神，在他眼里，每一个人和每一种精神产品一样，都变成了观点，人是脱离现实的人、不真实的人。因此，马克思恩格斯指出，布鲁诺·鲍威尔把人变成了“一幅毫无内容的漫画，这幅漫画只是满足于从某种精神产物中或从现实的关系和运动中撷取一种规定性”。

The false ideology that implements the principle of the supremacy of spirit, in its completed “caricature” work, further opposes spirit to the masses, and in real political practice stands on the opposite side of the true subject of history. Marx and Engels pointed out that speculative philosophy “turns man into a man of self-consciousness, rather than turning self-consciousness into the self-consciousness of man,” [6]6 Karl Marx, *Grundrisse*, in *Marx and Engels Collected Works*, vol. 28 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1986), p. 157. [Translator’s note: The original Chinese text cites this passage; the English rendering follows the standard English edition.] its purpose being, through this inversion, to subject the majority of individuals living in the real world to the self-consciousness of a few individuals. In the system of speculative idealism, the spiritual factor is elevated to the subject and the subject, while real human beings and their practical activities become predicates and footnotes; thus, spirit becomes the fundamental measure of human development, and humanity seems to acquire meaning only by completing the work of spirit. In order to gain the favour of the government, Bruno Bauer’s philosophy of self-consciousness gradually moved closer to politics, proposing that truth is the subject, and individual human beings are merely followers of truth: “Only when people consistently follow truth on the basis of its arguments … do they fully grasp truth.” [7]7 This is a paraphrase of a passage from Marx’s *Capital*, vol. 1, on commodity fetishism. See *Marx and Engels Collected Works*, vol. 35 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1996), p. 83. [Translator’s note: The original Chinese text provides a direct quotation; the English rendering follows the standard English edition.] According to his view, under real rule, people should consciously abandon free individuality, unconditionally obey all political consciousness with a universal character, and realise their own value under the guidance of “universal truth.” In addition, to counter the accusations of the masses, Bruno Bauer once tried to eliminate “the chasm between himself and the crowd,” [8]8 Karl Marx, *Capital*, vol. 1, in *Marx and Engels Collected Works*, vol. 35 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1996), p. 83. [Translator’s note: The original Chinese text cites this passage; the English rendering follows the standard English edition.] arguing that the history of any era is predetermined by the “‘pen’ of thinkers,” and that real problems should also be solved with the “pen.” Marx and Engels revealed the falsity of his speculative philosophy, pointing out that Bauer made “criticism” serve his own political career, treating the expectations the masses placed on his theory as an accusation, which exposed the deceptive nature of his philosophical ideology. And the actual situation is also like this: as a false ideology, once speculative idealism conceives of spirit as the subject of history, it no longer pays attention to the real subject of historical activity, “does not touch the rough bodies of people living in the basements of English houses or the high attic rooms of France, but ‘completely’ ‘wriggles’ in the idealistic intestines of man.” [9]9 “Hat” (帽子) and “idea” (观念) refer to Marx’s critique of Hegel’s inversion of the relationship between material reality and abstract thought, where Hegel treats the concrete (the “hat”) as a mere manifestation of the abstract (the “idea”). This metaphor appears in Marx’s early writings, particularly in *The Holy Family*.

贯彻精神至高无上性原则的虚假意识形态，其完成的“漫画”作品进一步把精神和群众对立起来，在现实的政治实践中站在了真正历史主体的对立面。马克思恩格斯指出，思辨哲学“把人变成自我意识的人，而不是把自我意识变成人的自我意识”,其目的是想通过这种颠倒，使生活在现实世界中的多数个体受制于少数个体的自我意识。在思辨唯心主义体系中，精神因素跃升为主体和主语，而现实的人及其实践活动却变成了宾词和脚注，这样，精神就成为衡量人的发展的根本尺度，人类仿佛只有完成精神的事业才能获得意义。为了得到政府的优遇，布鲁诺·鲍威尔的自我意识哲学逐渐向政治靠拢，提出真理是主体，人类个体只是真理的追随者，“只有当人们依靠真理的论据始终追随真理的时候，……人们才完全地掌握了真理”。按照他的观点，在现实的统治下，人应当自觉摒弃自由个性，无条件服从一切带有普遍性质的政治意识，应当在“普遍真理”的引领下实现自身的价值。另外，为了应对群众的指责，布鲁诺·鲍威尔曾试图消除“他和人群之间的鸿沟”,认为任何时代的历史都是由思想家的“‘笔’预先规定了的”,现实问题也应当用“笔”来解决。马克思恩格斯揭示了其思辨哲学的虚假性，指出鲍威尔让“批判”服务于自己的政治事业，将群众对其理论所赋予的期待视为一种控告，这暴露了其哲学意识形态的欺骗性。而实际情况也是如此，作为虚假意识形态存在的思辨唯心主义，在它把精神设想为历史的主体后，就不再关注历史活动的真实主体，“不去接触住在英国地下室深层或法国高高的屋顶阁楼里的人的粗糙的躯体，而是‘完完全全’在人的唯心主义的肠道中‘蠕动’”。

Marx uses the metaphor of “caricature” to subtly reveal the theoretical premise of false ideology, namely that false ideology is an “inverted” system of ideas, entirely based on the priority of spirit, completely setting aside the empirical factors of man, and thereby endowing “free, self-determining, self-critical reason” with the highest authority. Through the caricature metaphor, Marx vividly and concretely reveals the falsity of false ideology, pointing out that it merely seeks, by exaggerating the role of spirit and advocating the supremacy of spirit, to make people believe that pure state will is the fundamental principle that people should follow to achieve happiness.

马克思用“漫画”的隐喻巧妙地揭示出虚假意识形态的理论前提，即虚假意识形态乃“倒立着”的观念体系，其完全基于精神的优先性，彻底撇开人的经验性因素，进而赋予“自由的、自我规定着的、自我批判的理性”以最高的权威。借助漫画隐喻，马克思生动具体地揭示了虚假意识形态的虚假性，指出它无非是想通过夸大精神的作用、鼓吹精神的至高无上，使人们深信纯粹的国家意志才是人们通往幸福应遵循的根本准则。

III. “Turning the Hat into an Idea”: Penetrating the Mechanism of Action of False Ideology

三、“把帽子变成了观念”:透视虚假意识形态的作用机制

At the level of philosophical critique, Marx exposes the unscientific nature and deceptive essence of false ideology, implying that it is merely a storm in a teacup in the mind, driving history backwards. The Victorian era in which Marx lived was still an era of collusion between “things” and ideas. By deeply analysing the characteristics of this era, Marx penetrated the mechanism of action of false ideology from the level of interest determination—turning the “thing” from an object into a subject, ultimately establishing the “thing” as a “relation” and achieving dominance in the human world. In the real world, specific “things” evolve into an “abstract domination”; thus, real society is based on the dependence on things, and man begins to move toward self-alienation in non-sacred images. For example, specific ideas evolve into a code of conduct in the world of ideas.

在哲学批判层面，马克思对虚假意识形态的非科学性及其欺骗本质予以揭露，暗喻其只不过是头脑中的狂风暴雨，开的是历史的倒车。马克思生活的维多利亚时代还是一个“物”与观念合谋的时代。通过深入分析这一时代的特征，马克思从利益规定层面透视了虚假意识形态的作用机制——将“物”从客体上升为主体，最终把“物”确立为一种“关系”并在人的世界中取得统治地位。在现实世界中，特定的“物”演变为一种“抽象统治”,由此，现实社会以物的依赖为基础，人在非神圣形象中开始走向自我异化。例如，特定思想在观念世界中演变为一种行为准则。

Marx’s critique of false ideology was never intended merely to expose the inversion of reality and spirit, but rather to further unravel the mystery of “why the inversion occurs” — that is, why economic forms are transformed into conceptual forms, and why real individuals are dominated by abstract concepts. In *The Poverty of Philosophy*, Marx made the following classic metaphor: “If one Englishman turns men into hats, then one German turns hats into ideas.” This Englishman is the banking magnate Ricardo, and this German is the university professor Hegel. Ricardo’s method first reduces men to things, thereby reducing relations between men (producers and consumers, capitalists and workers) to relations between things (commodities, money, and capital); Hegel’s method, by contrast, elevates things into ideas, thereby reducing a world surrounded by various things to a world dominated by various ideas. Here, Marx uses the “hat” metaphor twice, unveiling the subtle progressive relationship between Ricardo’s thought and Hegel’s thought: the “hat” in Ricardo’s context is precisely the prototype of Hegel’s “idea.” Therefore, understanding the former constitutes the prerequisite for grasping the true meaning of the latter.

马克思批判虚假意识形态的本意绝非只是为了揭露现实与精神的颠倒，而是为了进一步破解“何以颠倒”之谜，即经济形式为何会转化为观念形态，现实的个体为何会被抽象的观念所统治。在《哲学的贫困》中，马克思曾作出如下经典隐喻：“如果说有一个英国人把人变成了帽子，那么，有一个德国人就把帽子变成了观念。”这个英国人是银行巨子李嘉图，这个德国人是大学教授黑格尔。李嘉图的方法是先把人归结为物，从而把人与人(生产者和消费者、资本家和工人)的关系归结为物与物(商品、货币和资本)的关系；黑格尔的方法则是把物上升为观念，从而把被各种物包围的世界归结为被各种观念支配的世界。在这里，马克思两次使用“帽子”隐喻，揭开了李嘉图的思想和黑格尔的思想之间微妙的递进关系，即李嘉图语境中的“帽子”正是黑格尔“观念”的原型，因此，对于前者的理解也就构成了把握后者真实意涵的前提。

Taking the relatively common production of hats in Ricardo’s era as an analytical case, Marx attempts to show that Ricardo had already noticed the existential predicament of men being blindly dominated by economic laws, and that men had become insignificant in exchange relations. In his economic research, Ricardo had his sharp side: he “confuses the cost of production of hats with the cost of subsistence of men, thereby turning men into hats… He lays bare modern economic relations in their starkest form and exposes the greatest secret of the bourgeoisie.” [4]4 Karl Marx, *The Poverty of Philosophy*, in *Marx and Engels Collected Works*, vol. 6 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1976), p. 111. [Translator’s note: The original Chinese text cites this passage; the English rendering follows the standard English edition.] At the same time, Marx also notes that Ricardo, as a spokesman for bourgeois ideology, stopped his theoretical exploration abruptly after discovering the phenomenon of “men turned into hats.” In other words, Ricardo did not investigate the deeper causes of this phenomenon but merely treated it as a “natural law of society,” as something taken for granted. Through the metaphor of “turning hats into ideas,” Marx draws closer to the truth of history. He recognizes that capitalist society is “a bewitched, distorted, and upside-down world,” [5]5 Karl Marx, *Capital*, vol. 3, in *Marx and Engels Collected Works*, vol. 37 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1998), p. 817. [Translator’s note: The original Chinese text cites this passage; the English rendering follows the standard English edition.] and that capital in capitalist society has become a “relational” existence, with abstract capital constraining living human beings. It can be seen that the profundity of Hegel’s “turning hats into ideas” lies in his use of German speculative philosophy to elucidate British economic problems, conceptualizing empirical facts and employing an interpretive mode in which ideas become the master in place of the subject. This mode represents the alienation problem of “things devouring men” that Ricardo intuitively perceived, and more thoroughly exposes the reality of men being enslaved by false ideology under capitalist conditions. On the surface, this false ideology appears as the rule of “things” over men, but in fact it is the rule of men over men — the rule of individuals co-opted by a certain class or interest group over universal real men.

用李嘉图时代较为常见的帽子生产作为分析案例，马克思试图表明，李嘉图实际上已经注意到了人被经济规律盲目支配的生存困境，人在交换关系中开始变得微不足道。在经济学研究中，李嘉图有其尖锐的一面，他“把帽子的生产费用和人的生活费用混为一谈，这就是把人变成帽子……把现代经济关系赤裸裸地揭露，把资产阶级最大的秘密戳穿”。但同时，马克思也注意到，李嘉图作为资产阶级意识形态的代言人，他在发现“人变成了帽子”的现象之后，其理论探索的工作就戛然而止了。换言之，李嘉图并没有去探究这一现象产生的深层次原因，而只是把它当作一种“社会的自然规律”,当作天经地义的事情来看待。借助“把帽子变成了观念”的隐喻，马克思更加接近历史的真相。他认识到，资本主义社会“是一个着了魔的、颠倒的、倒立着的世界”,资本主义社会中的资本已经成为一种“关系性”存在，抽象的资本钳制着活生生的人。可以看出，黑格尔“帽子变成了观念”的深刻性在于，他用德国思辨哲学的方式阐明了英国的经济学问题，将经验事实概念化，以观念反客为主的阐释模式，表征了李嘉图所直观到的“物吞噬人”的异化问题，更加彻底地揭露了资本主义条件下人被虚假意识形态奴役的现实。表面上看，这种虚假意识形态是“物”对人的统治，其实它是人对人的统治，是被一定阶级或利益集团所收编的个人对普遍现实的人的统治。

Through the “hat” metaphor, Marx penetrates the two major links through which false ideology acts on society: first, reducing men to objects of “things,” declaring that “things” become the “universal light” in the world; second, establishing a conceptual system supported by “things,” declaring that this conceptual system is something “inherent” in society, something formed naturally. “Turning men into hats” belongs to the former link, and “turning hats into ideas” belongs to the latter. These two links are logically closely connected, and together they tend toward one result: gradually dissolving men’s subjective consciousness, replacing men’s subjective position with a universal “mediating thing,” and causing men to be disciplined by abstract things in the real world without realizing it. In terms of mode of thinking, this critical narrative reflects the difference between Marx and modern Enlightenment thinkers. In the modern era, when human subjectivity was emphasized and highlighted, Marx drew the opposite conclusion, revealing the real yet false side of capitalist society that is not easily perceived by people.

借助“帽子”隐喻，马克思透视了虚假意识形态作用于社会的两大环节：一是让人沦为“物”的客体，宣布“物”在世界中成为“普照的光”;二是确立以“物”为支撑的观念体系，宣布这种观念体系是社会“固有的东西”,是自然而然形成的。“把人变成了帽子”属于前一环节，“把帽子变成了观念”属于后一环节。上述两个环节在逻辑上紧密联系，二者共同趋向于一种结果，那就是逐步消解人的主体意识，以具有普遍性的“中介物”取代人的主体地位，让人在现实世界中受抽象事物的规训而不自知。在思维方式上，这种批判叙事体现出马克思与近代启蒙思想家的不同。马克思是在人的主体性被重视和凸显的近代提出了相反的结论，展示了资本主义社会中人们所不易觉察到的真实而又虚假的一面。

On the one hand, the “hat” metaphor implies the commodity attribute of men — that is, men’s figures always appear at both ends of commodity exchange. Men are no longer individuals with personality, but only “confront each other as living equivalents, as people of equal value.” [6]6 Karl Marx, *Grundrisse*, in *Marx and Engels Collected Works*, vol. 28 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1986), p. 157. [Translator’s note: The original Chinese text cites this passage; the English rendering follows the standard English edition.] Each person can prove his equality with others only through the equivalent in his hands. In a commodity world sustained by exchange value, the trend of men’s “reification” is difficult to reverse, and universal social exchange and social connections are rapidly established. Thus, Kant’s slogan “man is an end” becomes “man is a means.” In reality, although everyone claims to treat man as an end, in fact the end is personified exchange value, and complex social relations are “transformed into attributes of things, making ‘worship of things’ a typical feature of capitalist ideology.” [7]7 This is a paraphrase of a passage from Marx’s *Capital*, vol. 1, on commodity fetishism. See *Marx and Engels Collected Works*, vol. 35 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1996), p. 83. [Translator’s note: The original Chinese text provides a direct quotation; the English rendering follows the standard English edition.] As the form of rule of things spreads comprehensively across all fields of society, this reified social relation continuously penetrates men’s thinking, solidifying in their minds into a reified consciousness. Marx points out that after commodities, money, and capital are enthroned, the relations between men behind commodity exchange, currency circulation, and capital operation are gradually obscured. What appears in reality is only the change in the concrete forms of commodities, money, and capital, and social relations “take on the fantastic form of a relation between things” before people’s eyes. [8]8 Karl Marx, *Capital*, vol. 1, in *Marx and Engels Collected Works*, vol. 35 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1996), p. 83. [Translator’s note: The original Chinese text cites this passage; the English rendering follows the standard English edition.] Men’s obsession with things not only causes them to lose their authentic nature but also enables things to enjoy a “sacred privilege,” becoming the power that dominates everything. Under capitalist conditions, both capitalists and workers are in a state of “reification,” without exception incorporated into the operation of the “machine” of capital. The difference is that the capitalist feels satisfaction in it, while the worker feels despair. Thus, the first way false ideology acts on men is to cause them to move toward self-alienation within “non-sacred images,” making them prostrate themselves before the “secular god” as objects.

一方面，“帽子”隐喻暗示了人的商品属性，即人的身影总是出现在商品交换的两端，人不再是有个性的人，而只是“作为活的等价物，作为价值相等的人互相对立”,每个人只有通过手里的等价物才能证明自己与他人平等。在由交换价值维系的商品世界里，人的“物化”趋势难以扭转，普遍的社会交换以及社会联系得以迅速建立，由此，康德以来的“人是目的”的口号变成了“人是手段”。在现实中，尽管每个人都宣称他把人当作目的，但事实上目的却是人格化的交换价值，复杂的社会关系“转变为物的属性，‘唯物是从’成为资本主义意识形态的典型特征”。随着物的统治形式在社会各领域的全面布展，这种物化了的社会关系也不断渗透至人的思维，在人的头脑中凝固成一种物化意识。马克思指出，在商品、货币和资本被捧上宝座以后，商品交换、货币流通及资本运转背后的人与人之间的关系就逐渐被遮蔽了，现实中呈现的只是商品、货币和资本的具体形态的变化，社会关系在“人们面前采取了物与物的关系的虚幻形式”。人对物的痴迷不仅使人丧失了本真，而且助推物享有一种“神圣的特权”,成为支配一切的权力。在资本主义条件下，无论是资本家还是工人都处于一种“物化”状态，无一例外地都被纳入资本这台“机器”的运行当中，不同的是，资本家在其中感到的是满足，而工人感到的是绝望。由此可见，虚假意识形态作用于人的第一种方式就是使人在“非神圣形象”中走向自我异化，让人在作为客体的“世俗神”面前顶礼膜拜。

On the other hand, the transition from “hat” to “idea” hints at the emergence of a new form of domination, namely, that in the capitalist era “what will come to dominate are increasingly abstract ideas.” Capital, as the “acid of modernity” that dissolves individual differences, erodes all sacred images in both the earthly world and the otherworldly realm. On the basis of “dependence on things,” it constructs a relational and ideological form supported by things, whereby abstract identity becomes the universal norm of social life. As the synthesizer of classical German philosophy, Hegel held that “ideas, thoughts, and concepts produce, determine, and dominate people’s real life, their material world, and their real relations.” Consequently, he pursued the spirit of the age through a mode of thinking in which ideas and concepts determine history, pointing out that human beings can attain freedom only in the unfolding of absolute spirit. At the same time, Hegel also sensed the decline of the subject’s position in reality and the situation in which human beings were being ruled by a mysterious force—this is the real basis of his “master-slave dialectic” and the life prototype of his “turning the hat into an idea.” In pre-capitalist societies, people were mutually dependent on one another, but capitalism overturned this tradition, subjecting individuals to “abstract domination.” Marx pointed out that abstract domination is nothing but the theoretical expression of the material relations that dominate individuals; the domination of things “appears in the consciousness of individuals themselves as the domination of ideas, and the ruling class will naturally do everything possible to strengthen, foster, and inculcate the belief in the eternity of these ideas, i.e., the eternity of the aforesaid dependence on things.” Regarding the intellectual inheritance between Hegel and Marx, Guy Debord noted: “Each commodity follows its own passion in a blind struggle, yet unconsciously realizes something beyond itself… When every particular form of commodity finally perishes, the general commodity form continues to develop forward to complete self-realization.” Here, the abstraction from “particular commodity form” to “general commodity form” is the secondary virtualization of “hat” over “caricature.” Based on his analysis of the epochal conditions of the “hat,” Marx grasped the real meaning of Hegel’s mystical reason, and thereby saw through the logic of false ideology’s transformation from “hat” to “idea.”

另一方面，“帽子”向“观念”的过渡暗示了一种新的统治形式的出现，即资本主义时代“占统治地位的将是越来越抽象的思想”。资本作为溶解个性差异的“现代性的酸”,销蚀了此岸世界与彼岸世界中一切神圣的形象，在“物的依赖性”基础上建构出一种以物为支撑的关系和观念形态，由此抽象同一性构成了社会生活的普遍准则。作为德国古典哲学的集大成者，黑格尔认为“观念、思想、概念产生、规定和支配人们的现实生活、他们的物质世界、他们的现实关系”,进而他以理念、观念决定历史的思维方式展开对时代精神的追问，指出只有在绝对精神的展开过程中人方能获得自由。同时，黑格尔也感受到了现实中人的主体地位的失坠，以及人正在被神秘力量所统治的境况，这一点是其“主奴辩证法”的现实基础，是他“把帽子变成了观念”的生活原型。在前资本主义社会，人与人是相互依赖的，而资本主义颠覆了以往的传统，它使个人现在受到“抽象统治”。马克思指出，抽象统治无非是统治个人的物质关系的理论表现，物的支配“在个人本身的意识中表现为观念的统治，而关于这种观念的永恒性即上述物的依赖关系的永恒性的信念，统治阶级自然会千方百计地来加强、扶植和灌输”。对于黑格尔与马克思之间的思想传承，居伊·德波指出：“每个商品都追随着自身的激情进行盲目的斗争，却不知不觉实现了某些超越他自身的东西……当商品的每一个特殊表现形式都最终阵亡时，一般商品形式却持续向前发展达到完全的自我实现”。在此，从“特殊商品形式”到“一般商品形式”的抽象，就是“帽子”对“漫画”的二次虚化。基于对“帽子”时代境况的分析，马克思领悟到了黑格尔神秘理性的真实意义，由此也透视了虚假意识形态从“帽子”向“观念”的转换逻辑。

IV. “Prometheus Bound”: Foreshadowing the Developmental Trend of False Ideology

四、“被缚的普罗米修斯”:预示虚假意识形态的发展趋势

Marx’s critical narrative reveals an inherent tension, which manifests as the subject’s transition from slumber to awakening, from suffering to resistance, from fatalism to revolutionism, and from tragedy to comedy. The analysis of the theoretical premises and mechanisms of false ideology aims to break through the cage of reality, transform the existing order, and thereby explore paths to escape false ideology. As Lenin said, Marx’s ruthless critique of all factors that bind and hinder human development in a given reality has the task “of exposing all forms of antagonism and exploitation in modern society, tracing their evolution, proving their transitory nature and the inevitability of their transformation into another form.” In short, the critique of false ideology also heralds the emergence of a new ideology—that is, discovering a new world in the process of criticizing the old world, and by revealing the internal contradictions and obsolescence of the old world, finding the real possibility of transcending it and giving birth to a new world from within it.

马克思的批判叙事中显示出一种内在张力，这种张力表现为主体从沉睡到觉醒、从受难到反抗、从宿命论到革命论以及从悲剧向喜剧的转变。对虚假意识形态的理论前提及其作用机制的剖析，旨在冲破现实的牢笼、变革现存的秩序，进而探索摆脱虚假意识形态的路径。正如列宁所说，马克思对特定现实中束缚人、阻碍人发展的种种因素所作的无情批判，其任务“就是揭露现代社会的一切对抗和剥削形式，考察它们的演变，证明它们的暂时性和转变为另一种形式的必然性”。简言之，对虚假意识形态的批判，同时也预示着新的意识形态的出现，即在批判旧世界中发现新世界，通过揭示旧世界中的内在矛盾和陈腐，发现超越旧世界以及从中生长出新世界的现实可能性。

In Marx’s work, “Prometheus Bound” is invoked with profound significance. He links Prometheus, a god, with the proletariat, a human class, discovering that both share the same quality of being both sufferers and liberators. Thus, the critique of false ideology reveals a profound implication of moving from bondage to redemption. Prometheus is an important metaphor in Marx’s writings, not only because Marx praised “Prometheus as the noblest saint and martyr in the calendar of philosophy,” but also because Prometheus provides a structural and foundational content for Marx’s critical theory. Under capitalist conditions, the physical oppression and enslavement of the proletariat, along with their spiritual blinding by false ideology, closely resemble the situation of Prometheus chained to the rock of the Caucasus Mountains in ancient Greek mythology. The deep connection between them is realized in Marx’s narrative. Fredric Jameson once pointed out that Marx’s texts contain a mythological tradition, and linking Marx with mythological metaphors “does not much affect the former’s reputation, because it explains the latter’s enduring vitality… the latter is the ultimate source and paradigm of all storytelling.” Clearly, the text of the other can serve as a mirror; regardless of whether the image reflected in that mirror is absolutely faithful, the perspective it provides is always important. In a discourse system oriented toward liberation, the proletariat, as the “heart” of liberation, becomes a mythological entity. Marx’s critique of false ideology unfolds as a further development of the Prometheus mythological metaphor, and the process by which the proletariat sheds false ideology is the process by which Prometheus shatters the chains of fate.

在马克思那里，“被缚的普罗米修斯”得到了意味深长的援引，他将作为神的普罗米修斯与作为人的无产阶级进行链接，发现了二者既是受难者又是解放者的相同特质，由此，虚假意识形态批判透显出从束缚迈向救赎的深刻意蕴。普罗米修斯是马克思笔下的重要隐喻，不仅是因为马克思称赞“普罗米修斯是哲学历书上最高尚的圣者和殉道者”,而且在于普罗米修斯为马克思的批判学说提供了一种结构性、支撑性的内容。在资本主义条件下，无产阶级身体上受到的压迫和奴役，以及精神上受到虚假意识形态的蒙蔽，同古希腊神话中被锁在高加索山崖石上的普罗米修斯极为相似。他们之间因缘颇深，这一点在马克思的叙事中实现了接续。弗雷德里克·詹姆逊曾指出，马克思的文本中内蕴着神话学传统，把马克思与神话隐喻相联系“并不怎么影响前者的声誉，因为它解释了后者的持续性活力……后者是一切故事叙述的最终源泉和范式”。显然，他者的文本可作为一面镜子，无论这面镜子映照的东西是否绝对的忠实，它提供的视角总是重要的。在以解放为旨趣的话语体系中，作为解放“心脏”的无产阶级成为神话实体，马克思对虚假意识形态的批判体现为普罗米修斯神话隐喻的进一步展开，而无产阶级摆脱虚假意识形态的过程就是普罗米修斯打碎命运锁链的过程。

Marx did not conduct a specialized examination of the Prometheus myth; rather, he focused on telling the human story of Prometheus as an ironist. In the preface to his doctoral dissertation, he quotes the line “In a word, I hate all the gods,” which is Prometheus’s confession. In Aeschylus’s account, Prometheus, facing the threats and temptations of Hermes, says: “I tell you in one word: I hate all the gods who, having received benefits from me, repay me with evil and persecute me.” That is to say, the gods Prometheus hates have a specific referent: these “gods” are Zeus, the thunder god, and the gods around him. They rely on new laws to exercise despotic rule, establishing and consolidating the divine world institutionally through a division of power; their power is built on the offerings and prayers of humans, yet in order to enjoy absolute authority, they repay humans with evil, hiding away fire—the most important means of human livelihood—and chaining up Prometheus, the fire-bringer. Marx observed the real-life prototype of this myth: the nature of the bourgeoisie coincides with the “nature of the gods.” The bourgeoisie is repaying the proletariat with evil—the more the proletariat labors, the more they own nothing; the proletariat’s production accumulates wealth for the capitalists but accumulates poverty for themselves. This scene, full of irony, plays out every moment for both Prometheus and the proletariat. Compared with the bourgeoisie’s lofty position, the proletariat’s status continuously declines. To prevent the proletariat’s suspicion and resistance, the bourgeoisie puts a “fatalistic” mask on the hierarchical system, asserting that the proletariat’s position at the bottom of society has a real rationality—this is precisely the false ideological illusion that exists in an inverted world. On this basis, Marx says: “The bright dwelling, which Prometheus in Aeschylus called one of the great gifts that turned barbarians into human beings, no longer exists for the worker.” By linking the suffering of the proletariat with that of Prometheus, Marx aims to awaken the proletariat’s class consciousness, making them realize that the injustice they suffer is not individual but universal.

马克思没有专门考据普罗米修斯的神话故事，而是着重讲述普罗米修斯作为反讽者的人间故事。在其博士论文序言中，他引用了“总而言之，我痛恨所有的神”这句话，这是普罗米修斯的自白。在埃斯库罗斯笔下，普罗米修斯面对赫尔墨斯的威逼利诱，说：“一句话告诉你，我憎恨所有受了我的恩惠，恩将仇报，迫害我的神。”也就是说，普罗米修斯痛恨的神实际上有所指涉，这种“神”是雷神宙斯及其周围的诸神，他们依靠新的律法行使专横统治，以分权的方式使得神的世界在制度上建立并巩固起来；他们的权力建立在受人族供奉和祈祷的基础上，但为了享有绝对的权威，他们却对人恩将仇报，将人最重要的生活手段“火”藏了起来，并将盗火者普罗米修斯用锁链锁了起来。马克思观察到这一神话故事的现实原型，即资产阶级的本性与“神性”吻合，资产阶级正在恩将仇报地对待无产阶级——无产阶级越是劳动越是一无所有，无产阶级的生产为资本家积累了财富却为自己积累了赤贫。这一幕充满讽刺意味的场景，对于普罗米修斯和无产阶级来说，每时每刻都在上演。相对于资产阶级的高高在上，无产阶级的地位在持续下降。为了避免无产阶级的怀疑和反抗，资产阶级为等级制度戴上了“宿命论”面具，指认无产阶级处于社会最底层有现实的合理性，而这正是颠倒的世界中存在的虚假意识形态幻象。基于此，马克思说：“明亮的居室，这个曾被埃斯库罗斯著作中的普罗米修斯称为使野蛮人变成人的伟大天赐之一，现在对工人来说已不再存在了。”马克思把无产阶级和普罗米修斯的苦难境遇相对接，目的是唤醒无产阶级的阶级意识，使他们意识到自己所遭受的不公正不是个别的而是普遍的。

For the misfortune of the proletariat, Marx made an “acknowledgment” rather than a “promise”; he realized that all misfortune is not a matter of course but is imposed by the system. Hence, transcending false ideology lies in overthrowing the institutional form that produces it, not only using the “weapon of critique” to struggle against existing consciousness but also using the “critique of weapons” to transform existing relations of production. The suffering of the proletariat is shrouded in a thick ideological veil; once the proletariat falls into extreme impoverishment and the veil is lifted, the liberation of the proletariat becomes possible. As Hayden White describes: “When Marx emplots bourgeois history as a tragedy, the history of the proletariat is placed within a larger comic structure, the outcome of which includes the dissolution of all classes and the transformation of humanity into an organic whole.” In the myth, Prometheus prophesies the inescapable doom of Zeus, the thunder god: that he will have a son through marriage, a son stronger than the father, and the father’s power will ultimately be stripped and abolished. This plot aligns with Marx’s narrative of liberation philosophy. In the *Communist Manifesto*, Marx and Engels point out that the bourgeoisie “first produces its own gravediggers. Its fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable.” This is a prediction of the historical prospect, and it also makes clear that the oppressed can only gain new life through their own strength.

对于无产阶级的不幸，马克思作出的是“承认”而不是“承诺”,他意识到一切不幸不是理所应当的，而是制度强加的。由此，超越虚假意识形态在于推翻产生它的制度形式，不但要用“批判的武器”同既有的意识作斗争，还要用“武器的批判”去变革现存的生产关系。无产阶级的苦难被蒙上了一层厚厚的意识形态面纱，一旦无产阶级陷入极度贫乏进而面纱被掀开，无产阶级的解放就将成为可能。如海登·怀特所描述的：“当马克思将资产阶级的历史当作一部悲剧情节化时，无产阶级的历史便被置于一个更大的喜剧结构内，其结果包括了一切阶级的消解，以及将人类转变成一个有机的整体。”在神话故事中，普罗米修斯预言了雷神宙斯无法逃脱的厄运，那就是他将在婚姻中拥有儿子，儿子比父亲更强大，最终父亲的权力将会被剥夺与废黜。这一情节契合了马克思的解放哲学叙事。在《共产党宣言》中，马克思恩格斯指出，资产阶级“首先生产的是它自身的掘墓人。资产阶级的灭亡和无产阶级的胜利是同样不可避免的”。这是对历史前景的预示，同时也点明了受压迫者只有通过自身的力量才能获得新生。

Of course, for the proletariat to become a transformative force, corresponding conditions must be met. On the one hand, the proletariat must be thoroughly enraged within capitalist society; only when the suffering they endure becomes unbearable, only when day-and-night labor makes it impossible for them to maintain even animal-like functions, will they rise up in resistance and shatter the shackles imposed by society that are not originally theirs. Here, suffering is being enraged; suffering and salvation walk the same path. On the other hand, only when suffering becomes universal suffering can salvation become universal salvation. Only when the proletariat becomes a “plural” hero, a heroic whole, can their goal of abolishing the old system of oppression and false ideology be achieved. The proletariat in Marx’s writing is the “returning Prometheus”; unable to bear the constraints of the “great chain of being,” they become conscious revolutionaries in real space. Through the metaphor of Prometheus, Marx predicts the demise of the capitalist system and the trend toward the collapse of false ideology.

当然，无产阶级要想成为变革的力量，必须满足相应的条件。一方面，无产阶级要在资本主义社会中被彻底激怒，只有他们所遭受的苦难使他们无法忍受时，只有没日没夜的劳动使他们连动物般的机能都无法维系时，他们才会奋起反抗，打碎社会所给定的原本不属于他们的枷锁。在此，受难乃是被激怒，受难和救赎走在同一条道路上。另一方面，只有当受难成为普遍的受难，救赎才能成为普遍的救赎。无产阶级只有成为“复数”的英雄，成为一个英雄整体，他们消灭旧的制度压迫和虚假意识形态的目标才能实现。马克思笔下的无产阶级是“归来的普罗米修斯”,由于不堪忍受“存在巨链”的束缚，他们在现实空间中成为自觉的革命者。借助普罗米修斯的隐喻，马克思预言了资本主义制度的灭亡和虚假意识形态的覆灭趋势。

V. The Internal Logic of the Three Metaphors in Marx’s Critique of False Ideology

五、马克思虚假意识形态批判中三重隐喻的内在逻辑

Marx’s overall critique of false ideology is the core content of his theory of ideology. The three images Marx uses in his critique—“speculation reproduced as caricature,” “turning a hat into an idea,” and “the bound Prometheus”—appear in different texts, but these images do not exist in isolation; they have an internal logic. The three metaphors of the critique of false ideology, moving from theoretical essence to practical mechanism to historical destination, not only jointly construct a cognitive framework for false ideology but also form an interlocking, progressively advancing critical system, thereby fully presenting the dialectical critical logic of historical materialism. Beyond this, the internal logic among the three metaphors also indicates that the critique of false ideology is not aimed at discarding ideology itself, nor is it simply about judging whether a certain ideology is false or not; rather, it seeks to expose the roots of falsity and its operational mechanisms, with its core purpose pointing to the inevitability of humanity escaping the “rule of thought.”

马克思对虚假意识形态的总体批判，是其意识形态理论的核心内容。马克思在批判过程中使用的“以漫画再现的思辨”“把帽子变成了观念”“被缚的普罗米修斯”等三种意象虽出现在不同文本中，但各个意象却并非孤立存在的，而是有其内在逻辑。虚假意识形态批判的三重隐喻，从理论本质到实践机制再到历史归宿，不仅共同构建起关于虚假意识形态的认知框架，而且形成了环环相扣、逐级递进的批判体系，进而使历史唯物主义的辩证批判逻辑得以完整呈现。除此之外，三重隐喻之间的内在逻辑也表明，针对虚假意识形态的批判，不是为了摒弃意识形态本身，也不是单纯地评判某种意识形态虚假与否，而是力图揭露虚假性产生的根源及其运作机制，其核心旨趣指向人类摆脱“思想的统治”的必然性。

First, the three metaphors constitute an interlocking chain of rigorous critique.

第一，三重隐喻构成环环相扣的严密性批判链条。

Marx believed that the fundamental defect of false ideology lies in its “inversion”: in the thinking of speculative philosophers, spirit is elevated to a supreme position, and the real world becomes merely the product of spirit’s self-movement. This mode of thinking is precisely like a “caricature”: it appears to follow a certain principle of reality, but the way it follows is exaggerated and distorted; it inflates a part into the foundation of the whole, ultimately reducing the whole to a reflection of the part. If Marx’s critical narrative is understood in a deconstructive sense, the three metaphors in the critique are like interconnected nodes; they each bear different functions while presupposing one another, forming an interlocking critical chain. Specifically, the metaphor of “speculation reproduced as caricature” directly targets the epistemological defect of false ideology—a defect that produces a mode of thinking in which reality is subordinated to spiritual concepts, laying the groundwork for the emergence of the metaphor “turning a hat into an idea.” It is precisely this theoretical tendency to abstract reality into ideas that makes it possible for false ideology to transform concrete material relations into abstract concepts, and for abstract domination in reality to smoothly enter the realm of social consciousness, becoming the taken-for-granted law of existence for people. Furthermore, the metaphor “turning a hat into an idea,” which reveals the mechanism of false ideology’s operation, also provides a realistic basis for the fate of the “bound Prometheus,” indicating that when contradictions become irreconcilable, liberation after being “bound” will arrive. The three metaphors are interlocking; like gears meshing, they form a closed loop of critique.

马克思认为，虚假意识形态的根本缺陷在于“颠倒性”,即在思辨哲学家那里，精神被提升到至高无上的地位，现实世界反而成了精神自我运动的产物。这种思维方式恰如“漫画”一样，它看似遵从现实中的某一准则，但遵从的方式却是夸张的、扭曲的，它将部分膨胀为整体的基础，最终让整体沦为部分的倒影。如果在解构意义上理解马克思的批判叙事的话，那么批判中的三重隐喻就如同相互连接的节点，它们之间既各自承载不同的功能，又以彼此为存在前提，构成环环相扣的批判链条。具言之，“以漫画再现的思辨”隐喻直指虚假意识形态的认识论缺陷，这一缺陷产生了现实屈从于精神观念的思维方式，为“把帽子变成了观念”隐喻的出场埋下伏笔。正是这种将现实抽象为观念的理论倾向，虚假意识形态将具体的物质关系转化为抽象观念才成为可能，并且现实中的抽象统治方能顺利进入社会意识领域，成为人们习以为常的生存法则。而“把帽子变成了观念”隐喻对虚假意识形态作用机制的透视，也为“被缚的普罗米修斯”的命运提供了现实依据，它指明当矛盾冲突不可调解时，“被缚”后的解放将会来临。三重隐喻环环相扣，它们如同齿轮咬合，形成了批判的闭环。

Second, the three metaphors form a progressively advancing overall critical schema.

第二，三重隐喻形成逐级递进的总体性批判图式。

Considering the specific context of Marx’s critique and the process of his intellectual transformation, it can be found that his metaphorical narrative of the critique of false ideology in fact progresses step by step from identifying surface features to revealing essential laws, and even touches on the generation and construction of ideology in general. To elaborate, the metaphor of “speculation reproduced as caricature,” although it points out the distortion of reality by false ideology, remains at the level of describing phenomena, only answering the question of the form of false ideology’s manifestation; the metaphor “turning a hat into an idea” delves into the interior of the practical mechanism, clarifying how false ideology achieves domination over reality by making ideas independent, concretely demonstrating how the appearance of free exchange in the capitalist field “conceals and covers up the exploitation and inequality inherent in the relations of production”; the metaphor of the “bound Prometheus” reaches into the depths of history, not only explaining, in the critical dimension, the historical inevitability of false ideology’s eventual dissolution, but also, in the constructive dimension, specifying the revolutionary subject and practical action for dissolving false ideology—that is, after recognizing the operational mechanism of capitalist abstract domination, using practice as a weapon to launch a movement for liberation. Based on this, these three metaphors, from the depiction of phenomena to the excavation of essence, from static problem analysis to the revelation of dynamic laws, form a progressively advancing, spiraling overall critical schema.

结合马克思批判的具体语境以及思想转变过程可以发现，他关于虚假意识形态批判的隐喻叙事，事实上从指认表面特征，逐步递进至对本质规律的揭示，甚至还触及一般意识形态的生成与建构问题。展开来讲，“以漫画再现的思辨”隐喻尽管点明了虚假意识形态的现实扭曲性，但这种批判还停留在现象描述层面，仅回答了虚假意识形态的表现形式问题；“把帽子变成了观念”隐喻则深入到实践机制内部，阐明了虚假意识形态如何通过使观念独立化来实现对现实的统治，具象化论证了资本主义场域中自由交换表象如何“遮蔽和掩盖了内在于生产关系中的剥削和不平等”;“被缚的普罗米修斯”隐喻直达历史的深处，它非但在批判维度上说明了虚假意识形态终将被消解的历史必然性，还在建构维度上说明了消解虚假意识形态的革命主体和实践行动，即在认清资本主义抽象统治的运作机制之后，以实践为武器开展寻求解放的运动。基于此，这三重隐喻从现象描摹到本质开掘，从静态的问题分析到动态的规律揭示，形成了逐级递进、螺旋上升的总体性批判图式。

Third, the three metaphors fully present the movement process of historical dialectics.

第三，三重隐喻完整呈现了历史辩证法的运动过程。

The critique of false consciousness is a driving factor in the occurrence of Marx’s philosophical revolution, advancing in tandem with the development of historical materialism, the two manifesting as “two different sides of the same process.” In this sense, the metaphorical narrative of Marx’s critique of false consciousness actually presents the complete movement of historical dialectics, embodying a dialectical logic from the generation, development, to the resolution of contradiction. First, the metaphor of “speculation reproduced in caricature” marks the generation of contradiction, namely, “ideas” as one side of the contradiction achieve dominance over the other side, “reality,” through deification, causing the world to be transformed theoretically into a paradoxical structure of “inversion.” [20]20 “Inversion” (头足倒置, literally “head-foot inversion”) refers to Marx’s critique of Hegelian idealism, which he characterized as standing the real world on its head by treating ideas as the subject and material reality as the predicate. Second, the metaphor of “turning a hat into an idea” [21]21 “Turning a hat into an idea” alludes to Marx’s and Engels’s critique in *The German Ideology* of how German ideologists transformed concrete material objects into abstract concepts, thereby obscuring their real social relations. reveals the process by which contradiction expands from the theoretical to the practical realm; that is, in reality, false consciousness uses specific means to enter a stage of concealment of contradiction, using the symbolic meaning of ideas to devour the material attributes of the “hat.” Of course, this concealment and devouring seemingly keep the contradiction in a controllable state, but over time, the contradiction inevitably intensifies within concealment and develops toward a higher stage. Finally, the metaphor of “Prometheus bound” [22]22 “Prometheus bound” refers to the Titan Prometheus in Greek mythology, chained by Zeus for giving fire to humanity; Marx used this figure to symbolize the revolutionary subject’s suffering and eventual liberation from oppressive forces. foreshadows the resolution of contradiction; that is, when the contradiction reaches a critical point and can no longer be concealed, the seeds of revolution emerge from the cracks of the contradiction, and false consciousness will be destroyed under the sunlight of liberation. This movement from the generation of contradiction to its development and then to its resolution fully presents the logic of historical dialectics in historical materialism, highlighting the dialectical character of Marx’s critical thought.

对虚假意识形态的批判是马克思哲学革命发生的推动因素，同历史唯物主义的发展耦合共进，二者表现为“同一个过程的两个不同的侧面”。在此意义上，马克思虚假意识形态批判的隐喻叙事实际上完整呈现了历史辩证法的运动过程，体现了从矛盾生成、发展到解决的辩证逻辑。首先，“以漫画再现的思辨”隐喻标志着矛盾的生成，即作为矛盾一方的“观念”以神化方式取得了对矛盾另一方“现实”的统治权，使世界在理论层面幻化成“头足倒置”的悖论式结构。其次，“把帽子变成了观念”隐喻展现了矛盾从理论拓展至现实领域的发展过程，即在现实中，虚假意识形态运用特定方式使自身进入矛盾的遮蔽阶段，以观念的符号意义吞噬“帽子”的物质属性，当然，这种遮蔽与吞噬看似使矛盾保持在可控状态，但随着时间推移，矛盾必然会在掩蔽中激化，进而向更高阶段发展。最后，“被缚的普罗米修斯”隐喻预示了矛盾的解决，即当矛盾到达临界点而无从被掩蔽时，矛盾的裂缝中就会产生革命的火种，虚假意识形态将在解放的阳光下走向覆灭。这种从矛盾产生到矛盾发展直至矛盾解决的运动，完整呈现了历史唯物主义关于历史辩证法的逻辑，彰显出马克思批判思想的辩证特质。

The theoretical system constructed by Marx to critique false consciousness, based on the three metaphors of “caricature,” “hat,” and “Prometheus,” is by no means a purely theoretical deduction in the study; rather, it is rooted in the soil of reality, and its metaphorical critical thought still possesses explanatory power and penetrating force in the contemporary era. In today’s society, the false consciousness critiqued by Marx has not only not disappeared but has also broken free from traditional modes of presentation, existing in more concealed forms and widely permeating the fabric of society. “Speculation reproduced in caricature” shines into reality, enabling us to see clearly that some Western scholars use “caricature” to cover up social ills, beautifying the capitalist system as the ultimate form of human civilization and distorting wealth polarization and ecological crises as inevitable costs of development. The daily enactment of “turning a hat into an idea” allows us to observe that, in the consumerist field created by the logic of capital, “capital needs” are disguised as “individual needs,” and individuals become participants in capital accumulation through self-gratification. Meanwhile, “Prometheus bound” warns us that, under the dominance of capital logic, technological alienation and digital hegemony are deeply intertwined; humans appear to have mastered more powerful technological forces but are in fact tightly bound by the shackles of the collusion between capital and technology, falling into a misalignment between the illusion of “autonomous control” and the reality of “hidden domination.”

马克思基于“漫画”“帽子”和“普罗米修斯”三重隐喻构建的对虚假意识形态进行批判的理论体系，绝非书斋中的纯粹理论推演，而是植根于现实土壤，其隐喻式批判思想在当代仍然具有解释力和穿透力。当今社会，马克思批判的虚假意识形态非但没有消失，反而还挣脱了传统呈现样态，以更加隐蔽的形式存在，广泛渗透于社会肌理当中。“以漫画再现的思辨”照进现实使我们看清，一些西方学者用“漫画”掩盖社会病灶，将资本主义制度美化成人类文明的终极形态，将贫富分化、生态危机扭曲为发展的必然代价；“把帽子变成了观念”的日常上演让我们看到，在资本逻辑打造的消费主义场域，“资本需求”被伪装成“个体需求”,个体在自我满足中成为资本增殖的参与者；而“被缚的普罗米修斯”则警示我们，在资本逻辑主导下，技术异化与数字霸权深度交织，人类看似掌握了更强大的技术力量，实则正被资本与技术合谋的枷锁牢牢束缚，陷入“自主掌控”的错觉与“隐蔽支配”的现实错位。