Guiding the Innovation of Chinese Marxist Philosophy with the Issues of the Times

True philosophy is the quintessence of the spirit of its own times. The paths of philosophical innovation and development may be diverse, but in the final analysis, they cannot depart from the issues of the times in which they are rooted. Amid the world-historical transformation of epochs, Marxist philosophy, by its very philosophical nature, is the most epochal, maintaining vigorous vitality through continuous theoretical innovation. China’s social reality and the historical practice of China’s modernization constitute the starting point and driving force for the ongoing theoretical innovation of contemporary Chinese Marxist philosophy.

真正的哲学都是自己时代精神的精华。哲学创新发展的路径可以是多样的，但归根到底，无法离开自己所扎根的时代问题。在世界历史性的时代变迁中，马克思主义哲学就其哲学性质来说，是最具时代性的，通过不断的理论创新始终保持着旺盛的生命力。中国的社会现实与中国现代化的历史实践，是当代中国马克思主义哲学不断实现理论创新的出发点和动力源。

Maintaining open theoretical dialogue with other contemporary philosophical currents is an important avenue for Marxist philosophy to preserve its epochal character. A noteworthy phenomenon is that, in this process, many philosophical concepts and paradigms of modern Western philosophers are introduced into the research horizon of Marxist philosophy, even to some extent becoming new focal points of excitement and growth points for theoretical critique in Marxist studies. For a time, so-called Marxist political philosophy, philosophy of life, philosophy of the body, philosophy of sensibility, philosophy of space, and anthropological philosophy have appeared in succession. The “competing display of novelty” of new concepts and new discourses presents the study of Marxist philosophy with a kind of “dazzling array of choices” of “innovative prosperity.” Yet behind this prosperity, a grafting-style research seems to have become a “shortcut” for innovation in Marxist philosophy. Thus, when more people take this “shortcut,” it turns into a “routine”: first, introduce and elucidate a concept or paradigm of a certain modern Western thinker; then, search through Marx’s works to find Marx’s related expressions on similar issues; and based on these textual resources, reconstruct a new narrative of Marxist philosophy. Generally speaking, within the logic of this new narrative, Marx not only shares the same problem domain and philosophical paradigm as the modern Western thinker, but the latter’s theory is inevitably deemed, for one reason or another, to have some major limitation or lack of thoroughness. Hence, at the end of this new narrative, the author habitually declares that Marx has already surpassed the latter and solved the problem more profoundly and thoroughly. In this “routine,” Marxist philosophy is repeatedly given a new face and continuously declared “victorious.” However, we must soberly recognize that theoretical innovation does not thereby achieve genuine progress; this prosperity is merely a vigorous marking of time within the empty cycle of the “routine.” This research paradigm—which extracts new concepts from modern Western philosophy, reinterprets these concepts in the name of Marxist philosophy, and then abstractly announces a surpassing—has two fundamental flaws. First, it exhibits an inability to grasp the issues of the times, lacking the capacity to propose landmark academic concepts, and can only parasitically graft itself onto others’ theoretical innovations. Second, it alienates and deconstructs the nature of Marxist philosophy; the determinate content and philosophical nature of Marxist philosophy, supported by classical texts, become unrecognizable amid the constantly renewed discursive reshaping. These routine-style “innovations” dress up Marxist philosophy as various contemporary fashionable philosophies, but it is precisely not Marxist philosophy itself. In fact, theoretical innovation in Marxist philosophy cannot, on the one hand, depart from the determinate content and philosophical nature of Marx’s philosophy, and on the other hand, must promote philosophical innovation through a realistic grasp of the issues of the times.

与其他当代哲学思想保持开放的理论对话，是马克思主义哲学保持其时代性的重要途径之一。一个值得关注的现象是，在这个过程中，会有很多现代西方哲学家的哲学概念和哲学范式，被引入马克思主义哲学的研究视域，甚至某种程度上成为马克思主义哲学研究新的兴奋点和学理批判的生长点。一时间所谓的马克思的政治哲学、生命哲学、身体哲学、感性哲学、空间哲学、人类学哲学轮番登场。新概念与新话术的“争奇斗艳”，让马克思主义哲学的研究呈现一种“乱花渐欲迷人眼”的“创新繁荣”。但这繁荣的背后，嫁接式研究好像成为一种马克思主义哲学创新的“捷径”。于是，“捷径”走的人多了，便成了“套路”：先介绍和阐发某位现代西方思想家的概念或范式，再从马克思的著作中按图索骥，寻找马克思关于类似问题的相关表述，并依据这些文本资源，重构一套马克思主义哲学的新叙事。一般来说，在这个新叙事逻辑中，马克思不仅与现代西方思想家具有相同的问题域和哲学范式，而且后者的理论一定由于这样或那样的原因存在某种重大局限和不彻底性。于是在这套新叙事的结尾处，论者会习惯性地宣告马克思早已超越了后者，并更深刻而彻底地解决了问题。马克思主义哲学就在这种“套路”中被一次又一次地翻新面貌，并不断宣告“胜利”。但是，我们必须清醒地认识到，理论创新并不会因此获得真正的前进，这种繁荣不过是在“套路”的空洞循环里热烈地原地踏步。这种从现代西方哲学凝练并提出的新概念，以马克思主义哲学名义对这些概念进行重新解释，再抽象地宣布完成超越的研究范式，存在两个根本性的缺陷。一是呈现出把握时代问题的无力，根本没有能力提出标志性的学术概念，只能寄生或嫁接在别人的理论创新之上。二是对马克思主义哲学性质的游离和解构，由经典文本支撑着马克思主义哲学的确定内容和哲学性质，在不断翻新的话语重塑中变得面目全非。这些套路式的“创新”，把马克思主义哲学打扮成各种当代的时髦哲学，唯独不是马克思主义哲学本身。事实上，马克思主义哲学的理论创新，一方面不能脱离马克思哲学的确定内容和哲学性质，另一方面需要在对时代问题的现实把握中，去推动哲学创新。

Let us recall how Marx advanced a philosophical revolution by grasping the spirit of the times. In the Germany of the 1830s, far behind Britain and France, which had already entered the process of modernization, were British economics and French politics for Germany a “bible” to be slavishly followed, or a ladder of thought that must be borrowed from and yet surpassed? Great ideas are rooted in the socio-historical reality of their times, but genuine “reality” cannot be easily possessed through intuition or common sense; it can only be grasped as a necessary link in social history. As Marx said in the “Introduction to A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right,” if theoretical criticism starts from the current state of Germany, which is below the historical level, then even if an appropriate approach is taken, the result will still commit an anachronism. For the modernization already undergone by Britain and France, and the spirit of the times already crystallized into theory, did not exist in Germany’s backward and conservative old system. But Marx profoundly discerned Germany’s unique way of grasping the times: “German philosophy of law and philosophy of state is the only German history which stands at the official contemporary level of modern reality.” Even if Germany was not a contemporary of 19th-century history, it was qualified to be a contemporary of 19th-century philosophy. Germany grasped the modern world in an abstract way of thought, that is, through the theoretical movement of German classical philosophy. From Kant’s legislation of reason over nature to Hegel’s realization of freedom through the rational state, German classical philosophy experienced in its intellectual history the modernization of Britain and France and penetrated into the core domain of modernity. Through his critique of German classical philosophy, Marx grasped the essence of modernity: the reason why Germans could abstract the thought-image of the modern state from actual people is that the modern state itself is abstracted from actual people. Thus, Marx initiated an entirely new intellectual journey: “Can Germany achieve a practice at the level of principle, that is, a revolution that not only raises Germany to the existing level of modern countries but also to the height of humanity that philosophy is about to reach?” This “level of principle” is a surpassing of the modernity represented by British economics, French politics, and German philosophy. It was precisely in this intellectual mission that Marx began the philosophical revolution of changing the world in practice. The reason we regard Marx’s proposal in the “Theses on Feuerbach” to “understand reality as practice” as the pivotal meaning of his philosophical revolution is precisely because the epochal task of this philosophical revolution was to sublate the “civil society” foundation of British and French capitalism and the old philosophy, and to establish for the new materialism a new foothold of “human society or socialized humanity.”

我们回想马克思是如何在把握时代精神中推动哲学革命的。19世纪30年代的德国，远远落后于早已进入现代化进程的英国和法国，对德国来说，英国的经济学和法国的政治学是亦步亦趋的“圣经”，还是必须借鉴且必须超越的思想阶梯？伟大的思想植根于他们时代的社会历史现实，但真正的“现实”，并不能被直观或常识所轻易占有，只可作为社会历史的必然性环节被把握。正如马克思在《〈黑格尔法哲学批判〉导言》中所说的，如果理论的批判从德国低于历史水平的现状本身出发，那么即使采取适当的方式，结果依然要犯时代错误。因为英国和法国已经历的现代化和已经凝结为理论的时代精神，在德国落后和保守的旧制度中并不存在。但马克思深刻洞悉了德国把握时代的特有方式：“德国的法哲学和国家哲学是唯一站在正统的当代现实水平上的德国历史”。即使德国不是19世纪历史的同时代人，也有资格是19世纪哲学的同时代人。德国是以思想抽象的方式，即德国古典哲学的理论运动，把握住了现代世界。从康德理性对自然的立法到黑格尔理性国家对自由的实现，德国古典哲学在其思想史中经历了英国与法国的现代化历程，并深入到现代性的核心领域。马克思通过对德国古典哲学的批判，把握了现代性的本质：德国人之所以有可能从现实人抽象出现代国家的思想形象，是因为现代国家本身是从现实人抽象出来的。由此，马克思开启了一个全新的思想历程：“德国能不能实现一个原则高度的实践，即实现一个不但能把德国提高到现代各国的现有水平，而且提高到哲学国家即将达到的人的高度的革命？”这个“原则高度”是对英国经济学、法国政治学和德国哲学所代表的现代性思想的超越，马克思正是在这样的思想使命中，开启了在实践中改变世界的哲学革命。我们之所以将马克思在《关于费尔巴哈的提纲》里提出将“现实当作实践去理解”作为他哲学革命的意义中枢，正是因为这场哲学革命的时代任务，是扬弃英法资本主义以及旧哲学的“市民社会”基础，为新唯物主义确立“人类社会或社会化的人类”的新立足点。

The process of adapting Marxism to the Chinese context has never for a moment departed from the epochal issues of China’s socio-historical reality. In the mid-19th century, Western civilization, accompanied by strong ships and powerful cannons, crossed the sea eastward, and the ancient Chinese civilization faced the existential test of what was called “changes unseen in three thousand years.” [1]1 “Changes unseen in three thousand years” is a phrase attributed to the Qing dynasty official and diplomat Li Hongzhang (1823–1901), used to describe the unprecedented scale of the crisis facing China in the face of Western imperialist incursions. After more than half a century of arduous exploration, various schemes—peasant uprisings, old-style army drills, the Westernization Movement, reform and modernization, political revolution—all failed to solve the epochal issues of China’s modernization and national salvation. The May Fourth Movement raised high the banners of “science” and “democracy,” and cultural innovation and social revolution became the historical direction for China’s continued modernization. The reason we say that “the October Revolution sent Marxism-Leninism to China with a single cannon shot” is that, among the many complex and diverse foreign currents of thought, only the path illuminated by Marxism-Leninism hit the epochal theme of China’s historical development, providing a realistic and feasible plan for this ancient civilization to achieve thorough cultural innovation and social revolution. Therefore, Li Dazhao, in “My Marxist Views,” regarded Marxism, especially historical materialism, primarily as economic and sociological theory. [2]2 Li Dazhao (1889–1927) was a co-founder of the Chinese Communist Party and a leading intellectual who first systematically introduced Marxism to China. Works such as Cai Hesen’s “A History of Social Evolution,” Qu Qiubai’s “An Introduction to Social Philosophy” and “Modern Sociology,” and Li Da’s “Modern Sociology” all vigorously introduced historical materialism as an intellectual resource for guiding social revolution, constituting the most original historical context for the adaptation of Marxist philosophy to the Chinese context.

马克思主义哲学的中国化过程，也须臾没有离开过中国社会历史现实发展的时代问题。19世纪中期西方文明伴着船坚炮利踏海东来，古老的中国文明面临所谓“三千年未有之大变局”的存亡考验。历经半个多世纪的艰辛探索，农民起义、旧军洋操、兴办洋务、维新改良、政治革命种种方案，都没能解决中国实现现代化、拯救民族危亡的时代问题。五四运动高举“科学”与“民主”的旗帜，文化革新和社会革命成为中国现代化继续前进的历史方向。我们之所以说“十月革命一声炮响，给中国送来了马克思列宁主义”，是因为在纷繁复杂的诸多外来思潮中，唯有马克思列宁主义所昭示的道路切中了中国历史发展的时代主题，为中国这个古老文明获得彻底的文化革新和社会革命提供了现实可行的方案。因此，李大钊在《我的马克思主义观》中就将马克思主义特别是唯物史观，首先看作经济学和社会学理论，蔡和森的《社会进化史》、瞿秋白的《社会哲学概论》《现代社会学》、李达的《现代社会学》等，都是将唯物史观作为一种指导社会革命的思想资源加以大力引介，这构成了马克思主义哲学中国化最原初的历史语境。

In 1921, the Communist Party of China emerged as the times required. Thereafter, the revolution led by the CPC transformed Marxism in China from a concept in circulation into the ideological guide for China’s modernization. At the same time, Chinese Marxist philosophy continuously achieved its own theoretical innovation in the course of the actual revolutionary process. *On Practice* and *On Contradiction* are brilliant works of dialectical materialism. Comrade Mao Zedong’s creative philosophical elaboration of the epistemology and dialectics of dialectical materialism was not intended to resolve some specific military-political problem or philosophical-academic issue. Rather, at that time, the Party had not yet formed a unified understanding of the errors in ideological lines such as subjectivism and empiricism. It was urgently necessary, on the basis of analyzing and summarizing the rich experience and painful lessons of the Northern Expedition and the Agrarian Revolutionary War, to provide the correct methodology and ideological foundation for the entire Party and the entire army from the height of Marxist philosophy. *On New Democracy*, published in 1940, was a comprehensive work that innovated and developed historical materialism through Sinicized Marxist philosophy. In the most difficult period of the War of Resistance Against Japan, the question “Whither China?” became an urgent question of the times. The theory of new democracy creatively provided a comprehensive program, systematic goals, and a path of realization for a backward agricultural country like China, which was semi-colonial and semi-feudal, to overthrow the oppression of feudalism and imperialism, establish a “new society and a new state,” and thereby achieve modernization.

1921年中国共产党应运而生，此后中国共产党领导的革命，使马克思主义在中国从传播中的观念变为引领中国现代化的思想指引。同时中国的马克思主义哲学也在现实革命进程中，不断实现着自身的理论创新。《实践论》和《矛盾论》是辩证唯物主义的光辉著作，毛泽东同志对辩证唯物主义认识论和辩证法创造性地哲学阐发，不是要解决某个具体军事政治问题或哲学学术问题，而是当时党内还没有对主观主义、经验主义等思想路线的错误形成统一认识，亟须在分析总结北伐战争和土地革命战争丰富经验和惨痛教训的基础上，从马克思主义哲学的高度，为全党全军提供正确的方法论和思想基础。1940年出版的《新民主主义论》，是中国化马克思主义哲学对历史唯物主义创新和发展的集大成之作。在抗日战争最艰苦的阶段，“未来中国向何处去”成为迫切的时代之问。新民主主义理论创造性地为中国这样一个半殖民地半封建的落后农业国家，推翻封建主义和帝国主义压迫，建立“新的社会和新的国家”进而实现现代化，提供了全面纲领、系统目标和实现途径。

In the late 1970s, at the historical turning point of bringing order out of chaos, the philosophical discussion on “practice is the sole criterion for testing truth” lifted the curtain on China’s ideological emancipation. It laid the theoretical foundation for the Party to restore the ideological line of “seeking truth from facts” and to make the major decision of reform and opening up. Subsequently, academic exploration of the ideas of humanism and alienation in Marx’s early works, and research on Marxist anthropology, struck at the urgent need for human liberation and free development. The rise of value philosophy responded to the social anxiety over the transformation and reshaping of the value system during the reform of the commodity economy. Attention to practical materialism and discussion of Marx’s theory of social development and the question of the Eastern path reflected an urgent expectation for China to accelerate development and catch up with the times. The return to sorting out Marx’s writings and the history of philosophy, meanwhile, embodied an academic effort to re-determine historical orientation, to set things right and move forward. As reform and opening up drove rapid and profound changes in China’s social landscape, the academic effort to grasp the rapid transformation of Chinese society with determinate theory manifested as a debate over the ontology and philosophical nature of Marx’s philosophy. After gradually acquiring the historical experience of modern society, philosophical reflection on modernity gradually became a trend. In this process, not only was modern Western philosophy introduced as an important intellectual resource, but various radical “post-isms” led by “postmodernism” also made their appearance.

20世纪70年代末，在拨乱反正的历史转折点上，关于“实践是检验真理的唯一标准”的哲学讨论，拉开了中国思想解放的历史大幕，从哲学上为党恢复“实事求是”的思想路线，做出改革开放的重大决策，奠定了理论基础。之后，学术界对马克思早期作品中人道主义和异化思想的发掘、对马克思主义人学问题的研究，切中的是对人的解放和自由发展的迫切需要；价值哲学研究的兴起，回应着商品经济改革过程中价值体系转型与重塑的社会焦虑；对实践唯物主义的关注，对马克思社会发展理论以及东方道路问题的探讨，体现了对中国加速发展追上时代的迫切期待。而回归对马克思著作和哲学史的梳理，则体现了一种重新确定历史方位，正本清源以继续前进的学术努力。随着改革开放推进中国社会面貌快速而深刻变化，以确定性的理论把握住中国社会快速变迁的学术努力，呈现为围绕马克思哲学本体论和哲学性质的争鸣。在逐步获得现代社会的历史体验之后，对现代性的哲学反思渐成风气，在这个过程中，不但现代西方哲学被作为重要思想资源引入，以“后现代”为首的各种激进“后学”也纷纷登场。

Every step forward of Chinese Marxist philosophy has accompanied the historical development of Chinese society and responded to the questions of the times. It should be said that in the early stage of China’s rapid entry into modernization, introducing the intellectual resources of Western thinkers who had entered modernity earlier was a necessary reference. But we must clearly recognize that China’s modernization process is not a simple copy or historical repetition of the Western philosophical process. Contemporary China is undergoing the largest-scale modernization process in human history to date, and this is a uniquely pioneering historical practice—that is, the historical unfolding of the new path of Chinese-path modernization. If the innovative development of Chinese Marxist philosophy detaches itself from this great process and the questions of the times, and merely entertains itself with conceptual grafting, it will commit an error of the times. The great practice of China’s modernization inevitably gives rise to unique questions of the times and inevitably summons philosophical judgments grounded in its own social and historical reality. For example, what is the standard of Chinese-path modernization? What new “principle-level height” do the new path and the New Era possess? How can new universal norms with world-historical significance be provided? All these questions demand answers that lead the times. Today, China possesses the world’s largest contingent of Marxist theoretical research personnel. Standing at the historical watershed of changes unseen in a century, China is undergoing the most grand and unique historical practice in human history. Everything calls for new thought and opens a new era. We look forward to more epoch-making original contributions from 21st-century Chinese Marxist philosophy!

中国马克思主义哲学前进的每一步，都伴随着中国社会历史发展，响应着时代问题。应该说，在中国快速进入现代化的早期阶段，引介更早进入现代性的西方思想家学术资源是必要的借鉴，但我们要清醒地认识到，中国的现代化进程不是西方哲学过程的简单翻版或历史重复。当代中国正经历着迄今为止人类历史上最大规模的现代化进程，而且这是一场独具开创性的历史实践，即中国式现代化新道路的历史性展开。中国马克思主义哲学的创新发展，如果脱离这个伟大进程和时代问题，仅在概念嫁接中自娱自乐，就会犯时代性错误。中国现代化的伟大实践，必然具有独特的时代问题，必然召唤着立足自身社会历史现实的哲学判断。比如中国式现代化标准是什么，新道路和新时代具有什么样新的“原则高度”，如何提供新的具有世界历史意义的普遍性规范等问题，都需要给出引领时代的回答。今天，中国拥有世界上最大规模的马克思主义理论研究队伍，站在世界百年未有之大变局的历史分水岭上，中国正在经历着人类历史上最宏大而独特的历史实践。一切都在呼唤新的思想，开启新的时代，我们期待21世纪的中国马克思主义哲学作出更多划时代的原创性贡献！

Online editor: Paul

网络编辑：保罗