Historical Materialism and the Transcendence of Historical Metaphysics

Although Hegel introduced history into philosophy and pushed metaphysics to its historical peak, his claim to discern pure concepts within historical forms merely completed a new myth of metaphysics. By sorting through the process of ideological transformation at different stages before and after the emergence of historical materialism, we clarify the history of the paradigm innovation of historical materialism; by distinguishing the difference between the objectification movement of self-consciousness and the objectification movement of substance, we sort through the history of the critique of historical metaphysics; and by grasping the dialectics of historical materialism and its contemporary significance through the morphological differences of dialectics. Guided by the line of thought of “inquiry,” “critique,” “restoration,” and “reconstruction,” this article systematically and stage-by-stage sorts through the history of Marx’s paradigm innovation of historical materialism and its history of transcending historical metaphysics.

尽管黑格尔把历史引入哲学，把形而上学推向其历史的高峰，然而主张在历史形态中辨认出纯粹的概念，完成的不过是关于形而上学的新神话。我们通过梳理唯物史观产生前后不同阶段的思想转变过程厘清唯物史观范式创新史；通过自我意识对象化运动与实体性对象化运动的差异梳理历史形而上学批判史；以及通过辩证法的形态差异把握唯物史观的辩证法及其当代意义。在“追问”“批判”“还原”“重构”思路引导下，本文对马克思唯物史观范式创新史及其对历史形而上学超越史进行系统性和阶段性梳理。

First, “inquiry.” Inquiring into the problematic of all metaphysics, including historical metaphysics. Regarding history and reason, the divergence between Kant and Hegel is clear. While Hegel’s critique of Kant’s philosophy of history achieved success, it also left many fundamental problems he could not resolve. Hegel and Kant share three similarities: first, the essence of history—both agree that history is a rational determination based on purposiveness; second, the driving force of history—both agree that contradiction is the motive force of history; third, the universality of history—both realize “world history” on the basis of the “genus.” However, Hegel did not agree with Kant’s dualistic division of history and reason. Through the transcendence of dialectical logic over transcendental logic, Hegel’s transcendence of Kant’s philosophy of history is mainly reflected in a threefold redefinition of “actuality”: first, a repositioning of law; second, a rethinking of the relationship between morality and ethical life; third, a new grasp of the relationship between reason and practice. In his re-understanding of the concept of “actuality,” through the self-development and movement of the “absolute spirit,” Hegel made the historical reason of dialectical logic transcend the historical rationality of transcendental logic. In this process, the “objectification movement” is the key link in the development of contradiction, encompassing three dimensions: “nature,” “the human being itself,” and “society.” Hegel’s social relationality is the most important aspect of his transcendence of Kant’s individual-based view of history. Marx drew theoretical nourishment from this, believing that alienation in practice can only occur through the social relations of intercourse unfolded by objectifying activities condensed within these three dimensions. In Hegel’s objectification movement, what emerges is the spiritual kingdom and its free will, which takes a completely opposite path from his “actuality” as essence, enabling Marx to find the starting point for transcendence. Marx’s critique of historical metaphysics lies in an internal transcendence: through its internal method of negation, it breaks the necessary system of historical metaphysics; through open, situated objectifying activities, it opens up the closed historical noumenon with socio-historical practice, reverses the inverted historical logic, and completes the non-speculative unity of history and logic.

第一，“追问”。追问一切形而上学包括历史形而上学的问题所在。关于历史与理性，康德与黑格尔之间分歧明显。黑格尔批判康德历史观取得成功的同时，又存在很多他无法解决的根本问题。黑格尔与康德间具有三处相似：一是历史的本质，他们都赞同历史是合目的基础上的合乎理性的规定；二是历史的动力，他们都赞同矛盾是历史的推动力；三是历史的普遍性，都在“类”的基础上实现“世界历史”。但是黑格尔不赞同康德对历史与理性的二元分割，通过辩证逻辑对先验逻辑的超越，黑格尔对康德历史哲学的超越主要体现在对“现实”的三重界定：一是对法进行重新定位；二是对道德与伦理的关系进行重新思考；三是对理性与实践的关系重新把握。黑格尔在对“现实”概念的重新理解中，通过“绝对精神”自身的发展运动，使辩证逻辑的历史理性超越了先验逻辑的历史合理性。在这个过程中，“对象化运动”是矛盾发展的关键环节，包括三重维度：“自然”“人本身”和“社会”。黑格尔的社会关系性是超越康德个人基础上的历史观的最重要方面。马克思从中汲取了理论养分，认为实践中的异化必须通过凝结于此三种维度之中的对象化活动而展开的社会交往关系才能发生。在黑格尔的对象化运动中走出的是精神王国及其自由意志，这与他的作为本质的“现实”力量走了完全相反的道路，使马克思找到超越的出发点。马克思对历史形而上学的批判在于一种内部超越，通过其内部的否定性方法打破历史形而上学的必然性体系，通过可敞开的置身性的对象化活动，以社会历史实践敞开了被封闭的历史本体，颠倒了被颠倒的历史逻辑，完成了非思辨的历史与逻辑的统一。

Second, “critique.” Before the emergence of historical materialism, Marx’s innovations and attempts to critique Hegel’s historical metaphysics, from “self-consciousness” to the substantive “actual human being” and then to the substantive “species-essence,” revolved around two core concepts of the system of historical metaphysics created by speculative dialectics: “self-consciousness” and “substance.” The first stage takes “self-consciousness” as the overarching problematic, corresponding to the period of the young Marx’s doctoral dissertation. Marx’s dimension of freedom in “self-consciousness,” namely, swerving negation, breaks through the powerful gravitational pull of Hegel’s theological nous of the “absolute idea” and finds the free will of the human being. On the “substance” side, influenced by Feuerbach, Marx had two different substantive horizons, namely the “actual human being” and “species-essence.” “Actual human being” mainly includes three links: the “people’s reason” of the transition from heaven to the human world, the “Jewish question” in “civil society,” and the “substantive practice” of the “actual human being.” Through this “three-step” of substance, Marx critiqued the abstraction of Hegel’s and his own earlier “self-consciousness.” The third stage is the overarching problematic of “species-essence” and the substantive “objectification movement,” which requires a deep exploration of the foundational meaning of the overarching problematic of “species-essence”; the critique of political economy of the ethical substance based on sensuous-objective substance; and an analysis of the difficulties of the substantive objectification movement. However, in the further “deconstruction” of self-consciousness, the problem of substance also persistently troubled Marx. Can a merely substantive objectification movement bear the heavy burden of historical dynamism surging forward like a torrent? Can the truly emergent actuality be abstracted and generalized by a capitalized substance? The answer is no. Feuerbach’s concept of the “genus” actually comes from the third link of Hegel’s core concept of historical metaphysics, “self-consciousness” (desire, life, genus). Using Hegel’s concept to “deconstruct” Hegel—the result is predictable. While invoking Feuerbach’s substance of the “genus,” Marx simultaneously exhibited a profound logic of negative objectification, a “polyphonic narrative” on the eve of the philosophical revolution. These three ideological transformations not only discover logical contradictions through continuous “inquiry,” but also achieve self-transcendence within these logical contradictions. In the reflection on and deconstruction of Hegel, Feuerbach, and himself, Marx initiated the “restoration” of history and its truly emergent agent.

第二，“批判”。在唯物史观产生前，马克思从“自我意识”，到实体性的“现实的人”，再到实体性的“类本质”的三个阶段，对黑格尔历史形而上学批判的创新和尝试，围绕着思辨辩证法造就的历史形而上学体系的两个核心概念展开：“自我意识”与“实体”。第一个阶段以“自我意识”为总问题，对应于青年马克思的博士论文时期，马克思“自我意识”的自由向度即偏斜式否定，冲破黑格尔“绝对理念”之神学努斯的强大引力，找到了人之自由意志。“实体”方面，马克思受费尔巴哈影响，前后有两个不同的实体性视域，分别为 “现实的人”和“类本质”。“现实的人”主要包括三个环节：从天国到人间之过渡的“人民理性”、“市民社会”中的“犹太人的问题”、“现实的人”之“实体实践”，通过实体的“三步曲”，马克思批判了黑格尔以及自己早前的“自我意识”的抽象性。第三阶段是“类本质”总问题与实体性的“对象化运动”阶段，需深刻探究“类本质”总问题的基础要义；感性—对象性实体基础上的伦理实体的政治经济学批判；剖析实体性对象化运动之疑难。然而，在进一步“解构”自我意识的过程中，实体问题也一直困扰着马克思。仅仅是实体性的对象化运动，是否可以担负起如洪流般奔腾向前的历史动力的重任？真正的现实出场者是否可以被大写实体所抽象和概括？答案是否定的。费尔巴哈“类”的概念其实正是来自于黑格尔历史形而上学核心概念“自我意识”（欲望、生命、类）之第三环节，用黑格尔的概念来“解构”黑格尔，其结果可想而知。马克思在援引的费尔巴哈“类”的实体同时又展现了深刻的否定性的对象化逻辑，这是哲学革命发生前夜的“复调叙事”。这三次思想转变不仅通过不断“追问”来发现逻辑矛盾，更在此逻辑矛盾中实现自我超越。在对黑格尔、费尔巴哈和自身反思与解构中，马克思开启了对历史及其真正出场者的“还原”。

Third, “restoration.” This period marks the beginning of Marx’s paradigm innovation in historical materialism. Compared with the period before the emergence of historical materialism, it is the site of Marx’s philosophical revolution, encompassing the intellectual changes in Marx’s fourth and fifth stages. After experiencing the history of paradigm innovation in historical materialism, Marx engaged in a profound reflection on the split between “theory” and “reality,” especially a comprehensive reflection at the overall height of the historical metaphysics inaugurated by Hegel. Whether it was Bauer, Feuerbach, or Marx’s own early thought, all were influenced by Hegel’s historical metaphysics. It can be said that during this period, Marx, on the one hand, criticized historical metaphysics, but on the other hand, he had not yet truly transcended it. It was not until the spring of 1845 that Marx finally embarked on an entirely new intellectual journey, creating a completely new paradigm of thought. He unified the separation of thought and history, the difference between method and system, the divide between theory and reality, and the rupture between freedom and necessity within historical metaphysics, finding a scientific answer in human society for the laws of development of world history. This period includes two mutually complementary stages: the stage of general historical materialism and the stage of concrete historical materialism. The fourth stage is the stage of “perceptual human perceptual activity” and general historical materialism, which restores the universal historical actors of human society. Through *Theses on Feuerbach*, we can grasp the key to the full occurrence of Marx’s philosophical revolution; through the new interpretation of “history” and “practice” in *The German Ideology*, we can grasp the theoretical creation of historical materialism, while simultaneously terminating the methodology and worldview of all present metaphysics, including historical metaphysics. This stage uses “perceptual human perceptual activity” to express the fundamental basis and driving force of historical emergence. The fifth stage is the concrete application of the broad historical materialism of the fourth stage, scientifically demonstrating the correctness of the comprehensive innovation in thought of the fourth stage. The fifth stage is the stage of constructing concrete historical materialism with “labor” as the overarching problem, restoring the real and concrete historical actors, and exploring the duality in the process of the socialization of labor. On the one hand, it creates different classes, and the real root of the reified world is “labor”; on the other hand, it demonstrates that the force for transcending one’s own reified condition is also “labor.” Therefore, historical dialectics is the living soul of historical materialism. This is the logic of the field concealed within the “socialization of labor,” and it is also the dialectical logic of the actions of historical actors in *Capital*; it is the logic of the unity of Marx’s philosophy and the critique of political economy, and it is also the logic of paradigm innovation in historical materialism. The logic of paradigm innovation in historical materialism firmly grasps the essence of history, restores the actors of history, and uncovers the driving force of historical development: the subject of socialized communicative activity—socialized-objectified labor itself. The philosophical innovation of the fourth stage and the innovation in the critique of political economy of the fifth stage together complete the paradigm innovation of historical materialism, signifying the completion of the “concrete—abstract—concrete” dialectics and the full occurrence of the philosophical revolution. Marx formed five intellectual transformations in “deconstruction” and “restoration,” realizing historical materialism through continuous “reconstruction.”

第三，“还原”。这一时期马克思开启唯物史观范式创新时期，较唯物史观产生之前时期，它是马克思哲学革命的发生地，包括了马克思第四阶段和第五阶段的思想变化。马克思在经历了唯物史观范式创新史之后，对“理论”与“现实”的分裂进行了深刻的反思，尤其是对黑格尔开启的历史形而上学进行了整体高度的全面反思。无论是鲍威尔、费尔巴哈，还是马克思思想前期，都受到了黑格尔历史形而上学的影响，可以说，在这一时期马克思一方面在批判历史形而上学，另一方面也未能真正超越历史形而上学。直到1845年春天，马克思才终于开启了全新的思想历程，创造了全新的思想范式，把历史形而上学中的思与史的分离、方法与体系的差异、理论与现实的分野、自由与必然的割裂进行了统一，在人类社会中为世界历史的发展规律找到了科学答案。这一时期包括相互补充的两个阶段：一般唯物史观阶段与具体唯物史观阶段。第四阶段是“感性的人的感性活动”与一般唯物史观阶段，还原了普遍的人类社会的历史出场者，我们可以通过《关于费尔巴哈的提纲》把握马克思哲学革命全面发生的关键所在；通过《德意志意识形态》“历史”与“实践”的新解把握唯物史观的理论创建，同时终结包括历史形而上学在内的所有在场形而上学的方法论与世界观。这一阶段以“感性的人的感性活动”表达了历史出场的根本基础和动因，第五阶段则是对第四阶段广义唯物史观的具体化运用，并科学地论证了第四阶段思想全面创新的正确性。第五阶段是以“劳动”为总问题建构具体唯物史观阶段，还原了现实具体的历史出场者，探讨了在劳动社会化过程中的两重性，一方面造就了不同的阶级，造就了物化世界的现实根源是“劳动”；另一方面论证突破自身物化现状的力量同样也是“劳动”。因此，历史性的辩证法是唯物史观的活的灵魂，这是在“劳动社会化”中被隐匿的场域逻辑，也是《资本论》中历史出场者出场行动的辩证逻辑；是马克思哲学与政治经济学批判相统一的逻辑，也是唯物史观范式创新逻辑。唯物史观范式创新逻辑牢牢抓住历史的本质，还原历史的出场者，发掘了推动历史发展的动力：社会化交往活动主体之社会化—对象化劳动本身。第四阶段的哲学创新和第五阶段的政治经济学批判创新共同完成唯物史观的范式创新，意味着“具体—抽象—具体”辩证法的完成和哲学革命的全面发生。马克思在“解构”与“还原”中形成五次思想转变，在不断“重构”中实现着唯物史观。

Fourth, “reconstruction.” The reconstruction of historical materialism is divided into “theoretical reconstruction” and “practical reconstruction.” “Theoretical reconstruction” is embodied in the dual reconstruction of the two cores of “self-consciousness” and “substance,” achieving the unity of philosophy and the critique of political economy, completing the dialectics of thought and history, enabling thought to continuously “disembed and reconstruct” through the ever-changing and open “reality,” realizing self-development, and endowing theory with upward vitality. The reconstruction of “self-consciousness” and the reconstruction of “substance” are further expanded into the reconstruction of ontology, logic, and methodology. In the process of “theoretical reconstruction,” the key red thread running through the earlier and later periods is “objectifying activity.” Simultaneously with the completion of the task of criticizing historical metaphysics, historical materialism ascended onto the stage of thought. Therefore, “theoretical reconstruction” is followed by “practical reconstruction.” The logical significance of the paradigm innovation of the philosophical revolution lies in using this logic to guide the contemporary development of historical materialism. Hence, it is necessary to study the combination of theory and reality, use scientific theory to guide reality, and reconstruct historical reality in the new historical juncture. Therefore, “practical reconstruction” means that in contemporary China, we must grasp the laws and driving forces of historical development through the concrete application of historical materialism, understand the concrete conditions of contemporary China’s historical development, compare the differences between China’s development concepts and those of capitalism, use a scientific worldview and methodology to study the transcendence of contemporary socialism with Chinese characteristics over the economic base and superstructure of globalized capital, and thereby explore the contemporary significance of historical materialism.

第四，“重构”。唯物史观的重构分为“理论重构”和“现实重构”。“理论重构”体现在对“自我意识”和“实体”两个核心的双重重构，实现哲学与政治经济学批判的统一，完成了思与史的辩证法，使思想得以不断通过变化莫测的可敞开的“现实”而不断“脱域—重构”，实现自我发展，使理论具有了向上的生命力。对“自我意识”的重构和对“实体”的重构进一步拓展为对本体论、逻辑学与方法论的重构。在“理论重构”的过程中，贯穿于前后时期的关键红线是“对象化活动”。在历史形而上学批判任务完成的同时，唯物史观登上思想舞台。因此，“理论重构”之后就是“现实重构”。哲学革命的范式创新之逻辑意义在于用该逻辑指引唯物史观的当代发展。因此要研究理论与现实的结合，用科学理论指导现实，在新的历史方位重新建构历史现实。因此，“现实重构”意味着要在当代中国以唯物史观的具体化运用把握历史发展的规律与动力，理解当代中国的历史发展之具体现状，比较中国发展理念与资本主义发展理念的不同，用科学的世界观与方法论研究当代中国特色社会主义对资本全球化的经济基础和上层建筑的超越，进而探讨唯物史观的当代意义。

Online editor: Paul

网络编辑：保罗