The Philosophization of the World and the Worlding of Philosophy

Since the 1970s, Marx’s thought on justice has sparked sustained and intense attention in Anglo-American philosophical circles. “Does Marx have a concept of justice?” and, further, “Does Marx support or oppose justice?” have become the focal points of this debate. This article argues that, regarding the concept of justice caught in the historical vortex, it is necessary to return to Marx’s first systematic theoretical work, *Difference Between the Democritean and Epicurean Philosophy of Nature* (hereinafter referred to as the *Doctoral Dissertation*). By grounding ourselves in the starting point of the young Marx’s reflection on the question of justice, we can ascertain the dialectical philosophical thought he puts forward in the text: “the philosophization of the world is at the same time the worlding of philosophy,” in order to accurately grasp Marx’s view of justice.

自20世纪70年代以来，马克思的正义思想在英美哲学界引发了持久热烈的关注，“马克思有无正义思想”，进一步说，“马克思对正义是持支持还是反对的态度”成为这场争论要探讨的焦点。本文认为，对于处在历史漩涡中的正义观，有必要重回到马克思第一个系统性理论著作《德谟克利特的自然哲学与伊壁鸠鲁的自然哲学的差异》(以下简称《博士论文》)，通过立足青年马克思对正义问题思考的起点，勘明其在文本中所提出的“世界的哲学化同时也就是哲学的世界化”的辩证哲学思想，以期准确把握马克思的正义观。

I. The Context for the Elaboration of the Thought on Justice in the *Doctoral Dissertation*

一、《博士论文》中正义思想的阐发语境

From Marx’s early poems, essays, and letters, one can detect a strain of Romanticism active in some of his philosophically exploratory texts written before the *Doctoral Dissertation*. In terms of intellectual background, the idealism of Kant and Fichte was precisely the ideological source from which Marx formed this idealism. However, when Marx shifted from literature to the study of legal philosophy, the shortcomings of this Romanticism became fully apparent. “The first serious obstacle that presented itself was precisely the opposition between what is actual and what ought to be, an opposition inherent in idealism; it became the source of a clumsy and erroneous division.” [1]1 Karl Marx, “Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right,” in *Marx and Engels Collected Works*, vol. 3 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1975), p. 3. Faced with the disconnection between “what ought to be” and “what exists”—mainly manifested as the separation of form and substance—Marx became acutely aware of the weakness and emptiness of this idealism. The collapse of his earlier Romanticism prompted Marx to abandon speculation on abstract forms, which to a certain extent determined that he would never establish an abstract paradigm of justice divorced from concrete human reality. At the same time, it was precisely here that Marx began to turn his focus of reflection toward Hegel’s philosophical principles.

从马克思早期写作的诗歌、散文和书信中可以发现，其在《博士论文》写作以前的一些哲学探索性文本中活跃着一股浪漫主义的气息。从思想背景中来看，康德和费希特的唯心主义正是马克思形成这种理想主义的思想源泉。但是，当马克思从文学转向法哲学的研究时，这种浪漫主义的弊端便显露无遗。“这里首先出现的严重障碍正是现实的东西和应有的东西之间的对立，这种对立是唯心主义所固有的;它又成了拙劣的、错误的划分的根源。”面对“应有”与“现有”的脱节———其主要表现为形式与实体的分离———马克思清醒地意识到这种唯心主义的薄弱与空洞。先前的浪漫主义的破灭促使马克思放弃对于抽象形式的思辨，这在一定程度上决定了马克思决然不会建立抽象的、与人的具体实际相脱离的正义范式。同时，也恰恰是在这里，马克思开始把思考的关注点转向黑格尔的哲学原则。

After Hegel’s death, the Hegelian school split into the “Old Hegelians,” who tended toward political and religious conservatism, and the Young Hegelians, who held radical liberal-democratic ideas and regarded the promotion of reason as their mission. In the process of secularizing philosophy, the latter intensified the disintegration of “substance” and “self-consciousness.” When writing the *Doctoral Dissertation*, Marx was undoubtedly more inclined toward the self-consciousness position of Bruno Bauer within the Young Hegelians. Although the concept of “self-consciousness” had already been clearly elaborated in Bauer’s works, the two did not use this concept with the same meaning. In contrast to Bauer, who, confined within Hegel’s philosophical framework, proposed self-consciousness as the origin of the world—referring to a cyclical movement of abstract individuals’ self-development, self-critique, and self-sublation—Marx’s application of this concept was clearly different from Bauer’s. Marx painstakingly selected Epicurus as the object of philosophical study in his *Doctoral Dissertation*, not only because Epicurus represented the logical endpoint of the development of Greek philosophy, but, more importantly, because Marx discovered in the Epicurean temperament the core theme of the entire development of the Greek spirit: how is the freedom of self-consciousness of the sensuous individual in the Greek polis society possible? According to Marx’s interpretation, the core principle of Epicurean philosophy is “the sanctity of self-consciousness and the necessity of freedom.” Self-consciousness became the point of communication between Marx and Epicurean thought. The most important aspect of Epicurus’s self-consciousness is that it symbolizes the rejection of all forms of externally imposed authority, thereby breaking the necessity inherent in the ontology of natural philosophy. In this sense, Marx’s use of the concept of self-consciousness was more inspired by Epicurus.

当黑格尔去世后，黑格尔学派分裂为在政治和宗教上趋向保守的“老年黑格尔派”以及拥有激进的自由民主观念、把提倡理性视为己任的青年黑格尔派。后者在把哲学推向世俗化的过程中加剧了“实体”和“自我意识”的瓦解，马克思在写作《博士论文》时，无疑是更倾向于青年黑格尔派中布鲁诺·鲍威尔的自我意识立场的。虽说“自我意识”概念在鲍威尔著作中已经有过明确的阐述，但是二者并非在同等的含义上使用此概念。相对于鲍威尔困囿于黑格尔的哲学框架而提出的自我意识作为世界本原，指的是抽象个体自我发展、自我批判并自我扬弃的循环运动，马克思对这一概念的运用显然与鲍威尔不同。马克思煞费苦心地在其《博士论文》中选中伊壁鸠鲁作为哲学研究对象，并不仅是因为伊壁鸠鲁代表着希腊哲学发展的逻辑终点，更重要的是马克思从伊壁鸠鲁气质中发现了整个希腊精神的发展的核心主题:希腊城邦社会中感性个体的自我意识之自由如何可能。根据马克思的解读，伊壁鸠鲁哲学的核心原则是“自我意识的神圣性与自由的必然性”，自我意识成为了马克思与伊壁鸠鲁思想的沟通之处。伊壁鸠鲁的自我意识最重要的一点就是它象征着拒斥一切形式的外在强加的权威，从而打破了自然哲学本体论意义上的必然性。在这个意义上，马克思对自我意识的概念运用更多地是受到了伊壁鸠鲁的启发。

Self-consciousness, as the focus of Marx’s study in the *Doctoral Dissertation*, is essentially an elaboration of his thought on justice through the interpretation of the concept of self-consciousness. At the same time, the rebellious nature of self-consciousness proposed by Epicurus provided theoretical inspiration for Marx’s idea of the “philosophization of the world.” On the one hand, the principle of self-consciousness is used to critique the gods of religion, appealing to freedom in practice by abolishing all concepts of gods or deities. On the positive side, self-consciousness possesses independence; it inherently contains the principle of fully exerting the subject’s agency and forms a force of critique and negation. On the other hand, it was precisely with a sense of disappointment in idealism—that idealism leads to an infinite opposition between what ought to be and what exists, the separation of ideal and reality—that Marx turned to Hegel’s theory to seek a solution to the problem. In other words, Marx realized that self-consciousness also has limitations and negative aspects; its abstractness and particularity make real science impossible. For Marx, the real problem to be solved was always the problem of reality. Self-consciousness, as a sharp blade—despite its own defects—needs to fully exert its revolutionary, critical, and destructive character, thereby applying the originally free theoretical spirit to reality as a practical force. It can be seen that Marx was not pursuing a “pure idealism,” nor was he seeking to establish an abstract system of justice based on what ought to be; rather, he was committed to building a rational system of justice that provides answers to real problems.

自我意识作为马克思在《博士论文》中要研究的重点，对自我意识概念的阐释本质上是对其正义思想的阐发，同时，伊壁鸠鲁所提出的自我意识的反抗性为马克思“世界哲学化”的思想提供理论灵感。一方面，借自我意识的原则来对宗教的神进行批判，通过取消一切神或上帝的观念把自由诉诸实际。从积极的方面来看，自我意识具有独立性，它内含着充分发挥主体能动性的原则并以之形成批判与否定的力量;另一方面，马克思正是怀着对理想主义的落空感———理想主义所导致的是应有与现有的无限对立、理想与现实的分离———而进入黑格尔的理论寻求问题的解决方法，换言之，马克思意识到自我意识同样具有局限性和消极意义，它的抽象性和个别性使得现实科学成为不可能。对于马克思而言，真正要去解决的问题始终是现实的问题，自我意识作为一把利刃———尽管其自身存在缺陷———需要充分发挥其革命性、批判性和破坏性，从而将原本自由的理论精神应用到现实成为实践的力量。可以看出，马克思并不是要追求一种“纯粹理想主义”，他所要建立的也绝非一种抽象的应有的正义体系，而是致力于对现实问题作出解答的理性的正义体系。

II. Interpreting the Freedom of Self-Consciousness from the Theory of the Atomic “Swerve”

二、从原子“偏斜运动”理论中诠释自我意识的自由

The main view of the atomists is that atoms and the space-time they occupy constitute the origin of the world. The actual world arises from the motion of atoms in the void. The forms of atomic motion include atoms falling vertically in a straight line, atoms swerving from the straight line during their descent, and the mutual repulsion between atoms. Democritus and Epicurus, the two atomists, generally acknowledged the above view of atoms. However, the swerve of atoms from straight-line motion was Epicurus’s original formulation, and this also became the point of divergence between the two. According to Democritus, atoms, as the ultimate units of the world, move in a straight line in the void, and there are no qualitative differences between atoms, only differences in shape, order, and position. The qualitative differences among all things in the macroscopic world are determined by the different arrangements and combinations of the basic atomic elements. In Marx’s view, the straight-line fall of atoms actually expresses only the function of atoms as pure matter. Atoms, as material substrates, are governed by blind necessity. While atoms are everywhere constrained by external necessity, this necessarily leads to the negation of human freedom and agency. Compared to Democritus, who “regarded necessity as the reflective form of actuality,” [2]2 Karl Marx, “Difference Between the Democritean and Epicurean Philosophy of Nature,” in *Marx and Engels Collected Works*, vol. 1 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1975), p. 48. Epicurus’s atomic world appears full of vitality. Besides differences in positional arrangement and shape, the most important point is that atoms have differences in weight. On the one hand, under the influence of differences in gravity, atoms perform different physical motions in the void. On the other hand, due to differences in weight, the speed of motion also varies between atoms. Epicurus said: “Necessity, which some people regard as the master of all things, does not exist; rather, some things are accidental, while others depend on our own will.” [3]3 Epicurus, “Letter to Menoeceus,” in *The Epicurus Reader*, trans. Brad Inwood and L.P. Gerson (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1994), p. 30. Thus, compared to Democritus’s overemphasis on necessity, Epicurus added the characteristic of atomic swerve to atomic motion, which in essence introduced contingency into the atomic world. And what truly lies hidden behind contingency is the agency of freedom.

原子论者的主要观点认为原子以及原子所处的时空构成了世界的本原，现实世界因原子在虚空中的运动而产生，原子在运动的过程所具有的形式主要是原子沿直线垂直下落，原子在下落过程中脱离直线而发生偏斜运动以及原子与原子之间相互排斥。德谟克利特和伊壁鸠鲁两位原子论者大体承认上述原子观，然而，原子偏离直线运动是伊壁鸠鲁的独创提法，这也成为两人的分歧所在。按照德谟克利特的说法，原子作为世界的最后单元，在虚空中作直线运动，并且原子与原子之间没有性质上的差异，只有形态、次序和位置的差别。宏观世界中万事万物的质的差异乃是由于原子的基本元素的不同排列组合方式而决定的。在马克思看来，原子的直线下落实际上表达的仅是原子作为纯粹的质料发挥作用，原子作为物质性的基质，受盲目的必然性支配，在原子处处受外在的必然性限制的同时必然导致对人的自由能动性的否定。相比德谟克利特“把必然性看做现实性的反思形式”，伊壁鸠鲁的原子世界则显得生机盎然。原子除了有位置排列方式和形状的不同外，最重要的一点在于原子间具有重量的区别。一方面，在重力差别的影响下使得原子在虚空中做不同的物理运动;另一方面，由于重量的不同，原子与原子间的运动速度也有所分别。伊壁鸠鲁说:“被某些人当作万物主宰的必然性，是不存在的，宁肯说有些事物是偶然的，另一些事物则取决于我们的任意性。”由此可见，相对于德谟克利特过分强调必然性，伊壁鸠鲁在原子的运动中增加了原子产生偏斜运动的特点，实质上是为原子世界增添了偶然性。而偶然性的背后真正潜藏着的是自由的能动性。

In the past, discussions of atomic motion were all expressions of a determinate being. When the ancient Greek atomists said that “the atom falls in a straight line,” this straight line meant that the atom was a purely material existence, whereas the “atomic swerve” proposed by Epicurus was precisely the negation of the former. The intuitive basis for the swerve from straight-line motion is the motion of celestial bodies; therefore, the atom, like the celestial body, ought to possess a purely independent nature. If straight-line motion is purely material, a motion of matter, then it is passive and possesses no independence. But when it acquires form, this means it has a soul, an independent aspect. “Hence Lucretius rightly asserts that the swerve breaks the ‘fetters of fate,’ and, as he immediately applies this to consciousness, it can be said of the atom that the swerve is that something in its breast that can fight back and resist.” [4]4 Marx, *Difference Between the Democritean and Epicurean Philosophy of Nature*, in *Marx and Engels Collected Works*, Vol. 1, p. 49. [Translator’s note: The English translation of the Marx quote is from the MECW edition.] Epicurus’s atomic swerve indicates a breaking free from the shackles of fate, an escape and liberation from passive, bound destiny, re-establishing the atom’s free and active nature. The proposal of the swerve transcends Democritus’s mechanical determinism, thereby manifesting the individual’s independent and free nature. Epicurus also held that the atoms composing human beings likewise undergo a swerve, which brings the possibility for humans to escape from necessity. Marx affirmed this and praised Epicurus as “the greatest Greek philosopher of the Enlightenment.” [5]5 Marx, *The Difference Between the Democritean and Epicurean Philosophy of Nature*, in *Marx and Engels Collected Works*, Vol. 1, p. 73. [Translator’s note: The English translation of the Marx quote is from the MECW edition.] The swerve brings freedom to the atom, a freedom of choice: the atom can choose the mode of its own motion and the timing of its collision with other atoms. At the same time, it symbolizes that humans, composed of atoms, likewise possess freedom of choice. As subjects of freedom, humans should not be blindly dominated by natural necessity; what makes humans human is precisely their distinctive consciousness of activity and self-awareness.

以往关于原子的运动都是一种定在的表达方式，当古希腊的原子论者说“原子是直线降落”的时候，这条直线意味着原子是纯粹的物质性存在，而伊壁鸠鲁提出的“原子偏斜运动”则恰恰是对前者的否定。偏离直线运动的直观根据是天体运动，因此，原子理应像天体一样，具有纯粹独立的性质。如果说直线运动是纯粹物质性的质料运动，那么它是受动的，并无独立性可言。可是当它富有形式后，意味着它具有了灵魂、独立的一面。“所以，卢克莱修正确地断言，偏斜打破了‘命运的束缚’，并且正如他立即把这个思想运用于意识那样，关于原子也可以这么说，偏斜正是它胸中能进行斗争和对抗的某种东西。”伊壁鸠鲁的原子偏斜运动表明挣破命运的桎梏，从受动的、被束缚的命运中摆脱和解放出来，重新确立了原子具有的自由能动本性。偏斜运动的提出是对德谟克利特的机械决定论的超越，从而以彰显个体的独立自由本性。伊壁鸠鲁同样认为组成人的原子也存在偏斜运动，这就为人从必然性中逃脱出来带来生机。马克思肯认了这一点并盛赞伊壁鸠鲁为“古希腊最伟大的哲学家”。偏斜运动给原子带来自由，这种自由是选择的自由，原子可以选择自身运动的方式、选择自身与其他原子相碰撞的时机。同时，它象征着由原子组成的人同样具有选择的自由，人作为自由的主体，不应被自然必然性所盲目地支配，人之为人正是在于人所特有的对活动的自觉和自我意识。

The prominence of self-awareness is the primary philosophical implication of the atomic swerve theory. This is not only the difference between the atomisms of Democritus and Epicurus, but also Marx’s difference from his predecessors on the question of human essence. Traditional theoretical philosophy always presupposes an object external to the human being, using it to prescribe human action; within this pre-set framework of activity, the human being loses its practical significance and subjective initiative. If earlier approaches studied the human being on the basis of its natural attributes, thereby making the human being an abstract, purely natural entity, then Marx was far more far-sighted than they. Marx recognized that to speak of the human being in terms of physics, physiology, or zoology is only to speak of an abstract human being—a human being existing as an animal, not a true human being. The human being is not a natural entity but a social entity. “If I relate to myself as to an immediate other, then my relationship is a material one. This is the external state of the highest conceivable being.” [6]6 Marx, *The Difference Between the Democritean and Epicurean Philosophy of Nature*, in *Marx and Engels Collected Works*, Vol. 1, p. 216. [Translator’s note: The English translation of the Marx quote is from the MECW edition.] Similar expressions appear repeatedly in Marx’s later works, indicating that the essential distinction between the human and the thing lies in the human’s self-awareness. Marx’s idea of the “worldization of philosophy” arises precisely from this. The relationship between thing and thing is already given in advance, like the instinctive, adaptive relationship between fish and water, or plants and sunlight. In contrast, the relationships that humans must rely on to achieve their own survival and development are not innate; they must be created by humans themselves, realizing their essential powers in the transformation of the world. In short, for the human to be what it is, it must first make itself what it is. Self-awareness originates from human sociality; in the universal relations among humans, human self-awareness becomes prominent. The human is not merely a thinking being. In the practical sense, self-awareness simultaneously demonstrates that human freedom is realized in social intercourse among humans and cannot be “freedom detached from determinate being.” Similarly, philosophy is not something isolated from the world. For philosophy to fully manifest its own value, it must “act,” actively integrate into the world, and become an aspect of the world.

自我意识的凸显是原子偏斜理论的首要哲学意蕴，这不仅是德谟克利特和伊壁鸠鲁两位哲人原子论上的区别，更是马克思在关于人的本质问题上与前人的差异。传统的理论哲学总先假定一个外在于人的对象物，利用此来对人的行动进行规定，人在预先设定的活动框架中失去了其现实意义和主体能动性，如果说前人是在人的自然属性之上来对人加以研究的方法使得人成为抽象的纯粹的自然存在物，那么马克思则比他们表现得更加深谋远虑。马克思认识到在物理学、生理学又或是动物学意义上谈论的只能是抽象的人，这样的人是作为动物存在的人而不是真正的人，人并非是自然存在物而是社会存在物。“如果我自己对待自己就像对待一个直接的他物一样，那么我的这种关系就是物质的关系。这是可能设想的最高级的存在的外在状态。”[2]216这种类似的表述在马克思后期著作中曾一再出现，这表明人与物的区别本质在于人有自我意识，马克思所提出的“哲学世界化”思想正由此而来。物与物之间的关系是已经先行给定的，好比鱼和水、植物与阳光之间的关系是一种本能的、适应性的关系。与此相反，人要实现自身的生存和发展所要依赖的关系并不是生而具有的，而是需要通过人自身去创造，在改造世界中实现自身的本质力量，简言之，要使人是其所是必先使人成其所是。自我意识来源于人的社会性，在人与人的普遍关系中人的自我意识得以凸显，人不仅仅是思维的存在。自我意识在实践方面的意义上同时论证了人的自由是在人与人的社会交往中实现，是不能“脱离定在的自由”。同理，哲学并不是孤立于世界之外的某物，哲学要想使自身价值得以充分彰显，就必须“行动”起来，积极融入世界中，成为世界的一个方面。

III. “The Philosophization of the World” and “the Worldization of Philosophy”: A Possible Path to Realizing Justice

三、“世界哲学化”与“哲学世界化”:实现正义的一种可能性路径

“The philosophization of the world is at the same time the worldization of philosophy” indicates that philosophy and the world have an intrinsic connection and interdependence; this is a relationship of two sides of one coin. When philosophy and the world interact, “the philosophization of the world” requires standing at the height of philosophy, breaking through the fog of reason. Philosophy, on the basis of grasping the world, must more crucially act upon the world, becoming a guiding theoretical force. “The worldization of philosophy” embodies a revolutionary practical intention, using philosophy as a theoretical weapon to critique unjust reality. Justice is the practical manifestation of philosophy. If justice is confined to the philosophical-theoretical realm, it is weak and powerless; justice must be “worldized—realized” for it to be achieved. In short, reality must use philosophy to transform itself, making the real world a just world, thereby further dissolving the opposition between “is” and “ought,” between ideal and reality. Similarly, by critiquing the real world, philosophy overcomes its own abstractness, discards speculative forms at odds with the secular, and merges with the world.

“世界的哲学化同时也就是哲学的世界化”，表明哲学与世界二者之间具有内在的关联和依赖性，这是一体两面的关系。当哲学与世界发生相互作用时，“世界的哲学化”要求站在哲学的高度，冲破理性的迷雾，哲学要在把握世界的基础上更关键的是作用于世界，成为一种理论的指导力量。“哲学的世界化”体现的则是一种革命实践的意欲，运用哲学的理论武器对不正义的现实加以批判。正义是哲学的现实表现，正义若是局限在哲学—理论领域，那么它是软弱无力的，正义必须“世界化—现实化”，这才能使正义得以实现。简言之，现实要利用哲学对其自身进行改造，使得现实世界成为正义世界，从而进一步消解是与应当、理想与现实的对立。同样地，哲学通过批判现实世界从而克服自己的抽象性，抛弃与世俗相悖的思辨形式，使哲学与世界融为一体。

From the above, it can be seen that the interaction between philosophy and the world is an important pathway for how justice can be realized. The material bond linking philosophy and the world is “the human.” The young Marx’s concept of justice is elaborated closely around the concept of “the human.” In other words, the subject of Marx’s view of justice, the legislator of justice, is the real human being, not a god or God. In the preface to his doctoral dissertation, Marx uses Prometheus’s monologue “I hate all the gods” as his powerful declaration against all gods, both heavenly and earthly. Justice, as an eternal value demand of humanity, in Marx’s view, should first be oriented toward the human being and the real life in which the human being exists, expressing the human being’s interest demands for its own liberation and development. For this reason, Marx resolutely abandoned his heavenly fantasies and turned to thinking about the real problems of society, because he deeply understood that any abstract interpretation of the problem of justice is unhelpful for truly solving the practical problem of human justice. Only when the human being starts from itself, and the abstract free individual is replaced by the real historical individual as the value subject of the view of justice, does justice become possible. Unlike old philosophy, which regarded the human being as a single, abstract individual, Marx advocated examining the rich connotations of the human being in real life and practice. The problem of justice is a problem exclusive to the human being. For things, they only need to follow the causal natural laws of the world and evolve within the established natural order; therefore, things have no need for justice. As for God, as an omnipotent and perfectly good being, God itself is the embodiment of justice, and thus has no need to use the concept of justice to explain its own actions. Unlike things and God, the human being, which comes from nature yet can transcend nature, exists as an ideal being pursuing justice. It needs to continuously transform the real world in which it lives, thereby constantly approaching the perfection of God, and it uses justice as the measure of all social relations. Marx’s view of justice always emphasizes taking the human being itself as the subject, purpose, and center, thereby contemplating the whole of human society and history.

以上可以看出，哲学与世界二者的相互作用是正义何以实现的重要途径。哲学与世界二者联结的物质纽带是“人”。青年马克思的正义观念是紧紧围绕着“人”的观点来进行阐发。换言之，马克思正义观的主体、正义的立法者是现实的人，而非神或者是上帝。他在《博士论文》序言部分就以普罗米修斯的独白“我痛恨所有的神”作为他反对一切天上的和地上的神的有力声明。正义作为人类的永恒价值诉求，在马克思看来，正义首先应当面向人以及人所生存于其中的现实生活，表达的是人对于自身寻求解放和发展的利益要求。为此马克思毅然决然地抛弃他那天国般的美好幻想，转而思考社会的现实问题，因为他深谙任何将正义问题进行抽象化解读的方式都无助于真正解决人类的正义实践问题，唯有当人从自身出发，抽象自由的个人被现实的历史的个人所取代成为正义观的价值主体，正义方有实现的可能。区别于旧哲学将人视为单一的、抽象的个体，马克思主张在现实生活与实践中考察人的丰富内涵。而正义问题又是专属于人的问题，对于物而言，它只需要遵循世界的因果自然律在既定自然秩序下演化，因此物无需正义。而神本身作为全能全善的存在，其本身就是正义的化身，因此亦无需借用正义的概念来对自身行为作出解释。与物、神不同，从自然而来却又能超越自然的人是作为追求正义的理想存在，他需要对他生存于其中的现实世界不断改造，从而不断趋向于神的完满性，而他正是以正义作为衡量社会一切关系的尺度，马克思的正义观始终强调要以人本身作为主体、目的和中心，以此观照整个人类社会和历史。

How can people come to know themselves? The key lies in self-consciousness, which plays an important role as the critic of Marx’s thought on justice. The core of the young Marx’s view of justice is self-consciousness. Self-consciousness implies a kind of freedom, and this view of freedom in fact contains a revolutionary idea. Human self-consciousness is superior to divinity; therefore, all arguments for the existence of God are meant to prove God’s non-existence. The injustice of religion is manifested in its shackling and restriction of the human spirit and freedom; the injustice of the German feudal system is manifested in its dual oppression and enslavement of people, from spirit to body. Human self-consciousness demands resistance to all kinds of injustice in reality, a “swerve” from the necessity of cruel reality, thereby revealing the free essence of humanity. Since Marx was still an idealist at this time and could not break free from the framework of Hegelian philosophy when thinking through problems, nonetheless, taking self-consciousness as the judge of justice still has its positive historical significance. It broke the standard of judging justice by the Bible and Christian doctrine that had prevailed since the Middle Ages, taking the self-consciousness of concrete human beings as the starting point for evaluating justice. Although Marx drew inspiration for his thought on justice from Epicurus’s theory of atomic motion, there are still considerable differences between their views of justice: Epicurus took abstract self-consciousness as the foundation of human society, granting humans a sacred status while simultaneously defining human existence only as spiritual existence; thus, the freedom humans possess is freedom detached from determinate being [Dasein]. In contrast, in Marx’s picture of justice, compared with Epicurus’s view that freedom is merely a spiritual pursuit of a person “detached from determinate being,” Marx’s thought on freedom clearly contains an additional layer of realistic factors. He was not satisfied with confining freedom to a purely speculative realm but strove to make the thought of freedom “shine in determinate being.” The realization of freedom does not rely on the effort of the subject or the object alone but is the result of the interaction between subject and object achieved through practice.

人又何以能认识自己?关键在于人有自我意识，自我意识作为马克思正义思想的批判者发挥着重要的作用。青年马克思正义观的核心是自我意识。自我意识意味着一种自由，这种自由观实则隐含着一种革命的思想。人的自我意识是要高于神性的，因此对上帝存在的一切论证都是为了证明上帝的不存在。宗教的非正义性体现在它对人的精神和自由的束缚与限制，德国封建制度的不正义体现在从精神到肉体对人的双重压迫和奴役。而人的自我意识要求对现实种种的不公做出反抗，做出对残酷现实的必然性的“偏斜”，从而彰显人的自由本质。由于马克思此时还是一个唯心主义者，思考问题时还不能摆脱黑格尔哲学的框架，无论如何，将自我意识作为正义的评判者，仍有其积极的历史意义。它打破了中世纪以来将《圣经》、基督教教义作为正义的评判标准，以具体的人的自我意识为出发点来对正义进行评价。虽说马克思从伊壁鸠鲁的原子运动学说获得关于正义思想的启发，但二者的正义观仍有较大的不同之处:伊壁鸠鲁将抽象的自我意识作为人类社会的基础，将人赋予神圣地位的同时却把人的存在仅定义为精神的存在，因此人所拥有的自由是脱离定在的自由。反观在马克思的正义图景中，相比起伊壁鸠鲁认为自由只是“脱离了定在的”的人的一种精神上的追求，马克思的自由思想显然比伊壁鸠鲁多了一层现实性的因素，他不满足于将自由禁锢在一种纯粹思辨的领域，而是努力让自由思想在“定在中发亮”。自由的实现并非倚靠主体或客体单独一方的努力，而是通过实践实现主客体之间的相互作用的结果。

Marx believed that the rights of justice possessed by humans are the right to freedom and the right to equality. The question of freedom is the one Marx focused on in his doctoral dissertation. Freedom is the maximization of the potential of the individual; whether an individual is free was elevated by Enlightenment thinkers to an absolute standard for judging whether things are just. On the practical level, because humans possess self-consciousness, their practice of justice becomes the maintenance of humans’ real freedom and rights. In the practice of justice, humans do not pursue the rights to freedom and equality as abstract individuals but as members of all humanity, thereby confirming that humans are essentially objective beings. The essence of humanity lies in self-consciousness; self-consciousness embodies human freedom. Everyone possesses self-consciousness, so freedom is universal, meaning that all people are equal. The realization of individual rights becomes the realistic goal of the concept of justice; freedom, species-equality, and independence become the theoretical themes of the concept of justice. Marx extended the idea that atoms are equal to one another to the height that all people are equal, and equality among people also indicates that everyone can obtain the same amount of freedom. It can be seen that in his doctoral dissertation, Marx had already shown us from a philosophical standpoint that freedom and equality are the rights of justice enjoyed by the human subject.

马克思认为人具有的正义权利是自由权和平等权。自由问题是马克思在其《博士论文》中所重点关注的问题。自由是个体潜能发挥的最大化，个体是否自由在启蒙思想家那里上升为评价事物公正与否的绝对标准。在实践层面上人因有自我意识，从而使得人的正义实践成为维护人现实的自由与权利。在正义实践中，人并非作为抽象的个人而是作为全人类中的一员追求自由、平等的权利，从而确证人本质上就是对象性的存在。人的本质在于自我意识，自我意识体现人的自由，每个人都拥有自我意识，因此自由具有普遍性，也就是说人与人之间是平等的。个体权利的实现成为正义观念的现实目标，自由、类平等、独立成为正义观念的理论主题。马克思由原子与原子之间是平等的精神扩展到众人皆平等的高度，而人与人之间的平等同时亦表明每个人都能获得同样多的自由。可以看到，在《博士论文》中马克思已经站在哲学立场上向我们展示了自由和平等是人类主体所享有的正义的权利。

Conclusion

结语

Thus far, by clarifying the relationship between “the philosophization of the world” and “the worlding of philosophy” and examining Marx’s exposition of atomic motion, we have revealed Marx’s early thought on justice. The young Marx spoke of justice from the perspective of value norms, combining philosophy with the world as a means of realizing justice, establishing that the subject and legislator of the view of justice are real people; at the same time, he pointed out that the rights of justice possessed by the subject of justice are the rights to freedom and equality. By using self-consciousness as a weapon to critique justice, Marx’s picture of justice was ultimately displayed. However, this view of justice undoubtedly has a romanticist hue. At this time, Marx only had a vague feeling about justice—that it should be real practice rather than abstract speculation. It was not until later, when Marx served as editor-in-chief of the *Rheinische Zeitung*, that he applied this ideal principle of justice to real life and immediately became aware of the drawbacks of this view of justice, subjecting it to sublation.

至此，通过厘清“世界哲学化”与“哲学世界化”的关系，考察马克思对原子运动的阐述从而揭示出马克思早期正义思想。青年马克思站在价值规范的角度言说正义，将哲学与世界结合作为实现正义的手段，确立正义观的主体、立法者是现实的人，同时他指出正义的主体所拥有的正义之权利是自由与平等权，通过运用自我意识作为批判正义的武器，最终得以展现马克思的正义图景。然而这种正义观无疑具有一种浪漫主义的色彩，此时的马克思对待正义只是有一种朦胧的感觉，它应是现实的实践而非抽象的思辨，直至后来马克思在《莱茵报》担任主编时，将这种理想的正义原则运用到现实生活中，立刻省觉到这种正义观的弊端，并对之进行扬弃。

Online editor: Paul

网络编辑：保罗