The Complex Context of the Young Marx’s Transition to Materialist Thought

Text and thought are two inseparable aspects of philosophical research; breakthroughs in textual research will greatly promote the in-depth interpretation of thought. In 1914, Lenin pointed out in his article “Karl Marx”: “In 1842, Marx published some articles in the *Rheinische Zeitung*... From these articles it can be seen that Marx began to turn from idealism to materialism, and from revolutionary democracy to communism. In 1844, the *Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher*, edited by Marx and Arnold Ruge, was published in Paris, and the above-mentioned transition was here completely accomplished.” [1]1 V. I. Lenin, “Karl Marx,” in *Lenin Collected Works*, vol. 21 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1964), p. 50. On the basis of this interpretation of thought, Chinese scholars have carried out extensive textual research on Marx’s transition to materialist thought, producing numerous theoretical results. Professor Sun Boli of Nanjing University innovatively proposed the “theory of two transitions” of the young Marx, systematically describing the motivation, sources, and connotations of the young Marx’s first ideological transition, and demarcating the heterogeneity between “general materialism” and “historical materialism.” [2]2 Sun Boli (1930–2007) was a prominent Chinese Marxist philosopher and a key figure in the “Nanjing School” of Marxist textual studies. His “theory of two transitions” distinguishes the young Marx’s shift from idealism to general materialism (the first transition) from the later shift from general materialism to historical materialism (the second transition). Today, standing at the forefront of the latest achievements in Chinese research on the history of Marxist thought and the cutting-edge progress in international Marxist documentary research, it is necessary for us to return once again to the complex context of the young Marx’s materialist transition, and to rethink how to study Marx’s materialist transition, why Marx turned to materialism, and what the theoretical sources of Marx’s materialist transition were.

文本与思想是哲学研究中密不可分的两个方面，文本研究的突破将极大地促进思想阐释走向纵深。列宁曾于1914年在《卡尔·马克思》一文中指出：“1842年，马克思在《莱茵报》上发表了一些文章……从这些文章可以看出马克思开始从唯心主义转向唯物主义，从革命民主主义转向共产主义。1844年在巴黎出版了马克思和阿尔诺德·卢格主编的《德法年鉴》，上述的转变在这里彻底完成。”在此思想阐释基础上，我国学者围绕马克思唯物主义思想转变展开了大量文本研究，形成了众多理论成果。南京大学孙伯鍨教授创新性地提出了青年马克思的“两次转变说”，系统地描述了青年马克思第一次思想转变的动机、来源和内涵，界划了“一般唯物主义”和“历史唯物主义”的异质性。今天，站在我国马克思主义思想史研究的最新成果和国际马克思主义文献研究的前沿进展之上，我们有必要再次回到青年马克思唯物主义转变的复杂语境，重新思考如何研究马克思的唯物主义转变？马克思为什么转到唯物主义？马克思唯物主义转变的理论来源是什么？

If we study the first transition of the young Marx’s philosophical thought by combining history with his notes and manuscripts, we can divide the young Marx’s thought into five stages for separate study: (1) Starting in March 1842, Marx wrote political articles for the *Rheinische Zeitung*, such as “Comments on the Latest Prussian Censorship Instruction,” “Debates on the Freedom of the Press and Publication of the Proceedings of the Estates Assembly,” and “Debates on the Law on Thefts of Wood.” In the process of criticizing the Prussian autocratic system, he discovered for the first time the “difficulty of material interests,” which is generally regarded as the real driving force for the young Marx’s initial turn to materialism. (2) From March to August 1843, Marx began writing the manuscript *Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right* and, during his honeymoon in Kreuznach, simultaneously completed the *Kreuznach Notebooks*, in which he studied the philosophy of right and history. The academic community generally believes that this was Marx using Feuerbach’s method of subject-predicate inversion to invert Hegel’s rationalist view of the state. Marx’s propositions in this work, such as “the family and civil society are both prerequisites of the state” and “the political state cannot exist without the natural foundation of the family and the social foundation of the human being,” also mark the beginning of Marx’s philosophical thought turning from idealism to materialism. (3) In September 1843, Marx discussed the publication of the *Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher* with Ruge and wrote “On the Jewish Question” and “A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s *Philosophy of Right*: Introduction,” marking the completion of Marx’s philosophical shift from idealism to materialism and his political shift from revolutionary democracy to the standpoint of the proletariat. (4) From March to August 1844, Marx began his first systematic study of classical political economy, writing the *Paris Notebooks* and the *Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844*. Most scholars believe that at this time Marx accepted Feuerbach’s humanism and method of subject-predicate inversion, forming a method of studying social materialism using humanist materialism. Professor Sun Boli proposed that there were two logics in Marx’s thought at this time: the logic of alienated humanism and the real logic of objectification, with the second logic being the key leading to historical materialism. (5) After 1845, Marx completed his second ideological transition, from the germ of the brilliant worldview in the *Theses on Feuerbach* to the historical materialism jointly established by Marx and Engels in *The German Ideology*. After the establishment of historical materialism, we can continuously see in subsequent texts Marx’s explicit and implicit retrospection and inheritance of the first transition. This includes Marx’s explicit affirmation in the 1859 “Preface to *A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy*,” Engels’ explicit affirmation in *Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy*, “On the History of the Communist League,” and in letters, as well as Marx’s implicit retrospection during his London period when he returned to the economists excerpted in the *Paris Notebooks* for renewed study. This provides us with a good entry point and reference for grasping the young Marx’s ideological transition as a whole.

如果结合历史与笔记手稿来研究青年马克思哲学思想的第一次转变，我们可以将青年马克思的思想划分为5个阶段分别研究：（1）自1842年3月开始，马克思为《莱茵报》撰写了《评普鲁士最近的书报检查令》《关于新闻出版自由和公布省等级会议辩论情况的辩论》《关于林木盗窃法的辩论》等政论文章，在批判普鲁士专制制度的过程中首次发现了“物质利益难题”，这被普遍认为是青年马克思首次开始唯物主义转变的现实动力。（2）1843年3—8月，马克思着手写作《黑格尔法哲学批判》手稿，并在克罗伊茨纳赫度蜜月期间同时完成了《克罗伊茨纳赫笔记》，其中研究了法哲学和历史学。学术界一般认为这是马克思借助费尔巴哈的主谓颠倒方法来对黑格尔的理性主义国家观进行颠倒，马克思在其中提出的“家庭和市民社会都是国家的前提”“政治国家没有家庭的自然基础和社会的人为基础就不可能存在”等论述，也标志着马克思哲学思想开始从唯心主义转向唯物主义。（3）1843年9月，马克思与卢格讨论《德法年鉴》出版事宜，撰写了《论犹太人问题》和《〈黑格尔法哲学批判〉导言》，标志着马克思的哲学立场完成从唯心主义向唯物主义的转变，政治立场完成从革命民主主义向无产阶级立场的转变。（4）1844年3—8月，马克思开始第一次系统研究古典政治经济学，写下了《巴黎笔记》和《1844年经济学哲学手稿》。大部分学者认为此时的马克思接受了费尔巴哈的人本主义与主谓颠倒方法，形成了用人本主义的唯物主义研究社会唯物主义的方法；孙伯鍨教授提出此时的马克思思想中存在两条逻辑，分别是异化的人本主义逻辑和对象化的现实逻辑，第二条逻辑正是通往历史唯物主义的关键。（5）在1845年后，马克思完成第二次思想转变，即从《关于费尔巴哈的提纲》中天才世界观的萌芽，到马克思与恩格斯在《德意志意识形态》中共同创立的历史唯物主义。在历史唯物主义创立后，我们还可以在其后的文本中不断地看到马克思对第一次转变显性层面和隐性层面的回溯与继承，其中包括马克思在1859年《〈政治经济学批判〉序言》、恩格斯在《路德维希·费尔巴哈和德国古典哲学的终结》《关于共产主义者同盟的历史》以及书信中的显性认定，以及马克思在伦敦时期再次回到《巴黎笔记》中摘录过的经济学家进行重新研究的隐性回溯，这为我们从整体上把握青年马克思的思想转变提供了很好的入口和参照。

First, how should we study the young Marx’s transition to materialist thought? I believe that the study of the young Marx’s first ideological transition must adhere to three principles. One is to base the research on the original German, French, and English texts written by Marx, starting from the documentary foundation of the original manuscripts and MEGA2, [3]3 MEGA2 (Marx-Engels-Gesamtausgabe, Second Edition) is the ongoing historical-critical edition of the complete works, manuscripts, and correspondence of Marx and Engels, published under the auspices of the International Marx-Engels Foundation (IMES). and conducting a comprehensive collation and study by combining Marx’s published works, manuscripts, notes, and letters, so as to identify Marx’s real theoretical context within different texts. [4]4 The term “context” here translates the Chinese *yujing* (语境), which in this scholarly usage refers to the specific theoretical and discursive environment of a text, not merely its historical background. Two is to trace back to the roots. To study the transition of Marx’s thought, we cannot stop at the changes in his use of words and phrases; we must also examine the history of the formation of his thought. At what stage did Marx read whose theory? What was his conscious or unconscious attitude toward that theoretical thought? What were Marx’s direct theoretical sources and potential motives for the transition? Did Marx’s explicit transition simultaneously bring about the sublation of an implicit methodology? These questions must be analyzed layer by layer within the theories of Marx and related figures. Three is the restoration of the situational-contextual field. [5]5 “Situational-contextual field” translates the Chinese term *goujing* (构境), a neologism coined by the author Zhang Yibing to denote the reconstruction of the specific theoretical and practical situation within which a thinker’s ideas were formed, avoiding anachronistic or teleological readings. The study of the history of thought does not mean using thought to retroactively annotate texts based on a “teleology.” Before conducting research, we inevitably have some understanding of Marx’s life’s works and the history of his thought development. However, if we proceed with a theoretical premise and use it to reconstruct Marx’s situational-contextual field of thought, problems will arise, even homogenizing Marx’s thought. For example, using “economic base” to explain the “civil society” Marx proposed in 1843, or using the research direction of *Capital* to retroactively trace Marx’s labor alienation, methodologically commits the error of misattribution. Therefore, the discourse and thought of the researcher must remain constantly vigilant in order to return to the real process of Marx’s first ideological transition.

第一，如何研究青年马克思的唯物主义思想转变？我认为，对青年马克思思想第一次转变的研究必须坚持三个原则。一是基于马克思写作的德文、法文、英文原文，从原始手稿和MEGA2的文献基础出发，结合马克思公开发表物、手稿、笔记、书信进行全面的梳理和研究，在不同的文本中甄别出马克思的真实理论语境。二是追根溯源。研究马克思思想的转变，不能仅停留于他在词句使用上的转换，更要考察他的思想形成史。马克思在什么阶段阅读了谁的理论、对该理论思想持怎样的自觉或非自觉的态度？马克思的直接理论来源和潜在转变动机是什么？马克思的显性转变是否同时带来了隐性方法论的扬弃？这些问题都要在马克思及其相关人物的理论中加以层层剖析。三是构境还原。思想史研究并不意味着基于“目的论”来用思想反注文本。我们在进行研究之前，必然对马克思一生的著作和思想发展史有过一定了解，但如果带着一种理论前提，以此去重塑马克思的思想构境就会出现问题，甚至将马克思的思想同质化。譬如用“经济基础”来解释1843年马克思提出的“市民社会”，用《资本论》研究的方向来回溯马克思的劳动异化，这在方法论上显然犯了张冠李戴的错误。因此，研究者的话语和思想要时刻保持警惕，方能回到马克思思想第一次转变的真实过程。

Second, why did the young Marx turn from idealism to materialism? In my view, the “problem of material interests” was both the motive for the young Marx’s materialist transformation and an important factor in the formation and deepening of Marx’s critical discourse. As Lenin said, the young Marx began to turn to materialism during the *Rheinische Zeitung* period, but at this time Marx had not yet truly turned to materialism; he encountered the “problem of material interests” for the first time in reality, and the principle of interest in reality began to shake the principle of state reason in Marx’s mind. Marx, who had just stepped from the ivory tower into society, conducted extensive empirical investigations and discovered that Hegel’s ideas seemed unable to solve problems in real life: the landlords, in order to protect their own private property interests, passed legislation to prevent peasants from picking up fallen branches for free, and the “law,” which should have been the principle, was actually determined by real “interests.” Consequently, Marx used “vulgar materialism” to criticize this social phenomenon of rampant material desires (at this time Marx did not realize that this social phenomenon was precisely the mode of existence [Daseinsform] of bourgeois society). However, because Marx’s thinking was still occupied by Hegel’s theory at this point, his critique of “material interests gaining the upper hand” was similar to the basic views of the natural law school. On the surface, the “problem of material interests” seemed to end there in Marx’s texts, but from the perspective of Marx’s deeper discourse, the consideration and resolution of this problem were far from so simple. In the *Kreuznach Notebooks*, Marx excerpted a large number of historical works, the focus of which was the study of private property in the sense of right [Recht]; the statement in *Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right* that “civil society determines the state and law” was precisely the theoretical expression of “material interests gaining the upper hand.” Thus, what Marx used at this time to invert Hegel’s “civil society” was only private right in the sense of right, far from the “economic base.” In the *Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher*, Marx had already shifted to the proletarian standpoint, but he had not yet solved the problem of material interests for the proletariat there; rather, he was to explore the secret of material interests in economics. Therefore, although Marx had already turned to materialism at this time, he had not achieved genuine materialism; the problem of material interests in economic research promoted the true landing of the young Marx’s first ideological transformation and the beginning of the second. In the *Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844*, Marx for the first time discovered the subject in private property, seeing that although material interests were created by the proletariat, they became the means for the bourgeoisie to enslave the proletariat; the young Marx’s theory of alienated labor was the expression of “material interests gaining the upper hand” under the discourse of humanist materialism. After the establishment of historical materialism, the “problem of material interests” still lingered in Marx’s mind; the “thingly [sachlich] power” in broad historical materialism and the “reified [Versachlichung] inversion” in narrow historical materialism were both Marx’s answers to this problem in different contexts. It can be seen that the “problem of material interests” runs through Marx’s critical discourse from beginning to end, not only prompting Marx to begin his materialist transformation but also gradually enabling Marx to outline the social critical theoretical picture of “civil society—bourgeois society—capitalist mode of production.”

第二，青年马克思为什么从唯心主义转向唯物主义？在我看来，“物质利益难题”既是青年马克思唯物主义转变的动因，也是马克思批判话语形成和深化的重要因素。正如列宁所言，青年马克思是在《莱茵报》时期开始转向唯物主义的，但此时的马克思还没有真正转到唯物主义，他首次在现实中遭遇到了“物质利益难题”，现实中的利益原则开始动摇马克思头脑中的国家理性原则。刚刚从象牙塔步入社会的马克思进行了大量的实证调查，发现黑格尔的理念在现实生活中似乎解决不了问题，地主为了保护自身的私有财产利益，通过立法来防止农民无偿捡拾树枝，应当成为原则的“法”竟被现实的“利益”所决定。于是，马克思用“下流的唯物主义”来批判这种物欲横流的社会现象（此时的马克思没有意识到，这一社会现象恰恰是资产阶级社会的定在形式），但是由于这个时候占据马克思思想的仍然是黑格尔的理论，所以他对“物质利益占上风”的批判与自然法学派的基本观点是相似的。从表面上来看，“物质利益难题”似乎在马克思的文本中就此结束了，但从马克思的深层话语来看，这一问题的思考和解决远没有这么简单。在《克罗伊茨纳赫笔记》中，马克思摘录了大量的历史学著作，其重点就是研究法权意义上的私有财产问题，《黑格尔法哲学批判》中的“市民社会决定国家与法”正是对“物质利益占上风”的理论化表达。所以马克思此时用以颠倒黑格尔“市民社会”的，只是法权意义上的私人权利，远非“经济基础”。在《德法年鉴》中，马克思已经转变到无产阶级立场，但是他在其中尚未为无产阶级解决物质利益难题，而是要去经济学中探索物质利益的秘密。所以，尽管此时的马克思已经转到了唯物主义，却没有达到真正的唯物主义，经济学研究中的物质利益难题促进了青年马克思第一次思想转变的真正落地和第二次思想转变的开始。在《1844年经济学哲学手稿》中，马克思第一次在私有财产中发现主体，看到物质利益虽是无产阶级创造的，却成为资产阶级奴役无产阶级的手段，青年马克思的异化劳动理论是“物质利益占上风”在人本主义的唯物主义话语下的表达。在历史唯物主义创立后，“物质利益难题”仍然在马克思的头脑中挥之不去，广义历史唯物主义中的“事物性（sachlich）力量”与狭义历史唯物主义中的“事物化（Versachlichung）颠倒”都是马克思在不同语境中对这一难题的解答。可以看出，“物质利益难题”贯穿于马克思批判话语的始终，不仅促使马克思开始唯物主义转变，而且一步步使马克思勾勒出“市民社会—资产阶级社会—资本主义生产方式”的社会批判理论图景。

Third, what are the theoretical sources of the young Marx’s materialist ideological transformation? In past discussions, Feuerbach has been recognized by academia as the big Other of the young Marx’s materialist thought. Indeed, Feuerbach played a very important role in the young Marx’s transition from idealism to materialism. Feuerbach’s natural materialism and humanism quickly became highly influential theories in the context of religious criticism in Germany at the time, as Engels said: “We all became Feuerbachians for a time.” Marx, who had followed the Young Hegelians in religious criticism since the *Bonn Notebooks* period, was certainly inspired by Feuerbach. Moreover, Feuerbach’s humanist philosophy of species-essence became an important weapon for Marx to criticize Hegel, prompting Marx to turn to humanist materialism starting from “man” and thereby invert Hegel’s philosophy of right and criticize bourgeois society. However, Professor Sun Boli once pointed out in *The Exploration of the Explorer’s Path*: “Marx never unreservedly accepted Feuerbach’s views,” not only because Feuerbach emphasized nature too much and politics too little, but more importantly because Feuerbach one-sidedly negated Hegel, leading to a lack of profundity in his inversion of Hegel’s idealism. Marx, precisely by grasping the rational kernel of Hegel’s dialectics, thereby sublated Feuerbach’s humanism. The theoretical relationship between Feuerbach and Marx has been widely discussed in academia. Here, I want to point out that the study of Marx’s materialist transformation cannot ignore other theoretical sources. First, as the first guide for Marx’s study of Hegel’s philosophy, Eduard Gans had an important influence on the formation of Marx’s thought. Although Gans taught Marx Hegel’s works, Gans’s own thought was necessarily the intermediary through which Marx understood Hegel; the *Elements of the Philosophy of Right* edited by Gans bore strong characteristics of the natural law school, emphasizing existing things [Dinge] and the self-realization of natural law, thereby forming the unity of the philosophical viewpoint and the historical viewpoint. More importantly, Gans’s theory had a certain analysis of industrial structure and socialist tendencies; he even mentioned class antagonism in factories and the proletarian problem in his work *Rückblicke auf Personen und Zustände*, and this influence on Marx was subtle. Second, Marx’s contemporaries at the time—Engels and Hess. As Marx’s lifelong revolutionary partner, Engels turned to the materialist standpoint earlier than Marx; Engels’s research on economics and the working class greatly shocked Marx; under Engels’s influence, Marx began to study economics, and even excerpted Engels’s *Outlines of a Critique of Political Economy* in the *Paris Notebooks*. Similarly, Hess, influenced by Feuerbach’s humanism, was for a time a fellow traveler of Marx, but Hess also studied economics earlier than Marx; the “economic alienation” [wirtschaftliche Entfremdung] that Marx introduced from Hess’s theory brought his critique of the “problem of material interests” into a new dimension. Third, the large number of works by classical economists that Marx excerpted in the *Paris Notebooks*, as well as the views of the statistician Schulz cited by Marx in the *Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844*, enabled Marx to see for the first time the true face of “material interests,” that is, the theoretical content I call “social materialism”; it was precisely here that the true landing of Marx’s first ideological transformation occurred.

第三，青年马克思唯物主义思想转变的理论来源是什么？在过去的讨论中，费尔巴哈被学术界公认为是青年马克思唯物主义思想的大他者。的确，费尔巴哈在青年马克思从唯心主义转向唯物主义的过程中发挥了十分重要的作用。费尔巴哈的自然唯物主义和人本主义在当时德国的宗教批判大环境中迅速成为影响极大的理论，正如恩格斯所言：“我们一时都成为费尔巴哈派了。”从《波恩笔记》时期就跟随青年黑格尔派进行宗教批判的马克思当然受到了费尔巴哈的启发。不仅如此，费尔巴哈人本主义的类本质哲学更是成为马克思批判黑格尔的重要武器，从“人”出发促使马克思转向人本主义的唯物主义，并以此颠倒黑格尔的法哲学、批判资产阶级社会。然而，孙伯鍨教授曾在《探索者道路的探索》中指出：“马克思从来没有无保留地接受费尔巴哈的观点”，不仅在于费尔巴哈过多地强调自然而较少地强调政治，更重要的在于费尔巴哈片面地否定黑格尔，导致他对黑格尔唯心主义的颠倒缺乏深刻性。而马克思恰恰抓住了黑格尔辩证法的合理精髓，从而扬弃了费尔巴哈的人本主义。关于费尔巴哈与马克思的理论关联，学术界已经有了广泛的讨论。在此，我想指出，对马克思的唯物主义转变的研究不可忽视其他理论来源。其一，作为马克思学习黑格尔哲学的第一个领路人，爱德华·甘斯对马克思的思想形成具有重要影响。虽然甘斯给马克思讲授的是黑格尔的著作，但甘斯本身的思想必然是马克思理解黑格尔的中介，经过甘斯编辑过的《黑格尔法哲学原理》带有浓厚的自然法学派特点，强调存在着的物（Dinge） 和自然法的自身实现性，从而形成哲学的观点与历史的观点的统一。更重要的是，甘斯的理论具有一定的工业结构分析和社会主义倾向，他甚至在其著作《人物与情况的回顾》中提到了工厂中的阶级对立和无产阶级问题，这种影响对马克思来说是潜移默化的。其二，马克思当时的同路人——恩格斯与赫斯。作为马克思一生的革命伙伴，恩格斯比马克思更早转变到唯物主义立场上；恩格斯对经济学和工人阶级的研究也大大震撼了马克思；马克思在恩格斯的影响下开始研究经济学，甚至在《巴黎笔记》中摘录了恩格斯的《国民经济学批判大纲》。同样，受到费尔巴哈人本主义影响的赫斯，曾在一段时间内是马克思的同路人，但赫斯也比马克思更早研究了经济学，马克思从赫斯理论中引入的“经济异化”（wirtschaftliche Entfremdung），使他对“物质利益难题”的批判走进一个新的维度。其三，马克思在《巴黎笔记》中摘录的大量古典经济学家著作，以及在《1844年经济学哲学手稿》中引用的国势学家舒尔茨的观点，使马克思第一次看到了“物质利益”的本来面目，也就是我称之为“社会唯物主义”的理论内容，马克思第一次思想转变的真正落地正是在此。

Online editor: Paul

网络编辑：保罗