The Evolutionary Logic of Ecological Civilization from the Perspective of Epistemology

With the rapid development of artificial intelligence, current academic circles have new formulations on many issues such as the generation, development, and essence of cognition. However, looking through the academic fog at the essence of cognition, Marxist epistemology still possesses scientific vitality and serves as the theoretical guide for us today in understanding the world, transforming the world, and achieving the harmonious coexistence of humanity and nature.

随着人工智能的迅速发展，目前学术界对认识的产生、发展、本质等诸多问题都有新的表述，但透过学术迷雾看认识的本质，马克思主义认识论依然具有科学生命力，是我们当今认识世界、改造世界、实现人与自然和谐共生的理论遵循。

Marxist epistemology is practical epistemology and the theory of reproduction

马克思认识论是实践认识论和再现论

Marxism holds that the process of cognition is a dialectical process of practice—cognition—re-practice. This reflects two characteristics of Marxist epistemology: practical epistemology and the theory of reproduction. First, Marx emphasizes that practice is the source of cognition and the sole criterion for testing the truth of cognition. He profoundly criticized old materialism for failing to grasp the world on the basis of practice; old materialism always understood things sensibly from the intuitive appearance of the object, which inevitably made it impossible to grasp the essence of things. Second, Marxist epistemology is the theory of reproduction. The theory of reflection refers to the imitative "mirroring" of objective things, while the theory of reproduction refers to the creative reprocessing in the mind of the reflection of objective things. Marx believed that the process of cognition is an active reflective process of "the concrete—the abstract—the concrete." In the "concrete—abstract" stage, the "concrete" is the imitative reflection of the prototype of the objective thing in the mind, emphasizing the objectivity of cognition, which is a kind of perceptual cognition; the "abstract" is the extraction of rational factors from perceptual cognition, emphasizing the initiative of cognition, which is an incomplete rational cognition. In the "abstract—concrete" stage, Marx's complete formulation is "the method of advancing from the abstract to the concrete is only the way in which thought appropriates the concrete and reproduces it as a concrete mental category." [1]1 Karl Marx, *Grundrisse* (1857–1858), "Introduction," section on the method of political economy. The "concrete" is the integration of the various rational factors obtained from abstraction to understand the essence of things, emphasizing both the initiative and the creativity of cognition, which is a completed rational reproduction. In summary, Marxist epistemology proceeds from practice to actively and creatively reproduce the objective reflection of objective things in the mind in an intuitive form, thereby achieving an understanding of the essence of objective things. Humanity's understanding of the relationship between humanity and nature is precisely such a process.

马克思主义认为，认识的过程是一个实践—认识—再实践的辩证过程。这体现出了马克思认识论的两个特征：实践认识论和再现论。首先，马克思强调实践是认识的来源、是检验认识真理的唯一标准。他对旧唯物主义没有立足于实践去把握世界进行了深刻批判，旧唯物主义都是从客体的直观表象出发来感性地理解事物，这就必然无法把握事物的本质。其次，马克思认识论是再现论。反映论是指对客观事物的仿像性“镜现”，再现论则是对客观事物在头脑中的反映进行创造性的再加工。马克思认为，认识的过程是“具体—抽象—具体”的能动反映过程。在“具体—抽象”阶段，“具体”就是客观事物原型在头脑中的摹写性反映，强调认识的客观性，是一种感性认识；“抽象”就是从感性认识中抽象出合理性因素，强调认识的能动性，是一种未完成的理性认识。在“抽象—具体”阶段，马克思的完整表述为“从抽象上升到具体的方法，只是思维用来掌握具体、把它当作一个精神上的具体再现出来的方式”。“具体”就是整合抽象得到的各个合理性因素以认识事物的本质，既强调认识的能动性，又强调认识的创造性，是一种已完成的理性再现。概言之，马克思认识论是从实践出发对客观事物以直观形式在头脑中的客观反映进行能动的、创造性的再现，进而达到对客观事物本质的认识。人类对人与自然关系的认识就是这样一个过程。

The history of human civilization must be examined from the perspective of the grand historical materialism

要从大唯物史观出发考察人类文明发展史

For a long time, Marxism has been misunderstood and even distorted by some Western scholars, leading to Marx being criticized as an anti-ecological thinker, a Promethean, and an anthropocentrist. However, if we proceed from the perspective of the grand historical materialism, we can find that Marxism attaches great importance to the harmonious coexistence of humanity and nature.

长期以来，马克思主义一直被一些西方学者误解甚至歪曲，导致马克思被批判为反生态思想家、普罗米修斯主义者、人类中心主义者。但如果从大唯物史观出发，我们可以发现，马克思主义是高度重视人与自然和谐共生的。

The specific connotation of the grand historical materialism is that Marxism not only discovers the important laws of the replacement of human civilization forms by examining the evolutionary history of relations between people and between people and society, but also reveals the transformation of human civilization forms by examining the evolutionary history of the relationship between humanity and nature. Although the classical writers of Marxism did not explicitly propose the concept of "ecological civilization," in their research and discussion on the forms of human civilization, they characterized the replacement of social forms as primitive society, slave society, feudal society, capitalist society, and communist society; they expressed the development of human interaction as dependence on persons, dependence on things, and the free development of the individual; they manifested the evolution of economic forms as natural economy, commodity economy, and time economy. These three evolutions precisely correspond to the trend of transformation of human civilization forms: fishing-hunting civilization, industrial civilization, and ecological civilization. Therefore, the core purport of the new form of human civilization is ecological civilization, and the highest value goal is to achieve the reconciliation of humanity with itself and the reconciliation of humanity with nature.

大唯物史观的特定内涵是指，马克思主义不仅通过考察人与人、人与社会关系的演变历程，发现了人类文明形态更替的重要规律，而且通过考察人与自然关系的演变历程，揭示了人类文明形态的变更。尽管马克思主义经典作家没有明确提出“生态文明”这一概念，但其在关于人类文明形态的研究论述中，将社会形态的更替表征为原始社会、奴隶社会、封建社会、资本主义社会、共产主义社会；将人的交往发展表述为人对人的依赖、人对物的依赖、人的自由发展；将经济形态的演变表现为自然经济、商品经济、时间经济，这三种演进恰恰对应渔猎文明、工业文明和生态文明的人类文明形态变更趋势。因此，人类文明新形态的核心旨趣就是生态文明，最高价值目标就是实现人与自身的和解、人与自然的和解。

Marxist epistemology reveals that, in addition to the transformation of relations between people and between people and society, human civilization must also pay attention to the exploration of the relationship between humanity and nature. Since entering what is academically recognized as civilized society, all human activities, in the final analysis, are aimed at having a form of civilization that is more in line with the common values of all humanity. Many ancient sages have conducted multi-dimensional analyses of the division of civilization and its forms. Here, a brief description is mainly given from the perspective of the relationship between ecology and civilization. Engels, starting from the premise of the social division of labor, divided history into "savagery," "barbarism," and "civilization," believing that the higher stage of barbarism "begins with the smelting of iron ore" and transitions to the age of civilization, [2]2 Friedrich Engels, *The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State* (1884), chapter 1, "Stages of Prehistoric Culture." thus suggesting that modern civilization originates from the relationship between humanity and natural resources. The psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud believed that human civilization "includes all the knowledge and abilities acquired by humanity to control the forces of nature and seize its wealth to meet human needs." [3]3 Sigmund Freud, *The Future of an Illusion* (1927), chapter 1. Based on his "theory of instincts," Freud elaborated on the root of conflict in the relationship between humanity and nature. The greatest academic contribution of the German historical philosopher Oswald Spengler was to clearly distinguish between culture and civilization, believing that culture is the spiritual symbol of a certain human group or different nations, while civilization is the external material achievement created by humanity, the various forms of the historical development of society. [4]4 Oswald Spengler, *The Decline of the West* (1918), vol. 1, "Introduction." In short, the above thinkers summarized civilization as the sum total of the material and spiritual achievements obtained by a human group in its survival and development. The history of the development of human civilization is the history of the development of research on the relationship between humanity and nature. This provides people with a historical-philosophical basis for understanding the forms of civilization.

马克思主义认识论揭示了人类文明除了人与人、人与社会的关系变革外，同时必须注重人与自然关系的探索。自从进入学理上比较公认的文明社会后，人类的所有活动，说到底都是为了有一种更加符合全人类共同价值的文明形态。不少人类先贤都曾对文明及文明形态的划分进行多维度的分析，这里主要从生态与文明的关系作简明描述。恩格斯曾从社会分工的前提出发，把历史分为“蒙昧时代”“野蛮时代”“文明时代”，认为野蛮时代的高级阶段“从铁矿石的冶炼开始”过渡到文明时代，如是说现代文明发端于人与自然资源的关系。精神分析学家西格蒙德·弗洛伊德认为，人类文明“包括人类为了控制自然力量并攫取其财富以满足人类需要而获得的全部知识和能力”。基于其“本能论”，弗氏阐述了人与自然关系的冲突根源。德国历史哲学家奥斯瓦尔德·斯宾格勒的最大学术贡献是把文化和文明作了清晰区分，认为文化是人类某个群体或不同民族的精神符号，文明则是人类创造的外在物质成就，是社会历史发展史的各种形态。要言之，上述思想家把文明概括为一个人类群体生存发展所取得的物质精神成果的总和，人类文明的发展史就是对人与自然关系研究的发展史，这为人们提供了认识文明形态的历史哲学依据。

Ecological civilization from the perspective of epistemology

认识论视野中的生态文明

The classical writers of Marxism highly praised the high development of productive forces brought about by modernity, historically affirming the conditions created by modernity for the unfolding of world history and for the free and comprehensive development of the individual. At the same time, based on a profound insight into the characteristics of modern society and ecological nature under capitalism, they exposed that a history of the development of capitalism is a history of ecological destruction. Since the Industrial Revolution, under the control of the profit-driven logic of capital, natural resources have been irrationally and frantically plundered, leading to increasingly acute antagonism between humanity and nature and a severe imbalance in the ecosystem. The "black growth" of the economy—characterized by "high cost input, high resource consumption, and high pollution emissions"—brought about by the extensive economic development model of "pollute first, treat later" has distorted the development of human civilization.

马克思主义经典作家高度赞扬现代性所带来的生产力的高度发展，历史地肯定了现代性为世界历史的展开、为人的自由而全面发展所创造的条件；同时，基于对资本主义特征的现代社会及生态本性的深刻洞察，揭露出一部资本主义的发展史就是一部生态破坏史。工业革命以来，在唯利是图的资本逻辑控制下，自然资源被非理性地疯狂攫取，导致人与自然日趋尖锐对立，生态系统严重失衡。“先污染后治理”的粗放型经济发展方式所带来的“成本高投入、资源高消耗、污染高排放”的经济“黑色增长”扭曲了人类文明的发展。

Represented by Holmes Rolston III, James O'Connor, William Leiss, and others, three different ecological currents of thought—deep green, light green, and red-green—have successively formed, expressing an expectation to explore new forms of ecological civilization from an ecological dimension.

以霍尔姆斯·罗尔斯顿、詹姆斯·奥康纳、威廉·莱斯等人为代表，先后形成了深绿、浅绿和红绿三种不同的生态思潮，表达了一种从生态维度着手探索生态文明新形态的期盼。

The "deep green" current of thought is centered on ecocentrism, advocating "the theory of natural rights" and "the theory of natural value," holding that humans, as one component of natural beings, do not possess rights or advantages superior to other natural beings. This current opposes economic development and the use of science and technology. The "deep green" current of thought carries obvious postmodernist overtones, stubbornly emphasizing that the interests of nature are above all else. This stubbornness is confined to examining the dualistic opposition between humanity and nature, lacking consideration of the human-to-human relations hidden behind it, thus making it impossible to truly recognize the root cause of the ecological crisis—the capitalist system.

“深绿”思潮是以生态中心主义为核心，主张“自然权利论”和“自然价值论”，人类作为自然存在物的一分子并不具有高于其他自然物的权利和优势。该思潮反对发展经济和使用科学技术。“深绿”思潮带有明显的后现代主义色彩，执着于强调自然的利益高于一切，这种偏执囿于对人与自然二元对立关系的考察，缺失了对深藏其后的人与人关系的思考，致使其不可能真正认识到生态危机产生的根源——资本主义制度。

The "light green" ecological current of thought is centered on modern anthropocentrism, criticizing that modern anthropocentrism is actually a kind of "human hegemonism." Modern anthropocentrism is a kind of "weak anthropocentrism," emphasizing that humans, out of their own interests and those of future generations, will responsibly transform and dominate nature. It holds that the modern ecological crisis stems from the irrational application of technology and the free use of natural resources, and that the contradiction between humanity and nature can be alleviated through technological change and the incorporation of natural resources into the scope of economic accounting. Modern anthropocentrism sees the forces of "control" and "liberation" contained within "instrumental rationality" and "economic rationality" under the logic of capital, pointing out that technological change and rational environmental economic policies based on technological change are two major pathways to achieving the reconciliation of humanity and nature. However, it neglects the "logic of capital," the main cause of the ecological crisis.

“浅绿”生态思潮以现代人类中心主义为核心，批判近代人类中心主义实际上是一种 “人类霸权主义”。现代人类中心主义是一种“弱式人类中心主义”，强调人类出于自身和后代的利益会负责任地改造和支配自然，现代生态危机根源于对技术的非理性应用和自然资源的无偿使用，通过技术变革和将自然资源纳入经济核算范围可以缓和人与自然的矛盾。现代人类中心主义看到了资本逻辑下“工具理性”和“经济理性”所内含的“控制”和“解放”两个向度的力量，指出技术变革和技术变革基础上的合理环境经济政策是实现人与自然和解的两大途径，但却忽视了“资本逻辑”这一造成生态危机的主要原因。

The “red-green” ecological trend of thought, with ecological Marxism as its mainstream, examines the ecological crisis on the basis of a critique of the capitalist system. It points out that the “false needs” and “money-based view of happiness” generated under the guidance of economic rationality are the internal factors hindering the “two reconciliations” [5]5 The “two reconciliations” refers to the reconciliation of man with nature and the reconciliation of man with man, a concept derived from Marx’s early writings, particularly the *Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844*. in modern society. It emphasizes that only by moving from the realm of thought to the realm of practice can “the reconciliation of man with nature” be achieved, and only by steering the ecological movement toward class struggle can “the reconciliation of man with man” be completed, thereby realizing a positive interaction between the “two reconciliations” and constructing an ecological civilization in which man and nature coexist harmoniously. Ecological Marxism sublates the “deep-green” and “shallow-green” trends of thought. At the level of views on nature, ecological Marxism no longer explores the problem of “the binary opposition between man and nature” but instead turns to the question of “how man and nature increasingly cooperate through human practice.” At the level of values, ecological Marxism acknowledges that natural objects have inherent value, but once they enter the sphere of human activity, they are distinguished only as “use value” and “exchange value.” It then points out that the capitalist system has inverted the relationship between these two values, demanding a return to the pursuit of use value and the replacement of economic rationality with ecological rationality. At the same time, ecological Marxism advocates transforming and utilizing nature for the purpose of satisfying humanity’s rational needs, and criticizes capitalism’s plundering of nature in its pursuit of capital accumulation. Ecological civilization is not a regression to pre-modern society by abandoning the transformation of nature and the development of human society, nor is it a postmodernist proposition that opposes economic growth and the development of science and technology. Rather, it is a form of civilization in which humanity uses science and technology to rationally transform nature to satisfy its own genuine needs, achieving the coordinated development of economic growth, ecological protection, social progress, and the free and comprehensive development of human beings, and ultimately realizing the “two reconciliations.”

“红绿”生态思潮以生态马克思主义为主流，立足资本主义制度批判来审视生态危机。它指出，经济理性引导下生成的“虚假需要”和“金钱幸福观”是现代社会阻碍“两个和解”的内因，强调唯有从思维领域进入实践领域才能达到“人与自然的和解”，唯有将生态运动引向阶级运动才能完成“人与人的和解”，进而实现“两个和解”之间的良性互动，建构人与自然和谐共生的生态文明。生态马克思主义对“深绿”思潮和“浅绿”思潮进行扬弃。在自然观层面，生态马克思主义不再探讨“人与自然二元对立”问题，转而研究“人与自然何以通过人类实践越来越合作”的问题。在价值观层面，生态马克思主义承认自然物有其先在价值，但进入人类活动领域后就只作“使用价值”和“交换价值”区分，进而指出资本主义制度颠倒了两种价值的关系，要求复归至对使用价值的追求，以生态理性替代经济理性。同时，生态马克思主义主张以满足人类理性的需要为目的来改造和利用自然，批判资本主义追求资本增殖而掠夺自然的行径。生态文明不是放弃自然改造和人类社会发展而向前现代社会的复归，不是反对经济增长和科学技术发展的后现代主义主张，而是人类利用科学技术合理地改造自然界满足自身真实需要，达到经济增长、生态保护、社会进步、人自由全面发展的协同发展，最终实现“两个和解”的文明形态。

(The authors are, respectively, Director of the Academic Committee of the Innovation and Development Center for Ideological and Political Work in Higher Education Institutions of the Ministry of Education (Zhejiang Shuren University), and Dean and Professor of the School of Marxism at Zhejiang Shuren University; and Researcher at the Innovation and Development Center for Ideological and Political Work in Higher Education Institutions of the Ministry of Education (Zhejiang Shuren University).)

（作者系教育部高校思想政治工作创新发展中心（浙江树人学院）学术委员会主任，浙江树人学院马克思主义学院院长、教授；教育部高校思想政治工作创新发展中心（浙江树人学院）研究员）

Online editor: Huihui

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