The Evolutionary Logic of Modern Western Idealist Conceptions of History and the Methodological Transformation of Historical Materialism

The realization of the free and comprehensive development of every individual is the theme of Marxist philosophy. In modern times, philosophers no longer resorted to the "epistemological" thinking of ancient Greek philosophers; instead, they grasped the problem of freedom through a conscious philosophical reflection on history. Thus, the philosophy of history became the "principal aim" of modern Western philosophy. Hegel constructed his system of objective idealism based on speculative dialectics, in which pre-existing categories endowed with creative power served as the foundation. This made his philosophy of history, as a part of his systematic philosophy, the pinnacle of the development of Western philosophy of history. However, it contained a series of internal contradictions, such as the domination of the infinite over the finite, which resulted in the constraint of "universality" over "particularity" and "necessity" over "free individuality." The Young Hegelians, represented by Feuerbach, Bauer, and Stirner, attempted to transcend Hegel's philosophy by resorting to a philosophy of self-consciousness that highlighted free individuality. Yet, because they did not leave the speculative ground to resolve speculative contradictions, they remained deeply mired in the quagmire of the idealist conception of history. It was precisely through their critique of the Young Hegelians that Marx and Engels, in *The German Ideology*, pointed out that if one could not reveal the real source of the premises of the idealist conception of history, and thereby thoroughly transcend the modern Western idealist philosophical tradition, it would be impossible to solve the riddle of history and freedom. Hence, historical materialism opened up a completely new theoretical horizon: grasping human history through productive labor, and realizing human freedom through the abolition of capitalist private property.

实现每个人的自由全面发展是马克思主义哲学的主题。近代以降，哲学家们不再像古希腊哲学家那样诉诸“知识论”思维，而是通过对历史进行自觉的哲学思考来把握自由问题，由此，历史哲学成为西方近代哲学的“主要目的”。黑格尔基于具有创造力的范畴预先存在的思辨辩证法构建客观唯心主义体系，使得作为其体系哲学一部分的历史哲学达到西方历史哲学发展的高峰，但存在着无限对有限的宰制所导致的“普遍性”对“特殊性”、“必然性”对“自由个性”的束缚等一系列内在矛盾。以费尔巴哈、鲍威尔和施蒂纳为代表的青年黑格尔派试图诉诸凸显自由个性的自我意识哲学来超越黑格尔哲学，但由于没有离开思辨的基地来解决思辨的矛盾，依然深陷唯心史观的泥淖。正是通过对青年黑格尔派的批判，马克思恩格斯在《德意志意识形态》中指出，如果不能揭示唯心史观思维前提的现实来源，进而彻底超越西方近代唯心主义哲学传统，就不可能解答历史-自由之谜，由此，历史唯物主义才开启了在生产劳动中把握人类历史，并通过消灭资本主义私有制进而实现人的自由的全新理论图景。

Regarding the study of the above major issues, previous academic circles have mainly focused on exploring the common idealist characteristics of Hegel's philosophy and the Young Hegelians, as well as how *The German Ideology* elaborates on the internal logic of historical materialism. However, from the perspective of the history of the genesis of ideas, based on an examination of the developmental脉络 of modern Western idealist conceptions of history and their theoretical limitations—especially through a systematic exploration of the salient features, internal contradictions, and the inevitability of the dissolution of German idealism, as well as the deep-seated reasons why the Young Hegelians still fell into the error of idealism—research that highlights historical materialism's thorough critique and comprehensive transcendence of the Western idealist conception of history remains relatively weak and requires our in-depth investigation.

围绕上述重大课题的研究，以往学界主要聚焦于黑格尔哲学、青年黑格尔派何以具有唯心主义的共同特征，以及《德意志意识形态》如何对历史唯物主义内在逻辑进行阐述等内容的探讨，但立足思想生成史视域，基于对西方近代唯心史观发展脉络及其理论局限的考察，特别是通过系统探赜德国观念论的显著特征、内在矛盾及其解体的必然性以及青年黑格尔派何以依然陷入观念论误区的深层根源，彰显历史唯物主义对西方唯心史观的彻底批判和全方位超越的研究，还显得较为薄弱，需要我们深入探讨。

I. The Intellectual Course of Modern Western Idealist Conceptions of History and the Logical Paradoxes of Hegel's Philosophy of History

一、近代西方唯心史观的思想历程与黑格尔历史哲学的逻辑悖谬

Revealing the course from the emergence of the modern Western idealist conception of history to the dissolution of Hegel's philosophy is undoubtedly an important link in grasping the methodological transformation of historical materialism.

揭示近代西方唯心史观的出场到黑格尔哲学解体的历程，无疑是把握历史唯物主义方法论变革的重要环节。

As is well known, philosophy originally means "love of wisdom," manifested in the pursuit of that which "always exists and does not change" behind the complex, ever-changing world of experience, thereby settling people's bewildered minds. Socrates believed that a happy life is to achieve a life of true goodness; possessing virtue enables one to attain true goodness, and knowledge is the foundation of all actions, including virtue. Therefore, only by grasping the epistemological connotation of the concept of the "Good" can human action achieve the unity of goodness and knowledge. This established the Western philosophical tradition of "knowledge as the highest good," seeking a rational basis for human action and social operation from knowledge. On this basis, Plato pointed out that the world we inhabit is divided into two parts: one is the ever-changing, unreal world of experience grasped through opinion and irrational sensation; the other is the real, eternally unchanging world of Forms (理念) grasped by human rational reasoning. Among these, the Forms constitute the origin of the world and the cause of all things being what they are. They are therefore independent entities possessing self-causality, objectivity, universality, and eternity. This world is created by the demiurge using "that which is eternal and unchanging"—the Forms—as a model. Among the many Forms, the Form of the Good occupies the highest position. Hence, to grasp the essence of the world, one must seek it in the world of Forms. Therefore, in examining the deep-seated problems of life and society, grasping the conceptual knowledge of universal necessity through rational thought, understanding "universality" and "the Absolute" from the ontological connotation of concepts (Forms), guiding the perceptual world of experience to approach the ontological connotation of concepts (Forms), and thereby achieving the identity of thought and being—this idealist philosophical tradition, characterized by substance-thinking and essentialism, developed into the mainstream paradigm of Western philosophy. Precisely because of this, ancient Greek philosophy lacked a historical-philosophical dimension in its consideration of social problems. In this regard, J. B. Bury believed that ancient Greece only had a cyclical theory of the world's recurrence, making it difficult for people to touch the essence of the problem of freedom.

众所周知，哲学本意是“爱智慧”，体现为通过追问纷繁复杂、变动不居的经验世界背后“永远存在而不变化的”东西，进而安顿人们惶惑的心灵。苏格拉底认为，幸福生活就是达到真正的善的生活，拥有美德就可以达到真正的善，而知识则是包括美德在内的一切行动的基础，因此，只有把握“善”的概念的知识论内涵，才能使人的行动达到善与知识的统一，由此奠定西方哲学从知识中为人的行动和社会运行找到合理依据的“知识即至善”的思想传统。在此基础上柏拉图指出，我们身处的世界分为两个部分：一个是通过意见和非理性的感觉所把握的变动不居的、不真实的经验世界；另一个是由人的理性推理所认识的真实的、永远不变的理念世界。其中，理念构成世界的本原以及万事万物成为自身的原因，因而是具有自因性、客观性、普遍性、永恒性的独立实体，这个世界就是创造主把“那永恒不变的东西”即理念当作模型创造出来的，在诸多理念中善的理念居于最高位置，因而，把握世界的本质就必须到理念世界中去探求。因此，在人生和社会深层问题的考察上，通过理性思维把握具有普遍必然性的理念知识，从追问概念（理念）的存在论内涵中把握“普遍性”与“绝对”，引导感性经验世界趋近概念（理念）的存在论内涵，进而实现思维和存在的同一，这一以实体思维和本质主义为特征的唯心主义哲学传统发展成为西方哲学的主流思维范式。也正因如此，古希腊哲学对社会问题的思考便缺少历史哲学维度，就此而言，约翰·伯瑞认为古希腊只有世界周而复始的循环论，使得人们很难触及自由问题的实质。

Christianity, through revelation rather than reason, first opened up the dimension of free will and history. Kant believed that the history of freedom begins with evil because it is a human creation. The Christian event of original sin means that humanity discovers "its capacity to choose a way of life for itself, unlike other animals which are bound to a single way of life." [n1] Specifically, Christianity holds that the entire world, including humanity, is created by God. On the one hand, humanity unfolds its earthly life through the event of free will known as original sin; on the other hand, the rules of human conduct in secular life originate from God's instructions. Therefore, humans are ultimately limited. To attain freedom, they must be saved by God through the Last Judgment. Thus, Christianity injected a historical-freedom dimension into the development of Western philosophy. However, because Christianity resorted to theological faith and relegated the realization of freedom to an otherworldly realm, it inevitably fell into a hollow, practically ineffective moral preaching and could not correctly solve the riddle of history and freedom.

基督教以启示而非理性的方式首先开启自由意志以及历史维度。康德认为，自由的历史是由恶而开始的，因为它是人的创作，基督教原罪事件意味着人类发现“自己有一种为自己抉择生活方式的能力，而不是像别的动物那样要被束缚于惟一的一种生活方式”。具体而言，基督教认为，包括人类在内的整个世界是由神创造的，一方面人类凭借原罪这一自由意志事件展开尘世生活，但另一方面世俗生活中人的行为规则来源于神的指示，因此人终归是有局限的，要获得自由必须经由末日审判获得神的拯救，由此，它为西方哲学发展注入了历史-自由维度。但是，由于基督教诉诸神学信仰，把自由的实现交给一个彼岸世界，因此必然陷入一种空洞的、实际上毫无实效的道德说教，无法正确解答历史-自由之谜。

The conscious recognition that freedom cannot be realized based on knowledge or theological faith but must be achieved in the historical process, and the subsequent use of philosophical reason to seek the secret of history, is a tradition established by modern Western philosophy in its critical transcendence of ancient Greek philosophy and the Christian view of history. Although Vico, based on Plato's theory of Forms and its substance-thinking, and adhering to the principle of making reason a lifelong guide for humanity to reveal human history, pointed out that each nation undergoes a civilizational evolutionary process through the ages of gods, heroes, and humans, his exploration of the gradual process followed by human historical development was still founded on ideas such as divine providence or God's will.

自觉认识到自由不能基于知识或神学信仰而必须在历史过程中实现，进而以哲学理性寻求历史的秘密，是西方近代哲学在对古希腊哲学和基督教历史观的批判超越中所奠定的传统。尽管维柯立足柏拉图理念论及其实体思维，秉承让理性成为人的终生原则来揭示人类历史，指出各个民族都经历了神的时期、英雄的时期和人的时期的文明进化历程，但他对人类历史发展所遵循的循序渐进过程的探讨依然建立在天意或神旨这种思想的基础上。

Voltaire was the first to propose the concept of "philosophy of history." He opposed both attributing all historical events to the will of God and reducing historical inquiry to recording "almost a chaos, a heap of disconnected and inconsequential trivialities." [n2] He sought to reveal the arduous journey of humanity's progress from ignorance to civilization and the bright prospect of humanity inevitably moving towards an age of reason, by understanding as much as possible the customs of various peoples and studying the human spirit.

伏尔泰最先提出“历史哲学”概念，既反对把一切历史事件归为神的意志的结果，也反对把历史探讨停留在记载“几乎只是一片混乱，一大堆既无联系、又无下文的琐事”。他试图通过尽可能地了解各民族的风俗和研究人类的精神，揭示出人类从愚昧进步到文明的艰辛历程和人类必然走向理性时代的美好前景。

On this basis, Rousseau explicitly opposed the view that human history is the result of God's arrangement. He argued that by following the guidance of reason, we can deduce the answer to the riddle of history and freedom from human nature itself. Thus, he pointed out that human history actually manifests as a process from the state of nature to the state of society and then to a new state of equality. In the state of nature, humans are born good, because they are born with self-love and pity, and at this time, humans are born equal. It is only because people transition from the state of nature to the state of society that inequality among people arises. When despotic power appears, this inequality reaches its peak. To completely eliminate inequality, it is necessary to overthrow the rule of despotic tyrants and thereby achieve a higher state of equality based on a social contract. Because only obedience to the laws that people prescribe for themselves is freedom, and only "conventions can serve as the basis for all legitimate authority among men," [n3] this higher state of equality must be founded on the principle that "the people as a whole are the sovereign" and embodied through a democratic state established on a contract. In this social state, the individual ensures personal freedom through the general will. On this point, Engels pointed out, "Rousseau's social contract in practice turned out to be, and could only turn out to be, the bourgeois democratic republic." [n4] The objective reality of history turning into world history and the internal contradictions that capitalist society itself cannot overcome both indicate that Rousseau's scheme does not conform to the developmental trend of human history.

在此基础上，卢梭明确反对认为人类历史是由上帝安排的结果的观点，认为只要我们按照理性的引导，就可以从人类的天性中推导出历史-自由之谜的答案，由此指出人类历史实则表现为从自然状态到社会状态再到新的平等状态的过程。在自然状态下人天生是善良的，因为人一生下来就有自爱心和怜悯心，此时人与人之间生来是平等的。而由于人们从自然状态过渡到社会状态，才导致人与人之间的不平等，到专制权力出现时，这一不平等达到了顶点，要彻底消除不平等现象，就需要推翻专制暴君统治，进而达到基于社会公约的更高级的平等状态。因为唯有服从人们自己为自己所规定的法律，才是自由，只有“约定才可以成为人间一切合法权威的基础”，因此更高级的平等状态的社会必须建立在“人民作为整体来说就是主权者”的基础上，并通过建立在契约之上的民主国家体现出来，在这种社会状态中个人通过公意确保了个人自由。对此恩格斯指出，“卢梭的社会契约在实践中表现为，而且也只能表现为资产阶级的民主共和国”。而历史向世界历史转变的客观现实和资本主义社会自身无法克服的内在矛盾，均表明卢梭的方案并不符合人类历史的发展趋势。

Kant held that it is the power of reason that makes human history appear as a necessary process in which humanity, through the self-realization of rational principles, abandons barbarism and war and moves toward humanity and reason by nature. Kant further pointed out that natural right, as presented before us in accordance with rational ideas as a model, is the key to measuring whether a community can guarantee the realization of civil freedom. To achieve freedom, this human purpose, one must act on the principle of practical reason (free will), and this can be realized only through an "international government of a federation of peoples" constructed according to rational principles. Kant's free will in fact expressed the material motive of the bourgeoisie, but the weakness of the bourgeoisie turned it into a purely conceptual determination and moral postulate within thought, and thereby it could not solve the riddle of history and freedom.

康德认为，正是理性的力量使人类历史体现为人类通过理性原则自我实现而告别野蛮和战争、走向人性和理性的自然的必然的进程。康德进一步指出，符合于理性观念所呈现于我们眼前作为典范的那种自然权利，是衡量共同体能否保证公民自由实现的关键，要实现自由这一人类目的，就必须基于实践理性（自由意志）的原则，而这只有通过按照理性原则建构的“各民族联盟的国际政府”才能实现。康德的自由意志表达的实则是资产阶级的物质动机，但资产阶级的软弱性使康德把它变成纯粹思想上的概念规定和道德假设，由此也无法解答历史-自由之谜。

As the great synthesizer of modern Western idealist philosophy, Hegel's philosophy not only represents the logical apex of German idealism but also marks the pinnacle of the development of classical philosophy. Carrying forward the tradition of Western idealist philosophy, Hegel further pointed out that philosophical thinking is a unique mode of thought, which can only manifest itself as a cognitive activity carried out through concepts: "The object of philosophy — the concept, the Idea — is the core and essence inherent in all things; it is not something subjective divorced from actual things, but the active power that creates all things." Thus, Hegel clearly stated that to achieve the true unity of thinking and being, one must manifest the dialectical movement of concepts, whereas previous philosophy had stopped at thinking expressed as feeling, intuition, and representation, and was unable to grasp the absolute, universal, infinite, unified, and holistic being such as freedom, spirit, and God. In particular, the "transcendental unity of self-consciousness in Kant's philosophy is merely subjective," and its transcendental categories fall into "emptiness" and agnosticism. It was through a comprehensive critical examination of previous philosophy that Hegel's pure concept transcended the "sensory impurities" contained in Plato's Ideas and the mere twelve categories and their subjective meaning in Kant's philosophy, endowing the movement of concepts with objective meaning, thereby embodying the absolute unity of concept and objective actuality in the "self-development of the concept" and its dialectical movement.

作为西方近代唯心主义哲学的集大成者，黑格尔哲学不仅代表了德国观念论的逻辑顶点，而且代表了古典哲学发展的顶峰。秉承西方唯心主义哲学传统，黑格尔进一步指出哲学思维是一种独特的思维方式，只能体现为一种用概念进行的认识活动，“哲学的对象——概念、理念，是内在于一切事物中的核心和本质，它不是脱离现实事物的主观的东西，它是创造一切事物的能动力量”。由此，黑格尔明确指出，要实现思维和存在的真正统一，就必须通过彰显概念的辩证运动过程，而以往哲学则停留于作为情感、直观和表象表现出来的思维，无法把握自由、精神和上帝等具有绝对性、普遍性的无限的统一的整体的存在物，特别是康德哲学的“自我意识的先验统一仅仅是主观的”，其先验范畴陷入“空洞”和不可知论。正是通过对以往哲学的全面批判性考察，黑格尔的纯粹概念超越了柏拉图式理念所包含的“感性杂质”和康德哲学中仅有的12个概念及其主观意义，赋予概念运动以客观意义，由此在“概念的自我发展”及其辩证运动中体现概念与客观现实性的绝对统一。

In exploring the laws of development of human history, Hegel clearly stated: "World history in general is the development of Spirit in time, just as Nature is the development of the Idea in space." The developmental process of human history is the necessary stage of development that the concept must undergo to attain completeness and actuality, and is the manifestation of the "objective spirit" stage in which the Idea returns to itself. Specifically, "World history is the necessary development, out of the concept of the freedom of spirit alone, of the moments of reason and hence of the self-consciousness and freedom of spirit. This development is the interpretation and actualization of the universal spirit," manifested as a dialectical developmental process in which the world spirit realizes its own purpose through the development of national spirits. For the universal absolute spirit, i.e., the world spirit, is the supreme arbiter regulating relations among states. In its process of liberation — the realm of world history — the world spirit takes as its principle the four substantial forms of spirit formed by self-consciousness: from the in-itself existence of substantial spirit, in which individuality cannot obtain the right to independent existence, to the for-itself existence of substantial spirit possessing beautiful ethical individuality; then from the for-itself existence developing into "abstract universality" and thereby into a state of "infinite opposition to the objective world"; and finally to the process in which spirit, through the transformation of the aforementioned opposition, "returns from infinite opposition" to itself and "merges with objectivity." In this process, world history manifests itself as the progression from the "Oriental realm" through the "Greek realm" and the "Roman realm" to the "Germanic realm," and finally achieves the reconciliation and resolution of all contradictions.

在探讨人类历史的发展规律方面，黑格尔明确指出，“世界历史在一般上说来，便是‘精神’在时间里的发展，这好比‘自然’便是‘观念’在空间里发展一样”。人类历史的发展过程就是概念为了获得完满性和现实性必须经历的发展环节，是理念回到自身的“客观精神”阶段的表现。具体而言，“世界历史是理性各环节光从精神的自由的概念中引出的必然发展，从而也是精神的自我意识和自由的必然发展。这种发展就是普遍精神的解释和实现”，体现为世界精神通过民族精神的发展实现自身目的的辩证发展过程。因为普遍的绝对精神，即世界精神是调整国家之间关系的最高裁判官。世界精神在其解放过程——世界历史的王国——中，则以自我意识形成的四个实体性精神的形态为原则，即按照个别性无法得到独立存在的权利的实体性精神的自在存在形态，到拥有美的伦理的个体性的实体性精神的自为存在形态，再经自为存在自身发展到“抽象的普遍性”进而成为“客观世界的无限对立面”的状态，最后到精神通过上述对立转化，从“无限对立那里返回”到自身“同客观性融成一片”的过程。在此过程中，世界历史就表现为“东方王国”经由“希腊王国”“罗马王国”再到“日耳曼王国”的过程，并最终实现一切矛盾的调和和解决。

In sum, although Hegel understood human history as a rational developmental process, he subsumed all historical phenomena — including social life, political life, and spiritual life — under the developmental process of objective spirit. For Hegel, human history was therefore the history of spirits, and he necessarily described all relations determined by various social relations as relations of objective spirit. The result is that, theoretically, because "Hegel's dialectic begins and ends with the infinite, the finite (i.e., humanity) is merely a stage in the development of a superhuman spirit," leading to a situation in which, within the opposition between necessity and free individuality that emerges in the process of objective spirit's return to itself, free individuality occupies a subordinate position; and within the contradiction between universality and empirical particularity manifested in that same process, particularity occupies a subordinate position. This means that it was utterly incapable of genuinely handling the contradictions between "necessity and freedom" and between "universality and particularity." In practice, merely within the movement of pure concepts, i.e., within the realm of thought, attempting to solve the problem of the identity of subject and object, thinking and being, through a thoroughgoing idealist mode of thought, could never "shatter in thought the limitations of formal-rationalist (bourgeois, reified) thought, and thereby reconstruct in thought the human being who had been destroyed by reification." Therefore, in Hegel's case, "thought once again fell into the rut of the intuitive dualism of subject and object... the legacy that classical philosophy could leave to subsequent (bourgeois) development was only these unresolved antinomies." This series of theoretical contradictions and their practical challenges led to the inevitable dissolution of his school.

总而言之，尽管黑格尔把人类历史理解为合乎理性的发展过程，却把包括社会生活、政治生活、精神生活在内的各种历史现象，统摄于客观精神的发展过程之中，对此，人类历史在黑格尔看来是诸精神的历史，因而也必然把由各种社会关系所决定的一切关系通通描述成客观精神的关系。其结果是，在理论上由于“黑格尔的辩证法开始于并结束于无限，那么有限（即人类）仅仅是超人类的精神发展的一个阶段”，导致在客观精神回归自身的过程中所凸显的必然性与自由个性之间的对立中，自由个性居于从属环节；在客观精神回归自身过程中所体现的普遍性与经验特殊性之间的矛盾中，特殊性居于从属环节，意味着它根本无法真正处理“必然与自由”“普遍性与特殊性”之间的矛盾。在实践上，仅仅在纯粹概念的运动中即在思想范围内，试图以彻底的唯心主义思维解决主体与客体、思维与存在的同一性问题，根本不可能“在思想上打碎形式理性主义的（资产阶级的、物化的）思想的局限性，并因而在思想上重建被物化消灭了的人”。因此在黑格尔这里，“思维重又落入主体和客体的直观二元论的窠臼之中……古典哲学给以后的（资产阶级的）发展所能留下的遗产只是这些没有解决的二律背反”，这一系列理论矛盾及其现实挑战导致其学派的必然解体。

II. The Logical Evolution and Theoretical Limitations of the Young Hegelians' Attempt to Solve the Riddle of History on the "Terrain of Philosophy"

二、青年黑格尔派基于“哲学基地”解答历史之谜的逻辑演进及其理论局限

In the process of German society moving from the Middle Ages to modernity, there emerged the historical phenomenon of a severely underdeveloped civil society that lagged far behind England and France. Against this backdrop, the radical German intellectuals represented by the Young Hegelians, inheriting the German idealist mode of thought, held that the loss of human free individuality stemmed, on the one hand, from Hegel's philosophy, which they regarded as a "true, thorough, rational theology," and on the other hand, from Christianity, which, by presupposing an external God as an absolute Other, was isomorphic with Hegel's absolute spirit. This led the German people to be ruled by the shackles of these illusions, ideas, dogmas, and imagined beings. On this basis, the Young Hegelians resorted to religious criticism, constructing a philosophy of self-consciousness that highlighted human free individuality through, respectively, self-consciousness, sensuous intuition, and then the "Unique One," attempting thereby to replace Hegel's philosophy and Christianity, and to realize human freedom through philosophical transformation. Consequently, they fell into the quagmire of an idealist conception of history.

德国社会在从中世纪走向现代的过程中，出现了市民社会发育严重滞后、远远落后于英国和法国的历史现象，在此背景下，以青年黑格尔派为代表的德国激进知识分子只能秉承德国唯心主义思维方式，基于思想、观念、意识对世界的独立性和决定性地位，认为人的自由个性的丧失一方面源自作为“真实的、彻底的、理性的神学”的黑格尔哲学，另一方面源自预设了作为绝对他者的外在的神而与黑格尔的绝对精神具有同构性的基督教，进而导致德国民众深受这些幻象、观念、教条和臆想的存在物的枷锁的统治。基于此，青年黑格尔派诉诸宗教批判，分别以自我意识、感性直观再到“唯一者”等建构凸显人的自由个性的自我意识哲学，并试图以此取代黑格尔哲学与基督教，进而以哲学变革来实现人的自由，因此陷入了唯心史观的泥淖。

First, Bauer viewed human history as the dialectical progression of human self-consciousness. Bauer extracted the moment of self-consciousness from Hegel’s philosophy, granting the thinking of the human subject primacy, holding that self-consciousness encompasses everything and is the sole force in the universe capable of bringing all things into its orbit, and thereby used “the myth of the entire independent concept headed by self-consciousness” to argue for human history. This is concretely manifested as the process by which self-consciousness, through alienation and its own self-negation, truly realizes itself—that is, the developmental process from finite, individual self-consciousness to infinite, universal self-consciousness, which is also the process of realizing human freedom. Based on this line of thought, Bauer believed that ancient religions worshipped nature, the family, and the national spirit as gods, while Christianity liberated humanity from this dependence on nature, undoubtedly manifesting the self-awareness of human nature and thus representing progress compared with those earlier religions. However, when humanity has now become conscious of its own independence, and Christianity subjects humanity to an arbitrary God and its unconsciously created dogmas, this shows that it has become the most serious obstacle to universal self-consciousness through alienation. Bauer firmly believed that the revolution he had initiated in the spiritual realm would also provoke a revolution in the practical realm. Bauer’s error lay in taking the abstract and mystical phrases Hegel used to reflect real conflicts as the real conflicts themselves, while in reality he knew nothing of actual human beings and their various relations, and was fundamentally incapable of solving the riddle of history and freedom.

其一，鲍威尔把人类历史看成人类自我意识的辩证进展的过程。鲍威尔抽取黑格尔哲学中的自我意识环节，赋予人类主体的思维以首要的地位，认为自我意识是涵盖一切的，是宇宙间唯一能把万物纳入自己轨道的力量，进而以自我意识“为首的整个独立概念的神话”论证人类历史。具体体现为自我意识经过异化及其自我否定进而真正实现自身，即经由有限的、个别的自我意识到无限的、普遍的自我意识的发展过程，同时也是人的自由实现的过程。基于上述思路，鲍威尔认为古代宗教把自然、家庭和民族精神作为神来崇拜，而基督教则使人类从对自然的这种依附中解放出来，无疑彰显出人性意识自觉，因此同先前的那些宗教相比是一种进步，但当人类现在已经意识到自己的独立性，而基督教使人类服从一个任性的上帝及其无意识地创造的教条，就表明它异化为普遍自我意识的最严重的障碍。鲍威尔坚信自己在精神方面所引起的革命，也会在实践方面引起一场革命。鲍威尔的错误在于把黑格尔用以反映现实冲突的那种抽象的和神秘的词句看成了现实冲突本身，实则对现实的人及其各种关系则一无所知，根本不可能解答历史-自由之谜。

Second, Feuerbach opposed Bauer’s definition of human essence based on self-consciousness within Hegel’s systematic philosophy, arguing that the self-consciousness of the old philosophy was separated from the human being and was an abstraction without reality. The human being is self-consciousness. Therefore, based on his anthropological thinking, he interpreted human essence and further understood human history as a process of religious transformation. Feuerbach held that “the human being is the beginning of religion, the human being is the center of religion, the human being is the end of religion,” and further pointed out that “the secret of theology is anthropology, and the secret of speculative philosophy is theology-speculative theology”; the essence of God should be reduced to a component part of the human essence. This is because it is precisely out of their own needs that human beings create God according to their own essence; God is merely the result of the alienation of the human essence in religion. Thus, Feuerbach emphasized that subject and object should be inverted, and Hegel’s philosophy should be reformed based on the priority of sensibility to restore the human essence, thereby grasping the laws of history and realizing human freedom. Feuerbach took the emotion of “love,” obtained through human sensuous needs and appealing to sensuous intuition, as the essence of the human being, believing that by sublating Christian theology with the religion of love, and thereby achieving the unity of God and the human being, real contradictions could be resolved. Thus, the process of human history is manifested as the process of sublating Christian theology with the religion of love. Feuerbach’s error lies not in his stating this fact, but in his idealistically making it independent, failing to see it as the product of a specific, transitory stage of historical development. Specifically, in interpreting human essence and the substance of history, Feuerbach regarded the human being only as a “sensuous object,” not as “sensuous activity,” and did not understand that the sensuous world around him “is the product of industry and the state of society, a historical product, the result of the activity of successive generations.” Consequently, he could only confine the human being, from the perspective of natural relations, to an idealized love and friendship. This led to a complete separation between materialism and history in Feuerbach’s work, making it obviously impossible for him to grasp the substance of history and find a scientific path to realize human freedom.

其二，费尔巴哈反对鲍威尔基于黑格尔体系哲学中的自我意识来界定人的本质，认为旧哲学的自我意识是与人分离的，乃是一种无实在性的抽象。人才是自我意识，因此基于其人本学思维解读人的本质，进而把人类历史理解为宗教的变迁过程。费尔巴哈认为“人是宗教的始端，人是宗教的中心点，人是宗教的尽头”，进而指出“神学的秘密是人本学，思辨哲学的秘密则是神学-思辨神学”，应当把上帝的本质还原为属人的本质的组成部分。因为正是由于人出于自己的需要，按照自己的本质创造了神，神不过是在宗教里人的本质被异化的结果。由此费尔巴哈强调应把主体与客体颠倒过来，基于感性优先性改造黑格尔哲学来恢复人的本质，进而把握历史规律并实现人的自由。费尔巴哈把基于人的感性需要并诉诸感性直观得到的“爱”的情感作为人的本质，认为以爱的宗教扬弃基督教神学，进而达到上帝和人的统一，现实矛盾就可以得到化解，由此人类历史进程体现为以爱的宗教扬弃基督教神学的过程。费尔巴哈的错误不在于他说出了这一事实，而在于他以唯心主义的方式使之独立化了，没有把它看作历史发展的一定的、暂时的阶段的产物。具体到对人的本质以及历史实质的解读上，费尔巴哈把人只看作“感性对象”，而不是“感性活动”，不了解他周围的感性世界“是工业和社会状况的产物，是历史的产物，是世世代代活动的结果”，因而只能从自然关系视角出发把人局限于理想化了的爱与友情上。这导致在费尔巴哈那里唯物主义和历史是彼此完全脱离的，显然不可能把握历史的实质进而找到实现人的自由的科学路径。

Third, Stirner, in the process of overturning German idealist philosophy, understood history as the process of realizing the “self-consistent egoist.” Hegel’s philosophy turned everything into thoughts, sacred objects, specters, spirits, spooks, and phantoms. Stirner conquered them in his imagination and established his world kingdom on their corpses, without investigating why they were based on egoism. Instead, he believed that theology oppresses people and prevents them from attaining freedom precisely because God only satisfies himself; God’s cause is a purely egoistic cause. Not only that, but all previous human causes merely manifested as “purely egoistic causes.” Thus, Stirner pointed out, “Like God, all other things are nothing to me; my all is myself, I am the unique one... I am not nothing in the sense of emptiness, but creative nothing, the nothing out of which I myself as creator create everything.” He argued that as long as the importance of “I” is highlighted, replacing “God” and “truth” with “I,” one can cast off the fetters of all external substances. Stirner’s line of thought essentially says that the “unique one” is the only truly free thing; only by regarding myself as “creative nothing,” making my cause “unique,” and truly “becoming an egoist myself,” can human freedom be truly realized. However, this requires the guarantee of the “union of egoists,” established on the principle of egoistic love as my creation. In this regard, Stirner still bases himself on the individual in philosophical concepts, on the “human being” who is detached from his own reality and exists only in thought—that is, the concept of the human being—and thereby understands historical development as the process of realizing the “self-consistent egoist.” However, it should be noted that human beings interact with each other not as pure “I”s, but as individuals at a certain stage of development of productive forces and needs, and they attain freedom within the scope determined and permitted by the existing productive forces. Therefore, Stirner is the one among all philosophers who knows the least about real relations.

其三，施蒂纳则在颠覆德国观念论哲学的过程中把历史理解为实现“自我一致的利己主义者”的过程。黑格尔哲学把一切变为思想、圣物、幽灵、精神、精灵、怪影。施蒂纳在想象中战胜它们并在它们的尸体上建立他的世界王国，而不去研究它们为何以利己主义为基础，反而认为神学之所以压迫人而使人无法获得自由，是因为神只是使自己满足，神的事业是纯粹利己主义的事业。不但如此，以往人类的事业也仅仅体现为“纯粹利己主义的事业”。 由此，施蒂纳指出，“同神一样，一切其他事物对我皆无，我的一切就是我，我就是唯一者……我〔并非〕是空洞无物意义上的无，而是创造性的无，是我自己作为创造者从这里面创造一切的那种无”，认为只要凸显“我”的重要性，以“我”取代“神”和“真理”，就可以摆脱一切外在实体的束缚。施蒂纳的思路无外乎是说，“唯一者”才是唯一真正自由的东西，只有把我看作“创造性的无”，明确我的事业是“唯一的”，真正使“自己也成为利己主义者”，人的自由就能真正实现，但这需要作为我的创造物、基于利己主义的爱的原则建立的“唯一者联盟”加以保障。就此而言，施蒂纳依然以哲学观念中的个人，以脱离了自己的现实而只存在于思想中的那个“人”，也就是人的概念为其基础，进而把历史发展理解为实现“自我一致的利己主义者”的过程。但是应该看到，人与人之间不是作为纯粹的我，而是作为处在生产力和需要的一定发展阶段上的个人而发生交往的，是在现有的生产力所决定和所容许的范围之内取得自由的，因此施蒂纳是所有哲学家中对现实关系知道得最少的一个。 

Because the Young Hegelians erroneously regarded thoughts, ideas, and the independent representation of the existing world in thought as the foundation of this existing world, they interpreted religion as the ultimate cause of all relations they detested. But merely confining themselves to the critique of religious ideas, merely “replacing their present consciousness with a human, critical, or egoistic consciousness, thereby eliminating the limitations that bind them,” was in fact opposing one phrase with another phrase. This led to their failure to fundamentally explore the real source of the premises of idealist philosophy, and the theoretical limitations of their inherent idealist dualistic mode of thinking made it impossible for them to truly solve the riddle of history and freedom.

由于青年黑格尔派错误地把思想、观念、现存世界在思想上的独立化了的表现当作这个现存世界的基础，因而把宗教解释为他们所厌恶的一切关系的终极原因。但仅仅局限于对宗教观念的批判，仅仅局限于“用人的、批判的或利己的意识来代替他们现在的意识，从而消除束缚他们的限制”，实际上是以一种词句反对另一种词句，导致它没有从根本上探讨观念论哲学前提的现实来源，其唯心主义固有的二元论思维方式理论局限使其不可能真正解答历史-自由之谜。

III. The Methodological Transformation of Historical Materialism and Its Critique and Transcendence of Western Idealist Conceptions of History

三、历史唯物主义方法论变革及其对西方唯心史观的批判与超越

From the above, it can be seen that, although the specific lines of thought for grasping the laws of human history differed, all schools of Western idealist conceptions of history regarded human history as the history of thought, and could thus only resort to conceptual change and theoretical progress to drive changes in reality. The result was that these concepts of change had been expressed hundreds of times before, but this had no significance for actual development. Marx and Engels, however, achieved a revolutionary transformation of the paradigm of Western idealist conceptions of history through the theory of comprehensive production [n], thereby finding the scientific path to solve the riddle of history and freedom. This is a necessary link and a significant hallmark of the formation of historical materialism, and its logic of genesis is manifested in the following four aspects.

由上可见，尽管把握人类历史规律的具体思路有别，但西方唯心主义历史观各流派均把人类历史看作思想史，进而只能诉诸观念变革和理论进步推动现实的改变，其结果是这种变革的观念已经表述过千百次，但这对于实际发展没有任何意义。而马克思恩格斯以全面生产理论实现对西方唯心史观思维范式的革命性变革，进而找到解答历史-自由之谜的科学路径，是历史唯物主义形成的必要环节和显著标志，其生成逻辑体现在如下四个方面。

First, establishing the practical premise for examining human history based on the “purely empirical method” transcended the idealist conception of history’s “concept-first” substantialist thinking.

其一，基于“纯粹经验的方法”确立考察人类历史的实践前提，超越了唯心史观“概念在先”的实体思维。

It was precisely by first reflecting on and transcending the origin of the thinking premises of Western idealist conceptions of history that Marx and Engels opened the path for German theorists to the materialist worldview. The primary link in the methodological transformation of historical materialism lies in first establishing the “production of material life itself” as the scientific starting point for examining the laws of human history.

正是首先对西方唯心史观思维前提的产生根源加以反思与超越，马克思恩格斯才为德国理论家开辟了通向唯物主义世界观的道路。历史唯物主义方法论变革的首要环节，就在于首先确立“物质生活资料的生产”这一考察人类历史规律的科学起点。

Marx and Engels pointed out that Germany’s backward social reality led to the situation in which “the entire German philosophical criticism from Strauss to Stirner is confined to criticism of religious conceptions,” and consequently “all the ruling relations were gradually declared to be religious relations and were transformed into cults—the cult of law, the cult of the state, etc.” This religious criticism had a positive significance for “theoretical Germany” at the time, insofar as it at least reminded people to liberate themselves in thought from the bondage imposed by God or Hegel’s absolute spirit. However, its theoretical basis fundamentally remained within the dualistic mode of thinking of modern Western idealist conceptions of history, namely, by establishing the independence of ideas, thoughts, and concepts, and by having ideas, thoughts, and concepts produce, determine, and dominate people’s actual life and their material world, it thereby turned the deep roots of actual unfreedom into the product of the consciousness of something independent. On this basis, they believed that it was sufficient to struggle against these illusions of consciousness simply through conceptual change. This kind of criticism in fact did not touch upon the relationship between philosophy and reality; it merely offered one-sided explanations of previous philosophy within the history of thought. This mode of thinking, which understands human history as a history of ideas and concepts, because it only defines the logical premise for examining history without investigating the actual roots of that logical premise, is in reality a purely logical a priori mode of thinking.

马克思恩格斯指出，德国落后的社会现实导致“从施特劳斯到施蒂纳的整个德国哲学批判都局限于对宗教观念的批判”，从而导致“一切占统治地位的关系逐渐地都被宣布为宗教的关系，继而被转化为迷信——对法的迷信，对国家的迷信等等”，这种宗教批判对当时“理论的德国”有其积极意义，即它毕竟提醒人们要在思想上从神或黑格尔的绝对精神对人的束缚下解放出来。但是，它的理论依据根本上停留于近代西方唯心史观的二元论思维方式，即通过确立观念、思想、概念的独立性，观念、思想、概念产生、规定和支配人们的现实生活及其物质世界，进而把现实不自由的深层根源变为某种独立的东西的意识的产物。基于此，他们认为只要通过观念变革即只要同意识的这些幻想进行斗争就行了。这种批判实际上并不涉及哲学与现实之间的关系，只是在思想史上对以往哲学作一些片面的说明。这种把人类历史理解为思想观念史的思维方式，由于它仅仅界定了考察历史的逻辑前提，而没有考察这一逻辑前提的现实根源，实则是一种纯粹的逻辑在先思维。

Marx and Engels held that to correctly solve the riddle of history and freedom, one must first establish the historical starting point for examining the laws of human historical development and then take this as the logical starting point. Thus, based on the “method of purely empirical observation,” Marx and Engels first confirmed the historical premise of “the production of the means of subsistence” for grasping the laws of history, because “as soon as people begin to produce their means of subsistence—a step determined by their physical organization—they themselves begin to distinguish themselves from animals.” This shows that the marker distinguishing humans from animals is by no means, as modern Western idealist conceptions of history claim, that humans have thought or consciousness, but rather that humans are capable of consciously producing their means of subsistence; people’s imagination, thinking, and spiritual intercourse are the direct product of their material actions. Therefore, the logical premise of modern Western idealist conceptions of history is nothing more than the product of the material production process, and a scientific worldview is embodied in taking this historical premise as the logical premise for grasping human history, thereby truly realizing the unity of the logical and the historical.

马克思恩格斯认为，要正确解答历史-自由之谜，就必须首先确立考察人类历史发展规律的历史起点，并将其确立为逻辑起点。由此，马克思恩格斯基于“纯粹经验的方法”首先确认“物质生活资料的生产”这一把握历史规律的历史前提，因为“一当人开始生产自己的生活资料，即迈出由他们的肉体组织所决定的这一步的时候，人本身就开始把自己和动物区别开来”。这说明人与动物相区分的标志绝不是像近代西方唯心史观所说的人有思想或意识，而恰恰是人能够自觉地进行物质生活资料的生产，人们的想象、思维、精神交往是人们物质行动的直接产物。因此，近代西方唯心史观的逻辑前提不外乎是物质生产过程的产物而已，而科学的世界观就体现在把这一历史前提作为把握人类历史的逻辑前提，真正实现逻辑与历史相统一。 

On this basis, Marx and Engels elevated “the production of the means of subsistence,” which serves as the scientific premise for examining human history, from the empirical level to a philosophical level for analysis. They emphasized that people, in producing their means of subsistence, indirectly produce their material life itself. Hence, only by adopting the perspective of total production and scientifically examining all historical phenomena within the operational mechanism of material production can one gain insight into the riddle of human history and freedom, and thereby make historical materialism a “truly critical worldview.”

在此基础上，马克思恩格斯将作为考察人类历史的科学前提的“物质生活资料的生产”，从经验层面上升到哲学高度加以分析，强调人们生产自己的生活资料间接地就是生产着自己的物质生活本身，因而只有基于全面生产视域，在物质生产运行机制中科学考察全部历史现象，才能洞悉人类历史-自由之谜，并由此使历史唯物主义成为“真正批判的世界观”。

Second, by philosophically highlighting the complete content and operational mechanism of the production of the means of subsistence, and by establishing the theory of total production as a scientific methodology for grasping social-historical phenomena, it transcends the abstract logical deductive paradigm of Western idealist conceptions of history, which is based on spiritual movement.

其二，基于哲学维度彰显物质生活资料生产的完整内涵及其运行机制，确立全面生产理论这一把握社会历史现象的科学方法论，超越了西方唯心史观基于精神运动的抽象逻辑运演范式。

Raising the examination of the five dimensions of the production of the means of subsistence and their interactive mechanisms to a philosophical level, systematically revealing that only through the perspective of total production can the deep roots of all social phenomena be interpreted, and thereby providing a scientific methodology for finding the path to human freedom, constitutes a key link in the methodological transformation of historical materialism.

上升到哲学层面对物质生活资料生产的五种维度及其相互作用机制进行深入考察，系统揭示只有透过全面生产视域才能解读一切社会现象的深层根源，进而为找到实现人的自由的路径提供科学方法论，构成历史唯物主义方法论变革的关键环节。

Marx and Engels held that to examine all social phenomena, especially the condition of human freedom, one must comprehensively investigate material production, particularly the state of its mode of production. What people are “coincides with their production—both with what they produce and with how they produce.” Examining the condition of human freedom cannot rely solely on investigating the reproduction of the human body, such as changes in human anatomy or physiological reproduction, because material productive activity is fundamentally an objective social-historical activity. Only by examining how people express their life—that is, the laws of change in the mode of production—can one grasp the laws of history.

马克思恩格斯认为，考察全部社会现象特别是人的自由状况，就必须全面考察物质生产特别是其中的生产方式状况，他们是什么样的“同他们的生产是一致的——既和他们生产什么一致，又和他们怎样生产一致”。考察人的自由状况不能仅仅诉诸对以人体结构变化、生理意义上的繁殖等为内容的人的肉体再生产的考察，因为物质生产活动根本上体现为客观的社会历史性活动，只有通过考察人们如何表现自己的生命也即生产方式状况的变化规律，才能把握历史规律。

Thus, human material production contains the following dimensions: First, the production of the means of subsistence, as the first premise of human existence, marks the unfolding of human history. Second, the generation of new needs is an inherent requirement of the development of production. Third, the reproduction of the population is a premise of material production and the development of human history; especially in historical periods with low levels of productive forces, human labor power is a prerequisite for ensuring production. Fourth, the production of social relations. Fifth, spiritual production. The process of human historical development is a process dominated by the operational mechanism of material production—that is, a process in which the above five types of production interact, thereby changing their respective conditions and jointly driving historical development and progress. Furthermore, on the one hand, the conditions of these five types of production take on specific historical content at different stages of human historical development; all phenomena of human history must find their secret within them. On the other hand, the result of the interaction of these five types of production is embodied in the contradiction between “productive forces, social conditions, and consciousness,” which directly constitutes the driving force of human historical progress. Therefore, exploring the path to realizing human freedom must rely on an in-depth investigation of the operational mechanism of material production. On this basis, the secret of human history should not be sought, as in modern Western idealist conceptions of history, by examining the movement of concepts or spirit, but rather by objectively revealing the operational process of the above five types of production, which contain specific historical content. Marx and Engels profoundly revealed the source of the thinking premise and spiritual production of Western idealist conceptions of history, pointing out that the condition of spiritual production is determined by the condition of material production. This is manifested in the following: on the one hand, spiritual production originates from the separation of material and mental labor and is itself a result of material production and the division of labor; therefore, the phenomenon of spiritual production must be viewed on the basis of actual material production conditions. On the other hand, with regard to the content and development of spiritual production, at the social level it is manifested as “the ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e., the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force,” and at the individual level it is manifested as “the real intellectual wealth of the individual depends entirely on the wealth of his real connections.”

由此可见，人类物质生产蕴含如下维度：第一，作为人类生存的第一个前提的物质生活资料的生产，是人类历史展开的标志。第二，新的需要的产生是生产发展的内在要求。第三，人口繁殖是物质生产以及人类历史发展的前提，特别是生产力水平低下的历史时期，人力更是保证生产的前提。第四，社会关系的生产。第五，精神生产。人类历史发展过程是由物质生产运行机制所主导的过程，也即上述五种生产产生相互作用进而改变各自状况、共同推动历史发展进步的过程。进而言之，一方面，上述五种生产状况在人类历史不同发展阶段上呈现出具体的历史性内涵，举凡人类历史现象均必须从中找到自身的秘密；另一方面，上述五种生产相互作用的结果就体现为“生产力、社会状况和意识”之间的矛盾，直接构成人类历史进步的动力。因此探讨人的自由的实现路径，必须诉诸对物质生产运行机制的深入考察。基于此，考察人类历史的秘密不应像近代西方唯心史观那样探讨概念或精神的运动过程，而应当客观地揭示出蕴含着具体历史内容的上述五种生产的运行过程。马克思恩格斯深刻揭示了西方唯心史观思维前提及其精神生产的来源，指出精神生产状况由物质生产状况所决定，这体现为：一方面，精神生产源自物质劳动和精神劳动的分离，本身就是物质生产和分工的结果，因此必须基于现实物质生产状况看待精神生产现象；另一方面，就精神生产的内容及其发展而言，在社会维度上表现为“占统治地位的思想不过是占统治地位的物质关系在观念上的表现”，在个人维度上表现为“个人在精神上的现实丰富性完全取决于他的现实关系的丰富性”。

Third, from the perspective of total production, it points out that the condition of human freedom is directly determined by the condition of actual social relations, and that only by advancing human society to a true community through actual means can human freedom be truly realized, thereby transcending the theory of the self-development of spirit found in Western idealist conceptions of history.

其三，基于全面生产视域指出人的自由状况直接取决于现实社会关系状况，以现实手段推进人类社会发展到真正共同体才能真正实现人的自由，超越了西方唯心史观精神自身发展理论。

Through the examination of total production and the operational mechanism of production, it can be seen that these social relations actually determine the extent to which an individual can develop, because the essence of the human being is not embodied in the realm of ideas and thought, but rather as the sum total of all social relations arising from the material production process. The condition of human freedom is fundamentally determined by the specific, historical condition of the social relations that individuals bear. The development of individual characteristics and the satisfaction of desires are results of the division of labor and of the development of social relations. The realization of human freedom is determined not by consciousness, but by being; not by thinking, but by life; it is determined by the empirical development and expression of individual life, which in turn is determined by social relations. If an individual’s conditions of life force him to develop only one characteristic in a one-sided way at the expense of all others, and if these conditions provide him only with the material and time to develop this one characteristic, then this individual cannot transcend one-sided, stunted development. Therefore, to realize the free and comprehensive development of the human being, one cannot, as in Western idealist conceptions of history, appeal to the self-development of spirit. Instead, one should “set out from the material production of immediate life and conceive the real process of production, and the form of intercourse connected with and created by this mode of production—i.e., civil society in its various stages—as the basis of all history,” and on this basis, achieve true human freedom through the development of social relations.

通过对全面生产和生产运行机制的考察，可以看出，这些社会关系实际上决定着一个人能够发展到什么程度，因为人的本质并非体现在观念和思想层面，而是体现为物质生产过程中产生的一切社会关系的总和，人的自由状况根本上是由其所承载着的具体的、历史的社会关系状况所决定的。个人特性的发展、欲望的满足是分工的结果，是社会关系发展的结果，人的自由的实现不决定于意识，而决定于存在；不决定于思维，而决定于生活；决定于个人生活的经验发展和表现，这种经验发展和表现又决定于社会关系。如果这个人的生活条件使他只能牺牲其他一切特性而单方面地发展某一种特性，如果生活条件只提供给他发展这一种特性的材料和时间，那么这个人就不能超出单方面的、畸形的发展。因此，实现人的自由而全面发展，就不能够像西方唯心史观那样诉诸精神的自我发展，而是应该“从直接生活的物质生产出发阐述现实的生产过程，把同这种生产方式相联系的、它所产生的交往形式即各个不同阶段上的市民社会理解为整个历史的基础”，并在此基础上以社会关系的发展实现人的真正自由。

Since production presupposes intercourse among individuals, individual freedom is possible only within a community, and the nature of the community is determined by the form of property relations that reflect the condition of social relations, which in turn is fundamentally decided by the degree of development of the division of labor in the production process. On this basis, examining the historical development of the forms of property relations determined by the degree of development of the division of labor, and in particular the historical necessity of realizing a genuine community, became an important link in Marx and Engels’ transcendence of the Western idealist conception of history’s theory of the self-development of spirit.

由于生产以个人彼此之间的交往为前提，所以只有在共同体中才可能有个人自由，而共同体的性质由反映社会关系状况的所有制形式所决定，根本上取决于生产过程中分工的发展程度。基于此，通过考察由分工发展程度所决定的所有制形式的历史发展，特别是实现真正的共同体的历史必然性，就成为马克思恩格斯超越西方唯心史观精神自身发展理论的重要环节。

The development of human history manifests itself as the process of the development of each nation itself and its intercourse with others

人类历史的发展体现为各民族本身发展及其相互交往的过程，每一个民族本身的整个内部结构取决于自己的生产以及自己内部和外部的交往的发展程度，各民族之间的相互关系也取决于每一个民族的生产力、分工和内部交往的发展程度。地理大发现等一系列近代历史事件导致生产的地域局限性得以消除，以小规模的乡村生产、以手工劳动为基础的工场手工业无法满足国内外市场对产品的需求，发达的物质交往和充分的商品流通成为历史的趋势，市场日益扩大为世界市场，大工业推动历史转变为世界历史，之前各个人通过某种联系——家庭、部落、土地本身等——结合在一起，现在他们受劳动产品的支配，因而各个人仅仅通过交换结合在一起。资本主义社会固然使人们摆脱了人身依附关系，在一定程度上彰显了自由个性，但由于资本主义社会通过“供求关系” “普遍的竞争”等方式维系生产，这一时期人的个性是由非常明确的阶级关系决定和规定的，人们更加屈从于物的力量，在这一条件下随着生产力的发展人们反而更不自由。

It can be seen that in human history, although capitalist society replaced the earlier natural communities, it appears in the guise of universal interests but in reality can only realize the interests of a particular class. In this false community, the laborers are not involved in this communal relationship as individuals but as members of a class. Therefore, only by pushing human society into a new community that abolishes capitalist private property, truly realizing “the communist regulation of production,” can the laborers “once again bring exchange, production, and the way they relate to one another under their own control,” thereby eliminating their own class attributes and “placing the conditions of their free development and movement under their control.” At that point, free division of labor replaces “naturally formed” division of labor and no longer constitutes an obstacle to the realization of freedom; thus, the free development of the human person can truly be achieved.

可见，在人类历史上，资本主义社会尽管取代了以往的自然共同体，但其虽以普遍利益面目出现，实则只能实现特殊阶级的利益，在此虚假共同体中劳动者不是作为个人而是作为阶级的成员处于这种共同关系中。因此，只有推动人类社会进入消灭了资本主义私有制的新的共同体，真正实现“对生产实行共产主义的调节”，劳动者才能“使交换、生产及他们发生相互关系的方式重新受自己的支配”，从而消除自身的阶级属性，“把个人的自由发展和运动的条件置于他们的控制之下”，此时的自由分工取代“自然形成的”分工而不再构成自由实现的障碍，由此才能真正实现人的自由发展。 

Fourth, it establishes the proletariat as the historical subject that drives the complete transformation of history into world history, i.e., the realization of the true community, thereby transcending the Western idealist conception of heroic history.

其四，确立无产阶级作为推动历史向世界历史彻底转变也即实现真正共同体的历史主体，超越了西方唯心主义的英雄史观。

Finding the genuine subject force for realizing human freedom is the final link in the methodological transformation of historical materialism. All revolutions up to the present have always merely replaced one form of private property with another. Only the communist revolution can create “the common conditions for the free development of individuals,” and this requires the proletariat as the historical subject to accomplish it. The reasons are as follows. First, in modern times, the domination of the individual by the relations of things and the suppression of personality by contingency have assumed their sharpest and most universal form, giving rise to a class that has the same interests in all nations and is “truly separated from the entire old world while at the same time opposing it”—the proletariat. In particular, “large-scale industry not only makes the relationship of the worker to the capitalist unbearable, but also makes labor itself unbearable for the worker,” and thus the proletariat possesses the urgency and inevitability of uniting. Second, under the conditions of capitalist private property, people are enslaved by the power of things; the proletariat “can only maintain their lives by destroying them,” and therefore the proletariat has the most intense revolutionary demands. Finally, large-scale industry turns the proletariat into “modern proletarians who have completely lost all autonomous activity”; the proletariat “is no longer a class in society, it is no longer recognized as a class, it has become the expression of the dissolution of all classes, nationalities, etc. in present-day society.” In other words, without revolutionizing the existing relations, the proletariat cannot liberate itself at all. In this regard, the proletariat is necessarily capable of accomplishing the great cause of human liberation.

找到实现人的自由的真正主体力量，是历史唯物主义方法论变革的最后环节。 迄今为止的一切革命始终只是以一种私有制取代另一种私有制。只有共产主义革命才能够创造“个人自由发展的共同条件”，这需要无产阶级这一历史主体来完成，其原因在于以下几个方面。首先，在现代，物的关系对个人的统治、偶然性对个性的压抑，已具有最尖锐最普遍的形式，产生了在所有民族中都具有同样利益且“真正同整个旧世界脱离而同时又与之对立的阶级”，即无产阶级。特别是，“大工业不仅使工人对资本家的关系，而且使劳动本身都成为工人不堪忍受的东西”，由此无产阶级具有联合起来的迫切性和必然性。其次，在资本主义私有制条件下，人们受物的力量的奴役，无产阶级“只能用摧残生命的方式来维持他们的生命”，因而无产阶级具有最强烈的革命诉求。最后，大工业使无产阶级变成“完全失去了整个自主活动的现代无产者”，无产阶级“在社会上已经不算是一个阶级，它已经不被承认是一个阶级，它已经成为现今社会的一切阶级、民族等等的解体的表现”， 换言之，不使现存的关系发生革命，无产阶级就根本无法解放自身。就此而言，无产阶级必然能够实现人类解放的伟大事业。

In summary, by systematically revealing the foundational and prerequisite role of actual material production in the development of human history, elucidating the operational mechanisms of human material production, transcending the substantive thinking of modern Western idealist conceptions of history with the theory of comprehensive production, and transcending Hegel’s conceptual dialectics of “categorical deductive reasoning” as a rigid and mystical form with the concrete dialectics of production, Marx and Engels enabled people to consciously recognize that human history is fundamentally the history of material production. This makes it so that “history is no longer an elusive process occurring in people and things, which can only be explained by the intervention of transcendent forces, or can only become meaningful when linked to values transcendent to history.” Thus, they truly carried the principle of materialism through to the investigation of the laws of human history, thoroughly realized the actualization of philosophy, and became “the only truly fruitful school” to emerge from the dissolution of the Hegelian school.

总而言之，马克思恩格斯通过系统揭示现实物质生产对人类历史发展的前提和基础作用，阐明人类物质生产运行机制，以全面生产理论超越西方近代唯心史观的实体性思维，以具体生产辩证法超越作为僵化、神秘形式的黑格尔“范畴的辩证演绎”的概念辩证法，使人们自觉认识到人类历史从根本上是物质生产史，使“历史不再是在人和事物身上发生的难以捉摸的过程，只有用超验力量的介入才能加以说明，或者只有同对历史来讲是超验的价值联系起来才能变得有意义”，由此才真正把唯物主义原则贯穿到人类历史规律的探讨中，彻底实现了哲学的现实化，成为从黑格尔学派的解体过程中产生的“唯一的真正结出果实的派别”。

Online editor: Paul

网络编辑：保罗