Toward a Positive Philosophy: Marx and the Philosophical Transformation of Modern Civilization

Marx’s philosophy was born and developed in the critical reflection on modern civilization. As the first global civilization in human history, modern civilization possesses a series of entirely new characteristics. It has shaped an increasingly evident modern world. The basic features of this world, in the words of Marx and Engels in the *Communist Manifesto*, are: “All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned.” If the pre-modern world was a classical world of stability, fixity, rigid hierarchy, eternity, tranquility, and a very determinate sublime meaning, then the modern world is a new world of change, becoming, innovation, instability, and especially the profanation of sublime meaning (the so-called “death of God”). This new world becomes increasingly unstable, with uncertainty becoming the new normal, leading to a loss of certainty, a transformation of the foundation of certainty, and an urgent need for a new grounding and reconstruction of certainty. This new grounding and reconstruction are the adaptive demands that modern civilization places on philosophy, the inherent requirements of the philosophical transformation of modern civilization. Because of this transformation of the foundation of certainty, and because the new world changes ever faster and more complexly, the establishment of new certainty is exceptionally difficult. Certain certainties do exist, but they are not recognized or liked by people. The certainties people like are often absent, while the certainties they dislike may strike from time to time. This article argues that certainty, or positivity, is closely related to an increasingly fixed system of reification, an increasingly sensuous and becoming world, and a rootless world where all holiness has been profaned. How to understand and construct this certainty or positivity, how to build a modern world on the basis of a positive world that has a foundation (not illusory), a prospect (not ossified), and meaning (not nihilistic)—this is the fundamental point of Marx’s philosophical transformation and the crux of Marx’s thinking on modernity.

马克思哲学是在对现代文明的批判性思考中诞生和发展的。现代文明作为人类历史上第一个全球性文明，具有一系列崭新的特点。它塑造了一个越来越明显的现代世界。这个世界的基本特点，用马克思、恩格斯在《共产党宣言》中的话说就是：“一切等级的和固定的东西都烟消云散了，一切神圣的东西都被亵渎了。”如果说前现代世界是一个稳定、固定、等级森严、永恒、静穆、崇高意义非常确定的古典世界，那么现代世界就是一个变化、生成着、创新、不稳定、特别是崇高意义已被亵渎了(所谓“上帝死了”)的新世界。这个新世界变得越来越不稳定，不确定性成为新常态，由此导致确定性的缺失，导致确定性根基的转化，导致确定性亟须新的奠基和重构。这种新的奠基和重构是现代文明对哲学提出的适应性要求，是现代文明的哲学转型的内在要求。由于这种确定性根基的转化，以及新世界变化越来越快和越来越复杂，新的确定性的确立殊为不易。某些确定性倒是存在，却不被人们认同和喜欢。人们喜欢的确定性常常不在，而不喜欢的确定性却可能不时袭来。本文认为确定性或者实定性与越来越固定化的物化体系、越来越感性和生成着的世界、一切神圣性都被亵渎了的无根世界密切相关。如何理解、构建这种确定性或者实定性，如何在实定世界的基础上构建有根基(非虚幻)、有前景(非固化)、有意义(非虚无)的现代世界，是马克思哲学变革的根本之处，也是马克思的现代性思考的关键之处。

I. Toward an Increasing Emphasis on Empirical Facts

一、走向对经验事实的日益重视

In this article, positivity refers primarily to a property directly related to the German word “positiv,” a term used continuously by Hegel, Schelling, Feuerbach, and Marx. This word was often previously translated as “empirical” (实证的), but the meaning of “empirical” actually emerged later and cannot fully express all the connotations of “positiv.” Raymond Wacks once said: “The term ‘positivism’ derives from the Latin *positum*, meaning law that is laid down or enacted. Generally speaking, the core view of legal positivism is that the validity of any law must be traced back to an objective, verifiable source.” The word “empirical” originally implied a basis, and one long regarded as beyond doubt. This basis might be the command of a sovereign, or nature, or even God; whichever it was, it was an unquestionable foundation. The new culture that emphasizes verification by empirical facts began to question this basis and replace it with a new one: it must be verified by empirical facts. The reconstruction of the basis is the key issue of positivity. From this perspective, the meaning of the term positivity has not only undergone a complex historical evolution but is also multi-faceted, not univocal. Generally speaking, the meaning of verification by empirical facts is a modern meaning that has only existed since the birth of modern culture. In the era of Hegel, Schelling, and Marx, when this word was still in the process of evolution, it is all the more important to pay attention to its complexity and historical evolution. “Positiv” originally referred to something not derived from nature but actively established by humans. Whether this artificially established thing can truly stand firm and ultimately be realized depends on whether it indeed has a basis, and the basis has different determinations in different eras. Within the scope of this article, depending on the different uses of the term by different thinkers in different eras and contexts, we translate “positiv” variously as “positive” (实定的), “empirical” (实证的), “affirmative” (肯定的), and so on, with “positive” (实定的) as the primary translation.

在本文中，实定性主要是指与黑格尔、谢林、费尔巴哈、马克思延续使用的德文词“positiv”直接相关的一种属性。这个词以前常常被译为“实证的”,但“实证的”这个含义其实是后来才有的，并不能完全表达“positiv”的全部含义。雷蒙德·瓦克斯曾说：“‘实证主义’(positivism)一词源于拉丁文positum,意思是指制定或颁布的法律。一般而言，法律实证主义的核心观点是任何法律的有效性都要上溯至一个客观的可确证的渊源。”“实证的”这个词本来就意味着有一个根据，而且是长期以来被视为无可怀疑的根据。这个根据或者是主权者的命令，或者是自然甚至上帝；无论是哪一个，都是不可怀疑的根据。重视经验事实验证的新文化开始质疑这种根据，并对其进行新的替换：必须由经验事实来验证。根据的重新构建才是实证性的关键问题所在。从这个视角来看，实证性这个词的含义不但经历了一个复杂的历史演变过程，而且也是多面向的，并不是单义的。一般来说，它的只是由经验事实来验证的含义是现代文化诞生以来才有的一个现代含义。在这个词正处于演变过程中的黑格尔、谢林、马克思所处的那个时代，注意它的复杂性和历史演变性就更为重要。“positiv”本来是指不是来自自然而是由人积极设立的东西。这种人为设立的东西是否真能立得起来、是否最后得以落实，取决于是否确有根据，而根据在不同时代具有不同的规定。在本文的范围内，根据不同思想家在不同时代和场合的不同使用，我们把“positiv”一词作“实定的”“实证的”“肯定的”等不同翻译，并以“实定的”为主。

As Marcuse said: “Within the decade after Hegel’s death, European intellectual development entered a ‘positivist’ age. Positivism presented itself to the world as a system of positive philosophy, and in a form quite different from the later development of positivism.” Here, Marcuse refers to the positive philosophy system of the French philosopher Auguste Comte. However, Comte’s positive philosophy was primarily aimed at replacing traditional metaphysics with the history of science and scientific methodology, and its philosophical significance was not strong. It was the later Schelling who truly proposed from a philosophical standpoint that traditional philosophy was a negative philosophy and that future philosophy should transform into a positive philosophy (affirmative philosophy). He criticized traditional philosophy from Kant to Hegel as a negative philosophy that rationally and logically devoted itself to revealing the essence of the world, but had not yet developed into an affirmative philosophy that reveals the sensuous, empirical, emotional, existential, and becoming nature of the world, which is less in conformity with reason.

如马尔库塞所说：“黑格尔去世后的十年内，欧洲的思想发展进入了一个‘实证主义’时代。实证主义将自己作为实证哲学体系而公之于世，并呈现了与实证主义后来发展截然不同的形式。”在这里，马尔库塞指的是法国哲学家孔德的实证哲学体系。不过孔德的实证哲学主要是针对科学史和科学方法论替代传统形而上学而言的，哲学意味并不浓。真正从哲学出发提出传统哲学是否定哲学，未来哲学应该转型为实证哲学(肯定哲学)的是晚年的谢林。他批评从康德到黑格尔的传统哲学都是理性、逻辑地致力于揭示世界本质的否定哲学，还没有发展成揭示世界的感性、经验、情感、实存性、生成性等不那么符合理性的本性的肯定哲学。

But “positiv” did not initially mean empirical, sensuous, or confirmed by the empirical or sensuous. In the seventh lecture of Schelling’s early work *On the Method of Academic Study*, he used the phrase “positive Wissenschaften,” usually translated as “empirical sciences.” Professor Xian Gang, in his translation notes, specifically explains that in the era when this work of Schelling was written and published, this phrase did not yet have the meaning of empirical science, but rather the meaning of officially established. That is to say, the positivity and certainty implied by “positiv” came from official establishment, and therefore possessed an unquestionable positivity in actual practice. The foundation of positivity and certainty was established by official decree, or handed down by tradition. This seems to contradict the philosophical principle of rational critique. In his early work *The Positivity of the Christian Religion*, Hegel used “positive” to mean something current, not yet subjected to rational reflection, handed down by tradition, and recognized by people. Positivity “primarily signifies the sublation of the subject’s moral autonomy.” Positivity implies submission to external coercion and the loss of subjectivity, that is, the opposite of reason and subjectivity. Lukács, in *The Young Hegel*, even saw it as the germ of the future concept of alienation: “In theology and jurisprudence, this concept was a non-historical general concept.” If Hegel’s understanding of “positivity” here refers to the property of something actual that has not yet been subjected to rational critique and is therefore not fully determinate, then Heidegger, in *Phenomenology and Theology*, further interprets positivity as the property of something “present-at-hand,” which can be disclosed by empirical science. “Empirical science” is “the demonstrative disclosure of something present-at-hand and already in some way revealed.” The positivity of theology is thus “through the Christian event as it is disclosed in faith as faith.” Positivity is directly related not only to present-at-hand beings but also to the analytical disclosure of empirical science. “A science of something present-at-hand, that is, a science of a positum, we call an ‘empirical science’ (positive Wissenschaften).”

但“positiv”一开始却不是经验、感性或由经验、感性来确证的意思。谢林在早年的《学术研究方法论》第七讲用了“positive Wissenschaften”这个通常译为“实证科学”的短语；先刚教授在译注中特意说明，这个短语在谢林这本著作写作和出版的时代还没有实证科学的意思，而是官方设立的意思。也就是说，“positiv”所意味着的实定性、确定性来自官方设定，在实际操作中因此具有不容怀疑的实定性。实定性、确定性的根基是官方设定的，或者传统延续下来的。这似乎不符合理性批判的哲学原则。黑格尔早年写过一篇《基督教的实定性》。“实定的”在其中是当下的、未经理性反思的、传统延续下来的、被人认可的意思。实定性“首先意味着主体的道德自主性的扬弃”。实定性意味着对外在强制的屈服、主体性丧失，即理性、主体性的对立面。卢卡奇在《青年黑格尔》中甚至把它看作未来异化观念的萌芽，“这个概念在神学和法学里曾是一个非历史性的一般概念”。如果说黑格尔在这里理解的“实定性”是未经理性批判的因而并不充分确定的实在所具有的东西，那么海德格尔在《现象学与神学》中则进一步把实定性解释为“某个现成摆着的”东西所具有的性质，它可以由实证科学予以揭示。“实证科学”就是“对某个现成摆着的和已经以某种方式被揭示出来的存在者的有所论证的揭示”,神学的实定性于是就是“通过那种在信仰之为信仰中被揭示的基督教的事件”。实定性不但与现成存在者直接相关，而且还与实证科学的分析揭示直接相关。“关于某个现成存在者的科学，即关于某个实在(Positum)的科学，我们称之为‘实证科学’(positive Wissenschaften)。

In the era after the Enlightenment, which increasingly valued experience, sensibility, existence, and becoming, the meaning of the word “positiv” gradually underwent new changes: from the gods, customs, and official establishments of traditional foundations to an emphasis on reason and logic; from an emphasis on reason and logic to an emphasis on empirical verification; from a traditional reason unified with God and official authority to a new reason unified with sensibility and life. Certainty and positivity increasingly acquired new connotations. The “empirical” in the sense of verification by sensuous experience in the past may not fully encompass these connotations. For this reason, we tentatively use the term “positive” (实定的) to define “positiv.”

”在启蒙运动以后日益重视经验、感性、实存性、生成性的时代，“positiv”一词的词义逐渐有了新的变化，从来自传统根据的神与习俗、官方设定到重视理性和逻辑，从重视理性和逻辑到重视经验实证，从重视与上帝、官方相统一的传统理性到重视与感性、生命相统一的新理性，确定性、实定性越来越具有了新的内涵。以往由感性经验证实的那种意义上的“实证”可能无法完全涵盖这些内涵，为此我们暂且用“实定的”一词来界定“positiv”。

With the rise of modern science and the introduction of British empiricist philosophy into Germany, the word “positiv” became increasingly associated with empirical verification. According to the rationalist tradition, all certainty of knowledge derives from rational principles and can therefore be elevated to “rigorous science” (Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz all believed this), whereas the empiricist tradition from Britain was more inclined to ground certainty in empirical verification; if not entirely, then at least in part, and a very important part at that.

随着近代科学的兴起，以及英国经验论哲学传入德国，“positiv”这个词越来越跟经验实证相关起来。按照理性主义传统，一切知识的确定性都来自理性的原则，并因此能够被提升为“严格的科学”(笛卡尔、斯宾诺莎和莱布尼茨都相信这一点),而来自英国的经验论传统却更愿意把确定性的根基赋予经验验证；即使不是全部，至少也是部分，而且是很重要的部分。

A culture that values empirical verification of facts did not initially emphasize the independence of empirical facts so strongly, because empirical “facts” are always things determined by reliance on certain institutions, tools, and procedures; whether so-called brute facts, facts dependent on language, or institutional facts, they all depend on certain subjective conditions and involve a process of construction according to objective procedures and frameworks. Even Thomas Hobbes, who first introduced “fact” into English, distinguished two kinds of knowledge: the first, “science,” still refers to relations among ideas and has nothing to do with facts; only the second, “prudence,” is related to facts. Clearly, empirical facts are also a new kind of setting made by humans based on certain purposes and procedures, a setting that is endowed with increasingly positive connotations. This new culture that esteems empirical verification of facts developed continuously in Britain and France. “In a culture where experience was taking on a new meaning, the word ‘fact’ was immensely important because it certified knowledge based on experience.” [9]9 This quotation is from the historian of science Peter Dear, likely from his work on the cultural history of facts. Facts can be verified by empirical evidence, and they can also be refuted by experience. The same applies to a thesis or theory. In Britain and France, the culture of facts emerged in the early 1660s, while “in Germany, the culture of facts was created in the 1770s.” [10]10 This claim about the timing of the “culture of facts” in Germany is attributed to the historian of science and culture, possibly referring to the work of Lorraine Daston or Peter Dear. It would take even longer for the legitimacy of this culture to be recognized within philosophy.

重视经验事实验证的文化并非一开始就那么强调经验事实的独立性，因为经验“事实”都是依赖于某些制度、工具、程序而被确定下来的东西；无论是所谓原始事实、依赖于语言的事实还是制度性事实，都依赖于某些主体性条件，有一个依照客观程序和框架来建构的过程。甚至第一个把“fact”引入英语的托马斯·霍布斯所区分的两种知识之第一种“科学”仍然是指思想之间的关系，与事实不相关，只有第二种“审慎”才与事实相关。显然，经验事实也是一种人基于某种目的和程序所做的新的设定，这种设定被赋予越来越多的实定性内涵。崇尚经验事实验证的这种新文化在英国和法国不断得到发展。“在经验正在呈现一种新意义的一个文化里，‘事实’这个词重要无比，因为它证明了那种以经验为基础的知识。”事实可以借助经验证据得到证实，也可以被经验驳倒。一种论断、理论也是这样。在英国和法国，崇尚事实的文化出现在17世纪60年代初，而“在德国，事实文化于18世纪70年代被创造出来”。至于这种文化的正当性要在哲学中得到承认，还需要更长时间。

As is well known, Kant was the first in German philosophy to absorb and digest this culture from Britain (and France) that valued empirical facts, but he largely confined it to the domain of epistemology. Humans do not possess rational capacity within epistemology; it is only affirmed in the sense of practical philosophy that this rational capacity is confirmed. As a philosopher of the Enlightenment, when Kant defined Enlightenment in epistemological terms, he used the word Verstand, i.e., understanding, and only when going beyond epistemology did he use the word Vernunft, i.e., reason. In fact, Enlightenment “reason” should be a new “reason” linked to empirical experience, interests, passions, and the like, rather than the traditional reason oriented toward God. Kant achieved this only in the epistemological sense; at other levels, he did not. “Regarding the attitude toward passions and traditional metaphysics, as Peter Gay said, ‘The Enlightenment was not an Age of Reason but a Revolt against Rationalism.’ What the Enlightenment welcomed was reason combined with experience, sensibility, passions, interests, and desires; what it revolted against was the traditional reason that, from the lofty standpoint of God, disparaged sensibility, passions, and desires. Bernard Bourgeois said, ‘Thus, the rationalism of the Enlightenment became less and less rational, more and more empirical.’ So much so that ‘Enlightenment philosophy emerged as a popular philosophy of sound understanding and common sense.’ That is to say, reason was always the focus of emphasis. The issue was not whether to emphasize reason, but what kind of reason to emphasize, in what direction reason should exert its force, with what forces it should ally, and what problems it should primarily be used to solve. In Wolf Lepenies’ words, ‘The foundation of the Enlightenment is not rational speculation, but all-encompassing emotions and desires related to the politics of the body.’ How reason views and handles its relationship with emotions and desires is the key to the modern Enlightenment.” [11]11 This passage synthesizes views from Peter Gay, Bernard Bourgeois, and Wolf Lepenies, as cited by the author. In this sense, strictly speaking, Kant’s use of so-called Enlightenment “reason” was not merely epistemological; it was even more so a use in the sense of practical philosophy. But in the sense of practical philosophy, Kant’s so-called “reason” is precisely a kind of traditional reason, a reason oriented toward God, disparaging sensibility and emotion, excluding interests and instincts—a “reason” still awaiting Enlightenment.

众所周知，康德最先在德国哲学中吸收、消化了这种来自英国(和法国)的重视经验事实的文化，但基本上局限在认识论范围内。人在认识论范围内不具备理性能力，只有在实践哲学意义上认定，这种理性能力才得到确认。作为启蒙哲学家，康德在认识论意义上界定启蒙时，使用的词是理智(Verstand),即一种知性，而只有在超出认识论的意义上，使用的词才是理性(Vernunft)。实际上，启蒙“理性”应该是与实证经验、利益、激情等联系在一起的新“理性”,而不是指向上帝的传统理性。这一点，康德只在认识论意义上做到了，而在其他层面，他并没有做到。“就对待激情和传统形而上学的态度来看，如彼得·盖伊所说，‘启蒙运动并不是一个理性的时代，而是一个反叛理性主义的时代’。启蒙欢迎的是同经验、感性、激情、利益、欲望结合的理性，反叛的是从高高在上的上帝立场出发贬抑感性、激情、欲望的传统理性。贝尔纳·布尔乔亚说，‘因此，启蒙运动的理性主义变得越来越少理性，越来越多经验。’以至于‘启蒙哲学是作为健全理智和常识的大众哲学而出现的’。就是说，理性本来就是强调的重心。问题不在于强调理性与否，而在于强调什么样的理性，强调理性朝什么方向发力、与什么力量结盟、主要用于解决什么样的问题。用勒佩尼斯的话说，‘启蒙的基础不是理性思辨，而是与身体政治有关的涵盖一切的情感与欲望’。理性如何看待和处理与情感、欲望的关系，才是现代启蒙的关键所在。”在此意义上，严格而论，康德对所谓启蒙“理性”的使用，并不只是认识论意义上的使用，更是在实践哲学意义上的使用。但在实践哲学意义上，康德所谓“理性”恰是一种传统理性，是一种指向上帝、贬抑感性和情感、排挤利益和本能的待启蒙的“理性”。

The genuine emergence of a culture that values empirical verification of facts required the continued efforts of philosophers after Kant. Apart from the cultural lineage from the natural sciences that increasingly emphasized the importance and criticality of empirical verification, the traditional humanities also gave rise to a culture that stressed sensibility, experience, emotions, passions, interests, existentiality, and becoming—elements that cannot be reduced to a (traditional) rational system. Besides the late Schelling’s emphasis that religion and mythology cannot be fully explained by reason, and the historicist and positivist currents in legal studies, there were also the early German Romantic philosophers who called for philosophers to absorb and digest the increasingly important emotions, concreteness, sensibility, existentiality, and becoming in the literary and artistic fields, and thereby to supplement and enrich philosophy, creating a new philosophy. This trend and tendency, together with the current from the emerging natural and social sciences that increasingly valued positivity, jointly constituted an epochal current that, at the philosophical level, emphasized positivity and sought to construct a “truly positive science” (in Marx’s words). Previously, we often only referred to the thought that emphasized positivity in the fields of religion and mythology as “positive philosophy,” regarding it as a “religious-mystical school” represented by Weiße, the younger Fichte, and Stahl in the 1830s and 1840s, without noticing that the natural sciences, social sciences, literature, and art of the time all had currents of thought and philosophy emphasizing positivity; without seeing that different types of positivity existed in many fields, and that there were different types of “positive philosophy.”

真正重视经验事实验证的文化的出现，还需要康德之后其他哲学家的继续努力。除了来自自然科学中日益强调经验实证性的重要性和关键性的文化一脉，传统的人文学科中也滋生着强调无法归于(传统)理性系统的感性、经验、情感、激情、利益、实存性、生成性的文化。除了晚年的谢林对宗教、神话领域不能完全用理性来解释的强调，以及法律领域的历史主义和实证主义思潮之外，还有德国早期浪漫派哲学家对哲学家必须消化吸收文学艺术领域中日益重要的情感、具体性、感性、实存性、生成性存在，并以此来补充和丰富哲学从而创建一种新哲学的呼吁。这种趋势和倾向与来自新兴自然科学和社会科学领域日益重视实证性的思潮一起，共同构成了在哲学层面重视实定性、建构一种“真正的实定科学”(用马克思的话来说)的时代潮流。以前我们往往只是把在宗教、神话领域强调实证性的思想称作“实证哲学”,认为它是19世纪30年代至40年代由魏斯、小费希特、斯泰尔代表的一个“宗教神秘主义流派”,而没有注意到当时的自然科学、社会科学、文学艺术等领域都有强调实证性的思想和哲学；没有看到在很多领域都存在着不同类型的实证性，都存在着不同类型的“实证哲学”。

The question that interests us here is how to handle the relationship between the imported new culture that emphasizes verification by empirical facts and the traditional rational culture. The verification by empirical facts and the deduction of reason and logic are not necessarily contradictory; this very important issue will gradually be raised and ultimately converge into the fundamental problems explored by post-German classical philosophy. In his later years, Schelling proposed a philosophical development path from negative philosophy to positive philosophy, asserting that German philosophy from Kant to Hegel had all followed the path of negative philosophy, and that future German philosophy should take the path of positive philosophy. It is worth noting that what Schelling in his later years called “positive” [das Positive], although it placed greater emphasis on sensibility, experience, existentiality, and becoming, still maintained a close relationship with the traditional God and reason, and did not abandon God and reason. The turn from negative philosophy to positive philosophy was merely a principle, meaning that it was no longer sufficient to merely remain in negative philosophy, starting from God and reason; it was necessary to further implement this into the process of dealing with sensibility, experience, existentiality, and becoming, to construct a truly new reason that does not exclude experience, sensibility, existentiality, and becoming. For Schelling, this also meant constructing a new philosophy of mythology and philosophy of revelation concerning the divine (God). The Young Hegelian philosophers were initially dissatisfied with the consequent weakening of reason’s critical power over reality; they preferred to uphold absolute reason while striving to eliminate various deities and reveal the disguised deities lingering in various spheres of society. They later discovered that constructing a new reason in harmonious relationship with sensibility, emotion, interest, and passion, granting sensibility, interest, passion, and practice a higher legitimate status, and even integrating reason with modern factors traditionally rejected by reason, such as interest and instinct, would not diminish reason’s critical power over reality. Subsequently, Stirner’s experiment showed that excessive rejection of traditional reason could also give rise to a new metaphysics of sensibility, going to the other extreme. How to construct a reasonable relationship between sensibility and metaphysics, between existence and essence, so that people can obtain positivity and certainty in all aspects, became a core issue involving the adjustment and reshaping of a new structure. Marx, from the social aspect, and Nietzsche, from the natural aspect, focused on elucidating the reality of experience, sensibility, and life, reflecting on and reconstructing a new conception of reason, further revealing the complexity and potential of this issue.

我们在这里感兴趣的问题是，如何处理引进的重视经验事实验证的新文化与传统理性文化的关系。经验事实验证与理性、逻辑的推演并不一定矛盾，这个非常重要的问题会逐渐被提出来，最后汇聚到后德国古典哲学探究的根本问题之中。晚年的谢林提出从否定哲学到肯定哲学的哲学发展路向，认定从康德到黑格尔的德国哲学都走的是否定哲学之路，未来的德国哲学应该走肯定哲学之路。值得注意的是，晚年的谢林所谓“实定”,虽然更重视感性、经验、实存性、生成性，但仍然与传统的上帝和理性具有密切关系，并没有弃绝上帝和理性。从否定哲学到肯定哲学的转向只是一种原则，意味着仅仅滞留于否定哲学，从上帝和理性出发已经远远不够，必须进一步将其落实到处理感性、经验、实存性、生成性的过程中，建构一种真正的不排斥经验、感性、实存性、生成性的新理性，这对谢林来说也意味着建构新的关于神(上帝)的神话哲学与启示哲学。青年黑格尔派哲学家一开始不满于由此弱化理性对现实的批判性，宁愿维护绝对的理性也要致力于祛除各种神灵，揭示残存于社会各个领域中的变相神灵。他们后来发现，建构一种与感性、感情、利益、激情处于融洽关系中的新理性，给感性、利益、激情、实践更高的合法地位，甚至使理性与利益、本能等传统理性拒斥的现代性因素融通起来，并不会降低理性对现实的批判性。随后施蒂纳的实验表明，过分排斥传统理性也会带来新的感性形而上学，走向另一个极端。如何在感性与形而上学、实存与本质之间建构一种合理的关系，使人在各个方面都获得实定性、确定性，成为一个涉及调整、重塑新结构的核心问题。马克思从社会方面、尼采从自然方面着重去阐发经验、感性、生命的现实，反思、重建新的理性观，进一步呈现了这个问题的复杂性和潜能性。

II. Toward a New Philosophy: What Does “Truly Positive Science” Mean?

二、迈向新哲学：“真正的实定科学”意味着什么?

The transformation from the classical world to the modern world posed critical demands on modern philosophy and brought profound influences, imposing the task of modern transformation on Marx’s philosophy, whose core task is the critique of modernity. In Marx’s era, if the pre-modern classical world was a fixed, stable, tranquil, rational, essential, universal, and ideal world, then this world was being replaced by a concrete, generative, innovative, changeable, sensuous, differentiated, individual, and existential new modern world. In an era becoming fragmented and torn, in an era where everything is doubted, in an era increasingly valuing sensibility, life, concreteness, and becoming, how to handle the relationship between reason, essence, totality and sensibility, existentiality, fragmentation became increasingly important. In this regard, Marx and Engels, in the *Communist Manifesto*, used very vivid language: “All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned.” [12]12 Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, *Manifesto of the Communist Party* (1848). As mentioned above, that stable, tranquil, essential, rational world was being replaced by a world of ever-accelerating change, increasingly evident diversity and heterogeneity, experience, concreteness, existence, and becoming; a normative, clear rational world was being replaced by a complex new rational world closely integrated with passion, emotion, and interest. A new world was descending, bringing more and more change, innovation, diversity, and concrete existence, demanding corresponding adjustments and changes in our mode of existence and mode of thinking. Of course, in Marx’s view, this was primarily a fundamental change in the mode of production.

古典世界向现代世界的转型，给现代哲学提出了关键性的要求、带来了深刻的影响，给以现代性批判为核心要务的马克思哲学提出了现代转型的任务。在马克思所处的时代，如果说前现代的古典世界是固定的、稳定的、静穆的、理性的、本质的、普遍的、理念的世界，那么这个世界正在被一个具体的、生成着的、创新的、多变的、感性的、差异的、个性的、实存的现代性新世界所替代。在一个正变得破碎、撕裂的时代，在一切皆被怀疑的时代，在越来越重视感性、生命、具体性、生成性的时代，如何处理理性、本质、大全与感性、实存性、破碎性的关系，日益显得重要。对此，马克思、恩格斯在《共产党宣言》中用非常形象的语言说道：“一切等级的和固定的东西都烟消云散了，一切神圣的东西都被亵渎了。”如前所述，那个稳固的、静穆的、本质的、理性的世界正在被一个变化速度越来越快的、多样性和异质性越来越明显的、经验的、具体的、实存的和生成着的世界所取代；一个规范、清晰的理性世界正在被与激情、情感、利益密切结合的复杂的新理性世界所取代。一个新世界正在降临，这个新世界带来了越来越多的变化、创新、多样性和具体性的存在，要求我们的生存方式、思维方式必须做出相应的调整和改变。当然，在马克思看来，这主要是生产方式发生了根本性的变化。

As the first theoretical source of Marxism, German classical philosophy had long taken note of this change, but this was far from sufficient for the formation of a new philosophy. The early German Romantic philosophy, extending further from Kant’s and Fichte’s philosophy, had already shown that traditional philosophy only stared at the rational, essential world, showing no interest in and attaching no importance to the concrete, empirical, generative, and changeable sensuous world. The rational, essential world was merely a heavenly world, not the real world on earth. A new philosophy must stand on the earth. To this end, early German Romantic philosophy emphasized supplementing philosophy with poetics, that is, using methods previously employed only by literature and art to grasp the increasingly concrete sensuous world, and thereby constructing a new philosophy. This was a tradition from the traditional humanities that valued sensibility, experience, existentiality, and becoming. Although it differed from the emphasis on these factors coming from the emerging natural sciences, they could entirely converge, jointly coalescing into a philosophical trend oriented toward the new world. In his later years, Schelling, using philosophical language and in a new way, further emphasized this point stressed by early German Romantic philosophy; his formulation was moving from “negative philosophy” to “positive philosophy.” Negative philosophy grasps the world at the level of ideas, logic, essence, and abstraction. Late Schelling believed this was clearly insufficient; it was necessary to further grasp the modern world at the level of sensibility, concreteness, experience, existentiality, and becoming, in order to better conform to the essential requirements of the new world. Schelling thus criticized philosophy from Kant to Hegel as all being negative philosophy, not yet having reached the level of positive philosophy. Although Hegel’s so-called “actuality” [Wirklichkeit] emphasized the unity of essence and existence, in Schelling’s view, Hegel’s so-called “existence” [Existenz] was at best something behind which essence was hidden, and thus merely a manifestation of essence, not genuine existence. Therefore, Hegel did not truly value the newly emerging modern world and did not elevate philosophy to the level of positive philosophy. Hegel’s philosophy was still a traditional philosophy. Schelling’s thought quickly influenced Feuerbach, transforming him from a staunch Hegelian into a philosopher who, along the path emphasizing sensuous existence, developed a “new, only positive philosophy.” [13]13 Feuerbach’s phrase, used in his 1843 *Principles of the Philosophy of the Future*, to distinguish his own materialist philosophy from Schelling’s positive philosophy. The “new” and “only” here were clearly directed at Schelling. Unfortunately, because the late Schelling cooperated with the Prussian government, his political image quickly deteriorated, and the Young Hegelian philosophers were unwilling to cooperate with him or even mention him. But moving from traditional philosophy oriented toward the classical world to a new philosophy oriented toward the new modern world, from being devoted to describing the world of ideas, logic, essence, and abstraction to being devoted to describing the nascent sensuous, existential, concrete, generative, and changeable new world, was the inevitable path of philosophical development. Philosophy must make adjustments and changes in the process of tracking this new world. Marx’s philosophy was born precisely in this context.

作为马克思主义的第一个理论来源，德国古典哲学早已关注到了这种变化，但这对于新哲学的形成来说远远不够。从康德和费希特哲学进一步延伸出来的德国早期浪漫派哲学已表明，传统哲学只是盯着理性的、本质的世界，对具体的、经验的、生成着的、多变的感性世界不感兴趣，也不予重视。理性的、本质的世界只是天上的世界，不是地上的真实世界。新的哲学必须立足大地。为此，德国早期浪漫派哲学强调要用诗学来补充哲学，也就是用以前往往是文学艺术才会用的方式去把握越来越具体的感性世界，并以此建构一种新的哲学。这是来自传统人文学科的一种重视感性、经验、实存性、生成性的传统，它虽然与来自新兴自然科学对这些因素的重视不同，但完全可以殊途同归，共同凝聚成一种面向新世界的哲学趋向。晚年的谢林改用哲学语言、以新的方式进一步强调了德国早期浪漫派哲学强调的这一点，他的说法是从“否定哲学”走向“肯定哲学”。否定哲学是在理念、逻辑、本质、抽象的层面上把握世界，晚期谢林认为这已经明显不够了，必须进一步在感性、具体性、经验、实存性、生成性的层面上把握现代世界，才能更符合新世界的本质要求。谢林由此批评从康德到黑格尔的哲学都是否定哲学，还没有发展到肯定哲学的水平。黑格尔所谓的“现实”虽然强调本质与实存的统一，但在谢林看来，黑格尔所谓“实存”充其量只是背后隐藏着本质、因而只是本质的表现的东西，并非真正的实存。所以，黑格尔没有真正重视新生的现代世界，没有把哲学提升到肯定哲学的层次上。黑格尔的哲学仍然是一种传统哲学。谢林的这种思想很快影响了费尔巴哈，使他从一个坚定的黑格尔主义者变成了一个沿着强调感性实存之路发展一种“新的唯一实定的哲学”的哲学家。这里的“新”和“唯一”显然是针对谢林而言的。可惜，由于晚年的谢林与普鲁士政府合作，政治形象很快恶化，青年黑格尔派哲学家都不愿意跟他合作，也不愿提及他。但从针对古典世界的传统哲学走向针对现代新世界的一种新哲学，从致力于描述理念、逻辑、本质、抽象性的世界到致力于描述正在诞生的感性的、实存的、具体的、生成的、多变的新世界，是哲学发展的必然之路。哲学必须在追踪这个新世界的过程中做出调整和改变。马克思哲学就是在这个背景下诞生的。

The “positivity” of the late Schelling derived more from the emphasis and valuation placed on concreteness, generativity, and existence by the traditional humanities (disciplines such as literature, history, philosophy, art, and religion). Hegel, in a certain manner, began the absorption and valorization of the new social sciences that had emerged since the Enlightenment, such as political economy. Feuerbach’s “new positive philosophy” placed greater weight on the emerging natural sciences and their emphasis on sensory experience. Of course, besides the three pathways from the traditional humanities, the emerging social sciences, and the emerging natural sciences that valued reality—such as sensibility, experience, existence, passion, and interest—there were also direct experiences and feelings of these factors from the channels of social practice and social life. These direct experiences and feelings were more generative, more powerful, and more capable of playing an important role than those factors derived from different disciplinary fields. These “positive” elements from different disciplines converged in the historical materialism of Marx and Engels, where they were elevated and integrated anew. On the basis of valuing sensible, existential factors in a poetic manner, through the digestion and absorption of the emerging social and natural sciences, and especially through the summation and elevation of the sensible forces they experienced and felt in the course of participating in social practice, Marx and Engels gradually formed their own understanding of “positivity.” In *The German Ideology*, they proposed the task of establishing a “genuine positive science.” This should be a new thought that goes further than the late Schelling’s “positive philosophy,” Feuerbach’s so-called “new, only positive philosophy,” and the “Unique One” of Stirner, who radicalized the principles of sensibility and becoming and who is the main target of critique in *The German Ideology*.

晚年的谢林所谓的“实定性”更多来自传统人文学科(文史哲、艺术、宗教诸学科)对具体性、生成性、实存性的强调与重视，黑格尔以某种方式开始了对政治经济学等启蒙运动以来新生社会科学的吸收重视，费尔巴哈“新的肯定哲学”则更加重视新兴的自然科学及其对感性经验的强调。当然，除了来自传统人文科学、新兴社会科学、新兴自然科学三条路径的对感性、经验、实存性、激情、利益等现实的重视外，还有来自社会实践、社会生活渠道的对这些因素的直接体验和感受。这些直接体验和感受比那些来自不同学科领域的因素更具有促生性，更有力量，更能发挥重要作用。这些来自不同学科的“实定性”汇聚在马克思、恩格斯的历史唯物主义之中，得到新的提升和聚合。在以诗学方式重视感性实存因素的基础上，通过对新生的社会科学和自然科学的消化吸收，特别是通过对自己在参与社会实践过程中体验和感受到的那些感性力量的总结和提升，马克思、恩格斯逐渐形成了自己对“实定性”的理解，并在《德意志意识形态》中提出了要建立“真正的实定科学”的任务。这应该是比晚年的谢林的“肯定哲学”和费尔巴哈所谓“新的唯一实定的哲学”以及《德意志意识形态》主要批判的、把感性和生成原则极端化的施蒂纳的“唯一者”都更进一步的新思想。

Besides the positivity in the realm of religion and mythology emphasized by the late Schelling, the positivity in the realm of literature and art emphasized by early Romantic philosophy, and the positivity in the realm of the natural sciences, there was also the positivity in the realm of the social sciences, which had become increasingly important since the Enlightenment. The digestion and absorption of positivity by German philosophy more distinctively embodies the unique contribution of Marx and Engels.

除了晚年的谢林强调的宗教、神话领域的实证性，早期浪漫派哲学强调的文学艺术领域的实证性，以及自然科学领域的实证性之外，还有启蒙运动以来越来越重要的社会科学领域的实证性。德国哲学对实证性的消化吸收更多体现了马克思、恩格斯的独特贡献。

Just as Norman Levine pointed out, Hegel’s theory of civil society predated Marx’s absorption and transformation of the political economy and other social scientific ideas of the thinkers of the Scottish Enlightenment and the French Enlightenment philosophers. Hegel not only read and absorbed the ideas of the thinkers of the Scottish Enlightenment, but also read and absorbed the ideas of French thinkers (such as Montesquieu). Hegel had long absorbed positivist thought in the field of jurisprudence. Although Hegel opposed Savigny’s legal positivism, believing that “facts at the empirical level are not the fundamental determination of truth. Sensory perception cannot produce reality. … Law is not a positive predicate (determination), but a determination of reason,” he agreed with Savigny’s view of social customs and historical practice as the basis of law. He merely wanted to replace Savigny’s view of customs and social positivity with determinations of reason, that is, to elevate Savigny’s positivism to the level of reason. Marx studied in the Faculty of Law at the University of Bonn and the University of Berlin, and was very familiar with the positivist trend in jurisprudence. Even later, when he agreed with the rationalist stance of the Hegelian school and advocated subsuming positivity under reason, Marx affirmed and valued the dimension of positivity. However, indeed, as Levine says, when Marx wrote “The Philosophical Manifesto of the Historical School of Law” and criticized Hugo, he did not cite Hegel’s essays and works, which had long since criticized this school. When criticizing Hegel’s philosophy of right, Marx began directly with §261 of Hegel’s *Elements of the Philosophy of Right*, that is, with the theory of the state, but did not discuss the theory of civil society in §§182–256. As early as 1802–1803, during his Jena period, Hegel had read works on political economy and analyzed and dealt with the problem of positivity in the economic field. This did not attract Marx’s attention or emphasis. “A Hegel interested in practical activity and concerned with the evolutionary products of human economic activity remained hidden from Marx’s view.” Marx did not study political economy under the influence of related theories, but rather prompted by real questions, and under the influence of Engels and Proudhon. Only after he valued, studied, digested, and absorbed political economy did Marx criticize Hegel’s method of constructing a world of ideas from logic and then extending it to the realms of nature and social history. This corresponded to his earlier approach of subsuming positivity under reason. Only after deeply understanding the positivity of the social sciences and its important status did Marx turn to a critique of Hegel’s idealism. This fully demonstrates two points: First, the important influence of the positivity of the social sciences on Marx’s intellectual transformation. Earlier, there was the late Schelling’s emphasis on positivity in the realm of religion and mythology, the emphasis on positivity in the realm of literature and art by early German Romantic philosophers, and even earlier and more widespread emphasis on positivity in the realm of the natural sciences from Britain and France. But the positivist thought in these fields did not fundamentally shake Marx’s earlier adherence to the traditional stance of subsuming positivity under reason; he did not elevate them to a position prior to and more important than the world of reason. Second, it was only with Marx’s digestion and absorption of the problem of positivity in the social sciences, represented by political economy, that he turned to a new line of thought that took positivity as a new foundation to reconstruct reason and theory, and then to resubsume positivity. Thus, within the developmental trajectory of German philosophy, he moved toward a path of intellectual reconstruction that increasingly highlighted the important status of political economy and was marked by the critique of political economy. Just as Geoffrey Hawthorn pointed out, “In all the humanities, almost no German scholar treated his research material in the way that an Englishman or a Frenchman would define as ‘scientific’; Marx was the sole exception.” Marx valued the thought and method of the positivity of the emerging social sciences, such as economics, sociology, and political science, and combined them with the thought and method of the humanities, forming an increasingly mature stance of “critique of political economy.” In *The German Ideology*, Marx and Engels straightforwardly proposed the goal of establishing a “genuine positive science.”

恰如诺曼·莱文指出的，黑格尔的市民社会理论早于马克思对苏格兰启蒙运动思想家和法国启蒙哲人的政治经济学等社会科学思想进行了吸收改造。黑格尔不仅阅读和吸收了苏格兰启蒙运动思想家的思想，也阅读和吸收了法国思想家(比如孟德斯鸠)的思想。法学领域的实证主义思想，黑格尔同样早有吸收。虽然黑格尔反对萨维尼的法律实证主义，认为“经验层面上的事实并不是真理根本的规定。感官知觉并不能产生现实。……法律不是一种实证的谓词(规定),而是理性的规定”,但他赞同萨维尼将社会风俗和历史实践作为法律基础的观点，他只是要用理性的规定来替代萨维尼关于风俗和社会实证性的观点，也就是把萨维尼的实证主义提升到理性的层面。马克思在波恩大学和柏林大学读的就是法律系，对法学中的实证主义思潮非常熟悉。即使后来赞同黑格尔学派的理性主义立场，主张以理性统摄实证性，但马克思是肯定、重视实证性维度的。不过，的确如莱文所说，马克思撰写《历史法学派的哲学宣言》、批判胡果时，没有引用过早已批判过这个学派的黑格尔的论文和著作。在批判黑格尔的法哲学时，马克思直接从黑格尔《法哲学原理》的第261节开始，也就是从国家理论开始，却对第182节至256节的市民社会论不予讨论。黑格尔早在耶拿时期的1802年至1803年就阅读过政治经济学著作并分析处理过经济学领域的实证性问题。这都没有引起马克思的注意和重视。“一个对实践活动感兴趣、关注人类经济活动的进化产物的黑格尔隐藏在马克思的视野之外。”马克思不是在相关理论影响下，而是在现实疑问的触动下、在恩格斯和蒲鲁东的影响下才去研究政治经济学的。在重视、研究、消化吸收政治经济学之后，马克思才批判黑格尔从逻辑出发建构一个理念世界再把它推广到自然和社会历史领域的做法，这跟他在此之前以理性统摄实证性的思路是对应的。只有深入了解社会科学领域的实证性及其重要地位之后，马克思才转向了对黑格尔理念论的批评。这充分说明了两点：一是社会科学领域的实证性对于马克思思想转变的重要影响。早先已有晚年的谢林对宗教、神话领域的实证性的强调，也有德国早期浪漫派哲学家对文学艺术领域的实证性现象的强调，甚至还有更早就有、更多渠道来自英国和法国的对自然科学领域的实证性的强调。但这些领域的实证性思想都没有根本地触动马克思早先坚持的以理性统摄实证性的传统立场，他没有把它们提升到先于、重于理性世界的高度。二是随着马克思对以政治经济学为代表的社会科学中的实证性问题的消化吸收，他才转向了以实证性为新的根基重新构建理性、理论并重新统摄实证性的崭新思路，从而在德国哲学的发展脉络中走向了一条日益凸显政治经济学的重要地位、以政治经济学批判为标识的思想重建之路。恰如杰弗里·霍松指出的，“在所有人文学科中，几乎没有一个德国学者会以英国人或法国人认定的‘科学’方式来对待自己的研究材料，马克思是唯一的例外”。马克思重视经济学、社会学、政治学等新生社会科学的实证性的思想和方法，并将其与人文学科的思想和方法结合起来，形成日益成熟的“政治经济学批判”立场。在《德意志意识形态》中，马克思、恩格斯干脆提出了要建立“真正的实定科学”的目标。

Is “genuine positive science” equivalent to the historical materialism they newly founded? Whether equivalent or not, we can say that “genuine positive science” must contain a new philosophy, a philosophy that is more capable of establishing a new type of positivity. Therefore, in a certain sense, this new philosophy can be called a “genuine positive philosophy.” We know that in the late Schelling, “positive philosophy” and “positive science” were largely synonymous. Is the situation the same or different for Marx? This may require further research, but at the very least, it can be said that “genuine positive science” certainly contains a new philosophy that determines positivity in a new way. Compared to Schelling’s positive philosophy, Feuerbach’s philosophy of sensibility, Stirner’s exalted “Unique One,” philosophy of ownness and nothingness, and the just-emerging “positive science” from the French philosopher Comte, this new philosophy represents an advance; it is a philosophy different from all of them.

“真正的实定科学”能等同于他们新创立的历史唯物主义吗?无论等不等同，我们都可以说，“真正的实定科学”里一定包含着一种新哲学，这种新哲学更能确立新式的实定性，因此在某种意义上可以把这种新哲学称为“真正的实定哲学”。我们知道，在晚年的谢林那里，“肯定哲学”(实证哲学)与“肯定科学”(实证科学)大体是一个意思。在马克思这里，情况有所不同还是一样?这可能还需要进一步研究，但起码可以说，“真正的实定科学”中肯定包含一种以新的方式确定实定性的新哲学。这种新哲学相对谢林的肯定哲学、费尔巴哈的感性哲学、施蒂纳推崇的“唯一者”、独自性和无的哲学，以及对刚刚兴起的来自法国哲学家孔德的那种“实证科学”都有所进步，是一种跟它们都不一样的哲学。

This new philosophy, inherent in “genuine positive science,” rejects traditional metaphysics, but it should also contain a new philosophy, a new metaphysics, compatible with the critique of political economy. Even if we disagree that this new philosophy is also a new metaphysics, how should we understand the old metaphysics that Marx’s historical materialism opposes? When Carnap and his supporters say that the metaphysics opposed by historical materialism is the same metaphysics opposed by logical positivism, and not the metaphysics opposed by Heidegger, or when Heideggerians say the opposite, which side should we agree with? On the point of opposing old metaphysics, which 20th-century philosophy’s anti-traditional metaphysics is historical materialism closer to? These are all questions that require us to conduct further in-depth research, reflection, and answers.

这种蕴含在“真正的实定科学”中的新哲学拒斥传统形而上学，但应该还包含一种与政治经济学批判相适应的新哲学、新形而上学。即使我们不同意这种新哲学也是一种新形而上学，那马克思的历史唯物主义所反对的旧形而上学应该如何理解?当卡尔纳普及其支持者说历史唯物主义所反对的形而上学就是逻辑实证主义所反对的形而上学，而不是海德格尔所反对的形而上学时，或者当海德格尔主义者反过来说时，我们该同意哪一方?历史唯物主义在反旧形而上学这一点上，与20世纪哪种哲学的反传统形而上学更接近?这都是需要我们进一步深入研究、思考和回答的问题。

Marx’s experience of modernity should have been more profound and direct than that of the classical German philosophers. This led him to conceive of the future in less idealized terms, and in particular not to conceive of it in such idealized terms according to the classical model. Understanding the “communist” society that Marx speaks of in terms of an idealized structure without contradictions, without internal conflicts, without complexity and heterogeneity is a typical pre-modern approach. Marx emphasized that communism is a movement. Communist society is certainly a society that is not rigidified, that changes rapidly through innovation, and where generativity is very pronounced; the communist era is a new era full of innovation, with new things emerging in an endless stream, with faster cycles of renewal, requiring constant updating of knowledge and concepts to keep pace—an era in which the conservative, the “lying flat,” [20]20 “Lying flat” (躺平, tǎngpíng) is a Chinese internet slang term referring to a lifestyle of minimal effort and withdrawal from societal pressures, particularly in work and consumption, often seen as a form of passive resistance to competitive social norms. and the “muddling along” find it hard to adapt and even face elimination; communism is by no means a kingdom of eternal and absolute happiness where all contradictions have been resolved, still less a kingdom where all fine values coexist harmoniously without contradiction and gather together in perfection. To understand the phenomena of modernity that Marx reflected upon through a self-willed, static, simplistic, and rigid classical model is certainly to run counter to their essence.

马克思的现代性体验应该比德国古典哲学家更深刻和直接一些。这导致他对未来的设想没有那么理想化，特别是没有按照古典模式去设想得那么理想化。用一种没有矛盾、没有内在冲突、没有复杂性与异质性的理想化结构来理解马克思所说的“共产主义”社会，是一种典型的前现代做法。马克思强调，共产主义是一种运动。共产主义社会肯定是不固化、创新性变化很快、生成性非常明显的社会；共产主义时代是创新性十足、新生事物层出不穷、更新换代更快、需要不断更新知识和观念才能跟得上的新时代，是守旧者、“躺平者”、“得过且过者”难以适应甚至面临被淘汰的时代；共产主义绝不是所有矛盾都已解决、永恒绝对的快乐王国，更不是所有美好价值无矛盾地和谐共生、完美欢聚的王国。用一厢情愿、静止、单纯、固守的古典模式来理解马克思思考的那些现代性现象，肯定是与其本质背道而驰的。

The reflection and reconstruction of traditional philosophical ontology or the theory of being must be placed on the agenda. Correspondingly, it is necessary to transcend the previous internal conflict between theoretical philosophy and practical philosophy and move toward their further unification. Since Marx’s later work did not focus on philosophy, this requires later generations to make greater efforts to conduct further research and development.

传统哲学本体论或存在论的反思与重建必须提上议事日程。与之相适应，必须超越以往理论哲学与实践哲学的内在冲突，必须走向进一步的统一。由于马克思后来的工作重心没有放在哲学方面，这就需要后人付出更多的努力去做进一步的研究和拓展。

III. Another Modern Source of Positivity: Reification

三、实定性的另一个现代来源：物化

Modern civilization first involves (the progress of) the mode of production, then involves the mode of wealth distribution, the mode of dispute resolution, the flourishing of culture, and so on. In the logic of historical materialism, the relations of production as institutions occupy an important position; they involve both institutions and technology, both division of labor and cooperation. In modern society, the development of relations of production and social relations exhibits a basic trend, a trend toward increasing strictness, proceduralization, precision, legalization, and digitization. This is what is called “reification.” The “thing” in this “reification” involves both tangible, shaped physical things and intangible, shapeless things of social relations. Both kinds of “things” constitute the positive foundation of modern civilization, both lay the foundation for the certainty of modern civilization, and both constitute the “positive” basis for people’s various pursuits of modernity. Modern people often obtain the positive foundation of modern life through reification. Reification reflects a characteristic of modern positivity: positive existence is increasingly embodied and fixed at the material level, while increasingly distancing itself from spiritual existence. Existence at the spiritual level is increasingly marginalized or even rendered illusory. As for whether positive existence at the material level is linked to concrete material existence or increasingly linked to abstract reified existence, this depends on the level and standard of life that modern people have attained.

现代文明首先涉及生产方式(的进步),然后涉及财富分配方式、争执解决方式以及文化的繁荣等。在历史唯物主义的逻辑中，作为制度的生产关系具有重要地位，它既涉及制度，也涉及技术；既涉及分工，也涉及合作。在现代社会中，生产关系、社会关系的发展出现了一种基本趋势，一种越来越严格化、程序化、精确化、法制化、数字化的趋势。这就是所谓的“物化”。这种“物化”之“物”既涉及有形有状的物理之物，也涉及无形无状的社会关系之物。这两种“物”都构成现代文明的实定性根基，都为现代文明的确定性奠基，都构成人们的各种现代性追求的“实定性”基础。现代人往往通过物化获得现代生活的实定性基础。物化反映了现代实定性的一个特色，就是实定性存在越来越体现和固定在物质层面，而越来越远离精神性存在。精神层面的存在越来越被边缘化甚至虚化。至于物质层面的实定性存在是与具体的物质存在关联起来，还是日益与抽象的物化存在关联起来，取决于现代人生活的层次和达到的水平。

Reification is first of all an event of historical progress, which needs to be viewed from the perspective of the development of productive forces and the increase of efficiency, and regarded as a phenomenon of modern civilizational progress. Reification secondly involves a problem related to fairness and justice; only by looking toward a higher level of development in the future can one criticize its constraints and obstacles to the further development of modern civilization. Reification can produce a negative effect, rigidifying and fettering human freedom and innovation, and suppressing human individuality and dignity; thus it is both an objective phenomenon and a complex subjective feeling for people. Reification further encroaches upon the positive meaning of spiritual existence and its values, rendering them illusory, depriving them, and negating them, fixing positivity on the structure and level of material existence.

物化首先是一个历史进步事件，需要从生产力发展、效率提高的角度看待，把它看作一种现代文明进步现象。物化其次涉及一个与公正和正义有关的问题，着眼于未来更高水平的发展，才能批判它对现代文明进一步发展的约束和阻碍。物化会产生一种负面效应，僵化、束缚人的自由和创新，以及压抑人的个性、尊严，因而既是一种客观现象，也是人的一种复杂的主观感受。物化还进一步蚕食精神性存在及其价值的实定性意义，虚化、剥夺、否决精神性存在及其价值，把实定性固化在物性存在的结构和层次上。

In his *Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844*, Marx put forward his idea of “alienation,” elucidating four forms of alienation; later, in *Capital* and its manuscripts, he further developed the theory of reification. Lukács, in *History and Class Consciousness*, elevated reification to a very high status, but later acknowledged that in this work he had not distinguished alienation from reification. Alienation is the inversion of subject and object, while reification is the phenomenon in modern society whereby people are expressed through things and relations between people are expressed through relations between things. Moreover, this “reification” that expresses people and the relations between people has two basic developmental trends: first, tangible, shaped “things” (such as commodities) are increasingly less important than intangible, shapeless “things” of social relations—Marx said that the essence of capital is not a “thing” in the sense of material wealth, but an intangible, shapeless social relation. Second, this social relation increasingly develops in the direction of standardization, proceduralization, strictness, fixation, precision, “impersonality,” and digitization (now), becoming ever more precise, fixed, and strict, so as to ensure greater efficiency and fairness, i.e., to promote the development of productive forces and raise the level of interpersonal fairness. Although institutionalized relations of production and social relations may also, under specific circumstances, become rigidified and ossified, potentially inhibiting and hindering innovation, the rationalization trend of modern society is inevitable and also constantly self-adjusting. On this point, both Marx and Weber offered relatively positive affirmations. In reflecting on this issue, Marx used two German words, “Verdinglichung” and “Versachlichung,” to express “reification” in modern society. There are different understandings in academia regarding the relationship between these two terms. In my view, both express the objective fact that in modern society people are expressed through things and relations between people are expressed through relations between things; the difference is that the latter has a stronger critical-reflective character than the former, implying the obscuring nature of expressing people through things and expressing relations between people through relations between things, and its hindrance to people’s further realization of freedom and liberation. Viewed from the perspective of the three successive social forms of social development (relations of personal dependence, relations of material dependence, and the realization of all-round development and free individuality), the second form, dominated by reification, is higher than the first form, “relations of personal dependence”; relative to the first form, reification has clear progressive significance. Only when viewed from the higher stage of “all-round development and the realization of free individuality” does reification exhibit its limitations, backwardness, and obscuring nature, and should it be subjected to critical reflection.

马克思在《1844年经济学哲学手稿》中提出他的“异化”思想，阐明了四种异化；后来在《资本论》及其手稿中进一步提出了物化理论。卢卡奇在《历史与阶级意识》中把物化提升到很高的地位，但后来他承认自己在这部著作中没有把异化与物化区分开来。异化是主客体的颠倒，物化则是现代社会中人由物来表达、人与人的关系通过物与物的关系来表达的现象，而且这种表达人以及人与人之间的关系的“物化”有两个基本的发展趋势：一是有形有状的“物”(如商品)越来越不如无形无状的社会关系之“物”重要，马克思说资本的本质不是物质财富意义上的“物”,而是无形无状的社会关系。二是这种社会关系越来越向着规范化、程序化、严格化、固定化、精确化、“对事不对人”化、数字化(现在)的方向发展，变得越来越精确、固定和严格，以确保更有效率和更具公平性，即促进生产力的发展并提升人际公平的水平。虽然制度化的生产关系、社会关系也可能在特定情况下变得固化、僵化，可能抑制、阻碍创新，但现代社会的合理化趋势是必然的，也是不断自我调整的。对此，马克思和韦伯都做了较为积极的肯定。在思考这个问题时，马克思用了两个德文词“Verdinglichung”与“Versachlichung”来表达现代社会中的“物化”。对于这两个词之间的关系，学术界有不同的理解。在我看来，两者都表示现代社会中人通过物获得表达、人与人的关系通过物与物的关系获得表达的客观事实，不同的是，后者比前者具有更强的反思批判性，意味着由物来表达人、由物与物的关系来表达人与人的关系所具有的遮蔽性和对人进一步实现自由与解放的阻碍性。从社会发展依次经过的三种社会形态(人的依赖关系、物的依赖关系、全面发展与自由个性获得实现)来看，物化表达的占据统治地位的第二种形态高于“人的依赖关系”的第一种形态；相对第一种形态，物化具有明显的进步意义。只有从更高的“全面发展与自由个性获得实现”的阶段来看，物化才具有局限性、落后性、遮蔽性，才应该受到反思批判。

Therefore, phenomena of specific historical periods within modern civilization should be viewed dialectically, observed and evaluated through a historical perspective, a dialectical attitude, and a developmental lens. Taking the phenomenon of “reification” as an excellent example, Marx’s dialectical attitude toward modern civilization is fully evident. “Reification” is neither a wholly negative phenomenon to be rejected nor a wholly positive one to be fully affirmed. In *The German Ideology*, Marx and Engels criticize Stirner for failing to see that legal relations and international relations have become more important due to the activities of the bourgeoisie; for failing to see that, with the increasing importance of these relations, the mode of production has made great progress, “and their forms of expression have also become more civilized”; for failing to see that these relations are inseparable from the division of labor, trade, and the modern mode of production, and “how closely legal relations are connected with the development of these material forces arising from the division of labor”; instead, he imagines that these universal, increasingly institutionalized social relations only threaten and negate individual freedom; he fails to see the positive significance of these relations in promoting the development of productive forces, and believes that merely eliminating these ideas in his head, ignoring them, and distrusting them is sufficient to abolish them and render them inoperative. This petty-bourgeois “wishful thinking” is not only extraordinarily naive but also superficial and harmful. It could create space for the feudal relations that the bourgeoisie is replacing but which are still lingering on, providing an opportunity for feudal relations to stage a comeback through a new guise. [21]21 “借尸还魂” (jiè shī huán hún): A Chinese idiom meaning “to stage a comeback through a new guise,” literally “to borrow a corpse to resurrect the soul.” In *Capital*, Marx further affirms the significance of this universal dimension of humanity, emphasizing that “as possessors of exchange value and as persons who need to exchange, i.e., as representatives of the same, general, undifferentiated social labor,” “their personal particularity does not enter” into the process of social production and exchange, which is precisely what enables economic and social development to break free from the constraints of locality, specificity, and contingency, and to provide a foundation, on a universal and general level, for the freedom and liberation of all people, and for the subsequent realization and full development of the free individuality of the human person. When Stirner, with his “Unique One,” negates universality, he inevitably indulges in the illusory fantasies of anarchism, even falling into the trap of social Darwinism.

所以应该辩证地看待现代文明中特定历史时期的现象，用历史的视角、辩证的态度和发展的眼光来观察和评价它们。从“物化”现象这个很好的例子来看，马克思对现代文明的辩证态度一览无余。“物化”既不是应该否定的完全负面的现象，也不是应该全部肯定的积极现象。在《德意志意识形态》中，马克思、恩格斯批评施蒂纳看不到法律关系、国际关系都是由于资产阶级的活动变得更加重要了；看不到随着这些关系的日益重要，生产方式取得了很大进步，“它们的表现方式也变文明了”;看不到这些关系与分工、贸易、现代生产方式密不可分，“法律关系与由于分工而引起的这些物质力量的发展，联系得多么紧密”,反而以为这些普遍的、日益制度化的社会关系只对个人自由构成威胁和否定；看不到这些社会关系促进生产力发展的积极意义，并且相信只要在头脑中消除这些观念，不理睬它们、不信任它们，就足以消灭它们并使之不发挥作用。这种小资产阶级的“一厢情愿”不但异常天真，而且肤浅有害。它有可能给资产阶级正在取代的但仍苟延残喘的封建关系创造继续生存的空间，给封建关系借尸还魂创造机会。在《资本论》中，马克思更是肯定人的这种普遍性维度的意义，强调“作为交换价值的占有者和需要交换的人，即作为同一的、一般的、无差别的社会劳动的代表”,“他们的个人的特殊性并不进入”社会生产和交换过程，才使得经济社会发展摆脱地方性、具体性、偶然性的限制，在普遍、一般的意义上为所有人的自由解放，为以后人的自由个性获得实现和全面发展提供基础。而当施蒂纳以“唯一者”否定普遍性时，他势必沉浸在无政府主义的虚妄幻想中，甚至陷入社会达尔文主义的陷阱。

Marx and Engels had already discovered that Stirner’s hostility toward the universality and strictness of bourgeois legal relations contained the risk of opening up space for feudal customs. They therefore particularly emphasized that the construction of an ideal society must rely on the immense development of productive forces. Only through the immense development of productive forces can a beautiful ideal be realized. If Engels’s statement in *The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State* — “wealth, wealth, and again wealth — not the wealth of society, but the wealth of this insignificant individual — this was the sole and decisive goal of the civilized era” — contains a condemnation of class antagonism and oppression, then Marx, in the *Grundrisse* (1857–1858), regards this antagonism as a reality while seeing its elimination as a future possibility, asserting that “from the perspective of possibility, the development of wealth is precisely the possibility of sublating this antagonism,” and gives a positive evaluation to the development of wealth, holding that “the development of human productive forces, i.e., the development of wealth,” and that science “is both an ideal wealth and a practical wealth.” If Marx, in the *Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844*, was full of concern about Ricardo’s encouragement of developing production potentially harming human dignity, then the Marx of the *Capital* period clearly affirms that “Ricardo regarded the capitalist mode of production as the one most favorable for production, most favorable for the creation of wealth. For his time, Ricardo was entirely correct. He wanted production for production’s sake, and this was correct. If, like Ricardo’s sentimental opponents, one asserts that production itself is not an end in itself, one forgets that production for production’s sake is nothing other than the development of humanity’s productive forces, i.e., the development of the wealth of human nature as an end in itself.” Without the development of productive forces and the modern growth of wealth, human society would universally fall into poverty, even into brutal competition for survival, allowing decayed things to stage a comeback. In the words of Tolpe, “Although industrialization has brought much discomfort and suffering to humanity, industrialization, paid for at this price, has ultimately been very beneficial to people worldwide, especially to those in impoverished areas.” [22]22 Tolpe: Likely a reference to a scholar or commentator, possibly a misspelling or transliteration; the specific source is unclear in the original text. The development of productive forces enables more people to avoid expending their main energy on meeting basic needs, laying the foundation for their higher-level pursuits and thus for the elevation of the level of human civilization. Only by historically and positively viewing the reification phenomena of modern civilization, and on the basis of ensuring the bottom line of civilization, further adjusting and transforming social relations of production, can we promote the second elevation of human civilization by modern civilization.

马克思、恩格斯已发现施蒂纳对资产阶级法律关系的普遍性、严格性的敌视中蕴含着为封建习俗开辟可能性空间的风险。他们由此特别强调，理想社会的构建必须依靠生产力的巨大发展。只有通过生产力的巨大发展才有可能实现美好理想。如果恩格斯在《家庭、私有制和国家的起源》中说的“财富，财富，第三还是财富——不是社会的财富，而是这个微不足道的单个的个人的财富，这就是文明时代唯一的、具有决定意义的目的”,含有谴责阶级对立和压迫之意，那么，马克思在《1857—1858年经济学手稿》中就把这种对立看作现实性，而把消除这种对立看作未来的可能性，认定“从可能性来看，财富的发展正是扬弃这种对立的可能性”,并对财富的发展给予积极的评价，认为“人的生产力的发展即财富的发展”,科学“既是观念的财富同时又是实际的财富”。如果说马克思在《1844年经济学哲学手稿》中对李嘉图的鼓励发展生产可能损害人的尊严的观点满怀忧虑，那么，写作《资本论》时期的马克思则明确地肯定，“李嘉图把资本主义生产方式看作最有利于生产、最有利于创造财富的生产方式，对于他那个时代来说，李嘉图是完全正确的。他希望为生产而生产，这是正确的。如果象李嘉图的感伤主义的反对者们那样，断言生产本身不是目的本身，那就是忘记了，为生产而生产无非就是发展人类的生产力，也就是发展人类天性的财富这种目的本身”。没有生产力的发展、财富的现代性增长，人类社会会普遍贫穷，甚至陷入残酷的生存竞争，使陈腐的东西死灰复燃。用托尔佩的话说，“工业化虽给人类带来诸多不适和苦难，但以此为代价的工业化最终对世人而言却是非常有利的，尤其对贫困地区的人们而言更是如此”。生产力的发展使更多人避免把主要精力用于满足基本需要，为他们更高层次的追求从而为人类文明程度的提高奠定基础。历史地、积极地看待现代文明的物化现象，在确保文明底线的基础上，进一步调整、变革社会生产关系，才能促进现代文明对人类的文明程度的第二次提升。

Thus, the constitution of positivity and determinacy acquires four distinct characteristics: First, it possesses a pronounced historicity, being a constantly evolving series. Under the conditions of modernity, positivity and determinacy become more complex and changeable, with multiple dimensions, requiring us to constantly reflect on, maintain, and reconstruct them. Second, it possesses a pronounced universality; it cannot be constituted solely by Stirner’s “Unique One.” The universal constitution and extension of modern social relations is the basic prerequisite for ensuring that more people attain positivity and determinacy in existence and development. Without the progress of these universal modern social relations, it is impossible to imagine how more ordinary people could attain positivity and determinacy in a complex and changeable modern society. Third, it must be based on some kind of material social relations and material wealth. Material wealth should not be worshipped, but should serve as a premise and foundation supporting other social life and higher pursuits. Fourth, positivity is increasingly linked to material existence, while its connection to spiritual existence and values tends to become increasingly virtualized and attenuated. This trend erodes and threatens the modern generation and elevation of positivity and determinacy on the spiritual level.

由此，实定性、确定性的构成获得了四个鲜明的特点：第一，它具有明显的历史性，是一个不断生成的系列。现代性背景下的实定性、确定性变得更加复杂多变，并且具有多元面向，需要我们对其进行不断反思、维护和重建。第二，它具有明显的普遍性，不能仅仅由施蒂纳的那种“唯一者”构成。现代社会关系的普遍性构成和延展，是保证更多人达到生存和发展的实定性的基本前提。没有这种普遍的现代社会关系的进步，是无法设想更多普通人在复杂多变的现代社会中获得实定性的。第三，它必须以某种物质性的社会关系和物质财富为基础。物质财富不应被膜拜，而应作为前提和基础支撑起其他社会生活以及更高的追求。第四，实定性日益与物性存在联系起来，而与精神性存在及其价值的联系有日益虚化、淡化的趋势。这种趋势蚕食、威胁着精神层面上的实定性的现代生成和提升。

IV. Positivity in the Spiritual Sphere: Overcoming Nihilism, Moving Toward a Transcendent New World

四、精神领域的实定性：超克虚无主义，迈向超越性新世界

Advancing further along the path of Feuerbach’s construction of a “new, uniquely positive philosophy” based on intuitive sensuousness, Stirner radically deduces a “sensuous metaphysics” that negates any dimension of universality, affirming only uniqueness and selfhood. According to this, positivity is related only to singular, fragmented, immediate existence, only to a one-time, non-repetitive existence; everything else is illusory. This determination of positivity not only pushes the subjectivist line of thought since Descartes and Kant to its extreme, facing the danger of nihilizing all real worlds outside the individual self, but also easily follows the positivist line of thought championed by the natural sciences to negate the infinity, absoluteness, and totality pursued by traditional philosophy, causing them to no longer be able to provide a foundation for the finite, reducing the world to a fragmented, thrown, rootless world, and finally making this world increasingly nihilistic, making it even more difficult for a world in the transcendent sense to find a foothold. The modern self increasingly believes in the ever-narrower, unstable, trivial, fleeting, rootless world it has constructed. The disappearance of infinity and totality, the strengthening of subjectivity along the dimension of the individual self — the nihilistic effects produced by the increasing combination of these two aspects, one disappearing and the other strengthening, are becoming increasingly apparent.

沿着费尔巴哈在直观的感性基础上建构的“新的唯一实定的哲学”进一步前进，施蒂纳激进地推导出了否定任何普遍性的维度，认定只有唯一性、独自性的“感性形而上学”。据此，实定性只与单一、碎片化、当下即是的存在相关，只与一种一次性、非重复性存在相关，其他一切皆是虚妄的。对实定性的这种规定不但把笛卡尔、康德以来的主体性思路推到极端，面临把个体自我之外的一切实在世界都虚无化的危险，而且也容易沿着自然科学推崇的实定性思路否定掉传统哲学追求的无限性、绝对性、整体性，致使它们不再能够为有限者提供根基，致使世界沦为碎片化、被抛、无根的世界，最后致使这个世界变得越来越虚无，致使超越性意义上的世界更难以找到立足之地。现代自我越来越相信自己所建构的那个日益狭小、不稳定、琐碎、转瞬即逝、无根的世界。无限性与整体性的消失，主体性沿着个体自我向度的强化，一方消失、另一方强化的这两个方面日益结合所产生的虚无主义效果，也日益显现。

Marx is not merely satisfied with the fair distribution of wealth and rights; he further advances higher demands. A political philosophy committed to the appeals of fairness and justice is not the ultimate end of Marx’s philosophy; at best it is only its mediating and transitional stage. The modern world cannot conclude with a secular kingdom of happiness and pleasure; rather, it must achieve new accomplishments in the construction of a transcendent dimension, establishing more sublime value pursuits. The development of modern civilization consists not only in the growth of material wealth and the elevation of productive forces, nor only in technological progress and the transformation of structures and institutions, but also in the increasingly important growth of cultural and spiritual wealth. Positivity takes material productive forces as its foundation, but material productive forces are not the whole of positivity. On the basis of a considerable level of material productive forces, the value appeal for an ideal future society will play an increasingly important role.

马克思并不仅仅满足于财富、权利的公平分配，还进一步有更高的要求。致力于公平、正义诉求的政治哲学不是马克思哲学的最后诉求，充其量只是其中介和过渡阶段。现代性世界不能终结于幸福、快乐的世俗王国，而应在超越性维度的建构上有新的成就，建构起更崇高的价值追求。现代文明的发展不只有物质财富的增长、生产力的提升，也不只有技术的进步、结构和制度的转型，还有越来越重要的文化、精神财富的增长。实定性以物质生产力作为基础，但物质生产力却不是实定性的一切。在物质生产力达到相当水平的基础上，对未来理想社会的价值诉求将起到越来越重要的作用。

The growth of material wealth merely lays the foundation for the elevation of the level of civilization. If it stops here, civilization may fall into a state of mediocrity and vulgarity, no longer possessing sublime pursuits, and stagnating at the level of modern cynicism. Modern cynicism no longer, like ancient cynicism, sets up a self-sufficient kingdom of virtue after negating and rejecting vulgar value pursuits, thereby rejecting pleasure and decadence; instead, it is committed to thoroughly seeing through all truth, goodness, and beauty, deeming everything illusory, with only self-preservation having substantive meaning. Yet it dares not acknowledge this in public life; on the contrary, it creates an appearance of elegance, wit, and wisdom in lifestyle and life forms. In fact, when modern cynicism deems all truth, goodness, and beauty as meaningless things to be seen through, it falls into that increasingly mediocre and even decadent situation that Marx identifies with the “bourgeoisie” and Nietzsche with the “last man,” with no further elevation of sublime life meaning and no further enhancement of the level of modern civilization. This is the problem of how to construct modernity from a transcendent dimension, which in philosophy is the problem of containing and transcending “nihilism.” In this regard, philosophical inquiry and reflection have considerable room for expansion.

物质财富的增长只是为文明程度的提升奠定基础，如果仅停留于此，文明可能会陷入平庸、庸俗的状态，不再有崇高的追求，滞留于现代犬儒主义层面。现代犬儒主义不再像古代犬儒主义那样在否定和拒斥流俗的价值追求后还设定一种自足的德性王国，并由此拒斥快乐和颓废的状态，却致力于彻底看穿一切真善美，认定一切都是虚妄的，只有自身保存才有实质性意义，但它不敢在公共生活中承认这一点，反而在生活风格、生活形式上营造那种雅致、幽默和智慧的外观。实际上，当现代犬儒主义认定一切真善美都是该看透的无意义的东西之时，它就会陷入马克思用“资产阶级”、尼采用“末人”(最后的人)标识的那种越来越平庸甚至颓废的境地，再没有崇高的生命意义的提升，也没有现代文明程度的进一步提升。这就是如何从超越性维度进行现代性构建的问题，在哲学上就是“虚无主义”的遏制和超越问题。在这方面，哲学的探究和思考具有很大的拓展空间。

Marx first touched on this problem when criticizing Stirner. Stirner claimed, “I have set my cause on nothing.” [23]23 Max Stirner, *The Ego and Its Own*, ed. David Leopold (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 7. The phrase “我把无当作自己事业的基础” is a Chinese translation of Stirner’s “Ich hab’ mein’ Sach’ auf Nichts gestellt.” By “nothing” he meant a state in which all material and spiritual idols are negated and rejected, so that no ideology obscures oneself—that is, a state in which the self as the “unique one” can freely create; for Stirner, this state was the beginning of a new free world. Marx and Engels, in *The German Ideology*, devoted a large amount of space to criticizing Stirner’s anarchist theory. In Marx’s view, Stirner’s theory of the “unique one” was merely the fantasy of the German petty bourgeoisie. With no material foundation and no protection from any modern system, relying solely on each “unique one’s” inner strength to open up their own free realm would only lead them into a situation of social Darwinism, making them slaves to contingent circumstances, even plunging them back into a brutal struggle for the right to survival, and back into a state of barbarism and ignorance. If this is still directed at the petty bourgeoisie, then in *Capital* and its manuscripts, Marx had already investigated whether capital, in its pursuit of greater surplus value (profit), can escape the outcome of nihilism. In Marx’s view, in order to obtain greater profit, capital is committed to replacing all values, including (especially) those originally regarded as sublime and sacred, with abstract, calculable, monetarily measurable, socially exchangeable “things” that anyone can possess. In the logic of capital’s operation, “there is no absolute value, because for money value itself is relative. Nothing is inalienable, because everything can be alienated for money. Nothing is noble, sacred, etc., because everything can be possessed through money. Just as before God all people are equal, before money there is nothing that ‘cannot be valued, mortgaged, or transferred,’ nothing that is ‘outside human commerce,’ nothing that is ‘sacred’ or ‘religious’ that ‘no one can possess.’” [24]24 Karl Marx, *Grundrisse der Kritik der politischen Ökonomie* (Berlin: Dietz Verlag, 1953), 145. The English translation follows the Chinese text provided by the author; the original German reads: “Es gibt keinen absoluten Werth, denn dem Geld ist der Werth relativ. Es gibt nichts Unveräußerliches, denn alles ist veräußerlich für Geld. Es gibt nichts Hohes, Heiliges etc., denn alles ist aneigenbar durch Geld. Wie vor Gott alle Menschen gleich, so existirt vor dem Geld kein ‘Unschätzbares, Unverpfänd- und Verkaufbares,’ ‘außer dem Verkehr der Menschen Liegendes,’ ‘Unbesitzbares,’ ‘Heiliges und Religiöses.’” Solely for the sake of economic profit, capital is bound to destroy everything sacred and sublime, level all values, deconstruct everything else that might inspire awe, greatness, and value height, turning everything into something so ordinary that it cannot be more ordinary, so vulgar that it cannot be more vulgar, clearing the way for the modern cynicism that mocks all truth, goodness, and beauty, making people skilled at calculation and adept at satisfying desires, no longer pursuing great and transcendent values, only seeking comfort, pleasure, and painlessness; work must become amusement, wealth and rights as equal as possible, not provoking conflict and contradiction, without commitment or sublime pursuit, with only a lifestyle of self-preservation becoming the standard and model.

马克思最早在批判施蒂纳时触及这个问题。施蒂纳声称“我把无当作自己事业的基础”。他所谓的“无”,即对任何物质偶像和精神偶像都予以否定和拒斥，因而没有任何意识形态对自己造成遮蔽的状态，也即作为“唯一者”的自我完全可以自由创造的那种状态，这种状态对施蒂纳来说就是一个新的自由世界的开端。马克思、恩格斯在《德意志意识形态》中用了很大的篇幅批判施蒂纳的这种无政府主义理论。在马克思看来，施蒂纳的“唯一者”理论只不过是德国小资产阶级的幻想。没有任何物质基础，也没有任何现代制度的保护，全凭每一个“唯一者”的内力开创各自的自由天地，那只会使其陷入社会达尔文主义的境地，使其成为偶然状况的奴隶，甚至重新陷入争夺生存权的残酷斗争，重新处于野蛮和蒙昧的状态。如果说，这还是针对小资产阶级而言的，那么，在《资本论》及其手稿中，马克思已然针对追求更大剩余价值(利润)的大资产阶级探究资本能否摆脱虚无主义的结局。在马克思看来，为了获取更大利润，资本会致力于把一切价值，包括(特别是)那些原来被视为崇高、神圣的价值，都置换为抽象的、可计算的、可用货币衡量的、可进行社会交换的、可为任何人占有的“物”。在资本运作的逻辑中，“没有任何绝对的价值，因为对货币来说，价值本身是相对的。没有任何东西是不可让渡的，因为一切东西都可以为换取货币而让渡。没有任何东西是高尚的、神圣的等等，因为一切东西都可以通过货币而占有。正如在上帝面前人人平等一样，在货币面前不存在‘不能估价、不能抵押或转让的’,‘处于人类商业之外的’,‘谁也不能占有的’,‘神圣的’和‘宗教的东西’”。只是为了经济利润的考虑，资本也势必会摧毁一切神圣与崇高的东西，敉平一切价值物，把一切其他可能使人产生敬畏的东西、伟大的东西和具有价值高度的东西都统统解构掉，把一切都变成平俗得不能再平俗、庸常得不能再庸常，为嘲讽一切真善美的现代犬儒主义登台扫清道路，让人精于计算、善于满足欲望，不再追求伟大的和超越性的价值，只追求安逸、快乐、无痛苦；工作要成为消遣，财富和权利尽可能平等，不要引发纷争与矛盾，没有担当也没有崇高的追求，只有以自我保存为目的的生活风格成为标准与样板。

This is the problem of modern nihilism that Marx and Nietzsche long ago warned us about. In the words of Xu Zhuoyun: “The emotion pervading the entire world is nihilism and indifference, which has become the main symptom of human civilization today. Nihilism and indifference do not help to reconstruct ultimate concern.” [25]25 Xu Zhuoyun (许倬云), *The Great River of Civilization: The Past and Future of Humanity* (《文明的大河：人类的过去与未来》) (Beijing: Zhonghua Book Company, 2021), 245. Xu Zhuoyun (b. 1930) is a Chinese-born American historian and public intellectual. Why do people live? What is the meaning of life? What kind of relationship should people maintain with the world? These questions no longer have definite answers. Under the conditions of modernity, people can easily reach agreement on the baseline of values, but regarding their high line they can often only appeal to “plurality” and “heterogeneity”; what people can hope for is only the justice of the distribution of interests and rights, but they cannot reach definite opinions on the transcendent meaning that life should pursue, covering a larger scope in both time and space. Value is often only closely related to materialized existence and directly related to the social and material utility of such existence. Thus, “life only pursues the most immediate things: a comfortable life and the money to maintain it.” [26]26 Ibid., 246. This is just as Engels long ago said: “Where each capitalist engages in production and exchange for direct profit, the first thing they consider can only be the most immediate and direct result.” [27]27 Friedrich Engels, “The Part Played by Labour in the Transition from Ape to Man,” in Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, *Selected Works*, vol. 3 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1970), 73. The Chinese text follows the author’s citation; the original English reads: “where each capitalist works for direct profit, the only thing that can come into his mind is the most immediate, the most directly profitable result.” Clearly, for Marx and Engels, this is the comportment of the bourgeoisie, and from this it directly determines the final outcome that the bourgeoisie has no future. For Nietzsche, this is even more the typical behavior of the last man, and also a symbol of having no future. Exploring the future of modern civilization must distance itself from this comportment, must distinguish itself from people who act in this way, and must transcend this narrow and vulgar attitude.

这便是马克思和尼采早就提醒我们注意的现代虚无主义问题。用许倬云的话说就是：“整个世界，处处呈现的情绪乃是虚无和冷漠，这成为人类当前文明的主要征象。虚无和冷漠，无助于重建终极关怀。”人为什么活着、人生的意义何在、人该与世界保持一种什么样的关系?这些问题都不再有确切的答案。现代性背景下的人们对于价值的底线容易达成一致，但对于其高线却往往只能诉诸“多元”和“异质”,人们可期许的也只能是利益、权利分配的公正，却无法就人生该追求的、在时空两个方面覆盖更大范围的超越性意义达成确切的意见。价值往往仅仅与物化存在密切相关，与这类存在的社会、物质效用直接相关。由此，“人生就只有追逐最眼前的东西，就是舒适的生活，以及维持舒适生活的金钱”。这就像恩格斯早就说过的，“在各个资本家都是为了直接的利润而从事生产和交换的地方，他们首先考虑的只能是最近的最直接的结果”。显然，在马克思、恩格斯那里，这就是资产阶级的做派，由此也直接决定了资产阶级没有前途的最后结局。在尼采那里，这更是典型的末人所为，也是没有前途的象征。探寻现代文明的未来必须远离这种做派，必须与如此所为的人区分开来，必须超越这种狭隘和平庸的态度才行。

Recalling William McGaughey’s assertion in *A History of the World: A New Perspective* that “entertainment first” will become the foundation of the latest “Frankenstein-style civilization,” the concerns of Marx and Nietzsche deserve even greater attention. McGaughey tends to believe that “both cultural technologies and power organizations are determining factors in civilization, but it may be better to begin with a review of cultural technologies.” He divides human civilization into five stages of development based on cultural technologies: starting with the first generation of civilization using pre-alphabetic scripts (cuneiform, hieroglyphics), then successively passing through the second generation using alphabetic scripts, the third generation using printing, the fourth generation using post-alphabetic scripts (capable of recording and transmitting auditory and visual information), and the fifth generation using artificial intelligence after 1990. The achievements of civilization are ever greater, and the challenges ever larger. The first stage of civilization is the separation of government from society; the second stage is the separation of religion from society; the third stage is the separation of commerce and education from society; the fourth stage is the separation of news and entertainment from society. In the fifth stage of civilization we are now experiencing, entertainment will constitute “the foundation of a new civilization replacing the old civilization of the past 500 years,” and “begins with myths or literary works that imagine the creation of artificial beings resembling humans. We can call it ‘Frankenstein-style civilization.’ This title means that humans will recreate themselves by artificial means.” Entertainment first may further lower the level of culture, flatten the dimension of cultural sublimity, make the problem of meaning more prominent, make the lifestyle of cynicism that Marx and Nietzsche worried about easier to popularize, and make Marx’s critical reflection on modern civilization even more valuable.

联想到威廉·迈克高希在《世界文明史：观察世界的新视角》中认定“娱乐至上”将成为最新的“弗兰肯斯坦式的文明”的基础，马克思和尼采的忧虑就更值得高度关注。迈克高希倾向于认为“文化技术和权力组织两者都是文明中的决定因素，但以文化技术的回顾作为开始可能更好”。他根据文化技术把人类文明区分为五个发展阶段：从使用前字母文字(楔形文字、象形文字)书写的第一代文明开始，依次经过使用字母文字书写的第二代、使用印刷术的第三代、使用后字母文字(能录制、传送听觉和视觉信息)的第四代、1990年以后使用人工智能的第五代，文明的成就越来越多，挑战也越来越大。文明的第一阶段是政府从社会中分离出来，第二阶段是宗教从社会中分离出来，第三阶段是商业、教育从社会中分离出来，第四阶段是新闻与娱乐从社会中分离出来。在我们正在经历的文明的第五阶段，娱乐将构成“取代过去500年旧文明的新文明的基础”,并且“以想象出创造人工的象人一样的存在物的神话或文学作品作为开端。我们可以把它称为‘弗兰肯斯坦式的文明’。这个标题意味着，人将用人工的方法再创造他自己”。娱乐至上可能会进一步拉低文化的高度，敉平文化的崇高性维度，使得意义问题进一步凸显，使得马克思与尼采担忧的奉行犬儒主义的那种生活风格更容易流行，也使得马克思对现代文明的反思批判更具有价值。

The formalization and flattening of modern civilization deserve critical attention. Modern civilization needs to be further advanced and deepened; it cannot stagnate at the level of bourgeois modern cynicism. This formalization and flattening is prominently manifested in modern cynics. Modern cynics aim to maintain formal refinement, are skilled in calculating costs and success or failure, care at most about the fair distribution and enjoyment of interests and rights but not about whether there are higher pursuits, prefer to follow the crowd rather than take risks and bear responsibility alone, and prefer to pander to vulgarity or even “lie flat” [28]28 “Lying flat” (*tang ping*) is a Chinese internet term referring to a lifestyle of minimal effort and withdrawal from social competition, popular among some youth as a form of passive resistance to societal pressures. rather than innovate and explore. The qualities that constitute “civilization”—refinement, humor, politeness—all become mere formalities, with no substantive pursuit of any sublime or transcendent value. This is the bourgeois decadence that Marx and Nietzsche both discovered, and the source of their deep anxiety about the prospects of modern civilization. To avoid and overcome this, it is necessary to explore where the way out and hope for transcending modern bourgeois civilization lies. In fact, compared with Nietzsche’s “last man,” modern cynics are often very humorous and skilled at embellishment. Modern cynics will not blatantly and directly make survival their first priority; that would be regarded by them as a sign of insufficient intelligence and wisdom.

现代文明的形式化、扁平化现象值得批判性关注。现代文明需要进一步推进和深化，不能滞留于资产阶级的现代犬儒主义层面上。这种形式化、扁平化突出地表现在现代犬儒主义者身上。现代犬儒主义者旨在形式上保持文雅、精于成本与成败算计，至多在意利益和权利的公正分配和享用却不在意有无更高的追求，情愿随大流也不愿独自冒险和承担责任，情愿媚俗甚至“躺平”也不愿创新探索。文雅、幽默、礼貌这些构成“文明”的素养都流于形式，实质上却没有任何崇高的和超越性的价值追求。这就是马克思和尼采共同发现的资产阶级颓废性，也是他们对现代文明前景的深深忧虑所在。要避免和克服这一点，就需要探究超越现代资产阶级文明的出路和希望何在。实际上，跟尼采的末人相比，现代犬儒主义者往往很幽默，很善于文饰。现代犬儒主义者不会露骨、直白地以保命为第一要务，那是被他们视为不够聪明和缺乏智慧的象征。

At the end of *The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism*, Max Weber worriedly reproached those who practice this life philosophy, accusing them of claiming to be “civilized” while actually being Nietzsche’s “last men” of low stature: “Specialists without spirit, sensualists without heart; this nullity imagines that it has attained a level of civilization never before achieved.” This captures Marx’s concern about the world of capital dominated by the bourgeoisie! It also captures Nietzsche’s deep anxiety about the modern world dominated by the last men of the modern age! Weber, Marx, and Nietzsche all did not recognize this as a highly developed civilization, but rather as a sign that modern civilization has problems.

马克斯·韦伯曾在《新教伦理与资本主义精神》一书的最后甚为忧虑地责备奉行这种生活哲学的人，指责他们以“文明”自居实则是境界不高的尼采意义上的末人：“专家已没有精神，纵欲者也没有了心肝，但这具躯壳却在幻想着自己达到了一个前所未有的文明水准。”这道出了马克思针对资产阶级主导的资本世界的担心!也道出了尼采针对现代末期末人主导现代世界的深深忧虑!韦伯、马克思、尼采都不认可这是高度发达的文明，而认定这是现代文明出现问题的象征。

Reflection on the issues of freedom and liberation embedded and nurtured within the Enlightenment and the process of modernization is the fundamental inquiry of Marx’s philosophy in its pursuit of modern positivity; critical exposure of the tendencies endogenous to or derived from modern civilization that obstruct and dissolve the elevation of civilization is equally the fundamental inquiry of Marx’s philosophy in its pursuit of modern positivity. Modern positivity is intrinsically related not only to factors such as experience, sensibility, existence, becoming, passion, and interest from different fields and disciplines, but also closely related to the continuous strengthening of the rational system and the system’s constant marginalization and exploitation of empirical individuals, as well as the various resistant reactions of empirical individuals to this; it is intrinsically related not only to the foundation of material productive forces, but also to the spiritual demand for the dimension of sublimity. Positivity is increasingly and more strongly manifested in various ways across different disciplines, dimensions, and fields. The understanding and grasp of the modern world—which is increasingly unstable, diverse, even heterogeneous, increasingly rootless or fragmented at the concrete level, and increasingly unified and cohesive at the abstract level—reflects the spiritual demands of modern civilization, especially philosophical demands, and drives the adjustment and transformation of modern philosophy. Along with the above manifestations and demands, through multiple pathways, the space of possibility for freedom and liberation is opened up and expanded.

对启蒙运动、现代化进程中内含和孕育的自由、解放问题的思考，是追求现代实定性的马克思哲学的根本追问；对现代文明中内生或衍生出的这些对文明的提升构成阻碍和消解作用的倾向的批判性揭示，同样是追求现代实定性的马克思哲学的根本追问。现代实定性不只与来自不同领域和不同学科的经验、感性、实存性、生成性、激情、利益等因素内在相关，也与理性系统的不断强化和这个系统对经验个体的不断排挤和压榨以及经验个体对此所做的各种抗拒性反应密切相关；不只与物质生产力的奠基内在相关，也与崇高性维度的精神诉求内在相关。实定性在不同学科、不同维度、不同领域都越来越多、越来越强地以各种不同方式体现出来。对越来越不稳定、越来越多样甚至异质化、在具体层面越来越无根甚至破碎、在抽象层面越来越一体性凝聚的现代世界的理解和把握，反映着现代文明的精神诉求，特别是哲学诉求，驱动着现代哲学的调整和转型。伴随着上述体现和诉求，通过多重的路径，自由和解放的可能性空间才得以敞开和扩展。

Online editor: Paul

网络编辑：保罗