The Significance of Herder for the Formation of Marx’s Thought

The influence of the German intellectual and cultural tradition on Marx was immense. This tradition largely shaped the contours of Marx’s thought. However, we must by no means narrowly reduce this tradition simply to German speculative philosophy as represented by Hegel; rather, it should be defined and understood within the broader intellectual movements of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Germany and even Europe. Therefore, it is particularly necessary to conduct a concrete and in-depth analysis and discussion of the intellectual connection between Marx and those theorists who led these movements and provided the spiritual elements for a higher-level synthesis of this tradition. This inevitably brings us to Johann Gottfried Herder. He was a renowned German historian, literary theorist, philosopher, and leader of the Sturm und Drang movement [1]1 Sturm und Drang (Storm and Stress) was a proto-Romantic movement in German literature and music from the late 1760s to the early 1780s, emphasizing individual subjectivity and emotional intensity.. He was deeply involved in shaping nineteenth-century German intellectual culture. Although evaluations of Herder himself and his thought are often inconsistent, he “indeed had a profound and revolutionary impact on later thought and practice” [2]2 The source of this quotation is not identified in the original text.. The question is whether Herder influenced Marx. If so, which element or elements of Herder’s thought influenced Marx? To what extent did this influence reach? Is it negligible, or does it require careful consideration? Did it affect only a certain stage of Marx’s thought, or did it exert a sustained influence across multiple stages of his intellectual development? If there was an influence, and if it was significant, through what means did Herder influence Marx? And how did Marx transform these influences into the driving force for theoretical construction?

德国思想文化传统对马克思的影响是巨大的。这一传统在很大程度上塑造了马克思思想的面貌。但是，我们决不能狭隘地将这一传统简单地理解为以黑格尔为代表的德国思辨哲学，而是应在17、18世纪德国乃至欧洲更加广阔的思想运动中来加以规定和领会。因此，具体深入地分析和讨论引领这些运动并为这一传统在更高层面的综合提供精神要素的理论家与马克思的思想关联显得尤为必要。这就不得不提到约翰·戈特弗里德·赫尔德（J.G.Herder）。他是德国著名的历史学家、文艺理论家、哲学家、“狂飙突进运动”的引领者。他深度参与了19世纪德国思想文化的塑造工作。尽管关于赫尔德本人及其思想的评价常有不一，但他“的确对后来的思想和实践产生了深远和具有革命性的影响”。问题在于赫尔德是否对马克思产生了影响。如果有，那么是赫尔德思想中的哪种或哪些要素对马克思产生了影响？这种影响到达何种程度？是可以被忽略不计的，还是需要慎重对待的？是影响了马克思思想的某个阶段，还是对马克思思想的多个阶段都产生了持续的影响？如果有影响，而且影响是重要的，那么赫尔德是通过什么方式对马克思产生影响的？马克思又是如何将这些影响转化为理论建构的动力的？

Isaiah Berlin, who placed great importance on Herder’s position in the history of thought, believed that Herder’s influence on Marx was direct and obvious. In *Vico and Herder*, he states: “The notion that man lives in a world which he himself has created” constitutes “the source of Marx’s most profound sociological insights and of the revolution in the conception of history which he initiated” [3]3 Isaiah Berlin, *Vico and Herder: Two Studies in the History of Ideas* (London: Hogarth Press, 1976).. F. M. Barnard argues that Herder’s definition of the rabble as a group lacking common consciousness and self-positioning “clearly prefigures Marx’s thought” [4]4 F. M. Barnard, *Herder’s Social and Political Thought: From Enlightenment to Nationalism* (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1965).. From the perspective of the evolution of historical theory, Allen Wood points out that “along with Kant, Herder is the main source of the theory of history in the great nineteenth-century German idealist tradition: the historical theories of Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, and Marx” [5]5 Allen Wood, *Kant’s Ethical Thought* (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999).. E. M. Dale’s *Hegel, the End of History, and the Future* notes that Herder’s conception of history, which grants human will great autonomy, played an important role in the work of Hegel, Marx, and Nietzsche [6]6 E. M. Dale, *Hegel, the End of History, and the Future* (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014).. T. C. Patterson, from an anthropological perspective, points out that “the view advocating the reality of nature and human social history… was transmitted through Buffon in the mid-eighteenth century and ultimately through writers who had a significant impact on the Scottish Enlightenment, such as Adam Smith (1723-1790), and through German critics of Enlightenment liberalism like Herder and Hegel” [7]7 T. C. Patterson, *Karl Marx, Anthropologist* (Oxford: Berg, 2009).. These works, which only occasionally mention the relationship between Marx and Herder, identify Herder’s influence on Marx from different aspects but do not elaborate on the specific content of this intellectual influence. In fact, these works do not answer the above questions; rather, they deepen them. Although J. K. Noyes has analyzed the intrinsic intellectual connection between Herder and Marx in detail from both genealogical and thematic perspectives, such tentative and important work is extremely limited and far from sufficient to clarify the issue.

极为看重赫尔德的思想史地位的以赛亚·伯林（I.Berlin）认为赫尔德对马克思的影响是直接而明显的。在《维科与赫尔德》中，他说：“人生活在他所创造的世界中”这种观念构成了“马克思最深刻的社会学见解和他所发起的历史观革命的源泉”。巴纳德（F.M.Barnard）认为，赫尔德将群氓定义为缺乏共同意识和自我定位的群体的做法“明显预示了马克思的思想”。艾伦·伍德（A.Wood）从历史理论演进的角度指出，“与康德一起，赫尔德是伟大的19世纪德国理想主义传统中历史理论的主要来源：费希特、谢林、黑格尔和马克思的历史理论”。戴尔(E.M.Dale)的《黑格尔、历史的终结与未来》指出，赫尔德赋予人类意志以极大自主性的历史观念在黑格尔、马克思和尼采那里发挥了重要作用。帕特森（T.C.Patterson）则从人类学的角度指出，“主张赋予自然与人类社会历史真实性的观点……通过18世纪中叶的培丰和最终对苏格兰启蒙运动产生重要影响的作家群，如亚当·斯密（1723-1790）和启蒙自由主义的德国批评家赫尔德与黑格尔等人传承下来”。这些只是偶尔提及马克思与赫尔德关系的成果虽然从不同方面指认了赫尔德对马克思的影响，但没有详细阐明这种思想影响所涉及的具体内容。事实上，这些成果不是解答了如上疑问，而是加深了这些疑问。虽然诺伊斯（J.K.Noyes）从系谱学和理论主题两个角度详细分析了赫尔德与马克思的内在思想关联，但这类尝试性的重要工作极其有限，远不能使问题变得更加清晰。

It is worthwhile to think further along the directions indicated by these works. On the one hand, from the perspective of intellectual history, we should clarify through which spiritual channels Herder indeed provided inspiration and resources for Marx’s observations and thinking. On the other hand, from the perspective of textual studies, we should clarify that traces of Herder’s thought do indeed exist in Marx’s writings. This tentative work only intends to prove that Herder did influence Marx in certain respects, and does not intend to elucidate the breadth or depth of this influence. Even so, this work still runs great risks, not only because the intellectual connection between Marx and Herder is extremely fragile, but also because the textual evidence supporting this fragile connection is extremely scarce.

不妨沿着这些成果指明的方向进一步思考。一方面从思想史的角度阐明赫尔德通过哪些精神通道确确实实为马克思的观察和思考提供了灵感和资源。另一方面，从文本学的角度阐明在马克思的思想中确实存在着赫尔德思想的痕迹。这项尝试性的工作只打算证明赫尔德确实在某些方面影响了马克思，并不打算阐明这种影响的广度和深度。即使如此，这项工作仍然要冒巨大的风险，不仅因为马克思与赫尔德之间的思想关联是极为脆弱的，而且因为支撑这种脆弱关联的文本学证据是极为匮乏的。

I. The Channel of Dialogue between Marx and Herder

一、马克思与赫尔德的对话通道

Herder was born in 1744 and died in 1803. Marx was born in 1818 and could not have had direct contact with Herder. However, Marx clearly knew of Herder and had read some of his works. During his time at the University of Bonn, Marx was deeply influenced by Romanticism, developed a liking for poetry, and expressed his feelings for Jenny through poetry. But by the end of 1837, he abandoned poetry and turned to folk songs. He followed the widespread interest of the time in folk poetry, believing that folk songs were the expression of a primitive, authentic national spirit. In 1839, Marx, still in Berlin, compiled a collection of folk songs for Jenny, who also loved folk songs. An important source for this collection was Herder’s European folk song collection *Stimmen der Völker in Liedern* (Voices of the Peoples in Songs) [8]8 Herder’s collection *Stimmen der Völker in Liedern* (1778-1779) was a pioneering anthology of folk songs from various cultures, reflecting his interest in the expression of national spirit through popular poetry.. Marx not only drew some titles from it but was also deeply influenced by Herder’s principles of classification and arrangement of folk songs in the collection. In his 1842 work *The Philosophical Manifesto of the Historical School of Law*, while criticizing Gustav Hugo, a representative of the Historical School of Law, Marx cited Herder’s view that “natural man is a poet, and the sacred books of primitive peoples are collections of poems,” pointing out that each era has its own distinct character, and the unique character of the eighteenth century was fiction [9]9 Gustav Hugo (1764-1844) was a German jurist and a leading figure of the Historical School of Law, which argued that law develops organically from the historical spirit of a people, opposing rationalist natural law theories.. Herder’s literary views of this kind are scattered in works such as *Fragments on Recent German Literature*, *On the German-Oriental Poets*, and *The Spirit of Hebrew Poetry*. This indicates that Marx likely read one or more of these works and was familiar with their views. When Marx turned to the study of political economy in 1844, Herder did not leave Marx’s intellectual stage. In order to conduct a comprehensive and realistic investigation of the history of European economic formation and development, Marx extensively read works on philosophy, economics, politics, history, and culture between 1844 and 1847. According to the book catalogue recorded in Marx’s *Notebooks of 1844-1847*, the books Marx intended to read included Herder’s historical-philosophical work *Ideen zur Philosophie der Geschichte der Menschheit* (Outlines of a Philosophy of the History of Man) and the romantic narrative work *Der Cid* [10]10 Herder’s *Ideen zur Philosophie der Geschichte der Menschheit* (1784-1791) is a major work of Enlightenment philosophy of history, arguing for the unity of humanity and the progressive development of human capacities. *Der Cid* (1805) is a collection of Spanish romances translated and adapted by Herder.. There is evidence that Marx not only read these two books but was quite familiar with their content. In a letter to Engels dated February 29, 1856, while discussing Dobrovský’s *Slavism*, Marx naturally pointed out that the descriptions of the Slavic peoples in it were extracted from Herder’s *Ideen zur Philosophie der Geschichte der Menschheit*. In a letter to Marx dated August 25, 1877, Engels fluently and effortlessly quoted an expression from Chapter 28 of Herder’s *Der Cid*: “the proud Cid,” without indicating the source. This shows that Engels was very familiar with some of Herder’s works and knew that Marx was equally familiar with them, thus believing that Marx would understand the meaning of the quotation. In fact, Herder’s works had become part of Marx’s private library, which he consulted and studied carefully. In a letter to Engels dated February 27, 1861, complaining about the robbery of his books left in Cologne, Marx lamented: “All the works of Fourier, as well as Goethe, Heine, and Voltaire, were stolen, and worst of all for me, *The Economists of the Eighteenth Century* (the latest edition, for which I paid about five hundred francs), many volumes of the Greek classical writers, and many individual volumes of other collections were stolen.”

赫尔德出生于1744年，逝世于1803年。马克思出生于1818年，不可能与赫尔德有直接的接触。不过，马克思显然知道赫尔德，而且阅读过他的部分作品。马克思在波恩大学期间深受浪漫主义的影响，喜欢上了诗歌，并通过诗歌来表达对燕妮的情感。但是到了1837年底，他放弃了诗歌，转向了民歌。他追随了那个时代对民间诗歌的广泛兴趣，认为民间诗歌是原始的、真实的民族精神的表现。1839年，马克思在柏林还为同样喜欢民歌的燕妮编纂了一本民歌集。这本集子的一个重要来源是赫尔德的欧洲民歌集《歌曲中各民族的声音》（Stimmen der Völker in Liedern）。马克思不仅从中抽取了一些标题，而且在集子中对民歌的分类和编排原则也深受赫尔德的影响。在1842年的《历史法学派的哲学宣言》中，马克思在批判历史法学派的代表人物胡果时援引了赫尔德“自然人都是诗人，原始民族的圣书都是诗集”的观点，指出每个时代都有其不同的性质，而18世纪的独特性质是虚构。赫尔德的这种文艺观散落于《论德国文学片断》《论德国——东方的诗人》《希伯来诗歌的精神》等作品中。这表明，马克思很有可能阅读过其中的某部或某些作品，并对其观点有所了解。当1844年马克思转向政治经济学研究后，赫尔德也没有离开马克思的思想舞台。为了对欧洲经济形成和发展的历史有一个全面的现实的考察，马克思在1844年到1847年这段时期内广泛阅读了哲学、经济、政治、历史、文化等方面的著作。根据马克思《1844—1847年笔记》所记载的图书目录来看，马克思要阅读的书就包括赫尔德的历史哲学著作《人类历史哲学观念》（Ideen zur Philos, d. Geschichte）和浪漫叙事作品《西得》（Cid）。有证据表明，马克思不仅阅读了这两本书，而且对其内容相当了解。在1856年2月29日致恩格斯的信中，马克思在谈到多勃罗夫斯基著的《斯拉夫学》时很是自然地指出，其中关于斯拉夫各民族的描述摘自赫尔德的《人类历史哲学观念》。在1877年8月25日致马克思的信中，恩格斯熟练自如地引用了赫尔德《西得》第28章中的表述：“骄傲的西得”，且未标明出处。这表明恩格斯对赫尔德的部分作品非常熟悉，而且知道马克思对赫尔德作品的熟悉程度，因而相信他能够理解引述的意义。实际上，赫尔德的著作已经成为马克思随时翻阅并认真研读的私人藏书。在1861年2月27日致恩格斯的信中，就自己留在科伦的藏书遭到抢劫一事，马克思埋怨道：“傅立叶以及歌德、海德、伏尔泰的著作全部被偷走，而对我来说最糟的是，《十八世纪的经济学家》（最新版本，我大约花了五百法郎）、希腊古典作家的许多卷书和其他文集的许多单卷都被偷走了。”

The role played by other contemporary theorists who loosely collected Herder’s important ideas in the indirect intellectual dialogue between Marx and Herder should not be underestimated. Berlin once stated that Herder influenced “writers such as Schlegel, Jacob Grimm (especially in their linguistic essays), Savigny (who applied Herder’s concept of organic state growth to law), Görres (whose nationalism was rooted in Herder’s vision, albeit distorted), Hegel (whose concepts of the formation, growth, and character of impersonal institutions were born on Herder’s pages), as well as historical geographers, social anthropologists, linguistic philosophers, historical philosophers, and historical writers of the 19th and 20th centuries.” [11]11 Isaiah Berlin, *Vico and Herder: Two Studies in the History of Ideas* (London: Hogarth Press, 1976), p. 157. Given the breadth of this influence, it is realistic to speak in a typical sense of which theorists unconsciously served as intermediaries in the spiritual intercourse between Herder and Marx. First, Hegel, who had a major impact on the formation and development of Marx’s thought, must be mentioned. Undoubtedly, Hegel had a direct intellectual connection with his great predecessor Herder. As early as his student days in Stuttgart, Hegel read Herder’s works, affirmed Herder’s view—then current—that modern society was split into class antagonisms and thus unable to integrate common interests, and hoped to overcome this split through the application of Kant’s moral religion. [12]12 This refers to Herder’s critique of modern social fragmentation, which Hegel encountered in his early studies. His views on the cultural-religious history of the Jews and Greeks were based on Herder’s creative understanding of national character and cultural difference. Hegel also inherited from Herder the ideas that “man is born belonging to society,” “man is a product of history,” and “the development of the individual recapitulates the history of the human race.” [13]13 These are paraphrases of Herder’s historicist and organicist views on human development, as found in works like *Outlines of a Philosophy of the History of Man*. It could even be said that the formation of Hegel’s dialectical thought was, to a considerable extent, derived from the transformation and synthesis of intellectual elements inherited from Herder. From this perspective, the intellectual legacy Hegel left to Marx is by no means limited to the dialectic that seems uniquely Hegelian; it also includes parts of Herder’s thought wrapped in dialectical form, though these contents are difficult to fully extract. And it was precisely the rich intellectual content provided by a host of pre-Hegelian thinkers, including Herder, that prepared the theoretical ground for Marx to strip away the false cloak of German ideology and come into contact with real history. Second, Feuerbach, who was also of great importance to the formation of Marx’s thought, must be mentioned. Herder’s influence on Feuerbach was enormous. As a young man, Feuerbach read Herder’s *Letters on the Study of Theology* while preparing to enter the theological faculty at the University of Heidelberg. [14]14 *Briefe, das Studium der Theologie betreffend* (1780-1781), a work by Herder on theological study. Feuerbach was attracted by Herder’s sensuous, human philosophy and benefited greatly from Herder’s view that religious questions were, in the final analysis, anthropological questions. He believed that this philosophy truly represented the future of philosophy. He regarded Herder as his teacher, praised him without reservation as “the priest and prophet of humanity,” and invited speculative philosophers to be baptized by him. [15]15 Feuerbach’s characterization of Herder appears in his early writings, reflecting his admiration for Herder’s human-centered philosophy. Thus, it is not entirely coincidental that Herder’s son became one of Feuerbach’s closest correspondents, nor is it accidental that a strong intellectual affinity can be discovered between Feuerbach and Herder. When Marx turned to Feuerbach and entered into dialogue with him, was he not also, through Feuerbach, in dialogue with Herder? Finally, the hidden mediating role of other contemporary thinkers who had direct or indirect dealings with Marx but are often overlooked cannot be ignored. For example, Savigny, the founder of the Historical School of Law. Marx majored in law at university. During his time at the University of Berlin, he systematically “studied Savigny’s work on the right of possession” and other related works. [16]16 Marx studied Savigny’s *Das Recht des Besitzes* (The Right of Possession) as part of his legal studies at the University of Berlin. The realist content in Savigny’s doctrine played an important role in stimulating and promoting the young Marx to break free from the troubles of idealism. Savigny believed that the secret of law lay in the history of each nation. This view undoubtedly came from Herder, who played a foundational role in the establishment of the German Historical School and the growth of German nationalism. Another example is Goethe, the leading figure of the German *Sturm und Drang* movement, and Eduard Gans, the spiritual leader of the Young Hegelians. The former was a student of Herder, deeply influenced by him, and was also an author Marx liked and was familiar with. The latter was a reader of Herder, taught Marx jurisprudence at the University of Berlin, and had a profound impact on the development of Marx’s early thought.

其他一些将赫尔德的重要思想松散地收集起来的同时代理论家在马克思与赫尔德的间接思想对话中发挥的作用不可小觑。伯林曾讲道，赫尔德对“施莱格尔、雅各布·格林（尤其是在他们的语言学杂文中）、萨维尼（他把赫尔德有机的国家成长观念应用于法律）、格雷斯（他的民族主义根植于赫尔德的视野中，尽管对其有所歪曲）、黑格尔（他关于非人身关系的制度的形成、成长和特征的概念降生于赫尔德的书页中）等作家，以及19世纪和20世纪的历史地理学家、社会人类学家、语言哲学家、历史哲学家和历史作家”都产生了影响。考虑到这种影响的广泛性，在典型的意义上谈论哪些理论家不自觉地充当着赫尔德与马克思精神交往的中介是现实的。首先，不得不提对马克思思想的形成与发展产生重大影响的黑格尔。无疑，黑格尔和他的伟大前辈赫尔德有着直接的思想联系。黑格尔早在斯图亚特读书时便读过赫尔德的作品，对其提出并在当时流行的现代社会分裂为阶级对立因而无法整合共同利益的观点表示肯定，并希望通过运用康德的道德宗教来克服这种分裂。他对犹太和希腊的文化-宗教史的观点便是基于赫尔德关于民族特性与文化差异性的创造性理解。黑格尔也从赫尔德那里继承了“人生来是属于社会的”“人是历史的产物”“个体的发展概括地再现了人类的历史”的观点。甚至可以说，黑格尔辩证法思想的形成在相当程度上源于对承继自赫尔德的思想要素的改造和综合。由此来看，黑格尔留给马克思的思想遗产决不限于似乎独属于黑格尔的辩证法，同时包括以辩证法的形式包裹的部分赫尔德的思想内容，只不过这些内容很难完全被剥离出来。而恰恰是包括赫尔德在内的一众前黑格尔思想家所提供的丰富思想内容为马克思解除德意志意识形态的虚假外衣并接触到真实的历史提供了理论准备。其次，需要提到同样对马克思的思想形成具有重要意义的费尔巴哈。赫尔德对费尔巴哈的影响是巨大的。费尔巴哈在年轻时就读过赫尔德的《神学研究书简》，当时，他正为进入海德堡大学神学院做准备。费尔巴哈为赫尔德感性的、属人的哲学所吸引，从赫尔德的宗教问题归根结底是人类学问题的观点中受益良多。他相信这种哲学才真正代表哲学的未来。他将赫尔德视为自己的老师，不无赞誉地称其为“人类的祭司和预言家”，并邀请那些思辨的哲学家接受其洗礼。因此，赫尔德的儿子成为费尔巴哈最亲密的通信者之一就不完全是巧合，在费尔巴哈与赫尔德之间发现某种强烈的思想亲缘性也并非偶然。当马克思转向费尔巴哈并与之展开对话时，他何尝不是通过费尔巴哈与赫尔德在进行对话。最后，不能忽视其他一些曾经通过直接或间接的方式与马克思打过交道但常被忽略的同时代思想家发挥的隐性中介作用。比如，历史法学派的创始人萨维尼。马克思在大学期间主修的是法律。他在柏林大学期间系统地“研究了萨维尼论占有权的著作”以及其他相关著作。萨维尼学说中的现实主义内容对青年马克思摆脱唯心主义的困扰起了重要的刺激和推动作用。萨维尼认为，法的秘密在各个民族的历史之中。而这种观点无疑来自对德国历史学派的建立和德国民族主义的成长发挥了奠基作用的赫尔德。再比如，德国“狂飙突进运动”的主将歌德和德国青年黑格尔派的精神领袖爱德华·甘斯。前者是赫尔德的学生，深受赫尔德的影响，也是马克思喜欢和熟悉的作家。后者是赫尔德的读者，曾在柏林大学为马克思讲授法学课程，对马克思早期思想的发展产生了深刻的影响。

In fact, Herder, who had long been assimilated into the spirit of the age, could not have failed to influence Marx, even if this influence is difficult to articulate theoretically. Herder was not only the first thinker to use the concept of “spirit of the age” (*Zeitgeist*) in the German language but also one of the great thinkers who stood at the forefront of the times and participated in shaping that spirit. Goethe said that Herder “appeared ahead of his time… as if he had to drag the age along with him.” [17]17 Goethe’s remark on Herder is recorded in his conversations and autobiographical writings. Although Nietzsche accused Herder of not being a truly great thinker, he had to admit that Herder was “an ambitious priest who wanted to be the spiritual pope of his age,” possessing “the keenest nose to detect and pluck the earliest ripe fruit of a season before anyone else.” [18]18 Nietzsche’s critique of Herder appears in his *Untimely Meditations* and other works. Herder could not bear the fragmentation of the entire world, could not bear mechanistic explanations, could not bear the loss of the meaning of life. He transformed speculative learning into anthropology, proposed nationalism and historicism, and restored the value of humanism. His thought typically expressed the spirit of that age. At the same time, his thought had long been assimilated by the age and become an indispensable part of the spirit of the age. This explains why Herder’s “influence on the literature and philosophy of the 19th and 20th centuries is ubiquitous.” [19]19 This is a general scholarly observation about Herder’s lasting influence.

事实上，早已融入时代精神的赫尔德不可能不对马克思产生影响，即使这种影响很难通过理论的方式言说。赫尔德不仅是第一个用德语形式来使用“时代精神”概念的思想家，而且也是最早站在时代前列并参与时代精神塑造的伟大思想家之一。歌德说，赫尔德“出现时是走在时代前面的······仿佛不得不拖着时代”跟他走。尽管尼采指责赫尔德并非一位真正伟大的思想家，但他不得不承认，赫尔德是位“想成为他那个时代的精神教皇”的“雄心勃勃的神甫”，“有着最敏锐的嗅觉，能比所有人都更早地发现并摘取一个季节最早成熟的果实”。赫尔德无法忍受整个世界的分裂，无法忍受机械论的解释，无法忍受生活意义的丧失。他将思辨之学转为人类学，提出民族主义和历史主义，恢复人道主义价值。他的思想典型地表达了那个时代的精神。同时，他的思想也早已为时代同化，成为时代精神的不可或缺的一部分。这就解释了为什么赫尔德“对19和20世纪文学和哲学的影响比比皆是”。

II. Herder’s Influence on Marx

二、赫尔德对马克思的影响

Herder extensively explored philosophy, language, literature, art, religion, politics, history, and other fields, and achieved accomplishments in many of them. Obviously, discussing these various views in a general way and linking them to Marx’s thought is not only impossible but also problematic. Therefore, it is necessary to enter Herder’s intellectual world, extract and refine those views that run through different fields, are revolutionary in the history of thought, and occupy a core position in his intellectual content, and then compare and analyze them with Marx’s thought, in order to objectively present the intellectual connection between the two. This still preliminary attempt is based on the consideration that if Herder was the first to propose a certain view that was paradigmatic and revolutionary for later research, then regardless of the means by which this view was transmitted to Marx, and regardless of the form it took in Marx’s thought, this view can be counted as part of Herder’s intellectual legacy, even if Marx never explicitly acknowledged it.

赫尔德广泛涉猎哲学、语言、文学、艺术、宗教、政治、历史等各个领域，而且在诸多领域皆有建树。显然，泛泛地谈论这些不同的观点并将其与马克思的思想联系起来，不仅是不可能的，而且是成问题的。因此，有必要进入赫尔德思想世界中，将贯穿于不同领域的、在思想史上具有革命性的、在思想内容中居于核心地位的观点抽取和提炼出来，并与马克思的思想做一比对和分析，以客观呈现二者之间的思想关联。这一仍是初步的尝试所基于的考虑是，如果赫尔德在当时率先提出了某个对后来的研究具有典范性和革命性意义的观点，那么无论这种观点是通过什么方式传到马克思那里，无论这种观点在马克思那里以何种形态呈现，这种观点都可以算作赫尔德的思想遗产，尽管马克思并未给予明确的承认。

First, the influence of Herder’s philosophy of the human being on Marx. Herder’s philosophy is closely bound up with his unique understanding of the human being. Although Herder never gave a clear definition or exposition of the essence of the human being, the following view is in any case foundational for his anthropological construction: unlike other species, the human being possesses “humanity,” but “humanity” is not an abstract essence constructed by reason and detached from the empirical world; rather, it encompasses all the powers that human beings have conferred upon themselves, concretely manifested as “the whole range of the effectiveness” of these powers. Herder’s classic formulation is that the distinction between human beings and beasts lies in the fact that “the capacity to represent the invisible as visible, and power as effect, elevates them into higher rational creatures.” [20]20 Johann Gottfried Herder, *Ideen zur Philosophie der Geschichte der Menschheit*, cited in the original text. One could also say that Herder does not acknowledge any fixed essence of the human being; what nature gives to human beings is merely certain potentialities or tendencies, and human beings are compelled to express and shape themselves through their own actions. Herder figuratively compares humanity to “a lump of soft clay, which is molded into different shapes by different conditions, needs, and pressures.” [21]21 Johann Gottfried Herder, *Auch eine Philosophie der Geschichte zur Bildung der Menschheit*, cited in the original text. This contains what Charles Taylor calls the “expressivist” view, “which was taken up not only by the Romantic writers, but also, in another direction, by Goethe and Hegel, and which has become a continuous stream in modern culture”: [22]22 Charles Taylor, *Hegel*, cited in the original text. the nature of the human being requires that he must express himself, confirm himself through expression, and gradually realize himself; in short, the nature of the human being is expression. If what the essence of the human being expresses is history, then one can also say that the nature of the human being is history. The revolutionary character of this view lies in the fact that it partly affirms the power of agency rooted in human nature, and partly affirms the objective world into which this power is externalized, thereby revealing the dialectic of human existence. This makes it possible to incorporate human freedom, the objectified world, and the dialectical relationship between the two into the scope of human self-understanding.

第一，赫尔德的人的哲学对马克思的影响。赫尔德的哲学与他对人的独特理解密切相关。尽管赫尔德未对人的本质给出明确的界定和阐释，但如下观点无论如何对他的人类学建构是基础性的：与其他物种不同，人具有“人性”，但“人性”不是理性建构的、脱离经验世界的抽象本质，而是包含了人们所赋予自己的所有力量，具体表现为这些力量的“效用的全部范围”。赫尔德的经典表述是：人类与兽类的区别在于，“他们将不可见表象为可见，将力量表象为结果的能力，才抬高他们成为更高级的理性造物”。也可以说，赫尔德不承认人有什么固定的本质，自然给予人的只是某种潜能或倾向，人不得不通过自己的行动来表现和塑造自己。赫尔德形象地将人性比作“一团软的黏土，不同的条件、需要和压力，就被塑造为不同的形状”。这里包含着查尔斯·泰勒所认为的“不仅为浪漫主义的作者们所采纳，而且从另一个方向为歌德和黑格尔所采纳，并且成为现代文化的一条连绵不断的渊流”的“表现主义”观点：人的本性要求他不得不表现自己，通过表现来确证自身，并逐步地实现自身，概言之，人的本性即表现，如果说人的本质表现出来的是历史，那么也可以说，人的本性即历史。这种观点的革命性在于：既部分肯定了源自人性深处的能动性力量，也部分肯定了这种力量外化的对象世界，揭示了人的存在的辩证法，由此将人的自由、对象化世界以及二者的辩证关系共同纳入关于自身的认知范围内成为可能。

This philosophical-anthropological view profoundly influenced Hegel and Feuerbach. The absolute spirit in Hegel’s account must constantly confirm and realize itself through externalization. For Feuerbach, “the object with which the subject necessarily enters into an essential relation is nothing other than the subject’s own inherent yet objective essence.” [23]23 Ludwig Feuerbach, *Principles of the Philosophy of the Future*, cited in the original text. Marx primarily absorbed this basic expressivist view or mode of thinking through Hegel and Feuerbach. As early as the *Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844*, Marx elaborated in detail his own theory of objectification, which is akin to expressivism. In his view, the human being possesses a species-being distinct from animals, and this essence is not a rigid determination bestowed by some absolute, but rather free, conscious activity—that is, the activity of constantly objectifying one’s own powers and confirming and expressing those powers in the objectified world. Without this objectifying activity that seeks expression, nature would be nothing for the human being, and the human being himself would be merely an abstract existence. Marx’s formulation is: “To say that man is a corporeal, living, real, sensuous, objective being with natural powers means that he has real, sensuous objects as the objects of his being, or that he can only express his life in real, sensuous objects.” [24]24 Karl Marx, *Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844*, cited in the original text. Since the human being must produce his life in a certain way, the human being therefore has a history, and the human being and history are dialectically unified. What the human being is like depends on what the objects he deals with are like, and on what the history he produces is like. “As individuals express their life, so they are. What they are, therefore, coincides with their production—both with *what* they produce and with *how* they produce.” [25]25 Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, *The German Ideology*, cited in the original text. This view constitutes one of the basic principles of historical materialism, serving to explain the dialectical interaction and common tendency between the human being and his conditions of life. At times, Marx even understood objectification more broadly as a relationship of expression between things and things. In his view, there is also a relationship of mutual expression and confirmation between the “sun” and the “plant.” In *Capital*, Marx partly reveals the secret and fate of capitalism by analyzing the relationships of mutual expression among the categories of commodity, money, capital, and so on.

这种哲学人类学观点深刻地影响了黑格尔和费尔巴哈。黑格尔笔下的绝对精神必须通过不断的外化来确证和实现自身。费尔巴哈眼中的“主体必然与其发生本质关系的那个对象，不外是这个主体固有而又客观的本质”。马克思主要通过黑格尔和费尔巴哈将这种表现主义的基本观点或思维方式接受下来。早在《1844年经济学哲学手稿》中，马克思便详细阐述了他的类似表现主义的对象化理论。在他看来，人具有区别于动物的类本质，而这种本质不是被某种绝对者给予的僵死的规定性，而是自由的有意识的活动，也即不断地将自己的力量对象化并在对象化世界中确证和表现这种力量的活动。如果没有这种意欲表现的对象化活动，自然界对人而言不过是存在的无，而人自身也不过是抽象的存在。马克思的讲法是，“说人是肉体的、有自然力的、有生命的、现实的、感性的、对象性的存在物，这就等于说，人有现实的、感性的对象作为自己本质的即自己生命表现的对象；或者说，人只有凭借现实的、感性的对象才能表现自己的生命”。既然人不得不以一定的方式生产自己的生命，那么人也就有了历史，而且人与历史是辩证统一的。人是什么样的，在于他打交道的对象是什么样的，在于他所生产的历史是什么样的。“个人怎样表现自己的生命，他们自己就是怎样。因此，他们是什么样的，这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。”这种观点构成历史唯物主义的基本原理之一，以便说明人与其生活条件的辩证作用和共同趋向。有时候，马克思甚至将对象化更广泛地理解为事物与事物之间的表现关系。在他看来，在“太阳”与“植物”之间也存在着一种相互表现和确证的关系。在《资本论》中，马克思部分地通过分析商品、货币、资本等各个范畴的相互表现关系来揭示资本主义的秘密和命运。

Second, the influence of Herder’s philosophy of language on Marx. Herder’s contribution to the philosophy of language is groundbreaking. It can be said that he “founded modern philosophy of language.” [26]26 Charles Taylor, *Hegel*, cited in the original text. Two revolutionary works are relevant here. The first is that he proposed and theoretically demonstrated the identity of thought and language—that is, thought is essentially dependent on language and constrained by it. In other words, without language, the human being would be unable to think, and the human being can only think what can be expressed in language. In his prize-winning 1772 essay *On the Origin of Language*, Herder argued from a naturalistic perspective that the human being generated language through his own means, and that once language was generated, the human being had to actually employ reason. From the moment the human being exists, reason and language are fused together as “the natural essence of the human being.” The moment the first act of thinking occurs is also the moment language is generated. Herder says: “Without language, the human being has no reason, and without reason, no language.” [27]27 Johann Gottfried Herder, *Treatise on the Origin of Language*, cited in the original text. Once Herder combined the question of the origin of language with the cognitive function of language, the question of language was transformed into an anthropological question. This leads to his second work, namely, revealing the quasi-materialist content of language from an anthropological perspective. Herder begins his account of the origin of language with the distinction between human beings and animals. He points out a biological and ontological fact about human existence: the human being is a fragile being. Animals have acute senses (“specialized and refined”), a narrow sphere of activity, and neither need nor can create language. The human being’s senses are far less acute than those of animals; precisely for this reason, the human being attains freedom, and precisely because his powers can be freely exercised, he creates language. It should be noted that the free activity of the human being that Herder mentions is essentially social activity. To say that the human being is a free being and therefore creates language (what Herder calls the “first natural law” of the origin of language) and to say that the human being is a social being and therefore creates language (what Herder calls the “second natural law” of the origin of language) are merely different expressions of the same question. This in fact affirms both the natural basis of the origin of language and, in part, its social basis. Herder concludes: “This origin is by no means superhuman; on the contrary, it is clearly animal. It is the natural law of a machine sensitive to impressions.” [28]28 Ibid. Herder also places great importance on the role of the senses in the formation and development of language. “Every abstraction in the spiritual kingdom of the human mind is prompted by a particular occasion and formed through the excitation of the senses; therefore, every language is also an abstraction formed through sound and sensation.” [29]29 Ibid. The strength of sensory capacity is directly proportional to the creative power of language; primitive peoples, because of their rich sensory life, possessed an extraordinary capacity for linguistic creation and beautiful, vivid language that is no longer seen today. Different “sensory-circles” have different ways of life and therefore different languages. Herder was primarily concerned with revealing the fundamental differences that may exist in the structures of ideas of different regions and different epochs. This philosophy of language, fundamentally distinct from the “theory of the divine origin of language” and grounded in an anthropological standpoint, exerted a decisive influence on German Romanticism and German classical philosophy.

第二，赫尔德的语言哲学对马克思的影响。赫尔德在语言哲学方面的贡献是开创性的。可以说，他“创立了现代语言哲学”。这里相关的是两项革命性工作。第一项工作是他提出并从理论上论证了思维和语言的同一性关系，即思维在本质上依赖于语言并受语言的约束。换言之，如果没有语言，人将无法思维，并且人只能思维可以用语言表达的事物。在1772年的获奖论文《论语言的起源》中，赫尔德从自然主义的角度论证到，人通过自己的手段生成了语言，而只要生成语言，人就必须实际运用理性。从人存在之时，理性与语言便作为“人的自然本质”胶着在一起。第一个思考活动发生的那一刻，也是语言生成的那一刻。赫尔德说：“没有语言，人就没有理性，而没有理性，也就没有语言。”一旦赫尔德将语言的起源问题与语言的认知功能结合起来，语言问题便被转化为人类学问题。这就涉及他的第二项工作，即从人类学的角度揭示了语言的准唯物主义内涵。赫尔德从人与动物的区别开始讲语言的起源。他指出了一个关于人类存在的生物学和本体论事实，即人是脆弱的存在。动物感官敏锐（“专而精”），活动领域狭小，无须也无法创造语言。人的感官远不如动物的灵敏，正因如此，人才获得了自由，也正因为他的力量能够自由地发挥，他才创造了语言。应该注意的是，赫尔德所提到的人的自由活动本质上是社会活动。说人是自由的存在因而创造了语言（赫尔德所讲的语言起源的“第一条自然规律”）与说人是社会的存在因而创造了语言（赫尔德所讲的语言起源的“第二条自然规律”）不过是同一个问题在不同方面的表达。这实际上既肯定了语言起源的自然基础，也部分地肯定了语言起源的社会基础。赫尔德总结道：“这种起源非但谈不上超人的，而且显然是动物的。这就是一架敏于感受的机器的自然规律。”赫尔德也非常看重感官在语言的形成和发展过程中的作用。“人类心灵在精神王国中的任何抽象，都是由一定的时机促动，通过感官的激发而形成的，所以，任何语言也都是通过声音和感觉而形成的一种抽象。”感觉能力的强弱与语言的创造力是成正比的，初民因感觉丰富而有着今已不见的杰出的语言创造能力和美丽生动的语言；不同的“感觉-圈”有着不同的生活方式，因而有着不同的语言。赫尔德主要致力于揭示不同地域、不同时代的观念结构可能存在的根本性差异。这种与“语言神授论”有根本区别、基于人类学立场的语言哲学对德国浪漫主义和德国古典哲学产生了决定性的影响。

Marx discussed the question of language in a fragmentary but quite forceful manner. First, the question Marx needed to answer was what the essential determination of language is. In his view, language presupposes people’s communicative activity both on the factual level and on the logical level, and is therefore essentially a social phenomenon, possessing sociality. In *The German Ideology*, Marx points out, “Language is as old as consciousness, language is practical consciousness that exists also for other men, and for that reason alone it really exists for me personally as well; language, like consciousness, only arises from the need, the necessity, of intercourse with other men.” [30]30 Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, *The German Ideology* (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1976), p. 49. [Translator’s note: The English translation follows the standard MECW edition.] Just like consciousness, language is from the outset a social product. Because intercourse is always concrete, always that of a specific community, “language itself is the product of a community, just as from the other side it is the existence of the community, a self-evident existence, so to speak.” [31]31 Ibid., p. 51. This view can be seen as a developed version of Herder’s philosophy of language, except that in Marx’s case communicative activity is elevated to a more prominent position. Moreover, as early as in the *Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844*, Marx’s view of language based on humanist logic can also be seen as an extension of Herder’s naturalist philosophy of language. In a quasi-Herderian tone, Marx points out that language “has a sensuous character,” [32]32 Karl Marx, *Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844* (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1977), p. 138. that is, from the perspective of nature, it is a real part of the process of the humanization of nature, while from the perspective of the human being, it is the expression and confirmation of the human being’s sensuous essential powers. Engels’ description of how language arose from labor seems even more capable of proving the existence of this “extension” relationship. Second, Marx elucidated the dialectical relationship between language and thought. In Marx’s view, language and thought form an inseparable unity from the very beginning; language is the mode of existence of thought, and conversely, thought cannot do without language. In the *Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844*, based on the theory of objectification, Marx holds that language is “the element of thought itself, the element of the life-expression of thought.” [33]33 Ibid., p. 137. That is to say, language is both an internal element of thought itself and the way thought expresses itself. This view was later reaffirmed. In *The German Ideology*, from the standpoint of historical materialism, Marx points out, “The production of ideas, of conceptions, of consciousness, is at first directly interwoven with the material activity and the material intercourse of men, the language of real life.” [34]34 Marx and Engels, *The German Ideology*, p. 47. In the *Grundrisse*, while criticizing the erroneous practice of comparing money to language, Marx again emphasizes that “ideas cannot exist divorced from language.” [35]35 Karl Marx, *Grundrisse* (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1973), p. 163. He illustrates by example that if the ideas of one nation are to circulate among other nations, they must first be translated into the language of those other nations. Although Marx did not confine himself to language itself but placed the question of language on the broader stage of human history, this view can be seen as a “direct continuation of the post-Kantian ‘philosophy of language’ and German philosophy … tradition” [36]36 The source of this quotation is not identified in the original text. created by Herder.

马克思以零散却相当有力的方式论述过语言问题。其一，马克思需要回答的问题是语言的本质规定性是什么。在他看来，语言无论在事实层面还是在逻辑层面都以人们的交往活动为前提，因而本质上是一种社会现象，具有社会性。在《德意志意识形态》中，马克思指出，“语言也和意识一样，只是由于需要，由于和他人交往的迫切需要才产生的”。正如意识一样，语言一开始就是社会的产物。因为交往始终是具体的，是一定共同体的，所以“语言本身是一定共同体的产物，同样从另一方面说，语言本身就是这个共同体的存在”。这种观点可以被看作经过发展的赫尔德的语言哲学，只不过在马克思那里交往活动被提升到一个更为显著的位置。不仅如此，早在《1844年经济学哲学手稿》中，马克思基于人本主义逻辑的语言观也可以被看作赫尔德的自然主义语言哲学的延伸。马克思以类赫尔德的口吻指出，语言“具有感性的性质”，即从自然的角度看，它是自然人化过程的一个现实部分，而从人的角度看，它是人的感性的本质力量的表现和确证。恩格斯关于语言如何从劳动中产生的描述似乎更能证明这种“延伸”关系的存在。其二，马克思阐明了语言和思维的辩证关系。在马克思看来，语言和思维从一开始便形成了一个不可分割的统一体，语言是思维的存在方式，反过来，思维离不开语言。在《1844年经济学哲学手稿》中，马克思基于对象化理论认为，语言是“思维本身的要素，思想的生命表现的要素”。也就是说，语言是思维本身的内在要素，也是思想表现自身的方式。这种观点在后来得到了进一步的重申。在《德意志意识形态》中，马克思基于历史唯物主义的立场指出，“思想、观念、意识的生产最初是直接与人们的物质活动，与人们的物质交往，与现实生活的语言交织在一起的”。在《政治经济学批判大纲》中，马克思在批判将货币比作语言的错误做法时再次强调，“观念不能离开语言而存在”。他通过举例指出，一个民族的观念若要在其他民族中流通，首先就必须被翻译成其他民族的语言。虽然马克思并没有局限于语言本身，而是将语言问题放置在更广阔的人类史的舞台上，但这种观点可以被看作赫尔德创造的“后康德的‘语言哲学’和德国哲学······传统的直接继续”。

Third, the influence of Herder’s philosophy of history on Marx. In Meinecke’s view, Herder was “the most outstanding and successful thinker” among “the earliest pioneers of the new historical consciousness in the eighteenth century.” [37]37 Friedrich Meinecke, *Historism: The Rise of a New Historical Outlook* (London: Routledge, 1972), p. 297. Herder put forward his philosophy of history mainly in *Yet Another Philosophy of History* and *Outlines of a Philosophy of the History of Man*. In Herder’s view, although history differs from nature, history and nature are fused together. History cannot escape the chain of nature and must depend on it, because the history that humans participate in and shape is fundamentally nothing but the expression of humans’ natural potentialities. Therefore, “the whole history of mankind is a pure natural history of human powers, actions, and drives.” [38]38 Johann Gottfried Herder, *Outlines of a Philosophy of the History of Man* (London: J. Johnson, 1800), p. 1. For the first time in the history of thought, Herder used knowledge from fields such as biology, geology, anthropology, ethnology, geography, and mythology to tell the story of the natural origin of humanity. Just as nature has objective laws, so history has its causal laws. Although Herder invoked God to discuss the historical whole that human perception cannot touch, he clearly believed that “history is the science of what exists, not of what might exist due to a hidden design of fate.” [39]39 Johann Gottfried Herder, *Yet Another Philosophy of History*, in *Herder: Philosophical Writings*, ed. Michael N. Forster (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), p. 272. One of his main tasks was to investigate, like studying natural phenomena, the cause of each historical event, and thereby reveal the causal chain of the entire history. The materialist content of this philosophy of history was only fully revealed in Marx. At the same time, it should be noted that the historical causal chain Herder spoke of was not mechanistic but organic. In his view, historical existences are interconnected by internal forces, forming a whole, “an organic existence,” and progress along a rugged path, tending toward the realization of the organic whole. Herder liked to use the growth of living things as a metaphor for historical development. He said: “Just as the tree grows from the root, so art, language, and science grow from their source. In the seed lie the parts of the plant, in the sperm the limbs of the animal, in the origin of phenomena lies the entire treasure of interpretation, through which the explanation of phenomena becomes genetic.” [40]40 Herder, *Outlines*, p. 2. It can be said that before Hegel, Herder had already devoted himself to describing the world of nature, history, and spirit as being in a constant process of movement, change, and development, and to revealing the internal connections within it.

第三，赫尔德的历史哲学对马克思的影响。在梅尼克看来，赫尔德是“18世纪新历史意识最初的先驱者中”“最卓越的和最成功的思想家”之一。赫尔德主要在《又一种历史哲学》和《人类历史哲学观念》中提出了自己的历史哲学。在赫尔德看来，尽管历史与自然有别，但历史与自然是融合在一起的。历史无法摆脱自然链，而且不得不依赖于自然，因为人所参与和塑造的历史从根本上来说不过是人的自然潜能的表现而已。因此，“整个人类史都是人的力量、活动和习性的纯粹的自然史”。赫尔德在思想史上首次借助于生物学、地质学、人类学、民族学、地理学、神话学等领域的知识讲述了人类的自然起源故事。正如自然有客观规律，历史也有其因果规律。虽然赫尔德借助上帝来谈人的感知无法触及的历史整体，但他明确认为，“历史是关于现存事物的科学，而不是关于因隐藏的命运设计而可能存在的事物的科学”。他的一项主要工作便是像研究自然现象一样，探究每一个历史事件发生的原因，进而揭示整个历史的因果链条。这种历史哲学所具有的唯物主义内容只有在马克思那里才彻底显示出来。同时，应看到，赫尔德所讲的历史因果链并不是机械论的，而是有机论的。在他看来，历史存在之间因内在力量而相互联系，构成一个整体、“一个有机的存在”，并在坎坷的路途上实现进步，趋向于有机整体的实现。赫尔德喜欢用生物的成长来隐喻历史的发展。他说：“就像树从根部生长一样，艺术、语言和科学也是从它们的源头生长起来的。在种子中蕴藏着植物的各个部分，在精子中蕴藏着动物的四肢，在现象的起源中蕴藏着阐释的全部珍宝，通过这些珍宝，对现象的解释变成了发生学的。”可以说，在黑格尔之前，赫尔德已经致力于将自然、历史和精神的世界描写成处于不断运动、变化和发展的过程中，并致力于揭示其中的内在联系。

Herder’s naturalistic interpretation of history, his dialectical understanding of history, and his attempt to develop history into a causal science mainly influenced Marx through Hegel and Feuerbach. In the *Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844*, based on Feuerbach’s aesthetics of sensibility, Marx points out that history and nature are closely linked through human activity: all history is nothing but the dialectical process of the humanization of nature and the naturalization of the human being. “History is the true natural history of man.” [41]41 Marx, *Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844*, p. 143. This view, which is very similar to Herder’s formulation and shares common content, was retained by Marx and became one of the basic principles of the doctrine of historical materialism. The mature Marx mainly devoted himself to the study of human history, but he did not forget to understand the origin and direction of history starting from “living individuals,” from the natural conditions given to humans by the earth, and from humans’ unique qualities. Moreover, he did not forget to remind readers that “as long as men exist, the history of nature and the history of men are mutually conditioned.” [42]42 Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, *The German Ideology*, p. 43. Like Herder, Marx also regarded human history as a “natural” process manifested through complex causal relationships and governed by certain laws. For Marx, “the question is about these laws themselves, about these tendencies working with iron necessity towards inevitable results.” [43]43 Karl Marx, *Capital*, vol. 1 (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1976), p. 91. His main task was to reveal the general laws of historical development and the specific laws of capitalism, and thereby pronounce the death sentence on capitalism. For Marx, who was familiar with Hegel’s dialectics, this process was organic. Marx often compared a certain social formation to an “organism.” For example, when discussing capitalist society, he said, “The present society is no solid crystal, but an organism capable of change, and constantly engaged in a process of change.” [44]44 Ibid., p. 103. The significance of this metaphor lies in indicating both that society is a whole constituted by the interaction of its various elements, and that history is a process of constantly sublating itself through the movement of contradictions. From this organicism, one can see that Marx’s thought still retains the enduring legacy of the German *Sturm und Drang* movement [45]45 *Sturm und Drang* (Storm and Stress) was a late-18th-century German literary and artistic movement emphasizing individual subjectivity, emotion, and nature, with Herder as a key figure. led by Herder, namely, a longing for unity and totality. This was extremely evident in the young Marx. Even after founding historical materialism, Marx does not seem to have completely abandoned the view that the “interests of the species … always assert themselves at the cost of the interests of individuals.” [46]46 Karl Marx, *Theories of Surplus Value*, part 2 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1968), p. 118.

赫尔德关于历史的自然主义解释、对历史的辩证化理解以及将历史发展为因果科学的尝试主要通过黑格尔和费尔巴哈对马克思产生了影响。在《1844年经济学哲学手稿》中，马克思基于费尔巴哈的感性学指出，历史与自然通过人的活动而紧密联系：全部历史不过是自然人化和人化自然的辩证过程。“历史是人的真正的自然史。”这种与赫尔德的讲法极为相似且具有共同内容的观点被马克思保留下来，成为历史唯物主义学说的基本原理之一。成熟时期的马克思主要致力于人类史研究，但他没有忘记从“有生命的个人”出发，从地球给予人的自然条件出发，从人的独特素质出发，理解历史的起源和方向。而且他不忘提醒读者，“只要有人存在，自然史和人类史就彼此相互制约”。与赫尔德一样，马克思也将人类史看作是通过复杂的因果关系表现出来且受一定规律支配的“自然”过程。对于马克思来说，“问题在于这些规律本身，在于这些以铁的必然性发生作用并且正在实现的趋势”。他的主要工作便是揭示历史发展的一般规律和资本主义的特殊规律，进而宣判资本主义的死刑。对于熟悉黑格尔辩证法的马克思来说，这个过程是有机的。马克思常将某种社会形态比作“有机体”。比如，在谈到资本主义社会时，他说，“现在的社会不是坚实的结晶体，而是一个能够变化并且经常处于变化过程中的有机体”。这种隐喻的意义在于，既指明社会是由各要素相互作用构成的整体，又指出历史是一个因矛盾运动而不断扬弃自身的过程。从这种有机主义可以看到，马克思的思想中仍然保留着由赫尔德引领的德国“狂飙突进运动”的持久遗产，即对一种统一性和总体性的渴望。这一点在青年马克思那里表现得极为明显。即使在创立唯物史观之后，马克思似乎也没有完全放弃这样的观点，即人类“种族的利益总是要靠牺牲个体的利益来为自己开辟道路的”。

III. Anthropology and Historical Materialism

三、人类学与历史唯物主义

Although Herder from the outset did not develop his views to the extent required by Marx’s standpoint, Marx nonetheless obtained from Herder some of the intellectual inspiration and theoretical resources he needed, and he transformed and integrated them into his own problem-structure and theoretical language. These ideas, which in the vast majority of cases cannot be directly identified yet bear a kinship, seem often to emit a faint “resonance.”

尽管赫尔德从一开始并未将自己的观点发展到马克思的立场所需要的程度，但马克思从赫尔德那里多少得到了自己所需要的思想灵感和理论资源，并将其改造和糅合进自己的问题结构和理论语言中。这些在绝大多数情况下无法被直接辨认却具有亲缘性的思想观念似乎常会发出微弱的“共振”。

“Resonance” arises from “the same frequency.” The bond that truly links Marx and Herder is precisely the spirit of “history” that was about to dominate the nineteenth century. The high degree of rationalization in modern Western society and the philosophical and cultural crisis it triggered posed a common question for Marx and Herder: how to reflect on and reposition philosophy. After the legitimacy of rational philosophy was called into question, and amid deep dissatisfaction with the social and political conditions of the age, the answers they provided appear to share a similar stance. Herder detested the rational philosophy of the Enlightenment because it forgot human emotions and qualities and the vivid, rich world they manifest, and was therefore morally harmful, offering no help to people’s self-improvement and betterment in reality. For him, history was so rich and varied that any abstract generalization seemed “lifeless, fragmentary, and pale.” In his 1765 prize essay “How Philosophy Can Become More Universal and Useful for the Benefit of the People,” Herder exclaimed: “All philosophy that is to belong to the people must be people-centered… If our entire philosophy became anthropology, what fruitful new developments would not appear?” This is a quasi-empirical anthropology based on “the people,” not only a science conscious of its conditions of possibility, but also a philosophy that penetrates the historical depths of human cultural life and thereby unravels the riddle of human nature. Like Herder, Marx was also extremely averse to speculative philosophy, because it forgot the secular world and was not only unhelpful but harmful to the cause of human emancipation. He wanted philosophy to revolve around “man” and become “the revelation of man.” When Marx gradually realized that the essential determination of man fundamentally originates from his material productive activity and ultimately coincides with this activity, he began to study the real history of man’s material productive activity, hoping thereby to discover the path of man’s self-redemption. Thus, whether as anthropology or as a theory of history, a basic feature shared by both philosophies is that “philosophical statements relate to the whole of human existence, not to its fragments; at the same time, philosophical statements express human life within the scope of human life.” In other words, both Herder and Marx were committed to the unity of philosophy and life, of theory and practice. If “Herder is the originator of the secular doctrine of the unity of fact and value, theory and practice, ‘is’ and ‘ought,’ intellectual judgment and emotional activity, thought and action,” then Marx is the true actualizer of this “secular doctrine.”

“共振”是因为“同频”。将马克思与赫尔德真正联系起来的纽带恰恰是即将在19世纪占据支配地位的“历史”精神。西方近代社会的高度理性化趋势以及由此引发的哲学和文化危机为马克思与赫尔德提出的共同问题是，对哲学进行反思和重新定位。在理性哲学的合法性受到质疑之后，在对时代的社会政治状况的深深不满之中，他们提供的答案似乎有着相似的立场。赫尔德厌恶启蒙的理性哲学，因为它遗忘了人的情感和品质及其表现出来的活生生的丰富的世界，因而在道德上是有害的，无助于人们在现实中的自我提升和改善。对于他来说，历史如此丰富多彩，任何抽象的概括都显得“死气沉沉、残缺不全、苍白无力”。赫尔德在1765年的应征文《哲学如何变得更为普遍且造福于人民》中大声疾呼：“所有理应归于人民的哲学，必须以人民为中心······如果我们的整个哲学成为人类学，那还会有什么卓有成效的新发展不会出现呢？”这是一种以“人民”为基础的准经验主义的人类学，不仅是对其可能性条件有所意识的科学，而且是走向人的文化生活的历史深处进而解开人性之谜的哲学。与赫尔德一样，马克思也极为反感思辨的哲学，因为它遗忘了世俗世界，不仅无助于人的解放事业，而且对之有害。他想要哲学围绕“人”旋转，使其成为“人的启示”。当马克思逐步意识到人的本质规定性从根本上源于其物质生产活动并最终和这种活动相一致时，他开始研究人的物质生产活动的现实的历史，希望由此发现人的自我拯救之路。可见，不论是作为人类学的哲学还是作为历史理论的哲学共有的一个基本特征是，“哲学陈述相关于人的存在整体，而非其碎片；同时，哲学陈述在人的生活范围内表达人的生命”。换言之，赫尔德与马克思都致力于哲学与生活、理论与实践的统一。如果说“赫尔德是事实和价值、理论和实践、‘是’和‘应当’、理智判断和情感活动、思想和行动相互统一的世俗学说的发起人”，那么马克思则是这种“世俗学说”的真正实现者。

Herder’s quasi-realist stance produced many valuable intellectual treasures. Anthropology is the overarching problematic of Herder’s philosophy, and the construction of anthropology was the lifelong pursuit of Herder’s career. This anthropology, which even “deliberately” appears in a non-systematic form, largely eliminated the illusion of historical identity. For him, man is in essence familiar yet cannot be conceptualized; the measure of man is not universal or trans-spatial-temporal; man’s secret lies in his sensuous form, in his temporality. Herder granted a unique status and an inalienable value to the different modes of existence that man presents in the adventure of time. Herder suggested that to truly understand man, one must enter into and genuinely “understand” the “spirit” or cultural life of each epoch and each nation. And to understand different “spirits,” he also sought answers from the origins of nature. It can be said that Herder’s anthropology is permeated by a determination to break through all ideology and to touch real existence. According to Althusser’s formulation, Marx “retreated back” to Herder precisely in order, through him, to “touch things themselves and real history.”

赫尔德的准现实主义立场生产了许多珍贵的思想财富。人类学是赫尔德哲学的总问题，人类学建构是赫尔德终生追求的事业。这种甚至“刻意”以非系统形式出现的人类学在很大程度上消除了历史同一性的幻觉。在他那里，人在本质上是熟悉的，无法被概念化的；人的尺度不是普遍的、跨时空的；人的秘密就在他的感性形象中，就在他的时间性之中。赫尔德赋予人在时间历险中呈现的不同存在样态以独一无二的地位和不可剥夺的价值。赫尔德建议，若要真正了解人，就必须进入并真正“理解”每个时代和每个民族的“精神”或文化生活。而为了理解不同的“精神”，他也从自然的起源处寻找答案。可以说，赫尔德的人类学贯穿着一种破除一切意识形态、接触现实存在的决心。按照阿尔都塞的讲法，马克思“重新退回”到赫尔德那里，正是为了通过他而“接触事物本身和真实历史”。

However, Herder did not regard man as “sensuous activity,” nor did he fully examine man and his history from the perspective of man’s real social relations, from the surrounding material conditions that give man his actuality. Consequently, he was unable to clearly focus his description and explanation of historical things under the light of history and to explain the complex structure and process of history at a scientific level. In details that the senses cannot reach, Herder’s rich imagination often gained the upper hand, mixed with conjecture and confusion; in aspects of the whole that the senses cannot reach, he often resorted to God, sometimes in a revelatory sense, sometimes in a deistic sense. Thus, Herder’s anthropology still did not fully escape the metaphysical shackles of Enlightenment rational philosophy, and was compelled to resort to metaphysics to participate in its own intellectual construction. On this point, Meinecke not unjustly pointed out: “Herder lacked the power of sensibility to observe life and historical formations in their thoroughly concrete determinacy and in the naked actuality of nature-spirit. He lacked a sense of reality and empirical feeling.” This makes it easy to understand why his anthropological system contained too many contradictory tensions. He opposed abstracting man’s rich vital existence, yet he still, consciously or unconsciously, conquered the diversity of life through some ineffable category of human nature. Although his anthropology revealed different human motives, rich cultural conditions, and unique modes of existence, it also displayed God’s universal, absolute will, as if human history “became a stage for God, even if what we see is only the opening and closing of individual scenes.” Although his anthropology pointed out and analyzed the influence of certain objective conditions (geography, tradition, customs, emotions, language, etc.) on specific groups of people, he overestimated the role of spirit, as if “understanding organized all states of human life into a continuous unity.” Instances of this kind are numerous and cannot be enumerated one by one.

但是，赫尔德没有将人看作“感性活动”，没有完全从人的现实的社会关系，从使人具有现实性的周围的物质条件来考察人及其历史。因而，他也就无法将他对历史事物的描述和解释清晰地聚焦于历史光线之下，并在一个科学的高度解释历史的复杂结构和过程。在感性无法触及的细节方面，赫尔德丰富的想象常常会占据上风，其中夹杂着猜测和混乱；在感性无法触及的整体方面，他往往会求助于上帝，有时是启示意义上的，有时是自然神论意义上的。可见，赫尔德的人类学仍未完全摆脱启蒙理性哲学的形而上学桎梏，并不得不求助于形而上学来参与自己的思想建构。对此，梅尼克不无公正地指出：“赫尔德缺乏感性的力量，不能在彻底具体的决定性和赤裸裸的自然-精神的实际性中观察生命和历史构成物。他身上缺乏现实感和经验感觉。”这也就不难理解为什么他的人类学体系有着太多矛盾的紧张关系。他反对将人的丰富的生命存在做抽象化处理，但他仍然自觉或不自觉地通过某种难以言说的人性范畴来征服生命的多样性。他的人类学虽然揭示了人类的不同动机、丰富的文化条件、独特的存在样态，但也展示了上帝的普遍的、绝对的意志，似乎人类史“成了神的舞台，即便我们看到的，只是个别场景的开演和落幕”。他的人类学虽然指出和分析了一定的客观条件（地理、传统、风俗、情感、语言等）之于特定人群的影响，但他过高估计了精神的作用，似乎是“悟性把人类生活的一切状态组织为一个连续的统一体”。凡此种种，不一而足。

According to Marx’s critique of German ideology, Herder’s anthropology is in essence a form of idealism, even though it represents a new approach to the understanding of human beings and their history. This is not because it denies the objective existence and laws of development of history, but because of its metaphysical interpretation of human beings and their history. It does not seek its foundation in the secular basis of history, but seeks its standard in an imagined world; it does not examine history historically, but rather seeks some kind of ontology non-historically and uses this to explain history. On this question, Marx and Engels already provided an incisive analysis in *The German Ideology*: “All previous conceptions of history have either completely neglected this real basis of history or regarded it as a secondary factor having no connection with the historical process. History is therefore always written according to a standard situated outside it; real life production is seen as something non-historical, while the historical is seen as something separate from everyday life, something outside and above the world.” [50]50 Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, *The German Ideology* (1845–1846), in *Marx-Engels Collected Works*, vol. 5 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1976), p. 53. The translation here follows the Chinese text’s rendering. The historical materialism founded by Marx, by contrast, draws a clear line of demarcation from metaphysics. It not only adheres to materialism in the realm of nature, but also applies materialism to the realm of history. Because society is fundamentally practical, proceeding from life means proceeding from practice; and because material productive activity is the most basic of all practices, proceeding from practice means proceeding primarily from material productive activity. For Marx, any social question can be answered through a concrete analysis and historical investigation of material productive activity and the complex social relations it constitutes. Seen in this light, human nature is merely the product created by people’s own material productive activity; language is from the outset destined to be entangled with material intercourse; and history is nothing but the generational unfolding of human activity pursuing definite purposes. Through the analysis of the process of production and reproduction of people’s material productive activity, Marx discovered the objective laws of the development of human history, just as Darwin discovered the laws of development of the organic world. In a world of necessity constituted by causal relations, any metaphysical ideas such as “purpose,” “providence,” or “God” find no place to dwell.

按照马克思对德意志意识形态的批判，赫尔德的人类学在其本质上是一种唯心主义，尽管其代表着一种对人及其历史解释的新思路。这并非因为它否定历史的客观存在和发展规律，而在于对人及其历史的形而上学阐释。它不是在历史的世俗基础中寻找根据，而是在想象的世界中寻找标准；不是历史地考察历史，而是非历史地寻找某种本体并以此来解释历史。关于这个问题，马克思和恩格斯在《德意志意识形态》中已经做过精彩的分析：“迄今为止的一切历史观不是完全忽视了历史的这一现实基础，就是把它仅仅看成与历史进程没有任何联系的附带因素。因此，历史总是遵照在它之外的某种尺度来编写的；现实的生活生产被看成是某种非历史的东西，而历史的东西则被看成是某种脱离日常生活的东西，某种处于世界之外和超乎世界之上的东西。”马克思创立的历史唯物主义则与形而上学彻底划清了界限。它不仅在自然领域坚持唯物主义，而且将唯物主义运用到历史领域。因为社会从根本上来说是实践的，所以从生活出发也就是从实践出发，又因为物质生产活动是所有实践中最基本的，所以从实践出发也就是主要从物质生产活动出发。对于马克思来说，任何社会问题都可以通过对物质生产活动及其构成的复杂的社会关系的具体分析和历史考察获得解答。照此来看，人性不过是人们自己的物质生产活动创造的产物，语言从一开始就注定和物质交往纠缠在一起，而历史不过是追求着一定目的的人的活动的世代展开而已。通过对人的物质生产活动的生产与再生产的过程的分析，马克思发现了人类历史发展的客观规律，正像达尔文发现有机界的发展规律一样。在由因果关系构成的必然性世界中，任何诸如“目的”“天意”“上帝”这样带有形而上学色彩的思想观念都将无处容身。

Practice always points to and expresses the relationship of mutual action and mutual constitution between human beings and objects, and its continuous movement. For Marx, this is the true reality, and also the only reality. “Without human beings, reality is incomplete; equally, without the world, human beings are merely a fragment.” [51]51 This appears to be a paraphrase or citation from a secondary source on Marx, not a direct quotation from Marx’s own works. In the reality continuously created by practice, all seemingly opposed categories achieve reconciliation, because any category is a process of movement that subordinates all social elements to itself. This also means that the contradictory tension existing in Herder—namely, the generality manifested by human beings at the species level versus the particularity manifested at the individual level, and hence the theoretical opposition between cultural universalism and pluralism, between the continuity and diversity of history—all dissolve together in the continuous sensuous activity of human beings.

实践始终指向和表达的是人与对象间的相互作用和相互构成关系及其持续不断的运动。在马克思那里，这是真正的现实，也是唯一的现实。“没有人的现实是不完整的，同样，没有世界的人也只是一个碎片。”在实践不断创造的现实中，一切看似对立的范畴都达成了和解，因为任何范畴都是一个将一切社会要素从属于自己的运动过程。这也意味着，在赫尔德那里存在的矛盾的紧张关系，即人在类层面表现出来的一般性与其在个体层面表现出来的特殊性，因而也是文化的普遍主义和多元主义、历史的连续性与多样性之间的理论对立，便一同消融在人的持续不断的感性活动中。

Conclusion

结论

The intellectual connection between Marx and Herder can be traced, although the process of inquiry is more difficult than imagined. Marx read some of Herder’s works, and also maintained a latent dialogue with Herder through the works of other thinkers. Moreover, they exhibit striking similarities in their understanding of human beings, language, and history. This is no accident. For, standing at the turning point of the secularization of philosophy and culture, they shared a common theoretical mission: to reconcile the relationship between ideal and reality, universal and particular, abstract and concrete. For Marx, approaching Herder meant accepting the materialist and dialectical content contained therein, so as to be able to truly come into contact with the real world along a synthetic path. However, Marx’s historical materialism goes further and sees higher, forming an essential distinction from Herder’s still metaphysical anthropology.

马克思与赫尔德的思想关联是有迹可循的，尽管探寻的过程比想象的更为艰难。马克思阅读过赫尔德部分作品，而且通过其他思想家的作品与赫尔德保持着隐性对话。而且，他们在关于人、语言和历史的理解上有着惊人的相似性。这并非偶然。因为身处于哲学和文化世俗化的转折点上的他们有着共同的理论使命，即调和理想与现实、普遍与特殊、抽象与具体之间的关系。对马克思来说，走近赫尔德意味着将其中包含的唯物主义和辩证法的内容接受下来，以便能够在综合的道路上真正地接触到现实世界。不过，马克思的历史唯物主义走得更远、看得更高，与赫尔德的仍带有形而上学色彩的人类学形成了本质的区别。

Clearly, either infinitely magnifying the intellectual connection between Herder and Marx or strictly opposing the two is questionable. Words such as “critique,” “transformation,” and “sublation” also cannot clearly elucidate the complex process by which elements of Herder’s thought entered Marx’s thought. The intellectual connection between Marx and Herder is far from so simple. Being aware of this theoretical fact can help us examine the relationship between the two more objectively. Nevertheless, it remains necessary to further ask: what do the commonalities and differences in the discourse of Marx and Herder mean for Europe at that time and for society today?

显然，将赫尔德与马克思的思想关联无限制地放大或将二者严格对立起来，都是令人怀疑的。“批判”“改造”“扬弃”诸如此类的字眼也无法清晰地阐明赫尔德的思想要素进入马克思思想的复杂过程。马克思与赫尔德的思想关联远非如此简单。意识到这一理论事实会对我们更客观地审视二者的关系有所帮助。不过，仍需进一步追问的是，马克思与赫尔德言说的共同之物和不同之物究竟对当时的欧洲以及今天的社会意味着什么。

Online editor: Paul

网络编辑：保罗