Marx’s Dialectic of Labor and the Limits of Western Modernity

Marx’s concept of labor not only occupies a foundational position in Marx’s doctrine but is also intrinsically related to Hegel’s dialectic. Regarding the intellectual differences between Marx and Hegel, we can gain a good elucidation by re-examining Heidegger’s discussion of the role of the dialectic of labor in the two thinkers. In *The Principle of Thought*, Heidegger holds that for Hegel, the entry of thought into the dimension of the dialectic is “a world-historical event.” Through this “event,” all beings can be presented to man as what is presently at hand. Heidegger further argues that Marx inherited Hegel’s dialectic of labor and advanced it. He contends that Marx’s dialectical materialism “today constitutes a world reality, and perhaps *the* world reality,” and that whether one opposes or endorses it, it possesses force.

马克思的劳动概念不仅在马克思学说中具有基础性地位，而且还和黑格尔的辩证法内在相关。对于马克思和黑格尔的思想差异，我们可以通过重新审视海德格尔论劳动辩证法在两位思想家中的作用得到很好的揭示。海德格尔在《思想的原则》中认为，在黑格尔那里，思想进入辩证法的维度“是一个世界历史性的事件”。通过这个“事件”，一切存在之物才可能被当作当前之物向人呈现。海德格尔进一步认为，马克思继承了黑格尔的劳动辩证法并且对此作了推进。他认为，马克思的辩证唯物主义“在今天乃是一种世界现实，而且也许就是这种世界现实”，无论人们反对它还是赞成它，它都是有力量的。

Heidegger’s judgment on labor and the dialectic has been enormously influential. It not only concerns how people view the intellectual relationship between Marx and Hegel but also touches on people’s fundamental attitude toward the entire problem of modernity. This judgment has influenced many contemporary philosophers and has repeatedly sparked related debates within China. Therefore, it is necessary here to re-examine Heidegger’s account of the intellectual relationship between Marx and Hegel. This re-examination takes “labor and the dialectic” as its overarching problematic and unfolds around the following three sub-questions: (1) What is Heidegger’s specific evaluation of Marx and Hegel? (2) What is Marx’s inheritance and development of, and critical transcendence of, Hegel? (3) How does Heidegger evaluate the contributions and limitations of both? Finally, this article points out that Marx’s dialectic of labor is directed toward the critique of modernity and the communist movement; they are two sides of the same coin, and thus it is itself the solution to the “riddle of history.” [1]1 “Riddle of history” (*Geschichtsrätsel*) is a term used by Marx in the *Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844* to denote the fundamental problem of human alienation and its resolution through communism.

海德格尔对劳动和辩证法的这一判定影响巨大。它不仅涉及人们如何看待马克思和黑格尔的思想关系，而且关涉人们对整个现代性问题的基本态度。这一判断不仅影响了许多当代哲学家，而且在国内也不断引起相关争论。所以，在此有必要重新审视海德格尔论马克思和黑格尔的思想关系。这种重新审视以“劳动和辩证法”为总问题，围绕以下三个子问题展开：（1）海德格尔对马克思和黑格尔的具体评价是什么；（2）马克思对黑格尔的继承发展和批判超越是什么；（3）海德格尔如何评价二者的贡献和局限。最后，本文指出马克思的劳动辩证法指向现代性批判和共产主义运动，它们是一个硬币的两面，因而它本身就是对“历史之谜”的解答。

I. Heidegger on the Intellectual Relationship between Marx and Hegel: The Problem of Labor and the Dialectic

一、海德格尔论马克思和黑格尔的思想关系：劳动与辩证法问题

For researchers familiar with the intellectual relationship between Hegel and Marx, the concept of labor is a foundational concept for both thinkers, although the connotations each assigns to it differ. As one of the most important philosophers of the 20th century, Heidegger naturally would not overlook or bypass this theme. In his 1956–1957 essay “The Onto-Theo-Logical Constitution of Metaphysics,” his “thinking contestation” revolves mainly around Hegel, but in his 1957 essay “The Principle of Thought,” his “thinking contestation” extends beyond Hegel to Marx. The importance of the intellectual relationship between Hegel and Marx is self-evident in the history of scholarship and thought, but the precise nature of this relationship remains a matter of contentious debate. In the history of Marxist philosophy, we generally say that it is a relationship of critical inheritance, that Marx’s philosophy is a sublation [2]2 “Sublation” (*Aufhebung*) is a Hegelian term meaning to simultaneously cancel, preserve, and lift up to a higher level. of Hegel’s philosophy. This formulation is generally unproblematic, but from the perspective of Western philosophy, especially the phenomenological school, the situation is not so. For example, Husserl never deigned to engage with Hegel’s dialectic; starting from existential phenomenology, Heidegger likewise considers Marx’s philosophy to be merely a modern subjective metaphysics confined within Hegel’s philosophy, with no so-called advancement of Marx’s philosophy over Hegel, because Marx merely transforms Hegel’s emphasis on spiritual production into human production and material production. On this point, Heidegger first quotes Marx’s famous assertion from the *Paris Manuscripts* concerning all of world history: “The entire so-called world history is nothing but the creation of man through human labor, the process of the generation of nature for man.” [3]3 This quotation is from Marx’s *Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844* (also known as the *Paris Manuscripts*), written in 1844 and first published in full in 1932. He then comments:

熟悉黑格尔和马克思思想关系的研究者而言，劳动概念对这两位思想家来说是一个奠基性的概念，尽管双方赋予这一概念的内涵并不相同。海德格尔作为20世纪最重要的哲学家之一，当然也不会忽视和略过这一主题。在其1956—1957年的《形而上学的存在—神—逻辑学机制》一文中，他的“思想争执”主要围绕黑格尔展开，但在1957年的《思想的原则》一文中，他的“思想争执”则不局限于黑格尔，而是延伸到马克思。黑格尔和马克思思想关系的重要性在学术史和思想史上自不待言，但是二者具体是什么关系却是一个争论不休的问题。在马克思主义哲学史中，我们一般会说二者是一种批判继承关系，马克思哲学是对黑格尔哲学的扬弃。这种说法一般而言没有什么问题，但是，在西方哲学尤其是现象学派看来，情况并非如此。比如胡塞尔从来不屑于黑格尔的辩证法；海德格尔从生存现象学出发，同样认为马克思的哲学不过是一种局限在黑格尔哲学之内的近代主体性形而上学，根本没有所谓的马克思哲学对黑格尔哲学的推进，因为马克思只是把黑格尔强调的精神生产变为人的生产和物质的生产而已。就此，海德格尔先引用了马克思《巴黎手稿》中关于全部世界历史的著名论断，即“整个所谓世界历史不外是人通过人的劳动而诞生的过程，是自然界对人来说的生成过程”。然后，他就此评论道：

Many people will reject this Marxian interpretation of world history and the view of the essence of man that serves as its foundation. But no one can deny that technology, industry, and economy today decisively determine all reality of the real as man’s own self-productive labor. However, with such an assertion, we have already fallen out of that dimension of thought within which the above-cited Marxian statement about world history as “man’s own self-productive labor” moves. For the word “labor” here does not mean mere activity and accomplishment. This word is used in the sense of Hegel’s concept of labor, in which labor is thought as the basic feature of the dialectical process through which the becoming of the real unfolds and completes its reality.

许多人会拒绝马克思这种对世界历史的解释以及作为这种解释之基础的关于人之本质的看法。但没有人能否认，技术、工业和经济在今天决定性地作为人的自身生产劳动规定了现实的一切现实性。不过，以这样一个断言，我们已经从那个思想维度中掉了出来，而上引的马克思关于作为“人的自身生产劳动”的世界历史的陈述，正是在这个思想维度中活动。因为“劳动”（Arbeit）一词在此并不是指单纯的活动和事功。这个词是在黑格尔的劳动概念意义上讲的，在黑格尔那里，劳动被思考为辩证过程的基本特征，通过这个辩证过程，现实的变易展开和完成它的现实性。

In this famous commentary, Heidegger mainly indicates the following points: (1) Marx’s interpretation of world history and its theoretical foundation derive from a certain view of the essence of man; (2) the theoretical foundation of this view is the understanding of man and the world as a continuous process of the objectification of labor, a process in which the reality of human existence is determined by technology, industry, and economy driven by productive labor; (3) this reality is expressed by Marx’s view of productive labor, but it has its roots in Hegel’s philosophy, namely, that labor has already been thought as the basic feature of the dialectical process. Below we examine these three points one by one to see whether Heidegger’s above assertions are appropriate.

在这段著名的评论中，海德格尔主要表明了以下几点：（1）马克思关于世界历史的解释及其理论基础，来自一种关于人的本质的看法；（2）这种看法的理论基础是把人和世界看成一个不断劳动对象化的过程，这个过程就是由生产劳动推动的技术、工业和经济规定着的人们存在的现实；（3）这个现实被马克思关于生产劳动的观点表达出来，但它在黑格尔哲学中有其根源，即劳动已经被思考为辩证过程的基本特征。下面我们逐一考察这三点，看看海德格尔的上述论断是否恰当。

If we consider only this passage, Heidegger’s assertions are undoubtedly accurate and appropriate. The first point concerns Marx’s interpretation of world history and its theoretical basis. This theoretical basis indeed involves Marx’s view of the essence of man, namely, that Marx regards the self-generation of man and the world as a process of the objectification of labor. Marx’s view of world history is indeed expressed in this way. It is worth noting that “the entire so-called world history” is a universal judgment; the formulation in Marx’s *Paris Manuscripts* is just that decisive and resolute. For Heidegger, who bases his thinking on the question of Being in relation to human production, this is undoubtedly a typical form of humanism or anthropocentrism. He believes that when Marx views man and the world in this way, he is, like Sartre, “strictly speaking on a plane where there is only man,” and has not yet reached what Heidegger calls “strictly speaking on a plane where there is primarily Being.” [4]4 This refers to Heidegger’s critique of Jean-Paul Sartre’s existentialist humanism in his 1946 “Letter on Humanism,” where Heidegger argues that Sartre’s position remains within the tradition of metaphysical subjectivism and fails to think the question of Being. Therefore, his claim that Marx’s doctrine or Marxism as a whole is a kind of humanism or anthropocentrism does not seem unjust.

如果仅就这一段话而言，海德格尔的这些论断无疑是准确而恰当的。第一点为马克思关于世界历史的解释及其理论根据。这个理论根据确实涉及马克思关于人的本质的看法，即马克思将人和世界的自我产生看成一个劳动对象化的过程。马克思关于世界历史的看法也确实是如此表述的。值得注意的是，“整个所谓世界历史”是一个全称判断，马克思《巴黎手稿》的表述就是如此果断和决绝。这对基于存在之思来看人的生产的海德格尔而言，无疑是一种典型的人本主义或人类中心主义。他认为，马克思这样来看待人和世界就和萨特一样，“严格说来我们在一个其上只有人的平面上”，尚未达到他说的“严格说来我们在一个其上主要有存在的平面上”。所以，他说马克思学说或整个马克思主义是一种人道主义或人类中心主义似乎也不冤。

But this immediately involves the second point, namely, Marx’s fundamental understanding and basic view of the essence of man. What, after all, is the essence of man according to Marx? If we give the simplest answer, the answer is indeed “labor.” Labor creates man, or man creates and generates himself in and through labor. This can be confirmed everywhere in the *Paris Manuscripts* and seems unobjectionable. For instance, Marx says: “The history of industry and the objective existence of industry as it has become is an open book of the essential powers of man.” “For all human activity up to now has been labor, that is, industry, activity alienated from itself.” [5]5 These quotations are from Marx’s *Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844*. When Engels summarized the characteristics of Marxist doctrine in *Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy*, he also considered Marxism to be “a new school which had found the key to the understanding of all social history in the history of the development of labor.” [6]6 This is from Friedrich Engels’s 1886 work *Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy*. Within the Western Marxist tradition, such a characterization is even more common, for example, considering Marx’s doctrine as a “science of man” (Sartre) or a “philosophy of labor” (Arendt). [7]7 Jean-Paul Sartre (1905–1980) was a French existentialist philosopher and Marxist; Hannah Arendt (1906–1975) was a German-American political theorist who critically engaged with Marx’s concept of labor in works such as *The Human Condition*. All of this seems to prove the correctness of Heidegger’s assertion, namely, that Marx, like Hegel, holds a “theory of creation through labor.” Obviously, Heidegger understands Marx in this way. As for the difference between Marx and Hegel, Heidegger believes that Marx merely emphasizes actual human beings and their material production.

但这立即就涉及第二点，即马克思关于人的本质的根本理解和基本观点。马克思所说的人的本质究竟是什么？若做最简单的回答，答案确实就是“劳动”。劳动创造人，或者说人就是在劳动中自我创造和自我生成的。这在《巴黎手稿》中处处可以得到确证，似乎也并没有什么不妥。比如马克思说：“工业的历史和工业的已经生成的对象性的存在，是一本打开了的关于人的本质力量的书。”“因为全部人的活动迄今为止都是劳动，也就是工业，就是同自身相异化的活动。”恩格斯在《费尔巴哈论》中总结马克思主义学说的特征时也认为马克思主义是一个“在劳动发展史中找到了理解全部社会史的锁钥的新派别”。在西方马克思主义派别中，这样的定位更为普遍，比如认为马克思的学说是一种“人学”（萨特）或者“劳动哲学”（阿伦特）。这些似乎无一不证明了海德格尔论断的正确性，即马克思和黑格尔一样都是“劳动创世说”。显然，海德格尔也是这样来理解马克思的。至于马克思和黑格尔的不同，海德格尔认为，马克思强调的只是现实的人及其物质生产。

This brings us to the third point, namely, “labor is thought of as the basic characteristic of the dialectical process.” On this, Heidegger, as early as in his 1946 essay “Letter on Humanism,” explicitly made such a judgment and subsumed all materialism into Hegel’s metaphysics. He said: “The essence of materialism does not lie in the assertion that everything is merely material, but rather in a metaphysical determination according to which all beings appear as the material of labor. The metaphysical essence of labor in the New Era is already pre-thought in Hegel’s *Phenomenology of Spirit* as the self-arranging process of unconditioned production, that is, the process of objectifying the real through the human being who is experienced as subjectivity.” Labor is regarded as “the self-arranging process of unconditioned production,” which is precisely the typical characteristic of modern production and technology. Is not the technologization, automation, and intellectualization (AI) of production the fundamental pursuit of modernization? Is not the essence of technology precisely the pursuit of this reality? Among all materialist doctrines, does not Marxism most emphasize the development of productive forces and the progress of technology? Thus, Heidegger holds that “the essence of materialism is concealed in the essence of technology.” However, this is only with regard to the manifestation of materialism; as for the essence of materialism, he believes that materialism has not penetrated its deeper ideological foundation. In an age of the world picture, materialism merely makes use of human subjectivity and agency, but the root of subjectivity and agency lies in idealism. This root was already expressed by Hegel through the self-negation of the spiritual dialectic; materialism is merely the externalization of this thought and concept. In this way, Heidegger pushes Marx’s philosophy back into Hegel’s philosophy:

这样就进入第三点，即“劳动被思考为辩证过程的基本特征”。对此，海德格尔早在《关于人道主义的书信》（1946年）一文中，明确地如此判断并将一切唯物主义都纳入黑格尔的形而上学中。他说：“唯物主义的本质不在于一切只是素材这一主张中，而是在于一种形而上学的规定中，按照此规定讲来一切存在者都显现为劳动的材料。劳动的新时代的形而上学的本质在黑格尔的《精神现象学》中已预先被思为无条件的制造之自己安排自己的过程，这就是通过作为主观性来体会的人来把现实的东西对象化的过程。”劳动被视为“无条件的制造之自己安排自己的过程”，这正是现代生产和技术的典型特征。生产的技术化、自动化、智能化（AI）不正是现代化的根本追求吗？技术的本质不正是谋求这一现实吗？在一切唯物主义学说中，马克思主义不是最强调生产力的发展和技术的进步吗？由此，海德格尔认为“唯物主义的本质隐藏在技术的本质中”。但是，这只是就唯物主义的表现来说，就唯物主义的本质而言，他认为唯物主义并没有洞察其更深的思想根基。在一个世界图像时代，唯物主义只是利用了人的主体性和能动性，但主体性和能动性的根源却在唯心主义那里。这个根源早已被黑格尔通过精神辩证法的自我否定表达了出来，唯物主义不过是这种思想和观念的外化而已。这样，海德格尔把马克思的哲学重新推回到黑格尔哲学之内：

In opposition to Hegel, Marx does not hold that the essence of reality lies in the spirit that grasps itself absolutely, but rather in the human being who produces himself and his means of subsistence. This point certainly brings Marx into an extreme opposition to Hegel, but through this opposition, Marx still remains within the metaphysical domain of Hegel; for real life and activity are everywhere a labor process as dialectic, that is, a labor process as thought, insofar as the truly productive element of every production remains thought—whether this thought is carried out as the thought of speculative metaphysics, or as the thought of science and technology, or as a mixture and coarsening of the two. Every production is in itself reflection, is thought.

与黑格尔相对立，马克思并不认为现实的本质在于绝对的自我把握的精神中，而在于生产自身及其生活资料的人身上，这一点固然把马克思带入一种与黑格尔的极端对立中，但是通过这种对立，马克思依然处于黑格尔的形而上学范围内；因为现实生活和作用处处都是作为辩证法的劳动过程，也就是作为思想的劳动过程，只要每一种生产的真正生产性要素依然是思想——不管这种思想被当作思辨形而上学的思想来实行，还是当作科学技术的思想来实行，或者被当作这两者的混合和粗糙化来实行。每一种生产在自身中就是反思，是思想。

Here Heidegger applies to his interpretation of Hegel and Marx the same “violent interpretation” he used on Kant and Nietzsche. If we do not examine the fundamental differences between Marx and Hegel, especially Marx’s ontological revolution against Hegel’s philosophy, then his judgment is undoubtedly correct and to the point. However, on the three most important points concerning the difference between Marx’s and Hegel’s philosophies, he substitutes the “origin” of things for the “nature” of things. Heidegger correctly points out the Hegelian origin of Marx’s thought, namely, that Marx’s theory of the objectification of labor comes from Hegel’s *Phenomenology of Spirit*, and that Hegel had already expressed in the *Phenomenology of Spirit* the shaping and development of reality through the objectification of labor. But in judging the nature of Marx’s philosophy and Hegel’s philosophy, Heidegger completely regards Marx’s philosophy as the application and development of Hegel’s philosophy. Marx’s relationship to Hegel’s philosophy is fundamentally one of critical inheritance, that is, sublation (*Aufheben*). This requires neither lowering nor elevating, nor any startling claims. The crux and key of the matter lies in a concrete analysis of the relationship between the two, through which we can see exactly how Marx inherits and criticizes Hegel’s concept of labor. This brings us to the next question.

这里海德格尔把他对康德、尼采的“暴力性解释”如法炮制地运用到对黑格尔和马克思的解释中。如果我们不考察马克思和黑格尔的根本差别，尤其是马克思对黑格尔哲学存在论上的革命，那么他的判定无疑是正确而且到位的。但是，在事关马克思和黑格尔哲学差异最重要的三个要点中，他用事物的“来源”偷换了事物的“性质”。海德格尔正确地指出了马克思思想的黑格尔来源，即马克思的劳动对象化理论出自黑格尔的《精神现象学》，黑格尔在《精神现象学》中已经先行表达出了劳动对象化对现实的塑造和发展。但是，在对马克思哲学和黑格尔哲学性质的判断上，海德格尔却完全将马克思哲学看作黑格尔哲学的运用与发展。马克思对黑格尔哲学的关系，根本上是一种批判地继承，即扬弃（Aufheben）。这并不需要什么降低或拔高，也不需要什么惊世骇俗之论。问题的关键和要害在于通过对二者关系的具体分析，可以看出马克思究竟是如何继承和批判黑格尔劳动概念的。这样就进入下一个问题。

II. The Ideological Dispute between Marx and Hegel on Labor and Dialectics

二、马克思和黑格尔关于劳动和辩证法的思想争执

Marx’s concept of labor indeed comes from Hegel; in this sense, Marx inherits Hegel’s concept of labor. However, Marx never accepted Hegel’s philosophy uncritically; he truly achieved criticism and development within inheritance.

马克思的劳动概念确实来自黑格尔，从这个意义上说马克思是对黑格尔劳动概念的继承。但是，马克思对黑格尔哲学从来就不是无批判地接受，而是真正做到了在继承中批判与发展。

This is a basic principle for viewing the ideological relationship between Marx and Hegel. The issues of labor and dialectics have always been at the core of Marx’s thought. While processing the materials for *Capital*, Marx said that he was making a first attempt “to apply the dialectical method to political economy,” and that he wished to “expound the rational kernel within the method that Hegel had mystified, so that it could be understood by ordinary people.” [8]8 Karl Marx, *Capital*, Volume I, Afterword to the Second German Edition. The phrase “to apply the dialectical method to political economy” is Marx’s own description of his work on the *Grundrisse* (1857–1858). The latter was of course not realized, but Marx wrote a logic in capital letters; therefore, *Capital* is not only an application of logic but also its development. In the 1873 “Afterword to the Second German Edition” of *Capital*, Marx still adhered to this principle. He said: when people treated Hegel as a “dead dog,” “I openly acknowledged myself as the pupil of that great thinker, and even, in the chapter on the theory of value, I coquetted with the mode of expression peculiar to Hegel,” while also pointing out that “nearly thirty years earlier, when Hegel’s dialectic was still in vogue, I had criticized the mystifying side of Hegelian dialectics.” [9]9 Ibid. The “chapter on the theory of value” refers to the first chapter of *Capital*, Volume I.

这是看待马克思和黑格尔思想关系的一个基本原则。劳动和辩证法问题始终是马克思思想的核心。马克思在加工《资本论》的材料时说，他第一次尝试“把辩证方法应用于政治经济学”，而且他愿意把黑格尔“加以神秘化的方法中所存在的合理的东西阐述一番，使一般人都能够理解”。后者当然没有实现，但马克思写出了大写字母的逻辑学，因此《资本论》不仅是逻辑学的运用，更是其发展。在1873年《资本论》“第二版跋”中，马克思也仍然坚持这一原则。他说：当人们把黑格尔当成一条“死狗”时，“我公开承认我是这位大思想家的学生，并且在关于价值理论的一章中，有些地方我甚至卖弄起黑格尔特有的表达方式”，同时，马克思也指出“将近30年以前，当黑格尔辩证法还很流行的时候，我就批判过黑格尔辩证法的神秘方面”。

What Marx called “nearly thirty years earlier” was of course around 1843. This period was precisely the critical phase of Marx’s initial study of political economy and his ideological transformation. According to Marx’s own account of his real intellectual process, this period was when he moved toward a truly critical worldview, that is, the period of the *Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher*. [10]10 The *Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher* (German-French Annals) was a journal edited by Marx and Arnold Ruge in 1844, marking Marx’s transition to communism and his critique of Hegel’s philosophy of right. Then, in the *Paris Manuscripts*, Marx made his most concentrated critique of Hegel’s labor and dialectics. Shortly thereafter, in the same year, Marx again criticized the “secret of the speculative structure” of Hegel in *The Holy Family*. Subsequently, he further conducted an indirect critique of Hegel’s philosophy through *The German Ideology* and *The Poverty of Philosophy*, comprehensively elaborating the basic ideological principles of historical materialism.

马克思所说的“将近30年前”当然是1843年前后。这个阶段正是马克思初步研究政治经济学和他思想转变的关键时期。按照马克思本人对自己真实思想过程的陈述，这一时期正是他走向真正批判的世界观的时期，也就是德法年鉴时期。接着马克思在《巴黎手稿》中就黑格尔的劳动和辩证法作了最集中的批判。同年稍后，马克思在《神圣家族》中再一次就黑格尔“思辨结构的秘密”进行了批判。此后，他进一步通过《德意志意识形态》和《哲学的贫困》对黑格尔哲学进行间接批判，全面阐发了历史唯物主义的基本思想原则。

In Marx’s five critiques of Hegel, the issues of labor and dialectics were always the core concerns of Marx’s thought. Even during the period of the critique of Hegel’s philosophy of right, on the surface Marx was discussing the conflict between civil society and the political state, but on a deeper level, this conflict was precisely the conflict between private interests and common interests caused by labor. This was also the internal motivation for Marx’s in-depth study of political economy, and the study of political economy could not escape Hegel’s dialectics. As Marx said in the *Paris Manuscripts*: “The question of how we should relate to Hegel’s dialectic is a question that appears to be formal but is in fact essential.” [11]11 Karl Marx, *Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844* (the *Paris Manuscripts*), “Critique of Hegel’s Dialectic and General Philosophy.” In *The Holy Family*, Marx even accused the “Free Ones” [12]12 “Free Ones” (*die Freien*) refers to a group of Young Hegelian intellectuals in Berlin in the early 1840s, including Bruno Bauer, with whom Marx polemicized in *The Holy Family*. of being detached from social reality, because they did not understand the basic reality determined by private property and could only use Hegel’s “self-consciousness” to engage in “critical criticism.” In fact, “the secret of the speculative structure” is nothing but the secret of Hegel’s spiritual dialectic of “substance as subject.” As for the last two critiques, on the surface they were Marx’s polemics against the Young Hegelians and Proudhon, but behind them they were still a contest and polemic with Hegel’s dialectics. Marx explicitly stated that the Young Hegelians had never left the ground of Hegel’s philosophy, and Proudhon’s *The Philosophy of Poverty* was a mere copy and mechanical application of Hegel’s dialectics.

在马克思对黑格尔的五次批判中，劳动和辩证法问题始终是马克思关注的核心问题。即使是在黑格尔法哲学批判时期，表面上马克思在谈论市民社会和政治国家的冲突问题，但深入看，二者的冲突正是劳动引起的私人利益和共同利益的冲突。这也是马克思深入研究政治经济学的内在动因，而研究政治经济学又无法摆脱黑格尔的辩证法。正如马克思在《巴黎手稿》中所说：“对于我们如何对待黑格尔的辩证法这一表面上看来是形式的问题，而实际上是本质的问题。”在《神圣家族》中，马克思更是指责脱离了社会现实的“自由人”，因为他们不懂由私有财产规定的基本现实，便只能拿黑格尔哲学的“自我意识”来搞“批判的批判”。实际上“思辨结构的秘密”不过是黑格尔“实体即主体”的精神辩证法的秘密。至于后两次批判，表面上看是马克思与青年黑格尔派及蒲鲁东的论战，但背后仍然是和黑格尔辩证法的较量和论战。马克思明言青年黑格尔派从不曾脱离过黑格尔哲学的基地，蒲鲁东的《贫困的哲学》更是对黑格尔辩证法的照抄和搬用。

The above is a basic thread in the dispute between Marx and Hegel’s thought. For Heidegger, because his judgment of Marx is limited to Marx’s judgment of Hegel in the *Paris Manuscripts*, and moreover is a judgment based on his own logical thought, his judgment not only lacks support from the developmental thread of Marx’s thought, but even more lacks insight into how Marx transcended Hegel. A typical characteristic that Marx’s critique of Hegel possessed from the very start was that his critique of the *Phenomenology of Spirit* or the *Science of Logic* was not merely a critique of their internal relationship, but a critique placed within a broader social reality. Thus, he first arrived at that most famous judgment from his philosophical critique of Hegel: the *Phenomenology of Spirit* is “the true birthplace and secret of Hegel’s philosophy,” and then made the following famous judgment of the contribution of the *Phenomenology of Spirit*:

以上是马克思和黑格尔思想争执的一个基本线索。对海德格尔而言，因为他对马克思的评判仅限于马克思在《巴黎手稿》中对黑格尔的评判，而且还是基于自己思想逻辑的评判，所以他的评判不仅缺乏马克思思想发展线索的支持，更缺乏对马克思如何超越黑格尔的洞见。马克思对黑格尔的批判，一上手就具有的一个典型特点就是他对《精神现象学》或《逻辑学》的批判，不仅是就二者的内在关系进行批判，而且是放置于更大的社会现实中的批判。由此，他首先对黑格尔的哲学批判得出了那个最有名的判断：《精神现象学》才是“黑格尔哲学的真正诞生地和秘密”，然后对《精神现象学》的贡献作出了如下著名的评判：

The greatness of Hegel’s *Phenomenology* and its final result—the dialectic of negativity as the moving and creating principle—lies first in the fact that Hegel conceives the self-creation of man as a process, conceives objectification as de-objectification, as alienation and as the supersession of this alienation; thus, he grasps the essence of labour and comprehends objective man—true, real man—as the result of his own labour.

黑格尔的《现象学》及其最后成果——辩证法，作为推动原则和创造原则的否定性——的伟大之处首先在于，黑格尔把人的自我产生看作一个过程，把对象化看作非对象化，看作外化和这种外化的扬弃；可见，他抓住了劳动的本质，把对象性的人、现实的因而是真正的人理解为他自己的劳动的结果。

This judgment of Marx’s first affirms the intellectual contribution of Hegel’s dialectic of labour. First, the final result of Hegel’s *Phenomenology of Spirit* is the dialectic of negativity as the moving and creating principle; second, the soul of the dialectic of negativity is “to conceive the self-creation of man as a process, to conceive objectification as de-objectification, as alienation and as the supersession of this alienation”; hence, third, Hegel “grasped the essence of labour” and was the first philosopher to propose that “labour creates man.” Among these three points, the second is the essence of all Marx’s philosophy and Hegel’s philosophy, and at the same time it is Marx’s main point of breakthrough in his critique of Hegel. To regard man as a process of generation through the objectification of labour—what is its internal basis? In other words, how exactly is one to understand labour and the negativity of the dialectic? In Hegel’s view, “contradiction is the root of all movement and vitality; it is only because something has contradiction within itself that it moves.” This is what Hegel expresses from the *Phenomenology of Spirit* to the entire *Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences*, and it is also what he repeatedly states in the *Science of Logic*. Marx inherited this idea of activity and negativity and expanded it into the idea that all world history is creation and generation within labour. It is precisely for this reason that we have the above evaluation by Heidegger that Marx’s materialist dialectic is what determines present-day reality. Heidegger correctly saw Marx’s inheritance of Hegel’s “labour creates man,” but he did not see Marx’s subsequent critique and development of Hegel’s concept of labour. Immediately after the affirmative statement quoted above, Marx points out:

马克思的这一评判先行肯定的是黑格尔劳动辩证法的思想贡献。第一，黑格尔《精神现象学》的最后成果就是作为推动原则和创造原则的否定性辩证法；第二，否定性辩证法的灵魂是“把人的自我产生看作一个过程，把对象化看作非对象化，看作外化和这种外化的扬弃”；因而，第三，黑格尔“抓住了劳动的本质”，是第一个提出“劳动创造人”的哲学家。在这三点中，第二点是全部马克思哲学和黑格尔哲学的精华所在，同时也是马克思对黑格尔批判最主要的突破点。把人看作一个劳动对象化的生成过程，其内在根据何在？换言之，就是究竟如何理解劳动和辩证法的否定性。在黑格尔看来，“矛盾则是一切运动和生命力的根源；事物只因为自身具有矛盾，它才会运动”。这是黑格尔从《精神现象学》到整个《哲学全书》所表达的东西，也是其在《逻辑学》中反复申明的东西。马克思继承了这一能动性和否定性思想，并把它拓展为全部世界历史都是在劳动中的创造和生成。正因为如此，才有了上文海德格尔对马克思唯物辩证法乃是规定着当今现实的评价。海德格尔正确地看出了马克思对黑格尔“劳动创造人”的继承，但是，他没有看出马克思对黑格尔劳动概念接下来的批判和发展。马克思在紧接着上述所引的肯定话语之后，指出：

Hegel stands on the standpoint of modern political economy. He grasps labour as the essence of man, as the self-confirming essence of man; he sees only the positive side of labour, not its negative side. Labour is man’s coming-to-be for himself within alienation, or as alienated man. The only labour Hegel knows and recognizes is abstract spiritual labour. Therefore, Hegel regards as the essence of labour that which generally constitutes the essence of philosophy—namely, the self-alienation of the knowing man, or the science that thinks itself, the alienated science; thus, in contrast to previous philosophy, he is able to summarize the various moments of philosophy and describe his own philosophy as this philosophy. What other philosophers have done—to regard the various moments of nature and human life as moments of self-consciousness, and indeed of abstract self-consciousness—Hegel regards as what philosophy does. Hence, his science is absolute.

黑格尔站在现代国民经济学家的立场上。他把劳动看作人的本质，看作人的自我确证的本质；他只看到劳动的积极的方面，没有看到它的消极的方面。劳动是人在外化范围之内的或者作为外化的人的自为的生成。黑格尔惟一知道并承认的劳动是抽象的精神的劳动。因此，黑格尔把一般说来构成哲学的本质的那个东西，即知道自身的人的外化或者思考自身的、外化的科学，看成劳动的本质；因此，同以往的哲学相反，他能把哲学的各个环节加以总括，并且把自己的哲学描述成这种哲学。其他哲学家做过的事情——把自然界和人类生活的各个环节看作自我意识的而且是抽象的自我意识的环节——黑格尔则认为是哲学所做的事情。因此，他的科学是绝对的。

This is an extremely important critique. Here Marx not only points out the limitations and deficiencies of Hegel’s dialectic of labour, but also gives his own view of the objectification of labour in principle, and finally thoroughly reveals that Hegel’s philosophy is in essence a kind of “logical pantheism,” i.e., it “only provides an abstract, logical, speculative expression for the movement of history.” This judgment unfolds in three aspects.

这是一段极其重要的批判。马克思这里不仅指出了黑格尔劳动辩证法的局限和不足，而且原则性地给出了他自己的劳动对象化观点，最后则彻底揭示了黑格尔哲学本质上是一种“逻辑的泛神论”，即它“只是为历史的运动找到抽象的、逻辑的、思辨的表达”。这个评判从三个方面展开。

First, concerning the subject of the objectification of labour. The subject Hegel speaks of is self-consciousness; Marx determines the subject as sensuous man—this contribution naturally comes from Feuerbach. Second, concerning the process of the objectification of labour. In Hegel, this process is the process of self-consciousness positing thinghood and then returning to itself; in Marx, it is the process of real man interacting with sensuous nature to produce his objects. Third, concerning the result of the objectification of labour. Marx says: “It is perfectly natural that a living, natural being equipped and endowed with objective, i.e., material, essential powers should have real, natural objects of its essence, and that its self-alienation should posit a real, yet externally manifest, and therefore not belonging to its essence, overwhelmingly powerful objective world. There is nothing unfathomable or mysterious about this. The opposite case would be mysterious.” The “opposite case” here refers to Hegel’s spiritual process of the objectification of labour. Consider: if the subject of the objectification of labour is always consciousness, then no matter how much one emphasizes the process of the objectification of labour, the result is still “an endless circling within thought.” And its result is the development of human consciousness; “knowledge is the sole action of consciousness. Therefore, as soon as consciousness knows something, that something is generated for consciousness.” Such a philosophy has contributions in epistemology, but in reality it does not touch the object. Its entire result can only be to produce “the most conservative philosophy” in a radical form.

首先，关于劳动对象化的主体。黑格尔所说的主体是自我意识，马克思则将主体确定为感性的人，这个贡献当然来自费尔巴哈。其次，关于劳动对象化的过程。在黑格尔那里，这一过程就是自我意识设定物性又返回自身的过程；在马克思那里，则是现实的人和感性的自然界打交道产生其对象物的过程。最后，是劳动对象化的结果。马克思说：“一个有生命的、自然的、具备并赋有对象性的即物质的本质力量的存在物，既拥有它的本质的现实的、自然的对象，而它的自我外化又设定一个现实的、却以外在性的形式表现出来因而不属于它的本质的、极其强大的对象世界，这是十分自然的。这里并没有什么不可捉摸的和神秘莫测的东西。相反的情况倒是神秘莫测的。”这里“相反的情况”就是指黑格尔精神的劳动对象化过程。试想，如果劳动对象化的主体始终是意识，那么，无论怎么强调劳动对象化的过程，结果仍然是“思维内部永不停息的画圈”。而其结果就是人的意识的发展，“知识是意识的惟一的行动。因此，只要意识知道某个东西，那么这个东西对意识来说就生成了”。这样的哲学在认识上有贡献，但是在现实中并没有触动对象。其全部结果只能是以激进的形式产生“最保守的哲学”。

The above is Marx’s critique of Hegel’s philosophy. At the same time, in his critique of Hegel’s idealist objectification of labour, Marx establishes the starting point of all his philosophical creation: “Man is objective activity.” Marx says: “When real, corporeal man, standing on the solid, round earth, inhaling and exhaling all natural forces, posits his real, objective essential powers as alien objects through his self-alienation, the positing is not the subject; it is the subjectivity of objective essential powers, and therefore the activity of these essential powers must also be objective activity. An objective being acts objectively, and it would not act objectively if its essential determination did not contain an objective element. It creates or posits objects only because it is posited by objects, because it is by nature natural. Thus, it does not, in the act of positing, proceed from its ‘pure activity’ to the creation of the object, but rather its objective product merely confirms its objective activity, confirms that its activity is the activity of an objective natural being.”

以上就是马克思对黑格尔哲学的批判。与此同时，马克思在对黑格尔唯心主义的劳动对象化批判中，确立了其全部哲学创造的起点：“人是对象性活动。”马克思说：“当现实的、肉体的、站在坚实的呈圆形的地球上呼出和吸入一切自然力的人通过自己的外化把自己现实的、对象性的本质力量设定为异己的对象时，设定并不是主体；它是对象性的本质力量的主体性，因此这些本质力量的活动也必须是对象性的活动。对象性的存在物进行对象性活动，如果它的本质规定中不包含对象性的东西，它就不进行对象性活动。它所以只创造或设定对象，因为它是被对象设定的，因为它本来就是自然界。因此，并不是它在设定这一行动中从自己的‘纯粹的活动’转而创造对象，而是它的对象性的产物仅仅证实了它的对象性活动，证实了它的活动是对象性的自然存在物的活动。”

“Man is objective activity” represents the “revolution in the abode of thought” initiated by Marx, which some scholars call “the first principle of Marx’s philosophical ontology.” Because this concept for the first time unifies the principle of activity of German idealism and the principle of sensuousness of materialism, in the sense of man’s primordial dealing with the world. This concept has the function of formal indication. To put it in the language of Heidegger’s existential phenomenology of “reduction,” objective activity is the “last residue” of phenomenological reduction; one can no longer ask why man must deal with the world. As long as man exists in the world, there must be the primordial activity of dealing with the world; this activity is not presupposed by philosophical reflection; on the contrary, it is the precondition of thought categories and entity existence. Therefore, objective activity, as the primordial form of the concept of practice, subsumes and transcends the modern dualism of mind and matter, and at the same time is the phenomenological revelation and proof of the existence of man and the world.

“人是对象性活动”代表着马克思发动的“思想居所的革命”，它被有些学者称为“马克思哲学本体论之第一原理”。因为这个概念第一次将德国唯心论的活动原则和唯物论的感性原则，在人和世界原初打交道的意义上统一起来了。这个概念具有形式指示的功能。用海德格尔生存现象学“还原”的话说就是，对象性活动是现象学还原的“最后剩余”，你再不能问人为何要和世界打交道。人只要在世界中存在就要有和世界打交道的原初活动，这一活动并不以哲学的反思为前提，相反它倒是思想范畴和实体存在的前提。所以，对象性活动作为实践概念的原初形态是对近代心物二元论的统摄和超越，同时也是对人和世界存在的现象学揭示和证明。

Western Marxist scholars have frequently pronounced on this contribution of Marx’s philosophy. For instance, Marcuse stated: “The transition from Hegel to Marx is, in every respect, a transition to an essentially different order of truth, a transition that is scarcely explicable in terms of philosophy.” Althusser believed that Marx discovered a “new continent” for historical science, that Marx “founded a new science: the historical science of ‘social formations’.” Habermas, for his part, held that Marx, through the concept of “social labor,” accomplished a “critique of Hegel’s critique.” Within domestic Marxist circles, a consensus has also emerged in recent years: object-oriented activity is the original form of Marx’s concept of practice; the *Paris Manuscripts* are “the secret and birthplace of Marx’s philosophy”; the Marxian philosophical revolution is primarily an ontological revolution, whose fundamental horizon lies in the “opening up of an ontological domain,” an opening that should be regarded as a kind of “historical phenomenology,” “phenomenology of the human,” or “existential phenomenology.” The transformation of Marx’s philosophical revolution introduced and elaborated phenomenological resources for the first time. These are undoubtedly highly innovative insights, yet they still require further in-depth study.

关于马克思哲学的这一贡献，西方马克思主义学者多有论断。如马尔库塞说：“从黑格尔到马克思的转变，从各个方面来看，是趋向一个有本质区别的真理秩序的转变，依据哲学是难以解释这一转变的。”阿尔都塞认为马克思发现了历史科学的“新大陆”，马克思“建立了一门新的科学：‘社会构成’的历史科学”。哈贝马斯则认为马克思通过“社会劳动”这个概念实现了“对黑格尔批判的批判”。国内马克思主义学界近年来形成的共识也是对象性活动是马克思实践概念的原初形态，《巴黎手稿》是“马克思哲学的秘密和诞生地”，马克思哲学革命主要是一场存在论革命，根本眼界在其“存在论境域的开启”，这种开启应被看成一种“历史现象学”“人学现象学”或者“生存现象学”。马克思哲学革命的变革，第一次将现象学的思想资源引入并加以阐释，这无疑都是极具创新性的见解，但对此仍需要进一步的深入研究。

III. Rethinking Heidegger on the Dialectic of Labor and the Limits of Western Modernity

三、重思海德格尔论劳动辩证法与西方现代性的限度

If we compare Marx’s and Heidegger’s judgments of Hegel, we immediately discover that both start from Hegel yet arrive at completely different assessments. On the one hand, this is because Hegel’s philosophy, with its immense influence, continues to the present day; on the other hand, the divergent evaluations themselves have animated contemporary philosophy. Regarding the former, as M. White put it: “Every important philosophical movement of the twentieth century began with an attack on the views of that ponderous and famous nineteenth-century German professor.” [19]19 M. White, *The Age of Analysis: 20th Century Philosophers* (New York: New American Library, 1955), p. 14. Regarding the latter, Marxism and phenomenology, represented by Marx and Heidegger respectively, have influenced various schools of contemporary philosophy. Therefore, re-examining Heidegger’s evaluation of Marx must also be placed within a broader field of inquiry. In short, the field of Marx’s thought is the problem of modernity.

如果我们把马克思和海德格尔对黑格尔的评判作一下对比，会立即发现二者都从黑格尔出发，但是对其形成了完全不同的评判。这种评判一方面因为黑格尔哲学的巨大影响延续至今，另一方面则因为不同评价本身又激发了当代哲学。前一方面，正如M.怀特所说：“20世纪的每一种重要的哲学运动都是以攻击那位思想庞杂而声名赫赫的19世纪的德国教授的观点开始的。”后一方面，马克思和海德格尔代表的马克思主义和现象学又影响了当代哲学各流派。所以，重新审视海德格尔对马克思的评价，也需将其放到更广阔的论域中去考察。简而言之，马克思思想的论域就是现代性问题。

Linking Marx’s thought to the problem of modernity is determined by the nature of Marx’s doctrine and, at the same time, reflects the general condition of the intellectual world after the nineteenth century. In his book *From Hegel to Nietzsche*, Karl Löwith states: “Hegel’s absolute philosophy of subjective and objective spirit became, with Feuerbach, Marx, and Kierkegaard, an analysis of man and society. But the actual cause of this dissolution and reduction of Hegelian philosophy is not purely ‘spiritual’ history; it is contained in the general transformation of the European world.” In the “post-Hegelian era,” Heidegger’s commentary on Marx alone exemplifies this point. The capitalist system is the concentrated expression of the problem of modernity; Marx’s critique of capitalism and the communist movement are the two sides of this problem. Marx is a master of the critique of modernity, a characteristic that has also been expressed and confirmed in different ways in Lukács’s *The Destruction of Reason* and Marcuse’s *Reason and Revolution*. Heidegger’s evaluation of the relationship between Marx and Hegel does not depart from this basic field of inquiry.

将马克思的思想和现代性问题联系起来，是由马克思学说的性质规定的，同时也是19世纪以后思想世界的一般状况。卡尔·洛维特在《从黑格尔到尼采》一书中说：“黑格尔的主客观精神的绝对哲学随着费尔巴哈、马克思和克尔凯郭尔变成了一种对人和社会的分析。但是黑格尔哲学的这种分裂和还原的实际原因并不是纯粹‘精神’史的，而是包含在欧洲人世界的一般的转变中。”“后黑格尔时代”，仅就海德格尔评论马克思而言，可谓典型地体现了这一点。资本主义体系是现代性问题的集中体现，马克思的资本主义批判和共产主义运动则是现代性问题的两面。马克思是现代性批判的大家，这一特征同样在卢卡奇的《理性的毁灭》、马尔库塞的《理性与革命》中得到了不同的表达和确认。海德格尔对马克思和黑格尔关系的评价，也没有脱离这一基本论域。

After the nineteenth century, philosophy moved toward the social sciences and anthropology, a point Heidegger himself acknowledged. However, we need to analyze specifically how this transformation occurred and what heights it reached. For example, if we consider the intellectual relationship between Hegel and Marx from the perspective of the problem of modernity, it is generally believed from the standpoint of intellectual history that Feuerbach served as the intermediary for the transformation from Hegel to Marx. Yet Karl Löwith argues: “Feuerbach’s propositions and principles determine the whole of Marx’s *Paris Manuscripts*, but its real problem and the draft of its solution are entirely determined by Marx’s debate with Hegel.” This fully demonstrates the importance of Hegel’s philosophy and how the transformation occurred and what heights it reached. Feuerbach himself also said, “Hegel’s philosophy is the completion of modern philosophy. Therefore, the historical necessity and the *raison d’être* of the new philosophy are mainly connected with the critique of Hegel.” [20]20 Ludwig Feuerbach, *Principles of the Philosophy of the Future*, trans. Manfred Vogel (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1986), §1. Unfortunately, Feuerbach ultimately failed to move beyond Hegel and ended up as a half-baked materialism.

19世纪以后，哲学走向了社会科学和人类学，这是海德格尔本人也认同的。但是，对这一转换是如何发生的及所达到的高度，我们需要具体分析。比如同样立足于现代性问题看待黑格尔和马克思的思想关系，从思想史视域看，一般认为费尔巴哈是马克思和黑格尔思想转化的中介。但卡尔·洛维特却认为：“费尔巴哈的命题和原理规定着马克思的整个《巴黎手稿》，但它的真正问题以及解决问题的草案却完全是由马克思与黑格尔的争辩决定的。”这充分说明了黑格尔哲学的重要性以及转换如何发生和所达到的高度。费尔巴哈自己也说，“黑格尔哲学是近代哲学的完成。因此新哲学的历史必然性及其存在理由，主要是与对黑格尔的批判有联系的”。但很可惜，费尔巴哈最终没有走出黑格尔而沦为半截子的唯物主义。

This lesson from Feuerbach in intellectual history is by no means an isolated case; on the contrary, it has universal significance for examining the relationship between Marx and Hegel, and this point is equally applicable to examining the relationship between Hegel and Heidegger. It was only through five critiques of Hegel’s philosophy that Marx established his own “new materialism.” The ideological principle of the “new materialism” is object-oriented activity or sensuous activity; sensuous activity subsumes and transcends abstract thought and sensuous intuition. Marx expressed this succinctly in the fifth thesis of his *Theses on Feuerbach*. Marx’s dual transcendence of Feuerbach and Hegel is quite evident, whether in terms of the thread of thought or the textual basis. However, Heidegger did not see it this way. Throughout his life, Heidegger also engaged in constant intellectual disputes with Hegel, producing many classic texts interpreting Hegel’s philosophy, such as *Hegel’s Concept of Experience*, *Hegel and the Greeks*, and *The Onto-Theo-Logical Constitution of Metaphysics*. Hegel was a recurring “intellectual adversary” in his thought; it can be said that his own intellectual turn, like Marx’s, was a result of dialogue with Hegel. This dialogue has been continually reactivated by the problem of modernity. Yet, even in the 1950s, in his *Letter on Humanism* and other works, he still regarded Marx, along with Kierkegaard and Nietzsche, as a “crude inversion and colossal opposition” to Hegelian metaphysics. [21]21 Martin Heidegger, “Letter on Humanism,” in *Pathmarks*, ed. William McNeill (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), p. 250. As for the overall nature of Marx’s doctrine, even in the late period of his thought in the 1970s, Heidegger still positioned Marx based on Feuerbach’s proposition “man is the highest essence of man,” completely disregarding that in 1843, while affirming Feuerbach’s contribution, Marx had already pointed out its inadequacy: “Feuerbach’s aphorisms leave me dissatisfied on only one point: he emphasizes nature too much and politics too little.” [22]22 Karl Marx, “Letter to Arnold Ruge, March 13, 1843,” in *Marx-Engels Collected Works*, vol. 1 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1975), p. 400. “Man is the world of man, the state, society.” [23]23 Karl Marx, “Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Law: Introduction,” in *Marx-Engels Collected Works*, vol. 3 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1975), p. 175. To study man is to study the real social relations in which man is rooted, that is, “after the otherworldly truth has vanished, the task of history is to establish the truth of this world. … Thus, the critique of heaven turns into the critique of earth, the critique of religion into the critique of law, and the critique of theology into the critique of politics.” [24]24 Ibid., p. 176. Marx’s intellectual transformation had already begun in 1843.

费尔巴哈在思想史上的这种教训绝不是个案，相反他对考察马克思与黑格尔思想关系具有普遍意义，这一点也同样适用于考察黑格尔和海德格尔。马克思在对黑格尔哲学的五次批判中才确立自己的“新唯物主义”。“新唯物主义”的思想原则是对象性活动或感性活动，感性活动是对抽象思维和感性直观的统摄和超越。马克思将其简要地表达在《关于费尔巴哈的提纲》第五条中。马克思对费尔巴哈和黑格尔的双重超越，无论思想线索还是文本基础，都是很明显的。但是，海德格尔却并不如此认为。海德格尔一生同样和黑格尔不断发生思想争执，并因此写了很多解读黑格尔哲学的经典文本。比如《黑格尔的经验概念》《黑格尔与希腊人》《形而上学的存在—神—逻辑学机制》等。黑格尔是他思想中不断出现的“思想敌人”，可以说他的思想转向和马克思的思想转变一样，都是和黑格尔对话的结果。这种对话因为现代性问题而被不断激活。但是，即使到了20世纪50年代，他在《关于人道主义的书信》及其他著作中，还一直认为马克思和克尔凯郭尔、尼采一样，是对黑格尔形而上学“粗暴的颠倒和巨大的对立”。至于马克思学说的整体性质，即使到了20世纪70年代的思想晚期，海德格尔也仍然依据费尔巴哈的命题“人是人的最高本质”来定位马克思，完全不顾马克思1843年在肯定费尔巴哈贡献的同时指出其不足：“费尔巴哈的警句只有一点不能使我满意，这就是：他强调自然过多而强调政治过少。”“人就是人的世界，就是国家，社会。”研究人就要研究人所扎根的现实社会关系，即“真理的彼岸世界消逝以后，历史的任务就是确立此岸世界的真理。……于是，对天国的批判变成对尘世的批判，对宗教的批判变成对法的批判，对神学的批判变成对政治的批判”。马克思的思想转变从1843年就已经开始了。

The realm attained by Marx’s intellectual transformation is manifested not only in depth but also in breadth. In terms of depth, Marx had already carried out a revolution in the “dwelling place of thought” more than 80 years before Heidegger’s *Being and Time*; in terms of breadth, this revolution in the “dwelling place of thought” directly steered Marx’s thought toward a transformation of the conception of history and a critique of political economy. Historical materialism and the theory of surplus value are Marx’s two great achievements, which directly transformed socialism from utopian into scientific. If we shift our perspective, Engels’s summary of Marx’s doctrine immediately reveals itself to be merely another expression of Marx’s critique of modernity. Heidegger, whether explicitly or implicitly, also acknowledges this. For instance, when people regard Marx’s communism as a mere doctrine of resistance against the capitalist system, Heidegger, in his *Letter on Humanism*, says the following: “One may treat the doctrine of communism and its arguments in various ways; but from the standpoint of the history of Being, it is certain that a fundamental experience of something of world-historical significance expresses itself in communism. Whoever takes ‘communism’ to be merely a ‘party’ or a ‘worldview’ thinks as shortsightedly as those who, with a derogatory intent, call the ‘American way of life’ a particular lifestyle.” [25]25 Martin Heidegger, *Letter on Humanism*, in *Pathmarks*, ed. William McNeill (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), p. 259. The translation follows the Chinese text’s rendering of Heidegger’s passage. Here Heidegger affirms that Marx’s doctrine is essentially a program for the critique of modernity, yet he consistently refuses to recognize the revolutionary character of Marx’s philosophy, instead using the history of Being to view Marx’s philosophy as a mere inversion and application of Hegel’s philosophy.

马克思思想转变达到的这种境界，不仅体现在深度上，也体现在广度上。从深度上来说，马克思先于海德格尔的《存在与时间》80多年已经发生了一次“思想居所”的革命；从广度上来说，这次“思想居所”的革命直接将马克思的思想导向社会历史观的变革和政治经济学批判。唯物史观和剩余价值理论是马克思的两大成果，它们直接使社会主义从空想变为科学。恩格斯对马克思学说的这种概括，若我们转换一个视角，会立即看到这不过是马克思现代性批判的另一种表达。海德格尔或明或暗地也承认这一点。比如，当人们把马克思的共产主义当成一种单纯反抗资本主义体系的学说时，在《关于人道主义的书信》中海德格尔却说出如下的话：“人们可以以各种不同的方式来对待共产主义的学说及其论据，但从存在的历史的意义看来，确定不移的是，一种对有世界历史意义的东西的基本经验在共产主义中自行道出了。谁若把‘共产主义’认为只是‘党派’或只是‘世界观’，他就是像那些把‘美国制度’只认为而且还加以贬谪地认为是一种特殊生活方式的人一样以同样的方式想得太短浅了。”这里海德格尔肯定了马克思学说本质上是一种现代性批判的纲领，但他却始终不认同马克思哲学的革命性，而是用存在的历史将马克思哲学看成对黑格尔哲学的一种颠倒和运用。

Such is Heidegger’s commentary on Marx’s critique of modernity. This commentary still revolves around the issues of labor and dialectics. For example, concerning the nature of dialectical materialism, Heidegger’s judgment on modernity is once again activated:

这就是海德格尔对马克思现代性批判的评论。这种评论仍然围绕劳动和辩证法问题展开，比如，关于辩证唯物主义的性质，因为海德格尔对现代性的评判被再一次激活：

To be sure, whenever dialectics is mentioned today, one notices that there is a dialectical materialism. People regard it as a worldview and pass it off as an ideology. But we evade reflection with this assertion, failing to recognize that dialectics today is a world reality, and perhaps *the* world reality. Hegel’s dialectic is one of those far-reaching “world-controlling” thoughts; it is equally powerful where dialectical materialism is embraced and where it is refuted—merely in a slightly altered style of the same thought. As people say, behind this struggle over worldviews, a fierce battle for dominance over the earth is raging.

诚然，现在一谈到辩证法，人们就会注意到，有一种辩证唯物主义。人们把它视为一种世界观，把它冒充为意识形态。但我们却以这个断言来回避思索，而不去认识：辩证法在今天乃是一种世界现实，而且也许就是这种世界现实。黑格尔的辩证法乃是那些远远地发出声音的“控制世界”的思想之一，在辩证唯物主义被人信奉的地方，与在它——仅仅以同一种思想的稍有变化的风格——受到反驳的地方一样，是同样有力量的。正如人们所说的，在这种世界观上的争辩背后，激烈地进行着围绕地球统治地位的斗争。

This judgment by Heidegger is clearly not merely a philosophical or intellectual-historical assessment; it places the relationship between Marx and Hegel within the entire unfolding process of Western modernity. Although such a judgment takes a high vantage point, it always “misses the point” for Marx. The communist movement cannot do without the critique of political economy, and conversely, the critique of political economy must be grounded in a philosophical transformation. Thus, communism—critique of political economy—philosophical critique are themselves a trinity, viewed from the synchronic dimension of Marx’s thought. From the diachronic development of his thought, philosophical transformation—historical materialism—critique of political economy are gradually realized step by step. This characteristic of Marx’s thought is precisely the source of its vitality. Lukács states that in Marx’s doctrine, “the dominance of the category of totality is the bearer of the revolutionary principle in science,” and the orthodoxy of Marxism refers primarily to its dialectics. [26]26 Georg Lukács, *History and Class Consciousness: Studies in Marxist Dialectics*, trans. Rodney Livingstone (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1971), p. 27. Lenin likewise says that Marx’s doctrine is a single block of steel, and that “it is impossible to fully understand Marx’s *Capital* without having studied and understood Hegel’s entire *Logic*.” [27]27 V. I. Lenin, “Conspectus of Hegel’s *Science of Logic*,” in *Collected Works*, vol. 38 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1976), p. 180. All these points highlight the intrinsic connection between Marx’s doctrine and Hegel’s philosophy. Yet Heidegger forcibly subsumes Hegel and Marx under the first beginning of the history of Being, asserting that Marx is merely a crude inversion of Hegelian metaphysics.

海德格尔的这种评判，显然不仅是基于哲学或思想史的一种评判，而是将马克思和黑格尔的关系放置到整个西方现代性展开过程加以评判的。这样的评判尽管站位很高，但对马克思而言总是“搔不到痒处”。共产主义运动离不开政治经济学批判，反过来，政治经济学批判必须以哲学变革为基础。这样，共产主义—政治经济学批判—哲学批判本身就是三位一体的，这是从其思想横的方面看。从其思想纵的发展看，哲学变革—唯物史观—政治经济学批判是逐步落实的。马克思思想的这种特点正是其生命力所在。卢卡奇说马克思学说中“总体性范畴的统治地位，是科学中的革命原则的支柱”，而马克思主义的正统则主要是指他的辩证法。列宁同样说马克思的学说是一整块钢，“不钻研和不理解黑格尔的全部逻辑学，就不能完全理解马克思的《资本论》”。这些无一不凸显了马克思学说和黑格尔哲学的内在关联。但海德格尔却强行把黑格尔和马克思纳入存在的历史的第一开端，并认为马克思不过是对黑格尔形而上学的粗暴颠倒。

If we compare Heidegger’s and Marx’s critiques of modernity, we immediately see that Heidegger’s critique is primarily ontological, while Marx’s is praxeological. The greatest difference between these two approaches lies in their methods—in short, the difference between the phenomenological method and materialist dialectics. In his essay “The Onto-Theo-Logical Constitution of Metaphysics,” Heidegger contrasts the two methods: he argues that in Hegel’s case, the matter of thinking is “the matter of thinking,” while his own matter is “difference as difference”; Hegel’s measure for dialogue with the history of thought is “synthesis of thought,” while his own measure is “release of thought”; Hegel’s characteristic mode of dialogue with the history of philosophy is “sublation,” while his own is “reduction,” i.e., the “step back” of thought. Through this contrast, he maintains that Hegel still remains within the first beginning of Being, as the completion of Platonism. “The dialectical process of thought is the fundamental movement within the totality of the objectivity of all objects, i.e., within Being as understood in the modern manner. That our Western-European thought has reached the dimension of dialectics, which has been outlined since Plato, is a world-historical event. It approaches the people of this age everywhere in different forms as something present.” [28]28 Martin Heidegger, “The Onto-Theo-Logical Constitution of Metaphysics,” in *Identity and Difference*, trans. Joan Stambaugh (New York: Harper & Row, 1969), p. 47. The translation follows the Chinese text’s rendering of Heidegger’s passage. Among the “something present” approaching the people of this age, dialectical materialism is the most powerful as a form of thought; therefore, as the determiner and indicator of reality, dialectical materialism is equally powerful whether people endorse it or oppose it.

如果我们把海德格尔和马克思对现代性的批判作一下对比，我们立即会看到，海德格尔的批判主要是存在学的，而马克思则是实践论的。这两种方式的最大不同在于其方法，简言之，就是现象学的方法和唯物辩证法的不同。在《形而上学的存在—神—逻辑学机制》一文中，海德格尔将两种方法作了对比：他认为黑格尔那里的事情是“思想的事情”，他讲的事情则是“作为差异的差异”；黑格尔与思想史对话的尺度是“思想的综合”，他与思想史对话的尺度则是“思想的释放”；黑格尔和哲学史对话的特性是“扬弃”，他和哲学史对话的特性是“还原”，即思想的“返回步伐”。通过这种对比，他认为黑格尔仍处于存在的第一开端中，是柏拉图主义的完成。“思想的辩证过程乃是一切对象之对象性整体中的基本运动，亦即在以近代方式被理解的存在中的基本运动。我们西方—欧洲思想已经达到了它自柏拉图以来得到勾勒的辩证法维度，这个事件乃是一个世界历史性的事件。它处处作为当前之物以不同形态走向这个时代的人们。”在走向这个时代人们的“当前之物”中，辩证唯物主义作为一种思想是最强有力的，所以，辩证唯物主义作为现实的规定者和指示者，无论人们赞成它还是反对它，它都是一样有力量的。

The above constitutes the intellectual dispute between Heidegger and Marx over modernity. Because of the immense influence of both Marx and Heidegger, this intellectual dispute has in turn affected various schools of contemporary philosophy. In *Postmetaphysical Thinking*, Habermas summarizes analytic philosophy, phenomenology, Western Marxism, and structuralism as the four major philosophical currents of the 20th century. [29]29 Jürgen Habermas, *Postmetaphysical Thinking: Philosophical Essays*, trans. William Mark Hohengarten (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1992), p. 6. These four currents interact and engage in dialogue with one another, jointly constituting the complex intellectual landscape of modernity today. However, no matter how complex and multifaceted this intellectual landscape may be, it cannot escape the initial delineation given to it by Heidegger and Marx.

以上就是海德格尔和马克思关于现代性的思想争执。这种思想争执因为马克思和海德格尔本身的巨大影响，又影响到了当代哲学的各种流派。哈贝马斯在《后形而上学思想》中，把分析哲学、现象学、西方马克思主义和结构主义概括为20世纪的四大哲学思潮。这四种思潮相互影响和对话，共同构成了当代复杂的现代性思想版图。但是，这个思想版图无论多么复杂和多面，背后都脱离不了海德格尔和马克思对它的初始描绘。

In sum, Heidegger’s judgment of Marx seizes upon the core of the relationship between Hegel and Marx, and a concrete analysis of the dialectic of labor at this core is necessary. If we start from Hegel, the common object of contention for both parties, and focus solely on the theme of the dialectic of labor, Heidegger’s judgment of Hegel and Marx correctly points out one thing: the limit of Hegel’s dialectic is precisely the limit of modern society as a whole, and this limit is reproduced through the intellectual dispute between Hegel and Marx. However, Heidegger fails to see Marx’s transcendence and sublation of Hegel’s idealist dialectics through the issue of labor, which leads Heidegger to regard Marx’s materialist dialectics as merely a contemporary application of Hegel’s dialectic.

总之，海德格尔对马克思的评判抓住了黑格尔与马克思思想关系的核心，需要对这一核心的劳动辩证法问题作具体分析。若从黑格尔这个双方共同的思想争执的对象出发，仅就劳动辩证法这个主题而言，他对黑格尔与马克思的评判无疑正确地指出了一点：黑格尔辩证法的限度，其实就是整个现代社会的限度，这个限度通过黑格尔和马克思的思想争执被再现出来。但是，马克思通过劳动问题对黑格尔唯心辩证法的超越和扬弃，海德格尔却没有看出来，这导致海德格尔认为马克思的唯物辩证法只是黑格尔辩证法的当代运用。

IV. Conclusion

四、结语

To understand Marx’s themes of labor and dialectics, one must grasp the transformation brought about by Marx’s philosophical revolution. Only in this way can the dichotomous mode of thinking between humanism and historicism on the issue of modernity since modern times be overcome. Faced with the fragmentation of modern humanity, humanism clings to the essence of the human, while historicism appeals to the temporal dimension; how the two can be unified has never been resolved. However, this contradiction does not exist in Marx’s labor dialectic. What the labor dialectic reveals is precisely a cross-shaped opening of history itself, where the vertical and horizontal axes intersect. From a diachronic perspective, in the sensuous activity of humans engaging with the world, labor creates humans themselves; but simultaneously, from a synchronic perspective, human labor itself (production and intercourse) is a process of engaging with others and with nature. Here, the diachronic and synchronic dimensions revealed by the labor dialectic are generated as a unity and mutually guaranteed in the process of humans engaging with the world. The crux here is not, as with Heidegger, to ask about how so-called “non-objective thinking and speaking are possible,” but rather, after the split between humans and the world, how to deal with these mediating objects and how to re-realize the unity of humans and the world.

理解马克思的劳动和辩证法主题，必须理解马克思哲学革命带来的变革。只有这样，才能克服近代以来在现代性问题上人道主义和历史主义的二分思维模式。面对现代人的分裂，人道主义执着人的本质，历史主义诉诸时间维度，二者如何统一始终无法解决。但是，这种矛盾在马克思的劳动辩证法中并不存在，劳动辩证法所揭示的就是历史本身纵横交叉的一种十字打开方式。从历时性上来说，在人和世界打交道的感性活动中，劳动创造了人本身；但同时，在共时性上说，人本身的劳动（生产和交往）又是和他人、自然打交道的过程。在这里，劳动辩证法所揭示的历时性维度和共时性维度，是在人和世界打交道中一体生成和相互担保的。这里的要害并不在于像海德格尔那样，追问所谓的“非对象性的思与言是如何可能的”，而是人和世界分裂以后，怎么对待这些中介物，怎么重新实现人和世界的统一。

This unity cannot rely on the Hegelian thesis-antithesis-synthesis, nor on the Heideggerian thinking of Being, but must appeal to the critique of capitalism and the communist movement. These two aspects are two sides of the same coin, and they are manifested through the labor dialectic. “This communism, as fully developed naturalism = humanism, and as fully developed humanism = naturalism, is the genuine resolution of the conflict between humans and nature and between humans and humans; it is the true resolution of the struggle between existence and essence, between objectification and self-confirmation, between freedom and necessity, between the individual and the species. It is the solution to the riddle of history and knows itself to be this solution.”[30]30 Karl Marx, “Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844,” in *Marx and Engels Collected Works*, vol. 3 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1975), p. 296. In the solution to the “riddle of history,” objective activity is always the foundation. In this sense, Marx’s labor dialectic effectively provides a new foundation for Hegel’s dialectic, rather than being, as Heidegger commented, an application of Hegel’s dialectic. If we thus properly understand the relationship between Marx’s labor dialectic and the critique of modernity, then Marx’s labor dialectic points to a new form of human civilization that transcends capitalism; this is the original meaning of Marx’s critique of modernity.

这种统一不能靠黑格尔式的正、反、合，也不能靠海德格尔式的存在之思，而是要诉诸资本主义批判和共产主义运动。这两个方面是同一硬币的两面，它们通过劳动辩证法显示出来。“这种共产主义，作为完成了的自然主义=人道主义，而作为完成了的人道主义=自然主义，它是人和自然界之间、人和人之间的矛盾的真正解决，是存在和本质、对象化和自我确证、自由和必然、个体和类之间的斗争的真正解决。它是历史之谜的解答，而且知道自己就是这种解答。”在对“历史之谜”的解答中，对象性活动始终是基础。在这个意义上，马克思的劳动辩证法相当于给黑格尔的辩证法作了新的奠基，而不是像海德格尔评论的那样是黑格尔辩证法的一种运用。如果我们这样恰当地理解了马克思的劳动辩证法和现代性批判的关系，那么马克思的劳动辩证法所指向的是一种超越资本主义的人类文明新形态，这才是马克思现代性批判的本来含义。

Online editor: Paul

网络编辑：保罗