Yang Haifeng: The Idea of Totality: From Hegel and Marx to the Founders of Western Marxism
Since the advent of the modern era, along with the transformation of social development and the progress of knowledge, we have witnessed, on the one hand, an increasingly refined system of social division of labor and the growing specialization of knowledge; on the other hand, within this system of division and specialization, the totality of society and the totalizing picture of the world seem to have become increasingly blurred. It is precisely in this context that philosophy has sought, on the one hand, to lay a foundation of legitimacy for this transformation and development, establishing the premises and existential grounds for a new history; on the other hand, it has sought to rediscover a totality for this fractured world, delineating a total picture of social life and a genealogy of knowledge. A crucial aspect of the theoretical impulse of the young Lukács was his disappointment with the fragmented world and his pursuit of totality; Korsch returned to the intrinsic connections between Marx’s philosophy, political economy, and scientific socialism in an effort to re-interpret Marx’s philosophy; Gramsci took totality as an essential determinant in his theory of hegemony. All of them used totality as a vital entry point to re-understand Marx’s philosophy, thereby achieving a rupture with the research tradition of the Second International [1] era, forming new lines of inquiry, and exerting a profound influence on later generations.
I. Totality: From Hegel to Marx
“Free thought is thought that does not accept unexamined premises.” [2] This implies that the premises of any philosophy must be subjected to reflection. In the essay “With What Must the Beginning of Science be Made?”, Hegel discusses this issue in greater detail. In his view, philosophical reflection must have a beginning or starting point; this beginning must be absolute, not presupposing anything else, and must itself be the ground for all science. However, to avoid falling into dogmatism, this beginning or starting point must also serve as the demonstrated end point. In this sense, the beginning and the end constitute a circle. “What is essential for science is not so much that a pure immediacy should be the beginning, but that the whole of science is in itself a circle in which the first is also the last and the last is also the first.” [3] As a science, philosophy itself constitutes a totality.
In the discussion of the "three attitudes of thought toward objectivity" in the Shorter Logic [4], Hegel further articulates a philosophical theory of totality. First, philosophy should not internally partition itself into unrelated regions; the continuity from the starting point to the end point means that no matter what different moments philosophical reflection undergoes, these moments are interconnected and inseparable. Second, the objectivity of philosophical thought is manifested not only in the objective logic of thought itself but also in the grasping of the thing itself, which implies an internal communication and coordination between thought and the thing. Proceeding from this idea, Hegel criticized Kant’s practice of drawing an insurmountable gulf between the "thing-in-itself" (Ding an sich) and thought. In this demarcation, Kant emphasized the universality and necessity of thought to distinguish it from the contingency and particularity of sensation, thereby bringing about a rupture in philosophical thought. This rupture rendered the thing-in-itself an empty, negative existence. “The thing-in-itself (and under ‘thing’ is embraced even Mind and God) expresses the object when we abstract from all our consciousness of it, all our feelings about it, and all determinate thoughts of it. It is easily seen that what is left is a mere abstraction, a total emptiness, only to be described as a ‘beyond-world’ (Jenseits); the negative of representation, of feeling, of definite thoughts, etc. Nor is it less simple to see that this caput mortuum is still only a product of thought, such as accrues when thought is carried to its abstraction.” [2]
Third, philosophy signifies a notion of totality that is embodied not only in thinking but also in the identity of thinking and reality. The owl of Minerva takes flight only at dusk, thereby achieving a totalizing examination of Spirit (Geist). In this process, pure thought itself is fluid. This movement of pure essence, “considered in its connection with its content, is the necessary expansion of that content into an organic whole. Through this movement, the road to the concept of knowledge likewise becomes a necessary and complete process of formation.” [5] Spirit presents truth within this totality by externalizing itself into an "other" and then returning to itself from that other.
Under this overarching idea, Hegel took the development of concepts as an example to further discuss the issue of totality in various moments. Seen from the developmental process of Spirit, it undergoes a progression from sense-certainty and understanding to reason; these constitute the different moments of the totality of Spirit. In these three different developmental stages—sense-certainty, understanding, and reason—there are respective totalities, each undergoing the three moments of immediate identity, difference, and dialectical unity. For instance, when discussing self-consciousness in the Phenomenology of Spirit, Hegel confirms the formation of self-consciousness through labor: in the process of labor, the slave, on the one hand, accepts the consciousness of the master out of fear, and on the other hand, through the labor of cultivating things, perceives his own consciousness in the process of objectification. It is only through this dual acceptance that true self-consciousness can be formed. Such self-consciousness is, in the final analysis, a kind of intersubjectivity—that is, self-consciousness contains the recognition and acknowledgment of both the other’s consciousness and one’s own. This is a thinking, free self-consciousness. Although in thought the object appears to be an object in the status of a "being-in-itself" (Ansichsein) distinct from consciousness, it is in fact no different from consciousness; it is grasped in the form of the concept. This means that in thought I am free, because the self is no longer located in an external object, but within itself.
When this kind of freedom is elevated to the level of caprice, it signifies a Stoic freedom. This freedom "holds a lifeless tranquility, which continually withdraws from the movement of existence, from the activity of influencing others and being influenced, back into the simple reality of thought." [6] This freedom is merely freedom within simple thought; it is still only the concept of freedom, lacking living content and detached from the diversity of things. When this freedom gains content, because it has no content of its own, this content can only be "given." When the elements within the Stoic concept are realized, Skepticism arises. In the pure thinking of self-consciousness, there are only abstract things with differences; here, they become differentiated real things. When that originally free self-consciousness feels itself to be free, it perceives things external to itself; freedom at this point must be a freedom that can experience itself within the flux of changing things. However, once it deals with existing things, that original pure thinking feels itself to be a contingent, individual consciousness. At this point, consciousness falls into a state of vacillation: on the one hand, it believes that external individual things or all differentiated things are to be totally negated, while on the other hand, it easily falls back into individual consciousness. At this moment, when you point out the identity of things, this skeptical self-consciousness will emphasize non-identity; when you emphasize the non-identity of things, it will instead point out that things are identical. “In Stoicism, self-consciousness is the simple freedom of itself. In Skepticism, this freedom is realized; it negates the other side, namely determinate finite existence, but it precisely thereby doubles itself, and is now itself something double.” [6]
Thus, the "unhappy consciousness" is formed. The development of this fractured unhappy consciousness eventually reaches the unity of the "being-in-itself" and "being-for-itself" (Fürsichsein) of self-consciousness, making consciousness certain that in its individuality it is within absolute being-in-itself; thus, consciousness returns once more to itself. Of course, this is not a simple repetition, but a return after having undergone many mediations, forming a "minor circle" in the development of self-consciousness. This also demonstrates that self-consciousness constructs itself as a total existence during its process of development.
Although Marx criticized Hegelian philosophy on many occasions, this thought of totality within Hegelian philosophy was carried forward and became an important hallmark of his critique of capitalist society. In the Introduction to the Critique of Political Economy, Marx distinguished between the research method that proceeds from the "concrete real" and that which proceeds from the "totality." In classical political economy, they began with concrete realities such as population, which seems realistic and feasible. However, Marx pointed out: "If I leave out the classes of which the population consists, population is an abstraction. If I do not know the factors on which these classes are based, such as wage labor, capital, etc., class is again an empty word." [7] Therefore, population is a collective number; population added up like counting potatoes appears concrete but is actually abstract, because the differences between different people within the social structure cannot be seen here. Determinations abstracted from such reality cannot reach an understanding of the concrete. "The concrete is concrete because it is the concentration of many determinations, hence unity of the diverse." [7]
Combining Marx's relevant discussions, we can see: First, social existence and social life are a totality; any element within social existence can only be understood when placed within this totality. On the surface, population is a real existence, but if population is not placed within a specific structure of social relations, it cannot truly reflect the composition of the population across different strata; it merely becomes data in a statistical sense. Second, the totality is mediated. Hegel emphasized very strongly that the totality is a mediated totality; the moments through which reason unfolds constitute the self-mediation of reason. Marx emphasized this as well: any concrete existence is a unity of many determinations, a unity of the diverse, and an existence within relations to other things. Third, social existence as a totality has a dominant relational structure; in capitalist society, this is capital. It is precisely this dominant relational structure that pulls everything into a constantly churning vortex, forming a totalized existence. Here, Marx’s thought of totality not only reveals the state of social construction under the logic of capital but also points the way for the critique of capitalist society—that is, only through a critique of the totality of capital can one truly see the state of existence of concrete beings.
But this does not mean that Marx's thought on totality is indistinguishable from Hegel's. First, for Hegel, the totality is a totality of the Spirit’s self-differentiation, self-deepening, and self-synthesis; it is the understanding and grasping of the concrete by thought. For Marx, social life itself manifests as a constantly developing and changing totality. Since the emergence of capitalist society, this has manifested as a transformation from local histories into world history. Consequently, the foundation of the totality is social existence; the movement of categories is the ideological expression of the process of production and reproduction of real life. Society is both the field in which this act of production occurs and the result of that act. Second, the totality of concepts is a reproduction of the totality of reality itself—a product of the "thinking head"—and is the method used by thought to grasp the world. The developmental process of the totality of thought coincides with the developmental process of reality itself. Marx uses the category of "labor" as an example to illustrate this characteristic of concepts. As a category of classical political economy, labor underwent a developmental process from mercantilism to the Physiocrats and finally to Adam Smith. When Smith proposed the labor theory of value, it was likewise a totalizing perspective on social life; within this perspective, Smith recognized the integrative significance of industrial production for social life. Third, within the totality of capitalist society, what truly occupies the dominant position is capital and its logic of operation. Marx believed that in all social forms, there is one specific relation of production that determines all others and occupies a position of dominance and leadership. In capitalist society, this dominant and leading position is occupied by capital. It is like a special "ether"; only by proceeding from capital can one understand any concrete form of existence, such as agriculture or ground rent. Hegel once discussed the starting and ending points of philosophy and unified the two. Seen in reverse, within the totality of the existence of capitalist society, capital is the true starting and ending point. Fourth, although both emphasize totality, there is a fundamental difference between the theoretical aims of Marx and Hegel. In a socio-historical sense, Hegelian totality points toward the totality of the relationship between capital and reason, regarding reason as a restrictive force capable of checking the malignant development of capital—this is the practical orientation of his philosophical idea of totality. In Marx, however, there are irreconcilable fissures within the totality of capitalist society. At the level of general social structure, Marx described this through the contradiction between the productive forces and the relations of production; in capitalist society, Marx described it through the contradictions of commodity production and exchange, and the tendency of the rate of profit to fall, in order to demonstrate the transience of capitalist society. Marx did not believe that capitalist society was capable of self-repair, much less that it could be reconciled through the power of reason. This is the fundamental difference between him and Hegel.
This thought on totality was an important concept and method for Marx’s study of the logic of capital. However, in the direct presentation of his texts, the contradictory movement of social relations and the operation of capital along with its inherent contradictions became the explicit content. This was the content of primary concern for traditional researchers, while the thought on totality within Marx’s philosophy did not receive genuine attention. Among the Marxists of the Second International era [8], a mindset overly focused on the contradictory movement between productive forces and relations of production caused the critical implications of the thought on totality in Marx’s philosophy to vanish. It was precisely upon seeing this problem that Georg Lukács, in History and Class Consciousness, made Marx’s thought on totality reappear.
II. Lukács and the Restoration of the Thought on Totality in Marx’s Philosophy
In the developmental history of Marxist philosophy since the Second International, Lukács was the first to propose the idea of rethinking Marxist philosophy through totality, thereby opening a path different from the orthodox research of the time and forming the research tradition of Western Marxism [9].
The young Lukács was initially deeply influenced by Neo-Kantianism and completed the book Soul and Form. In this work, the young Lukács proposed a pessimistic philosophy regarding the existential predicament of modern man: in modern society, man exists in a state of fragmentation; man is not only abandoned by God, but his own existence and soul are also in a state of schism. At this time, Lukács wanted to use the method of literary criticism to "re-form" life and return to the eternal values of life.
As his thought progressed, Lukács turned from Neo-Kantianism to Hegel in The Theory of the Novel. Although facing the same theme—the problem of the fragmentation of the world and existence—Lukács’s solution manifested different dimensions. Using Ancient Greece as a cultural archetype, Lukács considered it a "rounded" era, an era in which the individual and the world existed in a totalizing connection. "It is a homogeneous world, and even the separation between man and world, between 'I' and 'you', cannot disturb its homogeneity. The soul, like every other part of this harmony, is located at the center of the world." [13]
This was a life of wholeness: "The wholeness of this sphere constitutes the transcendental nature of their life, while for us this sphere has been breached; we no longer breathe in a whole world." [13] Modern society is a society that has moved out of transcendental wholeness. If Ancient Greece was a rounded world, then modern society is a world that constantly extends into the distance; man is forever on a road without an end. In this new world, man has many inventions and creations of form, modes of life that constantly break through boundaries, an external world that can be infinitely explored, and rich and colorful forms of life—"However, this rich diversity sublate [10] the basic and positive meaning of its existence: totality." [14] In the same way that he emphasized the fission of life, Lukács, distinct from Soul and Form, expressed the "forming" of life through the idea of totality rather than a pure concept of form.
In The Theory of the Novel, Lukács’s thought on totality is primarily manifested as follows: First, totality means that what exists within itself is complete. Lukács’s imagination regarding Ancient Greek culture belongs to this category; in his view, in the Ancient Greek era, man and the external world were an integrated whole, constituting a complete world. Second, totality is the fundamental reality of every individual phenomenon. Everything develops toward its own perfect form within the totality and realizes its connection with the totality. Third, the reason a totality is a totality is that everything occurs within it. This totality of Ancient Greek culture took the unity of the human soul and the world as its orientation; in the depths of the human soul, there was neither interior nor exterior; one would neither lose oneself nor think of searching for oneself. Fourth, totality is an existence tending toward perfection. "Existence is only possible as a totality where everything is already homogeneous before being embraced by forms, where forms are not a coercion but only an awareness, where everything—which as a dim longing has not yet manifested in the interior of that which is to be formed—tends toward the surface, where knowledge is virtue and virtue is happiness, and where beauty makes the meaning of the world evident." [14] Although these discussions by Lukács are of a cultural-utopian nature, the yearning for a beautiful totality and the critique of fragmented life became the driving force of his philosophical reflections at this time. This idea of totality became the entry point for Lukács to re-understand Marx’s philosophy in History and Class Consciousness.
In the essay "What is Orthodox Marxism?", Lukács pointed out: "Let us assume for the sake of argument that recent research had disproved once and for all every one of Marx’s individual theses. Even if this were to be proved, every serious ‘orthodox’ Marxist would still be able to accept all such modern conclusions without reservation and… renounce all of Marx's individual theses without having to renounce his orthodoxy for a single moment. Orthodox Marxism, therefore, does not imply the uncritical acceptance of the results of Marx’s investigations... On the contrary, orthodoxy in questions of Marxism relates exclusively to method. It is the scientific conviction that dialectical Marxism is the correct method of investigation and that this method can be developed, expanded and deepened only along the lines laid down by its founders." [15] Here, Lukács pointed out that orthodox Marxism actually grasps the soul and essence of Marx’s thought, namely the dialectical method. How should the dialectical method be understood? At this time, Lukács had not seen the Economic Manuscripts of 1857–1858 (Grundrisse), but his line of reasoning is very similar to Marx’s introduction regarding research methodology in the "Introduction" (Einleitung). Lukács likewise started from the positivist and empirical methods popular at the time, but he went on to point out that this method, which seemingly masters "pure facts," is not scientific. This is because any empirical fact is not an isolated existence but an existence within a specific objective structure; in capitalist society, these facts are existences within the capitalist social structure. "Only in this context, which interprets the isolated facts of social life as aspects of the historical process and integrates them into a totality, can knowledge of the facts hope to become knowledge of reality." [15] Here it can be seen that Lukács believed the method of totality is the fundamental method within Marx’s dialectic; this is also the methodological basis for his critical investigation of the reified capitalist society.
In History and Class Consciousness, totality has two levels of meaning: one is totality as methodology. Lukács regards totality as the core of the dialectical method. In the perspective of totality, things are interconnected and mutually mediated; they constitute a totality with internal relations. This means that concrete research must study social relations as a whole. This is not only reflected in the structural composition of relations at the level of social existence but also means that a totalizing connection is likewise formed between people’s consciousness and existence. However, this does not mean there is an undifferentiated identity between any elements within the totality; on the contrary, the relationship between them is a dynamic, developing dialectical relationship. Any concrete social totality is not only a static structure but also a process of historical change. In this process, a dominant factor exists that plays the role of synthesizing the totality. For example, in capitalist society, this dominant factor is capital. The perspective of totality became the basic principle for Lukács’s investigation of problems.
The other meaning of totality is manifested as the ideal state of social existence; on this point, Lukács continued his early thoughts. Proceeding from an ideal totality, current social life is non-totalizing. This non-totality is primarily reflected in two aspects: namely, the reality of reification and fragmentation, as well as the antinomies in ideological concepts driven by this reification and fragmentation.
In History and Class Consciousness, Lukács’s discussion of reification is undoubtedly a brilliant chapter; people often compare it with the young Marx’s discussion of alienation. Lukács’s critique of reification mainly focuses on two levels: First, proceeding from Marx’s A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy and Capital, he points out that the relationships between people in society have degenerated into relationships between things. In the Critique of Political Economy, Marx had already pointed out: "A social relation of production appears as something existing outside of individuals, and the definite relations into which they enter in the process of production of their social life appear as the specific properties of a thing. This inversion, this mystification which is not imaginary but prosaically real, characterizes all social forms of labor that produce exchange-value." [16] Here, Marx pointed out the reified characteristics of the era when commodity production and exchange became universal in capitalist society. This reification is directly expressed as commodity fetishism in Capital. Lukács cited Marx’s discussion of commodity fetishism from Capital and absorbed Georg Simmel’s critique of social reification as well as Max Weber’s discussion of rationalization, pointing out that "this rational objectification first of all masks the—qualitative and material—immediate 'thingness' of all things. When all use-values appear without exception as commodities, they acquire a new objectivity, a new 'thingness'—which they did not possess in the era when they were only occasionally exchanged, and which annihilates their original, genuine 'thingness'." [17]
Here, Lukács distinguishes between two types of materiality: first, the original physical materiality of things; and second, the materiality of things after they have been commodified. The latter is a new type of materiality; it is precisely this materiality that constitutes the core of contemporary social relations, and it is at this level that reification occurs. In commodity fetishism, Marx primarily revealed how a society of people and their relations appears invertedly as a relation between things; Lukács further reveals the concrete characteristics of reification, such as rationalization, calculability, and the resulting "reification-slavery" [11] of the soul. It is precisely due to rationalization and calculability that social existence and human existence are decomposed into controllable and quantifiable existences, which is the method by which the totalizing picture is fragmented.
Second, because the modes of social and human existence have become reified and fragmented, leading to the disappearance of the totalizing picture, a return to totality became the immanent pursuit of the development of modern philosophy, particularly German Classical Philosophy. Modern philosophy emerged from the reified structure of consciousness, and antinomy is a significant manifestation of this reified consciousness. Kantian philosophy holds that the relationship between cognition and the object is oriented toward whether the object conforms to cognition, rather than using the object as the standard as was previously believed. This is the philosophical inversion marked by Kant's "Copernican Revolution." Consequently, the cognition of the rational subject became the core content of philosophy; the world we perceive should be the product and object of reason. Of course, Kant did not take this to its extreme; he proposed the "thing-in-itself" [12] as the limit of reason. Reason can only know the realm of phenomena; the thing-in-itself is beyond the grasp of reason. Regarding this, Lukács explains that the thing-in-itself is like Adam Smith’s "invisible hand"—it represents a world that the philosophy of that time could not reach. Thus, the world split into a knowable world and an unknowable world; totality, in this sense, is fractured, and this fracture is one that Kantian philosophy cannot heal.
If Kant’s approach starting from the subject could not solve the problem of antinomy, then French materialism, which started from the object, likewise failed to solve it. French materialism merely stated directly that contemporary capitalism had become an existence independent of human will, much like nature. This means that 18th-century French materialism was equally a manifestation of reified consciousness.
This antinomy drove the development of German Classical Philosophy. Logically speaking, to solve this problem, one must resolve the opposition between subject and object, form and content, thereby achieving the unity of opposites within the fluidity of logic; this is precisely how Hegelian philosophy solved the problem. For example, the unity of subject and object means that subject and object possess an internal reciprocity; the subject’s consciousness of the object is simultaneously the object’s consciousness of itself. Subject and object construct one another throughout historical development; therefore, history became a crucial field for the development of Hegelian philosophy. According to theoretical logic, Hegel should have turned here to the study of history itself, rather than treating it as a footnote to reason. However, Hegel did not do so; he merely saw history as a stage for the performance of reason. The most important step here was taken by Marx. The significant change in Marx’s philosophy lies in the shift from being thought-centered to focusing on socio-historical life, thereby discussing the structure of social existence itself and its historical changes—revealing the foundation upon which reified consciousness is produced. This provided a way out for fundamentally resolving the problem of antinomies.
Any philosophical critique is premised on a certain ideal state. Lukács’s critique of reification and antinomy is similarly based on an ideal totality; in this sense, totality possesses a certain ontological significance for Lukács. While this ideal totality was not yet clearly delineated in History and Class Consciousness, it was discussed extensively in later works such as The Ontology of Social Being. In The Ontology of Social Being, Lukács established a social-existential ontology based on labor, believing that this ontology constituted the foundation of all of Marx’s economic research. "Marx’s economics always starts from the totality of social existence and always returns to this totality." [21] This totality is based on teleological labor, driving the formation of social totality through reproduction. This totality signifies not only a totality at the material level of social existence but also the totalizing connection between ideology and social production; totality in thought is the reproduction of the totality of social existence. "The consciously developed systematic critique we recognize as found in Marx starts from the totality of being by means of the sought-after connections themselves, and attempts to understand it as closely as possible in all the complex and multifaceted relations of this totality. However, totality here is by no means a formal or mental totality, but rather a reproduction of that which actually exists; categories are not the building materials of a hierarchical systematic structure, but are in fact 'forms of being, determinations of existence' [13], the constituent elements of relatively complete, real, and moving complexes whose dynamic interactions produce complexes that are increasingly extensive in breadth and depth." [21]
On the one hand, totality here possesses the methodological characteristics discussed; on the other hand, totality embodies an ideal state of social existence. In Lukács’s discussion, the totality of social existence is based on labor, because only in labor can human beings truly establish links with nature, with other people, and with themselves; only in labor can social existence be endowed with teleology. Only at this level can freedom and human development manifest. Therefore, an ontology based on labor fundamentally provides an anthropological argument for the free development of humanity. Social existence as a totality is, in this sense, an expression of an ideal society. It is precisely because of this ideal state of totality that Lukács can critique the alienation of capitalist society.
III. Totality: Korsch and Gramsci
Korsch’s discussion of Marxism was similarly directed at the orthodox interpretations of the Second International era. Aiming at the contemporary practice of neglecting the philosophical content of Marxism, in Marxism and Philosophy, Korsch emphasized that Marx’s philosophy is consistent with his thought on scientific socialism. Just as German Idealism was the philosophical expression of the German bourgeois revolution, Marx’s philosophy is the theoretical expression of the proletarian revolution. Therefore, the consistency of theory and practice is the fundamental characteristic of Marxist philosophy. This also means that Marx’s philosophy permeates his thought and guides practice. What is a theory permeated by philosophical thought? "It is a theory that views and understands social development as a living totality; or more precisely, it is a theory that views social revolution as a living totality of theory and practice. At this stage, there is no doubt that any attempt to divide this totality into branches of knowledge—economic, political, and ideological—even when the concrete characteristics of each separate element are grasped, analyzes and critiques from the standpoint of historical fidelity. Of course, not only economy, politics, and ideology, but also the historical process and conscious social action constantly constitute the living unity of 'revolutionary practice.' The Communist Manifesto is the best example of Marxist theory in its early, youthful vitality." [22]
From Korsch’s discussion, it is evident that a key feature of Marxist philosophy is totality. During the creation of Marx’s thought, although he absorbed many different ideas, these ideas underwent a creative integration to form a social theory that totalistically investigates and critiques social life, emphasizing the combination of this theory with practice. This combination is precisely the living, totalizing revolutionary theory. Even in the later period of Marx’s thought, although this totalizing revolutionary theory was sometimes argued through different facets, this did not change the totalizing characteristics of Marxist philosophy. With the development of society and the evolution of knowledge itself, in the later formulations of Marx and Engels, Marxism as a totalizing picture of knowledge seemed increasingly decomposed into different disciplines, such as philosophy, political economy, the dialectics of nature, and scientific socialism. The umbilical cord of natural connection between these different areas of knowledge seemed to have broken, causing later generations to decompose Marx’s thought into distinct objects of knowledge. Korsch believed this was a misunderstanding; Marx and Engels never intended for the totality of theory to be replaced by independent theoretical elements. In particular, the connection between philosophy and the other parts constitutes a vital characteristic of Marxism. When its philosophical thought is ignored, it is precisely a vulgarization of Marxism. This is a major reason why he emphasized the need to re-discuss Marx’s "philosophy." Consequently, Korsch strongly opposed dividing Marxist philosophy into different factors and then performing empirical analysis on them to increase the "scientificity" of Marxism. Doing so does not deepen the understanding of Marxism, but rather restricts the totalizing and critical features of Marxist philosophy in a modern capitalist manner.
This thought of Korsch’s is even more evident in Karl Marx: Marxist Theory and Class Movement. This book is divided into three parts: the first discusses the relationship between Marxist revolutionary theory and the then-emerging sociology; the second discusses the relationship between Marxist revolutionary theory and the critique of political economy; and the third discusses the philosophical connotations of Marxist revolutionary theory. Throughout the discussion, Korsch focuses on the totalizing connection of these ideas within Marxist theory, especially the internal links between the constituent parts of Marxism. For example, when discussing the critique of political economy, Korsch emphasizes that Marx’s critique starts from a revolutionary standpoint. Recalling the previous discussion on revolutionary theory and practice, this means Marx’s critique of political economy has an internal link with his philosophical thought. Only by realizing the transition from "philosophical idealism" to "materialist science" could Marx transcend the limits of classical political economy and form an original theory of the critique of political economy. He believed that only after the 1850s did Marx formulate the fully developed form of his materialist theory: "It is both political economy and, at the same time, the critique of political economy. ... It reveals that economic categories—including all its most general concepts and basic principles—are the 'fetishistic' masked expressions of existing social relations, being merely the historically valid laws of a certain era of the socio-economic formation." [23]
In the critique of political economy, although Marx’s direct object is capital, the actual object is "labor." This labor is no longer the labor of early capitalism, which still possessed its own actual means of production and exchanged its products as commodities with other labor; rather, it refers specifically to "wage labor" separated from the material means of production—that is, labor under the oppression of capital. The fundamental intent of the critique of political economy lies in the realization of socialism. This determines the connection between Marx’s critique of political economy and scientific socialism; if separated from this link, one cannot grasp Marxism as a totality. The totality in a methodological sense emphasized by Korsch is, in fact, the key point we should focus on when re-reading Korsch today.
Similar to Korsch, Gramsci also emphasized the concept of totality in Marxist studies. Gramsci, in discussing what constitutes Marxist orthodoxy, pointed out that the orthodoxy of Marxism is not guaranteed by a particular Marxist adherent, nor is it to be proven through some external, non-Marxist current of thought. Marxism is "self-sufficient" (autosufficiente). "This 'self-sufficient' concept not only constructs all the basic elements needed for a comprehensive, complete worldview and a comprehensive theory of philosophy and natural science, but also contains all the elements needed to animate a complete, practical social organization and turn it into a comprehensive and complete civilization." [24]
Gramsci emphasized that Marxism is a totality, a quality manifested in two respects. First, regarding the fundamental characteristics of Marxism, philosophy and politics—or theory and practice—constitute an integral whole. For instance, he believed that Marx and Lenin respectively represented two stages: Marx created a new worldview, while Lenin put this worldview into practice. Marx and Lenin embody the most fundamental historical unity of theory and practice, a unity that was the result of the development of Western civilization. "The Renaissance and the Reformation, German philosophy and the French Revolution, Darwinism and English classical economics, the liberalism of giants and this historicism rooted in the whole modern conception of life. The philosophy of praxis is the crown of this entire movement of intellectual and moral reform, forming a dialectic between the opposing popular culture and high culture. It realized the combination of the Protestant Reformation and the French Revolution: it is both a philosophy of politics and a political philosophy." [14]
Second, Gramsci emphasized that a totalizing connection exists between the critical constituent elements of Marxism. Addressing the tendency of the time to divide Marxism into philosophy, political economy, and politics, Gramsci pointed out that while partitioning Marx’s thought into three components reflects a genetic investigation of historical sources, it is actually impossible to separate these contents from the philosophy of praxis and emphasize their individual value. In reality, these elements are interwoven in an organic totality. If philosophy, economics, and politics constitute the component elements of the philosophy of praxis, then in "their theoretical principles, there must necessarily be contained the convertibility from one activity to another, and the possibility of translating each into the special language appropriate to each component element. Any one element is contained in the other two, and all three together constitute a homogeneous circle."
For example, when discussing Ricardo, Gramsci emphasized the need to establish an internal link between Ricardo, Hegel, and Robespierre. These represent three different intellectual currents; to establish a connection between them, one must break any transcendental presuppositions and reveal the similarity of their problems within a historical context. This is the historicism of the philosophy of praxis that Gramsci emphasized.
Third, proceeding from Marx’s perspective of totality, Gramsci emphasized when discussing hegemony [15] that hegemony is a theory integrating politics, economics, and culture. In the common understanding of hegemony, people often simplify it into a theory of cultural hegemony; this is actually a misunderstanding. Gramsci believed that if workers could achieve hegemony in the economic sphere, it would be of great significance for their revolution and liberation. In his early years, when he launched the factory council movement and organized workers to learn technical skills, his aim was actually to enable workers to master the production process by mastering technology, thereby obtaining a form of economic hegemony. He placed equal importance on political hegemony. Although he joined the Communist Party of Italy, unlike the Ultra-Left [16] ideas existing within the party at that time, Gramsci did not ignore the struggle in the sense of political legitimacy. These reflections were not contradictory to his emphasis on cultural hegemony; it could even be said that when the proletariat is unable to obtain economic or political hegemony, strengthening cultural hegemony becomes a possible path for the proletariat to transform itself and the world.
As the first generation of Western Marxists [17], Lukács, Korsch, and Gramsci grasped the most important content of Marxist philosophy—the totalizing investigation of social life—to reconstruct the theoretical tradition and essential content of Marxist philosophy. This played a positive role in breaking away from the mechanized Marxism of the Second International era and restoring the vitality of Marxist philosophy. By re-discussing the relationship between Marx and Hegel, they introduced the problem of subjectivity within Marx’s philosophy into the discussion of totality, forming different interpretive approaches. Although the three shared many commonalities, the differences between them were also very apparent. By comparison, Lukács was more like a philosopher, full of theoretical radicalism and imagination, whose critique of reification derived from philosophy possessed a very strong power of social penetration. While Korsch also emphasized the philosophical content of Marx, he was more willing to explore the links between philosophy, political economy, and socialism in Marx’s thought, a point especially evident in his book Karl Marx. Gramsci, proceeding from Italian reality, focused more on the connection between Marx’s thought and reality, emphasizing the integration of politics, economics, and culture, presenting the image of a theoretically profound revolutionist. Together, these three restored and reconstructed the theory of totality in Marxist philosophy, thereby forming an alternative approach to the orthodox research of that time, exerting a profound influence on subsequent thinkers—particularly from the 1930s to the 1960s—directly influencing the Frankfurt School and driving the theoretical development of Marxism abroad.