Song Kaixuan: Althusser's Interpretation of Materialist Dialectics and Its Significance
In order to break through the Second International’s [1] determinist interpretation of Marxist philosophy, the paradigm of the "philosophy of praxis"—which aims to promote the theory of subjective agency—has become increasingly prominent and dominant within Western "Marxology." However, this pan-Hegelianized approach reveals inherent flaws when confronted with the fields of empirical science within Marxism. Against this background, Althusser’s scientistic or structuralist mode of interpreting dialectical materialism played an important role in correcting this tendency.
The "Inverted" Dialectic
In Althusser’s view, to establish the theoretical characteristics of Marx’s dialectical materialism, an urgent theoretical question must be answered: what is the basis for distinguishing dialectical materialism from Hegelian dialectics? This question necessitates a return to the "inversion" [2] thesis proposed by Marx at the end of the "Afterword to the Second Edition" of Capital. There, Marx identifies his dialectic as not only different from Hegel's but its direct opposite; on the other hand, he emphasizes that Hegel was the first to provide a comprehensive and conscious working representation of the dialectical system, but that with him it is standing on its head, and must be turned right side up again to discover the rational kernel within the mystical shell of speculative philosophy. Consequently, the aforementioned problem can be transformed into: what exactly did Marx invert in his "inversion" of the Hegelian dialectic?
The expression "inversion of Hegelian philosophy" is not easy to understand; as Althusser noted, the word "inversion" is merely a metaphorical or symbolic expression and cannot ultimately provide a definitive answer to the problem. In fact, it is not self-evident whether "turning it over" fundamentally touches the structure of the Hegelian dialectic, or whether stripping away its idealist shell miraculously transforms it into the Marxian dialectic. Later, in Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy, Engels made a further clarification using the distinction between "system" and "method," which in essence did not differ much from Marx’s figurative expression. If Marx’s critique of Hegelian dialectics—and indeed his entire philosophy—was a philosophical revolution, then the simple separation of the "mystical shell" from the "rational kernel," or the replacement of Hegel’s world of ideas with Marx’s material world to make it "stand on its feet," would merely involve an easy spatial swap or positional shift. This surely was not his original intention, or it suggests that Marx had further meanings yet to be expressed.
Based on this, Althusser argues that Hegel’s dialectical "shell" is not an external component separable from its "kernel," but rather an internal component inseparable from it. If one were to strip away the outer shell, it would inevitably "injure the muscles and bones" [3] and affect the kernel itself. Therefore, Marx’s inversion of Hegelian philosophy is a fundamental transformation of the mechanism of dialectics, proceeding from an investigation into its nature and basic structure. Thus, for Althusser, we cannot be satisfied with endlessly repeating these ambiguous terms, to the point of becoming obsessed with over-analyzing these words and hesitating to move forward. Only by practically investigating the differences in the basic structure or connotation between the Hegelian and Marxian dialectics can we grasp the specificity of dialectical materialism with thorough clarity.
Subjective Activity and Objective Structure
Through the above analysis, to distinguish the difference between Marx’s and Hegel’s dialectics or to clarify the uniqueness of dialectical materialism, one must first clarify the question: "What is the basic structure of the dialectic?" Only by answering this can we understand how Marx’s transformation of the dialectic transcended Hegel. In fact, from the terms Althusser proposed, such as "overdetermination" and the "structuralist concept of causality," it is not difficult to find a new interpretative mode for dialectical materialism intended to replace the Hegelian dialectic. However, to merely identify Marx’s "inversion" of Hegel as a formal difference between two dialectics based on these overwhelming terms is to miss the opportunity to examine the true internal logic hidden behind this "difference."
In essence, the problem of the relationship between subjective activity and objective structure is Althusser’s determination of the basic structure of the dialectic. This assertion is made based on the following two considerations. On the one hand, Althusser’s exploration of this issue is essentially a response to the problem of the relationship between "the changing of circumstances" and "human activity or self-change" proposed by Marx in the Theses on Feuerbach. This, in turn, depends on two logics existing within Marx’s theoretical system that possess internal tension yet complement each other. They respectively emphasize human objective activity (to argue for an activist logic of changing the world) and a determinist logic based on modern science. Consequently, Althusser’s determination of the basic structure of the dialectic is a manifestation of this double logic. On the other hand, viewed from the intellectual background of the "structuralist" movement, Althusser’s structuralist interpretation of dialectical materialism followed the prevailing trend. From Claude Lévi-Strauss’s reaction against Sartre’s philosophy of subjectivity to Foucault’s pronouncement of the "death of man," a fundamental concept conveyed by structuralism was the replacement or even dissolution of subjectivity with objective structures or symbolic systems, so as to present social history as a "process without a subject" as precise as the natural sciences. Accordingly, the relationship between Marx’s and Hegel’s philosophy was grasped by Althusser as the relationship between subjective agency and structural determinism.
Dialectical Materialism as a Scientific Form
Althusser regards dialectical materialism as a form of scientific theory, distinguishing it from previous philosophical interpretations. This perspective is fundamentally consistent with the theoretical shift in Marx’s academic career. In The German Ideology, Marx began his path toward "historical science" by settling accounts with German [4] idealist philosophy, a path that is continuous with his move toward the political economy of scientific research and critique of capitalist society. Dialectical materialism is the abstraction or refinement of Marx’s method for constructing social science. Precisely for this reason, in the "Introduction to a Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy," Marx’s division between the real subject and the object of thought, as well as his discussion of the scientifically correct method being "the movement from the abstract to the concrete," points to a dialectic that serves as a principle and methodology for constructing scientific objects—one diametrically opposed to the Hegelian dialectic. It elucidates how to construct a determinist scientific object or scientific world from a non-determinist real world. It can be seen that Althusser’s division of "abstraction" (Generalities I), "concrete" (Generalities III), and "theory" (Generalities II) in his essay "On the Materialist Dialectic" is also a further reaffirmation of Marx’s scientific positioning of dialectical materialism.
In Althusser’s view, only by providing an interpretation of Marx’s dialectical materialism through "overdetermination" or a "structuralist concept of causality" can a clear line be drawn against the "expressive concept of causality" represented by Hegel. Furthermore, Marx’s dialectic presents itself as a complex, uneven, and structured complex whole. While Hegel’s dialectic appears complex and pluralistic, this is merely a pluralistic facade; the differences it continuously reproduces are nothing more than the products of the externalization or alienation of the Absolute Idea, which must ultimately return to this internal origin. In this regard, Hegelian philosophy did not deviate from the developmental trajectory of modern subjectivity philosophy initiated by Descartes; the originally singular subject merely evolved into another totalizing subject (the Absolute Idea) in Hegel’s theoretical edifice. To this end, Althusser aimed to weaken or eliminate traditional metaphysics, which regards "subjectivity" as its touchstone, and the resulting "Hegelian-existentialist" interpretative trend of Marxist philosophy, replacing it with a scientistic or structuralist interpretative mode.
Althusser transformed the relationship of Marx’s inversion of Hegelian philosophy into the thorny philosophical problem of subjective agency versus structural determinism and provided a scientistic interpretation of dialectical materialism, which undoubtedly constituted an important advancement in the study of Marxist dialectics. However, his shortcoming lies in regarding science as the only appropriate way to grasp the world, while forgetting that Marx’s fundamental purpose in engaging in the critique of political economy was to change the real world. Therefore, only by linking the two logics of determinism and agency—which coexist in Marx’s texts—in an appropriate way can we achieve a complete and reasonable explanation of Marxist theory.