Marxism Research Network
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Yang Haifeng: Totality, Totalization and Negative Dialectics

Marxism Abroad

The concept of totality is a vital component of Marxist philosophy and a central theme in Western Marxism. Since Lukács [1] restored this concept, the critique of reification in capitalist society—particularly the critique of fragmentation—has been a major topic of concern for the Frankfurt School and French Marxists. As the critique of capitalist society deepened and the internal logical relationship between the idea of totality and the development of modern philosophy was brought into focus, capitalist society came to be viewed as a reified totality. This drove Western Marxism toward a reflection upon and deconstruction of the theory of totality, eventually triggering a postmodern Marxist reinterpretation of the concept. Throughout this process, the theory of totality underwent changes not only in its conceptual formulations but also in its teleological orientation. Behind these shifts, however, remained the enduring theme of reflecting upon and critiquing capitalist society while exploring and pursuing a better future society. This article aims to analyze and reflect upon the dominant ideas regarding totality within the mid-20th-century Frankfurt School, French Marxism, and postmodern Marxism. Our goal is to grasp more clearly the evolution of Western Marxist thought on this issue, providing a theoretical reference for reinterpreting and developing Marxism today and for understanding contemporary capitalist society and its prevailing ideologies.

I. Totality and Critical Theory

Following the restoration of the idea of totality by the first generation of Western Marxists, the theory developed along two dimensions between the 1930s and 1960s. First, totality functioned as a critical method, emphasizing its significance for social critique and the "total refusal" derived therefrom. Second, totality was viewed as a future ideal state, with the "total person" representing the direction of social development—a realization of human liberation and freedom. This latter dimension was fully expressed in the 1960s through the reinterpretation of the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844.

Totality as a critical method focused particularly on several aspects. First, it emphasized the integration and communication between multiple disciplines to achieve a holistic reflection on social reality. This was prominently featured in the early Critical Theory of the Frankfurt School. In Lukács's thought, a key element was the critique of the fragmentation of real life and ideological concepts; he saw this fragmentation as a major manifestation of reification and totality as the means to overcome it. This logic directly influenced the Frankfurt School. In his inaugural address, "The Present Situation of Social Philosophy and the Tasks of an Institute for Social Research," Horkheimer [2] pointed out that the Institute took critical social philosophy as its research program. It concerned itself with problems that can only be understood within the context of human social relations—such as the state, law, religion, and society—thereby addressing the full spectrum of human social life. This approach aimed to change the then-dominant tendency in social science toward positivism. Under that positivist influence, researchers either began from the isolated individual or from "facts" understood in a natural-scientific sense. Consequently, "factual research" was divided into endless, tedious, and innumerable specialized sub-groups. Horkheimer argued that without changing this research methodology, we could never obtain a total perspective on social life. Accordingly, members of the Institute conducted complementary research to grasp social life in its totality.

The emphasis on a total critique was not only an inherent requirement of social development at the time but also an inevitability for theoretical research. After World War I, free-competition capitalism increasingly gave way to organized capitalism [3] (or monopoly capitalism), a shift that brought about a total transformation of social life.

First, in economic life, individual free competition surrendered to protected organizations. The principles of individualism and free competition were replaced by cooperation and exchange between sectors. The prevalence of organizations like cartels made economic life itself increasingly "total." Large corporations became increasingly bureaucratized internally, while inter-corporate relations became more interconnected, with organizational structures manifesting a totalizing character.

Second, the prevalence of monopoly organizations led to what Pollock [4] and others called "state capitalism." Economics and politics began to form an alliance; economic issues became political ones. As Hilferding's "finance capital" took a leading role in economic production and organization, and "when the coordination of economic behavior by conscious planning replaces the old natural laws of the market," economy in the traditional sense ceased to exist. The government began to dominate the economic process in both production and consumption. This represented the integration of the economic and the political; the state's role in economic life became increasingly visible. Horkheimer and others believed this was the outcome of free capitalist competition; he labeled such a state the "authoritarian state" to emphasize its role in dominance and manipulation.

Third, the relationship between the individual and organizations grew tighter. In the era of free competition, individual freedom was relatively apparent, and the capitalist production process still relied to some extent on personal skill. However, in the era of organized capitalism—from Taylorism to bureaucracy—the labor process became increasingly fragmented and factory organization grew more complex. Individuals were increasingly confined to specific production departments or corporate tiers. The organizational method within the factory shifted from a single capitalist facing workers to a multitude of vertical apparatuses facing the individual. Organizational principles became increasingly abstract and regularized, and the individual was subsumed by the organization. The more powerful the monopoly organization became, the more freely it could confront its own members.

The problem, however, was that this totality was not the one pursued by the Frankfurt School. Rather, it was a totality built on the foundation of reification, still predicated on the individual principle and private property. From the perspective of a critical totality, this was a "pseudo-totality." To provide a critical reflection on this pseudo-totality was precisely the theoretical mission of the Frankfurt School.

These total changes in social life required a corresponding change in theory. In his inaugural address, Horkheimer’s "social philosophy" emphasized the exploration of a new idea that transcended current research methods; in terms of concrete theoretical construction, it stressed interdisciplinary fusion and communication to achieve total reflection on social life, thereby realizing a critical reconstruction. This approach evolved into Critical Theory. The Frankfurt School gathered many outstanding scholars from different disciplines who, centered around the program of "Critical Theory," launched their critique of social life.

In the essay "Traditional and Critical Theory," Horkheimer further developed the idea of total critique. In his view, Critical Theory differed from traditional theory in several ways:

First, Critical Theory points toward the total meaning of social life rather than the meaning of isolated fields—the latter being the focus of traditional theory based on positivism. The real-world premise for traditional theory's research interest is the division of labor in capitalist society. This division constructs isolated fields whose relations follow the principle of free competition, thereby making it impossible to provide a theoretical picture of social life as a totality. Conversely, Critical Theory pursues a rational state of society and explores solutions to real-world suffering.

Second, society and nature exist in a state of rift. Influenced by the differentiation of knowledge and professional specialization, traditional theory cares only for the landscape of knowledge within its own field. Disciplines are isolated from one another. When facing society, they either deem social life unworthy of study or simply apply natural-science methods directly to it. This is precisely what Critical Theory seeks to change. Critical Theory begins by describing the mechanisms of capitalist society, revealing its internal principles—particularly those of economic life. In Horkheimer’s view, this involves the regulatory role of exchange and its oppressive effect on social life. The principle of exchange in capitalist economy corresponds to the desires of capital, placing the relationship between humans, and between humans and nature, in a state of necessary alienation.

Third, both traditional and Critical Theory concern themselves with the human being, the state of human existence, and the meaning of life. However, the human being of traditional theory is an abstract, isolated individual—someone in a state of free competition who cannot understand the totality of social life. The individual freedom and rational state emphasized by traditional theory further reinforce this individualistic self-consciousness. "Bourgeois thought is established on the basis of subjective reflection; this thought, with a logical necessity, treats the subject as an autonomous ego. Bourgeois thought is essentially abstract, built on the individual principle, where the individual believes himself to be the foundation of the world, even the unconditioned world itself, isolating himself from all events." Critical Theory opposes the separation of the individual from social life: "The subject in Critical Theory is a specific individual in real relationship with other individuals and organizations, in conflict with other specific classes, and within the network of relations between the social totality and nature." This subject is a structural existence within social life. Critical Theory, by critiquing this structural existence of real individuals, aims on one hand to change people’s conceptions of social life, and on the other, by critiquing human thought and real existence, to drive changes in social life itself. Within these ideas, totality constitutes the internal principle of construction.

As a critical method, another important feature of the idea of totality is that it logically leads to a "total refusal" of society. Using totality as the starting point for researching and reflecting upon contemporary society logically creates a negative critique. While this critique was perhaps less obvious in the early 1930s, it manifested fully in the 1940s after the members of the Frankfurt School arrived in the United States. In works such as Dialectic of Enlightenment and Eclipse of Reason, Horkheimer and Adorno further traced the dominant factors of modern life. At the rational level, they defined this as the "spirit of Enlightenment," tracing it back to the roots of Western culture; at the level of daily life, they understood it as the total domination of technology. From these two perspectives, Horkheimer and Adorno’s Critical Theory achieved a total critique of social life. In the work of Marcuse, this total critique evolved into the "Great Refusal," which became a hallmark of his theory.

In his early years, Marcuse followed Heidegger, but later felt that Heideggerian ontology was somewhat vacuous and lacked a socio-historical dimension. Consequently, he turned to Hegel and completed his doctoral dissertation, Hegel's Ontology and the Theory of Historicity, emphasizing the significance of Hegelian philosophy for understanding social life. In 1941, he completed Reason and Revolution: Hegel and the Rise of Social Theory. In this work, he particularly emphasized two aspects of Hegelian philosophy:

First, the totalizing character of Hegel’s philosophy. Similar to Lukács’s History and Class Consciousness, Marcuse traced the development of modern philosophy and argued that Hegelianism is a philosophy of totality: "Hegel repeatedly emphasized that the oppositional relationship between subject and object implies the existence of a unity that consolidates the mutual strife between the two; the resolution of this problem of the unity of opposites is both a theoretical and a practical problem." In an era of universal fragmentation, the task of philosophy is to reconstruct the vanished unity and restore the principle of totality.

Second is the idea of negativity in Hegelian philosophy. In the preface to Reason and Revolution, Marcuse points out the need to interpret Hegel in a new form, striving to clarify those implications of Hegelian thought which show "their harmony with the latest developments in European thought, especially with the development of Marxian theory." This harmony manifests a dialectic of philosophical criticality and revolution; he unfolds his interpretation of this dialectic around the idea of "negativity." "The dialectical process derives its dynamic from the effort to overcome the power of negativity. Dialectics is a process that shows that the way of existence of any person or thing exists in a world composed of contradictory relations. Any particular content can only be revealed by becoming its opposite. The latter is an inseparable part of the former, and this content is the totality of all contradictory relations contained within the content. Dialectics naturally takes its start when human understanding finds itself unable to adequately grasp certain things in their prescribed qualitative and quantitative forms. Prescribed quality and quantity seem to be a 'negation' of the thing that possesses them." "Only when the immediate state is recognized as negative, when existence becomes a 'subject' and makes its external state suit its potential, does true existence begin." Linking negativity with revolution constitutes a vital link in interpreting the relationship between reason and revolution. It could even be said that the reason dialectics is revolutionary is precisely because its core lies in "negation."

Marcuse believes that if Hegel viewed negativity as an internal stage of the self-development of reason, then Marx’s transformation of Hegelian philosophy directly linked this negativity with revolutionary criticality. In Marx’s philosophy, every category has a different foundation than in Hegelian philosophy. If in Hegel all categories are reflections and revisions of reality, then in Marx, all categories touch upon the negation of these existing orders of reality in order to establish a new social form. "They all speak of themselves as truths that can only be obtained through the negation of civil society. Insofar as all concepts are a condemnation of the existing order as a totality, Marx's theory is a 'critical' theory." Here, Marcuse understands the relationship between Marx and Hegel from the perspective of social critique, taking the different critiques of capitalist society as the fundamental demarcation between the two: if in Hegel "negation" refers more to "negation" within the system—the reflection on objects that have not been scrutinized by thought and reason—then in Marx, "negation" fundamentally means the theoretical critical "negation" of reality. When this "negation" is realized, it also means that Marx has realized the "negation" of philosophy, which is the conclusion that Hegelian philosophy should have had but did not truly manifest. This "negation" also implies that social critique cannot succeed by theory alone; it must become the mission of socio-historical practice.

In 1961, in the preface to the second edition of Reason and Revolution, titled "A Note on Dialectics," Marcuse more explicitly proposed the relationship between "negativity" and the Great Refusal. Hegel’s negativity speaks of shifting from immediate existence to its "other," which is an important link through which things develop; thus, negation is for the sake of affirmation, for the sake of establishing a higher identity. This can be illustrated with an example. Suppose in the morning we say "this one" to describe the "this one" of that moment, and in the afternoon when we say "this one" again, it represents another "this one" of that moment. The "this one" of the afternoon is already different from the "this one" of the morning, yet the term used is still "this one." It can be said that "this one" is both here and not here. Only when we negate this concrete "this one" can we derive the universal "this one"; only then can we truly designate the "this one" that exists here. Here, the first step is affirmation and the second is negation, but negation is for the sake of obtaining the final affirmation. This is Hegel’s "negativity," which constitutes the mediation of the existence and development of things. Mediation is a kind of "negation," but negation for the sake of affirmation.

Marcuse further elaborated on the meaning of "negation." In One-Dimensional Man, following the Frankfurt School’s logic of the critique of instrumental reason, Marcuse argues that in advanced industrial society, technological rationality has achieved a dominant position, eliminating all transcendent consciousness and critical spirit that are discordant with the current society. The critical tension between "is" and "ought" in traditional philosophy and the "negative" thinking oriented towards society have disappeared, leading to the one-dimensionalization of society, reason, and the individual. In this one-dimensional society, human desire, sensibility, and thought are all projected and suppressed by technological rationality, becoming objects that can be manipulated. Faced with this situation, Marcuse believes that value judgments and negative thinking must be reaffirmed. Due to the comprehensive one-dimensionalization of the existing society, "faced with the pervasive effects of the given system of life, its alternative seems to be a utopia." Existing "critical social theory has no concepts that can bridge the present and the future, nor can it provide promises to show its own victory; it only maintains negativity. Thus, it remains loyal to those who, without hope, realize the Great Refusal with their own lives."

This can be said to be a line of thought that takes the spirit of negative critique to the extreme. In Marcuse's view, dialectical negation means the negation of existing facts and their logic. From the perspective of avant-garde literature, this means interrupting the power that established facts impose upon language, as the power of these given facts has tended toward a kind of totalizing [5] oppression (this totality here is, of course, a pseudo-totality). Therefore, it is necessary to find another authentic language—a language different from the existing one. This language is currently "absent," but it is precisely this absent language that truly contains various possibilities for future development. In this sense, negation is a "Great Refusal." Here, Marcuse understands "negation" through the influence of Heidegger: "negation" is the negation of "Being" (you) through "Nothingness" (wu). This is precisely a Heideggerian refusal, just as Heidegger uses Being (existence) to refuse the entity (existent), but this refusal has his own "revolutionary" meaning. Negating Being through Nothingness is for the sake of moving towards a new existence and toward new hope.

II. Totality and Human Liberation

If, in critical theory, totality as an ideal still carries a faint utopian color and has not been expressed as clearly as the critical method, then in the re-reading of the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 (hereafter referred to as the 1844 Manuscripts), the idea of totality as a social ideal was more vigorously championed. The re-understanding of this manuscript was reflected in two different periods: first, in the 1930s when the manuscript had just been published and many scholars interpreted it from their own philosophical positions; second, in the 1950s and 60s, following the critique of Stalin and the reflection on traditional textbooks, scholars once again departed from the 1844 Manuscripts, leading to a high tide of humanism in the interpretation of Marxist philosophy. Despite the different eras, some identical lines of thought existed in both interpretations—namely, the emphasis on the "total man" (zongti de ren), where totality constitutes the historical context for human freedom and liberation.

The publication of the 1844 Manuscripts in 1932 attracted the attention of the Western academic community. In the same year, Marcuse wrote "The Foundations of Historical Materialism," arguing that in the 1844 Manuscripts, the philosophical basis of Marx’s critique of political economy is the species-essence of man and its realization. This is an expression of the idea of the "total man" based on labor ontology: "Even the most informal and general characteristics of Marx’s concept of labor have already gone far beyond the scope of economics; it has penetrated into the field that takes the existence of the total man as its research topic." Marcuse’s discourse unfolds from several core points:

First, Marx emphasizes that man is a species-being [6]. When man regards himself as an existing, living species-being, he treats himself as a universal and therefore free being. The freedom and universality of the species mean that man is not limited to a certain actual state of existence or his immediate relationship with things, but can transcend the immediate particular situation to grasp the essence within the essence of things and grasp the essential relationship between man and things. This is man entering into a relationship with the totality of himself and the totality of nature. Marcuse believes that Marx’s discourse on the species-essence of man and its realization "summarizes the entirety of human existence."

Second, in the 1844 Manuscripts, Marx established a labor ontology, which is the foundation for discussing the total man and the realization of his essence. Marcuse points out that Marx’s discussion of labor and its externalization and alienation clearly expresses the ontological nature of the concept of labor, which can be seen particularly through Marx’s three formulas regarding labor: "We take its three most important formulas: 'Labor is man’s coming-to-be for himself within externalization or as externalized man'; labor is man’s 'movement of self-creation and self-objectification'; labor is 'life-activity itself, productive life itself.' All three of these formulas of Marx, although not proposed in an article that exhaustively examines Hegel, still possess the color of the ontological nature of Hegel’s concept of labor." In this formula of labor ontology, the core point is that man creates and appropriates objects through the objectification of labor, thereby freely realizing himself. This return from alienation is the totalizing appropriation and grasping of the human world.

Third, the realization of the "total man" on the basis of labor ontology. Marcuse believes that Marx emphasized the significance of the objectification of labor for the realization of man’s species-essence, which allowed Marx to inherit and develop Hegelian philosophy and distinguish himself from Feuerbach. The objectification of labor contributes to the realization of man’s essential powers in two aspects: first, through the objectification of labor, man can realize his needs and desires, inscribing his essential powers upon the object and manifesting himself through the pre-determined object—this is the condition for realizing the species-essence as universality; second, the objectification of labor is essentially a "social" activity, and thus a historical activity. People form a relationship of social intercourse within objectified labor; this relationship is likewise historical and unfolds through historical activity. It is precisely in this social and historical unfolding that man can break free from abstract essential definitions, manifest a rich existence, and realize the "total man" in the true sense.

Fourth, corresponding to the "total man," Marcuse at this time proposed the idea of "total revolution." In his view, Marx’s investigation into the essence of man and his actual existence—especially human alienation in reality—becomes the fundamental motive force for launching a revolution. Because this alienation is comprehensive, it is determined that change cannot be effected solely from an economic, political, or cultural standpoint; it must be the "complete transformation of the status quo unconditionally through total revolution." This thinking of Marcuse’s bears similarities to his later "Great Refusal," while the "totalizing" judgment of the status quo constitutes the basis of this revolutionary critique.

In Marcuse’s work, although the "total man" constitutes the orientation of his theory, in the construction of his theory, he expanded more on the essence of the dialectic—the negation of totality—which makes his theory manifest a very strong criticality and radicalism. However, if one considers that when radical negation lacks a constructive dimension, the "total man" easily becomes a utopian imagination.

The longing for the "total man" was also the focal point of Henri Lefebvre's reinterpretation of Marx in the 1930s. In the latter half of his book Dialectical Materialism, published in 1938, he carried out a relatively concentrated elucidation of the idea of the "total man." Lefebvre’s discussion unfolds from three aspects:

First, there is totality as a philosophical method, which stands in opposition to positivist and idealist methods. Positivism exerts a narrow persistence on facts and ready-made objects [7], failing to examine things from the perspective of the process of practical activity; idealism, meanwhile, formalizes activity and fails to truly think from the standpoint of reality. Without a method of totality, one easily falls into material determinism when confronting nature. While material determinism reflects the modality of human practice at a certain stage, pushing this determinism to its extreme places humans within a material apparatus where they cannot freely manifest their lives. Without a method of totality, one easily falls into social determinism when confronting society. This is a form of "natural determinism" within human society; it both provides the conditions for human activity and, simultaneously, "limits this activity. It provides human freedom while opposing this freedom." This signifies that non-human elements within human activity are still playing a major role, and that humanity has not yet been fully understood. This also demonstrates that only by starting from totality—treating the relationship between man and man, and man and nature as a whole—can there be true philosophical activity, for the fundamental task of philosophy is the reproduction of totality.

Second, there is totality as the essential prescription of the human being, namely, the "total man." What is the total man? "The total man is the subject and object of change; he is the living subject who stands opposed to the object and overcomes this opposition; he is the subject divided into many partial activities and scattered prescriptions who overcomes this fragmentation; he is both the subject of action and the final object of action—even the product of action when producing external objects. The total man is a living subject-object, a subject-object that is first torn asunder and later imprisoned within necessity and abstraction. The total man moves through this fragmentation toward freedom; he becomes nature, but it is a free nature. He becomes a totality like nature, yet masters nature. The total man is the man who has 'eliminated alienation'." Combining Lefebvre's relevant discourses, we can conclude: First, the total man is one who has escaped one-way determinisms such as material or social determinism, under which man is governed by forces he cannot understand. The total man means that man is nature and man is society itself. Second, the total man has escaped the state of separation and alienation. In capitalist society, with the establishment of the dominance of economic necessity, man becomes homo economicus; the totality of products and productive forces becomes man’s "other," and man thus falls into an alienated state of existence. This alienation is manifested not only in man’s alienation from his activity, products, and human being, but also in the internal alienation and separation within man himself, such as the separation between action and thought. Third, creativity and freedom become the essential prescriptions of the total man. In the state of alienation, man’s creative activity is a means of making man an alienated being, and freedom departs from him. But with the return of the total man, creativity will become the manifestation of man’s essential powers. In this creative activity, the total man will eliminate the oppositions between subject and object, essence and existence, and self and other; man will return to being man. Fourth, Lefebvre even believes that when the total man is realized, the supreme authority is also the total man—the free individual within a free collective.

Third, there is the ontological foundation for defining the total man. Lefebvre likewise emphasizes the ontological significance of labor, regarding productive labor as a free and creative activity. The total man expresses himself through totalizing activity, and this holistic activity is also the common activity of humanity; this activity is "production." "The meaning of the word 'production' is of vital importance because it contains and explains other activities, and because it contains and signifies human essence, action, and knowledge. This word is sometimes disregarded because people mention it in its narrowest scope, but it signifies the sum total of human values." In The Sociology of Marx, completed in the 1970s, he confirmed the ontological significance of "praxis," arguing that praxis is creative activity which, in the concrete historical process, is embodied as productive labor. The highest expression of this labor is artistic productive activity. The total man is man in artistic existence. Taking artistic existence as the highest state of human existence is a major ideal of Lefebvre’s. He emphasizes that art is a form of productive labor capable of escaping the characteristics of alienation, realizing the unity of producer and product, individual and society, and nature and man. This is consistent with his thought in Everyday Life in the Modern World from the late 1960s. In this book, Lefebvre emphasizes that revolution must be total, encompassing the economic, political, and cultural levels. When politics and economics in real society become increasingly coercive, cultural revolution appears increasingly important. Such a cultural revolution cannot be separated from the transformation of philosophical experience; art can become the fertile soil for this transformation. The revolution of everyday life is the transformation of everyday life into a work of art, which is a key path to escaping the alienation of everyday life.

By the 1960s, when research into the 1844 Manuscripts rose again, the discussion of human totality remained a major topic of the time. Among these documents, Fromm’s Marx’s Concept of Man was undoubtedly a key text. In this text, Fromm’s point of departure is the total man. The entire essay actually discusses two major issues: first, how to understand man in history and his essence; second, the alienation of human essence in capitalist society. The second question is based on the first and demonstrates its validity. In discussing the theoretical orientation of Marx, Fromm points out: "Marx’s aim was that of the spiritual emancipation of man, of his liberation from the chains of economic determinism, of restituting him in his human wholeness, of enabling him to find unity and harmony with his fellow man and with nature." Therefore, the total man and the freedom of human nature constitute a consistent theme in Marx’s philosophy—not only in the early 1844 Manuscripts, but likewise in the later Capital. Complete human nature—the total man—is man who creates life freely and consciously. In creative activity, man realizes his free essence and achieves the reconciliation of contradictions between man and man, man and nature, and man and his objects. It is precisely with this idea of the total man that Marx conducted his profound critique of human alienation in capitalist society.

Alienation is rooted in the estrangement between human existence and essence—that is, man is not, in fact, what he potentially ought to be. In essence, man should be a complete man, a total man, but in reality, he exists in alienation, just as Marx described in the 1844 Manuscripts. Labor was originally the exercise of man’s essential powers, but in reality, alienated labor turns man’s self-activity—his essential activity—into a mere means for maintaining his existence; the world of man is dominated by the world of things. Unlike capitalism, socialism aims to eliminate human alienation, fully bring human capacities into play, and realize the free and creative development of man. Therefore, socialism is about returning man to the total man; this is the essential prescription of socialism.

The discussions mentioned above further advanced the understanding of totality. Scholars understood totality not only as a critical method but as a prescription for the future society and for the perfected essence of man. It can be said that this elevated totality to an extremely high position.

III. From Totality to Totalization: Sartre’s Exploration

When humanist discourse rose in the 1960s, Althusser conducted a deep critique of this discourse from a structuralist perspective. Regarding theoretical content, Althusser categorized this discourse as bourgeois ideology, arguing that taking the early Marx—who was under humanist influence—as the "true" Marx failed to escape ideological interpretive frameworks. In the development of Marx's thought, it was only after an "epistemological break" [8] that his scientific theory of history emerged. Althusser emphasized that an epistemological break existed between the young Marx and the late Marx, reflecting two different "problematiques" (问题构架). In his view, a person's problematique determines their mode of thought; every specific problem only gains meaning within this overarching totality. This means that the problematique possesses totality, and this totality exerts an external constraint on individual existence. In Marx's scientific theory of history, overdetermination [9] constitutes the core of this theoretical framework. In this explanation, overdetermination likewise constitutes a totality. Although Althusser criticized the humanist philosophical discourse, he did not criticize the concept of totality within it. Rather, he replaced the theoretical foundation of this idea of totality: where humanist discourse based totality on "man," Althusser emphasized the internal relations between elements such as economics and politics. Within this structural relationship, the productive forces play a fundamental role. It can be said that Althusser replaced the "totality of man" or "human existence" spoken of by humanists with an objective totality.

Unlike Althusser, Sartre, who lived in the same era, held a humanist interpretive stance toward Marxist philosophy. Like the humanists mentioned above, Sartre also criticized the neglect of "man" in orthodox Marxist philosophical interpretations, arguing that this neglect created an "anthropological void." "Man" here does not mean man in a general sense, but the individual. This meant that Marxism needed to be supplemented by his existentialism; meanwhile, Marxism, with its focus on and critical analysis of socio-historical life, was better able to activate existentialist reflection. The total life of social history needs to be concretized through individual existence, while the fragmented state of individual existence needs all the more to achieve "totalization" within social life to reach a dual perspective on both social life and individual existence. In this line of thought, what Sartre focused on was no longer a fixed "totality," but a dynamic "totalization." He emphasized: "The thought of ‘existence’ inherits two requirements from Marxism itself, which it considers to have originated from Hegelianism: if something as a truth is to be possible in anthropology, then it must be changing, it must become totalizing." Totalization signifies both the totalization of history and the totalization of knowledge. So-called dialectical reason is the knowledge of this dual relationship of totalization.

First, Sartre distinguished between the two concepts of "totality" and "totalization." In his view, totality signifies a solidified structure—much like that discussed by structuralism—where this structure governs everything as a given fact. In this sense, Althusser's overdetermination actually refined determinism. Sartre believed that the characteristic of the dialectic lies not in totality (总体性), but in totalization (总体化), because totalization signifies a changing and dynamic pattern; it signifies a "becoming," an expansion of the given structure, or even a breakthrough. In the process of totalization, something is always being lost; therefore, the process of totalization signifies both the unification of relations and their scattering. "In our view, the reality of the collective object resides in circularity: it shows that totalization is never completed, and totalization exists at most under the name of a 'detotalized totality'." This means that totality is a relatively "degraded" state of totalization.

For example, at the social level, inertial practice [10] (practico-inert) hinders the totalization of society. Like the aforementioned humanist scholars, Sartre establishes individual creative activity as the basis for the free development of the person. However, in real social life, because human history is built upon the foundation of scarcity (rareté), scarcity brings individuals into mutual conflict. It causes human creative activity to invert into conflicting, antagonistic activities, placing the individual in a state of potential self-annihilation and constant danger from every other person. Being alienated from oneself and easily separated from others, human creative practice degenerates into inertial practice. This state is even more pronounced in industrialized society. "It is perhaps more rational and easier to understand industrialization as the result of a development on the basis of past scarcity, which is a real factor of history (insofar as it manifests as institutions and practices), and which is established on the basis of the negation of man by man through the medium of the object." In inertial practice, the material system—which ought to serve as a mediation—becomes instead the dominant system, while the human being becomes a tool receiving "exigencies" (instructions) from the material system. Sartre’s discussion here is an application and extension of Marx’s critique of alienation and fetishism as well as Lukács’s theory of reification, through which he forms his own interpretive framework. In his view, reification does not merely turn people into things; more importantly, it imposes social structure as a necessity upon every member of a social group. These members are subordinated to the group and perceive society as a totality, as a molecular structure. This bears some resemblance to Althusser’s "totality": when such a totality is taken as a self-evident premise, the individual is already situated within the repression of real existence, transformed into a thing within the total structure. For instance, when discussing labor in a workshop, Sartre argues that this is a field of inertial practice. External unity constitutes the precondition of labor; within this external unity, humans are subordinated to the machine-totality. Laborers are partitioned by this totality across different production lines, completing their work through the instructions of the machine. In these discussions, "totality" seems to correspond more closely to the reified social structure. This interpretation is closer to Marx’s theory of the critique of fetishism; the reflection on totality is a primary reason why Sartre emphasizes "totalization."

Secondly, Sartre distinguishes between totalization and assimilation. In his view, assimilation refers to formalized sameness. In assimilation, all elements strip away their own particularity; they lack mediation between them and thus become homogeneous existences. Totalization is different: it possesses internal mediation, and the elements form internal interconnections within the totalizing process. For example, in the investigation of social life, relations between people must be understood through concrete activities. Investigating individual concrete activities and social practices requires an understanding of material reality within group relations and the material structures mediated by human practice. These constitute the mediations of interpersonal relations, thereby forming a manifold of complex relations. Such relations cannot be understood through assimilation. If assimilation makes everything more simplified and formalized, then totalization makes everything concrete and diversified. Of course, this does not mean that totalization equates to transparency. In this process, there is always something that remains in an opaque, mystified state. It is precisely these opaque and mysterious things that often cause human life to exist as something external to the human being. At the level of social life, when this mysterious element issues orders to humans, it manifests as the aforementioned "exigencies of things" (les exigences de la chose). Sartre’s discussion does not idealize totalization; rather, it recognizes the problems within this process—both the significance and the limitations of totalization.

For Sartre, Marxist philosophy is a philosophy of totalization. It is not a completed system, but one that drives its own totalization in the face of this changing world. How is this achieved? Sartre proposes the "progressive-regressive method" [11] in philosophical research. In his view, Marx expressed this method quite well. Marx pointed out: "The social history of men is never anything but the history of their individual development, whether they are conscious of it or not. Their material relations are the basis of all their relations. These material relations are only the necessary forms in which their material and individual activity is realized." Sartre believes this passage from Marx demonstrates: first, that material relations are the preconditions for human activity, constraining people's modes of activity and their consequences—this is an inertial material force; second, that humans are not entirely dominated by material conditions; they strive to change this force and make it change according to their own intentions; third, that the results of such changes often remain external to the human being, becoming an alienated force; fourth, that the elimination of this alienated force depends on the process of totalization. As discussed earlier, the process of totalization is not an ideal state, which means totalization is an ongoing process. The situation described above is the state of "progressing and regressing" within human historical activity. This requires philosophy to constantly return to the past, moving forward even while looking back, thereby completing this synthesis in thought. As Fredric Jameson commented: turning from the present to the past by an analytical method, regressing to the meaning and value of past actions at the moment they occurred, and then synthetically re-creating them in thought in a way that mimics their original richness and complexity. This is precisely the progressive-regressive method in philosophical reflection. Social life realizes its own totalization through this progression and regression, and philosophical reflection realizes its own totalization through the same process.

Compared to thought that merely emphasizes "totality," Sartre re-understands Marxist philosophy through "totalization," emphasizing that the relatively closed totality gives way to a totalization involving constant deconstruction and construction. This further highlights the dimension of movement in Marxist dialectics. Although inertial practice and the system of material "exigencies" exist within the process of totalization, Sartre believes that individual creative activity is a force capable of changing inertial practice, constantly pushing forward the totalization of social life, thereby opening up an open theoretical space. Compared to totality, totalization is better able to demonstrate the dialectic of Marx's philosophy.

IV. Totality and Servitude: Adorno’s Critique

From Sartre’s discussion, we can see that by the late 1960s, a significant shift in thinking occurred regarding the understanding of "totality." Totality was no longer seen as an ideal dimension for humanity or a direction for social idealization. Instead, totality was viewed as a characteristic of contemporary capitalist society. It is precisely this totality that suppresses individual existence and forms the repressive force of society. One could say that totality is the essence of modern developed Western society. It is this totality that increases social power and control. Breaking this totality is an important link in the liberation of modern society and human liberation. This idea found full expression in Adorno's Negative Dialectics.

Adorno’s critique of totality is reflected in the following aspects:

  1. Hegel’s Absolute Idea and its carrier—the World Spirit (Weltgeist)—constitute a totalizing existence that takes precedence over the individual and serves as a spiritual portrait of the world of commodity exchange. Adorno believes that Hegel’s Absolute Idea and its historical carrier, the World Spirit, represent a theory of totality. In Hegel’s discussion, compared to individual action, the World Spirit is an independent existence. It permeates every concrete spirit yet antecedents every concrete spirit. This determines that the World Spirit has priority over individual action and concrete ideas; individual action or spirit is only possible within the totality of the World Spirit. Within such a relationship:

First, even though in Hegelian philosophy the existence of the individual is an important link in the realization of the World Spirit, the individual is a false existence, because the totality can only "return to itself" in the Hegelian sense after discarding the existence of the individual.

Second, this totality is an identity-totality that has eliminated non-identity, and its true archetype is modern society based on commodity exchange. This is an abstract totality. At the philosophical level, this abstract form is a manifestation of the solipsistic relations between people; at the level of real life, it embodies the abstraction and homogeneity expressed by commodity exchange. As Alfred Sohn-Rethel [12] pointed out: the implementation of socialization only occurs in the exchange on the part of commodity owners, and thus in such an act whose performance is unmixed with the use of commodities and is clearly separated in time from the use of commodities. Therefore, the commodity abstraction and the formalism of the social synthesis it serves must be found within the scope of the exchange relationship, in its precisely demarcated space of activity. Heavily influenced by Sohn-Rethel, Adorno—starting from Marx's discussion of commodity production and exchange—argues that the process of commodity production and exchange is, in fact, the exclusion of the non-homogeneous side of different things to make them comparable on a homogeneous level. This is the prerequisite for the exchange of heterogeneous commodities. "The principle of commodity exchange, reducing human labor to the abstract general concept of average labor time, is fundamentally similar to the principle of identity. Commodity exchange is the social model of this principle, and without this principle there would be no commodity exchange; it is through commodity exchange that non-identical individuals and products become commensurable and identical. The expansion of this principle makes the whole world a totality of identity." This identity, which eliminates non-identity, constitutes the essential characteristic of modern society. What Hegel calls the World Spirit is precisely the conscious reflection of this society. "In Hegel's work, identity, as totality, has ontological priority." In this social configuration of identity, all individuals can only survive by relying on the totality of society. Individuals reside within a social existence of totality, but totality cannot be dissolved into the individual. The World Spirit of totality is, fundamentally, the manifestation of the social configuration of identity at the philosophical level.

Third, this World Spirit, at the level of social life, easily degenerates into a "national spirit" (Volksgeist) or "group spirit," bringing about servitude and suppression in social life. The World Spirit manifests itself in different historical periods; this "reason in history" is embodied through the spirit of a nation or a group, thereby elevating a certain national or group spirit to the height of the Absolute Spirit, establishing a position of dominance and suppression over social life. Adorno's discussion here is directed at the spiritual conditions of the fascist era. For Hegel, the national spirit is the concrete form of the universal World Spirit. The doctrine of the national spirit justifies the legitimacy of a certain nation's rule. In real life, this spirit is further expressed through a certain group spirit, forming a governing and dominant force. Adorno believes that Hegel’s doctrine of the national spirit is reactionary because it integrates individuals. In a practical sense, national unity is the prerequisite for the existence of bourgeois society, while the "group spirit" directly confirms a group approved by a committee as the dominant power apparatus and can defend this position from a spiritual perspective.

  1. The totality of identity manifests the inherent dominant power of contemporary society, which is the negation of non-identity. To change this dominant position of totality, it is necessary to reassert negativity. In Adorno's view, although a moment of negation exists in Hegelian dialectics, this moment is the externalization of the spirit—it is the "other" moving toward the spirit itself. This movement does not truly absorb non-identity; rather, it is an external manifestation of identity. More importantly, the dialectic contains a "negation of the negation" [13] stage, which is the spirit returning to itself from its own "other." This is a second confirmation of identity. "The equating of the negation of the negation with affirmation is the essence of identification." In these two negations, non-identity is given no legitimate place. According to the discussion above, in order to criticize and subvert this dominant position of the totalizing spirit, it is necessary to reassert negativity. This negation is not meant to return to identity itself, but to affirm non-identity.

Unlike Hegel, who dissolves the "non-identical other" into identity, Adorno emphasizes that Hegel’s non-identity is a false existence. This prevents Hegel’s dialectic from truly moving toward an "other" that is different from the spirit, and the potential of the dialectic is dissipated within this non-identity. The dissolution of non-identity makes the truth of Hegelian dialectics a formalized truth, lacking vivid content. This dictates that the World Spirit is merely the completion and justification of the identical commercial world. If truth in Hegelian philosophy is a formalized existence, a lifeless existence, then this implies that the archetype producing this truth—capitalist society—is an existence without revolutionary vitality. It is a closed, formalized social structure, a society that justifies its own legitimacy.

Opposed to this negation of non-identity, two distinct theoretical logics exist. The first emphasizes individual existence. In Hegelian philosophy, the emphasis on World Spirit and the totality of identity necessarily abstracts this spirit from individuality and the individual, transforming it into something that stands above the individual and to which the individual must adapt. In this scenario, emphasizing the individual appears to be a way out, a means of breaking the rule of the World Spirit. In Adorno’s view, if this totality cannot first be broken, then emphasizing individual existence merely serves as a supplement to the rule of totality; because in the World Spirit of totality, the universal principle of the whole is precisely the individualization principle of the person. Totality consolidates its dominant position exactly through the individual’s illusion of autonomy. The second logic replaces everything with Being, as Heidegger did. For Adorno, while the ontology of Being seems to transcend the subject-object core of Hegelian philosophy, the supremacy of Being itself—its hollowness that transcends all individualized existence—likewise possesses the characteristics of identity; it is man’s identification with his own existence as a void. "Ontology and the philosophy of existence contain a fated dialectic. To drive man from the center of creation and place him in a truth of powerlessness will, like the subject’s mode of action, prove the feeling of powerlessness and make people identify with it, which in fact reinforces the spell of second nature." [14] Here, "second nature" refers to the society in which people live, woven together by human actions and thoughts. Before Being, the individual is a subjugated object.

In Adorno's view, to break this enslavement of non-identity by identity, one must liberate the thought of "negation" from the mold of the negation of the negation. In the latter mold, although negation is an affirmation of non-identity, this affirmation is itself the object to be negated by the final negation. Non-identity is affirmed only for the sake of re-affirming identity. In Hegel’s dialectics, the critical spirit of negation is actually negated. Re-affirming "negativity" itself is the true affirmation of non-identity and the only possible path out of totality.

  1. Constructing a new totality of non-identity: the Constellation. Adorno’s emphasis on negativity is a critique of the totality of identity, but this does not mean his theory points toward a fragmented state of existence. Adorno emphasizes non-identity in order to construct another kind of "totality" distinct from the current one, which he calls the "constellation." [15]

For Adorno, philosophy since the modern era—especially in Hegel—has been an experience of homogeneity, and the emphasis on identity is the expression of this experience. This philosophy of identity is both an expression of a social existence based on commodity exchange and a negation of concrete existents, thereby serving as a legitimizing confirmation of actual society. Against this philosophical tradition, he proposes that the subject cannot systematically swallow the object. Philosophy should be an experience of heterogeneity; it must incorporate into its philosophical construction those objects that cannot be identified (rendered identical). The relationship between subject and object is then neither the subject swallowing the object nor the object subsuming the subject; they exist in a state of interconnectedness—a constellation-like state of existence.

In Adorno’s constellation, on the one hand, he emphasizes the interconnected state between subject and object, subject and subject, and object and object; on the other hand, he places greater emphasis on the priority of the object. Here, the object is still an object within the subject's thinking, but unlike the philosophy of identity, Adorno emphasizes that the object always contains something different from the subject. The subject is also an object by its very nature; even if the subject remains a kind of insufficient existence as Husserl emphasized, it cannot replace the object's own determinacy. Adorno’s emphasis on the priority of the object is not intended to treat the object as an unapproachable thing-in-itself, but rather to emphasize that the subject cannot swallow the object. This priority of the object is relative to the subject, but it is not equivalent to the existing priority of the object found in second nature—that is, in social existence. In actual social existence, the priority of the object is ultimately the priority of human creations; this is a fetishistic [16] priority. Marx’s critique of commodity fetishism is precisely a critique of this issue. It is only in contrast to this priority of things that the thought of a subject swallowing everything arises.

Emphasizing the constellation-like state between things and things, or objects and subjects, does not mean this is a completely fragmented relationship. Compared to traditional totality with the subject or spirit at its core, the constellation is a new type of non-dominating relationship where elements are mutually interconnected, forming an open space. In this state, the priority of the object is not to establish a pre-existing dominant position, but to emphasize the inherent insufficiency of the subject and spirit, so as to prevent the emergence of a dominant totality that ignores the individual. In this sense, the constellation is an exploration of another state of civilization.

Through the critique of traditional totality via negative dialectics, Adorno opened a path for the critique of the philosophy of his time. After the 1970s, the critique of totality became an important catalyst for philosophical development and a new theoretical direction for post-Marxists when re-discussing Marxism.

V. Post-Marxism and the Deconstruction and Reconstruction of Totality

After the 1970s, postmodernism began to take the academic stage, and correspondingly, post-Marxism began to influence the study of Marxist philosophy. In 1950, Polanyi first used the term "post-Marxism" in Personal Knowledge, primarily to propose a Marxism different from the orthodox Marxism of the former Soviet Union. With the rise of postmodernism in the 1970s, philosophers critiques of modern philosophy directly influenced the understanding of Marxism among some scholars at the time and began to change the meaning of the term "post-Marxism." It came to refer not only to a contemporary project of Marxism distinct from the Soviet Union but also to a critique of the then-current interpretations of Marxism that proceeded from modern philosophical models. In Laclau and Mouffe's Hegemony and Socialist Strategy, they used "post-Marxism" to emphasize a theoretical project different from Soviet orthodox Marxism on the one hand, while on the other hand, they combined the postmodernist critique of modern philosophy and Marxism since the 1970s to criticize the essentialism in the Marxist interpretations of the time. In this reflection, the concept of totality was directly impacted; the deconstruction of totality constituted a core component of post-Marxism.

When postmodernism began to flourish in the 1970s, the critique of modern philosophy became a standard postmodernist feature. In the view of postmodernists, modernism emphasizes metaphysics, essence, subject, center, totality, truth, hierarchy, and purpose, thereby providing legitimacy for modern society while also providing a philosophical foundation for internal dominance within modern society. In The Postmodern Condition, Lyotard argues that the narrative of modern scientific knowledge replaced traditional narratives, forming modern society's view of the world. However, the modern scientific narrative does not provide its own proof of legitimacy. Especially with the separation of science and politics, there was a greater need to achieve an internal unity between the two at the level of philosophical metaphysics, while also providing arguments for the narrative of scientific knowledge. In Lyotard's view, Hegelian philosophy is a significant example of this argumentation. "The speculative mechanism has a remarkable result: in it, no discourse of knowledge about any possible referent has direct truth-value; its value depends on the position it occupies in the process of 'Spirit' or 'Life,' or rather, on the position it occupies in the philosophical encyclopedia described by speculative discourse. In citing these discourses of knowledge, speculative discourse also articulates what it knows for itself—that is, it self-articulates. From this perspective, true knowledge is always an indirect knowledge composed of cited statements, which are incorporated into the metanarrative of a certain subject that guarantees the legitimacy of knowledge." This "metanarrative" both guarantees the legitimacy of the narrative of scientific knowledge at a foundational level and demonstrates the totality of modern society. Lyotard believes that this demonstration actually turns scientific knowledge into instrumental knowledge and elevates practical reason above scientific knowledge, which instead further leads to the separation of the two. The totality of modern knowledge is thus a false totality; this is precisely the problem encountered by postmodernism. If one considers modern philosophy's justification and protection of the legitimacy of modern society, postmodernist criticism becomes even more understandable. When discussing Marx, Lyotard argued that social critique based on the Marxist principle of dichotomy faces the following dilemma: "The social basis of the principle of dichotomy—namely, class struggle—has become so blurred that it has lost any radicalness. The critical model finally faces the danger of losing its theoretical basis; it may degenerate into a 'utopia,' a 'hope,' a protest raised in the name of humanity, reason, creativity, or a social category (such as the Third World or student youth) for the sake of honor. This social category is endowed with the function of a critical subject at the last moment, but such a function will henceforth become unlikely."

Influenced by postmodernism, Laclau and Mouffe characterized their theoretical project as post-Marxism in Hegemony and Socialist Strategy. Their post-Marxism focused primarily on the deconstruction of essentialism and the idea of totality within the Marxist tradition:

First, although their post-Marxism targeted traditional Marxism, they did not follow Western Marxists in reinterpreting Marx's thought through the lens of man (humanism) or structure; instead, they reflected on the interpretative framework of traditional Marxism itself. In their view, whether it was economic determinism, Bernstein’s ethically flavored interpretation, or Luxemburg’s theory of spontaneity and free will, none had moved beyond the ruptures between economic base and superstructure, necessity and contingency, or the identical class subject and dispersed subjects. These thinkers also failed to see that the economic structure of capitalist society cannot provide a political-logical basis for launching struggles or opposing fragmentation; on the contrary, it promotes the loss of class characteristics. These three dilemmas made a new theoretical strategy increasingly necessary, particularly regarding how to suture dualisms, how to construct a new identity through articulation [17], and how to obtain a foundational legitimacy for social class representation. Here, they turned their attention to Gramsci, believing his theory of hegemony to be more beneficial for solving the problem because hegemony emphasizes precisely the articulation of various forces. However, they also believed that Gramsci’s theory of hegemony still bore traces of traditional Marxism, because Gramsci likewise emphasized the foundational role of the economy: "(1) he insists that the hegemonizing subject must be constructed on the platform of fundamental classes; (2) he assumes that every social formation constructs itself around a single hegemonic center, except for the periods of suspension constituted by organic crises." This is what Laclau and Mouffe disagreed with. Clearly, Laclau and Mouffe did not—as Western Marxists did—replace the economy with "man" or "free will"; rather, they sought to launch a critique of this essentialist line of thinking. This is because, starting from essentialism, it is impossible to face the different subjects of a modern pluralistic society, nor is it possible to combine these different subjects into a force oriented toward the future.

Second, the reconstruction of Althusser's theory of overdetermination. Althusser opposed the topographical model of the base and superstructure found in traditional interpretations. Although he acknowledged the foundational role of the economy, he viewed the economy and the superstructure as a complex totality, emphasizing the simultaneous effect of multiple factors. Regarding this Althusserian perspective, Laclau and Mouffe argue that two problems exist: first, the residual presence of essentialism—namely, the "determinancy" of the economy; and second, that Althusser still maintains a concept of a closed totality. This essentialist overdetermination remains unable to enter modern society or drive the formation of modern radical political subjects. For Laclau and Mouffe, what they value more is how to form a radical force linked by plural subjects through a type of formal articulatory practice [18] within a diverse and complex society—a society that cannot be subsumed under a single essence. Consequently, they do not view society as a totality, but as an open, plural, and complex existence: "In order to place ourselves firmly within the field of articulation, we must abandon the concept of 'society' as a totality constructed by parts; we must therefore view the openness of the social as the basis of construction or as the 'negative essence' of existence, and regard various 'social orders' as unstable or fundamentally untamable fields of difference. Thus, it is impossible to understand the diversity of society through a system of mediation, and 'social order' cannot be viewed as a fundamental principle. Society has no specific sutured [19] space, because society itself has no essence." Only by eliminating the factor that is "determinant in the last instance" within overdetermination can this society become a non-closed society and reveal the negative forces within it.

Third, the reconstruction of an open totality. Laclau and Mouffe's opposition to a closed totality does not mean they are moving toward a society of "scattered sand" [20]; rather, they are moving toward another kind of non-essentialist, open totality. It can be said that, on the basis of deconstructing traditional totality, they are moving toward a different totality—one characterized by a reconstructed plural logic. "The break with orthodox essentialism is not achieved through the logical collapse of categories, which would fix separated elements into identities, but through the critique of any fixed type, and through the affirmation of the incompleteness, openness, and politically negotiated character of every identity. This is the logic of overdetermination. According to this logic, the meaning of every identity is overdetermined because all immediate meanings are subverted and transcended; there is simply no essentialist totalization, nor is there an essentialist separation between objects. Some objects existing within other objects prevent any of their identities from being fixed; objects are articulated, unlike parts in clockwork, because objects within other objects prevent the suturing of their identities." They borrow discourse theory—a link of elements that is discursive and not determined by a transcendental subject—to experience a non-sutured, non-identical social space. In this society, the logic of antagonism plays a leading role. Antagonism is distinct from opposition and logical contradiction. Contradiction (A—not A) is a logical concept, and opposition (A—B) is a concept of physical fact; in traditional philosophy, contradiction and opposition are actually internal elements of a homogenized totality that guarantee the possibility of that totality. The meaning of antagonism, however, lies in: "The presence of the 'Other' prevents me from being a total self; the relationship does not arise between complete totalities, but from the constitutional impossibility of these totalities. The existence of the Other is a logical possibility: it exists, so it is not a contradiction. ... As long as there is antagonism, I cannot become a being that is complete in itself. This is equally true for the force opposed to me: its objective existence is a symbol of my non-existence, and in this way, it has multiple meanings that prevent it from completely fixing itself. Real opposition is an objective relation in determinable, definable things; contradiction is likewise a definable relation within concepts; whereas antagonism constitutes the limit of objectivity, appearing as a partial or unstable objectification." Therefore, the focal point of radical political strategy is how to unite various antagonistic factors in a non-closed society through discursive articulation.

Similar to the views of Laclau and Mouffe, Derrida's deconstruction of traditional Marxism was also intended to construct another kind of totality. He likewise opposed the closed, essentialist philosophical concepts of traditional Marxism, which he viewed as ideas that transform difference into identity. To transform irreducible differences into internal elements of a closed totality in an "out of joint" [21] age is to negate diversity and heterogeneity. The liberalism of that time fell into the same logic when opposing Marxism, leading to the conclusion of the "end of history." Reflection on this was a major reason for Derrida's writing of Specters of Marx. Derrida believed that to speak of the specters of Marx in today's era is not to pursue a homogenous specter: "Today we do so not only to prophesy a future for them, but even more to appeal to their multiplicity, or more seriously, to appeal to their heterogeneity." Therefore, it is not about re-suturing the "out of joint" cracks, but about entering the cracks—at the point where separated things join as one—without damaging the cracks, dispersion, and difference, and without excluding the heterogeneity of the Other. Only in this way can one escape the "presence" [22] of Marxism and allow it to maintain a criticality that comes from the future. This is also the fundamental reason he emphasizes a messianic coming. Here, Derrida deconstructs traditional philosophy and its concept of totality, while constructing another totality that differs from the tradition and its orientation toward identity.

The Post-Marxist deconstruction of traditional totality is, in fact, a philosophical reflection on socio-historical changes. Particularly after the collapse of the former Soviet Union, the process of globalization has basically manifested as a process dominated by developed capitalist countries, especially the United States; this is precisely why the slogan "the end of history" became prevalent. Philosophically, the "end of history" implies the victory of liberal democracy and the victory of the totality discussed in traditional philosophy—a victory that ignores or even disregards the Other. Therefore, the deconstruction of traditional totality and the emphasis on a new totality—one without a dominant power and that preserves difference—has positive significance for reflecting on the aforementioned slogans and the power structures of modern society. This is a positive theoretical response by Post-Marxism to changes in history and social trends.

The problem here is that when Post-Marxism emphasizes a non-closed, loose totality, since this totality has no essential element playing a dominant role, the question of how to reveal the structure and state of social existence from such a loose totality becomes a significant issue constraining Post-Marxism. Regardless of how Post-Marxists view the structure of present society, the logic of capital plays a dominant role at every level. Unlike in the past, with the social development since the 1970s and especially the deep unfolding of globalization after the 1990s, it is no longer just the capitalist countries of the past that are linked together, but the entire globe. This brings societies of different cultures together, forming what appears on the surface to be a loose totality. Problems never before encountered in past societies are increasingly emerging, some even becoming prominent issues on the surface. In this situation, emphasizing a totality with difference, on the one hand, certainly reflects an investigation and understanding of this new global existence; on the other hand, when this difference is overemphasized, the dominant power of the logic of capital is erased. In this sense, the Post-Marxist discussion of a new totality reflects the theoretical explorations of these scholars—deeply influenced by Marxism—as they face capitalist society; yet it also indicates that, in the face of new social and intellectual changes, further exploration is needed on how to exert the critical power of Marxist philosophy while fully absorbing modern philosophical thought.