Bao Jin and Huang Jing: The Ontological Construction of Sensation and Its Contemporary Effects: A New Interpretation of the "Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844"
Marx’s elaboration on sensation in the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 (hereafter referred to as the Manuscripts) is a theoretical standpoint formed by rebelling against the rationalism represented by Hegel, overcoming mechanical materialism’s mechanistic and biological understanding of sensation, and both accepting and transcending Feuerbach’s sensualism. In Marx’s view, sensation is perhaps the most irrefutable proof of a living, sensuous being; it refers not only to the five physical senses, mental senses, and practical senses, but also maps the history of human existential development within the evolution of the practical structure of sensation. While sensualism was a unique reflection of the young Marx, it has often been understood and analyzed merely in the sense of Feuerbach’s anthropological materialism—more specifically, as Feuerbachian sensualism or a mixture of the latter with Hegelian dialectics. Consequently, Marx’s interpretation of sensation has been preemptively placed within an anthropological problematic, categorized under the veil of a metaphysical horizon as an immature theoretical product, and subsequently seriously neglected. It is noteworthy that textual details such as "sensation has become directly in its practice a theoretician" [1] indicate that the thought on sensation in the Manuscripts is, first and foremost, ontological in nature. Although Marx accepted Feuerbach’s principle of sensuous objectification, he did not treat it as the intellectual foundation for sensation. Instead, he constructed the practical structure of sensation upon the bedrock of "sensuous activity," thereby opening up an ontological realm of sensation in the sense of piercing through the fundamental structures of metaphysics. It is precisely through historical "generative activity" that sensation is able to re-establish the basic connections between man, nature, and society—connections forgotten by metaphysics—to reveal the world-historical significance of man as a sensuous being, and to perceive the historical process of human liberation through the liberation of the senses. An in-depth analysis of Marx’s sensualism not only helps us understand the young Marx’s reflections on real, sensuous life and read the sensuous theory that continues through works such as The German Ideology and Capital, but also assists us in more completely grasping the transcendence of metaphysics by Marx's thought.
I. From Hegelian Rationalism to Feuerbachian Sensualism
From Plato onwards—and even as far back as the "poetic wisdom" [2] of the Homeric age—the rational spirit, externalized into conceptual forms, advanced and exalted itself as the standard and authority for judging all things through religious turns and variations and the mediation of Renaissance humanism, even moving toward the extreme of absolute rationalism. The supersensuous world constructed by the rational spirit was regarded as the world in its true sense; by comparison, not only were human sensations, passions, and desires viewed as low-level pursuits of the rational spirit, but the entire sensuous world was treated as an earthly, mutable, and superficial world. It was in this sense that Marcuse denounced the "tyranny of reason," emphasizing that "the primary goal of man is the total satisfaction of all needs, and civilization is the point of departure for the radical abandonment of this goal."
As "the greatest philosopher Germany has produced since Leibniz," Hegel comprehensively assimilated the rationalist intellectual tradition of previous philosophy, creating a rigorous and massive metaphysical system centered on Absolute Spirit, pushing the rational spirit to its extreme. In the Phenomenology of Spirit, which serves as the "true birthplace and secret of the Hegelian philosophy," [3] sensuous certainty is positioned as the starting point of the entire phenomenology. This primarily conceals Hegel’s contempt for the richness of the entire sensuous world and his dissolution of sensuousness itself. In Hegel’s view, sensuous certainty is "a direct knowledge, a knowledge of the immediate thing or being"; it presents directly in consciousness a complete whole of the sensuous object, not yet subsumed or abstracted by concepts. "But in fact, this certainty reveals itself to be the most abstract and poorest truth." Specifically, sensuous certainty is only capable of knowing that "it is," while being itself, because it lacks any determination of content, can only collapse into the most abstract, poorest, and emptiest category. Hegel emphasizes that in sensuous certainty there exist two "thises": "this" I and "this" object. At the stage of sensuous certainty, "this" I has not yet participated in a reciprocal relationship with the object, and is thus limited to the "pure I," unable to develop itself and consequently stagnating in a simple immediacy. However, the immediacy of sensuous certainty inherently contains the crucial moment of moving toward mediacy through mediation and negation; "neither I nor the object is present in sensuous certainty merely immediately, but both are at the same time mediated." "This" I and "this" object need the Other to obtain their own certainty.
On this basis, Hegel further examines the object and the self within sensuous certainty starting from the dual forms of time and space—the "Now" and the "Here"—and progressively sublated the actual "this." Regarding the object of sensuous certainty, in both the "Now" and the "Here," there exists an opposition and split between meaning [4] and the universal. For example, when we ask "What is the Now?", the answer "The Now is nighttime" seems to serve as the truth; however, from the moment it is spoken, it presages an obsolete fate. Language cannot speak the meaning of sensation and directly negates it. In this sense, both "Now" and "Here" abandon what Aristotle called "matter," remaining as "something generally negative" and developing into "universals," thereby transcending the essence of sensuous certainty. Correspondingly, this dialectic continues and occurs within "this" I; therefore, the truth of sensuous certainty lies neither in the object nor in me. To this point, Hegel successively sublated the truth of the object and the self, finally positing the whole of sensuous certainty as the truth. It is evident that through sacred language and the metaphysical dialectic of negation, Hegel progressively elevated the sensuously immediate certainty into a universal sensuous universal, thereby completing the sublation of sensuous certainty and establishing a higher level of consciousness: "perception." In Hegel’s rational system, the individual, particular, and sensuous things are strangled and suffocated within universality. However, the many sensuous things that can only be "meant" but not spoken do not lose their true meaning simply because they cannot be incorporated into the rational orbit of Logos; the richness of the sensuous still provides space for us to reflect upon and break away from Hegel’s seamless rational system.
In the twenty-eighth paragraph of Principles of the Philosophy of the Future, Feuerbach launched a specific critique of Hegel’s theory of sensuous certainty. Feuerbach keenly observed the contradiction between the "this" and the "general" in the Phenomenology of Spirit, emphasizing the fragility of the logically equivalent "this" in realistic common sense, and mockingly pointed out that "if we applied the logical 'this' to natural right, we would walk directly into a society of 'community of women and property'." [5] Consequently, Feuerbach advocated for a thorough demarcation between "being in thought" and "being in actuality," viewing the existential question of our life and death from a "practical standpoint." In other words, Feuerbach directly negated taking the rational being of speculative philosophy or the divine substance of religious theology as the starting point of philosophy, pointing out that their proofs of being were merely deductions at the level of concepts and logic, and that the premise of such philosophy was fundamentally "thought without reality." Therefore, Feuerbach pulled the sensuous being—which had been abandoned and eliminated by Hegel—back into his own philosophy, taking sensuousness, which points to the corporeal existence of man (sensation, emotion, will, and the body itself), as the true starting point of the new philosophy.
The difference between Hegel and Feuerbach in their positioning of the sensuous further reveals the divergence of their philosophical horizons. Specifically, Hegel studied the problem of sensuousness primarily from an epistemological perspective in the dialectical sense, pointing out that sensuous certainty could only provide tautological and impoverished knowledge, and only through the movement of self-negating concepts could it be sublated into truthful universals and step-by-step reach Absolute Knowledge. By contrast, Feuerbach’s sensualism emphasized that the sensuous is directly the real man and nature; the man and nature perceived by the senses are essentially the origin and foundation of the world. "Only through sensation does an object exist in a true sense—not through thinking itself." In fact, Feuerbach was not the first thinker to derive philosophical principles based on sensation. Modern empirical materialism also acknowledged that sensation contains the direct relationship between man and the world, arguing for materialist principles starting from sensation. However, empirical materialists interpreted sensation primarily in an epistemological sense, rather than focusing on the connection between sensation itself and the world. For instance, Locke, in his critique of "innate ideas," emphasized that all knowledge and ideas are acquired posteriorly from experience, and that human sense organs provide the essential external experience for knowing the material world. However, viewing sensation from an epistemological perspective could not firmly establish the problem of sensation. As seen in Hume’s discussion, he believed that sensations are caused by an external world of objects, yet we cannot confirm the knowability of sensation from a philosophical dimension, because penetrating the nature of objects exceeds the scope of human cognition. The defect exposed by empiricism is precisely where Feuerbach’s contribution lies: Feuerbach pulled the focus of interpretation back from the cognitive problem of sensation to sensation itself, using epistemology as a proof of the ontology of sensation. In Feuerbach’s view, sensation signifies immediacy, certainty, and reality, and contains the ultimate truth of things. "In sensation, especially in everyday sensation, the most profound truths are hidden. Therefore, love is the true ontological proof of the existence of an object outside our heads—besides love, besides general sensation, there is no other proof of being."
Identical theoretical interests linked Marx with Feuerbach. In the Manuscripts, Marx not only placed extraordinary importance on sensation but also regarded Feuerbach’s sensualism as a vital theoretical support for the problem of sensation and sensuousness. In Marx’s relevant interpretations of sensation, we can not only clearly glimpse the theoretical traces left by Feuerbach but also discover important clues leading toward an ontology of sensation.
II. "The Real Realization of Man": The Object-Relationship of Sensation
In the Manuscripts, Marx points out: "Any of his human relations to the world—seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching, thinking, observing, feeling, desiring, acting, loving... the relationship of these organs to the object is the real realization of man." It is evident that any kind of sensation—including the five physical senses, mental senses, and practical senses—is established upon the relationship between the sense organs and the object. The appropriation of the object by the sense organs is a vital source of human reality.
It must be recognized that Feuerbach’s sensualism is grounded in the principle of sensuous objectification, which serves as significant theoretical support for the sensualism of the Manuscripts. To overturn the supersensuous world constructed by speculative philosophy starting from infinite being, Feuerbach advocated for constructing the entire new philosophy with finite sensuousness as the primordial basis. Sensuousness, in its essence, calls for and demands an objective being; thus, the sensuous being is itself an objective being. In Feuerbach’s view, the internal relationship in which sensuousness and objectification define each other is expressed as follows: on the one hand, man as a sensuous being is a finite and passive being, needing to achieve self-confirmation by pursuing and appropriating objects to manifest his life; on the other hand, an objective being is a real being only as the object of sensation and sensuous intuition. "That being which is the object of being—and only this being deserves the name of being—is sensuous being, the being of intuition, the being of sensation, the being of love." In Feuerbach’s work, the principle of sensuous objectification marks true reality, truth, and certainty; its profundity lies in revealing the primordial relationship between the subject and the object that has not been obscured by metaphysics. The principle of sensuous objectification runs through all sensuous determinations, including sensation. In fact, Feuerbach attempted to sublate the dichotomy between "sensation" (感觉) and "sensuousness" (感性) in modern metaphysics, believing the two to be "initially and originally directly identical"; thus, sensation is internally and naturally linked to sensuous objectification. Feuerbach pointed out that sensations like sight, touch, and hearing are progressively formed within the sensuous-objective relationship between the sense organs and nature. Furthermore, the object of sensation includes not only "external" things but also man himself: "Man becomes an object of self-knowledge only through sensation—he becomes his own object as an object of sensation." In other words, human sense organs can both perceive external nature and intuit the self in the formation of sensations regarding man himself.
Marx’s theory of sensation adopts Feuerbach’s principle of sensuous objectivity [6], regarding the objective relationship between the sensory organs, the natural world, and humanity as the foundation of the existence of sensation. Precisely due to his firm commitment to Feuerbach’s principle of sensuous objectivity, Marx devotes considerable space in the Manuscripts to elaborating on the objective relationship of sensation. In Marx’s view, as a natural being, man is a "natural, corporeal, sensuous, objective" [7] passive being who needs to define and confirm his life-essence through external objects. The objective relationship between man and the reality of nature, as well as the reality of other men, is the vital foundation for the existence of sensation: "The objectification of the human essence, both in its theoretical and practical aspects, is required to make man’s sense human, as well as to create the human sense corresponding to the entire wealth of human and natural substance." For Marx, the importance of the objective relationship lies in the fact that only within the objective relationship between man and nature can sensation transcend animalistic instinctual sensation and become "human sensation" or "the humanity of the senses" that manifests the essential attributes of man. Only when the object of sensation becomes a human and social object can man avoid losing himself in the object and become a real, social being. Only by taking nature and even the sensations of others as objects of sensation can man develop and enjoy the richness of sensation. In the objective relationship of sensation, the relationship between man and nature transcends the identity [8] found in the old materialism; a true unity is achieved between the sensory organs—such as eyes and ears—and the external natural world. In the process of the objectification of the senses, man both posits humanized nature, making the natural world "man's inorganic body," and is posited by nature with the essential stipulations of sensation: "The human senses, the humanity of the senses, come to be only through the existence of their object, through humanized nature." At the same time, social relations between people can also be achieved through the sensuous objective relationship of sensation; that is, in the process of interacting with others, one appropriates the sensations of others through "social organs," thereby realizing social interaction on the basis of sensory resonance.
On the basis of the sensuous objective relationship, Marx further identifies the specificity and sociality of sensation. In Marx’s view, the objective relationship of sensation depends on the nature of the object and the nature of the corresponding human essential forces [9]; this is a crucial dimension that stipulates the unique mode of appropriation of the object and the social attributes of human essential forces. On the one hand, the nature of the object determines the unique way in which human sensory organs appropriate the object. Although objective relations make all objects a confirmation of human essential forces, man and the object are mutually defining, isomorphic, and of the same substance; any object, due to its unique attributes, requires a specific mode of objectification. Using the five senses as a vivid example, Marx points out that the object of the eye is different from the object of the ear; therefore, the eye and the ear form specific sensory experiences through unique, realistic modes of affirmation. In this sense, Marx emphasizes the influence of the object’s specificity on the objective relationship: "The distinctiveness of each essential power is precisely its peculiar essence, and therefore also the peculiar mode of its objectification, of its objectively actual, living being." On the other hand, the social attributes of human essential forces make human sensation distinct from non-social, wild sensation. Marx emphasizes: "The human eye enjoys things in a way different from the crude, non-human eye; the human ear enjoys things differently from the crude ear." That is to say, when facing the same object in nature, sensation differs due to the differences in the essential forces of the sensory organs. The specificity of human sensory organs that transcends non-human ones lies in the former's ability to appropriate "the sense and spirit of other men"; its shaping of sensuous experience possesses a realistic foundation formed by social relations. Here, a type of sensation distinct from rationalist metaphysics emerges in the Manuscripts. Kant regarded sensuous capacity as the "capacity to acquire representations through the way in which we are affected by objects," namely the capacity for intuition, whereas sensuous intuition merely prepares for the categories to synthesize the sensuous manifold [10] and form knowledge; thus, sensuous capacity essentially serves the capacity to form knowledge. Unlike Kant, Marx clearly points out that sensuous experience is shaped by human sensory capacities, and human sensation is precisely determined by the social attributes of human existence. This sensation is not a medium for leaping toward the ultimate goal of reason; it is itself a kind of human "enjoyment."
For Marx, sensation is the realistic confirmation of human essential forces; man affirms himself in the objective world not only through thought but through the totality of his senses. In Western rationalist doctrines, abstract thinking is the vital way for man to know and affirm himself. Hegel once pointed out: "'Know thyself'... means the knowledge of the true nature of man, of the true being in-and-for-itself—the recognition of essence itself as Spirit." Conversely, non-rational factors such as sensibility and sensation were disparaged by rationalism as animalistic manifestations, far from being able to reach the level of human essence. Influenced by Feuerbach’s anthropological materialism, Marx affirmed the importance of sensation to man himself. However, this was not a move toward the other extreme of irrationalism that emphasizes sensibility, but rather an assertion that both reason and sensibility are internal stipulations of the "total man." Reason highlights man's reflexivity and transcendence, but this does not mean that sensibility is a simple expression of animality. In the Manuscripts, Marx emphasizes the analysis of the "humanity of the senses," pointing out that sensation likewise manifests man’s species-essence [11], the fundamental attribute of being human. The answer to the mystery of human existence is hidden not only in man’s abstract thinking but is directly manifested in the sensuous dimension of man and proven by realistic sensory experience.
It can be said that Feuerbach seized upon a theoretical fulcrum entirely different from the "cogito" through sensation, attempting to use it to pry and overturn the entirety of rationalist metaphysics. This laid the sensuous foundation for Marx to launch an ontological revolution by means of human sensation and break through the basic structures of modern metaphysics. However, Feuerbach’s philosophical revolution, which originally intended to rebel against rational speculation, ultimately met an untimely end. Wherein lies the fundamental failure of his theory of sensation? The exploration of this question is also the answer to how Marx’s theory of sensation distinguishes itself from and transcends that of Feuerbach.
III. Passivity and Passion: Sensuous Activity in the Appropriation of Objects
The failure of Feuerbach’s theory of sensation fundamentally lies in the fact that his error "does not consist in his subordinating what is before the eyes, sensuous appearance, to the sensuous facts established by more accurate study of sensuous facts, but in the fact that he cannot manage the senses without the 'eyes' of the philosopher, that is to say, without the 'spectacles' of the philosopher." In short, Feuerbach still simply regarded sensation as something "ready-made" on the foundation of metaphysics, ceasing to ask how sensation comes to exist, resulting in sensation ultimately remaining in a "theoretical" sense. At the point where Feuerbach’s theory of sensation stalled, Marx moved further forward, opening the practical dimension of sensation from the dimensions of human passivity (Leiden) and passion. This allowed the principle of sensuous objectivity to be penetrated by sensuous activity, thereby opening an ontological realm that dismantled the basic structures of metaphysics.
Marx transformed Feuerbach’s concept of passivity [12], emphasizing that passivity is not only the external world’s limitation on man but also intrinsically contains an open, passionate agency. The term "passivity" (受动) originates from Feuerbach, who believed that man, as a sensuous objective being, is necessarily restricted by the object, i.e., the "non-ego." The "suffering" caused by this restriction is a life experience man inevitably forms: "An object, a real object, is presented to us only when we meet something that acts upon us, only when our self-activity—if we start from the standpoint of thought—is restricted and hindered by the activity of another thing." Passivity is precisely another important principle Feuerbach derived from the stipulation of sensuous objectivity. Although Marx continued to use Feuerbach’s terminology of passivity in the Manuscripts, the connotation he expressed clearly far surpassed Feuerbach. In Marx’s view, as a natural being, man "on the one hand is endowed with natural powers and vital powers, is an active natural being; these powers exist in him as tendencies and abilities, as impulses; on the other hand, as a natural, corporeal, sensuous, objective being, he is a passive, conditioned and limited being, like animals and plants." Here, Marx still affirms man’s own passivity in the sense of sensuous objective existence—that is, the objects man needs and desires are not naturally possessed by him, which causes man to feel passive because his sensuous needs cannot be satisfied. However, this does not mean that passivity is submissiveness or a negative state completely restricted by the object. It is precisely from man’s state of passivity that Marx extends a strong agency in pursuit of the infinite: "Man as an objective, sensuous being is a passive being, and because he feels his passivity, he is a passionate being. Passion is the essential power of man energetically striving for his object." This passage clarifies the ontological substance that distinguishes and transcends metaphysics: the essence of the activity of a passive being is disclosed [13] in passion. Passion is a unique essential power for man to appropriate objects on the basis of conscious passivity. Specifically, although the object I need is externally independent of me and exerts many stipulations on me as an indispensable object, I still pursue and appropriate the object with intense passion. This passion, which begins in passivity, is precisely the life-activity process in which man appropriates the object and externalizes his active "tendencies and abilities" onto the object; in essence, it manifests a powerful agency.
For a long time, people have been accustomed to understanding Marx’s concept of practice [14] as the process of man transforming the objective world with subjective agency, excluding passivity from practice within the opposition between agency and passivity. In fact, the aforementioned content of the Manuscripts shows that passivity and agency are a dialectical unity; passivity not only constitutes the fundamental prerequisite for agency but also intrinsically contains a passionate agency. In reality, this passive passion is the objective activity of a sensuous objective being—that is, sensuous activity. Regarding this, Marx clearly stated: "The dominance of the objective essence in me, the sensuous eruption of my essential activity, is passion, and so passion here becomes the activity of my essence." Marx’s processing of Feuerbach’s concept of passivity is also an important reflection on and transformation of Feuerbach’s principle of sensuous objectivity; that is to say, Marx was dissatisfied with Feuerbach’s purely intuitive form regarding the relationship between man and the object. The nature of objective beings is manifested in the interaction between beings, and this is first expressed through sensuous activity. The appearance of sensuous activity allows the subject-object connection revealed by sensuous objectivity to be subsumed under the principle of "activity" as a realistic historical movement. Sensuous activity is both distinct from Feuerbach’s mirror-like intuition and a sublation [15] of the conceptual "pure activity" of Hegelian dialectics; it is the realistic activity of the sensuous subject's objectified essential forces and the key to opening an entirely new ontological realm.
The penetration of the principle of sensuous objectivity by sensuous activity places sensation realistically upon the foundation of sensuous activity. When explaining the formation of sensation in the Manuscripts, Marx repeatedly mentions the "appropriation of the object" and the "appropriation of the essence" by the sensory organs. For example, "all his human relations to the world... are in their objective orientation, or in their relation to the object, the appropriation of the object, the appropriation of human reality," and "the senses and spirit of others have become my own appropriation." Turning to the second edition of the Marx-Engels-Gesamtausgabe (MEGA2), it is clear that Marx already explicitly distinguished between the conceptual differences of Aneignung (appropriation), besitzen (possession/ownership), and Haben (having). He emphasized that true sensation is the realistic appropriation (Aneignung) of the object, rather than the possession (besitzen) or having (Haben) under the conditions of private property. From the context of the use of Aneignung, what it expresses in a broad sense is the realistic man...
The objective activity of "creating or establishing objects" forms an objective relationship with the object I desire but which stubbornly resists me. Appropriation can only be realized in reality through active sensuous activity, which is entirely different from "that appropriation which is realized in consciousness, in pure thought, i.e., in abstraction." Therefore, the appropriation of sense actually implies a real logic in which the senses establish essential powers as objects through sensuous activity, thereby manifesting one's own life and forming objective relationships. To this end, Marx provides an illustration in the Manuscripts through the physiological sensation of "hunger": "Hunger is an acknowledged need of my body for an object which exists outside it, indispensable to its integration and to the expression of its essential nature." Real, objective human beings require objects in the natural world outside themselves to satisfy physiological needs; the sensation of hunger drives humans to take objects outside themselves as their own through sensuous activities such as eating and drinking. In this process, nature as food is an indispensable object that confirms the life-force of the human being, while the human being is also an awakening of life in nature, forming a humanized form of nature. In Marx's view, sensuous needs such as sensations are perhaps not merely products built upon sensuous activity; they signify sensuous activity itself. The existence of sensation is the practical process of appropriating nature and objects within sensuous activity.
It is precisely in this sense that Marx's interpretation of sensation is not limited to the general senses formed by the five sense organs and the body, but rather profoundly proposes the important concept of "practical sensation" [16], the emergence of which already points to the inherent practical structure of sensation. Through practical sensory activity, the various inherent oppositions in modern metaphysics—such as that between sensation and reason—are dissolved one by one: "Subjectivism and objectivism, spiritualism and materialism, activity and suffering, only lose their antithetical character, and thus their existence as such antitheses, within the framework of society." Marx's sensuous activity revolutionizes the existing sensuous world; "the ontological orientation of 'sensuous activity' or 'practice' lies first and foremost in piercing through the immanence of consciousness, which is the basic apparatus of modern metaphysics." The basic structure of beings in modern philosophy undergoes a fundamental change in practice. At the same time, based on the analysis of the practical structure of sensation, Marx gradually deduces the generativity and historicity of sensation, pointing out that the entire sensuous world, including sensation, is essentially a product of world history. Marx further deepened this thought in The German Ideology: "The sensuous world around him is not something directly given as it were from all eternity, remaining ever the same, but the product of industry and of the state of society; and, indeed, in the sense that it is a historical product, the result of the activity of a whole succession of generations." Thus, the elaboration of the practical basis of sensation in the Manuscripts constitutes, to a certain extent, the theoretical starting point for the transformation of Marx's thought; it is precisely based on the realistic investigation of the historical evolution of sensuous existence that Marx created historical materialism.
The sensuous world in which sensation is situated is the fundamental reality that metaphysics cannot suspend, and the ontological mechanism of sensation is the exit through which the closed system of metaphysics is breached. Marx's revelation of the co-location and isomorphism of the existence and practical structure of sensation demonstrates that human beings, as sensuous existences, form their own historical connections with nature and society through the self-generating process of sensuous activity—via their five physical senses, spiritual senses, and practical sensations—and confirm their essential powers and uncover the value of existence through the objects of sensation.
IV. "Industry" and "Human Psychology": The Contemporary Effects of the Sensuous Activity of Sensation
To emphasize the historicity of sensation—that is, the historical process in which sensation is continuously generated through sensuous activity—Marx in the Manuscripts ingeniously used the "history of industry" as a metaphor for "human psychology": "The history of industry and the established objective existence of industry are the open book of man's essential powers, the exposure to the senses of human psychology." The "industry" mentioned here is not industry in the general sense; "industry is the real, historical relationship of nature, and therefore of natural science, to man," so it actually signifies human sensuous activity. Meanwhile, "psychology" is also not a science of psychological and spiritual phenomena in the biological sense; this term is used primarily in the Feuerbachian sense—that is, the real sensations obtained on the basis of reducing religious feelings, fantasies, and other psychological phenomena. From this, it can be seen that the history of sensuous activity is not only a history of explicit "external utility," but also contains the history of the evolution of human essential powers hidden within sensation. The thought on sensation in the Manuscripts contains a realistic concern for contemporary sensory issues: it elucidates the real logic of peering into the commodification of sensation through sensuous activity, as well as the existential condition of human beings as sensuous existences.
First, under the conditions of private property in modern society, human sensations, steeped in egoism, manifest as an intense desire for appropriation; the dominance of capital and money makes it difficult for humans to form a richness of sensation.
Marx once analyzed the alienation of sensation caused by private property in the Manuscripts: "All physical and mental senses have been replaced by the simple alienation of all these senses, the sense of having. The human being had to be reduced to this absolute poverty in order that he might yield his inner wealth to the outer world." Here, Marx borrows the concept of "having" from Moses Hess's thought on economic alienation to clarify that human sensation in a money-driven society can only manifest one-dimensionally as an intense, egoistic "desire for appropriation" of things. In other words, human sensation is neither born of true sensuous need nor derived from a yearning and love for labor, but rather sinks under the dominance of money into an extreme desire for material wealth, thereby losing the sensory enjoyment of the objects of the senses. This sensory phenomenon is intensifying in modern society. On the one hand, human sense organs are manipulated by commodities, money, and capital, rendered unable to see the original appearance of things; what we are able to feel is only the utility of the object, rather than the natural and true attributes of the object. It is evident that the sense organs do not "relate themselves to the thing in a human way in practice," but rather construct an objective relationship of sensation in the manner of a thing. Because of this, in the process of reifying objects, humans also reify themselves; the inversion of reification swallows the richness of sensation. The sense organs of modern people are placed within the logic of capital modernity, making it difficult to realistically manifest human essential powers, instead becoming mechanical tools for the continuous pursuit of profit. These one-dimensionally developed sense organs are deprived of the capacity for aesthetic perception and find it difficult to develop "comprehensive and profound" sensations—just as Marx emphasized, "for the non-musical ear, the most beautiful music has no meaning." On the other hand, the objects appropriated by human sense organs are no longer that unique and rich natural world, but rather wealth and value cloaked in the guise of quantified figures. In a modern society constructed by capital, when human sense organs venture into the realm of objects, what they face is quantified, homogenized, and abstract money; thus, the senses increasingly lose their way in this vast void, drowning in secular, cold, egoistic calculation. As Byung-Chul Han pointed out, the object of eros was originally that "Other" whom the individual could not amateurishly conquer within the kingdom of the "Self"; however, "today's society is increasingly falling into a 'hell of the same' (Hölle des Gleichen), unable to produce the experience of eros, because the prerequisite for eros is asymmetry and exteriority as the Other." If the characteristics of the object of the senses determine, in a certain sense, the unique way in which human essential powers are objectified, then today the flatness and homogeneity of objects have caused people not to affirm themselves in the sensory world, but to lose themselves within it.
Second, the commodification and capitalization of sensation have caused the space of human sensuous needs to be occupied by various "pseudo-sensations"; what fills the plump cloak of sensation is actually a dearth and absence of real human feeling.
In the era of industrial capitalism in which Marx lived, the satisfaction of material needs was often prioritized, while sensuous needs were greatly neglected due to the limitations of historical development. The development of neoliberalism has made the importance of psychopolitics prominent: "the neoliberal regime uses emotions as resources to create stronger productive forces and higher productivity." Capital has turned to anchor human emotions, sensations, and other sensuous factors, incorporating them into its own operational system; the commodified production and consumption of sensation are extensively embedded in daily life. Eva Illouz summarized the phenomenon of the commodification of emotion as "emotional capitalism," in which "emotional and economic discourses and practices shape each other, leading to a movement that I believe is broad and comprehensive." Emotional and sensory laborers produce emotional commodities through separation from their own sensations; individuals realize a shift in identity from producers of sensation to consumers in the absence and loss of sensuous activity—that is, they can appropriate multiple sensations manufactured by others without going through their own sensuous activity. The universalization of emotional commodity exchange causes the production of sensation to be gradually yielded to the culture industry; externally generated sensations replace real human sensuous needs and become the daily constitution of human sensuous existence. Today, the production and consumption of sensory commodities are gradually shifting toward technical digital platforms. Supported by digital technology, sensations are publicly presented in more diverse commodity forms: livestreaming, virtual idols, the fan economy, and so on are all circulation spaces for emotional commodities. With the intervention of digital technology, the analysis, monitoring, and storage of sensation have become more digitized and transparent; the technical shaping of sensation has become increasingly frequent and easy. But has this accumulation of sensory commodities made our sensations richer? The answer, I fear, is no. Once we look directly at these sensations, we find that the withdrawal of the sensuous activity of sensation leads to the loss of real, specific feeling; externally shaped sensations are, to a extent, merely "pseudo-sensations" matched to the operational needs of capital, used to enhance the production efficiency of capital. Bernard Stiegler pointed out the pain of human existence in the sense of "general organology": technical media are the external sensory organs of the individual, and the iteration of technology itself allows us to encounter more sensations; however, the more developed the technical sense organs, the duller the human capacity to form real sensations becomes, and the real sensations based on the objective relationship of the sense organs pointed out by Marx become even harder to form. In essence, under the manipulation of capital, sensation has not only failed to become further enriched but is instead in a state of "absolute poverty."
Finally, as an important dimension of human existence, sensuous elements such as sensation contain a future-oriented dimension of human liberation within the development of sensuous activity, serving as an important thread in the development of modern civilization.
For a long time, general conceptual trends have tended to regard the level of material development as an important benchmark for measuring modern civilization. However, the material interests pursued and the material achievements formed by modern civilization, while promoting the development of civilization, have also fully exposed its terrifying barbarism. More importantly, the excessive expansion of material interests has, to a certain extent, squeezed the space for human sensuous existence, leading to the absolute suppression of basic humanity and sensuous needs. Herbert Marcuse once analyzed the connection between civilization and Eros as a human instinct, pointing out an unavoidable endogenous contradiction between civilized development and human freedom. However, Marcuse found the possibility of forming the historical existence of Eros within repressive civilization—that is, through the establishment of a "new sensibility" to form a new sensuous order of human liberation, "to see, hear, and feel things in a new way," finally realizing a non-repressive civilization. This, to a certain extent, continues Marx's thought on the liberation of the senses. In Marx's view, although humanized sensations and other sensuous needs inevitably encounter alienated circumstances under private property, sensation will ultimately realize liberation and develop toward…
"Comprehensive and profound," it is then that "these senses and attributes, whether subjective or objective, become human." Human sense organs will truly construct the natural world according to the laws of beauty. As an important foundation of human sensuous existence, the history of the senses is, to a certain extent, a reflection of the historical existence of humanity; the civilization of the senses is an important branch of human civilization. "The essence of modernization is the modernization of man." [19] This implies that modern civilization, in addition to the material civilization constructed by rationality, also encompasses spiritual civilization across dimensions such as human senses, desires, and needs. Satisfying and developing human sensory needs is the developmental trend of modern civilization. The opening up of the civilization of sensuous needs, such as the senses, means that the ought-to-be state [20] of modern civilization in its sensuous dimension manifests as human sense organs forming a multi-dimensional feeling for the beauty of the natural world within the activity of labor. As Marx pointed out, humans can see not only the commercial value of minerals but, even more so, the "beauty and uniqueness" of minerals, forming a "mineralogical sense." Such comprehensive senses will become a hallmark of civilization as humanity moves away from a state of barbarity toward progress and enlightenment.
(Author affiliations: Shanghai Jiao Tong University) Source: Social Sciences (Shèhuì kēxué) Issue 5, 2025 Online Editor: Bao Luo