Hu Bo: The Three Core Essentials of Practice as the Cornerstone of Marx's Philosophy
The revolutionary transformation achieved by Marx’s philosophy centers on establishing the concept of practice as its cornerstone and constructing a complete philosophical system with practice at its core. Practice is the fundamental key to understanding the essence of man, the generation and development of the objective world, and human freedom and liberation; it is also the fundamental hallmark that distinguishes Marx's philosophy from all old philosophies. The concept of practice possesses clear core meanings, encompassing three closely related dimensions: the theory of human essence, the theory of the world's foundation, and the doctrine of human liberation.
Practice is the Mode of Human Life Activity
The concept of practice in Marx's philosophy has a multi-layered, internally connected core meaning. Its logical starting point is the dimension of the theory of human essence, defining practice as the unique mode of life activity that fundamentally distinguishes humans from other biological beings. In the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, Marx explicitly pointed out: "The whole character of a species—its species-character—is contained in the character of its life activity; and free, conscious activity is man’s species-character," clearly defining man's species-essence [1] and species-character as free and conscious sensuous activity—that is, practice. As a mode of life activity unique to humans, practice possesses an essential difference from the instinctive activities of other biological beings. The life activities of other creatures are purely instinctive and passive; the bee building its hive or the spider weaving its web are merely physiological instinctive behaviors bestowed by nature—passive adaptations to the external environment lacking autonomous agency. Conversely, human practical activity is active and conscious; it is the proactive transformation of the external world and a free activity that transcends physiological instinct. Marx believed that "animal production is one-sided, while human production is universal." Animals can only perform simple self-reproduction, whereas humans can generate an entire human-oriented reality, engaging in conscious, self-determined [2] universal production and creating the achievements of civilization in both material and spiritual aspects.
The reason human practical activity differs from biological instinctive activity lies fundamentally in its dual essential attributes of both cognitive agency [3] and sensuous reality. The cognitive agency of practice refers to how human practical activity always contains the conscious guidance of rational thought, enabling people to actively cognize and transform the world. Marx said: "Conscious life activity distinguishes man immediately from animal life activity. It is just because of this that he is a species-being." By virtue of rational thought, humans can establish practical goals, plan practical processes, and formulate practical schemes. This cognitive content runs through the entire process of practical activity, becoming its internal guide. Marx’s classic statement—that "what distinguishes the worst architect from the best of bees is this, that the architect raises his structure in imagination before he erects it in ivory"—vividly illustrates that human practice possesses conscious agency. Precisely because human reason possesses a free will grounded in itself, humans can face the external sensuous world as active subjects rather than purely passive recipients; thus, human practical activity gains the essential attribute of cognitive agency.
The sensuous reality of practice refers to practice as a concrete, perceptible activity possessing direct reality. The subject of practice (man), the object of practice (the empirical world), and the means of practice (tools) are all objectively existing sensuous entities. The process of practice is a real process in which the subject applies sensuous means to sensuous objects, and the result of practice is also a real, sensuous entity. Marx particularly emphasized that by virtue of its direct reality, practice can transform the purposes, ideas, and ideals within human thought into reality, thereby becoming the confirmation of the reality of human thought. If cognitive agency provides the internal regulation and impetus for sensuous activity, then sensuous reality provides the actual carrier for the realization of cognitive agency; the two are interdependent and mutually reinforcing, together constituting the complete essence of practice. Consequently, the concept of practice in Marx's philosophy is distinguished from both purely spiritual activity and spiritless, purely material activity; rather, it is a sensuously real activity that internally contains cognitive agency. Therefore, human practical activity is necessarily subject to a double constraint: it is restricted and drawn by the external empirical world, and also regulated and driven by internal rational thought.
The cognitive agency of practice is further manifested in its autonomous and self-determined purposiveness. Purposiveness is a vital characteristic distinguishing human practical activity from biological instinctive activity and is a concentrated manifestation of human agency as the subject of practice. Marx believed that, unlike the purposeless and unconscious instinctive activities of animals, human practical activity is a conscious, purposeful, and self-aware activity. Purposiveness runs through the entire process of practice, prescribing its direction and content, and constituting the internal impetus and conceptual precursor of practical activity. "This is a purpose he is conscious of, and which determines the mode of his activity with the force of a law, and he must subordinate his will to it." In this sense, purpose is a core constituent element of practical activity; without purpose, there is no practical activity. Practice is precisely the active process through which humans transform a conceptual purpose into objective reality. The purposiveness of practice also has levels: human reason can not only set purposes for individual practical activities but can further integrate scattered, specific practices and purposes, subsuming them under an ultimate purpose to provide a fundamental value orientation for all human practical activities. In Marx's philosophy, this ultimate purpose is the realization of the freedom and liberation of all humanity, providing the final value adherence for all human practical activities in transforming the world. Therefore, human practical activity possesses both immediate purposiveness and ultimate purposiveness, both rooted in the free essence of human reason, with the latter being a high manifestation of human cognitive agency and rational freedom.
Practice is the Foundation for the Generation and Development of the Objective World
In Marx's philosophy, practice as man’s essential activity is also the foundation upon which the objective world is generated, exists, and develops. This constitutes the second definition of the concept of practice from the dimensions of ontology and worldview. Marx explicitly pointed out that the objective world in which humans live is by no means "something directly given as it were from all eternity, remaining ever the same," but is the "result of the activity of a whole succession of generations." Whether it be "humanized nature" [4] or human society, their generation and persistence take human practical activity as their fundamental prerequisite. "Humanized nature" is nature shaped through human practical activity, establishing a real objective relationship with practice; only such nature is the objective natural environment upon which humans depend for survival. Marx explicitly critiqued the view of nature in Hegelian philosophy—i.e., "nature understood abstractly, for itself, fixed in isolation from man"—as not being the nature in which humans actually reside or which possesses real significance, and therefore being "nothing for man," making questions regarding its ontological status meaningless. Human society is the product of human practical activity; its existence and development take practice as its real basis throughout. Human society is essentially the sum total of all social relations; whether they be relations of production, political relations, or ideological and cultural relations, they are generated and developed through human productive practice, political practice, ideological-cultural practice, and their mutual intertwining. If there were no humans engaged in practical activities possessing both sensuous reality and cognitive agency, it would be impossible to generate any real social relations, let alone the historical evolution of human society.
The practice-based foundation theory of Marx's philosophy breaks through and transcends traditional philosophy's understanding of the world and history from either spiritual or material perspectives, achieving a fundamental transformation of the philosophical worldview and historical outlook. Idealism sets up abstract spirit as the origin of the world, reducing the historical development of the world to the self-movement of the spirit; thus, its critique is confined to the realm of ideas. However, merely changing human ideas rather than "changing objective reality in a truly objective way" cannot fundamentally touch the objective world, because "real liberation can only be achieved in the real world and by real means." Old materialism, on the other hand, regards abstract matter as the origin of the world, reducing the existence and development of the world to the mechanical motion of matter. It likewise ignores the active role of human practical activity, inevitably falling into the predicament of mechanical determinism. If humans merely submissively adapt to external necessity and environmental conditions, they can never drive the civilized progress of the objective world. The reason both of these philosophical schools fail to truly reveal the existential foundation of the world and history is that both lack the theoretical horizon of practice and fail to understand or grasp "human sensuous activity, practice."
Marx's philosophy was the first to explicitly reveal that the existence and historical development of the objective world are neither the products of pure spirit nor the mechanical motion of pure matter, but the result of continuous human practical activity. Practice serves as the mediation and bridge connecting inward human thought with the external sensuous world; its fundamental mechanism for creating reality lies in the fact that it achieves the mutual interaction and transformation between conceptual ideas and sensuous objects. Without practice, the mutual transformation between spirit and matter, and between thinking and being, cannot proceed, and the objective world inhabited by humans would have no way to be generated or develop. Therefore, practice is precisely "the basis of the whole sensuous world as it now exists" and "all social life is essentially practical"; "all mysteries which lead theory to mysticism find their rational solution in human practice and in the comprehension of this practice."
Practice is the True Power for Transforming the Objective World
The fact that the objective world originates from human practical activity means that practice is precisely the true power for transforming the objective world. Human beings, as the subjects of practice, are the true creators and transformers of the objective world, which constitutes the third basic implication of the concept of practice. Prior to the birth of Marx's philosophy, answers regarding the origin and generation of the world primarily included the "world-creation" theory of religious theology and the "spiritual determinism" of idealism. Creationism, or the doctrine of God's creation of the world, asserts that the generation, existence, and flux of all things in the universe were created by God, who is the ultimate ground and supreme sovereign behind all things. This fundamentally denies the status of human subjectivity, relegating humans to tools for the realization of divine will. Idealism, meanwhile, abstracts and severs human rational thought from human practice, viewing it as an independently existing spiritual entity and the ontological foundation of all things. However, abstract spirit divorced from practice necessarily loses its own actual efficacy and cannot become a creative force for the objective world.
Based on the revelation of the dual essential attributes of practice, Marx's philosophy both clarified the true foundation upon which the entire objective world exists and, more importantly, found the true power for creating and transforming the objective world. As Marx emphasized, "it is man, real, living man who does all that, who possesses and fights; 'history' is nothing but the activity of man pursuing his aims." This profound insight not only enabled Marx to establish the fundamental path of transforming the objective world and realizing human freedom and liberation through practice, but also allowed him to anchor the fundamental mission of philosophy in "changing the world" rather than merely "interpreting the world." Consequently, this achieved a fundamental transformation of the very concept of philosophy. Philosophy is understood as a vital link in the rational construction and transformation of the objective world by humanity; its fundamental task is to provide a truthful and fundamental value orientation for human practical activities and to manifest as action plans compatible with the specific characteristics of the era.
In the context of Marx’s philosophy, transforming the world is by no means a blind activity; it must take the freedom and liberation of all humanity as its fundamental orientation. Only through the practical transformation of the world can human freedom and liberation be realized. To transform the world into a more humane and rational one, there must be a "bidirectional convergence" [5] between theory and reality. As Marx said: "It is not enough that thought should strive to realize itself; reality must itself strive towards thought." The core of "thought striving to realize itself" lies in breaking through the singular paradigm of pure rational speculation and seeking to transform universal truths into specific programs for epochal change, achieving a shift from a "speculative-demonstrative approach" to a "realistic-application approach." Marxist doctrine is the exemplar of this approach: it did not stop at the pure speculative demonstration of the tenets of human freedom and liberation, but combined this with an empirical investigation into the reality of capitalist society to propose the specific goals, content, and paths for human freedom and liberation in that historical stage, opening a new path of thinking for philosophy to explore how to make the ultimate value aspirations of humanity real and contemporary.
The core of Marx's proposition that "reality must strive towards thought" is that people, in their practical activities of transforming the objective world, must possess the consciousness to be guided by truth and act in accordance with it. Specific individuals and groups in reality are often constrained by the limitations of their own selfish desires and narrow empirical knowledge. The significance of truth lies precisely in its ability to transcend and overcome this partiality and narrowness, providing a rational, legitimate, and universally valid ideological guide for human practical activity. This requires the subject of practice to clearly perceive their own desires and cognitive limitations and to consciously take universal truth, rather than partial interest, as the guide in public practical activities. If the subject of practice lacks the conscious awareness of being guided by truth, then even if the theory itself possesses both universal truth and practical feasibility, it cannot be transformed into actual action to change reality. Only when practitioners possess the consciousness to practice the truth, and can adjust the direction of practice and regulate practical behavior in accordance with the truth, can ideological theory be implemented, driving reality gradually toward the ideal state guided by theory and achieving the dynamic dialectical unity of theory and practice.