Hou Huiqin: A Contemporary Decoding of Marx's Philosophical Revolution

People are well acquainted with Marx’s Theses on Feuerbach (hereafter the Theses); however, its interpretations are so divergent and conflicting that we must admit this work remains, to a large extent, a "familiar stranger." One interpretation claims with great confidence that the Theses highlight Marx’s "practice turn" ^[1] and that the "new materialism" he founded is "practice-mediated materialism" ^[2] or even a "practice-based ontology." It asserts that this interpretation has become the "consensus" or even "common sense" in contemporary Chinese academia, suggesting that disagreement is a sign of "ignorance," and even disparaging the summary of dialectical materialism as "official philosophy." However, the study of Marxist classics must adhere to the principle of being faithful to the original text. One cannot cling to isolated words or phrases, nor engage in literalist interpretation ^[3]; rather, one must grasp the spiritual essence of the work.

I. The Position of Theses on Feuerbach in the History of Thought

Undoubtedly, the Theses represent a significant intellectual node in the process of Marx founding the historical materialist outlook; thus, they were described by Engels as "the first document in which is deposited the brilliant germ of the new world outlook." However, how to properly position the intellectual achievements of the Theses and their significance in the history of Marx’s thought—without either exaggerating or diminishing them—requires in-depth discussion.

The errors and consequences of the French Marxist scholar Louis Althusser’s theory of the "epistemological break" in Marx deserve our attention, and it is necessary to conduct an in-depth analysis of them. Althusser undoubtedly exaggerated the philosophical revolution triggered by the Theses. He asserted: "In Marx’s works, there is indeed an 'epistemological break'; according to Marx himself, this break is located in the work he did not publish during his lifetime, intended to critique his former philosophical (ideological) beliefs: The German Ideology. The Theses on Feuerbach, totaling only a few paragraphs, are the fore-shore of this break." Borrowing Jacques Martin’s concept of "problematic," he viewed the "break" as the most fundamental transformation of world outlook: "This 'epistemological break' divides Marx's thought into two major stages: the 'ideological' stage before the 1845 break, and the 'scientific' stage after the 1845 break. The second stage can itself be divided into two sub-stages: the stage of Marx’s theoretical growth and the stage of theoretical maturity." His original intention was to use a structuralist logic of subject-object unity to negate the humanistic world outlook characterized by the opposition between ideal and reality, emphasizing that from then on, Marx bid farewell to Feuerbachian humanism. This has a certain degree of rationality.

But Althusser’s "break theory" is fundamentally untenable. This is because he negated the fact that Marx did not simply discard Feuerbach, but rather inherited and transcended him based on concrete analysis, such that the latter remained a "middle link" ^[4] from Hegel to Marx in many respects. Furthermore, he negated the fact that from early 1844 to the spring of 1845, there was no qualitative change in what Althusser calls the "problematic" (theme, standpoint, and fundamental direction) of Marx’s thought.

It should be noted that although Althusser identified the fundamental transformation of Marx's philosophical revolution as occurring in and after the "spring of 1845," he did not—unlike many today—reduce the new materialism formed by this transformation to "practice-mediated materialism" or even a so-called "philosophy of practice." Instead, he emphasized that this "break" founded a new kind of philosophy (dialectical materialism). Of course, it also goes without saying that Althusser's "break" theory has been exploited, becoming the philosophical-historical basis for some to advocate "practice-based ontology."

1. The first reason why Althusser's "epistemological break" theory cannot hold

One cannot assert indiscriminately that Marx’s critique of Feuerbach’s humanism constituted a thorough "break" with Feuerbach’s thought. Feuerbach’s influence on Marx actually encompasses two levels.

The first level of influence concerns the materialist philosophical standpoint and direction of development—namely, the resolute implementation to the end of the materialist epistemological line where consciousness reflects existence, especially its extension into the social and historical fields to establish the materialist viewpoint that social existence determines social consciousness. Of course, from the perspective of Marx’s Preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, what fundamentally pushed him to achieve this transformation was social practice—specifically his social practice while working for the Rheinische Zeitung ^[5] and later in Paris. However, this does not contradict the role played by Feuerbach. Feuerbach's influence in this regard was fundamental, consistent, and unwavering; there was no "break" in any sense. In this respect, Marx never bid farewell to Feuerbach. As Lenin pointed out: "From the time Marx’s views were formed in 1844–1845, he was a materialist, and specifically a follower of L. Feuerbach; even later on, he considered that Feuerbach’s weakness lay solely in the fact that his materialism was not consistent and comprehensive enough. Marx saw Feuerbach's 'epoch-making' world-historical role precisely in his resolute break with Hegelian idealism and his proclamation of materialism."

The second level of influence is "abstract man and the cult of man"—the attempt to use humanistic, idealized man to expose and confront the pathological "non-human" under capitalist conditions, and the attempt to use the alienation of "species-essence" ^[6] and its inevitable return to demonstrate the necessity of socialism replacing capitalism. But this "cult of Feuerbach" in the young Marx was always reserved, transitional, and constantly changing. As early as the beginning of his turn toward Feuerbach, in a letter to Ruge on March 13, 1843, Marx pointed out: "Feuerbach’s aphorisms are not to my liking in one thing only: that he emphasizes nature too much and politics too little." Overemphasizing man’s natural attributes while neglecting his class nature and material interests is, in fact, an oversight of man’s socio-historical nature, which kept Marx at a distance from Feuerbach from the very beginning. As the historical materialist viewpoint matured, humanism as a value orientation and narrative mode became, for Marx, entirely a thing of the past.

Only by making a concrete distinction between these two levels of Feuerbach's influence can we avoid falling into abstract disputes over whether Marx had a so-called "Feuerbachian stage."

2. The second reason why Althusser's "epistemological break" theory cannot hold

The second reason is that, from 1844 onwards, Marx’s working-class standpoint and the philosophical themes of abolishing private property and achieving the communist goal of human liberation remained unchanged throughout. From the time Marx left Germany for Paris at the end of 1843 to found the Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher ^[7], his greatest gain was the discovery of the modern proletariat, thereby establishing the communist standpoint of the world-historical mission of the working class. In the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, although Marx attempted to demonstrate human liberation through "alienated labor"—a concept with a strong Feuerbachian hue—he did not thereby fall into utopian socialism. This is because he consistently adhered to two conclusions of world-outlook significance formed during the period of the Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher: first, that the modern proletariat's world-historical mission to abolish private property is the result of capitalism's "self-negation" rather than a moral demand in any sense; and second, that the subject of human liberation is the masses under the leadership of the working class, and therefore, the liberation of the working class is the "political form of human liberation."

In the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, Marx drew the following conclusion: "From the relationship of estranged labor to private property it follows further that the emancipation of society from private property, etc., from servitude, is expressed in the political form of the emancipation of the workers; not that their emancipation alone is at stake, but because the emancipation of the workers contains universal human emancipation, and it contains this because the whole of human servitude is involved in the relation of the worker to production, and all relations of servitude are but modifications and consequences of this relation." It is stated very clearly here that the servitude of the workers is the core of all systems of human exploitation, especially capitalist private property; therefore, the liberation of the working class is the abolition of class exploitation and the liberation of all humanity.

Moreover, we can read the same in the Theses: "The standpoint of the old materialism is civil society; the standpoint of the new is human society, or social humanity." There is no difficulty in interpreting this judgment: it means that the old materialism did not truly escape the philosophical standpoint of the abstract individual, whereas by contrast, the new materialism takes the standpoint of the people as represented by the working class. It is worth noting that many interpretations that seemingly deify the Theses happen to ignore the working-class and communist standpoint within them. In fact, the flaw of Feuerbach’s materialism was not only that it did not understand sensory subjectivity ^[8], but more importantly, that it did not understand the revolutionary spirit of the proletariat. Marx’s practical subjectivity differs from others in two ways: first, it is material subjectivity rather than a subjectivity of will or ideas; second, it is revolutionary subjectivity rather than moral preaching or an appeal to human nature. To talk grandiosely about the transformative significance of Marx's view of practice while detached from his working-class standpoint and communist revolutionary practice may appear "scholarly," but it is in fact a fundamental deviation.

3. Why was Althusser's "epistemological break" theory able to be exploited?

This is because the judgment itself contains two major misperceptions: first, that the foundation of Marx’s philosophical revolution was only laid after the Theses; second, that the critical focus of Marx’s philosophical revolution was seemingly not idealism but the old materialism (including Feuerbach), and that the core issue of historical materialism was seemingly not the material constraints and objective laws of human historical activity, but rather the subjectivity of the agent.

The first judgment is erroneous because Marx's transformation of world outlook had been basically achieved before the Theses, and the Theses represent the refinement of the new world outlook based on the transformation toward a scientific view of practice. To reduce all of Marx's previous thought to "ideological discourse" is not only contrary to historical facts but, more importantly, it reverses the relationship between the transformation of world outlook and the transformation of the view of practice. It is not the view of practice that determines the world outlook, but the world outlook that determines the view of practice. Only with materialism and communism as prerequisites did Marx possess the conditions to found a scientific view of practice, leading to the comprehensive formulation of the new materialist world outlook in the Theses in the spring of 1845.

Similarly, the error of the second judgment lies in confusing the boundary between the materialist view of practice and the idealist view of practice, and in erasing the distinction between material agency and mental agency. On the surface, the Theses are directed squarely at Feuerbach, constantly revealing the errors of his philosophical views. However, upon careful analysis, it is not difficult to find that these critiques ultimately point in two directions. First, that all old materialism, including Feuerbach's, failed to truly defeat and transcend idealism because of its own lack of thoroughness. Therefore, critiquing and transcending idealism is the true ultimate goal of Marx's critique. Second, the fundamental flaw of the old materialism, including Feuerbach's, lay in its failure to resolve the issue of "sensory subjectivity." Therefore, based on his social practice during the periods at the Rheinische Zeitung and later in Paris, and on the basis of critiquing Feuerbach’s erroneous views on major issues such as the essence of man, the essence of society, and the essence and origins of religion, Marx implemented materialism in the field of the view of practice and founded a materialist view of practice. This meant transcending Feuerbach’s idealist view of history and moving toward historical materialism, which is the substance and significance of Marx’s transformation of the view of practice.

The materialist view of practice does not simply highlight the agency (nengdongxing) of the subject, but rather emphasizes the unity of the subject's being-acted-upon (shoudongxing) and agency (nengdongxing). In other words, the key to Marx’s transformation of the view of practice is not the issue of agency, but the issue of the objective constraints on the subject. Marx clearly pointed out: "Men are not free to choose their productive forces—which are the basis of all their history—for every productive force is an acquired force, the product of former activity." Historical materialism is built upon this historical foundation.

Therefore, the problem is as follows: on the one hand, one must acknowledge that transcending Feuerbach was an "important step" in Marx's philosophical revolution and that the Theses are a vital link in that transformation; on the other hand, one must acknowledge that between 1844 and 1845 there was no "break" in Marx's philosophical revolution, nor a transformation of philosophical themes or fundamental standpoints. To this end, we must examine the relationship between the "two transformations" Marx completed during the Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher period and the transformation of the view of practice in the Theses, in order to clarify the intellectual logic of Marx's philosophical revolution.

II. The Relationship between the Completion of the "Two Transformations" and the Transformation of the View of Practice in the Theses

The so-called "Two Transformations"—the major philosophical revolution realized by Marx during the period of the Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher ^[9] (1844)—constitute a shift in philosophical themes and fundamental standpoint. Lenin summarized this as the transition from idealism to materialism and from revolutionary democratism to communism. This significant shift began with a farewell to the Hegelian philosophical position. During the Rheinische Zeitung ^[10] period (1842–1843), Marx encountered the problem of "interests" for the first time, which fundamentally shook his confidence in Hegelian philosophy, especially its philosophy of right centered on "State Reason."

From the perspective of a philosophical worldview, the question of interests comprises two aspects: first, the relationship between ideas (including reason and human nature) and material interests or class positions; second, the relationship between particular interests and universal interests, or between privileged interests and the interests of the people. From the viewpoint of various forms of historical idealism, they share two common points: first, that ideas govern interests, and disputes over interests are ultimately struggles between ideas—a question of the rationality of ideological concepts, i.e., a question of values. Second, although different schools take different attitudes toward private and particular interests, their yardstick is always the measure of human nature. Therefore, Marx’s transcendence of historical idealism through the problem of interests necessarily involved two key nodes: first, inverting the relationship between ideas and material interests to establish the foundational role of material interests in human historical activity; second, inverting the relationship between the particular interests representing a minority exploiting class and the actual universal interests representing the masses, thereby grounding the decisive role of the people's interests in human historical activity. The combination of these two aspects aims to resolve the problem of unifying law-governed necessity (science) with purposiveness (value). Marx basically completed these two inversions between the Rheinische Zeitung period and the Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher period, with the "red thread" running through them being the class viewpoint, especially the formation of the proletarian standpoint.

During the Rheinische Zeitung period, Marx encountered major ideological debates centered on interests, primarily involving the "freedom of the press," the revisions to the "Law on Thefts of Wood," and the distress of the Moselle region peasantry. The debates of the Sixth Rhine Province Assembly on press freedom showed that the princely estate, on the grounds that "censorship is better than press licentiousness," became the mortal enemy of abolishing censorship; the industrial and commercial estate supported abolition on the grounds that "the lack of press freedom coexists with industrial freedom"; only the peasant estate explicitly pointed out: "Censorship is obsolete; where it continues to exist, it is seen as a hateful coercive means of preventing people from writing about things publicly discussed." From the opposition of different estates toward censorship, Marx observed: "The debate shows us the polemics of the princely estate against press freedom, the polemics of the knightly estate, and those of the urban estate; thus, it is not individuals polemicizing here, but estates." This was the initial germination of Marx's class viewpoint.

In the "Debates on the Law on Thefts of Wood," Marx saw the sharp opposition between the interests of forest owners and the poor peasants who had lost their means of subsistence regarding the "gathering of fallen branches." The forest owners, under the pretext that "wood theft occurs frequently precisely because it is not counted as theft," attempted to legally categorize "gathering fallen branches" as "wood theft" to be strictly prohibited. In Marx's view, "If the law calls an act wood theft that can hardly even be called a violation of forest regulations, then the law is lying." However, the result of the vote was precisely the victory of the "lying law," as the law degenerated into a tool for illegal private interests. "The provincial assembly voted on the following: should the principles of law be sacrificed to the interests of protecting wood, or should the interests of protecting wood be sacrificed to the principles of law?—the result was that interest received more votes than law." This caused Marx’s belief—that social justice could be realized by restricting the malignant expansion of private interests through state legislation—to waver, leading to a serious crisis of trust in Hegel's "State Reason."

Through the article "Justification of the Correspondent from the Moselle," Marx proved the veracity of previous Rheinische Zeitung reports regarding the Moselle peasants' "inability to enjoy the benefits of timber and related products," the "concealment of the peasants' hardships," and the "peasants' urgent need to reflect the truth through freedom of speech." Since the two parties in the conflict were the peasantry and government institutions, the crux involved "who was lying." Facts proved that official institutions were covering up the truth. "When an evil is already well-known, the official puts most of the blame on the private individuals, considering their condition to be of their own making, while on the other hand, he allows no doubt about the perfection of the administrative principles and institutions created by the bureaucracy, nor is he willing to give up any of these principles or institutions." More egregiously, the authorities "sued first," denouncing the complaining peasants as "passive, unconscious citizens," and the Rheinische Zeitung, which reported the truth, was consequently shut down. At this point, the Hegelian concept of "State Reason" was completely disillusioned for Marx.

Marx’s greatest intellectual harvest during the Rheinische Zeitung period was the discovery that major social life issues concerning material interests cannot be explained simply by the will or character of the parties involved; instead, one must reveal the objective relations that determine their universal modes of behavior. He noted: "In the investigation of state life phenomena, it is easy to go astray, namely, to neglect the objective nature of various relations and explain everything by the will of the parties concerned. But there are such relations, which determine the actions of private persons and individual representatives of state power, and which are as independent of them as breathing. If from the start we take this objective standpoint, we shall not look for good or bad intentions here and there, but shall see the effect of objective relations where at first sight only people seem to be acting." This indicates that the inevitable trend of liquidating faith in Hegelian philosophy was the turn toward materialism.

However, it is worth deeper reflection: Why was Marx’s materialistic turn completely consistent with his shift in class standpoint? Engels recalled in a letter to Richard Fischer on April 15, 1895: "I have heard Marx say more than once that it was precisely his study of the law on wood theft and the situation of the Moselle valley peasants that prompted him to turn from pure politics to economic relations, and thereby toward socialism." Engels here also clearly explains that this materialistic turn toward studying economic relations was synchronized with the establishment of the standpoint of scientific socialism.

Generally speaking, class is first an economic category; it is the actual bearer of the relations of production and is itself an "objective relation." If one studies political economy without studying class, one deviates from the most basic economic reality, and there is no scientificity to speak of. Conversely, observing the facts of class division from the perspective of "objective relations" and continuously delving deeper will inevitably touch upon the relations of production. That is to say, class itself is the junction between materialism and socialism.

In a specific sense, the discovery of the modern proletariat made the unification of materialism and the communist standpoint an inevitability. Marx pointed out: "The epoch of the bourgeoisie... has this distinctive feature: it has simplified the class antagonisms. Society as a whole is more and more splitting up into two great hostile camps, into two great classes directly facing each other: Bourgeoisie and Proletariat." The simplification of class antagonisms means that the role of the relations of production in governing numerous "objective relations" begins to manifest; it means the deep essence of objectified labor (labor + means of production) creating wealth and living labor creating commodity value begins to be exposed; and it means the historical law that the liberation of the proletariat is the self-negation and self-dissolution of private property begins to appear. Therefore, the completion of the materialistic turn and the establishment of the working-class standpoint possess an inherent consistency.

Precisely following this ideological logic, Marx, during the Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher period (late 1843 to early 1844), discovered the working class as the social force representing human liberation—the "sphere of actual universality." Through the discovery of the world-historical mission of the working class, he established the historical materialist view that social consciousness reflects social existence and the communist standpoint of abolishing private property. This completed the historic transformation from idealism to materialism and from revolutionary democratism to communism—the "Two Transformations" summarized by Lenin. Marx discovered: any class capable of leading a revolution must objectively possess the unity of its class interests with the actual universal interests of humanity. "At such a moment, this class is fraternal with the whole of society, it merges with it and is perceived and acknowledged as the general representative of society; at such a moment, its demands and rights are truly the rights and demands of society itself; it is truly the social head and the social heart." The historical progressiveness of social revolution and class struggle lies here; the realistic basis of the universal interests of humanity lies here. Conversely, decayed and narrow particular interests are gradually differentiated out after the exploiting class becomes the ruling class; they are not inherently rational.

More importantly, Marx discovered: the path to Germany’s thorough liberation and humanity's true liberation lies in the "formation of a class with radical chains, a class of civil society ^[11] which is not a class of civil society, an estate which is the dissolution of all estates, a sphere which has a universal character because of its universal suffering." "The formation of a sphere which... cannot emancipate itself without emancipating itself from all other spheres of society and thereby emancipating all other spheres of society... This dissolution of society as a particular estate is the proletariat." This was Marx’s first demonstration of the world-historical mission of the working class. Although the language and mode of demonstration were not yet fully mature, the basic spirit had been established and was later fully elucidated in the Communist Manifesto and other works. These basic spirits are: the modern proletariat is the product of the self-dissolution and self-negation of capitalist society, and its growth possesses historical necessity; the abolition of classes and private property and the realization of the complete emancipation of man are the class requirements of the modern proletariat, and its demands possess revolutionary consciousness; the modern proletariat is the communist force leading society to transcend the bourgeois "civil society" because it is a "non-civil society class," reflecting the new trend of world history. The scientific cognition of the world-historical mission of the working class established the consistency between materialism and the class standpoint.

In the subsequent Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 and The Holy Family, Marx conducted an in-depth exploration of objectified productive activity (characterized by "passivity" ^[12]) based on the priority of the external natural world. He harshly criticized the historical idealism of the Bauer brothers ^[13], who "supposed that the birthplace of history was not the crude material production on earth but the misty clouds of heaven." It is not difficult to see that in 1844, Marx indeed completed the transformation to materialism and the communist standpoint; his basic positions and views had formed. However, an intellectual breakthrough and accuracy of demonstration are two different things: the former is primarily the renewal of core concepts, while the latter is primarily the renewal of the mode of discourse. Only when the two are truly unified is the philosophical revolution completed. To narrate these fundamental philosophical shifts in a scientific manner was the new test facing Marx's philosophical revolution.

Marx had attempted to use the method of alienation (in the 1844 Manuscripts) and the method of empirical materialism (in The Holy Family), but neither was truly successful. It was only in the Theses [on Feuerbach] that Marx realized the revolution of the practical view of materialism, thereby completing the scientific expression of the new materialist worldview. We can now make a concise judgment regarding the relationship between the completion of the "Two Transformations" (as called by Lenin) and the revolution of the view of practice in early 1845. The former transformation we call the "shift in worldview and philosophical themes" in the creation of the new philosophy; the latter we call the establishment of the historical narrative mode of the new worldview, the "shift in the mode of demonstration and discourse." Although the first transformation is more fundamental by comparison, great discoveries are always the product of the unity of intellectual breakthrough and scientific expression. The key to scientific expression is not the form of terminology, but the formation of a "conceptual concrete" as a "synthesis of many determinations." Only on this basis is it possible to scientifically reveal historical laws. As Lenin said: "'The totality of all aspects of reality and their sum total... reality in its unfolding manifests itself as necessity.' The unfolding of the whole sum total of the aspects of reality (NB) = the essence of dialectical cognition." Therefore, this constitutes a major innovative link in the intellectual process of Marx’s philosophical revolution.

The process of clearly organizing one's own new thoughts is also a process of constantly settling accounts with past philosophical beliefs and deepening the achievements of philosophical transformation. Marx himself stated explicitly that his meeting with Engels in Brussels in the spring of 1845 was for the purpose of clarifying the ideological views they had already formed. Marx said: "When in the spring of 1845 he [Engels] also settled in Brussels, we resolved to work out in common the opposition of our view to the ideological view of German philosophy, in fact, to settle accounts with our former philosophical conscience. The resolve was carried out in the form of a criticism of post-Hegelian philosophy." This seems to confirm Lenin’s judgment that before the spring of 1845, the philosophical positions and basic viewpoints of Marx and Engels had essentially taken shape; including the Theses, their work was primarily an exploration of the "form" by which to better "clarify" these viewpoints.

Regarding the fundamental turn in Marx's philosophical position and subject matter, Lenin provided the following account: from the articles in the Rheinische Zeitung ^[14], "one can see Marx’s transition from idealism to materialism and from revolutionary democratism to communism. In 1844, under the editorship of Marx and Arnold Ruge, there appeared in Paris the Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher ^[15], in which this transition was definitively consummated. Especially noteworthy among Marx’s articles are: 'Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right: Introduction'... and 'On the Jewish Question'." This account and judgment are accurate.

III. Highlighting the Distinction Between New and Old Materialism was a Necessity for Clarifying New Viewpoints

It must be admitted that the brunt of the critique in the Theses (and in several subsequent works by Marx and Engels) was directed at the "old materialism" represented by Feuerbach. However, unlike the contemporary misinterpretations of "praxis philosophy," Marx’s doing so was by no means an attempt to erase the opposition between materialism and idealism in the name of "praxis," let alone to disparage materialism through the issue of dynamism [subjective activity].

1. Materialism is the Premise; Carrying Materialism Through to the End is the Direction

The organic unity of materialism and dialectics is the fundamental attribute of the new materialism founded by Marx. Whether dialectical thinking is implemented is an important boundary between the new and old materialism, but the importance of dialectics differs in the realms of epistemology and the historical outlook. In the realm of epistemology, materialism and idealism are as distinct as the Jing and Wei rivers ^[16]; even without dialectics, the principle of the "theory of reflection"—the epistemological principle of materialism—can still be implemented. In the realm of the historical outlook, however, the principles of materialism cannot be carried through without the aid of dialectics to reveal the historical movement of objective social contradictions. Furthermore, when "departing from Feuerbach" was no longer in question, and dialectics was precisely his fatal weakness, it was only natural for Marx to highlight his distinction from the old materialism. As Lenin pointed out: "The doctrine of Marx and Engels grew out of Feuerbach, it matured in the struggle with the small-minded [philistines]... Naturally, they paid particular attention to finishing the upper stories of the edifice of philosophical materialism; that is, they focused not on materialistic epistemology but on the materialistic historical outlook. Therefore, in their works, Marx and Engels laid particular emphasis on dialectical materialism rather than dialectical materialism, and particularly insisted upon historical materialism rather than historical materialism."

Although the new materialism represents a qualitative leap compared to the old materialism, one cannot deny that the two share a philosophical lineage. This consists of unswervingly reducing consciousness to being, and confirming that truth is consciousness that correctly reflects being. Truth is, first and foremost, objective truth; to recognize objective truth is to recognize the unity of absolute truth (indicating that the "thing-in-itself" is knowable) and relative truth (indicating the development of cognition). That is to say, the material unity of the world and its knowability are the common positions of all materialist philosophies; Marx did not deviate from this position simply because he founded the historical materialist outlook.

Lenin emphasized the connection between the historical materialist outlook and the common position of materialism. He noted: "Consciousness in general reflects being—that is a general principle of all materialism. It is impossible not to see its direct and inseparable connection with the principle of historical materialism: social consciousness reflects social being." In Lenin’s view, the materialist position of Marx's philosophy is the world outlook that runs through his entire thought; any wavering on this point leads to a misreading of Marx. "If you examine Marx’s philosophical remarks in Capital and other works, you will find a consistent leitmotif: adherence to materialism and contemptuous ridicule of all maneuvers to cloud the issue, all muddled ideas, and all retreats toward idealism."

Advancing in the direction of Feuerbach’s "sensuous being" was the trajectory through which Marx continuously deepened the principles of materialism. Feuerbach was the first to propose the proposition that man is a "sensuous being" and regarded "passivity" [receptivity] as its basic characteristic. This view is important because it broke through the "ideational man" of traditional philosophy for the first time, opening the way for man as a material subject to create history. Passivity is rooted in "external nature"—that is, the external natural world that exists independently of man. Marx fully agreed with Feuerbach’s view on "sensuous being." In the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, he fully elaborated that "passivity" is the characteristic of man as a "sensuous being." "Man as a natural, corporeal, sensuous, objective being is a suffering, conditioned and limited creature, like animals and plants. That is to say, the objects of his drives exist outside him as objects independent of him... To be sensuous is to be suffering [passive]. Man as an objective, sensuous being is therefore a suffering being—and because he feels his suffering, a passionate being." In The German Ideology, Marx and Engels consistently emphasized the "priority of external nature."

Although the nature in which we live today is no longer "primordial nature, produced by natural means," but rather a nature that has been continuously transformed by our practical activities, we must not for this reason deny "nature-in-itself," for this is the material starting point of materialism. "Nature-in-itself" gives Marx’s "objective" labor ^[17] a materialist character, thereby truly distinguishing it from Hegel’s "objectified" labor. So-called "objective" labor means facing an external nature that is distinct from the subject (including the subject's own physical nature). This determines that labor is a process of "metabolism" [material exchange] between man’s own nature and external nature. It determines that this process is not merely the externalization of the subject, but that the sensuous subject, while changing the external natural world, also changes himself. It determines that the dynamism of production activities is a subjective dynamism based on material constraint. The essence of "objectified labor," by contrast, is merely activity that shifts according to the subject's own needs and finds its boundary in the subject's self-realization. Bruno Bauer’s philosophy of spirit opposed secular nature: it did not "recognize any being distinct from thought, any natural force distinct from the spontaneity of spirit... any passion distinct from activity... any object distinct from the subject... any practice distinct from theory."

2. Why was the Critique in the Theses Directed at Feuerbach?

We must correct a rather popular but erroneous notion: that Feuerbach was somehow "stupider" than the idealists because he did not understand "subjective dynamism" and worshipped a passive, intuitively perceived "natural man." According to this view, would not Marx’s claim—that Feuerbach’s resolute break with Hegel and his propagation of materialism were "epoch-making" contributions to world history—be utter nonsense? In fact, in the Theses and subsequent works, Marx explained several times why the elaboration of the historical materialist outlook had to be directed at Feuerbach. He noted: "Our remarks are directed against Feuerbach specifically, because he is the only one who has at least made some progress and whose works can be examined au sérieux [seriously]." Compared to whom had he made progress? Hegel. Thus, it was a remarkable achievement.

As we know, Hegelian philosophy was not only the culmination of German Classical Philosophy but also the only form through which modern Germany could stand at the height of modern history: "The German philosophy of right and of the state is the only German history which is al pari [on a par] with the official modern reality. The German people must therefore add this dream-history to their existing conditions and subject to criticism not only these existing conditions, but at the same time their abstract continuation." It was precisely through the critique of Hegel’s philosophy of right that Marx found the key to transition from criticizing the Prussian autocratic system (which lagged behind modern historical development) to criticizing the modern capitalist state system. It is evident that Hegel stood at the height of modern world history; to transcend him required reaching an even more advanced height of world history—the difficulty of which can well be imagined. Because of this, Marx asserted: "German criticism has, right up to its latest efforts, never quitted the realm of philosophy." To be able to take a step forward from the ground of Hegelian philosophy was truly a leap deserving of the highest praise.

Feuerbach’s restoration of the authority of materialism was not achieved by simply repeating basic viewpoints of past materialism. His most important contribution to advancing materialism was his breakthrough against the "spiritual subject" of idealism in regards to the historical subject, thereby providing a springboard for Marx’s successful founding of the historical materialist outlook. One was the "sensuous object" and the other was "man’s sensuous existence"; these respectively highlighted the sensuous principle of past materialism from the perspectives of the object and the subject, serving as a bridge for Marx to identify real people engaged in material production as the subjects of historical activity. Marx noted in the Theses: "Feuerbach wants sensuous objects, really distinct from the objects of thought, but he does not conceive human activity itself as objective [gegenständliche] activity." Obviously, this was not a simple critical negation, but a further elaboration based on a full affirmation of Feuerbach’s major intellectual contribution, indicating the internal connection between the historical materialist outlook and Feuerbach’s views.

It must be understood that prior materialism only confirmed objective objects from an epistemological perspective and never touched upon the scope of the subject's creative activity. The idealist outlook on history, on the other hand, knew only one kind of object: the "thought object" founded by the spiritual subject, which possessed only the outward form of an object; it never raised the question of the existence of an objective object independent of the subject. Therefore, Feuerbach’s proposal of a "sensuous object" distinct from a "thought object" was in itself an "epoch-making" breakthrough. Unfortunately, he failed to further interrogate the relationship between the "sensuous object" and the subject, simply reducing it to "primordial nature" untouched by humanity. In abstracting the object, he repeated the error of subjectivizing the subject, failing to truly break through the spiritual subjectivism of the idealist outlook on history.

Nevertheless, Feuerbach did raise the issue of the material subject through "man’s sensuous existence." Marx and Engels pointed out: "Certainly Feuerbach has a great advantage over the 'pure' materialists in that he realizes how man too is a 'sensuous object.' But... he still remains in the realm of theory and conceives of men not in their given social connection, not under their existing conditions of life, which have made them what they are." Studying man as an object of knowledge had long existed, but always as a spiritual being; Feuerbach was the first to view man as a "sensuous object"—a material being. To study man’s sensuous existence by merely returning to "natural man" is obviously shallow. Therefore, although Feuerbach’s "man of sensuous existence" often flew the flag of "nature," he was in essence an idealized moral man. However, Feuerbach also knew that morality is not sensuousness, and thus his moral man was actually "the real man based on nature." He also proposed heuristic concepts such as "intercourse" and "alienation of the species-essence (sociality)." The problem was that because he utterly despised industrial and commercial activities for their narrow utility, and was deeply repulsed by the brutal social class struggle, he could not find the foundation for the real life of real people, and thus could not achieve a true transcendence over the spiritual subject of the idealist outlook on history.

3. What Kind of "Dynamism" Did Feuerbach Not Understand? What Kind of "Praxis"?

One cannot speak in general terms about Feuerbach not understanding human agency. In reality, there exist two kinds of agency: idealistic agency and materialistic agency. Idealistic agency reduces the subject to an abstract spirit and agency to spiritual dynamism. Materialistic agency, by contrast, reduces the subject to real human beings existing within concrete material modes of production, and agency to the cognition, utilization, and transformation of the objective world and objective laws. Consequently, it consistently recognizes that the objective constraints of human historical activity are primary, while subjective agency is secondary. Regarding idealistic agency, Feuerbach understood no less than any post-Hegelian idealist philosopher; as for materialistic agency, although he did not fully grasp it, he nevertheless raised the question and attempted to solve it. Precisely because of this, he was able to become the "intermediate link" from Hegelian philosophy to Marxist philosophy. On this point, he has no reason to feel ashamed in front of any idealist.

Feuerbach’s thoughts on the essence of man were not lacking in agency. He believed that the essence of man was not "finitude" but "infinitude," because the essence of man is not the essence of a single individual, but a "species-essence" ^[18] that transcends the finitude of the individual self. He proposed that "the individual man in himself does not possess the essence of man," and "the essence of man is contained only in community, in the unity of man with man—a unity, however, which rests only on the reality of the distinction between I and Thou." This understanding of human essence originally contained the seeds of "sociality," breaking through the old tradition of confining human essence to the individual self. However, looking at his explanation of "species-essence," we find it still circling within the human self, failing to take the key step toward "social relations." Feuerbach believed that: man has reason, which is the "light of cognition" capable of infinitely knowing the world and accumulating knowledge; man has feelings, which are the "light of eros," where noble moral sentiments manifest human freedom and infinitude; man has will, which is the "light of action," indicating that man can continuously create objects through action that embody his own essence and eventually return them to himself. This explanation of "species-essence" shows, on the one hand, that Feuerbach was indeed familiar with the spiritual agency of the subject, but on the other hand, it shows that the agency he understood indeed failed to exceed the scope of spiritual agency. He could only understand the "species-essence" as "an internal, mute generality which naturally unites the many individuals." This community remains an abstract human nature shackled within the individual.

The Theses ^[19] are accurate in their critique of Feuerbach’s view of practice; what he did not understand was "sensuous activity," the reason being that "he does not grasp the significance of 'revolutionary', of 'practical-critical', activity." That is to say, Feuerbach attempted to change the injustices and inhumanities of real society, but apart from the "weapon of criticism"—that is, using moral standards to criticize reality—he could find no purely objective historical yardstick to measure the right and wrong of reality. Whether it be "eating, drinking, and procreating," "trade and commerce," or class struggle and violent conflict, seen through a purely moral lens, these are all realms full of fierce confrontation, paradoxical confusion, vulgarity, and vice. It was truly impossible for him to imagine finding therein a yardstick for historical progress or a criterion for testing truth. His obsession with moral standards and his disdain for material life caused him to forget that: "to live, one must first of all eat and drink, have shelter and clothing, and several other things. The first historical act is thus the production of the means to satisfy these needs, the production of material life itself. And indeed this is an historical act, a fundamental condition of all history, which today, as thousands of years ago, must daily and hourly be fulfilled merely in order to sustain human life." Feuerbach’s bewilderment and loss precisely prove that carrying the principles of materialism to their logical conclusion requires dialectics and a class standpoint to dialectically grasp the contradictory and procedural nature of the standards of historical progress.

In fact, although moral standards are pure, they are always external to the actual process of history, whereas real historical progress is always expressed tortuously through contradictions, because human civilization up to now has been developed through class antagonism. Therefore, the unity of the historical yardstick of civilizational progress and the moral yardstick is by no means self-evident; rather, it manifests as two conflicting poles, an antithesis difficult to reconcile. For example, capitalist large-scale industry and its wage-labor system did not manifest as a state of "free labor" for the workers; on the contrary, it manifested as the "reification" ^[20] of the worker, where labor power becomes a commodity. Thus, without a proletarian standpoint and dialectical thinking, one either succumbs to reality and unconditionally praises industry, or uses the critique of "alienation" to oppose reality, failing to view capitalist large-scale industry scientifically. Abstract humanitarian thinking hindered Feuerbach from thoroughly advancing materialism.

However, this did not prevent his materialism from playing a massive role in rescuing Marx and Engels from Hegelian "magic." Engels wrote: "Then came Feuerbach’s The Essence of Christianity... It placed materialism on the throne again without any circumlocution... Nature exists independently of all philosophy; it is the foundation upon which we human beings, ourselves products of nature, have grown up. Nothing exists outside nature and man, and the higher beings our religious fantasies have created are only the fantastic reflection of our own essence... One must himself have experienced the liberating effect of this book to get an idea of it." It must be pointed out that the "priority of external nature" is the prerequisite of historical materialism and is the materialistic standpoint that Marx consistently maintained throughout. Marx specifically noted that for the convenience of narrating historical materialism, "we cannot here, of course, go into the actual physical nature of man, or into the natural conditions in which man finds himself—geological, oro-hydrographical, climatic and so on." But "all historical writing must set out from these natural bases and their modification in the course of history through the action of men." Although human activity is constantly changing the natural basis, this basis always exists.

Marx’s repeated emphasis on the "priority of external nature" is precisely where materialistic philosophy as a whole is superior to idealistic philosophy. First, this positioning scientifically defines the relationship between humanity and nature. Ultimately, humanity is a product of nature, and human society is a type of material existence within nature; nature is not only the dwelling place and source of food and clothing for humanity, but also the source of life and the foundation upon which we stand. In a word, man and nature are a life community. Second, this positioning scientifically defines the relationship between human development and natural development. Ultimately, human history is a part of natural history, historical laws are special forms of the objective laws of nature, and the highest and final pursuit of human development is the harmonious coexistence of man and nature. Finally, this positioning scientifically defines the nature and scope of human spiritual agency. Simply put, this agency comes from the scientific understanding of the objective world and objective laws, and its foundation is the capacity and actual level of humanity in utilizing its own nature and external nature for its metabolism ^[21]; therefore, cognitive activity is the most fundamental spiritual activity of humanity, and epistemology is in essence a theory of reflection—that is, the cognition of an external world that exists independently of man. The practical activity by which humanity creates history is conscious and agentic on the basis of being constrained by objective historical conditions; this is historical materialism. It is clear that to cancel the division between materialism and idealism regarding the "view of practice" will inevitably lead to confusion in one's worldview.

Ultimately, a materialism that removes the "priority of external nature" cannot be a thorough materialism. If one takes productive labor as the ontos (ontology), then "matter" would only consist of man’s "own nature" and "humanized nature," failing to transcend the "philosophy of subjectivity" found in idealism. Thus, there are two opposing views of productive labor: one is "externalization or objectification activity" as the subject's self-confirmation, which is a form of "matter" acceptable to idealistic philosophy because it is internal to the subject; the other is the "metabolic activity" between man’s own nature and external nature—that is, "objective activity" ^[22]. In this, the subject changes itself while changing external nature, and this "matter" is an objective existence independent of the subject, and is thus rejected by idealism. Adhering to the priority of external nature is the basic standpoint of materialistic philosophy and must not be shaken in the slightest. Only thus can one recognize and pursue objective truth (absolute truth) and persist in exploring the real existence of the world, the real face of history, and the objective truth of facts; only thus can one remain consistent with the direction of natural science and human knowledge, with the trends of social life and human history, and with the progress of human development and human civilization.

Therefore, one cannot speak only of sensuous activity (practice) while denying sensuous existence. Sensuous existence is the carrier of sensuous activity; only the passivity ^[23] of practical activity, which does not change according to human subjective will, truly tells people of the objective real existence of nature. Materialistic practice proves the objective existence and knowability of external nature, but it is not the origin of that objective existence. Therefore, it is not the view of practice that determines materialism, but materialism that determines the divergence between the two views of practice—namely, the materialistic view of practice and the idealistic view of practice. This fully demonstrates that a "practical ontology" ^[24] that denies the priority of external nature is fundamentally untenable.

IV. The Question of Positioning the Scientific View of Practice

Coinciding with the exaggeration of the status of the Theses in Marx's philosophical revolution is the exaggeration of the role of the viewpoint of practice in Marxist philosophy. For instance, the formulation that "practice is the primary and core viewpoint of Marxist philosophy" is ubiquitous, but it is untenable. Only materialism is the primary and core viewpoint of Marxist philosophy. We have repeatedly demonstrated that the primary difference between historical materialism and historical idealism lies in whether one recognizes objective laws of historical activity that do not change according to human subjective will, rather than in the agency of the subject. Likewise, it is acceptable to say that "practice is one of the basic viewpoints of Marxism," but only on the premise of confirming that the scientific and truthful nature of Marxism comes first. To unilaterally emphasize practice while departing from this premise results in the denial of scientific socialism and the advocacy of "democratic" or "humanitarian" varieties of "value (or ethical) socialism."

1. The viewpoint of practice, in its essence, belongs to the category of dialectical materialistic epistemology

Lenin said: "The standpoint of life, of practice, should be first and fundamental in the theory of knowledge." Mao Zedong believed that the viewpoint of practice is "the first and basic standpoint of the dialectical-materialist theory of knowledge." This conclusion is a scientific judgment. It emphasizes not only the decisive role of practice for Marxist epistemology but also that practice can only be positioned as a category at the epistemological level. One cannot take the viewpoint of practice as the most core viewpoint of the entirety of Marxist philosophy and generalize it across the whole system.

Lenin pointed out: "The unity of the theoretical idea (knowledge) and practice—this NB—and this unity precisely in the theory of knowledge, for the sum total yields the 'absolute idea' (and the idea = 'the objectively true')." Why is the unity of theory and practice "in the theory of knowledge"? Because this unity is the grasping of objective laws and the reflection of the objective world; it is not the objective world or the objective laws themselves. Taking practice as a category of dialectical materialistic epistemology determines that practice can only be a "medium" and not an "ontology"; it can only "transform" things-in-themselves, not create "things-in-themselves." This is just as labor is the sole source of value, but not the sole source of wealth. "The political economists say: Labor is the source of all wealth. It is this—next to nature, which supplies it with the material that it converts into wealth." This fully explains the difference between practice and things-in-themselves, and proves the fallacy of "practical ontology."

2. Practice and epistemology are inseparable

First, the distinction between materialism and idealism possesses absolute significance only within the practice of the epistemological field. Divorced from epistemological practice, one might use the "interaction of multiple elements of practice" as a pretext (as Daniel Bell did in reducing historical practice to a "tri-axial" parallel of politics, economy, and culture) to transcend the opposition between materialism and idealism, ultimately sliding into an idealistic philosophy of practice. Conversely, an old materialist epistemology that excludes practice loses the possibility of knowing the "thing-in-itself" ^[25] and inevitably stands helpless before idealism. Therefore, from an epistemological perspective, the opposition between materialism and idealism is a fundamental issue that Brook no ambiguity, because the primary question of epistemology concerns the source of knowledge. As Lenin clearly pointed out, the opposition between the two basic lines in philosophy is: "from things to sensation and thought, or from thought and sensation to things? Engels adheres to the first line, i.e., the materialist line." To adhere to a materialist epistemology, one must confirm that knowledge is essentially a theory of reflection—that is, the cognitive subject’s grasping of objective reality, where things (objective reality) are the source of knowledge. While various forms of idealistic epistemology exist, their common point is the denial of the theory of reflection—the denial that the objective object of knowledge is a thing.

Second, only by upholding practice within the field of epistemology can we avoid limiting human knowledge and bridge the gap between phenomena and the "thing-in-itself." Lenin noted: "The criterion of practice has a totally different meaning for Mach and for Marx." An idealistic philosophy of practice limits human cognitive ability, recognizing only human practice in a phenomenological sense—meaning practice can only prove human needs and human experience, not the thing-in-itself or objective truth. This view of practice supports theories of the individual as the historical subject, historical pluralism, relativism, and voluntarism (selection-ism), and it cannot serve as the foundation for historical materialism. Only materialism recognizes that "human practice has not only a (Humean or Kantian) phenomenological significance but also the significance of objective reality." It proves that the "thing-in-itself" not only exists but is knowable, and that objective truth is absolute truth. It is evident that severing practice from epistemology is, in essence, severing practice from the thing-in-itself, ontologically dissolving the opposition between materialism and idealism, and thereby denying materialist ontology. Thus, Lenin’s definition of materialist practice is the transformation of the "thing-in-itself" into a "thing-for-us."

Third, all other meanings of the Marxist viewpoint of practice are derived from its epistemological value. To say that the Marxist category of practice is essentially an epistemological category does not deny its important role in other horizons, including the views of nature and history. However, only by proceeding from the category of epistemology can we accurately grasp Marx’s theoretical innovations and absorb all beneficial intellectual achievements. Only from the height of epistemology (i.e., the ideological line) can we clarify that the fundamental issue of historical materialism remains seeking truth from facts and opposing various forms of subjectivism. Likewise, only from this height can we clarify the fundamental difference between the logic of Capital and Hegelian logic. As Lenin pointed out: "In Capital, the logic, dialectics, and epistemology of materialism [at the same time they are not three words, they are one and the same thing] are applied to a single science; this materialism has taken everything of value from Hegel and developed it." To understand this materialist logic, one must proceed from dialectical materialist epistemology. Otherwise, like Eduard Bernstein and his ilk, one will inevitably view it as a "treacherous Hegelian element" within Marx's system, creating all sorts of intellectual confusion. What Marx founded was not "praxis dialectics," but "materialist dialectics."

Fourth, only by upholding practice within the field of epistemology can we avoid severing the inherent connection between understanding the world and changing the world. Some people use the eleventh thesis of the Theses on Feuerbach—"The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it"—as a basis to manufacture an opposition between "epistemological philosophy" and "philosophy of practice." It is claimed that "epistemological philosophy" is a "conceptual grasping" of the world, resulting in human knowledge and interpretation and forming cognitive activities and the pursuit of truth. Meanwhile, "philosophy of practice" is said to grasp the world in a practical way, constituting the human pursuit of value. This is a very typical view that devalues theoretical cognitive activity (truth) while one-sidedly elevating practical activity and its pursuit of value. But is "knowledge of truth" merely a "conceptual grasping of the world"? No. Dialectical materialist epistemology tells us that without actually changing the world, it is impossible to obtain truthful knowledge. Can any "actual grasping of the world through the changing of things" constitute "the human pursuit of value"? Again, no. Changing the world in violation of objective laws will inevitably be punished by nature and history. Such an "actual grasping of the world," which may even endanger human survival, will be rejected by humanity—how could it constitute a "pursuit of value"? Evidently, "philosophy of practice" actually hides a disdain for theoretical thinking and a cult of spontaneous practice. Precisely for this reason, Marxism not only maintains that understanding and changing the world are inseparable, but since only practical activities following objective laws can create a new world and open a new era, the two are unified in the process of recognizing and utilizing objective laws. This is the unity of knowledge and action in dialectical materialism.

3. How should we interpret the eleventh thesis of the Theses on Feuerbach?

When Marx says that philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways, we understand his meaning not as a reproach that philosophers were only understanding the world and not trying to change it. From a historical fact, most philosophers before Marx subjectively wanted to change the world, and in terms of objective consequences, they all more or less influenced historical development. Especially the philosophers of the Enlightenment, who all possessed a strong desire to change the world. The Declaration of the Rights of Man they founded could even be said to have inaugurated the "era of ideological revolution" of the modern age. German Classical philosophers also had a strong practical consciousness; Fichte is the most famous in this regard. He deserves the title of a brave warrior firing upon the feudal autocratic system; his philosophy itself was a highly revolutionary "philosophy of self-consciousness." For them, it was absolutely not a matter of merely understanding the world or "all talk and no action." However, it is undeniable that before Marx, philosophers indeed failed to truly change the world. There are two main reasons for this.

First, the "philosophers" did not scientifically understand the world; they did not even know what the real world itself was. Because they viewed the world as a product of ideas and concepts, changing the world was seen by them as changing people’s perceptions. "This demand to change consciousness amounts to a demand to interpret the existing world in a different way, i.e., to recognize it by means of a different interpretation." The facts are clear: if changing the world is reduced to changing concepts, it undoubtedly becomes a mere battle of terminology, becoming utterly devoid of practical significance. Further, the reason philosophers failed to truly propose the historical task of changing the world was that they did not recognize that the foundation of history lies in the economic life-process of society, in the production and reproduction of life. "It has not occurred to any one of these philosophers to inquire into the connection of German philosophy with German reality, or the relation of their criticism to their own material surroundings." Therefore, their struggle to change the world was limited to intellectual criticism and its outcomes, i.e., the interpretation of political and legal clauses. This intellectual maneuvering appeared lively but did not touch the basic structure of the existing world in the slightest.

Second, the reason philosophers before Marx did not change the world was that they did not find the realistic force to change the world. For them, changing the world was not a real social movement but merely philosophical criticism. Resorting to philosophical criticism and to the "enlightened" few was the only way for pre-Marxist philosophers to change the world. But as Marx pointed out: "The weapon of criticism cannot, of course, replace criticism by weapons, material force must be overthrown by material force; but theory also becomes a material force as soon as it has gripped the masses." The criticism by weapons is the force that realistically transforms society—it is the broad masses of the people led by the advanced class. If philosophy is not combined with advanced social forces, it can change nothing; thus, pre-Marxist philosophers could only go in circles within philosophical criticism.

Evidently, it is a grave error to oppose understanding the world to changing the world. Without recognizing the independent existence of the objective world, it is impossible to propose the task of scientifically understanding the world, impossible to strive to explore objective laws and pursue objective truth, and changing the world becomes inevitably self-deceiving. From this, one can conclude that departing from materialist epistemology means there is no "seeking truth from facts" and no Marxist philosophical spirit. That so-called "philosophy of practice" which does not recognize the existence of the "thing-in-itself" and does not recognize that the essence of practice is the process of the "thing-in-itself" transforming into a "thing-for-us" has no right to speak of Marxist philosophy or seeking truth from facts.

(Author Profile: Hou Huiqin is the Director of the National Research Center for Cultural Security and Ideology at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, a Distinguished Chair Professor at the University of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, and the President of the Chinese Society of Historical Materialism.)