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Critique and Construction: A Textological Study of "The German Ideology"

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Written by Professor Nie Jinfang of the Department of Philosophy at Peking University and selected for the National Philosophy and Social Science Results Library, the book Critique and Construction: A Textological Study of "The German Ideology" was published by the People’s Publishing House in April 2012. The complete work totals 730,000 characters. Provided below are the content summary, the Chinese table of contents, and the afterword.

Content Summary

The German Ideology is one of the most important texts representing Marxist theory, yet for a long time, it was not categorized among the "classics" or given attention and importance commensurate with its intellectual weight. To date, no book has been published, either domestically or abroad, that provides a comprehensive interpretation of this work. The publication of this book is significant as it fills a research gap in this field.

Based on the original manuscripts of The German Ideology and the latest editorial progress and research trends of the new Marx-Engels-Gesamtausgabe (MEGA2), the author provides a detailed textual organization and philological verification of the background, writing process, and lineage of the versions of this text from a documentary perspective. Following the chronological order in which the original book was written, the author provides an exhaustive reading of each constituent part—particularly the "Saint Max" and "Saint Bruno" sections of Volume I and Volume II, which have been very weakly researched by the academic community despite accounting for the vast majority of the work. The author also conducts a serious re-analysis of the content of the "Feuerbach" chapter, which was relatively more familiar in the past. According to the author's own understanding, important issues and ideas involved in each chapter are discussed in-depth, reconstructing the theoretical horizon and logical framework of the entire text as a whole. This research outlines the intellectual path through which Marx, looking through the layers of mist of the world of ideas and ideology, observed and understood man, society, and history "proceeding from reality." By placing it within the process of the history of human thought and the landscape of contemporary social practice, the book clarifies its contemporary value and significance and provides an objective historical positioning.

This book is the crystallization of several years of the author's painstaking and devoted research. The comprehensive study of The German Ideology from the three dimensions of version philology, textual reading, and ideological interpretation embodies the general paradigm of "textological research" understood and advocated by the author, and reflects the latest progress and achievements made by China's younger generation of scholars in the study of Marxist texts and documents.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Within the Horizon of Textological Research

  1. Outlining the General Picture of the Study of Marx's Texts
  2. Two Different Paths of Inquiry in Textual Interpretation
  3. The Study of The German Ideology as a Textual Case Study

Chapter 1: The Inheritance, Rupture, and Forging of Thought

  1. Questioning a Popular Explanatory Approach
  2. Integrating into the Young Hegelians
  3. From Diverging Views to Rebellion
  4. The Intellectual Process Signaled by Eleven Texts

Chapter 2: How an Unfinished Text Expresses Thought

  1. The Continuation and Completion of the Work on The Holy Family
  2. Interpreting The Ego and Its Own
  3. Analyzing Feuerbach and "Formulating the New Outlook"
  4. Settling Accounts with the Trend of "True Socialism"

Chapter 3: A Participant in Thought—The Hess "Problem"

  1. In What Sense Did Hess Participate in the Writing?
  2. The Evolution of the Relationship Between Marx, Engels, and Hess
  3. How Hess Collaborated with Marx and Engels
  4. The Relationship Between "True Socialism" and Hess

Chapter 4: The Fate of the Text and the Lineage of Versions

  1. Publication Status During the Lifetimes of Marx and Engels
  2. The Preservation and Archiving of the Manuscripts
  3. From Fragmentary Publication to the Publication of the Whole Book
  4. Different Versions of the "Feuerbach" Chapter
  5. The Editorial Concepts and Order of the MEGA2
  6. The Relationship Between Version Philology, Textual Interpretation, and Ideological Interpretation Appendix: Table of Publication Status of The German Ideology

Chapter 5: "Solving Speculative Contradictions by Leaving the Basis of Speculation"

  1. What Materials Did Bauer Base His Counter-Critique On?
  2. A Description of the "Council of Leipzig" Scene
  3. The Dilemmas of German Classical Philosophy and Bauer’s "Solution"
  4. The "Crusade" Against Feuerbach
  5. Embarrassment and Illusion When Facing Sensuousness
  6. Between Feuerbach and Stirner
  7. Re-characterizing the Philosophical Premises of the Feuerbachian School
  8. Personified Critique, or Critique as Subject
  9. The "Liquid" State of Critique Becomes a "Crystalline" State
  10. The Parting with "Mo. Hess"
  11. The Conclusion of an Intellectual Marriage

Chapter 6: Ways of Understanding Life and History

  1. What Does Life Use as Its Starting Point?
  2. Writing the Biography of "Man"
  3. Spiritual Pursuit or "Acrobatics of Thought"?
  4. The System of "The Unique One" and the Thinking Style of German Philosophy
  5. Can Ideas Explain the Evolution of Ancient History?

Chapter 7: How Ultimately to Grasp Spirit

  1. How Did the Transition to the Modern Era Occur?
  2. The Substance of Spirit and Its Creative Activity
  3. The Deformations and Circulating Forms of Spirit
  4. Rules for Grasping Spirit
  5. "Thorough or Reliable Historical Reflection"
  6. The Problem of "Die Hierarchie" [1]

Chapter 8: The Realm of Freedom and the Evolution of Ideas: Politics, Society, and Humanism

  1. Finding Pleasure in One's Own Fictions
  2. Political Liberalism
  3. Social Liberalism
  4. Humane Liberalism

Chapter 9: Critique of the Thinking Path from "Man" to "the Ego"

  1. The Genealogy and Logic of "The Unique One"
  2. Critique of the "Phenomenology of the Egoist"
  3. Can Thought "Construct" the World?

Chapter 10: Can "Ownness" Transcend "Freedom"?

  1. Deriving the Problem of "Ownness" from the Paradox of "Freedom"
  2. The Difference Between Ownness and Freedom
  3. A Case Study: The Freedom and Ownness of "One Who is a Slave"
  4. The "Hypothetical" Nature and the "Poverty" of "Ownness"

Chapter 11: Right, Law, and Crime: "Human" or "For Me"

  1. The Divide Between "Man" and "the Ego" from a Liberal Perspective
  2. The Problem of Translating the Complicated Connotations of Recht into Chinese
  3. The "Sacralization" and "Realization" of Rights
  4. What Does It Mean to View Law as the General Will?
  5. Crime: The Struggle of the Isolated Individual Against Ruling Relations

Chapter 12: What Kind of Society Can Manifest Human "Individuality"?

  1. What Content Is Missing from the Table of Contents and Body of the "Standard Edition"?
  2. What Is the Crux of "Society as Bourgeois Society"?
  3. Unique Ways and Means of Transcendence—"Insurrection"
  4. The "Union" as the Transcendent Form of Society

Chapter 13: "Enjoyment" and Real Life

  1. Many People Have in Fact Never Truly "Enjoyed Life"
  2. "Species" Thinking Leads to a State of "Selflessness" in Real Life
  3. Returning to "My Self-Enjoyment"
  4. The Evolution of Enjoyment in Life and Concepts of Enjoyment from the Perspective of Social Change
  5. Is There a Possibility of Complementarity or Interconnection Between the Two Logical Paths?

Chapter 14: The Interpretive Mode and Argumentative Logic of the Materialist Conception of History

  1. The Preface's Mockery and Questioning of Idealism
  2. How to Understand the Revisions Engels Made to the Title
  3. The Intellectual Landscape and Its Substance Between 1842 and 1845
  4. The Real Premises and Movement of Society and History
  5. The Social Structure Theory and Methodology of the Materialist Conception of History

Chapter 15: The Theoretical Horizon and Real Aim of the Materialist Conception of History

  1. The Real Condition of Man and the Path to "Liberation"
  2. The Sensuous World, Man, History, and Nature: Transcending Feuerbachian Intuitiveness
  3. "Original Historical Relations," Factors, and the Stages of Consciousness Development
  4. The Consequences and Prospects of the Division of Labor
  5. The Logic of Alienation and the Material Basis of Communism
  6. "The Transformation of History into 'World History'" and Its Consequences
  7. The Transcendence of the Materialist Conception of History over Idealism
  8. How Materialism Can Clearly See Through Idealism

Chapter 16: The Process and Links of "The Transformation of History into 'World History'"

  1. Changes in the Two Eras Before and After the Formation of "World History"
  2. The Separation and Opposition of Town and Country
  3. The Establishment and Development of the Guild System in Cities
  4. The Emergence of Merchants as a Special Class and Its Influence
  5. The Rise of Manufacture
  6. Transnational Migration of Populations and the "Period of Vagunage"
  7. The Phenomenon of "The Concentration of Commerce and Manufacture in One Country"
  8. The Monopoly of Large-Scale Industry and the Formation of "World History"
  9. Guarding Against Simplification and Extremism in Historical Interpretation

Chapter 17: Discerning the Relationship Between "Real Individuals" and the "Community"

  1. "Real Individuals" and the Development of Social History
  2. How Individuals Are Subsumed Under the Community
  3. Why the Community Constraints Individual Personality and Freedom
  4. The Promotion and Transformation of "Forms of Production and Intercourse" by Individual Autonomous Activity
  5. Changes from Ancient Community to Modern Civil Society to the Association of Free Individuals
  6. The Deepening, Development, and Contemporary Significance of Reflections on the Relationship Between Individuals and Society

Chapter 18: Socialism and "Philosophical Argumentation"

  1. "Socialism" Appealing to "Thought" and "Feeling"
  2. Can "Humanism" Transcend "Socialism"?
  3. What Exactly Are the "Building Blocks" of Socialism?

Chapter 19: The History of Socialism: Understanding and Narration

  1. The Understanding and Narration of Texts and Ideas
  2. What Influences the Profundity of a Thinker's Analysis of Problems?
  3. How "Germans" Write the History of "French" Thought

Chapter 20: Does Transcending Real Suffering Require a "Savior"?

  1. One Character, Two Extreme Evaluations
  2. The "Kuhlmann-esque" Mode of "Revelation"
  3. The Argumentation and Display of the "Kingdom of the Spirit"
  4. "Rules for Diving into the New World"

Chapter 21: Socialism and Human "Love"

  1. What Kind of Picture Is the Communism Propagated Through "Love"?
  2. Can "Love" Become a "New Religion"?
  3. Observing Reality Through "Love" Cannot Touch the Crux of the Problem
  4. In What Sense Must Human "Love" Be Rejected?

Chapter 22: Facing Reality: How to Avoid Becoming Superficial and Naive

  1. Real Conditions and Their Description
  2. The Subjects and Modes of Real Transformation
  3. The Prospects and Direction of Real Transformation
  4. The "Anthropological" Turn in the Investigation of German Reality
  5. The "Goethe Phenomenon": Discussions on the German National Character

General Review: The Systematic Characteristics, Value in the History of Thought, and Contemporary Significance of the "New Philosophy"

  1. Discerning the "Marx-Engels Intellectual Relationship"
  2. The Objects, Methods, and Characteristics of the "New Philosophy"
  3. Within the Process of the History of Thought and the Context of Contemporary Practice

References Index of Names Index of Periodicals Subject Index Afterword

Afterword

It has been exactly six years since the publication of Cleaning Up and Transcending [2] before I offered this monograph on a Marxian textual case study to the academic community. Does such a long delay mean there were some mishaps in the middle that caused the work to stagnate, or that I simply changed my original design and thinking? Neither. God as my witness, over these many years, apart from teaching duties, household chores, and very limited external social engagements, lecturing, and attending conferences, I have spent my days (including holidays) basically in the Marxist Document Research Center of the Fourth Courtyard of Jingyuan at Peking University—a reference room of a little over ten square meters. My mind was focused on one thing alone: the research and writing of this project and this book. The reason I have been so meticulous and diligent, forcing myself to be as detailed, complete, and in-depth as possible, is due not only to my personal interests and professional habits, but more importantly, to a deep-seated anxiety I have from observing the state of academic research in recent years: that the research orientation of "Returning to Marx" is in danger of becoming a hollow slogan with few actual achievements, and that signs have appeared in this field of it once again withering into "flowers that bear no fruit"! My individual efforts may not change the overall status quo, but in my own research, I cannot help but maintain a high degree of sensitivity and vigilance toward this.

Below, I will introduce the specific situation regarding the writing of this book, and finally respond to some discussions and even criticisms from the academic community.

According to my understanding, a complete study of Marxism should include four interrelated but also independent fields or aspects of research methods, content, and objectives that cannot be confused and, even less, substituted for one another: (1) texts; (2) history (including the history of intellectual development and the history of social movements); (3) principles; (4)...

...actualization. Different researchers naturally have different emphases, but in the past, the focus was generally on the latter two fields or aspects (principles and reality), while textual and historical research served primarily to interpret and demonstrate the principles and their practical application. Of course, one cannot say this tendency and choice are entirely without merit; however, if pushed too far—to the point of becoming a prevailing trend—problems arise. In concrete research, this manifests as people selectively choosing only those textual passages related to textbook principles or contemporary issues, paying attention only to explicit viewpoints without investigating the context of those expressions or the specific argumentation behind them. Consequently, the tortuous and rich evolution of thought is reduced to a single-line transition from "immaturity" to "maturity," where the standard for "maturity" is defined by textbook viewpoints, principles, and real-world strategies.

As a scholar educated and trained within the aforementioned system, I have deeply realized what a profound obstacle this approach constitutes for understanding Marx’s original thought! A specific experience from my past, which I still cannot forget, prompted my resolute "rebellion": during my sophomore year, while preparing for an exam, I was once again reading a textbook on the principles of philosophy. I came across that celebrated quote by Marx: "Any true philosophy is the spiritual quintessence of its own time..." (Marx, "Editorial from No. 179 of the Kölnische Zeitung," Collected Works of Marx and Engels, Vol. 1, People’s Publishing House, 1995 edition, p. 220).

At that moment, I became curious: was this statement intended in an abstract, macro sense, or did it have a specific original meaning? When was Marx writing, and what issues was he discussing when he formulated this view? Thus, I set aside the dry textbook and went looking for Marx’s original text. As a result, in the current affairs commentaries he wrote during the Rheinische Zeitung period, I discovered a world of thought entirely different from the textbooks! That breadth of vision, surging passion, and dialectical logic were worlds apart from the image of Marx I had previously held! I was especially shocked to find that in his doctoral dissertation, Marx even went so far as to say, "Idealism is not a fantasy, but a truth" (Marx, The Difference Between the Democritean and Epicurean Philosophy of Nature, Collected Works of Marx and Engels, Vol. 1, People’s Publishing House, 1995 edition, p. 9). To a mind indoctrinated to understand Marx solely from a firm materialist standpoint, this was simply subversive! You can imagine how much of a shock this gave me. Although subsequent systematic, professional reading and reflection allowed me to understand the original circumstances and intellectual evolution of these views more objectively within the process of intellectual heritage, development, and construction, from that moment on, I understood: compared to abstract philosophical principles, the texts and the history of philosophy are the most important and direct foundations for understanding and articulating Marxist philosophy.

With this experience and understanding, how should I re-examine The German Ideology?

This work, written by Marx, Engels, and others, is conventionally referred to in Chinese academia as Déyìzhì yìshì xíngtài (德意志意识形态), following the title used by Guo Moruo [3] in his first translated excerpts in 1925. However, regarding its origin and content, a more accurate title would be "Critique of German Thought." Because it was written intermittently under special circumstances and was never completed or published, what remains is a manuscript with interconnected content but scattered structure, form, and handwriting. At the start of my research, I cautioned myself that to achieve a breakthrough: first, I must restore the true state of the manuscript text and not treat it as a complete, finished, or principled book—and certainly not grasp, understand, or refine the ideas within it according to textbook viewpoints and principles. Second, I must return to the theoretical entanglements and intellectual landscape of that time. I had to avoid understanding the targets of their critique solely through the summaries and accounts provided by Marx and Engels. Instead, I had to first clarify the actual situation and thoughts of those targets, then compare them with the choices and critiques made by Marx and Engels to see the differences in intent, logic, perspective, and argumentation. This highlights whether their thoughts were profound or shallow, objective or eccentric, real or absurd, as well as the possibility (or impossibility) of integration and complementarity between the two. Viewed this way, research on this text actually involves far more than just the manuscript written by Marx and Engels; it encompasses the numerous works that were the objects of their critique.

Setting a goal is naturally easier than achieving it; as the research deepened, I realized how complex and difficult this work was! First, there was no readily available, reliable edition. It was not even entirely clear what kind of text I was studying, who the authors actually were, or what complex relationships existed between them. This made me realize how absurd and bizarre that previous "research" was, which never questioned its own premises! Consequently, I had to start by sorting out and discussing the "pre-history of the creation" of this text. Then, based on meticulously collected data and combined with my own analysis and judgment, I provided a detailed outline and screening of its specific and complex writing process. Simultaneously, I clarified the complex circumstances regarding the specific writers, transcribers, and revisionists of various chapters in the manuscript—especially the "Marx-Engels intellectual relationship" and the "Hess question" [4]. On this basis, I performed textual research on the preservation, publication, and lineage of the original manuscripts, particularly analyzing the new editorial conceptions, sequences, and the "advance edition" proposed by the MEGA2 [5] "German Ideology Research Group." This philological validation work laid a solid and reliable foundation for the subsequent textual interpretation and intellectual articulation.

As I entered the specific content of the text, an even more colorful and diverse world of thought appeared before me. At this point, I decided to set aside the texts written by Marx and Engels for a moment and began collecting, one by one, the essays and works that served as the objects of their critique. This was a list of books that far exceeded my expectations. The direct objects of criticism included: Bruno Bauer’s Critique of Ludwig Feuerbach; Max Stirner’s Stirner’s Critics and The Ego and Its Own; Feuerbach’s Principles of the Philosophy of the Future, The Necessity of a Reform of Philosophy, Provisional Theses for the Reformation of Philosophy, On "The Beginning of Philosophy", Critique of the Hegelian Philosophy, and The Essence of Christianity; Hermann Semmig’s Communism, Socialism, and Humanism; Rudolf Matthäi’s The Foundations of Socialism; Karl Grün’s The Social Movement in France and Belgium and Goethe from a Human Point of View; Georg Kuhlmann’s The New World, or the Kingdom of the Spirit on Earth. A Proclamation; the commentaries published by Hermann Kriege in Der Volks-Tribun; and Karl Beck’s Songs of the Poor. In total, these comprised 9 books, 14 essays, and one collection of poems.

The indirect objects of criticism included: Hess’s Socialism and Communism, The Philosophy of Action, and The Only and Entire Freedom; Stein’s Socialism and Communism in Contemporary France; Reybaud’s Brief Note on the Latest Reformers or Socialists; Saint-Simon’s Letters from an Inhabitant of Geneva to His Contemporaries, The Catechism of the Industrials, and The New Christianity; Bazard, Enfantin, and Rodrigues’ Exposition of the Doctrine of Saint-Simon; Fourier’s Description of Several Lines of Universal Destiny and The New Industrial and Social World; Étienne Cabet’s Travels in Icaria; Locke’s Two Treatises of Government; Rousseau’s Political Economy and The Social Contract; Proudhon’s What is Property?; Hegel’s Lectures on the History of Philosophy and The Philosophy of History; Holbach’s The System of Nature; Thomas More’s Utopia; and Goethe’s Faust, The Sorrows of Young Werther, Elective Affinities, and Poetry and Truth. Altogether, these included 16 books, 3 essays, and 5 literary works. Additionally, there were 30 letters between Marx, Engels, Hess, and others. What a brilliant, vivid, and enticing picture of intellectual history!

However, entering this world was extremely difficult. Regarding the direct critical texts, except for Feuerbach’s works (which have complete translations), Stirner’s The Ego and Its Own (republished by Philipp Reclam jun in 1972 and translated by Professor Jin Haimin), and Kriege’s commentaries in Der Volks-Tribun (included in the German Documentary Collection on the History of the Communist League), the other works had not only never been translated into Chinese, but had essentially never been reprinted in the Soviet Union, the divided East or West Germany, or even after reunification! Under these circumstances, I had to ask Professor Li Wenchao—an expert in the arrangement and editing of the Leibniz manuscripts at the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences—and several students studying in Germany to search for these original periodicals and books. They went to great lengths to complete the set, photocopied them, and mailed them to me. It then suddenly occurred to me that I might be one of the few people in the world currently paying attention to these documents! So many people talk about and study Marx, but why does the real Marx seem to be drifting further and further away from us?

When the documents were laid out on my desk, my ability to read, understand, summarize, and analyze was put to the test. Initially, facing these 19th-century writings, I felt it was exceptionally difficult; I could barely get through a few pages a day. Even when I managed to read through, the overall thought and logic were hard to grasp—it was utterly frustrating! Fortunately, I persisted in "gnawing" through them, and my speed gradually increased. I paid particular attention to the parts where Marx and Engels discussed these works, ensuring nothing was missed or glossed over. I even identified several errors where Marx and Engels had explicitly marked quotations but had actually made mistakes in the wording or the understanding of the meaning. This provided an excellent foundation for me to understand and evaluate their work fairly.

More delighting was that I could finally grasp the main themes of Marx and Engels' reflections, the specific considerations of their speech, and the depth and originality of their intellectual content within a broad intellectual background and in comparison with those thinkers who possessed unique ideas and distinct personalities. Although their critics almost never responded to their critiques later, because I grasped and understood these people’s viewpoints and logic, I could even roughly imagine how they would have responded to the accusations of Marx and Engels. In this book, I have more than once designed "symposium" scenarios, letting these thinkers argue with one another, highlighting their insights and contrasting their merits through debate. Such descriptions and analyses have brought to life textual research that was long considered "dry."

At the same time, what a vast theoretical horizon, rich field of knowledge, diverse modes of argumentation, wide range of intellectual topics, and unique perspectives Marx and Engels have displayed before us! How different this is from the "Marxist" theory we have long grasped and understood through the textbook system, and from the narrow, simple, rigid, abstract, and even shallow image formed in the minds of others! Themes such as: "resolving speculative contradictions by leaving the ground of speculation"; ways of understanding life and history; how exactly to grasp the spirit; the realm of freedom and the evolution of ideas; a critique of the thinking path from "human" [6] to "I" [7]; whether "ownness" [8] can transcend "freedom"; the "human" nature and "for-me" characteristics of rights, law, and crime; what kind of society can allow human "individuality" to be manifested; "enjoyment" and real life; the interpretative mode and argumentative logic, theoretical horizon, and practical aim of the materialist conception of history; the process and links of the "transformation of history into 'world history'"; the debate on the relationship between "real individuals" and "community"; socialism and "philosophical demonstration"; the understanding and narration of the history of socialism; ways and means of transcending real suffering; socialism and human "love"; how to avoid becoming shallow and naive when facing reality... such intellectual topics are so foreign and "alternative" to those familiar with traditional Marxist theory! Yet it is precisely these that constitute the content and structure of The German Ideology!

Of course, anyone with writing experience knows that grasping an idea or generating a viewpoint does not mean it will naturally or automatically translate into written expression. The process of writing itself participates in and modifies the construction of thought. Therefore, how to summarize and articulate thought is also an important index for testing the proficiency of textual research. During the process of study, I discovered that...

Neither Marx, Engels, nor their critics expounded their thoughts in a very explicit or systematic manner. Not only are their perspectives complex and profound and their language obscure and polysemous, but their lines of thought—while appearing logical—are actually scattered, and their modes of argumentation frequently shift. This adds great difficulty to our objective generalization and refinement of their ideas, requiring repeated reading, realization, and careful study. Given this situation, while striving to present the original context and true state of their thinking during the writing process, I have inevitably included my own subjective understanding. In particular, I have interlaced the narrative with my own lines of reasoning and views on these issues, embodying the adages "narration is interpretation" and "interpretation is construction." Therefore, the process of textual interpretation and ideological explanation has actually integrated many of my personal insights on the same issues, not to mention those sections critiquing them. Thus, it is entirely fair to say that this book is a "double critique and a double construction."

Nevertheless, I remain very cautious. Upon completing each chapter, I organized the parts involving relatively independent topics into papers and sent them to editors of newspapers and journals to hear their opinions; after they were published, I looked forward to the readers' reactions. I am very grateful to those colleagues who offered various perspectives, especially the many doctoral students and young teachers. Each time one of my articles was published, they would download it from the China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) and save it in a separate folder. Some even said to me: "If you don't take action soon, I will compile these and publish them for you!" I was deeply moved. Furthermore, there was another channel through which I could test my results: I have offered three primary source courses at Peking University, namely "Marxist Philology," "Selected Readings in Marxist Philosophical Works," and "Research on Marx’s Original Texts: The German Ideology," guiding students in studying the original works through macro, meso, and micro approaches respectively, forming a continuous and systematic curriculum system. Among these three courses, The German Ideology is undoubtedly the focal point. The first two courses help students understand its position within the body of Marx's lifetime writings and his intellectual evolution, while the content of the latter course involved my students and me reading this text chapter by chapter and section by section over an entire semester. Particularly in the public compulsory courses offered to graduate students across all sub-disciplines of the department, I encouraged students to critique Marx's thought and its systemic characteristics from different professional perspectives, while simultaneously offering comments and suggestions on my research.

The results of the aforementioned work have been significant. Since 2006, I have published more than 40 research papers on The German Ideology. Teaching the primary source courses every academic year has allowed for "mutual advancement of teaching and learning" [9], from which I have benefited greatly. On this basis, I have revised, supplemented, and improved the entire book multiple times, finally presenting it to the reader in its current form.

To put it quite literally, this book is the crystallization of several years of exhaustive and dedicated research. In my research, the standard I pursued was: an accurate grasp of authoritative documentary materials, a complete understanding of the textual structure, a detailed interpretation of the ideological content, a thorough sorting and profound revelation of the argumentation process and logic, a precise refinement and generalization of problems and viewpoints, and a deep analysis and objective evaluation of the intellectual connotations. Of course, I do not believe my work is perfected; oversights and even errors are unavoidable. Therefore, I am ready at any time to make corrections, supplements, and developments. Classics need to be studied repeatedly, as the saying goes, "read often, always new" (cháng dú cháng xīn); provided, of course, that such continuous reading and research constitutes a sequential and gradually ascending ladder to ensure the continuous forward development of human thought.

Regrettably, however, the situation that has emerged in academia in recent years causes me considerable concern. Some scholars were originally pioneers in this field, but after "staking their claims" [10], they no longer continue to cultivate this land. There are also numerous conferences and forums whose quality of content is difficult to guarantee; endless methodological discussions devoid of textual support; accumulations of data that are far from authoritative; and unrestrained interpretations that disregard the textual structure and core content. Under the pretext of reflecting contemporary relevance and practical application, some "dismember the text" [11] and "extract chapters and sentences out of context" [12] merely to illustrate and argue for so-called major contemporary issues. To link and match with currently popular philosophical concepts and social trends, some conduct unprincipled discussions on abstracted ideas that share the same literal signifiers but have undergone great changes in meaning. Some brazenly expound their own ideas under the guise of textual research, or coin convoluted, obscure, and even awkward terms and concepts to hide a superficial grasp of the textual content, while grandiosely labeling it "innovation" and "development." The academic world is far too noisy, but amid this "cacophony of voices" [13], textual research—which has great academic prospects—has not borne fruitful results!

What is more, some believe that highlighting academic demands and emphasizing the foundational significance of the text in Marxist research leads to the "academicization" and "formalization" of Marxist philosophical research, alienating it from real life and evading the political line—at the very least, they claim the "breadth of vision is too small." Frankly speaking, I cannot agree with such a view. In fact, what stands in opposition to "academic rigor" is not "reality" or "politics," but "non-academicism." Philosophical research, especially Chinese Marxist philosophical research, should indeed pay attention to reality, politics, and the practice of modernization. However, within this shared attention, there is a divide between academic and non-academic research methods. Academic attention involves deep reflection that links the interpretation, reflection, and guidance of reality together, rather than devolving into mere defense and vulgar illustration of policies and popular concepts. The hundred-year journey of Marxist philosophy in China has relied on special circumstances and external forces. Aside from the actions of political leaders and social development, its academic achievements have been limited and its lessons profound. It is now time for it to summarize experiences, study with total concentration, focus on accumulation, explore multiple paths, and strengthen its construction. Under these circumstances, what is needed is tolerance and encouragement, rather than the frequent use of overbearing accusations—as if others have fallen into a "misguided zone" and only one's own line is "orthodox." To speak self-mockerily: if Chinese Marxist philosophical research always remains at the level of "peripheral gesturing" and "macro-projections," still lacking long-term and sustained meticulous research and in-depth exploration of specific problems, texts, and ideas—to the point where it cannot produce monumental works [14] or great thinkers, fails to advance practical reality, and cannot even change its awkward position in the contemporary academic landscape—then it truly fails the era and history, and that would be a genuine tragedy!

Nie Jinfang August 21, 2011 Center for Marxist Document Research, Fourth Courtyard, Jingyuan, Peking University

Source: Marxist Research Network Web Editor: Yang Guang