Metaphysical Supplement After Marxist Philosophical Revolution

The argumentation in the present thesis is centered around the following three aspects: the birth of Marxism; the historical development of Marxism; metaphysical understanding of Marxism by some inheritors of Marxist philosophy. It is obvious that structurally the last past is the key problem to be solved by ontology, but logically, their metaphysically interpretation of Marxism can not be clearly judged if we are unaware of the real meaning of the revolutionary change made by Marxism in the history of philosophy and if we are unaware of the historical conditions in which the inheritors of Marxism philosophy have adhered to and developed Marxism. On such a bases, the general structure of the present thesis is constructed, which is implied in the whole paper and has formed the theme of it. To express such a theme, we take the history and logic formed in the further Soviet Union's traditional philosophical textbook as the starting point. Firstly, the reason why the Soviet Union's text-book philosophy is called Marxism is that it is necessarily connected with Marxist philosophy, or it embraces the spiritual essence of Marxism. Secondly, the reason why the Soviet Union's text-book philosophy is not named directly"Marxism Philosophy"is that the former is only the understanding and interpretation of Marxism by those inheritors. This shows that these exist strict distinctions between Marx's philosophy and Marxist philosophy. Lastly, viewed from the former Soviet Union's textbook philosophy, the distinction above is unavoidable. Marxist philosophy endeavors to deconstruct the ontological and traditional philosophy or the philosophy aiming to explaining the world, and advocates the new philosophy of Marx has turned down in his philosophy, which is the"metaphysical supplement after the revolution of Marx's philosophy".The central arguments in the present thesis are as follows:1. The essence of Marxism's revolution. This essence is shown in the fundamental change of the philosophical thinking mode, i.e., the change from traditional ontological mode to that of existential or practicalism, which, as concluded by some Chinese philosophical researchers is"the practical thinking mode". The main features of traditional ontological thinking mode are: the unified world is ideologically divided and then there appears the dual oppositions between spirit and matter, which lead to man's mental tension and psychological upset. In this way, this thinking mode endeavors to seek for the unity of a separate world; about the problem of"on what basis unity can be achieved", there appears the oppositions between materialism and idealism. They respectively construct the different worlds that are based upon material and spiritual ontologies. With the traditional philosophical thinking mode, human is either abstracted as material existence or mental existence. The philosophical theoretical system constructed via this thinking mode is usually thought of as the system of truth. Marx's practical thinking mode is eternally based on the realistic man's practice. It criticizes and transcends the traditional thinking mode above. The main evidences are: 1) It starts from the realistic man and transcends the thinking mode in which the traditional philosophy regards man as abstract; the realistic man is the man affiliating to a certain class who lives under a certain productive mode. There does not exist eternal human nature, which is changing with the development of human's productive practice; practice is the survival mode of human beings and the degree of practice determines the existential nature of human being. The realistic man is gradually formed in the course of everlasting changes in nature and society; human is doomed to be unsatisfied to his survival environment and to change the nature and society. Marxism is founded upon meeting the need of the proletarian revolution and it is a brand new outlook with the task of instructing the proletarian revolution and changing the capitalist society. Marx's practical philosophy refutes the so-called eternal truth and emphasizes that the world outlook of his own, which is only regarded as the guidelines of proletarian revolution, but does not possesses the absolute and eternal significance.2. The Soviet Union's traditional text-book philosophy is the metaphysical supplement to Marxist philosophy. As we know, Marx founded the philosophy of"changing the world"based on the realistic man's practice. However, the inheritors of Marxism in the Soviet Union regarded Marxist philosophy as traditional theoretical philosophy, i.e., metaphysics, or what Marx called the philosophy of"explaining the world". It was gradually formed that the traditional text-book philosophy have ignored the in the Soviet Union's history.Criticism and transcendence that Marx had made on traditional theoretical philosophy have tried to force the content that belongs to traditional theoretical philosophy not belonging to Marxist philosophy upon the Marxist philosophy.It made a supplement for the Marxist philosophy. The main evidences are as follows:In its philosophical forms, it still endeavors to construct philosophical systems. Marxist philosophical revolutionary nature only lies in getting rid of the abstract theoretical philosophy and it claims a behavioral philosophy and a practical philosophy. The traditional text-book philosophy only regards"practice"as one category of epistemology but neglects the elementary role of"practice"on the whole. Marist's philosophy, epistemological philosophy belongs to the philosophy of cognitive theory, which is still the traditional metaphysics.Marx thinks of the realistic man's practical activities as the base of the new world outlook. The practical outlook is his new philosophical outlook, his new thinking mode and his new explanatory principles. From the perspective of practical thinking on human, society and nature, we will get to conclusions completely different from the philosophy of the cognitive theory. The traditional text-book philosophy has forgotten the philosophical subject—realistic man. The text-book philosophy is full of objects, rules and necessities, in which man becomes a trivial on the eye of the mechanical laws of motion. Although the text-book philosophy accepts Marx's conclusions about social and historical laws, it wrongly takes social laws as natural law in its detailed argumentation. So the society must be the stiff structure and the law must be the destiny of human beings; in this way, man's active nature and creativity do not be seen at all. In the text-book philosophy man is almost the man from the abstract group and the individual always becomes another names of minority of historical great men.Finally, the development of the social history cannot be realized to the development of individual.All these mentioned above are determined by the ontological thinking mode, because the traditional philosophy always pays much attention to objects instead of man.3.The metaphysical supplement of Marx's philosophy made by the Soviet Union text-book philosophy is highly necessary. The"supplement"here reveals a fact or phenomenon and is different from"misinterpretation"or"misunderstandings". Its specific essence firstly indicates that the text-book philosophy is an in heritage of Marxist philosophy; secondly it shows that the contents is not in a random way, but is reason-based and historically necessary. Previously, the introduction of text-book philosophy was attributed to Stalin's"On Dialectical Materialism and Historical Materialism", which actually missed the point. In fact, the origin of the Soviet Union's text-book philosophy can be traced back to Plehanov's time, and its ideas were generally set up in Stalin's works about the history of the Communist Party. That means there exists an overlap between the historical origin and spread of the process of Marx's philosophy at the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century in the Soviet Union, what were the conditions that caused the appearance of the text-book philosophy. There are mainly the following causes. First and foremost, the productive force in the Soviet Union was much lower than that in other European capitalist countries. In such a country where farming economy enjoys superiority, it was easy for people to understand the philosophical theory that went parallel to their production means. Secondly, the choice of Marx's socialism by those early progressive scholars was in fact the historical choice by the times. Lastly, the choice of socialist route should be initiated by the proletarian revolution. How did the proletarian minority arouse the peasants to overthrow the feudal system so as to succeed in capitalist and socialist revolutions? Propaganda was the first step, which was mainly focus on removing the religious and ignorant thoughts from the peasants'mind. The propaganda materials were in fact well prepared by the French materialism in the 17th and 18th centuries. The former Russian Marxists held that the foundation of Marxist philosophy was materialism, without which Marxist philosophy could not be understood. According to the realistic conditions of Russian peasants, the advocate of materialism was highly necessary. War times of revolution required scientific revolutionary theories as guiding principles, the scientific foundation of which is no other than materialism. War times had decided the tasks for the former Russian proletarians. First they should promise the people in war a better society, and second they should figure out scientific wartime policies and strategies. Marx's scientific socialism promised people a belief in wartime—the final triumph. But Marx's philosophy did not have a systemic theory that could provide a definition answer to the people at that time. In addition, the existing mechanical materialism in France also had the scientific tendency, which was marvelously combined with Marx's socialist ideals in wartime in Russia. Therefore, the philosophical thoughts in the textbooks were basically characterized by mechanical materialism, which regards man, grasp the secret for operating the machines, such a thought was utilized for the demand of planned economy, planned man and for the developing process of planned history.Besides, man is easily tempted by natural thinking attitude, which is neither conceptual nor theoretical. Once a man is engaged in philosophical thinking, he has to transcend such natural attitude. The former Russian peasants lagged so for behind philosophical thinking that it was rather difficult for them to understand the philosophical thinking mode in Marx's practical theory. Last but not the least, the fundamental distinction between man and animals lies in the fact that he has the thinking and practicing powers, which are connected with his metaphysical instinct. The text-book philosophy in Russia is ontological philosophy, showing again man's metaphysical nature. What has been discussed above shows the reasons why the former Russian text-book philosophy is a necessary supplement to Marx's philosophy. Through our analyses of the reasons, it is clear that the appearance of the text-book philosophy in the Soviet Union was not the misunderstanding or misinterpretation of Marx's philosophy by an individual or some individuals, but a must required by the times.