The Analysis Of Norman Levine’s Marxological Study

Norman Levine is a preminent contemporary scholar of Marxology,and he is famous for his ideas that Marx’s theory is different from,even contradict to Engels.Basing on detailed analysis of texts from the perspective of historicism,he has been devoted to elaborating on the relationship between Marx and Engels.He is considered to be an important representative of the New Hegelism’s Marxism school in America.As an important member of New Left in America,he shows a deep concern to Marx’s political philosophy and opens a new perspective for understanding Marx’s theoretical development.Taking modern Enlightenment tradition as his standpoint,Levine systematically explores the source of Marx’s theory,analyzes the relationship between Marx’s and Hegel’s theory and finally defines Marx’s dialectics as a method of social analysis in order to set a distinction from Engels’ natural dialectics,to isolate ideology from Marx’s theory and to explore Marx’s revolutionary theory.The source of Marx’s theory will be explored here because it is the key to interpreting the development of Marxism.Levine conducts his analysis by including Marx’s theory into the domain of modern enlightenment system.Levine notes that by employing organic epistemology of German historicism,Marx managed to criticize the basis of civil society revealed by Scottish Enlightenment with the aim of returning to political practice tradition at a higher level which means a change of study perspective towards Marx’s theory in that Levine establishes political philosophy as the starting point of both Marx’s research and that of Enlightenment scholars.The thesis is also devoted to expounding the relationship between Marx’ theory and that of Hegel.Basing the methodology of text analysis,Levine explores how Marx historically inherits and criticizes Hegel’s theory,insists that Marx absorbed Hegel’s materialist factors,adopted Hegel’s methodology,dismissed Hegel’s dialectical philosophical system,and takes Marx’s dialectics as a method of social explanation,thus draws the distinction between Marx’s theory and dialectical and historical materialism.Such Levine’s research has opened a new perspective to understand the links between Marx and Hegel and promote specified study on their relationship.However,the mode of pure text-based analysis has led to over-interpretation and the result of subjectivity.In the meantime,the thesis deals with the relationship between Marx and Engels.With Hegel’s theory as his standing point and with the text-based analysis,Levine traces Engels’ theoretical development and demonstrates an independent "Engelsism" with natural dialectics as its theoretical foundation in order to justify his opinion of Marx and Engels antagonism.However,Levine misinterprets Engels’ natural dialectics which is based on the actual nature as a nature being for itself;mistakes natural development being for itself in Engels’ natural dialectics as movement being for itself;misunderstands the scientific logic of Engels’ natural dialectics as scientific positivism.All of these misunderstandings are due to the text-based analysis method which serves as a barrier for Levine to put Engels’politics-oriented articles in proportion and to provide a valid evaluation of the important role that Engels plays in the development of Marxism.The thesis also shows Norman Levine’s views on Marx’s theory of social revolution and the strategies of its political practice.According to Levine,Marx’s communist ideology,which is derived from the political tradition of classical humanism,aims at establishing a dynamic social system to replace state’s ruling,reestablish the autonomy of society,and emphasize the human reason as it masters and enables individuals to realize self development in social life.While Levine criticizes so called Engels’ communism,he approves of Lenin’s inheritance of the principle of subjectivity from Marx’s dialectics.However,he criticizes Lenin’s view on principles of social organization in advanced stage of communism which Lenin generalizes as a mere mechanical social system.Due to his preliminary assumption,Levine can’t make a clear idea about Engels’ changing emphasis of research at different times.As a result,his understanding of Engels’ theory is a metaphysical and linear one.The very power of practice that can turn theory into reality is the very system and the very strategy that are established according to the economic form and social problems in reality.It was Engels and Lenin that put Marx’s theory of social revolution and its practical strategies into practice.The text-based analysis tradition in Marxology expands Levine’s horizon on research of Marx’s theory while exposing himself to the risk of misinterpreting the text,which is not rooted in the text itself,but in the positivist text-interpretation method which gives priority to logic.However,the validity of Marxist theory which is an important part of social reality,not only lies in its adherence to the general history of logic,but in its practical value.Norman Levine provides us an important perspective for understanding the study of Marx’s theory in contemporary America.While borrowing and absorbing Levine’s research achievements,we should keep a clear idea of our theoretical position and research direction,take a firm exception to the idea that Marx is contrary to Engels,take the reality as the pivot of our theoretical research,and deepen the theoretical construction and practical exploration for New Marxism in China.