Research On Ernest Bloch’s Spirit Of Utopia In The Horizont Of Modernity

Ernest Bloch was one of the most representative ideologist of Contemporary Western Marxism and the most creative Marxist philosopher in Germany after World War II who made great innovations for traditional theory of Marxism in 20th century. When Contemporary Western Marxism was relatively active, Bloch took metaphysics to become truth and reality by his influential philosophy of hope. His philosophy of utopia played a significant role in the history of Western Marxism which impacted lots of disciplines. At the beginning of 20th century, the cultural crisis in the West was intensified which represented as the objectification and alienation of humanity, value rationality being negated by instrumental rationality and the crisis of modernity. Its essence was the recession and decomposition of the spirit of utopia, which made Bloch believe that western culture was dying. Yet, he tried to find a way to get rid of the dilemma, which awakened the spirit of utopia. The awakening of the spirit of utopia is mainly manifested in the dimension of human transcendence which is intuitively reflected in the expectations about the future of the utopia. He considered that we could only survive in the opposition against the world by transcending death and the end of history.Based on the horizont of modernity and multidisciplinary method, the thesis has unscrambled and researched literatures on Bloch’s spirit of utopia, which contains 5 sections. The introduction mainly describes the purpose and significance of the topic, research approach, status quo of relative research in domestic and abroad and the key points, difficulties and innovations of the thesis. The second section is a review of modernity which expounds its connotation and impacts, analyzes relations between human and nature, among humans and between human and ego, and defines consequences brought by the disadvantages of modernity and survival predicament of humanity. Then the thesis interprets sources, background, cultural implication and value pursuit of Bloch’s spirit of utopia. It also analyzes its core connotations which are finding the ego, changing the world and transcending the death. All above helps to demonstrate the way to awaken spirit of utopia. Bloch considered that the integration of internal and external approach could awaken human’s spirit of utopia to achieve the unity of internal and external. The fourth section is about the enlightenment of spirit of utopia in the horizont of modernity. It interprets the significance of Bloch’s spirit of utopia for solving crisis of modernity and introspects issues resulted from the deconstruction of spirit of utopia and the abuse of instrumental rationality, which confirms the necessity of awakening the spirit of utopia. The last section concludes that spirit of utopia means self-salvation and pursuit of ideal. It is transcendence. The spirit should always exist in each individual’s heart as the representation of human spirit’s perfection. Hence, it is the primary target for Bloch’s theory to seek an effective way to solve the social and cultural crisis in the West and release human beings from the dilemma of modernity.Based on the perspective of modernity, the thesis has proved the importance to awaken the spirit of utopia by analyzing Bloch’s theory. It indicates us another way when we are confused by the real world, which could offer a lot.