On Japanese Neo-Marxism’s Critique Of The Doctrinal System ——A Case Study Of Wataru Hiromatsu And Kiyoaki Hirata

Since the 1980s,along with the major turn in the academic discourse of Marxist philosophy studies in China,research perspectives,paradigms and fields have also seen major changes.In particular,the focus on foreign Marxist studies began to shift from discussion aiming at " monitoring enemy moves" to in-depth research and active engagement.In this process,viewpoints of Japanese Neo-Marxist scholars represented by Wataru Hiromatsu,Kiyoaki Hirata,and Seiji Mochizuki came into the view of Chinese scholars.Representatives of the Japanese Neo-Marxism which emerged around the 1960s,including Hiromatsu,Hirata and Mochizuki,were not consistent in their theoretical forms.While Hiromatsu’s philosophy stands on its own,Hiromatsu and Hirata belong to the civil society school of Marxism.However,the benchmark for evaluating thinkers does not lie in the similarity or difference in views,but in the qualitative nature of methodological discourse:In their theoretical interpretation and construction,Hiromatsu,Hirata and Mochizuki coincidentally reveal their difference from the doctrinal system featuring old research paradigms.This is an important reason why Japanese Neo-Marxism is likely to become a new research category.With the growing interest and in-depth research in Japanese Neo-Marxism in China,the question of how it should be established as a comprehensive category has become a new one for researchers,because previous studies on Japanese Neo-Marxism were mainly carried out from the perspectives of thinkers and no holistic research in this field has been conducted.Therefore,this study,taking the examples of Hiromatsu and Hirata and centering on the logic of Japanese Neo-Marxism’s critique of the doctrinal system,is a new attempt in a holistic approach and different from existing studies.Hiromatsu’s critique of objectification based on the critique of the epistemology of the doctrinal system was indeed a preparatory work for the construction of his own philosophical system,namely the worldview of things.Kiyoaki Hirata’s restoration of rights and reconstruction of Marx’s "civil society",a concept lost in the doctrinal system,is the outline and theoretical backing of his new conception of "socialist civil society".Although the theories of Japanese Neo-Marxist scholars such as Hiromatsu and Hirata have been proven flawed to varying degrees,Japanese Neo-Marxism’s critique of the doctrinal system and the new theories constructed based on the critique are important inspirations and references for the Marxist philosophy studies in China in the "post-textbook" era.