Marx And Ranke In The Perspective Of Historicism

This paper tries to clarify the relationship between Marx and historicism by comparing Marx and Ranke.The investigation of the relationship between Marxism and historicism is helpful to obtain a clearer understanding of Marx’s thought,and it also has practical significance.China has independently explored the Chinese road since the founding of the People’s Republic of China.All these explorations point to the particularity of China’s national conditions,and the implicit logic is that there is no universal path of development in the world,so Communists should explore China’s path independently.This logic agrees with historicism to a great extent.Therefore,the relationship between the two should be investigated in both theory and practice.The reason why this paper chooses Ranke for comparative study is that the system of historicism is too large to be grasped by a master’s thesis.Ranke is the representative figure of classical historicism,and many later historicism scholars also mention Ranke.Marx mentioned Ranke either explicitly or implicitly in The German Ideology and his letter to Engels.Therefore,this paper selects Marx and Ranke for comparative study.Based on Marx’s historical and historical literature,this paper investigates the historical factors in Marx’s thought and makes a comparative study with Ranke.Through comparative study,the article holds that Marx was influenced by historicism,and there are historicism factors in his thought.Marx considered the core elements of historicism,such as "individuality" and "development",and restricted his theory to certain conditions,which can be called a "historicism perspective".Marx rejected the transhistorical way of thinking.However,Marx’s thought and historicism have many profound differences,historical materialism can not be equated with historicism,because this will dwarf and weaken Marx’s thought,and make the function and status of historical materialism have drastic changes.The article holds that Marx has achieved the transcendence of historicism,which to a certain extent benefits from Marx’s thinking of "historicism".For historicists represented by Ranke,the historicity of the subject is still the limitation of seeking the most objective historical narration.However,Marx’s method of "thinking from the back" overcomes this problem,and historicity no longer becomes an obstacle to understanding,but becomes its premise.This is ostensibly an epistemological question,but it is rooted in Marx’s view of practice.Marx’s mission was not to understand history or any other epistemological problem,but to change the world.The purpose of Marx’s historical thinking is practice,and the analysis itself is also based on practice.Marx’s understanding and practice are closely related.He changed the traditional philosophy of history into a practical problem.