As an open ideological system, Marxist philosophy keeps pace with the times. It should be admitted that in China's study of Marxist philosophical principles, "practical materialism" has indeed reached a new height; But at the same time, we should also see that there has been no substantial progress in the study of "practical materialism" since then. We believe that, just like how "practical materialism" succeeds, the key to the current problem still lies in a breakthrough in understanding the category of "practice" and its position in Marxist philosophy. Therefore, this paper puts forward some preliminary thoughts.

What we intend to discuss here is "Marxist philosophy" rather than "Marxist philosophy", because: Russian Marxism, China Marxism and Western Marxism are undoubtedly related to Marx's own thoughts, but they are not the same thing in any case; Even Engels' thought, although we are opposed to completely opposing Marx's thought, is not without difference. In order to make the topic more focused, we are limited to discussing "Marx's philosophy" here.

We think that Marx's philosophy should be called "pragmatism" 1. The so-called "-ism" is a theory or belief; The so-called "pragmatism" is a philosophical theory about practice and a theoretical belief in practice. Although Marx and Engels once called their own philosophy "practical materialism" in German Ideology, today, "practical materialism" has actually become the title of a specific school in the study of Marxist philosophy principles in China since the 1980s. To show the difference, we use "pragmatism" to mark our understanding of Marxist philosophy; The more fundamental consideration is that no matter the thinking level of contemporary philosophy or the inherent basic characteristics of Marxist philosophy itself, only by directly understanding Marxist philosophy as "pragmatism" today can we make a substantive breakthrough in the study of Marxist philosophical principles. This is because the category of "practice" gained ontological significance in Marxist philosophy for the first time. This point has long been ignored by people, as some scholars have pointed out, until "in the post-modern context, Marxist philosophy's rejection of metaphysics, practical existential significance and contemporary significance of Marxist philosophy are highlighted." 2

1. Practice exists

Regardless of philosophy, science or daily thinking, any thinking activity must take some kind of "conceptual presupposition" as its logical starting point. This presupposition is the "self-evident" premise of the whole thinking. Aristotle defined his "first philosophy" or "metaphysics" as knowledge about "existence is existence", that is, it presupposes "existence". This "existence" is an insurmountable setting, which means that any philosophy, no matter what skeptical stance it takes, will ultimately start from the presupposition of "existence", that is, take "existence" as its logical starting point; In other words, any philosophy can't escape the existential presupposition in the end.

Since the ancient Greek philosopher parmenides established the category of "being", philosophy has never surpassed this point. Thought can start from doubting everything, but only "existence" can't be doubted, otherwise people can't think, talk, do things or survive. Descartes, for example, can be regarded as the most typical skeptic. He first suspends all existence, and then deducts "I am" from "I think". The so-called "I think therefore I am" is reduced to a syllogism:

All thinking things must exist;

I am thinking;

So, I exist.

The premise here is that what he thinks can be thought must exist. But we have to ask him: why are you so persistent and have to prove that you are some kind of existence? Obviously, he has a transcendental belief premise: there must be something. This is his last existence presupposition. His premise itself is based on two conceptual premises: the existence of thinking and the existence of existence. There must be a date. This is his "existential presupposition".

For another example, Buddhism takes "emptiness" as the highest dogma, while China, the most typical Buddhist theory, only knows sects, and its basic doctrine is "knowledge without boundaries", still affirming the existence of "knowledge", especially "friendship and knowledge". As for the so-called "nothing" in Taoism, it does not mean "non-existence". Taoism regards "Tao" as "nothing", which means that "Tao" is "being" itself rather than any "being" (Heidegger's language). This "nothingness" is actually similar to Hegel's so-called "pure existence". Pure existence or pure existence has no connotation, so it is called "nothingness". In other words, "Tao" is a pure existence, and its content has not been expanded. The most thorough skeptic is gorgias of the ancient Greek school of wise men, who said: Nothing exists; Even if something exists, it is unknown; Even if you know, you can't say. But in fact, Gorkias' thought is empirical. What he means is that knowledge cannot go beyond perceptual experience. In this respect, his thought is the earliest pioneer of modern empirical philosophy. Empirical agnosticism does not deny the existence of experience itself. Therefore, Gorchias's "non-existence" and Becker's "existence is perceived" have the same meaning. In other words, "experience" is the premise of its existence.

Therefore, it is a misunderstanding to think that philosophy can start from suspecting existence itself; What philosophy can doubt is not existence, but a concrete "existence" It is worth noting that Heidegger strictly distinguished "being" and "being" for the first time. In a sense, existence itself is unspeakable; Once you point out some existence, such as nature, matter, idea, God, etc. , it is not "existence" itself, but just a concrete "existence". But Heidegger believes that all philosophy since Socrates is just a kind of "existence", not "existence"; What he wants to ask is "existence" itself. In fact, what Marx's philosophy wants to study is not some kind of "existence", such as "matter", but existence itself; But his understanding of existence is "social existence" and "social life", that is, human practice and activities; In other words, Marx "questioned existence itself" long before Heidegger, but they made different interpretations of "existence". three

Marx believes that practice is the only existence or reality. Practice is existence, and there is nothing but practice.

The ancient western ontology philosophy once tried to pursue the "noumenon" of the world, that is, some ultimate "reality". However, this effort aroused suspicion and ended in the argument of "God" in the Middle Ages. So modern epistemological philosophy began to review our "understanding" of ontology itself; But its premise is still the commitment or presupposition to "noumenon". The task of epistemology is to solve the problem of whether and how consciousness or mind can achieve objective reality, that is, the so-called "identity of thinking and existence"; However, this objective reality as an ontology is either conceived as some kind of "entity" or as some kind of "essential" attribute of this entity; In short, "reality" is a purely "objective existence" entity, which can be discussed without human existence. But we can see that from this perspective, modern empiricism inevitably moves towards agnosticism, while rationalism moves towards transcendentalism, which shows that both ancient ontology and modern epistemology are "blocked". Since Kant declared that this "thing itself" is unknowable, the era of epistemology has ended. Later, the so-called "logical positivism" thought was just an elegy of the "epistemological era" in terms of its exploration of "cognition". Since then, philosophy has turned, which is called "linguistic turn". Its positive significance lies in inheriting Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, combining empiricism with rationalism, and deepening the understanding of cognition or consciousness through language analysis; Its negative significance is to retreat from "metaphysics" to "metaphysics" and from "experience" to? What is the fate of strontium s who can endure cooking and just collapse? Do you forgive me for being bored? /P & gt；

But Marx never evaded the question of "metaphysics". He wants to answer existential questions about "reality". Marx's greatest contribution in the history of philosophy is to understand all "existence" or "reality" from human's "practice". In his view, practice is the only reality; The so-called "objective existence" without human practice does not exist for people. We believe that this is the highest principle or ultimate presupposition of Marx's ontology and its whole philosophy. Here, a passage of Marx is worth chewing repeatedly:

Only in society, nature is the link between people, the existence of others and others, and the element of people's real life; Only in society, nature is the foundation of human existence. Only in society, the existence of human nature is that he exists for him and nature becomes a person for him. Therefore, society is the essential unity of man and nature. four

Pay special attention to Marx's statement: "Only in society can nature exist ...". The so-called "society" and "real life" here do not refer to the existence of any entity or society, but to the "social existence" itself, that is, practice. Therefore, "practice" is not only the initial category of Marx's so-called "historical materialism", but also the initial category of all Marx's philosophy. In view of this, if we still try to seek the so-called "Marxist philosophical ontology" there, or even define this "ontology" as a purely objective "material" abstraction that is so-called "independent of human will", it is definitely not Marx's philosophy, but just something before Marx.

Therefore, it is very inappropriate to decompose Marx's philosophy into materialism and dialectics. This statement originated from Lenin, who believed that Marx "sublated" Feuerbach's materialism and Hegel's idealist dialectics in philosophy at the same time, thus realizing the philosophical revolution. In fact, first, neither the transformation of materialism nor dialectics, or the combination of the two, is enough to realize the "philosophical revolution" of Marxism; Marx's philosophical revolution lies in his "practice" category. Of course, the category of "practice" was not first put forward by Marx. For example, Kant put forward "practical rationality" to solve the problem of how consciousness penetrates the "phenomenon world" and reaches the "thing itself"; But Kant's "practical reason" is actually subjective free will, while Marx's "practice" category is objective existence or activity. Later Hegel and Feuerbach also attached importance to practice, but at most they regarded practice as a link and aspect of existence and development.

Secondly, the difference between Marx's materialism and all the old materialism is not to return "noumenon" to "matter" or "nature", that is, not to return to French materialism in the eighteenth century; Instead, "existence" or "reality" is defined as human "real life", that is, "practice". The Outline of Feuerbach pointed out: "The main disadvantage of all previous materialistic dates, including Feuerbach's materialistic dates, is that things, reality and sensibility are only understood in an objective or intuitive form, not as human perceptual activities and practices, not from a subjective perspective." That is to say, as the premise of philosophical thinking, it should not be an intuitive entity such as "subject/object", no matter whether this "subject" is "person" or something else; It should be "practice" and "activity". Any "subject" must be some kind of "entity" Mechanical materialism takes "matter" and "nature" as the main body, while Hegel takes "absolute concept" as the main body. This does not mean that the category of "subject/object" cannot be used, but that only practice can be used to explain the subject and object, but not practice.

The word "materialism" comes from matter and substance, and its meaning is material entity; In other words, the word "materialism" has a strong color of materialism. Therefore, here we want to point out that the word "practical materialism" is not enough to characterize the nature of Marxist philosophy, and it is easy for people to understand "practice" as some kind of substantive existence. That's exactly what happened. Practical materialists found man as the substantive "subject" in the field of practice, and regarded man as the substantive existence of practice first (in this way, it will inevitably lead to the so-called "humanistic" Marxism today). This is Marx's "humanistic" understanding, that is, its essence is still "pre-Marx". In Marx's view, practice as the ultimate presupposition is the only existence or objective reality, and this objective reality is not an entity in any sense, but a "state of existence".

Thirdly, Marx's dialectics is not the dialectics of Hegel's absolute idea, but it is not only the dialectics of history, but also the dialectics of nature or thinking. Marx's dialectics is the dialectics of practice. In other words, there is no practice, neither isolated "dialectics of nature" nor isolated "dialectics of thinking". Dialectics is the dialectics of practice itself.

Therefore, that practice is obviously problematic, that is, under the "universal law" of dialectical materialism, there are three branches: dialectics of nature, dialectics of history (historical materialism) and dialectics of thinking (dialectical logic). This sentence comes from Engels. He wrote Dialectics of Nature. But in Marx's view, there is no materialist dialectics or dialectical materialism abstracted from the so-called "three fields", because this ontological dialectics and Hegel's dialectics belong to the same way of thinking, that is, an abstract existential date, which is "absolute spirit" in Hegel's view, but "matter" or "nature" here. But in Marx's view, if there is some kind of "ontology", it is by no means an abstraction of "thinking", "history", "nature" or "matter", but only a practical activity. Similarly, it is not advisable to cite Marxist philosophy alongside "dialectical materialism" and "historical materialism". Moreover, even if we admit that there are so-called "historical dialectics" or "historical materialism" besides practical dialectics, it is different from the so-called "dialectical materialism" and cannot be so neither fish nor fowl juxtaposed. This practice comes from the philosophy textbooks of the former Soviet Union and has long been criticized.

2. Practice is the essence

Speaking of "existence", especially "human existence", we know that western existentialism philosophy also pays attention to "human existence", so we might as well examine the concept of "existence" of existentialism. The understanding of existentialism "existence" can be investigated from Sartre's famous proposition "existence precedes essence" Up to now, there are three philosophical theories about the relationship between "existence" and "essence":

(1) The philosophy before existentialism, especially the ancient "ontology" philosophy, can be summarized as "essence precedes existence" in a sense. The so-called "essence" here refers to both the essence of human beings and the essence of the world, that is, a basic aspect of the meaning of "ontology". Ancient forms of philosophy always seek some kind of "ontology" as the metaphysical basis and basis of all existence. This ontology has two basic meanings: either the "origin" of all existence or the "essence" of all existence. Both meanings are based on the same premise: this ontology is an entity or its attributes. This ontology determines the essence of all existence in advance, thus determining the existence of all existence. In China's philosophy, it is the ontological presupposition of "heaven" to say that "heaven changes, (people and things) each have their own lives" (Yi Chuan), that Confucianism says "the nature of destiny" (the golden mean), and that Taoism says "simplicity (that is, Taoism) is scattered and used as a tool" (Lao Zi). In the west, this ontological presupposition is "God", "conceptual world", "thing in itself" and "matter". In a word, the essence of "people" and "things" is predetermined by this ontology.

(2) Existentialism puts forward that "existence precedes essence". In other words, it is man who creates his own essence and then his own life world. In other words, man's essence is the result of his free choice of will and action. In fact, existentialism, voluntarism and philosophy of life have long established this basic spirit: man's will to life is not only the master of man, but also the master of the existence and essence of the world. This abandons the metaphysical hypothesis that "God is dead" (Nietzsche's language) and "idea" is dead; Only people live independently. This is great; However, there are also problems here: first, why and by whom are people "thrown" into the state of existence? This problem has been quietly shelved by existentialists. Secondly, the "existence" of man and the world comes first, and the "essence" of man and the world comes later; In other words, there was a time when the existence of man and the world was not essential, that is, there was a kind of "existence without essence" This is ridiculous and unimaginable.

(3) In Marx's view, it is neither "essence precedes existence" nor "existence precedes essence", but "existence is essence". Practice is not only human existence, but also human essence. People love to quote, but they often misunderstand Marx's sentence: "The essence of man is not an abstract thing inherent in a single person. In fact, it is the sum of all social relations. " 6 "Social relations" here refers to "social existence", that is, social practice and social life (Marx said: "Social life is practice in essence." 7)。 What Marx means is that human nature is social practice. Therefore, strictly speaking, "man has created his own essence" is wrong, because there is a preset "man" who is outside in practice, but this is impossible; It should be said that "practice, as the existence of human beings, has caused the essence of human beings". Therefore, it is better to say "man is a man of practice" (man and practice are "together") than "man is a man of practice" (it seems that man is ahead of practice). But the general understanding is that there is a subject, that is, a person, and then he takes action on an object or object, which is practice. In fact, this is a big fallacy. Practice is not a comprehensive result of some transcendental subject and object, that is, a binary analysis result, while subject and object are the results of our analysis of original practice. People exist in the form of practice, and there is no one who does not practice. Without practice, don't talk about the existence of people and the world. On the one hand, man himself is created through practice; On the other hand, "creating the object world through practice" 8. Therefore, practice is not only the realistic starting point of all existence including human existence, but also the logical starting point of all philosophy including Marxist philosophy. We start from "practice" because we are convinced that "social life is practice in essence". All mysterious things that lead theory to mysticism can be reasonably solved in practice and understanding of this practice. "Nine

3. Pragmatism and Ontology

For Marx's philosophy, people usually divide it into three parts in the traditional way: ontology or ontology, epistemology and axiology. Although this division is reasonable and convenient, it splits Marx's philosophy and makes people lose sight of its integrity. Moreover, this juxtaposition is a chaotic arrangement: ontology is about the whole "existence" problem including consciousness; However, epistemology and axiology are only about consciousness or mind. Epistemology is about the cognition of consciousness, and axiology is about the intention of consciousness. According to this line of thinking, since consciousness is regarded as an independent philosophical field, it is necessary to determine the opposite philosophical field, which is why things like "dialectics of nature" are produced outside human practice. However, we believe that Marxist philosophy, as a comprehensive philosophical theory, is pragmatic; Pragmatism is not only ontology, but also epistemology and axiology. This is because practice is the so-called "ontology" ("ontology" is a very imprecise concept, see below); Cognition (the object domain of epistemology) and intention (the object domain of axiology) are the internal elements or "implications" of practice. In other words, only pragmatism has covered ontology, epistemology and axiology. This doesn't mean that we can't analyze and study the problems of cognition or value, but that we can only treat them as elements or connotations in the field of practice. Without the ontological explanation of practice, it is impossible to get an exact explanation of both cognition and value, because they are self-reflection and spiritual presentation of practice. In this sense, it is inaccurate to understand "practice" only as "material activity" in the past, because all kinds of spiritual activities belong to the factual judgment of cognitive activities, and the value judgment of intentional activities all occur in the field of practice.

As we know, "Ontology" is the Chinese translation of Spanish ontology, which was previously translated as "ontology". In fact, the two kinds of translation are quite different. The Chinese translation of "ontology" is deeply influenced by the categories of "essence and end" and "aspect and use" in China's classical philosophy. The traditional ontological category has two basic meanings: the "origin" and "essence" of the world. In the category of "origin and end", what stands out is the nature of its origin and occurrence: "origin" refers to the existence of origin, and "end" refers to the existence of life; The category of "body use" highlights the essence of essentialism and functionalism: "body" is entity and essence, and "use" is utility and function. It can be seen that China's traditional ontological concept is consistent with that of ancient western countries. In this sense, the translation of "ontology" is very reasonable. In other words, the traditional Chinese and Western concepts of "ontology" agree that:

(1) Ontology is an external objective reality;

(2) This objective reality is an entity or its attribute;

(3) This kind of entity is the origin and essence of everything and people in the world.

This is the whole content of the classic concept of "ontology". But we can see that the traditional understanding of "dialectical materialism" is exactly like this:

(1) "Material" is an objective existence "independent of human subjective will";

(2) Any "material existence" is either a material entity or an attribute of a material entity;

(3) This "material" entity is the basis and essence of all phenomena, including spiritual phenomena.

Obviously, this is a typical traditional "ontology" concept. This traditional concept was deduced into the historical field, forming the traditional concept of "historical materialism": history is also determined by "material conditions" that are independent of people's subjective will, and "material living conditions" constitute the essence of people. This is the mechanical historicism we have.

Modern philosophy, on the other hand, transcends this traditional concept and thinks that the so-called "noumenon" or "reality" is the existence of human beings. This existence is not an entity, but a state; This state not only determines human nature, but also determines the nature of everything. In this sense, it is appropriate to translate ontology into "ontology" today. Existentialism is not about any substance of "existence is existence", but all process states of "existence is existence", that is, all realistic and possible existence states of human existence.

In this respect, Marx's philosophy is very typical. In Marx's view, the only existence or reality is human practice, and "matter" and "consciousness" are only the internal elements of practice; The so-called "objective existence", which is detached from human practice and "independent of human will", whether it is "nature" or "matter", does not exist or is meaningless to people; Not only the object, but also the subject, that is, human itself, is also the internal element of practice; Practice is not any established entity or "existence", but an "activity" or existence itself; This practical activity not only determines the nature of human beings, but also determines the nature of the world in a certain sense; Consciousness or psychological activities such as perception, thinking, emotion and will are all internal factors of this practical activity; Perception and thinking in practice determine that man is a cognitive existence, and the so-called "epistemology" problem arises and is explained. Emotion and will in practice determine that man is an existence with intention, purpose and evaluation, which produces and explains the so-called "axiology" problem. This is Marx's ontology.

In a sense, material essence is the product of practice. In Marx's view, practice "this kind of activity, this kind of continuous perceptual labor and creation, this kind of production is the foundation of the whole existing perceptual world." 10 The "whole existing perceptual world" here certainly includes material nature, so Marx said: "The whole so-called world history is nothing more than the process in which people are born through human labor, and it is the process in which nature generates people." 1 1 That is to say, for people, nature does not exist freely, but is "generated" by people's practice and activities. To borrow Sartre's words, without human existence, "existence is nothingness". Therefore, Marx said: "Nature, which is fixedly separated from human beings, is also nothing to human beings." 12 This is not to say that nature does not exist, but that it is not a human existence, not a human existence. From a scientific point of view, nature never existed; However, from the philosophical point of view, from the perspective of realistic people, if there is no one, there will naturally be no dates. This is as protagoras in ancient Greece said: "Man is the measure of all things, the measure of all things' existence, and the measure of all things' non-existence." 13 In this regard, Lenin once said: "Man has created an objective picture of the world for himself; His activities changed the external reality and eliminated its stipulation (= changed these or those aspects and properties), thus removing its illusory, external and nihilistic characteristics and making it exist independently? Mode？ An objective and true reality. " 14 that is to say, the objective world is "man-made" and the process of "making" is also the practice of "his activities"; It is practice that "removes" the "externality" and "nothingness" of the purely comfortable objective world.

However, we don't call Marx's philosophy "practical ontology". Translation into "ontology" or "ontology" is only a question of Chinese translation; After all, they are a word ontology. If we call Marx's philosophy "practical ontology", there is no substantive difference between it and it. However, we know that "practical ontology" has always been the title of a specific school in the study of Marxist philosophy in China. This is why we say that Marx's philosophy is "pragmatism" rather than "practical ontology".

4. pragmatism and epistemology

Pragmatism includes not only ontology but also epistemology. This is because knowledge is an intrinsic element of practice. We can neither talk about understanding without practice nor talk about practice without understanding. In this sense, "practice fresh before practicing"? Tomb? Talking about locusts is not a school? What happened to Pingping? What's the matter with you? How much is the charge? Are you jealous or silent? What is your guide? Hey? Month? I secretly said that my thumb was blowing dust, right? /P & gt；

Knowledge lies in practice, that is, as an intrinsic element of practice, it can be investigated from the following aspects:

First, practice without knowledge is unthinkable. Practice is also a kind of cognitive activity, and the cognitive process is one aspect of the practical process. Without knowledge, practice becomes a purely mechanical action. In fact, practice, as a human activity, is an act of physical and mental coordination. Conscious and unconscious activities are not practice, but the operation of machines.

Furthermore, practice must include not only cognitive activities, but also the whole psychological activities, including cognitive activities (sensibility and rationality) and intentional activities (emotion and will). The mind is the control center of practical activities, that is to say, in the process of practice, not only cognition, but also emotion and will are playing a role from beginning to end. As a primitive and purposeful activity, practice is the creation of truth, goodness and beauty. If there is no will, practice cannot create "goodness"; Without emotion, practice cannot create "beauty". In the past, we paid attention to epistemology or epistemology in a narrow sense, but greatly ignored voluntarism or axiology.

Secondly, cognition is an information feedback mechanism within the practice system. From the system point of view, practice is a dynamic control system, that is, a process of information control and information feedback. The key mechanism to realize its control and feedback is knowledge and the whole psychological activity (the following figure is only a superficial description).

heart

Jujube, jujube, jujube, jujube, jujube, jujube, jujube.

① Need ② Understand ③ Design ④ Action

Practical Activities: Jujube Jujube Jujube Jujube Jujube Jujube Jujube Jujube Jujube Jujube Jujube Jujube Jujube Jujube Jujube Goal

⑤ Re-recognize ⑤ Re-design ⑧ Re-act.

Jujube jujube jujube jujube jujube jujube jujube jujube jujube jujube jujube jujube jujube jujube jujube jujube jujube jujube jujube.

feedback

As the control center of practical activities, the mechanism of mind is as follows: on the one hand, it understands according to its own needs and intentions; Then according to the unity of intention and understanding, design and form goals; Take action according to the goal. On the other hand, in this process, the mind always adjusts its practical activities according to its own goals: revising intentions, revising cognition, revising design and revising actions. Obviously, "need" is the most primitive thing in practice. Need is an intentional activity, that is, it is volitional (purposeful) and emotional (tendentious).

Third, the structure of practice can only be presented through the structure of mind. "The structure of practice" is still an important subject to be studied. The ambiguity of the concept of "practice" is one of the important reasons for many theoretical dilemmas. However, it is very difficult to reveal the structure of practice, because the structure of practice is neither the structure of human activities nor the structure of human tool operation; Our research shows that it is impossible to reveal the structure of practice without the "structure of mind". We find that the structure of practice can only be presented through the structure of mind. To make an inappropriate analogy, the dynamics of trees are a manifestation of the dynamics of the wind. This is because the reflection on practice, as an understanding, is actually the self-reflection of the soul. Here, practice becomes a "phenomenon" and a "presentation", that is, the presentation of the mind. Mental structure