Karl Marx：Theses On Feuerbach
【编者按】《关于费尔巴哈的提纲》，马克思于1845年春在布鲁塞尔写成的批判费尔巴哈的11条提纲，马克思生前未曾发表。原题为《关于费尔巴哈》，论述的中心是实践问题。马克思在批判费尔巴哈和一切旧唯物主义的基础上概述了自己的新的世界观。最早发表于1888年，恩格斯在《路德维希·费尔巴哈和德国古典哲学的终结》的序言中称这个文件为“关于费尔巴哈的提纲”，并作为该书的附录首次发表。它被恩格斯称为“包含着新世界观的天才萌芽的第一个文件”，“历史唯物主义的起源”。《提纲》和《德意志意识形态》一起被公认为马克思主义哲学，特别是唯物史观创立的基本标志。这里选摘该文的英文文献，以飨读者。
Theses On Feuerbach
Written: by Marx in the Spring of 1845, but slightly edited by Engels;
First Published: As an appendix to Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy in 1888;
Source: Marx/Engels Selected Works, Volume One, p. 13 – 15.
Note that this version differs from the version of Engels’ edition published in MECW Volume 5, pp. 6-8;
Publisher: Progress Publishers, Moscow, USSR, 1969;
Translated: W. Lough from the German;
Transcription/Markup: Zodiac/Brian Baggins;
Copyleft: Marx/Engels Internet Archive (marxists.org) 1995, 1999, 2002. Permission is granted to copy and/or distribute this document under the terms of the Creative Commons ShareAlike License;
Proofread: by Andy Blunden February 2005.
I
The chief defect of all hitherto existing materialism – that of Feuerbach included – is that the thing, reality, sensuousness, is conceived only in the form of the object or of contemplation, but not as sensuous human activity, practice, not subjectively. Hence, in contradistinction to materialism, the active side was developed abstractly by idealism – which, of course, does not know real, sensuous activity as such.
Feuerbach wants sensuous objects, really distinct from the thought objects, but he does not conceive human activity itself as objective activity. Hence, in The Essence of Christianity, he regards the theoretical attitude as the only genuinely human attitude, while practice is conceived and fixed only in its dirty-judaical manifestation. Hence he does not grasp the significance of “revolutionary”, of “practical-critical”, activity.
II
The question whether objective truth can be attributed to human thinking is not a question of theory but is a practical question. Man must prove the truth — i.e. the reality and power, the this-sidedness of his thinking in practice. The dispute over the reality or non-reality of thinking that is isolated from practice is a purely scholastic question.
III
The materialist doctrine concerning the changing of circumstances and upbringing forgets that circumstances are changed by men and that it is essential to educate the educator himself. This doctrine must, therefore, divide society into two parts, one of which is superior to society.
The coincidence of the changing of circumstances and of human activity or self-changing can be conceived and rationally understood only as revolutionary practice.
IV
Feuerbach starts out from the fact of religious self-alienation, of the duplication of the world into a religious world and a secular one. His work consists in resolving the religious world into its secular basis.
But that the secular basis detaches itself from itself and establishes itself as an independent realm in the clouds can only be explained by the cleavages and self-contradictions within this secular basis. The latter must, therefore, in itself be both understood in its contradiction and revolutionized in practice. Thus, for instance, after the earthly family is discovered to be the secret of the holy family, the former must then itself be destroyed in theory and in practice.
V
Feuerbach, not satisfied with abstract thinking, wants contemplation; but he does not conceive sensuousness as practical, human-sensuous activity.
VI
Feuerbach resolves the religious essence into the human essence. But the human essence is no abstraction inherent in each single individual.
In its reality it is the ensemble of the social relations.
Feuerbach, who does not enter upon a criticism of this real essence, is consequently compelled:
1. To abstract from the historical process and to fix the religious sentiment as something by itself and to presuppose an abstract – isolated – human individual.
2. Essence, therefore, can be comprehended only as “genus”, as an internal, dumb generality which naturally unites the many individuals.
VII
Feuerbach, consequently, does not see that the “religious sentiment” is itself a social product, and that the abstract individual whom he analyses belongs to a particular form of society.
VIII
All social life is essentially practical. All mysteries which lead theory to mysticism find their rational solution in human practice and in the comprehension of this practice.
IX
The highest point reached by contemplative materialism, that is, materialism which does not comprehend sensuousness as practical activity, is contemplation of single individuals and of civil society.
X
The standpoint of the old materialism is civil society; the standpoint of the new is human society, or social humanity.
XI
The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it.
Study Guide for Marx’s Theses on Feuerbach
1.
Questions for discussion: 1. Surely the whole point of materialism is that the thing exists independently of consciousness, or practice for that matter? Isn’t this statement by Marx idealist? 2. How can Marx praise the idealists for developing the active side? Isn’t it the materialists that are trying to change the world rather than relying on “ideas”? 3. What is the significance of “revolutionary”, of “practical-critical”, activity?
2.
Questions for discussion: 4. If “the question whether objective truth can be attributed to human thinking is not a question of theory but is a practical question”, what is the place for theory?
3.
Questions for discussion: 5. Is the “materialist doctrine” referred to a valid one? Why does Marx say that it divides society into two parts? Can you give examples from present-day politics of this kind of thinking and how it must “divide society into two parts”? 6. What exactly does Marx means, then, by “revolutionary practice”?
4.
Questions for discussion: 7. Can you give an example of “resolving the religious world into its secular basis”? 8. What does this Thesis tell us about how the hold of bourgeois ideology on the working class can be broken, other than by waiting for the revolution to abolish capital?
5.
Questions for discussion: 9. Can you justify the assertion that “Sensuousness is practical, human-sensuous activity”?
6.
Questions for discussion: 10. What is meant by “the human essence is ... the ensemble of the social relations”? 11. How does Feuerbach’s position “presuppose an abstract - isolated - human individual”?
7.
Questions for discussion: 12. Why does Marx say a “particular form of society”?
8.
Questions for discussion: 13. “All mysteries which lead theory to mysticism find their rational solution in human practice and in the comprehension of this practice” But surely if we want to understand Nature we must study Nature, not human practice. Isn’t this a positivist or idealist position?
9.
Questions for discussion: 14. Why does “contemplative materialism” lead to “contemplation of single individuals and of civil society”? 15. What is the specific thing that the idealists, who as Marx said, have “developed the active side”, have been able to bring out, which gets away from “contemplation of single individuals and of civil society”?
10.
Questions for discussion: 16. What can be meant by “the standpoint of social humanity”?
11.
Questions for discussion: 17. Either Thesis XI is a declaration of the uselessness of philosophy, and interpreting the world in general, or it is saying something more. In the light of the previous ten theses, what do you think it means?
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