Since so many of the selected students are all speaking around Marx’s humanism, I think that as for the overall line of Marx’s anthropology, as well as the sorting out of some basic concepts such as alienation, everyone will probably do better than I can. In particular, the students of Marxist philosophy and Western philosophy should be well practiced in this. And whether in terms of overall grasp or close reading of specific texts, I am an outsider; although I do have some of my own thoughts and takeaways, if other students can speak better here, then I need not make a fool of myself.
I am not being modest. I am saying that since I was selected to give this report as the representative of the specialty of philosophy of technology, it would be better to combine our specialty and offer a rather distinctive perspective. Even if what I say is still very superficial, at least it may open up some lines of thought for everyone.
My topic is “Marx’s Human Theory from the Perspective of Philosophy of Technology.” I am trying to use the angle of philosophy of technology to introduce Marx’s anthropological thought, while at the same time using Marx to introduce the field of philosophy of technology itself.
Among the various subdisciplines in the philosophy department, I am afraid ours, “science and technology philosophy,” is the most baffling: “What on earth do you guys do?” Not only ordinary people do not understand it, many friends who are also studying philosophy do not understand it either; not only do other friends not understand it, we ourselves also cannot explain it clearly, because this discipline is in fact simply too messy—there is all sorts of work being done.
If one speaks only of “philosophy of science,” then it is somewhat clearer—for example, epistemology, the problem of induction, and so on. Everyone can more easily imagine some of the problems studied by philosophy of science, and logical positivism, falsificationism, historicism, constructivism, postmodernism… at any rate, one can still sort out some clues within the history of philosophy. But this “philosophy of technology,” where does it even come from?
The appearance of philosophy of technology as a relatively independent disciplinary institution (that is to say, having corresponding scholarly associations, journals, institutions, professors, and other institutional guarantees) is a fairly recent matter, basically something of the second half of the 20th century; the disciplinary paradigm and classic genealogy had not yet taken shape. Exactly which figures count as philosophers of technology, exactly which texts count as classics of philosophy of technology, is a matter on which everyone has their own version and opinions differ widely.
Yet no matter how one sorts out the genealogy of philosophy of technology, almost no one would omit Marx. Although Marx himself never mentioned the term “philosophy of technology” (apparently it was first used by the German philosopher Kapp in 1877), he is often posthumously recognized as the founding patriarch of philosophy of technology.
Why is Marx so important for philosophy of technology? Let us first look at what philosophy of technology actually is.
When one says “XX philosophy,” there are often two meanings (these formulations are all borrowed from Teacher Wu, by the way). One is “philosophy as a departmental subfield,” that is, taking “XX” as a topic of philosophical research; in this sense, any concept can be used to make a philosophy out of it, for example philosophy of eating, philosophy of leisure—these are all legitimate topics.
However, the second sense of “XX philosophy” is as a philosophical character. For example, when we speak of the “natural philosophers” of ancient Greece, we do not mean that there was a special topic within philosophy at the time called natural philosophy, but rather that the philosophy of that era as a whole took the form of “natural philosophy”; likewise, the “philosophy of science” of the Vienna Circle does not mean taking science as an object of study, but that their entire philosophy took the form of “philosophy of science”; and similarly for “philosophy of language,” perhaps also including “political philosophy,” “moral philosophy,” and so on. When these philosophies first arose, they signified by no means merely that philosophers had one more topic to study, but rather that philosophy itself underwent some major revolution; it was not merely that philosophers’ interests changed, but the whole center of gravity, method, and standpoint of philosophy changed. Therefore, “XX philosophy” that arises in this sense is not merely a new topic within philosophy, but a new character of philosophy.
We say that “philosophy of technology,” unlike “philosophy of eating” and the like, is a discipline that can stand its ground in the history of philosophy with confidence precisely because it is not merely a departmental philosophy in the first sense, but once was also a revolutionary and pioneering philosophical character in the second sense. And Marx is, beyond dispute, the founder of this revolution.
Marx’s writings rarely mention “technology”; Marx talks about “practice,” “production,” “making,” “labor,” and so on. I think we can, without too much strain, subsume these concepts under the category of “technology.” In fact, the concept of “technology” itself is quite broad: any human artifact and any human creative activity contains “technology”; “practice” always involves “technology,” and “technology” is always related to “practice.” Therefore, although the concept of “technology” is implicit in Marx’s texts, the shift of Marx’s philosophy’s center of gravity toward “technology” is evident.
At this point, we need to ask: why did “philosophy of technology” not arise earlier? Perhaps even before human beings began to use language, human life was already inseparable from technology—for example, fire and stone tools—so why did philosophers only begin to pay attention to technological questions in modern times? The first important reason has to do with the characteristics of technology itself—technology is often “self-concealing”; the second important historical reason, however, has to do with the traditional characteristics of the whole of Western philosophy, and this very traditional characteristic is precisely what Marx tried to criticize and transcend.
Marx said: “German philosophy descends from heaven to earth; here, in complete contrast, we ascend from earth to heaven, that is to say, we do not start out from what men say, imagine, conceive, nor from men as narrated, thought of, imagined, conceived, in order thereby to arrive at the real men; we start out from real, active men, and on the basis of their real life-process we demonstrate the development of the ideological reflexes and echoes of this life-process.”[①]
This characteristic of “descending from heaven to earth” is not unique to German philosophy; it is the character of the entire tradition of Western philosophy. That is, it begins from ideas in order to explain reality, and it insists on constructing systems from the most abstract, most transcendent, and therefore most empty concepts. This includes so-called “materialists” as well—whether “God,” or “spirit,” or “matter,” or even the abstract “human being,” these are all empty ideas. Traditional philosophy precisely sought to start from the places farthest removed from sensibility and intuition, and thus was “standing on its head.” Marx, by contrast, “does not start from ideas to explain practice, but from material practice to explain ideational things.”[②]
Traditional philosophy’s characteristic of starting from abstract ideas led to its neglect of “technology.” For it was not concerned with the actual practical activity of human beings, but only circled around in the world of ideas. And after Marx’s overturning of this order (of course, other philosophers after Hegel also rebelled in their own ways), philosophy finally became able to turn its gaze toward technology.
Here, one important and simple insight of Marx’s is this: ideas and thought, like material products, are both human creations—“Men are the producers of their conceptions, ideas, etc.—real, active men, as they are conditioned by a definite development of their productive forces and by the intercourse corresponding to this development up to its furthest forms.”[③]
Traditional philosophy made ideas, as creations, stand above real human beings, as creators, thereby plunging people into fantasy and dogma and negating human freedom—“The phantoms formed in the human brain are also, necessarily, sublimates of their material life-process, which is empirically verifiable and bound to material premises. Morality, religion, metaphysics, all the rest of ideology and their corresponding forms of consciousness, thus no longer retain the semblance of independence. They have no history, no development; but men, developing their material production and their material intercourse, alter, along with this their real existence, their thinking and the products of their thinking. Life is not determined by consciousness, but consciousness by life. In the first method of consideration, one starts out from consciousness as the living individual and from this determines the practical world; in the second method, one starts out from real, active individuals, and on the basis of their real life-process one demonstrates the development of the ideological reflexes and echoes of this life-process.”[④]
Like classical philosophy, Marx also regarded human “freedom” as the most important concern. Marx once mentioned that “freedom is indeed the essence of man”[⑤], and he took the ability to choose and plan freely as what distinguishes human beings from animals (see, for example, [⑥][⑦][⑧]). However, in Marx, “freedom” is by no means an abstract and empty concept, nor is it bestowed by some other empty concepts. To talk emptily of “freedom” detached from people’s real life circumstances is meaningless. Marx pointed out: “Each time, men have always freed themselves in the sphere of their conditions and within the limits of their possibilities—not in the conditions and the possibilities determined and admitted by their own ideal of man, but in the conditions and possibilities existing at the given moment, and determined by the productive forces in existence.”[⑨]
Marx mentioned that “the first condition of freedom is self-knowledge”[⑩]; unconditional absolute freedom is undoubtedly an empty phrase, and only by recognizing one’s own limits can one attain real freedom. And the limits of freedom are determined not by people’s ideals and concepts, but by the real chances and circumstances of history. Therefore, to attain true freedom, one must reflect on human real life; in Marx, this means reflecting on society’s “productive forces.”
Here again, two of Marx’s interrelated insights are involved—first, a person’s real existence is consistent with his productive activity—“As individuals express their life, so they are. What they are, therefore, coincides with their production, both with what they produce and with how they produce.”[11] Second, real social relations are consistent with their productive forces—“With the acquisition of new productive forces men change their mode of production, and with the mode of production, the way in which they earn their living, they change all their social relations. The hand-mill gives you society with the feudal lord; the steam-mill, society with the industrial capitalist.”[12]
So, what exactly is “production”? Why is it so important for human being?
As mentioned earlier, Marx regarded “freedom” as the essence of human beings. Freedom also means self-consciousness. — “Conscious life-activity directly distinguishes man from animal life-activity. … It is only because of this that his activity is free activity. Alien, extraneous beings, over which man has no control, determine the movement of the animals, while man can freely direct his own movement.”[13]
In other words, freedom means self-consciousness, and self-consciousness means “objectifying” one’s own life, and then reflecting upon oneself in the world of objects.
To be sure, since ideas are also human creations, speculation in the world of ideas is also a kind of human self-reflection. Yet this reflection is ultimately one-sided, because once concepts and words are detached from sensible intuition, what remains are merely completely empty signs. The concepts and language with which people speculate are ultimately all acquired in real social life, and in the end can only be endowed with meaning in practice (Wittgenstein). Therefore, in the final analysis, it is through practice—that is, through sensible activity—that human beings create an objective world and thereby obtain a sensible intuition of themselves, and only then do they become free. “Sensible” here means perceptual and experiential. Marx said: “Man appropriates his universal being in a universal way, and thus makes all nature his inorganic body, inasmuch as man, both physically and mentally, is the being of man’s own nature.”[14]
Marx said: “Through this production, nature appears as his work and his reality. Thus, the object of labour is the objectification of man’s species-life: for he duplicates himself not only, as in consciousness, intellectually, but actively, in reality, and therefore he contemplates himself in a world he has created.”[15] This creative activity of transforming inorganic nature is what is called “production.” Animals also “produce,” but animal production is blind and governed by bodily needs, whereas human production is conscious: “This production is his active species-life. Through this production, nature appears as his work and his reality. Thus, the object of labour is the objectification of man’s species-life: for he duplicates himself not only, as in consciousness, intellectually, but actively, in reality, and therefore he contemplates himself in a world he has created.”[16]
Therefore, a person’s intuition of himself—in other words, what a person “is” in his own eyes—is presented through human productive activity. One cannot talk about some abstract determination of “what human beings are” apart from real productive activity. — “‘Human’ has positive significance only in relation to a certain stage of development of production and to a certain mode of satisfying needs, determined by that relation.”[17] Thus, we should not try to understand human beings merely through conceptual speculation; “the history of technology” becomes an important part of anthropology. — “The history of industry and the objective existence already brought into being by industry are the open book of the essential powers of man, the sensible presentation of human psychology.”[18]
By here, time is probably about up. In fact, the more important contents of Marx’s anthropology or philosophy of technology have not yet been unfolded—for example, the discussion of “division of labor,” and the famous concept of “alienation,” neither of which I have touched upon here. On the one hand, this is because I expect other students will also speak about alienation; on the other hand, it is because of space limitations, but at the same time it is also a deliberate arrangement of sorts. For this article aims, by means of Marx’s anthropology, to show everyone “what philosophy of technology is.” Therefore, the most important thing is to indicate the characteristic and starting point of a certain path of philosophy of technology; and the doctrine of alienation, as a more detailed elaboration within it, is not closely related to the starting point of philosophy of technology.
So, where exactly is “philosophy of technology” in the above Marxian thought? — It is right here. This whole way of looking at questions, this shift of the starting point from abstract ideas to real practice, this way of establishing an internal connection between material production and practical activity, on the one hand, and thought, culture, politics, and other “superstructures,” on the other, and of understanding the latter by starting from the former—this rebellion against traditional rationalism and foundationalism, and so on—can be said to be precisely the basic characteristics and even the research paradigm of this kind of philosophy of technology. Marx’s philosophy of technology not only directly influenced Marcuse, Ellul, Arendt, Habermas, Feenberg, and others, but also found wide resonance in another line of philosophy of technology, namely the phenomenological-existentialist tradition. Although there are more disagreements, the basic features mentioned above are to a large extent shared by these two traditions.
Thursday, October 16, 2008, 6:16 p.m.……
[①] German Ideology, III:30 (the quotation comes from the electronic edition of the Chinese 1st edition of the Complete Works, but volume 1 is the 2nd edition, so let’s just make do with the formatting for now)
[②] German Ideology, III:43
[③] German Ideology, III:29
[④] German Ideology, III:16
[⑤] On the Debate over Freedom of the Press and Publication of the Proceedings of the Provincial Diet, I:167 (this is a bit out of context)
[⑥] On the Debate over Freedom of the Press and Publication of the Proceedings of the Provincial Diet, I:181
[⑦] Capital, XXIII:202
[⑧] Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, XLII:97
[⑨] German Ideology, III:506~507
[⑩] On the Debate over Freedom of the Press and Publication of the Proceedings of the Provincial Diet, I:139 (also a bit out of context)
[11] German Ideology, III:24
[12] The Poverty of Philosophy, IV:144
[13] Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844, 42:96
[14] Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844, 42:125
[15] Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844, 42:97
[16] Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844, 42:97
[17] The German Ideology, III:508
[18] Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844, 42:127
Latest Comments
- Guang Junshan Er 2008-10-17 13:48:23 Anonymous 124.205.78.177
This is a very good perspective.
I have two immature comments:
1. The article points out that Marx advocated “from earth to heaven,” and that this differs from the character of German and indeed all Western philosophy, which goes “from heaven to earth.” But in the concrete discussion, it only uses Marx’s side as evidence, which seems insufficient.
2. The title of this article is “Marx’s Theory of Human Nature from the Perspective of the Philosophy of Technology,” yet the discussion of philosophy of technology in the text seems not to be much. What there is is only a brief historical overview. For the many people who have no concept of philosophy of technology, it is a bit difficult. Also, a more detailed explanation of the connection between Marx and the philosophy of technology would perhaps be better.
At the end of the article, “So then, where is ‘philosophy of technology’ in the Marxist thought discussed above? — It is right here. This whole set of ways of looking at problems, this shift in starting point from abstract ideas to concrete practice, this mode of thought that establishes an intrinsic connection between material production and practical activity on the one hand and the “superstructure” of thought, culture, politics, and so on on the other, and then proceeds from the former to understand the latter, this rebellion against traditional rationalism and foundationalism, and so on—one could say that these are precisely the basic features, indeed the research paradigm, of that kind of philosophy of technology.” Could this be placed earlier as an introductory presentation, first putting forward a clear view, and at least giving the audience a rough impression.
Just a personal opinion. - Gu Ci2008-10-17 18:56:54
Thank you for your comments.
Response:
First, the claim that the basic tendency of the entire Western philosophical tradition from Plato to Marx is “from heaven to earth,” or that it is an “ontology-based philosophy” starting from ideas, or that it is a classical “metaphysics,” and so on, is of course not something said only of Marx. Including the contemporary Schopenhauer, and later Nietzsche, Heidegger, and so on, all criticized the features of such traditional philosophy in different ways. I need not say more about this. Of course, you may disagree with this interpretation of the history of philosophy, but that is another question; my brief report has neither the ability nor the need to offer a macro-level review of the entire history of Western philosophy. Of course, I also mentioned that the historical absence of “philosophy of technology” in Western philosophy corresponds to the feature of the Western philosophical tradition as “from heaven to earth” — not only did philosophy of technology, as a philosophical character, never appear, but even discussions of questions at the level of technology and artifacts are extremely rare in classical philosophy.
Second, the title of this article is indeed somewhat bad; it was originally called “Marx as a Philosopher of Technology,” and only after it was finished did I change it. Perhaps “Philosophy of Technology as Seen from Marx’s Theory of Human Nature” would be more appropriate?
At the beginning of the article I already said that as for what on earth “philosophy of technology” is supposed to be, “not only do other friends not understand it, we ourselves can’t make it clear either,” and this is not a joke or a polite formula; that is simply the fact. The recognized paradigms and lineages of philosophy of technology have not yet taken shape, and it really is not easy to explain clearly. My aim was to avoid giving a theoretically, comparatively clear and explicit definition of what philosophy of technology is (because it
in fact is very vague), and instead to take Marx, whom many philosophers of technology regard as their progenitor, the “first philosopher of technology” in a certain sense, as an example and present him—“Look, this is philosophy of technology.” To use perhaps not the most apt analogy: suppose you ask me what classical music is? If I cannot define it clearly in theory, the better way is to let you hear a piece, say Bach’s concerto, and say: “Look, this is classical music.” Such an introduction is of course one-sided, but it is also the most intuitive and simplest.
As for the last question, I have never liked to put forward a viewpoint at the beginning, and my lecture this time was not intended to argue for some viewpoint either, but rather to offer a way of thinking, a perspective. Besides, this is after all a classroom report for a Marxist philosophy course; the theme is, first and foremost, interpreting Marx’s theory of human nature, not having me introduce philosophy of technology. - Gu Ci2008-10-23 23:38:57
Was today’s report successful? It seems not very successful… At least Teacher Nie seemed rather dissatisfied. But I’m also not very satisfied with Teacher Nie’s lecture myself~
As I expected, apart from Yali and Yige, every other classmate without exception talked about “alienation.” Listening again and again, it was really tiresome. My talk, whether in terms of quality or not, at least added a bit of fresh air and a little bit of enthusiasm. But my somewhat “not quite serious” attitude was probably also what made Teacher Nie uncomfortable.
Teacher Nie’s demands are puzzling. He said that next time the students of Chinese philosophy might as well compare Marx with someone like Confucius; how are you supposed to compare that? He also so strongly emphasized texts, and rejected empty talk about philosophical “principles” and about summarizing Marx’s line of thought in general terms; but if that is the case, how are you supposed to put Marx and other thinkers side by side for comparison? Today he gave a so-called comparison of Marx and Stirner, saying that this is how such a thing ought to be done. But Stirner is someone Marx directly confronted in his texts, so of course you can speak on the basis of the text—but how are others supposed to do it?
Moreover, in Teacher Nie’s “comparison,” I also heard not the slightest trace of anything brilliant or interesting. Teacher Nie said there is no need to defend Marx, that Marx does not need defending—I agree. But then does Stirner need defending? Of course, that is also possible; in a certain sense I am also willing to defend traditional speculative philosophy before Marx. Yet the key point is that in the process of praising Stirner and criticizing Marx, Teacher Nie almost completely ignored or distorted Marx’s revolutionary character and originality, while using certain extreme and simplistic ways to interpret him. Of course, there are certainly many one-sided and biased elements in Marx’s philosophy; however, it should not be arranged like this.
“Ancestry theory” and “class theory” really are inseparable from Marx’s philosophy. However, this is after all something brought out by a certain biased and excessive interpretive method; Marx’s philosophy at least contains more possibilities. It is true that Marx would care more about a person’s historical background, upbringing environment, and way of life, and would not be keen on speaking abstractly and ahistorically about a person’s inner thoughts. But is that really what “ancestry theory” and “class theory” are? If one reduces a person’s origin and background to a label, such as “poor peasant” or “landlord,” then in fact one has lost the reality of the person and become dominated by empty ideas. What Marx has always wanted to emphasize is the real person, emphasizing that whether one is objectively understanding another person or conducting self-reflection, one must stand on reality, directly confront and reflect on real life, environment, and historical circumstances, and not drift aimlessly in abstract conceptual symbols in one’s head. And what did such a line of thought become in Teacher Nie’s mouth?
Teacher Nie even evaluated Stirner’s view of “language” as being so advanced, as if in Marx’s eyes language were merely a tool. Yet Marx’s view of language is the truly advanced one. Even if Marx did indeed say that language is a tool (I don’t know), we absolutely must not forget that the status of “tool” in Marx’s philosophy has already undergone a major change.
On language, Marx said (in the context of criticizing Stirner): “We see that the whole question of the transition from thought to reality, that is, from language to life, exists only in philosophical fantasy, that is to say, only appears reasonable to that philosophical consciousness which does not know that it imagines its own separation from life and its origins. This great question, since it always hovers before the heads of us thinkers, of course ultimately forces one of these knights-errant to set out in search of such a word, a word that constitutes a findable transition as word, a word that as word is no longer merely a word, a word that in a mysterious translinguistic way points out the road from language to the real object designated by it; in short, a word that is to play among all words the same role as the Christian fantasy assigns to the Savior-Son among human beings.” (III:528-529) “As soon as philosophers reduce their language to the ordinary language from which it has been abstracted, they can recognize that their language is the language of a distorted real world, and they can understand that neither thought nor language can by themselves constitute a special kingdom; they are only expressions of real life.” (III:525)
It was only with the later Wittgenstein that people suddenly woke up to “language is connected with forms of life.” Can it be said that Marx’s view of language is backward? And where exactly is Stirner “advanced”?
Translated from the Chinese original with AI assistance. The original text is authoritative.
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